“Okay, but that doesn’t answer the orange question,” Sophia deadpans, raising an eyebrow. “World domination and fruit packing…? Come on.”
“I’m guessing Omega needs food,” I reply. “Look at it this way. If you’re an invading army, you’re going to need some way to feed your troops. If New York is really nuked, then it’s possible that other places are too. Omega’s going to need food. That would explain why they’re bringing us here. They need us to harvest what’s already here and then start planting new food.”
I hug my arms around my chest, surprised that I put the pieces together without Chris’s help. He’s always the one who explains Omega’s evil intentions like a boss.
An Omega guard yells at us suddenly, telling us to quit standing around, working our jaws. It scares the crap out of us to get singled out of the entire group like that, so we climb up a ladder and start picking. I’ve never done this kind of work before, and at first it seems pretty easy. Pick an orange, put it in your sack, climb back down when it’s full, and then dump the oranges in the bins for the male workers to haul away.
It’s fine until you do it over and over again. Without food and water. Without breaks. And without a place to use the restroom. It goes from easy to torturous in a snap.
“There really aren’t very many troops in the Central Valley,” Sophia says to me as we’re hauling a huge sack of oranges to the end of the field. The sun is high in the sky, and we’ve been working for at least four hours. My arms are sore. My neck is sunburned, and despite the cold temperature, I’m soaked in sweat. “How much food can it take to feed a few soldiers?”
I drop my eyes to the white bins at the end of the field, making sure nobody can hear me. “Maybe they’re getting ready.”
“For what?”
“For backup.”
Sophia’s mouth forms a little O as we reach the bins, dump our oranges in, and head back to the trees. “If they’re on the East Coast…maybe they’re working their way closer?” Sophia suggests.
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t think so. Something else is going on. But have you noticed how all of these troops are Russian? Soviet Union, anyone?”
“The Soviet Union did not invade the United States,” Sophia says, smirking. “They don’t exist anymore. Besides, it’d take a lot more than Russia, don’t you think?”
“Right. They couldn’t do it alone.”
Isn’t that the truth? Nobody could take over the world’s greatest superpower without some serious firepower, some serious planning…and some serious big wheels backing them up. There’s a lot more to Omega than meets the eye.
Not a concept I’m thrilled to realize.
Chapter Four
Omega is like an annoying relative that you can’t get rid of. They’re always there, waiting for you to make a mistake. Waiting for you to cross an invisible line. And when you do cross that line, you’re dead.
Game over.
My first day at the labor camp is nothing short of miserable. I lose my hair, my clothes, my dignity and my independence. Something I don’t lose is my appetite or my need to drink clean water. Hunger and thirst are the two things at the forefront of my mind as the hours pass.
Throughout the first day, Sophia and I work hard, picking oranges, putting them in our sacks, taking them to the bins. Rinse and repeat. It’s very boring. Very tiring. We don’t get any downtime. At around two in the afternoon a pickup truck drives up to the corner of the field.
Prisoners start flooding towards it. Sophia and I hang back, cautious. Until we see that there’s a huge plastic water tank on the back of the pickup bed. We approach slowly and I watch while prisoners fill old milk cartons, thermoses and plastic water bottles. Sophia licks her lips.
“Where do we get some of those?” she says.
“I don’t know.”
Prisoners push and shove to the front of the line, filling their containers and gorging themselves with water. My dry mouth is very jealous right now.
“Hey.” Grease is marching up from the side of the field. He tosses a plastic milk carton at my chest before giving an oversized orange juice can to Sophia. “You’re welcome.”
I open and close my mouth a few times before blurting out,
“Thank you.”
But he’s already gone.
“That’s not right,” Sophia observes. “He wants something from us.”
“I don’t care. I’m thirsty.”
I work my way to the pickup bed and pull the lever on the container. Cold water comes rushing out. Probably ditchwater. Not long ago I would have rolled over and died before I drank out of a ditch. Today I don’t care.
Funny how things have changed.
I fill the container to the brim and screw the lid tight just as I’m roughly shoved aside by a male prisoner. I hit the ground on my shoulder, wincing with pain. I get to my feet. My cheeks flush with anger and embarrassment. I feel like crying. Or kicking him. Maybe both. But nobody even notices I was knocked down. I’m invisible. Sophia rushes up behind me and places her hand on my shoulder.
“You okay?” she whispers.
I nod.
“I’m going to get some water, too.” She squeezes through the crowd, gets her own water, and the two of us head back out to the trees. Away from the crazy prisoners pushing and clawing their way to the water.
“Next time we’ll just go last,” I say.
Sophia agrees, then we pop the lids off our cartons and chug down half of the water inside. It’s cold and refreshing, even if there are flecks of dirt and god-knows-what floating around in it. It does what it’s supposed to do.
It keeps me alive.
“How long do you think our workday is?” Sophia wonders.
She climbs to the top of the ladder. I work my way up behind her, swinging onto the trunk of the tree. After just a few hours of working out here, we’ve already got a system down. She picks at the top of the ladder, because she’s taller, and I bend down and get the oranges underneath the canopy of branches that she would have a hard time reaching. “Probably from sunrise to sunset,” I sigh. “And I’m doubting we get a dental plan.”
Sophia snorts.
“I’m doubting we get anything.”
“I wonder when we eat.” I drop a couple of oranges into my bag. “Kamaneva said we get ten minutes for dinner.”
“Ten minutes? That’s not enough. I need an hour. At least.”
“An hour? It doesn’t take that long to eat.”
“You’ve never met my family.”
I grin for the first time since arriving.
The rest of the day passes slowly, and the by the time evening hits, I’m exhausted — mentally and physically. Every once in a while Sophia and I will hear the boom and rattle of distant gunfire, reminding us that we’re working in the middle of an active warzone. It’s chilling.
“Hey, listen.” Sophia pauses, cocking her head. “What’s that?”
I stop. The school intercom is emitting a piercing tone. It sounds like a heart rate monitor that’s flat-lined. All around us, seasoned prisoners stop what they’re doing, grab their ladders, and take off.
“I’m guessing we’re done,” I say.
Sophia takes one end of the ladder and I take the other. We haul it to the end of the field and heave it into the back of a pickup. We grab our water containers and watch as other prisoners drop their shoulder sacks into a bin. Sophia and I follow suit and blend into the crowd as armed Omega troopers close in around us. It’s not long before we’re moving back into the complex. We march down the long corridors before making a sharp turn into the cafeteria.