Story Georgie (complete)

[Kathy in FL]

I'm not sure all has seen or read this one. I'm editing it and will post a chapter at a time. It is finished and about the same "fast pace" as Quinn was. It is an earlier story so you'll note the difference in writing style, and that it is a little rough in places. Some of that can be attributed to style.

As soon as I get it posted here, I'll create a downloadable version as well.

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Prologue​

"Georgie what did they mean?"

"I don't know Caro. You need to be quiet so I can think."

"OK," the first girl responded to the second.

Georgie found herself fighting against the confusion that regularly tried to swamp her when there were too many sounds going on at the same time. Without realizing it she curled up and put her hands over her ears.

Caro, a chunky, blank-faced girl with almond-shaped eyes and hair cropped so short you could see the scalp of her irregular shaped skull scooted over to her friend and gently patted her shoulder. "Poor Georgie. It's OK. Devil Woman shouldn't have taken your ear plugs. Poor Georgie."

Slowly the girl called Georgie, sporting the same frayed jumpsuit and hairstyle as her friend, fought back the chaos, and pulled individual words and phrases from the maelstrom of sound in her brain. As she rocked the words became almost like pictures in her head.

"... no room at the inn Colonel."
"My authority ..."
"... funding?"
"... make do ..."
"Temporary? Unknown at this time ..."
"Soldiers do not belong in a place like ..."
"... limited options ..."
" ... amputees, PTSD, head traumas, recovering POWs ... we aren't equipped for ..."
"... triaged ..."
"Colonel, this is ridiculous. I refuse ..."
"I don't give a damn Director. You will ..."

Cautiously Georgie took her hands away from her ears and sat up with the help of Caro.

"You came back Georgie."

"Yes. We need to find Roland."

Georgie and Caro carefully crawled out of the space created by the intersection of several old duct work systems. Caro looked at Georgie who held up her hand to one ear while covering the other completely. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Then her eyes flew open and she looked around in near panic before startling Caro with a squeal and a loud, "Tag! You're it!!"

She gave a carefree laugh, and turned to run only after a few steps to slam into the chest of a large man in uniform who was accompanied by another man wearing orderly scrubs. Caro became frightened and backed away but was unwilling to run and leave her friend.

George slowly backed away as well, breathing hard, to stand protectively in front of Caro.

The soldier made a disgusted face. "Damn. How many of these you got around here?" His comm unit rang and he started talking into it while still grimacing at the picture the two girls made.

The orderly, used to similar reactions from the few outsiders who came to the Pickering Triage Center, ignored the soldier and addressed the two girls quietly. "Georgina, Caroline ... we have guests and new arrivals today. You need to return to the community room." As further encouragement, he added, "Mrs. Carver has the Tri-V on."

Watching the Tri-V was Caro's favorite activity next to following Georgie around and she started pulling her friend to go. Georgie however was blinking rapidly and rocking stiffly in place. The soldier noticed as he closed his comm link and asked, "Is it having a fit or something?"

The orderly briefly closed his eyes in angry frustration but then turned to the soldier and said, "Back up about five paces, quietly, and stay there."

The soldier, as if afraid of being infected, followed the orderly's instruction. The orderly looked at Caro, smiled gently and asked, "Can you get Georgina back to the dorm? It looks like she needs a lie down."

Caro smiled and answered, "Sure Mr. Waverly."

"That's a good girl."

Caro guided her friend towards the dorm, knowing that as soon as Georgie got into her room and crawled into her closet for a while she'd be fine. She always was.

As the two girls disappeared around a corner the soldier shuddered in disgust. "Holy hell. It's inhuman that things like that are forced to live. Were they botched aborts?"

"No," Waverly answer with gritted teeth. "Caroline has a mild case of Down's Syndrome. Georgina is more complicated. She has some kind of neurological disorder obviously ..."

"Obviously," the soldier said sarcastically.

Waverly sighed and started walking towards the staff wing. "Look, if you are going to be here you need to get rid of your prejudices or you'll just create problems with facility staff and residents."

"I don't need to do anything. Those freaks are outlaws and ..."

Waverly finally lost his patience. "OK let's set a few things straight. One? You are as much a 'resident' as the rest of us are. So join the freak club and get over yourself. Two? Our current ... and lawful ... residents have fewer health problems than those of you who are new to the facility. If they didn’t, they wouldn't have made it this far."

"Like hell," the soldier said, clearly affronted to be lumped in with what he considered to be defectives.

"OK let's put this in a way you can understand it shall we? The only reason there is room for you lot is because our Terminal Ward is empty. Some of you men will never leave that ward. From what few of the records I've seen thus far, some of you might even wind up in the lockdown ward. And for a fact, some of you will wind up in Potter's Field unless your family can pay your Death Tax and claim your body."

"Shut up."

"Nope. Reality time soldier. And I can guarantee if you take a swing at me, you will be the first one to make your way to lockdown. Got it? Good. Now listen close. Those kids are all that remains of the Terror Blue Attack."

The soldiers face went blank in shock.

"That's right Johnson. The terrorist attack on the St. Margaret's Pregnancy and Fertility Clinic."

"All them people died."

"Correction. Most of them died. About fifty adults and as many newborns were quarantined after surviving the initial attack. Many of the adults were pregnant women who had been there the day of the attack for appointments. Within six months all but six of the adults were dead, most of the infants were dead, and about half of the babies that were born during the quarantine period as well."

"The virus did that to them?"

"No. Poor health care during quarantine caused some of it. Premature births were another cause. The babies that were normal and survived were quietly turned over to Child Protective Services after quarantine was lifted. Those deemed unadoptable were permanently triaged and sent here."

"How come I never heard about this? Not even in my college classes."

Waverly briefly wondered how the man had even made it in college if he was this stupid. "Welcome to the Land of Reality, Lt. Johnson. There's a lot of stuff that never makes it into the history books or onto the Tri-V news. What you need to get through your head is that you've fallen into the same black hole those kids were shoved in."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Feeling sorry for the guy Waverly dialed back his attitude but still told him the brutal truth. "Look, there are no doctors here. We've got one that comes around once a month but that's it. You men are triaged just like the other residents. When what you've brought with you is gone, there isn't anymore. The food the residents eat is whatever slop comes in on the supply train. You'll eat it just like they do or starve. You get sick you better be able to count on your friends to help you. You get too sick you are put in isolation, and you take care of yourself. Pickerings is not set up for visitors or resident mail service, so no help is coming from the outside. And as a permanently triaged and debilitated individual, you will likely live here or someplace like here for the remainder of your life. So, if I were you, I would give serious consideration to creating some goodwill with those you call freaks because somehow, some way, they've managed to be strong enough to survive sixteen years of this. Because let me tell you, from where I'm standing you are going to need all the help you can get."

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter One
​

Had a bad episode today. Should have known I was in for a hard time after Victor knocked over the rolling rack of breakfast trays and then had a meltdown. By the time Roland and the other boys got him calmed down enough that Devil Woman stopped threatening to send him to Lock Down I was bad sick to my stomach. The static in my head was so loud I wanted to bang my head on the floor.

Roland saw and told Caro to take me for a walk. Usually I would have headed straight for the gazebo but it was raining so we went to the empty floors to walk. That's when I heard the voices. They were getting so loud even Caro could hear them. Roland always says that since they never tell us anything we have to listen when we can so we can take care of each other. So that's what I did but I listened too hard, too long before I was fully recovered.

Roland says we can't get caught listening because we could get in trouble and sent to isolation or maybe even Lock Down. So, I was being careful before Caro and I left the mechanical room. They were way too close, so I decided to pretend we were playing tag.

But the man with Mr. Waverly got a call on a comm link. The pitch of the squeal was the straw that broke the camel's back. Poor Caro. She missed most of her Tri-V show taking care of me. She said that it's OK but it's not. I need to figure out a way to make it up to her. She's such a good friend.

I missed dinner. I'm waiting for last bed check and for them to lock down the ward and turn the electric off and then I'll pull my bag out of the closet. There isn't a whole lot left. I can't wait for the rain to stop to see if there are mushrooms in the woods yet. I also need to see Roland and tell him what I heard so maybe he can piece things out.

*****

"Roland? You awake?"

There was a creak and then a voice whispered, "Yeah. Is there a problem Georgie?"

"No. Just need to tell you stuff."

"Stuff about the people that were put in the old Terminal Wing?"

"Yeah."

"Ok. Roll my chair over here. Ol' DW pushed it to the wall again."

There was no need to explain. Ol' DW - short for Devil Woman - was one of only two nurses employed at Pickering and she was as much a resident as her charges due to pricking her finger on a sample during the original Terror Blue Attack. She acted out her anger at life with passive aggressive zeal against "the children" at every opportunity.

As Georgie helped Roland into his wheelchair she noticed a reddened patch of skin. "Roland ..."

"I know Georgie."

"I'll put some Aloe on it."

"OK," Roland said nonchalantly despite the location of the forming pressure sore. All "the children" exhibited little to no modesty. Of them all Roland and Georgie might have but circumstances and living arrangements had molded their natural instincts into a high level of trust and dependence on each other. Some might fight the staff touching or seeing them, but with each other they were completely oblivious to the social norms of adolescence.

Once Roland was seated and upright, he and Georgie rolled to what was once the nurse's station but was now just one more storage space. On the walls were childish drawings, a years-out-of-date calendar, and several posters of the variety designed to remind staff of good hygiene and when to report an incident for write up.

While Georgie went over to a stack of boxes and pushed them aside to gain access to an ancient first aid kit, Roland levered himself up and leaned over the old desk.

Georgie came back and lowered his overalls enough to put aloe gel on the sore and a clean homemade bandage. Anyone watching her would have seen she was surprisingly competent. In fact, George was the "doctor" for most of what ailed her peers.

She said, "Victor is supposed to help you do your exercises so this doesn't happen. You can't cover for him if he isn't."

After a brief pause Roland admitted, "He's getting worse. He's too angry and won't listen anymore. I ... I don't know how much longer he'll be with us."

Sadly but realistic Georgie nodded. "We haven't lost anyone in almost two years, but Victor is getting dangerous. He pushed Pamela three days ago and she would have fallen down the stairwell if Joey hadn't caught her hand. Victor is too big to act out like this. I saw Mr. Waverly and Mrs. Carver talking."

"I know. Victor got another write up. One more and he'll got to Lockdown."

"There's nothing left to help him with Roland. I've read his chart over and over and looked in all the books that Nurse Cassie left us. His hyper-thyroid is getting out of control. He's hardly sleeping, and his mood swings are totally unpredictable. I got his heart rate better by saving the real salt for his food but the rest of us need salt too."

Roland sighed. "How long?"

"Maybe a week if he holds to his recent pattern. No more than that since he only has one strike left. And if he hits a Staff ..."

"Yeah." The two were quiet, absorbing the seemingly inevitable loss to come. Eventually Roland sighed in acceptance and said, "You heard news?"

Georgie told him what she had heard word-for-word. Roland rolled it around in his head a few minutes before he was ready to come up with a hypothesis.

"They're soldiers. They are on permanent triage. But things must be going bad if they've run out of room for them in their places like the VAs."

"Or maybe they're immunes too," Georgie interjected.

"I don't think so, but maybe. No way to say yet. I'll ask."

Georgie put her hand on Roland's arm. "They won't be ready to talk. Not for a while."

"You get an impression?"

*****

Georgina Pearl Rytech had been born during quarantine. She, like the other children, had been exposed to the X13 virus in the womb. She was born prematurely and immune to X13, but not immune to the lack of care she received after her parents died of the disease shortly after her birth. A common cold virus went through the nursery; most of the babies that caught it lived but some developed complications. Georgie's cold caused out of control fevers that left her lethargic, weak, and unresponsive. Up until she was four, she had been diagnosed as possibly brain damaged or suffering from an extreme form of autism. Either, according to federal healthcare guidelines, warranted permanent triage.

When the children were four years old a new influence entered their lives; Cassandra Troy, a nurse practitioner who belonged to a new Christian sect. They were law-abiding activists, dedicated to ministering to those who, due to force of law, could not access healthcare through the normal routes. They were also celibate by choice since being in contact with such people often meant becoming permanently triaged themselves.

Cassandra, or Nurse Cassie as the children came to call her, chose her life after losing her only child to an in-the-wild variant of X13 and watching her marriage crumble afterwards. She knew she would have almost nothing to work with except what she arrived with, so she made every pound of her allotted moving weight count. The greatest thing she came armed with was knowledge.

First she made sure the children were all properly diagnosed. To her horror, she discovered that most were not potty trained and non-verbal, not due to mental incapacity but due to neglect. It took two years and some losses but the improvement in the children's ability to interact with their surroundings and each other was so unbelievable that several teams from government oversight investigated.

Nurse Cassie, through her contacts in the outside world, acquired educational material and toys for the children. Their lives and health improved accordingly. Two of the children stood out - Roland and Georgina. Roland's only deficit was a damaged spinal column that prevented him from being able to walk. That happened when an untrained person pulled him from his mother's birth canal. Nurse Cassie found an old wheelchair in one of the abandoned floors of Pickering and with the help of other staff members, modified it for Roland's use. Georgie was more difficult though in the end, the "fix" was so easy as to be laughable.

Georgie, it turns out, suffers from an extreme type of auditory processing disorder. It is unclear whether she was born this way or developed the disorder as a result of the high fevers she had as a newborn. One day Nurse Cassie observed Georgie playing dress up. It didn't matter what costume she picked, she had to wear the football helmet with it as well. If she couldn't wear the helmet she wouldn't play or engage. Then Nurse Cassie observed the other children giving the helmet to Georgie even if it wasn't her turn. This evolved into Georgie wearing the helmet all the time.

Nurse Cassie tried to stop this behavior and make Georgie share. She was startled when the other children refused to cooperate. It was sweet Caro who informed Nurse Cassie that Georgie came up with really fun games but only if she was wearing her "magic hat."

"It keeps the dragons out of her head."

With that clue and a few additional diagnostic tests, Nurse Cassie was able to discover a way to help Georgie function normally ... ear plugs. She also discovered Georgie's hearing had a greater range than what was considered normal when she would repeat something she had overheard that most people would not have been able to hear. She also unconsciously had learned to read lips, and as a side benefit also had an uncannily accurate grasp on facial expressions and body language.

Nurse Cassie quietly molded Roland and Georgie into leaders and caregivers for the rest of the children and taught all of them to be as secretly self-sufficient as possible. Part of this was teaching them to use natural and holistic medicine. She also taught them what plants in the private grounds around Pickering were good to eat and/or good for medicinal purposes. She taught them to garden and established the tradition of the children having a garden with flowers, herbs, and some veggies. The rest of the staff hardly even gave it a thought these days, it was simply something to keep the children constructively occupied and out of trouble.

Then came the fateful day that Nurse Cassie herself became ill. It turned out to be a fast-moving cancer. She died with all the dignity with which she had lived and by her own choice was buried in Pickering's small, private cemetery.

She had spent her last months cramming every bit of knowledge she could into Roland's and Georgie's heads. Most of all though she taught them how important information and discretion were. The children already had a loose information gathering system; after Nurse Cassie's death Roland devised a more sophisticated one.

Since he was not very mobile Roland came to view himself as a spider while the other children were the web. They would catch bits and pieces of information that fluttered by them and he would then weave it into the tapestry and knowledge they had about the staff, their life inside Pickering, and the world beyond it. For more detailed reconnaissance, Georgie's talents came in handy though some days were better for her than others.

*****

"Was Caro able to tell you what Mr. Waverly and the soldier said?"

"Yeah, the words but not much else. The soldier scared her, and she said Waverly was angry."

"He was, but not at us. And the soldier was scared and didn't like feeling that way. The Director isn't happy either but it’s more about money than anything else. There's a colonel but I don't think he will do anything but leave the soldiers here. He sounded just like the federal investigators do ... only wants to hear things will work according the rules and his timetable, doesn't want to know about stuff that doesn't."

"Same impression I got. We watched from the window as the soldiers arrived. About half are on stretchers, most of the rest of them look like they've been in Isolation or maybe even Lockdown. I've told everyone to stay away until we see if they are going to cause trouble."

"All of the men are like that?"

"They aren't all men. There are some grown women too."

"Hmmm. I wonder ..."

"I said every one Georgie."

It wasn't often that Roland used that tone, and even rarer that he used it with Georgie. But in this instance, he had read Georgie correctly. "Roland, it's my sovereign duty. I promised that if I saw someone I could help, that I would."

"No. These are grown people ... especially the men could be dangerous."

"You mean they could be like Benson was."

"Yes, that's what I mean."

Carl Benson had been an orderly at Pickering for three years. He was also a sexual pervert and pedophile. Nurse Cassie had tried to get rid of him almost from the moment he arrived. For over a year she fought with the administrators though without proof and only the testimony of deficient children. Then one day he'd gone too far and Mr. Waverly had witnessed him touching one of the children inappropriately. Before Benson could be brought up on charges he fell or jumped from the roof. No one mourned him but it served as a lesson in trust to the children.

"So I'll start with the women. Maybe that's how we can see which ones are ok and which ones aren't."

Roland clinched and un-clinched his fists showing his frustration and concern. "I don't like it."

"I'll be careful. Just like I was with Mr. Waverly. That turned out good."

"Mr. Waverly is a nice man."

"Maybe some of the soldiers are too. Nurse Cassie said we need to stick together."

"Yeah ... 'we' do. They aren't us. They're from outside."

"But they aren't outside anymore. They live here now." And while she had the advantage she pushed, "If nothing else we should get as much information from them as we can."

After a short, internal struggle Roland nodded. "But we still wait a few days and just watch."

Slowly Georgie nodded, knowing that was as far as Roland would go. "All right. We'll wait. And watch."

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Two​

It's been three days. The soldiers stayed in the Terminal Wing but last night I started hearing screams of pain. I kept waiting for someone to help the screamer, but it just kept going on and on until I couldn't stand it anymore. I started to sneak away but Roland caught me.

"Georgie ..."

"I'm sorry Roland. I have to try. God is watching."

Roland grumbled before moving away from the door. "I hope He has some of those angels of His watching too."

I patted his arm and said, "He does. He always does."

I had my satchel over my shoulder and my earplugs in; Mr. Waverly got them away from DW and gave them back to me. I walked over to the Terminal Wing but got a surprise when I got there to find some of the staff rolling the screaming soldier away towards Isolation. Luckily it was Mr. Waverly in charge and not one of the others. He sent off the other staffer saying he could handle the screamer. Then he let me try my stuff; he said it couldn't hurt.

A couple of the soldiers look on from the door of the exam room where Mr. Waverly had taken the soldier. Some of them were angry but mostly what I got from them was fear and depression. It took most of the night, but I finally got the screaming man to stop and go to sleep. I'm really tired but DW has been up to tricks, so I haven't dared to take a nap. I took a good look at DW and I think she is sick. The whites of her eyes aren't as white as they should be. I think making her own "medicine" is finally catching up with her. If her skin starts yellowing then I'll know it is her liver.

I tried to tell her once that her medicine wasn't good and she slapped me really hard and locked me in Isolation for a week, claiming I'd made threats to hurt myself. Roland was mad and said no matter what I promised Nurse Cassie I wasn't obligated to help devils and not to do it ever again. I haven't because it scared the others so bad when I was gone but if DW starts hurting I will have to try again even if it makes the rest of us upset.

Sometimes making oaths on the Bible like I did with Nurse Cassie is a hard thing to live up to.

*****

"What are you doing? Get away from him you freak!"

Georgie took the finger of the hand that reached for her and bent it backwards so that the big man dropped to his knees. "I am trying to help him. You are getting in the way."

Mr. Waverly said, "None of that Georgina. They just don't understand. Yet. Can you help him?"

"Can someone tell me what happened to make him scream?"

A tired older man limped in. "The boy has PTSD so they say."

Georgie asked, "Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough? Ran out of his meds yesterday and this is what happened."

It took the name of the medication and some searching in two of Nurse Cassie's books but Georgie realized that the medicine had been stopped "cold turkey" and that one of the side effects of doing it that way was violent hallucinations.

"He's got DTs. If we can keep him from hurting himself while he goes through them, I think we can figure out a way to help him."

Mr. Waverly said, "That's a tall order Georgina. After he broke his restraints the third time ..."

"Isolation. I know, but that's not a good place for him until we find out why he's scared."

Eventually when all else failed Georgie started wiping the man's face with cool water and singing to him quietly the way she managed some of the children when they would have a bad episode or get scared. Finally, after an hour the young man slowly began to respond and his screams tapered off. He still babbled unintelligibly but then bit by bit relaxed and fell into an exhausted slumber.

Mr. Waverly said, "You need to get back."

Georgie nodded tiredly. "Yes. But I have to come back and check on him later. Do you think someone will stay with him?"

The limping older man who eventually said to call him Chaplin said, "I'll stay with him. If the poor bastard is lucky, he'll sleep the clock around."

Georgie shook her head. "He needs to drink. He's sweated buckets more than I was able to get down him. He needs it to flush the nasties out of his system."

Georgie was walking out of the ward when the same man, Lt. Johnson, stepped in front of her and demanded, "Who are you? What are you?"

George could have felt a lot of things at the rudeness of those questions but instead she took one look into the man's eyes and felt a deep compassion. "My name is Georgie - or the grown ups call me Georgina. What I am is someone that wants to be your friend and help. But I know I can't be until you're ready. So, until then if you have questions - real questions - I'll see if I can answer them." She stopped and sighed. "But not right now 'cause I have to go back to the others before I get in trouble. Plus, Roland will be worried."

Georgie slipped around the door, just making it to her room before morning roll call.

There was rampant curiosity about the girl by those that had witnessed her manner. Chaplin was the first to say, "She don't seem like a defective."

Waverly was almost too tired to be affronted. "Don't call the children that."

"And she don't look much like a kid either."

"And none of that either or I'll lock the ward down myself and lose the key."

"Easy Waverly. You're reading something that isn't there. Just mean she ain't what I expected when all we've heard is that we're bivouacking with a bunch of defective children."

