by A. M. Geever
For a moment, Miranda was too stunned to speak. “You want to get rid of him because it costs us money?” she demanded. “If we don’t sponsor him, he’ll be a slave or turn into a zombie! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Heads popped out from the tomato plants, seeking the source of the raised voices. The would-be irrigation tech backed away from Alan.
“You can’t talk that way to me!” Alan snapped. “The last thing we need is to have someone working here who’s going to turn into a zombie if he misses a dose! I won’t have it!”
“There is zero chance of him turning if he gets his dose every day. I’ve talked to Timmy, and despite the fact that he’ll now be treated like shit by most everyone and has to go live in that goddamn camp, his motivation to avoid becoming a zombie is very high. You don’t have authority over Ops staffing, which includes vaccine sponsorship, so I don’t give a shit what you’ll have.”
“I don’t appreciate your attempts to undermine my authority, Miranda,” Alan countered, looming over her. “It’s unfortunate that he was infected but—”
“No, Alan, you listen to me.” Miranda moved into his space so that he had to take a step back. Her voice dripped menace, and her right index finger jabbed into his chest for emphasis. “I don’t give a fuck what you want, what you like, or how you want things done. I don’t care if they put a biohazard tattoo in the middle of his fucking forehead! Nobody is going to turn on my watch to save a few a bucks. Now take your flunky and fuck off before I throw you out the goddamn window.”
Alan vibrated with fury and embarrassment, his face as purple as the eggplants that grew on the other side of the building. “You haven’t heard the last of this, Miranda! You can’t treat me like this and get away with it!” he snarled.
He turned on his heel and scuttled toward the door, very much like an oversized beetle, taking note of the sizable audience their shouting match had drawn. Miranda shouted after him.
“Yeah, Alan, I have heard the last of it! The City doesn’t control the Farms and I don’t care what Councilman you’re blowing, you fucking troll!”
“Goddamn him,” she hissed as the door slammed shut. She kicked a wrench that lay on the floor, sending it skittering across the deck grating that let water drip through to the level below. Blood pounded in Miranda’s ears, her body brimming with adrenaline. She looked up and for the first time noticed the staff standing there.
“What?” she blurted. At the back of the group came a clap, followed by another. Within seconds she was receiving an enthusiastic standing ovation. Miranda felt a grin tug at one corner of her mouth. “That was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”
The young woman nearest to her grinned. “That was epic, boss! That was like, folk hero stuff.”
“I don’t know about that,” Miranda laughed. She looked at her staff, their faces alight with laughter and adoration. “Okay, you guys. I blew my stack and there’s still work to do. Nothing to see here anymore.”
The clapping, though not the laughter and excited chatter, subsided as people drifted back to their work.
“Hey,” Miranda said to the young woman. “Will you call maintenance for me, have them come swap out this pump?”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Miranda smiled her thanks, then headed for the door. She had to track down Timmy, the irrigation tech caught up in Alan’s power grab, to let him know that she had not gone back on her word.
Fucking Alan, she thought, another fucking day in paradise.
4
“Your car is ready, sir. It’s waiting outside the main entrance.”
San Jose City Councilman Mario Santorello looked up from the contract he had been reviewing. The Council secretary hovered in the doorway.
“That’s great, thank you,” he said, offering a tight smile. Almost eight months into his term, Mario could not remember the woman’s name. After years of not bothering with the names of underlings, he had trouble remembering even the names of those it would be helpful to know.
Mario straightened the papers before setting the contract aside. He pushed his chair in with a precision the task did not require, then checked his watch. Might as well go straight home after and spend an hour with the kids, he thought as he buttoned his suit jacket.
Outside, the sun’s rays were blinding as they reflected off the squat glass and silver dome beside the San Jose City Hall tower. Mario squinted against the glare, the pupils of his light-brown eyes contracting to pinpoints. He slipped on his sunglasses and headed for the open rear door of the black SUV parked at the curb.
