After the Revolution, page 16
“Alright,” Roland sighed. “But only ’cuz you said ‘fancy space drugs.’”
They flew to Rolling Fuck in Jim’s heli-craft. It had been military issue originally, but the interior had been redone to Jim’s tastes. That mostly meant a lot of velour and a full wet bar. There were four beers on tap, just to the right of a double-barreled 35mm grenade launcher mounted beside the door. Roland drank for the duration of the ten minute flight.
“You know,” Jim said, “Topaz lives there now. Been with the city a while.”
“Topaz?” Roland asked.
Something shuddered in his gut. He felt his hippocampus flicker with the dim light of recognition. He saw that face again, the woman from so many of his dreams and a few of his shattered memories. So that was her name. It felt right, now that he knew it again.
“Do you remember her at all, Roland?” Jim asked, his voice uncharacteristically tender.
Roland nodded and swirled the beer in his hands to buy some time.
“I remember snatches of her,” he said. “I remember loving her. I remember enough that it hurts sometimes. Mostly it hurts that I don’t remember enough to be as sad as I oughta be.”
There was a spark of real sorrow in Jim’s eyes. The other man’s hand twitched in a way that made Roland think he might’ve been about to reach out to him. But Jim kept his hand to himself.
“I’m not sure how much I should say,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
There was something in Jim’s face when he said that. It resembled regret, or guilt. But it passed quickly. And nothing else was said during the flight. They landed on one of the top spires of Rolling Fuck, on a landing pad that doubled as a nude bar. He and Jim grabbed another round of drinks before they proceeded down, through the infinite party that was the City of Wheels and onto the top of the main roller. They grabbed another round of drinks there and sat at the bar table while Jim waited for the word to go down.
It was late afternoon by this point, and evening had started to close in. The normal boiling Texas heat was cut by a cool breeze. White clouds rolled in above them. Roland’s hindbrain told him there was, at best, a 12 percent chance of rain. But the clouds were still welcome. He and Jim drank in silence for a few minutes until the other man tapped his shoulder and said, “They’re ready for us.”
They stood, a bit unsteadily, and headed toward the ladder down into the main roller. They reached the ladder just as two other people came up it, a man and a woman. The man’s face triggered a flurry of memory fragments: fighting back to back in the choking streets of Baltimore, drinking heavily on the edge of a canyon in the Arizona desert, charging a riot line with pipes and hammers in their hands. A name bubbled up from inside the memories.
“Mike!” he shouted before he really thought about it. “Hey brother!”
Skullfucker Mike froze. Roland was already halfway to a hug when he realized Mike wasn’t feeling it. And then he caught his first good look at the woman coming up the ladder behind him. She had short-cropped teal hair, damascene fangs, and eyes so loud he could almost hear her thoughts. Topaz.
“R–” she started to say his name and then her voice caught. He heard the ghost of tears beneath it, and then she finished, “…Roland.”
“Yes,” he said, not sure of what else to say.
“Do you remember me?”
“No,” he admitted. Part of him wanted to lie. But he couldn’t. The broken scraps that remained of his love for her made it impossible. So he gave the honest answer, and he watched her die a little inside.
Topaz nodded. She closed her eyes for a second, bit down on her bottom lip, and then she put a quick hand on Mike’s shoulder before she walked away, up one of the gantrys and into the chaos of night in Rolling Fuck.
Roland looked to Mike.
“I’m sorry.”
Skullfucker Mike smiled sadly back.
“I know, buddy.”
And then he left too. Roland felt confusion and a distant hurt. He had a feeling that he should have been crying. But, for some reason, he couldn’t. And so he didn’t. Instead he took a fistful of Oxycontin and stumbled down the ladder, following Jim.
Rolling Fuck’s conference room was sumptuous, elegant, and surprisingly professional. Two old people sat at the far end of a conference table. Roland had a vague memory tingle of having met the man before, long ago, but neither of their faces brought a name to his mind. Jim introduced them but their names fled his head a few seconds later. In fact, the first minute or two of conversation flowed around him in an indistinct haze.
