Tobacco was banned at Commissary, and within the past few years the staff had been banned from smoking as well. That still hadn’t stopped a rather lucrative cigarette trade among both the prisoners and the guards, and it seemed no one knew how it even happened. It was likely that some guards were smuggling them in then injecting them into circulation. This gave the prisoners one currency and one alone to bribe the guards. Zoe Dee recently got a pack and had hoped to make it last. Unfortunately she used it within a day.
The problem was this damn rescheduling the warden had ordered, throwing basically every member of staff’s itinerary out of alignment. Something was going down this afternoon, which was to require every prisoner to empty out into the yard at the same time. All Zoe knew was that it had Danton Pygamile written all over it. Whatever this project he had been working on was, it better be worth all this trouble.
She was walking across the astroturf, having spent an hour setting up the cordon and small stage with some of the construction crews. Due to the obnoxious reassignment, she would have to get to a post in the mines sharpish before coming back to the yard during the big announcement. Yet on her path, she noticed someone in the distance, hidden away in the shade. After a squint, she realised who it was. She glanced back towards the exit, but then sighed and wheeled about. She came right up to the girl who was huddled up by herself and staring down at the fake grass.
“Hey Chione,” said Dee.
Chione looked up, wearing a blank expression but one that could not hide the redness of her eyes. She was haggard, head drooping as if too heavy for her neck, and her white hair split into a million strands. Her motion towards the guard was slow and defeated.
Swallowing, Dee asked, “you weren’t in your cell that night, were you?”
Chione shook her head.
“I should have known it was trouble,” Zoe said, sighing again.
“I’m not talking about it,” Chione’s voice was so soft she was barely mouthing her words.
“Well I’m not asking. I can see what’s going on. Asphodel breaks everyone in the end. You were just more brittle than others.”
“It’s fine,” said Chione, turning away. “I won’t be a problem for anyone soon.”
“What, you’re gonna off yourself?”
“Might as well. I can’t beg. I can’t work. I can’t do any of those… things. So I’ll just starve.”
“Man….”
Zoe Dee checked her comm device –– it was cutting the hour very fine. But her next posting could wait, so what the hell. She clambered down, and sat by Chione’s side on the grass.
“You know, if I could free just one person from this place… it probably wouldn’t be you ––I’ve seen some very lost souls around here. But you’d definitely be third or fourth.” She covered her face with her hand and muttered “God what am I doing that’s a terrible thing to say right now.”
But Chione just said, “Lucy. She should have been free.”
“Lucy?”
“She was only there because she tried to help. I should have died, not her.”
Chione buried her face into her knees, struggling to hold back another wave of tears.
“Well, you did survive,” noted Dee. “It always surprises me who comes out of integration and who doesn’t. You must have found the resolve somewhere. Was it really just thinking you’d get out with just a letter?”
“No.”
“Oh, well was it your father? His memory powering you on?”
“No.”
“Do you remember what it was? What did you think when it happened?”
Looking up, Chione offered the guard a pained expression.
“I thought about that Sheinberg woman and how much I wanted to give her what’s coming to her.”
To Chione’s surprise, this provoked a small laugh from the other woman.
“Yeah, well, most of us guards say the same thing. She’s entrenched though, the officers all support her. So we just take her bullshit on the chin.”
“Is that how I’m going to live then? Passed around from one bitch to another and I just have to take it?” Chione began to grip her other arm, digging her nails in to make a red mark. “I keep seeing her face, that disgusting grin. But what, do I go crawling back to her and accept her bullshit so I can eat?”
“Who we talking about now?”
“I’d rather just claw her eyes out!” Chione kept going, with a harsh, contorted glare from behind her arm. “Or maybe I should throw a punch at Rigoletta and let her smash my head in for good! That’d be swell. Why die quietly?”
Zoe Dee’s mouth parted slightly as she dared to look at the seething woman. An acute mental crisis wasn’t exactly uncommon here, and there was no responsibility for the staff to care. It was an unofficial rule that if the prisoner is generally pliant ––that is, someone the guards don’t actively despise –– you recommend her for pastoral care from Ambrosia. But this seemed way beyond that now. There was probably only one hope for the girl, but the guard wasn’t sure if she’d take well to that either.
