by M. G. Herron
Po lowered herself deeper into the freezing water next to Jia. Her body shivered involuntarily, and her sister clung to her gooseflesh arms. After some time, their bodies grew accustomed to the temperature. They continued to cling to each other for comfort.
Better numb than crying, she thought.
Po pushed her fears for her parents from her mind and made an avenue among the spindly rice stalks so that she could spot any figures coming down the path beside the paddy. Straining her ears, she heard when the invaders emerged from the lab again. Their voices carried quietly but clearly over the water.
“Well?” a man said.
“They’re not here,” said a woman. Her voice had a brittle edge.
“Son of a bitch. I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him.”
“The seeds are gone, Felix. Now we have nothing.”
Felix was quiet.
“Goddamnit.” The woman’s voice broke. Slightly. Just for a moment so that Po thought she might even be imagining it. “Goddamnit, I knew he—”
“Sasha, would you shut up for a minute so I can think?”
A radio crackled, and a frantic voice burst through the static. “Get out of there. Riot cops headed your way.”
“Take any supplies you can carry,” Sasha said, raising her voice as if giving orders to a group of people.
“Wait.” The man whispered something else that Po couldn’t make out. Her limbs froze in the paddy water as two shapes, one tall and lean, the other short and shapely, separated from the group near the plastic dome and moved toward her.
The two figures came close enough for Po to see the woman’s red hair in the fire-lit night. The two separated and took opposite paths around the rice paddy. Their trajectories would have them meeting near Po and Jia’s hiding spot.
Moonlight glinted off a pistol in the man’s hand. Each step the woman took brought her closer. Though she was shorter, her legs moved faster and she would reach them first.
Po put her mouth next to her sister’s ear and whispered, “No matter what happens, be quiet and stay low. If we get separated, find Aunt Kylie. She lives in Rose Petal. Do you remember which way Dad drives to get there?”
Jia nodded. “Where are you going?“ she said, her shrill voice piercing the night.
“Shh.”
Too late. The woman cocked her head and look straight at their spot among the reeds. Po cursed under her breath. If she waited for her to come closer, they would both be discovered.
Panicking, she did the only thing she could think of. She hauled herself out of the water and ran straight at the woman. Po’s shoulder bowled into her, knocking her down and sending a tingle down Po’s arm. She stumbled, caught her balance, and kept running on, praying that they would both chase her instead of find Jia.
The man on the opposite bank reversed direction and trailed her back toward the house.
The woman recovered quickly and chased her. Po had the lead, but the redhead was a sprinter. The man stretched his long legs on the opposite bank. Po glanced over her shoulder—the redhead was gaining ground rapidly.
Po was halfway to her father’s lab when the woman caught up to her, took a handful of her hair in her fist, and slammed Po to the ground.
The air exploded from her lungs. Po lay gasping and clutching her throat as her breath struggled to return.
The man caught up with them a few seconds later. He put his face close to Po’s. He had dark eyes and a torn ear, and he enunciated carefully. “Where. Are. The rice. Seeds.”
Po laughed. She couldn’t help it. Her chuckles were cut short when the back of the man’s hand snapped her head to the side.
“Where are they?”
Po spit blood. ”They’re gone!” she said. “Two men took them this afternoon.”
“Two men.”
“I told you, Felix,” said the woman named Sasha, with hair like the flames that colored the night sky. “He betrayed us. Leave her. We have to go.”
He glared at the redhead, and then a thin smile crossed his mouth before fading as fast as it had come. “No,” Felix said. “She comes with us.”
“What for?” Sasha crossed her arms and stared him down, holding her ground. Po admired her for that. The torn ear, the way he talked, everything about Felix frightened the wits out of her. She didn’t think she could stand up to him.
“Leverage,” Felix said, a smirk twisting his lean face, as if that was all the explanation needed.
Po tried to keep a blank face as Sasha yanked her to her feet.
They walked through the copse of trees next to her father’s lab.
