We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3)

by Sean McLachlan

  The guard and Annette took the oars and paddled out along the shore.

  The Doctor watched Yu-jin go, feeling suddenly lost. Was anyone else but that kid on his side?

  Clyde and a few of his men sauntered up. The Head of the Watch had a walkie-talkie in his hand. “Now that the sheriff and that Chink are out of the way, it’s time to do it my way.”

  The Doctor turned, confused. “Your way? What are you talking about?”

  Clyde gave him a defiant look. “Blow the damn ship, remember? I sent Kent and a team out to set the bomb. It’s got a radio detonator. They’re at the head of the bay just waiting for my say-so. Would you like to give the order or should I?”

  Rage rose up in The Doctor’s chest. “I never authorized that!”

  Clyde shook his head, looking disappointed. “You had your chance, Doc. You had two whole days to negotiate with those barbarians, and all it’s done is cause a rift between New City and the Burbs and threaten everyone’s security.”

  The Doctor snarled and took a step forward. Two of the guards moved in on him from either side. He glanced from one to the other, but they didn’t budge.

  “Clyde, I order you—”

  “You don’t order me to do a damn thing, Doc. You tried your way and it didn’t work. You’ve always been too soft. Look what happened when you let noncitizens inside during the last attack! You nearly got yourself killed. Security is my responsibility and I think your judgment’s been impaired by your illness and whatever that little Chinese piece of tail has been doing with you.”

  “Now you listen here—” The Doctor took another step forward and one of the guards put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t grip hard, just rested it there.

  It was enough.

  His whole body trembling, eyes misting with red, The Doctor tried to remain calm.

  “So you’re overthrowing me, eh?”

  Clyde shook his head, a wry smile on his lips. “You think I want to run this freak show? Hell, no. But I am responsible for this community’s security. And because of that I get to take charge when I feel the need is right.”

  Clyde lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth and thumbed the button. “Clyde to Kent, you read me?”

  “Loud and clear boss,” the crackly voice came out of the speaker.

  “Blow that son of a bitch.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Pablo and Hong-gi stared at the empty bay, unable to believe their eyes. Where could the ship have gone? They said they would wait!

  Pablo glanced at his friend. He looked just as lost and hopeless as he had in the dunes right after escaping from the Burbs. How could he make him feel better?

  “The radio!” he cried out.

  “What?” Hong-gi asked, unable to take his eyes off the empty bay.

  “We have to go back for the radio! I dropped it when the tweakers grabbed us. We can radio the ship and tell them to come back.”

  “We can’t go back there!”

  “We got to. It’s the only way.”

  Hong-gi looked glum. “They’re not going to come back. They said they’d stay and they didn’t.”

  “They probably had to leave. Yeah, that’s it! The New City people threatened them. Or maybe they’d going to try and save all the Asians. I don’t know. But if we get the radio we can find out.”

  Hong-gi turned to him, a desperate, hopeful look on his face. “Do you think that’s why they left?”

  “Sure! They wouldn’t have said they’d wait if they weren’t going to keep their word. They just had to get out of range of the guns, that’s all. They’re probably trying to call us right now!”

  Pablo was happy to see Hong-gi grab what he said and clutch onto it like a teddy bear on a stormy night. His face lit up with hope again.

  “Let’s go!” Hong-gi shouted. They ran off back the way they had come.

  “I hope the radio didn’t break when I dropped it,” Pablo said under his breath.

  Hong-gi must have heard him because right afterwards he said, “I hope we don’t bump into the tweakers again.”

  They hurried back as fast as they could, resting occasionally when the stink from the bay got to be too much. Pablo’s stomach growled and his mouth was dry with a nasty, metallic taste. They’d finished off everything they had saved from the tweakers. He sure hoped they’d get to the ship soon. He’d seen what starving people looked like and he didn’t want to be one of them.

