by Denny Taylor
“In the crowd people shouted, ‘We’re with you Ginger Tom!’” Word said, shaking her head. “I’ve no idea why he liked the people calling him that, but he smiled and waved, and taking a baby from her mother’s arms he held her up and the crowd clapped and someone said, ‘Isn’t he great!’ as he gave the baby to one of the militia and said something to him. In full riot gear the militia man took the baby back to her mother who was holding her arms out but instead of giving the baby back to her mother he grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the crowd and took her off.”
“I remember,” Cat said, sores appearing.
“But still the crowd didn’t get it,” Word said, trying to move on and not think about what must have happened to the mother and her baby. “The Ginger Tom was a wild man with enormous power and people flocked to him.
“‘I’m bursting for joy when I hear him!’ a woman cried.
“‘He speaks his mind!’ a man said.
“‘I believe in him!’ a woman said.
“What was taking place was an insurgence,” Word said. “A natural phenomenon. He was giving people emotional satisfaction, exploiting the simmering tensions in society.
“The other side of the Ginger Tom is that he is a shark gobbling up everything he encounters and people don’t see it. They followed him blindly. They adored him.
“Other members of the Lunatic Eight were operating in other megacities around the world and young people knew less about them. But the opulent and immensely rich Ginger Tom lived in New York City. He controlled all of the commerce there. The Freaky Geek – the richest man in the world – worked on A-I until A-I worked on him. The Posh Boy from Eton who was also called the ‘Elitist Twit’ endowed the rich and ravaged the poor – he brought back feudalism. And Tricky Dickey, the Media Mogul –”
“What happened next?” Cat asked, glancing at Et.
“A Sick-Reaper was in the crowd and he went up and said something to the Ginger Tom,” Word said. “And the Ginger Tom looked straight at me and I was sure he knew I was the book he was looking for.
“The Ginger Tom pointed at me and said something to one of his bodyguards who was standing next to him in riot gear. I was terrified, but a man in the crowd started yelling ‘books!’ He shouted, ‘Only ignorant fanatics would destroy the wisdom in books! Truth is power! Your click bait’s not working!’”
“Brave of him,” Cat said, unsheathing her front claws to inspect them.
“He was brave,” Word said. “The Sick-Reapers had dogs but they lost interest in me. They looked at the Ginger Tom and he nodded, and then he turned and walked with his bodyguards – thug protectors – to a helicopter that was landing in Sheep’s Meadow. The man who was shouting ‘really bad people are destroying all the books’ was in his twenties, couldn’t have been more than thirty, muscular and strong. He fought back when four of the Ginger Tom’s thugs attacked him, but they beat him to the ground. Then they decapitated him right there in front of everybody in Central Park.”
“He was protecting you,” Cat said, standing by the Fire leaning on the mantle in her Bowie-Gaga psychedelic garb.
“You think?” Word asked, not taking any notice of Death’s insistence on self-expression to overcome her fear of herself – in other words her fear of dying.
“I do,” Death said, shrouded in a black gossamer cape of mourning. “He was a Truth Protector. His mission was to protect the last Truth Keeper – you – at all cost. He gave his life for you. I was there when he was decapitated.”
“So many people have died,” Word said. “I’m not sure any of us are going to survive.”
“Our political masters and the Lunatic Eight are omnipresent,” Death said. “The Ginger Tom, the Freaky Geek, the Posh Boy, and the others – wicked evil men. The A-I and Sick-Reapers – the Super-Recognizers – in their militias hack in and exploit human weaknesses to pacify people. Ultimately the goal is to return those who’re still alive to feudalism,” Death said, fixing the folds in her gossamer cape. “You’re the last great threat to them.”
“I keep thinking about what happened by the river,” Word said, shivering even though the room was warm and the embers of the Fire were radiating heat. “I had to make a decision and the choice was to face the men who’d caught me or jump in the river.”
“You survived,” Death said, appearing again as Cat. “They were vicious. If they’d –”
“– Don’t go there.”
“You’ve always known really bad people are following you,” Death said, softening what she was going to say. “But did you know I’ve been following you too?”
“Why?” Word asked, not getting it.
“Simple,” Cat said. “If I keep you alive many others won’t die.”
“Only if we are in time,” Word said.
Eighteen
“Split seconds are detectable,” Et said, reappearing in her Old Crone state and talking as if she’d been participating in the conversation. “It will not be long now before they have our coordinates.”
“Is X-it okay?” Word asked jumping up to give Et a hug.
“Yes,” Et said, with her claw hand up. “You cannot touch me!”
Word stopped short. “I can touch Cat,” she said, “why can’t I touch you?”
“It would be the end of everything if you did,” Et said.
“Let me explain –” Cat said.
“No time for that,” Et said, decisively. She looked at Word. “You asked about X-it. He’s sleeping. There are no intruders in his consciousness. I’ve done a sweep. Several installations, their A-I and Super-Recognizers have all been rendered inoperable, but others will quickly pick up the slack. Some will malfunction. All are on high alert. They know contact has been made, that you are still alive, and a global search has begun. No A-I or human Super-Recognizer can penetrate the room that you were in and in which X-it is now sleeping. But he cannot come out of the room until we are ready to return to the second in time when Death saved you.”
