The walls slid down and Laurie stood outside with Unibrow, Hook-nose and another Warden I didn't recognise.
"What the hell happened?" she gasped.
"Grey," I replied grimly.
Chapter Twelve
They didn't let Grey train with us any more after that. Laurie told me he had be sent out into SubWar early. She said that the door to his cell had been found open and none of the Wardens seemed to know how it had happened.
Laurie wouldn't say it, but I could tell that she suspected he'd been let out. She confided in me that a few Wardens enjoyed the violence that their job exposed them to.
Our training progressed well, though I had to work around the various injuries I'd received during my fight with Grey. I was able to throw my opponents on the mat more and more often but I still couldn't land a hit on Laurie. My best attribute by far was my aim. By the end of training, Laurie said I could throw a knife and aim a gun as well as a Warden.
At the end of our final day of training, Laurie gave us a few tips on surviving in SubWar.
"I'm hoping of course that you won't need any of this training, but I'm happy with the progress you all made nonetheless. Your role as a messenger is fairly easy in theory. Just don't take stupid risks. Your only job is to run back and forth between units of your side's fighters. Realistically, they should be using walkie-talkies but they do it this way so they have a low level punishment to hand out to people like you." She smiled like that was a good thing.
"How will people know not to shoot at us?" I asked.
"You will have two red stripes running around the front and back of your jackets which mark you as messengers. If someone purposefully attacks a messenger the punishment is fighting their next battle unarmed on the front line so it doesn't happen often. You'll have weapons, don't be afraid to defend yourselves if you have to."
"Not often isn't the same as never," Taylor pointed out.
"No, but it is really rare. I've never seen it happen," she said, flicking her braid back over her shoulder a little too casually.
"Are we supposed to split up or can we move around together?" I asked.
"Technically you should split up," she said lowering her voice. "But don't bother. You'll be safer together and I don't want you getting hurt." Hook-nose was walking past us as she spoke. He stopped to look at us with a frown on his face.
"Thank you Laurie," I said, taking her hand. "I know you had to oversee our training but you didn't have to take such an interest in making sure we were good. And you didn't have to be my friend either."
"That's okay. Just please try not to get yourselves killed." She squeezed my hand then left so that we could have one last night's sleep before our first day in SubWar.
As she moved away, Hook-nose narrowed his eyes at her and turned to join a group of Wardens who started talking in hushed tones.
I woke with a feeling of dread in my stomach. As Laurie had told us, our jackets now had two bold, horizontal red stripes that ran around our torsos marking us out as messengers. There were also holsters and belts for the weapons we would receive later.
We dressed and headed down to the practice room.
The huge chamber had been cleared overnight. All of the training equipment was pushed against the walls and the convicts were assembled in a group in the centre.
We were the last to arrive and we moved quietly to join the back of the crowd.
"You'll be joining with units that already know what to do, just take your lead from them. You'll see Wardens surrounding the area but you are not to address us or try to engage us in combat. If you attempt it, you will be shot down, as will anyone standing near to you," Uni-brow addressed the group from the front of the room. He turned and opened a large, shuttered door that had been concealed behind the gun rack at the far end of the practice room. We spilled out into the bright sunlight.
Outside, there was a line of convicts who had completed their sentences waiting to come back in. They looked dishevelled and some were sporting various injuries but they all shared a look of relief clearly written over their faces. I hoped I'd be in their position in a few months.
Laurie moved up the line until she was next to me. She gave me a reassuring smile and I tried to return it.
We marched in a fairly well organised unit for about three miles. The immediate area was primarily brown dust and mud, just like the land outside the city, but we were surrounded at a distance on all sides by a huge, all consuming barrier of green. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It was hard to make out any details but my heart pounded with a mixture of fear and longing.
"Is that the contaminated area?" I asked Laurie.
"Yes." She glanced at the green wall. "It gives me the creeps, but we do the contamination checks constantly and this cleared area is fine."
It looked beautiful to me, like the way the world should be.
It was soon apparent that the battlefield wasn't just some flat, open area. As we drew closer I realised it was filled with trenches, tunnels, hideaways and general lumps and bumps in the terrain.