City of Beasts

by Corrie Wang

  “Those are safety officer uniforms,” I say. “Fees.”

  “Where the bump did Matricula get tanks and Humvees from?” Reason asks.

  “What are we looking at?” Comma asks, squinting.

  “Really, Com?” Sway grunts. “You’re too vain to wear your glasses even for this?”

  “Oh!” I pass over the red eyeglasses I swiped off the gray male.

  Comma flips down the mirror on the visor. “Now, these are cute. And a bit strong. But oh my Gorges of Great Yonder, look at all those fees. I didn’t know y’all liked getting so much ink.”

  I peer through the windshield. The SO soldiers are wearing the riot gear that our mercenary Niraasha scavenged years back on one of her far-roaming missions. None of the outfits match and some of the officers aren’t wearing full suits of the gear at all. Just a chest plate or helmet. It’s these fees I focus on, because Comma’s right. All their visible skin is covered in tattoos. I look to the others in the riot gear. A few of their faces are badly scarred.

  “Actually, maybe those aren’t fees,” I say.

  Of course, Grand wouldn’t put fees in harm’s way, but she would borrow their uniforms. She brought the mob to fight alongside her instead. Or rather, behind her. Because there, past the Humvees and ahead of the group by about ten feet, is my Grand Mati. She’s wearing the same protective riot gear as the rest of them, yet a luxurious black cloak swirls down to her feet. In her right hand is her electric cattle prod. She no longer looks soft and comforting like she did a few hours ago. This Matricula Rhodes is prepared for war.

  “Who is that marvelous fee?” Comma whispers.

  Craning his neck, Mouse says, “Oh, that’s my grand, Matricula.”

  “Grand Matricula?” Comma swivels in his seat and glares at me. “Tell me that’s not the same thing as Grand Mati?”

  I nod. “Matricula Rhodes is our grandmother. I didn’t tell you before because I thought you two would sell me out if you knew who I was.”

  “Why?” Motor asks. “How much are you worth?”

  “Glori, she didn’t bring enough people,” Reason says. “Chia has more soldiers at his poker night. Where’s all the mob’s guns?”

  “Grand hates guns.”

  Though half the mobsters masquerading as fees are holding Tasers, the rest have knives, bats, and bricks. Despite the fancy vehicles, this is a cobbled-together army in borrowed clothes with homemade weapons. The mercenaries aren’t even here. It makes me wonder if Grand was genuinely shocked that Rauha was murdered or if she was simply shocked I’d found out, because I can’t believe, even despite all the evidence in front of me—they aren’t here—that the mercenaries would ever go against my grand.

  “Then why not at least take on Chia at the Fortress?” Sway asks.

  “With what?” Comma asks. “Other than those tanks, Matricula clearly has no weapons. Chia has my dad’s entire arsenal. It has to be close combat. Otherwise he’d starve her out.”

  “But why here?” I ask. “She must have wanted it to be here.”

  When Sway and I walked from Rugged’s, we wondered why no one had moved these cars. Even for the simple sake of receiving deliveries, a car-free road would have been so much easier. My gaze sweeps the road again. All the cars have four or more bodies in them.

  “A transport could never get through,” Sway says.

  “And anything electric would never hold a charge this long,” Reason adds. “We swapped out batteries for the Rinspeed at Rugged’s.”

  “Um, you guys…” Comma says.

  “She’s making them walk,” I say, unable to hide my pride. “From the last transport stop, that was almost three miles. They’ll be exhausted when they get here.”

  “Guys!” Comma adjusts his glasses, then taps on the window. “That’s Fuego.”

  We all look out the rain-speckled side windows. There are males sneaking past the Rinspeed through the front lawns and backyards of the houses next to us. They’re wearing patrol uniforms. Comma points at a scrawny boy with an acne flare-up on his cheek who’s bringing up the rear. Matricula set up a roadblock facing west, but Chia’s forces snuck around and are coming in from the east, from behind them. Matricula has twenty-five soldiers and a few tanks. But Chia has hundreds of soldiers. Their uniforms are all freshly pressed. Even more impressive, they all have guns. Every single one.

