Gatac

  Anne had gone three days and round about 600 miles from home, with a few changes of direction to throw off anyone who might have been on her trail. She was getting close to the finish line, which would have to be drawn after the fact at the exact spot where she toppled over. She hadn't slept much on the long-haul bus to the New York Port Authority, and even less on the subway ride from Times Square out to Brooklyn. None of the station or street names sounded familiar from what Dad had told her — what little he had told her — but eventually she just had had to get out somewhere, see the sky again and breathe some cold, fresh air. Kings Highway, the sign had said. Sounded as good as any pce to start, even if daylight was long gone already.

  She was still wearing her hunting clothes: long johns underneath drab canvas pants, good leather boots and a thick red wool jacket. This was perhaps more appropriate than she'd first realized, but mostly that was just a practical thing. Her Sunday best, rolled up in the bedroll slung across her back, just wouldn't stand up to the cold. She knew she didn't look like much, compared to all the city folk, but at least she wasn't freezing. By her st reckoning, she had five dolrs and sixty-four cents to her name and not much else to trade for. She had the Colt, which presumably would be worth a good deal of money to the right buyer, but the Colt — no, that was Dad's, and an important tool besides. Dad’s Colt would stay right where it was, tucked into the back of her waistband. Anne had grown up in a garden, but after leaving it, she had learned well and quick how people could be.

  That said, maybe it was just this attitude that had steered her wrong, away from people who might have been able to help her. She walked slowly down a street, eyes wide open — searching for danger, but also making clear she didn't already know what she was getting into. Her wide eyes fixed on an ill-lit restaurant down the street, tucked in between rows of dirty white and brown houses. It reminded her of the one back in Harrisburg with the pot pie and the nutty coffee, and she imagined she might find dinner and maybe a bed and Lord willing a job there. She needed all three, but one of those at least had to happen. The food in particur kept creeping into her mind. She hadn't had a meal without looking over her shoulders since, well, since she left home.

  Since —

  A boy's voice tore her away from her thoughts. “Hey there,” he called out, sitting on the steps outside one of those dirty houses. He was wearing an obviously neglected leather jacket on top of a gray t-shirt and torn jeans, all of it draped over his thin, pink-skinned body. He looked about 15 without a kind year among them. Anne wondered how he could stand to sit around in the cold like this, and instinct told her to keep her distance, but —“Hello, Sir,” she answered curtly.He snickered. “Whatcha doing out here?” he asked.“I am just looking around,” Anne said.“Oh,” he said. “Whatcha looking for? Pce to sleep?”“I suppose,” Anne said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.“Shelter's down that way,” the boy said with a shrug. “There's a park with a couple benches on P and Stillwell, too. Just watch out for the coppers. They’ll beat you to shit if they feel like it.”“Thank you for your help, Sir,” Anne replied, nodding to him and trying to smile just enough to be courteous. “Goodbye, Sir,” she added.

  She turned to walk away, but when he got up from the steps, she immediately stopped and shifted her right foot a half step back. She pulled her hands out of the jacket pockets while her eyes fixed on him.

  “Easy, babe,” he said. “You're looking a little lost.”“I know the way now,” she said. In her mind raged a brief but furious battle between dropping the ‘Sir’-ing altogether and using it insistently, the former winning out. She’d seen by his reaction he wasn’t keen on it and the st thing she needed was to stick out even more.“Right, but do you know how to get yourself into the shelter?” he asked, holding his empty hands up for her to see. “Hey, it's just you look fresh off the bus. Where you from?”“Out of town,” Anne said. She felt she should have turned and walked away after that. She didn’t.The boy shrugged. “Yeah, I wouldn't tell me either,” he said. “Listen, here's what we do. I'm just gonna walk to the shelter now. Getting too te for me anyway.” He slowly walked down the few steps, seeming to pay no mind to Anne shifting her stance and weight to keep facing him. “I'll wait a couple minutes there and if you show up, I'll help you get a bed for the night.”“What do you ask in trade?” she said.“Some company on the way would be nice,” he said and ughed. “You think that's my house here?”Anne said nothing, but her slight nod betrayed her answer.“Well, steps are nicer than the sidewalk,” he said. He reached into his jacket, and under Anne's watchful eyes, pulled out a scrunched-up basecap, holding it out to her by the screen. “Spare a dolr, Sir? I’m all on my own, Ma’am. Hey, dude, you got some scratch?” He flipped it in his hand and slid it onto his head, a well-practiced movement. “Usually I make twenty bucks or so from everyone coming back from work,” he said. “Not a lot of action tonight, and they say it's going to snow. Tough day for both of us, huh?”“…you are a beggar?” Anne said, her stance softening slightly.The boy ughed. “Pan handler,” he said. “I'm Dave. You?” He waited for a few seconds, but when it became clear Anne wasn't going to answer, he grinned. “Fine.”

  He turned and started walking. Anne stayed where she was. Her gut would have told her to walk the other way. Would have, if it hadn't rumbled instead. She sure could have used shelter, no lie, and although Anne had spent plenty of time alone out in the woods, she was just starting to learn what it meant to be lonely.

  “Wait up, please, Sir!” she called after Dave. “David!” The boy stopped, and by the time he looked over his shoulder, she had closed to within five paces of him — though she immediately stopped when their eyes met.“Looks like we're walking together,” Dave said. “Outtatown. I'll just call you Outtatown. Is that okay with you, Outtatown?”“I suppose,” Anne said.

