Yesterday, the woman with the scarred face and yellow cloth around her head had started following their group. They were trying to get to the border as fast as possible. Was the scarred woman a spy for the authorities, insane, or also searching for a way out of their country?

Herrera had wanted to shoot the scarred woman as soon as he noticed her. Reynard asked him to wait until they knew what she wanted, which frustrated the others. When he approached her, she was holding a brown and black striped cat with a white belly while she learned against the wall of a building and took deep breaths, her whole body expanding and shrinking.

“Before I had to watch the movie, I had a cat just like this one.” She put the cat down and the animal wandered into the alleyway.

“You’re making everyone nervous by staying in the shadows and not explaining yourself,” Reynard told the scarred woman. The rest of the group watched them from a distance, holding their weapons ready. They had to keep moving, keep running. Kindness would get them killed. But Reynard guessed the others didn’t want to piss him off. He was tall, bigger than the rest of them−sometimes fear bred altruism. They didn’t know each other well enough, yet, for trust.

“She’s sick and crazy. What the hell is wrong with her face? She’ll slow us down and get us killed,” Hererra insisted when Reynard brought her to join the group.

“We can’t just leave her behind because you don’t like her looks.” Reynard crossed his large arms.

The others shrugged. They didn’t have energy to argue right now.

“Let it go, Hererra,” Matsuda, their unofficial leader, told Hererra. Hererra pouted but shut up.

*     *     *
Reynard held his hands over the woman’s mouth to keep her from talking as the now six of them hid in the three-foot-high space under the floorboards of the old house. They listened until they could no longer hear the stomping of heavy boots.

After a few silent seconds hiding under the floor, Reynard reached to move the loose piece of floorboard so they could climb out. “No.” The scarred woman dug her fingernails into Reynard’s arm. “I’ve seen the movie. They’ve set up the scanners.”

“What the—ˮ Herrera opened his mouth but this time, Matsuda, who was much stronger than his small size and thick glasses suggested, grabbed him.

“She’s right, listen. Do you hear those clicks?”

The scarred woman counted. The others were frozen in anticipation. She reached one hundred twenty and stopped. Then she stared up, looking through tiny cracks in the wood. A visible shiver went from her knees up through her head and her right eye twitched.

“What now?” Reynard whispered to the woman.

“Hey!” Herrera’s grizzled, scruffy face looked extra menacing in the low light. “Wake up.” He poked the scarred woman with the tip of his laser pistol. She turned to look at him.

“Relax, Carlos.” The woman reached her hand forward, but Herrera avoided her touch.

“What? How the hell does Twitchy know my first name—ˮ

“Now.” The scarred woman interrupted him. “We need to leave now. I’ve seen the movie. We have four minutes to leave the house before the scanners turn on again.” The others exchanged looks. Matsuda shrugged, and Reynard moved the wooden plank. They all climbed out and could see the round scanners sitting dark in the corners of the room.

“Get your emergency bags quickly and let’s go.” Matsuda went first and the others followed, retrieving the backpacks they had hidden under furniture. The scarred woman started picking things off the floor and putting them in her pack; a pair of shoes, an extra flashlight, a hunting knife, a broken shard from a potted plant the Enforcers knocked over.

“Twitchy.” Herrera squeezed the scarred woman’s arm. “I thought you said we only had four minutes. Let’s go.” Everyone moved towards the back door, the scarred woman dragged by Herrera. Suddenly she bolted upright, dropping her bag. Reynard picked it up.

“No. We need to go exit south.”

“South? Which way is south?” The others waited.

“There is no south facing door. We need to scram before the scanners turn on.” Herrera pulled the woman’s arm.

“That window faces south.” Matsuda pointed. One of the siblings, Edwards, ran toward the window, grabbed the lamp standing beside it, and smashed the glass. “Go, go, go!” Matsuda’s deep voice echoed. Amber, Edwards’ sister, went to the window next. Edwards helped her climb up, and then he climbed out behind her. Herrera let go of the scarred woman and followed them through the window.

Matsuda, Reynard, and the scarred woman heard a whirring sound.

“The scanners are powering up.” Reynard turned towards Matsuda, pleading for instructions.

“Take her and get out of here.” Matsuda sprinted towards the scanner nearest them and threw his body over it, blocking it from detecting the others. “I don’t know who she is, but she knows things.” Reynard didn’t have time to argue. He grabbed the scarred woman and her bag and dragged them towards the window. She let him lift her and push her out. He tossed her stuff behind her, then his own bag and laser pistol, and finally he climbed out, hearing the rhythmic clicking of the scanners behind them.

