Chapter Four
The liberals want to confuse the issue by calling the women gillian, which comes from a Chinese phrase, both disgusting and un-American. Use whatever word you want, but God created women to give themselves to men. Better a woman lose her life than to let go of her honor, for the Lord will never forgive the unrepentant sinner. Not in these impossible times. Not ever.
—Reverend Kip Parson
General Secretary of the New Morality Movement
April 2, 2057
(i)
With the policewomen staring at us, Wren burst out laughing, suddenly as silly and dumb as a puppy. “Gosh, Elly May, we were in the men’s room? Goodness gracious, what a dumb thing for us to do!”
I thought we were going to try to sneak by the police, but instead Wren was making a spectacle of herself. I had no idea what was going on, only that she was calling me Elly May and my hand was sweating on the handle of the stunner in my coat pocket. My hammering heart sucked the spit from my mouth.
One of the policewomen stepped up to us. Her nametag read Officer Dee Kane, and she was an unimpressed, long-haired woman in a starched and ironed dress, New Morality for sure. She stopped Wren. “Excuse me, ma’am, can we have a word with you?”
“Sure, Officer, but we’re not in trouble for being in the men’s room, are we? I hope not.”
My sister had gone from warrior to wanton flirt, all girly ’strogen, friendly, kissy. The transformation was unnerving.
“Can we see some identification?” Officer Dee asked.
“Sure, sure,” Wren said. “Hey, Elly May, you got your ID, right?”
My face collapsed into slack-jawed stupid. “I ain’t got none.” Which was the Lord’s truth. My wallet with my Territory ID was back in my room at the Academy.
Wren touched my arm. “Ah, Elly, I told you to remember to pack it. Well, you always were a little slow, but you’re still pretty as a picture. We’re both a little flustered on account of my mother dying.” Her smile faded. Her eyes misted. “My mother, Elly’s auntie, dead. It was all so sudden. Heart attack.” A tear tracked down her cheek.
Officer Kane put out a hand to Wren. “Can I see your ID then?”
Wren reached back.
My fingers tightened on the stunner, ready, if my sister went for her pistol.
Instead, she pulled a Territory ID card out of her back pocket. Didn’t need a driver’s license in the territories ’cause we drove horses, buggies, bicycles, and only rarely a truck or minivan fitted with an ASI steam attachment.
“Sure thing, my ID, Officer, sure.” Wren handed it over sweetly, like her spit was honey.
Officer Kane studied the plastic card. “So you’re Willimina Carson from Amarillo? When does your train leave?”
Of course Wren would have a fake Territory ID.
“Oh, you can call me Willie,” Wren grinned with tears still in her eyes—flirting and somehow meaning it. “We’re on the Capital Limited to Chicago, 12:58 PM. Is there a problem?”
Officer Kane shrugged. “Just looking for some girls, sisters. We think you might be them.” She gave the ID back to Wren.
Wren nodded real seriously and shoved the card in her back pocket with a ridiculous little wiggle. “Well, we’re girls, Officer. Are you sure we’re not the ones you’re looking for?”
I was dying inside. Why was she pushing our luck?
“I’m not sure yet. Would you allow us to do a retinal scan?”
“Sure,” Wren said. “Anything you want to do to us you can.”
I blushed at what she said. Shameless.
“What about you, Elly May?” Officer Kane asked.
“Okay.”
After the SISBI laws were passed, the police were allowed to scan eyes for identification purposes. Most everyone at my Academy had had their eyes mapped and put in the big federal database, but of course that meant a signed parental consent form. Not sure Mama ever got the letter asking for permission ’cause no permission ever came back.
Officer Kane took out her slate and inserted a scanner in the USP3 slot. She held it up to Wren’s eyes, and a light flashed, followed by an ugly beep. I could picture the dialogue message: Eyescan not found.
One of the other policewomen talked to Wren while Kane moved over to scan me. Officer Betty Pell’s short hair and short-sleeved dress proved she wasn’t New Morality. The third officer held her charge gun loosely and a look of boredom sat squarely on her face. A jumpsuit covered her, but nothing covered her scalp—she had a buzz cut. Girls at school would’ve called her gillian, but I tried hard not to stereotype people.
“Where in the Juniper are you girls from exactly?” Officer Pell asked.
“Lamar,” Wren replied. “In the Colorado territory.”
“What did your mama do before she died?”
“Ran cattle on her own for a long time,” Wren said, “before Dob Howerter bought our ranch, and then she worked for him.”
“She squat for land?”
“Yes, ma’am, got a big stake. Held it for as long as she could. I never liked cattle work none so I went to Amarillo. Took Elly May with me on account of all the girls in our family. Not a single a boy. Like most folks.”
Officer Kane brought the scanner up to my face. I opened my eyes wide. The light flashed, leaving dots that blurred my vision.
Another ugly beep. Nope. Not in their system.
“What were you doing in Ohio?” Kane asked me.
Wren answered her instead. “Came for a big party, danced for lots of rich women, and I bet you even would know some, though I won’t say who was there. Me and Elly May need to be discreet.”
