Afterwar

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Pana swallowed, hard. “Simms? You buckled up?”

  The Reaper snorted. “Gonna ruin my threads. Yeah, Pana, I’m buckled. You sit your sweet Mexi-ass down, aight?”

  “Gonna.” First, though, she made it to the med cabinet, got it squared, and checked the head. Yes, there was a commode in there, thank God. A tiny in-flight one, with blue chemicals instead of water, but that was a secondary consideration. “Gracias, Dios mío.”

  “It’s all right,” Hendrickson repeated. He made a short movement, like he wanted to smooth Spooky’s shoulder, and she flinched. “Whoa, okay. It’s all right, Spooky. You’re safe.”

  A jagged little giggle boiled out of her acid-burned throat. “We’re in the sky,” she husked. “How is that safe?”

  “Amen.” Sal flipped open his interrupted funnybook, sweat glistening along his forehead under his flattened curls.

  Hendrickson didn’t give up easy. “Well, this is a new kind of sled. Super stabilized. Even if someone takes out the cells, we’ll glide.” He dropped his hand back into his lap. “It’s got fire protection. Baffles. The whole nine.”

  “Little late,” Simmons muttered. Just loud enough.

  “Yeah.” Hendrickson chose to answer him, lifting his chin and staring at the Reaper dead-on. “I know.”

  Spooky took another mouthful of the electrolyte. It tasted awful, but it got the nastiness of bile and vomit out of her mouth. Her entire midsection was tender. “The White Room. At Baylock.” A shudder worked through her. “That was where they had the kids.”

  “Spooky—” Simmons shifted restlessly.

  “He’s not gonna turn me in.” She cut her eyes at Hendrickson. “Are you?”

  The Federal shook his head. “I’m not here to turn anyone in, goddammit.” The sled rattled a little, bouncing through turbulence, and every one of them tensed.

  “Dios mío,” Zampana yelled, behind the thin hatch to the head. “Cut it out!”

  Chuck, still clutching Minjae’s bag to his chest, narrowed his dark eyes. “What’s this turn-in bullshit, huh?”

  “Mutants,” Spooky said. “Right? Firsters, Feds, they both see the same thing.” Were they all fucking stupid, not to see it? “Weapons. Feds just want Dr. Death to work for them instead, making more Spookies.”

  Simms opened his mouth, maybe to say that wasn’t true. He shut it again, as Spooky sucked on the electrolyte pouch. Hendrickson had turned pale, but maybe that was the sled rattle.

  “Better us than the Russians, right?” Chuck shook his head, winced as his leg twinged. “Motherfuckers never learn.”

  “They did that after the big war.” Simmons cracked his knuckles. “Read about it. Bunch of Nazi motherfuckers building rockets.”

  “Building human rockets now.” Spooky rocked back and forth in the jumpseat. Her stomach turned over again and her cheeks puffed out, but this time nothing came up.

  Thank God.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Boss

  July 29, ’98

  The ancient blue rust-spotted truck jolted and rattled. Gene stared out the half-open window, a burning-redolent afternoon breeze brushing his sweat-stiff hair and stubbled chin. It was like an ancient ’cast, a road trip movie. A crazy doctor and his loyal sidekick, across fields of waving grain.

  Except it wasn’t grain—it was smoking grassland, summer fires hitting their stride amid war drought and lightning strikes. Plenty of Wyoming was aflame, and Montana’s big sky was full of burning. Refugees clotted the road around any town large enough to have more than one stoplight, kerchiefs knotted around their faces, jalopies piled high with mattresses and home goods, all flowing west. Soon they would splash against the DMZ, collecting into scabs of desperation, heading for the golden land of the coast. PC, they called it, Practically Canada. A fabled land full of tolerance, milk, and honey. All those things the immies and degenerates used to seduce Amerikans and turn them into traitors.

  Gene had to admit, though, the sky was big around here. It went on forever, the truck inchworming on a ribbon road, a beetle crawling on the back of a beast too big for reckoning.

  It was probably just the drugs talking. The good Dr. Johnson, his hatchet face a grinning mask, seemed to have an endless supply. Warm and forgiving, chemical fire crawling through his veins, it was almost enough to make Gene forgive the man.

  Almost.

