by John Barnes
The carriage rolled another couple of blocks before James ventured to say, “And now you’re thinking . . . or feeling . . . differently?”
“You used the staged execution to convince Daybreak we didn’t have that intel source,” she said. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes, actually. At least that got some mileage out of that silly piece of theatre.”
“Well, I think that bit was brilliant, and pretty damned cool, and I’m proud of you.” The hand moved from his arm to caress his cheek; startled, he looked straight into her eyes, as he rarely dared to do for fear of revealing his feelings.
She smiled and winked. “Maybe we should have some long talks, later. Meanwhile, let’s go see if we can get anything more out of that little asshole.”
• • •
James had invited the whole “senior interrogation team,” which meant Jason, Beth, and Izzy. It was rare that they all worked together, so they knew something was up even before he showed up with Leslie, Bambi, and Heather. “So today’s the day we come clean?” Jason asked. He was grinning like a child at Christmas.
“It just might be the end of everything,” James said. “Or the beginning.” He looked around the group. “Now, everyone be ready. And if you’re carrying any concealed weapons as a backup, now is the time to leave them behind. He’s got literally inhuman abilities to detect them and he can move faster than you’d believe—I don’t know if that’s Daybreak, insanity, or that he spent so many years in martial arts. If you have a knife on you somewhere, he’ll take it from you and use it on all of us before you know it.”
“No shit,” Beth said. “I used to carry a little blackjack for just in case. Arnie was talking reasonable as could be this one time, just like the small talk before we started, and holy fuck, Jason slapped my blackjack out of Arnie’s hand and put him into a half-nelson strangle, or I’d’ve been dead, and the first I knew that my blackjack wasn’t in my coat pocket was when I saw it flying across the room.”
Heather and Bambi exchanged glances; Bambi pulled out a steel spring whip from somewhere, and Heather a short set of nunchaku.
“You can pick’em up on your way out,” James said, locking them into the box by the front door.
When James slid the door panel open, he stood well back, then looked through carefully. Arnie Yang sat on a single-piece poured concrete bench, big enough to be his bed as well as his seat, at the center of the floor in a windowless room. “Coming in, Arnie. Big group.”
“Good, it’s been lonely.”
When Arnie saw all of them, he said, “Something has happened since we talked last. Did Pale Bluff fall?”
“Yes,” James said.
“I had thought that sometime soon, there would be a bigger group to see me. It makes me happy to see you again, Heather, Bambi. Leslie, you probably won’t believe me, or accept it ever, but I really want to say I’m sorry about everything.”
“Actually I do believe you,” Leslie said. “That you want to say that, and even that you mean it. You know I’ll probably never accept it?”
“I know. I just wanted you to know I offered my apology, sincerely.” He paused a long time. “So Pale Bluff has been destroyed. I was rather thinking you would have brought along General Phat.”
“He died in Pale Bluff,” James said, very quietly. “And nobody is here to gape at you. We want to ask your advice, just as I have regularly asked it. Could you say one of the phrases, please, while we watch you?”
“‘Daybreak is a mind virus,’” Arnie recited. “‘Daybreak exists only for its own purpose. Daybreak’s purpose is to degrade and destroy the human race, everyone I love, and me. Daybreak is entirely evil. The world must be rid of Daybreak so that it can resume the development of technological civilization, whose benefits are the birthright of the whole human race.’ Hey, no seizure, today is a special day.”
“Or Daybreak doesn’t want you to have that clear period like you get after a seizure,” Beth said. “You know it could be either, and we don’t know any more than you do if it’s got you right now. But you’re right all the same, it’s a good sign.”
“Well, then,” James said. “Here’s the situation. Pale Bluff is burned, orchards and all, and will probably never be rebuilt. The Army of the Wabash is so far behind Lord Robert’s horde that there’s really no likelihood that they’ll ever catch them; they just can’t move as fast and there’s still more than a hundred miles. They can loot their way down the south bank of the Ohio and arrive at Paducah in better shape than they are now. Then they can bypass Paducah or overwhelm it, and that’s the last thing between them and the really good looting on the other side of the Mississippi. So if you were right that this is basically one last giant suicide raid to try to crash what’s left of civilization on this continent, well, we’ve probably lost our last chance to stop them before the blizzards start on the Great Plains next fall, and it’s only May.
“Every competent person we could have elected president was killed in the last week.”
“Have you thought about Quattro—” Arnie saw it in Bambi’s face, and said, “Oh, god, no, I’m so sorry.”
“You may trust me, no one with the charisma, ability, and national reputation we need is left. Nobody. We played a little fast and loose with the succession rules, so Heather is now the President, officially, but as far as any of us can think, we don’t see any way to turn that to our advantage. So the current plan is that we’re going to give up here. Heather is going to join Bambi in the Duchy of California, the rest of us will fold up shop, and the middle of the country will do whatever it can in the face of the Great Raid. Maybe their death rate will be higher, sooner, and their raid will be less effective, than they are thinking, and they’ll empty out the Lost Quarter enough so that Manbrookstat or the Christian States of America—”
“Wait, has that been declared?”
