Domino Falls

by Steven Barnes

  “How old are you?” Deirdre said.

  “Legal,” Sonia said. “Eighteen going on eighty.”

  “Take it from me, Sonia, when you’re eighteen, you can’t imagine how long a lifetime is,” Deirdre said. “Don’t do anything you can’t live with.”

  Sonia pulled her eyes away from her reflection to stare at Deirdre. “That’s the problem, Mom,” Sonia said quietly. “I’ve learned I can live with quite a lot.”

  “We can both stay in the library,” Kendra said. “Leave Wales out of it.”

  “And if Rianne’s not near the library, or in that tunnel, maybe Wales will tell me where she is,” Sonia said. “Hell, if I ask him right, maybe he’ll take me straight to her. It makes no sense to leave Wales out of it. This is his circus; he’s the head clown.”

  Her eyes went back to the mirror, the leading lady preparing for her close-up. Watching Sonia, Kendra felt her dinner twist in her stomach.

  We can’t do this, Kendra thought, wondering why she hadn’t realized it before.

  A knock on the door, and Deirdre rushed to open it. “Jason?” Her son had cried for an hour after his disclosure about the cells.

  But Ursalina stood in the doorway, her rifle slung over her shoulder. Her gun had been locked on the bus, so Ursalina stroked the stock like it had fur.

  “Got any clothes in here for me, Mom?” Ursalina said.

  Kendra was holding her breath. She might have heard wrong. Understood wrong. “You’re coming with us?” Kendra said.

  “Hell yeah,” Ursalina said. “I wouldn’t send civilians in alone to do an extraction. What kind of soldier do you think I am?”

  Kendra shrieked and, despite weak protests, showered her with hugs.

  And didn’t see the object Deirdre handed Sonia. Black plastic box, about the size of a pack of cards. And with it came two things: sixty seconds of instruction and a hard, ugly smile.

  Twenty-four

  Ursalina Maria de Campos Cortez didn’t know why she was going to Threadrunner Ranch, another of the great puzzles to add to the growing list.

  She still couldn’t explain how she’d dodged her bullet in the snow with the Yreka pirates, or how she’d escaped a horde of freaks at the Barracks. Why hadn’t she been bitten at the gas station instead of Mickey? Why hadn’t she stayed behind with Mickey and let it all go when she had the chance? She had enough puzzles to last her a lifetime.

  Want to come work the fences, Ursalina? Want to come be a scav? Oh gee, tough choice. Should she tempt chance in the freak zones, or wipe noses in day care? Only practicality would keep her alive in the post-freak world. But this rescue attempt was Practical’s evil twin, Foolish. At best, it was a quick trip back to the road. And there were no depths to how bad the other way could go.

  So Ursalina understood less than anyone why she was dressed in club clothes, leaving her precious rifle behind. No, she wasn’t a soldier. There was no flag to die for anymore. But she was still a warrior, with her own battles and her own reasons.

  The henhouse fluttered with nervousness; even the chickens knew. The mechanic’s backyard reminded Ursalina of her grandfather’s house outside San Juan: dirt instead of grass, rows of rusting cars, chicken wire, and a vegetable garden. The mechanic’s garden was better tended than Abuelo’s had ever been, neatly organized in rows, laden with shiny, perfect tomatoes.

  The others streamed out through the mechanic’s back door in couples, heads bent close in conversation; Sonia with Piranha, Terry with Kendra, the Twins side by side, the mechanic and his wife. Only she had no one left to lose. Ursalina stewed in her aloneness, waiting for it to hurt. Nada. Or maybe pain had become meaningless, like saying a word over and over until it was only gibberish. The past, present, and future were only babbling nonsense to her.

  Mom had done a good job with the girls. Wales would wet himself when he saw Sonia, and even Kendra had transformed from naïf to sex kitten, all push-up bra and pouty lips. Ursalina was wearing lipstick and mascara only because Mamí’s ghost hounded her when she didn’t. If you were going to do a job, Mamí always said, might as well do it right.

  Women were the oldest bait in history, never mind that Ursalina had loathed this game since her breasts had blossomed in sixth grade. Here we go again, she thought. Ursalina wished she could take Sonia’s job instead, but Wales would know her heart wasn’t in it.

