by Edward Aubry
"What do we do now?" Mitchell asked.
Harrison looked at the compass again, then down at the crying girl in his arms. They couldn't go forward, but he wouldn't turn back at this point. "We go around," he declared. He scanned left and right, chose left, and began walking, kids in tow.
As they walked, they glanced at the yarn from time to time, respectfully, fearfully. It changed color every few hundred feet. Inspecting as closely as he dared, Harrison found that it was a series of lengths, all tied end to end. The different colors did not appear to have different properties. They looked away from it as often as they looked at it, and after some time, Dorothy spotted a building down the line, which she brought to their attention. It was not clear which side of the yarn it occupied, which troubled them. It also did not appear to be the exact target of the compass, which troubled Harrison more. Either it wasn't civilization, per se, or the compass wasn't working that way anymore. As they got nearer, though, the needle did turn toward it, opening a third possibility. Perhaps the compass had more than one target in range. He found this prospect both intriguing and disquieting, and so chose not to share it. As they finally reached the structure, they collectively relaxed. The blocky little edifice was on their side of the barrier.
Mostly. Sort of.
The yarn ran straight up to the corner of the building, and ended there, tied to a piton driven into the cinder block of the outer wall.
Harrison experimented with touching the piton, which proved too frightening to endure, and with touching the wall itself, which was no problem at all. "What a relief!" He exhaled. "I was afraid that was going to go on forever." They walked the length of the wall, which now appeared to be the rear of a small shop. There was a single door, no windows, no ornaments of any sort, with the exception of an unostentatious, three-letter sign above the door. It read CVS.
Harrison smiled. This was familiar. Then he walked past the door to the other end of the wall, where he found another piton, holding a new length of yarn, which trailed off again indefinitely. "Oh, hell," he muttered. He had been trying to use polite language around the children, more from a sense of obligation and respect for their parents than anything else. They would want to know, he imagined, that their children were being treated with dignity. He came back to the door. Dorothy was pulling on it.
"Let me try!" Mitchell demanded.
"You won't be able to open it," she said, trying to sound as patronizing as the situation permitted. "It's locked, you know."
"Hey! That's the last thing we need." Harrison sounded annoyed. "This door is our only way to the other side of that …" He couldn't quite finish the sentence. "Quit horsing around and let him in."
The accusation stung. "It's locked," she repeated.
"Nothing is locked." Harrison motioned her out of the way and laid his hand on the door handle. As he pulled, he felt and heard a definite click. The door swung open freely. Mitchell stuck his tongue out at Dorothy.
"It was locked," she insisted. She looked from Mitchell to Harrison and back at Mitchell, finding no allies.
"Don't worry about it," Harrison offered, fumbling at small diplomacy. "Let's get in out of the cold." He held the door for Dorothy, who walked in blankly, followed by Mitchell, who had just earned valuable gloating points. He would be cashing them in for entertainment at his earliest opportunity.
The store was toasty warm, which cheered them all up immediately. More significant was Harrison's first discovery in the pharmacy's back room: not one, but two functional bathrooms. "Potty break," he called. "Giddyup, gang! Everybody gets a room!"
"What about you?" Mitchell observed slyly.
"You guys go first," he said. "I'll stock up our provisions while you're going." This was not a lie, but it was a diversion. While they were out of the way, he planned to load up the pack with a broad assortment of candy. When they emerged, he would then make a big show of telling them that they couldn't take any sweets, that candy wasn't good for them. Well, okay, he'd say, maybe just one, just this time. Once they were out on the road again, he would have a secret stash of goodies to ration out. He giggled at his own cleverness. Thoughtfulness. They would resent him for a little while, but the tactic would pay many dividends on the road.
He emerged from the back, into a familiar scene. It was a good thing. He remained on guard, though, recalling his experience in the McDonald's. As he moved through the store, he found himself struck by how understocked it was. The shelves reminded him, vaguely, of the look a store gets when it's in its clearance phase, about to go under. At the same time, though, it looked too tidy. Something about it didn't quite make sense, but compared to the variety of madness he had endured so far, this hardly registered as troublesome.
