State of Order

by Julian North

  I struggled to keep my voice level. “Aba, what happened before you came to America—that’s way past. I studied my history, listened to the stories. The Orderists aren’t Trujillo. And I didn’t do any of that stuff anyway.”

  Aba huffed. “Now you show up at my work, coming out of the back of a transport like some refugee, dragging a richie white boy from Manhattan. You don’t think there won’t be more stories? That Paco’s imagination won’t be spinning more tales?”

  “Mi kori as kuli,” Nythan declared too proudly in Barriola. My heart is with the people. I winced.

  “Don’t spew that street slang crap,” Aba muttered. “Even if you speak it, you’re no less an outsider here. You are not from here. You aren’t family.”

  Her words stung. I grabbed Nythan’s arm, pulling him toward me. “He’s done more to try to fix Mateo than anyone else in this world. If we can cure the Waste, it’ll be because of Nythan. He’s blood.”

  Aba peered at him, her glare still hard but perhaps less hostile. Nythan had the grace to blush.

  “We came because we’re worried. About Kortilla, about what the Authority is doing here.” I let my guard down a bit. “We’re scared for you all, Aba. We want to help.”

  The tension around Aba’s eyes lessened. That’s as soft as she ever got. Bad news was coming. “Kortilla’s building was hit. There was firing from the windows, I heard. One of those big flying drones came—used a missile. We saw the explosion from here.”

  Nythan’s arm twitched. “She might not have been there. And she told me that building has a cellar.”

  “The black boots came to the ruin afterward, I heard. They picked through the rubble, mostly to find the force weapons. But they pulled some people from the rubble. Those people were taken away for questioning. I know about how men like that do questioning. Oh yes, I know.”

  “We need to find Otega or Matias,” I said to Nythan.

  Aba sneered. “Those boys are nothing but trouble. For Kortilla, for you. Your friend may be alive, she may be dead. That is what happens when people try to rise. Smart folk stay out of it. Look after your family instead of fighting for strangers. Go find your brother, Daniela. Succeed in that, at least.”

  The heat inside me became an inferno. “Mateo started this! He shot the damn clanger. Tried to drag me into his fight.”

  “Lower your voice,” Aba barked.

  “No one’s listening, Aba. You just don’t want to hear it. About Mateo, you never want to hear the truth. Well, here it is anyway: Mateo doesn’t want to be saved.”

  “Stop your talk—”

  “No. I’m doing all I can; Nythan is doing all he can. I’ll never give up. He’s my brother. I love him. But he doesn’t want to be found. If he’s still alive, he’s got his gang all around him. There’s nothing I can do for him.” Except trill him into submission. But I wouldn’t be able to get close. He’d be ready for that. “But I can help Kortilla. And maybe others.”

  “Kortilla’s not family. The rest—”

  “Mateo is my brother by birth. But Kortilla is my sister by life. Fate bound me to Mateo, but I chose Kortilla. I won’t abandon her.” My hands were shaking, my voice trembled, but my gaze held steady.

  Aba didn’t blink. She didn’t retreat. Eyes that had seen terrible things and learned the wrong lessons from them bored into me. She shook her head. Disappointment. That look was as familiar as old socks. Aba turned to go. Another punch in my gut.

  At the threshold, she stopped. “I lived it, Daniela. El Insurreccion. Back on Hispaniola. The streets were a living sea of people. There were so many.” She spoke in a voice I hadn’t heard before—one thick with memory. “Some had guns even. But not enough. And they didn’t have the will to kill. Not like El Nuevo Jefe and his red berets. Fanatics, every one of them. And they had a lot of guns. The streets… even after the rains came, there was so much blood your feet stuck to the pavement. Your grandfather died on those streets. Fighting other people’s fights instead of being with his daughter. He thought words and marches could change a man like El Jefe. These men outside are the same: killers. They don’t even need to pull triggers anymore. They have their metal machines. And that woman on the net—Virginia—her eyes, they are the same as El Jefe’s. The devil was in them both.”

  I spoke softly into the charged silence that followed Aba’s words. “You never spoke about grandpa before. You never told me how he died.”

