Citizen

by T. K. Malone

  “But what if it isn’t yours?”

  “Oh, it’s mine all right. I got a strange feeling about it. Plus, I’m more than intrigued to find out what’s in that silver box.”

  That had been lurking in the back of Zac’s mind, too. Three crates, all with “Nevada Mead” stenciled on the side, three getups in each of two: helmets, boots, orange rad-suits, gloves, the full works. The third was just a wooden case encapsulating a silver box. Stenciled in red letters on the top of this box were the words “Do not open”, and attached to the top was a small envelope and a single receiver. Laura had known exactly what the receiver was—a locator. The note merely said: “Turn locator on. Find beacon. Open box. Charm”; beneath which was written “Simple enough, Zac?” and a little smiley face. They’d broken the crate away and Noodle had pressed a small circle in one corner of its base—two poles had sprung out. He’d then pressed another place on the other side and another two poles had shot out; four poles to carry the box to ground zero.

  Zac hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but somehow it hadn’t been this, not that four men would carry a box into annihilation, each dressed in space suits with another—a woman—accompanying them. But then, wherever he was, he should have known that Charm would throw him a curved ball. The temptation to open the box, or more aptly the casket, had been immense, and again Laura Meyers had stepped in, insisting that whatever was in there could well be degradable, fragile in some way.

  Zac pushed himself off the stool. “Me too, Switch; me too. Maybe what’s in that box explains things. I don’t know why, but it’s started some strange parallels going around in my head.”

  “Like what?”

  “Did you ever meet Connor?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, hopefully someday you will.” Zac put his boot up on the rung of his stool. “In many ways he was an odd kid. Never settled in the city, never settled in the alleys just off the grid, and I’ll bet, wherever he is, he isn’t settling in there, either. Anyway, he had a thing for old movies.”

  “Old movies?”

  “Yeah, ones before The Free World, before all the propaganda crap. There was one… Now, what was it called?” and Zac held his finger up. “What the fuck was it called? Raiders…Raiders Of The Lost Ark, that was it. It was all about this crate with something important in it, and these folk carried it around on long poles. I’m sure they did. And there was an army, a huge army. Anyway, that’s what this silver casket reminds me of, with its poles for handles and the like. Except we’ll look like spacemen, not soldiers.”

  “Any good? The film. Was it any good?”

  Zac thought for a while. “I don’t know—it was one of Connor’s favorites. Teah liked it, too. Me? Rarely watched them. Looked through them occasionally, just could never focus on one thing that long.” He pushed himself away from the bar. “Didn’t see it at the time, but they were good days,” then he made his way toward the terrace.

  “Zac?” Switch called.

  Zac stopped and turned.

  “I met Charm a few times, even sat with them when they played chess.”

  “So?”

  “So, a couple of times they mentioned her.”

  Zac felt his heart skip a beat, his stomach lurch upward. “Her?” he whispered.

  “Teah. They talked about her.”

  His mind began to swim, and he reached for a chair and pulled it toward him. “What did they say?” he asked as he sat down again.

  Switch jumped off his stool and walked over, grabbing him by the arms, pulling Zac around to face him.

  “I think she’s still alive, Zac, or was.”

  “Alive?”

  “I heard bits, only bits, mind. They always hushed up when I was close, but I think she’s still alive and close enough to be within their gaze.”

  Zac felt his knees weaken, his hands shake, and his jaw dropped open. Teah, the girl he’d thought lost forever, the girl who’d just disappeared one day, never to be seen again. “How can that be—she was a stiff; they wouldn’t have let her leave the city. How? Ten years, Switch; how?”

  Switch put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and squeezed. “This ain’t no game, brother. I just know I heard her name—several times. Maybe that’s what they wanted me to hear. Maybe they wanted you to have hope? Shit, Zac, I wish I’d never mentioned it.”

  Zac took a deep breath. “No, you did good,” then he took another. “Did good. I, er… I just need to process it all. Too many games, Switch; Charm, Cornelius: they’re playing too many games at once, and they need a load of players. No way did Teah get out of the city—she never knew any of the routes, so no, she’s dead,” but Switch was shaking his head.

