THE ENFORCER

She had to leave the house today. Gwen stared at the alarm clock with a dissipated glare of resignation and turned over, pulling the covers back over her head. The body next to her didn't move. Her husband didn't have to wake for another half hour and he was the type to wait until the last minute to get up. She hated that about him, the frantic running around at last minute, the hurried rush of his breakfast or the beeping of his metro card as he filled it with money before placing it into his pocket.

They had to stretch their funds every week just to fill the card for his commute, but without his under the table job, they wouldn't survive. Even if they ate ramen once a day for a week, he had to go. Not that she wasn't thankful for the daily respite. Not today, though. Today, she had to leave the house, and she wasn't ready to face it.

His voice was a sleepy hush when he rolled over and spoke. "You're not up yet?"

She swallowed back anxiety. "Not yet."

He leaned in and gave her a perfunctory good morning kiss upon her cheek. She hated that, too. It was meaningless, just as they were meaningless, but for both of them it was safer that they stayed married. Her, because she wasn't considered mentally capable under Roster's regime, and for her husband Scott because he preferred men, and his rights had been abolished under the Marriage Act of 2022.

Nothing mattered anymore, not the kiss, not the perplexing grit of her conscience as she weighed the farce of their arrangement, not the dingy grunge of cement walls and low, drop ceilings. Nothing. Gwen tucked the blanket around her and kept staring, the drip, drip, drip of the bathroom tap echoing in her mind.

"You're going to be late," Scott said. He rolled up from the mattress, staring at her a long, deliberating second.

"Yeah. I don't care." She didn't bother looking at him. He'd always read her too well.

He stayed silent a moment longer, then sighing, he tucked a piece of her lank mink-brown hair behind her ear. "I know. You have to, though. If you don't show..."

She knew. The requirement was clear: all residents with C-2 clearance must attend a mandatory meeting once a month, then let one of the nurses from the Republic's wellness faction validate their mental health status. Someone she mistrusted completely. They had the undisputed power to give her freedom or to make her wait behind the walls of the Institute. Only one option was viable. Only one, though day by day it proved more impossible. Her health was tenuous-just as she was. Gwen lifted up from the bed, naked and too thin.

She hadn't eaten last night nor the night before, leaving their meager meal for Scott. He needed it more than her anyway.

She was empty, and what did it matter if she rotted away inside? Scott lifted an auburn brow, handsomely fit and still strong, a worried look upon his face. "You have to try to get yourself together, Gwennie," he said, imploring. "This time they won't ignore the signs. You managed--"

"Yeah, I know," she interrupted. "Paul isn't there to fudge the paperwork."

Another quiet silence ensued. "I know," her husband said. His hand swept over her brow, smoothing away the wick of dampness, the cold sweat. He was too good for her, but again, what did it matter? They were hiding, their own sacred lies the bind that kept them from releasing the other into the scold of the Republic's mercenary reconditioning programs.

The city was alive all around them them. Baltimore, a dark and dirty cavity of disgust, their home. Decayed buildings and streets. Hives of dejected poverty-stricken individuals. The filthy lair of the new Republic's quarantine facilities, shining bright among the darkness.

Then there were them: the well-dressed Enforcers. If she and Scott were among those hated from the Republic's point of view, from the citizen's viewpoint the military enforcers were men rising from the bowels of hell. Crews of trained killers, self-righteous demons of progress, and no one from the east side trusted them>. She doubted anyone who had an ounce of preservation in them dared trust those black-clad men, for they lived by incendiary methods and used their guns to persuade. Men of decided ancestry and wealth, they controlled the nation by whim and by force.

The enforcers were everywhere, locusts. Beasts.

Scott gave her another wary stare, the false complacency ending. "You need to snap out of it. You'll never convince anyone that way."

He tugged on a pair of worn jeans and an old tee shirt, the uniform of a man who worked in labor and the deprecation of a man who once used his mind to sway the courts and to convince judges. No more. No more. No fucking more.

