Tropic of Kansas

by Christopher Brown

  The Jumbotron showed more feeds. From the helmet cams of counterinsurgency squads purging Bywater. Blasting through a wall and into a living room, where a family were watching TV, shooting the father as he goes for his gun and separating the mother and children for processing. Going down the stairs into an old brick basement, LED headlamps illuminating the way through the metal door and into the vault where the fighters who are still alive writhe on the ground, maimed by the grenades that have just been detonated. Infrared eye of a remotely piloted interceptor as it inventories the faces seen entering a warehouse in an industrial neighborhood, then obliterates the western half of the building with an air-to-ground missile.

  The camera eye lingered on the flames.

  The guards got the parade under way on the floor. A halftime show of dehumanizing subjugation. Human caterpillars and man-dogs. Real dogs teaching primitive submission. Dances induced by localized delivery of electrical current.

  The Jumbotron screened another atrocity exhibition—long, lingering shots of the collateral victims of war, superimposed titles crediting the insurgents for the maimed children and dead elders.

  The guards came Sig’s way, telegraphing with obscene exhortations and the sound of a metal baton dragging across the cages. There were two of them—a man and a woman.

  “Your early release got canceled, traitor, so you get to stay for the show,” said the man, thick mustache visible under the sliced-off nose of a half-zombie mask.

  Zombie man tucked his prod under his arm. He unholstered his Taser and handed it to the woman, who wore a red, white, and black harlequin mask. Harlequin aimed the Taser at Sig while zombie face pulled out shackles and unlocked the cell door.

  Sig sprang on the man as soon as the door was open. His hand held a chicken bone sharpened into a caveman shiv against the concrete floors. Sig shoved the bone up between the mustache and the beak and grabbed for the prod.

  Holding the weapon with both hands, the woman fired the Taser at Sig. One cable attached to his shoulder. The other stuck in the chest of the man. Current jolted Sig’s arm, igniting spastic twitches that ran through his body and the man’s and back again. Not enough to incapacitate him. Sig shoved the man back onto the ceiling of the cell below and yanked on the cable, pulling the weapon from the woman’s hands and pulling her forward, off balance. Sig planted a big fist right in the center of her face. She went down.

  Sig took the prod from the man, and his keys, and started unlocking the other cells in his section. He gave the woman’s gun to one of his fellow inmates and the man’s gun to another.

  Sig didn’t need to tell them what to do.

  By the time the guards in the tower turned their heads from the carnival, the riot had already moved into the hallway and three more weapons had been seized.

  107

  The Superdome burned that night, though you couldn’t see the flames from outside. There were twice as many detainees as there were guards, and they had a lot to get even for. When they found the fuel storage for the emergency generators, it didn’t take long.

  The Army guard numbered twenty-four on the graveyard shift. They were able to retake control of the interior once another platoon showed up to help, followed by the fire department. But that was after Bravo Gate had already been breached and seventy-two detainees escaped onto Girod Street and the city beyond.

  Those who didn’t get out in the ten-minute gap when four gates were open at once found themselves trapped when the G level collapsed. In the rush to find a secure place to detain combatants and the people brought in after the roundups, they had worried a lot more about keeping people in under any circumstances than letting people out in case of a fire emergency.

  Tania watched the reports on the official news, and wondered about Sig, and all the others who were in there.

  108

  Sig and three escapees moved through the shadows of Mid-City, sneaking down alleys and the dark lanes between the shotgun shacks, jumping fences when they needed to. They heard the sirens and the barking dogs. They saw the helicopters and heard the low drones. When they heard the screams and gunshots as some others got cornered what sounded like a block away, they hid in a dumpster for an hour, huddled together in trash and listening for danger.

  They got lucky. They entered Camp Zulu just after dawn, tired, hungry, and filthy. They would blend right in. One of the group, a Guatemalan named Alvaro, knew a spot on the north fence where you could get through without having to deal with the guards. They snuck in and disappeared into the multitude.

  They navigated the labyrinth of narrow pathways between tents, converted storage containers, and shanties and shelters made from trash and salvage. There were a few temporary disaster relief houses in the mix, most of which had grown improvised additions. The sounds of freestanding power generators thrummed in the background, behind the sounds of daily life of the settlement.

  The shantytown bustled with activity. People were busy making food, building improvements, fixing things, running errands, carrying messages, making deliveries, tending wounds, nursing maladies, buying and selling and otherwise negotiating. They saw adults playing cards and dominoes, and kids running through the gauntlet acting out games of war and insurrection. Two other kids were passing free handouts, alerts of the day printed on the clean side of old paper. There were radio and TV antennae rising up over the rooftops, and in some of the shelters you could see people meeting and planning like something big was coming.

  When they found Moco, he told them they were just in time to go to the meeting.

  109

  They got Tania a wheelchair to go to the gathering at the Church. They drove her in an armored trailer pulled by two bicycles.

  They told her they might find out what happened to her brother.

  They went the long way. The north barricade had been breached, but the line was holding. For now.

