They put on empty backpacks and crouched at the edge of the jungle, overlooking the expansive asphalt runway. A few wrecked airplanes littered the area, but most airplanes had probably been flown or shipped off the island before the hurricanes. A few concrete buildings still stood, but the hangars were reduced to rubble.
“We’re looking for food, lithium ion batteries, medical supplies, clothes, or anything else we can use,” Gavin said. “Watch your step and wear your gloves. A rusty nail could kill you.”
“This place has been picked clean,” Eliza said, frowning.
Eliza was in her late-twenties, with scraggly brown hair, a thin build, and a face like a chipmunk.
“We don’t know that yet.” Gavin removed his backpack and retrieved a Ziploc bag. He removed a weathered map of San Juan. The map had been marked in pen, areas circled and blocked with Xs. These were the places they’d searched. Gavin showed them that the airport had mostly been searched, except for a few broken planes and the hangars that had been reduced to rubble. It was dangerous to search without much cover, but, since it was so early, Gavin thought they had a few hours of safety.
Gavin and Eliza searched the rubble of the hangar. Javier and Summer searched the grounded planes. Most were small single-engine propeller planes. Wings and windows were missing or broken. Rust worked from the outside in. Seats were gone or ripped open, the stuffing spilling out. Javier and Summer searched, wearing gloves, careful around the twisted and rusting metal. The last thing they needed was an infection.
“What’s up with Eliza?” Summer asked, inside the cabin of a plane.
“What about her?” Javier said from the cockpit.
“She’s not very friendly.” Summer had introduced herself yesterday, but Eliza wouldn’t talk to her, probably pissed that Summer had lied about her expertise in submersibles to gain entry into the group. Technically, Javier had lied, but Summer wasn’t going to throw Javier under the bus. His lie had likely saved her life.
“She’s like that. She’s been through a lot. That two-year-old is hers, by the way.” Javier searched under the front seats for something of value.
There wasn’t much to the cabin, just two rear seats. Rat droppings were clustered in the corners. Summer looked around as she talked. “Really? Is the father here?”
“She was gang-raped.”
Summer stopped scavenging, Javier’s revelation hitting her like a ton of bricks. “That’s awful.”
“She doesn’t want anything to do with the child, so we all look after her.”
Summer thought about her son. His perfect little fingernails and perfect little lips. His peach fuzz hair and chubby cheeks. Watching him sleep on her chest.
Javier entered the cabin from the cockpit. “Eliza was taken by the Aryans when she first got here.”
Summer woke from her daydream and turned to Javier. “Huh?”
“Eliza. She was taken by the Aryans when she got here. Ran away somehow. She was pregnant when someone from our group found her and brought her to the fort. That was three years ago. Anyway, that’s what I was told.”
“Why is she here? Why was she arrested in the first place?”
“She used to be an online teacher or something. From what I heard, she was teaching antigovernment stuff and one of her students told on her.”
“She has been through a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“What about the younger child? The baby.”
Javier beamed. “Freddie Jr. He’s Fred and Willow’s child. Probably the only child on this island with married parents.”
“They’re married?”
“Yeah. Apparently, when Fred and Willow were at home, she couldn’t get pregnant. Then they come to this shithole, and she gets pregnant. Maybe it’s ’cause we don’t have all the chemicals here. I don’t know.”
“That’s crazy. Did they get arrested together, like me and Connor?”
“I guess. Not sure though. Gavin told me that they were members of 1776 before they were arrested. All they did was post antigovernment information on the internet.” Javier sighed. “I learned the hard way about that too.”
Summer offered a sympathetic smile, then turned, and looked behind the rear seat. She moved some debris and saw a small plastic box. Summer grabbed the box labeled Botiquin De Primeros Auxilos. “I think I found a first aid kit.”
Javier moved closer to take a look.
Summer opened the airtight box. Inside were bandages, tape rolls, antiseptic, tweezers, burn cream, finger splints, and rubber gloves.
“Nice find,” Javier said.
They checked a few more planes, finding nothing. It was getting late, and the gangs would be active soon, so they went to the hangar. Gavin and Eliza moved broken cinder blocks from a pile where a wall once stood.
“Summer found a first aid kit,” Javier announced as they approached.
Summer held up the kit.
“I think a vending machine’s under here,” Gavin said, already sweating bullets. Gavin stepped off the pile and showed Javier and Summer the small exposed corner.
Summer and Javier helped to remove the debris. It was, indeed, a vending machine, with snack food wrappers strewn about, the glass case shattered.
Javier picked up an empty bag of chips. “Fuckin’ rats.”
Everything was eaten. Chocolate chip cookies. Potato chips. Oatmeal raisin cookies. Candy bars. All gone.
“What about the soda machine?” Summer asked. “If there’s a vending machine for snacks, there’s usually one for drinks.”
They cleared more debris, finally finding a crushed soda machine, the glass display shattered like the snack machine. Many of the soda cans had been smashed, the surgery liquid long since lapped up by the rats. But quite a few cans were still intact.
“Look at all these Coke cans!” Javier said, his eyes like saucers.
They collected about a case of soda and hauled their booty two hundred yards back to the water’s edge. They sat in their canoes, shaded and protected by the jungle, each of them drinking a soda.
Eliza took a swig and said, “I haven’t had a nondiet Coke since I was a kid. I was too afraid of getting fat like my mother.” She raised her can to Summer. “You did good.”
Gavin and Javier also raised their cans to Summer.
She grinned in response.
76
Naomi Opposes Psycho Island
“Since the island prisons opened in 2044, they’ve sent over two million people to these inhumane godforsaken places. Two million people.” Naomi paused, letting that number sink in with the crowd. “Some of you may be thinking these island prisoners are psychopaths and have no place in polite society.” Naomi nodded to herself, the Baltimore harbor with two docked prison ships in the background. “But what if they’re not all psychopaths? What if the due process loophole they’ve created to rid our society of predators is also being used to eradicate political opponents?”
A few thousand people stood by the harbor, slack-jawed, hanging on Naomi’s every word.
“The island prisons have been used exclusively by Republican presidents. According to survey data, over half of the people sent to these prisons are people of color, precisely those people who don’t vote Republican. But it’s not just people of color who are targeted in these incarceration schemes. It’s antifascist activists, socialists, and people who are upset with our crony capitalist government.” Naomi took a deep breath. “I spoke with many families of many island prisoners, and, more often than not, their son or daughter or brother or sister is a person of color and a person who opposed the tyranny of a government that’s been bought and paid for.