Death is extinct. Mankind is eternal. Millions must suffer.
-Graffiti seen on Ithunn Company Headquarters. A bastardization of their slogan.
The judge who would soon condemn her to die beheld Evelyn with a mix of pity and disgust. There was no loathing, no anger behind the judge’s beady, blue eyes. This short, ugly, pathetic excuse for a man held no grudge towards her. Evelyn hadn’t wronged him in any way. They had never even met before. Yet with a stroke of his gavel, a stamp of his seal and a shudder of pity, the judge would soon put her to death. Not personally, of course. This man was too much of a coward to do that. She wondered if they actually had a way to get it all over with. Hold your horses there, Evi. She thought to herself. The bastard is still trying to think.
Evelyn was a straight-backed, orange clothed outlier in the drab courtroom. The scent of dead skin on the linoleum floor punctuated the relative emptiness of the space. Aside from the judge’s raised dais in the far end of the room, only the prosecution’s soulless aluminium tables and chairs kept the room from being empty. They weren’t present, though. It wasn’t seen as necessary. As she was the only permitted defendant, Evelyn had to stand in handcuffs. Indignant though it was, she remained straight as an arrow, hands cuffed and forced behind her back. Being a defendant was harder than she remembered. Apparently “I just thought it would be funny” and “I wanted to see if I was able to do it” were no longer valid defenses in court. She had even pleaded «oopsie daisy», but to no avail. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the scab of a scar on her left palm was particularly annoying today, due to all the handcuffing. It had been there for… quite some time now. Shuffling behind her made Evelyn focus on the matter at hand, however.
The bailiff who had restrained her was a large, attentive man of few words. He stood behind her, hand on his baton. The judge, who had been “thinking” for around two hours now, looked half asleep. Evelyn’s feet, back and wrists ached from the standing, but she stayed solemn. She would not be beaten down.
The judge finally started speaking, clearing his throat in a lecherous hacking. He spoke in a pompous, grating voice. “After much deliberation upon the nature of the accused and the lack of evidence for her innocence, I have reached a verdict.” His copious chins wagged while he spoke.
“I woulda thought you found the fucking meaning of life after that much thinking.” Evelyn interrupted.
The judge scoffed and shielded his eyes as the bailiff whirled his baton into the side of her thigh. She almost fell as pain flared from the area, but she stayed on her feet. That one doesn’t like seeing violence, huh. Evelyn thought to herself. Ironic.
The judge slowly returned his now contemptuous gaze upon her. “After having consulted experts on the various cases, speaking with the People’s Jury of Vercingetorix, and personally evaluating the accused, the ethically appropriate verdict has been found.” After speaking, he took a sip of milk from a cup on his desk. A small drop dribbled down his chins.
Evelyn laughed. “Is this ‘jury’ on vacation, mate? Seems to me like you just sat on your ass for long enough to not get flagged by the voice recorder for going too quick.”
The judge nodded to the bailiff before turning his head once more. Again, the baton struck her leg. She winced in pain, but remained upright.
The judge straightened in his chair. Well, his throne. The back of the chair was double the height of its current patron - which wasn’t saying much - and ornately inlaid with gold and silver in patterns that seemed random and senseless to Evelyn. He looked annoyed as he started speaking.. “Let the record show,” the recording computer whirred softly next to him “that the accused is a quarrelsome bitch and-”
“Oi, that’s no way to talk to a lady. You kiss your sister with that mouth?” Another baton, this time to the arm.
Now, the judge continued talking as the force of the blow almost brought her to the ground. Almost. She met his gaze. The pity in his eyes was replaced by hate.
“-and that the accused is insubordinate and foul of temper, and will therefore get her sentence increased. ” a lot of anger went into that last word. Evelyn considered her next quip. Fuck it. What more could they do to me? She stood up straight. “Hey, the only foul thing here is your bloody stench, you sweaty sack of a man. I shoul-”
“THAT IS ENOUGH!” He bellowed, jumping to his feet. “I WILL HAVE SILENCE IN MY COURTROOM, YOU WRETCHED, CONTEMPTIBLE, INSUBORDINATE HAG!”
Evelyn barely had time to talk back before the baton returned, this time cracking her on the temple with force that could break bone. She was thrown to the ground, vision swimming. Rolling onto her back, she smiled at the bailiff. He seemed very surprised
She groaned. “Calling me a hag is a bit much, eh? You confusing me for your wife?” I’m not old enough to be a hag, right?
