Strikers

by Ann Christy

  There’s nothing we can do and we both know it. Like everyone else, we’ll just have to wait and see what’s decided. It’s a helpless feeling. Maddix is still searching the crowd. It’s drawing the ire of the others in the line as his movements jerk the chain they all must contend with. I can’t do much, but I can ease his mind.

  I raise my arm and wave to draw Maddix’s attention until he finally sees us. I point at Connor and see the conflicting emotions spread across Maddix’s battered face. There’s sadness and fear but also something very close to relief at seeing his brother safe.

  The bulky coat obscures any view of Connor’s neck and I can see Maddix doing his best to look, no doubt checking to see if Connor has earned another strike. I hold up two fingers and Maddix gives me a nod and a smile. It’s grotesque on his battered face and the movement has caused blood to flow from his nose again.

  He loses his footing as a jerk ripples through the chain from some misstep behind him. He struggles to stay upright as the metal collar around his neck digs in and pulls. When he gets his feet back under him, his eyes meet mine again. His gaze is steady and he points with his chin toward the front of the line.

  I don’t see what he’s looking at. I don’t know the three ahead of him so I give him a shrug. He jerks his chin again and mouths the word “first” at me.

  I scan the first man in line again. They’re all caked in so much dust from walking however many miles behind the car I can’t even tell what color their clothes might be. Only small glimpses of black or blue interrupt the nearly uniform coating of brown. Even their faces and hair are an almost even tan color.

  The first man in line is just another brown and dusty figure, though he looks older somehow to my eyes. Dark creases in the dust on his face near his eyes show where crow’s feet have spread. He’s looking around at the crowd with the same intensity Maddix had, studying faces and then jerking his head on to the next.

  A glance back at Maddix earns me a quick, imperative nod so I figure there must be something here I should know. I raise an arm to draw the man’s attention. It’s apparently too tentative a gesture to stand out in this crowd so I buck up some nerve and shout, “Hey!”

  He sees me, gives me a once-over and then studies my face for a moment. The way he’s looking at me makes me feel strange. I start to back up a step to hide in the crowd again.

  Suddenly, he smiles at me and shouts, “Karas!”

  The soldier walking along the line hurries forward and hits the man in the back with his stick so hard that he staggers. He looks away from me long enough to shuffle awkwardly and regain his precarious balance. The blow he takes makes me flinch for him. I know how it must have hurt. But it also stops me from moving backward and into the safety of the anonymous crowd. How does he know my name?

  The joy in his face when he saw me was impossible to miss. He looked at me like I was the most important sight in his world. It was familiar and strange all at once. I try to see past the dust and dirt, but it has dulled his features and made him seem just like all the others in the line. Just another body headed for justice and then gone forever. I have no clue who he might be.

  He seems to understand that I don’t recognize him. He leans to the side a little and strains his neck above the metal collar to reveal something underneath. After a few tries, I can see it’s a word, boldly tattooed in big letters on the side of his neck: Free.

  I can feel myself stumbling back and I grab the arm of a stranger to keep from stepping on the street and getting a fine. It’s the shock of that particular word tattooed in that particular style that does it. It can’t be who I think it is.

  He’s moving past me now, further down the long square, but I search his face once more, trying to match it with the few tattered photos I’ve managed to save over the years. He’s much older than in the photos so there’s really no way to tell. If it really is him, he’s the last person in the world I expected to see today and I forget about Maddix and Connor and everything else.

  I have to see him again, so I push through the crowd and leave Connor and Cassi behind. I know it’s rude, but I shove my way through the tightly packed people, not really hearing the muttered curses or shouts that follow me. My hand contacts something that doesn’t move away. It’s hard yet yielding at the same time. Then that something grabs my arm. I look up to see Jovan, his face intent on mine and his long fingers completely encircling my arm.

  “What’s wrong, Karas?” he asks. His gaze is solemn and concerned. I think it is the first time he’s spoken to me in almost two years except for the standard “Hey” when we meet in the hall at school.

  “That man. I…I…it’s important,” I stumble for words but there just aren’t any. Everything wants to come out in a jumble. Instead, I try to pull my arm from his and move away. I know I look frantic, panicked even, but I just need to go. I yank my arm again.

  Jovan doesn’t let go. He looks at the line of prisoners and then back at me. He gives me one quick nod as if my incredibly incomplete answer made perfect sense and settles the matter.

  His grip on my arm doesn’t loosen as he half drags, half leads me through the crush of people. I feel like I’m about four years old but at least I’m making progress. People move aside for him and when they don’t, he makes a path by saying, “Coming through. Make a hole!”

  His tone couldn’t possibly be mistaken for a request and people melt away in front of him. It’s just another way in which being a Foley pays off.

  During a parade no one is supposed to be on the street itself anywhere along the path of the parade. A child might get away with letting a foot fall next to the sidewalk, but nothing more. It’s a firm rule meant to ensure that no one tries to make contact with the prisoners by darting out into the street.

