by Laura Bynum
Jingo's face falls. His vibrant red aura dulls. "He refused to answer questions. And then fucking Gage walks in."
"We'll get to that in a minute, Officer Skinner." The interrogator taps his stylus against his notepad. "First, let's talk about what happened with the suspect."
"He wouldn't talk, so I cut him." Jingo's remorse is a surprise. It rises off him like mustard-yellow steam.
"That's it? He refused to answer and so you cut him?"
Jingo looks up at the interrogator. "We meet people in the field all the time that just aren't going to talk. Femoral artery was accidentally cut and that was pretty much it."
The interrogator clears his throat. "My report tells me that your partner, John Gage, encountered you delivering Dean's fatal wounds. That after you deployed one shot that struck Officer Gage in the side, he was forced to pull you away in order to try to preserve Mr. Dean for future interrogation. Can you tell me, in your words, how Officer Gage became involved?"
Again, Jingo's feet begin to bob. His energy flares red in time with his pulse. "Gage came onto the scene without having been called. I know that much."
"So you're saying you would have preferred it if he hadn't."
"I'm saying he wouldn't have gotten shot if he'd announced himself!"
"So it's Officer Gage's fault he was shot--"
"Hell, yes! And how come we're not talking about how Officer Gage just happened to show up when he did? You don't think it's strange? Him just being there?"
"Were you aware that Officer Gage had been assigned watchdog duty?"
Jingo pauses. Shifts in his seat. "Yes."
"Did you disclose to Officer Gage that you were . . . just a minute . . ." The interrogator flips through his folder. Holds up a page to the fluorescent lights. "Let me read this . . . 'I think about it all the time . . . I dream about it. I wake up and all I want to do is go out and bust somebody just so I can call a number on them.' Did you say these things to Officer Gage?"
Jingo's lips turn white. "You're telling me I'm being watched?"
"That's why we call it watchdogging."
"Undercover?" Jingo shouts. "Twenty-four seven?"
The interviewer nods sympathetically. "Rules is rules, Officer Skinner." He picks up a box of cigarettes from the table and shakes the pack toward Jingo, who quickly pulls one free. "What I do find odd is that you haven't asked how your partner's doing."
Skinner leans forward and looks the man in the eye. "'Bullet went clean through the distal right flank with no organ or significant tissue damage.' I saw the report."
"So you checked up on him?"
Skinner looks away. "Am I done?" he asks. "Can I get back to real work now?"
"Well, it's nice to know you care." The interrogator lights his cigarette and blows a smoke ring toward the camera. He shrugs. We ready?
Fletcher turns to me. "Well?
I nod. "Yeah."
Fletcher gives him the okay and the interrogator waves Skinner toward the door. "If you feel you're ready, get yourself back on patrol. We have what we need."
Jingo tucks his unlit cigarette behind one ear and responds on a quick beat out the door, "Goddamned right I'm ready."
Fletcher reaches past me to turn off the equipment. "You're absolutely sure Skinner was being honest?"
"Yes." Honesty is an eccentricity of pure rage. "He doesn't know a thing."
Fletcher hauls me along behind him too fast. I can't match his pace and keep stumbling. By the time we're to the car, I've bloodied my knees and torn Lilly's skirt. Fletcher tells me he's sorry but we had to make a hasty exit. And it didn't hurt either, my falling down. Looks normal that way. It would have been strange, him opening doors for me and the like.
Inside his squad car, Fletcher offers me moist towels from his first aid kit. I wipe the smeared blood off my legs and reassemble my face and hair in the rearview mirror. Fletcher tells me I'm to stick to the same route going back as I took coming in. Should keep it just a mile or two above the speed limit. Too slow and I'll draw attention. There's a gas station in Antioch, west side. I'm to fill up there.
I can't stop thinking about Jingo. He's already out on the roads, patrolling. I may pass him on my way back home. We may pass him on the way to Lilly's car. Everything Fletcher's told me has already spilled out of my head.
