Jacinto's Prepatory School
Eight Years After E-day
"Goodbye, proud world! I'm going home; Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine."
-Ralph Emerson
Bri tapped her pencil against the carved edge of the table, sighing in boredom. One hand pressed against her cheek, holding her head up. The kids around her - all ranging from early pre-teens to almost fighting age - talked and laughed and hollered. The small, dusty room echoed back all the noise and fed Bri's headache. The teacher was at the front of the room taking cover behind a battle-scarred desk, looking like she too was counting the seconds before the school day was officially over and she could go home.
Bri hated the hours she spent in school. It was nothing but wasted time, anyway. She could learn double what they taught her from Ace, and in half the time. Plus, she wouldn't have to deal with the idiots in her class who only showed up periodically, smoked and drank, and harassed the teachers. She tried hard to forget the fact that she used to be one of those idiots.
They were supposed to be working on an assignment from a textbook, but half the kids didn't have either the book, paper, or a pen. The few factories still running in Jacinto pumped out items for the war effort. School supplies weren't top priority on anybody's list.
"Hey," Bri called over to a girl on her left. The girl, who had been laughing along with a group of students, turned around and raised an eyebrow expectantly. "You using that?" Bri motioned with her chin at the closed textbook before the girl. She slid the book over with an irritated air.
Bri cracked open the textbook to the mandated page, ignoring the pen marks and crude messages written in by anonymous authors. The assignment was on edible plants in the wild. More specifically, what plants were not edible. Poisoning yourself was akin to shooting yourself in the foot. Bri knew most of the illustrated plants, anyway. She also knew which ones repelled insects when ground into a pulp, which plants animals liked to eat, and which plants came in handy for treating infection and illnesses. Ace had made her study them at length beforehand; he wanted her prepared in any way possible.
Lazily thumbing through the textbook, she almost missed the disturbance at the front of the room. Two boys - just below recruitment age for the COG - were standing up and tossing what looked like a lunch bag between them. A young girl with red hair fought to get it back from them. She leapt to try and snatch it out of the air, but one of the boys crashed into her and knocked her to the ground with an audible cry.
That was when Bri stood up.
The teacher watched with glazed eyes, as if she couldn't care less what happened to the students. As long as no one pulled out a gun or a knife - which happened more often than Bri liked to think about - the teacher refused to get involved. Unfortunately, Bri didn't have that kind of apathy.
"Leave her alone," she ordered the two boys once she reached the front of the room. She didn't say it impertinently, but it wasn't a request either. The two boys looked at her and snickered, still holding the lunch bag. "I mean it," she repeated. "Give her back her stuff and quit bothering her."
One of the boys - Chad or Chase or something - snorted in disgust. "Whatever. She's just some dumb Stranded; what do you care?"
"And you're just some dumb Shithead," Bri fired back automatically. The class, who had slowly caught wind of the skirmish at the front of the class, laughed at Chad/Chase's expense. The eldest boys in the class – those who hadn't yet been plucked up by the COG for the war effort – were usually free to torment any one they pleased. No one usually had the guts to bother them, not even the teachers. Bri wasn't just anyone, however. "Now give her back her stuff."
Anyone who hadn't been watching before certainly was now. Chad passed off the nearly destroyed bag to his cohort before stepping in front of Bri. "And what'cha gonna do about it if I don't?"
Bri really didn't want to have to punch the guy. She knew that if she did, Ace would hear about it and she would be stuck on dish duty for an entire month. He probably wouldn't believe her when she told him that Chad had started it. 'Stay out of trouble,' imaginary-Ace parroted in her mind. 'You can't be drawing attention to yourself'. He was right, of course. She was getting close to the age where the COG started taking an interest, grooming the young citizens for breeding stock or soldiers. Getting noticed by the COG at her age was akin to a death sentence.
Still, she had the eyes of the entire class upon her. More than that, however, she could feel the tear-filled gaze of the redheaded girl. Bri took a breath to silence the imaginary Ace in her mind as she made a fist. "You really don't wanna find out," she threatened.
The class 'oohed' menacingly. The teacher, finally noticing the changed atmosphere in her classroom, set down her book and stared at the three of them. Bri knew she only had a minute – maybe two – before the teacher intervened and made them all sit down.