Waverly pinched the bridge of his nose and then gave a brief rundown of the children's history. "Georgina and Roland should have led perfectly normal lives except for the circumstances of their births. Roland would have received physical therapy early on and probably not become wheelchair bound - he still has feeling in his lower extremities, just not real motor control. And Georgina should have been screened and fitted with proper hearing aids and not just earplugs. All the two of them needed was minor attention in infancy and they could have been deemed fit to be in society. But they were orphans and are completely immune to X13 and all its variants, so they were sent here to this bloody ..." He looked at the men watching him. "Once a month the federal vampires show up to siphon a pint of blood off of each of them. That blood is the sole source for the serum that has become the only viable treatment in the world for X13."

There was stunned silence. Mr. Waverly smiled cynically. "So gentlemen ... and ladies ... what's your take on our residents now? Still think they are defective mistakes that should be euthanized?"

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Three​

The screaming man’s name is Peterson. He still has bad dreams, but he says not every night. He doesn’t like a lot of loud noise either so I’ve shown him the places he can go to soak up quiet. Chaplin goes with him. I think they look after each other because Peterson helps Chaplin when his twisted leg won’t hold him up or pulls and draws on him. I am making an infusion from some herbs to help but it takes time.

They have been here two weeks and they have had a sad time of it. Two of the men on stretchers are now dead. There is nothing I could do. They both came to live here with infections already deep in their bellies. It was all I could do to manage the pain they were in. A Euthanist showed up and took the men away when one of the staff said their pain was inhuman. Then one of the women – a quiet one that had been held prisoner by the enemy and treated badly – ran away. They searched and found her below a really tall tree; she either fell out or jumped, either way the results were the same. All three are now in potter’s field.

They put the whole terminal ward on lock down for that. After two days Roland tried to talk to the Director, but she was mad because she said the soldiers don’t belong here and were creating problems. The lockdown was lifted when some man in uniform came and talked to the soldiers. A Euthanist was there too. Roland is pretty sure the soldiers were being asked whether they wanted to die or not and if they did, they could take care of it right there and get it over with. I’m not sure but I could tell the Euthanist was disappointed that she hadn’t been needed.

I was worried for a bit that the Director would ask her to take a look at Victor but that didn’t happen. Victor is in permanent lockdown but at least we know he is still alive. I wish I could go check on him and the others that have been sent there but that is the one place I cannot go. It is down in the basement and can only be accessed by a special entrance in the administrative offices that stays locked all the time. None of the staff will tell us what goes on there, not even Nurse Cassie would. She said though we had better just never get put there because no one will ever get out once they go in.

It is the only thing Roland and I are really afraid of. When Nurse Cassie was dying she tried to tell us the secret of lockdown but she was so weak by then all we could understand was the word “purgatory.” We looked it up and it is not a place we ever want to be.

I explained this to the soldiers but I think they think I am exaggerating and telling a spooky story. Most of them at least listen to Roland now that they’ve met him. They still act like I’m sick with something catching. One thing did happen that was nice.

DW took one of my earplugs and then accidentally on purpose forgot to warn us they were having a fire drill. I was caught off guard coming back from looking for Mr. Waverly. The bells were so loud. It felt like my head was going to explode but I got outside and got counted so I didn’t get in trouble. Then I helped with those of us that get upset and scared by the surprise drills. Then I had to help with some of the soldiers. There was too much talking and then DW blew the all-clear whistle right beside me.

I had a brown out in my head. Only half of it was working and only half of that was working right. I came to myself in the gazebo. Caro was patting my hand but Peterson had his hands over my ears.

He said, “Your friend Roland said this would help.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Figured this gives me a chance to payback what you did for me.”

Caro said, “We don’t payback, we’re all just friends. That’s what friends do. We take care of each other.”

I nodded. “Uh huh.”

“Well, I’ll try and remember that. Now are you two ladies ready to go in? Smells like rain is coming shortly.”

Caro’s eyes got real big and then she giggled. I think it was being called a lady. It was funny. But what was even funnier was when we were walking back and ran into Lt. Johnson. I could tell he was uncomfortable but not mad uncomfortable. He was confused uncomfortable with no mad in it which made for a nice change. Still I thought it was better that Caro and I went away.

*****

Lt. Johnson looked at the girls who were already turning away and said, “Wait. Uh …”

Georgie asked, “Is someone sick?”

“No. Uh … look is that old lady like that all the time?”

Caro whispered, “I think he means DW.”

Georgie patted her shoulder and gently nudged her to join another group of “the children” heading to the garden. After she left and they all waved happily back at Georgie she turned to the two soldiers. “Please be careful. She can make things hard.”

Peterson said, “You talking about Nurse Kilpatrick? Why don’t you complain about her?”

“It doesn’t work that way here. Besides she’s as much a resident as all of us are. She is the only adult left from when we were all born.”

“What happened to the others?”

“Nurse Cassie,” Georgie and Roland had explained who she was in relation to how Georgie knew how to take care of people. “She found out that three of them came with us … including DW … and three of them went someplace else. She never told us what happened to the three that went someplace else but I know that DW is the only one left here.”

“What happened to the other two?”

“One died in isolation. She cut herself on purpose and it got infected. The other man tried to run away and was put in Lockdown and was never seen again. Nurse Cassie came to replace him on staff. I guess Mr. Waverly and Roland have told you the rest.”

“Yeah.” Lt. Johnson sighed, looked mildly irritated with himself and then pulled something from his pocket. “Here.”

Georgie took what he offered and then froze when she saw it was a small plastic baggie of ear plugs similar to her own pair.

Peterson shook his head. “I should have thought of that.”

“I …” Georgie was confused now herself.

“Go on. Take ‘em. It isn’t like I’m ever going to be in the middle of ordinance going off again. Doubt if I’ll ever even see a rifle range.”

Georgie shrugged. “Maybe Mr. Russell will help you.”

“Who’s Russell?”

“The Head of Grounds and Security. Once a month he sets up what he calls a proficiency test and makes all the staff take a turn whether they want to or not. Maybe he’d let you take a turn since you are soldiers.”

With that Georgie forced herself to give the earplugs back but Johnson wouldn’t take them.

“Keep ‘em, we’ve got more. Just don’t let that nurse spot ‘em.”

Georgie nearly blinded the two men with her smile before she ran to find Roland to tell him of her new treasure.

Embarrassed Johnson complained, “Damn those kids are too easy to please.”

“You dropping the word freak?” Peterson needled him.

In disgust he griped, “Like Waverly says, we’re all freaks now. But that hag better not try nothing with me. Damn drunk.”

“Yeah, she’s getting her toot on from some place. That kid Roland calls it her homemade medicine.”

“Don’t give a damn what they call it, hooch is hooch. Can’t believe they’d keep a drunk – functioning or not – on staff taking care of a bunch of def … er … kids.”

“Chaplin and I have been watching them. It’s more like those kids look after each other. The ones that aren’t too bad off take care of the ones that are.”

“What about Waverly? He’s an orderly.”

“He’s more a facilitator than anything else. He only gets involved if there’s a problem. I know for a fact he’s got some kind of feud going with the Hag … the kids call her Devil Woman … DW for short.”

“Suits her,” Johnson said dryly. The two men made their way slowly back to their wing. Then Johnson grumbled. “You know what that kid Reginald did? He drew a picture and told me to stick it on the wall by my bed.”

Peterson snorted. “Got one too. The kid said it is to make me feel happy. How the hell can anyone be happy in this crap heap? Place looks like one of those horror movie settings.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Four​

I’m scared. They sent more soldiers to live here only not to live here for always, just until they get well and can go fight again. Those soldiers started pushing our soldiers around and calling them names because they can’t go to war anymore. Bad names. Then they beat up on Chaplin ‘cause he wouldn’t fight them first. Then our soldiers fought them back.

Mr. Russell had to shoot his gun to make the fight stop. I thought my head was going to explode even with my ear plugs in. A lot of the soldiers were hurt but only the other ones are getting healthcare. Then I got in trouble for helping our soldiers. The Director wouldn’t punish me for helping them, but I did get in trouble for being out of bounds after hours. I didn’t even know that was a rule and then the Director got mad because DW hadn’t posted the new rules like she was told to do. DW smarted off to the Director and Went Too Far.

DW has been sent to Isolation … something Mr. Waverly told Mr. Russell is the old “drunk tank.” I saw them whispering that she is very sick and that she is having the “DT’s drying out” which I think means she misses her homemade medicine more than is good for her.

The Director said my punishment is that I have to do the jobs that DW did plus look after our soldiers too. And if I don’t do a good job, it will be my fault if she has to call a Euthanist or if someone is sent away to Lockdown.

**********

“So you just can’t fight anymore!” Georgie cried to the soldiers. “I don’t want you to go to Lockdown.”

“Hey Kid, stop that,” a black and blue Johnson snapped.

“I can’t. I promised. I promised Nurse Cassie. On a Bible! I promised I would take care of us. I …”

“I said knock it off,” he repeated though his voice had less heat in it. “Look here. None of us need a Euthanist. We got pounded but so did they. And we’re used to going without medics by now. Most of us have been seeing action since we were your age what with mandatory service regs. So stop your sniveling. You’re making us look bad.”

Georgie shook her head but wiped her eyes and nose on her jumper sleeve. “Am not. But you gotta stop fighting. Roland and I have a plan, but it won’t work if you don’t stop.”

Johnson and a few others started to look worried and suspicious. “Just what are you two up to?”

“Roland code broke their system when I figured out the commander’s password and …”

Johnson yelped, “You did what?!”

“Shhhhh. We could get into a lot of trouble. Not even Mr. Waverly knows we can do that.”

“Trouble doesn’t begin to describe what you could get into. What the hell are you thinking?!” he hissed more quietly yet even more worriedly.

“We had to find a way to make those other soldiers go away. They’re making things hard, and the Staff are acting worried and weird. Roland made an order go to their commander. In two days they are to load up and go to the depot, take the train, then report to the nearest primary hub where they will get their new orders. Only the depot train that comes only carries people, not supplies so all their stuff will stay here. Roland knows that they’ll never waste the money to send out a special truck all the way here to collect things and even if they might he’s already got it fixed so that it will look like the stuff got shipped out and lost in transit. The Director won’t get involved because she’ll want those supplies and will deny having had anything to do with them disappearing. Plus, it will make her happy for them to go away which will stop the Staff being so cranky. But to make this work we can’t have anyone watching us too close. If you keep fighting, they’ll watch everyone too much. Maybe send investigators. They do that sometimes and it makes the Director really mad.”

The soldiers just stared at her. Finally one of the women soldiers said, “Well I think I’m gonna hit the hay early tonight. I’m so tired I just slept through whatever it was she just said.”

Another soldier got up and said about the same thing. Then someone acted surprised and asked, “You sure you weren’t dreaming? I don’t even remember Georgie being here except maybe to put some of that smelly crap on Chaplin’s knee.”

All of them left until only Peterson and Johnson remained. Then Peterson got up and left after he realized the LT wasn’t really angry at Georgie but worried and he figured some lecturing needed to be done and he was just glad he didn’t have to do it.

Lt. Johnson looked like the last thing he wanted was to play the part that had been left to him. However after making a face, he decided he had no choice. “Now look here young lady …”

“How come you try and act old? You aren’t. You’re twenty-six.”

Surprised Johnson asked, “How the hell do you know that?!”

“Because I looked at your chart. You’re 26. You don’t know where you were born but you were raised on a state-owned farm outside the old capitol of Tennessee. You’re an orphan. Like me.”

“Who the hell said that’s any of your business?!”

“I didn’t do it to hurt your feelings.”

“You can’t hurt my feelings you snotty little brat.”

“Good. Then you won’t get upset when I tell you that getting all shot up, losing your spleen and part of your lung is no excuse for being cranky all the time and that having bad dreams doesn’t mean no one is allowed to be your friend.”

He got to leave up, but Georgie grabbed his arm. “You looked after me and gave me ear plugs. Without earplugs I don’t function very well. You did it because you could not because you were asked. Now I’m going to look after you, not because you asked but because I can. That’s the way we do things here at Pickering. It’s how we live and get by.”

Nastily Johnson spit, “What would you lot know about living?”

Georgie nodded accepting he wasn’t ready to trust her. “Enough to know that there is living, and not living, and that things can always get worse, but they might never get better. We didn’t really understand the difference before Nurse Cassie. Then when she died, Roland and I had to learn to understand things on our own. We know we’ve probably got some things wrong but we’re pretty sure we’ve got it mostly right. We gather information where and when we can to add to the Big Picture. You’ve got to listen to us. Those soldiers … there’s something wrong with them. I only understood some of what is in their charts and the books I have aren’t helping me to understand the rest of it.”

Johnson sat back down and asked, “What do you mean wrong with them?”

“They get special shots. They’ve got an extra Y and an extra X chromosome, something that usually causes an abortion order to be issued with no appeal to the Health Committee. None of them list having any next of kin. That’s required by law; even we have next of kin in our charts though they’ve all given up custodianship so they don’t get taxed.” Georgie shook her head, obviously confused. “Technically those soldiers are defectives, like us … but somehow, they’re not like us. I’ve seen their commander talking to their medic and he keeps asking when the soldiers can have their shots again. The medic says they must be off them a few more days to fix their testosterone levels. Testosterone is …”

“I know what it is. Now you tell me how you overheard that kind of talk. Have you been hanging around their rooms?”

“No. I don’t think they’re very nice and they don’t need me to play doctor.” Georgie looked at Johnson and wondered why he looked so uncomfortable but gave it a mental shrug since Johnson always looked uncomfortable. “I read their lips.”

“You did what?”

“I read their lips. How else do you think I can understand what people are saying when I’m wearing earplugs?”

“Well … damn … I never gave it any thought.”

“Ok. But just so you know Nurse Cassie also taught me to read people. She said I had to be able to because sometimes people don’t tell the truth even when you are trying to help them. Like Chaplin. I knew his stomach hurt but he kept saying he was fine, but I watched him and figured out he was constipated. I asked him straight out and he still lied which is stupid. So I told Roland to adjust the menu so we had prunes two days in a row and told Allie and Caro to give him less mac-n-cheese and more prunes. He got better after that.”

“And damn near gassed us out of our wing in the process,” Johnson said with something that looked like a cross between a grimace and unwilling smile.

“So you see, I can read people but I don’t do it to hurt anyone. That would be wrong and unfair.”

“And you don’t think what you and Roland are doing is wrong?”

Georgie shook her head. “We aren’t hurting them. We just need them to go away before they cause more problems. Those soldiers aren’t like you. There is something wrong with them but not like it is wrong with us. Plus, they aren’t getting in trouble for being bad. They hit Mr. Waverly and Mr. Greene. Victor went away to Lockdown just for saying he felt like hitting a Staff. The rest of us don’t understand and are getting upset and confused. When you break a rule, there’s supposed to be consequences. They smoke. They’re breaking things. They butt in line for meals. They …”

“Ease up Georgie. Let’s get back to these other dudes. Have you heard … er, seen … anything else?”

Georgie considered her options then sighed. “You’re going to think I’m telling a story.”

“I’ll let you know when I think you are lying. Just say it.”

Georgie sighed again. “Not even Roland knows what to believe but I’m sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“Some of them don’t feel.”

“Don’t feel? They sure as hell did. They felt plenty during the fight.”

“OK, fine. But they don’t feel the same way the rest of us do.”

“Kid that don’t make no sense.”

One of the female soldiers, this one had lost a leg from the knee down, had come back to the day room to get a book but then stopped. “LT you’re a guy. Try for once to think from the other side.” She turned to Georgie and asked, “What kind of feeling do you mean? Physical or emotional?”

“Kinda both. They’re all emotionally off but I just figured that was because they’re grown up men.” Nela stifled a laugh at the look on the LT’s face but became strangely serious again when Georgie added, “Some of them just don’t feel things. I saw one playing with a pin; he kept poking it in his hand until one of the medics took it away. The medic got scared when that one stood up real fast and knocked over his chair. The medic poked the man with a small prod and the man jumped then fell over and … and he growled at the medic but didn’t come at him again. I saw another one banging the back of his head against the wall until it was bloody. I thought the head-banger was having a meltdown. There used to be one of us named Tyler that would do that every once in a while until he got to where he wouldn’t stop and got taken to Lockdown. Only see the difference is Tyler couldn’t stop, the soldier … he was doing it on purpose, like he liked how he was freaking out Miss Neville.”

“Who the hell is Miss Neville?” Nela asked.

“The Director’s secretary.”

“Oh. She that gray bird that looks like she’s always in the middle of a panic attack?”

“That’s her. She’s just scared when you see her. She doesn’t like leaving the administrative offices. She’s ok so long as she can stay at her desk.”

Johnson said, “OK, so they’re suffering PTSD …”

“No,” Georgie said. “I know that’s what Roland thinks too but it’s more than that. Look, it’s like this, when they see you soldiers around, they’re all focused and there, in the here and now with the rest of us. You … you turn some part of them on. But when you aren’t around they’re different, like something important in their heads is in the off position. I can tell you what I see and hear but I can’t show you how it feels. I can tell they’re different but …”

Johnson continued to look unconvinced until Nela muttered, “From the sound of it my money is on them being from a Dark Ops training program.”

At that Johnson started to look a little less disbelieving. “You were assigned to Finway for a while weren’t you? You saw … stuff.”

Nela nodded. “Before they got rid of all females from the complex. There should have been more of a stink about that than there was.” Nela turned to Georgie and said, “No more watching or listening. You stay away from those men. You stay out of those files and stop trying to figure them out. If they are Dark Ops there is nothing you can do for them and plenty they can do to you … and the rest of you kids. If you want to help people and keep them safe, then that means staying as far out of their business as you can. The LT and I will work it that way on this side. And no wandering by any of you kids until after they’re gone.”

Unfortunately, that warning came too late.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Five​

I gave my oath. I put my hand on a Bible and promised to only help people. But I … no, if I start telling stories to make myself feel better, I’ll never stop. Better to tell myself the truth because that is all I’ll have when I die. But they’re rabid animals, not men. They’re worse; they’re monsters.

There must be rules. And when you break the rules there must be consequences. Those five men should have gone to Lockdown. The Director and the Commander yelled at each other for a long time. In the end it didn’t matter. They weren’t going to pay consequences even though their Commander is in hot water. It isn’t enough.

So, I’m going to make them pay consequences but no one can know. Just like with Benson, no one can ever know. Not Roland. Not our soldiers. Not anyone. God knows though. But I’ll willingly pay consequences to Him for this. He is the only one that has the right. But in this life on this, I’m the consequences giver. And no one better get in my way.

**********

Kicking over a chair Johnson yelled, “Well where the hell is she?!”

Roland scratched his head and snapped back, “I keep telling you. I … don’t … know.”

“The one normal kid on the ward and I can’t count on you to keep track of one small, barely holding it together girl. Dammit!”

Roland called Johnson a foul word surprising everyone standing there. “I’m not the only ‘normal’ one. And in case you haven’t noticed I’m in a wheelchair. Georgie might be messed up, but she can still out run me.”

Johnson scrubbed his face before hoarsely offering a, “Sorry Kid.” He sighed and then slammed his fist into the wall. “Dammit, dammit, dammit. Where the hell is she? You … you don’t think she’d … hurt herself?”

Roland looked worried. “I … I don’t know. I don’t think so. But Caro was her best friend and … and Georgie won’t talk. Not since the Director made her tell their Commander what his men did to her and Caro. The only thing she told me was that she was told if she kept making a fuss she’d be put in Lockdown. She wouldn’t lie about that.”

“Can you even guess where she might be?”

Everyone jumped when a door closed and Georgie said, “I’m right here. I was looking for quiet but I can’t find any. It’s all gone.”

No one knew what to say, not even when she limped off to her room carrying her muddy shoes that dripped mess on the normally pristine tiled floor. Roland went to follow her but Nela stopped him. “Let me. You might be as good as a brother to her but you’re still a guy.”

Nela caught up with Georgie at the head of the girls’ hall and then disappeared into her room with her. Roland muttered, “I know what they did. She won’t say it, but I know. We all do.”

“Yeah Kid. We do too. Life basically sucks and then you die.”

Roland growled, “Some people don’t die soon enough.”

Sighing like the old man he felt he said, “A painful truth and a hard way to learn it.”

Then Roland shocked them by saying, “They’re sending more soldiers. When these are gone. They’re sending more.”

“What?! How did you … weren’t you told to stay out of their cloud?”

Roland shook his head. “Wasn’t me. Mr. Waverly had an argument with one of their orderlies. Robbie heard them when he was washing trays in the staff cafeteria. He said he heard they were going to open the South Wing and turn it into some kind of special hospital. That some place called McCallister had gotten infiltrated and is now useless to them.”

Johnson and Chaplin looked at each other. McCallister had always been rumored to house a lot of secret stuff but they weren’t about to tell the brilliant, angry teen in front of them.

“Until it becomes a fact all we can do is deal with what is already here. Now that Georgie is back we’ll go to our posts. Nela will do what she can but it’s important, no more wandering. It’s as unfair as hell, but since they won’t lock up those sick bastards, we’re gonna lock you kids away from them the best we can.”

Roland didn’t like it but he understood. He just hoped Georgie would.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Six​

The investigators came today. I knew they would eventually. But it surprised me how easy it was to misdirect them, especially through a third party who was allowed to think it was his own detective work. It didn’t help them that they ran into people more important than they expected who were already angry because Caro … because Caro is dead and also because they couldn’t take as much blood from me as they needed.

I pretended to close my eyes and take a nap. It is what we always do when they draw blood. But instead, I watched them.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve caused? There’s already a shortage of X13 serum because of this year’s outbreaks.”

“Look …”

“No, you look … and if you’re smart you’ll even listen. Nothing … I mean nothing … trumps the national security issues on this. It’s bad enough that your program caused such bad press – hell it made international Tri-V news – but now you are putting our only serum supply at risk as well. Your little science experiment is going down and those damn freaks you’ve created are getting euthanized and destroyed before our enemies get any bright ideas to capture one and duplicate them for their side.

“I’m telling you the problem isn’t the men. All the indicators lead back to here.”

“Damn straight they do. And they’re going to end here. I read the report and the girl’s statement. I went back over it, and all evidence points to your idiots doing it to themselves because they were allowed to go around un-sedated and unsupervised.”

“And just what facts …”

“The two girls were cutting through that indoor green house, the solarium or whatever the hell it’s called, and the men were tearing up the plants. You know what happened then once they’d been caught out.”

