Casey left her in the clearing, with a parting command to the soldiers to watch her. He’d then gone back to his tent, only to emerge a few minutes later dressed in camouflage shorts with his gun strapped to his hip, a muted green t-shirt, and his boots. Lottie watched him walk down the hill and enter a wood shed: a building they had passed yesterday on their way into camp. With nothing else to do, Lottie walked to the log she had used the night before and sat down to await the events of the new day.
Lottie stretched her legs out in front of her and stared at the fire. The heat shimmered and distorted the ground behind the flames. It was a bit hypnotic. Lottie felt her eyes drooping, and she couldn’t stop yawning. The sounds of soldiers moving in camp not quite enough to wake her from her stupor.
One of the soldiers—she couldn’t remember which one—stepped in front of her and the fire. He had his back to her and was stoking the coals. His presence so close to her commanded her attention. With some prodding and a few new branches, he soon had a blaze roaring high again.
“The heat is going to be intense for a few minutes.” Lottie had to crane her neck to look up at him when he turned to talk to her. “It’s a bad cooking fire right now, but those logs will cool down eventually. The coals will be great for cooking eggs and some venison.”
The soldier moved off around the fire and poured something into a cup. Making his way back to her, he handed her the mug.
Lottie looked at him with her eyebrow raised in silent question.
“It’s coffee.”
“Coffee?” Lottie asked.
“A slightly bitter drink that wakes you up,” he answered her. “Haven't you ever had it? We used to have it a lot before imports were grounded. We are lucky here, though. There are a few Kentucky coffee trees in the woods and we roast the seeds. We don’t have a lot of it, but when I’m on mess detail we each have a cup. At least ‘til the supply is gone. Drink up.”
Lottie looked at it askance. It smelled strong and slightly acidic.
“It’s good.” He prompted her again to drink the beverage.
She took a sip. It was rich and sharp like the smell indicated.
“You like it?”
“I guess so,” She wasn’t sure she liked it. She took another sip.
“The name’s Tristan,” he said with a smile and sat next to her on the log. His leg pressed against hers.
Lottie stared at her cup, concentrating on keeping her face blank. She didn’t want him to know how much his touch disgusted her.
“Case—also known as—Staff Sergeant Casey Brennerman Huxley said you weren’t the chatty type. He wasn’t kidding.” Tristan chuckled. He didn’t seem bothered by her lack of response. “I have been instructed to answer any questions you may have. Well within reason, so fire away.”
They sat in silence for a while. Lottie thought of and discarded all of her questions. None of them were charitable and some were too specific to the workings of the camp. Tristan would never answer them. Not in a million years.
“Well,” Tristan said breaking the silence. “Maybe if I tell you a little bit about the camp you’ll think of some questions. Our base… Case has some of the highest loyalty commanded by a Staff Sergeant I’ve ever seen. Basically, because he only has a few rules for the rest of us to follow. Daily duties are light, only what he is required to make us do: patrols and such. He doesn’t fill our days with shit-work. Our last Staff Sergeant was a hard-ass bastard. He’s the one who broke the water pump. ‘For our own good. Toughen us up. Better soldiers.’ Yadda, yadda, I say.” He smiled at her.
“Why don’t you fix it now that he’s in charge?” Lottie couldn’t bring herself to saying Casey’s name out loud.
“Can’t. The army won’t send parts. Says ‘there aren’t enough of ‘em’. I call bullshit. Not that it matters much. Couldn’t have hot showers. The hot water tank is rusted away to nothin’. Although it would be nice to use a flushable toilet,” he answered her. “Casey’s tried a few times to cobble something together. Hell, he even asked me to take a look, but we don’t have the tools to make die-casts of the parts that we need so… It sits and rots. Soon there won’t be nothin’ to fix.”
“Is that why he took me to the river to wash?”
“Yeah, we pretty much live off the land here in Case’s camp.” Tristan stood and poked at the fire before rejoining her again.
“Why? Doesn’t the army supply you with rations?”
“They do. Everything we get is locked in the supply house. It used to be the bathhouse so it’s cinderblock floors and cinderblock walls. We still get critters but not as bad as the command shed or the smoke room.”
“If the army sends you what you need, then why don’t you use their rations?”
“You ever been hungry? Like really hungry?”
