J Bryan: Dominion

Before eating, Nando said a prayer aloud: “Our Almighty King, Commander of the Legions of Heaven, Let us eat grain from the fields of our enemies, that we may grow strong on their hunger, and let our swords find their bellies empty. Amen.” Then he tore into his food, loudly proclaiming it the best he’d ever eaten.

Lucia cast a gloomy look at Ruppert.

They learned what it meant to eat like a ranch hand-the girls brought fried steak, fried eggs, fresh tomatoes, and biscuits yellow with butter. They drank hot coffee and cold milk thick with cream. After days of crackers and nuts and watery juice mix, it was a feast.

Afterward, Violet and the teenage Guatemalan girl, whose name was Ana, led Ruppert, Lucia and Nando behind the house to the long, ramshackle horse stable. They carried their luggage-Ruppert’s suitcase, Lucia’s duffle bag, and Nando empty-handed-up a narrow staircase of wooden slats into the dark loft, which was illuminated by a wide, narrow slit of a window. Violet crossed the length of the building to the rear wall, reached through the clutter of saddles, harnesses and horse blankets that hung upon it, and opened a concealed door that folded back into a dark, hidden room.

The interior of the room stank of old sweat and musty, hot air, though a little light and fresh air trickled in through a constellation of nail-holes in one wall. Fresh straw lined the floor, and on top of that people huddled together on blankets and sleeping bags in the shadows. They stirred as the door opened, but said nothing.

As Ruppert’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see the room’s occupants consisted of two families with small children, plus a few lone individuals scattered along the rear wall.

“We have a few extra guests,” Violet announced to the people in the room, who didn’t exactly applaud the news. She turned to Lucia. “We were just about to wake the children anyhow. We let them work around the farm during the day-it ends up better for everyone.”

“Can I feed the elks and the horses?” Nando asked.

“We don’t have any elk, but we have cows,” Violet said.

Ana collected the three other children in the room, who were already awake and ready to get busy.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Lucia asked.

“Of course,” Violet said. “Ana will keep an eye on them. We have workers’ kids running all over the farm, and everyone will assume they belong to someone else.”

“That’s not what concerns me.”

“If the police come, they usually want to question me, or my sister, or one of the workers. They don’t care about the kids. And anyway the kids aren’t always good at keeping quiet when you need them to, so everyone’s safer this way. Speaking of that…” Violet pointed to a small light bulb wired to a roof beam. “If that lights up, everyone must lay low and be quiet. It’s for emergencies. Follow me?”

“When do we cross the border?” Ruppert whispered his question, which drew scowls from both Lucia and Violet.

“You’ll cross when it’s time, with everyone else,” Violet said. “And I will thank you not to ask more of those kinds of questions. There’s a washroom downstairs if you need it, but otherwise please stay up here unless somebody comes for you. Are you going to be all right? I have a lot of work this morning.”

“We’re fine,” Lucia said. “Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure.” Violet closed the concealed door after her.

Ruppert looked among the others in the crowded room, smiling awkwardly, thinking of how nobody liked to talk in an elevator. He saw a lot of dull eyes and blank faces, the signs of people who’d experienced unspeakable things. A man in the back corner looked familiar to him, but it took Ruppert a minute to place him. Then he ran over to the man.

“Sully?” he asked.

Sullivan Stone barely resembled the man he’d been a few months earlier. His head was shaved, and scars twisted across his exposed scalp. Splotches of bruised purple and sickly yellow marred his face and arms. A hashwork of scars tattooed the left side of his face, and the eyelid there drooped over a staring, bloodshot eye.

Ruppert recalled what Archer had told him, that it was likely Sully had been sent to a behavior modification clinic.

“Sully, are you okay?”

Sully blinked at him, showing no sign of recognition.

“You know him?” Lucia asked Ruppert.

“Sully. He was the one who was going to…do what I did. It should have been him that you extracted, his house’s memory you deleted instead of mine.”

“That’s Sullivan Stone?” Lucia knelt on the other side of Sully. “Oh. Wow. I see it. How are you?” She took his hand, but Sully pulled it back and folded his arms around himself.

“Sully, look at me close,” Ruppert said.

Sully did look at him, mouth open, appearing to comprehend nothing. Then he said, “Daniel?”

“That’s right. It’s Daniel Ruppert.”

“Oh.” Sully’s gaze drifted away for a few seconds, then fixed back on him. “Is it time to…do a show?”

“No, Sully, no more shows. We’re down to reality now.”

“Yeah.” Sully stared at his own dirty shoes, where the tips of the laces looked chewed. He’d lost a significant amount of muscle mass, leaving him shriveled inside clothes that were too large for him. The clothes themselves were odd choices for Sully: corduroy pants that didn’t reach his ankles, a big t-shirt featuring characters from the kids’ cartoon Dog Soldiers.

“Jesus, Sully,” Ruppert whispered. “What happened to you?”

“Re…programmed.” Sully took a breath and made an effort to speak up. “You were my friend.”

“I am your friend, Sully. It’s good to see you again. I'm sorry you’re hurt like this.”

“Reprogrammed,” Sully said again, “I’m deviant. They made us…they injected us, and they made us do…bad things…"

“I’m sorry,” Ruppert said.

“They asked about you,” Sully said. “They asked if you were, you know, disloyal to the state, and I said no, but then they burned me more, and I said yes. They made me say that about a lot of people. They had cameras recording it. I didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t worry, they’re after me for worse than that. Your friend Archer came and found me. You remember him, don’t you?”

“Did they get him, too?”

“No, he’s fine. I just saw him a few days ago.”

“I did love him,” Sully said. “The doctors said I shouldn’t anymore.”

“It’s all right, Sully.”

“Do you think he’s okay?”

“Yes. I just saw him.”

“Hope he’s okay.”

“The project you planned with him,” Ruppert said. “We did it. It worked. The word’s getting out there.”

“We were supposed to go north together.” Sully looked at his watch. “Now I only have one thing left to do.”

“What’s that?” Ruppert asked.

“Huh?”

“You said you had something to do. What is it?”

“Oh, yeah. Canada. I have to get to Canada. Can you help me to Canada, Daniel?”

“You’re already on the way. How did you get here?”

“They dumped a bunch of us on the street. St. Louis. Or Chicago. Or Minneapolis, I think. They didn’t want to feed us anymore, or something. They said-I don’t remember.”

“What happened then?” Ruppert asked. “Can you remember after that?”

“I went to-I don’t know, Daniel. I can’t keep track. I was in a hotel room with a dog on the wall. A painting of a dog. Some people helped me out with money, and they sent me here. Or some other people sent me here later, from the bar.”

“What kind of people?”

“Just people. This is really hard, Daniel.” The strain of trying to concentrate turned his face red and drew deep furrows in his brow. His right fist opened and closed, opened and closed, as if a muscle inside it were having spasms.