He was disappointed to find that all the brand-name candy was gone. He had been hoping to score some Hershey bars (even though they would mostly be stale by now) or some Skittles. But all that seemed to be left were the store brand items. These were, in his opinion, inferior, but the kids would probably not turn up their noses. He grabbed a few packages and hastily loaded them into his pack.
His primary objective met, he made for the cough and cold section. It was well into that season, and he wanted to be sure to have a stock of medicines to keep the kids comfortable when they inevitably picked up evil germs. While he was reading dosage information on the back of a package of children's Sudafed, he heard the sound of something falling behind him (a cellophane bag, maybe?) and turned to look. He had almost become accustomed enough to the sight of another human being that he could keep himself from being startled. Almost.
This one was a girl. Older than Dorothy by quite a bit. A teenager, certainly, but it was hard for Harrison to tell exactly how old. Anywhere from fifteen to nineteen would be his uselessly wide guess. She was wearing an insulated denim jacket and blue jeans, her skin was coffee (one cream), and she had a thick mane of dark curly hair with one bold white stripe running down the front, not quite in the center. Her face looked thin, but not undernourished, the way Mitchell had looked back in the Worm station. Also unlike Mitchell and Dorothy, when he met them, this girl was petrified.
Harrison spoke softly. "Hi." She was obviously frightened. Worse, she was old enough to have much more sophisticated reasons to be afraid than the kids. He kept reminding himself that he was a good person and hoped that his sincere belief in that fact would translate to her. "I'm Harrison." He smiled.
No response.
Suddenly, and for the first time in months, Harrison became self-conscious about his appearance. It had not been easy to keep himself well groomed. He had not had a haircut in almost half a year, it had been at least two weeks since he last bothered to shave, and he had not had a shower in at least two days. He was also acutely aware that his size, at just over six feet, was all by itself potentially threatening to a girl. These features had not bothered Mitchell in the slightest, as the beard and height made him look like an adult to the boy, and he had been much cleaner than Mitchell when he met him, anyway. Dorothy had accepted the presence of Mitchell in Harrison's company as a good faith sign of trustworthiness. Here, he had none of those advantages. He could feel himself starting to tread water.
"Are you alone?" he asked clumsily. She started, ever so slightly, to nod, then caught herself and shook her head vigorously. No. An absurd bluff. Her first communication with him, and he had cornered her into lying to him. Great. He tried again.
"I have two other kids with me. They're in the back," he said, pointing behind him. Again, this appeared to elicit the exact opposite effect he was looking for. Her eyes got wider, no doubt imagining horrible, horrible things about him. He looked down to the box of medicine in his hand, and it inspired him. Using it as an anchor, he started over, holding it up for her to see.
"I needed to stock up on medicine for them," he said calmly. "Cold season and all." This seemed to take her off guard, and she looked at him, puzzled. That's right, he thought, trying to figure out how to parlay this into trust. I'
m not a pedophile or a slave trader or anything vile. I'm taking care of them. Because I'm a nice person. He struggled with composing how he would say that out loud. Just as he was getting to the point where he had a complete sentence prepared, incredibly, another person entered the store through the front door.
Harrison was in a position to see him come in, but the girl had to turn. Harrison held perfectly still for the second that her back was to him, trying to generate integrity rays. She turned back swiftly and frowned at him, eyes locked. The man walked briskly to where she was standing, and, glaring at Harrison, said, "Who's this, then?"
The words emerged in what sounded to Harrison like an English accent. The new arrival was an inch or two shorter than he, of a slighter build, and much, much tidier. Under an expensive-looking, tan wool overcoat he was wearing a pressed shirt and a tie. He looked for all the world like he was on his way to the office. If Harrison hadn't been so nervous, he might have found it amusing.
