Be Nice

by David Portlock

  The Brennan sec guards and the Protect-and-Serves charged from behind the burning buildings. They were armed with shock wands, metal batons, and baseball bats.

  The kids on the paddleboats readied Molotov cocktails on the lower decks.

  A series of loud bursts and pops caused them to stop.

  Two sec guards and three Protect-and-Serves fell. It was as if a giant, invisible finger had plucked them off their feet. The rest retreated from the dock and took cover in the surrounding neighborhoods.

  Wallis, Janey, Big Larry, and Frank ran to the guardrails of their boats. The dock and the Promenade were clear.

  A black pickup truck raced around the corner and skidded to the dock’s gangplank. A fleet of other trucks and cars parked behind it.

  A gun in hand, Tyler hopped out of his pickup and waved to Wallis and Janey.

  The Brennan choppers hovered above the cityscape. Fires raged on the streets below, from East L.A. to Beverly Hills to the Santa Monica shoreline.

  Ms. Fallings, in the lead chopper, set a pair of binocs in her lap. A small telescreen was mounted beside her. Mr. Dylon observed from his hospital room.

  “I’m not sure I’m getting this,” he said, “but it looks like a caravan of Natives pushed us off the docks. It also looks like they…they had firearms.”

  Ms. Fallings didn’t respond.

  “If they left the Sea Breeze, where do you think they’re…?”

  “I don’t like it, Mr. Dylon.”

  “You’re in the air. Run a perimeter around Barber’s old neighborhood—”

  “We’ve got a trending pattern. The polls are swinging back in our favor, but Barber and Typermass haven’t fought back or attempted to go online.”

  “This’ll be over before they know it.”

  “What about John Tom Martinez and Abe Robinson?”

  “Martinez has been neutralized, and Robinson came home. I sent him and a few others after the parents. Only two more to go: the heads of the snake.”

  On the dock, Janey jumped into Tyler’s arms.

  “Yeah, it’s good to see you too, little lady! But be careful! Daddy’s watchin’!” Tyler said, laughing.

  Wallis hugged him.

  “And I missed you too, handsome!”

  “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

  Janey punched Tyler on the arm. “He’s def here!”

  “After that little stunt with the b-train, no way I was gonna sit this one out.”

  Joe Joe eased out of the pickup. He raised his hand, palm open, and said, “I come in peace.”

  Wallis and Janey ran over and hugged him.

  “Young man, you and the mighty ebony princess, I’d say you took things to the extreme.”

  Frank and Big Larry led the kids off the paddleboats.

  Wallis motioned to the group. “This is Frank, Big Larry, and these kids, they’re The Blue Santa Monica.”

  “So you seen the news yet, handsome? What’s goin’ on on all the web sites?”

  “You started out strong,” Joe Joe said, “but they’re hitting back, and you guys are going down.”

  “Figured we’d come take a look at the Pacific, and then see what we could do to help.”

  “This ain’t about us keepin’ the rez a few more years. Not no more. You kids took it to a whole `nother level.” Joe Joe gestured to the cars and trucks behind them. “My people, they’re on board with you.”

  “We gotta get you and yours somewhere safe. Let you regroup, put somethin’ else together before you—”

  “We already got somethin’ together,” Janey said.

  Frank took a selli out of his pocket and showed it to Wallis. “That first call we got, it was because our people inside Be Nice gave out our selli number. The second call we got, from that Dylon guy, it came on this selli. When Abe and I were going at it, I picked it out of his pocket.”

  Wallis eyed the selli. “Abe was talkin’ to Dylon?”

  “Mother-I fucked you,” Janey said. “And I bet he’s the one who set up John Tom.”

  “So what’s the play, handsome?”

  “I had Frank check the specs for the Learning Center. It’s got backup generators, but they’re old school. We’re gonna have to restart them.”

  Joe Joe opened a bottle of aspirin. “Young man, what in the hell are you thinking? In the middle of all this insanity, you wanna go to a Learning Center?”

  “We have a plan. You’re gonna have to trust us.”

