“Split brain,” I hissed.
Masaru grabbed me, pulling me out the door, and then peered in, saying something to the bloggers as I continued to wrestle with my hand. Regina’s tiny face stared at me with fascinated horror as I toppled to the hallway floor, doctors and orderlies stopping to look at me flopping about.
My left hand freed itself, grasping the leg of a nurse standing over me, trying to trip her. I tried pulling it back with my right, but not before sending the nurse stumbling to the floor beside me.
Why am I even here, talking to these assholes? It’s bad enough they can’t tell the truth, but they don’t even matter. They’re goddamn mortals. Walking dust, wandering around uselessly, waiting to be taken back by the earth.
Well, shit. Looks like I’m in split-brain again. That means I have to listen to this left hemisphere asshole prattle on like the whiny do-gooder he wishes he was.
People have been talking about this human trafficking shit way too much. I’m getting really tired of everyone sitting around, wringing their hands over these stupid fucking children.
The issue itself is the goddamn distraction. Why can’t he see what the real fucking issues are here? I mean, the GPFTA? Please tell me that we’re not going to get involved in the Goddamn Pointless Fucking Time-wasting Annoyance.
How about this you boot-licking sacks of shit? Is this a nice photo-op, you empty-headed, mewling cunts? Get a good look. Take a fucking closeup.
Powerful people making decisions. At least somebody is.
Why couldn’t it be me in control of speech? At least then we wouldn’t spend so much time whining about how sad we are and who loves us and whether we’re doing ‘the right thing.’
‘Exposing another truth?’ Jesus Christ this left hemisphere is such a preening little shit.
Well, it seems the last horse is finally crossing the finish line. How is it that I’m the one absorbed into him when we re-unify when he is so absorbed with himself?
Oh, quit fighting against me. You know I was just doing what we both wanted. I mean, we are the same person.
You know, next time I think I’ll just drop my pants and start jerking off. That’ll give these narrative factories something to clutch their pearls about. And maybe I’ll get noticed faster, too.
I wonder which of us will actually feel the orgasm when I belch out my arcing ropes of man juice. Sounds like an interesting experiment.
Great, now we got this gimpy asshole involved, too. Why don’t you go back to pining over your sad sack of a fucking wife and that useless, whining brat the two of you whelped?
Why can’t he just take off with their stupid baby and leave Akira here with me? Maybe then I could also stick my cock in that nasty tranny pussy, take it for a test fuck. With those brain implants, her orgrasms must be earth-shattering.
Though, she’s been a gross fucking wreck since they were checked in the hospital. Makes me wonder…could the doctors have done something to-
“Ugh, shit,” I muttered as all the thoughts flooded back together.
The blur of my audience moved about in a haze as all the events reordered in my mind, coming together into some semblance of coherence. After thirty seconds, when the world started making sense again, I could see Masaru trying to explain to the doctors and reporters gathered around that I had a seizure condition.
Feeling shaky, I tried climbing to my feet. Hands grabbed my arm. Regina looked at me, concerned, her small fingers gripping me. I exhaled, my eyes scanning over the crowd. Curse whatever cruel gods made me immortal instead of able to turn invisible. To be forgotten. I could just about feel my legs sprinting across the hall, down the stairs, and back out into the parking lot.
Yet another part of me knew I could use this. The sympathy card. It would be great marketing. The sick kid from Africa who came and freed enslaved children.
But before I could make a decision either way, Masaru led me down the hall, Regina in tow. They brought me into an empty room, Masaru helping me down onto the bed.
“That was…weird,” Regina said.
“It…it happens from time to time,” I said.
“He had a seizure?” she looked over to Masaru.
“Yeah,” Masaru said, “in the corpus collosum...”
Regina looked at him confused.
“Something in his brain,” Masaru clarified, “Causes his…mind to split and his left side goes all evil on him.”
Regina looked back and forth between us, eyes wide.
“It only lasts for short periods of time,” I assured her.
“Did it hurt?” she asked.
“No,” I said, “just…more…embarrassing, than anything.”
“How long has this been happening to you?”
I exchanged a glance with Masaru, “over two years now.”
“Do you take anything to treat it?” she asked.
“No,” I said, “I don’t think there is anything that can treat it.”
“Why does it happen?” she asked, looking between Masaru and me.
“Some bad men did things to him,” Masaru said.
“Like they did to me?” she asked, her gaze stopping on me.
“Yeah,” I said, “kind of like that.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her large, blue eyes looking to me solemnly.
“It’s okay,” I gave her a smile.
“You’ll be alright then?” Masaru asked.
“Yeah,” I sighed, “I just really don’t feel like answering all those people’s questions right now.”
“I’ll see about getting them out of here,” he nodded to me before walking out the door.
Regina remained near the bed, looking empathetically at me.
“You don’t have to stay here,” I said.
“I just wanted to say thanks,” Regina said, an innocent smile spreading across her lips, “for rescuing me. And for rescuing all of those other kids. I don’t know if I was ever able to say so with everything that’s been going on.”
“Of course,” I said, returning the smile.
“I’ve been talking to a lot of them,” she said, now pacing about the room. A mature looking gesture for such a young-looking person. “They’re scared.”
