by Pat Murphy
“Not a bad idea,” Books said. “Sort of a cultural exchange program. A few poets and painters. And sculptors—we have a very active group of sculptors.”
“Sculptors,” Rodriguez echoed in a choked voice. “Poets and painters.” He shook his head slowly. “You don’t seem to understand your position.” He hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath. “General Miles wants an alliance with San Francisco. It would be in your best interests to agree. Since you admit that you have no central government, we would help you institute a provisional government immediately. After that …”
“What if we refuse General Miles’ offer?” Ms. Migsdale interrupted.
Rodriguez shrugged. His face had returned to a carefully pleasant expression, but his smile held a suggestion of threat. “I strongly suggest you accept. One way or the other, the General will have San Francisco.”
Danny-boy heard Jax’s feet shift on the carpeted floor. He shot her a warning look. She wet her lips and remained still.
“I don’t agree,” Ms. Migsdale said. “I don’t agree at all.” She stood. “Perhaps we’d best be going. I think we’ve heard enough.” Danny-boy took a firm grip on Jax’s right arm as the soldier escorted them to the door. It seemed that there would be trouble soon enough. He did not want her to begin it prematurely.
CHAPTER 18
THE NEXT MORNING RODRIGUEZ consulted his map and took a party of five men into the city. They rode down Geary Street, heading toward what had once been the business district. He was confident that they would have no trouble here. If the odd bunch who had visited him were representative of the city’s population, then taking the city would be easy. No central government, no organization—resistance would be minimal.
The sky was overcast, and tendrils of fog drifted through the city. The street was quiet except for the horses’ hooves against the asphalt and the jingle of their harnesses.
Initially, Rodriguez found the city to be unremarkable. He had explored abandoned cities before. San Francisco was larger than any other he had visited, but otherwise it was much the same.
A few miles from Duff’s place, Rodriguez first noticed evidence that this was not quite like Fresno or Modesto. At one intersection were hundreds of identical baby dolls who watched the soldiers with wide blue crystalline eyes. The dolls sat on the curbs, on the sidewalk, on the green wooden bus benches. Over the entrance to a store was a metal structure that had once supported an awning; the canvas had long since rotted away to tatters. Hundreds of dolls perched on the framework, their pudgy legs locked around the metal tubing. When the breeze blew, the canvas tatters fluttered, tickling the naked plastic bellies.
The hoof of a horse brushed against a doll and knocked it over. A strange mewling came from within the doll: “Maaa-Maaa.” The horse shied, but the soldier brought the animal back under control.
It made no sense, but the unwinking stare of the pale blue eyes made Rodriguez uneasy. Who would go to the trouble of collecting so many dolls? Why would anyone bother? It looked like something from a bad dream. Not quite a nightmare, but a vaguely disturbing dream in which nothing is quite right. “Waste of time,” he muttered to the man riding at his side, and the soldier nodded nervously.
A block farther on, Rodriguez heard distant screaming: a highpitched mechanical sound that carried a hint of hysteria. He reined in his horse, looking around for the source of the sound. Just then, dozens of remote-controlled toy cars raced from a side street. Each one was the size of a large rat. They were made of brightly colored plastic, decorated with racing stripes and numbers.
His mare panicked. She reared as the screaming toys ran under her feet, zigzagging in a demented and unpredictable course. She danced and bucked, as if trying to get all her feet off the ground at the same time. Rodriguez fought to get her under control, but she ignored the bit and spurs. Around him the other horses were bucking. The horse that had spooked earlier bolted in the direction of the baby dolls.
The cars circled once, then zigzagged down a side street. Rodriguez regained control of his horse. “Whoa there,” he murmured to her, patting the side of her neck. Her eyes were wild, but she settled down.
A horse had stepped on one of the toys. It lay half-crushed on the street, twitching helplessly, still making the terrible screaming sound.
