Futile

We had woken up, but perhaps it would have been better to stay asleep.

The room around Cecilia was dark, dank and damp. Shadowy light fixtures hung from the rafters, dangling as if ready to end their lives, but not quite ready…swaying in the hot breeze that snuck in the barred yet shattered windows. Her blanket, a shade of green that reminded her of mold, held spatters and speckles of mildew, so she kept it pushed down at the foot of the cot with her combat boots that were too large by at least two sizes. Too big was better than too small, she had reminded herself when she scavenged them a few weeks earlier.

It was hard to run in boots that pinched your toes.

Stony silence filled her mind as she used her dark brown fingers to touch the medallion nuzzled in her breast, connected to a bronze chain, kept hidden in her clothes. Without looking, she traced the strange symbols with her stubby nails, forcing her mind to stay still. It was difficult, however. It had not been simply given to her when things were “normal”; she was entrusted with it. By the love of her life. Cecilia recalled movies she had seen as a young teenager, where lovers exchanged tokens of undying affection. A bitter laugh stopped just short of her lips, which she licked and pressed together, as if to hold any unwanted emotion inside. If it was inside, she could control it.

This damned, glowing locket did not represent love, despite it being crafted in the shape of the organ that represented our inner most fruitful desires. It wasn’t even from this world. And Cecilia didn’t think Aliens thought about love when they made hearts. That was humans, the naïve species that had been living in a utopian society without even realizing it. The species that willingly followed whatever trusted leader to the chopping block. The ones that assumed global powers to have the best interest at heart when it came to rich and poor, slave and free. The irony did not escape her, and she withdrew her hand from her shirt quickly, turning onto her side.

She would have to leave soon. The suns were peeking into the windows, spilling their revealing light into her lonely domicile. Both of them.

Cecilia remembered when there was only one sun.

There was only one person left out of the six of their original party. Six weeks ago two had been killed, the rest of them separated in a rush to protect Cecilia and the medallion. They were fighting their way across the country to the Museum of Natural history. Not because they were seeking admission on a lovely day of tourism, but to find the key. There was a special key that went to the medallion that hung in her breast, and it lay secure in New York City, the most difficult place for an unclean person to enter. And they were in the outskirts, with only the two of them left.

Cecilia and Ortiz, who’s last job in the normal world had been a bouncer at a popular night club, were considered unclean. They had denied the implant offered by the government when the Watchers had first come to earth. It was to protect them against mind control, but Cecilia’s boyfriend Trent, who was an avid internet conspiracy theorist, begged her to forego. It had turned out that the implant was the mind control, but sometimes she still wondered about this altered reality she was currently living in.

Anyone without an implant was considered dangerous, a threat to the public, and unclean. In order to enter any larger city, customs checked your papers and scanned your head. Everyone with the implant lived under the forced notion that Cecilia, and anyone like her, was a treacherous, treasonous tyrant, and meant to harm anyone living under peace. The medallion, which Trent swore was a locket with the code to restoring the sanity of humanity inside of it, basically held the antidote to whatever the government had put inside the brains of the populace. The only way to crack the code was to unlock the heart. And the key was in the museum.

So to the museum they must go.

Cecilia wasn’t even completely convinced of her mission, but she had nothing left. Life was not the same as it had been when she had taken her driver’s license test, or snuck out of her bedroom window to go to a party that her parents had forbidden. It was cold and emotionless, and the only glimmer of hope that resembles anything but gray was her mission. If she and Ortiz were successful, there was new hope. If they were not, their brains would be implanted and they wouldn’t care anymore anyway. It was a suicide mission without any fear of death. Not that it was something she feared anyway. Trent had been killed before her eyes, the fault her own. Perhaps there was guilt driving her, overriding her natural instincts to survive.

Ortiz stood over her, offering his hand. He was a towering individual, with shoulders the size of a football field. He didn’t say much, but it wasn’t because his mind was moving. Cecilia assumed he had so much to say that he was particular with what he let escape.

“Let’s go.”

Cecilia ignored his hand and kicked the moldy blanket off her feet. The light fixtures creaked ominously as their boots padded on the concrete towards the door.

“The gates are just across that ridge…and they are swarming.” Ortiz shaded his eyes from the rising light as he spoke.

Cecilia scanned the horizon, trying to formulate a plan, but her mind remained blank.

“We’ll head east and pray for the best.”

Nodding, Cecilia cleared her throat to speak for the first time that morning. “This is it, isn’t it?”

Ortiz said nothing.

The heat of two suns was searing, bearing down on the rebels in a punishing manner. It wasn’t but two miles, but the anticipation of the border stretched the minutes into hours. There were no birds, lizards or grasshoppers playing in the grass to distract her. Cecilia thought of how Trent would have felt at this point in the journey, how reassuring and excited he would have been, squelching all fears and doubts...but quickly shoved the thought aside.

