by Jim LaVigne
“Um, no,” said Justin meekly, flexing a few bruised muscles. “Not really.”
With a sigh, she lay back. “Din’t wanna wait,” she sighed. “Been’a while, heh?”
Unsure of what to say, he said nothing and waited, inhaling her scent, and stared at a framed poster on one wall for Pox Populi, the ultra-punk band. He recalled that they’d had one big hit, just before the Fall in the 60’s, called We’re So Sick. Crazy kids.
He also couldn’t help but think of the others back at the MedCenter, and what they must be doing and thinking. He was supposed to be back before dawn, whether he’d found the cache or not. What would the others do when he didn’t show? And what would happen to Lampert? Naturally, he wanted to ask his captor about her plans for him, but decided against it, at least for the time being; no sense in aggravating the one person upon whom his life depended. Besides, even if it was a somewhat guilty pleasure, it was terribly easy to forget his troubles and fears, however imposing, in the presence of such sensuous abundance. For now, he let things be and just lay back and breathed her in.
“So what New Atlanta like?” asked Teresa suddenly. “Ya got bangers there?”
“Gangs?” said Justin. “Oh, yes, plenty of those. Not like your group, but similar, I suppose.”
“Yeah? An’ what my group like, then?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know exactly…” he said haltingly. “But to answer your question, yes, there are bangers in New Atlanta.”
“Heh, thought so,” she said sadly. “Guess that jus’ the world now. All bangers. Ever’where.”
“Not necessarily,” said Justin. “There are still places.”
“Like where?”
“Well, there’s the California Confederation,” he said. “And the New Hampshire Free State, from what I’ve heard. Possibly others, as well.”
“An’ they don’t got bangers? None at all?”
“That’s the idea,” he said, feeling very tired all of a sudden. “As a matter of fact, that’s where we’re headed. To California.”
“What for? Justa get away from alla bangers?”
“No,” he said slowly. “We have a mission.”
“Whassat mean? What kinda mission?”
He paused, recalling the Old Man’s harsh critique of his common sense and it occurred to him that he should watch what he told this woman; who knew what kind of tricks she might be up to? Maybe her fellow gang members were just waiting, maybe right outside, for him to say or do something stupid. Then again, if they really wanted information from him, they’d have gotten it already. The hard way. Finally, feeling her huge black eyes on him, he shrugged.
“We’re trying to save the world,” he said blandly. “More or less.”
“Hey, yeah?” said Teresa, with a crooked smile. “How’s y’all gonna do that, then? Seemsta me, it’s a’ready good an’ fucked. What chew whitecoats gonna do ta save that?”
“Well,” said Justin, choosing his words, “we hope to stop the plague. To develop a vaccine for it. A cure, so to speak.”
“You mean the Sick, heh?”
“That’s right.”
“Huh,” she said, grimacing. “Well, that ain’t never gonna happen.”
“No? Why are you so sure of that?”
“Cause it’s the end’a the world,” she said casually. “Like alla preacher-greep say. Ever’one knows that.”
“Hm, yes,” Justin nodded, humoring her. “I see.”
After another moment, he was about to ask her about her compatriots, the Bloodclaws, when he realized that she had fallen asleep. Slowly, he raised himself on one arm and stared at her, but, sure enough, she was sound asleep, breathing deeply and evenly through her nose.
He thought for a moment of doing something crazy like going for her gun or trying to escape, but then, thinking that this girl was probably almost as dangerous asleep as she was awake, he gave it up and lay back on the bed. In a moment, he was asleep.
Chapter Nine
Sanitation Records announces the new release by tod idol Timmy Branstsen, Don’t You Wanna Naptime With Me?! Critics are already raving about this toddler sensation! Buck Dilner of Rocking News calls it “a sure-fire smash hit bonanza” and Mike McManacle of Toddler Tunetimes Magazine gives it five stars! Even respected music critic Lance Prevlovsky of the New York Limited calls it “an amazing achievement for a five year old”! Download your copy of Timmy’s new disc today! Now available on Cranium-mate, only $79.99!
