Into the Fire

by Peter Liney

  I slumped down on my sleeping bag, doing my best to keep any expression of pain off my face. Hanna jumped up to get me some water.

  “I’m fine,” I lied, all four of them staring at me with obvious concern. “I met Ray.”

  “Whoa!” Jimmy gasped. “Not cool.”

  “You know what families are like,” I commented, pausing before making my announcement, “He’s gonna help me get into Infinity.”

  The little guy just stared. “You serious?”

  “I’ve thought of a few things—cutting off their power supply.”

  “They’ll have backup,” he said, as if a child would know that.

  “I know, but I’m betting it’ll still leave them short in some areas.”

  He sighed, neither agreeing, nor disagreeing. “Big Guy!”

  “I don’t have any other options!”

  “How many men does he have?”

  “Not sure. Twenty or so maybe.”

  “And how many in Infinity?”

  “They won’t be expecting us,” I replied, a little weakly.

  Jimmy got this look about him like he was wondering how best to go about patronizing me, but I shut him up by asking if he could find out how to cut off Infinity’s power—somewhere away from the actual building. I just wanted to get it over with in case Lena’s time was even more limited than we thought—not that I could push Ray anymore; in fact, I was worried that when he stopped and thought about it, he might just change his mind about the whole thing.

  “I gotta talk to Gigi,” I told Gordie.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know any more than you. She won’t say where she lives.”

  I thought for a moment. “Then I guess I gotta get her to come to me.”

  The state of the City, it shouldn’t’ve been that much of a surprise, but it took me forever to find a store with any spray paints. And for sure it didn’t help that every step I made was dogged by pain. I had no broken bones, but a whole bouquet of bruises, and my head felt like a boiled egg that had had the top sliced off. That damn wheelchair, I tell ya, it was a one-man armored vehicle—and not something I wanted to face again.

  I went up to the Square and sprayed a message at the same place where Gigi used to leave them for me. It wasn’t quite as artistic, but it got the point across.

  THE BLIND WANT TO SEE

  On my way back, I sprayed it again, just along the street from where I’d first confronted her, then I returned to the shelter, my body still aching and telling me it needed to rest.

  Presently Jimmy came to see me, mini-screen in hand. “There’s a substation just along the beach.”

  “Great.”

  “But—”

  “What?”

  “Can’t find out anything about their generator. Nothing. Whether that’s deliberate or not, I don’t know.”

  “Maybe they don’t wanna advertise a weakness?”

  “Mm. Maybe,” he replied, doubtfully.

  “Even if they have to go to emergency lighting, it’ll be something.”

  He gave a slightly begrudging nod. “So whaddya want me to do?”

  I hadn’t wanted to push him—in fact, I hadn’t been planning on saying anything at all, but I should’ve known he’d want to get involved. I hesitated for a moment, but he was way ahead of me.

  “I could blow it,” he said, plainly referring to the substation. “Me and Gordie, Hanna too, if she wants.”

  “She will,” I told him.

  “I don’t think Lile’s up to it.”

  “What d’you reckon they got on the gate?”

  He sighed. “Scanners. After that, could be anything.”

  “What are they looking for?”

  “Weapons, explosive materials, hidden life forms—all sorts of stuff.”

  “There don’t seem to be many guards.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, “which is kind of worrying in itself.”

  I admit, I shared his concern. I needed to know more, much more, which was why I had to speak to Gigi.

  She appeared that night, a few moments after everyone had zipped up, sneaking in and damn near frightening us all to death. I wasn’t sure what she’d have to say, or if I wanted the others to hear, so I took her outside, Gordie trailing on behind us.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “You know people on the inside, right?”

  Immediately she went on the defensive. “Well . . . kind of.”

  “Will they help us get in there?”

  “No!” she replied, scoffing at the idea.

  “Why not?”

  “Too damn scared.”

  I paused for a moment, not feeling comfortable about it but knowing I had to tell her. “There’s a gang of us going in there, but we need help.”

