Unworthy: Marked to die. Raised to survive.
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Authors: Joanne Armstrong
Unworthy
By
Joanne Armstrong
Copyright 2014 Joanne Armstrong
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Acknowledgements
I have received a lot of support from some very helpful people while I’ve been writing. Many of them have had to cope with the frustration of reading a book in tiny installments, and have been plagued with the kind of questions no reader should have to consider when enjoying a book. I am indebted to you all!
For pretending it’s normal when I talk about characters as though they are real people, for having only one topic of conversation for months, for putting up with my semi-glazed expression… for your encouragement, positivity and editing skills, from the bottom of my heart,
thank you
.
David, Julie, Heather, Suzanne, Suzanne, Sarah, Isellah,
Anna, and Tony.
It is not unheard of to receive a summons to the General’s office, but it is unusual. Alex loops the brush back onto its peg and leaves the stables, crossing the training yard near the climbing wall. Shouts of encouragement mixed in equal parts with insults reach him on the damp spring air. At the far end, a group of new arrivals, boys and girls, stands at attention near the flagpole, chest out, chins up. They’re taking a dressing down from their fifteen-year-old drill sergeant. Alex’s gaze lingers on them for a moment. He’s been in her shoes.
I can spot a quivering lip from twenty metres
, he thinks.
And there are far too many in this bunch
.
Mandatory military membership. The Polis takes them all.
Our greatest strength and our greatest weakness
, he sighs, then bites the thought back.
Opinions like that will have me up before the Council
. He buries it along with many others.
They will get better. His own basic training feels like a lifetime ago, but in reality it’s been only six years. Back then, he was a thirteen-year-old raw recruit, arriving at the barracks with his schoolmates to continue
his education. They had imagined that the academy could not possibly be as bad as school had been, but they’d been wrong. It was far worse.
Alex leans in for the retinal scan at the administration block and the door slides back. “Captain Alexander Hayes, Polisborn,” an automated female voice announces smoothly. He makes his way to
General Graham’s office, and reports to his clerk. He prepares himself for a lengthy wait, but to his surprise he is shown in immediately. The clerk leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Face to face, the General is as awe-inspiring as his reputation. At Alex’s age, a year after graduation, he had already earned his first three stripes. His experience in the field, his success both in quelling trouble and in running peaceful sectors, and the fact that he did it all well in advance of other officers his age; all this is common knowledge amongst the Polisborn. He is a
well-known and respected military figure, used time and again by instructors as an example of the perfect Polis soldier. He is a man to be feared and a man to be emulated.
Alex has rarely been in his presence alone and the feeling is overwhelming. This man has signed his name to more executions than Alex has watched, masterminded tactical manoeuvres to bring peace to warring sectors, and earned his position and reputation with decades of loyal service to the Polis.
As the silence in the room lengthens, the summoned Captain begins to feel more awkward. The General sits at his desk, studying a letter. It appears to be brief, only a few lines, but he reads it time and again. Alex’s eyes roam to a shelf where the room’s only decoration sits: an antique timepiece, ticking audibly. It is very much out of place. The thought occurs to him that it must be a hundred years old, judging by its overly decorative shape. Such frivolous items have not been made since the twenty-first century.
“Captain Hayes.”
“General Graham, Sir.”
“I appreciate your punctuality. Would you care to sit?”
“No, sir.”
Is he testing me?
The seat which was offered is made of heavy wood, straight and square. It is hardly ever used. The younger man remains standing.
“I have orders for you.” He hesitates before continuing, and Alex’s curiosity fires up. Orders, verbally delivered by the General? A tingle begins at the base of his spine and works its way up his back. He has a million questions, none of which he voices.
“Yes, Sir,” he says. Chin up, eyes front.
“What passes between us in this room is to be kept strictly confidential. There is no file. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Understood? Not one bit.
“You are to find a civilian in Sector 4 and bring her here to me, in the Polis. You will do this alone and without the knowledge of your unit or your CO. You will leave no trail.”
The tingling is now raising hairs on the back of his neck but he replies, “I can take an ATV and be back tonight, Sir.”
“No checkpoints. You’ll be riding.”
The soldier’s eyes flick down to the General’s for the first time. He openly stares at him, uncomprehending. “No checkpoints… Sir?”
His gaze is returned and it feels like a challenge
, his eyes cold and steady. “You heard me, Captain. Once you check out through the main gate, official records will show that you returned here to HQ and are detained on the medical ward after a fall. If you are discovered in the field you will be court martialled for desertion.”
The General
lets this sink in, never taking his eyes from the young officer’s face. The ticking from the mantelpiece clock seems to get louder.
From the little
the General has shared, Alex does know this: the likelihood of success is miniscule. Polisborn soldiers are highly trained, and Polis checkpoints are the reason that the city has not seen strife in three generations. Getting through them, getting
round
them, is next to impossible. He knows because it’s part of his job to make them so.
