Wayward State

by A. R. Shaw

  “You ready for this?” Matthew asked him.

  “You bet,” Owen said in his steeled workman voice. He was ready. Owen was back to near normal.

  Matthew knew that wasn’t really the case and he’d keep an eye on his friend, but they had a job to do.

  8

  Dane

  The walkway was lined on one side with a quickly erected studded wall. Plywood boards covered what remained up ahead. Opaque plastic sheeting covered the remaining area twenty feet until then. She had to act quickly. Standing firm, Dane swayed from side to side but refused to move another step forward. Someone shoved her hard against the back of her shoulder. She inched down, and a woman shoved her with her knee as she stepped roughly around her. Dane crouched down and grabbed the edge of the concrete walkway.

  “Move along!” an officer shouted from the opposite side. Distant growls from the dogs ahead and in no time, the commuters were stepping over her as they complied with orders. They were used to stepping over the indigent long before Seattle had become a police state. Only the first row of people initially, though no one paid much attention. Fear was a useful emotion. Then the next row of individuals thought she’d been there all along. One step after another, without even a cursory glance. Except that now, if anyone had taken the time to look, Dane had a grip on the edge of the concrete and slowly pulled herself through and off to the side. She had to do it slowly though, and it felt more than a couple of kicks as she went. Causing anyone to pay attention to what she was really up to would blow the whole thing. Someone would panic and shout. They would all scatter and someone would get hurt. Shot most likely. That’s what she was trying to avoid. The whole situation was too close to a panic state as it was, especially after hearing the fear in their voices. She had to get into Seattle without anyone logging her identity there. Without anyone asking her questions. If they did…she was putting Matthew in jeopardy. She was supposed to be in Montana…with him.

  She crawled through the plastic sheeting. She had to move slowly but deliberately until she knew where she was getting to. Then in a flash, she whipped the plastic sheeting back into place.

  “Hey! You there!”

  Dane jolted. She couldn’t see what was happening.

  “Stop!” the officer shouted, and a woman screamed. Several others began to cry. Someone pushed into her back behind the plastic.

  Dane was on a ledge and below that, was a long hard drop to what looked like an old torn up asphalt parking lot below. Not exactly the way she wanted to go down. Quickly looking around, the skinny ledge covered in plastic, met up with the plywood border and beyond that, gray corrugated metal sheeting; the outie kind without any handholds. There was no climbing that. But she had no choice. She had to move and move quickly.

  More shouting, more cries just behind her.

  Dane quickly moved in the only direction she could and when a hand grabbed the plastic sheeting and pulled it to the side, he looked out and from side to side and then whipped it closed again. “Do not touch the siding,” he yelled and then there was little noise other than the drone of steps on the hastily build platform below.

  Dane saw the top of the officer’s head. She watched him from her crouched position on the roof of the structure. Above her, there was another ceiling made of more corrugated metal. They’d thrown the structure up quickly or was it meant to move around? She blew out a relieved breath when she realized there would be no shooting of the people she’d just put in jeopardy today for her own cause. She felt that guilt in the pit of her stomach. Then she looked behind her as the water rippled from her high vantage point of the sound. The ferry boats continued in the distance with their escorts coming and going on their routes. She rose slowly, testing the currents and turned, realizing she was actually in the best hidden spot with no one to see her as she made light steps up the roof of the ramp. On her left, the space needle loomed as her hair whipped in that direction, on her right the Ferris wheel, and ahead of Dane stood the Emerald City itself. She adjusted her backpack over her shoulders and smiled as she took slow but steady steps. “I’m coming for you, Billy.”

  9

  Matthew

  “Chili? Is that all you know how to make?” Matthew said.

  “Hey, I work with what’s in the box they deliver once a week. There’s always hamburger and beans and onions,” Owen said as he drove.

  “What about meatloaf or something else. Meatballs…anything but chili and lay off the beans for a while.”

  When they returned that night, Owen was coming down the main drive to their turn off when Matthew was checking the latest weather conditions on his tablet. “Dammit, winds are changing. We might be going back.” He wasn’t sure if the fire they’d just put out would stay that way.

