Red Zone Son

Chapter 16

The next morning, Manal took Solomon’s hand in hers as soon as they’d entered Hershey Park’s grand plaza. His heart immediately started to race. “It’s okay,” she said, smiling at him. “Just relax. No need to tense up. What do you want to do today? I liked the Coastline Plunge, do you want to do that again?”

It was extremely difficult for him to both feel Manal’s hand in his and keep his attention on what she was saying to him. But he was determined to do better today. “Sure,” he said. “That sounds good.”

Manal laughed. Her persona while undercover was more exuberant than she was inside the hotel room when it was just them, but it didn’t feel fake. It was more as if she were letting loose a part of herself that she normally kept locked down. “You’ve been very nice to go along with everything I want to do,” she said. “Is there nothing you want to try?”

Solomon thought she was asking him if he had any special orders to check out any specific part of Hershey Park. He didn’t, so he shook his head. “Whatever you want is good,” he said.

“Let’s do the Chocolate Tour, then,” Manal said. She pulled him under the archway covered with oversized Hershey’s Kisses, guiding him through the growing morning crowd to the ride. Her hand didn’t let go of his the entire way, not until they got into the tour car, a small open-air vehicle. He noticed he kept looking at Manal instead of keeping tabs on their surroundings, so he forced himself to examine the car. It looked like a miniature roofless trolley, with a sleek silver exterior and just enough room for four passengers. It moved along a track inside the chocolate factory, and they got to see themed scenes showcasing how cocoa beans got turned into chocolate. “Did you know that cocoa beans are very bitter?” Manal remarked to him at one point.

She had her visor on. Solomon had been suspecting for a while now that it was some kind of an AR visor, and now he was sure of it. He found himself gripped by sudden curiosity. This could be his only chance for the rest of his life to wear a visor in a civilian context. “Can I have a look?” he asked.

“Sure,” Manal said. She pulled off the visor and handed it to him. “Just don’t touch anything. I already did my daily amplifications and I don’t want you to accidentally undo them.”

“I won’t,” he reassured her. He wasn’t sure what she meant by daily amplifications, but he put his hands back down on the seat of the trolley after putting the visor on. Then he was blinking because the world around him was coming alive with vibrant colors and shimmering holographic displays. It was like stepping into a dream. As he glanced around, his vision was flooded with digital overlays and notifications. Floating hearts, thumbs-up icons, and comments in various languages filled his field of view.

And then he looked at Manal, who was smiling at him. He saw a speech bubble with a timestamp of about a minute ago hanging over her head. It takes a lot of work to turn cocoa beans into something sweet. Thinking of all the exploited labor that brought us the chocolate we eat today. The bubble had four hearts on it, he was guessing from others on this tour who’d seen it already? Solomon turned, trying to catch a glimpse of the people on the next trolley down the track, and when he saw them, he saw bubbles pop up above their heads too. Theirs were full of exclamations about the cocoa bean fermentation process.

He turned his gaze back to Manal. The visor didn’t change how she looked through it; the lens was clear plastic, just like the AR visor he’d worn at boot camp. And just like that visor had transformed a muddy field into a combat zone, the chocolate factory tour had been turned from a series of conveyor belts and machines to something far more mesmerizing. He couldn’t help but feel a spike of jealousy at the blue zoners who apparently got to use visors all the time.

They were at the end of their ride by then, so he handed the visor back to Manal and she put it into her purse. There was a guy his age in a Hershey polo t-shirt opening the tour car door for them and helping them out. Solomon was surprised when he saw Rithvik was beside him, also dressed as a staff member. They were both disciplined enough not to react to each other, although Solomon did notice that if he looked closely enough, he could see a slight distortion in the fabric of his Hershey Park uniform. Rithvik had to be wearing a shoulder holster. Solomon wondered what he’d been up to. His uniform had a sheen of dust on it, as if he’d just emerged from an unfinished basement or some construction site.

“Excuse me,” Manal asked him. “Do you have a paper copy of a park map? My visor is having trouble bringing one up.”

“Sure thing,” Rithvik replied, reaching into his pocket and pulling out what looked exactly like a park map on the outside folds. Manal thanked him, then they walked out of the air-conditioned coolness of the factory into the summer sun. She stepped to the side of the exit to look at the map. She looked at it for a long time, long enough for him to wonder what it was that Rithvik had given her. Probably because he was bored hovering next to her, Solomon began pretending to himself that the park was only attended by undercover agents, that every single one of them there was either a blue zone soldier or red zone spy, all of them acting out together an elaborate charade with no civilians in actual attendance.

Apparently he was too amused by his own joke because Manal looked up at him. “What’s so funny?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he said. “It’s better for the hotel room.”

She gave him a surprised look, as if he’d said something inappropriate. Too late he realized how his words could have come across. “That’s not – it’s not what you’re thinking – I didn’t mean –” he stammered.

Manal placed her hand in the crook of his arm and began pulling him away from the chocolate factory behind them. “It’s fine,” she said, a smile touching her lips. “Let’s go see if there’s another live show, I think I remember yesterday hearing that they were going to put on another acrobatics act this morning.”

Not trusting himself to speak again without messing up, he went back to giving her a nod and following a few steps behind her. It turned out it was not an acrobatics act but a musical performance that was going to be put on at the open-air auditorium, and it wasn’t going to happen until later that afternoon. They went to get food at a cart outside, but the sun was baking them. He pulled up the sleeves of his zip-up, wishing he had worn something else, but anything else would have revealed his pistol and holster. Manal today had chosen what she’d told him was called a light romper. She hadn’t worn anything shorter than her knees, which he approved of.

Manal said she wanted to do the Chocolate Tour again, and this time when they got off she told Rithvik he’d dropped something and handed him the map back. After that Solomon had to use a toilet, so he asked Manal to wait outside the men’s room for him since he wanted her unprotected for as little time as possible. “I’ll just come inside with you, I have to go too,” Manal said, and he realized what she meant when they got to the restroom, and it was unsegregated, men and women and some people whose gender he couldn’t tell coming in and out freely. It was a little uncomfortable, but at the same time it made following his mandate easier. He did use a stall though, instead of one of the urinals.

After they were done, they headed back outside, but in the twenty minutes or so since they’d re-ridden the Chocolate Tour the temperature had plummeted. The cool wind was thick with moisture. Solomon appreciated it, but Manal’s romper wasn’t long-sleeved. By the time they got seats at the open-air auditorium, she wasn’t quite shivering, but was clearly cold.

“Should I…” he started, then stopped. “Should I get a jacket for you?”

“Maybe…” she paused too. “Maybe you could put your arm around me?”

Hesitantly, he did. Onstage, the group of musicians had started playing, but it wasn’t with any instruments he recognized; they were from some other country where the guitar bodies were short and squat. He wasn’t really listening to them anyway. It was exactly like when Manal had taken his hand that morning. His heart began to pound. The back of his neck was warm. He found that he didn’t want to move, he wanted to stay just like this, her head leaning back on his shoulder, for as long as he could.

But he couldn’t let it go any further. He wasn’t going to be able to control his thoughts if he did. He avoided looking down at Manal’s body and instead focused on the musicians on stage. He’d never stared so intently at fingers plucking an instrument’s strings. And then the performance, thank God, was over, and it was time to go to the next attraction.