Live in Infamy

by Caroline Tung Richmond

  “I couldn’t tell Sasaki to step off a cliff or drink a cup of poison. I can only convince people to do something that they’re inclined to do on their own.”

  “I doubt Sasaki really wanted to let us go,” Ren said, not understanding her.

  “No, but it helped that I made eye contact with him. That amplifies my ability, but to be honest, we got lucky that Sasaki found us instead of someone else. He has been hounding me to grab tea or lunch for weeks. That made it a lot easier to convince him to leave because he wanted to believe me.”

  It took Ren a moment to process her explanation. A part of him was disappointed — Tessa’s power had so much potential to help them on this mission, but it could only go so far. But it was still a huge asset to have in their arsenal, and it had certainly saved their necks tonight. “I don’t think I thanked you for getting Sasaki to back off,” he said.

  “That might be the first nice thing you’ve said to me,” she said dryly, but her cheeks had flushed with color. She swiftly glanced down at her desk. “Where was I?”

  “You were talking about when you first manifested your ability.”

  “Right.” She gathered her thoughts and continued. “I ran away from the hotel to San Francisco. There was nothing left for me there. I scraped by with odd jobs for a while. Saved money. Practiced my ability whenever I could. Dyed my hair.” Her fingertips absently touched a stray piece of pale hair that had wiggled itself out of her bun. “I used my savings to buy a fake identity with the name Greta Plank because German citizens can travel around easier. Then I started south.”

  “But you didn’t make it to South America.”

  Tessa hugged her arms around herself, looking far younger than Plank. “I stopped in White Crescent Bay first. I wanted to see my old house, one last time. It sounds silly, I know.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Ren said softly. He hadn’t been gone from his apartment for even a week, but he missed everything about it, from the scent of oatmeal simmering on the stove to the loud pipes that jolted him awake at night. Mostly, though, he missed his dad.

  “There was a new family at the house,” Tessa said, sounding far away, lost in the memory. “They had two little kids. Both girls. I watched them walk together to school, holding hands, like Sophie and Hannah and I used to do. And for the first time in a long time, I let myself remember what it was like to be part of a family, before the Empire took it all away.” She took off her glasses to clean the lenses again, but Ren noticed her wiping her tears away, too. “My bus wasn’t leaving until that evening, so I walked around town to fill up the time. I passed by our old school and I walked by your shop.” She looked up at him. “I’m sorry about your mom. I always liked her. One time Hannah got the flu and she brought over a big pot of rice porridge.”

  His mother’s congee, Ren realized. The recipe had been passed down through her family for generations, and his mom used to make it whenever Ren or his dad got sick. He could almost smell the dish now, creamy and salty and easy on the stomach. He hadn’t eaten it in years, not since his mom died. Her death had created a crater in Ren’s chest, but he couldn’t imagine what Tessa had lost. Her parents. Her sisters. Her home. Everything. If that had happened to him, Ren probably would have given up. But something had pushed Tessa to keep fighting, or else she wouldn’t be sitting here in front of him.

  “Why didn’t you keep going south?” he asked.

  “I’d planned to. But before my bus pulled up, I got a copy of the newspaper to check the forecast, but something was tucked inside the pages. An essay.”

  Ren shifted uncomfortably. He knew the Viper had a wide readership, but it was still weird for him when people he knew — Marty, Jay, and now Tessa — broached the topic. He always felt like he was lying to them somehow, and in a way he was.

  “It was by the Viper. The one that talked about how we can’t remain complacent.”

  “I remember that one,” murmured Ren.

  “The bus pulled up and I couldn’t make myself get on board,” Tessa continued, staring off at the water stain again as she recited something from memory. “Every American needs to ask ourselves these questions. What do you do when your neighbors get arrested? What do you say when the patrols pillage the house down the street? How many times have you said to yourself, ‘But they deserved to be punished. They knew the rules.’ Complacency comes with a price — in the form of internment camps, of comfort women, of live executions up on the cliffs. Complacency fuels the Empire.”

