Refuge
1. Care
"Okay, what the fuck are you doing?!" I sneered at the new care taker. She was coming from either
medical or weapons, but I didn't care. She froze and looked at the soldier she was gripping by the bicep with disgust like that soldier had done something wrong.
Definitely new.
"We do not put our hands on the soldiers here, understand?"
She looked at me like I had a octopus on my face. This made me angrier and I tapped the rank sewn on my shirt and squinted at her. She straightened up and let the solider's arm go.
"Go play, now. We'll talk later." I told the troop.
I turned my attention to the care taker. "They didn't tell you what this is, did they?"
She shook her heard stiffly. She was terrified, and rightfully so. Not a whole of men living had my rank.
"At ease, at ease, at ease. Not your fault. You can call me Senior. You are?"
"Chernov" she said.
"All right, Chernov, all these soldiers are elite, understand? Our mission success rate is 98%, and our causality count since we began this program? It was mother fucking zero until...."
I dropped my voice. Did she need to know this? Yeah, yeah she did
"..until yesterday. So we don't put our hands on them here, unless it's for comfort. Tough as they are, they are still children and they still need to be kids when they aren't in the field, understand?"
Chernov nodded.
"That soldier you were man handling? Her names Maria, she's 10 and just back from sabotage mission, and thanks to her and her squad? The enemy won't be able to make drones for six months. But she lost one of her troops, his face got taken off by shrapnel. So she's going to be acting out. We don't punish that, because it doesn't work. You ain't seen anything like they've seen, and you never will."
Chernov nodded. She had the pallor of an undergrounder and her nod told me I was right.
So many of them, the undergrounders, had these insane ideas about how important they were. Which was fine, whatever they had to do to stay in a good headspace. But the kids would move like cats through the remnants of our above ground to find where the enemy was trying to get a foot hold and make them pay dearly.
I did my duty from five to fifteen years old. Going to the surface, causing havoc and killing the enemy, coming back and having some undergrounder street step me like I was a child when I had made their lives possible, day after day.
The Nursery existed to ease the burden of the few children who could fight.
Boys almost never made it past seven; the enemy viewed them as high value targets and could smell them from miles away. But girls were invisible to them for some reason. Girls could tear down their operations with skill, while smaller squads of heavily armed boys distracted the enemy vanguard.
I exhaled and let my mind get back to where I was. Calm music was playing and simulated bird songs and the lighting suggested morning. Maria was still in shock, because ordinarily she would have smashed anyone's nose out of their head. Hopefully the calm would help. Maria went to one of the clay table and opened a fresh canister of red, started kneading it and hunched over it.
She was scrutinizing it for imperfections, but she was making into something.
It was becoming clear to Chernov, too.
She was a in pastel pocket of weirdness, light years distant from the drab, endless hallways of City 23. Toys and games filled cubbie holes on the far left wall, higher than the children could reach and the ceilings curved up higher than any others, light in soft colors that simulated the day night cycle on the surface.
"You get one question about me, Chernov." She blushed and laughed nervously.
Yeah. I'm a rare type.
"Shouldn't you be studding?" She asked. "Men shouldn't be involved in this...sort of thing, ; there are so few of you and...
"I do stud about once a month, but the work we do here is equally important, because...." as if on cue, a little girl with corn rows started bashing a doll against a table and then hurdled it into a corner. She set upon it, kicking and stomping its head into the ground.
Chernov started toward her. "Wait." I said. The little girl wore herself out and she bent at the waste and then vomited and started to cry. "Now, you watch."
You have to approach someone in these kinds of states carefully. Like an animal caught in a trap. It could be the snuggliest puppy in the world, but when their foot is caught in something ugly? They'll fight. And when they're caught in something ugly that they know they had to do, they'll fight everyone and everything.
"Lequisha? It's Dan. You okay?"
"My brother." She sobbed. "my brother. Maria. Maria got him killed-ed." I placed my hand on Lequisha's shoulder and she folded into me, her arms shaking, pressing her corn-rowed head into my knee. Her whole body sobbed and I knelt down to embrace her and keep her from falling. She wrapped herself around me and wailed like wounded bird.
The whole nursery was silent. I'd like to think it was as much out of respect as curiosity, but I might have been kidding myself.
"Mr. Dan?" It was Maria. "Mr. Dan? Can I talk to Lequisha?"
