“People,” she mutters, eyes on the ground. “I’ve … yes … people.”
“How could you?”
“I didn’t have a choice. When the end came we didn’t have a big, tall building to hide in. My dad had his restaurant and me and him and my sister hid in the walk-in freezer when the main power first went out and all the craziness started. Generator was good for a few days and then we heard the sounds outside. Shouts and screams and we thought it was those things, but it was people. The people my dad had served for as long as I could remember. They were scared and hungry and they broke the door down first. My dad tried to reason with them and somebody punched him and then I grabbed the first thing I could find, this cleaver, and I wasn’t thinking, y’know? My sister was screaming her head off and I just swung at the first thing that came at me and it felt like chopping into a melon. I didn’t stop, I couldn’t, and there was blood … so much blood everywhere.”
“I’m sorry, Naia. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“I’m not,” she replies. “I did what I had to do just like I’ve done every day since. And I’m alive because of it.”
“Well I haven’t done that so I guess I’m weak.”
“No, just naïve.”
“There a difference between the two?”
“They’re spelled and pronounced differently.”
A tight smile etches her face and there’s a cunning and intelligence in her eyes that makes her look much older than her age.
“There’s a way we can make this work,” I say. “When the other people find out what’s happened they’re gonna be on our side. They’re gonna … revolt.”
“I hope so, I really do,” she says. And then, listening to the sounds of footfalls and muffled voices from the other side of the door, “but until the others rise up and help us I’ll do like I always do. Hope for the best and expect the worst.”
The door opens and Shaw enters.
“Get fierce, ya turncoats,” he says, “get fierce. The shit’s about to get real.”
5
Bennie Katz was his name.
He was a big lug with librarian’s glasses on a green chain looped around his neck who was short a front tooth and walked with a lilt.
He was one of the original designers of the Keep.
He’s also the only person I’ve ever seen shunned before.
It happened maybe three years back when Bennie was staring down the barrel of forty and his eyes were getting foggy which meant he was a liability.
When he forgot his glasses and didn’t properly inspect a re-weld on the metal barricades down on ten, three Dubs somehow slipped through a gap and nibbled on a few of his colleagues. It was time for him to go.
Gus told me not to attend, said the sight of a shunning would be seared in my memory cells, but I went anyway.
They held it in the multi-purpose room on twenty and did it up nice.
There was raucous music and lots of food and everyone seemed to have fun, including Bennie, who was drunk or drugged, I couldn’t tell which.
He sat up on a podium with a loopy smile and people gave testimonials about everything he’d done and tears were shed and then Odin brought the house down by leading us all in an emotional prayer to the powers of the air (whatever the hell that meant).
And when it was over, when the last song was played (Bennie’s selection of course), Bennie was presented with provisions and gear and taken down to the Flatlands, but not before whispering that, one way or another, we’d all soon meet again.
Gus’s shunning, at least initially, is nothing like that one.
There is no festive music.
No heapings of food or good cheer.
Just an ocean of angry faces and accusatory eyes.
Some of the guests are seated, others standing, the space humming with muffled voices and lots of pointing fingers and angry looks.
I hear whispers and conspiracy theories about why we would do it and about how we tried to let the Dubs in and I want to fight back and tell everyone that it’s all lies, all bullshit concocted by Shooter and the others, but I don’t think any of those assembled will believe me.
We’re led right through the middle of the crowd, close enough to be heckled and spat at, and then we’re manhandled up onto a metal stage that’s about fifteen feet long.
The platform is cluttered with heavy chairs criss-crossed with nylon straps and in the center sits a mock wooden throne with the words “KING” marked in yellow paint that’s been seeded with tiny sparkles.
We’re planted in the metal chairs and strapped in place, a pair of guards flanking us.
Music is soon piped through a series of overhead speakers, background stuff without lyrics that reminds me of the soulless crap they used to play in building elevators before the Unraveling.
More people enter the room until there’s about a hundred pissed off building dwellers peering at us.
Some of the invited are seated, but most stand, milling about, sharing words and gesturing to us. My eyes roam the space before us, eventually finding a young girl who smiles at me and mimes dragging a knife across her neck.
“She’s a real sweetheart,” Naia says.
“I thought they were my friends.”
“If you pick up a dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Means it’s funny how quickly people turn on you. How quickly friends become your judge, jury, and executioner.”
I register this and then look up to see Brixton and Asian Phil and a few others standing at the very back of the room. Brixton exchanges a long look with me and then Asian Phil holds up a balled fist as if in solidarity before vanishing with the others through another door.
Food is wheeled in along with containers of “Shine” and other homemade booze and people commence to eat and drink.
Time passes and the music changes to something sly and festive, old-timey tunes that I imagine were once played before the machines stopped in great ballrooms.
Gus said they once held these kinds of receptions hundreds of years ago. Back when whole towns would shutter so people could get together to drink and eat and mock church leaders and holy-roller types and at the end of the celebration, somebody would rise up and be crowned “Lord of Misrule.”
