The Refugee Sentinel

by Hayes, Harrison

  On the floor next to Natt’s couch, Eaton gave out a high-pitched, “Yes,” his thumbs mashing the controller, tongue sticking out of his mouth. As easy as it was to forget, he was still just eight. Natt put the glass down and scooted on the floor, next to his stepson.

  “What have you got here?” On the holographic screen, a busty brunette mauled through space aliens with a plasma machete.

  “Oh, Dad… you wouldn’t like Lara Croft,” Eaton shook his head. “I have another two levels until I beat the game. Depending on how bad I suck.” Natt moved closer, until his knee touched Eaton’s, and hugged the boy’s tense body. Why did life have to be this rotten? How could he keep his family alive through Defiance Day? None of them had been earmarked yet, but what if they were? What if Eaton was? Natt hung his head. He loved the boy, but he loved himself too. Death by Sacrifice was too final a verdict at forty-nine. As airplane safety instructions read, when the oxygen masks fell you helped yourself before helping those next to you. Even if Eaton were earmarked, Natt couldn’t give up life. What else then? He could make a newer version of Eaton: a new son to lessen the sting of the lost original. Assuming everything else failed, of course… And Natt did mean everything. Otherwise, such thoughts would be despicable. Next to Natt, Lara Croft’s hologram completed the second to last level.

  ten days till defiance day (35

  The Prius bounced along the high ground route stitched with barricades and detours. This First Hill neighborhood of Seattle was still dry but who knew for how long before it, too, succumbed to the rising waters. Natt twirled a glass of Johnnie Walker between his thumb and forefinger, his other hand on the steering wheel. As he drove, ice cubes chimed against the heavy crystal. The Police Department had given him this set on his twentieth anniversary with the force.

  The cop gulped the last of the whiskey then threw the glass against the windshield. Who, the hell, did she think she was? Waltzing around, killing his people and screwing up his town, which Mother Nature had already screwed up plenty. As if he had nothing better to worry about, with the city decomposing at the seams, or Eaton and Chloe growing more distant by the day. His pallid reflection stared at him from the rearview mirror. Screw her. He was the Chief of the Seattle PD after all.

  He checked on the Ruger for the fourth time: in place, loaded and ready to spew. Natt went through the motions in his head again: point at her face and pull the trigger. Mopping up afterward would be a nuisance but not new. He would convince the department he had murdered the woman in self-defense and that would be that. Not that it mattered, but if he played it cool he might get a medal out of it too. Natt brushed off broken crystal from the seat.

  If his plan was so picture-perfect, then why was he so nervous? He was scared of her, that’s why. He had considered calling for backup but what if she escaped or, worse, surrendered? And what if, after the arrest, his vaunted SPD couldn’t deliver the evidence to keep her locked away? Natt could hear the defense’s arguments, “a terrified Chinese tourist wrongfully accused of being an assassin.” The most she’d get would be a week in county jail, followed by a forced extradition to the China Territory. Then she’d come back and make him pay. No, he couldn’t take the risk. She was too dangerous alive and only he could render her dead.

  The Prius’s tires screeched to a stop on the suspension bridge outside of Macrina Bakery. Natt stepped out of the car and didn’t bother to lock it. If he succeeded, the place would be crawling with cops. If he failed, he’d have bigger problems than a stolen Prius. From around the corner he peeked inside the bakery. She was sitting at a table, alone.

  “You idiot,” Natt muttered to himself. Had he arrived first, he could have camped in a corner booth with the Ruger tucked under the tablecloth, while munching on a bagel. He could have risen up and shot her in the face when she arrived. Then he would have bought another bagel.

  But she had come first. He paused at the door. Don’t hesitate, he thought. Walk in and pull the trigger. He gripped the gun in his pocket, pushed on the door handle and entered the bakery. Li-Mei was the shop’s only customer. Natt waved with an innocuous left hand but she didn’t acknowledge. He walked to the cash register. A semi-asleep teenage girl was leaning on the counter.

  “Welcome to Macrina. What may I get you?”

  “A medium drip. Black with no room.” Natt looked over his shoulder while fishing for money from his gun-less pocket. She hadn’t moved.