The others were already running ahead, even the scarred woman, her hands waving and her loose, stained sweater flopping around her. They ran through dry forest, passing the skeleton branches of dead trees; the only thing growing was moss under where the trees’ scant shadows landed during daylight. They did not speak until they came upon a clearing where a dilapidated series of graffiti-covered stone walls and a couple of towers stood. The graffiti suggested these ruins were of little importance to the Regime as the paint would have been scoured off any useful buildings−unless it was a trap.

“I’ve seen the movie. This is the part where we stay here for the day,” the woman announced as everyone slowed down. The walls could have been remnants of a church from the nineteenth century, but someone must have tried to remodel the structure not too long ago as they could see piles of rotten wood and old scaffolding as well as buckets of unopened paint. Two long sets of five empty rooms lay parallel to each other, but the entrance to the last three on the right and the last two on the left were collapsed and covered in moss and dry grass.

The ruins were, the group supposed, as good a shelter as they would find. Traveling in daylight was dangerous, and the purple sky meant the sun would rise soon. Even if they covered their skin completely and wore goggles, prolonged exposure to the sun’s unfiltered rays could cause first- or second-degree burns and dehydration. They crawled into one of the rooms, sitting in the dark, away from the doorway.

Amber placed a lamp in the middle of their circle. Reynard knew she wasn’t older than twenty, but her face was already haggard. Herrera had told Reynard that Amber and Edwards’ parents had left them years prior to become smugglers. Over the years, they sent their children secret messages, contacts, or met them for a few moments in between jobs.

“Where’s Matsuda?” Herrera asked the question that ran through everyone’s mind.

“He didn’t make it.” Reynard rubbed his temples, not looking forward to having to explain. Herrera would be angry, though Reynard had more reason to be mourning.

“What happened?” Amber asked.

“He stayed behind to hold the scanner so that I and …” He didn’t know what to call the scarred woman. “So that me and Twitchy could get away.” He felt guilty about using Herrera’s nickname for her.

“Are you kidding me? He let himself get killed or captured for a fucking bag lady?” Herrera glared at Twitchy, who was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed. He ran his fingers through his greasy, salt and pepper hair.

“He might have gotten away,” Reynard swallowed to combat the choking feeling in his throat.

“Yeah, and he might have gotten captured. And they’re torturing him now and finding out our entire plan.” Hererra turned his head and spat. Strands of drool hung from his lips.

“Why should we care if we lost Matsuda?” Amber dug her shoes into the dirt floor. “He didn’t know everything we know but was always telling everyone what to do.” Reynard just barely saw a stray tear leaking from the side of her left eye.

“Because he was able to fix all those old Enforcer weapons we’re holding. I had them hiding in my basement for years. It wasn’t until these yuppies,” Hererra motioned towards him and the empty space next to him, “showed up at my door, asking for my help, that I made any progress.” Herrera sighed.

Reynard had known of Herrera for years as a member of his neighborhood but had only felt courageous enough to speak to him a few months ago. After Matsuda and Reynard’s wives died, they both got drunk on illegal liquor in the basement of Reynard’s house and admitted that they couldn’t keep pretending everything was okay. Every year prior, they had passed their Citizenship Examinations with big red A+s painted on their doors.

The Regime’s official word on the explosion that killed their wives was that terrorist groups were responsible, but everyone knew the Enforcers were targeting someone. They had decided that it was worth blowing up half a mall, civilians included, just to make sure they were dead.

Herrera’s bright red C or C+ was painted on his door every year, which is why Reynard and Matsuda guessed he would help them do something illegal. No one ever had a C-. They would have been taken away before that.

Since Reynard realized he could no longer tolerate living under the Regime, in this godforsaken country, he needed Herrera for his weapons. His willingness to break rules. His lack of family, career goals, or concern over his reputation meant he wouldn’t ever be motivated to sell him out. He needed Edwards and his younger sister, Amber, who had contacts in the Neutral Zone. He couldn’t risk annoying them so much that they abandoned him; otherwise he’d have no way of escaping.

“It’s not much further, right?” Reynard hugged his knees. “We’re sure the Neutral Zone is safe?”

Amber rolled her eyes.

“The Enforcers can’t enter the Neutral Zone because a jamming signal causes their chips to malfunction.” Edwards sounded irritable; he had already explained this many times.

Almost all of the Enforcers, the police force used by the Regime, had chips in their brains that allowed them to be controlled by the Regime’s Central Command or one of the regional Command Branches. They were stripped of their own agency, at least when they were on duty.

