by Rod Carstens
“Cat, if she can't stop them…”
“Vin, trust me.”
Tanner wondered if he could this time. He had always trusted her with his life. Now he had to trust her with the lives of over a hundred others. It was not the same.
He hesitated, then said, “You got it.”
“Wait, you’ll see.”
The three ships were on their final approach to the Mall. The first ship carrying the Spec Act Team was flaring to make its landing. Tanner had OPs on both sides of the landing zone as well as the one he was lying in, so they were ready for them. The standing orders for all OPs were to let Tanner start any shooting. No need for verbal commands, just strict fire discipline by the other guards. He had been careful and chosen the best trained for the forward positions.
The ship finished flaring, its skids extending. Tanner chambered a round. It would start soon. He made sure he’d put an explosive-round magazine in his rifle. He still had some left after the high-rise fight.
Suddenly the ship retracted its skids and aborted its landing. It banked sharply to the right, almost striking the supporting ships, and headed off toward its home in the City-State of New York one engine smoking badly. The other two ships turned and followed it.
“Fuck, she did it!” Cat screamed.
Tanner could hardly believe his eyes as the ships increased speed and headed back to the City. He climbed down the ladder, followed by Cat, and Tanner waited at the bottom of the ladder for Cat.
Once she climbed down, she turned and said, “She fucking did it. She is as good as Rule says she is.” She smiled broadly.
“How?”
“I shoot things for a living, remember? We need to ask her and Brandon, because if they have managed to take control of things on the Resource networks, then we have a whole new ball game.”
Tanner knew if they were going to survive they were going to have to use a combination of the violence of the rifle and anything else they could manage. Tech was a very powerful weapon, but it had its limits. There would have to be a balance between it and action.
As Tanner strode across the roof, he saw a bed of meat dehydrators. They were made from the old Pringles containers with the inside coated with a silver reflective foil. They had been lucky to stumble across a bunch of empty ones. They had cut a two-inch by eight-inch opening in the side of each, covered it with a piece of old screen, and run a sharp skewer through it. They were growing guinea pigs for meat, and when one was slaughtered they set some aside to turn into jerky. He grabbed one that was finished and took the jerky off the skewer. He popped a piece in his mouth; it was delicious. He hadn’t known guinea pigs were considered a delicacy in other countries. They were easy to raise and quick to make more guinea-pig babies. It was their best animal protein supply. He pulled open the roof-access door and sauntered down the steps, enjoying his guinea pig.
Chapter Four
Danielle watched the girl closely as she moved around the room touching instruments and medicines as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. She was filthy and her shirt looked as if it had not been washed or replaced for months. Her blonde hair was so tangled and matted she doubted that it could be combed even after she washed it.
Finally, after letting her walk around at her pace, Danielle said, “Vin said your name is Blondie. Is that what you want to be called? Don’t you have a real name?”
The woman looked at her with almost a quizzical expression on her face. “Not anymore, no. I guess I’m going to be Blondie.”
“You don’t have to be, you know. You’re not with them. They can never find you. You’re safe now.”
The woman looked at her as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Look, the first thing we need to do is clean you up and get you some new clothes. Why don’t you follow me?”
The clinic was in the center of the old mall in a cluster of four old stores. One of the other stores had been turned into a communal bathing area. Everyone got a shower at least three times a week. She led the woman into the showers and to a stall. Danielle helped her out of her clothes and threw them in the corner. Her body was covered with bruises old and new, as well as scratches and burns. What in God’s name had they done to this girl?
“Okay honey, now listen. We have hot water. Not a lot but enough for you to have a good shower.”
“How can you? There's no electricity or gas. No one has showers.”
“Dear, you’re right we don’t have any electricity or gas, but we do have some very ingenious people. Someone found an old hot-water heater, and we fill it with rainwater. One of our geniuses got some copper tubing and wound it into a coil that would fit inside of a small chimney. Cold water from the water heater goes down the coil, and at the bottom we have a little fire fed by sticks we find. It heats the water into almost steam, and it rises in the tubing and gets dumped into the water heater and presto, hot water.”
Danielle went and got some soap the soap maker made and handed it to her. Again she just stared at it, as if she could not believe she was holding soap.
“Now if you’ll just step into the shower, I’ll turn on the hot water.”
Blondie stepped into the shower and Danielle closed the shower curtain, made from a piece of plastic sheeting. Danielle went around to the valve that controlled the hot water and said, “Ready?”
“Yes.”
Danielle turned on the hot water, and Blondie gasped.
“Is it too hot?”
“No, no, it’s just that I haven’t felt hot water in so long.”
“Okay, take your time. You can have the whole tank. You need to really clean all of those scratches and sores you have so I can treat them.”
