Fighting for Change

5. Next on the Hit List

After just a few short days a room was prepared for Lily. She had poked through it the night before she was to conduct her first class to make sure everything was in order. A glance around the room itself returned only sights of depressing beige walls completely lacking any sort of decoration. It was one of the smaller empty rooms on the compound, dressed only to the barest minimum: a worn looking desk, the kind that seemed like it would be at home in a Victorian study, sat at the front of the room a few feet from the door. She inspected the drawers, rhythmically pulling open and slamming shut each one in turn, finding them all discouragingly barren. The majority of the room was filled with tables in relatively the same condition as the desk: used but functional. They sat in somewhat orderly rows, reminding Lily of the unruly new recruits that would soon be sitting behind them, playing at being disciplined soldiers. Hopefully filling it with people would bring some light to this depressing little space.

She turned to leave, casting one last glance over her shoulder at the desolate atmosphere behind her as she waved her hand in front of a small panel by the door. The cold, quietly buzzing lights flickered off. Lily did this with little enough thought, being accustomed to using light switches on Earth, but her Achyri brethren were largely still astonished by this technological marvel. Adapted from Kybry ships that had been appropriated by the military, electric lighting was still a novel concept on Ilior that many marvelled at. It was in the midst of sweeping the globe, starting with the wealthy and just now trickling down to the middle class

Lily shut the door firmly behind her. She felt a trill of excitement, mixed with a little uncertainty, rumble through her as it clicked quietly into place. She hesitated for only an instant, leaning against the wood. She imagined she could feel it buzz with anticipation. She scurried off to her room to review her notes and lesson plans for the third time, before turning in to bed uncharacteristically early.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The next morning, the buzzing of the lights was drowned out tenfold by the buzzing of conversation below them. Some thirty or so men had been assembled, most of them barely out of their teens and into their early twenties. They were all new recruits, this day being one of their very first on base, if indeed they had seen any others at all. Each had received orders to arrive in this room no later than eight in the morning, with no explanation as to why they were chosen or what they would be doing there. As far as they were able to discern, the men had little more in common than their shared inexperience. To make matters even more mysterious, any form of authority figure had yet to show up fifteen minutes past the hour, inciting ever more wild conspiracies about the fate in store for those selected.

Th cadets had filtered into groups without a word, gravitating towards those most like themselves. At the back of the class, several men formed a ring around two others, arm wresting to establish dominance. Another group of smaller, less muscular recruits were discussing amongst themselves quietly, trying to determine why they had been selected and for what. A third and smallest group, to use the term loosely, milled about the room individually, drifting from person to person, unsure of where they belonged.

The door burst open unexpectedly, drawing the attention of everyone in the room, causing them to pause what they were doing. The recruit that had been losing the wrestling match used the distraction as an opportunity to slam his opponent's hand loudly and painfully down onto the table. A girl rushed in, arms full of paper that had suddenly chosen to come gushing out of her grasp. She muttered a well-rehearsed sounding "Sorry I'm late," to the class as she laid the papers on the worn desk. The meandering cadets scurried to nearby seats, assuming this new arrival to be their instructor. The rest remained where they were, observing. The girl scrambled to recover her dropped articles, desperately hoping her face didn't flush under the scrutiny of so many eyes.