  “It’s going to be a slaughter,” Reason murmurs.

  But I refuse to underestimate my grand again.

  “I don’t think it’s the fees we should be worried about.”

  When the last patrol soldier passes us, the males and I slip out of the Rinspeed and creep forward into the encroaching dawn. Gesturing for Breaker and the other males to stay in their cars, we leave Hercules sleeping on the seat because he’s still dead with exhaustion. The rest of us crouch by a van that’s crashed into a lamppost. It’s about a hundred feet from Matricula. Just as we lie on our bellies, there comes the sound of over a hundred guns being clicked into kill mode.

  Through the misty rain, Chia emerges from the backyard of the house right next to where Matricula is standing. He’s wearing dented body armor and a mangy fur coat. A fat cigar juts out of his mouth. If Matricula is surprised to see him, she doesn’t show it. Instead she holds her arms open, welcoming, as if she’s offering his entire army a hug.

  “Chia, you got fat,” she says.

  “You try to manage a city of beasts with a trim physique.”

  Grand lets out a bark of laughter. “I take it you’re here to agree to my terms?”

  “That’s the funny thing I’ve been trying to tell you. Turns out, none of my constituents want to move to Hamburg. They don’t care so much that it’s attached to Buffalo’s power grid or still has scavengeable goods, as you so kindly pointed out. See, they never did finish building that skyway connector over to the city. The commute would be a nightmare.”

  “Except that is the whole point,” Grand says. “You won’t be coming back.”

  Chia inhales on his cigar. Holds it.

  “I think we’ll pass. Are you here to agree to my terms? ’Cause it seems to me you literally brought knives to a gunfight. I thought fees were tough nowadays, Matricula. Aren’t you all trained in some kind of chewed-wings technique?”

  “It’s pronounced wing chung.”

  He tilts back his head, exhales smoke.

  “My mistake. I didn’t kill those fees on the island, Mati.”

  “Do you mean this past week or seventeen years ago, Bear?”

  “Bear.” Chia laughs. “I haven’t heard that name in years. But yes. Both. Either. Look, I don’t want a war, but I was told you’re using the labs again…”

  “That would be me,” Reason whispers. “Sorry.”

  “…making babies behind my back, cutting me out. You’re lucky I’m being gracious enough to meet you. But the divide ends here. Tonight. Come on, Mati, aren’t you tired of having no one to help you open jars? You have my word. Every fee that comes over will be safe.”

  My grand smiles tightly. “We learned the turn-over-and-tap-on-the-counter technique years ago, Bear. But I extend the same offer to you. Move to Hamburg. Start over. In time, I will bring you children. You can make good lives out there. I promise I’ll keep you safe.”

  “From what? Your angry fees with bricks?”

  “Silly boy. These are not fees.” She gestures to the mob males in SO uniforms. “These are fees.”

  The doors of the Humvees open. Out of each one steps a mercenary in red.

  “Say hello to Misère, Niraasha, Itami, Muerte, and Annihilation.”

  “Ohh.” Sway pats my shoulder. “Ann—now that makes sense.”

  Misery. Despair. Pain. Death. Ann.

  At her words, the mercenaries all go into their battle stances. Brass knuckles fully on display, Misère twirls her baseball bat with the embedded nails in a figure eight. Niraasha hefts her battle-ax, executioner-style. Muerte, arrow nocked, stands perfectly straight and then dra
ws her bow and leans back in a ready-aim-fire crouch. Itami twirls her double blades in the air, then lunges to the side, holding one blade in front of her and the other above her head. And Ann? She simply stands there, tapping her lead pipe in her hand, shifting from foot to foot in anticipation. She begins her fights sprinting.

  It is a terrifying, dreadful sight. Instantly, my reservations about their loyalty vanish. I am utterly relieved to see them. Never in my life have I been so proud to be fee.

  “Glori,” Motor says, “remember that thing I said about Buttercup? I’ve changed my mind. I want to be one of those when I grow up.”

  Mouse shakes my arm.

  “Hang on, buddy. I’m listening.”

