She ate until she was full, then went up to the big table with a mug of tea. She had to think about what to do. She couldn’t stay at the convent too long. Yes, she was safe for the moment. But that couldn’t last. Instinct told her to gather supplies for a trek. She didn’t know where or how she would go or if she would get anywhere. But she had to do something. Not sit around and wait.
As she searched for what she might need for a long journey, she found plenty of materials that could be useful: a fully stocked medical kit; a knapsack perfect for stuffing; extra clothes, tampons, soap, shampoo, a couple of small towels; socks and even a pair of hiking boots. She laid everything out on the table in small piles. She found a waterproof poncho folded into a tight pouch. And food. She had to take along food. She even located a camping set of plates and forks and knives, canteens and cups. What were the sisters thinking? They might once have camped out with children, before The Collapse. Before there was nowhere to go. She found a small flashlight and a sharp hunting knife and lighters. She would have to make a fire somewhere.
With everything laid out on the table, she began to speculate on where she might go. And then it came to her . . .
Zamora. Yes, Zamora.
Old Merrie made the daily climb down twenty flights from what was more a giant kitchen than a living space. She had moved in after the lower floors were occupied, one of five thousand squatters who had migrated into the unfinished Tower of David. They were more desperate than superstitious about its past. Rather than live in The Hovels (or worse, The Shanty Alleys), they occupied the Tower knowing a day would come when they’d be evicted. Until that day, they made a life.
Weddings were celebrated, babies were born, children were taught to read and write, feuds were settled, policing was done, and people came to accept that this was their mini village inside the bigger city.
At one wedding, after the groom’s family had carried all the food and drink up sixteen flights of stairs to a cavernous space where no apartments had survived, the bride’s family set up tables and chairs. Musicians arrived from other floors and tuned their instruments. An officiator arrived, because no priest was left to perform the ceremony, and friends and families made the laborious climb and took their seats.
Finally, the bride had arrived. She was out of breath from the climb from her apartment on the fourth floor, her train held off the cement by four little girls. And the event began. They exchanged vows and rings. There was music and laughter. Dancing and eating and drinking. Finally, the bride and groom had waved farewell and climbed the stairs higher and higher until they reached the twenty-second floor, where a large apartment had been draped in sheets for privacy, as there were no walls. Flowers had been strewn in a path to a mattress on the floor. This is where the couple spent the night. A honeymoon in a hulking, half-finished high-rise where the only beauty was a full moon that cast its silver light through the gaps in the sheets.
So people carried what they needed up and down every day, took their dogs out walking, carried their rusted motorcycles up to makeshift garages, and stole electricity from the street in elaborate lines that crisscrossed each other up and down the building. They had jobs and hobbies, beauty parlors and dress shops; there were seamstresses and tailors. Everything they needed was within the Tower.
Old Merrie had made it her business—and it was a business—to know every one of them: from the tiniest newborn to the oldest grandpa. She brought them food, for a price, but she brought much more. They could order just about anything from her, and she’d supply it. She was a scrounger’s scrounger who specialized in delicacies no one else could find. Her cooking and baking were legendary. She supplied food for all occasions and was always in demand.
For those who’d been cleansed, her meals were a new and exciting experience. She was sly and could fool anyone into thinking she was on their side or that she wasn’t quite right in the head. No one considered her a threat to the system.
She wandered where she pleased, pushing her cart, singing her songs. She was a fixture on the streets and in the Tower. Everyone trusted Old Merrie. And everyone needed a sympathetic ear. So they told her things.
Rosalie’s baby had colic. That old man on floor five had been caught peeping again. The lab mix on two had a litter. Joe Beppo had lost his job and slashed his wrists. Angie and Eduardo’s wedding had been postponed because they couldn’t get enough money for the permit. The boys on floor nine had a fight over a girl, and one of them got stabbed. A gang had moved into the old pharmacy next door and started doing business in the front apartment on the ground floor right under the noses of the Protectors. So it was assumed they must be paying off someone high up. Mrs. Oberdorf on seventeen was screwing the boy who stayed in that closet by the stairs on floor twelve. He climbed up to seventeen every morning right after her husband, that bus driver named Gus, left for work. He keeps a regular schedule, you know.
Old Merrie knew it all. She just took it in and never repeated a word to anyone. Except that one time on the roof with El. Something about the girl’s quiet way moved Old Merrie. What was it? She couldn’t say. But she saw it in the girl’s eyes, in the way she held her head and the sway of her hair in the breeze, in the way she gazed out to the Glimmer, in the hope Old Merrie saw in those clear, bright eyes.
Yes, there was something about that girl.
Father Ignatius had no illusions about what the Regime would do to him if he was ever caught. It was an inevitable result of his work. When he decided that his faith could not be contained inside the walls of a church and he would fight rather than be eliminated like the other priests, he’d asked God for guidance. He had wandered the streets for months as a beggar, witnessing the decay and hopelessness of the city he’d once loved. After much prayer, he realized he could no longer accept the evil around him.
