THIS STORY CONTAINS SCENES OF VIOLENCE, GRAPHIC INJURY AND DEATH.
12th of the Hazel’s Frost, 2030 D.C.E
Federation of Northern States, Territory of Pelagis — Iron Isle
Slowly the object of her hate came together before her eyes once more.
As she slid the plate into place, and her coworkers began to weld the side-panel armor covering the ammunition rack on the side, the vehicle began to take its shape. Its rounded body seemed almost friendly when she first saw it. People jokingly referred to the turrets as melons because of how round they were; this was funny for the first shift of her first day, before the downward-sloping rear armor had to be welded on and the bogeys bolted into place and the tracks, welded closed and tight around the drive wheels. Before the turret had to be dropped onto the ring, and the interior hydraulics and controls had to be wired and prepared by a specialized technician. Before all that, sure, it was amusing.
Once every bit of the machine was affixed, however, it had a shape only for killing.
She worked nervously on it, with shaking hands. They were held to an exacting standard, and the factory was run like a military base in a lot of ways. Certainly in its discipline.
On her first day the track had gone on too slack, and earned her a slap across the face.
“You’re not building a toy! Work to specification or get out!” shouted the Overseer.
She still heard his shrill voice in her head, every day she worked at the plant.
A lot had changed since then.
Her hands had grown used to the work and its precision; only the product was the same.
It was an M4 Sentinel, and its kin had killed more people than she had ever known.
One of the casualties was the very land under Marit Hale’s oil-stained shoes.
Iron Isle used to have a name, a beautiful, melodic name, but it was taken from it, and could not be spoken of again; and with it went the oil trees and the sweet tree plantations, and the clear skies and the fragrance of the wilds. Those could not be spoken of again as well. Smokestacks went up, blacktops spread out. Iron Isle was closer to the Nochtish war zones than all of its other territories. Once a minuscule line item in the agricultural department’s accounting of Pelagis province, once it became clear that Nocht would prosecute war across the vastness of the sea, Iron Isle transformed overnight to suit the needs of battles that could not be won with sugar and flowers and vacation homes.
At Plant #13 on the broad side of Iron Isle mostly older women worked, and there was only one exception. This was Marit, the tomboy of the Hale family whose many sons were taken for the war. She was an islander girl through and through; messy black hair, a complexion the color of baked clay, and a round, soft face unlike that of the sharp and pale featured Nochtish secretaries and overseers. She was an islander girl; she was not thought of as a woman. Only recently had she exchanged mud and sand in her sandals and fingers with soot and grease. She was thrust through the threshold of adulthood and went from school days and beach nights to four marks an hour for ten hours a day, six days a week.
Ten hours a day; and there was a promised commission for every tenth tank produced.
She had never seen that commission, and many tenth tanks had come and gone.
As the only healthy member of her family left on the island, Marit worked, alongside the mothers and grandmothers and the widows and wives. She showed up at the Plant campus every morning, striding past a half-dozen buildings on a square blacktop amid what was once farmland to reach a tin-walled and tin-roofed assembly building, baking under a hot, cloudless sky. A cool breeze blew in over the open plain beyond the blacktop, in certain places, at certain times in her morning walk, Marit heard the sound of rushing water from the nearby river as it turned the plant’s old water wheel, a holdover from the old farm.
“Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!”
Though less than enthusiastic about work, Marit kept a bright face and a broad smile and made herself good company. She walked out in front of the warehouse, where a chow line formed every morning for a free breakfast of hot oatmeal porridge and coffee. She slid into the line of women and seemed to slot seamlessly into conversations about news, food, weather, and work, greeting everyone around her as she waited for a tray of sweet slop.
“How’s your mother doing, Marit?”
“She’s recovering. Thank you for your concern.”
“Messiah bless her.”
“What about you Marit? Taking care of yourself? You look thin.”
“Oh, I always look thin to the lot of you!”
Marit had a flat, spindly sort of form factor, thin, long-limbed. Though she ate well she always looked partially starved. It was almost vexing. Her attire was shabby. She wore pants handed down from her brothers and a shirt and vest of the same origin. They had stitched holes and mismatched colors where other clothing was cannibalized to fix them.
Unimpressive, but it was all getting covered in grease and smoke anyway.
“Hey, you old bags quit chatting and eat!”
From behind the line, the factory Overseer appeared with a rolled up newspaper.
He struck a woman in the back of the line, for seemingly no reason.
All around him, people started to move faster. There was no longer gossip and loitering.
A line that had moved maybe one person every other minute was now going quickly.
“Nobody pays you to chat and eat!” He shouted. “Get your gruel and get moving!”
After this display, he left their side, and the women collectively comforted the one poor old woman struck by the beastly Overseer, and assured her that there was no reason for it and that she would be fine, that they would help her. Marit saw all of this from afar and didn’t really think much of it. It happened frequently. She wondered if real soldiers got beat around by their officers as much as the workers in this military factory got beaten.
