by JL Bryan
“Knock yourself out,” Ruppert said, and he left.
In the early morning dark, as Ruppert slept on his now-dirty foam pallet, something grabbed his arm, and a hand closed over his mouth. He could hear the snoring of two or three other sleepers.
“Quiet,” a woman’s voice breathed into his face. Lucia. “Promise me you say nothing.”
Ruppert nodded, and she removed her hand.
“We’re leaving,” she whispered. “Come with me.” She shoved cool leather into his hand—the strap on his suitcase.
Ruppert was groggy and confused, but he’d been through enough danger with Lucia that he wasn’t about to ignore the urgency in her voice. He followed her to the room with all the disused lamps, where they’d first entered the underground rooms from the fermentation building.
“What’s happening?” he finally whispered. “Shouldn’t we get the others?”
“We’re going AWOL.” Lucia showed him a plastic keycard studded with copper bumps. “And we’re stealing Archer’s truck.”
“What do we do about my car?” Ruppert did not want Terror finding it and picking up his trail.
Lucia opened the heavy wooden door to reveal the concrete steps that spiraled up into the old fermentation cylinder in the building above.
“We’re leaving to Archer as payment.” They started up the stairs.
“Does he know Terror will be looking for it?” Ruppert asked.
“Yeah, I figured that was worth leaving a note about. He’ll just scrap it. Lots of expensive parts in there. Help me turn this.”
She placed his hands onto a metal wheel, and together they wrenched it around, opening the cylinder.
Ruppert’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he saw the room had changed since they’d arrived—there were wine crates, more machine parts, and generally a lot of scrap piled into the room, leaving only narrow footpaths. Turin and the others must have started on it just after Lucia and Ruppert arrived. The police hadn’t found the vehicle stashed here, probably because you didn’t intimidate people much by kicking around in their garbage.
“Over here,” Lucia whispered. They began stacking crates and moving aside machine pieces, including what appeared to be the entire flank of a tractor.
The work took thirty very long minutes, and then they stripped away a canvas tarp to reveal a sand-colored Chevrolet Brontosaur, a great hulk of a truck with a reinforced grill and a hardtop covering the payload. Two bumper stickers were plastered to the rear: an American flag captioned “Vote for the President,” and another that read “When the Rapture Comes, Watch Out for My Big Old Truck!”
Lucia started for the driver’s side door with the keycard. Ruppert, remembering a few of the sharp, high turns waiting out in the Sonoma Mountains—and how recklessly she’d taken them—offered to drive instead.
He steered the truck up and over heaps of scrap wood and steel mesh, grateful for the truck’s four-wheel drive. Within minutes, they were back on the road, the sky open and full of moonlight above. Ruppert felt dangerously exposed—he’d grown accustomed to life underground. He wondered if rabbits and voles felt the same way when they ventured out of the warren for a snack.
Still, he rolled down the window and breathed in the fresh night air, high above the pollution line. This, too, must be how burrowing creatures felt. More vulnerable to predators, maybe, but relieved to be out of the dank air and the reek of close, crowded bodies.
It would be a long drive back to Los Angeles, the city that was more dangerous for him than any other place on Earth. He looked over to Lucia. She had opened her window, too, and sat back with her eyes closed against her long black hair, which the wind lashed into her face.
Ruppert knew he’d made a mistake. Even if they did learn where to find Lucia’s son, the boy might be anywhere on the planet by now. Would he even recognize his mother? How long ago had Lucia lost him—five, six years? Meanwhile, Terror would see Ruppert’s interview, and they’d launch a nationwide manhunt to find him.
Still, he drove on, south towards the city.
TWENTY-FOUR
The return to L.A. was jarring. After his time in the desert and the mountains, he could really taste the bitter poison of the smog, and even feel airborne chemicals burning and staining his skin.
In Hollywood, hordes of people choked the sidewalks and the narrower streets, hawking stolen jewelry, drugs, purified water, quick-fried food, Catholic icons, booze, rugs, art, and pieces of computers and automobiles. A rivulet of car traffic crawled through the center of the marketplace.
