by Amanda Cyr
The sound of engines, at least two, resonated up the street. Still no cars in sight. Patrick came to my side, chuckling as he asked, “Ready for this?”
There it was again. That nagging sensation that I knew him from somewhere. Considering the people I’d met and my line of work, I hoped it was nothing more than a horrible coincidence. I studied his face, trying to get a good idea of what he looked like behind the beard and without his glasses.
My mind worked slower than usual, thanks to my fever, and before I could put anything together, a black town car came around the corner two blocks down. Through the windshield, I counted three men. They weren’t suits, though.
“They’re Grey Men!” I shouted across the street at Jayne and Lee.
They exchanged a quick look, trying to decide what to do. There was no time to stop and make a new plan. What if the Grey Men recognized me? What if they announced who I was? I had to stop them. I rushed from the loading dock.
“What are you doing?” Patrick yelled after me.
Panic faded into a wave of adrenaline as I ran in front of the speeding car, ripped the gun from under my belt, and fired two shots, aimed at the front tires. The Grey Man behind the wheel hit the brakes. The vehicle swerved sideways as the tires blew out, upheaving a streetlight in its path before crashing into the side of the warehouse.
I fired again, this time through the driver’s side window. Glass shattered, and the Grey Man behind the wheel jolted as the bullet lodged itself in his neck. I shot him twice more to make damn sure he was dead.
Over the ringing in my ears, I heard Patrick shouting something on the two-way. I’d never put down a Grey Man before. My hands were usually steady when a gun was in them, but now they trembled. They moved by themselves, ejecting the magazine and reloading the gun in one fluid, reflexive motion as the remaining two Grey Men scrambled from the vehicle.
Jayne and Lee emerged from hiding. Lee dove for cover behind a dumpster while Jayne followed my bold lead in charging right at them. We fired on the Grey Men before they could even get their weapons up.
The supply truck came around the corner, right as the two Greys, filled with lead, hit the ground. I turned my gun on the man behind the wheel screeching the truck to a dead stop. Not a Grey Man. It was a suit, one of Granne’s goons. He threw his hands up to shield his face. As I lowered my gun, Jayne fired. The suit’s head whipped backward, ricocheted off the seat, and fell forward against the steering wheel. The truck’s horn blared.
I looked to Jayne. Over the noise of the horn, I couldn’t hear him, but his shoulders shook as he laughed. Lee ran to the truck, opened the door and heaved the suit off the horn. She tossed him from the driver’s seat and climbed over the body to shift the truck into park.
The adrenaline gave way to panic again. Everything ached; my body was too tense, skin too hot, and head too heavy. I’d just killed three Grey Men. What were they even doing in Seattle? Were they here for me? Did the S.O.R. send them to prepare for the collapse of the city?
Behind me, footsteps rushed to meet us. I turned and saw Patrick slowing to a stop before me, Val, Tibbs, Fritzi and everyone else coming from further up the street. They were only a block and a half away when Patrick muttered, “Christ, what the hell was that, Zhukov?”
I seized the front of his jacket with one hand and jabbed my gun under his jaw with the other. Patrick knew my name. My real name. His yellow eyes filled with terror, and he squawked out a horrified cry. Yellow eyes. Private Marco Petroze of the Y.I.D. He’d put on weight and grown out his hair, but up close there was no mistaking a splotched, ratty face like his.
“Nik!” Val shouted.
Over Marco’s shoulder, I saw him reach for his gun. Marco was Patrick, and Patrick was one of the people Val had threatened to kill me for. I shoved Marco away and raised my hands to show I wasn’t going to hurt him. Everyone looked mortified by my actions, some reaching for their own weapons, others backing away slowly, and all exchanging wary glances. Val’s hand still gripped his gun, like he wasn’t sure whether or not it was all a trick.
“Sorry! Sorry, I thought he was a suit trying to get the jump on me,” I insisted.
“It’s okay, guys! I’m okay. It was a misunderstanding.” Marco laughed, fanning his face. He put on such a show for them, joking about how he should have been more careful when sneaking up on me and turning the blame on himself.
