Strikers

by Ann Christy

  The man puts all that he used for Connor into a clear bag and seals it carefully, then drops it into a red box on the lower shelf of the cart. He waves us over and performs the same series of tests for Jovan, Cassi and me. It tickles when he rubs the little bristled brush on the inside of my cheek and I can’t help but wrinkle my nose. He gives me a little smile when I do and I feel better.

  When he’s done he directs his next words only to Maddix. “You’re clear, but you know the drill. You have to go directly to the clinic in town and get checked. Your brother will need the same two days as the others to have his identity verified, so he’ll have to come back once that’s done.”

  The alarm in Maddix’s face is real and his voice is a little higher when he asks, “How can he be verified if he’s never been here? I didn’t have to be verified before Jordan brought me in.”

  “That was different. You were a Striker seeking sanctuary, and you had a sponsor who would vouch for you. A sponsor who had the means to cover a vouching should you run amok inside the wall. You’re sponsoring this boy as a brother. His DNA needs to be tested against yours to confirm a familial relationship,” the man answers, quite reasonably.

  Now that I’m closer, I can read the letters stitched into his shirt. They read Immigration Enforcement and below is his name, Gary Walder. I may not know much about the Southeast, but I know what the words immigration and enforcement mean and they don’t mean that he belongs to the welcoming committee.

  “Do you mean that the four of us will need to wait two days to go in?” Jovan asks, trying to clarify the situation because he’s just as confused as I am.

  “I thought we were going to be good to go. I mean, I have this,” I say, holding up the pendant.

  Gary’s face clears as he realizes our situation. He says, “You are registered, but I have no way of knowing that you are you. Your sample will be tested against the one registered to you and if it matches, you’re welcome to come right in. We’ve got your retina scans and your fingerprints now, so in two days, when the results of your DNA test show up in my system, you’ll be able to come in just the same way I cleared your friend here.”

  “Two days,” I whisper. I’m not alone in my unhappiness with this new situation. The idea of having to run, hide and then somehow get back to this gate, or another gate, after two days staying ahead of Creedy is enough to make me nauseous. It’s like my organs shift inside me and I wasn’t prepared for it.

  I’ve been able to ignore my hunger because I thought it would soon be over, that food was just a wall away. Likewise, I’ve been able to push back the soreness of my body, the tenderness of my many bruises and the nagging sting of chafed and reddened skin. All of it was tolerable only because I could feel an end to it just around the corner. With that hope gone, my body suddenly feels like a loosely filled bag of bones incorrectly assembled.

  Pushing that aside, I force myself to think. Perhaps there is a way to make this less painful for at least one of us.

  “Can’t Maddix just sponsor Connor the same way that my father sponsored him?” I ask.

  “He could,” he says and addresses Maddix. “If you have the funds to commit to it. But you’ll need to sign a bond and set aside the right amount of funds. Do you have that?”

  “I have no idea,” Maddix answers wearily.

  “What about sanctuary? You said you have that?” Connor asks.

  “We do. Minors with three strikes or in imminent danger are automatically granted sanctuary inside while we do all the rest. Just to keep them from harm, you see.”

  Holding out his hands to the side, Maddix says, “We’ve got those conditions up to our necks.”

  Gary looks sympathetic, but professionally so, like he’s heard this story a hundred times. He probably has heard it a hundred times, if not more. “The rules are very clear and I see no imminent danger coming up on us.”

  At our expressions, which are pretty lost and hopeless if how I feel is at all reflected on my face, he softens a little and says, “Try to think about it from our perspective. Things look peaceful, but it wasn’t always that way. People have come to claim sanctuary who have been deliberately infected with contagious diseases. Others were dangerous criminals—and I’m not talking about the petty stuff you get strikes for—who hurt or killed our people after claiming sanctuary. Our rules are there for a reason and learned through hard experience.”

