Free Man Hunt by K. Edwin Fritz Page B

equipment. She was glad Rachael hadn't followed her. She needed to be alone for a while.
     
    Back in Gertrude's office, Rachael was looking at the list of Emotional Markers in her hand. Each one was but a single syllable and no more than five letters. Supposedly this added to the insignificance of the pig that would soon own it, but the most important part was the sound of the name. The connotation. It had to instill degradation.
    All men on the island, which were the hundred and fifty or more in the field and an equal number still in training, were given names that met these criteria. No name was ever repeated, and a file was kept and controlled by Rhonda, the island's head trainer, to ensure each individual man, dead or alive, could be recalled in detail. Rachael was glad Gertrude made herself available for new EMs on occasion. Thinking of new ones all the time was perhaps the most difficult part of her job.
    She looked at the third name on the list, the one that would soon identify the scum who thought he was tough. His new name would be 'Fael'. She loved it. It was perfect. It reminded her of how decidedly delicious it was to watch a man fail, and suddenly she couldn't wait to see this one broken. She wanted to be there during his first hour. It had always been her favorite part.
     
    When Rachael finally left the room, Gertrude walked immediately to her door and reached to close it, thinking only of the massive supplies in her precious closet, but heard yet another set of approaching footsteps, and growled.
     
     
    2
     
    The approaching footsteps were from Lucy. As she almost always did, she held her bat in her left hand, her dominant hand. She held the weapon directly in the middle, covering a badly faded, hand-made scribbling. She walked down the remainder of the hallway not with impatience but control.
    She stopped a few inches inside Gertrude's open door. She didn't speak. There was no official rule stating a headwoman should speak first, but Lucy knew all of the implied rules; the ones that made her perfect for her second-in-command position.
    "I asked you to come this afternoon," Gertrude said. "This better be good."
    "Yes, I know, Gertrude. I apologize for changing plans like this, but I truly feel you need to know this right away." Again she waited for Gertrude to respond, but Gertrude only studied her.
    Gertrude was still thinking about her ruined map– and the subtle satisfaction that could be found inside her closet– but decided to run the various details through her mind all the same. After all, Lucy wasn't usually this insistent, and her tenure as second-in-command had earned her the right to be heard.
    Gertrude saw Lucy's grip on the bat was tighter than usual. She saw the intense look in the girl's eyes. She saw the stiffness of her shoulders.
    Gertrude took a long moment, still thinking about her plan to utilize the closet's stronghold, to look into Lucy's eyes again. And what she saw wasn't just intensity, but fear. Fear that something bad would happen without Gertrude's assistance.
    Finally, in a brief release even rarer than the special closet moments which she occasionally allowed herself, Gertrude let down her wall of domination and showed a glimpse of the person she once was. She slumped her shoulders slightly and let out an eye-closing sigh.
    "Shit," she muttered. "Come in, Lucy. Close the door. I'm sure you did the right thing."
    Lucy stepped fully inside and pushed the door closed. The clack! it made was surprisingly loud in the spotlessly clean room. She had never seen Gertrude act that way. It scared her a little, yet somehow she felt honored. Then Gertrude took the familiar position behind her huge desk. The look on her face was stern. The pierce of her eye was sharp. Whatever strange thing had just happened was gone.
    "Tell me, Lucy. What happened?" Gertrude had already forgotten about exposing her soft side. It was not good to let vulnerability linger.
    "We may have just had a