Withûr We

by Matthew Bruce Alexander

  “I don’t know the details. I imagine it goes something like that.”

  “Let’s assume for a second that civil servants have our good in mind. How do they know where to ship?”

  Gerald’s voice sounded weary. “Where to ship what?”

  “An excellent point! Because there are millions of different things that need to be shipped.”

  “They can calculate based on their information.”

  “They collect all sorts of information on the population, don’t they?”

  “You know they do.”

  “So they hire lots of workers to collect their data, and they use this to scientifically calculate the population’s needs. Then they review the data and review the state of industry… what equipment needs repaired, what needs replaced, who is in possession of what raw materials, who has what partially finished products… and they make decisions for the entire planet, hoping not too many unforeseen circumstances disrupt their plans, like tornadoes, hurricanes, grain rotting, square pegs getting accidentally sent to the round hole factory—”

  Gerald lifted his head from the chair and said, “Are you coming to an end?”

  “Sounds like a cumbersome, slow system. A businessman just looks at the price of things and he knows what he needs to replace, what he needs to produce… he doesn’t have to hire a huge bureau of workers to collect data for him, he just looks at the price. And of course, he doesn’t have to calculate how much food it takes to keep a given population alive, he just sells at the market rate to whoever wants to buy.”

  “It all works so well in theory.”

  “Now, if we remove the assumption that government is actually full of selfless servants with only the public’s good in mind… what if there are people the government doesn’t mind starving? What if the government decides to build more guns and make less butter?”

  “Then why do people stop using the Free Market if it works so well?”

  “People don’t discard the Free Market; the State destroys it.”

  Gerald snorted in derision, but the conversation was ended as Mary set in front of them some steaming plates of spatch of a porridge-like consistency.

  “Why don’t we eat up and stop the political talk for now,” she suggested, sitting down next to Nigel with her own hot bowl. “I added some milk and honey so enjoy it while you can. If that shipment doesn’t come in we’ll be eating plain spatch until God knows when.”

  It was amid the occasional slurps of this otherwise silent meal that the door opened once more. Again a pair of feet stomped on the welcome mat in the hallway, and the heavy steps of Oliver were heard, the only non-family member who could, with impunity, enter without a knock.

  “My heavens!” gasped Mary when he had entered the kitchen and shown the gash above his left eye. She quickly got up to moisten a towel to apply to his wound.

  “Oliver, what happened?” asked Nigel.

  “It’s a bit rough out there,” said the big man with an incongruous grin. “I got stuck in the middle of a food riot.” He took a seat at the table while Mary dabbed at his gash with the moist towel.

  “I think we should all stay indoors,” she said with conviction.

  “This is destroying my firm faith in the State,” Oliver said with a wink at Alistair.

  Alistair grinned and took a bite of spatch while Gerald rolled his eyes.

  “Alistair was just saying the same thing,” said Gerald. “Would you like some spatch?”

  “No thanks,” said Oliver, holding up his hands palms out. “I ate recently. I thought I’d drop by to make sure everyone was alright.”

  “You’re the one who looks like he needs help,” said Alistair.

  “Mean spirited people. Glad I got out of the way before something worse happened.”

  “I’ll get some bandages,” Mary said, setting the towel down on the counter and rushing off.

  “We had a bit of a rough spot here not long ago,” said Nigel. “Alistair showed up just in time.”

  “The shipment will come in tomorrow and you’ll all have forgotten about it in a week,” said Gerald. Alistair gave his brother an incredulous look. “Well, maybe Alistair won’t forget, but anyone not intent on seeing the down side of everything will.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Alistair spoke. “Do you know the Boston Tea Party was provoked by a 2% tax on tea?”

  “Never heard of it,” Gerald muttered into his bowl.

  “It was before the American Empire,” Alistair explained. “Great Britain colonized part of North America. They levied a tax of 2% on certain items, and so a few of the colonists crept onto some ships in the harbor and tossed overboard a bunch of British goods subject to the tax. They called it the Boston Tea Party.”

  “And?”

  “About three centuries later the American President signed an order requiring all non-farmers to move into residential zones around the cities. Small villages were leveled, and many people were forcefully removed from their homes.”

  “What was the point?” asked Nigel.

  “The reason they gave was to cut down on oil consumption during the war. That may have been part of it but it also allowed them to register and monitor everyone more easily.”

  “And what’s the relationship with the Boston Tea Party?” asked Gerald with skepticism blatant in his voice.

  “In the 18th century a 2% tax caused a rebellion. In the 21st century their descendants were kicked out of house and home and the protests were comparatively mild. It’s just interesting to note how constant government oppression can kill people’s fighting spirit.”

  Gerald shook his head and, having finished his meal, got up and set his bowl in the sink.

  “But there are limits to what people will stand for,” Alistair continued, “when they are faced with starvation.”

  ***

  Stephanie grunted as the man she tried to subdue pushed back into her, squishing her between his body and the brick wall. Reacting without thought, she kicked the back of his knee and, firmly gripping his cuffed hands and seizing the back of his head with the other hand, drove him face first into the snow. He outweighed her and started to come back to his feet, so she grabbed a device from her belt and stuck it in his ribs. The electric shock it produced made his body go rigid and then limp.

