by Peter Liney
That being said, the morning didn’t turn out quite as I expected. We made our way over to the general area where we used to live and, boosted by several familiar faces, managed to involve ourselves in a much larger gathering.
The conversation more or less went the same way as before: lots of jawing about nothing very much, then Jimmy started to turn it toward the Wastelords and how no one had ever tried standing up to them. Immediately there was a general melting away, but for some reason, one or two of them got really upset. Not irritated, not impatient, but what was, to me, irrational anger.
“Screw you, you fucker!” this little fat guy said, turning and storming away.
“Thank you for the discussion, sir,” Jimmy called after him.
“There ain’t nothing to discuss, prick!” the guy shouted, and disappeared into his lean-to, still shouting away in there, maybe to his partner, maybe to himself.
But that was nothing compared with Jimmy’s next encounter. This bearded guy—I don’t know, somewhere between my age and Jimmy’s, dressed only in shorts, a flurry of white hair falling down his brown and parched back—appeared out of nowhere and looked like he was about to put one on the little guy.
“Get out of here! Go on!” he snarled, waving his arms around.
Jimmy backed off three paces, then came back one. “Hey! What’s your problem?”
“You! You’re my problem!”
“Why?”
“Talking shit! That’s why!”
“I’m not allowed to express an opinion?” Jimmy asked, smirking at the remains of his audience, futilely trying to get them on side.
“When it’s shit, no. Now, just go, will you?”
Jimmy’s not the bravest guy in the world, but, I tell you, sometimes he’s close to being the most stubborn. “What’s so wrong with talking about standing up to the Wastelords?”
“Jesus!” The bearded man snarled, now clenching and unclenching his fists. “What a fucking imbecile.”
“What a fucking coward,” Jimmy responded ill-advisedly, his annoyance making him revert to the schoolyard.
It’s funny, but whatever the bearded guy was, I knew it wasn’t that, and I was over there in seconds, standing between the two of them. Judging by the look on his face, the glare he was giving Jimmy, it was just as well I did.
“You call me that again, I don’t give a damn about those things up there,” he spat at Jimmy. “Stamping on your empty head’ll be worth getting fried for.”
I had to practically escort Jimmy away. Even a couple of those he’d known, who he once might’ve thought of as friends, were jeering and cursing him. I’ve never seen Villagers get so agitated. Nor did I understand why. Whatever the reason, it was a real disappointment. All the way back to the tunnels, neither Jimmy nor me said a word. We had to have more people. Without them, we couldn’t do a thing.
Later that day, Gordie and Luxurious asked me if they could go back over to the Camp for a couple more kids. They don’t exactly pick their moments. I was so disillusioned by what happened earlier that I wasn’t really listening to what they were saying, but no matter what sort they might be, they’re still kids, and they nagged me so much that, in the end, and after making them promise they’d be really careful, I gave in. I mean, what difference is two more kids going to make to us anyway?
I don’t know if I thought it would help in some way, or if it was merely frustration, but I decided to go up top and make my way over to the hill that leads down to the Camp. Maybe if I studied it for a while, it’d help me to come up with a new plan.
The first thing that strikes you about that place is that it’s not exactly easy on the eye. Just one big ugly sprawl of human necessity and waste, filling the half basin from the hill to the ocean like the cold leftovers of a meal.
Way over to my left, almost at the same height as me, was the Wastelords’ complex. A litter of wooden shacks with one proper brick-built house—De Grew’s, of course—looking down on them. Leading up to it there’s a steep slope with lots of junk scattered all around and, slightly to the left, the largest patch of green on the Island, the plots where they grow their fruit and vegetables.
There are several ways up there. The only problem being, just like before, we gotta go on a foggy night and I don’t like my chances of getting lost. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I realize that, whoever I did, or didn’t, get to help me, the one person I couldn’t do without was Lena.
It don’t exactly make me happy. I’ve been hoping to keep her out of this, that I’d take all the risks. And yet, thinking about it, I couldn’t identify De Grew from that one glimpse. Call it another irony from a very long list, but she’s the only one of us who’s ever seen him up close, who can help me identify the guy, though I’m not entirely sure how we’re going to go about it. I guess she’s got to hear his voice, or maybe even smell him.
I don’t know how long I sat there. Maybe three-quarters of an hour or so. Desperately trying to come up with another option, a way of doing this with fewer people, but having no luck.
Maybe it was that, the fact that I was so engrossed in what I was thinking, that made it possible for them to sneak up on me. For sure, it was one helluva shock when this voice rang out right behind me.
“Well, well, well. Look who’s here.”
I turned around and was confronted by the same group I’d seen down at the old jetty, with the same Oriental-looking guy as their leader.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Nothing.”
He paused for a moment, shaking his head. “You know, I think that’s too much of a coincidence. Doing nothing down at the jetty and now doing nothing up here.”
“I do nothing all over,” I said, trying to smile, to win him over, but getting no response.
