Fall of the Cities_Branching Out

by Vance Huxley

  “Absolutely, especially if you just killed that many of Currie’s bastards. He won’t try to hold if we move now which means we can push him right back over the canal.” Abby frowned. “You don’t want any more housing?”

  “No thanks. We will take over the area bounded by the canal on the south and west, and Cinder Bank and Highbridge Road down to your boundary on the east?” He smiled. “Nearly all parkland except that one estate and a few places where there’s already some veggies conveniently planted.”

  Abby shook his hand firmly. “Oh yes, that is definitely a deal.” She nodded at the automatic. “None of the local gangs have been able to hold the open ground, but those machine guns will scare them off. With those you can hold the canal bridges.”

  Beside him a constable answered his radio, and passed the messages. “Eight-one-four has secured the housing to the south. He’s sent a patrol along the road to seal the bridge over the canal to the south. Two-six-one has secured the canal crossings to the west. Two-two-nine has taken the small industrial estate north, though he says the place is stripped bare and there’s nowhere fit to live in. He wants to know where to set the northern boundary because there’s a real jumble of warehousing along the edge of the open land?”

  The injured sergeant, the man in charge, looked back to the woman. “You were going to find us a good boundary line there.”

  “If you’ve really broken Currie’s gang, take his share of those warehouses and industrial units or maybe the lot.” She smiled. “If you wave those machine guns at them the other two gangs will back off and you can take all your bank of the canal up to the dual carriageway. That would be a good northern boundary?”

  “Are you sure? We don’t want to stretch ourselves, or you, too thin.” Sarge looked south where many of the non-fighters would be moving into the small housing estate. “We’ve got a full-time job on repairing those houses.”

  “Some of the warehouses are still weatherproof, just empty. You might find them easier to make habitable than houses. We’ll have people to spare because our new boundary will be a canal and easy to defend, and with you to our north we won’t need to watch the canal there.” She sighed. “Christ, it is such a relief to see a civilised face, and get neighbours who won’t be trying to steal our fillings in our sleep.” She turned to her colleagues. “It’s a go.”

  “They can attack now?” One man had his radio up, ready to call.

  “Yes. Take Currie’s share of the woodland as well then drop that footbridge into the canal to make a new boundary.” The man grinned and started talking into a two-way radio. She turned back to the police officers, smiling happily. “We’ll help patrol the warehouses for cladding and steel, and share our extra timber to make charcoal and arrows. We’ve just got our gardens inside the walls while the rest is woodland, so we’d like a bit of land for crops?”

  “That sounds like a good idea. We’ll have a meeting once we’ve settled in and get the details hammered out.” He smiled tiredly. “We’ve got an extra nine women who have left Currie. Ask around your people for anyone who has room for some of them.” The sergeant turned back to his colleague. “Koos, you heard that.”

  Sergeant Koos started talking into his radio again. David escorted the rest of the party to a building that, apart from two broken windows and some very fresh bodies, would provide housing. As Koos finished, Sarge nodded towards the man’s automatic rifle. “How are we for ammo for the automatics?”

  “We’re getting short now, though we collected most of the brass. Unless we can find a source of propellant we’ll be down to using the captured weapons and ammo. I wish I knew where the gangs get theirs.”

  “So do I, though we can probably hold our new home with the captured weapons and ammo.” Sarge’s shoulders straightened and he smiled. “Though ammunition might not be quite so important now because we did it! We’ve got someplace we can grow food so we can cut down on mart trips.”

  Koos laughed. “Even better, there should be plenty of rabbits here.” The men set into unloading the vehicles into their new homes.

  Despite the loss of men the ex-policemen were satisfied with their night’s work. Their own enclave had evacuated without losing a single non-combatant, driving clean through two gang territories. Now, instead of the tarmac and bare concrete surrounding their old home, the Precinct 19 had acres of parkland to grow food. Better still, Abbey’s small enclave were now secure allies instead of being slowly squeezed out of existence. With their combined numbers, and canals as defensible borders on two sides, both groups were as secure as anyone else in this nightmare.

