In the Heat of the Light

by Stephen Kearse

  “I’m still not convinced.”

  “Well, that’s on you. You took the internet away from me.”

  “I’m not the NSA, kid. I’m FBI. And they took it from me, too. I used to be a hacker. It was never the glorious life you probably think it is, full of ideological purity and utopian ideals. Ascetics don’t have friends.”

  “You killed my friend. And my friends are only my friends because their friend got killed by you.”

  “I’m not your fucking friend, you maniac,” Kai interjected.

  Sol laughed, drawing Tilly’s attention. “Why did you do all this?” Tilly asked her. Sol laughed again, somehow above the entire situation. Tilly envied her.

  “My partner killed your friend,” Tilly said, appealing to Kai, who seemed to be the most worked up. “I’ve never killed anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me.”

  Zed finally spoke up. “What a great standard,” she scoffed.

  “Yeah, it’s kept me alive and stopped me from shooting innocents, unlike my partner.”

  “You are your partner,” Apollo muttered.

  “My partner’s dead, and you would be too if I hadn’t saved your smug ass. Those holes in your arm would have been in your chest when he was done with you. And your smart-ass mouth.”

  “If you wanted to save me, you would have killed yourself.”

  Tilly didn’t respond. She wasn’t paid enough to tolerate snark from teenagers, especially sociopathic nihilist teenagers who trolled her with lies about leveling their hometowns. He’d probably just put on a light show. Houndum hadn’t even called her to yell. The kid was definitely lying. He’d just been given the address of Sol’s parents. She’d caught them midway. There was no way he’d struck all these places while his friends and Rick were watching. Something was amiss.

  A city erupting into chaos couldn’t be this quiet, she felt. Irritated, she fished through her pockets for plastic zip ties, tossing a few pairs over Rick’s dead body. They landed at Kai’s feet.

  “Put those on,” she commanded, opening her blazer to flash her gun. Kai and Zed obliged immediately.

  “I’m not leaving here in handcuffs,” Sol said coolly.

  “Stretchers are also available, as well as body bags,” Tilly sneered, grabbing her gun and using it to wave at the remaining cuffs. Sol finally obliged, turning to help Apollo shackle himself before cuffing herself.

  Tilly led them out of the room in single file, stopping to retrieve Rick’s gun and gesturing for the teens to pass. The gun was still hot.

  Bringing up the rear, Tilly directed them to the stairwell, walking carefully as they descended in silence. Tilly winced with every step, cupping her ear and hoping its missing fragment could be salvaged by CSI. Midway down the final flight, a tremor rocked the building, sending Tilly face-first into the banister, followed by a sharp tumble down the stairway. Headfirst, she landed at the bottom of the steps, her body lying limp as she drifted into unconsciousness, blackness moving across the edges of her vision like a flame on a fuse.

  Hotlanta was finally an appropriate name, Apollo thought, swinging his dangling feet over a charred Honda Civic that he’d repurposed as a throne. The street was empty, devoid of traffic and life. Apollo sat calmly as giant flames snaked around buildings, producing spires of smoke that choked the sky, Towers of Babel spreading the new universal language of rebirth and revolution.

  He’d really burned it all down. All the bullshit. All the corporatism. All the opportunism. All the wires and wiretaps. Welcome to Atlanta.

  Zed was a fool to choose college over this, a true future, one with possibilities that they could imagine and build rather than apply for, drive to, tweet about, smoke away. How could she have left him so decisively, so easily? Her, Kai, Sol. They’d all bonded over the past month, discussing the future. They’d all been scared, he felt, their eyes lowering and glazing over when they thought about majors, classes, responsibility, bills. The only thing they looked forward to was the plan. Apollo had seen it. It was their only freedom.

  And he had seized it. The tags didn’t have to be an ode to Jerry or a final act of defiance before settling down. This could be the moment they unsettled, drowning in the radical openness of authentic liberation. They could have become true celestials, gods of the cosmos, stewards of change. Yet they settled right back into their fears the moment he gave them an out. So wormlike. He felt betrayed.

