by J B Cantwell
“Honey, I’m in. All in.”
I stared at him for a minute, trying to figure him out. It seemed like everyone important already knew my secret; maybe I was more transparent than I fancied myself. But if that was true, I really did have nothing to lose.
Janeen. Chambers. Albert. Damien. Valle. Melanie. Jay. Now Grant. And who else?
Enough.
Not Alex. He didn’t know.
I couldn’t do it all on my own, and Grant had connections in places I wouldn’t even think to look.
But that was it. No more.
“Alright,” I said. “What do you want to know?”
He smiled.
“Tell me everything.”
October 10th.
My alarm went off at eight, even though I wasn’t supposed to meet Melanie until dark.
The night before, Grant had stayed over. It was too unpredictable for him to take his chances out on the streets. As we’d pulled up to the building, I told Albert that he could be off for the rest of the night. He’d looked at me sideways, but I nodded.
“I’m okay.”
I wasn’t sure he’d believed me, but I hoped he’d found somewhere peaceful to sleep. I was going to need his help again soon.
Now, our slumber party had drawn to a close.
Janeen let herself into the apartment, smiling broadly as I sat in the kitchen nursing a cup of coffee.
“I would’ve messaged you,” she said, “but then it happened to me, too, didn’t it? I wasn’t there, but I daresay you were wonderful.” She was glowing.
I let out a sigh of relief.
Right then, Grant walked into the kitchen, still in his dress pants and undershirt. Janeen took a step back.
“Who is this?” she asked, suddenly frosty.
“Don’t worry, Janeen,” I said. “He’s with me.”
“Grant Evans,” he said, holding out his hand for her to shake.
She stared at him, then down at his hand, then at me.
I nodded encouragingly.
She sighed, then took his hand.
“Janeen Connor,” she said.
“The pleasure is mine, Janeen. May I call you that?”
I had to hold back laughter when I saw the look on her face.
“I suppose,” she said, taking her hand back.
“Grant was very helpful to me last night. In fact, it was he who detonated the device. Damien was all over me, and I daresay Grant saved my life. Or, at the very least, saved me from assault.”
Janeen’s mouth had fallen open, and as she looked back and forth between us, she seemed unable to close it again.
“You—you let him—you—”
“Yes,” I said. “Someone dressed me in a bullseye dress. I needed more help than I expected.”
She folded her arms, mouth closed once again.
“You know you needed to be smashing, and smashing you were.”
“Yeah, well, I got up to the roof and got cornered by Damien. Grant hit him over the head and saved the day. So play nice.”
I got up and pulled another mug out of the cabinet and filled it for Grant.
“Janeen?” I asked.
“No, thank you.”
“Okay … So, what are we up to today? I thought I had the day to myself. I have a meeting tonight, you know.”
“Well, I’d originally planned to spend the day shopping with you. Then, I realized: no access to money. At least not in the way we’re used to it. People will start having to carry cash or cards again or something. There will be no paying a fee with a blink of an eye.”
“Ah,” Grant said as he eased himself into one of the bar stools. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Isn’t what wonderful?” she asked, mimicking him.
He frowned.
“This whole crazy idea! It’s really going to make people stand up and take notice.”
Janeen scowled, then turned to me.
“Where did you find him again?” she asked.
“At the last two parties.” I smiled. “He’s the one who introduced me to Valle.”
I waited for her to give her nod of approval, but it didn’t come.
“Oh, come on. We should be celebrating, not arguing over who’s trustworthy and who isn’t. It’s too late now anyway, and as far as I can tell, he’s not packing a gun.”
“And,” he interjected, “I want Damien gone as much as you two do.”
“Why is that?” Janeen asked.
Grant’s face fell slightly.
“Grant and Damien have … a history,” I said, and I left it at that. “So no more. He’s in, so get used to it.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that, young lady.” She stood with her hands on her hips as she said this, and it was so old fashioned, it made me laugh. It wasn’t that I didn’t respect her, but because I had never been talked to like that before, as if someone actually cared about what I did with my time.
Young lady.
I tried to keep in another giggle.
I changed the subject.
“So, what’s going on down there?” I asked.
I got up and walked over to the floor to ceiling windows, cradling my mug in my hands. The wood floors felt cool against my aching feet.
I pressed my forehead to the glass and stared down. We were so high up that the people looked like ants below.
“There are people out,” she said. “And the Guard is in full force, trying to keep the peace. But there haven’t been riots or anything. People are just confused. Scared.”
“Well, I suppose that we should do some work today on establishing a perimeter,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Janeen asked.
“We need to figure out how far the scrambled signal reaches. Is it just uptown? Or is it the entire island? We don’t know yet how many of these devices we’re going to need. Valle said to expect a ten block radius, but we should find out for sure.”
I stood thinking. I hadn’t heard from Valle the night before, but then, how could I have? He’d had no means to message me, to tell me what came next.