  Aba’s face became stone again. “Because he was a fool. Because of his foolishness, his daughter grew up without a father. We could’ve all left together. But he didn’t listen. Just like your brother. Just like you.”

  “There’s no place left to run, Aba. This is the only world left. We need to fight for it.”

  “I’ll get Paco to bring blankets and a few heat packs. Curfew is over at six.” Then she left.

  Nythan stared at me.

  “What’s with you?”

  “Thank you,” Nythan said, as sincere as I’d ever heard him.

  “For what?”

  “For saying what you did about me, that I was blood. I know what being blood with someone means to you.”

  I swallowed hard. “Make sure my words are true, Nythan. I don’t want to end up like Aba. Let’s set this right.”

  Chapter 20

  Neither one of us slept much.

  I heard Nythan tossing about nearby throughout the night, but I kept still and quiet. There was no point in talking. Both our thoughts were on what we faced outside, and on Kortilla. There was nothing else to say. I had some idea of where she might be if she wasn’t at home when the missile hit. Aba’s words about questioning lingered, though. I had to find her quickly.

  We both rose before dawn and pretended we had slept. The light of my viser revealed that two beige dispensary uniforms had been left for us, along with badly smudged photo identification badges that were close enough to our faces that someone who didn’t care to look wouldn’t notice.

  “Someone thought of everything. Did your grandmother leave these for us?”

  I nibbled on my lip. “Maybe Uncle Santi.” Although it was hard to tell with Aba. Certainly, she knew what he had done at least.

  “We’ll be able to grab a wawa at the gate. They all stop here.”

  “A what?” Nythan asked.

  “Those little buses. Means—”

  “Little kid. Yeah, I speak Spanish, remember? Barriolo too, even if your grandmother isn’t impressed with my words.”

  “To her, life on Hispaniola was just yesterday. A big house in the hills, the time before Papa Trujillo came to power. Before his new plantation system. Everyone should be speaking Spanish. English, and especially Barriola, are unpleasant reminders of the present, I guess. Not that she’s ever said any of that to me.” I released the same sigh that I’d been making most of my life. “Let’s get going. I know a place we can start.”

  We pulled the dispensary uniforms on over our clothes and passed through the ration center as quickly as we could without running. The place was a frenzy of activity as they prepared to open the gates. A couple of workers shot skeptical looks in our direction, but no one interfered. Either they had better things to do, or word had come down to give the strangers a pass. There was no sign of Aba, but I caught Uncle Santi gazing at us from his supervisor’s booth as we reached the side exit that the workers used when their shift was done. I nodded my thanks. His eyes flicked to Nythan with a look of distrust, then urged me to be careful. We stepped outside.

  We weren’t the only people who had spent the night in the ration dispensary. Outside, a line of nearly thirty bleary-eyed workers had formed just inside a side gate at the fence perimeter. They were sullen, quiet, with their heads down, shifting back and forth for warmth. Half a dozen security guards clad in beige and red were clustered just outside the gate, stun wands on one hip, pistols on the other. They directed any passersby to the main entrance, keeping the employee exit clear. Two enforcement drones were stationed on the street
corners. They weren’t moving, but they were watching. A noisy, filth-spewing wawa arrived. The fence’s gate swung open. Twenty workers exited and piled into the vehicle. The gate closed. Nythan and I shuffled up in line. We’d probably be able to fit on the next one.

  At the fence line, I had a better vantage point to see the front of the ration center. A mass of humanity had formed out front, far more than usual. Days of fighting and curfews had taken their toll on people’s emergency supplies. Men, women, and children jostled and bickered, but that was all—for now.

  A wawa arrived and the fence opened again. We paid with two of Jalen’s coin slices rather than our visers, as did most other people. On board, it was standing room only. The wawa sped away, its gears scraping as it accelerated. The interior smelled like men and women who’d put in a hard day of physical work. It was a common odor in the barrio, but I’d only noticed it since attending Tuck.

