Subfloor Six

Jocelyn opened her eyes, awoken from her afternoon nap by the chirping of an alert over the intercom.

“Attention all Age 13-15 Apprentices: You are to report to Subfloor Six. Be prepared for inspection.” The metallic voice clicked off, leaving her in a silence that could only be achieved within the thick, stone walls. They eat echoes.

She groaned, sitting up too quickly and bumping her head on the smooth granite ceiling. Even after a year and a half, Jocelyn still wasn’t used to life in the dormitories.

She grabbed her uniform shirt from where she’d tossed it after the pod run, blue with brown stitching around the arms, neck, pockets, and waist, and threw it over her tank top. Smacking at the left pocket, Jocelyn made sure her badge still was in the recesses of the fabric.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she laced up her tan boots. The laces grew up her ankle, blooming at her mid-calf. Her dingy heart-shaped locket swung from her chest, a pendulum counting the time in heartbeats. She rarely took it off it being one of the few facets left from the before.

Jocelyn got up, stretching her back in a slow cat-like motion, and strode to the steel door.

“Lights off,” Jocelyn’s voice, even in its young thinness, reverberated within the small closet-like corridor. The lady in the wall responded, killing the lights.

Her booted-feet sounded hollowly down the long hallway toward the stairwell. Subfloor Six was two levels further down. The Apprentice dormitories were on Subfloor Four, already 100 feet beneath what was once ground level.

She took the stairs, two at a time, enjoying the breath that came roughly through her lips. Cameras followed her rabbit-quick feet as she descended – little hawk eyes swiveling, eyeing their prey.

When she got to Subfloor Six, she slammed into the door; the heavy metal always stuck tight in its frame, requiring a sturdy burst from a hip.

Nine out of the other 12 apprentices were already waiting; some hunched down on the small bench by the sergeant’s office, but most were just standing about or leaning against the wall. One of the youngest, Snyder, sat Indian style on the floor. His back was pushed against the wall and he twirled his shoelaces around a tiny hooked finger. Jocelyn hinged against the wall adjacent to the stairwell.

From the gathering group, a strong scent of lavender flowed in a current to Jocelyn’s awaiting nose. In preparation for the possible evacuation to the underground facility, the First Ones had only stockpiled that particular flavor of body wash and deodorant. Jocelyn had often wondered what type of deal they’d gotten to order so much of one kind or if it had been a mistake. Either way, Jocelyn didn’t really care for the smell of lavender any longer.

The remaining apprentices straggled in, one of whom was Caldon, Jocelyn’s best friend. He rubbed at his eyes, still rimmed red with sleep, and walked with the pacing of a drunken child: bouncing and staggering. The red streaks of a rumpled pillow case striped his pale cheek.

“What do you think it is this time?” Caldon asked, his voice revealing his annoyance. The Apprentices weren’t normally called down in the afternoon, but it had happened more frequently in the last few months. Random drills and practice battles had filled their hours. Sometimes the hour before dinner folded into midnight without much notice.

Caldon grunted in response as he slipped on his right boot that was still dangling from his grip. “Who the hell knows.”

Two Senior Apprentices, Alden and Graft, approached from the back rooms. Their faces were twisted in a combination of malice and joy as they strutted to the front of the pack.

“Well, my favorite tunnel-dwelling rodents, do we have a drill for you today.” Graft spoke how he looked, with a disgusting mixture of slimy grease and misleading smiles. Jocelyn glanced back at Caldon, rolling her eyes.

“Oh yes – have I won the lottery, you might ask? No, no, no – you’re just the lucky chosen ones.” Alden was thinner than Graft, wiry with a patchy beard growing along his neck.

Jocelyn remembered the beginnings of that patchy growth from when she had first been promoted to her group. Alden, 15 at the time, had cornered her and attempted to kiss her. He had gotten close enough for his hairs to tickle the side of her cheek, but not further, as he quickly retreated when a swift jab to his abdomen left him doubled and retching.

The 13 of them were ordered by the lead rodents into their pods, the group they trained and drilled with: three groups of three and one group of four. Jocelyn; Caldon, another 15-year-old; and two 13-year olds, Laine and Snyder, made up the foursome.

Each group loaded up into their respective tube, shooting upward to the training center. When the doors opened, the drill would begin. All the drills differed slightly, but Jocelyn had become used to the normal procedure: gathering to pod, pod to tube, tube to training center, and then let the game begin.

Each pod had its own mission – her pod’s flashed across the screen as soon as the pod doors closed: capture a leading officer from the opponents, whoever they might be.

The tubes slowed, and Jocelyn tensed, her muscles preparing to pounce into action. Caldon and she had taken the lead, setting up the plan for the younger ones in the short time the tube had ascended. They had become adept at planning and executing in a minute flat before the shining white door revealed what was on the other side.

“GO!” The gate flipped outward, silver and gleaming, and Caldon had screamed a command.

Laine and Caldon snapped right, heading toward the highest point on the landscape, while Snyder and Jocelyn swung to the left to come around the long, flat side of the terrain. Instincts and training fused to guide Jocelyn’s body to melt into the landscape.

Their opponents were similar to they in appearance, but were slightly darker, tanner in tone. Jocelyn noticed, in comparison, she and her fellow apprentices seemed to be almost translucent. Ghosts.

Snyder stuck his sharp shoulder into her side, pointing and mouthing silently: “There.” Jocelyn followed his finger, catching sight of a tall tan boy with a red stripe across his arm; none of the others on the field had that marking.

With a blunt nod, they sprinted stealthily toward the mound with the red-striped boy-man. Jocelyn smirked; she had become quite arrogant about the performance of her pod – the best.

Both Jocelyn and Snyder ran on flighted feet, winging their way through the field, when a red stripe appeared on the thigh of Snyder. A startled squeak, like a bird chirping in surprise, slipped through the lips of the 5-foot tall boy. The red didn’t stop with a stripe; the stripe spread to a circle the size of a baseball, then the size of a softball, drops multiplying to fill in the light blue fabric from knee to groin.

He had run a few more heavy-footed steps before falling, a whimper releasing from the purpling lips. His body fell like one of paper-mache, flapping.

Jocelyn pulled him aside, his body becoming limp, into a divot – though it offered barely four feet of coverage.

Her eyes were wide, trying to take in all that was occurring before her, trying to slow it down to a speed she could catalog and handle. Snyder stared at her. Jocelyn looked again at the moist circle of brick on his leg, noticing the blood was slowing, but she was trained enough in first aid to know that wasn’t a good thing. Snyder was dying.

Jocelyn forced her eyes up and away, taking in the field of battle before her. She could see two more, a fourteen-year-old, Challie, and a fresh-faced twelve-and-a-half-year-old who had moved up to take the spot of one who graduated out, kneeling unnaturally in the middle of the field. She couldn’t even remember the youngest one’s name.

And that’s when Jocelyn realized, this was no drill.