I don't remember digging up Lilly's keys or sliding them into the ignition or saying good-bye to Fletcher. Or leaving the soft earth for the paved road. I keep having to check for my final turn. It's dark and I'm worried I've missed it. I can't remember the number of my exit, so I watch for the cluster of trees I've memorized. Three of them. Tall, thick firs in front of a row of deciduous. In the dark of night, they all look the same.
My turn comes up fast. I'm in the wrong lane and have to jog over quickly. No traffic, but still I'm sweating. A Blue Coat would have pulled me over for the offense. I drive for an hour, fighting to stay lucid under this moonless night. It's a giddy rush of relief when a sign for Bond erupts into view. At the same time, a light the size of a thumb goes on beneath my left sleeve. I sit forward, nearly knocking my head on the windshield.
Sweet Jesus Christ.
I forgot to fill up in Antioch.
There are two bays. I choose the one nearest the road. The pump is a relic with old-style gauges that turn over, numbers clicking into place on black wheels. There's no outside slot for the pay card Lilly gave me. Not out here, six miles north of Bond.
I can see someone watching from the office. A man wearing the white shirt and black tie of a Service Manager. I wave and smile. Put in ten credits' worth of gas, a third of a tank. Walk easily to the door.
"Evening," he says.
"Evening," I return, social and even. Head toward the back wall, toward coolers full of cold drinks.
I remove a soda and wipe the moisture from the bottle. It feels good in my hot hand. As the door closes, I see the man looking. He's watching me with drawn eyes. Wondering why I'm coming in so late, so close to his quitting time. Why I look so rumpled in my torn skirt and wrinkled blouse. Like I've been run over.
Keep it together, Harper. The walls are beginning to shake some. Time to check out and leave.
"All set?" the man asks as I approach.
"Yes, thank you." I set my soda on the counter and pull out the pay card Lilly gave me.
He swipes the orange card through his machine. "Where you from?"
"Out east."
"Out east?"
I let my eyes wander, as if I'm considering a snack. "Wernthal."
"Long way from home, aren't you? Out here for family?"
"Business."
"What business might that be?"
He's trying to pull something out of me. Remember the list, Harper. I try. But can't. So we stare at each other over the small counter. Wait for the approval code together while I debate the answer.
"It's pretty boring stuff."
"Bore me." The Manager picks at his teeth with a pinky. They're nice and shiny white. Probably caps. Unusual for out here, where there's a paucity of rural dentists.
"I'm an accountant."
He pushes off the back wall. Catches me looking down at the reader now flashing the word Approved. "Really? Who you work for?"
I hold out my hand. "I'm sorry, but I'm in a bit of a hurry. Could I have my card back?"
The man holds it just beyond my reach. "I asked who you work for." His voice has dropped. It's a trap.
There's a word I shouldn't say somewhere in my response. A word I should no longer be able to squeeze out of my mouth without seizing up. It's new, one I won't know. Maybe released this evening, when I wasn't watching. And he's not going to give me back my card without an answer.
Who do you work for?
"For the people," I answer with a smile, spreading wide my collar. All cleverness and cleavage.
It does the trick. The man relaxes. Even smiles with me. It creeps up onto his stiff, pale face and forces his hand to drop the orange card into m
y palm. "I'm sorry about all this. We get these notices from the Department of Transportation telling us there's been some activity and you can guess the rest."
"It's okay."
The man sighs. "It's just, if we don't ask these questions, it's our asses on the line. You know?"
"Don't worry about it."
The man scratches his head. "These people they're looking for are on the move. They'll have to stop and get . . . petroleum." He laughs lightly. "I'm supposed to be watching . . ."
I offer him an out while backing through the front door. "That's the way it is when you're a government manager. I know."
The man's eyes narrow. I've said something wrong.
Who do you work for?
I work for the government.
Government.
I turn and run through the front door to the car, hurry to hit the locks, get the damned key in the ignition. The Manager chases after me. He grabs my door handle as I tear away. In the mirror, I see him tumbling to the ground. He leaps up, cursing, and races back to his office. To his phone, where he'll be calling a Blue Coat.