Rodriguez dismounted to examine the thing more closely. The demonic shrieking came from a device mounted on the car’s back. He poked at the toy with the barrel of his rifle, then flipped it over onto its back. Its wheels spun in the air and the squealing sound went up an octave.
Someone must be controlling the toys. He glanced around. The fog swirled around the tall buildings. No people; no sound. Not far away, the spire of a concrete pagoda marked Japan Center. He knew from his map that they were about halfway to downtown.
“It’s just a fucking toy,” he said contemptuously. He stomped on the little car. Metal bent and plastic crunched beneath his boots, but he kept stomping until the squealing stopped. He looked up to find his men staring at him, and he kicked the remains into the gutter.
From the roof of Japan Center’s Miyako Hotel, Danny-boy watched through binoculars as Rodriguez demolished the toy. “One casualty,” he said. “Sorry, T.M.”
The Machine was busy at the controls, directing the swarm of cars to a safe distance away from the soldiers. “No problem. There are plenty more in the toy stores.”
“He looks pissed,” Jax said. She sat at Danny-boy’s elbow, leaning forward and staring through another set of binoculars. “Out of control.”
Danny-boy put his hand on her shoulder. Her muscles were tense. “Take it easy,” he said. “Just relax.”
She glanced at him, then looked back at Rodriguez. “Tell it to the man who’s stomping a toy to death. I’m fine.”
He took his hand off her shoulder and returned to his binoculars. But he didn’t believe her, not for a minute.
Rodriguez mounted and led the way down Geary Street. The fog had grown thicker. It seemed to close in behind them, absorbing the sounds they made. The hoofbeats of the horses were muffled; the jingling of the harness on Rodriguez’s own horse seemed distant. Cold mist swirled around them, carried by eddies of air. “Strange wind currents,” Rodriguez murmured, wanting to break the silence. “Must be the way the streets are laid out. The buildings channel the wind.”
The silence swallowed Rodriquez’s words. He became intensely aware of the sound of his own breathing. He still carried his rifle ready; he had not holstered it after poking at the toy car and he did not want to holster it now. He noticed that the others held their rifles ready as well. “Easy,” he said to them softly. “It’s just a little fog.” He did not like the sound of his own voice.
They rode for some distance, and nothing untoward happened. He started to relax. Any strange city would be unnerving, he told himself. As he relaxed, the city no longer seemed as oppressive. It seemed almost welcoming. Some of the buildings even looked familiar. Then he suddenly realized that the buildings were familiar. They had just reached the turn that led back to Duff’s place, and he could see the trading post in the distance.
“We must have lost our bearings in the fog.” He wheeled his horse to ride forth again. They reach ed the corner with the baby dolls, passed the street from which the toy cars had emerged. A little bit beyond that, the buildings began to look familiar once again. And then they were heading back to Duff’s.
Rodriguez swore and consulted his map. They tried again, following Balboa, a residential street that ran parallel to Geary. Somehow, in the thick fog, they found themselves back at Duff’s.
And so it went, that day and the next and the day after, until at last Rodriguez returned to Sacramento to recommend that General Miles follow a different route into the city.
CHAPTER 19
THE DAY AFTER RODRIGUEZ LEFT, Jax sat on the roof of the Saint Francis Hotel, fletching a new set of bolts for her crossbow. The shaft of each new bolt was made of quarter-inch aluminum pipe, taken
from a downtown hardware store. At Jax’s request, The Machine had sliced the pipe into one-foot lengths and fitted each one with a sharpened stainless steel tip. The Machine had offered to fletch the bolts as well: he had some thin copper sheeting that would substitute for feathers. But Jax had declined, preferring the feathers she had gathered in Golden Gate Park. Feathers of hawks and feathers of owls—it seemed to Jax that these would make a bolt fly better than fletching of lifeless copper. It only made sense.
The sky was a clear pale blue, washed clean by the afternoon’s rain. A puddle of water had collected in one corner of the roof, and three sparrows were bathing in the water, splashing and chirping noisily.