“I imagine they would be, after what they’ve gone through,” I said.
“Not just that,” Regina said, exhaling slowly, “the older ones look like children, but they’re well aware of their situation. You may have found us and freed us, but we’re still lost. We’ve…had our childhoods stolen from us, while at the same time having our adulthoods taken before they ever came. Many of them are uneducated, even illiterate. It’ll take a lot to get them to trust anyone again.”
“We’re all going to do what we can to help,” I said, sitting up in the bed.
Regina turned and gave me a wan smile, “we’re always going to be alone.”
“That’s not true…we’re here to-”
“Most of us understand that you care for us,” Regina said, “and those who don’t will learn, I’m sure. But how are any of us going to find true companionship? True love?”
“I think there are plenty of people who could love you,” I said, only to grasp the true meaning of what she meant too late.
“You think so?” she said, her small legs carrying her over to the side of the bed, “would you find someone who looks like me attractive?”
“Well, I wasn’t saying that-”
“Would you kiss me right now?” Regina asked, bending closer, “does someone who looks like me turn you on?” she parted her lips, bringing her face close to mine.
I recoiled back, “I get it…”
“Do you? Many of them haven’t really grasped this yet,” Regina walked away from the bed, pacing. “Most aren’t even really thinking about it. But I’ve been free longer than them. Those of us who look like children…only a pedophile would ever be attracted to us.”
She paused a moment and turned back to me, “so we either choose loneliness or risk the same k
ind of pain we’ve felt for so long.”
“I understand what it’s like to feel alone,” I said, “like nobody can understand you.”
“How would you understand that?”
A part of me wanted to tell her about my reincarnation, but instead I said, “everyone who became a forty-eight started off as an outcast. I have this…seizure condition. Akira was a woman born into a man’s body. Masaru was an orphan, his parents killed when he was young. Laura can’t fall asleep. All of us can understand this sort of pain. But one thing that we’re all about is finding ways to overcome that pain. To find a way not to be alone.”
Regina smiled again, “I like your optimism.”
I chuckled, “optimism isn’t often used to describe me.”
“Some of us that I’ve talked to,” Regina said, “have thought of another way that might help us feel better.”
“Yeah?”
“Revenge,” she said, the gravity in her child’s face unnerving.
“Against who?”
“Wichita, Kansas,” Regina said.
“Wichita…”
“Where the person in charge of everything is,” Regina said.
“How do you know about that?” I asked, furrowing my brows.
“When you look like a child, it’s easy to get into places,” she said.
“I don’t even know who’s in charge,” I said, “nor have I started any plans to go there. I’m not even sure we’ll have the people to do anything.”
…once Akira and Masaru leave.
The sinister smile that came over the little girl’s innocent face took me aback. “I know. And we’re going to get started on that soon.”
“Who’s we?” I asked.
“The Masaristas.”
Chapter 19
“Fancy meeting you here,” a woman’s voice said.
Rosaline Riviera approached, out of uniform, wearing jeans and a black tank top displaying muscular arms. A tattoo on her right shoulder caught my attention. It showed a bald eagle astride the earth with a ship anchor behind it, the letters USMC on a banner across the globe. A dagger pointing down toward her elbow lay behind the eagle, a ribbon making a helix around it declaring Death Before Dishonor at each pass in the foreground.
She had been a Marine before the devolution.
“Heading back to Cortez?” I asked, waiting for her to catch up before boarding the train.
“Yes,” she said.
I was about to board the hyperloop train at the Denver station, heading back south on the way back to Cortez. The track, owned by the adorably named CoCo – Colorado Company – had Brandon Callahan, CEO of Liberty Protection, as the plurality shareholder and Conrad Glover as CEO and second largest shareholder. The track went north and south between Walsenburg Colorado in the south up to Cheyenne in the north. North of Cheyenne, it was owned and operated by HyFly, a company based in The Republic, and made its way all the way up to Billings Montana where it turned west and went all the way to Spokane Washington for the last stop. A route called The Capital stretched west from Denver to Grand Junction. It was currently under construction, with Brandon Callahan the majority shareholder.
“Here to see the kids?” I asked, ducking into the low-ceilinged train car. I stood an inch or so taller than Major Riviera, but even she had to duck, both of us shuffling down the narrow isle to our seats.
“Somewhat,” Rosy said, “LoC Security also had a memorial service last night for the people who died,” she gave a weak grin, “I’m still a little hungover.”
“It’s been almost three weeks,” I said.
Rosy shrugged, “people were injured. We waited till they could hold their liquor.”
“I see.”
Rosy stopped and stuffed her bag into the small overhead compartment and then offered to put mine there, too. I let her take it and squeezed into the window seat. Rosy sat down next to me, letting others shuffle past us down the aisleway. Our shoulders touched in the cramped seats. On her left was the tattooed name Silvana written in baroque calligraphy, facing me from her sinewy deltoid.
“You’ve become quite popular in the news since the rescue,” Rosy said, pulling down the seatback tray and setting her water bottle on it, “the video of you flippin’ off those reporters is already a played-out meme online.”
“Not soon enough,” I said quietly.
