"Hi," said Corrag. "You like the sun?"
"No." The girl looked up at her, squinting. It was the first word Corrag had ever heard her say.
"What's your name?"
"Emma."
"Emma. That’s a pretty name. Where are you from?"
"I don't know."
Corrag had the sudden sense that she knew more than she let on, that Emma was someone, not just a victim.
"Do you hate it here? Do you want to go home?"
Emma looked at her, squinting again. There was a searching in her look, something beyond the words.
"I don't want to go home. I'm crazy. Look at this."
Emma shoved her arms out of her lap where they lay surrounded in a blanket against the cold. Scars and still raw lines of razor cuts ran from her elbows to her wrists, marking her pale bare skin.
"Why do you do that?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, Emma."
She had never encountered melancholy so muted, so fully incorporated into a personality. People like Emma did not exist in Democravia, or they were hidden away so successfully that they might as well have never existed. Corrag felt like she was drowning in sadness. For several days, when she awoke first thing in the morning with the sudden hissing of steam pipes, she checked herself, running an inventory of the heart, before she felt ready to get out of bed. The days went by in a blur, with medication rounds followed by group talks led by the nurses. Corrag had avoided any medication stronger than Milof, a mild tranquilizer, and by the end of that week she felt she might be able to survive this strange place. In the evenings, when the prisoners/patients were allowed to gather in the main room and play ping-pong and smoke cigarettes, Mendez sat in a circle with an ever-changing constellation of acolytes and dispensed wisdom and hope.
There were new people in every day, and towards the end of that first week they brought in a woman, about thirty, very pretty, who had been a broadcast personality with the Air Nueva Apple news organization. She was pretty in the classic Repho mold, and defiant. She and Mendez hit it off well. She had been gathered in a moment of weakness, walking in the park around the Onassis reservoir after dark. She admitted to the police that she had been drinking. But she was also suspected of disaligner sympathies.
"What business do they have trying to stop what I put in my body or what my personal opinions are? This is a goddamn police state," she said, wild-eyed. Coming from her, a well-known personality, it meant something, and Mendez smiled with a clarity that Corrag loved.
Corrag felt a part of something important. She even tried a cigarette, a filter-less Lucky Hit, filling her lungs with the black smoke and gagging, to the amusement of the others. Even Emma laughed.
Mendez and the new woman, Vicky Jones, told stories of people's ability to overcome impossibly ridiculous circumstances. There was a feeling that the Gheko administration and its policies would not survive very long if people could come together and organize a counter to the ruthlessness of the crackdown they were seeing.
That night Corrag dreamed of the destruction of her body and the immutable nature of her soul. In the dream the doctors were the ghosts of former patients that still clung to the building, the site of their tortures in bygone days, and chose to inflict their pain on the living rather than move on. They tied Corrag to a bed on her stomach and carried out unspeakable acts. She cried out in her dream, but the monstrous shouts of the doctors drowned out her protests. When she awoke, she was still whole. It had all been a dream, very vivid and horrifying, but unreal. The light coming in her window soothed and reassured her. She was alive, and the ghosts of the dream had vanished, leaving behind a trembling but unscathed living person. It hit her with the weight of reality that the simple evidence of her senses would always be something that could save her, that ghosts of her own or of others' invention would not shake her grip on sanity.
She rose and dressed in the Wards Island jumpsuit that she'd been given. The ever-present green was a way they had of bringing the prisoners down. Corrag yearned to wear anything else besides the color green, and it was only her first week. She went out to the stairs and began to descend one floor to the cafeteria.
Nobody was eating. Mendez's eyes were red. Corrag sat next to him. The others at the table were silent and stared at their plates or into the distance.
"What's wrong?” asked Corrag.
"Vicky's dead," said Mendez.
'"What? How?" asked Corrag.
"In her room, a belt. The staff cut her down and brought her into the lounge."
"She was done, Mendez. That was a hit made up to look like suicide." The man who spoke was a former police officer, a fifty year old with thinning hair, Cooper Lytle. Like Mendez, he was a long time resident on the ward. Corrag had suspected him of being a Gheko plant because of his usual silence. But now he was angry.
"Yeah. That's the way I see it too," said Mendez.
"It's time we had a shut down," said Lytle.
"That's a tough call."
"Are you with me?"
"It's going to be hard on a lot of folks."
"We've gotten too comfortable with the system. We need to save some of these kids," said Lytle.
Mendez looked around at the tables and then to Corrag.
"What is it? What's a shut down?" asked Corrag.
"We shut the place down, and some people get out. The punishment for the rest, the folks who stay behind, is pretty harsh, almost like a death sentence," said Mendez.
"How do you do it?" asked Corrag.
"Never mind that," said Lytle.
"We have the knowledge. The how part is taken care of. It's the what if part that bothers me. What do you think Corrag? Do we take the chance? Would you chance a breakout if you knew the consequence of failure were basically you end up either dead or a vegetable?"
"I don't know."
"Look," said Lytle. "If we don't fight back there will be others like Vicky. Every day now. It's going to get worse. They can't use this place as a slaughterhouse. They've gone too far."
