We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3)

by Sean McLachlan

  So, they really are behind this, aren’t they? But why did they call you over here, and how did they know you were even over there?

  The Doctor shifted in his seat.

  “My friends at Radio Hope haven’t told me,” The Doctor said. “How are you able to pick up their broadcasts in China? I haven’t heard any shortwave transmissions in Chinese, or any other language for that matter.”

  “Ah, no. We aren’t fortunate enough to have a regular broadcast. They picked up some of our ship transmissions and transmitted to us on the AM band.”

  The Doctor furrowed his brow in puzzlement. “How?”

  The captain indicated that Gebre Selassie should speak. The Doctor was grateful that he spoke in Chinese and relied on Yu-jin to translate instead of using his own atrocious English.

  “We use an AM marine frequency, and while it has a longer range than your New City Radio, it still can’t reach from Jiaonan to here. But sometimes atmospheric conditions can make a radio transmission bounce off the stratosphere and back to Earth, Since it bounces from so high up, it can reach well past the horizon. Radio Hope must have a monitoring program, because it picked up some of these transmissions. You wouldn’t find them unless you were looking for a long time. They then transmitted back on AM, hoping for their transmissions to skip too. I suppose they tried many times before we received them.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t transmit in shortwave.”

  Gebre Selassie inclined his head. “That would be the best way, wouldn’t it? In the Old Times people from all over the world talked with one another over shortwave. But of course everyone is afraid of exposing themselves too much these days.”

  You’re telling me.

  The radio operator went on, a dreamy smile coming to his face. “It was the best day of my life to hear that crackly transmission come over the airwaves. To actually talk with another continent! I never thought I’d get to do that.”

  The Doctor felt a prickle down his spine.

  He talked with Radio Hope, but this guy can’t carry on a conversation in English.

  Which means Radio Hope spoke to him in Chinese.

  The affable radio operator was still talking merrily. It took a force of will to focus on what he was saying.

  “…once we got closer, Radio Hope stopped relying on skip and your own people took over. At first the transmission was weak, but it grew stronger every day. What a wonderful first impression you people gave. Such a symbol that young boy must be, calling in your first foreign visitors on a generation!”

  “Young boy? No, she’s a fourteen-year-old girl.”

  Gebre looked surprised. “Girl? Oh no, it was definitely a boy, and much younger than fourteen. Looks like your little radio operator decided to share the job with one of her friends.”

  The Doctor’s grip tightened on his tea cup.

  “Looks like. She’s got quite an independent spirit.”

  You don’t know you’re in the wrong place, do you? But who the hell was making the transmissions?

  “I’d love to meet the boy. I was just a child when I started training. I’m sure his parents wouldn’t want him to come to this bay of yours, but perhaps the next time a shore party comes ashore I could meet him.”

  “I’ll try to arrange it. Speaking of shore parties, it’s best I got back. I need to calm my people.”

  The Doctor stood. To his immense relief no one pointed a gun on him.

  “Of course,” Captain Wang said. “Shall we meet again tomorrow morning? Send a signal from the village on the shore.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot! Those people came on board, didn’t they?”

  Captain Wang gave a sly smile. “Don’t worry yourself about them. Anyone foolish enough to live in this bay is not someone I want to do business with. You are the mayor of New City. Any business I have is with you.”

  The Doctor and Captain Wang shook hands. “I think we’ll be able to work something out, captain.”

  The Doctor allowed himself to relax a little as the rowboat cast off from the Chinese freighter and the sailors rowed for shore. They’d averted an invasion, at least for the moment. That was something. Now he just had to calm everyone back in town and head off The Giver and his rabble before they caused any trouble and figure out how Radio Hope played into all of this and…

  Too much. Focus. First order of business is to put a damper on those militiamen from the Burbs. Having a Burb Council is bad enough, but their own militia? Unacceptable.

