I wake to the artificial light pouring in through the screen that imitates a window in this new interior apartment. I live with all of the other Level 1 guards working in the capitol. The interior rooms are small, small enough to feel cramped with only a twin sized bed, an old Holo-Cast I found at a resale shop, and a small dresser barely big enough for my seven forest green jumpsuits that make up my daily wardrobe. But it is mine and only mine. Away from my family, away from school, this tiny apartment in the sprawling Capitol, to me it represents freedom.
My alarm clock reads 7:45 and continues to chirp atop my dresser. I stand to turn it off, the achy bones and sore muscles of the Academy fading in my body's memory as I stretch. I take a brief, lukewarm shower in the bathroom attached to my room and then pick out the first of the seven identical uniforms folded neatly in my drawer. The cheap, frankly lazy insults hurled at me by my classmates for my placement are nowhere to be found. Neither is the excessive praise heaped on me by my parents, weighing me down for the past twenty years. This day is mine and mine alone.
I practically float down the stairs and onto the bustling streets of the Capitol. People whiz by on the moving walkways that line either side of the roadway, which is a blur of high-speed luxury cars silently whisking away the city’s most important citizens to the numerous government and financial buildings that make up the bulk of the Capitol. It’s an overload to the senses to be thrown into the middle of the controlled chaos, but there’s a part of me that feels proud to be a small cog in such an efficient and inevitable machine that powers the Central Authority’s influence across the globe.
The buildings reach into the sky and appear to block out the sun, casting a permanent shadow over the hustle on the streets. They are made of colored glass with a dizzying array of reds, greens, blues, silvers, golds, and everything in between. They liven up the city despite the lack of sunlight and give each building an individualized personality.
I grab the entrance handle on the railing to the moving walkway and gather speed as I’m pulled a few feet into the air and onto the platform. It’s only the second time I’ve ridden, the first being the night before when I got to my designated room on the night of graduation. I’m still getting used to the speed and let go of the handle too late. I have to grab the road-side railing to stop myself from crashing to my back. All around me people hop on and off with an easy confidence that makes me feel small.
The embarrassment is short lived, however, as I cruise through the middle of the city, my eyes drawn to the multitudes of video boards and virtual advertisements that flash across the skyscrapers, catching the eye every waking second, never letting a citizen’s attention waver. A celebrity I don’t recognize takes a long pull from an orange sports drink on one sign, a model shows off her new designer jacket just above him. To the right a restaurant flaunts its exclusivity to the masses just below a video showing kids laughing and wearing Clock Tower Park shirts. I feel another tinge of pride seeing my new employer being advertised amongst the rest of the city’s luxury.
As I ride through the colorful collage of skyscrapers and vertigo inducing advertisements, I can’t help but to think of the peaceful church beneath the wide-open sky. The Capitol stands in such stark contrast to whatever place I was in, and while I am elated to be thrust into the middle of the most exciting city on the planet, I can’t help but feel drawn to the stillness that I experienced in my dream.
I’m surprised at how fast the walkway is moving and I snap out of my daze just in time to see the exit for the park coming up. I’m determined to not make a fool of myself right in front of my new place of employment. I watch a middle-aged woman and two children about twenty feet in front of me effortlessly grab on to the exit railing and slide down to the ground, using their hand to gradually halt their momentum.
I carefully mimic their form, no doubt looking like a fool who’s determined to complete one of Capitol’s most basic tasks. Acutely aware of every set of eyes near me, I reach for the chrome railing, and jump. But I’m too late, for an instant I manage to hold the railing, but the momentum is too much and my arm is already fully extended when the muscles in my hand give up and I crash to the ground, landing hard on the concrete sidewalk.
No one around me stops, but everyone stares and one particularly rich looking man wearing the biggest sunglasses I’d ever seen smirks as he walks by. My knee hurts, definitely going to leave a bruise, but otherwise I’m uninjured. In the back of my head I hear my classmate’s gossiping about me behind my back, first about my placement and now my inability to use basic public transit. No doubt they’d all been on the walkways dozens of times, either here or in any other big city. Thank god we never came here on a field trip, I’d have never graduated if they saw me do that.
