Never argue with a man who has the drop on you from twenty feet overhead. True, I could shoot him, put one round right through that gun slot into his narrow little forehead. But then what? I would still be stuck out here. Plus homicide is—depending on whether or not you are either one of the Ones or one of their minions—illegal.
Time to take a deep breath and keep my temper.
My tormentor, Edwin, is the day’s Keeper of the Keys. Scarlet Red today. Jet Black tomorrow. White, the next day and Forest Green the fourth before it goes back to Scarlet again.
Edwin’s in charge. So I have to follow his silly, useless rules.
“Friend,” I say, making my voice not just friendly, but a little sultry—as if his show of masculine power has impressed and even turned me on. That should help. Edwin likes to think he is irresistible, when as far as I am concerned he is the polar opposite. Not this Neanderthal nitwit. If I ever thought of any man in a romantic way it would be someone like Hussein. Someone who’s quiet and gentle, someone who covers his strength with grace and politeness. As if there’s any chance in the world for romance in Haven. Or any chance of Hussein ever seeing me as anything other than someone to greet politely as we pass.
“Ah,” Edwin says, his tone more businesslike. “Excellent. Now what is the password?”
I do not say what I am thinking, even though it begins with the first letter of today’s chosen phrase.
“First light.”
“Good. Absolutely correct. You may enter.”
I raise one eyebrow and then look pointedly at the still-unlocked door.
“Oh, right. I’ll be right down.”
This time I only get to fifty and one pony before I hear the jangling of his keys and the slap of his feet reach the other side of the door.
“Now which key is it? This one. No. Not this one. Ah, this one? Nope. Here it is.”
Click of light. Old-spooky-house creak of metal door as it swings slightly open. How wonderful. I am finally free to enter the prison that is all the home I may ever know.
“How nice to see nothing has eaten you yet,” Edwin says, his foot still blocking the door from opening more than a crack. At moments like this I am not feeling blessed about how much sharper my senses seem to be than most ordinary people, especially my olfactory nerve. With my eyes closed, I can recognize the people I know from yards away. Hussein, for example, smells like the leaves of the tomatoes in the garden he oversees. And why am I thinking of him again? Probably just because of the contrast offered by the human obstacle before me.
Edwin’s scent is far from heaven-sent. I’m not sure if he ever brushes his teeth. His breath makes me think of rotten meat—probably because he has a bad tooth or two in that nasty mouth of his. Dentists do not exist in Haven. Then there is his rank body odor. True, none of us ordinaries are able to take regular showers, with water being such a rare and precious commodity. But his rank is above ours and thus his water ration is greater. You’d think he could at least sponge off his pits and change his underwear now and then.
His scent is also a giveaway that he’s on Chain. Once on Chain, you need the drug at least twice a week or you go into hard withdrawal. Diablita keeps certain of her men hooked on it. I hadn’t known that Edwin was one of them. Last run-in I had with him, his B.O. hadn’t been nearly this bad.
Not only does Chain make its users dependent and desperate for the drug—like the two men who betrayed us and led Diabilita’s men to Valley Where First Light Paints the Cliff—it also makes those persons much stronger and turns them into berserkers when they go into battle. Chain really kicks in under stress. It deadens them to pain and makes them keep on coming even when they are badly wounded. Ready to beat you to death with their own severed limbs.
So it’s best not to upset Edwin.
Despite the fact that his delightful odor de disgusting is filling the air between us, about all I can see of him right now is his blood-red armband—the mark of one of Diablita Loca’s minions—and his nasty eyes moving up and down my body.
“Happy to see me?” he asks.
Not a trace of sarcasm in his nasal voice—unless you count every word he just said and the haughty tone he spoke it in, as if he were a One. Hah. As if a rat could become a cat!
I don’t take the bait. If I spit a clever putdown back at him, it’ll just mean having to wait longer the next time I need to have him open the door for me. And that next time might be late at night with something large and hungry close at my heels.
