Chapter 12: The Reckoning

As Calix expected, the day had turned dark and cold which, in a real way, reflected his mood. As the iron gray clouds marched above him, he looked at the trembling snowflakes and couldn't help but find it a fitting metaphor for his own life. Ever since he'd failed Rico, he'd been reeling; tossed from gust to gust. While he had been wallowing in his guilt, he had allowed Tomas to get the upper hand; the asshole was calling the shots and dictating terms and that was bullshit. Calix knew better than that; hell, he was better than that. He vowed to himself that this would not last. It was long past time to take back his life.

From the supermercado to his Mom's house was only two blocks but Calix had been consumed with his dark thoughts and took a long, roundabout route. He rode away from Alex without saying a word; it was just another check that was coming due. What they'd done – what they'd allowed to be done in their name – was unconscionable. Ultimately Tomas was responsible but all of their hands were dirty in this – including his own, if he still called himself a Cholos.

That was part of the problem, wasn't it? Did he still consider himself a Cholos? The gang had been his identity for so long that it was difficult to turn his back on it. Then he thought about what they'd done to Maria, Inez and Sophia and he wondered why he was even bothering worrying about it. With that one act, they'd sealed his choice. There was no turning back.

His thoughts swirled like the snow he rode through. He was strong enough to admit he was scared; he had always been a loner but had never truly been alone. Until now. How many of the questions were coming from that fear?

He took a deep breath and pushed the fear into its compartment. He refused to be ruled by it. Yes, the Cholos had done a horrible thing. The question couldn't be if he would return to them but rather could he turn his back on all of them? Weren't there some of them, at the very least, that should be given the chance of redemption? What was the right thing to do here? How could he sort this mess out?

He'd been running from emergency to emergency for so long, he'd not given himself time to find any order in his life. Sure, he'd had bed rest in the past several weeks – but it had never been time to sit and consider everything that had happened. His mind was always too consumed with rage or sadness or loss ... or guilt. The guilt was raw and wouldn't be relegated to a dark box in his mind. He owned every bit of that guilt and he had to live with it. He needed to work around it. He'd been running without a plan – and that wasn't like him.

When had he agreed to join the Confederacy? He tried to think back to a single decision where he could say "there; that's when I decided to join." He could find no such moment. At some point, it seemed like it had just been decided, despite his misgivings, despite his mistrust. One moment he had been fighting against the whole CAP system with every tooth and nail and the next he'd just fallen into it.

It all came down to Rico, in the end. His death bed request had started Calix down this path. Calix had promised his dying cousin to take Alicia and Amelia off planet – and the young man could only do that if he volunteered. He would have laughed if he wasn't so near tears. In the end, Rico had gotten his way.

So, he had to volunteer – but how could he volunteer for something he wasn't certain he believed in? Here, in the city, things were small. Sure, there were big problems but they only extended to the city borders. Out there – out there, there were no borders. Problems could go on and on and on for infinity. How could he handle problems that large? He could barely handle the problems he had here at home.

What it finally narrowed down to, then, was a leap of faith. He had to find the faith to trust himself. He had to find the faith to believe that no matter where he went, no matter what he did, he would be able to remain true to his ideals. In the final reckoning, he wasn't losing himself; he was just growing.

Rico had once taken a young man and dragged him from the depths of misery and despair at losing one family and gave him another. In that new family, the young man found a base of loyalty and responsibility upon which to re-build the shattered pieces of his life. As time went on, Rico had continued to push the young man, to force him to see that his sense of duty was too small if it only encompassed his family. The young man had a greater duty to his community. Now, years later, Rico had pulled off one last miracle. He had pushed the young man into realizing that even stopping at the community level was too small; his true humanity lay in his duty to the entire human race.

His jaw firmed as the foregone conclusion became a commitment; his decision was made. He was going to join the Confederacy. He was going to do everything in his power to protect as many human beings as possible.

Just not quite yet. First, he had some commitments to honor – and a corpse, the headless corpse of the Cholos, to lay to rest. They didn't know it yet but the Cholos had died the moment their leader had died; the Cholos died the moment Rico's heart stopped. It was just taking a while for the rest of the Cholos body to lie still.