  How could she have done this to him? She said she loved him, but here he was, alone. Why had it been so easy for her to choose? Why had she looked at him like he’d double-crossed her? He wasn’t Theo. He wasn’t a flirt. He’d given her exactly what she’d wanted, what she’d asked for. Right there in the back seat, just how she liked it.

  Apollo stared into the pillar of fire engulfing the skyscraper across the street, recalling his last moment in her presence. There Zed was, dragging the FBI agent out into the street as the building collapsed like a dream. The woman was at least forty pounds heavier than her, but she summoned the strength to carry her, cradling her gashed head like a newborn and laying her down on a patch of grass. Then she was gone, Kai and Sol at her side, their plastic handcuffs cut loose with a jagged shard of glass, the agent slung over Sol’s shoulder. Why did she have to be so goddamn noble? That woman was authorized by a government that didn’t exist anymore.

  The revolution was fucking lonely. He wished Theo was here. Was he really dead? He had to be. This had all been done in his name. Jerry’s story was moving, but it had been Theo who was the true inspiration. He had carried out his plan and been broken by it, losing Kai, his center, his way. Apollo was still whole. As his plan germinated, he’d felt himself become complete, felt his body become definite, concrete.

  This must be how Zed felt when she brought her sketches to life, repossessing those privatized slabs of the city and releasing them back to the public.

  Perhaps. But this was so much more than repossession, Apollo felt. This wasn’t guerilla eminent domain, piecemeal seizure. He hadn’t taken the city back; he had hacked it, cutting a hole in the fences of enclosure and watching the source code bleed into the ether. Today was the day Dixie died. Again.

  Apollo soaked in the crackling hum of fire consuming metal, his hand gliding over his cheeks as he wiped away the latest wave of nervous, triumphant sweat. Theo couldn’t have handled this heat, Apollo assured himself, laughing out loud despite the globules of tears forming in his eyes.

  How had Theo died? he wondered. A bullet was the culprit, he knew, but where had it struck? Did Theo fire shots of his own? Was it an execution or a fight? A struggle or a surrender? Had it been planned from the moment they’d met him, or had it just happened on the fly, a death made from scratch? The only person who knew was Tilly. He’d have to find her, ask her about Theo’s last moments, if he could even muster speaking to her. She was vermin, a vestige of an outdated order. It was infuriating that she was somewhere in his city, breathing the air that mere hours ago she had clogged with surveillance and oversight. Zed, Kai, and Sol could find their way as they saw fit, but Tilly had already chosen her path, and in a world of freedom, it had to be closed off.

  Apollo leaped from the car, shuddering as a splitting pain shot through his knee. He should have given them a little more time to escape the building. Finding his bearings, he headed down Tenth Street, toward the highway. The streets glowed in the light of the ambient flames. Emptied cars littered the road, some crushed by falling debris. Bodies, some moving, some still, were just as common, but Apollo strolled past them, amazed by the views. It was unfathomable how wide the laser had been. A house-sized hole had been punched right through Google Atlanta, pulverizing the street. Apollo slid down into a crater the size of a pool, gleefully kicking rocks as he made his way to its center. If his hands hadn’t still been handcuffed, he would have thrown a fist into the air, signing his beautiful work.

  After a strained
climb out of the other side of the crater, he reached the Tenth Street Bridge, turning around to admire his work from afar. Smoke continued to pour into the sky, but the sound of the fires was muted by some odd drone. Apollo peered over the edge of the bridge. There was traffic! Cars, SUVs, buses, trucks floating along with no particular urgency.

  He seethed. How had he not thought to strike the highways? Even those shortsighted Black Lives Matter activists had known to target the highway. He felt like an imbecile. All that planning undermined by one forgotten target. If only Kai and Sol and Zed could have been trusted to help him. They would have thought of this. He resented them for forcing him to take on the burden of liberation by himself. He turned back to his flames, oranges and yellows and reds feeding on the steely bones of the city in an orgiastic frenzy. The heat of the fires was still tremendous, grazing Apollo’s skin, but it suddenly seemed bland, stale, pedestrian.

  A slow-moving shape on Tenth Street caught Apollo’s eye. The shape walked casually, almost leisurely, shoulders flowing forward, legs swinging. Yes, Apollo thought, there are already converts. He stood still, eager to meet this new comrade, already enamored with his clear familiarity.