They approached the fence, which was buzzing, reminiscent of a certain movie she could remember that tried to trap dinosaurs in an electric cage. Only Cecilia and Ortiz were not the predators. The predators had flipped the script on them.

“How do we do this, Ortiz?” She said between breaths, her thumbs hooked on each backpack strap.

Instead of muttering curses under his breath as expected, he pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and quietly studied it.

“What is that?” Cecilia asked a question that she knew would not have an answer. Not for her, at least.

Tapping his finger absentmindedly on the paper, Ortiz began stepping to the left with dodging pupils. She simply watched, waiting. He was looking for something. Now on his knees in the tall grass, he pushed the brush side to side searching for something. Suddenly, he disappeared into the landscape, reappearing on the other side.

Not questioning it, she quickly followed suit, ready to be rid of the hum of the looming electric fortress. It made her skin vibrate and her mind hurt. It didn’t take much to send her over the edge, however, as her fight or flight senses had been enacted for the last two years.

Once on the other side, she quickly caught up to Ortiz, her chest pounding in dread. For months of trekking, Cecilia knew they would eventually end up grappling for the forbidden key if death hadn’t taken them first. But somehow, it was still overwhelming, and she had the platonic urge to grab his hand.

It was weakness.

They were almost there.

The city eventually came into view, but it wasn’t as she remembered it. Peace-keeping entities patrolled endlessly. This was madness. There was no way they would be able to travel further undetected. Cecilia sucked in a sharp breath.

“There’s the spot, we are supposed to wait.” Ortiz spoke as if he had read her thoughts. “There is a guard, paid off. He’ll come for us. Don’t be surprised.”

Cecilia just hoped it would be the right guard, because they wouldn’t know until it was too late.

Hours stretched into dusk, her stomach complaining of its emptiness to pass the time. When the guard showed, in his pristine white suit, he roughly handled her and Ortiz, and she prayed he was simply a good actor. If everything went to plan, they would be at the museum under the cover of full darkness tonight. She would finally find the key and unlock whatever secrets she held nestled in her beating chest.

The guard shoved bags over their heads and threw them into a vehicle, probably an old converted ambulance. She couldn’t be sure; she couldn’t be sure of anything at this point. They were going on hope and faith. Humanity rested on their shoulders.

After a silent bumpy ride, and being led into a building that smelled like bleach, the bag was ripped from her head, along with some of her hair. Cecilia bit her lip to stop from crying out. A blinding light was in her face, and she was alone. Reaching her hand out, she realized Ortiz was nowhere in the vicinity. Fear suddenly gripped her innards. Was this right? Her head was pounding. No, maybe it was her heart. This didn’t feel right. Panic threatened to overtake her senses, and she tried her best to take controlled breaths.

A loud voice boomed over a speaker in tinny tones. “You are guilty of trespassing.”

Cecilia stilled, unblinking. Could this be right?

“You are unclean.”

Where was Ortiz? Where?

“Your rights have been terminated.”

No. Oh, no. There was no way this could be right. The sound of the metal chair scraping the floor hit her ears before she had even realized she was standing up. The door was opening. The light was so bright she couldn’t see what or who she was up against. Grabbing the chair, she held it in front of her as a shield and a weapon. Sweat pooled on her upper lip, and she could taste her body’s salty betrayal. Her throat threatened to close in. Bitter bile rose. Shuffling footsteps echoed in the sterile expanse of the room.

The chair was being pulled from her, but she gripped it with all her might. She was not going down without a fight. Death first. From behind, she felt a rough hand on the back of her neck. Turning to fight it, she felt the pinch. A pinch in her arm, causing the bright light to fade…and her feet to give out from under her.

When Cecilia awoke, she blinked incessantly, trying to make sense of where she was. Despite the brawl she vaguely recalled, she felt…really good. Better than she had in years. Her head ached slightly, her only complaint, and she gingerly put her fingers to her temple. She felt several stitches. It amused her, as she could not recall being hit in the head.

Where was she now? Rubbing her eyes, she turned onto her side, and saw Ortiz sleeping on a bed next to her. She breathed a sigh of gratefulness. Studying him, she noticed he must have gotten hit in the head too. His stitches were in the same place as hers. Hopefully he would rest well, and feel has good as Cecilia did when he woke.

Cecilia instinctively felt for the medallion in her gown, but it wasn’t there.

But instead of panicking, she realized…she didn’t care. How curious.

Maybe she would be better off without it.

Sighing, she felt happy.

She hoped Trent felt this happy.