“Caught out doing what? Letting off a little steam during R-n-R? And how does that …”

“Here,” the one said to the other shoving a file film against his chest. “Your idiots were caught smoking on several occasions. Apparently, they were dressing their cigs with some herbals looking to get high. Self-medicating when they were taken off those shots. They were witnessed smoking in the train cars too right before that incident. I had my staff pull the results of your tox screens.”

“That doesn’t prove anything. It’s all circumstantial.”

“Until you bother to examine pictures of the damage they caused in the greenhouse and the list of plants in there. Of particular note is a palm tree in the tropical collection called the betel nut. They would have recognized it from their time at their last assignment. The locals there smoke and chew it. I did some research and besides being a carcinogen, it is known to cause psychotic episodes in users with pre-existing mental illness. And if your trained monsters aren’t mentally ill, I don’t know who would be.”

“You’ll be hearing from my superiors concerning your interference in this investigation.”

With a shark’s grin he answered, “Doubtful as your superiors are already being taken out by my superiors. And you can forget using Pickering as a staging ground for any more of your freak shows because …”

They moved further away and an orderly drew a screen that cut the rest of my view off. I’m not so afraid as I was but I’m still angry and I still hurt in my private places. I’m not a thing or a freak. I’m not something to be used and thrown away. And neither was Caro. I still want to cry but I can’t because they need me to get well and be strong. I have to set an example. Nurse Cassie would. I have to.

**********

Johnson was out of sorts and everyone knew it and was giving him space. He was exhausted from the nightmares he’d had every night since the girls had been attacked. He was angry that he hadn’t protected them better. He was secretly heartbroken by the death of sweet, innocent Caro and had nearly gotten in a fight with one of the janitors when he caught him tossing one of the girl’s hand drawn pictures in the trash. And he was nearly frantic with worry at the kids being taken to the administrative wing while there was a threat of investigation in the air.

He snarled at Waverly when he walked into the room with a smile. “What the hell Waverly. There ain’t no reason to smile. Day’s as crappy as they come.”

Waverly shook his head. “And here I thought you’d give me a hand. Georgina is almost asleep on her feet and …”

Johnson jumped up. “What did those vampires do to them?!”

Calmly Waverly answered, “Drew their blood just like they do every month. Georgina is simply …”

“Where are they?”

“Down the ha …”

Johnson’s nervous energy didn’t even let him stay for the rest of the answer. Waverly followed him out, marveling at the change in the man’s attitude. He’d gone from disgust to being a nearly overzealous guard dog in just weeks. He wished that more people would have the same kind of change in attitude except it was unlikely given the current population control laws. One child was free. A second child doubled your tax burden. There was mandatory sterilization after a second child except for those living in the urban zones that were cordoned off from those willing to follow the law. The only way to escape the urban zones was to submit to permanent sterilization, to be accepted into a farm work program, or to score high enough on an aptitude test to qualify for training to be a necessary worker. You also got out during your mandatory four-year service contract to the country, but it was not a permanent escape unless you re-enlisted or earned enough credits during your service to buy your way out.

By the time Waverly reached Johnson he was already returning and had a confused Georgie in his arms.

“I can walk.”

“Hush up. What the bloody hell were those blood suckers are thinking. Close your ears.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m gonna yell for Nela.”

“I don’t need Nela. I’m not a baby.”

Johnson rolled his eyes. “If you were, I wouldn’t have to call for Nela.”

Roland who’d been following behind had to hide the smirk on his face from Georgie’s sharp eyes. It wasn’t often he got to see someone get the better of her verbally. He was also glad to see she was getting some of her old self back. He knew she was mostly faking being better but at the moment she wasn’t. She wasn’t faking being weak however and was almost asleep before Lt. Johnson could put her down in her room.

Roland was also tired but eager to tell what he had found out to the other men. After making sure everyone else was taken care of he rolled over to the soldier’s ward.

“They completely freaked out on the train and killed a couple of their own medics before train security personnel put them down.”

Peterson was the first to speak. “To use the LT’s favorite phrase … holy hell.”

Johnson gave him an irritated look before telling Roland, “How many times I gotta tell you …”

“ … stay out of trouble. I got it. But I didn’t have to do nothing. All those people that come each month think we have straw instead of brains and don’t always watch what they say and do. They aren’t as careful as our staff. They left the Tri-V on and the broadcasters were recapping the week’s news. No wonder they said the satellite was down for repair. The few pictures they showed were pretty bad.”

There was general discussion of the discovered event but suddenly Johnson interjected an angry, “Waverly knew. He had to.”

Roland looked momentarily surprised at Johnson’s reaction but then nodded. “Of course he did. He’s staff. He’s mostly a good guy but it’s not like he is one of us. He does what the Director pays him to do.”

Johnson immediately had his second awakening, the first being how wrong he had initially been about the children. “We’re really cut off here. The only information we get is what they let us have. They control everything.”

“Uh … not so much. We know more than they think we do. They underestimate us because they have to, or they’d feel bad about keeping us locked up. Even Waverly is like that. Like I said, he’s a good guy, and he’s on our side mostly, but he isn’t one of us and despite what he thinks, he doesn’t really know what it means to be one of us. You do.”

“Kid, if he’s holding back on this what else is he holding back on? He can’t really be trusted completely.”

With utter simplicity Roland asked, “Who said we completely trust him?”

Johnson’s third awakening was even more disconcerting that the first two were. The kids were way cleverer than he’d ever thought they could be.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Seven​

Teaching our soldiers is fun. Caro would have really liked playing with them. I used to try and talk to her at her marker in Potter’s Field, but it just isn’t the same. Johnson told me to stop doing it because she isn’t there.

“Get it through your head kid. She’s up in Heaven with all the other Innocents. She’s now protected from all the crap we live with. Even I know that.”

“Who told you that is the way it works?”

“Mr. Browning. He was a teacher at one of the group homes I lived in right before I aged out and joined the Ranger Cadettes.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a program for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds to prepare them for military service. It’s where I was tested and is how I made it into the training academy and got my college tuition paid for.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Miss what?”

“Being out there. In the real world.”

“Yeah. I miss being a soldier.”

“I meant being out there. You’re still a soldier. You fought the bad guys didn’t you? And you pulled that … that man … he … he was …”

“Whoa. Put your head between your knees. And as soon as you aren’t the color of the bathroom stalls we’re going back. It’s not healthy for you to sit out here.”

Johnson and the other men watch us all the time now. Especially since work started on the South Wing. I don’t know if it is going to be those gray ops soldiers but I don’t think so because the Director isn’t making a big stink. She’s even been seen smiling and that can really spell trouble for anyone going against her. Either way it helped us to get the men to come into the woods with us without the staff thinking something bad was going on.

Roland let slip to Mr. Russell that it wasn’t fair that the soldiers didn’t think we should be wandering around on our own, that they acted like we need babysitters. Chaplin and some of the other soldiers gave the same basic impression to Mr. Waverly and the other staff. Allie was collecting dishes from the administrative offices and overheard Mrs. Neville tell a couple of the staff that the Director was relieved that our soldiers were finally beginning to fit in and occupy their time doing something useful.

It’s funny to watch the soldiers realize we set everyone up so that we could teach them about our secret food in the forest.

**********

Between bites Johnson and Peterson marveled at the kids industriously loading the large, homemade dehydrator with berries and mushrooms. “Holy hell.”

Georgie told Johnson, “You say that a lot.”

“So?”

“Hell is not holy. It’s just the opposite.”

“Fine you brat. But what do you expect me to say when I find out you bunch have an industrial size food production set up going on right under everyone’s nose?”

“It’s not industrial size.”

“Close enough.”

“Not really. We need help if we are going to save food for you too.”

“Explain it again. And slow down so I can keep up this time.”

Georgie rolled her eyes at Johnson’s intentional silliness. “Food isn’t always good in the winter. Sometimes the train can’t make it through and the kitchen staff water everything down. Nurse Cassie showed us how to feed ourselves but we’re careful. If the Director thought we could feed ourselves as well as we do, then she’d stop ordering even more food to make her budget really special to her supervisors. She already makes it hard to save anything from the garden and fruit trees … fr … from the greenhouse. Nurse Cassie called what she taught us gorilla gardening. This food, what we find and grow out here in the forest, we save and hide for the lean times. Still, we always run out and now that we have to save food for you too, we need more help.”

“That bad?”

“What do you think? You aren’t the only ones that eat half the berries you pick. The others do too. Sometimes more, especially the boys. Roland would even worse if he didn’t have to stay on the main trail. When it comes to berries he’s a pig.”

Roland was rolling only a few yards away. “I heard that. Besides I know for a fact you eat your fair share of the mushrooms and wild garlic. Your breath really stinks sometimes.”

“Hey!”

“Hey is for horses.”

Johnson held his head like it was beginning to ache. “Ok, knock it off you two. We get the picture.”

Georgie knew they thought they did but come deep winter she knew they would know for sure, especially if the trains were late. Until then she was content to teach them the way Nurse Cassie had taught her. She also liked how tired she was at the end of the day because it meant she was too tired to dream.

When she did dream, she would wake up with a scream trying to climb out of her throat and couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. Sometimes Roland suspected but lately he’d been spending a lot of time talking to Nela. Georgie suspected what that meant and Nela – at nineteen – wasn’t all that much older. She just hoped it didn’t cause problems and that Roland didn’t get hurt. Nela either. She liked both of them even if they seemed to be going places she couldn’t go, might never even want to go.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Eight​

Johnson caught me spying. He was angry but then I got him to partly understand. Only then I realized he already understood in a way the others don’t or can’t and what he wanted was for me to understand why he was angry. Johnson thinks he has made his point, but I just consider it … um … detent. I do understand his point, I just don’t completely agree with it.

**********

Gently, at least gently for him, Johnson explained, “Fear is a killer Georgie. I know you don’t want more of those men here; they hurt you.”

The girl shook her head trying to get him to understand better. “It’s not that. I don’t want them to hurt anyone else.”

“Georgie …”

Sighing she told him, “I know I can live if it happens to me again. I know how to make myself live.”

Johnson winced. He hated it when his heart strings got plucked. “Aw kid …”

Resolutely Georgie told him to, “Stop that. I’m not a kid anymore. Caro took that part of me with her to keep it safe. Now it’s my job to protect that part for those of us that still have it, protect those of us who can’t ever be anything but a kid. Even Roland. He thinks he’s grown but I look at him now and see that just because he is really smart doesn’t mean that he knows everything he thinks he does.”

Johnson surmised, “The thing with Nela bothers you.”

She swiftly denied, “No. It’s just a distraction. And I don’t want them to get hurt. They need to be careful. I know the Staff have watched Roland and I to see if we think about sex …”

“Er … maybe we shouldn’t …”

Georgie shook her head at what she saw as Johnson’s “outsider” thinking. “It doesn’t bother me. That Roland and Nela think about sex and stuff. It will start to bother me if they think more about sex than they do about being careful and not causing trouble. The Staff leave us alone right now. If they start thinking that we’re thinking about sex then they’ll feel like they have to do something about it. It won’t matter that none of us can make babies …”

“Whoa. Er … look … er … Aw hell. I know I’m going to regret asking but how do you know you can’t … er …”

Georgie sighed then explained. “Nurse Cassie died when we were thirteen. DW got mad she had to do the job of taking care of us full time again. Then she saw Allie kiss Victor on the cheek, and she decided to get us back by telling stories. She reported it and exaggerated what she’d seen, and the Staff realized that we were growing up. The people that the Director reports to, the ones that come monthly to take our blood, said they’d fix it. They did … by fixing the boys because it was cheaper. Then us girls got implants under our skin the next month. So, no babies.”

Johnson scrubbed his face then looked out into the dark unable to find any words to comment with. Georgie reached out and patted his arm. “It’s alright. I know you can’t help that you still think like an outsider more than you think like a Pickering. It’s OK. You feel bad because our lives are different and not always what you think is nice or fair. But this is our life and some of it all we can do is accept it. Yes, it’s harder for Roland and me sometimes because we understand more,01 but we still have to accept our reality. The others only partly understand what was done to us; and Roland and I figure we’ll never be allowed to be normal anyway. Nurse Cassie said that all you could do sometimes is learn to live your own timeline instead of wishing for someone else’s.”

Johnson was quiet for a few moments more, then really looked at Georgie for the first time as an individual rather than as simply one of “the children.”

“Waverly said the only thing wrong with you is your ears.”

“It’s not my hearing. It’s the part of my brain that separates and makes sense of the sounds my ears collect. I’ve actually got better than normal hearing.”

“OK … but that’s it. It isn’t genetic or whatever.”

“You mean could I pass it on? No, not as far as I understand. It’s just a learning disability, it isn’t an infection. Why? You’ve never asked before.”

“You got me thinking the other day when you asked me if I missed what you call ‘out there.’ Let me ask you something. If you had the chance, would you leave Pickering?”

“It will never happen, so I don’t waste time thinking about it.”

“It could happen. There are communities for … for people like us. You have to apply and show you can contribute but there are ways out of here.”

“For you and most of your people but we’ll never be allowed to leave.”

“But …”

“Johnson I’ll never be free the way you were … the way you could be again if you can prove you have control of your issues. Roland will never be free no matter what he’s been dreaming lately. None of us will. Even when I still had kid left in me, I knew that was an irrefutable fact. They don’t want us … would have sent a Euthanist to send us off if they could have … but they need us. I’ve listened to them for a long time, even before I understood what they meant. They thought they’d be able to find a synthetic or some other kind of substitute for our blood serum to make the medicine for X13. Or they thought the virus would burn out by now. Nothing went as planned and now there’s only a few of us left; those of us up here and those in Lockdown, if they can even use them.”

“What about the … uh … normal babies; the ones that didn’t come to Pickering?”

“Nurse Cassie told me a theory she had right before she died; that there were no non-defective babies who survived. That it was all what she called smoke and mirrors, an old wives tale told to make the few people that cared feel good enough they’d stop digging for answers. Remember all pregnant women exposed to X13 are mandated by law to get Tier 1 genetic screening and most of them lose the babies and die anyway. Because if there were normal-immunes out there they wouldn’t say we here are the only source for the X13 serum. They would have kept any other babies just as a matter of National Security. They wouldn’t be so mad when one of us dies or gets sick and can’t give blood.”

“But if it could be made to happen …”

Georgie shook her head once again. “Even if by a miracle someone said I could walk out of here and live out there I couldn’t and wouldn’t because the others can’t. I know history and what the law is the same as you. ‘Defectives must be contained because they drain resources better utilized by functioning and contributing members of society. Defectives steal what rightfully belongs to those with the capacity to better the republic. By default, regardless of blame or intent, defectives are criminals and must – to protect the well-being of the rest of society – be treated as such.’ “ Georgie sighed. “For me escape is nothing but a fantasy and waste of time. I made a promise to do what I can to care for those of us less able to care for themselves. I made a promise to never just turn my back or away from my training no matter what it was, who it was, or what it cost me.”

“Is that why you get up and wander around watching and listening when no one else does?”

Georgie shrugged. “It’s always been that way. I used to be Roland’s legs and ears in places he couldn’t go.”

“Used to?”

“Like I said, he’s … distracted right now.”

“And you’re not.”

“No. But why are you up? Spying on me?”

“Partly,” he answered honestly. “Partly because it worries me that maybe you don’t care what could happen to you enough. We don’t know when they are going to move in those troops. It could be any day now.”

Carefully Georgie said, “Whatever they are moving in it won’t be the same type of soldiers.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can,” she said and then relayed what she’d overheard.

“Why didn’t Roland say anything when we discussed this?”

Georgie focused her attention on a car driving away from Pickering. “Georgie? C’mon kid, answer me. Look here, did you make it up?”

“No,” she snapped.

“Then why didn’t Roland … wait … Georgie did you not tell Roland what you heard?”

Georgie brushed Johnson’s hand away where he’d made her look at him to be sure she was listening. “Roland is not the only one that can think and make decisions.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Johnson persisted. “Georgie you either trust me or you don’t. I can understand if you don’t considering what happened to you but why don’t you trust Roland?”

“I do trust Roland!”

“It doesn’t sound like it. This is getting stupid complicated. Maybe I should tell Nela to back off and …”

“No! That’s got nothing to do with it. Roland just … it was better him to not know. Just in case.”

Suspiciously Johnson gave her a considering look. “In case what?”

Desperately Georgie pleaded, “Stop asking questions.”

“Not this time kid. Not when it comes to your safety. Not when you’re acting like this which could impact everyone’s safety.”

Georgie felt a headache coming on and rubbed her forehead. The longer than usual stubble she felt reminded her that she’d missed the last round of hair shaves they got every two weeks. “This isn’t about my safety, but about everyone else’s. Sometimes the way I find things out is really against the rules. Sometimes what I find out doesn’t need to be known by Roland or the others.”

“OK, so you’re good at keeping secrets when you have to. But why this one?”

“The … look … sometimes …”

Seeing her agitation Johnson tried to calm her. “Slow down. Take a breath. I’m not angry at you. I just need the truth.”

In frustration Georgie told him, “Johnson when I said it’s about everyone’s safety, I meant everyone’s. These people make the rules. They’ve got a reason to keep me alive, but it isn’t because they’re nice. My blood, that’s all they care about. If there had been any doubt before, they proved that to be a fact when those men didn’t have to pay consequences until the rule makers realized it meant less blood for them each month. So me they won’t kill for figuring out that certain … groups … are fighting with each other … names, targets, places …”

“Fighting for what?”

“What people like that have always fought about. Power … influence … to be able to look at other people and say not your rules but mine. It’s not about money or lives, but control. Why doesn’t matter to them so much as that something simply is. I thought you were a soldier fighting in their wars and knew this.”

Johnson snorted. “Georgie you’ve got some glorified idea of what a soldier is. We aren’t heroes fighting for justice, freedom, and the American way. In reality all most of us think about is surviving one battle to the next and what’s for chow. Most deep thinkers wind up crazy or dead. We’re just chess pieces that get moved around on a board by people willing to sacrifice us to reach the other player’s king. That’s all.”

“You think. Peterson thinks … most of the time. I can tell. Chaplin only sorta kinda thinks and only when he absolutely has to; he’s had the thinking beat out of him for the most part. Nela and some of the others are thinkers too.”

“And look where it got us. Missing limbs and organs. Dreams from hell. Separated from everything and everyone we knew. Abandoned.”

“You know I never understood. Why did you wind up here instead of a VA hospital?”

“Because the hospitals are reserved for those that can return to battle, or old troopers with enough credits or political clout. Everyone else gets put in a labor camp or they see a Euthanist. We were overflowed from a transfer facility they were cleaning up for some media show. They sent us here to get us out of the way or die … amounts to the same thing. The Colonel told us on the way in some of us could make it out if we can pull ourselves together enough to be useful. Farm labor, maybe even manufacturing if we can meet the quotas.”

“So you can leave.”

“Maybe. Psych evals will be the biggest hurdle; that and the sleep studies. And open slots … being a soldier for more than one tour pretty much guarantees some level of triage. But none of that changes nothing. We’re here now and so long as we are here I’m gonna keep lecturing you every time I catch you taking chances. You ain’t gonna get out of this with me the way you do with the others. Got it?”

Georgie sighed. “You can’t help Johnson.”

“You might be surprised. Now back to your room. And stop wandering around dammit. You make me nervous as hell.”

“I gotta find stuff out.”

“What the hell are you going to find out in the middle of the night that’s worth anything?”

“Again, you’d be surprised. For instance, before I ran into you I was at the vent that runs above the Night Desk. I heard Mr. Waverly tell one of the janitors that DW won’t be leaving isolation after all because she has had a stroke, and the Director is finally going to replace her with a new nurse. Only maybe not because they’ll just have one of the Staff working in the South Wing on call which saved the budget. The janitor then asked if they were going to hire more help to clean the reopened wing. Mr. Waverly said that they had interns for that, but he didn’t expect the new residents would make much of a mess. They both kinda chuckled but never explained what was so funny. That’s why I came to watch and see if there is a way to tell what’s going on in there.”

“You stay out of there you hear me? Until we have a better idea of what’s going on – or at least confirm that it isn’t more gray ops troops – you keep your distance.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Nine​

Roland is mad at me. He thinks that I’m being mean to get him back for paying attention to Nela. I refused to argue with him because it would upset the rest of us and that only made Roland madder. Well, if he has to be mad, then he has to be mad.

He started off being angry because I asked Nela what she would go for if she ever got to take an aptitude test. That started a conversation about the requirements for getting a prosthetic or a limb transplant. Roland hadn’t been thinking too much about the future and now is mad because I brought it up and now Nela is thinking about possibilities.

Then it got worse, and he isn’t talking to me at all because Nela told him information she’d heard from Johnson. And when Roland asked Johnson how he’d found out Roland learned I’d told Johnson before I told him. Only I’d tried to tell him but he and Nela had been taking a walk through the solarium and he said it could wait until later. Only later never came. He’s acting just like Mr. Russell did when he found out his wife wanted a D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

This couldn’t happen at a worse time. I know what they are doing in the South Wing. How I know is awful. I feel like I’m going to have an episode and I’m really scared. And sad too. But scared mostly.

There’s only one other person I can tell this to. He’s going to curse a long time, but I have to talk to someone. I need to warn them.

**********

Johnson nearly levitated out of his bed when he woke to find Georgie bending over him. “Dammit! How did you get in here? Did Peterson let you in?!”

“Shhh. No. Peterson is having an attack. Chaplin is with him trying to talk him down. Archer is on duty but he’s playing cards with himself, and I just crawled around where he couldn’t see me.”

Grumpily Johnson asked, “Who the hell put Archer on the duty roster? The man doesn’t even know his name half the time.” Johnson got out of bed and quickly pulled his pants on. “What’s wrong Kid?”

“Can you come with me? It’s important and we have to hurry.”

“Is someone sick?”

Desperately Georgie answered, “No. Yes. Just come with me. You’ll see. I wouldn’t bother you, but Roland is mad and not talking to me and my head …”

“Whoa there. I’ll get …”

“No.”

Sighing Johnson said, “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Yes, I do. Every time I make you uncomfortable you go straight to calling for Nela or Tracey. Well, there’s no time for that and Nela is half the reason Roland is mad at me. So please, just come with me. I … I need help with this. I don’t want it to be true, but I think it is.”