  “Would you like a receipt, sir?” In addition to being sleepy, the teenager had a stuffed nose.

  “I’m good.” Natt took the coffee, turned around, and headed for the table. Five feet away… He scanned the floor between them. Clear. He would pull the Ruger in another three feet, then she’d be impossible to miss. Impossible not to blow her brains out.

  He took a step. The Chinese woman remained as motionless as when he’d entered the bakery. He took a second step. As much as he wanted to hurry, he felt like he was running in a tar pit. The air turned into cotton candy, viscous and sticky. He took a third step. His right hand squeezed the gun. No more steps left. This was it, his moment. In slow motion, his hand left its pocket hideaway. The Ruger, wearing the turtleneck of Natt’s clenched fingers, pointed at Li-Mei.

  He functioned in a dream, or was it a nightmare? The Ruger’s muzzle now stared at the space her head had occupied a second earlier. Li-Mei was no longer there. He saw her empty chair bounce off the floor. She dove into him, like a base runner sliding home to beat a high-tag. Her elbows cut into his ankles and the Ruger went off, more by accident than intent. Natt’s knees buckled forward. His face, sucked by gravity and momentum, banged on the ceramic floor tiles and his nose exploded. He felt her climbing on top of him, taking the handcuffs from his pocket and restraining him in his own equipment. She picked up the Ruger, lying in a puddle of spilled coffee, and shoved it in the pocket where the handcuffs used to be. She pulled him to his feet then headed to the door, her entire repertoire performed in silence.

  As she passed the cashier, whose fatigue had been wiped clean by the last twenty-five seconds, Li-Mei uttered three words, “Armed robbery attempt.” Then added two more, “You’re welcome.”

  The teenager blinked, closed a gaping mouth and clapped twice… with hesitation.

  Li-Mei shoved Natt forward, his nose dripping a blotchy trail of liquid crimson. On the bridge-walk outside, she opened the Prius door and he sat in the front passenger seat while seeking approval through constant eye contact. She sat behind the wheel and addressed him for the first time.

  “I will kill you in the next five minutes but want to ask a question first. On the off chance you give me a correct answer, I will postpone your death.” She faced forward. “Why haven’t I killed you yet?”

  Natt swallowed. Li-Mei turned and spat in his face. He felt her saliva descend down his skin, like a slow glacier from a mountaintop.

  “Silence is the wrong answer,” she said.

  “You haven’t killed me, Ms. Gao,” his voice shook, “because you haven’t felt like it. And because you’re graceful.”

  “Always remember that.” Her eyes were as cold as a Himalayan blizzard. “Attempt what you did in the café again and no answer will spare your life.”

  She left the car. Natt exhaled, as her figure dissipated in the misty Seattle morning. Her saliva splashed down on his pants. And made it look like he had wet himself.

  twenty-one years and two hundred seven days till defiance day (36

  Li-Mei kept sinking. The liquid frost had swallowed her whole and she couldn’t feel her legs. Not much of a loss, considering one of them was turned and the other one broken. What a relief that Taxi was the only witness to her embarrassing fall, she thought. The two of them would laugh about it later. It served her right for forgetting her boots.

  Then an inside voice questioned if concepts like “later” and “serve right” would exist in her future. She had to see to it that they did. Li-Mei’s brain S.O.S.-ed a paddling command to her legs but she couldn�
��t tell if they had picked up the transmission. Her logic tried to convince her panicking thoughts that at least it felt like she had stopped sinking, but she wasn’t surfacing, either. Was it possible to surface in a river this cold? Of course, it was; she just had to keep churning her legs even if she couldn’t tell if she did.

  In what felt like a year of paddling, she broke through the surface for the first time. Water gushed out of her face then she sucked air into lungs shrunken to the size of thimbles. Here’s to baby-steps, she thought. First, to no longer sinking and second, to surfacing. Now she had to focus on breathing, and last, on getting out of her beloved river. She floated for a moment to collect some strength, inhaling a cocktail of oxygen and water with hoarse breaths. The problem was she couldn’t afford to float. The river was taking its toll, a million microscopic knives slicing at her skin from all angles. How long until she fell into a hypothermic shock? Another minute? Another three, at best? Li-Mei wished she hadn’t studied about hypothermia. What you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you.