That may have had something to do with the softball-sized mass of Oxycontin he’d eaten as he’d climbed down the ladder with Jim. Roland had assumed the drugs would help him focus through the boredom. Apparently he’d miscalculated.
“So,” the old lady said with a hint of finality, “that’s the situation we’re in. Are you willing to help us?”
In response, Roland blacked out. Just for a few seconds. He was awoken by the thud of his head hitting the conference room table. Fuck that’s good Oxy. He wished he could remember where he’d gotten it.
“Oh dear,” said the lady.
“He’s fine,” Jim sighed, “but we’re probably going to need to start over.”
The lady brought him some coffee and re-introduced herself as “Nana Yazzie.” Thanks to the coffee and Roland’s clearing head, her name stuck this time. It was hard not to marvel at her age, and harder still to stop his hindbrain from calculating how much longer ’til her human heart gave out.
Roland smelled cancer on the old man. Not serious cancer, nothing basic medicine couldn’t handle, but all the same the odor that wafted off him brought Roland a sort of primal discomfort. Or maybe it was the old man’s eyes that made his guts warble. It was hard to say. There was something disconcerting in the way he looked at Roland.
“Roland!” Jim shouted. Roland shook himself out of the haze and refocused on Nana Yazzie.
“Sorry,” he grunted.
“It’s fine,” she said, and set into her spiel again. She showed him pictures of her captured friends, Tule Black Elk, Rick Hartford, and Marigold Fulton. She explained the dire situation in North Texas and the Doom that marched toward Waco and Austin. It was a sad story, but not one that compelled Roland to action. Other than Topaz and Skullfucker Mike, the citizens of Rolling Fuck were total strangers to him. Austin was just another little ailing Republic in a continent full of them.
“I’m sorry for your people,” he told her, “and I’m sorry for Austin. But I really don’t see how any of this is my damn business.”
Jim took those words as his cue.
“Tule and Topaz are close,” said Jim. His voice was low, his tone smooth as silk. “Like sisters, from what I hear. Marigold vouched for Topaz and Skullfucker Mike when they joined the city. She’s all fucked up over this.”
“From what I hear,” he added.
“So let her do something about it then,” Roland muttered. “She’s got enough chrome to choke a river. Shit, this city’s got enough monster-people to burn the Eastern Seaboard. Why do you need me?”
“Because the Martyrs aren’t stupid,” Jim said. “They’re scanning for chrome, for biomods, for everything but the shit you’ve got. Because no one left alive is packing the shit you’ve got.”
Roland grunted again, his nostrils flared. There was something strange about the words Jim had chosen. No one left alive. Had there been others? He knew his mods had come courtesy of the old U.S. Defense Department, but he didn’t remember which unit he’d been a part of or what he’d done. There was a bit of memory, hazy and fragmented, that popped into his dreams from time to time–
He was stuck inside a long, cool metal pod. The cold black of space unfolded around him. Roland felt warm bodies to his left and right, smelled the comforting scents of Men He Trusted. Red lights blinked above his field of vision. Something tugged at his belly, there was a powerful feeling of inertia–Roland closed his eyes, leaned forward, pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned just a little bit. When he came back up Nana Yazzie stared at him in confusion. Jim looked, perhaps, worried? It was hard to tell with that guy.
“What’s going to happen if I don’t do it?” he asked Nana Yazzie.
“To you? Nothing.”
Roland shook his head. “Not to me. What are you guys going to do if I don’t help?”
“Oh,” she frowned. “I suppose we’ll have to mount an assault. Send in a small team, four to six commandos, and try to pull them out.”
“It’ll be bloody,” Jim said.
The old man frowned at that. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but the lady put her hand on his and gave him a significant look.
“That’s true,” she said, “it will be bloody.”
