Page 18 of His to Take

Would the soldiers shoot them? Electrocute them? What would happen? And… what were these soldiers?

There was no technology on the planet that could do what that box had done, and the thought crept in, that perhaps these soldiers, these men, were aliens. Was it possible?

She distracted herself with the mystery as hundreds of people ahead of them moved forward, a dozen at a time. The way the sky had cleared, and the ice had melted, that hadn’t been natural. Surely there should have been decades of storms as the ice cleared and the atmosphere changed? Shouldn’t it have taken a lot longer than a single day?

Rex had implied that there had been some greater power at work, and now, as she stared around at other terrified people, covered in drab clothes and wan expressions, she had to wonder. Were these soldiers really aliens, and were they the ones that had made the planet inhabitable again?

Ann was certain her bladder would burst by the time they made it to the front of the line. A group of 12 was counted off and the soldiers pushed the group towards two entryways. A sign on each side of the doors declared one for males and the other for females. Ann was relieved when she found herself herded into a large room filled with toilets. Ann relieved herself and came out of her cubicle to find her mother. They walked out through the door on the other side of the toilets and found cups of water. They each drank two before a soldier at the other end glared and told the gathered women to keep walking.

Like quiet, obedient sheep, the women moved along a black corridor, until they reached a door. One woman would be shoved forward, a metallic door would slide down the wall, and a few minutes later, the door would open. None of them knew what happened to the women that were before them, but they all knew they had no choice.

The bathroom break and the water had appeased them all to some degree, and Ann knew they were all in shock. There were no quiet whispers, or giggles, but oddly, there were also no sniffles or giddy cracks of hysterical laughter. It was all very, very quiet. Ann, stunned into complacency up to this point, watched as the woman in front of her mother disappeared. Fear swelled all over again, and she suddenly stepped in front of her mother when the door opened.

Her mother tried to push her away, tried to protest, but Ann put her hand on her mother’s arm and stared at her. She didn’t speak, she just looked at her mother with all the love she could muster in her eyes and walked into the open doorway. The door shut quickly and she waited, her eyes straight ahead and her chin up. Brave until the end.

Or at least until warm air suddenly blew over every inch of her skin while a red light scanned down her body. Her clothes had disappeared and every cut and scrape she had was now cataloged on a screen that appeared in the cloud of white dust that appeared around her. She looked down to see the white dust was the very outer layer of her skin and presumably her clothes. Every dead skin cell and hair below her collar bone disappeared as the scanner searched her for injuries and health problems.

The words on the screen were in English, and she could see that she was given a fertility rating of 100%. Well, that’s great she thought, and the hair removal without waxing or shaving was awesome, but why the hell did her ability to bear children matter? She could understand wanting to know if someone was ill, but their fertility rating?

That sent a new fear down her spine but all she could do was splutter as the scanner moved over her head and cool air blew at her head. Her long hair tangled in the wind, but fell down her back, clean and shiny. A new door opened, and Ann walked through it. As she did so, she felt a burning sensation on the top of her wrists and looked down.

A barcode was etched into her skin, some kind of tattoo. Her skin wasn’t marked or bleeding, nor was it blistered, it was just… marked. She also now had some kind of black silk cloth wrapped around her body. It left very little to the imagination, but at least it covered her.

She didn’t like being marked, but she saw no one to complain to. All she saw were people like her, hundreds of them, pressed into a solid white room with nothing in it but people. She pressed herself against a wall and waited, hopeful that her mother and father would soon emerge. It didn’t take long before they came out of the doors behind Ann, barefoot but covered in the same black silk.

“Why are we the only ones in black?” Mary hissed at her husband, but he didn’t answer, he just gathered the two women in his arms and sighed gratefully. They were together again.

A new door opened, and Ann and her family learned that a new waiting game was in play. Over time, they moved forward enough to see names would appear on the wall in very light pink lights, and the people on the list would move through the door.

Ann and her family waited, and soon enough, their names appeared too. They walked out to a much smaller room, this one completely black, but lit by a small lamp. There was a table and four chairs. Behind the desk was a soldier, a very large soldier, bigger even than the rest.

“You are the Adamses, correct? Father John, mother Mary, daughter Ann?” When they all said yes, he gestured at the chair. From a pile of folders in front of him, he took one marked in black. “These are your papers, your instructions, and your new address. You are a lawyer, sir, and because of that, you have been placed in charge of your part of the city.”

“Pardon?” John said, confused.

“You will be moved to the city in a few moments. Your job there is to keep order, report to us regularly, and make decisions about life in your new, shall we say, kingdom?” The soldier paused, and Ann waited, breath held, for him to continue. This couldn’t be real, could it? Had that many people really survived the last five years? “For that service, you will live in a nice house, be given servants, and all that you will need. You must keep order, however. Only major problems are to be brought to us while we do the Gathering. Until the Gathering is complete, you will be the ruler of your land. But we are the overlords. Don’t forget that.”

The way he said Gathering told Ann that the word was likely capitalized if it was ever written. She stared at the soldier, relief on the horizon, but for now, she was confused. There was something familiar about this soldier, about how he tilted his head, and the deep pitch of his voice. But she didn’t know any of them. So how could he be familiar?