“We avoid the Enforcers. We get to the warehouse. We get on the trucks. We get past the border. We get someone in the Neutral Zone to sponsor us. Then we’re golden.” Reynard repeated the skeleton of the plan to himself. Edwards had already explained to him that the trucks were used to transport animals from the Neutral Zone. They would be returning, empty, to the warehouse, where they would sit for a few hours before crossing the borders. The drivers and crew had agreed to hide them inside to make it past the border guards and wall.

“Are you chickening out? You wanna go home?” Amber took her small flashlight out of her pocket and shined it in Reynard’s eyes.

Reynard turned his head. “I can’t go back now. I lied and told my boss and my neighborhood I was going to the Fairgrounds. If someone from Branch Command sees that my travel papers were never signed by Fairgrounds staff—”

“Matsuda was a really smart man.” Edwards looked up from the notebook in which he was writing and interrupted Reynard. “But anyone could see he was depressed. He was looking for an excuse to die. This woman, whoever she is, seems to know things. It’s not good we lost someone who can fix weapons. But from a tactical point of view, she is more useful in getting us to the border—at least for now.”

Edwards turned to look at Twitchy. She was rubbing her forehead against her knee, her eyes still closed. If Reynard had any, he would have offered her some pain medication. But Herrera had forced him to toss all of what he owned—he said legal pain pills were purposely addictive and a higher dose than necessary because the Regime liked stoned, easy-to-manipulate people.

“Jesus, Edwards, you could be a bit respectful about the man we lost.” Herrera pulled a hand-=rolled cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. Reynard was nervous about the skunky smell of cheap and chemically altered marijuana wafting somewhere, like towards Enforcers with dogs. Just because Herrera’s drugs were smuggled from the Neutral Zone didn’t make them any less dangerous, Reynard wanted to say. But he didn’t have the energy to argue.

“Everyone’s always losing someone.” Amber shrugged. “I’m not saying Matsuda didn’t matter, but at this point, we can’t waste time mourning anyone.”

“Well—that’s true.” Smoke wafted around Herrera. “Some of us have been losing our whole lives. Before the Enforcers were chipped and mind controlled, a bunch of them beat down my door while me and my family were watching TV. They took my parents and my sister, and I never saw them again. We were the wrong kind of people. I only survived because I hid in the cupboards. I’ve just been losing people since.”

Reynard exhaled. He had heard this story before. Herrera liked telling it to remind everyone that he had been stewing in his loss longer than most other people.

“We all better hope that Twitchy is trustworthy,” Herrera mumbled after he had smoked enough to calm his nerves. “We don’t know a thing about her. How did she know my name? How does she know this stuff?”

*     *     *
Reynard managed to fall asleep. He often dreamed about his wife, about somehow stopping her from going to the mall that day. Today, he dreamed about Matsuda, too.

“No, you leave. I’ll stay with the scanners.” Reynard wished he had said to Matsuda. “You’re useful. You take the woman and go. I don’t know anything like you do. I’m just a big, clumsy accountant. I’m not made for this stuff.”

Amber woke everyone up. “The sun is already low in the sky.” She looked out the doorway with her arms crossed and a grim expression on her face. “It’s safe to start moving.”

They took their gloves, scarves, hats, and goggles out of their bags and covered their skin before heading out into the sunlight. They were headed towards a small town, which once had been a small city, near the border, hopefully their final town before crossing. Edwards knew of a hotel where the owners did not usually check if their guests had proper travel papers.

Towns near the border tended to follow fewer of the Regime’s rules and have fewer active Enforcers. This made them feel both safer and more scared. The Enforcers they might encounter out here could be more aggressive. Yet, Reynard was looking forward to sleeping in a bed.

They passed by a blue cabin. A small child in a well-made brown sun-suit stepped out of the house. Someone with money must have been caring for this boy, because his suit even included a breathing apparatus exhaling white smoke from either side. Small children, especially wealthy small children, made Reynard very nervous—this boy might go back inside and tell his parents that he saw five people he didn’t know walk by his house.

Luckily, the kid walked towards a short tree next to his house without giving them a second glance. He pulled sheets of tinfoil off the wrapped tree, which bore limp leaves and tiny, rotting apples. Now and early dawn was the only time the tree could be exposed and get sunlight. Reynard resisted the urge to stare; many years had passed since he’d seen a living fruit tree outdoors.

As they approached the town, they decided to split into two groups; Edwards with his sister, and Reynard with Herrera and Twitchy.

