Authors: Matt Roberts
Even describing her parents’ deaths in such vivid, gruesome detail O’Brien didn’t fluster. There was a weakness in her voice that Owyn had never heard before but she never even verged on tears. He couldn’t imagine feeling anything like what she must have felt yet he was the one with a drop running down his cheek.
“Somehow I escaped the burning building,” she continued. “I can’t remember how; it’s all just a blur of emotions and adrenaline – but I made it out and didn’t get caught. After that I curled up in a ditch somewhere and cried for hours. I’d gladly have died right there and then, but I couldn’t do it, not after what they’d done to make sure I got out of there alive. So I took the only option I had. All our crops had been burned down so I’d have starved if I tried to stay. All I could do was follow the road into the city.”
Owyn’s heart sank even further. While he’d been with XION Austin was one of a few places in the country that was completely off limits. It was a cesspool of all of the worst things about humanity and a death trap for anyone going there with the intention of being anything other than the dirt at the bottom of a violent food chain.
“When I arrived the whole city was stuck in a battle for territory between five militias. That meant the only people who dared walk the streets were armed thugs. They gave me food and water as long as I paid their price – not that I’d have had much choice if I’d refused. It was probably still pretty far from the worst way a girl my age had her innocence taken from her in that place.
The rebels weren’t really freedom fighters, at least not the ones I saw. Most of them were just using the military’s weakness as a way to gain the power to do what they wanted – no laws, no rules, nothing. Some had a real cause, sure, but most couldn’t care less about the state of their country.
I was stuck on the streets for four years before someone decided I was ‘developed enough’ to earn more than just bread and water for my services. That was the real reason they kept me alive and healthy – so that I’d grow to be attractive and desirable enough to be profitable. I was given a place to sleep and three meals a day. All I had to do to keep a roof over my head was satisfy the men who paid for me, whatever it was they wanted from me. By that point it hardly bothered me anyway. It was a job, which was more than most people had. I wasn’t going to get any happiness or fulfilment out of a life like that but I’d convinced myself I owed it to my parents not to give up on living.”
She reached down, pulled off her left boot and lifted the leg of her suit up to reveal a deep, gruesome scar all the way down from just below her knee to the bottom of her calf. “Are you still itching to find out the story behind this mess?” she asked.
Owyn had guessed by now it wasn’t a story he wanted to hear, but he was going to hear it anyway.
“When I was 16 one of the militia leaders came to the place I was staying,” O’Brien continued. “The owner lined us all up and let him pick the girl he wanted. He chose me, and apparently I impressed him. As soon as he was done he paid off the owner and took me out to his car. I’d have gone along with it, but then he decided he wanted some ‘entertainment’ for the drive home. He opened his pants and pulled my head over to his lap. Either he’d forgotten about the knife wedged down the side of his chair or he assumed I was too beaten down to think of going for it – either way I’d say he felt a little differently when he felt the blade of a knife rather than the kiss of a prostitute’s lips down there. I tried to pin him down but I wasn’t strong enough. Even through his screams he managed to pull another blade. He went for my throat but missed and dragged it through my leg instead. It’s never quite healed since.” She covered her leg up and pulled her boot back on. “Feel guilty yet?” she jested.
“A little,” Owyn replied in likewise spirit. He was beginning to realise he didn’t have to tread so carefully. However painful and horrific O’Brien’s experiences seemed to him, she wasn’t afraid to remember them. He was looking through the eyes of someone who hadn’t experienced or even seen the worst of what the war had to offer. As someone who had lived through it for half of her life she didn’t see it as the sensitive subject he did.
“I expected it to hurt more than anything, but it didn’t,” she continued again. “It barely stung compared to everything I’d endured in those past seven years. I didn’t scream or cry, even after I ripped the blade out of my own flesh and planted it in his heart. I wrapped the wound to stop the bleeding and used his clothes to cover myself up, although you’d be surprised how uncomfortable cotton and denim feel after spending more than a couple of years without being allowed anything to wear other than at clients’ requests.
