The Refugee Sentinel

by Hayes, Harrison

  She nodded. “If Defiance Day is a smog, your music is like oxygen.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am,” Mitko said as his fingers marched into the closing chords of the piece. “How long are you staying with us?”

  “Through Defiance Day. Planning any further would be pointless.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the rates we offer after.” With the Kreisleriana finished, he popped his knuckles and rested hands on his knees. “Ten bucks a night. Fifty million of us, left in a world built for thirty-four billion. You do the supply and demand math. I’d love to see Stanford or Harvard fit this on their pricing curves.”

  “These fifty million will get to experience what the Soviets had described as Communism, in the twentieth century.”

  “Is today any different, you think? Our own government commands us to slaughter each other.” Mitko waved a hand through the air. “Apologies… I’m sure you didn’t come here to be lectured by an old croon.”

  “You’re fine. I agree laws can’t conceal that Defiance Day is about killing.”

  “On the other hand, maybe Defiance Day is how we save our unborn children.” He rubbed his hands, getting ready to start a new piece, and spread them over the piano keys, as if warming his hands over a booming fireplace. “Your generation, Ma’am, must redeem all prior ones – from the Roman Empire to yesterday, when water capsules landed on the Moon. Could Defiance Day be overdue? I lose sleep thinking if the children of the fifty million survivors will remember history well enough not to repeat it. Or if another thousand years from now, when you and I have long become fossils, another old man will talk to another young woman in another hotel lobby, lamenting the coming of another Armageddon.” The crevices of a smile fissured his face. “But what do I know?”

  “May I ask a personal question?”

  “Many years from now, when you get to be my age, you’ll realize that Father Time, as he pushes us to the finish line, makes any question as impersonal as the other. What is it?”

  “Will you vote on Defiance Day?”

  Mitko dug into the piano, starting an etude by Chopin, and laughed. For a moment his laughter danced in sync with the music. “I have outlived love. Anyone I would care to Sacrifice for is gone. Therefore, spending my remaining years in prison, as they threaten the non-voters, is a better deal than becoming a murderer.”

  “Your company is a treat, but I should get going.” Li-Mei slapped the lacquered Stein top. “Will I find you here tomorrow, if I get another lyrical urge?”

  “I’ll be here, for as long as my arthritis lets me.”

  “Like clockwork?”

  “Good night, Ma’am.” Mitko said and surrendered to the piano, as if the conversation with Li-Mei had not happened.

  She walked outside and the rainy night changed her breath into vapor puffs. The trees along the Fourth Avenue suspension bridge were boxed with wooden planks from all sides, like tree prisons, or worse, tree coffins. The night was quiet, despite a dead Vigna still parked around the block and still sitting in his own urine. They hadn’t even ticketed him yet. Way to serve and protect Seattle PD, Li-Mei thought. Their incompetence would likely help with her remaining targets. She couldn’t imagine how accurate her hunch would turn out to be.

  eighteen days till defiance day (6

  Sarah’s voice died along with the phone connection. Colton hadn’t budged. Did she really expect he would? She slammed her fist on the desk. What was her winning good for, if it couldn’t buy her daughter more than three weeks of life? She kicked the office chair and it swiveled in place. The fluorescent bulbs cast long neon tongues in contrast with the otherwise dark ULE embassy. It was just past six-am in Washington DC. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and headed to Avery’s office to begin another conversation she could predict, blow by blow. At least she’d release some steam.

  Maybe Colton had been right, all along. They were married and there were still birds in the sky; and he kept asking her to choose Yana. But she had chosen Earth. Saving Earth, to Sarah, meant saving her daughter. She knew the opposite wouldn’t hold. Now she saw it more like he did – this world cared about surviving; it cared about restoring its atmosphere and establishing a colony on the Moon. Whether an eight-year-old lived another several days or not was of little consequence to Mother Earth.

  Colton used to tell her how, underneath its mask of gracious benevolence, the world remained a strong animal that ate the weaker ones. And she had refused to acknowledge his theory as anything but ridiculous. How foolish of her. He hadn’t become a three-time World Poker Champion by betting on the wrong hunches. And Sarah had not known what weak felt like, until tonight and this last phone call.

  An oak door with no designation other than the number “1327” stood semi-open, shedding a triangle of pale light into the dark corridor.