Her heart jammed into her throat and choked her when the farmhouse came into view. Tongues of flame licked out of the windows now, and the roof was beginning to catch.
“Keep moving,” Sasha said.
Tears tracked down Po’s cheeks as she was led to an open Jeep. Sasha secured Po’s wrists at the small of her back with a zip tie and forced her uncomfortably into the back seat. She recognized the bags of rice and canned goods from her kitchen on the floor and seat next to her.
The only thing that kept Po from breaking down was the knowledge that she had done what her father told her, the last thing he would ever tell her, and that Jia was still crouching out of sight, safe in the dark waters.
CHAPTER 15
BANDITS AND BARRICADES
The anemic, hungry-eyed gang formed a jagged half-circle around them, trapping Po and Ari against the fence.
“Nice work, kid,” the rat-faced man tossed a wadded paper sack to the ground. It landed in a shallow puddle with a dull squelch. “Skinny Chinese bitch looks tasty.”
“I’m sorry,” Nando whispered. The boy avoided Po’s eyes as he scooped up the sack. He ripped it open with shaking hands and withdrew a small card. The five-pointed red star, the symbol of the Republic of Enshi, was stamped on the front of the thick, semi-transparent plastic card, presumably loaded with a stack of the digital currency accepted throughout the country.
Po kept her fists raised out of fear alone. All remaining will to fight leaked out of Po in that moment. She couldn’t believe that the urchin boy had given them up for a stack of petty cash…and after she had promised to get him money from her aunt!
Nando tucked the card into his pocket and let the paper sack drift back to the ground. He edged through a narrow space between the fence and the alley wall, and vanished from sight.
The gang of seven closed in tighter. Their ratty shirts blew loosely around their bodies. Their pants were tied with twine to keep them from falling off their thin frames. Each of them held a makeshift weapon in his or her hand—a crowbar, a two by four, a metal chain.
Ari stepped protectively in front of Po. He held his arms away from his body and set his feet shoulder-width apart with the left foot slightly behind. Po recognized the pose from her own childhood martial arts training, but her limbs were frozen and she couldn’t move her feet to do the same. She stood flat on her heels and was vaguely aware of her mouth hanging open.
Jia was about the same age as that boy, Nando.
The rat-faced man took a step toward Ari. “Are you some kind of traitor?”
This seemed to take Ari by surprise. “What?” he asked.
“Did I stutter? What’s a Euro like you doing with little slant-eyes here?”
Ari seemed to recover his composure. He met the rat-faced man’s eyes and bounced ever so slightly on the balls of his feet. “You’re going to regret that.”
The rat-faced man guffawed. “Have it your way. You’ll both taste the same roasted.”
Faster than Po could draw her next breath, a knife jumped from the rat-faced man’s belt into his hand, and he lunged forward with the blade held straight. But Ari was quicker. His spread-fingered hands slammed down on the man’s wrist and redirected the blade to the ground. A spark jumped from the blade’s edge as it struck pavement. Ari brought his foot down on the man’s forearm and an audible snap sounded in the dim alley. The rat-faced man snarled
in pain. Ari ground his boot in a clockwise motion and the man screamed.
“Climb the fence,” Ari said as he twisted. His low voice came clearly through the screaming, but Po remained statuesque. She stared, mesmerized, at the white splinter of bone poking out of their attacker’s hairy flesh. It was so white it made his pale skin look tan in comparison. She never imagined bone could be so white.
“Po!” Ari shouted. When she still didn’t move, he took a step back and pushed her toward the fence. That moment cost him a blow to the kidneys from a fist bearing sharpened brass-knuckles. Ari grunted in pain. He brought his arm up and when he spun back his elbow struck the jaw of the woman wearing the brass knuckles.
Startled from being pushed, Po glanced between Ari—who brought his hands up to redirect a heavy blow from a black metal pipe—and the top of the fence.