  When he finishes speaking, he meets the eyes of each of us in turn, his sincerity evident and believable. As much as I would like to be able to punch a few holes in what he said, I can’t. If it were me, I’d do the same.

  Whatever there might be on the other side of that wall, it’s clearly worth protecting. Even from us. I can see the near future unfolding before me right now and it isn’t the safety of walking through that gate.

  My immediate future is two more days of keeping my head down and my feet moving and then hoping I do get confirmed as the person my father registered to this pendant. But I can help Maddix and Connor.

  “I have funds. How much is a bond?” I ask.

  Gary eyes me like I’ve surprised him but answers. “If they stay in the Gate Town at the quarantine facility and agree to curfew and restrictions on their movement, then it will be a hundred silver ounces. You’ll get it back if they stay out of trouble till he’s medically cleared.”

  My face falls and my mouth drops open at the amount. That’s more money than I can imagine. It’s enough to buy a stake in a salvage run, several head of prime cattle or even a windmill capable of powering enough lights to keep a bulb in every room. There’s no way so much is on my pendant. Even Jovan looks shocked and he was carrying more than I’ve ever seen in his pockets. Maddix looks like he just got gut-punched, hard.

  “I’ve got maybe twenty on my chip,” he says in a hoarse voice.

  I hold out my pendant and say, “Can you check to see if I have that?”

  I place my necklace in his hand, trying not to look reluctant, and he eyes my pendant as well as Jordan’s. “My condolences on your loss,” he says softly. I guess he heard our story when the sentries passed on our information, but it feels strange to hear him say it. He’s a stranger to me and, I assume, to my father.

  He picks up yet another mysterious implement from the cart and waves the pendants across the surface, eyeing the readout after each pass. When he turns back to me, he places the jewelry with extra care into my palm, folding my fingers around them securely.

  He glances to the side and then leads me a few steps away from the others. He leans uncomfortably close to my ear and whispers, “You have over nine thousand, nine hundred ounces on yours and your father has a little over two hundred.”

  All I can think is that I’ve heard him wrong. Almost ten thousand ounces? That’s enough to buy ninety acres of prime grazing land, the kind that has water on it year-round from a sweet water spring deep in the earth. It’s a fortune. And it’s on a necklace?

  “That’s not possible,” I gasp.

  “It would have to be verified, but the last date on there is pretty recent. The bank it’s attached to, GeneBank, has an office here. You’ll be able to get it verified pretty easily,” he says and pats my shoulder in a kindly way.

  I’m guessing that this is rather the opposite situation than they usually have. I imagine most people get here destitute and without anything of value to their name. And here I am with an unimaginable fortune.

  He lets me catch my breath and just try to absorb it for a moment while the others look on, worried looks shooting my way. They must think I don’t have enough. Rather than let them worry further, I tug my shirt down and straighten my shoulders. Smoothing the shock off my face is a little harder, but I think I do a passable job of it.

  “Maddix, I can put up the bond for Connor if you like,” I say.

  They both smile and thank me and the business is over with another swipe of the pendant and a quick press of my thumb to the tablet. They’re dirty and tired, but life comes ba
ck to them at the thought of getting inside. Connor almost glows with excitement and it makes the dark circles under his eyes and the gauntness under his cheeks less noticeable.

  They take only one of the empty bags with them aside from what they’re wearing. Maddix has a gun and one of the utility belts but he doesn’t take any of the boxes of ammunition, leaving it for us.

  And then they are gone, through the door and out of sight. It feels strange to be separated. We’ve been together for weeks, constantly so, and that forges bonds even closer than family in some ways. Nursing someone through a bullet wound, running for your lives step for step and huddling together for warmth creates something different from friendship, different from family. It creates something essential between people.

  I wave at the doorway, but they don’t see it. Neither of them turns back. Gary is ordering his mysterious devices on his cart in preparation to follow them through. Jovan and Cassi aren’t doing anything except looking at me, at Gary and at the door in a sort of helpless shock. They look like I feel.