"Are you still there?" he asked aloud as he rode. "Are you still monitoring my armor?"

There was the pause of a moment. "Yes." It was a simple reply but Calix couldn't help but shudder. It felt ... wrong. An invasion of privacy at the very lowest levels. He gritted his teeth, though; it was something he'd need to get used to.

"I'm not certain what you're planning," Calix said slowly, his voice rising above the wind whipping around him. "I'm not certain if you even care, to be honest. I just – I wanted to ask you not to extract me quite yet. There are – there are things I still have to accomplish. Commitments I've made that I need to keep. I know that you have your own 'grand agenda' and that the needs of a single individual have to come dead last compared to the needs of an entire war. By the same token, one man isn't going to make a very big difference in that war. I'm hoping that you can hold off for a while. I'm asking if you can hold off for a while."

"It is acceptable to delay extraction for a short time. The time and place of extraction, however, cannot be communicated prior to the event."

Calix was amazed; he hadn't expected much more than one word answers. It appeared the monitoring device in his suit was more sophisticated than he imagined. In a strange way, though, that made sense. The aliens had been building computers like the A.I. for millions of years; of course they'd outstrip anything the human race had come up with. It would be better just to imagine it could do anything and then let the A.I. communicate its limitations.

"I assume it's okay if I talk to you from time to time?" Calix asked slowly.

"It is acceptable."

"Great. So, what do I call you?" The young man asked.

"Your counterparts have deemed it appropriate to call me by my function: A.I."

"Are you the only A.I.? Is there only one?" Cal inquired.

"No. There are many A.I.s."

"Then it seems idiotic and just a little pointless to call all of you by the same name," Calix responded irritably. He thought about it for a second. "I'm going to call you Hermes."

"Hermes. Messenger of the gods. I'm not certain that is appropriate. I do not wish you to think that I will be your messenger."

Calix chuckled. "I don't. I've got to call you something, though, and to me you're just a disembodied voice spouting platitudes from on-high. Trust me, it's appropriate."

"It is acceptable then."

"Good," Calix replied. "I assume our earlier bargain is still in place; if I die, you'll send the cavalry to pick up my tech."

"It is still in place."

"Thanks."

Calix wasn't sure of the protocols for this communication – or if there even were protocols for it. Should he inform the A.I. he'd concluded their conversation? How much did the artificial intelligences understand about the human race's conversations? About the human race at all?

As he pulled into the alley behind his home, he irritably just let the matter drop. He was pretty certain if the A.I. – Hermes, he corrected himself – had any more to say, he would.

He looked down at the crumbling pavement and couldn't help but think of it as a metaphor for his life. It was all breaking apart. He was moving on, moving beyond the life he'd been living for the past several years. Sometimes, he guessed, you have to break apart your current life to make you ready for the phase.

Calix drew the motorcycle to a stop and hit the automatic garage door opener from halfway down the alley – just in case. He had no reason to believe that the location of his home had been compromised but it was always better to be safe. Of course, it would have been far safer to have cameras in the garage that he could monitor – but, once again, he had not had the time to install them.

As he pulled the motorcycle into the garage, he realized he had a few hours before he had to go back out. He decided to spend it planning and organizing. It was time he started taking control of his life instead of just reacting to it.

As the garage door closed, he watched the snow falling. There'd be at least a centimeter or two by the time he came back out if it kept falling like this. He hated the snow. Absolutely hated it. Oh, sure, he'd had a bit of fun when he'd first moved up here – but now, snow meant treacherous roads, which meant no riding his bike. He'd had a car at one time but it had gotten torched with a few others in front of the Cholos' house last year. A replacement was definitely in the offing; if he could find a way to afford it. The insurance on the bike cost him enough money – especially now that he wouldn't be getting anything more from the Cholos.

Well, anything more that the Cholos knew about. He knew where the bodies were buried – and where the hidden accounts were. He hoped Tomas hadn't had a chance to raid them yet.

