by Connor Mccoy
“Xander,” she said, her voice carefully neutral, “is there anyone in my employ, anyone who serves the Tribinal, who is not here by their own free will?”
“No,” he said immediately. “The rules forbid any other kind of service.”
“Did the child come of her own free will?” she asked.
“When I asked if she would like to serve the most powerful woman in the city, she said yes,” he said.
“Is she old enough to consent to such an arrangement?” She asked.
“No, but her father did not object,” he said.
“But her mother did,” she said. She was pushing down the anger, keeping the volcano of emotion below the surface, but it cost her.
“Do not children belong to their fathers?” he asked.
“Children belong to their parents, Xander. Not their fathers. Did it occur to you that he may be too scared to object?”
“What does it matter?” Xander thumped his fist on the table. “What the Koupe Tribinal wants it shall have!”
“No, Xander. We do not hold slaves. We do not rip children from their families needlessly. I do not need a child to raise.”
“Then send her to the women to be raised,” he said. “I do not see the problem.”
Chantal rose and slapped both her hands down onto the table. “I will not have children brought to me to be raised as slaves, or chattel, or indentured servants.” Her voice was quiet, but her rage filled the room.
“We are feared and obeyed. But when you start stealing children from their families, ripping them from their mother’s arms, you open the door for other powers to step in. ‘Look what the Tribinal is doing,’ they will say. ‘They steal your children. Soon they will be raping your women. I will help you stand against them.’ And, Xander, if the city rises against us, we will fall. All it takes is one person of power to point out that there are many, many more of them than there are of us, and we will be running for our lives.”
She was quiet for a moment, but Xander didn’t speak.
“Don’t be the reason I am running for my life, Xander. You wouldn’t like the consequences.” She turned and left him there. Hoping he had gotten the message, hoping she wouldn’t regret not killing him then and there.
Thirty minutes later she stood in her judgment robe, waiting to be the last to mount the dais. Xander was back in his mask, so she could not read his mood, although the stiffness with which he held his body was a clue. Arthur also wore the African robe he was accustomed to when verdicts were read, but she noted he also wore his cap. He saw himself as something more than a judge on this occasion.
She waited until they were seated before walking in and taking her place between them. She did not sit but stood, with her hands folded over the top of the silver-topped stick she carried on these occasions. It wasn’t a straight walking stick like an English gentleman might have carried in the previous century, but a polished branch that curved and twisted as it had when it had grown toward the Sun. It was tall too, the top level with her chest. She could have rested her chin on her folded hands had she cared to do so.
The prisoners were back on their knees in the sawdust. The young blonde woman's face was smeared with dirt and tears, her eyes red, and yet she was ramrod straight, not slumped in defeat. The man beside her was also erect. He was the oldest of the group, graying at the temples, fine lines developing at the corners of his eyes and grim mouth. Something was going on in there, she thought. A plan, perhaps. But she'd soon put a wrench in those plans.
The tall young man at the other end also looked alert, as did the young woman next to him. She was vibrating with tension. Someone would have to teach her to hide her emotions, she was telegraphing their plan with every breath. It was the man in the middle who was doing the best job, he was slumped, portraying a picture of utter dejection. His forehead dropped closer to the dirt floor with every breath. She'd put her money on this being the real Melvin Foles. He knew how to play the game.
“Melvin Foles, I am here to sentence you,” she said, and the man she assumed was Melvin gave off an involuntary twitch. Barely visible, but there just the same. She was using her judge’s voice, her closing argument voice that used to reverberate right through the courtroom.
“Normally, you would live or die on this day, but you have an advocate among us. He has bargained you another month of life. Live it well, and you will live longer, and perhaps die of old age. Live it poorly, and you will die in this room a month from today.”
She paused for a moment and took the temperature of the room. Arthur looked faintly surprised. The agreement had been for a week, and she had extended it without consulting him. She hoped he would be pleased with the extension. She had changed it on the fly, having just realized that any false front this group might be able to keep up for a week would begin to deteriorate by the end of a month.
The confusion among the five was palpable. They didn’t know what was happening. The degree of tension had risen in the room. She needed to de-escalate it before they all started to run.
“Arthur Davis," she waved to the man on her right, "will leave with you today. He will follow you for one month, watching and judging, weighing your actions, taking the measure of you. At the end of those thirty days, he will return to me. On the thirty-first day, you will return and be judged. Do you understand?”
The five nodded but still looked dazed, and Chantal wondered how much they had taken in. Likely they were calculating the odds of escaping Detroit and heading for another part of the country. Should she ever find herself in a similar situation, she'd be planning on running. Then again, she'd have taken precautions not to be captured in the first place.
"You may stand," she said after they remained motionless for a full minute. "Arthur will escort you back to your residence."
Chapter Four
They were silent on the walk back to the apartment. Glen, wrapped in his own musings, thought there was no point in saying anything until they were alone. They could not trust the stranger who walked with them. He seemed innocuous enough, but that was probably the point. He would learn much more if they came to trust him.
