Broken Mirror

by Cody Sisco

  “Who do you think they are?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t matter. Who do they think they are?” She adjusted her seat from reclined to upright. “Maybe Corps looking for a buck camp out on all the roads, but usually they’re stopping people from entering the O.W.S., not leaving.”

  Behind them, dusty hills. Ahead, the giant spider buggies blocked both lanes and shoulders of the road, beyond which a gradual decline led down to the flat tumble-weed-and-dirt desert.

  “Maybe they just want to talk,” he said.

  Elena looked at him, and they both started laughing.

  “If they’re Corps,” she said, “all they care about is money and drugs. Best-case scenario, they want a bribe. Worst case, they’ve been warned about us and take us prisoner. Worst worst case, they’re unaffiliated—they take everything and leave us to die.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  The doors on both sides of one of the vehicles in front of them swung upward; instead of spiders the vehicles now resembled black wasps. A man and a woman used handholds and foot ledges to descend to the road. The woman’s purple spiky hair and close-shaved sides of her head reminded Victor of a felt-tip pen. The man wore a wide-brimmed hat and a long coat that would be sweltering unless it had cooling packs sewn into the lining. He might be carrying live animals inside the coat for all Victor knew. The pair walked toward them slowly. At least they weren’t Lucky and Bandit.

  Elena unclipped her seat belt and reached for the door handle.

  “What are you doing?” Victor grabbed her thigh.

  She smiled crookedly as she pried his hand away. “How sweetly protective. I’m going to talk to them. If I signal with my hands, come rescue me. Don’t hesitate to run them over.”

  Elena got out of the car and turned back toward him. “You’ve got collision sensors on this thing?”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “Turn them off.”

  Elena stepped away and left the door open. Hot air seeped in. Victor turned the chiller off to save fuel, and the thin coating of sweat on his body turned into a flash flood. The couple had stopped about twenty meters away and waited for Elena to approach. She greeted them, placed her hands on her hips, and swiveled left and right, miming a sore back. The woman said something, but Victor couldn’t hear. Elena pointed at the spider buggies and then back the way they had come. The three started to approach Victor. Victor dictated a quick message to Ozie, “Stopped at the R.O.T. border.”

  Elena climbed into the passenger seat and whispered, “Get ready. I don’t believe for a second what they’re telling me.”

  The woman bent toward Victor’s window and pointed at his device. “What’s that?”

  Victor said, “I’m trying to find—”

  “It’s like I said.” Elena leaned toward the couple standing outside and affected a Texan accent. “We meant to head south after Las Vegas. Turns out this road heads nowhere we want to be.”

  The man bent over and placed his hands on his knees. His scruffy and oil-stained face scrunched. “Don’t matter where you’re headed. Noncitizens got to pay the exit fee. So says the King of Las Vegas.”

  Elena said, “But if we’re not leaving this way, we should pay another checkpoint, right? We’ll just turn around.”

  “You’ll pay us. Pay them too, most likely,” the woman said. A silver nose ring glinted. Her ears carried at least twenty more pieces of polished jewelry.

  Victor doubted they were enforcing a legitimate toll. A real checkpoint would have signs. This was just a gang of thugs.

  “How much is the fee?” Victor asked. His sweat-soaked shirt squished with every breath. He reached toward the steering disk’s panel to turn on the chiller, but the man’s arm shot into the car and pinned Victor to his seat.

  “Just settle down for a sec,” the man said. “The fee’s three hundred. Make it two if you throw in that fancy thing in your lap.”

  Victor felt a surge in his gut. “That’s not—”

  “I got three hundred right here.” Elena reached into her bag, which she had wedged protectively between her ankles.

  The woman said, “Think you might have more than three in there. We’ll take five and the Mesh thingy.” She waved toward Victor’s crotch.

  A film of slick rage infiltrated his brain. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a vial of fumewort tincture, popping the cap with his thumb. He poured its contents straight down his throat. Calm. Controlled. Breathe.

  “What’s that? Drugs?” the man asked. “We’ll take that too.”

