Live in Infamy

by Caroline Tung Richmond

  Fräulein Plank tapped a finger on the arm of her glasses. “Ah, yes. Your mother asked me to put the package in a storage room until after the ball. She knows your schedule will be very busy this week.”

  “I see.” Aiko’s pleasant façade seemed to crack, and her spine tightened until it went completely straight. “What about my phone call tomorrow with the admissions office at the Institute of the Arts — has that been confirmed?”

  Fräulein Plank dipped her head. “Your mother asked me to cancel it.”

  “Was it rescheduled?”

  “I haven’t been notified if it has, Your Imperial Highness. Shall I speak to your mother about it? I could —”

  “I can reschedule the call myself,” Aiko said, interrupting Fräulein Plank so abruptly that her etiquette teachers would have chided her. Ren was pretty sure that those same teachers would never approve of a princess attending a school like the Institute of the Arts down in New Tokyo. As a young woman of her stature, Aiko was expected to fulfill her family duties, no matter how progressive her father’s reforms might have been. The map of her life had been drawn long before she was born.

  “As you wish,” Fräulein Plank demurred with a prim smile. “And might I offer you an early congratulations? Your mother told me the good news yesterday.”

  Aiko’s mouth puckered like she had taken a bite of a lemon, but she managed a quick thank-you. “There’s a call I have to make,” she said before making her exit.

  Ren bowed again at the princess’s departure, but he let his head bob up right before Aiko rounded the corner, her billowing yellow skirt barely keeping up with her pace. He had no idea what Plank had congratulated her about, and he had no clue, either, that Aiko could be so forthright. He had expected a princess like her to be spoiled and sheltered, spending her time picking out new clothes, but Aiko didn’t seem to fall into that stereotype. He found that surprising and, if he were being completely honest, a little admirable.

  Of course, it didn’t matter what Aiko’s personality was like. What mattered was that Ren had to smuggle her out of the Fortress and into the hands of the Resistance.

  As soon as Aiko was out of eyeshot, Plank resumed her role spitting orders at Ren. “Let’s go. I have a busy schedule, so don’t fall behind.”

  Ren walked behind her in silence, grateful for a few minutes to gather his thoughts. He had to reassess the mission now that he wouldn’t be able to talk to Marty after his shift every night. There was also the issue surrounding Bird and Beetle. Ren had asked Marty about their identities, but she wouldn’t disclose their names until he got hired, arguing that she had to keep them safe in case his job interview turned into an interrogation. Because of that, Ren had let the matter drop — but now his job would be even harder. Panic began climbing up his throat, but he took a breath and told himself to focus. He’d find a way to talk to Marty. Until then, the mission had to move forward and he had to think about the next step: Check the escape route.

  “Cabot!” said Fräulein Plank, turning around just long enough to scowl at Ren. “How hard can it be to keep up with me?”

  Ren made his apologies and upped his pace. Their first stop was the security office, a cave-like space filled with dozens of television monitors. While the security guard prepared Ren’s employee badge, Ren glanced over at the screens. The monitors displayed live feeds from the video cameras scattered throughout the Fortress — from hallways and exit points to classrooms and the cafeteria. The Empire had its eyes everywhere.

  “Clip this on and don’t take it off.” The security guard tossed the finished badge to Ren. “Or else you’ll give the soldiers a reason to shoot.”

  Their next stop was a massive storage closet full of service uniforms, where Fräulein Plank plucked two white dress shirts and a pair of slacks for Ren, explaining that his pay would be docked to cover the price of the clothes. She waited for him to change in the bathroom before ushering him to their last destination.

  “Here’s the sewing room,” she said. The room was narrow and long and windowless, more like a hallway than an actual work space. Ten sewing machines took up a good chunk of the room, each one sitting upon its own wooden table. A couple of the machines lay quiet, but the others sang a mechanical tune, operated by a chorus of female seamstresses. At Plank’s arrival, the staff stopped working and stood out of respect, even though most of the seamstresses were decades older than Plank. The Fräulein told them to keep working.