As one, he and his companions began to circle around me.
“I told you before,” he said. “I don’t like you.”
“Yeah,” his shaven-headed companion agreed. “Remember how he left the other day? Without even saying good-bye?”
“That was rude,” the Oriental one said. “Why do you suppose he did that?”
“Maybe he’s embarrassed about where he lives?”
I just stared at them, my stomach feeling like it was being force-fed iced pebbles. What exactly was going on here? What did they know?
“Well, we can’t have that,” the Oriental guy teased. “Let’s go there now and show him we don’t care what sort of place he lives in.”
I looked from one face to another, each one an image of stony and impassive malevolence. “I’m not going home,” I eventually muttered, rather stupidly.
“Not doing anything here. You just told us.”
“I’m scavenging.”
“Let’s go!” the Oriental guy growled, shoving me forward.
I knew I was in a lot of trouble. What I didn’t know was exactly how much. I started to walk in the direction of the Village, any hopes I had of being able to get away dashed as soon as they hemmed me in.
As I walked, I did my best to think it through. Did they know anything? Had one of the Villagers talked? Or was it just that they wanted me to show them my lean-to so they could mark it out for the next foggy night? Whatever, once they knew I didn’t have one, they were going to have an awful lot of questions.
For the second time that day I entered the rows, though on this occasion I got a very different reception. The moment people saw us they panicked and disappeared, rushing into their lean-tos. You could actually smell the fear coming off them, as if they’d wet themselves and were steaming. Mind you, their discomfort was nothing compared with mine. What the hell was I going to do? I didn’t live in the Village, I had no lean-to, and I couldn’t keep walking them around for much longer.
“Where you taking us?” the Oriental guy demanded, already frustrated by my slow progress.
“You wanna see my lean-to,” I answered.
“I hope you ain’t screwing me around,” he warned.
Another ten minutes or so, he started to get really angry. “D’you think we’re fools?” he said, stretching up to fill my face. “We’re going ’round in circles!”
I stopped, looking around as if I’d temporarily lost my bearings, which, in fact, I had. I mean, what did it matter which way I went? There was no way out of this. I thought about picking the nearest lean-to and entering, praying there was no one in there, or they’d be too surprised to say anything. But if they did, if they kicked up a fuss, I’d never see Lena again.
The Oriental guy continued to glare in my face, waiting for me to say something.
“Where do you live?” he shouted.
I really didn’t see I had any other alternative. I’d just have to take a good swing at him, hope he went down, maybe get a couple of his friends, then make a run for it. I didn’t give a lot for my chances, but what else could I do?
I was just about to do it, twisting my body into position to take a good hard shot, when at that very moment, the bearded guy from the morning, the one with long white hair, who got so angry with Jimmy, emerged from a nearby lean-to.
I tell you, it was the proverbial nightmare; all my worst fears rushing me at once. If anyone was going to take huge delight in dropping me into the shit with the Wastelords, it would be this guy.
He took one look at me, one look at them, and summed up the situation immediately. “I hope you’re not expecting me to feed them as well,” he said.
For a second I just gaped. I mean, it was far too quick for me.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for escorting my friend,” he continued, and with that, lifted the plastic on the door of his lean-to, and without a word, I allowed myself to be shepherded inside.
The Wastelords just stood there for a moment. They knew something didn’t feel quite right, but not exactly what it was. The bearded guy promptly dropped the plastic so they were lost from sight.
There was a slight pause, then the Oriental one spoke outside. “See you later,” he said threateningly.
There was some laughter, a couple of words of reinforcement from the others, then they left.
I turned to the bearded guy, astonished he should help. “Jesus. Thanks,” I muttered.
“Not a pleasure.”
“You’ll have to move. I think they were marking me out.”
“Won’t be the first time,” he told me. There was an awkward pause. He was studying me closely, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was dealing with. “So . . . what the hell is this about?”
“What do you mean?”
“This morning. And now this.” I paused for a moment, not sure how much I could tell him, but he made my mind up for me.
He gave a very long sigh. “You know, I can take the bars; it’s the patches of sky in between that break you.”
“What?”
“Hope,” he said. “That’s what really gets you. When someone starts trying to give you hope and then can’t deliver.”
And finally I understood. Not just him, but some of the other Villagers as well. In a way, it was quite a shock. Deep down they howled for freedom as much as I did. Only they been ignoring those feelings for so long they’ve almost forgotten them. Which was why they’d got so angry when someone tried to stir them up again.
“To be honest, I don’t know how much hope we got to offer,” I told him, “but if it’s only a speck, it’s a damn sight more than we’ve had ’round here before.”
Again he paused, meeting my gaze as if reaching right down inside me, probing around, looking for something. “So, tell me,” he eventually said.
The habits of a lifetime told me not to say anything. But something about that formidable stare, his forthright manner, made me think I could trust him.
“You wanna go for a walk?”
