Saraya, Phoenix City, Standard Year 392 after founding

  She cut her thick brown hair longer in the front than in the back, so that it always fell forward. It was her best attempt to hide her face. Alanna stood in front of the orphanage bathroom mirror, staring at her own reflection. Wide, oversized green eyes stared back at her from a delicate, heart shaped face. Her golden tan skin glowed in the cold, utilitarian light of the shared girl’s bathroom. She was getting noticed. She had tried so hard, but she was still getting noticed. She started, her heart in her mouth, at the soft rustle of sound outside the door.

  “Hey.” One of the other orphans said quietly as she walked in. “Just me.” She didn’t say anything else, but the way she looked at Alanna said it all. They were all expecting Alanna to be next. It was coming. “No turning back.” Alanna said to her own reflection in the mirror. She closed her eyes for a minute, took a breath, and walked back out of the bathroom. It wasn’t just in her head. She saw it in the eyes of the other kids. They knew she was next. Except she wasn’t going to be next.

  It was the height of summer on their home planet of Saraya, the worst time of year. Everyone at the orphanage, ages ten through seventeen, was crowded into a single cramped room. Going outside during the day meant near certain death from the heat. Everyone was trapped inside. And she knew just where to find who she was looking for. Forcing herself to walk forward without pause, Alanna walked straight towards Jonno. Beautiful, perfect Jonno. The first one chosen. Because let’s face it, if anyone was ever interested in selling kids, Jonno would be the first one they would choose. Not that he was really a kid anymore.

  “Hey.” She said, sitting down next to him resolutely. She ignored Yasmin, who sat on the other side of him. At the moment, Yasmin was rocking slightly, eyes closed as she hummed to herself. And that was just great.

  “Hey. I see you got your nose out of a book long enough to pay attention to the rest of the world.” Jonno said. He did not look surprised, Alanna noticed.

  “We have a problem.”

  “We?”

  “I foresee this becoming a we.”

  “This isn’t like the rotten food fiasco.” Jonno said with a snort. “I know you fixed it by changing out the food they fed to the volunteers so they saw what we were getting. Big scandal, food rations improved. Very cute. This isn’t that.”

  “No, this isn’t that. This needs a different solution.” Alanna said.

  Jonno laughed. “And what would you suggest?”

  Alanna shrugged, not quite able to keep her eyes from straying towards Yasmin. “We kill them all.” She said. “After that, no one’s coming back.”

  ---

  “How the hell did I let you talk me into this?” Jonno whispered nervously as they snuck into the rooms where it all happened.

  “You liked my plan.” Alanna whispered back. She had insisted Jonno take her to see the space where it all happened.

  Jonno rolled his eyes. As far as he was concerned, Alanna had no plan. He grabbed her hand, pulling her into one of the more private rooms as the sound of people’s voices floated towards them from the main room.

  “Who is it?” Alanna whispered.

  “Probably the cleaning crew. But if we get caught, we’re just as dead. Be quiet.”

  ---

  “What does the cleaning crew do?” Alanna asked later that evening, when they were back at the orphanage.

  “Change the bedding, leave out the water, bring new towels. The usual.” Jonno shrugged. The whole thing seemed like a total waste of time.

  “Stand and deliver.” Yasmin said, quite unexpectedly.

  “What?” Alanna asked, confused.

  “What does that even mean?” Jonno asked, equally confused. Yasmin rarely talked.

  “The plan, Alanna. Stand and deliver the plan.” Yasmin said, her dark eyes open and disturbingly intense.

  “Um…”

  “The kill them all plan. Let’s hear it.”

  Alanna swallowed. “Right. Ok. So they bring new water every day. Where from?”

  There was a brief silence as Jonno and Yasmin exchanged a look. “We can find out.” Yasmin said.

  ---

  “There’s a triple filtration system.” Jonno said the next day. It was extreme, but not entirely unreasonable for Saraya, where poisoning was the top cause of death. Vibrio angerona, the deadly bacteria that lived in the very air they breathed, was everywhere. And its preferred environment, was water. A glass of water left out in the open on Saraya, became poison within a matter of hours. Of course, no one left glasses of water out unattended. The water was maintained in carefully sealed and filtered bottles, to ensure that each sip was disinfected before it reached a human mouth.

  “Describe it.” Alanna said, totally focused.

  “First, there’s the filter under the sink, industrial strength and state of the art. I saw the actual mechanism and the damn thing is massive and encased in a hard metal shell. Next, Lydia or one of the other maids distill the water. I’ve never even heard of this, it’s crazy fancy. And then of course, there are the filters in the bottles themselves.”