The hatch to the hyperloop closed, followed by a sucking sound as the tunnel depressurized. The train started moving, slowly picking up speed, pushing me into the back of my seat as it accelerated toward its maximum velocity of eight hundred miles per hour. Rosaline held onto her water bottle so it wouldn’t fall over.
“I’d heard about the forty-eights,” Rosy said, “a few years ago now. But I don’t think I ever heard anything about you till just recently. How long’ve you been with ‘em?”
I watched out the window as the sides of the tunnel continued to move past us faster and faster, the train gliding quietly through the vacuum.
“A little over two years,” I said without looking at her.
“And you came up with the idea of savin’ those kids?”
“It was a joint effort,” I said, turning to look at her.
Rosy’s eyes locked onto mine, brows furrowed as she tried to figure me out. She looked a lot different than the last time I’d seen her as a ten-year-old – head shaved, arms muscular, skin further darkened by the drought sun – yet she was unmistakably Rosy. I could see Silvana’s deep concern in her eyes, the look that said she was skeptical of what you said but she was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I could still see my little niece from my previous life, the curiosity that said she wanted to know everything.
“…and yet there’s something so familiar about you…about your gaze,” she said.
I shook my head, “I’m sure my face has popped up online before.”
Rosaline Riviera smiled, but said nothing.
“You were a U.S. Marine?” I asked.
Rosy glanced at her right arm, facing away from me, and then turned back. “For a while.”
“You know how to handle yourself in combat.”
“I saw action in Korea.”
“Did the U.S. have much presence in that conflict?”
“By the time I was deployed we were playing a support role,” she said, “Japan was in command.”
“That was before the Mexico Memos?”
She nodded, “we were recalled almost immediately after that. Within a couple years the U.S. military was gutted. Most Marines lost their job, their benefits, everything. Those who didn’t join the CSA or PRA forces went into the private sector. Mercenaries. I know a few who went expat. Joined foreign militaries.”
“Were you in Pyongyang when the battle went down?”
“No,” she said, eyes focused out the window.
Maybe not in the worst meatgrinder, but she saw some shit.
“The concentration camps…” I said.
She nodded slowly.
“And now you’re an anarchist,” I said, “helping to free enslaved children.”
She smiled faintly, still looking past me, out the window. The gesture confirmed that those two parts of her life are inexorably entwined.
I decided not to push any further. I looked out the window, through the clear polymer tunnel to the flat expanse of eastern Colorado. We had reached cruising speed and would be making a stop in Colorado Springs in about ten minutes. I watched the solar panels flying by on each side of I-25, taking up two hundred yards on either side of the road beneath us. Large, evenly spaced windmills towered over the flat landscape on each side of the tunnel. The LoC had to supply almost all of its own energy, with the PRA, CSA, the Mormon Republic of Utah, and Benecorp isolating the rogue state. The Republic supplied some energy, as well as oil shipped from Alaska, but that mostly went to Fort Collins and Denver. Most of Colorado’s coal was completely mined up, resulting in a great deal of real estate in the LoC being devoted to solar and wind power ge
neration.
The vast majority of the farms and the old national and state parks were fully or partially owned by nine people, the biggest three being Brandon Callahan, CEO of Liberty Protection; Jonathan Thurman, CEO of LoC Security; and Conrad Glover, leader of No Masters.
There was also Natalie Nordstrom, the Deputy of Operations for LoC Security. She was the former CEO of a chain of very successful stores in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania. She fled PRA persecution when Darrel Gibson’s regime went on a crusade to nationalize everything following Marianne Worth’s assassination. Natalie had been able to exchange her PRA cryptocurrency for an independent cryptocurrency before her assets were frozen. Her brother and business partner, Andrew Nordstrom, was taken by the PRA to try and force her to return and give up her fortune. For all she knew, he was already dead, but she never went back.
The leader of Hijos Descarriados, named Vicente Valos, also owned a lot of land, particularly in the west and southwest where the Hijos Descarriados were located. Most of his land was used for housing members of the Hijos and so wasn’t developed for money making purposes. Most of Valos’s fortune came from dues paying members – he asked only five percent of whatever they made, going by the honor system, but with the massive influx of people and no taxes to pay, he was making a lot of money. He also used to work for a bank and rumor had it that while working there he would launder money for the cartel, as well as government and private sector people involved with the cartel. But for the most part he was somewhat of a mystery, not talking much with people outside the Hijos.
Ironically enough, Hamid “Saw-Jaw” al-Bouldadi, the leader of the anarcho-syndicalist group The Syndicate also owned a lot of property, particularly in the Boulder area, where his people had setup a commune. In his commune, all property was ostensibly shared, but Hamid owned the deed on most of the land and infrastructure from Lafayette to Longmont and west into what used to be Rocky Mountain National Park and down to Winter Park.
Of the other three big land owners, two actually lived in The Republic and the last in Brazil. Between the nine of them was seventy five percent of the land and infrastructure in all of the LoC. Another fifteen percent was owned by smaller businesses, the remaining ten percent being owned by the rest of the property-owning population of the LoC – primarily houses with tiny plots of land. Some of that land was-
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