Like a Boss

by Adam Rakunas

  A few doors opened as we passed, and the wary faces of men, women, and children peeked out. I made a point of waving at everyone who made eye contact with me. “We’re going to Jaffa’s!” I yelled. Most of them slipped back into their houses, the doors banging shut. A few joined our little parade, though, and I made sure that anyone who was hungry got something to munch on.

  Jaffa’s sat on the corner of Vicarage Street and Ham Park Road. A cloud of frying oil and curried chickpeas should have hovered over the intersection. Now there was just the stench of ash and rotting trash. The shop wasn’t just closed. Min-Na had put up the hurricane shields, then hammered boards across the door and the windows. For a finishing touch, he’d splashed paint across the front: CLOSED UNTIL YOU SORT OUT THIS BULLSHIT. I knocked on the door, the hurricane shield rattling under my knuckles. “Min-Na! How much for doubles?”

  A rock crashed next to my feet. I yelped and hopped back. Min-Na James and his son stood atop the flat roof. Both of them had fist-sized rocks in their hands, and their arms were cocked back. They had tied their dreadlocks back into tight braids, and their faces were hard and exhausted.

  “Can’t you read?” yelled Min-Na.

  “Well, I’m trying to sort out the bullshit. Does that warrant some lunch?”

  Min-Na narrowed his eyes as he looked at the lot of us; one of his dreadlocks drifted out of his hair clip and flopped across his temple. “What are you talking about?”

  “I said, we’re working things out. I’m really hungry and would really like doubles. You open or what?”

  He lowered his arm, then leaned over the edge of the roof. “Are you serious?”

  I held up the jars of chickpeas. “Even brought something in case your stocks were running low.”

  Min-Na looked at the jars. “I hope you don’t expect me to feed everyone with that.”

  I looked back at the people behind me. There were a lot of new faces, and some of the buttoned-up houses had opened. I turned back to Min-Na. “How much would you need?”

  Within the hour, the shutters at Jaffa’s were off. The three cafés and the ramen-ya farther up Vicarage had also opened up, but the smell of curry and frying bara overpowered everything else. Min-Na had turned his nose up at my offerings. (“They’re dried, and that’ll take a day to soak into usefulness,” he’d said, handing the jars to his son before opening up his walk-in fridge.) His eyes were dead tired, but he smiled as he stirred giant pots of simmering chickpeas in the kitchen. His son poured curry on the baras and handed the doubles out. People crunched their food, leaning forward to keep the sauce from dribbling down their clothes.

  I found a closed-up flower shop whose owners didn’t respond to my rapping on the hurricane shields. After getting the pens back from Jianji and his friends, I redrew my diagram from Bakaara, linking all the different groups that had failed us. If my professors from B-School hadn’t had heart attacks when they’d heard I’d Breached, this cobbled-together chart would have done the job. Precision counted, not just in data but in presentation. I’d done so well in my classes, and, now, sixteen years later, I was writing on walls in an attempt to convince people to stop fighting and work together.

  This time, I didn’t try to get everyone’s attention. I just talked with the people who drifted over, food in hand, to find out what I was doing. A few turned away as soon as I told them, but most stayed and listened. A lot of them argued, saying that this was all the fault of the Freeborn or the Union (and a lot of that depended on whether the speaker had a tattoo on their cheek or not). Everyone took pictures with their pais, saying they’d pass around what they saw through peer-to-peer. I reminded them to pass around food through the same method.

  One woman with a metal Temple pin on her shirt gave me an angry stare as she wiped at the boxes. The ink didn’t smear, so she just rubbed harder. Finally, she banged on the shutter and got in my face. “We are not dupes!” she yelled, a finger held up to my nose.

  I smiled. She huffed and walked away.

  “That wasn’t pleasant,” said Onanefe. He had stood a few meters away and let me do the talking.

  “No, but it’s to be expected,” I said. “No one likes finding out that the thing they believe in is hurting people. I’m sure I’ll get plenty of Union people screaming at me soon enough, calling me a traitor and a parasite and all that.” I shrugged. “As long as no one’s swinging machetes, they can yell all they want.”