  And that was all they said for the next minute, as they put sidewalk under their feet and the distance to the restaurant shrunk. All the while, Anne wondered how a city this busy had the space for shelters for weary travelers. And what shelters? She’d seen a lot of houses but they couldn’t possibly just hand those over to anyone who asked — she had learned well enough that nothing worthwhile was for free around here. Still, the mention of shelters implied some form of lesser decency. Huts? Picnic shelters? Lean-tos? Anne wasn't the picky type. She could make do with a firepce and a half-decent bivouac sack, if need be, though it would be a tough night if it did snow. But what did Dave mean by talking about the park separately, and something about benches? Anne was learning about all these city things in the worst possible way, but she figured Dave had already pegged her as a mb anyway; best not to ask too many questions now.

  “We're almost there,” Dave said.

  He cut across the street, heading for the alley past the restaurant on the other side. Anne didn't take the time to think about that, because she felt a sudden stab of fear, of losing the only friend she had made so far. So she followed him as he all but ran into the dark alley, shouting for him to wait up and looking side to side for motorcars on this empty street. When she was in the alley and began to think about it all, it was already too te. Dave stood in the middle of the alley, not facing her just yet. Anne stopped away from him. Ten paces or thereabouts, enough to ready herself if he lunged closer, close enough to rush him if he pulled a gun — not that he looked like he had a gun, but things looked different in the city. A dead end ahead, as far as she could tell in the dark. She didn't have to turn to hear two more sets of soft footsteps behind her, blocking off the way back. Better not give away she had noticed them just yet.

  “I wasn't lying about the shelter or anything,” Dave said. He turned around to look at her. “But it's been a bad day, Outtatown. And me and my boys, we gotta eat, too. Just empty out your pockets.”

  For a moment, Anne entertained the notion. She was sure she didn’t look like a woman of means and thought she could make out desperation in his words. Perhaps his need truly was greater, and would Lord Jesus not give whatever he had to a thief if so challenged? If it had just been about the cash…if it had, Anne imagined she might have followed a better path. But it was easy to hold high notions when you didn’t have to apply them. He had tricked her, challenged her, wounded her pride. And besides, it wasn’t just about the cash. If they searched her —

  “No,” Anne said.

  That was all she thought had to be said. She felt her breath speed up as her heart picked up the pace, but this was good, she told herself. This wasn't panic. This was getting ready. Dave didn’t like what he was seeing in her, that much she could tell from his face, but he didn’t seem to be in a position to back down from his earlier threat.

  “Last chance, Outtatown,” Dave said, stepping closer — and making Anne back up in equal measure. “We ain't the kinda jerks who like beating up girls, you know?”He didn’t seem to be very good at this. Careless to give up he was working with others before they had revealed themselves. Couldn’t have been doing this for very long. Wouldn’t get to do this for much longer if he didn’t learn his lesson tonight.

  “Don’t do this, David,” Anne whispered.

  Footsteps behind her. Too loud, wrong size shoes. Dave was trying to distract her, but Anne wasn't having it. She whipped around, coming face to face with two more boys who could have passed as Dave's brothers given the low light and the simir clothes. The one farther from her was the smallest and the way he kept back she immediately pegged him as the runt of the litter, flinching away from her as if he expected the back of someone’s hand crashing against his cheek with every move made toward him. It was the other one, the one she'd heard creeping up on her, that had her attention, when he he met her eyes and raised his fists as he closed the distance. Anne readied her own stance, retreating again. She tried to step to the side, tried to find a way to circle around him, but the alley was too narrow and he matched her moves too well, so she simply ran out of room to back off. By the time she realized she'd forgotten about Dave, he was behind her and quickly hooked her arms from below with his own. Darn it all! If they kept this up —

  “Get her!” Dave shouted, just about right in her ear, and the rge boy moved at her.

  Anne drew her arms toward her chest and leaned forward, pulling Dave off his feet and over her back. He was skinnier than her and she'd dragged heavier bucks from the brush. She whirled around with him on her back and that at least seemed to stop the other boy from trying to close in. Dave let go and dropped onto his feet, but the spin had left him off bance and saw him tumble to the ground. Anne locked eyes with the other boy for a moment. She pounced at him, swinging an open hand at his face.1Although most people probably don’t think about open-handed sps as part of a proper hand-to-hand fight, it’s not the worst opener, particurly if all you’re looking to do is get past someone. Sure, it doesn’t hurt your opponent a lot, but it’s also a lot less risky in regards to injuring your striking hand and it can stun people precisely because they don’t expect it. He did everything right, brought his arms up to block, tightened his stance and ducked past her attack. She almost slipped past him, jumped over his feet, but he grabbed her bedroll as she went past him. It was her turn to have the ground heading toward her. That was the moment Anne learned concrete was harder than dirt or even wood and rougher besides. Though she tried to roll with it, she still tore the palm of her left hand raw from the skid.2Hence the motorcyclist words of wisdom: dress for the slide, not for the ride. She had barely rolled onto her side when the big boy sent a kick at her. She blocked that one with her arms, but it didn't amount to much other than letting her roll one more time, ending up against the wall of the next building. The big boy's foot came at her again, this time from above as he tried to stomp her. The sleeves of her jacket tried in vain to keep the sole of his boot from hitting her forearms and she heard herself cry out from pain, if only briefly.