  “You’ll find everything you need in this room,” Plank told Ren. She opened a cabinet to reveal its contents. “Thread, needles, buttons, zippers, scissors. Be careful, though. If you break anything, it’ll be taken out of your pay as well.”

  Ren battled the urge to roll his eyes. The Empire’s coffers may have run deep, but apparently not deep enough to cover a pair of spare scissors.

  “Your main responsibility will be altering the cadets’ dress uniforms and having them laundered and pressed. The crown princess wanted new uniforms made for the ball, and we had them bulk-ordered and shipped from Tokyo. But the first two shipments got lost, and by the time we received the third order over half of our sewing team got sick.”

  “That’s awful,” Ren lied. The truth was that Beetle had secretly canceled the “lost” orders while Bird had poisoned the staff’s breakfast soup, just enough to knock them out of commission. This had all been a part of the Resistance’s plan.

  “We’re racing against the clock now, and we need every cadet properly fitted in less than a week,” Plank continued. “Each uniform comes with a dress shirt and tie, a formal suit jacket, and trousers.”

  “Understood,” Ren said, even as his stomach sank. Fräulein Plank had been right about one thing — he would definitely be working overtime at this job. He’d have to use his precious free time very judiciously.

  While Plank showed him yet another storage cabinet, Ren’s gaze wandered toward the back of the room. A flock of seamstresses hovered around six dress forms, and on each of those forms was an exquisite kimono or a Western-style ball gown. Hours of work had gone into each piece, from hand-beading to lacework to painted silk. Ren didn’t need to ask Plank who these outfits belonged to — they were Aiko’s and her mother’s wardrobe for the ball.

  “You won’t be working on those,” Plank said sharply as she walked back toward the door. “Before I go, you’ll be staying in Bunkroom Eight until the ball. Ms. Clarke can get you settled after your shift.” She called out to a white-haired woman clucking over a silk kimono patterned with flying cranes. “Claudette? This is Cabot, the new tailor we’ve hired.”

  That said, Plank left the room with a turn of her heels, and before Ren could thank her, Ms. Clarke had besieged him.

  “Cabot? Like the shop in town?” said the older woman, gripping Ren’s arm with cold, bony fingers. She was about half Ren’s size, but her grip felt stronger than his. And she didn’t wait for him to reply. “How old are you, son? Have you ever used a Brother HC1450? Because that’s the model you’ll be using here, and I don’t have the time to give you a primer.”

  Ren’s head spun at her rapid-fire line of questions. “You won’t have to worry about me, Ms. Clarke. Just show me what you need me to do.”

  Ms. Clarke looked doubtful, but she led Ren to a workstation by the door. “You can use Ernesto’s machine. He should be back in a week or so, I hope.” She drew out a sigh. “I’m blaming the breakfast soup for this stomach virus outbreak. It smelled a little fishy to me, but that didn’t stop people from eating a bowl of it anyway.” She squinted at Ren. “You better stick to toast for breakfast, do you hear?”

  After Ren assured her that he would, Ms. Clarke rolled a dress rack toward him. Twenty child-size uniforms hung from the rack, each one pinned with a name tag. “Let’s start with your first task. I’ll make it easy. These are the uniforms for the six-year-old cadets, and we finished them last night. Now they need to get starched and pressed down in the laundries. Tell them we’ll need these back by tomorrow m
orning for delivery.”

  Ren brightened. A trip to the laundries? “I’d be happy to do it.”

  Ms. Clarke gave him the directions, and Ren pushed the dress rack out of the room. A left here. A right there. Down the hall and then some more. At last the smell of detergent snuck into his nose, and the steam from the boiling linens misted his forehead. Inside the laundries, the growl of two dozen industrial washing machines traveled into Ren’s ears. A crew of workers scurried around the massive space. Some folded linens. Others bleached towels. And still others starched and ironed. Ren wondered if one of them could’ve been Beetle or Bird while he searched for a certain laundry chute, but his search came up empty.

