by T. K. Malone
“Certainly a moment worth savoring,” agreed Cornelius, and then he pushed his plate away and leaned forward, his hands clasped together as though he was preparing for something monumental. “Another smoke?” he then asked.
“What?” she said.
“Another smoke. You should have a smoke. They aren’t Saggers’, but they’ll take the edge off.”
“Off what?”
Cornelius pushed a pack of smokes over the table. Wesley cleared her plate—almost as if he didn’t want it in the way—then pushed her glass of wine closer. “It has to be you,” he said to Cornelius.
“Oh, I know. I know that well enough. I’ll tell her in just a moment.”
“Tell me what?”
“Aww, shoot, Cornelius, just tell her.”
Cornelius shrugged. “Can’t hurt.” He fixed her with a stare. “You see, Ethan Saggers is a peculiar symptom for us. Is it true he just throws our money behind his sofa?”
Teah nodded. “Ain’t too much use fer it if you can eat and drink without it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. There should always be a use for money. Heaven help us all if greed were to vanish. Think of what a disgustingly average world we’d live in. Ethan Saggers, Teah, is a cancer which needs to be rooted out. Can’t have folk happy with their lot, now, can we? Where’s the struggle in that?”
She wasn’t quite sure whether Cornelius was playing with her, but there was no doubt in her mind he was holding something back, toying with her like a salmon on a line. She remained silent, though, lit the offered smoke and sipped her wine.
“No?” Cornelius said. “Very well. The person I was discussing Saggers with, a person who was very close to you, was…was my son, Zac.”
Teah froze, a wave of sickness running through her. Her hands began to shake as her heart fluttered and her head swam at the impossible news. “Zac…” she finally managed to say as her wine glass slipped from her hand and rolled onto the desk.
Wesley righted and filled it before draining his own. “Better than I’d anticipated.”
“Indeed, Wesley, far better. And I suppose you’d best get her some water—she looks quite pale.”
Teah grabbed the whiskey bottle instead and took a long slug. “How?” she at last asked. It was all she could manage. Her head was now roiling with images of Zac, of the fun-filled Zac she remembered—the intense, loving, drunk Zac. But how could he have survived?
Cornelius, though, was now wheezing with uncontrollable laughter. “Oh, Wesley, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know my son at all. How? Did you really believe he was a washed-up drunk? Did you honestly believe his lie? Of course he’s alive, a bargain he forged early on.”
“Bargain? With who?”
Cornelius clapped with apparent glee, then, as though someone had switched it off, he stiffened, his expression hard, his stare cold. “With Josiah Charm, that’s who.”
“But—”
“We can discuss it on the road,” Cornelius declared.
“On the road?” Teah felt completely lost at the sudden sharp turn the conversation had taken.
For just a brief moment, she though she saw the flicker of a winning smile seep across his face. He rolled his glass around in his hand. “Let me tell you a little secret: folk just aren’t observant. Do you know that? Now, everyone thinks I’m institutionalized; I’ve been cooped up in here for so long I’m scared of the outside world. What about you?”
She knew it was a test, but an easy one. “I think you leave this place regularly, and have done for a long time.”
“Why?”
“That’s a natural tan you’ve got.”
Finally, he did smile.
“Indeed. Wesley will take care of any arrangements with the preppers.”
“And you?”
He stood. “Me? Why, I’m coming with you.”
2
Teah’s Story
Strike time: plus 8 days
Location: Christmas
Cornelius let Teah drive the truck. It appeared he’d made up his mind to come with her before she’d even uttered a word, and Wesley had gotten all his gear ready, and “all his gear” consisted mostly of guns and knives, a leather jacket and a number of black T-shirts. He sported a pair of round, green-lensed sunglasses, and if you hadn’t known who he was, Teah thought, you’d just have assumed he was your average, run-of-the-mill, scary-assed, motherfucker. She knew who he was, though, and what he’d done, but somehow that didn’t scare her quite as much as she thought it would have done.