“Mario!”
He stopped and turned. His younger brother Dominic waved his arm above his head from halfway down the block.
“Glad I caught you,” he said when he reached Mario.
“I’m on my way to the Julian Gate. I can’t stick around,” Mario said.
“I’ll tag along. You can give me a ride home,” his brother answered, then ducked into the SUV ahead of Mario. Dominic grinned as he settled himself on the cool leather of the back seat. “Julian Gate means a riot and you’re still the new kid on the block. The first year sucks, but someone else will be getting the glamour jobs before you know it.”
Mario sighed, then looked out the window. Falling into the pecking order of siblings, Dominic did not try to engage in conversation during the three-minute drive.
The Julian Street Gate towered ominously at the intersection ahead. The fortified concrete wall that demarcated San Jose’s border could have given the Berlin Wall a run for its money with its drab grayness and oppressive aspect. The walls and gates that surrounded San Jose always reminded Mario of the ugliest examples of Soviet architecture, but they got the job done. He supposed that was all the Soviets had cared about, too.
Mario opened the SUV door. The roar from the other side of the wall always surprised him. He knew it was a riot, and by definition riots were loud, but he could not shake the years of conditioning for quiet and stealth.
He nodded to the Watch Commander who waited at the bottom of the tower stairs. “What have we got?” he asked as they started up the metal stairs two abreast, his brother following after.
“Approximately five hundred subjects gathered over the last hour. Twelve minutes ago, they demanded entrance to the city. They were given two minutes to disperse, then tear gas canisters were fired. They fell back for a short time but regrouped.”
Mario walked to the railing of the observation deck at the top of the stairs. The ashy smell of tear gas still hung in the air despite the stiff breeze against Mario’s back. A wave of raggedly dressed people rushed toward the wall, then stopped short as if on cue. Arms flipped up like the levers of a line of catapults and rocks filled the air, smacking feebly against the fortified concrete. Flames burst to life at the edge of Mario’s peripheral vision as a Molotov cocktail ignited.
Beside him, Dominic said, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Mario shot his brother an annoyed sideways glance.
“Lighten up,” Dominic laughed. “And don’t pull that fox face with me. I pulled more of these the first month of my first term than you’ll ever get now. Order the live ammunition.”
Mario turned to the Watch Commander. “Why haven’t you used the water cannon?”
“We’re still on water restriction until the rains start, sir. We can let it run its course if you’d like.”
“Tick tock, tick tock,” Dominic muttered.
Mario shook his head. “We don’t need five hundred more zombies along our walls. Give another order to disperse, then use live ammunition.”
The Watch Commander nodded. He turned away and started barking orders.
“Now the fun begins,” Dominic said as the dispersal order blared over the loudspeaker.
Mario waited. The mob offered rude gestures and cat-called insults. When the crack of the rifles began, the taunts turned to screams and panic.
“And they’re off!” Dominic said, his voice like a child’s
with a new toy. “Look at them run.”
Mario felt his face tighten into a hard mask. It started at his eyes, then his nose, followed by his mouth and square chin. Mario looked at his brother again and headed for the stairs. He was almost at the landing before Dominic called after him. Mario waited while Dominic caught up.
“Don’t be such a crab ass, I’m just having a little fun. Migrants can’t turn up on our doorstep expecting to be handed the vaccine as some sort of entitlement, Mario. They have to pay for it or earn it like everyone else. It’s not like they matter.”
Dominic had been on the City Council for almost six years and enjoyed the idea of being senior to his older brother entirely too much for a thirty-four-year-old man. Mario’s motives for wanting to be on the Council could not have been more different than his brother’s, and he’d fought like hell to prove his loyalty before he was finally awarded a seat. The sibling rivalry, and, if he was honest with himself, his brother’s lack of recognition of how hard he had to work to get where he was now, got on his nerves.
“Of course they don’t matter. I just have better things to do than watch fish being shot in a barrel.” Above them, the gunfire ceased. “You still want that lift home?”