  “Jeez!” she groaned, like we were crazy to even consider it. “You just don’t get it, do you? Infinity’s like, you know, a dictatorship. Everyone’s paranoid. The enemy they fear most is the one within. They’re watching each other day and night. No one trusts anyone. The only person who ain’t watched is Nora Jagger—she’s head of security and the meanest all-powerful bitch you’re ever likely to come across. It’s her rule that no one knows their roster from one day to the next—not what they’re doing, when or who with. Even if you could persuade anyone to help—and that’s one helluvan ‘if’—they wouldn’t know if they were going to be in a position to or not.”

  I went quiet for a moment. I’d been really counting on this—in fact, I couldn’t see Ray going without it. “Could they at least give us information about what we might come up against? An internal breakdown? What’s on the gate?”

  Gigi shrugged. “Maybe. I gotta get a message to them. I mean, they want to, ’course they do, but . . .” She shook her head, as if no other words were necessary.

  “D’you know anything about the generators?”

  Again she shook her head, now looking that bit embarrassed. “I’ll try and find out.”

  “Lena’s pregnant!” Gordie suddenly blurted out, I guess wanting to be the first to deliver the killer news.

  “What?” Gigi cried, her voice filled with such astonishment, such disbelief, I was a little put out.

  “You gotta problem with that?”

  “No! I just—”

  “What?”

  “Hey, you gonna jump down someone’s throat, take your big boots off,” she said aggressively, reminding me she was an Island kid.

  “I just don’t see what’s so amazing.”

  She paused for a moment like she didn’t know whether to go on with the subject or not. “How many babies you seen on the Mainland?”

  I stared into her grimy little pixie-like face, immediately getting a really bad feeling. “. . . none—”

  She never commented, just waited for the information to percolate on down inside me.

  “Where are they?” I eventually asked.

  “I dunno.”

  Again there was silence, I had another question but it was a while before I could ask it. “Is that why they took her?”

  Gigi sighed. “Could be.”

  I thought I’d felt bad before, but that made me feel a whole lot worse. I mean, was that really what this was all about: the baby’s organs? That something about Lena being its mother meant each and every spare part would be worth a fortune?

  Whether the subject just got too uncomfortable for her or what, I didn’t know, but Gigi suddenly announced she had to go. The last thing she said as she hurried away was to think long and hard before going into Infinity—that there were good reasons no one else had ever attempted it. And of course she was right—and yet, after what we’d been discussing, the possibility that my partner and baby’s bodies would be ransacked, nothing was gonna stop me.

  I’d arranged with Ray to rendezvous at the First Original Sushi Bar. I got there nice and early, feeling I should apologize to Yoshi for what’d happened with the job in case it’d caused him any embarrassment, but when I tried to raise the subject he just sm
iled and waved it away.

  “I thought you’d gone,” he said, bringing me miso soup. “Found a way through the fires.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You must.”

  “You too.”

  “No—this is my home. Where would I go?”

  “Back to Japan?” I suggested.

  “You can travel in distance, not time,” he said. “I know nobody. Strange country full of strange people.”

  He looked at me and we both laughed, each aware of what the other was thinking: that nowhere could be more bizarre than this place.

  A familiar limousine drew up in the street and a look of fear immediately collapsed Yoshi’s face. “Ray!”

  “I know. We gotta meeting.”

  He turned and got busy behind the bar, like he didn’t want to be seen talking to me, and I took my soup and retired to one of the booths. Moments later, Ray exploded in, followed by his two goons, his swollen legs caged in the tapered superstructure of his wheelchair so that he entered like a launched torpedo. Yoshi went into genial-host mode, offering them free drinks, directing them to my table, though I could see he was still concerned Ray might exact revenge for him paying me for the job and not checking it’d been done properly.