“Nothing will happen now,” Twitchy told them, but they couldn’t risk drawing attention to themselves. Edwards and Amber went ahead to the hotel while the others waited near the barren trees on a hill overlooking abandoned residential districts of the old city. Reynard counted stars, Twitchy counted to herself, and Herrera smoked another joint. After an hour, they figured anyone who had noticed Edwards and Amber pass by would have forgotten them, so Reynard, Twitchy, and Herrera made their way into town and to the hotel.

The city center, now the entire town, had just a few tall office buildings and some large municipal centers. The edges of the old city and the suburbs around it had broad streets and old, multifamily homes stacked next to one another. As the population had shrunk, the citizens had moved towards the old downtown and left the rest of the city to rot. They stepped over broken telephone poles and frayed wires in the streets and kept distant from the houses and old stores and fast food places because there was always a chance someone was hiding in them or that they would collapse.

When Reynard was a child, he used to be afraid of an abandoned house in his neighborhood because his brother told him that rabid raccoons lived there. Now he would have loved to see any wild animal living among the ruins. The only animals he saw now were kept by humans or were stray pets or rats and pest insects that survived only in densely populated areas.

“If the Enforcers stop us, they’ll ask us for a city pass or travel papers. When they see we don’t have the right ones, they’ll bring us in for questioning. And then they’ll find our guns in our bags. And then they’ll kill us. Don’t get stopped.” Herrera reminded them.

When they got closer to the city center, they put Herrera’s hooded coat on Twitchy and pulled the hood over her head so that her scars and the bright yellow cloth were covered—she wouldn’t let them remove the cloth. Wearing just small bits of bright colors wasn’t technically against the Regime rules, but doing so often attracted Enforcer attention. The Regime also liked people to look clean and healthy. Women and men layered cover-up on their faces and kept their hair in neat, approved haircuts.

From their backpacks, they removed shopping bags and boxes stolen from Enforcers that were made with a material that blocked weak scanners. They put their pistols and other weapons inside the boxes and then into the shopping bags.

Herrera and Reynard walked on either side of Twitchy. Once they reached the old downtown, they avoided making eye contact with normal citizens who passed by them while carrying their own shopping bags. Shopping was one of the few public activities encouraged by the Regime, even though most stores sold nearly identical products.

People wearing glowing metal bands that marked them as Underclass looked up at them as they passed. The Underclass were not approved by the Regime to engage with normal society but were too harmless or weak for the Regime to bother jailing. Occasionally, Enforcers would round them up and force them to do menial civic jobs, like pick up trash before an important government person visited.

Reynard sweat through his bottom layer of clothes. They kept a wide berth from Enforcers, who, dressed in black and silver gear and heavy steel boots, occasionally stopped people to question them.

“Don’t walk too fast.” Herrera slowed his pace. “We already look strange. But we’re lucky—they probably think Twitchy has cancer.” Enforcers did not like to bother people with cancer. The Regime funded very little healthcare, and the number of cancer patients rose every year. Bringing attention to them, especially on crowded streets, tended to inspire political unrest.

The hotel was actually a repurposed office building. Their room occupied part of the sixth story of a fifteen story building. Most of the rooms weren’t open for guests to use, and only part of the building had electricity. The rest was filled with broken computers, ripped up carpet, cubicles that had fallen apart, and still-glowing exit signs. Eight mattresses had been placed in their room as well as an old rotted leather couch. The windows looked out onto the city’s flickering lights.

As much as they didn’t want to risk getting burned, they were planning to do most of their travel during the day, when fewer people and fewer Enforcers would be outside. When the sun started to go up, they’d leave and walk to the west edge of the old city to the warehouse and hopefully make it there before the sun got too bright. There, they’d hopefully wait till the trucks arrived.

They each chose a mattress and napped on and off, wondering if they’d actually make it to the Neutral Zone and if life would really be better. Twitchy sat on the leather couch, still counting and looking out the window.

They were told by the Regime that the Neutral Zone was lawless and filled with roving gangs that attacked people not wealthy enough to own mansions and hire armed guards. But the ozone there was still intact. Reynard dreamed of red and yellow flowers, the smell of grass after rain, crisp air, singing birds, clear streams running over his toes, and sunny days he could enjoy. Lately, he often thought that being stabbed a hundred times was a fair deal for a day at a real park.

