The Rebel

by Gerald Brandt

  Janice froze. Someone had stopped to look in the window of the Chinese restaurant across the street, and from the back it looked a hell of a lot like Kris. She grabbed Manfred’s arm and started dragging him away.

  He stopped, staring in the same direction as her.

  The person turned and looked right at them. Janice let go of Manfred’s arm. It was her. It was Kris.

  A woman’s voice called out, and Kris turned. Manfred stepped back, behind a family heading toward the tables set up for the street kitchen. He turned and walked with them, slouching to change his profile, dragging Janice behind him. She tried to do the same. She was too slow for him and he jerked her closer, almost pulling her off her feet.

  An old woman walked in the opposite direction, heading straight for Kris and called out her name again. She raised a frail arm, all skin and bones, and waved. Kris didn’t wave back. The woman approached Kris and gave her a hug before pulling away.

  Janice followed Manfred, doing her best to blend in, while keeping an eye on Kris and the old woman. She memorized her face. It might come in handy one day.

  Her job wasn’t to kill Kris anymore, and that really bothered her. She was supposed to monitor and find any patterns, document the people Kris hung out with. SoCal knew Kris was part of the insurgent cell that had been pestering them, stealing their food, had staged the protests outside the water distribution centers weeks ago. Maybe even supplied some people with guns.

  Their hope was that Kris would show them where the insurgents were. Janice had given them the location outside Chinatown, but there were more insurgent buildings scattered throughout San Angeles. Follow Kris, find out some of the higher-ups, follow them, repeat, and eventually figure out the infrastructure of the entire faction. Standard surveillance. If she did what SoCal wanted, she’d come out of this alive.

  They’d blown it right off the bat.

  KADOKAWA SAT CITY 2—THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2141 12:20 P.M.

  Andrew drank tea alone in his room. Even the warmth of the golden Hachijūhachiya Sencha failed to boost his spirits. He had left Operations on the pretense of needing to catch up on some paperwork, but in truth, he was exhausted. He hadn’t slept much the night before, tossing and turning, waking with a hollow feeling in his chest, his pulse racing. Strange dreams of being caught doing something he shouldn’t—chopping down his father’s prize bamboo to make a play sword when he was eleven years old, stealing his sister’s konpeitō when she wouldn’t share with him—filled any sleep he did get.

  It had been a while since he’d had an anxiety attack, even one as small as the couple he’d had last night. He knew what had brought them on. What he didn’t know was what to do about them.

  The reports he’d brought with him sat on the table mostly unread. Some of them were simple things to do with allocations of personnel. It was one of the other ones that intrigued him the most.

  The main docking bay lights on SoCal Sat City 2 had gone out for two minutes that morning. Shuttles had been forced to stay in holding patterns until they came back on. His intelligence officers were trying to figure out exactly what was going on. Had the city experienced some sort of malfunction, unheard of in recent history, or were they trying to hide some activity in the darkness? Some of his officers had even tossed the idea of malcontents messing with the systems. Interestingly, the lights on the military bay hadn’t gone out.

  He picked up the pad and scanned it for the third time. Earlier in the day, a strong location beacon had gone off on the SoCal satellite as well. It had lasted for one-point-two seconds and abruptly cut off. They hadn’t intercepted any communications from SoCal about the incident.

  Some of the scenarios in the report tied the two together, almost going so far as to describe a potential stealth vessel that had been rumored for years. The vessel put out no signals of its own, using only passive devices, and would therefore require an active signal to target its docking site. For some, that led directly to the docking bay lights going out. Hide the ship at all costs. If that was what truly had happened, it was a huge risk on SoCal’s part. Andrew didn’t believe that, though. Why use the commercial docking bay to hide the arrival of a stealth vessel? If you worked to keep something a secret, you didn’t have a big public display.

  It was all guesswork at this point. No one knew for sure what was going on, and their moles hadn’t gotten a message through. Tough to do during a time of war.

  Moles or infiltrators were a constant problem between corporations. Their entire existence was predicated on finding out more about their competitors than anyone else. Even Kadokawa in the better days had people planted everywhere. The Kadokawa corporate arm, which financed the military and humanitarian side of the operations, still had to be competitive in the global markets.

  Kadokawa had stayed out of the first corporate war—as much as they could anyway, preferring, once again, to help the people hurt by the fighting. This time around, they were taking a more aggressive stance. The hostile takeover of Meridian had positioned them into one of the lead instigators.

  Andrew threw the pad back onto the table in disgust. He took the last sip of his tea, already gone cold and bitter. He’d tossed around the implications of Natsumi’s message and the new Kadokawa actions all night. He wasn’t getting anywhere except frustrated and mad. He had a job to do, and that was that. SoCal’s fleet was still holding its position, but they could move at any time, and he needed to be ready. He would do what he had done when she had been promoted. Lose himself in his work and his duty.

  It wasn’t until he was walking out of his office that he realized he had used a modifier when referring to Kadokawa. The new Kadokawa. When had he started doing that?

  eight

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2141 12:20 P.M.