There was another reason he hated snow, of course. Normally, his black armor blended into the night. When it snowed, though, he was easy to pick out. It was like looking at the only black bean in a sea of rice.

He'd tried coloring the latex-polymer of his old suit but it hadn't turned out well; a kind of smoky gray was the lightest he could get it. Something about the polymer didn't take colors well. The carbon fibers had been a bigger joke; he'd electrostatically painted them and the pain just flicked off, refusing to bond. He'd had some other ideas over the months but there always tended to be something more important to do.

Now, he had new armor. Did the problems he'd had before apply here as well? It was basically the same – and yet totally and completely different. He still had to doubt he could color the polymer resin; the formula didn't look much different, just the alignment. Still, it was a new ballgame; he'd have to do some experimentation.

He opened the back door a sliver and looked out cautiously. He didn't see anything but he hadn't really expected to. He opened the door and stepped through quickly, ducking down into the tall grass. He waited a moment, listening intently. He heard nothing.

His back porch was covered in a slight layer of pristine snow; at least, it should have been. The snow on the porch, though, was broken by several sets of footprints. They looked like they were moving up and down the porch but it was impossible to tell; there simply hadn't been enough snow to make that determination. The footprints were just where the snow was missing from his porch.

He opened the door silently, carefully entering the kitchen. He moved slowly, carefully taking each step forward, testing every board for the faintest sign of noise. He reached the edge of the kitchen and his face set. The basement door was open. He'd been half praying that vagrants had managed to get inside. Vagrants were unlikely to go down to the basement.

He started down the stairs, still moving slowly and cautiously. As he made the landing, he placed his hand on the rail and leaned down, bending until he could see under the ceiling. As soon as he did, he wished once again that he had taken the time to rig the cameras up. At least then, he would have gotten some warning that his house had been invaded – and he might have left until the intruders were gone. What was it with the Sanchez family and wandering into his house uninvited?

"What are you doing?" He asked Alicia, though it was pretty clear what she was doing – she seemed to be packing his clothing into boxes. What he wasn't sure of was why she was boxing his clothing.

"I'm packing your clothes," Alicia said airily.

Calix rolled his eyes and looked to the heavens, pleading with God to take this burden from him. If this went on much longer, one of them was going to die. He just wasn't sure it would be her. "Okay, I asked for that," he said evenly, turning his eyes back to her. "Now, WHY are you packing my clothing?"

"I've cleaned out the basement at my house," Alicia replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm going to rent a U-Haul and move you over just as soon as we finish packing."

"Uh, No. You're not," Calix remarked flatly.

Alicia either didn't hear him or was ignoring him; she just went on folding clothing and packing it in the boxes. She eyed a t-shirt that had seen better days and tossed it to a small pile on the floor. Calix frowned, some of his favorite shirts were in that pile.

"Alicia, did you hear me?" Calix asked again, stepping over to her to make sure she heard him. "I am not moving into your basement."

Alicia looked up at him, her face set and her eyes narrowed. "I heard you, but you're wrong. You are moving. I did some research after I left last week. It turns out you were right; according to everything I've read, only volunteers – people with a CAP of 6.5 and above – are considered citizens. Everyone else is a slave; the citizens have the right of life and death over them. Female slaves are expected to get pregnant and stay pregnant." Her face firmed at the last statement. "Tamara and I won't be doing that – at least, not with you. I'm sure we'll find some other, better men more to our taste once we get out of here." She paused for a moment, making sure he understood what she was saying. "Now for the important part. It turns out that if you're going to take us, we have to be with you at the time of the extraction; they won't come get us. If we're not there, then you can't take us. So, from now on Tamara and I will need to know your schedule – where you're going, how long you'll be and so on – to make sure we are with you in any places that have the potential for a pick-up." She raised her eyebrows. "So, you will be moving into the basement and that's the end of it."

Calix could feel the headache beginning in the back of his head. He could literally feel his body tensing and his teeth grinding. "Listen to me and listen very closely," he growled at the young woman. "I'm not taking Tamara and I'm not moving into your basement."

