He ran the tips of his fingers along the fence like he usually did during his walks from the grocery store on the corner of 125th and First, to his parents’ restaurant on La Paz. It would have been faster to walk up First Avenue, but he liked the feeling of being this close to the edge of the People’s Republic. If he could just transport himself about a mile east, on the other side of that wall, he’d be free.
“Let’s eat two meals a day instead of three,” a patriotic voice boomed over a set of loudspeakers. “The One President watches over us all—from happy childhood to peaceful passing. He is our Benevolent Father and Protector. And he advises eating two meals a day instead of three to cut down on waste. This message is brought to you by the Department of Collective Health Services...”
Beneath the speakers hung a brightly colored poster of Harris Kole, a humorless man with a barrel chest, standing on a grassy hill overlooking a shining city unlike any version of New Sancta City Michael had ever seen.
He studied the poster as he passed, carrying four bags of groceries in his left hand. He had been lucky today; a new shipment of rations had come in over the weekend, and he had only needed to wait in line at the Restaurant Allocation Center for three hours this time. In exchange for his ration slips, he had received three pounds of butter, a ten-pound bag of flour, ten cans of tomato sauce, several bottles of olive oil—
A loud scream sent him ducking against the fence. It had come from an old woman across the street to his left. A police officer had thrown her to the pavement and was now pummeling her with his baton.
“Mama, Mama,” cried a man next to her. He was dressed completely in brown, tattered clothing, just like his mother.
Another police officer held the man back. The old woman screamed as the baton repeatedly struck her in the midsection. Her son began to weep.
“You bastards. She didn’t do anything.”
“Disloyal scum,” said the officer holding him back. He pulled out his pistol and whipped it across the man’s face, almost knocking him out cold. The man withered.
The other officer had stopped beating the old woman, who now lay on her belly with one side of her face against the pavement, right arm extended like she was pointing toward the enormous wall across the street in accusation.
She wasn’t dead. Michael could see her body shivering with each breath.
A van, tall and silver, like a mobile prison cell, pulled up next to them. The officers, looking abnormally strong and bulky in their dark purple suits, yanked the doors open and began hauling the man and his mother into the truck.
Michael had stopped walking. He watched, held in the grip of a powerful fascination. People were beaten in public all the time in the People’s Republic, especially here in New Sancta City, but that didn’t make it any less compelling to watch. It wasn’t you they were targeting, and that was what mattered.
The officer who had performed the beating squinted at Michael.
“What are you staring at, kid? You want a piece of this, too?”
Michael’s heart almost burst from the shock of being noticed. He moved on quickly, keeping his eyes on the ground for the next four blocks.
His parents’ restaurant was called Lanza’s, and it served the world’s worst Italian food—as far as he knew, anyway. It wasn’t his parents’ fault but that of the government distribution centers, which only carried one spice, a dried Italian seasoning blend. Because of that, everything tasted like oregano. Even the coffee sometimes carried a faint hint of the stuff.
He tried telling himself it was better than starving. The country had been steeped in famine for months now, and Michael was lucky to eat a meal once a week that wasn’t pasta. The taste of meat had slipped from his memory completely.
Thoughts of the old woman and her son plagued him all throughout the lunch shift. The worst part was imagining their new life in a labor camp. What would they do with a woman that old? Would she be with her son? Or, would she be executed? It didn’t even matter what her crime had been. No one ever asked about a person’s crime. It was always the same. Somehow they had broken Federal Law.
After his shift, Michael tried as quickly as possible to wrap up cleaning duty. It was without a doubt the worst part of working in the kitchen, especially when you were worn down to the bone and half-starving. He hadn’t slept much the night before (two and a half hours by his count) because he had stayed up working on a Handy Dan until three in the morning.
Handy Dan: he sweeps and wipes and mops and talks. There’s nothing he can’t do!
The commercials were wrong, of course. Handy Dan was nothing more than an awkward contraption on wheels that zipped around bumping into things and spilling cleaning solution all over the kitchen floor. Michael’s father hated the thing, but was required to have two of them active at all times during business hours, one in the kitchen and another in the dining room. All businesses were required to do so in accordance with Federal Law, especially restaurants where alcohol was served. Drunken people were the ones most likely to speak out against the regime. Handy Dan prevented that kind of disruptive activity by monitoring the restaurant day and night, using powerful cameras and microphones that made the rest of its hardware look like a jumble of gears and pulleys.
The Handy Dan in Michael’s room was not his father’s but one he’d found in a dumpster the day before. Fortunately for him, one of its long, tubular limbs had been hanging over the edge like the arm of a passed-out drunk. Whoever had tossed the thing had broken Federal Law. Handy Dans could not be thrown away. They had to be reclaimed. This had made Michael’s discovery of the device a rare and golden opportunity.
He discreetly removed it from the dumpster before carrying it through the restaurant and up to his bedroom. He did it during off-hours so as not to allow any identifying sound or voice to be recorded. He was taking a major risk, and if his father found out, he might fulfill his favorite threat and kick Michael out of the house to wander the streets as a bum for the rest of his life.