It felt kind of strange to take someone into the tunnels, but it just seemed like the easiest way to explain. Mind you, it gave the others a bit of a start. Especially when he walked into the living area and was nearly knocked over by Arturo. He made this instinctive grab for the little guy, like he was going to strangle him or something. Delilah went crazy, threatening to do all kinds of stuff if he so much as touched a hair on Arturo’s head. I s’pose it was as much that as anything that convinced him things are a little different down here.
Turns out his name’s Bailey, ex-Army, which might come in useful. A member of one of the old mercenary battalions that, years ago, the government used to hire out to foreign powers to fight their battles. He got out when a lot of soldiers got out; when they found themselves killing allies on behalf of a foreign dictator who just happened to have more money. For years he survived on his own in the wilderness, but one day fell and broke his leg. Somehow he managed to get himself to the hospital, but when he couldn’t pay his bill, they tipped off the authorities. He was means-tested and sent out here. Something about him told you self-sufficiency came naturally, that he loved freedom and solitude, and living on the Island was more painful for him than most.
I introduced him to everyone: Delilah and Arturo—the former who still hadn’t forgiven him, the latter who couldn’t give a damn—the still mostly silent Hannah, and finally, when she returned from the garden, Lena.
He studied her for a moment—on the way over I’d told him something of her story. “You’re the one they’re looking for?” he said.
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” he said. He took a pace nearer, staring into her face as if frustrated he couldn’t search out her worth through her eyes. “You lived down here on your own all that time?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, as if finally satisfied. “Maybe they’re right to be worried about you.”
Afterward I showed him around. He didn’t say much but you could see he was impressed. When I finally told him what we were planning, why we needed help, he got all excited, mentioning a list of Villagers he was sure would join us. Mostly ex-soldiers, like him, who could still remember how to handle themselves. I mean, we’re not talking great numbers here, but with what we got so far, us, the kids, who knows?
Actually, I was in something of a dilemma concerning the kids. In a perfect world I wouldn’t have involved them—they’ve had enough violence to last them a lifetime—but so much of what we’re planning is dependent upon those in the Camp seeing them with us and not attacking. Who knows, maybe even joining our side. You gotta remember, there’s thousands of them down there. If this goes wrong, there’s going to be one helluva massacre, and we’re going to be the first ones they turn on.
Later, I took Bailey down to the lower tunnels. I had it in mind for him to meet Jimmy under rather more favorable circumstances, working in his workshop, maybe on his computer, but on our way down we met the little guy running up.
I tell you, I’ve never seen him move so fast, not even when that crazy was after him in the Village. He must’ve run the whole distance, how puffed he was.
He hesitated when he saw Bailey, wondering why he was there, but only for a moment. He had something on his mind and was bursting to get it out.
“Big Guy! Big Guy!” he panted.
“What’s the matter?” I said, gripping hold of him, scared he was going to give himself a heart attack or something.
“I got into those disks!” he cried. “Or partway. Jesus, Big Guy, it’s gonna change everything!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jimmy took my arm and tugged me in the direction of his workshop. He was exhausted and all of a shake, but still started to run again, calling back for me to keep up. Bailey got left a few steps behind, mainly, I think, cuz he was so bemused by what was going on. I kept telling the little guy to wait up, not to get so excited, but he wasn’t listening to a word I was saying. Eventually, with him still calling my name over and over, I followed him into his workshop. I just couldn’t imagine what was so important.
I found him standing there, openmouthed and trembling, jabbing his finger at the computer scr
een. There was a lot of information on there, headings and subheadings, I don’t know, I guess that was as far into it as he’d managed to get. Most of it seemed to be details about something called “4S.” Whatever that might be.
Jimmy continued to gape at me, waiting for my reaction, almost imploding in agony when he didn’t get one. Bailey followed us in, immediately stopping when he saw the screen. Initially, I think, just at seeing a computer, but then cuz he obviously realized something I hadn’t.
“Jesus!” he gasped. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“What? What is it?” I cried, not caring whether it made me look the dumb big guy or not.
“Four-S!” he told me.
“What?”
“Don’t you know what Four-S is?”
“Just tell me!” I said, getting a little annoyed.
“Satellite Surveillance Security System. By the look of it, you got the whole damn thing there. A complete breakdown.”
There was an astonished pause. Jimmy was so excited, he had tears in his eyes. “Big Guy! Don’t you see? If I can get into this, maybe I can change the world!”
I gaped at him like I’d been hit real hard and was too stupid to go to the floor. “How?” I finally blurted out.
He waved his arms about helplessly. “I don’t know! I got to get into it properly,” he said, studying the screen. “Maybe I could fix up an antenna, some kind of transmitter.”
“Send it commands?” Bailey asked.
“Maybe . . . In time,” Jimmy replied, though not with complete conviction. “It’s just so damn difficult. One locked door after another and the key’s always hidden in a different place. Even if I break all the way in there’s got to be security codes on the actual system.”