by B. C. Tweedt
But Kit lay next to him, awaiting his next command and licking his lips. Though the diner probably hadn’t served food in days or even weeks, it still had the smell of beef.
Sorry, boy. Not now.
The dog panted, unfazed by the rumbling of the APC’s treads as the lights swooped by.
Of course, Diablo wasn’t rattled either. He skulked in a dark corner, watching the armored vehicle pass by until it was out of sight. Then he rushed to Greyson with light steps and kneeled. “Hide the drone.”
Gulping, Greyson rose to peer out the window, finding nothing but an empty Dallas street he knew led to the protest camp in one direction and the barricaded checkpoint that they had bypassed in the other.
“In the kitchen.”
Nodding in affirmative, Greyson typed on the DOC and powered Liam up. It hovered at a soft hum, swerving in close quarters until it pressed against the diner’s kitchen door. He followed it in and controlled its descent under a stainless steel counter. Covering it with dishtowels and piling a few jugs of mayonnaise and mustard on it concealed it. When he rejoined Diablo, the soldier unsnapped the DOC and handed it back to him. “Hide it.”
Greyson felt like a baby. He’d been briefed on these details, and now Diablo was reminding him like he’d forgotten to bring his homework. Nevertheless, he took the DOC and slid it in his slim backpack. There wasn’t much else in there – only a few things that made his cover story more believable. Even the DOC could be explained away if necessary.
“Now you…” Diablo began in a gruff whisper.
“…go east on Main until Belo is on my left,” Greyson interrupted.
Diablo’s masked face didn’t reveal his annoyance, but Greyson felt he was one wrong word from certain death. Diablo’s skeletal face leaned over him, but he was only reaching behind. His strong arms spun Greyson in place and began to fish through his bag. Finding what he needed, Diablo spun him back and put his red hat over his wind-whipped hair. Then he tapped the boy’s goggles. “Test audio.”
Greyson resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He tapped his goggles, scrolling through the options on his HUD. He heard the little twig-like earpieces snap down from his glasses, over his ears.
[I’m seeing what you’re seeing, Orphan,] came Forge’s voice in his ears. [You reading me?]
“Copy,” he said.
Diablo tapped his lenses again. “Test silent.”
Greyson scrolled to silent. The earpieces retreated.
In his HUD, Forge’s face appeared in the corner. He was speaking as text was typing below him – a form of closed-captioning that negated the use of an earpiece that could be discovered. {Read me, Orphan?}
“Copy.”
He was all set. The goggles’ HUD was primed to only turn on when Greyson’s retinas were within three inches of the lenses. If all went by plan, no one would think the goggles were anything but ordinary goggles.
New text appeared. {Mayor Becker issued declaration of martial law effective noon tomorrow. Will clear area of any protestors who remain.}
Time was short. He had thirteen hours to find PatriARC and stop the attack.
Diablo nodded. He was seeing the same thing. Then, as if he were making a point, he cocked his head and pointed to the street outside.
Not wanting to give Diablo the last word, Greyson added a “thanks” dripping in sarcasm. Then he turned his hat backward, ushered Kit to him, and sprinted into the dark street.
-------------------------------
The lake water lapped at the rocks, only a stone’s throw from the glassed-in balcony where Everett Oliver Emory tapped on his laptop, alternating between satellite streams displaying the thermal images of a FEMA camp and downtown Dallas.
There was some worry as the hour approached, as there always was, but the view of the lake calmed him. It was such a large lake. Such volume of water was not so easily swayed. Though yachts and speedboats spread their wakes, and jet-skis and swimmers splashed, deep down the lake was unmoved. Waves rippled on the surface, shimmering in the starlight, but the vast beneath was undisturbed.
And neither was Emory. He stirred his tea and watched the tiny orange heat signatures clumped together near their tents. Like little chess pieces, they were positioned and ready – just like the thousands around the world. They had been positioning for over a year. It had all been about timing. Patience upon patience. He’d been pulling string after string, moving all the units for the precise moment to strike. The boxer’s feet before a punch. And it was so close. Just a few more adjustments.
