The Milkman: A Freeworld Novel

by Martineck, Michael

  Campbell climbed the ladder, as Emory swung to the side. They both grunted, pushed and lifted the round, waffled hatch out of its nest. They slid it sideways, skidding it on the pavement.

  A car screeched. They heard a bang. The twinkle of a glass shower. The light blinded them. They scrambled out, as people— two men maybe — shouted. They emerged into an intersection, downtown. Cars paused at the corners, some obeying the traffic lights, others blocked by the accident.

  “Hey!” Emory heard, directed at them. He paid no attention. He saw a parking garage a block back in the direction they had just come, but above ground.

  “This way,” he told Campbell.

  “That’s back towards the dorm.”

  “You arguing with me now?”

  “Your luck’s gonna run out.”

  They ran down the sidewalk. The city air tasted wonderful. Emory felt the prick of sun on his cheeks and, even though his stomach shrank and wanted to throw out what little it had left and his lungs had become pincushions, he felt it. The good in it.

  They ran halfway into the parking garage, snuck between two sedans and collapsed. Emory looked at Campbell, his dirty face, a long string of drool clinging to his lower lip. They both heaved huge amounts of air in and out.

  After his breathing steadied, Emory stripped off his yellow overalls. He rolled them in a ball and put the mass under his arm. He might need them. The temperature couldn’t have been 50. The concrete began to leach out the heat he’d generated in his run. Campbell looked ready for a nap.

  “We can’t stay here,” Emory said.

  “Where we gonna go?” Campbell rubbed his eyes.

  “Aren’t you the one who said we could walk away whenever we wanted? We always had the right to quit and go home?”

  “Technically.”

  “I know. I know. The numbers. The chief would rather have two accidental deaths than two resignations.”

  “I don’t even have a home to go to,” Campbell said.

  Home, Emory thought. That’s the other thing they’ll do. He said, “The chief will send somebody to my house.”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “No, it won’t, but there’s nothing I can do. Nothing. I’m worse than useless. I’m making trouble.”

  “No,” Campbell said. “You saved my life.”

  Emory took that in. Like the air and the light, the tiny scent of spring eking its way through the city.

  “Those assholes are going to my house,” Emory said.

  Campbell nodded. Emory cupped his hands over his face. He wanted to punch the door of the car behind him. Such a waste of energy, though. He couldn’t waste the energy.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  McCallum found John Raston on the wall, river side, next to a small pile of clothes and a cooler; the kind McCallum would’ve used to keep beer cold at a beach. John ran a pair of jeans up and down a piece of corrugated steel, spraying suds.

  “What are you doing?” McCallum asked as he approached.

  “Washing my clothes,” he replied.

  “Was that another company chain? The washing machine?”

  “Of a sort,” John said. “Everything is. Every material thing. You get my age and you hate them all a little. Once the shine wears off.” He put a wet shirt in a plastic bag and picked up a pair of jeans. He began running them up on and down the bumpy board, working up more foam. “Synder says you’re an artist.”

  “Aspirational.”

  “This is a good place for that. There’s time and beauty. You don’t find those two cohabitating everywhere.”

  “It does seem seductive.”

  “We could certainly use you. I can’t trust a lot of these guys with the wine.”

  “You’ve got a lot of boozers.”

  “Some. Not too many,” John said. “It’s the distribution that’s more the problem. Bottling, loading, driving around, that type of thing.”

  McCallum let his surprise show. “How much wine are we talking?”

  “150 barrels. We collect surplus grapes from the local wineries. It’s much easier for them to claim a few acres of vine didn’t produce than they lost a barrel or two. We make the juice ourselves, then make the wine. We donate some back to the vineyards. We trade the rest for food and supplies.”

  “Barter?”

  “Yep. The big ‘B’, as in the best way I know to kick the companies.”

  “Plural? You’re kicking the companies?”

  “You shave a little from all three and you reduce your chances of getting noticed. They each have holdings in the area, so it’s pretty damn easy. Grapes are grapes.”

