by T. K. Malone
“Adjust, like I said. You’re going to have to adjust. You just need to find some consumers for what you have,” Zac said.
“And what is that, exactly?”
“Muscle; it’s the only currency now,” and Zac sat back. “And guns—don’t forget them.”
Nathan Grimes stubbed his smoke out. He was watching Zac’s every movement, appearing to look for clues himself—sizing up his old opponent; something Zac knew perfectly well. “Guns,” Grimes finally said. “We got boatloads of them.”
“Thanks to my contact. Guns smuggled out of the city, guns diverted from the army. No fool could accomplish that, Nathan, no fool.”
“Your contact…”
Zac tapped his finger on the table, his head clear now, the cobwebs blown away by this sparring. “You know full well who my contact is.”
“Oh,” and Grimes pushed back his chair and stood, leaning on the table, “I know.” He raised his hand to his mouth, flicking his lip. “What I wonder is whether his usefulness is now at an end? We have his guns, we have the men, the army is over the bay, up in the valley. Even, I feel, out of our hair. The local stiffs have long dwindled away, never to be replaced—we’ve been running the place for years. My point is, Zac, do we need Josiah Charm anymore?”
Billy was nodding. Noodle was smiling. Zac looked at Pauly; the man was stone-faced as usual. “Pauly?”
He looked up, his deep, brown eyes giving nothing away, his thin lips set. “I think,” he eventually said, “that men who become powerful do so for a good reason, and that is usually because they are bastards. I think Josiah Charm would have anticipated this shift in power and allowed for it.”
“Has he, Zac?” Grimes asked. “Are we still beholden to the man called Josiah Charm?”
Zac looked around the table, at Billy, at Noodle, at Nathan and Pauly.
“He has Connor. Josiah Charm has my brother.”
Grimes shoved himself off the table, away toward the chipboard door behind him. Pushing it open, he shouted, “Coffees,” and turned back to them, smiling. “Josiah Charm has your brother? The bastard they call Josiah Charm has your brother,” he said, deliberately, as he began to pace up and down, arms folded, one hand reaching up to tap his lip. “Interesting.” He stopped and leaned against the corner of the room. “Let me ask the obvious. That brother of yours, the gridder, the through-and-through gridder, is still standing in the shadow of Charm—like he has for too many years to count, and that affects us exactly how?”
Here was a conundrum Zac couldn’t answer, not without spilling the secrets of what had passed that day in the sewer, and the hours that had followed during which the bargain had been agreed. Those sewers that made up their smuggling route, and their escape route. The reason why the bargain was on Zac and no one else. How did it affect their organization, their club? With the guns they’d gotten, why bother with Charm? That was the question that needed answering—and his brother was just a bargaining chip in all of this.
“Order,” Zac finally said. “A new world order—that’s why we need Charm. No other reason.”
“Order, Zac?” said Grimes, his wiry eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Order? I’m still weeping for a president who was supposed to instil just that, and he managed to wipe out the world. I’m still mourning a Senate, a council and a Free World Flag that failed me. Bullshit your order, Zac. You’ve never believed in government, just us, so bullshit your order.”
Pauly, Loser, Noodle and even Billy Flynn rapped on the table, grunting their assent. Grimes seized it and continued, pulling his seat away from the table, spinning it around and sitting down, arms now folded over its back, his chin resting on them. His eyes were once again set on Zac. “Do I look like I need Charm, Prime, or any of them, Zac; any of them to govern me? A new world order, or the same world order, what are you offering us, eh?”
Zac was more than grateful when Spritzer barged the door open with his back and brought in an old tray laden with coffees in his big fat hands. Setting it on the table, he passed the mugs around and then backed out of the room. Zac pulled his coffee toward him.
“Offer? I can’t offer you shit. We moved Charm’s gear out of the city, and we got paid in guns. We moved Charm’s gear out of the city, and we got to smuggle our stuff in with minimal interference. Charm has put the club on the map out here. He’s given us the leverage of an army.”
