We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3)

by Sean McLachlan

  “On the ship,” one of the men replied.

  “Doing what?”

  “Trading.”

  The Doctor shook his head. A boat was lowered over the side of the ship. As it rowed towards shore, two more boats appeared from the far side of the freighter. All were packed with sailors. Yu-jin spotted the African interpreter at the prow of the lead boat. The officer was nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh Lord,” Rosie said, her voice quavering.

  Yu-jin put her hand in her pocket and held her cross. It had kept her safe through a lot of trouble in the wildlands. She hoped it would keep her safe now.

  Why should it? She had thrown it in the dirt this morning.

  She pulled it out and began to put it around her neck. She hesitated, looking at the approaching Chinese, and finally put it back in her pocket.

  They might not like it, she reasoned with herself. That didn’t take away the guilt.

  The Doctor addressed the villagers. “Go on back to your homes. We want to speak with the Chinese alone.”

  “This is our land,” a woman replied.

  “You never claimed it.”

  The woman gave him a gap-toothed sneer. “That’s because no one else ever wanted it. Looks like it’s got some value now, huh?”

  “Beat it, or I’ll slap an embargo on the whole village.”

  The villagers grumbled and moved away.

  “That was a bit hard, don’t you think, Doc?” Marcus said.

  “Oscar and his men hunt scavengers,” Yu-jin said.

  “I wasn’t asking you.”

  “Marcus!” Rosie snapped.

  The Doctor rubbed his temples. “Everyone please shut up. The air is foul enough.”

  The boats scraped against the gritty shore. The interpreter got out first, the sailors forming a rough line behind him. Yu-jin counted two dozen of them, all armed with AK-47s. Her mouth went dry.

  Yu-jin addressed the interpreter in Mandarin. “My name is Song Yu-jin. I am a Chinese native of this region. I’ve volunteered to be New City’s translator.”

  A look of surprise and relief passed over the man’s face. The sailors gasped and whispered among themselves.

  “I am Gebre Selassie,” he replied in Mandarin. “I’m the chief radio operator and official translator for the Admiral Zeng He.”

  “Is Zeng He the officer in charge of the ship?”

  Gebre Selassie looked amused. “No, that’s the name of the ship!”

  Yu-jin couldn’t think of what to say to that.

  “You know, the famous admiral who explored the world?” Gebre Selassie prompted.

  “Oh, right. Yes, I’ve heard of him,” she lied.

  Great, I’m getting lectured in Chinese history by someone from…where?

  “Where are you from?”

  “Tigray on the Red Sea. East Africa.”

  “Sorry, I haven’t heard of Tigray.”

  “It’s had lots of names over the years—Abyssinia, The Second Tigrinya Republic, the Mogadishu Caliphate, plus a few more. Your region has suffered the same fate, I’m sure.”

  “They speak Chinese there?”

  Gebre Selassie laughed. “No. I have a gift for languages. I speak Tigrinya, Amharic, Oromo, New Swahili, English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.”

  Yu-jin felt a flush of embarrassment. Not only did this guy know more Chinese history than she did, he also knew a second Chinese language. She suddenly felt an irresistible urge to one-up him.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Gebre…”

  “Mr. Selassie, our family names come second. Please call me Gebre. We’re friends.”

  “Right. Well, if you don’t mind my asking, why is your English so bad? Your Mandarin is perfect.”

  Gebre shrugged. “No teachers.”

  Yu-jin felt a sudden chill. “What?”

  “No teachers. I had to learn from some old books and a few music CDs. Do you know what ‘pass the Dutchie on the left hand side’ means?”

  “I have no idea. Stuff from the Old Times is filled with weird expressions. You mean to tell me you’ve never met a native English speaker in Africa or China?”

  Gebre shook his head.

  The Doctor cut in. “Um, translator. Could you translate, please?”

  Yu-jin turned to him. “We were just getting acquainted. This is Gebre Selassie. He’s from somewhere in East Africa.”

  “Fascinating. Now could you please ask what they want?”

  She turned back to Gebre and switched into Mandarin. “You are welcome here as long as your intentions are peaceful. Just what are your intentions?”

