Citizen Second Class- Apocalypse Next

by Robert Chazz Chute

  “Yeah, see … that’s kind of the same thing. You are a cartoon, Evelyn. If it helps you sleep at night — and it shouldn’t — there are a lot of people like you. Also? Nobody likes you.”

  Tanya looked up at the men stationed on the parapet. “Is this your best? Is this what you imagined yourselves doing?”

  “Remember Portland!” Evelyn screamed. “Do you climbers need another whipping?”

  Evelyn pointed her pistol at Tanya. “Let you be the first, then.”

  I wasn’t sure if Evelyn meant to shoot her or if it was just a threat. That question went unanswered. A ladder truck arrived. The driver began to angle toward the gate to cut off the entrance to the Circle.

  That didn’t matter. One by one in quick succession, each of the AUTONAVS parked next to the armory erupted. Balls of flame ripped up to the sky. The shockwave from the explosion blew me off my feet and bounced off the Circle’s inner wall, making the roar of echoes worse.

  I might have been hurt badly but I landed squarely on Michael Baker again. This time my right knee took his front teeth.

  Operation Jericho was almost over. I suppose I should have felt sorry for Michael Baker. I didn’t have it in me.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  A column of black smoke poured into the sky from the burning building. As the flames ate through the Circle’s ammunition stores, pops and smaller explosions sounded from the armory.

  In the Bible, the walls of Jericho fell. On that afternoon of the full moon, New Atlanta kept its walls. Through clouds of dust and choking smoke, the Resistance stormed the Circle’s gates instead.

  Tanya led the way, waving her upside-down American flag. The elderly veterans followed her in, a slow, calm invasion. With the medals on their chests and berets on their heads, they strode in quiet dignity.

  The civilians followed and, except for the excited cries of some children, the crowd was silent. It was if the parents did not yet dare believe that their desperate gambit had paid off.

  The parrots in their perch did not fire into the crowd. I’d like to think they came to their senses, that it was a moral choice. Maybe they would have made another choice if they’d had access to more firepower.

  My ears rang. Confused, I heard from the Circle’s other invaders, a distant chant that grew closer, rising in defiance: “Don’t hope! Do! Don’t hope! Do!” As protesters poured in from Old Atlanta, New Atlanta’s streets rang and echoed with the battle cry of a volunteer army that carried no weapons. The voices of the weak and downtrodden joined for one powerful message. “Don’t hope! Do! Don’t hope! Do!”

  The people marching into the square joined the distant chant. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad motto, after all. I squeezed my eyes tight and asked, “Is this real?”

  As I opened my eyes, Evelyn stumbled toward me. Her nose bled from both nostrils and her hair, usually piled high in an elaborate style, had fallen across her eyes.

  “No,” she said. “I will not allow this to be real.”

  I stiffened as she slipped behind me. She put her pistol’s muzzle against my right temple. I felt so hot, the cool metal was almost a comfort.

  Without Baker’s gun or my parents’ knives, I was hostage to Evelyn’s whims and a few pounds of pressure on her trigger. I guess that had been true since we met.

  “This is the Captain of the Guard! Everyone out or I shoot your spy!”

  The veterans circled us and then formed a phalanx. Boxed in, Evelyn cast about nervously, searching for an ally or an exit.

  “I mean it! I’ll shoot her!”

  Tanya pushed her way forward again. “And then what?”

  “And then you, Tanya!” Evelyn said. There was new steel in her tone that made me believe her. “It must be Kill a Traitorous Nanny Day!”

  Tanya gazed at us. She didn’t seem intimidated in the least. “We aren’t your nannies, anymore, Evelyn. We’re soldiers fighting for a just cause.”

  Her courage gave me back my voice. “All soldiers know ours is a life of sacrifice. How many bullets you got, Evelyn?”

  One of the vets spoke up, “Oorah!”

  His compatriots answered, louder and as one, “Oorah!”