I had no idea what I was doing but I guess when you’re as desperate as I was you usually find a way. I managed to drive out of the city, dump his body then get out of the state.” From one of several pouches strapped around her thigh she drew a slim, gilded blade. It was serrated with long, razor sharp barbs; it was the kind of blade that’s hardest to pull from a wound. “I even kept his knife as a souvenir.”
Owyn grimaced at the thought as she spun it around in her hand before returning it to its sheath. “What made you join the army?” he asked.
“I’d seen enough of what America would become if the rebels won to know that outcome wasn’t good for anyone. They hadn’t done much to protect me or my family but joining the army seemed like the only way I could help. I was a perfect killing machine too. 16 years old and I’d already been violently raped more times than I could remember. Every time was like cutting away another little piece of my brain until there was no person left. I was an empty shell that needed filling up, and planting a blade in that man’s heart felt like it filled a bit of that emptiness. The satisfaction I took from watching him choke on his own blood was like a drug. Killing people like him was the only thing that kept me going. You can imagine how much the army valued someone like that.”
“Do you still get satisfaction from it – from killing?”
“Not in the same way, no. After spending the rest of my teenage years killing at command it wasn’t enough anymore. I needed it to mean something. The war wasn’t going anywhere and however many shitty people I got rid of there were always more to take their place. I imagine you know the feeling. That’s why I came here; so I could fool myself into thinking I was making more of an impact.
I never changed too much. I’m still just that same, broken 16-year-old girl, just as lost as the day I ran from that burning building. You aren’t all that different. Neither of us have any problem taking a life. You try to justify it by convincing yourself you’re on the right side, but you only believe that because it’s what you’re told. We’re all lost and broken; that’s why we’re here. We’re the type of people ISO needed. We had no families when we arrived – no one to protect. We had nothing to fight for. All we needed was to be convinced that we had a purpose here and we’d do what we were told. No questions asked. That’s what made it so easy for Ambrose to use us.”
Owyn’s head dropped. While her own steely exterior seemed impenetrable, O’Brien could see through his skin with ease. She could even see what he had made himself blind to. Still, there was one element of her analysis that didn’t quite add up. “If you’d figured all this out then why did you keep on blindly following orders? Why not ask questions?”
“I always knew, really. At first I just didn’t care, but now I do have something to fight for – our family. Killing was just a painkiller for me. It was never going to fix me or bring me any happiness. I didn’t know what it was I needed; I think I’d just accepted I was broken for good. I shut people out for thirteen years before I finally realised it wasn’t doing me any good. Now I’ve got a new family; that’s what ISO is. We’re all in this together so I’m going to fight for all of us. That’s why I never thought about giving up.”
Owyn smiled. Perhaps she was right. He’d never thought about ISO as his family, probably because his mind had always been a little absent, but the way she put it made it sound like something worth fighting for. “The lost and broken,” Owyn said. “It’s got a decent ring to it. Might be the title of my next album.”
O’Brien shook her head in disappointment, but she was smiling too.
Owyn took a deep breath. Now, he guessed, it was his turn. “You’ve probably figured out by now that I didn’t have to live through the horrors of the war like everyone else. Miller was hardly quiet about it.”
O’Brien shrugged. “You said it yourself, none of us got here by having it easy. We all went through hell, even if you don’t think yours was as bad as mine.”
Owyn bowed his head, breaking eye contact so he could take a few second to think. “Before I was born my parents left Michigan to move out into the forest in Ontario. As far as I know my Dad knew the energy industry was in bad shape so as soon as my older brother Mitch was born they packed up and headed for the most secluded spot in the continent. I spent my entire childhood living out there, practically oblivious to all the war and chaos that was consuming the rest of the world.
My Mom died not long after I was born so the only people I ever knew out there were Dad and Mitch. We had a big log cabin and grew all the food we could ever need by ourselves. We collected and purified our own water and generated our own electricity from solar power – we were living pretty happily.
