I placed a hand on the bag beside me, and looked around the gray room that I had spent the past four and a half months in. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. Slow in, slow out. Just as the doctor had started to teach me, before-
I slammed a mental door shut on that thought, and opened my eyes again, as I heard the door open.
Dr. Travis smiled gently at me as he stood in the door. "Ready to go home, Rachel?"
I gave him a tiny smile, letting some, but not all, of the bitterness show. Dr. Travis was my friend, but I didn't trust anyone completely. Not anymore. "I didn't realize I actually had a home."
"You'll see your parents and your sisters again."
"Yeah, but I'm not the same person anymore, am I? The Rachel who belonged there is gone." I looked at the bag under my right hand, and told him, "Thank you for getting the General to let me keep the books."
Dr. Travis gave me a sly smile. "I didn't actually mention which books, specifically. I just said that you wanted to keep some of the books he never read himself. I'm sure he thinks that the books you have are those silly romances that used to belong to his wife. Perfectly harmless."
I grinned back. "He's obviously never read 'The Canterbury Tales' has he?" That book had been one of the first I'd read here, and the first I'd really loved, once I'd puzzled through the old-fashioned English.
Dr. Travis smiled and held out a hand to me. I slid off the bed, grabbed my bag and walked to the door. Dr. Travis lightly placed his hand on my shoulder, and for the first time I didn't flinch.
*
When we were in the car, Dr. Travis switched on the radio, adjusting it to the news channel. "Do you mind?" he asked.
I shook my head. As we reached the freeway, I bunched up my jacket and put it against the window as a pillow. I shut my eyes, so Dr. Travis would think I was asleep. It made sense, as I'd only been fully recovered for a few days; Dr. Travis had exaggerated my condition to get me back home sooner. But I was really looking inside my head. My memories.
*
When I'd first been sent to the re-education
camp, a girl on the train had warned my friend Cait and me that girls who
weren't properly trained after a month became slaves. When I'd objected
because of my fitness and high
intelligence, she told us that the girls
from the re-education camps were usually sent to serve men high in the
military.
God, I wish I'd listened.
Cait was a three-timer, and had the routine
down pat. To be extra convincing, she'd stretched out her defiance
for two weeks before becoming meek and mild, and being sent home as a 'success'.
The day before she left, she'd come to see me in the medical section.
It was my third time in as many weeks. I just couldn't keep my mouth
shut around the guards, and while I was used to the occasional blow from
my father, the guards were
trained to cause the maximum amount of
damage. I'd already had several teeth loosened, my nose broken and
a badly bleeding head wound.
I was waiting for the stitches to be put in, when Cait sneaked in.
"Rachel, try to behave. Get yourself sent back. Be good here, and you can be yourself at home." Her voice became urgent. "You have to learn to bend, Rachel, or the bastards will break you."
I shook my head gingerly, just enough not to set my wound bleeding again. "I can't, Cait. I can't let them have the satisfaction."
Cait looked at me worriedly, and bit her lip. "Rachel, I'm scared for you. I'm scared that if you won't let them have satisfaction, they'll take it."
I should have listened.
*
Three weeks later I was dragged out of my dorm, just before lights out. I was hustled into a huge black car by two huge men, and we sped through the twilight to a huge mansion.
I was dragged out of the car and pushed into the kitchen.
"New one for you, Mulkey," one of them grunted. Then they both seemed to melt away. I watched closely. I think a part of me knew even then that that skill would be useful.
I looked boldly at the man in front of me. He was dressed in a butler's uniform, and he looked me up and down. "Do you know where you are, girl?"
"My name is Rachel," I told him.
The butler raised an eyebrow, then replied, "You're in the house of General Monterey, and you'll answer to whatever you're called. Or you may not live to regret it." He looked me up and down again, and snorted. "Who am I kidding? You won't be down here for very long. Not once the General gets a good look at you."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
Mulkey looked at me a little sadly, and shook his head. "You'll find out soon enough, I'm afraid. The General gets home in a couple of weeks."
*
I settled into the routine quickly. The rounds of cleaning and helping Mrs. Mulkey, the cook, became boring fast. Real fast. But it was much better than the camps.
The Mulkeys and I were the only intelligent
people on the household staff, the rest were slaves. Apparently three
had died just before I came, and Mulkey had sent to the camps for a substitute.
He had asked for one that was
intelligent, thinking that one intelligent
and fully capable slave could do as much work as three of the normal ones.
In my case, he was right.
My first week, I met Doctor Travis for a physical. For some reason, I liked him right from the start. He was in his fifties, with gray hair and eyes, and reminded me of my grandmother, somehow. I didn't get at the time why he asked me a lot of fairly embarrassing questions about my period; how long I'd had it, how regular I was, and so on. But he'd seen the same thing Mulkey had, and was trying to spare me, even then.