  “You think this is going to be enough?” He took a bite of his doubles, cradling the bara and leaning forward like a pro. “These little block parties?”

  “They’ll have to be,” I said. “If we can get more people out into the streets to eat and talk, I think we’ll have a breakthrough by dinner.”

  “You’ve got a lot faith in the people.”

  “I have faith in their stomachs and their need for someone to do something.”

  “But not themselves?”

  “I am always willing to step aside if someone who isn’t insane wants to take the lead,” I said, wishing I’d gotten a second doubles for myself. “That person has yet to show up.”

  “Give it time,” said Onanefe. “Once word gets around about the free grub, you’re going to have everyone showing up, including the nutbars.”

  “Maybe,” I said, my stomach growling. “But first, I’m getting seconds.”

  Min-Na stood at the door as I entered his place. “Hope you’ve got a line on some more food,” he said. “At this rate, I’ll be out in a day.”

  “In a day, I hope everyone will be spending money again,” I said. “In the meantime, could you make me one more with extra pommecythere chow?”

  “We’re all out,” he said. “Unless you want to go in the back and make more.”

  I nodded. “Tell me what to do, and I’m on it.”

  He grunted and handed me a key. “The pantry’s behind, in the alley. Get everything you can carry. They’re about to go bad. And don’t lose my key!”

  I walked through the kitchen to the alley. A pantry shed as big me stood against the café’s back wall. Inside were sacks of pommecythere, all orange and spikey and fuzzy. I scratched the skin off one and took a whiff, and the smell like sweet mango and sharp orange floated into my nose. I chuckled as I scooped up the bag. Twenty-four hours ago, I was hiding in a burnt-out konbini. Now everything almost felt like normal. I’d make the chow for Min-Na, hit a few more neighborhoods, then get home to Brushhead to rally Big Lily and everyone else. Tomorrow, we’d press our case against Letty and end all this bullshit.

  Someone bumped my shoulder. “Jesus, Min-Na, I haven’t lost your key–”

  I had just enough time to register Jennifer’s smooth face and dead eyes before she put a black bag over my head. I smelled the harsh tang of chloroform, and I was out.

  NINETEEN

  I woke with a start, the bag still over my head. I was on my side, my hands bound behind my back. I strained; the caneplas zip tie cut into my wrists. The floor jumped, and I bashed my shoulder (the one that I’d forgotten had been stabbed until now) into something heavy and metal. I fought to get up, but I just knocked my head against whatever had hurt my shoulder. I rolled on the floor for a bit until my head cleared.

  “Don’t thrash,” said Jennifer from my left. It was the older one. “The Prez wants you unbruised.”

  I tensed, then let out a breath as I got to my knees. “Should I be happy that she hasn’t killed me, yet?”

  Jennifer snorted. “You think this is all about you. No wonder you were so bad at being a Ward Chair.”

  “I was a great Ward Chair, because I made a point of not trying to murder anyone else.”

  “If the Prez wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

  “What about you? You want me dead?”

  The floor bumped, and I realized we were in the back of a lorry. “Well?”

  Jennifer cleared her throat. “Just don’t talk. It’s easier if you don’t talk.”

  I felt a hand on my neck, and that wa
s answer enough. I took a guess where the hand’s owner’s nose was and drove my head up as hard as I could. I made contact but didn’t hear that satisfying crunch. Instead, I got a harsh laugh. “You can’t hurt me, remember?” she said. “That whole reinforced skeleton. Just stay down. She wants you unbruised, but she didn’t say anything about unhurt.”

  “What’s in it for you? Or do you just like cracking skulls while your sister sells Mutual shares?”

  “I told you to stop talking.”

  “Why? Letty’s going to kill me when she’s done with me. Whatever her scheme is, it’s going to end up with a lot more people hurt or dead. She’ll probably do the same to you and your sister. She doesn’t care about you or me or anything but hanging on to power, Jennifer. She’s letting our city burn. She’s setting off car bombs. She’s–”

  That got me a zap from a taser. My body stiffened, and the scream froze in my throat. Fuck, I hated tasers.

