The Warehouse

by Rob Hart

  “Damn straight,” muttered one of the skinny men.

  “That’s awful cavalier,” Paxton said.

  Zinnia was surprised at the passion with which Paxton was defending Cloud. The company that ruined him. He had always seemed prickly about it. Maybe he had been converted. Become a true believer. Maybe in the face of violence or death he needed to justify it to himself, because the truth was too hard to accept. Zinnia sat back, watched it unfold, waiting for a free moment.

  But there was something Ember had said that was scratching at the back of Zinnia’s head. Omelas. It was a story. She’d read it. She knew she had. A long time ago. It was a story she didn’t like….

  “Hey,” Ember said. “You.”

  Zinnia looked up.

  “You stay,” she said. “He goes. He does the thing we want him to do and he comes back. We won’t hurt you. Not unless something goes wrong. Not unless he comes back anything other than alone. I’m sorry for this, okay? But it has to be done. We’ve been trying for years. This is our best hope.”

  “Sure,” she said, and turned to Paxton. “Go ahead.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She peppered a little fear onto her voice. “I think it’s best to do what they say.”

  “I won’t leave you here like this.”

  Goddamn chivalry. She put on her brave face. “Please. It seems like the only way.”

  Paxton sat back, getting comfortable. “No.”

  Ember took her gun back and pointed it at Zinnia’s forehead but looked at Paxton. “Go, now.”

  Paxton put his hands in the air and stood, using the wall as leverage. Every step he took, Ember lowered the gun a little. He picked up the thumb drive and turned toward Zinnia. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Thank you,” Zinnia said.

  Paxton made it a dozen steps and turned. “You hurt her—”

  “Yeah yeah, I get it,” Ember said, cutting him off. “No one’s getting hurt. Just do it.”

  Zinnia watched the group head toward the front of the store, leaving her and Ember. This was the first flat-stupid move they’d made, leaving the two of them alone together. They probably figured Paxton was the dangerous one. Undone by ingrained sexism. She looked up at Ember, asked, “You going to tie me up or something?”

  “Do I need to?”

  “I thought you were cautious.”

  She pointed with the gun. “Stand up.”

  Zinnia stood, hands out, moving toward Ember, slow enough that maybe she wouldn’t notice. Funny thing about guns was, they were way less dangerous than knives. She’d rather have defended against a gun than a knife. Minimum safe distance to keep someone covered with a gun was twenty-one feet. Anything less than that, they could turn the tables. Adrenaline fucked with your fine motor skills. The sudden increase in blood pressure made you dizzy.

  Took years of training to get over that kind of thing. Zinnia figured Ember didn’t have the same kind of training she did. And the girl was less than ten feet away now.

  “I don’t need to tie you up,” she said. “There’s a storeroom in the back. You can wait there. It’s hot, but lucky for you, you brought water.”

  Zinnia took another step in. Eight feet. Seven. Zinnia made it like she was walking past Ember toward the storeroom, and Ember seemed preoccupied with Paxton and the rest, so when the front door chimed and her eyes flicked in that direction, in that fraction of a second she had been waiting for, Zinnia threw herself forward.

  She grabbed for the gun, locking her hand around the cylinder and squeezing hard. It rattled against her palm as Ember pulled the trigger, but it wouldn’t budge. Zinnia pushed it away from them, off line, in case she lost her grip and it fired.

  At the same time, she threw her elbow into the side of Ember’s head. It sent a shock up Zinnia’s arm and the girl hit the floor hard, collapsing to the ground like a sack of rocks. As her body fell Zinnia twisted the gun and yanked hard, claiming it for herself.

  Zinnia stepped back to approximately twenty-one feet, popped out the cylinder to make sure it still had bullets, and finding two left, aimed the gun between Ember’s eyes. “What’s on the drive?” she asked.

  Ember spat, “You fucking shill. You fucking drone. You’re going to fight for them?”

  “Who hired you?”

  “No one hired us,” she said. “We resist.”

  “Yeah yeah, blah blah revolution,” she said. “I get it. Wait here.”

  It tracked that they were independent. Their plan was smash-and-grab bullshit. They just wanted to get in and make a mess and run away. It annoyed Zinnia that they made it all sound so simple. Like she hadn’t been jammed up for months and wasn’t popping her arm out and shit just to get this job done.

  She made for the front but stopped. She felt an overwhelming urge to hurt Ember. Not to hit her. Not to cause her physical pain. But to show her some of the pain of the world. The pain that was the background noise to her every day in that damn building.

  “Take your match,” Zinnia said. “March over to Cloud. Strike it and place it against the side of the concrete wall. Tell me how long it takes to burn down.”

  The girl’s eyes dimmed. A little of the fight left her.

  Zinnia made for the front, pressed herself to the window. No one in sight. They couldn’t have left yet. Must be in the alley. She jumped up to yank the bell off the wall so it wouldn’t chime as she exited, then stepped out the door, doing her best to stay quiet. Cringing at every scratch of her sneakers on the dry pavement. She moved slowly against the brick wall, the stone scorching her skin.

