Chapter 17

Over the next few days, though, it got worse. He was thinking about her too much. He was enjoying their conversations in their hotel room too much. He found himself telling her things he’d never told anyone before, all his deepest beliefs about the red zone, his unshakeable sense that life was better before the Splintering. He was way too eager to get up and go into Hershey Park with her, as if this was his real life, as if this wasn’t an undercover mission of a week at most. He didn’t know which he liked more, holding hands with her out in the park or talking to her over takeout dinner. Both made him happier than he’d been for a long time.

Solomon found himself imagining what it would be like if it were real, if he weren’t a red zone soldier with over six years to go before he could be freed from the militia. He was sure it was a stupid fantasy. Manal was just as warm and kind to him in the hotel as she was out in the park, but she completely stopped touching him as soon as they crossed the threshold into the hotel room. She seemed to like talking to him as much as he liked talking to her, at least, and he was usually the one who had to remind her to go to sleep on time. There had still been absolutely zero threats whenever they went out, but he found himself wanting to make sure he was rested and alert in case any did pop up. For once his assigned mission was aligning with what he wanted: to protect Manal.

On their fifth day out it started raining, so she suggested they go inside to one of the restaurants in the park. It was the kind of place where you grabbed your food and cutlery, piled it up on a tray, and took it to the self-checkout counter. As usual, the checkout bot had a hand-drawn “out of service” sign on it; those things were notoriously unreliable. A bored-looking human cashier was waiting next to the bot, idly staring into the distance through her AR visor.

Since they were getting sushi, which Solomon had loved as a kid but hadn’t had much of in a long time, he grabbed chopsticks instead of a fork. Manal did too, and they went up to the cashier carrying their trays.

He let Manal get in front of him since she was paying through her AR visor. But the cashier didn’t ask her for the code on her visor to confirm the order. Instead, she looked at Manal’s tray and then up at Manal and said, “Don’t you think it’s a little culturally appropriative for someone like you to use chopsticks?”

Solomon didn’t know what “culturally appropriative” meant, but he thought maybe the cashier was making some kind of joke. Manal didn’t take it that way, though. She met the cashier’s eyes and said, coolly, “I’m not White.”

“Neither am I,” the cashier replied.

Now Solomon was looking back and forth at both girls staring at each other, the cashier glaring, and Manal refusing to back down. He was confused. Both of them could pass for White to him… he cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not either,” he said, in an effort to break up the tension, and it worked. A half-smile flickered on Manal’s face and the cashier turned to glance at him; her eyes still on Solomon, she asked Manal for the code, then sullenly punched it in and waved them off.

They picked up their trays to find seats. Manal was quiet during the meal, and she was more subdued than usual for the rest of the day, too. It wasn’t until they got back to the hotel room that she turned to him and said, “I have to do that all the time here. It’s always the half-Whites doing it, they’re the most insecure about being too White so they’re the most zealous about controlling everyone they think is too White for them. Or it’s a person of color who’s married a White person. It’s all just them being racially insecure and trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Whiteness as a result.”

Solomon didn’t quite know what to say to this. The blue zone had very different racial rules from what he was used to. “The cashier was half-White?”

“Yes, or she would never have dared to talk to me like that. Half-White and half some other light-skinned race, or maybe she’s a no sabo kid. Actually, given what she was saying about the chopsticks, I’d guess half-Asian.”

Solomon put down the takeout bag they’d gotten today on the table. He was thinking about what Manal was saying. The cashier had wanted distance from Whiteness… and apparently Manal had wanted it too, or had had to at least act as if she wanted it, or she wouldn’t have taken it so hard.

And had he, as well? He was thinking about the moment he’d picked the chopsticks instead of the fork. Had he been trying to instinctively distance himself from Whiteness then? No, he didn’t think so. He’d grown up eating almost entirely Korean food since that was all Umma cooked, he’d used chopsticks since he was a kid, when he’d needed the trainer ones that were welded together at the top. Also, who the hell ate sushi with a fork?

“What do White people do?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

He was struggling to find the words, the concepts were so alien to him. “If everyone is trying to distance themselves from Whiteness, what do blue zone White people do, since they can’t do that too?”

“Oh, they do,” Manal replied. “They’re always bringing up some person of color they’re related to, how they cooked dumplings on Chinese New Year with their Chinese niece-in-law.” She didn’t speak with any contempt, just matter-of-factly. “The main way they do it, though, is by pretending that only White people live in the red zones, and only racist White people to boot. That way they get to set themselves up as not as White as red zoners because they’re living in a blue zone alongside people of color.” She let out a soft sigh. “They get furious whenever they’re presented with evidence that there are still lots of people of color who prefer red zone values. People of color who don’t get that the purpose of their lives is to be blue so that blue zone Whites can point to them and say, ‘see, I’m a good ally.’ People like you and me are all suffering internalized hatred according to them, anything to explain why we won’t play the role they’ve designated for us.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Solomon couldn’t even imagine any of the White people he knew back home acting like this. But when he thought about it some more, he wondered if that had more to do with the environment than anything to do with them, innately. If they’d ended up in a blue zone, would they be reacting in the same way to the racial pressures here? Because as he kept thinking about it that night and even into the next day, he felt as if he were being affected, a little bit at least. Maybe it was watching Manal and the cashier that had done it to him, seeing both of them scramble to avoid getting labeled as White. His hair had been growing out since basic training and they’d been told not to cut it too short before the blue zone mission, but he found himself wishing it was shorter to hide the lack of kink in it. He didn’t want to get mistaken for Indian or Hispanic instead of Black.

