Fire

by Jim Heskett

  Her eyes darted around, taking it in. A few shelves stacked with cleaning equipment, mop buckets, and brooms. Nothing that appeared to be a quality weapon. But then, her eyes widened when she saw the pliers on a shelf. She would have to change her strategy, but this could still work out in her favor.

  Once she was inside, Jorge closed the door behind them, then he reached up and pulled a string to turn on a single light bulb. It swung back and forth when he let go of the chain.

  He dropped the keys back into his pocket and grinned at her with one side of his mouth. “We don’t have a lost and found.”

  “That’s fine, Jorge, but I have no intention of letting you put your filthy hands on me.”

  His head jerked to the side, his brow scrunched. “Excuse me?”

  Rosia reached into her bra and drew out the control chip. “Do you know what this is?”

  He stared for a moment, then his eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Can’t be,” he said, then he took a step forward. “Is that a Ramirez?”

  She nodded, and he stepped forward again. “Give me that,” he said, his eyes turning dark.

  Rosia then shot out a hand to grab the pliers. She slid the chip between the jaws and held it up to the light so he could see. “Not one more step.”

  Jorge paused and then lifted his hands. “Okay, pretty thing. Whatever you say, as long as you don’t crush it. You have no idea how bad I need something like that right now.”

  Rosia knew she’d chosen well when selecting this guard. He’d had the look of a man with debts. “Is that so?”

  He nodded. “How in the stars did you get your hands on a Ramirez Control Chip?”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. All you need to know is that if you do exactly what I say, it’s yours.”

  His eyes lit up. “What do you want?”

  “Exit papers. I want me and the two boys I came in here with processed out of this facility. Today.”

  “Done,” he said as he held out his hand. “But, please be careful with that. You don’t know how fragile it is. Why don’t you hand it over, and I’ll get that all started for you?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m going to follow you out of here, back to your little cage. You show me signed papers indicating an immediate release, and it’s yours.”

  Jorge sighed as his lips swished back and forth. “I could face a lot worse than losing my job for this.”

  “Or, you could be rich. I understand these things are worth quite a bit of gold. You don’t care about three serfs getting out of here. But, you do care about what you can get for this on the black market.”

  “You don’t know what that chip really is, do you?” he asked, smirking. “You’re just a dumb slave girl who stumbled into good luck.” When Rosia tensed her arm and squeezed the pliers a little, he raised his hands again. “Okay, okay. Please don’t crush it. You’ll have to give me a few minutes to complete everything to get you out. And you can’t stay in the processing area. You need to go back to the main holding cell.”

  “That’s fine. But know that, if I feel like it’s taking too much time, or if a group of armed guards starts walking toward me, or if I see a single soldado5 eying me, I’m going to crush this thing to bits, and you get nothing.”

  Jorge, breath whistling in and out of his nose, nodded. “I understand. I won’t cross you. But, if this is a ploy or you do something suspicious, I’ll order your execution immediately.”

  “Don’t worry about that. We just want out of here.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay, sugar, let’s go.”

  1 Mariposa: butterfly

  2 Idiota: idiot

  3 Pinche: f*cking

  4 Plantación: plantation

  5 Soldado: soldier

  Chapter Three

  Yorick was the first to step out into the light. Rosia and Tenney followed shortly behind. Yorick hadn't been sure that Rosia could pull off a clean exit, but he should’ve known better than to doubt her. One determined Rosia was better than ten normal people.

  While it had cost them their only remaining chip, the sacrifice was worth it for freedom.

  The inside of the holding facility had been so dark that when Yorick stepped outside the back door, the brightness of the daylight blinded him. He held up a hand against the sun and blinked several times to regain his vision. First, he realized they were in an alley. Ahead of him was a giant wall. But then, his eyes drifted up, and he realized it wasn't a wall, but the side of the building. The tallest building Yorick had ever seen. At least a hundred meters, maybe more.

  "I had no idea they made buildings this tall," Tenney said.

  "I was thinking the same thing." Yorick turned to face his two friends. The only two people he had left in the world. They were now free, although they were still trapped inside the city. But, as far as they knew, no one was actively hunting them. They had no food, no money, no weapons, and no means to acquire any of those things. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs.

  Still, they were free. They all shared a smile, the other two seemingly reading Yorick's mind. Tenney less so, but that was understandable.

  Yorick took a few seconds to breathe in the clean and crisp air. Then, he opened his mouth to speak, but he halted when he noted Tenney staring off into space, glistening wetness in his eyes.

  “Tenney,” Yorick said, gently enough not to startle him, but trying to get his attention.

  Tenney didn’t turn to face Yorick, but he let a sad smile crease his lips. “After long days in the fields, we would go to the dorms to wash up. Pretty common for many of us to have hands so dry they’d be cracked and bleeding. Lord Wybert gave us this heavy lotion that was brownish and smelled like truck exhaust. No one knew what was in it. But, we would slather it on, and then put on latex gloves and let the lotion absorb in overnight.” Tenney’s smile broadened a bit. He looked lost in the memory. “Malina didn’t like the gloves, though. She said they irritated her skin, so she would put the lotion on and then try not to touch anything. But, of course, it would end up everywhere. In her hair, on her face, on her clothes, on doorknobs.” He now laughed, and then the tears streamed down his cheeks.