"I agree," said Corrag. From what she had seen: the mass tazing, her arrest and detention, the treatment on Ward's Island, it was clear the Repho was not in the business of promoting individual liberty and freedom as it advertised. It seemed to be increasingly about greater control and manipulation of the masses for the interests of a distant elite. She wanted to get out and somehow find Beithune. Anything was better than staying in Ward's Island. She loved Lytle now for his defiance. He would rather fight. His spirit was infectious.
Mendez called a group together at the mid-morning break. They were on the roof and it was a brisk day with a wind. They could see whitecaps out on the river. The distant spires of midtown looked like the icy towers of some fantastic future planet. Corrag was excited but shivering with nerves and lack of food. She wished she'd eaten some breakfast. Mendez was speaking, explaining to a group of them what the drill would look like. Lytle had a skeleton key he'd been saving for just such an event. In the afternoon, during the down hours, which they usually whiled away in their rooms, a group of them would go floor by floor and alert as many as they could. The floor wardens usually played cards or gamed together at that time. It wouldn't be difficult to get as far as the third floor. Shortly before dinner, Lytle, who was already there waiting, would set off an explosion in the boiler room and that would be the diversion they needed to rush the third floor barricades and get down to the ground and out. Then they would need to overpower the security system at the gate and get to the water's edge, where there would be boats waiting to get them away.
After Mendez was done talking, he hugged several of them.
"How do you know the boats will be there waiting?" asked Corrag, when she had a moment alone with him. They were standing at the roof's edge, looking out the mesh at the water and beyond at the northern boroughs.
"Corrag, in case this fails. I ... there's a communication link inside. Lytle and I have kept it a secret for many years now. I'm going to
show you in case you get left you'll know."
Mendez and Corrag walked together nonchalantly down the stairs to the recreation room on the fifth floor. There was a gaming console against the wall nobody used because the games it contained were about two decades out of style. But Mendez sat down and took up a game of Mario, pinging the balls back and forth across the screen.
"See, this is kind of fun," he said. Corrag agreed. The guard left the room pacing slowly in his heavy black shoes. Mendez looked behind and out of his pocket took an old USB cable and plugged it into the computer and then the other end into a jack half hidden by plastic curtains.
"Okay," said Mendez, scooting in his chair, rebooting the computer and playing with the code to bring up an old Internet link with a blank portal. Mendez's face appeared on the screen, lit up by the glow of the screen in front of him, then he disappeared and another face took his place, this one darker, harder to make out.
"This is Mendez. Wards Island. Is Korazan there?"
"He's getting the boat ready."
"One boat?"
"Three boats."
"Okay. This is Corrag. I wanted to introduce her. She's good."
"She's made. I'll let Korazan know. Corrag. Where you from, dude?"
"Democravia."
"Nice. Korazan likes them chick dudes from Democravia. Just kidding."
"Okay, we're done," said Mendez.
"Never done. Just kidding. Over and out, bud."
Mendez pulled the cable and stuffed it in his pocket. He smiled wisely up at Corrag.
"Simple as that," he said. "The most secure communication link in the city. Probably the only two Macs left with the old Leopard OS on the install."
"Who's Korazan?"
"Korazan? Sudanese cartel boss. Not the type of guy you'd want to bring home and introduce to Mom, but the man's got street cred, and we have a common enemy."
Corrag stared hard at Mendez's wizened face and sunken eyes. There was still a spark glowing in them despite the years he carried. She felt like hugging him, but she didn't. Later she regretted not hugging him then.
That evening, as she was daydreaming about Durkiev Drive and the Rosaleses and her parents in their old house, wishing she could speak to them for even a minute on an emosponder, missing them and the smell of synthetic floor oil on the tiles and the sound of the bot whirring down the otherwise silent stairs, the explosion went off somewhere in the bowels of the building. It sounded with a deep bass thud and then the floor shook and people screamed. For a second Corrag did not know what had happened, and then instantly she picked up her feet and ran for the stairs. Then she stopped. She was supposed to gather as many people as possible, shepherd them down to the third floor. She spotted Emma in her wheelchair and ran over to kneel in front of her.
"We're getting out now, making a break. You want to come?"
"It's against the rules."
"There are no rules now, Emma. We make the rules."
"I just don't ... leave? Where would I go?"
"Just come with me, Emma. Trust me."
Emma scowled, looked confused and began to shout. Corrag did not hear the words at first, concentrating instead on the muscles of Emma's face tightening, turning the skin a bloodless white, tinged with yellows and greens, and the anger rising in her eyes. She understood the term boiling blood because it seemed like the blood was causing a liquid froth in her eyes, and they might pop from their sockets. Then she began to hear the words intermittently, as if from a distance.
"Whore! ... Bitch! ... Ruin everything! ... How dare you!"
Corrag stood and backed away.
"Sorry, Emma," she mouthed, and she turned and ran for the stairs.
