Like a Boss (37 page)

“Trying is for amateurs,” I said. “I’m a goddamn pro.”

“Right.” She grabbed a cop and told her, “Get me another fifty people, fast as you can.”

“What made you come around? Back in Bakaara–”

“I was wrong, okay? I was wrong, and I didn’t want to admit I was wrong because I am
also
a goddamn pro.” She cleared her throat. “I let you down. I let the
city
down. My gut told me Letty was up to no good, that having everyone stand down was a stupid, bone-headed mistake, and I followed her instructions. I did as I was told.” She spat on the ground. “When I Breached, I told myself I was
done
with that.”

“You were thinking about your people.”

“You’re
all
supposed to be my people.” She looked away and pulled off her badge. “I don’t deserve this.”

“Bullshit.” I put my hand on her shoulder. To her credit, she didn’t snap it off at the wrist. “Put that back on. People need to see
their
police out here. By the way: good move on having everyone wear their street uniforms instead of the riot gear.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I didn’t think it was good for us to look like an occupying army,” she said. “Also, I didn’t have enough equipment for everyone. All the assholes who didn’t report in apparently raided the precinct houses for supplies, including all our armor. Oh, and
that
” – she pointed at the encrusted convicts – “is the last of our riot foam.”

“Well, keep that to yourself. Speaking of which, is your pai back on?”

She waved her hand from side to side. “Service has been weird.”

“Letty has a backdoor.”

“Into the Public?”

I tapped my temple.

Soni made a weary face. “So she knows about the foam. And everything else we’ve talked about.”

“I’m working under that assumption. I have to admit, it’s kind of liberating to know your nemesis is watching your every move. No need to hide. She can see us coming.”

“You realize that gives her an incredible tactical advantage over us, right? A dominating, crushing advantage?”

“I do, but I’m at the stage where I’m past being angry. Now I just want shit fixed. I think everyone else does, too. Speaking of which, you want your people to get paid?”

Soni laughed. “Sure. Who wouldn’t? You think Letty can make our payroll?”

I shrugged. “If she wanted to, sure. But I can take care of you guys right now.”

Soni narrowed her eyes. “You’re serious. That’s never a good thing when you’re serious. What did you do?”

“I sold the distillery.”

Soni’s face froze for a good thirty seconds before it curled up in anger. She grabbed me by my shirtfront. “You. Did. WHAT?”

“I had to, Soni! Rallying the people didn’t do squat. They wanted to get paid!”

“Oh, so you took it on yourself to become the chair of the Finance Committee? Jesus, here you are
again
, making a big, stupid decision without thinking about the consequences.”

“Seeing how doing
nothing
has resulted in fires, bombings, and maniacs with machetes wandering the streets, I figured it was worth the chance. Besides, who’s gonna get hurt by this?”

“You, stupid!” Soni let go of me. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve only cared about getting that distillery. Two years later, you’re
selling
it? What is
wrong
with you?”

“It wasn’t the distillery,” I said. “It was the rum.”

Soni groaned. “Look, I dig a mojito as much as the next girl, but–”

I took her hand. “WalWa broke my brain, and the only thing that keeps it unbroken is Old Windswept. That’s why I wanted to buy the distillery, Soni. Tem Ropata came up with this whole ritual thing, and it
works
. Remember all those times I’d get spacey and weird?”

She smirked. “Show me one person on this rock who isn’t like that every now and then.”

I wasn’t sure whether to hug her or slug her. “The rum has this psychoactive affect, and it keeps me sane. I only take a finger a night. That’s it.”

The smirk faded. “Hold it. I have seen you ripped to the gills before.”

“Sure, on someone else’s booze. And has it ever been before six o’clock?”

“Why six o’clock?”

I shrugged. “It’s just when Ropata said to do it. That’s all. No magic, but it works. And it works because of this place.” I laughed. “Holy shit, I finally realized it. Ropata had me figure out my place in the universe, and it always starts here. Wherever I am, I’m always on Santee, in this city, as we’re spinning away through space.”

“Are you okay?” said Soni.

“No,” I replied, “but I know one thing that will make me feel better.”