  The Church was a command center in the heart of Bywater. Bundles of cable, banks of telephones and computers, big maps on the wall overwritten in layers of scrawl that told the story of quarters won and lost and lost again. There were lines that marked secret pathways, codes that denoted the distribution of cells, dots to mark the opposition by color and capability, hatch marks for the dead—there were too many of those.

  The Colonel was there, up on the platform with Claude, Andrei, and others, jabbing her finger at one of the maps. Tania asked about Maxine Price, but no one would tell her. Maybe she had gone back underground.

  The Colonel was telling her colleagues how the liberation of the Dome was the last opportunity they would have to turn the tables before they were all hunted down and terminated. Written out of history. Time to strike, with chaos, and break the machine.

  Some of the escaped detainees were there in the big room, eating food and resting, knowing they would soon have their chance to head back out. Mom was there, helping. Tania looked, but didn’t see Sig, and Mom hadn’t heard word, either.

  Tania was talking to the returnees, asking if they knew, when Andrei walked up to her and pulled her aside.

  “How’s it going?” she said.

  “Not so good,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the files. We can’t get them out.”

  “But the Germans. You said.”

  “She said,” said Andrei. “She was right. But to send the files we had to embed them in a broadcast. And we’re having trouble.”

  “Can’t you get past the firewalls?”

  “Well, no, not anymore,” said Andrei. “They are just too powerful. Since the MOFUC they are crazy. We don’t have the machines to do that kind of math. Only military can.”

  “So how can you put the files on TV?”

  “There’s a space in the transmission for it. The blanking interval. We have this old guy who knows all that stuff. But they captured him.”

  “Who?”

  “Militia. Texans maybe. Repo. Captured the whole station. It’s off the air. We’re ja
mmed.”

  “You have to—”

  “They’re working on it,” said Andrei, pointing at the Colonel, Claude, and their crew.

  “Let me talk to them.”

  “Yes, okay, but there’s one other thing I have to tell you.”

  She could see the change in the look on his face.

  “We don’t know for sure, but it sounds like your, uh, brother—” Andrei put his hand on her shoulder. “They’re claiming him as a casualty. There are pictures, but too hard to tell.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Tania. And even then she wouldn’t be sure. “Can you get me a console to work?”

  110

  Sig knew the information was good when he saw the three bodies stacked up outside the main gate of the station and the American flag rippling off one of the crossbars of the antenna.

  “Surprised they didn’t put their heads on poles,” said Slider, as they watched from the brush across the street.

  “Didn’t have time,” said Moco.

  “Even left the door open,” said Mongoose.

  The metal gate had been breached with the big pickup that was now parked inside the yard, front end crunched but probably semifunctional, glass shattered, side armor heavily pocked.

  “You’re not going through it,” said Sig. “No more dead kids.”

  “We’re all kids, dumb-ass,” said Moco. “You and me only got a couple years on these guys, and they’re both crazier than the two of us added up. I’ve seen it.”

  “We’re all going to die,” said Mongoose.

  “See?” said Moco.

  “Maybe, but I’m going in first. Scout it. You guys keep the circle.”

  He went around to the back, over the wall, and up to the small door at the rear of the building. Walker had shown him the trick to open the door, and it still worked.

  The main hallway was dimly lit. There was a militiaman standing down at the far end of the hall by the main entrance. He wore combat bibs embroidered with the morale logo of the Skunk Hunters. A hand-tooled Mexican assault rifle hung from his back.

  Sig flashed memories of skunks he had seen in the wild. The way they disappeared into the field, sticking their huge tails up out of the tall grass to warn off any predator they sensed. It usually worked.

  It did this time. Sig snuck along the wall the other way, toward the stairwell.

  Upstairs he found the door to the office suite unlocked. The carpet was rank with mildew and tracked with the indentations of recent entries and exits. He heard no noise inside, so he stepped through, hoping to find the panel of surveillance and studio monitors Walker kept in his office.

  He smelled men. Heard a muffled cough.

  The light was weird in the room. The windows had been covered with brown paper.

  Sig went to the floor in front of the old secretary’s desk, then crawled around along the wall to where he could see through the half-open door into Walker’s office.

  Walker was there, bound to a metal chair with electrical cord and duct tape, lying sideways on the floor. He was gagged, his necktie balled up, shoved into his mouth, and taped over. His white shirt collar was speckled with blood. His glasses were on the floor nearby, crunched.

  Walker got excited when he saw Sig, making noises and wriggling around.

  Sig looked at the monitors behind the desk, running live feeds from multiple cameras.

  He saw Moco and Mongoose in the yard, under guard by another Skunk Hunter. They had been hog-tied and thrown in the bed of the pickup. It looked like Moco had been shot.

  On another screen he saw three other men being held hostage in the studio. Two were hooded. The other was an older guy with gray hair and a beard—Fritz! He must have come down here to help with the network. The skunks were asking him questions and slapping him around when he didn’t answer.

  Sig cut Walker loose from the chair. He didn’t bother with the gag. Then he went to work on the window.

  Walker tried to rip the duct tape from his face but there was too much and no time.

  Walker grunted at the chair when he saw Sig messing with the window. Then he rummaged around in his desk, looking for something.

  “Guard the door,” said Sig. He grabbed the metal chair Walker had been tied to and shoved the legs through the window glass. The plates popped more than shattered.