  As I expected, Ray had done some research of his own. They’d even gone down to the Infinity building to take a proper look. He wasn’t exactly encouraged by what he’d seen, repeatedly cursing Infinity, calling them “fucking animals,” as if protecting themselves from someone like him was about as low as you could get.

  “What about these people on the inside?” he asked.

  Despite the fact that I’d known the question would come and how critical it was, I didn’t have my answer off as pat as I’d hoped. “Yeah, yeah, they’re fine,” I said. “When the power goes off, they’ll make sure everything stays that way.”

  “Everything?” he asked, a little surprised.

  “Well, most.”

  “General stuff or just security?”

  Again I hesitated. “As much as they can.”

  Ray sighed, his face starting to redden. “Do you have any idea what the fuck you’re doing?”

  “Yeah!” I retorted, “they’re good guys. I trust them.”

  “You’ve met them?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  Ray turned to Van, saying in a barely lowered aside, “I must be fucking insane getting involved with this loser.”

  There was a long pause. I knew I was on thin ice and was anxious to change the subject. “I need some explosives.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “The substation.”

  Just for a moment, I thought that was it: the step too far. His hand actually went to the joystick of his chair.

  “We’ll teach Infinity who’s running this city,” I said, attempting a bit of a rallying cry.

  I admit it was pretty basic stuff, but as I knew all too well, the only other thing guaranteed to motivate Ray apart from money was revenge.

  He grunted. “Nothing would please me more than to settle with those bastards.”

  From there on, it got a little easier. Both of us had ideas on how it should go and we slowly molded them into a workable plan. First we would bust our way in through the gate—which, Ray agreed, looked a little undermanned—then split into three groups. The main one would be a decoy, that would go to the general office, steal any cash available and later, if for any reason things went badly awry, take hostages. Another group, just two or three sharpshooters, would position themselves overlooking the Specials’ barracks at the back and prevent anyone coming out. And Van, his sidekick, me and a few others would go to the hospital and grab “the mark.”

  “And don’t think I won’t be keeping a close eye on you either,” Ray warned.

  “You’re coming?” I said, much surprised.

  “You think I’m just going to let you waltz off with her?”

  “No—I thought—”

  “I still do jobs,” he said, reversing his chair a few feet and spinning it around, though he had no need to demonstrate to me what a formidable weapon it could be.

  After we’d worked out our strategy, we went through what equipment we’d need. I could hardly believe my ears. They might not have had access to M1 tanks, but it appeared they could get their hands on just about anything else—even RPGs to bring down the Dragonflies.

  “And something for me too,” I told them.

  “I thought you didn’t do firearms anymore?” Ray commented.

  “For this, I’m gonna make an exception,” I said, trying to make light of it, though he knew as well as I did why I wanted to be armed.

  In the end, after we’d gorged on Yoshi’s sushi, not to mention his special sake—though I noticed Ray gave him the cold shoulder, the decision whether to punish, punishment in itself—we made our way back out onto the street.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Ray said, driving his wheelchair up the ramp into the limo. “Oh fuck—you don’t have a cell, do you?”

  I shook my head. “Nonpeople,” I explained.

  “Okay, same time, same place. Four days.”

  “Four!” I exclaimed.

  “There’s a lot to organize!”

  “I’d hate to go in there and find we were too late,” I told him. “That they’ve done what they wanted with this woman and disposed of her.”

  He thought for a moment, then conceded the point. “Two fucking days,” he said, and motioned for Van to close the door.

  They swept away in an effortless purr of power and money, leaving me to slowly make my way back to the churchyard. Not that I would’ve accepted a lift even if they’d offered—I mean, we were the strangest of bedfellows: half-brothers who couldn’t bear each other’s company, who’d mount a whole comic opera on the other’s grave. He thought he was using me and I knew I was using him, but I had no other choice: for even the faintest possibility of getting Lena back, I would’ve lain down with the Devil and given him a back rub.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I returned a couple of days later to the First Original, still worried Ray might’ve changed his mind, but everything was fine. He had these explosives for me—this new stuff that looks like a pack of gum but blows everything sky-high, that I hoped Jimmy was familiar with. Everything was arranged for Saturday; he’d chosen the weekend ’cuz he thought there’d be fewer people around, which kinda made sense.