“Does it involve going to the Union Hall?”

“You bet your sweet boots it does. But first, you all gotta get paid.”

“You’re damned right we do.”

The police wages were slightly higher than everyone else’s, seeing how they got hazard pay on top of their usual salaries. “Letty declared a state of emergency two weeks ago,” said Soni.

“That was a pretty quiet declaration,” I said, sending money to the last of her officers. “Great way to spin up dissension in the ranks. Maybe she really is some kind of Ghost agent.”

“I have no idea what she is,” said Soni. “None of my Freeborn contacts wanted to talk about her.”

“Freeborn… oh, God, Onanefe. What happened to him? We need him to rally the Freeborn. Or to stop them from doing something equally as stupid as our people.”

“He’s okay,” said Soni. “Got a detail guarding him.”

“A good one?”

“No, Padma, he’s being watched by crooks and assassins.”

“Hey, at this stage, I have to double-check. Can you get him to meet us at the Hall?”

She waved one of her officers over and passed the message. “He’s probably going to bring friends,” said the cop.

“Good,” I said. “I think that’s the only way this will work. Shall we?”

It was a different march from the ones that had happened earlier this week. There were no signs, no slogans chanted. There was none of the giddiness, either. We just walked, picking up people as we went. Soni and the police faded into the midst of the growing mass, breaking up fights and helping people who stumbled. It was six kilometers to Brushhead, and I kept falling behind to pay more people. People broke off as we passed their job sites: network towers, manhole covers, half-finished houses. The tone was somber without being funereal. We were done celebrating and fighting. Now it was time to get back to work, starting with the little job of overthrowing our own government.

Nobody talked, which was good because it let me focus on what little leverage I had. There was plenty in the Union Charter about how to remove a standing president, including processes for times just like this (i.e. the What To Do When The Prez Has Gone Mad With Power subclause). The problem is that they all required a relatively functional city to make them viable. Even if everyone got back to their jobs tonight, it would take weeks for Santee to come out of its coma. That would give Letty plenty of time to regroup as the city bled through its supplies. Plus: she had bombs.

I slowed at every corner to make sure there were no tuk-tuks parked on the street. I shuddered at the
putt-putt
of backyard cane diesel engines. Of course, Letty could have ordered the Jennifers to turn every single object in the city into something explosive. I had no idea how long she’d been cooking up this scheme or how much boom-boom she’d made and stockpiled. With Saarien consulting, she might have carved out a gigantic munitions factory beneath the Union Hall. The first thing I had to get out of her was the locations of all her bombs. Well, the first thing right after I figured out how to get
anything
out of her.

The streetlights flicked on as we turned south onto SolidarnoϾ Street. A hundred people stood beneath the pale blue glow, the tired lines on their faces made deeper by the shadows. Onanefe stood in front of them, hands in his pockets.

“The casual look works for you,” I said. “Like you just happened to be hanging around with nothing to do.”

He shrugged. “I’ve
always
got something to do. I just choose to look good while doing it.”

I embraced him and clapped my hands on his shoulders. “I could really use your help. Yours and every Freeborn you can reach.”

He nodded. “You know you got me. You got my crew. Everyone else I’ve talked to, they’re still not sure. There’s a lot of talk of just fading into the kampong while the city burns.”

“But they’re still here.”

Onanefe smiled. “People also want to see how this plays out. The wind smells like there could be a new deal in the air.”

“There will be,” I said. “There has to be. It’ll be a lot of boring, unsexy work, but I’m going to make it happen.”

“All by yourself, huh?”

“Why not? I already made one big stupid choice today, and it’s working out pretty well so far.”

He surveyed the crowd. “That is a fine mob you’ve got for yourself.”

“I’ll have you know this mob represents a cross-section of Santee society from every trade, demographic, and bar.”

“What do you plan to do with this assembly?”

“I have no idea. Maybe we’ll sit down and sing songs. I heard that worked on Dead Earth.”

“I heard that resulted in people getting blasted with fire hoses and attacked by dogs.”

“I like my version better. Besides, whatever we talk about isn’t going to be the plan, ’cause Letty can see and hear everything.”

