Zhukov's Dogs (10 page)

Spectrum Canal—Seattle, WA
Tuesday, November 10th, 2076—12:24 p.m.

y expectations for the revolutionaries’ base were very low. What could a couple kids afford in a city like this? My first guess was a sketchy storage shed, toward the water probably, or an abandoned freighter.

We maintained a slow pace through the city for Tibbs’ sake. He was conscious again, but understandably still disoriented. As we walked along the Spectrum Canal, Anya explained how the water wasn’t for drinking or anything like that. It was a murky brown color, and the air around it smelled something like rotting earth, so I doubted anyone would have thought to use it for drinking.

“About thirty years ago, a crack appeared in the ceiling, so a canal was built for all the runoff,” Anya said. She suddenly squealed and ran across the street to greet a pair of girls sitting on the front steps of what looked like a bakery, or maybe a hat shop. It was hard to tell what any of the buildings on this street actually were, since half the oil lamps along the canal were out.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom and shadows of the city. We kept going from well-lit streets, lined with working oil lamps and spilled in the orange glow from waterfront factories, to less inviting streets, which were almost completely dark. The constant strain the dark environment put on my eyes explained why at least half the adults I saw on the street wore glasses.

“Why didn’t you guys just patch the crack?” I asked Val, since Anya was busy chatting away with the girls.

“Didn’t have the resources back then,” Val said. “By the time the city accumulated enough material to fix the hole, the canal was already half full.”

Tibbs nudged my shoulder and pointed skyward, or rather ceiling-ward. Mismatched colors and textures of concrete were distinguishable in parts where the city below was bright. The way the lights flickered and danced on the ceiling made it look like a moving galaxy. I saw a bright, uneven mess of concrete where Tibbs pointed out the patched crack at the mouth of the canal.

“The old governor approved emergency funding to build a big, hydroelectric power plant,” Tibbs said, pointing up along the water. I couldn’t tell which building he pointed at since everything in that direction looked like a factory to me. “Thanks to him, this canal powers the whole city.”

“Only good thing a governor’s ever done for us,” Val grumbled. He’d been in a strange mood ever since the bridge and continued walking several feet ahead of us.

I looked to Tibbs for answers, but he just made a short gesture with his hand across his throat, which suggested I should drop it. “You’re a Grey, too, aren’t you?” I asked bluntly. While neither Val nor Anya looked like the children Grey Men were known to father, Tibbs fit the bill perfectly.

Tibbs laughed and clapped me on the back, the giant’s hand nearly knocking me down. “I get that a lot. My old man was a cobbler though.” Scrawny Russians came from Grey Men and giants from shoemakers. This city was getting stranger by the minute.

We turned down First Avenue, and Tibbs told me how this was the western end of the underground, and on the other side of the cement wall was the Puget Sound. Large industrial elevators here were used to bring down cargo from freighters topside. I half expected to be led onto one of the elevators and taken up to the revolutionaries’ base. Instead, we climbed a small flight of stairs along the cement wall and stepped out onto a monorail station. The tracks ran along the wall, curving away and around the boarding station.

“Does it go all the way around?” I asked, spotting the blue and gold monorail car speeding toward us.

“Yup,” Anya said with a nod. She dug through her coat pockets and pulled out a handful of change. Seventy-five cents in assorted coins was counted out for each of us as fare, and in no time we were flying around Seattle. We were on the train for five minutes before Anya stood and pulled a cord on the wall. The monorail curved away from the cement as it had before, and the doors along the windowless wall opened. With Anya taking the lead this time, we left the train and hurried down a flight of stairs.

It was warmer here than it had been by the canal, so much warmer that even I felt comfortable unbuttoning my coat. Two and three story homes with fenced in yards lined First Avenue, and similar dwellings spanned four blocks at least. We walked a block up and turned down Second Avenue. Cozy mini-mansions. Was this where they lived? Sure enough, Anya opened the gate at the third house down on our right.

