by Ted Weber
The RV was their only transportation. They could fit all their band equipment in, but it guzzled gas, especially after Pel, ever the gearhead, threw in a big V8, a ‘PowerPack,’ and a turbocharger. They decaled the band name, Dwarf Eats Hippo, on both sides and the back, but that was the limit of their agreement. Waylee got the “starboard” side, and wrote quotes from Rousseau, King, Goldman, and a dozen others. Kiyoko picked the left. She was a talented artist, but her tableau of manga elves and fairies spoiled the gestalt.
Pel had ceded the back to Dingo and Shakti. They worked at a graphics shop, and printed a giant sticker of MediaCorp’s CEO morphed into Cthulhu, rising monstrously from the sea. Waylee smiled every time she saw it.
She started to shake Paulo’s hand, then hugged him. “Thanks for everything.”
“Boa sorte. Thanks for the van.”
She climbed into the back with the rest, then heard the garage door open.
Headed home. They were 100% committed now.
4
Charles
Charles had never actually been in West Baltimore, at least not past MLK. From the camper window, it looked as shitty as East Baltimore. His broken-down neighborhood anyway, which somehow got worse every year.
He wondered how Gramma kept all them kids in school and off the corners. His mom just had him. Then she passed, close to five years ago now. Septicemia they said. Should have been treated early on, they said. Father—AWOL from day one. Probably in jail somewhere.
He might have hustled dope then, likely capped by now. But he discovered the Internet as a kid, back when the libraries were open. The Internet was like caveman tech—slow, clunky, and two dimensional. You had to hand it to MediaCorp—its replacement, the Comnet, was a million times better. Especially if you ordered immersion gear on a stolen credit card.
Charles turned away from the window. Sitting next to him on a red velvet couch, Pelopidas stared forward while Waylee rubbed his hand. The other two, M’patanishi and Dingo, shared a matching couch directly opposite. The rest of the camper was crowded with coiled cables, tool boxes, rolls of duct tape, and cardboard boxes full of Dwarf Eats Hippo T-shirts and crap.
Ahead and a little below, that girl Kiyoko sat behind the wheel, humming to herself while driving. She was weird, but beautiful like no one he’d ever seen. Like an angel. Forgetting the pink hair, she looked kind of Chinese, with some European mixed in. He wondered what her body looked like without that dress on.
As for the others, Waylee was either white or Hispanic, kinda thin, and had a pretty face. In fact, she’d be fine if she was younger and not so punked out. She seemed to be the leader. She had these eyes you couldn’t turn away from.
Her man, Pelopidas, was the first Collectivista he’d ever met in person. You could tell he was a performer by his braided beard and all the tats. Like Waylee and Kiyoko, with their bright-colored hair.
With his old white guy mask gone, the one called M’patanishi was a brother. One look at those muscles and eyes and you knew he was lethal. Not someone you’d want to fuck with.
Waylee turned to him. “We’ve got a room set up for you. More than one, actually.”
They must be rich. Either from rhyming or stealing. “So you’re all in the Collective?”
Waylee smiled and shook her head. “No, no. Just Pel.”
“But you said in your texts you’re a hacktivist.”
“Well, yeah, sort of. Pel’s the hacker, I’m the activist. So together…”
Charles nodded. Half and half, huh? To the butt-tards in juvie, on his street too, women were just hos and bitches. Maybe Pel was her bitch. He laughed inside.
Maybe he should have toughed out another year. But it was too late now. Might as well enjoy the freedom, and make the best of it.
He pointed at M-pat and Dingo. “What about the soldiers?”
“They’re friends. They’re not soldiers.”
They drove past endless townhouses, some boarded up. People sat on stoops or stood on corners, quite a few sucking on electronic drug vaporizers. Then they passed a thick band of trees and turned left, onto a street of standalone houses with yards.
“We still in B’more?” he asked.
Waylee glanced out the window, then back at him. “Yeah, we just passed Gwynns Falls. We’re in a warehouse and factory district, but this is a nice little neighborhood sandwiched in.”
“For Ballmer, anyway,” M-pat said from the opposite couch. “We still get some shootings and break-ins, but mostly West Ballmer turf is all parceled out and we in a DMZ.”
