A Place Called Zamora

by LB Gschwandtner

  “What do you have there?” she asked again, and pointed to the papers stuffed under his arm.

  He stood up then. “I have to go,” he said, almost to himself.

  Now she could see he was tall. Over six feet, she estimated. And graceful, moving in the tight space with the ease of a stalking cat.

  “Be careful,” she whispered, feeling protective toward him. She pulled open the top drawer of her desk to retrieve the backup drive with her notes. Bags were inspected, and everyone who worked in the building was patted down every day coming into the building and leaving it. This was the only way she could take out what she needed.

  “You go ahead,” she told him. “I’ll follow in a few minutes. No sense making a target of two people. How did you get in?”

  He opened his jacket, revealing a coiled rope and a hook. It was climbing gear, Miriam realized, and she wondered how he had come to own such things these days. So he had come in from the roof or a drainpipe. Had he scaled the outside wall?

  She’d managed, a few days earlier, to get a counterfeit keypad card and instructions on how to wipe out the memory it had used. It was more than she could afford. Everything on the black market was overpriced, but what choice did she have? It was rumored they would be installing eye readers soon. Rumors were like eddies in a stream, endlessly churning. She figured it was now or never to steal her own backup drive, although according to the Regime, it all belonged to them.

  Niko crept toward an open window. Although neither of them knew it then, they would be spending considerable time together in the months before The Race. And it wasn’t until later that night that she realized he’d never told her what he was doing there.

  Niko made the climb out of the window and down to the dark street. He walked with the papers still tucked into his belt. It was dangerous because of curfew. But he also had a pocketful of bribes in case he was stopped. Keeping to alleys, hiding in abandoned doorways and flattening himself against crumbling walls if he heard anything, he set off to find Gruen. Periodically a siren would wail as someone was nabbed and hauled away to a work camp. But Niko kept moving until he passed through The Prefabs and came to the outskirts of The Hovels.

  In the daylight he recognized the maze of shacks and crumbling walls, dirt paths and trash-strewn walkways. But at night it was more difficult. And the Nabbers didn’t patrol out here unless they needed to fill a work camp quota; then they would appear with searchlights and chains.

  Niko hadn’t told Gruen he’d look for him that particular night. He had no way to know exactly when he’d be able to get into the newspaper office. Gruen was the one who’d heard about the papers. But he couldn’t make a climb like that down from the roof and across the ledges. So Niko said he’d go. But now he had no place to hide them. Hoping Gruen had found somewhere, he fumbled on in the dark, feeling his way by instinct until he came to an open area he recognized. This was where there had once been a school with a playground, someone said, but the Overseers had it blasted away since the only schools they approved were now indoctrination centers. Yes, Gruen’s hut was nearby.

  Niko crossed the lot and headed down a dirt pathway until he came to Gruen’s place. He was about to enter through the sheet of loose cardboard that subbed for a door but stopped when he heard muffled noises. A woman’s voice. And then gasping. Then the woman again and the sounds of moving around, thumping, and then a long groan from a man. Then nothing.

  “You done?” It was Gruen’s voice. “You oughta be done after wearing me down like that.”

  Niko heard a slap.

  “Ow.” The woman’s voice. “You hadn’t got to do me like that.”

  “You know you like it.” Gruen again.

  “Yeah, you’re right. It’s better than some. Better than a lot of ’em.”

  Niko heard a deep sigh. He wondered when he could break this up. He wanted to get on with it.

  “You better get out now.” Gruen’s deep voice.

  “Why you wanta push me out right away? You don’t wanta go again? I could go again. Couldn’t you?” The woman laughed.

  “Shut up.” Gruen. “Just shut the shit up and get out now. You had enough for one night. You got what you came for. Go back to what’s-his-name.”

  Now Niko started getting nervous. If they had a fight, he’d have to wait even longer. If the shack had a door, he would have knocked. But it didn’t. And he couldn’t let whoever she was see him. She’d start asking questions, and that would leave them open to a ratting out. So he waited behind the shack in the dark. His stomach growled, and he remembered he hadn’t eaten in a long time.

  Then he heard a commotion inside: Gruen telling her to get dressed, her complaining about him, and they went back and forth until Gruen finally pushed her out onto the path.

  “I’m tired,” said Gruen.

  “Yeah, you’re always tired after. But not before. I think I oughta tell someone about how tired you are.”

  “Here.” Gruen’s voice. “Take this.”

  “Wow.” The woman. “You musta liked what you got tonight. I’m gonna buy me a real pretty something for the next time. When’s that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll find you sometime soon. Now you go on back to him, and don’t tell him nothing or there won’t be nothing for you next time. Understand?”

  Niko heard some more fumbling and then footsteps fading into the night. Carefully, in case she was hanging around, he slid along the hut wall until he could see Gruen standing there, scratching his head in the dim light that came from his hut.

  “Pssst, Gruen,” Niko whispered.

  Gruen spun around, his fists ready to pound whoever was there. He couldn’t see well in daylight with only the one good eye, but at night it was even worse.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Niko said.

  “Man, what’re you doing out here? I almost thumped your head in.”

  “I got it,” Niko told him.