The girl turned on this tidy man, responding to his question. "Alec! What the fuck?" She punctuated the last word by slamming her palm into his chest. He wobbled, frowned, and held his ground. "You said the store was secure!"
"Right," he said, then held something small close to his mouth. "Two agents to the north border CVS, right away," he said, evidently not caring if Harrison heard him. This was getting bad fast. "How did you get past the inhibitor?" he asked Harrison.
That was the moment the children chose to emerge from the back room. Harrison had not imagined that things could get more tense, but they did just that. "What's going on?" asked Dorothy, observing the sudden relative crowd.
"Nothing to worry about," said Harrison with transparently counterfeit confidence. "Don't get comfortable. We're not staying." He gestured with his head for the children to turn around. He was counting on Dorothy being savvy enough to run for it, and Mitchell being scared enough to follow her. Unfortunately, he underestimated their bond with him. Neither child moved.
"You're not really in a position to leave at the moment," said the English-sounding guy. Alec, she had called him. "How did you get past the inhibitor?"
The question didn't make any more sense the second time, so Harrison ignored it again.
"You know," interjected the girl, "this is the shit I'm talking about. You boys play your little spy games and pretend that we're all snug as a bug, and it's all bullshit." Something in her tone, something subtle, apart from the obvious rage, troubled Harrison.
"This isn't the time," hissed Alec.
"How did you get in here?" she asked Harrison. That was the right question.
"Through the back door," he said.
The girl glared at Alec. "That's impossible," he said evenly.
"Look," Harrison offered, "this is obviously a misunderstanding. Why don't I take my kids and just go. I'm sorry to intrude." He started to back up, hoping the slim chance that this would work would be chance enough.
"Stay!" He did. The girl turned on Alec again. "I've been saying this for weeks, and I get no support from you. You can't patrol a border by proxy. I can't fucking believe we've got somebody coming right in the back door, thank you very much." Again, her voice was tripping warning bells in his brain.
And then Harrison got it, or at least part of it, and it shocked him. "You-" he started to say.
He was immediately silenced when Alec pulled out the largest knife he had ever seen. No, he realized, it wasn't a huge knife, it was a small sword. He hadn't even noticed that Alec was wearing it, and now here it was, naked, dancing in front of him. Alec held it out at arm's length, with the flat facing Harrison. He was looking at Harrison's reflection in it. "He's got magic on him," he said, "but it looks residual. He's human." Alec put the short sword back in its sheath, which Harrison could now see plain as day. "I, what?" he asked Harrison.
Harrison tried to remember what he was going to say. He shook his head. "Not you," he said. "Her." He turned to the girl. "You're Claudia." Even as he said it, his words seemed absurd.
Her eyes narrowed, taking in Harrison anew. "A fan," she said.
Harrison was stupefied. "You're …," he tried to find the right words. So far he had not had luck with that. "You're not what I expected," he admitted. The whole experience was not what he had expected. They had made it! This was Chicago and they were there, and the voice that had spurred him on belonged to someone who already hated him.
Her dark eyes became narrower still, and although she spoke to Alec, they were riveted on Harrison. "I swear I will bite the next asshole who tells me he expected a white girl."
Harrison shook his head. If there were a maximum possible value for blundering, he must surely have reached it by now. "No!" he insisted. "Not that. I … I," he faltered, and suddenly found a trace of resentment. And self-respect. "I was expecting an adult," he finally said, and it was the first thing out of his mouth to her that he felt he could own.
"Yeah," she hissed. "That's my second favorite."
Two more men entered the store and silently reported to Alec. These were certainly the agents he had called for, although Harrison was disappointed to see that they did not conform to his paranoid stereotype of what an "agent" should look like. They had no uniforms, no black jackets, no sunglasses, no coiled wire behind the ear. They were wearing ordinary coats over ordinary clothing. Alec spoke to them, curtly. "We have a guest. I would like to see that he is interviewed before we consider his application to immigrate." He gestured to the children. "His companions will need a temporary foster home. Claudia and I will take them down to Adoption and get the paperwork started." The men nodded.
