Into the Violet Gardens

by Isaac Nasri

  The mother smiles until she sighs and nudges an eye of hers. “Death threats have been rampant on my phone line. But…I’ve been doing my best to keep him close here. Home most of the time.”

  Leon looks over to his mother, scratching his arm.

  “Oh damn.” She shakes her head. “I feel you. But if he is going somewhere…IN case…y’all stick virtually on the line if you can.” Then she faces Leon. “Make sure you don't get used to no arcades or malls. People’s waiting to do stupid shit.”

  Leon’s mother reaches a hand, cradling her son’s shoulder. Leon nods.

  “Thanks for stopping by.”

  ***

  Alana turns right on a narrow alleyway, decelerating her speed. She removes her Miami Heat cap, having already changed at home to her leggings, whose lavender strips correlated with the shade on her windbreaker, which was zipped halfway. White flags emblazoned with the red circular cross over the head of a Terminator flail on the balconies. Her head aches to residents whooping in fervor from on top, raising their batons among themselves.

  “Treat ‘em like scrap. Roost ‘em liikeee scrappp!” each of them sings. Their tuneless voices shrill in her ears like a rambunctious tear inside metal. “Dump ‘em all!!! Gotta dump ‘em alll! Gotta dump ‘em all!!”

  Alana rubs her ear. She wouldn’t hesitate in even terminating these people off studio grounds if they came with such a mouth like that. Worse, how can Troy stand waking up to such fools in this place? Her junior brother rings on the line, and she taps at the call button.

  “Aye!” she greets, despite being shaken.

  “I’ll be out with my guys,” Gabriel notifies on the phone. “So you can know. It’s just gaming night.”

  “Okay. Don’t…don’t be too late, though. Lot going down.” She looks up to vehicles passing down on the horizontal lane. “Stay safe Gabriel.”

  Whatever chance she had of reaching the incognito Troy on the line was thrown out the water. She nears Troy’s apartment, and her palms dampen with sweat as she presses her foot on the pedal.

  I know he’s there. He got a be.

  When Alana assumed she was liberated from the cacophony, her perturbation heightens as she reaches Huntington Avenue, hearing uproar below in the streets from afar. A modernized apartment several feet high is spotted a block ahead on the slope. Alana whistles to a vacant space between a van and Toyota, and drives toward it.

  Parking and motioning rapidly from her vehicle, Alana witnesses a gang of rioters circle over a Virtual and suited human representative in the street.

  “Fuck him up! Fuck them up!!” the crowd cheers in unison as hands shove the two victims back and forth. The representative flinches to an ounce of Coke hissing like a geyser on his dressing shirt and tie as he stood in front of the cyborg, struggling to rise on his knees. Several idle young women stand, circling and laughing wildly as they spectate with their phones. No enforcement in sight over them.

  Alana meets with a resident opening the door, and bustles her way inside the lobby only to jerk to twin gunshots. Her fist clenches. Residents lounging in the square sofas rise in panic, trudging from the window view as bystanders storm the sound of the gunfire. A Labrador repeatedly barks to the entrance, but the timorous owner yanks it on the collar.

  I can’t…

  Her chest pounds, feeling her movement sway until a voice declares, “Hold on? You’re a resident?”

  She turns her head, facing a lady behind the desk. The employee’s gaze hardens at Alana cynically.

  “I…” She looks over her shoulders. The commotion continues to linger outside. “I visiting a friend of mine quick.”

  “Who?”

  “Fourth floor,” Alana emphasizes. Her sneakers scratch on the ground as she twists her foot. “It’s Troy Lev—”

  “That’s off-limits,” the employee dismisses.

  C’mon.

  “Naw listen.” Her face flushes as if losing breathe. “This IS urgent! I need to hurry, please.”

  “Understand. But I can’t—”

  “Let her proceed,” a broad desk man states as he looms behind the desk lady. “Can’t stop you if it’s an emergency.”

  The employee looks over to her superior and then at her, giving the visitor silent approbation to advance begrudgingly.