I stand up and inspect my jumpsuit. It’s clean other than a minor scuff on my kneecap, hopefully the captain doesn’t notice that. I’ve heard that the various captains in Obedience tend to be middle aged men who love to take their jobs too seriously. The last thing I need is to stand out on my first day.
In front of me lies Clock Tower Park, one of the most famous tourist traps in the Capitol, and my ticket to obscurity. The park eats up almost one thousand yards of road front and extends for almost a mile back. It looks like a valley had been cut out of the middle of the mountainous high rises that dominate the skyline. The sidewalk is very quiet, only a couple of people preferred to walk off of the public transit line. A small figure leans against the fence of the park dressed all in black with their hood pulled up to block out the omnipresent advertisements running above us across the street. It was still early, and the park didn’t open for over an hour, but even in its hibernating state it looked like a place designed to suck money away from gullible travelers and parents who would do anything to appease their children.
Ancient roller coasters with fresh paint surely hiding decades of rust rose up above the fence line like giant, steel serpents. Each one of them was the centerpiece of their sections, all of which were themed after a specific period in time. I saw a welcome video after I received my placement and got a virtual tour through ancient Rome and feudal Europe, post-world World War Two America and Ming Dynasty China, and several other historical significant periods before the consolidation that led to the CA. I actually find it all pretty interesting, and it seems more than enough to keep me entertained day-to-day while I patrol the park.
But standing here in front of the park I can see the decaying infrastructure and lack of care that has been put into the park since that video was originally filmed; Weathered fences, cracked concrete, sun bleached buildings, all of which serve to depress what was at its creation the crown jewel of the city. It still attracts millions of visitors every year, but primarily tourists who flock to it almost as a right of passage before exploring the rest of the Capitol.
I walk with hesitation to the door, feeling more and more nervous the closer I get to passing through the entrance. I approach the keypad attached to the fence below a faded sign that reads Employee Entrance and swipe the ID card that was left for me in my room.
No one pays me any mind. The din of the moving walkway continues behind me and the door opens with a swoosh. I step into a long dark corridor and hear the door slam behind me aggressively. Dim recessed lights line the center of the narrow hallway which is walled in by CA flags on the right and the Obedience Department flags on the left. My footsteps echo ominously down the dreary hall that’s totally devoid of color, the opposite of the world outside.
At the end of the hall is a set of double doors with yet another keypad. As I enter my official CA identification number, I can hear the mumble of voices coming from the other side of the doors. The keypad flashes green and the doors slide open revealing three middle-aged men, all slightly overweight and with their appearances bordering on unkempt.
The conversation immediately stops, and all their eyes turn to me.
“You the new recruit?” The largest one asks. He’s the only one sitting down at the small circular table in a cheap folding chair.
“Yes sir. I’m Victor” I reply.
His expression sours. “You look like you just graduated from the Academy yesterday.”
“I did.”
“Shit, Cleo, why do they always send us the freshest meat?” says a second man, leaning against the wall drinking from a mug that reads It’s a great day to have a great day.
“What’s the matter, afraid he’ll beat your quota?” the third man, presumably Cleo, replies. He has the two horizontal bars on his shoulder that denote the rank of sergeant. The two others only have one. He also has the most amiable look about him. Dare I say friendly? Maybe not that far, but he doesn’t look like he wants to spit on me.
“Rumor has it there’s another one that’s supposed to start today too.” Cleo says. The two other men groan. “Don’t worry about them, Arlo won’t admit he’s getting old and big Lance over there hates anything new.”
Cleo looks me up and down. He’s incredibly ordinary looking. Graying hair, wrinkles around the eyes, a large nose and a body that looks like the shell of something that used to be athletic. His eyes catch my knee, and he shakes his head. “First day off to a rough start” he says.
From a speaker in the ceiling a bell chimes three times. “Briefing time” Cleo says. “Time to meet the captain.”
The three men all move swiftly to a door at the back of the room and I follow. It opens automatically and we emerge into a slightly smaller room, just as oppressively gray, with a large Holo-Cast set up on the far wall and several chairs spaced evenly around a large rectangular table. I follow the lead of the others and sit in one of the open chairs, next to Cleo. As soon as we sit down another door opens to our left. It rises vertically and out steps a sharply dressed, sturdily built man in his early thirties with a scowl on his face.