Chad, who felt the loyalties of the classroom shifting, took a step closer to Bri. "Oh yeah?" he cajoled. "And wha-"
Before he could finish his sentence, Bri swept the back of his legs with a low kick, knocking him heavily to the ground. Chad's sidekick had only enough time to widen his eyes before Bri snatched the bag from his lax grip and shoved him back a step or two. She tossed the bag to the girl standing behind her and widened her stance, readying for the resulting fight.
Chad sprung to his feet as the class cackled with laughter. "You little Bit-" he started to yell, but finally the teacher rose behind up from behind her desk. "That's enough," she snapped, her hand reaching for the intercom to call in the two MP's that patrolled the school. Her grey eyes stared at the trio in an unspoken threat.
Chad backed down, beating a retreat to where his pack of friends waited. "This isn't over," he snapped at Bri, but it was likely an empty threat. Still, Bri nodded in agreement.
"Bring it," she said acidly, staring at him all the way back to his desk.
The teacher looked to the clock, counted the last ten minutes that she had left in class, and then sat heavily behind her desk. The class returned to whatever they were doing before the near-fight broke out.
A small voice said "T-thank you." Bri turned around, and found the younger redheaded girl standing close at her back.
"No problem," Bri answered. "But you should learn how to fight your own battles."
The girl, instead of looking offended like some might, just nodded in earnest. "I'm Maralin," she introduced herself. "That's my sister, Teresa." Bri blinked as she took in another redheaded girl sitting quietly at a lopsided desk.
"There's two of you!" Bri stated in shock. "I mean, twins. You're twins, right?"
They both nodded in unison. At first glance, Teresa seemed even more innocent and meeker than her sister counterpart. Suddenly, Bri's request for them to 'fight their own battles' seemed outlandish, even to her ears. "Why don't you come sit in the back with me?" she suggested.
As they waded through the rambunctious classroom - with Maralin clutching her ruined bag – Maralin spoke up with a suspicious note in her voice. "Why are you being so nice to us? Most people treat us like dirt."
Bri recalled Chad's 'Stranded' statement from earlier, and her curiosity peaked. She'd never actually met anyone who was Stranded before. She couldn't see what all the fuss was about. "Just 'cause." Bri answered. "Besides, I'm picky about the company I keep. No assholes allowed."
My boots pounded the frozen ground as I strained for just a bit more speed – just a bit more. The cold air rushed in and out of my lungs in quick pants. Small clouds of my breath fashioned tiny ice crystals that danced for milliseconds before breaking away in my wake.
Betty was a slow moving vehicle, but it was still hard for me to catch up. I had found out earlier this morning that Dizzy had been sent to check out a COG cache cleverly hidden in the old city of Perth. It was so cleverly hidden that apparently people still believed it would be intact. An intact cache meant fuel, food, medical supplies, etc. All of this was important, yes, but I had another reason to want to go to Perth. Perth was only four miles from the Stranded Complex.
I would be getting Sam back today.
That is, if I could only catch Dizzy.
"Dizzy!"
Bowing my head against the chilling wind, I focused on getting my feet to move just a bit faster. Slowly, so slowly, I began to overcome Betty. Coming up alongside the vehicle, I gave the iced metal a solid slap with the heel of my hand. Dizzy couldn't hear me over the rumbling of Betty's engines. "Damn it," I cursed out between clenched teeth. Finally, when I felt I had to either catch his attention or literally run myself into the ground, I came up next to the passenger side door. Banging away with my fist, I could vaguely hear his shocked voice yell out "What in tarnation?!" before a loud screech of brakes met my ears. Betty came to a stop long before I did; inertia carried me another twenty or thirty meters before I could drag myself to a stop.
The 'Dill full of gears escorting the Derrick to the cache stopped as he did. I could feel their confused and slightly hostile gaze on me, but I didn't have time for them.
Jogging back to where Betty rumbled impatiently, I yanked open the passenger door to see Dizzy staring wide-eyed down at me.
"Hey Diz," I panted while climbing in next to him. "Mind giving me a ride?"
That morning had been awkward. The dawn found me still fast asleep on Dom's shoulder in the abandoned janitor's closet. When we woke, neither of us seemed to know what to do or say. I'd hoped that when I finally told Dom my secret - finally let him back into my life in his rightful position - some floodgate would open and all the gaps in my mind would be filled with memory. I wanted to reclaim that link to the past, but after that initial embrace, we've gone back to what we really are: two people who had just met. We couldn't rebuild our past, because we haven't even leveled common ground.