There was grumbling and resentment, but everyone ate and made for their stations.
Marit, however, took a little bit of time to go somewhere more pleasant.
After grabbing her oatmeal and coffee, Marit sat down on a concrete speed bump along the edge of the factory, in the executive parking lot, her back to the chain link fence. There were no cars, because there were no executives present. There almost never were.
It was a place where she could eat in peace, listening to the lonely winds whistling over the blacktop. Almost like the old forest, where she would spend endless hours just sitting around and listening to all the sounds. Only the wind was left, but even it alone helped her to prepare herself mentally for the long hours with the sizzling welding torch, the click-clacking torque wrenches, the crashing hammers, the grinding of the lathes.
As she drank the last of her coffee she heard a clinking noise more than she did the wind.
Behind her, someone was climbing over the fence.
It was a woman (maybe more a girl like her), Marit was certain of that. She made it up to the top of the fence with anxious hand-holds, and produced a tool from her pocket that she used to cut the barbed wire, and to pull the sliced halves to either side to open a gap. She leaned back, and then threw herself up in one sudden effort, making it up and over.
It was there that she lost her footing and her fingers slipped.
Marit bolted upright and threw herself forward.
She caught the girl in her arms and together they crashed onto the blacktop.
Marit hit the ground on her left arm, with a lot of the girl’s weight on falling on her.
She flinched, and shut her eyes tight and grit her teeth.
“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” said the girl. Marit felt warm hands rubbing against her arm.
She found herself responding in Nochtish. “It’s fine, it’s fine.”
Her command of the language of her tormentors was almost impeccable.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a soft pink face looking down at her with blue eyes, and framed by lengths of wavy, luxurious blond hair. A dab of pink colored pursed lips, and a pair of hands held her own. Now that they were touching skin instead of cloth, the hands felt a little rough, calloused, almost incongruent to the angelic picture formed by the rest.
Marit pulled back her hand and crawled out from under the Nochtish girl.
“I’m fine!” She cried out. “But what are you doing? This is private property!”
She bolted onto her feet; was this an industrial spy? She had overhead the Overseer once talking about people paid to infiltrate factories and steal secrets and sabotage production.
Marit had been taught by some of the older women that in Nocht, there were a few big companies always competing to make new products for the army. Those who could make the most acceptable products for the cheapest price won the contracts. Companies like General Auto, who owned this factory, made money by spending the least they could on workers and production. Setbacks like the ones spies cost could dig deep into profits.
And that would mean they would have to dig deep into the workers to make up the rest.
However, the friendly smile put on by this girl did not seem like it could come from a spy.
“I’m Alicia Kolt.” She said, stretching out a hand. “I’m an engineer.”
She was dressed in an almost workmanlike garb, with a big leather apron over a button-down shirt, and a leather cap over her blond hair. She had toolbelts over her waist with numerous pouches and multiple little cutters and drivers and other knickknacks hanging.
Judging by her hands, she must have been doing some work, but her body did not appear affected as much. Marit was skinny and lean from all the back-breaking torture of factory work; but this girl was rounder and softer everywhere that Marit was flat and angular.
And of course, Marit had never heard of a female engineer. Their factory was mostly women, but all they did was put fabricated parts together. When it came time to wire radios and install hydraulics, they had technicians there from the Rescholdt-Kolt firm, men who knew machines. She had no idea what they would let a girl like this do in an engineering firm other than answer the phone and file papers and reply to letters.
Not that she thought it was impossible, she just knew rich men were bastards like that.
Nevertheless, Marit kept her doubts to herself and returned the handshake.
“I’m Marit Hale. So could you please tell me what you are up to?”
Alicia smiled brightly. “You work here, don’t you?”
Marit averted her eyes slightly. This girl had a very fetching smile.
“I do.” Marit said. “I’m in primary, intermediate and final assembly.”
“Goodness! How do you know which one you’re doing on any day then?”
“I don’t. They treat me like a kid and just have me fill in whatever’s needed.”
“I can relate!” Alicia said. “How old are you? Around eighteen I guess? I’m twenty years old and everybody treats me like I learned to walk yesterday. It’s very frustrating!”
“I’m nineteen. And yes, that is all pretty relatable.”
Marit found herself conversing and almost forgot to suspect Alicia of industrial espionage.
“But hey; Hey! Tell me what you’re up to already. I don’t want to get into trouble.”
Looking over her shoulder guardedly, Marit was relieved to find nobody coming in from the main factory grounds or from the office nearby, and the gate guard was in his booth and not paying any attention to his surroundings now that the workers had all checked in. So at least, the danger of being discovered accidentally was lessened, but she still worried.
Alicia flashed her that heart-stirring smile of hers, and winked one bright blue eye.
“I just want to take a tiny peek at something. And besides, look at this, it’ll be fine.”
She opened one of her pouched and produced a company-issued ID card.
