Chapter 15
The rest of the day was just as excruciating. Solomon felt very stupid on a log flume ride next to Manal as two eleven-year-old girls behind them cried about how they wanted to get off. Manal twisted around to talk to them, which was nice of her. Their log dipped and splashed around the curves, then did a final drop into a pool in a splash of water.
His pistol was tucked away inside a shoulder holster underneath his pink zip-up. He kept an eye on a man – or at least Solomon thought he was a man, he was wearing some kind of loose robe-like dress – standing alone at the end of the pool, but then a woman in a suit came up to him with two ice cream cones and he walked away with her. Not a threat. Just dressed weirdly. And not even that weirdly for the blue zone. Or at least that was what Solomon was realizing from even just a few hours of being at the park.
Manal talked to the girls again after they got off, then waved goodbye to them. Maybe she was combining engaging with civilians and interacting with fellow undercover agents, all under the guise of being an exceptionally friendly person. She was good at maintaining her cover. Solomon couldn’t tell which was which, although he was pretty sure the eleven-year-olds were just eleven-year-olds. Manal had been keeping up her cover with him too, standing very close to him, talking to him eagerly about what ride she wanted to try, and how she wanted to eat the ice cream from that stand over there, and how she liked the acrobatics show they’d just watched.
So far all Solomon had done was nod at everything she said while maintaining vigilance for any potential threats. Of which there had been zero. He wasn’t dumb enough to wish something would happen, but he was beginning to think he’d even rather be a cattle truck driver than have to continue this playacting.
Toward the end of the day, he noticed Manal had stopped glancing at doors that had KEEP OUT CONSTRUCTION AREA signs on them, and that instead she was glancing at him. “Come sit down,” she said, touching his arm. He instinctively pulled away, before stopping himself and letting her guide him to a park bench. “I want you to listen to this,” she told him as she sat down right next to him. He tried to focus on something other than her leg against his and didn’t realize what she’d pulled out until she was placing audiobands over his ears.
She tapped the audiobands, and music filled his ears. At least he thought it was music. There was chanting, but it wasn’t in English, and then someone started singing with some kind of stringed instrument and percussion in the background. It was intense, melancholic, almost haunting. “What was that?” he asked, genuinely curious, after the song was done.
“It’s Arabic worship music, from my old church,” she replied.
Solomon did a double-take. And then he was quickly scanning around them to see if anyone had heard Manal. They were sitting on a bench in the middle of the park: there were people all around them, walking past with cotton candy cones and iced sodas. The only thing within arm’s reach was a sensory chill out pod that Manal had told him earlier was for autistic kids, which Solomon had thought was actually kind of a good idea.
Within eyesight, however, beside a looping roller coaster, were a dozen people in wheelchairs and one self-stabilizing skateboard holding a protest. Their signs said things like FIX THE SYSTEM, NOT ME and RIDES ARE FOR EVERYONE. He’d been keeping aware of them; he didn’t know what they were protesting, but he was assuming it was somehow against the red zone. Which made Manal’s comment even more confusing. What was she doing, talking about church in a public place? Wasn’t that something that would out her as a red zone agent? And why in the world was she having him listen to music in the first place?
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he replied, although he was definitely going to ask her about it later. “When… when should we head back?”
“We can go back now,” Manal replied. She got up and smoothed her skirt down, and smiled. “Let’s go, I want to get my favorite for dinner to celebrate our first night here.”
It was about a thirty-minute walk back to their hotel on the walking trail. Solomon was silent the entire way. When Manal suggested that they order at one of the restaurants nearby and take the food to eat in their room, he nodded. Once they got the food and returned to the room, she put the spoofer next to the display, then turned on the display to a talkshow. Solomon was holding the bag with the takeout containers inside it – she’d ordered some kind of noodles for them both – and he moved to put it on the table on the other side of the bed. She followed him and they both sat down. He glanced at her, and saw that she was smiling.
No, she was trying not to laugh.
“You were a little stiff today, soldier,” she told him. Her eyes were alight. “I think I might have to explain it by saying we got into an argument this morning, that you were mad at me for the rest of the day.”
Solomon tried not to flush. “I’m sorry,” he said. He knew what she was saying. She was communicating to him, very gently, that he’d done a terrible job maintaining his cover at the park.
“You did okay listening to the music though,” Manal continued. She began to pull the containers out of the reusable bag and opened them. The food smelled good. Solomon hoped she couldn’t hear his stomach growling. “How about we get to know each other a little? I think that might help too.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“I thought Wade didn’t want us to,” he replied, reaching for a pair of recyclable chopsticks.
“That’s what he said?”
“No, not exactly.” Now that Solomon thought about it, it had been he who’d decided it was better not to know anything about anyone in case they fell into the hands of a blue zone antifa. “We were warned to be careful not to talk to each other about what we were being assigned to do in case we get caught and interrogated.”
