Chapter 30

The next day

Time: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 7:05 AM

“Interesting times,” thought Chico philosophically. “It sure does feel different, not to be threatening the women with a gun anymore...” He estimated they were approaching the seven-kilometer mark in their trip from the spiral hub. His group was returning to Green Mall, with still more than thirty kilometers to go before the sky-bridge would come into view. They were only pulling a single sled, but they still had a very long walk ahead of them.

His party of nine was making exceptional progress, nearly four kilometers per hour. Chico paused to study the slaves’ tired bodies and realized that it wasn’t that they were holding back before. Their speed now came from the women embracing the purpose of their mission, and they were driving themselves to exhaustion. This was so different from yesterday when the women would beg him with their eyes for breaks.

A defining moment had occurred just a half kilometer ago. There was a small specialty store on the inside arc. Unknown to Chico, the exact position of its door was at the spiral mark 6,438 meters, directly across from a sensor node location and one sensor jump away from the Barnes & Nobel bookstore at 6,738 meters. The mall signage identified the specialty store’s wares, great varieties of pretzels, but what caught their attention was a small table standing in the corridor by the locked door. The group quickened their pace as they debated what was on the table. And then they finally arrived and read the small note. “LEAVE BOTH BERSA THUNDERS HERE. -- MADISON”

Unknown to all of them, their conversation was being monitored by sensors directly across from them on the outside arc. Madison was also hiding upstairs in the store, with a Leophone and a bicycle and enough bottled water and wholesome food to last a month.

“Hell Chico,” Toro had commented dryly. “They know exactly what we’re packing.” He pressed his face to the transparent door and looked inside. “Neat! There’s a whole section on chocolate-covered pretzels, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white ... Hey Lynn, if I can get this door open, would you like a dark chocolate sourdough pretzel?”

As tired as she was, Lynn gave him a kind smile and replied playfully, “Sure! Dark chocolate sourdough is my all-time favorite!”

Chico though was not in a playful mood. “Moment of truth, Toro,” he said slowly. “We surrender our guns, Uno will kill us for sure if he gets the chance. We put our guns on the table, there’s no turning back.” He took a deep breath. “Damn. I was hoping...”

Toro noticed how tense Chico was becoming and mumbled, “Yeah?”

Chico didn’t answer immediately. He looked instead at the six slaves. He had tried to show them some kindness, tried to take good care of them when they were his responsibility, but now they reminded him of a jury, silently waiting to pass judgment on him. He felt too ashamed to look them in the eyes. “I guess I was hoping for more time, more time to tell the women I was sorry.”

“Did you ever rape anyone, Chico?” Toro asked quietly.

“Yeah, these last few weeks, sure.” Chico turned to his friend. “We all did.” And then he whispered, “Didn’t we?”

Toro shook his head. “I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Britney though, I helped murder her.”

“No you didn’t. You just didn’t stand up for her.” Chico gave a deep sigh. “I didn’t either.”

“That’s no excuse. Hell Chico, a woman was being murdered, and we didn’t do shit. We both have a lot to answer for.”

“Me too,” whispered Brandi. “This past month, so much of it was a nightmare.”

Toro glanced at Brandi and nodded and then continued, “If I can get back to feeling human again...” He paused for a long moment. “If I could get back to that, I wouldn’t mind giving up my pistol.” Another pause, and then a whisper that was a cry from the center of his soul, “or anything at all.”

Lynn was standing nearby, the sled harness still strapped around her shoulders. She had enough slack in the straps to move. She came to Toro and put her hand on his shoulder and gently kissed his cheek.

And that simple expression of affection enabled Chico to decide. He ejected his magazine and then laid both his pistol and the ammo clip on the table. Toro followed a second later. They looked around for a moment, shrugged, and then resumed their slow journey to the sky-bridge. Their walk was uneventful for the next six hundred meters, and then Brandi shouted, “Chico, up ahead! People!”

“Huh?” Chico had switched with Lynn and was taking a shift pulling the sled with Mandy and Heather. Chico had been lost in thought thinking about the pistol drop-off, and he had not been expecting to meet anybody for many hours.

His group stopped. Chico took out his binoculars and moved to the wall of the outside arc to maximize his view. Then he looked at the corridor ahead. Sure enough, people were walking alongside the outside edge to maximize their visibility. Three people were walking briskly towards them, almost jogging, less than two hundred meters away now, three women in fact.

“Should we keep going to meet them?” asked Toro who was also looking with his binoculars.

Chico shook his head as he saw one of the women give him a hand signal. “I think they want us to wait here.” He turned to Mandy and Heather. “You can get out of harness.”

In less than two minutes, the two groups met up. They stared at each other for a moment, and then one of the women began to speak. “Hello. My name is Fatima.” She gestured with her arms at the two women by her side. “This is Aggie, and this is Ashley.”

