Carmine: Rise of the Warrior Queen

by Alan Janney

  I growl, “Also, schedule a private meeting with the Priest. Soon.” Kayla’s not really my assistant but she often assumes that role.

  “He’s being an irritant again, I assume?”

  “He still exists. So yes.” I wipe dust from my eyes and ears with the wet towel. The dark-haired Devotee enters with an iPad and I say, “Go.”

  The Devotee reads from the iPad. “Yes Miss Carmine. You have class with Littles at one. You’re meeting with settlers in Santa Monica at three. You’re inspecting the southern barracks afterwards. And Nuts wants to show you the filtration plant today, if you have time.”

  Kayla chirps, “A slow day. Yay!”

  “Tell Nuts I’ll see his filtration plant some other time.”

  “Yes Miss Carmine.”

  I ask, “What is the Governess doing today?”

  Kayla shrugs. Her sweet fragrance is subtly saturating the apartment. We might as well be standing in a field of wild flowers, and my Devotee is clearly trying not to watch her. “Doing what she always does. Keeping this place running.”

  “Any Cheerleader sightings yesterday?”

  “I don’t know.” Her face pales; Kayla is petrified of the the Cheerleader, nicknamed the Fire Girl. She’s a Variant who lives around here, a special project of the Chemist’s, driven completely insane. From what I hear, even the mighty Infected tread lightly around her. I’ve never met her, and consider her something of an urban legend. “Would you like me to find her? General Brown might know.”

  “No. It’s fine. Only curious.”

  “The Priest texted. He asks if you can meet some other day?”

  I bite down a snarl and pull out my phone. Priest, if I have to come find you, you won’t like it. 2:30.

  That guy infuriates me.

  “Carmine…” Kayla takes my hand and holds it up so we’re both looking at it. “Wash your hands, sweetie. This blood is super icky.”

  “Yuck,” I agree. Herder blood.

  The Devotee asks, “Miss Carmine, would you care for food?”

  I move into my bedroom and answer over my shoulder, “Chocolate. And whatever fruit we have.”

  My apartment used to be a luxurious space. Two bedrooms, a full kitchen, a living room and dining room, two bathrooms, and lavish furniture. I care for none of it. Now the rooms are cluttered and muddy because I don’t let the Cleaners in. I wash my hands as Kayla reads headlines. I partially listen to her news report, and partially wonder how Nuts keeps water running on the 22nd floor of a high rise. The water stains red before draining from the basin. I ask, “Any articles about us?”

  She replies, “Not that I see.”

  I grunt in satisfaction. New Los Angeles is no longer daily news. I used to spot planes and drones circling the sky, but they vanished a month ago. Citizens beyond our borders are fascinated with the Kingdom, but the armies, full of their own trouble, have forgotten us. Maybe we’ll survive yet.

  Kayla helps me out of the hoodie. “You’re in pain. I’ll fetch your ribbons.”

  I undress down to my Under Armour stretch underwear and jogging bra, and examine what I see in the full-length mirror. This is a daily routine, an effort to remember.

  My history remains mist and shadow. Periodically I remember distant names and faces, but of myself and my friends and family there is nothing. Katie Lopez is like a childhood story I half-remember, events which happened to someone else. There are swirls of emotion, though, sometimes so intense I can’t breathe.

  Photos of Katie are taped to the edges of my mirror. She was a beautiful Hispanic girl, happy and innocent judging by the pictures. She had long thick hair, deep brown eyes, and she was soft like pretty girls often are. I would have enjoyed being her.

  The girl I see in the mirror now, Carmine, is different. I’m comprised of sharper edges. Stronger, harder, and leaner. My eyes changed to a green hazel. The beautiful brown hair was shaved off for surgery sometime in February. Now I keep the sides short and the top is a tangle that doesn’t reach my eyes yet.

  Kayla returns and says, “Stop frowning, Carmine. You are lovely. I’d kill to have those abs. Or legs.”

