Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements

by Walidah Imarisha

  The arrowhead of immigrant bodies hit the police line, which gave a little but did not break. The formation backed up slightly, then plowed forward quickly before the officers could draw their guns. This time a fissure opened as two cops were shoved apart. The men and women grappled with the police, fighting with all their might. It all happened in less than a minute.

  What are they going to do? A. wondered. The hole was not large enough for them to go through, and it would close up soon. The cops were already adjusting. It was not until she saw the quick movements on the other side of the line that it dawned on her: The children! The adults had never intended to get out—they broke open enough space for their children to escape. The small bodies poured through now, running swiftly and disappearing into the dark before ICE and the NYPD even knew they were gone.

  A. had seen so many horrific scenes since she had been cast out, so much violence and hatred and ugliness. She had almost forgotten what else she saw when she gazed down from Heaven; self-sacrifice, immense acts of love. Bravery beyond words. Like now.

  A.’s attention was drawn back to the formation, which had by this time disintegrated. One of the children hadn’t made it through before the opening closed, the little girl with the big eyes. The child clung to the leg of one of the women fighting. A. assumed it was her mother.

  By this time, agents from the other side ran over. They could not fire into the crowd without risking hitting their fellow officers. So they pulled out batons and began smashing people from all sides. There was no escape. Just the sickening impact of wood on tender flesh, on bones.

  A.’s stomach tightened. There will always be those humans so twisted, so hungry for power, they will devour all in their way, even the weak, the sick. The children.

  And she also thought, But not all. There will always be those who fight against that, who push the forces of destruction back. A. thought of the times since her expulsion that she had walked past a mugging, a beating. Times she’d heard screams through the walls. Seen fresh blood in the stairway. Heard whimpers in the dark. For the first time, she was ashamed of herself.

  No, she shook her head, that’s not true. She had been ashamed of herself since the first time she let her fear of pain, of having something else taken from her, stop her from doing what she knew was right.

  This was just the first time she had allowed herself to admit it.

  When A. was in Heaven, she was an Angel of mercy, never an Angel of vengeance. Never wielded a fiery sword and wrought terror on those who had done wrong. But no one who saw her this day would have ever guessed that. She threw off her trench coat like a dark storm cloud and unleashed her remaining black wing. It unfurled until it blotted out the glow of the streetlights. Her face twisted almost beyond recognition with rage, and she was more terrible than anyone could ever imagine.

  Her wing sliced through two agents in front of her as she ran toward the trucks. Angels of vengeance have steel for wings, and her remaining wing had become razor sharp. She could not tell if the agents she hit were alive or dead. She did not care.

  A. fought her way through dozens of agents, every part of her acting independently as a fighting instrument. Fists threw blows that crunched noses and broke jaws. Elbows cracked ribs, shoved the jagged edges up into lungs. Feet crushed larynxes of any unfortunate enough to fall. And always her deadly razor wing sliced furiously, shimmering with blood.

  She broke through, leaving behind moans, the sound of bodies dropping. She saw only the agent holding the mother and the little girl—all of the other immigrants had been loaded into the truck. The mother began scratching and biting the agent with all her might, twisting and attacking until he dropped his hold on the girl to defend himself. The little girl ran to a dumpster nearby and hid.

  A. raced toward them at top speed, but while her wing was able to deflect some of the bullets a dozen guns were shooting at her, it couldn’t stop them all. A. felt the searing pain as hot metal entered her body, breached vital organs. Two in the heart, one in a lung, intestines shredded. She tried to keep moving toward the truck, but the pain was too much. She stumbled, fell. She could only watch helplessly as the mother was thrown on the top of a mass of writhing bodies.

  A. pushed herself to get up, only to collapse back to the hard concrete. She could save no one, possibly not even herself.

  The mother’s eyes met A.’s as the agents swung the door shut. The mother’s screams echoed through the metal: “Save her!”

  A. forced herself up, ignored the agonizing pain, and as the truck revved and sped off, she dashed forward. She took half a dozen more bullets, but this time she felt nothing. She sprinted toward the dumpster, scooped up the child, and kept running, this time away from the agents. They continued firing but her wing blocked most of the incoming fire.

  If I’d had both wings, I would have never gotten hit, A. thought bitterly. Of course, if I had both wings, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.

  She turned down an alley, then another. Another. She could hear the shouts of pursuit. But she was in familiar territory. She had haunted these streets for over a year now. They would not catch her.

  A. continued stumbling ahead through the predawn darkness long after she could no longer hear the cries of the pursuers. It was only as daylight leaked out that A. collapsed in a dead end alley between two boarded-up buildings. Her arms could no longer hold the girl, who rolled roughly into a pile of foul-smelling refuse.

  A.’s head hit the concrete, and then she was gone.

  • • •

  As A. regained consciousness, she had no idea how long she had been out. She opened her eyes, turned her head in the direction of the motion she sensed. The girl, balled up between two rusting dumpsters, knees pulled up and arms crossed on top so only her giant liquid eyes were visible. The girl stared without blinking.