  “Talk to you a sec?” Terry said, and nodded her toward a junked Mustang a few yards away. The guys surrounded Ursalina while Deirdre worked on the girls’ faces in a bright kerosene lamp on the back porch. Terry kept his voice low.

  “We’ve been talking,” Terry said.

  Darius took over. “We need another shooter. Stay out with us.”

  “Forget it,” Ursalina said. “They need backup inside.”

  “Maybe I could go in with them,” Terry said. “I could say I want to read the Threads stuff with Kendra.” The idea was so terrible, he could barely meet her eyes.

  “No guys inside,” she said. “The first thing guys do when they see each other is size up the threat. We need to fly under the radar. Girls only.”

  Terry sighed, nodding. He’d known what she would say.

  “We’ll be fine,” Ursalina said. “If I didn’t think so, I would scrap the plan.”

  “You’re a better shot than I am,” Piranha said. “Or Terry. If something goes down, we want the best we’ve got covering them. The shots might be tight.”

  The shining eyes from Terry and Piranha were hard to take. Ursalina never thought she’d be one to begrudge anyone love, not after how hard she’d had to fight that battle, but their eyes made her miss Mickey. On a list of one to a hundred, Mickey was the last person she needed to be thinking about tonight.

  Or, possibly, ever again.

  That voice. The one that wanted to seal her heart away, leave her in a shell. No. Mickey had died before her heart’s last beat. She’d given her life that Ursalina might live.

  “I’m the best,” Ursalina said. “That’s why I’m going in. I don’t need a gun to take care of business.” She grinned. “Besides, I’m scared of those big bikes.”

  The Twins laughed. The plan called for them to ride their bikes to the bluff.

  “You could ride with me,” Dean said, maybe the most words she’d ever heard him speak at one time. He was smiling, but his smile was sad. “You know, snuggle up behind me, grab something big to hold on to.”

  They all laughed, such an unexpected sound that the others glanced at them before continuing their makeup session.

  “Nah,” Ursalina said. “But if I change my mind, I’ll bring my tweezers.”

  “You’re killin’ me, lady,” Dean said. The fondness in his voice surprised her. In an instant, she understood: once upon a different time, in a different life, she and Dean would have looked good together. Might have fit. She’d never noticed it before.

  Ursalina practiced her smile for Wales, resting her hand across Dean’s hairless cheek, soft as a woman’s. He’d never told her what he’d seen and done when he went to the reservation to find out what happened to his family, but she knew. “I’d be too much for you, muchacho. I might kill you by accident.”

  Dean squeezed her hand, wishing her good luck. Maybe good-bye.

  “You’re beautiful,” Dean said.

  Ursalina smiled. “Gracias. Too bad you’re not a chick. With that hair, sometimes you fool me, though.”

  Dean tossed his hair over his shoulder, vamping for her. “What’s a little plumbing between friends?” They laughed. But she couldn’t forget that Kendra and Sonia came first for these guys. Ursalina knew that, and she didn’t feel envy.

  “We don’t have to do this,” Ursalina told them. Again. She’d had the same conversation with the girls.

  “Planes,” Darius said. “We’ve always wanted to fly. Maybe now we can learn.”

  “What about you?” Ursalina asked Terry. “Is this for Kendra?”

  Terry seemed to blush. “Sure, I want to
help Kendra see her great-aunt,” he said. “And I don’t like what happened to Brownie, or whatever’s going on with those girls.”

  Ursalina nodded. “Yeah, okay, but what about the rest?”

  Terry sighed. “The truth? Even with everything I know about this place … if I don’t go now, I might never leave. It’s comfortable, and maybe it could be better. But my sister’s somewhere out there, and she needs me. Maybe she’s in Devil’s Wake. Lot closer to L.A. than Threadville.”

  And maybe the Wizard will give us brains, Ursalina thought.

  “It’s a big world, kid,” Ursalina said. “What if you never find her?”

  “I have to try,” Terry said. “I have to go farther south.”

  “Your turn, Ursalina,” Dean said to her. She had surprised everyone, even herself, when she decided to take part in the mission. “What changed your mind?”

  The puzzle was gone, suddenly. She realized it had never been a puzzle.

  “It’s just like Crazy Horse used to say,” Ursalina said. “Today is a good day to die.”

