Afterburn, page 6
“I got dragged down to CC in the middle of the night,” he said. “They’re all wondering why.”
“What did they want?”
Alton debated telling him the truth, but then he would have to explain his connection to Alex. And he wasn’t ready to reveal that. Not even to Simon.
“Miller wanted to know if Lance is planning anything now that Hagen has announced his grand return. Someone must have seen us talking yesterday.”
“And is he?”
Alton nodded. “And he wants our help. The Civvies, I mean.”
Simon snorted. “Of course he does. We’re race traitors until he needs something from us.”
“Somehow Lance knows that a garrison is coming to beef up security,” Alton continued. “He wants to try to steal their transport. He wants us to help him get inside the CC so he can be waiting for them.”
“That garrison could show up at any moment.”
Alton nodded. “Thus his urgency.”
“What did you tell Miller?”
“Nothing. Fuck him.”
“Have you considered it?”
“Telling Miller? Of course not.”
“No, I mean helping Lance.”
He gave his friend a please-tell-me-you’re-joking look.
Simon picked up a folded letter from his desk, shook it from its envelope. “From my wife,” he said. “Breaking the news that she has been considering leaving the country. With Hagen back on the warpath, I’m sure she’s all but decided.”
Alton grimaced. “We won’t get out anytime soon now.”
“Probably not,” said Simon. “And Sarah has family abroad. She’s tired of being alone. I don’t blame her. So am I.”
“I’m sorry. It’s a shitty situation,” Alton said. “But I don’t think helping Lance escape is your ticket to reuniting with your wife. I can’t imagine what could be worse than this hellhole, but if you fail, I’m sure you’d find out.”
Simon put the letter back in its envelope. “You’re right,” he said. “Just desperate thinking on my part.”
Alton felt relieved. He reached for the pen and took another drag.
“But your midnight meeting with Miller wasn’t the topic of conversation today,” Simon said.
Alton raised an eyebrow at his friend.
“There’s a rumor going around that you’re . . .” Simon paused, seeming to struggle with the words. “That you’re of . . . Hispanic descent.”
Despite the warmth of the Med-Shell, a chill ran through Alton.
“I’m sure it’s just some bullshit,” Simon continued. “Made up by—”
“It’s true,” Alton said. “My father is of Mexican descent, but I only met him once, a long time ago. He could be dead now for all I know. My mother raised me . . . if you could call it that.”
“She was white?”
“And proud of it. She would have fit in great here.”
“But how did this get out?” Simon asked. “And why now? You’ve been here almost since the camp opened.”
“It’s got to be fucking Miller,” Alton said. “Pressuring me to tell him what Lance is up to. Put me in danger, then be my lifeline in exchange for information.”
But how the hell did he find out? Or has he known all along, just waiting for the right time to use it? Miller was a small man, easily threatened. Maybe he wanted to punish Alton for witnessing Áquilar’s humiliation of him. Put him back in his place.
“Just tell Lance that Miller is spreading lies because you won’t rat him out,” Simon said. “Lance will appreciate you having his back and get the Neebs to heel.”
Alton nodded, but he wasn’t so sure. Suddenly, it was too warm, and he felt sick. He slid off the table and retrieved his jacket.
“I’m sure this will go away,” Simon said. “But be careful. This is not the time to make a wrong move.”
That goes for you too, Alton thought, and he went out into the cold night.
Later, he lay awake trying to figure out how his background had suddenly become public knowledge after all this time. It must have been a part of his record that Miller didn’t discover until he went looking for dirt after Áquilar’s visit.
If Alton had known that was why the Nibelungs had been shooting daggers at him all day, he never would have sat with Oliver and the others at dinner. The last thing he wanted was for them to be in danger because of him. If the Neebs believed he was Hispanic, what a primo target he would be.
He hardly breathed, listening for any sound. Two or three testosterone-and-rage-fueled young men could break his ribs before the guards in the cage even looked up from their brandied coffees. He had to piss, but what if they were waiting to ambush him at the urinal, bash his head into the porcelain?
After a while, the rain started to spatter lightly on the barracks shell, relaxing him a bit. Eventually, he slept, but it was the second night in a row that he did so very poorly.
CHAPTER 9
It was even colder the next day as he made his way to breakfast, churning with nerves. The wind snapped at him like a chained Rottweiler. A storm amassing to the east was poised to unleash a heavy downpour later.
He felt fuzzy, and his head ached. He would go to the classroom after breakfast and crash in his safe space for a few hours. He was supposed to teach tonight, but he didn’t know if it was a good idea given the circumstances. Anyway, he wasn’t remotely prepared.
The chow hall fell silent as he entered, but he pretended not to notice the hush, or the six baleful faces who had obviously not come for the oatmeal (in fairness, few did, he thought). As he made his way down the line, even the servers glared at him, slapping the food onto his tray.
The Civvies, including Simon and Oliver, were at their usual table, but Alton took a seat by himself near the door. He gulped a few bites, filled his coffee mug, and got the hell out.
