Union. September 15th.

Union was a terrible place to live for people like Catalina Alvarez. She lived in a 12-
story apartment building that always seemed on the brink of collapse. Her neighbors
were hardworking and kind, but their eyes were battle wearied. Everyone was always
on edge, scraping together pennies to survive and watching everyone else to ensure
they wouldn’t take what was theirs. Being constantly on the edge of poverty was
exhausting, but it wasn’t the real reason she struggled in Union. She clawed at the
edges of society purely because of who she was and what she looked like.

 

This desperation caused her to spend hours staring in her bathroom mirror,
obsessing over whether she should dye her jet-black hair blonde. She knew it
wouldn’t look natural. It would clash with her tan skin. People would say she looked
either over-bleached or over-tanned. She hoped they settled on over-tanned as it
would suggest she was less “other” than she actually was. It would help if her eyes
weren’t brown. Perhaps she should consider blue contacts?

 

She sighed. It was pointless. Her looks were only half the problem. There was also her
name, her soft lilting accent, her rambunctious family, and most importantly, the
chips. Each chip was digitally encoded and implanted in a person’s left upper arm
upon birth. It would always label her as foreign, other, strange, alien, unwanted. She
could never change that. She would always be #147231.

 

Every day as she passed through the chip readers at the entrance of every grocery
store, on her way into her apartment, on the train to visit her family, she closed her
eyes and prayed. She used to pray that the readers would glitch and somehow label
her “normal,” but she had long stopped wishing that the system would suddenly
magically accept her. She knew better by now. Now she prayed that it wouldn’t
deem her a threat.

 

There were three different threat levels. If the readers’ lights turned blue, she was a
“potential.” This label could come as a result of signing the “wrong” petition (usually
for human rights), looking too longingly at an anti-discrimination pamphlet, or just
being in the wrong part of town when a march or protest was occurring. This label
wasn’t the worst, but it would result in her being taken away from her life for
questioning for at least a week without her family being informed of her
whereabouts.

​

f the card reader turned red or anything “negative” turned up during her
interrogation, her threat status would be considered “severe.” This label was usually
reserved for people who organized marches, protested detention facilities, or dared
to film inhumane acts against people like Catalina. These actions were considered
especially heinous because the government saw them as proof that “the other
mentality” was infecting their “normal” citizens, and like all infections, they knew it
had to be lanced before it spread too far into the rest of the population. People
labelled as severe had their bank accounts frozen and were eventually locked in a
detention facility where they were left to rot.

 

And yet, prison with a side of torture for life was still better than the chip reader
glowing black and labelling you an “imminent danger.” She would say that this label
was reserved for people who tried to blow up the government or were planning to
try, but that didn’t seem to be the case. She had seen grandmothers as old as 90,
four-year-olds, and a man who was deaf blind and mute, all executed for being
“imminent dangers.” The government called them terrorists, but Catalina was fairly
sure it was just a random drawing. It could be her turn any day. She was a hunted
animal, living in broad daylight with a target painted on her back.

 

Alemadia. May 10th.

Maria Lopez lived in Alemadia. No matter which direction one walked in, they would
always come across the sea eventually. Every time she visited the sea, the salty
smell of brine would conjure visions of her summer cottage. Images of a stone
mansion would dance across her vision alongside memories of her mother serving
fajitas, her father grilling steaks, and her lounging in a chair by the pool as the fresh
summer breeze swept over her tanned brown skin. It was her favorite place on Earth,
an oasis among all the problems that plagued Alemadia.

 

Alemadia would be the most beautiful place in the entire world if it wasn’t under
siege by the ghosts who snuck their way across its borders. These flaxen-haired,
blue-eyed leeches who were draining the resources of this country, screaming for
more as they sucked the teat dry. Disgusting, pale, worthless creatures. Some people
pitied them, screaming that they deserved to live in Alemadia just as much as
anyone else. Brainwashed idiots!

 

Maria knew better. She heard her father, reigning governor of Auscha, constantly talk
about how crime rates had increased since the ghosts had started taking up
residence in Alemadia. The immigration checks were ridiculous and had allowed a
flash flood of rapists, criminals, and other ghouls into their quaint neighborhoods
without so much as a background check or a passport stamp. These white invaders
were installing themselves in their best cities, taking jobs from Alemadia citizens, and
destroying the economy.

​

Anyone who thought differently was lying to themselves and had been brainwashed
into believing that allowing this threat to survive was the same as catering to human
rights. Poor fools! Maria almost felt bad for them.

 

Almost. They were a nuisance, gnats gnawing at her ankles and preventing her from
doing her job properly. She had joined the Brigada last year when the immigration
problem had reached unsustainable levels, and every day she had to sort out unruly
ghosts being harbored by harebrained citizens who couldn’t see the damage they
were doing to their country. There was nothing more infuriating to her than having to
fight with people who should know the truth but were instead choosing to devolve
into anarchy for people who had never once helped their nation.