Just a few more.
Chapter 30
Greyson’s jog slowed to a walk, watching the red dots appear on his mini-map. People were ahead. Fear crept in every corner – fear of the unknown.
The red dots were helpful – but they couldn’t tell him if the people were soldiers, Plurbs, or ordinary protestors.
{Be confident. We need to find the right group.}
His shoes passed blowing trash on the asphalt as he took a slow, confident pace, surveying the streets as if he belonged. The street was littered with remnants of past skirmishes – ripped clothing, broken boards, even a burned out SUV with broken windows and leather seats melted into charred metal frames. Even its tires were slashed and engine gutted. He envisioned the riot that had consumed it.
Suddenly he remembered Forge’s story – how he had been a lookout for Los Muertes – sent out to find the enemy. Greyson, too, was being used. He was even supposed to get captured. Would he turn out like Forge, being tortured for years without rescue?
He shook off the thought. Rubicon was no drug cartel. They were far more dangerous.
{Keep walking.}
A storefront was broken apart to the right, but a makeshift canopy had been made from tarp and spare wood. It was now home to at least six men who played cards inside with baseball bats and a crowbar leaning against the wall. They eyed him and Kit as they passed, but he gave them a wave. They waved back.
{They probably own the place. Keeping looters out.}
Greyson nodded, examining the other building fronts as they walked past. Boarded up. Padlocks. Disturbing warning signs. Some declared the curfew hours. No one on the streets after 10pm.
It was after 11.
A knot grew in his gut.
{Belo Park is straight ahead.}
He saw it, eyeing Kit in surprise. It was a new city amongst the old – a tent city, spread far and wide, the tents all colors of a dirty rainbow, rising and falling like jagged rocks scattered across the rectangular garden space that grew as if it had taken the place of a fallen skyscraper. The streetlights shone on portable toilets and more lights followed curved walkways that cut through the garden’s center. Buildings rose all about them, but there was one across the street that rose higher than the rest, with green lights climbing along its edges into the sky.
His map guided him into the tent city where he ducked under clotheslines, glimpsed dozens of the tent dwellers, and took a drink from the line of spurting ground fountains that were lit a golden white. Even Kit lapped at them as they struck the cement. Loitering at the center of camp, he realized the haphazard organization it had taken on. There was a food tent with coolers and tables of wood and plastic, an burlap medical tent with cots inside, and a tent with a sort of smoking chimney. Inside were stacks of metal sheets, helmets of all types, and a furnace. It was a metal-working tent. A forge?
“Noon tomorrow, boys!”
Greyson jolted as man rushed to a neighboring tent holding a tablet, yelling news for all to hear. He pulled up his goggles and watched his HUD, trying to identify the men and women he saw. He examined each one, wondering if one was PatriARC – the one amongst the sheep, leading them toward some sort of horror, in order to ignite a larger horror. War.
{Keep calm. You’re doing good.}
It was a surreal atmosphere, crowded, lively with chatter, and dreary with poverty. It stunk, too. He wondered if these pe
ople really thought camping out, marching on City Hall, and yelling at the politicians would get them to secede. This was their act of defiance. Like a toddler stamping his feet and crossing his arms. It was their only resort, besides violence. And violence seemed on the verge of erupting anyway.
Greyson was lost amongst the tents, unsure of what to do next. Did he start trouble, hoping to attract a leader? Or could he just ask for the nearest Plurb?
{No bites yet. Try the alley.}
He turned and saw the fire in the alley. As he made his way back on to the street, he heard the music, too. Guitar. Beats of a drum. Voices.
Kit sniffed at the street and restrained a low growl. Greyson’s hand reassured him.
The fire’s light flickered against the bricks in the distance and silhouetted the sitting figures who surrounded it, sitting on square objects. His HUD counted five subjects, and as he drew closer, put them between a hundred and a hundred and fifty pounds.
After the intensity of the last hour, the campfire offered an aura of relative peace. At least he hoped.