  It didn't mean he stopped or anything like that.

  In fact, he hauled up his foot as he steadied his hands against the wall, trying to give her a good stomp that would break her filing defense wide open. Anne caught the attack almost entirely on her left arm, and nearly screamed as more pain shot up to her shoulder and spread through her chest, but it had served its purpose: getting her right hand on his boot. Her fingernails dug into the loose bootces while her battered left hand tried to grab around the bottom of the boot's sole. With a burst of strength, she shoved the boot off her chest and the boy off bance. This was all the opening she needed to twist the boot in her hands. Where the boot went, the foot and the ankle and the leg followed, and so the big boy filed and lost the fight against gravity. Anne kept hold of his foot, ensuring his nding would be the worst of the three dives performed in this alley so far. The momentum pulled her up to her knee. By some miracle of coordination, he got his arms in front of his face just in time to catch his fall, but that didn't save him when Anne still had his now upside-down lower leg captured. Letting it ride up into her armpit, she wedged her forearm under his calf and stepped over him, twisting the leg at the knee.3Anne is trying to apply what Judo would bel an ‘Ashi-hishigi’ joint lock, also known as an ‘achilles lock’. (I’m specifying the Judo term because there are several techniques called ‘achilles lock’ in English.) The goal is to wedge something bony (like your forearm) against the opponent’s achilles tendon and press it into the lower leg. Needless to say, it hurts. A lot. The big boy didn’t tap out. It seemed he preferred to scream.

  “Yield!” Anne cried, casting a gnce at where the runt had been at the start of the fight. He was still there, frozen in pce, staring at her. If only it had ended here.

  Instead, Dave kicked her in the face.

  Anne wasn't quite sure what happened right after that, but a few moments ter she found herself trying to crawl away from the fight to the sound of wailing from the big boy. If she had held on to him and lost control…well, she had possibly dislocated his knee.4…and this is why Judo tournaments are very careful about what locks and holds they allow, i.e. no leg holds whatsoever. You have to apply a precise amount of force in a precise location with an opponent who’s together enough to stop struggling and tap out before things get dangerous. Benefiting from none of those factors can quickly turn a joint lock into a joint break. But they weren’t exactly making this easy on her. It seemed like her whole face was broken and blood dripping down her throat. She let out an evil, sour belch as if trying to throw up what simply wasn't there in her empty belly. Her eyes were watering and her hands were too numb to feel much as she patted the ground, trying to regain her bearings.

  “I'll teach ya!” she heard Dave shout, far away.

  He was a whole lot closer when he grabbed her by the colr of her jacket just a moment ter and tried to haul her off the ground. Anne threw a wide swing from her left arm at him, getting him to drop her. She chambered her leg and kicked at where Dave’s shin would have been if he hadn’t already spun away to avoid it. Too obvious, too slow. He came at her like the big boy, trying to stomp her from above and again, she rolled out of the way, over her shoulder to her feet. She pivoted on her heels and unched herself at Dave and the puzzled expression on his face. She tackled him and down they went together. But this time, there was also a tinny sound very much unlike the dull thud of meat versus meat — the cnging of Dad's Colt across the ground, having slipped from the back of her pants.5If you’re going to carry a concealed handgun on your person, always use a fitting, secure holster. No debate there. She threw her elbow at Dave’s face, got the side of his neck, once and twice. Together they rolled this way and that way, scrambling for advantage, until he seemed to have been thrown off her. She crawled toward the Colt, tried to block out the pain and the numbness and the nausea. She grabbed for the gun through a haze of blood running over her eyes, but her hand wasn't the only one on it. It had to be Dave, trying to steal her Dad's Colt. He yanked it upwards, trying to rip it away from her.

  Anne was the one who had her hand around the grip, though, and so she did the most dangerous possible thing: she thumbed off the safety and pulled the trigger.6Anne is carrying the Colt 1911 ‘cocked and locked’, or as Jeff Cooper would call it, Condition 1. Cartridge in the chamber, hammer cocked, safety on — so, ready to fire as soon as the thumb safety is switched off. Plus the grip safety, I should mention, but let’s assume someone is holding the gun and pressing the grip safety in.But this isn’t the only way to carry a semi-automatic pistol. If you have a double-action pistol, you can carry Condition 2, which is cartridge chambered, uncocked, safety on. This is doable but impractical on 1911-type pistols because you would need to snap off the safety and cock the gun before you can fire. The usual alternative is Condition 3: no cartridge in the chamber at all. This eliminates pretty much every possibility of an unintentional discharge. (Other than ammo cooking off in the magazine due to extreme heat or mechanical impact, but in that case, you've got much bigger problems.) Anyway, to make a pistol in Condition 3 ready to fire, you can slingshot the slide while drawing, a method popurized as the ‘Israeli draw’. Some people prefer the quickness of getting a Condition 1 pistol into action, some have DAs and carry Condition 2, yet others prefer the peace of mind that comes with Condition 3 carry. As with many gun topics, it tends to come down to how you were trained and what you personally are most comfortable with. The gun almost jumped from her hand, but settled on pinching the web of her thumb under the spur of the hammer instead.7Good marksmanship starts with a good grip on the weapon. Generally, you want to grip a pistol high. This lowers the bore axis retive to your forearm, which in turn reduces muzzle flip and gets you a steadier stance. However, on pistols with an external hammer, gripping too high can get you hammer bite, as Anne just found out. Move a bit higher still and you’re liable to get slide bite — getting cut on the web of your hand by the reciprocating top of the pistol — at which point you’ll be bleeding. Other common injuries firearms inflict on their users include being seared by hot brass ejected toward you or getting smacked by reciprocating bolt handles on semi-automatic rifles, as well as smming a telescopic sight with short eye relief into your eye from the recoil. And I don’t need to mention shooting yourself by accident, do I? Judging from his scream and the flecks of blood hitting her face, however, Dave got the worse of it. Anne brought the gun to bear on what was her best guess as to the source of the screams, and after a teeth-gnashing moment to steady her grip, she fired again, and again, and again. The gunfire seemed dull and distant,8Sensory symptoms of extreme stress reaction include tunnel vision, distorted perception of time and auditory exclusion, i.e. not perceiving even loud sounds around you. nothing closer to her than the cold steel clenched between her hands. Blood was mixing with snot in her mouth. She spat out what she could and swallowed what she couldn't between raspy breaths. She blinked her eyes and tried to get her vision to focus.