  The watery frost tightened its embrace by the second, refusing to let her lungs unfold and the currents accelerated, a sign that the river was shrinking. There went knowledge again, she thought, ever the mathematician, even when drowning. A boulder the size of a small horse floated past her. Time to add a new baby step: stay clear of rocks. Getting to either bank in this current was wishful thinking. Her best bet would be to stay clear of rocks and reach for tree branches close to the water. The river had a different plan.

  A vortex caught Li-Mei and threw her toward a submerged granite rock. Her face hit the stone and her nose shattered, along with four of her teeth. Again the frost pulled her mouth apart and rushed inside, like a snake. This time, her jaws felt like rubber, too weak to bite off the snake’s entry. Instead, she swallowed, again and again, to get rid of the searing cold. Her legs, blue from toe to thigh, stopped paddling and shivered in defeat. Her eyelids flung open. The frost burrowed inside her body, pushing out the last remaining ounces of warmth. The six-year-old went limp. It was only her ears that still worked and Li-Mei thanked them. The ears were her warriors who hadn’t quit unlike the feet or throat or lungs, or worst, the white sneakers, that had started it all.

  Then, when she couldn’t imagine how the frost could get any more crippling, it relinquished for a moment. Blood gushed from her broken nose and her undefeated ears heard sloppy barking. Li-Mei didn’t know that Shibas could bark. A switch turned her pupils on and they registered trees and a dark sky jotted with stars. She lay in a net, above the roaring waters, that dragged her away from the current and toward the barking. Spasms tore up her throat and she retched the frost out of her body, again and again, unable to stop. Then her skin hit against something solid: gravel and dirt. The barks swallowed her whole and his tongue did too. Li-Mei lay on her stomach and coughed harsh and wet for what felt like forever. Then she breathed in and looked at them. The two Servants with their fishing net, and him.

  As loud as a typewriter, her teeth took over her body. Despite their scary clutter, Taxi didn’t run when she leaned over to hug him. He nuzzled his nose against her cheek, his version of a kiss - the only one she didn’t mind. Li-Mei turned, attempting to kiss him back. Her lips touched the rubbery nose then her forehead bumped on it, as she shook too hard to hold steady. “Thank you for saving my life,” she squeezed past her lips despite the clattering teeth, the shaking, and the rising frostbite pain.

  The Shiba didn’t seem to hear, but he seemed to understand.

  ten days till defiance day (37

  Victor’s memory with names was as precise as an elephant with a fiddle. The sender’s name on his home terminal looked hopeless and unfamiliar. He read the email again:

  “Dear Victor Saretto,

  You committed a sign-in curfew infraction at 10:32 pm on June 3, 2052. This infraction pushes your cumulative violation balance into a penile status. Therefore, you must appear in-person at 1332 Fourth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98109, within 24 hours of receipt of this notice. The City of Seattle reserves the right to commence criminal proceedings against you, including arrest and incarceration, should you fail to act in compliance with these instructions.

  Respectfully,

  Natt Gurloskey

  Chief of Police, City of Seattle”

  Victor couldn’t imagine how he had broken curfew. Like religion, he signed-in at his home station an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, before the five-pm cutoff. Scanning early was his bulletproof method to beating a system known to chug every night, as billions hustled to scan the Digital Passports in their right palms. June had happened more than six months ago and a sign-in violation made no sense. Could he have been a few minutes late that day? Conceivable... But five hours late meant the system had crashed. The darn mildew must have seeped inside the city’s mainframe.

  Victor read the mail for the third time. He had no dispute option available, but to show in person – in stinky, rotten downtown Seattle. He shut the terminal off and cracked his neck to relieve the stress piling on his joints. Few other lunacies could poison the mood as well as government bureaucracy did. Victor ironed his favorite striped suit and hung it on a chair by his bed. He set the alarm for five-am the following morning, the police headquarters opened at eight, but it was always better to show early. As he lay in bed, struggling to fall asleep, the name of Natt Gurloskey flew inside his head. He couldn’t place the name and couldn’t help not being able to place it…

  Victor suffered from memory lapses since Robert’s death. And his performances at the Benaroya had taken a tumble. Each time the cello nestled between Victor’s thighs and the conductor’s baton tapped the podium to start the evening’s performance, Robert’s image would flood his mind. Victor survived on a few occasions by the mercy of other instruments drowning out his mistakes. However, Maestro Ludovic Geoff begged to differ. Victor semi-expected a trashing when the conductor scheduled him for a one-on-one weekend meeting.

