by J. Kowallis
“Where is everyone?” Petey asked.
Estevan looked at him, sidling past. “Asleep.”
The sun hid behind billowed clouds in the sky looking ash gray. The ground beneath their feet was wet with puddles of remaining rain. The stale air felt sour. Estevan couldn’t quite place why he felt so uneasy. Perhaps it was the dead bars and filthy drinking holes, but even that wasn’t entirely unheard of.
Behind Estevan, Petey’s limp leg dragged in an off-rhythmic thump, and he nervously cleared his throat. “You sure they’re asleep?”
Los Ángeles was so silent; they could have heard a rat squeak three blocks away. “Yeah, kid. This is normal,” he lied. There was no use raising the boy’s alarm without reason. Even if the situation raised the hair on the back of his own neck.
The two men walked by a series of apartment buildings. Steel balcony railings swung low, hanging on by an inch of bent steel, cracked and splintered. Brick walls were missing sections, and worn mortar shattered between each brick. What plaster was left looked like grimy mucus seeping out from between each crevice. Bars in windows, clipped by bolt cutters were pulled down and wrenched back, poking out into the street like javelins.
They neared the Argolla and Caspar’s main building. Estevan looked over the fighting ring and hawked up some loose moco. The end of one set of bleachers had collapsed and lay pitifully on the ground. Estevan slowly walked over, checking over his shoulders and frequently looking back at Caspar’s long building before he took a closer look at the bleachers. The metal frame bent, cracked, and for some reason, had scorch spots. Had the small black scorches not been there, he would have thought the crowds had gotten too heavy for the weak frame to hold any longer.
He’d felt uneasy before, but now, Estevan’s anxiety pulsed. Even though he’d tried to ease Petey’s nerves, it didn’t mask the fact that it wasn’t like Los Ángeles to be this quiet. Not even the tickling of a bottle from a stumbling drunk reached his ears.
He didn’t say anything—he motioned for Petey with his index finger and moved toward the front steps of Caspar’s building. From his pocket he pulled the handgun he’d carefully placed there before leaving camp. He unclipped the magazine, double-checking the bullets, and clicked it back into place. He had four. They’d have to be enough.
The doors to the building sat wide open. Paper, trash, and even tattered clothing had blown through, littering the cracked and muddy marble floor. All along the walls were evidence of power-gun shots. Black charred holes in the wall. Like a trail of breadcrumbs, the holes traveled up the staircase of the lobby.
Estevan turned to Petey and took the safety off the gun, flipping it around. “Public Four’s been here. Still could be. Take this and keep watch down here.”
“You think they’re the ones who collapsed the bleachers out there?”
Estevan nodded.
“What about you?” Petey took the gun from Estevan’s outstretched hand.
Estevan reached into his belt loop and pulled out a simple nine-inch knife with a black hilt. “I know what I’m doing. You’ll be safer down here. If there’s someone upstairs,” he continued to whisper, “you won’t be able to move quickly down the staircase.”
Petey nodded and held the gun to his side. “Be careful.”
Another gust of wind blew through the open doors. Estevan ran his tongue along the inside of his lip and turned around. Keeping to the wall’s edge, he hiked up the staircase. The railing was broken off with jutting splintered beams sticking up from some of the marble stairs—most steps were missing chunks of marble that had actually exploded away.
Once at the top, Estevan maneuvered around each corner, looking into each room. The second floor was cleaner than the first. Though not immaculate, the furnishings were taken care of, and the paintings and pictures hung neatly on the walls. The runner covering the floor puckered in the center, and toward the end of the hall, the last door hung loosely on its hinges. Wood splinters were scattered across the semi-clean floor and the dreary gray sky of the day shone through the frame.
Estevan’s feet creaked across the wood floor, kicking at the pucker in the runner. When he reached the doorframe, he waited, listening. There was nothing. Dead. A rancid smell curled the hairs in his nasal canal and he turned to look inside. Along the floor, the sight of four dead bodies met his gaze. He recognized all of Caspar’s team. Their bodies were decomposing. By his estimates, the attack had happened just two days before.
