Verde

Chapter 2: Elle Jackman

     Saturday and Sunday were days off. 

     "We're Third Years!" Elle shouted into Cassidy's ear, startling her out of sleep.

     "Elle, we were Third Years last night too, let me sleep," Cassidy rolled over, pulling the blankets over her head.

     "No Cassi," Elle's voice was quieter now, and Cassidy, pulled the sheets back down, meeting Elle's hazel eyes. "Today is the service."

     "Oh," Cassidy sat up, shaking her long hair out of her face. Elle was already dressed in her full uniform - olive-green pants, shirt, cap, and jacket, complete with her brand new Third Year badge clipped to her breast pocket.

    "It's 8:45," Elle tapped her watch, "the service starts in fifteen minutes on ground level,"

     "Go get breakfast," Cassidy told her, "I need to shower,"

     Elle left the room, leaving Cassidy to her thoughts and her hot water. 

     Third Years, Cassidy let the words sink into her brain. Now I'm a Third Year. Year Three was arguably the hardest year - trainees were physically capable of the most demanding missions, but Year Three was when they learned how to think - how to react, how to be one step ahead of the game, and how to cope with some of the terrible things you see as a Verde.

     Third Year was also when cuts began. In the first two years, anyone who volunteered was accepted to be a Verde, but years Three and Four were when incompetent trainees were let go of. There could be no risks run on Quarantine.

     Cassidy turned off the shower, shivering as the warmth left her. The cool underground air chilled the droplets of water on her skin and she hurried to dry off. 

     Pulling on her uniform, Cassidy studied the glint of her new plastic Third Year badge. It was cheap, the material was tacky and the clip was flimsy - the ink that her name was written in was thing and you could see the paper through it. Quarantine was running out of resources - what the United States had left as a last act of compassion had been carefully rationed, but no one had expected to survive this long. 

     Out in the streets there were riots. Fifty people had just died. No one was happy anymore, and it was because they weren't supposed to be alive. But they were! They were alive! What use was the will to live if there wasn't the will to be happy? The first generation of Infected could have just well enough alone and died, but that wasn't how life worked.

     Clipping her badge to her shirt, Cassidy shook the thoughts of the dying island out of her mind, thinking instead of what the badge meant.

     I've made it this far, she told herself, I can make it to the end. There's no use thinking about how bad we've got it - we're still alive. She gripped her badge tight over her chest. And I will keep it that way if its the last thing I do - Quarantine will get by, and when we die, it won't be for nothing.

     The thoughts were flooding her brain. Cassidy was feeling something she had never felt before - she felt the need to matter. Quarantine was giving up, and that just wasn't right. They were people too. They could do something! Something great! They could be remembered! They could - 

     They could what? They were stuck on an island in the middle of the largest ocean on the planet, detached from the revolutionary new thoughts of the rest of the world and with no communication whatsoever. They were nothing.

     The harsh realization brought Cassidy back to her senses, and she left the steamy bathroom with its fogged up mirror, and her thoughts with it.