“Get along with who?” Akira asked.
All of us turned our heads. Standing in the entryway, she looked as drab and fatigued as usual. Almost like she had aged several years since before the escape from Mexico started. Her electronic cigarette remained perpetually clutched in her hand.
Aveena got to her feet, giving Akira a wide smile. The gesture wasn’t returned.
“They were just telling me that you’re, you know, transsexual,” Aveena said, starting to walk toward Akira, “I was hoping to like chat a bit about how you’re-”
“Why would they tell you that?” Akira asked, looking past Aveena at the rest of us, “what business is it of hers?”
Aveena’s smile faded somewhat, “I just wanted to say that I’m also transgender. If you wanted to like talk to me about anything that might be-”
“Why are you telling her about this?” Akira asked, ignoring Aveena.
“We just want to help,” Masaru said, taking a limp forward.
“I don’t want anyone’s help,” Akira said, eyes damp with tears, “can’t I trust any of you not to go around telling everyone about…about everything?”
Akira turned and started walking away. Masaru, muttering apologies, started limping after her. Aveena turned around, a sick look on her face. I chased after Akira, catching her at the top of the stairs to the basement.
“I’m sorry,” Masaru said as I stepped in front of Akira, “I just don’t understand what’s going on with you.”
“How could you understand?” Akira asked without looking at him, her gaze on me, unfocused, “this has all been so easy for you.”
“Easy for me?” Masaru asked, lifting his cane, “this hasn’t been easy for anyone. But we’re all doing what we can to-”
“You’re blaming me?” Akira asked, turning to look at him, “you’re saying that it’s my fault that this has been so difficult for me?”
“No,” Masaru said, lowering his cane, “I think it’s those brain implants.”
Akira opened her mouth to say something, but didn’t speak.
“And I think you know this, too,” Masaru said.
“You would just love to be able say you told me so, wouldn’t you?” Akira said in almost a whisper.
“No,” Masaru said, “nothing would break my heart more.” He sighed, turned around and started limping away, “when you want to tell me what’s happening with you, I’ll be taking care of our daughter.”
Akira stood with her back turned toward me, watching as Masaru went into the living room. She stood quiet for almost a minute before turning slowly back to me, cheeks wet with tears.
“I…I…”
“You wouldn’t have come upstairs to talk to us unless you had something to say,” I said in a low voice.
Akira sniffled, lip quivering, as she tried as hard as she could not to break down crying.
“I, um,” she swallowed, “I think I found…Jiang Wei. His reincarnation.”
“Where,” I said.
“The, uh, the Philippines,” Akira said, breathing in and then out slowly before wiping tears with the back of her hand, “a…a girl. N-named Imelda. The Chinese government has her.”
“How do you know she is Jiang Wei’s reincarnation?” I asked, keeping my voice quiet, not taking my eyes off her.
“The…the head of the state owned Sinorail company,” Akira said, “Jiang Guo. A cousin of Jiang Wei. He’s, uh, had some dealings with Benecorp in the past, but, uh, nothing recently. He’s the one who had, uh, Imelda’s parents extradited and…and imprisoned. But…but the child was taken by the central government.”
“But how do you-”
“Calvin Lind and Anita Patrice are, uh, both in China right now,” Akira said, “both of them…both of them scrambled to get there last night.”
“Have either of them taken the child?”
Akira shook her head slowly, sniffling. “As far as I can tell, the, uh, the Chinese government isn’t-isn’t letting anyone near her.”
“Do they know? Do they know what she is?”
“It’s-it’s possible,” Akira said, “but she also might, uh…she could just be leverage.”
“Leverage?”
“For a, uh, some negotiations,” she said, “a free trade thing.”
“How would Imelda be leverage for that?”
“China just released, uh, released new demands,” Akira said, “for the, uh, negotiations.
“I still don’t get it.”
“The…the agreement…it’s between, um, Benecorp and Sovereign. And, uh, and Enduracorp.”
“I see…”
“China knows they want her.”
“What is this free trade agreement about?”
Akira closed her eyes, shaking her head. “That’s…that’s all I could find. but I…I think it’s a good chance that Imelda is…”
“That Imelda is Jiang Wei’s reincarnation,” I nodded, “I agree.”
Akira again looked like she wanted to say something, an apologetic look in her eyes.
“Thank you,” I said, putting a hand on Akira’s shoulder, “You did great. And I do understand how hard this has been for you.”
Akira lowered her gaze. “I guess you would.” She looked back up. “How…I still don’t know how you do this?”
“One day at a time,” I forced a smile.
Akira didn’t return the gesture. She focused on the doorway and I lowered my arm, stepping out of the way and allowing her to slink back into the lab where she spent every waking moment. I exhaled slowly before turning around and going back into the living room
Aveena sat on the couch next to Laura. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, before burying her face back into her hands.
“I’m sorry,” Aveena wept.
“Don’t take it personally,” I said, walking over and sitting on the other side of Laura, “she’s like this with just about everyone lately.”
“It’s getting worse,” Masaru said as he limped about, straightening up the room.
