Southern Republic (The Downriver Trilogy Book 1)

by Ramsay, Lex

  Sulla was about to follow them when Olivia grabbed her by her upper arm.

  “Not you, you sneak-thief,” Olivia said in a low, menacing tone.

  Sulla took a step backwards and found her back pressing painfully against the countertop. Olivia closed the distance between them, almost hissing in her furor.

  “I’ve put up with your mess far too long, but now you’ve gone too damn far. What were you looking for in my room—and don’t you dare lie to me!” Olivia’s voice had risen to an angry shout.

  Sulla felt her heart clutch with every beat, and for a moment she was too frightened to speak. But something in Olivia’s bearing set her off—her haughty manner, her self-assuredness and most of all her security in the knowledge that at least as to Sulla, she had nothing to fear.

  Sulla rose to her full height and looked down at Olivia coldly.

  “Get your hands off me bitch, or you’ll find yourself turned out of here just like your daddy said.”

  Olivia’s eyes widened with shock, as though she couldn’t comprehend the words coming out of Sulla’s mouth. Her head titled slightly in what seemed like a mixture of amazement and amusement, Sulla couldn’t tell which. She stepped back slightly, her arm releasing Sulla’s, and Sulla pressed her advantage.

  “If you’ve got something to say, let’s go to Protector Askew right now and we’ll both tell what we know.” Sulla nearly growled.

  Olivia’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. In those few words, her mood had shifted from blinding anger to steely hatred. She knew Sulla had the upper hand, and she knew that if she had any chance of surviving, she needed to focus less on her anger and more on self-preservation.

  She spun around and pushed open the door without bothering to look Sulla’s way.

  • • •

  As soon as he hung up the cell phone, Patrick got busy tracking down the team he’d worked with on the anthropology project several months earlier. Some of the specialists were out of the country, and a couple were too immersed in other projects to help, but in each case they were able to recommend several alternates.

  Patrick created a government-authorized study fairly similar to the one they’d worked on together. It was scrupulously documented—agency approvals, budget office disbursement allowances and a bureaucratically vetted project proposal. Of course, there was the minor detail that it was all a fabrication.

  The money the team would be paid was real enough, though, and in Patrick’s experience, as long as the money was right, most people overlooked other questions they might otherwise have had.

  For the next week he worked at a furious pace. He had to pay a premium in order to encourage the team of consultants to match that pace, but luckily, much of their earlier work could be reused with only minor adjustments.

  Patrick had appropriated the specifications from the first project, courtesy of the sponsoring foundation’s computer system he had been required to troubleshoot extensively. Instead of an aboriginal culture in an isolated area of the Amazon rain forest, the subjects for his study were supposed to be a slightly less isolated culture with limited English skills. According to Patrick’s project proposal, these people’s entire way of life was being jeopardized by an eroding dam that was threatening to burst, and the government that ostensibly controlled the territory couldn’t be bothered to relocate them. Worse still, a civil war in the region made sending in an extraction team an impossibility. The holographic message and interactive program would have to be packaged individually and dropped by airplane into the affected areas. The stated purpose of the message was to convince the people to follow directions to a mountainous region several miles away.

  Among the challenges faced by the various consultants was how to establish trust, how to teach the people to use a rudimentary compass; and how to color-coordinate the interactive process that, unbeknownst to the team, would activate Patrick’s automated hijacking of the trains.

  Once the team finalized the prototype, Patrick took over to refine the system and tailor it to its actual purpose. After all, although not a trained psychologist or sociologist, he had spent many years around escaped slaves—sometimes for several hours at a time.

  He had listened to their tales of life on the protectorates, at the jubilation in their voices when they spoke of the prophecies’ fulfillment in their newfound freedom.

  Yet for all his hard won insight into the hundreds he’d ferried out of their servitude, Patrick ponders with a snort of self-loathing, he couldn’t even begin to decipher his own scarred psyche.

  In what he now knew must have been a delusional bit of psycho-triage, Patrick had dared believe that his sexual aversion was tied only to women of his own race—the little slave girl grown up. And so, however much he was repelled by the admission—even if only to himself—he must have believed in that subconscious netherworld of barely glimpsed shadows and inarticulate whispers, that a white woman would be his cure. And a Southern white woman at that! What could possibly have been a better counterpoint to his wraith-like nemesis from years gone by than a spoiled, rich Southern Belle in the full flower of her precious white womanhood?

  Did he really believe that he could evade the relentless phantom that had plagued him through time that easily? Or were the old myths true about nothing being so deliciously verboten to a black man as a white woman? “Please tell me I haven’t sunk that low,” he thought disgustingly.

  Sometimes a brain can be a bothersome thing, Patrick concluded, his foray into the world of self-analysis ending in defeat. For surely its ability to dissect the most casual fancy, the slightest urge, into a myriad of contradictory motivations was more curse than blessing.

  Patrick’s own overactive mind had led him on a journey from desperation to elation, from equanimity to frantic self-doubt. Could he trust in what he felt for Olivia, or was that feeling no more than a compilation of bitter neuroses and their manufactured emotions?