Jezebel eyed them but did not stir from her place at Danny-boy’s side. Danny-boy lay on the rooftop with one hand tucked behind his head.
Jax set a feather on the roof. With her pocketknife, she split it neatly along its quill. She trimmed the two halves to the proper dimensions.
“Why are you making those bolts of metal?” Danny-boy asked.
She glanced over and found him studying her. “All your old ones are made of wood.”
“They’ll be stronger,” she said. She offered him one of the completed bolts.
“You’re making a lot of them.”
“I figure I’ll need a lot of them.” She watched him run his hands down the metal shaft and test the point. “Ms. Migsdale thinks that we have about a month before Fourstar and his army arrive.”
Danny-boy rolled the bolt between his hands. “You plan to meet him with a crossbow?”
“It’s better than nothing.”
He handed her the bolt and returned to his perusal of the sky. “Seems like there should be a better way.”
“Yeah, maybe so.” She set the bolt with the others and selected another feather. “Snake’s been looking for guns, but most of the obvious places were cleaned out years ago. He found a stash hidden in a house in the Sunset, and he’s looking for more. But ammunition’s still a problem.”
He watched her, still holding the bolt. “But one way or another, you want to kill them?”
She frowned, wondering what he was getting at. Of course she wanted to kill them. “Sure. Kill them before they kill me.” She tried to slice another feather along its quill, but the knife slipped, ruining one half. His questions made her uneasy.
“Something’s wrong with that,” he said softly.
“Oh, yeah?” She started to trim the undamaged half of the feather, but the knife slipped again. She sheathed the knife and gave Danny-boy her full attention. “All right—so tell me what’s wrong with it.”
“Fourstar come after us with guns and violence and we fight back with the same. That doesn’t seem right. The gun and the knife—those are Fourstar’s symbols. If we adopt his weapons, it seems like we’re no better than he is. We become the enemy we want to defeat.”
She stared at the half-finished bolts. She did not like this way of talking. Why would they become the enemy? “I don’t know what you mean.”
“We can’t win by using guns,” Danny-boy said. “It’s not that simple.” He turned on his side and lifted himself on one elbow, watching her face.
“Don’t talk like that,” she said. “We can win. We just need more guns. Or explosives. We could blow up the bridge before they get here.”
Danny-boy shook his head. “That’s the wrong approach. We won’t win that way.”
She crossed her arms to keep her hands from trembling. “Then what is the right approach?”
“Don’t be angry,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, Duff once taught me to play a game called poker. And I always lost.”
“So?”
“When I asked Duff why I lost so much, he grinned and told me that you can’t beat a man at his own game. I think he’s right.” After a pause, Danny-boy continued. “You think there’s only one way to fight—with guns and knives and killing. But the way I figure it—you’re playing into Fourstar’s hands. That’s Fourstar’s kind of war. That’s his game, and he’s good at it. We’ve got to get him to play our game, not try to beat him at his.”
“What’s our game?” she asked.
He was looking down at his own hands. Beneath each fingernail was a crescent of pale blue paint, reminders of the Golden Gate Bridge. “Our game? We’re good at making traders unwilling to visit downtown. We’re good at keeping farmers at Duff’s and away from the rest of the city. We’re good at showing people a view of the world that they’ve never seen before. We’re good at making people uneasy. We’re good at convincing people to see things differently.”
“So far, those don’t seem like real useful talents. Not in a war,” she said.
He looked up from his hands and met her eyes. “They could be,” he said. “We don’t have to kill Fourstar’s soldiers. All we have to do is change their minds. We just have to make them think that we could kill them at any time. That would be enough. Let’s think of this war as an art project.”
Jax shook her head. “No.”