  “Avery?” Sarah said, a few steps before she knocked. She entered. Inside, a man with small glasses and a large forehead stared at the ceiling tiles. “Do I look stupid to you?” she said and closed the door behind her.

  “You look as frayed as a live wire.”

  “Earlier I spoke with our Territory’s Secretary of State. Mr. Secretary is as powerful as the janitor down the hall, after the dissolution of the US of goddamn A. Do you know what he told me?” She didn’t wait for the answer. “He told me to show the world what American mothers are made of. And to steel myself.”

  “What do you want me to do, Sarah?” Avery said, arms stretched, palms facing down as if to convince a suicidal jumper not to jump.

  “Last year, my work alone created a million kilojoules of energy for this sorry excuse of a Territory. God knows we’re not a country anymore, because we’ve stopped acting like one.”

  “Did we not dispatch thousands of drones across the Milky Way to explore evacuating Earth?”

  “I gave them more energy than New York City will consume in ten years, Avery. And in return?”

  “Did we not castrate eighty percent of our boys at birth? Or sterilize any woman who gave birth? Did we not apply the death penalty for misdemeanors or worse?”

  “Don’t you preach to me. I’m called selfish for refusing to let my one daughter be murdered. Or for not celebrating being the definition of an American mother’s strength in the Thesaurus.”

  “We did it all, Sarah, and nothing worked. The Defiance Day Protocol is our last chance.”

  “What a thankless bitch I must be, Avery,” she said.

  “You’re a Hi-Po. And should act like one of the ten million highest-caliber humans in the world. But hell no,” he stood up on the other side of the desk, keeping his distance, “you’re the one Hi-Po in Hi-Po history to oppose Defiance Day. And spit on her ULE-given right to be exempt from Earmarks or Sacrifice.”

  “Give Yana a Hi-Po status and I’ll behave.” She pointed her index finger at him and jabbed the air with each word. At the same time her heart sank an inch. Yana’s life was slipping through her fingers and what had she, the mother, chosen to focus on instead? Lab reports and clinical research papers assuring the ULE that limitless algae energy was right around the corner. “Are you sure you’re playing at the right table, baby?” Colton used to say. How she had hated his gambling analogies. “What’s the point in saving the planet,” he’d say, “when you haven’t taken the time to get to know your daughter?” Hadn’t Avery’s defensiveness proven Colton’s point, yet again?

  She shook it off. It was too late to retreat. If she had played the wrong table, then so be it. Her scientific mind believed nature didn’t tolerate imbalance. Somewhere else on this sinking Earth, it didn’t matter how far away, another mother loved her daughter twice as much as Sarah loved Yana. And made up for Sarah’s deficiencies, or as a religious person would put it, paid for her sins.

  Avery voice came to her, as if from another dimension, “This isn’t a library card, Sarah. High-Potentials are identified by the ULE as the finest human specimen.”

  “She’s the daughter of a Hi-Po specimen, it must count for
something.”

  “You’re not listening. We’ve tested her multiple times upon your request. The results are conclusive: Yana is not a Hi-Po, even if she’s the daughter of one. You’re it… for hundreds of miles around. The US Territory likely has no more than three million of you. The rest could be in goddamn China for all I know. Even if I wanted to add a random eight-year-old to the list, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Only the Congress of the United Lands of Earth could change that.”

  “I don’t give a damn about The ULE Congress,” she said, her voice both serene and furious. “There’s got to be a way to save her.”

  “I’ve been trying for two months and have nothing.”

  “Did you try all your connections?” She was running out of words to ask the same question, over and over again. She already knew the answer.

  “Favoring the populace over High-Potentials is treason, Sarah. You know that.”

  She took a deep breath. “She’s my only child, Avery. The only one I was allowed to have before they burnt my ovaries. I won’t lose her to a stupid law. Do you understand that?” Either room 1327 was full of dead people or their silence was a sign of consent.

  two years and three hundred forty two days till defiance day (7

  The scanning gun chilled Sylvya’s palm with its steely weight. The infrared beam bit into Mr. Bormann’s middle finger then marched north, over the knuckles and the rest of his palm: a textbook MRI. Once the scan reached the wrist, Mr. Bormann’s identity flashed on the screen: seventy-two, colon cancer survivor, and a varsity discus athlete from the mid-seventies. The rest of the man’s personal data – preferences, finances and affiliations – hid behind a digital ULE moat her nursing credentials couldn’t access. She was only seeing his medical records.