“Yeah, though I’m not in a rush,” Dominic answered, opening the SUV’s door.
“Alan still trying to run the Farm?” Mario asked, not trying to hide his amusement. He directed the driver to the Axis building, then turned his attention back to Dominic.
“If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a million times: all he’s supposed to do at the Farm is keep an eye on things and report back, but does he listen?” Dominic asked, his voice filled with long-suffering. “He and Miranda got into it again, but this one was bad. She threatened to throw him out the window.”
“You still have your looks,” Mario said. “It’s not like you’ll be a widower for long.”
“You suck.”
Mario laughed. “That may be, but he needs to cool it. We cannot touch Miranda without pissing off the Jesuits, and you know what her temper is like. If she gets angry enough—”
Dominic groaned. “I spent lunch trying to explain political realities to him. He refuses to believe the Jesuits have the support they do with the unwashed masses. Or that they’re stronger now than when we tried to get rid of them before. ‘We have the vaccine’ is his answer to everything, as if having the vaccine is all that matters when we need their import network from the missions. He has this ridiculous notion that we can just step in and take them over, too. And he cannot comprehend that they started the Farms to feed people, not to make a buck.”
“That’s what happens when you let a bunch of academics run things.”
“Talking to Alan about any of it is like talking to a stone.”
“You should have married a Catholic, Dom,” Mario teased. “If you hadn’t strayed from the One True Church, your husband would understand that priests live for that social justice crap.”
“If I hadn’t strayed, I wouldn’t be married at all, you dick,” Dominic retorted, but he smiled. The SUV slowed as they approached his building.
“You picked him.”
“It’s self-inflicted, I know.” Dominic opened his door. “Give Emily and the kids my love.”
“You bet. I’ll see you later.”
The SUV door slammed shut.
“Home next, Councilman?” the driver asked, making eye contact via the rearview mirror.
Mario nodded, then looked out the window without seeing anything. Fucking Miranda, he thought. A ghost of a smile played around the corners of his mouth as he pictured her: a five-foot-seven fire-breathing dragon squaring off against his idiot brother-in-law. She had probably been sticking up for someone who could not stick up for themselves, like she always did.
A wave of loneliness caught Mario in its undertow, tightening his throat and hollowing his chest. He tried to shove the feelings aside. He could not afford to dwell on Miranda, but that left him thinking about Dominic. His brother regarded shooting unarmed people as entertainment, even people as dispensable as migrants. It shouldn’t have surprised Mario, yet somehow it did. What was it that Miranda had read to him once?
A riot is the language of the unheard.
“What’s that, sir?” the driver asked.
Mario looked up, surprised to realize he had spoken out loud.
“It’s nothing.”
5
Connor’s breath came in scraping gasps as he sprinted across Monterey Avenue.
“The bank!” Seffie shouted.
Connor saw it on the corner: a squat Bank of America building. Low enough that they could get to the roof, but high enough that they could escape the horde. He glanced over at Mike.
Mike wasn’t there.
Connor skidded to a halt and turned back. Mike was down on one knee, still by the motel down the road, trying to shake off two zombies. If they got him down, he was done for.
Without thinking, Connor ran back. From his peripheral vision he could see zombies—tens of them, soon maybe hundreds—spilling out from the parking lots and abandoned buildings of this semi-industrial strip of old San Jose. They were closing in from all sides, stalking their prey with an inexorable herky-jerky momentum.
He swung the crowbar against the skull of the zombie on Mike’s back. Both Mike and the zombie sprawled forward, knocked down to the pavement from the force of the blow. Connor took aim at the other zombie—the one holding fast to Mike’s arm as it gnawed on his elbow. When the crowbar connected, Mike yanked his arm away, shrugging off the zombie on his back as he rose. His jacket, still tangled in the fists of the dead zombies, began to tear.
“Behind you!”