  Then he’d look at his left hand. Or, more precisely, where his left hand should have been. The stump, wrapped in sticky norpirene-smeared gauze and a blue senso-wrapper, ached and tingled. The doctor checked it at every stop, and sometimes pressed on the end with a gloved finger, enjoying Gene’s grunts when agonizing bolts of lightning jolted up to his shoulder, detonating in his head. Each time, he tried not to react, and each time, the sound pulled itself out of him almost by accident.

  The dashboard was blue too, molded plastic, clunky and antique. Every once in a while the doctor would consult a similarly antique yellowed atlas and pull off the highway, sometimes even bumping through clusters of refugees who scraped along the side of the truck, their eyes squinting above knotted, soot-stained kerchiefs or filthy surgical masks. When the crowds thickened, you could tell there was a checkpoint ahead, and the doctor would sigh, turning stained pages and bumping over a network of old-fashioned roads, from blacktop to macadam, sometimes off both and onto gravel.

  “Help me with this, will you?” The doctor leered through Gene’s window, sweat gleaming on his long nose.

  Creaking in every joint, the once-Kaptain Thomas climbed out of the truck into slumberous golden sunlight, all the more vivid because of the looming black clouds. You could see the weather coming a long way out, here. “What?” His tongue didn’t quite want to fit behind his teeth or work properly. Cottonmouth, a dry rasping going down his throat too.

  The filling station was boarded up, its plate glass windows filthy with dust and flyspecks. A soaped drawing on the front was full of pumpkins, snowflakes, a scarecrow, and the invitation to COME ON IN! In the western distance, the bruise-dark clouds thickened, diamond flashes stitching their undersides. Gene stared for a long moment before he realized the doctor had seized his right hand and put it on the old-fashioned nozzle, pumping petrol into the truck’s sloshing tank.

  “Hold this.” Johnson made a spitting sound, arranging Thom’s right-hand fingers to suit him. “Good. Don’t splash it. I’ll check your dressing when I get back.” With that, he strode away, hurrying for the side of the building, his fedora bobbing. He was prissy about pissing, the good Dr. Johnson from Kamp Baylock.

  Gene blinked several times, trying to think. The pinching on the inside of his elbows, where the needles went in. When the narcotics wore off, he could feel his missing left hand, fingers spread and painfully cramped. Sometimes he thought it was a mistake, that Johnson had just tricked him into believing his hand was gone, showed him the jar with the floating flesh-spider in it, thumb curled like a monkey’s, ring finger abnormally short because the tendons—

  Splish. Petrol fumes simmered up, crawling into his nose. Hard to think with the buzzing in his head. I saved your life, the doctor said.

  Was it true? His arm had been infected, but…

  Of course he’s lying, someone whispered, her breath brushing his ear. He just wants a body to experiment on. Any body will do.

  Gene jerked the nozzle out of the side of the truck, splattering colorless petrol in a wide arc. How was this pump still working?

  Gravity, silly. A low, caramel laugh. Her laugh, but he’d never heard it. She’d barely said ten words to him. Why was he hearing her now? Hallucinations. The drugs.

  Dr. Johnson had drugged the fuck out of him. Gene shuddered. His feet were wet, and when he looked down he found out why.

  He was in his sock feet, standing outside a shitty little boarded-up fleabite in Montana, splashing gas on his toes while he pushed the stump of his left arm into his chest. Amputation was a guaranteed out, the Patriots wanting only the whole and the healthy
. Even if your genes were right, a missing limb was a no-no.

  It took him two tries to figure out how to shut the pump off. His head was full of hot fudge, hard to stir, thoughts sticking to the sides of his braincase. There was the truck. If he put the nozzle in the window…how would he light it? He didn’t smoke. Was it worth the risk of catching on fire himself? Maybe he could douse the doctor, and—

  No, she whispered in his ear. He’s meeting someone. He has something they want; he’s probably carrying it.

  So, no fire on the doctor. Not yet. There were other ways to skin a cat, like his mother might have said. A shudder raced through him. He hadn’t thought of the old bitch in years. Skinny and dishwater-blonde, her raddled breasts hanging as she looked at herself in the mirror, she’d caught him in the hall that day and whaled the fuck out of him. Just for accidentally seeing her body eaten up with the cancer. No insurance, not for hardscrabble coal country. The Patriots and their Guaranteed Citizen Care had come along too late for old Ma Thomas.