  Walker had an old revolver in his hand. He stepped around.

  Sig worked to clear out the metal latticework from the window so they could get out.

  BANG. A single shot.

  “Get down!” screamed a man’s voice from the hallway.

  Walker struggled with his pistol.

  BOOM. Shotgun. Walker flew back, knocking the back of his head on the desk as he came to the ground.

  “Get the fuck back in yer hole,” said a voice.

  “You! Get away from the goddamn window,” said another voice.

  Sig dropped the chair and dove behind the desk.

  CRACK CRACK CRACK.

  “Little motherfucker!”

  Walker screamed into his gag as the guy kicked him.

  “Check on Dallas, you idiot!” the guy yelled at his colleague.

  Sig got a glimpse. It was a burly bald guy, more corporate than cowboy, wearing black Kevlar technicals. He aimed a combat shotgun. He had lost the earring, but Sig still recognized him. That face was burned into his memory, and he remembered the name from the tarmac in Houston.

  “Holt,” said Sig, stepping out with his hands up.

  Holt eyeballed Sig with wary eyes and barrel aimed. There was another militiaman behind him in a balaclava, attending to their downed man. Sig looked and recognized the big guy bleeding out on the floor, as well. Dallas.

  That made for another friend lost due to Holt, even if in Dallas’s case he had it coming.

  “You copied my hairdo,” said Holt, cracking the beginnings of a smile as he put his gun barrel to Sig’s fresh-shaved head. “Smart change. We’ve been looking to catch you for a long time. Fat boy over there said he thought he could help us get you to come out of whatever hole you’ve been hiding in lately. Guess he was right.”

  “Looks like he picked the wrong team,” said Sig.

  Holt glanced at Dallas. “A little too eager, that one, but we needed the extra hand and there was literally nothing he wouldn’t do.”

  Sig caught Dallas’s eyes. Dallas tried to say something, but all that came out was a gurgle.

  The other man was bent over Dallas, trying to apply first aid without knowing the first thing about how to do it.

  “Help me out, Holt,” said the guy, in an emotional voice. “He’s bad.”

  “Hang on,” said Holt.

  Sig looked at Walker. Blood was seeping into his white shirt in a tight pattern. He was breathing, slowly, eyes open, glassy.

  “Don’t die on me yet, porno king,” said Holt. “You need to make one last live television appearance. Just as soon as I get the message to the big boss to tune it in. This particular double feature offering in tribute is going to get me a hell of a bonus.”

  “Your big boss is the one who hides in a hole,” said Sig. “But it won’t be deep enough when we get to it.”

  “Dream big, little chief,” said Holt. “Those kind of endings don’t happen in real life. Ask your buddies back on the rez, if any are left.”

  Sig leapt at Holt. Holt was fast, trained, and experienced, like the Colonel. He met Sig’s tackle with a gun butt to his head, then brought a knee up hard into Sig’s balls. Sig crumpled.

  “Stay down,” said Holt.

  “Dallas is dead, Holt!” said the other militiaman.

  The militiaman bent over Dallas’s body pulled off his balaclava. He was crying.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Holt, quietly before he turned to yell. “Can’t you see I have my hands full?”

  The crying man was Newton Towns. The movie star, in person. He did not look like he was acting.

  “Fine” said Holt. “Hold on.”


  He grabbed Sig by the ear, lifted him up with one hand, then smacked him across the face with the other.

  “Look at me, bitch,” said Holt.

  Sig reached for Holt, hoping to tackle him, but the gun butt had better reach, and when it connected with his face, everything went black.

  111

  Tania was in the Church when the missile hit.

  The explosion was so loud that your ears failed immediately and you couldn’t hear the rest of the blast.

  It was not in slow motion like in the movies. It was instant. The speed of military physics. Everything suddenly flying, exploding outward. Bricks, glass, paper, nails, flesh, dirt, pieces of clothing.

  She was up by the front when it hit somewhere in the back. The part where the priest’s office had been or whatever.

  She crawled over rubble, oblivious to her new injuries, and to what happened to her clothes.

  There was a finger there in front of her. The nail was painted. Purple.

  The world was silent, even as everyone was screaming.

  Tania was screaming the loudest, as she looked for the rest of Mom.

  112

  Sig woke to the feeling of being handled. Bright lights blinded him as he opened his eyes. He felt his legs bent back against some object, and tried to resist but he was already bound.

  As his eyes adjusted, he saw the cameras, and the silhouettes of men, and the red illuminated sign on the wall.

  ON AIR

  He was lying on the floor of the television stage, bound. His bent knees poked out of a truck tire, secured with a broomstick pinion behind the joints. His hands were tied behind his back with cable. His mouth was gagged with a ball of fabric made from the T-shirt they had cut off his body.

  “Look at how he squiggles like a rat in a trap,” said Holt, a silhouette.

  Laughter from other shadows. One of the shadows stepped into the light. A masked policeman, carrying a flexible metal club. He kicked Sig, then whipped the club across the bottoms of Sig’s exposed feet. Twin jolts of sharpened pain shot up to the crown of his head.