  Ren approached an old woman with rough hands and jack-o’-lantern teeth. She was hunched over a washbasin, scrubbing a stain on a tablecloth. “Pardon me, I work in the sewing room, and Ms. Clarke needs these uniforms starched and pressed.”

  The woman didn’t look up. “You can leave that here. I’ll get to it when I can.”

  “She said that we’ll need them back by tomorrow morning.”

  That’s when the woman snorted. “You tell Ms. Clarke that we’re running at half speed ever since the maintenance crew started banging around here last night.” She waved a hand farther down the laundries toward a section of the space that had been roped off. A few workers in construction hats stood beyond the rope, hammers and nails in hand. “They’ve cut power to half our machines and they’re bricking in the chute, and that means I have to send two of my girls up and down the elevator to grab every dirty towel and sheet from the hotel’s upper levels.”

  “What?” Ren spluttered. He must have heard her wrong. “The laundry chute is closed?”

  “Didn’t you hear me the first time? They’re bricking it up and installing new washing machines and dryers on the top floors.” She returned to her scrubbing, muttering about how she would have to head all the way upstairs every day to do even more laundry, but Ren was no longer listening.

  Ren forgot to thank the woman for her time. He simply left, too stunned to say a word. Once he exited the laundries, he leaned back against the double doors. He felt punched. Slapped. Knocked down flat. Marty had been so sure about the escape route but her intelligence must have been a couple of days behind.

  Because the chute was now compromised.

  And with it, maybe the mission entirely.

  The clock on the cement wall stared at Ren with a stark white face. 3:30 a.m., it read.

  Ren had been up for hours. With every minute that ticked by, he felt more lost and lonely. He had never spent a night away from home — there had never been enough money for a family trip — and he ached for his apartment and he really missed his dad. But he was stuck inside the Fortress, and the strikes against him were coming fast. He couldn’t even talk to Marty, and the lone escape route had been shut down. The mission had taken a huge hit, and Ren wasn’t sure how to fix it.

  But somehow he had to fix it — for the sake of every prisoner on Alcatraz. And for his mother especially.

  So Ren had to think instead of freak out. He had to utilize every second very carefully if he wanted the mission to succeed, and that meant finding a new escape plan, even though locating one would be far from easy.

  Ren considered asking his bunkmates a few veiled questions, but most of them had gone straight to bed after their shifts, their souls wrung dry after another hectic day of cleaning or cooking or gardening or whatever else the Empire demanded. After their shift, Ren had noticed them dragging their tired bodies to their cots, some of them nursing colds and others weathering more serious injuries like broken fingers or sprained ankles. It didn’t help that the bunkroom’s lone heater had broken, making all of their teeth chatter in a bone-crunching chorus.

  If Ren had known about these conditions two days ago, he would have brainstormed a new essay that tackled his bunkmates’ long hours and workplace injuries. He would’ve written how most of these men were shaving years off their lives in the service of an empire that treated them no better than dogs. The words would have flowed out of his fingers so easily, and Ren wished that he had a pencil and paper to jot down some notes. But his readers would have to wait. He had to figure out this mission first, but when it was done — and if he survived — he’d return to his typewriter to expose the Fortress’s work conditions along with the experimentation happening at Alcatraz. Maybe his mother could even help him with the piece, and Ren felt a flutter of hope at the idea.

  Don’t get ahead of yourself, Ren thought. There were no guarantees that his mom was even alive, but it was hard to contain his hope after Marty had sparked it. But if he wanted to keep this flame flickering, he would have to find a new escape route.

  Ren’s mind roamed over the possibilities, and he tugged at a promising thread. He needed to look at the Fortress’s blueprints or a facility map — something that would help him figure out if there was another secret exit out of the fort — but those types of documents would probably be locked away in a top secret file cabinet.

  In other words, Ren’s chances of success were slim to nonexistent, but those chances could improve if he wasn’t working alone. So that was what he had to tackle next. He needed to find Beetle and Bird, the sooner the better.

