Chapter 11: Bad Company
Theresa Liggett had a window seat in the second passenger car. The seat was un-cushioned with an almost straight back; it was almost as uncomfortable as all the attention she was receiving.
Passengers bounced in unison every second or so as the old train rolled over welded joints and swayed to the curvature of the tracks. Tee had never ridden on a train before but she was certain that the Danubian rail system was not up to modern European standards; it was only a hundred and eighty miles from Danube City to Rika Chorna but the trip was supposed to take three and a half hours. It wasn't even air conditioned, a fact hard to miss in the last week of August.
Tee had gotten a phone call from her brother two weeks earlier urging her to come visit him in Danubia. It was peculiar since he hadn't said anything about a trip before then, but that day he nearly insisted upon it. Tee used about a quarter of the money that her paranoid brother had kept hidden in his freezer to pay for travel and two days lodging in Rika Chorna. Her mother was completely freaked out but Tee went anyway.
The train slowed considerably as it climbed the pass; two miles away and two-thousand feet below the sun reflected off the choppy waters of the Rika Chorna Reservoir. The train passed through a short tunnel and then the view to the east opened up.
Rugged slopes and hardwood forests transitioned into rolling hills and green pastures dotted with sheep, cattle, farmhouses, and barns. The rural landscape stretched on for several kilometers and then ended abruptly; the western boundary of Rika Chorna was like a solid wall of buildings on the plains.
Factories, loading docks, and shipping containers stacked two high filled an industrial park on the right side of the tracks; on the left side multiple freight trains occupied the parallel tracks of a busy rail yard.
The train passed through into a residential zone with multistory apartment buildings, a city park with a sizable lake, and rows of small houses stretching far to the north. The train station was almost exactly in the city's center.
Air brakes hissed, the train car shuddered one last time and Tee's first train ride was over. She grabbed her old suitcase and stepped outside.
The station was obviously old, built of gray marble and hardwood beams; some select pieces of marble encrusted with brilliant mineral veins of green malachite and blue azurite formed an arch around the main entrance.
Everyone turned to look at her; Tee usually enjoyed being the center of attention but she had never felt this out of place. The Danubians all looked so similar. Every female above high school age had her hair tightly braided and wore simple light dresses and sandals. The men kept their hair and beards trimmed short and wore plain pants and shirts. The Danubians wore no jewelry, no watches, no make-up, and definitely no weird multicolored spiky hairdo like the one that Tee sported.
Tee's breath caught in her throat when she saw a naked man and woman standing casually near the unloading platform. The woman held a child's hand; the boy, probably about five years old, was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt.
Tee stared at their necks. The metal collars they had clamped around their necks had turned dull grey with age but the numbers engraved on the wide central band were large and easily readable. The man was # 65722 and his wife: # 65764.
Tee's heart raced. Criminals! Convicted collared criminals like her brother. It was one thing to read about it but to see it in person was shocking. Were those faded bruises on the woman's bottom?
Tee knelt down on one knee and pretended to tie her shoelace. The two criminals talked casually while they waited; the boy tugged insistently on his mother's hand, trying to get her attention. Then an elderly man and woman unloaded from the first passenger car. The two criminals warmly greeted the old couple and the little boy screamed out with joy when he saw the wrapped present that the old woman carried.
Tee made herself stop staring at the weird scene. The station had a couple hundred people in it and none of them seemed to think there was anything unusual about having naked criminals in their midst. Forty meters across the station Tee found a map that was labeled in English. For reasons he didn't explain Arthur insisted on meeting her at a small park south of the station.
Tee walked rapidly down a stone path with hedges to either side. It led to an open space with mowed grass, big shade trees, and a view overlooking a small river. A family was eating supper at one of the picnic tables with a good view of the stream; another couple sat on a bench and watched their three kids play ball. The park was otherwise empty.
"Tee, it's hard to believe you showed up on time." She jumped and spun around to see Arthur leaning against a tree trunk wearing nothing but a collar and dusty orange boots.
Tee caught her breath and tried to not look embarrassed. "Hey, nice shoes."
"You like them?" Arthur's face was red as well, but he kept his cool and glanced slyly to both sides. "Don't tell anyone but I've got a special deal with the Ministry of Justice. In exchange for thirty years of hard labor I get as many of these awesome orange boots as I need."
Arthur looked Tee over. "Are you in costume? Don't tell me, let me guess... You're a colorblind gypsy? A whore from a Mad Max movie?"
"You have no sense of fashion Arthur. But even you have to admit that my new hairstyle is pretty awesome."
"Yeah, the colors are really... festive, but how do you get it to stand up like that? By the way, thanks for toning it down like I asked."
"Anything for my troublesome brother; what are you called?" She examined the collar with a curious expression, then reached up and rotated it to find the engraving. "So 88588... How's the espionage business going these days?"
"So, so. This place is so primitive I hardly know what to spy on; I did manage to infiltrate a work camp to the west of here but that's about it."
Tee was still messing with the collar, "So these are tracking collars?" Then she put an index finger through the loop. "What do they do, walk you on a leash?" Tee burst out laughing. "Is that why you're in the park?"
"Tee," Arthur struggled to look serious. "I had almost forgotten how much I hate you."
Tee wagged a finger. "Don't make me roll up a newspaper!"
"Fair warning." Arthur said. "I don't have my shots!"
Tee noticed the other people in the park watching her. "I'm freaking starving. Where can we eat at anyway? I'll pay," Tee bugged her eyes out: "I really don't want to know where you keep your money."
Arthur grinned. "Criminals don't carry money; we have to charge everything using the number on the collar."
"So your collar's like a credit card?" Tee was amused. "Let's go to a store; I wanna run your head across the scanner!"
"Uh... It's more like an ID, they just write the number down. Uh... before we go...you remember what I told you about this place? You know, about the lying, respecting the religion, public officials and such? You're no use to me if you're in here too, you know."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. You're the one who can't stay out of trouble."
"Point taken; so, you still going out with that Roddy guy?"
Tee sighed and brushed her spiky hair back. "Nah, he couldn't stand my lizards anymore; they've really grown since you saw them. Over three feet long, can you believe it? I told him to watch out for their tails; you know they're kind of sensitive about that. Anyway, one whipped him right across the nose when he sat down on the couch. He threw such a fit; so the boyfriend's gone."
Arthur shrugged. "Well, gotta keep priorities straight... Anyhow, I can take you over to your hotel room and we can grab some food but after that I've gotta go visit the church."
"They make you go to church?"
"No, I go voluntarily; a guy's gotta have allies here you know. Besides, most criminals are religious." Arthur flicked his collar, trying not to laugh. "In fact, the Danubian Church teaches that all this criminal treatment is crucial in the process of realigning my damaged soul."
"So do you think you're aligned yet?"
"Nah, I guess it's gonna take a few more whacks." Arthur looked at Tee and sighed. "Here we are having one of our typical stupid conversations. I don't suppose you have anything important to talk about, something that you couldn't discuss over the phone or through the mail?"
Tee's eyes darted right and left and then she stepped close. "Oh, yeah." She said in a hurried whisper. "I brought you something. You remember Strangler? He died this spring."
