Without warning

by John Birmingham

  She had turned around and was about to claw her way back to her own sleeping quarters when Phoebe called after her: ‘Hey, Julianne?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

  There was a neediness in the girl’s eyes that answered Jules’s earlier, unspoken question. ‘What’s up, Phoebe?’

  The little village girl, Maya, no more than five or six years old, snuggled in tight, burying her face in the young woman’s chest.

  ‘You used to be rich once, didn’t you?’

  Jules couldn’t help but smirk. ‘So did you.’

  ‘No,’ said Phoebe, ‘that’s not what I mean. Before all of this, before the Disappearance, before you found this yacht. Before whatever it was you were doing with Fifi and that Chinese man. You used to be rich. Like me. I can tell from your voice and from the way you run your crew – like you were always meant to.’

  The ship dipped and plunged again, unbalancing Jules and propelling her forward. She let herself fall into another lounger close to Phoebe, lest she get hurled out through the glass doors.

  ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘My family had money. Old money. And my father stole a lot more. But it was never enough to fund his extravagant tastes, or to pay the upkeep on our estates.’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Phoebe with a note of triumph. ‘So you, like, grew up in a castle?’

  ‘Something like that. It’s not nearly as much fun as it sounds. We had to throw the place open to the public every other weekend just to pay for heating.’

  ‘And how did you end up doing, you know, whatever?’

  Jules’s smile was genuine now. ‘Smuggling, Phoebe. I was a smuggler – I still am, I suppose. It’s one the few jobs still paying these days.’ Jules gave a quick shrug and settled deep into the safety and comfort of the chair. ‘I loved my father, in spite of his faults. Because of them, in some ways. He was very different from the sort of people we mixed with. Or rather, he was just like them, but more honest about it.’

  ‘But you said he stole money’

  Jules smiled again, fondly. ‘He did. He was a terrible crook, but he only ever stole from the rich – and believe me, Phoebe, if your family has been rich for nine hundred years, somewhere some of that loot was stolen. Most of it, even.’

  Lightning and thunder flared and crashed so closely together that Jules was unaware of any lag between them. The flat, white light illuminated a ghastly vision outside of the whole ocean in turmoil, of living, waterborne mountain ranges boiling up around the ship.

  ‘You didn’t tell me how you became a smuggler,’ Phoebe continued, pressing for more.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Jules, who pushed herself up out of the chair and headed for the nearest grab bar. ‘Don’t worry, Phoebe,’ she called back over her shoulder, ‘you’ll be fine. The only reason you’re on this boat is because you were quick enough and smart enough to react to the Disappearance. You got some of your old money out and turned it into new money, very quickly. Most people aren’t like that – they’ll sit and wait for the situation to bury them. You, you’re a survivor. Plus, a family like yours, it would’ve had investments all over the world, wouldn’t it? Not all of them would have tanked.’

  The American said nothing to that and Jules smiled again. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ve paid for passage, I’m not going to ask for any more. But tomorrow, or the day after, when this storm clears and those Peruvians have a clear run at us, if we can’t outpace them, you’ll have to earn your passage. So get some rest.’

  She pulled herself up the rising deck and out into the companion way. The journey to her own cabin, the former owner’s quarters, was a hand-over-hand trek that took another six or more minutes and came close to exhausting her.

  ‘Maya? Maya?’

  A woman’s voice, Mexican, made her look up. Mariela Pieraro was clawing her way along the corridor towards Jules, a frantic look haunting her eyes.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Jules called out. ‘Maya’s in the big lounge. With Phoebe.’

  The two women hauled themselves along, hand over hand, holding on to the safety rails that ran the length of the companionway. The look of animal fear disappeared from Mariela’s face, but a deep, abiding worry remained. The storm, Jules supposed. Your first big storm at sea was always terrifying. How much more so would it be for a woman who had spent her life on the edge of a desert?

  ‘Miss Julianne. I am… sorry… I… not to find her… I…’

  The boat slipped sideways and Jules nearly lost her footing as she waved away the mother’s concerns. Mariela didn’t speak English with much confidence, although Jules didn’t know why. Her grasp of the language seemed fine, but after the scene at the Fairmont she and the other villagers had very much kept to themselves, doing everything asked of them but trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible.

  ‘Just down there a little way,’ Jules said, pointing back to the way she’d just come. ‘Through the big doors. She went to the loo… to the toilet, sorry. And got lost. She is fine, Mariela.’

  Pieraro’s wife nodded gratefully. ‘I worry. I cannot see her and I worry.’

  ‘She’s fine,’ Jules repeated.

  The woman grabbed at her arm as they passed each other, a strong, almost vice-like grip. ‘You are a good person, yes?’ she said. ‘A good person to save my family. All of us. Thank you, thank you…’

  Embarrassed, as any Englishwoman would be by flagrant neediness and raw emotion, especially from a stranger, Jules blushed slightly and tried to shrug it off.

