by J. Kowallis
“Would she have stayed? Even if you had stopped her. Would she have listened?”
The answer was an obvious “no.” Ransley’s penchant for obedience equaled his ability to look like Don Juan.
“I’m sure she’s all right. You’ve raised her well and . . . .”
“What if that isn’t enough? Even with her,” he lowered his voice, “abilities, she’s still in danger.”
He had told Dina after Ransley left. About her and Roy. About what they could do. Now he, Dina, and Petey knew about them. He had to admit, it felt nice to be able to talk with someone else about Ransley’s other side. He’d never had that before.
Dina reached for the bowl and set it on the ground. She then took his hands and looked into his face. “Do you want to leave?”
“What?”
“Do you want to go after her?”
“No,” his voice grumbled and he shook his head stubbornly. “No, I want her here.”
Squints whimpered near his side and lay to the ground, resting his head on Estevan’s shoe. The whimpering wouldn’t stop. It hadn’t stopped for days.
“I wish I knew how The Public found us. How did they know about Roy? And why after all this time did they come after him?”
Dina licked her lips and her voice rolled low. “What happened in Los Ángeles that night? Did you notice anything out of the ordinary? Anything stick out to you?”
Estevan scoffed. “Yeah. A whole hell of a lot stuck out to me that night. Roy, the fight, my daughter dying, her nearly burning into ash.”
“Could there have been anyone who would have seen what happened and wanted to report them?”
“No.” Estevan shook his head. “No one trusts the Public. I don’t think so.” That wasn’t true. If they’d been desperate enough to believe The Public would actually reward them, they might. Heaven knows Los Ángeles busted at the seams with the desperate.
“Just in case; was anyone angry with Ransley? With Roy? Angry enough to report them?”
Estevan started to shake his head until Caspar’s furious eyes flashed in his mind. “Yes.” He nodded.
A red-hot rage began to boil in his chest and even his face began to burn. “Yes, Caspar, the Argolla owner. When Roy walked away with his royalties after cheating, with Ransley still alive, and his garbage man dead . . . that would piss him off enough to want him dead. Worse than dead.”
He shot up from his seat on the stump, knocking into Dina. He reached out to help her up and then stormed off to the tent he’d been using since Ransley left. Dina’s footsteps brushed the ground behind him, trying to keep up.
“Estevan, you can’t go after this man.”
“The hell I can’t,” he grumbled and pulled an old gunpowder bullet handgun from underneath his pillow. It had been left behind with Roy’s belongings, even after Ransley had gone through them. There were only four bullets left in it now. He’d shot the fifth one to make sure it still worked.
Dina lowered her hands from her face when he turned around. “It’s not going to help get Ransley back. Or Roy.”
“I know. But it’ll make me feel a whole lot better.”
Estevan stormed out of the tent and found Petey resting in the shade of a tree. He kicked at the man’s boot to wake him up. Petey jumped and kicked at the ground. When he recognized Estevan, he relaxed slightly.
“Petey, where are you keeping the gasoline bikes?”
“The bikes?”
“Where are they?” Estevan growled.
“Fifty feet. That way.” Petey pointed north.
Before Petey could ask why, Estevan turned on his heel and thudded away from the camp. He could hear Petey’s limp leg dragging on the ground behind him and Dina calling his name. He couldn’t stop. Caspar would pay for what he’d done.
He pulled the leaf-covered tarp off the bikes and dropped it on the ground. The once shined and polished chrome of the first motorcycle was chipped, rusted, and caked in peeling red paint.
“You can’t go alone.” Dina grabbed his arm and he turned around.
“She’s right, you know. You go into Los Ángeles again, by yourself, Caspar will have your tongue on his dinner plate.”
Estevan looked into Dina’s face. Her mid-life wrinkles were more aged than they should be with her dry skin flaking and sun-damaged freckles, but her brown eyes were alive like a young girl’s; they pleaded with him. Begged him.
“Fine. Petey, you’re right. I’m obviously an old man. You grab a bike.”