It had the large, golden block letters R-K, for Rescholdt-Kolt, the engineering firm responsible for a lot of the complicated technology behind the factory’s products. General Auto had the raw industrial muscle, but the brains that came up with the blueprints and that put the finishing touches on the tanks, all of that came from Rescholdt-Kolt.
And wait; had she not said her name was Alicia Kolt?
Marit looked up from the card and at Alicia’s self-satisfied little grin.
“You’re getting it now huh?” She raised a hand to her chest and patted over her breast. “I’m the younger sister of Maximillian Kolt, the second partner in Rescholdt-Kolt.”
“Oh! Why didn’t you say so? You don’t have to sneak around then!” Marit replied.
She was less impressed with the connection, and more relieved there wouldn’t be trouble.
Alicia did not seem convinced.
Stepping forward, the young engineer put her warm, soft hands on Marit’s shoulders.
Her big blue eyes and invitingly painted lips were only the length of their noses away.
“Marit, I need your help.” She said.
“You really don’t!” Marit replied, suddenly nervous, excited, aroused(?) far too suddenly.
Alicia sighed. Marit smelled a sweet scent from her and averted her eyes again.
She felt the engineer’s hands squeeze gently with determination.
“Marit, If I just show up, they’ll give me a boring tour of the facilities and use me like a piece of decoration! Listen: there’s something I want to take a quick peek at. I searched around the exterior of the factory, but I can’t tell where to go. When I saw you, I knew that luck was on my side! I just need your help for a teeny-tiny moment, okay? then I’ll be out of your hair for good. Nobody will get in trouble. Trust me; I’m really good at this stuff.”
Marit felt a sudden thrill in her chest, followed by a sinking feeling.
“Pretty please?” Alicia asked again.
She could send her off on her own, go work, and go about her day like any other.
However, Alicia’s presence had suddenly reawakened a fire in Marit’s heart that she thought long since put out. That childish feeling of adventure, of making every day a truly different one, of doing more with oneself than one’s lot allowed. That feeling of defiance, of a child who saw rules and flaunted them, who saw challenges and conquered them, who felt that anything could be possible. That child who wanted to be her own person.
Marit felt suddenly that she had been conforming too much.
After all, what was in it for her if she obeyed the factory boss?
She would still get beaten if she made a mistake. She would still get paid poorly.
Alicia, however, was the promise of something a little different. Even if only for a day.
Besides, she was curious what kind of thing an Alicia Kolt could want with this place.
“I’ll help you.” Marit said. “But we have to be quick. I’ll be yelled at for being late.”
“Oh thank you! Thank you!”
Alicia pulled her into an embrace and kissed her suddenly on the cheek.
Marit felt her head would explode if a pressure valve wasn’t released soon.
“Is there any place where something important might be kept?”
That was Alicia’s only interest and clue, and Marit only really had one answer. There was a specialty workshop on the other side of the factory grounds that was padlocked. She had asked some of the other women if they ever worked there and none of them ever had, so it was not a place for regular assembly. One morning, she was feeling sick, and gave away her coffee to an engineer she found who was driving a crane-pulley tractor in the cold.
“Thanks, kid!” He’d said, “Hey, let me tell you something fun in exchange eh? Sit down.”
Marit had sat in the tractor with him, and heard him brag about how he was part of a team working on new ultra-dense heat-treated steel. There was no facility in the factory Marit had ever seen that could do something like that, so she figured that such things were going on behind the padlock in that specialty workshop. Experimental stuff. That was probably what Alicia wanted to see. If she was treated like a toy at the R-K firm, then maybe she was not allowed to see experimental projects, and it must have vexed her.
“Follow me very closely and keep your head down, okay?” Marit said.
Alicia nodded cheerfully. “Don’t worry, I’m an expert at sneaking.”
As she said this, Alicia carelessly kicked a discarded bolt and sent it rattling around.
Marit snapped her head toward her; Alicia held up her hands defensively, smiling.
“Sorry!”
“Shut up!”
Marit grabbed hold of Alicia’s hand and together they ran across the outer edge of the factory, along the fence, for several dozen meters, and hid behind a stack of discarded wooden pallets. From afar, they watched as a guard with a rifle and a cruel-looking bayonet came from around the corner, to where the bolt had hit a factory wall.
He looked down at the bolt, looked around himself, and kept on patrolling.
“Phew,” Marit sighed, “be careful.”
“Marit! That was a Panzergrenadier! Look at his helmet and coat!”
Marit blinked. She had no idea what Alicia was talking about. He looked like any other soldier to Marit. He had a grey coat, and a gun, and a helmet. Just another Nochtish man.
“To have Panzergrenadiers here– and oh my god, I think that insignia on his shoulder is for the Leibgarde Achim Lehner regiment, elite Presidential guard!” Alicia said.
She covered her mouth and seemed like she wanted to yell with excitement.
“Please calm down. You’ll get us caught.” Marit said.
