Blood Zero Sky

by Gates, J.

  I descend.

  Smells of puke down here, but I don’t notice it much. I’m wracking my brain. By Friday, I have to figure out how to make twenty million people think they need a tiny, dancing robot. An assignment for my marketing class. Even now, at only fifteen years old, marketing is my life.

  I walk along, lost so deep in thought I don’t see what’s waiting for me until I’m upon it.

  My gaze snaps up from the concrete at my feet and I find three sets of ferret eyes blinking at me. It’s three squadmen, hats cocked, legs set wide in various stances of macho aggression.

  “Hey D. D! We got an even younger one.”

  Then I see the fourth one, further away in the shadows. A woman is pressed up against the wall in front of him. Greasy hair falls across her face.

  The man holding her there—D, he must be—turns and looks at me. We make eye contact, and he smiles. He shoves the woman away, down the tunnel. She stumbles, adjusting her skirt, and I see the sheen of tears on her cheek.

  “Get the hell out of here,” D barks at her.

  “You’ve been relieved of duty,” one of the other guys shouts, and everyone cackles. Her footfalls echo back to me as she runs away down the tunnel, interspersed with the sound of her sobbing. I’m already backing up, but not fast enough.

  Here they come. Their movements, their tense, over-energized gestures, their forced, nervous, almost demonic laughter, all fill me with increasing fear. The stairway I came down is perhaps ten yards behind me; I can’t make it there before the nearest one catches me—all I’d succeed in doing by running is turning my back on my attackers. So I stand my ground, take a deep breath. One very young squad man with a serious face hangs back. Something—maybe the fact that I’m not running, maybe a twinge of conscience—clicks in his mind, and he slows, but the other three are already on me. The nearest one, the one they called D, reaches for me.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” he says. “We won’t hurt you much.”

  As his hand comes close, instinct kicks in and I snatch two of his fingers, one in each of my hands, and jerk them apart like a wishbone. The snapping sound echoes loudly in the underground, as does D’s ensuing howl. He cradles his hand and stumbles back, falling against one concrete wall.

  The next one is on me instantly. He grabs my arm in one hand and my hair in the other, picks me halfway up off the ground, then throws me backward. As I fall, I use the momentum he’s given me and kick upward as hard as I can. My foot hits his crotch squarely, so hard it hurts my ankle. The squad member collapses, huffing and moaning, and I land hard on my back on the moist, dirty cement, scraping both my elbows and bruising my tailbone.

  Two squadmen remain uninjured, the final attacker and serious boy, and both are now hanging back, unsure how to proceed. I scramble to my feet.

  In my brain, a worried voice tells me I should run now, that the luck I’ve had so far was only luck, after all, and will run out fast. But it’s too late; the attacker has decided not to let me go.

  “We got a feisty one,” he says, and lunges at me.

  I slap him across the cheek, and he instantly retaliates, punching me squarely in the face. The blow is sudden and knocks me over against the wall. Stars sparkle across my vision. My eyes well up with moisture, and I feel my nose start to drip. I regain my composure just in time to see the other punch coming at me. I duck it, and his fist slams against the cement of the tunnel with bone-splintering force. He staggers backward, mouth open in silent agony. From the sound, he must’ve broken his hand.

  As he falls to his knees in the throes of pain, I begin backpedaling as fast as I can away from him, until a single word interrupts my flight: “Stop.”

  I look to see the last squad member, the boy, the serious one. He stands a few paces away from me, looking very pale. In his hand, a gun. It’s just me and him, our eyes locked.

  “It’s alright,” I say soothingly. “I won’t tell anyone. You won’t get in trouble, okay? Just let me go. ”

  I take a step to leave and he shouts again, “Stop! Lay down on the ground.”

  D scrambles to his feet now, snarling like a dog. The guy I kicked in the crotch is up too, and limping toward me.

  “On the ground, now!” the kid says. The black pistol in his hand trembles. One twitch of his trigger finger and I’m dead. There’s no other choice. I lie down.