  “It’s medicine,” Elena said.

  Victor imagined bashing the road blocker’s skull against the hot desert road until his eyes popped from their sockets.

  “Victor, calm down,” Elena said. “Look at me. Look at me.”

  He turned. Her gaze flicked downward toward the curve of her thigh, behind which hid a Dirac stunstick. “We’ll just give them what they want”—her hand jiggled the weapon—“and then we’ll go.”

  “Tell you what,” the woman said, “we’ll just take everything.”

  Victor’s gut sank into his seat, but he wore a mask of calm resolve. He turned toward the pair and whispered, “You can try.”

  The two extorters bent forward to hear him better. Victor snapped his seat back. Elena fired the stunstick, hitting the man in his face. Dirac forces played on his nerves as he growled, drooled, and jerked.

  Victor slammed his hands on the steering disk and the car barreled forward, barely missing the woman. In the side mirror, Victor saw her dig in her pocket and launch what looked like a stone in the air after him.

  He accelerated to maximum throttle.

  A thunk hit the top of the car, denting the roof, and thunder exploded above them. Flames bloomed in every direction, followed by smoke, and suddenly Victor couldn’t see anything.

  He turned hard, leaving the cloud of smoke behind. They left the road, bouncing roughly downward through desert scrub and digging tracks into the dry, crumbly soil.

  Victor looked at Elena, glad to see her conscious. She pointed toward a pair of giant cacti. He steered hard left, clipping them with his right mirror.

  Back on the elevated road, one spider buggy turned to follow. Purple hair lady was climbing into the other. Victor sped faster. The vehicle bucked and rocked over the uneven desert floor. Ahead, a natural ramp rose to meet the road, and he accelerated toward it.

  They reached the road with a gut-wrenching leap and violent touchdown. The spider buggies were behind them, closing the gap. “Great job,” Elena said. “But now they’ve got us.”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t come prepared?” he asked.

  He reached down to the control panel the Springboard Café mechanics had installed and pressed all three buttons. In the rearview he saw thick sludge spread across the road. Tiny flashes of metal glittered in the car’s wake, and haze spewed from the tailpipe. Victor accelerated the car to maximum.

  One spider buggy broke through the cloud, speeding at an angle toward the side of the road. When it reached the shoulder, it dipped and wobbled, then flipped and spiraled end over end across the desert. They never saw the second vehicle emerge from the smoke.

  Elena reached up to a fist-sized dent in the ceiling and ran her fingers across it. “Fire grenade,” she said. “We’re lucky the blast deflected upward. Are you okay?”

  Victor realized he was hunched forward, straining every muscle. Checking the rearview and finding nothing, he restarted the autopilot and let the car take them forward. He started to feel the calming effects of fumewort.

  “I guess that’s where the saying comes from,” Elena said.

  “What?”

  “No one leaves Vegas easy.”

  Victor scanned the horizon for the approaching Texas border.

  PART THREE

  Chapter 32

  I used to feel ignored, stepped on, and brushed aside. I’d give anything to return to those days. Now I feel an invisible forc
e pushing me forward. Nothing I do or say can change its course. I’m not saying it’s not my fault, but I couldn’t have foreseen what would happen.

  —Victor Eastmore’s Apology

  Republic of Texas

  8 March 1991

  When Victor and Elena arrived at the Lone Star Kennel, the sun had just disappeared below the horizon. As they pulled to the side of the road, light towers blinked on, lighting up the buildings, a parking lot, and a dry creek bed that cut across the sparsely vegetated plain outside Amarillo. Several black, insect-shaped vehicles were parked in front, and people clad in battle gear swarmed the building.

  “My fa’s in there.” Elena covered her mouth. “Laws, I hope he’s all right.” She called her ma. “Mamá? Is Papá all right? What’s going on at his work?”

  “Elena? What’s wrong?”

  “Where’s Papá?”

  “He’s here, with me, at home. Are you—”

  “Oh, thank the Laws.”

  “Elena—”

  “I’ll call you back.” Elena terminated the feed.