Shouts ring out and food is thrown and my nose pricks up because the place is starting to stink. It’s all the people crammed into a small space, the sweat, the funk of urine and food that’s been left out for too long.
A side door suddenly slides open and taunts and boos build as Gus is brought in.
He’s clad in blood-red clothes, which are visible under his purple robe.
His face is bruised and he’s sweating ropes and his neck is swollen.
His eyes flush with humiliation and terror.
I imagine he’s been kept confined somewhere without lights and windows because of the way he blinks and fights to shield his eyes from the ceiling’s halogen bulbs.
Gus’s head hangs low as he’s led around on a leash, the revelers crowing and hooting and hollering and verbally assaulting him.
Somebody shoves him down and a child rides him like a horse and I commit the faces of those who are scorning Gus to memory, each and every one. These are the nameless rabble I’ve seen for most of my life. The people I’ve passed in the halls and in the mess line and down through the staircases and anterooms. These people, my neighbors, my friends, are cursing and calling for the death of Gus. The members of the lynch mob aren’t thinking clearly, they can’t be. Nobody can think and hate at the same time.
A blubbering drunken female Burner confronts Gus. She rails at Gus and then flings a flask of liquid in his face as the others around her roar with delight.
Every neuron in my body fires.
Every muscle seizes up.
My face flushes and my blood boils in my ears.
I’m suddenly gripped by the thought that if I could break my bonds right now I woul
d go forth and kill each and every one of the bastards standing out in front of me.
Someone kicks Gus in the side and his knees go weak.
I shout for him and he looks in my direction and then a leather thong loops around my mouth and a guard punches my right ear.
The same guard moves to do the same to Naia and she bites the tip of his finger off.
The wounded guard screams and slaps her and I kick him in the groin before more guards appear and subdue us.
Gus reacts to this, standing as a man elbows him in the side of the head and he folds up like a card table.
An old lady flops on top of Gus and mimics doing some sort of crude sex act to him and then Shooter appears, grinning, delighting in all that he sees. He pumps a fist and dances a little dance and shouts and eggs on those who are mocking Gus.
Then the music goes silent.
The crowd does too.
Odin’s here and smiling and urges calm because, he says, the celebration is about to begin.
6
Odin slips fully through the side door, wreathed by his personal guard.
The crowd waits on baited breath and then Odin thrusts up the crown I saw earlier and everyone cheers.
“And so here we are, my friends,” Odin says, hands crown still raised. “We find ourselves together for another celebration, albeit for an unusual reason.”
He does a slow circuit of the room and his halting mannerisms and look are not unlike a person trying awfully hard to hawk something he may not truly believe in. Then he stops and pivots.
“We are all here on earth to help other people,” he says, and then pausing, as if savoring the line that is to come next, “why the other people are here, I don’t know.”
A beat of silence and then a few nervous snickers and Odin smiles and so does everyone else.
“A learned man said that in the days before the Unraveling. It was a joke, but like everything said in jest, there was a kernel of truth in it. We know why we’re here,” he continues, pointing to select people in the crowd.
“We know what our purpose is, don’t we? To be an island, a safe place in the middle of a raging sea that is at the forefront of making this city great again. We are a bulwark against the hordes that are trying to wipe out everything we know and hold dear. We know who we are, but what about those around us? We assume they’re like us, don’t we?”
More nods and murmurs, a few people holler “Damn straight!”
“We assume they share our values and our mandate, but that’s not always the case is it? Sometimes people have … ulterior motives.”
Odin strolls over and stops before Gus. “You may have already heard this, but some of our brethren broke laws in order to sow confusion and bring about the end of our community.”
The murmurs become angry shouts. Fists are clenched and boots stomped.
“Our old friend Gus and Wyatt plotted with that girl,” Odin continues, stabbing a finger in the direction of Naia, “to find a way to let the Dubs into our building.”
Food is thrown at us and an old man kicks Gus in the ass.
Odin raises and lowers his hands like a man leading a band, getting his congregation (because that’s what they are) to simmer down. He stands in front of Gus for a few seconds as if protecting him. He looks magnanimous down there, but it’s all an act, it’s all bullshit.
“Our former friends wanted to do great and terrible violence to us because they’re jealous of what we have.”
“Kill them!” someone shouts.
“No, nobody shall lay a hand on them,” Odin says. “We won’t raise our fists or tongues in anger. If these misguided souls want to exist outside our walls then I say let them be. But let us send them out into the world in the proper manner.”
Odin whistles and the music pipes up, a jaunty tune this time accompanied by recorded horns and other instruments.
Gus is torqued up and Odin places the crown on his head.
“It’s been quite a while since I’ve had the opportunity to bestow a title, but I give you our king,” Odin says. “The Lord of Misrule. All our sins shall be given to him and his compatriots and carried out onto the Flatlands.”
Odin and his toughs march Gus through the congregation and strap him in place in his throne.
