The dinner shift crawled on its hands and knees. Michael spent most of it looking out the window and wondering why the restaurant no longer attracted customers. It’s not like people had to spend money to eat at Lanza’s. Only the drinks cost money; everything else could be purchased using ration slips, which Michael’s family would then use to restock their inventory at the “disties,” which is what people called the government distribution centers on every street corner. They also called them “empties,” a name that was self-explanatory.
Lanza’s, like most restaurants, only profited from tips, which were non-existent, and selling booze, which made so little money as to be nearly insignificant. There was only one brand of wine, liquor, and beer, called Unity and created by the Paradise Department of Luxury Goods and Services. However much a restaurant sold, half of the profits went back to the department.
According to the One President, these were necessary sacrifices. Without them, the system would allow some people to be better off than others, like the way things were before the bombs fell—and didn’t everyone deserve to be equal no matter what?
It was an interesting question coming from a man who wanted people to worship him as they would a god, or as they had once worshipped his father, Harold Targin Kole.
Three customers showed up that evening for dinner. Three separate parties of one, all of them over the age of sixty and obviously depressed. They sat alone by the windows and sipped coffee and picked at their tomato-and-salt soup, and the hard stick of bread that came with it. One of these customers was Mrs. Francessa, a regular that had been coming to the restaurant since Michael, at the age of twelve, became eligible to work there legally.
“Mrs. Francessa,” he said, going over to refill her coffee. She’d been staring out the window for the past hour, eyes red and puffy, dressed in the same threadbare coat she always wore. “Everything okay?”
She gave Michael a look that made his skin want to crawl right off his bones, like someone stuck in a hole staring up at her captors. He was about to turn away when the woman spoke in a voice that sounded about a hundred years older than the rest of her.
“My son,” she said.
Michael stiffened. He already knew what she was going to say.
“You mean Bobby? Is he okay?”
He’d met Bobby Francessa many times. He was an excitable kid around Michael’s age who was always running his mouth, talking about starting his own business and how he wouldn’t let the government touch it because it would be his business and his alone. He didn’t seem to care that private property didn’t exist in the Western Democratic People’s Republic of America.
“He’s been relocated,” Mrs. Francessa said.
Michael put the coffee pot on the table and steadied himself. That was what everyone called it, being relocated, as if government officials came by with a moving van to take you to a new home—somewhere nice in the country.
What it really meant was that Bobby had been taken away with a shroud over his face to a labor camp in the mountains. Someone must have rolled on him. It was his own damned fault, always going off about having his own business. It was dangerous to even be around people like that.
Michael felt a sharp tickling sensation all over his chest, like mice trapped in his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” he said, picking up the pot. “Bobby was a good kid.”
The woman turned her gaze back to the window. “He was a dissenter. A shameful disappointment to his family and his country.”
Why did she have to say that? If the FSD ever caught Michael building radios, he’d be sent away, and maybe afterward, his parents and his brother would call him a disappointment to his family, too. A soul-crushing thought.
“No charge for the coffee,” he told Mrs. Francessa before leaving the table abruptly. He suddenly had to urinate, badly.
Mrs. Francessa was gone by the time he came back.
Michael didn’t have to work the next day, so he spent it cleaning the Handy Dan to get rid of any fingerprints or traces of skin or hair. He stuffed it into an old knapsack and lugged it to a dumpster halfway across town to finally be rid of it.
The recording devices he stuffed into a pouch, which he then deposited beneath the loose floorboard where he kept his life’s savings, about two million koles. It was enough to keep a family fed for months, or enough to pay a Line security officer to look the other way for five minutes so Michael could sneak by the checkpoint. He wasn’t even sure that was possible; he’d only ever heard about it in rumors. But still, it was something to hope for.
A few days later, he sold the surveillance parts on the black market for a total of four-point-three million koles, a quarter of which he deposited into his tin box. When he handed the rest of it—a thick wad of bills that felt nice and heavy in his hand—to his parents, his mother sobbed in relief and hugged him.
His father’s reaction was the same as always. Terry Lanza slipped the money into his pocket, gave his son a sour look, and walked off to his bedroom to stash it.
Here was how Michael did it.
With the Handy Dan parts taped over different areas of his body, he used his day off—his night, actually—to cross town and enter the Black Market Zone.
Despite its fancy name, the BMZ was not a single, fixed location. That would have been too easy to bust. Instead, it moved around, relying on the city’s underground prostitution ring to pass on its current location. Because of this, the two services—sex and illegal wares—had merged, and you could sometimes find prostitutes hawking illegal radios and cameras. They were able to stay in business by bribing law enforcement, a considerable source of income for virtually all police officers in the outer sectors.
Michael had his own network in place, and he paid well. A prostitute named Brandi on 12th and Victory gave him an update on the BMZ’s current location, which confirmed what he already knew. He’d been studying the BMZ’s pattern of movement for a while and could predict where it would move next with surprising accuracy. He still paid for the information because it was better than ending up in the wrong place past curfew.
“Thanks, baby,” Brandi said as Michael slipped her a wad of bills. “Hey, Vamp, you’re kind of cute. How ’bout I give you a freebie one of these days? What do you say?”
