FAR Future, Episode 46: Reporting In

Monday, May 11, 2015
Reporting In

Giving this new blog-by-email thing a shot. It’s supposed to be more reliable, being store-and-forward, but we’ll see. It makes sense, being an offshoot of the “mobile blogging” feature that (given the junta’s interference with the cell network) is even less reliable than interactive Net hookups these days.

So I was right — they do have a file on me. I got the info straight from the horse’s ass mouth. Hm… probably not a nice thing to say: whoever it was that tipped us off must be pretty close to the local tentacles of the junta. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Rene gets to go first this time, since he has his ducks in a row:

Holá, y'all. We had a bad scare a month ago. The government wanted us for some reason, and I can't get anyone to tell me what for. We haven't done anything wrong. If they just want to send us back to Mexico, they could have done that before I guess. But all the grownups think there's something else going on, but they don't know what or won’t say.

So Dad and Farf-Dad had built a hiding place for us a while ago. I guess they knew we'd need it. Someone told us the patriot people were coming, so we got all our stuff and put it in there, and got in and and closed it up. We had mattresses on the floor and blankets and stuff on the wall so we wouldn't make noise if we moved. We had water and a little food, because they didn't know how long we'd have to be in there. I'm glad it was only two hours. Using the bathroom in the bucket would have been stinky!

We heard them in the closet, trying to get to the attic, and Christina got really scared. I think Mom and Dad were worried too, but I saw the way they covered the hiding place and I didn't think they would figure it out. Then the patriot people got all excited about something, and then Farf-Dad said something funny about a Mexican squirrel. After that, they came back to the closet and left. Farf-Dad made us wait a little bit, he said because he wasn't sure they wouldn't turn around and come back after a few minutes. But we got out and we were happy.

Then Christina did her crazy thing with Kim. I think it scared Kim, and Mama and Papa got upset about it too. Mama asked me to keep an eye on her when she's around Kim, but they don't do anything weird. The only thing they do is sit on the steps at night and talk real quiet. I think they want to paint the tall wall in the stairwell, and they're trying to figure out what to paint. But I guess she wants to be Kim's girlfriend too, and that's what got the grownups upset. Kim's 13 now, his birthday was last week, and Christina's 11. I asked Kim what he thinks, and he said Christina's like his partner. He likes her a lot, but he's afraid the grownups will get all crazy about stuff and not let them draw together, and he doesn't know what to do.

Serena and I talked about it a little too. She thinks it's romantic, and wants to write a story about it. But she's too busy with her play. I wrote a scary story but it needs a lot of work. But we don't know if we're going to be "romantic" later or not. We don't write together the way Kim and Christina draw together. They do lots of that, and maybe that's why they're how they are. Farf-Mom says we can meet other people our age, and we're not limited to the people in our own house. But if Christina or I go out, the patriot people might get us, so maybe we won't get to meet anyone else. I guess it wouldn't be bad to marry Serena, even if we're not in love, but it would be good if we could meet more people.

I guess I need to talk to Kim and Christina about a few things, or maybe all of them. I did ask Rene if he meant to spill the beans to us (as in, “the grownups”) with his report here. “You guys know about it anyway,” he said.

“Not the part about talking on the steps at night.”

“Yeah, but they don’t do anything. They just talk.”

“As far as you know, that’s all they do.”

“I peeked at them a couple times. They just sit and talk is all. Maybe they hold hands, I don’t know.”

“Do you ever sit up at night and talk with Serena?”

“Um… well, yeah, but we just talk too.”

“So when do any of you get any sleep? Seems like all of you are up wandering around at night… and I hear you sometimes.”

“Sometimes we just aren’t sleepy.” Hm. Seems like I’ve heard that one before. Oh yeah. I have: from my own kids, way back when.

I was in town Saturday for groceries, and came back to find an envelope taped to my handlebars. It was sealed up, so I put it in my jacket and waited until I got home to open it. Inside was a copy of a report on our “case” with the Pat-riots last month — it had a reference number to my file and a bunch of other info. When the 'Riots do one of their “investigations” (as they call it), the local office debriefs them and writes a report. They mentioned an informant (whose reliability score was downgraded, awwww) and they ran the number on Guillermo’s truck… turned out MARTA impounded it and towed it off a few weeks after we abandoned it at the North Springs station. Since they never applied for the travel permit, the Riots assume that Guillermo and his family left it there, took the train into Atlanta, and went to the underground (an interesting thought, Underground Atlanta isn’t a retail district anymore). They concluded that they shouldn’t bother me anymore because I don’t make trouble and try to help people. Hooray!

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll destroy my file. I guess I should consider it a badge of honor.

continued…