The Anarchists (7 page)

“Wanna make a call.” She hated how droids were given names from defunct soap operas to personify them.

“Outgoing calls are not permitted until your 72-hour surveillance period ends.” While pleasantly toned, Stan’s voice was definitive. “Do you have any family members that you would like for me to contact? The hospital permits visitors.”

“No.” In truth, more than half of her relatives were dead or locked up. Teanna reclined and reduced the HTV’s volume to a barely audible level. She slowly and deeply breathed and closed her eyes, concentrating to forget the sounds and images to no avail. This time, she’d page Stan and ask for Adharma.

“What can I do for you, Miss Kirkwood?” Stan’s voice and tone remained the same.

“Add-harm-you, whatever. . .can you get him in here?”

“Dr. Adharma is with another patient. I will alert him.”

“Can you give me somethin’? Put me to sleep?”

Stan pointed to the medicine strapped to Teanna’s arm. “That pouch has a sedative on a slow drip. It takes time.”

Not only had the doctor done what she told him to do – go away – he did it well. “How long’ll it take to work?”

Stan’s exploratory lenses whirred and focused. “Based on your current weight and body chemistry, and the medicine dosage, it should take effect in an hour or two.”

An hour or two?
Teanna sprung to a sitting position. “Get me the doctor now! Get him in here now!” She screamed until her throat burned.
If actin’ like a lunatic gets them to put me out, then so be it.
Teanna thrashed, growled, and drooled like a wild animal. At the point of her exhaustion, Adharma appeared.

“Has it come to this, Miss Kirkwood? Pretending to be disturbed for drugs?”

Adharma’s pomposity gave her a new energy. “You ain’t say nothin’ about me being here for no 72 hours,” she growled.

“Standard observation period.”

“That’s crap. It’s a suicide watch. I can’t sleep! Ain’t you got a higher concentration for big-boned people?”

“You are not experiencing the harsher physical effects of the drugs in your system, but your body still has to be weaned from the sniff you consumed,” he said in a droll monotone. “When it's complete, perhaps by then, you will be ready to talk. And, there’s no such thing as being big-boned.”

“Alright.” Teanna laid back and tried to relax. “Ask me whatever; just promise me you’ll put me out.”

“The boyfriend. . .”

She stared at the ceiling. “Met on this ten-day trip to Japan I won in ‘33, before I went back to school.”

“You were in school? For what?”

“Real estate license,” she said with lament. “Tiny lived straight back then. He was a plane steward. He introduced me to Tay’s daddy. Got home, found out ‘bout my pregnancy. I called him, but he sent money for an abortion and never called.”     

“Then what?”

“I decided to keep Tay, no matter what, but I ain’t finish class ‘cause I got put on bed rest. Lost my job, start havin’ all kinds of medical issues ‘cause of my pregnancy. Got on disability. Tiny found me and start helpin’ out every once in a while. We got together, broke up, then got back after Meleasa’s dad left. When Tiny’s around, he gives me what I need. When he ain’t around, he don’t.”

“Why do you think they didn’t like him? Did he abuse them?”

“Tiny poked fun at Tay. And Meleasa. . .cause her dad ain’t around? Maybe somethin’. . .but he ain’t rape her or nothin’.”

Adharma looked down over his glasses. “Had she been examined?”

“Look, I just know, alright?” For a minute, the man said nothing. Teanna looked over the protective rail. “What you tryin’ to say?”

“Pardon?”

“You asked if she been ‘examined’? Why?”

“Unless your daughter had been examined by a doctor, a medical droid, or you constantly monitored her, you cannot know for sure.”

She huffed. “Don’t know the kinds of women you be examinin’, but me? I know my kids, and everythin’ they do.”

“Did you know Teiji had an Ordnance?”

No.
Teanna hid her quivering lips.
I never thought he’d kill.

“Bullied children either strike in against themselves – cutting, eating disorders, and the like – or out against others. Your son chose the latter.”