  Digging through a patient’s medical past reminded Sylvya that everyone’s information, hers included, was out there: naked, digital and in real-time. Mr. Bormann’s fingers touched her hair. In thought, she had not noticed him waking up. “You remind me of a daughter I have back home,” he said.

  Sylvya pulled back and smiled at him, more out of courtesy than candor. He smiled back. People didn’t smile as much, she thought. Not like her early years, when the Vegas Strip wasn’t covered in mud and Earth still had a functioning South Pole. Back then, she taught herself to sleep on her feet, in ten-minute increments, and scoffed at concepts like weekends and time off. Saving lives came at the price of one’s personal comfort and she wanted to be the best in the business. Wasn’t that what nurses were supposed to do? Then the ice caps melted and even the workaholics like her had lost faith they could make a difference.

  In the interim, Mr. Bormann had transitioned into a full attack. “My daughter tells me she can’t find an eligible man her age. Not right, I tell you. Beautiful creatures like my daughter and you living alone. What’s the world coming to, I say?”

  Sylvya wished she could rewind time and go back to being that young nurse from Mountain View once again. When had she started hating her job? She sprung to her feet as soon as the scanner’s ding announced that her patient’s condition was within norm.

  “Don’t forget to finish your dinner tonight, Mr. Bormann,” she said.

  “You try finishing that goop.”

  “It’s a nutritious meal designed to bring your cholesterol down.” She had to go. “See you tomorrow.”

  She had one more patient left on her round before she could go home. Curfew had simplified her life into binary morsels. Run to your home station to scan your right palm. File an explanation with the local precinct if you scanned an hour late. Scan three hours late and pay a twenty-five-thousand-dollar fine. Scan later still, and spend the equivalent amount of time in jail. She couldn’t afford any more curfew infractions. Truth be told, she couldn’t afford a single one, the way her marriage stood with David.

  Sylvya entered the room of her last patient for the day, two rooms down the hall from Mr. Bormann. An oxygen pump filled the cramped quarters with a faint hum. A thick bandage covered the patient’s eyes. The machine hum reminded Sylvya of crickets singing in the yellowing grass of her childhood Septembers. She smiled at the thought then examined the patient’s chart. His name was Colton Parker and he’d been going through bouts of wakefulness and stupor. She wondered how much alcohol it had taken to knock out his eyesight for this long. He seemed awake tonight and she decided to give it a go.

  “Good evening, Mr. Parker. You came to us quite inebriated.”

  “Great, another genius deducing that vertigo, temporary blindness, and a migraine constitute a hangover,” he said.

  “You ought to stop drinking,” she pressed on. “Another bout of this may kill you.”

  “You’ll tell me Santa isn’t real, next.” He attempted to lift his head, but couldn’t. “On the bright side, not being able to see isn’t half as scary as I’d thought. There’s always a bright side to things if you look hard enough, Doc. No matter how screwed up the original side looks.”

  “I’m Nurse Timmons, Mr. Parker, and you’re in the Mountain View Hospital in Las Vegas. ER admitted you four days ago with alcohol poisoning and performed a minor abdomen surgery to stop internal bleeding before transferring you to us.”

  “In my condition, Mrs. Timmons, no surgery is a minor surgery and a minor one is a disaster. How did I get to the ER?”

  “A West Summerlin sanitation worker found you unconscious on the street and drove you over in his dump truck. Without him, who knows if you’d be alive now.”

  “Good info. But I am alive and ready to check out.” A coughing spasm ripped through his chest and Sylvya wiped his face with a moist towel. He sneezed. “Did I get you, nurse? They say tragedy plus time equals comedy, so if you’re not laughing yet, you will be soon.”

  She wasn’t laughing. “You’re not in a comedy, Mr. Parker. You’re diagnosed with a broken collarbone, two STDs, a Grade Three concussion, a laceration wound to the abdomen and failure of both kidneys.” She sounded like a ref announcing a roughing-the-passer penalty. “Your right kidney is out of commission and your hemoglobin is fifty-three percent below normal due to the blood loss from your abdomen laceration.”