  Gene shut his eyes, breathing deep. The smoke smell intensified, a burning wind. Had he already lit the damn thing on fire? When he looked back up, the inkstain to the west had drawn closer, or maybe his gaze was just focusing properly now. The stabs from the pendulous cloudbelly were brighter, too. Lightning. Too far away to hear the thunder, a storm on the other side of nothing. The wind sharpened, freshened, brushing aside smoke for a moment. Light-headed, he jammed the nozzle back in its holder and tried to think, again.

  When he lay down at night, the doctor didn’t take his trousers off, or his undershirt. Wrapped around Johnson’s thickening, stiffening waist was a black smear—a travel belt. He never took the damn thing off. If he was carrying something good, that was where it would be.

  The only thing Gene had to worry about, he thought, leaning against the ancient gas pump with its bubble top and faded, chipped red paint, was figuring out who to sell it to. And, of course, making sure he searched Johnson’s corpse thoroughly for every drop of drugs the man was carrying.

  Then, Eugene Thomas told himself, then they’d see who was boss.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Ngombe’s Hands

  “Practically drives itself, sir.” Ngombe’s slim thumbs caressed the yoke. “Never thought they’d let someone like me take this baby up. Isn’t she a beauty?”

  “Real cute.” Swann rubbed at his grainy eyes. His stomach wasn’t too happy at the feeling of being aloft again, even though the ride was surprisingly smooth. “What you mean, someone like you?”

  “Well, you know.” She flipped a couple toggles until the lights dancing across the displays suited her. “They don’t like raiders taking shit out of the hangars, sir.”

  “You a raider?” He took another look at the girl’s profile. “With who?”

  “Nana Bona.” A cheerful wink, and she rubbed the back of her close-cropped head against the pilot cradle. “Hung around in Texas, grabbing shit, running intel. Got sent to Mississippi twice, got loose and went back each time. Rattled around in RVs with ultralights chunked up in the back, scout an airfield, load ’em up, drop shit on ’em. Drones, sir. I can build you a drone. It flies, I like it.”

  “Huh.” He’d assumed she was Army. This was a welcome surprise. “Pana? This lady says she was with Nana in Texas.”

  “No shit.” Zampana, free of the head, edged her way cautiously up the middle of the sled. “Which band you with, then?”

  “Desert Rats,” Ngombe said, turning her chin slightly. From that angle, with the instrument glow playing over her features, she looked childish instead of squished. “Scrounged everything, sir-ma’am. Hit the depot in Amarillo last year.”

  Pana’s grin, startling and good-natured, widened. She scratched under her braids, peered out through the sled’s front bubble at a vicious red sunset sky. “How the fuck you end up flying this?”

  “Big man come down, said any raider sign up gets rank. I said, get me in that air force, let me fly some beauties!” Her teeth peeped out, strong and white except for her upper left canine, knocked out. “They didn’t want to, but Nana hollered at someone until they got me in an old junker of a sled and I turned that thing upside-down, let me tell you. Then they couldn’t get my sweet ass in somethin’ good fast enough.”

  “I can believe it.” Pana leaned against the bulkhead behind the girl’s seat. “I’m Zampana. Pleased to meetcha.”

  Her head bobbed, the salute of a soldier with something in her hands. “Likewise, ma’am. It true what they say?”

  “Depends on what they’re saying.” Swann tried to relax. “Can the sir, we’re all raiders here. Pana, buckle yourself in.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She dropped into the jumpseat on Spooky’s other side; the Spook kept sucking at the electrolyte pack. “Now that I’m a few ounces lighter, I’d be glad to.”

  “Thanks for sharing,” Simmons weighed in.

  Ngombe’s laugh was caramel, a deep rich chuckle. The sled evened out. “No shit, though, is it true? Y’all hunting those motherfuckers?”

  “Yeah.” Swann rubbed at his eyes again. Why the fuck had he taken the copilot chair? The controls were like a regular sled’s, but not enough like, and he wanted to catch some shut-eye. All the same, he didn’t want Hendrickson up here. Let the asshole sit next to Spook and think about things, dammit. “Got some notched up already.”

  “Sir, and they pay you for it?” She let go of the yoke to wave her right hand. “It’s like fuckin’ Christmas!”

