Anstractor (The New Phase Book 1) (12 page)

Along the walls were seasoned jumpers, all dressed in white 3B suits that left no part of their perfectly sculpted bodies to the imagination. The ceiling was painted with a diagram of what he assumed to be the universe. He tried to find Anstractor and realized that it was the smallest of all the galaxies. When they got all the recruits together (there were twenty of them), he saw his beloved Camille, but as they were hustled along through the hallway, she would not look up to give him eye contact.

They were taken to the cloning lab, where a specialist downloaded their DNA and physiological data. As if to answer the question that was on all of their minds, they were given a demonstration via vid on how cloning worked. Next, they were given a live demonstration by the old man who had spoken to Rafian. He squared off against a younger jumper, and while it was an impressive display of skill, neither fighter could get the upper hand, and Rafian wondered at how it would end. After minutes of fighting, the elder produced a las-knife from his robes and stabbed his opponent through the throat, causing him to fall and thrash about in pain. It had to be one of the cruelest kills that Rafian had ever seen. Gasps and horror covered the faces of everyone watching, but within minutes, the man’s death throes had ceased and he emerged from one of the clone stations, happy, unscathed, and very much alive.

The dead body took on a grayish hue as the blood continued to pour from the neck. Rafian stared at the clone, trying to see if the man was merely a twin and this a trick of some sort.

“I don’t know how cool I am with this,” said one of the female members to nobody in particular, and the old man spun and threw the knife into her head, causing her to instantly drop dead! Again, there were gasps and expressions of shock until she cloned and popped up out of the machine looking scared, angry, and red-faced.

“YOU HAD NO RIGHT!” she was shouting, tears streaming down her face. She was all fire and unaware of her nakedness as she ran out to face down the old man while giving the recruits a full-on display of her goods. When she realized her nakedness, she froze and panicked. One of the aides brought her a robe to cover up, and she quickly hustled away.

“Very appropriate,” the old man began as he paced the metal floor looking at each of the recruits, who now stood at attention.

“Appropriate because jumpers are to be removed from the shackles that are sexual commitment, personal possessions, and, as much as humanly possible, matters of the heart. Your bodies belong to the organization now. I own you all.”

That statement elicited a reaction from Camille, who had found herself next to Rafian, both observing the horror of the membership they had signed up for. The couple was holding hands, and the old man glanced at them as he spoke. Rafian balked at the thought that they would be punished somehow for revealing their togetherness, so he unhooked Camille’s hand and made a mental note to stay away from her to avoid further suspicion.

The recruits were then made to partner up with each other, preferably with members of the opposite sex, and the general idea was that partners were to have sexual relations at some time every week and were not to develop any attachments from it. Refusal meant permanent death, or “perma-death,” as it was called, and as jumpers, they were mere recruits doing as they were commanded until the time when they prove themselves worthy to be given the rank of person.

They were next given number designations as names, which were to be used on missions and in espionage operations. Names were only given to jumpers who had proved themselves worthy of being regarded as persons. Rafian became number 03 (pronounced Zero Three), and Camille was number 11. He saw her get paired with a large, red-headed man who got number 13, and it crushed him to think about what would be happening to her moving forward. It took everything within him not to go berserk and start killing every spy there, but of course he knew that he was outmatched. Still, the thought of Camille in another man’s arms made him truly feel the horrors of his new position, and for the first time in years, he felt completely helpless to play the part of savior.

The girl he got partnered with was the spitfire who had gotten herself cloned. They were escorted to their room, which seemed very mundane compared to the stark white aesthetic of the rest of the building. It was a metal-walled tiny room with full-sized plasteel beds that took up the majority of the space. There was enough walking room for a single person to shuffle between the beds to access the storage dressers, and next to the entry were a tiny refrigerator and stove.

Based on the size of the room, Rafian realized how close they would be forced to be. He tried to figure in his mind how he could make things less awkward between himself and his new partner.

