Sky on Fire

21 ALEX

IT’S HARD TO DESCRIBE how huge the operation at the airport was.

First, we went into a waiting area for all new arrivals. There were about 200 other people when we got there, and every 10 minutes or so, another busload would arrive, adding 5–20 people.

They had taken seats from the airport gates and put them in there. They weren’t bolted to the floor so they wobbled, but they’d basically made a big waiting area.

Everywhere there were signs: EVERYONE MUST WEAR A MASK AT ALL TIMES.

There were air masks piled on the tables. Some were used, some were new.

There weren’t any Army ones, like our two, available, but there was a different kind, like an Army-issue mask for civilians. I found one for me, and for Sahalia and Batiste. I put mine on and there was a distinct smell of some kind of fruit. I hated that smell but I couldn’t remember what fruit it was.

‘Ugh,’ Sahalia groaned. ‘Why do we need these? The damage has been done, for God’s sake.’

But we wore them. Everyone did. Because if you didn’t, an Army guy with a rifle would come over and shove one into your hands.

I think that they made us wear them for the sake of the type ABs. Obviously the type Os and As knew to keep their masks on.

But I had seen some ABs, paranoid and wild-eyed, on the bus. I guess some ABs were functional enough to get themselves to safety, but not rational enough to keep a mask on. With a mask on, those same crazy people looked sedate. Exhausted and worn-out, but sedate.

It was an unreasonable assumption for me to make, but in some part of my brain, I thought that as soon as we got to DIA, I would find our parents. Like they’d be waiting right by the door or something.

But I scanned every masked face in that waiting room. Each of us did, except Max, who was asleep in his pushchair.

‘They’re not here,’ Batiste said, voicing exactly what I’d been thinking.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But maybe inside. Maybe inside…’

Our little group all sat together in some chairs.

A team of soldiers in hazmat suits with, get this, pads and paper came around and wrote down our names, addresses, and social security numbers, if we knew them.

‘Is there some kind of list?’ I asked the man who took my information. ‘Of the survivors? Of the people who are here now?’

‘We’re putting it together, kid,’ he said. I couldn’t really see his face, but he sounded tired.

He put a bracelet on my wrist. It had a number. He wrote the number down on the pad, next to my name, and also had an old-fashioned handheld scanner, which he used to scan the barcode on my bracelet.

That was good. I was in the system now. All of us were. That would help our parents find us, it had to.

‘The Network still down?’ I asked him.

He held up the yellow pad. ‘What do you think?’

He was ready to move on, but I put a hand on his arm. He pulled it away.

‘My brother and four other kids are stranded back at the Greenway in Monument,’ I told him. ‘We need to organize a rescue.’

He snorted.

‘You can write a request,’ he said. ‘But the chances are slim.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘We’re spread real thin, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘But they can’t come out because they’re O. And they’re kids. They need help.’

He leaned down and put his mask right up against mine.

He had brown skin and dark eyes. A kind face, but a tired one.

‘You know how many refugees have come through here?’ he asked me. ‘Me neither. Nobody does. We’ve lost track. But more than eight hundred thousand. Eight hundred thousand people, kid. We can hardly take care of the people we have here. We don’t need to go getting any more.’

When he said those things to me, I cried. I knew he was right and I knew we’d never get anyone to go back for you.

I cried then, good and long. Sahalia held me like I was a little kid, and I didn’t even care.

We wouldn’t be able to go back for you, Dean.

Every 45 minutes, a soldier would come and shout out a bunch of numbers.

People would look at their bracelet, to see if it was their number being called. Then the ones called would stand up and take all their stuff, and go to the big double doors.

It was always 30 males and 30 females. We had been told we’d all be decontaminated in a big group shower and then given new clothes and gear.

After we waited for a while, it was our turn.

We all stood up and went over to the door, with the other people whose numbers had been listed.

Sahalia took my hand and held on to it tight.

Niko pushed Max in his pushchair. He looked scared.

They had 2 soldiers (in hazmat suits) checking names off a shared master (paper) list.

When it got to us, they stopped Niko.

‘That kid needs to go to medical,’ one said, pointing to Max. But we’d seen people getting taken away to medical. They were separated from their families and had to go alone. Max had outright refused.