“Can I go and see him?” Word asked.
“No,” Et said. “You must have realized by now that he’s not actually in a ‘room’ – it’s just a useful metaphor – there is no way in because in your world it does not exist. But you’ve been there so you know he’s okay.”
“Understood,” Word said. “What happens next?”
“I want you to tell me the whole story,” Et said, and then, looking at Cat, “I want you to tell us what happened – starting from when you got off the bus. You were eight years old – How did you survive? How did you live?”
“But you know,” Word said, following it with, “Don’t you?” But it was not a question.
“After I tell you will you tell me who you are and what your purpose is?” Word asked. “My mother told me about you but it was a long time ago and if what she said is true –” she hesitated “– I’d like you to tell me.”
“I’ll tell you what you need to know,” Et said. “No more.”
“Understood,” Word said, sitting down on X-it’s chair. “Thank you.”
“Okay,” Cat said, jumping back up on Word’s lap “Let’s get back on – no off – the bus.”
“The storm knocked out all the sub-stations in the Gulf States and many of the backup generators,” Word said. “I heard someone on the bus say there were also program malfunctions and software errors, so the A-I’s were of no use and the Super-Recognizers were told to stop trying to fix their computers and go look for any Truth Keepers who might have survived the purge.”
“But their primary mission,” Cat said, “was to find the little girl with the backpack who had escaped from the compound.”
“Exactly,” Word responded.
Et pointed a crooked finger at Cat, “One more comment from you and I’ll make you sit in a corner!” The Four Corners readied themselves, becoming cavernous.
“We’d been travelling for a few hours,” Word continued, as Cat ignored Et and tucked her front paws. “When the bus was stopped at a
checkpoint with steel barriers, police or military in riot gear as if they were responding to a national security disaster and two Sick-Reapers got on the bus.” Word looked at Et and she had difficulty getting through the next sentence. “One was carrying my teddy bear that I’d left in the room when my mother told me to get my shoes on quick.”
Word stopped. Her eyes filled with tears and her breathing quickened. The embers of the Fire turned grey in sympathy and for a moment the Walls and Four Corners tied themselves up with black ribbons. Word sat stroking Cat until her breathing slowed and she got her voice back.
“In my mind I was putting on my shoes, running with my mother. I heard the gun, I saw her fall, and the library explode in flames,” Word said, almost in a whisper. Then her voice got louder. “One woman near the front of the bus started telling them she’d seen a young girl standing on her own in a line for one of the other buses, and a man sitting a few seats back said he’d seen her too. Then someone else said they’d seen a girl in another line with a backpack and that she must be the one they were looking for. I was so terrified I started retching and X-it quickly jumped up and Grann immediately started yelling that her granddaughter was sick.
“‘Git out the way!’ Grann shouted at X-it, leaning over and hauling me out of my seat as I retched again and started crying. ‘Bring that garbage bag!’ she told X-it as she took my hand and walked in front of me pulling me down the aisle of the bus retching. Just as we got to the row of seats where one of the Sick-Reapers was standing questioning a woman passenger, I vomited not only on myself but also down his leg.
“He cursed and Grann cursed him back, ‘Beck moi tchew!’ – Kiss my ass! – as she pulled me along, commiserating, ‘It’s okay baby, Grann’s got another t-shirt you can put on.’
“X-it followed with the garbage sack of clothes and Grann’s other plastic bags saying something like, ‘I don’t know which bag Grann needs.’ When the other Sick-Reaper stopped him and opened the big garbage sack X-it said he held his breath – partly because the clothes inside smelled so bad but mostly because my backpack was at the bottom hidden under the moldy clothes. The Sick-Reaper looked inside the plastic sack and I heard him swear ‘Jesus Christ!’ at the stench and he told X-it to get the garbage sack off the bus.
“The people on the bus must have vouched for us being Grann’s grandkids,” Word said, “and the military and riot police at the checkpoint must’ve presumed we’d been cleared, because they left Grann alone as she took take care of me. Then we started walking.”
“Was X-it also sick?” Cat asked, untucking her front paws and stretching them out so she could inspect her claws.
“He didn’t throw up but he had a really bad stomach ache for a couple of days,” Word said.
“Clever,” Cat said. “It was the pralines.”
“The one’s Grann gave us?” Word asked.
“She knew at some point she’d need to get you off the bus and what better way for a quick exit than a sick kid,” Cat said, this time turning her head to look at Word and giving her the best of her lopsided Cheshire smiles. “You cooperated by getting sick at the precise moment when the Sick-Reapers got on the bus!”
“Grann never told us she was a Truth Protector but she must have been,” Word said, looking at Et, whose skin now had a hint of blue.
Et nodded. “She was very special,” she said.
“You’d better fast forward,” Cat said, not wanting to dwell on what had happened to Grann. “There’s only so long Et can stretch a split second.”
Nineteen
“The journey from Baton Rouge to New York City was really fun,” Word said. “I know that must sound awful, but there was no time for me to think about what’d happened to my mother. She’d given me a mission – to keep the package in my backpack safe – and she’d told me I was the last Truth Keeper. I wanted to do my best to protect the package and I began to think of myself as a Truth Keeper.”
