The Anarchists

by Brian Thompson

  Meleasa’s screams and the sight of Tiny crawling to the living area drew Teanna to his side. “Baby. . .what’s wrong? Why. . .you cryin’?”

  He cursed, pointing at Tay, who aimed at Tiny’s head. Teanna offered herself as a shield. “Son, this ain’t the way. . .to go,” she slurred. “I ain’t raise. . .no killer.”

  “Somebody’s got to look out for this family,” he said coldly. “Mel, go next door.” He tossed his holophone to her. “Call 9-1-1.”

  “Are you crazy? They’ll arrest you.”

  “Tell them what he did. No judge would convict me.” Teiji’s heart rose in his throat. “You’re wondering, aren’t you?” He stared down at his mother. “Never once crossed your mind once before right now, did it?”

  A moment of clarity hit Teanna and she moved to the side. What’d he do?

  Teiji flipped the setting on the Ordnance to kill. “As long as he brings you what you want, you don’t care what he does.” His eyesight blurred with tears. “Mel, get out of here. Now!”

  His sister’s legs were living concrete. Teanna moved, but not enough to clear a shot. She stared at Tiny with bloodshot eyes. “What’ve you done?”

  “Nothing,” Tiny grunted. He glanced up at Teiji. “You don’t have it in you.”

  Teiji wiped away his tears with his left hand. “Watch me, Theodore.”

  “I didn’t do anything she didn’t want,” Tiny grinned. “Look at her.” He eyed Meleasa. “She’s sexier than you.”

  Visual pictures of Meleasa’s account filled Teiji’s mind. His finger pressed against the trigger, but not enough for the ammunition to release.

  “Tay, please?” Emboldened, Meleasa moved into his line of sight and in front of Tiny to spare her brother’s life.

  “No!” Teiji fired around his sister until Tiny flopped face down on the hardwood floor.

  Teanna trembled with fear, as she attended to Meleasa, who had been struck by a final, stray shot.

  Hours later, after being whisked away in an ambulance, after the buzzing and whirring of medical droids, the rush of emergency resuscitation, the heartbeat recovered – just for a brief moment – the crashing back of reality, more emergency procedures, successes and failures; Meleasa Marianne Santana was pronounced dead. Teanna authorized the finalities, for her and Tiny, who had listed Teanna as his next-of-kin and emergency contact.

  Dressed in a pair of baggy black jeans and a coffee and cream camisole blouse – the two topping a heap of her clean clothes – Teanna posted up along a wall. She wanted to leave, but her son was locked up, Meleasa and Tiny were dead, and her home had been quarantined for evidence. Where else I gotta go? Teanna bent over, burying her ashen face in her hands. A small hand caressed the breadth of Teanna’s back. She looked up.

  The counselor compassionately spoke and handed Teanna tissue. “Meleasa didn’t suffer.”

  The grieving mother used it to clean her raw nose. “Who’re you?”

  “A psychiatrist from the Genesis Institute.” She offered a hand, which went unshaken. “My name is Kareza Noor.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Know what, exactly?”

  “She ain’t suffer. How you know for sure?”

  Kareza eagerly pulled up the medical report on a 12-inch long holographic computer processor. “The attending medical droid from the hospital‘s pilot program, he. . .”

  Teanna cursed her and knocked it from Kareza's hands, shattering its projection surface. The fall triggered the device’s security alert system, which rang every two seconds. Its sound resembled Ordnance fire and sent Teanna into hysterics. “Help me!” Teanna’s bloodcurdling screams drew the attention of everyone within earshot – long after the signal stopped. She knelt in the broken glass; her arms bent, as if holding a limp 12-year-old’s body, until she passed out.

  Teanna later awoke to white desolation and a sleeve of tubes strapped to her right arm. One of the intravenous fluids was an entrancing, ice blue liquid. She sweated profusely and her heavy eyelids drooped. “What the. . .” Her wrists were chained to the bedrails.

  Immediately to her left, a scowling Indian looking to be in his 50’s, with Dr. Nandor Adharma/Psychiatrics knitted on his jacket pocket, reached over and wiped her face with a moist cloth. “Can’t have you harming yourself.”

  “Who said I’d ‘harm myself’?”

