Faith Is Unavailable

After two weeks Suspect Twelve was trusted well enough to walk around outside and explore the diner a bit. Her feet had healed up enough that she could wear shoes with only a little pain. Silver Sands had found her some gold spandex pants with black pipe seaming and orange silicone suspenders. Suspect Twelve had cut the bottom of the white shirt off that she had been found wearing. It now came just above the bottom of her rib cage. She had cut her hair short because it was so hot. This type of living was an adjustment for her.
As Suspect Twelve pulled on her black and brown cowboy boots she watched the rest of the occupants in the diner. Party Poison and Silver Sands were sitting together talking. There seemed to be some sort of tension between them, but this was normal, as she had learned. Fun Ghoul was playing some sort of game with Kobra Kid involving rocks and cups. Apparently the rocks were hot too because as one struck Fun Ghoul he jumped and shook his hand saying ‘hot’ and other curse words over and over. She didn’t know where Girl was but assumed she was with Jet-Star since they seemed to be close.
Suspect Twelve went outside into the sun with a pair of borrowed sunglasses. She started to stretch her legs thinking about taking a run since they trusted her enough to do that now but she didn’t really feel like it. It was early in the day but she could tell today was going to be really hot. So instead she just started walking around not looking for anything in particular. She glanced up at the top of the building they called home. It had a sign that used to read ‘Diner’ in red letters but they had been selectively knocked down to now read ‘Die’.
Girl was on the roof with Jet-Star when she saw Suspect Twelve down on the ground just walking around and looking into the distance. Jet-Star had been watching her since she had been stretching. He quite liked the way she looked and the way she acted.
“We should let ‘er up here.” Girl said.
“Yea, sure.” Jet-Star tried to sound nonchalant.
“Hey Twelve!” Girl called down.
Suspect Twelve looked up at the roof where Girl was waving.
“Come up here.” She said pointing to the ladder that Jet-Star was putting down.
Suspect Twelve went to the ladder and started to climb up. Jet-Star took her hand and helped her up onto the roof and then pulled the ladder back up behind her.
“This is where we watch for them Draculoids at night.” Girl said making a wide gesture. “We can see for eons up here.”
“It’s also where Girl and I hang during the day when I’m on day watch.” Jet-Star added. “I’m surprised you hadn’t found that out yet.”
Suspect Twelve shrugged. They were all used to her responding with a shrug and not talking. They were all beginning to wonder if she could talk at all. Jet-Star wasn’t even sure if he had heard her tell him to stay on that first night.
Girl was totally unaffected by the fact that Suspect Twelve didn’t talk. She was a kid after all and wasn’t shy about anything. She just went on talking to her and showing her things she’d made with scraps of metal and what ever else was on the roof while Jet-Star just watched.
“Hey Twelve, I don’t bother you with too much talking do I?”
“No.” She smiled.
“You talked!” Girl said bouncing. “I knew you could. I knew it.”
Suspect Twelve laughed. This surprised Jet-Star. She looked at him and saw the confusion on his face.
“I cannot keep quiet forever. This one was going to get me to talk even if it meant the world would end.” The stark contrast of the speech common in Battery City clashed with the broken words and pronunciations of the Killjoys.
“’s what I do.” Girl said proudly placing her hands on her hips and stretching to her full height.
“What, end worlds?” Jet-Star laughed giving Girl a little push.
“No!” She said pushing him back. The push was lost on him because he was sitting.
“So,” Girl said grabbing a chair and planting herself in front of Suspect Twelve, “tell me, why were you in Sector F?”
“You want the story now, do you?”
“Yeah.” Girl nodded bouncing her curly hair and making her eyes as big as they could go.
“Can’t deny that face.” Jet-Star said. “I would know.”
“Sector F is… was my home.”
Jet-Star looked at Suspect Twelve. She knew what he was thinking and she knew he was trying to figure the whole thing out.
“You mean to say you were part of the Revolt?” He asked tentatively.
“Part of it.” She nodded. “Not the good part though. I got captured after all.”
“What was it like?” Girl asked. “I was like... seven then.”