  * * *

  Well over a hundred miles southeast of the city and Orchard Close a small group of men gathered in an old church inside London, next to a stone-built library Soldier Boy would have recognised immediately. None were laughing, especially the man wearing a white clerical dog-collar as he repeated his request. “I’m serious, we want an agreement with the Sinners allowing us to use this church.”

  “I’ll agree if you don’t try to tempt our people away when they want a marriage or to join the prayers. You’ll carry out any ceremonies they want without any conditions.” The speaker, a big brawny man with cropped blonde hair, looked around the church and frowned. “Is this place still fit for it, church stuff?”

  “The church and churchyard are still consecrated, but better still from my point of view this is the only church nearby that hasn’t been vandalised. Most of the others have had animals killed on the altars, or someone has shat on them, that sort of thing.” The cleric smiled. “Which considering your gang name, is a pleasant surprise. I’ll agree to carry out any ceremonies and let your people join ours, but won’t try to get any of them to join my flock. In return we get to use the place for prayers and ceremonies.” He hesitated. “Can we bury people in the churchyard? It matters to some of us.”

  Sinner, leader of the enclave known as the Sinners, looked interested at that. “No problem. We’ve buried a couple of ours here, the ones who’d said they preferred it, but without proper ceremonies. What sort of religious are you? We’ve got a few who worry about not going to confession and all that?”

  “I’ll do that, take confessions. I’m Church of England, but I’m adaptable so I’ve read up on the right ceremonies and responses for most types of Christian. Most people don’t mind about exact wording as long as this thing is real.” The vicar touched his white collar.

  “Can we get to the rest now, unless you want to bring that bird of yours and get married right now, Sinner? Where is she anyway?” The short, slim black youth grinned. “How come you’ve been allowed out without her?”

  “No marriage, Kermit. I prefer Sin.” The mood lifted because everyone made jokes about the gang name, the Sinners. “How come you four want an alliance now? You’ve been raiding our farm for over a year now, all of you, and now suddenly everyone wants to play nicely.”

  “Not suddenly.” The bearded speaker nodded towards the cleric. “We may not agree on some religious matters, but I agree with the Vicar about what the government wants. We were left to starve but we haven’t, though we are killing each other over food. Every raid someone is injured or dies means we’re doing their job for them. If our people going to die, we’d rather do it fighting when the soldiers come for us.”

  “I thought your lot believe in God’s will and his lot in peace and love?” A tall slim white man waved a hand around him at the church and at the speaker, an Imam. “I’m surprised you didn’t burst into flames coming in here.”

  The original speaker with the dog-collar laughed before answering. “The Imam and I believe in the same God, and in His will, but there’s nothing that says we can’t help Him to make his mind up.” For an apparently mild man the Vicar’s smile looked downright savage. “There’s nothing wrong with striking down a sinner or two, present company excepted.”

  Sinner frowned. “You lot will just stop raiding the farm? I can’t believe that.”

  “Yes, we wil
l, though as part of a deal, a treaty. A lot of the gardens around here are waterlogged because the drains are knackered, so this bloody rain has no place to go. Your fields stay dry, either because there’s no bloody drains under them or this bit is higher. If you let each of us have a small piece of the playing fields to grow our own food, we’ll keep off the rest.” Kermit leant forward. “At the moment you can’t farm it all because of the raids, which means at least half that ground is wasted. Give us a third between us to grow our own.” He smiled. “Then you can trade any surplus you grow on the rest.”

  “Seriously?” Sinner looked around a group of nodding heads.

  “Too true.” The tall man sighed. “I’d like a bit more than land if possible. How about some sort of mutual defence treaty to protect our crops? We’ll all get raids from the surrounding gangs, but combined we can slap them down. Better yet, if we aren’t shooting at each other we’ll save our ammo for when its needed.” He smiled at them all. “I can trade coke, or coal.”

