A knee caught Alex in the neck, knocking him back to the ground. The bag disappeared into a tangle of legs. He cursed. Nothing but dirty laundry inside, but it was his dirty laundry.

  Alex dived toward the place it had just been, knocking up against the denim knees, tripping up the protestors.

  The noise was immense and incalculable. A hundred people, everyone making their presence felt, everyone chanting to their own tune. From the ground, Alex looked up at the signs.

  Anti-government. Anti-China. Anti-trade. Anti-gangs. Anti-everything.

  Everyone knew what they hated.

  Alex looked around and saw his bag between two feet. He grabbed at it, snatching hold of a handle. As he dragged it toward himself, the feet came too.

  “Stop that!” A voice called from above. Alex looked up. A man with a nose ring and no hair, shouting. “Get out of here!”

  “I was just getting-”

  The skinhead didn’t listen. He kicked Alex in the arm.

  “I don’t care what you say, you were stealing that bag!”

  “I wasn’t,” Alex tried scrambling to his feet, clutching at his possessions. “It’s my bag.”

  “Like hell it is!”

  As the crowd moved around them, all chanting and marching, the man with the nose ring stared at Alex. There was hardly any space between them. He swung an arm.

  Ducking to the side, Alex pushed into a petite woman with a placard. She swung the wooden stick, nearly clattering him in the head. It missed.

  Alex straightened up, holding his back.

  “Sorry,” he said to the woman. “That man was-”

  “Bag thief!” the skinhead was shouting. “Get the thief!”

  Heads turned toward Alex. The light flickered from the flaming torches.

  A wave of silence fell over the crowd. Starting from the front, it washed back, chasing away the noise.

  “Get him!” the skinhead shouted again, pushing his way through to Alex. “Thief!”

  “Cops!” someone yelled.

  “Cops!” Other people took up the shout, spreading it around, hearing it echoed back.

  As one, the crowd broke in every direction. Holding his bag tight to his chest, Alex ran.

  Choosing a direction was easy. Anywhere the skinhead wasn’t. Spotting an alley, Alex ducked down.

  Behind, the sound of breaking glass and cracking skulls reverberated against the bricks of the buildings. But it was quite in the alley. Alex walked, dusting off his shoulders. That wasn’t his fight. He’d seen too many protests and demonstrations to know they did nothing. Just people, lashing out in any direction they could.

  Checking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t followed, Alex picked up the pace and left it all behind. The cruise control switched on, guiding him back to his apartment.

  Chapter 4

  Halfway home, Alex noticed how hungry he was. Shoulder hurting, adrenaline dried up, he needed to eat. He was out of Riverside now, the streets changing their shape, the sounds of the protest dying behind him, others emerging ahead. By now, the demonstration would have become a riot. Something to catch later on the evening news.

  Closer to the center of Detroit, he was passing shops, more and more, restaurants and all the other signs of civilization as he’d come to know it. But first, he knew, he’d need cash. This was a problem. Most places got picky when you tried to pay with anything else. Nobody trusted the banks anymore.

  There was a police presence patrolling. They seemed to be headed back toward the riot. Alex couldn’t see through the black masks they wore. Riot helmets, more rugged than the GUNPLAY equipment. If he got close enough to see himself reflected in the visor, he was too close. People kept their distance. They walked slower. Quieter. The police walked on past.

  The first ATM was nothing but a smashed screen, but the one after that seemed to be working. Alex joined the line, waited his turn, and took his dollar bills. He had heard people in the line talking, chatting to one another. The same stories seemed to be bouncing back and forth between everyone he overheard. It was like trying to piece together current events by standing on newspaper scraps blown down the street by the wind. Half a headline here, a few sentences of comment there.

  Along one street, Alex found himself outside of an electronics shop. It wasn’t one of the upmarket American ones. People here still resented the Riverside factories after they’d shut down. But most people, at least on this side of the city, imported. Chinese phones, TVs, computers, and all the rest. The pieces were cheap, tacky, and almost disposable. But they were all most people could get their hands on.

