Subordinance

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

It is nearly a week later that I sit in the dormitory with a screen in my hands that flashes with an unopened message notification. Rho is hanging over the side of the bunk, her long braid flopping behind her. She taps her screen a couple of times, and through the semi-transparent glass backing I can see she’s pulling up her own messages. A few more taps and she lets out an excited “yes!” just as another Subordinate comes racing into the dormitory, scooping up the blank screen that sits dormant on her bunk before plopping down on her bed.

“Positions just came out,” Rho says to her, her face reddening from hanging upside down. She grins before rolling over and righting herself, resting on her elbows. “So,” she queries, looking to me, “what did you get assigned?”

I lift my eyebrows, fidgeting with the screen in front of me. “I haven’t opened it yet.”

The girl who just came in shoots me an incredulous look. “And why not?” she asks. “Don’t you want to know which job you’ll be doing for the next ten years?”

I shrug, not really sure how to communicate the clouded emotions tangling inside of me. Half of me wants to just know and get it over with while the other half holds back, not wholly ready to know how the next few years of my life will be spent.

Especially not after spending a grueling week trying out positions of complete and utter drudgery.

I nearly fell asleep in the Strategizer meeting. Sure, it’s battle, and yes, it completely affects those on the field, but the calm and monotonous way they conducted themselves was enough to make me drowsy. Needless to say, I don’t want to see that checkmark next to my coordinates.

When I worked as a Weapons Developer, I also could quite possibly have blown up the entire Base in the Weapons Lab. They were working on a more potent form of tear gas that would temporarily render the victim blind, and I grabbed the wrong chemicals…

That is not going to work out.

And the Foot Soldier’s job was a nightmare.

I’m not so going back there.

It seems my week had started with such a climax of excitement and tension and action that the other positions fell flat in comparison. Other Subordinates that had started out with a Strategizer meeting and had built up to Mission Leader may very well think only the best of that position.

Again, that’s them and not me.

In reality, my options are pretty limited for what I could feasibly be assigned to. Very much so, in fact, which is why I start to feel the slightest bit silly now, sitting with a blinking screen in front of me and an unopened message that determines the rest of my life.

I wonder how Rho and the other girl were so quick to open their messages.

“What did you two get assigned?” I ask, trying to shift the spotlight of the conversation onto them. They oblige almost too eagerly.

“Weapons Developer!” the girl cries, her eyes dancing with excited light. “I could not, for the life of me, stand being in that Strategizer meeting.” She shakes her head. “Thank Delta they put me where I wanted to be.” The boy on the bunk above her groans.

“That’s great for you, but I got assigned Foot Solider—I’ll be dead in a week! The oldest current Foot Soldier is only four and a half years old.” Twenty-Three flops backwards onto his bed, covering his face with his hands. “Nice knowing you all.”

Rho snorts. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Twenty-Three.” She then flips her amused expression into a smug little smirk. “I got assigned Mission Leader,” she flips her screen around for emphasis, her smile growing even wider. She then shifts her stare towards me.