Thankfully, relief came in the form of Marcus knocking on the door. Apparently Hoffman needed the pair of them for some kind of mission or another; I didn't really get the specifics. My mind was occupied with the fact that I hadn't eaten anything for almost twenty-four hours. The squirrels that I had trapped and gutted the day before were gone; they must have fallen off of my belt when Dom shoved me from the room. Someone would have quickly snatched them up and was probably enjoying them for breakfast.
Briefly I considered trying to scare up some of Mataki's leftover venison, but decided I'd rather starve. That left me with the option of going out and checking my traps from the other day. I had been heading back out towards the woods when I ran into Dizzy's daughters. They told me about Dizzy's mission, which prompted my early morning marathon.
The small heater installed in the grimy dashboard rattled frighteningly loud. It was trying desperately to heat the small cabin. I appreciated the paltry amount of warmth, but evidently Dizzy found the noise more than a little irritating. He tapped the top of the heater with the underside of his fist – percussive maintenance - before speaking. "S'why do you wanna go to Perth?"
"I don't," I answered him honestly. "I wanna go to the Mali River. It's on the way, right?"
He nodded slowly, pensively, his scraggly beard meeting the top of his chest plate. "An' why do yous wanna go there, I wonder?"
He wasn't fooling me – he knew as well as I did why I wanted to go. The Mali river flowed down from Mount Kadar – a place I swore I'd never go again – through the Stranded camp, and then onwards to Perth. Instead of pointing this out, however, I answered him honestly. "I need to get to the camp. Sam's there, for one, and I need to check up on things. Last time I was there…things weren't going all that great."
That was an understatement. The last time I had seen the camp, the Locust were attacking. The COG had been using the road through the camp to get to Nexus, so the grubs tried to cut the pathway off. The sight of people running scared and confused through the camp while the Locust came busting through the gates ran through my mind, and I shivered. What would I find left of the camp? Would there even be a camp left to go home to?
Dizzy gave a grand sigh as he stared out the cracked windshield. "Ya' know," he finally said to me in a fatherly tone, "Ya' don't have to keep running like this. Ya' fell in with some good people at ta' camp, but it's still a hard life. The COG's one mean sonovabitch, but the life's got its perks. Your 'birthing order' is prolly resting underneath 'bout a million gallons of water right now. Nobody'd kick up a fuss if you'd want to stay put."
One side of my mouth kicked up in a sad smile. This wasn't the first time I'd heard this speech. Dizzy worried about me. He knew I could take care of myself, but he still never liked seeing me out on my own. To him, the COG was the lesser of two evils. I just wasn't sure if I could ever go back to that life. I had changed so much since my time in Jacinto – in good ways, in bad ways, - but I really couldn't see myself living on a military base again. Even if Dom-
Shit.
What was I going to do about Dom? No doubt he'd expect me to stay with him. We'd literally only had one night as a family – if you could even call it that. There was no way he'd want me to stay living in a Stranded community. And there was no way that a fully fledged Gear could take to Stranded living. He'd be dead in a week.
Dizzy remained quiet while I pondered the unanswerable question. Dizzy was good like that – he knew when to step back, and when to speak up. Until yesterday, he was the closest thing I had to a father. Hell – he was the closest thing I had to a father. Blood didn't account for anything. There had even been a time when I'd fantasized about him adopting me into his family, but that time had passed long ago.
I considered telling Dizzy about Dom. I wasn't sure what his exact reaction would be, but I knew it would cause him to push even harder for me to stay with the COG. Dizzy was all about family.
Deciding I didn't want to tell him just yet, I finally settled on a small nod. "I'll think about it," I promised him. "Just know that whatever I decide, I'm grateful to you. You've done a lot for me, Diz. I appreciate it more than you'll ever know. That's not going to change. Ever."
Dizzy didn't say anything back, but he smiled at me from underneath his grey beard. As he reached to change gears his hand changed course and he patted my knee gently. I meant what I said. Dizzy was a good man, even if he did have a bottle of rye whiskey tucked into the seat between us. We lapsed into the quiet once again, but unlike this morning with Dom it wasn't awkward. It was comfortable. Warm.
