Strikers (3 page)

“Someone you know?” he asks, stepping off the curb to stand in front of me again.

I can’t help the laugh that comes out, or the bitter sound in it, but I can shut it off as soon as it happens. His eyes aren’t judging and he doesn’t look like he wants to get away from me as quickly as he can, so I decide there’s no harm in telling something like the truth.

“It was my father. He’s been gone a while,” I say and let that hang in the air between us.

He knows my father is a Striker. We’ve gone to the same schools since I started going to school, though he’s a year ahead of me. Before the full force of parental influence came down on him, we were playground chums for a while, teaming up in games. Anything that involved speed or knocking things—or other people—down, we excelled at. We were more than that, really. I’d rather not think about that. That was then.

Jovan nods slowly, working it all out in his head. He was always like that. Slow to answer, but usually coming up with the right one. He says, “He wouldn’t have come unless it was important.”

That’s as far as he gets before his father appears out of the remaining crowd. He gives me a sour look, like he just saw someone pull down their pants and pee on the street. His eyes slide away from my face, effectively dismissing me, and he says to Jovan, “Come on, your mother is waiting. We’ve got a lot to do today.”

Jovan has the smarts not to try to keep talking to me, and the good grace to turn back and give me a little nod, as he follows his father toward the hospital on the other side of the square. I do notice that even they don’t walk on the grass, taking the long way around like all the rest of us.

Cassi and Connor are still halfway down the block and I can see bright flashes of Cassi’s hair as she jumps up and looks for me. It’s almost comical, the way it bounces up like someone spent hours trying to make it that way. She hates it. I wish it were mine.

She gives me an aggrieved look and lets out a loud sigh when I return. Connor looks like someone hit him with a hammer, dazed. I don’t say anything because I’m not sure what to say. Instead, I wrap an arm around each of them and pull them in close for a hug. I’m not sure if I’m comforting Connor or taking comfort myself. Maybe it’s both.

We stand there for a moment until it gets weird and then break the embrace to stand with our more customary distances between us.

“What do you think, Connor?” I ask. It’s better to ask him something mental than emotional. He focuses better on those things and gets less lost. He’s a thinker.

Connor tugs at his jacket and says, flatly, “I think I’m going to lose another brother.”

It’s a very final statement and said with absolute certainty. And, truthfully, he’s probably right. Unless his brother was somehow caught only as a Striker rather than with smugglers, he will earn two strikes, which makes five for Maddix. You can earn off strikes with time and good citizenship, but only if you’ve got less than five. People with five no longer have time. Judgment is followed within a single day by the injection that will end a life.

I do understand that society in general can’t afford the danger and disorder that habitual criminals bring. I understand it intellectually, that is. But I can’t help thinking that there’s something very different between a thief who won’t stop, an arsonist who can’t stop, and kids who live under rules that seem designed to weed them out.

Cassi and I know Maddix well, and we both know he doesn’t deserve the strikes he’s already got. His parents deserve them. But now that Connor has brought the subject up in the most direct way possible, we have to deal with it. Right now, Cassi looks like she’s going to start to cry and that would be bad. Once she gets going, she’s like a loud faucet.

“I saw my father,” I say, without preamble. I can’t think of any other way to say it.

It does the trick. Cassi’s pucker disappears like it was never there and her face smooths, her impending tears forgotten. Connor looks up at me sharply, his eyes keen and his thoughts switching gears.

“How do you know? I mean, how do you know it’s him?” he asks.

“Maddix pointed him out and I saw him. It was him, I’m sure of it.”

“Maddix?” he asks, as confused as I am.

I shrug because I don’t know what else to do. How do I express the many possibilities this opens up?

“They must have been together. That has to mean something,” Cassi says.

Connor nods but keeps looking at me, waiting for me to chime in and offer more than I already have.

All I can do is sigh and guess, so I do. “Maddix knew who he was, so they must have been together at some point. They knew each other somehow.” I catch my mistake and correct it, saying, “Know each other.”

“Your dad’s been gone your whole life. Why would he come back? Smuggler?” Cassi asks.

