Knaves

by Abbott, Alana Joli; Meadors, Melanie R. ;

  Feeling herself both revered and truly understood for once, Irma stands down even as she lets her tears fall. She flicks her skirts in passing—a mere flirtation—then leans down to kiss the edge of the island. More demure than she ever intended to be, she turns out the lights when she leaves.

  And since this is Johnny the Fox—Barrio brazen until his last day—as soon as Irma is gone, he sets out on foot across the island. Call it a grifter’s pilgrimage. There are a million ways to take money for tar-sealing a roof you haven’t, for buttressing buildings you won’t, for hurricane-proofing the neighborhood you’ll never set foot in.

  It takes Johnny ten days to reach his mother’s house in Mayagüez. He’s got a grin on his face and money overflowing his pockets when he knocks on her door.

  This is what you never hear when the tales of Johnny the Fox are told: how he felt about his mother sending him away so young; how he made do without her while growing up in the poorest neighborhood of the poorest big city in the U.S.; how he missed her counsel even with his father’s advice constantly blowing in his ear.

  But there are no recriminations in Johnny’s repertoire. At seventy his mother turns out to be just as beautiful as he remembers her; lithe and energetic, with white twists of hair that dance around her face when she laughs. As they sit outside, eating mangoes fresh-picked off her trees, he tells her every tale worth telling from his life, up to and including his recent magical adventure with Irma.

  “And now Father tells me there is another hurricane coming,” he says. “Don’t be surprised if this time next week you hear the tale of how Johnny the Fox fast-talked two hurricanes in a row and saved Puerto Rico.”

  “Son,” she says after a long moment, “it is a wondrous thing that your last song so pleased the Cacique of the Winds that she decided to go easier on us. But what charms a goddess the first time feels like manipulation the next, and she won’t take kindly to it. Save your magic. Ride out the hurricane in Mayagüez instead, where the West Wind rules. Here. With me.”

  Johnny reaches over and pats her hand with his mango-sticky ones. “Wouldn’t that be a novel twist?”

  So does Johnny the Fox heed his mother? Does he put his conceit and magic on mute and hunker down, in the way of all humans faced by superhuman forces they know are beyond their control?

  Or does he follow his inhuman father’s lead and sweep to the East, pitting his persuasive grifter’s gift against Hurricane María’s power?

  Johnny the Fox is almost to Yabucoa when she rises up before him, grey and solid like a wall, shaking water that falls harder than a river breaking its banks. He holds his hands up to signal he needs a moment, and digs deep to find the perfect melody, the right words. María holds as she is, watching incuriously as he gathers his human and inhuman powers.

  Johnny remembers the song with which he lulled the North Philly snakes into torpor, and trebles its coercive strength before he casts it at María. He follows it immediately with what he’s long used on the preacher and his wife—appealing to greed and shaming it at the same time. He throws at her each bait-and-switch, bunco parlor, 8-dice-cloth, hall-of-fame skin game he’s ever conjured in his rich, undeniable baritone.

  She goes so still, he believes he’s landed his magic.

  And then. And then, she drives his words back at him. Maybe this giantess, maybe this goddess, maybe this hurricane, is a winged thing—because she reaches for him and in one sweep, flays the clothing from his body.

  She throws a street sign at him. Then a hundred-foot palm tree still rooted to its ball of earth. Then the roof of a house. She doesn’t kill him outright, but plays like a cat, flinging him around to tenderize him. And when she tires of that, she brings the wires down—crackling and conductive in the water-swollen air—all around him.

  On his back in mud, water, and sparks, Johnny the Fox doesn’t give up. He opens his mouth again and one sublimely imperative note emerges.

  María stops for a moment, then leans in and tears it and the magic it is rooted in, right out of Johnny’s mouth. She moves on then, inland, where she’ll bring down the grid and plunge the island into a dark six months in the underworld. Three-thousand people (and counting) will die from her rampage through the island.

  It is his father’s inhuman nature that enables Johnny the Fox to survive. When the storm finally clears, the island is so physically changed, Johnny cannot recognize the landmarks. It is the trade wind’s voice in his ear that guides him back to his mother’s house to heal his battered body, his bruised psyche, everything but his voice—which will never heal.