  He turned to face his two companions. Lip quivering. “I can’t believe she’s really gone.”

  Yorick said nothing, but he pulled Tenney in for a hug, and Rosia joined from the side. They embraced without words for thirty seconds, until Tenney pulled back and wiped the tears from his face. “I’m hungry,” he said, sniffling.

  Yorick looked down to the end of the alley where it led out into the street. He could see other buildings across from the opening, people streaming by, cars piloting along the road. Lots of people and lots of cars. At a glance, it seemed much more densely populated than any of the cities and towns they encountered since leaving the plantación.

  "Food," Yorick said, musing. He had no idea what to do next. The concept of paying for meals was something he'd only known for the last couple weeks. What to do now without any gold?

  "I have an idea," Rosia said. "I read about these places in Denver called soup kitchens. They give out food and shelter to the homeless."

  Yorick bit his lower lip. Yes, he and the others were homeless. He’d preferred to think of himself as a traveler, but he couldn't deny the truth of it. "If we have to, yes. But I would prefer to pay my way."

  Tenney turned his palms to the sky. "But how?"

  "Maybe we can find work," Yorick said. “In a place this big, there have to be businesses and organizations looking for workers. We work, earn our way, and get stable.”

  Rosia frowned. "And then what?"

  Yorick shook his head because he didn't know. Rosia and Tenney didn't appear to know, either. But, Rosia pointed along the alley to the street, and Yorick set off as the others followed.

  When they stepped out of the alley and into the rush of Denver proper, Yorick's eyes grew wide as he took in the scene. He had never seen anything like this place. Buildings taller than
Wybert's walls, pristine cars, and pedestrians dressed in clothes without a single tear or piece of dirt. Glass and stone and metal everywhere. Everyone staring at little portable devices in their hands as they navigated the sidewalks next to abnormally-wide streets. Many of the buildings displayed huge video screens on their sides. He needed a few seconds to adjust to the sensory overload of his surroundings.

  On a nearby building’s wall was a massive poster of the king. A large man, round and cherubic. He stood as a giant on top of the mountains, hands on hip, eyes pointed off in the distance. Below him, a caption read Always Looking Into The Future. Something was mesmerizing about King Nichol’s eyes.

  Yorick wondered if people here actually had robots in their houses, as suggested by the summer play they used to watch. Somehow, he doubted it. He doubted a lot of things.

  There had been rumors about Denver, little whispers among the guerreros back at the plantación. Flying cars and jetpacks and tunnels filled with tubes that could shoot you across the breadth of the city within seconds. Of course, they saw none of that. Nothing magical or unexplainable. Denver felt like the cities and towns they’d seen in Wyoming, except with the benefit of what money and a lack of first-hand damage from war could do.

  Yorick pulled close to Rosia and slid his fingers down her wrist to interlock with hers. They both squeezed. She lifted her free hand and pointed at a pole with a green sign. “Champa,” she read from the sign. "That's where we are."

  “What does that mean?” Yorick asked.

  Rosia shrugged. "I don't know. But that's where we are. Looks like we’re in the central business district.“

  Yorick led Rosia and Tenney along the sidewalk next to Champa Street, no idea how to find either a soup kitchen or gainful employment to earn gold. The flashing lights and sounds from the video screens on the sides of buildings distracted him and made it hard for him to think. How did these people deal with such intense sensory distractions on a daily basis?

  “This whole thing is like being inundated,” Yorick said.

  Rosia smiled. That had been their dictionary word of the day three weeks ago, and he’d been trying to work it into conversation ever since.

  After a couple of blocks, she pointed to a tall building with a rounded top, a giant among the other giants. "That's the capitol building."

  Yorick looked at her. "How do you know that?"

  "I saw it in a book."

  They walked towards it, like moths to a flame, not even really knowing why. The square building had gigantic video screens on all four sides. And when they reached within a few hundred meters, Yorick noted a crowd gathering in the streets around the outskirts, eyes up toward those video screens. The crowd thickened as they drew close, everyone trying to reach a prime viewing area.

  Yorick held tight to Rosia so they would not separate in the crowd. Tenney put his hand on Yorick’s shoulder, and they all pushed forward together.

  The screens, which had been off, suddenly blinked to life. A few shouts and cheers made their way through the crowd. Growing excitement swelled as the faces of everyone present became bathed in the light of the screens.

  A tall and thin man with sunken cheeks stood in front of the camera. His gaunt appearance took up the entire video frame.

  ”Loyal subjects," he said, "I now present your weekly message from his highness, King Nichol of the First City." The man stepped aside as trumpets blared from somewhere unseen. After the camera refocused, the screen showed the ornate interior of a room with gold furniture and walls. Purple silk drapes colored the background. Everything clean, organized, and perfect.

  A moment later, a man stepped into the frame. He was an ogre of a person, thick shoulders and a bald head that shined under the lights projecting onto him. Beady eyes and loose jowls. He was also wearing ornate robes to match the purple drapes in the room. He looked older than the propaganda poster’s depiction by at least twenty years.