However, even with that said, there is no questi
on of refusing the assignment. There never was. He knows full well that officially he has no right to decline, even though, officially, the assignment doesn’t even exist. When he finally speaks, the question appears to be one the General expected.
The words come out
more quietly than intended. “Why me?”
Why haven’t you chosen someone else for this honour… the honour to serve you as best I can and most likely die a coward‘s death?
“I thought that would be obvious. We need to keep this in the family.”
My heart thuds in my chest. Familiar as this vigil is, the adrenaline which floods my system is always the first sign that something is near. My senses on high alert, I wait, hardly breathing, absolutely still. There it is, the musky scent of dog. Slowly, very slowly, I lift the blowpipe towards my lips. There’s never a second chance.
The faint crunch of leaves focusses my attention. The pipe is half-way to my lips when the beast comes into view, standing at the edge of the moonlit clearing. At the limits of my peripheral vision, I see it halt, sniffing the frigid air. For a moment I doubt the effectiveness of my camouflage. My hands pause, the blowpipe suspended. Has it smelled me? The uncertainty is fleeting. I’m reassured by the countless nights spent in this same spot; watching, waiting. Undetected.
The baby’s thin wail pierces the night-time stillness again and the dog’s attention is immediately on the bundle in the clearing, ears pricked forward and alert. It stalks into the moonlight.
The creature that reveals itself has a low-slung head and flat muzzle. Its shoulders form an ugly hump as it noses its way towards my tiny newborn charge. The sickly smell of death reaches me across the stillness.
I’ve seen this one before. A loner which hunts on its own. Mangy coat and visible ribs, it hangs around the outskirts of the hub, waiting for a chance to feed.
Not tonight.
I aim the blowpipe carefully. The ache in my legs forgotten hours ago, I will my heart to quieten, inhaling deeply and noiselessly. As the dog pauses on the edge of the circle of stones, I send the dart away in one powerful puff.
It yelps at the sting on its rump and turns, snarling, lips pulled back to reveal a row of jagged teeth. Yellowed eyes search the shadows, nostrils flaring for a scented clue. Neither eyes nor nose register my presence. The beast goes rigid, and falls onto the ground, a thin whine escaping its constricting throat.
I gently lower the blowpipe to my lap, stand slowly and stretch, allowing blood to flow back into my legs. The sky will begin to lighten in another half hour, and I have a lot to do before then. I tuck the pipe into my belt and snap the clasp on the pouch next to it.
I look all around me, sensing the forest with my whole body before leaving the shadow of the old oak which has provided my support through the night. Finally satisfied that I am alone, I step into the clearing and approach the two shapes in the moonlight.
The dog lies on its side, just outside a ring of stones two metres in width. Its tongue hangs out and its eyes don’t blink. It’s not dead, simply paralysed.
Inside the ring of stones is sand. Concentric circles woven hours ago at sunset trace smaller and smaller shapes into the centre, where a bundle rests, rejected by the town which lies less than a kilometre away. I hover for a moment on the edge of the sand, wishing for the hundredth time that I could enter it. I can hear small whimpers coming from the child. Only half an hour to go till dawn. I send a silent message of strength to her, as though she could live just by my willing it. Most don’t make it through the night. This one has done so well. She must be strong; stronger than they thought. Strong enough to survive.
Night after night I have sat out here, watching over the bundles in the centre of the stones. I am unable to cross them for fear of leaving signs of tampering. The rules are very clear. The nano-patch applied at birth is a cocktail of life giving antigens and vaccines, but for many it is not enough. A sickly child is marked for death, and the only way to earn the right to live is to prove strength and resilience by surviving one night in the ring. However, signs of interference would mean their immediate death. Those are the rules.
Death in the ring is almost certain. At least it was until two years ago, when I turned fifteen and began my secret vigils. Since then, the number of survivors has doubled. They are still far too few, but now at least the newborns have a slim chance. No wild animals have entered the circle of stones on any of my watches. No dogs, wild pigs, scavenging birds, cats nor even weasels. If the hubbites have noticed the drop in animal tracks through the sand, and the rise in survivors, I haven’t heard of it.
The baby I have guarded tonight is female. Her mother brought her at sunset, accompanied by a group of stony-faced women who made sure that the mother completed the circular pattern and left her child before the sun disappeared. No matter how many times I see it, their coldness always wrings my heart. They have all been in her position. Is this why they can show so little empathy? Are they so callous because they understand her hesitation? Or do they wish others to experience the same pain they felt?
I don’t understand it, and I won’t accept it, but I can’t fight it. Hub tradition is strong, and even I can grudgingly admit that it is based on a practical attitude towards survival of the fittest. I once heard a woman tell a marked child’s mother, “She’s going to die sooner or later. Better get it over with before you get attached to her.”