  Victor nodded at the men and women flanking the kennel doors. “Who do you think they are?”

  “Corps, no question,” Elena said. “We’ll never get in. Are you sure Ozie isn’t trying to trap you?”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “I hate to say it, Victor, but you’re really not the best judge of character.”

  “Ozie wants to find the truth as badly as I do.”

  Elena gestured at the scene in front of them. “We’re not getting in there without help. I count eight of them, and there could be more inside.”

  “Maybe your fa can tell us what’s going on.”

  “I don’t want to involve him.”

  “Ellie, he’s already involved. I’m sure of it. Ozie’s sure of it too. Let’s just find out what he knows.”

  Elena took a breath. “Okay. But it’s going to be awkward.”

  She leaned over and programmed an address into the steering disk. He noticed that her hair smelled of sweat. He was pretty ripe too.

  The car turned around and headed back into town. They passed old ranch homes on large lots and entered a more compact subdivision.

  They arrived in front of a house with a porch that wrapped around both sides. The car parked itself on the street. They got out. Victor shuffled behind Elena and followed her inside the Morales family’s house.

  As he passed through the front door, his shoulder caught on the frame, almost knocking him to the ground.

  Elena grabbed his arm to steady him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s just . . . I’m rationing my fumewort, and I’m starving,” he said, not surprised that his body was starting to twist away from his control.

  “Me too,” Elena said.

  The scents of garlic, ginger, and other spices filled the humid house, which might have been built above a bubbling stew.

  Elena’s ma, Maria, bounced around the kitchen, preparing at least six dishes simultaneously. Her hair was tucked beneath a bright yellow knitted hat, and her face was heavily made up in bright streaks of color—reds, purples, and black—that reminded Victor of the canyon walls on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

  “Mamá,” Elena said, standing timidly in the doorway.

  “Dios mío! Look who’s back.” Rather than doting on Elena, Maria coldly pointed at her daughter, “We need to talk, Elena Martina Morales. First, take this outside.” She acknowledged Victor with a nod and sent them to the back porch with a pitcher of iced tea and glasses.

  “How long have you been gone?” Victor whispered. “She’s acting like it’s only been a day.”

  “She’s pretending,” Elena whispered back. “She doesn’t want to show how much she’s missed me. I stole money from my parents when I was stimming. They’re still mad, I bet. And ashamed.”

  Outside, beyond the porch, long shadows stretched across the dirt yard, spreading like purple inkblots between loops of lightstrips strung between the Morales residence and neighboring houses. There were no fences, just a large common area, some of which had been turned into a community garden.

  The shadows thrown by the lightstrips appeared to move and curl like thick, dark tentacles. Victor rubbed his eyes and heard squeaking and rustling sounds. Great—he’d have to deal with Elena’s family through a haze of synesthesia. He needed food, sleep, and a good dose of medicine, but with dwindling fumewort and bitter grass supplies, he would have to settle for two out of three.

  Elena’s fa, Hector, and her granma Julia were lounging on a wicker sofa. Hector had wild black hair as if he’d never met a comb and slow-shifting eyes that made him appear perpetually lost. Julia, on the other hand, had a hard stare and a quick tongue always ready to give a verbal lashing. Her gray hair was gathered in a tight ponytail. Victor imagined yanking it and almost giggled aloud.

  Hector jumped up when he saw Elena and rushed over to her, wrapping his arms around her tightly. “Where have you been?”

  “Hola, Papá.”

  Hector held Elena at arm’s length. His gaze played over her face, inquiring. “We were worried.”

  “I’m fine. You remember Victor.”

  “Hello,” Victor said. The sound of his voice alarmed him; it was hoarse and unsteady. The less he said, the better.

  Hector shot an angry glance in Victor’s direction. Victor felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Julia, who was never a woman to waste words, even on politeness, nodded grimly to Victor. His skin chilled.