257 Second Avenue East was not what I’d expected as a base, with deep red bricks, white shuttered windows, and a lawn covered in layers of imitation grass. I caught sight of something in front of the home which explained why the revolutionaries were able to call such a nice place their base. ‘FOR SALE’ the sign read, complete with a listing for the house and realtor contact information underneath. They were squatters.

“You look surprised,” Tibbs said.

Surprised was an understatement. I lingered on the porch next to the giant and looked around the neighborhood. Three out of the five lawns had the same signs in them. From the look of it, the revolutionaries weren’t the only ones living in the vacant houses illegally. Lights were on in houses up and down the street, and there were even a few children playing a makeshift game of soccer in the road.

Tibbs read the question in my expression and answered it before I could ask. “Yeah, this sort of thing is pretty common down here. Nobody can afford to actually buy swanky places like this anymore.”

“Nobody minds?”

“Oh, they mind. There ain’t nothing they can do about it, though.”

I bit my tongue, but the words came grumbling out anyway. “Isn’t anything.”

Tibbs looked confused. I should have been more understanding and blind to the grammar of one of my hosts, especially given his size. Unfortunately, there were few things I hated more than the word ain’t.

“There
isn’t anything
they can do about it,” I said.

To my relief, Tibbs just laughed. “So, you’re the word police?”

“Sorry, it’s a bad habit of mine.”

“Heh, well, there are worse habits to have,” Tibbs said with a gesture toward the door. “C’mon inside, warm up, and meet the others.”

As soon as he opened the door, we were met with a series of battle cries. Three barefoot children charged down the hall toward us, waving foam swords above their heads. One wore an orange colander on his head, and all three had off-color dish towels tied around their necks. Tibbs gave a great roar which even made me jump. He bent his knees and rushed at the children, easily scooping all three up in his enormous arms. They squealed with delight as Tibbs roared again. He spun them in place while the boy with the colander on his head beat him on the back with his foam sword.

“Thank
God
you’re back. They’ve been driving me crazy,” came a voice from another room.

A lean girl with dark skin stepped through a doorframe up the hall. Her hair was tied into a thick braid and hung down to the middle of her back like a great stinger. The sharpness of her face and golden eyes led me to believe she might be capable of stinging someone, too. She wore a set of khaki cargos which hung low on her narrow hips and looked like they might have belonged to a boy. The sleeves of her dark green turtleneck were pushed up above her elbows, and she dried her hands with a discolored washrag similar to the ones the rowdy children wore around their necks.

“Fritzi, come meet our guest,” Tibbs called as he turned the children in a circle to face me.

Fritzi seemed every bit as apprehensive of me as Val had been. Golden eyes narrowed into cat-like slits as she looked me up and down. “Great. Another mouth to feed. I thought we were done bringing in strays.”

Tibbs jumped to my defense. “Be nice, Fritz. Nik here helped us out of a couple tight spots, and Val invited him back.”

“Oh, well
that
makes everything totally fine.”

Tibbs rolled his eyes at her and set the children down. He patted each one on the head, giving the one with the colander a hard
thunk
before sending them on their way. I watched the tiny herd scurry into a room off the entry hall and heard a crash as one of them fell into something.

Fritzi mumbled something in German under her breath. With little ears nearby, I knew better than to repeat the translation aloud. She strode past us toward the room the children had disappeared into, shoving the dishrag into Tibbs hands.

Tibbs removed his hat and scratched the top of his head, like he was embarrassed we’d somehow gone from robbing the governor’s suits to babysitting. “Sorry about that. I promise we’re not a daycare.”

“Is it just you guys?” I asked.

“Nah, there should be a few more around here somewhere, and we got a few topside on a mission right now. We’re just one branch, though.”

The words came like an unexpected smack to the face. I kept my voice steady, and shock hidden, as I asked, “What do you mean? Branch? There are more of you?”