  The Brennan Learning Center was empty, a pallid gray shell in the moonlight. Wallis and Janey led the caravan of Native cars and pickup trucks into the parking lot. Joe Joe stopped next to Wallis. Wallis said something to him. Joe Joe turned his car around and, with another car trailing, sped out to the street.

  Big Larry kicked open the doors of the Learning Center. Wallis and Janey led Tyler, The Blue kids, and the remaining Natives into the lobby.

  Frank and Big Larry hustled across the parking lot to the gates of the foot-soc stadium. They picked the locks and ran inside.

  Wallis and Janey broke into Mr. Beams’s office on the top floor of the Learning Center. The window behind his desk hadn’t been repaired.

  Wallis checked the time on his wrist implant.

  The stadium’s lights flickered, then surged to life.

  Janey covered her eyes.

  Down on the fifty-yard line of the foot-soc field, Big Larry signaled to the office.

  The Brennan choppers cruised over Santa Monica. They picked up speed and flew toward the most luminous spot on the horizon.

  The foot-soc stadium’s outside lights were on, so were the loudspeakers. Abrasive, electric punk jams blasted throughout the city.

  John Tom’s H-mobile rocketed down the PCH. Abe was at the wheel. Four kids, wearing Be Nice masks, were with him. Abe lit a cigarette. He ran his fingers over the H-mobile’s dashboard and glanced in the rearview. The kids in the backseat held shock wands and baseball bats.

  The H-mobile parked in front of the Malibu medical center.

  Abe ordered the kids out.

  They quickly exited the backseat.

  Abe put his hands on the steering wheel.

  This was his H-mobile now…his.

  The kids raced down the medical center hallways.

  They separated and broke off into two rooms.

  Thunderous gunshots echoed.

  Outside, the cigarette dropped from Abe’s mouth.

  Footsteps plodded toward him.

  Abe ducked in his seat.

  A hail of gunfire shredded the H-mobile.

  Abe used his hand to press the gas pedal to the floor. The H-mobile crashed into an ambulance and sideswiped three electric trucks before he regained control.

  Across the street, a team of Natives shouldered .22 rifles.

  Joe Joe and four Natives exited the two rooms of the medical center.

  Abe’s dead crew was on the floor behind them.

  Joe Joe opened the door to a room at the end of the hallway.

  Brent and Mary and Irene smiled at him from their hospital beds.

  Frank disconnected a selli call.

  “You were right,” he said to Wallis. “Be Nice went after your parents. But Joe Joe said they missed the driver. It was some Afreak kid in an H-mobile.”

  Sitting on Wallis’s lap behind Mr. Beams’s desk, Janey sipped a Dawg beer. “It was Abe! That imp-ass, little nikky!”

  The Brennan choppers could be heard overhead.

  Janey slid off Wallis’s lap.

  Wallis grabbed a shock wand on Mr. Beams’s desk and said to Frank, “Stay close to Big Larry.”

  Frank shook Wallis’s hand and kissed Janey on both cheeks.

  The Brennan choppers touched down in the parking lot as reconstituted Be Nice
groups and crowds of under-thirty fives amassed outside the Leaning Center.

  The websites and info orgs buzzed with the news.

  A fleet of media choppers gathered high above the stadium dome.

  Tyler and Big Larry looked on from inside the Center. Behind them, the shadows of the Blue kids on the move.

  Ms. Fallings and two dozen sec guards leaped from the Brennan choppers. Ms. Fallings raised her hands, ordered the guards to stand back, and ran to the Center’s annex doors.

  Inside, Tyler and Big Larry gave her the finger.

  “It’s over!” Ms. Fallings shouted. “Let me in, let me speak to Wallis and Janey! I promise you no one else is going to get hurt!”

  Tyler winked at her and blew her a kiss.

  The gathering of Be Nice supporters increased in size.

  Shuttered windows opened on the top floors of the Learning Center. Natives propped rifles and shotguns on the sills and took aim.

  The Be Nice gathering broke up and reassembled behind the Brennan choppers.

