by Ted Weber
Artesia turned to Waylee. “What’s all this? You’ve been awfully vague about why you broke this kid out of jail. I mean, you’re one of my dearest friends, and I’m totally down with you, but it would be nice if you filled us in.”
“We were still working out the details,” Waylee said, “but we were gonna make a video and show it to the biggest audience possible. A video that would wake people up and question what they’re told. With MediaCorp’s control of the Comnet and news outlets, there’s no way the general public will hear an outside voice like mine unless we change the rules of the game.”
Artesia crossed her arms. “You know, breaking someone out of jail wasn’t such a good move.”
Waylee’s shoulders drooped. “I…” Her eyes moistened. “I didn’t think Homeland would get involved. Everything’s ruined now. And poor Kiyoko…”
Pel wanted to hide. “We should have left the night before, Waylee was right. I fucked up.”
Fuera frowned. “Will they look for you here?”
“I expect they’re stumped,” he said, “and we’re gonna make them think we split town.”
Waylee looked from Artesia to Fuera. “We’ve gotta stay somewhere, and I trust you two the most. And you can relay messages for us. You know everyone I know.”
Artesia scoffed. “Bullshit we do.”
“Well you know all the respectable people I know.” Waylee turned to Shakti. “I imagine the house’s been ransacked by now.”
“Maybe by the police, but they’ll leave most of it. Scavengers won’t move in until the cops are long gone.”
“We should call someone and ask them to keep an eye on the place,” Pel said. “My cousins would do it, or any of our neighbors.” His musclehead cousins volunteered on the Greektown Peltasts, a foot patrol like M-pat’s.
Artesia offered drinks. Everyone wanted something. Waylee filled a glass with Jameson. Artesia let Charles have a rum and coke. “You’re a criminal already,” she said, smiling. “Might as well have a drink.”
“I’ll have a Wobbly,” Dingo said.
Artesia’s brow furrowed. “I’m not a mixologist.”
Shakti giggled as Dingo explained, even though they’d heard it a million times. “Equal portions Red Label whisky and Black Label beer. Stir vigorously. Share with your comrades in equal portions until all drinking needs are met. And let the People’s Happy Hour commence!”
Fuera laughed. Artesia poured him a Natty Boh and Jameson. “Just pretend.”
Pel had one too. He choked on the taste. He led a toast to Dingo, “To the craziest but bravest motherfucker in Baltimore.”
Waylee then refilled her glass and turned to their hosts. “Can we see the news?”
“Sure.” They had a small wall screen nestled between crowded bookcases and above a storage cabinet. Artesia clicked on the power, bypassed a puff piece about the president’s kids, and navigated to coverage of the police raid. There weren’t enough seats for everyone, so Pel and some of the others stood to the side.
The video began with a military troop carrier and police cruisers parked at the band house. Cops and suits stood in circles or poked through the grass.
Their local newscaster narrated from a popup window. “This is the scene in Baltimore’s Wilhelm Park neighborhood this morning, where officers of the Baltimore Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security attempted to seize Charles Marvin Lee, a recent escapee from the Baltimore Juvenile Correctional Facility, and the possible terrorist cell who helped him escape. Most of the suspects fled the scene, including Lee, if he was there, but one, whose name has not been released yet, was apprehended. Police are confident they’ll catch the others soon.”
A rotating image of Charles appeared to the right, along with the same slew of information as the last time she saw it. “Here are the other suspects, who live in the house you see here.” The screen displayed stills of himself, Dingo, Waylee, and Shakti, with links to additional information.
“If you have any information regarding their whereabouts, there is a $100,000 reward.” A link appeared above the video. “Police believe additional people are involved, but have not named further suspects at this time.”
“So what we do now?” Pel asked the others. “Stick with the plan? Give up on it and run for Canada?”
Waylee stood. “How do we find out where Kiyoko and M-pat are? We’ve gotta get them out.”
“I’ll call one of the People’s Party lawyers tomorrow,” Fuera said. “If that’s cool.”
“Francis is probably the best for this,” Shakti said.