  At the corner, voices. She stopped at the edge of the alleyway and listened. She caught the end of something Paxton was saying. “…and I swear if you hurt her there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Aww.

  His voice was clear, which made her think she was facing him, which made her also think the three captors were looking at him, away from the mouth of the alley. She ducked down, below eye line, poked her head around the corner. Saw six legs. The one with the rifle was in the rear.

  Easy enough.

  She stepped out. Paxton’s eyes went wide when he saw her. She held the gun to the head of the woman with the rifle. It was risky to be this close, but they weren’t good enough to take the gun from her. Most they’d manage to do was get shot in the process. They turned as one and looked at her, confused at first, then afraid.

  “The rifle,” Zinnia said. “Toss it to him.”

  The woman’s shoulders bunched. She looked at Paxton, who was smiling. He took a few steps forward and she held out the rifle, tossed it with both hands. He caught it and trained it on one of the skinny men.

  Zinnia fired the gun in the air. They all nearly leapt off their feet, including Paxton.

  “Now run,” she said.

  The three of them bolted, pushing past Paxton, down to the end of the alley, and then they were gone. Zinnia let the gun dangle from her hand and fall to the dirt. Paxton lunged forward and grabbed her around her shoulders, then pulled her in tight. Zinnia let him do it. They stayed that way for a bit, giving their hearts a chance to slow down.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She spoke into his shoulder. “I am.”

  He pulled back, looked in her eyes. Frantic, sweating. “What the hell happened?”

  “I worked in the Detroit school system. You think this is the first time I saw someone waving a gun?”

  “Stop that.”

  “She underestimated me and I got lucky,” Zinnia said. “I’ve been taking Krav Maga since I was a kid.”

  “You never told me that.”

  Zinnia shrugged. “It never came up.”

  Paxton shook his head. Reached down and picked up the rifle. Pointed it into the sky and fired. Nothin
g.

  “So much for a relaxing day trip,” Paxton said.

  “Yeah. I guess we should head back.”

  “They took the water inside.”

  Zinnia held the gun aloft. “I’ll go in and get it. I want to get my books anyway.”

  “You sure?”

  “I am,” she said, and nodded toward the car. “Get in there and get that air-conditioning charged up and ready. I want to freeze my ass off when I sit down.”

  “I can come in with you.”

  Zinnia smiled. “I can handle myself. Seriously, I could use a minute, too. That was…a lot.”

  Paxton put his hands up. “Okay. Go ahead.”

  “Going to look for a bathroom, too,” she said over her shoulder. “I might be a few minutes. Sorry.”

  Zinnia made for the bookstore, ran to the back, which was now empty. She pulled out her phone, and before she could even check the text she had received there was a creak behind her and a voice said, “Don’t turn around.”

  It was a man’s voice. Deep, and old. Raspy. A smoker. Zinnia gripped the gun, making sure it was in full view but not raising it. She wondered where he had been. Maybe in the back. Maybe watching.

  “You are to continue with the previous task.”

  Zinnia nodded, unsure if she should respond.

  “There is one additional task. Compensation will be doubled if you’re successful.”

  Zinnia held her breath.

  “Kill Gibson Wells.”

  The words rang in her ears.

  “Count to thirty, and then turn around.”

  Zinnia made it to a hundred and twenty before she found that she could even move.

  PAXTON

  Paxton rested his head against the steering wheel, the air coming out of the vents cool, getting cooler. He could feel every flutter of his heart.

  What a bunch of lunatics. What was their plan? What would they even accomplish? That world, the one they were fighting for, it was a dream. It didn’t work like that anymore.

  He thought back to the theater, sitting in that hard seat, interviewing for the job. The way he felt, like he wanted to puke on himself. Not even just puke, but literally do it on himself. Befoul himself just for sitting there.

  For them to be right, Paxton had to be wrong. Two months wrong and growing wronger, as he found himself invested in people like Dobbs and Dakota, and how they felt about him. Their approval a currency now.

  Plus, he’d found Zinnia. Being at Cloud meant being with Zinnia and maybe when she left he’d find the strength to go with her.

  After yesterday, after today, it was like she looked different. Her skin glowed more. Her eyes were brighter. The L-word teased him. He was getting to a place where he thought he could say it. But he didn’t want to push it, because Zinnia didn’t seem like the kind of woman who stood on formality or romanticism. He could see himself putting his hands on her shoulders, looking deep into her eyes, telling her. And she might respond with a little eye roll, or a giggle, and that’d be that. And he would have to live with it.

  Be happy with what you have, he told himself. You have a job, a place to live, and a beautiful woman. Everything else is icing.

  He shifted in his seat, felt something in his pocket bite hard into his skin. The thumb drive. He went to crack the window and toss it just as Zinnia opened the passenger-side door. She sat, put her hands in her lap, staring at them. The way her body sagged, it was like the weight of the last few days had caught up to her. Paxton tried to think of something comforting to say but couldn’t, so he put his hand on her knee, feeling the smoothness of her skin, the hardness of the bone, and asked, “You okay?”