  In Mr. Beams’s office, Wallis and Janey recorded a viddi on a selli screen.

  “There’s a lot of you Be Nice pussies outside, and prolly on your way here,” Wallis said. “But it’s no big effin’ deal.”

  He and Janey kissed.

  “You bitches want us, come on in and get us.”

  He pressed send on the selli.

  In the hallway, Frank plugged his selli into a laptop. He transferred the viddi of Wallis and Janey from his selli to the laptop screen.

  Big Larry opened the annex doors and yanked Ms. Fallings into the Learning Center.

  A groaning sound suddenly rumbled through the building.

  The foot-soc stadium gates drifted apart.

  The crowds of Be Nice supporters ran from the Brennan choppers and cascaded into the stadium.

  In the Center, Big Larry lifted Ms. Fallings over his shoulder and ran with Tyler to an elevator.

  The sec guards charged inside the annex in pursuit.

  Hiding in the Center, Wallis and Janey’s Blue kids activated their shock wands.

  Joe Joe and the other Natives drove up outside. They entered the Center behind the sec guards and sealed the annex doors.

  The media choppers filled the sky.

  The news trucks and the on-air reporters arrived, their viddi cameras and tele cameras focused on the mayhem.

  The crowds of Be Nice supporters streaming into the parking lot numbered in the thousands. Eyeing their sellies, watching Wallis and Janey taunt them on the viddi from Mr. Beams’s office, they joined the other kids in the stadium.

  The stadium doors closed.

  Iron bars and sheets of reinforced steel dropped and blocked off the exits.

  The sec guards and Wallis and Janey’s Blue kids battled in the annex.

  On the top floor of the Center, Tyler and Big Larry pushed Ms. Fallings down the hallway.

  “Most of your forces have surrendered, they’ve given up!” she said.

  “And it’s nice to see you too, honey britches,” Tyler quipped.

  Ms. Fallings stopped and turned to Big Larry. “Larry Phelps. Orphan. Your mother and father died of cancer. One brother, Christopher Phelps, age fourteen. Oh, and he’s also in Be Nice custody.”

  Big Larry didn’t respond.

  “You end this right now, you big, stupid fuck, or I’ll make sure he goes up to meet with mommy, daddy, and the Jesus.”

  Big Larry stared at her.

  “You were in charge of Be Nice Denver! You were on your way to the top! Why are you doing this?”

  Big Larry shrugged and answered, “Why not?”

  The door to Mr. Beams’s office slid open.

  A chair was placed in front of his desk.

  Wallis and Janey were seated on the other side.

  “So now who’s the smart one?” Janey said.

  Two Natives, on either side of the door, took hold of Ms. Fallings and placed her in the chair.

  Ms. Fallings crossed her legs, left over right and, nonplussed, sat back.

  Wallis offered her a can of Dawg. “So would you care for a beer?”

  “My sec guards, they have the situation under control. I advise you to surrender while you still—”

  Frank stuck his head in the office, gave a thumbs up, and ducked back out to the hallway.

  “Your followers have given up! They’ve run back home to mommy and daddy! Now all you’ve got are a few Natives and this Mex cowboy! There’s no way—”

  “His name’s Tyler Sanchez!” Janey snapped.

  “When those kids down in that stadium get antsy, they’re going to—”

  The noise in the stadium gradually built with shouts, hollers, and the stomping of war boots.

  “…they’re going to break in here, and they’re going to stomp you! If you give up, I’ll guarantee your safety!”

  Wallis and Janey just sat there.

  “Be Nice is on its way! They’re even coming from the other states! What is wrong with you?”

  Janey smiled. “We’re angry. Don’t you remember?”

  Metal scrapped against metal.

  The crowd noise deflated as the foot-soc stadium dome cranked open.

  Millions of stars glittered in the sky.

  The seven giant telescreens lit up.

  Thousands of young faces angled in their direction.

  A selli beeped in Mr. Beams’s office.

  “So answer it,” Wallis ordered. “And put it on speaker.”

  Ms. Fallings lifted a selli from her jacket and hit the SPK button.

