by L. A. Cruz
“Or we all die,” Fanning added.
“Or we all might die,” the soldier added.
“Not might die. Will die!” Fanning said.
“Or we all will die,” the soldier said.
The radio crackled. “Roger that.”
“When we step outside, we stay together,” Fanning said. “No funny business, Corporal. If you make the Major anxious, he’s liable to break a wicked wind. Understood?”
Helia nodded.
Fanning pushed on the glass and a strong wind swept into the lobby, a wind that had strengthened as it traveled across the Kansas plains and cut through the fencing and now arrived cold on Helia's bare legs. Ahead, the flag whipped violently.
They stepped outside and shuffled toward the vehicle. A new ring of guards, maybe a dozen, had formed a large semicircle around the SUV, their rifles pointed. In the vehicle’s windows, Helia could see the reflection of the guards up on the roof, their weapons all pointed.
The party of three shuffled toward the backseat of the SUV, the muzzles following them.
Fanning opened the door. “Time to get it.”
“Ladies first,” Helia said.
“I won’t argue with that,” Fanning said and climbed in first, Makab shielding them both. Then Makab picked Helia up and shoved her inside. The interior was modified with a cage and a row of three seats behind it. A prisoner transport vehicle.
Makab climbed in and closed the door behind them.
“Get in the cage,” Fanning said.
Helia ducked and sat behind the cage. Makab sat next to her. On the floor, was a large plastic bin. Fanning took out one of the bulletproof vests he had requested and pulled it over his head. He pulled out another vest and tossed it to Makab who did the same.
“Sorry, no vest for you,” Fanning said. He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and slapped them on Helia’s wrists. Then he untied the trousers from around her legs and tossed them into her lap. His eyes lingered on her crotch. “Feel free to put your pants back on.” Then he closed the cage, locked it, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
He spent a long moment eyeing up the dashboard.
Helia pulled her pants back on. It was hard in the handcuffs, but she managed. “You have to put it into drive.”
“Shut up. I know how to drive,” Fanning said. “I wasn’t in there that long.”
“Now that you’re a woman, what kind of driving can we expect?”
“Shut up,” Fanning said. “I haven’t finished my transition. I’m still in limbo.”
“So the stupid boy is still making the decisions?”
“I never was a boy,” he said.
“So what pronoun should I use?”
He turned around in the seat. “Boy, you’re insufferable. How ‘bout from here on out you call me God? I’m okay with that. I’m everything at the same time. Gender is for mere mortals. And I’m about to choose your fate.”
“Yes, God,” Helia said.
He rolled his eyes and shifted into drive and headed toward the main gate, the same one that Helia had entered earlier that morning. It already felt like ages ago. Helia raised her cuffed hands and waved to the guard who had harassed her earlier.
They were barely fifty feet away from the gate when two Hummers rounded the building and followed them. Overhead, was the unmistakable thunder of helicopters.
Fanning ducked down, trying to see how many helicopters were in the sky. “Tell them to back off. Tell them to open the gate, but not to follow us.”
“They're not going to back off,” Helia said. “You’re being a moron, God. Give yourself up right now and maybe they’ll go easy on you.”
Fanning laughed. “You mean another life sentence? What’s life on top of life? Things will make more sense when can see the whole picture.”
In the seat beside her, Makab gurgled. His hands were shaking. He lifted the radio and tossed it in her lap.
Fanning slowed at the gate. The Humvee behind them paused. The helicopters hovered. “Go on. Tell them. The longer this takes, the worse your chance of survival. We need to get far enough away that we can dump the Major on the side of the road without getting shot. If he starts leaking inside this van, we are both dead. I’m the only one who can roll down the windows.”
Beside her, Makab was shaking. A giant smirk had spread across his lips, but it looked more like early-onset rigor mortis than contempt. Whatever acids he had swallowed were eating away at his esophagus and the corners of his mouth were receding.
