Tropic of Kansas

by Christopher Brown

  The fact that she tried it in a noisy bar helped.

  The bar was a restaurant, but no one seemed to be eating. Colonel Starr’s was the club inside the Federal Tower where the St. Louis Restoration Corporation had its management offices along with many of its vendors. Tania got there when happy hour was turning into the other thing it sometimes becomes, and the tongues and hands of people who work together get loose, especially if they are far from home.

  As it turned out, she didn’t need to trick anyone. She just needed to be looking when the dude dropped his badge as he stood to go pee. The colleagues with whom he had been loudly trading interoffice conspiracy theories didn’t notice, too busy imagining each other’s secret agendas.

  And when she got far enough away and saw just what kind of access it was, she couldn’t believe her luck.

  That was how she found herself standing on a street corner thirty minutes before curfew staring up at the concrete box where they cage the cloud. There were a lot of people on the streets despite the hour, which made her feel a bit safer, even as it seemed odd, especially in the business district after hours.

  The BellNet Midcontinental Long Lines Building was in the heart of the Blue Zone. You might mistake it for another office tower, if it had any windows. To Tania, its abstracted vertical lines looked like a giant alien cenotaph, marked by a single sign—an illuminated blue bell spreading threads across the planet.

  It was a place for robots, not people, especially not people who weren’t supposed to be there. But she had to try it. The badge would be remotely disabled by morning, and it was a sure thing she would never have a chance like this again.

  Not to suggest she knew what she was looking for. Data fishing, sneakernet style.

  She did not bother with a disguise, figuring there was no way she could pass for Scott Dombrowski from Network Engineering, but she did pull her hair back.

  She got farther than she expected before she wished she had stayed outside.

  Right through the main door, into the lobby. Good evening to the guard, who barely looked up from his screen.

  The nearest elevator opened, like it had been waiting for her. She stepped in, swiped the access card again, and tried the top floor. It didn’t work, nor did number nine. She settled for SB3, a subbasement.

  She wondered how many bad entries it took to lock it up.

  There was a TV screen above the control panel, scrolling war commercials.

  When the doors opened, a lidless white eye floated into the cab, airborne on six tiny rotors.

  Tania stared back.

  The hall monitor hovered, bobbing gently, processing.

  Tania grabbed at it, but it pulled away before she could touch it.

  It came back in to continue watching her. Then it made a plastic click inside and moved on before Tania could think of a way to trick it.

  Too far, and too photographed, to turn back now.

  Tania stepped out into the hallway, bathed in the sound of a thousand fans. The ceilings were more than twice normal height, covered in thick bundles of telecom cable. Red, yellow, orange, and white. The walls were concrete and blue painted steel.

  The hall monitor continued bobbing along the ceiling, popping down to look through the windows and exchange information with the security panels on the doors.

  Tania followed it, down the hall and around the corner, through a blast door stenciled with alphanumeric codes. The little orb hovered at the door, which emitted a loud electronic hum, then opened with a metallic knock.

  Tania stepped through, into a library of sleek black boxes racked floor to ceiling in lateral stacks. The only light came from the hundreds of diodes blinking on the exterior of the servers, like a sad disco for tiny robots.

  Using her phone as a light, Tania inspected the servers, looking for a sign that would lead her to something she could use.

  Some of the servers had names, printed on small white stickers taped to the front. A lot of the names were the same.

  leviathan 187.65.747.2.421

  leviathan 187.65.747.2.422

  leviathan 187.65.747.2.423

  And so on.

  She took pictures.

  She tried grabbing one of the little leviathans, using the handles on the front, but it was secured to the rack. She tried to jimmy it, but it gave off a shock that made her hair try to stick up straight.

  “Hello!” said a voice from somewhere else in the room.

  Tania turned off her light and crouched against the server rack behind her.

  Muted tones of someone inputting information into a keypad.

  The whirs of all the cooling fans.

  Metal on metal. The sound of the vault door closing.

  The light from the hallway extinguished.

  Fuck.

  Tania peered around, stood up into a crouch, and worked her way into the labyrinth, a different route from the one she had navigated in.

  She turned around one rack and saw a faint blue light. It was coming from the floor.

  She heard soft scrunching, not far. The smell of dandruff, coffee, and cheap men’s deodorant. Then she saw the flashlight beam.

  Tania moved, trying to find a different way out. She followed the blue light, which came from a stairwell down to the next floor. There was a faint odor in the stairwell, like burning silicon. It looked like the opposite of an exit.

  “Hello!” said the flashlight. “Who’s there?”

  Tania walked down two long flights, as quietly as she could.

  A glass enclosure was there a few feet away, a transparent room within a bigger vault of shadows. The light emitted from thick knots of translucent cables strung across the ceiling. There were computer monitors stacked three high along one wall, displaying different data trajectories—graphs and numbers and network maps. A skinny young guy in a black shirt sat at one of the monitors, typing, squinting, and tuning knobs on a control panel that looked like a piece of future technology made from obsolete parts.