Forge’s words appeared. {Group appears young. Let’s engage.}
Greyson gulped in a breath as he slowed even further. He cleared his mind, ready for the worst. What would they do with him? What kind of people would stand their ground inside a city when it was about to go under martial law? He knew these were ARC supporters, but that’s about it. The loyalists were another few blocks away.
The music continued as he padded into the fire’s light. It was a bright song and most of the group was singing along. There was one boy with the guitar – a tall, lean boy with radar ears, a green bandana tied around his neck, and dozens of bracelets of all sizes and colors on both of his wrists. He sang in a vibrant alto with a smile full of braces. He was talented – could even be on the radio. There was a short black boy next to him with an infectious smile, full of life, thumping three different plastic trashcans made into a drum set, following the guitarist’s lead. The others clapped, except for a boy who was hugging his knees and tapping out the rhythm on his shins.
The guitarist with braces noticed him, but he merely nodded at him and kept playing. Soon the group had followed his gaze and turned to look.
Suddenly he felt naked. The firelight was blazing on him and they looked him up and down. His fanny pack, his tactical vest, camo gaiter, goggles, red hat, and Kit.
As the song continued and the stares abated, a spritely girl jumped up, straightening the short skirt that fell over the jeans she wore underneath. Her hair was cut into a bob above her shoulders, but only on her right side. The other half of her head was nearly shaved, and her eyebrows were dark and thick for a girl. She looked to be built like a gymnast and even bounced on her feet when she walked with her hands outstretched to Kit.
The amusing girl let Kit smell her hands before petting him. “Hey, buddy. Aren’t you just so sweet?” Then she hugged the poor dog.
But Kit wagged his tail, and the girl looked up at Greyson. Though her face flinched in fear, her smile won out. “Cool specs! They reflect the fire! Come on in. Grab a sit.” She pushed someone’s stuff off a crate and pulled it into the outer circle. She patted it, looking at him.
He hesitated outside the circle, a statue. An Asian girl stood by the guitarist, not taking her eyes from his goggles. Her suspicion and the fire’s heat nearly melted him, but his wobbly legs took him into the circle; he sat on the wood with a creak.
Still the music went on.
Whatever will come our way.
Through fire or pouring rain.
We won’t be shaken. No, we won’t be shaken.
The kids were good singers, and happy. Maybe too happy. He was a little unsettled, but it could be worse. A lot worse.
Whatever tomorrow brings, together we will rise and sing.
That we won’t be shaken. No, we won’t be shaken.
Oooh ooooh oh. Oooh ooooh oh.
Oooh ooooh oh. Oooh ooooh oh.
No, we won’t be shaken.
The guitarist continued on, plucking at the strings, letting the others sing, adding harmonies. The half-haired girl had an exceptionally beautiful voice, and she even got up to dance. The black boy swayed over the trash drums in a smiley trance.
With one last strum, the kids erupted in applause. Most of them were giving Greyson glances, but the Asian girl wouldn’t glance anywhere else. She was plain-faced, with long, straight black hair and toned arms. He couldn’t help but to see her description in his HUD. {Yin Li. Chinese national.}
“That was fun!” the guitarist said with his wide metallic smile, leaning over his guitar. “How about one or two more? Any other requests? How about the new guy?”
Greyson perked up with the attention of the group but shook his head.
“How’d you get here?” the Asian girl asked abruptly, quieting the group. The fire crackled inside a torn-open metal trashcan, the only sound until Greyson gave his answer.
“I walked.”
“Who are you?” she insisted.
The guitarist laughed. “Come now, Ankeny, we don’t need to pepper the dude with questions.”
The Asian girl, apparently nicknamed Ankeny, reluctantly turned from Greyson. “We don’t know who he is.”
“True. But if he’s Yankee, he’d be sneaking around. If he’s a plant, he won’t just tell us. So might as well be nice,” he said, storing his guitar pick between the strings and smiling at Greyson. “I’m Drake.”
Greyson glanced at his HUD. Drake wasn’t his real name. Why are he and Ankeny both lying?
