by Kip Nelson
“Then let me say what I mean. You're been overly-protective and paranoid, which I get, because you're trying to make up for the years we lost, but you don't have to do it, Mom. I can take care of myself. I know what I'm doing, and if you don't like it, then that's your problem.”
Sharon was standing outside the door eavesdropping, smiling slyly as her plan was being put into motion. When she heard Tristan shout at his mother she quickly skipped across the room and pretended she had been looking out the window all this time when he stormed out. He stopped by the door and asked her if she was coming. She sighed and took his hand, and the two of them walked out of the apartment.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AFTER WATCHING TRISTAN STORM OUT, Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose and took a few moments to collect herself. For a long time she only had been concerned with finding Tristan again, but now she faced a greater challenge; being his mother. It wasn't easy to be a parent at the best of times, and she was the first to admit she hadn't been the best example. She always had found it easier to be a cop, that came naturally, but a parent? That was difficult, and one of the reasons why she hadn't been the mother she could have been through the years.
She hated arguing with him. She hoped her son would calm down soon, and that her suspicions about this girl were misplaced. She left the bedroom and walked to the window to look out on the pyre. There were still people standing around it, mourning, but she found it difficult to work up the sadness. She had seen too many people die, it was easy not to feel anything anymore. After the prison, she had lost something inside her, and although she hated that people had died, she wasn't going to shed a tear. It wasn't going to be any use. It wouldn't bring them back.
She made her way through the settlement and passed the crackling blaze of the fire on her way to see Mack. People still were sobbing, but as the day went by, there were fewer of them standing around. They all recognized there was a lot of work to do to get the settlement ready for the next attack. Nerves were frayed and she noticed there was no laughter around.
There was also no sign of Tristan, and she hoped he wouldn't do anything foolish. Having spent so long looking for him, the last thing she wanted was to risk losing him again. During the attack, she had tried pushing aside thoughts of him in the hope of focusing on the task at hand, but she couldn’t. She continually was worried about him. It had been a relief when she had seen that he made it through the night.
She walked past the grenade impact craters as she made her way to City Hall, which still was standing, although riddled with a few more bullet holes than the previous day. She bounded up the stairs and made her way to the office. Mack was standing by the window, looking out onto the settlement.
“What's on your mind?” she said.
Mack turned around, looking startled by her presence. He looked as though he belonged behind that desk, hands clasped behind his back. There was something about Mack that Maggie hadn't seen in many people; a good heart. But in this kind of world that kind of thing could get you killed.
“Oh, just the usual. I was sitting here and I looked out the window and wondered what the actual mayor of the city used to think when he was sitting here. He had to deal with his own problems, but did he ever stop to look at how beautiful it was? It's easy to forget that there is still beauty in this world.”
“That's because it's hidden behind all the ugliness.”
“True,” Mack said with a wry smile. “I also was wondering what else lies out there. The city is so big, and we've only seen a small part of it. There were probably, what, hundreds of thousands of people living here, maybe a million? They all have their own stories. I wonder how many mirror our own.”
“Most of them end in death.”
“Isn't that the end of every story?”
“Untimely death then.”
“I see you're in a cheery mood,” Mack said as he took a seat at the desk and gestured for Maggie to do the same.
“I just spoke with Tristan,” Maggie began. Mack leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together.
“And how did that go?”
Maggie's heavy sigh told him all he needed to know, but she continued to speak anyway. “Not great. I walked in on them kissing, to start with, which wasn't the best way for either of us. I mean, to me, he's still just a kid, and obviously, he doesn't want his mom walking in on him when he's with a girl. I tried talking to him and warning him that maybe this girl isn't everything he thinks she is, but he's not having it. I don't know, maybe I didn't introduce the subject in the best manner, but I don't trust her.”
“Do you trust him?”
“He's just a kid who has a crush on a pretty girl. Of course I trust him. I’m not sure I trust his feelings, though.”
“I'm sorry for asking you to talk to him about it. Maybe it would have been better if someone else had.”
“No, no, it's fine. I'm his mother, it's my responsibility to take care of these things. I guess I'm still just getting used to being that for him. I'm sure there are going to be many more times like these, and I'm just going to have to get used to them. Still, in some ways, it's nice to be worried about my son's love life. It makes things seem a bit more normal than they actually are.”
“It seems to me there are still little bits of normal life that come peeking through. How are you adjusting to having him back in your life, though? It's been a little while now. Are things back to the way they used to be?”
“No, but that's a good thing. We never were...I wasn't a good mother to him. I always said that one day I would make it up to him, and now I'm just making good on that promise. I worked too much and I put too many things before him, but I'm going to make sure that, from now on, he is my first priority. I just hate the idea that this girl is twisting him around her little finger.”
“He wouldn't be the first boy to lose his heart to a girl and be hurt because of it.”