Georgie was more agitated than Johnson had seen her in a long time. Whatever the cause was he wanted to get to the bottom of it. They left the same way she had come and then he followed as she led him up to one of the least used areas of the entire complex.

Looking around the empty fifth floor Johnson whispered, “I didn’t know this floor was even accessible. The elevator doesn’t come up here and the stairwell is blocked off.”

“I know. No one ever comes up here but me. They closed it off when one of the Staff fell off this part of the roof when we were little.”

“Then why the hell do you come up here if it’s dangerous?”

Shaking her head to keep bad memories at bay Georgie answered, “It’s not dangerous. And I come up here because the best views are up here and because of the laundry chutes.”

Confusion evident in his voice Johnson asked, “The laundry what?”

“The old laundry chutes and pharmacy elevator. At least that’s what they used to be according to what Nurse Cassie told me. Now they’re used as ventilation shafts. But to me they’re the information highway. Now be very, very quiet.”

Georgie removed a panel and whispered, “They only renovated the first two floors of the South Wing. They’re thinking about opening the third floor but only if the program is profitable. I think the Director is getting a cut of the profits.”

Thinking that Georgie was bound and determined to give him a heart attack he asked, “What program?”

Georgie look at him with haunted eyes and then without answering crawled into the old shaft used to move medicine carts between floors. Johnson forced passed his claustrophobia and followed her down the old metal maintenance ladder to a narrow ledge three floors below. It was a surprisingly silent move as someone – probably Georgie – had wrapped rags and old padding around the ladder rungs. The only light in the shaft came from a series of vents on each floor where the elevator doors used to be. When he got his breathing under control Johnson realized he could hear people talking. In the faint light he saw that Georgie was looking through one of the vent panels and in real distress. He carefully moved up beside her and looked through the same panel.

Johnson found they were looking down on a large open ward that reminded him of the warehouses where injured soldiers were stacked after a battle like cordwood until they could be triaged and transferred to a medical station.

The bunks were little more than cots stacked three high running the lengths of both walls. Unlike in the Wounded Warehouses the people in these beds were utterly silent. Then Georgie touched his arm and indicated she wanted him to watch the beds on the far end of the room. As he watched, each bed slowly rotated until the bed was upside down and the patient only stayed on it because they were held there by heavy straps. He also noticed tubes and wires that ran from monitors beside each bed under a sheet presumably to be connected to each patient.

Johnson looked at Georgie and she motioned to various parts of her body then pointed to the patients. Each patient had a tracheotomy, a feeding tube, monitor wires, and tubes that could be for nothing other than carrying off human waste.

She got Johnson’s attention one more time and pointed to two specific patients. One was a young man with dark hair, a heavy brow ridge, and a nose that had obviously been broken more than once. The other was an older woman.

Johnson looked at Georgie and shrugged to indicate he didn’t understand what she wanted him to see. With a sad frustration she pointed an ID tag affixed to the foot of each bed. Then with a closer look he understood. The woman’s tag read “Kilpatrick.”

The sound of a chair moving across the floor directly beneath their position had them both instinctively leaning back and crouching even though the likelihood of them being seen was extremely low. A male voice could be heard asking, “Did all the beds turn this time? I thought they are supposed to cycle in shifts.”

A woman responded, “The timer needs to be reprogrammed again.”

The man grumbled. “This place is a wreck. I can guarantee we’ll lose one or more a week if they don’t fix the bugs in the system. I still can’t get alarms to go off when we get a code. Number 19 expired and no one noticed for two shift changes and most of the organs had already been promised because of the rare blood type. The Director was not happy.”

“Only because she had to refund money that had already been spent. I thought my mother was cheap, but the Director makes her look generous to a fault. We ran out of bed straps for the inventory that came in last night and you know what she says?”

“No. What?”

“Use duct tape … that there should be a roll in the janitor’s office. But not to waste it.”

“You have got to be kidding.”

“I wish I was. And now on top of everything else she says we have to bring our own lunch and stay in this wing.”

“Yeah well, if she didn’t give the run of the place to the defectives …”

“I wouldn’t say anything about that. Donaldson complained and look what happened to him. He quit and gave up the bonus pay.”

There was a brief silence then in a different tone the man said, “And just left all his stuff behind including his ID and credits card that I know for a fact has all his savings on it.”

The woman paused then asked, “ID and credits card?”

“Yeah. And that cloud of lame music he was always listening to hasn’t been accessed since he disappeared either. So … the less said the better.”

“No one said anything about this being a Special Program.”

“And no one’s saying anything about it now so no need to even bring it up if you get my meaning.”

“Oh I get it. Before this gig I knew a girl that used to work at McCallister until that fire that went through it. She was pretty damn jumpy, always looking over her shoulder and refusing to talk about anything work related after a while.”

Nothing else was said and after another five minutes Georgie led the way back up and out of the shaft.

Johnson noticed tracks in the dust on Georgie’s face. “OK, the woman was DW. Who was the guy?”

“Victor Minke. He’s one of us … was one of us … maybe he …” Georgie shook her head in confusion. “He got sent to Lockdown right after you came to live here.”

Johnson had suspected something along those lines. “You sure it’s him?”

“Yeah. He’s lost a lot of weight but it’s him. I recognized his eyebrows as soon as they loaded him onto the bed.”

With compassion he’d forgotten he had once possessed Johnson asked softly, “you know what they’re doing in that wing don’t you?”

Georgie nodded. “It’s a harvesting hub like they’ve shown on the Tri-V. They collect transplant material. Skin, hair, bone, and everything else. Earlier today I heard some other people talking and they said once the infrastructure is stabilized, and a market is developed, they’ll open the third floor up and bring in tanks of growing medium and clone sacks.”

“That’s right. People can sign up to be donors and their families get a tax credit to offset their death tax. Most people think it’s the right thing to do rather than letting the body they don’t need any more go to waste.”

“But DW and Victor were permanently triaged. Why would they be in a harvesting hub? And what happened to Victor in Lockdown that he would wind up here?”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Ten​

Poor kid. She’s shook up pretty bad. Roland is too now that he has pulled his head out of his hormones. Hell, for that matter we all are, those of us that know. Puts a whole new spin on things … like who to trust and how far.

Caught Georgie wandering in Potter’s Field again. Damnedest conversation I’ve ever had. Finally told her I wasn’t a priest and if she wanted answers, she was more likely to get them by talking to God directly. Gave me a funny look but at least she stopped looking like she has ghosts on the brain.

**********

“Kid, that wheelchair don’t mean nothin’ to me. You just used up your quota of grace for being an ass. You mouth off like that again I’m gonna jack your jaw and damn the consequences. There was no reason to talk to Georgie like that, especially after I done told you I saw it with my own eyes. Can’t you see how messed up she is?”

“We’ve never made excuses for each other; she doesn’t get any slack for keeping secrets.”

“She didn’t keep secrets. She told someone that would listen.”

“She’s supposed to tell me first then I decide where it goes from there.”

“Day-um Kid. Who died and made you the Emperor of Pickering? That nurse that raised you? Or did she expect you and Georgie to be equal and in it together?”

“Whatever you think she still should have come to me.”

“And tell me how the hell she was supposed to do that? You refused to listen to her ‘cause you and Nela are too busy thinking about sex, having sex, and whatever else you two get up to on your long walks and private talks.”

Nela took exception to Johnson’s tone. “Now just a damn minute LT …”

“Don’t get in my face Nela ‘cause I ain’t in the mood. You got more experience than he does and should have kept your head even if he didn’t.”

To both of them Johnson said, “I’ve stayed out of it up to now because what you were doing was none ‘o my business. But you have now made it my business by creating a situation … a situation that could turn dangerous for one or more of us. You can go at it like bunnies for all I care but not to the exclusion of commonsense.”

Nela said, “We aren’t soldiers anymore Johnson, no matter what you want to think. We got a right to make our own happiness. Nobody wants us or cares so stop turning this into some big drama.”

“About the only thing you got right is nobody wants us. That means we are in a damn precarious position here. We could just as easily get disappeared as that guy that complained and drew attention to himself. Hell, easier cause we’ve already fallen off the radar. Anyone seen the Colonel or any other troop rep lately? I sure as hell haven’t. Which means at the end of the day we don’t have no one to cover our asses but each other. You two have bigger responsibilities than getting your rocks off. Your priority is to not bring the wrong kind of attention to bear on us. Your primary duty is to care for those of us who cannot do it for themselves.”

Stubbornly Roland repeated, “She should have told me.”

“Boy, you’re not listening any better than you listened to Georgie. You … were … unavailable. Here’s a question. Why didn’t you seek her out and ask her what she’d seen? Why did she have to only ever come to you?”

“I did ask her.”

“When?”

“I … uh …”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Nela could see where things were going and said, “Okay LT, we get it.”

“I sure as hell hope you do ‘cause in case you two love birds don’t get it, there’s a sixteen-year-old girl putting herself in harm’s way so you don’t have to. And in the process, she is falling apart physically and mentally. What’s more she does it without being asked or told. She does it without regard to her personal costs. She’s got some weird ass idea that since she’s stuck here at Pickering, she’s made some unbreakable oath and the only value she has to the group is as a martyr, a damn martyr. Now since you two seem to know all the answers, tell me … what would happen if Georgie disappeared? Who will take her place? You two? You prepared to step up and be on the line and take the same chances? You got the knowledge and training to duplicate the doctoring she gives us? Determine what can be harvested in the woods and when? What about you Roland? Or you gonna hide behind them wheels and what you can’t do?”

Roland was angry but it was anger borne out of realizing he’d been wrong. He was angry because his dream bubble had burst.

“Where’s Georgie? I need to talk to her.”

Johnson looked out the window in irritation. “I’m afraid I know. Out in that damn graveyard again.”

“She knows I can’t go out there, there’s no level trails. She’s doing it on purpose.”

Johnson snorted at Roland’s exhibition of ego. “It don’t have nothing to do with you boy. You ain’t the damn center of the universe.”

Johnson stomped off to track Georgie down and lecture her once again about wandering around on her own. When he found her exactly where he suspected she’d be he snapped, “Dammit girl, are you trying to make me angry?”

Georgie was tired to her soul and looked it. “I need quiet. I can’t find any anywhere.”

“Well you sure as hell aren’t gonna find any out here digging up bones.”

The phrase was one Georgie had never heard. “I’m not …”

Johnson snorted. “Not real ones Miss Gullible. I mean you’re out here wanting answers from ghosts. Answers these bones and ashes can’t give you. Stop trying to make ‘em. You’re only causing yourself grief.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Almost embarrassed to say it aloud Georgie finally asked, “How do I know these graves are real? What if they’re empty and just for show?”

“Kid, that’s about all graves are … for show.”

“Huh?”

“When we die the part that makes us who we are vacates the premises. I’ve looked into the eyes of too many of the dead and dying not to know that for a fact. One breath they’re there, the next it’s just a husk … as empty as a hollow log.”

“Where do they go?”

“Judgment is what I was told as a kid. Some people say we get born into a new body so we can fix what we screwed up the first time around. Some people say we just don’t exist at all anymore. I’ve heard plenty of theories but don’t have no actual experience myself. Figure everyone will find out soon enough.”

“But I need to know now.”

“Why? You ain’t thinking to …”

“Thinking to what?”

“Never mind. Just why do you need to ask all these questions?”

“Because. What do you think happens to us when we go to Lockdown?”

“Damn.”

“You didn’t think I would put two and two together?”

Johnson scratched his head. “You ask the damnedest impossible questions. I just hope you’ve got the sense to be careful who you ask them to.”

“I’m asking you. You’re from Outside.”

“And somehow that means I got the answers? Kid I’m about as far from being a priest as you can get and I sure as hell don’t have no direct comm link to the Man Upstairs. You want answers why don’t you try opening your own comm link. Last thing you need is someone like me taking a wild ass guess about stuff like that and screwing up your head more than it already is.”

For about two second Georgie considered pushing Johnson backwards into a cluster of dried brambleberry canes. But the moment passed, and she didn’t because her next thought was an admission that she couldn’t fault him for being honest.

Almost to herself she asked, “But what happens? How did Victor wind up in that ward? And DW too?”

“Well the hag did have a stroke according to your intel. Maybe she was just ready to kick off.”

“That doesn’t sound like her. She was scared of dying … and scared of Lockdown even though she didn’t know I could tell. Besides all the commercials on Tri-V say that people that go to a Euthanist can’t be donors because of the drugs involved.”

“Yeah and the commercials also say you can’t be triaged to be a donor yet two people we knew were full-triage were on that ward. And not to hurt your feelings but that Victor was a defective and you know that should have made him ineligible.”

“you mean that it isn’t a harvest hub?”

“No. That’s exactly what it is. But my guess is that it isn’t a strictly legal one. Probably black market since they were talking about developing a market. There’s big money to be had. I was stationed overseas and there were places we had to travel in large groups or risk going out on the town only to wake up the next morning missing a kidney, an eye, teeth, hair, strips of skin … you name it. I had a buddy abducted by a harvester gang and by the time he was found there was barely enough left to identify. We rescued other abductees and they say he was kept alive until the very end.”

Georgie shuddered. “Poor Victor … poor …”

“Damn my big mouth anyway. Look at me girl. Even if this is a black-market operation, it is still a hospital setting. They’re comatose … they don’t feel a thing.”

“How do you know?!”

“I … look sometimes you just have to have faith.”

“Faith? How do I do that?”

“Don’t know but …”

“But?”

“You laugh at me Georgie and I swear …”

“I won’t,” the girl promised.

“For me it was losing my old life, nearly even losing my life, then losing what little I had left after that when they drop me off at Pickering. I had nothing and was nothing. It was like growing up in the group homes as a kid except back then I knew I would eventually get out and realize my goal of being a soldier.”

“And that gave you faith?”

“No. That just got all the crap my life was out of the way.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was an angry, depressed man even before I got here. Being here just made it worse. Then I got to know you kids. I can’t explain it. Whether you meant to or not you healed me. Oh I still got issues. The dreams are gonna be the death of me. But what life I do have left is worth more to me than it has ever been. You’ve given me more purpose than I’ve ever had.”

Georgie patted Johnson’s arm. “You’re a good friend to us. You’ve always told me the truth.” Resolutely she nodded. “I’ll chose to have faith in your faith … maybe it will help me to find some of my own.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Eleven​

Roland says he isn’t mad at me anymore, but things aren’t the same. I think it is more me than him. I’m just not who I used to be. I’m still one of us, but I’m … I’m set apart. It’s like when Nurse Cassie picked Roland and I out to be caregivers for all of us, when she left us in charge after she died. It made us different from the rest of us, more different than we already were. Not better. Different. And now, all these things that have happened since our soldiers came, they’ve made me different as well. Maybe it is all the secrets I must keep. And now I have another one.

I think I have found a way to help our soldiers but they can’t know. No one can know, especially not Roland but that’s for a different reason. I planted the idea in Miss Neville and then she ran off to the Director with it. It was easy. I should feel bad at how easy it was but I’m not.

The Director is in a real tear about money. She’s always been that way but lately it’s been worse, so I thought to use that to help. And it looks like it worked.

**********

Roland rolled over to visit the soldiers to find them staring at boxes that had been delivered. “Whoa. What is this?” he asked.

Johnson just continued to stare but Nela smiled and said, “Books, manuals, old exams.”

Curious but cautious Roland rolled forward for a closer look. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said tossing one to him.

Peterson was investigating another box. “These are all used … old too … but …”

“But what?”

“We … maybe …”

Getting frustrated Roland turned to Johnson. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know Kid except … maybe … maybe this … someone thinks …” Noticing Roland’s expression he said, “You know what these are.”

Quietly and with a feigned indifference Roland said, “They’re study guides for career placement exams.”

Showing more understanding than Roland was comfortable with Johnson said, “Yeah Kid, they are.”

It didn’t’ take but a moment for Roland to man up and though he couldn’t smile he did nod and say, “This is good news. They think at least some of you will be able to leave Pickering and make it Outside.”

Chaplin snorted. “More like someone is tired of feeding so many and wants us outta here.”

Roland blinked and agreed, “Sounds like something the Director would do.”

After a few more minutes visiting Roland returned to the children’s ward and rolled over to Georgie who was in the middle of patching up a skinned knee.”

“When you’re finished we need to talk.”

Georgie met him in the old nurse’s station. “Are you getting another pressure sore?”

“No.” He proceeded to tell her about the study guides and other materials that had been delivered.

“So?”

“You don’t care?”

“There’s nothing I can do about it. Besides, if they are really getting a chance to get out of here, they should take it. They don’t have the protection we do.”

“Maybe we don’t have protection anymore,” he said trying to shake Georgie up.

However, she surprised him by agreeing. “Maybe we don’t.”

“But?”

“If they could have gotten what they need from us some other way they would have done it before now.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“If I knew what really happened in Lockdown.”

“Georgie, no. You can’t. The risk isn’t worth it.”

In a dazed confusion that revealed the true inner fear that drove her Georgie muttered, “Purgatory. That’s what Nurse Cassie said. Purgatory. She tried to tell us what Lockdown was but she waited too long and that is all she could get out.”

“And we aren’t any closer to finding out what she meant than we were back then.”

“After what I saw …”

Roland grabbed her arm, “No. That’s not Lockdown. Remember there can’t be any strong drugs in our system before they take the blood. They’d have to dope them to keep them in comas, but alive enough to harvest from.”

That calmed Georgie’s imagination some and though Roland sensed it he didn’t relax. “Let it go Georgie. We can’t change what has already happened.”

Sadly she opined, “So many of us have disappeared. And the adults too. And now this other man. Too many.”

“But not for two years until Victor.”

Like she hadn’t heard him she whispered, “Poor Victor.”

Shaking the arm he still held Roland agreed, “Yes, poor Victor. But we did all we could. Not even an Outside doctor could have done more that you did.”

“Not according to the Books.”

“Most of those books were written before the Defective Laws took effect. You know that Georgie. What doctors might have been able to do back then – repeat, might have – isn’t what they will or can do today. A lot of drugs that could have helped a Defective back then aren’t even made anymore. You know the rules – probably better than any of us; and, you know the consequences for breaking them.”

Shaking her head she said, “I need more training. There’s still so much I don’t know. There wasn’t time for Nurse Cassie to teach me everything. There must be people looking for ways to make medicines that wouldn’t break the rules.”

“Why?”

“Why? What do you mean why?”

“Just what I said. Why do there have to be people doing that? Most defectives are aborted before they’re born. Those few that are born get triaged out of the womb and then euthanized. People who become labeled Defective like our soldiers get permanently triaged and sent some place to contribute to a society that tolerates them as long as they don’t waste resources; or, they go to someplace where resources are withheld until they die. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you.”

“Roland don’t. You sound like a Euthanist or someone who operates a Compassionate Ending Farm.”

Sighing Roland said, “Well I’m not, I’m no more that than you are. But those people exist, and they outnumber us millions to one. It is stupid to pretend life is any other way.” After letting go of Georgie’s arm and looking at a sky they’d never known freedom under Roland added, “And it is stupid for me to pretend too. Sometimes I wish they had never come here. They brought the Outside and … and feelings and …”

With understanding compassion Georgie patted Roland’s arm. “I know. But they are here. And Nurse Cassie left us in charge, made us promise to always take care of us all. They’re part of us now.”

“Not if they can leave.”

“Yes, even if they can and do leave. In fact, we need to help them leave, encourage them if they believe too much in their own Defectiveness. Those that leave will take a little of each of us with them. It won’t be like us all really getting to leave, that’s never going to happen. But a bit of us will. Someone will know our names, remember us, be happy that we were friends. Us Roland, not just our blood. We may have no other freedom in this world, but we are free to be friends. And friends help each other.”

They were both quiet for a while then Roland asked, “Does it ever stop hurting?”

“Losing someone? No. Sometimes I miss Caro so bad I can’t sleep and can barely breathe. I remember them all, even back before everyone helped to quiet the dragons that used to run around in my head. We all slept together in that room with the padded floor and walls. When it was cold, we snuggled close. I couldn’t hear most of the time, sometimes the dragons were so bad I couldn’t see, but I knew smells and I remember how everyone felt. I remember when the smell and feel of someone would just suddenly be gone. I remember when the realization that another one was gone would sweep through us and how everyone would start crying. We didn’t really understand what was happening but we understood Gone Away and Never Coming Back.”

“You remember that? I thought I was the only one.”

“No. You aren’t the only one. Caro remembered too. She would have nightmares about being the only one left.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Others have told me similar things when they have an episode or a nightmare. You’d be surprised what some of us remember. The first time I really understood the feelings … there was a girl. It was before Nurse Cassie.”

Surprised Roland asked, “So long ago as that?”

“Yeah. There was a girl. I think she was worse than me. She couldn’t see or hear or even really move around very much. It used to be she would shake and shake and shake.”

“Seizures?”

“No. Dragons. Different from mine but still some kind of dragons. She was scared all the time. But she didn’t shake so bad when I slept close to her. Somehow she knew I understood about dragons. One day after the blood taking, she didn’t come back. I remember waiting and waiting. I’d grown used to recognizing when she was there. Then finally I understood missing … that feeling that there was a hole in us that hadn’t been there before. That’s when that woman cut herself. I’ve always wondered if the two things connected.”

“You should have asked Nurse Cassie.”

“It took a long time for me to figure out how to control the dragons enough, that I could learn to put my feelings into words. But eventually I did ask her.”

“Well? What did she say?”

“That there were some questions that didn’t have answers. Same way she talked about Lockdown. I think she knew but was trying to protect us.”

“Maybe she was.”

“Maybe.”

Roland was uncomfortable with some of the ideas and memories that Georgie had brought up. He needed to think. He rolled out of the nurse’s station and to his room to get ready for lights out. But it would be a long time before he actually fell asleep.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Twelve​

I wish there was some way to make Roland feel better, but Johnson said he’d have to figure out a way to feel better on his own.

It’s Nela. They don’t spend time doing stuff like they used to. I think they are both being strange, but Johnson said to keep my nose out of it, they were both experiencing what he calls growing pains. He can call it whatever he wants to, but it is still strange. And maybe a little stupid too. Or maybe I am being stupid for not understanding. But I mostly do understand. I just don’t know why they have to act like they are acting.