  Lack of focus, sloppy hands, graceless apathy – all accusations Geoff hurled at him, like darts at a dartboard. Victor’s smartest move was to stifle a chuckle, “Sloppy-hands” would have been a fitting nickname for Robert. The thought ushered memories, then grief, then Victor’s tears, but not enough to burlap Geoff’s guillotine. Victor was terminated on the spot and walked out of the conductor’s office in reverse, bowing once and again.

  When he went back, a week later, to collect his final paycheck, he found out it had taken Geoff a day to update the “Who We Are” symphony portraits in the Benaroya lobby with the face of a new cellist.

  nine days till defiance day (38

  If Natt were a hundred pounds lighter, he would have killed it in Hollywood. “Too damn easy,” the caption under his beaming face would have read if he were on a movie set. He leaned back, hands clasped over his head, with fingers drumming Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on the top of his skull. It wasn’t even eight in the morning and the day had started like a whopper. A hunched-over Victor Saretto, who looked like a man who made his own bed when he stayed at hotels, sat across from Natt’s desk.

  “Mr. Saretto,” Natt’s balding head shook, “I’m concerned with how long you’ve waited to ameliorate your situation.”

  Saretto squirmed in his chair and exhaled a response. “This is the first time I –“

  “You failed to get back home on time, did you?” Natt cut him off. “Was it car trouble? What do you drive?”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  The cop picked at a set of matches while his gaze jumped between Saretto and Saretto’s reflection in the polished top of the office desk. His index finger held the matches straight and his thumb spun it around with a whirring sound.

  “So you don’t have a car yet. But one day… when you get your own set of wheels.” Natt smiled showing two rows of uneven teeth. “You should turn off the radio and the AC. Tell the girlfriend in the passenger seat to shut it. And drive. Listen to the engine. Close your eyes for a few and feel the k
inetic push inside your gut. Sense how soft the brake pedal feels under your foot. Push on the gas. Get closer to the car in front. So close he’s thinking you’re that goddamn bastard who’s pushing the slow drivers out of the carpool lane. Sense the hum of the pistons. Open your eyes. If you don’t have a huge-ass grin on your face, I don’t want to know you. To me, you might as well be dead meat.”

  “Excuse me, but how is my car ownership relevant to the case?”

  Natt pushed back in his swivel chair. “If you had a car, you wouldn’t be in this mess. But let’s get on topic. I was saying I hate to think how long you’d have waited without our notice.”

  “The notice was issued in error.”

  “Don’t blame us for enforcing curfew. I can arrest you right here in the office.”

  “I’d like to see the official records proving my curfew infraction.”

  “Look, son.” Natt leaned over, hands planted on the desk like arched pillars. “If you rubbed the legs of a grasshopper for four hours, it will trigger its brain to swarm and become locust. Don’t do it. Don’t force me to swarm.”

  “You must be doing this on purpose for some reason…” Saretto trailed off.

  “Are you accusing the Seattle PD? I’d step careful in your flippers, son. It’s either…” Natt thumbed through a stack of papers with a licked finger, “six hours of jail to get your violation balance in line, or nine months in ULE prison for libeling a police officer. You understand the difference between Seattle jail and ULE prison, right?”

  Natt had taken the cellist for the type who’d capitulate at that point, but Saretto pressed on, “In this case, I’d like to request access to a state-appointed –”

  The cop walked around the desk and pulled the front two legs of Saretto’s chair. The cellist fell backward, hitting his head against the floor. Standing above the crumpled body, the cop’s foot crashed into Saretto’s ribs. “How about I give you access to my boot? Convincing enough? Time to get you to our Capitol Hill detention center, son.”