NOWHERE KIDS

August 10, 2032

Izzy threw her hands over her ears to mute the shuffling of her young daughter’s boots on the wood tile. Armillei had paced the cabin in the woods all evening without rest. Despite how long Izzy remained calm, the situation began to break her.

The clock struck eight, and Izzy frowned at her husband, Kade, who sat on the worn chair in the corner of the living room, his hair almost concealing his eyes. His calloused fingers stroked the barrel of the shotgun laying across his lap as if it were a purring kitten; the LED bulb in the retrofit lamp cast hazy light across the barren walls behind him.

She sat beside her youngest on the sofa and pulled the quilt to his chin. This day marked the second week of Vander’s illness.

The hum of an engine sounded in the distance, and Izzy’s malnourished frame lurched toward the window. If Kade heard, he didn't acknowledge it. He continued to pet the shotgun; his sunken brown eyes, glued to the locked entry door, conveyed no vestige of emotion. Izzy wiped the damp towel across Armillei’s scalding forehead again and kissed her skin, then inspected her wrist for the thousandth time, where the branded mark remained.

“Don’t let this trouble you, Armillei.” A faux smile lifted Izzy’s lips, and she ignored the pained look her daughter offered. “You made a mistake. You’re sick. You can’t go. They’ll have to understand. They’ll have to…” Her twelve-year-old didn't deserve the fate that approached her.

She wrung her hands, remembering when Armillei was born. Those were happier times. Her pregnancy had been a gift. Remarkably, Kade even quit drinking, although, on occasion, he returned from errands smelling of black market whiskey. She would stay quiet because those complaints usually led to arguments. Had she known the battleground the U.S. would become in the three years following, she might have reconsidered a second child.

That morning the alcohol smell had returned, but at present, she could only worry for her children. When the vehicle ground to a stop outside, Kade’s eyes darted to the window. Engines quit, and doors opened. Izzy’s hands shook, but she wouldn’t near the window again.

Besides flaring nostrils, Kade seemed unconcerned. Anger boiled inside her. How could he sit there when The Black Wing stood at their doorstep? She wanted to walk over and belt him across the face to wake him from whatever trance he’d been lost to. Like a lioness protecting her cubs, she felt cornered and ready to strike. Yet, Kade sat there. The Black Wing flaunted its opposition to Operation Torch, the government program, but it had become a glorified gang that fought to abolish all laws that opposed their beliefs and in turn stifled freedom.

A creak from the porch sent a jolt up her spine. Buffalo, the family German Shepherd, growled low and fierce as if he knew the expected company was unfriendly and unsympathetic to their plight. After what seemed an eternity, the doorknob jiggled. Then, a knock.

Kade came to life, rising like a cobra, leaning all his weight on his good leg, and aimed the twin barrels of his shotgun at the front door.

“Mr. and Mrs. Santos, open the door. Let’s do this quickly and painlessly.” The words came through, even and calm.

“The girl’s ill. Leave the supplies and come back later,” Kade said, his chest heaving as he cast a glance at Izzy, and the lines over his brow deepened.

“No matter, sir. Where she’s going, she’ll become stronger than ever. She will be taken care of. May I remind you; there will be consequences if you back out now.”

“I signed up for a reason, Mom,” Armillei said. “Vander is sicker than I am. We need the food and medicine they’ll give you for my service.”

“You come in, and you’ll leave in pieces,” Kade said with authority, ignoring his daughter.

The doorframe splintered and the door crashed in. Kade stumbled backward, as Izzy threw her arms over her daughter’s head and dragged her to the sofa where Vander lay. The chaos of snarling and grunting amidst dust and debris clouds in the entryway silenced too quickly with a yelp. 

Many hid their faith in these times, but Izzy recited the Lord's Prayer in an attempt to expel the unwanted visitor. The glimmer of hope buried in her heart turned to despair when one slow footstep after another creaked under the weight of the intruder, as if toying with them.

Vander groggily tried to stand. “I’ll kill them for hurting Buffalo,” he whispered in a raspy voice.

“No, baby,” Izzy replied, wiping tears away. “You stay there. He’s alive. Dad’s gonna take care of everything.” Izzy pressed her fingers to Vander’s mouth to quiet him. Buckling under pressure, she yelled, “She’s sick! She made a mistake in accepting your deal. She only wanted to help us!”