“I know and, rationally, I know he'll be fine, and probably will be stronger for it, but it's different when it happens to your own kid. You just want the world to not be that way for a little while.”
“And, you know, there is always the possibility that we're dead wrong about this, and she's not here to cause trouble,” Mack said, although he didn't really believe that.
“I guess we're cursed by our suspicious minds,” Maggie replied.
“Something like that. Did you get to talk to her at all?”
“No, I thought it best if I try talking to Tristan alone, and then he took her with him when he left. I didn't get much out of him either. Apparently, she escaped from the Lost Children and wants a new start.”
“I suppose that's believable, although I remember the way she spoke when we were in their territory. She didn't seem to have any qualms about what she was doing.”
“I know. I don't want to rule out her having a change of heart, but experience has taught me not to believe the best in people.”
“Well, we'll tell people to keep an eye on her and see what happens. I don't think that, by herself, she poses a threat, not if we keep tabs on her. I'm just worried in case she's brought along any of her friends.”
“Yeah, this settlement can't really afford to fight on two fronts. We barely can handle one.”
“That's what I'd like to talk to you about now, coming up with a plan so we can make it out of this alive. Seeing all those dead bodies piled up today was hard. I don't want a repeat of that.”
“Okay, I'll try, although I can't promise that I'll be able to focus. All I can think about right now is Tristan,” she smiled weakly.
Mack nodded and said he understood, but inside he was filled with sorrow. He knew it was unlikely he ever was going to have children, and the worries that Maggie expressed were things that he only was going to understand on a superficial level. It was just another thing that had been taken from him in this new world. It had taken a lot. Maggie noticed the look on his face.
“You never tried for a kid, did you?” sh
e asked.
“No. Anna and I were going to wait until I finished with the army. I wanted to make sure I was there to watch them grow up. I didn't want to be away from them for months at a time, and have them look at me like I was a stranger. Now I'm thinking I should have realized we didn't have all the time in the world, and we just should have started a family as soon as we were ready.”
“You couldn't have known this was going to happen. Nobody could have.”
“I know,” Mack said, and smiled at Maggie, but it was a smile devoid of humor. That sadness always would be with him, and he was sure he always would wonder what life would have been like if he had brought children into the world.
“So, what are your thoughts about a strategy?” Maggie said, trying to shake him from his thoughts.
“I've had a few. One thing I'm sure of is I don't just want to sit here and wait to be attacked again. It's all well and good having a siege mentality, but the more it happens, the more people are going to feel like sitting ducks. I want to make the enemy react.”
“So, you want to take an army out?”
“I'd like to, but I'm aware we don't have the manpower for that. The last thing I want to do is leave this place defenseless. I still have to keep half a mind on the Lost Children.”
“Especially if Sharon has ulterior motives. She could be here to feed information to them.”
“Or worse, they could be lying in wait out there now.”
“It's a tough situation.”
“It is. What do you make of this group so far?”
“They're savage, brutal, they don't seem to care about tactics. They just swarmed over us. There didn't seem to be any real leader among them.”
“But that's the interesting thing because there is a leader. It's a very curious case. They seem to be a group that revels in anarchy, so I'm assuming their leader is a leader in the loosest sense of the term. Probably an alpha type that has risen to the top through showings of brute strength. I doubt he has much of a plan for them. If I had to guess, it's probably a case where he sets certain rules, or just points them toward a target, and lets them have at it.”
“Do you think there's any way to get at him?”
“I'm not sure, but if we can, if we can humiliate him, maybe we can turn their attention away from us, make us too annoying to bother with. I get the feeling they're mostly in this for entertainment. I was in their camp. I saw the way they acted. They aren't building anything substantial, they're living without a thought for tomorrow. In some ways, I think they're just bored. If we can make it so that it's too much trouble for them to deal with us, that might be a way to go, but I think the only way to do that is to get to the leader. If we humiliate him, then we humiliate them all, and maybe they'll see us as the alphas.”
“Your reasoning is solid, but we're still left with the original problem, how do we get to the leader? We don't even know what he looks like, and he doesn't seem interested in coming here himself to attack.”
“Then I suppose we'll have to go to him,” Mack said, as an idea began formulating in his mind.
“There was something else I wanted to talk to you about as well,” he said.
“I was thinking about this group, and it's clear to me that one of the reasons why they are like they are is because there's no threat of punishment. There isn't a government to lay down the law, and there aren't any cops to enforce it. There are going to be more people like them, and we're going to have to figure out a way to deal with it. It first caught my attention when Grace told me they had captured a prisoner, but we need a system. I want people here to feel safe, and they won't be able to do that if we have to let criminals go. You have more experience in this than me. I'd like for you and Bob to try coming up with some sort of justice system, just something that can give people an idea that we're planning for the future. I don't want to be like this other group and only live from day to day. I want to try building something, to promise people a future.”
