He needed all the warmth he could get, I guess, because his clothes were little more than thin, ripped rags made of black linen and burlap which were tucked haphazardly into ankle-high black motorcycle boots that housed an intimidating-looking Bowie knife in one foot, and a set of studded brass knuckles in the other. His face seemed to be contorted in a permanent scowl, and his long, calloused hands were perfectly manicured (which, given the rest of his appearance, was hilarious).
The women began ululating as the men beat their fists, again, on the concrete. The family stepped forward, stopped, and finally, the daughter began to speak.
“Tagate ese! Bow the knee before our leader! Tamati Solosolo, ta’ita’i! Hup!” Her voice was crisp and melodic, much like Evanora’s, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d gone to the same finishing school – or, at the very least, a similar one – as Evanora. I found it odd that this young woman spoke such perfect English, without even any type of an accent, considering that the Warriors didn’t inter-mingle amongst anyone else on the island, let alone with the children of the high-ranking Cabal members and Emperor.
Suddenly, the men began roaring loudly, and this time, Tamati Solosolo roared back in response.
“That’s how he got the name Raw, I guess,” Basile stage-whispered.
“Yes, thank you Basile for stating the blatantly obvious,” Kanoa retorted sarcastically. “I don’t know what I’d do without these oh-so-astute observations of yours. What’s next? The sky is blue? The grass is green? Emperor is orange?”
I didn’t like Kanoa’s tone of voice, so I quickly whipped my head around to face him and set it all straight. “Yo, Kanoa,” I asked forcefully, “what the hell is your problem?”
Kanoa sighed before responding. “I’ve heard about these people, you guys – back when I was Supreme Allied Commander, we ran some intel on them, and we found out that they not only kill their enemies, they cook them by impaling them like pigs on a spit.”
Basile side-eyed Kanoa and smacked him upside the head. “What the fuck is the matter with you, Kanoa? That’s racist as hell! You know damn well that was some faulty intel you received!”
Kanoa rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue. “Basile, I’m Japanese and Hawaiian. I can’t be racist.”
Basile sputtered with exasperation and shook his head. “How the fuck does that compute, Kanoa? You just sat here with a straight face and told us that these people were savage cannibals because they don’t speak English!”
“That’s not racist,” said Kanoa, matter-of-factly. “That’s just facts.”
“I see,” I said, “so what if I said that they’d eat us with chopsticks and wrap us up in sushi rice?”
Kanoa glared at me incredulously. “Jamie,” he said, “that’s racist as hell.”
It was now my turn to sputter in exasperation. “I get it,” I said, “it’s only racist when some dumb shit is muttered against your people.”
“Nah, man,” Basile said, chuckling and gearing up to deliver the zinger, “it’s only racist when it comes from a cracker like you.”
I groaned and stuck my middle finger in Basile’s face as Kanoa guffawed loudly. I then smacked Kanoa lightly on the arm as I got down on my left knee. “We gotta take a knee, Kanoa,” I said, “because I don’t think you’d taste good as barbacoa.”
But even though Basile was quick to drop on his left knee, Kanoa wasn’t done delivering zingers. “You just can’t wait to eat my ass, huh Jamie?”
Basile chuckled as I sucked my teeth. “Man, Kanoa, you’d better shut the fuck up and kneel,” I said.
And as Kanoa dropped to his knee, we looked up and saw Tamati, his wife, and his daughter standing before us. Tamati sneered, growled, and began speaking in an unfamiliar language.
Basile and Kanoa, to their credit, narrowed their eyes and tried to understand what he was saying, but I decided it was better to just get to the point, so I raised my hand, cleared my throat, and looked at Tamati’s daughter. “Yes, I’m sorry, what? Huh? Can you repeat that in English?”
Tamati’s daughter looked at her father, who gave a slight nod in her direction, presumably indicating permission to speak. She acknowledged the nod, then turned to me. “My father would like to know your name, and why you’re here.”
“Oh. Okay. Yeah. So, those two” – I pointed to Basile and Kanoa – “as you already know, are Basile Perrinault and Kanoa Shinomura, I’m Jamie Ryan, and we’re with the Uprising. We…wait, what’s your name, dear?”
