The Altonevers (24 page)

“
So you're from up there?”
Cider asks offering a smoke, which he does to people he's recently
met in case they find his smoking impolite, they'll be more
reluctant to say anything if he was polite enough to
offer.

“
Yes from above the halo is
my home,” Rojo says.

“
Do you know a way out?”
Cider asks.

“
Oh yes that's well, very
simple, very very simple,” Rojo says. The two are now at the edge
of their seats, leaning in closer as he draws them in with an
intentional pause.

“
You have to take an
establishment vehicle. It’s the only way to go up fast enough,
otherwise it takes so long just to get to the tops of this,
fragmented floating metropolis. A prison that it will shift and
move you away.”

“
Are all these people
trapped down here like you?” she asks.

“
They were like me. Their
forebears were, but with generations of cultural stagnation,
muzzled in this subtle puzzle they've been placed in to struggle
against one another, they’ve been washed of any thought of
camaraderie. They've forgotten why they'd been cast here, or that
they even have been cast out in the first place. A population of
minds that have gone dull with complacency, knowing only their own
full stomachs and not of others, their sisters and brothers,” Rojo
says, shifting in his seat and spitting to the ground with a
disgusted face. His head is filled with distasteful thoughts,
thinking of his people’s defeat by their own apathy, destroying one
another for their own feeble advance.

“
Like we are the animals of
a coliseum for their amusement or something,” he spits again as he
speaks.

“
What will you do?” Anna
asks “If you can't escape, and you can't fight them
alone.”

“
I'm not alone. The only
way is, like I said, to keep the coals burning of our ancestors
struggles and spread the warmth in words to reignite their
passions. To spur them to remember what freedom felt like,” Rojo
recites loudly. Speaking in an unrelenting soul expressing tone.
His whole demeanor straightens and he jumps from his seat, putting
his right hand to his heart and spilling the hot cup of tea down
his chest. Unfazed, enraptured in the thought of reawakening the
masses, his people. He stops speaking but she can tell by the
intense look on his face that the speech continues in his
mind.

“
Excuse me,” Cider
says.

“
We must be valiant in the
face of their totalitarian grip and destroy their false ideology of
dominance, make them feel the repercussions of our suffering. The
suffering of a once thriving society entombed.”

“
Excuse me,” Anna says
interrupting him from his overzealous entrancement.

“
Oh yes, excuse me,” Rojo
says.

“
It's fine but…,” she
says.

“
How do we get a car? one
of those establishment vehicles?” Cider asks
insistently.

“
Ah I know, no worries
friend. Tomorrow, tomorrow you will get a vehicle, but that
depends,” Rojo says as sits shaking his head.

“
Depends on what?” he
asks.

“
I'm sorry to have to
bargain, but you will have to help me with something.”

“
We should help him, he's
fighting for something good,” she says with enthusiasm, “what do
you need help with? spreading the word, writing pamphlets, handing
out fliers?” she asks. Cider rolls his eyes as Rojo says “No lovely
voiced girl, though I like your purposeful thought”

“
What do you need help
with? Help us, help you, help us,” Cider says.

“
I've been following a man
making runs from a cluster house on the north end. By tomorrow I
will be ready to take him, there will only be a few people there
with him,”

“
And what’s the score for?”
he asks.

“
Two hundred pounds of pure
sola powder,” Rojo says.

“
How you gonna carry that?”
she asks.

“
With your help. We need to
get it to the base level, the Shallows. That's where the place is
open pavement and the streets are wider. Then we need to jack a
bus.”

“
Why do we need to jack a
bus?” Cider asks.

“
To draw the authorities to
it, as a diversion. While we are on the highway I’ll jump out of
the back doors onto a car going in the opposite direction. Crashing
into the windshield to be carried away with the score as you two
drive the bus to where there's a bridge over a large lake. Stay low
when the bus is in motion, they will be shooting at you, and you
should probably shoot back,” Rojo says.

“
And then what?” she asks,
doubtful of his plan.

“
Drive the bus off the
bridge into the lake. The two of you jump out of the front and rear
doors just before the bus hits the water. Then swim away to escape
into the storm drain system.”

“
That sounds like a plan,”
Cider says wiping his hands.

“
Yeah I think we can do
that,” Anna agrees.

“
Good it's settled then,”
Rojo says happily.

“
Oh but when do we get the
vehicle,” he asks.

“
Afterwards we’ll regroup
at my apartment, then we’ll trounce one of the patrols they've sent
to sniff us out, and your home free,” Rojo says.

“
What time do you want to
start?” she asks.

“
When you wake up come to
this address. It’s a Laundromat, there are rooms in the back. I'll
be where we keep the munitions and paper,” Rojo says handing them a
scribbled on matchbook.

“
How far is it?” Cider
asks, not really wanting to walk too far.

“
Just a ways walk down to
the Shallows, what we call street level, and follow the avenue
directly below. Left for six intersections and make a right for
four more, I hope to see you there. As for now I was just making a
dinner of rabbit stew,” Rojo says, reaching out to Cider for a
handshake to solidify their pact. Realizing his palms are still
bloodied and pulling back.

“
We'll see you there,”
Cider says sipping mint tea.

“
Take care,” Anna says,
waving as Rojo slips through the window and back to his own place.
They wait a minute before closing the door behind him.

“
Do you think that's gonna
work?” she asks.

“
I don't know, either way
what else can we do, sooner or later they'll be asking for the room
bill,” he says.

“
I meant about his other
plan.”

