The Occupation of Emerald City: The Worker by Ken Brosky Page A

swear it.”
    “I’m glad you’re okay,” I say, stuffing my keys in my
pockets.
    “Where are you going?” Joshua asks.
    “I’m filling up these gas cans so I can check my bank
account,” I say. Driving helps me think. Wrap my brain around this new place
with soldiers and men in masks and broken buildings and goddamned intruders.
Get out of this place before the vents start blowing hot air. Before the room
closes in. Before I’m strapped down again and cold water runs down my throat.
    This doesn’t feel like my home anymore.
    “What about him?” Joshua asks. “What about me?”
    I take a deep breath. “Okay. Okay.” I take another breath.
Everything’s moving so fast. I spot the smooth black laptop sitting on my
coffee table. “The laptop.”
    Joshua glances at it. “What about it?”
    “Try to sign on to the Internet,” I say. Another deep breath.
God, I could use that anti-anxiety medication just to slow everything down.
“Find that woman so at least one of us can get the hell out of this nightmare.”
    Joshua walks over to the couch and sits down very carefully,
testing the cushions. He opens the laptop, his hands shaking. He scans the
wireless connections. “There’s one connection named ‘TheKillers,’ but it’s
really low.”
    I smile. That was the connection I always used to sneak onto.
I imagined the guy—he probably lived in the duplex next door—as a
young punk, a hip-hop lover with colorful religious tattoos on his arms and
black t-shirts with silver caricatures of dead rappers. It actually feels good
to know he’s still around, that he somehow made it this far.
    Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’s been shipped out. He was a
Christian. I knew that much about him because the old man is right: this was a
Christian neighborhood.
    So what happened to the Muslim neighborhoods?
    “I need to use the bathroom,” the old man says.
    “Does the plumbing work?” I ask.
    “Sometimes,” he says. “More often than it did after the first
bombs hit.”
    I follow him to the bathroom in the hallway. There’s no
window he can escape from, so I let him close the door. I listen to the stop-go
gentle stream of urine hitting the toilet water and can’t help but feel a
little pity for the old man. He’s probably clutching the edge of the sink.
    I glance into the bedroom. The bed’s white sheets are still
tussled, hanging half off one edge, just as they were the night they took me. I
spent so much time thinking about my bed while I lay on soggy, urine stained
mattresses and now I can’t imagine lying down. I’m not tired. I don’t want to
close my eyes until the world stops spinning.
    He comes out without washing his hands or flushing. “The
plumbing doesn’t work again. It did earlier,” he adds, as if he’s trying to
convince me.
    I follow him back into the living room. Joshua is sitting on
the couch, staring at the blank TV screen. The laptop is closed, sitting on the
coffee table.
    I don’t know what to say. My feet shift uncomfortably.
    “She’s dead,” he says quietly. “What am I going to do? I … I
don’t even know what’s happening.” He gets up and paces in front of the couch,
glancing at the laptop. I know what’s about to happen, but even so I’m
surprised when he picks it up and throws it across the room. It hits the wall
next to the front door, flipping open and leaving a dent in the drywall.
“Goddammit!” he screams. “Goddammit!”
    The old man clears his throat. He looks like he wants to say
something to Joshua to make him feel better. Instead, he looks to me. The
refrigerator turns off. The soft green digital display on the DVD player on top
of the TV disappears.
    “What’s happening?” Joshua asks, looking around.
    “The power is out,” says the old man. “It happens.”
    I realize suddenly he must think we’re both insane. He has no
idea what we’ve been through. He’s never lived inside a box that tortures you.
To him, this place is just a