“I could just die,” the girl said. She was pale with dark-almond eyes; long, shiny black hair; and a face that could be best described as plain. Rafian felt no real physical attraction to her, but something about the way she had fought back earlier made him look at her with admiration. Her name was Tayden Lark, and she was given the number 05 by the jumper commander who killed her. They found out that his name was Arn. He seemed to be more feared than respected by the veteran jumpers, and in his presence, nobody talked without permission.

The girl who introduced herself as Tayden Lark was a first-grade starfighter on her own ship and colonel to a squadron of rangers known as the Screaming Ayries. Rafian had fought alongside them in the past, but the situation had been so intense that there was no way Tayden would remember him.

“Tayden, you are a leader of men; you have to come to terms with this,” Rafian finally said after listening to her complain for what seemed like hours.

“Thype this shtill, Rafian! What if I don’t come to terms with this lunacy, huh? Cloning, warping, and forcing rape on us weekly? How are you good with any of this?”

“Whoa, who said anything about rape?” Rafian snapped back, suddenly concerned.

“It’s sex that we didn’t sign up for or WANT, Rafian, oh great ‘leader of men!’”

She stared at him angrily as if he were the dumbest man alive. “Do you or your girlfriend out there want to be made to cheat on each other every single night? Or are you looking forward to nailing every girl in here? If it’s the latter, then cheers to you, mate! By the time you become a thyping ‘person,’ you will have added ten notches to your bloody belt.”

He shook his head in sadness and retreated to his bunk to process everything that had happened since they were taken. First of all, if Tayden, with everything that had happened to her, noticed that he and Camille were together, then everyone else would have noticed also. He thought of everything the old man had told him and tried to see the good in being a jumper. There were some serious perks to this new job, but the killing to prove cloning and the forced sex were not what he imagined the “good guys” would be doing.

“How can they know if we are having sex, Tayden? Do they have capture cubes in here or old-school cameras?”

“Oh…I guess they didn’t catch you boys up, eh?”

She hopped off of her bunk and danced a mocking jig in front of him as she explained.

“We women have been sterilized. You may want to check yourself to see if you feel odd because I’m quite sure they’ve taken away your baby card as well! A
jump’ah
does not procreate without permission, apparently, a little item they forgot to add to the recruitment paper we signed. Oh, and in terms of sex? We women will be checked for evidence of intercourse every week, and upon failing said test, will be summarily punished for noncompliance. How ya feeling now, future super spy?”

Rafian was still absorbing the sterilizing portion of her statement and decided that he was done with Tayden’s attitude and mocking accent.

“Drop the attitude; I’m not the one forcing you to do this shtill, OK? One way or another, we’re going to have to play ball or die dishonorably in this hellish recruitment facility. My ignorance to this nonsense is not due to me ignoring the signs. Like many of the other people out there, I too was not informed. Do you think I’m enjoying this any more than you do?”

With that he moved over to the refrigerator, where he found a bottle of chilled Virulian rum and a flask of purple berry juice. He poured the liquids together into a couple of glasses and shoved one into the chest of the exasperated Tayden, who tried to mull over the words Rafian had just barked back at her.

He walked towards her and touched her shoulder. “Consider that we are made to do this mess, Tayden, and that we will not be able to drink once the murderous training starts, which you know will suck.” And with that, he gave her a wink.

“How about we drink to you being the first badass woman to be cloned in our company and learn to become friends, eh? You’re a soldier, right? Well, soldier up and become the type of marine that I need at my back.”

Tayden accepted the drink in surrender and gulped it down desperately. Like Rafian, she was intent on getting drunk to break the ice and get things underway, and it took only two more glasses before she was completely calm and relaxed. Before long, the two recruits were chatting; then the chatting turned into joking, and the joking turned into friendly touches, which became a wrestling match. Giggling, careless, and with too much to drink, they began kissing each other in the fiercest way, and what Rafian assumed would be awkward sex turned into one of the best nights of his life.