“Scary, awful, and the most thrilling thing I have ever done.”
“What happened after they caught you?”
“They did not just catch me, they caught many of us. We were taken into the City and then we were sorted. They chose those who were not too badly hurt and those that were young, the rest... we never saw again.”
“Ghosted or dusted?” Jet-Star asked.
“I don’t understand.” Suspect Twelve said confused.
“Ghosted means they were shot, but are still around be it as a mask or something else. Dusted is dead.”
“Dusted then, at least we assumed that..”
“Do you not get us when we talk?” Jet-Star asked.
“Most of it, no. We… I mean they do not talk like that in the City.”
“Lots has changed in the three years you’ve been in Battery City then. But you talk like them.” Girl said. “I’ll teach you everything. Back to the story though, what did they do with their captives?”
“Some I do not know what they did with. From there we were further split up for different kinds of things. I was essentially turned into a guinea pig. It was a lie when they smiled and said ‘you won’t feel a thing.’ They were testing sleeping darts last on me. Stronger than the ones they were shooting me with when I escaped. That is why I was able to get so far. I think I have built up a tolerance to the Sleeping Death in those needles. The new ones make you dream awful things though and they are bigger.”
Girl bit her lip. She’d been stung once buy a sleeping death needle and she didn’t like it one bit.
“What else did they test on you?”
“Other methods of capturing but nothing too solid. They are a ways away from well working prototypes. Do not worry. They kept us in peak physical shape too so they could be sure that their weapons take down even the strongest of you.”
“We’re gonna be dusted.” Girl said, worry coloring her tone.
“Girl, you don’t need to hear anymore. Go back into the diner, it’s gettin’ hot.” Jet-Star said squinting at the sun that was high in the sky.
“No! I want to hear more.”
“Girl.”
“Fine.” She huffed and headed for the ladder.
Jet-Star waited until he was sure Girl was back inside before he let Suspect Twelve continue. He had her go back to the revolt and tell him how that was with as much detail as she could bear. She told him all she could remember.
Even about how Korse wanted all Killjoys to be sterile and how the captives, her included, were used to develop new methods of sterilization and birth control for the residents of Battery City. Twelve was lucky in that she was used to test birth control and what was in her now just prevented her from having children and in theory was removable, she escaped before they could test the removal which would no doubt then ended in her sterilization if she had stayed.
This was the kind of stuff Jet-Star didn’t want Girl to hear. Sure she was ten but she couldn’t handle that and he knew it because the first thing she would think of would be her mother and she would worry what Korse had done to her.
All this and more Suspect Twelve told Jet-Star and then she got to explaining why she was where she was when Girl and Kobra Kid found her.
“I was in Sector F because I was trying to get home. I just want to go home.”
“Sector F is gone. There’s nothing left. They flattened that place and dusted everything. The Dracs don’t even go patrolling there because nothing lives but a few weeds. I’m sure they don’t even want the weeds there.”
“I have to see it.” She said looking at him, tears brimming in her eyes. “It’s not true until I see it.”
Jet-Star nodded. He knew that feeling. Back when the war started he didn’t believe his home was gone until he saw the crater. She was probably holding on to hope just like he had been.
“Twelve, I…” He couldn’t say anything because he knew nothing would make a difference.
“I have to see it.” She repeated.
“Let’s go talk to Party Poison.”
After a long talk with Twelve alone, Party Poison let Jet-Star take the Trans-Am and drive her out to Sector F to see what was left of her home.
“Can you fight?” Jet-Star asked her as they drove away from the diner.
“How do you think they kept us in top physical shape?”
“Okay then.” He said handing her a gun. “Keep that close, it will make me feel a lot better.”
Jet-Star tried to pick up something on the radio but it was useless. Dr. Death Defying wasn’t on because it was day and it seemed as though the car couldn’t pick up anything from Battery City.
It wasn’t a very long drive but they were soon at Zone 2 Sector F. Twelve recognized it as the place she passed out in. It would have looked just like any other expanse of the desert to someone who had not been trained by Better Living Industries. She had better memory and analyzing skills than most.