They stole away around the factory ground, avoiding the guards, with Marit having to gently calm Alicia’s enthusiastic gasps whenever she saw something or other that piqued her interest, whether a model of tractor, or a brief glimpse of a tank being worked on inside one of the warehouses, or more of those soldiers with their strange insignia. Soon they made it to the side wall of the specialty workshop. Unlike the tin buildings around it, this one was concrete and closed. Only the specialty workshop and offices were concrete.
“How do we sneak in?” Alicia asked.
“From the top. There’s a ventilation system connected to the air conditioning.”
“Good! I’m an excellent climber!” Alicia said.
Marit looked at her skeptically and then smiled.
Once more they snuck away around the wall of the workshop and found a garbage bin at the back. Marit gave Alicia a boost onto it, and Alicia helped her climb up. In this way, they also made it from atop the garbage can and onto the roof. There, a series of ventilation grates led down into the workshop itself. Marit kneeled beside one of them and tried to pull it open, but she found it quite stubborn. After a second attempt, she saw the screws.
“Alicia, could you unscrew this for me?”
“I’m extremely good at that. One moment.”
With an inordinately proud look in her eyes, Alicia withdrew a screwdriver of the correct size from her belt and undid the screws locking the vent cover in place. Marit crawled headfirst down the vent, Alicia holding her legs for support, and she found herself at the bottom of the vent shaft quite quickly. Alicia threw down the screwdriver, and Marit opened another vent cover, and squeezed slowly out of the aluminum shafts.
And into open air, with little in the way of support.
Coming out of the vent, Marit fell a few meters down to a stack of asbestos sheets.
“Are you alright?” Alicia called down.
Marit took a few seconds to regain her senses. “Yes! Be careful coming down!”
She had hardly given the warning when Alicia came tumbling down out of the vent and crashed onto the stack of Asbestos sheets as well. She raised her arms and gave a little cheer before standing, and seemed more energized than hurt by the drop. Marit sighed.
“Where are we?”
Marit looked around. They were in a gloomy room, a small section of the shop compared to the exterior size. They were surrounded by stacks of materials along the walls. There were metal plates and the asbestos sheets and a stack of metal tubes. There was something large and covered up in the center of the room. One door led out of the room, and in the back there were a set of double doors that emanated a gentle heat. That was probably the furnace room, and the double doors were probably strongly insulated. No going there.
Alicia produced an electric torch from her belt and pointed the beam at the covered object.
“Marit, help me pull this tarp off it!”
Together, the girls grabbed opposite corners of the tarp and tugged on it several times.
Once the tarp was off, they found a tank under it.
“It’s just an M4 Sentinel.” Marit said. She felt a measure of scorn for the thing.
Alicia’s face lit up.
“It’s not just any old M4!”
She started going over all the things different. She pointed out the tracks, which were separated further for rough terrain coverage necessary for combat in the Ayvartan forests and hills and in the red desert of Solstice; and the circular armor extensions on the sides of the turret, which, in Alicia’s words, could defeat “delayed-action AP-HE.” She showed Marit the gun barrel, which was longer and of a wider bore than normal. She claimed it was a “75mm KwK 31” instead of the “typical” gun, the “50mm KwK 28.” Compared to the smooth, rounded bodies of other M4s, this one was a bit more angular and robust.
“I think the armor thickness has increased from 50 mm to 62 or even 70 mm!”
Alicia climbed up on the track, stepping on the bogeys, and then onto the tank itself.
“It’s amazing! Look at it! So much power! Isn’t it scary, Marit? It’s so scary!”
While she rooted around the top of the tank like a mouse searching for crumbs, Marit moved closer to the side of the tank and read aloud the block text painted on the side.
“M4A4 ‘Rick Sentinel’ Prototype GA-31.” She said.
“It’s not ‘Rick’ Sentinel, you’re verbalizing the R-K. That’s just the R-K mark.”
Alicia bent down from atop the tank to make eye contact with Marit while explaining.
“Rick Sentinel sounds like it has more personality.” Marit said.
“Hmm. I suppose so! It has plenty of personality already though!”
“So this is what you wanted to see?”
Marit looked up at Alicia, who was acting as if she was standing atop the world and not just a tank. She was inordinately pleased with her discovery, jumping up and down, clapping her hands and laughing as she surveyed the metal monster she had unshackled here.
“Yes, it was! I knew my brother was coming up with a big new project, and I wanted to see it with my own eyes. All of these changes are completely elementary: judging by designs coming out of Helvetia and Lubon, the 75mm cannons widely deployed in light artillery units are the natural evolution of the comparatively smaller guns on tanks. To defeat the problem of recoil, the counterweight on the back of the turret was added! Ingenious!”
Alicia sat on said counterweight, stretching from the back of the turret, which was otherwise the round, “melon” turret that Marit was used to. She kicked her legs.
Her unrestrained cheer and the way she spoke about it gave Marit discomforting chills.