Officer Pell and Kane exchanged a glance. A big scandal had rocked Philadelphia not a month before—politicians caught with party girls and parlor boys.
Officer Kane pulled Officer Pell away. “Excuse us for a moment.”
The two talked, and I couldn’t hear much, only that Kane wanted to take us in and Pell didn’t want the trouble. They went back and forth, and then dang me if Officer Kane didn’t wave us away. “You’re free to go.”
“Thank you, officer,” Wren said. “Good luck catchin’ those sisters. Come on, Elly.”
Casually, we headed toward the door to the platform. Wren wasn’t smiley, girly ’strogen, flirty anymore. Her face was cellblock stone, and weary, as if all that play acting had cost her everything she was inside.
“Walk slow, Cavvy, but trust me, we’re not out of this yet. That old gal Kane is trying to outthink her instincts, but her instincts are prolly too true to ignore.”
We hit the empty platform and waited for the train. Not a lot of security for train travel, not like airlines, so we didn’t have to worry about metal detectors. Lake Erie’s wet stench mingled with the oily smell of the tracks—like a fish crawling through mud. Many of the wood planks of the platform had been replaced with Trex boards, composites synthesized from recycled materials. Across the tracks rose the gray wall of Cleveland’s skyscrapers.
As we waited, my insides turned into cold mash.
We’re safe.
We’re not safe.
Wren is a genius.
Wren is crazy.
A sleek, silver train clattered in. Faces peered at us through clean plastic windows.
My heart leapt. We were going to get out of this. Somehow, Wren’s disguises and acting had saved us.
The doors opened and we climbed into an empty train car. But not before I heard a voice yell out our fake names, “Willie! Elly May!”
The three policewomen marched out onto the platform, coming toward us.
We weren’t safe. And Wren was most definitely crazy.
(ii)
I shuffled into a row of seats but didn’t sit down. It felt like someone was trying to drown me in my own cold fear. How could Wren live like this?
My sister stood in the aisle near me. She stared out the window, her eyes sharp as razors, her jaw set. I knew she was thinking about how she could take down three women with only two bullets. I couldn’t let that happen. “Wren, don’t kill nobody. Let’s just go to jail, okay?” My guts twisted. If we went to jail, I’d miss Mama’s funeral.
Wren turned to me. “Sharlotte said to get you back to Burlington, and I will.” She reached out a hand and touched my hair in a caress, then drew back. Soft words were on her lips, but she didn’t say them. Instead, her voice came out hard. “I’ll deal with the cops, you get yourself to McCook, then ask around for Sketchy. She’ll get you to Sharlotte. You bury Mama, Cavvy. You live a good life. Tell Shar I did what I was told for once in my goddamn life.”
A lump caught in my throat. I figured Wren didn’t care about family, and she surely didn’t care about me. She had told me our mama was dead with a smile on her face. But now she was going to make sure I got home even if it meant she spent her life in prison. I just couldn’t understand her.
Kane and Pell stepped through the front entrance of the train car. The woman with the charge gun came in through the back door, cutting off our escape.
“We need you to come with us,” Officer Kane said.
“Hey, officer.” Wren grinned. Mask back on. “What’s the problem? You ain’t still mad about us being in the men’s room, are you?”
“Since Elly May doesn’t have any ID, we’d like to bring her downtown to confirm her identity.”
I trembled behind Wren. Her arm curled behind her back, fingers on her gun. I blocked the view of the policewoman behind me, so she couldn’t see Wren’s hand. And she couldn’t see me ease the stunner out of my pocket.
My heart fluttered frantic in my chest.
“Please, officers,” Wren pleaded. “If we miss this train, we’ll miss the funeral. Ain’t nobody in Cleveland who can ID my sister.”
“Sorry,” Kane said, “but we need to take Elly May in.”
“Okay,” Wren whispered, “if that’s the way you want it.” She went to pull the gun, but I was faster. I slammed the stunner into her back and hit my sister with three million volts of Eterna goodness.
Twisting, shaking, Wren crumbled into a seat, right down on her own pistol. I dropped the stunner under her as well. Her mouth churned as she shook from the zap. Looked like a seizure, and suddenly I had a plan.
“Willie!” I wailed.
“What happened to her?” Officer Kane asked.
I leashed my extensive vocabulary and kept my voice dull. “She has spells. She’s sad about her mama. And my auntie. Her mama is dead. Which is to also say my auntie is dead.”
Officer Kane’s eyes showed her doubt.
Pell sighed and shook her head. “This is great. Just great.”
I rolled up a cast-off Modern Society magazine and shoved it into Wren’s mouth to keep her from biting off her tongue.
Meanwhile, I plucked the fake ID from Wren’s back pocket and held it out to Kane. “Here, ma’am. This made things okay before, didn’t it?”
Officer Kane ignored the ID. Her eyes darted from her slate to Wren and me. “Are you Cavatica Weller?”
I shook my head ardently. “I’m Elly May Wallach, Willie’s cousin. Please don’t take us away. Please.”
Wren moaned and chewed on the magazine.
