Ninth City Burning by J. Patrick Black Page B

colors besides red. I really think green is my shade, don’t you?”
    â€œYou know you never told me how you picked me out back there.”
    â€œThat? I don’t know. I guess you just walk different from everyone else.”
    â€œDifferent how?”
    â€œI don’t know, just different. Do you see the kiddos? I’m totally lost.”
    Hexi has this great brain for remembering people but couldn’t find her way out of an empty box. Like she doesn’t know where our table is, even though we sit in the same place every single day. It’s a good table, so we’ve got to make a point of claiming it regularly. Spammers, Mersh, and Isslyn are all there already, working away at their piles of slop.
    Spammers greets us with his usual “Good morning, chummies!” He likes to be chipper in a sort of sarcastic way. It’s his like preferred stance toward life in general.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with Mersh?” Hexi asks as we sit down. Mersh looks like he’s on the verge of complete and total collapse.
    â€œMersh has decided he doesn’t need to sleep like the rest of us,” says Isslyn. “That’s just what we need, some sleep-deprived dickhead running shipments from the fields.” Isslyn’s actually a sweetie most of the time, but when she thinks you’re doing something dumb, she can be a real pain in the ass. She says it’s for your own good. “Hel
lo
, Mersh? If you die in some fiery wreck, I’m going to kill you, you hear?”
    â€œI’m not going to crash,” Mersh says defensively. “I’m like the best driver in my shift.” Mersh is always bragging about how great he is at practically everything, but this might actually be true. Those drivers are terrible. “And it’s not my fault if I’m tired. They set the required runs too high. There’s no time to sleep.” He stabs a little at his slop. “I’m telling you, I’m ready to go and join the Legion.”
    Nobody says anything to that. We all just kind of look at each other, nervous-like. The Legion is supposed to be this incredible army. They’re off fighting the biggest war of all time, and we’re expected to be really like pleased about that because the people they’re fighting want us all dead. Everyone is always going on about how heroic the Legion is. That’s basically required. We’re supposed to talk a lot about how grateful we are to be able to work all day and support the war effort. They’re always looking for new recruits to go out and fight, but most people aren’t too keen on becoming heroes. People from our settlement go all the time, of course,but the thing is, none of them ever come back. Not one. Never. So when Mersh starts talking about joining up, we all get pretty scared. Like, we all
think
about it now and then. If we’re sending the Legion all this food and whatnot, they can’t have it that bad is what we think. But Mersh is the only one who’s ever serious about it. That’s what scares us. Mersh is an idiot most of the time, but we’ve known him forever, and we don’t want him to just disappear on us.
    â€œWhat?” says Mersh, like he knows what we’re thinking. “You’re telling me the Legion couldn’t be better than this?” He looks sort of longingly up at the murals covering the cafeteria walls, which are all huge paintings of these strapping young men and women wearing romantic-looking suits of armor and gazing heroically into the distance, with like sunrises and mountains and waterfalls and whatnot in the background. The same good-looking people appear on posters all around the settlement, sometimes in their armor charging into battle, but sometimes in smart little uniforms building houses or sitting in classrooms or just laughing together. The posters always have slogans like “Fighting for You” and “Be Part of the