  At some point he gets impatient and I feel his arm circle my back and lift me entirely from the ground. It’s uncomfortable, his arm squeezing my ribs and my feet dangling above the pavement. Even my hair is trapped between his arm and my back, but it gets us moving faster so I tuck my chin in and suffer the ride.

  Jovan manages to maneuver me to the front row of people at the end of the town square, well ahead of the line of prisoners. He jerks me up and out of the street when we’re shoved forward by the disgruntled mass of people behind us. He takes a stance behind me, one hand firmly on each of my shoulders, and seems to plant himself like a tree, shielding me from any further pushes.

  My toes are pressed right to the edge of the sidewalk and I wave at the man, who has tried to follow my progress but lost me in the crowd. When he sees me, we smile at each other and I glance back at Jovan. I know I should explain and thank him, to somehow let him know how much this means to me, but all I can think of right now is the man at the front of the line.

  He risks getting tangled in the chains or receiving another blow from the soldier, but he turns a little and exposes the front and other side of his neck. He wants to be sure I know who he is. The full line of text is there and it’s something I’ve seen in every picture of him except the one of him as a small boy. The words Free is Free run in an almost unbroken circle around his neck. The only gap is where three strike marks have been tattooed into the skin.

  Yes, I know him even though I have absolutely no memory of him. Even in those hazy memories of early childhood that never make sense, he isn’t present. I’ve tried to have them, studied pictures of him and tried, but there’s nothing. This man disappeared as a Striker when I was barely a year old, so it’s no surprise I don’t remember. But I still know who he is. He is my father, Jordan Quick.

  Chapter Three

  Just like that, he’s gone. The Courthouse stands on the opposite corner of the town square and I watch as they prod the line of prisoners into a side door for processing. Even if they do decide to administer a “final adjudication,” as they euphemistically call it when they put a criminal to death, they won’t do it right now.

  I have a little time to sort out what I should do, both about my fa
ther and Maddix. There must be something that can be done, though it may only be to see him and speak with him. While justice is implacable and has no mercy, nor does it allow exceptions, it is also very thorough. They won’t kill anyone until their identity is confirmed and their charge count is double-checked.

  The hands on my shoulder are warm and heavy, so I know I’m going to need to do some explaining when I turn around. The disappearance of the prisoners is the signal that we’re free to go and people spill out into the street, releasing the pressure from so many bodies on the sidewalk. A few people shove past me roughly and I step back, closer to Jovan, out of reflex.

  The pressure of him against my back startles me and I step off the curb and out from under his hands in one move. When I turn, his hands have dropped to his sides. He doesn’t say anything to me, which just makes this entire situation more awkward, if that’s possible.

  What can I say to him that won’t sound incredibly pathetic? “Oh, hey, thanks for carrying me around, but that was my habitual criminal father who left me with a drunk who likes to use me for a punching bag”? While I stand there searching for words, he just looks at me with those crazy beautiful eyes of his.

  “Thanks,” I say, settling for simplicity.

  “Someone you know?” he asks, stepping off the curb to stand in front of me again.

  I can’t help the laugh that comes out, or the bitter sound in it, but I can shut it off as soon as it happens. His eyes aren’t judging and he doesn’t look like he wants to get away from me as quickly as he can, so I decide there’s no harm in telling something like the truth.

  “It was my father. He’s been gone a while,” I say and let that hang in the air between us.

  He knows my father is a Striker. We’ve gone to the same schools since I started going to school, though he’s a year ahead of me. Before the full force of parental influence came down on him, we were playground chums for a while, teaming up in games. Anything that involved speed or knocking things—or other people—down, we excelled at. We were more than that, really. I’d rather not think about that. That was then.

  Jovan nods slowly, working it all out in his head. He was always like that. Slow to answer, but usually coming up with the right one. He says, “He wouldn’t have come unless it was important.”

  That’s as far as he gets before his father appears out of the remaining crowd. He gives me a sour look, like he just saw someone pull down their pants and pee on the street. His eyes slide away from my face, effectively dismissing me, and he says to Jovan, “Come on, your mother is waiting. We’ve got a lot to do today.”

  Jovan has the smarts not to try to keep talking to me, and the good grace to turn back and give me a little nod, as he follows his father toward the hospital on the other side of the square. I do notice that even they don’t walk on the grass, taking the long way around like all the rest of us.

  Cassi and Connor are still halfway down the block and I can see bright flashes of Cassi’s hair as she jumps up and looks for me. It’s almost comical, the way it bounces up like someone spent hours trying to make it that way. She hates it. I wish it were mine.

  She gives me an aggrieved look and lets out a loud sigh when I return. Connor looks like someone hit him with a hammer, dazed. I don’t say anything because I’m not sure what to say. Instead, I wrap an arm around each of them and pull them in close for a hug. I’m not sure if I’m comforting Connor or taking comfort myself. Maybe it’s both.

  We stand there for a moment until it gets weird and then break the embrace to stand with our more customary distances between us.

  “What do you think, Connor?” I ask. It’s better to ask him something mental than emotional. He focuses better on those things and gets less lost. He’s a thinker.

  Connor tugs at his jacket and says, flatly, “I think I’m going to lose another brother.”