  I wipe my eyes and shake off the panic which threatens to return whenever I probe my lack of memories. “My hair is growing too slowly.”

  “You demand too much from yourself, even from your hair.”

  “I wonder if she’d like me.” I pull on black leggings and a tight black tank-top.

  “Who?”

  “Katie Lopez.”

  “You are Katie Lopez,” she smiles to herself. “Just an enhanced version. Arms out.”

  I stretch my arms and Kayla begins wrapping my wrists and elbows and ankles and knees with red strips of silk. My joints ache, probably from the surgery and the subsequent growth spurt, and I’ve discovered that compression helps. Previously I wore thick braces but Kayla protested it made me look brutish and un-ladylike. So now she wraps my joints with layers of red silk, covering much of my forearms and calves, a tight sash for a belt, and even binds my chest with the material. My Devotee comes to help and when they finish I am in much less discomfort. The cool material compresses and secures the aches.

  “There,” Kayla remarks with pride. “I just love this outfit.”

  My Devotee agrees, “Very sexy, Miss Carmine.”

  “It’s dramatic. Bold. Fitting for the most dangerous woman on earth.”

  “It’s comfortable,” I sigh with my eyes closed. “That’s what matters.”

  “Can I take a picture of you? For public relation purposes? You look pretty and striking, and it’ll help erase mental images of your bloody hands. Please?”

  “Under no circumstances.” I don’t like the way they’re examining my body so I pull on a vest too. “I mean it, Kayla.”

  “Too late. Just did. And you already have six hundred Likes!”

  - Three -

  80,000 people live in our Kingdom. 9,500 of them are under ten years old, so we’re establishing schools and putting Teachers to work. Children attend school two days, work with their parents or guardians one day, and get a day to rest and play. Then repeat.

  Again, not perfect. But it’s effective. School systems have shut down in other parts of the world, terrified citizens hoping the government will solve their problems and refusing to budge until that occurs. Not here. Here we work. Hard.

  Dalton and I walk to the Ninth Street Elementary School, a boxy and colorful campus. As usual, we accumulate a following en route. We arrive at the school with an entourage over a hundred strong and Dalton is agitated. I can’t have a conversation with a hundred people, so I raise my fist and say, “Stay with me! Stay together! Stay alive!”

  It’s my common and well-known obeisance to the people of New LA, and they return the salute as one.

  I visit schools twice a week and read stories. Students anticipate Story Hour weeks in advance, and compete for the privilege of summarizing previous books for me. Today I perch on a wooden stool in a stuffy cafeteria and face one hundred and fifty students between the ages of four and seven. I read two Junie B Jones books to a captive audience which laughs in the right places. I wonder how thoroughly teachers coached the kids on proper etiquette but even if the polite attention is artificial I don’t care. It’s bliss; a simple story solved in twenty-five minutes. How perfect.

  Afterwards I get group hugs, and I praise the teachers until Dalton waves for my attention. Time to go.

  The mob outside Ninth Street Elementary has swelled to two hundred. Men and women. Old and young. Black and white and every other beautiful shade. Mixed in with the mass are a handful of Variants; Guardians I detect but can’t pinpoint. Dalton rolls his eyes and pushes us through.

  Dalton isn’t genetically modified. He would die quickly against a mutant. I pointed this out months ago and he said, “I killed Variants once. In a tower. Before you came along. And I’ll do it again if I have to.” He told me he wouldn’t use his pistol; he’d drop grenades. I’m glad he’s on my side. As
always, today he’s wearing a tight red t-shirt, bulging at the biceps, and a shoulder holster.

  Most of our followers are in their twenties. Seventy percent of our population is older than eighteen and younger than thirty. Millennials like me. Disgusted with the government, willing to experiment, try something new, take risks, take a chance on our Kingdom, take a chance on the Guardians. On me. Their safety rests on my shoulders like a yoke, and I bear their hopes and fears every day.