Manal was chewing. She swallowed, then said, “The antifas are not that effective. The blue zones in general don’t wage war in a very organized manner. Don’t get me wrong, their camp bureaucracy is excellent, but Wade keeps drawing the wrong conclusions from the antifa data I give him.”
Solomon blinked. It was the first time he’d heard the blue zone antifas described as anything but merciless zealots who were all clamoring for the opportunity to kill fascists, which was what they called red zoners like him. “Why don’t we conquer them, then? If they’re not that effective?”
Manal shrugged. “Why should we? That’s never been a red zone goal. All we’ve ever wanted was to be left alone to raise our own children the way we think is best. They’re the ones who kept insisting, even pre-Splintering, that we were bigots if we didn’t inculcate blue zone beliefs in our own households.”
Her bringing up values reminded him of how openly she’d talked about the Arabic church music in the park. “I was surprised when you brought up your church music openly, by the way,” he said after a mouthful. “I thought that Christianity was suppressed completely here. Or at least that’s what Wade made it seem like when he ripped up my Bible.”
Manal’s eyes were wide. “What?”
Solomon immediately regretted bringing it up. He didn’t like talking about what had happened. But now that it was out there, he found himself telling her how Wilson had torn out the pages he’d said had anything to do with women, gays, and slaves. Solomon could tell she was shocked, she even covered her mouth with her hand. “He was allowed to do that?”
It was Solomon’s turn to shrug. “It was during basic training. I think they’re allowed to do pretty much anything to us then.”
Manal’s face shifted, her features softening. She leaned in closer to Solomon, met his eyes, and there was an acknowledgment in them that he hadn’t been expecting. “I really don’t think they should let that kind of thing happen, basic training or not,” she said quietly. “But he’s not that off base. You can’t talk about anything to do with any category of marginalized person unless it’s to say that Jesus loves the marginalized. Which he does,” she added, “but I don’t think we’re all defining marginalized in the same way.”
“So you can go to church in the blue zone?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s basically the same model as in the red zone, one ecumenical church per parish. With an exception for any additional immigrant or Black churches, as multi-racial ones don’t meet their needs for healthy community. In my opinion, there’s no difference between any of them. I attended services in several different churches when I first started working undercover, and the sermons are all almost entirely about how terrible red zoners are, how unlike they are to Jesus, how they aren’t real Christians, how blue zone Christians are the only ones actually practicing Christ-like love for the marginalized, etc. etc. So I stopped going at all.”
It was kind of funny that the red and blue zones had the same restrictions on how many churches were allowed to be open and that the sermons here were also about how the other zone was full of sin. “I guess it’s not that different.”
Manal shook her head. “No, don’t misunderstand me. It’s very different. There’s a way to be a blue zone Christian, but it’s a really tight, narrowly defined way. For me to play Arabic church music is fine, I count as coming from a marginalized culture anyway, plus most people just assume it’s Islamic. But in terms of actual beliefs, you have to make it clear at all times that you’re not a bigot like the red zone Christians across the river. You don’t want to evangelize anyone, all you want to do is feed hungry people and fight racism, that’s it. And you have to be affirming about any sort of sexual activity. Even to your own kids, or they’ll take them from you.”
“What do you mean, they’ll take them?”
“Just that. If they find out you’re a phobe, and that you’ve been teaching your children that it’s God who gets to decide when sex should happen and with whom, they’ll remove them from your custody. After all, they say, what if your kid ends up being queer? Then you’re abusing them. Better for them to be removed from an abusive, phobic household.” She shook her head again. “My father was a pastor at our mixed Egyptian-Lebanese church and he preached on how God made them male and female, and they arrested him right at the start of the Great Splintering for transphobic hate speech. My mother managed to visit him once and he told her to take us kids and get to a red zone, that they were going to take us from her next. It was the hardest thing we ever did to listen to him. We crossed the river into the Westsylvania zone right before they closed the borders. I was fifteen.”
Manal’s words were coming out in a rush. Solomon could tell from the way her eyes were flashing that this was hard for her to share, that she still keenly felt her loss. “I tried to sign up for militia service as soon as I turned eighteen. They don’t take women, but someone found out about my efforts, and got me into this undercover program they’d just started then. I’ve been doing it ever since, and I’m twenty-four now. I will find him.”
She stopped. Maybe she felt vulnerable, because she was looking down at her feet, smiling a little ruefully. Then she met his eyes again. “You think you’ll be better tomorrow?”
Solomon nodded. Then he added, “Yes, I will.”
She smiled at him, and now her smile was warm and full. “It’s okay if you’re shy,” she told him gently. “Just follow my lead. Don’t pull away from me is all, that’s a little too obvious. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, trying once more not to flush. “I – thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Manal said, and when she got up and the light from the lamp fell on her face, Solomon told himself that him thinking she was beautiful was a good thing, that it would help him better maintain cover.