It was the 24th day of the year 2032 when I was spotted by the FER soldiers. My brigade and I had emerged from our underground hollow in search of fresh water to drink. It was the early morning hours when the sky was still a deep purple and the warmth of the sun was still hidden. Shuddering in what was left of our ragged dresses, we raced barefoot across the outskirts of the nearby city, making our way to the water line on the other side.

As we stepped across city lines, those inhuman soldiers caught our scents immediately and began to track us down. Since I was the oldest of my brigade, twenty-two I think, I let the three younger girls down the sewer pipe, shutting the metal lid just before the soldiers spotted me. Just like I had seen when they took my mothers and sisters before me, I was tazed, tackled, and handcuffed.

There was something about the tackle; the feel of the weighty soldier restraining me in a painful maneuver that I had not expected. First came the stabbing pain from the prongs of the taser, sending electrical jolts through my body, forcing a cry of anguish from my lips. Still, I struggled against the soldier arresting me, and that was when an unexplainable occurrence shot through me.

I had somehow ripped the soldier’s glove from his hand, to which he responded by wringing it around my neck as he held me in another physical restraint to halt my struggles. There was something about his hand, his skin that intoxicated me stronger than any drug, and for a moment, our worlds combined.

As soon as his hand had wrung my neck, a lightning bolt struck me, sending a sharp tingling down my spine and blinding the world of the dark, damp city in white lights. I no longer felt the painful restraint of the soldier, or the cold ground that he pressed my head into. I could only feel the heaviness of my chest, the loud thump of my heartbeat… and that was when I heard his.

As one our hearts began to beat, emotions I had never felt racing like electrical impulses from my heart into his, and his into mine. I felt him. His emotions, his body, his world. The loneliness, the pain, the torture of his training. The mocking, the corporal punishment, and the conditioning, as his superiors called it.

I had never heard these words before. Instead, I could see through his eyes, see his memories and know what emotions he had felt during them. Strangely enough, I felt him searching through mine. It seemed as though he were searching for answers to questions I did not know. But I could hear his questions, repeating wildly through his mind; his deep, sad thoughts echoing vividly.

Who are you? Why is this happening? How do I know you? Why do I feel this way?

Before I could begin to ask him my own questions, our connection was shattered. Other soldiers had appeared and pulled him to his feet as I lay handcuffed on the street.

“Hostile is in custody. Prepare for Headquarters transport,” another voice announced, and I managed to gaze up, spotting two heavily armed and uniformed FER soldiers staring down at me.

The tone of their deep voices made a vibrating chill in my chest, not used to hearing the sounds that males made.

The soldier I had felt the connection with looked like any other FER I had seen, and I knew there was only one distinguishable feature among them. Desperately, I squinted my eyes to make out the numbers engraved into his gold badge that was hooked to his bulletproof vest.

2012

“2012,” I whispered faintly, and the soldier’s helmeted head turned slightly. I was unable to see beyond the darkness of his helmet, but I continued to repeat the number in a whisper, so I would not forget.

“We’ll have Squad Legion 5 enter the sewer lines for the other females,” the newer soldier announced to 2012, who seemed transfixed on me. The leather of the glove he held was pulled tight as he clenched his fist, his body extremely tense.

For all I knew this was the correct demeanor of men since I had not seen any this close before, but for some reason I knew something was troubling him. My heart was still racing from the unexplainable contact we had shared, and I could not take my eyes off him as I was pulled from the ground roughly by my elbow and shoved into a caged van.

2012 remained standing where I had been laid out, his helmeted head following me as I was chained into the van by another soldier, the door slammed soon after.

I was immersed in darkness. The van did not have any windows, and I jumped as the floor rumbled from the start-up from vehicle.

As the van moved steadily along towards the FER Headquarters, the reality of my situation hit me. I knew where I was going, how my trial would end. I was a woman, and that meant death. It was law that all women were to be executed once arrested. As a woman, we all knew we would meet our fate sooner or later, and I was happy to sacrifice my life for my brigade. Since all women died meaningless deaths under the law, at least I was able to give my life meaning.

My body continued to shudder in the back of the van, from fear and the lack of heat my tattered dress could not give me.

It wasn’t long before the van came to a stop and I was unchained and yanked from my position. I was blindfolded as soon as my feet met the ground, beginning to be dragged by my elbows once more. I didn’t know whether I should still struggle or save my strength, in case one of the pigs tried to harm my body.

I couldn’t see my surroundings or where I was being dragged. I heard stern, strict voices speaking in their FER-talk. Finally, I was shoved with an intense amount of strength, my shoulder striking a wall. I fell to the floor, still blindfolded and handcuffed, finding comfort in a corner that my body squeezed into as I heard the slam of a door.

It became extremely quiet. All I could hear were the sounds of my terrified whimpers and rapid, unstable breathing. I could hear my own heartbeat once again, and I wiggled my thin wrists in the metal cuffs, making pitifully attempts to slip them off.

I don’t know how much time had past before I heard the door creak open, and I stopped struggling in my handcuffs, becoming completely still in my corner. I heard the door shut as the footsteps of another approach, and I curled into a tight ball, making sure my body was as far into the wall as it could be.

“Stand up, woman,” a male ordered.

“No!” I resisted, squeezing further into my crease.

“… I can’t remove your cuffs when they are behind you,” the male then explained, and I swallowed when I heard a sort of gentleness behind it.

“Then you will leave them be,” I stated firmly, and there was a smirk.

“A woman… ordering me…” the male stated in disbelief.

There was one more footstep and without a second thought I rose to my feet obediently. It was stupid of me to resist. Perhaps they would not harm me if I was obedient.

Shaking and huddled, I squeezed my thin frame into the crevice of the wall again.

“I’m not going to harm you,” said the male.