—ad for popular music release, 2049
He woke up the next day to bright sunshine pouring through the container door and the smell of what he could have sworn was coffee. A nightmare had left a sour, depressed sort of feeling in the back of his head, but he was almost used to them by now. Disoriented, he blinked in the bright light, shading his eyes, until he remembered where he was. And with whom.
“You finely up?” came the girl’s voice, and he turned to see her, sitting at the nearby table, naked as the day is long, and holding a steaming mug. “Wan’ some java-brew?”
Even more disoriented—after all, it was definitely not every morning that he woke up to a beautiful naked woman—he blinked some more and then swung himself from the bed.
“You don’t mean coffee, do you?” he asked, stretching perfunctorily. His head, while still throbbing lightly, felt much better.
“Sure,” she shrugged. “Why not?”
“Oh, well,” he said, rubbing his eyes, “I haven’t had coffee in a long time. Where did you manage to come by it?”
She shrugged again. “Traded. Cost two cartons, too. Ya wan’ some, or what?”
“Oh, yes please!” he said, nodding. “That would be lovely.”
Eyeing him strangely, she rose, retrieved a mug from a handy shelf, and poured him a cup from some sort of antique contraption called a Mr. Coffee. As she did, he couldn’t help but stare; the interplay of light and shadow on her perfectly shaped body was almost mesmerizing. When she turned back with the coffee, though, he hastily looked away. She set the cup in front of him on the table and sat down again.
He was busy savoring the coffee—which was, despite being acrid, lukewarm, and weak, the best thing to pass his lips in months—when he noticed that she was staring at him. Self-consciously, he sat back in his chair and blinked at her.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked warily.
“How comes y’all talk like that?” she asked. “Is it cuz yerra whitecoat?”
“Talk like what?”
“Like, I dunno, some dude in a ol-time 2D vid. Like yer the pres’dent er somethin’. All fancy an’ shit.”
“It’s…” he said, frowning, “just the way I speak. Sort of a dialect, you might say.”
“Naw,” she said. “I knows why. ‘S cuz you got edu-cation. Y’all went to school, heh?”
“Well, yes, of course. One has to to become a doctor!”
“Henh,” she said, making a face. “Thought so. See, I never got no school. I was born jus’ before the Fall, right? So no edu-cation for me.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, honestly. “You’re obviously a very intelligent person. You would have probably flourished in academia.”
“S’at mean? Floo-rished?”
“It means,” he smiled, “that you would have grown. Gotten smarter. Learned things.”
“You sayin’ I ain’t smart?” she said, dark eyes flashing alarmingly.
“No, no!” he protested, hands up. “You’re undoubtedly very smart! I mean, just surviving what you do, every day, well, that takes all kinds of smarts. Truly! No, what I was talking about was actual book learning. Reading, writing and arithmetic. Not to mention everything else, like art and poetry and music, the sciences, history, and politics…”
“Never learnt ta read,” she said sadly, the sudden anger just as quickly gone. “Write, neither. Don’ even know what arithmajig is.”
“Arithmetic,” he gently corrected. “It’s the use of numbers. Adding and subtracting.”
“Like how?” she said, turning to face him square on. “Show me.”
For a long moment he just sat there, bemused as could be. Here he was, sitting in a converted shipping container in the middle of nowhere, sipping real coffee and trying to explain the basics of math to the hot, gorgeous—not to mention totally nude—young woman who had recently kidnapped him. It made his head hurt. Or maybe it was the concussion. Or the almost frantic worry for his colleagues and their charge. At any rate, it was most certainly deserving of bemusement. Finally, he smiled wanly at her and jerked his shoulders. Why not?
“OK, I’ll show you,” he said. “But can you do me one small favor, please?”
“S’at?”
“Could you put some clothes on?”
They’d made it to the basics of multiplication—Teresa proving to be a quick and avid study—when suddenly she chopped the air with one hand and hushed him to silence.
“What’s wrong?” Justin asked.
“Shuddup,” she spat, head cocked, listening.
