To the people, we were just more people dragged into the business. To her, to ourselves, we were the future. A little runt army against the system.
She had us train every single day. The physical conditioning was just the first part -- and you'd have thought the bald man was right, that with one too many squats and presses it'd do.
"Faster!! FASTER FOR GOD'S SAKE! You wouldn't outrun a snail at that pace!"
No. That was the very tip of the iceberg. That was easy. Even her nagging was… only mildly annoying. We had a purpose, and we knew well she was doing her best to help us.
We also did lots of combat training -- much more so with knives than with guns. At first, she used to cover her eyes and tell one of us to see if we could dominate her. "I can heaaar youuuu…" She'd grab our hands way faster than we could react and disarm us, every single time. We all thought she was cheating until she made us wear the blindfold and try to listen to her. … And that's when we understood. We had been as quiet as a school at recess. After that, we still couldn't dominate the situation, but we were definitely closer.
Then there was the standard sparring. Lots and lots of hits, falls… pain. We needed to know it so we could overcome it in actual combat, she said. It was all good until we started training with live edges. The pain. The blood. She also got cut a handful of times, but she didn’t react. Again, we had the theory that she was somehow cheating, but… this time we had no clue how could she even cheat when we were seeing the blood flowing from her cuts.
And yet, that was still only the beginning.
- - -
"Salvador, mind if I bring the kids into this?"
He laughed. "I'd say it's about time you did. All that training would be useless if they aren't willing to do actual work."
She smiled back. "Oh, trust me, they will. They owe me, after all."
That evening, she brought us to the dungeon. In the small, dimly lit cell, a man was tied to a chair. He laughed when he saw us. A few of us recognized him: an old junkie, he had robbed the plantations' warehouses a handful of times. … Why people like that don't just ask for a job in there escapes me.
Kay briefed us. "So, this idiot in there, he's got away with ten kilos of merchandise. We need to find out where does he hide it. Now, I need a volunteer."
A few of us raised our hands, not knowing what loomed in the horizon for us.
"Carmen, you will do fine." She picked me.
I stepped forward.
"Well, ask him where he's hiding it, for a start"
As soon as I faced him, he laughed at me. "You think I will tell you, you little bitch? If only you didn't look like a fucking butch, you might stand a chance." … Ouch.
Kay laughed too. "Will you let him talk to you like that, Carmen? …Show him why he shouldn't."
I looked at her, confused. Show him… how?
"Beat him up."
I turned around and faced him. He kept laughing. "Oooohh little butch likes to tickle--" He lost his breath as I punched him in the solar plexus. Then he started laughing. "You'd have to try harder than--" Again I hit him, taking out his breath.
Kay winked at me. "Check your pockets."
My hand flew there -- to find a pocket knife. HOW had it gotten there, I had no clue. WHAT was I going do with it… I had even less of a clue. Again I looked at her as the man kept laughing. "Oooohhhh… little dike has a knife huh? SCAAAARYYY"
"Seems to me he's a laugher," said Kay. "I wonder if he'll keep laughing once that stupid smile of his is carved into his face."
I froze. …. Granted he was a violent robber, but… but…
She came to the rescue. "As always, if you don't do it, I will. But I thought you said you'd do anything?"
Yes, we all had said that a million times. We did mean it. None of us imagined it could mean disfiguring someone, though. Much less what was to come. You see, after that, it became clear that she didn't really give a shit about the man -- this was a test for us -- for me. A test she'd make sure I didn’t' fail.
- - -
Back at the barracks, Kay offered us drinks. I couldn't possibly drink after what I had done.
She bottomed-up a full glass of firewater and then looked at us. "So. Anyone wants to chime in on what happened in there?"
I looked at the floor. No. No, I just wanted to fall asleep and… not wake up. I'd have guessed the others, not having done it, had an easier time, but no-one said anything, everyone suddenly too interested in their drinks or the floor, or really, anything but her.
She got another glass and came to join me. "I'm especially interested in your thoughts, Carmen."
I couldn't lie, not to her. "I wish I'd fall asleep and not wake up."
She hugged me, teleporting me back to the day we met. Mother and Father. I had left them --their hell-- behind. I had joined her. She had given me life. "It's okay, Carmen. You did what you had to. You had no choice."
I started crying in silence, my mind drifting back to what had just happened. Then again to the day we met.
"You need to fight back." She'd told me that day.
I harshly freed myself from her arms. "NO! No, I'm not gonna play this game. You taught us to be FREE. This--"
She grabbed my hands and made me look into her eyes -- they were full of hellish fire. "THIS is the way to freedom. You can't just expect freedom to come to you, Carmen. You have to FIGHT for it. And yes, people are gonna get hurt. It's the only way."
I was almost hypnotized by her eyes. Behind the flames, there was pain and suffering -- more than I thought possible. She had been to hell and came back, stronger. And she was trying to teach us the way out of our own hells.
"There's only one way to fight evil, and it's to be worse than it. Else, it ALWAYS wins. And believe me, I know my fair share of it."
We spent the next hour listening to the tales of her life. Of how much good she'd even done by doing bad. And of how, by being nice to them, the bad people always won.