“A what?” Charles asked.
“Demilitarized zone. 66 detached homes, 63 townhouses. Workin’ folk with families, mostly. And some retirees. I’m the Chief Facilitator.”
“What… What does that mean?”
“Mostly it’s conflict resolution and fixin’ problems. Sometimes I got to bust some heads, though.” The big man smiled for the first time. “It’s my Ujamaa contribution.”
“Say what?”
“Ujamaa’s about families and communities comin’ together and takin’ care of each other and not lettin’ outsiders tryin’ to run things for you. Julius Nyerere invented it for Tanzania after he threw out the colonial occupiers.”
Dingo leaned forward. “I’m the chief deputy.” He punched the air. “Krav Maga!”
Charles backed into his seat. In his hood, crazies were usually high on something, and sometimes they attacked people and bit their faces off.
“We’re here,” Kiyoko said, her voice high and musical. She pulled up next to a two-story corner house with white peeling paint and drawn curtains, surrounded by a tall chain link fence topped with barbed wire.
Pelopidas hopped out and unlocked a heavy gate, then Kiyoko parked on a gravel driveway inside, scraping bare tree branches in the process.
The front door opened. A young Indian woman, like the type you saw behind corner grocery counters, rushed onto the porch and down the brick stairs. She wore one of those bright wraparound dresses and couldn’t run very fast. Dingo ran out and they hugged.
Charles stepped out next. A loud bark shook him nearly out of his shoes. Right next to the motor home, a massive pit bull bared sharp teeth and barked twice more. Shit! He tried to back into the camper, but couldn’t seem to find the door.
The Indian girl clapped at the beast. “Quiet, Laelaps. This is our guest. Now sit.” The beast obeyed.
She turned to Charles. “Don’t worry, he’s never actually bitten anyone. He even leaves the cat alone.” Her voice sounded kind of Caribbean. “I’m Shakti by the way.” She offered her hand.
Before he could respond, someone slapped a palm against his back and nudged him toward the narrow side yard. “Can’t be seen out here.” Pelopidas’s voice. “Shakti, could you let us in the back?”
Dingo snickered. Pelopidas muttered something and led Charles along the side of the house. They entered a big backyard with lettuce and other shit growing on raised beds, a wooden dog house just past, and more chain link fence, overgrown with vines.
Shakti opened the back door and ushered them into a kitchen crammed with cabinets and half-bare shelves. She thrust her hand in Charles’s and shook it. “Shakti. Pardon Pel’s interruption before.” She smelled like coconut and vanilla.
Waylee entered from a dining room, followed by Pelopidas, Dingo, and M-pat. Pelopidas grabbed a can of beer out of the refrigerator. He yanked the tab back and chugged, not even stopping to breathe. He should meet my aunt.
Waylee frowned. “Don’t drink them all.” She slapped her hands into a prayer position. “Welcome, Charles.” She waved toward Shakti. “We’re at the edge of the zone, so someone has to stay here in case some scavenger gets desperate.”
“Took a couple days off,” Shakti said. She was short and soft looking, though, not very intimidating.
Waylee seemed to read his mind. “Shakti’s another of M-pat’s deputies. Knows how to handle herself. And she’s a big player in the People’s Party, i
n case our project needs more help.”
Shakti spread her hands. “We don’t believe in big players. It’s bottom up.”
Waylee waved him forward. “Let me show you around real quick.” Pelopidas finished his beer and they led him through a dining room, living room, and bathroom on the first floor. They passed three bedrooms, a game room, and a bathroom on the second. M-pat lived down the street, Waylee said. The rest lived here.
Kiyoko’s room was obvious. She’d painted her name on the door and topped it with a rainbow and unicorns. Charles looked behind him, but she hadn’t followed them up.
They had two more bedrooms in the attic. “You can have one of these,” Waylee said, “whichever one you want. They’re crash pads—”
“Like for touring indy bands,” Pelopidas said.
Waylee nodded. “But no other guests while you’re here.”