He did and waited as she listened. All he could hear was the wind and some birds; other than that it was very quiet. Just as it was almost everywhere, nowadays. He was musing on this, how the world had become a very quiet place since the Fall, when Teresa suddenly swore nastily and jumped up from the table.
“What is it?” he asked. “What do you hear?”
“Bike,” she said simply, angrily. “Maybe more’n one.”
Moving quickly, she went to the back of the container, flipped over some of the carpet, and then jerked up and open a trap door of sorts in the floor.
“Down here,” she said, jerking her head toward the opening. “C’mon, go!”
He walked over and peered down.
“Down there?” he said, eyes wide. “But why?”
“C’mon, don’ fuck aroun’,” she said, scowling. “Them’s bangers out there. Maybe even Brothers. An’ they comin’ this way. An’ dooya know what happen if they findja? Cause trus me, it won’ be like with me! Now c’mon. Get down there an’ stay total quiet, heh? Or do I hafta makeya?”
“No, I’ll go,” he said, not liking the sound of this. Gingerly, he crawled down into the space, which turned out to be nothing more than a hole, about four feet from side to side and about five feet deep, dug into the earth beneath the container. Then Teresa slammed the trapdoor shut and, other than a stray beam of sunlight through a crack, he was plunged into total darkness and the dense smell of raw dirt.
Resignedly, he sat down, as best he could in the cramped space, and waited. After a time he finally heard the wasp-like sound of motorcycles, which grew louder and louder before finally stopping, evidently somewhere very close. Next he made out the sounds of conversation between Teresa and what sounded like at least two others and, while he couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, he could tell that the visitors were questioning the young woman, and apparently at some length. At last, though, the motorcycles started up again and their noise retreated into the distance. Still he waited, for maybe another half hour, his legs starting to cramp, before the trap door was jerked open and, amid daylight that hurt his eyes, he was allowed to climb out of the hidey-hole.
“Who was it?” he asked, peeking out of the container, but Teresa didn’t say anything. Instead, looking worried, she shook her head and sat down at the table. He was going to try again but then decided against it; if she wanted to tell him who it had been, she would. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t. Simple as that. With a slight shrug, he went over and joined her at the table, where he sat in silence as she fretted and shook her head and muttered. Finally, after polishing off the cold coffee and having waited for a good fifteen minutes, he decided to chance it.
“What is it?” he asked her gently. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” she echoed, scowling. If anything, the expression only made her seem more beautiful, if possible. “What’s wrong, he say! Three outriders from the Wildwolf clan show up, askin’ ‘bout have I seen a normie name’a Doctor Case, and he ask me what wrong?! Sweet Jesus-aitch, what a Cem-head! And he thinks I dumb!”
“Well, how was I to know?” he asked defensively. “I was down in that stinking hole, you know. And, as I said earlier, I do not think that you’re dumb.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Thing is, we can’t stay here no more. I got to get you outta here, ‘fore they figure out where you is, heh?”
“But,” he said helplessly, “where do you plan to go? What are you going to do with me?”
“Zero,” she said cryptically. “He’ll know what to do with y’all. We go see him. See what he say.”
“And who—or what—is Zero?” asked Justin, not at all sure that he wanted to hear the answer.
“Baron Zero,” she said, as if explaining to a child. “Don’ tell me ya never hearda Baron Zero!”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Sheesh, where ya been?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Zero’s just the smartest dude around, that’s all. Prob’ly smarter’n you! They say he were this like, big-timer science-wiz, before the Sick.”
“Indeed? A scientist?” he asked, sitting forward. “Do you know in what field?”
“He ain’t in no field, doopy,” she said, rolling her eyes again. “He’s gotta, like, a whole great big house! Like in’a ol’ times.”
“No, I meant, what sort of science does—or did—he study? Biology? Chemistry? Astronomy?”
“Don’ know ‘bout none’a that,” she pouted. “Jus’ some kinda science, hey? The ‘portant thing is, he real smart and he alway knows what to do with this kinda thing.”