  Alana’s stomach knots upon hearing the desk man chuckle behind her back as she storms inside the elevator and presses the button to the fourth floor. The door closes, and she seals her hands in plea. Her shoulders quiver as she ascends. The sight of Troy standing outside his unit, smiling in anticipation, flashes in her eyes. She couldn’t wait to meet him.

  She recoils to the elevator opening. Despite the unsettling silence, she races to the hall, breathing. Alana’s ombre hair whooshes as she paces. Not one resident peeps from the door.

  “Troy!” she calls aloud. “On my way—”

  She releases a sudden gasp. The phone in Alana’s hand slips upon spotting a letter attached to Troy’s door. Three vile words rest freshly on the door’s exterior, titled BE GONE DIRTBAG. Red paint drains from the graffiti. Coughing to the fumes aroma, Alana takes the note. She gulps as she reads.

  Failure to do so will lead to severe judicious action. Any other Virtual residents residing must abide by the scheduled date of eviction. NO exceptions will be made. Thank you for your compliance.

  Damn. Troy been evicted? Naw. I can’t make of this.

  Alana stumbles against the wall, sinking her rear on the ground. Her blood circulates as she struggles to process the shock. Her gaze leans to the narrow hallway, unable to look directly at the trash left on the door. Water dampens her pupils. She fully unzips her windbreaker, folding and slipping the letter underneath the right V neckline cup of her violet striped sports bra. She couldn’t find words to interpret the shock. It didn’t seem fathomable for something like this to occur. Could this be what Troy was hiding? Whatever Troy was at, he’s standing. How could the residents be so primitive, despite being adults? She itched for the urge to step down immediately, lash out at the offices for the pain they brought him. But his pain was hers to share, and it only sunken her further in this hall. If she had one wish in ending this tension, for Troy’s sake, Alana would seize it in a heartbeat.

  + + +

  She trudges slowly toward the entrance she last came, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. To her dismay, Alana’s hair rises upon three young firebrands plastering a TEXT 545 poster on her car window. Her blood boils.

  “Aye!! The fuck y’all doing to my car?!” she screams as Alana rushes toward a bus stand. She grabs a plastic cup of lemon and tosses it outright, soaking one of the olive-skinned protester’s coats. He flings a torn cybernetic limb, but Alana steps back, smacking him fiercely toward the chin. His dark-skinned companion with the shirt of a priggish Ortega-Fernandez in a white sketch pulls him by the wrist, dragging him alongside the other as they scream cravenly.

  “Stupid damn bitch!” the soaked protester calls out. The figure of congresswoman KOF raising the head of a T-800 drenches at the back of his coat. He clutches to the bruise bleeding on his lip. “Luck, I ain’t got a baton with me!”

  “Try me!” she hisses. Alana beckons. “Go! You isn’t SHIT!”

  Alana glares hotly at him, tearing the poster violently until pieces fall like flakes on her sneakers. She witnesses the group converge with the jeering crowd downward, parading and shuffling among themselves as they slam their batons like a band of hyenas gnawing for the last piece of meat. Cars rotate back to where they came from, struggling to find another alternative to steer clear from the commotion that barricaded the stability in traffic. A news reporter stands behind the parked vehicles across Alana’s side, holding back a laugh to the camerawoman as he gestured his mic to the beat down behind him. Spectacles and a tie glide in mid-air, forcing her to turn her attention to the severed bionic arm wriggling on the concrete.

  “What up on TikTok baby!” a looter cheers.

  Alana unlocks
and barges her way inside the vehicle. She rests her temple against the wheel, trembling furiously. Her mind speeds, bringing her back as a teen quivering outside in the sunny school courtyard. The palm trees swayed, and a gang of peers stood sitting in the corridors, leveling their gaze at her like panthers lounging on the rocky boulder, examining their prey astutely as she stalked. Her body descends, face falling flat on the grass and blinking away to the gum spat on her face. Her heart accelerated to the obscenities and chortles echoing around her, blistering into her ear. She could only cradle in agony.