  “How did you learn all this?” Alanna asked.

  “Lydia is one of the maids. She showed it to me.” Jonno shrugged. It had been easy. He was good at making friends.

  “We take out the filter under the sink first.” Alanna said definitively.

  “There’s no way to get to it.”

  “I’ll think of a way. Can you give Lydia a reason to suspect something’s wrong with it?” Alanna asked.

  ---

  The filter under the sink was being serviced by a male. A heterosexual male. That was a problem for Jonno. Heterosexual men, tended not to like him. And so in the end, it had to be Yasmin. Dark eyes wide, her curly dark hair a thick curtain around her face, Yasmin leaned down, hanging on to the man’s every word. “Your job is life and death.” She said in amazement. “It’s just about the most important job there is!”

  “Yeah.” The man chuckled, blushing slightly. “I guess when you put it that way…”

  “How do you do it?” Yasmin asked, breathless in her excitement.

  “Well see, there are these two tabs along the side here.” He showed her. “And then you twist twice to the right, pull, and them once to the left and off it comes. They have to make it difficult you know, it’s a safety issue. Just a matter of having the right touch.” The man grinned up at her.

  “Safety, is so important.” Yasmin agreed, nodding with enthusiasm.

  ---

  “It’s done.” Jonno said with some satisfaction. As was often the case, he had the right touch. Once he had the instructions, the metal casing around the industrial filter came right off. And the filter was now so riddled with holes a small fish could swim through it, along with all the bacteria the petri dish that was their home planet of Saraya could provide.

  “And you used gloves?” Alanna asked, worried.

  “Worried about my well being?” Jonno grinned, looking smug.

  “Just use the damn gloves. If they find your fingerprints, you’ll take the fall.”

  “I don’t plan to take the fall.” Jonno said, still smiling. “I plan to walk away. Anyway, distracting Lydia from distilling the water will be a piece of cake. What’s next, mission commander?”

  Alanna smiled back. Sometimes, Jonno really was hard to resist.

  “Now we go after the bottles.” She said, holding up a sewing needle. “It’s a big pile and no way to know which ones they’ll take that day. We’ll need to get all the filters. And we need to do it all at once. If they figure out something is wrong with the main filter, it’s all over.” Alanna swallowed. Timing, was everything. They had one chance. They had to get it right.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “We’re on it.” Jonno said, sending a joking salute in Alanna’s direction.

  ---

  “Alanna.”

  Alanna looked up at the sound of her name. One of the orphanage’s caretakes was coming towards her, his face expressionless. The sound of her name echoed oddly across the crowded room. Or perhaps it was the pounding blood in her head that made it sound so odd. After only the briefest of pauses, Alanna turned and ran towards the outside. She would risk the heat. She didn’t know where the hands that grabbed her came from. She never saw. But someone grabbed her from behind, and she knew she had no chance to break that grip.

  “Alanna has gotten into some trouble.” The caretaker said to the others in the room, who were staring back at him silently. “We will take care of it.”

  ---

  She was in one of the rooms, and her hands were handcuffed to a bedpost. Her eyes strayed towards the fresh water bottle standing on the nightstand by the bed. It was a matter of days. Within days, all these people would be dead. Days! There were sounds coming from the room next to hers. Alanna didn’t want to wait for days. She needed her hands free. The cuffs were somewhat loose around her wrists, but not loose enough. She pulled as hard as she could, scraping her skin. But it wasn’t enough. “It’s not enough.” Alanna said quietly into the empty rom. “You’ll need to do more.” She pulled harder, whimpering in pain as she dislocated her own thumb. The cuffs came off one of her wrists, leaving her free to move around the room. Only she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with her newfound freedom. She was small, and not particularly strong. There was nothing that she saw in that room that could be used as a weapon. Very hesitantly, she moved towards the door, opening it a crack to peer outside.

  There were a handful of people out in the main room. One of the men turned, walking directly towards her room. Alanna took a breath, feeling slightly dizzy. They’ll all be dead soon enough, she reminded herself. It’s just one night. She could survive one night. The man paused, glancing down at his wrist comm.

  “It’s an emergency.” She heard him say to one of the others, before he turned around and left. Alanna waited. Ten minutes later, the main room had emptied out. She ran.