Fields could grow in the Neutral Zone. Farm animals could be raised there. Reynard remembered chewing soft, juicy meat between his teeth. Most of the population of his country only got meat rations once a month. Those with high up positions in Central Command and in Branch Command Posts got to eat meat more frequently. Some years ago, some people demanded that the Regime begin mass cricket farming as an environmentally viable way to replace the lack of protein in people’s diets. Most of them were killed in an explosion that the Regime claimed was set off by “terrorists.”

Malnourished people didn’t resist as much.

*     *     *
The sun was hours away from coming up when Reynard was jolted awake by Twitchy’s voice.

“I know this part,” Twitchy squeaked through hard breaths. “They’re coming soon.”

“Who is coming?” Edwards sat up on his mattress and rubbed his eyes.

“Enforcers.” Herrera was staring out the window and running his fingertips over his weapon. “They’re going to inspect the hotel. I saw one of their cars at the building next to us. We’re unlucky enough to come on a night they’re doing a sweep of local hotels.”

“Is there another way out of the building?” Amber was already on her feet and pacing. “We can’t just go through the front door.”

“We go out through the back parking lot.” Twitchy snapped to attention.

“Won’t that trip an alarm?”

“Not this building. I know. I watched it already.” She shook her head fast before she wrapped her arms around herself. Amber had already grabbed her bags. The men exchanged glances but did the same. One by one, they exited. Twitchy led their group down a dark hallway.

Reynard gripped his pistol tightly, nearly jumping at the sound of dripping water, an opening door, and a moving elevator. They crept down the six flights of stairs in the dark. Twitchy pushed against a fire escape door that wasn’t budging. Herrera shoved her to the side and told Reynard to slam his large body against it as hard as he could. The door swung open, and they exited to the garage parking lot. Twitchy took the lead again as they dashed across puddles and the empty lot, down the winding ramp, and onto the street. She stopped before stepping out, looked both ways and then turning right towards the mostly empty part of the old city. Reynard didn’t look back as they ran down a highway while avoiding tripping over cracks and broken asphalt, the streetlamps becoming less bright and steady.

“Inside here,” Twitchy commanded when they reached an abandoned storefront. The door wasn’t locked, so they followed her inside. Twitchy shut the door behind them. “We will stay here until I tell you to leave.”

Reynard felt his hands sweat around his pistol. He’d never shot a man. But he had practiced in Herrera’s soundproofed basement a few weeks before they started their journey.

From what he could tell in the dark, this store had once been fairly large. He could still see old bottles of pills, makeup, and toiletries scattered around the floor and shelves. Spiderwebs and dust danced in stray streaks of light that managed to sneak inside. If there were spiders, there were insects, Reynard realized, which likely meant people still used these buildings.

Edwards peeked outside around the edge of a large curtain covering the old storefront window.

“They’re right outside.” His finger hovered over the safety of his pistol.

“I know.” Twitchy put her face in her hands and then looked up as her fingers pulled her bottom eyelids down. “If we stay quiet, they won’t come in. They−the next scene−” She squeezed her eyes shut.

“We can’t just wait here,” Amber insisted, her whole body shuddering. “This store must have a back door. We should just go out the back.”

Twitchy shook her head vigorously. Her hands gripped the yellow scarf around her head.

“No, in this scene−you can’t. Please. Wait. They. I can’t. What they do—”

Herrera wrapped one arm around her waist and put his hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened, but she stopped moving.

“I’m going to the back door.” Amber turned on her flashlight and gripped her pistol. Twitchy struggled in Herrera’s grip.

“Are you sure?” Edwards looked nervous.

“I’m just gonna take a peek outside. It’ll be fine. They’re patrolling, but I don’t think they know we’re here. But if we stay here, we’re sitting ducks.”

“But Twitchy,” Reynard protested. “One of the men should—ˮ

“Don’t give me that chauvinistic bullshit. Twitchy is freaking out right now. The faster we get out of here, the better. I’m a faster runner than all of you. And they don’t usually kill young people.”

“Even those carrying pistols? If you get caught, and they find the weapon, they’ll know you had help. Give your brother the gun.” Herrera looked at Amber and then at Edwards. Amber grimaced but placed the gun in Edwards’ trembling hand. He checked the safety and put it in his belt.

They watched Amber with her flashlight walk across the floor of the store. She got to the door for the back room and pushed it open. She held the edge so it wouldn’t swing noisily shut behind her. And then they held their breath, waiting for her to return.

The store lights, now more dangerous than ultraviolet sunrays, flicked on. Then the siren rang, a horrible shriek piercing their eardrums. They heard the voices of the Enforcers yelling commands, coming from outside the front of the store and the back. Herrera let go of Twitchy, who ran towards the left side of the store. Edwards stopped dead in his tracks. Herrera shoved the end of his pistol into his back.

