We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3)

by Sean McLachlan

  “My Aunt was the last. She died earlier in the winter. I’m alone.”

  Song Panpan grabbed Yu-jin by the shoulder. Her grip was strong. Yu-jin looked up at her.

  “No you’re not.”

  “Never,” Song Jianfu affirmed.

  They both embraced her. She tensed, and after a moment returned their hug.

  “Three cheers for a family reunited!” a sailor in the crowd called out.

  Everyone on board gave out three loud cheers. The two sailors tightened their grip on her. She nodded and smiled and wiped a tear from her eye.

  She’d found it. She’d found her place. The place where she wasn’t the outsider, where she wasn’t the strange face in the crowd, where she didn’t have to have the safe name. She’d found the children in the picture.

  But it filled her with dread.

  The joy was there. The relief, the feeling of homecoming, the awe at actually seeing a dream come true when she had spent the last twenty-two years thinking that the only dreams that could come true were having meat for dinner and not getting rained on. All that was there.

  And at the same time she wanted to bolt down the gangway, grab an oar, and row like mad for shore. Suddenly all she wanted was to be back in the new life she was creating in the Burbs with a slightly better chance of survival than in the wildlands and a doomed but fun relationship and friends and a place she had built up over the last five winters to be her new life.

  All that work, all that compromise, all that “good enough”, had just been dashed into nothing by two strangers who shared her name and called her family. It had all been dashed to nothing by her inability to disagree with them.

  Through sorrow and suffering and danger she had moved from one life to another, and been pulled right back into the first one again.

  At last she let them go and turned to The Doctor. He looked completely at a loss.

  “These two people share my family name,” she explained. She heard her words come out wavering, indecisive. She took a deep breath and tried again. “These two people are my family.”

  The Doctor studied her for a moment and took on a petulant, almost adolescent look. “Family’s a bitch. Let’s make a trade deal.”

  If you were my age I’d smack you for that, Yu-jin thought.

  A moment later she wondered if that was true.

  I need to learn more about you.

  She turned to Captain Wang.

  “Sir, coming onto this ship feels like coming home,” she said, knowing they wouldn’t understand the full meaning of what she said. “But we have serious business to discuss. Our two lands have fought too much and we have almost fought again. So if my relations will forgive me, I would like to speak with you about how we can get beyond that.”

  Captain Wang inclined his head. “I’m delighted to see such a joyous occasion happen on my ship. Let’s make it two joyous occasions.”

  When Yu-jin translated this, The Doctor replied, “Tell him it is my greatest wish to come to a peaceful agreement. I must remind him, however, that my men will take action if I am not back soon, and while I am happy to accept his hospitality, we need to finish our preliminary business quickly, so that I can show my people that I am all right.”

  Captain Wang replied through Yu-jin, “That is a wise move. Since my sailors tell me you have already eaten on shore, let’s go below decks to enjoy some tea. Then we can talk.”

  The Doctor’s eyes lit up. “Tea? They have tea? I haven’t had anything but cheap substitutes for years.”

  Yu-jin smiled. “If you’re willing to trade as much for tea and you are for peaches, I think we can make a deal.”

  The Doctor laughed. “Just wait until you try real tea, kid, and not some nasty scavenger’s brew made out of bark and weeds. You’ll be trading everything you own for some more.”

  Captain Wang led them to the large white tower at the center of the ship. Yu-jin looked at it in wonder. Her whole surroundings seemed surreal. She had never seen a ship larger than a four-man sailboat before, at least one that wasn’t a rusted hulk beached on the shoreline. This one was not only functioning, but it had a whole building in its center that looked like something from an Old Times city.

  She had always avoided the old cities. Too many tweakers and too many toxins. Stay deep in the wildlands, that’s what Father always said. Stay far away from the people who could hurt you.

  A rasping cough from Captain Wang brought her back to the present. He paused, bent over, the cough getting worse. He spat on the deck.

  Apparently spending so much time on the sea hadn’t made him immune to the noxious fumes in this bay. Her own eyes watered and she had been suppressing the urge to cough ever since she had taken her gas mask off out of courtesy. She was surprised to see The Doctor was able to retain his poise, although he looked a bit green about the gills too.

  “Ask him if he’s all right,” The Doctor said.

  “It’s nothing,” Captain Wang replied through Yu-jin. “Thank you for your concern.”

  “That cough sounds serious. I am a licensed physician. I would be happy to examine you for no charge.”

  Captain Wang looked surprised. “Licensed by whom?”

  They had started walking again, the captain moving slower than before, his wheezing louder. A sailor opened a metal door in the side of the tower with a creak.

  “I was the last physician I know of to be licensed by the Red Cross, Crescent, and Star. It was a medical organization sworn to treat anyone without prejudice. We had a lot of work to do during the City-State Wars, and after.”

  “I’ve heard of them!” Captain Wang said. “They did a lot of good work in my homeland during the Biowars. They even found cures for several of the plagues that got released, but sadly not for all. Your people are very fortunate to have you as their leader. Luckily we also have a skilled physician on board, so thank you for your kind offer but I will be fine.”