“So this is what you wanted to see? Just this?” She asked again.
“Yes it was! Thank you for giving me the opportunity Marit–”
“And what will you do now?” Marit asked. “What is your goal here?”
Alicia smiled. “I’m going to draw up something even more visionary. Knowing that this is possible, that counterweights potentially solve the recoil problem, that we can go above 25 tons, and so on; I can write a spec that will blow this one out of the water. Then they will have to acknowledge my abilities at the firm. Even if it’s not accepted, just the design–”
Marit clenched her fist at her side. “So you want to make a tank that can kill even better?”
“Um.” Alicia seemed taken aback suddenly. She stopped rocking her legs.
That savage hatred that Marit felt for the M4 was crashing over her like a cold wave.
“The M4 Sentinels that we make here are already so fearsome and murderous, and you want them to be bigger? To have bigger guns? To shoot more and faster? To be even harder to stop? You see this thing and you want to make one even more frightening than that?”
“Um, hey, Marit, I’m–”
“These things are the reason the island changed! The reason we can’t be free!”
“Marit–”
Alicia tried to speak but Marit staring at her so intensely that she could not continue.
“You asked me if it looks scary? It looks scary. But you’re scarier, Alicia! You’re an even bigger monster than that thing is! You look at it and laugh and want to make it worse!”
Marit’s tone of voice rose to shouting, and she raised her clenched fists in anger.
Alicia shouted back, weeping. “Marit, please, you’re scaring me–”
“No more than you’re scaring me–!”
In the middle of the shouting match, the doors behind them swung open.
Light entered the room suddenly, framing a pair of figures in a white glare.
Both of the shadows darted forward.
Marit felt something hard strike her in the forehead and knock her down.
“Please stop! She didn’t do anything wrong!”
Alicia’s voice protested, but immediately grew muffled and desperate.
She was already wavering, but when a kick to her stomach knocked all the air out of her, Marit felt like something had unplugged her brain. She went out, and the world with her.
13th of the Hazel’s Frost, 2030 D.C.E
Federation of Northern States, Territory of Pelagis — Iron Isle
Night had fallen, and Marit was still working. She was working under guard.
Outside the assembly building were two men with guns, smoking.
Inside it was the Overseer, tormenting her.
At first some of the women had stayed with her and tried to help her, but eventually everyone was thrown out, until there was only Marit, the guards and the Overseer.
Though they cursed the man and his cruelty, all her coworkers could do was to leave.
And all she could do was to keep working.
Marit felt the heavy throb of her wound on her forehead. Every little movement she made seemed to exacerbate the pain. And yet, here she was. Kneeling on the cold floor of the workshop, slick with grease and oil and sweat, her arms shaking, her teeth chattering. She moved mechanically. Her humanity had slipped away from her somewhere after the fifth hour of forced overtime labor and the second time the Overseer shouted in her ear.
She was a machine; she was truly doing first, intermediate and final assembly now.
All at once.
“We’re going to break a record here, Hale!” Shouted the overseer. “You’ll put together an entire tank by yourself! That’ll teach you to snoop around where you’re not wanted!”
Marit’s eyes welled up with tears involuntarily, her fingers looked like gnarled claws, bruised and spent and curled roughly as she struggled to get her shaking hands to stretch the track around the front and back gears, the rollers and under the bogeys. She stood, unsteadily, nearly falling, walked to the other end of the workshop. Grasping in the dark, she found the welding torch and came back to seal the track. With that accomplished she had only one more job to do — she had to lower the turret onto the turret ring.
Behind her, like a mocking imp, the Overseer watched from a folding chair.
“Obviously I don’t expect a moron like you to install the hydraulics and electric system. Just set the turret down on the ring, we’ll pretend it was finished, and you’ll be done. Free to go. Doesn’t it feel great to make amends? To work off your debt like a real citizen?”
Marit did not respond. She was not capable of response. Her mind was obliterated by exhaustion and pain. She shambled toward the chains attached to the crane pulley and tugged the crane along its supports on the roof, feeling like she would fall over dead with every effort. Once the crane was close enough, she attached the chain to the turret, and revved up a generator to start the lifting motor. She lifted the heavy turret, welded all by herself, every last part of it from the cheek to the hatch to the gun assembly.
Finally, the turret dropped onto the ring, a little unsteadily, but in its place.
“Congratulations Hale! You’ve made idiot history. Now get the fuck out of my face.”
The Overseer pointed her out the workshop door.
Marit, dirty, exhausted, wounded everywhere, with big empty eyes, shambled out of the shop, almost without recognizing what she was doing or what time it even was.
She was escorted by the guards outside the factory grounds and turned out onto the road.
Staring at the moon like a lost calf in the forest, Marit got walking home.
“Marit! Marit!”
There was a long light coming from the edge of the pavement.
Marit flinched when she heard the chugging noise coming closer.
At her side, a motorized bike stopped, cut engine, and someone left it.
“Marit, oh my god!”