Then one day he saw a woman give birth on a piece of cardboard in an alley. He had heard her cries for help and rushed in without thinking and used his own shirt to hold the child as it came out of her body. It was as if an angel had come down to deliver a message to him: it was the children who needed him.
He knew the Detainers would one day knock down his door and drag him away to be humiliated, tortured, strung up, or worse. He prayed that day wouldn’t come before he had executed his plan. And so he taught children day and night. He divided them into squads. He taught them tactics and self-defense. He taught them how to fight as guerillas. To use the city as a battlefield. Taught patience and discipline. The ones who caught on fast were elevated to decision-making posts. Some were skilled as shooters, and others as strategists. They played endless war games on paper and then on the streets.
Even when the Detainers would see the kids practicing maneuvers, they laughed at the kids playing soldier. This had been part of the Father’s plan: make them seem like harmless kids—until the time came to act for real.
Father Ignatius had no idea when that day would come. Until The Race. Then all the gears meshed.
They rode on backstreets and through alleys where Gruen told Niko that no one was likely to be out. The bike was loud, but bikes were not uncommon and people paid no attention. Most people were still asleep or just getting up. Gruen rode as if he’d had the bike all his life. Finally, they got to the street where Father Ignatius held his classes. It was quiet as Gruen pulled up to the warehouse.
He stuck out his foot as he stopped the bike.
“This is it.”
“What is? Nobody lives here.”
“He trains the kids out back behind this building. It’s an old warehouse. The Detainers don’t bother with it.”
“Yeah, but where is he?”
“He’ll be here. He comes every day.”
“I can’t just sit on the curb and wait.”
“Listen, man, I got you this far, but this is it for me. I got stuff to do. And a woman waitin’ on me. I don’t show up, she’s likely to start asking around where I am. You don’t want that, do you?”
Niko swung h
is leg over and got off the bike.
“Thanks for helping me,” he said. He looked up and down the street. There was an alley on the far side of the warehouse. He could wait in there.
“Hey, good luck, man. You gonna need it. I’ll keep an ear open for you. Thanks for this.” He patted the bike.
“I may need to borrow it sometime.”
“No prob, man. You know where to find me.”
And then, with a roar, the bike disappeared around a corner.
When Gruen was gone, Niko walked quickly to the alley to a broken-down dumpster and some slabs of wood. He climbed up on these and looked inside. Empty. The Collectors either had just picked up or no one used it in this deserted section.
He lowered himself into the dumpster and waited. He wasn’t sure for what. Waiting was always the hardest part. His stomach growled. His head ached. The cut on his face burned. He tried not to think, but he couldn’t help it. Where was El? What had happened to her? Remorse overwhelmed him. It would have been better for everyone if his number hadn’t been the winner. Damn that Huston.
Even Huston, who seemed to have a remote sensor on every beating pulse in the city, had no idea where El and Niko had gone, nor how they’d gotten away. Except the report that Niko’s bike had disappeared came to him immediately.
“The Premier will want answers,” the captain of Compound intelligence—named Wilder, who was a stout man with thick arms and a twisted mouth—told Huston. “He’ll want answers right away.”
It was Huston’s habit to rise with the sun, so he’d been at his desk for two hours by then. It took less than ten minutes for the news to travel to him by phone, and in another minute, this brute was at his door, almost smirking. His racer had lost and he’d dropped quite a bundle on him. And he’d never liked Huston or understood why Premier Villinkash depended so heavily on him. As far as Wilder was concerned, Huston was an elite pansy.
“Ah, Wilder, you’re so right. And I will supply them. In the meantime, suppose you give me a complete rundown on what your people know so far. I see you have a folder already. Has there been foul play?”
Huston was neither cowed by, nor concerned with, what Wilder may or may not think of him personally. He had a record on the man that could shut him down permanently.
“I think it’s for the Premier to examine this file.”
“Right again. However, as you are no doubt aware, the Premier sleeps late and doesn’t like bad news before he’s eaten and taken care of his personal needs. And I believe he was up rather late last night celebrating with, shall we say, some friends? So it’s best if you and I handle this at the outset. On the other hand, if you think it wise to disturb him this early . . .” Huston made a sweeping motion with his hand toward the door and slightly bowed.
“I think we’d best find out more facts first.”
So that was that.
“And the folder?” Huston held out his hand.
Wilder laid it on the desk and opened it carefully as if he expected a viper to pop out.
“Mmmhmm,” Huston murmured. “So there was more blood than . . .” He hesitated.
“Yes. Much more than one would expect from a first encounter. And she had been examined by the team. She was unspoiled. There should not have been so much blood. The tests were inconclusive. The blood samples were mixed together.”
Huston turned the first page over and read the second.
“And the food had been eaten but also disturbed. Like an animal had gotten to it? That makes no sense.”
“There are photos.” Wilder pushed the paper aside and spread out a batch of pictures.
“Well, we’ve never seen this before.” Huston studied the pictures. There was the dining table, which looked as if a fight had taken place. Dishes on the floor, food spattered around. And the bedroom. So much blood. “There’s a trail of blood. Look here.” He pointed to one of the pictures and then arranged them in a pattern. “Leading from the dining room to the bedroom. Just drops and then . . . look at the bed. It’s been used.”