  After a decade of growing and escaping that pain, believing she was different from everyone, Alana was back, reliving those school years again. She had absolutely nowhere to escape it. The men and women that surrounded her in the street, couldn’t be sound to call themselves adults. Where is their reasoning? No different from the lowly monsters that tormented her since childhood, and now Troy. Some call for justice this was if it is.

  The sun descends, darkening the sky, and the voices of rioters roaming in the street continue to inundate the neighborhood like a fiesta.

  Chapter 12

  Travelers in the Dulles airport roam around Eva like evanescent spirits in the terminal, barely acknowledging her presence to her amusement. The Virtual sits in one of the terminal’s benches, crossing her legs as she waits for her flight. Her bag remains close by her side. The sunlight beams from the visible glass behind her, illuminating whatever dullness lingered in the terminal. The Virtual’s blood runs cold.

  Eva looks down at her cell phone, observing the cryptic message an unknown contractor sent her. It dumbfounded her that she was able to get a reach of the Jaguars of Apollo after the government disowned the company by force. Could it be Ottoman? Whether the sender had to be Ottoman or not, it was a wave of fresh air to embrace.

  Meet @ Corniche St. Sharjah, UAE. Notify upon arrival.

  So this where Ottoman relocated?

  She takes out her express ticket, observing the time nearing on top of her phone screen. Eva rises, bustling past two children scramming naively before the mother seizes them by the wrist. However, a strange moment whispering in her ear catches her in pause.

  The Virtual glances over her shoulder to a couple of travelers looking up to ABC7 coverage reporting on a large HD above. One of them shakes her head.

  “The bodies of four 23-year-old students have been found,” the reporter mentions. He rubs his lips with a handkerchief. “Description will be graphic to many.” The somber photoshoots revealing the faces of the four male protesters display like a frame over a tarnished emerald vehicle in the center. A charred laceration stains vertically on the car’s hood. Blood plasters on the front seat.

  “Live at Chevy Chase, Maryland,” a female reporter’s voice mentions. “Investigators reported victims. Dario. Travis. Angel. Manuel. Each had died to a deadly butchering by the time they were possibly arriving for a friendly gathering at Beach Drive.”

  Eva’s stance remains solid as a rock, and she twirls her tongue over her lower teeth callously. She raises her gloved hand, analyzing the small spot of blood on the posterior fabric.

  “Investigation is underway for the suspect in the scene.”

  Eva catches a spark glint in her left eye. Sighing darkly, she motions without a word, leaving the viewers trapped in questions as she disappears with the strangers. The travelers are left mumbling disquietly as the news continues to divulge.

  “Surprising after,” the reporter continues. “Several more dismembered bodies related to the victims have been located in the neighborhood. More is coming. One being the partner of Travis…named 20 year-old Brandi Ortiz. Then a 52 year old Paul…”

  “No doubt it was a scrapdog,” a traveler says as the news continues to cover the consecutive homicides. His arms fold. “Look at the toll. Not even a child’s safe from that. A scene like this can’t be human. Not from what I know, man.”

  “The world’s getting crazy every day,” another traveler, confined in a wheelchair, mentions in approval. He chuckles nervously. “Whoever he or she is, thank God I’m out of the area for now.”

  ***

  The bus leaves after Eva stands at the sidewalk of Corniche. The cyborg looks upward to a seagull gliding above a ten-story edifice at the heart of a grassy courtyard. A gargantuan white mosque stands in proximity. She removes the red sunglasses, allowing an air of humidity to soothe her eyes.

  Here I am.

  Having been notified through follow-up text earlier, Eva trudges on the pathway. A wave of tension rocks in her chest, and she cradles her shoulder. The bag slings in her possession. Traffic continues to blitz behind her. The black hijab fixated over her head whips through the breeze slapping her skin as she motions. Outside on the park’s grassy field, pedestrians race forward, hurling rocks in mid-air until it splashes into the vast water from afar. Her mouth hangs to two Virtuals gathering alongside several of the men in gowns, whipping their mats on the grass without a single judgment from the humans. One of the men recites “Allahu akbar!” before they gesture their palms close to their ears in unison. Eva looks down at her hands, which were still concealed, and she cogitates.