  They nodded silently, agreeing on the point. The moon overhead was bright. All around them, families with children who might grow up were settling in for a peaceful night’s sleep. Their stomachs were full. They were with friends.

  They huddled in the moonlight, listening to the clucked omens from the henhouse, feeling more alive than they had since Freak Day.

  Terry was glad to be in the Beauty’s driver’s seat again. As Myles had promised, the engine purred like a kitten when he turned the key, better than it had run at Camp Round Meadow. The wheezing and choking sounds were gone. The ember of faith he’d felt burst into a flame. The Beauty might take him to Devil’s Wake after all!

  Hold on, Lisa, he thought. I’m coming for you. The thought forced him to wipe away an unexpected tear. He rarely let himself feel how much he needed to find her.

  “I hoped you might be the ones,” Myles said, finishing his walk-through of the bus’s repairs in the privacy of the garage. In the strong flashlight beam, the shiny new parts were a mismatch. “I started mapping it out in my head as soon as you drove up,” Myles said. “Part from here, a piece from there. Broke my heart to tell you I couldn’t fix her, knowing damn well I could, if I was willing to take the risk. But I didn’t know if I could trust you yet.”

  “Why do you trust us now?” Terry said.

  “Still don’t know,” Myles said. “Just praying I can.”

  “And if it goes bad,” Terry said, “you’ll say it was all our idea, right? No responsibility.”

  “You don’t know me very well, son,” Myles said.

  “Maybe that’s what you should say. You’ve got a wife and kid.”

  “You’re just kids yourselves.”

  “Not anymore,” Terry said. He hadn’t ever asked himself what he thought adulthood was, but now he knew. You had to go through something that stripped everything else away. “Be packed and ready to go. When you get the all-clear, start creeping toward the intersection. You drive the bus; Deirdre drives your car. If we make it, we’ll be in a hurry. This doesn’t work without the Beauty.”

  “She’ll be waiting,” Myles said.

  They shook on the deal. Terry patted the bus’s hood one last time before they went out back to meet the girls at the Toyota Corolla that Myles had lent him from his row of rescued cars.

  “Saddle up, pardners!” Ursalina drawled. “We’re goin’ to the ranch.”

  Ursalina was in the driver’s seat, engine already fired up. Kendra was in the passenger seat, and Piranha was in the backseat with his arm around Sonia. Way to go, P.

  The plan was to escort the girls to the ranch’s front gate, then leave them and double back to try to find a way into the tunnel while Darius and Dean provided cover. Once they were inside the tunnel, they would be on their own—but at least they’d be armed.

  Terry climbed into the backseat. There was no room for him in the front seat beside Kendra, so he leaned behind her the way she had on the bus. Piranha was speaking so softly in Sonia’s ear that Terry couldn’t hear him. When Kendra turned around, they only stared at each other for a long time. Their eyes were a resting place.

  Myles and his family waved with sober expressions as they drove off, almost as if they didn’t expect to see any of them again. Deirdre turned her face away. Terry still wasn’t sure he could trust Myles or the situation, but it was too late now.

  Ursalina drove toward Wales’s ranch on the darkened road. Their only light was the battered car’s single dim headlight.

  “Follow your instincts in there,” Terry told them all, but especially Kendra.

  “Yes, Dad,” Kendra said, smiling. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was scared.

  “I’ll get you to Aunt Stella no matter what, Kendra,” Terry said. “Even if it was just you and me, like I told you. You don’t have to do it this way.”

  Kendra nodded. “I know,” she said. “I want to. Terry, my instincts say if I don’t do this …” She stopped, staring at her lap.

  “What?” Terry said, leaning closer.

  Kendra whispered to him. “We could disappear. All of us. The whole world.”

  Dread thickened Terry’s blood. He didn’t know which was more frightening: the scenario Kendra described or how nuts she sounded. He didn’t believe she was crazy, but … wasn’t it crazy to believe anything else?

  “Just try to find Rianne,” Terry said. “Don’t worry about the rest of the world.” He leaned into her, and they kissed like it was the last night before Armageddon.

  Twenty-five

  Solar lamps bathed the ranch’s front gates. A spotlight stabbed the sky, and Kendra was sure people could see the glow for miles. Almost as if Wales knows we’re coming, Kendra thought.