Pel agreed. He was one of the best attorneys in the city, did a lot of pro bono work, and enjoyed tweaking the authorities.
J-Jay took off. Pel wrapped Dingo’s Dick Clark mask with paper towels, doused it with lighter fluid, and burned it in the fireplace. The living room began to reek of burning silicone and Fuera had to set up a fan.
Artesia led everyone downstairs. “We set up the basement.”
Just past the stairs, a matching faux-leather couch, love seat, and chair clustered around a glass-topped coffee table and faced a huge wall skin. Beyond them, three double-size air mattresses with pillows and sheets crowded the carpeted floor.
On the far end of the large room, two sets of virtual reality helmets and gloves sat next to plush recliners with built-in fiber-optic sockets. “For BetterWorld,” Artesia commented. “But you can use them while you’re here. We’re too busy most of the time anyway.”
“I brought my cleaning spray,” Pel said. “And I can make more.”
Fuera pointed at the ceiling. “There’s a spare bedroom on the second floor if anyone wants that,” Fuera said.
“Let Waylee and Pel have it,” Shakti said. “They’ve had a rough day.”
Won’t argue with that.
“Thanks,” Waylee said. Her breath stank of whiskey.
“And when Waylee called us last week,” Artesia said, “we picked up some clothes and toiletries. I’ll bring them down.”
“Can’t promise they’ll fit,” Fuera said, “or that we have the remotest idea about men’s fashion.”
Pel heard a plop behind him. Charles had collapsed onto one of the air mattresses.
Pel’s aching knees shook. He’d need a lot more to drink before he could sleep.
* * *
FBI Headquarters, Baltimore County
Kiyoko
Kiyoko sat in a whitewashed room of the drab FBI headquarters just past the Baltimore beltway. She’d been alone for hours, sitting in a folding chair behind a metal table, perhaps forgotten entirely.
The two agents who’d brought her had promised to return right away with tea and donuts. At least they’d removed the handcuffs. The woman had introduced herself as Agent Harrison, and the man, Agent Recelito.
Everyone else had escaped. Good for them. She hoped they had the sense to get out of the country. Then they could all move to Tokyo or Shanghai, turn disaster into opportunity. She just hoped Prince Vostok wouldn’t stir up more trouble in BetterWorld while she was stuck in this room.
The door opened. Agents Harrison and Recelito entered. Took you long enough.
Harrison set down three plastic cups of tea and a half-filled box of Mistah D donuts. The agents sat on the opposite side of the table and unrolled flexible data tablets, bending the screens vertical so she couldn’t see the displays.
Kiyoko plucked a cinnamon twist out of the box and sipped her tea. Neither was much good, but breakfast was breakfast. Especially when it was hours overdue.
“Sorry it took so long,” Harrison said, and blew on her tea.
Kiyoko nodded, most of her attention on the sugary cinnamon twist.
Recelito scrolled through something on his tablet. “So, your name is Kiyoko Pingyang.”
Kiyoko assumed they were recording her, even if she couldn’t see the cameras or microphones. “Yes. I go by Kiyoko.” Japanese for spiritually clean child. Her surname was important too. One of the greatest her
oes of ancient China, Princess Pingyang raised an army and overthrew the evil Sui Dynasty.
“But that’s not your birth name.”
“If you met my parents you’d know why. When we got to Baltimore, Waylee had our names changed, but it’s all legal. It’s on my driver’s license.”
“You and your sister are close,” Harrison said.
Kiyoko shrugged. “We tolerate each other most of the time.”
“And she’s your legal guardian?”
“I’m an adult now, nineteen, almost twenty.” She finished the twist.
“Was your legal guardian.”
“Yeah. She’s a lot older than me. Different father – he went crazy and killed himself before I was born.”
The agents stared at each other. Harrison continued, “So you ran away from your parents… when?”
“Uh, twelve years ago. I was just a kid.” She fished through the box and picked a blueberry cruller. The “blueberries” were tasteless little smudges of blue dye.