  “We’ll trade vegetables for coke or coal, Hans, because then we can mend our bloody machetes.” The Sinner looked around the group. “You’re all serious, aren’t you?” Four heads nodded again. “I’ll agree to you four sharing a quarter of the fields, if we can agree borders and trade as well.”

  “We’ll discuss details later because I want to trade for knowledge, a chance to get hold of those books.” The Vicar shrugged. “Not just the religious ones, there’s got to be books about farming, medicine and nutrition, and a score of other things.” The Imam nodded in agreement.

  “Lending library only. Nothing leaves the premises and I’ll have to OK it with the librarian.” Sinner shook his head. “It’s more than my life’s worth to let anyone at those books without permission.”

  “Can you agree this here and now, without herself along to hold your hand? You never did say where she is.” Kermit had a little smile again.

  “She’s helping with a birth and yes, there’s a book about that. If we all shake hands now it’ll stand. Then we can hammer out details later, in time to get planted up.” Sinner smiled. “Now if you lot don’t mind, all this godliness makes me nervous. I’d like to get back to Sin.” The group broke up with handshakes, laughter and smiles, making arrangements for a proper meeting out on the school playing fields now they’d agreed in principle.

  Sinner headed back to the library, pleased at both agreements. Nita at least would be really grateful for the chance to confess, though most of the Sinners owed her their lives and didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. He wondered how many other enclaves were getting over the initial shock, and starting to draw together for mutual benefit. That would be more important here in London, where there were no marts so everything had to be grown or salvaged. Five enclaves stood a better chance at doing that than one. The Imam, Zaid, had hit the nail on the head. If the government wanted them to die Sinner wasn’t inclined towards doing the job for them.

  * * *

  Nobody laughed in a bunker three hundred and sixty miles north, deep under the Lincolnshire countryside. The UK cell of the cabal that had triggered the global chaos didn’t look at all happy about how their plans had turned out. The initial strikes again the world’s major refineries had gone well, but the lunatics and terrorists who joined in had extended the destruction well beyond the planned parameters. At least that had accomplished one aim of the group, reducing the global reliance on oil.

  Nearer to this group’s home, the UK, the deliberately provoked uprising of refugees in Europe had succeeded well beyond anything the planners had expected. The local populations, starving in their cities when the food shipments from South America stopped, had joined the rampaging hordes. Worse, some military units had changed sides rather than shoot their own civilians. The sheer chaos and bloodshed had exceeded another target, the culling of two-thirds of the population, but hadn’t always culled the right ones.

  Now the weather itself seemed to have turned on the UK plotters, hampering their attempts to get the country organised. “Is this some more of our propaganda coming home to roost, Nate?” Owen, the chairman, pointed at the flat-screen on one wall which showed steady rain falling onto already flooded fields. Even more water poured over the banks of the nearby river. “That spiel about oil fires and nukes affecting climate was supposed to be just a convenient excuse when we wanted to cut down food.”

  “There really is nothing in that theory, even if India, Pakistan and the Israelis went well past a few nukes. The evidence after the first Gulf War showed that oil well fires don’t affect climate except very locally.” The big black man looked a bit embarrassed, because some of his propaganda hadn’t been received well.

  “In that case why are all the fields flooded? Fields that are meant to feed the population we actually care about, the ones not penned up in the cities like the animals they are?” Owen looked at the other ten people around the polished wood table and several nodded agreement with the question. “We daren’t even starve the scum yet until we’ve thinned them out a bit more.” He smiled. “Or until they’ve thinned each other.”

  Nate looked offended now. “I wouldn’t distort information given to anyone in this room. This is just a wet winter. Last winter turned out to be colder than the average, this is a lot wetter than the average. Some of these fields flood about one year in four, the local farmers assure Henry.” Nate indicated the stout man with a black beard who controlled the farming operations.