I turned to her. “Willie, you had a seizure. Should I get you your eckilepsky medicine? Or do you think you’re going to puke?”
Her eyes flared open. Oh, she was going to smack me good once she got her nervous system back online.
“Do you really think either of them are from the Sally Browne Burke Academy?” Pell asked Officer Kane. “And how are we going to ID them if they really are Juniper girls?”
Hope leapt in my chest. Could this work?
“If she barfs in the car, I’m not cleaning it up,” the third officer grumbled.
“And I’m not doing the paperwork for the hospital visit,” Pell said.
Officer Kane glared at her comrades, then went back to studying me.
I slapped my palms together like I was praying. Heck, I was praying. “Please, ma’am, please don’t take her away for being a party girl. She promises she’ll stop. And I won’t do it no more neither. Please let us go to Auntie Carson’s funeral. If you take us downtown, we’ll miss the whole thing.”
“Come on, Dee,” Pell said. “These girls aren’t gunslingers.”
Officer Kane sighed. “Fine. But you keep yourselves clean, okay?”
My head jerked around in a nervous nod. “Yes, ma’am, clean, like how Sally Burke Browne says to be.”
“It’s Sally Browne Burke.” Officer Kane gestured to Wren. “Is she going to be okay?”
Wren spit out the magazine. “Yeah,” she slurred, “I get spells. I got medicine.”
“I have a sister who had epilepsy,” Pell said, “but we could afford the surgery. Maybe once you get some money, you could look into that.”
I dropped my head. “Ain’t no way we could afford no surgery. But thank you for letting us go.”
Through the speakers, the conductor’s voice announced the train would be leaving.
Officer Pell patted my shoulder. “Take care. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but things will get better.”
I nodded, embarrassed.
The few seconds it took them to get off the train felt like a lifetime. Once the door slammed behind them, I could breathe again.
The train moved off and passengers threaded their way into the car. I wanted to yell out in relief, but I didn’t. I thought about our sheriff back in Burlington. She would’ve locked us up, but then, that was in the Juniper. Out in the World, things were different, kinder. Far kinder.
Took a few minutes until Wren finally got her tongue back in her mouth, but her make-up was all over the place. She looked like she had just survived a hard night working parties for tips and kisses.
“You gonna hit me, Wren?” I asked, keeping my distance.
“Nope, Cavvy, you done real good.” She reached into her pocket and came up with our tickets. I stowed the pistol and the stunner in Wren’s army duffle. We walked through three cars and finally found our seats. I stuffed our bags into the overhead compartment.
We were in the clear. No more cops. Officer Kane’s instincts had been undone by our Weller girl shakti.
(iii)
We got off the train in Chicago ’cause the California Zephyr didn’t leave until the next afternoon. In the lobby of the Amtrak station, I called Anju on my slate, and told her where to find Billy’s car. She said the police were still scratching their heads, wondering how we got away. Anju and I shed more tears, then said goodbye.
Wren was out of cash, but I was hungry, so I sold my slate to a Chicago girl for seventy-five dollars. She was real happy ’cause she had the Hayao 4, which didn’t cache as well as the Version 5. She giggled. I felt like I’d sold my right arm.
Dinner was McDonald’s. Wren ate factory-farmed burgers, which I thought was disgusting, but I was sure my yogurt hadn’t come from happy Juniper cows. We took turns pretending to sleep, sitting upright on benches while janitors cleaned around us.
Once we got on the California Zephyr, I washed the make-up off my face, then changed back into my New Morality dress. I felt so much better out of those vulgar clothes. I’d grown up in a dress, and wearing jeans felt like risking hellfire. Wren, of course, stayed swathed in denim.
My sister wasn’t much for casual conversation, but she obsessed over her dental hygiene. She brushed her teeth every fifteen minutes or so. And she didn’t wait until we crossed into the Juniper to dig her dual Colt .45 Terminators out of her army duffle.
I watched as she strapped them smokewagons on her hips, tying off the holsters to her thighs for a quicker draw. The pistols were completely customized—cherry wood grips, extended sixteen-centimeter barrels, and double-stacked magazines giving her fourteen bullets with one in the chamber. If twenty-nine ACP hollow points weren’t enough, you best run.
She couldn’t have gotten her pistols out in Cleveland ’cause of the gun control laws, and her Terminators were too big to hide. I understood why she had taken a 9mm and why she hadn’t had extra ammo for it. The 9mm was just a toy. Her Colts were her everything.
Until we reached Buzzkill, Nebraska, we were officially under American law, but none of the Yankees on the train dared quote statutes to my sister.
I was nervous about leaving the World, but I didn’t have a choice. The police hadn’t harassed us in Chicago, but we were still vulnerable until we crossed into the Juniper. Our sheriff, Lily, in Burlington often said the Juniper scared Yankee police—they wouldn’t go there chasing criminals.
Wren tucked her long Betty knife into a sheath next to her right holster. All weaponed up, Wren gave me the Springfield 9. Two bullets left.
“I get outta line, Cavvy, put me down for good.”
She was joking, but still, I swallowed hard and stuck the pistol in my dress pocket, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it.