  They made their way back through the heaps of rubble. Once they heard the distant cackling of a tweaker. They froze and listened for a long time until they made sure the thing had headed off in another direction. Then they crept forward, always keeping low and out of sight. Pablo was tempted to get on top of one of the piles of rubble to have a look around, but he didn’t dare expose himself. You always had to use cover in the wildlands. That’s what everyone said.

  At last they made it to the spot where they’d been attacked. The radio lay on the ground just where Pablo had dropped it. Pablo and Hong-gi gave each other a silent thumbs-up and headed over to get it.

  “Damn it, Norton, I told you we should have blown it as soon as it was set.”

  Pablo and Hong-gi froze again. That was an adult man’s voice.

  “But Clyde said—”

  “Yeah, yeah, Clyde said to wait. And now that we can’t blow it what’s he going to say?

  Pablo and Hong-gi looked at each other. What was going on? Someone was trying to blow up the ship? Maybe the crew discovered the bomb and sailed away. But if the ship knew about that, then it might turn around and drop a Big One on New City.

  Pablo bit his lip. He didn’t want that. A lot of people in New City were bad, but he didn’t want Uncle Roy and Marcus hurt, or Aunt Rosie, or all his friends. Not everyone was bad back home.

  Home. The word made him want to cry. Why did everything have to be so messed up? He should be home playing with his friends and reading books with Mom at night. Why couldn’t everything be like it used to be?

  Pablo shook his head. He was being a baby. He was a scavenger now and scavengers had to be ready for anything.

  So what would a scavenger do right now?

  The radio lay just a hundred meters away at the bottom of a heap of rubble. The voices sounded like they were coming from the other side of that heap. They were still talking, blaming each other for what had happened, and from the sound of it they weren’t moving. Maybe they had stopped for a rest.

  Pablo turned to Hong-gi and put a finger to his lips before creeping towards the radio. He moved slowly, taking care that he didn’t step on any rocks that might shift under his weight and make noise. His shoes were of good leather made by a guy in the market and didn’t make much sound, not like the clunky boots the farmers wore. You could hear those guys coming from a kilometer away.

  He grinned and felt proud at how quietly he was walking. He was getting really good at this scavenger stuff!

  Just then his toe bumped a pebble that went skittering across the rubble in front of him.

  His heart flippy-flopped. Pablo stood as still as a tree, listening. The adults on the other side of the rubble heap kept arguing. They were so busy listening to themselves talk that they hadn’t noticed him.

  Typical.

  Pablo moved more carefully this time. Fifty meters. Twenty. Ten. He had to fight letting out a big loud sigh of relief when he got to the radio. He picked it up, grateful not to hear any clanking parts that would show it had broken when he dropped it, and turned to head back.

  Hong-gi crouched where he had left him, gesturing for him to hurry and giving nervous looks in the direction of the voices.

  “OK, men, break’s over. We got to get back and see if the ship’s threatening New City.”

  There was the sound of movement behind the rubble, like a bunch of people standing up and walking around.

  Pablo hurried back to his friend as quickly as he dared. He wasn’t sure if he made any noise or not. The sound of his blood thumping in his ears
was too loud for him to hear his own steps.

  He did hear what came next, though.

  “Hey, you, kid!”

  Pablo bolted the last few meters to Hong-gi and both boys ran around another ruined building.

  “Two of them, and one was Chinese!”

  The sound of heavy steps behind them.

  “Fan out, don’t let them get away!”

  “There might be more Chinese out here. If you see any adults, shoot them!”

  It took less than a minute to get caught. A big man with an M16 in his hand came lumbering around a pile of concrete slabs and ordered them to halt.

  They halted. The gun looked gigantic.

  “Kent, I got them!” the man called out.

  Another man scrambled over the slabs.

  “Well at least you can do something right,” he muttered. He glared at Hong-gi a moment and then scanned the surrounding area. Seeming to be satisfied they wouldn’t be disturbed, he looked back at the boys, who huddled close together.

  “Anyone else out here with you?” he demanded.