  Stay with me. Stay alive. Easier said than done. I hope I’m strong enough. Deep breath. Another. I can do this.

  We pass a market on the way home, tables full of scavenged goods. One table catches my eye and I stop the entire procession to peruse a collection of books.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Dalton mutters in my ear.

  “Text the Priest. Tell him we’re running late.”

  He curses. Dalton hates texting.

  I say, “Do you read fiction?”

  “I do not.”

  “Here.” I push a Baldacci book into his hands. “It’s about war and masculine absurdity and stuff like that. Read it and report.”

  He curses again, and I spend a few more minutes browsing. Somehow I’ve picked up a dusty hardback. I didn’t mean to. I read the title, “Cinder.” A young adult book, kinda girly, not really my style. But. I keep it. Maybe Katie Lopez liked this stuff.

  I also select a book on government and a book by John Maxwell on leadership. The awestruck Vendor silently accepts my thanks and I stuff the books into my backpack.

  * * *

  The War Department sprawls across the entire 26th floor. It’s the one area in the building we allow a constant electrical consumption. Our Techs installed servers and satellites and cable access and computers and televisions and radio antennas and everything else we need to coordinate with the outside world.

  The Priest waits for me there, staring at the Maps, hands clasped behind his back. Projected onto several walls are the entire North American continent, America, America’s southwest, and our city.

  The Great Migration is still underway. Millions flee the increasingly totalitarian, militaristic government. Millions more flee towards the stability and safety it provides. Not since the Civil War have lines been this clearly demarcated.

  “So much chaos. A hypocritical nation reaping what it sowed,” the Priest mumbles, staring at America. Or what used to be America. Now it’s a segmented mess.

  The Federal Governments still controls the entire eastern coast, Florida to Maine. The people hide behind their military, spooked and fascinated by the Variants, unaware the strongest of them all hides in the Oval Office.

  A maniac named Walter and his band of two thousand Variants and ranks of gunmen rule Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, the northwest corner of America.

  New LA, our Kingdom, is sixty miles long and thirty miles deep, from San Fernando to Irvine. Downtown Los Angeles is our capitol. 1,800 square miles along the Pacific Ocean, a little larger than Rhode Island.

  The Resistance is strong in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Utah, and Oklahoma.

  The middle of America (Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, etc) is essentially under martial law, the metropolises and localities surviving on their own, building fences and checkpoints as rapidly as possible. Food and water sources are tightly guarded. Semi-trucks travel with armed guards.

  A modern day Wild West.

  It’s not the Apocalypse. But it still could be. The United States, fractured and burning, no longer exists as a single entity. The survivors aren’t broken but they’re shaken.

  I’m not satisfied yet; I’ve got my eye on San Diego and Santa Barbara, which have both emptied and given control over to renegades. Fine with me. If the residents want to forfeit their resources then I’ll recapture the cities from the lawless brigands and turn the land into safe sanctuaries. The people think they’ll find safety East, but they only find wars.

  “We will survive the chaos. We won’t fail.” My voice sounds loud in the dark quiet room. The Techs are pointedly staring away from us.

  “Admirable confidence, Queen. What makes you so sure?”

  “Because, Priest, I can’t fail. I won’t fail these people.” I’m frustrated and hissing at him between my clenched teeth. “The price of failure isn’t death. It’s captivity. It’s servitude. For all the Guardians, and all these people. No one is taking New LA from me.”

  “From you?”

  “From me. From us.”

  “Perhaps if I took a greater role in the management—”

  “You weren’t summoned here for a promotion, Priest. This is a warning.”

  “Carmine,” he smiles with the look of a patient father. “Let’s be reasonable.”

  “I gave you a position of power because-”

  “You gave me? I was under the impression New LA was ruled by a three person Council, and the Council appointed me.”

  “Interrupt me again and I will dangle you out the window,” I snarl. My pulse pounds in my ears. The people follow him because of his supreme confidence, charisma, and conviction. But right now it’s just smugness. God help me if I ever come across this way. “I gave you the Overseer position because you brought so many of your followers into our Kingdom. I thought you must be a capable leader.”