She shuddered. Of course, she understood hunger. “Yes,” she whispered in answer, her free arm going around her belly protectively.
“Staff Sergeant Kerner—the guy before Case—he wasn’t too careful and we had a hungry winter one year. Then when Case took over we had a lean year when the army couldn’t send rations. Case had to deploy half the squad back to St. Louis for the rest of the winter.”
She remembered that winter. It was cold and the influx of more soldiers in the city meant food had to be rationed more than any winter before it. That was the year Lottie decided to run and had spent the next few months planning her escape, reading what she could find on the dangers she would face once she left the security of the city. She had just turned seventeen. That’s what her file said.
“After that, Casey enacted details for mandatory hunting and fishing and we smoke all our meats. Surviving off what the land provided became his priority. At the time I was his only AHC. He leaned heavily on what I knew.” Tristan chuckled. “You’ll find a few of my free range chickens up a ways from camp. That’s where we get the eggs, and we use the river for all our water needs.” He smiled and the skin around his blue eyes crinkling. “I like working under Case a lot better than Kerner. Even with the required hunting, he makes me do. It doesn’t take long before the new recruits are loyal, too. Not going hungry will do that to a person.”
Lottie found herself nodding. Not being hungry was a huge motivator. “When did he take over?”
Tristan snorted, “About two or three years ago. Maybe a bit more. We both served under the last Staff Sergeant.” Tristan took a sip of his coffee.
“How long have you been serving?”
“Twelve years now, but not all of them in ARA.” Tristan glanced at his cup and frowned. “I spent the first four years of my enlistment in AHC—Agricultural Husbandry Cultivation. Pretty much where you end up if you don’t know where you want to go. Backbreaking shitty work. Farming. I hated it. Once I was clear to reassign I did a two-year stint in FAP, then, when I was required to move, I joined the ARA. Case was a raw recruit. But even then you could see he was a leader.” Tristan chuckled. “He was such a pup, though. Pretty green. He used to blush when handling dodgers. Like he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. It was amusing.”
“Tristan,” a voice barked from across the fire from where Lottie sat. “The fire ready yet?”
Lottie glanced at the flames. They were low and the coals looked deep orange. They looked ready to her.
“Yeah, they’re ready,” Tristan answered.
“Then quit kid-gloving the prisoner and come help me cook the eggs.”
“You gonna be all right, Momma?”
Lottie snapped her eyes to his. “Momma?”
“Well if you won’t tell me your name then I’ll call you Momma in deference to your condition.” He smiled at her again. It softened the lines of his face. He stood and rested his hand on her shoulder. “All the guys will start calling you something if you keep refusing to tell us your name. Some of the names won’t be nice.” He squeezed her shoulder where his hand rested before moving off around the fire to work on breakfast.
Lottie thought about that for a while. Was it worth staying silent? Yes, she decided. It was worth staying silent. If Casey had her name then he could look up her file, and if he could look up her file… Then he would know too much about her.
She didn’t want anyone to know that her genetic mother was an abnormality: a breeding machine compared to all the other woman of her enlistment class, a woman who could—in the end—conceive the old fashioned way. He would learn about her mother’s natural resistance to the submission drugs. How that natural resistance ended up making her hollow, a shell of a person as she watched each of her eight babies taken away from her. Or how, by extension, the Fetal Conservation and Obstetrics surgeons and the Fecundity Analysis and Remediation scientists had hoped Lottie had the same tendencies.
She rubbed her belly. Her baby pushed a small foot or hand against hers and she felt tears building.
The part that scared her the most about Casey reading her file was how he would learn when she ran away. He wasn’t stupid and he could count. He would know her baby wasn’t medically induced; she too could conceive the old fashioned way. A way that the FCO and FAR would want to study. The thought of bearing to term just one baby that would then be taken away set her skin to crawling.
Lottie never wanted the life she carried, but now that she was pregnant, she couldn’t imagine her life without her child. She even knew what she would call the baby. Greysen. It was her genetic mother’s name. A woman who did so much for her country. A woman who didn’t have a choice in the matter. A woman who died bringing one more American citizen into the world.
She wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye and looked around the camp. Tristan was whipping eggs while the soldier with the snide remarks was tending some venison over the fire. Lottie could see Tristan’s easy smile at his fellow soldier, so unlike the smile the shorter man was giving her. His smirk gave her the creeps. It too closely resembled the expressions of the men who gave her the baby. She couldn’t repress the shudder at the memory and she gagged.