Pulse racing, Teanna collapsed in tears. But why kill him?

Adharma rose and attended to her medicine pouch. “Try to relax.”

“I know I ain’t the best mother, God knows I got problems like the rest, but I ain’t think it's that bad that my son gotta go shootin’ people.”

Adharma used a small metallic instrument to manipulate the piston-like tube plunger, gradually increasing the dosage of the blue serum. “Breathe slowly. Count backwards from ten.”

“Ten. . .nine. . .” she mumbled before dropping out of consciousness.

Teanna yawned. The heavenly bed sheets felt like threaded clouds surrounding her skin. Keeping her eyes closed, she caressed the silk and allowed it to return the favor. Bacon, eggs, cheese, vegetables, and ham – she smelled a western omelet!
Maybe there’s coffee and home fries!
 
Am I dead? Will an angel serve me? A devil? Will leavin’ the bed make this go away?

Hoping for the best, she swept her legs over the bedside to find a luxurious pair of slippers awaiting her feet. The place reminded her of a fine hotel that she’d stayed in almost a year before she had Teiji. She won a trip and trekked to Japan alone. Why did her brain choose to excavate this particular memory and interpolate it into her dreams?
And why’s it so real?  

She passed through the entryway to the kitchen. Transparent curtains of sunlight draped into the breakfast nook from the large window to her left. At the stove, a man, close to six feet moved with the certainty of an expert chef – chopping, whipping and sorting with ease. He paused, blindly set a cobalt-colored mug to his right, and poured coffee into it. Teanna claimed it and dressed the drink to her liking.

“Good mornin’?”

“Good afternoon,” he corrected in an Asian accent. “You like to sleep.”  

Never slept in a dream before.
She forced hot coffee down her throat.
But I’d do it again.
A full pot remained, and not even two resolute human beings could drink that much in one sitting. Soon, she sipped from another cup. “For the record, the sex was great but I hate you.” 

“That’s not why you’re here, you know,” he said with expectation.

“Whatever,” she said with her lips at the mug’s edge. “Coffee’s good.”

“It’s not a question, Teanna. You know why you‘re here.”

Teanna pondered the non-question. “You shoulda done right by me and your son. You know we strugglin’! See what he gone an’ done?”

He slapped a western omelet and home fries onto a plate and set it before her. “What will you do to correct it?” 

Teanna cursed his cold demeanor. “That ain’t no choice to make.”

Her former lover circled the table and covered Teanna in an embrace. The weight of her arm grew heavily around the bicep. Her feet felt bare and discomfort throbbed in her back. She blinked and opened her eyes.

Everything had disappeared.

CHAPTER FIVE

January 2, 2050

Cee Cee led her bloodied best friend down the hospital corridor just past midnight. A medical droid named “Wynter Dawn” escorted them to an examination room and activated an opaque soundproof barrier behind them. “You’re doing the right thing, Q.”

Right's an idea somebody more powerful pushed onto somebody weaker.
If Quinne correctly remembered it, God told Adam and Eve not to touch a certain tree.
What’s right to them – eatin’ and becomin’ like God – is wrong to God. Weak versus the powerful.
 
  
 

“Good morning. My name is Wynter Dawn, of the pilot medical program,” said the imitation female voice. “I will be attending to you and examining you. Do you prefer me to be male or female? I can accommodate either selection.”

“Female,” Quinne indicated.

At that, a red light blinked near its metal ears. “Your head trauma indicates swelling, but you do not have a concussion, and your remaining vital signs are steady. Now, please tell me everything you can remember. Please do so in the order in which the events occurred.”

Encouraged by Cee Cee, Quinne parted open her purpled lips. “Happened in an alley. . .downtown, on Market Street. Tonight. He grabbed me and. . .forced me.”

“What did he ‘force’ you to do?”

Her eyes dropped. “Into an alley,” she admitted for the first time.

“I’m sorry,” Wynter pleasantly said. “Can you be more specific?”

