707

As the train rocked back and forth, nausea began to kick in. William popped a few tabs and began counting down from thirty in hopes that they would start working sooner rather than later. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He could feel the sleep built up in the corners. His gaze shifted out the window of the train: nothing to see but ash and smog. This trip so far had only been ten hours, and he was already feeling anxious about it. He rose and made his way to the washroom at the back of the car. Locking the door behind him, he ran the faucet and began splashing water on his face. Drying his face with a paper towel from the dispenser, he looked at himself in the mirror. He was a tall man at six feet. His thick brown hair brushed up against the side of the slanted ceiling of the small wash cabin. After taking a deep breath, he made his way back out into the car and sat back in his seat, wondering how far the train had made it since they left the depot.

“Excuse me?” He looked to the guard who had been patrolling the walkway between the prisoners seated only a few rows in front of him.

The guard ignored him and continued on his path. He was a stout man. Almost a full head shorter than Will with a head of hair that rivaled the sun. His body moved in a memorized path, much like a patrolman on duty, yet his eye gave him away. He wasn’t enjoying himself any more than Will had been. Every few steps the guard took, he would spit into an old coffee cup. The occasional string of tobacco chew leaked from the corner of his mouth.

“Excuse me, Sir?” Will raised his hand in hopes of grabbing his attention. The guard continued on his route as if in a trance.

The train rocked again. Will could feel the lurch of his stomach, attempting to escape his body. He smiled and thanked himself for choosing to skip his breakfast earlier that morning. Will reached for his bag and pulled out a stack of manilla folders and began thumbing through Them. It was an attempt to keep his mind off his stomach, more so, it was for work that he had been putting off for some time.

The prisoner seated a few rows in front of him, turned his head, eyeing Will. The guard doubled back again, and again Will tried to get his attention but had no luck.

“No use talking to Beemer, He got transferred to The Hand a few months Back. He’s still pretty Pissed about it.?” the prisoner had turned in his seat and was now facing him, Looking back cautiously at the guard every so often. His dark skin was worn from years in the sun, and his voice reflected a southern drawl.

’The Hand?” William asked, clearly confused.

“The train, its called the hand. Ya know? Hand of GOD. Delivers us from evil.”

Will thought about leaving the small talk at that, but this was his first opportunity to speak with a prisoner from the colonies. “Whys that?” Will asked, Sitting up on the edge of his seat, resting his hands on the row in front of him.

The prisoner turned his body and faced the back of the train car. “Because any place has got to be better than the place we was ”

“is it really that bad?” Will asked, his hand now searching for a notepad in his bag.

“Depends on where you at. I’ve has been to Kentucky and Georga. Got transferred due to the lack of help out at the farms. 34 years between the two. Our lot…” He motioned his had back to the rest of the prisoners in the train car “…is heading towards jersey. Godsend really. They say the closer you are to the capital, the better. Treat ya nicer. Get meals every day. Stuff you don’t get on the outskirts”. The prisoner stopped and turned his body, his head towards the ground, hoping to hide the fact he was just talking. The guard had made his way to the tail end of his route. His eyes met Wills for a moment, and then he turned and headed towards the front of the car.

“He’s gone,” Will whispered.

The prisoner turned again and continued. “Anyways, some places are worse than others. Most don’t know differently. They born into. Think its normal. Us older ones know what it was like before. Stories from our parents. The kids just think its parta life. Hear Indiana’s the worse of them all. Send em out for hours on end in the dead hot sun to tend the crops. They say its to feed us all, but we know that we ain’t getting any of it. So what ya here for? First time I ever heard of anyone coming here on their own free will.”

“Good faith partnership.” Will said with a smile on his face. The man looked at him as if he had just spoken an ancient language lost to modern times.

“Religious?”

“Uh, No. My country and your country haven’t been in contact for quite some time. An agreement was made between the two that I would come and do some research. In hopes, it will strengthen the relationship between us.”

“You a Brit?”

William nodded his head.

The prisoner smiled and laughed to himself. “I knew something was off about how ya talk. Never head a Brit before, but id be guessing you is what they be soundin like. I’m also taking a bet you and us aren’t at war no more?”

Will looked down at his watch and checked the date, and laughed. “Right around 23 years now.” he said, amazed that someone his age wouldn’t know something like that.

The prisoner shook his head “News don’t travel too fast around here. Just like the food. You take it when you can get it. And most the time, its shit, anyways.” He laughed and turned to check, so see if the guard was making his way back yet.