“Yes,” I say, keeping my voice as friendly as I can manage, even though I imagine the toe of my boot making contact you know where. I show no emotion on my face. I keep it as calm as the surface of a pond. That calm—some might say stupid—face is what I always show to the world. No anger, no sorrow. No laughter, no tears. I will never let them see me crying, no matter how much my heart may be torn.
Never let your enemies see your weakness is what Uncle Chatto said.
“Enter,” Edwin intones. He steps aside just enough that I have to brush against him as I enter before he slams the door shut again. While he is locking it I walk away before he can say or do anything further.
Not alone, of course. I am closely tailed by two blasé guards, both with red armbands, whose job it is to escort me. They seem bored by their job, but armed as I am I have to be escorted. That’s the rule. They’re not authorized to take my weapons themselves. Yet another rule. Only one person is allowed to disarm a scout when said gun-toter gets back.
Disarm, log in, and lock up all lethal items carried on that scout’s person. The armorer’s job.
Thus, the well-guarded armory fifty yards further on is my first destination. As I approach it I hear the sound of hammers striking steel and catch the whiff of molten metal from the workshop buildings and labs to my left.
Metal workers and smiths are among those constantly being sought out (hunted down, more like) by the Ones as they build their various fiefdoms. Such skilled people have the knowledge and manual skills to manufacture things that the Ones desire. Electricity, like Buffalo Bill, is defunct. But not combustion.
Here in Haven, the amount of gasoline and oil that is available is limited. But the pine and aspen forests on the mountains that rise above the desert only a few miles away can provide more than enough wood for fuel. Hence making use of wheeled devices powered by steam is a major priority of the Ones. Reverse engineering vehicles so that no electricity is involved in their running is, to say the least, a challenge. Thus far their successes have been minimal. The thought of a new age of wheeled vehicles, including such lovely devices as tanks and armored personnel carriers powered by combustion sans electricity, makes my flesh crawl.
My escorts relinquish me to two other guards stationed in front of the armory door. One wears the green armband of the Jester, the other the white of Lady Time. Although they are hired thugs like all their kind, these guards are not total dicks like Edwin, nor do they have the little facial tics that Chainers get. Not all guards are on that drug. The supplies looted from abandoned pharmacies are limited and the Ones have yet to find a chemist who knows how to make more.
The two guards look at each other. Their faces are almost as emotionless as mine. Then they nod and step to either side to let me enter.
One-eyed Guy greets me with a grin as I come through the door. He’s not one-eyed because he had one of those failed sub-retinal devices transplanted in his right socket. His missing eye is the result of a narrow escape from an indeterminate critter whose claw made that long double line of scars down his cheek and forehead. He was Haven’s Killer of Enemies before that encounter. I was recruited to take his place.
He doesn’t resent me for that. In fact, though he never mentions it any more, he is regretful about all that happened to me and my family as a result of Haven’s need of a new monster slayer. Without saying it in so many words, I know I can count on Guy. I know that he knows I have hopes of escaping. And he knows that I know he will help me however he
can. Just as we both know how cautious we have to be. Harsh punishments are meted out for anything, even a careless word, that might remotely suggest rebellion against the Ones.
Like me, Guy wears no colors other than the muted brown of his khaki pants and short-sleeved shirt. He smells of gunpowder. I love that smell. His job now is to keep and care for our deadliest armaments. There’s no way that the Four who rule our lives would allow someone in his position to be in the service of any single One. It’s why the armory is always guarded by one man from each of their retinues. Two in front, two in back at all hours of the day.
“Good t’ see you, lass.”
His Scottish accent is as real as the warm sincerity with which he greets me. Guy is a former middleweight boxer from Glasgow, whose long-shot quest for a world title in Vegas fell apart with the rest of our modern world ten minutes after he left the airport. None of the jets that plummeted from the sky landed on the stretch of roadway where his cab stalled. The tale of how he made his way across three disintegrating southwestern states to end up here several years ago might seem remarkable—if his story was not matched by so many others who survived against odds greater than those in any casino.