  “We don’t have the manpower for twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

  “We could pay a kid,” Owen suggested.

  It wasn’t that far away, a little area around Lake Seeley, but when the wind blew through the Flathead National Forest, it acted like a wind tunnel and where there was one little fire, there would be a massive one or two in no time as if a someone stoked the winds from a bellow right and true.

  Matthew chucked at Owen’s suggestion though. They were that desperate, but he was actually thinking about it when Owen said, “Oh boy, she’s here already.” And the truck he drove skidded in the gravel to a stop.

  For a quick second, Matthew thought he meant Dane…but when he looked up, Rebecca’s wild red hair floated in ringlets on the breeze as she leaned against the woodpile beside the porch, waiting for them.

  “What? They just left her here,” Owen said as Matthew too realized there were no unfamiliar vehicles parked nearby.

  “Looks like it,” Matthew said.

  Owen jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran up to her as if she were a long-lost friend. Arms open wide.

  “How you doin?”

  “Owen…” Matthew began to warn him off thinking he was being too forward with her right out of the gate. He might scare her. But as he watched, Rebecca pulled a big smile and walked into Owen’s outstretched embrace.

  Matthew swallowed hard. Maybe she was going to be okay. Maybe he was worried about nothing.

  He smiled too when Rebecca waved to him and smiled from her hug with Owen.

  Then Matthew interrupted them. “My turn, man.” Owen stepped back, and when Rebecca came to him, she choked out, “Thank you.”

  “Oh, honey. Don’t thank me. I was too late. I’m so sorry, Rebecca.”

  “No. Don’t do that,” she said. “No one gets to take away his fault in this. No one.”

  She swiped away a tear and he held her out from him to get a good look at her.

  “You sure you’re ready to return.”

  She sniffed hard. “Yes. I’m here. I have to be somewhere, and I’d rather be here…especially knowing he can’t hurt me or anyone else, now. Where’s Dane?” she said taking a swipe at her nose.

  “She’s um…” Matthew began searching for a lie.

  “She’s on a quick trip. Picking up equipment. She’ll be back in a few days,” Owen said.

  “Oh, I was hoping she’d be here.”

  “So they just left you here. How long have you been standing out here by yourself?” Matthew said.

  “Truth is, the sheriff and I waited for a while and I didn’t see the trucks, figured you guys were on a call. I told him to leave me. I needed some time alone anyway.”

  “The notice said you were coming tomorrow,” Matthew said.

  “If you haven’t noticed, everything’s screwed up. For instance, they were giving me a vegetarian diet for a few days until I asked about the lack of meat and too much pasta and the dietician said, ‘Isn’t your name Raika Dubashi?’ I said, ‘I’m a pale white woman with crazy red hair…do I look like I’m from India?’ They literally had me in the wrong bed for days. So, no. Just roll with it, I say. Life is too short.”

  Owen screwed his lips to the side. “I feel sor
ry for Raika…she was probably eating meat and didn’t know it.”

  Rebecca shrugged one shoulder. She looked paler to Matthew than he remembered. He was beginning to think this might be a strong front. She was talking a mile a minute and that wasn’t the Rebecca he knew from before. It was a warning sign, he decided. Just something to wary of.

  “Well, you look like you lost a little weight to me,” Matthew said.

  “Let’s get inside and get some protein in you.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. I see you guys just got back. And there’s new recruits here I don’t recognize. You need to introduce me. Let me help. Put me to work. We’ll make something after. I don’t want any special treatment, it wouldn’t be a good example. I just…I only wish Tuck were here. They told me what happened.”

  She looked only to the ground for several seconds. There were scars there. Owen intervened then. Took her by the shoulders and led her to the truck. “I’ll introduce you to the new guys.”

  Matthew watched them leave. They would work together, live together and move on together. If only he could fix the unseen. That would come out in the days and weeks ahead, he suspected. He needed Dane. He needed her because, for the life of him, she’d know how to call Rebecca on her bullshit right now and fix her. Dane would fix her or she’d at least tell him how to fix her or what warning signs to look for. Matthew followed them, they had work to do and too few to help. Then just as the thought crossed his mind his wrist vibrated again. He read the notice. It seemed they had another recruit coming in tomorrow…or did they mean today. He had no idea but the more the merrier.

