CHAPTER 14

They’d turned Wrigley Field into a redneck version of the Pentagon.

Metal sheets in various stages of rust had been welded at the top of the stadium along the outfield. A roof enclosed the rest of it. The famous red sign that hung on the Field’s corner at Clark and Addison was still there, but the digital square had been smashed. Words had been laser-slashed over the part that had read “Chicago Cubs.” The sign now read “Wrigley Field Home of Ash Kickers.”

“Jesus Christ,” Brannigan said. “Are you guys Cardinals fans?”

“Cleveland all the way,” Afu said, his eyebrows tilted downward, serious as a heart attack. “But we didn’t do most of this. After the Nusies took over, the city turned the field into an emergency shelter or something. We’ve had to replace a few of the outer sheets, but it’s mostly as is. They dug up a whole level of bunkers and stuff under the diamond.”

“Goddamn,” Brannigan shook his head sadly as he looked out the window. “This place used to be one of the wonders of the world. Sherry dreamed of playing here when she…”

The old man drifted away from his sentence and I decided to change the subject. “How do you get in and out?”

“It’s right here,” said Tamerica. “Didn’t spot it before, did you?”

I still didn’t spot it.

Renfro turned left toward the building and stopped on a sharp decline. Ahead of us was a wall of those metal sheets. I wondered if we would just barrel through with the cannon truck. Renfro hit the yelp siren briefly, and ten seconds later the door rose outward on hydraulic lifts.

A thin man with long hair and glasses stood on the other side. A dimly lit, tile-lined tunnel reached into the depths behind him. The man wore a long-sleeved forest green shirt over a band tee – one of those black metal bands whose illustrated name looks like every other black metal band’s illustrated name. His jeans were black and his boots were brown. He looked like a roadie, but the brainy kind who worked the lights and pyrotechnics.

Renfro pulled the truck inside Wrigley. While the door closed behind us, the man in the metal shirt walked around to Tamerica’s window.

“Hey, man,” Tamerica said, leaning out on her arm.

“You guys have a good outing?” the man said. I couldn’t see him from where I sat.

“We got a lot more than we bargained for,” Tamerica said. “Hop in and we’ll give you a ride back home.”

“All right,” the man said, lazily, as if she’d offered him a potato chip. The door beside Afu opened and the man climbed in. He sat beside Brannigan and gave the old man a nod. He looked at me and did the same. “You guys are new. You smoke eaters, too?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Yeah, we are.” Brannigan’s voice had entwined with mine. It earned the old man a few points towards getting off my shit list. I felt included.

Renfro drove.

“Cool,” the man in glasses said. He then sat back in his seat and would have probably stayed silent for the remainder of the ride if Brannigan hadn’t spoken to him.

“Who are you?” Brannigan asked.

“Oh.” He sat up and pushed his glasses closer to his face with a thin finger. “I’m Lot.”

Brannigan turned to me, and with a hand to the side of his mouth said, “Well he doesn’t look like much to me.”

Despite liking Lot on sight, and trying to remain focused on the serious situation at hand, I snorted a laugh through my nose. I always appreciated good wordplay.

“This is Lot Scynch,” Tamerica said. “He was a propellerhead for the Chicago smoke eaters.”

“Thank you for your service,” Brannigan said, with obvious sarcasm.

“Shut up you old bastard,” said Tamerica.

“What’s your name?” Lot asked Brannigan.

He smirked. “You can call me–”

“This is Chief Cole Brannigan,” I said. I gave the old bastard my own smirk, happy to give him a taste of his own medicine. “Long-thought dead, but not so much.”

“Whoa!” Lot said. Instead of getting bigger, his eyes almost shut completely. “Good to have you back, man.”

“This guy must be great at parties,” Brannigan said.

“If it weren’t for Lot,” Tamerica said, “we wouldn’t have any power, running water, nothing.”

“Wish it didn’t have to be that,” Lot said. “I blame every Nusie for screwing up the world we had. Army my ass. You know what they are?”

“What?” Brannigan leaned forward.

“They’re the new police,” Lot said. “Only they don’t have to hide their murderous ways anymore.”

“Well,” Brannigan said, “you know what I’ve always said about the police?”

“What’s that?” Lot asked.

Brannigan turned to me and grinned. “Fuck the police.”

