Ninth City Burning (14 page)

I
wake up to this loud banging on the door to Camareen's room, and someone with a very deep voice shouting for us to open up. I'm pretty groggy, my eyes all sticky and my head pounding and everything, and I sort of look around, kind of figuring out where I am and taking stock of things. The clock over the door reads 1021, and for a second I think whoever's doing the banging is telling us to get up and go to work. The whole settlement is supposed to get the day off after the draft, but maybe, since this was a special ancillary draft or whatever, they want us back right away. My last shift would have ended at 0800 anyway, though, so I'd already have missed it, and I'm sort of mulling that over when the door completely busts open, and three guys in uniforms rush into the room.

Before I know it, I've been dragged onto the floor and one guy has his knee on my back and another's tying my wrists with one of those plastic wrist-cuff things they have. Camareen is trying to get to me, but the third guy is standing in her way. When she balls up her fists and starts hitting him, he grabs her arms and kind of locks them around her. That makes me pretty mad. I try to get up, but the guy on my back just twists my arms around, and it hurts so bad, I collapse back down. Then they stand me up anyway, and the guy with the wrist cuffs gets out a card, like an ID card only a little bigger, and holds it next to my face, like comparing me to the picture on the card. Now that I can finally get a look at the three of them, I see they're all wearing the blue uniforms of settlement marshals.

“It's him,” says the guy with the card. “Let's go.” He and the guy who'd been sitting on my back grab me by the shoulders and haul me out the door while the third guy stays behind to keep Camareen from following. All the way down the hall, I can hear her screaming, “Torro! Torro!”
but every time I try to get away, one of the marshals twists my arm, so I just start kind of insulting them, trying to get them to tell me what the big idea is, dragging me around like this. They just keep on dragging me, though, and eventually we get outside, and they take me to this huge truck and throw me in the back and slam the doors behind me.

It's dark inside, but I can see a few other people, mostly dormitory slobs like me but some older folks, too. They're all real quiet, except one who looks right at me and says, “Torro?”

“Spammers?” It's him all right, but I still ask, because I'm surprised as anything to see him.

“I can't believe
you're
the one they were looking for. We must have been sitting out here half an hour.”

“I don't get it,” I say, though I'm starting to, and I don't like it one bit.

“Me, either,” Spammers says, sort of laughing a little. “I mean, I know why
I'm
here. Figured if old Ghalo wanted me for the draft, I'd make him come and get me. But you, I don't know. They must have made a mistake.”

“Yeah, right, a mistake.” I know that's what it has to be. There's no reason the marshals should be after me. But then I think about the one guy holding up that picture of me and saying “It's him,” and how sure all of them were, and I start to get pretty worried.

It isn't far to the Shipping Station, but it's like the ride takes forever. For one thing, it's real cold in the truck, and the seats are made of metal, and those stupid marshals dragged me off wearing only my shorts and socks, so I'm completely freezing. Also I'm going crazy trying to come up with something to say to make the marshals let me go, and I can't think of a single thing. It doesn't matter much, though. When the truck stops and the doors open, just about everyone in the stupid truck starts yelling how there's been a mistake and they shouldn't be here. The marshals don't even listen. They just start pulling people out, beginning with me because I was the last one in. As the marshals toss Spammers out the back, he shouts, “Thanks for the ride, kiddos!”

The Shipping Station is pretty crowded, but just about everyone is already waiting to board the train, so the long maze of fences leading to the main platform is practically empty. The marshals hurry us through, giving anyone who slows down a hard shove in the back. At the end of the fence maze is a girl with a list of everyone who's supposed to be on the train, and the marshals read off our numbers one at a time. I think of trying to tell
the girl I'm here by mistake, but about a hundred people are already doing that, so I keep quiet. What I've decided to do is wait until I find someone in charge, then explain how my number didn't come up and I don't have that many demerits and I didn't volunteer, so, ergo, I should not be joining the stupid Legion. The marshals don't follow us onto the embarking platform, and for a second I think about trying to run, but we're fenced in on all sides. There's nowhere to go but onto the train.

The Shipping Train is about the creepiest thing I've ever seen. It's made to carry everything we make here in S-225, from lumber to sugar to canned herring, so most of it is covered in heavy, metal containers. Only the very back is for carrying people, and what's so creepy is that the only people around are the ones getting shipped off to the Front. As far as anyone can see, there's no one actually driving the train. No marshals, no Prips, no anybody. It's like the train just runs itself. There are all these stories about the Shipping Train, people who say they've seen skeletons working the engines or whatever. I don't believe any of that, but it's still a real creepy train, especially when we're standing around and the doors just open, like it knows we're there, and inside, it's totally empty.

Up above, Ghalo and Qu and a bunch of other important-looking bureaucratic types have gathered on a balcony to see us off. Some real dramatic music is playing, one of the Prip songs with all the drums and trumpets and whatever, and you can tell those bureaucratic types are just loving it, watching us all do our heroic duty and whatnot. It makes me think of Camareen, about how much she would hate this and how worried she must be. I tell myself I'll be fine. I just have to find someone who isn't a complete ass-brained idiot, and'll actually understand I'm not supposed to be here.

I look around for Hexi, but you can't find anyone in this stupid crowd. There are a few people like me and Spammers who're wearing whatever we had on when we went to bed last night, but just about everyone else is in their regular work uniforms. But it's Hexi, so she spots me anyway, as usual.