“Gentlemen” he begins in a gravelly voice that seems completely inauthentic. He looks bored, and frankly angry, that he has to work this completely meaningless post. He looks straight from a CA training handbook though. Immaculate uniform, clean shaven, shined shoes, even the name tag that reads Captain Bismarck shines under the fluorescent lights.
He paces back and forth looking at the display on the wall that shows a map of the park with dots marking every ride and attraction, as well as every entry and exit, each coded with a different color.
“For some reason people still love coming to this place despite it being a grotesque blemish on an otherwise perfect city. I’ve been told that it was once again the most visited attraction in the entire city last fiscal year, although with limited competition. For some reason the lemmings that make up the general population of our great conglomerate flock here whenever they get a moment of freedom from their miserable existence.”
Sheesh, what a pep talk. The academy had its fair share of superiority complexes, but this is on another level. I hope he doesn’t know I come from a city of lemmings.
“Regardless” he went on, “it’s our job to keep them from getting out of line.” I look around and see the eyes of the other men glaze over, as if they’d heard this same speech every morning for the past decade. He drones on about the days’ responsibilities and gives details on the various groups to watch out for today. It’s easily apparent that we are drastically understaffed, but then again, no one seems to care. Nothing much happens here.
As he was wrapping up, he makes eye contact with the men for the first time and his eyes flash to me, a new face. “Ah!” he said, feigning surprise, his gravelly voice disappearing for a moment. “I almost forgot about our new recruits.” He looked around and furrowed his brow. “Where’s the other one?”
Just then the door slides open, and a young face comes into view, strolling in confidently and sitting down in the chair closest to the captain. “Sorry I’m late” he says in a tone that implied the opposite. “Had a late night...or morning is more like it.” He looks around for approval from his new peers and got none. He turns back to the captain, who by now is turning a deep red and every muscle is tensed and ready to punch the smirk off the guy’s face and onto the wall.
But he manages to restrain himself, instead talking through clenched teeth. “Thank you for joining us Cicero.” Cicero? That name sounds so familiar. I run through the list of names I know from school but come up empty. But I know it’s familiar. He looks incredibly self-confident, a familiar trait of Academy grads, and it irritates me more than it should, I thought I had escaped that life, no one else in my class had gotten this assigned to this post, I’m certain.
While Captain Bismarck begins reading the assignments for the day, I can’t take my eyes off the newcomer. He’s sitting there picking his teeth, staring at the ceiling, yawning; I’m not a stickler for the rules but this is a lot of blatant disrespect, even for me. I’m surprised the captain hasn’t said—
“And that leaves Victor and Cicero, you two will be patrolling the Northeast Quadrant”
My heart immediately sinks. Did he say what I think he said? My face apparently betrayed me because I can see the captain getting ready to unleash the pent-up rage on me instead of Cicero.
“Is there a problem Private Jackson?” he snarls.
“No sir, all good here” I say in the most subordinate tone I can manage.
Cicero doesn’t react at all. The captain dismisses us and we head back to the locker room to grab the supplies for the day. My locker is adjacent to Cicero’s and inside I find an old earpiece and a state of the art, bright red Soundwave. I’ve only seen them used one time before, back home when I was on leave from the academy and a scuffle broke out between a man in our neighborhood and an Obedience officer. As far as I understand, it shoots incredibly intense sound waves that aren’t audible but look incredibly painful if you happen to be standing in the way of them. They got the nickname silencer since most people tend to go deaf after they’re hit. A little over the top if you ask me and hilariously more advanced than this cheap earpiece for communication.
I put the gun in the holster that was also hanging in the locker and don the earpiece, my ears filling with a hushed, constant static waiting to be interrupted. I look to my right and see Private Cicero admiring the Soundwave far too much for my liking. I roll my eyes and turn to head to the door just to the right of the one leading to the briefing room. This time the door reveals a fairly robust armory. Passing through I notice even bigger Soundwaves, old riot suppressant equipment, and several newer weapons that I don’t recognize that are small and sleek with a faint glow emanating from the barrel. All of this for an amusement park.
