CHAPTER 3 The Commander
William lay still, trapped in the narrow gap between his bed and the wall, unable to move from his waking nightmares. He could hear the soldiers moving freely around the rows behind him. They were keeping an eye on him; he was sure. The reason was still unknown. As far as he had theorised, it would have to do with the soldiers' predisposition to wariness. He wouldn't be the one to judge them for it. Hours ago, he hadn't been much different either.
"It's time." Mae walked in quietly, her voice hardly over a whisper. "Do you have the bandages?"
"They're under Henry's mattress," replied Flor in the same low tone. "Can't we leave the birdie here, Mae? You read his tattoo—defective—what if that means he doesn't know how to protect himself?"
"Then he dies," said Mae calmly. "Remember the rules; everyone for themselves. If the birdie can't keep himself alive, there's no need for him. Better give him a clean death out there than a miserable life in here."
"Yeah, the good old rules." Flor let out a quick breath. "Guess I'll go wake up Rowan and Bea."
Despite William's greatest efforts to listen beyond the mumbles of those waking up and the few refusing to get up, he couldn't hear another word from Mae or Flor. He lost himself in their words. The tattoo itching in his arm gaining a brand new meaning that he hadn't once contemplated. What if he didn't know how to fight?
A hand grabbed his shoulder, its hold quick and strong. Without a clear thought over what he was doing, William turned around to jab the person in the ribs and rushed to stand over them. His sense of reason dissipated at the touch of the cold floor. He could not spare a moment for tricks or threats. His numb mind had reduced his options to two; kill or be killed. Instinct chose kill.
"Alright, that's enough." Somehow, someway, Mae's orders brought back his sense of reason, allowing William to let go of the person's neck, whom turned out to be Henry. "We've got an eager birdie."
George slid down the ladder of his top bunk with a smug grin. "Such a shame. I wanted to watch Henry getting his ass kicked for once."
"Yeah." Henry hummed along, a worrying addition to his side smirk. "I'd like to see if the birdie can make that happen."
Whatever had brought them to that point, William wasn't certain. There was only one thing he knew for sure; he hated wrestling. Five minutes of senseless fighting with Henry had left him being pinned down against the tilled floor with no prospects of getting back up to his feet. Contrary to him, Henry clearly enjoyed toying with the 'birdie'; his tiresome mocking grin did nothing but grow as time went on. The arm against William's throat didn't ease. The longer he allowed Henry to sit over his stomach, grinning widely in triumph, the lesser air that got to his lungs. If Henry didn't want to end his existence right there and then, he was making a brilliant job at hiding it.
No soldier came to William's aid. They all watched idly, while a couple of them even preferred to accompany the show with some smuggled food from their clearly illegal hoard. His life was solely his to defend, and they were making the point come across quite painfully. He lashed out at Henry's hand, managing, for a split second, to get the force pressing his airwaves to waver. When Henry regained enough composition to crush William's neck once more, it was too late. William gripped onto Henry's hand, digging his nails into the boy's flesh without constraint, and squirmed away until he could kick Henry's side with such desperate strength that it made both slump back to the ground. Devoid of any strength in his arms, William placed all his might on his safest bet. He sat right under Henry's stomach, keeping the boy's arms under his legs while pressing a fork that he had knocked out of Leen's hand to Henry's throat.
"Pretty good for a birdie," said Henry. "It's rare to see one use dirty tricks."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Should I have let you suffocate me?" William asked with a soldier-like mockery, though his tone didn't soften despite having the upper hand, as if he feared to be taken down at any second.
"That would have been incredibly disappointing," replied Henry with a smile, one much gentler than his usual ones. "It's the first time someone's lasted more than a minute fighting against me, let alone beat me. I'm impressed, birdie."
Uncomfortable at the sudden praise, William ended the wrestling match. He got up and tossed the fork back to Leen, who sniggered. The bewildering near-death experience left him questioning everything, but he pushed his doubts aside and reached out to help Henry up. "Guess I'm a fast learner."
"What a pleasant coincidence," Henry smirked, the kind that sent shivers down William's spine. "I'm one too."
He had no time to retract his hand. Henry grabbed it with an astounding force and pulled him down effortlessly. He hit the floor face-first—as George loved to put it, 'kissed the floor'—and groaned just as loudly as the soldiers' laughter became. Before he could turn around, the fork was pressing the side of his neck.
"I suggest you give up, birdie." Henry moved the fork downwards, increasing way more than William's defence tenfold.
"What if I don't?" William wiggled his head under Henry's crushing grip to have a proper look on his face. "You'll kill me? Have fun explaining that to Janson. Bet he'll be thrilled to have a mouth less to feed. But, you know, murder can't be that common among normal people. Yet, funny enough, it is the norm among Cranks, isn't it?"