The question sent shivers across Quinne’s midsection. Cee Cee left the area. He threatened her with a knife or something sharp. He pulled her sweatsuit top over her head to keep her from identifying him. He asked how it felt, how good. He did it quickly and knocked her out with something heavy and blunt. She woke up hours later, covered in trash and with a raging headache. No one had noticed her long enough to rob her. She called Cee Cee, who picked her up and drove her straight to the hospital.   
 
  

“What were you wearing at the time?”

“This,” she said, pointing to her soiled outfit. Wynter presented an empty metal tray. 

“Remove your clothes. Place them in the bin to your left.”

 Quinne complied, tenderly easing out from her outfit. Black and blue welts were staggered across her back.

“Now,” said Wynter, “I will perform the collection of forensic evidence. Please attempt to relax and stay still.”

Cee Cee remained outside, while Samantha darkened the room and swept a black light over the naked body. Quinne closed her eyes and moved as asked, standing still for the physical sequence. In a way, she appreciated the corporately-sponsored android program, which largely automated the hospital. The last thing she wanted was the touch of a man’s hand. The scientists who designed the medical droids programmed them to emote, act, and even sound human. But at the end of the day, the machines stayed true to their nature; pretending to be something they were not.

Minutes later, Wynter indicated that the pair could go, and she departed herself. Cee Cee reentered the room, blindly passing Quinne a fresh pair of clothes and undergarments. The crime scene clothes would be kept for evidence.

It’s “right” to him, what he did. He had the power. But I’ll have the power someday.

“They’ll catch him, Q.”

“No,” said Quinne, putting them on. “They won’t. And I’ll spend the rest of my life clean on the outside but filthy on the inside.”

“You don’t know that. Forensics has come so far and now. . .”

“Don’t lecture me!” she warned. “You don’t know what it’s like, do you? Especially when you ain’t want it
.
You think about it. You think, am I pregnant? Do I gotta disease I can’t get rid of? I remember it all. How do you get rid of that? And don’t give me any of that Jesus crap, either.”  

 “It’s what I believe,” Cee Cee shouted. “Get angry at the world, your situation, God, whatever. But who took off two days to be there? Whose shoulder did you cry on? Mine. Show me some respect, Quinne, or you’re going to lose the only real friend you’ve got.”

The two stared one another down in silence for a moment. Wynter reappeared just as Quinne pulled down her midnight green football jersey over her black sweatpants.

“Miss Ruiz, one of the hospital’s benefactors, The Genesis Institute, provides counseling services for trauma and crime victims.” The android offered her a thumb segment-sized, blood red disk. “One of its best psychoanalytic doctors, Dr. Adharma, is on staff here at the hospital, and. . .”

“No!” She recoiled. “Not one more person tellin’ me what to do, or what to take or not take. I got it, had enough. I’m done.”

“Thank you.” Cee Cee accepted the disk on her behalf. “She’ll give him a call.”

“No, I will not! You call them. You need counselin’, if you think I’m going. If I ain’t go to the other place, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

“You’d be in jail, if you didn’t go to group,” Cee Cee argued. “And if you hadn’t gotten hooked on sniff, you wouldn’t have had to go to group and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Or if you had taken me home, like a true best friend, and not left me on the street, I never would’ve gotten picked up. And, for the last time, I’m not hooked on sniff. You, Mason – when are ya’ll gonna start listenin’ to me?”

“So, that’s it then? It’s
my fault
? I guess I put the drinks in your hand, too? Sooner or later, it would’ve caught up to you. You and I both know that. ”

As the examination drew to its conclusion, the room lost its soundproofing. Noticing this, Quinne stood up and exited with as much of her dignity intact as possible. Cee Cee followed. They waited at the front for Cee Cee’s black Tarpan to pull up.

“So, you think after blaming me for everything that’s happened to you that I’m just gonna drive you home like everything’s okay?”

Remembering what happened the last time she traveled by herself, Quinne humbled herself. “Please?”