Chapter 3 #4
She helps me down from the final pole and releases my hand to give me a pat on the arm. “Well done. You earned yourself a lunch.”
“I’d say I earned myself both our lunches.” Taylor rolls her eyes and walks away. “It’s not like you did anything. I’m the one sweating and dirty and—” But she’s gone, in the trees, and I’m speaking to no one but the old tires. “Hey, wait! It is so rude to walk away while someone is speaking.”
“Catch up, Miss Piccolo.”
In the secret “not special treatment” room of the longhouse, a ruddy-cheeked woman in her midfifties waits for us, an apron tied around an outfit similar to Taylor’s. Her curly blond hair is tucked underneath a handkerchief, smears of flour across on her face and clothes.
“Taylor!” The woman’s bright blue eyes don’t find me for a while as she envelops Taylor in a big bear hug, which is left rigidly unreturned. “You’re so skinny. We need to get meat on those bones. I know, I know, I’m sorry. No hugs! But I haven’t seen you in over a week, young lady.”
“Miss Piccolo, this is Sergeant Claire MacDougal.” The woman extends her hand toward me. Her nails are short, painted a deep eggplant purple, and an Order symbol is tattooed on the inside of her freckled arm. “Sergeant MacDougal, this is Luciana Piccolo.”
Claire shoots Taylor a look. “I may be old, girl, but I’m not stupid. I know who this young woman is. I was older than you when she was born.”
Taylor, for her part, is marginally chastised. “Sorry. Miss Piccolo, Sergeant MacDougal is our head chef here.”
“The name’s Claire, and I’m a cook,” Claire downplays as I shake her hand. “Nothin’ fancy.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I say with the deeply ingrained etiquette of my youth. “Don’t sell yourself short. Those potatoes you made this morning were out of this world. I’d be willing to defect for those potatoes alone.”
Claire’s pale skin grows pink beneath her freckles. “You liked those, did you, Miss Piccolo? I’ll keep that in mind. How long are you staying?”
Taylor squints. “She is not a guest. She is my ward.”
“Good. Lord knows you could use some friends,” Claire adds. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Piccolo.”
“Please call me Lucy,” I practically beg, glaring at Taylor, who pointedly ignores me.
“You got it, Lucy,” she replies with a wink. “Don’t give Lucy a hard time, little girl. At least someone appreciates my cooking around here.”
“I appreciate your cooking,” Taylor says, but the battle has already been lost as Claire exits the room through the door near the buffet table.
That might be the kitchen, I think excitedly.
I wonder if they’ll let me in there. I’m dying to do a normal activity, like sit on a counter and watch people cook.
Reaching for a plate, I catch a glimpse of my grubby hands. “Is there a bathroom I can wash up in?”
Taylor shakes her head. “No, we go in the woods.” Smirking at my horrified stare, she gestures toward the door. “Back in the main room, directly to your right. Do not wander.”
The restroom is easy to find, surprisingly barren.
One of the first children I’ve seen here is the sole inhabitant, washing her hands at the sink as she loudly hums the birthday song.
Her deep brown, inquisitive eyes blink up at me as I station myself at the sink next to hers and begin washing my hands.
Two thin braids roped together with plastic purple zebra hair ties sit atop her tiny orange sweater, tucked into miniature-sized, standard-issue pants.
“Hi,” she greets with a shy smile.
“Hi.” I pump soap onto my hand. “Is it your birthday?”
“Nope! You sing it when you wash your hands, this way you know you washed them enough.” She side-eyes me. “What’s your name? I’m Shelly.”
“I’m Lucy. Nice to meet you.”
Her nose scrunches. “Why are you in orange? I thought the grown-ups were s’posed to be in green.” She reaches on her tippy-toes to turn off the faucet.
Sufficiently rid of the dirt on my hands and forearms, I rinse off and nab a few paper towels for Shelly and me. “I’m new.”
“Do you live here?”
“Right now I do. I’m from New York City.” I toss my paper towel in the wastebasket. “East of here, near the ocean.”
“I know where the New York City is,” she says, sassily planting a hand on her hip. “I’m six, not five.”
As I’m about to respond, Taylor strolls in through the door behind Shelly and the little girl turns around, emitting an ear-piercing squeal.
“Eos!” She waves her hands frantically until Taylor engages her in a short, complex handshake. “I haven’t seen you in a long time.”
“I know.” Taylor gets to one knee and straightens the girl’s shirt. “I’m sorry. I got busy.”
“My daddy told me you were on a special mission and that no one was s’posed to bother you. Do you know Lucy?”
Her sharp pivots in conversation don’t derail Taylor, who warmly responds, “Yes, I do.”
“She’s from the New York City. That’s near the ocean. She’s my friend. Is she your friend?”
Taylor raises her eyebrows over Shelly’s shoulder at me. “No.”
“Why not?” Shelly inquires, as if this is preposterous. Ah, the simplicity of youth. “She’s nice and pretty and she’s got pretty hair.”
Taylor smiles and nods in agreement. “That is good intel, soldier.” The tops of my cheeks flare. “How are your classes going?”