  Turning back to his bank of monitors, Patrick’s muscles crackled from the tension his body’s weariness and his mind’s unease had created. All these things would have to wait, for now. He had far more pressing business to attend to, like how to make a hologram that embodied trust to lure the slaves to the trains. Without that, nothing else he did would matter.

  He remembered once he was partnered with an R.A. operative code named Messiah for a mission, and the slaves’ reaction to him was uniform astonishment. Messiah was of Eritrean ancestry, with large brown eyes, creamy light brown skin, black curly hair brushing his shoulders, a slim build and a gentle manner.

  When the slaves looked at Messiah, they called him “Lord” and “Savior” believing him to be the second coming of Christ.

  So consistently was he mistaken for the biblical son of God that his R.A. control gave him the code name “Messiah.”

  Thinking back on the nearly universal belief among the slaves in apocryphal deliverance, Patrick developed the idea for the hologram. He contacted several local talent agencies looking for an actor to play the role of Christ in an invented avant garde local stage production.

  Within two days he had held readings for fifteen actors, thanks to the concentration of African immigrants in the Adams-Morgan section of Washington, and recorded the most promising among them reciting the script he had provided.

  Next Patrick transferred his program for usurping the satellite-controlled train system and for deactivating the perimeter alarms onto mini-disc.

  The S.R. had gotten sloppy and as a cost-cutting measure had replaced all perimeter alarms in the protectorates with one system, which of course had one huge Achilles’ Heel—it also had only one deactivation code, which Patrick had cracked long ago.

  The finished product was a color-coded rectangular keypad about six inches wide, ten inches long and two inches thick with a raised circular mound featuring an indented handprint in the middle.

  Four buttons: red, blue, yellow and green, were aligned across the top. To the right of the raised mound was a large
dial compass equipped with flashing red lights set around its circumference.

  The child psychologists on the team were convinced that the red case containing the kits would invite curiosity and the first thing any human over the age of three would do when they found the box inside would be to place their hand in the indented handprint in the device’s center. That would activate a satellite-seeking beacon and simultaneously start the program for the holographic image of “Christ” that would seem to appear by magic.

  Upon activation, the satellite reading the device’s signal would determine its distance and orientation from the closest train line, and the red light on the directional compass would begin to flash. The holographic image would instruct the listener to wait until the darkest hour, when the image would reappear with further directions. In the meantime, the image would say, the listener was to gather as many slaves as possible to the trip toward freedom, find the other red satchels and distribute them to the groups of slaves, and to take every precaution to make sure the P.A.s knew nothing of their exodus to the Promised Land.

  When the internal clock determined that enough time had elapsed, it would reappear and instruct the listener to press the red button, which would remain depressed and would deactivate the perimeter alarms along the way.

  The directional beacon along with a narrative by the hologram would guide the slaves to the trains. The scant population of P.A.s on the protectorates meant that during the times the trains were not in use, approximately between 8 P.M. and noon the next day, the train hubs were unmanned. Since virtually all of the train functions were automated anyway, even when fully staffed the train stations had no more than three workers at any time. The slaves themselves were used to load and unload the cargo, and maintenance on the trains was performed in the urban centers. Everything else was a matter of pushing a few buttons.

  Once at the trains, the listener was directed to press the blue button, which opened the train’s container cars, disarmed the sanitizer function and activated the ventilation systems. Since it couldn’t be predicted how many “listeners” would be guiding their people to trains at the same time, while the holographic messages were individual to the unit, the train operation buttons were redundant so that more than one listener could be accommodated at one train station at the same time. Even so, the slaves were told to make sure each train car included at least one person carrying a kit.

  The yellow button would close the train car doors, and the satellite’s program would automatically direct the train to the closest regional hub either in Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri or Arkansas. From there the trains would be routed on to their international destinations—Washington D.C., Cincinnati, Kansas City, Kansas and Oklahoma City.

  The longest distance the slaves would have to travel to get out of the S.R. would be from the Florida protectorates to the Kentucky regional hub. Thanks to the state of the art high-speed train system, though, even that distance could be covered in slightly less than 8 hours. As long as those slaves left before 4 in the morning, it would be unlikely that the missing trains would be discovered until they were nearly at their destinations. Patrick had made his override program tamper proof, so that even if the trains were discovered missing, it would be impossible to retake their controls in time to stop them from reaching their destinations.

  Once arrived at the destination, the hologram would instruct the listener to depress the green button, which docks the train and opens the container car doors. The green button also signaled the satellite to transmit a pre-programmed message to the major television networks announcing the slaves’ arrival, so that the media frenzy and their documentation of the event would prevent the slaves from being surreptitiously returned to the S.R.

  Patrick had made arrangements at a small computer casing manufacturer to make the plastic casing for the unit; and a mini-disc pressing plant for the duplication of the programming. He took the finished components to a piece work factory, and in three more days was set to have the units delivered to the warehouse storing Olivia’s first aid kits.