  “No,” Pablo squeaked.

  “What’s that in your hand?” The guard gestured at the radio bag.

  “Nothing…food and stuff.”

  As the man scrambled down the slabs, Pablo recognized him. His name was Kent, one of the head guards. He carried an M16 like the man who had caught him. Just as he made it to the bottom of the slabs, three more guards with M16s hurried around the corner.

  Kent turned to them. “Search pattern out to three hundred meters. Make sure none got away.”

  The three did what they were told, the fourth man still hovering close. Kent turned and studied Pablo and Hong-gi. “You’re the sheriff’s kid, aren’t you?”

  Pablo summoned up his courage. “Yeah I am, and when she finds out you were chasing us you’re going to be in big trouble.”

  Kent said nothing. Instead he studied Hong-gi a moment before turning back at Pablo with a smirk. “Who said she’s going to find out?”

  Pablo trembled.

  “What are you doing out here with a Chink?” Kent demanded.

  “Don’t use that word. It’s a bad word.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I made him come,” Hong-gi said. “He didn’t want to.”

  “I wasn’t asking you!” Kent snapped. “Everything you people say is a lie. You’ve been living in the Burbs for years calling yourself Korean or Vietnamese or whatever. I bet every single damn one of you is Chinese.”

  Kent stepped forward and yanked the radio bag out of Pablo’s hand. He opened it up and his eyes went wide.

  “Well I’ll be. Look at this, Norton, it’s a radio! I bet this is how they called the ship. I get it now. They sent off one of their kids to call in the ship because we weren’t watching the kids. Sneaky bastards. But how did you get mixed up in all this?”

  This last question was for Pablo, but Hong-gi answered it. “I made him come. I told you. Let him go. It’s me you want.”

  Kent gave him a look that told him if he spoke again something very, very bad would happen.

  “Hey, Kent,” Norton said, “maybe we can get this Chinese kid to call into the ship and make it come back.”

  Kent nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s just what I was thinking.”

  He took a couple of steps towards Hong-gi until he towered over the boy.

  “You just bought yourself a new lease on life, kid. If you call that ship back, we can finish the job. And if that ship goes under, I might just let you live.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “It was right here,” Jessica said.

  She, the guard, Annette, and Yu-jin stood around a small pit in the sand. A stone lay next to it, obviously the one Jessica had used as a marker.

  Yu-jin studied the sand around. Two pairs of footprints, both small, circled all over this low spot between the dunes. One set led up the side of the highest dune, fading out near the top where the sand was more exposed to the wind. Next to it was an identical set of footprints coming down.

  Acting as lookout, Yu-jin reasoned.

  Slowly scanning the large bowl of sand between the dunes, she reconstructed the events that had occurred here less than twelve hours before, judging by the freshness of the prints, which remained fairly clear even though the wind had been working to smooth them to nothingness. Within another twelve hours they would disappear, but at the moment she could read them as clearly as the Chinese characters Father and Mother had painted on the inside of their cave.

  Over there is where they slept, side by side under a big blanket or tarpaulin. They circled around some, ate over there where those seeds are, and headed out that direction.

  She turned and studied Annette. The sheriff’s eyes traced the same movements as her own had a minute before. She could read all this too, but more slowly than Yu-jin had.

  I’m the better tracker. She was a scavenger once, but living in the Burbs has made her lose her edge.

  She was picking it up, though, and was certainly ready for the chase. Annette’s eyes, an hour before so red and hooded, now practically glowed with energy. Her fingers drummed on the holster of her pistol and she bounced up and down a little where she stood like an impatient child.

  What did The Doctor give her?

  “They went that way,” Annette declared, pointing to the boys’ route northward. “I bet they circled the farms and then cut east and then south to get to the bay.”

  Yu-jin nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Annette turned to her. “I got this shotgun and this pistol. Which one you want?”

  “I’ve never used a gun. My band never had one. I’m better off with my bow.”