Helia gripped the radio between her two hands and thumbed the button. “Major, this is Corporal Crane. Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you,” Major Detores said. “How are you holding up in there?”
“I’m okay, but I need you guys to back off. God here said it’s the only way I'm going to make it out of this alive.”
There was a long silence.
“The helicopters too,” she added.
There was a crackle. “We’re not leaving you behind, Crane.”
“I’ll be okay. Please open the gate.”
Another long silence.
“Roger that.”
The gate slid open.
“Good girl,” Fanning said. “It’s so nice to please, isn’t it?” He hit the gas and they sped through the gate.
Beside her, Makab was a big lump of rotting flesh. His stomach was heaving and he was wheezing through his nose. His whole face was starting to bubble.
Fanning turned onto the main road, the same that Helia had driven this morning, and made a left. As he drove past the fence around the perimeter, Helia caught a last glimpse of her Rodeo between the glittering metal. The crucifix beneath the Batman symbol glittered in the early afternoon sun, but then merged with the metallic mesh of the fence and was gone.
The line of military police vehicles followed them outside the compound and then slowed and stayed behind. Fanning sped up and pushed the gas to seventy. Past the tinted windows, the motels and the small houses and the Walmart blurred into a streak of blue and yellow.
Once they’d left the small town, Fanning turned onto a long road that stretched ahead of their windshield as far as Helia could see, nothing but tall yellow grasses and banks of gray clouds on the horizon. The Missouri River was back in the opposite direction.
Funny how things change, Helia thought. Only a few hours ago she had driven up to that great compound on the hill, telling herself that she had made a good choice, that joining the military would be better than working for the Bureau of Prisons, that she could help people who had gone astray and seriously needed guidance and she’d have the entire United States Military at her back.
But now the first prisoner she had tried to engage with had kidnapped her and the second one was rotting in the seat beside her. The same military who was supposed to have her back was far behind, outsmarted by a couple of cons with nothing to lose.
She was on her own.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see,” Fanning said.
“They all backed off. There’re no trucks and no helicopters. You got what you wanted, God. Now let me go.”
Fanning glanced in his rearview mirror and pursed his lips. “Oh girl, I am not done with you yet.”
CHAPTER 6
Beside her, Makab’s head lolled back and a long, tortured sigh escaped from the ragged hole above his Adam's apple. The air was disturbed around the emission like the steam escaping from a boiling pot.
Helia’s eyelids fluttered. Her eyeballs wanted to roll back and retreat into the safety of her brows. Every inhalation burned her nostrils.
In the front seat, Fanning’s foot rested flat on the accelerator and the cage around Helia rattled with the speed as they roared down the road. She had seen no other cars for the last few miles, the land flat in both directions. The Kansas fields were yellow and dead; the gray, September clouds piling up on the horizon like thick billows of smoke.
Ahead, a small black dot broke the line
where the road met the clouds.
Another vehicle.
She perked up. Was it friendly? Or Fanning’s rendezvous vehicle?
Beside her, Makab was twitching. Each twitch started in his legs and moved up to his waist and made him do a seated dance like someone was pulling strings attached to his shoulders. His hands gripped the seat between his legs as if major turbulence on a flight had made him anxious.
Queasiness crawled up her throat. “What is so important that Major Makab is willing to die for?”
Fanning glanced in his rearview. “The truth.”
“You’re a traitor.”
“Methinks that’s what traitors say,” Fanning said. “It’s also what the media said about me. But don’t listen to them. I’m a patriot. Always have been. You see, I don’t differentiate between American lives and Russian lives. To me, we’re all human beings. I think the best thing America can do to be a leader in this world is to help our allies.”
“You mean our enemies?”
“Isn’t that the whole point of rehabilitation?” Fanning said. “We help out those we disagree with. We be the bigger men. Surely you can appreciate that.”
“You mean the bigger women.”
Fanning grinned and glanced in his rearview. “Exactly, Corporal. Exactly.”