“Estevan.” Her fingers dug into his skin.
Estevan pulled his arm away. “Stand back, Dina. Now.”
Petey hurried, around, his damaged walk, taking him longer. His motorcycle roared to life and he had the energy of any other man. Estevan looked back to Dina.
“You can’t be doing this for revenge. Revenge isn’t justice.”
Estevan climbed on his bike and started the engine. “It is to me.”
―RANSLEY―
“Are we sure it’s this one?” I ask, glancing back to Reggie, then eyeing Nate.
“Why are you lookin’ at me?”
“It’s the right one. I promise,” Reggie says from over his shoulder. “Here, I’ll take her. Check the access.”
Nate and Reggie switch places, holding up Carmen’s left side. He pulls out a device, probably a foot long that looks like a glowing fairy wand.
“You know, Rambo, I’m starting to wonder if I gave you the wrong nickname.” I grunt, pain shooting through my leg where this perra shot me. “Perhaps the Man Fairy?”
“I guess that makes you the Wicked Witch of the South?”
“El cabrón.”
“Stop it!” Reggie hisses.
“Yeah, Ransley. Déjese de cuentos.” Nate’s eyebrow peaks and he turns away from me. Holding the wand horizontal, he runs it along the seams of the door and the access pad. “We’re clear from this end,” he says, putting the wand back into the pack.
I take the Public woman’s hand and try to get her to cooperate. “Come on. Straighten your fingers for me.” Her eyes look haplessly between each of us and her fingers droop into a flaccid claw. I curse and motion for Nate to help me.
Nate takes Carmen’s hand from me. After placing it on the pad, the lights brighten to green and the door slides open.
“Welcome home, Carmen,” a warm automated male voice greets us.
“Well, Carmen,” Nate mumbles, “thanks for the use of your apartment.”
“At least ‘til guards find us,” Reggie adds. “Let’s get her inside.”
We stumble inside and set her down on the nearest couch. I hear the door slide shut behind us and I stand up to look around. The apartment is worse than plain. It lacks so many essential things. A kitchen, a bathroom . . . it’s one large square room with a second open door to a bare bedroom.
“This place gets more and more depressing,” I mumble to myself. I suppose this apartment is better than the garbage bin the dead-beat woman and I hid in for the last seven hours while Reggie left us to help Nate. I still can’t believe we gave them the slip. If it weren’t for the power gun blast through my thigh, and the saturation of blood on Nate’s shoulder, I’d be inclined to think the guards were trying to let us get away. Following a precog through the labyrinth of alleyways and streets turned out to be more difficult than they’d planned.
“Let’s get this place swept.” Nate tosses a second wand to Reggie and they both methodically move through the front living room running the horizontal sticks over furniture, walls, and other door openings.
I fall down onto the couch and gingerly touch my thigh. The adrenaline has worn off, and now the pain’s worse. I squeeze the wound and hiss. Blood seeps out, dripping down the black cloth of my uniform. A couple drops accidentally ooze onto the couch.
“I’ve got cameras on the terrace, but nothing else throughout the apartment. We’ll have to put a loop on those,” Nate says dropping his wand back in the pack.
“Nothing else in the b
edroom,” Reggie agrees, handing over her own.
Reggie says something softly to Nate they speak in undertones. I don’t even care what they’re saying. I’m pissed about leaving Roy behind. Why the hell did we risk our lives to go in there for absolutely nothing? Reggie had to have known what would happen. Did she know it would be a complete waste of time?
If only Roy hadn’t already been changed we could have gotten him. It wasn’t even him. He turned on me. At one point, I struggled to fight two of him. Reggie barely hung on when two of his other duplicates attacked her at the same time.
Mierda, there must have been about six of him. How had he split himself that many times?
I stand up and limp across the room, gritting my teeth, and notice different patterns in the black walls. Straight grooves winding up and down, back and forth, like wires connected in the walls. I reach out, touch a single line, and notice it’s thin but deep. While trying to get a better look, I press my hand on the wall and the outlined panel opens up into a cupboard.