He didn’t seem to notice her denial. “I’ve been talking to Books. He says that the outcome of a war depends largely on the morale and conviction of the people who are fighting it. He told me about this war that America fought in a place called Vietnam. A little tiny country, Vietnam, up against the enormous military force of America.” He sat up, caught by his own enthusiasm. “But Vietnam won. They drove the Americans out.”
“Without killing any soldiers?”
“Oh, they killed plenty—but that wasn’t the important part. What was important, Books says, was the loss of morale among the American troops. They didn’t believe they could win. And so they didn’t.” Danny-boy leaned forward, holding out his hands. “Books also told me about this guy called Gandhi. The country where he lived had been taken over by the British. And Gandhi drove the British out by fighting a new kind of war. Rather than attacking them, he just got in the way. Passive resistance. The British didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know how to deal with this guy. So eventually, they left. Seems like we could manage something like that.”
Jax shook her head. “You don’t understand. War can’t be art. We have to kill them.”
Danny-boy reached out, taking her hand. “Look, they’re people too. You may not like them, but I don’t think we should kill them while we have other alternatives. It seems to me …”
She pulled her hand away and stood up. “You don’t understand,” she repeated. She turned away from him, abandoning her crossbow and bolts, running away across the roof and down the stairs. She heard Danny-boy calling after her, but did not stop to listen.
Somewhere in her stomach was a knot of feeling that she could not allow herself to touch. She could skirt the edges of it, chart its size and location, feel it hard and heavy in her belly. But she could not touch it. When she probed the edges, she felt the cold sensation that comes with a great injury, like the chill that follows the cut of a knife, just before the pain hits.
She stood at the front entrance to the hotel. In the center of the square, the nameless bronze lady on the pillar lifted her trident over the rotting remnants of squash vines and tomato plants. The rain had washed her clean, and she glistened in the early afternoon light. Like the bronze statue, Danny-boy had his eyes fixed on the sky, ignoring the rubbish at his feet. Fourstar would walk in and take over the city while Danny-boy stared up at the clouds and talked about symbols.
With no destination in mind, Jax began walking. Puddles in the street reflected the buildings of downtown. Each puddle offered a slightly different view of the city, showing it from a different perspective.
She kept walking, leaving Danny-boy behind. He frightened her. She did not understand him. The words he spoke made sense individually; together they were nonsense. But he believed his own words, and that was the most frightening thing of all.
He trusted the world, trusted the people in it—and that terrified her. He to
ld her to relax—as if she were the one who needed to change. She told him that she was right and he was wrong, and he just smiled. He was the water in a stream, gently wearing away the rocks on the bank. Which is stronger: the rock or the water?
She kept walking, watching the reflections in the puddles. She could leave the city, she told herself. Leave before Fourstar came, and save herself at least. But she knew, even as she tried to convince herself, that she could not leave. She belonged in the city now.
After a time, she noticed that the buildings in the puddles no longer looked familiar. She had left downtown and was in a residential neighborhood. She kept walking.
The awareness of her mother’s presence crept up on her slowly. She could not pinpoint the moment when she knew that her mother was leading her somewhere, but when she saw her mother’s reflection in one of the puddles, she was not surprised. As Jax watched, the image of her mother caught her eye, smiled, then vanished.
Jax looked up from the puddle. She stood in front of 738 Ashbury Street, a two-story Victorian that had once been painted royal blue with white and gold trim around the bay windows. The paint had faded and cracked over the years. A roof that extended out over the front steps shaded the trim surrounding the front door. There a spray of golden wheat stalks stood out against a cream-colored background.
It was her mother’s house. Jax knew that with a strange certainty. She climbed the steps and tried the knob. The door was locked.
As she stepped back from the door, a squirrel scolded her from the branches of a camphor tree. The tree grew in a square of dirt in the sidewalk. Over the years it had outgrown its confines: its roots had cracked the surrounding cement; its spreading branches brushed against the house. Jax eyed a thick branch that passed quite near the small roof over the front door. From that roof she would be able to reach the upper-story windows.