They sped past his garden ornaments, still hanging there on their posts, and he shouted over the blaring music, “Man, they stink.” Then he asked her, “You like this?”
She assumed he was referring to the heavy rock. It wasn’t bad.
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t get music like this on the grid.” He sat back, arm draped out of the window. “Turn up the other valley when you get to Sendro Verde.”
“The other valley?”
“Little detour.”
Looked like he wanted to go to Christmas. Another delay, Teah thought. Did Cornelius want some bonding time? And why had he clammed up every time she’d tried to question him about Zac—not that she’d had much time, their being on the way in under an hour from his surprise proclamation. Her sideways glances at him confirmed he felt very comfortable being on the outside.
Small talk was clearly not on his mind, his head turned away from her as he looked over at the valley which led to Christmas, what could be seen of it through the high-reaching redwoods. Whether he was plotting her fate or just enjoying the wind in his hair, she couldn’t fathom, but she did know he’d taken an enormous risk, and didn’t have a clue why. Back at the correctional, he’d have been near-invincible; out here he was exposed. Why do that? She’d already discounted “Love for a grandson he’d never met”. No, it had to be something else, something more.
She drove on until his raised hand told her to slow and then to turn onto a small, overgrown track. At its end, they came to a ramshackle house in a little clearing. Cornelius directed her to stop outside. He turned the music down and just sat there, looking at the place.
“Smoke?” he eventually asked.
She pulled out her pack and lit two, passing him one.
“You don’t seem too scared of me, but then I’m guessing that scared and you are mostly strangers.”
Teah grunted. “I ain’t no helpless gridder girl. Killers rarely change their ways; I can’t do anything about that.”
“And you’re my grandson’s mother. Tell me—and I’m not complaining—but why did you call him Clay?”
She too now stared at the house, seeing through it to some unknown distant spot. “Because I loved them both.”
“Both?”
“Zac and Connor. I used to watch the old films with Connor; he liked them. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like the love I had for Zac. It was odd what I felt for Connor—almost a... What’s the word? Kinship; yeah, a kinship.” She felt Cornelius’ stare and turned to look at him. “That thing we went through together—the sewers—something happened down there, something which bonded us.”
Cornelius got out of the truck and stretched his legs. “Come on, I’ve got somethin’ to show you.” He marched off around the house.
Teah watched him crouch at a graveside. It seemed wrong, not the man she’d read about, not the cold-blooded killer she knew him to be. “Choices,” he called to her as she went to join him and as he looked out over the grave. “I made some I regret and this was one of them. I fucked her life up, Teah, fucked my wife’s life up. She wasn’t strong like Zac, like you. The warden, well, he wasn’t crucified because we had a deal. He let me come up here. No one knew cos I was on my own in that vast, hollow world. In return, I kept his correctional in order. Trouble is, you can’t make amends to the dead, you just can’t.”
“Nope,” Teah said. “They just stay dead.”
Teah shrugged. “Been what, five days? Five days since I’ve seen Clay. Though if I’m honest, it seems mighty longer. Five days I’ve had folk telling me to do this, do that, and all it’s done is delay me, stop me from doing what I shoulda just done in the first place.”
“And what was that?”
“Go after him—what else?”
“Yes, yes you should have. Futile or not, you should have. Either you’d be dead now, or you’d be corralled with him.”
“Both outcomes would have seen me looking out for him.”
“Maybe the second, but definitely not the first. Dead is dead, just like you said. I know, know firsthand. I’ve seen the disappointment in their eyes as they finally slip away.” He sprang up. “I will delay you no more after today—indulge me in this. In the correctional I was assured of one thing, every damn night; one thing.”
“And what was that?”
“That I’d wake up the next day, and the day after, and so on and so on, and on. And I was assured of one other thing, too: that I could come here. Now…now I’m not assured of that. So, I wanted to visit one last time.”
“You planning on dying?”