“And you never thought about returning?”
Philly was a blur of shouts and slaps and bruises. And fear. Fear that rose and fell but never ended. “My mother never really liked us. And Feng, my father, was a monster.” From the blackest pits of hell.
Her father, mother, and sister had screamed at each other almost daily. And with alcohol or meth addling his brain, Feng escalated to slaps and punches. And later her mother would pass the abuse on to Kiyoko, the one in the house least able to defend herself.
Kiyoko’s parents didn’t care for her, said she was a pain in the ass. But they hated Waylee, ‘cause when she wasn’t in her depressed state, she fought back, unintimidated by the fifty pounds and two decades of fight experience Feng had on her. And she called the cops as soon as she could get to a phone.
The police would arrest Feng or her mother would throw him out, and Kiyoko would thank the starry heavens. But he always came back. He’d be all nice and apologetic at first, but he could only pretend for so long. Then the monster emerged.
Eventually Waylee exploded.
It was about an hour after dinner. Her mother had passed out in the bedroom, Feng hadn’t come home from work, and her sister had cooked one of those Hamburger Helpers.
Feng stumbled in, stinking drunk, and cast lecherous eyes at Waylee. Said she was a whore and he knew she wanted it. He grabbed her by the arm, threw her down on the old sofa, and started pawing at her clothes.
Waylee clutched his face and thrust her thumbs in his eyes. He shook his head but she wouldn’t let go. Her thumbs went in to the knuckles and blood dripped out. He screamed.
She kept gouging, ignoring his flailing hands. His right eye popped out of its socket and hung by fibers, bright red blood squirting from his skull and stinking of bad pennies.
The screams were surely enough to summon all the legions of hell. Feng kicked and thrashed, his eye swinging back and forth along his cheek and the socket gaping like a cave, vomiting a river of blood. Kiyoko wet herself in terror.
Somehow Waylee got her out of there.
Of course they could never go back - the suggestion was ludicrous. She sometimes wondered what happened to her parents, if her father lost both eyes or just one, if he ended up killing her mother, if she killed him, if the cops searched for Waylee or they decided Feng got what he deserved.
Best to forget it and move on…
“Are you okay?” Agent Harrison asked, leaning forward.
“If it weren’t for Waylee,” Kiyoko said, “I’d be dead by now.”
Harrison and Recelito glanced at each other.
“Feng would have killed us both.” Kiyoko felt the shame that accompanied every remembrance of her parents, that she should come from such evil stock.
Harrison typed something on her tablet.
I should shut up. “Can I see a lawyer?”
“Just a few more questions,” she said.
“You live at,” and Recelito stated her address.
Why ask something they know the answer to? “Yes.” Kiyoko finished the cruller and picked a jelly donut.
“For how long?”
“Four years, more or less.” The red jelly inside was perfectly homogenous, and tasted only vaguely of strawberry. It reminded her of Feng’s eye and she fought not to throw up her food.
“And before that?”
She traded the jelly donut for a chocolate glazed. “Here and there. Wherever Waylee went, different hoods around Baltimore. College Park for a couple of years when she was in journalism school.”
Harrison tapped a cadence on her tablet and peered at something Kiyoko couldn’t see. “Just a couple of years?”
“Yeah, at first she took the train from Baltimore. Two hours each way including the buses at both ends.” Then the state tried to put her in a foster home. Said Waylee was an unfit guardian, that she was always gone and mentally unstable. “That didn’t work out so well, so we moved to College Park, different places around there.”
Harrison consulted her computer again. “And then she got a job back in Baltimore when she graduated?”
“Yeah, at the Herald. So we moved back, but then she got uh… down-sized.”
“And she hasn’t been employed since?” Recelito said.
“She freelances when she can. And we have the band, we’re pretty popular, in B’more at least. Dwarf Eats Hippo, you should check us out.”
Harrison looked her in the eyes and smiled. “I will. Is that what your costumes are for? You have an amazing wardrobe.”