  10

  Dane

  Reintegrating off the metal roof and into the collective of commuters wasn’t as hard as Dane initially thought it might be. She just watched for an easy opening for a while and then slid down off the side of the building and stepped around the corner of the walkway and melded into the crowd. Dane couldn’t help but observe that these people were all in their own worlds and had no situational awareness whatsoever. They were a zoned-out colony placing one foot in front of the other. A few eventually peeled off one side street or headed for a particular building along the way. An occasional wave or two but from Dane’s perspective, they were too conditioned to this life they’d learned to adjust to. She couldn’t get it out of her mind that they made themselves an easy target for mass casualty. That’s what terrorists looked for. Yet, she was living amongst them for a time. When in Rome…

  Where Dane managed to bypass one checkpoint, she saw another one up ahead. She was heading to the Pioneer Square Station to catch the light rail. Seattle was, on its best days, a commuter’s nightmare. She checked her phone for the next available train that headed right to the University of Washington’s Medical Center. And just as she suspected when she got to the next stop, there was an officer there with a ferocious-looking dog checking ID’s at random.

  At least there wasn’t an actual checkpoint and that’s what mattered. When they took your ID and scanned it into the system like the TSA officers did at airports, that’s what Dane was trying to avoid. That’s what would get her in trouble if they began looking for her. But this officer, he was only visually looking at the ID’s then at the person with an intensive stare and then again at the ID. She supposed he was just making sure the person was who they were supposed to be. It also meant intimidation, a show of presence. Seattle wasn’t messing around anymore. They’d always been a free society to the point of embracing dreadlocks, yearlong sandal-feet, and marijuana in the past, but the pendulum had swung too far, in her view. This was nothing like the city she knew of and the people here were absolutely frightened not only by the terrorist activities but by the countermeasures as well.

  Blowing out a deep breath, Dane knew there was no way she was getting on that train without showing her ID, so she slung off her backpack and pulled it out of the pack. She got in line and noticed the cop skipped a few people’s ever now and then. She didn’t make eye contact but had the id out and ready to go, the curved edges of the plastic card cutting into the skin of her palm. The officer walked up to the guy in front of her. A skinny kid, or young man according to the fuzz on the sides of his jaw, with a robin’s egg blue plaid shirt on in front of her. Not the normal earth tones of Seattle’s locals. He wasn’t from around here. The cop asked him for the id. She realized the police officer pegged him the same as she did. The officer looked at the card and then looked up at the tall lanky kid and looked back down again. It was him…perhaps an out of state kid but it was him in the picture, yet the officer kept glancing his eyes back and forth. Dane wasn’t sure what the intense scrutiny was for, but she was getting a little defensive for the kid. The dog beside the officer started up a low ominous growl and the kid began to shake. After a moment too long, the cop threw the K9 a hand signal. She and everyone else nearby darted eyes back and forth. Dane realized it was the beginning of a panic, that spark before an escapist mob reacts and runs for their lives.

  “You go to U-Dub?” the officer asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” the kid answered in a tone suggesting that he too didn’t understand why he and his ID were being grilled.

  The officer pointed at the ID and then again at the kid. “Then why does your address state, Spokane as your residence?”

  The kid didn’t answer at first. Obviously, he didn’t know what to say. “I…just haven’t had the chance to change it yet…sir.”

  The officer looked back down at the ID and turned it over in his hands. He was thinking of something…Dane thought, perhaps he was wondering how much he intended to harass the kid or if he should move on. College kids didn’t tend to change their driver’s license addresses, especially not within the same state, as far as she remembered. Perhaps this was a new rule.

  Then finally, the hand holding the ID, landed against the side of the kid’s plaid shirt. “Get it changed. The next time I see you, you’d better have the address updated or I’ll take you in for questioning.”