  It’s a very final statement and said with absolute certainty. And, truthfully, he’s probably right. Unless his brother was somehow caught only as a Striker rather than with smugglers, he will earn two strikes, which makes five for Maddix. You can earn off strikes with time and good citizenship, but only if you’ve got less than five. People with five no longer have time. Judgment is followed within a single day by the injection that will end a life.

  I do understand that society in general can’t afford the danger and disorder that habitual criminals bring. I understand it intellectually, that is. But I can’t help thinking that there’s something very different between a thief who won’t stop, an arsonist who can’t stop, and kids who live under rules that seem designed to weed them out.

  Cassi and I know Maddix well, and we both know he doesn’t deserve the strikes he’s already got. His parents deserve them. But now that Connor has brought the subject up in the most direct way possible, we have to deal with it. Right now, Cassi looks like she’s going to start to cry and that would be bad. Once she gets going, she’s like a loud faucet.

  “I saw my father,” I say, without preamble. I can’t think of any other way to say it.

  It does the trick. Cassi’s pucker disappears like it was never there and her face smooths, her impending tears forgotten. Connor looks up at me sharply, his eyes keen and his thoughts switching gears.

  “How do you know? I mean, how do you know it’s him?” he asks.

  “Maddix pointed him out and I saw him. It was him, I’m sure of it.”

  “Maddix?” he asks, as confused as I am.

  I shrug because I don’t know what else to do. How do I express the many possibilities this opens up?

  “They must have been together. That has to mean something,” Cassi says.

  Connor nods but keeps looking at me, waiting for me to chime in and offer more than I already have.

  All I can do is sigh and guess, so I do. “Maddix knew who he was, so they must have been together at some point. They knew each other somehow.” I catch my mistake and correct it, saying, “Know each other.”

  “Your dad’s been gone your whole life. Why would he come back? Smuggler?” Cassi asks.

  Again, I shrug because I have no idea what’s going on or why he would return. Or why Maddix would be with him. It’s possible he was a smuggler whose number finally came up and he got caught. That would be the most logical answer, but anyone who could hop the border as a smuggler without getting caught for fifteen years should be good at it by now. Certainly, good enough to know not to bring a young newbie out with them and get picked up by a patrol.

  “I have to get in to see him,” I say.

  Connor nods again, like he was expecting me to say that. Under the age of eighteen, anyone declared habitual gets the privilege of time with their family before justice is served. Over that age and it’s just done. Connor won’t get a visit with Maddix either if the worst happens.

  “And I want to see Maddix,” he says.

  We stand there in the street as the people clear out around us, going back to their homes or run errands or whatever else they had planned for their Saturday. The day is beginning to warm a little and it isn’t quite as frigid. The dry air won’t hold the cold night temperatures long past sunrise. It’s still cool, but not cold, and the day is promising to be a fine one. The weather being nice is wrong in every possible way it could be. It should be storming to match my mood. With lightning.

  Cassi rubs at her strike-free neck, perhaps considering whether or not hatching some plot with us is worth the mark it might earn her. Connor notes it too and I see he’s about to let Cassi off the hook when she says, “Breaking into the Courthouse isn’t exactly easy but it’s probably easier than breaking out of it.”

  I laugh because it’s such a perfectly logical statement but also perfectly ridiculous. Breaking into the Courthouse is just about the last thing anyone would want to do. And that’s the subject we’re all dancing around here, finding some way to break into the Courthouse so that we can get to the prisoners. Even Connor gives a sideways smile.

  We’re drawin
g looks from the few people who remain as well as a pair of patrol soldiers making their way down the street. They move with lazy confident strides, like they own the place. Which they do, in a way.

  Bailar has a small population but a surprisingly large number of soldiers. They patrol the dry lands to the west and the borders to the north. Bailar is the last bit of civilization before those places, so we get to host all of those not out on patrol. I’m not a fan.

  “Let’s go,” I say and we turn to walk back the way we came. We can’t go to my house because my Mom is home and probably already dipping into her bottle for the day. Cassi’s place is out because there are always people around. Connor lives too far out and I’m not letting him anywhere near his parents until we have this sorted anyway. Who knows what they’ll do if they find out about Maddix? Connor can sleep in our shed tonight if need be.

  We stay quiet until we reach the canal, the strip of water that comes all the way from the lake and provides water to the town. It looks brown and dirty from up here, but it comes out of the faucets clean and clear. At least it looks clear if the container isn’t too deep.

  Settling down on a patch of concrete next to the canal—our favorite spot when the weather is good—makes me feel a little more normal. For a moment, it’s like any other day. But only for a moment.

  Cassi starts us out and suggests, “We could just ask to see them.”

  Connor tosses back, “True, but they’ll say no and then we’ll need to figure out a plan anyway, so why not do it now?”

  “I swore I’d never go back after getting this,” I say and gesture toward my neck. “And outside of getting myself busted again so they’ll bring me in for a strike, I have no idea how to get beyond the foyer.”

  Connor’s expression goes serious and he says, “No, don’t even think of doing that. It won’t get you back by the prisoners anyway. It would be a waste of a strike.”