He didn’t make it ten yards before he turned to see the six men from the Chow Hall following. Better to try to talk them down out in the open, with people watching, he thought, but they were already closing fast.
He dropped his mug to shield his face, yelping as coffee scalded him, but the blows never came. Instead, they grabbed him under the arms and steered him toward the equipment shells, shoving him inside the nearest one and slamming him down into a rusty wheelbarrow.
“Take it easy, goddammit!” As he tried to right himself, he scanned the dimly lit space for weapons. The steel grappling hooks and the rubber hammer and stakes they had used to repair the fence post hung from the wall opposite him. The nylon rope was piled in a corner. Then his eyes fell on Lance, be-throned on an overturned bucket. Crow squatted next to him in the darkness like a gnarled jester.
“Thank you, my brothers,” said Lance. The minions filed out, disappointed, clearly believing their service had earned a seat to the show.
“What the hell, Lance?” Alton massaged his bruised armpits.
“Let’s not play games. We know you know what we know.” Lance chuckled, amused at his own wordplay. The jester sniggered in response.
“And it’s complete bullshit,” Alton said. “Look at me. I’m whiter than you. Somebody is trying to screw me over.”
“Who would screw over Prof? Everybody love Prof! Civvies, guards, even Nibelungs! Prof is the great enlightener!”
“You tell me,” Alton said. “You run this place.”
“I don’t run Central Compound. And that’s where Prof was two nights ago.”
“They dragged me up there to ask me about you. And I didn’t tell them shit. Even when they threatened to torture me!”
“It’s true they haven’t come for me yet. But maybe you help them set a trap.”
“Why would I help them? They’re as much my enemy as they are yours.”
“Get rid of Lance, and you can teach the men whatever you want,” Lance said. “With no one to stand in your way.”
“That’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do! I’m trying to get them to think critically, not to indoctrinate them. That’s your tactic.”
Lance sighed. “It doesn’t matter if it’s true. All that matters is that everyone believes it. And now time is up. We need to take Gypsum tonight. You have special privileges. You can get those gates open.”
“I don’t have the access you think.”
“The doc, then.”
“You’re going to put Simon in danger after everything he’s done for your men?”
“I don’t want to see him hurt. Or you. But the cause comes first. The cause always comes first.”
Alton nodded at Crow. “Mr. Hacker can’t get the gates open?”
“I’ll bypass the transport controls once we get on board,” Crow said. “Until then, you know as well as anyone there’s nothing here to interface.”
It was true. Except for the 3Dias, the prisoners’ area was as analog as a thirteenth-century dungeon. No electronic back doors to exploit. Only the literal kind, like the one Alton had discovered.
“Even if we fail, I will make sure everyone knows these rumors are lies,” Lance said.
Áquilar had said something similar. Just try! You’re likely to die, but we’ll appreciate it!
“Think of it this way,” Crow said. “If the Nibelungs get fired up to fight the cockroaches and don’t get a chance, they’ll need an outlet. And you’ll be the only cockroach left to squash.”
“I’ll get your gates open,” Alton spat. “Clearly, I have no choice. But doesn’t it bother you that the rumor about me might be true? How can you trust a half-breed cockroach?” He glared at them both.
Lance grinned. “Help me and you’ll have proved that you’re as white as you need to be.”
Alton just shook his head. He wasn’t remotely surprised.
He lay in the dark in the Ed-Shell and berated himself. He had literally thrown his way out of this situation over a cliff. At least if he had left with Áquilar, he could have tried to escape at some point.
Because despite what he had just promised the lunatic, he would never help Lance. He had aided Alex’s cause once, and the only reason he didn’t give him up to the authorities back then was because he was afraid Kiara would hate him for it.
He would never make that mistake again, but how the hell was he going to get out of this?
Lance had instructed him to hold class that evening so that everything seemed normal. He felt unexpectedly sad, realizing it might be his last time teaching. He had begun offering the class to maintain some kind of normalcy and a connection to his old life, but he had also hoped to open up the men with ideas, depth of feeling, empathy. Maybe he could give them some notion of how to lead better lives should they ever get that chance.
Once he had proven the value of the class as a steadying influence on the Nibelungs, he was able to convince Miller to give them the cheap electronic reader tablets. With more content available, he began to expand the curriculum.
If he gave them a few novels by white men, he could get them to grudgingly accept something by a woman. In place of racial diversity—which they would never tolerate—he had slipped them authors who might criticize or satirize white hegemony. He had assigned The Quiet American for that reason, hoping that they might respond to the novel’s moral clarity.
But maybe he should never have started teaching in the first place. Doing so had gotten him into the mess he was in now. Maybe he should have kept his head down. Or maybe he should have taken the one choice available to him and hurled himself into the gorge. He could still do it now—rush out the back and take a dive into the abyss.
But a line from the novel intruded into his dark thoughts: You cannot exist unless you have the power to alter the future.
If he ceased to exist now, he would never find out if he could keep making a difference, even in his small way. He wasn’t dead just yet, even if he felt like he was.
CHAPTER 10
At the gates, he said, “I want to see Miller.”
