Solar Sky

Chapter 2

When my eyes opened again it was because a brief current of electricity had jumped through my chest.

My breathing came back in flurry of wheezes, each sputtered breath weaker than the last as the pain spiked. My vision was blurry and I hurt all over. I whined in pain and disorientation. When I tried to curl into a ball and hold my pounding forehead, I found I was bound somehow, with my feet and my legs tied together. What had happened? What was going on?

A small, cynical voice echoed in the back of my mind. I was still alive; still suffering. Why couldn't I just die and get it over with?

I heard other voices too, this time outside my head. There must be someone else with me, but as I focused on the world surrounding me all I could make out were smudged blobs of dark colour. The pain made it difficult to concentrate, but after the laborious process of blinking away the fuzziness was complete, the room came into focus.

It was a small, cube-like chamber, with only one light fixed to the ceiling in the middle of the room. The walls and surfaces were all covered in the same navy square paneling, and each square looked to be separated from each other by about a quarter inch of black paint deeply inset into walls. Except for a grey door, a glossy black table, and two chairs, there was nothing else of remark about the room.

Across from me were two men, one sitting in the other chair with his hands clasped in front of him and the other pacing at the far side of the room, a stun baton held tightly in one gloved hand. They both were watching as I slowly came to my senses, and when I tried to move away I found it was to the table I was bound. My hands were resting in front of me on the desk, not unlike the man sitting across from me except for the fact that my hands were cuffed into a built-in restraint that jutted out of the table.

Struck with a moment of clarity, my gaze dropped the logo stitched into the tidy suit the seated man was wearing, just above the breast. It was a globe of the Earth with the letters EAL superimposed over it.

Full recollection of my escape attempt rushed back to me. I must've been captured, and clearly I was still alive even after the explosion. I began to feel convinced I was invincible—that no matter the pain and suffering I endured I would never die. That thought dragged me back down to where I was before I blacked out. I remember I'd already given up, and that was even before I got captured and woke up shackled inside a small room.

Depression's grip on my shoulders pushed down harder than I'd felt in a long time.

The man in the suit turned up his eyebrows at me and scoffed when I collapsed forehead first into my arms. "I'm hurt," he said, his voice pointed and dishonest. "I was hoping you would congratulate me on a job well done. Tracking you down proved to be a difficult task, let alone the nightmare it was to plan this arrest."

Arrest? I thought. I couldn't bring myself to speak. Abduction with deadly force, you mean.

A few moments of silence between us passed as he waited for a reply. I could hear the other man in the room repeatedly clench his gloved hand, the leather material making a clear creaking noise every time he did so.

"Hmph," the suit said, annoyance creeping into his tone. He leaned forward and swished a fingertip across the tablet in front of him and began to read in a practiced, rehearsed voice.

"Nolan Oland, you are under arrest for the counts of draft evasion, obstruction of justice, and resisting arrest. According to the federal laws of the Earth Alliance League, your formal punishment has been selected as lifelong military servitude. Should the war with the RG end in victory, your sentence will be eligible for review based on your determined contribution to the war effort.