“If I ever see a Nusie,” Lot said, “I’ll strangle them with my bare hands.”

My breath caught in my throat. I wasn’t Army anymore, but I wasn’t so sure Lot would see a distinction.

“I’ve always wondered about that phrase,” Brannigan said. “You could easily kill someone with gloved hands.”

I stared at the old man, but he wasn’t messing with me. He was seriously wondering about his notion as he stared off into space.

I was surrounded by psychotics.

Tamerica stared ahead through the windshield, stuck on complimenting Lot. “He’s a good guy. Without Lot, we wouldn’t have been able to live here for as long as we did.”

“Did?” Lot blinked and leaned forward to see Tamerica better. “As in past tense?”

Tamerica shook her hair loose with her fingers. Sighing through her words, she said, “Yeah, we’re going to have to call a quick town meeting.”

I thought there would have been more of them.

We’d all gathered in what used to be the Cubs’ locker room. The walls had been knocked down to make it wider, but the small wooden cubicles remained. It smelled like mint and ass. Instead of a coach giving a pregame pep talk, Tamerica stood before us, fresh out of the shower and wearing a hoodie and sweatpants.

Brannigan and I hadn’t taken a shower yet, though we did step out of our power suits to cool off. This was an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. No one had offered me anything, and we didn’t have any clothes to change into. I wasn’t about to ask for anything special.

I counted twenty people in that locker room aside from myself and those of us who’d ridden in on the cannon truck. There was a baby, a few kids, but most of Tamerica’s people were adults. They ranged in ages between me and Brannigan, and they were of every shade and height you could imagine. No one had introduced themselves to either of us, but they passed us with wary eyes, shielding children who clung to their legs.

“Bunch of introverts,” Brannigan mumbled to me.

I shook my head. “They just don’t trust new people.”

“Same difference.”

I glared at the old man. “That’s not the definition of an intro – ah, never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“All right, everybody.” Tamerica’s voice filled the room, causing everyone’s head to turn toward her. “I have some bad news. A platoon of the New United States Army has come into Chicago. They can ride dragons. We need to leave immediately.”

Brannigan’s laughter came out like lightning, quick and loud.

If they weren’t staring at Brannigan, the Wrigley people were whispering among themselves while Tamerica turned to the old man. “Something funny, Chief?”

“No,” he said, wiping his eyes. “It’s just, I appreciate being blunt, but holy fuck couldn’t you have been more diplomatic with that speech?”

Renfro tensed and nodded in agreement. But he kept quiet, standing beside Tamerica, rubbing the back of his neck.

“We don’t have the time,” Tamerica said. She turned back to her people. “We’ll leave at 0600 tomorrow morning. That should give everyone time to get their things together and get some sleep.”

“Who are those two?” A middle-aged black woman pointed toward me and Brannigan.

“They’re smoke eaters,” Tamerica said. “Passing through from out of state. They helped us out there today.”

That seemed to be enough for the woman. She nodded and tugged on the man beside her to leave.

The others started throwing questions and demands at Tamerica. I stood there feeling strange about having been lumped into the title of smoke eater with the rest. Tamerica hadn’t mentioned that I’d been a Nusie just a day before. It showed good leadership on her part; saying so would have done nothing but rile everyone up – especially Lot. It was easier to say I was another smokie. I looked the part if nothing else. The way things were going, I’d be disappointed to find out I wasn’t a smoke eater. The fantasy felt better than mourning my family and the empty dark of the future. Some well-meaning assholes might have told me I was just escaping, but when someone’s reality sucks this much, I say hit that eject button and float amidst the unreal.

“I’m taking a shower,” Brannigan said. He walked off, pushing through the people with his shoulders wide and a defiance in his steps.

Damn it, I wanted a shower, too. As I listened to the Wrigley people talk, I felt weak. My legs wobbled. I needed to find a chair… or a bed… water.

A heavy arm dropped around my shoulders. Afu squeezed me tight and spoke into my ear. “You don’t look so good, bruh. Come on. I know just what you need to pick you up.” He led me around the gathered people, through a side door, and out into the hall. “I’m gonna show you my favorite thing about living here.”

After a few steps down the hall, he opened a door to our left and I was dragged inside.