His eyes scanned the room, and he finally saw the fifth body draped through the windowsill. Caspar’s bloated legs dangled to the floor while his torso hung through the open window. Carefully stepping over each body, Estevan went to the window and grasped large handfuls of Caspar’s vest and shirt. He yanked backward.
The rigid body fell back into the room, letting out a loud post-mortem groan. Estevan jumped back, stumbling over the body behind him. He grabbed for the desk next to keep himself steady. Forcing his heart from his throat back into his chest cavity where it belonged, he moved back to Caspar’s dead form. The ashen skin was cold like clay.
The man who’d started it all; who’d made deals with The Public. The reason his daughter ran to a possible death. Laid there dead.
Estevan didn’t even have a chance to enjoy the look on Caspar’s face when he put a bullet through it. Now, Caspar’s swollen face ballooned in front of him, the eyes sunken and shriveling up in their sockets. There was no way he’d let the bastard rest in peace.
Estevan wound up his right leg and kicked at the stiffly bent body, right in the center of Caspar’s chest. He heard bones snap beneath the decomposing flesh.
That was for his home.
He kicked again into Caspar’s stomach. The toe of his boot went through the soft tissue.
That was for the community.
The heel of his boot smashed down onto Caspar’s skull. The crunch of fracturing bone crackled beneath his foot.
That was for this hell-hole.
Another kick to the ribs, another to the neck, and again to the stomach, the stomach, the stomach.
That was for Ransley—for nearly killing her. For putting her life in danger, and for reporting them to Public Four.
Estevan spit on the corpse and stepped back to look at his handiwork. The silver silk shirt buttons had ripped from their holes and intestines spilled out onto the floor. A bone poked through the top of his chest, and the face was deformed.
He stood there, looking at it. Like the Mona Lisa. A proud final artwork.
Estevan bent over, grabbing at the corpse’s clothing and picked it up. Organs spilled out onto the floor at his feet and he carried it over to the wall where a coat hook was waiting. Like a framed piece of art, he hung the body up and stepped back. With one final touch, he spit on it, and left it behind.
―CARMEN―
Fire burned. It twinkled, and something smelled sweet.
“Blow out your candles, Carmen!” a bright voice said to her. A familiar voice.
She smiled back and leaned forward. She could feel the warmth on her face. Carmen breathed in, her eyes closed.
When she opened them again, everything was different. The room she stood in was barer than before. Was there a before? Did she know this room?
Someone coughed in the other room and she turned her head. The dull light of early evening left a trail on the floor at her timid feet. Inside the next room, a small bed sat in the corner and a tiny body heaved with another cough. The woman was so small, but she wasn’t old enough to be shriveled—frail. Had Carmen seen this before? Something pulled at her mind—at her heart.
Tears rolled down Carmen’s cheek the closer she walked to the woman.
“Can you hand me,” the woman spoke in Spanish, hacking and coughing again, “the water, dear?”
Mother. Her face flickered, and then she was gone. The room dissolved.
Laughter whispered through her ear, threaded through like a line of thread, and she stood up in a grove of trees. Sh
e couldn’t help but laugh along.
“Come with us, Carmen!”
Carmen skipped through the grass then broke into a run, following the voices of her sister and brother.
“Wait for me! I’m coming!” She laughed again.
Their voices trailed further away.
“I said, wait!”
The scene faded. The light intensified. The trees disappeared. The sun’s heavy rays burned her skin while she stood coldly beside the hole in the ground. A short wrapped body lay still at the bottom and the man next to her began to shovel the earth back inside.
“No . . .” she moaned. She clung to her head, pulling on her hair. “No, no, stop! I can’t watch this again!”
―NATE―
Carmen’s nails dug furiously into her scalp and Reggie grabbed at them before she could hurt herself while Nate seized her jerking legs.