  Gary finishes and puts his hands to the cart’s push bar, ready to wheel it inside but he doesn’t. Instead, he sighs and looks down with a little shake of his head. He extracts a small pad of paper from his pocket, scribbles something on a page, then whips the page off the pad and holds it out for one of us to take.

  Jovan steps up to take it, glances at it and asks, “Where?”

  “Listen, I’ve read the sentry reports and if it were up to me, I’d put you in a sanctuary cell right now. But it’s not up to me. That doesn’t mean I can’t help you as much as I’m able to without doing that. Go to the ferry landing, go across to Willton, hire a barge or boat or whatever else you can and keep going south,” he says.

  When I open my mouth to ask questions, he holds up a hand to stop me and says, “I need to get back inside, so just listen. Give the note to whoever you decide to hire and it will help convince them. I’ll send a warning across about this Creedy fellow and that’ll keep him from easily getting a ride. He’ll get one eventually, but it won’t be easy. Your best bet is a barge going down the Mississippi to the port at the Gulf. They go quickly, making stops to load and unload and there are far too many of them to keep track of. Another hundred miles or so and the gates get more common, every five miles or so, and almost everyone has a trade town across from it. Every gate will have your data the moment it is ready.”

  He starts to push the cart toward the gate, then stops and looks back over his shoulder. He seems to think for a second, then waves me over and asks, “Do you have any money left?”

  Without thinking, I clasp the pendant around my neck, confused.

  “No, I mean spending money. For the trip?”

  I think back to the few coppers and the tiny tenths of silver and wonder how much boat rides for fugitives cost. “I don’t think enough, if you want the truth,” I confess.

  He holds up a finger, dashes back in the gate and then appears once again, holding yet another unfathomable gizmo and a small metal box. He motions for me to lean forward with the pendant and dangles it near the glossy black surface. It lights up with words and images like I’ve never seen before, beautiful and crisp, yet artful. I want to touch it so I curl my fingers at my sides to stop myself.

  Gary seems to be counting, his head leaning just a little to one side and then shifting to the other, his eyes blinking like he’s added something with each movement. When he seems satisfied, he pushes the screen and then holds it for my inspection. “I think four should be enough, even if you’re delayed. Do you agree?” he asks.

  I have no idea how much he’s even talking about, let alone what all this is going to cost, but I nod like that makes perfect sense to me and press my thumb to the spot he indicates. It beeps and glows green and that’s apparently a good thing, because he sets it down and opens the box, plucking up small bundles with quick hands.

  “We aren’t a bank branch, but we do small transactions all the time. Don’t worry,” he says, dropping the paper-wrapped rolls of coins into my palm. “But if you turn out not to be you, best watch out if you show up at another gate.”

  He finishes by dropping two half-ounce coins with the rolls. They make a delightful sound when they clink together and I can’t help but smile.

  With that, he pushes his cart inside the door. While I’m still trying to sort out what he said, Jovan starts gathering the few remaining bags we have and hands one off to Cassi. As they pass, he tugs my arm and says, “Let’s go, Karas.”

  Once we hit the trail, I stop him to divide up the coins. I don’t feel comfortable carrying them all, given that I’ve already lost everything I own once. I’d rather not have all our eggs in one basket, so to speak. But I do feel better about not being the one who has to rely on everyone else to pay my way anymore. It’s a good feeling and I think of Jordan, thanking him in my thoughts yet again.

  The moment we start walking again, the mood reverts right back to serious. Jovan’s brow is furrowed and his lips set, but not like he’s worried, more like intent on getting a job done. It’s a relief because I’m still a little shell-shocked from the combination of finding out I have a fortune and realizing that we’re still going to be on the run for another couple of days. My hands are empty and fidgety as I follow along, so I jam them into my pockets.