“
Who knows? that's his
fight, were just passing through alright,” he says.

“
Yea but…,” she
stammers.

“
Why? are you struck by
him,” Cider says in a teasing tone.

“
He seemed to be very
nice.”

“
Yeah, nice to you. I bet
not so nice to the establishment.”

“
You’re just jealous
someone’s flattering me for a change.”

“
You wish,” he says
dismissively.

“
I hope the next place is
better.”

“
We have to get there
first.”

“
It is beautiful though,”
she says waiting for him to ask.

“
What is?”

“
That he's living for what
he believes is right.”

“
Is that how that goes?
Watch out when it comes to local politics. You don’t know their
motivations, it’s often a quick way to draw heat. Were just passing
through, remember, unless you wanna get stuck here.”

“
Nope” she quickly
replies.

Running through
holes

The next day the two descend down
dozens of ladders, stairs and catwalks to the dimly lit streets
between cement pillars and parking lot like cavities of the
Shallows. Barely passing any people, who all seem shifty or
shiftless, always turning their heads away from the sporadically
placed street lamps. Which themselves hardly keep to the
surrounding shadows away, giving the feeling of being in the woods
at night’s moon light. He reaches for her hand to hold, seeing the
fright creeping through her face, her eyes open wide scanning
around uneasily. She takes his hand, and grips tighter. He's happy
to feel her arm at ease, relieved she’s eased by his side. They
stride more confidently, side by side, until they come to the
avenue Rojo wrote for them and make their right turn. Above is a
colossal crag of open air clean through the ceiling of the
fragmented floating city, spanning the entire depth of its skylines
stratospheric height.

Shining through to down below from the
open sky they can see clearly the poverty of the imprisoned
peoples. A few hundred feet ahead of them there's a salmon colored
car sitting under a street lamp, stopped by a traffic light. The
man inside seems to be waiting patiently, when another man slips
out from under a structure and runs unseen through the intersection
to the driver's side with a shotgun. With the flash of the barrel
and the crash of a small cannon the man’s head is smeared on the
windshield and seat. The shooter ruffles through the man’s pockets
and vanishes into a dark lot a second later. The smoke of the man’s
cigar leaks through the shattered window as he lays lifeless across
the passenger’s seat as they walk past.

The inside of the Laundromat is dingy
with flickering overhead lights and filled with mostly broken
washing machines. The few still running are spinning and cracking
discolored linoleum tiles as they stomp in circles. They reach the
back room to a door that's been kicked off the hinges. Cider draws
his guns and presses against the wall as she fumbles with her
piece.

“
Ready?” he whispers
stealing a peck from her cheek. By the time she has her weapon out
he sweeps through the door. She steels herself to follow, to
silence the rampant racing thoughts of fear and panic. Focusing
only on her breathing and physical senses elevating sensitivity.
Inside a TV shows a screen of static, lighting the cracks on the
ground and holes broken into bullet battered walls. There's a buzz
of a broken radio that’s been smashed to pieces, and a crude bulky
typewriter beaten to bits on the ground. Along with a bed, paper,
guns, ammunition and explosives thrown around.”

“
This seems like the right
place,” he says, their noses are clothed in Rojo's musk, the smell
of the sola leaves mixing the same mold permeating everywhere in
this place.

“
Smells like it,” she
says.

“
A perfume for a man,”
Cider scoffs. The bed is gutted and the furniture's smashed to
splinters. The fireplace is filled with the embers of a half burned
pile of paper, and there's an open window with its curtain wavering
in the wind.

“
What do you think happened
here?” she asks.

“
Somebody was looking for
something, or someone,” he says.

“
I think we should get out
of here.”

“
We can't afford to have
frogs to close to our pond,” he says “but first let me just
see.”

“
What?” she
asks.

“
What's in the fridge,
start grabbing some guns or something, bullets! get those,
pocketfuls. Make sure there…”

“
The right ones, yeah,
yeah,” she says, looking around the room for nothing in particular,
just absorbing the shattered scene she's standing in. Nervous,
trying to wind down the adrenaline of her entry, trying harder not
to flinch or shake with the gun in her hand.

“
Cider,” she says. No one
answers, adding to her feel that something has went wrong here for
somebody, likely Rojo, she thinks.

“
Cider, stop stuffing your
face. I don’t like this place. I want to leave...Cider!” Hearing
nothing but a repetitive pip pip pip…sound of drizzling humidity
collecting and dripping onto the window sill. Seeming to her to be
set against the pace of her anxiously racing humming bird
heart.
Anna stalks toward the kitchen with
her gun drawn, and trembling in her hands. There are two open
doorways to the kitchen. She picks the one to her left, furthest
from the fridge, which she can see through the other door with no
Cider rummaging through it. On the verge of hyperventilating, as
quietly as she can she pauses at the cusp of the doorway. She
sweeps around the corner and freezes in an awkward shape. Leaning
with her shoulders off balance and the gun twisted in her left hand
to meet the blue suited Ribbit with his gun pointing down at Ciders
head.

“
Freeze!” the Ribbit
commands with all of his authority.

“
Shoot him,” Cider says,
laying face down on the ground.

“
Shut up or I'll blow your
head into the linoleum,” the Ribbit says before busting the inside
of Cider's cheek with a kick from his polished brown
shoes.

“
Ha, that's against the
law,” he laughs, spitting red onto the linoleum.

“
Real smooth, huh punk. We
got you this time.”

pip pip pip pipip pip....