XY Revolution

I’m shaking by the time Natasha leads me back down the blue corridor. She has her arm around my waist, and her eyes flicker back to me every few seconds just to make sure I don’t pass out.

“Are you okay?” she asks when we’re safe inside the elevator.

“Um, I don’t know,” I respond weakly. “You tell me.”

She purses her lips and frowns.

“It was wrong of them to put all of that on you, on your first day,” Natasha concludes. “When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep? You’re fifteen years old too. What were they thinking?”

I hug myself tight, hoping like hell I won’t just fall to pieces.

“They want me to be the…poster girl. For the Resistance.”

“Does that scare you?”

Natasha is very serious when she asks me this question, expression cold and blank.

“I’d be stupid if it didn’t scare me,” I tell her. “But if this is my job, if this is how I can help, then I’ll do it. It just came as a bit of a shock.”

She then smiles at me fondly, breaking her mask.

“I think you’ve well and truly earned a good hot dinner then,” she states then hits the button to take us to the kitchens.

Unfortunately, Natasha leaves me to fend for myself the moment the doors come into view, leading to the cafeteria. When I enter, I can feel all the foreign eyes on me; the sudden silence in my bones. I keep my feet down and shuffle over to the serving counter.

“First day, honey?”

I look up to see a smiling older woman over the other side. Her hair is a warm golden colour and there’s a gap between her two front teeth.

“How could you tell?” I ask.

She snorts and says, “Darlin’, there ain’t too many people in this place to start off with; I know everyone already. And the way everybody’s watchin’ you also helps.”

“Great.”

The sarcasm in my voice probably isn’t that pleasant, but the fatigue is starting to settle in, and my stomach starting to growl.

“It won’t take long before you’re with all the rest of them,” she assures me.

The woman then spoons a good helping of mashed potato onto my plate, followed by some kind of meat stew.

“I’m Elizabeth, love. Everyone calls me Eliza though,” she says.

“I’m Freya.”

“Well it’s very nice to meet you, Freya,” Eliza says in her drawl.

She passes my plate over and I scan my swipe-card on the clearly labelled machine at the end of the counter.

“Thanks.”

Fortunately there are more than a few tables empty, so I get one to myself, back to the wall so I can at least keep an eye on who’s talking about me. They’re all still sneaking shifty glances my way, but at least it’s not so obvious now. Being nosy must be intimidating when the other person has black eyes, glaring at anyone who dares match their gaze. It’s a defence mechanism, I think, but it usually just makes me look like an absolute bitch.

I take a spoonful of the stew. It may as well be the food of the gods. The dark sauce is thick and tasty, and the meat tender. It warms me the way a fire does on a freezing winter evening after you’ve been hunting all day and fearing that your fingers will fall off because they’re so painfully cold.

“The first bite, huh?” a mocking voice asks.

There’s a blonde boy sitting opposite me, invading the solitude of my table. His blue eyes are alight with mischief, and his grin is wolfish.

“Yes,” I say curtly.

He sighs wistfully and tells me, “I remember the meal after my first mission. I believe it was rotisserie rat.”

I know I’ve eaten some…unusual foods sometimes, but rat is just a new level of desperation. I can’t help but pull a face.

“Delicious.” He licks his fingers. “I can still taste the caramelized fat. It really sticks to your fingernails afterwards. It took me two days to get it out.”

“Did you come here just to put me off my dinner?”

Nevertheless, another spoonful disappears into my mouth.

“Not at all. Any off-putting was completely unintentional.”

I look down at my food, uninterested. This guy is very strange. And Australian.

“I’m Phil, Phil Schmidt,” he blurts, offering his hand for me to shake.

I raise an eyebrow at it before informing him, “I’m not touching your hand. I don’t know where it’s been.”

“Ouch! That hurt! Trav was right about you,” he says, making me frown.

“Travis? What did he say about me?”

Phil shrugs, his wolfish grin returning.

“Not much, just that you’re not particularly friendly.”

“Anything else?”

“Your French pronunciation is great, apparently.”

He then adds, “Don’t try it on me though. I’m the German guy.”

