By Karlo Yeager Rodríguez
After the bombings stopped, after the Navy left, we returned to our lives before. That dim memory, like a dream upon waking for many of us. In time, our grasp on memories of those uncertain days loosened like a fist learning to unclench, and we returned to fish the same waters where warships shelled the coast. Submerged, old bombs. Their serial numbers fading as the reef absorbed them.
The first case had been Ramón’s little girl, who said she couldn’t sleep because of the itching. Where, we asked, and she showed us a patch of skin next to her navel fast darkening from welt into something more serious. At first, we thought it might have been self-inflicted. The edges seemed orderly enough that we wondered if she’d used a stencil. By the time the next child’s skin turned a dull gray we realized it might be a sickness.
More children got sick – here, a teenager’s hair came out in clumps as their skull became oblong; there, a toddler no longer stumbled along but stood in one place, her chubby legs flattened into square fins; everywhere, skin turned from rosy or brown or Black to that dull, unreflective gray.
We lined them up, one-two-three, on the water-stained floor of our community center. Their dull gray chassis unresponsive, showing no signs of life unless we held our ears up to the curve of their bodies to hear minute ticking inside. They were alive; they must be, but not in a way we understood. So we asked for help.
Scientists were flown in, and they measured and took readings. First of our children, then of us, peering into our mouths, our ears, interviewing us and writing everything down.
In the end, the Navy returned.
A team flew in overnight and cordoned off the dilapidated community center, set up guards at the entrances. The officer in charge commandeered the area. Rumors had him cross-referencing the number on our children’s bodies against manufacturing records.
When we tried bringing them their old blankets or favored bedtime plushies, to comfort them (and perhaps ourselves), we were turned away. Orders, the sentries would tell us after talking on their phone.
Our children needed special care, they told us. Treatments they could only get on the mainland. Can we accompany them? We asked. The scientists shot each other guilty looks. The commanding officer stepped forward. We regret to inform you, he said, they are now classified materials. He raised placating hands at our mingled outrage. I can allow one of you as chaperone – if they pass a background check.
We tried, you must understand.
But in our struggle to dislodge the Navy from our shores all of us had records. They’d arrested even those of us who had been children at the time. Still, we filled out paperwork, sat through interviews. We tried, dreading the outcome. Whoever makes the law sets the trap, after all. We tried because we had to. There was no other way for us to be.
We tried every avenue we could to get you back. We scraped together enough for lawyers to navigate the legal system, hoping to challenge the Navy’s custody of you. National security, the judge said. So apologetic. We approached local news, but the segment they aired made it seem like a local oddity and not something larger. Without any way to film any of the children in the throes of the disease, the segment painted us as yet another community suffering from untreated mental issues. PTSD. Sad enough to make the anchors shake their heads solemnly before going to commercial break. We even protested outside the perimeter the Navy had put up around our community center.
We were tolerated until we were not. Far off in their offices and committee rooms, the Generals and the Admirals declared war and those of us protesting were gathered up, our wrists zip-tied behind our backs, packed into the backs of trucks and dumped hours later on the big island, hours after the ferry had stopped running. We slept on the concrete pier, waiting for our way back home.
We were sick with worry – would the Navy keep you apart from the rest of their arsenal, and even if they wanted to, could they help themselves? Solemn as they may have appeared on TV we knew that they hid their true faces, upturned and in rapture at the beauty of their weapons.
Huge ships visible on the horizon, moving at full steam to somewhere else, somewhere that deserves bombing – if it can ever be said anywhere or anyone deserves it. Aircraft roaring past overhead, laden with bombs. We worried and hoped none of them were you, but that fear gnawed at us. We built this device, one we hope we can at least speak to you in ways you understand, that you will at hear us. Not quite a jammer. Counter-messaging. Laser-guided. We go out on the now-dangerous home waters, in hopes of propagating the signal, between us aiming towards the aircraft screaming overhead, hoping you’ll hear us say:
Reject your telemetry
Stop
Come back home
Stop
We love you
Stop
Karlo Yeager Rodríguezhails from the enchanting island of Puerto Rico, but now lives near Baltimore with his spouse and the ghost of one odd dog. His writing can be found in places like Strange Horizons, khōréō magazine, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, as well as Blood Knife and Lammergeier Magazine. He also hosts Podside Picnic, where he continues his genre miseducation.