“Pualani,” Tamati’s daughter replied. “I’m Pualani Solosolo, obviously you know my father’s name is Tamati, and my mother’s name is Tagioalisi. I’m the only one who speaks English, though.”
“Pualani,” I repeated. “Hi, Pualani. Okay. Well, we’re here because we’re part of the Uprising, and we’re trying to investigate the blast that happened during the Emperor’s Ball.”
Pualani shifted her eyes towards her mother, who continued to face forward stoically, then turned back to us. “Your Emperor blamed you for it, though,” she said, blankly. “Shouldn’t that be the end of it?”
“We know,” said Basile, “and no, that’s not the end of it, because saying something doesn’t make it so.”
“But if your leader says something,” responded Pualani, gently, “do you not respect it as a leader’s word?”
The three of us were astounded. Finally, Kanoa spoke up. “Not this leader, lady.”
“Why not?” asked Pualani. “Did he not get voted in by you? Did you not entrust him with leading your tribe? And has he not delivered on his promise to lead?”
“How has he lead?” I interrupted. “He’s stripped us of all we knew and all we held dear. He has punished those who go against him with a weapon called psi, and this weapon isn’t a gun or a knife or even a bomb – it’s a weapon of psychic warfare that strips people of their free thought and free will. He has slaughtered the creatives, the intellectuals, the artists – all the people that made this city great – because he’s a petty, small man that doesn’t have a creative bone in his body. He has turned the rest of the population into the walking dead. And now, everything – everything – that made this city unique and vital and amazing is gone…gone…”
Pualani stepped forward and held her hand up while looking down upon us. “These were all powers that you granted him as your leader. If you didn’t like it, you should have changed it a lot sooner than you all did. This Uprising – this ideology – is just too little, too late, because this Emperor of yours has rights as a leader that are no different than the rights, responsibilities, and powers we’ve conferred upon my father.”
“Your father, with all due respect, is a benevolent leader that is respectful of your culture and your ways,” I replied. “That’s not this Emperor.”
“And you believe that all our leaders were ‘benevolent,’ as you put it?” she asked. “But we had the sense to remove them when they betrayed us.”
“Uh, yeah,” Kanoa replied sarcastically. “That’s why we’re here. You’re catching on.”
That sarcasm didn’t sit well with Tamati, and he growled, stomped his feet, and roared in Kanoa’s face. He shouted something garbled and unintelligible, then motioned over to Pualani to come over and talk to him. I could tell, based on his hand motions, that he wanted Pualani to translate for him, so she rushed over to him and tried to calm him down, but that only seemed to succeed in making him even angrier. When he finally stopped gesticulating long enough to look at us, Pualani spoke on his behalf.
“My father said the following. First, he doesn’t give a shit about your Emperor, because as far as he’s concerned, his leadership is the only one that matters amongst us. Second, your Uprising is a joke, and will eventually be defeated. Third, even though he and his Warriors were the ones that caused the blast that night, what of it? What precisely do you plan to do about it?” She stopped and looked at me intently, obviously inviting the challenge.
I squared my shoulders before answering
. “Well, I’d like to know why he and his Warriors set off the bomb? He could have killed people – innocent people, people who have nothing to do with the fight. Why do it?”
Pualani looked at her father, then asked the question in their native language.
Tamati looked at me, growled, and responded, “Aisea e le fai ai? Aisea e le fai ai?” He put his face right into mine and grunted.
Unfazed, I looked over at Pualani. “What’s your dad saying, dear?” I asked, calmly.
“He said, ‘why not? Why not?’” she replied. “He’s the leader of the Warriors and Emperor has had no respect for him or his culture. Why should my father defer to people that don’t defer to him? He’s ta’ita’i, and he should be respected as such. And if he isn’t, then his enemies should be made to suffer the consequence of that transgression. He doesn’t bother anyone on this island – why should Emperor bother him?”