  Dave was no longer screaming. The big boy and runt weren't coming after her either, the former having been dragged to the mouth of the alley by the tter. While the big boy whined and cried, the runt stared at her. She stared right back and started to raise her gun. That put righteous fear in the runt, to tell from his scream, and so he ran away. She considered the big boy, now left all alone on the ground. No longer a threat, but he should pull through. He shouted after the runt and tried to half-stumble, half-crawl away. It was none of her concern anymore. She took her left hand off the pistol and regretted it almost immediately. Letting go was pain, moving her arm was pain and even the ways she could make it go now didn't do anything to ease either. She wasn't even trying to get up from the ground, just get her sleeve to her face to wipe off the blood and tears. The rough fabric scratched over her closed eyes, but it was nothing compared to the stab of misery when her shivering arm bumped against her broken nose. Anne thought she was done screaming. But when she opened her eyes, looked to the side of the alley and saw Dave, her silence was sorely tested.

  He had stumbled backwards and somehow managed to sit and prop himself up against a bck pstic trash bag, which was no mean feat considering he was bleeding from three pces Anne could see. His right hand was missing most of his ring finger, his jeans had a bloody hole right on top of his pelvis on the left side — femoral or still the iliac artery? Was this the moment to be thinking about that? — while his left arm dangled limp from a wound which was somewhere under the shoulder of his leather jacket, staining his t-shirt crimson. Dave's mouth was wide open, as were his eyes, but he said nothing and looked nowhere as the blush slowly drained from his face. Anne felt another belch come on, more bitter than sour. Her eyes fell on Dad's Colt, still clenched in her right hand.

  So this was how it was going to be, then.

  The ringing in her ears had faded enough to be able to hear the back door of the restaurant open up, to see a few men in white smocks and hats crowd into the door frame to see. When she looked up at them, they quickly fled back inside, chattering among themselves in a tongue Anne didn't recognize — another stab of fear. Was her mind going? How much blood was she losing? She patted herself down to feel for bleeding but found none. Internal? Lord, please, don’t let it be anything serious. Still, the situation proceeded to get worse for her when another man came up to the door and actually walked out. He had narrow shoulders and was wearing a fine suit, while the pistol in his right hand glinted in the light streaming through the open door. Anne tried to take aim, but she could barely get Dad’s Colt off the ground.

  “Ni es mesta!” he shouted. Anne found her arm was just as hard to stop from moving as it was to raise it in the first pce. The man took a few steps toward her, gun still in his right hand — and just his right hand, while his left hand was in the outside pocket of his jacket. “Not move, girl!” he said, a little quieter.Anne just looked at him. She was quickly running out of things she could do, and that seemed like the best of the lot.“Pistalyet!” he called out. “Gun, drop! Or I shoot!”Anne's thumb pressed around on the side of the Colt's grip, and after a few seconds she was about ready to just drop the gun, but eventually her thumb found the strength to work the magazine release button. The half-empty mag dropped free of the gun and hit the ground with a click-cck. Anne’s arm sagged under the weight of the gun and flopped onto the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and tried to breathe.“Girl make a big mess,” the man said, stepping around the words like a man forced to walk a minefield at gunpoint. “What is to be done?”9This is from Luke 3:10, but neither the King James version nor the Revised Standard Version. So why phrase it like this? Well, this seems to be the most common transtion of the respective Russian version of it which forms the title of both an essay by Leo Tolstoy and a novel by Nikoi Chernyshevsky, which in turn was referenced by a pamphlet of the same title by Vdimir Lenin. All three are, in their own way, foundational works for Soviet socialism. That’s a pretty severe combo bonus for one reference, I’d say.Anne reopened her eyes and looked up at him getting closer. Her strength, she felt, was not entirely spent. What was left in her regrouped, fell back to prepared defensive positions and readied for the next burst of action. Her mind stepped through the scenario: what was the threat, what were the weapons still avaible, and at what point would catching her breath turn back into fighting for her life?