"Okay, I..." Lequisha went from sobbing mess to lioness in a breath, setting upon Maria like she had the doll, but Maria was a squad leader for a reason and subdued the smaller girl with little effort. Maria held Lequisha in a sleeper hold, just enough force to calm her down. Then she spoke.
"Lequisha? Listen. Lequisha. I'm sorry about your brother. He was my friend, too. I miss him, too." Maria started to sob as well and her hold loosened. They both started to sob uncontrollably and hug on the ground.
They exhausted themselves right there, and I went to get a blanket. At ten, Maria was easily worn out and at just five, Lequisha, though big for her age, was no match for a born leader like Maria plus she lacked the emotional stamina to sustain so much anger.
"How did you know it wouldn't get deadly?" Chernov asked.
I beckoned her over the to table where the dough Maria was playing with. It was a child's recreation of a mangled face, Lequisha's brother in his final moments.
"They know what they did. They know what they are." I said. "But it's against human nature to like either."
2. Long enough to become.
The main door slid open and rough looking sergeant major stepped through.
"Attention on.."
I held up my hand. "Sergeant major, we don't do that here."
"What?"
"It's in the regs, no calls attention in the refuge rooms."
"Oh."
Col. Andrea Shane entered the room. She was legendary warrior, with commendations and medals and a nasty burn scar down one side of her head. It framed her features on the right side and she was missing her ear. She had very pale blue eyes, a long, angular face and the grey in her dark hair lent her a wolf-like appearance that fit her reputation.
"How are you Senior Sergeant?"
"I am well, Ma'am. How are you?" I said, coming to attention.
"At ease, Dan, seriously." She was amused at my following the protocol as I did.
"Gotta set the example for these soldiers, Ma'am."
"That you do. Can we talk in your office?"
"Of course. Sergeant Major, will you join us? I'll need to grab another chair." I said.
"She is a part of this, yes." the Colonel said.
We walked to my office in the back of the nursery and I nabbed an adult size chair on the way. I did consider getting a smaller one just to mess with the Sergeant Major, but the Colonel was very careful about her personnel and I decided to go with the benefit of the doubt.
"We had an incident." The Colonel said in a tone I knew from when we were working the surface together. Years ago, that tone would tell me it was going to be bad. That was the tone she used the day she lost her right leg.
"One of the trainees, we think..." the Sergeant Major interjected. She was young. Younger than me, but three ranks higher than I was. You don't make sergeant major by being soft; but she was halting in her speech.
"...we think. She was abused."
I felt a rush of anger, it flowed down the top of my head, down my ears, my throat and my chest. The anger then swirled around my heart.
"What do you need from me?" I asked. I knew this anger. I knew how to use it. And if either of them had asked me to kill someone I would done it without asking for a weapon.
"We would like you evaluate her...she has. She's already seen a doctor. She'll...never have children." the Sergeant Major said.
"What?" I said. The anger became like a ringing in my ears. Sometimes trainers were rough with the new recruits and yeah, that would happen. The training sergeant would be suspended for a while, get some kind of remedial training, recycle the solider into a new training iteration and call it a day.
But...this?
"Someone raped a trainee?!" I said. They both stiffened at the word. It's an ugly word, and old word that sometimes, with our united sense of purpose, seems like it should be outdated.
Should be.
"Yes." said the colonel. Her voice caught in her throat. All the awful shit she'd seen, but this was too much to handle.
"We have evidence," the Sergeant Major said. "Semen and blood samples.
"Then why come to me?" I said. This was not even remotely approaching my jurisdiction.
"It was Senior Sergeant Harris."
The ringing in my ears got louder.
"What?" I asked. "How could...what? That..."
Harris was there the day the Colonel lost her leg. He provided covering fire while I carried her out. Against all odds he made back to the compound three days later. He was starved, exhausted and bleeding from two wounds that should have been fatal. He was given a hero's welcome. He was a hero. His trainees were incredible; they were ones with the lowest casualty ratings, the highest kill numbers, the most successful missions.
"Kill him." I said, flatly. "In public."
"It's more complicated than that." the Colonel said.
"No, it isn't!" I snapped, and slammed my hand on my desk. They both were taken aback.
"I'm sorry," I exhaled. "You remember Master Sergeant Dice?"