  “Something’s going on, we’ve got movement,” Mr. Dylon said on the other end. “But it doesn’t make any sense. They’ve sent large numbers of their people to eleven locations. India to China to the Alps to outside Miami and Houston. And I can’t reach the foreign investors. Everyone’s…it looks like they’re standing down. They picked up some kind of transmission from those locations—”

  Ms. Fallings looked at Wallis and Janey. “What did you do?”

  There was a roar from the kids in the stadium.

  The Natives dragged Ms. Fallings out of her chair and positioned her at the broken window. Wallis and Janey stood beside her.

  Below, Wallis and Janey’s Blue kids, using shock wands, coerced Ms. Fallings’s sec guards to the center of the foot-soc field.

  The kids rioted around them.

  A team of Natives rushed onto the field and fired off rifles and shotguns.

  The kids backed up, startled, scared.

  Wallis took two microphones from Mr. Beams’s desk and handed one to Janey.

  “The black mask is the depths of outer space: all that matters,” Wallis said, his voice amplified by the stadium’s loudspeakers.

  The kids looked up to the broken office window.

  “The yellow is the sun: the giver of all life. The red is the blood: the blood of the us, the all, the chosen few.”

  Few, Few, Few, softly echoed.

  “We’ve heard that over a million times. We’ve heard it every single day of our lives.”

  Lives, Lives, Lives, softly echoed.

  The field of kids didn’t move.

  An atlas spread across the seven giant telescreens. Eleven red dots flashed: three in India, four in China, two in the French Alps, one in Miami, and one in Houston.

  Wallis shouted into the microphone, “The black mask is the depths of outer space: it’s all that matters!”

  Matters, Matters, Matters.

  “It’s all that matters!”

  Matters, Matters, Matters.

  “It’s the only things that’s real!”

  Real, Real, Real.

  “Now why don’t you hear it from the man himself! Mr. John Brennan!”

/>   The fourth telescreen, the one in the center, transmitted the weary image of Mr. Brennan. His face beamed from a selli viddi.

  “Pay real close,” Janey said to Ms. Fallings.

  Ms. Fallings’s expression became ashen.

  Mr. Brennan’s eyes were tired, bloodshot. His visage was that of a broken animal.

  “I wanted to speak to you in private,” he said in a low voice, “however, if you…if you think this way will help…”

  “It’ll help us,” Wallis’s voice said from the other end of the selli.

  Mr. Brennan took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “Be Nice will be coming for me soon. They’ll take my wife and me away.” He glanced at his wife’s body on the apartment balcony. “But there are things that you need to know. Things that everyone needs to know. I was young once like you…and…I was…I was also idealistic. Be Nice, they had the answers I was looking for, the answers that many of us were looking for.”

  The crowd in the stadium kept its eyes glued to Mr. Brennan.

  Mr. Brennan went to his balcony railing. “And now, as the end is certain, as I am no longer able to continue as one of the architects of Be Nice…I feel I must reveal a hidden truth. I must reveal the truth because there is still a spark of life within you. I watched you, Wallis, Janey, and I saw how the young rallied to your side…and I knew the fires of rebellion hadn’t waned.”

  The eleven red dots expanded on the telescreens. Inside the dots, viddies played. Viddi of kids in blue masks as they raided secret facilities and recorded what was discovered inside. Viddi of living pods…viddi of fabrics and white puffy suits and gold helmets…viddi of thousands of palettes of food and fresh water…viddi of construction equipment and oxygen pumps and electric cars and trucks…viddi of massive rocket engines…viddi of toilets, beds, stoves, chairs, sofas, plates, and household items.

  Ms. Fallings closed her eyes.

  “Space: the only thing that matters,” Mr. Brennan said. “But over thirty billion of us trapped here. All different races, colors, and religions. Some smart, some dumb, some young, some old…only who would be the lucky ones?” He sat next to his wife and took her hand. “Who would be lucky enough to live among the stars? And who would have to be left behind, as drinking water runs low, as the oceans continue to rise, as synth food steadily becomes the norm.”