Temporary insanity

This was something I started a long time ago. It never went anywhere because I was working on another longer story that has still not gone anywhere. This was long before there was such a thing as The Hunger Games or Divergent. I had thought of breaking it up to post over several days because it is a bit long, but the scene didn't benefit much from the interruptions.

1/1/99

“T

emporary insanity. It’s the only explanation.”

The lifted eyebrow said it all. She wasn’t buying it. I was going to have to do a lot better than this.

“I couldn’t help myself....” My voice trailed off as I saw amusement dissolve into disgust. Uh-oh. We have rules about responsibility in our House, inspired by a fathomless belief in free will and reliance upon one’s powers of intellect. Any excuse alluding to a possible vacation from consciousness wasn’t acceptable, even as a joke. Though my sister and I had often felt helpless in the face of parental certitude and confidence in our good sense, and wished that just for once they would admit that chance and hormones might, ah, occasionally overwhelm the dictates of reason, we cut each other very little slack.

“Okay, I admit it, I wanted him to kiss me, and no, it wasn’t reasonable, but who wants to be reasonable on a moonlit night next to a beautiful lake? On a warm summer night, the breeze sighing gently through the trees…?”

“You were supposed to be watching. You were supposed to keep the lines tight. Your pants up and your shirt tucked in. It’s bad enough that the Blue Team was able to sneak through the alarm triggers...which you dropped...but you might just have kissed your best friend good-bye.”

“Come on, Janna will forgive me.”

“Don’t be so sure. She won’t speak to me, even. And she sure isn’t talking to Robb. What makes you think she’s going to talk to you after you betrayed her? Not to mention the rest of the Orange Team.”

Betrayed. Strong word for a small indiscretion. And it wasn’t like Robb belonged to Janna or anything. The Orange Team, though...it was going to take days of groveling to get back into the good graces of my teammates.

A little seed of irritation that I had kept deeply buried for weeks sent out a little root. So I let the Blues into our territory. Big deal. It’s just a game. Just a stupid game.

The increasing chill emanating from my sister prevented me from voicing such a nearly sacrilegious sentiment. I couldn’t see any good way of suggesting that she was taking this way too seriously without making her angry. Angrier. I looked down so she couldn’t see any glint of rebellion in my eyes.

“Bari, it was only a very little kiss. Nothing more. And he didn’t have anything to do with my shirt. I pulled it out because I was hot. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re damn right it won’t happen again. You are assigned to the relay post until further notice. At least there you won’t be distracted by the moonlight. You’ll have plenty of time to figure out how to make up with Janna, and redeem yourself with the team.”

I scowled, saluted, and slipped out the door before she could give me any more bad news.

The sun was just coming up. I headed for the mess tent for a bite to eat before crashing into my cot. More than anything I just wanted to go home. Not that I’d be welcome there if I came home in disgrace, but at least I wouldn’t have this stupid game to contend with, no rules to remember, no bugles, no excruciatingly boring watches. I kicked a stone. It bounced out of sight into the bushes that crowded around the camp. Instinctively I listened for the sound of breathless watchers, spies from Blue Team, or even the Reds, though they seldom came this far from their own camp over the ridge. Then, annoyed with myself for falling back into the game without even thinking about it, I deliberately turned my back on the perimeter and sauntered around the building. What was the worst they could do to me?

As I expected, there was no reaction from the bushes. All Blue Team members were probably sleeping off a wild victory feast. A little guiltily I looked at the niche carved into the flat face of a broken granite boulder facing the mess tent entry. Empty. Blue Team had crept by my untended sentry post to steal our team emblem. A small unexpected shame crept into my thoughts. It was my fault. Or mine and Robb’s together—why should I take all the blame? But what were they getting so worked up about? It wasn’t the end of the world. There was always the next round.

It was very quiet, even considering the earliness of the hour. I couldn’t be the only one looking for a snack before a long awaited snooze. I pushed open the door of the tent.

They were all inside. The entire Orange Team minus Bari and a few who must be on sentry duty, even though there was nothing to protect at the moment. The entire Blue Team minus Janna. More surprising was the sight of the six team captains seated together all on one side of a long table facing the door.

I backed out, closing the door quietly, ready to run. Before I could turn, two sets of hands clapped down on my shoulders and around my wrists, and propelled me back into the tent to stand before the captains. Resisting the urge to launch into an unseemly struggle, I turned my head just enough to see who cutting off the circulation to my arms. Toriph and Shane, big and dumb, usually good humored and friendly, now as dour as any veteran and just as unrelenting, squeezed my arms hard enough to leave bruises. I advanced a couple of involuntary steps toward the captains when then released me with a less-than-friendly shove. They hulked back to take up positions by the door.

What is this, I wondered. The tent had the feel of a courtroom. Was I on trial?

There was a scuffle from behind the captains, a short cry cut off. The crowd milled around to make way for four guards dragging a worn-out looking Robb. His shirt was missing. He leaned over next to me, panting with his hands on his knees. Sweat ran down his sides and darkened the waistband of his pants. He didn’t look at me.