A month, a whole month of being babysat before they knew if they were free or not. The prospect irritated him. Not that he felt they were doing anything punishable, but the rules of the Court were not clear, or even written down anywhere, as far as he could tell. If they wanted, the judges of the Tribinal could make up an offense and his companions would have no recourse. This was not the traditional American court of law. This was vigilante justice of the worst kind.
They reached the apartment building and cut around back, taking the stairs to the third floor. Mia produced a key, but stopped in the doorway once she'd unlocked the door, her body rigid. Glen gently moved her aside and looked in. The apartment was bare. All of her family's household possessions had disappeared. It had been swept clean.
Mia wheeled. "Is this what your people do?" she yelled. "Remove your prisoners’ belongings so they cannot live once you release them? Strip them of everything as a warning to others around them?"
Her hands were balled into fists and Glen was afraid she would strike Arthur, and then they all would be shepherded back to the dark room that reeked of blood. He took her hand and led her back into the apartment. "Let's see if there's anything in the other rooms," he said, hoping there would be something. Some little trinket of her life with her family.
But the other rooms were just as empty. The place had been stripped clean -- closets, cupboards, and all. Mia stood in the middle of her empty bedroom, sobbing. Christian brushed past Glen and wrapped his arm around her, whispering into her ear.
Glen retreated to the living room where Sally and Melvin were talking with Arthur.
"I don't think this was the Koupe Tribinal," Sally said. "Arthur says it's not like them at all. They have no use for a collection of personal goods."
Arthur shook his head in disgust. "There is no reason for this," he said. "It doesn't make sense
."
"I think we should go back to the museum," Sally said. "There is nothing here for us."
"Museum?" Arthur asked.
Glen looked at him. “We have possession of an old museum, at least we did before you abducted us. Who knows who is in there now. We were planning to practice medicine out of it.”
“You found a building in good enough condition to practice medicine? I’d like to hear that story,” Arthur said.
“I’ll tell you on the way,” Glen said. As wary of Arthur as he was, he couldn’t help see that he was a decent man. Maybe the way out of this was to get on his good side. Shutting him out only would bring negative results. “Wait here, I’ll go get the others.”
He’d almost said Mia and Christian, yet he couldn’t afford to make that mistake. They’d have to remember to call each other Melvin.
He found them still standing in Mia’s room, Mia folded in Christian’s arms.
“It’s time to go, Melvin, I’m sorry,” he said.
Mia looked at him in surprise. “Melvin isn’t in here,” she said sharply.
“Yes, Melvin is,” Glen replied gently. “Don’t forget that we’ve all declared ourselves to be Melvin Foles, and if the Judge from the Court figures out who we all are they easily could haul Melvin away. We all are Melvin for the next month.”
Mia frowned, but Christian nodded. He steered Mia from the room with one arm over her shoulder, while whispering in her ear. She nodded, and the frown disappeared. Whatever Christian said, it had worked, Mia didn’t even look back before they closed and locked the door on her former life.
Telling the story of the museum was more difficult than Glen thought it would be. First of all, he didn’t know all the details and had to defer to Christian and Mia, who actually had discovered the building. Then there was the old man. Did they dare tell Arthur he was buried in a flower bed? Glen left him out altogether. He left the children in because they were bound to be there when they returned. They weren’t causing any more trouble than any other children in the city. He hoped.
Walking around the park across from their new home, Glen felt apprehensive. If the children were on their side and hadn’t commandeered the place for themselves, how could he expect them to protect the site from a group of adults? Especially if they were adults that had seen the five of them dragged away by an enforcer. He felt the adrenaline kick in. His body already was preparing for a confrontation.
They walked around the back and were surprised by a maze of razor wire leading to the kitchen door. Double layers of wire snaked out along the ground like giant lethal Slinkys. Glen motioned the others to stay still and walked the winding path toward the door. As he approached the steps, a rifle barrel appeared from an upper window.
"Stop where you are!" The young voice wavered just a little, but the gun barrel was steady.
"Robbie!" Sally shouted from the far side of the razor wire. "It's us. We're back."
"Sally? Is Mia there?"
"I'm here, Robbie," Mia shouted.
The gun disappeared, and the sound of bare feet on wood echoed from inside the building. A minute later the boy rocketed from the door, vaulted the porch rail and the section of wire alongside it, and was hugging Mia with everything he had.
Mia started crying again, but this time they appeared to be tears of joy, which lightened Glen's heart. He never could stand to see people cry, especially if there wasn't anything he could do about the tears. He left the others to their reunion and stepped inside.
It only had been one day, but the place had changed subtly. The 1800s kitchen seemed crowded, a bunch of extra chairs maybe? Glen looked closer. Were those the chairs from Mia's apartment? He was reaching out to touch one when the others burst in.
"Look," Robbie was saying, "see? It's all here." He pushed past Glen and pointed at the newly added chairs and a side table. "Come on!" He grabbed Mia's hand and pulled her down the hall.
Glen followed behind as Robbie led them up to the top floor of the building, to the hall leading off the ballroom. He bypassed the first two doors and threw open the third. It was a corner room with windows looking over the driveway and the guest house at the rear of the property.