I managed to watch the guards at drill
as I went about my work. At night I used to slip out of my room and
slink around the mansion, practicing the some of the fighting techniques
and the shadow stalking I'd seen the guards use. The shadow stalking
was fun. I became so good at it, one night I managed to get all the
way through the
house, without any of the guards coming
even close to catching me. Once I'd managed that, I started to plan an
escape.
But then the General came home.
Men like him never see the slaves, which was why he left me alone for a couple of weeks. But one night several other high-ranking officers came for dinner, and to later discuss the war effort in Brazil. Marlene, who was mentally defective, spilled a dish of hot gravy on herself, and I had to help serve instead. I felt the General's eyes on me, and something about the way he looked at me made me shiver.
Two nights later, he strolled into my room
stinking of whiskey, and raped me. I fought him as hard as I could,
but he hit me so hard I was stunned. The ring on his hand gouged a line
along my right cheekbone. I didn't understand what he muttered at the time,
"Stupid doctors… says I can't use what's mine." But at that point
I was
past caring, anyway. The next morning,
the doctor came to check on Marlene, who shared my room, and found me.
The General had given me a concussion, so the doctor managed to get me
to spend a whole two days under his supervision. It was then he explained
to me that the General's wife had died several years before, leaving him
childless. It was expected at the General's level of the military that
he have children to follow him. It could actually hurt his standing not
to.
Without a wife, it was acceptable to breed
children on slaves. But not one as young as me. I was only
fourteen, and I wouldn't be legal for two years yet. He had told the General
earlier that it would be dangerous to use me as breeding material, as I'd
only physically matured a few months before. But the General hadn't
listened,
obviously.
The General was called away while I was with Dr. Travis, and didn't return for over a month. But by that time, Dr. Travis had already confirmed that I was pregnant. So the General stayed away from me, for fear of hurting his precious future soldier for the glory of the Empire.
When I was two months gone, Dr. Travis confined me to bed. I was bored out of my mind in less than a day, so Dr. Travis started bringing me books from the General's library. First it was 'suitable' reading, mostly mythology and old romances that the General's wife had collected. But then Dr. Travis started sneaking me books that the General would have dismissed him for. Some of the General's old books from before he became one of the upper echelon. Military histories, and books on tactics and warfare.
I read about a man named George Washington, who had led a rebellion against the Empire several hundred years before. He had almost succeeded, but as he attempted to cross the Delaware River, he had been ambushed and assassinated by Hessians-German mercenaries working for the Empire.
I learned a lot about the military, and how it worked. I eventually worked up the nerve to ask Dr. Travis why he was doing this for me.
Dr. Travis was one of a network of medical professionals who disapproved of the way things were, especially for women. He had been contacted by one of the doctors who had treated me in the camp - the one who'd bothered to set my broken nose correctly, so that it healed properly and you could barely tell what had happened. The camp doctor had recommended me for Mulkey, hoping to get me out of the camp.
You see, girls who were sent into slavery
from the camps were given a little operation first. It was called
a lobotomy. A doctor cut into your skull and removed a piece of your
brain, and you became a zombie. You couldn't feel anything, and could
barely think. I was two days from that operation when I was sent
to the General's mansion. The doctor from the camp had a fair idea
of what would happen. But he thought that
someone as strong-willed as I was would
survive it. That I'd prefer it to the other alternative. The
sickening thing is, he was right.
As the mother of the General's child, I would have a great deal of influence over the child. I would be able to raise him or her to support the network's ideals. I could help discover critical information. I accepted the offer with enthusiasm. I already loved my child. My child. Not the General's.
But all that ended, when I miscarried near
the end of my third month. The General was furious; he might have killed
me, if he'd been nearby. But he was in Allegiance, the national capital,
in the middle of shipping
out to the frontlines in Brazil to help
co-ordinate the army against the Primitive guerillas. Dr. Travis
persuaded him to let me be released to my family. He even organized
a trust fund for me, that I could use the income from
when I turned twenty-one, or to go to
my husband.
When Dr. Travis had warned the General that it was dangerous for me to become pregnant, he was right. I was so young that the baby was malformed, it couldn't grow properly and died. When my body rejected the tiny corpse, it ripped me up inside. It would be a miracle if I ever managed to get pregnant again.
My near-infertility meant it would be very hard for me to find a husband. My family could easily get proof that it was the General's fault. It would ruin his career. Even if he denied that he was the one who got me pregnant, I was still his responsibility. The guards at the camps for teenage girls were strictly trained not to touch the prisoners just for this reason. Don't want the now good little girls to be unable to bear children, do we?
So I was going home. Whatever that meant. I would have to be careful not to do anything that would get me sent back to the camps, but I could handle that. I would be a proper girl to the world, and be whatever I wanted inside. But I would never have to see the General again. I was free.
I was FREE.
God, what a beautiful word.