As he turned back to face the front of the train, his face was met with the back end of a metallic nightstick. His head Thrashing hard to the right, a streak of blood Painted itself along with the window.

The guard, Will knew now as Beemer was standing next to the prisoner who was now bleeding heavily from his mouth and nose.” No speaking to civilians!” he snapped, putting his nightstick back into to loop in his Belt. The Gaurd walked towards will, eying him up and Down.

“I’m sorry for any inconvenience,” Beemer said with a smirk on his face. “They truly are animals. And you should be careful. They Haven’t proved that you can’t catch it from talking to them.”

William nodded and put a fake smile on. He looked back at the prisoner; his face was already beginning to swell. Blood still dripping from the side of his face.

Since Will was a young boy, he had wondered what the colonies had been like. He was now seeing it first Hard, and hearing what little he had now put some of it into perspective. Will turned his head to his window again, The smog had finally cleared a little, but ash still rained hard from the sky. The train was high up on a hillside overlooking a deep valley covered in what Will assumed was the outline of trees. The air was brown with ash making it hard to see anything with much detail. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought it was snowing outside. Deep down in the valley, he saw what looked like hundreds of ants. He picked up his bags and swapped himself with it moving closer to the window seat. Putting on his glasses, he stuck his face close to the window. He could feel the warmth from the hot air outside. After some time, the smog cleared more, and the train made its way down the hillside closer to the valley floor. With some concentration and his face now pressed against the glass, he could see that it was, in fact, not ants, but hundreds of men in thick ashen Colored suits with apparatuses attached to their backs. In their hands, they had long tube-like machines spewing flames into the tree line below, “What in God’s name are they doing?” Will said to himself

“Gaurd!” William waved his hand, but the man either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.

“Beemer!” The guard turned and sauntered back to Will at the back on the train.

“Those men! Down there!” He pointed out the window, his face still in shock. “What are they doing?”

The guard leaned over Will and peered out the window. Will could smell his sweat and the sour menthol smell of his chewing tobacco.

“Looks like an expansion,” said the guard, his face unphased. Will’s face was stuck in a look of shock.” But why? What for?” the Gaurd shrugged and stood back into the aisle. New complex if I were to guess. More and more bred each day. We got to keep em Somewhere.” With then, the guard placed his right hand over his heart.” For liberty.” he said as he straitened his back.

“And Justice.” Will responded, mimicking the guard and trying his hardest to make sure his face was not reflecting what his mind was thinking. And with that, Will knew The Gaurd is done talking to him. At least for some time. Will turned back to his folders. His mind still in a haze. His stomach aching

He flipped through the files, five in total. Each a Different casefile of patients “prisoners,” He thought. “They no longer had “patients In The Colonies.” He pulled out the file for Howard Lechling. Adjusting his glasses, he opened the folder and began reading. Howard Lechling. Forty-three years of age, Born: Howard David Lechling, august 14th 1993 to Harry and Andrea Lechling. He resided in Little Rock Arkansas from 1993 through 2022. He moved to northern Ohio with wife Sarah Padford in 2023. Fathered two children. One male. One female. Both c- Negative.

“It must have skipped a generation.” Will said to himself.

In October of 2033, Howard Lechling was involved in a motor vehicle accident while transporting goods from complex IN-29 to IN-243. The vehicle was struck on the driver side by a passenger vehicle that had been taken by inmates attempting to escape IN-243.

Due to accident H. Lechling required immediate medical attention. During Hospitalization, A blood test showed a positive readout for the C-Gene. H. Lechling was immediately detained and placed in quarantine. Upon further inspection, it was found that H. Lechling’s parents had forged mandatary Blood testing documentation at the time of birth.

“Poor Bastard. To make it that far in life and to get Locked up” Will said to himself as he readjusted in his seat. He read on.

Sarah Lechling was sentenced to 150 years for harboring a fugitive of The State. Sentence reduction pending approval. Both names of the children have been undisclosed and have been relocated to new families.

William read on for some time. The file covered most of Howard’s life from birth up until the day of incarnation. He didn’t seem like a bad man. He looked after his children and supported his parents in their old age. No signs of any psychological disorders. Not even a minor infraction on his record. Will had hoped that once he was able to speak with Howard that he would see a side of him, that wasn’t in the file. Deep down, he sincerely wished that he was a bad man. Will closed the folder and sighed. To lead a seemingly healthy life, then have it all taken away in an instant. He forced himself to put aside his notes and files in hopes of getting a few hours of sleep.