“Nooo,” her voice scratched. “No, no.” Her eyes continued to roll around. She groaned in pain.
“You’re sure she’s seeing memories?” Nate leaned back to avoid her knee kicking him in the jaw.
“It’s a guess. Although, I don’t understand why they’re so physically painful for her.”
“Why the hell does she keep saying ‘no’?” Ransley said from the other couch.
Nate look up at her with a dark glare while grappling with Carmen’s legs again.
“I believe she’s seeing unhappy memories. She doesn’t want to see them,” Reggie replied
Carmen moaned and tears trickled down her face. Slowly, she began to calm down. The abrupt kicks came to an end and her fingers loosened their grip on her hair. Nate relaxed his hold on her and ran his hand over his growing shaggy hair. “I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be able to do this, Reg. Sooner or later, Public guards will find out where we are, and we won’t be able to do anything because we’re busy calming her down.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I think she needs time.”
“Time for what?” Ransley spat. “Time to spend days lost in a hoard of memories she doesn’t want to see? I mean, why are we wasting our own time taking care of her when we need to be figuring out a way to get to Roy? She’s not the only person we came for. Remember?”
“Of course I do, but Roy’s not the only person in this city, either. Is he?” Reggie glared at her.
“He’s the only one I need to care about.” Ransley shook her head and rested her face in her palms.
Nate shook his head. “Judas,” he groaned. “Are you shittin’ me?”
“Nate . . .” Reggie softly spoke up.
“No.” He turned on her and then looked back at Ransley. “Listen, I don’t know if this is some sort of a female thing, or if you’re really this selfish, but your fixation on Roy is driving me up the wall. Knock it off.”
Blowing up at Ransley was risky; the one person who could set fire to the entire building if provoked enough, but he didn’t care. Not now. Sure, he’d opened up to her, but for some reason he had less patience with her than ever.
“What the hell is your problem, Rambo?” she asked, lifting her head.
“No, what’s your problem?”
“You,” she hissed. “You’re my problem! I should leave you to babysit and go do this on my own! I don’t need either of you to do this!”
“You know that’s not true,” Reggie whispered.
Ransley’s dark eyes, tinged with red, zeroed in on Reggie. “It sure the hell is.”
And she believed it. Nate could tell. Ever since they met Ransley, all the woman cared about was getting Roy away from Public Four. If it came down to a sacrificial decision, Ransley would choose Roy’s life over anyone else’s. It was a situation he didn’t want to find himself or Reggie in, and he’d do everything he could to keep that from happening.
Right now, he felt like they were falling behind. If only Carmen would think straight. If she could figure out on her own why these memories were coming to her.
Reggie swore they were supposed to take her for a reason, promising that her visions had shown her that much. Nate hadn’t been able to figure out why. Right now, he was more frustrated than ever. Last night, he’d seen Reggie have a vision. He’d seen enough of them to recognize the signs. The absent stare, the wide eyes, stiff neck. They were telltale symptoms.
She’d lied about having a premonition. Even after he’d asked her.
“It’s repairing,” Reggie said aloud.
“What?” Nate asked, pulled from his thoughts.
“I think—I think these memories are what ground her to who she is. Her mind, is attempting to somehow,” Reggie shook her head back and forth, “reconnect the injured parts or implanted parts, or whatever it is that has been done to her. The thing is, deep down, she knows who she is. Something was changed or removed, or altered, but she still knows. Her memories still know.”
“I don’t get it. How do you know?” Ransley said from the other end of the room, where she now stood.
“I told you, it’s a guess. But, you know how a sunburn begins to itch during the healing process?”
Ransley nodded. “Sí.”
“We know a wound itches when histamine is released by the body’s cells in response to trauma and sometimes the introduction of some type of bacteria—in this case it could be the tampered part of the brain. Histamine causes an allergic type of reaction—which would explain the itch.”
“Reg,” he cleared his throat, “Reggie, you’re not trying to tell us Carmen’s brain is itchy, are you?” Nate asked.
