GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  Seeing as Jillybean had been “crazy” a great deal of the time, that was a tall order. She did her best, speaking with all the honesty she could muster. As she spoke, she came to realize that, despite everything, she actually liked the crazy girl. When Jillybean was herself, she was extremely sweet and caring. In fact, Jenn concluded to herself, Jillybean was her friend. Her first and only friend.

  This subconsciously colored her narrative though it hardly mattered in the end. The Coven had made up their minds before she had ever stepped foot in the room.

  This was evident in the first question Donna asked, “You are somewhat close to Stu, how do you think he’ll be with Jillybean’s expulsion?”

  “Expulsion?” She guessed the word meant something like banishment. “Why would you kick her out? She saved One Shot even after he attacked her. I told you that’s what happened.”

  Lois gave Jenn a sympathetic head tilt. “Yes, you did. And we all agree he was in the wrong, however, we also agree that Jillybean’s reaction was straight up insane. Who shoots a man for raising a fist?”

  “And then there are the boats!” Tammy Easterling cried, the scars on her face standing out white against the red of her indignation. “She’s stranded us. I don’t need to tell you that it’s a fifty-mile hike around the bay just to get to the northern tip of Oakland. Fifty miles filled with the dead.” A theatrical shiver wracked her.

  “Hmm, the boats,” Donna murmured. “That is another mark against her. We have it on good authority that even if we can raise the Saber, Gerry the Greek is going to demand it.”

  Jenn knew that this authority was Mike Gunter and he probably wasn’t wrong. Gerry would be well within his rights to demand the boat. “But he’ll return the Puffer, we all know that.”

  “And how long will it be before Jillybean steals it or sinks it?” Donna asked. “It’s not like we can guard it day and night. And let me warn you, this talk of expulsion is dependent on whether One Shot actually lives. It’s still too early to know. If he does happen to die…” She left off with a shrug.

  They would kill her.

  Unbidden, Jenn’s hand went to the small pouch tied to her left wrist. It was no longer soft and the basil no longer made that whispering crinkle sound. It was a soggy lump that smelled weird. Jillybean would have laughed at it and mentioned something about science or math, “Or logic,” Jenn said under her breath.

  Logic suggested that if the Coven made stipulations as to whether someone would be executed or not, they would likely make some agreement concerning banishment.

  “What would it take for you to allow her to stay here?” Jenn asked. “Do you want electricity? She knows how to make it. She built a, uh, a thing that makes the lights work and the water come right out of the wall like it used to. Hot water. That was no dream or fantasy. That was real.”

  Jenn felt the promise of electricity was her best chance. Everyone who had grown up before the apocalypse missed the creature comforts of the old days and she was sure that if the Coven wasn’t wholly governed by fear they would’ve jumped at the chance to go to Bainbridge.

  “She can really make electricity?” Donna asked, her skepticism eclipsing any hopefulness within her. “Really? The truth now. We had an engineer with us once who used to brag that it was easy, but he never lit one light bulb. Not one. He said he was working on it every day for a year and never did anything else. He even had the little kids haul his water and fetch his kindling.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember him,” Jenn said. It had been eight years before, but she could still picture his lecher’s eye on her. Even at seven, she knew it was wrong. “Mister Duncan, right? Didn’t he run off to the Santas or something?”

  Miss Shay spat, “Good riddance. I like to believe we can get back to the way it was, but it won’t ever happen. Your little friend probably flipped the right switch or something up in Seattle, but it won’t be the same here. It’ll all have to be done from scratch and, sorry to say, the people with the know-how are all dead. Probably Duncan is dead, too.”

  “But if she could,” Jenn insisted, “you would let her stay, I’m sure. And she’s not dangerous when she takes her medicine for her, uh, condition. You can have someone watch over her every morning when she takes it. And I will vouch for her. Trust me, if there’s a problem and someone gets hurt it’ll be me, more’n likely.”

  “And you’re willing to take that chance?” Donna asked, her shrewd eyes staring hard at Jenn, looking for the least hesitation.