  “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I hadn’t thought it important. Take my word for it, Zac, she’s alive. I’m as certain as I can be about that.” He glanced out at Laura. “Just thought you should know.”

  “Yeah, well,” and Zac got up to go out. “I can’t believe it, not at the moment. There’s too much shit going on for me to deal with anymore.”

  He made his way toward the door.

  “There’s something else, Zac.”

  “Don’t want to know, Switch,” and he walked out onto the terrace.

  “Zac,” Switch shouted, “you need to know…” but Zac was now looking straight at Nathan Grimes.

  16

  Zac’s Story

  Strike time: plus 5 days

  Location: Angel Bay Hotel

  Zac watched the dawn lighten the sky. What had been a dark blue had now turned to a crazed, almost shattered blue, and though the sun hadn’t yet risen above the mountains behind him, somehow Zac felt its warmth.

  He knew he’d have to watch Grimes, and in some ways he rued the fight they’d had, but shit happened. They’d talked—Billy Flynn had arbitrated, though he’d said next to nothing, as was his way—and on the surface it could even have been mistaken for a settling of their differences. In reality, though, all they’d really done was bury their hatred for each other, to let it brew, to ferment into something poisonous, something far more toxic than it had been before.

  Now he was sure, absolutely sure, he would have to watch his back, his front and his sides if he was going to survive. Someday, Nathan Grimes would come for him, and he’d come from the shadows.

  The problem he now faced was one of gangs within gangs. His sphere of loyalty had diminished over the years. Though his father’s reputation rolled before him like a crushing boulder, his years in Black City had consigned him, in most folks’ eyes, to being nothing more than a rushed pair of hands in a darkened tunnel. If anything, Billy Flynn was held in higher regard. “You just gotta smile a bit more, Zac,” he mumbled to himself.

  “That you have,” Laura said, drawing alongside. “You stay out here all night?”

  “Yeah, had some thinking to do. Sorry.”

  “Don’t have to apologize to me. I found a decent enough room with a nice enough bed. Bit cold, but you can’t have everything—not when you’re a stranger in town.” She nudged him. “Though I have to say, those boys in your little gang are mighty friendly, and a couple of the girls, too.”

  Zac huffed. “Like I said—”

  “Like you said: you gotta lighten up.”

  “I was just trying to get my head straight, that’s all. I shouldn’t have gone after Grimes, not like that, not in front of everyone.”

  “Nope, you probably shouldn’t.”

  “And then I got to thinking about that casket. Ain’t that one devious way of making sure I don’t just go in there on my own.”

  “There’s no way anyone’s going into the center of that city,” Laura said, and Zac looked around, then back out at the sea, slumped on the terrace’s balustrade. “There’s no way anyone is going into the center of that city,” Laura repeated.

  “No choice. I have to go where that locator tells me.”

  “What’s riding on it, eh?”

  Zac shook his head. He wanted to tell her why, but
he felt like everyone had a hidden agenda, like everyone had an angle, and that his trust was restricted to maybe only Billy Flynn, perhaps Noodle at a push. He desperately wanted to trust her, but the gaps in her story were just too wide. He shut his eyes and wished for his old bar, then he smelled Laura’s scent, felt her lean closer.

  “It’s okay,” she said, her voice hushed. “Whatever your reasons, what I said still stands: there’s no way anyone is going into the center of that city.”

  “Why?”

  “Suit or no suit. We’re what? Five days in? I’m guessing the ground under the middle of that blast, at the epicenter, is still going to be hotter than a demon’s dick. Plus, if you’re fixing to go right into the middle, you’re going to need a ton of diggers just to clear a path through the rubble. Tell me, Zac, just how much do you know about a nuke?”

  Zac turned, elbow on the balustrade, and glanced sideways at her. He scoffed and took out a smoke. “Thought everything got vaporized.”

  “Everything? Nah, not everything. Most everything, but not all of it. It’s going to be a mess for miles. Probably start getting impassable after a mile or so. What are we? Twenty miles away?”