  A. avoided those eyes, slowly began to wind the black cord around her waist until her wing was secured again. She would have to make it home without the trench coat—she’d left it back at the tenement building. Unfortunately it was daytime, and her wing would be conspicuous. Fortunately, this was New York, so A. was pretty sure she wouldn’t be the strangest sight on the street.

  She felt a tap on the side of her thigh. She turned down to see the girl holding out the dirty trench coat. She had no idea when the girl had picked it up. The kid had been able to keep her wits about her even in the midst of the most horrible thing that would probably ever happen to her.

  A. felt a knife stab deep into her heart, and still she would not meet the girl’s eyes.

  In a burst of motion, the little girl threw herself forward and grabbed onto A.’s leg. “Thank you,” she mumbled into A’s pants.

  A. did not know what to say to this tiny girl, so delicate. Thank me? For what? For waiting so long to act? For allowing your mother and everyone you know to be shipped and sold like cattle for slaughter?

  Her self-disgust threatened to overpower her. “Okay,” she said gruffly and moved away from the girl’s touch.

  The girl let go but did not move away. She continued to stare up at A. in a way that completely unnerved the fallen angel.

  “Did God send you?” the girl finally asked.

  A. snorted. “You could say that.”

  The girl just stared, unblinking and silent.

  A. sighed. She never imagined telling anyone the story—it was so much worse telling this kid than Tamee. “I—I was kicked out. I went against God’s will.”

  The child remembered her brief time going to Sunday school and shrank back a little. “Are you—are you the devil?”

  A. pulled a cigarette out of a pack using only her mouth and simultaneously lit it with the lighter burning in her hand. Exhaled as she snapped the Zippo shut.

  “The only way I’m like Lucifer is we were both cast out. Him into hell. Me into Harlem.” She shrugged. “Same difference.”

  “But why?” A. knew what the girl was asking. Of all the whys, she knew exactly which
one the kid wanted to hear. She had never told Tamee the exact story of her fall. Never told anyone. Never imagined she would.

  But she knew she owed this little girl. If anyone could understand loss, it was this kid.

  A. leaned against the dirty wall and closed her eyes. “You are too young to remember this, but two decades or so ago—humans’ time is so imprecise—there was a war. No,” she corrected herself, “Not a war. Genocide.”

  “Genocide.” The word sounded wrong in the mouth of one so young. “What’s that?”

  “It’s when you hate not just one person but their mother and their grandmothers and their children and everyone like them. You hate them so much, you try to destroy all of them.”

  A. looked at the girl’s face, drawn tight with too much knowledge too young.

  A. did not have any comfort to offer other than the truth. A truth she had never spoken aloud.

  “I could not watch it one more time. Especially since this conflict was not even caused by either of the two groups involved—it was outsiders who came in. They came to exploit, to plunder the country of its resources and the people of their hope. They used one group against another, egging them on, spreading lies and misinformation, until the entire region nearly washed away in blood.”

  She took a drag from her cigarette and looked up toward the cloudy sky. She wasn’t even sure she was talking to the little girl anymore. But if she wasn’t, she sure as hell didn’t know who was listening. “I couldn’t watch it happen again. I went to God and asked him to stop it. Send a sign, a prophet, a messenger. Throw a lightning bolt. Anything to remind them there was something bigger in this world than their rage.”

  The little girl’s voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible. “And what did God do?”

  A.’s laughter echoed hollow. “Nothing. He said it was not my place to tell him how to run His worlds. That I could not possibly comprehend the intricacies of His divine plan. He told me instead to gaze upon the infinite beauty surrounding me, contemplate His awesome majesty. He told me to forget.”

  “And then what?”

  A. looked at the girl out of the corner of her eye. “Then this.”

  A. flicked what was left of the cigarette up into the air, and, as it fell, it burned brighter, glowing red and angry. It landed in a shallow puddle of spilled motor oil, instantly sparking a flame. The smell of burning gasoline filled their noses.

  “That was how I got here.”

  The girl heard the rustle of A.’s remaining wing under her trench coat, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the burning puddle, its rainbow colors and black smoke.

  “What’s going to happen to my mother?” The whisper felt like an indictment screamed in A.’s face. I wish the kid would scream. Hit me. Tell me it’s my fault. Because she’d be right.

  But A. wouldn’t lie to this girl any more than she would lie to herself. She would have to live with her failure today for the rest of her life.

  “You already know the answer. Do you really want me to say it out loud?”

  A. watched as tears filled the girl’s large eyes, pooled on her lashes, splashed down her cheeks until they stained her dirty collar. Wave after wave of silent tears.

  A. looked away. If she could have used the Voice to ease the child’s suffering, she would have gladly done it, even if it meant taking her pain on herself. But the Voice only worked to take away the negative. And she had sensed from the minute she saw her that goodness radiated from this child. There was nothing she could do for her. Absolutely nothing.

  Except to vow to herself and this child that she would never allow this to happen again. This place, this earth, was pain, but it was also beauty and love. She would think of this little girl’s mother, her community, any time she doubted that. Next time A. would not walk away. She would do exactly what she was kicked out of Heaven for doing—she would help these flawed precious creatures called humans.