  She replaced it in its sheath on her belt and lay on top of him, breathing heavily and listening to her heart pound in her ears, feeling the ache of overworked muscles. Then, realizing his face was buried in snow, she grabbed his hair and turned it to the side. Her next act was to fasten another pair of cuffs to his ankles before she rolled him over and flagged down a pair of police officers who were rushing by.

  “Give me a hand with this one, will you?” she asked between panting breaths.

  “Take a rest, we’ll get him.”

  Grabbing under his arms, the two hoisted him up and took him away. Stephanie sat back in the snow a moment, leaning against the wall, feeling the welt forming on the back of her head from her collision with it a few moments earlier. On the other side of the street, black smoke trickled out of a jagged hole in the brick façade. Two bodies lay still in the snow, waiting to be taken to the morgue. Around one of them the snow was red.

  Stephanie came to her feet when Captain Travis approached her. They exchanged nods.

  “Did you get a head count?” he asked her.

  “Three dead. At least ten seriously wounded.”

  “I mean on the arrests.”

  “Not yet, sir. I just finished cuffing one of them.”

  Travis nodded. “Follow me,” he said and walked away.

  Stephanie went with him to a tent set up down the street in between a pair of imposing tanks. Inside, the air was warmer and a cuffed prisoner, bloodied, sat in a folding chair in the middle. He was surrounded by at least a dozen large policemen with their meaty arms folded across their chests and their lips curled downwards in disdainful scowls. Stephanie and Travis hung back at the outskirts o
f the crowd.

  “It’s just that we were hungry,” he was stammering. “When the guy started yelling and throwing bricks… I guess we let it get out of control.”

  “What happened to this guy?” asked one of the officers.

  The man shook his head. “Someone hit him in the face with a brick. He clobbered the guy – he was a huge son of a bitch – I didn’t see him after that.”

  “Did he set off the bomb?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Stephanie frowned at this. While the interrogation continued she went to one of the portable computers and accessed the precinct’s mainframe. She called up a photograph, printed it, and took it to the man being interrogated, cutting off his interrogator in mid sentence.

  “Is this the big guy?”

  The man nodded, eager to help out. “Yeah, that’s him. That’s the guy.”

  Stephanie took the picture to Travis.

  “Have him picked up,” he told her.

  Stephanie shook her head. “Not yet, sir. I have him under surveillance right now. I’m hoping he is going to lead me to something bigger.”

  “Why is he under surveillance?”

  “He showed up at that specnine house we raided a few days ago. He and a friend.”

  Travis nodded. “Alright.” He took a closer look at the picture. “Wait a minute… Isn’t he that rugby player you hang out with?”

  Stephanie nodded, blushing. “Yes, sir. I—”

  “Stephanie Caldwell,” said Travis, tapping a finger on the sheet of paper and using the same voice her father had always used when she was in trouble, “is this something you’re up to doing?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Really? This guy is a friend of yours. Why don’t you withdraw from this case and I can give you another.”

  “That won’t be necessary, sir. My duty is to Arcarius and Aldra. If Oliver is breaking the law, he gets no special treatment. You don’t need to worry about where my loyalties lie.” Her jaw was set and her nostrils were flaring. The blush in her cheeks might have been as much from emotion as from the cold.

  Travis gave her a long hard look but eventually nodded. “Keep me up to date,” was all he said and then ducked out of the tent.

  With her work finished, she declined to return to the precinct headquarters. Instead, she set out for Oliver’s apartment but found it empty. This bit of information discovered, she immediately headed for Nigel’s. Upon arriving she knocked at the front door and was greeted by Mary Ashley. Following Mary to the kitchen, Stephanie heard voices inside.

  “… interesting to note how constant government oppression can kill people’s fighting spirit over time.” Alistair was saying. As Stephanie rounded the corner, she saw Nigel, Gerald, Alistair and Oliver, his face sporting a recent gash over his left eye, sitting at the kitchen table. Gerald was just getting up to carry his empty bowl to the sink.

  “But there are limits to what people will stand for,” Alistair continued. “when they are faced with starvation.”

  “You might just be right about that,” said Stephanie as she entered. Everyone turned to face her. Mary started to bandage Oliver’s his wound, and Oliver eyed the newcomer apprehensively. Returning his humorless gaze, Stephanie took a seat at the table.

  “What happened to your face?” she asked.

  “I cut myself shaving,” he replied, his usual cheer quite absent. “Are you a tin man investigating or is my friend Stephanie here with me?”

  “Your friend Stephanie is an officer. Does this make you nervous?”

  Nigel jumped in. “Would you like something to eat, Stephanie?” Without waiting for an answer, he got up and spooned some spatch into a bowl and set it down in front of her.

  Stephanie thanked him and ate it with gusto, not having realized how hungry she was, but while she ate her eyes kept drifting back to Oliver and Alistair.