  Dave twitched again, in the corner of Anne's field of view — but all she had to see was a glint in his right hand. In a way, that was good and that was easy, because it pruned down the vast tree of potential outcomes of her dealings with the self-procimed 'pan handler' to one. Despite everything, he had a gun — hidden in the trash or concealed somewhere on his person where Anne hadn’t clocked it, but it didn’t matter. He had a gun. If there was one thing she saw clearly, it was the gun in his hand, getting ready to kill her. It absolved her of thinking about bringing Dad’s Colt on target, and it absolved her of guilt when she shot him one st time,10Here is why you drop the magazine and rack out the cartridge in the chamber to clear a pistol. Most pistols will happily fire the round in the chamber whether there’s a magazine in the gun or not. And even on pistols designed with a magazine safety/magazine disconnect, said safety could be disabled. This is actually a fairly common modification on Browning Hi-Power pistols, for example, because its magazine safety not only adds weight to the trigger pull but can also keep magazines from dropping free on release, which can slow down certain reloading techniques.Sadly, forgetting to clear the chamber when unloading a weapon is one of the most common mistakes and can ultimately lead to negligent discharges. Mechanical safeties are almost always a good thing to have, but no repcement for safe weapon handling. So please practice good gun safety and don’t become a statistic. right under his nose, blowing his brainstem all over the trash bags.

  “Dermo!” the man in the suit called.

  Anne didn't hear him clicking off the safety of his pistol, though she saw him move to the side, not quite sure whether to aim at her or Dave. Her own look fell to Dad's Colt, slide locked back and the faintest whispers of gunsmoke rising from the open ejection port. The man took a knee next to her and reached for her spent pistol. So be it. Anne let her gun hand go limp so he wouldn’t be tempted to twist the gun out of her fingers, while her left arm searched for a weapon to hurl at him, should the need arise. He kept his hand on the pistol, but didn’t rip it from her, either; no, he stayed with her, in what he had to know was easily within the reach of her free arm, and he didn’t avert his eyes when she met his look. She blinked, she was blinking entirely too much with the sweat and dirt on her face, and her greedy breaths through her mouth were shallowing out, to keep from sucking any of the nosebleed gunk into her lungs. After one particur breath, she closed her mouth, gathered all the spit and grit inside and turned her head to spew it onto the asphalt below. When she turned her look back to the man, he was still there, his own gun leveled at her head. Her left hand found a little piece of debris and tightened around it.

  “Sir,” she wheezed, “you better step away from me.” Another breath.“I help,” the man said.Anne cocked her head toward Dave’s body lying on the trash. “I have already been helped,” she said.“He is dead,” the man said.“And you are too close, Sir,” Anne said. She felt her nose grow stuffy and snorted out of reflex, wincing almost immediately after as the pain stabbed through her face.

  The man nodded. He let go of Dad’s Colt and took a step back, even clicked the safety on his pistol back on, but he didn’t put it away. His free hand retrieved a handkerchief from his jacket, which he dropped onto the ground next to her.

  “Is cold,” he said. “We go inside.”

  He took a few steps back, keeping her in sight, but eventually he turned fully and walked back to the open door. She propped herself up on her left elbow and craned her neck to the right, wiping the lower half of her face on the handkerchief. Struggling to her knees, Anne felt for the dropped magazine and grabbed it off the ground — no sense leaving her remaining three shots in the dirt. Pushing the pain out of her mind for a moment, she swayed to the side, finding the nearby wall to steady herself on. Breathe. Leaning against the wall, she drew her right leg forward and set foot on the ground. She used that and the wall to push herself upright. With both feet on the ground and an arm against the wall, she felt dizzy and sick, but she was standing. She stared at him, fed the magazine back into Dad’s Colt and hooked its rear sight on her belt, pushing down to work the slide.11Another firearms handling trick that looks cool when it works but shouldn’t be done anyway. Not only because you risk firing into your leg or because it’s a quick way to throw your sights out of zero, but also because if that’s the best way to work your slide left to you, you’re probably screwed anyway. As soon as it was free of her belt, the slide snapped forward. The gun was live again. Obvious threat. Still, the man held the door open for her. Obvious trap.

  She followed him inside.

  Inside, she found a table and light. But perhaps most importantly, she found an empty chair. Anne had st had a real chair at home, at another, more humble table. Her life from a few days ago seemed so far away now. On the way here there had been floors, benches, even seats, but no chairs for her, no pce where she could sit without knowing when she’d have to get up again. She drew close to the chair, wasted two painful steps on circling it. She saw the man close the door behind him and looked to him as he looked at her.

  She had just gotten the tar beaten out of her, she was in a bad way, and the legs that had carried her maybe forty steps or so since the fight were about ready to give again. But she didn’t just plop down on the chair. There were rules.

  “Pardon me…Sir,” she coughed. “May I sit…here?”The man nodded and motioned with his hand. “Yes,” he said, and so Anne sat.

  It was a good chair. In truth, it was a better chair than any of the ones at home, any she had sat on before. Sturdy wood, yes, but with a supple leather padding on the seat and backrest, and wooden armrests at the side, too. Anne sat for a while there, trying to just rest her legs and back. She kept her eyes open and her arms dangling, but eventually she managed to put the Colt on the table. Her lower arms went on the intricate, hand-carved armrests and her hands folded in her p. She leaned into the backrest and let her head flop backwards over the top of it. She closed her eyes. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe some more.