  In the middle of the room was a medium-sized television set on a small table, fed by the bundle of glowing cables coming down from the ceiling into the back of the set.

  The image on the screen was the face of a man, in snowy black and white. A bald man with gray hair and glasses, speaking words Tania could not hear. The image was so blurred Tania wondered if it was a projection of her own mind, false pattern recognition. For some reason she felt the urge to smash it. But instead she just took a picture.

  When the technician looked around, sensing someone over his shoulder, he saw only the little white drone.

  67

  Dallas had three guns, so he gave Sig one, a big revolver that was easiest to use. Xelina pulled a long hunting rifle out of the truck. Sig wondered if there were more guns in Texas than Texans.

  Sig crouched behind Dallas as they surveilled the scene from the backside of the garage. They had just helped Clint get up onto the roof, where he planned to take a position with his carbine behind a big HVAC unit. Clint told him it was a custom job from one of his underground gunsmith buddies, full auto on hardware store metal and homemade pins.

  He seemed disappointed Sig wasn’t impressed.

  Sig could see Xelina at her position in the trees, looking down from the perch provided by the grade, video logging through her rifle scope. Xelina was the one who persuaded Sig to accompany Dallas into the lair, and take Loco with him.

  The dog was right at Sig’s side, at the end of a short leash. It was muzzled for noise, good enough that you couldn’t hear it over the sound of the jets.

  Sig nudged Dallas to move in closer, sneaking along the side of the big garage. Watching his chubby comrade emerge from the edge of shadow with unexpected stealth, Sig thought of the nutria, and how they moved through twilight, staying invisible in plain sight.

  Sig checked his revolver. It was old, with a screaming red eagle embossed on the grip, but it looked like it worked.

  Dallas pointed at the plane. One man was visible insid
e the cockpit, wearing big headphones and talking into a mic. The rear windows framed two of the suits attending to one of the sensory-deprived prisoners. A man in a windbreaker walked around the fuselage, checking every little part. Two men in coveralls worked to unhook a thick fuel hose from the wing and reel it back into their truck. Underneath them, the door was open to a cargo hold. One of the suits watched a younger suit, a ball-capped contractor, and the other two workmen load the pallets into the hold.

  The engines were getting louder, but Sig and Dallas were close enough to hear it when the windbreaker pilot yelled at the head suit, the one with salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Hey, Horvath, you still want us to stop in New Orleans first? Before we take these traitors to their family reunion? I’m about to file the new flight plan.”

  The head suit, Horvath, had his hand to his ear, then moved it to signal thumbs down.

  “No no no!” he yelled back. “Listen. First stop is New Orleans. We need to pick up Holt, and we might pick up some more passengers there—transfers from the Dome. Then Jacksonville, drop off the freedom machines. Then Quantico, deliver the stray politicians and the treasure. Holt says the Prez himself wants to be there to greet our passengers and receive our tribute. Got it?”

  The pilot gave him the finger, then turned it into a thumbs-up.

  Holt. Sig remembered that name. From the rez.

  The cargo was almost fully loaded. Horvath grabbed the unloaded gold and handed a bar to each of the workmen, securing silence. The contractors put the rest of the gold in the hold.

  Sig took off the muzzle and unleashed Loco with the attack word Clint gave him.

  The monster dog charged out into the light.

  The pilot did a double take.

  Firecracker pop. One of the big arc lights exploded.

  Horvath pulled a handgun from behind his back and fired three rounds at the dog. One hit, but Loco kept coming.

  Bulletproof dogs are scary.

  Men scurried. Guns appeared from inside coats and pant legs. Horvath signaled the two contractors to go after the source of the gunfire and the two other suits to secure the perimeter.

  Rat a tat tat from the roof. A fast line of bursts along the blacktop. Horvath and his escort sought cover.

  Another light popped.

  Horvath’s men fired in the direction of Xelina. One held his hand to his ear like he was talking on the phone.

  Sig saw Horvath crouch behind the fuel truck. Horvath pointed at the pilot to get his attention, then made little circles in the air with his finger.

  Xelina hit one of the contractors in the arm. He dropped his weapon and howled.

  A workman emerged from inside the garage hangar. Sig and Dallas both shot at him, and both missed, but scared him back inside.

  Sig saw Xelina emerge from her shadowed perch, rifle up, firing. Then truck lights behind her.

  Clint fired at the truck. Xelina went out of sight. They heard gunfire up there that wasn’t Xelina’s.

  Horvath and his crew ducked under the fuselage and up the ramp into the plane. One of the linemen followed them.

  Dallas looked back at Sig. Sig nodded.

  The engine got louder.

  Dallas made a break for the open cargo hold. Sig went right up over the hood of the fuel truck and jumped the remaining lineman. He was unarmed.

  Clint sprayed the side of the aircraft with three bursts.

  Dallas was all the way inside the cargo hold now, tossing gold bars out onto the tarmac.

  The plane lurched forward abruptly, then started rolling and turning.

  Sig ran for the plane. Dallas tossed more gold. Then he smiled and closed the cargo door from inside. Sig frowned.

  The plane turned. Full throttle for the fence.

