The Sunshine Dame of Doom (14 page)

At the power plant, Aaron tried to patch up Clark’s wounds as best as he could, using the few bandages at his disposal, with the help of Maria. The young man told them his sad experiences with the guards beating him up. Everybody in there had similar stories to tell.

“After they spanked me for the second time, I understood they were volunteering me for something.” Clark was finishing his tale. “Then they took me to some starched guy in suit who liked to be called minister and he kept on calling me
rusty boy
. Finally, they tossed me here.”

“Yes, it seems we can’t even have freckles around here.” Aaron commented.

“It’s clear they’re not exactly the liberal types.” Vince observed.

“What do you do?” Hector asked Mate, noticing the young man was a little down. “And if you answer with the name of a sector followed by a letter, I’ll kill you!”

Mate opened a sad smile.

“I used to play tennis.”

“And I used to roll the dice for money with some other kids in the neighborhood back in the day. Come on, buddy, I need more details! Are you a pro?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Oh man!” Vince cheered. “You mean you played for a living, like those guys we saw on TV sports classics, Connors, Borg, Federer and the Spanish guy what’s his name?”

“Nadal?”

“That one!”

“What do you mean
sort of
?” Hector talked to Clark again.

“I wish I was anything like those guys you mentioned. Actually, I wasn’t doing so well. Maybe I can do better in the power supply business.”

“Hey, this is looser talk and while I’m here, I don’t want to know about this stuff!”

“It’s just that sometimes it’s not so easy to reach the flag on top of the Empire State Building.”

“Well, nothing is easy in life, that’s what makes it thrilling. And what the heck are you talking about?”

“It’s just an analogy she, I mean, my traveling companion… Ah, never mind.”

“No, no, tell me!” Hector pressed. “We’re making good conversation here!”

“Oh, I sense there’s a miss tennis player somewhere, hein buddy?” Vince said.

“I’m jealous already!” Maria smiled.

“Nah, far from that” Clark lamented.

“You do know this is also up to you, right?” Hector spoke. “She’s only lost if you let her go without even trying. What’s her name?”

Mate shook his head, looking embarrassed all of a sudden.

“Come on.” Vince insisted. “He just asked her name, not her erogenous zones.”

“You won’t believe it, but here it goes. Her name’s Lily Master.”

“And so?”

“Lily as in Apocalily.”

As the sound reverberated a lot in that environment, about thirty heads took their eyes off monitors to look straight at Clark.

“No way!” Pedro said.

“Yes, way” Mate replied.

“My God!” Another voice shouted. “So, she really exists!”

“She was captured as well!” Clark rushed to inform before somebody else gasped.

“Oh.”

“She was with me and we both got caught. I don’t know where they took her.”

“They must be doing awful things to her.” Maria speculated.

“How come Apocalily was taken that easily?” Raul queried.

“We’ve been betrayed.” Clark whispered. “We came here to help a woman we had rescued from the living dead outside and they knocked us out with some gas.”

“Yeah, there’s no way to protect against treason.” Vince pondered. “We know that very well, right bro?”

Hector nodded in agreement.

“Damn it!” Vince said. “One more hope that goes down the drain. Easy comes, easy goes.”

As quickly as they turned around, thirty faces lost interest and came back to their respective monitoring stations.

“I don’t care.” Maria spoke and turned to Clark. “How is she?”

“Oh, she’s everything they say and more.”

“That good, huh?”

“Yes. I don’t even know what she was doing with a guy like me. I guess she only took me in her truck out of charity or something.”

“Man, why you people insist on busting my balls?” Hector angrily retorted. “Now, you listen to me, kid! I know why your tennis career wasn’t flying. Because you suffer from a serious case of self-pity! They only get you down if you let them.”

“You’d better listen to the man!” Vince emphasized.

“Wait a minute…” Mate suddenly frowned. “I’ve seen you guys before…”

“I’m sure you have!” Hector opened his large white smile.

“Oh boy, here we go again…” Vince whispered, rolling eyes around the sockets.

Hector came near his brother and held his chin up so to face Clark.

“Take a good look!” His smile seemed to become perennial.

“Times Magazine, Forbes…” Clark divagated. “…was it Times or Newsweek?” Then, his eyes shone “
Hector and Vince, Routers and Since
! It’s you, right?”

“The very same!” Hector said with pride.

“It’s a stupid rhyme that makes no sense, but he insisted on calling our company like that.” Vince complained.

“Mamma loved it!”

“But sister hated it!”

“We are surrounded by celebrities all of a sudden.” Marcellus commented. “Too bad Miles Davis couldn’t make it.”

“Man, you were the fastest growing company in the country, according to The Economist!” Clark pointed out.

“Fifty departments in the headquarters alone, more than eight-hundred employees countrywide and counting!” Hector informed.

“We did business in all states, even abroad, and going further.” Vince completed.

“Yes, I read that Cisco and Juniper were getting really worried.” Mate said.

“As they should be!” Hector spoke. “Our product is much better, and that’s because we made it like this. I can tell you, we didn’t make a fortune from scratch by sitting our asses down, waiting for the fairy godmother of money to pay us a visit.”