  He held up his hands, palms pointed upward, displaying a set of ten rings with enormous jewels. Little flashes of light pulsed into Yorick’s eyes as the jewels twinkled into the camera.

  “My wonderful citizens of Denver. I have so much to tell you. Momentarily, I will introduce a very special citizen to receive an award. This man exemplifies everything that makes our kingdom great. He helps to quell the pointless and costly Frenchie rebellions. He helps to ensure that the lords in their fiefdoms can maintain control over their serfs. This is an example to which we should all aspire.”

  Yorick gritted his teeth. Thinking about the serfs inside their plantación walls and inside the walls of their factory city-states filled him with anger. He flashed back to a few days ago, driving past the plantación in Wyoming. He hadn't known there were plantacións besides Wybert’s at the time. Now, he understood there were dozens or hundreds of these slave pits across Nichol’s kingdom.

  “It is important to understand," the king said, "how the fabric of our society depends on the labor we receive from our serfs. They are the backbone of the machine that makes this great kingdom possible. And that is why I am proud to present the king’s medal of honor to one of our favorite sons, Diego Jimenez!”

  Yorick drew in a breath and immediately felt lightheaded. Because, the man who stepped in front of the camera, beaming as Nichol set a medal on a cloth necklace around his neck, was familiar. Not just familiar, actually. Yorick and Rosia and even Tenney all knew him. That familiar scar running down his face.

  The former leader of the Reds, a man Yorick and Rosia had last seen bleeding to death in a tunnel underneath Lord Wybert’s mansion.

  Diego.

  Chapter Four

  After the video transmission concluded, Yorick and his friends stood in the street in stunned silence. The crowds that had gathered to watch the king presenting the medal to Diego dispersed, back to their normal lives. Soon the street returned to the normal pre-speech level. Still much more activity than Yorick was used to. People moving, shifting, writhing like an organism with a thousand separate bodies.

  Ten seconds went by, or maybe fifteen. Yorick wasn't sure. He kept thinking about how he and Rosia had found Diego in the tunnels underneath Wybert's mansion. Those winding and dark tunnels. They had been on their way to infiltrate the mansion itself, and Diego had jumped out to attack them. After a quick fight, they’d moved on to the mansion. At that moment, Diego had seemed insignificant. Wybert was the main goal, and Diego only a distraction.

  Yorick believed he had left his adversary for dead but had apparently made a mistake. A big mistake.

  How had Diego escaped from the plantación? Yorick hadn’t seen him on the grounds after Wybert’s death. In the chaos, so many serfs and guards were coming and going, but Yorick would have noticed Diego trying to make an escape.

  No, Diego must have had another way out. And that made sense, given that Yorick and Rosia had discovered Diego had been working with Wybert directly. Maybe something to do with the tunnels under the mansion.

  Yorick's thoughts drifted from Diego to the content of the king’s speech. His praising of the slave economy. Flashes of the other plantación Yorick had driven by in Wyoming appeared before his eyes. Slaves still in bondage, forced to harvest crops or to sew clothes, to be used and then discarded like bullet casings. How many of those plantacións existed within King Nichol’s kingdom? How many children were bought and sold into a life of slavery, ripped from their families and given new lives, never to see outside the walls again?

  Yorick turned to his companions and drew in a deep breath. "I know what we need to do."

  Rosia put her hands on her hips and Tenney raised an eyebrow. They hesitated, staring at him, while the rest of Denver carried on around them.

  "And what is that?" Rosia asked.

  "We need to free the slaves. All of them."

  Tenney offered an incredulous smile. "How in the stars would we do something like that? We might as well plan to pull down the walls protecting the city.”

  “I don't kno
w," Yorick said, his heart racing. He didn’t know why. Adrenaline, excitement, opportunity. "There has to be a way. King Nichol has to have some way to control the plantacións. He has power over the lords and the city bosses. How?”

  Rosia’s eyes were blank. “I don’t know.”

  “He has to have some way to control them. Power is centralized here somewhere.” He looked up at the capitol building, so tall it blocked out the sun. Almost taller than the city walls. “If we can find out where and how he controls them, then we can pull the whole thing down. Maybe we can unlock the plantación gates from here or something like that.” Yorick’s mind whirred like a fan on high speed. A memory came to him, a splash in the face. “Remember three or four years ago, when that sniper went loco and killed the other one? Threw him off the wall?”

  Tenney and Rosia both nodded.

  “The gates to the plantación opened the next morning, and Wybert freaked out about it. The soldados came in right after they opened. Wybert didn’t open the gates. I’ll bet the king did it, remotely. He has a way to manipulate the controls at the plantacións somehow. Maybe all of them at once. Only the stars know, but it seems reasonable, right?”

  Rosia frowned. "I think it's a good idea, but it sounds like a fantasy." She reached out and put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

  "First of all," Tenney said, "we need to eat."

  Right. Talk of the next thing would have to wait. They needed food and shelter above all. Yorick turned in a slow circle around the street to take in his surroundings. If there was a guide to the city or some sort of easily available map, he didn’t know how to find one. So many buildings and streets, how to know where to go?