  As agreed, Olivia had arranged to have the supplier ship the kits to a U.S. warehouse. Under the pretense of having located a service that could pack and transport the kits more cheaply, the kits were delivered there, along with a like number of red nylon cases clasped by a single toggle button and loop.

  The warehouse belonged to a specialty packaging company that would devote a double shift for two days in a row to packing the units into the red nylon bags, then send them by train to the Enrico County Protectorate c/o Olivia Askew.

  CHAPTER 31

  “Miss Olivia … Miss Olivia …” Lily knocked on the door to Olivia’s bedroom where she had spent the last two days in a deep depression.

  “Miss Olivia,” Lily knocked again, but apparently convinced that she would receive no response, recited the message she had been sent to give.

  “That delivery you’ve been waiting for has arrived at the train depot, Miss Olivia. They’re waiting for you to tell them what to do with it.”

  Olivia pulled the pillow from over her head and crawled out of bed. Ever since her fight with Sulla, she was afraid to even leave her room. Sulla wouldn’t have been quite so sure of herself if she didn’t already have something on Olivia. And Sulla wouldn’t have hesitated one moment to go running to her father and tell all she knew.

  That explained a lot. Like why her father had decided to reveal his apparent knowledge about Winston. And why he had so blithely threatened to throw her out of the house.

  Father always did like to toy with his prey before killing it, Olivia thought, and he knew what a serious threat it was for a F.F.C. woman to be turned out of the protectorate. Without the financial support of her family, or at least a reference vouching for her ancestral lineage, she could get no job and would have no way of making even the meager living whatever minor skills she had could command.

  Her plight was the very same as that faced by the Victorian servant girl turned out of the house of her employer without a reference. Either she became a prostitute or she died, usually in the poor house after untold misery. In Olivia’s case, she thought wryly, with her luck, she would probably become a prostitute and then die.

  At least that would have been her fate if she didn’t have Patrick. But even so, she couldn’t escape the S.R. if she were thrown out before the time was right. Which was why she’d been laying low for the last couple of days. She was afraid her father would exact his revenge for a lifetime of disobedience at the worst possible moment.

  All she wanted to do before that fateful moment came was complete the arrangements to distribute the first aid kits to her Angel of Mercy sisters on all the other protectorates.

  Olivia had already sent letters to each member of the Angels of Mercy asking them to have the kits distributed to all field stations, garment worker factory floors, protectorate compound cookhouses, stables and outbuildings, and in all dormitories. And they were to have the kits left in conspicuous places to get the slaves used to seeing them around. After all, she had reasoned with them, the worse thing that could happen would be that the slaves would get curious and hopefully learn a little about first aid without having to be taught.

  They had all agreed to this distribution protocol, using the ratio of one kit per 100 slaves; and since there was nothing to do now other than order some P.A.s to follow that protocol, Olivia was confident that neither the women nor their P.A.s would bother to check the contents of the kits before distributing them.

  At the next scheduled meeting in two weeks, the Angels were supposed to decide how to train selected slaves to use the kits. Of course by that time, E-Day would be long over, and the slaves, one way or another, would no longer be their problem.

  Once she had seen to the shipment being broken down into the waiting crates for transport to the other 64 protectorates, Olivia had to hang on just long enough for Patrick to arrange her escape. For without him, Olivia knew that she didn’t stand a chance. She couldn�
��t even leave the protectorate without permission, much less the country.

  Olivia retrieved her cell phone and punched in Patrick’s number. When he answered, she said, “It’s here, the units will be sent out later this morning,” and hung up as prearranged. Learning a lesson from her last close call, she replaced the phone under the plank in the closet floor on her way out the door.

  Now all she could do was wait for Patrick to rescue her, and pray that he did so before it was too late.

  • • •

  As soon as Olivia left the Big House, Sulla raced up the stairs to Olivia’s room. When she’d been there a few days ago, she had searched the entire room, the bed and mattress, the bureau and desk, the vanity and armoire in the attached dressing room; the bathroom, the linen cabinet—everything. The only place she hadn’t had time to search was the closet.

  Now she strode across the room, ignoring all else, and headed straight for the closet door. Knowing that all of Olivia’s clothes were regularly inspected by Lily for mending and cleaning, Sulla didn’t bother with the racks of clothes any more than she’d wasted time the other day going through the clothes in the drawers.

  Instead Sulla focused on the closet itself—its structure and all the potential hiding places within it. Pulling a chair from the table in the alcove, Sulla stood on it and felt her way across the closet ceiling for trap doors, and found none. Then she placed her hands on the walls, knocking softly and feeling for seams up, down and across each surface.

  Finally she crawled around on the floor, moving the rows of shoe racks aside and pulling the rug out from under the racks. Feeling her way as if blind, Sulla gingerly touched each plank of the floor, pushing on each end, trying to pry at the seams where the planks met.

  Her diligence was rewarded when she pushed on one end of a plank and the other end rose up, allowing her to pry the plank loose. Sulla looked into the black hole the plank had covered and saw nothing, but when she reached into the darkness, her hand landed on a small palm-sized object.