Alicia just turned away and started packing again. "Well, then it's going to be incredibly inconvenient for you – because all of your stuff will be in my basement." Alicia turned to him, her face set in a scowl and fire brewing in her eyes. "You're moving, Cal. End of story. You can try to argue but you won't win. You're taking Tamara, me and Amelia and to do that, we have to be with you – well, not Amelia, they'll pick her up afterwards. But Tamara and I need to be near you. That's final."

Every inch of him wanted to pick up this self-righteous idiot girl and put her over his knee. God knows she deserved every second of a good hide tanning. Even as his fists clenched, though, even as he started to shift forward for that one, final, inevitable step, he knew he couldn't do it. Alicia was Rico's wife and he'd failed Rico miserably; he'd allowed his cousin to die. His guilt consumed him; clenching the fire of his rage in its firm grasp. He had to honor Alicia; he had to treat her as Rico would treat her. His cousin would want it no other way.

"I..." Cal started and then turned at the sound of shoes on the stairs. This was it. His world was coming undone. The Cholos were here and he was too busy fighting with this – this – this bratty little stuck up snob of a girl. He turned, his anger rising, almost relishing the idea of this fight.

Only, it wasn't the Cholos. It was – a girl. A girl who looked vaguely familiar but he just couldn't place her.

She was on the short side – maybe 5'5" or 5'6" – but had long, flowing black hair that reached past her butt. Her hair wrapped around her slight, oval face as if it were gently caressing it, content to just touch her. Warm, hazel eyes sparkled mischievously and only managed to make the slight button of a nose just above lips that were full and red look cuter. Her smile seemed to light up the room.

She was holding a small stack of flat, cardboard boxes held tightly against the front of her black, knit turtleneck sweater, but they were held below the soft swells of her breasts. She looked – beautiful. Calix was certain he'd never seen her before and yet he couldn't shake the feeling that he had.

"Hi," she smiled and her voice sounded like light, airy bells on a cold winter's day. "You must be Calix. Alicia has told me so much about you." Her face fell, slightly. "Rico would never stop talking about you. He loved you very much. I'm sorry he's gone."

"I am, too," Calix agreed softly. He listened to her words, consumed them but he still couldn't quite figure out who she was.

"I'm Alicia's sister, Tamara," the young woman smiled – but as soon as she mentioned Alicia, Calix's face fell.

Of course she was Alicia's sister. The resemblance was uncanny. He had to say, though, that Rico had gone for the wrong girl. Alicia was beautiful but Tamara was in a whole other class.

Still, she was Alicia's sister. She was probably just as bad. He could almost feel all of the future headaches. This was going to be a nightmare.

"I hear you're going to be moving in with us," Tamara said lightly, her face still smiling.

"Uh, that hasn't been decided yet," Calix said slowly.

"Yes it has," Alicia said with a scowl directed at Cal. She flashed a smile at her sister. "Yes, he will."

Calix could feel his peace and quiet slipping through his fingers like grains of sand.

The night was bitterly cold and the wind had picked up to a slow howl. Detroit's recent snowfall luck was still holding, however; the snow had stopped an hour or so before, leaving not much more than a centimeter or two on the ground – a 'dusting' to Detroiters. The sounds of the city quietly ending its work day was all around; Calix could hear the increased vehicle traffic from Springwells Street a block away. He could also hear the loud punks from several sides as they started their post-work drinking ritual; alcohol was common in the slums because it was cheap and it made you forget your problems for a while.

Cal focused briefly on the corner of his HUD; just past 1800 hours (he'd asked Hermes to change it to a 24-hour clock). It wouldn't be long now. The man would be leaving soon.

He was still unsettled by the argument he'd lost – and by the differences between Alicia and her sister. Tamara seemed to be almost everything Alicia wasn't; where Alicia was abrasive, Tamara was warm. Where Alicia had a biting wit, Tamara was softly jolly. Where Alicia was a manipulative, egotistical bitch – Tamara wasn't. He wondered if either of the girls were adopted. It was the only explanation he could think of.

