The 13 Secret Cities (Omnibus) (33 page)

José María looked different since we had come back, and I realized now what the change was. He continued to smile and laugh as he always did. But his face was harder, the jaw more square. Lines cut grooves into his forehead.
 

He’s aged.

I felt I had aged too, but I could really see it in my brother. In fact he looked taller, more muscular, as if he had moved through puberty and exited at the same time the tunnel of butterflies delivered us to the shore.

It can’t be. How long were we down in Mictlán?

But I knew. I knew. José María had told me that the journey through Mictlán lasts years.

“You’ll need to help me bring the flyers up the tower. We’re going to deliver them in a very unusual way.”

José María dropped the box of flyers on the sidewalk. People behind us stumbled into him, but he didn’t care.

“You can carry your own flyers, bitch,” he said. “I’m done helping you out.”

He had never called me bitch. Ever.

“That’s fine. What the OLF has planned for today is much bigger than parades for some damn
kids
.”

“You think I don’t read the backdoor messages in the Internet,
reina
? I know you and those terrorists are planning a blackout today. You’re not that special.”

“Whatever.”

“You want to keep playing games with these anarchist fools in Chicago while that
thing
is after us.”

“You need to listen to me,” I said.

“No, you need to stop telling me what to do.”

“You know what? I hate you, José María. I hate you and your stupidity. You’re so naive.”

He lit a cigarette and dragged on it until the cherry went bright red in the dim November daylight.

He cocked his head to the west.

“I see Dad and La Negra,” he said. “Looks like they just parked. See you after your game of hide-and-seek. And keep your bullshit to yourself, because I am tired of you.”

And he walked off down Ohio Street, where my father, my aunt Veronica and several of our cousins filed out of his Honda.

I checked my watch. We would target the websites of every major news outlet at the start of the parade, and that was just the beginning. This morning in bed, I had wanted to quit my membership to the OLF, but now that José María had spat in my face, I felt a rage like boiling water in my veins. I had never been so angry in my life, and as I stared at the Tribune Tower and the Trump Tower a mile down the avenue, I knew I could fuel the rally with my rage.

As I cut through the hundreds of sightseers, children and tourists, I should have paid attention to the hungry mouths that shimmered inside the shadows cast by the buildings, the hard eyes encrusted behind the concrete of the Magnificent Mile.

But I didn’t. My focus was hard and brittle, like a pinpoint in the distance, and no hallucinatory vision, no night of nightmares and cold sweat was going to stop me from doing something tangible in the real world.

I was going to change the history of Chicago forever.

ABOUT THIS SERIAL

This novel is divided into four parts. You are currently reading its final installment.

If you missed
The 13 Secret Cities Parts 1-3
, you can
download them in the Kindle Store.
 

As you know, stories don’t just end. They loop. See you in the future, reader.

-Cesar Torres

New York City, October 2014

PART FOUR

BLACK TEZCATLIPOCA

0.13.26

“What if we could confirm that entities from another place could actually see us? Would their gaze change us? Could ours change them?” – Playwright Veronica Montes,
Miss World: Somebody Kill Me,
Chavela Vargas Publishing, 2035, fourth edition
. (
Editor’s Note: This line of dialogue was performed on the Pritzker Stage in 2033 and co-opted into Montes’ script by her estate shortly after her death in 2034.)

“Nobody knows me.”
Philosophy of Dr. Yu-Tsun
, p. 266, Edited by Wang Yang-Ming. Kays Press, 2001.

“In later years, I was lucky enough to get to know Clara Montes beyond my role as biographer. If you knew her like I knew her, you would understand that she was motivated by fire in her belly. As a result, she left black smoke in her wake.” -– Jane Morrigan,
Clara Montes: A Biography in Four Parts,
2074, p. 875, Castor Books.

Did it matter why the police had shot the protesters in the Millennium Riot? After all, they were already dead, and the damage had already been done.
 

But it did matter. It mattered because on the day of the Millennium Riot, we gathered in downtown Chicago to help the people of our city.

The OLF scheduled the march on October 4, 2013, in Millennium Park to bring attention to a fire that had broken out in Englewood earlier that year. The city had not only been slow to respond, they had let that whole community languish. Poverty, gang violence, and oppression had made that neighborhood as prominent to the world as Willis Tower, but when Englewood burned, it remained as invisible as air. We had marched up to Pritzker Pavilion, ready to change something, and as far as I was concerned, we had failed. We failed when the law enforcement officers shot us, corralled us, and gassed us like animals.

We failed, but worst of all, I failed.

The way I dealt with failure was to win the next round.

I also failed my father’s side of the family in another place: down in Mictlán. I had meant to complete a task in that nightmare world, and I came back empty-handed.

Nothing had gone as planned.

I re-emerged from that failure onto the plaza that overlooks the Chicago River on a cold November day, ready to triumph.

No more failures.

Dennis and Mercy met me on the black marble benches beneath the hard lines of the Equitable building and the gothic arches of Tribune Tower. This is what I liked most about Chicago’s late fall and winter: the long shadows cast by a forlorn star.

“Clara, why the shades?” Mercy said. “There’s no sun. Are you trying to draw
all
the attention to us?”

“Migraine,” I said.

Everything hurt. The shimmer of makeup on Mercy’s eyes stabbed my optic nerves. The roaring motorcycles and sirens throbbing down Wacker Drive stung my ears. The taste of coffee swelled into scorching bitterness on my tongue . Since escaping

(no, bitch, you mean FAILING)

from the Coil, my nervous system ached and burned from all the feedback it got from the world. Puking often relieved this for a moment, but I could only puke so much.