“You are at no risk of falling victim to my French. You can sleep easy,” I tell him.

We sit there, eating our respective dinners for a while. I sneak several looks at the boy though. He’s probably only a year older than me, and his build is stocky, perfect for hauling deer on your back to the car. But the intriguing part is the deep dent in his forehead, an inch long and half as wide, just above his right eyebrow.

I can hardly see this boy fighting anyone, though that could very well be the point. But I see the same thing in him I saw in Nate; that fire behind the eyes, the ambition and readiness to abandon all reason and morals for what they want. Phil is the most dangerous person I’ve met, because you wouldn’t suspect it.

“How long have you been here?” I ask him.

He brightens up when I ask him this question, like he’s finally gotten through to me or something and I’ve made his day.

“Ten months, I think,” he estimates. “I mean when I got here I was in a coma for like, three weeks so it’s more like eleven, but I don’t think coma-me counts.”

I can’t help but enquire, “Did that have something to do with that scar of yours?”

His expression sours, and he nods.

“Is that what qualifies you for the Resistance? Having scars?”

Phil sighs and says, “It may as well. Any of the good ones. But this is Home Base, we’re the best of the best. We all have scars; just not all of them are on the outside.”

“They can’t be, living in a world like this.”



I’m sitting on my bed, watching the colour of the sky change with the hour. Just looking at this projection of home, I can smell the salty air, and feel the cool breeze on my face, coming off the sea to whistle through the mountains behind.

I hug my knees to my chest, and let my white hair fall into my eyes. The light is almost completely gone now, and the only thing I can make out is the black water creeping up onto the sand.

“Aren’t you going to turn on the light?” a familiar voice asks and I look over to see Travis standing in my doorway.

He’s dressed in a plain grey t-shirt and a pair of black track pants. It’s bizarre not seeing him in full black, bulletproof combat gear, though I suppose that isn’t fair considering I met him less than forty-eight hours ago.

“I didn’t realise how dark it was,” I reply.

He doesn’t flip the switch though, just wanders on in and sits opposite me on the bed. It’s the closest I’ve been to him, face to face anyway. Even in the gloom the vertical scars on his lips are a prominent white.

“Fitting in okay?”

I shrug in response.

“I heard you had a meeting with the bosses.”

“I did,” I confirm with a frown. “Did you know what they were planning on doing with me?”

“Not exactly. They’ve been looking for someone like you for a while, you know,” he explains. “When the world saw the…pre-auctions and the whipping, it gave everyone a bit of hope. You were just too young then. You don’t send a fourteen year old girl off to war.”

“I’m only a year and a half older,” I point out.

It’s his turn to shrug, “We got desperate. We didn’t want to recruit you now, but we need a face. The longer we leave it, the stronger the UN gets. I just thought you were some special fighter or something when Natasha called, but then that video of yours appeared online and I guessed they wanted you for a different reason.”

My fingers start to trace patterns on top of my knees, and the light begins to change in my window; the moon is rising. It gives Travis’ hair a strangely beautiful and alien new hue.

“The Resistance is daunting at first. I understand what you’re going through, missing home and your family, and being thrown to these people who seem just like wolves,” he tells me.

“Does it get easier?” I whisper.

“The homesickness does, and you get to know the people here. But I miss my family every fucking day. So does everyone else.”

“Good to know,” I say with a sigh, burying my head between my chest and my legs.

“Look, I really just want to warn you,” Travis’ voice has changed to one more urgent. “Tomorrow is going to be one of the most intense experiences of your life. There are several things that are going to happen in order to test your abilities, and assess how you cope under pressure mentally.”

“How are they going to do that?”

“First, you’ll be medically examined. Then it’s a psychiatric assessment. You’ll probably have your eyes checked tomorrow as well. You can’t go out into a fight when you can be hindered so easily by wearing those damn thick rims,” he informs me, pointing to the thick black frames on my face. “Then you have training, and your muscles will be begging for mercy by the time they’re done.”

“How am I supposed to get that all into one day?” I demand.

I don’t even know my way around here yet, let alone enough to run between all these places in one packed day.

“I hope you get lots of sleep tonight.”