“I made them myself. I wear some on stage, but they’re for contests too, and sometimes I get paid to model.” She took another bite of chocolate glazed. “Why’d you go poking through my clothes?”
“We’re combing your house for leads. Nothing personal, it’s just we’ve got a fugitive to catch.”
Kiyoko finished her donut. Slim pickings now, all plains, but she hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and she and Waylee had ridiculously high metabolisms. “How long do you plan to hold me here?”
“This is an important investigation,” Harrison said. “I was hoping you could tell us about Charles. Why was he staying at your house?”
Kiyoko finished her tea. “I’d like to see a lawyer before I say anything else.”
Harrison frowned. “I was really hoping we could wrap this up and get you home soon.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“It’s in your interest to cooperate voluntarily,” Recelito said. “You’re not our preferred target, but the fact is, you aided and abetted a known fugitive.”
“If I’m not under arrest, then I’m free to go, right?”
“I’m afraid not. Because of the type of weapon used to free Mr. Lee, and because he’s in an organization of cyberterrorists called the Collective, this has been deemed a national security case. That gives us wide latitude to do pretty much whatever we want, miss.”
“I’m not a terrorist or a national security threat. I have stuff to do. I need to feed my cat.” Kiyoko stood and walked toward the door.
The agents jumped out of their chairs and cut her off, blocking the exit. “Sit down, miss,” Recelito said, his voice cold.
She stood in place. She was a Princess, not someone who could be ordered around. “Let me go. I no longer consent to this interview.”
“According to the Homeland Security Consolidation Act of 2022, we can detain you 72 hours,” Harrison said. “If you cooperate voluntarily, you’ll be back home a lot sooner than that. If not, we’ll hold you for 72 hours, then arrest you on charges of aiding escape of a prisoner. That’s a ten year sentence.”
Kiyoko breathed in deeply. She wouldn’t cry.
“We’ll be back tomorrow.” They picked everything up and left.
Kiyoko tried the door. It wouldn’t budge. Was she locked in this room with no light switch, no bed, no toilet, and no Comnet access for 72 hours? Would she be stuck someplace like this for ten years? Or someplace worse, where she’d be beaten and raped? H
er hands shook and shook and wouldn’t stop.
14
Tuesday
Pelopidas
Pel sat at the tiny kitchen table with Artesia and sipped extra-strong coffee. Drawn curtains kept out the sunlight, promising a day of enforced gloom.
Artesia spoke to Francis on her comlink. “Thank you. We appreciate it.”
Pel felt gelded without his link, but Homeland must have brought in cyber specialists to find them, and they were as good as anyone in the Collective, maybe better.
Artesia ended the connection. “Francis says he’ll help. He’ll call back as soon as he finds out where Kiyoko and M’patanishi are.”
“Good news. Thanks for staying home today.” Artesia had called in sick while her wife went to work.
“Of course. Everyone else still asleep? I can make more coffee, and there’s fresh bagels from Eddie’s.”
“Waylee’s still out, and I haven’t checked the basement.” He’d tried to coax Waylee out of bed. She claimed to have a hangover, but her listless expression meant she’d lost her battle with the cyclothymia. This was why their band had a reputation for unreliability – she was utterly useless when this happened. Maybe there were some drugs out there they hadn’t tried, some meditation technique.
“Is she alright?” Artesia asked.
He decided not to lie. “No. Except for a few blips, she was in superhero mode for months – the longest she’s ever been there – and now she’s paying the price. You know her as well as anyone. Do you have any advice?”
“Love conquers all.” She smiled. “And a nice breakfast. I’ll put something together.”
Pel went down to the basement. All three were still asleep. He kicked the air mattress Dingo and Shakti were sleeping on. “Wakey wakey.”
Dingo threw aside the cover sheet. He and Shakti were naked beneath it, and didn’t bother hiding anything as they got up and stretched.
“Dudes, show some decorum,” Pel said, casting eyes toward Charles, also awake now, and staring at them.
“Turn around, yo,” Dingo said to Charles. He wrapped the sheet around Shakti, attempting to duplicate her saris. “M’lady.”