Tayden had needed an outlet for the entire situation and was appreciative of Rafian’s willingness to take the lead and bring her back from the hopeless abyss she had felt when the old man murdered her in front of everyone. She wanted to make love to him forever, hoping it would delay the inevitable months during which they would have to deal with Arn and the jumpers, but as they consummated the deed and the passion left their bodies, the fantasy dissipated, and she realized that she was still in hell.

Rafian was further under than Tayden was, having emptied the bottle as they spoke, and he was out cold minutes after he finished. When he awoke in the middle of the night, stirred by a nightmare of the wildest kind, he found her sleeping peacefully on his chest. Despite their rough start as partners, he was glad that they had gotten the sex out of the way, and it made him feel for the first time that he could s
urvive the hellish recruitment.

One of the lowest days that Rafian had ever experienced occurred a week later, when he got a chance to sneak off to meet Camille. The shame and guilt that they both felt was overpowering, and it was as if they were strangers talking for the first time, with long pauses and silence as they held hands and stared at each other, trying in vain to cope. It was Rafian who decided to clear the air and address the giant elephant in the room.

“Let’s just be completely honest about—”

“How many times have you guys done it?” Camille cut him off to ask the question that had been irritating her all along. Tayden was one of the few girls who seemed in high spirits during the first week of hell. Camille had noticed the girl’s happiness and came to the conclusion that Rafian had made himself extremely comfortable with the situation, and Tayden was the recipient of the wonderful things he had shared with her every other night on the
Helysian
. He was taken aback by her interruption and fought himself internally with the choice of remaining absolutely honest or lying to spare her any more hurt than he had already caused.

“We have had sex practically every day, Camille,” he said without flinching. Her face immediately became pallid, and she balled her fists and stared at the ground next to her right foot, locking up the way she always did whenever she wanted to be emotionally strong, as she resisted the urge to rip his head off.

“How about you, Cam? How many times have that flame-maned lion slept with you?”

She took a deep breath and surrendered a “Two” before staring at him intently, as if to beg him to save her. Camille had the most dramatic mannerisms of any woman Rafian had met—even more than Vani, the queen of drama, and it always took a lot of effort for him to not bust out laughing at her and what he called her superhero poses. This time he had no urge to laugh as she fidgeted with visible uncertainty. He reached out to hug her, and she stepped into his arms and hugged him tightly, as if to melt into his chest and vanish.

“This sucks,” she whispered, and Rafian thought it was an opportune time to impart on her the new clarity that he had found.

“Cammy, baby, this test they have us doing here…The goal is for us to give up our bodies. When we came here, you worried that things would change between us due to the conditioning, the brainwashing, and now this ridiculous ritual of promiscuity. They have our bodies, babe. Your hesitation and worry over that will not serve you because it is gone. They cloned us, practically raped us, and will kill us without a moment’s hesitation. Right now the only thing we own is our minds—what’s left of them—our souls, and our love. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I got here, and they took you away from me. I’ve come to terms with this vessel of mine being taken and given to the jumpers, and you should know that I blame myself for dragging you into this
nons
—”

She cut him off with a hammering punch to his shoulder.

“No! Don’t you take this on, Rafian VCA; we made this decision as we have made all decisions concerning our careers: together. I will not be the sad, pathetic partner allowing you to take the blame for this or anything else concerning us. OK?”

They kissed passionately and held each other for a time, no longer worrying about the fact that they could be caught and punished for violating protocol.

“One day…” Rafian whispered with his lips pressed against Camille’s neck, so that only she would hear it. “One day, we will change this culture. We will rise and succeed, and then, like all other bullies in this galaxy, we will take away their power and change…this…culture.”

Camille was suddenly afraid, for she knew that her boyfriend was a man of his word and the implications of the treason he whispered would see him skinned and displayed if ever the jumpers were to know his intentions. But she too was fed up, and after listening to Rafian’s speech about the surrendering of her body, she felt a sense of peace that made the idea of martyrdom seem like the most beautiful thing a human being could do in his or her lifetime.