Mia’s bedroom furniture from her family's apartment had been moved into this room. Mia grabbed Robbie and hugged him tightly.
"How did you do this?" Tears were streaming from her eyes again, but she also was beaming, a smile of pure happiness on her face. "From now on I'm calling you Atlas because you transported my whole world on your shoulders." She kissed him on the cheek.
Glen found his own eyes tearing up and was glad for the opportunity to wipe his eyes when Robbie pulled Mia back down the hall to the next room, with the others following. When he caught back up again, Mia was questioning the boy.
"But Atlas, what was in these rooms?"
"Mostly junk and some file cabinets," he said, shrugging. "We put them in a dry room in the basement. We put your kitchen things in the apartment, because it's the only working kitchen, really."
"I think we should get ready for tomorrow now," Melvin broke in. "As miraculous as this all is, I'm afraid once people realize we are back they are going to be coming to see us. We need to be prepared."
"I think we need to clear the rooms near the door," Glen said as they were tromping down the stairs. "As much as this was a museum, we need to make it usable as a clinic, and I think that means relocating furniture to the basement."
"Let's tag it first," Sally said. "In case it's ever important to anyone. You never know, history might make a comeback."
Glen looked at Arthur, who had been following silently. "Do you want to lend a hand?" he asked and the black man looked surprised.
"My assignment is to observe," he said. "But I don't see what harm it could do."
And so Arthur was dragged into the transformation of the kitchen, dining room and administrative offices into a health clinic. Glen watched as Robbie ordered the adults around, Arthur included. Surprisingly, Arthur took in all in good humor, carting fine antiques carefully to the basement and rearranging the rooms until they resembled examining rooms, doctors’ offices, and a waiting room.
It was long past dark when they were finished, sitting slumped in the kitchen/waiting room thinking of dinner and bed. Arthur stood up and held out his hand to Glen.
“I’d better be heading home,” he said. “Young Robbie tells me I need to be here by seven-thirty in the morning to help. I don’t think he understands the concept of observer.”
"He understands," Mia said, "he just thinks community is more important. How long would you feel comfortable standing around doing nothing while the rest of us bust our asses? The answer to that question is a measure of your humanity."
"Point taken." Arthur stood. "I will see you tomorrow. I imagine you will want to talk among yourselves, but while doing so, please remember that I am not your enemy. I believe that the transgression Melvin Foles made against us does not outweigh the good he does."
He left, leaving Glen to question if he really was as sincere as he made out to be, but Melvin was talking, and he turned his attention to the group.
If Melvin were honest, he'd have to admit that he was of two minds about their release from the Koupe Tribinal. On the one hand he was relieved to be free of that place, on the other he was worried that this was a trick, a ruse to discover more things to accuse them of. A way to ensure that all of them could be executed. He needed to convey that possibility to his team without paralyzing them with fear. They needed to be able to act, to carry out the day to day duties that this place would bring. It was the only way to escape the sentence that hung over them.
"Listen," he said, leaning into the circle of chairs, "you need to know that the Cut Court is completely corrupt. Arthur seems okay, but this probation could be just a ruse devised to catch us doing something we can be executed for. I've heard of it happening before. People who thought they'd been released from the Court ended up dead."
"Should w
e run?" Sally asked. "Plenty of cities could use our services."
"No." Glen stood and paced, agitated. "I'm done running from the world. We make our stand here. We will serve the people of this city, and if that is not enough for the Court, then we will fight for the people. No one should have to live their life in terror and oppression."
"But what about our lives?" Sally asked. "Don't we deserve to live too?"
Melvin noticed that her eyes were wide and darting. She looked as if she might flee in terror at any moment. He reached out and put a hand on her arm and smiled gently. "We'll do our best to protect you, Sally. But know that you can leave at any time."
"You think I would leave my friends?" She jerked her arm away. "Then you don't know me at all." She rose and moved to sit near Mia.
"Not to change the subject," Glen said, "but we need to be careful not to call each other by name for the entire time the spy is with us. We are all Melvin, remember? It's going to be confusing. So, maybe we should make up titles instead."
"Titles?" Christian asked. "Like what?"
"Doctor, Nurse, Tech, I don't know. What title would you like?" Glen asked.
"Quartermaster General," Melvin said. "I'm the supply guy." He smiled. This was a title he might keep. He liked it. "You can call me General for short."
"P.A.," Sally said. "Physician’s assistant. Nurses are not taken seriously."
"You know we'll end up calling you P. for short, right?" Mia asked.
"No, you won't. P.A. is almost as easy as pa." Sally snapped back, smiling.
"Tech," Christian said. "That covers a range of things."
"I'll be Doctor, then." Glen rocked back on his wooden chair. "I would have gone with Sawbones, but if no one else wants Doctor that's probably easier."
"What about you, Mia," Melvin asked. He'd been watching her closely, and she clearly was uncomfortable.
"I don't want a medical title," she said. "I can check people in, I suppose, but I won't be doing any medical stuff."