  Alex watched through the store window. They’d turned the TV screens to different channels. There was no sound and trying to watch through the barred windows was inconvenient at best. North Korea, one screen read. Boats at sea, said another. Floods, swarms, strikes, sickness, gangs, riots. They only talked about one Korea these days. They only talked about the boats when they sank. The gangs seemed to slip by unnoticed. Probably how they liked it.

  One screen was leading with the story of a plane. Sick pilot lands plane, the headline read, scrolling across the bottom of the screen. A news anchor smiled from ear to ear as she read the story. Alex couldn’t hear the words but he could see the photographs of the sick pilot. The man seemed close to death, his skin a pallid sweaty gray, but he’d managed a grin. Why fly at all if you’re sick? There was no mention of what illness he had.

  Flying too close to the sun.

  Feel-good fare and no one asking the real questions. Alex turned away from the report before it finished. They wouldn’t say anything of value.

  Crowds were gathered at the foot of the staircase beneath the plane, hands waving as the man stepped down. Those same hands reached out, touching his back, cheering, and congratulating the pilot. So many people were smiling, Alex left them alone.

  The news, when he watched it, seemed so saccharine. It made his teeth hurt. Too much sugar. Alex could remember listening to his dentist. The man had been wise and sensible and had hairs in his nose. Alex had been fascinated by those hairs when he was a boy. Now he spent every other Sunday with a pair of tweezers and a mirror, trying to stay presentable. Too much sugar, the man had said, it rots your teeth.

  As he stood in front of the store, watching the flashing images, Alex heard a sound. A whimpering. A cry of pain. It came from the alley nearby.

  Keep walking and let someone else deal with it. That was the attitude most people would take. Alex knew he should have turned and walked away. But he heard the sound again. Someone sounded hurt. The kind of sound which would haunt him as he lay awake in his bed, the guilt scaring off the sleep. He had to take a look.

  Creeping quietly, Alex approached the entrance to the alley. It was dark inside, a dead end. Fire escapes loomed above and a pair of dumpsters meant he couldn’t see all the way inside. Gang graffiti was printed all over the walls in Spanish and English. Fumbling with the light on his phone, praying the Chinese hardware would hold up, he shouted into the shadows.

  “Anyone in there?”

  The whimpering sound came again and then died, instantly. Someone was definitely there.

  “Hello?”

  No response. Plausible deniability, Alex thought to himself. He’d tried.

  Taking a look up and down the street, he tried to spot a cop. They bustled and ran about in teams, crisscrossing the streets every night. But there was never one when you needed one. Just an empty street and the painful sound.

  Flicking his wrist, Alex flashed the light into the darkness and started to walk forward. He arrived at the dumpster and paused.

  “Hello? Are you hurt? Who’s there?”

  “We’re fine, man. Back off.” A gruff voice. Someone bent down.

  “I heard someone. They sounded hurt.”

  “That was me.” The gruff voice had an edge to it. An implication. A threat. “Just me.”

  Someone whimpered even as the hidden man was speaking. He wasn’t alone.

  “Just you?” Alex asked, arcing his light higher. “No one else?”

  “Just me.” The man was standing up now. “You want to check?”

  Alex inched forwards, dumping his bag quietly behind a trash can.

  “I heard someone else. Are they hurt?”

  “Ain’t no one else here but me, friend. Leave me alone.”

  Alex sighed. He moved forward again. He should have dialed 911, he told himself. Fat difference it would have made. There was that whimper again. Pain. The pang of guilt. He knew he had to do something, even if it was the wrong thing. He had to try.

  “I think they’re hurt,” Alex called out. “Just let me help them.”

  “People need to stop giving a damn when it’s ain’t your damn to give.”

  The man was right next to Alex. The dim light on the phone did nothing. The stranger’s breathing moved around in the shadows.

  Alex ducked the first punch. He knew it was coming, staggering back toward the entrance of the alley, raising his fists. The phone fell to the ground, throwing its light up on the walls.