  “Less.”

  “Too close, whatever, you’ve got to thank your lucky stars this was one of the newer nukes, else this place wouldn’t be quite so comfortable.” She grabbed his cigarette and took a drag. “This nuke was designed to take out The Grid and not much else. It’s the new war, the new philosophy: throw your opponent back to the Stone Age and let them suffer for an eternity, or vaporize them and let them get away with it.”

  “Most kind of them,” Zac muttered, lighting another smoke. “Charm would have known all this.”

  “Charm? I’m sure he’s versed in the consequences of a surgical strike on a grid city. Would be surprised if he wasn’t involved in drawing up the accords.”

  “They had agreements for all… Wait—you know Charm?”

  “Me?” and she pointed to herself. “No, not personally. He knew my grandfather, and father.”

  “Then he knew you,” said Zac. “Trust me, if you were even on the extreme edge of what he could see, he’d have included you in his plans—as sure as a dog’ll lick his own balls.”

  Laura laughed. “And me a girl and all; why, aren’t I the lucky one?” and she fluttered her eyelashes. She grabbed his arm and threaded hers through it. “It’s not out of the realms of possibility that I’ve got some part to play, but if you’re looking for some dark side to me, some hidden motive, you gotta look again. If you hadn’t gone out on that stoop for a smoke, you’d just be wondering how come one of those suits was so small—nothing else.”

  Zac thought on her words, once more feeling that everyone he met was in some way being influenced by Charm, “And maybe even by my father” flashed through his mind. He wanted desperately to trust her, for some reason even more so now he’d learned that Teah might still be alive. For some reason that news had angered him, made his stomach boil. Teah, who’d deserted him ten years before, had left him with no explanation. It confirmed what he’d thought all along: Teah had clearly reckoned she was just too good for him, too good for a smuggler, a low-life carnie. He pulled Laura closer.

  “You were saying?”

  “About what?”

  “The tactical nuke; you were talking about that.”

  She laughed again, and it rang around the terrace as she pushed herself away, her trailing hand lingering enticingly in the air as she made her way into the bar. It was early, too early for most of the club, and so the place was empty. Sitting at a table, she pushed the chair opposite out, challenging Zac to sit down.

  “I’ve told you,” she said as he did. “The nuke would have been designed and assigned for Black City. Satellites would have calculated the area of its grid, and the warhead would have been sized accordingly.”

  “That calculated?”

  She shrugged. “Of course. After most of Europe was laid waste, and waste is an appropriate word here, no nuclear country wanted that kind of war again. Nope, put your educated population on the line—your biggest assets and nothing else.”

  “So who wins?”

  “Wins? No one wins; it’s a nuclear war. But time, Zac, time will tell who was best prepared. Who can recover quickest: that’s who wins.”

  Zac ran his fingers through his hair, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. Twice, three times, he tried to speak but nothing came out. He rubbed his eyes, scratched his head, looked around, and stared back out to sea, but none of it helped.

  “And they called my old man a psycho,” he eventually managed.

  “Meh,” she said, “he didn’t wear a suit, of course he was a nutcase.”

  “So, what do I do?”

  “Do?”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, I have six rad-suits and a mission. I’m supposed to carry a cask into ground zero and do what I’m supposed to do.”

  “That?” she said, a baiting smile now filling her face. “You’ve already answered that yourself.”

  Zac stared at her. He knew she was enjoying it, knew she loved having the upper hand. “How so?”

  “Charm. You answered it by asking all about Charm and what he would and wouldn’t know. Tell me: if he knows so much, would he set you an impossible task?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he ever tell you that you had to put it back in the center of the city?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “Then you’re going to have to remember exactly what he said. When did you see him last?”

  “Day before.”

  “That when he gave you the instructions?”

  “Just told me. Just said…”

  “What?”

  Zac pulled a spare chair around and parked his legs and boots on it. “Said… Now, what was it?” and he grinned.

  “You playing with me?”