  But who the hell were they? He couldn’t imagine Ahmed and those other saps creating a militia out of nothing and sending them off to ambush the Chinese. They didn’t have the balls. Besides, they needed New City too much. They liked to pretend they were all independent but in reality who created the electricity? Who established the harvest trade fair? Who had the machine shops and owned most of the farmland? No, Ahmed and the rest knew which side their bread was buttered on.

  Which left the question, who had created this militia? Had it just sprung out of nowhere?

  They were getting closer to the shore now, and through the filmy lenses of his gas mask he thought he could see a few trails of smoke coming up from the direction of the Burbs. At first he thought they were just smears on the plastic, but as he turned his head first one way and then the other he saw they were real.

  Fucking hell. I leave for two hours and everything falls apart.

  “Tell the oarsmen to row faster,” he told Yu-jin.

  “What’s going on over there?” she replied. “It looks like there’s a fire.”

  “How should I know? Just translate for me so we can get there and find out!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Pablo and Hong-gi sat huddled together in the dunes for a long time. Finally Pablo spoke.

  “Now what do we do?”

  “I dunno,” Hong-gi whispered, still staring at nothing. His eye had swelled up pretty bad.

  Pablo looked over at the rock that marked where the radio was hidden. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t called the ship and the Chinese hadn’t come, people wouldn’t have thought Hong-gi was Chinese and he wouldn’t have gotten hit and they wouldn’t be stuck out here and…

  Pablo squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like crying again. Why couldn’t he be brave like he had with that scavenger in the market? He had to try.

  “OK,” Pablo said, opening his eyes. “Let’s go back and—”

  “I can’t go back!” Hong-gi wailed.

  “We’ll get my mom. She’ll keep you safe and arrest the people who were hurting Asians. She’s probably arrested them already.”

  “She’ll let them kill all the Chinese in town.”

  “There aren’t any Chinese in town.”

  Hong-gi kept silent. Pablo looked at him.

  “I don’t want to live there anymore,” Hong-gi said at last.

  “It’ll be OK. My mom will stop anyone from hurting Asians. I bet The Doctor will banish them.”

  Hong-gi looked out across the dunes in the direction of the Burbs. “Everybody hates me there.”

  “No they don’t.”

  Hong-gi put his forehead against his knees.

  “You hate me too,” he mumbled.

  Pablo put an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t be silly! What are you talking about?”

  Hong-gi looked up at him. He was crying again.

  “I’m Chinese.”

  Pablo pulled his arm away and stared at him. Hong-gi tore away from him and ran up the dune, where he stopped and stood with his back to Pablo, staring out to the sea.

  Pablo stayed put, suddenly afraid. Was Hong-gi some kind of secret agent? Was he going to blow up a Big One as revenge for how Mr. Fartbag treated him?

  Immediately Pablo felt guilty. This was his friend. He climbed up the dune after him.

  “Go away,” Hong-gi said.

  “Deputy Andrews says not all Chinese are bad.”

  “Duh.”

  They looked out at the sea for a minute. Chi
na was over there somewhere. How far was it? A thousand kilometers? A million? Far enough that for a long time the ship’s radio had sounded all faint and crackly.

  “So you’ve never told anyone you were a Chink?” Pablo asked.

  “Don’t say that! That’s a bad word.”

  “Sorry.”

  “My parents always said that I’d get killed if I did. I wish they were still alive. We could go be scavengers or something. Out in the wildlands you’d hardly have to see anyone. I wouldn’t have to lie so much then.”

  Suddenly Pablo remembered something. “So that’s why when we always played Heroes and Chinks, um, I mean Heroes and Chinese, you always wanted to play the Chinese. Nobody wants to play the Chinese. And you never let us win.”

  Hong-gi kept looking out across the water. Pablo nudged him.

  “Remember that time George was coming over the hill shouting ‘Kill the Chinks! Long live the Fifth Republic!’ and you threw a blob of mud right in his face?”

  Hong-gi cracked a smile.