I stared out the window upon the disheveled world. Somewhere out there were pockets of grubs still surviving, but there couldn't be that many. The war was almost won. Now a new one was just beginning – rebuilding a world that had been burned and hazed back to the Stone Age. It would be beyond hard, and it would take several lifetimes to get back anywhere close to normal. Eventually all those living on the fringes of society would have to make a choice. They could either join the COG or stand against them. Maybe, if all the Stranded groups could band together to form their own nation, the future wouldn't hinge upon the COG. Something greater could emerge from the ashes of Sera.
Maybe it wouldn't have to be all or nothing, however. The COG needed to be able to change, to match the shifting roles society would come to play in the near future. They would have to work with the Stranded – or any other civilization hoofing it all around the world. A new world order was coming. Hatred and bigotries would have to be a thing of the past, or humanity would complete was the Locust had failed to do.
I just needed to figure out what role I would play in the future – or if I had a role to play at all.
"So whaddya' think?" Dizzy asked me. It took me a second to realize he had been speaking for a while, and I – lost in my thoughts – had completely missed it.
"What?"
"'Bout moving to the Islands. Ya' think it's a good idea?"
It took me another confused second, but I finally realized what he was talking about. There were rumors about the COG heading down to the Islands where it was warmer and – hopefully – safer. "I don't know," I answered truthfully. "There aren't any islands big enough to house a Jacinto-sized population, are there?"
"There's one," Dizzy answered. "Name's Vectes. Heard of it?"
Vectes. Vectes. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on why exac-
"That was a chemical research facility back in the Pendulum Wars, right?" My voice sounded outraged even to my own ears. "Diz, that place is crawling with Bioweapons! We can't go there!"
During the Pendulum wars, several islands housed weapons research facilities. I knew this because I'd been to one, several years ago. It was a memory I tried hard to forget, because that was where –
Don't think about it.
"Apparently Prescott thinks it's safe now. Bastard. Says the place was declared habitable years ago, but jus' happened to slip his mind."
"Yeah…" I murmured, my mind still a thousand miles away. "Convenient, that…"
I kept my eyes on the 'Dill of gears in front of us. I felt Dizzy's eyes upon my face, trying to read my expression, but I carefully kept my face schooled into a blank page. I knew what he was looking for. I just wasn't going to give it to him.
"Bri, I know what happened there. I know that's where Ace-"
"Don't say it!" I snapped at him. "Not now. Not today."
I fought to keep my mind focused upon the winter wasteland, and not the sight of a tropical gravesite. The islands were somewhere I swore never to return. Because Dizzy was right.
The islands were where Ace died.
Finally, the river crested over the horizon as we trundled up a hill. Dizzy slowed the vehicle, downshifting to a lower gear. I gathered my things around me before sighing. "I'm sorry, Dizzy," I said. "That's…that's still a touchy subject."
Dizzy understood, just as he always did. He had lost his wife and step-son on E-day, and then when he found someone else to raise a family with, she died as well. The only thing he had left were his two girls from his second love. He understood grief. "Be careful out there, a'right, Bri?" he cautioned me as I jumped out of the Derrick. Nodding once to him, he continued. "Be back here at 'bout noon, and I'll be here to give ya' a ride back to Port."
I examined the sun's position against the horizon. Noon was about four hours away. A half hour to walk the two and a half miles to the camp, a half hour to walk back. That left me with three hours in the camp. It should be plenty. "Alright, Diz," I agreed. "I'll be here." With that, I slammed the passenger door.
I headed back south while Dizzy and the 'Dill of gears continued onwards towards Perth. For a brief second, I considered making the hike down to where Jacinto used to lay. I quickly decided against it, however. I didn't need to see that level of destruction ever again. Besides, it was another twelve miles. The icy air already chilling my soul reminded me how bad an idea like that would be. Instead, I followed the river bend back towards the camp.
My feet soon became numb and frozen. My face felt red and sore because of the constant bashing of the wind. I hate winter…I grumbled silently as each breath drew startling pain into my chest. I kept my mind occupied by scanning my surroundings over and over again, looking for anything out of place. The last thing I needed was to be jumped by an orphaned group of grubs. Every abandoned building was a sniper nest; every dip in the cracked pavement was an E-hole erupting. Nowhere was safe. This was the world I lived in.
I passed by one of our guard towers, only to find it unsettlingly vacant. That wasn't a good sign. Unconsciously I picked up my pace until I was jogging towards the camp. Crumbled buildings and lifeless rubble blocked my vision of the camp. Dix had known what he was doing when he picked a location. The camp was hard to see until you were literally right in front of it.
