Blood Zero Sky

by Gates, J.

  The unseen speaker says: “The Company, before they were even called N-Corp, bought out hundreds of other companies. Acquired them. Mergers, they were called. Stop me if you know this. The Company started out, decades ago, dominating the food industry, then appliances, then restaurants. They were purchased, next, by one of the largest media conglomerates—even at that time, there were only a few companies controlling nearly all of the media. For years, each new acquisition kept its former name, so that few people realized that the same corporation that made their car and financed their house also sold them most of the food they ate. Later, they decided to put all the combined companies under one brand. They chose the name of the division with the most positive brand association, according to their marketing surveys.”

  “Nabisco,” I murmur. “N-Corp.” I strain to see the speaker, but he must be behind me.

  He continues, his cadence hypnotic: “What about the government, you might ask? What about antitrust laws, if you’ve even heard of such things? I’ll bet you never even learned about monopolies or antitrust laws in school, did you?”

  I try to shake my head, but it hurts too much.

  “N-Corp runs the schools, that’s why. I’ll tell you what happened to the government. For decades, N-Corp and other corporations had used their money and influence to buy political power. Company candidates, applauded by the Company-owned media, won almost every election. That’s when there was actually a choice. More often, the electorate was given only two options when they went to the polls—both candidates controlled by the Company. Company lobbyists wrote the laws. Company consultants set the government agenda. N-Corp made billions in subsidies and interest-free loans, handed out by the government they controlled, based on laws their lobbyists had written. Of course, tax rates for corporations and the wealthy plummeted. As a result, government income dropped and government debt soared. Nations around the world teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. Media stoked fears of an impending financial disaster. Markets tumbled, and N-Corp bought up thousands of weaker corporations at pennies on the dollar.”

  A shadow moves against the far wall as the speaker draws near to me.

  “Are you paying attention, May? Because you’re going to be tested on this material, and the test is going to be a matter of life and death.”

  I can’t tell if the man speaking is joking with me or threatening me. And before I can glimpse his face, he paces away again, his shadow receding down the length of the wall as he continues: “The American populace, many of them already unemployed because of the Company’s constant job-cutting, outsourcing, efficiency-boosting measures, panicked. Drastic steps had to be taken. You know how they solved the problem of government debt?”

  The sound of gunfire in the distance, coming closer. . . .

  “Privatization. You know who was there to step in, the shining savior? N-Corp. They got contracts to run the schools, the universities, firefighting, and police services. Even the military. Soon, four out of every five federal dollars went straight into N-Corp coffers. Washington had become a mechanism for taking money from the people and giving it to the Company. But it was too late to turn back.

  “Now that the government was too weak to enforce what few regulations remained, the company was free to pursue their agenda more aggressively. They raised prices, cut wages. Now, to afford food, appliances, transportation, housing, people had no choice but to turn to credit. Conveniently enough, N-Corp controlled the largest bank in the world. It was happy to lend hungry citizens money to buy the food and clothing they needed—at usurious rates, of course.”

  Shouts and sounds of battle are alarmingly close now. Panicked, I try to sit up, but a wave of dizziness sends me back down again.

  My unseen lecturer presses on.

  “Meanwhile, angered by the last gasps of dissent in the government, N-Corp execs began pushing Christianity, hard. By weaving some mention of Christ and the Bible into every television show and movie, and making The Jimmy Shaw Hour in Christ the top-rated show in prime time, they captured the moral high ground. They became the defenders of virtue, proponents of the family. They wielded the weapon of religion. If God was on their side, those who opposed them had to be evil. Anyone anti-Company was branded immoral, wicked, scheming. Unprofitable. A witch hunt started. Dissidents, labor-union leaders and intellectuals were blacklisted, smeared, demonized, and driven into obscurity. Non-Christians either converted, learned to keep quiet, or disappeared. All opposition ceased.”

  I’ve heard most of this before, in N-Academy high school—and from my father. It is the story of his triumphant ascension. But from the tone this speaker is using, it sounds more like the tale of Judas betraying Christ. I’m about to curse at whoever it is, to defend my father. But when the silhouetted figure paces between me and the lamplight, I see a wicked-looking knife in his hand.

  “Now, there was no telling where the government stopped and the Company began,” he continues. “There was no telling where the Church stopped and the Company began. The Church they kept, since it served their purposes, but the government they simply phased out. And the people were glad to see it go. Think of all the evil things governments did: make wars, imprison people, lie to the populace. Certainly, a publicly owned Company would never do any of those things to its own employees! With the government gone, there was nobody to oppose the will of the Company, because the people were all employees, the employees were all stockholders, and the stockholders were all going deeper and deeper into debt thanks to the generous and unprecedented credit opportunities offered by the Company. Nobody could quit—they were Company property, through and through. There was nobody to complain to. No escape. The entanglement was complete. The ensnarement was total.”

  Somewhere, the sound of sirens. More gunshots.