They stopped at a narrow, clutter maze of a thrift store, the sort of place where they preferred bartering to money, but would still accept cash, if you had a large enough stack of it. Lucia bought clothes—all black, including sunglasses. The illusion wouldn’t hold up on inspection, but at first glance, she would resemble a Terror agent.
She picked out a particular accessory for him to wear, something intended for nightclubs or costume parties, a spiky chain collar festooned with blinking red lights. He also bought some cheap outfits for himself, and an extra pair of shoes. Then he stopped at a dumpster and threw out the three changes of clothes he’d been wearing for the past several weeks.
Liam O’Shea lived in a sealed neighborhood in Santa Monica similar to Ruppert’s. The exterior wall, running southeast along Lincoln Boulevard, resembled a fortress—a high concrete barrier, regularly sand-scrubbed by maintenance staff, topped with steel points and coils of shockwire, all to keep the barbarian hordes at bay.
Lucia's modified television remote convinced a neighborhood entrance gate to open for them. They proceeded into a suburban oasis of clean, unbroken sidewalks, manicured lawns thick with trees, and big pueblo-style homes.
“Which one?” Lucia asked. “They all look alike.”
“Keep driving. I think it’s further back.”
“You don’t know which house?”
“I’ve only been here once,” Ruppert said. “For a soda-punch social. I didn’t want to come here that time, either.” He followed the gentle curves of the main road towards the larger houses along the neighborhood’s back streets.
They parked in the driveway next to Liam’s Ford Cherub, a short bulging car with rounded doors. Lucia stepped out first, clad in her new black “Terror” outfit, then crossed to open the passenger door and haul Ruppert out of the truck.
She escorted him to the front door, her hand clamped on his bicep as if he were her prisoner. Loud shrieks and squeals echoed from Liam’s back yard.
“Let’s try around back,” Ruppert whispered. Lucia nodded and steered him toward the arched gate in the stucco wall surrounding Liam’s back yard. They entered quietly.
Liam’s eight-year-old son and ten-year-old daughter, along with six or seven other children, jumped and wrestled in a plastic wading pool, and as well as in the wide circle of mud that had formed around it.
Liam stood a few yards back, spraying them down a garden hose as they played. From the swampy condition of the yard, he must have used a citizen’s full monthly water ration just that morning, a massive violation of the Western Resource and Energy Committee's ration system. He held a can of beer in his other hand, and like the kids, he’d removed his shirt, exposing an engorged, pasty white belly dropping over the waistband of his Bermuda shorts.
"Get him, Peter!" Liam shouted. "Rub some mud down his back!"
“Hi, Liam,” Ruppert said.
Liam jumped at his voice. When he saw Ruppert, his eyes seemed to double in size behind his thick glasses.
“You, you’re…” Liam sounded like he was choking. The beer can slipped from his fingers, and fell to the ground, chugging its foamy contents away into the grass. “There’s a Terror alert for you. Pastor John says.”
“They already found me,” Ruppert told him. “This one wants to ask you about—”
“Quiet!” Lucia jabbed an elbow into Ruppert’s gut, knocking the breath out of him, and he folded up a
nd dropped to his knees. She hadn’t bothered pulling her punch.
“I apologize, citizen,” Lucia said to Liam. “This criminal will not speak to you again. If he does, I will decapitate him.” She jerked on the leash attached to the chain collar around his throat.
“Thank you,” Liam said. “I always knew he was dangerous. I tried to report him. You can check the records.”
“We know,” Lucia said. “That's why we need to question you about him.”
Liam just stared at Ruppert. The hose had drooped until he was only splattering his own sandals, and the children howled in protest.
“We must speak privately,” Lucia said. "This is very confidential."
“Of course, ah…There's my office, that’s soundproof.”