  “To trade. We have some items that may be of interest. We’re interested in whatever you might have to trade in return.”

  She turned back to The Doctor. “They want to trade. They say their intentions are peaceful.”

  Rosie breathed a sigh of relief. Roy and Joe looked happy too. Marcus looked incredulous and The Doctor’s face was a mask. Yu-jin continued.

  “I suggest we offer up that food now. Chinese don’t like to do business until they’ve sat down and eaten together.”

  The Doctor nodded his assent and Yu-jin said, “We’d like to invite you and your men to lunch. We’ve brought food and beer from the finest restaurants in our city. I suggest, though, that we go into the foothills. I can’t imagine being able to eat in this stink.”

  Gebre grinned. “We have an air filtration system on the ship. Even that can’t get rid of all the smells. Yes, let’s get out of here.”

  One of the Chinese sailors, whose uniform differed from the rest by having a wide gold stripe on the cuffs and shoulder, spoke up. “Lieutenant Selassie, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Objection noted, Sub-lieutenant Yu, but as you can see they are apparently unarmed, and these elderly men and women are too wise to give us any nasty surprises over lunch.” He turned to Yu-jin. “Aren’t they?”

  “You will be safe,” she promised.

  Sub-lieutenant Yu didn’t look convinced. He barked an order to his men, who spread out and kept a close watch on the hills as they started walking away from the water. Sub-lieutenant Yu and a few other men kept close to the group from New City.

  Great, she thought. A Chinese version of Clyde Devon.

  They walked about halfway through the hills to an open spot where the air was clearer. “What’s that?” Sub-lieutenant Yu demanded, gesturing with his AK-47.

  A few meters away Yu-jin saw Roy’s little automatic sitting on a stone where he had left it.

  “One of our restaurateurs left his gun here. We’re all unarmed,” she said.

  The officer walked over to the gun, removed the clip, jacked the slide to eject the bullet in the chamber, and put the bullet and the clip on a rock several paces away from the pistol.

  “Now that that’s settled,” The Doctor said, “let’s eat.”

  Roy, Joe, and Rosie set about distributing the food. Joe and Roy had brought plates and cups, and soon everyone had some sesame chicken, a cup of beer, and a slice of pie. Rosie kept making Yu-jin translate her apologies for not making enough pies. “If I knew so many of you were coming ashore I’d have made more.”

  They sat down to eat. She noticed that Sub-lieutenant Yu and several other men kept their assault rifles in their laps and their eyes on the surrounding hillsides.

  The others, though, dug into their meals.

  “Finally, something other than rice and toxic fish!” one of the sailors sighed.

  “This chicken is good,” said another.

  Yu-jin laughed, “Hey Joe, they like your chicken.”

  Joe smiled. “Well, I have a confession to make, and I’d like you to translate this, please. I have a cookbook from the Old Times. One of the recipes is for Chinese Sesame Chicken. I made it once and loved it. I knew everyone else would too but I couldn’t call it by its real name because, well, you know. So I just called it sesame chicken. Back in the Old Times, there were Chinese restaurants all over this land and
this was one of their most popular dishes.”

  “We’ve been eating Chinese food every Saturday night?” Yu-jin asked, delighted.

  She translated Joe’s story. The sailors looked confused. Sub-lieutenant Yu snorted. “He thinks this is Chinese food? I’ve never heard of sesame chicken in my life.”

  “Perhaps it is from another region, sir,” a sailor spoke up.

  “Keep your opinions to yourself, seaman.”

  “You are not satisfied with your meal? Would you perhaps like something else?” Yu-jin asked with an exaggerated smile and a slight edge to her voice.

  Oh God, I sound like my mother.

  Sub-lieutenant Yu’s head bowed slightly. “It’s very tasty. It’s nice to have real food after such a long journey.”

  So that’s what I looked like at dinner time.

  The Doctor leaned over and said in a low voice. “Could you ask what they want to trade?”

  “Eat now, do business later.”

  The Doctor grumbled with impatience.

  “More beer, anyone?” Roy said, standing up and patting the keg. “Hey, Yu-jin, what’s Chinese for beer?”

  “Pi Jiu.”

  “Pi Jiu!” Roy called out. A few of the sailors laughed and went over.