“Holy sh . . .”
“What?” Reggie asks, her voice panicked.
“Nothing,” I grumble. I press my hand on the next two smaller panels and drawers slide open. The next largest panel opens up to the refrigerator.
They both look to each other again before Nate folds his arms. “Listen, Ransley,” he begins, “tell us more about Roy. I thought you said he could only Astral Project, or whatever the hell you guys have been calling it, into only two separate bodies.”
I close all the openings and turn around. “He can. Well, I guess he could. He . . . he must have been changed already.”
“What do you mean, changed?” Reggie took a step forward, her arms folded.
My gaze moves between the two of them. I’ve heard so many different stories over the years. No one knows what happens to those who live within these walls. Legends of robots, DNA alterations, and even one multi-sex-change story I heard when I was about eleven. Although, out of all of them, that one seemed least likely.
“The rumors are that The Public takes people and operates on them. Makes them into machines somehow. Now, I don’t know if they’re actually machines, but, they make them better than they were. I’ve never seen Roy split himself that many times. It wasn’t possible for him before. I swear.”
Reggie rolls her eyes. “This changes everything. Especially if he doesn’t want to leave.”
“¿Qué? Of course he wants to leave. He told me.”
Nate scoffs. His eyebrows scrunch together, making him wince and tenderly touch the bruise above his right eye. “I’m sorry, but that man in there . . . he doesn’t want to go anywhere.”
“It’s The Public. They made him that way.”
Reggie’s voice is soft. “No offense, Ransley, but your judgment . . . is a little skewed at the moment.”
My eyes shoot open, and I round on her. “Excuse, me? What exactly are you trying to say?”
Reggie puts a defensive hand up. “I know you feel attracted to Roy . . .”
“Attracted? Roy’s―” my face burns. It’s been hard enough to push those thoughts from my mind without her bringing it up. “Roy’s probably my brother. Are you sick?”
“Whatever you want to call him, he nearly killed us.” She barks, then grabs her ribs and flinches. She talks softer this time. “Pardon me if I’m not entirely thrilled about what happened. Because you see, if you had used your abilities a little sooner, instead of trying to talk him out of kicking the living—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. And by the way, I don’t think I need to listen to you considering the fact that you straight-up lied to my face,” I stare her down. She doesn't get it. She doesn’t get Roy, or me. I could easily do this on my own, and I’m half-tempted to try.
“Ransley,” Nate grumbles, “we can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. That was some freaky shit back there, and no matter how much you want—”
“STOP IT! You don’t know him!” My skin prickles. I feel the anger rushing through my skin. With a brush of my arm against the nearest window shade, the fabric goes up in flames. Brilliant tendrils of fire lick the fabric, engulfing it and filling the room with thick smoke.
I stick my hand into the fire, trying to calm it. The way my blood is pumping, it only excites the flames more. They rage higher, eating up the entire side of the window shade and scorching the walls. I try to close my eyes and force out the anger fueling my body. I can’t. All I can think about is Roy. I can’t stop it.
Nate and Reggie yell at me, but the fire gets worse. From the corner of my eye, I see Nate rip the entire window covering down and stomp it into the floor to put the fire out. The flames die off, without my help, but smoke continues to fill the room.
I bring my quivering hand back, grasping my fingers firmly. I look at the walls with darker marks and shades of gray ash imprinted behind from the curtain. Small glowing embers dance on the floor. Reggie dumps a large pot of water over the smoking fabric to put them out. Carmen curls on the couch screaming, clutching her legs and looking at all of us like we’re on the verge of eating her.
Nate wipes his sweating forehead, leaving behind a trail of wet ash. He swears and looks at the wide-open window looking out over The Public. “We need a sheet to cover this up. I hope there weren’t any cameras watching.” He steps over the still-smoking pile on the floor and walks into the bedroom. I hear sheets and covers shifting as the bed’s taken apart. He returns with a wad of sheets in his arms.