I nodded, never taking my eyes off Tamati. I knew I had to be strategic with my next response, even though I wanted to kill him for putting Evanora’s life in danger, because we needed their help more than they needed ours. “Fair enough. So, you have no love for Emperor any more than we do. Sounds like something went down and your dad isn’t exactly pleased with him, and he wants revenge. Why not join us in our fight? We don’t like him either, Pualani.”
More unintelligible talk between father and daughter, with Tamati violently gesticulating toward me, Basile, and Kanoa. Basile was muttering something under his breath, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Kanoa was rolling his eyes and sucking his teeth. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Pualani turned back to me and translated for her father.
“My father said that your fight is not ours. If we join forces with you – and that’s a big if – it will be on our terms. There will be no threats to my father’s sovereignty, and he will continue to rule amongst the Warriors, no matter what will happen in this war to come. I don’t think my father’s demands are unreasonable, and I think we can all agree that we’d prefer a sovereign sub-city of Warriors than a city exclusively ruled by Emperor,” said Pualani. “Do we have an agreement?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t see a problem with that,” I said. “I don’t think anyone here is trying to tell you all not to rule amongst yourselves.”
Kanoa raised his hand before speaking. “Yeah, hi, Kanoa here. So, we’re cool with you having your sovereignty and whatever, but does that mean you’ll be challenging Emperor one day? Because, let me just be the first one to say, we’re totally alright with that, and we’ll totally help you fight Emperor to the death.”
Pualani translated Kanoa’s question for her father, who suddenly raised his eyebrows, threw his head back, and let out a loud, whooping laugh.
“I mean, yes? No? Maybe you wanna be co-Emperor or something? We can make that happen,” Kanoa continued. “Have your people call our people? Maybe?”
Tamati stomped his feet and let out a war cry while pacing around in a circle. One by one, the Warrior men stepped away from their positions and formed a circle around Tamati, where he then stomped around while screaming out various war cries, to which the men responded in kind.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Basile stage-whispered to no one in particular.
Tamati finally called to Pualani, who ran over to her father, ready to translate for him, and began speaking. “Na fesili mai le tagata ese ia te aʻu pe ou te manao e fai le suafa o le Emeperoa mo le Warriors! O se Taupulepule Amio!”
“The stranger wishes to know if I would like to claim the title of Emperor for the Warriors,” translated Pualani. “He asks if we shall have a Warrior Emperor!”
Tamati gave a slight nod, continued stomping around the circle to the war cries of the men, and resumed speaking. “Ma e faʻapefea ona tatou taliina lena fesili, loʻu tagata totoa? O le ulutala tatou te mananao i ai? O le nofoalii?”
Pualani returned her father’s nod, then translated. “How do we answer that question, Warriors? Is it the title we desire? Is it the throne?”
The war cries got louder, and the men began stomping their feet and beating their chest in time. Still, Tamati continued. “E le o le ulutala poʻo le nofoalii na manaʻo i ai le au fitafita! O le faʻasaoina o lo tatou olaga! O le faʻaaloalo mo a tatou ala i luma o lenei otaota Na sau le Emeperoa i totonu ia i tatou! O la tatou pule silisili ese! O lo tatou saolotoga! O LE SUAFA O LE TAGATA!”
“We don’t want the title or the throne!” Pualani was now shouting alongside her father. “We want our way of life, the respect people had for our ways before this piece-of-shit Emperor came to power, our sovereignty, and our freedom! WE WANT THE HONOR OF THE WARRIOR NAME!”
Tamati threw his head back with his hair flailing wildly, opened his arms in a butterfly formation, and let out a hearty yell from the depths of his chest. The men in the circle matched his battle cry, whooping and hollering, pounding their chest and stomping their feet, growling and barking and pumping their fists.
Tamati then stood up straight and held his right fist in the air. “Long live the Uprising! Long live New York City!”
My eyes filled with tears, and I held my right fist up in the air to match his. The smell of lilacs was in the air, and I could almost feel Angelique wrap her arms around me. And, despite myself, I smiled as I hollered out the battle cry that brought us all here in the first place. “Long live the Uprising! Long live New York City!”