He was moving to Alicia's house in Lincoln Park. It grated on him that the girl was getting her way but he'd had to concede when she started heading towards his workbench with that gleam in her eye. His clothing he could – barely – stand her touching but no one – EVER – was going to touch his lab and go unpunished. He'd killed people for less; if she even breathed on his lab he'd be forced to badly hurt her on general principle alone. When she declared, in no uncertain terms, that he'd have to leave sometime and she'd just pack everything up when he left, he finally had to give in. The thought of having to beat her to within an inch of her life – as soothing as that thought was – finally forced him his hand. He wondered offhandedly if that was how Rico had fallen to her; maybe it just started with small things until he finally gave up and married her.

Now that was not ever going to happen. She'd literally have to kill Calix first.

The two of them left after he promised to have everything packed by Friday. Alicia had agreed to it as a 'compromise'; Calix failed to see it. The girl was getting her way and Calix had given up – everything. It wasn't a compromise; it was a surrender. The young man promised himself it was the last.

Finally, movement at the front door. From his vantage point in the tree behind the house, he couldn't see it. But he could hear it. He could hear the man yelling. He watched the man walk down the street, his HUD magnifying the access path between two houses. As he easily climbed down the tree, he imagined he heard the man's car start.

Or maybe he really did hear it – maybe his armor amplified the noise. He thought to ask Hermes but decided to just let the matter drop. He still wasn't completely comfortable with the way he was being monitored. He recognized it as a necessary evil but he didn't have to like it.

He took his time, his gait slowly speeding up only to leap the fence. His black armor was easily spotted against the backdrop of white snow and he wanted to try to draw as little attention to himself as he could; not because he worried of the Cholos finding him – that matter would be cleared up, one way or the other, very shortly – but because he wanted no link for the man to be able to trace the women. Whiskey and her mother's security was paramount.

He chuckled under his breath. It had taken time and effort to come up with this plan and put it into place; he only hoped the two women would cooperate. It had not first occurred to him – but the original plan was formed by anger and disgust; it wouldn't work, not in the long term. This plan, considered calmly and rationally, had the best chances of success. If it didn't succeed, he might be forced to use plan B.

He stopped at the edge of the house peering left and right. The growing dark of early evening meant more people out instead of less. The dark brought out the monsters but this brief period as light faded to darkness was the transition; the innocent fleeing to their homes to lock their doors until morning and the evil opening their doors for their romp in the night.

Calix wondered, briefly, what that said about him. Maybe he was a monster, too. Maybe he was just a necessary monster.

He grabbed the top of the porch banister and leaped up and over, landing lightly on the other side. He walked quickly to the door, using it as cover, hiding him from prying eyes. He pressed the doorbell and, when he heard nothing on the other side, knocked on the door.

The woman answering the door was older but he could see where Whiskey got her beauty. Looking at her, he could imagine that at one time this woman had been beautiful, too. The hard life forced upon her, though, had carved its pound of flesh.

Her blonde hair was chopped short and uneven, stopping just beyond the edge of her chin. Her blue eyes looked tired and faded, the pale blue of a hard winter's sky. Cal could tell her face had once been vibrant but her hard life had eroded it down to angular crags with little nicks and scars. The worst were her lips; he recognized hints of Whiskey's full, red lips on her face but they'd faded and become strict and severe.

She wore a thin housedress, patched in several places. It was formless and shifting, showing nothing of the woman beneath. Her arms, though, were incredibly thin and bony and he could see her hands where she held the door; they were skeletal with thin blue veins running across them.

"May I help you?" Even the woman's voice was worn and tired; a wisp of a voice for a wisp of a woman.

"Yes, ma'am," Calix said with a soft, reassuring smile. "I'm a friend of Whiskey's. Is she home?"

"C-c-calix?" Whiskey stuttered, looking around the edge of the vestibule's inner doorway.

"Hi," the boy called. He turned to Whiskey's mother. "May I come in?"

The woman backed away, confused, opening the door wider. With a smile, Calix entered the house, walking through the vestibule to the living room.

