Chapter 34

“If we can survive February, we’ll be okay,” Wilson said.

“How far are we?”

“About a week into the month.”

They’d spent most of that week talking about which zone was better, red or blue. Wilson declared the red zone to be better in every way except for two things: the sex norms, and the red zone prison camps. “You know what the problem is, it’s you damn Christians are so serious about sex, you make it hard for everyone else. When I first started I remember there was another drill who was a Christian who you couldn’t even talk about rubbing one out around without him sniffing about how we should really be keeping our minds on the mission. Jesus Christ, he was annoying. That is the only thing I miss about this place.”

Solomon had to bite his tongue. It didn’t help that tonight was one of the coldest he’d experienced yet. Maybe it was because they’d gotten caught out in a rainfall that had turned into snow as soon as they got back to their building; his clothes were still damp and he was sure, tactical cuddle or not, that he was going to catch a cold. Hopefully it wouldn’t kill him. “You miss everyone around you being a whore?” he asked wryly.

Wilson laughed from behind his way-too-long hair. “Yes, exactly!” Solomon rolled his eyes. He’d heard enough hazing stories from other guys in the militia to think God might have had a good reason for being so strict about even just sexual contact, but he didn’t say anything to Wilson, as the man had moved on to talk about how the red zone prison camps were worse as well.

“How do you know what red zone prison camps are like?” Solomon asked.

“Aren’t they just about making as much money as possible off a prisoner before he dies? Squeeze as much work out of him as you can until it kills him?” Wilson asked him. “That’s what I learned in blue zone school.”

“No, that’s what I’ve heard too,” Solomon said. “Is that worse than the blue zone hard labor camps?”

“Nah, in the blue zone they try to get as much work out of you as possible too. But it’s not… I don’t know how to put it. It’s not the point. The point is still re-education, they want us to complete our re-education through productive labor.”

“What does hard labor have to do with re-education?”

“It’s because you hate poor people, who all work hard with their hands, so you’ll learn how to not hate them by being one of them.”

Typical communist logic. Which Solomon had learned about growing up, the way Wilson seemed to have been taught about the red zone. Although blue zone schools did appear more explicit in teaching about the present-day red zone, while Solomon had been given more of a sense of history, about how in most blue zones the woke managed to wrest power to themselves over the center left by using purges to get rid of anyone to their right in the same way communists in other countries used to do.

“I also learned that red zone prison camps don’t respect anyone’s declared gender identities, and that the red zone also segregates prisoners by biological sex. That’s another reason the blue zone camps are better,” he added. “Because gender is a social construct, all blue zone camps are required to be unsegregated. So the gangs prey on the women first. It makes it easier for guys like us.”

“That sounds about right,” Solomon said. He leaned back closer against Wilson, trying to catch some more of his body heat. He really didn’t want to get sick if he could at all help it. “Nobody ever told me so, but honestly, before coming here, I wouldn’t have even thought there was any other way to do it. I mean, you can’t have a man claiming to be a woman and then being let loose in a women’s prison. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Are there even women prison camps?” Wilson replied into the darkness behind his ear. “I was taught that captured blue zone women soldiers, at least, get sentenced to brothels.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Solomon winced. Just when he’d thought he was finally getting used to how low America could sink in terms of how everyone treated each other. He hoped it wasn’t true, that it was just blue zone propaganda. But he could believe it. He still stood by what he’d told Wilson a lifetime ago that people were people and politics were politics, and the only difference that mattered between people was how they treated the person in front of them, and not what opinion they had in their heads. That meant he was sure the red zone and the blue zone both were made up of people, fallen people, evil people who wanted to use oppressive tactics to get their way instead of using persuasion to win others to their side.

Like in the camp, where he was, so many of the tactics he was encountering horrified him. He felt so bad for the blue zone civilians who were browbeaten into making confessions about how much they deserved even death, only for the camp sentences they were eventually given to be justified using those same confessions. Even worse, if that was possible, everyone was required at various points to write down assessments of their family members and their political misdeeds, to inform on those very same people who were keeping them alive through their packages and visits.

Solomon had his personal reasons for hating the family reporting requirement. All it took was one counselor reading through his made-up stories on all the made-up racist, sexist and phobic things his made-up family said, and getting suspicious… he found himself increasingly eager to escape. He and Wilson talked about how they might, a lot. “The trick is to find the camera map,” Wilson said. “There have got to be blind spots. Then, if we see a guard change happen in one of those blind spots, we can take the new guard down as soon as he starts his shift, giving us the time we need to get out of here before the next guard shift happens. Otherwise they’ll find out we escaped right away and catch us before we’ve swum two feet.”

Wilson also told him that the times he left Solomon in the building by himself, he wasn’t just scavenging, he was also gathering intelligence. “I want to go with you,” Solomon replied.

“That’s not a good idea,” Wilson replied.

“Why not?”

“It just isn’t.”

Solomon frowned. Wilson was usually good about explaining everything and including Solomon in what he did. Then again, he had no energy these days so being allowed to conserve it didn’t seem too horrible, although he didn’t like how cold it got in the stairwell with just him and the blanket, even during the day.

“Don’t worry,” Wilson said. “I’ll have stuff I’ll need you to do soon. Until then, rest as much as you can.”

One particularly freezing cold evening, as they were walking back from confession circle in the swirling snow and the wind was howling in Solomon’s face, and he was hating his life and thinking about how much he wished he’d taken a parka out of that wardrobe in cabin D4, Wilson turned to him. “Hey, happy belated birthday. It was in October, right? I thought I saw that in your file.”

“That’s right,” Solomon said. He’d forgotten that his birthday had passed.

“How old are you now?”

“Twenty.”

Wilson’s face lit up. “Oh, I turned twenty in the camps too! It was my last birthday there. And it’s going to be your last birthday here too.” He looked around to make sure nobody was near, then lowered his voice. “I found a hotel job.”

Suddenly Solomon was able to forget for a moment that his hands were numb. “The hotel – you mean the building where the counselors live? Someone offered you a position there?”

Wilson laughed at him. “They don’t give jobs in the hotel to White people. This is for you. I’ll tell you more inside the stairwell.” When they were back in the darkness, he explained that he didn’t have the position secured yet, that they needed a bribe to seal the deal. “All these other prisoners, they get money from their families to bribe the counselors all the time. Do you have anything?” he asked Solomon as they climbed up the steps. “Rings, coins, gold teeth?”

He had to be kidding. He knew Solomon didn’t have anything. Maybe he just wanted to make sure. “My windbreaker,” Solomon said.

“No, they’re going to want something better than that. You know what, don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out.”

“How?” Solomon asked, feeling around in the dark for where they’d left their blanket. “You don’t have anything either.”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry, I won’t take something from someone else.”

Solomon hadn’t thought he would, but now that he’d said so, it did make him worry – worry that Wilson was lying to him. Maybe that’s why he’s been refusing to take me out on his intelligence gathering. He doesn’t want me dissociating again, and whatever he’s doing requires something he thinks I can’t handle. It’s either that, or he’s not lying, and I don’t know which one is worse.

What does Wilson have to give of his own? How could he possibly figure this out?