Michael’s face warmed. He hoped the hood he was wearing would hide his discomfort. He was pretty sure Brandi wasn’t even a woman. Female prostitutes were few and far between in the poorer sectors since it was easier and safer to join a harem in the Inner Sanctum. Brandi wore a scarf around her neck at all times, probably to hide an Adam’s apple. Michael didn’t say anything as he turned and continued on his way.
He slunk through the streets, making sure to stay off avenues. Lonesome figures moved over the darkened sidewalks like phantoms, wearing hoods and long jackets and probably selling drugs.
He was out of breath when he finally arrived. Before him stood the cluster of red-brick buildings people called the Towers, each one a black silhouette against the underbelly of the city’s ever-present cloud cover. Michael had been here before, back when the Zone had last inhabited this spot.
He made his way quietly, sticking to the shadows, until he reached the front door of Building 02. He knew there were BMZ cameras watching him. He lowered the hood of his sweatshirt and raised his fist as if about to knock. But instead of rapping his knuckles against the door, he uncurled his fingers and scratched lightly at the surface. There was a certain rhythm you had to follow, to prove you weren’t a stranger to the business. Michael knew it by heart.
The security guard who let him in was a grizzly, dark-skinned bear of a man Michael had never seen before. He studied Michael through a hostile grimace.
“You been ID’ed by someone on the inside, Michael Lanza. Welcome.”
Michael breathed a sigh of relief and followed the man inside. A second man appeared at the end of the darkened hallway and motioned for Michael to come forward for a pat-down inspection. They both wore tight
black T-shirts, revealing arms that rippled with muscle.
Michael warmed when he saw Joel Kridentz inside the shop.
“Hey, Mikey. Good to see ya, sonny boy,” the master merchant said.
Kridentz peered at him from inside his metal-and-glass cage, a shrunken, shriveled old man with fluffy white hair on either side of his otherwise bald head and thick glasses that enlarged his eyes to a comical degree. Michael was fond of the man; the thing he liked most was that Kridentz wore sticks of dynamite wrapped around his chest. You knew a man took his job seriously when he would rather blow himself to smithereens than be forced into retirement.
“Mr. Kridentz,” Michael said, approaching the metal bars behind which Kridentz stood bent from the weight of all that dynamite. “You’re looking healthy. And extremely dangerous, as usual.”
The man smiled warmly at him. “What do you have for me today, sonny boy?”
Grinning, Michael took off his sweatshirt. Kridentz’s eyes went wide as Michael, who had turned his back on the old man for privacy, began to pull wires, shiny processor plates, mini-cameras, microphones, and other devices one never saw outside of a government manufacturing plant, out of his clothes.
“Mikey, Mikey, Mikey,” Kridentz said, adjusting his glasses. “What would your mother say?”
“People have a tendency to keep their mouths shut when you give them large amounts of cash every month.”
“Indeed they do. No radios this time?”
Michael shook his head. “This was enough of a risk.”
“What did you do with the casing?”
“Wiped it down and tossed it.”
“Smart boy.” Kridentz gave Michael a sober look. “You could go far in life as long as you don’t get yourself into too much trouble. Maybe someday you could be a merchant like me.”
“It’s a thought.”
The old man slid the parts off the counter and into his open palm. He inspected them for a moment before grunting in satisfaction. He turned and disappeared around a stack of shelves that split the room in half, and reappeared moments later with an envelope he passed to Michael. It was thicker than usual. Michael didn’t have to count the bills; he trusted the old man.
“See you next month, Mr. Kridentz.”
“Hope so, sonny boy. It’ll mean you’re still around.”
Those last few words bothered Michael. He knew he could get in trouble for what he was doing, but the thought that next month he might be gone—either dead or in chains—made him want to break down and confess to the merchant just how scared he was.
He pushed the thought out of his mind, stuffed the money down the front of his pants, slipped his hood back up, and made his way past the bodyguards to the exit.
Chapter 3
The following Tuesday was Ladies’ Night at the Capitalist Pig.
Benny managed to drag Michael out of his room with the promise that he was going to meet a special girl tonight, someone who would change his life forever—or at least give a romp he’d never forget. With his usual cynicism, Michael imagined a girl who would rat him out to the authorities upon finding out what he did in his spare time, just so she could claim the extra ration slips for her family. That would definitely change his life forever.
He wore his uniform from waiting tables at the restaurant, the nicest clothes he had. He drank, but kept mostly to himself. Whenever Benny forced him into talking to a group of girls, Michael acted polite but kept his beer bottle in front of him like a shield. He’d never been good with girls, but then again, the ones in Cielo Tercer were a different breed.
In addition to being infested with poverty and crime, this sector of New Sancta City was known for its “streetcats”—girls who belonged to certain gangs and were passed around from member to member. If you weren’t in the gang, and you were caught bringing one of these girls home—or even trying to pick one up—your entire family could be targeted. For that reason, Michael stayed away from girls in general. There was only one woman for every five men in this city, which meant that any girl you tried to befriend probably had at least one gun-slinging boyfriend just waiting for the chance to impress her by beating you up or killing you.