"What are y'all doing here?" Whiskey asked, her face a mixture of mistrust and concern.

Calix ignored her question, turning to her mother. "This is a lovely home you have, Mrs. Summers."

"Uh, thank you," the older woman replied, looking unsure of herself.

Silence closed on them, no one knowing quite what to say. Calix had rehearsed a little speech but now he wasn't sure how to broach the subject. Whiskey suspected some kind of subterfuge and was losing her patience with the young man and Mrs. Summers just kept looking back and forth from Whiskey to Calix.

"Uh, can I get you something to drink?" Mrs. Summers finally thought to ask.

"Thank you," Calix smiled, relieved to have a brief respite.

"What are you doing here?" Whiskey hissed again as her mother went into the kitchen.

"I told you I'd take care of things," Calix replied quietly. "I'm taking care of things."

"My Daddy, is he... ?" Whiskey's voice dropped off and a sickly look flashed over her face.

"Your Dad is fine," Calix re-assured the young woman. "He's on his way bowling, I think."

"Then, you ain't... ?"

Calix's face took on a troubled look. "No. I'd rather ... it's a long story."

Mrs. Summers took that moment to return, handing Calix a glass of water. He took a sip and smiled, thanking the woman. The three stood for a few moments, an awkward silence settling in.

Finally, Calix just sighed. His speech had prepared him - but not for the start; not how to begin. "Maybe we could just sit down for a second and talk."

Mrs. Summers and Whiskey both looked confused but took seats on the small, brown couch; the couch had seen better days – its arms were patched but some stuffing was still leaking out of the corners. Calix chose a faded brown armchair whose color was vaguely similar to the couch; it was obvious they had been bought separately.

The room had been painted a light tan sometime earlier in its long life. The trim was brown wood but the lacquer had darkened and spotted over time. The brown, Berber carpeting that covered the floor was threadbare but clean; the whole room showed signs of its extreme age but it was immaculate –neat and tidy.

"I practiced this whole speech but now it doesn't seem quite right," Calix started hesitantly. His voice grew calmer and more confident as he went on. "My Mom – well, step-mom really but she was always just 'my Mom' – had a very close friend growing up by the name of Alexandra Haversham. Alexandra lost her parents at a very young age but her grandmother stepped in and took care of her; my Mom would always talk about Mrs. Haversham's cookies or her wonderful hot chocolate on cold winter days after they'd gotten done building a snowman in the yard. Anyway, unlike my Mom, Alexandra got out of Detroit – she went to college and got a degree in ... well, it doesn't matter and I really don't remember. She got a good paying job right out of college and married the man of her dreams. It was a fairy tale, really; my Mom remembered the wedding as being so beautiful..." Calix's voice trailed off and his face dropped. "The fairy tale ended rather quickly. It turns out that Alexandra's husband, Mark Mitchum, had a drinking problem. He would come home and beat on her. She left him and came back over and over – until one day, she didn't. She couldn't. Mark Mitchum had beat her to death. She was 26. I remember going to her funeral and thinking how beautiful she looked."

Mrs. Summer's face had grown increasingly pale as Calix finished his story. Her eyes wide, she finally blurted "Todd would never do that. It's just he gets so frustrated sometimes..."

Calix looked hard at Mrs. Summers. "It's funny, because I remember Mrs. Mitchum coming over on one of her 'breaks' with her husband. She said almost the same thing. 'He doesn't mean it. He just gets drunk and out of control'." Calix paused for a moment, looking at the frightened woman. "Mrs. Summers, I'm just a kid. I can't tell you what to do. I can tell you that you are on a dangerous path. At least with Mrs. Mitchum," Calix shrugged, "it was just her. She didn't have to worry about her husband hurting or raping or killing her daughter. You do have that worry, though."

"Todd hits her sometimes but he don't mean nothin' by it," Mrs. Summers said, shaking her head. "As for ... that other ... it's all just talk. He would never touch her ... not ... like that..."

Calix snorted and his voice grew cold and angry. "Your husband has said he's going to take your daughter's virginity when she turns 16, Mrs. Summers."