  “We should go.”

  He put the car in drive, backing out of the alley, and turned in the direction they had come from.

  They made it back to the highway before he said, “Bunch of crazy hippies.”

  “Hippies,” she said, her voice low.

  “I mean, what do they think they’re going to do? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Hey,” he said, putting his hand on her thigh. “Are you okay?”

  For a moment he thought she might recoil, but she didn’t. She put her hand on his. Her thigh was warm but her hand was cold. “Yes, I am. I’m sorry. It’s been a lot.”

  “Yeah, it has.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do we tell someone?” Zinnia asked. “Do you think you should report all this to your boss?”

  Paxton wasn’t sure it was worth it. They were miles away. Anyway, what would four hippies do against Cloud? Dobbs liked to keep things simple. Piling this on top of Gibson Wells’s visit might be too much.

  “More trouble than it’s worth, probably,” Paxton said.

  “Yeah,” Zinnia said. “That makes sense.”

  They made it to the highway and then halfway back in silence. Paxton realized that without mile markers, he wasn’t sure what exit to get off at, but then he saw the swarm in the distance, the sky darkening as the drones sped toward MotherCloud.

  Paxton remembered what Ember had said about the books. Could that be true? The idea of censorship was a hard one to let go, like a seed stuck between his teeth. There would be a public outcry if Cloud was actually withholding books. People would fight that. Wouldn’t they?

  Thinking about the books made him think about the blank journal pages. He was burning the daylight of his life while they remained empty. If he was going to be at Cloud, he should make the best of it. Maybe he could get promoted. Make it to tan.

  He got off the highway, drove a bit. Watched the sky. There wasn’t much else to watch. The sun was blotted out by the black swarms.

  “Remember when these things were just toys?” he asked, desperate to fill up the void inside the car.

  He glanced at Zinnia, who nodded.

  “I remember this one time,” he said. “At the prison, this guy got the brilliant idea to have his buddy smuggle stuff to him by having a drone carry it into the yard. It worked for a little while, too. Except, this one time, it was windy, and I guess they got impatient. Me and this other guard, we were doing our rounds, walking the yard, watching everyone, and suddenly this thing crashes at our feet. Full up of comic books. Can you believe it? Apparently he didn’t like the books in the library, and it was illegal to send prisoners anything, so that’s what he had his friend smuggling in.”

  “That’s funny,” Zinnia said, her voice flat and empty.

  “Just funny the way people will adapt to things,” he said.

  And as he said it, something dinged in his head.

  GIBSON

  Do you know the story of Lazarus and the rich man? It’s from the book of Luke. It goes like this: There once was a rich man who dressed in fine linen and lived in luxury. At the gate of his palace was a beggar named Lazarus. Now, Lazarus was in a pretty sorry state. Covered in sores, starving, filthy. Desperate just for the crumbs that would fall from the rich man’s table.

  Time came when Lazarus died, and the angels carried him to the gates of heaven. The rich man died, too, but no angels showed up for him. He went down to hell, where he was tortured and maimed. And he looked up and he saw God and Lazarus by his side, and he asked, “Please have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.”

  And God replied: “Remember in your life, you received good things, while Lazarus received bad things. Now he is comforted and you are in agony. There is a great chasm between the two of you that cannot be crossed.”

  The rich man, then, asked that Lazarus go to his brothers, to warn them about their eventual fate, so that they might avoid it. And God said, “They should know to listen to the prophets.”


  So the rich man suffered for the rest of eternity while Lazarus had a front-row seat to the wonders of the universe.

  I want to tell you about why I don’t like this story. Simply: it casts the simple act of having wealth and ambition as a sin. There’s so much about Lazarus and the rich man we don’t know. Why was the rich man rich? Did he come to his money through crime? Did he hurt people in the course of his life? Or did he build a business? Was he providing for his family and his community? Why was Lazarus poor? Why was he covered in sores? Was he cast out from society because of some injustice? Or did he make bad choices in his life? Did he do something to deserve it?

  We don’t know. All we know is that the most basic quality of being wealthy is wrong, and the most basic quality of being poor is a virtue, with no sense of how these people came to where they are.

  Most folks judge me by what I’ve done: built a business, provided for my family, created a new live-work paradigm aimed at making a better world for the American worker. But there are still some folks out there who think I’m a greedy bastard. That after I’m dead and gone—which will not be long now—I’ll be headed down to hell, to sit next to the rich man, looking up at Lazarus, wondering where exactly I went wrong.

  And I want to say, first and foremost, it is not a sin to want to make the world a better place. It is not a sin to want to provide for your family. It is not a sin to derive some enjoyment out of your life. So I have a boat. I like to fish. Does that damn me to hell? I’ve never raised my hands in violence. Should I be made to suffer for that?

  Look at the sorry state of this world. Small towns collapsed. Coastal villages underwater. Cities packed to capacity. Beyond capacity. Some third-world countries are practically wastelands.