  Christ, Dane thought. That’s ridiculous. But when the officer stepped toward her, she changed tactics quickly and the first thing she did was make eye contact…but didn’t smile at the officer. Smiling in Seattle wasn’t a thing and he’d peg her for an out of towner right away. These people had perfected the straight-line smile. Not a persistent frown or an angry look but they certainly didn’t smile. There was one thing she’d discovered traveling over the years. New Yorkers were loud. They were used to making their voices heard over traffic and the sounds of a busy city, but they were helpful and kind when stopped an asked, typically. The near opposite of what she’d always been told. Seattle on the other hand, they were the ones that seemed more or less unhelpful and unsocial. They didn’t open doors. If you asked for directions…they tended to completely ignore you. And they never said bless you if someone sneezed. Perhaps, as children, these folks took stranger danger too literally and grew up that way. They did, however, have a surprising sense of humor once you got to know them. They were quietly witty, if she had to describe them or perhaps that was the result of too many antidepressants they popped for seasonal disorders. She wasn’t sure. The dry sense of humor she’d often observed, probably sprung from a well of sarcasm. Dane liked them. She didn’t need anyone to open her damn door and she liked that they minded their own business. She fit right into the Seattle types and she enjoyed being around them. Not touchy-feely types, but funny. That wasn’t always the case though. Some of these folks were just jerks. A result of not adapting well to living under a cloud with a mass of people you didn’t really like but had to travel with every working day.

  The officer looked her in the eyes as she held out the proffered card. He shook his head and passed her by and then went on to his next victim. The next thing she heard was an old lady’s voice behind her, being treated like the kid in front of her.

  It didn’t make much sense but that’s the method the officer was using as the train slid in front of her and the doors slid open and the line
of people began stepping aboard. She felt a little relieved so far, however, as soon as Dane took her seat there was another officer in their car waiting for them at the head of the train. She didn’t have a scanner on her either, which was a good thing. What they had in abundance were officers, but apparently not enough handheld scanners to go around.

  “Step inside. Take a seat. Single file. You there, sit over here. No…you can’t save a seat for anyone,” the officer said, pointing to the next available seat. Filing each of them in as they came aboard. Dane realized they were even controlling who sat where on the trains and keeping all passengers under intense scrutiny.

  Dane found her seat next to the window and the old lady who was behind her, sat next to her. She was apparently done with her interrogation. The woman flashed a smile at her briefly as if to say, What is all this nonsense? Dane realized, she wasn’t from around here either. That was probably the reason for the questioning. She’d probably smiled at him too, alerting him that she wasn’t one of them.

  Soon, the train took off and the force of the momentum gently pushed everyone to the side in unison. Dane watched the images blend in at the edges as she watched out the window and realized that somewhere during her line up for the train that the sky had gone from blue to the usual mottled dove gray once again. You didn’t really notice the sky as much when you were beneath all the skyrises. Perhaps that’s why the people here were often not as pleasant as they could be. Even on a beautiful day they were but minuscule humans standing against steel and glass mammoths and nary a blade of grass between.

  No one spoke on the train. A few read tablets or their phones and the female officer at the head of the train car looked from one person to the next. She leaned against the back of the train regarding them as petty criminals. A scowl upon her face. Her hair pulled back in a dirty blond ponytail. No make-up covering the red rosacea skin upon her cheeks. Stress creases across the mid-thighs of her police uniform slacks. Overweight, by at least twenty pounds probably caused by stress eating after her shift was through. But Dane had no doubt she could take down a man twice her size. She looked that capable, that mean. She also looked unhappy as if she didn’t like her life much either and Dane agreed with her. She ought to get out of here. Lay off the gluten in the carbs. Get a dog. A nice dog. One with goofy loving eyes and a wiggly butt. Not a little barker. This was no life for anyone. Especially one where you counted yourself lucky getting home each evening without a scratch. They had a lot in common, both of them public servants. Both of them females in a man’s world. Both of them in a job that could kill them. It wasn’t easy but then again, Dane loved her job and she imagined the female officer would say the same whether she meant it or not. Dane also thought she was probably pretty damn funny off the clock. The kind of cop that made you squirt beer out your nose on a Friday night gettogether. But unlike this officer, Dane had left her job…temporarily she hoped. What she had to do after, the deed…was still a fluid situation. One she hadn’t let herself consider, yet. First this, first.