“If you try to go after your sister, I will shoot you dead. There’s nothing you can do. Follow Twitchy.”

Edwards looked at Herrera for what Reynard thought was a lifetime, but he finally turned and dashed towards Twitchy. She led them to a side exit where she punched a code into the door. It opened, and they followed her into an indoor mall. She kept running until she finally stopped at what used to be a large clothing store. They tried to catch their breaths as they shined flashlights across naked mannequins, piles of hangers, and empty shelves. Reynard leaned against the wall and dropped onto his butt.

“Why didn’t you tell us the alarm was set on the back door?” Edwards turned Twitchy so that she faced him and squeezed her shoulders. “Why didn’t you explain?”

“She tried, you idiot,” Reynard grunted from the floor. “Herrera wouldn’t let her talk.”

“Fuck you.” Herrera pointed his pistol directly at Reynard. “She wasn’t saying anything useful. The crazy bitch was just babbling. How was I supposed to—ˮ

“They won’t kill her. I’ve seen it.” The woman spoke with unusual clarity. “They’ll capture her because she is young and they can use her. She will live. You have a chance to meet again. She will make a deal with them to keep her brother safe.” She glanced at Herrera, who lowered his weapon.

“I’m sorry, Edwards. I know it sucks. But she made her choice. And she’s an adult.” Herrera almost put his hand on Edwards’ back, but he instead dropped it back to his side.

“Barely.” Edwards’ hands released Twitchy, and his normal, blank expression returned to his face.

“Twitchy is right. We don’t have a lot of healthy young people, They might think she’s a rebellious teen, running away. She’s a tough girl. She’s the type of person they like. They’ll probably just stick her at a Reeducation Camp for a few months.” Reynard got back on his feet.

“Unless some higher up decides he likes her a little too much.” Edwards squeezed his pistol.

No one spoke for a few moments.

“It’s not totally safe here.” Twitchy broke the silence. “This is the dangerous part. If you see them, you need to kill them.”

“Them? Who is them?” Reynard scanned the room, feeling his palms sweat. Herrera looked a bit amused and Edwards was blank.

“Who the fuck are you idiots?” came a male voice from around the corner. From his clothes, they knew he wasn’t an Enforcer. His shirt was purposely torn and decorated in bright neon paint. His outfit wouldn’t have passed an Enforcer’s “proper attire” check. Before Reynard could decide what to do, a red laser burst landed on the man’s skull, exploding his head. A sizzling stump was left on his neck, and his corpse dropped to the ground. The smell of burned meat, something Reynard hadn’t smelled in years, suddenly reached his nostrils. He had to stop himself of thinking of a childhood Christmas when his mother burned a ham. Reynard turned to Herrera. Smoke wafted from the tip of his weapon.

They heard someone shouting. Reynard heard another very loud blast, louder than the previous, and a red beam burned a black, smoking mark into the floor a couple feet from him. He blinked, his vision blacking in and out and the sound of his blood vessels drumming in his ears. He looked ahead and saw a woman in a red jacket with a mini-cannon laser weapon, the external lights indicating it was recharging. She raised the barrel to shoot towards him again.

“Shoot!” Twitchy, from behind him, flipped the safety mechanism in the back of his pistol, wrapped her hands around his, raised the weapon, and pushed down on his finger so the trigger pulled back. A red beam erupted and hit the woman directly on her forehead, exploding her head. The recoil of the firearm nearly made him lose his balance, but Twitchy helped steady him.

Reynard couldn’t think. The next few moments were a blur until he heard Edwards say:

“I think there were just two of them.”

“Who were they?” Reynard’s eyes were finally focusing. Herrera was inspecting the body of the man.

“They have an Enforcer communication device.” Herrera pulled it from the man’s pocket. “They must have been one of the gangs that worked out a deal with the local Branch Command to patrol this area in exchange for leniency.” He stomped on the device until it was thoroughly destroyed. “How did you know that? How do you know any of this stuff?” He got in Twitchy’s face. She was now leaning against the wall, squinting her eyes shut.

“Because I’ve seen the movie.” She breathed out hard.

“Stop, Herrera.” Reynard approached him while trying not to look at the body of the dead woman. His wife would have loved that red jacket if she were still alive. And if she had been allowed to wear red jackets. “She’s in pain right now. She hasn’t betrayed us yet.”

“Whatever. We probably shouldn’t stay here.”

