Weeping Justice

by Jennifer Froelich

  We crash in a room that seems free of encroaching flora or fauna. Riley takes the bed near the window; I take the one near the door, falling asleep almost immediately and staying that way until the sky is dark again. Riley is still sleeping, so I creep outside to take care of some business and walk the perimeter of the lodge, getting a feel for the place before the light is completely gone.

  “Hey.”

  I nearly jump out of my skin.

  “Sheesh, Riley! You scared me to death.”

  “Sorry,” she says, but her eyes are glowing. I swear, she still gets a kick out of unsettling me. “You were lost in thought.”

  “Just imagining this place the way it was. The way it could be again.”

  She turns in a circle. “You mean, for the Resistance?”

  “Or refugees.”

  She nods. “Yeah. That’s what I see too.”

  “I’ll tell General Kelly about it in my next report.”

  Riley nods. “Which we can hopefully send tomorrow. From Slick City.”

  “In the meantime, are you hungry for breakfast?”

  “Are you offering to cook for me?”

  I pull one of Claire’s breakfast bars out of my pocket. “Sure. Here you go.”

  We turn and head back toward the lodge. As soon as we step into the hallway, we hear a distant explosion.

  18

  Riley

  Another explosion sounds in the distance. Reed and I freeze in the lodge’s dark hallway.

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know. Come on.”

  We retrace our steps through the room, trying not to trip over furniture in the dark as we peek out the broken sliding-glass door. A third explosion makes us duck our heads back inside, which is stupid, actually. It still sounds far away.

  “I can’t see anything through all the trees,” Reed says. “But at least whatever’s happening, it’s not here at the resort.”

  “Maybe we can see something from the other side of the lodge.”

  We go back through the room, pass the elevator bank, and emerge into the lounge with the floor-to-ceiling glass doors leading onto the veranda. It’s almost completely dark outside now, and I can hear rustling noises in the tree that has grown into the bar area through the broken window. I tell myself it’s just a bird, but what if it’s a raccoon? Those things scared me even before Claire taught me about the diseases they carry—diseases that make the Contagion seem like a kind death by comparison. I hurry by and walk outside, kicking debris aside and ducking under branches. Still, so many trees crowd the edge, I see nothing. Another explosion sounds in the distance.

  “That sounds closer,” Reed says from somewhere behind me. “Can you see anything?”

  “No.” I push past another branch and consider the stout tree behind it. “I’m going to climb higher. Maybe I can see more.”

  “Wait. I’m coming too.”

  I don’t wait. He can catch up. Another explosion sounds in the distance and I begin to climb, testing each branch before hoisting myself up to the next one. Soon sap is sticking to my hands, releasing an amazing fragrance I still have not grown tired of, despite all our days spent in the wilderness. I don’t have to climb far. Just a few branches above the veranda, I find a wide gap in the trees, providing a clear view of the lake, the valley, and the river that flows beyond, disappearing into the trees and canyons on the other side. Only a few seconds later, I see something sparkle in the sky at the other end of the valley, something beautiful that matches the now-familiar explosive sound.

  “Oh!”

  “What?” Reed comes up behind me.

  “Look over there,” I say, scooting down the wide branch. “It was like a flower made of light in the sky, with red branches—oh! See?”

  Another one lights up the distant sky, this one bright gold, with spiraling ends that jump from the tip of each explosion, like embers floating away from a campfire.

  We see the next one ascend from the ground in a yellow arc, exploding lower than the other two, but in blue and red. Another one follows it, spiraling like a green comet through a sky now filled with smoke. It blows toward us, smelling acrid but not unpleasant.

  “Fireplay. No, fire…fire…” Reed shakes his head. “I can’t remember what they’re called, but I’ve read about them. They were used for celebrations in the past. Holidays and special events, especially big, patriotic ones. Wait. What day is it?”

  I lost track of days in the woods, then again at Claire’s cabin while Reed recuperated. But after the UDR patrol, Claire was a stickler for knowing the date, so sure that every day we stayed was another day we risked being discovered by a UDR patrol.