Justin nodded, thinking that he’d seen this sort of post-Fall reverence for science before, in several of the survie groups they’d encountered; it was almost as if they thought of it as magic, some kind of arcane lore now lost to the past. Interesting. But this was hardly the time for puzzling about it and, thinking that this legendary figure might be a potential ally, being a fellow scientist and all, he shook off the puzzlement and re-focused.
“Where is this Baron Zero?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Not so far. Day or three.”
“And when we do meet with this Zero person, what then?” And then, the really Big Question: “What will happen to me?”
“Prob’ly sellya,” she said simply, with no more emphasis than if she’d been describing getting rid of a used bicycle. “Prob’ly get top dollar fer a whitecoat.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “Did you say that you intend to sell me?”
“At’s right. So?”
“Well, the problem there,” he said desperately, “is that you don’t happen to own me!”
“Fuck I don’t!” she said, fixing him with an icy stare. “I own you same’s anything, like this here place, like my boomstick, like all my other stuff. Aintcha never heard’a finder’s keepers?”
“Yes, but,” he stammered, “people don’t own other people! It’s… well, it’s just not done!”
“Huh,” Teresa grunted. “Sez you. I seen plenny o’ people get bought an’ sold. Jus’ the way things be nowadays. Least with peeps who worth anythin’. Ain’t nothin’ personal-like about it.”
Blinking, utterly at a loss and unsure of what to say, Justin slumped into his seat. So slavery had made a comeback, it seemed. It stood to reason, perhaps, in a barter-based economy devoid of actual currency, but still, it was no easy thing to wrap his head around the idea that he was now just another tradeable good. That he was owned.
But that was secondary to the real issue: he was being separated from Lampert and the others. What would happen in his absence? Would they go on? Would they come looking for him? Would they be attacked by survies or starve to death or, or… Angrily, feeling impotent and disconnected, he forced himself not to think about it.
Oddly, he found that it also hurt his feelings no small amount to think that she could simply get rid of him like that, with no compunction or remorse, after what they’d shar
ed. Didn’t their making love count for something? Had she no feelings for him? But then, he mused, probably she did not. To her, the casual sex was undoubtedly just that: Casual. And nothing more. Still, it kind of stung his male pride.
“Aw, suck ‘er up,” said Teresa, noticing his chagrin. “Maybe it won’ be so bad. Maybe y’all can still be a whitecoat, or one’a Zero’s thinkers or somethin’. Y’all got skills, hey? They won’ put you on no food gang.”
“Thinkers?” he said numbly. “What are Zero’s thinkers?”
She frowned in concentration. “They’s… well, they greeps what think, hey? Other smart dudes like Zero. Know all kinda ploop, I hear.”
“Uh huh,” he said, feeling as deflated and flat as a punctured beach ball. “Yes, well that doesn’t sound so bad. But what about my friends? I really would like to rejoin them. If that’s possible.”
“Well it ain’t,” she said firmly, and turned to look him straight in the eye. “Now hear up, heh? ‘Cause here is the straight-up, six o’clock sitch: you is mine now. I caughtcha, yer mine. An’ even if you is good at fuckin’ and gotta big cock, I can’t afford to jus’ keepya ‘round for that. So we gonna go see Baron Z, see what he say, an’ go from there. Ya got it? No goin’ back to yer friends, no more fancy whitecoat trucks an’ such. I don’ give’a stinkin’ ploop about none’a that, anyhow. Forget it. All I know is: you mine now. Unnerstand?”
Numbly, feeling his face flush at the crude, back-handed compliment, he nodded at her woodenly and raised and lowered his shoulders about an inch.
“I understand,” he said wanly. “I just thought…”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
She glared at him inscrutably for a moment but then relaxed, grinned in a wickedly adorable way, and slapped him lightly on the arm.
“You see,” she said lightly, rising from the table. “You be better off. Better’n wit’ them Sick greeps back in they trucks. Well, anyways, we gonnna be leavin’ soon as night come. So you prob’ly wanna get some sleepin’. Gonna be a long walk.”