The guest rooms looked more or less the same—walls slanting to a triangle, small window, mattresses on the floor, wires and ductwork everywhere, cardboard boxes and piles of college textbooks against the sides. The rooms smelled a little musty. Better than jail though. And they were air conditioned.
Charles picked the one with the most outlets. He looked around but didn’t see any roaches. No way was he gonna wake up with a roach on his face again.
“Basement’s a practice room for the band,” Waylee said as they walked back down the stairs to the ground floor. “We throw parties there too, mostly fundraisers.”
“Thought y’all was in a band.”
“Yeah. Me, Pel, and Kiyoko. Used to be a fourth, J-Jay, but he sold out.”
They arrived back in the living room, where the others, except for Princess Kiyoko, stood talking. Dingo and M-pat were drinking beers. They passed cans to Pel and Waylee.
“What’s your band like?” Charles said. “Camper says Dwarf Eats Hippo, that the name?”
Pelopidas opened his beer. “Yeah. It’s more or less random. Our music, I don’t know what you’d call it. Waylee does most of the writing, and she’s always changing things.” He started guzzling.
Waylee turned. “‘Post-industrial neuro-punk,’ the City Paper reviewer said. Back when there was a City Paper. ‘Alternating between slow-tempoed doom and rapid-fire multi-prong attacks, often in the same song.’ Really, I just write what’s in my head, play what I feel. Best to hear for yourself.”
“You big?” Charles said.
“If we were, would we be living here?” She took a swig of beer.
“Seems a’ight to me.” Pretty damn big, actually.
Waylee jerked a thumb toward Pelopidas. “Thanks to Mr. Fix-It-Up here and his generous parents.”
Still no sign of the Princess of West Baltimore. “So Kiyoko,” he asked, “is she joining us?”
Waylee frowned. “She’s probably in BetterWorld or playing with her cat. She’s not really a part of this.”
The mention of MediaCorp’s three-dimensional social and gaming network tightened his stomach. BetterWorld was his real home, the only place he ever felt easy since his mom passed. He even had his own island there until the feds ganked it along with his gear. He wondered what Kiyoko’s avatar looked like, and how to find her. “Is she really a Princess?”
Dingo started laughing.
Stupid question. I never say the right thing.
Waylee put her beer down on the living room table and slapped her hands together in front of Dingo’s face. “Zip it.”
He shut up and stared icicles.
She turned back to Charles. “She’s a princess in BetterWorld. She takes it way too seriously…”
Waylee kept talking. At the same time, she unlocked a sheet metal-reinforced closet door and pulled out a Genki-san interface unit. It could process Comnet data packets as fast as they came in, and had a big touchpad you could stretch into any shape you wanted. She sat in a recliner, turned on the unit, then powered on the huge screen covering one of the walls. “Let’s see what the cops are doing.”
The others plopped onto the sofa or chairs. Charles decided to stand for now.
The MediaCorp News logo appeared, ‘Your Trusted News Source’ beneath, then it dissolved to a couple of suits behind a desk. Shakti tapped the volume icon on the wall skin.
“And so polls indicate overwhelming support for the police intervention,” one said.
Wha?
“Really, we are seeing the last vestige of unionism here,” the other said. “The union bosses know they’re irrelevant now, but just like spoiled children, they’re paying thugs to act out and try to disrupt things, when most people just want to go to work and pay their bills.”
Not about him. Charles looked at the ticker beneath. “PRESIDENT RAND UNVEILS NEW WEAPONS IN WAR AGAINST TERROR … BEAUTY QUEEN SCANDAL UPDATE…”
“Switching to local,” Waylee said.
A news broadcaster, some white woman, appeared on the wall. Eleven male faces, including his, lined the space beneath. “—contact the police immediately if you see any of these—”
“Hold on, let me go back,” Waylee said. She swiped a finger along the Genki-san.
The screen showed a street blocked off, police cars and uniforms crowding the other side of the barricades. Another woman spoke in a microphone. “This is the scene where eleven inmates at the Baltimore Juvenile Correctional Facility escaped around 8:30 this morning. All the others are accounted for. The details are sketchy at this point, but apparently the inmates were aided by outside persons.”
