Meteor Mags: Omnibus Edition

by Matthew Howard

  “I miss Gramma.”

  Mollie felt cold all of a sudden. “I do, too. But Gramma is busy with her business. She can’t be bothered with what’s happening to the workers here.”

  “Are you mad at her?”

  Mollie turned her gaze away. “Gramma isn’t a bad woman. She just doesn’t know what it’s like for people here. Gramma… She has her empire to worry about. But who is there to worry about the laborers who build that empire?”

  “I don’t know, Mama. You and me?”

  Mollie’s lips spread into a grim smile. “That’s right, dear. If not us, then who?”

  “Mama? Can I ask you another question?”

  “Of course you can.”

  “If water waves travel in water, and sound waves travel in the air, then what do light waves travel in?”

  Mollie laughed. “For that, we need to get you some new books. But I will tell you what I understand of it. Have you ever heard of James Maxwell?”

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  1937: Barcelona.

  Mags pushed the wheelbarrow full of rocks and bags of concrete mix over to the group of women in the street. The laborers of Barcelona, coming together under the anarchist banner, had filled the city streets with barricades. They had become quite effective at resisting interference in their uprising to control the factories where they worked. But from time to time, the barricades needed repairing.

  Supplies and functioning weapons had grown scarce. This was why her mother had left the city, but Mags did not at all care to be separated from her. She sang a work song her mother had taught her, and hoped for Mollie’s swift return. In the meantime, she worked with the anarquista women to protect the city. Mollie would never have entrusted her daughter to a group of men, but the anarquistas had proven themselves trustworthy in her eyes.

  Suddenly, a group of children her age ran past. “Fucking freak,” shouted one of them in Spanish. Mags looked toward the voice just in time for a hail of rotten vegetables to catch her upside the head. She dropped the wheelbarrow to the ground. Raising her hands over her face, she deflected the worst of the barrage. But a stream of stinking tomato juice ran out of her dark curls and down her face.

  “Hijos de putas!” She grabbed a rock from the wheelbarrow. She flung it with all her might, but the children had already run away. The rock fell short, skittering down the street. Mags’ tail flicked back and forth angrily beneath her skirt. She wiped her face on her shirt sleeve.

  Mollie had spoken many times of the solidarity between workers, but Mags found the children of Barcelona failed to live up to her mother’s ideal. She pulled a knife from her boot, preparing to run down the gang. They never dared torment her when her mother was by her side. But alone—

  Just then, one of the anarchist women ran up to her. “Maggie!” The woman dressed in the militaristic shirt and pants of the anarquistas, a rifle slung over her shoulder. Mags sheathed the boot knife as the woman approached. “Oh, you poor thing,” the woman said.

  “Está bien.”

  The anarquista took a rag and wiped what she could from the child’s face and hair.

  Mags felt horribly embarrassed, but she acquiesced to the kindly touch. “Gracias.” Somehow, these women made everything seem alright. She had not known them long, but she believed in their kindness.

  “Mollie would have our hides if she thought we let something happen to you.”

  If only, she thought, she could command the sort of respect her mother did. Then those brats would leave her alone.

  “It’s okay to be different, little comrade. Children don’t always understand that.” She tucked her rag into her waistband. “I suppose adults don’t always understand it either.”

  “They’re mean to me because of my tail.”

  “They’ve never—” The woman sighed. “They’ve never seen anything like it. And frankly,” she said, looking Mags over, “neither have I!”

  Mags picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow. “But you aren’t mean to me.”

  “Of course not, little one. Why, I remember when I was your age, I was teased all the time for—”

  “Do you hear that?” Mags’s ears perked up.

  “Hear what?”

  “Mama!” She set the wheelbarrow back on the ground.

  Then the anarquista heard the sound of horse hooves approaching. A moment later, the rest of the group working on the barricade heard it, too.

  Mags ran down the street. A black speck on the horizon grew larger, and then she saw her mother. “Mama!”

  Mollie’s horse carried her up the street and pulled to a stop at her daughter’s side. Mollie pulled Mags up, and Mags flung her leg over the horse. She settled onto the saddle, holding her mother tightly from behind with both arms. “Mama,” she said happily.

  Mags did not know this horse had formerly been part of the Spanish cavalry. Mollie had found it nearly rode to death by a militia. She decided she and the horse would ride together. Its captors had little say in the matter, and, in fact, would have no say in anything ever again.

  Mollie kicked her heels. The horse sprang into action. When it reached the group of anarquistas, the horse reared up, whinnying loudly. The women cheered. They raised their caps in a salute.

  Mollie paraded her steed in several circles before bringing it to a stop. She smiled broadly, enjoying her control over the powerful animal. She let Mags slide down to the ground. Mollie dismounted, still holding the reins. “Who wants fresh rifles?”

  The women gathered around. She handed out stolen goods right and left. Mags watched her mother with pride. She had seen the pathetic state of the resistance fighters, but only her mother seemed to have the wherewithal to do something about it. Mollie distributed rifles, ammunition, and dozens of pairs of clean socks to the anarquistas.