“Going to be any minute. You’ll never believe it, but Jenny Whilmire Grayson is the biggest asset the Army has in trying to stop it. But she’s not enough, and it’s too late. They will formally declare the CSA within two weeks, according to our source. Anyway, maybe Manbrookstat, the CSA, or whatever the Provis organize will be able to reconquer the Lost Quarter, if the tribes pay too high a price this summer or stay out on the plains too long and get caught in the winter too far from home. But the dream of the Restored Republic is finished.”
“I’ve decided to resign as soon as I’m at Castle Castro,” Heather said. “And there’s no line of succession left after me. In a couple of days, I will have officially been the last President, of the United States that is no more.”
Arnie howled like a coyote with its balls in a trap, arched his back farther than any of them might have imagined possible, and tried to backflip toward the bench. Jason lunged forward, knocked him sideways, and tackled him to the floor. Beth and Ysabel joined in holding him down.
The seizure ran “longer than most, and more violent than anything we’ve seen this year,” as Beth noted.
When it was over, Arnie Yang seemed more unfocused and blurry too. They thought they would just put him onto his bench with his blankets and go, but then he spoke very softly. “That was a bad one. I think that was because Daybreak is giving up on me, trying to scramble my messages as it goes, I’m no longer useful it doesn’t want to leave me around as a record of what it did.” He was crying. “I think it will try to get me confused enough to have an accident or get me someplace where I just die. James, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s all right, Arnie, but tell me what you are sorry for. I’ll forgive you.”
Normally a seizure didn’t come this quickly after a previous seizure, but this one tried; Arnie again arched and kicked, but subsided very quickly. “The whole thing. The whole thing. Daybreak gets gets gets stronger from people fighting it, and we got you to fight a whole war. . . .”
James seemed to sit
back as if he’d been kicked.
Arnie babbled a little longer, then fell asleep. They covered him and left.
In the conference room, James said, “I know what he meant.”
Heather nodded. “Does it matter anymore?”
“We should all know, if only for the history books. Look, the big camps along the Ohio were on the brink of starvation if they didn’t start moving; we went in and attacked them and created our big scary army to motivate them. What if we’d just built up defenses for a rapid response, then sat down and traded with them? Kidnapped shamans, recruited defectors, sent over agents to sow doubt and confusion, let the camps collapse? Arnie steered us toward making it a war in the first place—one where Grayson would have to win eleven battles back-to-back.
“So then they retreated. We could have just said, the danger’s over for the summer, because it was. They couldn’t have come back to mount a raid across the whole territory. What they could do, though, was rally all the tribes against an invading army—and we sent them one. Not only that, they put themselves under Lord Robert’s command; now he’s surrounded by an army of loyal Daybreakers, who might reconvert him or his followers.
“And then . . . well, this one wasn’t through Arnie, but isn’t it interesting how Quattro suddenly pushed us all into defending Pale Bluff, which couldn’t be done, instead of evacuating it, which could? Where do you suppose a guy who had been fighting Daybreak for a couple years got that idea?” He looked down at the table, and then looked up again. “You see it? I absolutely blew it. I am the biggest idiot in the world. Daybreak knew that we would give it a war, and the war would be how it would unify the Lost Quarter around a plan that has now totally defeated us. Heather, I know the RRC probably won’t last another two weeks, but I would like it on the record that I resigned on grounds of manifest incompetence.”
“Only if we agree that I did too,” she said quietly. “It’s been a terrible day full of terrible news. I want us to all gather at James’s house, for one of those quiet evenings of food and being together, and then maybe tomorrow we will tackle Arnie again. But I’m very afraid you’re right, James. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Daybreak has only finally let us realize just to make its triumph more complete.”
“And to demoralize us,” Leslie said, very quietly. “I was just thinking how much I feel like giving up, and then I realized Daybreak wants me to think that. So we are going to hang on for a day longer, and if that doesn’t make a difference, maybe another. Meanwhile, tonight, there’s food at James’s, if he’ll cook.”
He sighed and spread his hands. “I’m not going to give up the only thing in the world that feels right. All right, let’s all give it one more day, after the best meal I can make you.”
SIXTEEN:
AND THE LORD SET A MARK UPON CAIN, LEST ANY FINDING HIM SHOULD SLAY HIM
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. MANBROOKSTAT. 6:15 PM EASTERN TIME. MONDAY, MAY 11, 2026.
Back before, Jamayu Rollings thought, when this place was Brooklyn, we were all worried about how the police come late if they come at all, or however that old song my dad used to like went, and holding marches to try to get some decent protection, and I was so glad to move out to the other end of Long Island and know the cops would come if I needed them.
Well, welcome to Manbrookstat, where the police come about a day too soon.
He looked up to see that Deanna was looking at him, not moving. Shouts from downstairs at the front door were rising up toward them. He thought, Stop reminiscing, old fart, and save your family’s ass.