A popup showed a close-up of a white van, swarming with glove-wearing authority types. “According to police, the outside persons arrived in this cargo van, jumped out, and disabled the guards. Thankfully—”
In her recliner, Waylee mouthed something and threw up her hands.
“—both guards,” the reporter continued, “are now recovering. The perpetrators then escaped in a second van, also white, license plate AMM513.” The numbers appeared over the video. “They were last seen driving west on Madison Street. Back to you.”
The studio anchor reappeared. “Thanks, Inez. And now, Lieutenant Harris from the Baltimore Police Public Affairs Office has a few words.”
A thirtyish black man in uniform appeared. “We’ve got a massive man-hunt under way, and hope to have all the criminals in custody soon…”
How massive?
Computer sims of M-pat’s and Dingo’s masks appeared in a side window, their heads turning like demons.
Dingo slapped his thigh. “Cracklin’! They don’t know it’s Dick Clark!”
“Who’s that?” Charles asked.
“If you see either of these two people,” Lieutenant Harris said on the screen, “please contact the police immediately. They should be considered armed and dangerous.”
Dingo laughed so loud, Waylee paused the feed.
Charles sat down in a chair well away from him.
When Dingo stopped laughing and Waylee resumed the video, eleven faces popped up below, with the text “Click the photo for more information.” Lt. Harris read names, descriptions, and convictions of escaped inmates. Text and rotating heads appeared in a column to the right. “… Charles Marvin Lee. 17 years of age, African American, black hair and brown eyes, 5’ 5” tall and 160 lbs. Convicted for felony computer trespass, computer fraud, wire fraud, and criminal mischief…”
It was just for lulz. No one got hurt.
“…Again,” Lt. Harris said, “please contact the police immediately if you see any of these persons.”
“Charles,” M-pat said when the piece ended, “I suggest you stay inside.”
Fine with me.
Waylee put the Genki-san aside, stood, and claimed the center of the room. “So let’s talk about the next phase.” She met his eyes. “Charles, you said you’re in.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what we’re doing.”
“I’m gonna fill you in. Everyone else still in, right?”
Dingo threw up a fist, creepy eye on the back.
Shakti
raised a hand. “Dingo told me you got shot at. Why didn’t you tell me that?”
Waylee looked at Dingo, who shrugged. “No one was hurt,” she said. M-pat shook his head. “I didn’t account for them guards to come out and clap iron. Bullets flyin’ an’ shit, we lucky no one dead.”
Waylee bounced on her feet like she was gonna throw a karate kick. “We’re not repeating that. But we need you. Not to break in or anything, but your advice and contacts if nothing else.”
M-pat leaned forward. “It’s one thing to take on rent-a-cops. But Homeland?”
Charles felt shaky. Homeland Security had a vendetta against hackers, and they were the ones who’d put him away. Lucky he was a minor.
Waylee waved her hands. “We’re not going to take on Homeland Security. Give me some credit. They’ll never know we’re there.”
M-pat crossed his thick arms and sat back on the sofa.
“Never know we’re where?” Charles asked.
Waylee grinned. “On New Year’s Eve, MediaCorp’s co-sponsoring a special fundraiser in DC for the president’s re-election. The biggest movers and shakers in the country will be there.”
“Like a billionaire’s ball,” Shakti said.
Waylee’s eyes sparkled. “We’re gonna sneak in.”
Charles looked at the weird hair and tattoos in the room. They didn’t exactly pass for rich old men.
Waylee sat back down at the Genki-san and brought up a menu of video clips. She clicked one.
On screen, a big green helicopter landed on the White House lawn. A door near the front swung down, and a Marine in old-fashioned dress uniform marched out. He stood at attention, and a couple of white men in suits walked down the stairs. One was President Rand. The other was shorter and older.
“That’s the president and Bob Luxmore.” She pointed at the man next to the president. “Founder and CEO of Media Corporation.”
The two ignored the Marine and walked across the lawn together. Waylee paused the video. “They meet all the time, but no one knows what they say to each other. In fact, there’s surprisingly little on Luxmore—what he’s like in person, what his agenda is, and why he has such extraordinary access to the president. I seem to be the only one who cares.”