  “Half cups only,” Sub-lieutenant Yu said.

  The sailors looked plaintively at Gebre Selassie, who seemed to rank Yu but not push his weight around too much. Yu-jin supposed he had been given his rank because of his skills, not because he was a soldier or sailor.

  “Half cup only,” Gebre confirmed.

  The sailors looked mournful.

  “Thank your cooks for us once again,” Gebre said. “You can’t believe how wonderful it is to eat real food after—”

  Sub-lieutenant Yu sprang to his feet, gripping his Kalashnikov.

  “Movement!” he cried.

  She followed his gaze and spotted three figures on the crest of a nearby hill. Sunlight gleamed off gunmetal.

  “Over there too!” one of the sailors cried.

  She spun around. Several more figures with guns crouched on the opposite hill.

  All the sailors were up now, their plates overturned, food and beer spilling onto the gritty earth.

  “Wait! Wait!” Yu-jin cried, looking around her.

  Armed men and women appeared everywhere. They were surrounded.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Doctor rose up, rage filling him. “Damn it, Clyde, I told you to stay back! Return to the north side of the hills immediately, that’s an order!”

  “Clyde ain’t here,” someone from a nearby hill called. “We’re the Burbs militia. Some of our comrades-in-arms kept Clyde and his men busy while we worked our way around.”

  “Disperse this instant! Do you want to get us all killed?”

  “Hell no, that’s why we’re here. Seems we’ve bagged us a good lot of Chinks. The ship won’t want to attack while we got them. Hey, Chink girl! Use that babble speech to tell your yellow friends not to make a move, or we plug everyone, you hear? We don’t want to hurt The Doctor, but if it’s a choice between losing him and losing the world’s last bit of civilization, well that’s no choice at all.”

  Yu-jin started speaking rapidly in Chinese. Gebre Selassie and Sub-lieutenant Yu yammered back at her, the African sounding scared and upset, while the Chinese sailor’s voice carried the unmistakable tones of a threat.

  The Doctor glanced left and right. Kalashnikovs were pointing in all directions—at the hills, at him, at the others. Marcus and Rosie clutched each other, his old friend trying to shield his wife with his body. But they were surrounded. So many guns.

  “Damn idiots!” The Doctor shouted.

  He stormed up to Sub-lieutenant Yu, who swiveled his AK-47 to point at him. The Doctor inclined his head and pressed the muzzle against his temple.

  “Yu-jin, translate this. I am surrendering to the Chinese. If you people up there make a move, Sub-lieutenant Yu here will blow my brains out. Then you’ll have a war on your hands and no doctor to heal you. You want that?”

  Silence from the hills. Yu-jin hurriedly translated his words. Sub-lieutenant Yu’s eyes went wide.

  You’re not too high ranking, are you? Despite your swagger you’re shit-scared to make this decision on your own. Good.

  “Now I’m going to go quietly on board the ship, and no one’s going to stop me, you hear?”

  No one on the hills said a word. The Chinese all started talking at once. Gebre and Sub-lieutenant Yu had a brief argument. Yu-jin translated. “They say they’ll take all of us.”

  Rosie let out a sob of fear. Marcus whispered something to her.

  “Let the women go,” The Doctor demanded.

  “They say no.”

  The Doctor turned his head, wrapped his mouth around the barrel, and grabbed Sub-lieutenant Yu’s trigger finger. He looked him right in the eyes. He saw nothing there but fear.

  Sub-lieutenant Yu shouted a curt command. Gebre said something that sounded like agreement.

  “All of you go,” Yu-jin translated. “They’ll only take The Doctor.”

  The Doctor kept his eyes fixed on Sub-lieutenant Yu’s. He heard sounds of people moving away. He wished they’d hurry up. Gun barrels tasted terrible.

  I should deep throat it just to fuck with him. Hmmm, maybe not. He’s jumpy enough as it is.

  At last he heard Yu-jin say, “They’re gone.”

  The Doctor let go of the sailor’s hand and pulled away from the gun. The two men looked at each other for a moment, then The Doctor glanced around at the hills. Although his friends had departed, those inbreeds from the Burbs were still around.