She felt someone take her in arms. Sweet scent, golden hair.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! This was all my fault!”
Marit barely recognized Alicia’s voice.
“What time is it?” She asked.
Alicia pulled back from her, to look her in the eyes, still holding her by the shoulder.
“It’s past midnight, Marit.” She said.
“I have to sleep.” Marit said. “I can sleep maybe three hours if I get home in one.”
“I can get you home.” Alicia said. “But you shouldn’t work tomorrow! You’re hurt!”
“I have to.” Marit said. “If I’m absent now after all this, I’ll be beaten and thrown out the next time I show my face. I can’t stop working. My family needs me.”
She couldn’t muster any emotion, love or hate, for Alicia. She couldn’t muster anything.
Her unsteady legs started to shake. Marit felt like her feet would slip out from under her.
They almost did; Marit nearly fell, but Alicia caught her.
“I’ll give you money. It’s the least I can do.” Alicia said.
“Can you keep giving me money?” Marit mumbled. “If I lose my job–”
Alicia hung her head. Her bright and shining smile was nowhere to be found.
“I’ll drive you home. I’m sorry Marit. I’m sorry about everything. I’ve been stupid and preumptuous and naive and I hurt you so much with my foolishness. I’m so sorry.”
Without response, Marit stumbled onto the passenger car on the motorbike.
Visibly weeping, Alicia put on a helmet, and got on the bike herself.
Marit felt the earth start to move, and the surroundings blur in twilight.
Though she had hoped that a few hours of sleep would undo all the damage, it hardly seemed to change things, save to allow her mind to more fully understand her predicament. When she next woke, it was sunset, and Marit was hurting all over, her bandaged forehead feeling as if freshly broken over by a rifle butt. Alicia was sleeping in a chair next to her bed. Her father was passed out drunk in the kitchen. Her mother was still gone, god knows where in town, doing god knows what. It was all the usual.
“Alicia, wake up!”
Marit shoved the blond girl’s shoulder, and prodded her from sleep.
“Marit? Are you feeling better?” She asked.
“No. I need a ride to work.”
Alicia looked like she would cry again. “You shouldn’t.”
“I have to.”
There was no more protesting. Alicia must have learned would get her nowhere.
Marit changed into fresher clothes, also shabby hand-me-downs from her brothers, and she took a loaf of bread from the pantry, the last one they had. She practically shoved it into her mouth along with a glass of milk and honey. She would not make it in time to stand in line for breakfast today. Even with Alicia’s bike it would probably take a while.
Outside, Marit took one last look at her family’s decaying, shabby A-frame cabin as she mounted Alicia’s bike. It looked ever more empty and forlorn on a hurting head.
“Drive.” Marit said.
“Marit, I’m sorry–”
“You’re forgiven, drive.”
She said it brusquely enough that Alicia seemed to get the hint.
It took them thirty minutes to drive from Marit’s house down to the factory around the other side of the island. Marit normally caught a bus for workers, but to catch it, she had to get on before the sun, and she had not today. Alicia probably did not know the significance of the bus and did not wake her for it. Or maybe Alicia was as tired and asleep and also slept through it. Marit did not know if Alicia had been punished for what happened.
Certainly it can’t have been as severe as what Marit faced.
Once they got to the factory, Marit practically jumped off the sidecar, and she ignored Alicia’s protests as she ran through the front gate. Already the chow line had dissolved and people were at their stations. Marit ran through the factory grounds, and stopped at the assembly building. She turned about face, took a deep breath, and tried to walk as casually as she could into the tin building, hoping to not attract any attention–
“You’re late, Hale!”
Immediately she was pounced on by the Overseer.
Without regard for her wound, he rolled his newspaper and struck her in the head.
“That tank you made yesterday was shabby work! And now you’re late too? Get over there and start tightening drive wheels. You’ll be doing every assembly at least once today!”
Marit turned from him to go where assigned, but she stumbled and fell.
No sooner had she hit the floor that she felt the Overseer kick her in the hip.
“Get up, Hale! You’re not feigning sick with me again! I know that trick too well!”
She could hardly believe his words. He was the same man who had yesterday overseen her as she nearly killed herself putting together a whole tank all day and all night, with a head wound. Did he think her a monster, with unlimited power in her limbs? Did he think her darker skin and darker hair conferred him some natural savagery that could withstand this? She could not even move from the floor. Collapsed face-first, she struggled terribly.
“Stop that!”
From inside the assembly building there was a general murmur.
All of the women working on the tanks had stopped and were staring at the Overseer and at Marit. Many of them had stood up from their stations, and started to shout.
“This is monstrous! Leave that girl alone!”
“Can’t you see she’s hurt?”
“You’ve worked her to the bone, you animal! Leave her alone!”
As more people shouted, more people felt emboldened to shout and to shout louder. People started to refer to their own grievances with the Overseer, rather than just what he had done to Marit. Women started to leave their stations and to gather and walk over to the man and to mob. The Overseer swatted in front of him with his newspaper.