  “It’s July fourth,” I tell him.

  A smile lights up Reed’s face. “I was right. The Fourth of July was America’s Independence Day.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes! What? You think I made it up?”

  I shrug as another explosion lights up the sky, this one on the other end of the valley. “I guess I’m just thinking about the UDR’s Fiftieth Anniversary. These dates might mean a lot to people in power, but it’s just another day to me.”

  “America was different, though,” Reed says. “It was a body of people who declared themselves independent from England. And that’s what the Fourth of July was: the day they signed their Declaration of Independence.”

  “Still,” I say. “They were far from perfect, right? I mean, we’ve been taught all kinds of things about the hypocrisy of America’s founding fathers. Saying that all men are created equal while you own slaves, and while your wives and daughters can’t vote or own property, while you’re killing Indians whenever you want their land—that’s the grossest hypocrisy, isn’t it?”

  Reed nods in the darkness. “Yeah, but that’s not the whole truth. The Declaration of Independence was signed by fifty-six men. Some were slave owners, others were abolitionists. They didn’t all think the same way about slavery, women’s or Indian rights or practically anything. But they believed in the concept of freedom. The words they wrote: ‘All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.’ Those words are completely true and Good, even if the group of men who signed them were not.”

  Another firework lights up the sky, bathing us in golden light. I think about what Reed said and somehow it reminds me of something Baba told me long ago after he and Mama got into a horrible argument and spent more than an hour yelling at each other. I went to Lexie’s room and hid in the crook of her arm until their tempers subsided and Baba came looking for me. I buried my face in a pillow, too angry to look at him while he apologized.

  “Your mother and I exchanged vows when we were married,” he said. “Beautiful words. Promises of love, patience, and forgiveness.”

  I peeked out from behind Lexie’s pillow, wiping my tearstained cheeks. “So are you liars? Don’t you feel that way anymore?”

  He sighed then. “Of course we do, habibti. But we are human, as well. Selfish, fallible, and unreasonable from time to time. I wish it were not the case. I wish the words we believe were the words we lived by every day, but it just doesn’t work that way.”

  “It should,” I said stubbornly.

  “Yes.” He patted my hand. “And your mother and I will keep working on it. Just remember this in your own life, Riley. When you grow up and find love. Those who break wonderful promises don’t invalidate them. If the words are good and true, keep working to keep them, even after you have failed.”

  Reed and I sit quietly for the next half hour, shoulder to shoulder, watching the beautiful bursts of color exploding from different places.

  “I suppose whoever is setting them off is moving so they don’t get caught,” I muse.

  Reed nods, keeping his eyes fixed on the sky. “It’s still a huge risk.”

  “Mm. Must be important to them.”

  A final sequence of explosions blasts through the air, li
ghting up the sky in a climax of color. Within a few minutes, it is over, leaving us to scour the sky until there is nothing left to see but smoke fading in the moonlight.

  “Fireworks,” Reed whispers. “That’s what they’re called.”

  “They’re beautiful,” I say. “I can almost imagine…” I stop because there’s suddenly a lump in my throat.

  Reed waits a minute. “Imagine what?”

  “What it must have been like for our ancestors, sitting in the open with friends and family. Watching fireworks, celebrating freedom—probably taking it for granted. Never knowing it was all about to end.”

  Reed takes my hand in the darkness. “We’re going to get it back, Riley. Bit by bit. Someday we’ll celebrate freedom out in the open again. And on that day…”

  This time his voice trails off. It’s too dark to know for sure, but I think it might be thick with emotion too. “You’ll watch fireworks like this with your family. They’ll be free, Riley. I swear it. First Lexie, then your parents. If there is anything I can do to make it happen, they will all be free.”

  19

  Xoey

  Tears sting my eyes.

  “Paisley?”

  Sam ignores me. Pulling his headphones back on, he bends over the ancient radio, his face crumpled in concentration. Jasmine waits patiently while he listens, but a million questions buzz through my mind.