As for her? How had her life changed? It mostly hadn't, and that was the sad part. True, she was bound to a man she didn't love, but that would doubtless have happened anyway. Gwen didn't think she had the capacity to love, not when she didn't even love herself. Her home was nicer than the one she came from. As for her mind...

Bequeathed the heredity illness by birth, driven worse by circumstance and doubt, nothing could change who and what she was. Gwen was considered certifiable. Mad, a woman gone crazy, her bipolar induced by the stress all around her. She almost snorted out loud, yanking one of Scott's nicer shirts over her head. It hung loose to her thighs. If only time reverted and on that fateful election five years ago, Elgin won instead of bowing out. What might have happened to her and her husband then?

The joint that served as her lifeline to sanity lay snuffed on the edge of a chipped plate, used to an inch of its life. Maybe in times past she could have gotten away with smoking it; now it would mean her execution. She needed more. She'd never gain it, though. Not if those from the Institute had anything to do with it. And not if they caught her and Scott in their terrible lie.

Thrum, thrum.

Through the streets, the dirt bikes paraded. The Enforcers were aware of everything, swarming into the dank little byways, heading to the streets, scouting around for their daily quota. Disgusting.

Children shrieked good morning to each other, casting voluble anger at the invading Enforcers. The little ones would chase the dirt bikes until they were gone, throwing stones and shouting weak curses, clouds of debris left churning behind the treaded wheels.

The Enforcer's scent lingered in the air, wafting with the tang of money and wasted riches. She loathed the smell of Irish Spring soap, Old Spice, or the expensive colognes that permeated after them.

Bastards. Rich, entitled pricks.

No one in the country had the extra funds to expend on luxuries anymore, none except the Enforcers and those that served in the Physical Wellness, Gender Law, and Mental Health Conservation division. The nurses and their staff that made her rue her existence and fear waking everyday were the very ones that helped mandate the nation. Damn that election.

For three years now she and Scott had lived above a men's fine linens and tailoring shop that catered to the few individuals of Roster's regime who dared monitor her part of the city. The east end was notorious for its depravity, the nightly shootings and drug deals gone wrong, a stealthy underbelly that thrived when the sun went down. Better to hide where they wouldn't be discovered or cared about. Better to save the deplorably scanty funds that they lived upon as unwanted residents of President Daniel Roster's new Republic.

Yes, better.

She was a fool, her and Scott both. Gwen and he lived dangerously close to those who might entrap them, waiting, always waiting for their sad story to reach its dramatic climax. Waiting for the Enforcers to find them. To escort them to a mock jury created by the men and women they feared the most. Imprisonment wouldn't end. Worse, the entrapment they shared now would eventually lead to their death. They both knew it. Why try?

She jolted as Scott flipped the bathroom door open and walked out, zipping himself up as he went. Ready to scathe him on how he never washed up afterwards, her comment tamped out as his dire expression turned stormy.

Pushy as always, he said, "Jump into the shower, Gwen. You can't go to that meeting looking like you crawled straight out of a sewer. For a woman that cleans up so well, you really look like shit."

"Nice," she said, clicking her tongue with irritation. "Now the compliments begin. I wondered when you'd decide how much you loved me."

Scott ignored her complaints. He raised one eyebrow in disapproval. "Stalling won't help. Come on." Reaching into the bathroom sideways, he pulled the tap so that the shower-head's measly stream sputtered out.

"It'll be cold."

"You'll be cold in the ground if you don't hurry up," he said with no remorse.

He was right. She had better hurry, and going without bathing was a sure sign of neglect and her mental downfall. The Wellness division would surely send someone out to investigate, and she and Scott's tenuous marital situation would finally be discovered. Discovery meant death. Death meant the electric chair. They wouldn't be given any second chances.

Though she shot him a dark look, she listened. The shower was icy and barely trickled. But she was able to clean her shoulder length hair and overly thin body, and she did it in record time. Being late wasn't acceptable. Neither was letting her husband be late for his job just because he decided to monitor her.