  I fought for breath. “Jennifer, people will die.” I ran through my brief interactions with her and tried to think of a single time she’d shown weakness. Everyone had one. What was hers?

  Agamjot Patil. Jennifer froze when she saw Agamjot unconscious on the floor. “Did you really Breach so you could see kids die?”

  Jennifer whipped the bag off my face and held the taser up to my nose. “I swear to fucking God I will put this into your eyeballs and pull the trigger.”

  Bingo. “You went through all the trouble to Breach. You pulled your little sister with you before she signed an Indenture Contract. You didn’t want her to do the same shit you did in Security Services. You wanted to get her away from all that.”

  The taser shook, the leads bobbling at the edges of my vision. I kept my eyes open as The Fear snickered, This is either the biggest gamble or the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.

  “What’s in it for you?”

  Jennifer backed away and put the taser in her belt. “She knows where our little sister is.” Her voice was flat, and she stared off into a corner of the lorry. “I was the first, something that came out of LiaoCon’s Advanced Armaments. All three of us are prototypes, fast-tanked to grow and learn quickly.” She looked at me. “How old do you think I am?”

  “About my age.”

  She shook her head. “I’m twenty-six. I went from decanting to adulthood in three years. My younger sister is about nineteen months old.”

  I swallowed. “What about your other sister?”

  She worked her jaw. “She looks about twelve, but she’s only eight months old. Or was, I guess.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “The two of us, we tried to bring her with us. We got popped at the anchor on Luminous. You know the planet?”

  I nodded. “It’s where LiaoCon execs go when they think the Life Corporate isn’t indulgent enough, right?”

  “That’s that one,” she said, her voice now a whisper. “I faked a work order to bring them along on an assignment because I thought Luminous would be the perfect place for us to Breach. All those ships coming and going, and Security Services would be so busy making sure the wrong people didn’t get in they wouldn’t care who tried to get out. We were at a berth, waiting for a fueling crew to finish. We were going in through the main reactor coolant lines, see? Our skin could handle it. Two of us got in before fifty goons showed up. We reached back for Jennifer, but they got her by the legs. We pulled, and they pulled, and…” She shook her head, then let the weight of her skull carry her gaze to the ground. “She made us let go. Raked our wrists, jabbed at nerve points. We couldn’t hold on. She let us go. Letty knows how to find her.”

  “How?”

  “She could get the entire Union to look for her. All of it. Through all of Occupied Space. She gets priority spots on the burst couriers. She showed us.”

  “What, your sister?”

  “No, how it worked.” Her throat caught once. “I believe her. She has the reach. She has the power. I miss our sister. She let us go so we could live free.” She looked at me, and I thought my heart would break from the way her perfect face and perfect eyes now looked as weathered and beaten as a hardcore dockworker’s. “You can’t do that. Not you, not your Union.”

  “Our Union.” I nodded at the fist on her face. “You joined. You became one of us.”

  “Because it was convenient.” Her sadness turned to a sneer. “There’s no solidarity. There’s no great big circle looking out for each other. Maybe there’s families that do that, but not here. Not anywhere. The Union is worthless.”

  “It’s worth what you put into it,” I said. “I put in my work, my time, my life. Lots of others do, too. We all get lost, we all lose focus, but we don’t let go of that bond, Jennifer. Five fingers make a fist, and a lot of fists make things happen. You help me get out of this alive, and I will find your sister.”

  She snorted. “You can’t deliver on that.”

  “I can sure as shit try,” I said. “Letty may be the Prez, but I’m the Sky Queen of Justice, remember? People sing my song all over Occupied Space.”

  “Like a washed-up Ward Chair can do anything.”

  “I got people to stop beating the crap out of each other and start talking. Has Letty done that?”

  The lorry came to quick halt. I skidded toward the front of the cabin, but Jennifer stayed planted, like her shoes were magnetized. The back slid open, and Jennifer’s twin stepped in. They both picked me up like I was a sack of potatoes and hauled me into the middle of a cane field. It was mid-afternoon, and the air was thick with water and heat. I started to sweat right away, though that may have been from terror when I saw Letty standing in the middle of a small clearing. She held a lit blowtorch.