Helia closed her eyes and tried to stay lucid. Every inhalation tore at her lungs. She sucked in short breaths, trying in vain to filter the air through her teeth, and then she exhaled long and ragged ones, her lungs deflating.
“Phew, it’s getting awful stuffy in here,” Fanning said and rolled down his window.
The wind whipped through the cage.
Helia opened her eyes. They stung. Through the tears, she could see the vehicle ahead. “Is that that your rendezvous vehicle?”
Fanning coughed and rubbed his eyes. “Something like that.”
“Good. You can let me out now.”
Fanning coughed again. It came from down deep and he doubled over, the SUV swerving. He righted the wheel to get it back in its lane, and then cleared his throat and spat out the window.
“Your partner is in bad shape back here,” Helia said.
Fanning glanced in the rearview. “Hang in there a few more minutes, big guy. We’re almost there. You can do it.”
“His eyeballs are melting,” Helia said. “Yours will be next. Let me out while we still have a chance.”
Fanning coughed again, his eyes bulging. “Okay, okay,” he said and slammed on the brakes. The SUV came to an abrupt stop and Helia pitched forward and face-planted into the cage. The momentum shifted back and pasted her into the seat again. With both hands, she rubbed the pattern from the cage out of her cheeks.
Fanning threw open the driver’s door and got out and vomited on the side of the road. He rubbed his eyes and wiped away a long string of pink saliva. Then he straightened, took a deep breath, walked back to the vehicle, and opened the door.
“He’s dead now,” Helia said.
“Rest in pieces, Major. You’re a veritable genius.”
Helia doubled over, sharp pains in her stomach. Through the cage, through the windshield, she could see the speck of black getting larger. It was now a hard square against the clouds, probably another SUV.
Fanning opened the plastic bin and retrieved one of the flashlights he had requested. He pointed it toward the vehicle and flashed it three times. Then he tossed the flashlight in the dirt.
“My ride is here,” he said. “Thanks for the good times.”
“I thought you said you had plans for me,” Helia managed.
“That was God speaking,” Fanning said. He grabbed the cage and rattled it. “You’re part of the problem, sweetheart. You have no idea what kind of secrets our government is hiding. The people deserve to know. They have a right to know. And to think, our government wouldn't even let me grow out my hair. You need to ask yourself where your loyalties lie. State secrets? No. I never stole state secrets. I wanted to share research with the Russians because our government refuses to tell the people that there are ways of dealing with the threat. Imagine finding a vaccine for cancer, but never sharing it. You understand me? That's what our government is doing. They want containment, not a cure. So I took action. I helped an unfriendly nation deal with their problems and our government threw me in jail for it. But now, I can help the Russians lead the way in this battle. It’s what’s best for humanity.”
Helia mustered the strength to part her burning lips. They were blistered, like bad a sunburn. “What battle?”
“Oh sweetheart, you are so naive,” Fanning said. “You really have no idea what’s going on, do you?”
“Tell me.”
Fanning waved an accusatory finger at her. “Nah, I wouldn't be very good at my job if I revealed all my secrets, now would I?” he said. He adjusted his glasses and combed his hair to the side. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have lives to save.”
He turned to leave, but she mustered the strength to cough and speak up. The only way to try to save herself was to keep him here as long as she could.
“Do you really think the Russians are going to let you be you? They hold parades against transgender people. Do you think that’s freedom?”
Fanning smiled a fake smile. “You are collateral damage, Corporal, nothing more. You seemed like a nice girl with a bright future, but think of it this way. You’re a patriot now. You’ve helped to save thousands of lives.”
“You mean Russian lives.”
A sly smile slid through Fanning's cheeks, revealing his perfectly straight and white teeth. “As I said, lives nonetheless. That’s what a powerful, responsible country does. It saves human lives. At the end of the day, we’re all the same. We all want dignity.”
Makab’s throat opened wider and his eyeballs started running down his face. The wind came through the open window and took the gases and swept them out the vehicle.