  “Nigga, what the fuck are you still doing here?” Sol belted as she stepped from the shadows and into the firelight.

  “What are you doing here?” Apollo parroted back.

  “I’m here to get Zed’s car.”

  “Why?”

  “To get the fuck out of here, obviously!”

  “There’s nothing to run from. I’ve been out here for an hour since you cowards left me, and I haven’t heard a single siren.”

  Sol inhaled deeply. “Apollo, as I’ve always told you, you’re a fucking idiot. We were supposed to sabotage a satellite system. You attacked a city. Tanks, drones, or whatever they’re sending for you don’t have sirens.”

  “I didn’t attack the city. I liberated it.”

  “I don’t know what you thought you were doing in the back seat, but this is not liberation. This is you being an asshole.”

  “You’re one to judge. You made me kill your parents and your cousin.”

  “My parents were at work, and my cousin was at Bible study. I wanted you to hit their houses. Very big difference.”

  “Wait, what? But you hate them. You hate everything they stand for.”

  “So? Nigga, I also hate Iggy Azalea and Housewives of Atlanta and cheesecake. I haven’t killed anybody over it, though.”

  “I don’t need your condescension. Where’s Zed and Kai and Tilly?”

  Sol paused. “They’re making some phone calls, trying to fix this fucking mess you made.”

  “You snitching assholes! Not only is there nothing to fix, but snitching won’t help you. We all made this mess, not just me. What did you think the logical conclusion of hijacking government satellites was?”

  “Honestly, I trusted you. I didn’t think we’d get caught because you wouldn’t let us. And if we did, I was thinking we’d get locked up, get the Pussy Riot treatment, then get released. What the hell did you expect from all of this?”

  Apollo opened his mouth to speak before he realized the question was rhetorical.

  Sol continued. “Did you fail geography or something? You attacked a city while you were in it. Jesus!” Sol turned back toward the shadow engulfing the side of the bridge where she’d come from, her voice dropping to a harsh deadpan. “Dude, a few weeks ago, it really seemed like you were done with that childish shit, always picking conviction over compromise. But look at this shit.” Her arm shot up into the air, gesturing at nothing, everything.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “That’s the problem, Apollo. Revolution is supposed to be hideous. Only ideals are beautiful.”

  Sol sauntered off toward the conflagration as swaggeringly as she came, leaving Apollo on the bridge, his skin aglow in the light of the growing flames. Undisturbed, traffic continued underneath, a calm chaos of light and speed and friction. Minutes later, Zed’s MINI burst onto the bridge, cruising away from the fires. Apollo watched as the taillights slowly evaporated into the darkness, swallowed whole by the maw of the night.

  I had a lot of help. In a broad sense, I’m forever indebted to Mom, Dad, Jr., Nadine, Mike, Tommee, Torrence, Cedric, Cameron, and Hannah. Y’all fed me and made me laugh and gave me that look when I was mouthing off. More specifically, I thank Harold for reading the earliest drafts chapter by chapter and patiently offering writing tips and additional reading. I thank Kelly for giving me constant encouragement and providing critical insights about the business of publishing. Shouts to Hafidha for emphasizing perspective and tone. Props to ZR for pointing me toward writing resources and highlighting places where the narrative could be strengthened. Preesh, Sheldon, for reading so many versions of the manuscript that you could probably invoice me (please don’t). And finally, thank you Rashele and Luna for lovingly insisting that I go to sleep and take walks and chill out; it was always good advice. You learn a lot writing a book, but my main lesson has been that I’m damn lucky to know so many brilliant and generous people.

  My fortune extends to my reception by Vanessa and the rest of the Kindred Books and Brain Mill Press staff. When my manuscript sat on my Google Drive, I was simply pleased with it; through your efforts, I’ve adopted a swelling pride. Thank you.

  Stephen Kearse is a reporter and critic from Atlanta. He now lives in Washington, DC, where he regularly laments the lack of good biscuits. He has been published by the New York Times Magazine, Hazlitt, Pitchfork, and The Ringer, among other outlets. He loves Georgia summers.