In The Afterlight

I’d noticed her slight limp the night before as we moved to and from the Mess Hall, but her right leg was clearly stiffer that morning, and the movement was more pronounced.

“What happened?” I whispered, watching her catch herself on the edge of her bunk. The moment she slid over the side of her bed and down to the ground, her ankle collapsed under her. I leaned over to help her make up her bed, since no one had bothered to give me sheets to use on mine, and tried to see what had caused it.

In their typical casual cruelty, the PSF in the Infirmary had given me a summer uniform set, shorts and a shirt, but the others wore their winter ones—long-sleeved shirts and pants. The loose fabric hid whatever was it was that was bothering her.

“Snake bite,” Vanessa answered as Sam pushed past me to line up. “Don’t ask. She won’t talk about it.”

The Garden was all the way at the far end of the camp, opposite the entry gate. The electrified fence sang to you when you got this close to it; when I was younger, I used to imagine that the hum came from families of bugs that lived in the trees surrounding us. I don’t know why that made it feel more bearable.

Our Red escort was the same boy we’d had the night before: hair shaved, eyes dark and almond-shaped. Beside me Sam cringed, her hands balled up tight at her sides, and limped along.

They took the life out of them, I thought, stepping through the low white fence and taking the small plastic shovel that was handed to me. I knew so little about how they had been—what had Clancy called it? Reprogrammed? Reconditioned? Mason had been shattered by what they’d done to his mind. Maybe they’d made a mistake with him, or he hadn’t been strong enough to take what they’d dealt him.

How many Reds were involved in Project Jamboree? Was it possible that—no. Stop it, I ordered myself, think about anything else but that.

A PSF was passing out heavy work coats, which they allowed us to have while we were out here. He looked down at the number across my chest and skipped me completely. The ten-year-old me would have accepted the punishment, mind fixed on the cruel smile the soldier offered in exchange instead. But I didn’t have to accept anything now. His mind was like glass, and all I had to do was pass through it like a ray of light. I shuffled back, taking the coat from him.

I followed my line down to the mounds of earth they’d turned up yesterday and knelt down. The dirt gave way under the softest touch, packing beneath my nails as I used the shovel to ease the buried potatoes up from the ground. I brushed the dark dirt away.

The shade of burnt skin.

I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth, instinctively looking up at the three red vests standing near the entrance. They stoically watched as each cabin of kids filed in and accepted their assignments.

Are they the same Reds?

My fingers flexed, tightening around the shovel. I glanced sideways, to my right. Sam was only miming work, smoothing dirt away. Still, after all this time, they forced us into alphabetical order.

“How long have they been here?” I asked in a low voice. “The Reds?”

At first, I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. I pulled the next potato up and dropped into the plastic tub between us.

“Three months, maybe,” was the reply, just as quiet. “I’m not sure.”

I sagged slightly, blowing out a soft sigh. They weren’t Sawtooth Reds. But that meant more camps, more reconditioning facilities.

“Don’t you...don’t you recognize some of them?” Sam whispered, leaning over as if to help me. “A few of them used to be here.”

I couldn’t risk another glance back to confirm this; I’m not sure I would have been able to, anyway. The Reds at Thurmond had always lived in my memory with shadowed faces. All of the dangerous ones did. But I knew for certain that I didn’t recognize the Red that Sam kept searching for; every time she found him, she shuddered and oriented herself away from his gaze. But, like clockwork, she’d look up at him again.

“Do you know him?” I whispered.

She hesitated so long, I didn’t think she would answer. But finally she nodded.

“From before? Before-before?”

Sam swallowed hard, then nodded again.

Sympathy swept through me, leaving me at a loss for what to say. I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t begin to imagine what this felt like.

A PSF passed behind us, whistling without a tune, making his way up the rows between each patch of vegetation. The Garden was enormous, at least half a mile long, and required the most supervision. The handheld White Noise machine clattered against his supply belt, swaying in time to his slow steps.

I risked another glance up, realizing why my skin had crawled the moment he came into sight. This was one of the PSFs who oversaw work in the Factory—the one who liked to press himself up against the girls, hassle them to get them flustered, and then punish them for reacting in any small way. It hadn’t made sense then what he was doing to me, to Sam, to the other girls, and we’d just stood there and taken it silently. Now, though—now I had a pretty good sense of what he’d really been doing, and it lit my fury. He strolled by us and Sam stiffened. I wondered if she could smell him, too—a salty, sharp tang of vinegar, mixed with cigarette smoke and aftershave.

I didn’t relax until he was a good ten girls away from us.

“Ruby,” Sam whispered, earning admonishing glances from the girls working the row across from us. “Something happened...after you left, I realized something was wrong. With me. My head.”