by Adam Rakunas
“Maybe when the first attack didn’t work, Saarien figured I’d outlived my usefulness,” I said. “He used Bakaara as cover to get me crushed to death. And when that didn’t work, he set up that ambush. He doesn’t just want to win. He wants to dominate. And he’ll do it by scaring the living crap out of anyone in the Union or the FOC by having hit squads. It would have been a very messy, very public way to die.”
Onanefe hmmed. “Then how does he wind it down?”
I clanged the handrail with my foot. “I don’t think he does. It would take a lot of work and a lot of talking, and I haven’t seen any signs of that. People are scared, they’re passing around rumors, they don’t know what’s up. He’ll let the rioting burn itself out, then step up as hero and savior.”
“How?”
“We know he’s got his own communications lines. We know he’s got stockpiles of food and meds at his Temples. I bet he’s got bigger caches all over the city. Hell, he built a state-of-the-art refinery underground. He can send out gangs like the one we saw at Shahjahan, subdue any opposition, buy everyone else off with food. The Union leadership will collapse, and then he’s in charge.” I gripped the handrail and replanted my feet on the gurney’s frame. “I have no idea what happens next. Maybe he’ll just fiddle while Santee burns. Maybe he’ll be the great leader we need. Either way, I’m not going to sit here and wait it out. I’m going to go out and do something.”
Onanefe took hold of the handrail. “That sounds like an epitaph.”
“I didn’t say it would be something smart.”
“Definitely an epitaph.”
“I’ve written better. Come on. Let’s get me loose.”
We squared our shoulders to the handrail, gave each other a nod, and pulled. There was a screech, and the nut popped off the bolt, straight into my right eye.
I didn’t even have time to cuss. I just let go of the handrail and put both hands over my eye. I was vaguely aware of the thing still cuffed to my wrist, but the mild pain of the handrail bumping into my torso was nothing compared to the burning in my face. I could see nothing but dull orange.
Eventually, I opened my unjabbed eye. Onanefe crouched in front of me, worry lining his face. “There’s no blood, but that looked bad.”
“Another epitaph,” I said. My right eye throbbed. “I really don’t want to move my hands.”
Five dull booms sounded in the distance, like all the bass drummers in the Brushhead Memorial Band warming up. A moment later, the building shook.
“Does that happen a lot in the city?” asked Onanefe.
I shrugged. “Could be heavy equipment. Maybe someone’s building barricades.”
“For what?”
“For whatever’s coming next.”
Three booms, a little louder. I felt them in the pit of my stomach.
“I don’t think I like what’s coming next. You think we should go?”
I looked at Soni with my good eye. “All three of us are in no condition to run.”
Onanefe dug through the medical bags until he held up a spray stick. “This says it’s a topical painkiller.”
“Does it say to keep away from eyes?”
He looked at the label. “I don’t think so.”
“Maybe we should wait to find a pro.”
Another four booms came from down the street. This time, the air filled with the smashing crunch of houses collapsing. One of the konbini’s walls buckled, and I jumped up to cover Soni as ceiling tiles rained down. The panels tumbling on my back helped me forget the pain in my eye for a while.
When the shaking stopped, I opened my good eye, only to jam it shut again quickly. What felt like sandpaper rubbed the inside of my eye, probably grit from the plastered ceiling and the busted tiles. I coughed and put an arm over my mouth; I got a lungful of dust in return. “We need to go!” I managed to say. I felt something move to my right, and Onanefe croaked, “Can’t.” He coughed, and the gurney shook.
Everything from my nose down to my lungs burned. I could smell nothing but the must of plaster powder. The air in the office was getting impossible to breathe. We had to get out.
I nudged the gurney toward where I remembered the door was. The wheels jammed on the debris that crunched under my boots, and the frame bumped into the doorframe. Onanefe held on for dear life as I shoved and shook the gurney through the dust. It battered my face as I fought towards what I hoped was the door.
Screams filled the night air. Screams from sirens, screams from shattered pipes, screams from wounded men. I didn’t want to open my eyes, but I also didn’t want to be killed by something I couldn’t see. I scrabbled around until I got a grip on the medical bags. I dug inside them until I felt a squishy caneplas bag that I hoped was full of saline. I forced my left eye open enough to make sure; in the dim light, I saw “NaCl” on the label. I tore it open and splashed the solution into my face. It stung like ocean water, but it was enough to wash away the dust. My right eye stayed swollen shut.
Onanefe had shielded Soni’s lower torso. Dust made a trail from the crown of his head down to his tailbone. I helped him stand up and cleaned his face. Gray slurry ran down his cheeks, dripping off his chin. He sputtered as he wiped it away with his sleeve. “Is she okay?” he said, nodding at Soni.
The top of her body, where we had shielded her, was dusted with a few particles of plaster. Everything from her waist down was now a dingy gray. I gave her a prod, and she snorted.
“Okay enough.” I coughed more dust out of my lungs, then made the mistake of looking up.