The both looked down at the ground.
"Yeah." I said. "We didn't have the evidence for Dice that you have for Harris. We had to have all twenty two his victims testify before the council! That's 22 soldiers, all under the age of 10! C'mon, ma'am! We are going to go through again?!"
"Twenty three." said the colonel.
"Well, I didn't get it as bad as some of them did, ma'am. Let's ... just keep that in perspective. Dice put his dick in most of those boys, the only reason he didn't with me is because..."
"You fought." the Sergeant Major said.
That was...one word for it. What I actually did was castrate Dice with my teeth. He knocked me unconscious and ran, screaming down the hall bleeding from his ruined scrotum. I woke up with...a unique taste in my mouth and three missing teeth.
"Dice was a bad man." said the Colonel.
"No shit, ma'am! And that's why we executed him! And even after I emasculated him with own fucking teeth we STILL had to put those boys through hell. I would have liked him to live a long life where I got to smile at him every morning, but here we are! We followed the protocol then, and we should do it now. The fucking council needed more proof! So I guess if a nine year old bites off you balls you were just what? Making a fucking honest mistake?! Huh?"
I stood up at my desk. They knew this was an ugly thing for me. It was part of the reason I was assigned here. "I'm sorry. Look, you know me, ma'am. Eighty successful missions, fifty two of which you led. Fuck Harris. Get rid of him now. He's committed treason. Straight up treason, ma'am."
"No, Dan. We think Harris was compromised." the Colonel said. "The three days he was MIA? We think they did something to him. Made him into a sleeper agent of some kind. He doesn't remember anything, so he claims. We found foreign structures in his skull."
"Why would..." I started.
"They are loosing." the Colonel cut me off. "Every day they are loosing more and more ground to us. This is....is a new tactic. They may have figured out they can't take the Earth by attrition. They need to create threats from within..."
I didn't say anything for a long time.
"So... again, what do you need from me?"
"Talk to Harris. Talk to Private Jones. You're probably the only one who can be sure."
"How's that?"
"Rape is very rare now. So rare we don't really have anyone with any experience anymore, investigating or understanding." The Colonel said.
"There were twenty two other boys. They're all dead?"
"Yes. You know males don't last very long when they work the surface." said the Sergeant Major.
"Of course, but...Walter? Jimmy? There were five others..."
"They all committed suicide. None of them made it to 25." The colonel said. "After they were transferred to other Haven cities, they eventually killed themselves. We found that out when we tried get at least one of them transferred back."
"Fuck." I said finally. "Alright."
3. Barely Contained
City 23 is probably the largest of the Haven cities. There are about ten that still function, and while they are over crowded, crime is nearly unheard of in all of them. Japan is nearly free of enemy threats, but they have so few real estate it isn't surprising.
Every city has an something like a mythical hero. Helena DeBeu of City 20. Ryoko Takahasi of City 12. Maya Ibna Muhammed of City 7.
Master Sergeant George J. Harris was the only man to achieve such fame. His image was everywhere in City 23, on motivational posters and fliers. All over the place, his rugged good looks, square jaw and dark eyes insisted he was everything everyone wanted.
He was gorgeous looking, truly. I didn't think of myself as ugly, but I had more scarring and maybe I didn't hit the gym as often as I could. Harris, despite being well past his prime like I was, was youthful, with a full head of rich, dark hair and almost always a five o'clock shadow to match.
He... really didn't need to rape anyone.
I mean, the few men that were still viable producing gametes had sex at least three times a week under City Protocol 5. We were allowed to have more of course, provided we didn't catch anything. But I couldn't imagine Harris wanting for affection.
Walking down the main hall to infirmary to speak with Greta James, the victim, I realized the scope of the thing. Harris face was everywhere. He was on video screens and posters. He was everywhere.
Turning him into a rapist? If the enemy did that on purpose, they had figured out more about us than anyone considered. Which would have been difficult because they would obliterate the bodies of the boys they killed. There usually wouldn't be anything left.
The girls were literally invisible. When Col. Shane was a lieutenant, I once saw one of the enemy drones blow right past her and take a male soldier. It tore him limb from limb. We knew next to nothing about their drones; their computer coding how they "see," we're not even sure how they function. Our scientists have been working for almost two decades, with next to nothing.
But it appears they have hacked us.