And now that Solomon had the vocabulary for it, he found it interesting that in the red zone he’d instinctively tried his best to minimize his distance from Whiteness, while here it was the opposite. But he didn’t mind it too much. He was realizing over even just this week that he’d been feeling a lot more relaxed in his own skin on this side of the river. He hadn’t realized how constantly he’d been thinking about the comfort of the nearest White person to him until he got to the blue zone, where the comfort of White people didn’t matter. He definitely didn’t think it was worth it to have to hide the anti-blue-zone aspects of his faith, he’d never defect or anything like that, but he would enjoy it while it lasted.

***

On their seventh day, Solomon got up before Manal as usual and headed into the shower. He finished quickly and reached for the civilian clothes he’d left folded on the bathroom counter sink next to his pistol. He was in his underwear when he heard it: a man’s voice, low and insistent, through the bathroom door. Immediately, he grabbed his pistol. He was about to fling open the door when he heard it again, and he stopped, because he knew that voice, he would know it if it was in a whisper from the ends of the earth. That was Wilson talking.

And from the sound of it, Manal did not like what Wilson had to say. “You don’t outrank me,” she hissed at him. “I’m not in your chain of command. I’ve gone along with all your paranoid no electronic communication security measures as a courtesy, even as you continue taking stupid risks against my express recommendations!”

Solomon put his pistol down. Pulling on his clothes, he replaced the pistol in its holster, then took a deep breath before opening the door. Manal was standing in her pajamas to the right of the bathroom door, while Wilson was doing his best to loom over her. When Wilson saw Solomon he raised his closed hand, palm facing up, and stuck his thumb out, as if he was gesturing at Solomon to get out of there. Retreating back into the bathroom, he started to close the door on himself when Wilson said, “No, I meant Manal.”

“Excuse me?” she said. Her arms were crossed and she looked angrier than Solomon had seen her all week.

Wilson turned to Manal. “Do you mind giving us some privacy?”

“Of course not,” she said, her voice extremely cool. “Let me grab my bathrobe, I’ll step out into the hall.”

At that point Solomon interjected. He looked at Wilson. “I don’t think she should go out by herself, sir.”

“He’s right,” Wilson said. He was looking around the room, but it was a single room and not a suite, so there was nowhere for Manal to go. “How about…”

Manal put up her hands. “You know what? My turn for a shower.”

She strode forward to grab her clothes from the suitcase at the foot of the bed, forcing Wilson to back up against the wall-mounted display. Solomon had to awkwardly shuffle out of her way next so she could enter the bathroom. The door closed behind him, but he could still hear the water turn on. Great, now he was going to be listening to Wilson while also trying desperately to not think about Manal in the shower.

“Here, take this,” Wilson said. He tossed Solomon something, which he caught with his left hand. It was a dumbphone. “I may need you tomorrow,” he continued. “I’ll call you on that to let you know. Keep the ring volume on, keep checking it for any messages throughout the day.”

“Yes, sir,” Solomon said.

He hoped Wilson didn’t have anything else to say, that he was going to leave now, but of course Solomon was disappointed. Wilson gestured at the pillows in the entryway where Solomon had slept last night, the ones he usually put back onto the bed after Manal got up. “What the hell are these? I’m tripping on pillows as soon as I open the door, did you and Manal have a pillow fight last night or something?”

He hadn’t thought about Wilson for a whole week and yet whenever he showed up he never failed to make Solomon feel embarrassed. “No, sir,” he said.

Wilson put up his hands. “You know what, I don’t even want to know.” He had to walk past Solomon to leave. Then he was in the entranceway where Solomon could hear him stepping on and around the pillows before he finally reached the hotel room door. As soon as Solomon heard the latch click shut he started cleaning up, moving the blankets and pillows to the bed. He was done by the time Manal came out. She didn’t seem as angry, although he could tell that she wasn’t about to start jumping for joy, either.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

Her face was troubled. “He hates the blue zone too much. It’s clouding his judgment.”

Solomon wondered how much Manal knew about Wilson’s background. He still hadn’t told anyone what he’d known about Wilson before basic training, and he wasn’t going to say anything now. At any rate, Manal seemed deeply inwardly focused. She wasn’t looking at Solomon. Her brow was furrowed, and she was lost in her own thoughts.

Then she shook her head. “He doesn’t want victory. He wants revenge.”