  My thoughts spin around me, a vortex of confusion. I’ve heard this story before, but it always sounded so different. After the great economic collapse, the Company rescued the world from a corrupt and inefficient government system; that’s what really happened. The way this speaker is telling it, the Company was the problem all along. And he acts like people don’t have any choice but to work for the Company! The more I think about it, the angrier I get.

  “If somebody doesn’t like N-Corp, they can quit and go to B&S,” I say.

  “That’s right,” the voice says. “B&S was the only other company to realize the genius of the N-Corp strategy and emulate it. They were a Chinese-based electronics manufacturer, but they quickly acquired huge holdings all over the world. They took up the name of a small American engine company, Briggs & Stratton—later shortened to B&S—for its positive brand association, just as N-Corp chose to use Nabisco. They followed N-Corp’s business model precisely, all the while protecting themselves fiercely against any N-Corp takeover attempt. Then, before the world governments were completely subjugated, they put into place territorial divisions to separate the last two companies, so that the giants would not become one. N-Corp was given one half of the world market, B&S the other. But the truth is, there is no difference between them. In their greed, in their ruthlessness, in their disregard for human dignity, they are one. ”

  “No . . .” I begin to contradict him, but I’m interrupted by the sound of an explosion, then footfalls clattering down a staircase. “Ethan! They’re coming.” This new voice is foreign, low and commanding, lilting, dangerous.

  “Thank you, McCann. We’re almost ready,” says the first voice, and just then the voice’s owner—Ethan, it would seem—steps forward into the light. He’s younger than I expected. Thirty years old, maybe, with fine features and a trim, compact body. He’d be downright handsome, except that the shapeless brownish hair that falls into his almost indolent blue eyes gives him a look of being somehow unfinished.

  The other man, McCann, comes to Ethan’s side. The quivering lamplight etches the fine lines of his dark-skinned, muscular arms and h
is square jaw. Through the shadows, his fierce brown eyes shine.

  “Ethan, we can’t hold them off much longer,” he whispers.

  Ethan turns back to me just as gunshots resume above us.

  “Time is up,” Ethan says, leaning close to my face, his ice-blue eyes almost sharp enough to cut me. “You have to choose.”

  “Choose what?” I say.

  He holds up the knife.

  “You helped Clair and you could be very useful to our cause.”

  My head is spinning. I might or might not puke.

  “Ethan . . . ” says McCann.

  “May, the people of America, the people of the world, need you.”

  “I don’t understand. Who are you?” I ask.

  “We are not the Godless anarchists the Company would have you believe. We are a secret order, a fourth branch of the United States government, started by the founding fathers of this country.”

  “Fourth branch of government?” I say. Bewildered, dizzy, terrified, I can hardly remember the first three. That stuff is ancient history.

  “Ethan,” says McCann, blinking at the crackle of distant gunfire and brandishing a huge white machine gun I somehow never noticed before.

  “Our order was started for one purpose and one purpose alone, May. In the event that the people of America should lose their democracy at the hands of a tyrant—”

  “Let’s go . . .” Clair says, appearing from a shadow-strewn corner.

  “If the army, the CIA, the militias should all fail—”

  “Ethan . . .”

  “—we are charged with leading the revolution.”

  “They’re here!” McCann shouts.

  There’s a flat crack and a puff of dust from the stairwell. McCann, Clair, and two other men I hadn’t noticed before, all wielding huge white guns, take aim at the open doorway.

  “I’m taking her!” Ethan shouts. “Cover the rear!”

  He pulls me to my feet, holding me up, and we flee.

  Though I will later learn I have a concussion and three broken ribs, though it feels like every joint in my body is sprained, somehow I run.

  Through a long, long tunnel with white-tiled walls, Ethan leads me by the arm. A timid flashlight beam blazes our trail, augmented after a moment by the flash of gunfire from behind us. I wince, slow, look back, but Ethan drags me on.

  As we pass a cross tunnel, I fall. Pain shoots through me. Sprawled on the ground, I look to my left. Three squadmen, all in black, are coming toward us. They train their guns on me.

  My eyes squeeze shut.

  Then the reports, the million echoes of gunshots, deafening, terrifying. They must’ve gotten me. I must be dead. They were too close to miss.

  When my eyes open, Ethan is standing in front of me, the barrel of his gun smoking. Looking down the tunnel between his widely set legs, I can see the bodies of three squadmen sprawled on the concrete floor.

  And I’m alive.

  Ethan pulls me to my feet.

  “Come on,” he says.

  “You—you just saved my life!” I stammer, stating the obvious.

  “Don’t fall again,” he replies.

  As we run, he pulls the knife from his belt.

  “Choose.”

  “Choose what?” I wheeze.

  “Who are you going to give your allegiance to? The Company—or the ones who will destroy it?”

  I almost laugh. “Destroy the Companies? Why? They give people everything they have.”

  “They give people what they want them to have, and in exchange, they ask for everything.”

  Still running, our path is riddled with sundry debris: a bundle of clothing, an old beer bottle, a basket of some kind, a discarded doll. My head is pounding. My ribs feel like there’s a red-hot poker jabbing them with each step.