"Okay, what the fuck are you doing?!" I sneered at the new care taker. She was coming from either
medical or weapons, but I didn't care. She froze and looked at the soldier she was gripping by the bicep with disgust like that soldier had done something wrong.
Definitely new.
"We do not put our hands on the soldiers here, understand?"
She looked at me like I had a octopus on my face. This made me angrier and I tapped the rank sewn on my shirt and squinted at her. She straightened up and let the solider's arm go.
"Go play, now. We'll talk later." I told the troop.
I turned my attention to the care taker. "They didn't tell you what this is, did they?"
She shook her heard stiffly. She was terrified, and rightfully so. Not a whole of men living had my rank.
"At ease, at ease, at ease. Not your fault. You can call me Senior. You are?"
"Chernov" she said.
"All right, Chernov, all these soldiers are elite, understand? Our mission success rate is 98%, and our causality count since we began this program? It was mother fucking zero until...."
I dropped my voice. Did she need to know this? Yeah, yeah she did
"..until yesterday. So we don't put our hands on them here, unless it's for comfort. Tough as they are, they are still children and they still need to be kids when they aren't in the field, understand?"
Chernov nodded.
"That soldier you were man handling? Her names Maria, she's 10 and just back from sabotage mission, and thanks to her and her squad? The enemy won't be able to make drones for six months. But she lost one of her troops, his face got taken off by shrapnel. So she's going to be acting out. We don't punish that, because it doesn't work. You ain't seen anything like they've seen, and you never will."
Chernov nodded. She had the pallor of an undergrounder and her nod told me I was right.
So many of them, the undergrounders, had these insane ideas about how important they were. Which was fine, whatever they had to do to stay in a good headspace. But the kids would move like cats through the remnants of our above ground to find where the enemy was trying to get a foot hold and make them pay dearly.
I did my duty from five to fifteen years old. Going to the surface, causing havoc and killing the enemy, coming back and having some undergrounder street step me like I was a child when I had made their lives possible, day after day.
The Nursery existed to ease the burden of the few children who could fight.
Boys almost never made it past seven; the enemy viewed them as high value targets and could smell them from miles away. But girls were invisible to them for some reason. Girls could tear down their operations with skill, while smaller squads of heavily armed boys distracted the enemy vanguard.
I exhaled and let my mind get back to where I was. Calm music was playing and simulated bird songs and the lighting suggested morning. Maria was still in shock, because ordinarily she would have smashed anyone's nose out of their head. Hopefully the calm would help. Maria went to one of the clay table and opened a fresh canister of red, started kneading it and hunched over it.
She was scrutinizing it for imperfections, but she was making into something.
It was becoming clear to Chernov, too.
She was a in pastel pocket of weirdness, light years distant from the drab, endless hallways of City 23. Toys and games filled cubbie holes on the far left wall, higher than the children could reach and the ceilings curved up higher than any others, light in soft colors that simulated the day night cycle on the surface.
"You get one question about me, Chernov." She blushed and laughed nervously.
Yeah. I'm a rare type.
"Shouldn't you be studding?" She asked. "Men shouldn't be involved in this...sort of thing, ; there are so few of you and...
"I do stud about once a month, but the work we do here is equally important, because...." as if on cue, a little girl with corn rows started bashing a doll against a table and then hurdled it into a corner. She set upon it, kicking and stomping its head into the ground.
Chernov started toward her. "Wait." I said. The little girl wore herself out and she bent at the waste and then vomited and started to cry. "Now, you watch."
You have to approach someone in these kinds of states carefully. Like an animal caught in a trap. It could be the snuggliest puppy in the world, but when their foot is caught in something ugly? They'll fight. And when they're caught in something ugly that they know they had to do, they'll fight everyone and everything.
"Lequisha? It's Dan. You okay?"
"My brother." She sobbed. "my brother. Maria. Maria got him killed-ed." I placed my hand on Lequisha's shoulder and she folded into me, her arms shaking, pressing her corn-rowed head into my knee. Her whole body sobbed and I knelt down to embrace her and keep her from falling. She wrapped herself around me and wailed like wounded bird.
The whole nursery was silent. I'd like to think it was as much out of respect as curiosity, but I might have been kidding myself.
"Mr. Dan?" It was Maria. "Mr. Dan? Can I talk to Lequisha?"
