Author's note: Ehehehe...yeah, this chapter took forever to come out. ;;; Sorry 'bout that...blame it on writer's block. bows My humble apologies. Thank to all readers, the next chapter WILL be faster (it couldn't get much slower, now could it?). Enjoy.
Chapter 9-Whir
Scat stopped by a large sign board on the wall next to the lifts. On it were written the assignments of the various divisions; since the slaves couldn't read, most of the assignments and divisions were listed using numbers.
The slaves saw numbers all the time, and although most of them probably couldn't do basic math, they could recognize the English number system employed by the Chaos army; demonic had no written language, the Darklings and Clanners refused to use their alphabets, and there was no other majority language, so English was used as the common tongue. Most people were capable of speaking it, so it worked well enough.
Scat examined the sign. A separate section was devoted to division 24; because they weren't needed for battles every day, different members of 24 were assigned to work with various other divisions.
"No battle today, so we get split up" she said to Yuugi. "You're with...19. That means you go with them" she added, pointing to another group of slaves.
The rest of division 24 trotted off to their various assignments, and Yuugi followed the members of division 19, not knowing where he was headed and not sure he wanted to know. The whole base looked the same to Yuugi; all of the walls and doors were the same material, and there were few signs or landmarks to distinguish one area from another.
Yuugi would soon have been hopelessly lost if not for division 19. They evidently knew where they were going; once the group reached an intersection, they split up and headed in different directions. Yuugi wasn't sure what he was supposed to do; so far, the other slaves had chosen to ignore him. He wasn't one of their division, and he looked bizarre in comparison to everyone else; his hair wasn't cut short and the number painted in blood on his face was starting to wear off.
"Here-come with me." Someone nudged Yuugi, and he turned around to see a tired-looking girl with hair that probably would have been blond-brown if it wasn't so dirty and gray-blue eyes. As they walked off down yet another corridor, identical to all the others, Yuugi noticed that she walked with a pronounced limp. Looking at her legs, he saw a long, pitted scar running from just above her left knee to her ankle. Yuugi shuddered, wondering how she could have gotten such a severe injury.
"I'm Whir" the girl said softly. "Um...if you don't mind me asking...why don't you have a number and why isn't your hair cut short? You can't have been here long."
Yuugi padded along behind Whir, trying to memorize the layout of the base so he wouldn't get lost if he had to go somewhere on his own. All the corridors looked the same, however, so Yuugi decided to give up on learning his way around the base and try to find out more about it from Whir.
"They didn't give me a number, and they didn't cut my hair...I think they just forgot."
Whir frowned, perplexed. "That's very strange...you have a number on your arm."
Yuugi glanced down at himself, wincing slightly when he saw the still-healing scars that read '24741.' "Yeah...the other slaves put it on for me."
At this point Whir stopped. Yuugi saw that they had reached a door, steel like everything else, which was apparently their destination.
"This is one of the kitchens...I'm usually assigned here. They usually don't even bother with a supervisor, since I can't run away."
Whir put her hand palm-down a small gray pad next to the door. It lit for a moment, then registered her handprint and opened the lock. Turning the knob, Whir walked into the kitchen.
The room was much more colorful than what Yuugi had seen of the rest of base so far, mostly because it was filled with various cooking utensils and ingredients. Long shelves lined the walls of the rectangular room, haphazardly covered with pots, pans, and other cooking junk. Meat hung from hooks in the ceiling, bins were stocked with vegetables and fresh fruit, and sacks of tubers, including, to Yuugi's surprise, potatoes, were scattered around the room.
"It does look pretty different from the rest of the base" Whir said, smiling. "Come on, we need to make something" she added, pulling things out of various cabinets. She checked a list tacked on the wall and began to set out her ingredients.
Yuugi was surprised; the other slaves hadn't been able to read. "But that list...you..."
"Hmm? Oh-I can read and write. They don't take your abilities when you lose your name...just who you are." She sighed sadly.
Yuugi started to help Whir move the pans and basins, trying not to stretch too much lest he reopen the wounds on his back.
"So...what does it really do to you? If you don't lose what you know, then...what exactly do you lose"
Whir looked curiously at Yuugi. "What do you mean? If you're here, then you..." She fell silent, staring at Yuugi in shock. "But...how"
Yuugi shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know, they just...didn't."