It is hard to see them hurting. It is harder to see them hurting and not try and do something about it. That’s what I’m supposed to do, help those that are hurting. When I said that to Johnson, he made that noise that makes him sound like he has a stuffy nose and told me to knock it off, that sometimes hurting is what helps you to figure things out.

Maybe he is right. I guess it is like consequences. If there are no consequences, you keep doing things that will cause trouble instead of learning how to do things so that they don’t cause trouble. All I know for sure is they make me tired with all their strangeness.

**********

“Here, let me get that before you hurt yourself,” Roland told Georgie as she juggled bags of dried fruit that needed to be taken back to their rooms and hidden.

Georgie looked at Roland like he’d fallen on his head recently. “You are acting strange. You came out here in weather that you know makes your legs ache, on a trail that is bumpy which is only going to make you ache worse. And you’re going to get hung up on the exposed roots. You’ve never bothered about me carrying stuff before so don’t start now. Go on back inside, I can do this.”

“I’m not helpless,” he snapped.

“Of course you aren’t helpless. And you’re even stronger than you used to be. Those exercises that you used to do with Ne …”

“I don’t want to talk about that. I’m going to take these in. And don’t you stay out too much longer either. The dark is coming earlier, and you don’t have a coat on.”

Georgie shook her head as she watched Roland bounce down a trail he would never have attempted a few months ago. She started to go after him to make sure he didn’t tip over but a voice from behind her changed her mind.

“Let him go. He just needs to work off some frustrations and prove himself.”

Accepting the counsel of Johnson’s words Georgie went back to peeling apples from the feral trees around Pickering and slicing them to go on the drying trays. “Why do they have to make it so hard on each other? Why do they have to stop being friends? It’s senseless.”

Johnson began emptying his jacket pockets of fruit that he’d foraged. “Because they weren’t just friends. They were more than friends and now they aren’t. That takes some adjustment.”

“You mean sex complicates things.”

“Sure as hell does brat so I hope you aren’t … aw hell. I …”

“It’s OK Johnson. I know what you mean. And no, I’m not interested in having sex with anyone. Not even to try and make them feel better.”

“I didn’t mean … You know I always end up with my foot in my mouth around you.”

George shook her head. “Johnson. Stop. You’re getting that weird look on your face that you do every time sex comes up. I’m ok. I know what happened to me isn’t the way things are supposed to be. But that is the way it happened and that’s not going to change so I might as well accept it. And even if I might wonder what the right way is supposed to be like I’m not going to go find out at the possible expense of my friendship with Roland. He and I weren’t the ones having sex and it already made things more difficult between us than it should be. It makes it seem that maybe sex is just more trouble than it’s worth.”

Giving Georgie an amazed look Johnson said, “You have the damnedest way of looking at things.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s too hard to explain in a few sentences so I’m not even going to try. I’d more than likely just wind up with both feet in my mouth instead of just one.”

“OK, fine, then can you at least explain why Nela is upset if Roland is giving her the space she asked for? Is it really that big a deal that Roland did so much better than her on the aptitude test?”

“You just answered your own question Kiddo. Nela was on her way to officer training school before she stepped on that land mine. Plus, she’s older than you lot. Maybe not a lot but enough that it should make a difference. And she’s got a lot more life experience and schooling too. Having a sixteen-year-old boy show her up like that hurt her pride.”

“He didn’t do it on purpose. Roland is just smart. Besides Nela is smart too. It is one of the things that Roland liked the most; he could talk to her about things he couldn’t talk about to anyone else. Her scores were higher than everyone else’s but yours and you went to college. Why is she focusing just on Roland’s score? Shouldn’t she be mad at you too?”

“It … look Kid, sometimes something comes along and makes a fear you have bigger. For whatever reason this thing between Nela and Roland …”

“You mean the sex.”

Wincing Johnson said, “Yeah, that’s definitely part of it.”

“Ok. You don’t need to finish. I get it.”

“Oh you do do you? Just all of a sudden.”

Georgie nodded confidently. “Yeah. It gave them both ideas. Only now they understand they were wrong. Being wrong has messed with their self-image. More reminders of being wrong just messes with it more. Now they’re trying to figure out how to go forward and every stupid little thing makes them wonder if they can or if maybe they should have stuck with the way things were. Plus they feel bad because they do still like each other but they don’t know how to be together now with the way things are. They also wonder even if they move forward, will what comes in the future be as good as what they had in the past which all-in-all makes them even more moody and cranky on top of missing having sex.”

“Uh … well … yeah.” Then Johnson grinned. “Just don’t explain it that way to them. They won’t appreciate it. They … er …”

“Are too moody and cranky to listen?”

“Pretty much Kid. Pretty much.”

“I sure hope they get over it soon. There is too much other stuff we need to do, and it is going to take everyone working together to get it done.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Thirteen​

Something is going on. I don’t know what, but we suspect it is bad and maybe even really bad. They say the Tri-V is broken but Peterson – who used to work in Communications before he got blown up and POW’d – says they’re lying. He says they’ve removed the relays to all the Tri-V units except for the one going to the Executive Administration Office. And that connection is live because he snuck in and tested it.

What is worrying is they’ve also disabled the wifi signal to all the old feed points. Roland is worried that they’ve figured out we’ve been spying on them, but Johnson isn’t buying it. He thinks that the Director – or someone higher up – has ordered the Staff cut off. I can’t imagine why although Mr. Waverly has been acting weird too.

Then Roland and I got pulled off our chores by people we’d never seen and taken to the administrative wing. I was sure we’d been found out, only when we got there, we were told to calm the rest of us down so we could give more blood. I don’t feel well now. Most everyone else had to be helped back. Roland was too weak to push his chair, which has never happened. Mr. Waverly had to get our soldiers to help us get back to our rooms as we weren’t allowed to rest until we felt better and could move on our own. They didn’t want us in the administrative wing. And I’m pretty sure that I heard noise from Lockdown.

Lockdown. This is the first time I’ve ever heard sounds coming from there. I know where the door is. I’ve figured that much out. But the noise didn’t make any sense and then I got so dizzy I passed out.

Something isn’t right. It was too soon to take our blood. It hadn’t been a whole month. And they took so much. Too much. Something just isn’t right.

**********

Johnson cornered Waverly and snapped, “What the hell man? Two liters … two friggin’ liters. And who the hell was doing the sticking?! They look like they’ve been chewed on by a pack of rabid vampires.”

“Watch your tone and lower your voice. They’re watching everyone these days. Just help me get the children to bed. They’ve promised more iron supplements and some vitamins, blood builders and the like. I’ll come back when I have them.”

Three hours later Johnson was weighing the risks of going to look for Waverly when he limped into the common room pushing a cart. Waverly had been beat on, though not so bad he couldn’t do his job. He was accompanied by a man that Johnson recognized as Mr. Russell, the man in charge of grounds and security.

Russell asked Johnson, “What are you still doing here?”

“I was assigned to look after the kids. I haven’t been relieved.”

Sighing in aggravation Russell said, “Fine. Since you’re here you can help.”

Waverly beckoned Johnson over and they pushed the cart towards Roland’s room. As they did Russell sat down and started reading something on an old-style clip board. Johnson started to say something but a look from Waverly asked him to keep it quiet.

As they went room to room dosing the occupants with various medications before telling them to go back to sleep, Waverly would write quickly on a pad of sticky notes and then palm the notes to Johnson. Johnson would quickly slide the notes in his pocket. Russell would pop in and out of the rooms as well at irregular intervals and sometimes stop them completely and make them do a spot inventory. It was like he was trying to catch them at something, or that he didn’t trust Waverly for some reason.

Finally Waverly rolled the cart towards the exit where Russell stopped him to take inventory one more time. Johnson asked the two men, “What now?”

It was Russell that answered rather than Waverly that answered, “They’ll sleep it off like they always do. You and the others just keep an eye on ‘em. Don’t let ‘em wander off. If you make yourselves useful enough, then might be them study guides ain’t the only assistance you’ll be receiving. You make trouble and it’s off to Lockdown for the whole lot of you.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Fourteen​

Holy hell, what a damn mess. What a damn friggin’ mess. It’s taken almost a week for all the kids to completely be themselves. I’m pretty sure it would have been longer without the meds and special rations being given to them.

Waverley; ain't sure what to make of him yet. I don't trust him but at the same time looks like I might not have any choice but to accept the help he is offering. If it really is help he is offering. I have my doubts.

It's more information than actual help, assuming it is true it is more than I had before. I haven't said anything to the kids. Don't know what to say yet. And what I could say I'm not sure they're up to hearing. On the other hand, I wonder if they don't already know. There's a weird acceptance coming off some of them. Especially Roland. The boy is depressed. It ain't all about Nella either.

Need to talk to Georgie but she's closed herself off. She still takes care of everyone, still calms the fears I see popping up more and more. Even does what she can for the staff. She patched Waverley up, not asking a single question. Yesterday she set Russell's hand; it looked like it had been slammed in a door or a drawer. She didn't ask questions about how it happened. Russell was so relieved he actually patted her shoulder and told her not to wander.

When he turned away he missed the look Georgie threw in Waverley's direction. I've never seen the girl even give a hint of that kind of anger, not even with that whole thing went down in the greenhouse. Roland saw her too and it confused him. Tells me it's time to get worried.

She knows something, but I don't know how she knows. We've all been watching her to make sure she doesn't go wandering. I swear she ain't been out of the wing so how could she know something we don't?

**********

"Roland?"

"If you're asking me what's up with Georgie, I don't know. All she does is sit there with the books, trying to learn more doctoring."

Johnson, visibly upset, snapped, "Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! She's figured it out."

"That X13 has gotten out of control again? Another wave is sweeping the country?"

A startled Johnson through a disbelieving look at Roland. "How the hell ... never mind. Guess it is time to put the cards on the table. It is worse than it simply being out of control. It's the world this time Kid. Quarantine and spot vaccinating is not helping. It has officially taken on pandemic status. And this latest strain is extremely antibiotic resistant. The only thing that is helping is a full clade vaccination of X13 serum before infection."

Georgie, having seen some of them congregating strolled over and casually sat down like she did when she was making sure that no one needed her doctoring. With facial expressions that didn’t match the words coming from her barely moving lips she told them, "Don't talk when Waverley and Russell are around. They're reporting everything they hear. Don't believe anything Waverley says until we can fact check it against what we've seen with our own eyes. From what I’ve seen it's way worse than he is letting on. The Director really isn't in charge anymore. In fact, she hasn't been seen in three days; right after she had a fight with some Outsider big wig that took over her office. I'll explain later. There's other things we need to talk about but not now and not here. I'll figure out a way as soon as I can. Play normal, they're watching us."

She got up and turned around and said, "I'm fine. Just fine. Stop treating me like a baby. I'm over it already I told you."

Johnson slowly turned to Roland and asked in a similar tone, "You believe that?"

Carefully, in the same tone, he answered, "She's just worried. Some of us took longer to come back from giving blood than usual. Someone getting the dates wrong really upset her. The Director will fix it. She doesn't like things to throw the schedule off because then she gets chewed on by her bosses. Maybe we should give Georgie some space."

"Hmmmm. Maybe so, but you need to encourage her to take care of herself too. Worrying about everyone else isn't going to change what happened and it only makes everyone nervous."

"I will. But ... she worries. She has a lot of responsibilities since DW hasn't come back yet. I wonder when she will? Maybe I should ask Mr. Waverly if he knows."

"Don't go sticking your nose into some place it doesn't belong Kid. Just make sure that Georgie behaves."

Johnson went back to the ward used by the soldiers and sat in their common area brooding. He didn't want to believe Georgie, but he did. He also wanted to know how she knew what she knew.

He was no closer to an answer at lights out, but he was exhausted. The food may have improved for the kids but it wasn't improving for anyone else. And foraging for more food was out of the question if they were being watched. He was about to take his shirt off when he noticed a little dust drifting down from the ancient acoustic ceiling tiles. When one lifted and a stubbly-head appeared it took everything Johnson had and then some not to have a furious meltdown.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Fifteen​

I almost laughed at the look on Johnson's face. Almost. He danced around like the chickens do when something upsets them. He finally stopped then nearly yanked me down so hard I almost landed on my head. I think he wanted to spank me. Probably would have if I hadn't handed him a ham-apple sandwich.

He tried to get me to eat some of it, but I wouldn't. I explained it to him. I have found a new way to get supplies. More and better supplies are coming in. Obviously not the Director's doing, she'd never order the kind of stuff coming in. Steaks, sausages, expensive canned stuff, potatoes, liquor, exotic fruit, stuff I’ve only ever seen in picture books or on the Tri-V. It has something to do with the important man that now uses the Director's office.

I should probably feel guilty for stealing, but after what I've heard I just can't find it in me. I should probably feel sorry for our Staff but I don't. I'm worried for our soldiers but I think I might have found a way around that but I'm not for sure yet and it could be very dangerous if we get caught. Before I even mention it, I need to have all the kinks worked out or they’ll flat out refuse.

I've also found a way to get around their security procedures. These new people don't think much of Defectives. They make the mistake of thinking that having a physical defect somehow translates into having a mental defect too. Sure, some of us and some of our soldiers do have brain trauma but that doesn't mean they aren't clever in their own way ... clever and useful.

The other thing is that because they underestimate us, they don't do as good a job as they could at watching us. The new people are watching the Staff more than they are watching us. It makes the Staff nervous and do bad things. I am especially disappointed in Mr. Waverly. He was our friend. I get that he is scared but he is now trying to turn some of our own against us. This is what I really needed to tell. I've told Roland already and he is heartbroken; but, he surprised me too because it seems to have turned something back on inside him. He agrees that the only other person that we should trust is Johnson. But there's a risk trusting him so much. What if Waverly has already gotten to him?

**********

"I ought to skin you you little ..." Nothing else coming out of Johnson's mouth made any sense since it was just a bunch of growling, so Georgie pushed the sandwich back into his mouth and then handed him a bottle of orange juice.

"I'm going to be sorry I asked. I know I am. Where ..?"

"Shhhhh. Let's get in the closet."

"Like hell I'm getting in my closet with a pint-size, half-dressed piece of jailbait. I don’t care if you are nearly as bald as a cue ball."

It took a moment for Georgie to figure out what he meant but when she did, she just rolled her eyes and opened his closet and went in and sat down, giving Johnson little choice but to follow her if he wanted answers.

"Georgie ..."

"Oh stop already. You're a man but you aren't like the ones that hurt me and you're not like some of the Staff can be either. You might think about sex but ..."

Johnson started to get up but Georgie stopped him. "Ok, I won't say the word, don’t have a meltdown. I just wanted you to know I know you are the right kind of man because you choose to be."

Johnson sighed between licking the crumbs from his fingers. "Fine. Just don't push your luck. And get to explaining. Now you Brat."

Georgie knew he had to make his point one way or the other but this way of making it - by calling her a brat - at least meant he would sit still and listen, so she didn't complain even though she was getting tired of him acting like she was a little kid. "I'll get around to the food 'cause it's important too. But you can't yell or someone might hear and ... and you have to be careful Johnson. I ... uh ..."

"I think I figured part of it out Kiddo," he said gently. "Who is Waverly talking up?"

Georgie was relieved. She'd hated the idea of putting ideas in his head. "Peterson, Nela, Tracey, and ... and Archer only I'm not sure how much Archer gets it. I think they are just pumping him for information, not promising him anything in exchange."

"Gotten to briberies already?" Johnson asked, a little surprised at how fast things were moving.

"Yeah. Peterson ... I think he might be the weakest link because Waverly has promised him medicine for his nightmares. He really hates them and the only teas I've found to help him are the ones that make him loopy or put him to sleep. He doesn't like those feelings either, so he won't take them enough to get them to work right. I don't know if Chaplin knows or not but I'm thinking not because I think he'd rather die than go on pain meds. He's always telling Peterson what a good thing it is that he's not dependent on his old meds so they don't have anything to hold over his head. But Peterson is just ... he's just the way he is I guess. He's strong so long as there's no chance of him getting meds to help him but if there is a chance ... Johnson I'm sorry but I think if this - whatever this is - goes on for much longer Peterson is going to fold."

Johnson said a rude curse. "Figures. I hope we are underestimating Peterson - or maybe underestimating Chaplin's influence - but what you've said sounds about what I've seen out in the field. Peterson is a good man … but he’s also weak. Always has been. What about Nela and Tracey? They've been off to themselves a lot but I put it down to studying for that damn test."

"Yeah, it is mostly that. And Nela being tore up about Roland ... but Tracey is working on her. Tracey is more of a weak link than Nela. But Nela has the bigger temptation she has to fight."

"The limb transplant." Johnson shook his head. "And with the harvest hub right here ..."

"Yeah. Tracey's temptation is pretty simple and straight forward; she just wants money to get out and start over in some place down in South America. She's got relatives down there and there are no Defective Laws to hold her back."

"Hate to ask but are any of the kids at risk for being used like that?"

"Not knowingly. Not even Victor would have told secrets, and he was our weakest link before he was taken away. The others ... we've lived our whole lives keeping secrets; it's a lifestyle. Some of them don't even know any better, it is just the way it is. If we don't keep secrets, we could be sent to Lockdown. That's enough for most of them. If Lockdown isn't enough then the food is."

"Ok, there's no changing it so I'll try and keep an eye on my people. You and Roland though, you need to ..."

"Keep an eye on ours. Got it. In fact, I just came from Roland's room. He's upset about Nela but ... but I think it might have brought him back to life some too. He's remembered what's important. And he was super happy about the food though kinda mad that I'd gone and done it without talking to him first."

Johnson winced. "If Roland is mad, I have a feeling I ain't gonna be too happy either so get with the telling about the food already."

Georgie ordered her thoughts. She had the beginning of one of her bad headaches, had been fighting it all week. Lack of sleep, stress, and worry had just contributed to the growing pain. "This goes in too many different directions for me to pick a good starting spot. I don't know where to begin."

"Start with how you know what you know."

"That's part of it too though. To tell that I have to tell other pieces."

"Hey Kiddo, you don't feel well do you? Are you taking those ... those blood supplements like you are supposed to? Wait. Oh damn. Waverly ..."

"It's okay. They are what they are telling us they are. The first day they had a sedative in them but not since. There hasn't needed to be, we were all too weak. Johnson, we are in serious trouble."

"So just tell it the best you can and I'll ask questions if I'm not getting it."

“Before I tell you about the food, I need to tell you about Waverly and Russell.”

“Yeah, I saw that look you threw their way. You’d best be careful about your attitude showing.”

“I wish I could hit them over the head.” The growl in Georgie’s voice was so unlike her that Johnson had a hard time believing it was the same girl.

“What pushed your buttons?”

“You’re gonna think I should feel sorry for them but I don’t. It is their own fault for being selfish.”

“Uh …”

“I … We … We needed information. This wasn’t just a calendar mistake, this is a new calendar. And a new boss making the calendar. And new security here to enforce it. I don’t know where the Director went but she hasn’t left the grounds – all her stuff is still in her suite and Miss Neville is still taking care of it – but I haven’t seen her anywhere. I even looked in the South Wing. I think she might be in Isolation, but I don’t know for sure because the ceiling over that area is all plywooded over.”

“And?”

“And these new people are being mean to the Staff that was already here. Mr. Waverly got beat up for trying to tell them their business I guess. That they’d taken too much blood and it was too soon. They didn’t like him butting in, so they put him in his place. Yesterday Mr. Russell got upset that the new security people were going over his head with stuff and he was getting left Out of the Loop. He started digging around in the personnel files to figure out who was who and one of the assistants to the new Director slammed the file drawer shut before he could get his hand out.”

Johnson whistled silently.

“Yeah. Then they reminded him that he was a medical triage just like the rest of the defectives and that he’d just have to suffer along, and hope that it healed. That he wasn’t even entitled to an aspirin or anything. And if he didn’t shut up that he could go into Isolation and if that didn’t fix him up, he could take a stroll into Lockdown. Mr. Russell started stuttering and saying that wouldn’t be necessary, that there had obviously been some kind of misunderstanding. That’s when the new Director walked in and said that there had certainly been a lot of misunderstandings going on and he was here to rectify that and there were a bunch of new rules for the Staff.”

“And I’m sure that’s not all.”

Georgie shook her head in disgust. “No, that’s not all. All the Staff were brought into the big conference room where men with fancy guns lined the wall and the new Director laid down the law. I couldn’t hear everything because someone was vacuuming in the hallway but basically it was his way or Lockdown and that they were to report everything they saw and heard to him, including what they saw and heard each other doing. That if anyone was caught collaborating or something like that … well he looked out the window and the South Wing entrance was right there, and no one misunderstood what he meant.”

“Damn Kid, when you deliver a load of intel you deliver a full load.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Sixteen​

My gawd. Georgie must be part ghost and the other part mouse. I've tried to follow her through the maze of ventilation shafts, electrical shafts, and old maintenance crawl spaces but about half the time I can't even fit much less get through them as fast and as silently as she does. I don’t even want to think about some of the things I’ve seen along the routes we’ve taken in this old mausoleum.

I've seen rats as big as dogs a few times; they looked about as vicious too when I came near but didn't pay any attention to Georgie. She said they're used to her smell and know that she won't bother their nests or play with their litters. She admitted however that she wouldn't want to be caught injured in a few places like the basement or the blood smell might overcome the rodents' apathy. Had a nightmare of that village in Asia after remembering the rats there. Dammit. Just thinking about it gives me the shakes.

I've gotten used to "acquiring" supplies the way Georgie started doing but over the preceding weeks I've also heard things that have given me the shakes just as bad as the aftermath of a battle. They've moved the bloodletting up to every two weeks. I'm not sure how much more the kids can take. Two liters each time and Roland said he overheard them wondering if they could push it to two and a half liters. A couple of the kids are already anemic, causing a big argument in the Administrative Wing. Hell, it was loud enough that we could hear some of it in our wing. I don’t think they realize how much sound travels through these old ceramic lined corridors.

Got into it with Tracey who has started to reveal her loyalties. I expected it, but I’m still pissed off. She's back to calling the kids defectives and made a few derogatory comments. What surprised me was Peterson. He reached over and backhanded her. Shocked everyone to be honest. He said, "If it wasn't for the kids most of the people in this world would be dead, you included."