He blanched. “It’s that damn thing in your eye, isn’t it? In all of your eyes?”

“She’s got a backdoor into all of our brains. It’s not a pleasant feeling.”

“She can’t control you or anything, right?” His eyes grew wide.

I looked at the crowd. “If she could, she’s doing a bad job of it. But she can certainly hear and see all of us. She can access our buffers. I don’t think she can get into our Public profiles, but I’m sure she’s working on it. The last thing I need is for her to reverse all the payments I made.”

“Payments?”

I told him about selling the distillery and his jaw dropped. “That’s…”

“Insane?”

“I was going to say ‘impressive,’ but your word works, too.” He cleared his throat. “So, she can see and hear us, which is why you can’t talk about the plan. But you got one, right?”

I nodded. “Just come along with me, and you’ll see.” Right. See how quickly I can pull one out of my ass, that is.

We swept down SolidarnoϾ, and everyone got even quieter. All I could hear was the shuffle of feet, like water running down the canals after a hurricane. The clock tower on top of the Hall appeared, its glass face lit from within by an array of multicolored LEDs. Some of the lights were stolen from ships above. Some were made here in town. All of them were of varying quality and hue. Whenever one burned out, the Maintenance Committee just slapped in whatever was on hand, so the clock face became a slow motion light show. The color was mostly blue like the street lights, but, as we got closer, I could make out streaks of red, like angry lightning bolts. I usually loved seeing the clock, because that meant I was going to the Union Hall, and the Hall had always meant home.

We crossed Koothrapalli, and there was the Hall, that simple square of recycled concrete with ironpalm accents. I had gone to this place for more weddings, funerals, debates, sub-committee elections, dances, and hurricanes than I’d lost count. It always felt like sanctuary, the one spot in the city welcome to everyone, no matter their status or trade. Now it was surrounded by a ring of harsh yellow stadium lights, probably boosted from Camp de la Indústria, the football pitch over in Poble Sèc. At the base of each light stood a pair of armored, black-clad, machete-wielding figures. As we got closer, they started clacking the flats of their blades against the light poles. The sound rang across the street and bounced off the face of the Hall. A worried murmur started behind me and, oh God, I didn’t blame them. How I wished we were facing WalWa goons. Their clubs hurt, but they didn’t cut.

I kept walking. Soni materialized at my side, and Onanefe stepped to the other. I took their hands, and they took the hands of the people next to them. The closer we got, the more the machetes clanged on the light poles. I linked arms with Soni and Onanefe; they did the same with the people next to them. We pulled each other together as the sound of metal-on-metal filled our heads, like we were in the middle of a typhoon made of coral steel.

“If they charge,” I said to Soni, “we are all running like hell.”

She squeezed my arm. Onanefe grunted.

I slowed in the middle of the street and looked behind me. An ocean of people surged the lengths of Solidarnoœæ and Koothrapalli, all facing the hundred with machetes. I unhooked from Soni and Onanefe and walked up to the steps. I focused on the two women in front of me. They had black scarves wrapped across their faces, leaving only their eyes uncovered. I could see a lot of hate in those eyes from the way they narrowed and focused on me. I stopped and yelled above the din, “Would you mind telling your boss we’d like to talk with her about her job performance?”

They just kept clanging their blades.

“We can wait,” I said, and I sat down on the sidewalk. Somewhere in the storm of clattering metal, I heard a whoosh of air. I thought someone had thrown something, so I turned and saw everyone else had sat where they were, like we were all at a picnic or a concert. What I wouldn’t give to have the Brushhead Memorial Band behind me, tootling out songs while people passed around bottles and plates of tacos.

The women in front of me stiffened and stopped their machetes. Their comrades followed suit. A pregnant silence hung in the air. What would Letty’s next move be? What about mine? I know I certainly wanted to throw up just to get rid of the ball of acid churning in my guts, but that would not be a move that inspired confidence.

I took a breath and did the first thing that came to mind: I sang.

When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run

There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun

– my voice felt thin and wavering, like a candle lit during a stiff breeze. I kept going –