Connor didn’t look, just swung as he turned. He hit the first zombie in the chest. As it staggered back, he shoved the sharp end of the bar into another’s face.
Mike fell in beside Connor, the early evening sun glinting off the stainless steel chain mail exposed by the rips in his jacket. Seffie was gone, turned the corner already. They ran flat out, dodging and swatting away the grasping, twisted hands, not trying to kill because that would slow them down.
“Over here!” Seffie shouted, waving her arms above her head, her voice almost panicked. Connor saw her eyes get wider. He did not need to look back. The growing volume of moans at his back told him everything.
Seffie looked tiny next to the three square brick columns supporting the low roof over a row of defunct ATMs. Mike leaned down when they reached her, weaving his hands together to create a step. Almost as soon as Seffie’s foot hit his hands, she was airborne, tossed up on the roof like a doll. Connor performed the same service for Mike with a groan and none of Mike’s grace, providing just enough lift so that Mike could catch the roof’s lip. Connor stepped under his kicking feet, guiding them to his shoulders, his spine compressing under Mike’s weight.
The sight that had widened Seffie’s eyes now widened Connor’s own. There were hundreds of zombies shuffling into the intersection, curling around the corner from Monterey Avenue like water around a stone.
“Come on, man, let’s go.”
Connor looked up. Mike’s perfect white teeth glinted against his blue-black skin. His muscled arms extended down. Connor crouched, then jumped, stretching his arms high. Mike snagged him just past the elbows, his huge hands dwarfing Connor’s biceps. Connor scrabbled his feet against the column, seeking whatever tiny purchase the mortar between the bricks offered. He felt a sliding weight against his boot heel, a hand not quite able to catch hold and hang on, as Mike pulled him up to safety.
Connor collapsed onto the hot blacktop and gravel roof. Heat radiated through his battered canvas backpack, clothing and chain mail, broiling his already roasting skin. He felt itchy, exhausted, and grateful to be alive.
“And I thought we were screwed in Salinas,” he gasped.
“Tell me about it,” Mike answered.
Seffie’s voice was filled with irritation. “You two need to come over
here, away from the edge.”
Connor lifted his head. Seffie had retreated to the main building roof. He followed Mike over to where she sat.
“Don’t tell me you’d miss me,” Connor said to her.
“Hardly,” she snorted. She swiped at the sweat on her flat, Pekinese-like face with the blue bandana that was usually wrapped around her head. “We’re what, half a mile short?”
Connor stood up and squinted through the shimmering waves of heat rippling up from road and rooftops, barely visible as dusk approached. It couldn’t be more than half a mile to the huge concrete wall that demarcated the boundary of modern San Jose. The road itself was clear of vehicles beyond the intersection where they were stranded. Every car, truck, and SUV had been moved off to the side and stacked two or three high, almost all the way to the gate. The road lay open like an invitation, but a smattering of zombies wandered on both sides of the vehicle barrier. For every one you could see, there was sure to be at least five more you could not.
“I can see the gate and a whole lot of zombies.” Connor sighed.
“How do they keep the city secure with this many so close?” said Mike.
Connor shrugged as he sat down again. Seffie’s face twisted into its habitual scowl.
“It’ll be dark soon, and we still have one flare. We could shoot it and see if they’ll come get us,” Connor suggested.
“Would you come out to get people you don’t know?” Seffie asked. Almost immediately, both she and Mike added, “Don’t answer that.”
Connor didn’t need the reminder. He knew he was the Boy Scout of the group. Seffie and Mike were far too pragmatic to risk their necks for people they did not know without a damn good reason. Whoever was manning that wall was probably the same.
“I have a few grenades left,” Mike said. “Let’s lay low for an hour or two, let the horde settle. If it clears up at all, we make a break for it. Shoot the flare so they know we’re coming, and it’ll give us some light. Use the grenades if it gets crowded. If we’re lucky, we’ll make it. It’s only half a mile.”