Tracey didn’t bust him back but stood way off. I think maybe he’d scared her. Besides, she made a habit out of picking men that beat on her. It’s one of the reasons I’d always kept my distance from her. Woman that don’t value herself more than that ain’t worth my time. All she did was wipe her mouth and say, "They'd find some other way to deal with X13."

"Yeah, like letting everyone die and only the elites having the full clade vaccine. Who do you think is getting what they're taking right now? Front line troopers? Nope. Your average urban dweller? Nope. It is going to people with the money to pay for it. And all the crap they are promising ain't nothing but ashes if these kids don't live."

"There are other people that are immune. I'm immune to at least three of the clades."

"But you can't pass on your immunity. You can't share your immunity. X13 don't work that way because of how the virus mutates."

"Tell me something I don’t know. That's all Biology 101."

"No kidding. So why are you being such an idiot? Even getting out of this place, there is nowhere to hide. X13 is everywhere or soon will be and the only antidote for it is in those kids' blood and in case you haven't noticed yet, they're being treated like crap. Here's another one for you. You want to know why the staff are acting the way they are? They aren't being given the full clade vaccine. Especially since most of them are on medical triage. Apparently they're being bribed with a full clade vaccine shot if they can get us to roll over on each other."

"BS you defective and useless ..."

I broke in when all it started to become was a bunch of name calling. Tracey is finding herself awful lonely. Even Nela has started spending less time with her. Don't know if it means anyone is less likely to fall for a deal from Waverly, but it sure didn't help her calling the rest of our crew defectives. Damn if she isn't one of us too, or does she think she is going to magically get a new eye and high end plastic surgery to repair the scarring? Her vision ain’t too good which is one of the things making it so hard for her to study. How she’s acting don't make no sense to me.

To be honest, none of this is making good sense. We either pull together or we're all gonna fry. Today, tomorrow, or some time down the road. Eventually we're all gonna fry. All we’ve got is each other.

**********

"Georgie, you need to get some rest. You ain't looking good."

Georgie irritably snapped at Johnson, "I've got a mirror. I know what I look like. But the supply train is coming in and there's supposed to be a lot of stuff on it. I want some of that stuff for us. And I want to know why they are sending so much. They don't even inventory it anymore. Just haul it off the bay and shove it wherever they can find a place for it."

Johnson and Roland had developed a theory and he shared it with the girl. "Pickering is being turned into a bunker or something similar."

"A bunker? You mean like a supply hub like the South Wing is a harvest hub?"

"No. And the South Wing is being shut down."

Surprised she asked, "Since when?"

"Since last night. There was a lot of coming and going ... mostly going ... yesterday and Chaplin overheard Russell pitching a fit that he was losing his security detail, at least the few still loyal to him. They were being transferred someplace. I crawled through your rat maze and saw them ... everyone but Minke and Kilpatrick are gone. The two women on duty were complaining because they would have to wait for someone else to help them move them."

Concerned at the possibilities Georgie asked, "Where were they moving them to?"

Johnson sighed. He really didn't want to bring this particular subject up. "They said they were being transferred to the medical ward in the Administrative Wing."

"There's no medical wa ... you mean Lockdown? They were going back to Lockdown?!"

"Easy Georgie, that's just one possibility."

Georgie covered her ears and trembled. Johnson was about ready to call the "requisition" off when she lowered her hands and shook herself like a dog. "There's nothing I can do about it right now. Victor and DW are ... are beyond my help. I feel bad for them, but I can't change things. And this is more important to the people I can help."

Johnson patted her shoulder, feeling some pride in how far Georgie had come with conquering her fear of Lockdown and what it might represent. "Good girl. Now let's get focused. Here they come."

Here they come was right. Several supply trucks were winding their way from the train station. Their headlamps lit the meandering road creating weird shadows in the shrubbery and metal fence that encircled the Pickering ground and acreage. The way it works is supplies were brought in by rail. What was assigned to go to Pickering was transferred to the supply trucks which would wind their way along the old highway and then pull up to the security gate. The men manning the gate would then check the back of the trucks and wave them through. The trucks would then drive around to the old supply bays that sat between the South Wing and the wing where the soldier's ward was. Sometimes a truck would go to the old bays that were closer to the Administrative Wing but not every time. Mostly what came off those special deliveries was wine and liquor. The supplies from both kinds of deliveries would be offloaded and the trucks got out of there as quickly as they could.

It was then that things would get interesting. The supplies were basically broken down into three piles. There was the pile that was for the Staff, soldiers, and the children. There was the pile that was set aside for the Administrative Wing. For the last few deliveries there was also a very large pile that was moved to an area in the East Wing's fourth floor and stored there on the pallets they came in on. This moving and stacking of the large pile was completed by the Staff and the new people living in the Administrative Wing. Since the supplies were never labeled, it wasn't until Georgie had broken into some of the lockers and large metal barrels that she discovered it was more food, though different from what was sent to the kitchens.

There's also been things besides food delivered and stored in a similar manner. Medical supplies, books, pieces of artwork, furniture, crates of what looked like people’s personal belongings. The non-food deliveries are what made Roland and Johnson suspect that someone was turning Pickering into a safe haven. The question was, did it make the children and the soldiers more expendable or less?

After the guards left the loading dock and the trucks drove away they knew they would have less than an hour before Staff would show up in the bay to start the moving process. They quickly left their hiding spot and got to work. It was Johnson who noticed there was a lot of fresh and frozen items in the supplies heading to the Administrative Wing this time. "Better pick what you want carefully and quickly. They'll have to come down here and get this stuff soon if they don't want it to spoil."

"It's in cold pack boxes. They have some time."

"Best not to take chances."

"Agreed. Oh look, more steaks and a box of roasts."

"Grab that and I'll try and get it cut up to go on the dehydrator."

They'd had no choice. With the weather beginning to get bad - they'd had their first snowfall less than a week ago - and the grounds being watched so closely by the new people they'd had to figure a way to preserve what they'd been acquiring in a secure location. Since the fifth floor was already inaccessible to everyone unless you could climb into the ceiling panels and then through the maze in the old walls, that's where they set up shop. First they "acquired" some pesticides to keep the rats and other vermin out. Then they silently repurposed some empty metal cabinets that remained on that floor. They also built another dehydrator out of parts scavenged from one of the ancient furnaces in the basement. Roland outdid himself by designing a solar powered blower and heater and Johnson ran wide, heat-proof conduit for an exhaust that fed into one of the roof vents that served the administration staff’s kitchen. This way if there was any smell from the dehydrator people would assume that it were it came from.

Because they'd been acquiring real meat they were able to make jerky. Roland also made what he called a redneck smoker that helped them to cure sausages and hams. The fresh fruits and vegetables were dehydrated as well and put into old, unused glass apothecary jars found throughout the complex. In fact, they had a pretty sweet stash of supplies of their own squirreled away.

By 1 am Johnson said they'd done all they could for the night. "You're trashed Georgie and I'm not far from it."

Georgie shook her head. "I feel ... feel like ... like ..."

"Hey. You sick?"

Georgie shook her head. "No. I mean I am but not beyond what I can bare. No, it's ... it's these important people that keep showing up and then just going away. There's some deep game going on."

Johnson didn't even try to play dumb. "Yeah there is. Peterson was going to try and get a comm link access up and running so we could get more intel but he's out for at least 24, maybe 48. He ain't faking either."

"You think he's stepped back to our side?"

"He never left, he'd just been tempted to. Did you know that he lost his family in the original Terror Blue attack ... well, not the attack but the aftermath?"

"He mentioned it during one of his ... meltdowns. Chaplin was there so he explained."

"I think that's what is keeping him on our side. That he knows, has experienced, what it means that X13 is out of control."

"I wonder if it still is. We haven't had any new news, not even from Mr. Waverly which is strange."

"I'm beginning to think that maybe Waverly is having his own set of second thoughts."

"Not Mr. Russell. If anything he seems to be getting worse."

"Not worse Kiddo, desperate." Johnson stretched and Georgie caught herself realizing that Johnson had gained muscle mass. He'd need to be careful. He was the only one that she gave extra rations to. In fact, none of the soldiers except for Johnson knew about their new 5th Floor Facilities.

"Johnson, you need to be careful. You're looking ... healthy."

Johnson snorted. "Noticed that have you? Tracey already said something and I reminded her that if I wanted to make it into Farm Management I had to be able to pass their physical requirements."

"Did it work? Was she suspicious?"

"She might have been, but Waverly said that it was wise that I was training. That books were all well and good but that there were other parts of the testing program that books wouldn't help with. Then he acted - oh you know how he can sound - he reminded me that I needed to be careful and not get sick, etc etc etc. He called me on the carpet and that made Tracey grin and go back to what she was doing. But she and Nela have started exercising too. Several of the others have as well."

"They'll eventually notice that you build up and they don't."

"We'll worry about that when it happens, for now it is what it is. We can't tell anyone else about these supplies because we need 100% secrecy. And only you and Roland know about it on your side of things which protects the other kids. I wish I could do this myself," he finished on a troubled frown.

"But you can't so we'll worry about that later too."

Johnson said something rude, but it only made Georgie smile and they made their way back down to their respective rooms after accomplishing at least as much as they had set out to do and a little more besides.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Seventeen​

Things were going so well. We'd re-built some of our information gathering abilities. Our supplies are way up compared to all previous winters. We've even started taking and storing non-food stuff like medical supplies and replacement clothing items. Even with the bad news about the war and X13 and all the changes going on here at Pickering I was really starting to have hope. Now look at this mess we are in.

We're locked in. That's never happened before. They were going to lock us in our sleep rooms but then cursed when they realized the locks hadn't worked in years and there weren't any keys for them even if they did work. They got rough with our soldiers too when they came running because some of us started screaming when we were getting pushed around. It took a lot of work, but Roland and I managed to get things settled down before our soldiers Went Too Far. I still remember that is why DW went to Lockdown in the first place, so we know it isn't just us kids that get sent there. I don't want it happening to any of our soldiers.

After lights out the first night I managed to crawl over to Johnson's room and let him know we were all ok only to discover they were locked down too only their rooms did have keys and they were all locked in individually. I checked on some of the other soldiers and then gave Peterson a knock out tea.

He said, "I hate being weak."

"You aren't weak. You just have an issue that slows you down, but only sometimes. You're lots better than you used to be."

"Yeah? Chaplin says the same thing but ..."

"No buts. Now let the tea do what it needs to. This way when you wake up, you'll be ready for whatever is next. And Chaplin said to tell you that if you get in trouble just knock on the wall. He'll knock back to let you know he's there. He said you could knock as many times as you needed to, he'd still knock back."

I'm worried about Peterson; he's too sensitive. He is a good soldier for us, but he takes his issues way too hard. I think Chaplin sees him as a son type of thing. He has even started to call him Sonny. Whatever it is, it is good for both of them. I'm a little worried about Tracey as well. She's starting to act the same way as Waverly. Johnson calls it desperate, but I call it twitchy and mean. I know the other soldiers have pretty much ostracized her because of some things she said, but I think it is hurting more than helping her adjust her attitude. Desperate people do desperate things. And Tracey can hurt us all. She doesn't know much these days, but she could tell what she used to know and if the right person listened and believed her ... she's dangerous. I know Johnson has been keeping an eye on her, but she isn't cooperating.

Nela is another one that I'm worried about. She seems so focused on passing that career placement test. She is going to be in for a shock when she finds out how bad X13 has gotten. There may not be an aptitude test at this rate. Johnson continues with acting like there will be but even he is beginning to think there won't be. I almost regret putting the idea into Miss Neville's head; I hate for their One Ray Of Hope to get taken away. I can't talk that over with anyone though. That is my secret - one of too many I have - that will have to stay in my head. But it is a lonely consequence for lying, a worry that I can't talk over with anyone.

I'm also worried that they are going to forget to feed us, and we'll have to break into our supplies and if they see they'll wonder where the food came from. So far they haven't but the food hasn't been very good. The only thing they are making sure of is that we get the medicine that builds up our blood. All the iron is making some of us constipated ... in one or two cases critically so. I'm trying to sneak them things that will help with that but it isn't easy. I may have to ask Mr. Waverly if we can have some intravenous fluids for the worst cases. I hate to say it can't hurt to ask but I'm honestly not sure that is the case.

Mr. Waverly is making sure the soldiers get fed too though one time when I crawled over it was to find them all grumbling in their common room and being told by the guards that came with the food trays to be grateful they are getting anything at all. That they were just a bunch of defects that didn't deserve to live. And that the only reason they weren't rectifying that immediately is because they were useful babysitting the rest of the defectives ... meaning us.

All of this is just bad, really really bad. When I'm crawling around in the vents I can hear construction going on. Or I think that is what it is. I hear saws and hammers and other things that buzz, clack, and bang and make a lot of noise. I need to go check it out but Johnson made me promise not to go until he could go with me. That's two hours from now, an hour after lights out.

I saw a bunch of trucks leave right before the sun went down. Roland who got a better look with a pair of binoculars that I was able to scrounge up for him that lets him go places with his eyes that he can't roll to said that the vehicles were definitely the depot delivery trucks but that he didn't recognize any of the drivers which is strange because there are only a limited number of people allowed onto Pickering grounds. Or it is supposed to be that way. Roland also said that the drivers didn't look well. That really scares me.

It also makes me more determined than ever to convince our soldiers what is necessary. I have all the information I need, I still just don't know how we are going to find the privacy to do it. I finally told Roland my idea and he smacked his head and said he should have thought of that back when we did have more privacy to pull it off. Too late now for regrets, now we just need to act.

Roland wants me to tell Johnson everything and get his take on it; from the delivery truck drivers to my Important Idea. Roland also wants us to check and see what they delivered. It must be very valuable for them to lock us in like this. I hope our Angels are hanging around. I have a feeling we are really going to need them.


**********

"Barracks."

"What?" Georgie asked the man beside her to repeat his whisper as she was having trouble with all the noise still going on in the East Wing even though it was lights out in the other wings.

"Barracks ... or maybe apartments. See how small the partitioned off rooms are? They wouldn't put important personages in rooms the size of closets. I'd sure be interested where they are getting all this lumber from. The eco-plomats must have gotten a big pay off to look the other way on a delivery this big. And whoever is running this operation must be big as there aren't many that could pull it off."

Georgie nodded her understanding. "You think they are going to bring in soldiers?"

"That might be the plan. Or they might be bringing in a bunch of serfs."

"A bunch of what?"

"Sorry Kiddo. Had a teacher when I was growing up that was a bit of a dissident and he told me a few things about the history of the world before they caught him at it and carried him off. What I mean is that they're bringing in workers. People that will help them rebuild after X13 has blown through but who won't have a very high station in how things are run during or after. Like pawns on a chess board. They serve a purpose but everyone else is more important."

Having seen their fill, Georgie and Johnson backed away and climbed up to the Fifth Floor to check their supplies there. After making sure nothing had been discovered Georgie went back to what they had seen. "They'll need good infection protocol. According to the intel we were finally able to access this pandemic strain has a much longer incubation period - up to forty days - they'll need to be very careful they don't bring in people that are already infected and ruin everything."

"That's your cup of tea but I would have to say that they've already thought all of that through. That might actually be the reason for the lock down rather than anything malicious. They've probably set up an interim holding area where groups are quarantined until they can prove they aren't infected. But it would have to be set up real slick with tight security. They don't want to risk cross contamination."

"How did you think of that?" she asked.

"Happened on the battlefield when they could pull it off. If we had two MASH units they were kept well apart and their patients were sent to different wounded warehouses behind the lines. This was in case one hospital was compromised it didn't affect all patients and staff. Medical staff ... at least well-trained medical staff ... was getting in short supply even during my last battlefield assignment."

"Did you hear what that guy with the different colored vest was saying?"

"Kid I could barely hear myself think. Did you do your lip-reading thing?"

"Yeah. He said they would be opening up the South Wing next but that it was going to take more supplies than what they had before they could start. They'd been under budgeted. That the guy in charge kept changing the number of people that were expected to pay for a shot. What could he mean by that?"

Johnson looked worried. "You sure he said shot and not slot?"

"It looked like he said shot ... a shot at what?"

Johnson shook his head. "Not a shot at what ... a literal shot. I think this new guy is worse than the old Director was. I think he is selling vaccine doses. Oh Kiddo ... this ain't good. This ain't good at all. Damn those sociopathic vampires."

"But ... but Johnson ... that's ... that's hundreds of rooms just on this floor. There's not enough blood ... not for ... not for all those people. They'll kill us."

Johnson put his arm around the horrified girl. "Shhhhh. Gotta let me think. We might be able to hide you kids ... the basement maybe if we can camouflage part of it. Dammit. And damn the greedy son of a ..." Johnson suddenly stopped talking, got a surprised look on his face, and ran over to the window and then jumped back knocking Georgie over and covering her with his body.

An explosion shattered the window. It shattered several windows on the lower floors but only the one on the fifth floor.

Johnson said, "Stay down. I need to get that covered. Then we need to head back downstairs pronto."

Terrified Georgie asked, "What's happening?! What did that?!"

Grimly Johnson explained, "Artillery round. Someone obviously hacked someone else off. Looks like playing king of the hill and moving too fast got someone noticed. God alone knows how this is going to play out. You stick close. I need to get you back to your room and then get closer to the action so I can line up the sides and players on them."

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Eighteen​

They're gone! Where can they be?! The soldiers too. The doors to both wards were standing open ... busted down. Scorch marks around the door frame so maybe they were blown open. I don't know. There's too much noise. Too much. And there are bullet holes everywhere. I know they're bullet holes. They look just like the movies on the Tri-V. There are guns too. I can still hear the pops and bangs even through the thick walls where I'm hiding. I've had to hide. There are people fighting all over. Who are they?! What do they want?!

Johnson and I hurried as fast as we could to get back to all of us but it was too late. We could hear fighting off and on. There was a lot of yelling. We tried our ward first and when we didn't find any of us we climbed into the soldiers' ward by the ceiling, coming down in Johnson's room. That's when things started going wrong. All of the room doors were busted open, some from the inside and some from the outside but we couldn't tell if it had been a willing break out or a violent break in.

And now I can't find Johnson. Some man came out of the darkness and tried to grab me and Johnson started fighting with him. Then a bunch of people came and things got crazy and I lost an earplug and all the noise hit me really hard and all I could do was climb into the janitor's closet. Where are they?! What if someone is hurt and needs me?! Why did I leave them? And the soldiers. Some of them meltdown so easily, even after all this time. Some of them couldn't even watch war movies or news on the war on the Tri-V because it would wind them up. I'm scared. For them. For me. For us. For all of us.

Eventually, after the fighting went a different direction and I crawled the best I could to my room and got my extra earplugs. It helped with my brain frtitzing out but that only gives me more brain to be worried with. I stayed in my closet for a while but now I'm back in the janitor's closet. I have to find them all. I have to.

**********

If you were in the middle of the fighting it felt like a huge army of people but if you pulled back and looked down on Pickering from above you saw that it was actually just a relatively small contingent of people, but they were a well-armed contingent; not well-trained but they were definitely well-armed. While the people that held Pickering weren't as well armed, they were many times more ruthless. Neither side was giving up and coming back to fight another day, they were all in to win or to die trying.

Georgie finally found the courage to leave her hiding place but it wasn't by the door. She crawled up into the ceiling and carefully made her way towards the fighting. But the closer she got the more it sounded like the battle had broken into two parts. There was a piece of the battle taking place in the South Wing and then there was a piece taking place near the Administrative Offices. Georgie didn't know which direction to take until she heard some people running and then stopping almost right beneath her.

"No one say anything about the regular Army being here. Did you see them guys take out ..."

"Shut up before someone hears you. Yeah, I saw. Bindenheim got a lot of things wrong. His intel said there was a hospital wing and they had hundreds of X13 immunes set up and were drawing blood off them. That all we would need to do was come in and take over and we could be kings of the world. People are paying whole fortunes to get vaccinated. But the only thing I've seen so far is those pitiful defectives they were keeping for experimental drug testing."

"Could they be holding the immunes someplace else? This place is ..."

Suddenly there was more shooting and Georgie heard three distinct thuds. She nearly wept with relief when she heard, "Grab their gear. Piece it out to those that are still missing something."

"LT ... Tracey has been hit."

At that same moment Georgie felt the support she'd been using give way and she fell through the ceiling tile, tried to catch herself on an old light fixture only to have it come out of the ceiling as well. She landed hard on the bodies of two fallen men and knocked the wind out of herself.

Once she was finally able to draw breath she launched herself into Johnson's arms and started crying, "I couldn't find you. I couldn't find you."

"Hey now, none of that. You want to ball like a baby do it later. Pull yourself together Kid. Can you patch Tracey up enough so that she can get mobile?"

That stopped Georgie's bought of impending hysterics and she nodded her head in the affirmative. She crawled over to the woman while the men continued to strip down their enemy. Tracey refused to look at her or speak to her so Georgie worked as silently as her patient, until she heard Peterson say, "Strip 'em down to skin. There's a couple of the kids that still don't have clothes and the temp is gonna drop tonight according to Chaplin's knee."

Georgie glanced at Johnson who seemed almost a different person and asked, "You have us?"

Johnson, long used to the weird pronoun usage that the kids often spoke in - as if they were not necessarily individuals but part of some whole entity - said, "About half of you, yes. The other half was taken to the administrative wing. Roland got busted up in the fighting and his chair isn't working. He and Nela are watching the bunch we just left. We're on our way to the administrative wing now to liberate the rest of you."

Tracey finally spoke, "Fine. We liberate the little freaks. What's after that LT? Who is going to liberate us?"

"Don't start that again Tracey. Focus on what is right in front of us. You heard the intel from the prisoners, it's nothing but chaos on the Outside for the last week. No one is in charge, or if they are they aren't in charge of enough to make a difference. And not just here but everywhere. Short term plan is to liberate the kids and hole up. We'll work on longer term plans after that."

She sneered disrespectfully but said, "Fine. Whatever. Let's just get this done so we aren't late to our funerals."

Georgie started to saying something but Peterson put his hand on her shoulder and told her, "Save it. Whatever comfort or encouragement you are going to offer her Tracey will just throw it back in your face. Don't waste the energy."

Georgie nodded and then Peterson asked, "You ok? I know the LT was a little rough on you."