Laura, sitting between us, looked back and forth between Aveena and me, not sure what to do. I gave her a nod. Laura winced as she awkwardly stuck her injured arm around Aveena who leaned over and started weeping into Laura’s shoulder. Laura gave me a perplexed look.
Something has to be done about Akira, I thought. None of us can go on like this. Especially her.
Chapter 16
“I can’t believe you’re bringing him along,” Akira said, “that’s like bringing a…well, bringing a slave trader to free slaves.”
The night before Easter had arrived. The sun set on our staging area five miles northeast of the four corners monument – the borders of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Agents from LoC Security arrived from other cities in Colorado. Workers loaded shipping containers of exoskeleton suits into transport vehicles. Akira, her hair now long enough to be pulled back into a ponytail, had come along to help finalize preparations, only to find me there with Darren, both of us putting on Kevlar vests.
“He’s the guy who knows this stuff,” I said, picking up a 3D printed pistol and checking to make sure the safety was on. Should I even be trusting myself with this? Yesterday was my latest split-brain episode. They usually wait every three to ten days, but not always…
Akira wanted to protest, making an angry glance at Darren as he stood awkwardly by observing the conversation. Instead she said, “Fine. It’ll keep him farther away from the house.”
“He’ll behave himself,” I said, looking over to Darren.
He nodded, an awkward expression on his homely face, looking like he wanted to add something. Another glance from me stopped him from doing so. Thankfully Colonel Aaron Reynolds approached us – along with three other people he had been talking to – jaw clenched even tighter than usual. This would be the largest operation he’d ever commanded, and his constant need to run through details over and over again betrayed not a small amount of anxiety.
I recognized two of the other
people. Big Terry, scowling, hung back to listen. He had become quite vocal about his disapproval for this mission in the past few days, when it became clear that it wasn’t just a bluff.
“Why do you suppose all them buildings were bombed?” he had asked on his own podcast the day before, “it’s cuz of folks going off half-cocked into business that ain’t their own. Now, I ain’t saying we should setup a government, but let’s not beat around the bush. We got no defense against invasion. The only reason we still exist without a government is cuz we’re tolerated by our neighbors. The moment we do somethin’ that really puts a hurt on ‘em, this little experiment is done for.”
Conrad Glover, the man behind No Masters, was the second. A lean man in his mid-thirties, wearing a hacky looking tweed suit with a red bowtie and thick-framed glasses that didn’t serve any real purpose. Despite his appearance, everyone knew he carried no small amount of influence throughout the LoC, being independently wealthy and the philosophical driver behind the referendum to abolish the government. He wore an armband with the gold anarchy symbol and ‘No Masters’ emblem. His group.
Conrad Glover had also become concerned with how our expedition might affect his beloved LoC, getting him invited on Big Terry’s podcast.
“You’re not entirely correct,” Conrad Glover had responded to Big Terry, “our defense is that we are a well-armed population. A population all protecting their property from invasion is a great defensive army. Now, I agree that there are concerns about what LoC Security is doing, and it should definitely be done right, but I imagine that the offending parties in this human trafficking ring will be more interested in distancing themselves from it than trying to avenge its downfall.”
But it was the third person who my attention. A muscular Hispanic woman around forty years old, but still exhibiting plenty of youthful vitality. She wore hair buzzed down to stubble and a faint scar indenting her left cheek from the corner of her mouth back almost to the ear. She exhibited the LoC Security patch on the right arm sleeve of her uniform, a No Masters armband around the left. The AR display on my bionic eye named her Major Rosaline Riviera.
“You sure bout them kids bein’ in the basement?” Colonel Reynolds said for about the fourth time that evening, glaring at Darren.
“Y-yessir,” Darren said, “they always kept ‘em in the basement. Was protocol. That’s where they been every time we done recon.”
“Will they try doing anything to ‘em when they know we’re there?” Reynolds asked, “I won’t have any dead kids on my hands, whether from my people or theirs.” He glanced at Conrad Glover.
Darren shook his head, “no guarantees, but ain’t no reason they’d do anything. That’d either get ‘em in more trouble ‘r damage their…”
“Property,” Akira finished.
Darren bow his head.
Colonel Reynolds looked to Akira, expression unchanging, and said, “I still gotta few things I wanna go over again with yer models.”
Akira glanced disgustedly at Darren again before looking at Reynolds. The two started walking away, Big Terry and Conrad Glover going with them, chatting back and forth about specifics. Major Riviera walked away and started talking with some workers moving supplies. Darren looked to me wide-eyed, having faced Akira’s wrath head on for the first time in a while.
“It’ll be fine,” I assured him.
“Y’know, maybe she’s right,” Darren said, “maybe I shouldn’t be here.”
“If you want to show that you’re looking for redemption,” I said, “running away from your responsibility isn’t the way to do it.”
Darren looked like he wanted to say something, but stayed quiet.
“Have you been to see the kids yet?” I asked.
His eyes went to the ground.
“I didn’t think so.” I turned away, “if you live through this, then you’re going to see them. Otherwise I’m letting Akira toss you out and expose what you’ve done.”
I walked away, going in the direction of Major Riviera. I could just about feel his staring after me, pain welling up inside him. A part of me felt his struggle vicariously. The drive to make up for the past.
