by M. R. Forbes
That’s where Hayden found Jake. The Borger was slumped on an armchair whose upholstery had long been worn to individuals threads, looking up at them with tired eyes.
“Sheriff,” he said. “What time is it?”
“Three,” Chains said. “You came here to sleep?”
“No,” Jake said.
He pushed himself straight up in the chair. Hayden noticed he had removed the body armor and taken his clothes off down to his underwear. He had deep bruises on his arms and legs, caused by the hits he had taken from the rifle.
“To be honest, I took a look at myself after I removed the armor, and I started thinking long and hard about turning you over to King.”
“I told you I was sorry for pushing you out into the hallway,” Hayden said.
“I know. It wasn’t just that, Sheriff. Hell, it isn’t that at all. You did what you had to do to get us out alive, and if I didn’t want to get involved, I shouldn’t have come to rescue you. We made it to Haven, and then I came here. Seeing this place again, I started thinking about what I was getting myself into, and wondering if I’m making a mistake. My Mom and Dad are gone, but I still have the shop. I can live pretty comfortably here, maybe find a wife and settle down. Wherever you go, there’s going to be trouble.”
“Only for King and his Scrappers.”
“That’s not true. Look at me. This morning I was helping you recover from your injuries. Less than a day later I’m almost as bruised as you are. I know you want to find your wife, and I told you I would get you here. But now you’re here, and I see two paths in my future.”
He reached down to the floor beside the chair, picking up a square device. Hayden recognized it as one of the transceivers the Scrappers used to communicate.
“For all they did to my family, for what Pig did to my mother, I have an emergency radio with a direct line to the local militia. In case I get into trouble. Borgers are important to King. I help put his soldiers back together. The ones who are worth it, anyway. His man, Pig, killed my mother, and I still work for him. My father never knew. I couldn’t bear to tell him who was paying for the farm, the horses, everything.”
Hayden’s eyes shifted to the radio. Could he kill Jake before he called for help if it came to that?
“Ironic, isn’t it, Sheriff?” Jake said. “I can turn you in and be set for life. Or I can stay with you and head to Sanisco. I can help you try to find your wife and probably die along the way. One choice, my conscience is shit but I’m still alive. The other it’s clear, but I’m probably dead. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. I fell asleep thinking about it. Every breath has been unsettled since.”
“It wouldn’t be a hard choice for me,” Chains said.
“What do you know about it?” Jake snapped. “Did the Scrappers kill your parents?”
“I wish,” she replied. “Which is my point. How the hell can you even consider siding with the asshole who had your folks killed? If you were lucky enough to have good parents instead of monsters, you should appreciate that for all it’s worth.”
Jake glared at her in silence.
“You told me I was one of the good ones,” Hayden said. “One of the good guys. That’s why you saved me, isn’t it? You could have let me die. I was at your mercy, and that’s what you showed me. To collect a reward? Or to do the right thing? King has my wife, Jake. What do you think he’s going to use her for? She’s an Engineer, and she knows all about the tech he wants the most. Do you think she’ll be repairing waste disposal systems, or helping him strengthen his army? Maybe you settle down and take a wife. And maybe in five years, ten years, a Scrapper comes along and takes her. Then what?”
“You’re one person, Sheriff. Even if I help you, that makes two of us. How are we supposed to stand up against the Scrappers? There are hundreds of them, if not thousands. The more I think about it, the crazier it sounds. I’m trying to live the way Hank taught me, but damned if it’s not scary as hell. I call the guards; the whole thing goes away. Maybe I’ll even be able to live with it in time.”
“Or maybe it’ll eat you up from the inside out,” Chains said. “That’s what you would deserve.”
“Don’t you say a thing to me about it,” Jake said. “I had to pay you to get you to bring Hayden over here. You don’t have loyalty to anything but yourself.”
“You don’t even have that much,” she replied. “You’ll turn your back on what you know is the right thing to do because you’re afraid?” She turned to Hayden. “Sheriff, whatever it is you’re planning to do, I want in.”
“What?” Hayden said, surprised.
“You heard me. The Borger’s right that I’ve always been a loaner, and for a good reason. There’s no hope in this world, Sheriff. No good men trying to make a difference. There wasn’t anyway, until now. You helped me back at Crossroads despite what you had to lose. You jumped out of my car, and you didn’t know if I was going to stop or not. You would have saved us even if I hadn’t. Hell, you even looked away when I leaned over you to wake you up. I don’t have any ties, and I’d rather die doing something I believe in than live in fear and guilt. Unlike some assholes in this room.”
She looked back at Jake. He looked like someone had just punched him in the gut. His eyes drifted to Hayden. His hand was tight on the radio, his thumb on the button to send the transmission. His jaw was clenched, his whole face tense.
Then he breathed out, shuddering as he tossed the radio to Hayden, who reached out and caught it in his mechanical hand, crushing it as he did.
“Well,’ Jake said. “I guess if there’s going to be three of us, that isn’t as bad.”
“Welcome to the party,” Chains said. She glanced at Hayden. “I have to finish making my delivery. I have a reputation to keep up, you know?”