Turning a corner, my mouth dropped slightly with shock. The gate – the one rigged so cleverly with pulleys and ropes to protect us all – was nothing more than a smashed pile of broken metal and scorched wood. The perch where Darvish habitually harassed me was gone, collapsed onto the broken pavement. It would take weeks – if not months – to gather enough materials to rebuild the gate. For now, the camp was open, defenseless. Just like the COG.
Funny how similar the two could be.
Gingerly stepping over the pile of debris that had yet to be cleared, I made my way into the camp. Many of the buildings that used to make up the familiar horizon of my home had been smashed into the dirt like the gate. Every breath I took brought the choking scent of ash and decay into my lungs. Piles of desolated rubble still smoked from where hidden embers burned in the shadows. Grey and ashen faces wandered past me, never quite meeting the gaze of anyone near-by. Everyone I saw had a sort of lost expression. There was no anger, just acceptance.
It was also quiet. No one talked, for there was nothing to be said. Even the sound of rubble being cleared and dead bodies being removed was hushed. Unlike Port Farrall – which was filled with shouts and cries and needless noise – the camp was filled quite literally with dead air.
I still needed to find Sam, however. And Momma – I needed to make sure she was okay as well. A short list ran through my mind as I calculated who I would be devastated to lose. Surprisingly, Dix made the list. I was sure he'd be fine, however. Dix had made a habit of staying alive.
After wandering the camp for a full five minutes, my lips began to pucker into a whistle. I didn't want to disturb the camp any more than I needed to, but I needed to find Sam. It was starting to worry me that I couldn't find her. Panic began to weigh more heavily in my chest. Taking a breath that hurt too much, I let a high-pitched whistle loose. "Sam!" I called, more loudly than necessary. "Sam, Here!"
There was an immediate change in the atmosphere. It was as if the high-pitched holler had chipped through the ice encasing the camp. Suddenly the people who had been passing by me without looking up began to stare me in the face. I heard a few muffled murmurs, but nothing more than that. No barks, no whimpers, nothing that let me know if Sam was alive or not. As I took a breath to yell again, someone interrupted me.
"She's over in the med hut."
I blinked and turned around, looking for who had addressed me. It was Erik, a man who I had seen frequently but spoke to sparingly. He motioned with his arm towards the center of camp to drive back his point. "She's in med," he repeated.
Medical. Suddenly, visions of bullet holes and chainsaw wounds flashed through my mind. Without another word to Erik or the crowd who had been watching me, I turned and sprinted towards the brick building in the center of camp. It wasn't just used for medical, however. It was storage, meeting centers, emergency housing, and where Dix took up residence. The fact that the camp members had already started calling it the 'med bay' spoke volumes on how many had been injured or killed in the attack.
I yanked open the wooden door to see a crowd of people amassed in the room. Anyone who wasn't tasked with some chore appeared to be here, although most were standing around aimlessly. I didn't have time to search through the crowd to pick out familiar faces; instead I searched for brown and black fur. "Sam?" I called again, but much more quieter than before.
Finally, I found her.
She was sitting next to an occupied cot, looking absolutely fine. I silently breathed a sigh of relief as I started her way, calling her again. This cot had more people than normal amassed around it, and I had to fight my way towards the front. "Sam," I addressed her again, but this time in recognition. A slight wave of her tail let me know she heard me, but she didn't dare move from her perch next to the cot. Confused, I pushed forward so I could see who it was that Sam refused to leave.
"She has internal bleeding," I heard a voice say. "The shrapnel is too close to her arteries – I can't operate. Even if I could, it's no use. She's going to go into shock soon as her blood pressure drops. There's nothing I can do."
The voice was Sheryl, our camp's veterinarian. She was speaking lowly to Dix, who was standing on the opposite side of Sam. He nodded stiffly to Sheryl, but when he saw me he spoke. "Bri," I distantly heard him say as he grabbed hold of my arm. "Bri, wait."
It was too late. Dix adjusted to try and hide the cot from me, but I had already seen. Shaking him off, I fell to my knees next to the cot. I stared in shock at the patient as my mind desperately tried to reject what my eyes were seeing.
It was Momma. And she wasn't moving.
Author's Note: Wow. So, it's been a while. Been busy, but I haven't forgotten this story!
I also have another chapter almost ready. How cool is that?
I don't really have a lot to say here, mainly because I don't want to give anything away. I want to know what you think, however. Leave a review below please!