  The knife emerged from the darkness first, held in a tattooed hand. As the man stepped forward, Alex knew he was in a gang. He’d seen them all over the news. The way they painted their skin, the long black letters written across their throats.

  The gang member smiled, revealing a row of golden teeth. Two blue eyes and a shaved head creased and folded as the grin spread.

  “Oh, I am going to enjoy stitching you up, my friend.”

  The alley was a dead end. This man was going to come through him, no matter what. Watching the knife, not the eyes, Alex relaxed on his toes and raised his fists. Just like being back at the warehouse.

  The knife moved, darting forward. Alex sprang back, all his weight pressed down through his toes, his fists raised in defense. All that hard work in GUNPLAY, it had raised his confidence. Time to put the practice into action.

  The man laughed, swinging the knife again. He didn’t have to be accurate. The alley was cramped. Slash anywhere and Alex would be cut.

  “Just had to interfere, didn’t you? I hate you types…”

  The knife slashed through the air. Alex watched the blade. He waited.

  “You’re going to learn to mind your business.”

  The knife wasn’t sharp. It didn’t need to be. Alex watched it slice back and forth. This wasn’t a game. This was a mistake.

  “Now you’re going to learn-”

  The man slashed with the knife before he finished talking. Alex jumped to the side, feeling the blade cut through the air beside him.

  As the gang member stumbled, Alex kicked out with a sneaker. He caught the man in the hip, knocking the knife from his hands and sending him sprawling into the trash can.

  Alex picked up the knife from the ground. It was lighter than he expected. Rusty.

  The man picked himself up, turning around.

  “That’s it, you’re dead-” He turned around and saw Alex holding the knife. “Now, hold on…”

  “Go.” Alex jutted the knife into the empty air. “Get out of here.”

  The man walked backward toward the entrance of the alley.

  “Now, listen, buddy. Don’t do anything stupid. One word to my friends, and we come back here and-”

  Alex waved the knife at him.

  “Run away!” he shouted. “Now!”

  The man dodged the knife, his tattooed hands flailing. He looked Alex in the eyes and bolted, sprinting around the corner and out into the street. The sound of footsteps died away.

  Alex heard the whimpering sound again.

  Turning around, fetching his phone from the ground, he threw the knife into the dumpster and shivered. The blade had felt wicked. A short, sharp evil. He had no business holding it.

  Looking around with the light, he delved deeper into the darkness.

  “Hello? He’s gone. You can come out now. He might come-”

  It was a girl. A teenager, most likely. She was shivering, balled up against the wall behind a dumpster. When Alex flashed the light on her, she recoiled, trying to hide herself. He turned it off.

  “Hey, hey.” Alex crouched down beside her. “Don’t worry. I’m here to help. I…”

  Something was wrong. The girl wasn’t really looking at him. Her hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat. She was shivering. It wasn’t that cold.

  “You’re scared? I’m not going to hurt you…”

  Alex offered her his hand. She looked at it with a pair of big, gray eyes. They were bloodshot.

  “You’ve been crying? Look, I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened here…”

  The girl was pushing herself up against the dumpster, trying to hide from Alex. He backed off, pulling his phone from his pocket.

  “Okay, okay. Look. I’ll call the police. It’s fine.”

  Alex dialed the number, pressing the phone to his ear. The girl was blinking her eyes, struggling. Twitching. Sweating. Whatever the gang member had been doing, she was scared. Terrified.

  “Er, yeah, hello? Is this 911? Yeah, I need the-”

  The girl swatted the phone from his hand, knocking it to the ground again. She sprang to her feet, panting and heaving.

  “Woah, sorry.” Alex stepped back, holding up his hands. “I didn’t mean to…”

  Staring at her, all he could see was terror in the girl’s face. Pale and sickly, she didn’t look well.

  “I won’t call the police. Fine. How about the ambulance? They can help-”

  The girl screamed, pushing Alex back into the darkness of the alley. As he regained his footing, he saw her running and teetering toward the street. He chased after her.