My legs felt weak. Marco Petroze, yellow-eyed and yellow-bellied rodent of the Y.I.D., was in Seattle. He knew who I really was. He knew, and for some reason, he was lying to protect me. I’d slaughtered three Grey Men who, for all I knew, could have been in Seattle to escort me back to D.C. And if that wasn’t enough, I was still trying to accept the reality that everything and everyone around me would soon be buried by the frozen city above.
Marco’s lies put the others at ease, so I flicked the safety back on my gun and tucked it away. My hands were still shaking slightly and damp with sweat, so I stuffed them into my pockets as the others came closer.
“These are really Grey Men,” Tibbs said, cautiously approaching the bodies. “We haven’t had these sons of bitches down here in years.”
I considered commenting on how strange it was, just to help throw suspicion off of me, but I worried my voice wouldn’t come out steady. My head spun, and to make everything worse, I could feel Val’s eyes on me. He didn’t trust me.
“Nik?”
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. Here it comes. He’s figured me out. I can run. I can outrun them all and hide at the station until the train comes. My thoughts of escape were interrupted when a hand rested on my shoulder and Val asked, “You okay?”
The relief that washed over me spurred a wave of nausea I had to fight down. I opened my eyes and saw Val hadn’t been watching me with mistrust at all. He was concerned. My world made out of lies wasn’t about to fall apart, and yet, somehow the longer I stood there, under his worried stare, the guiltier I felt.
“Yeah,” I replied, batting his hand away and striding toward the supply van. I deliberately avoided looking at the Grey Men as I passed.
Michael joined us in the street and rushed forward to walk alongside me. He was practically beaming as he said, “That was so cool! You were all like, ‘bang-bang-bang,’ and they were all, ‘blurg, I’m dead,’ and I was all like, ‘whoa!’”
“What are Grey Men doing down here?” Fritzi asked over Michael’s cheers.
I had my hunches, but all I could think about was everything I wanted to ask Marco. He stayed very close to Anya and Lee with his back turned to me. I had just started forming a plan to get him alone when Val commanded everyone’s attention with a loud whistle.
“Let’s not worry about the Grey Men right now,” he said, herding us toward the truck. “We don’t want to be seen here. Patrick, you drive.”
And there was my chance. I walked away from the others and toward the front of the truck, waiting until Marco was getting in on the other side before climbing in. His pupils shrank to the size of pins behind the thick glasses. He fidgeted and looked around for help, someone so he wasn’t all alone with me. Everyone had piled into the back, though.
“Better get driving, Patrick. Don’t want the others to get suspicious,” I said, gesturing toward the keys in the ignition.
“If you try to do anything, I’ll scream,” he muttered.
I took out my gun and ejected the magazine, setting both pieces on the dashboard between us. I leaned back and waited until Marco shifted the truck into drive to ask my first question. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’ve been here for months.”
“Liar,” I spat back. “There aren’t supposed to be any dogs in Washington other than me.”
Marco’s eyes remained focused on the road, determined not to look at me. “Right… There aren’t supposed to be.”
“What’s that mean?”
Marco huffed and readjusted his grip on the steering wheel. He took his sweet time with
answering, and during the silent seconds, I tried to remember when I’d seen him last. It must have been at the Spring Inauguration. Yes, he’d come in late and stood in the back, shifting awkwardly for the entire two hours.
“It means,” he began slowly, “That I’m not supposed to be here.”
“You’re AWOL?”
Marco shushed me and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder to remind me we had company. “Keep it down! And yeah, I guess you’d call it that.”
“But why? I mean, what are you even doing here?” I asked, already taking out my phone and swapping out the cards so I could tap into the Y.I.D. database. I needed to confirm whether or not Marco was telling the truth.
“Well, it’s not like I could go to some tropical paradise. The government would catch up with me if I put myself in plain sight.” Marco sighed.
“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, why did you run off?”