There's no choice about where to go. Anywhere that isn't a series of red arrows on the map leading back to the bunker will lead me too far away and get me lost. There's only one even playing field upon which to fight.
I head toward the farm slowly, without my lights on. I don't turn down the rocked drive as it's too quiet. Not even the cicadas are singing their night song, so I go on around, turn up the grass from a planed spot behind the bend, and pull into the deep cover of the field. Gently, I open the door, then press it closed even more gently. For the second time tonight, I bury Lilly's keys next to the front wheel and, keeping low, make my way to the crest of the hill. The thought strikes me that I might die here yet, in the farmhouse where I broke my slate.
It's pitch-black. Despite the stars, it's a moonless night and the knob leading from the porch to the kitchen doesn't move easily in my sweating palm. I bump into a chair on my way to the sink. Stand, shaking, at the basin. I look out the window and watch the tall grass along the drive wave in the wind. Far away, in some obscure place over the hill and the hill thereafter is a light that's reflecting this long, long way. It allows me a backward view of the kitchen, the top of the doorway leading to the porch, a nail driven into a wall on which some picture used to hang, a pair of eyes.
"You're home late, Harper." Jingo Skinner steps out of the darkness. "Got a call from Karl over at the petrol station. He thought you might be headed this way." I see his face reflected in the glass like the half-moon that's on its other side. The things he wants to do to me are in his eyes. "You came in like you knew I was waiting for you. Strange, you being out today. Just an hour earlier, and I would have missed you."
He's already behind me. Has a hand trailing up my skirt. With a flick of his wrist, my panty hose are torn, opened from crotch to knee, and his fingers are digging against that soft flesh. They're leaving pink trails that should hurt but don't. It's like I'm not here.
This whole thing could happen without me. I could evacuate my body, do it the painless way. But then I wouldn't be able to carry out my orders. Survive to bring back the information that Skinner knows nothing. To fight in the war.
"Do you want to hear the numbers?" he asks, working to give himself more space. I can feel the hard-worn fibers of his trousers on my leg. "I've been waiting for this too fucking long." His hands rip my blouse, the one I ran in. It parts easily, reveals my shoulders, my back, my waist above the skirt. "You fucking Monitors . . ." He's saying other things. How we live in ivory towers. How we like to do the easy part of keeping order and leave the muck and the dirt to people like him. "Fucking cunt." He kicks out my ankles so I'll buckle. And I do so beautifully. I imagine what Jingo Skinner must be seeing as I fall. My hips thrust out, my hands grappling for a better hold on the countertop, my chin hitting its edge, the skin there splitting over bone. They are actions of reluctant submission I perform for him. And my patron is pleased.
This isn't supposed to be the way it goes. Ezra's been training me. I'm supposed to know what to do. My daughter isn't supposed to find out later that I was raped and murdered. I gave up too much for this.
No. No more.
Skinner unzips his trousers, leaving them belted. He's going to pull himself free through the fly without lowering his pants. It's smart. He won't be encumbered by the material bunched around his knees, making him susceptible to a shove. It's obvious he's done this a thousand times before. He begins toward me. I don't wait for him to get here.
I grab one of Skinner's hands and spin, yanking him off balance. Infuriated, he comes back at me with a punch, his fist crossing my midsection on its way to my face. Centered the way Ezra taught me, and with all my weight sunk into my heels, I whip up my left elbow while twisting my body quick. It catches him in the upper arm, diverts the thrown punch. And the bone. Snap. The sound of it breaking is awful.
"Jesus Christ!" Jingo falls to the floor, screaming. He pulls out his pistol and fires.
The bullet rips my sleeve. Grazes the mounded rise of muscle beneath, but it's nothing. A scratch. Instead of pushing Skinner away, I pull him in, toward my open mouth. I find the meat of his hand and bite as hard as I can. The gun falls to the floor as Skinner screams. He tries to yank free, but I won't let go. I'm like a dog with a bone. Bite harder until something solid snaps and Jingo falls to his knees.
I spit him out. Make it all the way to the outer door before being stopped.