  “Likewise, my Queen.”

  “But I’m starting to think maybe you had followers because you were simply the craziest patient in the asylum. Understand?”

  He makes no response, other than smiling with his hands clasped.

  “You made too many mistakes. You don’t get to make decisions. We have the Court for that. Your pathetic show in the Assembly today was an example of how not to lead. One more misstep and I will personally drive you to our boundary and leave you in the wild.”

  No response.

  “Understand, Priest?”

  “You are wise, Carmine, and I will do my best to accommodate your preferences.”

  I twitch. I am so close to hurling him from the tower. He is a cancer. A weak link. If I was stronger, if I was a better leader, I’d remove him now. But removing him would cause ripples. Ripples we can’t afford yet. “Get out.”

  “I’m returning to duty,” he responds as though he hadn’t been given a direct order. “Please alert me if you need anything else.”

  I slam the door behind him so hard it cracks. The Techs jump in their chairs. I hear Dalton’s voice in the hall, “We need another damn door. That’s the third one this month.”

  * * *

  Dalton, Kayla and I leave Downtown on the Ten in a Toyota Land Cruiser. I drive. I always drive, and I can hear Dalton grinding his teeth. He hates riding shotgun. We head west on an interstate mostly cleared of abandoned vehicles. A second SUV full of Law Keepers trails behind, and a third and fourth SUV bring up the rear, hauling supplies.

  Law Keepers don’t have the disease. They aren’t modified. But they’re former military or law enforcement, and I trust them with firearms. Usually I travel with Mason and his Falcons, an elite squad of trustworthy Guardians, but they are scouting problem spots in south LA today.

  We pass thousands of empty houses. Hundreds of vacant office buildings. A mind-boggling surplus of riches. Dalton and I are brainstorming solutions to the growing population of severely mentally ill when Kayla gasps from the backseat. “Whoa! Big news!” she cries.

  “What?”

  “Walter emailed me!”

  I nearly crash. There is only one Walter. Born with the disease, bent on burning the world. I control the majority share of the Variants, and he has much of the rest. Walter is the biggest threat to our existence. Intelligence reports indicate the President and his Blue-Eyed mistress funnel money and supplies to him, bankrolling our destruction. They want to rule the world, and I stand in their way.

  “What’s he want?” I growl.

  “He demands a parlay with you. And he’s almost here.”

  Dalton asks, “Coming by plane
?”

  “Train. He arrives at San Fransisco tomorrow and will wait for an escort before continuing south to the station near UCLA.”

  I muse, “I’m surprised the lines are clear.”

  “I think a train ride sounds romantic.”

  “This smells like a trap,” Dalton says.

  “How many are with him?”

  “He’s alone,” Kayla replies. “Do you want to meet?”

  Gears in my mind begin churning. “Probably. Call General Brown. And the Governess. The advanced warning gives us an advantage. Do you have photographs?”

  “Not yet. Searching.”

  Why would he do this? Walter coming alone. It makes no sense. I muse, “We could destroy the train. He’s committing suicide.”

  Dalton says, “Maybe he knows you. Knows you don’t operate like that.”

  My hands tighten on the wheel. “Or maybe he can’t be killed that easily. Contact Mason. Tell him I want Falcons on standby when the train pulls in. If they sense a trap, they are to demolish it.”

  I don’t know why Mason chose the name Falcons for his squad but somehow it works for him. He can call his team whatever he wants; the citizens love them and the Variants all want to be a part of his elite group. They’re good.

  “Understood.”

  He begins murmuring into his phone, and I ask Kayla, “How do you know Walter’s alone?”

  “I heard from several sources.”

  “Who?”

  “Just people.”

  I glance into the rear view mirror. She said it too quickly. Kayla is blushing and staring hard out the window.

  I grin. “Is PuckDaddy your source?”