“Get back to work! All of you! If you don’t I’m calling the guards!”
Marit turned over on her side, trying to get up.
“And you, I said, up! Now!”
He delivered another kick to her, this time in the stomach, and she cried out.
It was this that triggered the mob of women to stampede.
Marit could not understand how he had gotten the confidence to do what he did. How in the face of everything, he kept attacking her, he kept provoking them. Did he not see them? Did he not see a hundred women, old and tall and tough with skin like baked leather and big meaty arms and fingers and bellies that had borne a half dozen children each?
He started to understand, perhaps, when the first thrown wheels struck him, when the first hurled cans of pain and oil spilled over him, when the first wrench blows knocked him to the ground. When the women kicked him as he had kicked Marit and when they found it in themselves not to stop kicking, when they found bigger things to kick him with, when they found things to stab with and things to crush with and maybe, as the light left him, he understood when they ruined and defaced his body in every achievable way.
After minutes of escalating violence the Overseer was barely recognizable as human.
Then the women took their bloodied weapons and charged the two guards who appeared, alerted by the cries and the commotion, and they beat them down, but they did not murder them as they had the Overseer. They struck them and pushed them and disarmed them and sent them scurrying away from the factory. Marit had barely managed to get back up on her feet, when the women started to chant, and to roar. They called out Marit’s name.
Blinking, incredulous of the events around her, Marit watched as the women charged toward the office, and the specialty workshop, and as more women from the other assembly buildings came out as well, and they shouted and cried and made commotion. Every woman seemed to shout her grievances aloud at once. There were chants for peace, to bring the boys back home; chants to work less hours, to work for more pay, to have the commissions they were promised for good work, to have new bosses or no bosses.
Soon the entire population of the factory was out on the grounds making mess.
Marit had hardly shambled out of the assembly building, when a siren went off.
In front of the specialty workshop, a metal shutter door started going up.
Marit’s heart sank, and she tried to shout, knowing what was coming.
From the workshop, something flew out with thunderous violence.
Over the heads of the women a projectile detonated and cast fire and metal down.
At once the spontaneous crowd started to break apart and disperse.
The M4A4 “R-K Sentinel” emerged from the building, and people scrambled away from it to avoid being crushed. From its front plate, sporadic machine gun fire sailed out over the crowds, flying between the assembled women, grazing many, striking some, hitting pavement and tin walls and causing a panic to unfold suddenly. Atop the turret, the guard commander for the factory stood half out of the cupola with a pistol in hand, screaming.
“All of you will cease this demonstration at once, or you will be hung as traitors to the Federation of Northern States!” He shouted, firing his pistol off into the air. “We hold fire only because of a sense of decency you all lack! Your ransacking of a military installation is high treason! But we will show mercy if you disarm and disperse immediately!”
His own voice made him sound nervous, though he put up a strong front. Clearly he was in a panic too, his every action and word belied that panic, and he had done something extreme that could not be taken back now, in the hopes of disarming a situation likely to kill him. One tank against hundreds of workers at very close range, even older women, would not end well for him either. Like Alicia had before, they could climb onto the tank, and maybe force the hatch. He was trying to scare them off. It was all going crazy.
Many women retreated, collapsed, wounded or unwounded; but a core was forming around the assembly building that continued to show some defiance, and they gathered together.
Callously, hungry for blood, the Sentinel’s turret descended its gun toward them.
Marit ran out of the building.
With one first and final burst of manic energy, she stood between the crowd and gun.
She spread her arms, shaking all over.
“It was my fault! I’ll take responsibility! Please stop this!” She shouted.
Her eyes filled with tears. Her entire being hurt. Her body, her mind, her soul.
Everything was out of control and she couldn’t help but think it was all her fault.
Had she been better, worked harder–
Had she not lost control around Alicia and berated her–
Had anything gone different, had her parents not broken down, had everything–
Her mind was choppy, thoughts cutting each other off, sensations twisted.
She was shaking, shaking violently in front of the women she sought to defend.
“Get out of the way brat! This is not about you! Disperse now! All of you!”
She heard a clicking from inside the barrel. She was so close to the gun.
It must have been the breech. She had done breech assembly before.
Someone inside had loaded a shell that would go right through her.
Marit swallowed hard. Even if she wanted to move, she could not have. She was out of strength. Everything was lost to her. She had given the last of her to stand with these women and to stand before them, to try to protect them, to try to make amends.
Now she was spent. She couldn’t obey the guard commander.
“I warned you!” He shouted. His own voice sounded as desperate as hers.
Marit closed her eyes.
“Fire–HOLD FIRE. HOLD FIRE!”
Marit reopened her eyes in disbelief.
Standing in front of her, even closer to the gun barrel, was Alicia.
“You can shoot her if you want! But you’ll also kill Alicia Kolt if you do! And I’m not moving no matter what! If you really want to end this, call the Governor instead!”
