There were no utensils. “Got a fork for the eggs?”
In the dim light of the garage, her face was just a suggestion among shadows. Still, I could sense her contempt. “I’m tired, my feet hurt and I am not your waitress, girl. I risked my job for you. That’s the same as risking my life.”
I considered saying a lot of mean things. However, if I got too aggressive, the next hungry girl who tried to buy a cold overpriced meal might not get her cooperation. Though it was true for everyone, the fact that her job and her life were synonymous made me sad. “What’s your name?”
“I never told you my name. You don’t need to know it. Knowing names only buys people trouble. I’m not interested in aiding, abetting or accomplicing. I got enough trouble.”
“I’m Kismet,” I said. “My name is Kismet Beatriz. I only wanted to know your name so I could thank you properly.”
Her posture changed then. Her shoulders dropped and her head tilted a little to the side. Maybe that was curiosity. Maybe exhaustion. Still, her next words were softer than before. “You don’t need to thank me. You paid.”
“You could have turned me away or called the CSS. You didn’t. Thanks for that, at least.”
“Suzanne. I’m Suzanne. You’re welcome.”
She turned to leave but she paused by the door. “A little advice? Stay off the main roads into the city. The refugees don’t know any better so they come up the big highways. There’ve been so many of them, they would shut a highway down but for the autonomous trucks.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s different from the way it was. Right and wrong have switched around. Suppose somebody was driving and they hit a non-citizen. In the old days, a crowd could still make trouble for them. CSS found a way around that. Centurions come to the diner sometimes. I heard some laughing about reprogramming the transport trucks. They’re just drones. They don’t steer around all obstructions. Understand?”
I understood. One of the AUTONAVs had nearly hit me out on the road. “You’re saying the trucks will drive into a crowd of refugees.”
“It wouldn’t be an accident, Kismet,” Suzanne told me. “The way the CSS sees it, they’re just solving problems by clearing the way. And not a single full citizen will ever have to see the inside of a court. They just call it equipment failure and say, ‘Oh, well.’”
Suzanne sighed and shook her head at my naiveté. “Robots don’t go to court and citizens don’t either, not unless they have a beef with another citizen. It’s dangerous out here, kid. I wish you luck but you should give some serious thought to going home and staying there.”
“Thank you. I have heard that once already, but I’ve got somewhere I need to be and it’s not at home.”
Suzanne bobbed her head and strolled back to the diner. She paused a moment to look up at the darkening sky before returning to work. I imagined that she didn’t get many chances to look at the sky. I noticed she limped a little as she crossed the yard. When she couldn’t stand all day anymore, what would she do then? Maybe then it would be her scrounging for scraps at the back of a diner. Maybe this same diner, if it didn’t go out of business first. After all, how long could a greasy spoon stay open when they couldn’t even offer bacon substitutes? I wondered how often Suzanne worried about her future.
Cold eggs are slimy. Cold powdered eggs are worse, like trying to swallow a toad who’s not enthusiastic about getting eaten. However, after I broke the biscuits open and scooped the mixture into the bread to make a sandwich, it wasn’t as terrible. As Grammy would say, hunger is the best sauce.
The biscuits sat heavily in my stomach. The lightheadedness I’d felt earlier was replaced by nausea. My stomach had become a tight knot and I’d eaten too fast. I didn’t want to throw up such an expensive meal so I found a tight spot behind the car and lay down.
I had not intended to fall asleep. When I awoke, a large man stood over me. He did not look happy to see me.
“Hello,” I said cheerily as my hand closed on the knife handle to the blade strapped to my forearm.
Suzanne was right. Right and wrong had switched around.
Chapter Six
The big man loomed over me. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail. His bare arms were covered in tattoos, a luxury that made me think he must be quite well off. “What do you think you’re doing here, Trouble?”
“I think I fell asleep. Or this is a nightmare. Not sure.” I gave him a smile as I got to my feet.
“Been here long?”
“Just passing through.”
But he wasn’t looking at me. He stared at the empty plate on the floor. “Where’d you get that?”
I shrugged. “I’ll just be on my way.”
He put a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Hold on. Did Suzanne feed you?”
“I don’t know any Suzanne.” My grip tightened on the knife. I’d never stabbed anyone but I could picture what would come next. I would twist under his grip to step closer and get his elbow into my armpit, clamp down and drop to one knee as I drove the blade up under his ribs and into his heart.
The big man sighed. “I’m headed into the city. You need a ride?”
“Huh?”
He backed away and gestured for me to grab my pack. “Let’s get you away from here.”
“I can walk, thanks.”
“Better if I drive you. If my boss finds out Suzanne gave away food to a raccoon, that’s the end of her job. If the CSS finds out she gave comfort and shelter to a non-citizen, that could be the end of both of us.”
“I had a scare recently. I don’t want to get in a car with a stranger. My mama told me that.”
“Sound advice. I like the color royal blue and I cook food. I used to be an aerospace engineer but then China stopped supplying parts and nobody flies anywhere anymore unless they’re pilots chauffeuring the bosses or delivering missiles somewhere at supersonic speed. See? Stranger no more! Whoop-de-do. I just want to go home, kid. I’ve been cookin’ since six and I gotta be back here in the morning at six. Let me drop you off somewhere. That’s it.”