Marco laughed. He scratched at the unruly beard with one hand as he told me, “Not all of us are cut out for the military, Nik. You and I might not have ever worked together in the field, but I’m sure you heard as much about me as I heard about you. Private Petroze, AKA the runt of the litter.”
My phone beeped when it found Marco’s file. In large red letters, right after his name, was the word AWOL. I still couldn’t believe he was here, but I felt ten times better knowing he wasn’t with the Y.I.D. anymore. It meant he wasn’t secretly relaying information back to them about me and my mission.
Marco might not have been a dog anymore, but he definitely still thought like one. He made that much clear when he asked, “So what are you doing in Seattle? When Gemma and Michael told me about you I thought to myself, nah, it can’t be him. Figured I’d check just to be sure.”
“I’m not here for you if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Good,” Marco said with a relieved sigh. “That’s all I care about. Seriously, don’t tell me anything more. I don’t want to know.”
Marco was the same runt as before, only looking out for himself. There was one thing I needed to be sure of if I was even going to think about letting him live. “You tell the others anything, and I mean anything at all, I’ll make you wish I’d dragged you back to D.C.”
“Secret’s safe with me,” Marco said. He mimed zipping his lips and flicked the imaginary key away before flashing me a thumbs-up. I narrowed my eyes. His charade wasn’t enough to convince me not to snap his neck the second we were alone together.
We spent the rest of the ride in complete silence. It was easy to know when we reached the Oxford District. The road became wider and the people thinner. Small cul-de-sacs with beige, single-story homes branched off the main road where almost every other streetlight was broken. People chatted in small groups on their porches while watching their children play in the street. Each identical cul-de-sac bustled with noise and life, but with a sense of peaceful chaos, as they were overshadowed by enormous, metal columns.
I’d seen the columns from a distance. It was only as we pulled up to park alongside one, though, I appreciated how massive they were. Its presence was made even more daunting by the poor lighting and small houses scattered around the base. There were four others exactly like it within a four-block radius, each spanning from the ground to the ceiling, high above.
This was the Oxford District. This was ground zero.
We gathered around the column. I was so on edge, standing at the center of it all, that the simple click of Val’s lighter was enough to make me flinch. I took a deep breath, bits of nicotine catching in my lungs and easing my mind. Had I not been so repulsed by the thought of smoking, I would have asked for a cigarette in a heartbeat.
“Michael, Anya, and Gemma,” Val said, waving his hand to gather them in. “I want you three to get out there and start talking to people. Let them know what’s going on, and tell them to bring everyone they can. Lee and Fritzi, you two head to the refinery by the water and talk to the workers, then get over to the school and let the staff know what we’re doing. Take the two-way and radio in if you bump into trouble.”
They ran into the cul-de-sacs to do as they were told while Val, Jayne, Tibbs, Marco, and I unloaded the truck. The heavy, manual labor distracted me from my stress, and Tibbs even made a couple of jokes to help lighten the mood for all of us.
“How many Grey Men does it take to screw in a light bulb?”
“I don’t know. How many?” Val replied.
“Twenty. One to hold the light bulb in place, and nineteen to rotate the house.”
Firsthand experience with the genuine incompetence of Grey Men made the joke all the more hilarious for me. I’d have to tell Gully that one when I returned to D.C. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I dismissed it. I did not want to think about going home, or what would happen to Seattle after I left.
I climbed back into the truck and picked up a bulky box filled with oranges. Getting fruit like this so far west must have cost the governor a ton. Even back home, they were a treat that cost nearly six dollars each. I carried the crate to the end of the truck and handed it down to Val.
“Don’t break a nail.” Jayne sneered.
“Oy!” Tibbs barked back at him.
It was the first time anyone other than myself had stood up for Val since he’d been forced out of the closet. Val smiled up at me over the top of the crate a little, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth tilting at an awkward angle. I think we both felt better about everything at that moment. I gave him my first genuine smile since the announcement of Operation Oxford.
Val walked off to set the crate of oranges with the rest of the fruits and vegetables. I looked around the truck for another, and picked one with particularly rough looking edges to carry over to Jayne. He’d been watching Val intently, and likely readying another snide remark. I stood very close to the edge and cleared my throat to get his attention. Jayne turned without looking and, just as I’d hoped, whacked his head against the side of the crate.