  “It’s elaborate.”

  “It’s work. A lot of work. Especially with a bunch like this.” John nodded towards the parade grounds. “The companies don’t care that any of them are here for a reason. Snyder’s good, though. She finds a way for every whack-job out there to pitch in.”

  McCallum gazed out over the huts and tents and trails of mud. A man near the gate sat on a log slicing his hands back and forth over each other. An older woman walked by tossing her hands in the air. Others sat in little groups, sewing, whittling, fidgeting in ways McCallum couldn’t discern through the distance.

  “Is it worth it?” he asked.

  “Hell yes,” John said. He put his jeans in the bag with the shirt and picked up another pair for washing. “When you’re with a company, everything you do you do for them. There’s no other choice. I’m not talking the work. That’s the obvious part. I’m talking about every call you make, note you send, every meal, every sip of water is to their benefit. Even protests, weak and pitiful as they are, generate activity, which generates revenue. Let’s say you post a complaint. A mess of people glom on. That makes the evening news happy, whipping up interest, which is great for the advertisers. Let’s say the complaint really touches people, so much that they want to protest. That brings security. Maybe even overtime. The ops are thrilled. Maybe one guy buys a motorcycle with his extra dollars. From the same company that started the whole problem in the first place.” John shook his head, running wads of soaked denim across the corrugated steel. “It’s all theirs. All you can do is try and get out.”

  “But why go ollie? Why not just enjoy your retirement?”

  John stopped washing and looked up at McCallum. The look poked him, McCallum thought.

  “The velocity of money,” John said. “In the economy, I’d still be spending, even if it was all for my own pleasure, not to mention survival. Every dollar you spend is worth several to your masters. You know why they don’t work people day and night anymore? You know why they offer vacations and personal days? Holidays? They need to keep the money churning. They need consumers as much as they need workers. They need people like you to go to the store and buy paints. They want people to buy your paintings. Circulate that dollar. They need the guy at the paint store to watch a movie and they need that movie actor to buy a boat. There’s no more growth for the companies. That ended with the last Buy Up. They can try to take from each other, but they end up giving just as much to do that. The whole natural world strives for equilibrium, including the economic one. I think they’ve reached it.”

  “There’s always something new,” McCallum said. “That’s growth, isn’t it?”

  “New doesn’t mean revenue,” John said. “I’m an engineer. Trust me on that one. Innovation used to give companies a shot at profit. Not any more. You invent something, the other two swipe it. You sell it to your own employees, but that probably means they stop buying something else. Some Grade 5 smiles, as people buy his whatsit. Another frowns, as people stop buying hers. There’s no new money. Only the velocity of the money we’ve got.”

  McCallum said, “So you don’t spend.”

  John nodded. “Get off line. Freedom. The only way to fight.”

  John Raston wasn’t in hiding, McCallum realized. He wasn’t holed up in this ancient fort because he killed a girl. He chose this. Planned this. John Raston w
as making a stand. Rebelling.

  McCallum had a picture in his head that didn’t work, didn’t resolve. Maybe the Vasquez girl decided not to run off with him? Maybe she knew too much about this enclave and its black market? Had Vasquez and Raston ever had contact before the stabbing? McCallum had never established any connection and connections were hard to hide.

  Were this on canvas, he’d squeeze out some Gesso, white it all out and start over.

  “What made you think I’m retired?” John asked.

  McCallum lowered his head to meet the man’s eyes.

  * * *

  “That’s a Ford Thunderbird,” Campbell said. “A BCCA brand. I like our chances.”

  Emory did not. Running from the chain gang was one thing, assaulting an innocent person was quite another. Stealing cars, kidnapping people, forcing them into servitude— it never worked. Not in real life. People were too connected.

  “Connected,” Emory said. He couldn’t hijack a person and a car. He could ask for a voice call. “This way,” he told Campbell.