  Compatriots is a good word. It means fellow citizen. I felt like I was one of them. For the first time, I felt like I mattered to someone besides my family. I was part of a larger family of strangers who stuck together because we believed we had value. We were commoners, yes, but our common experience unified us. That was our glue.

  Moved, I wept silently. Some of the sudden emotion was fear my life was ending. I’d like to think that most of the surge of tears came from making some meaning for myself just in time.

  A new voice rang out over the crowd, long and loud. “The Circle … is broken!”

  The dust had begun to settle and a tall figure climbed atop the ladder truck. It was my Resistance contact from my first night in Atlanta. Dressed in camo fatigues, Chantelle still wore a huge wig and big dangly hoop earrings. She looked almost dainty as she took a moment to balance herself.

  Using a bullhorn, Chantelle gave her first order, “All AWE and CSS troops, stand down! If you put your weapons down and leave now, I can guarantee your safety but you have to do it within the next twenty seconds.”

  “Or what?” Evelyn shouted at her.

  “Or the war is still on and you lose, Captain.” Chantelle’s tone was calm and reasonable, as if she were asking a small child to hand over a favorite toy. “Put your weapon down. Only a savage keeps fighting after the war is lost.”

  The radio on Evelyn’s belt came alive. “Brody to Captain Rossi. Come in, please. Urgent!”

  Evelyn brought the mic to her lips. “Go ahead.”

  “Ma’am, the hack just put out a new alert. It’s going to the hospital. They made it look like it’s coming from us again.”

  “What’s it say, Brody?”

  “It’s an alert to the emergency department to prepare to triage mass casualties, ma’am.”

  I yelled, “Enough!”

  “Stand by,” Evelyn told her officer.

  “The girl’s right,” a man’s voice called down from the parapet. Stevenson stood. The lieutenant nodded to his men and they joined him in placing their rifles on the deck. The parrots raised their empty hands above their heads and headed for the nearest ladder.

  Evelyn’s force had abandoned her. With her body pressed against my back, I felt the moment she gave up. As she sagged, I began to relax.

  “Kismet, you asked me how many bullets I have. I guess I need only one.” I turned as she placed the muzzle of her pistol under her jaw.

  “Don’t!” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Eye.”

  “If I don’t do it, you climbers will.”

  “You heard what the lady said. Put down your weapon and you get to live.”

  She hesitated. I grabbed the pistol so it could not fire and gave a sharp twist. Evelyn still held the weapon but it was no longer pointed at her head. The muzzle was pointed to the sky.

  “Don’t be stupid. You’ve got a daughter and, for God’s sake, you’re still rich! Complaining when your belly’s full is such bad form. I know how you feel about bad form.”

  “You could never understand. It’s not about the money — ”

  “It’s about power. You’ll still have your castle and fabulous advantages most will never dream of, but you might have to settle for half.”

  “That’s what you don’t get, Kismet. People like me attain our position for a reason. We can’t be satisfied with half a loaf. We are … we are never satisfied.”

  “Learn. Most people would burn all their money if they had yours, Evelyn. Grow up.”

  “This isn’t how you’re supposed to talk to a suicidal person, Kismet.”

  “You aren’t suicidal, Evelyn. You’re only feeling what the rest of us feel all the time.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. “Pathetic and self-pitying?”

  “Nah. Just powerless
. Look around. Nobody here has money. We just want to eat and maybe get some control over our lives.”

  I recognized the look in Evelyn’s eyes. I’d seen that same look on Clayton Dobbs’ face as I threw a rope over a high tree branch and placed the noose around his neck. We offered Dobbs a chance to speak his final words but he refused. The neighbor who’d stolen desperately needed rations from the people of Campbellford never apologized. I didn’t detect a hint of anger or fear before the rope went taut. Dobbs simply went to his doom resigned to his fate, as if his death was nothing more than the erasure of a mistake.

  For Eye’s sake and for the fate of Atlanta, I hoped for better of Evelyn.

  “I’ve feared you and I’ve hated you,” I told her. “I even felt a little sorry for you. Now? Now I’m just embarrassed for you. You can do and be so much better. You were one of us once. Remember how that felt?”