"No. I'm fine. And Johnson being Johnson is what stopped the brown out I was about to have. And you are a stinker for not taking your tea."

Peterson was surprised for about two seconds then grinned before asking, "Wouldn't happen to have a spare pair of plugs on you would you?"

Georgie dug the small bag out of her pocket and shared them with Peterson. He turned at Johnson's tap and gave a thumbs up signal. Johnson nodded and then gave a thumbs up to Georgie before putting her in the middle of their group and telling her, "I'd send you back to Nela and Roland but there isn't time. We need to get going. You ready for this?"

"No. But I'm not leaving you. Someone else might need to get patched up."

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Nineteen​

As long as I live I hope to never have to see that look on her face again. On any of their faces once they came to understand what we found. Bastards. May they all rot in hell ... after spending time in "purgatory" themselves.

We came in behind the Outsiders who were fighting those in Administration only to discover they were not making any real headway. Then there was a lull as they regrouped, and we could see the dead from both sides piled up at the barricaded entrance to that wing. I didn't want to do it. Hated doing it but she was the only one that could because the ventilation shafts and conduits in the wing were newer and therefore smaller diameter. Plus she knew them well and could travel them quickly and silently.

"Georgie I need to know what is going on in there. I need to know how many they still have and what kind of weapons they have at their disposal. I don't want to take down the Outsiders only to be taken out by the Director's people."

She didn't even hesitate only asked, "Can someone boost me up?"

Peterson did it. I was afraid if I tried to lift her I'd wind up making her stay and waste time trying to find another way to get what we needed which probably wouldn't work as well or as efficiently. Damned if I know what it is about these kids - and her in particular - but they worm their way into you and watching them suffer is like being tore up in battle. I can't explain it.

It was nerve-wracking for all of us to wait on Georgie's recon. Hell, even Tracey was showing signs of worry and care. I had to shut Peterson down because I could tell he really wanted to rub it in. In hindsight it is a good thing for Peterson that I did. He's already got enough squirrels in the attic that like to chew on him.

The battle heated back up and I worried about bullets going into the ceiling. Good thing the girl kept her head but she scared the hell out of me popping out of the vent on the wall. She yelped and ducked back in when she saw all the guns suddenly swinging in her direction. Lucky for her none of us are so green that we shoot before we know what we're shooting at.

**********

"Dammit Georgie! Get out here now."

Georgie didn't take umbrage at his angry tone. She realized immediately that she shouldn't have scared them like that; she simply hadn't thought, only wanted to get away from the bullets that were puncturing the ceiling tiles. "There's only five men on the other side of the door. Then there's three more in ... in front of the door that goes down to Lockdown. The ones in front of Lockdown were talking on a radio but there was too much noise for me to hear what was being said and they were faced away from me so I couldn't read their lips. But it wasn't the guys at the door they were talking to because they didn't have a radio."

Peterson shook his head. "You mean they've got themselves blocked in that basement area you say is the Lock down?"

Johnson said, "Bad strategy ... unless they've got something down there more valuable than their good sense. Only one way in and out and an inferior force protecting it. They should have taken the kids and made their way beyond the fighting. Something isn't adding up."

Georgie just listened but allowed a small hope to start building. What if the rest of them, all the rest of them from all the years, were down there. "That's where they have us. It has to be. And it's where they keep the blood collecting machines and coolers. Is that valuable enough?"

Johnson, Peterson, and the other soldiers looked at each other. The likelihood of one or more of the children getting hurt was going up exponentially.

Tracey was the one that brought it up first. "If the Director doesn't win this, I hear he is vicious enough to kill the kids just to bring hell down on everyone else that stood against him."

At Georgie's alarmed look she added, "Look, ain't bringing me no joy either. It's one of the reasons I just wanted out; the writing has been on the wall for anyone to read if they hadn't been living in la-la land. But I won't back out of helping at this stage. You just gotta be realistic girl. What you are looking at is war. Depending on who wins will tell who leaves the battlefield alive."

None of the others contradicted her. Georgie felt like crying but she didn't. There had been lots of times she'd had to cry at a friend dying or leaving but then she hadn't been able to help stop it. This time she did.

"Give me one of those things ... the ones that explode.

Despite having a feeling he already knew the answer, Johnson looked at her and asked, "And why do you want a grenade?"

"Because as soon as you take down the Outsiders I am going to drop it on the Director's people on the other side of the door."

Peterson nodded and added, "Then we come through and control the situation before things can get out of hand."

Johnson growled, "Don't encourage her."

"Ain't encouraging her LT, just I can't see it having to go any other way."

Finally Johnson nodded once again in control, "I can't either. Here Brat, and if you blow something off I am going to paddle your behind so hard you won't be able to sit down for a week."

Georgie took the grenade after receiving quick instructions on how to safely detonate it and then grabbed Johnson's sleeve. "I'm not a little kid. I'm doing this of my own free will. You aren't making me. No one is."

"Yeah, yeah Brat," Johnson said, feeling like he was stuck in one of his nightmares. "Just pay attention or prepare to get your seat warmed."

Georgie just shook her head and said, "Yeah, yeah" back to him before scurrying into the wall like the mouse that Johnson sometimes compared her to.

 

[Lone_Hawk]

Roland didn’t like it but he understood. He just hoped Georgie would.

Interesting story, thank you!

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Twenty​

How do I sum up all my fears of that place? I can't. The sum isn't calculable. The fear of it is over but the memories of the fear will last the rest of my lifetime. And those memories keep haunting me. It has been days now and they still haven't stopped visiting me in the middle of the night.

I get up. Walk around checking everyone and it is only then I can crawl back in bed and sleep. But I don't really rest. I can't. I feel like if I really stop, finally stop, to take everything in I'll fall apart. And I can't do that right now. Too many of us got hurt, too many of us need me. And if it isn't for physical ouches, it is for mental ones, to calm their fears, to help combat their meltdowns. To let them know that though things have changed almost to be unrecognizable that we are still together and that won't change. Ever.

The rest of us only partly understand what we found. I've tried to explain it to Roland but not even he completely understands. They're all sad, they all understand the loss, but not the rest of it, not the dark reality of it. Some of the soldiers wanted ... but no, I stopped them, told them it all had to end. That there had been enough death and that there was probably a lot of dying still going on.

So it has become a prison. It was already a prison, just not one the prisoners inside it understood. The monsters will get their consequences but not at my hand. I can't deal anymore consequences out, not right now. There's already enough blood on my hands for me to deal with, has been for years, blood I can never tell about. But this, this I think I'm strong enough to leave to God. If it is to be death or something like it for those prisoners, let God send the Angel of Death to deal it out. I'm too sick of it all.

And there are so many more immediate problems we need to figure out. And an unexpected future we must get ready for.

**********

The soldiers had given Georgie a few moments to get positioned for her part of the plan and then they caught the Outsiders in a vicious surprise attack, caught them between their guns and the guns of the Director's people. There was no friendly fire to worry about. It was three forces and only one could be victorious.

Georgie watched both sides of the barricaded door from her vantage point which wasn't very secure, and she was almost shot several times. However as soon as she saw the last Outsider fall in the hallway, she dropped the grenade into the room where the Director's men remained. Two had fallen in the battle but that left enough for the explosion to shred.

Georgie herself had underestimated the force she'd be up against and she was knocked down along with most of the ceiling, stunned but not really unconscious. The men ran through covering each other, proving through their actions and training that while they may have been turned away by the politicians and military, they were still soldiers - the children's soldiers. Georgie watched them through bleary eyes and every time she tried to follow them, she was pushed back down and told to stay out of the line of fire.

The soldiers broke down the door only to find another battle taking place. To keep ricochets from causing more damage than they already had the butt of rifles, fists, and muscles were used to finish subduing what remained of the Director's staff. In a last ditch effort, the Director himself grabbed one of the children as a bargaining chip. It was a tense standoff and when the Director realized that there was no way for him to win he put the gun to the head of child named Ralph and nearly pulled the trigger. Would have pulled the trigger except for Tracey.

She gave her life - after all the derogatory and mean words and actions she still gave her life rather than watch one of the soldier's charges be harmed. Who knows why? But when it was realized what she had given for them the children cried for her as if they had lost one of their own. In a way they had. She had been tempted. Would have given into the temptation had the opportunity ever presented itself. But in the end, in the end she chose the children over the fulfillment of her own selfish desires; even knowing they were within reach in a way they never had been before. In the end she chose to be the better person even when it cost her her life.

The soldiers didn't stop despite the loss of a comrade in arms affecting them. They were still on the clock, still had a duty to fulfill. They made sure that all of the adults were disarmed and secured. They got the children out and escorted them to the safe location so they could be reunited with the other children and left in Roland's care. And they counted and moved the dead.

"Georgie ... yo Kid. Dammit, where is she? Did anyone see ...?"

A battle weary Waverly pointed to another open door. "You better get in there with her. She's about to ..."

Georgie let out a moan and then wailed.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Twenty-One​

If I catch her up wandering one more time, I'll tie her to me with lengths of chain. I know why she's doing it, understand she almost can't help herself right now, but if she doesn't get some rest she is going to collapse. Roland has talked to her. Even tried sleeping in the same room to try and soothe her but he's as exhausted as she is. They've been through a lot, and then to put themselves through that too.

Can't believe they would risk it after all they've been through but to a one they all volunteered. I suppose in a way they've been doing it for so long that they didn't think it any big deal but to us, to us it was a huge deal. And to think that first Georgie and then Roland had been planning a way to do it long before the battle even took place. All because they consider us theirs, part of them.

I wish the canisters and equipment hadn't been destroyed but the Director sabotaged them. Bastard. If he ain't assassinated by the end of the week by one of his own, I'll eat my pillow.

Tired of going over it in my head. Don't have room for it really. Don't apparently have room for the old nightmares either. Head is stuffed too full of all the new worries to have time to replay the old ones.

Dammit, there she goes again. I'm going to tie her to me. I swear I am.

**********

"Move! Get out of my way! Georgie! Georgie?!"

Johnson rushed the door with gun drawn only he was unable to find an enemy to shoot. What he did find was Georgie sitting at a desk with old style paper files opened in front of her. Her hands were over her eyes and she was rocking and wailing.

"Kid. Kid, are you hurt? C'mon tell me something ... use words already ... Georgie ..."

Georgie uncovered her eyes, looked to the ceiling and screamed a battle cry only there was no battle. It was over. Done. Nothing she could do. Years too late for most of them.

"Dammit ..." Both Johnson and then Peterson tried to grab her but she fought them off and stumbled over to a row of medical cots in the darkened end of the room. That's when the men saw them.

"Dear God in Heaven," Peterson mumbled as he made the sign of the cross, looking like he himself was in danger of having a meltdown.

Waverly limped into the room sighing. "I'll take her."

"You touch her, and I'll rip your face off. Who the hell are those ... those people?"

"Ol' Neville is the woman kneeling by that bed over there. The woman on the bed is the Director ... former director. It was an open secret on the Staff side that Neville was the Director's bio-mom. Neville wouldn't leave her side and they ... they executed them ... first the Director then Neville. 'Course the Director really didn't realize what was going on."

"What do you mean by that?"

"She'd already been made like the others, been lobotomized."

The word hung in the air and shocked everyone like a demon's curse at the Virgin Birth.

Johnson tried to speak but couldn't. He slowly made his way to Georgie's side where she was looking at the tags and charts hung on the end rails of each medical cot. The bodies in the beds were emaciated, barely more than skeletons with skin stretched over them. Only a few showed any signs of life. Living cadavers so pale they nearly glowed.

"Georgie ... Kiddo ... come ... come away. C'mon Kid ... let me ..."

"They're us. They're us." That's all she could bring herself to say as tears finally began to fall.

Johnson looked around helplessly but no one seemed to know what to do or say. Waverly carefully made his way over, but was very careful to heed the soldier's threat to not to touch Georgie. "Johnson, she needs a blanket, coat, something. Check her skin. She's going to go into shock if we aren't careful."

"We?" Johnson growled.

"I know how it looks," the man said. "I'd think the same way. Just give those of us left a chance. We've been just as much prisoners of Pickering as the children have. We ... we survived the only way we knew how."

Hearing his words Georgie looked up and her eyes bore into his and said, "Say it again."

"Uh ..." then Waverly did all the while Georgie stared at him and through him.

The girl continued to look at him for a moment before allowing her expression to soften slightly. She looked at Johnson and said, "He's the same Mr. Waverly he's always been. He believes what he claims and ... and I'm going to need the help."

"For what?" Johnson asked.

"They're dying. They drained them to the point that their hearts are struggling to pump. And I don't understand everything that was done ... yet. With the Directors both dead and most of the Staff he's the only one left that I can ask and be sure to get honest answers from." Johnson started to say something snide but Georgie interrupted him saying, "I know, but I can read him best. And while I may not like his honest answers, I still need them. Especially now."

"I'm not sure what 'especially now' means but right now in the here and now you need to sit down. You're the color of the shower room tiles. Peterson, find a coat, sweater, blanket ... something. But I want it something clean. Make sure she uses it for herself and doesn't give it away. Then I want you to sit and guard her. No one goes near her. No one touches her. I don't want anyone even breathing in her direction. Any of the prisoners - and that includes former Staff - looks like they are going to make a move you put a bullet in their gut. Got it?"

Peterson snapped a salute and said, "Sure thing LT."

Georgie barely heard the men as they started what they called Clean Up. The Director's people were separated out from Pickering Staff and they were placed in two separate and secure holding cells ... formerly known as Isolation ... and before that the old drunk tank. The only difference was that Georgie demanded to be allowed to look over the Staff to make sure none of them would be turning into medical emergencies and to patch the wounds up that couldn't wait. The man that had been one of the Janitors at Pickering for as long as the children could remember and whose IQ was nearly as low as some of theirs waddled forward and said, "This is my home. Don't send me away. Don't make me leave."

She got him calmed and told him to sit down so that she could reach the cut he had on his head. "None of us are leaving right now. It's too dangerous out there. But if we do leave some day you can choose to stay here or come with us."

"You'd let me come with you some day?"

"Yes, you're one of us." The old man nodded and then went to stand beside Peterson who gave him the once over.

The old man said, "I went to war. Got my head blown off. They sewed it back on and I came to work here."

Johnson and some of the others glanced over and the man stood straight and tall for the first time in years and slowly brought his arthritic hand up in a salute. It tugged at the thing in Johnson that was also tugged on by the children. He looked at the old man and returned his salute, causing if possible the old man to stand even straighter.

Johnson turned away thinking this was the damnedest war he'd ever been in. Then wondered if the war was over or if this was merely the first of many battles to come.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Twenty-Two​

We buried the last of us today. It was inevitable. They were too far gone and even if they weren't, as some have said, "sucked dry by the vampires" they're medical needs were impossible to meet with the equipment that remained undamaged.

We all took turns caring for them, even if it was for just a minute. They needed to be remembered though some had left us so long ago that not all of us could remember them. Not even I and Roland remembered all their surnames though we remembered most of their nicknames. Some of them looked a little like when we were little; their condition compromising their ability to grow like the rest of us had. We all tried to have a good attitude, like when we’re helping each other in the ward but it broke the hearts of some of us. When I saw it was too much, I sent them all away, told them they'd done their share, that it was time that I took my share of it. It was a story to make them feel better. I didn't like telling a story, but it was all some of us could handle. Even Roland who really wanted to help wound up too heart sore. I sent him away too. I'm the one that swore on the Bible, not him.

It hurts that they didn't know we were there with them. It hurts that we weren't there for them before. Too many things about our entire lives hurt. But Johnson and Roland both keep reminding me that there were good things too and that if we are careful there will be even better things in the future. Johnson told me to think of it like a circle closing so that a new one could open ... for all of us. The us that stays here and the us that goes on to God. And I have to believe that's where they are now. Johnson calls them the Innocents because he can't stand to call them anything else. That's what he usually calls all of us, except I don't feel Innocent anymore. I look at my hands and see blood.

We buried them in Potter's Field. Only Johnson won't let us call it that anymore. Our soldiers and the Staff made a new sign for the cemetery; it says Children's Field. He also refused to allow the Outsiders or the Director's people to be buried there. The Janitor showed him another place where other people had been buried a long time ago and Roland and Johnson worked it out so that we were buried in Children's Field and the others went to that other place after being cremated in a big pile behind the Administrative wing. The smell was terrible. Only Roland and I witnessed it, some of me wishes I hadn't. Roland said that cremation was best for those we didn't know well enough; we didn't know what they had in their bodies and didn't know most of their names. They were all raked up together with the other ashes of things used to burn them put into one grave that got a marker that had the date and "Battle For Pickering". Peterson, Ms. Carol, and Roland wrote up a more detailed report and put it with the other files in the big archive room but no one else has bothered to read it. We lived it.

The one thing that we all agreed on was that Tracey wasn't going to be put with the others in that far away grave. She got her own hole and her own marker, and we put a wreath on hers the same way we did as each of us has been laid in Children's Field.

Why does life have to be the way it is? When we were prisoners, the Outside seemed free. And now that we are free the Outside seems like the prison.

The last of us to die was Victor. Mr. Waverly said that it was likely because he'd stayed a real person for the longest of them all. Calling him a real person and the others not is wrong but, like the others, it is the only way I can think of it. To think of them being awake and aware while they were treated like cattle for so many years is more than I can bear. Mr. Waverly said to go ahead and think of them that way if I need to because they wouldn't mind. I think that is how Mr. Waverly must think of them too. I know Johnson agrees with him; same for Roland. Maybe I am being contrary because I don't want to ... or maybe I'm afraid of finding out it doesn't hurt like it should. I don't know. I'm so confused.

Lobotomized. Of all the horrors of Lockdown that is something I never conceived of. Not the controversial surgical procedure of the early 20th century that Nurse Cassie's books describes that was designed to alleviate some mental illness. No, this was literally an ice pick like tool being driven behind the eye socket, scrambling the brain material sufficiently to create a mannequin like person that was so incapacitated that they made no trouble for their captors. I have dreams of the sheer terror they must have experienced seeing that instrument coming at them, the pain ... and then the nothingness of no identity or intellect. On top of that the nerves to their vocal cords were destroyed so that even their voice was stolen from them.

Mr. Waverly explained that the Director thought she was being humane - a treatment that ended a torturous existence for a Defective while retaining the benefit of leaving them useful to the rest of the human race. To her it was no different than someone that donated themselves for harvest. Those in lockdown received better and more frequent medical care than we on the Children's Ward ever had. No expense was spared to keep them well cared for and alive. What an oxymoron of an existence.

In fact, if I am to believe it and I somehow must because I cannot detect a lie by any of the Staff when they tell it, the Director - the woman that would always hold that title in our minds - cared more for those in Lockdown than she did any of the others in Pickering, including Staff ... and her own mother. She visited them. Tended to them herself. Spoke to them kindly. They fulfilled her ideal. They made no sound, no protest, simply fulfilled their role, their fate.

It was when the new Director arrived that it changed. It was her attachment to those in Lockdown that got our Director entombed with them. The Lockdown area became his experiment, and the stick he threatened everyone else with. It was there first that the blood drawing calendar was changed. In fact, those in Lockdown were constantly being siphoned, their lives drained from them by a never ending series of drops. It was after two of us in Lockdown died that he turned to his livelier victims, and it would have been the same result for us had they not too soon played their hand and antagonized the Outsiders into attacking.

We found it was Mr. Russell that leaked the information to an associate on the outside. Both men are now dead, so I'll leave the consequences in God's more than capable hands. I don't wish to think of it anymore right now as there are far too many other things that need my time.


**********

"Are you out here again?!"

Georgie turned to see Johnson stomping towards her.

"I'm not digging up bones. I just came this way after checking to see if the squirrels had found our boxes of nuts. We're going to need them for protein before the winter is over with."

Johnson stopped and nearly slid in the damp clay of the cemetery. "Oh. So ... er ... did they?"

"They found them. Tried to break in but haven't made it through the container yet. But I need the boys to come bring them in so we can add them to the storage."

"Saw you padlocked the food area."

Georgie nodded becoming irritated despite her fatigue. "I think people have just been going and getting stuff when they get hungry. They don't like that we're rationing things. They see all the food listed on the inventory at the group meetings and think we are stupid for saying we must save what we can."

"Stop the group meetings. Teach 'em a lesson."

"Roland wants things to be a democracy."

"Roland is an idealist. And some of the Staff are having a hard time coming to terms with the intelligence you kids have."

"I know. They spent so many years trying not to see it that now that they can they think it's a mirage or illusion. The padlock was the mildest consequence that I could think of, but it still made some angry. The rest of us understand. Most of you soldiers understand ... except Archer who I think has an eating disorder as I am catching him eating weird things like ..." Georgie shuddered. "Like rats."

Johnson grinned. "That's not weird. I've eaten rats myself when I did a tour in the Mekong Delta."

"Ugh. Rats are ... that's nasty. We are not going to eat rats. Period. Not if I have to go to the railway station and look for something else myself."

Johnson got a considering look on his face, but Georgie stomped her foot. "No. It is too dangerous for any of us. People are sick out there."

"And ..."

"No. It has only been a week."

Johnson didn't argue but Georgie had a bad feeling. "Please Johnson. There is still too much to do here. We must rebuild and make safety. The bad cold temperature will be here next month. Then the snow piles up so that not even the trains can get through."

"Forget the waterworks Kiddo, not gonna work. You've been turning them on and off way too easy lately to get people to do what you want them to do."

"Do not."

"Do too Brat, whether you know it or not. Do what you gotta to string the others along but don't even try it with me 'cause it won't work."

Georgie scrunched up her face and said, "I don't ... do I? I ... I ..."

Johnson shook his head on a grin and took the satchel of what turned out to be nuts from her hand and said, "Don't worry about it. Just don't do it to me. And hustle your bustle brat. Roland wants to call another one of them infernal meetings so everyone can let everyone else know what they're up to and find out stuff."

"Why don't you like the meetings? I thought you said communication is important."

"It is so don't go throwing my words back at me. But arguing and complaining is not communicating ... it's nothing but a bunch of noise."

"Why don't you tell everyone that. They'll listen to you better than they listen to us."

"Because I refuse to take on the mantel of that responsibility. I am a soldier, not a friggin' politician. Let Roland play king."

"He doesn't want to be king. He doesn't want anyone to be king. He wants us all to work together like we always have."