  Liquid was boiling, not too far away, the sound of water vigorously bubbling up in a thick metal vessel. Anne gathered the strength to straighten her head, open her eyes and look around in earnest. She was in a hall, the floorspace an easy rival for the church near home, but not a patch on the kinds of temples they built in this city, obviously. Despite this, the wooden ceiling pressed down on her, and what light there was seemed to have a hard time actually illuminating anything. It took her a while to make something of the stench in the air: tobacco. Mr. Tiptree sold it, in dull brown tin boxes, and she’d been told its purpose, but Dad didn’t indulge and Mom didn’t either, so this was now as close as she had gotten to it. The boiling, then, came from another room, one she had walked by on the way in without taking much notice of, despite it looking so different from the main hall. From what little she could tell through the angle of the doorway into it, that room was bright and all gleaming white tile from floor to ceiling, and after a few seconds, she caught a glimpse of one of the workers in simir gleaming white clothes hurrying past the doorway inside, speaking to the man with the gun in a low murmur of their own tongue.

  Anne looked down on her hands. The hunting jacket, soiled as it was, had served its purpose well in protecting her chest and arms from impacts with the ground, but her hands were bloody and stiff and in an altogether sorry state. Without the fear to steady them, Anne wasn’t sure whether she’d have it in her to aim and fire Dad’s Colt again — or lift the gun off the table at all. A feint. She reached under her jacket as if to grab for another weapon, but even brushing against the rough fabric made her wince, and she could hardly even bear to keep her hand back there. But keep it there she did while she leaned her head back again.

  Louder sounds came now from the other room. Anne summoned the strength to snap forward with haste, and the pain in her hands seemed forgotten for a moment as instinct reached for the armrests, making ready to unch herself to her feet. Seconds ter, the man with the gun stepped out, the gun now holstered and his hands rubbing together for warmth. Behind him followed the workers, each carrying a different metal item. They built dinner on the table before her on a sheer white tablecloth, with ptes of pickled fish, onions and potted meats, joined by bread as dark as coffee and an immense metal urn for the middle of the table.12I’m not sure if NYC fire codes allow a wood-fired samovar in a restaurant kitchen. Check with your wyer before you start printing those SamoWOW! flyers. Anne heard the hot water gurgle inside, and before she could comment, one of the workers pced a dish underneath a spigot near the urn’s bottom and let some of the water run into the dish over a pristine white towel, soaking it enough to make it steam. Anne’s eyes focused past the show with the urn and the towel to see two of the workers at the back door, dragging Dave’s body into what was most likely the kitchen, haphazardly wrapped in several yers of thick, rough fabric. She wondered about the man with the gun and what his designs for the big boy and the runt were. She expected nothing good.

  “Wait for towel,” the man with the gun said.

  One of the workers removed from the top of the metal urn a small teapot — the fragrance forced its way through Anne’s busted nose — and filled about a third of a waiting white porcein cup with strong tea. Into that he stirred what looked like thick red jam and added hot water from the urn’s spigot. Anne kept watching until one of the workers held out a pin, damp towel for her. When she took it, he unrolled a bag of shiny, thin pstic and pulled the top opening apart for her. Comprehension dawning on her, Anne dabbed the towel over her face and gently wiped the worst of the crud away. She held it under her nose and blew out softly. Blood and snot flowed. The worker took it from her, dropped it in the pstic bag and handed her another towel before he walked away.

  “You are hungry,” the man with the gun said, drawing her attention again. “People with full bellies do not walk in night here.” He smiled, and nodded his head toward the table. “Dinner for name.”Anne sucked in another breath through her mouth while her eyes flicked from the man to the remaining workers to the door back to the alley. “He asked my name, too,” she said, wiping her brow with the second towel. “Said he would show me to a square meal and a pce to y my head.” It sounded unkind, but she wasn’t in a kind mood.“He had no food,” the man with the gun said. “And he had no house, but biggest error, he had no gun.” He smiled again. “Do not compare. I do not want to waste all food. So, your name. Please.”“…Simmons,” Anne said. There seemed to be no profit in lying and she tried quite hard not to think about Dave, including his cute appeltion for her. Outtatown, he had called her. Of course he had given her a name, she thought. He must have imagined it would give him power over her.“Simple name,” the man said.“May I have yours, Sir?” Anne asked. The bleeding from her nose was slowly losing intensity.The man chuckled. “Of course,” he said. “Simmons, I am called Arkady Arsenovich Ignatyev. You are in my business.”“Then I suppose it is your alley out there,” Anne said.“But not my boys,” Arkady said with a smirk. “Do not worry, they will not be trouble. I consider your work…pest control.”

  Anne’s eyes narrowed. She was opposite a man who held human lives in the lowest esteem and it became clear to her he could afford to be so affable simply because she posed no conceivable threat to him, even with a gun on her side of the table.

