CHAPTER 1
PATROLLING MEGA
Tonight feels different. The weight of her absence hits me. On most nights when my crew and I patrol the streets of Mega City, I feel a sense of invincibility mixed with glee. Violence can do that to a person, especially when you’re the one unleashing it. At night my crew, Las Mal Criadas, own these streets. Not tonight. We’re missing one of our girls, and the warm breeze that blankets my face is a trick meant to seduce me into thinking everything is fine. My soldier Manos Dura. She didn’t have to go out like that. No one deserved that ending.
“Go check the building.” Truck, my right hand, barks out an order. One of my soldiers sprints ahead. It’s been almost a month since the end of Manos Dura, and we’re still feeling it. It was Truck who recruited and trained her to be the fifth in our all-girl gang. Manos Dura’s specialty was her fists. No one ever wanted to catch them hands. She was good, and now she’s gone. The last thing I want to do is be out here patrolling. Such is my lot in life. It’s what Las Mal Criadas do. Not for long, though.
“Does she see any stragglers?” I ask Shi. She checks the Codigo5G goggles. The machine is run-down, an old model. We’re lucky to have them. Only top crews are authorized to be connected to the server. These Codigos were a gift from Déesse, our beloved leader of Mega City. We have access to the libraries and the ability to transmit.
“She says it looks pretty quiet, Chief Rocka.” Shi calls me by the title I earned as the leader of the baddest girl gang in Mega City. I hold the title close to my chest. I intend to keep it.
Abandoned buildings line the streets, empty and menacing. There’s no noise except for our boots crunching down on crumbling sidewalks. The nightly curfew is absolute. The people of Mega City are meant to be sleeping in their underground homes. No one is allowed to be out except for crews. From the northeastern tip of Mega City to close to the water, Las Mal Criadas are in charge of maintaining curfew. Other crews take up different sections of the city. We’ve been at this for five years now. It never fails. We always find a toiler or two aimlessly lost on the streets, such as this woman who is curled in a fetal position against a slab of concrete. Her housedress is dirty. Her hair is a tangled mess of knots.
“What the hell are you doing?” Truck yells. The woman wakes with a startled look. Truck grabs her by the arms and drags the woman to the nearest station. The woman pleads. She’s so confused. Truck doesn’t bother. She shoves the woman in. Her whimpering echoes up toward the street.
I look away and stare at the Mega Towers, which stand tall, a trio of giant rectangular boxes. The Towers are one of the few buildings that aren’t falling apart. There are 536 apartments in the Towers. There’s even a school and a health center. Déesse, the leader of Mega City, lives on the top floor. No one is allowed in without an invite. Soon I’ll be living there, sleeping in a real bed, not on the dirt floor with Truck snoring on one side of me and another soldier talking in her sleep on the other. To be part of Déesse’s chosen guard . . . That’s the prize and I intend to grab it. We’ll be chilling with the elite, the chosen few, and we will be no different from them. No more fighting other crews and no more dealing with lost toilers. The Mega Towers is where it’s at.
It’s why we call it breaking night. There are times when you break a person back into sleeping. When the sun comes up, the grueling work begins again for this woman and the other countless toilers, whether it’s making the sueño tabs in the factories or running mercados for people to trade for essentials. If you are in a crew, you’re not considered a toiler. We are above them.
When this woman wakes up in the morning, she’ll be able to fulfill her duties because she’ll feel the euphoric remnants from the manufactured dreams made by taking a sueño. Life is monotonous aboveground. Everyone needs to dream in order to survive.
“Does Déesse really live up there?” Nena asks. Nena is our newest recruit, meant to replace Manos Dura. Truck is not convinced Nena has what it takes to be an LMC. She’s eleven, almost twelve. She’s got a hunger, a strong desire to please, and that’s valuable. Still, Nena is too green to understand she shouldn’t even be asking me questions. She should be soldiering.
“Recite the Mega City history right now,” I say. “You should know this already.”
Nena rubs her forehead before speaking. We make every potential soldier study up on the history. No one is exempt. If you don’t know your history, then you have no power. That’s the problem with the other gangs. They think their strength lies only in their fists. Not my crew. I plan to take them straight to the top, and it will be because we outdid the rest with smarts.
“Before the Big Shake of 2060, men destroyed the city with their greed,” Nena says. She looks up with her big eyes and waits for me to give her a nod to continue. “The Big Shake happened and everything was gone.
“We are the daughters of Mega City. We patrol because Déesse’s great-grandmother gathered everyone together. She trained women to defend themselves. We showed the men we didn’t need them. Mega City was going to be for women. If they didn’t like it, they could step.”
“Good. Now, why are gangs made up of only five girls?” I circle around her. She stands straight, hands to her sides, stiff.
“There were four who started Mega City with Déesse’s great-grandmother. Five leaders total, all women.” She smiles to herself, pleased she’s getting it right. My other two soldiers, Smiley and Shi, look on. They are waiting for her to slip up. “Also, five means grace.”
“And how many gangs are there in Mega City?”
She stops and looks down. Nena doesn’t remember the answer. Smiley starts to laugh loudly. They shake their heads. Manos Dura never had a problem when she recited the history. Nena is no Manos Dura. She might have been twelve but Manos never let age get in the way. She listened when she needed to, took notes, and studied them later. When things were quiet, she would ask me questions about everything. Her round face was filled with curiosity.
“Why do we keep her around?” Truck pushes Nena to the ground. “She can’t even memorize facts.” Nena stands with a rage face. The rage lasts only for a few seconds. She’s so young.
“Go light up our way,” I say.
A disappointed Nena climbs up the lamppost and uses her mini-blowtorch to light the lamp. She climbs down and jogs to the next one.
“Total waste,” Truck says. “We never had a problem with Mano. Mano had the history memorized in a day. She didn’t play around.” With the mention of her name, my heart starts to hurt again. It’s true. Mano was a straight LMC from the first day. She anticipated what needed to be done. How was it possible the one time she needed to be extra alert Mano had her defenses down?
It was the Deadly Venoms. They caught Manos Dura on her way back from partying at the Luna Club. That night we were so trashed. We were victorious in our last throwdown and things were looking up. One more battle with the Deadly Venoms and we would surely secure a spot in Déesse’s army. We were feeling good, unstoppable. When Manos Dura left the club early, we didn’t think twice. We’d thought she left to sleep off the drinks over at our station. Instead, the Deadly Venoms intercepted her on her way and beat her down. By the time Mano’s body was found, there wasn’t much left. The only proof we had it was her was the LMC tattoo I personally branded on the side of her head. The Deadly Venoms didn’t own up to doing the deed. We had no proof. Death. Our girl. My soldier.