“I think we should start with Valle,” I said. “He’ll know what we need to do next. Janeen, you say that your lens was blocked, and how far away from the detonation site do you live?”
“Oh, just seven or eight blocks. Not too far.”
“Okay, well that gives us a place to start. Something tells me that Valle won’t be happy if we all descend upon him at once.”
I turned to Grant.
“You should go home.”
“But—” he started to protest.
“You need to go home,” I said. “My errands today don’t require anything from you. But I think it would be good if you make yourself available for Valle. I’ll give him your address, and he can send a car for you.”
Grant’s face fell, and I knew how he felt. I never liked being left out of the loop, either.
“Or, well, I guess you could stay here,” I said, feeling guilty. He had helped me so much the night before, and I wanted to do right by him now.
His face brightened.
“Whatever you need.”
“I’ll tell Valle he can find you here. There’s a hardline to the front desk near the door. You can keep communications going that way.”
“And what is my … assignment?” Janeen asked.
I sighed.
“You know you don’t have an assignment,” I said. “I’m putty in your hands. Make me look like I belong. But please, flat shoes. I don’t know where I’ll be by the end of the day; I might not have time to make it back here before I go to meet Melanie.”
“Well, I’m not going to be putting you in army boots, if that’s what you’re looking for,” she said, looking irritated.
“I’m sure we can come to some compromise,” I offered.
“Ooh! Let me help!” Grant said.
Janeen scowled, and Grant’s smile faltered.
I stared at Janeen, waiting for her verdict. Finally, after a few long
moments of silence, she nodded.
“Fine.”
“Yay!” Grant said, clapping his hands like a little kid.
“Well, I’m hopping in the shower first if that’s alright with you two.”
Grant sprang to his feet.
“What do you need from me?” he asked Janeen.
As she looked him up and down, I took the opportunity to make my exit.
In the bathroom, I still had on last night’s makeup. I grabbed several removal wipes and scrubbed my face with the slippery sheets.
Grant didn’t know what he was getting into. It was more than just a cure for his boredom. Way more. I’d have to talk to him again before I let him go too far. Somehow I couldn’t imagine him holding his own in front of a room of bloodthirsty Champions.
Then again, he had been ready to hurt Damien. To kill Damien. And he nearly had. This gave me pause as I stepped into the hot shower.
Maybe Grant had a lot more to him than what he showed on the surface.
I lathered my hair until my hands were dripping with suds, then stood under the hot flow of water, closing my eyes, wishing for some good thought, some vivid memory to pop into my mind. Something to keep me warm.
But the only vision I saw, the only feeling I felt, was Damien clenching my body to his. His desire, not for me, but for power over me. He wanted to be the one leading the charge. He wanted to be the one who took down the system, in his way, on his terms.
I wish we’d killed him.
But the war was young.
Valle’s arms stretched wide as I entered the apartment.
“I can’t believe it, you doll!” he said, hugging me. Last night’s whiskey was still on his breath.
Celebrating.
Valle seemed to “celebrate” a lot.
“Oh, I’m just so thrilled that it worked!”
He took me by the hand and led me inside.
“When my lens went haywire, I knew you’d succeeded.”
“That we’d succeeded,” I corrected. “I couldn’t have made that thing even with years of training. And even then, I’m not so sure.”
“Well, thanks,” he said. “You took the dream and made it real. What did Damien do once they shorted out?”
I froze, staring.
“Um … I don’t really know. He wasn’t … around when it went off.”
He frowned.
“Wasn’t around? What does that mean?”
I took a deep breath and started telling the story.
“He followed me up to the roof, and he tried to force himself on me. Grant Evans caught him at it and hit him from behind with a brick of concrete.”
Valle’s eyes grew wide, alarmed.
“He didn’t … you didn’t …”
“No,” I said. “But I sort of wish we did. He’s got it coming, you know.”
I thought of my mother, of Kiyah, of all of Damien’s past victims both guilty and innocent.
And Grant. The look on his face after he’d hit him.
Revenge.
“That would have been really stupid,” Valle said. “You know what he’s capable of.”
“Of course I know. That’s the whole reason.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Damien has checks and balances in place. He’s got an army, albeit a small one, thought not as small as yours, and there’s a pecking order. Think of it like the presidency, only Damien is the president. There’s a whole line of people who can take his place, and they’re just as bloodthirsty as he is.”
My stomach was starting to twist into knots.
“What do we do?”
Valle had led me into the kitchen, and he leaned against the countertop, looking me over.
“Man, you are a beautiful woman,” he said, blinking several times.
“What? What are you even talking about?”
“There’s got to be a way, some way for you to use that beauty.”
I stared.