  It feels like a trap door has opened beneath me, and I’m falling. I don’t know who the girl is who lies on the filthy concrete while D climbs on top of her, but I’m a thousand feet underground, falling away from her.

  “My father’s the CEO,” I hear myself say with all the boldness I can muster.

  “Sure,” D chuckles. “So’s mine ”

  The whole world is growing dim. My breath is chugging in and out of my lungs, faster and faster. This can’t be happening to me. My dad is the CEO. I’m going to be a Blackie.

  D glances to one of his comrades. “You get her legs.”

  I open my mouth to scream, but D clamps a hand over it. I thrash and fight with all my strength, but their hands, their bodies are too many. The last thing I remember is the grit and filth of the tunnel floor against the side of my face and D on top of me, his breath reeking.

  “Who’s the CEO now, sweetie? Huh? I am.”

  The rest, thank God, I black out.

  Half an hour later, I stand between the band shell and the Ferris wheel in front of the ice-cream stand waiting for my father, my mascara streaked, skirt torn, knees trembling. No one looks at me or asks if I’m okay—they just gave me a wide berth as they passed me by.

  The clock in the tower strikes two o’clock. I stand there, unmoving as the tears dry on my cheeks. After what seems like only a few minutes, the clock strikes three.

  My father never shows up.

  ~~~

  The blindfold falls away from my eyes. For some reason, my first impulse is to look up.

  Birds wheel above. I don’t know the name of their species—

  sparrows, maybe—but I watch them turn as one, and I envy them. Their freedom. Their thoughtless unity. Beneath the wood-raftered ceiling of almost heaven-like girth, they turn and turn and flitter away.

  Ethan stands watching me, his arms folded, an odd, wry grin playing across his lips. The blindfold still dangles from his hand. As soon as they were confident they’d lost the squadmen pursuing us, he and his rebels made me put it on.

  “Don’t want you giving us away, do we, Blackie?” Clair had whispered into my ear as she cinched the blindfold tight, a new harshness in her voice.

  Now, as I blink and look around, letting my eyes adjust, Clair and McCann stand a few steps away, whispering to one another. Behind them, scattered across the cracked concrete floor of the old warehouse, crumpled shapes move ever so gently, breathing the deep breath of sleep. There must be hundreds of people here. Some are obscured beneath tents or hidden by makeshift lean-tos. Some figures are large, probably comprised of whole huddled families, and others are small, single, and fitfully roll and rustle beneath their blankets. A dozen glimmering campfires dot the expansive space, lending the room an air of warmth, casting the whole scene in a tremulous light that makes it all oddly beautiful.

  “What is this place?” I ask.

  “Our camp,” Ethan says, “for tonight, anyway.” He turns and, with a gesture, leads me onward, picking his way through the sleeping bodies. McCann and Clair follow.

  As we walk, I stare down at the sleeping figures in utter confusion. Who are they?

  A tattered, camouflaged blanket covers a bearded old man. His head rests on what looks like a backpack. Next to him in small, orderly stacks rest a deck of cards, a pack of chewing gum, a chrome butane lighter, and a white pistol.

  That can’t be right. I squint through the dark. Only squadmen are allowed to carry firearms. For
anyone else, it’s a breach of Company policy punishable by termination. But Clair had one, didn’t she? All of them do.

  Ethan notices me staring.

  “Ceramics,” he says, gesturing to his own gun. “Company metal detectors don’t pick them up.”

  Beyond the old man, I see another sleeper. He or she rolls over and the sole of a boot pushes out from under the corner of the blanket. Next to the figure, within easy reach: a white rifle. “Who are these people?” I ask.

  “The unemployed. Drifters, dreamers, scholars, misanthropes. Rebels.” Ethan glances back at me, as if gauging my reaction. No doubt, even in this light he can see the color draining from my face.

  “The Company would call them unprofitables,” Clair says. She does not look at me.

  “Unprofitables. . . .” I repeat, feeling suddenly dizzy and sick with fear.