Like every other wall in the place, the ones in this room were covered with giant red Cs and illustrated bears. Rusty metal poles rested above metal benches and metal chairs, while black iron plates of different sizes rested beside the various torture devices along the walls and in each corner.

It was a weight room.

“Afu,” I said, feeling like I’d turn into sludge right there, “I’m not really up for a workout, man. That won’t help me at all.”

Afu sat me down on a bench. “Nah, bruh, nah. I love lifting, but that’s not what I brought you in here for. Just relax right here for a minute.”

He disappeared around the corner. I heard the opening and closing of a wrapper, then the clunk of a latched door, and then the hum of an electrical appliance. I soon smelled the funk of beans and meat.

It can’t be, I thought.

About a minute and a half later, Afu came back and held a plastic plate to my face. In the center of the plate a microwave burrito sat steaming and partially wet. “When’s the last time you had one of these?”

I took the plate. “I… honestly can’t even remember.”

I’d never liked microwave burritos, not when I used to have the real thing pretty much anytime I wanted. My emotions began to rise up through my nose and eyes again. I teared up a little and took a bite out of the burrito. It burned the roof of my mouth and I had to spit it back onto the plate. “Hah… hot!”

“Oh shit!” Afu jumped up and ran back around the corner. Cabinets banged as they were opened. A faucet ran. He came back with a glass of water. “I always hate waiting for those things to cool down. If you’re hungry, who has time to wait? And if you don’t cook it enough, it stays frozen in the middle. Follow the directions on the wrapper, you burn your taste buds off.”

I lifted the cup he’d given me and drank the lukewarm water. I tongued the roof of my mouth. It was raw and tender. “Maybe I’m not a smoke eater after all.”

“Because of a hot burrito?” Afu said. “I don’t think it works like that, man. I don’t even think the scalies could eat one of these right out of the microwave. Besides, it didn’t kill you. Flames have hurt me before. Plenty of times. But not like they would have done to regular people. We have resistance, not immunity.”

“I appreciate you trying to make me feel a part of the group, but I’m pretty sure I don’t belong with anyone anymore. I didn’t feel at home with the Army and I don’t have a home to go back to.” I wiped my eyes. They’d gotten wet. “Goddamn burritos.”

“Damn, Gilly, I’m sorry. I was just trying to get some food in you.”

“No,” I swallowed at phlegm collecting in my throat. “I appreciate it. I’m hungry as hell and even more tired. I just… I just want the world to stop for a day or two so I can get back to the way I was.”

Afu pulled a rubber band out of his pocket. He held it in his teeth as he pulled his hair back into a ponytail. He began tying his hair and said, “Brother, there is no getting back to the way you were before. The world’s changed, your life has changed, how do you expect to come out unscathed yourself?”

I bit into the burrito again. It was still hot but I could swallow it without burning my throat.

“But I know exactly how you feel,” Afu said. “It’s like waking up in a roller coaster and some asshole has cranked the speed all the way up and then abandoned the controls.”

“That’s a good analogy,” I said.

“I got analogies for days! My wife says I’ve got too many of them.”

“Your wife?”

“Tamerica.” His smile stretched across his face. He already had a big mouth as it was. “It took a few tries for her to say yes, but we’ve been married for three years coming up next month.”

I took a few more bites of the burrito. My hunger was beginning to outweigh my emotions. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you. That I’m here with all of you. I used to read about you guys. You felt made up, larger-than-life. I always felt like I was reading a comic book and not a newspaper clipping. And now that I’ve met you for real, you all seem so normal.”

“You know what they say,” Tamerica appeared in the doorway, “never meet your heroes.”

She stepped into the room. Brannigan and Lot followed in behind her, but they tried to enter at the same time and got stuck shoulder to shoulder between the jambs. They glanced at each other, confused, then backed out as one.

Lot held a hand up to the doorway. “Age before beauty, man.”

“Then I guess you’ll be waiting outside.” Brannigan walked in and sat on a leg curl machine.

Lot came in on his lanky legs anyway.

“Renfro will join us a little later.” Tamerica held up the holoreader and set it on the bench in front of me. “Let’s see what we can find in here.”

Staring at the holoreader, I swallowed another bite of burrito, but it turned gummy in my throat. I downed the entire cup of water.

“Well,” I said, with a cough, “I’ll try.”

“No,” said Tamerica. “You said you would do this. We can’t afford trying.”