Maur, captain of Orange Team, stood up. “Bezzitt. Robb. Thanks to you we have lost the emblem and have sunk to the shame of last place. This has never happened in the history of Orange Team. What do you have to say for yourselves?”

I looked at Robb to see if the ridiculousness of this situation was apparent to him as well. I mean, teams lost all the time, and it never required an entire conclave of team leaders. Robb only scowled a the floor.

Maur, apparently not expecting any more response than this, went on. “Due to the unprecedented nature of this crime,”—crime? He’s calling losing a round of a game a crime?—“we have no guidelines to determine punishment. So we have had to devise one on our own.”

He nodded to Toriph and Shane. They stepped purposefully toward me. I backed away until I bumped into the table. I frantically searched the room for a friendly face, anyone who might explain to me what was going on. They each dug their fingernails into my arms, breaking the stitching that held my orange team insignia on my sleeves, and pulled. Long strips of fabric came away with each patch. I gaped at what was left of my sleeves, not quite believing what was happening. This didn’t feel like a game at all anymore, not one bit.

 Maur opened his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted by someone yelling outside the tent. Screeching like a banshee was more like it. The door banged open. Shane and Toriph rushed to help three more guards bring someone else in, someone with tangled brown hair covering her face, but nothing could disguise that voice from me.

Janna. Friend of a dozen years, nearly a sister. They were hurting her. I leaped into the fray screaming and scratching until they had to let her go to deal with me.

She looked at me with an expression I’d never seen on her face. Hurt. Shame. But mostly hatred. She pulled her uniform straight and marched up before the tribunal.

“Why am I being treated like a villain? I led my troop to victory fair and square. You should be pinning a medal on me, not interrogating me and throwing me in the pot with the likes of those two.”

 Blue Captain, a large girl with chiseled features, spoke quietly. “You are charged with collusion with the intent to commit treason.”

“Collusion? Me? What on earth are you talking about? I just waited for an opportunity and took it. Isn’t that what the game is all about?”

“Which opportunity would that be, Blue? The one where you wait for an inattentive sentry, or the one where you find an accomplice willing to distract his fellow sentry in exchange for...favors?”

Janna turned white at this and slowly brought her eyes to meet Robb’s. He smiled like a wolf and straightened up. Suddenly he didn’t look so beaten. I could feel my eyes narrow as I looked at him. I was starting to feel wolfish myself.

“Robb?” Janna’s voice came out as a hoarse whisper. It dawned on me that the whole romantic scene had been arranged for the benefit of the Blue Team by my good friend Janna. But she couldn’t have done this to me on purpose. She couldn’t possibly have known who Robb’s partner would be. I hadn’t even known my assignment until an hour before the shift began. Had he been prepared to distract anyone who had been his partner? Would she have done it if she had known that her plans would involve me, her best friend? If Robb’s partner turned out to be another boy, would Janna have done the seducing while Robb looked the other way and let the Blues in? Now it appeared that, having betrayed the Oranges, Robb had then betrayed his co-conspirator. For the shortest of moments I was stung by having been played for a willing fool. The look on Janna’s face, though, wiped away any notion of anger for my own sake, or even for the sake of the team. There had obviously been much more at stake for her.

I looked back at Robb. He was new to our team, although like everyone else on all the teams, I had known him for most of my life, the way one knows the hills that surround the village, the way one knows the rhythm of the day...that is to say, as something one knows by habit but not necessarily by heart.

He had an air of someone expecting a reward. He smiled at Greeve, the Blue captain, conspiratorially, then I remembered that he had been on the Blue Team before he’d been traded to the Oranges at the annual shuffle. She looked back at him stonily.

“Both the Blue and the Orange teams are shamed by the actions of those who think the game is nothing more than a complicated amusement, a set of hoops to jump through on the way to adulthood. It’s time we reminded everybody just how serious this game is.”

Robb’s eyes widened at her indictment, shocked, maybe, by the unexpected severity. Janna’s face turned fierce, her eyes narrow and shiny, as though she were about to commit mayhem. Now that was an expression I’d seen before. She always looked like that when she was doing her best not to cry.

Toriph laid a hand on Janna’s neck, as a warning or perhaps only to steady her while Greeve, her team captain, whom she must have hoped to please, stepped around the table and stood before her.

“You are hereby released from Blue Team.” She dug her fingernails under the stitching of the Blue insignia on each of Janna’s shoulders and pulled. Threads broke sounding like the crackle of static electricity. Janna stood white-faced, swaying slightly. I was afraid she would faint, but she kept her feet. She kept her eyes straight ahead, not looking at the dark spots on her shirt where the patches had kept the cloth from fading. I, on the other hand, stared at them with awful fascination.

Robb’s self-satisfied smirk drooped. I expect that his dreams of reward were twisting into nightmares.