The honourable judge slammed his desk in anger, knocking over the cup of milk. It welled over on his desk in a wave of milkiness.“SHUT UP, NOW! I will have no more insolence from you!” He was red as a tomato, quickly wiping the desk with his sleeve. “Bailiff, gag this pitiful creature so I can continue this ritualistic farce, free of insults!”
“You started it.” Evelyn quickly shot back, before receiving a painful baton to the stomach. She was forced up and gagged by the bailiff. The cloth tasted like old spit.
The judge glared at her, having regained what little dignity and composure he spilled alongside the milk. He spoke in a grating, official voice. “As I was saying, she shall get her sentence increased when she is found guilty. Due to the overwhelming lack of evidence for her innocence, I hereby deem the accused, Evelyn Aaru, to be guilty of the following: six, no sixty five counts of tax evasion…”
Evelyn tried to smile through the gag, laughing to herself. They only found six? Wow, the the Tax Service really fell from grace.
“... two counts of armed burglary…”
Does a frozen baguette really count as a weapon?
“... one count of making an improvised explosive device with intent to harm…”
Seriously? I did not just spend a week meticulously crafting that bomb only for it to be ridiculed as “improvised”.
“... and one count of fratricide for the death of Baldrian Aaru.”
The smile dropped from her face. No. No, she did not do that. Anger filled her entire being. If not for the gag, she would have emptied the dictionary of expletives. She started thrashing against the large man’s grip, but was kicked in the crook of her knee and restrained by the wordless bailiff. Before, she might have had an attorney, or at least someone to stand up for her. But she didn’t have that person, not anymore. She had lost him, not killed him. She thought she was over that loss by now, that she had pushed it down as far as it could go. Yet some small part of her still blamed herself for that. Evelyn pushed harder, against that overflowing well of sorrow. Deal with that later.
The judge continued, obviously satisfied at seeing her distraught. “Thus, through the power vested in me, the honourable Judge, Arbiter of Justice Matthew Walsh, by Johannes Ithunn and the Ithunn Company, I hereby sentence you…” He savoured the next two words. “...to die.”
Oh, alright then. Could be worse. She thought, almost happy. But something was missing. She took a look at the judge. He seemed indecisive. He was about to swing his gavel, but still held it in the air. Why?
The judge’s beady, bloodshot eyes met hers. She glared at him with uneasy anticipation. He thought for a moment, then grinned and nodded to himself.
“After further intense deliberation, the honourable, unwavering Judge and Arbiter of Justice has changed his mind. I hereby sentence you to four… No, five weeks in the Corps, Unicorn division. May your life be long and your comfort small. Good day.”
The crack of the gavel hit her harder than any baton the bailiff could muster.
…
Evelyn had always hated flying. It was too stable. She used to prefer the slow swaying of Boudica, the City-ship she had spent most of her life on. Newcomers didn’t understand how a boat the size of London could stay afloat, much less sway among the waves. But if you lived there long enough, you would know.
But now that she was flying, not floating, over that same ocean, she found she didn’t hate it as much. When entering the helicopter that would take her to her doom - or at least a few steps close to it - she should have been stressed. Concerned, maybe. Hateful of the flying, if nothing else. But no, she felt none of that. Why would she? What good did it serve? It only sapped her energy as of late, energy she would need to survive the next five weeks.
And she wasn’t the only one. Evelyn despondently rested her head against the neck rest of her drop seat. She looked around at her new “comrades”. None of them had spoken a word yet. Suited her just fine. She often preferred silence. Yet even from inside, enclosed in the way they were, she could hear the blades of the helicopter hacking into the air in a roaring mess.
They all sat, lined up on seats against the hull of the oblong helicopter, dressed in the same orange prison jumpsuit Evelyn had worn since the trial. They looked like lifeless traffic cones, marking the way to the figure seated near the cockpit door: a man in a mint green uniform, back perfectly straight, posture immaculate. He kept his gaze fixed to the large door at the other end of the vehicle. Weirdo.
The traffic cone next to her was a tall, lanky teen. He looked the way Evelyn thought she would have: stressed, disconcerted, scared shitless. Smelled like it, too. A bump of turbulence brought him to the brink of crying. What a dumbass.
Or… the sight brought back some familiar words.
Nothing in life is free, except empathy.
And she had promised Baldrian…
“Oi.” She nudged his arm.
He startled in his seat, and looked over at her, as if surprised at someone wanting to talk to him. “W-what?”
“First time flying?”
“Uh… what?”
She said it louder.
“Oh, uhm. Yeah. I’ve, uh, never been up in the air before.” He was shaking.
“ ‘People have no business being up in the air’, my nan used to say.” Evelyn replied.
“Uhh, yeah that seems right.”