  Ren knew those words well. He had spent days revising the essay again and again, switching out one noun for another and frowning at the syntax. He had wanted to get the piece just right — it was yet another nod to his mother.

  “I was mad at my parents for so long,” Tessa said, her eyes bright with new tears. “If they had followed the rules, then they’d be alive and we’d all be together. But they wanted a better world for my sisters and me, and they lost their lives because they refused to be complacent. Now I’m the only one left, and the only one who remembers what they fought for.” She had to pause to calm herself. “I knew right then I had to find my way into the Resistance. I got a room at a boardinghouse on West Palm Road, and I used my German name to get a part-time position in the Fortress’s mail room. Eventually, word got around that Kato was looking for a new assistant, so I applied for that slot. Kato-sama is actually not a bad boss to work for, but I gave him a bowl of the same breakfast soup that Jay had poisoned to knock out the sewing staff. I couldn’t have him looking over my shoulder while we moved everything in place.”

  Ren hadn’t known about Kato getting poisoned, too. He had to give it to Tessa for thinking ahead. “How long did it take to get in touch with the Resistance?”

  “It took a while to get my foot in the door,” she admitted. “I had to do some digging to figure out that Jay was the person to talk to, so I made sure to bump into him and drop hints whenever I could. And I …” Her head dipped down. “I may have used my ability on him a little, and I may have done the same with Marty. Don’t tell her, okay? But she wasn’t quite buying my cover story about how my best friend was killed by her soldier boyfriend.”

  Ren slowly crossed his arms. “So Marty doesn’t know about your power?”

  “I haven’t told her yet. I should but …”

  “I understand. I won’t say anything.” Tessa’s secret wasn’t Ren’s to divulge, and he could see why she hadn’t wanted to disclose it. It was the same reason why he had said nothing about moonlighting as the Viper. With a secret that big, where do you even start? You want to keep those around you safe, so you say nothing.

  “Thanks,” Tessa whispered. “Maybe now you can understand why I’m putting everything into this mission. It’s what the Quirks do. It’s what my family died for.”

  “I get it. One of the reasons I signed on to this mission was because of my family, too.” He wasn’t sure how much Marty had told Tessa about the intel she had discovered about Jenny Tsai. So Ren took a breath and said, “My mom might be alive.”

  Tessa gaped at him. “Alive? How?”

  “There’s a chance she survived her execution and was taken to Alcatraz. The Resistance found a partial prisoner list, and my mom’s initials were on it.”

  “I had no idea,” she whispered. “I wondered why you signed on to the mission after your dad got hurt.”

  “I have to find out what happened to her,” Ren said quietly.

  “Then it’s even more important that we focus on getting Aiko. We can’t add more variables to the equation.”

  Ren nodded. They couldn’t risk the lives of those American prisoners — including his mom’s — to possibly save Zara St. James. He wasn’t a gambler like Jay was. “You’ll tell Marty, though, about Zara?”

  “I will,” Tessa said, standing to tuck her blouse into her skirt until it looked perfect. “We should get going. I’ll walk you back to the sewing room in case anyone gives you trouble. Stay a few paces behind me.” Her lips twitched into t
he briefest of smiles. “Out of respect for the good Fräulein.”

  They returned to the workers’ quarters, but on the way Ren couldn’t help but glance at the classroom that led down to the sublevel below. He thought again about Zara, locked away in her cell, pumped full of drugs and begging for help.

  With no one coming to save her.

  Guilt gnawed at Ren, but he walked on. He hated to admit it, but there was no way he could save Zara St. James.

  The next day and a half zoomed by in a blur of preparations, and soon the morning of the Joint Prosperity Ball arrived.

  Delivery trucks packed the hotel’s rear parking lot and were alternately filled with fresh squid on ice, maroon-colored cuts of beef, and embroidered hand towels for each guest to take home. The pastry chefs prepared a buffet of traditional wagashi sweets, like crystal sugar candy and steamed cakes shaped into intricate flowers, while the floral team placed fresh arrangements on every flat surface in the hotel — on side tables and antique chests and even the grand piano in the music room. The fresh scent of lilies and roses perfumed the hallways, whose floors had been waxed to a high shine.