Maur gestured to Toriph, who pulled a wad of cloth out of a back pocket. Robb’s uniform shirt. Toriph handed the shirt to Greeve, who passed it on to Maur. The Orange captain ripped the emblems off Robb’s shirt. He wadded up the shirt and pitched it at Robb’s feet. Robb swayed, his face pasty white and coated with an oily sheen.

Greeve collected the patches. She took them over to the table where Red Captain and Green Captain opened a black metal box. Greeve handed the patches to Silver Captain who wrapped them in parchment and sealed the package with orange and blue wax. He laid them in the box. Yellow Captain locked the box with a key on her chain. All of the captains went back to their seats and sat facing us like a row of vultures.

The three of us stood silently aghast, Robb maybe most of all.

“You three are declared Teamless,” said Yellow Captain. “You will go into the hills together. You will live together. You will depend on each other and no one else. If you are found by members of another team, as long as you are within hailing distance of at least one of the others, they will leave you alone. If, however, one of you is found completely alone, another team may capture you and you will be in their power. Completely.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the tears running down Janna’s cheeks. Robb was breathing heavily, his head turning back and forth, looking for mercy, maybe. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. What a joke. So I would have to wash all of some camp’s dishes. Boring but bearable. At least dirty dishes actually needed to be washed. Better than all this skulking around in the bushes watching other teams protecting their worthless mascot. Maybe I should try to get caught.

“Your, ah, Teamless mates will be responsible for your rescue. For the next six months,” (I heard a gasp from Janna) “you will rely only on each other for aid and safety. If at the end of that time, the three of you have managed to learn enough about cooperation to behave like a team, you will be allowed to rejoin your teams. If, however, you have allowed a member to come to harm, or have refused to attempt the rescue of a captured team mate, all three of you will be stripped of your rights as citizens.”

“You can’t do that!” screamed Robb. He looked wildly around the room. “You can’t ruin my life just because I tried to help my team win!”

“Winning through treachery is a loss for us all. This is a chance for you to learn from your mistake. If you refuse to learn, then you are a danger to everyone associated with you.”

All of the sudden I felt as sick as Rob looked.

“What happens if we lose citizen’s rights?” I asked.

“You’re going to get a taste of that right now. Robb, put on your shirt.” He waited until Robb buttoned the last button, then gestured. The combined teams stood up and started walking toward us. Not one friendly face could I see. I couldn’t believe that I was the only one who saw the ridiculousness of all this ceremonial rage. It was a game. Just a game! A game that everyone took much more seriously than I thought they did. I backed up to the side of the tent. The Blues and Oranges stood shoulder to shoulder in a semi-circle behind the captains, like a silent wall, their eyes hard.

“Shane?” said Orange Captain. The door opened behind Janna and she fell backward down the steps. Robb and I were pressed against the wall as though pinned there. “Both of you had better see if she’s hurt.” Neither of us moved.

The crowd pressed forward with an angry murmur. Robb peeled himself off the wall and disappeared through the doorway. I heard his boots crunch in the gravel, and then a loud smack. “Bitch!” shouted Robb, and then I heard him stomping away. Janna must have let him have it.

Black Captain looked hard at me, as though waiting for me to do something. Which I didn’t. He reached around me to grab my collar and spun me around to face the door. “I guess it’s up to you to pull those two back together,” he said. “Your gear is ready. You will be escorted to the team border and then you three will be on your own.”

I decided that for once I’d be better off keeping my mouth shut. I only hoped that the depth of my contempt for all of them and their stupid Game was apparent while I tried to remember how to make my legs work.

Janna was on her feet by the time I stumbled to the bottom of the steps. The door shut quietly behind me.

But even she wasn’t speaking to me, which was fine with me. She’s the one who caused all the trouble in the first place, scheming and using her best friend and her boyfriend to win.

The silence was broken by an angry yell. Three guards appeared from around the corner of the tent carrying backpacks. They were followed by two more dragging Robb by the arms between them. He screamed out a repetitive series of uncreative curses but was unable to twist out of their grasp. He didn’t shut up until he saw us. The look he gave us would have frozen a volcano. There would be no amicable cooperation developing in the near future.

Janna, however, was not so put off. She marched right up to him and smacked him as hard as she could across the face. Again. Now both sides of his face were red. It was a good thing the guards had such a good grip on him, or I think he would have strangled her right then and there.

His guards dropped him on the ground then as the other guards dropped our backpacks.  “Load up!” said the tallest guard. None of us moved.

“I said, load up. Move it, or you’ll go without your packs.”

I walked over and picked up my pack. It didn’t seem heavy enough to contain much of use. When I started unzipping it to check inside, though, the unpleasant guard smacked my hand away. I put it on meekly and buckled the hip strap. Janna followed suit sullenly, but Robb just stared defiantly at the guard holding his pack. The guard sighed, then opened the pack. He pulled out a sleeping pad and threw it into the bushes.

“Hey!” shouted Robb. He snatched the pack and dashed over to retrieve the pad and stuff it back inside. He slung it over his shoulder and headed down the trail.