“How do we know the streets are safe?” Reynard glanced around the room. “We could just as easily get caught out there.”

“I think we aren’t far from the warehouse,” Edwards was writing in his book again. “If we make it there before noon, we can hide there until the trucks arrive.”

“Reynard.” Herrera was now in his face. “Do you think we should head towards the warehouse? If we get off schedule, we risk missing the trucks.”

“Honestly, I have no idea. I don’t know about any of this shit. I don’t know how to survive.” Reynard’s voice got louder with each word.

“So? You’re still a man with a fucking brain.” Hererra matched his loudness but then looked around and lowered his voice: “And we need to make a decision together. No one is going off again alone like Amber did.”

“I don’t know. Ask Twitchy.” Reynard gestured towards the woman.

“Hey.” Herrera approached Twitchy. “Did you see this part of the movie?” He shoved the map in her face and pointed his flashlight over it. “We want to get to that warehouse circled in red. Can we go now or should we wait? Hey!”

She took the paper in her hands and stared at it while mumbling something unintelligible.

“What’s the time?” she asked clearly.

“3:54am.”

“The day of the week?”

“Tuesday.”

“Yes. Yes. This part. We can go. Now. And fast. But we follow the roads like this. Pen.” The three men fumbled for a pen until Edwards handed her one. She drew a slightly meandering route on the map and then handed the pen and map back to Edwards.

With Edwards in the lead, and then Herrera, and Reynard with his arm linked with Twitchy’s, they began walking the path drawn on the map through the mostly empty city streets. They saw just a few people with shopping bags ambling home and some Underclass. Reynard tried to stifle his growing excitement as they got closer to their destination. Feeling just a little bit of happiness and hope was nearly as overwhelming and dizzying as watching two people get shot. Still, he needed to be careful; although they didn’t see any Enforcers, any of the people they passed could be informants.

The sky was pink by the time they reached the abandoned warehouse. A rusted door moved without much trouble when Herrera pushed it.

“Edwards, you take the woman and sweep the right side to make sure we have no company. Reynard and I will take the left,” Herrera commanded. Before Reynard and Herrera could get very far they heard a voice.

“Stop!” They turned to see an Enforcer with his sleek laser pistol already raised and pointed at them. His uniform was blue, which even Reynard knew meant he was a Scout and not on normal patrol. Scouts patrolled different areas at random.

Herrera’s weapon was also ready. Reynard raised his.

“Don’t shoot. This is a C920. It will shoot a spray of lasers wide enough to hit both of you. You don’t want to die or lose a limb, do you? I know I don’t. We can talk about this.” The Scout’s voice lacked emotion. Like any other Enforcer, he was chipped. This warehouse was close enough to the border that the signal between chip and Command was probably weak. They had a little time before Branch Command was notified of their presence.

Before they could make a decision, they heard a scream and saw Twitchy rush at the Enforcer, a large knife in her hand. She stabbed it into the Enforcer’s gun hand. He didn’t scream, but he immediately dropped the weapon. He tried to pick it up, but she kicked him in the shin. He reached and grabbed both of her wrists. She struggled to break free as he stared at her, focusing his energy on getting a picture of her face on his chip.

Suddenly there was a loud blast from Reynard’s immediate left, the red streak zooming through the air in what Reynard perceived as slow motion before it hit Twitchy’s back, smoke and blood spraying out. Her body collapsed, the Enforcer started to fall forward, and there was a second blast, this time hitting the Enforcer in the side of his head, melting half of his face and splattering his brains on the boxes behind him.

Reynard couldn’t move for a few moments as he stared at the corpses and the blood continuing to pool. Herrera breathed heavily next to him, and Reynard’s heart pounded in his chest. He could see Edwards’ empty expression from across the room.

Reynard approached both bodies slowly, still holding his pistol in both hands. His eyes rapidly scanned the room, even though he was mostly sure the Enforcer had come alone based on his rank and the fact that no one had come to his aid.

“Why’d you shoot her, too?” he shouted back to Herrera when he was sure they were alone.

“There wasn’t a clear shot. We couldn’t wait for her to play games. I had to destroy the chip in his head before it was able to transmit information about us back to the Command.”

“They’ll realize that something is off when they stop getting any signal from his chip. They’ll send more Enforcers to this area, and we won’t have her to guide us.” Reynard felt his throat tighten as he approached the pool of blood behind Twitchy’s back and looked down at her scarred face.