“Well, just lie low, okay?” Mercy said. “For now.”

Dennis looped his arm around me, hanging off my shoulders, both a trooper and a confidant. I needed his company, and I was glad to have it. He knew nothing about canyons filled with flowers that sang in the dark, and his ignorance allowed me to focus on this world and what lay ahead.

“Okay, let’s get moving. We only have a couple of hours before things get started,” I said.

Mercy slid her backpack over to me. I unzipped the bag and found a compact video camera and three MiFi cards.
 

“Okay, just remember to keep the camera rolling, no matter what. If your live video feed goes down, you have two more data lines as backup.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “But let me ask you—why are you doing this? I mean, what does this all mean to you?”

Mercy clicked her tongue, but then she realized my question was earnest.

“My mom was a dyke, just like me,” Mercy explained. “After her divorce, she raised me in L.A. That’s where she got diagnosed with her neuro disorder. When she was at her worst and could no longer make decisions for herself, her girlfriend sent her to a Los Angeles mental hospital. It was the worst mistake she could have made. Her girlfriend had zero legal rights when it came to my mother’s medical decisions. My mother’s ex-husband arrived shortly thereafter, and it was he who called the shots about her care. And in the end, their lack of a marriage license meant that my mother died in a hospital room with a soiled diaper, alone and rambling in her last moments, while he went back to his suburban life on the East Coast, mailing checks and relishing the distance. My mom’s girlfriend could do nothing about it. Even after she passed away, my father’s family wouldn’t let us see her. I was a minor at the time. And all because of what the laws say about people like me and my mother. I fight this fight because of the assholes who won’t give us basic human rights. Plain and simple.”

“You?” I said to Dennis.

“All of it. Nothing seems to be getting any better, does it? Fires in Englewood, a high-tech army deployed to Millennium Park, and more surveillance than we even know.”

“Well, good. Let’s go show them we’re not afraid, then,” I said.

My words made solemn, angry music, and I lamented that my two friends couldn’t hear the way the language clanged like a steel drum.

Mercy split off and headed north, to the top of Michigan Avenue, where the parade would start. The anticipation in the streets was tangible as families sipped coffee and hot chocolate, trying to find the best spots in the sidewalk to see the Parade of Lights.

At 2 p.m., the city would kick off the parade, and as the floats drove south on Michigan Avenue, every tree, shrub, light post and facade on the Magnificent Mile would burst into thousands of electric colors. The tiny light bulbs had been especially designed just for the city of Chicago at Mayor Amadeo’s request. To the children, the sparkling lights were like a drug. For the parents, they were a touch of nostalgia. And for us in the OLF, they were the perfect stage for our one-act.

We met our university group at the arches of Tribune Tower
.

“Ah, there you are. We’re just waiting for a couple more people,” said the tour leader. She was a tall redhead, earnest, devoid of irony. Her T-shirt read “Wildcat Club: Parade of Lights Realness 2013.” She led our school’s press club, which printed this sort of commemorative t-shirt of our club for this visit to the Parade was sponsored by the newspaper as a way to recruit students. Our tour of the tower would give us a very exclusive view of the parade while we networked with recruiters.

She didn’t know that Dennis and I were part of the OLF.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I glanced at the notification. It was from José María. I ignored it.

We rode up the elevator banks in two separate groups, since there were about twenty of us. The smells and sights of all those faces, all of those beating hearts making music, made me grit my teeth. I heard them loud and clear, and the flow of blood in their veins made a bubbling noise that turned my stomach. I wanted to cup my ears with my hands, but I knew I had to feign some normalcy. I caught my reflection in the polished brass interior of the elevator: my second face, its lines smooth, its brow clear.
 

We rose, and the yellow plastic numbers lit up one at a time, signaling our ascent through the levels. Those buttons were perfect little circles, machine-made. I relished the beauty of their curves and the soft yellow light behind each number.

My face insisted on staring back at me in the gold surface of that elevator.

I no longer cursed that strange face the plastic surgeons had given me. I was okay with it. It was a mask of sorts, and it occurred to me that many of the students in this tour might have recognized me from the Millennium Riot if I didn’t have this mask keep me hidden.

Perhaps something good had come out of the riot.

We poured out on the 35
^th
floor, where the executive suite was located. We entered a room furnished in red leather, lined with expensive bookcases and double doors that seemed to defy visitors, as if to keep them out.

But we were very welcome here.

“My name is Roger. I am the director of the Freedom Museum and Tribune Tower liaison,” said a voice at the end of the long room where we stood. Heads parted, and Roger, a thin black man in his forties, walked along the massive windows that overlooked Michigan Avenue.

“We’re glad to have visitors like you today. You’ll have the best view of the Parade of Lights. Better than anyone else, in fact. Something to really brag about.”

Our university (and in turn, our group) was full of overachievers, and I could see them salivate at the thought of making a connection here with the director, of one day working at the museum, or for Tribune Media.

Catering staff brought out coffee and snacks, and those of us closest to it flocked to the carts like flies on shit.

The director paused as he exited the room; his hand grazed me at the elbow.

“Nothing for you?” he said.

“Maybe later,” I said. “I’m just waiting for the parade.”

“Roger Washington.”

“Clara Montes; nice to meet you.”

“What is your major?”

“Political science.”

“Wonderful. We need more people like you in the world. We need that diversity.”

Something about Roger, his narrow, tailored suit, and his ease in a world of the privileged felt insincere to me. He sounded scripted, like an actor on a TV show. Anger rose in my throat.