Roland felt a twinge of anger, but he couldn’t blame Nana Yazzie for trying to manipulate him. The lives of her friends were on the line. Roland knew himself, though, and he knew that missions like this always went wrong. If he took this job Roland knew he’d take more lives.
“You’ll save lives by being there,” Jim insisted, smiling. That fucking smile. Roland was sure that smile had tricked him into dumb, violent things in the past. “You’re the only one who can handle this with a minimum of death.”
Roland didn’t believe that and, at the same time, he had to admit it was technically true. He just didn’t trust himself, or reality, or Jim. And yet–
“I’ll do it,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll regret agreeing to do it, but whatever. I’ll do it.”
Jim looked satisfied with himself. Nana Yazzie looked relieved. The old man looked, somehow, angry?
Most of Roland’s reason for agreeing to help came down to Topaz. He hated to admit that, even to himself, but it was true. The thought of her in pain twisted something in the center of his heart. He wasn’t used to pain there and his tolerance was pretty low. This is so dumb, he told himself, you couldn’t even remember her name this morning.
He and Jim and the old woman shook hands on the deal. Then they let him loose in their city, to imbibe and fornicate and test the limits of his wetware.
“We have things to plan,” she said.
Chapter 12
Sasha.
The Lord did not mean for Sasha to be a cleaner. That was her first big lesson as a citizen of the Heavenly Kingdom. She was good enough at it, and she had too much self-respect to complain, but the work felt so unrewarding that she knew it must not be what God wanted for her.
She’d spent her first night in the Kingdom being pampered and provided for by her fellow Sisters in the Faith. They’d fed her, cleaned her, found her fresh clothes and given her all the emotional reward she could have ever wanted. And then the next day Helen had woken her up at seven in the morning to help clean out an old Republic barracks that was being transitioned over to housing for soldiers of the Heavenly Kingdom.
She knew it was honorable work, she knew it was necessary work, and she knew from the issues of Revelator she’d read that establishing the Kingdom of Heaven was a job that would not be accomplished easily or without pain. She’d accepted this when she’d made the choice to venture down here. But by the time she’d scrubbed her twelfth toilet of the day, Sasha had decided that her mind and her loyalty were better used elsewhere.
Oddly enough, something her father had told her about the corporate world stopped her from whining.
“Never complain, never speak ill of your colleagues, and always ask if there’s more work you can do.”
It had been his advice to survive and thrive in business. But she took it to heart here, and by the end of her first full day in the Kingdom she’d scrubbed more toilets than any other girl. She hated the work, but she also took a perverse sort of pride in it. That brought a little guilt, because she wasn’t here to serve her pride. But also, wouldn’t the Lord God be happy to see her commitment?
I’ll ask Helen about that, Sasha told herself. She’ll tell me how much of my pride is justified, and how much isn’t.
She didn’t see Helen again until the end of that day, when a truck came to gather up all the girls and take them back to the House of Miriam. They all washed up and then sat together around a large oaken table while Helen led them in prayer. She read a chunk of the book of Isaiah and then gave a quick lecture on the value of physical labor (“Each callous on your hands is a kiss from God”) before inviting them to tuck in.
The dinner wasn’t luxurious by Sasha’s standards: just biscuits, a thin brown gravy, and a palm-sized slice of beef for each of them. But they had oranges for dessert, which was a treat, and Sasha felt more comfortable than she’d ever have believed among her new sisters.
Caroline had fled from Florida, North America’s Banana-est Republic. She’d been shot in the arm making her way to the Heavenly Kingdom. She said almost nothing—Sasha wasn’t sure she even spoke English—but Caroline worked hard. There was an intensity in her eyes that was a little scary and humbling at the same time.
Then there was Susannah, from the Blackstone Nation. Sasha couldn’t help but notice she was the only Black girl there. Susannah had spent most of their work day singing to herself. She had a beautiful singing voice.
And then there were the three other AmFed girls: Emmeline, Rosie, and Anne. They’d all left a few weeks before Sasha had made her own journey. Anne had actually gone to the same middle school as Sasha.