  Jenn didn’t know if she had a choice. On her own, Jillybean would quickly revert to her murderous state and, knowing Eve and the rumors surrounding her, it would be a vengeful, murderous state at that.

  If Jillybean were executed, Stu would probably leave. Jenn would want to go with him, especially if Mike took up with Colleen, an unhappy event that seemed likely despite Stu’s offer of help. But where would they go? Bainbridge was a possibility, though a remote one. On the last trip, they’d been guided by signs both there and back, but Jenn hadn’t seen a single sign in a week, that is, other than the pinecone of the day before and that barely counted.

  Even if the trip to Bainbridge wasn’t fraught with so many terrifying dangers, they’d probably be looked upon as criminals by the people there. Perhaps they’d even think they were kidnappers. After all, nobody knew how they had left the island and wasn’t it possible they had spirited away poor Jillybean only to sacrifice her? It was the sort of thing the Coven would think, that was for sure.

  If not Bainbridge, Jenn felt reasonably sure the Islanders would take them, but it wouldn’t be pleasant—Gerry the Greek was a good man but he carried grudges for a shockingly long time, and even if the Saber could be made whole, he would build up his memory of the Calypso until it was nothing short of a battleship and the Saber a rowboat in comparison.

  But if Jillybean could really make electricity and build high walls with search lights, maybe the Hilltop could be something. Perhaps it could be what her father and Mike’s father had hoped it would be.

  Jenn took a steadying breath. “I’m willing to bet my life on Jillybean.”

  On the other side of the table six of the seven nodded. “Not everyone thinks electricity would be a good thing,” Miss Shay remarked. “There’s been talk that it’s more akin to witchcraft than science.”

  “People always talk,” Donna replied, “and the less they know on a subject, the more they seem to go on. Forget the talk. Electricity would be a good thing if it could be done.” She sat for a time absently smoothing the table cloth and worrying over everything Jillybean represented, the main of which was the loss of prestige and what little power the Coven had.

  They led at the whim of the people and it had not always been an easy thing to sway that whim especially since people always needed to assign blame to any ill, no matter its minor importance. It was not always the vulgar finger pointing sort of blame either. Mostly it was the raised eyebrow variety.

  Donna understood this better than anyone and it was through this understanding that she had kept her high perch for so long. She had been the chief assigner of blames for the last nine years and by any measure, it had not been a very good or productive nine years.

  The Hill People, far from flourishing, had grown steadily weaker. There was plenty of blame for this to go around, though a good deal had managed to fall on Jenn Lockhart’s shoulders. But if the Coven allowed Jillybean to stay and she killed someone, there would be a great deal of fallout and the Coven would get their share.

  Oh, but how she missed electricity and hot water and all the rest. And there was no denying Jillybean’s genius as a surgeon. The entire Coven had given up on One Shot when he had slipped into what appeared to be a coma. They had lit a candle and left him to “die with dignity,” as Miss Shay put it, which had been gross cowardice on their part.

  She had also fixed up both Aaron and William as if it were nothing. Donna had brought up her dinner, puking right into the bushes at the sight, but Jillybean
had taken the saw to Aaron without blinking and had stitched William up as if she were knitting a blanket.

  If Jillybean had been with them from the start she could have saved another fifty souls and that was on the Hilltop alone. Alcatraz had many similar traumas and accidents that turned fatal.

  “We might keep her,” Donna finally decided. “If One Shot lives and if she can build a machine to make electricity. I want your promise to be honest about this Jenn. If you lie to me, I will expel both of you empty-handed. You’ll walk out the gate with nothing but the clothes on your back.”

  It would be a death sentence, an especially cruel one, and everyone knew it. “I won’t lie,” Jenn promised, not knowing if she could keep her word.

  Chapter 9

  Mike and Stu were discussing how to raise the Saber when Jenn came back to the clinic. The discussion was a quiet one as they both spent long stretches in silence, picturing the boat, its great bulk resting on the rocky bottom of the harbor, its mast stabbing up out of the water.