A man and a woman closed in on Po. She kicked out and slammed a sneaker into the neck of the man. While her foot was still in the air, the woman landed a blow to her ribs with a thick piece of wood. The breath exploded from Po’s lungs. No kata she practiced had prepared her for the helpless feeling of being breathless. The woman struck out again with the two by four, and Po barely dodged that strike by skipping closer to the other attacker, who had recovered from Po’s blow to his neck. He shoved her hard at the fence.
Po used the momentum to grab the metal fence and scramble upward, her sneakers slipping on the chain link. Thin wires pinched the skin of her hands. As she climbed, the chanting thundered closer in her ears. She looked up and down the street through the fence, but she still couldn’t place the source of the voices. This alley was located in a squalid, twisted street off the main avenue with little foot traffic. An old woman Po spotted through the fence averted her eyes and walked quickly in the other direction.
“Help!” Po cried in desperation. She was halfway up the fence now, her fingertips inches from the top, when hands began to grope her legs and pull her down. Something hooked the back pocket of her jeans. The material gave and tore off, causing her foot to slip out of the hole in the chainlink she’d been using to support her weight. She fell down into the groping hands of her two attackers.
She twisted and saw the other five thugs kicking Ari where he lay on the ground.
The rat-faced man stood over Ari, screaming, “Kill him! Break his neck!” He clutched his broken arm. “Tie the girl.”
Po pushed and kicked at the pair who groped her, but they dragged her to the ground. Over their rancid, panting breaths, the chanting crowd grew louder until the words clarified and meaning was given to them.
“We pay the price! Where’s our rice?”
Po’s vision went black as a fist struck her face. When sight returned, the rotting yellow teeth of the woman filled her vision. A wet tongue licked her neck. The other pair of hands was larger, stronger, and they continued to hold her legs, trying to wrap a cord around her ankles. She raised a knee and caught the man in the chin. He tightened his grip and worked faster.
The voices seemed to be on the next block over now. “We pay the price! Where’s our rice?”
“Help!” Po shouted. Craning her neck away from the woman still gripping her face, Po pulled in a deep breath of stinking air and let loose a scream like she’d never given before, a piercing shriek that cut through the air.
A group of people left the main thoroughfare and hurried down the twisting side street, searching for the sound of the scream. A brown face peered through the chainlink fence.
“Over here,” he cried to his comrades. Others came running and they began to shake and pull on the fence.
Po’s attackers paused, glanced up through the fence, suddenly fearful. The man finished the knot in the cord. Given a new energy by the maddened crowd mere feet away, Po struggled against her restraints. Her feet were stuck securely together.
Someone rattled the padlock and chain. Dozens of hands threaded their fingers through holes in the eight-foot-tall chainlink, and hauled back toward the street so the fence—hastily secured to begin with—bowed over like a sapling in a hurricane. When they released, the chainlink snapped upright. Po’s feet were securely tied now. The woman who had been holding her gave Po one last jab to the face as the man began to work another length around her wrists. Po couldn’t see Ari, but she no longer heard his grunts of exertion and pain. With her hands tied, the man and woman lifted her together and began to haul her away. Po twisted and thrashed out of their grip, striking her head once more against the pavement.
“One, two,” a baritone voice counted out behind her. “Three!”
This time when the fence bent backwards, a dozen people stepped on it, their weight holding it to the ground.
Her attackers scrabbled at Po’s clothes, slipped, yanked, pulled. Po thrashed her body harder. Men and woman loosed throaty cries of anger as they surged over the felled fence. The thugs dragged Po several feet, but when it became clear that they were outnumbered by the frantic crowd of passersby, the two dropped Po and ran toward the end of the alley, scrambling over the fence at the opposite side.
Po’s chest heaved as she was untied and dusted off by her rescuers while yet more chased away the rest of the gang who surrounded Ari. The rat-faced thug leader glanced over his shoulder as he stumbled away, cradling his broken arm.