“So you’re Benny.”
“Let’s just keep our conversation to stuff like me liking royal blue.”
“I like the color of clear sky.”
“That’s azure.” He opened the passenger door and left it open as he walked around to the driver’s side. “If we’re done with the pleasantries, let’s get you out of here before I lose the best waitress I ever had.”
I climbed in and held my pack in my lap.
“Scoot down so the cams along the highway don’t clock you.”
I slunk down in my seat as far as I could. Benny yanked my pack up tall to make sure my face was obscured and we took off. The car wasn’t as fancy as the sleek low-slung machine Chuck and Marjorie used. Still, it was good to be putting miles behind me, carried along without expending precious energy.
“You got somewhere to go in the city?”
“Nowhere special.”
“So where should I drop you?”
“Downtown.”
“I can’t take you that far. You don’t want to go downtown, anyway.”
“I don’t?”
“There’s nothing there but rotting buildings that used to be something. That and the camps.”
“There’s more than one?”
“You really don’t know whether to scratch your watch or check your ass, do you?”
Maybe I should have stabbed you, I thought.
“There’s the family camp. That’s the smallest, over by the old zoo in Grant Park. The CSS has a camp for female illegals and another for males. Those go all the way from the Downtown Connector over to the Summerhill neighborhood. Then there’s a processing center west of the Connector. I don’t know who’s all in there. Maybe nobody does. The rumor is that there’s a prison where people go in but they never come out. I don’t know about that. What I do know is, the closer you get to downtown, the more CSS you’ll run into. I’ll drop you in Midtown, c
loser to the Circle.”
“The Circle?”
“The wall around New Atlanta. It’s a safer neighborhood … sorta. Lots of CSS everywhere so the danger quotient is half up, half down. Used to be a rundown area called Mechanicsville until the Select scooped up all the land and gentrified it. New Atlanta is kinda like a gated community but with castle walls.”
As we entered the old city, most of it was dark. I wasn’t prepared for my first look at New Atlanta. We drove beside it for a few minutes before I understood what it was. At first, I assumed we were driving around a huge power plant. Brightly lit and patrolled by CSS, the Circle was a huge concrete wall topped by solar panels, wind turbines, water collectors and guard towers. Some sections of the wall were staggered steel bars but most of it was constructed of concrete.
Benny chuckled. “That eyesore is so big, it’s pretty much everywhere poor folks aren’t.”
Everyone knew about the wall. Hearing about it was one thing but seeing it was something else. Still, when he glanced my way with his superior smile, I felt like a rube.
“The wall was the country’s last big construction project but the Select don’t care much for publicity,” he said. “It was banned from the news. Security reasons, they said. Big as it is, the layout is even blurred out on satellite maps.”
To my surprise, the wall’s gray surface was decorated with sporadic murals. Taggers had hit it with various gang signs and art. I craned my neck to get a better look until Benny told me to sit lower in my seat.
“Most of those paintings happened during construction,” he said. “That wall is thirty feet tall. Twenty-seven gates to New Atlanta, but most of them are shut forever, only open in case of fire or something. You can’t see it but there’s a ton of great houses behind that wall. Most will never see it.”
My eyes narrowed with suspicion. He talked like someone who liked to think he knew things no one else knew. “You’ve been inside?”
“Once. I met a boss in there for something back when I got hired at the diner. They spent billions building that eyesore and wasted another billion to make enough space for a golf course. I made a joke about not being sure whether the walls were to keep the riffraff out or in. Almost lost the job, right then. A sense of humor is not something the Select Few values in their lessers. If you get to meet our betters, don’t joke around. They shit themselves blind if they read a sentence without an Oxford comma.”
“But you went from flying airplanes — ”
“I designed aircraft.”
“Sorry — ”
“Now I’m a short-order cook. I had no training but they figured I’d be a quick learner. I was. I am. You know the most important lesson I learned on the inside of the Circle? They win, we lose, it’s over.”
“What’s over?”
“Everything. Not everybody’s got the memo yet but we’re finished. Maybe it’ll all end in fire or flood. I’m betting everybody finally fades away from malnutrition. Whatever. Years from now, the Select Few will still be putting and puttering around their golf course, laughing about how the losers are all dead and they survived. The bosses may be cockroaches, but cockroaches are survivors. The rest of us are just gettin’ by until the final bell rings.”
“Do cockroaches have wings?” I asked.
“Huh? I dunno. Why?”
“I need to figure a way to find shelter under their wings.”
“They take care of their own. You come near them, they’ll smell climber on you. The Select like when people suck up to them but, as a general rule, they really hate climbers. The wall’s there to keep you out. Remember that.” Benny stopped the car just beyond the looming shadow of the big wall and I got out.
“When you’ve got as much as the Select Few, everybody wants a piece. Cockroaches survive because they’ve got a hard shell and they stick together. Be careful out there. You never know who you’re talking to or who’s listening. And one more thing: Never come back to my diner. Never ever.”