“Torro!” she shouts, running up to us, “Spammers!” Her eyes are all red and puffy, but she looks more worried than weepy, like she'd been crying before but thought of something more important she had to do. “What are you doing here?”

Spammers gives a little shrug. “Thought we'd stop in to wish you a safe trip, then they wouldn't let us leave.”

Hexi just ignores him. “You need something else to wear,” she says to me. “I'll see if I can get you a blanket.” She does, too. I don't know where she finds it, but a minute later Hexi comes back and throws this thick, heavy blanket onto my shoulders. Hexi's like that. She's so nice, people just want to do things for her. The blanket's stiff and gritty-feeling but a whole lot better than standing there half-naked.

While we wait to file onto the train, Spammers tells Hexi all about getting nabbed building his still and how there was no time to work his demerits off. She's real sympathetic about it, but you can tell she feels a lot better having him here. I don't blame her. The thing about the draft is it makes you feel things you don't want to feel. Like after Spams and Hexi got called up, how I was just glad Camareen and me were still together. Hexi's also pretty mad at Spams for not telling her anything about it until now. “I wanted it to be a surprise,” he says with a big, goofy smile.

Hexi agrees it's totally weird that I ended up here, but she's worried, too, because she's never heard of the marshals' taking anyone by mistake. “Maybe they just ask people to keep it quiet,” she adds. She says it real quick, like to reassure me. I don't think she believes it, though.

At least there's plenty of room on the train, since this was an emergency ancillary draft and everything, and the Prips didn't want as many recruits as they do for a normal quota. Spammers and Hexi and me get a whole row to ourselves, and we lie across the seats while everyone shuffles past. Suddenly, though, the train gets real quiet. When I look around, people are all staring toward the back of the train. It's obvious why.

Four bivvies have just gotten on. You can tell they're bivvies by their clothes, which have all these bizarre shapes and colors, but it'd be obvious anyway, just from how they stand there, all still and hunched like wild animals. The one in front is about the meanest-looking guy I've ever seen. He's older than the rest, with this long black beard and sunken eyes and tanned face full of scars. The way he looks around the train, it's like he's deciding which of us he'll eat first. The other three are probably a few years older than me, a lady and two guys; I actually recognize one of them, the big guy who sort of manhandled me a bit the first time I visited the bivvie warehouse. He notices me watching him and sort of nods and grins, like we're old pals, and he's remembering all the fun times we've had together. He's limping a bit, I notice, and so is the guy with the beard. All while the
bivvies are moving down the aisle, there's no sound except their footsteps. And then they sit down, and all of a sudden the doors snap shut like the train's been waiting for them the whole time.

It's a nasty feeling, hearing the doors close that way, like the train's just chomped down on us. Maybe it'd be better if we'd actually start moving, but we don't. The train just sits there. I see why after a moment. Some Prips are walking along the platform with a bunch of kids. They're all too young for the draft, like maybe ten or eleven, so I guess they must be the ones the Prips picked out with that test of theirs. It makes me think of what it was like going back to school after the first time we met the censors, how people you'd seen a day before were suddenly just gone. What really upsets me, though, is that little girl is with them. Naomi. It makes me pretty sad, seeing her there. She turns and looks through the window, almost right at me, but then I see she's spotted the four bivvies inside the train. She lifts her head as she goes by, just a little, like she's tipping back a hat that isn't there. When I look over to see if any of the bivvies noticed, the old guy is sort of smiling to himself. Two minutes ago, I'd've said he couldn't smile at all, like he was physically incapable, but that's definitely what's happening, or anyway, it's what's happening until he catches me watching. Then it's more like he's imagining how my head'll look hanging on the wall of his house. I decide to just pay attention to my own seat for a while.

The Prips and Naomi and the other kids must be riding in some other part of the train because they don't get on with us. Once they're gone, I'm expecting we'll finally get going, but the train just sits there. People start murmuring and complaining and trying to figure out what's happening, like whether the train is broken or what. I'm about ready to agree with the ones who're saying the Prips just enjoy torturing us when out of nowhere, the doors open again, then shut almost immediately, and the train lurches and starts to move.

People run to the windows as the Shipping Station pulls away, and the factories and warehouses slide by, going faster and faster. But me and Hexi and Spammers, we don't crowd up for one last glimpse of old Settlement 225 because we're staring at the guy who ducked in through the doors just before we set off. It's Mersh.

“There you are,” Mersh says, like he's been looking for us all over the
place and only just thought to check the train that's leaving the settlement forever.

We all just stare at him, totally surprised, until finally Spammers says, “Mersh, you idiot. You signed up.”

It's obvious Spammers is right because Mersh kind of slouches and scowls the way he does whenever Spammers stomps on one of his idiotic ideas. Then he grins a little. “What, you think I'd stay here while you all get to go off with the Legion? Not a chance.”

I don't believe it. I really don't. Mersh went and joined the Legion because he was
jealous
. I feel like I should yell at him, call him a stupid moron and everything else I can think of, but the truth is, it's just good to see another friend.

I think Spammers and Hexi feel the same way, like they can't decide whether to strangle old Mersh or hug him. Spams shakes his head and laughs. “Well, kiddo,” he says, “it's a good thing you got on the same train as Hex and me. At least now we can keep an eye on you. Fortunately, Torro won't be staying. He's just enjoying the ride.”

“The marshals took me by mistake,” I tell Mersh.

Mersh furrows his forehead, then grins, like he's caught us playing with him. “Yeah, sure,” he says, all sarcastic-like. “Whatever. I know they got you on demerits.”