“Why don’t we come with you?” Hayden asked. “I’d like to meet the person who’s buying explosives but doesn’t want King to know about it.”
She smiled mischievously. “Now that you mention it, that might not be a bad idea.”
22
THE SUN WAS STARTING to rise by the time the three of them were ready to leave Jake’s shop. They had each taken advantage of the small bathroom hidden behind one of the shelves of parts, really little more than a spray of water from a pipe coming out of the wall and a drain large enough to swallow any waste they dumped into it. Hayden was surprised to learn that Haven’s sewer system was somewhat operational. The system designed for millions was able to handle the refuse of the thousands, thanks to power fed to it by solar cells which were surviving long beyond their expected lifespan.
Jake had a change of clothes waiting for him when he finished cleaning up, a plain white shirt and dark pants, along with a leather coat that went down to his knees, the sleeves long enough to cover his mechanical arm to the wrist. He also gave him a leather glove to wear over the metal fingers, enabling him to hide the replacement completely. A fresh pair of boots and a wide belt finished off the outfit.
“You look like a gunslinger,” Jake said once he was finished dressing. The Borger had put himself back in the body armor, with an oversized shirt and robes covering it to keep its nature from being completely obvious. “Clint Eastwood.”
“Who?” Chains asked. She had refused new clothes, preferring to stick with the vest and leather pants, which had been custom made to work around the many chains she wore.
“I’ve got a few of his videos on my mobile,” Jake said, tapping the satchel that held his portable computer. “I can show you later. It needs to get a little sunlight to charge up a bit.”
Jake’s agreement to help them had cooled the tension between the two, at least enough that they weren’t at one another’s throats.
“Except I don’t have a gun,” Hayden said. “At least not one small enough to sling. We were in too much of a hurry to get out of Crossroads for me to grab a sidearm.”
“You’ve got my dad’s replacement,” Jake said. “You’ll never be unarmed.”
&nbs
p; Chains groaned. “Is that supposed to be a Borger joke?”
Jake shrugged. “It’s true.”
He moved to the chair at the center of the room, crouching down and pressing a button at its base. It slid back, revealing a small hole at the bottom. He reached in and pulled out a thick stack of Notes.
“I’ve been saving these for a long time,” he said. “We should be able to get what we need with this.”
Chains whistled. “You could probably buy Carcity with that many Notes.”
“You’re from Carcity? I should have guessed.” He paused, his expression turning dark. “I’ve heard rumors about that place.”
“They’re all true,” Chains said quickly, making it clear she didn’t want to talk about it.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said.
“I got out,” Chains replied. “Who knows, maybe the Sheriff here can fix the place one day.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Hayden said.
They made their way out of Jake’s shop. He closed the door behind them, flipping open a hidden panel and entering a code there to lock it.
“What happens if the power goes out?” Hayden asked.
“The black box inside is a battery. It gets recharged from the main solar grid during the day and has enough storage to keep the place running for a week without external electrical. After that, the door won’t stay closed, but if the power goes out for that long, we’ll have other things to worry about.”
“Metro is the same way,” Hayden said.
“It must be nice, living in a self-sufficient city away from the trife,” Chains said.
“For a long time, it was what it was. Now that I’m Outside, I realize how nice it was.”
“There’s an old saying,” Jake said. “You can never go home again.”
“I think that’s especially true for us,” Chains said.
They made their way out into the street. As Chains had promised, the entire area had been transformed with the emergence of the sun. Where there had been only a deserted street earlier, now there were dozens of people outside, walking up and down the main thoroughfare and making their way past a number of merchant stalls. The stalls were of varying shapes and sizes, from tiny homemade carts stocked with random items for sale or trade, to larger horse-drawn carts, to cars, to bigger trucks loaded with food. The largest crowd seemed to be around those stalls, and Hayden could see the Scrappers gathering there, too, keeping the people in line.
As they made their way toward it, Hayden realized that the setup was all very deliberate. None of the stalls were very far from the garages where they had come out, and even the trucks were organized in a way that they could pack quickly and escape into the Impound. Scanning the buildings around them, he could see there were more Scrappers up on the dilapidated walls, as many facing out as in, watching for signs of trife or goliaths.
“Excuse me,” someone said as they passed the line of smaller carts.
Hayden looked over and down, finding a young girl at his side. She was seven or eight, her hair tangled, her clothes dirty. She was clinging to a stuffed animal of some kind that had seen much brighter days.
“Can I help you, miss?” Hayden said.
She smiled at him. “Mama says we need to make some Notes or else we aren’t going to eat this week. Come see what we have?”
“You don’t have enough to eat?” Hayden asked.
“Hayden,” Jake said. “They all say that to travelers.”
“Is it true?”
“Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. King makes the people pay through the nose for the protection of the Scrappers, and these people don’t have a lot as it is.”
“We’re in a hurry,” Chains said.
“It will only take a minute,” the girl said.
“So they go hungry?” Hayden asked. “What if there’s extra food?”
“The Scrappers get what’s left. That’s where the name comes from. They get King’s scraps. Anything they don’t eat is discarded.”
