Tropic of Kansas

by Christopher Brown

  “Who was?”

  “Moco.”

  “And where’s Moco?”

  “Iowa City.”

  “You make deliveries there? A station?”

  “There’s all kinds of stuff there. People like us run the whole town. It’s sanctuary.”

  That can change. “Can you show me where in Iowa City? On a map?”

  “No, wouldn’t do any good, they move around all the time. But that other guy’s there, too.”

  Tania pointed.

  “Yeah, the guy in the picture. He was here, like you said, and they wanted to get him to a safer place. Guess they were right.”

  Tania tried to keep her cool.

  “You think he’s still there?”

  “I guess. I mean, I don’t know, I don’t even know his real name.”

  I do.

  34

  Billie gave him crap for going out after curfew again, but she smiled about the ducks. Great gift for a vegetarian, she said. He decided to wait until after lunch to tell her, or maybe just take off without telling her at all.

  They had Sig working with Billie at the New Democracy Co-op Fulfillment Center, which was in an abandoned Sears by the old mall. Billie was the manager. She put Sig to work there shortly after he arrived at their secret shelter.

  His job at the Fulfillment Center was to put stuff in boxes. “Care packages,” Billie called them. Shipments of material aid to New Orleans, St. Louis, El Centro, Tijuana, Managua, and other nodes in the network. No weapons, no matter how many times the young guys suggested. Mostly just things to help people communicate—net kits, little handheld televisions with the transmit boxes built in, memory, pop-up antennas, gear to power the networks with energy from sun, wind, and water. There were purification systems, packets of pure seeds, and tons of books and pamphlets.

  When Sig was sitting there working, Moco walked up.

  “What’s up, killer?” he said.

  “I didn’t know you were still here,” said Sig.

  “Gone and back,” he said. “Had to make a run to St. Louis with a buddy, but we almost got busted. Lost our packages, but got away, and I made it back here to lie low.”

  “Where’s your friend?”

  Moco shook his head. “I don’t know, man. No word, getting a little worried.”

  “What happens if they catch him?”

  “Nothing good,” said Moco.

  Sig imagined the possibilities.

  “Definitely nicer to lay low here in hippietown,” said Moco. “For a while, at least. You bored yet?”

  Sig nodded.

  “Me, too,” said Moco.

  “Hunting’s not too bad, though,” said Sig.

  “Yeah, dude, I saw those ducks. Are you like those guys that hide in shacks by the side of the lake or whatever?”

  “Kind of,” said Sig. “But no guns. Never hunted ducks?”

  “No, man,” said Moco. “I’m from the big city. We hunt different stuff.”

  “I thought you were from Honduras,” said Sig.

  “No, dude, I’m from New Orleans. I mean I was born in Honduras, but my mom fled with me and my brother when I was a little shit. So where I’m really from is the biggest refugee camp you’ve ever seen. So big we got our own government.”

  “How did you get up here?”

  “I got really fucking lost.”

  Sig laughed.

  “They sent me all the way just to get you, dude,” said Moco, smiling. “Glad to see they already got you healthy enough to put you to work. Feeling strong?”

  Sig nodded. “I feel good. I like it better when they let me work outside.”

  “I hear you on that,” said Moco. “Stuffing boxes is not my thing.”

  “You like driving,” said Sig.

  “I like moving, not sitting around. Drive a car, take a boat, walk, you name it.”

  “Best way not to get caught is not to stop moving.”

  “Exactly,” said Moco. “So I’ll move whatever they need delivered, wherever it needs to go, whatever way is best. Used to mostly move people. I started out working for these guys back home, getting people out of the country, into Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, whatever. Sometimes smuggle stuff back in. Sometimes people, the kind trying to get back in and help fix things. Got good enough they trust me with more important things, like the information they’re afraid to send any other way.”

  “Information more important than people?”

  “Some information, some people,” said Moco.

  “I had some friends who did stuff like that.”

  “Yeah? Where?”

  “Up north.”