The nurses and wardens made feeble attempts to hold certain prisoners back, but the desire to flee was an overpowering tidal wave of emotion. Corrag could see even the weakest break away and bolt from their would-be captors. The crowd on the stairwells surged through the doors on the third floor. A couple of floor mates held the doors open, giving instructions:
"Don't stop! Get through the gate. Get outside and head for the water!"
The guards darted around, trying to stem the human tide, but for everyone they grabbed and pushed back five ran by. Someone jumped one of the guards from behind and brought him down, and that was the last Corrag saw of him. From a side door appeared Mendez, and beside him was Lytle, leaning against him, his large belly unhindered, face bloodied. He was shirtless, and his pants were hanging in shreds. Corrag weaved through the throng until she was beside Mendez.
"What happened?"
"Don't mind. Run, Corrag. Get yourself out."
"But we can't leave without you. Come on. I'll get him."
On either side of Lytle, they managed to get the wounded man past the third floor barricade and down the two flights of stairs to the exit. Corrag struggled to support Lytle's weight. People shouted and surged back through the door. She could see out past the huddled mass; two driverless armored vehicles were pulling up to the entrance. A spray of bullet fire sounded. Full panic seized the mob. Corrag huddled dizzily with the two men, who seemed strangely calm, as if they'd lived through all of it before.
"In a minute now they'll run for it again," said Lytle.
"When boiler number two blows?"
"That's right."
Seconds later another explosion went off, this one sharper, more concussive than the first. Shards of flames appeared on the walls, as if materializing by magic, as the combustible electrical wiring and plastic ducting in the wall space caught fire from below and blew out the vents. Once again panic took hold of the mob, and there was a sudden surge out the door. Bullet fire and screams filled the dusk. Lytle removed his backpack and handed something to Mendez.
"Now's a good time as ever, brother," said Lytle.
Mendez looked at him and at Corrag.
"Go, Corrag. Run far and spread the word. You only get what you fight for."
He and Lytle went out the door, Lytle hobbling and Mendez staying serenely by his side. They walked behind the crowd of escaping patients, emptying onto the entrance plaza and falling in waves to the fire from the two armored bot vehicles. Corrag saw the two men walk up to the first vehicle and begin to scale the armored plating, both of them struggling and then lifted by inspired escapees who could see what they were trying to do. The vehicle tried to shrug them off, reversing and spinning on its swivel track like a trick pony. Then Mendez raised the hatch on the roof and tossed something inside. The muffled explosion halted the bot in its tracks. It sat simmering like an angry, wounded insect. The other vehicle swiveled around and fired off a tank round at its companion. It sent the bodies of Mendez and Lytle flying amid shards of metal and reverberating balls of flames.
In the resulting confusion, the escapees surged to the water's edge. Some clambered on the rocks and fell into the river. In the dark, they could see boats approaching, black silhouetted hulls bouncing silently and breaking the water ahead, then slowing and coming alongside the rocks where the people stood, balancing precariously, holding each other, some of them sobbing and screaming for help. The boats took on as many as they could, rocking awkwardly and gunning the engines, reversing the propellers to stay steady in the swirling tidal currents. Corrag was among the people clambering on board. As she was falling into the black mass of the East River, a strong pair of hands picked her up under the armpits and hauled her over the gunwales. They pulled away from the island, and she looked back at the flames enveloping the first floors of the main building and the drones circling in the sky above the inferno, their neon colored lights blinking, seeing everything.
A short ten-minute ride over the choppy river saw them at the piers of the Mount Vernon projects, a camp of homeless, illegal refugees huddled by barrel fires in Van Cortland Park in the distance. The boats came alongside without tieing off, and the people swarmed onto the dock. Men and women with high caliber guns and ammunition belts hanging around their shoulders led them to an emergency medical
tent at the edge of the park where rebel doctors would treat their wounds. Then the guerrillas resumed their positions staked out around the park, firing at the drones they were sighting through night vision goggles. Corrag sensed the excitement of these men and women fighters. She imagined they had planned for an insurrection of this type for years and hauled out guns and ammunition from secret spots in the tenements where they had long laid buried for this moment. She was headed aimlessly for the medical tent, following the crowd. It was obvious many were simply melting into the streets, disappearing from the scene. At that moment the screech of Repho fighter jets sounded above them, and the ground seemed to open up around her. With slitted eyes and a scream in her throat she felt her legs pumping, while at the edge of her vision the buildings blurred. A string of explosions rocked the night, and then there was silence broken only by moans. Where the medical tent had been just instants ago there now was an open crater. The buildings around the park had been pounded into rubble. Corrag wanted to run but felt as if her legs were mired in cement. She wanted to fly. A hand grabbed her shoulder. She turned, and a scarred face with intelligent darting eyes met her gaze.
"Come," said the black man, and Corrag followed, glad to have some direction.
The man gave her a bucket and told her to start digging. There was a line of people that had assembled, and they dug away at the rubble of what had once been apartment buildings, putting what they could in the buckets and passing the buckets down the line until they came across an arm, legs, severed pieces of encrusted flesh still wet and warm. These they placed carefully aside in the park.
The Victor's Heritage (The Jonah Trilogy Book 2) Page 16
