Summer Lane - State of Chaos

“Hey,” Harry whispers, approaching us. His bag is slung over his shoulder. “Want to know what I just heard?”

“Let me guess,” I say. “Kamaneva’s going to let us have pudding cups with our meals. Oh, joy.”

“No.” He frowns, looking puzzled. Harry doesn’t get my humor. “I overheard some of the guards discussing the backup generators.”

“What about them?”

“They’re going to start using them for cold storage.”

“Why?” Sophia asks.

“So they can store all of this food we’re harvesting for them,” I say. “They’ve got to be saving this for somebody, because they’re not shipping all of it out anymore.”

“Who do you think is coming?” Harry asks.

“I told you before. Backup.”

“But where is their backup coming from?” Sophia presses.

I wipe the sweat off my forehead, thinking.

“We’re on the West Coast, right?”

“Duh.”

“It was a rhetorical question, genius.” I roll my eyes. “What country is closest to us?”

Harry shrugs.

“Oh, come on. China, anybody?”

“You don’t know that China is sending backup troops for Omega. We don’t even know who Omega is anyway,” Sophia replies. “If we don’t know who Omega is, then there’s no way we can know who’s helping them.”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” I reply, raising an eyebrow. “All you have to do is think about all the countries that might have a motive to attack the United States. That’s, like, the entire universe.”

“So you’re saying the whole world is against us?”

“No. I’m saying I think we can be pretty sure that Russia is involved, and maybe North Korea. North Korea doesn’t have enough troops or the technology to invade the United States on their own. China does. China’s entire population is an army.”

“Then which one of those countries sent out the EMP? And who’s nuking the East Coast — if that’s even true?” Sophia asks.

“Does it really matter?” I say. “If they’re all working together, then it was a joint effort. Hooray for teamwork, I guess.”

“Where’s the rest of the world?” Sophia sighs. “What happened to them? Are we the only country affected by this?”

“That’s a good question,” I admit. “I would think one of our allies would come help us out…but not even our own military can help us, so maybe that’s a stupid question.” I stop and look up at Harry, who’s watching me with a curious expression. “What?”

“Nothing.” A small smile appears on his face. “You’re just very good at figuring things out, that’s all.”

“Do I get an A for effort?”

“Sure.”

“Do you ever think about escaping?” Sophia whispers suddenly.

Harry and I stiffen at the mention of the “e-word.” That’s a trigger word. Instant death. I lower my voice. “Um, heck yeah. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t.”

“It can’t be done, can it?” she stares off through the trees, her gaze stopping at the barbed wire fencing. “We really are… stuck .”

“Nah.” I nudge her shoulder. “I’m willing to give it the old college try at some point, aren’t you?”

“I don’t want to end up dead.”

“She’s got a valid point,” Harry says.

“We’ll end up dead either way,” I point out. “Either we’ll be worked to death or we’ll die escaping. One of these days…” I trail off, knowing it’s wiser to keep my mouth shut. Just because the idea of escaping is an attractive thought doesn’t mean I should go blabbing about it. You never know who you can trust, especially in a place like this. It’s like high school on super steroids. Backstabbers, cliques, and nasty teachers all thrown into the same crummy mix. Only the penalty for messing up is a lot worse than suspension.

It’s sudden death.

Fun times, right?

At the end of the day when our work is finally done, the guards round us up and march us back into the school compound. But instead of heading towards the cafeteria like we always do, we stop in what used to be the outdoor cafeteria. Now it’s just a bunch of dead grass. A wilted, hand painted banner is falling off the far wall. It says, Walk for a Cure . I swallow. Reminders of normalcy are everywhere.

And then there’s this .

Kamaneva is waiting patiently in the center of the courtyard, watching the prisoners file in.

“One of you has been stealing from me,” she states.

The lump in my throat turns into a baseball. I can feel Sophia tensing up beside me, so I put a hand on her wrist. I stare straight ahead, motionless. Afraid to give myself away with just the slightest twitch of a facial muscle.

“I don’t know which one of you it is,” she goes on, taking a few calculating steps, “but when I do find out, do you know what the punishment is for stealing from me?”

Nobody answers. We all know. Execution.

Game over.

If I were wearing boots, I’d be shaking in them. Instead all I can do is stand and tremble in my cheap gladiator sandals from a trash bin, avoiding eye contact. Eating oranges have been keeping Sophia and I just a little healthier and stronger than the rest of the women in our group, and if Kamaneva ever notices that, she just might catch on. But right now, the two of us look pretty disheveled and unhealthy despite our efforts. That happens when you haven’t had a bath in weeks and you’re wearing thrift store reject clothes covered in dirt and filth.

Kamaneva studies the group. Her eyes eventually fall on me — like always. I stare at the wall. I will myself to remain emotionless. Just one wrong move and I’m toast. After a nerve-racking five seconds, she moves her gaze to the next person in line. I release a small breath. Sophia squeezes my hand.

By the time we make it into the cafeteria, my knees are almost knocking together because I’m trembling so badly. I sit down with Sophia at our spot in the corner. Harry approaches us. “What was that all about?” he wonders. “Was that really necessary on Kamaneva’s part?”

“She’s just trying to scare us,” I say.

Harry doesn’t know that Sophia and I “borrow” oranges. The less people know, the better. The more people who know your secrets, the higher the potential for them to betray you.

“Well, I’m effectively scared,” Harry replies.

“Who knows if somebody’s really even stealing from her?” I say. “She could have made up the whole story just to put everybody on edge. To keep us all on our best behavior.”

Harry shrugs.

“It’s possible, I suppose.”

Yeah. It’s possible.

I concentrate on eating my food. It feels like everybody is watching me, waiting for me to give myself away. It’s miserable. It’s the prison camp environment. Nobody trusts anybody else, and everyone’s afraid of being stabbed in the back.

Maybe I was right.

Maybe this is a lot more like high school than I thought.

Four weeks in a labor camp is enough to make anyone grouchy. My clothes are worn through with holes and my body is coated with a thick layer of dirt. I’m slowly starving, dehydrated, lonely, scared and desperate to escape. The only problem is, there isn’t any easy way out of this stupid camp.

Thirty days of observation has only told me two things that might be considered a weakness:

1. Even with all of the trucks and plumbing Omega has inside the school complex, the portable generators that they’ve installed isn’t enough to keep all the lights in the camp running. The back stretch of the fence is dark, but as far as I can tell, heavily patrolled.

2. Grease, the Omega soldier with the bad hair, seems to have gained sympathy for Sophia and I. He might come in handy.