“Immediately,” Lucia said. She yanked Ruppert’s chain, and he rose to his feet. Liam led them in through the open patio door, from which cold, conditioned air billowed out into the yard. That would be a Western Resource and Energy Committee violation, too.
They passed through a cavernous kitchen, and Ruppert glanced through the open door to the dining room. From his previous visit, he did remember the mural there: a bearded, muscular, possibly oiled man in a loincloth, apparently the Second Coming, fire blazing from his eyes and mouth, riding the winged horse Pegasus, apparently, down from the night sky. Ruppert wondered how many meals the O’Shea children had eaten under the burning eyes of that angry god and his goofy steed.
They followed Liam to the office door at the end of the upstairs hall. Liam pressed his index finger to a doorbell-sized plate beside it.
“Have to keep the kids out," Liam said to Lucia. The door beeped and popped open. Liam cast a quick, worried look at Ruppert, then scurried inside.
Liam had a spacious home office with a sitting area, a mini-fridge, and a bathroom with a shower stall. A high leather chair faced a full-wall screen displaying the logo of Child and Family Services—a tall adult stick figure holding the hand of a small, child-sized stick figure, a red, white and blue banner swirling around them in what appeared to be a stiff digital wind.
Ruppert sprang at Liam, shoved him back against the wall, and pressed his hand down on Liam's mouth until he could feel the shape of the man's teeth through his rubbery lips. He had to prevent Liam from uttering the “safe word” that would galvanize his home security system into action, firing off emergency messages to the neighborhood security provider, the local Hartwell police office, and probably the security personnel at Child and Family Services. Possibly two or three "emergency contact" relatives, on top of that.
Liam squirmed, and Ruppert applied more pressure. He could feel Liam’s jaw working, trying to bite, and Liam’s tongue smearing across his palm. He looked towards Lucia.
“Are you ready already?” he asked.
“Give me a second.” She stood at Liam's wall screen, shuffling through the pages of his home security system, disabling each function.
“We’re safe,” she finally announced. Ruppert released Liam, but kept himself between Liam and the only door out of the room.
“You’re not with Terror.” Liam wiped sweat and saliva from his mouth with the back of his hand. “They haven’t really caught you yet.”
“Not yet," Ruppert agreed.
“What do you want?” Liam asked.
“Access,” Lucia said. “Open the Child and Family national database.”
“No.” Liam looked back and forth between them. “Oh, no. You need level six security rating to see that. It’s national security.”
“Need to see my credentials?” Lucia unsheathed her glassy black obsidian blade from her belt, closed in on Liam, and slashed it across his immense, pale stomach. A drooping red smile appeared in the blade’s wake, leaking trickles of blood into his navel and down the front of his shorts. The blade had cut only fat, but deep enough to scar.
Liam gaped down at the wound.
“The database,” Lucia said.
“I can’t,” Liam whispered.
“I didn’t hear you.” Lucia lifted the blade, pointed the tip at Liam’s left eye. “Say it again.”
“I can’t!” Liam whined. He began to sob. “They’ll kill me.”
Lucia jabbed the knife forward. The tip of the blade pierced through the center of Liam’s left ear, pinning it to the wall.
Liam shrieked and batted one hand at Lucia, but Ruppert grabbed his arm and held it to the wall.
“Give up, Liam,” Ruppert said. “She can break bones with her bare hands. I’ve seen it happen.”
“But Terror…” Liam blubbered.
“How many lives have you destroyed, here, from this room?” Lucia hissed. She worked the blade back and forth, widening the new hole in his ear. “I think it’s just your turn,” she whispered. “I think it’s fair. If you don’t give me what I want, I will kill you. You already know that. But you don't know what I'll do next. I will saw your head from your neck, I will carry it downstairs, and I will throw it into the little wading pool out there, in front of your children. Why should they suffer less than my son?”
Ruppert had been acting. He realized Lucia wasn’t. She really would do as she said if Liam didn’t cooperate.