  How is she? Where is she? Is Oliver there too? What about Kino?

  After several minutes of shifting from one foot to the other like Oliver, then biting my nails like Reed, I decide to go wake up Adam, which is what Riley would have done first. I practically skip through the tunnel, taking each corner by memory, circling cots, doing my best not to step on the fingers of those who are sleeping on the floor. When I reach Adam, he is snoring. I squat by his bedside and shake him.

  “Adam, wake up! Sam found Paisley!”

  “What? Where?”

  “Come on!”

  Adam jumps out of bed and we run back to Sam’s bunk, my heart pounding the whole way. It still feels like a dream. One that is too good to be true. I’m afraid when we turn the last corner, Sam will be sleeping, and I’ll realize that’s exactly what it was. Instead, his headphones are off and he’s staring at the wall. Jasmine has her hand on his shoulder.

  “Tell us,” I demand. “Where is she? How is she?”

  He turns to me, his expression stricken. “She’s in the war.”

  “The what?”

  “The war?” Adam’s question overlaps mine. “Do you mean she was sent to the frontline?”

  Sam nods. His eyes are welling up with tears. He rubs them away.

  “At least we know she’s alive.” I meant it to be reassuring, but Adam’s expression darkens, asking, Yes, but for how long?

  I cannot help wondering the same thing. Battle images from old movies are easy to conjure. Bombs exploding, bullets ripping through flesh, dead soldiers littering a field pockmarked with mortar craters. When we were at Windmill Bay, Kino, Haak, and even the teachers were constantly threatening to send us to the frontline if we didn’t cooperate, conform, disavow. It was a more sinister threat than the work camps, where we might starve or freeze to death. Honestly, we were already starving and freezing here. But being sent to the frontline, handed a weapon, and ordered to shoot members of the Resistance? It was the worst fate imaginable.

  Still, it was a fate we knew awaited us. Eventually, everyone who does not rehabilitate will be sent to a work camp or conscripted into the army. And none of my friends showed the slightest inclination toward indoctrination, especially Paisley, whose parents were killed while collecting food for her family in the Red Zone. She was shot too, only surviving so she could be “rescued” and brought into the UDR system for indoctrination. I try to picture her with a gun in her hands, but the image vanishes before it even takes form.

  Paisley killing rebels? No. I cannot imagine it.

  “How did she communicate with you?” Jasmine asks.

  “Morse code.” Sam sniffs. “She’s working as a comm tech on the frontline. There’s a radio frequency we talked about back at…back here. I fiddle with it sometimes. I didn’t know, though. I didn’t know she would use it, but she did!”

  “That’s amazing,” I say.

  “But if she gets caught, she’ll—”

  “Did she say where she is?” Adam interrupts. “Specifically.”

  “Here.” Sam thrusts his tablet at Adam. “I translated the Morse code. Just read it.”

  He gets up and starts pacing the tunnel while swinging his arms at his sides, which is something called stemming. I had to look it up to understand why he does it. How it helps him cope with stress.

  Adam and I huddle together on Sam’s bunk so we can both read Paisley’s message at the same time. It reads:

  SAM R U THERE NOT AT HOUSE COMM TECH AT FRONT 38.0271 N, 117.8901 W RETURN 0900 1500 PH

  “What are the numbers?” I pass the tablet to Jasmine.

  “Longitude and latitude.”

  “PH is for Paisley Hart?”

  “Who else would know Morse code?”

  “Did you respond?”

  Sam shook his head. “It’s a relay loop. I can’t respond until 9 a.m. or 3 p.m. or she might not be there.”

  “We need to wake the general,” Jasmine says.

  When we tell General Kelly about Paisley, he immediately sends a message to the commander of the battalion fighting in that part of the Dirt. Then he presses us for more information about Paisley. Who she is, what she’s like, where she’s from. How loyal she might be to the Resistance.

  Adam quickly gets irritated.