"Birdie's got a fighting spirit in him." Bea drew forward on the bed from where she had been enjoying the show, sporting a smirk that sent another round of shivers down William's spine. "But that doesn't mean he's any good. If he gets bitten, it's over for him."
If they hadn't planned it beforehand, it would be impressive. Leen appeared soundlessly behind Flor, carrying two smuggled knives from the Cafeteria—-about as suitable to become weapons as a tablecloth—and dumped them on the bed to William's right. Her lips contorted into a soldier-like smile and pointed with a knife at the poster with all the 'Sanctuary' rules at the far end of the room.
"Do your best, birdie," said Leen, the knife in her hand striking the letter 's' on the word 'rules' in the blink of an eye. "Your turn."
William took one left and aimed. The Sanctuary's knives were too light, closely resembling plastic despite their metallic feeling. George swore a knife he had thrown when he was the 'birdie' had bent, so nobody could be sure what the cutlery's goal was for. A knife that could cut basic food—yet was useless to stab, throw, or make a deep cut—could never be anything other than oddly suspicious. It would be easy to assume that the 'Sanctuary' was wary of the soldiers' potential to end their own lives or the other's. However, why would that ever be an occurrence in a 'sanctuary'?
The knife flew out of his hand, dashing through the air and colliding against the letter 'e' in the word 'rules'. Somewhat off the mark, but good enough in William's own opinion. Leen thought no differently. She patted his back with a smile and made her way to Bea, who had saved her a 'spot' to her right, where no attention would be drawn to their intertwined hands. The 'birdie' intrigued the soldiers enough to miss it, but not the 'birdie' himself. He saw their smiles, the faint blush on Bea's face, and how that caused a twinkle in Leen's eye. A rush of envy and comfort flowed through William's heart. He had no reason to feel envy, but he welcomed the comfort with open arms. Somehow, with that brief interaction, Leen and Bea had become the closest among the soldiers to what he considered proper humans. The others—along with himself—could very well be zero-morals machines.
"Now, now, I think the birdie's got enough training for today." Henry raised his arm over to William's shoulders, pulling him closer with a wide smile, not comforting in the slightest. "Besides, we've got a mission to carry out. Do we not, boss?"
"Don't call me that ever again." Mae sighed. "Let's get ready."
As the girls made their way to the opposite side of the room, where the rows of beds stretched on, making it impossible to see anything clearly, William admired Henry's and George's nervous pacing from the comfort of his new bed. They circled their row twice, gathering bandages from Henry's bed, then getting pins and bits of rough and sticky fabric somewhere in the bathroom. Without either of them looking where they were doing, avoiding collisions was as constant as William's attempts to fight back his laughter, both equally ineffective.
The sound of a blaring siren reached their ears, causing them to instantly perk up. Despite the constant, though quiet, chatter that had taken over the room until that point, any scraps of communication died down the heavier their breaths got. Henry and George had frozen in place, the stack of bandages slipping away from their grasp, and their eyes wide. Though William couldn't see the girls from his bed's row, they couldn't be any different. There was something clearly wrong. A thought popped up in his mind, 'you can't trust them', but it disappeared just as quickly, hardly giving William a moment to consider it.
Moments after the siren faded away, the soldiers returned to their senses all at once. None kept their prior humour. William nearly thanked George for smiling at him. The sudden change and the lack of mockery in everyone's voice felt out of place. Perhaps it was just his imagination. Amongst the rules Mae had listed, not fooling around was the biggest priority. He was new, so it was likely that the rule applied way earlier than he had anticipated.
"Off with your shirt," commanded Henry, not a trace of a smirk left on his face. "I said off, birdie."
"Why?" he asked with his brow furrowed. "I've got nothing to change into."
George placed a hand on his shoulder, the other gifting him a tall stack of clean bandages. "Wrap this around your torso, arms, and legs. Put your clothes back on when you're finished. It helps in case they bite or scratch you."
Without giving it a proper thought, William took the pile after muttering a brief 'thank you' that got utterly disregarded. He left it by his side and took off his shirt. Every aspect of himself that he'd tried to ignore for hours, unveiled before his eyes. The scars that accompanied his unbearable tattoo stood out under the intense lights.
"Got yourself in trouble before meeting Janson?" asked Henry, his head motioning over to the recent scratches in William's arms.
"If by 'trouble' you count getting stuck in the vents while trying to flee…" William copied George's wrapping motions to bind his chest and part of his stomach, which he could have overestimated as he ended up gasping for air and having to redo all over again. "Yeah, pretty much."
A flicker of a smile appeared on Henry's face. "You're a soldier, alright."
William shot back a cheeky smile, but made no further comments. The soldiers could be unbearably cocky at times, but it was far less horrible than he had expected. He would even dare to say that he was growing to like them, which was likely reciprocated.
"You about done over here?" Bea leaned over the bed at the start of the row, hardly two bunk beds away from where the boys were fixing up their bandages.