Again, I shrug because I have no idea what’s going on or why he would return. Or why Maddix would be with him. It’s possible he was a smuggler whose number finally came up and he got caught. That would be the most logical answer, but anyone who could hop the border as a smuggler without getting caught for fifteen years should be good at it by now. Certainly, good enough to know not to bring a young newbie out with them and get picked up by a patrol.

“I have to get in to see him,” I say.

Connor nods again, like he was expecting me to say that. Under the age of eighteen, anyone declared habitual gets the privilege of time with their family before justice is served. Over that age and it’s just done. Connor won’t get a visit with Maddix either if the worst happens.

“And I want to see Maddix,” he says.

We stand there in the street as the people clear out around us, going back to their homes or run errands or whatever else they had planned for their Saturday. The day is beginning to warm a little and it isn’t quite as frigid. The dry air won’t hold the cold night temperatures long past sunrise. It’s still cool, but not cold, and the day is promising to be a fine one. The weather being nice is wrong in every possible way it could be. It should be storming to match my mood. With lightning.

Cassi rubs at her strike-free neck, perhaps considering whether or not hatching some plot with us is worth the mark it might earn her. Connor notes it too and I see he’s about to let Cassi off the hook when she says, “Breaking into the Courthouse isn’t exactly easy but it’s probably easier than breaking out of it.”

I laugh because it’s such a perfectly logical statement but also perfectly ridiculous. Breaking into the Courthouse is just about the last thing anyone would want to do. And that’s the subject we’re all dancing around here, finding some way to break into the Courthouse so that we can get to the prisoners. Even Connor gives a sideways smile.

We’re drawing looks from the few people who remain as well as a pair of patrol soldiers making their way down the street. They move with lazy confident strides, like they own the place. Which they do, in a way.

Bailar has a small population but a surprisingly large number of soldiers. They patrol the dry lands to the west and the borders to the north. Bailar is the last bit of civilization before those places, so we get to host all of those not out on patrol. I’m not a fan.

“Let’s go,” I say and we turn to walk back the way we came. We can’t go to my house because my Mom is home and probably already dipping into her bottle for the day. Cassi’s place is out because there are always people around. Connor lives too far out and I’m not letting him anywhere near his parents until we have this sorted anyway. Who knows what they’ll do if they find out about Maddix? Connor can sleep in our shed tonight if need be.

We stay quiet until we reach the canal, the strip of water that comes all the way from the lake and provides water to the town. It looks brown and dirty from up here, but it comes out of the faucets clean and clear. At least it looks clear if the container isn’t too deep.

Settling down on a patch of concrete next to the canal—our favorite spot when the weather is good—makes me feel a little more normal. For a moment, it’s like any other day. But only for a moment.

Cassi starts us out and suggests, “We could just ask to see them.”

Connor tosses back, “True, but they’ll say no and then we’ll need to figure out a plan anyway, so why not do it now?”

“I swore I’d never go back after getting this,” I say and gesture toward my neck. “And outside of getting myself busted again so they’ll bring me in for a strike, I have no idea how to get beyond the foyer.”

Connor’s expression goes serious and he says, “No, don’t even think of doing that. It won’t get you back by the prisoners anyway. It would be a waste of a strike.”

He’s right and I know it. “Then how do we get in there? What we need is someone who belongs there to let us in.”

Connor and I shrug at each other because neither of us has anyone like that. As far as I know, Cassi also lacks inside contacts. But instead of looking as lost as we are, she squirms on the concrete.

“What?” I ask. “You know someone?”

“Well, yeah. You do, too. I saw you disappear with him during the parade. Jovan Foley.”

It takes ten minutes of tossing yes and no back and forth between us, along with some arguments about why it would be stupid even to tell Jovan about what we’re planning, before we settle down.

“She’s right, Karas,” Connor says as if the matter were decided.

Cassi seems equally convinced and adds, “He would do it. Even better, he could do it.”