  We zipped through the mostly empty streets of Bronx City. On every block there was evidence of the unrest: shattered windows, scorched exteriors, projectile scars. Two enforcement drones rumbled past, heading in the opposite direction. Toward the dispensary. I thought of all those people in line. There was nothing I could do for them.

  We got out close to Kortilla’s place, shoving our way to the front of the wawa amid waves of weary curses in three languages urging us to hurry up. We walked quickly through the smoldering streets. I wanted to see the wreckage with my own eyes, even though I knew I wouldn’t find anything helpful there. I was right. The ruins were what Aba described. If anything, she hadn’t done justice to the degree of the devastation. I could barely tell there had once been a building here.

  “The pieces are so small,” I said, picking through a bit of debris on the sidewalk.

  “Vacuum explosives. Tremendously powerful, minimal collateral impact. Developed mostly for export to hit hardened targets located in densely populated areas like refugee camps. A Rose-Hart product, I believe.” I gave him a sharp look but said nothing.

  “Let’s head to Nacho’s place. Hopefully, it’s still there.”

  Surveyors buzzed in the sky as we walked. Massive enforcers kept vigil on every third street, their turrets turning with a seemingly nervous regularity. A pair of black Authority transports rumbled past us. It was an impressive display of firepower. Yet the barrio wasn’t cowed. Those few on the streets still glanced at the interloping machines with resentment. I caught the occasional face peering out from a boarded window, waiting for the next eruption. My pride mixed with worry. My brother was probably somewhere on these streets, planning some other vain act of violence. But he was playing the wrong game. There were hidden strings controlling both sides. I needed to stop the puppet master. Quickly.

  Nythan and I traveled several more blocks without speaking, our strides just less than a run. Sirens howled through the city’s thick air. Our legs took us to a crumbling tenement at the corner of Elm, the shell of an old bodega on its ground floor. Fabricated wood boards saturated with graffiti covered the windows, a rusted steel gate blocked access to the door, its hinges twisted into uselessness. We turned the corner onto Elm Street, hurrying into a slice of alley that separated the corner structure from its taller but equally dilapidated neighbor. Unlike virtually every other alley in BC, this one was lurker- and refuse-free. We stood in front of the recessed alley-side door, staring up at a broken sodium light that concealed the bar’s surveillance camera. Nothing happened for a while.

  I kicked the door. The thick metal portal wasn’t impressed. More waiting. “Open up, Manny.”

  The knob turned just before I struck again. A meaty hand bestowed with three fingers and a thumb, each as thick as sausages, emerged to beckon us inside. We scurried through the crack, entering a gloomy warren of well-worn fabricated booths and teetering tables arrayed around a circular bar of real mahogany and polished brass. A brightly lit tower of elaborate alcohols and other intoxicants loomed over the bar. The place smelled like Mateo’s feet. Manny Tae, all six and a half feet of him, shut the door behind us, his drooping jowls and thick mop of hair making him appear like a giant of children’s fairytales. Except for the ugly spiked baseball bat held casually in one hand.

  “Well, a little early for a drink, isn’t it?” Manny’s voice was like rumbling thunder. He snarled down at Nythan. “This the gringo boy you’re dating, Dee?”

  “This is Nythan. He’s a friend. He runs the maze clinic.”

  Manny crossed his arms, still holding the bat.

  “I’m looking for Kortilla,” I said, dropping my voice. Only one table in the room’s far corner was occupied, and I couldn’t see who was seated there. “Or Matias. Or Otega.”

  “Why don’t you just ping ’em?”

  I wasn’t in the mood for Manny’s crap. “Never thought of that. Thanks, Manny.”

  The giant shook his head. “Damn, I pity your boyfriend. You got no sense of humor.” He shuffled on his massive feet. It was like an oak tree swaying in the wind. “Haven’t seen any of ’em.”

  “What about my brother?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “This is like talking to a light pole,” I remarked. “Where’s Nacho?”

  An enormous shrug.

  “Manny, please… I really need to find Kortilla.”

  He winked an oversized eyelid at me and lifted his viser. “Honcho, Mateo’s kid sister and her shiny white associate would like a word.”