Someone put soothing hands on Po’s shoulders and told her to relax, and she reluctantly let her body go limp. It took a minute, but they finally loosened the cord around Po’s ankles and wrists. She hurriedly kicked the cord away and shivered involuntarily.
Po found herself pressed into the embraces of these sweaty strangers, her rescuers. They patted her shoulders and cheeks and kissed her forehead and told her she was going to be okay, that she had been saved by citizens, and that citizens were going to take back the city.
They swept Po into the stream of people now filling the side street, heading back to the main avenue toward the city center. A wrinkled older man pressed two folded red bandannas into Po’s hand. She thanked him and used one to wipe the spit and dirt from her face.
She walked aimlessly along with the crowd until she realized that Ari wasn’t at her side any longer. When she turned around, she was relieved to find him trailing her by a few feet, watching her with his broken smile.
Carried by the joy of their rescue, she reached back and put her arm through his. The good Samaritans who had saved them separated and dispersed into the crowd. Ari and Po walked together among the river of people, anonymous and forgotten in the flow of the stream.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“A little bruised is all. Are you?”
“I did more damage than I took.” He shook his head angrily. “I’m sorry. I never should have let that little bastard lead us into a trap.”
“It’s my fault. I wanted to believe him.”
Ari nodded. “We’ll find your sister.”
“I hope so,” Po said. She glanced around at the crowd then down at the handkerchiefs the man had placed in her own hand. “One of these is for you. May I?”
They stopped walking while Po tied the clean bandanna around Ari’s nose and mouth and tucked the bottom into his shirt. With half of his wound concealed, and wearing a bandanna around his face like everyone else, Ari looked far less conspicuous. She folded the other into a triangle like Ari’s and tied it around the back of her own head. It was a simply disguise, but the anonymity gave Po a small measure of satisfaction.
As they walked, the style of buildings around them changed. The squat tenements of wood and metal were replaced by sprawling structures of glass and steel. Closer to the city center, the glass and steel gave way to soaring walls of straight-edged, carved white stone. After the stone buildings began, the street poured people into a large plaza where a tremendous crowd had already gathered.
In shock at the roar of voices and the sheer number of bodies pressed into the square, Po stepped out of the stream at the edge of the plaza to take it all in. She climbed the base of a statue
to get a better view and gazed out over the endless, undulating mass of flesh—more people than she’d ever seen in one place before. The sheer volume boggled her mind. She didn’t think the plaza could possibly hold any more people, but the stream continued to pour them in.
Then she realized why the plaza seemed so cramped.
A long coil of razor wire divided the square, creating a deadly strip of empty concrete between the citizens and squadrons of armed soldiers standing in neat rows on the other side.
CHAPTER 16
TELERETHON SQUARE
“Rose Petal is on the other side of that,” Po said to Ari after they had both spent some time absorbing the situation from atop the statue’s base.
“There’s got to be another way.”
She sighed. “What do we do?”
“I have an idea,” Ari said. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Po absentmindedly picked at the dried bird shit coating the toes of the statue while she waited. When she realized what she was doing, she grimaced and wiped her hands off on her torn jeans.
The plaque said that this statue was a depiction of civil rights activist Mokabi Telerethon, who was most well-known for a speech he gave that convinced the government of the young Republic to open its borders during the interrelated series of civil wars and nuclear disasters that decimated Europe and the Middle East a few decades before. Millions of refugees migrated to the newly formed Republic, turning it into the melting pot of cultures and people it was today.
In her childhood, Po’s mother spoke proudly of Mokabi Telerethon. To an idealistic woman like her mother, Telerethon was a Great Man—practically a saint. Her father, on the other hand, forever the rationalist, held that Telerethon’s lax policy on immigration was shortsighted. He said it created an economic boom, of which her father was no doubt a beneficiary, but for which their country would pay for generations to come. Po always wondered how her father could hold that view and still hire the European refugees as farm laborers. It seemed hypocritical to be against immigration and then treat his workers with such kindness, paying them fair wages and welcoming them into his home.