“Oh yeah, loads,” Tibbs laughed as he shrugged out of his coat. “What sort ‘o threat would just a handful of kids be? We’re all spread out down here.”

My head swirled. The file Aiden handed me barely had a dozen names in it. Tibbs made it sound like they had a small army to be reckoned with. I needed to know more; that would be the next step of my mission. The endless questions I wanted to ask caught in my throat when Fritzi shouted from the living room.

“Tibbs! Get in here and help me! Joey’s head is stuck under the couch again!”

Tibbs grimaced and patted me on the back soundly. “Val should be upstairs. He’s the guy to ask if you want the gritty details,” he said before rushing off to answer Fritzi’s call, leaving me alone in the hall.

My mind ran wild with theories. I imagined one-hundred grubby revolutionaries swarming the streets. How greatly outnumbered was I? Sweeping my tongue over the roof of my mouth to quell the dryness taking over, I told myself not to panic.

I was alone in the hall and realized this was my chance to get a quick message out to Aiden. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and composed a text.

Made it to Seattle. With the family now. Love, Nik

I wasn’t with my family, and I certainly didn’t love Aiden. At the risk of having my phone taken and the messages checked, though, we’d agreed on a strict code. He was even listed under the name “Ginger” in my contacts.

With the message sent, I leaned against a long table shoved against the wall covered in winter clothes, including snow boots and thick goggles. As I looked over it all, asking myself if they ventured above ground frequently, I got the feeling I was being watched. I assumed it was Val. He was probably hoping to catch me doing something suspicious so he could barrage me with questions again.

When I looked up the hall, though, I saw it was a little girl. She was one of the children who’d rushed at Tibbs when we first came in, her foam sword still in hand. I didn’t know what to do with a child. My only experience with children was in a mentorship role, and not in the sort of position where I taught them how to make macaroni art or finger paint.

I forced a smile. The girl didn’t smile back; she didn’t even budge from her seat on the stairs. She just stared at me with her big, gray eyes behind her long, blonde curls.

“Zoe?” Anya called from upstairs. She appeared on the landing a moment later, wearing an oversized cable-knit sweater instead of her jacket. She smiled as she came downstairs and picked Zoe up in her arms. “This is Nik,” she said, bouncing the little girl on her hip. “He saved us today.”

Zoe kept staring at me.

“I don’t think she likes me,” I said.

“Don’t feel bad. She’s just shy and doesn’t talk much,” Anya assured me. She kissed the top of Zoe’s head, and untied the washrag around her neck. I took the rag from her and tossed it onto the table with the winter clothes.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m going to put her down for a nap, okay? Val wanted you to meet him in the war room upstairs. Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s not an actual war room; it’s just fun to say. Come on.”

I followed her upstairs, all the while under the constant watch of gray-eyed Zoe. Anya left me on the second floor with simple instructions, “Go up one more floor and down the hall. It’s the last door on your right. The purple one.”

On the third floor, my pocket buzzed, and I pulled my phone out to read the message—a reply from Aiden.

So glad to hear you made it to Seattle safely. Things are dull here. Your cat ate another one of my socks, and your mother won’t stop calling. Hurry home. <3

There was no code, only the bored ravings of my best friend who was likely slacking off at his desk. I pocketed my phone as I reached the purple door standing open at the end of the hall. Inside, half empty bookshelves lined the walls, while ancient looking maps of the world and solar system hung in dusty frames. The entire room reeked of an old woman’s bedroom, a combination of mothballs and death, and I doubted any of the windows had been opened in months.

A tall girl in baggy, mismatched clothing stood at the table in the center next to Val. She had dark hair, crudely woven into long dreadlocks and pulled back into a birds nest knot on the back of her head. As I stepped into the war room, the girl’s hand whipped out from where it had been tucked inside her jacket. Impulse seized me, my mind forcing my body into action. My hand shot back into my bag and closed around my gun. I brought it in front as the girl turned her body and pointed the pistol straight at me.