  No reply was forthcoming. Manny tapped his foot.

  “So, Daniela, I saw you running with all those highborn in that fancy Manhattan stadium. And you got rich friends like pasty here now too, huh?” Manny said.

  “What is it to you who I hang with?”

  He looked at me, concerned. “I wanna know where you are going to spend your summers. You got one of those richie beach vacation places yet? The Hamdons? Something like that.”

  I ground my teeth. Manny favored me with a piano-like smile, ebony and ivory included.

  “Send Daniela over, big man,” came a shout from the back table with the men at it. I recognized Nacho’s voice.

  “You heard the boss,” Manny told me.

  I went to go, Nythan following behind me. Manny reached out a giant hand to block his way. “Just you, Dee. No richies.”

  “I know how I look, but I—” Nythan began.

  “It’s all right, Nythan. I got this. Don’t mind Manny. He’s a big lug, but there’s a heart underneath all that flubber.”

  “You’re Suzie Wong?” Nythan asked Manny. “Really? I thought you’d be shorter.”

  The burly man’s chuckle shook the floor. I went to see Nacho with the sound echoing in my ears, maneuvering through haphazardly arranged tables to the far end of the bar. Nacho’s associates vacated the deep circular booth, leaving the apple-faced bar owner alone with me. A half finished glass of something that might have been beer sat in front of him. He ran one hand through his slicked midnight hair while motioning me to sit with the other. I grudgingly nudged myself onto the very end of the booth.

  “Ah, Ms. Daniela, you’ve grown so big. Has been over a year, no?” He spoke English, but with the accent of a native Barriola speaker.

  “Not sure,” I told him. “Been a while.”

  “You’re welcome here, always,” he assured me. He was trying too hard to sound sincere. I just wanted to get this over with.

  “Have you seen Kortilla or her family?”

  Nacho took a drink from whatever was in front of him, wincing as the liquid glided down his throat. The stuff reeked. Not beer. Some kind of synth intoxicant. I wasn’t up on the latest fads, but I’m sure it was great going down. “I thought you’d be more worried about your brother. We both know what he’s been up to—starting revolts. Running guns.”

  “So, you know he started it. What else do you know?”

  “Me? I hear it all in this place. I know your brother, and I know you. Yeah, I know he started this, not you. You aren’t the type to be a martyr. Your brother,
on the other hand—he’s always lookin’ for an impossible fight.” Nacho flashed a thin smile that made me think of a snake. “We go way back, your bro and me.”

  This was the guy who’d introduced Mateo to Kelvin—his supposed contact from California, the guy who had gotten Mateo mixed up in Kristolan’s schemes. Anything was fine with Nacho, just so long as he got a cut. That would’ve made him the same as just about everyone else around here who wasn’t blood. Except he wanted to claim otherwise. Hypocrisy pissed me off. But I didn’t want to talk about Mateo. “What have you heard about the building on Armlin Street that was pulverized? About the Gonzales family?”

  Nacho shrugged, then looked me over. A predator sizing up potential prey. “What do you have to give me?”

  “You just told me you and Mateo go way back.”

  He hacked a liquor-infused bark. “You ain’t Mateo, I guess.”

  “Tell me about Kortilla. I’ll put in a good word for you with the Corazones.”

  “How much that fancy viser cost?” His greedy eyes lingered on my arm. “What’d you have to do to get it?”

  My jaw locked shut. I wasn’t giving up Alexander’s gift. I didn’t need to. Ice hovered at the edge of my perception. Anxious. Wanting to be summoned. I wanted that power. But I held off. One more try. I reached into my pocket for Jalen’s silver coins. I slammed them on the table. “Tell me now.” I bit off each word.

  He forced another bark, but it was hollow. He took the coins. “You won’t like it.” Nacho threw back the remains of his drink. “Blackies took the survivors away. Kortilla was among them, I hear. Her mom, dad, Otega, and Matias as well. If the others were there, they didn’t make it out of the rubble. And your brother too—he was there. Vincent with him. They were havin’ some sort of meeting, it seems. But they are alive, or at least they were.”