Lethal to the Touch

Lilli woke to the sharp rap of an annoyingly punctual fist on the door. “Wake up girls, inspection’s in 15 minutes!” Captain Treller’s booming voice easily pierced through the thick oak door. “Breakfast is at 0800 hours!”  Lilli, of course, knew this already. She had known it for the ten years she had been confined to Waynard’s Military Academy. It’s hard to forget things that people shout at your door every morning. The blinking red glow of her bedside table’s clock confirmed that it was only 0735, so Lilli took her time dragging herself away from her warm pillow to sit up in her bunk, pulling her thin maroon blanket around her as she tried to convince herself to move. She should get up, get dressed, and make her bed before inspection. That was the smart thing to do. But the bed was so warm, and the air in their poorly insulated room was so cold, and surely she could spare a few minutes to get just a little more sleep. Surely her body would wake itself up in time. But Lilli knew that if she did lie back down, sinking into what little warmth and comfort her small bed gave her, she might never get up again. Besides, by the time she did manage to tear herself away from her cozy respite, it would be far past inspection time, and Treller would have her scrubbing toilets for a week.  And so she reluctantly pushed the warm -so warm- blanket off of her legs and stumbled out of bed, half-awake. She heard a low groan from the bed across the room as Maisie lazily grabbed her pillow and shoved it on top of her head, probably wrestling with the same question Lilli had only a few moments before. Lilli smirked, wordlessly cramming her legs into her too-tight military maroon cargo pants and slipping on her oversized gray sweatshirt. Lilli tugged on her uncomfortably narrow academy-issue combat boots and shuffled around their room, picking up all of Maisie’s loose dirty clothes from the floor and dropping it into their collective laundry bin (where Lilli’s had been from the start, not that she’s counting). She was tucking in the final sharp corner of her tiny bedspread as Captain Treller stalked into the room, ducking his head to fit through the door’s frame. Treller was a tall, muscle-bound man with a figure that left many a cadet swooning. Well into his 40s, he styled his salt-and-pepper hair and neatly trimmed beard with as much care and attention as one might give a small child. Lilli immediately turned and snapped to attention, and Maisie simply gave Treller a sleepy salute from beneath her pillow. “Cadet Lu, get out of bed.” Treller commanded, almost sounding defeated. Lilli would be, too, if she had to deal with sleepy teenagers every morning, but this was out of character for Treller. He was usually filled with boundless energy, which was often expressed through excitement, athleticism, or even anger, but never before had he appeared defeated. “Yes, sir,” Maisie grumbled in return, reluctantly pulling herself out of bed and saluting. The two girls stood as still as stone as Captain Treller carefully inspected their otherwise impeccably clean room. Suddenly, Lilli noticed a sock on the floor (on Maisie’s side of the room, of course), and she began silently praying to whatever powers may be that Captain Treller wouldn’t see it. She started counting seconds to distract herself from the potential demerits just asking to be handed out, waiting to be given to them both. After 47 seconds, Captain Treller walked out of their room without a word, evidently pleased with the room’s level of tidiness.  Lilli let out a breath that she had not noticed she was holding, and Maisie stooped to pick up the sock and dropped it into the laundry bin. “That was a close one.” She said, putting her hand in the air to high-five Lilli. “Sorry dude, I don’t have my gloves on yet.” Lilli apologized.  “Oh, right. Sometimes I forget how bad your OCD can get.” Maisie remarked, her rejected hand returning to her side. For a split second, Lilli thought about telling Maisie the truth, as she did almost every day. She thought about finally telling her best friend that she didn’t have OCD, but she instead dealt with Silicona fusum, a bacteria deadly to the human touch. But she always reached that same conclusion: that explaining anything could lead to far more complicated and deadly results for everyone involved. Instead, she wore gloves. “Are you ready to go to breakfast?” Lilli asked Maisie, who was still half-asleep. “Hell. Yes.” She replied, evidently awake enough to be hungry. They left their room together and walked down the dull gray concrete hallway of the Dorms for 16- and 17-year-olds, the ancient carpet crunching beneath their feet. They made a left at the end of the hall, entering the enormous hall that was simply called The Corridor. The Corridor had light silver, freshly-waxed linoleum floors and dark maroon walls, which held hundreds of pictures of the classes that had already graduated from Waynard’s. Lilli used to admire them, to imagine herself graduating and escaping the hellhole that is Waynard’s. Now that she knew their fate, knew that they would to head straight for the frontlines, knew that they were all but guaranteed to die in the near future, she no longer wished to be them. No, she pitied them. And she would do anything not to share that fate.  The immense glass ceiling of The Corridor stretched as high as Lilli imagined a ceiling could go, letting the harsh Nevada sun shine onto the students below. The Corridor was filled with the echoing noise of chatting students, almost all of whom were teenagers, making their way to breakfast in the Cafeteria. Lilli’s nose picked up the faint smell of cinnamon in the air, which she hoped meant they were serving french toast that morning.  The Cafeteria was a medium-sized, dark grey room, decorated with rectangular white tables and stools, each of which seated six students. The tables were arranged in perfect rows, and there were just enough to seat the Academy’s 237 students. When they walked through the arched entrance of the Cafeteria, they made their way past the long line for french toast (yay!) and took their usual seats at the table in the far corner, next to their friend David, who had grabbed them breakfast trays went he went through the line.  