  Clean socks especially had become a problem for the resistance fighters in Barcelona, and many of them had rifles which barely functioned. To call their armaments pathetic would be to understate the problem. Where Mollie had gone to get the replacements, and what battles she might have undertaken to bring them back, Mags would never know.

  But it was not a sight she would ever forget, even when she had been alive more than a century. Mags saw the respect in her mother’s comrades’ eyes. The way they deferred to her. The way they counted on her to provide. Mags felt not only an urge to make her mother proud, but to be like her someday.

  When Mollie finished distributing her “liberated” goods from the pouches and packs slung across the horse, she placed a hand on her daughter’s head but found it wet. She kneeled to look Mags in the eye. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Mags frowned. “Just those asshole kids again.”

  Mollie looked her daughter over, making sure she was not injured. “I’m sorry, baby. Did they hurt you?”

  “No.” Mags looked at the ground. Then she raised her eyes back to Mollie’s. “They don’t like my tail.”

  Mollie cupped her daughter’s cheek in the palm of her hand. “Maggie, you are absolutely beautiful. Do you know that?”

  “Why am I different, Mama?”

  Mollie held her daughter close. “I don’t know, dear. I really don’t know. But I do know this. You are the most special person in the universe to me.”

  “I love you, Mama.”

  “I love you, too, Maggie.” After some moments had passed, she asked, “Would you like to help me get the rest of these rifles and socks to our comrades in the POUM? They’re not very far from here.”

  Mags clasped her mother’s hand. “I would, Mama. Very much.”

  “Good.” Mollie mounted her horse then lifted Mags into the saddle. “Vivan las anarquistas,” she cried, raising her fist in salute to the group of women around her.

  The women also raised their fists in salute. “Vivan las anarquistas!”

  Mollie pulled the reins of her stolen horse, and she and her daughter made their way through Barcelona to distribute the rest of her ill-gotten gains.r />
  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  5 May 1937.

  Mags ran down the crude stone street. Only death could await her in this alley. Men with guns had cut off every other route. She ducked into a small alcove, brick on all sides, just wide enough for an adult to stand in, but only a couple meters deep.

  The armed workers of the CNT-FAI had forcefully taken the Telephone Exchange building from the fascists nearly a year before. The red and black flag of anarchy had flown from the building ever since. But on the afternoon of May third, a force of two hundred police assaulted the Exchange. The CNT’s machine guns and control of the upper levels ensured the police could not advance beyond the first floor. Though opposing forces had exchanged gunfire, they soon reached an uneasy stand-off.

  Tension mounted until the evening of the next day, when rifle fire broke out at a barricade near the CNT’s headquarters. Soon the armed conflict spread throughout the city. On the fifth of May, the government’s assault guards attacked multiple targets throughout Barcelona, including the Medical Union in the city center and the headquarters of the Libertarian Youth.

  Through it all, Mags remained close to her mother. The great number of anarchist and communist factions resisting the fascist government would have made little sense to Mags without Mollie there to explain it to her. But even at that young age, Mags intuited this lack of unified purpose did not bode well for the workers. Mags could scarcely tell if the sounds of rifles and machine guns came from friends or foes. And then today’s violence happened.

  Mags turned her back to the wall and crouched down. With the back of her right hand, she wiped the blood and sweat away from her eyes. Where is Mama, she wondered. The unexpected gun fight had separated them.

  Then she heard boots on stone, coming quickly. It sounded like one man. Then another, following him. Mags had little doubt they belonged to the assault guard.

  She raised her rifle. Mags had already chambered a round, so she waited silently. She hoped the men would run past her, take another turn, give up and turn back—anything. She had underestimated their determination.

  A man appeared in the opening of the alcove with his rifle at the ready. In the split second before he realized his target was not standing, Mags fired from her crouch.

  The rifle shot deafened her. If the second man was still coming, she could not hear him. She watched the guard’s face turn from hate to shock as he stumbled backwards. Mags had aimed for his center mass, just as her mother had taught her. She chambered another round, watching the man spew a cloud of blood from his mouth.

  Mags fired again. In the stark silence, her bullet caught him in the gut. He spun and fell to the ground.

  The second man’s momentum carried him to the edge of Mags’ hiding spot. He had run with his pistol in his right hand. Now he brought it to bear on Mags.

  She looked him in the eye. Shaking, she fumbled the rifle trying to chamber a round. The man’s finger pulled back on the trigger.

  The side of his head exploded. His body fell to the side. In death, he finished pulling the trigger, but the shot went off wildly.

  “Maggie!”

  Faintly she heard her mother’s voice. “Mama!” She peeked around the edge of her hiding spot into the alley.

  Her mother lowered a rifle and ran to her. “Maggie! Are you hurt?”

  She ran into her mother’s arms. They held her tightly. Mags wept.

  Mollie kissed her daughter’s trembling head. She thought of the dead men on the ground as men first and only second as government police. Two distinct pools of blood formed around the first one. Her daughter had taken him down in two shots, both to center mass—just like she was taught. Mollie felt pride, but she felt no desire to celebrate. She knew her daughter had never killed a man before.