  ---

  Alanna had been outside for at least three hours, and she was starting to feel dizzy. The streets that were so crowded in winter, and even in the spring and fall, were deserted. The shade from the massive trees overhead helped, but it wasn’t enough. The air burned her lungs. At first, she had run. No one followed. When the heat got to be too much, she slowed down to a walk. And now, leaning her hand against the burning hot bark of a tree, Alanna had to admit to herself that she would need to go back.

  By the time she finally got back to the orphanage, she was nearly too dizzy to walk.

  Jonno was waiting for her alone, outside. He held out a water bottle without saying a word, waiting for her to drink. Neither of them said anything about the bottle. There might be cameras outside. And Alanna trusted Jonno to get her one of the untampered ones. She drank.

  “Lydia will take you for the night.” Jonno offered. His friendship with the maid had grown. After all, she had repeatedly shown herself to be a useful friend to have.

  “Are you sure she’ll…”

  “I’m sure, Alanna. When women offer to do me a favor, they do me the favor. Trust me on that.”

  “All right.” Alanna agreed hesitantly. She knew she wouldn’t survive the night outside on Saraya. Not in the summer.

  ---

  “Eight dead, one still in the ICU.” Jonno said, sitting by her bedroll two days later. “I took the liberty of talking to some of the nurses at the hospital.” He explained. People liked talking to Jonno.

  “We missed one.” Yasmin said, her dark eyes sparkling in a way that was not entirely sane. “Maybe next time.”

  Alanna frowned, shooting a worried look over at Yasmin. But she remained silent.

  ---

  Six months later

  They left the orphanage the day Jonno turned of age. Jonno offered to pay for everything. He said he didn’t mind. And while Yasmin and Alanna were both younger, no one objected when they left. In fact, every adult there was thrilled to see them go. The police investigation had been limited, and the deaths were ruled to be an accident. Anything else would have caused a scandal. But suspicions abounded.

  It was their first night in their new home, a small one room apartment nestled inside a relatively small tree, by Sarayan standards. The tree fit four small apartments per floor, and had no elevator. Fortunately, none of them were phased by the six flights of stairs. They sat on cushions around a rickety wood table they found on at the curb of the road earlier, underneath a small round window carved into the wood over their heads. “We protect our own.” Yasmin said, her eyes shining in the dim light of the one room apartment where they were now staying. She pricked her finger hard with the needle, holding out the blood for all to see.

  “We protect our own.” Alanna said, using the sewing needle to prick her own finger.

  “We protect our own.” Jonno echoed, trying not to roll his eyes. It was the same stewing needle they had used on the filters of the water bottles. They kept it, as a souvenir.

  Yasmin smiled. “This means we’re blood siblings now.” She said, looking at her family across the small table. “We’re family. Always.”

  “I’m sorry.” Alanna said later that evening, sitting at the table with Jonno after Yasmin went to sleep.

  “For what?” Jonno asked, looking over at her in surprise.

  “You just helped us. We never asked, you just did it. When it wasn’t me… I never offered to help. I should have.”

  Jonno shrugged. “It wasn’t your problem. I wouldn’t offer to help a stranger either. Yasmin can play her little games, but we really are family.”

  ---

  Three years later

  Saraya, Phoenix City, Standard Year 395 after founding

  “This may be the worst idea I’ve ever heard from you.” Jonno said with distinct annoyance. He was looking down at her birthday cake as if it were a giant roach she had placed in the middle of the dining table. It was Alanna’s seventeenth birthday. They were still living in the one room apartment, sitting on cushions around the same rickety wood table. A ray of sun shone down onto the cake, the heat reaching through the small round triple paned window and battling it out with the air conditioning they depended on for survival. It was summer again and the sun shone down on all of them, relentless.

  “I’m not eating this cake.” Jonno continued, pushing it away. “As a peace offering, it has failed. I’m not accepting it.” The famously beautiful brown eyes that made every woman in his vicinity swoon, were narrowed angrily as he glared at Alanna. The look he was giving her now, was not making anyone swoon. It had been several years since the three of them had left the orphanage. Jonno was the only one who was of age when they left, while Alanna and Yasmin had been much, much younger. But as it turned out, no one objected when they left.

  For years now, Jonno had paid for everything. He never complained or held it over their heads, he just did it. But Alanna knew it couldn’t go on forever. It wasn’t right. “I’m seventeen years old.” She tried to explain. “It’s time for me to grow up and do something with my life. It’s a good opportunity…”

  “It’s a terrible opportunity! You can’t take orders, Alanna. I’ve never met anyone worse at taking orders than you. You don’t listen. You have zero respect for authority. I think you may actually have negative respect for authority. And remember what happened at the orphanage.” Jonno added ominously.