She was shaking too. Her voice quavered perhaps even worse than Marit’s had.
But she was standing, and she was not moving.
Marit felt herself going forward, and falling onto Alicia’s back.
She held on to her waist, resting her head on Alicia’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry.” Alicia whimpered.
“You’re forgiven.” Marit said, this time much more sincerely.
Behind them, the crowd of women took steps forward, and joined Marit and Alicia.
In response, the R-K Sentinel backed down. It reversed into the specialty workshop, shut itself inside again, and made no more noise and caused no more damage until the police arrived, and the governor arrived, and cooler heads seemed more willing to talk.
18th of the Hazel’s Frost, 2030 D.C.E
Federation of Northern States, Territory of Pelagis — Iron Isle
Ever since the factory closed down, Marit’s mother and father seemed to have disappeared entirely. As a result of their vanishing near-completely into drink and dance, perhaps too distraught at the loss of the income from their sons and now the income from their daughter too, Marit got to keep her final paycheck. It was a pretty fat sum too — she had finally been given all her unpaid commissions for her good work. Despite this, she could not live very large. Had anything in her been broken it would have obliterated even this precious lifeline. But things had worked out well enough, she was healthy and she was free, and now she could use this last bit of money to leave behind her fallen home.
She would move to the Nochtish mainland and seek opportunity there.
It hurt her heart, but it was all she could do now. She had nothing left on Iron Isle.
Nocht, and Nocht’s war, had destroyed her family, her homeland.
With a hundred and fifty marks in hand, all she could do was to go on, to survive.
She packed up a few things, put the money in with her bag, and left the house.
She hoped to catch the bus, and then a ferry to Pelago, and then maybe a plane or a bigger boat to Nocht. She had never had to think about this, so she had no concrete plans.
Outside, however, she heard a distinctive chugging on the road.
“Marit! Hey, Marit!”
On her motor bike again was Alicia Kolt.
“Where are you going, Marit?” She asked, smiling.
Marit felt a strange softness in her heart and averted her eyes a little from the road.
“I don’t know! Anywhere but here, to be honest!” Marit said.
“Coincidentally, I’m headed the same way.” Alicia replied.
She patted her hand on her sidecar.
Sighing, Marit headed for it, and climbed in.
“Why are you helping me?” Marit asked.
“Why did you help me that day?” Alicia asked in turn.
She thought back to it. It seemed petty. There was no life-changing revelation to be had. She had seen a pretty girl who had made her swoon a little and who needed help, and she wanted the sense of adventure, she wanted to do something interest. She did not think it over too much. Her actions could not truly be justified. It was almost completely random.
Unwilling to answer that maybe she had wanted a kiss, Marit instead shrugged.
“Because it was different.” She said.
“Would you accept that as my answer too?” Alicia said.
“Absolutely not. You can do better than that.” Marit said, grinning in jest.
“You’re right. Let me come up with something better.”
Alicia leaned in from the driver’s seat and kissed Marit in the cheek.
Marit flinched and rubbed her own cheek and felt her heart jumping in her chest.
“How’s that? If you want it verbally: it’s because you’re so different.”
“I don’t think I am, but okay.” Marit replied, still rubbing her cheek.
“Trust me, I’m extremely good at these things. You made think a lot, you know.”
Alicia looked out over the road and down the hilly way from Marit’s house.
“I want to do something that a person like you would admire, not despise. If someone as brave and strong and selfless as you thinks it’s wrong– I can’t carry on with it.”
“Hey,” Marit said, suddenly alarmed, “I’m sorry about what I said to you. It was nasty and you didn’t deserve it. You shouldn’t just do whatever I say, who am I to dictate your life?”
Alicia smiled. “It’s okay. I’ve made up my mind. I might still make weapons, you know. But if I do, it wont be for Rescholdt-Kolt. It wont be so they can be used against you.”
She reached out and held Marit’s hand.
“Marit, I don’t know what to do right now, but I know I don’t want to leave you behind, whatever it is that happens. I know this sounds silly, because we just met a while ago, and because I was doing things to assuage my guilt. But I really want to stay with you.”
Marit smiled back. She laid her other hand on Alicia’s too. She liked the feeling of both their worn, callused hands, a little rough and spent, holding each other so closely.
“Whatever happened to wanting to one-up your brother’s designs, huh?” Marit asked.
“Oh, I’ll beat him. I’ll become a better person than him in every way. I’ll build things that will save people and protect people. Things you can be proud of and love, Marit.” Alicia said. “I’ll trample his scornful steel with the power of love. You can count on that.”
Marit burst out laughing. “Oh my god; what a queer bunch of ideas.”
Alicia worked the bike’s ignition and revved up the engine.
“I’m extremely good at this, remember? Anyway, where do you want to go?”
Marit leaned against the backrest, and breathed out. For once, she felt relaxed.
“I want to go with you, Alicia.” She said.