Grey

Once we were on the Loop, Father opened a bottle and poured glasses of carrot.

“Some rotten garden juice?” he asked us.

“Thank you, no,” said Joelene.

Once he and Xavid had made a toast, he turned his glass upside down over his mouth and let the goop slowly drop in. “Thick!” he said, once he had finally swallowed it. For a while he turned on some painfully loud Ultra song and sang along. Joelene and I covered our ears. The phrase Snuff Your Mind flashed onto my leg. Instinctively, I swatted my hand at it as though it were a mosquito.

Then the music was off. “We have to start having rages again,” said Father. “Dance parties every night! That’s what we did when we were number one.” As quickly as he had been excited, he slumped, and said, “Our clients all hate me,” and stared at the black residue in his glass.

“They don’t hate you,” said Xavid. “You’re a tough businessman. They admire you and fear you.”

Father laughed. “They hate me because I’m a terrible businessman. They think I’m so stupid they can take me down. But I’m not going to let them.” One of the lasers etched Behold… The Immaculate Bruise across his face.

The car exited the Loop, and after we traveled down the deceleration ramp, we were on local roads passing low buildings and wide avenues. I wasn’t sure where we were, but it had to be somewhere in Europa-12, where there wasn’t much of anything good. The streets became more narrow and bumpy. I saw stretches of abandoned buildings and junk everywhere. We came to a checkpoint; Father stepped out into the stink of the night and negotiated our passage with blue slub satins.

“Joelene,” I whispered urgently, “what’s going on?”

She just said, “Shh.”

“No, sir,” intoned one of the blue satins outside.

“Off-limits to the families.”

A moment later, Father was giving them bottles of carrot liquor and patting them on the back; soon we continued into the slubs.

Outside it was mostly just black. Only the occasional reddish electric light or fire illuminated anything. Along one road, I thought I saw what looked like thousands of broken and bent bikes. Down another were piles of garbage, with women and children picking through it.

Father was going to leave me out here, I figured. My only chance was to keep away from the slubbers until morning and then try and find my way back to the cities. Before, my mistake had been talking to them. This time I’d hide. I’d stay quiet.

The truth was

,

I doubted I would survive the night, so I said goodbye to Mr. Cedar, to Pure H, Joelene, and most of all, to Nora. I hated that I’d never see her again, but at least she would know that I would rather die than surrender my love.

The car made another turn; I saw people huddling around a bonfire. In the orange light, a naked girl danced. Farther along, I saw men fighting. One was hit in the face with a rock or a bottle. It knocked his head back with such force that I was sure his neck was broken. He dropped to the ground.

For several minutes I could see nothing. We made three more turns and then the car came to a stop. The engines whirred as they slowed. The laser lights stopped scribbling their madness all over us and, for an

instant,

the world was still and peaceful. The side door slid open, and in the faint moonlight, I saw dilapidated two-story cinderblock buildings.

“We’re off the map,” said Father.

“Way off the map.

So don’t make a wrong turn ’cause there’s no security, or satins, or anything. There’s nothing here but bad, bad shit.”

“The odor is unbearable,” said Xavid.

“I’ve smelled worse!” said Father, as though it were a joke.

We stepped out onto gravel. The humid air

reeked

of manure and rotting flesh.

“Sir,” said Joelene, covering her mouth as if she were about to gag, “this is already a stern and frightening warning. I’ll take Michael back to the compound, and we’ll work on an apology press release.”

“Shut your holes!” he barked. “Come on.” In the distance I heard screams like someone was being torn in two. His film crew wheeled around to try and find its source. I didn’t want to see, and pulled the lapels of my jacket up over my neck. Farther away glass broke, and I heard a crazy laugh.

Father stopped before a black door and knocked. While we waited, he said, “Creepy, huh?”

Three knocks came from the other side. Father adjusted his jacket on his neck,

then

his sleeve, like a hack magician about to perform, then knocked seven times.

The door opened an inch.

“I am Melina Gwendalarra,” said Father.

“You mean Kristina Suggs?” asked a groaning voice from inside.

Father winked at his camera. “No, I’m Osmond Miditulip.”

The door opened and we entered a pitch-black space.

“Follow me,” said a dark shape.

Father started forward. I held onto Joelene’s shoulder as we shuffled into oblivion with the film crew lagging behind. It was so dark inside, my eyes began producing spirals and checkerboards as if I were asleep or had been plunged into an ocean of ink. The floor turned sandy and wet. Then, we were walking through several inches of water and the sound of the splashes reverberated as though we were in a stadium-sized space. We made a turn to the right, the floor became firm and dry, and we began up an incline.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Shh!” hissed Father.

“The humidity,” complained his hairdresser, “it’s too much.”

Father shushed him, too.

Finally, we turned a corner and entered a small room. A single fluttering candle illuminated the space. The walls glistened with condensation. The air smelled of wet dirt and algae. Across the floor were curled wood shavings and what looked like the bones of small birds. I saw a waterbug three inches long dart away.

And in the middle of the room on a wooden stool sat a man in a white loincloth.

He appeared to be a burn victim. His skin looked like

poorly

cast rubber cement and had the flat tone of flesh-colored paint. His mouth was little more than a lipless hole, and instead of a nose, he had only one oblong black nostril. His eyes were green, bloodshot, and angry. I glanced away in disgust.

This is what he wanted me to see—a victim of torture. I heard stories about employees who had been punished with needles, fire, and poisonous fruit. Is that what he was going to do to me? I hated to think so.

“He’s got no name,” said Father. “No house. No family. No job, no numbers, no papers. He doesn’t even have a bellybutton.

Nothing!”

To his crew he said, “Get a shot of his belly. It’s as smooth as his back.”

As they did, Xavid leaned in and said, “I feel sorry for him.”

“Don’t!”

said

Father, sharply. “He’s

a freeboot

. As free and as boot as they come. And he’s pure evil.” Father folded his arms and gazed at the man proudly. “Didn’t think I knew any freeboots, did you? Officially, these things are the enemy. And they really are. We work against them every day. But, if you’re selling a solution,” he puffed out his chest and smiled at his camera, “you gotta make sure

there’s plenty of problems

to go with it.”

Although

the freeboot

scared me, this was about RiverGroup. It was about how Father made sure the families needed the security we sold. I asked, “Can we go now?”

“Go?” asked Father, unfolding his arms. “Fuck pudding! We just got here. Why don’t you ask him a question?”

After glancing at the man’s sorry, distorted face, I said, “I don’t want to.”

“You should.” He grinned. “He’s real important to you. He’s your motivation.”

I probably should have understood, but didn’t. My advisor held her head down as if frightened. “Meaning what?”