  “Like borderzone north?” said Moco, looking at Sig more closely.

  Sig nodded.

  “So that’s where you got fucked up,” said Moco. “I heard something about what went down. I’m sorry, dude. I guess you lost some people.”

  Sig was quiet. Thinking about what happened reminded him what he needed to do.

  “You know how to get to New Orleans?” said Sig.

  “I know lots of ways,” said Moco. “You want to get in on the shit?”

  “Check it out, at least.”

  “Now that is a great fucking idea,” said Moco. “Let’s hit the road, dude. Go to New Orleans. I’m bored out of my freaking mind.”

  Sig nodded, taping the box closed.

  “I mean these people are nice but stuffing boxes is not my kind of work,” said Moco. “Let’s go have some fun. We can see if Big Mama and her council of abuelos need us to make any deliveries, there or along the way. Spot us some walking-around money. I kind of take the scenic route, as you know. Got some secret spots along the way you are going to love.”

  Sig looked at Moco’s huge smile, which revealed his messed-up teeth. Sig laughed, and smiled back.

  “Let’s go tonight,” said Sig.

  Moco gave him thumbs up. “First thing tomorrow, how about. Early morning’s the best time to move.”

  Sig put his box on the ready-to-ship stack and stepped out the back door to get some air.

  The backside of the Co-op was next to a little ravine. Sig sat in one of the beat-up old chairs they had out there and took in the weather. He whistled toward the ravine, which was full of scrubby trees. Out came the mangy mutt the other workers called Mr. Johnson. Sig tossed Mr. Johnson a fresh bone from the icebox. Mr. Johnson stepped back at first, scared, then decided it was probably okay, nervously grabbed the bone, and disappeared back into the brush.

  Sig heard a siren in the distance. Like a police car or a fire truck, but a different tone. It was getting closer.

  Then there were more than one, and they got a lot closer. Sig thought about joining Mr. Johnson in the ravine.

  Mr. Johnson howled back at the sirens.

  Five trucks came roaring down the street from the north. Only one had flashers, and none were police cars. They were pickups and SUVs, red, white, black, and yellow. One pulled a big trailer, the kind they hauled animals in.

  The yellow SUV had a megaphone mounted to the roof. It blasted dark metal riffs that sounded like machine death.

  Three of the vehicles came straight for the loading area where Sig was, while the others pulled up in front of the store and blocked the entrance.

  Then the music went off, and a machine-filtered voice spoke over the noise as the vehicles came to a hard stop.

  “THIS IS THE HAWKEYE SELF-DEFENSE MILITIA. WE HAVE PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE YOU ARE ENGAGED IN INFORMATION TERRORISM AND HARBORING FUGITIVE ENEMIES OF THE STATE. WE ARE DEPUTIZED BY THE FEDERAL GRAND JURY AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE GOVERNOR UNDER THE LIBERTY ACT TO SEARCH THE PREMISES. EVERYONE COME OUT NOW WITH YOUR HANDS UP.”

  The vehicles ejected armed men, and a few women, scrambling for the doors. Must have been a dozen of them, beefy locals acting like police or border patrol even though they were neither. Which made them more dangerous. They dressed like farmer-cops, Carhartts and overalls mixed with Kevlar and tactical gear. Their trucks, hats
, and tops flashed images of sharp-beaked hawks with weapon wings, omniscient eyes, and a little bit of bling.

  They swarmed one of the big front doors. Got to work on busting it open.

  The dog Mr. Johnson came up out of the woods, barking like crazy and making a pretty good impersonation of someone closely related to a wolf. Not good enough. One of the Hawkeyes aimed and fired, killing Mr. Johnson with a round to the head and another to the torso.

  Sig grabbed the hatchet from the woodpile and hurled it at Mr. Johnson’s killer. It missed.

  Sig saw the guy aim, heard the crack, and went down, like he’d been tackled right in the middle.

  The guy and his comrades kept on coming.

