Refraction | Part 1 | Darwin's Steroids
39) Rifts
Here’s how it happened.
Israel got the hell out of there. He didn’t know who or how many were in pursuit of him, but he knew discretion meant little to them. Government? Who else could go around blowing off people’s doors in the middle of the night? But which branch, and why? Time for that later, what Israel needed at this point was a place to go to ground. He made it down the fire escape without incident and immediately stepped backward into the door to the basement, in the shadow of his building. A man appeared on his balcony, checked the alley in both directions. He was wearing goggles. Israel prayed they were set to night-vision and not IR. He was hidden in the alcove of a doorway, out of the line of sight of the man above him, but his heat signature would show up for sure with a good piece of military spec infra-red equipment.
The man above stood on the balcony, in a moment of silent hesitation. He lifted his arm and spoke into his cuff briefly, then stepped back into Israel’s apartment through the shattered window opening. Israel waited it out, considering his options. In the distance he heard rising sirens, he knew he couldn’t afford the possibility of being picked up by the cops. Israel wasn’t sure what was happening to him, or how his life had managed to be turned upside-down so quickly, but he knew one thing for sure, he could never go back to that apartment again. He thought about the myriad items and keepsakes which were probably being rifled through at that very second, and his bile rose within him. He fought the urge to go have it out with these people once and for all, but when he remembered the events of earlier that evening he knew he had become part of something big, and it intrigued him. Intrigued him enough to value staying alive a little while longer.
His biggest problem was his feet, unshod as they were. A bad stroke of luck to be sure, ending up in the hospital with an serious infection would be just as bad or worse than if the cops picked him up. Then he’d be trapped and weakened by disease. So move slowly old man, use your head, not your feet. Distance isn’t always physical. He turned the opposite direction than when he went to Ella’s. He would cut through the park, sticking to the shadows until he got to the river, he could drop down onto the dry concrete bed and walk south. Eventually he would come to the tent city where thousands of marginalized citizens huddled together in a sort of economic free zone/shanty town/skid row/refugee camp. Israel knew he could disappear into the biomass of the tent city, his skin color and age insuring he could easily walk among those that lived there. A ninety year-old black man with no shoes, a back pack and two pistols was par for the course in the free zone.
Israel made it to the river without seeing any signs of his pursuers. His dream had woken him up just in time. He had managed to escape without being seen by his attackers, so they might have very little knowledge of who he was. It would be to his advantage that his military records had been sealed, and more than likely lost or destroyed during the great world wide conflict of his youth. The less these people knew about what Israel was capable of the better. Let them underestimate him for a while, it would only serve to increase his chances of escape.
As he walked along the dry bed of the river he began taking stock of what resources he had, which ones were compromised, and which ones might still be available to him once the sun rose. Whoever was after him had his PDA by now, and all of the contacts within it. That ruled out his family, and most of his friends. He had a few names he kept only in his head, unsavory types that preferred not to have any trail lead toward them, electronic or otherwise. It was one of those people he hoped to find in the insane muddle of the shanty town he now approached.
When he reached the 4th street bridge, he clambered up the bank to street level. With great caution, his senses tuned toward anything out of the ordinary, Israel left the river and city he had once called home, and crossed the unmarked boundary into the free zone. The air around him changed subtly, it was suddenly filled with the stink of wretched humanity. As Israel maneuvered his way through the tents that made up the periphery of the free zone, he popped the catch on his holster, limbering up the weapon that hung from his hip. He did not think he would need it, he was counting on his wits for survival, and anyhow if he got jumped from behind there wouldn’t be much he could do about it. But he knew the more dangerous he appeared to be the less likely it was that anyone would bother him.
He wove his way toward the center of the haphazard community, trading the unknown danger of the pursuit, for the more familiar danger of the impoverished and addicted. The tent city had been increasing in size since before the war. It started out existing only at night, after the stores in the area had closed. DeSal brought thousands and thousands of refugees from the center of the country to its coastal cities, as a result this kind of multi-ethnic everyman’s land began popping up in every major metropolitan area near the sea. Some depopulated as wartime footing scaled back into peace time prosperity. Others, like this one, had managed to become permanent entities. They were places the law did not extend to, the police handing over the reins of power to whatever street gang or religious cult rose to ascension within these urban hinterlands.
Israel pushed his way past the beggars, pickpockets, vendors and junkies that lived in the less substantial outskirts of the shanty town. Here and there fires burned ,for cooking and warmth, the flickering light casting a surreal effect over all. He picked warily through a crowd of sweaty excited Chinese men who were jumping up and down hollering at one another about some sort of contest in the center of their group. They paid no attention to him as he shoved his way through the mob with his elbows, careful to not let one of the screaming and leaping bettors land on his exposed toes. There were pitfalls everywhere here. Exposed wire bundles feeding clusters of tinder like wooden structures, used needles and broken glass littered the ground. Junkies gathered in the shadows, the itch of their addictions taking over their minds. Israel understood them and pitied them, but he also knew enough to stay well away from them. Slowly and cautiously Israel made his way through the confusing, noisy warren toward the oldest part of the free zone, where the tents and lean-tos had long since been replaced by more long lasting constructions.
Finally he came to the place he was looking for among the ramshackle ‘permanent’ buildings. An ancient yellow school bus on blocks, it’s interior strung with Christmas lights, a crooked sign above the propped open door with a picture of a man in a cowboy hat on a bicycle. The BMX Cowboy. The bar was owned and operated by an old friend of Israel’s, a man he hadn’t seen in years. Israel could only hope the man was still alive. Longevity was not among the chief benefits of living in the free zones.
He fears were abated when, as he neared the immobilized transport, its rear emergency exit door swung open, and two beefy hands ejected a wiry Hispanic man into the night air. The man cart-wheeled out into the dust followed by a string of profanity so rich and salty Israel knew it could only come from one mouth. He stepped between the ejected man and the open door and said,
“How’s your sister frog-face? Any body knocked her up yet this week?”
The man doing the ejecting was a thick, short, blocky individual. He refocused his eyes on this newcomer, processed a moment and coolly replied,
“Nay brother, I always pull out in time.”
Israel laughed and looked at his feet, then back up into the face of his friend,
“I need a place to cool off, Stanley. I have some people after me, I don’t know who, and I only think I know why. I need access and info.”
Stanley Crutchfield looked down at his shoeless friend, noted the armaments, and the deadly serious look in his eye. It was a look Stanley had not seen for a long, long time. It chilled him to see it here, on his door step. He did not invite trouble into his home, but he owed Israel his life, and that was a tab you didn’t walk out on. He stayed silent just long enough for Israel to feel relieved when he finally said,
“Fuck, Ish, you know you’re always welcome in my place. I was just closing up for the night. C’mon around to the front, I’ll trade a drink for a good yarn any day.”
“Then pull out your top shelf, Stan,”, said Israel, “because I’ve got a doozy for you.”
END OF PART ONE
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