  Unprofitables are the people we are warned never to become. They lack the capacity to be productive. They lack respect for the good of the stockholders. They are filthy, worthless, useless, idiotic, insane, and criminal, leeches stuck to the underbelly of society, stealing its productivity, draining its resources, undermining its order. They are the cancer that refuses to be excised from our world. They are selfish sinners who lack the moral strength to do what the Company requires of them. If it weren’t for the drain people like this put on the economy, the Company could be perhaps 15 percent more profitable, at least according to what I learned at N-Academy. I stand up straighter and walk faster. If I could, I would hold my breath to avoid breathing this air, polluted as it is with the breath of these slothful wretches.

  Ethan glances back at me. Seeming to read my thoughts, he says, “Not everyone is meant to be a tie-man, May. Surely you’ve realized that by now.”

  Certainly not. There are also positions for receptionists, mechanics, construction workers, transportation experts. But there is no place in the world for an unprofitable. As Jimmy Shaw says, laziness is the father of all sins.

  My mind races to figure how I can escape this den of unprofitable, anarchist murderers.

  Clair picks up on my uneasiness. She gives me a sidelong glance and a bitter smile, then spits on her hand and swipes it across her face. Before my eyes, the cross on her cheek smudges and streaks. Shocked, I look down at a sleeping face, then another. Both have scars on their cheeks, and no crosses. My eyes snap back to Clair.

  “How did you get into Headquarters?” I demand. “You have to have a cross to get in.”

  But she only rolls her eyes and walks on.

  Suddenly, a shape emerges from the shadows and races up to us as quickly as a darting cat. “Da! You’re safe!”A little boy no older than six sprints toward the one called McCann, leaps onto him, and clings to his neck. McCann laughs.

  “Always. And you, were you a good boy while I was away?”

  The boy suddenly turns sullen. “No,” he says reluctantly. “I broke Ada’s jar with the soccer ball.” He winces after speaking, perhaps in anticipation of punishment, but McCann only laughs.

  “Well then,” he says, “I guess you’ll have to find her a new one.”

  The boy seems hardly to hear his father’s words; his attention has wandered to me. “Who’s that?” he asks, pointing in my direction.

  “I’m May.”

  “This is my son, Michel,” McCann says, introducing the boy.

  “She’s a Blackie, Michel,” Clair says, making no effort to disguise the disdain in her voice. “I bet you’ve never seen one of those before.”

  Michel squints at me and wrinkles his little nose.

  “A Blackie?” he says. “But she’s so . . . white!”

  Ethan and McCann laugh loudly. Even Clair lets a smile slip.

  “No, no,” McCann corrects, still grinning. “It means she’s her own person, not owned by the Company. It means she’s not in the red. She has no debt. ”

  “Well, I’m not quite a Blackie yet,” I murmur. I don’t tell them the rest, that I’m only about five years and a few million dollars away.

  Little Michel still seems perplexed. “What’s debt?” he asks.

  “Don’t worry,” Clair says, giving me a pointed glare. “When we’re finished, all the debts will be settled.” Her eyes linger on me for a moment longer, then she turns and makes her way across the room through a maze of blanketed bodies.

  “Don’t mind her,” McCann tells me. “She’s an angry person. Sometimes I think after she’s done fighting the Company, she’s going to declare war on everyone else. Don’t worry, she’ll be back by the time dinner is served.”

  McCann laughs and Michel does, too, but Ethan just watches me.

  From another direction, a kind-faced, middle-aged woman with large hips and squinty eyes approaches, wiping her hands on an apron. She smiles, but shakes her head with disapproval.

  “You’ve been fighting again,” she says.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ethan says with a smile. “How are you, Ada?”

  Ada shrugs the question away, as if it is of no importance. “Dinner’s ready,” she says. “You all must be starving.”

  ~~~

  In the middle of the massive warehouse, Clair, Ethan, McCann, Michel, and I all sit around the fire burning in the cut-off bottom of a steel drum. We eat sandwiches of wheat bread, dried beef, and mustard—silently.