  Tanya came forward. “You really do inspire a mix of emotions on the negative end of the spectrum, Evelyn!”

  “Don’t step on my moment, Sissy.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  Confused, Evelyn looked back and forth at us. “Sissy? Not … not Tanya?”

  I always looked like Mama. My sister got Daddy’s square jaw. “You didn’t let just one spy into your home. You let in two. Allow me to introduce my sister, Susan Beatriz.”

  “I joined the military to be a citizen and to train to be a doctor,” Susan said. “I was assigned to Intelligence instead so I had to find another way to save lives.”

  “In fairness, they did place you where you had the aptitude,” I added.

  At that moment, a helicopter gunship rose over the rooftops, circled us twice and hovered at the edge of the square in perfect firing position. All eyes shifted to the war machine and a message shivered through the crowd like an urgent wind. Over the clatter of the gunship’s blades, I heard the words, “stand your ground,” and “last resort.”

  Grammy barely spoke of the massacre in Campbellford and never visited the ditch. However, as I stared up at that hunter-killer helicopter armed with missiles and machine guns, the one thing she did say about the mass murder came back to me. “If they’re willing to do that to refugees, someday they’ll come for us.”

  My sister waved her flag in a frantic circle. I thought she was signaling the pilot to refrain from killing us all. That wasn’t it. The signal was known only to second-class citizens. One by one at first, and then in groups, the crowd turned toward the gunship. Everyone, even the children, raised their arms straight out to each side, even with their shoulders. With open palms and standing with their feet together, the image was as unmistakable as it was indelible. They did not mock the crucifixion, but they did succeed in clearly mimicking the iconic pose.

  We could have dashed for the yawning gate. However, retreat would mean we’d never advance. The Resistance stood against the might of the Select Few. We were as trees in the forest, ready to be cut down for the cause. Surrender would get us no further than failure.

  My parents had been experts in combat techniques. Daddy and Mama taught me how to fight. Until that moment, I had failed to understand the depth of gallantry in an act of radical pacifism. Peaceful resistance required more bravery than charging in with a gun.

  “We have more people than you have bullets,” I said. “We showed you mercy, Evelyn, but be warned, more of us are coming. And, as you can see, we aren’t leaving.”

  Evelyn gasped, her jaw slack. “How is this possible?”

  “This is how far the Select Few have pushed us down,” I told Evelyn. “No place to go but up or dead. Be gracious in defeat. Stand down.”

  She shook her head. “Greater love hath no man…”

  “Evelyn?”

  Slowly, she raised the radio mic to her lips. “This is the Captain of the Guard. This will be my final order. Zeta Zulu. Acknowledge.”

  A moment passed and the reply came, “Repeat?”

  “Zeta Zulu. Rossi, out.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Z is the end of the alphabet and Zeta Zulu is code for our last resort: surrender.”

  I wasn’t certain I should believe her until the helicopter gunship wheeled around. It abruptly buzzed away to the south like a giant metal dragonfly.

  It was as if we were all holding our breath. Relieved, there was a brief moment of silence. So prepared for death were we, we couldn’t trust that we’d been spared. When the realization of our victory hit, it came all at once. We were still hugging and cheering as more newcomers from Old Atlanta arrived to join our ranks.

  I turned to Evelyn. “You are relieved of duty, Captain.”

  She gave a slight nod. No longer a predator at the top of the food chain, her eyes dulled.

  Slowly and gently, I pulled the pistol and the radio from her hands. I raised the radio mic to my lips. “Brody, this is the Resistance. Tell the hospital to expect a mass influx to triage. New Atlanta has fallen and it is ours. No gunshot wounds. Casualties have been avoided.”

  Turning to the crowd, I yelled, “New Atlanta is just Atlanta again! Welcome home!”

  Amid the mass celebration, my sister rushed to embrace me.

  “Hi, Sissy.”

  “You know I hate that.”

  “After all this, I guess I will have to start calling you Susan. Despite the blonde hair, you look more like a Susan than a Tanya.”