  Sig saw the rubber bullet there in the gravel in front of him, and felt the spot in his chest where it had hit.

  Moco came out with the other guys from the back building, looking to see if they could run for it.

  Up in the front, Sig could see Billie come out to argue with the militia, inciting a gun butt to the head that knocked her out of sight.

  “Go!” yelled Sig. He got up and charged the approaching trio, hoping to give Moco and their coworkers a chance to make a break for their escape route down along the creek bed.

  The Hawkeyes stopped him in his tracks with a barrage of rubber bullets.

  Sig could hear the screams of the guys behind him. The nonlethal rounds almost caused more pain than the real kind, even if they didn’t pierce the skin. Maybe because the guys shooting them felt no need to restrain themselves.

  Sig tried to curl up and shield his soft parts with his back. He could see his buddies behind him. Looked like a couple had gotten away. The rest were on the ground, a few behind the dumpster. Moco looked pretty fucked up.

  When the firing paused, Sig sucked in a fresh lungful, jumped up, and rushed the guy in front. He got him, low, right through the knees. The guy fell hard. You could hear his head crack on the pavement. Then they shot him some more, not quite point blank. One of the guys got his boot onto Sig’s neck, and he and his partner managed to hold Sig down until they could get him hog-tied tight like they wanted it.

  Sig saw the work boot coming, but they were holding him so he couldn’t move. That was the first kick. There were a lot more to come.

  35

  When Tania went to try to free Sig from hospital custody the day after the mall riot, he had already freed himself.

  She wasn’t surprised.

  They let her see the room. It was weird to see a bed with straps like that, imagine them used on a kid, no matter what he did. Not that they worked in this case.

  “He tricked a social worker,” said the policewoman who escorted her. Officer Beckmann. “Choked her, made her free his restraints. Gagged her with medical tape and strapped her in where he was supposed to be. Poor lady.”

  Tania looked out the open window, took in the cold sun. Yesterday’s April snow was already starting to melt. Three floors down you could still see where he had landed in the drift blown up against the building. She followed an imagined path out across the parking lot and into the stand of pines.

  “He won’t get far,” said Beckmann. “All he had on was a hospital gown.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  The platypus was there on the bedside table. Tania picked it up and put it in her pocket. The cop didn’t notice.

  When she got home she put the platypus on her dresser, next to one of the only pictures she had of Sig, with a dead flower and a very old coin that Sig had once given her. It gave her something to cry to, and motivate her continued searching, but it didn’t make him come back. In time, it became more than a way to remember Sig. It was like a memorial to their dreams of a future they would want to live in.

  Until she moved on, and forgot about it.

  36

  Sig came to when he vomited, blood and huevos.

  He was gagged, so he had to swallow it all back down or suffocate.

  He tried to get up, but he couldn’t. His wrists were bound to his ankles. He wasn’t sure his body would have stood up anyway.

  He could feel the spots where they kicked him, but the muscles cramped up from the hog-tie hurt worse.

  He was on the floor of the pen car with the others they had rounded up. He saw Jed, Buzzy, Hannah, Angie, Beto, and two others he didn’t know. No Moco.

  The trailer smelled like pigs and gunpowder.

  The sides of the trailer were narrow slats. Enough to see through, except at the front, where it was solid. They were on the highway north, headed toward Cedar Rapids. They said militia were worse than feds. They made up their own rules. Personal, tribal, primitive. If they got you, your best hope was to get sent to a real jail.

  He could see the welts from the rubber bullets on the gagged faces of his friends.

  He remembered the time when he learned how rubber bullets can kill, if they hit the right spot. It hurt, thinking about Mom, and it made him angry.

  Sig looked at the convoy behind them. A pickup, an SUV, and a motorcycle. There were three big guys crowded in the cab of the pickup. The driver was looking right back at Sig, with a messed-up smile on his face. One of the other guys was sticking some kind of pole through the back window hatch. The guy riding shotgun was talking on the radio, and then suddenly all three vehicles accelerated to pass. That was when Sig saw what was in the bed of the pickup.