When he finally decided I was old enough Dad gave me a talk about the crash and the rebellions and everything else but I never saw any of it. It always worried him, I think, but it never really bothered me or Mitch – I guess we just didn’t really understand the whole situation.”
O’Brien interrupted momentarily. “It wasn’t something kids were supposed to understand. The worst thing was that so many did.”
“I guess not, but that didn’t stop me from feeling guilty when I saw it first-hand.” He sighed. “I think Dad hoped we never got that chance, but when I was 17 he got ill and died suddenly. We carried on just the same for a while, but one day Mitch decided we should head south. He was two years older than me so I guess he’d just hit an awkward stage or something, but he was suddenly pretty insistent we couldn’t just stand by while the US ripped itself apart. He said we had a duty to fight for our country.”
“Is that why you have such a problem with that word – duty? Don’t think I don’t see the look in your eyes or hear you muttering under your breath every time someone mentions it.”
Of course she’d noticed. It was O’Brien. Why wouldn’t she have? “We didn’t have a
duty
to do anything,” Owyn answered. “If anything we had a responsibility to stay out of that shit-fest our parents had tried so hard to keep us away from, but he’d made his decision and I wasn’t going to argue with him so we packed up and headed into Minnesota to join the army.
For a few months we fought the rebels in the north where you could hardly even tell there was a war on. We weren’t doing anything but we were satisfied. We got to shoot guns every day and party hard every night. Very rarely ended up killing anyone either. It was mostly just threats and posturing. We were living the dream – all the way up until one of those nights when Mitch got off with a girl and she ended up pregnant. I never worked out if he actually loved her, but he was suddenly desperate to protect the child. As soon as he found out he deserted to take her back home where she’d be safe; I guess he forgot his whole duty speech pretty quickly. I had the chance to follow but stupidly I didn’t. For God knows what reason I’d actually bought into the idea I was making a difference.”
“The partying might have had something to do with it.”
“Well with Mitch gone I decided to cut the distractions and focus on becoming a better soldier. With the booze and drugs out of my system it didn’t take me long to see my mistake, but it also meant I attracted unwanted attention. I suddenly started flying through the ranks and moving into rougher and rougher territory until the next year when XION joined the war. They tried to recruit me into their training programme and since I’d missed my only chance to get out I didn’t see any reason to refuse.
The training wasn’t easy, but it was better than being on the front lines. I got nearly four years away from the war before I got thrown in even deeper than before. That’s when I joined up with Shaw and Captain Miller.
I didn’t know it, but up to then I’d barely had a taste of the war. The little skirmishes I’d been fighting previously didn’t compare to the all-out carnage around Colorado. In the army I shot maybe six or seven rebel fighters over the course of months. I’d killed more than twenty within my first week at XION. I was terrified. The only way I kept it together was by constantly telling myself that it was all for the greater good. I got obsessed with the idea. After a couple of months killing a man was as easy as squashing a bug, as long as I was reassured we were the good guys.
But the war still wasn’t going anywhere. Our brutality was just making more and more people turn against us. Rather than slow down we turned to even more extreme methods. We started using the families of the rebel fighters as leverage to force them to surrender. With Miller it was worse than that. Taking hostages wasn’t enough. If the surrender wasn’t quick he’d draw his knife. The first time I tried to stand up to him Shaw took his side and I didn’t have the guts to take them both on.
I lost faith in everything, but all I could do was carry on. Miller beat me into line because he knew he could and I soon kept my mouth shut. Still, my breaking point didn’t come for another year, on the day the first transport left for Altaris – February 7, 2043. We got assigned to Boston to deal with anyone who tried to spoil the big event and to root out stowaways. Somehow we avoided trouble until a few minutes before launch when one of the other guys in our squad found someone trying to sneak into the hold. It was Mitch…and his daughter.