  Up, up, and away.

  68

  When she stepped out of the stairwell into the underground garage, Tania could hear the riots in the streets. She jogged up the ramp and into the crowd that mobbed the avenue. No little hoverbots followed her that she could see, and if they did, they had their work cut out for them.

  It was a human swarm. Two hundred people moving as a group. Mostly young, but not all. Some beautiful, some not, all races, all angry. Many carried torches. A few held homemade weapons, some of them vicious looking. Tania remembered the sound of the stamper.

  She could hear sirens from every direction. Megaphones and rotors, explosions and gunfire. They passed a corporate sedan that was on fire, black frame silhouetted by viscous orange flame. A gang smashed the plate glass front of an office tower. Another lobbed computers from the high windows of a skyscraper, to smash on the pavement below. The chants of the crowd were cacophonous and out of sync, but she could understand them. Demands for the release of political prisoners, relief from the emergency administration, local autonomy. The energy was viral, the call of a living collective, a call to self-liberation.

  They came into the plaza, where a much bigger mob was gathered in front of the Federal Tower, facing off with the local police and corporate cops that guarded the entrance.

  Tania saw the burning cocktail of bottled fuel arcing through the air before it exploded on some cop’s helmet, and she felt her feet lift up off the pavement as the crowd surged, pressing through the line. When the gunshots started, she fought her way out, at the moment the crowd logic broke and panic set in.

  When she got back to her hotel, there was a message waiting. Finally.

  “Where are you?” said Odile.

  “Tropic of Kansas,” said Tania. She used the lobby phone, prepaid chit, two minutes.

  “Oh, that sucks,” said Odile.

  “Remember I’m from around here.”

  “That doesn’t make it any better, does it?”

  “I guess not,” said Tania. “Very illuminating, though, about the state of things.”

  “Glad you’re starting to see more clearly.”

  “Glad you’re happy with me. Maybe that means you will help me with this huge favor.”

  “Oh, Tania, it’s been so hard. My own mother has people following me.”

  “They may be following me, too. Or trying, at least.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. Things are getting even scarier back here. I have to really watch everything I do. The bitch says I’ve had my three strikes, and I think she means it. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

  “Please just this one thing. I need credentials. MMC, middle management, second- or third-tier company. Enough to get me into New Orleans.”

  “Can’t you just use your badge?”

  “Undercover,” said Tania. “Way undercover.”

  “Do you know the risk you’re asking me to take?”

  “It will be okay, I promise. It’s a risk worth taking. If you get me what I’m asking for, I think I can change the whole game, to where none of us have to worry anymore about what we say or do.”

  “You sound crazy, Tania. Are you really okay?”

  “The only reason I’m not in detention right now is that I hid in a riot. I saw drones on fire and an old lady run over by a bulldozer. My picture is probably lighting up the net now. I don’t have long.”

  “What have you gotten into?”

  “Oh, baby, I went down into the hole, and the only way I can get out is to go deeper.”

  There was a dude staring at her from across the lobby, talking to his hand.

  “This is so scary,” said Odile. “I wish I could hold you.”

  “Just help me.”

  “Okay, I will make it happen. I still have a few favors left to cash in. Including with her. Watch your phone.”

  “You’re the best. Personal account.”

  “It just goes to the number. Tied to the device.”

  “Sure. One more thing before they cut me off. If you really wanted a piece of information that would turn over the tables, what would it be?”

  “Easy,” said Odile. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  “And?”

&nbs
p; As Tania listened to Odile’s very excellent idea, she looked at the dude and wondered what he would think.

  69

  They collected fourteen gold bars. They gave two to the remaining crew to keep them quiet when they tied them up in the warehouse.

  Sig was pretty edgy. All the close-in gunfire gave him bad flashbacks.

  Clint was wounded, with shrapnel in his thigh and a chunk of his left ear sliced out by a round.

  Xelina was gone. They found her rifle, with the camera still running. They found her messenger bag. And they found one of her boots.

  The dogs were in their crates in the back of the truck. Loco was whining and Watermelon Head was barking. Clint told them both to shut up.

  There were truck tracks, and tons of footprints. Sig was the one who noticed the blood.

  “Probably one of them,” he said. “Looks like she stood her ground.”

  Clint didn’t talk. He just had a freaked-out look on his face.

  They heard sirens in the distance.

  “All right, fuck,” said Clint.

  “You need a doctor?” said Sig.

  “No, I need to get my wife back. This was fucking stupid. What I get for letting that dimwit nephew of mine git in my ear.”

  “What do you think he—?”

  “Maybe he just wanted a Florida beach vacation. I can’t worry about him just yet. Let’s get going.”

  “Let’s go try to find her,” said Sig.

  Clint’s phone emitted a siren peal and vibrated wildly. The sound seemed too loud to come from such a small device.

  “We need to split up,” said Clint. “They’re gonna be looking for you.”

  Clint showed Sig his phone. There was a picture of Sig zoomed from security camera footage. It looked altered.

  Fugitive Alert—Terrorist

  Male-20s-Prob Hispanic