“Herrera was right to shoot him as soon as possible. A cheap chip in low level Scout going offline isn’t worth investigating. But images of men with guns and a woman attacking an Enforcer would be.” Edwards was watching him with his pistol still ready.

Reynard knew that arguing with the other men after the fact was useless, so he didn’t. Instead he looked back to Twitchy’s body, feeling guilty and sick. The woman had given her life to save Reynard and Herrera—he didn’t think anyone was capable of that kind of selflessness anymore.

He noticed a black tinge on some of Twitchy’s scars, especially near her right ear. He squatted before reaching gingerly with his left hand toward the sunflower-colored cloth around her head. He pulled at it, exposing more black burn scars concentrated around an infected sore above her right ear. He swallowed rising bile as the smell of rotted flesh hit his nose.

“It’s where the Enforcer chips are implanted,” he spoke to himself. “Come here,” he called to Herrera and Edwards. He heard them creep towards him.

“What is it?” Herrera snapped.

“She was an Enforcer. Her chip must have malfunctioned. That’s why she was so strange. It was leaking inside her head, poisoning her. I’ve heard it happens from time to time.”

“So I did her a favor by shooting her.” Herrera turned his head to spit. “She was dying a slow death, anyway. I guess that also explains how she knew my name and about the patrol schedules of the Enforcers. She was probably assigned to keep tabs on us before her chip broke.”

Reynard exhaled louder than he meant to but adjusted the cloth over Twitchy’s head so that the sore was covered again. When the other two guys looked away, he also closed her eyes. Reynard moved Twitchy’s sleeve up and saw the small numbers all Enforcers had tattooed on their inner elbows.

“Six hundred ninety-eight. That’s a pretty low number for an Enforcer. But if she was one of the first chipped Enforcers years ago that makes sense with her age, and if the chip was old and she was working near the border, that’s probably why it malfunctioned. No wonder she was so whacked out. This was probably the first time in over two decades that she had control over her own body for more than a few hours in a row.”

“She’d been watching her life like a movie.” Edwards’ face expressed a brief moment of interest before hardening again.

Herrera shrugged.

“Chip or no chip, those assholes, especially the first couple thousand that signed up to become Enforcers, knew they’d get an implant that would make them tools of the Regime. No one was forced back then.”

“Yeah, but most didn’t know that the procedure was permanent.” Reynard squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “Maybe she made a deal to save someone she loved.”

“I’d rather be dead. If you made a deal with a devil, you don’t have my sympathy.” Herrera spat at Twitchy’s corpse. Reynard winced.

“We’re nearly at the border. After we cross, we won’t have to worry about any Enforcers anymore.” Edwards’ voice was flat. His eyes wandered towards the door. They heard a thud and nearly jumped out of their skin. Reynard grabbed his pistol, got to his feet, and whipped towards the noise. “Oh, it’s just a cat.” Edwards breathed out and all three men relaxed. The black and brown tabby approached the men with her tail straight up.

“Are you so used to death that you’re not scared of guns and corpses?” Reynard watched the animal rub against his leg. She was probably a stray, but her presence suggested there were people hiding out and living in these warehouses. He shivered.

“Funny.” Herrera stared at the feline, his face contorted in a weird grimace. “My sister had a cat like that before the regime took her away, except it had a white belly. That girl used to make poor Mugsy ‘go to school’ with a bunch of stuffed animals. She probably woulda become a teacher if she were still alive today.”

Herrera removed one of his joints from his pocket and lit it. Reynard watched him as he closed his eyes. He looked from Herrera’s face to Twitchy’s face. Reynard could see the resemblance around the shape of the eyes, now that both pairs were closed. The realization suddenly dawned on him.

He remembered that he told Matsuda when he was drunk that he was done pretending that everything was okay. He was done hiding from unpleasant things. He was ready to become a man of integrity and to leave behind the complacency and denial he had developed in order to live under the Regime.

“Herrera. I think she might have been your—ˮ

He stopped himself when he noticed the streaks of orange sunlight that fell across the floor. He thought of how quickly his skin would burn if he stood in those spots. What kind of solace would the truth give Herrera? Not like he could save her now. Maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to, anyway.

“Hm?” Smoke rushed out of Herrera’s nostrils. Reynard glanced at Edwards, who was staring intently at his map—probably going over the plan to avoid worrying about Amber.

“You should take Twitchy’s knife before we leave. She probably would have wanted you to keep it.” Reynard motioned towards the weapon.

Herrera shrugged. He walked over and removed the knife from the corpse, wiped it clean on the dead man’s shirt, and then put it in his pack.