  Evelyn seemed smaller. She stared at my sister. “How is it possible you snuck in?”

  “You said it yourself,” I said. “Biometric records can be faked.”

  “It was AWE that got me in touch with the hackers,” Susan explained. “They made the breach possible. So … thanks, I guess.”

  Evelyn said nothing more and wandered away in a daze.

  Surrounded by the cheering crowd, Susan hugged me again. “Winning was such a long shot, kind of restores your faith in God, doesn’t it?”

  “Nah, I’m still a heathen,” I admitted, “but my faith in people just got a big boost.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Sorry to take your job,” I told Susan.

  “I was recon. You delivered the tip of the spear. That was the job. You were the only one I could trust.”

  “Changing biometric records to match your face can’t be easy.”

  “Took a huge bribe from disreputable people. Cost was a factor, sure.”

  “So you’re saying I got the job because I was available?”

  “That’s how a lot of people get their jobs, Kismet.”

  “I almost didn’t make it.”

  “I know. Sorry about Josh and Nash.”

  I looked at her, mystified.

  “The guys who beat you up. I knew Evelyn would take it as a personal affront if her own maid got a black eye inside the Circle. A matter of pride.”

  “Uh … I guess this is where I’m supposed to say thank you, right?”

  “That was the moment,” she said, “but I won’t blame you if you let it slip by.”

  “Did the men who beat me up and the woman impersonating an AWE guard get away?”

  “That woman was a real guard, a sympathizer to the cause. There are many, especially after their benefits got cut. Those in charge always seemed to act as if loyalty was a one-way street. Today they finally found out otherwise.”

  “But what happened with my attackers?”

  “Attackers? Don’t be dramatic. Josh and Nash gave you a bruise and never left the Circle. They’ve been holed up in a sub-basement in Mechanicsville. If it were that easy to pass in and out of the gates, we wouldn’t have needed you to bring in the hack chip.”

  “When I see those guys, I’ll be sure to thank them with a kick in the ribs.”

  We laughed but she sobered quickly. “Chantelle wants to see you.” Susan glanced over her shoulder. “You’ll have to get in line, though. She’s got a lot of orders to sling. Taking New Atlanta was easy compared to the challenge of keeping it. There are immense resources here. We have to inve
ntory them, ration them and figure out how we’re going to keep the good juju going. Help me follow through on that. After getting a bruised cheek, you don’t want the broken Circle to be in vain, do you?”

  “So I’ve got another job?”

  “First order of business is to fix all the gates.”

  “So they can all shut?”

  Susan shook her head and smiled. “So they stay open, permanently. New moon’s comin’. New day for the Circle, too.”

  Our greatest fear in the weeks that followed was that the billionaires would abandon the Circle. Chantelle forbade anyone taking hostages from the Select Few. That was a gamble. We worried that if all the billionaires left we’d be open to a punishment similar to that of Portland.

  Our fears were unfounded. As Atlanta was made whole again, people could come and go as they pleased. Refugees were welcome within the Circle and many found homes there. The billionaires were still billionaires so most of the Select Few had little impetus to flee.

  The new provisional government declared of the transition, “The fall of New Atlanta is not a revolution. It is a return to the norms that made America great. We will all live and work together for a better tomorrow. We do not hope. We do. What we do is take care of each other. It’s called society. Our society will be great again.”

  However, one family decided to act on their contingency plans. The Rossis would flee to their acreage in Alaska. Despite Chantelle’s assurances that they were in no danger, Evelyn insisted they had to evacuate.

  Wanda, Susan and I escorted the Rossi family to their helipad. Evelyn wore a brave face and spoke at length of the great future that awaited them in Alaska. Kirk remained mostly silent, grunting in forced agreement.

  Evelyn crossed her arms and looked me up and down. “I see you have your knives back.”

  “They were a gift. Just having them with me makes me feel better.”

  She pointed at my hip. “And your new sidearm? Stolen from my nightstand?”

  “Confiscated,” I said. “For the cause.”

  “I guess this is where we say goodbye.”