“He’s given us shit!” Grimes shouted. “Shit. We traded routes, Zac. With or without him, we’d have gotten that gear in to you. Sure, we may have lost a few more men, a few more consignments, but we’d have gotten it in nonetheless. Guns? We could have bribed any number of army conscripts. So, don’t tell me we’re beholden to one man for all of our fortune. Don’t belittle ten years of toil and risk just to justify a bargain you made.”
Zac reached for the roll of smokes, pulling one out. “You’re right. My head is messed up with ten years of living in the city. Charm’s nothing, but gridder or no, my brother is in his hands and I mean to get him out.”
“I’m with you there, Zac,” Billy Flynn said, banging the table with his fist.
Grimes made to say something but stopped, his gaping mouth changing into a reluctant grin, his head shaking.
“Aye, Billy Flynn, but is your head muddled too? I said Connor was a gridder through and through. I didn’t say he wasn’t a brother.” Billy tensed, but Grimes was already waving him down. “Easy, big man; easy. We’re all with Zac; I just want the truth out on the table. I want to know what happened.” He paused, as if the truth would somehow spring forth, but Zac was stoic in his silence. Grimes then eventually said, “If this club is going to help you, Zac, you’re going to have to tell us what happened that night and how you, no more than a smuggler and an outlaw at the time, managed to form a parlay with the leader of Black City. Then, once you’ve explained that, we six can vote, Zac Clay, but not before.”
Zac lit the smoke. Inside, he was a roiling mix of confusion and apprehension. Confusion because the secret he’d held for so long was now being squeezed out of him, something he’d been mulling over telling them for quite a while now. Apprehension, because he knew he had to. He let out two long funnels of smoke. “Fair enough,” he finally said, “but first, you need to know something else.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You need to know how my brother and my mother came to live in the city, and why my father disappeared.”
Grimes jumped up, breaking the tension in the room. “Really? That can of worms? All that was settled before you were patched. That’s closed, but, man, I have to admit I’m eager to hear what you have to say.” He spun on his feet, pushing the door open. “Spritzer? Drinks for all: whiskey, beer; hell, rustle us up some nachos. Fuck the coffee—this is going to be a long morning.” He pulled up his collar. “This, Zac, this is the honesty we’ve needed for a long time.” He sat down and grabbed a smoke. “Settle in, gentlemen. Zac is going to tell you a story.”
Zac cleared his throat and then spoke. His tale began in a town called Christmas and ended in a sewer outside the Black City. It told of a day in Zac’s life when he and Billy Flynn had followed his father toward the city, of a day when his father didn’t return. It involved a stiff in a cattleman hat, and a deal done with the devil. Midway through his tale, Spritzer had come in with the drinks, and Zac had taken a breath. When Zac was finally done with his tale, he took a long drink.
“So now they know that was your father?” said Grimes, his voice hushed.
“Aye,” Zac acknowledged.
Grimes’ lips teetered between shock and mirth. “And they know what a badass he is.”
“Aye,” was all Zac could manage.
“And after that? Tell them all about that.”
“Gravy, man, just gravy. The stiffs went to Christmas, took everything, including my mother and brother, and brought them back to the city. That’s when I met Josiah for the first time. He promised us a fresh start, a new life, and all he asked in return was that I lived in two worlds. This
world of comradeship, of brothers, and the other on the fringes of the grid, offering a way for all of us here to thrive. All I had to do was get patched and continue down a road I was already traveling. And with what I had to bring to the table, as you all know, that didn’t take long. The only thing I insisted on was Billy at my side—someone had to keep me from going insane.”
“And boring it was, too, brother,” Billy Flynn muttered.
“And it would have continued to be boring, but for one thing.”
Grimes looked up, his glass midway to his mouth. “There’s more? More than that? You tell them who your father is and there’s still more?”