For an instant, Harrison weighed the consequences of putting up a fight. These people were about to separate him from his children. "They don't need a foster home," he tried. "They're with me. Right, kids?" He smiled at them as naturally as he could. Dorothy and Mitchell were watching him with nervous eyes.
Claudia turned to them. "Are you two all right?" she asked, kindly and unexpectedly. Harrison's promise to take them to Chicago to meet Claudia was morphing horribly before him into Claudia rescuing them from him.
"The foster home is just a formality while you get settled in," said Alec. Whatever his position was, thought Harrison, it obviously did not require him to be able to lie competently. The most likely outcome of this day's events was that Harrison would never see either of these children again. He could feel his throat muscles tightening at the thought.
He knew that there was nothing he could do or say now that wouldn't make this situation worse. The best he could hope for would be to exercise what little control he might have left to protect Mitchell and Dorothy. At least they would be going with Claudia. He still held out some hope that she could be trusted. It would have to be enough. "It's all right," he said calmly to his children. Dorothy nodded, but her eyes already held escape plans. Mitchell just stared.
Alec turned to Harrison. "Welcome," he said, without irony, "to the Republic of New Chicago."
"This way, sir." One of the agents took Harrison's arm.
Chapter Thirteen
Quite a Talent
Harrison's room was sparse, consisting of a cot, a table and two chairs, and a sink and a toilet. There was a single door, no windows. The only thing that distinguished it from an actual prison cell was that the toilet was hidden behind a partition. Intrusions occurred without warning, and the partition allowed Harrison the illusion of a scrap of dignity.
His pack and its contents had been confiscated, his children taken to parts unknown. He had been permitted to keep his clothing, including the chain around his neck. The small plastic disc tied to it with a nylon ribbon had once had a gold colored coating, and a sticker had been affixed to it, but those had worn away completely. It was now smooth, translucent, and white. They had inspected this item very carefully when he had removed his coat and performed tests he did not understand to determine, he thought, if it had been charmed or cursed. In the final analysis, they had ruled it inert and harmless
, and he had been permitted to keep it. Left unspoken was Harrison's conviction that any attempt to remove it from his person would have led to blows.
He had not been permitted to keep his watch. He had control over the only light in his room, but without windows and daylight, it quickly became impossible for him to tell what time of day it was. He estimated, based on delivery of meals, although from the menu, it was never clear to him whether he was to consider any given meal breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Out of boredom more than anything else, he tested the door once. Like every other door in the world, it opened for him. Standing outside the room were two men who looked neither surprised nor amused. Harrison offered a feeble wave and closed the door again.
He was visited several times during the course of his stay. Although every visit was ostensibly an interrogation, they did not make any sense to him. The first visit, which had been only a few minutes after he had been stripped of his possessions and left in the cell, had been reasonably formal, and he tried to make a show of cooperating.
"I need to get some standard info," said his interviewer. He was a small man, glasses, mustache, dressed smartly in a jacket and tie. Looking at him, Harrison was ruefully reminded of how he himself must look. Unkempt, road filthy, probably noisome. It made him uncomfortable, and he suspected that they intended for him to feel that way.
He and the interviewer were sitting across from each other at the table. The interviewer had a stack of forms on a clipboard lying on the table in front of him. Two other men were standing just inside the door.
"Where are my kids?" Harrison asked.
The man across the table was scanning forms and did not look up. "You'll have to take that up with someone else," he said.
Harrison debated refusing to answer any questions until he was told what he wanted to know. Trusting the welfare of the children to Claudia had been a terrible risk, and he needed to know if it was a mistake. Unfortunately, even if it were, he was in no position to do anything about it, at least not yet. He grudgingly chose to cooperate.