Between

Chapter Ten

HMUC Sanctioned CO2 Conversion Farm, "Scrub" #9, Mid-Eastern Coast of Corzibar

It seemed an eternity before the steady rumbling of the monstrous carrier quieted and then came to an end. Although she hadn't been entirely asleep—who could sleep in such a location, after all—Wren snapped her head up as a new rush of adrenaline coursed through her. The light hanging from the roof had dimmed and begun to flicker several hours before, threatening to go out completely. The Directorate guards present in the bed with them had seemed unfazed by the poor lighting.

When the vehicle halted, Wren felt her body begin to shake of its own accord. How long had she been riding in the carrier? Were they at the scrub? As she sat more upright and strained to see anything in the terrible lighting, the sour smell of sweat and urine struck her, and she realized she herself desperately needed a toilet. Judging by that fact alone, she knew the journey had been longer than anything she'd traveled before. She could hear several other women in the bed whimpering and crying to themselves, muffled by their gags.

Suddenly, a deafening screech filled her ears. She ducked her head but because her wrists were still tied, she couldn't block out the awful sound. It lasted for several seconds and seemed to be moving from one side of the carrier to the other. She suspected it was some sort of sliding gate—perhaps the entrance to the scrub. When the noise ceased at last, the carrier lurched forward into motion again, sending her and two others onto the floor even though she hadn't been standing.

"C'mon, on your feet!" shouted the guard who had bound them all, and he dragged Wren upright as the rest of the Ill-Born women staggered to their feet alongside her. The guard that had been doing the injections stood upright and produced another dim light that emanated from the barrel of a gun, which he aimed quite carelessly at several of the women. Wren's heart was in her throat as he began to speak.

"When we stop again, I'm going to open this bed up again and each and every one of you is going to leave this carrier in a calm and orderly fashion, is that clear?"

Silence, but some of the women nodded anxiously.

"Once you're on the ground, you will be directed to your bunkhouses, where you will be given food, water, a restroom and a bed. Each bunkhouse has a director, and that director will give you the run down of the rules you will be expected to follow." He paused, the shiny black mask pivoting between the anxious faces of the women. "You'll work here at this scrub until you are treated, and after that, some of you will be transferred to the offshore scrubs. Know too, that if you step out of line, you will be shot. No one has to die today, or any day, so don't make us do it."

Wren stumbled again as the carrier tilted this way and that and then finally came to another stop. The guards opened the rear canvas, flooding the bed with what appeared to be spotlights and making many of the woman squint or close their eyes entirely.

Half blinded, departing the carrier was anything but calm and orderly. With their arms tied behind their backs, balancing was hard, and jumping down was even harder. Wren watched an older woman, perhaps 40, fall and be trampled by several others before she was able to stagger back to her feet. When the blonde woman next saw her face, it was bloodied and her nose very evidently broken. The poor woman was sobbing, but the guards had no sympathy. They simply shoved her along with the others like cattle through a chute.

Hovering near the back of the line, Wren's head whipped around when she felt a hand wrap around her bicep and hold her back. Her eyes looked up into the mask of the guard who held her.

"Don't you go getting' yerself killed out here blondie." His voice, mechanized by the full face breathing apparatus, was low enough to remain unheard by anyone else but Wren. "Understand? Don't be stupid."

Thinking now that she understood the guard's motivations for talking to her, Wren tried not to look too disgusted. Instead, she gave a meek nod.

"Good," he replied, still whispering. "Now, run along." He sent her off with a rather boorish grab to her backside, and it took all she had to stop herself from giving him a swift kick as he did so.

*      *      *      *      *

The stench of the algae was terrible.

Wren paused for a moment, digging the long nozzle of the chemical wand into the mud and leaning her weight against it while she caught her breath. Several meters away from her, on all sides, were other men and women—Greenkeepers, they were called now. Each of them had their own wand and a fine mesh net, and each of them were performing tasks similar to Wren herself: skimming any physical contaminants from the shallow waters and then spraying fertilizers—or whatever was in the chemical mixtures—onto the surface to help the algae to grow. Their duties were simple enough, but the smells, the thick mud, the constant moisture seeping through her boots and clothing, and the intense heat of the midday sun made things far more difficult than they needed to be.

The abrupt sensation of the muscles of her hands clenching and the sharp jolt of pain caught Wren off guard. A soldier had struck her with an electric prod. Righting herself, she promptly got back to work without a word. The guard hovered near her for a few moments, his arms crossed, the prod still buzzing to indicate its readiness to strike her again.

"These sloughs don't clean themselves, you know, Blondie," the Directorate man snapped at her, referring to her by the nickname that had been slowly spreading through her bunkhouse. "And neither does the air. Just 'cause you and the others can breathe fresh air here, you think all them people out there deserve to suffocate, hmm?"

"No sir," she replied obediently in a quivering voice, shaking her head as she scooped a dead rat out of the water. She dropped it into a nearby bucket of the other dead animals she'd found so far.

"Good. You'll get your break at nightfall, you got it?"

"Yes Sir."

"If I see you stop again, no meal tonight. Understand that?"

Again, she nodded.

"Yes Sir."

"Once you've been treated, you'll find yourself a lot more willing to do the job right."

Wren stared at the slough in front of her, spritzing the algae with the fertilizer. She'd heard tell of Treatment Day growing up, and knew what it meant.

"Did you hear me, Blondie?"

"Yes, Sir."

With a grunt, the Directorate guard left her, distracted by the sight of another Greenkeeper who appeared to have collapsed in exhaustion. The poor, emaciated man was laying on his back on the ground, his chemical wand spewing liquid onto his stomach and legs. Wren wondered how long he had been there working in the scrub.

The soldier moved to stand over him and pointed his gun at the man's forehead. He weakly held his palm up and tried to push the gun away, his lips moving and his expression pleading with the soldier for mercy.

The Directorate man pulled the trigger, firing through the open palm and the Ill-Born man's head exploded into a spate of bones, brains and blood. Wren, stunned, could only watch in horror as the pieces of what had once been a living, breathing individual with a family and a soul, drifted into the slough before her.

The soldier moved back to her, shoved her in the shoulder, and demanded, "See what happens when you don't do your job?"

Another choked, "Yes, Sir," issued from her suddenly dry throat. She couldn't look at him.

"Good. Now, clean up this mess before it starts to stink."

Wren reached out with the net, collected a chunk of bloody brain matter, and dropped it into the bucket.

"Yes Sir."