  Adharma tugged on the hard plastic linking her wrist to the hospital bed. “I can’t tell you how many patients have gouged out their eyes, tried to escape. . .”

  “I’d never do that. Maybe escape, but not the other stuff.”

  “You’ve been through a great deal of trauma,” he snickered. “We removed an eighth of a cup of glass shards from your knees. Give yourself more credit.”

  “Where’s my son?”

  “Jail, I imagine. How are you?”

  “I gotta pee,” she lazily responded. “How I do that?”

  “Go ahead. It’s totally sanitary and soundless.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Accelerated hydration means you won’t be holding it long. Other than continent, how are you?”

  I wanna see Tay. “What’s this blue one called?”

  He took her arm and turned the tube in question face up. “The name is long, scientific – it’ll help you regain your bearings. Now, how are you?”

  Teanna remained silent. Why’s he keep askin’ me that?

  “Talk is all you have.” Adharma repositioned his eyeglasses. “You won’t be released without my consent, and I will not consent unless you talk.”

  “Why you wear glasses, Nandor? Get laser surgery. What are you, Indian?”

  “I like my glasses. A quarter-Indian. How are. . .”

  “Pissed off, upset, irritated, sad. . .that what you want me to say?”

  Adharma motioned his fingers over the computer screen projection. “It’s a start. Why sniff?”

  Teanna paused. “My momma traded me for a hit one night. Figured I’d see the appeal.”

  “Make your story more believable next time,” he said without looking up.

  Teanna used the bed’s reclining controls to maneuver it into a more comfortable position. Usually, her lies passed muster. “Ain’t know my daddy,” she somberly said.

  “Continue.”

  She paused for a moment and shifted. The doctor spoke the truth. She could no longer hold it and relieved her bladder while talking. “One night, Momma say he’s comin’. Put me in my best dress – braided my hair.” Teanna’s reminiscing brightened her eyes. “She’s tellin’ me, ‘Just wait, baby girl. He gonna take you out for ice cream, buy you toys’. . .do this, do that. Couple hours pass. I fall asleep in my dress watchin’ TV. When I wake up, Momma’s face down in sniff.”

  “So, why do you do it?”

  Pestered by the doctor’s interruption, she turned over into her pillow.

  “How long do you want to be in here?”

  “You waitin’ on a big reveal, but there ain’t one. One of Momma’s men came over years later. They’d passed out and I stole some. I like the high. Makes me forget.”

  “Forget what exactly?” he persisted.

  “Stress, bad news. Ain’t much more rhyme or reason.”

  “The dead boyfriend, Theodore Mitchell. Did you want to forget him?”

  “Not really.” She shot him a warning look, but he did not relent.

  “How did you two meet?”

  “Church,” she snapped. “Look, why don’t you just leave? Ain’t you got other patients? Stop botherin' me.”

  “I suppose that's enough for now. Command call if. . .”

  “Yeah, I got it. Not a first-timer here, thanks. Bye-bye.”

  As soon as the door slid closed, Teanna activated the room's HTV. The local news coverage had probably exhausted the murder. Shootings were popular. She selected a comedy to watch. The most watched shows featured Blacks and Latinos. She wondered where all of the white people had gone.

  After an hour, chann
el flipping got old. Teanna called for assistance, and a medical droid rolled into her presence. Its technical sophistication contrasted with its crude physicality. “My name is Stan Witmore, of the pilot medical android program. What can I do for you, Miss Kirkwood?”

  “Wanna make a call.” She hated how droids were given names from defunct soap operas to personify them.

  “Outgoing calls are not permitted until your 72-hour surveillance period ends.” While pleasantly toned, Stan’s voice was definitive. “Do you have any family members that you would like for me to contact? The hospital permits visitors.”

  “No.” In truth, more than half of her relatives were dead or locked up. Teanna reclined and reduced the HTV’s volume to a barely audible level. She slowly and deeply breathed and closed her eyes, concentrating to forget the sounds and images to no avail. This time, she’d page Stan and ask for Adharma.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Kirkwood?” Stan’s voice and tone remained the same.

  “Add-harm-you, whatever. . .can you get him in here?”