  A.’s eyes slid upward. But would she be allowed to intervene? Or would that only arouse more of God’s wrath? If so, what plague would He send to express His rage this time upon those she tried to help?

  A. turned her back on the girl and began walking down the alley toward the street. The child’s face overflowed with sadness, loss, fear.

  A. walked a few steps, then stopped.

  “C’mon, kid,” A. barked. The girl started, her eyes wide as saucers again, but it only took a split second for her to be by A.’s side.

  “Name?” A. didn’t look down as she asked it.

  The response almost inaudible: “Angelica.”

  A.’s body shivered involuntarily. I guess that was my answer.

  They walked side by side out onto the street.

  “Well,” A. sighed as she slid another cigarette into her mouth, “Tamee better know what the fuck to do with you, because I sure as hell don’t.”

  The Long Memory

  Morrigan Phillips

  Crowded and noisy, the floor of the Large Council resembled the bustle of a marketplace more than a place of governance. Anticipation had brought out all of the council plus other notables. But one voice cut through the din of scraping chairs, shuffling paper, and chattering voices.

  “The Long Memory is the most dangerous idea threatening our peace, prosperity, and security today!” Councilman Holt, a prominent and wealthy merchant, thundered at the crowd.

  “Any reverence for the Long Memory, for the long done past, holds us back as a civilization! Those among us who call for this continued reverence are jeopardizing the security of our children’s future. We cannot be held hostage by memory. We cannot let memory keep us from forging our future. We owe this to our children. We owe this to our present, in which we see our peace, prosperity, and security threatened by bands of armed thugs in the north.”

  Shouts of disagreement met this statement but were soon drowned out by the shouts of Holt’s supporters.

  Among the dozen or so observers in the gallery sat Cy and her close friend Ban. They wore the dark green cloaks marking them as Memorials, keepers of the Long Memory. The very people Holt railed against. Cy and Ban were not full Memorials yet. They had yet to finish their final year of apprenticeship at the capital’s Central Library. There they learned to delve into streams of memories stretching far outside their lives. They were both apprenticed to the same elder, Hammon, considered to be one of the most skilled Memorials.

  Ban sat, fidgety and impatient. She muttered under her breath a steady stream of expletives directed at Holt. Cy sat quite still, eyes fixed on the scene below.

  Cy came to the Capital from the north as a nine-year-old after her family was killed in a battle in the foothills of the Coull Mountains. All of her family members were prominent regional Memorials. After the dust of the battle settled, Memorials from a nearby library searched for survivors. They found Cy holed up in a root cellar not far from her family’s now-decimated home. Cy was taken to the Central Library, where Hammon took her on as a pupil, and now as an apprentice. When Ban arrived from the Riverlands west of the Capital some nine years ago, it had been like gaining a sister in her and Hammon’s odd little family.

  Cy examined Holt from her seat in the gallery. He was a large, bellowing man with muttonchops. His clothes always looked uncomfortably tight. In recent years, Holt had cast the status of the Memorials into debate. In times past, Memorials were positioned near power. The kings and queens of old kept Memorials near to guide them in their ruling. Memorials held positions of honor in towns and villages. From such places the Memorials had been instrumental in the rule of the Archipelago.

  Over time, the royal houses diminished under the growing power of the merchant class. Kings and queens ceased to be meaningful rulers, and what had always been the Royal Court became the Large Council, from which all authority now came. But the reverence for memory remained. It was a part of the identity of the Archipelago that the record of the past should guide the governance of the present and the building of the future. Memorials, by law
and custom, were part of any lawmaking, and approval of the Memorials was always required before actions such as mobilizing the provincial armies. Any new proclamation or law was sent to the libraries for review. This process frustrated a growing number of council members who saw it as slow, cumbersome, and unnecessary.

  “The plodding methods of the Memorials hold us back as a civilization!” was a common refrain of Councilman Holt.

  The resentment of the Memorials and their libraries reached a fevered pitch when the Central Library sent a proclamation back to the council. The council planned to mobilize all provincial armies to march on the north and quell rebellion and ethnic violence. The Memorials’ findings cautioned against acting in a region where much of the current situation was due to the past actions of the council itself, a historical fact the council seemed most eager to erase.

  Among the most outraged, Holt traveled from province to province condemning the Memorials for holding back necessary action. He was adamant that the actions of past councils were inconsequential and not germane. Without the support of the Memorials, the council could not move forward. Holt had spent years leading a movement to weaken the rules granting the Memorials sway over the work of the council. As the violence in the north increased, fewer and fewer council members spoke out to challenge him. Then, six months ago, a band of Orm Mountain rebels had barricaded a northern provincial government hall and set it on fire, killing 120 people. Meanwhile, the Coullish were moving down from the mountains, sacking villages and seizing back ancestral lands.

  Now the debate taking place on the council floor below Cy and Ban would rule on a proposal by Holt and his allies that called for the containment of what he called threats to the peace of the Archipelago. This included elimination of the role of Memorials in governance, strict regulation of libraries, and abolition of the registry of new Memorials. Holt used the recent deaths to push forth his proposal at Large Council, bypassing public debate.