  He turned to Yu-jin. “Better get going. This is liable to end badly.”

  The girl looked shocked. “What the hell was all that?”

  “A calculated risk. Go.”

  Yu-jin shook her head slowly. “No, you’ll need a translator.”

  “So will the New City government.”

  “Clyde and Marcus didn’t trust me before. They sure won’t after this.”

  The Doctor rubbed his jaw. “No, I suppose not.”

  Yu-jin spoke a few words with Gebre, who looked flustered. After a short discussion she translated. “He apologizes for how things turned out, and he accepts us as prisoners.”

  The sailors made a tight circle around them, Kalashnikovs pointing at the hills around. The Doctor felt adrenaline rush through his veins.

  Spend most of my time cooped up in my rooms. Marcus always says I should get out more. But every time I do some crazy shit happens.

  The Doctor couldn’t help but smile.

  And I love it. God damn but I love it.

  He caught Sub-lieutenant Yu giving him a wide-eyed stare and couldn’t help blowing him a kiss.

  Enough of that. Focus, you lunatic.

  He studied the hills. This so-called Burb militia was trailing them all right. At least they were smart enough to keep their distance and mostly stay out of sight. He couldn’t estimate their numbers but they outnumbered the sailors, and they had the better position.

  Not that it mattered. The Chinese had him.

  They came out of the hills and everyone put on their masks. Gebre led them to the village. Oscar and his pals had come back from the boat. The Doctor gritted his teeth to see those lowlifes staring at him as he was led into captivity. He and Yu-jin were placed in a boat with Gebre and a few of the sailors, and he noticed that the radio man made a point, after a brief argument, of putting Sub-lieutenant Yu on a different boat.

  “This African isn’t a bad guy, but he’s way out of his depth,” The Doctor told Yu-jin. “Hopefully we’ll get to talk to the real person in charge.”

  The boats pushed off into the foul water. He looked down at it with distaste. An oily sheen glistened on its surface. Clusters of green foam the size of pillows floated here and there. Everyone stayed silent. The only sound was the scrape of oars in their oarlocks and the sludgy splash of water against the bo
w.

  A distant call came from over the water.

  “Hoooooooo.”

  Far along the shore, close to the old petrochemical works, a man in tattered rags stood by the water’s edge. At least The Doctor thought it was a man. The creature was so caked in dirt from head to foot that he couldn’t tell. The tweaker raised scrawny arms above its head and called out again.

  “Hoooooooo.”

  The Doctor turned back to look at the ship. A sense of wonder overtook him despite the danger he was in. While he was damn proud of what he had built—a functioning city with electricity and laws and relative safety—this was real industrial civilization. Oh, the hull was mottled with rust and he was sure half the equipment didn’t work, but it was a functioning freighter, something the world hadn’t seen for forty years.

  Or had it? How much did he really know about the rest of the world? He had a shortwave radio at home, the kind that could pick up transmissions that jumped the oceans. In the Old Times they could listen to stations from Asia and Africa and anywhere else they cared to. But he hadn’t heard anything on it in decades. For years he had turned it on every few days or so and slowly went through every band, straining his ears to catch something beyond the crackle and hiss of static. If there were other civilizations out there, they weren’t using shortwave.

  Or perhaps his radio was broken?

  He wondered at the society that had fixed up this freighter. China had crashed like all other civilizations. It got its share of nukes and bioattacks and revolutions just like everywhere else. At least a part of it, however, had recovered enough to forge steel and repair a freighter. He was no engineer, but he knew that most freighters had run on diesel, so they had an oil well and a refinery too. Not to mention enough of a power grid to keep it all going and an agricultural base producing enough surplus to free up the labor force.

  He studied the sailors in their identical white slacks, shirts, and caps with a black headband. He hadn’t seen uniforms in decades and hadn’t missed them. These looked pretty ragged, though. All of them were patched, with worn knees and elbows. He suspected the shore party constituted some of the best dressed in order to make a good impression. The sailors looked decently fed, though, although his medical eye spotted the skin infections and ulcers around the lips typical of those who spent too much time around the sea and ate the trash that lived in it. Several had eye infections. Hardly surprising, his eyes were watering just from being on the bay for five minutes.