  All in all, there were gonna be twenty-seven of us, including me and him, which sounded like quite a formidable team. One thing you could be sure of with Ray; all of them would be seasoned professionals familiar with violence. In fact they’d probably killed many times.

  We discussed a few of the finer details, me still having to drag him along occasionally when he sounded on the point of balking, rebuilding the blaze with the tried-and-trusted fuels of greed and revenge. We agreed to rendezvous on Saturday evening at a venue I suggested halfway between the churchyard and Infinity. No way was I gonna give him any clue as to where we were living—who knew how it’d turn out, what repercussions there might be?

  Friday night I was that on edge I couldn’t sleep at all. If only I could’ve let Lena know, maybe stretch my arm out across this city and tap on her window, tell her she might be back lying beside me the following night.

  I think that must’ve been the thought I took with me when I finally fell asleep, ’cuz when I woke the next morning, I was that bit disappointed to find my arms still empty. I lay there for a few moments, my head slowly clearing, praying that really had been my last night alone—then noticed we had a visitor.

  Gigi must’ve sneaked in sometime during the night and again made herself comfortable in Arturo’s sleeping bag. Don’t ask me why, but for a while I just lay there studying her. The flurry of wild hair braided with seagull feathers, the sprinkle of freckles, in that moment she was looking what she was: a child, and with all a child’s innocence. That was the thing with Island kids: one moment they were laughing and giggling,
appearing almost normal, the next they got this real harsh look about them, like they were a pocket-knife and you’d just flicked the blade.

  I sighed to myself, knowing all too well why she’d become a temporary object of fascination: I was thinking about Lena and me again, what sort of kid we’d have. I wanted it to have her looks and character—it’d be cruel if it had anything else. And if it turned out to be a boy, well, maybe he’d benefit from a little bit of my strength, though he wasn’t gonna be a big guy, not as long as I was around to show him a better way.

  I took a deep breath, unzipped my sleeping bag and slowly got to my feet. The aches and pains of my beating were still there, but restricting my movements much less. I had to get the fire going for breakfast.

  “You okay, Clancy?” Delilah mumbled, as I poked at last night’s embers.

  I glanced over to her and Jimmy in their sleeping bag. Neither of them had their eyes open. “Fine.”

  “Sorry I’m not coming tonight.”

  I gave a little grunt. “Not really your kinda thing, and certainly not the sort of company you wanna mix with.”

  “Just get her. Bring her home.”

  I smiled to myself. “I will,” I promised.

  Slowly, one by one, the others vacated their sleeping bags. Apparently Gigi was there to help Jimmy—or more likely Gordie—blow up the substation, which was a bit of a worry, ’cuz Hanna was also part of that team and I just hoped those two could forget their differences for one evening.

  We spent the day going over and over the plan, making last-minute preparations, weeding out any potential unwanted surprises. Jimmy was going to wear his parka and a bandanna Gigi had lent him to cover up his face, which hopefully would mean he wouldn’t get read or recorded anywhere. As soon as it got dark, the four of them would be heading off, making their way down to the beach and getting into position to blow the substation at ten on the dot. After that—well, who knew? It was up to us and Lady Luck.

  When they set off across the churchyard—three kids and an old guy with a limp—I got that self-same feeling I’d had when Jimmy and Delilah had gone off to demolish the drugs warehouse on the Island; that I was sending people whose rightful place was at home in front of the screen or playing computer games off on a suicide mission. Thank God Delilah was sitting this one out—though it did mean the two of us were left alone for a while, each trying to reassure the other that everything was going to be fine. The conversation rapidly became uncomfortable until it finally withered away to nothing.