“Haven’t seen you around here before, Major Riviera,” I said when I got to her, “Where are you from?”
She raised a brow, looking at me, surprised by my candor. “Cortez.”
“Originally?”
She looked at me with suspicion. “No. I moved out here during the devolution.”
“Would I be wrong to guess that you came from Florida?”
Her expression didn’t betray any surprise. “You’re one of the forty-eights, aren’t you?”
I smiled, “I am.”
“The Christmas Crossing?”
“That was me. Or, us, I should say.”
“You don’t look Mexican,” Riviera said.
“No. I’m from the DRC. Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
She gave a slight grin, “you speak English well. Isn’t the DRC having some issues with a violent guerrilla uprising?”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” I said, “It’s been pretty destabilized for quite some time. Especially with the Indian-Chinese proxy wars there.”
She nodded, “that’s why we don’t believe in using governments here. Everything they do is backed by the threat of violence.”
“What you do is not violence?”
“What we do is not initiating violence,” she said, some enthusiasm flavoring her tone talking about the LoC’s ideology. A true believer. “We adhere to the non-aggression principle. Human beings own themselves – their body and their mind – so when they put in labor to produce something, or earn money to buy something, that property essentially becomes a part of themselves. To initiate force against that person or their property is like saying you own them. Slavery. That’s illegitimate. And that’s the basis of morality. What they have been doing – what these human traffickers have been doing – is initiating force. We are simply responding to that force. It’s a form of self-defense.”
“Without force, your liberation movement is doomed to fail,” I said. “Those who are willing to initiate force will gladly take advantage of your non-aggression principle. They’re already doing it. Those bombings a few weeks ago…that was from people who want to take you over.”
Major Rosaline Riviera said nothing for a time. I could see that she understood what I’d said, but didn’t want to believe it. She clung to peaceful liberty in a world going mad. A world where violence and force spread over it like a pool of freshly spilled blood. Even Sachi had looked at the LoC and saw only weakness to be exploited, a place where she could easily setup a base of operations.
Before anyone else could say anything, Aaron Reynolds voice came over our earpieces via the security firm’s mesh network. “We’re ready to head out. The maps and protocols for each person should be up on yer ARs. Remember not t’be seen, heard, or to engage with the enemy till everyone’s in position and I give the signal. Keep yer ears open for more instruction. Let’s move out!”
Our team arrived at our assignment at almost four in the morning. A large, plantation style farmhouse. Dark colored, genetically modified corn swayed in the house’s cropland like a whispering ocean. Large sprinklers of Benecorp manufacture stretched through the fields. All other surrounding property carried only dry, barren fields.
This is north of their barricade. I wonder why they’re growing crops up here?
According to Darren, operations were coordinated from this house. He helped LoC Security watch it for activity – when shift changes occur, when and how often shipments of supplies and people came through, and what sort of clientele showed up. Operations turned out to be erratic with our impending raid hanging over their heads, but even then, there was some regularity to it. However, in the last seventy-two hours, as if in anticipation of our Easter Emancipation, a crude moat was carved into the lawn in a large rectangle around the house about two hundred feet away from the outer walls.
Our team consisted of Colonel Reynolds, Darren, Major Riviera, four other security agents – Preston Culver, Beatrix “Beebee” Brie, Coleman Ross, and Morgan Cooper – along with two field medics, Ellen Malloy and Alex Paley, and myself. We quartered in the next-door neighbor’s house about a mile north of the target. The place had been abandoned, only a few moldy pieces of furniture left behind, yard covered in dry, brown grass. There hadn’t been any activity we could discern upon our arrival, so everyone got ready. Darren stood near the open door of our transport truck in the driveway talking to the two medics waiting to help the rescued children.
The security agents gathered in the garage. They were excited to test the new XDS-023 model exoskeleton suits – a suit based on the design of Benecorp’s newest EXO:B-024. It used the same bullet resistant polymer as Benecorp’s model, covering the entire body with armor sectioned at the joints for flexibility. The armor gave better bullet resistance than Kevlar. It utilized the energy of bullet impacts to temporarily form high-energy chemical bonds between polymer molecules, thereby strengthening the material when force is applied and dispersing the energy through the armor. Fast-twitch hydraulic systems in the joints greatly enhanced strength and speed while wearing the exoskeleton. Different shades of brown splotched the polymer shielding, providing desert camouflage. The exoskeleton came with a 20 mm semi-automatic gun mounted on right arm, a 5.56 mm fully automatic rifle and a Milkor MGL mounted on left. Targeting systems were displayed by the visor in the helmet, hydraulic systems in the joints correcting for recoil.
I made my way to the attic, peering out the busted window facing the neighboring trafficking house, zooming in with my bionic eye. The back yard ended at a cornfield to my left, the front porch facing to my right. The moat bisected the house’s long, dirt driveway and wrapped around, turning it into a small island. Two moving trucks were parked outside of the moat, only a flat bottom boat ashore on the house side – the only transportation across the moat.
I couldn’t make out any people inside the house through boarded-up windows, but prowling the lawn were at least four UGVs – three Benecorp SATURN models and one of the Benecorp SABERCAT models.
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