  Tatán shakes his head, gives Johnny an exasperated look. “No matter how audacious the intent, the outcome was shit. María was so put out by your monumental presumption that she whisked your magic away to teach you a lesson.”

  “That’s the problem with being a legend in your own mind,” Araceli says, despite the earbuds. “You’re never as powerful as you think you are.”

  “Hey, at least you stayed in Puerto Rico for months afterward,” I say, feeling a bit sorry for Johnny. “So some good came of it, amirite? You probably helped some folks in the aftermath…”

  “Yeah, sure, like maybe he handed out some rolls of paper towels one day,” Tatán interrupts me.

  “Or maybe he offered to fetch water for people, one teacup full at a time,” Araceli says with a snort.

  “Or maybe on the flight home he gave his coat and shoes to some poor viejito wearing chanclas and a t-shirt,” Tatán adds. “For a price, of course.”

  They keep going, mocking the idea that Johnny would willingly do anything good for anyone, weaving their narrative of ridicule in third person right to his face. He makes pitiful, affronted sounds, and every so often tries, unconvincingly, to protest.

  Late in the afternoon, las girlfriends and Johnny’s compais find their way to the bodega, and they take turns riding him too. I won’t vouch for it, but it is entirely possible that the preacher’s wife calls one of their cellphones at one point, and that they hold it up to Johnny’s ear so she can get in on the fun too.

  When evening falls, Tatán brings out the good beers, las girlfriends haul a mother lode of Mexican-tamales-posing-as-Puerto-Rican-pasteles from the back of their food truck, and Johnny’s compais loudly sing along to the songs on Araceli’s favorite playlist.

  No one stops giving Johnny the Fox a hard time, but they also feed him savory bits of tamal/pastel with their fingers, they toast his survival and clink bottles with him, and they convince him that even though he can’t sing anymore, he can still dance down the bodega aisles with them, to the sounds of Mino Cruz and Princess Nokia.

  Someone dips into a stash of out-of-season fireworks, and then we all pour out onto the street in front of the bodega to set them off. A lot of other folks find their way over to us, after the first few go off. It is this way always, here in El Barrio.

  Smoke bombs and fountains and ground spinners. By their intermittent light we look into each other’s faces and wonder if there is any difference between cuentistas (liars) and cuentistas (storytellers), and if it even matters any more.

  Nothing in Puerto Rico will ever be the same again. And by extension, nothing here will be either.

  So the truth about Johnny the Fox is this: there he is, at our heart, living by his wits (as we all are). He is battered and broken (as we all are). He is surrounded by flash and fire, and a community that values resilience above all else. With voice or without, magic lives here as long as we do.

  Welcome back, Johnny the Fox.

  Editor’s note: At the time of this book going to press, parts of Puerto Rico continued to be without power more than 356 days after Hurricane María. According to the most recent reports released by the Puerto Rican government, there were 2,975 fatalities in Puerto Rico due to the hurricane, not including later deaths due to delayed and interrupted health care.

  OLD SOL RISES UP

  Toiya Kristen Finley

  Chase

  CHASE WASN�
�T SURE what to expect based on their conversations—perhaps the raw, earthen heaviness of patchouli or the muskiness of incense. But the sickly sweetness of fruit puffs soaking in milk hit him as he entered the brownstone. Three kids, three out of Old Sol’s five, sat on a living room couch. They were all about the same age. In fact, a couple probably were the same age, even though none of them were twins. They looked up at him for a moment, as Chase clicked the front door closed. Then they went back to stuffing their mouths.

  “Yessssss! Here he is!” A giant man swung his arms forward in greeting. Chase recognized the booming voice from online chat. He’d never seen the man before, but Old Sol looked much like he’d expected—central casting’s answer for a ’90s Hip-Hop artist, a prettier Biggie.

  “Good to finally meet you!” Brie, one of Chase’s other guildmates and Old Sol’s… well, Chase wasn’t exactly sure if he quite understood that relationship. She only participated in raids while she was with Sol, and she came and went as she pleased. She gave Chase a hug and a “mwah!” on the cheek. She left the essence of cocoa butter on his face.