  “Nobody’s forced to work for N-Corp,” I say. “They don’t like the Company, they can leave.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, May,” he says. “Take the knife.”

  I take it. He grabs my arm, pulls me to a halt. We both crouch on our haunches, our backs against opposite walls, eyes locked, breathing hard in ragged unison.

  A moment passes.

  Gunshots, which we both ignore.

  Looking at the knife in my hand, I say, “I could kill you now.”

  He smiles, “No you couldn’t.”

  “Why do you trust me?”

  “I don’t. I don’t trust anyone. But you could help us.”

  “Why would I?”

  His eyes smile at me through the half-light. “Because I’ve seen you in the shopping plaza, May. You’re different. ”

  I don’t have to ask; I know what he means. The pants.

  “You really think you have a future at the Company, May? Your father won’t be around forever.”

  So he doesn’t think I could make it without my daddy’s help? I look at the knife clenched in my fist and think of stabbing him after all. Except deep down, I know he’s right. Take my dad away, and I’m one bad ad campaign away from being an unprofitable, just like everyone else.

  From down the corridor come the sounds of more gunshots and yelling. Ethan allows himself one glance back, but it’s enough for me to see he’s worried, and not just for us.

  “What do you want me to do?” I ask.

  He looks back at me. There’s an urgency in his voice that wasn’t there before. “Cut the cross out of your face.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t know what to say. It’s my life he’s asking. He’s asking me to take my own life. My name, my credit, my credentials, my accomplishments, all recorded in the cross, all will be wiped away.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “We’ve all done it,” he says. He points to his cheek and tilts it toward the light. Instead of the cross, there’s just a ragged scar.

  “I’d be giving up everything I have to destroy everything my father helped build,” I say.

  “Not destroy,” he says. “Commerce will still thrive. All the wealth the Company controls will still exist—many companies will remain, but we must divide and disarm the two Companies. We aren’t anarchists, May. We don’t want to destroy society. We want to reinstate the rightful, democratic government of the United States and return sovereignty to the people.”

  In other words, they want to bring back the same corrupt, inefficient government the Company managed to replace.

  But what if he’s right? What if it was because of the Company—and the people behind it—that the government became corrupt in the first place? I shake my head to clear the confusion. Even if I weren’t suffering from a concussion, the whole thing would still be too difficult to process.

  I look at the knife. Scintillations of distant gunshots play across its deadly sharp blade.

  From somewhere behind comes the sound of a muffled explosion.

  “No time, May,” Ethan says again. “Choose.”

  Yes, choose. Cut the cross out, or stab Ethan and run. Either way, I have a feeling my life will never be the same.

  Suddenly Ethan’s head snaps to the right, toward the direction from which we came. Footfalls.

  “It’s us,” yells a woman. I think the voice must be Clair’s, but it sounds more resonant, more powerful now.

  McCann is with her, and one of the other men. The fourth man does not appear.

  “The stairway’s collapsed, but they’ll get through the debris soon,” says McCann, as he runs past us.

  And now we’re all running, single file, McCann then Clair then me then Ethan.

  “Did she cut it out?” yells McCann.

  “She was about to,” says Ethan.

  “They’ll just track her right to us with that bloody cross in her face
,” Clair shouts. “Let’s leave her.”

  “They can’t track the cross underground,” says Ethan. “The satellites aren’t that powerful yet.”

  “There are no tracking devices in adults’ crosses,” I wheeze. “They only put tracking devices in kids’ crosses, in case they’re abducted.”

  “They put them in everyone’s,” says Ethan.

  “That’s not true,” I huff. “I’d have heard about it.”

  “Blackie,” Clair says, “what you don’t know could fill a warehouse.”

  Shadows jump and squirm against two blinks of light as, behind me, Ethan squeezes two shots off over his shoulder.

  And we run on through the dark, through the earth, and my mind reels as I wonder where the tunnel will come out and who I’ll be on the other side.

  —Chapter ØØ6—

  This is the Fourth of July. Company Day.

  I know it by the smell of grilling in the air: barbeque sauce, grease, and delicious-smelling smoke. Somewhere, a marching band plays.

  This must be a long time ago, because I still believe my father’s promises. He says he will meet me in the park and we’ll eat ice-cream sundaes together, just like old times. The fact is, we have never met in the park and eaten ice-cream sundaes. Those “old times” are completely fictional, existing only in the deluded depths of his mind where he’s the greatest father in the world.

  Today, I walk at the bottom of a canyon of skyscrapers. Distant fireworks crackle, but nobody in sight is celebrating. A tangle of faceless people hustles past me, their eyes downcast. Above, on a balcony, a woman is grilling, flipping a piece of chicken with metal tongs. She blinks the smoke from her eyes. She frowns. She doesn’t see me. Nobody sees me. A child somewhere laughs. Ahead, on the next block, the green expanse of the park beckons, but an endless blur of passing cars separates me from this oasis. There is no crosswalk; instead, there is a set of concrete stairs leading down to a tunnel that comes out on the other side of the street.