 

As she pulled away from seashore in her red Lambo, speeding past an empty toll
booth that had been unmanned for years, Maria hoped that today was the day that
she got to take out a ghost. She had hauled some into interrogations, arrested others,
but she had never executed one. She knows most people would be horrified that she
wanted to kill someone, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t excited by the kill, but rather by
the chance to prove to her father and nation that she 100% supported them and
would give anything to protect them—even her soul. After all, if that was the cost of
peace, of summer homes, and salt-brined memories, she would kill them all.

 

Union. October 15th.

Fuck.

 

Fuck.

 

Fuck.

 

This day had started so good. Her sister had just called to tell her that Tio Juan had
been returned, and although he was a bit bloody and bruised, he did not have broken
bones or internal bleeding. Most people didn’t have such a good prognosis after
interrogation. She cried and laughed with relief alongside her sister as they planned a
potluck for later in the week to celebrate Tio’s return. And now this. The universe was
laughing at her. All that praying and what did it get her…a chip reader that glowed
black. A nervous laugh bubbled its way up her throat as she stood locked in the
machine…awaiting execution. At least her family could now use the tentative funeral
arrangements they were making for Tio Juan prior to his return. All that planning
wouldn’t be wasted. She started to laugh harder.

 

Fuck. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to choke on her own panic before the
Militia arrived. Why had she never thought about how waiting for execution would be
so much worse than death itself? Death is an end. This was torture. She clasped at

the rosary beads she kept in her left jacket pocket and started to pray—; no,
SCREAM for help. She didn’t want to die.

 

She wanted to go to Tio Juan’s reunion potluck. She wanted to see her sister get
married to that stupid gringo who didn’t understand their language but was
desperately trying to learn it. She wanted to become an aunt. She wanted to fall in
love. She was only 25. She wasn’t ready to die.

 

She rattled the bars of her cage and screamed. Through her tears, she could see
some passerby avert their eyes and walk faster past her apartment building. They
knew what was coming and they couldn’t watch. She saw others pull out their
phones, ready to document her final moments. She could admit that there was a
measure of relief in seeing that her death would not simply be swept under the rug.
There would be a record. She tried to stop hyperventilating and crying. She didn’t
want her family to see how scared she was, but she couldn’t. It was the smiles that
undid her. Some people were excited to see her go. One less foreign piece of trash in
their country.

 

So lost was Catalina in her grief and fear that she barely noticed when the Militia
pulled up. A young pale blonde officer in a Kevlar suit yanked her from her cage and
brought her to the middle of the street. Catalina tried to pull back, but the men at
her back shoved her forward onto her knees. She felt a gun cock as it rested on the
base of her neck. The sound reverberated through her until she felt like she might
shake apart before the bullet entered her skull. She grasped her rosary beads harder,
and just before the shot rang out, she looked at a smiling onlooker and howled, “It
could have been you.”

 

Alemadia. July 4th.

 

Maria could barely contain her smile as she sat side by side with her Kevlar laden
squadmates. The car swayed from side to side as it sped by passing motorists and
tried to dodge potholes. Any other day, this swaying motion would have made her
feel sick, but even the sea-green nausea haze coating her vision could not damper
her excitement.

 

Today was her chance to prove herself. They were moving in to apprehend a high-
level target at the marketplace. She had been in the squad room when the alerts
started ringing in. It was terrifying to think that a potential danger was walking around
her city among innocent civilians, but it was also invigorating. The rush of danger and
adrenaline was intoxicating, especially when her commander signaled that her team

would be dealing with the threat. They only knew two things about their target: she
was a 23-year-old blonde girl who worked as a consultant for a tech firm, and she

was a terrorist.

 

Maria wondered what her plan would have been if their facial detection scanners
hadn’t found her. Would she have used the firm’s technology to hack into their
military systems? Was she a suicide bomber awaiting a signal from her bosses?
What was her plan? It frustrated Maria that they didn’t have more information about
this ghost’s past or even knew which terrorist group she had ties to, but she trusted
the chain of command. They wouldn’t have been ordered to take down this ghost if
she hadn’t done something wrong. After all, if ghosts just followed the laws, identified
themselves when asked, and crossed their borders legally, there wouldn’t be any
issues. She wouldn’t have needed to join the Brigada and could have been sipping
margaritas on a pool deck while getting a degree in fashion. There wouldn’t be any
need to rush into a crowded marketplace in full tactical gear.

 

But alas, that was a dream and this was reality. So as Maria stepped out of the van
and pointed her gun in the face of a crying 23-year-old white girl in a pink blouse,
she felt no remorse. If this girl hadn’t wanted to die, she would not have tried to
attack Alemadia. Her squad moved into position surrounding the girl. She made to
run, but one of the men pushed her to her knees. Maria walked up behind her and
cocked her gun. This was it. Her chance to prove her commitment to the cause.
Everyone knew how to deal with terrorists. No interrogations. No detentions. Just
death.

 

As she pulled the trigger, Maria said, “It’s always a ghost.” And at that moment, she
knew that across every universe, there was always someone like her pulling a gun on
a ghost. Society couldn’t exist without government and the loyalty of people like her
when it came to securing it from outsiders.