‘He’s okay,’ Niko said. ‘I can take care of him.’

‘Suit yourself,’ answered the soldier.

Niko picked Max up and carried him in, leaving the bloody, mucky pushchair to the side.

We were now in a weird, flexible hallway. It was tall and oval shaped – like we were in a vacuum cleaner hose. Airtight, obviously. It was big, too – 3 people could easily walk side by side in it.

A little ways down, the hallway branched in two and the men/boys and women/girls were being separated.

Sahalia started to panic.

‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘We’ll find you on the other side.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Really?’ she said, and her fingers clutched onto my jacket.

‘We’ll find you, Sahalia,’ I vowed.

She nodded with tears in her eyes and went off with the women and girls.

We were herded into a big, big bubble room. It was shaped like a giant tangerine, and the things dividing the segments of the tangerine were flexible, white plastic pipes. There was a circle of them around the room and each came up to the centre of the bubble, where it hung down with a showerhead on the end of it.

Five large bins with lids stood in the corner, next to a stack of plastic stools.

Four more soldiers in hazmat suits were waiting for us.

A soldier set a plastic stool in front of Niko for Max to sit on. That was kind. He did the same for a couple of other people, who looked worse for wear.

‘Leave your masks on,’ one commanded us.

Would we ever get to take them off?

The soldier handed each of us a plastic Ziploc bag.

‘Place any valuables and ID you have into this bag and put your name on it. You’ll get it on the other side.’

I slipped my notebook, the digital watch I had taken from the Greenway, and my pen into the bag. I didn’t have anything else worth saving. The soldier came and wrote my name on the bag for me and put it into a metal basket, along with all the other bags.

‘Besides the masks, remove all your clothing and place it in these bins. All fabric must go in the bin to be destroyed. That’s the policy,’ the soldier dictated.

Some men started to protest but the lead soldier talked louder than them: ‘On the other side of this room, there is a room filled with clothing and gear. You will have your pick of clean, new clothes on the other side. Everything you need will be provided for you. Now get to.’

Ulysses started crying. It was kind of scary. It was so white and bright, and now this guy was barking at us to get naked.

‘It’s okay, Ulysses,’ Niko said calmly through his voice transmitter. ‘We’re going to be clean. It’s good.’

Following Niko’s example, we took off our clothes and threw them in the nearest bin. The men around us did the same.

That was a grisly collection of bodies, I tell you.

We were all just standing there, shivering in nothing but our face masks, when the lead soldier nodded to the other 3. They each picked up hoses from the floor. The hoses ran into the base of the walls. I hadn’t noticed them before.

‘This part’s going to suck,’ the lead soldier said. ‘I apologize. Hit ’em!’

They turned on the hoses and jets of frothy orange wash came out of them. The four soldiers sprayed us all down.

There were shouts of protest and dismay.

Then the wash stopped.

‘You can take off your masks now,’ the soldier directed.

He gestured to a bin and we all tossed our masks inside.

Most of us had massive indentations on our faces from the masks. Everyone looked sort of googly-eyed and disoriented.

Then the lead soldier nodded again to the other 3 and they doused us with the foul cleanser again.

‘This sucks!’ shouted one man.

‘I hate dis soap!’ Ulysses shouted.

The lead soldier laughed. ‘I know, kid. But it’s the price of admission.’

He hit a large red button on a metal electrical box hanging on the wall.

Immediately hot water started pouring out of the showerheads and also spurting out from the pipes running down the walls.

It felt like heaven.

They gave us thin, scratchy towels to dry ourselves with and blue paper hospital outfits to wear. Like medical scrubs, but made of a waxy paper. I thought they were pretty cool, but there was some grumbling from the bigger men.

The soldiers led us out of the shower room and back into the hallway.

Niko had to carry Max. His feet were bleeding again and he looked pale and wiped out.

‘Get that kid to medical, for God’s sake,’ the lead soldier said to Max.

‘Yes, sir,’ Niko answered.

We went down the hall and then came out into a large room.

A soldier in a uniform (no hazmat suit, no mask) greeted us.

‘Breathe deeply, gentlemen, you’re now in the safe zone. Welcome.’