  “You should have put some poop in it,” Pablo said.

  Hong-gi giggled. “Maybe I did.”

  “Eeeew!”

  Both boys cracked up. Pablo tried to laugh extra hard to make his friend feel better. The laughter ended quickly, though.

  “What am I going to do?” Hong-gi whispered.

  Pablo thought for a moment. “OK, here’s the plan. You stay here with the emergency bag and I’ll go back and get my mom. She can protect you.”

  “She’ll do that?”

  “Of course she will! She protects everybody.”

  Except Mitch.

  Yeah, Mom sometimes judged people without knowing them. What if she did the same with Hong-gi?

  He’d have to be very careful. If Mom started acting suspicious he wouldn’t tell her where Hong-gi was. No, not in 28 million years. Hong-gi could become a scavenger. He had the emergency bag.

  “I better go,” Pablo said.

  Hong-gi looked scared. “Get back as soon as you can.”

  Pablo dug into his back pocket and pulled out the clasp knife Mitch had given him just before Mom and the other grownups led him away to that tall tree outside of town.

  “Take this to protect yourself,” he said.

  Hong-gi stared at it. “Really? This is the one Mitch gave you.”

  “Yeah, be totally careful with it.”

  Hong-gi nodded. “I will.”

  Pablo hurried back towards the Burbs. His stomach growled and he realized he should have eaten something from the emergency bag. That wasn’t a good idea, though. Mom always said to leave the food in the emergency bag alone until you absolutely, totally didn’t have anything else to eat. He sure was hungry, though.

  He passed through the north fields and noticed all the farms were shut up like there was going to be an attack. The farmers were probably hiding behind their thick wooden shutters with their guns and bows ready. He made sure not to go near any of the houses.

  Pablo got to the edge of the Burbs in record time. Smoke still rose from a few spots and he could hear some shouting.

  Slowing down, Pablo tried to summon his courage. Nobody would be after him except that one bad scavenger. He hoped he didn’t bump into him.

  When he got to the edge of the Burbs, he hid behind a tent and watched for a while. Not too many people around. Maybe everyone was closer into the center where he could hear a bunch of shouting. A house near the market was on fire, along with a couple of other buildings further out.

  Where would Mom be? Probably where all the shouting was. Pablo crept forward.

  The street was a muddy lane between a row of tents and shacks. Everything was closed up tight and he hardly saw anybody. That creeped him out. The Burbs were always full of people.

  Movement out of the corner of his eye made him turn. Someone had slipped from behind one shack to another. Pablo stopped, feeling his skin get all cold and prickly. He stared at the shack. When he didn’t see the figure again, he hurried on his way.

  Then he saw him again, an older man in a ragged coat with a big satchel over one shoulder and carrying something in his hand. Just before the figure ducked behind a tent he could see the man had been looking right at him.

  Pablo turned and passed between a couple of tents and hid for a moment behind a shack. The guy wasn’t the scavenger who hit Hong-gi, but there were lots of bad people in the Burbs, everyone knew that. Pablo didn’t complain when Mom told him he couldn’t go out after dark. He’d heard too many stories from other kids. Bad things happened after dark because no one was around to look out after you.

  And no one was around now.

  Except for all those people shouting near the marketplace. He had to get to them. Then he’d be safe.

  Pablo peeked around the corner of the shack and bit back a scream. The guy stood less than ten meters away, looking towards the center of the Burbs where all the noise was. He was holding a hammer. Not one from the Old Times but one of those iron ones they forged in the blacksmith’s shop in New City. It was big and heavy looking and the head was all wet. Pablo squinted as he noticed something stuck to the head of the hammer where the wet bit was. His eyes went wide when he saw it was a clump of hair.

  Pablo tried to remember all the scavenger stories he’d heard about hiding from an enemy. Did he stay put and keep real quiet and hope the guy didn’t find him, or did he run? Running made noise, though. He’d try to sneak away.