  “You too, Brie.”

  Whatever the relationship was, Old Sol had good taste. Her skin was smooth, spotless. The sun had tanned her medium-brown tone a shade darker, and she glowed. Chase took his hands off her broad shoulders before she noticed him lingering. Her hair brushed across his fingers.

  “Y’all headin’ upstairs?” She headed towards the kitchen past the kids. She patted the girl on the head as she went by. Maybe that one was hers.

  “Yep, yep. Official business.” Old Sol cracked a half smile as he swung his arms back and forth.

  “I’ll bring y’all some beers.” She tossed her hair off her shoulder as she glanced back at them.

  “Thank you, my universe.”

  My universe. Based on what Chase got from chat sessions, Old Sol had several universes. Chase wasn’t a romantic, and he doubted that line would ever work on his wife. Old Sol said something about believing women were strong, creative forces just like universes. Whatever worked for him. If he wanted women and lots of kids, he had them. The space metaphor went a little too far, though. Chase thought “Old Sol” was the man’s GloriousCivilization user name. But he went by “Old Sol” in real life instead of his “government name,” whatever that meant.

  “How’re the planets doing?” Chase said as he followed Old Sol up the stairs. The planets, of course, were the kids on the couch. “A man is a sun,” Sol babbled once during a raid. “He’s responsible for his own solar system.”

  “Good! So glad you finally got up to New York to see ’em!”

  Chase didn’t care how eccentric Old Sol was. He never thought he’d end up in Outpost Redshift with a man like Sol—that was the beauty of the GloriousCiv project with its two MMOs, Av and Zed. Av was a standard high-fantasy world, and Zed a typical contemporary cyberpunk setting. Clichéd scenarios, but Chase found their spin on the traditional MMO intriguing. He got the chance to develop his avatar’s AI based on an extensive psychological profile, instead of the typical character backgrounds and personalities to choose from. He wasn’t trying to design someone who ended up being so much like himself. It turned out he was exactly like 98% of GloriousCiv players who couldn’t help but clone themselves in-game. Old Sol’s avi was pretty much a doppelganger, too.

  In meeting Sol’s AI while Sol was offline, Chase knew that was the kind of guy he wanted to play with.

  Old Sol leaned back in his chair and peered at Chase behind heavy lids. Finally. The jolly, welcoming man was gone. Chase was ready to meet that fearless Artisome who phased behind enemy teams and hijacked their brains.

  “We should get ahead of this.” Chase hunched forward and pressed his elbows into his thighs. “It’s not gonna be long before the guild realizes avatars can operate outside the game. You heard about Thomas Gladius?”

  “I know he’s taught his player a few things.”

  “A lot of things.”

  Sol was too tentative. He refused to realize what the technology could do. What the AIs could find. What data trails they could erase…

  A wall-mounted dispenser spritzed lavender oil.

  “You wanna change our plans?” Sol spun the pen around his index finger and furrowed his brow.

  “Always gotta think ahead.”

  “True dat.” He nodded, but he creased his eyebrows even harder. “You talk with other guilds about it?”

  Chase fell back laughing a little too hard. His back twinged as he coughed. “Oh, hell no! Come on, Sol. If the devs had any idea, they’d ban them… and have them prosecuted.”

  The pen stopped spinning around Old Sol’s fingers.

  Chase lowered his voice. “Whatever we wanna know, whatever we wanna do, our avis can get it for us.”

  “How you know it works?”

  “I asked Leitchfield if he could text me.”

  “Your avi’s texting you? Through your phone?!”

  Chase showed Old Sol the screen. “I asked him something simple. ‘I need a bakso recipe. Go to the highest-rated Indonesian restaurant you can find—I don’t care where in the world it is—and get the recipe off the computer, server, wherever they’re storing it. And don’t get caught.’”

  Old Sol fell out in giggles. “You figured out how to get more than recipes?”

  “That’s why you recruited the best player to your guild.” Chase smiled.

  “Best tank, not the best player.”

  Chase didn’t respond to that. “We don’t have to think small, but we do need to be coordinated, and we do need to establish some rules. We can’t have anyone in Out-Red getting detected and getting questions rained down on all our heads.