“Guy,” I say.
He grasps my right wrist and my elbow. I grab his and we bump our shoulders together. Though he’s fifty—one of the oldest people here in Haven—he’s still stronger and fitter than most men half his age. And twice as useful. It would be hard to find anyone who knows as much as he does about weaponry. His father was a racetrack blacksmith, one of his uncles a gunshop owner and professional bodyguard, and another the author of The British Guide to Nineteenth Century Firearms.
Guy steps back and holds out his right hand. I slip my .357 from the holster and offer it to him butt first.
He sighs. “Just get it over with, lass.”
I do the little twist of my wrist that spins the gun’s grip back into my palm with the barrel pointing straight at Guy’s forehead.
“Bang,” I say.
“Nah!” Guy replies. His hands move so fast they are blurred as he twists the gun from my grip, points it an inch above my head and pulls the trigger.
Click.
The sound of the hammer falling on an empty cylinder. As always. Just as always, I have emptied the gun before passing through the armory door.
I hold out my left hand and drop the bullets into Guy’s already outstretched palm.
He twitches the corner of his mouth into the shadow of a smile as press my lips a little closer together and give him the hint of another nod. It’s as close as we ever come to laughing over this grim joke we always share.
We could kill each other, but we won’t.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Jester
Guy is my immediate superior in the chain of command that is so important to our benevolent overlords. He already knows, as do our rulers, that my mission succeeded. That is evident from the fact that I returned in one piece.
But rules, no matter how capricious and unnecessary they may be, are meant to be followed here in Haven. They insure discipline . . . and obedience. So we have to go through the usual debriefing rigamarole. Which is always as brief as I can make it.
All of my registered weapons now locked away—even my father’s Bowie knife—I follow Guy into the interview room adjacent to the armory. He locks the door, takes a clipboard from the wall. We both sit at the table next to the big mirror.
As we go through the interview I did not look over his shoulder toward that mirror, behind which listeners are stationed. Just as there were listeners observing us in the armory through the peepholes drilled into the wall. Guy interviews me after each kill, but that doesn’t mean that he’s actually trusted by the higher-ups. In fact, the higher up it goes, the less trust there is. Thus, his interviews are always observed by several eavesdroppers behind that mirror. They watch and listen and report back to their various overlords. Their identities are secret. You never know when someone who is pretending to be your friend might be one whose main mission is to inform.
Even Guy has no idea who the people behind that mirror are. In the small world of Haven, where information is as deadly as the guns we use, he’s seen as nothing more than an ignorant gun hand. Which is a good thing. Being underestimated here means you are less likely to be seen as a real risk, a danger to the establishment.
That’s why I will act dumb during this interview. Why Guy and I both find our little charade of stupidity amusing.
“So,” Guy begins, “you got it?” There’s a twinkle in his eye.
I nod and stay serious, covering up a chuckle by disguising it as a cough.
“Was it the one responsible for the disappearance of our couriers?”
I grunt and reach down into my pack. I extricate the bent copper bracelet and the message case and drop them clattering on the table.
“That is a yes,” Guy says, making a check on his pad. “Gemod?”
I nod again. Guy checks another box.
“Type?”
I think a moment before answering, picturing the critter in my mind. “Uhhh, Porcupine? Tiger?”
“Hmmm,” Guy says. He lifts his right hand to his chin as if pondering the thought. But as he does so, he places his left hand across his chest and begins to sign.
In our post-electronic world it’s no longer possible to eavesdrop unless you are within earshot. That is why those with the best hearing get drafted into service as listeners. It also means that things may only be seen from certain angles—even through peepholes or two-way glass.
“The new bullets worked well?” Guy asks—at the same time that his hands convey the message that sends a chill down my back. Your mother and sister and brother were moved.