"Just one second, please," said William, his attention set on securing his left leg bandage.
"No need to say 'please' and 'thank you' around here, birdie." Bea made an attempt at a chuckle and turned away to glance back at where the girls were idly waiting for them. "We're really not that proper… Meet us at the Cafeteria when you're done. We'll get a mask for you."
"All right, tha—" William cut himself short. "See you there."
Bea nodded with a faint smile. "We'll be waiting."
The girls had all gone when Henry and George exchanged amused glances. Despite William's best efforts to ignore it, the sound of a snigger, which he hadn't heard in what felt like ages, became increasingly difficult to disregard. "What is it?"
"Nothing. Bea's being weird, that's all. She's not usually that nice to us." Henry tilted his head to meet George's quizzical look. "You don't think she hates us, do you?"
With his attention back to his bandage, William chuckled softly. "Bet, if she does, that's your doing."
"That's a hurtful accusation," replied George, a single judgemental eyebrow raised. "What did you do to make her like you? Give her a cookie?"
William smiled widely, a brilliant way he had only just discovered to get on the boys' nerves. "Nothing."
"Liar," said Henry, pausing for a moment to adjust his arm's bandages before adding, "was it two? Two whole cookies?"
"Where in this hell have either of you seen cookies?" William replied. "Besides, I'd gain nothing from her being nice to me. If I had cookies, I wouldn't give them away. However, if I had to, I'd give them to the boss. I've got to guarantee that I live to see tomorrow somehow."
George chuckled. "If you want that, that's not the way to go."
"Everyone's got a price," said William.
"Not Mae," assured Henry. "She'll drag you herself to the cranks. Cowards have no place here."
"Good thing I had nothing to use as a bribe, then." William got up, his clothes lacking their previous subtle loose feeling. "Care to guide me back to the Cafeteria? I've got no clue which way we took to get here."
Once his need to explain or reminisce about the 'old times' of two or three months ago at every step had died down, Henry became quite an agreeable guide. He still spoke rather often, though, without forcing William and George to halt at every turn. William had found the previous attitude tedious, and he could tell George thought it to be exhausting. They had laughed about it during once of Henry's name-slip-ups.
The Cafeteria could have grown wider during their absence. The tables that once appeared large enough for a group of eight held the five girls at its corner, far from nearing the middle of the table. When the doors swung to close behind William, the light chatter the girls had fought to maintain naturally died down, allowing it to transform into a discussion of strategies and rules to keep an eye out for.
Janson appeared to show them to the outside himself. To keep 'Sanctuary' traditions, they marched through a maze of hallways until the loading dock, an immense space of various floors that guarded the portions and whatever other necessities that had to be covered by cloth or hidden under a lock. At the very entrance, in front of a metallic door that reached up to the second floor, a bus awaited.
A person dressed in military clothing got down in a heartbeat, their hand near their belt, where a polished gun rested quietly in their holster. "I see you've got another newbie." They gave no chance for anybody to say a thing, nor did anybody try, and continued. "You better not die off too soon, soldier. Greatness awaits you. Better live to witness it."
Not daring to say a word, William nodded and glanced over to George, who stood firm at his side. He shook his head lightly, as if saying, 'not worth it', and fixated his sight back to the front. Once the military person, whom introduced themselves as 'The Commander', had grown to ignore the newbie's presence, they went over an endless list of orders. Those William paid good mind to were reduced to two; 'all soldiers are forbidden from talking back or refusing direct orders', and, 'all soldiers stand by themselves, whoever falls is as good as dead'.
The Commander glanced at each one of them, their face hidden under a thick black helmet. "Got it, soldiers?"
"Yes, Commander!" said all soldiers at once, though not the newbie.
That ticked The Commander in the wrong way. "I said, got it, soldier?"
William refrained himself from nodding and stood as straight as his bandages allowed him to arch his back. "Yes, Commander."
Having angered his second boss on his first day, William got pulled into the bus by his arm and dropped into a front-row seat. The soldiers rushed in without pushing while avoiding The Commander's helmet set on their faces. Thankfully, when William had resigned himself to have The Commander to his side for however long the travel could take, George sat beside him.
"Bunk mates are bound to be seatmates," George whispered. "Don't let it get to you. There hasn't been one of us they've been nice to."
"Reckon they hate me the most," whispered back William.
They immediately fell silent when the Commander turned around, as if they were afraid of their non-existing gaze. That silence reigned for the entirety of their brief journey. At the other end of the sand hill, no different from what the orders had told them, there was a Berg Station that could any day get confused for an abandoned building. Countless of pilots swarmed the entrance, some about to board their Berg, others forming a crowd to have a peek of the soldiers, which the pilots had an odd nickname for. A nickname that William had heard by chance at passing near them;'WICKED's mad dogs'.