“Yes, but now you’re here, like the rest of us slobs.” Pedro said.

“And with this attitude, I started to think you really belong here.” Hector retorted. “It’s in your power to do something, but you choose to conform and accommodate, always in the path of least resistance.”

“Fuck this shit.” Pedro whispered turning to his screen.

“What’s that?” Hector spoke walking to Pedro with heavy steps.

“Easy bro” Vince tried to hold him. “It’s not a good time to start another world war.”

“I want to know what he said.” Hector insisted and turned to Pedro. “Say that again looking at me!”

“You’ll get us all killed, okay!” Pedro shouted back, standing up and facing Hector “Or worse! Didn’t you hear what Marcellus said? You and your little uprising babble bullshit will get us all in a world of hurt! Probably you’re here because you talked like this outside, can’t you see? They heard you, they hear everything! And you dragged your brother to the mud with you!”

“I’d be with him no matter what!” Vince responded.

“They’re just a bunch of white folks doing a lot of shit and you’re taking it!” Hector argued.

“Hey Mister
Norma Rae
” Raul intervened. “Has it ever occurred to you they might be listening to you right now? Cause if they are, they’ll be ready for whatever we could possibly try here.”

“I don’t see any cameras!”

“It doesn’t mean they’re not there.” Maria said. “They do have surveillance in the corridors outside the sectors.”

“They might have planted mikes in strategic places we can’t see.” Another worker suggested.

“I’m sorry, man.” Pedro said in a moderate tone. “Really, I meant no offense, I’m sorry for everything I said. But you have to wake up, man. If things are bad now, they can still get a lot worse. Accept reality, it’s good for you, it’s good for us, we all live longer. It’s not the best of the worlds, but it’s a living. We’ve been doing this for some time now.”

“And how long is that?”

“It varies. Some came two weeks ago, some are newcomers like you. Raul and I have been here for six months now, and Marcellus over there has been in this racket for thirty-two years.”

“Thirty-three next week” Marcellus informed. “Thirty-three long years…”

Hector took a deep breath and walked around. Everybody came back to work, except for Vince and Mate, who kept looking at Hector.

The big rotund man walked to Clark.

“Mate’s your name, right?” Hector asked him.

“Yes, Mate Clarkson. But Lily called me Clark, you see, mate’s a too common word in Australia and all… It’s a thing between us.”

Hector pondered those words for awhile and said “Let me ask you something…”

“Sure.”

“Is Lily human?”

“What? I don’t think I got it.”

“Just answer my question. Is Lily human?”

“Yes.”

Hector nodded and walked around again.

“So, she wasn’t an alien or any kind of super being.” Hector divagated aloud, his voice echoing through the indoor environment.

“What difference does it make?” Raul spoke. “She’s most likely dead now.”

“But she surely left us something, didn’t she?” Hector continued. “I want your attention, all of you. May I have your attention, please?”

“We are so dead!” Pedro grunted.

Vince grinned “When he starts with the thing, nobody can stop him, believe me.”

“I’m not stopping until I have your undivided attention!” Hector raised his volume even more. “I can be a real pain in the neck!”

“That’s for sure.” His brother whispered.

Workers lazily turned her heads to look at him, hoping he would eventually calm down and leave them alone. One man didn’t move. His eyes remained stuck on the monitors.

“Hey you!” Hector walked to him. “I’m talking to you!”

He turned his chair around to make the man face him. And Hector found out half his face was horridly burned, with an inexistent right eye, replaced by pieces of dead skin. But Hector didn’t seem shaken by such sight.

“What’s your name?” Hector asked.

“Prashant.”

“Nice meeting you, Prashant.”

“Likewise.”

“The guards did this to you?”

“When they dragged me out of my house, they separated me from my wife and daughter. I didn’t take kindly to it. In that little audience we all had with this minister guy, I spat on his right eye. It seems they didn’t like it.”

“Are you willing to fight to be with your wife and daughter again and, who knows, maybe get some justice in the process?”

“We need more people, much more people.”

Hector shook his head in agreement and walked back to the center of the giant sector.

“Then, it seems Apocalily was just human.” Hector said looking at Clark, who nodded. “And yet, she fought and killed more than a hundred zombies and saved lots of children, all by herself. This is an example of what will and determination can do when one sets his or her mind on something!”

He took a deep breath and continued “Ladies and gentlemen, we are also humans and we are way more than just one. I guess it’s clear what’s missing here. But that can be fixed. Those pricks out there are not super humans! We can fight them if we’re all together in this one!”

“What about their power, the thing that happened to Michelle and the other rebels?” Maria asked.

“Well, we got an advantage Michelle didn’t have.” Hector replied. “We know they got some kind of power. All we have to do is be careful about it. Come on, who’s with me?”

People around him only scratched heads.

Hector walked to Aaron.

“What about you, my man? They shaved you, now we shave them, how about some payback?”

“I’m sorry, I cannot help you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not like you! I just can’t do it, I’d probably ruin everything.”