  When I catch up to the others, Jovan says, “There are plenty of barges going past. I saw three while we were at the gate, but they might be on some kind of schedule, so we want to get there and get one. The last thing we need is to wait for hours or have to walk again.”

  His eyes are in constant motion, scanning the banks as they come into view, looking at and for boats, I suppose. There’s a flat-topped barge berthed at a wide set of piers, a group of people unloading bags, boxes and baskets from it in quick, practiced moves, tossing each container from one hand to the next till each reaches the end of the pier and the piles there. It looks almost fully unloaded and we head in that direction, following Jovan.

  Wary at first, probably because of our dirty clothes and overall ragged appearance, they grow friendly enough when Jovan starts haggling for the cost of passage across to Willton. For the price of a silver tenth ounce—plus our assistance loading up the return cargo—he secures us a ride.

  As soon as the barge bumps up against the pier on the other side of the river, Jovan is off the deck and heading toward the larger piers the barge workers suggested. After an offer to help unload, which the barge workers politely decline, Cassi and I head the other direction, toward the smaller vessels often let for hire.

  The entire area is a confusing mass of colors, sounds and scents. Talking, bickering and haggling rises above the clanking of the boats and gear. Boats of every shape and size are clustered up to three deep at the piers, the outer ones tied to the inner boats. Awnings are spread or draped everywhere. It makes the colors even more riotous and I can barely tell where one boat ends and another begins. I feel like my eyes don’t know where to stop and I’m almost dizzy from the experience.

  A deep breath brings no relief. The smells of food cooking over smoky braziers and grills fight with the dank and fertile smell of the river bank. Over it all, the smell of decades of fish catches have soaked into the worn boards of the piers, leaving the smell of spoiled fish.

  I suspect that Jovan thought sending us to the small boats would be the easier task, but a few vessels, no matter how large and intimidating, can be nothing compared to this. I think I love it, though I know it terrifies me.

  Cassi smiles at everyone as we pass, garnering appreciative looks. I hope she can keep it up long enough for us to find a boat and then charm whoever owns it. It’s a mercenary thought, but she has the magic. Who am I to turn down the help, no matter how it comes about? She’s charming and that’s a good thing at the moment, since I’m not and never have been. For my part, I have to work just to keep a scowl off my face around strangers.

  The piers extend from a long walkway made of boards weathered
to gray. It’s wide enough for carts and people to cross easily and bordered by a row of equally weathered shops, tightly packed together on the other side. The only gaps between them are too narrow to navigate save by a child, except where the street leading into town joins it at the head of the pier. That street is backed up with wagons, people pushing carts and bicycles loaded down with goods meant for the boats. People on foot, either workers or passengers, weave through the fray and join the crowds here on the piers.

  Cassi takes the lead, looking at the people like she’ll see some clue as to who the right person to ask is in their smile or the cast of their eye when they see her. At the third of the piers jutting out into the water, she stops short and her lips part as she stares down the length of the pier. I catch up and look in the direction she’s staring.

  At the end of the pier is a boat that doesn’t look any different to me from the dozens of others with one exception, and I think it is that exception that has drawn her eye. High on the mast is a young man. With just one arm and the pressure of his legs around the beam, he’s pointing at something below. Then he uses his free arm to give one of the many lines dangling from the mast a hard yank.

  As we watch, he deftly untangles himself from the mast and grabs one of the lines, hooking a foot into it and lowering himself back to the deck. Cassi grabs my hand and I see from the corner of my eye that she’s mesmerized.

  He’s definitely something to see. Shirtless, his skin tanned from the sun and hard from work, he’s got the additional draw of a head of dark curls. And the way he moves so lithely down the rope is pretty spectacular.

  “Pirates,” Cassi breathes.

  I can’t help but laugh. “More like fishermen,” I say and nudge her with my elbow.

  She shakes her head and smiles, a little embarrassed. “Sure, but still. He looks like a pirate, doesn’t he?”