The heat was off in Michael’s bedroom to save money. It had been that way for years. He put on an extra sweater and inspected the Handy Dan. It had no legs, and the arms were too long and clumsy to do much besides push itself upright whenever it tipped over. It was as big as an infant and possessed a head with blinking, cartoonish lenses for eyes, and a wide, painted grin known for causing nightmares in small children. Adults, too, probably.
Michael covered the lenses of the eyes, an obvious start, as well as the tiny, hard-to-see lenses all over the body that most people didn’t even know existed. He’d worn a mask (part of a human-sized Handy Dan costume, ironically) and had covered up any objects in his bedroom that could later be used to identify him.
When the lenses had been covered up, Michael took off the mask and proceeded to work on the microphones. As he worked, he shivered with the excitement of a thief about to pull off a major heist. The cameras and microphones, and the complex central transmitting device to which they were attached, went for big money on the black market. If he could pull this off, he’d have enough money to buy all the parts necessary to make and sell radios for the rest of the year. His radios weren’t limited to government announcements; they were wired to receive broadcasts from the New Dallas Republic thousands of miles east of the Line, which made them highly illegal.
And highly profitable.
Eighty percent of the money Michael earned off these radios went to his parents so his family wouldn’t starve. But the other twenty percent went into a tin box beneath a loose floorboard in his bedroom. The box was labeled “Travel” and was for the bribe he would someday have to pay to be released from this country for good, so he could go to New Dallas and study engineering or architecture at one of the universities—or maybe both, he hadn’t decided.
He finished removing the parts on the second morning he had the appliance in his possession. Dawn’s light filtered past the shades he had pulled over his windows to prevent anyone from looking in. Ratting out your
neighbors was a dependable way to acquire extra ration coupons; you always had to watch out for opportunists.
The last thing Michael did after dismantling Handy Dan was to clean his work area. In the past two days, he had slept for only five hours total. He was about to collapse onto his mattress when someone banged on the door.
Benny.
“Spiteful wrath,” Michael said.
“Mike, come on, buddy. I got something for you.”
“Go away.”
“Come on. Open the damned door.”
With a gruff sigh, Michael hid the Handy Dan shell and the camera and microphone parts beneath a sheet on his desk. He was being sloppy. The thought of getting caught and ending up in a prison camp—if he was lucky enough not to be executed immediately—popped into his head, replete with images of chains and whips and screaming guards.
Michael shivered.
“Damn it,” he said. “I’m not working the dinner shift again. I already told you.”
“Come onnnn,” Benny whined. “Open the door. I got something for you.”
Michael crossed the tiny room, stepping over his mattress and piles of smelly aprons and socks to get to the door. The mattress covered most of the floor, and it was therefore easier just to walk on top of it instead of going around.
“You can save your breath,” he told his brother, undoing the four locks on his door. As he opened it, he said, “I’m not working—”
The air was slammed out of his lungs as Benny, bent over like a charging bull, drove his shoulder into Michael’s stomach and sent him flying backward. Michael was sure his parents, who were probably down in the kitchen preparing for breakfast, would hear the noise and come up hollering.
“Who’s tough now?” Benny said, driving his fists into Michael’s ribs.
“Ben—stop—oof.”
Michael pushed his brother off and curled into a ball. Benny was stronger than he was and faster, and Michael knew better than to try and fight back. Not that Benny would actually try and hurt him, but these sorts of fights sometimes escalated from brotherly playfulness to severe pain infliction, and it was often Benny who went too far. He once left Michael with a torn earlobe that took two months to heal.
“Get away from me,” Michael grumbled, scrambling up against the wall and clutching his stomach.
Benny got up. His hair, which had been combed straight back, gleamed with oil, and smelled terrible. “When are you gonna stop being such a wimp?”
Benny was holding something; a clean white shirt with a collar and buttons running down the front. Michael showed his disapproval with a loud groan.
“You’re waiting tables tonight,” Benny said. “Dad already crossed my name off the list and put in yours, so don’t even bother arguing.”
“Like hell I’m waiting tables.” Michael tried not to whine. He rubbed his chest over the spots where Benny had punched him. “I worked the kitchen all day yesterday. Where were you?”
Benny smiled at him. He had one of those sleazy smiles that could instantly put you on guard, like a stranger holding a wad of money and telling you to get into the back seat of his car. His long, Italian features were those of a fox, and he had a naturally confident and easy-going attitude that made him popular with the other kids on the block. There were few girls in the neighborhood capable of resisting Benny’s charms, and few boys that didn’t want to beat the living hell out of him for stealing their girlfriends.
Michael was the opposite of his brother; tall and rangy and quiet, like an awkward, starving dog that keeps coming back no matter how many times you kick it. He had a low-eyed way about him that always made people assume he was in a bad mood. Layers of black, straight hair fell around his head, covering his ears. His dark eyes and brows were always slightly crooked, which gave his face a quality of cynical resignation. When he’d been younger, the neighborhood children had called him “Rooster.” Now that the name was no longer accurate—his brooding features were simply too dark, his skin too pale—they called him “Vamp.”
His brother used the nickname to get on his nerves.