  Mostly I stare into the fire, but when I look up at the others, I sometimes catch them exchanging glances. The tension is almost palpable. Other times, they gaze at their sandwiches as a gypsy would at tea leaves. I wonder if it’s my fate they’re looking for, or their own. Sometimes, one of them pretends to look past me, but I know they’re actually checking me out, sizing me up. Maybe they’re just trying to discern the differences between themselves and me, the only Blackie-to-be they’ve probably ever seen.

  My mind is a tangle of confused, fearful thoughts. It’s good that they’re feeding me. It might mean that they aren’t planning to kill me right away. Unless, of course, this is to be my last meal. If it is, I’d have preferred Italian. . . . I should escape, but I have no idea where I am, and I’m surrounded by people with guns. If only I could contact someone. . . . I manage to glance at my IC, but it shows that there’s no wireless here. Either we’re out of satellite range, or they’ve blocked the signal somehow. I have no options. I’m powerless. All I can do is enjoy my sandwich, try to ignore my throbbing head, and hope that if they kill me, they’ll do it quickly.

  It’s McCann who finally breaks the silence: “I like having the fire,” he says, and the music of his African accent brings a smile to my face. “A man needs a fire.”

  “Yep,” his son, Michel, agrees.

  Clair snorts. “Enjoy it now. When the next-generation sats are up, they’ll be able to detect the heat even inside the building. If we want a fire then, it’ll have to be in the deep underground.”

  “N-Corp doesn’t have any satellite programs like that in development,” I say around the last bite of my sandwich. “I would know about it.”

  McCann trumpets a laugh. Clair looks at me dismissively, and then back at Ethan.

  Just then, a broad-shouldered, ruddy-cheeked young man approaches. He stops at the edge of the firelight and gives Ethan a stiff salute.

  Ethan returns the gesture. “Well?” he prompts.

  “It’s like we thought,” the young man says breathlessly. “The Headquarters explosion targeted our people. The only operatives we have left on the inside are—”

  Ethan gives the young man a look, and then tilts his head toward me. When he sees me, the young man instantly clams up.

  “What did I tell you?” Clair says, shaking her head bitterly. “Three years they worked to stop the final consolidation, what did they get? Murdered, all of them. It can’t be changed from the inside. I told you that.”

  �
�It seems you were right,” Ethan says dryly.

  “Wait,” I say. “Are you saying that the Company was behind the explosion in the Headquarters building? That’s insane.”

  Everyone ignores me.

  “And now—the financial loss,” Clair continues. “What are we going to do?”

  Ethan stares into the fire.

  “We can’t let it happen, Ethan!” Clair shouts.

  “Can’t let what happen?” I ask.

  Clair still turns on me with fire in her eyes, but McCann answers my question.

  “The Company won’t allow a financial loss to take place,” he says patiently. “The entire world system is based on the Companies making a continuous profit. A loss hasn’t happened in thirty years, and they won’t let it happen now.” He glances at Ethan, then back to me. “They have a plan in place to prevent it.”

  “They have a plan, alright,” Clair snorts.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “What’s the plan?”

  “What do you care?” Clair growls. “It won’t affect you. You’ll go about your life, shopping, feasting, going on vacation, and you’ll never even know it happened. None of you Blackies will.” She shakes her head and chomps into her sandwich, like it’s a small animal she’s trying to decapitate with her teeth. “We’ve got bigger problems than her, Ethan,” Clair continues after a moment, nodding toward me as she chews. “Someone outed our people. We’ve got a rat to kill.”

  “She’s right,” McCann agrees. “If there’s a traitor, we have to find him.”

  “Or her,” Clair amends.

  “The lives of everyone in the Protectorate could depend on it,” McCann finishes.

  Ethan only nods.

  From behind, I hear footsteps. Startled, I look over my shoulder. It’s just a middle-aged man, no doubt picking his way through the camp toward the latrine. It’s too late, though. Clair has already noticed my jumpiness.

  “What’s the matter?” she says with a cynical smile. “Too many uprofitables for you?”

  “No . . . I just . . .” Not knowing quite what to say, I feel my voice die out. I look to Ethan to speak for me, but he doesn’t. He just watches me with his blue cat’s eyes. I feel almost dissected by the intensity of his gaze.