  “Are you impressed yet?”

  “You can forget about discharge for another week. And you better have a good insurance policy.”

  Sylvya headed to the door but turned. “Your medical condition is not the only reason you’re here. The circumstances of your check-in have made you a suspect in unreported crimes in the Summerlin area. A Las Vegas Police Officer is stationed outside your room. Not that it’s any of my business, of course.”

  “So, whose supervision am I under, Nurse Timmons?” he said. “Yours or our armed friend outside?” Then in a more serious tone, “I hope my jokes don’t offend you.”

  “Call me, Sylvya.” She smiled.

  “No flirting, nurse. I’m a criminal with a busted kidney and a bunch of pee-hole warts to boot.”

  “First, you don’t sound like a criminal. Second, you don’t have genital warts. Third, I’m married and fourth, you’re not my type.”

  “You’ve got me all figured out, haven’t you?” He raised his arms. “But I’ll bet you rose oil to catheter fluid I’m not the good guy you think I am. Once upon a time, I might have been. It might have been the only thing I ever wanted to be.”

  Then he slumped his head into the deep pillow. “And Sylvya?” he said, “Please, call me Colton.”

  eighteen days till defiance day (8

  Colton wandered in, alone and sober, past the frosted glass entrance. Then the human bark hit him. “Where to, chief?” A shaven head attached to an overweight torso, no neck in-between, unpacked itself from the check-in booth. “It’s a hundred to get in.”

  “Didn’t know about the cover,” Colton said. “Sorry.” Music blaring from the inside and around a corner drowned out his words before they had made it to the shaved head’s ears. The ears would not have cared, regardless. “Here’s an ID, too.” Colton handed a one-h
undred-dollar bill folded around his driver’s license, like he was ashamed of how his DMV picture had come out.

  “I just need the cash,” the bouncer said, ripped a crumpled receipt from the cash register and shoved it in Colton’s hand. “And, welcome to Déjà Vu.”

  A sanitizer smell with a sweet aftertaste hit Colton’s face. The smell of sweat and semen hit him a second later. He stopped after taking a few steps in, as the dark corridor spilled into a large room. What was his plan for the night? Hire a stripper and have her read him Hemingway? The cheap sanitizer drilled deeper inside his nostrils. Colton exhaled, how could anything associated with this type of smell even begin to replace his Sarah?

  “Move, dude,” he was shoved to one side as a group of men poured inside the joint. He looked around the room – several rows of chairs, lined with librarian-like precision, faced a beige stage. A black female, wearing nothing but her skin was hurling herself at an aluminum pole. Countless neon dots, like butterflies, bathed her supple tattooed body.

  Was it ten years? He couldn’t place the last time he was at a place like this. The tattooed girl molesting the aluminum pole had to be in physical pain from the exertion, but she didn’t look it. On the other hand, what did he know? Maybe the current generation of strip-club goers required athleticism from their dancers or maybe he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to appreciate tonight’s performance and accompanying sweat. A waitress materialized, invisible until she got within inches of his nose. Her uninvited palm rested on his shoulder. “What would you like to drink, honey?”

  “Do you have Sprite?”

  “Yes, honey, we do.” The palm caressed his cheek and twirled away.

  “Hey, hey - come on fellas,” a DJ’s voice rose from beside the stage. The black dancer scurried off, arms cradling oversized breasts. Another stripper took over and struck a pose, expecting a cue to allow her to move. “It’s three dances for the price of one, guys. Our lovely ladies will ride you senseless, if you know what I mean… here they come. On your right, you have the lovely Fiona…” The pole-bashing black dancer had returned, now wearing a white bikini. “…and on the left? Yes, the lovely Melody.” Fiona and Melody waved with enthusiasm fitting for an Independence Day rally. “Come on, you, guys. Six hundred bucks gives you three songs with a gorgeous lovely lady.” The women stepped down and two different dancers jumped onstage. “And the lovely Amber comes purring on your left then the lovely Summer is on your –” The humid line of female nudity filed on, with each pair taking stage for less than a minute, a quick break before returning to their next lap-dance. The DJ’s barrage of “lovelies,” the same word describing all girls, annoyed Colton. But he also smiled at the thought that in a room full of nudes, lazy grammar grabbed his attention the most.