“Don’t anybody say it,” Brannigan spouted. “Don’t use that old fucking movie quote. I don’t want to hear it.”

Tamerica turned to him. “What the hell are you babbling about back there?”

“Oh,” said Afu, pointing to Brannigan, “you mean the thing that little green dude said in that space movie.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Brannigan said. He leaned back with his fingers linked behind his head, frowning and daring someone to say it.

I had no idea what he was referencing.

“Anyway,” Tamerica turned back to me with a roll of her eyes, “all we need you to do is look for any reports or communication that could tell us what the Nusies might be planning, how they’re riding dragons, or anything else that’s helpful.”

I looked over at Lot Scynch, who was using his fingers to spin a forty-five pound plate around on its bar. I whispered, “Does he know I was in the Army.”

Tamerica glanced over her shoulder at the propellerhead. “He knows you might have gotten the password to this holoreader. If you can’t get in, he’ll have to figure something out.”

I was going to tell her again that I would try, but stopped myself. I hit the power button on the side of the device and a lock screen rose into the air. It was a picture of the soldier who’d owned the holoreader, the one who’d gotten squished under a Silver Razor. In the photo, he was wearing his helmet and a pair of sunglasses, making an “O” with his lips as if he’d been whooping. His arm was wrapped tight around a young civilian woman who didn’t seem nearly as excited as he was. In fact, she looked scared. She wore makeup, which was strange enough for anyone nowadays, but the mascara streaked down her face and the lipstick was smeared. Her tank top hung loose from her shoulders. The front of it was especially droopy as if someone had grabbed a fistful of it and tried to rip it off. The camera’s flash had turned their surroundings dark, so it looked like the two of them were alone together in a void. Him looking triumphant, and her wishing she could fly away and be anywhere else.

I felt queasy looking at it.

“Sick motherfucker,” Tamerica said. “Hurry up and get this photo out of my face.”

“Okay,” I said.

Nervously, I poked the green digital keys floating over the picture. I tried my own password for the holoreader I’d left back in Waukesha. 5-90 had given it to me, so maybe it was a platoon-specific code: P!zzant0

You’ve entered the wrong password, the notification read.

Brannigan snorted laughter.

“Shut up, man,” I said. “That was the password I was given.”

“They gave you that one?” Brannigan laughed some more.

“What’s so funny?” I said. “It’s pizza with some extra symbols.”

“Bruh,” Afu said. “That basically says piss ant zero. They didn’t like you very much.”

“What?” I looked again at the code I’d entered. “Son of a bitch.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Tamerica patted my shoulder. “Is there another password? Come on, man. You said you could do it.”

“I…”

“Did you lie to me?” Tamerica said.

“No. Just give me a minute.” I tried another code: NUSAFirst

Wrong.

Arm33Strong. Platoon1. CalhounSux.

None of them worked.

“If you get it wrong too many times,” Lot said, fiddling with a screw on one of the weight machines, “you might lock it out to where I can’t even hack it.”

“It’s okay, Contreras,” Tamerica said, though I could tell she was disappointed. “Let Lot take a look.”

“No,” I said. “I can do this.”

She reached over to take the holoreader. I jerked it away so she couldn’t. The device flew from my grip and skidded across the floor.

“Shit,” Brannigan jumped to his feet. “Don’t break it.”

Tamerica and I both ran for the holoreader. She threw an arm in front of me, but we both ended up skidding to a stop and landing on our asses when a bright light sprang from the holoreader and began forming a shape in the air.

Someone was calling.

“First Platoon? Anyone there?” A black woman’s head hovered from the holoreader’s screen. She looked almost ghostly, partly because she was a hologram head, but also because she looked so malnourished and sleep-deprived.

I’d never seen her before, but everyone else in the room whispered a swear or had their mouth hanging open. Who was she?

Renfro walked into the weight room and answered my question. “Yolanda?”

“Oh my goodness!” the hologram head said. She looked all around the room. “Guys? Is that really you?”

“It’s us.” Brannigan said, walking forward.

“Chief?” Yolanda squeaked as if someone had squeezed her too tight. “What’s going on? Is this real?”

Tamerica looked at me. “How’d she have this holoreader’s number?”

I shrugged. I honestly didn’t know.

“I’m still alive, Yolanda,” Brannigan said. “I’m glad to see you. We can come get you and explain everything. Where are you?”