  Stu threw out, “Couldn’t we just get a chain and pull it out?”

  This was followed by a long pause in which they both bit their lips. Mike eventually answered, “No. It’ll tear up the keel even worse.” This was his worst nightmare. A small hole or crack could be fixed in a few days, but once a hole reached a certain size, the integrity of the entire hull would become questionable.

  “What about lifting it straight up? It can’t be that heavy, right? I used to pull the Puffer around one-handed. If we get enough people…”

  Jenn entered, ending the conversation. She had left feeling afraid and dejected, and returned feeling as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The weight returned as she saw Colleen standing at Mike’s elbow, gazing up at him—and did she just bat her eyes?

  “What happened?” Stu demanded. “What did they say?” They looked at her expectantly as she explained what was being asked of Jillybean.

  Colleen’s red lips drew down. “Electricity? You can’t just make electricity. It comes from somewhere. It comes from batteries and lightning. Maybe it can be collected in some way, but no one knows how.”

  Jenn felt a moment of disquiet at this and Mike was suddenly uncertain about the entire concept. Stu shook his head. “Sorry, but you’re wrong. You can make electricity just like you can make light and sound.”

  “That’s right,” Mike said, remembering. “That Neil guy back at Bainbridge said they could make electricity out of coal.”

  “Coal?” Colleen replied with a laugh. “Have you ever seen electricity come out of coal? We used to burn it all the time in the old days and I never saw electricity come from it.” The term “the old days” sounded strange coming from a girl who was only a year older than Jenn, still they all knew what she meant.

  A trader had come through many years before lugging about more coal than he knew what to do with. The people of the hilltop were kept very warm that year on account of it. Since then, traders with coal were a rare thing, though they always talked like coal was found everywhere east of the Sierras.

  “And if the electricity doesn’t come by burning it, how does it come?” Colleen went on. “Do you rub it together?” She smiled at her joke while the others looked uneasy, not having any idea.

  “I’ll just ask Jillybean,” Jenn announced. She took a step towards the door and hesitated. “Mike should come with me, just in case she’s, you know, a little upset.”

  Mike really was the last person to be around Jillybean when she was “upset.” Stu gently pushed him back. “I’ll go. I think I have a better relationship with her than he does, Jenn. You know that as well as…oh.” She was glaring daggers at him. “Uh, so, while I’m taking care of this, Mike why don’t you go take a look at the boat? Colleen, you don’t mind watching over One Shot, do you?”

  She looked down at her fancy dress, but before she could make an excuse, Stu said, “Good. We probably won’t be that long.” The three left and on the way to the maintenance shed where Jillybean was being jailed, Stu said, “See? I got your back.”

  Jenn was still red with embarrassment at how obvious the entire thing had been. Still, she appreciated that Stu was on her side.

  They came to the garage-sized shed which had acted as a sort of a drunk tank/time-out facility for years. There was a lock in the hasp; the key hung on an old rusty nail, four feet away. It was hardly maximum security.

  “Who do you think is going to be in there?” Stu asked in a whisper. “Jillybean?”

  “I don’t think Jillybean went in.” The girl who left Jenn’s apartment wasn’t Jillybean. Whoever it was, had been trying their best to pretend otherwise. “It won’t be hard to find out.” She unlocked the door and opened it only wide enough to peer in, afraid that Eve or some other dark entity would come bursting out. When this failed to happen, she opened the door further, letting the dull grey light push back the shadows until she saw Jillybean chained to the single support post in the center of the shed.

  The girl, blinking against the light, eyed Jenn for a moment before she shrugged and asked, “What’s the verdict?”

  “The verdict is that you will only live if Jillybean can save the both of you.”

  Because of her towering intellect and force of spirit, Jillybean always made Jenn feel small and terribly young. Eve, on the other hand, because of the malignancy of her very nature, made Jenn fear for her everlasting soul, and perhaps it was this that also allowed Jenn to feel greatly superior to the creature.