Kade cocked his shotgun, and Armillei pleaded, “Dad, don’t do it!”

Izzy glimpsed murder in Kade’s eyes. Her stomach clenched, but she finally found the nerve to look toward the doorway.

A tall man neared, his black-brimmed hat casting shadows over a translucent mask, beneath which revealed his melted eyelid. His clothing looked to be made of hard plastic, although somehow the dark material moved with his strides, which exposed air holes along the seams. The intruder pointed a gloved finger at her young daughter. “Come with us.”

Kade pulled the trigger, but the buckshot ricocheted off the man’s suit and battered Kade’s shoulder and side, knocking him to the wood tiles. Groans filled the room as his own blood painted the floor.

A soldier with a gun and outfitted in the same type of suit filled the doorway, and, without a word, shot Kade in the head.

Izzy screamed, and Armillei fell to her knees in tears for her father, her dark hair cascading about her face. Vander bawled, his scrawny form shaking, which threw him into a coughing fit.

In a panic, Izzy searched the simple room for a weapon and came up with a ceramic planter. With a mediocre war cry, Izzy summoned enough strength to throw it at the soldier’s head, then watched as it rebounded to the floor in pieces.

The first man grinned under his translucent mask, exposing a mouth full of fake teeth. “Without medical care and food, your children will likely die. She’ll be well-fed and cared for in our program. If not us, OT will take her and use her to their own benefit. The government has chosen technology over human workers. What future is there for any of us? We need to force change.”

Izzy refused to soften to the thought of forcing innocents into their conflict, like so many others had. Across the country, the two groups brainwashed children. Those who refused alliance were labeled Nowhere Kids, and were therefore hunted and enslaved without end or benefit.

“Twelve years is the perfect age—young enough to hear the incoming high-pitched whistle of the neoteric mortars OT possesses, giving Black Wing an advantage. And old enough to fight beside us after training. Young women like your daughter who care about improving our world give us hope for America’s future. We will return for your son. One year, isn’t it?”

Izzy glared at him and watched as he neared her little girl. He lied. Everyone knew the children would be sent to the front lines, and that meant certain death. The soldier placed six boxes of food and medicine by the wall. The familiar logo on the lids matched the mark on her daughter’s wrist.

Armillei sobbed as the man pulled her off the floor, pushing Izzy to attack with fists and kicks. She recoiled when she heard a crunch, and pain exploded in her hand. It felt like she had punched a wall. Vander flopped off the sofa and staggered to his father.

Armillei’s eyes flickered between the man and the desk. As she straightened, she spun, swiping something from the desk, and quickly lifted the man’s mask. It took only seconds for Armillei to stab him in the throat with her pen.

Before the other soldier could drop the box and seize his weapon, Vander grabbed his father’s shotgun and aimed up at the man’s ear near the translucent mask’s edge. His bloodshot eyes squeezed shut when he pulled the trigger.

The man’s head rocked sideways, his ear along with a skimmed portion of the right side of his skull blown off, but the mask had protected his face. He fell to the tiles beside his companion with a squeal of horror as blood poured from his wound.

“C’mon.” Izzy’s voice shook, as she bent to kiss Kade goodbye. Armillei seized the second intruder’s gun with bloody hands. “We’ll patch ourselves up in the car now that we have what we need to hide for a while.”

“Armillei, you’ll have to join Operation Torch as soon as you’re better. We don’t have much time before both sides come looking for you,” Vander said, with obvious fear in his eyes.

“OT is corrupt,” Armillei said, as Vander scooped up the whimpering dog. “They’ve caused this with their greed and manipulation. I refuse. And after this, The Black Wing will want revenge. They’ll come after all of us. And I can’t stomach anyone coming to take you, in a year or at any time. I’m tired of us children being used for an agenda. I’m tired of this world, this war. I want change.”

“Yes, we’ll hide,” Izzy said, wringing her hands. “They won’t find us. They won’t.”

Vander cried. “But… but, you know where that leaves us.”

Armillei shook her head with resolve. “It leaves us nowhere, but we won’t hide. Not anymore. Us Nowhere Kids will have to fight. I know where they’re all holed up. We’ll have to band together to get back our freedom.”