  They walked to the edge of the parking ramp. People strolled past. Couples. Small groups. A few singles. Harsh daylight made him uncomfortable. Their clothes reeked of chain gang and sewer and desperation. Any semi-intelligent person would press and hold their cuff seeing Emory and Campbell from twenty-feet out.

  So they couldn’t be seen. Emory pointed to either side of the human-sized entrance to the parking ramp and they waited. Standing, unable to lean relaxed against the concrete wall, Emory felt the wait in his insides. Bugs, flesh-eating termites gnawing and scratching his guts. He had to reach Lillian. They were coming for her. A select group of deviants from the Alternative Work Detail, so thrilled to be out in the fresh air, seeing a woman for the first time in months, years, a life time. The Chief’s men. Emory knew them intimately. Their musky smells, their calloused hands. The way they slapped, crushed and coupled. And they were headed for Lillian. And Elizabeth. His sad, unsuspecting family. His girls, who didn’t even know the horrors that lived under the city. Innocent. Sweet. Doomed. The bugs ate into his lungs and he had to breathe faster to get more air to make up for the leaks in the holes they chewed.

  “Hey,” Campbell said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Emory clenched and unclenched his fists.

  A woman strolled into the ramp. Mid-forties, fit, a professional skirt and jacket, all prim and blue. Her heels tapped the pavement quickly.

  “Excuse me,” Emory said. She turned, crossing her feet, almost falling over. Her mouth, shielded in glossy pink lipstick, formed a tight circle. She recovered and kept going, watching to see if Emory followed.

  “We just need you to make a call.” Campbell stepped in front of her.

  “Oh, sure,” she said from a trembling mouth, as if this were a normal request. As if everyone in the world didn’t have a phone strapped to their wrist all the time making this akin to asking for some air or a share of sunlight. She moved to slap her fingers across the phone and leave them until the emergency operator inquired as to her status.

  Emory grabbed her wrist and yanked her arm around behind her back.

  “AAAAAA— mmmm” Campbell pressed a hand against her mouth.

  “We are sorry,” Emory whispered. Like the chief’s boys whispered to him, though never apologizing. He held her like the chief’s boys held him. “We really only need you to make a call.”

  “I’m going to bring the bracelet up,” Campbell said, “and take my hand from your mouth, OK? If you scream, this event will become something different. Blink twice for OK.”

  The woman shivered. Emory could feel it through her body.

  Campbell took his hand from the woman’s mouth. She made a warbling sound. It reminded Emory of his little girl, when she was just about done crying.

  “Call Lillian Leveski,” Emory said.

  “C-C-Call Lillian Leveski,” the woman barely got out.

  Emory placed his ear on the woman’s. She made one, tiny whine. She smelled clean, like fresh vegetables, in a garden, with hints of tropical flowers.

  “No Lillian Leveski local, India Group.”

  Emory said, softly. “Ambyr Consolidated, 93 Calumet, Buffalo Catchment.”

  The woman repeated the information. Campbell watched the area, a hawk on a pole. Emory heard the ring in the woman’s ear.

  “This is Lillian?” came the answer. Emory gulped a ball of air.

  “Ask her where she is?”

  “Where are you?” the woman asked.

  “Who is this?”

  “I’m calling for Emory,” Emory said. The woman repeated it.

  “Oh God, what’s wrong?”

  “You’re in trouble,” Emory said. The woman said nothing.

  Campbell said, “Someone’s coming.”

  “Tell her she’s in trouble,” Emory hissed.

  “You’re in trouble,” the woman said.

  “What’s this about?” Lillian demanded. “Where’s Emory?”

  “Tell her to get Lizzie and run.”

  “A man,” Campbell tried to whisper, watching the sidewalk behind Emory and his captive.

  “Run? This is crazy?”

  “To the place in John’s picture. That last one he sent me,” Emory’s voice shook and bubbled. “Tell her to run to the place in the picture.”

  The woman complied, fast, mumbled, Emory wasn’t even sure if Lillian understood.

  “Time’s up,” Campbell said.

  They let go of the professional woman in the now wrinkly blue skirt and jacket, and ran, full out, away from the entrance. She stood and screamed. They heard it all the way down the street.