“Don’t break your head,” I said, mimicking his malicious tone with a grin.
Tibbs, Marco, and Val laughed out loud. With a mean gash on the side of his face, though, Jayne clearly hadn’t enjoyed my trick. He snarled and snatched the crate from my hands, throwing it to the ground. The wood cracked, and rice poured out as Jayne grabbed me by the ankles and yanked me from the truck.
I landed flat on my back on top of the crate, rice flying in all directions as the wood splintered under my weight. Jayne let go of my ankles and seized me by the front of my jacket. He pulled me to my feet and drew his fist back to strike. I swung my fist much faster than Jayne, though, and punched him under the jaw. His teeth clashed together loudly. Disoriented, Jayne released me and staggered backwards. He snatched the crowbar off the ground as he cursed and spat blood from his mouth.
Any other day, I might have listened to Val, Marco, and Tibbs as they shouted to break up the fight. Today, however, I wanted nothing more than to tackle Jayne, rip the crowbar from his hand, and take out all my frustration.
I unbuttoned my coat and shrugged it off, pulling it in front of me as Jayne charged forward and swung the crowbar. The thick wool caught the full force of the weapon. I whipped the fabric over the crowbar and yanked it out of Jayne’s hand.
Jayne froze, stunned and rigid. I reached into my coat to retrieve the crowbar, dropped the coat, and stepped toward Jayne. I was ready to clobber him when Val suddenly grabbed hold of the weapon. He stepped between us and pushed me back with a hand firmly on my chest.
“I said that’s enough!” he shouted.
My heart was flying. Val must have been able to feel it. He must have known how badly I wanted to tear into Jayne. There was a fire in his eyes, though, which told me if I truly wanted to do so, I would have to go through him.
I stood, staring at him, silently pleading with Val to move aside and let me do what I knew we both wanted to do. Jayne had caused him all sorts of trouble; surely Val wanted to beat his skull in
as much as I did. Val didn’t budge. My heart didn’t slow.
“Let go,” Val said sternly.
I did without realizing I’d done so. My arm fell limp at my side, and I stared past Val to Jayne. He did not deserve to be shown this sort of mercy. A smug, taunting smirk tugged at his lips. It was enough to make blood pound in my ears, but with Val’s hand still on my chest, I didn’t budge.
“And as for you,” Val said, turning away from me. He pressed the sharp end of the crowbar against Jayne’s throat. My pulse shot up. It wasn’t over. Val wasn’t just letting him go.
“I’m sick of this,” he continued. “We’re trying to help people, and you make that pretty damn hard to do when you’re picking fights with everyone and being such an ass. If you don’t want to play nice, then leave. Otherwise, knock it off, act like a grown man, and help us.”
I had hoped for Val to whack Jayne across the head, but a verbal beating was almost as satisfying as a physical one. Val folded his arms and stood tall, even though Jayne towered a full head over him. Tibbs and I stepped closer to indicate we were ready to jump in if Jayne tried to start a fight again.
Jayne looked from one face to another. Then, without a word, he turned and trudged down the street. We watched him disappear around the corner before Marco asked, “Want me to go after him?”
Val shook his head. “Nah. He’ll come back when he’s cooled down.”
“And you’ll let him back?” I asked in utter disbelief. In my experience, any disruptive or unfavorable behavior was treated with swift and unforgiving discipline. If Jayne had started a fight in the Y.I.D., he’d have been suspended, if not discharged.
Val shrugged and tossed the crowbar into the back of the truck where it landed with a loud clank. When he turned to me, I saw his eyes were out of focus. His mind was elsewhere, and he was only there with us physically.
Tibbs climbed into the truck to get another crate, Marco following his lead. I decided to stay outside to be handed the supplies since we were now short one set of hands. As I waited, I watched Val walk to where some crates were stacked. He sat atop one and reached into his jacket to pull out his pack of cigarettes.