“She always talked about how dangerous it was, and how it could mess with your brain and all.”
“Hmm”. The teen said, looking uncomfortable.
“Yeah, she got run over by a car. The maglev actuators on the bottom ripped her brain-prosthesis clean out. She didn’t last long after that. So even though she got dumpstered by a ground vehicle, she was kinda right, eh? The car was technically up in the air.”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
“Uhm… really? I’m sorry.”
“Nah, I’m just pullin’ your leg. Really though, this is one of the safest ways to travel. The turbulence is just some small wind, we’ll be fine.”
“But what about all those bumps, what if we hit a bird or something?”
“I think this 22-ton mechanical beast can defeat one spindly pigeon mate, it’s alright. Besides, look out the window.”
It was a very good time to be in the air. Aside from some smaller swells, the ocean had an air of apathy to it. Memories from geography class so very long ago told her that this would probably be the Atlantic ocean. The different divisions of the Corps would be stationed in areas surrounding Europe: mostly in the Atlantic or mediterranean. They hadn’t been told where Unicorn division was situated, but she hoped it wasn’t close to western Europe. Bad memories.
The teen looked out the window, and seemed a bit calmer. “Thanks.”
She nodded as a voice buzzed on the intercom. “Prepare for landing.”
Evelyn looked through the window again. The setting sun gave the sky the colour of an old bruise, with its purple and yellow hues. Slowly becoming visible was a massive ship. Small waves broke against its hull, turning from a steely blue sheet into a white mist. Evelyn had lived most of her life on a ship many times larger than this one, but had never seen one from the air. Everyone always liked to say that their city-ships were old military aircraft-carriers. They had always been too large for Evelyn to understand what that meant, but now she could see it. The upper deck was wider than the bow of the ship,and maybe 50 odd meters above the surface of the water. It looked almost half a kilometer wide, and was filled with smaller, landing helicopters. She wondered why she only saw helicopters instead of airplanes, but a second look quickly explained that. Ringing the entire deck was a 40 meter high wire-mesh wall with barbed wire at the top. What looked like nets were slung inwardly halfway up the wall. Why was that there?
The landing helicopter gave her more time to inspect the fence. It was woven incredibly tight, and swayed gently in the breeze, some sunlight reflecting off of it and into her eyes..
The youth next of her yelped as the helicopter set down.
The man who had been put in charge of them - Evelyn hadn’t bothered to learn his name - got up from his seat and pulled a lever near the opening door on the other end of the helicopter. Their harnesses loosened.
Evelyn was the first to get up, stretching from the long, cramped flight, almost hitting her head on the ceiling. She flexed her left palm, increasingly annoyed at that scab. It had been there for a long time now, and it didn’t seem to want to grow no matter how much she ignored it.
She got a better look at their supervisor as the other inmates got up. He was tall and muscular, with a short cropped beard. His round head looked weird when combined with his even shorter, angular haircut. That wasn’t the weirdest part about him, though. He somehow wore the mint green uniform with what appeared to be pride. Interesting. A rainbow-themed nameplate on the left of his chest read “Lt. Vanham”. Vanham barked orders at them, in a stern, neo-british accent.
“Alright you sorry sack o’spoons. Get your bums out on the tarmac.”
No one moved.
He got a more serious tone. “Oi, quit your lollygagging and skedaddle right now. I don’t have all day, and you whompers certainly don’t have much longer to live anyway. Now get the frick out.”
Evelyn failed to contain a giggle. She hadn’t expected such a… silly accent from this man. Oh well.
They shuffled out of the helicopter, Evelyn being the last among them. Vanham stood at the exit, peering over them as they walked past. When Evelyn walked by, he grabbed her arm tightly and jerked her toward him.
“Think this is funny, do you?”
He was entirely too close to her, but there was nothing she could do. His breath smelled like old meat. She grimaced and pinched her nose. “Kinda, but you smell funnier. Also, what the fuck is a whomper?”
“You’re childish.” He replied, unphased. He pushed her towards the crowd of new inmates, who had stopped and stared at them. He glared at them, pointing towards what looked like a gathering plaza on the flight deck, a hollow square marked on the asphalt. “Muster over there.”
They started walking. Four guard-looking fellows in teal uniforms went over to Vanham as they walked, carrying some weird batons. He gave them a few orders, and each went to stand in a corner of the square. When they had all gathered, Evelyn ended up in the front. Vanham stood at rest a few meters outside of the square, directly in front of her.
They must have looked pitiful. Twenty-one downtrodden, unwashed, orange-clothed prisoners, clumped together on a massive open deck. They must have looked like tiny pieces of carrot in a huge pot of stew. If only they had smelled accordingly.