“Good. I did a report on zebras.” Shelly looks at me with a hilariously serious expression. “Zebras are my favorite.” Not surprising, I muse as her zebra hair ties jangle. “Did you know Eos’s favorite animal is a fox?” Taylor rolls her eyes, clearly embarrassed. “Lucy, what’s your favorite animal?”
“Siberian tigers,” Taylor says without a beat.
Shelly looks at me for confirmation, to which I nod, momentarily stunned into silence.
If Taylor compiled a dossier on me, why would my favorite animal be pertinent information?
Exactly how long have I been under surveillance?
Unfortunately, I can’t lay into her in front of this girl, so I put that bullet of objection into the chamber to fire later.
Shelly looks exasperated. “You know her favorite animal, Eos. That means you’re friends. Friends know friends’ favorite animals. Anyway, I gotta go. Bye!” With a sly look on her face, she pounces and steals a tight hug around Taylor’s hips before cackling and taking off out the door.
“What about no hugs?”
Taylor chuckles. “She is the boss around here. Far be it for me to tell her what to do.”
“She’s cute. Clearly, she adores you. Doth a soft heart beat beneath this armored exterior of yours?”
Her expression makes it clear she finds me tiresome, though perhaps faintly amusing. “I apologize for barging in. After you left, it occurred to me you may encounter someone unfriendly in the bathroom and I did not want you to be confronted alone.”
“Ah. Well, lucky for us, there were no hostiles in the lavatory,” I report in a deep bass.
Taylor escorts me back into the main room, where Shelly waves from her seat tucked between her parents as we pass.
Each parent acknowledges Taylor with a nod.
I wave back. “There’s not a lot of kids around here. ”
“No.” She opens the door for me into the Not Special Treatment buffet room. “If people start families, they are encouraged to leave HQ.”
“People are allowed to leave?” I fill my plate and pour myself water from the pitcher, sitting down across from Taylor.
“Of course. This is our primary headquarters but it is also a training ground. People leave for many reasons. Pregnancy, incapacitation, deemed unfit for service, or sent out on assignment. Theia and I judge transfers out of HQ on a case-by-case basis, for permanent relocation, or to operate covertly.”
With its proximity to their headquarters, New York is probably crawling with these families-in-wait. I wonder how close I’ve gotten to one. “Interesting. And new members, how do they come upon your shadow organization? Not everyone gets the ‘shatter-the-skylight’ treatment, I hope.”
“Scouts trained to find and recruit agents for OrPro.” OrPro.
An oddly cute portmanteau for such a menacing operation.
“They scour the regions and identify pockets of resistance: local gangs, underground newspapers, independent militias, that sort of thing. Once it is determined that person is not an undercover agent for the local police, they are brought to their closest headquarters for training.”
“Everyone gets trained as a soldier?”
“Yes. Afterward, soldiers are funneled into jobs more suited to their skill sets. Some have been installed within the regions. Most remain soldiers, since ongoing war is inevitable.”
I pause. “What do you mean, ‘installed’?”
Taylor tugs on her bottom lip and glances at Mason for counsel, and he shrugs. “Order members serve as subregion leaders beneath the leaders in all five regions.”
“Oh my God.”
Subregion leaders don’t wield much actual power, but they do sit at the table with the leaders to discuss the needs of individual states. My region alone possesses twelve—men and women who have dined at our home. Papa has snakes in his garden and I can’t tell him.
“This way when you take out the leaders, fewer will step forward to take their place, except spouses or heirs. Thorne and Wolfshield don’t have any spouses or heirs that I know of.”
“That is correct.”
“But Region Leader Reed has five children. You should figure out some kind of amnesty for them,” I suggest gently. “Nobody gave a fuck about Silas, but people from both classes were pretty upset about his kids.”
“That would be Theia’s call, not mine,” Taylor replies. “I am a soldier. I kill who I am told to kill. No more, no less.”
“But they’re kids.”
“No different than the kids falling to their deaths in Reed’s timber camps, or the kids starving as they till his farms.” Taylor shrugs. “His children are not special.”
“They don’t have to be special to be deserving of mercy,” I reply, gritting my teeth. “And what, you’re going to murder Reed’s wheelchair-bound wife?”
Taylor cocks her head to the side, like a dog that’s heard a whistle. “Of course. Alexandra Reed inherits the region upon the death of her husband. Nothing about her disability makes her incapable of running a government.”
“I realize she’s capable. My point is it’s morally reprehensible to murder a woman in a wheelchair,” I say, voice rising in exasperation.
Taylor pauses for calm consideration. “So, I should consider her able enough to run a region, but not able enough to be a threat?”
“A woman in a wheelchair is not a threat.”
“Sure she is. No part of her being paraplegic renders her unable to fire a gun or give an order.” Taylor puts her fork down.
“The thing about war, Miss Piccolo? Everything is a weapon. Empathy, vulnerability, strength, weakness, even your own humanity can be exploited and turned on your enemy. So, we must be careful with mercy, because it can be used against us too.”