  And to do that, Ren had to get in touch with Marty.

  As sunlight stretched over the dark sky, a wake-up alarm blasted through the loudspeakers, but Ren was already dressed. He asked his bunkmates if there was a way to get a message out to his family, like a pay phone, and once he got an answer he was ready to go.

  But leaving the bunkroom wouldn’t prove easy that morning.

  Three of the Empire’s watchdogs barged into the room and barked at everyone to line up against the wall.

  For a moment, Ren’s heart seized. Had the soldiers somehow figured out his secret Resistance plans? But the rest of his bunkmates merely shuffled toward the wall like this was no big deal, so Ren lined up with the rest of them. He didn’t have any other choice, really. With his hands over his head, he watched as the soldiers overturned cots to search for contraband. Ren’s jaw clenched at the mess they made: the ripped-off bedsheets, the emptied toiletry bags, the tossed-aside clothes. What did they expect to find aside from toothbrushes or combs or a worn photo of a worker’s family? But Ren couldn’t say a word, just like he couldn’t say a thing when this happened at the shop.

  Biting hard on his tongue, Ren tried to concentrate on the morning news report that flickered on the ancient television mounted against the wall. Technically, everyone in the WAT was supposed to watch the morning and evening news reports. Ren had been subjected to them when he attended school, and he remembered how he had to pledge allegiance to the emperor every morning and absorb the nationalist form of Shintoism that Imperial Japan had promoted since the 1940s. After he “graduated” from the fifth grade, however, Ren never bothered to watch the reports again. Here inside the Fortress, though, he wouldn’t be able to escape from this daily dose of propaganda.

  The news report started like the execution the day before, with the image of a rising sun flag and the musical notes of the Empire’s anthem. As soon as the song ended, a portrait of the eighty-year-old emperor came onto the screen, and everyone bowed to the image. Then the live portion of the report started up, and a newscaster gave a rundown of current events, including a glowing report on the surplus of almonds on state-run farms and the new libraries that Crown Prince Katsura had funded. Ren frowned when he heard that. He doubted that any American could patronize those libraries. Then the news report showed a few clips of Crown Prince Katsura with Deputy Führer Forst as they broke ground for a munitions factory outside San Francisco.

  Suddenly, one of the soldiers waved a thin book of poems in the air, and Ren jumped. “Who does this belong to? Speak up!”

  Ren’s bunkmates glanced nervously at one another. No one came forward.

  “I said speak up!” the soldier demanded. He opened the book and plucked out a folded pie
ce of paper, which he unfurled and raised up for everyone to see. At the sight of the paper, Ren’s knees turned to jam — it was an essay by the Viper. He recognized it immediately. It was one of his more popular pieces that picked apart Crown Prince Katsura’s reforms one by one, starting with the infrastructure that raised taxes, to the health clinics that were only open half the week, to the new textbooks that went to waste because American children could never gain higher than a fifth-grade education. “Who sleeps on cot number five?”

  More seconds ticked by until some of the bunkmates nudged a gardener forward. The man looked about fifty, with a skeletal frame and hollowed-out cheeks that were a testament to a lifetime of malnourishment. He was shaking when he said, “That’s my cot, but I promise that paper isn’t mine! I—I—I barely know how to read!”

  His plea fell on unmerciful ears. “Bring him in for questioning,” said the soldier to his comrades. To the rest of the room he said, “Half of your pay will be docked for the week — that goes for all of you.” He approached the wall and waved the paper at the men. “If you suspect one of your bunkmates is reading illegal material, then you turn him in. It’s that simple. If you choose to turn a blind eye, then you’ll all be punished. Is that understood?”

  The men nodded in unison.

  And Ren nodded with them. He didn’t know what had possessed the gardener to bring a copy of the Viper’s essay inside the Fortress. Who would take such a risk? But then he realized how ridiculous he sounded. Here he was, the Viper himself, willingly embedded in the crown prince’s own house. He could never let his guard down in this place.