  “Tomorrow’s ceremony,” Sonia said, remembering.

  “It’s showtime,” Terry said. “Ursalina, stop the car.”

  They were still at least twenty yards from the gate, but Ursalina slowed the Corolla to a stop. The plan called for the girls to get out of the car before approaching the guards, so no one would peg them as a threat. Kendra’s heart fluttered. It was time. Kendra saw movement behind Wales’s gate as they were spotted.

  “If you aren’t out of there by midnight, we’re coming after you,” Piranha said. “Even if it’s just a progress report, somebody better make it back to the front gate … or out to the tunnel. Don’t make us go in there all Rambo.”

  They laughed. Laughing felt better than Kendra would have expected.

  “Let’s go,” Ursalina said. “If I were them, I’d be getting nervous.”

  Kendra followed Ursalina’s lead as she climbed out of the car; long legs stretched first, hips swinging. They looked like they were headed to a fashion show.

  Piranha jumped out to take the driver’s seat. He and Sonia locked eyes but made no move toward each other. Tonight, at least, Sonia belonged to Wales.

  They walked toward the waiting gate in single file as the car drove away. Kendra wanted to wave back at Terry but decided against it. In a way, she belonged to Wales too.

  The guard gate was manned by only four Gold Shirts, but Sonia had said that up to thirty others had lined up when Brownie came, so they probably weren’t alone. Kendra hoped the tunnel would offer an easier escape.

  Was this the spot where Brownie had died? Kendra looked for blood on the dusty asphalt, but she didn’t see any. But she felt the echo of the night’s violence.

  A Gold Shirt wearing a tassel on his shoulder met them outside the guard booth, gun ready. After the Brownie incident, they were on alert. “What’s your business, ladies? It’s late.”

  Before Ursalina could answer, Sonia stepped forward, hip canted in a Marilyn Monroe pose. “I’m on the list,” she said, her tone efficient. “Sonia Petansu. Washington Crew. Mr. Wales said to come back whenever we wished.” She batted her eyes. “We wish.”

  “Kendra Brookings,” Kendra said, thrusting her own hip and feeling idiotic.
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  The other Gold Shirts wandered out to them, appraising them as they listened. Sonia glanced at them and waved, suddenly. “Chris!” she called. “It’s me!”

  The youngest Gold Shirt was the same one Sonia had been hanging out with at the movies. He seemed surprised to see her, and not happy. His face was sour.

  “You know her?” the ranking Gold Shirt said.

  Chris nodded, staring at Sonia with questions. “You’re here for Mr. Wales?” He sounded so glum that Kendra almost felt sorry for him.

  Sonia’s smile looked apologetic. “He promised me a special tour. I want to know more … just like you did.”

  The other Gold Shirt checked a handwritten list, and his face brightened with recognition. “Right at the top! Sonia Petansu. I’ve also got Kendra. But …”

  He peered at Ursalina, who gave him an Oscar-caliber smile. “Call me Lina.”

  Sonia and Kendra glanced at each other: Lina?

  Kendra was sweating beneath her carefully prepared clothes. Her scalp itched. The Gold Shirt wrote down Ursalina’s name and spoke into a radio, using codes.

  “Copy that,” he said, and turned back to them. “Good news: he’s on his way.”

  “Who?” Ursalina said.

  The guard dipped his chin to dramatize his announcement: “Mr. Wales.”

  Sonia bounced up and down, practically squealing, and Kendra didn’t bother to hide her surge of excitement. If they were groupies, why not be happy to see Wales?

  “You mean he’s coming here to us?” Sonia said, in full character. “Right now?”

  The guard’s wink to Sonia made Kendra’s stomach turn. “You must have made an impression,” the guard said. A few nearby Gold Shirts gathered as if the girls were a fashion show. “Gotta love the newbies!” one of them said, and another whistled softly.

  In less than a minute, a large luxury golf cart sped up; a Gold Shirt was driving Wales, who was in the passenger seat in a denim jacket with a fleece collar, and plaid wool pajama pants underneath.

  “I thought I was taking a quick ride before bed,” Wales said. “But I must already be dreaming.” He stared at Sonia, then Kendra, with a nearly manic churning in his eyes that would have been more frightening without his grin … but not by much. “What an unexpected and delightful surprise!”