The guards gazed on him with suspicion, then contempt, before one of them trudged off.
As he waited, he watched the advancing storm, praying it wouldn’t delay his pickup and flight out of there . . . if he could even still arrange it.
After an eternity, the guard reappeared and led Alton to a warehouse at the edge of the landing platform where Miller was supervising a bustling reorganization—probably making room for the soon-to-arrive troops and equipment.
“Yes, intern?” Miller snapped, without looking up from the virtual manifest floating before him.
“Áquilar told me to tell you when I was ready for her.”
Alton wondered if the commandant had heard him until he flicked the manifest toward a subordinate and said, “Come with me.”
Alton’s heart flared as he followed Miller. Would it really be this easy?
Outside, gusts blew grit into Alton’s eyes, while Miller dropped his protective face shield.
“Let me ask you something, intern. How long do you think she’s going to last in this administration?”
Alton’s heart sank. So, the bastard wasn’t going aid his escape after all.
“You were just in there,” Miller said, gesturing toward the Intake Center. “Despite what she instructed, I’m never going to shut it down. Guerrero is going to win reelection on an anti-terror campaign. Your buddy Hagen just made sure of that.”
Alton’s teeth chattered in the cold. Or was it fear?
“It’s true what I said,” Miller continued. “We haven’t used it in a while. Which means that it could probably stand a test, in case we need it, with all this fresh insurrection in the air. Should we test it on you?”
“That might scare me if I had anything to lose,” said Alton. “But you know I’m fucked either way.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You made sure the entire camp found out about my background.”
“About being childhood butt buddies with Hagen?” A tinny little snort echoed beneath his face shield. “Why would I advertise that and turn you into a celebrity like Lance? The last thing I need in here is another peckerwood folk hero.”
“Not that. My racial background.”
“Your what?”
“That I’m half Mexican?”
It was obvious he had no idea what Alton meant. The creep wasn’t clever enough to be a good liar. Then it dawned on him, cold and white, like the morning after an apocalypse.
It had been Áquilar who had spread it to the camp to put Alton in danger with the men.
So that he would have no choice but to use her as his escape hatch. She was taking an awful chance that the Nibelungs wouldn’t tear him to pieces first. He had just been lucky that Lance needed his help, which was the last card he had to play.
“I have information about Lance,” he said. “Once my transit is arranged, I’ll tell you what I know.”
“I’m not helping that bitch,” Miller said. “Even if it’s in my own best interests. What does she know about homeland security? She’s not even from the homeland.”
Alton stared at him. The racist fuck was no better than the Nibelungs.
“Torture me, then.”
“On second thought, I suppose Señora Due Process was right,” Miller said. “We can’t abide rendition in a democracy, can we?” He signaled two nearby guards. “Put him back in.”
“What do you think is going to happen to you if she finds out you didn’t help me?” Alton said.
“Nothing,” Miller said as the guards grabbed Alton roughly under his arms. “I’ll tell her you died at the hands of your fellow interns when they discovered your true identity. Cockroach.”
The gates rumbled closed behind him. He looked around to see who might have been watching, but everyone had fled indoors. Lightning sizzled and thunder boomed. The eastern sky was so black with thunderheads it seemed as though night was already upon them.
He had to be in the classroom in twenty minutes. He hustled to the Med-Shell as the wind whipped droplets in his face. Simon wasn’t there, so he double-timed it to the barracks. Not there either. He fought down his panic.
He was frantic by the time he finally found Simon alone in the chow hall with a cup of tea, writing a letter. He looked up as Alton slid in across from him, breathless and disheveled.
“You need a tranquilizer, my friend?”
“Lance is blackmailing me into helping him escape tonight,” he sputtered. “He’ll have his men ready to charge the gates as soon as I give the guards some pretense to open them.”
“And it’s a perfect night for chaos with that bastard storm coming,” Simon said.
“He told me to hold class so that everything seems normal until they’re ready to pounce. But I have an idea how we can avoid helping him and not get swept up in this.”
“I’m listening.”
“I know a way outside of camp.”
Simon raised an eyebrow. “And how long have you been sitting on this particular nugget?”
“We can’t escape that way, or I would have already told you about it. It leads to a sheer cliff drop. But we could wait out there, then sneak back when it’s all over. Claim we were hiding somewhere inside the camp.”
When Simon didn’t respond, Alton said, “Unless you’re really thinking of helping them?”
Simon sighed. “No. But what if Lance calls off the attack when you don’t show up and they can’t get into the compound? We’ll be the only two missing.”
“I think he will try something, no matter what. If he misses this window, he can’t join Hagen for the final battle or whatever. He’s not going to pass up that chance at glory. It’s all he lives for.”
Simon rubbed his whiskers as he took it all in.
“I understand if you’d rather not chance it,” Alton said. “But I have to. They’re going to kill me otherwise.”
“Have you considered that your safest course of action might just be to help the Aryan bastard? Run for cover as soon as it kicks off?”
“And be responsible for his reunion with Hagen? No way.”
Simon nodded. “All right then. What do you need from me?”