“What Zone were you from?”
“Five.”
“Well it looks like there’s no rain now.” Jet-Star said pushing the gas and moving the car forward.
“Acid rain is the worst. I remember it coming through our roof all the time.” Twelve sighed.
Nothing more was said until Jet-Star passed the boundary into Zone 5. Then Suspect Twelve started directing him on which roads to take. It was strange that the roads were there but none of the structures she remembered. Then she told him to stop and she got out of the car. She just stood there staring.
Jet-Star couldn’t imagine the things she was remembering. He knew that she was looking at the place where her home once stood based on the pattern of the road. He stood next to her and looked at the flat lands waiting for something. She put her face in her hands and started crying.
Jet-Star pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly doing what he could to comfort her. This was the crush that he remembered. The destruction of his hope and he had no one with him when that happened. He wasn’t going to let her feel this alone so he pulled her tighter and she wrapped her arms around him clutching tight to his clothes.
“I know it would be wrong of me to say it’s alright, but I’ll try to make it right as best I can.” Jet-Star promised her.
“It is a strange feeling. I know I should be upset but I feel nothing. I remember nothing. All I know is that my family is gone but I cannot remember their faces or names.” She sobbed.
“My family is gone too, Twelve. I can at least help you deal with it.”
Suspect Twelve looked up at Jet-Star and with a fire in her eyes he didn’t quite understand she said, “I want to fight something.”
“Let’s go hunt some Dracs.” He smiled.
When they got back to the diner everyone was relieved to see they were in the same condition as when they left. Maybe even a little better. There was something about Suspect Twelve that seemed lighter.
“What took you guys so long?” Girl asked.
Suspect Twelve looked at Jet-Star. He smiled at her remembering the story they had come up with.
“We ran into some Dracs on the way back. I do not know how they found us.” Twelve said passing back to Jet-Star the gun he had given her. She didn’t think they were ready for her to be carrying around a gun yet.
In all reality they had gone hunting the Draculoids and Jet-Star hadn’t done much fighting at all. It was Suspect Twelve who went out of the car and unleashed herself on them. He shot a few but he could see this was more about her letting off steam than about making their world a few Draculoids lighter. As they ran from Battery City’s cops they had laughed so hard it stung.
“She’s a good fighter.” Jet-Star added in. “They hardly had a chance.”
“None of them got away, did they?” Kobra Kid asked.
“No chance of that.” Suspect Twelve said.
“Twelve, are you sure? If one of them saw that you were still alive…” Party Poison began.
“Do not worry. We got a few goodies from their station too. It is in the back seat.”
Before Suspect Twelve could finish, Girl was running out to the car to see what was meant by goodies. She found fresh food and candy, which was really the only thing she cared about.
“Why do the Dracs have candy?” She asked walking back inside eating some and carrying the rest.
“There were some non-Dracs there.” Jet-Star said.
“They’re dusted too right?” Party Poison asked, his face set to show no emotion.
“Of course.” Twelve smiled.

The vast expanse of night was growing thick in the sky. Some of the killjoys were eating their dinner straight from the stolen cans and others had been more civilized and found a plate. Jet-Star grabbed himself a can and heated it up over the fire that had been built outside.
Suspect Twelve just went to a mattress and laid down. She didn’t feel like eating or even thinking. The high from the fight was wearing off and she was thinking about what she had seen earlier.
Others came to where the mattresses were laid out and went to bed. She was still alone by the time everyone was asleep and Kobra Kid and Girl had gone up to the roof for patrol. Jet-Star could see Suspect Twelve’s face in the moonlight and he knew what she was thinking about.
When he couldn’t take looking at her anymore he got up from his mattress and walked over to where she was lying. She looked up at him and tried to smile but couldn’t. Without a word he laid down next to her and pulled her to his side.
“Hey.” She whispered resting her head against his shoulder.
“You’re not going to be alone.” He whispered back kissing the side of her head. “I made you a promise.”
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Jet-Star put his arm around her and she curled into his side taking the chance to rest her head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. Jet-Star took to running his hand up and down her side hoping that it would coax her to sleep.