  “We don’t even know if she got away with sending the last message to Sam, and now you want her to risk more communication? For what? So you can know troop numbers?”

  “I understand your concern, but this is too important to let go. If handled properly, she never needs to send us anything beyond the frequency of her communication channel. Our operatives can pick it up from there.”

  “That’s risky enough,” Adam says.

  “She’s on the frontline, where life expectancy is short for everyone,” the general says. “And she’s the one who initiated contact. Don’t dismiss the risk she took in doing that. Every move she makes is risky at this point.”

  “Then can’t we rescue her?” Sam asks.

  The general doesn’t answer, but his look says enough.

  Storms chase each other across the sky tonight. Thunder booms overhead, followed by lightning, heavy rain, and hail that beats down on the building above us, making everything shake. Every time a trickle of dust falls from the ceiling, fear wells in my chest. Adam is trying to preempt my full-blown panic attack by sharing a stack of ancient CDs he found yesterday. It’s a good distraction—something to focus on while the storm rages overhead.

  “This was never banned.” I show him a Nirvana CD. “So why hide it down here?”

  “They probably didn’t wait for something to be deemed objectionable before they started hiding stuff. Floodlight wrote that the Hate Speech purges began in the late 2020s, right?”

  “Yes. She compared it to a witch hunt.”

  “Right. So people were burning books on live feeds, smashing CDs—even breaking into the Library of Congress to destroy records so the music on them could never be reproduced. Hashtags like #eradicatehate and #hatespeechisnotfreespeech were trending for months, but there was no restraint. Everything was suspect. Lyrics were dissected and anything deemed objectionable was destroyed. If I had the chance to rescue books or music back then, I wouldn’t have stopped to analyze it. I’d have just grabbed everything.”

  I nod. “That makes sense.”

  Another lightning strike rattles the floor above us, sending a trickle of dirt on top of Adam’s head. I flinch and my fingers fumble with the CDs in my lap. They spill off the bed and land on Sam’s head.

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry, Sam!”

  “It’
s okay.”

  I gather the CDs and set them aside, but it’s not okay. I’m not okay, and it’s not just the storm that has me rattled. I haven’t been okay since learning we will not be rescuing Paisley.

  Actually, it’s been longer than that. I have been uneasy ever since visiting Xu at the Med Center yesterday. I keep picturing him in that bed, a haunted look in his eyes as he asked for forgiveness—forgiveness I withheld.

  If you don’t forgive others of their sins, God will not forgive you of yours. I close my eyes. My sense of peace is gone, along with my hope. Hot tears settle under my eyelashes. For another hour, the storm rages. When stillness settles over us and the all-clear sounds, I excuse myself, taking the stairs two at a time until I am outside, gulping down fresh air. Overhead, the clouds are clearing, letting the moon shine on the Med Center stairs. I turn away and follow the storm out to the fields.

  “As I was saying, when Jez Rodriguez said our Liberty Bell was fake, I decided to talk to the general.”

  Quyen slaps Ozzy on the back. “Way to take charge!”

  Several people laugh, but not Ozzy. “This is serious, guys. Listen, the general asked Dr. Dixon to examine the Bell—tell us if it’s real. So how about it, doc?”

  Dr. Dixon clears his throat, making me jump. I didn’t realize he was sitting right behind me. He’s a microbiologist Jasmine introduced us to at Fort Unity, telling us how he escaped from the UDR after a study he conducted didn’t align with EPA standards. I’m not sure how a microbiologist is qualified to authenticate the Liberty Bell, but murmurs and doubts have been spreading through our ranks ever since Jez’s broadcast, so I am interested to hear what he says.

  “First, I went to the dark web, studying images of the real Bell and all the replicas I could find. Any of you could do the same. You’ll notice differences right away. Some bells are intact, while others have attempted to replicate the famous crack. But they never get it just right. The yokes that hold up the bells are the biggest difference, though. Most look nothing like the original. Even those that are similar aren’t exactly the same.