  “Dr. Adharma is with another patient. I will alert him.”

  “Can you give me somethin’? Put me to sleep?”

  Stan pointed to the medicine strapped to Teanna’s arm. “That pouch has a sedative on a slow drip. It takes time.”

  Not only had the doctor done what she told him to do – go away – he did it well. “How long’ll it take to work?”

  Stan’s exploratory lenses whirred and focused. “Based on your current weight and body chemistry, and the medicine dosage, it should take effect in an hour or two.”

  An hour or two? Teanna sprung to a sitting position. “Get me the doctor now! Get him in here now!” She screamed until her throat burned. If actin’ like a lunatic gets them to put me out, then so be it. Teanna thrashed, growled, and drooled like a wild animal. At the point of her exhaustion, Adharma appeared.

  “Has it come to this, Miss Kirkwood? Pretending to be disturbed for drugs?”

  Adharma’s pomposity gave her a new energy. “You ain’t say nothin’ about me being here for no 72 hours,” she growled.

  “Standard observation period.”

  “That’s crap. It’s a suicide watch. I can’t sleep! Ain’t you got a higher concentration for big-boned people?”

  “You are not experiencing the harsher physical effects of the drugs in your system, but your body still has to be weaned from the sniff you consumed,” he said in a droll monotone. “When it's complete, perhaps by then, you will be ready to talk. And, there’s no such thing as being big-boned.”

  “Alright.” Teanna laid back and tried to relax. “Ask me whatever; just promise me you’ll put me out.”

  “The boyfriend. . .”

  She stared at the ceiling. “Met on this ten-day trip to Japan I won in ‘33, before I went back to school.”

  “You were in school? For what?”

  “Real estate license,” she said with lament. “Tiny lived straight back then. He was a plane steward. He introduced me to Tay’s daddy. Got home, found out ‘bout my pregnancy. I called him, but he sent money for an abortion and never called.”

  “Then what?”

  “I decided to keep Tay, no matter what, but I ain’t finish class ‘cause I got put on bed rest. Lost my job, start havin’ all kinds of medical issues ‘cause of my pregnancy. Got on disability. Tiny found me and start helpin’ out every once in a while. We got together, broke up, then got back after Meleasa’s dad left. When Tiny’s around, he gives me what I need. When he ain’t around, he don’t.”

  “Why do you think they didn’t like him? Did he abuse them?”

  “Tiny poked fun at Tay. And Meleasa. . .cause her dad ain’t around? Maybe somethin’. . .but he ain’t rape her or nothin’.”

  Adharma looked down over his glasses. “Had she been examined?”

  “Look, I just know, alright?” For a minute, the man said nothing. Teanna looked over the protective rail. “What you tryin’ to say?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You asked if she been ‘examined’? Why?”

  “Unless your daughter had been examined by a doctor, a medical droid, or you constantly monitored her, you cannot know for sure.”

  She huffed. “Don’t know the kinds of women you be examinin’, but me? I know my kids, and everythin’ they do.”

  “Did you know Teiji had an Ordnance?”

  No. Teanna hid her quivering lips. I never thought he’d kill.

  “Bullied children either strike in against themselves – cutting, eating disorders, and the like – or out against others. Your son chose the latter.”

  Pulse racing, Teanna collapsed in tears. But why kill him?

  Adharma rose and attended to her medicine pouch. “Try to relax.”

  “I know I ain’t the best mother, God knows I got problems like the rest, but I ain’t think it's that bad that my son gotta go shootin’ people.”

  Adharma used a small metallic instrument to manipulate the piston-like tube plunger, gradually increasing the dosage of the blue serum. “Breathe slowly. Count backwards from ten.”

  “Ten. . .nine. . .” she mumbled before dropping out of consciousness.

  Teanna yawned. The heavenly bed sheets felt like threaded clouds surrounding her skin. Keeping her eyes closed, she caressed the silk and allowed it to return the favor. Bacon, eggs, cheese, vegetables, and ham – she smelled a western omelet! Maybe there’s coffee and home fries! Am I dead? Will an angel serve me? A devil? Will leavin’ the bed make this go away?