“I’m not going to prostitute myself if that’s what—”
“Audrey—Riley—whatever … do I seem like the kind of man who would expect that of you? No, I’m talking about some sort of distraction. Something we can implement while the other devices are being set off. We need to lure him away from them. You’re the perfect carrot on the end of the stick.”
“Forget it,” I said. “He’s dangerous. And the only way I would be able to escape another encounter with him would be murder.”
Valle sighed.
“You’re right. I know you are. Still, I don’t want you to count yourself out ever again. What they did to you in the hospital might’ve been wrong, but it was spectacularly successful. You are a stunning woman. Use it.”
I looked at him for a moment, then lowered my gaze.
“I just don’t understand how he got the way he is,” I said to the floor. “He’s evil.”
“I know it.”
“He just wants the power. It’s not about anything other than being in charge. He knows he can’t gain any political power, he’s too brash and not patient enough to wait for an election, and who knows what the public might unearth about him? He’d probably try to cheat his way in. But once he’s there, he’d be nothing more than a puppet. He knows that.”
“I think you’ve got our friend Damien pinned down. But you need to understand. Killing him won’t get you anywhere. There will always be another Damien waiting in the wings. The best we can do is try to work around him.”
“If we can’t kill him, can we turn him in?”
Valle laughed.
“Somehow I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”
“Why not?”
“For the same reason. One of the people under him would know what had happened. Then, they’d be after you.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’d be happy to see him go, just like we would be.”
I paused, thinking.
“What would happen if we turned them all in?”
“You’re talking nonsense. That’s like turning in the entire mob. You may be able to get some of the key players, but … but …”
“But what?” I asked.
He looked at me sideways for a moment.
“What is the biggest crime you can think of?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Murder?”
He put one finger up into the air.
“Ah! You might think so.” He started pacing around the kitchen. “It’s easy to be fooled by the idea that human life is worth more than anything else. But the real crime, the one that every agency, every guard, every government, every president thinks about night and day isn’t murder. It’s treason.”
I frowned.
“I don’t follow you.”
“We can’t turn them in. We need them to get caught on their own. That way we get away without so much as a bruise against our reputation.”
“I don’t see how that would be possible,” I argued. “It would be easier just to kill them, wouldn’t it?”
He raised his eyebrows.
“You? A murderer? I thought you were against all that. You know, you’re a soldier and everything. But you’re a Volunteer. No violence. No murder.”
“I know, but I…”
I didn’t have an answer for him, but I knew it was true. To try to lay a trap for Damien and his Champions would be impossible. And dangerous. And ludicrous. And the truth was that it would be a lot easier to just kill them all.
What was I becoming?
Not desperate. Not scared. Not cornered.
Angry.
Now that we were here at this precipice, waiting to deal the final death blow to the government’s caste system that had been forced upon us, I could suddenly imagine killing all sorts of people.
“Don’t go down that road, Riley,” Valle warned.
“What road?” I said, hoping it sounded innocent.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve never been considered a Volunteer, not until now. I may not be allowed in the club by y
ou or your people, but I follow the doctrine. I always have, farther back than you were even born. I’m not a violent man.”
It was a judgment. A sentence.
But he was right when all was said and done. I had changed. I’d grown tired. I’d grown angry. I’d grown into the type of person I never, ever thought I would turn into.
I was a violent woman.
And I wanted Damien’s head on a spike.
Chapter Six
I waited in the dark for her to come.
I was sopping wet, as usual, but a clean set of dry clothes and shoes waited ten blocks away in the back of Albert’s limousine.
My lens had lit up by the time we’d hit lower Manhattan. Valle had determined the radius of the jammer to be about ten blocks in any direction. A win, in many ways, but also a sign that more work was to be done.
Ten blocks was not enough to take out a whole city. We were going to need a bigger jammer.
I unloaded a backpack Valle had given me that held three of the smaller jammers inside; one for Melanie, one for Grant, and one for Janeen. I’d left the ones for Grant and Janeen in the car, not wanting to risk them getting waterlogged. But this one seemed to have made it through okay.
At first I’d been irritated that Valle hadn’t gifted me with any of them, myself, but his thought process was sound. If each of us took one of them, the likelihood that the path back to me was discovered would be diminished.
We needed my name to stay clean. Platinum.
I was cold. It was October now, and a chill was in the air, leaching into my body through my wet clothes. I paced the floor, trying to keep warm, but my lips were chattering. I tried doing jumping jacks, running around the loft, and a few, pathetic push ups, but nothing seemed to help. Finally, I took off my pants and let them hang from the sink, then jogged around the space until I started to get some heat generating again.
“If I’d realized you were going to come naked, I might’ve dressed differently,” Melanie said as she stood in the doorway.
“Ha, ha. I’m freezing.”
“Yeah, well, we’re all freezing.”
I approached her cautiously.
“Where’s Jay? I thought he would be joining us again.”
“Jay has … well … he’s busy.”