“Why not?” Reggie replied, turning to Nate. “We don’t know how the brain reacts to trauma like she’s been through. Especially since she’s missing parts of her makeup—who she is, what memories and experiences made her who she was before the Nexis.” Reggie ran a hand down her face and sighed. “If only Hugh were here. He might be able to give us a solid answer.”
“Who’s that?” Ransley moved closer to them, her arms folded.
The look from Nate made her back off a step. “Hugh’s a psychologist. We left him up at Public One to help run the city and get things back in order,” Nate explained. “He’d have a field day with this one.”
“He’s in Public One?”
“Yes, that’s what I . . .” Nate’s brows rose. Public One. Why wouldn’t each Public be able to communicate with each other? Before the war, the internet spanned the entire globe. It had to work.
“Reggie, the Comnet.”
Reggie smiled at him. Nate snapped his fingers and moved over to the wall. “Sometimes my brilliance amazes even me.” Nate pressed his hand to one of the panels and it slid back. A giant digital projection of the apartment’s communication system and Carmen’s personal files appeared in the air in front of him and he scratched his head.
“Rambo, what are you doing?” Ransley asked.
“Since . . .” Nate directed files to open and close on the screen, “he’s still in Public One, and we’re here in Public Four, Reggie reminded me of a very good point. We should be able to get someone to communicate with us.”
“Are you sure that would work?”
“Yes,” Nate whispered excitedly.
Ransley stood up and walked over near the screen. “Wait, if we contact them, where in Public One would it go?”
“Here.” Nate pointed to a set of words on the screen. P1[HQPon]. Ransley turned to look at Reggie.
“It’s their headquarter building. Public One. Headquarters. Ponanki.”
Hugh would most likely be there during the middle of the day.
“Wait,” Reggie spoke up. “Nate, what if it’s monitored?”
Nate turned to her and narrowed his eyes. Part of him wondered if she’d had a vision. A warning. “Are you telling me you know it is?”
“I’m telling you it could be.”
For a few seconds Nate watched her. He knew Reggie would hide things from him out of fear. She did the same with Olivia. The previous night was no different. Something had scared her.
<
br /> “You’d tell me if you knew it was, right?” he asked
Reggie looked confused. “What kind of question is that? Of course I would.”
Nate shook his head and turned around. He wasn’t going to argue about it now. “Fine. Well, luckily . . .” he maneuvered a few files around, breaking through boxes of information, “. . . you have someone who knows how to bypass a monitoring issue.” He bypassed differing connections and found what he hoped wasn’t there. “There it is. Yeah, these are definitely being watched. Liam was a lot better at this than I am.” Nate rubbed his chin and took a deep breath. “But,” he continued, “I’m not useless either.” He spun and shoved information around, working on patterns within the files.
“Shit,” he said to himself. The rewiring wouldn’t work. Not in the way he knew. It was too heavily monitored.
“The delta4, Nate,” Reggie’s voice trailed from behind him.
“No, I can’t.”
“Trust me.”
He looked around at her and frowned. “I can’t do that, Reg. By reorganizing the information, the system will create a noticeable loophole. They’ll find out someone’s in the system.”
“Not if you . . .”
“Reggie,” he growls.
“What’s your problem, Nate? If you adjust the delta4, rerouting it through octiva28, then you’ll get around the loop.”
Nate stared at the information. She was right. After a few seconds, he took a breath. Without another word, he rerouted the information and sighed. “We’re good.”
“Like I said.”
Nate pressed a glowing circle on the screen and scowled.
They waited and the screen went blank. For a few moments, he wasn’t sure if anything would happen. In a flash, a bright white room with large spacious windows looked back at them. Lobb’s office. The same tall-backed chair, the lavish white furniture. However, no one was there. Hugh and Nate had spent a fair amount of time in that room after they’d taken over, but it wasn’t a guarantee he’d be there. There wasn’t even a guarantee he’d even walk in during the next twenty-four hours. They didn’t have another day to wait.