  Hoping for the best, she swept her legs over the bedside to find a luxurious pair of slippers awaiting her feet. The place reminded her of a fine hotel that she’d stayed in almost a year before she had Teiji. She won a trip and trekked to Japan alone. Why did her brain choose to excavate this particular memory and interpolate it into her dreams? And why’s it so real?

  She passed through the entryway to the kitchen. Transparent curtains of sunlight draped into the breakfast nook from the large window to her left. At the stove, a man, close to six feet moved with the certainty of an expert chef – chopping, whipping and sorting with ease. He paused, blindly set a cobalt-colored mug to his right, and poured coffee into it. Teanna claimed it and dressed the drink to her liking.

  “Good mornin’?”

  “Good afternoon,” he corrected in an Asian accent. “You like to sleep.”

  Never slept in a dream before. She forced hot coffee down her throat. But I’d do it again. A full pot remained, and not even two resolute human beings could drink that much in one sitting. Soon, she sipped from another cup. “For the record, the sex was great but I hate you.”

  “That’s not why you’re here, you know,” he said with expectation.

  “Whatever,” she said with her lips at the mug’s edge. “Coffee’s good.”

  “It’s not a question, Teanna. You know why you‘re here.”

  Teanna pondered the non-question. “You shoulda done right by me and your son. You know we strugglin’! See what he gone an’ done?”

  He slapped a western omelet and home fries onto a plate and set it before her. “What will you do to correct it?”

  Teanna cursed his cold demeanor. “That ain’t no choice to make.”

  Her former lover circled the table and covered Teanna in an embrace. The weight of her arm grew heavily around the bicep. Her feet felt bare and discomfort throbbed in her back. She blinked and opened her eyes.

  Everything had disappeared.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  January 2, 2050

  Cee Cee led her bloodied best friend down the hospital corridor just past midnight. A medical droid named “Wynter Dawn” escorted them to an examination room and activated an opaque soundproof barrier behind them. “You’re doing the right thing, Q.”

  Right's an idea somebody more powerful pushed onto somebody weaker. If Quinne correctly remembered it, God told Adam and Eve not to touch a certain tree. What’s right to them – eatin’ and becomin’ l
ike God – is wrong to God. Weak versus the powerful.

  “Good morning. My name is Wynter Dawn, of the pilot medical program,” said the imitation female voice. “I will be attending to you and examining you. Do you prefer me to be male or female? I can accommodate either selection.”

  “Female,” Quinne indicated.

  At that, a red light blinked near its metal ears. “Your head trauma indicates swelling, but you do not have a concussion, and your remaining vital signs are steady. Now, please tell me everything you can remember. Please do so in the order in which the events occurred.”

  Encouraged by Cee Cee, Quinne parted open her purpled lips. “Happened in an alley. . .downtown, on Market Street. Tonight. He grabbed me and. . .forced me.”

  “What did he ‘force’ you to do?”

  Her eyes dropped. “Into an alley,” she admitted for the first time.

  “I’m sorry,” Wynter pleasantly said. “Can you be more specific?”

  The question sent shivers across Quinne’s midsection. Cee Cee left the area. He threatened her with a knife or something sharp. He pulled her sweatsuit top over her head to keep her from identifying him. He asked how it felt, how good. He did it quickly and knocked her out with something heavy and blunt. She woke up hours later, covered in trash and with a raging headache. No one had noticed her long enough to rob her. She called Cee Cee, who picked her up and drove her straight to the hospital.

  “What were you wearing at the time?”

  “This,” she said, pointing to her soiled outfit. Wynter presented an empty metal tray.

  “Remove your clothes. Place them in the bin to your left.”

  Quinne complied, tenderly easing out from her outfit. Black and blue welts were staggered across her back.

  “Now,” said Wynter, “I will perform the collection of forensic evidence. Please attempt to relax and stay still.”

  Cee Cee remained outside, while Samantha darkened the room and swept a black light over the naked body. Quinne closed her eyes and moved as asked, standing still for the physical sequence. In a way, she appreciated the corporately-sponsored android program, which largely automated the hospital. The last thing she wanted was the touch of a man’s hand. The scientists who designed the medical droids programmed them to emote, act, and even sound human. But at the end of the day, the machines stayed true to their nature; pretending to be something they were not.