But time was up, so Zoe Dee climbed to her feet, and offered a hand.
“Can’t stay down there forever, someone’ll notice and give you trouble anyway.”
Chione threw away a bitter look, but then turned back at Dee and grudgingly accepted the hand. Dee pulled her to her feet, and as an extra small gesture, brushed the rubber dirt off her back.
“Look, stay around for the announcement,” she said. “Well, you don’t have a choice anyway. But I think it’ll be interesting.”
“Sure, whatever,” Chione let out in a distant tone.
As midday passed, the prisoners started to accumulate on the field. With a few orders echoing through the PA system, and the guards marshalling in a large squadron of miners as well, the crowd swelled to a massive size; it became clear just how many people were locked up in Asphodel. The cordon kept the masses from pushing into the sides of the tower, and the guards were armed and ready just in case a riot broke out. While people stood in all quadrants of the space, they mostly gravitated to one side in a thick semi-circular crowd. The tower stood on one side, while the empty stage stood on the other.
Towards the left end of the semi-circle, Chione idly attached herself to the back a few minutes before the announcement was said to start. Her eyes glazed over the heads in front of her, and she folded her arms in an awkward position. It didn’t help that, though sparse, there were still dozens of other prisoners behind her, and footsteps padded about, each one spiking her heartbeat. Then something prodded her face.
“Gack,” she started, whirling around.
“Haha! Look at your face, princess. I could frame that on my wall!”
It was that girl with the long red ponytail, Roxie. With a scowl, Chione looked around, though luckily there was no sign of Rigoletta. She let out a groan, but turned back, facing the throng in front of her as if the other woman wasn’t there.
“Uh, hello?” Roxie flapped her hand right in front of Chione’s face, “still with us, princess? Rigoletta didn’t knock half your brains out, did she? Or who knows,” Roxie wore an impish smile, “perhaps there was nothing there to begin with?”
“Go away,” uttered Chione.
“Well, it’s a good thing your body’s so much nicer than your manners. Can’t imagine what poor girl has to put up with you just to get in your pants–– oh right,” Roxie laughed, “I forgot, you’re not into all that, are you. Well, not yet anyway.”
A shiver writhed its way up Chione’s spine, and she shut her eyes sharp. The thought of Cheshire, — her overpowering breath, that wandering hand, every sensation so vivid would not leave her alone. Is this how they did it? Break every girl down until they could no longer say no? Was that why it was ‘not yet’, never ‘no’?
“Maybe that’s why you’re spending so much time with Dee,” Roxie mused, tapping her mouth in thought. “Come to think of it, that person seems to have a liking for you too. Have you two done anything yet?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ooh, maybe you haven’t. Or maybe you don’t know?”
Roxie threw her arm around Chione, causing her to seize up. The girl leant in close so she need only give the barest of whispers, yet it came into Chione’s ear clear enough.
“Mister Pygamile isn’t the only one with something in his trousers. Maybe it’s more to your fancy?”
Regaining her bearings, she shoved Roxie off, but the girl was already in another fit of laughing. She started pushing her way through the crowd, still chuckling as she threw one last word back at Chione
“Later, princess!”
A shuddering Chione watched as the ponytail whipped through the crowd, and met up with Rigoletta and the others, whom Chione had somehow missed. But at the very same time, a large holographic screen was beginning to flicker to life, splayed out across the face of the tower nearly a hundred feet above them. All at once, much of the crowd turned from the nearby platform towards the tower on the opposite side. Though with choppy movement with a delayed frame-rate, the face of Athena Romanoff appeared on the screen.
“Inmates of Asphodel,” she said in a calm, but imperious voice which carried digitally over the enclosure, “this is your warden speaking. A change of policy has come to my attention, authorised by the General Council of the Kratia. Asphodel is now being uprated as a level 1 military location. The entity known as the Demesne already consider us a priority target. For the vast majority of you, however, this will have no effect on your lives or your production quotas.