Chico nodded. “I’m guessing we don’t have to introduce ourselves.”

“We know all your names, Chico, that is correct.”

“So you must have met up with the women we lost at Rabbies Dram.”

Fatima paused. “I won’t answer questions like that, not yet.”

Chico nodded. “Can I ask? What sort of position are Toro and I bargaining from? If we decide to part company, will our pistols still be on the table? Are you the leader of your group?”

Fatima shook her head. “No, I’m not the leader. And the guns you left on the table are already gone. We debated this point last night. We recognize that you came here in good faith, under a flag of truce. And yet ... We abhor the decisions you’ve made, Chico. I’m sorry, but the slavery and rape of these women must end. It must! The abuse can not stand. Our conscience forbids it.”

Chico had a sour taste in his mouth. “I expected as much.”

Ashley spoke up. “Chico, we recognize that we’re violating the norms for two warring parties coming together for negotiations. But perhaps this will help us reconcile. We will need to forgive you, and you will need to forgive us.”

Toro spoke up. “Is that what this it’s all about then? Forgiveness?”

Fatima frowned, and then her anger caused her to speak in a semi-shout. “Yes, forgiveness for rape and torture and murder, forgiveness without punishment. You men! How could you do it?! How could you allow yourselves to become such monsters?!”

Chico turned to Brandi. Her eyes were asking him the same question, and he tried to come up with a serious answer. “I’m not sure exactly. Maybe in part it was the drug we took, the first day we came here. I’m not trying to make excuses. We’re still responsible for what we did. The drug though, it ... it releases inhibitions. And the effect doesn’t wear off. Have you noticed?”

Fatima replied, “Yes, we have. But we don’t think of it quite like that. The drug doesn’t release our inhibitions. We believe the drug in some profound way enhances mental clarity. It removes social veneer. We behave as we truly are.”

Toro’s eyes lit up. “Yes! I know what you mean. I’ve been wondering about the same thing for a month. The drug lets our true characters come out.”

Fatima nodded. “That’s right. It’s easier to express truth, much more difficult to lie. But the drug did not hurt our free will. We can still choose to be who we want to be.” She looked over the six slaves. “We can talk more, but right now, my group would like to get these women some medical attention, especially Holly and Lynn. Chico, Toro, and you too Brandi, do you surrender to us?”

Chico answered with his own question. “What are the terms?”

“There are no terms. We have no plans for punishment. Just choose, surrender or not.”

He took a deep breath. “What will you do with us?”

“Confine you, talk with you, work to integrate you into our society.” Fatima looked back and forth between the captors and captives. “You six slaves can join us at once. You other three will have limited mobility for a while. I repeat, we’re not doing this as punishment. We just don’t want you free to turn on us while we’re still at war with the remaining people of Black Mall.”

Movement down the corridor behind Fatima caught Lynn’s eye. “Look everybody! There’re some kind of vehicles coming towards us!”

Fatima turned and was surprised to see Hannah, Ann, and Akiko rapidly biking with three empty side-cars towards them. Fatima’s group had parted from them just a few minutes ago. If Chico and Toro had not left their pistols, the six women would have all returned to the Green Mall sky-bridge, and probably not made contact with Chico’s party.

Toro and Chico both tried to give Ann and Akiko friendly smiles, but the women ignored them and Ann spoke to Fatima. “The rest of Chico’s group, we guessed wrong! They’re not returning to Black Mall. Jada said they just appeared at the sensor edge of Green Mall.”

Chico felt stunned. Bambino was coming after him? That didn’t make sense. It would be way out of character for Bambino to disobey Chico’s order to lead the muchachos back home.

Fatima turned to Chico and asked excitedly, “You don’t know about this?!”

“No! I swear!”

Fatima thought rapidly about the situation. They were only three hundred meters from Barnes and Nobel, while their adversaries probably still had six kilometers to go. She made a snap decision. “Chico! Toro! Brandi! Decide now!”

Chico looked at Toro and Brandi, and then spoke for all three of them. “We surrender!”

Fatima took a moment to lock eyes with each of them and witness their sincerity. “Excellent! Everyone, we’re heading back to Barnes and Nobel. Unload your sled and fill up the side-cars. Holly, Lynn, and anybody else with trouble walking, just hop a ride on a side-car. Everybody else, grab something and let’s go!”

Lynn wound up holding two sled harnesses while she rode in the side-car, dragging the sled behind her. Devoid of its cargo, the light sled was easy to pull. “My gosh, bicycles with side-cars!” she thought. “These people have such an advantage over us. Wait! What am I thinking?! I’m part of this group now. Now it’s my team that has the advantage!” She looked back at Toro who was walking rapidly with some others but not quite keeping up with the bicycles. He saw her staring at him and he waved and tried to smile.