Gus groans and then closes his bloodshot eyes.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Getting my mental affairs in order.”
His eyes flap open and stray to mine. “You okay, kid?”
“Been better.”
“They hurt you bad?” Gus asks.
“Not yet.”
“It’s still early,” Naia offers.
Gus studies Naia for a few heartbeats, his eye twitching, a vein pulsing in his swollen neck.
“You know this isn’t how they normally treat visitors to our little community, young lady.”
“No?”
“Nope, usually it takes years to get this kind of special attention.”
We watch the people before us dance and frisk around, eating less, drinking more until small brawls break out. The music thrums at a fever pitch, the ground soon slicked in food and spilled booze.
“Look at them,” Naia whispers. “Look at the sheep.”
My eyes fix on Odin who stands in the middle of all of it.
“And there’s the shepherd.”
“He’s no shepherd, Wyatt. He’s too smart for that.” Gus says. “In a country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. That guy is the master string puller, the one who knows all the old tricks.”
“What kind of tricks?”
“Hundreds of years ago there was a way that many people dealt with uncertainty. They couldn’t explain why the crops failed or the weather was shitty so they searched for someone to blame. A lot of the time it was the king, the ruler, who ended up taking the fall, but more often than not the community settled on a scapegoat, a person who was sacrificed to make things right.”
“Who’s our scapegoat?”
“You’re looking at him,” Gus says, his head sinking.
“But it’s all lies. Everything they’ve said about how we were trying to let the Dubs in sabotage the building isn’t true.”
“It’s true to the people who want to believe it. It’s part of the grand myth that surrounds this entire place. All of us have bought into it at one point or another, even me for a while. And the beautiful thing about it is, once you’re created the myth, once you control how people think, you can get them to believe almost anything.”
The music swells and now Odin and Shooter are leading the others in some song whose lyrics I can’t make out. They’re arm-in-arm, boisterous, rocking back and forth as people cheer and thump their chests.
Then the music fades and Odin turns and waves at one of his men who lobs a rucksack onto the ground. The ruck’s filled with what looks like food and gear and I can’t help but smile because I know it’s all for show. Nobody ever gets to use anything in the ruck, because they never make it more than a block away before they’re murdered.
Gus manages to undo one of his bindings.
He reaches out a hand to me.
“And so it comes to this, kid,” he says.
“We’ve still got a chance. When they come for you I’ll be ready.”
He smiles wearily as Odin and Shooter and Shaw and a line of armed muscle begin moving toward us.
“It’s all over.”
His head cants and he locks eyes with me. “It’s okay. Everything comes to an end eventually.”
“You’re the only real father I’ve ever known.”
Gus smiles. “I’m going to miss you,” he says, chuckling bitterly. “Jesus, it hurts so much to even think about it.”
My nose burns and my eyes water. “I love you, Gus.”
“I know that, kid, and I love you too. I love you more than life itself.”
Odin’s men are marching up onto the platform, headed for Gus.
“Hold my hand, Wyatt,” Gus
whispers, his lip quivering. “Would you please just hold my hand for a sec.”
Gritting my teeth, I manage to wrench my hand out and take his in mine. I can feel the fear in his fingers.
“Are we interrupting a tender moment?” Shaw says, the other men snickering.
I pin Shaw with the nastiest look I’ve got. “Fuck you.”
“Not yet, but maybe later,” he says, grabbing Gus by the collar on his robe.
Gus reaches for me and I for him and Shaw grabs me in a bear-hug and muscles me out toward the corridor.
I look back for Gus who’s being spirited off in the other direction.
He waves at me and then he’s through the side door and gone and just like that, the man who saved me, who raised me up and gave me everything is no more.
He’s a ghost now like Dad.
Shaw grabs my chin, one of his filthy fingers tracing the contours of my lips.
“Show some fucking respect,” he says, angling my face toward Odin.
“He comes with me,” Odin says.
“And the girl?” Shaw asks.
“Put the harlot in the hole,” Odin replies. “Let’s see how long she lasts.”
I’m unbound and hoisted to my feet, turned around as Shaw hulks over me and then strikes my face as blackness fills my head.
7
The white noise of air movers and room purifiers greet me as I awaken in Odin’s lair, my head jaw throbbing.
A few bars of smoky light sneak through a nearby window, splashing my face.
I’m on my back, laid out on a couch near the diorama of the city.
Odin sits across from me on a chair, his legs crossed, fingers tapping his knees. Even when seated there’s an energy in the way he hunches over and scans me. I bet the evil sonofabitch never sleeps. I bet he hangs upside down by his feet in a darkened room like a bat.
I can smell incense and taste my own blood, Shaw’s fist having split my lip.
Elbowing myself up, anger wells up inside me and my right hand forms a fist.
“You have a choice right now, Wyatt,” Odin says, cold menace in his voice, pointing at the fist. “Choose unwisely and it will not end well for you.”
Vertical City Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 28