“I’m in Parthenon City,” Yolanda said. A digitized hand appeared as she wiped at her wet eyes. “All of us are.”

“All of you?” Tamerica said.

“T,” she said. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I know you told me to get out of town. I should have listened.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Tamerica said. “Are you working for the Nusies?”

Tamerica got off the floor and stood before the hologram. I followed her lead.

“They forced us,” Yolanda said. Shadows moved around the room as the holographic light shifted with the hanging of her head. “They took all of us. All the propellerheads in Ohio. They make us build them all sorts of strange things. Unethical things. They don’t feed us unless we get results. It’s never enough.”

“Yolanda,” Brannigan said. “We were attacked by this platoon. That’s how we got the holoreader. They were riding scalies.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s just one of the things they had us do.”

“What do you mean?” Afu said. “How’s that even possible?”

“Guys,” Yolanda’s head jerked around, as if someone was coming up behind her and she was turning to look. “I don’t have much time. How can they ride them? It’s… it’s a device we put in the dragons’ heads. Simple really. We’d been tranquilizing them for years. We were bound to start adding tech. The Nusies wear a psionic counterpart matched to their scaly. It’s a mental symbiosis of sorts.”

“My God,” Lot rushed forward, beckoned by tech talk. “How were you able to do that in such a short time?”

“Lot,” Yolanda smiled sadly. “It’s good to see you. Short time? No. We’ve been working on that since they took over. Only just got it working. Wait, you guys are in Chicago. That’s why they had us send the dragons to Waukesha.”

“They mail-ordered the dragons?” Afu said.

The smoke eaters all turned to gawk at Afu. He looked at each of them then shrugged.

“That’s exactly what they did,” I said. Everyone was now looking at me. I swallowed, but continued with my thought. “That’s where I left the platoon, in Waukesha. They must have called Big Base and had them set the dragons to fly out to pick them up.”

It sounded ridiculous when it came out of my mouth like that. I tensed and shut my mouth before anything else stupid came out.

Brannigan’s laughter cracked through the room. “The Nusies can order dragons now like fucking pizza?”

“More like an air strike.” Tamerica looked at me. Her face was grim.

“Who’s this?” Yolanda said. Her head was so large and glowing, when she looked down at me I felt like I was under the notice of an ancient genie or sorcerer.

“Brannigan picked him up on the road,” Tamerica said.

“You called it Big Base,” Yolanda said to me. “Only the soldiers call it that.”

I blinked. “Yeah, well–”

“You said you left your platoon in Waukesha.” Lot stared at me with a tilt of his head as if I’d grown a pair of wings.

“Are you First Platoon?” Yolanda’s head asked.

I looked from Yolanda to a visibly-angry Lot, then to Tamerica, who’d parted her lips to speak, but she tensed and looked away, nervously running fingers through her hair. She wouldn’t be able to get me out of this one.

“It’s not a big deal,” Brannigan said. “This is Guillermo Contreras. He was a Nusie and now he’s one of us. Let’s get back to the point–”

“Not a big deal?” Lot popped his fingers one by one, glaring at me with his chin up. I thought he was going to take a swing at my face, but he pointed at Tamerica. “You kept this from me on purpose. Because you knew how I’d react. You think he’s going to help us? You just murdered us all.” He turned to the hologram. “Yolanda, I’m so sorry. I’ll see if I can find a way to keep in contact with you, but right now I have to go.”

Lot stormed out of the room.

Brannigan hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Is that guy serious?”

“He’s been through a lot.” Renfro said.

I felt too crummy to appreciate the pun. The Army would be a stain on me for the rest of my life and there would be nothing I could do to prove myself. I’d be sending people stomping angrily out of rooms for the foreseeable future. Yolanda didn’t seem as upset by my association with NUSA, but, just like Lot, her stay would be short.

“Guys, they’re coming,” she said.

“Yolanda, wait,” Tamerica said. “Try to call us again when you can.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Yolanda said. She looked on the verge of a full meltdown, though she was trying hard to keep it in. “I’ve missed you guys. Wait, wait, I have to tell you. I have to tell you in case I don’t see you again. The Nusies, they didn’t just take me, they have her. They have her somewhere down below. They have Naveena.”

The hologram blinked out and she was gone.