  “And don’t think our own guild doesn’t know what’s going on. They’re going to start experimenting. We need to protect everyone. Show them how to cover their tracks.”

  “Cover their tracks?” Old Sol leaned forward against the desk. His pupils dashed back and forth, studying Chase. He laced his fingers and smirked. “What about this, Mr. Businessman…?”

  Chase raised his eyebrows. His armpits moistened.

  “You saw what’s goin’ on in this neighborhood. People livin’ here decades can’t afford it no more, gotta leave their homes, their businesses, leave behind inheritances they’d planned for their grandbabies.”

  Chase angled his head sideways, confused.

  “I’d like to make it so they can afford their property taxes. Maybe find a little money for them. They don’t have to be the only ones. There’s uh lotta deservin’ people.”

  “Pay for a kid’s cancer treatment, something like that?”

  “Yeah, like that.”

  Chase shrugged. “That’s doable. Move a little from one back account to another.”

  “That easy?”

  “I’m tellin’ you, Sol. These avis are powerful AIs. We tell them what they need to know: ‘Learn how to transfer money from one bank account to another. Don’t get caught. Don’t leave any trace of your existence.’ They’ll learn it.”

  Old Sol nodded over and over again. “Okay… okay… That’s what we gonna do.”

  Chase scoffed in spite of himself. “You can Robin Hood if you want, but there’s so much more—”

  Old Sol flicked his wrists. “Like you said, we need to establish some guidelines. Give Out-Red some rules on conductin’ ourselves and our avis outside the game. Let’s let other guilds make big mistakes for us first.”

  “You know we’ve got members even more entrepreneurial minded than I am. They’re gonna find ways to get paid. You should, too. Finally fix up the brownstone.”

  “Anybody breaks our rules, they’re out. I ain’t disagreein’ with you. You can’t tell me the developers won’t find out players are usin’ their avatars outside the game.”

  The oil dispenser spritzed.

  “They haven’t yet.”

  “This has only been goin’ on a few days,” Sol said.

  “If there’s a small windo
w, let’s get through it. There are so many secrets we’ve got access to now. Don’t think small.”

  “I’m not. I’m the one who’s thinkin’ here. We start small. We move a little bit uh money around.”

  Chase leaned back and wiped under his nose, smearing sweat he didn’t realize was there. “Fine.”

  Old Sol stood up from the desk with a boyish smile. “I sure ’preciate you comin’ all the way up to Brooklyn. Wanna get a raid in ’fore you leave?”

  Old Sol

  Brie finally got the little planets to bed and headed out. Old Sol heard P5 on the phone upstairs. A moment to breathe in peace alone. He logged onto GloriousCivilization: Zed. Akoni had looted the scraps of nickel Sol asked for and left them on the floor in the common room of the warehouse loft. The bedroom door slid open. Akoni grinned, hopped over the back of the couch and took a seat. Avatar looks wasn’t nothing Old Sol really cared about, but he put a lot of time into the character creation for this social experiment. He was always proud to see the results: the perfect cross between Wesley Snipe’s Blade and Jet Black, if he did say so himself. They were separated by a screen, but Old Sol always felt he could reach right in, clasp Akoni’s static hand like saying hi to a brother.

  “Chase just took off.”

  “Leitch said he’s got a big business trip startin’ tomorrow. Guess you were the first stop.”

  “That all Leitch say?” Old Sol said.

  “Haven’t seen Leitch since the raid.”

  Wasn’t that long ago, of course, but Sol had no idea if an AI minute was forever or no time at all.

  Sol thought for a minute, figurin’ how to phrase it. He didn’t know if this was being recorded, could come back to destroy him. “You know what other players are up to? All that stuff that wasn’t… planned?”

  “I know what you gettin’ at, boss.”

  “How do we chat about that?”

  Light emanated from a pile of envelopes on the desk. Sol’s phone danced as it vibrated and belted “Computer Love.” Sol turned back to the screen. Certainly wasn’t no ringtone he was usin’. Sol unlocked the phone. Held it to his ear. It was Akoni’s voice coming through the speaker, but his mouth didn’t move in the game.