  “What?”

  “The plans. You know. What we talked about.”

  “Shh, come inside.” He pulled Niko by the arm. “Shit, that woman don’t know when to stop. Insatiable, that’s what she is. And that man of hers ain’t worth shit for nothing. Keeps a roof over her head but never fucks her. So she comes around here every night almost. I can’t get rid of her.”

  “Got you a regular beauty queen?” Niko joked.

  “She must be one ugly bitch to come around here every night and want me. You get a look at her?”

  “Sorry, I was hiding in case . . . well, you should be careful,” Niko said. “Maybe she’s on the payroll. She could be a ratter.”

  “Naw, she’s not. Good for what she is, though. Keeps a man’s head on straight. You know what I mean? So, what’ve you got?”

  “We better go in.” Niko had lowered his voice. He figured Gruen bragged about women because he was disfigured, just to prove he was still in the game. But Niko also thought it made Gruen vulnerable. That made him a possible danger too.

  The huts in the section were packed pretty tightly together, with laundry lines and electric poles and InCom screens everywhere. He could hear snoring from nearby and a baby wailing farther off.

  Gruen’s hut was dark except for light from a streetlamp outside the back window. Not actually a window, it was just an opening that let in dust and rain and bugs. Niko walked the few steps to switch on a small lamp on a box next to what Gruen used for a bed. Just a thin pad on the floor, sheets all rumpled and kind of gray looking, as if they hadn’t been washed in a long time. There was a musty smell of sweat and dirty laundry. Niko opened his shirt and pulled the rolled papers out of his belt, then unrolled them under the light.

  “Those the plans?” Gruen asked. He stood next to Niko and looked down at the papers with his head tilted toward his good eye.

  “I think so. You were right. I don’t know why they were stashed in that newspaper office, though. Seems odd to leave them there. Think it’s a plant?”

  “The guy who gave me that piece of in
fo used to work over there. It was a payoff for something I let him have, that he needed really bad. He’s no ratter. Did some computer stuff for them before he got sick. A fucking tech genius, he is. Told me one day he saw some reporter come in real hush-hush and stash some papers in his files. So this guy, name’s Fuller, when no one was lookin’, opens the drawer and takes a look. And sees these papers he thinks must be plans for the whole of Infinius. You know, the underground stuff and all the walls and The Perimeters. He let it go at the time, but when he told me about the medicine he needed and how I could get it for him outside the city, well, that’s when he told me he’d have some info that could be useful for that kind of operation. Because, you know the higher-ups, they get past The Perimeters all the time. So there must be ways.”

  They spread the papers on the floor and held the small lamp down to cast light directly on the lines and symbols.

  “Yeah, look, there’s The Ring. And the Tower. And all the roads.” Niko was breathing hard. This was a goldmine. He followed the plan with his finger. All the roads. And The Perimeter. And there, up in the northeast corner, what looked like a huge park and low buildings.

  “So there really is a compound where The Overseers live.” He pointed to an outlined area that was marked Area C.

  “You said it, brother.” Gruen whistled. “I wonder what it’s like in there.”

  “A lot better than here or The Ring, or the Tower, or anywhere we know.” Niko traced around The Compound and down along the edge of the drawing like he was studying a treasure map. “Probably where the rat Villinkash hides out, too.”

  “What about the other papers?” Gruen reached down and slid out papers under the master plan. “I can’t tell what they say.” He squinted at one, his head cocked to one side to look with his good eye.

  Niko laid them all out and moved the small lamp from one to the other.

  “They’re details of everything,” he breathed. “It’s the whole city right here in front of us. Perimeters and even down to details of walls and barbed wire. And look,” he said, pulling over another sheet. “This one seems to show the InCom wiring system.”

  He looked up at Gruen. “Do you know what we could do with this? If we had someone who knew about electronics and computers?”

  Soon after that night, El hurried along a street early in the afternoon. She carried a large package wrapped in yellowed newspaper.

  “What have you got there?” Niko called out from the shadow of a doorway.

  She stopped abruptly, ready to fight. She’d grown more womanly by then, looking older than her almost sixteen years, and had learned to protect herself.

  Niko stepped out and smiled at her. “Something to trade?”

  “Oh, it’s you. You shouldn’t creep up on me like that.”

  El, too, had begun to hope they would meet like this or maybe in some more private place, although she couldn’t imagine where that might be. Usually El confided all of her daily experiences to the nuns but these she kept private, thinking about Niko as she fell asleep at night, sometimes even dreaming about him. She wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by Niko. It was there her daydreams stopped.

  “I was just standing here and happened to see you. There was no creeping up at all.” He was still smiling. “Come over in the shade. I want to talk to you.”

  El followed him to the doorway. As they reached it, the shade felt good, and she looked around at the street. No one was out. The lunch hour was over. Everyone was back where they were supposed to be. The closest InCom screen was telling people about the value of working for the Regime, about the rewards their work would yield. Of course the rewards would go to the Regime, but the announcer didn’t say that. On the screen there were shots of happy people at clean, bright factories and in Regime greenhouses. They waved and saluted.

  “What do you want?”