“Oh yes,” said Zac. “There’s more. There’s the reason why for the last ten years we have been running the relationship, not the other way round. There’s the reason why the guns have gotten better, the routes easier, and crate upon crate has been building up in that warehouse in Christmas.” Zac paused, drumming his fingers on the table. “There’s a reason the question is not, ‘can we do without Josiah Charm?’ but ‘can Josiah Charm do without us?’, and the answer to that is ‘no’.”
“So, what do we have that Josiah Charm needs?”
It was Zac’s turn to stand and lean on the table. His turn to look at Pauly, Loser, Grimes, and Noodle, and for his eyes to linger on Billy Flynn as his smile grew ever broader. “Gentlemen,” he whispered, “we have everything.”
20
Teah’s story
Strike time: imminent
Location: Aldertown
She ran around the bar and grabbed him. “We gotta get out of the open, Trip, and we gotta do it now.”
He nodded, but it didn’t seem to sink in. She dragged at his shirt. “Trip!” she shouted, “Trip!” He shook his head, as though emptying his mind.
“Ain’t gonna fall here,” he said, and then appeared to comprehend it all a bit more. “EMP?”
“Run,” Teah said, pulling him one last time.
“Where?” he shouted.
“Saggers’ place. He’s got a basement. We’ll be as safe as possible there.”
Teah waited no more and ran, skidding down the dark alleyway and out onto the road. Folk were spilling out of Mary’s and looking up at the night sky. Teah ran toward them, shouting to get under cover, but they just carried on gawping, mesmerized, and by the look of it, more than a little drunk. She raced past, Saggers’ home still a few hundred yards away, then looked around as she ran. Trip was following her now, batting away the outstretched arms and confused enquiries of the mob outside Mary’s house. All that filled Teah’s mind now was finding Clay. She prayed he’d still be in front of the fire, still hypnotized by the flames. She bounded up the garden path and barged in through the front door. “Clay!” she shouted, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Teah skidded to a halt by the basement door, tugging it open. “Clay down there, Saggers?”
A muffled grunt came from below. “No, what’s going on?”
“Shit, Saggers; huge shit. Stay there.”
Clay wasn’t in the front room, nor the back garden when she first looked out into the night’s gloom, having flown through the kitchen, but then she saw him, there, just past the flagpole at its end. He was pointing up at the night sky. “Hi, mom,” and he looked at her. “What are they?” but by then Teah had grabbed him, dragging him inside.
“A last throw of the dice,” she muttered.
Where was Trip? she thought as she bundled her son through the kitchen. He’d been right behind her. She opened the basement door and almost threw Clay in. Saggers was halfway up the stone steps, a look of sleepy confusion making him look oddly dopey in the basement’s dim light. “What is it?” he asked.
“Looks like he had the stones after all. Prime’s pressed the button.”
“Who?”
“Prime, Oster Prime. The nukes are up.”
Understanding crashed across his face like an avalanche of rocks. “Safe. We should be safe here,” he said. “No, EMPs,” and he grabbed Clay. “How long?”
“Reckon ten minutes, fifteen tops.” It was a well-known response time, as long as nothing had changed in nearly ten years. She could see Saggers’ mind working overtime.
“We’ll have to stay here. No time to get anywhere better. Water; we need water. Rest we can do without.”
“Water,” Teah repeated, looking at the door.
“What?” Saggers shouted.
“Trip. Trip should’ve been here.” She hesitated, torn between getting the water, making sure Clay was safe and finding out where Trip had gotten to. Saggers seemed to get it immediately. “You go and find him; me and Clay will sort out the water.”
“Shove shit against the window, too,” she said, and dashed off for the door. She was soon back out onto the road. There was panic down the street: some folk still looking up in a daze, some running, others darting for any cover they could find, but Trip was nowhere to be seen. She ran back to his house, back down the alleyway and into his bar’s garden.
“What the hell…” said Trip, looking up from behind the bar.
“What are you doing?!” she shouted.
“Just getting my stuff, and I had to grab Whistle, here,” he said, as casually as though he was just going to Morton.
“Whistle? Get a bloody move on, Trip.”