  “Mr. Arsenovich-Ignatyev —” she said.“Is just Ignatyev,” he cut in, still smirking.“Mr. Ignatyev,” she continued, “I don’t want any trouble, from anyone. I am just passing through.”“I believe,” Arkady said. “But you draw attention. You are rare breed. True fighter.”Anne boriously lifted a hand to point at her face. “Thank you for the kind words, but I seem to have fallen short of them,” she said.“Yes, you need more training, more experience,” Arkady expined. “But you fight. You kill boy —”“I defended myself,” Anne insisted.Arkady smirked again. “You seem very sure, but is hard to fight, even in defense,” he said. “I learned. Your heart is strong, Simmons, I see. I do not think is first time you fight, first time you kill.”“I don’t see how that is for you to concern yourself with, Mr. Ignatyev,” Anne said.“You walk like you have nothing, but you have gun,” Arkady said. “And you have in jacket maybe knife, maybe more gun, maybe nothing? You are waiting for time to strike, I see in older eyes this look.” He nodded. “And you make no move for food. You are afraid of debt.”“Shouldn’t I be?” Anne asked coolly.Arkady wagged a finger at her. “So you can see trap,” he said. “But you follow boy with no care.”“I made a mistake,” Anne said. “Thank you for your help and hospitality, Mr. Ignatyev, but I am afraid it is wasted on me. If it is all the same to you, I should like to catch my breath for a moment longer, but then I will be on my way.”“I understand,” Arkady said. “You can go, if you want.”

  Anne nodded. Without thinking, she put her hands back on the armrests of her chair. She strained to stand up through the burning of her tender palms and a feeling like steel wire being drawn taut all around her chest, a struggle as hard-fought as it was brief. A pained grunt escaped her lips and she dropped back into the chair, squeezing tears from her eyes while trying to regain her breath.

  The perfect time to hear footsteps from behind her. Open your eyes, Anne! She tried, but she was hungry and tired, in a bad way and no longer altogether certain whether there was any escape at all. The footsteps stopped at her side and a hand grabbed her left wrist, pulling it onto the table. Anne’s eyes opened, but didn’t take in much beyond her hand on the achingly white tablecloth, and the hand that was holding it there in turn; rough skin over thick bones, pale as milk with inked pictures which seemed to wind around the whole hand like creeper vines on a tree. She followed the arm up a suit sleeve to come face to face with another man, perhaps a few years older than Arkady, with broad shoulders and a face no less pale and covered in ink than his hands.

  “Or you stay until your strength is back,” Arkady said. “He is called Viktor. Good friend.”

  Viktor grabbed the soaked towel from the dish with his free hand, wrung it and pced it on her hand. She sucked in a sharp breath at the touch of the warm cloth and stiffened her arm, but after a few seconds, the immediate shock made way for a more pleasant feeling.

  “Less bruises with this,” Arkady said. “Yesh-he adno polotjensje, Viktor. Ih ahnalgin.”Viktor nodded and let go of Anne’s wrist, instead stalking off toward the kitchen.“If you stay,” Arkady said, “you must know who we are, Simmons.”“Criminals,” Anne said. “A w-abiding man would have called the sheriff by now.”“More than criminals,” Arkady expined. “Thieves.” He held up his own hand for Anne to get a closer look. The tattoos were less intricate than Viktor’s, from what she could tell at a gnce, but the style was the same. “Respect this word. You sit here, I talk nice with you, that is gift.” His expression hardened. “On another day, I would not look at girl like you,” he continued. “My heart, it is not so big.”“Go on, then,” Anne said, rubbing the warm towel over her knuckles.“I am not strong man, either,” Arkady said. “I admit this. I am man of ideas. I see opportunities — no, I see opportunity, in you. I see someone who will not walk in here again, if she leaves now. Be honest, Simmons. You are lost. There are more bad things in world than three hungry boys.” He grabbed an empty porcein cup from the table and filled it half and half with hot water from the urn and the fragrant tea from the teapot. He took a moment to savor the smell before sipping it. “I am generous tonight. Work for me. You give strong heart, I give good life. Good deal for us.”“You don’t take no for an answer, do you, Mr. Ignatyev?” Anne said.“There is no question,” Arkady said. “Thieves, you must learn, we do not ask questions.” He waved his hand at the steaming cup of tea before her. “Yours is all this,” he said. “Drink and eat! I must go now. Viktor brings medicine for pain, then you wait for doctor.” He grinned. “You will like doctor. He is also bck.”

  Anne didn’t end up accepting the invitation as much as yielding to it. Whatever choice she had in theory was undercut by her condition and loathe as she was to admit it, the dinner arrayed before her looked all the more scrumptious for her hunger. Soon the medicine13Metamizole, marketed in Eastern Europe as Analgin, has a checkered history. Though very effective as an analgesic (to the point where it is sometimes used instead of opioids), it has a number of possibly severe side effects, the most dramatic of which is crashing white blood cell count. Exactly how rare this side effect is depends on who you ask and where you study, apparently. While the US would go ahead and outright ban the drug in 1977, it is a controlled substance in some countries and still avaible over the counter in others, Russia among them. kicked in, taking the edge off the pain, and one by one she sampled the wares. The tea was good, deep but hardly as bitter as she had expected. She set her eyes on the preserves on dark bread: a looser texture than Mom used to make, without the hint of cheese that made it so good on its own or in a stew. Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, she thought, as you really are unleavened.141 Corinthians 5:7. Yeah, there’s a bread analogy in the Bible. Also, the bread Anne’s mother made is salt-risen bread, a particurly Appachian method of making bread without yeast. Instead, you leaven it with a starter containing naturally occurring bacteria, including Clostridium perfringens — i.e. the bacteria which cause food poisoning and gangrene. What research I could find on this indicates that the baking process is sufficient to kill them off. My curiosity remains morbid at best. Still, the bread was decent enough, in its own way. One of the workers came to her side to offer her a pick from a bowl of berries, which she declined. Arkady had truly left her to it, it seemed, and so she was on her third slice of bread — thickly buttered with pickled herring and raw onion on top — when someone new entered the premises, accompanied by Viktor. His skin was darker than hers, offset by his bright eyes. He was sporting a shaved head and a full beard, his thin frame like a tentpole holding up a drab green military jacket. Instinctively, Anne put down the bread and moved to rise out of the chair and greet him.