“For a select few of you, we are opening a new opportunity. You are the only women in known Kratian space who are Vio-compatible. You are eligible for enlistment in a new military formation and will fight if the occasion demands it.”
Already whispers were flying through the crowds, although this grew to more than whispers in some sections. The guards could hardly keep everyone in line, and Romanoff’s voice was so loud it drowned out all conversation. But there was one thing on everyone’s minds.
“Enlistment? Like soldiers?” one woman near Chione said.
“Heh, as if I’d fight for them!”
“But what if there are perks?”
No doubt there were many questions. For most, if not all the women here this was completely out of left field. Chione however wondered just one thing.
Fight with what?
The answer came from the sky. Rather, the electronic panels that made the ceiling flickered, some even dying out. Something emitted a loud, mechanical groan, descending in pitch as it fell, almost plummeting towards the ground. A shadow, or silhouette of some large machine dropped down. It looked like a V92, but the shape was wrong. It was upright. Vaguely humanoid. The crowds of women had a moment to react, either gasping, turning, some even shuffling back in alarm, before it touched down on the platform. There was a massive bang, metal sheets clapping and the steel beams of the structure almost buckling. But there it stood, the subject of everyone’s shocked gaze.
The guards on standby rustled as they gave way for the man, who climbed onto the stage to share the limelight with the gigantic machine. Danton Pygamile was shuffling assortment of cards in his hands, before promptly reading off one:
“This,” he said, “is the first of the Vio Armour series. Some of you have personally contributed to its first working design. Even more of you will become acquainted with it over the following days. Before considerations are made over the composition of the new battalion, anyone who wishes to will join basic training. For this matter, let me introduce my colleague, ms McVaughn.”
A woman now joined the stage, also emerging from the row of guards. Whereas Pygamile was impeccably dressed in a blue jacket, waistcoat, and a white cravat, she was sloven. Her dark slacks sat low on her hips and crumpled by the floor to the expense of her feet, while her shirt was so unbuttoned as to be basically undone ––though nothing threatened to spill out except a bony ribcage. She held a hand to her waist, and her eyes glazed over the surroundings as she took a few puffs from her cigarettes. But then she flashed a grin.
“Yeah, this’ll do. They just need a little motivating but I can cut them to shape.”
“We are of course treading on new waters,” the man continued, looking up at his creation, “the VA1 has no parallel and thus no military doctrine. And being what it is, the only ones who can pilot it are the people of Asphodel. McVaughn has experience training pilots for both air and spacecraft, but neither she nor any of you are fully ready for what is about to come. Should this new battalion see combat, only the very best of you will survive. Because you are still… valuable as drivers of the V92, lady Romanoff has commanded that we will only enlist the aforementioned best. As many of you as volunteer will join the training. Only five will be awarded a place.”
Watching from the back of the crowd, Chione furrowed her brow. The machine, though perhaps an impressive feat, was haphazardly drawn together. Parts of it still belied its history as a mining vehicle, including vestigial treads, railings and ladders on its higher levels; and of course the long excavator arm emerging from its back, standing upright at nearly half the whole height like some sort of pike. The mines were bad enough; who would willingly die in this trap?
“I should like to add,” Danton said, stowing away his cards and speaking directly to the watchful women, “while the upper echelons of the prison management will determine the perks for this new battalion ––I believe the rates of pay into your commissary accounts will be quite competitive–– there is something the Kratia can offer you for service far greater in value. I am not authorised to make this promise, and I’m sure the warden will vehemently disagree with me saying this. But a victorious army would not forget loyalty. And a loyal subject of the Kratia is one who knows her freedom.”
A light gust of wind flew out over the crowd. Though they were silently listening before, there was a sudden rapture to their quiet audience. McVaughn stepped forward and barked out:
“Any takers, raise your hand.”
As a few arms hesitantly went up, Chione’s ears were ringing. Her breath dragged as she hung onto that last word uttered by Danton Pygamile. Looking again at the tall machine, it appeared to her in a new light. Perhaps it was a road straight to death, but it might also mean life.
She raised her hand.