SENTINEL 555: WAR ✔

1 QUIET

Dev kept her eyes low as she watched the woman struggle to type in the names.

The Outerlimits, miles away from the main cities, housed their poor. It was also where they recruited Volunteers—their law enforcement. Nearly two hundred years ago, the world came to an end due to the Earth's resources being taxed to their limits. Good air went with it.

Rich people took airships and climbed up high, leaving all others to drown in the floods. But the pollution didn't go away with civilization's destruction, and neither did poverty. Of those rich, some became poor, some became burdens. And those burdens were housed here. While the main cities were protected by state-of-the-art forcefields, the Outerlimits was barely hanging on with it's opaque dome high above. Today, it afforded everyone to roam without face masks or breathing helmets, a rare feat. That would only last as long as the time needed to settle possible new recruits.

Most Vagrants, people from the slums, couldn't write much so this woman's ability to recognize written language and utilize it in and of itself was a miraculous feat. Still, after ten minutes, and two names inputted, Dev glanced around herself and the other head cadets managing massive lines who simply required all Vagrants put names in verbally.

Dev should have done the same. The wingey woman, so slim her collar bones peeked through her thin dress, kept on.

"Ma'am," Dev hazarded.

The woman turned, not to show her back to her entirely, but to hide the blush.

Rather than force it, Dev endured. Five grueling minutes later, the third name was entered. Dev sighed in relief. She needed to make her sixty-name allotment.

"Very well," Dev announced, "that is all three."

Still turned with her face away, the woman muttered, "I...I got four more."

Four?

Devn scanned the sea of people. Each head cadet, like herself, manned the lines. As potential Volunteers were free to go into any line they chose, most abandoned her lost cause and found someone more competent. They needed to do it before sundown.

The only other line not moving was Sen's.

While all cadets stood, Sen sat against the wall picking his nose. His data clipboard rested under him, as a makeshift cushion. That was in no way comfortable; he was out to make a point.

Dev thought to call out to him; to warn that the tar of his suit turning gray like that instead of white meant dust and debris were compromising his armor's integrity, but when he flicked his finger again, she thought to leave it.

But what could Dev do? What she should have done was what every other fourteen-year-old cadet given power and authority over adults did—take charge.

"Get back in line, old man. Unless you don't wanna keep that knee," was a line frequently uttered to Dev's right. On her left, another cadet simply snatched the tablet back from anyone who took too long to enter in their information. After five instances of that strict move, people got cooperative pretty fast. Better to swallow their pride than to miss this chance.

Dev? Dev willed the ground to open up and swallow her whole, this proud mother was only on name number five.

This wouldn't do. She'd only managed ten on that list before this nonsense had started.

"Ma'am," Dev began, "I think it's best if—"

A small girl, no older than Dev herself, rushed out and took the tablet from her mother's hands.