"The problem girlie is that the Staff are not you and as adults they've got certain ideas about how things should run and how much freedom they should have."

"We aren't taking freedom from them. They've got more of it now than they ever had. They can come and go as they please, dress how they wish, lots of stuff. All we ask is that they be free responsibly because everyone must be free, not just some of them."

"So tell them that."

"Roland and I have tried. Mr. Waverly gets it. Ms. Carol gets it. The Janitor gets it. Some of the others do too. It's only a few that don't. They don't understand that you can be free and still have to pay consequences when your freedom messes with someone else's freedom."

Johnson laughed. "Oh Kid, you just described most of the problems of the world since time began. Sounds like what you need are some basic rules and when you present them you need to have concrete reasons for the rules. I notice that most of the children still operate by the rules they always have."

"Sure. It makes things easier. But most of those rules are simple. We take turns, help each other, don't borrow without asking, keep our room clean, take care of our clothes, and do our chores. It isn't hard, I don't know why the adults are making it so hard."

"Mostly 'cause they're still figuring out what freedom really means. You kids, for all that you spent a lifetime as prisoners, understand freedom and the responsibility that comes with it a great deal better and in simpler terms than most everyone else."

"Hopefully with time and understanding they'll learn."

"And if not, there's always them consequences you keep talking about."

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Twenty-Three​

Peterson was able to rebuild the communication equipment and even make it better. Ms. Carol who was Ms. Neville's assistant has been helping him. She was the one that dealt with most of the techie stuff before. She isn't trained for it, but said she had to learn on the job because the Director was so cheap. She's been really helpful because to save money she'd been illegally downloading files and vids and storing them to have something to play on the Tri-V when the Director didn't want the news to play in the common room.

Chaplin and Mr. McDowell - the older janitor - are working on storing the fuel and batteries. People were being wasteful of them. One of the old staff said in a meeting that I was starting to sound like the Director. It made me really sick to my stomach. That's when Mr. Waverly stood up and explained a few things. We'd already told everyone how much was in the inventory, but he broke it down to how many meals that meant and how long it would last us and reminded everyone that there were no more trains coming. He then asked them where they thought the food and other supplies were going to come from after what we had ran out. Roland and I had already explained how much we had, we just hadn't expected to have to explain to adults what that meant. Apparently we do. That's just sad.

Johnson is very worried that we are going to lose our communication to the Outside if and when we run out of fuel and batteries. He's just as worried that the Outside is going to lose its ability to communicate. It hasn't gotten that bad yet but there aren't as many people broadcasting as there should be unless things are much worse than even we think they are. Because what news does come through is bad. X13 is like a fast-moving fire, but worse. You no sooner think that one place has been completely burned over than new flames pick up where the old ones died. At this rate there is going to be nothing left to burn.

The news is also hopeful in other ways though. It lets us know that there are other people out there. It also lets us know that people are too busy trying to survive X13 to fight with each other so most of the wars that have run on for so many years aren't anymore. Roland said it was like that in ancient times too. People could be warring away but during planting and harvesting they used their swords as plows ... or something like that since he and Nela were talking too fast for me to want to listen ... and when a bad sickness came through, they would stop and wait for it to burn itself out. Yes, Roland and Nela are back being friends but while they might think about sex, they are too tired to have sex. Still, they share the same room and have gotten some silly teasing from the rest of us. It makes their ears get red but they also get a stupid smile on their face. But I've told them both if they get to where they don't want to have sex with each other that they better end it nicer this time or there would be consequences because I didn't want to have to look at them being sad and angry like they were before. They got very strange looks on their face when I told them that. Maybe I shouldn't have said it while we were in the cafeteria eating with everyone else. Or maybe they looked that way because Johnson got up and rushed out. There are some days I don't know who is going to act stranger.

Speaking of strange, Johnson worried me by organizing a scouting mission. I kept telling him that it was too soon, but he said either my idea had worked or it didn't, that waiting a third week wouldn't change it. I had to agree with him even when I didn't want to. All the documentation for the old ebola data in the books Nurse Cassie left us said that the treatment was either effective at this point or that it hadn't taken. X13 isn't ebola but the principles are the same. Besides we didn't have any prepared vaccine here at Pickering, the only thing we had left were blood transfusions. It was a lot to ask them to trust us, but they did because they knew there was no real alternative. We got lucky in that there were sufficient blood type matches between us and our soldiers ... and between us and the Staff.

At first the Staff couldn't believe us when we said we would take care of them too. Roland took the brunt of them needing to be constantly reassured that they would get their turn. I - and Mr. Waverly - were too busy. Plus Mr. Waverly tended to get testy with people and ask them had they or had they not been living with us for our whole lives or were they just stupid on purpose and ignoring that Roland and I had taken care of them and their needs as often as they'd seen to the rest of the children's needs. I think Mr. Waverly is also testy because Ms. Trundle is trying to Get His Attention. I don't think Mr. Waverly minds Ms. Trundle doing that so much as he is tired of some of the other men starting to look around and wonder who is going to try and get their attention.

Mr. Waverly and Johnson have had some long talks and I think they are worried about that too. I gave up asking Johnson to talk about what was bothering him and went to Mr. Waverly. I don't always like the answers that Mr. Waverly gives my questions but at least I can trust that he believes what he is saying and isn't telling a story to make me feel better.

**********

"Mr. Waverly ..."

"You are persistent Georgina, I'll give you that."

"All I want to do is understand what you and Johnson are worried about and why."

Waverly sighed. "Johnson's going to scalp me but ... better for you to be aware so that you can assimilate the possibilities."

"Assimilate what?"

"That adult males outnumber the adult females around here three to one."

"And?"

"Georgina, do I need to explain the facts of life to you?" he asked kindly.

"If you mean sex then no. I figured that out when they fixed us."

"Hmmmm. I'm not really speaking of the physical act but ..."

"Oh. But ... but I don't think they're like the ... like the men who killed Caro."

Thinking his way through the mine field the subject could become Waverly said, "They aren't. But that doesn't mean that they don't see themselves as having needs. The human condition we all live in usually means that people naturally want to pair off. The human condition also means that most of us desire to have sex and eventually even procreate though our society's rules have made that problematic for the last couple of decades."

"You mean it is about sex but it's also about making babies and all the responsibility of that."

"Yes, but ... uh ... often the human condition makes thinking of the consequences of sex come second place to wanting to have sex. It is also more than just sex Georgina. Men and women aren't that different about wanting someone they can ... can love and trust and that will love and trust them in return. It makes life ... nice."

Georgie did some quick calculations in her head. "Three to one. Hmmmm. You and Johnson are worried that the grown men might start looking at the rest of us as ... uh ... objects of their affection."

Waverly spent nearly a full minute trying to cough up his spit that had gone down the wrong way. "My goodness Georgina."

"Well, that's what you are saying isn't it? You and Johnson don't think we are appropriate objects of affection."

"That's exactly what we are saying and the reason why we haven't discussed this with you before is because we didn't want to upset you as this has obviously done."

Georgie shook her head and surprised Waverly once again. "I'm not upset. I agree with you. I already had the sex talk with everyone when Roland and Nela started fooling around. I had to have it again when they got back together. I've also warned them that you don't play games with grown men because they are all strange and might not understand that games is all that it is. It isn't anything different than Nurse Cassie talked to us about before she got sick."

It took a moment for Waverly to find his voice. "Cassandra actually ... she ..."

"Nurse Cassie gave us some credit is what she did. She understood that even if other people didn't think of us as anything but Defectives that we were still going to experience the human condition. We just might take longer to get there. Some of us might one day be ready for sex and the other stuff that goes with it but for those of us that are left, that's still a ways off. Maybe someone needs to sit down and have a sex talk with the grown men and explain that to them."

Waverly swallowed and said, "As our friend Johnson is fond of saying ... holy hell."

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Twenty-Four​

I've quarantined Isolation. It is the only thing I could think to do. Those that weren't sick screamed and cried and demanded to be let out, but I couldn't do it. There are rules. Those that were staff before they became the Director's people were shocked. But rules are rules. If you go into Isolation, you have to take care of yourself the best you can. When they yelled at me that I was giving them a death sentence I told them I was not, that I was giving them the same chance they'd given us over the years. Even better I explained that we'd heard on the radio that even if you didn't have a full clade vaccine not everyone who got X13 was dying. Yes, a lot of them were but not everyone. The more clades of X13 that you had antibodies for the better chance of survival you had.

Maybe I should let them out, but the risk is too high that they'll attack us even if some of them are sick. They've already proven themselves to be violent too many times. I was surprised so many of them were worried and told them so. I would have thought the Director would have given the vaccine to those in his group. I should have kept my mouth shut. I woke up this morning to find that they'd killed him during the night and in a not very nice way. Mr. Waverly said that it was inevitable because he was such a blankety blank. I have to write blankety blank because right before Mr. Waverly said it Peterson put his hands over my eyes and starting going la-la-la really loud. When he stopped Mr. Waverly and Ms. Carol laughed. It is not funny. Mr. Waverly said not to worry about it though because Peterson was right, and that Johnson wouldn't want me to know that word anyway. I told them to stop doing things for my own good because I wasn't a baby.

Ms. Carol said, "Pot meet kettle." After she'd explained what she meant - because it sounded really stupid - I had to give them their point but I still don't like it.

The other reason I'm not going to let them out of quarantine because not all of us are here. Johnson did what he said he was going to do and he, a couple of soldiers, and a couple of the Staff have gone to the railway station to Check Things Out. I wish he would have taken more soldiers and no Staff. The two men he took are the biggest complainers during the meetings. It has gotten to where nothing suits them. I don't like it.


**********

Nela told Georgie, "You need to let Johnson be the LT. He knows his job."

"I know he knows his job. I just wish he would have taken two more soldiers and not the two crybabies."

Nela smiled and then said, "Georgie, sit down and let me explain it." After they sat down, Nela relieved to take some of the weight off of the prosthetic the Janitor had fashioned for her that looked surprisingly lifelike, she looked at Georgie and shook her head. "Roland says you understand people but, sometimes ..."

"Is this about me, those men, or Johnson."

"Huh?"

"If it is about me, I know. I don't always talk like I'm very grown up even though I know I'm not a kid inside anymore. I can't just change the way I am overnight though because it will confuse the rest of us ... and I don't want the attention if could bring."

"Er ..."

"If it is about those men, I know they are thinking about trying to take over and be the bosses of Pickering like they were almost before. Their biggest complaint about the new Director was that he replaced them with his own people. I don't know what Johnson plans for them, but I don't want him or the other soldiers to get hurt in the process and I don't like them exposing themselves to something we don't understand yet."

"Uh ..."

"And if it is about Johnson. I get it. He doesn't like that ... doesn't like that when he thinks about sex sometimes it might be with me because he thinks of me as a little kid which really, really creeps him out. Only it isn't really about actual sex with me, it's about him worrying that at some point he might look at me like that which creeps him out even more. Because he's just as worried about there not being enough adult women as the rest of the adult men are worried about it."

"Oh Chica, you ... you ..."

"Yeah. I know. So which is it?"

Nela laughed for a really long time before answering, "I think you've covered most of it. Look ... don't get upset with the LT."

"Why would I be upset with him? About the almost but not quite sex that only might be in the future or about how he nearly swallows his face if anyone even says the word sex?"

"OK, instead of me guessing how about you tell me how you feel."

"You and Roland don't talk about me do you?"

"Not like that. Roland is almost as bad as the LT where you are concerned."

"Roland doesn't want ..."

"No. He sees you as a little sister."

Georgie snorted. "News flash. I'm older than he is by almost five months. I'm older than almost all of us that are left."

"You are freaking kidding me!"

"Uh uh. I was one of the first born in quarantine."

"Wow. I never would have guessed. You're smaller than most of them and you ... um ... look younger."

"I didn't know either until Nurse Cassie told me. It's no big deal, birthdays never meant much to us. Not even Nurse Cassie celebrated them. I asked her one time and she said it was because it focused too much on time passing and she didn't want to upset any of us. I think it was more about her seeing time pass. Nurse Cassie wasn't always the easiest person to understand."

Nela just shook her head. "So ... you're ..."

"Almost seventeen and a half if you want to measure it in years. My brain feels a lot older though."

Nela just blinked. "Okay then. Uh ... do you think of Roland as ... er ..."

"You mean am I jealous or want his attention like you have it? No. Roland has always just been Roland to me and me to him. There was never time for it to be anything else and even had there been we always knew what was important."

Nela looked relieved and Georgie tried not to smile about that. Then Nela asked, "So, do you want the LT to ..."

"No. I don't think either one of us is ready for that particular responsibility. Our jobs are too important, and we both have our own issues still to deal with. Maybe someone else can help him with his human condition and ..."

"His what?!" Nela laughed.

"It's what Waverly and I wound up calling it when we were discussing the problem that there are a lot more adult males than adult females in our group."

"Madre de Dios, you've had this figured out all along haven't you?"

"Understood the problems we are facing? Yes. Have figured out how to deal with the problems we're facing so no one gets hurt? No." Georgie scratched the stubble on her head only to realize it was no longer stubble but thick, springy curls that she hoped went away as her hair got longer because it made her look like that silly dog in the show Caro used to like that was called a poodle. "Some of it can probably be dealt with by hard work and long hours. That's the consequences Nurse Cassie used to deal out when someone started to go Too Far. But these men are adults, I'm not sure how long that is going to work. And I'm not sure the adult women are really all that interested in some of the men that will make the most noise about there not being enough women. Like those two that Johnson took with him. None of the women really like them."

"You caught that part of it have you."

"Yes. What is Johnson going to do with them? We can't just send away people because they don't agree with the rules. And we can't just lock them in Isolation either. I don't want to go down that path. People shouldn't have to be scared into following the rules. Isolation is a good place to die but not a good place to learn the reasons for following the rules."

"Hmmm. While I agree with what you say mostly, people are people and we'll always have to deal with those that aren't rule followers, even when those rules are for a good reason. As for the LT, I think what he plans on doing is trying to show them some reality. Those two talk like the trains are going to start running again before the supplies give out."

"Well, technically we don't have proof that they won't. We are hypothesizing based on the things we are hearing on the radio. It is bad out there."

"You're right and that is one of the other reasons the LT took them two in particular. By seeing it with their own eyes they can't say the messenger is lying. And if that doesn't work the LT may find a way to leave them someplace they can't make their way back from."

Georgie thought about it. "They aren't in the greatest shape. Waverly calls them Tri-V spuds."

"Yeah, they aren't exactly easy to motivate when they are on the duty roster, that's for sure." Nela stood back up gingerly. Sometimes getting back on the prosthetic was harder than getting off of it. "I gotta get back. But ... between you and me ... just cut the LT some slack. He's doing the best he can."

Georgie let her go without saying anything else. She still didn't understand why Nela thought she was blaming Johnson for anything. Maybe it was like those Tri-V movies where everyone always seemed to blame the men when there were problems. Didn't make sense to her in the movies and it didn't make sense in real life either. After all she was just as free as Johnson. Besides, at least she could say the word sex without looking like she'd eaten too many green apples.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Twenty-Five: Epilogue​

We buried the Janitor today. He was one of us, so we made room in what everyone still calls the Children's Field even though none of us are children anymore. Mr. Janitor hadn't held that job for nearly a decade. Oh, he still went through the motions and no one would have ever denied him a place but mostly he was just as happy to let younger people do the work while he helped. At his burying everyone told some nice thing they remembered about the old, old man and how he'd been important to us as being one of us. There were some tears but not many, it was the Janitor’s time, and he was ready and he hadn't been forced into it by a Euthanist after society had deemed him no longer useful.

We've had to bury a few of us through the years, but only a very few. We've been lucky in that. Victor and Soldier Tracey were the last of us for a long time. Then we lost three of us in quick succession, one to an accident and two to issues related to what was once called their defect. A couple of years after that we lost one of us after her implant ran out and she became pregnant and then miscarried in the fifth month. Her body decided she simply wasn't physically equipped to carry a child to term. We never did find out who the father was but it had to be someone in town because most of those that remain living full time here at the Pickering Children's Home are either sterile or unable to make babies for some other reason, including personal choice.

Pickering was a haven for all during and immediately after the years of the X13 pandemic. The pandemic wasn't as deadly as people had predicted it would be, but it was certainly bad enough. Everyone now living in the world carries the X13 antibodies and the virus itself has mutated into a normally very mild illness. There is always the worry that it could mutate back into something with a high mortality but that is a worry for future generations, we've done all we could for this one.

It is a very different world now than it used to be. The Euthanist movement, though it is still around, is frowned upon by most people. No one is arrested if that is the ending they want, but it isn't encouraged either. And if a Euthanist is found to have been sloppy or cruel they are arrested and put on work details cleaning up the remains of die-off locations, contaminated places, and mass burial sites. You'd think that after a decade all those places would have been found and cleaned up but so many of the urban centers are just now becoming safely accessible.

I've seen those places with my own eyes. It is where we find most of the feral children and people with issues. We used to bring them all back to Pickering to care for, but eventually it became too much and those of us who have become the caretakers here had to decide. So the adults now go to a safe haven of their own. Most find rehabilitation in some form and move on with a generally good quality of life. Some do not and find homes in the places that have been set up to offer care and charity dependent upon their need. Pickering is a place for children. People apply by the thousands to adopt the children we take in. It doesn't matter if they have a defect or not, people just want a chance to love a child, care for them, contribute to the future.

The people who monitor such things say that we are finally stepping back from the brink though the birth rate is still very low. Alot of people who survived the X13 pandemic had been sterilized, as the laws of that earlier time required. Because while not every country had the Defective Laws, most all of them had One Child policies and mandatory sterilization. X13 had a roughly 50% fatality rate, then at least another 20% of the remaining population died as a result of infrastructure failure and the chaos as people fought over resources. And for whatever reason the remaining population had a significantly higher rate of infertility than had come before. So these days children matter, they matter a lot. Because they are our future here on this earth.


**********

The sign on the door at the end of the hallway read Director but this was not a hallway or door anyone feared. In fact the room was rarely used and vacant more often than it had an occupant because this director preferred being out amongst the residents of Pickering, interacting with them, showing them that life was worth living, living that worthwhile life with them.

When problems did arise, and it was only natural that they would, she knew she had plenty of people she could count on for help. Especially one particular someone. He still would get itchy feet and have to take off to see the world but that is the way he had always been. But lately he'd been home more often than not.

That first foray to the railway hub had only been the first of many. In the beginning the trips were primarily for supplies and equipment to secure Pickering and its residents. Then when the resources just lying around had became scarce the trips were more for intel and then for finding people to trade with for things that couldn't be made at Pickering. Slowly at first, during these early trips and after the danger of X13 had passed, they began to bring back people no longer able to care for themselves. Mostly it was children they found abandoned or alone in the rubble of the aftermath. Occasionally they would bring back adults. Eventually the trips were as much about rescue as rebuilding. And further after that rescue became the sole reason for the trips.

During the growing years, as Pickering finally came to be the safe haven for those that are different as its original architects had envisioned, the children grew up, some few leaving but most remaining. The soldiers all remained as well though they'd all to a man gone back out into the world on many occasions on rescue missions and to protect their charges when need be. The military they'd belonged to survived as well and honored their service with a special commendation and a new branch of service. They were called something else by the paper pushers in the government where it seemed people still needed a number to be recognized but to everyone else, they were known as The Children's Soldiers. Every child in the world knew that if they see that patch on a soldier's uniform that they can, without question, go to them and trust that they will be taken to the nearest safe haven.

Johnson was no longer an LT but quickly rose to Colonel by field promotions until a sniper had ripped open his chest taking the rest of the lung that had already been damaged in battle. He'd quietly retired from active duty but continued to serve in an advisory position helping to set policy and settle arguments.

When he'd first returned to Pickering after the injury many of his old issues had returned but waking from every nightmare, he found Georgie sitting there wiping his brow and singing softly until he calmed. It was during this time that they renewed the bond that they'd forged before the X13 pandemic had thrown the world into chaos. It was also when Johnson had come to see Georgie as not the child she had been, but the women that she'd always promised she could be. It still took time for them to make a public commitment and once they did there were many that wondered what had taken them so long.

The one dim point in their lives had been that they were unable to conceive. It wasn't for lack of trying Georgie was heard to mutter when people kept wondering when it was going to happen. Eventually they both simply accepted it as the way things were and moved on, enjoying other people's children and the many children that came and left through Pickering's doors. Though they were both still in what was classified as their fertile years it had been a while since they'd even concerned themselves with that one thing.

"Hi."

"Hi yourself. Finally get everyone settled?"

"Hmmm. Whose idea was it for Nela and Roland to leave Roly and Juanita with us again?"

"Uh ..."

"Next time you can be the one to pull that blasted little monkey down from the ceiling. How they can possibly keep up with that boy is beyond me, what with them constantly having their noses in books and teaching classes. Juanita now, she's a little Sweetheart. I mean it ... next time ..."

"Deal."

"Wait a minute. That ... was too easy."

"Uh ..."

"Ok Mrs. Director, just what are you trying to pull?"

"Nuthin'."

"Yeah right."

The discussion dissolved into quiet laughter and other pleasant things. Until Georgie told him she'd been to the doctor that morning and had a secret ... this time a good one, one she couldn't wait to tell the world.



The End

 

[Mr Bill]

Fine story thanks bunches

 

[feralferret]

Kathy, thank you for this wonderful story. I had somehow missed this one.

 

[danielsga]

Thanks, enjoyed reading it

 

[Deena in GA]

Thank you!!!

 

[K.B.]

Thank you very much - great story!

 

[john70]

GREAT

 

[Kiwibutterfly]

Many thanks for another wonderful story.

 

[nancy98]

Excellent story Kathy! Thanks again.

 

[Siskiyoumom]

Thank you so very much!

 

[Sportsman]

Thank you. It was another enjoyable story.

 

[Texican]

Kathy,

What a wonderful and outstanding story. Read it through at one sitting.

Thank you for all of your stories.

Texican....

 

[Siskiyoumom]

Thank you! Such a realistic scenario.

 

[Griz3752]

THANK YOU Ms Kathy.

Been busy of late but finally got some time to chase down some TB2K alerts.

As usual, well worth the wait.
Many thanks for completing another tale.