Benny roared off. The car door handle ripped from my hand and slammed shut as he swept around a corner and disappeared.
Alone in Midtown Atlanta in the middle of the night, I had no place to stay. All I had were Sissy’s instructions and the hope that she was okay.
Chapter Seven
The wall around New Atlanta was impossible to ignore. Navigating the city streets, the concrete barrier was a landmark that indicated which way was north. The searchlights from the guard towers roamed constantly. Its parapets and gates were symbols of power, status and intimidation. The Circle seemed an unassailable castle. Somehow I had to find a way inside.
I walked south, then east. The night was cool and I sensed rain was on the way. I trudged a long time, picking my way through the street names, wary of every stranger I passed. I had a map of Atlanta, a relic from before the wall went up.
There were still green spaces, but they were all occupied by the homeless and watched over by guards. It’s funny how much you can tell from a person’s posture. By the look of them, the CSS weren’t hanging around to protect the homeless. They stood stiffly and glared at them, seeming to dare them to make trouble, eager for an excuse to bust heads.
And I was one of the homeless now, too. According to the propapundits, anyone who disagreed with the new policies — or anyone who wasn’t a member of the Select Few — was “part of the problem.” Already a target, I hadn’t actually done anything rebellious yet.
Judging by the map, I was close to where I was meant to be. It turned out to be the talisman I needed to find a fellow traveler.
“Haven’t seen one of those in a long time. Paper? Really?”
I looked up from the map to find a tall woman sitting on a bench by a bus stop.
“Just sayin’ you’d be better off payin’ for the GPS on your bracelet or gettin’ a ride. This city is drowning in streets called Peachtree. You’ll never find your way like that.”
“No, thanks. I don’t have anybody to call.”
“That sounds like the beginning or the end of a sad story. Maybe I can give you directions. C’mere and take a load off for a few, will ya?”
I gladly accepted the invitation and sat down heavily.
“Tired?”
“I lucked into a ride but got dropped off farther away than I hoped.” I glanced up at the weathered sign over the bus stop. “If I got on the bus, maybe I could get some sleep or at least get a better sense of the city. Daddy always said time spent on recon was seldom wasted. When’s the next one due?”
“No bus ’round here.”
I sighed. “How about in the morning?”
“No bus then, neither. Atlanta hasn’t had public transportation for years.”
“Then, can I ask, what are you waiting for?”
“You, darling! Where have you been all my life?”
“Waiting for you, darling,” I replied.
We both laughed and I began to relax.
“The street lights still work under the old bus stops so it’s a good spot to sit and be seen,” she said. “I love to be seen. Nothin’ worse in this world than to be invisible, is there?”
“There is not.” I smiled. “I see you.”
When she returned my smile and I knew I’d come to the right spot.
“Most nights out here mean gettin’ a ride from a lonely fella.” She laughed and the sound was stronger than it was pretty. “Gettin’ a ride and givin’ a ride. Sometimes, some waif comes along who looks lost and needs direction.”
I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. She extended her hand. “I’ve forgotten my manners. Chantelle, Chantelle Morrison.”
I hesitated and she added, “You okay?”
“Sorry. I feel like I’m a million miles from home and I left my grandmother in the care of a neighbor. She’ll be okay for a while but getting here late at night, everything feels like a mistake.”
“Like you’ve started down a rough road and there’s no turning back and here you are, talking to a strang
er on a bench in the middle of the night?”
“Exactly like that. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry until sorry’s necessary.”
I told her my name and shook her hand. Her palm was dry and soft and cool, enveloping mine in a gentle grip. Even under the dim glow of the old yellowing lens of the street light, Chantelle was beautiful. Her dress sparkled. Her hair was piled high, a tall hat of ringlets.
She must have seen my expression change as the realization hit.
“Look at you, all wide-eyed. Y’all never met a trans-person before?”
I shrugged. “One. My Uncle Casey.”
“That right?”
“After the Mason-Dixon Decree, he moved. He could have stopped in Maine or New York but he said he was fed up and just kept on going all the way to Canada.”
“Out of one war and into another, huh?”
The Water War wasn’t much of a war. Ordered to stand down, the Canadian Armed Forces offered little resistance to American advances. “Like an eager girl on prom night,” Grammy said.
Scattered groups of Canuck rebels had lost themselves to the wilderness so there were occasional attacks on rail lines and convoys. I had a hard time imagining my tiny Uncle Casey roughing it in the woods to count himself among the defenders of his new home.
“Y’all got a question? Go ahead. If a handsome man or woman comes by, I might have to conclude our business quick, but it’s a slow night.” She gave me a wink.
I wasn’t certain if she was serious. “After the Mason-Dixon Decree, how are you still here?”
“You mean how come your poor uncle had to run away but here I am, big and bold and out in front of God and everybody, going about the devil’s business?”
“Well, yeah.”
“The Mason-Dixon decision was an awful thing. That broke up my community. A bunch of my friends had to pick up and run north, runnin’ for their lives even though they never bothered anybody. Love is love and marriage is an affirmation of love. I learned that in church long before a bunch of bigots decided to make religion all about being mean. Used to be we were all sinners and no one was supposed to cast stones.”
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