“By the drill,” Rollings said. He unclipped the antenna wire from where it connected to an inconspicuous bolt in the wall that happened to go through to a west-facing wire loop on the back of an old billboard. He detached the ground wire clip from the old radiator. He dropped both connector wires onto the radio, and removed the C-clamp that held it to the coffee service table. Then he lifted out the removable section of the old heating duct, creating a two-foot across hole, into which he dropped the whole radio. He put the section back, set an account book on the table where the radio had been, and opened it to yesterday’s entries.
When he glanced sideways, Deanna had the correspondence and the one-time pads in a single heap, and was lifting the rug to expose the slot in the floor. She slid the papers into it and let the rug fall back into place; the papers were now between two plaster walls on the floor below.
The Special Assistants coming up the stairs might have heard the radio falling into the bend of the duct in the cellar, of course, though they had long ago stuffed it with old rags to muffle the impact. Perhaps if they found the slot in the floor, they might get ambitious enough to tear the wall apart. For the moment, though, the incriminating evidence was gone.
Just outside the door, a Special Assistant was telling Rollings’s clerk that they didn’t give a damn for the company rules. They must be trying to keep it a quiet arrest.
Rollings risked striking a match, reaching out the window, and lighting the fuse that ran up an old rainspout and through a length of pipe to a firepot on the roof peak. The firepot was visible from Ferengi, currently moored in the harbor, and from the family home—if the fuse burned all the way to it, if it ignited, if anyone was looking. But it was nice to have one more thing to do. He dropped the match, pushed the window closed, rested his finger on an entry about a roll of chicken wire—the knob turned.
Rollings loudly said, “I told you no interruptions ever—”
“We are not your clerk!” the Special Assistant said, entering.
He turned around. “I can see that.” Oh, spirits of Lando and Sisko be with me.
The Special Assistant lunged forward and struck him in the face; Rollings glared at the man with all the dignity he could muster. “If you are taking me to the Commandant, I am sure you were supposed to deliver me unharmed.”
“They didn’t say,” the man said. The four Special Assistants bound Rollings and Deanna, and shoved them roughly through the door. They didn’t go out of their way to push or trip them down the stairs but they didn’t seem to be worrying that that might happen, either.
Four guys, Jamayu thought. Well, crap, I hope you’re smart enough not to try anything, Geordie. Wish I hadn’t sent the distress signal at all. His older son was impulsive and brave to exactly the kind of fault Rollings was afraid he might be about to exhibit.
As they turned onto a broader street, Rollings saw that it was worse than he had thought; dozens of prominent citizens and their families were being marched through the town, and the Commandant’s supporters and hangers-on had brought the city crowd out onto the sidewalks to jeer and point. I thought the secret police had come for us, but this is feeling more like we’re going to the guillotine. Well, probably they won’t be looking for the radio or the code pads, then; this looks like a roundup of people that don’t like the Commandant, not like me getting caught spying.
Deanna pressed against him, and at first he thought she was huddling in fear, but though her wrists were tied behind her, she managed to elbow-bump him in Morse:
G WAVED 2D FLR WNDW HE IS LOOSE
He bumped back:
STAY LOOSE UR SELF
As they walked and more prominent citizens joined the group, the Special Assistants prodded the prisoners much closer together, and it was easier for Rollings and his daughter to signal each other. The Special Assistants and their militia backup seemed to be herding them together mostly to open up a separating space between them and the yelling, cheering crowd on the sidewalk.
Other prisoners were shouted at and sometimes struck if they tried to speak, so Rollings and Deanna kept communication discreet, brief, and necessary.
After a while, glancing back, he noticed that the crowds from the sidewalk were following them, and bump-signaled Deanna. She replied,
WE R PART OF EVENT I GUESS
but then neither of t
hem had any more to say.
The Special Assistants marched their prisoners over the Brooklyn Bridge; in places where the pavement was crumbling there were sometimes frightening holes through which they could see water far below, but no one seemed to be trying to push them in. From there, they walked south toward the area near the former Battery Park where the Commandant had established his headquarters.
In all, it was only about two miles, but many of the prisoners were elderly and people don’t walk fast with their hands tied behind their backs. It was almost dark as they were herded, with the rest of Manbrookstat’s elite, into an open-air pen in front of the gas-lit rostrum. All around them, the city mob was restless, happy one moment and angry the next, apparently unsure whether they had been summoned to a purge or a festival.
Finally the Commandant stepped into the pool of warm gaslight on the rostrum. “My friends,” he said, “my dear friends, let me first make an announcement that will sadden some of you. Just a few days ago, the Army of the Wabash was defeated at Tippecanoe, in what used to be the state of Indiana, and beaten so badly that they were unable to come to the defense of Pale Bluff, that charming little town some of you may have read about in foreign newspapers. On Sunday, Pale Bluff itself was lost, and my agents tell me the fires are still burning there. The former United States no longer has a viable transcontinental connection, and Lord Robert’s Domain has become a secure nation with defensible frontiers.” There were so many lies in that single sentence that Rollings felt as if he might explode; dozens of routes remained open and the Domain was no bigger than it had been. But, he realized, most of these guys don’t know that.