“Thrown away? When it could feed people?”
“King says he doesn’t run a charity,” Jake said. “Survival of the fittest. People who want to live will find a way to eat.”
“Stealing?”
“Some try. They rarely succeed.”
“Please?” the girl asked, reaching up and tugging on his hand.
Hayden smiled at her. “Show me.”
Her return smile was massive, and she grabbed his hand and practically tugged him over to one of the carts, which was filled near to overflowing with an assortment of disorganized scraps. Paper, strips of cloth, writing instruments, empty bullet casings, even stones. A pair of old shoes was resting on top, and Hayden noticed the girl was barefoot.
“Make an offer on anything that catches your eye,” the woman said. “Everything is for sale.”
“Hayden, we have to go,” Chains said. “We don’t have time to wade through her crap.”
“We have lots of pretty things,” the girl said. She reached down and started spreading the collection. “Maybe one of the rocks looks like you? Or maybe you have a slingshot?”
The woman joined her daughter, helping her push their items around, trying to surface something he might be interested in. “This cloth is pretty, isn’t it?” the woman said, lifting a faded red strip with a stain on the end. “You could give it to your girl as a gift.” She held it out toward Chains.
“I don’t need it. Sheriff, it’s like this everywhere. All the time. You’ll see. You stop for every little kid who says they can’t eat; you’ll never get where you’re going.”
“And then what?” Hayden asked, looking at her. “You learn to ignore the suffering? You begin to accept the world the way it is?”
Her face reddened with embarrassment. She looked away. “You can’t help everybody, Sheriff,” she said. “It’s just not possible.”
He looked back at the girl. “We’ll see about that.”
His eyes dropped to the cart again. A small piece of silver plastic was sticking out from under a stack of bottle caps. He reached for it, pulling it from the cart and holding it up with a smile.
It was a badge. It was dirty and made of plastic, and one of the points of the star had melted off, but it was still a badge. It even said ‘SHERIFF’ across the center, an engraving caked with dirt. It had a pin on the back to hold it in place.
“I’ll take this,” Hayden said. “How many Notes do you need to eat for a week?”
“Two,” the girl said.
Hayden looked over at Jake. The Borger had to have pulled a few hundred notes from beneath the chair. He had at least fifty of them that he had pulled from the dead Scrappers.
“Jake.”
He expected the younger man to protest, but he didn’t. He dug out the Notes and handed them to the very excited little girl.
“Thank you, thank you,” the girl said. She wrapped her arms around Hayden’s leg, hugging it.
“Thank you, sir,” the woman said at the same time.
It wasn’t going to help them next week, but at least it was something.
“I have to go,” Hayden said. “Thank you for this.” He took the badge, pinning it to his coat over his chest.
They returned to the Impound without speaking. Hayden and Jake waited outside while Chains went in and grabbed the crate of boomsticks, carrying it out and leading them through the streets. They navigated off the main street, down an alley, and across three separate blocks. There were more people outside here, groups tired and dirty citizens organizing around better-dressed men and women who were waving colored scraps of paper. The residents were all carrying a variety of tools, from shovels to hammers to handmade scraps of metal tied to poles.
“What are they doing?” Hayden asked as they passed them by.
“They’ll head out to the surrounding areas to dig,” Jake said. “They look for stuff to sell or trade. There’s a guy in town, Capaldi. He runs the digs, and makes sure the groups are compensat
ed for their finds, not the individual.”
“Isn’t it dangerous to go out there unarmed?” Hayden asked.
“Everything is dangerous. That’s why they go in groups.”
Hayden wasn’t sure how groups would help if none of them had weapons, but he didn’t keep asking.
“I’m sure he takes a nice cut off the top, too,” Chains said. “Probably gives them just enough so they can keep working for him.”
“Do they ever find anything good?” Hayden asked.
“Every so often, but after all this time the area’s been picked pretty clean,” Jake replied. “The groups come back later and later because they have to keep ranging further out. Maybe one day Capaldi will let them have one of his trucks, but not yet.”
“How do you know where you’re bringing the explosives?” Hayden asked.
“I have an address,” Chains said.
“An address? None of the buildings are marked.”
“They’re named,” Jake said. “That one is ‘Scar.’” He pointed to a building with a massive gash in its side. “That one is ‘Drunken Monkey.’” He pointed to a line of rubble. “Once you know which building has which name, it’s easier to find things.”
“We’re headed to ‘Broken Sword,’” Chains said. She pointed to a building that looked like a sword that had been shattered near the hilt. “That one.”
“Pozz that,” Hayden said, getting the hang of the convention.
They crossed over two more blocks. As they moved closer to the building, an echoing rumble began to grow from further back.
“It sounds like an engine,” Chains said, listening. “More than one. Probably some merchants or maybe more Enforcers coming into the city. It’s normal. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”
“Are you sure?” Hayden asked, looking back down one of the streets. The noise was echoing around them, getting closer with every second. “What if the Enforcers from Crossroads survived? They might have come here looking for us?”
“There’s no way they made it,” Chains said. “The goliaths had them, assuming they didn’t die in the wreck.”