She stood up. She needed to move away from his all too knowing gaze.
Before she could take a step, a shrill whistle rent the air, and she whipped around to locate the sound. Casey stood in front of command. He had his fingers in his mouth and was whistling.
“Looks like we’re having a company meeting,” a soldier said behind her. “You can hear that whistle for miles.”
Lottie twitched and stepped away before turning to look at him. He was younger than herself, with dark brown curly hair and eyes so dark brown they were almost black. He smiled and extended his hand toward her. “Hi Chica,” he said. She was sure he had been one of the men cooking the meal last night. Jules—or was it Adan?—she thought.
When she didn’t reach for his hand, his smile slipped. He forced it back to his face, but it no longer looked natural. “You should sit. This clearing will fill up fast as all the guys come back from the field.”
Lottie gulped. All fourteen?
“He doesn’t usually call us all in. Must be about you. I’m Jules by the way. This is my first deployment after basic. I couldn’t believe my luck when I was assigned to Case’s squad. There’s a waitlist for him—informal of course—but you can ask your superior for assignment to specific squads. I didn’t bother, but I still got in.” He chuckled and sat down on the log Lottie had just left. He kicked his legs out and rested his hands on either side of his hips. “Bill was pissed. He’d requested Case but didn’t get in.”
“A friend?”
“Yeah from basic. Not a close one, though. Just someone to share a rough up when the mood strikes. You know what I mean?”
Lottie had no idea.
“A sparring partner,” he answered her silent question.
Oh.
“You really should sit, Chica, or you won’t have a seat. I’d give you mine, but…” His smile wavered and eventually fell away. “No one will do that for you. Make us look weak. Can’t be seen helping the prisoner, even if she is cute.” He winked at her. “Sit, I don’t bite… Well, unless you ask me to.” Jules chuckled at his joke.
She struggled for calm.
“I’m serious. Sit,” he ordered and tugged on her hand. “I was joking about the biting. But not about how no one will forfeit their seat for you, regardless of your condition.”
Lottie allowed him to tug her down next to him. He seemed nice enough even if he made her skin crawl. But really all men did now. She felt her heart start to race at the thought of all the soldiers about to surround her. If they wanted to do things… She gulped and shoved the thought away. If they were going to do that, they would have by now, she reasoned. There’d been plenty of chances for them to hurt her. She took a shaky breath and forced herself to worry about why Casey would call all his squad into the clearing.
“You okay, Chica? You look a bit pale.”
“I’m fine,” she ground out through clenched teeth. After a few more deep breaths, she actually believed she wouldn’t throw up on Jules’s feet. “Thanks,” she finally managed to say.
“De nada.”
The clearing was filling quickly, and Tristan strode toward her with three plates in his hand. He handed one to her and then one to Jules before sitting on the log next to her on the other side, jostling both her and Jules to make room for himself.
“I was here first. Get your own chair,” Jules grumbled as he shifted into a more comfortable seat.
“I see you met Jules. Horribly gregarious. He’s a good kid, though.”
“Hey!”
“You’re just a pup,” Tristan joked.
“And you’re an old man,” he retorted over her head.
“Yup. But still young enough to whoop your ass.”
“Let’s see you try it,” Jules challenged.
“Sure, after breakfast. I’m hungry,” Tristan agreed. “Momma, eat up. I wouldn’t put it past some of the younger ones to try to take your food. They eat like horses.”
“Horses? Have you seen horses?” Lottie blushed at her question. Way to show your ignorance. She knew what they looked like from the books in the city, but she’d never seen one.
“Yeah, we use them—and mules and donkeys—on the farms to help with plowing. They eat a lot and are big brutes. Docile enough, I guess. Although I did get stepped on regularly. We also had cats and dogs to help with the vermin.”
“Domesticated?” Lottie was envious, all she’d ever seen were feral ones that ran when you came too near if you saw them at all. She wondered what it would be like to have freedom to do something other than breed more Americans. She would love to see a horse, or even work on a farm—no matter how backbreaking it might be. Carrying the extra weight from her baby seemed to be backbreaking work too.
Lottie turned her attention to the eggs and meat on her plate. She poked at the mash substance on her plate. “Are these—”
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