  Annette nodded and without another word loped off to the north, following the trail. Yu-jin hurried after her. The guard led Jessica back to the boat to return her to New City.

  They kept up a steady run, not so fast that they would wear out quickly, rather a jog that could be kept up for hours and eat up the distance. Side by side up one side of a dune and down the other, then over the next dune. The trail was easily followed until it turned east and headed into uncultivated field. Luckily the soil was good enough here to hold a print and they were able to follow the trail without having to slacken their pace too much. Yu-jin worried about when they got into the gritty, rocky soil and heaps of debris in the ruined city. They might lose them there.

  Worry about that when and if that comes. You got enough to worry about as it is, Yu-jin reminded herself.

  Assuming they could find the kids in the bay, avoid all the tweakers and the Burbs militia and whatever else got thrown at them, and got the radio, assuming all that, what could they do?

  She’d call Captain Yang and try to reason with him. The Doctor had told her that something called a drone, some sort of flying camera thing, had flown over New City and seen the Asians huddling inside. It had probably seen the burnt buildings in the Burbs too. What would Captain Yang be thinking, and how would he react? If he was the master of such incredible technology from the Old Times, what other devices might he use?

  Despite what The Doctor seemed to fear, she did not think Captain Yang would attack, at least not right away. She didn’t think he would leave either. He had probably ordered the ship out to go out to sea in order to get it into a safer position. It would be easy enough to come back. But with communication now cut off, they might as well be on opposite sides of the ocean again. Both sides had returned to fear, suspicion, and ignorance.

  Yu-jin tried to stave off despair. She had finally found other Chinese, finally made a connection with the mother country, only to have them leave her on the wrong side.

  But was it the wrong side? The Doctor did seem to be trying to make things right for the Asians, in his arrogant, ignorant, fumbling way. It wasn’t just fear of backlash from the ship that drove him. He really did want equality for everyone. But the best intentions didn’t matter when soured by suspicion and overwhelmed by the ignorance of the
masses.

  Yu-jin glanced at the woman running beside her. Annette was popular in the Burbs. Everyone respected her. She used to be the bouncer at $87,953, and while she had busted more than her share of heads, only a few of the worst thugs held it against her. No wonder the people of the Burbs elected her sheriff.

  If she helped save Annette’s kid, perhaps that would go some way to shifting people’s feelings more in favor of her.

  What a mercenary thing to think, Yu-jin upbraided herself. But do I have the luxury of thinking otherwise? Damn, Doc, you really live in an ugly little world with your politics, and now I’ve been pulled into it too.

  The trail skirted the northern edge of the cultivated area. It headed south three times before doubling back when it came in view of the northernmost farms.

  “Why are they so scared of the farmers?” Annette wondered aloud as they doubled back for the second time.

  “Probably think they’ll hurt them.”

  “They’re children!”

  “If it wasn’t for you, Asian children would have gotten hurt in that riot.”

  Annette gave her a wary look. “I’ll level with you. I got no love for the Chinese after what they did, but it looks like there’s good Chinese and bad Chinese. People like you and the Burbs families are all right.”

  How charitable, Yu-jin thought. She thought of half a dozen sharp replies and bit them all back.

  They continued in silence for a time, saving their breath for running. The trail led further eastwards and finally turned south again. Yu-jin judged they had now passed the cultivated area and the boys would have headed straight south for the bay. As the soil became hard and gritty, the footprints grew faint and the two women had to slow to a walk in order to follow the trail. Annette cursed the delay.

  “Is there any reason why Pablo would want to run away?” Yu-jin asked.

  “He’s not running away!” Annette snapped.

  This was followed by a long silence. Yu-jin kept her eyes on the ground, following the faint pair of footprints as they headed towards the ruined port.

  “He’s mad at me,” Annette said at last. “There was someone from the Righteous Horde, a guy named Mitch. He told everyone he was one of the cult’s machete men. They made up the bulk of the army, forced to fight in order to eat.”