He grinned as he walked around her. “Not anytime soon. Now, I guess you have a few questions for me.” She followed him as he strode back to the truck. “Questions which you may,” he went on to say, “ask over a beer or two. To Christmas, Teah, and then, once we’ve drunk and slept, so we’ll go and hunt. And God help any who harm our boy, eh?”
Cornelius stopped and stared at her for a moment, the look in his eyes making her blood run cold.
She’d expected a lot of things in her life, and she’d seen more than most, but nothing prepared her for the reception the Drone Slayer got when they drove into Christmas. At first it had just been glances, blatant but furtive. Then a woman had just stopped walking along beside the road and had fallen to her knees, screaming at the top of her voice, soon joined by others. But theirs weren’t screams of horror, nor of revulsion; they were cries of adulation. By the time they’d got to the bridge, a crowd had started following them, running after the truck. And when they pulled up in front of the bar, Cornelius Clay was mobbed.
Teah had known for a while how despised the gridders had been, how hated city folk were out here in the country, but to forgive, no, not only forgive but idolize, a cold-blooded killer, that she couldn’t comprehend. Yet there he was, standing on the truck’s seat, arms aloft, a god returned.
And once he’d called for privacy, like an edict issued from upon high, they’d quickly been afforded a quiet table in a corner of the bar. There, Cornelius relaxed, his boots propped on the empty seat opposite, appearing content in doing nothing more than absorbing the essence of the place.
“Goddamn, but I love this joint—always have.”
Teah took off the cattleman and shed Lester’s coat. “Mighty popular up here,” she pointed out.
“Never underestimate hate’s ability to thrive and grow,” he told her before taking a gulp of his ale. “The folk of today learned their hatred from their mothers and fathers, and so on, back down the line. Time enhances both truths and lies. Remember, it was only thirty odd years ago that the walls went up, though in most minds there’d been a divide for a long while before that.”
“Why?” Teah asked.
According to The Free World, the separation had been mutual. The Urbanistas of yesteryear, rueing having to follow the political sway of the rural voters, had forced the separation supposedly in order to pursue their more liberal ways, their more caring ways. Those were the teachings, the official reasons. But the government had twisted that ideal to its own ends, had got rid of its populist wave and sown its own agenda. Teah knew firsthand that Black City had been anything but the utopian ideal those eager campaigners had sought.
“Resentment mostly,” Cornelius finally said. “Oh, I know most will point to vaccinations being withdrawn, to the poorer schooling, computers, hospitals and commerce, but that’s not where the roots of their hatred are buried. No, you have to look in here for that.” And he tapped his temple. “Those city dwellers thought they knew better than the country folk; thought the country folk stupid, incapable of voting with a clear mind. In that pit of condescension did the seeds of hatred take root.” He smiled, though it gave Teah no comfort. “Folk just don’t like being called stupid.”
And Teah knew his words to be true, exactly so. “In the end they voted for a leader who ultimately killed them,” she whispered, and Cornelius nodded.
“Irony. It’s a wonderful thing; majestic, beautiful.”
“Where’s Zac?”
“Zac? Doing Charm’s bidding. Probably paying off a load of debt.”
“Debt?”
Cornelius shrugged. “Who knows how many bargains it took to save his life, to save Connor’s.” Then he looked directly at her. “And probably yours, though he thinks you’re dead. Well, at the very least, lost.”
“You knew I was alive and you never told him? What about Clay? Does he know about Clay? Wait… Connor’s alive, too?”
Cornelius held up a hand, as if to deflect her questions. “Patience, patience. We have the whole night before us. No, I didn’t tell Zac about you, or Clay. After all, what did I know at the time? That you were alive in Aldertown. Had I told him that he would probably have headed up there and been killed or captured by the army. Besides, he had, or has, a task to do, a debt to repay.”
“To Josiah Charm.”
“Indeed. And mostly for Connor’s protection.”
“Connor?”
Cornelius grinned, a faraway smile, as if something deeper amused him. “Josiah Charm is currently holding Connor captive—though Connor doesn’t know it. It’s a stunning plan, really, one that ensures Josiah lives through the coming turmoil. You see, what Josiah understands that very few folks get is this: you have to be alive to be the last man standing, to win.”