Danielle went to the clothing bank and found a shirt, panties, pants, and boots she thought would fit Blondie, then went back to the showers. Danielle sat on a bench as Blondie finished her shower. There were moans of what Danielle hoped was pleasure at being clean and not pain because of her wounds. Finally, Blondie stepped from the shower, her body clean and her matted hair wet. She smiled what Danielle thought was the first smile she had seen from the girl since she arrived. Her body would have been beautiful without the scrapes, bruises, and burns. The B branded on her arm looked better clean. Danielle had worried it was infected. She handed Blondie a towel. Blondie dried herself off then wrapped the towel around her.
“Now let me take you back to the clinic where I can get a good look at your injuries.”
It took Danielle almost an hour to clean and treat all of her wounds. She did an exam of her vagina and was shocked at the damage that had been done. This poor girl had gone through hell. Next, she tried to comb her hair, but it was just too matted and tangled. Danielle looked at the girl and said, “Honey, I’m never going to be able to fix your hair. I have some shears that a lot of the girls use. Your hair is so tangled I can either give you a Mohawk like a lot of the girls have or just short as I can for now.”
“I saw the girls with their hair cut very short. I liked it, it made them look tough. I want to look tough. I…”
“You don’t have to explain. You’re pretty enough you’re going to look good no matter what I do.”
Danielle gave her a buzz cut and Blondie was right. She didn’t look like a victim anymore. She looked like a toughie. She gave her the old green military shirt she had found for her, and it fit her well. The pants were a little big but would do, and she had guessed right about the boots. When Blondie was dressed, Danielle sat her down and pulled up a chair opposite her.
“Now I need to have a talk with you. Our little settlement here has few rules, but they are for everybody. You are welcome to stay or go anytime. It is up to you. If you decide to stay, you must contribute. You must find work that you want or can do so you can contribute to the settlement. You choose your friends and are not forced to be with anyone you don’t want to be with. You can’t horde or use more food or anything else we create here than you need. If you do, it is one of the
few things that we will not tolerate. We can’t afford someone taking more than they need. We need each other to survive and flourish. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yes, but…”
“Go on.”
“In Bear’s group, it was survival of the strongest. He got the most food and only gave it away when he wanted. He said it was survival of the fittest.”
“That kind of thinking is part of the reason we are all in this situation. Our old society rewarded those with the most money by allowing them to accumulate more and more wealth. That wealth brought them power and possessions. To take care of all of their possessions and privilege, they used more and more of the resources available. Then when the climate started to change, affecting everything from water to how much food we could produce, they naturally assumed they deserved more natural resources than those that did not have as much money. So gradually the one percenters made sure they had what they needed at the expense of everyone else, and we find ourselves here with most of us scrambling to survive while they live in their towers and take most of the resources.”
Blondie didn’t say anything.
“Think of it this way, dear. Millions of years ago humans began living in small groups. They survived because they knew that living together and sharing skills and resources were better than trying to live by yourself. We have just decided to move our time back a couple of million years to be able to survive in this new world.”
Blondie still said nothing, so Danielle decided to give her the last bit of advice.
“Dear, what happened to you shouldn’t happen to anyone. It was a terrible thing. I’m sure I can’t imagine what you went through. You must find a way to get past it if you are going to live with other people. Many could not have survived what you did without it changing them beyond repair, making them distrustful, frightened, angry, and a thousand other things that won’t help you survive. You can’t survive on your own now. You must be part of a group—for lack of a better word, a tribe. If you are going to live here those negative emotions will push people away, and you won’t be accepted, and we will ask you to leave. You had the strength to survive your ordeal. Now you must find the strength to move past it.”
The blonde girl still sat there and stared at her. A big man with a tangled mass of blond hair walked in.
He smiled at Blondie and said, “Tanner told me to take care of this for you.”
He held out the shotgun Vin had given her. Blondie snatched it out of his hand. Danielle noticed that when she took it, she handled it with the confidence and familiarity of a military veteran. She inspected it and noticed it had been cleaned and a new sling had been put on. She looked up at the man as if she wanted to say thank you, but said nothing. The man held out a belt with loops for shells for the shotgun. A new scabbard for the kitchen knife had been made, and it too hung from the belt. Blondie grabbed it and held it close.
The blond man shook his head and said, “You’re welcome.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Danielle said.
Mike turned and left the room. Danielle looked at Blondie.
“That is exactly what I’m talking about. He did you a favor.” Danielle stood, “I think that is about all I can do for you today. You need to walk around, get acquainted with our settlement and the people in it. Try and talk to a few people. It couldn’t hurt. I want you to come back here every day until I’m sure none of your wounds are getting infected. Now shoo. I’ve got other things to do.”
Blondie stood and slowly walked out, clutching the shotgun and belt. Danielle shook her head. She was not sure this one would make it. There are things that no one can get over.