  Ren, however, didn’t have time to enjoy the flowers. His head was still crowded with questions about Fräulein Plank — Tessa Quirk, he had to keep reminding himself. He had thought about the Quirk girls once or twice over the years, but he never could’ve imagined that one of them would become a Resistance spy disguised as a Nazi — and an illegal Anomaly on top of all that. When he managed to stop thinking about Tessa’s powers, his mind would inevitably shift to Zara St. James. He kept seeing her hooked up to an IV that pumped strange chemicals into her body. And the guilt hit him all over again.

  But Ren forced himself to focus on his duties, not only to the Resistance but to his job and to Aiko. He had staved off sleep to complete her secret commission, but even then the finished product had been far from perfect. There was some puckering along the neckline — his father would’ve clucked his tongue and told him to start all over again — and he wasn’t sure if choosing a Hong Kong seam had been the right choice for the bodice, but the dress was passable and he left it at the drop-off point as Aiko instructed. Yet Ren had to wonder again what she planned on doing with the dress, but he was soon hit with another tornado of alterations and he had to abandon his questions.

  As the Joint Prosperity Ball ticked ever closer, Ren squeezed in a few minutes right before lunch to stop by Tessa’s office for one last meeting. He found the room mobbed with people — a florist inquiring about a shipment of hydrangea, the band leader asking about where to store the tubas, and a frantic chef panicking over the wilted state of the cucumbers — and Ren had to wait until Tessa could clear the place out.

  “Close the door and shut the lights,” Tessa said wearily as soon as they were alone. “Or someone else will barge in.”

  “That busy?” Ren said.

  “Since six-thirty this morning.” She was looking the part of Fräulein Plank again, and she redid her bun with the usual precision, combing out the bumps and pinning each strand in place. To complete the look, she slid her glasses back on. Ren almost asked if she really needed them to see, but he bit his tongue as she pulled a slim spray bottle from her desk drawer. It was labeled Starch. “This is for you. Marty sends her best.”

  Ren took the bottle from her, handling it with care. It held the liquid sleeping drug that he needed to apply to Aiko’s wardrobe. “Will this be enough?”

  “It’s a full dose, so be sure to use it up. Also, Marty told me to tell you a couple of things. First, she’s moving your dad and herself to a safe house today. That’s where they’ll be waiting for us once we get out tonight. Second, memorize this address.” She rattled off a street number and road, in a little town fifteen miles north of White Crescent Bay that Ren had never heard of before. “It’s where we’re supposed to meet. Head there if we get separated.”

  Ren repeated the address until he had committed it to memory. The more details he memorized the better, but he hoped that he and Tessa wouldn’t be forced to split up.

  “Will you be able to lay low until the ball begins?” Tessa asked, checking her makeup in the mirror of her compact. She would be interacting with dignitaries throughout the day and needed to look her best. Her usual blouse-and-pencil-skirt combination had been swapped out for a black dress suit. The vulnerability she had shown to Ren the night before was nowhere to be found.

  “I’ll be busy in the sewing room for a while,” replied Ren. “Then I’ll switch over to the janitorial team for the ball.” Ren needed a reason to remain at the Fortress through the night because his tailoring duties were nearly finished, and it just so happened that the janitors needed an extra hand to fill the hole that Jay had left. So Ren had volunteered his services even though he hated the idea that he was “replacing” Jay for the night. “I can apply the sleeping drug without much trouble, but the rest won’t be as cut and dry.”

  The whole mission rested on some shaky legs. Once Ren and Tessa smuggled Aiko out of the Fortress and to the safe house, Marty would take over from there. Her rebels would drive Aiko to San Francisco, where they would board the stolen Coast Guard ship and speed across the winter waters toward Alcatraz. Then, after scanning Aiko’s retinas and fingerprints to gain access to the Rock, they would fight their way into the main prison building and shut down the island’s electricity, plunging everything into darkness and neutralizing the underwater bombs.