  JANICE AND THE MAN she was with had disappeared. I scanned the crowd over my aunt’s shoulder as she hugged me, but couldn’t see them anywhere. Where the fuck had they gone?

  My aunt let me go and gave me a confused smile. She could tell something was wrong, but didn’t know what it was. She grabbed me and pulled me to the tables, obviously thrilled to have reconnected with me. The more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t sure. Four years was a long time to carry around the hatred I’d had for her, and it wasn’t something I could get rid of overnight.

  So, out of spite, I told her how I had survived. What I had done in order to eat and put clothes on my back. I didn’t hold anything back, even when I saw her flinch. When I wasn’t looking for Janice, I didn’t move, sitting like one of the statues in McConnell Park as I parceled out my life in words. Part of me was pleased with her reaction. Most of me was mortified.

  She cried. She held my hand, squeezing it tight. She stared in my eyes as if she could see the horrors I’d faced flashing across them. All she could say was I’m sorry over and over again. I stopped talking when I reached the point of getting the courier job at Internuncio. She didn’t need to know the rest. Didn’t need to know about ACE, about Ian. About the baby.

  I reached for my comm unit out of habit, forgetting for a moment that I had destroyed it. I’d have to find some way to replace it. Getting hold of Pat or Kai would be an issue. There was no way I wanted to walk through the front door of the insurgents’ building.

  It was surprising how naked I felt without the comm unit. I’d become so used to having access to all the data, but more than that, I’d gotten very used to being able to change—to hide—who I was from the SoCal scanners.

  “Is everything all right?” Auntie asked.

  I pulled myself out of my reverie. “Yeah, but I gotta go.”

  The look on my aunt’s face said she didn’t believe me. “Will I see you later?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be around here a lot, working the food tables.” We stood and I turned my back on her, heading for nowhere. I needed somewhere to stay tonight.

  I had nowhere to
sleep.

  The thought hit me like an unexpected punch to the gut. The safest move was to suck in my pride and go back to my room. I just couldn’t do it. Not now. I saw my aunt walking past Kai’s old restaurant and knew what I had to do.

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2141 12:48 P.M.

  I waited until my aunt had passed the front windows of the restaurant before I started heading back in that direction. Several of the people preparing to serve food stopped what they were doing and waved at me. I waved back, trying to appear nonchalant and relaxed. Trying to reinforce the idea that this was what I always did, every day.

  I made it through the seating area, already starting to fill up, and around the serving tables before someone tried to talk to me. I told them I didn’t have time, but I’d be back later in the day.

  As soon as I reached the side street by the restaurant, I zipped around the corner and up the back alley. I stopped there, waiting and watching in case someone had followed me. When no one approached, I moved over to Kai’s back door. I gave it five sharp taps and two bangs with my foot. Kai’s special knock. If you knew it, it was easier to get in. There was no answer. I really wasn’t expecting one. I’d have to break in.

  The door was freshly clad in metal, impossible to break through, and its hinges were on the inside. It had been reinforced since the break-in two weeks ago. Getting through the door would be next to impossible. The front windows would be the easiest, but far too noticeable. I moved to the connection between the restaurant and the next building, stepping over bags of garbage, ripped open with their contents strewn everywhere. The gap between the two buildings was about five centimeters wide, easy enough to jam in a hand or two, as well as the tips of my shoes. I’d be able to climb up the one story to the roof in no time.

  I reached high, putting my flattened hand into the crack and cupping it. The fibercrete was textured enough for me to get friction. I jammed in a shoe and stood, pulling on my hand at the same time. I only had to repeat the process a few more times before I was able to reach the top of the building. I grabbed onto the lip and walked my feet up until I could swing a leg over.

  The roof was disgusting. It was obvious no one had been up here since the place was built. With no wind or rain to help keep it clean, it was layered in grease from the vents over the woks below me. Each layer had absorbed the dirt and grime constantly in the air, creating a morass of slime. When my shoe first broke the surface of the sludge, it released a stench so powerful I almost fell over. I had thought that maybe I could use the vents to get into the restaurant, but I quickly changed my mind.

  Grease layered the bottoms of my shoes, and some of the thick crud had been pushed up the sides, almost over the top and onto my socks. I pivoted to get out of the mess and slipped. My stomach flopped like I was in a high-speed elevator going down. I teetered forward, trying to keep my feet under me and only slipping more, until I couldn’t keep my balance.

  I landed on my hands and knees.

  The viscous gunk seeped into my pants and oozed between my fingers. I struggled to stand up, and ended up crawling to where the pool ended, heaving from the stench that enveloped me. I used the edge of the roof to scrape as much of the ooze off of me as I could. I stunk so bad I had to stop to retch.

  All I’d wanted was a place to sleep, and now I’d turned into a walking sewage tank. I ground my teeth together and felt the anger, all too familiar recently, seep through me. How could I have been so stupid? Kai had worked out of the building for years, had used it as a hospital for the insurgents. He’d even had an escape route built in, just in case. We’d used it. What made me think getting in would be easy? I was an idiot, that’s what.

  Maybe I should have broken a window. Who cared if it was obvious? At least I wouldn’t stink like I’d been rolling in piles of oily shit. It wouldn’t have been any less stupid than what I had done.