  There was no way Swann was ever going to get as excited about anything as this girl seemed to be. “Keep it steady, all right?”

  Her grin didn’t alter in the least. “Hey, you don’t need to worry, sir. You couldn’t crash this baby if you tried. Raider’s honor.”

  “Fucking shit.” Simms settled himself more firmly in his own seat. “Does she ever shut up?”

  “Be cool, man.” Chuck checked the catch on his own belt again. There was a doodad that folded out a flat surface from the sled wall, and Minjae’s laptop fit right in a shallow well, plugging in just like it was designed to. “Look at this. High-class. Min would love this shit.”

  Uncomfortable, humming silence descended on the sled interior. Simmons shut his eyes, stretched his long legs out. Spooky cautiously leaned aside, away from Hendrickson. Jumpseats didn’t have armrests, so she could put her shoulder against Pana’s, sinking down, alert for any sign the older woman minded.

  There was none. Solid and soft at the same time, Pana just settled her weight to accommodate. A few tendrils of freshly trimmed hair fell into Spooky’s eyes, but she didn’t move.

  Ngombe sobered. “My name’s Kelly, y’all,” she said finally. “Kelly Ngombe.”

  “Pleased to meetcha,” Zampana repeated. “You know Swann. This bitch with the big eyes is Spooky, and that Johnny Fed, well, he answers to Hey, you. The big reader there is Sal. Big blond bastard is Simmons, and that’s Chuck Dogg.” It was a painfully short roll call.

  “Hendrickson,” Johnny Fed said, but not very loudly. In any case, presumably, she already knew.

  “So, I got the coords,” Ngombe nodded, sucked in her cheeks, popped her lips. “I ain’t gonna ask about anything else, aight, sir? You tell me when I need to know.”

  “Ain’t that a goddamn relief,” Simms said. “Johnny Fed there like stickin’ his nose in.”

  “They can’t help it. Way they’re built, sir.” But Ngombe glanced back, as if troubled. “That heavin’ one, she gonna be okay?”

  “Just fine,” Pana said. “Nervous stomach.”

  “Man, I can’t imagine gettin’ airsick. But don’t you worry, sir-ma’am-y’all. Gonna get you there nice and smooth. No weather all the way there, so get some rest. You in Ngombe’s hands now, mothas.”

  “Stick to mothas,” Swann said. “Instead of sir, all right?”

  “Yessir.” And Kelly Ngombe laughed again.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  No Chances

  July 30, ’98
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  Dawn rose over farmland gone fallow. A smudge on the eastern horizon flushed bloody, reflecting a sullen haze. The newscasts, starting at the top of every hour, were full of burning on the plains, wildfires out of control and the DMZ swamped with refugees—and others—splashing against the Rockies. In between, music crackled softly over one frequency, air traffic headings read monotonously over the other. The pilot hummed along with all the songs—old favorites like “Cubano Sol” and Bi’s “Dear Momma Don’t Cry,” famous as the most-requested tune during all of the Second Western Offensive; newer ones like Tribe Banyo’s “Federal Stomp” and Cucaracha’s “Bailando Segundo,” with its call-and-response about the hated Migra Negra, the Patriot “border patrol.” Go back where you came from, Adamo Lisandro wailed over the mariachi strum, you fucking conquistadors.

  Swann dozed in the jumpseat next to Spooky now; Zampana, fully rested, was in the copilot seat, reading off verified instrumentals when Ngombe asked for them and sometimes humming along herself. There was an all-corrido channel the pilot favored, and they alternated every half hour between that and AF-KROC for the ’casts along with Top Forty and oldies. Once or twice, the signal fuzzed, the last time with a Christer frothing about Revelations and the fall of America. “Could get that fucker quick,” Ngombe muttered, her face distorting for a moment. “Lock onto his ’cast and run it down. Give him nine grams.”

  “If he’s still there when we come back,” Pana murmured in reply. She didn’t add and if he’s not using a relay. The old days of bouncing ’casts all over to hide from the All-Amerika FCC were full of bad memories.

  They banked over a small, deserted South Dakota town, a blip on the landscape—shell-burned church, broken glass glitter-winking at midmorning from the ruins of feedstore and gas station windows, gutted homes. Raiders or regulars, who could tell? For someone to fight over this shithole must have meant something was worth it, one way or another.