Of the twenty shophouses on the street, five of them had been stomped flat. Gouts of flame rolled up from the wreckage, lighting the clouds of greasy smoke that loomed overhead. Frantic rescuers dug at the rubble and shoved aside the wreckage of a tuk-tuk. People wandered the shattered sidewalk, arms hanging loose at the wrong angles. In the flicker, I could see bodies and pieces of bodies hanging off crooked streetlamps. I grabbed the medical bags. “Stay with Soni,” I said, walking toward the closest fire. If Onanefe protested, I couldn’t hear it over the wailing.
A man not much older than me stood on the sidewalk, holding another man in his arms. Both of them were covered in soot and blood; their skin shone in the firelight. As I got closer I saw the unconscious man had a face full of glass shards and burns across the side of his head. “What happened?” I said as I eased them to the ground.
The crying man just sniffed and looked down at his partner. I dug into the bags and realized I had no idea what to do with their contents. There were packs of loaded syringes, rolls of gauze, bottles of pills. I’d been through disasters before, but I didn’t know much more past basic first aid.
The crying man let out another sob. I pulled out an antibiotic spray and squirted wherever I saw blood. There was a pair of caneplas exam gloves, but they were too small. I put them on anyway and started wrapping both of their wounds with gauze. That got the crying man calm, though he never took his eyes off his partner. “What happened?” I asked again.
He wiped blood off his cheek; there was ink there, but I couldn’t make it out. “We were having a block meeting at the Pulaski’s, and then–”
Another boom shook the air. Three blocks east, a lick of flame curled toward the sky. I shivered as three more explosions sent fire and debris upward. The night sky glowed red and orange under a cloud cover of smoke. The city wasn’t just on fire. It was exploding.
A hand clamped on my shoulder, and I yelped. I turned and saw Soni, her eyes fixed on the distance. Onanefe stood with her. She looked down at me and said, “What do you want to do?”
I swallowed a lump out of my throat. “Whatever we can.”
She nodded and clicked on the radio on her belt. “I’ve heard worse plans.”
SIXTEEN
We turned the ruined konbini into our triage hospital. Onanefe and I walked up and down the street, helping people to the space we cleared inside. The konbini’s roof had stayed intact, so we shoved the shelves to the sid
es to make room. In less than fifteen minutes, we had thirty people with burns, cuts, broken legs, and concussions all laid out on the floor.
We worked until our legs and the bags of meds were out. The three of us huddled together in a corner of the konbini. When I woke up, weak dawn light was trying to break in through the shattered storefront. I wormed my way out from between Soni and Onanefe and walked outside.
The damage looked even worse now that I could see it. The fires had died down thanks to the survivors’ efforts, but not before half the buildings had been burned to the ground. The stench of ash and charred meat hung in the air, like a barbeque gone horribly wrong. I didn’t want to think about what caused the smell. Overhead, crows made lazy circles, their caws soft and distant.
Soni called out to me. She stood in the ruined doorway, holding up a spray bottle. “I think this is a painkiller. Forgot I had it in my utility belt.”
“Give it to that lady with the broken hip,” I said. “We need to keep her calm.”
“I’d like to put a bit in your eye.”
I waved her off. “It’s not like I can use my pai right now,” I said.
“It’s not your pai I’m worried about,” she said.
“I don’t want it,” I said.
Soni grumbled. “Can I put a bandage on your eye, then? Or do you want to save those, too?”
I sighed. “Fine. If it’ll get you off my back.”
Soni popped a fist-sized gauze pad out of a pouch on her belt. I held still long enough for her to tape it over my right eye. “We’ll have to get you to a doctor.”
“Them first,” I said, pointing at our patients. “Can’t you raise anyone?”
Soni held up her radio, a tiny handheld unit. Someone had taken a pen to its backing and drawn an angry cat. It stretched a paw and showed a mouth full of teeth. “Total silence. Our relays got knocked out.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “We had one on top of the house that got blown up.”
“You think that was on purpose?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I don’t have a clue what’s going on now, Padma. I keep hearing sirens, but I’ve yet to see an ambo or a patrol wagon. We have to get out of this neighborhood and start talking to other people, find EMTs, other police, doctors, whatever.”
Onanefe joined us. “Is that the plan? Leaving?”
“It’s a plan,” said Soni, “and it involves me. I’m the least injured, and the only one with a badge.”
“You think that matters right now?” I said. “Christ, someone’s setting off bombs.”
“We don’t know that,” said Soni. “It could be crap piping, makeshift heaters, or just plain bad luck.”
I swept my hand over the ruined street. “You can’t possibly believe that.”
She gave me a hard look. “I have to,” she said. “Otherwise, it means our city’s coming apart at the seams, and I’m not ready to believe that. Not yet. Not until I know that all the people under my command have given up or gotten themselves killed.”
I sighed. Of course. Someone at Soni’s level had to have hundreds of people working under her. She wasn’t the type not to worry about them during a crisis. “You’re right. But I still want to go with you.”
She shook her head. “You’re hurt. It’s going to be hard enough to get around.”
“I got a bolt to the face, not a concussion.”
“Did you just get magical diagnostic power?” said Soni. “You might have a blood clot working its way to your brain. What happens if we’re walking and you stroke out?”
“Probably the same thing that would happen if I stayed here. I’m going.”
“No, you’re not. That’s an order.”
I laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? You can’t order me.”
“The hell I can’t. This is a civil disturbance, and as the chief of police I have the power to–”
I blew a raspberry. “You don’t have the power to do squat unless the Prez says so, and you know it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “The same Prez who set fire to your house? That’s who you’re going to defer to?”
“Hell, no,” I said. “But I’m also not deferring to someone wearing a badge, because many other people with badges have completely failed to do their jobs. You haven’t, Soni. You take that badge seriously. But what about the people you’d sent to Bakaara? They can’t be the only police like that in the city.”
Soni clenched her jaw for a moment, then sighed. “I hate it when you’re right about stuff like this.”
“Me, too. Can we go now?”
“I can. You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve only got one eye.”
“Oh, like that’s gonna stop me.”
“Yeah?” Soni walked to my right side and said, “How many fingers am I holding up?”
I gave her the bird.
“Wrong!” She put her hand in front of my left eye; she had shaped it into a gun, her thumb cocked back. “We’re walking along, someone sneaks up on your right side, you can’t see anything until it’s too late.”
“Then I’ll walk on your left.”
“Dammit, Padma! I’m trying to keep you from getting hurt!”
I tapped the bandage. “Too late.”
Soni swore. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
“That’s why you trust me.”
Behind us, Onanefe cleared his throat. I rolled my eye as I turned. “You have something to add?”
“I do,” he said. “Me.”
“Oh, hell, no,” said Soni. “I will have enough to worry about without both of you invalids coming along.”
Onanefe smiled, the first time he had without wincing in pain. “While you two were arguing, I helped myself to Chief Baghram’s painkillers. Not all of them, mind you, but enough so I don’t have to think about my chest exploding. Now that I have a clear head, I have something to point out.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Yes?”
His mustache widened with his grin. “What we are seeing is a breakdown of trust. There’s no trust between you two, or between the citizenry and the police, or between the Freeborn and the Union. That’s the thread that’s run through every discussion we’ve had, Padma: people don’t trust anything right now. People didn’t trust they’d get paid or get to keep their jobs or their homes, and they got angry.”
“Angry enough to start blowing up their own neighborhoods?” I said.
Onanefe shook his head. “These bombings are meant to reinforce that mistrust. I would argue that this is all deliberate. We’re seeing an orchestrated campaign.”
Soni’s eyes narrowed, and her mouth became a line so hard it could have shattered diamond. “And how do you know this?”
Onanefe’s smile never flagged. “Because it’s what we talked about doing two Contracts ago.”
Soni now gave Onanefe her full Cop Face. He flinched the tiniest bit. “Who, exactly, is we?”
Onanefe’s eyes flicked to me. I nodded: tell her the fucking truth. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m on the Executive Committee of the FOC.”
Soni stiffened for the briefest of moments. Her arm was a blue blur as she grabbed Onanefe’s wrist and spun him around. He didn’t say anything when she jammed him against the front of the konbini, but that was probably because his face was squished.
“Do you have any idea what you assholes did two Contracts ago?” she hissed. “I was a rookie, and I had to do clean-up duty after every one of your bombings.” She looked at me. “You really know how to pick your company, Padma. First that Ghost, now this terrorist.”
I held my hands out. “I think you might be overreacting a bit, Soni.”
“This?” She laughed. “No, this is a calm, measured response. If I were overreacting, your friend here would be weeping.”
“All the same, I don’t think he or his group is responsible for all of this.”
“Then that can come out in court,” sa
id Soni.
“For what?” I said.
“Consorting with terrorists.”
“So, what, you’re going to drag him to the nearest cell? Lock him away? He helped me keep you safe while you were unconscious.”
Soni turned and looked at me, her face screwed up in hatred. “The FOC killed police. They bombed precinct houses.”
“That wasn’t us!” yelled Onanefe.
“Then who was it?”
“I don’t know!”
“This is a waste of time.” Soni pulled a zip-tie off her belt and looped it around his wrists. She cranked them extra tight. “You want to talk about trust now? I’d love to hear you talk about trust.” She let him go and stepped back.
Onanefe turned with care. He looked me in the eye as he took a breath. “Twenty-two years ago, the FOC’s Executive Committee met to determine what we would do during the upcoming Contract. A small faction wanted to engage in a bombing campaign. They thought the only way to get the Union to pay attention to us was to show strength. I argued against it because, surprise, no one would trust us if we started blowing people up. Leticia Arbusto Smythe was on the committee with me. We were on the same side. It took a week of debate, but we finally prevailed. There would be no bombings.”
He cleared his throat. “And they happened anyway. None of the people in the faction claimed responsibility. In fact” – he looked Soni in the eye – “they all turned themselves in to the police as a show of good faith. It never went to trial, because there were never any charges. We didn’t do it, and if we knew who did we’d have turned their asses in.”
Soni shook her head. “Not good enough.”
Onanefe sagged. “What more do you want? It was good enough for the police back then.”
“That was then. I was only a rookie. Now I’m the chief of police. I’ve had my comms cut, my people moved, and my city on fire. I need to know who was in that faction, because it’s a pretty good bet they’re behind this now.”