  ‘No,’ insisted Mariela. ‘You did not have to take us all, but you did. You helped when no one else would. You are good person, Miss Julianne. Good person.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ replied Jules, not knowing what else to say. ‘She’s in the lounge. Best go get her.’

  ‘Si Si’

  Mariela continued on her way, muttering ‘Thank you’ repeatedly as she receded. It was the longest conversation Julianne had had with her or any of Miguel’s people, save for Pieraro himself, of course. Truth be known, she had avoided them, not wanting to grow attached to people she had promised herself she would cut loose at the first opportunity.

  Putting that uncomfortable thought out of her head, she resumed the journey to her cabin, taking another few minutes to get there. She was sticky with salt and sweat, and filthy from the day’s exertions, but the sea was too rough to have a bath or shower. Instead, Julianne stripped down to her underwear, crawled under the covers and turned out the light.

  There was nothing she could do about the storm or the men chasing them. The storm would pass. The men would not.

  She fell asleep haunted by visions of the little girl called Maya being tortured by faceless ghouls.

  * * * *

  45

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Jed Culver stood at the back of the auditorium, stirring a sachet of Sweet ‘N Low into his instant coffee, regarding the deteriorating fiasco of the convention with mute detachment.

  Reggie Guertson had the call again. He’d firmed up as the point man for what Culver was calling ‘the Beer Hall Putsch’ – the broad-based faction of neo-con Democrats, national security fetishists, wingnut Republicans and a grab bag of survivalist whackjobs, chancers, urgers and shameless self-aggrandisers who had all come together behind the banner of the so-called Reform Movement. They were his enemies. That’s how he thought of them. His enemies, and the enemies of the old Republic.

  And they were winning, at least on the floor of the Constitutional Convention. Their crazy, fear-driven idea of a new Constitution, enshrining military representation at the heart of civilian government, was actually gaining traction. If he didn’t have such a low opinion of human nature he’d have had a hard time believing it. Didn’t these fools understand that the US military couldn’t even sustain itself now, let alone run what remained of the country?

  The hard truth didn’t seem to matter to them, though. It was as if they’d all joined hands and
stepped through the looking glass.

  Up on stage, Mayor Guertson was haranguing a section of the audience that was attempting to shout him down. Spittle was flying from his lips and the public address system distorted every time he banged the podium with his fist. For their part, the hecklers were giving back as good as they got. Screeching and even throwing things at him.

  ‘This is what we’re fighting against!’ railed Guertson. ‘This sort of anarchy and subversion is what will destroy us all – it has to be stopped!’

  ‘Sieg heil. Sieg heil,’ chanted his detractors.

  ‘This is going well then.’

  Culver wasn’t surprised to find James Kipper at his elbow. He’d been expecting him here. He knew Kipper often cruised the buffet tables looking for treats to take home to his daughter. In fact, before Jed could speak, the engineer fessed up.

  ‘Just came up here looking for more army chocolate,’ he admitted sheepishly.

  ‘Here. For your kid,’ said Culver, producing a carefully hoarded packet of Milk Duds. ‘I traded my cigarette ration for them.’

  The city engineer blushed and began to shake his head, but Culver waved off his objection.

  ‘I don’t smoke, and I’m diabetic. I just thought your little girl might like them.’

  ‘Well, she would,’ Kip admitted. ‘But it doesn’t feel right. Things are so tight at the moment.’

  ‘What are you, a Catholic, with all that guilt? Take the fucking Milk Duds, Kip. They’ll kill me if I eat them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get insulin at the moment?’

  The engineer thanked him and pocketed the small treat. ‘Suzie’ll love them.’ He had to raise his voice to be heard over the din.

  ‘This is a first-class shambles, isn’t it?’ said Culver.

  Kipper nodded. He surveyed the scene as if discovering a bedroom left in chaos by a naughty child. The convention chairman was on his feet now, pointing his little wooden hammer at Guertson, demanding he give up the podium. The Sieg heil crew were being pushed around at the edges by a group of men who looked like they’d just come in from a logging mill, and at least two fist fights had broken out on the far side of the hall. Kipper muttered something, excused himself and hurried away. A minute or so later, all power to the room was cut, plunging it into darkness.

  The effect was almost instant: a sudden change in tone from angry contention to confusion and surprise. After a short interval, the lights came up again, and when they did, Kipper was standing at the podium, smiling at Mayor Guertson, asking politely for the microphone. He got it and then spoke forcefully to the entire room.

  ‘Sorry, folks. James Kipper, city engineer. We’ve had some trouble with relays from the power station and this place is a major drain on the grid. The whole building is set to flip off when we get a spike. Perhaps a ten-minute break while my guys sort this out would be a good idea. It won’t take long, I promise.’

  He flicked off the PA and waved a hand over at a man in overalls, standing by a junction box at the rear of the hall. His technician dimmed the lights and cut power to the sound system with an audible pop. Kipper hopped down from the stage, holding both hands up, with his fingers splayed. Ten minutes.