Jingo uses his good elbow to catch me in the side of the head. The world is doubled. Becomes loud, a clap of thunder. I crumble to the floor. Vaguely, I'm aware of being hefted onto his shoulder, then dumped down a basement stairwell and locked behind its door. I'm left lying on the steps as Jingo pulls out his phone and starts punching in numbers.
On the other side of the closed door, Skinner is breathing heavy, his speech gritted by pain. "Finally caught the bitch." It's a glib bit of boasting but he doesn't sound pleased. He sounds like someone about to pass out. He's talking to John Gage, asking for help. For "goddamned backup," he says. "I'm bleeding pretty good, partner. They tell me down at Antioch you're following me pretty close . . . good goddamned thing. Might need a ride to the hospital. Better get here fast." The phone is dropped and Jingo sits down. Not that much later, the front door squeaks open and is slammed shut. John couldn't have been more than five miles away.
"Skinner!" he shouts, stomping into the house.
"Jesus Christ, it took you long enough!" Jingo replies. He's close. Just beyond the basement door. "She tried to bite my fucking hand off! And she broke my goddamned arm!"
John sighs. "You need to get to the hospital." The door swings open and I see him there. A huge black form. "I thought you'd already finished her?" Except he says it as a question. You didn't finish her?
Jingo is standing behind him, drained and pale. His arm wrapped in a beehive of bloodied sheets. "I haven't even carried out her punitives yet!"
John crouches down so my face is obscured from Jingo's vision.
Skinner's voice comes round from behind him. "I'm not leaving," he wheedles. "Not until I get my due, man. And that Monitor is my fucking due! She's not going to get away from me twice!"
John reaches out a hand and turns my head from side to side. He's being too gentle. I duck my head further beneath the prow of his head so Jingo won't see.
"Come on, man," Skinner wheedles, his voice dimming. "Let me get to it before I bleed to fucking death over here . . ."
"Harper . . ." John whispers low, beneath Skinner's voice. His finger trails along the abrasions on my face.
"Christ, I feel weird, man . . ."
"Shut up, Jingo!" John barks suddenly, making me jump. He's angry about what Skinner's done to me.
I hold a finger over my lips. Sssshhh. Don't give us away.
"What's up your ass . . . just saying . . ." but Jingo doesn't finish his thought.
We both jump as his body hits the
floor.
John moves and there is Skinner, laid out on the wooden slats of the old floor, head lolling to the side. For a few seconds, John holds two fingers around the Blue Coat's wrist, then nods down at me, still crouched in the darkness of the stairs.
"His pulse is pretty slow. I'm going to call in an ambulance for him while I get you back to the bunker."
The look on my face gives me away.
John takes me by the hands and gently pulls me up. "I'll say you ran and I had to go after you. But we can't kill him, Harper. They'd tear this whole county apart."
I make it through the living room and out into the kitchen with only the slightest bit of help from John. Once we push through the door leading to the covered porch, I hear the rain. It stops me. My legs are unsteady enough on solid ground. Out in the muddy, heavily pebbled drive, I don't know how they'll do.
"You okay?" John asks.
I nod. "I didn't realize it was raining."
John opens the outer door and I go through. I make it all the way to the broken walkway, and then to the drive. Each drop of rain is like a little weight. All of them together are slowly driving me into the soft ground.
"You okay?" John puts an arm around my shoulders.
"Thank you," I say. I'm crying now. And not really sure why. "Thank you, John."
I don't want him to see and try to walk more quickly. One, two, three, four . . . Counting each step. I reach the car and bend down to pick up the key. But I never make it back up. Somehow the ground has come to rest on my chest, and the mud against my cheek. I can feel the rain on my back for only a few seconds. Then nothing.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen . . . What am I counting? Just a minute ago, it was footsteps. But now it's something else. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Pills. I'm sitting at my kitchen table, counting yellow and black Occlusia. I'm dreaming about before. About bees in my stomach, retching until my sides ache. I don't force myself to remember leaving Veracity. I've gone straight to the part where death snatches me up for just a few straight-line moments before rudely dropping me back in my body.
"Harper?" a woman is asking.