“More than used, I’d say.” Wilder pointed to the bedclothes strewn on the floor and pillows askew.
“What the hell went on in there?”
“Whatever it was, it didn’t end there.”
“Leave these with me, and I’ll inform the Premier as soon as it’s reasonable. What other information do you have?
“His motorcycle is gone.”
Huston looked up at Wilder, whose mouth was twisted to one side in a triumphant, crooked smile.
“He’s your boy,” Wilder said. “Your winner. And he got away with that stunt after The Race and now the city’s waking up to this. His name’s already all over the place. There’s no telling where this could lead.”
“Are there pictures of her? Before pictures?”
Wilder riffled through the folder and slid out photos that had been taken of El after they’d dressed her and done her hair and makeup after the purity examination—and just before they had pushed her into the room with Niko.
In a rare show of his true feelings, Huston whistled under his breath. “She is a beauty. She couldn’t have gotten away unless they rode out together.”
“We’ve put out an all-city alarm for them. They can’t possibly get far.”
On an order from Villinkash, Huston came up with a three-step plan to quash what the Regime most feared. A developing insurrection.
First they would call out riot troops and Detainer squads to patrol the city, question individuals, make arrests, and generally promote more fear than usual. This included an even more stringent curfew, which made it more expensive and cumbersome for the Scroungers to do business. Not that they cared about any curfew one way or the other, but skirting it became more onerous.
Next came the constant barrage of InCom propaganda and lies about Niko. But as an added bonus, a large reward had been offered for anyone or any group giving information that led to his capture. Now this was a bit tricky for the Regime because it forced them to admit that Niko had escaped their grasp and chosen to throw their accolades right back at them. This wasn’t good publicity, and it spread across the city with the vengeance of stampeding cattle. What individuals couldn’t speak out loud, hordes of people whispered. That whisper reverberated.
Finally, there was the Regime’s fruitless effort to quell any uprising. The minute the Collectors scraped one spray-painted “Niko” from a wall, three others popped up somewhere else. Niko banners appeared on toilet paper streamers and were stamped onto sidewalks. Young people in their teens and twenties held secret meetings, came up with resistance strategies, and mobilized themselves into platoons.
So while troops in riot gear stormed through the city, they couldn’t be everywhere at all times. Whenever they left one sector, groups popped up like cockroaches coming out of hiding in the dark of night. Spontaneous fires erupted, seemingly from nowhere. Cauldrons of burning oil spewed from rooftops. No one knew the backstreets and alleyways like the Hovelers and Scroungers. Riot police were like bumbling rhinos chasing their own tails while the city dwellers scurried everywhere like mice and hid anywhere. They called in false tips that kept the Collectors busy. They erected roadblocks faster than Detainers could knock them down. And those who knew how reprogrammed their trackers, making Detainers scurry around to fake addresses in fake quadrants.
The more time passed, the more furious Villinkash became. And so, as a final step, the death threats began. Villinkash called for random captures of people he could post on the InCom pleading for their lives. Two were actually placed before a firing squad and shot on camera. This only disgusted and inflamed the city more. Anyway, people recognized these two as informants. Bands of young Scroungers tore down and smashed InComs, then ran away and disappeared into the general squalor like scattered ashes.
And throughout it all, Niko was nowhere to be found.
Father Ignatius heard the first shouts of “Niko” after The Race ended. Though he had no idea where they came from, h
e realized in an instant what it meant. While it was still dark, he’d rushed out of the old brick warehouse and stood on the sidewalk and listened in wonder and joy as if a cool rain had suddenly broken a long hot season. He spread his arms to the city that, despite everything, he loved with a deep faith in its goodness. That faith that underpinned everything he’d done since taking his mission out of the church and onto the streets to the young people.
Now, surely, was the time to act.
When the cries of “Niko” grew louder and erupted into a chorus with banging sounds made from metal trash can lids and iron pipes against light posts, Father Ignatius walked with a calm air to the fence hole where the kids entered, bent down carefully to squeeze through it, and meandered back to the very farthest corner of the brick building wall that butted up against the pitted one next door.
Before running his fingers down the line of bricks third from the end, he glanced up at the sky and around to the old buildings’ walls that surrounded him. Since The Collapse, when all manufacturing had been taken over by the Regime and moved far north of The Compound, no one ever used these. What used to be made in these buildings—clothes, toys, shoes, bedding, flashlights, fans, refrigerator and washer parts—had all been closed down and moved offshore for cheaper labor or to the camps where slaves from their own city worked fifteen-hour days with no time off and no accounting to anyone. You could live or you could die in the camp system and no one would know.
His hand rested on one brick that stuck out a little from the others. He positioned his thumb and index finger over the end of it and wiggled it from side to side. Slowly it moved out toward him, and he pulled it out completely. Inside, he knew, was an oblong, sealed plastic box. This he removed, then slid the brick back into place.
A Place Called Zamora Page 14