Whir grabbed Yuugi's hand. "Where do you come from? What's it like? How did they take you" It had been so long since Whir had known anyone with a complete identity that she was desperate to hear about someone-anyone-else's life.
"You first" Yuugi said. "I still don't really understand the name thing...do you remember where you came from"
Whir sighed sadly, beginning to chop some vegetables. "It's not that you don't remember...at least, I think so. Most of the child slaves are captured fairly young anyway, so you don't remember much. But...I sort of feel like I remember something...except I don't, quite. It's hard to explain..."
"Well...what's the first thing you remember?"
Whir set down the paring knife she was holding, a far-away look in her eyes. "Well...it's not something about me, really. It's just something I sort of remember-like a story I heard a long time ago. It went like this..."
Whir's story
A little girl stood in the midst of what looked to her like a forest of tall grass, waving gently in the fragrant breeze. The open land stretched in front of her for what seemed like an eternity, the horizon a million miles away. The sky was a smiling blue face with the single bright eye of the sun watching over the rolling plains.
Turning, the girl surveyed the collection of dwellings behind her. They were constructed of sod bricks, made from the heavy, compacted soil of the plains around them. The houses were thatched with bundles of prairie grass, tied down with twine lovingly woven from the tough roots of the grass.
The little community was still; it was evening, and everyone had settled into their homes to rest after the long day. Life on the plains was hard, but the girl didn't care. It was her life, her home, and that was what mattered.
Brushing back her waist-length blond-brown hair, the girl looked again at the horizon. Something in the back of her mind was nagging at her, telling her something was amiss in this silent, endless landscape.
Wait. Silent? The plains were many things, but rarely were they silent. In the evening there were insects buzzing and small prairie animals scurrying about, birds swooping unexpectedly out of concealed nests to snatch up a tasty meal. Where had they all gone?
The girl frowned, perplexed but not unduly worried. She was too young to know that there is only one time that the prairie falls silent: before disaster strikes.
Sometimes that disaster was a terrible storm, splitting the sky with crackling bolts of lightning. Sometimes it was a wandering animal seeking prey. Once, when her mother was her age, the earth had shaken until the villagers thought it would fall to pieces. But this time was different.
This time, the danger was no natural thing. This time, there would be no picking up the pieces afterwards, no optimistically rebuilding and facing the future together.
This time there would be only death.
A strange humming sound filled the air, startling everyone in the little community. The people flocked out onto the plains, staring up at the sky. They could not understand where this mysterious sound had come from; they had never heard a complex machine in operation before. Then suddenly, everything went terribly wrong.
The sky seemed to burst in a flash of blinding light, and an armada of war machines appeared, floating in the sky. They were like floating citadels, sitting in the sky with a casual disregard to gravity. They were roughly circular in shape, tapering down to long points on their underside. This improved their balance, allowing greater mobility. Masses of people scurried over each of the towering behemoths of the sky, and all the while, the villagers looked on, not understanding. What was happening? Why them?
That was a good question; why this village, this World? Why the large attack force? The villagers could not know that they were not even the target of this attack. Some parts of their World were inhabited by dragons of many varieties and abilities, and the Overlord was extremely interested in recruiting some, or failing that, merely acquiring them. He had sent these aerial war machines to combat the extreme versatility of the dragon's sky-based fighting abilities. This village was merely on the way, and the Overlord's troops had decided to entertain themselves by destroying it.
The only thing that bothered them was the speed with which it would be pulverized; they wouldn't even get to hear the villagers scream.
The people began running in all directions, fear overtaking the common sense that would have told them there was no escape. Something shot out of one the warships-it looked like a massive ball of fire. The vengeful comet struck the center of the village, sending out a massive shockwave and a burst of intense heat. Those close by were incinerated instantly; those unlucky enough to be farther away were covered in horrible burns.
The little girl was outside the village; she had begun running, and like many of the villagers, had gotten far enough away to avoid the thermal damage of the attack. However, she was knocked off her feet by the shockwave from the missile, and lay still for a moment, exhausted from the adrenaline rush of flight and the intense fear of the attack.
A few troops disembarked to see if there were any survivors worth taking prisoner; surely the Overlord would be pleased if he gained not only dragons, but some knew workers as well. Someone roughly grabbed the girl by her hair, yanking her to her feet. She screamed in pain and twisted to bite the attacker's hand, forcing them to drop her.