"Okay, I..." Lequisha went from sobbing mess to lioness in a breath, setting upon Maria like she had the doll, but Maria was a squad leader for a reason and subdued the smaller girl with little effort. Maria held Lequisha in a sleeper hold, just enough force to calm her down. Then she spoke.
"Lequisha? Listen. Lequisha. I'm sorry about your brother. He was my friend, too. I miss him, too." Maria started to sob as well and her hold loosened. They both started to sob uncontrollably and hug on the ground.
They exhausted themselves right there, and I went to get a blanket. At ten, Maria was easily worn out and at just five, Lequisha, though big for her age, was no match for a born leader like Maria plus she lacked the emotional stamina to sustain so much anger.
"How did you know it wouldn't get deadly?" Chernov asked.
I beckoned her over the to table where the dough Maria was playing with. It was a child's recreation of a mangled face, Lequisha's brother in his final moments.
"They know what they did. They know what they are." I said. "But it's against human nature to like either."
2. Long enough to become.
The main door slid open and rough looking sergeant major stepped through.
"Attention on.."
I held up my hand. "Sergeant major, we don't do that here."
"What?"
"It's in the regs, no calls attention in the refuge rooms."
"Oh."
Col. Andrea Shane entered the room. She was legendary warrior, with commendations and medals and a nasty burn scar down one side of her head. It framed her features on the right side and she was missing her ear. She had very pale blue eyes, a long, angular face and the grey in her dark hair lent her a wolf-like appearance that fit her reputation.
"How are you Senior Sergeant?"
"I am well, Ma'am. How are you?" I said, coming to attention.
"At ease, Dan, seriously." She was amused at my following the protocol as I did.
"Gotta set the example for these soldiers, Ma'am."
"That you do. Can we talk in your office?"
"Of course. Sergeant Major, will you join us? I'll need to grab another chair." I said.
"She is a part of this, yes." the Colonel said.
We walked to my office in the back of the nursery and I nabbed an adult size chair on the way. I did consider getting a smaller one just to mess with the Sergeant Major, but the Colonel was very careful about her personnel and I decided to go with the benefit of the doubt.
"We had an incident." The Colonel said in a tone I knew from when we were working the surface together. Years ago, that tone would tell me it was going to be bad. That was the tone she used the day she lost her right leg.
"One of the trainees, we think..." the Sergeant Major interjected. She was young. Younger than me, but three ranks higher than I was. You don't make sergeant major by being soft; but she was halting in her speech.
"...we think. She was abused."
I felt a rush of anger, it flowed down the top of my head, down my ears, my throat and my chest. The anger then swirled around my heart.
"What do you need from me?" I asked. I knew this anger. I knew how to use it. And if either of them had asked me to kill someone I would done it without asking for a weapon.
"We would like you evaluate her...she has. She's already seen a doctor. She'll...never have children." the Sergeant Major said.
"What?" I said. The anger became like a ringing in my ears. Sometimes trainers were rough with the new recruits and yeah, that would happen. The training sergeant would be suspended for a while, get some kind of remedial training, recycle the solider into a new training iteration and call it a day.
But...this?
"Someone raped a trainee?!" I said. They both stiffened at the word. It's an ugly word, and old word that sometimes, with our united sense of purpose, seems like it should be outdated.
Should be.
"Yes." said the colonel. Her voice caught in her throat. All the awful shit she'd seen, but this was too much to handle.
"We have evidence," the Sergeant Major said. "Semen and blood samples.
"Then why come to me?" I said. This was not even remotely approaching my jurisdiction.
"It was Senior Sergeant Harris."
The ringing in my ears got louder.
"What?" I asked. "How could...what? That..."
Harris was there the day the Colonel lost her leg. He provided covering fire while I carried her out. Against all odds he made back to the compound three days later. He was starved, exhausted and bleeding from two wounds that should have been fatal. He was given a hero's welcome. He was a hero. His trainees were incredible; they were ones with the lowest casualty ratings, the highest kill numbers, the most successful missions.
"Kill him." I said, flatly. "In public."
"It's more complicated than that." the Colonel said.
"No, it isn't!" I snapped, and slammed my hand on my desk. They both were taken aback.
"I'm sorry," I exhaled. "You remember Master Sergeant Dice?"
The both looked down at the ground.