“To win?”
“You don’t get any points for being dim, Teah. Don’t you get it yet? It’s a game to Charm, nothing more, and that makes him dangerous.”
“Is it a game to you, to Zac, to Connor?”
Cornelius reached for a smoke, seeming to mull over his reply. He took a long draw, eventually letting the smoke dribble from his lips. “To Connor? No. I don’t think he’s cynical enough yet. I think he’s living his life. The detachment you need to see the moves, to be a general, just isn’t there—not from what I’m told. Very much a pawn. Now Zac, he’s a rook that aspires to the elevation of being a knight. He just clatters around, eyes in one direction or another, just steamrollering any opposition outta the way. I think Zac thinks he plays, but no, he doesn’t.”
“And you?”
Cornelius signaled for another beer, taking a gulp when it soon came. “I’ve had nothing else to do but play, to manipulate, but with only Grimes to shove around. He’s the head of my little club—Zac might have mentioned that. No, I’ve dabbled; I think that’s about the extent of it. Only now can I truly play.”
Teah looked around the bar. For the most part folk were trying to ignore them both, and for the most part they were failing. His summation of Zac was eerily accurate. She’d known he was driven by a mix of temper and ideals, one often fuelling the other, and wondered how those ideals were holding up now everything had changed. If this was just a game, would Josiah Charm see the extinction of the cities as just another move or the start of a whole new one? Had the apocalypse handed Cornelius Clay another chance to play?
“I need some air,” she said, to which Cornelius only nodded.
She walked out of a side door and onto a stoop which looked out over a mess of bottles and barrels which tapered away into the vastness of the surrounding forest. Teah was tired, exhausted, and she slumped down, her chin in her hands. Though she’d been on her own for most of her time since leaving Black City, she’d never felt as lonely as she did now. Survival:
it had always been about that with Clay, and yet it had never seemed it. What of Zac, though? She looked up at the dusk sky. What future would she have with Zac? Then her eyes fell to the tree line, from where a flock of birds took sudden flight, and for a moment she wondered why.
A huge explosion thumped out, distant but startlingly loud, like thunder. Teah jumped up, swinging her gaze over to the preppers’ valley from where it had come, even farther away she was now sure. It could only mean one thing, one place, and then smoke bloomed above the tree line, a black and insidious blot on the gray sky, its plume rising ever higher, her gaze held to it by her shock. What could she do? and the impotence of the last few days caught up with her, her knuckles going white as her grip crushed the leather of Lester’s coat.
People were now spilling from the bar, their voices muted. Her hands let go of Lester’s coat, seemingly of their own accord, reaching up to cup her ears as though her body somehow knew what was to come. Like a bubble bursting, pain erupted from the base of her skull, racing up to surround and then squeeze her brain in an ever-tightening grip. She tried to scream, to curl into a small ball, but felt herself slip from the stoop and roll into the mud below. Vivid images flashed across her mind’s eye, cutting through her consciousness like the arc of a mightily swung sword.
And with it, she saw the vagrant, saw it was Lester, a slightly younger Lester beckoning her toward the sewer pipe. He was sodden, dripping, oddly iridescent, and the pipe was huge, puncturing the surface of the wasteland like some giant, black-ribbed worm, a worm into whose mouth she raced, sensing time was short.
The next image presented a scene of utter blackness, but one through which she crept on, fumbling for her flashlight. She called out “Hello?” but no one answered. Then a woman’s voice came to her, hollow as it bounced off the ribbed walls. “Over here,” it had called, but where was here? Where was her flashlight?
A hauntingly white glow lit up the liquid she now realized she was wading through, a black, oily liquid over whose thick surface crawled silver snake-like streaks. There was something unnatural about them, something wrong, and when she looked down, she saw they were congregating around her legs as she continued to inch her way along the sewer. And all the time, the glow from one side grew ever stronger until she rounded a curve and came directly into the light of a chamber.