A Sojourn

                                                                   A SOJOURN

       Seraphina smiled. “I think you’ve got something there, Frank.”

      The crew crowded around them. “Did that suitcase just destroy a drone?”, gasped one.

      “What did you have in there?”, asked the man with the wishbone. “Some sort of miniature SAM?”

      “Was it a laser?”, demanded another.

     “Did you scramble its GPS?”

     “How did you hack it?”

     “What else can that thing do?”

      “Where did you get it?”

     Seraphina looked into his eyes. “Who are you, Frank?”

   Charlie hugged the suitcase. “Someone who just saved all your asses! Can we leave it at that for now?”

   No one said a word. A breeze rustled the leaves in the trees above. Seraphina slapped the arms of her wheelchair. “Of course we can, Frank. Hell, we’re just fucking delighted that you have joined us. Aren’t we, everybody?”

   The crew nodded silently. Charlie smiled. It was time to change the subject. "I don’t know about any of you guys, but I’m starved. Is there anything to eat on this relic?”

   “I don’t think anyone even thought of that.”, said a young man with a shaved head.

   “Let’s see if the elites stocked this thing!”, cried a striking, red headed woman. The crew disappeared below.

   Charlie looked at Seraphina. “I don’t know what this suitcase is. I don’t even know what I am anymore. I do know that my suitcase was given to me for protection. Just rest assured that it is on our side.”

   “We’ll take good care of it, Frank.”, smiled Seraphina. “We’ll take good care of you, too.”

   They heard shouts from below. A broad red face appeared. “The ship is stocked to the rafters!”

   The five of them marched up from below with their arms full of bottles of wine, cans of food, strings of dried meat, baskets of bread, bottles of condiments, plates and glasses. As the crew spread everything out on the deck, Charlie glanced nervously at the sky.

   “Maybe we should eat in the forest. This ship is a big target.”

   “We can’t be seen under this overhang.”, reassured the red head.

   The crew crowded around.  Charlie dropped to the deck and accepted a plate of food from a middle-aged man with a crown of thick white hair. A younger Asian woman sitting next to him put a hand on his knee and nodded at him. “I am Kim and this is my husband Jim. I’m a fulfillment center associate and my husband was a delivery familiarity participant.”

   “I’m a ride sharer.”, said the man with the red face. “Or I was. I’m Wally. I later became a security coadjutor”

   “I’m John.”, said the young man with the shaved head. “I was an educator adjunct and societal integration facilitator.”

   “I'm Nell. I was in the love sharing business. I was a gratification facilitator.”, frowned the red head.

   “I have been a fulfillment center associate,", sighed Charlie, "but I got too old to run twenty miles a day. You reach a point where you can only go so fast, can only fulfill so many orders and when I couldn’t increase my performance, I was retired.”

   “I got retired from fulfillment center eligibility too.”, said Wally. “That’s when I started ride sharing but my contractor compensation couldn’t keep up with my car expenses. Have you been a ride sharer?”

   Charlie looked out at the forest around them. “My wife was. Her contractor compensation couldn’t keep up with the expenses either, so she got a motorcycle and a side car.”

   “How could she get an technocrat to ride in a sidecar?”, asked Kim.

   “They got a thrill out of it.”

   “I thought about doing that.”, said Kim’s husband. “But I could only fit so many meals or so many boxes of groceries or so many of anything in a sidecar. Sure, I did a lot of delivery familiarity smalls, coffee, bottles of booze, diapers, sandwiches but they don’t pay the bills. Actually, nothing paid the bills.”

   “What level were you educating?”, Charlie asked John. “K12?”

   “Oh no.”, he said. “That level is strictly societal integration. I did mostly Technocrat post K12 education but no tech, just social maintenance. You know, golf, gaming etiquette, party production.”

   “I thought for sure I could make a living as a security coadjutor.”, said Wally. “Maybe even rub shoulders with the technocrats but I just ended up guarding a warehouse for pennies.”

   “Shit.", muttered Nell as she ran her fingers through her scarlet locks. “Try being in the love sharing business. Try being a gratification facilitator for pennies.” She turned to Charlie. “What did you do when you got retired?”