I tune them out while I roll this idea around in my head for a minute. It’s better than anything I can think of. We do need someone who belongs inside the Courthouse and he’s an ideal choice. He’s not officially in the Army yet, but he might as well be.

He’s already doing Cadet Patrols, earning time against future promotions, and he has a uniform. His father is a member of the Civil Authority and is in the Courthouse every day, which means Jovan is known there. In truth, he’s our only shot.

“You think you know him well enough to ask him for something like this?” I ask Cassi.

I almost don’t want to know the answer to that. While Jovan is, at least as far as I can tell, perfect in every way, so is Cassi. With her curly red hair, skin as white as new milk and covered in freckles, she’s a picture of what every girl wants to look like. Even her eyes are a shade of brown prettier than the average brown. It would be natural for something more to happen between them. But if anything has happened between them, I really don’t want to know. Plus, Cassi knows all about the mutual crush Jovan and I had going as kids. I don’t think she’d do that, even if I do insist that I’m long over it.

She must have noticed my expression because she laughs at me and says, “Not like
that
. His parents would have a conniption!”

“Not for you, they wouldn’t,” I say.

She cocks her head to the side and looks up as she thinks. “Well, maybe not but I’m pretty sure they don’t want a dummy as the mother of their grandchildren.”

That’s more than Connor can take. He won’t stand for anyone making fun of Cassi, even when she’s picking on herself. “You are not stupid. Dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence.” He points to his head and adds, “It’s just a crossed wire.”

She waves it away. We’ve heard it many times, but it doesn’t erase the fact that most people think she’s stupid because she struggles to read. She even has issues with numbers when she looks at them too long. “Anyway, he’s been helping my brother. He did so well on his Army Aptitude test that they’ve assigned Jovan to help him make the decision. He’s been taking him on patrols, helping him study for placement and all that stuff.”

“Your brother’s going into the Army?” I ask, aghast.

No matter what, Cassi isn’t stupid, and we both know that no matter how well her brother does on any placement test, he’ll be a grunt working in the dry lands or fighting off Climbers at the southern border. He’ll be doing the most dangerous work because he’s not a Foley or a Sampson or a member of any family with clout.

Again, she waves it all away and says, “He’s got to do something and he’s too smart for anything he can get around here.” She pauses and pulls something out of her inner coat pocket. It’s a pair of glasses. Glasses with rose-colored lenses. She holds them up and says, “He gave me these.”

Connor and I both laugh at that. It has to be a joke. Rose-colored glasses and Cassi make a perfect match for a joke.

She glares at us, knowing exactly what we’re laughing about. “It’s for my dyslexia. He actually took the time to look it up for me at the hospital. He even brought a bunch of colored plastic bits over and had me try them until I found a color that worked. It was pink. It works,” she says and finishes by slipping the small lenses onto her face.

It actually looks really good on her.

She slips them back off and into her pocket, her face serious again when she looks at us. “He’s been really nice to my whole family and I think he would at least listen to us.”

“You were friends once. What do you think?” Connor asks me.

Do I think Jovan is trustworthy? Do I think he would listen and not tell, maybe even find a way to help us? He helped me today even when he had no clue what I needed. But helping us break into the Courthouse, possibly earning a strike, is a very different thing than carrying me along through a reluctant crowd.

I can’t help but think of the way he picked me up so effortlessly and the way his shirt smelled of clean laundry and warmth. When I tucked my head into his shoulder, it fit so perfectly. Then I remember the boy he was. Remembering the way we exchanged kisses on the playground long before we understood the importance of kisses almost makes me smile. I shake my head and push those thoughts away. This is no time for daydreaming about Jovan.

“He’s trustworthy to a point,” I say, then add, “but only to a point.”

We’re in agreement by the time the sun is warm enough that we loosen our jackets. I don’t want to go home and Connor really shouldn’t, but if we descend on Cassi’s house her mother will go all maternal on us and make things difficult.

Connor and I settle for waiting where we are. We’ll leave only long enough to grab some food if the wait grows long, but Cassi is confident that Jovan will be there early in the day. Either way, we’ll wait for her, no matter the outcome.