The city’s bureaucrats were the main cause of this problem, with their method of forcing the pretty girls from the poor sectors to come join their harems in the Inner Sanctum—the exclusive central part of the city—promising them wealth and security fit for a queen. There was a saying in the outer sectors that all the good ones, meaning all the respectable, attractive women, were “on the up and up.” In other words, they were living lives of leisure as the private sex toys of rich Party members, and would someday receive a pension for each child they were able to contribute to the regime.
Michael was determined to keep his brother from doing anything stupid. Benny had been acting more and more reckless lately, hitting on any girl that looked his way. To ease his anxiety, Michael drank heavily throughout the night, spending precious koles on watered-down beer that would leave him with a terrible hangover the following day. He kept thinking of Bobby Francessa, picturing the boy shivering in a cold prison cell, so skinny and malnourished that his face looked as shriveled as a walnut.
Later that night, deep in a drunken haze, Michael stole the keys to the restaurant off his parents’ dresser and met Benny at the back door. They stole a bottle of Unity gin and sipped it out in the parking lot, where a cold breeze washed over them and made them shiver.
“Dad told me about the three million koles you gave him and Mom,” Benny said. “That’s some serious money.”
“Yeah.”
“He said you were helping the family out. Said I should be more like you.” Benny chuckled. “Spiteful wrath.”
Michael’s ears perked up. He’d never known his father to be proud of him.
“You’re smarter than me,” Benny said, slurring his words and patting Michael on the shoulder. “You’re going to do better things, whereas I’ll prob’ly take over this spiteful restaurant and work like a slave for the rest of my days.” He held up the bottle and shouted, “To slaving away.”
“Shhh—Benny, shut up. What are you, stupid?”
Michael went so far as to clap a hand over Benny’s mouth. Benny chuckled and pushed him away.
They could see the Line at the other end of the street, its many flood lamps illuminating the Killzone. The machine-gun turrets scanned the area for signs of life that shouldn’t be there, and if Michael listened closely, he could hear their constant swiveling whine. The lamps brought a deadly shine to the fence and its many bushels of razor wire.
“You’re smart, Mikey. Real smart.”
“Thanks, Benny.”
“No, really, Mikey. I love you, kid. You’re a smart guy. Much smarter than me. Someday you’ll make us all proud.”
“Thanks, Benny. I love you, too.”
Michael studied the razor wire. In his mind, he was sneaking past it, shooting at guards, evading the turrets, and climbing over the Line, never to look back again.
And Benny was by his side, always.
Their father’s voice reached them on the second floor the next morning, shaking them in their beds.
“Who in the raging hell took my keys?”
Benny and Michael stumbled down the stairs and into the cramped living room, faces puffy from all the beer and gin they had drunk the night before.
Terry Lanza sat at the kitchen table with a quiet look of rage in his eyes. His forehead and scalp, on which there were only a few licks of hair, were pinker than usual. Unfortunately for the boys, their mother was at the restaurant prepping for the regulars that came in every morning for coffee at sunrise. She was the only one who knew how to ease her husband’s tantrums.
Michael stepped back as his father got up from the chair, then dug the keys out of his pocket and held them out, eyes pointed down at the floor. He cringed a little, expecting his father to smack him.
“You little brats. You been drinking from the restaurant
stock again, haven’t you?”
Benny stepped forward. “It was my idea. We were celebrating.”
“Celebrating what, exactly?”
The sour stench of metabolizing alcohol radiated from their mouths and skin. Michael had to gulp down vomit.
“Him losing his virginity last night,” Benny said, cocking his thumb at Michael.
Michael lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Terry Lanza searched his sons’ faces for any signs they were lying.
“You serious?”
“Totally. Back seat of the girl’s car. She was Upper Crust. Guess she and her girlfriends decided to go slumming for the night.” He shrugged.
“Weh-heh-hell,” their father said, and his face softened. The pink in his forehead lightened somewhat. He put a calloused hand on Michael’s shoulder and slapped it a few times. “It’s about goddamned time. I was starting to think you didn’t like girls, Mike.”
Michael glared at Benny.
“Guess it was my lucky night,” he grumbled.
“I suppose it was,” his father said, a smug look on his face. He clapped Michael once more on the shoulder. “But you’re shit out of luck today, Romeo. Double shift. Dishes followed by more dishes.”
A violent clenching sensation seized Michael’s gut. A moment later, he was vomiting into one of his mother’s fake potted plants. Benny and Terry howled with laughter.
The kitchen sink was a rectangular metal basin with a spray nozzle dangling over it. The water that shot forth from the nozzle was white-hot and sent bursts of steam into the faces of anyone who walked by. Water dripped off Michael’s face constantly. His hands, despite the gloves, were always pink and raw at the end of the day. There were times the heat got so bad that he would have to go down into the basement and sit in the walk-in refrigerator for five minutes just to cool off.
Benny waited tables, though he spent most of his time flirting with the waitresses, of which there was now only one since Nora went off to join the harem of a wealthy Party member in the Inner Sanctum.
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