  Alanna’s eyes widened in surprise. They rarely talked about what happened at the orphanage. “What are my realistic alternative career options?” Alanna tried, doing her best to keep her voice reasonable. “Waitressing? Guess what waitresses do.”

  “They take orders.” Yasmin said helpfully. “All day long. Little sis has a point, Jonno.”

  “When waitresses mess up an order, they get yelled at. When soldiers don’t take orders, they get shot, Alanna. They get actually shot. Do you understand that?”

  “I can take orders.” Alanna said defensively. “It’s only two years. And they pay for college! I want to go to college, Jonno. And I don’t want to waitress for the rest of my life. My scores automatically qualify me for a full navy scholarship. And it’s just two years.” She repeated.

  “And the way you look?” Jonno asked pointedly. “You think that will serve you well in the navy?”

  “Are you saying I’m asking for it because of how I look?” Alanna asked defensively. She knew how she looked. She tried to hide it and had gotten relatively successful at it. But sometimes people still noticed.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Jonno said flatly. “And I can pay for your college. You don’t need to join the navy for that.”

  “No.” Alanna said stubbornly, and this time she was the one to cross her arms.

  “I would much rather pay for your college than worry about you getting shot.”

  “Well it’s not your call. So you may as well eat the cake.” Alanna said firmly. And then, just to make her point, she cut off a slice and took a big bite. And it was good.

  “You have to admit” Yasmin spoke into the silence after picking up her own slice, “she’s very good at killing people. She might do well in the army.”

  “No one’s killing anyone. We’re not at war. Two years, in and out. It’s going to be totally fine.” Alanna repeated.

  “I think you’re supposed to kill the Tundrans.” Yasmin said. “Even if we’re not technically at war, I bet they’ll want you to kill some.” She nodded emphatically. Tundra had been a colony of Saraya that had declared independence at some vague time in the past. Yasmin had not paid much attention to that part of her history class. But the part about Tundrans needing to be brought to heel and fully returned to Sarayan authority had seeped into her consciousness through brute force repetition. “But so what? I say kill them all and let god sort ‘em out.” Yasmin added. The orphanage, had not been good for her psyche.

  “No one’s killing anyone.” Alanna repeated, somewhat desperately. “It’s just two years of service and…”

  “She really is good at it.” Yasmin cut in. “And not getting caught. That’s important. Admit she’s good at not getting caught.”

  “Worst. Idea. Ever.” Jonno said flatly, refusing to touch the cake.

  ---

  Alanna was standing outside the Sarayan navy recruitment office. The sign that read “navy recruitment office” was small and unassuming, hanging somewhat precariously above a hole in the tree that was being used as a door. Awkwardly shaped and small, the doorway was barely tall enough for her to fit through, and she wasn’t tall. She stood for a long moment, just outside the tiny, oddly shaped door, as the relentless heat of the Sarayan sun beat down on her. Heart in her mouth, she took a breath of the painfully hot air. Her brother had forbidden her from going. On the other hand, it wasn’t safe to stand outside for much longer. She walked in.

  The interior matched the exterior. The navy adapted a large hole chewed by unknown insects, the damage cutting deep into the tree. The ceilings were low, the walls oddly shaped, and the space was barely big enough to fit the aging, overweight bald soldier in a faded green navy uniform, eyeing her with some interest.

  “ID?” The man said, cheerfully enough.

  Alanna stepped forward, placing her ID on the slightly rickety green plastic desk that stood between them.

  He glanced down at her ID briefly, before looking back up. “You’re a Summers.” He said, eyeing her up and down with even more interest. On Saraya, Summers meant orphan.

  “I have my exam scores…” Alanna began.

  “No one cares, Summers. If this were a real war, you’d be cannon fodder. But it’s not a real war. We don’t need you just now, honey.”

  “I qualified for the university scholarship.” Alanna said flatly. “It’s an automatic qualification. I’m here to sign up.”

  “You willing to do anything else?”

  Alanna looked at the recruiter sitting at his rickety plastic table, on his equally undersized and uncomfortable looking plastic chair, his dirty boots on the table. His squinty eyes looked her up and down again. “No. I qualified for the scholarship based on my scores.” She repeated.

  “I’ll think about it.” The man responded.

  And that, was that. Spinning on her heel, Alanna walked back out of the recruitment office and went home.

  The navy confirmed her admission to the program six months later.