  Victor started to lose his grip on the tray he was carrying. “Elena, the glasses,” he said, panicking. She steadied the tray. Working together, they poured the iced tea and then sat on the wicker couch in the gloom. The tea tasted strongly of cinnamon and something he couldn’t place. The lightstrips buzzed, and the tentacle-shadows writhed. Victor’s thoughts moved on autopilot toward a dark and twisted place.

  “The police broke the cease-fire today,” Julia announced. “Two Puros dead. But I guess they deserved it.”

  Elena looked out at the yard. Victor imagined he heard her teeth grinding together, and then, glancing over, he realized that they actually were. Elena turned to Julia and said, “I’m sure they didn’t.”

  “Good riddance,” Julia said.

  Hector and Elena both opened their mouths, shocked, but neither spoke.

  Julia continued, “They are terrorists! No one feels safe anymore while they run about, doing as they please. They should be put down and—”

  “Abuela!” Elena slammed her glass on the table.

  Tea sloshed over the rim, and Victor felt weightless in his gut. The liquid splashed down on the tray with a crystalline tinkling that reminded him of wind chimes. It was almost beautiful enough to make Victor spill his own tea to hear the sound again.

  Elena said, “They are not terrorists.”

  Julia snorted.

  “It’s a social justice movement, Abuela. They started farm collectives, joint savings banks, education funds, antinarcotics patrols. I mean, from what I’ve heard there wasn’t much of a government in R.O.T. at the time, was there?”

  “Still isn’t one worth paying taxes to,” Julia said. “I don’t need a lecture from you about the past, Nieta. And you mind your manners. It’s been months since you paid us a visit, and we know why. Don’t make me regret allowing you back here.”

  “Mamá! That’s enough,” Hector pleaded.

  Elena wiped her wet palm on her pants. “I’m just saying the Puros don’t go looking for fights, so the police must be to blame. You don’t see them arresting Corps, do you?” She sounded ready to snap. Victor put a hand on her shoulder. Both of them should eat and go to bed.

  “They should get rid of all of them! Half your generation turn to drugs, thanks to the Corps, while the other half adopt that purity mumbo-jumbo. Kids should study, work, and start families like they used to. I assume that’s why she dragged you here?” Julia looked at Victor, expecting a response.

  Elen
a squeezed Victor’s knee, which triggered a wave of nausea. He shook his head to himself. If only he could pick and choose his symptoms. I’ll take one portion paranoia and a double helping of spontaneous orgasms, please.

  He put down his glass and shied away from Elena. Of all the bad synesthetic effects he’d experienced, nausea was the least desirable. If he stayed perfectly still, the feeling might pass.

  Hector cleared his throat. “I also overheard that the Puros found a new cause.”

  “What are you talking about?” Elena said, perhaps a bit too quickly.

  He cocked his head. “The Human Life movement,” Hector said.

  Elena said, “That’s ridiculous.”

  “What’s ridiculous?” Maria came onto the porch and sat down in a nearby rocking chair. “Just a few more minutes until dinner,” she added.

  “What’s the Human Life movement?” Victor asked, trying to ignore the ways his body was misbehaving. Information was good. Information was neutral. And it would distract him from the crone scowling at him.

  “A bunch of sociopathic nutjobs,” Julia seethed.

  Elena turned to Victor, ignoring her granma’s cursing. She looked surprised. “Seriously, you don’t know?”

  Victor shrugged his shoulders. Dizziness rose up and blotted out his vision. He said through his blindness, “No. Whatever it is, we don’t have it in SeCa.” His view of the porch returned, first in gray, then in color. Maybe he wouldn’t pass out after all. Hooray.

  Elena crossed her arms. “I guess it’s only in R.O.T., or maybe it started here.” She chose each word carefully. “It’s a social movement. They believe human life is sacred and that we need to preserve our natural heritage.”

  “Chiquitita, what does that really mean?” Maria asked.

  Elena sipped her tea. “They take the Puros philosophy to the extreme. It’s on the papers they hand out in the plaza. Preserving humanity against technological corruption. Antiscience paranoia, most of it, but some of what they argue makes sense, especially about food. Without natural food, we can’t be natural humans.”