Their supervisor addressed them all in a stilted voice, almost like he was reading a script. “Now, now you all, settle down.”
They barely even moved, let alone spoke.
“Welcome to the Corps, Unicorn Division.” Vanham seemed unphased at the name, but a few prisoners - Evelyn among them - snickered. That was good. They hadn’t all lost their sense of humour. Vanham rapped his boot onto the deck, grabbing their attention. He pointed downward. “This old bucket of bolts will be your new home for a while. We are all” he sighed “extremely grateful to have you.” That last part seemed supremely genuine. “I am Lieutenant Maximillian Vanham, and I have the pleasure of overseeing you goobers during your training period. Now, I will give you a rundown of your foreseeable future. The clock is currently 1800 hours. We are a few miles from shore, in the bay of Biscay.”
Evelyn looked behind, and saw a lot of people scratching their heads.
Vanham continued. “No doubt you are all familiar with where that is. Anyway, today you will all be paired up with someone in this group. And no, don’t try to band together now, we will select the pairs. The person you get paired with will be your partner for your time in the Corps, however long that ends up being. From my memo, most of you have a sentence of two weeks.” Evelyn heard many grumbles behind her.
“Two of you have three weeks.” The lanky boy, who had made his way next to Evelyn for some reason, almost started crying.
“And one of you has four… no five weeks. My condolences.” Evelyn shuffled on her feet, and Vanham gave her a look that signalled acknowledgment. And pity.
“You will be matched based on your sentence. But that comes later. Tomorrow, you begin training, and on the day after that, you will be deployed. I would say good luck to you all, but you will need more than that. You have all done something deserving of such a wretched place as this. No doubt you have murdered someone,” he looked at Evelyn", stolen something very valuable or pissed off the wrong person. But this is where you can make something of yourself. To come here, you must all have somehow offended the very essence of humanity present in all of us. Now is your chance to help humanity, to extend it beyond the atrocities you have all committed. If you fail, that is all right too. You will still have done a service to us all. I have been asked to give you some advice for your stay here. All you really can do is to simply pick a god, and pray. Dismissed.”
Their guards led them towards an elevator.
“Oh, and one more thing.” Vanham wasn’t done. “I highly encourage you all not to commit suicide. The punishment is worse. Toodles.” He waved at them and left.
What kind of man was this? Besides, what did he know? Evelyn hadn’t murdered anyone, as much as the Judge wanted her to have. Oh well, that’s what the Corps is for. From the little she had heard about the Corps, she imagined she would be dreading it. It was also a place very few returned from. In her time on Boudica, Evelyn heard stories in the bar about how the barkeep’s father had survived the Corps. It was apparently a dark, miserable place where the wardens tortured and beat you when you weren’t working. From this small snippet, it didn’t seem too bad. She hadn’t even been beaten since her sentencing.
As if the universe had read her inner monologue, a helicopter, smaller than the one they came in on, landed close to them. The doors opened, and a sullen, tall blonde man sat on a bench in the hold. He had a very round face, and looked as if he’d been crying for hours. His pink jumpsuit was covered in dried red and blue liquid. Half of his face had some splotches too, some even matted his hair. He grabbed a tank full of liquid of a similar colour, and jumped placidly onto the deck, shoving it into the hand of the guard coming up to the helicopter.Wordless, the man walked his way to their elevator before they could get on and hammered a button. He looked at Evelyn. She had rarely seen a man seem so utterly crushed.
He scratched at some of the liquid stains above his eyes. Was that blood? Evelyn was oddly haunted by the sight.“New arrivals? Welcome to the Corps.” He croaked, slowly being lowering down into the depths of the ship.
After the elevator had returned, they shuffled back onto it, prodded by guards. The guards hit a button, and it began moving in a creaking cacophony of clanging. Slowly, the wall in front of Evelyn opened into a massive cargo hold. They were near to the hull, yet she couldn’t even see the other side. It was the size of a small town, with a ceiling fifteen meters above them, It was filled with all kinds of helicopters, giant vats, racks of… were those candy canes? And the same pink jumpsuit that the stained man had been wearing? The spartan roughness of the rest of the room clashed oddly with the strange equipment. The room smelled like blood and ozone.
They were led through the open hold, past a desk where the man in the stained suit despondently filed some paperwork. They had walked closer to one of the walls, and Evelyn could see rust through old, cracked beige paint. Protruding from the same wall was a clerk’s office with two windows, like the tellers in a bank. Not that Evelyn had seen too many of those: the few times she hit the bank, she went straight to the vault.