  Chapter 11

  The sun set on a dark city conserving energy. The wind swept through the streets, howling and shifting the piles of snow. In a few windows some candles flickered, but no electric lights were permitted save for in some high level bureaus where the government’s planners stayed up preparing the future. Only for heating was electricity permitted, and even then there were rolling blackouts lasting for an hour at a time. Still the city went without its shipment of food.

  Out at sea, many miles distant, the lights of a ship flickered on the water. Alistair observed it from a window in his father’s main dining room, part way up the seaward side of Tanard’s Mountain. Alistair’s reflection in the window met his forehead as he leaned up against the glass pane, a thin bit of material separating the warmth of within from the chill from without. The room was lit by several dozen candles providing, along with a roaring fire in the fireplace, a soft yet even illumination for the many people now gathered there. As if under the influence of the light, the conversations were in low murmurs so that a steady yet gentle wave of sound permeated the room.

  I wonder if our food is coming on that ship, Alistair grumbled to himself as he raised a glass to his lips and tasted his gin mix. Turning from the window, he found the table with his friends and went to it. His father invited guests, including many government officials, for a meal of spatch and odds and ends left over in their pantries. Alistair warned his father against depleting his supply of spatch, but Nigel had made up his mind. Making the most of it, Alistair asked permission to invite his friends, and Nigel agreed, consenting also to allow Gerald and Katherine some guests.

  When he got to his seat, Jack, who had imbibed his fair share of the liquor provided, was carelessly gesticulating as he told his friends a story. A bit of his drink sloshed out of the glass and onto the table, but he didn’t notice.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. Listen to this,” he slurred. “Oliver and I were assigned to clean up crew—”

  “You have to tell them what that is,” Henry advised, giving Jack a poke in the ribs.

  “Oh yeah. It’s… uh… it’s clean up crew. When everyone heads south for the winter we have to secure all the equipment and things like that. Anyway, Oliver and I were on clean up crew, and they left us to secure an entire storage facility by ourselves.”

  “It had already been pretty much finished,” Henry interrupted.

  Jack made a slow turn to face his companion. “I was going to tell them that.”

  “Tell them what?”

  “What you just said.”

  “What did I just say?”

  “About the storage facility.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to get you to tell them about.”

  Jack blinked once and shook his head. A couple snickers were stifled as he returned to his tale.

  “So the storage facility was left to me and Oliver.”

  “And it had already been partially prepared,” Henry advised.

  “Can I tell my story?”

  “The facility is too big for you two to secure all by yourselves.”

  “I know that!”

  “But they don’t. That’s why you need to tell them.”

  “I’m going to.”

  “It’s like the time I was given a whole file cabinet to organize by that supervisor… you remember her.”

  Jack’s face split into a stupid grin. “Yeah. She was nice.”

  “I fixed you two up,” Henry slyly said with an elbow to Jack’s ribs.

  Jack smiled again, even more stupidly than before. “I should stop by and see how she’s doing.” After a moment he popped out of his reverie. “Where was I?”

  “I think,” Henry said, “you had just got to the part where your supervisor was counting the checks again.”

  Jack frowned, uncertain, scratching the back of his head as if in an attempt to get his brain working properly. “Was that where I was?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Oh. Well, anyway,” Jack resumed, his enthusiasm reduced by a nagging feeling that something was not quite right, “he counted the check rece
ipts again, and we’re still three short. And of course mine was one of the ones missing. So I had to wait two extra days before I got paid.”

  “That’s terrible!” said Henry, nearly managing a straight face.

  “Actually, my allotment came on time, but the receipt for it got lost. So my money was there, I just didn’t know it.”

  “A beautiful story, Jack,” said Oliver, raising his glass as if to toast.

  All the friends followed suit, even Henry, who had finally broken into laughter. They touched glasses and sipped their drinks. Setting his back down, Jack suspiciously eyed Henry but said nothing.

  Alistair allowed his attention to wander to his father who was busy going from table to table, shaking hands with the bureaucrats and politicians, a smile on his face that never left. Alistair knew what a genuine smile on his father’s face looked like, however, and he did not see one at the moment.

  “So this event is part charity and part pragmatism,” commented Oliver, who was sitting next to Alistair, as he too observed Nigel’s efforts.

  Alistair just shook his head.

  “What I want to know,” said Stephanie, attempting to establish a general conversation over the various murmurs around the table, “is what everyone’s plans are when they extend the draft.” She posed it to everyone, but her eyes were on Oliver and Alistair.

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out,” said Oliver, avoiding her gaze by taking a chug from his cup.

  “Oh, come on. With the Realists in power? You’ve heard them talking. There’s a war on and the draft is going to be extended. In fact, I think everyone is going to be enlisted in the war effort in some fashion.”

  “Here’s to hoping you’re wrong,” the big man insisted, raising his glass again before tipping it to his lips and draining it.

  “You know I’m right. So what are your plans? Alistair? I imagine you’ll be in high demand.”

  At that precise moment, three women and a man entered the dining hall with string instruments in hand. After doffing their winter coats and shaking the snow off, they took their places to the side of the bar, removed their instruments from their cases and softly played. Alistair’s eyes wandered from his intent interrogator to the musicians.