“It shall be done,” she replied, and they held each other in the tiny corner of the library for a few more minutes, speaking of happier times when they thought that they would save Vestalia together and retire there. When they separated and sneaked back into their rooms, Rafian felt a twinge of satisfaction having used the techniques of stealth taught to him the week past to rendezvous with his girlfriend right under the noses of his masters. He slid through the circular window of the apartment and replaced the glass before bolting it, locking it, and finally taking a breath.

“So how did she take it?” Tayden asked. She was awake and sitting up in his bunk, which was her way of letting him know that she wanted to go a final round before they were made to get new partners the next day.

“Oh, she was upset, of course. But how upset could you be when you are forced to commit the same atrocity that your lover is made to do, eh?”

He moved over towards the bed and removed his clothes to lie beside her, but she didn’t make any advance outside of pulling him close and kissing his shoulder.

“I would like to thank you, Rafian VCA, for being such an awesome bunkmate and—”

“Lover?”

“I was going to say ‘good guy’!” she snapped back, grinning.

He was confused and looked at her quizzically.

“Oh, I’m serious, lover,” she continued, this time touching him in a way as to influence the excitement that would be necessary for the upcoming act. He put his questions to the side and made love to her as he always did, vainly trying to imagine her as his beloved Camille. Imagining was futile, as Tayden’s enthusiasm and vocal cues were just too much for him to ignore. He would be lying to himself if he said he disliked it. Tayden had become special to him in a way that he couldn’t understand, and he wanted to keep in contact with her even after they had graduated as persons.

At the same time that Rafian was “tucking Tayden in,” Camille, in her own bed, had taken her boyfriend’s words to heart about her body and was using it to assist her partner, the red-headed Zevon, to get over his own sadness. When he had learned about the sterilization process, he took it hard and was plotting to kill Arn and many others for ruining him. Camille had managed to calm him down, but with the change of partners that was going to occur the next day, he began to plot again, and she knew that sex was a way to keep him focused.

Zevon wanted to be a father and thought that a position with the jumpers would provide a better quality of life for him and his wife, who was left at home. He was a good man who was ignorant to the jumpers’ way of life, just as Camille was. This ignorance now meant he had lost his wife and the ability to father children.

* * *

On the third month of training, the twenty recruits were down to thirteen. Cloning was a privilege afforded only to persons and above—the demonstration with Tayden being an exception. When they squared off in teams to play war games against each other, seven recruits had managed to lose their lives. Arn had been missing for a little over a month, and new jumper trainers were flown in weekly to train them on the various skills they would need to be the galaxy’s saviors.

The sex ritual was finished after month number two, and each jumper recruit was stationed by himself or herself now with a new directive to avoid sexual relations for the remainder of the year. Rafian didn’t imagine that it would be as hard as it was to obey this new rule, but he found ways to sneak around with Camille, Tayden, his always-horny fourth bunkmate Willen RAE, and, of course, Foh, the half-Meluvian beauty with the snow-white hair and gorgeous dark-green freckles.

The recruits had grown—as was expected—to accept their fate as jumpers, and their focus shifted to excelling at the various tests rather than feeling sorry for themselves.

Camille had become hardened. It was very difficult for Rafian to see this when they were together, since she was always a delicate flower with him. But her resolve was all steel, and she was responsible for the deaths of two of the seven dead recruits. Both of the men she killed were bunked with her at one point, and Rafian suspected that the deaths were due to revenge. Rafian assumed that his suspicions were correct since Camille would clam up when he would ask. He felt they must have hurt her in some way when the whispers started to circulate that she had cornered them on the course and summarily executed them.

With Rafian, she was always sweet, and while the other recruits feared her ruthless ways as a peer, he didn’t see her as any different from his future wife whom he had met on the docks of the
Helysian
.