  The three of them, accompanied by Lieutenant Selassie, Sub-Lieutenant Yu, the two sailors named Song, and a few of the others, passed through the door and entered a short hallway that ended in an identical door. A dirty light bulb surrounded by a metal bracket shone from the ceiling. The sailor closed the door behind them and flipped a switch.

  Yu-jin looked around as she felt a breeze.

  “Where’s that coming from?” she asked.

  “Interesting that when you’re surprised you speak in English and not Chinese,” The Doctor said.

  What the hell is that supposed to mean? Yu-jin thought.

  “Where’s that coming from?” she asked again.

  The Doctor pointed to a grill on one wall. “There. It’s that air circulation system our African friend mentioned. Ah, my lungs are feeling better already! If we had stayed out there much longer I’d be hacking away like Captain Wang.”

  “He’s sick, isn’t he?”

  “It’s hard to tell without examining him.”

  That’s a yes.

  “I see you are impressed by our air filter,” Sub-Lieutenant Yu said as Yu-jin wondered how to translate his poorly hidden tone of smug superiority. “As you might imagine it is vital to our operations. We apologize that it doesn’t work at full efficiency.”

  After waiting a minute for the air to clear, the sailor opened the next door and led them through a warren of passageways. Deep beneath their feet, she could feel the heavy thrumming of a great engine. The smell of steel and oil and rust hung in the air. Yu-jin was dazzled by the network of pipes and wires running along the ceiling and walls. Men and women hurried past them with quick apologies, heading to countless mysterious tasks.

  After a moment her awe was replaced with a cold practicality borne of years of survival in the wildlands. Often out there you’d see something that would overwhelm you—a mirage, a strange old artifact, a mass of men heading your way. You had to snap out of your initial reaction and look closely at what you were really seeing. Her family had taught her that.

  And what she was s
eeing now was a vast, complex machine that barely functioned. Half those pipes had gaping holes. Whatever they had once carried, they weren’t carrying anything now. Many of those cables ended in frayed tips, while others were patched in a dozen places. She was accustomed to seeing make-do repairs on old machinery, that was just a part of life, but this was more serious. She didn’t need to know much about machines to know that this one was running on luck and love.

  The sailor led them to a large room with a long table down the center. It was spare, with utilitarian steel furnishings and walls bare except for a few faded old posters that made the child in her leap for joy. One was of a Chinese city from the Old Times, with a handsome young man and woman in uniform looking up at an airplane flying overhead. Another was a calendar from decades ago showing a long stone wall stretching over some hills off into the distance. Mother had told her stories about that wall. A few others showed traditional paintings like the ones the Yaos loved.

  She paused and took it all in. She was in the bowels of a foul-smelling freighter surrounded by strangers with guns, and she had found the most beautiful room she had ever seen.

  “Please sit,” Captain Wang offered a chair to The Doctor.

  Once he sat, the captain did as well. Then it was everyone else’s turn. The two sailors named Song sat next to her. There had been no question about that.

  “So is there a big Song family back in China?” Yu-jin asked. The idea that she had extended family across the sea, or at least people who considered themselves her extended family, fascinated and frightened her.

  “In our city have a very active same-surname association,” Panpan said.

  Yu-jin frowned at the unfamiliar term. “Same-surname association” had come out as a single word.

  Panpan must have seen her confusion because she explained.

  “A same-surname association is an old tradition from back in the days when the Chinese were spreading all over the world. I bet your ancestors who built the railroad joined one. People had travelled far away from their homes and the relations they had grown up with, so they banded together with others of the same surname. If you were new to a place you could go to your same-surname association and find friends, a meal, even a job.”

  “But there would be no need for something like that in China,” Yu-jin said.

  Panpan gave a bitter smile. “Do you think we’ve fared any better than you in the past century? The cities collapsed, there were wars, plagues from the Biowars, and worse. Most people were left with little or no family, so they woke up to the fact that they had a much larger family. People found a place again.”

  Yu-jin stared at the table, not knowing where to look.

  A place.

  Maybe I should go with them.

  A few sailors came out of a side door and hurriedly set out some teapots and cups.

  “I hope our green tea is to your taste, cousin,” Jianfu said.

  “I’ve never had green tea. We make tea out of herbs.”

  “Really?” Jianfu exclaimed. “That’s a shame. Don’t worry, cousin. We get it every day. Once you’re part of the crew…”

  His voice trailed away. The captain was glaring at him. There was an icy silence around the table for a second before the captain broke it with some pleasantry she had to translate for The Doctor.

  The leaders fell into a conversation and she had to focus on her work. That icy silence, however, still filled her ears.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Best case scenario: this guy has emphysema. Worst case: lung cancer.

  The Doctor made small talk with Captain Wang while keeping all senses open for what was really going on. Every now and then the captain came out with a nasty, hacking cough that hadn’t eased much since getting into filtered air. The Doctor also noticed how battered this old tub was. Kevin and Rachel would flip if they saw some of this crappy patchwork.

  And then there were his table companions. Sub-Lieutenant Yu kept his gun as close as courtesy would allow and a few of the other sailors did too. It was strange that Yu-jin’s two “relatives” had gotten to come in, since they were both so obviously of low rank. He supposed that it was because they had discovered some bullshit distant relation to his translator. He’d heard Asians were big on family.