We pass through yet another sliding door that leads us into the guest services lobby near the front of the park. I glance at the clock above the desk and it reads 8:57. Three more minutes. Two middle aged women are slowly setting up the desks in their orange uniforms and we pass by them silently, opening the door and getting hit immediately with the stale, humid air of the Capitol mixed with the smell of cheaply fried food to make a depressingly heavy atmosphere.
It's an unusually bright day outside, even the monstrous buildings are allowing some light to get to the ground as the sun climbs in the sky with no clouds to obstruct it. It would be a very auspicious start to my new life if not for the fact that I have to work directly next to the exact type of person I was hoping to leave behind at the Academy. Why would the captain pair the two newcomers together? Fitz would get a real kick out of this.
I turn to look at my new partner and am disheartened by what I see. He’s got an all too familiar look to him. Medium length blonde hair, just on the edge of the allowable length for the department. My eyes are about level with his chin and he’s got the broad shoulders and build of someone who was born to finish at the top of their Academy class. I look at him and try and puzzle out how he ended up here. He’s dripping with the typical arrogance of someone from an elite family, but there’s a crack in the façade, barely perceptible yet clear if you’re looking for it. His smile and his mannerisms exude confidence, but his eyes show a mixture of shame and sadness that I’ve never seen anywhere else, except in the occasional mirror.
Any sympathy I have is ripped away when he finally speaks to me. “C’mon bud, let’s get going.” He says. The condescension is infuriating but I’m not looking to get into a fight on my first day. The whole point of this job is to fly under the radar, any kind of conflict would ruin that right away. Instead, I roll my eyes and follow him towards our spot in the back of the park.
“This place is funny isn’t it?” he asks.
“How do you mean?”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “I mean can you believe people come here, pay the only spare income they have, just to run around in the past? I mean shit, it’s like getting dropped into an Academy history textbook.”
“Most of them have never gotten to open a history book” I reply. I feel a strong and surprising urge to defend the people crowding the fence. They were the same people that made up my old neighborhood, and even though my parents did everything they could to separate me from them, I still have a connection, however remote. “It’s probably fascinating to see the places that came before them. It’s like stepping into completely different worlds, so much has changed since we consolidated.”
I hate trying to sound righteous. Even more so, I hate that I’m finding myself more and more drawn to this place.
Cicero scoffs. “You can’t tell me you think this stuff is fascinating. If it was, you’d have cared more about getting good marks in school and you wouldn’t be stuck here in this cesspool with me”
I roll my eyes again and don’t respond. He’s fishing for a fight and way off base.
“That or you did care, and you’re just dumb enough to finish last in your class.”
“Why don’t you shut the hell up?” I snap, anger flashing and my body tensing up. “I’m not dumb, I’m just glad to be somewhere other than that shitty place where I wasted twenty years.”
Cicero lets out a long whistle and shakes his head. “Seems like I struck a chord there. Sorry about that, bud.” He smiles and pulls ahead. I follow, trying to work out where that anger came from.
I never cared in school. At least that’s what I always told myself. Early on I remember enjoying it, especially the history classes. I tried my best to repress those formative years where I felt completely alone, but looking back I do remember school as a great distraction from the loneliness. The only problem was I only got grades good enough to narrowly avoid flunking out. A smattering of two’s and even the occasional one. I guess somewhere along the line I just stopped caring, because what was the point in caring if it didn’t matter how hard I tried?
We walk to the back of the park silently. I can hear the gates open and the rush of excited patrons, young kids yelling playfully, teenagers laughing, parents struggling to keep up. By the time we reach our post dozens of them have caught up with us and start queuing up for various rides.
We stop at the small guard stand stationed in the middle of the section surrounded by hilariously oversized Conestoga wagons, statues of cowboys fighting Indians, and buffalos frozen mid-stride. The two big attractions are the Snake River Waterslide and a roller coaster that weaves in and out of a purple mountain range with false snow littering the peaks. Behind us is the section’s “time travel” attraction that allows you to be placed right onto historic sites, via virtual reality, like the Oregon Trail and the great plains to experience the life of the ancient American settlers. Looking around at the scenery triggers a vision of my dream, standing in front of the church, feeling warm and content and I find myself longing to go there again.
The morning passes slowly. Cicero and I make rounds of the area separately, I’m still more bitter than I should be about his comments. I don’t like how accurately he judged me after only a few minutes. And besides that, something about his face just pisses me off.
