Only Human (Themis Files #3)(44)

I asked if he could take me with him. He said no, of course. I’ve given up on things not being complicated. I tried threatening him, told him I’d tell the guards. He laughed. The guards get 20 percent, so does the chef. It turns out my way out of here is through the kitchen, and the chef is the man with the key. I offered to pay, but he asked to see the money. I really like that kid. I like him enough that I told him who I was. That made him smile. Then he asked for the shirt off my back. Literally. He thinks it will fetch a fortune online. “Genuine shirt from Eva Reyes, worn on alien planet.” We even took a picture he can use as a certificate of authenticity. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about my clothes. Anyway, I hated that shirt. The Russians gave it to me. I might have forgotten to mention that part to Baba. Unfortunately, that priceless fashion item was my one shirt, and if I manage to leave this place, I’ll do it wearing a tee shirt from a metal band called Nightwish, courtesy of Baba himself. At least it’s black. He also gave me enough money for a bus to Turku and the ferry to Mariehamn though I’m supposed to pay him back. I’m not sure how. I didn’t ask.

I didn’t know if I was being played. It seemed so stupid. How could there be a way out of here, and no one uses it, except for one person who keeps coming back? But it’s true. I’ve seen it. I asked for “proof of life” before taking off my shirt. It’s not a secret hole in the floor, not a breach high up in the fence. There’s a door! A yokits door! They use it to bring food in, leads right outside. If they wanted to, every single person in here could be out by morning, provided they have money, or the right shirt. Anyone who can beat up a cook can get out! But they’re not. They’re all staying here. Basically, they don’t need the fence or the guards. They can just tell people to stay, and they stay. Stay! There, good boy!

I remember having that conversation with my dad. Not Vincent, my adoptive dad in Puerto Rico. I asked him why people complained about politics all the time but did absolutely nothing about it. I couldn’t understand why people keep voting for the very people they loathe. They’ll protest a war, but the everyday stuff, small injustices, they just let them slide. Friends making a fortune off government contracts, paying a hundred dollars for a pencil, that type of thing, people complain about it, everyone does, but they won’t do a thing. I remember how floored I was when he told me that was a good thing, how we need a certain level of cynicism for society to function properly. If people thought they had real power to change things, if they truly believed in democracy, everyone would take to the streets, advocate, militate for everything. It happens from time to time. Thirty thousand people will block traffic to march for a cause, but they do it believing that the other side couldn’t possibly feel justified in doing the same thing. What if they did? What if thirty thousand people who believe in one thing marched at the very same time as those who believe in the exact opposite? What if it happened every single day? People who care about other things would also want to be heard. They’d need to scream louder. They’d need their disruption to be more … disruptive. People are compliant because they don’t expect the system to be fair. If they did, if they thought that was even possible, we’d live in chaos, anarchy. We need apathy, he said, or we’ll end up killing each other on the streets.

Did I mention my dad worked for the government?

I didn’t believe him then. I’m not sure he believed it either. That whole conversation started because I wanted us to open a shelter for alley cats. I was utterly convinced my parents would agree. Sure, there were some downsides to having tons of cats in our house, but you’d have to be really selfish to let that stop you from saving all those lives. Odds are that civics course was his way of telling me to learn to live with that injustice and not get into an endless argument about cats. He and my mom had raised me to argue. They said they would always welcome a debate based on logic and facts and that they could be convinced of anything if I made my case, but a hundred flea-infested strays probably fell outside their definition of “anything.” I built it, though. I got a stack of empty boxes from the corner-store trash, and I built a cardboard palace in our yard. I thought of everything. There was a playroom, so they wouldn’t get bored. I put all the couch pillows inside to make beds. It was perfect. The rain took the whole thing down after a day or two. The pillows didn’t make it. I lost a month’s worth of allowance, but I was still proud of myself. If you see something wrong with the world, fix it. Fight. Resist. Don’t use cardboard.

That’s what I liked about Kara, and Vincent, for that matter. He didn’t comply. He would have built that cat shelter, made it three floors high, with a water fountain out front. I don’t know if it’s all my fault or if it’s Kara’s death that changed him, but I miss that man.

The town’s not far. He said it’ll take us twenty minutes to get there. With any luck, I’ll be in Mariehamn by the time they notice I’m missing. I’ll have to figure out what I want to do if I make it to Sweden. I can’t just make a normal life for myself in the middle of this nonsense.

Maybe I can. Maybe I can get a job, watch TV, smile when people make jokes about the people living here. I can stop fighting, stop resisting.

Who am I kidding? I can’t get a job. They’ll just test my blood over there, and I’ll end up living in a Swedish camp instead of a Finnish one. I’ve never been to Sweden, so a work camp there will be somewhat new. Maybe I can sell my pants and make a fortune, become the Baba of Sweden.