  Henry frowned. “Don’t expect miracles. The whole point of the exercise is to reduce the population to where the land can feed them. Until that is accomplished, we can’t grow enough food.”

  “But regardless of reason, the expected food production won’t happen? You promised to keep enough food coming to top up the frozen reserves while we reduced the population to self-sufficiency levels. That means until we’ve processed the populations trapped in the cities.” Ivy, a middle-aged red-haired woman, frowned. Her responsibilities were processing food, then supplying and supervising the firms running the only retail outlets, the marts. “We’ve been planning the supplies to marts based on the original figures. Now there could be a real problem.” She looked around the table, hopefully. “Unless we get another supply?”

  “The increased crops will arrive Ivy, but later in the year. We can’t work the land when it’s underwater or even if the fields are waterlogged.” Henry shrugged. “At least this reason is genuine, and Owen is preparing emergency measures anyway.”

  “True, but I hoped to avoid any more direct confrontation because the London problem is still tying up too many soldiers.” The London problem meant the refusal of the Londoners to either kill each other over dwindling food supplies or starve after their only shops, the marts, were closed. Owen smiled. “The rains have helped there, because the flooding has destroyed some of their cultivation. Hopefully they’ll fight over what’s left.” Owen clicked the screen through several pictures showing flooded areas of London. “Unfortunately not just in London.”

  The next picture showed a small, insignificant enclave called Orchard Close, but not in the centre. The view centred north of territory the overlay identified as belonging to the GOFS, Gods of Fire and Steel, one of the impromptu gangs seizing territory after the forces of law and order died or left the encircled city. A close-up showed frantic families trying to get their sparse belongings away as the waters rose while armed gangs tried to rob or protect them. The scene moved to the south of the city where water covered wider areas. Joshua, the man wearing an Army uniform, looked at a map in his opened file. “The Army posts will be alerted to watch for people like this trying to break out. York and Gloucester are a real problem, because their rivers will overflow if this keeps up.”

  Owen frowned. “The enclosures with the worst flooding must be reinforced to prevent the animals breaking out or they’ll strip the farmland like a swarm of locusts. We don’t want another loss of crops such as that on the Isle of Wight.”

  Joshua c
leared his throat, so Owen stopped to look at him. “We’re stretched for troops Owen, because there’s small guard posts at all the wind farms and hydro-electric facilities and substantial units at the nuclear power stations. Reinforcing everywhere else can’t be done. We managed to stop all the mass attacks the first time round by staggering the timings of the uprisings so we could concentrate troops, air and armour.”

  A voice broke in. “Ah yes, the spontaneous uprisings?” Everyone smiled.

  “Perhaps there could have been more soldiers if there weren’t so many B list civilians.” Ivy looked pointedly at three separate people. “I found it remarkable that so many pretty young secretaries were deemed essential.”

  “Ivy has a point in one way. The thousands of middle class civil servants probably outnumber my soldiers. Perhaps the decision to cut down the armed forces was premature or not strictly necessary.” Joshua looked around with a challenge in his eyes. “I made that point at the time but was overruled.”

  Owen answered. “Civil servants are essential to keep your soldiers paid, fed, and housed. We didn’t reduce your soldiers until Vanna’s paramilitaries had cleared the unwanted populations outside the barricades.”

  “But we kept most of Vanna’s civilian contractors, who are also armed to the teeth but nothing like as well trained or disciplined. I hate the term paramilitaries because they are nothing like military.” Joshua glared at Vanna, a slim Asian woman. “We could have kept more real military and got rid of those.”

  “But my civilian contractors have less qualms about conditions inside the cities, or dealing with surplus populations. Your soldiers won’t do the dirty work Joshua, will they? They certainly wouldn’t have manned the special facilities.” Vanna shrugged. “Though maybe my contractors can help you out now most of those facilities are no longer fully utilised?”