Reggie drops the pot on the counter and goes to Carmen who’s still screaming uncontrollably. “Shh,” she gently rubs Carmen’s back and her sleek hair, talking to her like a parent to a toddler. “It’s okay. Are you hurt? You’re not hurt, are you? See? Take a deep breath.”
During the time Reggie works with Carmen, and Nate struggles to drape the sheets over the rods covering the broad window, I feel my bones crackling with ember. Thinking of Roy. Leaving him behind. Reggie accusing me of feeling . . . more for him than I should.
It doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have gone through any of this, and I keep coming back to one thought. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t fought Roy in the ring and burned him. If I hadn’t exposed him. If I had listened to Estevan—not used my abilities, and died like I should have. Roy would still be okay.
“I’m sorry,” my voice shakes. “I haven’t done that . . . in a long time.”
Reggie glares at me from the couch, still rocking Carmen’s trembling body in her arms. “It’s all right,” she says to Carmen, not me.
Nate exhales sarcastically where he’s replacing the torched curtains. The room instantly darkens again and he rolls his eyes at me.
“Nate, I don’t know what’s wrong with Carmen, but will you come calm her down? I need to talk with Ransley. Privately.”
He nods and swears, jostling the makeshift curtains in the window to make sure everything is covered.
“Come with me.” She motions for me to follow her to the bedroom.
My chest burns the moment I take a deep breath. Like flames still crackle inside me. However, I follow her. Once inside, she closes the door and turns to face me.
“What?” I spit.
Reggie narrows her eyes, holding the door shut behind her. She doesn’t say anything. I can’t tell if she’s trying to figure out what to say, or deliberately trying to unnerve me. While she stands in silence, I shake my head. I walk over to the bed and sit down, my head in my hands. My palms are burning up.
“Ransley,” she finally speaks. “Is something bothering you?”
I gaze at the floor through my fingers. My voice quakes, but I try to control it. “Of course there is. You lied to me. You said we were going for him, but that wasn’t the truth, was it?” I look at her. “It was never the goal, and we left him in there.”
She shakes her head. “Yes. I lied. But I’m not sorry for what I did. You wouldn’t have gone with us if I’d told you the truth.”
“Which is?” I round on her.
“We need Carmen.”
I sigh in annoyance and stand up, turning my back on her. “How dare you?” I mutter.
“You may be angry I lied. But that’s not the whole truth, is it?” I hear her move closer. “You’re mad about something else. Why did you get so angry when I said what I did?”
I lift my gaze, pivoting to glare at her. “When you said what?”
“You know what.”
No. I don’t want to talk about this. Not now.
“It bothers you doesn’t it?”
“What bothers me?” I turn away.
Reggie sighs. “Stop it, Ransley.”
I feel pinched, like the walls are closing in. “He’s my family. You . . . you’re my family. I’ve never had family before, and you don’t understand what that means.”
“So having people who connect with you bother you?”
“No,” I whisper.
Reggie sits on the bed. “I know you care about him.”
“Of course I do. He’s like me and you.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” Her voice darkens.
The tip of my tongue slides behind my teeth. I don’t want to think about how I feel about Roy. I know if I do, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to handle the possible truths. I turn to look at her. I feel my stomach turn and acid burns my esophagus. “What if he’s my brother?”
Reggie takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for a moment. “Not that this came from a reliable source, but I learned I was a genetic experiment. He made it sound like you were too. Now, I don’t know if that means we all have the same genetic material or not. But, what if you do? What if you and Roy . . . are in fact, biologically similar?”
My mind travels back to him. I keep seeing his face in the ring. I keep feeling his fingers around my throat, protecting me from the tightening rope, his breath on my face. The way he looked at me. The sound of his voice the night we talked. I think I’m starting to forget it already. Even before I got to know him, he was different. I don’t know him now, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t get him out of my head. He won’t go away, and I don’t want him to. Why does he do this to me? Why did I feel like this?