  Still eyeing Jenn, Eve spat at her. She did not spit as a woman might, all saliva and frothy anger, no, she spat like a man who had a brown swirl of chewing tobacco stuck in his mouth. They were too far apart for Eve to hit Jenn in the face, so she merely spat insultingly, at Jenn’s feet.

  “Let’s hear it. Let’s hear how only the great and powerful Jillybean can save me. Then, maybe I’ll tell you how many times I saved her. And, how she didn’t just want me to, she needed me to save her, because she’s never been able to do what I can do.”

  Pointedly, Jenn looked around at the shadows in the shed as they attempted to hide from the light. “This is what you’ve managed to do for Jillybean. I can’t say as I’m all that impressed. I would be more impressed if you could have saved One Shot.”

  Eve’s eyes, her yellow eyes, went to slits. The unnatural color seemed so much better suited to her than to Jillybean. “You’re not fooling anyone. He’s alive, otherwise it wouldn’t have been you showing up. Also, it was a simple enough surgery. A belly wound, bah! Remember that ugly whore she fixed up on the ship? Now that was a tough one. The boat pitching back and forth, no light at all and the girl had mostly given up.”

  Jenn remembered it quite well and was surprised that Eve knew it at all. “Oh, I see things,” Eve explained. “I get glimpses when Jillybean is at her lowest, like when she sent you out against the Corsairs all alone. When she sent you to die. That was her idea, at least. She was quite willing to sacrifice you for the sake of her li…”

  “Enough,” Stu said, speaking in a low rumble. “We need to know how to make electricity. Do you know how to do that?”

  The yellow cat’s eyes took on a look of poorly hidden cunning. “I could with the right materials. There were items in Oakland that I would need. I saw them yesterday, but since I didn’t know I was going to be…”

  “What exactly?” Stu demanded. “What’s in Oakland that can’t be found closer?” The yellow eyes shifted away, and Stu sighed. “I thought so. How about this: we need to raise the Saber. It’s drowned in about fifteen feet of water, right up against the dock. How do we get her out?”

  “I’ll need to see how she lays.”

  Stu laughed easily. He was relaxed, and his smile was the one he would have used on a wayward four-year-old. “I’ll draw you a sketch if you need it, though I doubt Jillybean would need one.” She glared and he laughed again, but said nothing else. The two sat there staring fixedly into each other’s eyes, each waiting for
the other to speak.

  In this Stu had a great advantage. He was naturally so taciturn he could go an hour in the company of another person without saying a word.

  This silent contest had Jenn bored in minutes and it was a relief when Eve caved, saying, “I don’t know. I’d pump out the water or something.”

  “There’s a hole in the hull and the water would just flow back in.”

  “Then I’d steal a new boat.”

  “There aren’t any to steal. Look Eve, I’m trying to give you a chance. Think. How would Jillybean do it?”

  Eve actually tried to figure out the little puzzle, even going so far as to try to think like Jillybean, which was her undoing. As she was defined solely by her thoughts and memories, Eve couldn’t “think” like Jillybean without becoming her. Slowly the hate in her eyes turned to confusion and then to sadness.

  “Hello Stu. What’s this about the Saber? She hasn’t been raised yet? What’s everyone been doing?”

  As always, Stu was slow to answer. For a minute, he stared at her, enjoying the simple pleasure of her smile when she asked, “What?”

  “Nothing. I just…never mind. People are doing what they always do. They’re waiting for someone to tell them what to do, though in this case, I think it might be warranted. No one here has ever tried to raise a sunken boat before. Mike’s worried that we’ll hurt it worse no matter what we do.”

  Jillybean tried to stretch, but was brought up short by the chains. She took a second to study them. She gazed at her hands and clothes, took in Stu’s smiling face, pausing to admire his straight white teeth, and saw the confusion in Jenn’s eyes.

  She ticked off what she knew of the situation based on the facts gathered in her observations: “Eve has not killed anyone. That’s good. One Shot is still alive, obviously. The Coven has arrested me and placed me in this pitiful excuse for a jail, and they are looking for me to perform a few minor feats of quasi-genius for them.”

  “Quasi?” Jenn asked.