Fanning recoiled from the stench, his bullet proof vest crinkling. “Speaking of dignity.”
“It's not too late,” Helia wheezed. “Help me. I’m not your enemy. I was only doing my job.”
Fanning wiped his eyes on his forearm and blinked rapidly. “You know what my mother said when I told her that I wasn’t what she had expected her little boy to be? Nothing. She didn’t care. She didn't care that I wanted to wear dresses or have my hair long, or chop off this damn snake in my pants. But two weeks later, she came to me and said, ‘Jesse, I’ve thought it through and I support you, but if you would let me do one thing, just please let me name you again. Your father and I spent so much time trying to come up with the perfect name for you. Please let us do it again.’ That’s all she could think about. Not what I was going through, but how much time she had spent coming up with the perfect boy’s name for me. She completely missed the point about this war between my brain and my body, she completely missed the fact that I wanted to choose my own destiny. But I am in the driver’s seat now and I have decided that you know too much—which is partly my fault of course, thanks to my big blabber mouth. Unfortunately for you, my Russian friends would probably agree that letting you go is a bad idea.”
Helia had a massive headache and was barely listening. Ahead through the windshield, the rendezvous vehicle was less than half a mile away, kicking up a cloud of dust on the dry Kansas street.
“At least no one’s ever called you a female soldier before. Try that on for size,” she said. “To them, you’re just a soldier. And you’re also white. You’ve got the most privileged disguise in the world, but hell, welcome to the club. Enjoy the view from the bottom rung. Like a good skirt, it’s drafty down here.”
Fanning grimaced. “You have no idea what it’s like to wear a mask your whole life.”
“Don’t I? It’s called mascara.”
Fanning sighed. The rendezvous vehicle was close now. “You’re alright, Corporal. The truth is, I never wanted to kill you. I was just waiting until you were weak enough that you wouldn’t pose a threat,” he
said and tossed the keys on the floor. “Good luck to you.”
Then he ran to meet the SUV. He had long, gangly limbs and an awkward gait, the way someone might run if they had two left hands or two left feet.
The SUV screeched to a stop about five hundred yards from him. Helia watched through half-closed eyes as Fanning climbed into the SUV. It made a hasty K-turn, and in a plume of dust, took off in the opposite direction.
Beside her, Makab’s brown shirt had grown dark with a spreading stain. The chemicals were eating away at his sternum and his chest was imploding.
Helia stared at the keys. They were on the other side of the cage. She had never felt sicker, not even that one time when she had eaten bad cheesecake at her mother’s birthday party and spent the whole next week sitting on the toilet.
She closed her eyes and prayed for strength.
CHAPTER 7
It was a small, one room shop, a shack on the outskirts of Zephyrhills, about five miles from her house. It was the first place that had gotten her attention when they moved from Jersey ten years earlier.
A hand-painted sign over the front door said Inklings. The letters were accompanied by a drawing of a brain with two eyeballs on the prefrontal cortex and two hands growing out of the brainstem holding a tattoo gun like James Bond.
She parked half in the weeds, got out, and went up to the front door. She pulled the hanging beads aside and entered the parlor. Her heels clacked on the checkered floor. It was the pair she had borrowed from a cousin for the prom but never returned, and she was tipsy enough that she’d never make it across a tightrope, let alone along the yellow lines on the side of the road if she got pulled over.
A single leather chair sat in the middle of the floor. Next to the chair was a black, rolling station that looked more like something that belonged in her garage than a place that was supposedly visited by county “health inspectors.”
The walls were covered with photographs of all the owner’s work. Currently, he was hunched over an artist’s drafting table. He swung his desk lamp aside and stepped forward. He was so heavily inked, so heavily camouflaged, that he could have disappeared among the photos on the walls. She couldn’t tell if he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt or if his arms were completely inked. If it was ink, it was awesome. She had heard that once you got one tattoo, you couldn’t stop. It was addictive.