There’s no more gunfire now.
In the absence of gunshots, all around us kids are running to their dead brothers and sisters, maybe even feeling betrayed by or scared of their siblings now that they know what they really are, which is something decidedly Other, something maybe not even hu man, but it doesn’t matter, because they still care, and they care that they’re dead. This is the central truth of their lives right now. That girl’s brother is dead. That boy’s sister is dead. One of them got shot in the head by a soldier and then set on fire. Another threw her body on a burning pod to try to save it, and then she died because she tried to save a life that wasn’t going to make it anyhow.
I see a giant bug hovering and buzzing in the peripheral of my vision, and I swat at it. I miss and swat again, this time making contact, only what I hit isn’t a bug at all. It’s heavy and manmade, and I go at it again with both hands, and when I smack it down to the ground, I see that it’s a drone. I take a step back and start to run, but then the drone rises up again, this time very wobbly, one of its rotors coughing and spitting, and because it doesn’t look equipped with weapons or like it was sent to hurt me, I decide to stop and wait it out. It floats itself up to eye level and then a little bit above, and that’s when I see it. A smartphone, adhered to the undercarriage of the drone. And staring at me, from the screen of the smartphone, is Jane.
I try to take the phone off the drone, but at the slightest tug, the drone flinches and pulls back, does a little topsy-turvy circle in the air like a bothered wasp, then hovers again with the phone at my eye level, this time just a little bit out of my reach. I look at the live feed of her image on the phone, but either the sound is broken or I can’t hear anything in the midst of this military chaos, and all I can see is Jane mouthing something that I can’t make out. She goes on like this for a while, and I just shake my head and grit my teeth and keep turning to look for Callie, and I want to just grab the drone and throw it into the middle of the fray so at least some part of Jane can get blown up by her own firepower, but then I see something new flash on the screen. Behind Jane, a young officer holds up a sign that says: I’M SORRY.
“You’re SORRY?” I scream into the phone, which Jane must take to mean that her message was received, because then she gestures to another officer who then ducks down behind some little device, and then all of a sudden a stream of text pops up on the screen beneath Jane’s face.
LORNA. THIS WAS A MISTAKE. THIS WASNT SUPPOSED TO HAPPN. WE WERE JUST HERE 2 CONTAIN + MONITOR. I AM SO SORRY BUT
The words are going blurry from the tears in my eyes. My stupid mind goes numb, and against my will, I start to remember this one time at the hospital. I was waiting for Callie in the front when I heard this noise, like a little crash or an office object being slammed against a desk. And then there was a voice, one I didn’t recognize at the time but which I now know belonged to Jane—the real Jane, the monster Jane up on the hill. In the scariest whisper I’ve ever heard, Jane said, “I swear to God, if you don’t fix this, I’ll wear your useless balls as earrings, and your brother will fail out of college, and your wife will leave you, and your student loans will never get paid, and your whole life will be repossessed by the U.S. government, which owns you, you sloppy, useless, inefficient peon in a clip-on necktie.” Part of me, I admit, wanted to find the owner of the voice and shake her hand for being a good role model for girls who need to see examples of women taking charge in the workplace. But that part of me was quickly and easily trampled by a more immediate, cell-level part of me that was completely chilled and terrified. I had no idea what she was talking about or whom she was talking to or what the consequences were, but it didn’t matter. I was overcome with a need to see my sister and get her home, and I pleaded with the front-desk lady for forty-five minutes until finally they relented and released my sister early and with a rescheduled appointment.
This is who has been in charge of Callie’s whole life. And right now, in the middle of hell swallowing us up—a hell that she ordered—she’s trying to apologize.
I shake the tears out of my eyes, and the words on the screen blink back into view. THE ICELINGS R A DANGER. LORNA. PLZ LEAVE. PLZ GET 2 SAFETY, IT IS SO V IMPOR—
But I don’t want to read the rest. I spit at the phone, and the drone pulls back a bit, flutters around in the air again, then steadies itself and hovers once again so I can see the phone. The camera refocuses on me, and I give it the finger.