A corpulent middle aged woman with half-moon glasses and shopping bags under her eyes sat in one window, an ordinary looking boy sat in the other. Were they mother and son? He couldn’t have been more than ten.
“New convicts?” the boy said. The woman picked up a magazine and started reading.
“Yes, sir.” one of the guards responded, his voice somewhat muffled by a surgical mask.
“Who was in charge of them?”
“Lieutenant Vanham, sir.” Why did he call him Sir?
The boy flipped through papers on his desk. He got one out, attacked it with a big red stamp, and handed it to the woman.
She read them over. “Lots of two-ies, eh Melvin?” She took a swig from a coffee mug. Judging by her voice, the cup may as well have been filled with tar.
“It appears so, Mildred.” His voice wasn’t as high as Evelyn expected. Mildred and Melvin. Mother and son?
“Look at the bottom, though.” Melvin continued.
“Oh boy, a fiver? Haven’t had one of those in a while. Poor him.”
“Her.” Evelyn said, but she was ignored.
Melvin spoke again. “Alright, we will now divide you into pairs according to your sentence length. Come up to us once you hear your name, and put your arm in this device.” He pointed to an odd bit of metal with a large hole in it, seated on his desk.
They read up the names. The two who had been announced eyed each other up as they walked towards the clerks. They put their hands in the weird machine, and were startled by a sudden, pneumatic noise. Or did it hurt them? They pulled their wrists out and looked at an armband that was tightly wound around it. Melvin pointed them to a door further along the wall, and the pair headed over there. Two more names were read up.
Looking at the crowd and hearing their names, they didn’t seem very diverse. They had most likely all come from Vercingetorix, the city-ship off the western french coast. Still, there were some italian sounding names, so people from Alaric as well? She hadn’t met anyone from that city-ship yet. Lanky kid’s name sounded almost Norwegian. That was weird. He didn’t look rich. People from Fairhair, the city off the Norwegian coast, weren’t supposed to be that skinny.
After the last two of the rabble had been announced and received their wristbands, Evelyn stood alone.
“Evelyn Aaru?” Mildred announced. She walked up to her.
“Oh sorry, it appears we don’t have somebody to partner you up with.” Mildred said, lighting up a cigarette. Melvin scowled at her.
She scratched the back of her head. “Well, i guess i’ll just go home th-”
The man in the stained suit walked up to Evelyn.
“Move over, please.”
Evelyn felt bad for him, and shuffled to the right, towards Melvin.
“Oh, you poor thing. Where’s Andrius?” Mildred asked the man.
He didn’t respond.
“Oh, I see they removed your previous armband. My condolences.”
He thrust his left arm into the machine.
“Your name was Evelyn Aaru, right, Mister?” Melvin asked, typing on a keyboard.
She put her right arm in the machine as well. “Correct. And that’s Miss to you, little man.” I thought I changed that a while ago…
“Oh, my apologies.” He typed some more into the computer and looked at it with confusion. “We don’t seem to have your year of birth registered, miss.”
“Oh.” Evelyn gulped. She scratched the back of her head. “Uhm, the year… I’m 28 years old.”
“We need the year, miss.”
Shit. She did the math in her head. “That would be… 2193, yes that’s correct. 2193.”
He looked at her suspiciously, but entered the numbers in and pressed a button.
Something snapped tightly around her wrist. She pulled it out, and inspected the wristband. It was plastic, coloured in horizontal rows. Evelyn’s was black, grey, white and purple from top to bottom. She looked at it and smiled. Been a long time since since I last saw those colours. How could they have known?
The other man barely looked at his. It had Evelyn’s colours, but flipped upside-down.
They started walking to where the others had gone. She was about to ask the new partner for his name, but by the way he looked, it seemed best to wait.
The armband vibrated. When she flipped it around, the number 35 appeared in shining blue holotext, floating a bit above the band. Thirty five? What did that mean?
The other man looked at her wrist.
“Thirty five days? My condolences.”
Evelyn didn’t respond. Thirty five days. Thirty five days until freedom. Oh well. The more she thought about it, though, the more detached she felt. I have to survive this place for five weeks. The others seemed to freak out at the prospect of two… Shouldn’t she… feel more about this?
She tried to force out the feelings. Despair, anger, panic, sorrow. Nothing would come. Nothing, but the sobering thought of her future. She liked to think her relationship with it was mutual: if she didn’t think much about the future, the future wouldn’t think much of her. But the numbers on her wrist cut through all of that. With them, the future said one thing: slip up, and our relationship is even more fucked than it already is.