THE COLONIES

I must have been coming to.

I'd got enough wits about me to consider that in this place, it must be rare for people to be 'coming to'. We'd certainly simply rolled enough unconscious women into ditches where a guard had subsequently mercifully dispatched them.

Then again, if I hadn't come to, fully, you'd not be reading this. As my eyes started to strain against the glare, I thought that after writing this I'd have to make sure the script got secured in my hiding place. However, no worries, the sanctions against writing here were hardly ever enforced. One guard had seen me scribbling stuff and had just laughed. Had thanked me for 'lightening her day!'

Ok, I was conscious enough to become aware of voices. They were arguing. They were arguing about me. Someone was saying in a severe voice, "get her some water!" The voice then said, "No, don't draw it from the ditch, what's the matter with you?"

Another, deeper voice said, "Ma'am, I'm certainly not giving her any from my canteen."

To which the severer voice barked, "Then give her some of mine, damn you."

The water was cool. 'Refreshing' didn't describe it. Betrayed that it had just come from some sort of vessel which had ice in it. Ice. Real ice, coldness that you could taste, even though the ice itself was not there.

It shocked my eyes wider, but not yet clear. I could make out a gaggle of women standing over me, someone holding my head off of the dirt. The woman holding my head was the one with the severe voice. She wasn't a prisoner, neither was she a guard. She had an Aunt's cloak around her, albeit filthy with the surrounding landscape.

And an eye-patch.

ANGELA WAS FRANTIC

Both Mother, me, and daughter, Angela, had lost fingers in previous months. I feared losing more.

Angela was holding tight to me in the sitting room, the flashing lights of the Guardians' SUVs out on the parking pad scared her greatly. Me too.

"Mother, I'm sorry, I really am. Tell them I'm sorry, that I didn't mean it. Maybe they'll go away."

I did not know what to tell my daughter to calm her. She thought this was her fault. She continued, "Just tell them it was me, Mother. I was the one who read the book. Tell them it won't happen again, that I'll be good!"

Today had been unprecedented. Just hours before, the Wives' Tea had been in full swing. This time, people had been really bitchy. The back-room sniping had been fully out in the open. Someone even brought up the time that Serena Joy and I had convinced them to descend on Chancery. About girls education. Mrs. Calhoun then eyed my own missing finger and had said, "Some people never learn their lesson."

At that an SUV screeched into the parking area outside the window. With so many Wives there, there had hardly been room for another vehicle. Some of the household Guardians approached the SUV, but when they saw its guardians being accompanied by Angels, they stood back.

They did not knock. Very immediately they were in the sitting room - it had startled greatly our martha who had at the same time come in from the kitchen with hot tea. They pushed her aside.

I stood and bellowed, "What's the meaning of this? This is a High Commander's home!"

The Angel looked at a computer pad, "Can't be helped, ma'am. Our apologies." He then addressed the group, "Is Mrs. Scott here?" Ever so subtly the Wives on either side of Grace inched away from her, making it obvious who she was.

The Angel went over, compared her face with something on his tablet. He then asked her to stand, which she haltingly did.

"Mrs. Scott, you are under arrest for crimes of sedition, treason and heresy against the State. Please come with me." She bent to get her things but he stepped forward and grabbed her arm preventing it. He roughly pulled her towards our door.

Another Wife got up and went to the front window. She knocked on it trying to get her Guardian's attention. Still another started to cry, asking aloud, "What's going on? Where are they taking Grace?"

In quick succession, three more Wives were taken. The rest left of their own accord one at a time, mainly in tears, leaving me and my martha to clean up. Me, I did not mind helping the martha, it gave me something to do.

Right now, it looked like our household Guardian was in a 'stand-off' with an Angel out on the street, him on the other side of our locked gate. They were fiercely arguing.

Warren, he was nowhere to be seen. He'd left early this morning, happy enough. He'd quipped that he wanted to be at Chancery, "before the Wives got here, and bored me with their recipes."

The Angel and the Guardian who'd been on the other side of the gate got back in their SUV. They then crashed through it. Our Guardian had drawn his pistol, but now that they had access to the house, the Angel and his Guardian got out of their vehicle with their guns drawn. Our guy, he laid his weapon on to the driveway and raised his hands.

They shot him, right there in front of me, Angela still clinging to my leg.

I can't remember if it was aloud or just in my head. I recited Warren's Bible verse, "What you must do, do quickly."

THE INFIRMARY

"She's a Wife, that's why! Bitch." I felt it when she spat on my face.

I was starting to gain consciousness, again it seemed. This time, there was only one overarching smell, and it wasn't shit or filth. In fact, the smell of this place was overtly antiseptic.

"Oh jeez, she's coming to," the voice said, as she wiped her spittle from me. "Great. More medicine is about to be wasted on Her Royal Highness." An argument broke out as to which of them would 'go get the Aunt'.