And that was all they needed to hear as the crowd burst into jubilant celebration. Pualani hugged her father, who genuinely smiled as he wrapped his arms around his little girl and rested his cheek on the top of her head. He waved over to the ever-stoic Tagioalisi, who let a small, thin smile cross her face as she allowed herself to be wrapped in her husband’s arms. Pualani then leaned into her mother, who kissed the top of her head and ran her hand lovingly over her face, tracing over the fine lines of her nose and cheekbones as she did so.
It was a touching, kind moment, and I smiled and nodded despite myself, wishing I’d had the same opportunity for my own family. I got up, wiped the knees of my pants, then put my hands in my back pockets and sighed, observing the sights and sounds before us, remembering the old New York as I knew it, and the new New York to come.
“Hey, uh, Jamie?” Kanoa began. “You think this means we can get up off our knee now?”
“Nah, Kanoa,” Basile remarked sarcastically, “we’re supposed to stay here for the rest of our lives. We were born here, we’re gonna live here forever, and then we’re gonna die here…”
“Man, Basile, shut the fuck up,” retorted Kanoa as he got up from the kneeling position, then extended his hand to Basile to give him support as he, too, began to stand up. “We gotta check in with Evanora and Tommy. What the hell are those two up to?”
Chapter Fourteen
Evanora
I had never seen anything quite like the Ouroboros.
It was once an urban bedroom community, alternating between apartment buildings that housed various residents of the old New York from all walks of life and cute little mom-and-pop shops that offered everything from gourmet mayonnaise to exotic coffee.
Today, however, it was a jungle in every sense of the word – the buildings were all bombed out, leaving only random half-walls and openings that once held doors and windows in their wake. There was overgrowth of all sorts of vegetation, and ivy began consuming the remnants of the bombed-out buildings. Dust, soot, and dirt was everywhere – a stark contrast to the crisp white of Emperor’s Park and my general environment (although I was quickly learning that part of the charm of the old New York was the dust and grime – the rose that grew from the concrete, if you like). Rats and cockroaches scurried across every available surface, and I almost had a heart attack when a huge white rat that was the size of a small cat with glowing red eyes and a bushy tail came up to me and sat up on its two hind legs, as if to welcome me to his dominion in Hell.
I screamed. Tommy laughed.
“Hey, look,” he said
, laughing, “it’s Spike, reincarnated. He’s come to say hi.”
I side-eyed Tommy incredulously. “Really, Tommy, really? That’s where you’re going with the jokes? Your dead boyfriend?”
“What would you have me do, Evie?” he asked. “This place looks like a war zone. I’m trying to keep the mood light in case we get killed.”
“By joking about your dead boyfriend,” I retorted. “Adorable.”
He grimaced and looked at me. “It was either my dead boyfriend or your dead father.”
I was flabbergasted, but without warning, I suddenly laughed. “That’s great,” I said. “This way if the Christians were right and there is a Hell, we’re going straight there.”
Tommy rolled his eyes and kept walking. “Honey, I’m already claiming the throne room there. Now where did that map say to go?”
I looked down at the yellowing parchment paper, taking care not to drop it or allow it to crumble in my hands. “Someplace called Dean Street,” I said, pointing to a black line in what was called Kings County. “Cross street is Nostrand, then we have to make a left and go down St. Mark’s Avenue, and then we must go to the corner of St. Mark’s and New York Avenues, where we will find a man named Steele and his crew.”
“If he’s still alive,” Tommy finished. “Our intel is at least 20 years old, so we need to be prepared that the people we’re looking for may not even be alive anymore.”
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” I replied. “We need to at least try to see if Steele, and by extension Willie and Tom, are still alive, and if they are, to bring them into the fold and join the Uprising. It’s the only chance we have of defeating Emperor.”
“And you think Steele and his crew will be down with the Uprising?” Tommy asked. “Who’s to say we won’t get there and find out they’re Cabal loyalists?”
Before I could even answer, we heard a loud whirring sound of motors. For a minute, I thought we had been discovered by the Cabal – but I didn’t recognize the sound of the motors. The sound of the Cabal tanks was much deeper, and menacing, than these motors, which sounded almost like toy helicopters.
The Gathering: Book One of The Uprising Series Page 15