Chapter Five
Tanner walked down the long-frozen escalators from the second floor of the old mall to the concourse. To his right, a new aquaponics bed had been set up. There were three trays, with a battery-operated pump to circulate the water. The wastewater from the fish was pumped to the top gravel bed where tomatoes and greens were grown. The bed was tilted so that as the water ran through the bed it would then be delivered to the second gravel bed for further filtering and to nourish the plants. Finally, the filtered water flowed into the fish run, where the fish lived on the nutrients from the plant beds.
They had found some Tilapia that had become one of their special treats. Each fish needed a gallon of water to survive, so the system was still small, but it was producing enough Tilapia for a few meals. They hoped to expand the beds or be satisfied with multiple smaller beds. A battery charged by riding a bicycle powered the pump in the fish run. Each aquaponics team member took turns riding the bike to ensure the battery was always charged.
It looked like they were planning a meal because they were cleaning fish. Two of the team had set up a station. One was gutting the fish and cutting the heads off while the other was using a stick with bottle caps attached to scale the fish. The head and guts would go into the compost pile to enrich the soil for the plant beds.
The addition of more and more families and individuals had created a real tipping point for the settlement. Previously they had just been subsisting—scrounging for food in the ever-decreasing forgotten hoards in the area—but now they had begun to thrive as the new arrivals added to the population. New members were screened for skills and given specific jobs. The former stores that lined the old mall now served as everything from storage areas to bunk rooms for the single men and women, while others were occupied by families with children.
So while the Mall looked like a crumbling, overgrown relic from the past from the outside, it was turning into a thriving community on the inside. This success was more than a little worrying to Tanner. He knew that the Resource teams that roamed the zones were trained to look for signs that would point them toward just such a community. While Tanner had recruited and trained a security force, there just weren’t that many yet, and only a few had any military training or Resource team experience. All this cleverness depended on not being discovered, or they could lose it all in an afternoon. The tilt-rotor incident had been too close a call. He needed to talk to Rule about this.
Rule had one of the biggest stores for his office and sleeping quarters. Computers, parts, and other scrounged technology was everywhere on old store tables that lined the walls. To Tanner's right as he entered the store someone was taking their turn providing power for the computers. They had found an old bike and set its rear wheel into a mount made of two four-by-fours nailed to a couple of five-foot two-by-fours for stability. The rear wheel had had its tire removed and replaced with a drive belt. Then the belt was connected to a twelve-volt motor. An electrical wire from the motor was attached to the negative terminals of a battery, and then another wire was run to the negative node of an inverter. Another wire ran from the inverter’s positive terminal to the battery’s positive terminal, and bingo, you had a charged battery.
Twenty minutes of cycling would produce fifty watts of power—enough to run the laptop for almost an hour. They had scrounged enough batteries that someone was always taking a turn on the bike, and they had more than enough power for the computers and other tech Rule needed. There were similar setups all around the settlement providing enough heat to cook without making the telltale smoke, as well as his favorite use of their manmade power: the distilling of alcohol to have a drink now and then.
He nodded to the rider, who must have been at it awhile because all he could do was nod with sweat dripping from his chin. It was Johnny Johnson. He was still trying to catch Morgan’s eye. She had become a very attractive young woman over the last few months, but so far all he was getting for his efforts was strong legs. Morgan was sitting at one of the benches typing code into one of the cobbled-together computers.
“Nice, job kiddo,” Vin said as he walked past headed for Rule’s quarters.
Morgan turned around with a huge smile. “I did it, Vin. I did it,” she said with more than a little pride.
“You damn sure did. How did you do it?”
�
��It was simple. I found the networked Wi-Fi they were using for their sensors, so I hacked into it. Once I had that I just waited for the tilt-rotors to check the sensors. When they did, I used the Wi-Fi signal to get into the ship’s systems. Once inside I did a few little nasty things that Doctor Rule suggested, and they suddenly thought their ship was going to crash.”
She paused and smiled again. “It would have too, if they hadn't turned back. Not bad, right?”
“A lot better than not bad. Doctor Rule, can I talk to you a minute?”
“Sure. I think I can leave my little genius alone with the computer for a few minutes.”
“Thanks. Wait till you see what we’re going to do with the stuff you brought us.”
“I’m glad it’s going to help.”
Vin pulled back the blanket that was used to separate Rule’s sleeping quarters from the electronics shop. Rule was sitting on his rope bed writing in a diary that never left his possession. He looked up when Vin walked in.
“Good. I’m glad you’re here. We need to have a talk. Pull up a chair.”
Vin pulled up an old wooden chair someone had found for Rule and sat down.
“That was close. Morgan did a job on those guys. They never knew what hit them.”
“Is she that good?” Tanner asked.
“She is a phenom. It’s like she was born to it. She writes code that is cleaner, simpler, and more elegant than I can for some things. She’s special.”
“Who could have guessed?”
He thought back to the night that he and the rest of the team had rescued her from a gang. He looked over at her and marveled at how fate worked sometimes.