I watch a pudgy kid vomit after getting off of the mountain coaster. I see a little girl fighting with her older brother about a toy they won playing a game and their parents look too exhausted or too complacent to intervene. Overall, it is exactly as I expected. We are halfway through the day already and I haven’t even had to use the earpiece once.
The sun is high in the sky now and bearing straight down enough that I can actually feel the light hit my skin. It’s nice for a moment but quickly becomes too hot at the guard station, so I head towards the lone grouping of trees by the time travel attraction to find a bit of shade.
I take a seat and peer inside the empty attraction where dozens of screens alternate between various scenes of the ancient American west. There’s an inky black train engine puffing smoke, then a stampede of bison thundering over rolling hills, and then a wagon train lumbering slowly across the plains.
I’m mildly intrigued and think back to history class. How did I manage a 4? I smile ironically thinking of my lone accomplishment in school when the screens snatch my attention and a white church flashes across the screen for a split second. I stand up and take a step closer, but the screen already shows the black train engine again.
Surely that wasn’t the same church I saw in my dreams. The heat must be getting to me, I haven’t had much to drink. But I can’t stop myself from sitting and waiting for the screens to cycle through again. The wagons appear and I feel my heart rate begin to quicken and my fists clench. My eyes are darting across the numerous screens trying desperately to catch another glimpse of the church or the people or even just the grass leaning in the wind.
Just as the screen is about the shift my eyes flick to movement by the door of the building. A dark figure darts out the entrance to the attraction and around the corner. Instincts kick in and I start to jog after them, thoughts of the screens vanish, and my focus turns entirely toward the suspicious figure. All I can think is Don’t screw something up on day one.
I round the corner of the building and see someone in a dark hoodie sitting down on a bench next to a massive rattlesnake statue, coiled and ready to strike. The figure is guiltily looking left and right while they fumble in a black backpack. I realize suddenly that it’s the same person I had seen standing by the gate when I fell off the walkway this morning.
“Hey, you there!” I call from about thirty feet away. What a stupid thing to say. There’s no one else in the vicinity and they look up from their bag startled. The black hood falls back and reveals a girl, around my age with long brown hair and a small scar on her forehead. Fear shows on her face but her eyes are pure determination and she springs to her feet.
She takes off towards the east side of the park and I immediately give chase. She’s got a decent head start but my Academy physical training has at the very least kept me in great shape and I quickly gain on her. I touch the earpiece to activate the microphone and say “I’ve got a suspect running towards the east exit, I’m in pursuit.”
“What happened?” the captain’s voice crackles through the earpiece.
“She was sneaking around the time travel attraction and as soon as she saw me she took off running with a backpack.”
“Probably just a petty thief, you rookies can handle it” he said with a note of finality.
“I see her now” Cicero chimes in. “Let’s see which of us can get there first?”
I look to my left and see Cicero hauling towards us at a ninety-degree angle coming from his patrol. A sudden competitive drive kicks in, and I want nothing more than to catch this girl, not to stop her, but simply to beat Cicero. I kick into high gear, my legs and arms are pumping, burning now, driving me closer and closer to the suspect. I glance briefly and am glad to see Cicero is still a good way off. I’m going to beat him there.
“Too slow” I say into the radio when I’m within a few feet of her. I swear I can see his face twist in anger. Five more seconds and I’ll have her. I can feel the sweat start to drip down my face. I reach out to grab her hood—Oh no not again, not now.
I feel the strength in my legs evaporate
and the nauseating dizziness creeps up far quicker this time. I immediately lose speed and she begins to pull away. She darts around a corner and I try my best to follow, but it feels like I’m trying to steer one of those giant wagons. I lose my balance and crash onto the pavement, no doubt scuffing my uniform even further. The blackness begins to close in and I hear Cicero again, “You idiot, you’re lucky I’m here or she’d have gotten away. He jumps over me gracefully and continues the chase.
He was right, I blew it again. I watch him close in on her and she stops, appearing to give, up and unzips her backpack. Just as Cicero is about to tackle her, she jumps sideways, into a bush. I see a flash of light, then total blackness. As I fade out of consciousness I hear Cicero in my ear. “Where the hell did she go?”