  “You’re okay, baby. You’re okay. Now, listen. The Casa CNT is taking heavy fire right now. They’re trying to encircle it and close it off. We can’t let that happen. If they cut us off from the Regional Committee, we’ll all die in the streets. Just like these poor bastards. Do you understand?”

  Mags released her grip on her mother and stood back. She wiped her face, leaving a trail of dirt and tears across her cheeks.

  Mollie quickly wet a piece of cloth with water from her canteen. She took Mags’ face in her hands and washed off what she could. “It’s okay, baby.”

  Mags sniffed. “I know, Mama. I killed him. He can’t hurt me anymore.”

  “That’s right, Maggie. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  Mags sniffed again and spat into the street. She picked up her rifle from the ground. She did not recall setting it down to hold her mother, but she felt momentarily ashamed. This was no day to be putting down your rifle.

  “I got lost, Mama. Are we far from the headquarters?”

  Mollie smiled. “That’s my girl. We’re not far at all. Follow me.”

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  7 May 1937.

  “Bastards!” Mollie slammed the newspaper on the table. “The papers blame us for all this! Don’t they know the CNT wants to end this bloodshed?”

  “We were told to return to work yesterday,” said the woman beside her. “I thought we’d agreed to an armistice with the government.”

  A small group of anarquistas gathered with Mollie in a boarded-up warehouse. They sat on crates with their daughters. Some of them cleaned their weapons. Others tried nervously to eat.

  The sun’s fading light crept through tiny gaps in the boards over the windows. Mags watched her mother fume. The tip of her tail twitched anxiously.

  “We did.” Mollie paced back and forth. “But now Berneri and Barbieri are dead. The police gunned them down yesterday. And the Stalinists helped them do it!” She clenched her fists. “We were fools to trust them.”

  Another woman spoke up. “So much for solidarity. Now we see the communists’ true colors.”

  “They never wanted to help us at all,” said Mollie. “They want to help themselves to Spain. And the workers be damned!”

  “They will hunt us down like they did our leaders,” said another. “The assault guards control the city already. They force us to give up our guns. They took my husband to prison this morning. It’s the same all over the city.”

  “Goddamned fascists. And betrayed by our allies. This has all gone to hell.”

  Mollie was not wrong. The day before, the CNT-FAI had urged workers to return to work. But the hostilities had taken a terrible turn. Two of the anarchist leaders were killed by the police and members of one of the communist groups.

  The workers in the Telephone Exchange had formed an ill-fated cease-fire with the invading police. The workers had held the building, but they could not get any food or supplies with the police occupying the first floor. The police agreed to let the workers out, and also to leave the building themselves. That was the end of the CNT’s control of the Telephone Exchange. During the cease-fire, the government’s assault guards simply took over the entire building.

  The assault guards then patrolled the city, arresting workers and confiscating their weapons, though it was the workers’ groups who sought an armistice. The press, however, cast the blame for all the violence on the anarchist factions. Now, both the government and the communist groups supported by Russia had turned against the city’s workers. In just a few short days, the situation had indeed gone to hell.

  “Mollie,” said the woman beside her. “We thank you for your help. But we know this isn’t your fight.”

  “Of course this is my fight! Every bit as much as the coal miners’ fight in Asturias was mine. I can’t stand idly by while—”

  “Mollie,” said the woman again. “We want to ask you for something.”

  Mollie checked her rage. She placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I’m here to help, comrade. What would you have me do?”

  “Our children, Mollie. This city may have no hope. But we cannot abandon her. The guards may come to arrest us. Some of us may die. Perhaps all o
f us. But our children, Mollie. Will you take them to safety? Will you find them somewhere safe until our streets no longer flow with blood?”

  She looked to the daughters of the anarquistas she had fought beside for nearly a year. They had become as much a family to her as the one she was born into. Their eyes beseeched her. The admiration she had commanded was more than just respect.

  She drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Is that what you want me to do?”

  One by one, the anarquistas nodded their heads. They had no more desire than Mollie did to consign their children to imprisonment and death in a losing battle. One of them said softly, “Please.”

  “Then I will do this for you. Maggie?”

  “Mama?”

  “Gather your things, dear. We leave tonight.”

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  June 1937.

  A branch smacked Mags in the face. She fell to the ground. Then Mollie’s hand was in hers, pulling her up. Mags rose to her feet and brandished her rifle. The daughters of the anarquistas came rushing up beside her, one by one. “Come on!” Mags shouted at them. “Ándale!”

  The communist death squad chased after them, only seconds behind. Similar squads swept the countryside, murdering anarchist sympathizers everywhere. The group had sought safety, but in the outbreak of the civil war, no safety was to be found. And so, like many anarchists across the country, they fled before the scourge of death at their heels.

  Mollie waved her hand in their air. “This way!” She could not bear to tell the girls the truth, that she no longer had any idea where they should flee. She merely led them away from their pursuers as quickly as she could. She hoped it would be enough.

  When the last of the girls made it to their side, mother and daughter aimed their rifles into the forest. They unleashed a barrage in the direction they had come from.

  Mags’ sensitive ears picked up screaming. She must have gotten lucky. But her luck was about to run out. “Mama.”