  The crowd seemed to deflate as the malign energy that had been building up sluiced out of the room. Not entirely, but enough for everyone to retreat from their entrenched positions.

  Culver stood to one side as a hundred or more people made straight for the coffee and sandwich tables where he was standing. He pushed through them, like a salmon swimming upstream, intent on catching Kipper before he disappeared again. He found the engineer, loitering by a side exit, watching over the room with a censorious air.

  ‘So, mass psychology and creative bullshitting,’ the lawyer said, impressed. ‘I didn’t realise the city engineer had to be so versatile.’

  Kipper raised an eyebrow. ‘Multitasking, Jed. It’s all multitasking in today’s go-go world of local government.’

  ‘Uh-huh, so you’re going to switch off the lights and send them to the naughty corner every time they get out of hand?’

  The other man looked at a loss for words. ‘I don’t fucking know. I mean, what the hell is this about?’ He waved a hand around to take in the entire auditorium. ‘I don’t know that we’re gonna get through this, you know. You’d have thought that people would be pulling together, not trying to rip each other down.’

  Culver smiled gently. ‘Do you know much history, Mr Kipper? Do you know the Battle of Salamis?’

  ‘Some Civil War thing?’ Kip replied, looking slightly perplexed.

  Culver shook his head. ‘Most important battle in history. Gallant little ancient Greece versus the enormous, evil Persian Empire. If the Greeks had lost that battle, we wouldn’t be standing here today. There would be no such thing as Western civilisation. Anyway, the point is, before the battle the Greeks looked a lot like the people in this room – beating on each other, calling each other dumb fucks and ignorant assholes. The only thing they could agree on was the need to kick Persian ass, but nobody could agree how. In the end, though, they did. And it was partly due to all that aggravating back and forth, as they sorted through their ideas. That and the fact that the Greeks all fought as free men, whereas the Persians were slaves to a God King.’

  Kipper sort of squinted and sucked air in through his teeth. ‘I don’t really get it,’ he said. ‘We’re not about to fight a battle. We’re just trying to rebuild a working country.’

  Culver leaned in closely now. ‘We are fighting a battle, Kip. And this…’ – he waved his hand at the room – ‘this is just a skirmish.’

  * * * *

  Suzie’s squeal of delight was painfully, beautifully loud in the gloomy candle-lit kitchen.

  ‘Oh thank you, Daddy! Thank you!’ She hugged the bright yellow packet of Milk Duds to her chest. ‘I’m going to have a tea party and share them with Barbie, and Big Teddy, and Daisy the horse, and…’

  Barbara Kipper stroked her daughter’s bobbing head and tried to calm her down. ‘That’s lovely, sweetheart, but remember, Daddy may not be able to get any more, so don’t share them all at once. Maybe just one tonight?’

  ‘Oh I know that, Mommy,’ she insisted. ‘I know that Milk Duds might not come back ever again. Or Oreos or Barney the Dinosaur. So I’ll share mine for real with Sophie and Anna. Because they’re sad.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you,’ said Kip. ‘That’s very good, darling… You go have a play now, and let Mommy and Daddy talk, okay?’

  The little girl flicked on her Scooby Doo flashlight, turned on a dime, and shot away up the darkened hall to set up a tea party with her stuffed toys.

  ‘Any chance she won’t scoff them all down tonight?’ asked Barb sceptically.

  ‘Oh, she’s pretty good. She did share that army chocolate with her friends.’

  ‘And she got in trouble for it, Kip. Remember? That asshole ration Nazi at the school had her wait outside his office for an hour. A fucking hour …!’

  ‘Okay, honey, calm down,’ he said. ‘It’s a good thing, you know. She gets so little now. And she’s so good about it. It’s nice that we can still get her these little things.’

  ‘Nice for her, Kip, but you’re not here every day dealing with the neighbours and the school moms.’ Her voice hitched. ‘The th-things they say…’ Tears welled up in Barb’s eyes and her face creased as she leaned forward into his chest, sobbing. She was like this so often now. Brittle and prone to emotional collapse.

  They stood like that, in the soft, guttering light of a half-melted candle, for nearly a minute. The house did have power, for the next two hours, but like most people they kept their energy usage to a minimum. Barb had the rice cooker plugged in on the bench, with some vegetables in the steamer basket, but that was it for appliances. They would turn on the battery-operated radio at nine for the Emergency Broadcast update, and then switch it right off again.

  His wife was just calming down when three hard knocks rattle
d the door leading out to the porch and made them both jump. Kip left Barbara to compose herself and peeked through the curtains to see who’d come by. Visitors were a rarity these days, because of the shortages. Everyone stayed close to home. There was no mistaking the mountain-sized moonlit silhouette on the porch, however. It was his friend and former deputy, Barney Tench.

  ‘Holy crap, Barn, what are you doing all the way over on this side of town? How’d you get the gas?’

  ‘Can I come in?’ asked Barney, with a hint of urgency.

  ‘Sure, buddy, come in. Hey Barb, look – it’s Barn. Reckon we could break out the emergency bourbon?’