  I fought against the Jennifers as best I could, kicking and thrashing. They just tightened their grip, one of them squeezing my lungs until I gasped for air. They threw me at Letty’s feet. “Really?” I yelled at her. “I knew you were bad news, Letty, but I didn’t think you were a sadist.”

  She looked at the torch and laughed. “I’m not going to use this on you, Padma.”

  I allowed myself a small breath.

  “No.” She shook her head as she adjusted the flame. “That would be too obvious. Someone’s going to find your corpse, and someone back in Brushhead will demand an inquest. If it looks like you were tortured, it would make things difficult.” She nodded to the younger Jennifer, who tossed something in front of my face. The sun glinted off the bumpy sea-green glass. “But I don’t think anyone’s going to make a fuss over a drunk, despondent distillery owner wandering into the middle of an unsanctioned cane burn. I mean, Soni will, probably, but she’s going to be too busy fighting for her job, what with the tuk-tuk bombings and all.”

  I lunged for her ankles. I had no real balance or leverage, so I just got a faceful of dirt. “Why?” I spat.

  “Because it works,” said Letty. “There isn’t enough cash to go around. You know that by now, what with your cute presentation and all. Accusing me of running everything like I’m some Big Three CEO, pulling strings and letting people starve just so everything balances out.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  She tsked. “You’ll never know.” She hopped over me, kicking the bottle as she went. She scooped it up and unscrewed the top, pouring the rum all over me. “You make good stuff. I wonder what kind of prescription Dr Ropata would write for you now? You think he’d tell you to drink two fingers of rum? Light a bigger candle?” She smiled as she held up the torch. “I got that covered.”

  Letty walked to the edge of the clearing and lit the cane on fire. The stalks began to smolder, then burn like sweet, sticky torches. She walked around me, igniting the cane until we were in the middle of a ring of fire. I got my knees to my chest and rolled on them, my shoulder complaining as I got upright.

  “How did you know about Ropata?” I asked. “Give me that, at least.”

  Letty turned off the torch and tapped her temple. “Remember those Ghosts? The little old lad
ies? It’s amazing the kinds of backdoors they could access.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to close them?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t like destroying useful tools. If I’d known about it when I was in the FOC, I’d have skipped the bombing vote and pushed for hacking into everyone’s heads instead. It’s a lot more convenient. Which reminds me.”

  She reached into her jacket, pulled out a handheld bolt driver, and shot both of the Jennifers in the chest. They crumpled to the ground before they could cry out. I could see the older Jennifer’s face curled in pain as she gasped for breath, her eyes locked on Letty as she fell to her knees. Letty wrestled Jennifer’s limp arms behind her back and snapped a zip tie around her wrists. She did the same to the other Jennifer.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled.

  Letty pointed the bolt driver at my head. “I am doing my job, Padma. I am making the hard decisions that no one wants to. I am going to steer us out of this crisis, and if it takes a whole lot of dead people to do it, well. At least none of you were from where I grew up.”

  “Except Onanefe.”

  “And he’ll get his pretty soon.” She shook her head, her aim not wavering. “I always questioned his loyalty to the rest of us. The way he spoke about not bombing the ever-loving shit out of you Inks, you’d think he loved you.” She lowered the bolt driver. “But you can’t use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. You’ve got to make your own, even if it means blowing everything up. We’re going to have a better world, Padma, but you won’t be there to see it. Not after your tragic demise.”

  “Fuck you, Letty.”

  “Absolutely tragic,” said Letty, tossing the bolt driver in my direction. “A drunk, despondent distillery owner who took two Union stalwarts hostage and executed them. She started a cane fire to cover her tracks, but, since she had zero actual experience in the fields, she was done in by her own cover-up. When word gets back to town, everything you’ve said will be discredited. And when your role in the tuk-tuk bombings is revealed…” She gave a mocking moue and covered her mouth with her free hand. “Oops. Said too much.”