As the calendar skipped along, the days and nights of training all felt the same, and the exercises were the only thing that had any variation for them. Since each of the recruits had been an elite soldier prior to coming here, physically the training was not difficult. Mentally, they had all been through it one way or another, and while some adjusted quickly, many were like Camille and Zevon.

The recruits would wake up early in the morning and do a run of about eight miles. They were given a liquid breakfast and a few minutes for a bathroom break, and then they were made to run simulations that would place them in the middle of wars, natural disasters, and more. At one time, Rafian was made to survive space after being ejected from his ship with limited air and no real way of getting back home. There was never any indication what a simulation would be, and when the recruits entered the training ops, they had to be ready for any situation at any given time.

Once the recruits managed to finish a simulation, they were given three hours of break for lunch, shopping, and personal time. It was during these times that Rafian would sneak away with Camille or one of the other girls, or he’d find a quiet corner of the base to meditate and practice some of the things that he was learning. Once the three hours were up, the recruits would reconvene, spar one another inside the arena, and try to improve their fighting skills with unarmed combat. The next couple of hours were dynamic, as it depended on who was leading the course. Whatever the exercise was, it normally took them into the evening, when they were sent home to shower and return to study warp crystal technology before dinner.

This ordeal kept Rafian’s muscles sore, and he began to pay Nobel Dethu—a fellow recruit who was a trained masseuse—to massage him once a week. The recruits all got to know one another extremely well, and Rafian knew them all by their first names and corresponding numbers. There was Tayden, the lusty and auburn-haired Willen, Foh (as previously mentioned), Nobel the masseuse, Zevon, Cathe, Valk, Mithryl, Lei, Kari, and Syphl.

Syphl was one girl whom Rafian would never forget, because she burst into tears when they became bunkmates. Due to Rafian’s height and grim visage, she swore he would be rough with her and eventually harm her, so she cried out of fear that their week together would be traumatizing. Rafian, aware that his physique could be intimidating, made every effort to be extra gentle with her. This led to them becoming very close afterwards.

The jumpers who died were not ones he knew well, but he felt it dutiful to learn their names and honor them. The men Camille had executed were Maurice and Rusl; the others were Destyn, Jo, Akbar, Bryan, and Fin.

As the year trickled on, Rafian and the others began to notice a change in their form, shape, and abilities. It went beyond the training and conditioning, and it was assumed that a sort of hormone or steroid was being given to them through the food to make them physically impressive. There were no complaints about this, of course, but Rafian wondered if there was a reason for it beyond the needs of combat. It was not a big enough concern to raise an issue, so he kept it to himself and did his training.

* * *

On the eleventh month of training, Rafian was summoned to Arn’s office, which was the large, padded, white room that he had first visited. The place still had nothing but a chair, some holo-desks, and furniture that would materialize on command whenever they were needed.

The old man got up from behind the desk, and it vanished into the floor as he did so. He walked over and inspected Rafian from head to toe before nodding in approval and sending away the aides who had brought him in.

“We’ve been grooming you, number Zero Three,” he said slowly. “You and your beloved number One One, that fiery Camille Yan of the
Helysian
.” He said her name in a mocking way, which led Rafian to believe that she had crossed him a few times throughout the year.

“Grooming us for what, sir?” he asked humbly, a respect that had been learned through months of pain and conditioning under the leadership of the jumper organization.

“I know about you two, y’know,” he said as he bit into a cherry and stared at Rafian intently while nodding his head in amusement at the shock that was echoed on his face.

“The sneaking about, the nastiness, and most of all…the plotting. We know it all.”

He let the silence get uncomfortable and cautioned Rafian to stay quiet.

“We expect recruits to be strong, number Zero Three, not broken. You have feigned compliance; you, that girlfriend of yours, and number Zero Five have all played the part of liars and conspirators within this temple of learning. Though you think it your free will expressing itself, my boy, I assure you that this sneaking, lying, and rule breaking were all part of the test, and you three have passed with flying colors.”