“Lady, just shut up and finish,” the man snapped at her.
“Shut up? You’re telling me to shut up?”
“He’s telling you to shut up, and I’m telling you to shut up,” said another person behind Savina, a tall woman with a green punk-resurrection hairstyle. “It’s late and we’re all in a hurry.
How long do you want to stand here?”
Shouted down, the woman in front of Savina turned and pointedly ignored them, and took her own sweet time finishing up her transaction. I’m living a nightmare, Savina thought. Her imagination told her that every security monitor in the bank was focused on her. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she wasn’t there.
Finally the crabby lady finished and walked away with a stiff neck. Savina took a breath and stepped up to the autoteller. She inserted her card and punched in her code with shaking fingers.
There was $1322.70 in her account; she instructed the machine to give her all of it. The screen blinked as if taken aback, and two large words appeared:
P L E A S E W A I T
Wait? Wait for what? This had never happened before. Then again she had never pulled all the money out of her account before.
There was a humming noise, and Savina thought, This is it.
The crabby woman had been standing at the rear of the room rearranging things in her purse, and was just now opening a door to leave. There was a loud click and dull beeping. The doors were locking and the one that was open – the woman, startled, was standing against it – began to push its way closed, forcing the crabby woman back into the bank. Savina stared about wildly. It was happening, it was really happening. She turned and bolted for the door, sliding through as the woman unintentionally held it open for her. She hurtled down the front steps three at a time, and at the sidewalk came to a sliding halt: her father, Bob Recent and Dodd Corely were not more than thirty meters away, walking slowly toward her. All three of them were looking up at the infinite white tower of the euthanasia center.
There was a narrow alley between the bank and the center, a space for the autonomic garbage-collection trucks to pass. Savina ran for it, up several steps then over a railing, dropping four feet to the smooth concrete of the alley. She threw one last glance behind her before she was out of sight, and found a whole group of anarchists standing and watching her. She continued running, pounding the ground hard with her feet, flying headlong down the alley to find it was a dead end.
15. SIDEWALK RULE
Dodd had mixed feelings about finding Savina. He wanted her safe, but he wanted her to have what she wanted. He also wanted to help Toby who was worried sick about his missing daughter. Either way he was betraying someone he cared about.
Bob had volunteered to come along, which had surprised Dodd.
Bob was almost eager to go. He was alive again, awake. Wonders could happen during a crisis. People showed their true colors –
even Toby was back to his old self. All three were gazing up at the specter of the white tower when there was a muffled shout accompanied by banging noises. Dodd pulled his eyes down from the dizzying sight and looked over at the bank. There were people inside and the doors were closed. The people were all looking out, some calling for help, some banging on the windows.
“Something’s happening at the bank,” Bob said.
“There’s people locked inside!” Toby exclaimed. “Look at that.” He pronounced “that” almost like “dot.”
They hurried up the steps toward the closed bank door, and a hand reached out and gave Dodd’s sleeve a tug as he passed. Dodd paused, looking back. It was a familiar face, a half-smile nearly invisible in his scraggly beard. “Dodd,” the face said, “what’s up.”
“Danny,” Dodd said, surprised. He looked back at the other two, who had reached the bank door, then turned back to his anarchist friend. “Danny, did you see a young black girl around here, about so high?”
“She was pretty,” Danny said.
“You saw her?”
“I saw a young black girl. She came running out of that bank just before it locked up. The police are going to be here any second.”
“Where did she go?”
“Why? I’m not turning anyone in.”
“Danny, this is me! Where did she go?”
Danny shrugged. “She ran into the alley, but that doesn’t lead anywhere.”
Dodd stood looking into his friend’s eyes for a moment. “It doesn’t go anywhere?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.” Dodd thought a moment, struggling with his conscious.
“Don’t tell anyone anything.”
“I’m oblivious,” Danny said, grinning.
As Dodd started up toward his friends, they turned and came trotting back down. “She was here! She was here, you were right!”
“These guys said they saw her running down that way,” Dodd said, pointing down the street. “It was hardly a minute ago.”
“Let’s go!”
“You two go, I’ll cut through here in case she’s going around the block.” Dodd pointed at the alley.
“Okay!” Toby went trotting down the street with Bob tagging along. Dodd made his way into the alley, which went around the building and ended. There were solid locked doors and concrete walls thirty feet high, and right in the middle was a large black trash dumpster with the lids closed. Everything was glaring light, white concrete and white building walls, white doors to the building. The blackness of the dumpster was a harsh contrast, sucking in light like a hole.
Dodd walked up to the dumpster and raised the thick plastic lid. Savina stared up at him, half buried in shredded computer printouts and used silicon drinking cups. “What in the hell are you doing?” he asked her.
“Dodd, help me!”
“I sent your father racing down the street on a wild goose chase. He’s never going to forgive me for this.”
“Dodd, the bank ate my moneycard! It tried to lock me in.”
“I saw.”
“You’ve got to help me!”
“You are in over your head, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you running away?”
“To save my baby!”
Dodd sighed. He couldn’t imagine a better reason to run away.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said more to himself than to her. “You stay in here for now, I’m going to go talk to one of my friends in that group of anarchists around front. If you get away, you call me. If you get caught, swear to me that you won’t tell them I tried to help you. Your father will kill me, and I mean that. He will rip my fucking arms off and beat me to death with them. Do you understand?”
Savina nodded.
“The guy’s name is Danny Marauder. He has a beard, red hair and a broken front tooth. If he tells you to do something, do it.
He saved my life at least twice back in the war.”
“I love you, Dodd.”
“Well I’m pissed at you.” Dodd closed the lid.
He walked around to the front where quite a crowd was gathering, looked up and down the street for any sign of Toby or Bob. Bob was way, way down on the corner of the city block, searching the passing pedestrians for Savina’s face. Toby was nowhere in sight. The group of anarchists were still spread around the wide entrance to the euthanasia center, keeping their distance from the bank. Dodd looked at his watch. There would be police drones here at any second.
Dodd spotted Danny Marauder standing next to a tall, dark-haired woman who looked like a pure-blood American Indian.
“I’ve got a favor to ask,” he said, walking up to Danny.
“You’ve got at least one coming,” Danny told him.
“That girl I was asking you about, she’s hiding in the dumpster behind the bank. She’s pregnant and underage, wants to keep the baby. Her name’s Savina.”
“She means a lot to you,” the Indian woman said.
Dodd looked at her, distracted. “Yes, a lot. I’d like her to get away.”
“Your kid, huh?” Danny said, smiling.
“No, I’m kinda her uncle …” Dodd trailed off, realizing what Danny was implying. “No it’s not my kid! I’m not the father, it’s one of her school friends.”
“Sure,” Danny said.
“He’s telling the truth,” the woman told Danny. She turned to Dodd. “We’ll help her get away. We’ll take care of her and her child.”
Dodd looked from her to Danny and back. “Uh, well, thanks.”
There was something strange with this Indian woman. He instantly liked her.
“Don’t feel guilty about your friend,” she told him. “You did the right thing.” She gave Danny a little push, and he patted Dodd on the shoulder and made his way off through the crowd.