  Not daring to look again to check where the man with the hammer was, he crept towards the next shack. He was surprised to see this one was open. He peeked inside.

  It looked like it had been looted. Stuff was thrown all over the place. The hearth was bare and the spot where the pots and flour and other cooking things should have been was empty. A big bundle lay on the floor in the corner. It was hard to see because it was so dark inside compared to the bright light outside.

  As Pablo’s eyes adjusted he saw it was a person lying on the floor. He lay all twisted, which is why Pablo didn’t recognize him as a person at first.

  Pablo took a step forward. The man didn’t move.

  He was Asian. There was a big dent in the side of his head and the hair there was all sticky with blood. Pablo clapped his hands over his mouth to keep from screaming. Dead bodies always freaked him out.

  Especially murdered bodies when the murderer was just outside.

  A loud crash made Pablo jump. It sounded like it came from next door. There was another crash, then the rattle of a chain like someone was opening their door.

  It was that guy with the hammer, he just knew it.

  Pablo wanted nothing more than to hide in a corner and hope the guy would go away, but he knew that might get him killed. He had to get out of there.

  Creeping to the doorway, he peeked out just in time to see the guy walk into the shack next door. A broken padlock and a length of chain like people used to secure their doors lay on the ground. The blacksmiths made those too and while everyone said they were crappy and not as good as the ones from the Old Times that you could smack with a hammer all day and not break, everyone traded for them anyway. If this was a normal day or night in the Burbs, there was no way this guy could make so much noise to break into a house. People would come running.

  But no one was going to come running.

  There was just the hammer guy, Pablo, and the dead body.

  Pablo shivered as he looked back at the corpse.

  That could have been Hong-gi.

  And it might be you if you don’t hurry up!

  Pablo bolted from the shack. He heard a shout behind him and sped up. He got onto the main street where more people could see him and ran as fast as he could towards the noise at the center of town.

  He could see a whole bunch of people up ahead. He ran faster.

  They were in the open area of the market and everyone was shouting and looking at something. Some people were shaking their fists in the air or waving sticks and machetes.

&
nbsp; Pablo slowed down.

  The crowd was moving towards New City gate, which stood half open with a bunch of guards in front. More guards stood on the wall.

  At first Pablo thought the shouting people wanted to attack New City. Then he noticed they were all looking towards the center of the crowd. He couldn’t see through because everyone was taller than him.

  Pablo squatted on the ground and tried to look through all the legs. There seemed to be a fight going on in the middle of the crowd. He heard a thump like someone getting punched and a guy fell on the ground. Someone stepped on him and the guy yelped, pulling the other person down. Then there was a big tangle of bodies and more people started tripping and punching.

  A shot cracked the air, making Pablo jerk, lose his balance, and fall over. The crowd spread out as people ran back from the shot.

  Another two shots rang out. Some people started running.

  Pablo picked himself up and then got slammed right back down again as someone bumped into him. A few other people hurried by and Pablo curled himself into a ball, terrified of getting trampled.

  After a moment no more people ran away. In fact, crowd seemed to be forming up again. The people were still spread out enough that he could see what they had all been looking at.

  His mom and Deputies Andrews and Edgerton were leading a bunch of Asians towards New City gate. The Asians looked terrified. Some of them were crying and looked beat up. Mom shouted something. The only word he caught was “arrested”. Deputy Andrews fired a shot into the air with his AK-47.

  A man lunged at Mom and she cracked him over the head with her shotgun. A few rocks pelted the Asians. One woman got hit in the head and fell, only to be pulled up by some of the others. Deputy Edgerton took a rock in the small of the back but all it did was make him grunt and look around like he wanted to tear someone apart.

  Mom and her deputies kept leading the Asians towards New City gate. It looked like they had every Asian in the Burbs.

  Mom’s arresting them all! She’s going to kill them just like she killed Mitch!

  He wanted to run to her and make her stop, but he was too scared of all the rocks and the gunshots and the shouting people.