  That was when the rest of the Resistance forces would join the fight, crammed onto stolen boats and ships that would skim past the dead bombs and land at Alcatraz. Hundreds of rebels had pledged themselves to the mission, hailing from cells up and down the western coast and a few from the Rockies. They had been split into groups — some would take on the prison guards while others would free the prisoners and escort them back to the boats. Meanwhile, the leaders of each cell would search for the V2, scouring every outbuilding on Alcatraz if necessary.

  And then came Marty’s main job for the night. She would look for Ren’s mom and, if Jenny Tsai was alive, she would personally help her aunt get out of the prison.

  Ren had decided that he would go with Marty, even if she didn’t know that yet. He wasn’t exactly commando material — and he was sure that Marty would tell him to remain at the safe house — but he couldn’t stay behind and twiddle his thumbs until he got word about what was happening. Ever since Marty sparked the hope that Ren’s mom might be alive, that small flame had flickered and grown. Ren couldn’t stop thinking about finding his mother and folding his arms around her. Of becoming a family again. Maybe he would get his dad back, too — the version of Mr. Cabot who had died along with his wife — and the three of them would have a new start. They would have to go into hiding, and Ren would have to say good-bye to his press. But that didn’t mean he would stop writing. Once his mother was healthy, they could start up her newspaper again, working side by side as they went to print. He hoped that she would be proud of him.

  But a tiny misstep could snuff out Ren’s flicker of hope and send the mission crashing down.

  Unlike Ren, however, Tessa didn’t look fazed at what lay ahead of them. “Stick to the plan. That’s all we can do at this point.”

  Ren wouldn’t have minded a more enthusiastic pep talk because his nerves were already multiplying. When he wrote as the Viper, he could revise and rewrite an essay until he was happy with every sentence, but there would be no redos when it came to kidnapping Aiko. He and Tessa had one chance to get this right — and that was it.

  Ren turned toward the door, figuring that they were finished. “I’ll see you tonight? I should be mopping up in the workers’ wing when you come to get me.” Tessa was supposed to retrieve Ren as soon as she got word that Aiko had retreated to her bedroom to rest. It was Ren’s job to stay out of trouble until then.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find you, but there’s one more thing we have to talk about,” Tessa said before he could leave. “In case we get caught t
onight.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” Ren said, slightly anxious.

  She rose from her desk and strode toward him, which only made Ren more nervous. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I don’t want to be paraded across the cliffs like my dad was if I get caught tonight. That’s why I asked Marty to get me this.” She reached into her blazer pocket and retrieved an unassuming white pill. “Allied spies used to carry these during the war. If they knew they were going to get tortured and killed, they’d bite into it. It’s a quick and painless way to go.”

  Ren stared at the simple capsule in her palm. “These are suicide pills?”

  “Basically,” she said matter-of-factly, as if she were holding some aspirin. “I can’t speak for your last wishes, but I got you a pill in case you might want it.” She offered it to Ren.

  Ren hesitated. The thought had crossed his mind more than once that they might not make it out of the Fortress alive, but he clearly hadn’t been as prepared as Tessa.

  Growing impatient, Tessa took Ren’s hand and deposited the pill there. “Just in case.” She looked up at him, completely clear-eyed. “My dad didn’t have a say in how he died and neither did your mom. But we do. Keep this if you want or throw it away. I figure it’s smart to have the choice.”

  Ren’s tongue felt rubbery, so he closed his fingers over the pill. It barely weighed a thing, and yet it represented his worst fears for the night: the mission failing, the soldiers arresting him and torturing him. He’d never see his father or Marty again. What would he tell them if he could see them one last time? He hadn’t even thought about that, but he would tell them how much they meant to him. He would also ask them to find out if his mother was really alive. And he’d tell them that he was the Viper, too. He realized now that he didn’t want to take that secret to the grave — he would want them to know that he had fought the Empire however he could and he would want them to find someone else to take up what his mother had started.