“Whistle’s my mouse, but I’m all done now.” He looked at the sky. “Think you’re right; we’d best get moving.”
“If it don’t kill you…” she growled, glaring at him, but he held Whistle up, the little mouse sitting contentedly in his palm. “Whistle!” but Teah then spun around and ran. “A bloody mouse,” she muttered as she tore back out into the alleyway.
Trip was soon at her heels, although he hesitated as they passed the crowd outside Mary’s. Mary’s kids could be heard crying inside, and Ned lurked in the doorway. “Hey, Teah,” he shouted, “don’t you want to watch the gridders fry?”
“Ain’t chancing it, Ned,” she shouted back. 'Sick son of a bitch,' she thought.
“Won’t be reaching us up here,” he said, beaming. “Them gridders gonna fry,” and he turned back to watch.
Trip came alongside Teah. “There’s truth in what he says. Ain’t gonna affect us up here. We all learned that.”
“Except,” Teah said, slowing to a walk now they were close to Saggers’, “if the wind blows strong enough our way.” They walked up the path and into the house. Trip put Whistle in his pocket and followed Teah down the stone steps and into the basement. Clay was sulking. Saggers explained that the boy only wanted to see the missiles, but her son’s somber mood evaporated when Trip showed him Whistle. Then the fussing started. Hannah was there, sitting on the bed, her face blacker than anything. Trip gasped but said nothing. Saggers brought the last pot of water down, then thought of something else and dashed up the steps. “One last thing,” he hollered. Teah followed him back up, the half case of whiskey on her mind, but morbid curiosity made her glance out into the back garden.
The sky was empty now, all the Free World missiles no doubt well on their way. That odd feeling she’d had in her stomach on the way from Trip’s bar still prevailed. Mankind truly wasn’t supposed to oversee the end of civilization, and certainly not with some false sense of calm. Yet that was the feeling she had. No panic, no fear for the future, just a numb acceptance. She wondered if Connor would survive, if Zac would get out, but knew it highly unlikely. Now, though, she felt absolutely nothing, nothing at all, but then she understood why.
Without the grid cities, without the government, the world just might be a better place. At the very least, the corruption that inherently infected mankind would become localized, rather than the worldwide mold it had grown to be. A mold of corporations who were prepared to fight wars while starving people stared in at the windows of restaurants full of obese diners. Maybe, she thought, the world could do with a reset. But would it be worth the cost? It was, though, a price she had no control over, so she simply stood there as she beg
an to shed tears for everyone she’d once known in the city, for Billy Flynn, and Zac, especially for Zac. Could they still be alive, she wondered again, then her tears mourned for a life she could have lived slightly differently, if only life itself hadn’t gotten in the way. In a kind of daze of tranquillity, she retrieved the whiskey and went to join her son in the basement, leaving its door ajar for Saggers.
Hugging Clay close, she now shed more tears for Zac, but then Saggers returned, kicking the door shut before coming down the stairs with a sack full of smokes.
“I left the money upstairs. Figure it’ll survive just—” A blinding flash of pure white light lit up the windows, growing even brighter before fading to orange. There was another brilliant flash, the same white fading to the same orange, before the stars themselves vanished, the full moon lost to an even blacker sky. Another explosion briefly illuminated the blackness and the lights flickered, then they went out.
A rumble like thunder rattled the house, booming against its walls, then a second followed on its heels and the house shook. Everything around them trembled, the floor beneath Teah’s feet, even the air she breathed. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the tremor ended and everything fell silent—too silent.
Teah tried to see Trip in the darkness but could see nothing. Clay snuggled closer against her, the mouse he was holding squeaking at his tightened grip. The ensuing silence felt worse than the explosions, worse than the rumble she could hear had now swept off up the valley.
The faintest of groans came to her ears, groans that steadily grew stronger. Teah guessed it was the house finally yielding to the blast’s onslaught, its tortured fabric crying out its weakened state. Then the whole world seemed to pause, as though resting on a knife’s edge, before the distinct sound of falling timbers and masonry cried out their agony.