David was the goofball of the three, constantly searching for a way to make someone laugh. His dark brown eyes always held a glimmer of mischief and mirth, and his curly brown hair was always wild and unruly. When the girls sat down, he immediately launched into a ridiculously insane story about one of the lunch ladies, Gladys. It was almost certainly not true, but it made the girls laugh until their sides hurt. At 0800 on the dot, the speakers above them crackled and demanded, “Stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the United Realms of Earth.” Every student in the cafeteria stood and repeated the words they had said every morning for their entire lives.  “I pledge allegiance to the planet of Earth. I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the children of Earth and its leaders, and that I will support, defend, and obey the laws or earth. I hereby declare that I recognize and accept the supreme authority of the United Realms of Earth and will maintain true faith and allegiance thereto.” The children chanted in unison, not daring to disobey. If one of them did so much as skip a line in the pledge, they would be arrested on the spot and taken to a Judge for questioning. None of them wanted to go to a Judge ever again. When the pledge was finished, the overwhelming chatter resumed in the cafeteria, but was soon interrupted again when a girl Lilli had never seen before walked into the cafeteria, escorted by Treller.  She had long black hair, pulled back into two boxer braids dyed red at the ends, and warm, chocolatey brown eyes. Although they were filled with anger and mutiny at the moment, they melted Lilli’s insides and turned her brain to mush. She was wearing the standard Academy-issued outfit, but she had ripped off the bottom of the grey sweatshirt, turning it into a crop top.  When she walked into the cafeteria, a hush fell over the crowd as they turned to see the new girl, but the silence was soon replaced by a storm of whispers. “I wonder what’s she in here for…” “How’d she get away with ripping her shirt like that?” “Who is she?” “Do you think she’s here from the protest?” The girl ignored the murmurs, glancing around the room to find an open seat. “You can sit with us!” Maisie invited, breaking through the silence and turning every head in the room towards their little table. Lilli gave Maisie a ‘What are you doing?!’ look, but she ignored it, instead motioning with her hand for the new girl to come sit with the trio. The girl hesitated for a moment, then crossed the room, once again the subject of the stares, and took the open seat next to David.  “What’s your name?” Maisie kindly asked her. The rest of the Cafeteria started to turn away from the group and return to their own conversations. “I’m Tess,” She said it with the most self-confidence that Lilli had ever seen someone say their name with. But when you’re as beautiful as she was, Lilli figured she had a right to be self-confident.  David took a bit of grits and casually asked, “What are you here for?” Unlike Lilli, he wasn’t bothered by things like self-doubt or manners.  It was Maisie’s turn to give David the ‘What are you doing?!’ look, and quickly turned to Tess to assure her, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” She paused for a second, then answered with a faint smile on her face, “No, it’s fine. I was a part of the Doves protest yesterday.” Lilli drew in a sharp breath. Maisie audibly gasped, not noticing Lilli’s alarm,  then bombarded her with a rapid-fire series of questions, “What was it like? How many people were there? Did everyone get arrested? Who was there? God, I wish I could’ve been there! How did you get caught?” “It was incredible” Tess replied, equally as excited, “There were about 3000 protesters, but only 200 people got away. No one you would know of was there, but there were rumors that Raven showed up right before the arrests started. I was lucky enough to be standing at the front of the crowd, near the soldiers, when they began arresting protesters.” She rolled her eyes at this. “But before the arrests started, it was pretty incredible. I never knew that many people supported the cause, and that was just in one city!” The Doves were an anti-war protest group that operated strictly on the Darknet. That is, until yesterday, when a real, physical protest took place in Las Vegas. They didn’t get much news about it inside the Academy, but from Tess’s story, it didn’t end well. “That’s insane!” Maisie said, entranced by the new girl’s story. “Speaking of Raven, don’t you have somewhere to be, Lilli?” Until that moment, Lilli had not been able to tear herself away from Tess’s eyes, but she suddenly glared at Maisie, startled that Maisie would mention her secret in front of a stranger, and she kicked her under the table. “Ow!” Maisie said, rubbing her shin. “You read Raven’s blog, too?” Tess asked. “Yeah, in the Pod Room,” Lilli answered, relieved that she was practically handed an excuse on a silver platter. She shifted her book bag onto her shoulder and stood up. “Well, I better get going!” With that, she stood up and awkwardly speed-walked away from the table, not wanting to be subject to anyone’s questions for another second. She jogged out the Cafeteria’s steel archway and made her way down the deserted Corridor to the Pod Room. The Pod Room was a small room just off the Corridor, with barely enough space for the two floor-to-ceiling black spheres, or pods, it held. As Lilli stepped into the pod furthest from the door, the screens that lined the entire sphere lit up. “Hello, Guest User. What would you like to do today?” A calm, robotic voice rang out from the pod. “Nothing legal,” Lilli muttered to herself. She sat down at the chair in the middle of the pod, pulled the keyboard out of its shelf in the pod’s wall, and began typing the code that would let her hide herself from the Academy’s server surveillance. After she finished getting past the school’s security, she went straight to the Darknet server. She typed her way to the Doves chatroom. It was open to the public, but in order to post, you need a username and password from the Dove’s leader, Raven. Luckily, Lilli had both of those. In the space labeled Password she typed in an assortment of numbers and letters, and for the Username, she typed in “Oreol.”