“Waiting tables ain’t so bad, Vamp.” Benny looked around the room and fixed his gaze on the bed sheet Michael had hurriedly thrown over Handy Dan. “Hey, what’s this?”
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Michael said, crossing the room and almost tripping on his mattress to get between Benny and the sheet. “Did you not hear me? Back off.”
“Wait a second.” His brother pushed him aside. “What is that?”
“Benny, get lost. Seriously.”
Though Michael was actually taller, Benny was meatier in the arms, shoulders, and legs. He used this natural strength to swat Michael aside as if he were an annoying branch hanging in his way.
“You shouldn’t hide things from your dear big brother. I’m only looking out for you.”
Benny lifted the sheet and gave a startled laugh. He even covered his mouth.
“Holy hell,” he said, losing the smile. “Mike, you can get in big trouble for this.”
“I know,” Michael said, looking down at his stained, lumpy mattress, wishing he could just sink into it and fall asleep. “But we need the money. I’m done being hungry all the time.”
“Is this how you’ve been getting the money you give Mom and Dad each month? From parting these things out on the black market?” Benny lifted his eyebrows at him. “Jeez, Mike. I always just thought you sold drugs like everybody else. I’m sure Mom and Dad appreciate the help, but our family could get shipped to the labor camps for this. I mean, hell, this Handy is probably registered to someone else. Did you steal it?”
“Found it in a dumpster.”
“Yeah, but still.”
A strange sensation came over Michael. For a few seconds, it felt as though every thought had been pushed out of his brain, leaving only an empty space into which he could draw signals being sent by anyone nearby. He felt like one of his own radios, suddenly tuning to the right station after a lifetime of dead air.
...could use this information, because I’m a shark like that. Ha ha.
“Don’t do it,” Michael said, taking a step toward his brother. What exactly had he heard just then? “Come on, Benny.”
“What?” Benny spread his arms in feigned ignorance. “I’m not going to tell on you.”
“I know,” Michael said. “But whatever else you’re thinking of doing, don’t. Please.”
Benny smirked at him. “What did you do, read my mind? You’re not a ment, are you, Mikey?”
Michael thought for a moment. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but he certainly didn’t want it to happen again. After the Privacy of Mind Act was passed, all telepaths had to undergo the Fatherland Security Department’s intense conditioning program, which trained them to locate other telepaths as well as dissenters, or become human lie detectors working for the FSD.
Telepaths, also known as “Ments,” “Mentals,” and “Children of the Atom.” No one knew exactly how they came about, only that they started being born after the bombs fell in the east. According to the One President, telepaths were no better than liars and cheats looking to swindle you at a moment’s notice. Michael certainly didn’t care to be one.
“I’m no ment,” he said, his voice wavering. “I just know how you think, that’s all.”
“If that’s true, then you know I’m no rat.” Benny squared his shoulders and glared at Michael.
“So you’re just going to forget what you saw?”
Benny burst out laughing. “Just like that? Are you kidding? Ha.”
“What do you want?”
“Take over my Saturday night shift and give me a twenty-five percent cut. You see how nice I’m being? I could have asked for half.”
“How’s this for nice?” Michael said. “Piss off.”
“Mike.” Benny gave him that sappy stare he used on girls. “Miiike.”
Michael considered punching his brother in the face. Benny could have demanded a lot more, however
, and Michael didn’t want to give him a reason to do so.
“Listen to me, Mikey. You’re seventeen and you got no friends, no girlfriend, and you’ve never even been laid. You got no social life at all, so what difference does it make? The extra shift means more money for you, and I get my Saturday nights to go out slumming. It’s a win-win situation.”
“You’re blackmailing your own brother,” Michael said. “Think about that.”
Benny waved away the idea, smiling that sleazy smile. He had won, and he knew it. “I’m doing you a favor. Besides, it’s two-for-one beer night at The Capitalist Pig on Saturdays. I’ll tell you what”—Benny crossed his arms and put on his most businesslike expression—“You take my Saturday night shift and not only will I not tell Mom and Dad that you’re putting this family in danger by breaking Federal Law, but I’ll also take you out once a week to the Pig and school you in how to pick up girls. I know you need it. I’ve seen the pictures you keep under your mattress.”
Michael blushed and looked away.
“What do you say? Huh?”
“Fine.”
Benny reached over and pinched Michael’s cheek. “Thattaboy. With me as your teacher, the girls in this neighborhood will dive into those skinny arms of yours.”
Michael swatted his brother’s hand away. Benny tossed the shirt at Michael and made for the door.
“You’ll need a clean pair of pants to go with that shirt,” he said, throwing him a look over his shoulder. “And make sure you brush your teeth. Your breath smells like a dead person’s foot, got it?”
Michael exhaled into his hand and smelled it. Benny was right.
Chapter 2
Waiting tables was the height of boredom.
At least in the kitchen, Michael could read a book while he waited for the dishes to pile up. Out here, he had to look ready and presentable, even when the dining room was empty, just in case a customer happened to walk in. It was his father’s rule, and Terry Lanza had as much authority over this restaurant as Harris Kole had over the nation.
Ascendant: The Complete Edition Page 2