It was hard to tell if it had been an hour or only minutes. Before she arrived my eyes cleared enough to see the IV line attached to my arm from the suspended bottle. The place where the needle had gone in had been cleaned and sterilized, probably the only place on my body which had seen the light of day for months.

Then there she was, standing over me again, this time in a somewhat cleaner Aunts' brown robe. It was her, eye-patch and all.

"Hello Naomi," she greeted. My weak voice caught me unprepared. I hoped she could make it out - me I was trying to be polite when I asked what I should call her.

She said, "You can call me Aunt Janine." I asked her, 'why?' Why was I getting medical treatment, me for the first time in months - and compared to others, why at all?

"I need you healthy, Naomi," she said. "I need to know where Charlotte is."

I must have been slightly concussed, I almost asked, 'Who?' I then remembered. Ofwarren had called our Angela, Charlotte. Right now, I was not going to argue.

But even as my faculties started to return, I was none the wiser. I meant it to sound strong, but I said very weakly, "Aunt Janine, I have no idea. She was taken from me, she was taken and then I was sent here."

She then leaned back on her heels a bit, and asked, "Where's the Commander, that lying fuck?"

I winced at the image I'd once seen. "Charles River, on the Wall."

"Jesus," Aunt Janine said, "I'd wanted a piece of that." She then said, "Naomi, I'll make you a deal. If one of us hears about Charlotte, we'll tell the other. Okay."

Not knowing what else to reply, I said, "Ok."

Aunt Janine stood, then said to some guards in the room, "Get her cleaned up, we're leaving tomorrow. Get her fed. Make sure she's healthy."

ANOTHER TRUCK

Wherever it was we were going, it was rough. It was also all I could do to keep myself upright as we bounced along, the neck collar was attached to the wall behind me - fatigue and slouching meant choking. Soon, I was just going to give in and let myself pass out.

As if they'd been listening, the truck stopped. Front doors outside opened then slammed shut, and boots moved towards the back. Then as the back gate was unclamped and opened, the brightness of the outside blinded me. My head was splitting. Maybe someone was going to be merciful and shoot me beside this road, wherever it was.

Instead, the neck-collar was unhooked from the wall behind, and I fell over on to the metallic seat. Then I felt my head lifted, and cool-cold water pressed to my lips. I was about to ask if they had anything for a massive headache, but had learned long ago not to push my luck.

"So," Aunt Janine said, "we'll stay here until nightfall. I bet you want to stretch your legs." I stood then collapsed back on to the seat. "Ok, maybe not," she said.

My eyes then focussed on the crinkling of a wrapper being opened - a nutrient bar from a military mess kit. The kind that the guards back at the Colony had. Aunt Janine pulled off a bit from the end and lifted it to my mouth. It was the first food I'd had since the broth given at the Infirmary just before we'd started in this truck.

Once again, I startled myself with the weakness I displayed. Weakness in these parts was not something one wanted to show. I asked raspily, "where are we going?"

Back at the Colony, asking anything like that guaranteed at least a rifle butt. This time, I got the most direct answer I'd ever had - at least since I'd last quizzed a martha as to why my toast had not been warm.

Aunt Janine answered directly with two words, "Colorado Springs."

Oh. Ok.

BITCH QUEEN

Janine Lindo had a plan, and finally had resources to get about it. She told me that her plan was two-fold, summarized in two words. "Charlotte and Caleb."

She said, "it pisses me off that it comes to this. But you, I need you. You're the only one who'll go after Charlotte like I would."

So it was I found out what was to happen to me. Janine had set it up with a shadowy group called 'Mayday', that I'd convalesce in one of their houses - a house right next to the Gilead Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Of that she said, "it's always better to hide in plain sight."

Then when ready I'd be taken north, to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in the old Montana. I'd never met an Indian before. Then to Calgary in Canada. Once in Canada it would be up to me to find out where 'Charlotte', my Angela was.

When I asked how on earth I would accomplish that from a foreign country, an enemy of Gilead no less, Aunt Janine said, "What the hell is the matter with you? For fuck's sake, you're a Wife. An entitled bitch! That's your superpower, use it!" She handed me another piece of food, and said, "You've spent your life demanding to be served. You've salvaged marthas for spilling tea. You'll figure it out. Park your ass in the Consulate in Calgary and demand your rights! Just be fucking you, bitch queen! Find Charlotte!"

Janine? She was heading to 'somewhere that had a beach'. She was going to check every little boy at every west coast beach, either building a sand castle or flying a kite. Janine said, "Oregon has those long beaches with sand dunes. It would be heaven to find him there! Hawai'i and California are littered with them."

She said with determination, "My Caleb is on one of them. Me, I'm going to find him."

It's funny what you remember. I remember the old Offred coming to our home to visit with 'Crazy Janine'. Some things don't change.