Kissing him goodbye out of habit, she closed and bolted the front door after him and stared sightlessly out the large front windows. She had money on her metro card; she could leave. She could run and hide and never look back.

But where in this forsaken world was even safe anymore? Since the election, it wasn't just her nation's exodus from the norm. Countries all over the world, affected by pivotal changes in finance, life sources, climate changes and other maladies that perplexed even the greatest scientists and researchers, went to an authoritarian way of life. The old United States led the way in that revolution.

The election changed everything. President Daniel Roster made headlines for his radical means for saving them all. His methods were often cruel, many times objectionable-but they worked. Their nation survived.

He was hailed a hero. A savior. But to people like her, the underlings, the forgotten, he was filth and disgust. A dark lord. A man with no conscience who would do anything to rise to the heavens and kiss the stars. He played god. He was a god in many people's eyes. Unfortunately, it was only those forgotten ones that realized how dangerous he really was.

No, she couldn't leave. Where would she even go? Where in the world was safe from his dangerous hold?

Nowhere, that's where. The metro card fell from her limp fingers to the scarred hardwood floor, alerting her to the folly of her thoughts and bringing her back to awareness.

Stooping, Gwen wiped the trail of useless tears from her cheeks, grabbed the card, and shakily stood. She turned, reached out her hand to the table behind her and grabbed her C-2 health-status and identification card, placing it in her pocket. Her keys, attached to a cord, went around her neck and under her shirt. With the scant funds on the card, she exited her home and secured the door, breathing harshly. If she hurried, she might get back before dark.

The fumes in the hallway were intense. Dry cleaning chemicals permeated the air, making her eyes mist and her throat tickle. She coughed, covering it quickly with her palm. The best thing to do was to get out of the building without notice. They were late on their rent again. Their landlord, used to degenerates renting from him, only cared that they paid. But with her need for the blunts that kept her mind at ease, the price on the drug risen to an exorbitant black market rate, they had fallen behind on payment. Four days late; a day for the government to process the complaint and a day for them to send out their goons. It would happen soon. Time to pay or to get moving.

Scott tried. He worked so hard. It wasn't enough to pay for the apartment and to take care of her. When she was well, Gwen could contribute, even exceed what he brought in. But she wasn't well, and hadn't been for some time. That was their secret, and he kept it for her. Thank the stars above for Scott, her private savior, the only one she knew anymore with a heart so true. Without him they wouldn't survive. Her auburn-haired man of mercy, handsome and kind, but not her own to keep. He was her husband, the forgery so realistic it fooled even her. Unfortunately, even he couldn't help this time, for she doubted his meager paycheck could help them rise above their neediness. Gwen's fault, all of it, if they had to take their things and run yet again.

It wouldn't be the first time she'd caused them to have to do such a thing. Baltimore was their new chance, their last chance to survive. New York was too big, easy to hide in, but impossible to afford. With their meager funds, they would be out on the streets in no time, no matter where they roamed. From city to city they traveled, always going to the deepest coves and darkest alleys, finding the landlord with nothing to lose. Losing themselves, as a result, in the emptiness they both felt inside.

Living along the East Coast meant being near the epicenter of all Roster's new Republic's jurisdictions, each of them stationed less than a hundred miles apart. The Institute, the largest mental health facility in the country, and the place she was bound to be sent if she kept up her restlessly anxious, manic, and depressive ways, was the closest center out of all of them.

Scott's fear was called the Renewal Sanctuary, a reconditioning station for those of a sexual nature no longer accepted in society, the home for those of Scott's orientation and others like it. He had to journey to the midwest. Thankfully, his recertifications were only every five years.

Both institutions were meant to persuade those to accept the mindset of the greatest nation on earth, but Gwen knew differently. They were places of torture, of assimilation. Of pain.

With her mood so dangerously low, any one of the sites would analyze her and never let her leave. And, like this, she was supposed to go? Damn. She was fucking doomed.