  “Wait! I’m trying to help…”

  Alex reached the opening of the alley and looked around. The girl was nowhere to be seen. She’d disappeared.

  “Weird…” Alex muttered to himself as he walked back to his phone. It was still connected.

  “Yeah, hi?”

  “Hello, sir?” The voice on the other end sounded distant and tired.

  “Okay, you’re still there. No, I had an issue. There’s a sick girl, I just found her in an alley. But I lost her. Do you know what I should do?”

  “Where are you, sir?”

  Alex didn’t know. He looked around, desperately.

  “Maybe halfway between Forest Park and Riverside, but I’m not sure where-”

  “Thank you, sir, we’ve logged this information. Have a nice evening.”

  “Wait, what are you going to do about it?”

  “We’ll keep it on file. Have a nice-”

  “But there’s a sick girl out there, aren’t you going to help me find her?”

  “Sir, we have too many calls tonight to chase rumors. We have to-”

  “But I saw her. She looked close to death.”

  The line went dead. Either they’d hung up or the phone had cut out. Alex looked up and down the empty street. She was gone. Lost into the same night as the news reports and the protests. That same sweaty fear, a pale gray terror across all the faces. At least he’d tried to help. Maybe his parents would be proud.

  Screams could be heard in the distance. Shots being fired. An explosion. Alex was still hungry. He still had to get home. Collecting his bag, he began to walk again.

  Chapter 5

  Picking a place to eat was easy. Two blocks from his apartment, Alex knew that Al’s would always be open. Hot dogs, chili fries, wings, and minimal health bylaws followed. Pretty much what you’d expect from a place that was open till just before dawn. The neon lights inside were not only on, they lit up half the street in front of the store. It was blinding.

  “Hey, it’s Alex. Alex Early, coming in late. Look at this guy.” Al pointed toward Alex with a fork, speaking to a man in the back who was face deep in a plate of fries. “Eh, you don’t listen.”

  Offering up his respects and his greetings, Alex looked around the room. There were a few empty seats. To call it a restaurant would give Al’s too much credit. There was no space for a restaurant. There were two sides: one was Al, sitting behind his grill, watching over everything with the meanest eye for detail; the other was a flat shelf, about chest height, with a row of tall chairs which spun in half circles, ready for the customers. There was no better place to eat in the city.

  There was always a TV, stuck up in the corner of the room. Al used it for sparring practice. Stuck in behind the grill for fifteen hours a day, he’d shout back and forth with the screen, with the customers, and with pretty much anyone else.

  “You’ll have your usual,” Al announced. “You seen all this?”

  Alex nodded. His usual was rarely the same meal. Sometimes it was a hotdog. Sometimes cheesesteak. Whatever, Al had a knack for picking the perfect food for any time of night. Tonight, it was a Coney dog. It filled a hole.

  All the while he was cooking, Al pointed at the TV. As well as Alex and the man with a face full of fries, there were two other people in the small room. One of them was a young man, blonde and dressed up nice, in a suit and tie. The other was older, but not ancient. Middle aged, but not wearing it well. He dressed in military-store supplies, that very specific kind of green. Tags around his neck, too, Alex noticed. The same air as Freddy. There were plenty of folks like Freddy these days.

  While the food cooked, Al was busy shouting about Koreans. He wasn’t shouting much, just making sure everyone was watching the TV. You hearing this, he’d ask, you see what they’re doing? He’d ask the room at large, waiting for a rumbling of support. Most people nodded in gentle agreement, but the younger man decided that he’d speak up.

  “Turn it all to glass, that’s what I say. Let’s see them try to run an ash field.”

  The man cackled while he said it, a thin wisp of blond hair falling across his eyebrows.

  “That right, huh?” Al responded, his eyes already back glued to the screen, his hands flipping meat on autopilot.

  The younger man didn’t stop. Encouraged, he began to chat, talking about Korea this and China that. They’re taking over, he garbled, cheap products as Trojan horses, leaving the country stoney broke. Typical talk radio fodder. Alex ignored him. Lots of people talked in Al’s, though often not for long.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28