“Why should I believe you?” I spat.

“Did you… Did you feel it? Back on the street… Did you feel it, too?” came an unstable, breathy question, and at once, my heart lit up like fire.

It was 2012 in the room with her.

“I felt it…” I whispered back, not knowing where my own voice went.

“Let me remove your cuffs…” 2012 said quietly, and I couldn’t defy him any longer.

I faced the corner now, feeling the pressure of his fingertips unlocking the springs of the cuffs before they fell from my wrists to the floor. My heart continued to blaze like a wildfire, knowing the soldier stood so close to me.

My whole life, I was raised to fear men, these FER soldiers. They were born, raised and trained to kill women. They specifically hunted us to carry out the laws of their government, forcing women to live like rats in the city sewers.

But I couldn’t explain it; the urge to want to melt into him, to once again submerge myself in that dream state we had felt on the street. It had been the most vivid sensation my brain and body had ever felt, and I feared the words it had begun to make me think, the emotions I now felt for this FER soldier.

“Look at me,” ordered 2012 from behind me, and I was hesitant as I slowly turned from the corner, gradually raising my hands to my blindfold.

My shaking hands tugged the cloth away from my eyes, and I could only inhale, no longer able to breath.

The male standing before me was young, perhaps younger than I, but the face of his skin was like a map, riddled with thin scars. I could not explain his features in detail because I had never seen a male this close before, but there were two things outstanding about him.

His eyes were the color of the sky during the day, which I rarely saw in my life in the sewers, and cutting across his right eye was a profound, jagged scar.

2012 looked at me in the same, perplexed manner that I was looking at him. He was taking in my features, though I was sure he had seen many of women during his lifetime, perhaps even taking part in their executions.

“Why is this happening?”

“Who are you?”

Our questions were asked at the same time, and we both froze, the room filling with silence again. It surprised me that I gained the courage to speak first.

“… What is your name?” I asked, wanting to know everything about this man.

“Twenty-Twelve of the 2nd Combat Union,” he answered in a tone that seemed drilled into his memory, and I blinked.

“You don’t have names…” I said softly, my eyebrows lowering in sadness. “Is that what everyone calls you? 2012?”

The soldier stared at me for a long moment, before whispering. “Blue… I am sometimes called upon as Blue.”

“Blue… Because of your eyes,” I gathered.

“Affirmative,” he answered. “And you… Do females acquire names?”

I was confused by his FER-talk, but I tried my best to answer. “My name? Is Ginger… It’s because of my hair. It’s orange, like ginger,” I explained, tugging a curl of my hair, not sure if he would understand.

“Ginger,” said Blue, sounding my name out in two syllables before saying it smoothly.

“Yes… My birth mother was executed before I learned my own name, so that is what my brigade called me growing up,” I was explaining, and that was when I saw something flash across Blue’s face.

He looked extremely pained, miserable, and was squeezing his eyes shut so tight that it wrinkled his eyelids. “It’s because of the FER’s law. All women are scum, and present hygienic and poignant distress upon the alpha male and the environment of this earth. Women are not needed to sustain this great society, and therefore must be exterminated like any other vermin. That is the law of FER.”

Blue had spoken in a cant, no doubt the law and the reason behind it grounded into his mind. It was what I had seen during our brief connection; the conditioning of his world.

“I was bred… from synthetic materials. We FER do not have mothers. Our mother is our society, and it is this society we must serve. From our day of birth we are conditioned to accept FER law… If we resist…” cried Blue in a broken tone, and it was heartbreakingly painful to watch.

I did not understand the world which Blue had been brought up in, but during the connection on the street, I had seen that he had not accepted it. He had been conditioned, again and again, until he had numbed his heart and silenced his internal rebellion to comply.

“If we resist we are beaten, and conditioned further and it…”

I cupped his cheek as he struggled to find his words, my thumb resting on the tail of the large scar beneath his eye.

And it hurts! screamed Blue as we became engulfed in the dreamy state. Our hearts once again began to beat as one. I heard his fragile soul crying deep within him, and I could feel my own eyes tearing up. You are the scum we must kill! How can this be happening? Women are not needed to sustain this world! I fought so long against conditioning, because…because I was waiting for you! You are my reason to resist! And I can’t let you die! Ginger, I..

I could hear him struggling against the conditioning. His conditioned outbursts were being consumed by his instinctual outlook, and my ruling of this FER soldier could not be kept silent.

In a faint thought I knew we were both born into this world to be together, and that was why we had been fighting so hard to stay alive, to resist the order of the world we lived in. We only had to find each other.

I’m here for you now! I’m so sorry it took so long! I’m here, Blue!

Our bodies were now embracing physically though our minds had long been intertwined, and everything was complete. All the sorrow I felt, all of the anger and hatred was simply washed away with this male in my arms, and I sobbed as I felt the relief of our world off my shoulders.

Ginger, I’m not going to lose you. We are inseparable from this day forward…

Blue…?

Abruptly, he broke our physical and mental connection by stepping away from me, and I was left reaching for him longingly.

“Please, understand… We are inseparable, no matter what,” he said, and just as he did, the door to the interrogation room opened as another soldier stepped in.

Blue suddenly grabbed me by the throat and flung me across the room with such force that my head struck the brick wall, leaving a splatter of blood.

I cried out in shock and panic, my wound throbbing unbearably as I collapsed onto the floor.

“Have you questioned her thoroughly, 2012?” asked the soldier at the door. “Has she told you where the others are?”

“No, sir. She is useless,” answered Blue in the same toneless voice.

“You know the drill. Sign her death warrant,” said the soldier as held out a clipboard and handed Blue a pen.

My tormented soldier signed the paperwork 2012, handing the folder back to his comrade, and he neither said a word nor glanced back as he left me bleeding in the cell.