As he spoke, Maggie saw great zeal in his eyes and she knew he was genuine in what he said. It was going to be a difficult task to do what he asked, but that was the thing about Mack, he was inspirational. When he asked you to do something, no matter how hard it seemed, you knew you could. That's what Maggie admired about him, and she looked forward to seeing what kind of plan he had to deal with the enemies out there. As she left him he returned to looking out of the window, deep in thought, gazing at the city spread out before him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MACK STAYED in the office for a long time, ruminating and planning, turning over plan after plan in his mind. Some easily were dismissed as too risky, while others lingered, until ultimately being pushed aside as well. While he had been talking with Maggie one possibility had presented itself to him, and this one remained in his mind while all the others fell away. He stared out the window and wished there was a better way, wished that all this war could be avoided. He never had wanted to fight, never enjoyed killing anybody else. He had joined the army out of national pride, out of necessity. The job needed to be done, and it needed people like him who could weather the emotional burden. But there needed to be an end. There needed to be light at the end of the tunnel. In his old life, it had been retirement. He had a plan to become a guest speaker and lecturer in his spare time to help shape the minds of the people who were going to serve the country in the future, all the while having plenty of time to spend with Anna and their child, or children. That was just an illusion now, a mirage that was no help to him whatsoever. The only sliver of hope he had was speaking to Anna again. Even if a radio worked, that would be something; just to hear that she was okay, that she was still alive...
So many souls were out there in the city, he thought as he gazed out of the window. The sun hung high in the sky, the windows of the skyscrapers gleamed, but the entire place seemed barren. Yet, there still was life teeming under the surface, in all the nooks and crannies, there were still people trying to live. There were so many stories out there. Lives he never would touch, lives that would be snuffed out like a flame and leave no trace. He thought about all the people who weren't equipped to survive an apocalypse; lawyers, actors, politicians, janitors, teachers, chefs, IT technicians, and more. All those roles and ways people used to define their lives were meaningless now. People were just people.
In a way, the EMP had been the great equalizer, resetting the world to a time in which the only way to judge success was by living or dying. It didn't matter how much wealth you had, how many trophies or awards you had received, the size of your house, none of that mattered at all. It could be the foundation of a utopia, where people worked to better themselves instead accumulating wealth, where co-operation was key and people worked together rather than competing with each other. But there was so much that had been lost as well. There was no time for education, no time for the arts or any creative endeavors, and there would be many gifted people who died because they didn't have what it took to survive. One of the most common questions he had encountered in the old world had been, ’Why are we here?'. The answer to that question was obvious – to survive. It was no more complicated than that.
While Mack planned for the immediate attack, he also thought about the future. Soon enough, the weather would change and they would have to deal with the elements, but more than that he wanted to see the settlement flourish and thrive, to grow and be a hub where they could rebuild the world. He already saw the need for them to implement a system of justice, but they would need to do so much more; form schools, train people in the arts of healing, encourage those who had the necessary skills to keep producing works of art, for although they served no practical purpose, they were an essential part of human nature, and a way to document the struggles and progress being made. In years to come, Mack thought, this period of time would be as famous as the Renaissance. It also was important to make a note of those who impacted it, to document how they survived, both the successes and the defeats, so their descendants
would know where they came from.
Family history was important to Mack. There had been one assignment in high school where he had to delve into his family tree and find out what his ancestors had been up to. Both sets of his grandparents had died when he was very young, and he didn't remember them at all, and his parents didn't talk about his ancestry much. He found that he had a number of ancestors who had served in the army, even in the Civil War, and some even moved into politics as well. At the time, he had been struggling to find his place in the world, and he found himself wishing he could have met these people, asked them for advice and guidance. But it was clear he had this sort of thing in his blood, and that assignment was one of the things informing his ultimate career choice to join the army. A sad smile came upon his face, for the thought crossed his mind that the Mackenzie name would die out with him. He had no other siblings. He was the last of his line.
Mack exhaled deeply and shook himself out of his thoughts. It was too easy to slip into melancholy, and there was work that needed to be done. He walked out of City Hall and called a runner to gather up his friends for a meeting. While waiting, he stared at the pyre. There still were people standing around it, paying their respects to those who had died, but less than there had been before. Most people were back at work cleaning up the area, and it was looking all the better for it.
The pyre still was burning strong, even though it had been burning all day, but Mack didn't mind. It was a reminder of the stakes for which they all were fighting. While standing there, he saw a woman by herself, and realized she had been standing there all day, transfixed by the fire. He had seen her before, but he did not know her name, and regretted that, with everything that had been happening since he arrived at the settlement, he still hadn't had a chance to introduce himself to everyone. He walked up and stood beside her. Her head turned to the side as she noticed his presence.