"Yeah." I said. "We didn't have the evidence for Dice that you have for Harris. We had to have all twenty two his victims testify before the council! That's 22 soldiers, all under the age of 10! C'mon, ma'am! We are going to go through again?!"
"Twenty three." said the colonel.
"Well, I didn't get it as bad as some of them did, ma'am. Let's ... just keep that in perspective. Dice put his dick in most of those boys, the only reason he didn't with me is because..."
"You fought." the Sergeant Major said.
That was...one word for it. What I actually did was castrate Dice with my teeth. He knocked me unconscious and ran, screaming down the hall bleeding from his ruined scrotum. I woke up with...a unique taste in my mouth and three missing teeth.
"Dice was a bad man." said the Colonel.
"No shit, ma'am! And that's why we executed him! And even after I emasculated him with own fucking teeth we STILL had to put those boys through hell. I would have liked him to live a long life where I got to smile at him every morning, but here we are! We followed the protocol then, and we should do it now. The fucking council needed more proof! So I guess if a nine year old bites off you balls you were just what? Making a fucking honest mistake?! Huh?"
I stood up at my desk. They knew this was an ugly thing for me. It was part of the reason I was assigned here. "I'm sorry. Look, you know me, ma'am. Eighty successful missions, fifty two of which you led. Fuck Harris. Get rid of him now. He's committed treason. Straight up treason, ma'am."
"No, Dan. We think Harris was compromised." the Colonel said. "The three days he was MIA? We think they did something to him. Made him into a sleeper agent of some kind. He doesn't remember anything, so he claims. We found foreign structures in his skull."
"Why would..." I started.
"They are loosing." the Colonel cut me off. "Every day they are loosing more and more ground to us. This is....is a new tactic. They may have figured out they can't take the Earth by attrition. They need to create threats from within..."
I didn't say anything for a long time.
"So... again, what do you need from me?"
"Talk to Harris. Talk to Private Jones. You're probably the only one who can be sure."
"How's that?"
"Rape is very rare now. So rare we don't really have anyone with any experience anymore, investigating or understanding." The Colonel said.
"There were twenty two other boys. They're all dead?"
"Yes. You know males don't last very long when they work the surface." said the Sergeant Major.
"Of course, but...Walter? Jimmy? There were five others..."
"They all committed suicide. None of them made it to 25." The colonel said. "After they were transferred to other Haven cities, they eventually killed themselves. We found that out when we tried get at least one of them transferred back."
"Fuck." I said finally. "Alright."
3. Barely Contained
City 23 is probably the largest of the Haven cities. There are about ten that still function, and while they are over crowded, crime is nearly unheard of in all of them. Japan is nearly free of enemy threats, but they have so few real estate it isn't surprising.
Every city has an something like a mythical hero. Helena DeBeu of City 20. Ryoko Takahasi of City 12. Maya Ibna Muhammed of City 7.
Master Sergeant George J. Harris was the only man to achieve such fame. His image was everywhere in City 23, on motivational posters and fliers. All over the place, his rugged good looks, square jaw and dark eyes insisted he was everything everyone wanted.
He was gorgeous looking, truly. I didn't think of myself as ugly, but I had more scarring and maybe I didn't hit the gym as often as I could. Harris, despite being well past his prime like I was, was youthful, with a full head of rich, dark hair and almost always a five o'clock shadow to match.
He... really didn't need to rape anyone.
I mean, the few men that were still viable producing gametes had sex at least three times a week under City Protocol 5. We were allowed to have more of course, provided we didn't catch anything. But I couldn't imagine Harris wanting for affection.
Walking down the main hall to infirmary to speak with Greta James, the victim, I realized the scope of the thing. Harris face was everywhere. He was on video screens and posters. He was everywhere.
Turning him into a rapist? If the enemy did that on purpose, they had figured out more about us than anyone considered. Which would have been difficult because they would obliterate the bodies of the boys they killed. There usually wouldn't be anything left.
The girls were literally invisible. When Col. Shane was a lieutenant, I once saw one of the enemy drones blow right past her and take a male soldier. It tore him limb from limb. We knew next to nothing about their drones; their computer coding how they "see," we're not even sure how they function. Our scientists have been working for almost two decades, with next to nothing.
But it appears they have hacked us.
Goddam, son.
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