She wasn’t great with names, so most of the other girls in her group were still more of a collection of smiling faces than real people at this point. But they’d all been so warm to her. There was a real effort, from all of them, to make regular physical contact. They put hands on each other’s shoulders and cheeks. They hugged constantly. Sasha experienced more touching in her first twenty-four hours here than she’d experienced in her last five years in the American Federation. There was something intoxicating about being touched and feeling so cared for.
The only girl she didn’t like was Mae. Like Sasha, Mae was within spitting distance of age eighteen. She’d fled from the UCS and she had a gift for letting everyone around her know when they fell short of God’s standards. During their work day she’d spent more time policing the other girl’s posture than she’d spent scrubbing toilets. When Anne had hitched up her shirt sleeves, it was Mae who’d scolded her for immodesty. When Susannah took off her shoes and socks during their lunch break, Mae had yelled that she was “an unfair temptation” to the young soldiers walking by on the street.
Sasha knew it was unfair and definitely unchristian to feel this way, but Mae LOOKED like someone who lived to tell other people what to do. She had the pinched features, squinting eyes, and high-pitched voice of a born snitch. Mae kept her hair tied up in a bun so tight and short it looked military. She never smiled and never seemed to relax. And there was something about the frenzied way she’d pray, alone, quietly in the corner throughout the day that made Sasha leery.
She hated that she’d noticed those things. She knew God didn’t want her focusing on what other people were doing wrong. And besides, she told herself, what are you really angry about? That she’s TOO serious about her faith? Isn’t that why you left home?
“Gluttony is a sin too, you know,” Mae said.
Sasha realized with a start that Mae had addressed her. She had been eating her orange and, absent-minded and tired after a long day of labor, she hadn’t realized how messy she’d been about peeling it. Her hands and sleeves were covered with the sticky juice. She looked around at the table and noticed that the other girls had been much more careful with their desserts.
“Sorry,” Sasha started, “I wasn’t thinking…”
Mae rolled her eyes and started to say something else, but Helen cut her off.
“It’s quite alright, dear. None of us is perfect,” she cast a reproachful eye at Mae, “…and we all lose ourselves in thought sometimes. Especially in the wake of great change. The Lord understands.”
She looked out to the rest of the table with a gaze that seemed to take in each of the girls collectively, and individually. Then she spoke.
“We are all here because we recognize the primacy of God’s word on earth. But we are no more perfect, and no more beloved by our Lord, than the enemies we face. Never forget that girls. Our foes are as dear to him as we are. They must be purged when they seek to interfere with God’s will, but we should feel sorrow for such losses. And we should never, ever,” her eyes went to Mae again, “let our fortune in hearing God’s word bleed us of compassion or lead us to arrogance.”
Sasha’s heart swelled at this. She’d never admired a woman more. Helen had a way of imparting wisdom without judgement, of shining a light on the truth without seeming like it was her truth alone. Helen wasn’t a preacher, but Sasha had never heard anyone speak the word of God with more conviction.
After dinner they had an hour of free time to read their Bibles, share a few stories of their old lives, and drink a single cup of sweet lemon tea. By nine o’clock it was bed time. Sasha was rankled a bit by the fact that she and her fellow young women were being ordered into bed at a set hour. But she was so exhausted by her day of labor that she couldn’t work up much frustration over the mild injustice. Perhaps when she’d had more time to adjust, she’d bring this up to Helen.
She collapsed in her bunk bed certain she’d fall asleep in an instant. Instead she lay awake for the better part of an hour thinking of Alexander. She’d still heard nothing more from him, or about him. She’d asked Helen a couple times today and the older woman had almost seemed angry. Somehow Sasha knew the anger wasn’t toward her, and that was doubly confusing.
“Sasha?”
Anne’s voice broke her reverie. The other girl was situated just below her on the bunk bed. Sasha was surprised to hear her, still awake.