   He dodged the question. “What made you think six people could hijack this ship and how did you do it?”

   Seraphina took a swig of wine. “Seventeen of us got to the waterfront when the riots hit.” Her eyes swept the crew. “I would not be here if Frank hadn’t helped me.”

   “How did seventeen of you manage to get together and plan to take over an antique schooner belonging to the Emergency Manager?”

   “There never really was a plan!”, blurted Wally.

   “There was a lot more than seventeen.”, muttered Kim.

   Her husband stroked her hair. “All the serviles of Seattle were enraged when the elites and technocrats started parading around the harbor in it.”

   “It was kind of like the last straw.” , said Jim. “Rations were down.”

   Michelle ran her fingers through her hair. “The homeless covered the streets.”

   John gave Charlie an earnest look. “The streets were an open sewer.”

   “Full of corpses.”, growled Seraphina. “The Municipal Maintenance Authority couldn’t keep up.”

   “Then someone pinned that elite on a bull's horn in Manhattan!”, Wally shouted.

   “When the people started offing the technocrats, all sorts of ideas exploded, all in a matter of hours.”, smiled Michelle. “But the technocrats were small fry, just compensated serviles to maintain the power of the elite. What we really wanted was the elites.”

   “Wash the shit from the streets of Seattle with the blood of the elites!”, Wally shouted.

   Nell raised a fist. “Mark the grave pits of the serviles with the heads of the elites!”

   “Dozens of us got together to burn the house and pier of the Emergency Manager.”, said Jim.

   “It was Seraphina’s idea to take the ship. She knew how to sail. She taught us a lot in a hurry.”, nodded Kim.

   Wally looked fondly at Seraphina. “When Homeland Warriors attacked us, I didn’t think you made it.”

   Michelle took Seraphina's hand. “Only five of us made it all the way through the going away party for the Emergency Manager. I’m sorry you missed it.”

   Seraphina squeezed Michelle’s hand. “Me too.”

   Michelle stood up from the deck. “There is nothing for us. Nothing! The fucking sons of bitches smirk then they have some son of a bitch smirk for them. ‘Excuse me sir. Do you realize you are smirking? Excuse me sir, is there a problem with that?’ The Emergency Manager is nothing more than a clerk.”

   “Like the politicians who put him there.”, snorted Jim.

   “And Homeland Warriors who defend them.”, shot Nell.

   “The state is the weapon of the elites.”, said Seraphina “And it doesn’t matter if they’re a technocrat, a politician, a warrior or an elite. They’re all just as guilty and they’ll all soon be just as dead.”

   “I want to get my hands on an elite.”, growled John. He looked at Charlie. “Wouldn’t you like to snuff an elite?”

   The suitcase growled. 
    "I wish I could’ve seen that fucking banker hanging on the Bull of Bowling Green!”, gasped Nell.
    A hiss followed the growl. 

   “That sounded like it came from his suitcase.”, whispered Kim.

   Charlie caught Seraphina looking at him. She gave him a reassuring nod. “Finish up, everyone! It’s time to hit the road!”

   They piled out of the ship with their weapons and backpacks full of food. At the foot of the pier was a purple path. They followed it.

     Charlie joined them.

  

 

The tree lined coast of the island opened up to a rolling chaparral that buffered a forested ridge line in the distance. They would be completely exposed to any ordinance or surveillance and Charlie didn't know if it was the just exhibited power of a magic suitcase or the fact that they were all running to God knows where with little chance of survival but they marched out of the trees with full stomachs, without a word. 

   It soon became evident that this was no run of the mill island in the Puget Sound Archipelago. The purple sand and grit crunching under their feet was nothing Charlie had ever seen before and he assumed that it had been laid down by someone or some people a long time ago. Strange rock formations spotted with swaths of moss and crowned with screaming yellow blooms lined the road and dotted the country side lush with brilliant green ground cover. The landscape was ethereal. It was otherworldly. Who ever these Spheres were, they lived in an enchanted world. Charlie tossed a couple of questions about them out to his hosts but no one really knew anything except that Seraphina had been told about them and Seraphina had nothing to say as the wheels of her chair crunched the violet carpet along side him.