Lucia sliced through the side of Liam’s ear, slicing it into two bleeding flaps, and pulled her blade free. She jabbed the tip of the blade up into the soft tissue under his chin, hooked his jaw, and drew his face toward hers until their eyeballs nearly touched.
“The database,” she said again.
Liam’s mouth worked silently for a few seconds, and then he said, “Open national placement database.”
“Retinal, please.” Liam’s office computer system spoke with a high, soft Italian tenor that Ruppert found immediately irritating.
Lucia steered Liam toward a coin-sized green lens mounted in the wall. She moved the blade from his chin to his carotid artery. Liam leaned forward and opened his eyes wide, raising his eyebrows and drawing his mouth into a deep, exaggerated frown.
“Access approved,” the soft Italian voice said. Ruppert could have sworn it was sighing.
Millions of miniature cubes, folded into each other, appeared on the wall screen. The database.
“I'm taking him out of here,” Ruppert said. Lucia gave a very slight nod. She wasn't really listening. She stared at the data in awe, like a desperate addict stumbling into a giant batch of her drug.
Ruppert took Liam down the hall to the master bedroom.
“God won’t forgive you for this,” Liam said. “God sees everything, and He won’t forgive you. Why are we going into my bathroom? What will you do to me in my bathroom?”
Ruppert pushed Liam into the long walk-through closet connecting the master bed and master bath. He shoved a washcloth into Liam’s mouth, then bound his hands and feet behind him with bed sheets. He left the man lying on the tiled floor of his bathroom, bleeding from his stomach and the side of his head, whimpering. Ruppert turned out the bathroom light and closed the door.
Back in the office, Lucia knelt on the floor, weeping, no longer the murderous creature she’d been only minutes earlier.
“What’s wrong?” Ruppert dropped to a knee beside her and lay a hand on her back. She turned, flinging her arms around his neck, crushing herself against him.
Ruppert looked up at the wall screen. A large window occupied most of it. The window displayed a picture of a handsome boy of nine or ten, with the same black eyes and light caramel skin as Lucia. He had a shaven head and wore a tan military-style uniform. The picture was captioned GEORGE LIBERTY.
“Nando,” Lucia whispered. “They even gave him a new name. A stupid new name.”
“It will be all right,” Ruppert said. He read the text underneath the picture. George Liberty, or Nando, had been raised at the Goblin Valley School for Males in Goblin Valley, Utah. At Ruppert’s request, a further description of the school appeared: “Proactive specialized pre-training in desert and mountain combat. Counterinsurgency. Central Asian linguistics and geography
.”
Further down the list, he saw George Liberty’s “discarded name.” Fernando Luis Santos.
He asked for an expanded health report, and the screen presented him with details and pictures from Fernando’s last medical inspection.
“He's in really good health,” Ruppert said. "What's wrong?"
“He does not know his name,” Lucia whispered. “He will not remember me. They have remade him into one of them.”
“Not everyone takes to the program. We can go to this school place. We can get him. You're his mother, you have rights." Ruppert ordered the computer to print laminated maps of the Goblin Valley compound, annotated with the details of their security system.
"Rights? Are you serious? Are we calling a lawyer first? Is that how you would handle this?"
"We can get him out," Ruppert said. "That's what you do, right? Disappearing people from Terror's screens? Extractions?"
"That is a full-fire military school, Daniel," Lucia said. "In the middle of the desert. Thousands of armed boys trained to kill. We would need a large team of very good people. And a helicopter. And also, half the team would need to be at least a little suicidal."
“Terror's going to kill me anyway, right?” Ruppert gathered the maps from Liam's printer. "So, really, I don't have to worry about death anymore. Today, this week, next month--whenever. I'm already dead. It's really like being invincible, if you think about it. Like you're already acting from the beyond the grave."
"Quiet," Lucia said.
"I could be in Vancouver right now," Ruppert said. "Smoking hash with Eskimos. But we came back for Nando. If you're thinking about going to get him, I just happen to have nothing to lose."
Lucia pushed herself to her feet. “Oh, no. We're going to get him. Helicopter or not."