“Uh-huh,” I reply, keeping my face as expressionless as my voice.
Guy motions at my pack, which has made a bloody mark on his cement floor. “Salt some, smoke some?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say. Without refrigeration, another casualty of the Cloud, the only way to keep meat from going bad is by using the oldest methods. Salting, smoking, drying into jerky. I push the pack over to him with my foot. He pulls out everything except the tenderest cuts. I’ll cook those up later. He slides the pack back to me.
“Ten percent?” he asks. His usual cut for preparing any meat I bring in from a kill.
Expect them to come get you, his hands say.
“Sure.” I put both hands flat on the table as if to lean on them to help me rise, but actually to hide the fact that they are trembling. A mix of anxiety, anger, and fear. “Done?”
“Done,” Guy says. He stands up, a broad nearly idiotic grin on his face. “Good eats, eh lass?”
I smile back, maybe even more moronically. “Yeah!”
Unless I get eaten first.
When I leave the armory I am, of course when within Haven’s “safe” environment, disarmed. Or at least that is how I appear. My guns and my Bowie knife have both been left, as always, in Guy’s safekeeping. The only thing he’s given me are the words he always speaks when we part.
“May the road keep you safe.”
But I do have a few other little tricks up my sleeve just in case my journey runs into any dangerous roadblocks. More accurately, I have one in my belt, which has a flexible blade hidden inside that can be whipped out with one twist of an ornamental stud. And I have another four-inch-long needle of a knife inside the heel and sole of my shoe.
So I do not feel totally naked as I cross the yard—even though I feel Edwin’s beady little eyes on my back and catch enough of his thought to know that he is mentally stripping me yet again. Sadly, though I wear clothes that are as bulky as I can possibly wear without slowing myself down, they do not hide enough of my figure to disguise the fact that I am not at all shaped like a boy.
I don’t swing by the washrooms to get the half cup of water and moist cloth that ordinaries like me are allowed to bathe with. My dark hair is sticky with sweat, my face and arms are smudged with
red dirt. My fingernails have dried blood under them. If they are coming for me, I’d rather have them find me dirty.
I do take a detour to the western wall through the vegetable gardens. My mother works in the gardens, and I have a faint hope I might see her briefly. The Ones rarely let her or my siblings out of the family quarters when I am in from a hunt, but perhaps they forgot.
The gardens remind me of her even though I don’t see her working. They are an oasis of green, one of the few calming places here in Haven. We grow over two dozen different vegetables and fruits from seeds and cuttings that Haven’s foragers have gathered on their trips outside the walls, and the garden is carefully irrigated from the spring that everyone here in Haven depends on.
I shake my head at the thought of how people in the past used precious water to carry away their human bodily wastes instead of just carrying your night soil bucket to the compost pile, which is just on the other side of the gardens from where I stand.
Mom’s not there. But Hussein is. He’s there all alone, working in a patch of potatoes, singing. He is the head gardener here. Even though he’s only nineteen years old, he has a green thumb. No one complains about his youth or the fact that he talks to his plants.
He notices me watching him and lifts his head, a little smile on his face. Is that smile for me? Probably just left over from whatever conversation he was having with those potato blossoms. But it’s such a nice smile that I almost smile back at him before I remember the importance of keeping my emotions to myself whenever I’m out in public view. I do raise my hand in greeting to him. And he waves back at me.
Dormitory A—which used to be Cell Bloc A—is where I sleep. It’s the single female ordinaries wing. B is single male ordinary. C is for ordinary parents with small children, which means I may be allowed to visit my family but cannot stay with them. I start toward C, where the guard stationed at the entrance recognizes me. He looks down at the sheet on his desk for confirmation, nods to himself. Then he shakes his head and jerks a thumb toward A. I don’t ask why. I don’t protest. I just do as I am told. But the thoughts going through my head are all silent screams. Where have they been taken? What is happening to them? And why?
Killer of Enemies Page 3