With a cry of fury, the armor-clad creature behind her pulled out a blade, enraged. As she tried to run, he struck her, making her fall to the ground again. Then he sliced open her leg, laughing with sadistic pleasure.
"There...now you'll never run again, little rat."
Just before she passed out, the girl vaguely saw some kind of air transport bringing them up to the war machines. Her home was gone, her people dead...and she had been taken. But where?
the end
"...and that's how it went" Whir finished, sighing. She continued to work, not even needing to look at her hands; these tasks had become habitual.
Yuugi just stared at Whir in a mixture of shock and confusion. "But Whir...that person...was you, wasn't it"
Whir frowned thoughtfully. "I...I think...it seems almost like...like maybe...but...no. No, it couldn't have been...it just...couldn't."
At last, Yuugi had discovered the secret of the Chaos Army's name removal. It didn't erase memories-that wouldn't be painful enough. Not remembering your past wouldn't stop you from forming a future. The taking of a True Name simply eliminated the connection to one's memories, the ability to realize that those past events had happened to you. Yuugi suspected that it also damaged the ability to connect a sense of self to new memories as well.
"That's why we give ourselves names" Whir said, bringing Yuugi out of his dark thoughts. "Because we can't just be no one...we have to be someone. You'd go mad if you weren't..."
But this was not quite true. Without a name-without a sense of self-you could not go mad. You could not become anything, because you were nothing at all. Nameless beings simply wandered through life, never truly experiencing it or having any idea that they were a part of it all. They simply existed.
Whir efficiently finished preparing the food as instructed, and put away all of her tools. Yuugi had been no help whatsoever, but Whir didn't complain; she understood how complicated and distressing this must be. She had a feeling it had been difficult for her when she had first arrived...but no...she had always been here.
"Come on" Whir said softly. "We have to go help the rest of 19...they're probably in weapons production."
Yuugi followed Whir out of the room, deep in thought. The more he heard about the Chaos Fortress, the more terrible it seemed...and he had a feeling it was going to get worse.
-o-o-o-o-o-
I do not understand.
All my life, I have sought to understand things, to find logical explanations and connections. Knowing how and why makes accomplishing goals so much simpler, and I have always been one to accomplish my goals.
But now I do not understand, and there is nothing that can tell me why.
I have reasons for the things I do, reasons for the choices I make. Even if I tell no one, there are always reasons. I always have my final, ultimate goal in mind, my guiding principle. Never have I abandoned it, and never shall I. I have never regretted what I do, what I have done-there has never been anything to regret.
But now...
Now I am not sure. I am uncertain, undecided, and I do not like it. Indecisiveness is a terrible, weakening disease that slowly saps the strength of the mind until there is nothing left but a feeble shell with no willpower at all. I swear now, as I have sworn before, that this will not happen to me. I shall never stand in uncertainty, looking down two roads and having no idea which to travel on.
But what happens when I do not even know if what I see before is a road or an illusion, a fever dream of my own devising? Could I have been wrong? Is this not my own path at all? But it must be-I chose it.
Or at least...I thought I did.
I never wondered if I made the right choice. It simply did not occur to me. All my life, I had carefully thought through every decision, knowing that I could not make it twice. I was thorough. I was cautious. I was certain there was no other way.
But what if there was?
I know that once a decision has been made, there is no going back. It is pointless to wonder 'what if I had chosen this?' or 'what if I had done that?' It is not possible to go back and change what has been done, so the only thing to do is move forward. This is how live, how I have always lived.
So why? Why did I do it?
I simply cannot understand. My decisions have always come from my mind, from careful examination of all the variables and possible outcomes. I have never been an impulsive sort. But this time...this time I did not think of what my duty was or what would benefit the majority or what would contribute to my goals. This decision came from my heart, and I know it.
It is not so much what I decided as why I did. Is there still some bond there, some unpayed debt that I cannot consciously understand? Is there something within me, some half-dead loyalty or meager intuition that tells me this is right?
Because I know it is right. I know that if there was some way to go back and make this decision over again, I would do it just the same. This was the right thing to do, I am certain. I have made my choice and I must reconcile it to myself, even if I cannot claim to understand it. What is done is done; so be it.
But...why?