  I tried to draw in a calming breath and ended up gagging instead. The smell was getting worse. I moved back to the edge of the roof by the alley and lay on my belly, sliding my feet over. I tried to stick my toes into the crack, but they slipped back out again. I shimmied lower, my gut on the edge, and kicked off my shoes. What did I think I was doing? Eight weeks pregnant and lying on a roof three meters off the ground.

  Without my shoes on, my toes stayed in the crack and I slid over the edge, releasing the pressure on my belly. I don’t know if he felt better about it, but I sure as hell did. I gave my hands one more wipe on the fibercrete and lowered myself, repeating the same moves I’d done to get up. My grip wasn’t as secure and I put more pressure on them, hoping they would hold. They did until I was about a meter above the back alley. My left hand popped without warning. Instinctively, I tensed my right hand more, creating a better hold between it and the buildings. It didn’t matter. I peeled over backward, my toes doing nothing to hold me against the wall.

  I didn’t have time to suck in a breath for a scream before I landed flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me. I rolled over, getting onto my hands and knees, trying to pull in some air. The garbage under me shifted. It had broken my fall, saving me from being seriously hurt.

  “Kris!”

  The shout cut through the alley.

  “Oh, Kris. Are you all right?”

  It was a stupid question. One I didn’t have enough air to answer. My aunt was climbing over the refuse, trying to reach me. I held up a hand for her to stop at the same time I took my first breath. It took me another couple of seconds before I could talk.

  “Yeah, I’m good.” I stood and leaned against the back of the restaurant. “I’m good.” The concern on her face eased, but didn’t vanish.

  “What on earth were you trying to do? I was coming back to wait at the tables when I saw you duck into the side street. It didn’t seem right, so I followed you. I was looking down here when I saw you fall.”

  “I was just . . .” What was I doing? Trying to break into a friend’s place so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the street. “I was trying to get an overview of the place. I didn’t think . . .”

  “No doubt you didn’t think.” Her voice held the edge I remembered from when I was a kid, and bile rose in my throat. She took a whiff and lifted the back of her hand to her nose, taking a step away. “What is that godawful smell?”

  “Me. The roof was covered in grease from the restaurant. A fucking fire hazard if you ask me.” I found my shoes and put them on.

  “Yes, well, do you live near here? We need to get you some clean clothes and maybe a bit washed up.”

  I sighed. Here it was. “I was kicked out of my place.”

  “You have nowhere to stay?”

  I shook my head.

  She paused for a split second. Barely long enough for me to notice, though I didn’t think she did it on purpose. “Well, you’ll stay with me. My place is small, but it’s better than the street. I still have some water from this morning. It won’t get you a hundred percent clean, but it’ll help.”

  I was about to protest when she took a step closer, ignoring the smell, and grabbed my elbow, dragging me across the garbage.

  “It’s outside Chinatown. A bit of a walk, really.”

  I followed her, shaking my head slowly. If you would have asked the Kris of two days ago if she would ever live with her aunt again, you would have heard a string of obscenities a kilometer long. Now here I was, following her back to her place.

  Life had a strange way of going full circle.

  LOS ANGELES LEVEL 2—THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2141 12:32 P.M.

  “What the fuck do you think you were doing?” Manfred pulled Janice into a side street and slammed her against a wall. “You don’t grab me. Ever. Especially when the person we’re trying to monitor is right in front of us.”

  Janice pushed back, her shoulders hurt from the impact. “You weren’t listening to me. I tried to get your attention. It almost
seemed like once you knew who she was, you did everything you could to be seen.”

  Manfred scoffed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Janice leaned against the wall, shocked by what she now knew. “You wanted to be seen. You wanted her to know we were together. You wanted it.” She paused, her voice soft and shaky. “You need it, don’t you? You need to make everything more of a challenge.”

  Manfred placed both his hands on her shoulders and pressed her into the fibercrete. He leaned in until his face was centimeters from hers. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, so it would be best to keep your mouth shut.”

  Janice slipped a shoulder out from his grasp and hit his elbow while she spun away from the wall. He barely caught himself before smacking into the rough fibercrete. When he turned around, his face had contorted into a mask of anger.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Janice said. “The change of clothes at almost every level, the vehicle switches, all of it is just a sham. You almost want to get caught. What good is the chase if the target never knows you’re there, right?” The absolute hatred written all over his face sent shivers up her spine, but she stayed on the attack. “Is what I’m saying making you mad? Does the truth hurt, Manfred?”

  “You don’t know when to shut up.”

  “I know exactly when to do everything, and it’s not when some asshole tells me to.”

  Manfred lunged for her, his fingers snagging at the neck of her shirt as she rotated away. It was enough. He pulled her back toward him.

  Janice’s training kicked in and she spun, using Manfred’s grip as a pivot point. Her fist swung out, the pivot driving her fist faster, using the strength from her shoulder and the sudden rush of adrenaline. The back of her hand impacted his cheek and she felt bones crack. She wasn’t sure if it was hers or his. Right now, it didn’t matter.