  A cage.

  A cage for humans.

  Moco was in the cage, like an animal, cowering, trying to get away from the guy in the back.

  The thing the guy had was a cattle prod.

  Sig watched as the guy poked Moco and delivered the volts.

  Moco screamed.

  The guy laughed.

  Then the guy saw Sig looking through the slats, and pointed right at Sig, and smiled.

  Sig tried to call out through the gag, his grunts lost in the noise of the wind, and then they were gone, pulled ahead.

  Sig looked at his binds, and decided he would break them.

  He wriggled, working his ankles and wrists to where the joints of the zip ties were centered. Then he kicked, flailing, three times, putting all the body motion he could into it, until the ankle cuff popped. Panting, he stood up, stretched his bound wrists up over his head, then whipped them down to his bellybutton as hard as he could, throwing his elbows out to the side.

  The zip tie snapped.

  He tore the gag off.

  Two of the others, whose legs weren’t tied, copied Sig’s example.

  Sig found a metal splinter on the floorboards that he could use to open the pins on the other zips, by poking the pin into the joint and popping it, a trick he’d learned from an old poacher he got locked up with up north.

  While they finished freeing each other Sig tried to get the back door loose. It was barred and chained. He kicked at one of the metal side panels with his sneakered feet until it busted out. It clanged onto the highway.

  “Come on,” he said.

  He was worried the noise might have alerted some of the Hawkeyes. He poked his head out. All clear. He nudged himself out, crouched just through the opening, got his nerve up, and jumped for the green roadside, trying his best to land into a roll.

  When he sat up at the bottom of the ditch, his left arm looked like a bent fork and screamed to the touch. The rest of his body felt like it had been backed over by a bus. But he could walk, and the woods were right there.

  Part Four

  The Hand Made Drones

  37

  Tania was excited when she heard they had nabbed Moco. When she learned they had used local militia to do it, she was scared.

  She went anyway.

  It was only a few hours’ drive, so she took the car from Fleet.

  She logged her movement with the travel office, to make sure her credentials preceded her. There would be checkpoints.

  As she drove through the bleached-out flatlands where Minnesota dissolved into Iowa, she was reminded again of why she left.
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br />   Back east they called it the “Tropic of Kansas.” It wasn’t a specific place you could draw on a map, and Kansas wasn’t really even a part of it, but you knew when you were in it and you knew just what they meant. Which wasn’t a compliment. The parts of the Midwest that had somehow turned third world. They tried to return the Louisiana Purchase to the French, the joke went, but it was too damaged.

  They were still arguing about what caused it. Entire political movements had grown around different theories, but the truth was no one really knew.

  What they did know was that big swaths of the corn belt had turned sick, from bad splices, failed economics, burnt climate, broken politics, or divine retribution. Tania voted for all of the above. It was happening around her when she was in school, from adolescence through law school, and she had tried out every one of the theories along the way. Since graduation her default mode had been resignation tempered by sparks of optimistic hope quickly extinguished by stark reality.

  The bad behavior started in the deep countryside. Out on old roads past the evacuated seats of whole counties depopulated by disappearing futures. The people left behind to tend what was left got the idea they would do better with autonomy and local control of land and law. The sickness, and the politics it bred, soon spread to the nearby cities.

  The recolonization took longer. They called it healing, the way they refit the prairies for fresh extraction, but driving through it, watching the new machines bring down their giant proboscises to pierce the crust, you had to wonder.

  Cedar Rapids was one of the regional centers from where the recolonization was managed. When you approached it from the north it looked like you had arrived at some industrial ruin of the twentieth century. Weathered concrete towers of grain elevators and food factories rose up over the wide expanse of the railyards, tattooed with the fading logos of dead corporations. Some were retrofitted with new infrastructure—the chromed pipes, black sealants, and aluminum glands of the new biofuels processes. Even with the windows closed, the town smelled, like cotton candy burning into some toxic gas.