  Family could be a pain in the ass, though, and it looked like Yu-jin’s was no exception. That male sailor had said something that had gone down wrong with everyone who spoke Chinese, Yu-jin included. The Doctor would bet half the Burbs he’d be swabbing the deck from now until New Year’s.

  Tea was served and suddenly all his calculating and observation went out the window. The smell of metal and oil disappeared as the delicate aroma of green tea wafted up to his nostrils. He looked at the little cup before him and felt a wave of nostalgia.

  Damn, how long has it been?

  Lucas used to brew it better than anybody. What I wouldn’t trade for just one more of those lazy afternoons.

  Yu-jin’s voice cut through his thoughts.

  “Doctor?”

  “Hm?”

  Captain Wang was raising his cup in a toast.

  Here comes the bullshit.

  “To new partners!” Captain Wang said.

  Well, at least he didn’t say “friends.”

  “To a future brighter than the past!” The Doctor replied.

  That’s what I’ve been working for all my life. Why is it so damn hard?

  The Doctor took a sip and was in heaven. It was just as good as he remembered.

  “Captain, thank you for my first taste of proper tea in far, far too long. I loved it when I was young.”

  Captain Wang smiled. “I’m happy you like it. And Ms. Song tells us that she has never had the pleasure to try it. Such a pity things turned out so badly between our peoples.”

  Yeah, well stop worshipping your ancestors and admit to their mistakes and maybe things could go better. Not that our ancestors weren’t equally stupid.

  The conversation stayed light for a time as The Doctor enjoyed his tea. Inevitably, though, it got serious.

  “I must excuse myself soon in order to reassure my people on shore. I also wanted to restate that those people in the hills were not under my orders. They’re a mob from the shantytown beyond our walls. I’ll deal with them today. And I do want to make clear that we would be happy to trade with you.”

  “That’s good news,” Captain Wang said. “Please, have one more cup before you go. What can you offer us in trade?”

  “What are you looking for?” The Doctor asked.

  “We are interested in a wide variety of trade items, and can offer much in return.”

  Oh, so you want me to show my cards first, eh? How about offering you something you don’t need.

  “We have plentiful supplies of biofuel made from wheat grown in our fields,” The Doctor lied. Actually, New City’s low reserves of biofuel was one of the thousand sources of stress in his life, that and Kevin and Rachel constantly nagging him to magically produce more out of his scarce reserves of grain.

  “Thank you for your generous offer but our ship runs on diesel, as do most machines back home. We would be interested in trading for some grain.”

  Shit.

  “We could trade a small amount. You see, we’ve already had our harvest trade fair, when people from the wildlands come to trade for our surplus.”

  The Doctor glanced at Yu-jin as she translated this half-lie and was happy to see her keeping a poker face.

  Good girl.

  “What could you trade for our grain?” The Doctor asked. “We have a mill and can mill it into flour for you.”

  “That’s most kind. What would you like in trade?”

  Remind me to never to play cards with you, you wheezing old bastard.

  “Well, we’re pretty comfortably set up here. I’m always looking for medical supplies from the Old Times, of course, and we’d love to increase our energy production, so if you have any solar panels…”

  Captain W
ang stiffened a little. “I’m not authorized to trade these things.”

  So, you’re not in charge, are you? There’s some sort of government back home. That’s what I thought.

  “Authorized? I’d be curious to know just who I’m dealing with.”

  “We are from a city called Jiaonan. In the Old Times, as you call them, it was one of the smaller ports and was fortunate to survive the worst of the bombing. Of course it fell for a time, as all cities fell, I do not think it was any different over here. But we have been rebuilding, as have you.”

  You more than us.

  “I see,” The Doctor said. “So what are you authorized to trade with us?”

  “Rice, tea, a selection of machine parts. We are also interested in machine parts. As you know, they are tricky to produce and finding usable parts is a matter of fortune as much as it is of hard work.”

  Now we’re getting down to business. I wonder if they have any opium? I could tell them it was for medicinal purposes. Hey, that’s even true, more or less.

  Out loud he said. “We have an assortment of parts in good condition that are of no use to us. I’m sure you’re in the same situation. We’ll have to get our mechanics together and figure out what we can do.”

  “A good idea. We’d also be interested in any extra gold and silver you might have.”

  After a moment’s confusion, The Doctor’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

  Gold and silver. Neither are of much use and you can easily scavenge enough for wires and circuit boards. If you’re asking for gold and silver, that’s because you’ve got a monetary system.

  Oh man, I’m the mayor of a shit-kicking little town falling apart in a dozen different ways and you’ve got a fucking city-state.

  “I’m sure we can come up with some surplus we don’t need for our own economics.”

  Yu-jin translated that without batting an eye. The Doctor felt like patting himself on the back for being a good judge of people. Little Miss Peaches seemed to know what side she was on. He hoped she didn’t forget.

  A sailor went around pouring a second round of tea. Captain Wang raised his cup.

  “To the wise scholars at Radio Hope, without whom this new partnership would not be possible.”