“This man on the drums is little Windsor.”
“Hey!” Windsor said with that infectious smile.
“And this is Grimes,” Drake said, pointing at the boy hugging his knees and tapping on his shins. The boy raised a finger as a hello.
The chipper girl with the jeans-skirt combo elbowed Greyson as she sat beside him. “I’m Beep.”
Beep?
Windsor laughed at Greyson’s reaction. “Her parents named her a curse word, so she censored it.”
“They did not!” she objected as the group laughed and laughed.
“Just kidding, just kidding,” Windsor said. “It’s short for B.P. cuz she has a lot of gas.”
“Not true – most of the time,” she said with a smirk. “B.P. is short for Blank Park,” Beep explained.
Just as confused, Greyson cocked his head as Kit often did.
Beep laughed a girlish giggle. “It’s a zoo in Des Moines – or it was – or I guess it still is, but it’s closed and the animals are all resting in peace.”
“Or they’re radioactive zombie animals,” Windsor joked again.
“They are not!”
Grimes raised his head from his knees and grabbed his hair. “The creatures most likely received over 300 Sieverts of radiation. They’ll be hairless, prone to both cancer and genetically mutated offspring.”
Windsor slapped his knees with an “Oh!”, pointing at Beep as if she’d been owned.
Beep’s mouth hung open as Grimes continued rocking. “That wasn’t nice, Grimey.”
“Wasn’t my intention,” Grimes said bluntly, staring at a nearby wall as if he was actively avoiding eye contact. “It’s a fact. Facts are neither nice nor mean – just undeniable.”
Drake played a chord, “Come on y’all. Our guest probably thinks we’re cruel.”
Greyson shook his head. The back-and-forth actually made him feel at home. “So…you guys a band or something?”
“Kinda,” Windsor said, growing sad.
“You’re good.”
“Thanks,” Drake said, plucking a melody. “Windsor, Beep and I were part of a youth group band until the VSA. When our parents were taken we only had each other. Got offered spots in a few camps that were taking kids with Dissident Parents, but we figured we’d let some kids who really needed the spots have those. We could take care of ourselves.”
Windsor
gave a chin pump and batted a fist on his chest.
“We know Dallas,” Drake continued. “We know it backward and forward, inside and out. It’s our pad. Then we met Grimes and then Ankeny. Went through some crazy stuff together.” Drake smiled at him. “And that’s the story of our little squad.”
Greyson readied himself. He knew his turn was coming and was nervous. But these kids were harmless – except for maybe the Chinese girl.
“Anything else you want to know?” Ankeny asked with sarcasm in her spit.
He smirked at her, thinking of another question just to play with her. “Yeah. What’s with the Iowa names?”
Drake’s smile grew even wider. “You noticed, huh? Baller.” He shrugged. “We needed new names, and Des Moines has always been close to our hearts. Didn’t want to forget about it. But enough about us. You from Iowa?”
Taking a deep breath, Greyson leaned back “I was born there – lived there 13 years. Went to Blank Park Zoo as a kid. I’ve heard of the Drake Relays, and Grimes and Ankeny are suburbs of Des Moines I think.”
“So is Windsor Heights,” Windsor said.
Beep planted her hand on Greyson’s knee and leaned over his lap to get a straight look at him, her mouth agape as she stared into his goggles. She certainly knew how to make him feel awkward. “Have I met you?”
The others were staring at him, too – even Grimes.
“You do look super familiar,” Windsor noted during his examination.
Drake exchanged a look with Ankeny and the two of them began to whisper. That was troubling. Maybe it would happen fast. If they were Plurbs, they’d turn him in to the Plurbs and he’d get taken to their leader. Rubicon would intervene and he’d be done. A success.
Why was he not excited?
“I…I…don’t think we’ve met,” he stammered.
Beep tapped his goggles’ lenses. “Those prescription? You fly planes or something?”
“No,” he said, off balance from her topic shifting.
“You got a scar,” she said, her finger hovering by his upper lip. “How’d you get it?”