“A huge responsibility,” Et said.
“Millions of people were moving north away from the three hurricane states that had been devastated, not only by the storm, but also by catastrophic ‘accidents’ – the carefully orchestrated man-made destruction set in motion by the powerful global corporations that were morphing into our political masters.”
“More people lost their lives in those catastrophic ‘accidents’ than lost their lives in the storm,” Death said, trying to maintain her Cat persona, “It was very distressing. Exhausting really. I was overcome with grief but –”
“Yes, we know you suffered,” Et said, in a matter-of-fact, let’s-get-on-with-it-shall-we? voice. She looked at Word who, returning her gaze, was struck by how blue Et had become.
“We hid in full view of the Sick-Reapers who didn’t recognize us,” Word said, “Grann was questioned many times but we’d become a make-shift family and we behaved as if we had been together forever. Also, Grann had put my pukey t-shirt at the top of the plastic garbage bag,” she said smiling at Et, “and every time we were stopped by a militia or the police and Grann was told to open the sack they gagged, and calling her names that I won’t repeat they told her to close it up.
“Grann called them names and told us they were racist,” Word said. “She said she was Creole, that she could trace her ancestors back hundreds of years to the West Coast of Africa, that they were brought in chains to New Orleans and sold as slaves, and that their blood became mixed with the slave owners who raped her great, great grandmothers and her great grandmothers. She also said that one of her great grandfathers was French and that she had indigenous blood from the native tribes who inhabited the Delta.
“‘I am the Earth,’ she’d say to X-it and me. ‘My heart is the Delta and my arteries the great rivers that flow into the Delta and my veins the tributaries that flow through the wetlands and into the sea. But to those dumb Super-Recognizers I am just a stupid old woman.’ Then her eyes would become slits and her skin would get darker and she would look at X-it and at me and cussing she’d say, ‘They should be careful because even when she’s asleep this old black woman can out think them, and I am strong enough to wrestle ten of them to the ground’. Then she’d say, ‘Dead they’ll be if they mess with me.’”
“Better fast forward,” Cat said. “What happened when you got to New York City?” – adding – “Et’s in a hurry.”
“I know we don’t have much time but I want to tell you how incredible the people were who helped Grann get X-it and me to New York City,” Word said, looking at Et, who was totally blue.
“Stay in your feline form,” Et said pointing a long slim finger at Death, “or you will have no form at all.”
“First responders from across the country were establishing emergency shelters for evacuees who were moving north because of the total devastation of the southern states,” Word said, hurrying on. “But we avoided all shelters and food kitchens. Grann said we’d find another way to get to New York. So we stayed with families Grann knew and travelled in cars with northern license plates, keeping off the highways that were jammed with trucks travelling south carrying huge drainage pipes, electrical generators, and heavy duty building materials.
“There was one stretch of highway that we couldn’t avoid, and so we travelled north as the trucks travelled south in a jam that stretched for hundreds of miles.
“Grann pointed out that the company names on these trucks were the global corporations owned by our political masters. She had us keep a tally and X-it and I counted the trucks and played a game to see who could spot the most corporate logos – but there were only five. It’s important because it was the first time X-it and I made the connections between the hunting down of the Truth Keepers and the Lunatic Eight – the rich and powerful men who took over the world just a few years later.
“When we stopped at a diner,” Word said, moving on, “Grann would order pancakes, coffee and milkshakes for X-it and me, and she’d talk loudly about the family reunion we’d just come from in North Car
olina. She’d get out her digital camera and show photographs of a family gathering that had taken place the previous summer, explaining she didn’t have any photos this year because of the ‘storm and all.’
“She’d say, ‘There’s Dee-Dee’ – which was the name she gave me – ‘Dee-Dee is that you? No, there you are!’” Word smiled. “There were so many children in the photos it was impossible to tell one from the other. They were all much of a muchness as far as skin tone and there were several little girls that could’ve been me.
“We learned when we reached Baltimore that someone on one of the other buses at the Walmart checkpoint and transportation hub near Baton Rouge had reported seeing me, and the driver of our bus had been interrogated and he confessed he’d known I was on the bus. We were told they’d killed him on the spot and a hunt was on for the other people on the bus. But Grann told us they were her people and they would never find them because once we were off the bus they left too. One by one they doubled back into the Louisiana bayous to help with the clean up as if they had been volunteering all along and never been on any bus.
“When we reached New Jersey we stayed in Newark for several nights in an abandoned three story house that had been boarded up because it was unsafe. The families who lived there only went in and out at night through a window in the back of the house.
“There were meetings and heated arguments about my insistence on returning to Manhattan,” Word said. “I argued there were a hundred thousand homeless kids in the city, most of them brown or black, light skinned as well as dark, and that X-it and I’d fit right in.”
“Kind of different,” Cat said. “Don’t you think?” Cat said. “You were eight years old but you could already speak, read, and write in multiple languages and in multiple sign systems, ancient as well as modern. You might’ve looked like them but you were not one of them.”