  I count off the patrol soldiers. Even with the mob behind them, the mercenaries would still need to take on roughly twenty males apiece to make this an equal fight. That could be doable. Just. If the males didn’t have so many guns.

  Chia raises an eyebrow, then laughs. “Girls in leotards?”

  Suddenly, a faint cough comes from inside the van we’re hiding under.

  “Sway, weren’t all these cars empty when we walked in?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Not the ones far out, but all these that were close to the Fortress…”

  Matricula whistles, and as one, all the doors of every car for a quarter mile swing open. Mob members pour out, at least four per car. A few of the mayor’s soldiers lower their guns and curse. A handful moves in tighter around Chia. And, as he continues to puff on his cigar, I have to give the mayor credit. It can’t be easy staying calm in front of such a terrifying sight.

  But his cool burns off when Rage steps out from a Humvee and hands Matricula a cage with a rat in it.

  “Thank you, Kiku,” she says.

  Sway, Reason, Comma, and I all whisper, “Kiku?”

  “You son of a bitch,” Chia grunts.

  “Right now,” Matricula says evenly, “the rest of Rage’s crew is downtown with cages identical to these. If they open them, you will all be sick in a day. Dead in two. The virus is airborne and ravenous. If you come any closer right now, you will be in trouble. Of course we have plenty of effective antidote. Every fee was inoculated years ago. It’s in our labs. But if you so much as look in the direction of Grand Island, we’ll blow the bridge. And you will all die. If you do not all vacate the city in the next twenty-four hours, we release the rats and you all die. If you ever come back to the city without our permission… you get the picture. I suggest you start packing.”

  “Rage, bruth,” Chia says. “I can give you whatever she’s offering and more.”

  Rage simply smiles. “I think you had time enough for that, bruth.”

  Shrugging off his fur coat, Chia reaches behind him and yanks two pistols from holsters that are strapped across his back. His patrol soldiers follow suit and bring their guns up. They look lethal but also nervous and tired. Only adrenaline is keeping them fueled right now.

  “This is your last chance, Chia.” Matricula swings her cattle prod up. “Leave.”

  Mouse pats my arm again. “Glori, I don’t feel so good.”

  Half paying attention, I put a hand to his forehead. He is teakettle hot.

  “Mati, you know I can’t do that,” Chia says.

  He’s not laughing now. Half of Matricula’s soldiers switch on stun guns. The dark street becomes aglow with their humming blue lights. Sway rolls up Mouse’s sleeve. His little arm is covered in red splotches. My eyes meet Sway’s and I can’t help noticing, on the side of his face, three of the same marks.

  “No,” I say.

  How could this be? Mouse said he, Hercules, and all the big boys at the Fortress got a shot. Yet the gray male and all the other guards were dead. I can hear that guard, Honor, saying we were too late. That she has a different plan. Did she mean my grand? What if the adult males were instructed to take the vaccine first? And what if the shot wasn’t a vaccine, but the virus? My mind spins. Grand Mati said it would take two days for the virus to kill the males. How long would it take to devour a weaker, younger immune system? My males aren’t sick. They’re dying.

  I clutch Mouse to me and run. Through the mob, around all the patrol soldiers.

  Behind me Sway shouts, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”

  Until I am standing between Grand and Chia.

  “Don’t shoot,” Sway wheezes, running up behind me, hands held aloft.

  “Don’t shoot,” Reason says, running up as well. “Don’t shoot.”

  “Stand down,” Chia barks. “Reason? Sway? What’s going on?”

  “Glori?” Grand gasps. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong with Twofer?”

  As dispassionately as she’s been playing this, I can’t help noticing that for the first time in her life, she looks her age.

  “He’s sick, Grand. Mouse has the virus. You gave him the virus.”

  “I did no such thing. That’s not possible. This”—she hefts the rat’s cage—“is as close as the virus has even come to the Fortress.”

  Holding a hand out to Chia—don’t shoot—she sets down the rat and comes toward me. When she gets a better look at Mouse, her face pales. Her shock doesn’t make me feel any better. This wasn’t intentional. Which means she has no backup plan for fixing it.

  “You lying, cheating bitch,” Chia growls. “You’re ‘going’ to release a virus? Three of my best men are already dead from that.”