Along the sides of the room were tables. They each had a sign of a size, like ‘Men – Medium’ or ‘Boys 5T’. In the corner were a bunch of dressing rooms with curtains.

Behind each table were two civilians – two women, actually. The women were all different ages and dressed in all different ways but they all had something in common. It is hard to describe – at first I thought it was efficiency. Or maybe restlessness, like they had volunteered because if they didn’t get to do something helpful they’d go crazy. Stressed and worn-out – but still hopeful.

That’s when I realized what it was: They were moms.

It was like a department store run by moms.

And man, oh man, did they ever light up when they saw us kids.

A 40-something woman in a jogging suit just rushed right up to us. ‘My poor, sweet darlings,’ she said. She held out her arms and hugged Batiste and Ulysses. It seemed both totally inappropriate and totally perfect at the same time.

Another mom had me and was hugging me and praying in some Slavic language, I don’t know which.

A black lady with red-dyed hair that was white at the temples came right out from behind a BOYS – 10–12 table. She just took Max from Niko and then pushed all the clothing and shoes off her table and set him down gently. She started barking orders to the others as she looked Max over: ‘We need underwear and socks and sweatpants for this boy. Nothing binding, nothing uncomfortable. And thermals. Who has slippers? Nanette, bring slippers!’

The mothers swarmed over the rest of us. They brought us jeans and sweaters and sneakers. Everything new. They brought soft cotton underwear and socks with no seams. Only the best for us.

The men we’d come in with were left mostly to fend for themselves.

Then suddenly a loud, loud voice cut through everything.

‘Woo Sung-ah? Oori Woo Sung-ee maja? Woo Sung-ah!’

And a short, Asian woman pushed through the crowd of moms.

‘Omma! Omma!’ Batiste was shouting and he reached for her.

She was his mom.

He found his mom, Dean.

All that we went through, all the horrible things that happened to us. They were okay. They were for a reason because Batiste had found his mom.

She placed her palms on either side of his face and looked at him. Tears began to run down her face and she didn’t even notice them. She just looked at the face of her boy.

Then she hugged him tight to her and she held him at arm’s length again, looking into his face. It seemed like she was trying to drink in the sight of him.

‘Woo Sung-ah! Woo Sung-ah!’

This was his name, I realized. His Korean name. Woo Sung-ah was our Batiste.

Then they started talking Korean, both at once.

Batiste, duh, is half Korean. I guess I knew that from the shape of his face and his hair and everything, but he had no accent. I never thought he could speak Korean like that.

Everyone was hugging and laughing and crying. I mean, all the moms started crying and hugging us, and hugging each other and almost everybody was crying. It was a great moment.

Then Batiste’s mom tried to take Batiste away from us. She wanted to squirrel him away, take him off to the rest of the family, I guess.

Batiste went rigid and refused, saying, ‘An dwei-yo! Omoni.’

He talked to her in his perfect, rapid-fire Korean, convincing her of something. She nodded.

He must have told her he wanted to introduce her to us.

Batiste said our names amid the Korean words. I heard ‘Alex’ and she glanced at me and nodded slightly. I bowed, which was a dorky thing to do and I immediately regretted it, but no one cared. Batiste went on to ‘Ulysses’ and Batiste’s mom smiled at Ulysses. Max’s face and feet got a critical look and she turned toward Batiste and gave him a mini harangue.

Batiste placated her, nodding and basically telling her, ‘Yes, yes. We’re going to get him taken care of right away.’ I couldn’t understand his words, but I could see what he was saying. Placating his mom and grinning all the while.

Then he introduced Niko. And she listened to what Batiste was saying. She was hearing, no doubt, that this worn-out-looking boy with serious brown eyes and the gaunt, haunted expression had saved the life of her son.

‘Niko-ya…’ she said, tears again in her eyes. ‘Gompata. Nomu nomu gompata, Niko-ya.’

She fumbled under her sweater and pulled a necklace over her head. It was a gold necklace, with a gold cross on it. A tiny Jesus there on the cross.

Batiste’s mother pressed the necklace into Niko’s palm and folded his fingers around it. Then she raised his hand and kissed the back of it again and again.