1 1. The Recruit

Rain drizzles down the window in snaking lines. I draw my finger along its cold surface. Can't remember the last time we had a warm day.

Darkness clings to the horizon in towering clouds that threaten to block the soft pink of the setting sun.

"I told you!" I flinch at the clatter of dishes in the other room. "They ain't got no more work in the mines."

Papa looms in the doorway much like the clouds out our only window. Strange how nothing about the two of us resemble each other. I've always hated how he talks. It's not his fault. The grease permanently stained beneath his nails and in the cracks of his hands testify to the work he put in for my schooling. It's just that sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm his daughter.

Mama has retreated to the stove where she stirs potato soup, trying to stretch three days of rations into six or seven. I could tell Papa she wasn't questioning him when she asked whether he'd been able to pick up any meat, but his tightly coiled forearms persuade me to keep my mind on the world outside our little apartment.

I ride out the next twenty minutes before I can leave for my study group without drawing suspicion from my parents. I jog two steps at a time down the rickety staircase, sidestepping our old neighbor who takes a good five minutes to make it up to her room across the hall from us. I ought to help her, but I might be late as it is.

The street is packed outside. Throngs of people stream by on either side of the road. Drivers in government-issued black cars honk at each other while creeping forward a few feet at a time. Apartment complexes like mine take up every square inch of the block, all painfully uniform off-white rectangles. We've been packed into our district like sardines. So much for the promise of a better life if we upgraded our bioware and signed our loyalty pledge to the new order. We may have edited the disease-carrying genes from our bodies, but we'd given them control of everything, right down to our DNA.

I push through the pedestrians to try to make up time. Five blocks down, I duck into an alleyway and sprint the three minutes to the recruitment office. Draped in the shadows of taller office buildings, my destination sits on the corner of a side road like a lone man selling old newspapers no one cares to read.

Breathing in deeply, I grab the door handle of the entrance and close my eyes for a moment before opening it.

Inside, metal clangs against metal. Recruits litter the open room, carving their bodies one rep at a time. I bite my lip as I turn to the counter at my right. A plump man sits behind it, watching me with eyes that look ready to slide closed. I half expect him to teeter back on his chair. He wreaks of stale beer and garlic.

"I'm Skye Carrel. It's my last day of orientation."

Staring, he grabs a bottle and takes a swig without responding.

"Where do I go? This is the first time they've held the sessions here."

Raising a finger, he points to the left corner of the room where several doors line the wall.

"Thanks," I mumble. I cut through the recruits working out and slow down as I pass two rows of men and woman in perfectly straight lines doing pushups. They lower to the ground in unison. A recruit with flashing green eyes meets my stare. Sweat hugs his forehead, a bead dripping from his dark hair. His collar gapes, opening to a toned chest.

I swallow and avert my eyes. It takes a great deal of self-control not to look down at my body. I'm thinner than I would like to be and certainly not in shape like the others in this room. I must look like a joke, waltzing in here, asking to join them.

Once I reach the area the man at the front had pointed to, I ask a recruit which room I should enter for orientation and thank him when he indicates one in the middle. I enter to a room of scrawny kids like myself, sitting stoically at their tables.

I take my seat in the back and sit through another lecture about the dedication it takes to join the Special Operations Force. How we would be forced to lie to everyone we love and ever will love about what we do. All I can think of is that grease under Papa's nails.

"You'll be pushed beyond your physical limit. This isn't a place for fairness or for looking out for your wellbeing. Our sole mission is to gain freedom."

The Special Forces got away with organizing within the government's own military structure due to its discrete nature and the general's commitment to never taking on missions which overtly betray the interests of our leaders. That it thrives gives testament to the insurrection brewing in the heart's of the people.

I have already come too far to turn back. They're watching my every move. They would kill me if I betrayed them. I'd been willing to face such conditions if it meant undoing the mistake my parents made in their loyalty pledge.

We take a break and I venture into an adjoining room for refreshments. My belly rumbles as I stare at the grapes and berries filling a platter. Bread with cups of dipping oil had been served on individual plates. I haven't eaten all day. Trying not to rush, I grab a plate and begin to take from the grapes.

"I remember feeling like you do."

I jump at the baritone voice in my ear. Wheeling around, I come face-to-face with the green eyed recruit. He stands a full head taller than me, broad shouldered and undeniably handsome with his coy smirk.

"Hungry?" I ask.

He laughs like he thinks I'm joking rather than simply being socially inept. "I looked at the fourth year recruits wondering if I could ever make it."

I stuff a grape in my mouth to keep from saying something stupid, nodding.

"What's your name?" His eyes flicker down my body and I can't figure out if he's blatantly checking me out or sizing up whether I am too weak for this program.

I swallow the grape. "Skye." I must have looked like a child.

"Sorry, Skye."

"For what?"

"For whatever made you desperate enough to put yourself through the hell of this training."

"I..." His stare has my belly tied in knots. "I want to serve my country, my true country."

He grins, takes a berry from my plate, and starts to back away.

"Aren't you going to tell me your name?" I ask.

He pops the berry in his mouth and shrugs. "It's not worth sharing my name if you can't cut it. And let's be honest, most people can't. Ask me in four years, if you're still here that is"

My mouth drops. He turns his back on me and walks out the door.

"Asshole." I stuff berries into my mouth and grab more bread, scanning the room to see if anyone had heard.

I'd teach him not to underestimate me.