  Grand snarls back, “I swear to you, I didn’t do this. I gave strict orders that the virus was not to be released without my word.”

  It’s one of those moments where things could go one way. Where my Grand Mati could promise it wasn’t her. That she had plans for world domination, but they didn’t include murdering little boys. It could be where Chia admits that taking a blow to his ego and accepting defeat is better than losing more lives. Ever so briefly, I wonder if in the old world, when there were still plentiful goods and resources and life, if people back then took the time to listen, learn, and understand. Because they don’t now.

  For a single moment, it looks like things could go one way.

  They quickly go another instead.

  We are thirty feet apart, my grand and I, when a soldier in a sleek, skintight body suit steps forward from the platoon of mob behind her. Her suit looks like one of the mercenaries’, only it’s a pristine ivory and she’s wearing a bulletproof vest over it. As Grand glares at Chia, the ivory soldier reaches behind her and draws a samurai sword from the sheath on her back—a proper katana, exactly like the one that hangs above our fireplace. Exactly like the one Liyan carries with her.

  “No!” I shout.

  I am fast, faster than any human I know. Handing Mouse off to Sway, I charge forward. I am twenty feet from my grand as an arrow flies from Muerte’s bow and sinks into Chia’s shoulder. He grunts in surprise. The cigar falls from his mouth. Muerte follows with another that hits his chest near this throat, right above his body armor.

  Reason screams. Many are screaming now. One of them is me.

  I am ten feet away—my hands outstretched—so close, but not close enough—as the ivory soldier drops to one knee and stabs my grand. Up beneath her protective armor, up through her rib cage. Grand looks down in surprise, not at her wound, but at the fee who made it. Then she crumples.

  And everything is chaos.

  As one voice, the mercenaries shout, “Attack!” and Chia’s patrol opens fire. Everyone ducks. Abandoned car doors are thrown open as both sides take cover. The mob all carry pipes, Tasers, and homemade shivs. It’s not a fair fight, but as is evident by the erratic spray of gunfire, Chia’s soldiers will soon be out of bullets. When they are, it won’t be long before the howling, shrieking mob falls on them. Or before the tanks start firing. The air is filled with smoke, hate, and death.

  Reason and Comma run directly to Chia. But I only have eyes for the ivory soldier. I can’t call her Liyan. Maybe because I can still hardly believe I just watched her murder my grand, but also because I won�
��t be able to kill her if I think of her as the person who’s been my surrogate mother all these years. And I do intend to kill her.

  She is only a few yards away, and she’s waiting for me. Sword drawn, she falls into a defensive crouch I’d admire, if I didn’t so badly want her dead. I pull out Mama Bear.

  “Glori, no!” Sway shouts. “Your grandma needs you. This is more important.”

  “Jackal,” the ivory soldier shouts. “Take her down.”

  Jackal grins and nods but then is immediately overtaken by two patrol soldiers. I glance back: Mouse is kneeling by Grand, his hands lightly resting on her chest, shaking. When I look to the ivory soldier again, she is fleeing into the woods like a coward. All five mercenaries are fast on her heels. Itami snuck me packs of chalk and together we’d color over as much gray pavement as we could around the cul-de-sac. Muerte taught me how to use that chalk for hopscotch instead. Niraasha showed me how to walk on my hands. They’ll never let the ivory soldier get away with this.

  Moments later, all six of them fly from the woods on sleek motorcycles. My heart soars with gratitude, until I realize it isn’t a pursuit. The mercenaries ride grouped around the ivory soldier in a protective blockade. Even though I knew they killed Rauha and lied about Twofer, the betrayal still takes my breath away.

  I slide to my knees in the mud next to my grand. Sway is trying to stop the blood flow by pressing his sweatshirt to her gut. For half a heartbeat, I wonder if her injury is repairable. Maybe the sword missed all her major organs. But then we take off her body armor and see that my Grand Mati is soaked in red from her neck to her waist.

  “Shui?” she asks, staring at Sway’s necklace. “They told your mother you were dead. To make her more docile. She killed them and then came to us.”