  But the man didn’t seem to have much patience for her manners, or any manners at all. “Pnt that ass!” he barked at her.

  Viktor made a vague noise to excuse himself, obviously content to leave the expining to Anne. Not that she got much of a chance to. The man set down a leather bag on the table and retrieved a small metal tube from it, no bigger than a roll of mints. Without looking at her, he twisted the top of the tube, enticing it to shine brightly. A fshlight, but this size? Anne tried not to gawk.

  “Pardon me —” she said.“Tell me they ain’t give you no booze,” he said, rounding the table. “Eyes open! Look at me.”Though her patience was rapidly thinning, Anne did as ordered. Without warning, the man shone the fshlight directly at her and she flinched away.15Here’s a question for you: is Anne’s reaction due to light sensitivity as a symptom of brain injury, an unreted pre-existing condition that heightens her sensitivity or just being startled by having a light shone in her face without warning?Now, if Dolr had taken the time to a) ask Anne if she has a condition that already made her light-sensitive before and b) tell her that he was going to shine the light in her eyes, he could’ve had a more diagnostic result of his test. But he went looking for a concussion and found it. Start with a diagnosis already in mind, you’re gonna fixate on the symptoms you can find and dismiss the stuff that doesn’t fit. Any med student (or overeducated, underexperienced thriller writer like me) can look up the symptoms of common madies as they appear in a textbook, but it takes experience in differential diagnosis to put existing symptoms in context, look for signs that are particur to specific diagnoses and — st but not least — keep in mind that sometimes you find what you’re looking for even if it wasn’t actually there to begin with.Mind, in an emergency kind of situation with an unresponsive patient and no clue as to their medical history, a doctor would have to do that test without asking those questions, but Dolr’s got a conscious and oriented patient right in front of him. Wouldn’t have hurt to cover his bases.“Again,” he said.Anne made an effort not to flinch this time, though she tried to avert her eyes as best she could.“Okay, gimme the rundown,” he said, shining his light in both of her eyes in turn.“I was attacked,” Anne said.“I got that,” the man said. “How many of them? What weapons? Where’d they hit you?”“Three youths, though in truth I only fought two of them, Sir,” Anne said. “They bore no weapons save their fists. But I could not see myself to meet their brutality swiftly enough and so was the battle turned against me, until I disabled the rger one. In the course of this I injured my hands in a fall and received several kicks to my side and forearms. The leader of the pack and I broke into struggle for a firearm I carried with me.” She took a breath. “I prevailed.”“No doubt,” the man said. “Anything I can’t see right now? How you feeling?”“I am in a decent amount of pain, Sir, chiefly regarding my hands,” Anne said. “My nose seems broken. And loathe as I am to admit it, I am not altogether sure if I can stand unassisted.”“Your head?” he asked.“Fine,” Anne summarized.“Right, right,” the man said, lowered the fshlight and held up his hand. “How many fingers?”“Three,” Anne said.“What date is it?” he asked.“It is a Saturday, I am quite certain of it, but I honestly couldn’t tell you the Gregorian date with complete confidence, as I have never had much use for such reckoning,” Anne said. “I did see newspaper on a stand two days ago prociming the 5th of November, 1975. That would make today the 7th, I suppose.” She thought for a moment. “Actually, it ought to be the 8th by Zeller’s congruence.16A formu developed by mathematician / theologian Christian Zeller to calcute the weekday of an arbitrary date. File this one under ‘party tricks’, I guess. I did catch sight of the newspaper early in the morning, so they may have been left from the day before.” She looked at the doctor. “I should say November 8th, then, but it honestly is still a guess, Sir.”“O-kay, Katherine Johnson,”17This reference was put into the draft way before Hidden Figures came out. The story is only being released now. Draw your own conclusions about my working process. the man said. “Anyway, you seem oriented, you got regur PLR18Pupilry light reflex, of course, is one of those things every TV doctor checks for when examining an emergency patient. Basically, pupils in both eyes should contract equally in response to bright light, even if that light is only shone into one. Anything other than that is less than good news. I’m told there’s actually a pretty complex set of deductions that can be made about the patient’s condition and brain trauma with it, though I can’t break it down for you here with any degree of confidence. but it don’t hurt to assume you got yourself a mild concussion. Shoulda gotten checked before they loaded you up with Metamizole but I guess it ain’t the worst sign you’re keeping food down.19Nausea being one of many symptoms of brain injury as a result of head trauma. So, you getting paid for this kinda shit or you just dig Elton John?”201973’s Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting, of course.“I was set upon,” Anne said, ignoring the rest of the man’s question. “I merely defended myself and I don’t care to be accused of seeking out this encounter. Is this all the courtesy I should expect here?”“Well, pardon my manners,” the doctor replied. “Welcome to New York City, your highness. You can call me Dolr.”“…I am Simmons,” Anne replied.Dolr nodded. “Let’s get that nose taken care of.”