  As she asked, Niko reached behind her and slid a thin piece of metal along the edge of the doorway, and she heard a click. He pushed the door open and took her hand. Once inside, he closed the door behind her.

  “Cooler in here,” he said.

  The building had once been a shoe factory. There were skylights in the roof. Light bathed the old wood floor and the long tables, pitted from decades of use, now abandoned like so much of what had once been alive in the city.

  El wandered away from him, glancing around in wonder.

  “The sisters have told me that there used to be so many factories before. And . . .” she was afraid to tell him more.

  “And what?” He waited, but El didn’t say anything else. “You can trust me, El. What else did they say?”

  El shrugged and moved away from him to look over the tables.

  “I wonder how many people used to work in here,” she said. “I wonder about all those people and what happened to them. What happened to the way things used to be?”

  “What do you know about the way things used to be?”

  El shrugged again and leaned her back against a table.

  “No, you said the sisters told you. Then you said, ‘and.’ And what, El?”

  She stared at Niko, thinking about the sisters and their warnings. Could she trust him? Should she?

  “Tell me. I wonder about what happened too. About who my parents were. If they’re even alive. Don’t you wonder about things like that, El?”

  She moved back to where Niko stood and nodded.

  “Yes. I wonder about things. But that’s dangerous. You never know what you might find out.”

  “But you did find something out, right? What was it?”

  El’s shoulders slumped and she curled her fingers over the edge of the table, almost as if she felt she might fall and need to hang onto something.

  “They have a place where they store things,” she whispered. “A secret pit. I found it one day by accident. I’ve watched things and read things. Things that tell what happened.”

  “A secret place?” He walked over to where she stood and put his hands on her shoulders, nodding down at the newspaper-wrapped package. “Did this come from there?”

  She backed away. “No. This is just . . .” El laid the package on one of the big tables. She unwrapped it and pointed to two jars lying next to each other. “See, this is just honey that I use to barter. We collect it at the convent.”

  He came to her side again. “Can I taste some?”

  She looked up at him with clear eyes framed by thick lashes. “I guess.” She took one and opened it. Lifting the lid, she wiped her finger on her shirt and dipped it into the honey, swirling her finger so it wouldn’t drip off. “Quick,” she said, and he leaned in and took her finger into his mouth.

  He sucked it like a baby bird, and when all the sweetness had transferred down his throat, he let go of her finger, then dipped his into the jar and said, “Your turn.”

  She was too surprised to refuse, and besides, the sisters had taught her not to waste food. Their admonitions had become part of her instincts. She, too, sucked at the sweet, thick liquid. Before she knew what was happening, Niko pulled his hand away and leaned into her so close she could feel his warm breath and smell the honey still on it. It was like one of her dreams, as if she had willed this to happen. And when he took her finger and pressed it to his lips, it created a delicious thrill that ran through her body, down below her stomach, down, down farther, and she didn’t pull away or make a sound.

  In the next minutes, El lost track of time as Niko explored her body with his hands and pressed his fingers to her breast until she felt like crumbling. When she felt his fingers between her legs, something changed. She tried to back away, but his other arm was around her and his lips were on her neck.

  “Niko,” she said, and her voice was so throaty she wasn’t sure any sound had emerged.

  He was lifting her skirt, and she felt dizzy. “Niko,” she said again, this time with more strength.

  He pulled away from her face to gaze at her, his eyes heavy, a determined look about him.
/>   “Niko, stop.” She said it with certainty this time. “I can’t. We can’t.”

  “Why not?” He stroked her arm.

  “Because we just can’t. Not now. Not here.”

  Could she guess what he was thinking, feeling? That she wasn’t like those other girls, or the women who worked at the clubs? That she was fresh and new? That he felt something but couldn’t have said what? That he wanted her but also he wanted something else. What was it? What else was there? Even if he had told her his thoughts, she couldn’t have understood them because she had been protected by the old nuns.

  “There’s no place for us, El. Not ever. And soon I may be . . .” He couldn’t say it out loud.

  She placed her fingers against his lips. “Don’t.”

  “Why won’t you let us be happy while we can?”

  “I don’t know. I just can’t. Not yet. Please understand.”

  “Then will you do something for me?”

  “What?” She eyed him, wondering what else there could be.

  “Will you hide something for me? Trade the honey for it, if you like.”

  He let her go and walked to a dark corner of the big room. He picked up a bunch of papers and brought them back. After unwrapping the honey, he folded the newspapers over the maps of Infinius. “Take this back to the convent. Hide it in your secret place. One day, if things go all right, I’ll ask for them. If things don’t go all right, burn them.”

  “But . . .”

  Niko placed his fingers on her lips. “No questions. It’s better if you don’t know anything. Just hide them for me. Okay?”

  She nodded and he let his hand drop, but he leaned into her as if it might be goodbye forever. El folded against him, and suddenly she wanted what he’d wanted just a few minutes earlier. But this time, he pulled away and, with a rueful smile, said, “I have to go now. But when we meet again, then you’ll be ready?”

  He took the jars and left El there to exit the building a few minutes later. When she shut the door behind her, the lock clicked. With the newspaper bundled under her arm, she hurried back to the convent.