Summer Lane - State of Chaos

This is not worth time or money. Or caloric value.

I don’t see a rosy, healthy future for myself if this is the only food we get around here. It’s nothing more than thickened gruel and a piece of stale bread. It’s not enough to keep an anorexic canary alive, let alone a human being.

Maybe we’ll get more food tomorrow.

Keep dreaming, my little voice says.

In the end, Kamaneva is right. We only get ten minutes to eat, which is more than enough time considering the fact that our meal has less mass than bottled baby food. Afterwards we’re marched back to the LAB . The doors are shut behind us and locked tight. Armed Omega troopers are stationed in the hall and outside the windows.

Sophia and I press our backs against the far wall and drop to the ground, watching other prisoners crawl into their own spaces. Some squeeze underneath the lab counters and curl up inside the big storage cupboards. Others literally sprawl out wherever they are and close their eyes. Arms and legs are everywhere, and the women don’t seem to be embarrassed to prop their legs up on each other’s backs or stick their head in somebody’s face.

I, on the other hand, am embarrassed. I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. I’m too stressed to analyze anything. I’m too exhausted to think about the fact that just last night, I was searching for Chris at the trailer park.

Just last night I was still a free person.

“Goodnight, Cassidy,” Sophia yawns.

“Night.”

I fall asleep.

I’m too tired to do anything else.

Whether or not it’s normal, everybody falls into a routine. Even if you’re a prisoner at a slave labor camp, picking oranges and being bossed around by a Russian soldier with a long, confusing name. That’s what happens to me: I get familiar with the routine at camp. Our schedule is simple, so it’s not hard to do:

1. Get up at sunrise. Eat breakfast. Mystery Soup and Concrete Bread. Ten minutes.

2. Get to work. Harvest the orange trees as fast as we can. The fields are huge and there are oranges everywhere.

3. Sunset. More Mystery Soup and Concrete Bread.

4. Head to the LAB aka our cellblock. Group 13 shuts down and rests for the day.

It’s the same thing day after day. There’s never any change, and despite the high stress environment and the fact that, hey, we’re enslaved , I actually get used to the lifestyle here. Hard, grueling work. Borderline starvation. Bullying, taunting and humiliation from the soldiers. It’s not a pretty picture. But that’s the beauty of being human, right? We adapt to even the most difficult situations. Plus, I’m smaller than some of the other prisoners, so the paltry amount of nutrition we receive here goes a little farther with me. Big, muscular men quickly become weak and emaciated, but smaller people like me? We last a little longer.

Well, for the most part.

I can’t keep my overactive brain in check. I keep thinking about Chris. What is doing right now? Is he looking for me? Or did he just give up on ever finding me again? I wouldn’t blame him. How would he track a truck all the way to…wherever I am? Somewhere in the Central Valley.

And what about my dad? What’s happening to him? Was he captured and taken to an Omega facility just like this? Is this what happened to Chris’s family? How am I ever supposed to find them if I’m stuck in prison?

The frustration is a physical force.

It’s one thing to be separated from the people you love. It’s another thing to be separated by bars, barbed wire and armed guards. It’s a nightmare. But Sophia helps me keep it together. We compliment each other well. She’s calm where I’m nervous, and I’m strong where she’s weak.

“You know what’s ironic?” she asks me.

We’re in a new field of oranges, and we’re harvesting as fast as we can. The temperature has risen and the fruit is ripening quicker. Omega wants everything taken off the trees pronto , so they can feed their men. But oranges aren’t exactly the kind of food you give an army.

Unless the army is desperate for anything they can find…and they’re just taking what’s here before they start planting what they want. The question is, what do they want, and who are they feeding? Because there aren’t enough troops in the Central Valley of California alone to warrant a production like this.

Right?

“Hello?” Sophia waves a hand in front of my face.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry.” I shrug. “I was thinking.”

“Obviously.” She wipes the sweat off her forehead. Already I can see the effects of severe hunger on her face. Sharper cheekbones, a more angular jawline. I’m betting that if I could see myself in a mirror, I’d notice some not-so-attractive changes in my own face, too. “I said, isn’t it ironic that the only reason Omega needs us to do all this is because of the EMP?”

I blink.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean all of this . Omega needs labor because they destroyed the infrastructure of the country with an EMP.” She holds an orange in front of my face. “They created their own problem and they’re having us solve it for them. It’s not fair!”

“Of course it’s not.” I roll my eyes. “Omega’s got this place pretty well organized, though. Everybody’s got a job. They’re using us to our full potential. It’s transporting and storing the food we’re harvesting that’s got to be hard for them, I guess. ”

“What do you mean, I guess ?” She smirks.

“Well… you’re assuming that Omega is behind the EMP.”

“Of course they are. Who else would be?”

I shrug, keeping an eye out for any overly curious listeners. Talking amongst ourselves while working is against the rules, so we try to keep chitchat on the DL.

“Think about it,” I whisper. “These troops are Russian. A few months ago I saw international troops in Bakersfield speaking German. There was an officer that captured Chris and me. His name was Keller. He was very not Russian, and he definitely wasn’t American.”

“So what are you saying? Omega is culturally diverse?”

“Yes.” I make a move to pull my hair over my shoulder, and then stop. There is no hair to pull. My hands swish through empty space. “Russia, Europe…Omega isn’t just one conglomerate that came out of nowhere. It’s something a bunch of people…maybe a bunch of countries are calling themselves to create chaos. Keep us in the dark. If we don’t know who’s attacking us, it’s kind of hard to know who to fight, don’t you think? We don’t have TV or radio to communicate with each other. Everybody’s confused, and in comes a bunch of people calling themselves Omega. It’s kind of genius.”

“So you think Omega is like an alliance of countries?”

I open my mouth to respond, but I’m interrupted by a harsh,

“Of course that’s what Omega is.”

I whip around, almost bumping into a tall young man with curly brown hair. The first thing I notice about him are his piercing blue eyes.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I snap. “This is Group 13’s area.”

“I was sent here by my Group Leader,” he replies, and that’s when I realize that he’s got a British accent. “Apparently you’re not working fast enough.”

I peek over his shoulder. He’s right. Male workers are moving into the field with sacks. Some of the women look downright terrified to see male prisoners, and I don’t blame them. Sophia and I have had a couple of ugly run-ins with half-crazy men in the prison that have lost all sense of dignity and morality. Keeping the sexes separated is the only thing that keeps this labor camp moving.