  Sylvia couldn’t move. She sat in the hotel room chair, upright, horizontal positions were out of the question, face down, on your back or sideways, it all hurt. It all forced an acidy fire out of her squished stomach and into everything else. She hated sleep. She hated food. She hated anything other than the baby and his or her imminent departure.

  The baby must come out. The baby can’t come out.

  She volleyed the phrases in her head, a thoughtless mantra that can come to replace sleep. She’d heard that people who didn’t sleep went insane. Always figuring she was more than three-quarters of the way there already, this current dream drought would finish the job. She’d go nuts, trying to sleep upright, because the baby got in the way.

  Never in the way. She’d promised herself. She promised her bosses in a silent, they’ll-never-know kind of way. Movie and baby. The show must go on. The baby must come out and baby can’t come out.

  The hollow knock of a hotel room door. Flesh rapped on glue and dust pressed and printed to resemble wood. No resonance. No firmness. No cheery ‘Company’s here!’

  “Yes,” Sylvia said as she lifted herself out of the chair. It took all of her upper body strength. She waddled to the door, flicked up the handle and waddled back without looking to see who she’d let in.

  “You’re looking well,” Samjahnee said.

  “As are you,” Sylvia said. “Did you have your eyes done? A little lift and tuck under the chin?”

  “Not until I get my bonus for this gig,” he said. “If I get a bonus.”

  Sylvia lowered herself back into the chair, careful not to get the creature within active again. He was obviously filming some kind of martial arts film in her womb. The apple wasn’t going to fall far from the tree. If it ever fell.

  The baby must come out. The baby can’t come out.

  “Your concern warms my cockles,” Sylvia said.

  “Can you do it?” Samjahnee asked.

  “Have to,” she answered. “They want a Sylvia Cho movie. That means Sylvia Cho snagging the Milkman.”

  “I can do this. We can edit you in later.”

  “Inauthentic. Not what they signed up for. I don’t know who these people are. I do know what they want. They want what every financier in the movie business wants: the same thing only different. They want my last movie, changed enough to make eve
n more money. They don’t want new, fresh, artistic, clever or anything other that what worked before. They want Tobacco Road about milk. They want me finding this nut bag and getting his face to pop in surprise. A fucking jack-in-the-box. That’s all anybody ever wants. The fucking jack-in-the-box. A nice, safe surprise. Set to music.”

  Samjahnee crossed his arms. “You’re lovely.”

  “I’m never buying my kid a jack-in-the-box. Maybe he won’t imprint on it and want the same thing his whole damn life.”

  “Absolutely lovely.” He held his hand out.

  Sylvie took it and yelped. The pain. If you set electricity on fire and drank it. That was the pain.

  She said, without wanting to, “Pain.”

  “Is the wind that blows us,” Samjahnee sang.

  “Yeah, see,” Sylvia said, standing. “Things are always easier with a sound track.”

  The baby can’t come out.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “He’s suspicious,” Snyder said. They walked on the outer path, near the river. The temperature felt 10 degrees cooler, just a few hundred yards down from the ramparts. “Just like me.”

  “It’s understandable,” McCallum returned.

  “We thank you for your understanding.” Snyder walked a step ahead of McCallum, partly due to the thinness of the path, partly because she led. She seemed to have a destination.

  “I’ve come a long way.” Snyder continued down the path. A small, stone shed sat at the end, with a black iron gate blocking an arched doorway.

  “How long?” McCallum fished in his pockets.

  “Hard to say, the way I travel. A little by train, a little by car, a little on foot. I begged rides all the way up here.”

  “You must really like old forts.” He found his brush case and dug his fingers down.

  “No, I really hated the place I left.”

  “I take it this wasn’t an official transfer.” McCallum found his gray, gooey gum erasure.

  They reached the iron gate. Snyder took out a key and opened the shiny new lock hung on the antiquated bars.

  “No.” She swung open the gate and entered. “I left my employer without notice.”