  The number of cyborgs and Martials roaming the area multiplies as she storms. Inhaling the torrid air, Eva undoes the gloves one by one. The light reflects at the iron surface of her bionic hands, and she flexes her fingers. The weight on her chest crumbles, and the tension diminishes. An esoteric feeling she never experienced these past months. She never stepped foot or knew here, far much even knowing their language. Yet this place and the people embraced her without question. Not a sight of protest or propaganda plastered on the cars that parked. Having been feeling like an enemy to the nation for so long, Eva would have never thought of going back and reliving that comfort that was stolen from her and so many Virtuals. If it weren’t for the resentments she needed to redress, she wouldn’t dare going back to her homeland after these brief minutes.

  It’s been a long time since I've experienced home.

  Eva nears a foot to the courtyard marking the entrance to the PMC’s tower above, only for her to gaze downward at the capacious complex underneath it. A marble dome encases the ceiling over the lower building, and its symmetrical tiles glitter to the light. The Virtual walks up the corridors, and the fabric of her coat taps to the fountains sprinkling like geysers from the pond. A helicopter’s shadow looms over her head. A coconut tumbles from one of the palm trees and rolls forward. She traps it by her foot, and that’s when Eva grimaces to a heavily armed Martial approaching her direction from the entrance.

  “Tahtaj musaeadat?” he asks. Behind the automated tone, the Martial’s accent was as thick as the humans she stumbled across. “What’s your request?” The robot’s pointy ears carried semblance to a wolf, and a current glitters at the tips.

  The bag drops from her hand. She informs him of the details.

  ***

  Stepping off from the escalator, Eva follows the guide from behind. The leaping jaguar’s artifice glows like a lamp on the floor below, and it circulates. She removes the hijab from her head, wrapping it like a scarf over her neck, and lets her straight hair whirl as she strolls to pass the agents.

  Contractors lean on the vast window stand, spectating and bopping drinks at the boats floating at the bay. A Prowler chases after a quad drone as it glides down the escalators, hopping over one of the tables where a group of PMCs sat. The lamb on the dish wobbles on an agent’s lap, and she glances up with a reddening face, waiting for an employee to claim responsibility.

  An agent looks over his shoulder, saying “I owe you” quietly before moving along. Eva scratches her head, in doubt to what he’s conveying. The Martial continues to motion forward, only to pause to Ottoman standing in his way. The CEO raises an eyebrow, presumably amused by his sightings.

  The android looks over to Eva, before stating, “Surprised to see you—”

  “Leave it to me Z,” Ottoman says. He waves a hand. “Thank you v
ery much.”

  Z complies, leaving the defector with the boss. He ignites a cigar locked between his fingers. Many cases have yet to be discussed with the two.

  “Ah. Eva Moreci,” he acknowledges. Ottoman places the cigarette between his lips, kindling the tip. “I remember you. Latin America still has a bounty over your head.” He chortles with the cigar chained in his teeth. He beckons Eva to follow along, with the latter maintaining a solemn expression. “I could be wrong now. But…my company owes you much that day. Even better. One of my contractors thankfully told me about your arrival today.”

  “I see why your company relocated,” she says. Eva glances at a falcon, flapping toward a masked Virtual's fingers. He gestures toward one of the human visitors, who offers a seed, but the falcon flaps its wings frantically. “Sounds wise.”

  Her fingers fold. It’s as if everything she went through has never existed, and the knot curls around her heart once more, kindling her anger toward those who’ve turned their backs. It stunned her that with how much Ottoman had lost at Herndon, his resources were still substantial enough to land him to where he’s at.

  Near a lounge, Ottoman opens the door to where his office likely entails. He grabs a remote from the table, signaling it toward the window. The blinds rise, giving an overview of the bridge leading to the Al Noor Island at bay. A digital hologram of a checkers board glitters on the marble until Eva drops her long bag on the table. The noise softens, and he lets go of the cigarette.

  “Once my contract was broken,” he says. Ottoman whistles steam from his nostrils, which Eva coughs lightly to. “We underwent…what you can call, a Virtual exodus. Qatar. Turkey. Iran. The Middle East is as infuriated as we are.”