  “A little bit, and playing for time. Meeting Charm was always a mind-fuck.” He looked around at the bar. Billy was standing in the doorway. “Two,” Zac shouted. “Coffee okay?”

  “Sweet. Now, spill.”

  “We were talking about Connor. Whenever he came down to my bar, we’d talk about Connor. He’d ask how he was, whether he’d been down, if he was drinking, smoking, looking good, anything and everything. That day, he said the war drums were drumming—we’d talked about it before—and I asked if Connor would be safe.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said Connor would be going away, said ‘stored underground’, then he changed the subject—it was like he was anxious to cover his mistake. Yes, that was it.”

  Billy came back, dumped a tray of coffees on the table and sat down. “What’s up?”

  “Just trying to remember what Charm said to us, that last time we met him. What he said then.”

  “Said he was going to put Connor in storage; summat like that,” Billy said, passing the coffees out. “Then he said…” Billy looked up, the strain visible on his face. “Then he said… What was it? Yeah. ‘In return, there’re some crates marked up “Nevada Mead”. They’re stashed up in Christmas’. He said that.”

  “I was aiming at the next bit,” Zac pointed out.

  “Oh, that? Well, ‘Need you to put something back, Zac. Retrieve the crates and put something back’. That’s what he said.”

  “Put something back, but where?”

  Billy blew on his coffee. “I thought he said, ‘Here’, but I could be mistaken. No, hang on a minute.” He put his mug down. “You said, ‘Put what back where? Here?’ and he laughed and told you, ‘No’.”

  Zac slapped the table. “That was it: he told me I’d know exactly where, but in case I was too dim to remember, he’d put a fail-safe in.”

  “Too dim too remember?” Laura questioned.

  “He’s got a way with words, has Charm.”

  “So, the fail-safe is the locator, but you’re supposed to know where, despite it. It can only be somewhere you’re
familiar with.”

  “That’s the thing: in a city of about a hundred square miles, I probably only lived in one of them.”

  “Then whatever we’re looking for will be there,” and Laura grinned.

  “So,” said Billy, “we going today, or what?”

  17

  Zac’s Story

  Strike time: plus 6 days

  Location: Black City

  Loser had moaned all the way to the truck. His suit was itching, his visor had steamed up, his boots were too heavy—his suit too baggy—and his oxygen canister dug into his back. He moaned even more when he sat in the truck, even tried unstrapping the tank. In the end, Zac had to tell him and tell him straight. He was also pissed off that Zac had ordered him to stay in the truck, but Zac wanted a clean getaway, wanted to spend as little time as possible in the city. Switch had lost his tongue and had reverted to his silent state. Billy had somehow folded into his suit, and Noodle appeared to be enjoying the whole affair.

  Now they were heading to ground zero, or at least as close as the truck would get them before its tires melted or debris got in the way. Driving along the freeway, Zac wondered how Billy, Noodle and he had made it out in the first place. He guessed the bay area the city was in had contained the winds, forced them to swirl around and exhaust themselves. The freeway was a mess, though, and Loser fought with the steering wheel to pick a path through the rubble and ruin. They had to stop several times and move twisted metal and other debris, just to gain another hundred yards.

  The city was a couple of miles away when they saw the body, male and middle-aged. His skin was ruddy and pale at the same time, his lips split, a dried puddle of vomit pooled by his mouth. He wore a uniform—a stiff, probably a border guard, Zac thought, one of the farthest away from the explosion’s epicenter.

  It was one of the things Zac had worried about—survivors—even though Laura had assured him time and again that there wouldn’t be any, that no one could have survived beyond a couple of days. As they traveled closer, Zac saw she was right. Even if they’d managed to walk or crawl away, they hadn’t made it far. Those who had tried to survive, she’d told him, those who’d been underground by some stroke of fortuitous luck, would like as not have just been boiled alive. She’d given them all a figure, a number which ended in a row of zeros, and told them how much hotter it would have been compared to the surface of the sun. Boiled alive, Zac thought; fortuitous indeed. Loser made it another mile before he had to stop once and for all.