Houston, 2030: The Year Zero

by Mike McKay

  Chapter 27

  When Mark opened his eyes again, it was nearly sunset. Clarice explained, he went into a deep, peaceful sleep, and she decided not to disturb him. Thankfully, this time Mark had no dreams whatsoever. His body started getting rid of RPBP wonder-drug. Now, Mark felt a little pain in the shoulder, but his mind was clearer, and not split anymore.

  “I called your friend Alex in the Police, Sammy at the 'Fill, and sent a text to Mary,” Clarice said. “Alex will be here – about now. Mary has not replied yet.”

  “Would it be easier to call?”

  “Not really. Something wrong with our tower, but the phone guys say, they can't fix all the slums at once. Patrick goes to the market twice a day to fetch e-mails.”

  Great, Mark grinned, our neighborhood became a slum, officially! “How do you get power to charge the phones?”

  “The neighbors at the corner, they got their solar panels working. Damian, that boy with no hands, now has a new business: telephone charging, ten bucks a piece.”

  The improvised partition flew open: the colleagues brought a Get Well Soon card from the Station. The presents had been delivered: two little tin cans of tuna from military rations (dated 2023 – where did they find such a treasure?), jars of honey and homemade jam, and a loaf of freshly baked bread. Ben reached into his pocket and added a thin bundle of crumpled banknotes.

  “All we collected at the Station. The city is in a cash crisis of sorts.”

  “Why are you in coveralls? Working a scene?”

  Ben smiled. “We have a little club of homeless policemen, all camping at the Station. The uniforms have been sent to laundry. The crime scenes – too. I'm desperate to have my FBI Agent back! With a stretch of imagination, I can fit at least fifty new cases under your personal jurisdiction!”

  “I'm a vet now. Do you need a cripple?” With his left hand, Mark pointed to the gauze contraption in place of his missing arm.

  “Dude, be realistic. As the Police Station Chief, I don't give a damn how many arms you have. For Christ sake, you are an FBI Special Agent-in-Charge, not a bloody lumberjack!”

  “If I were you, Mark, I'd stick in here for a while, and let our dear boss re-sharpen his investigation skills.” Alex pulled a business card. “And talking your arm: my son asked to pass you this.”

  A piece of yellowish recycled cardstock, not printed, but handwritten in calligraphic letters. VET-TO-VET. Prosthetics & Mobility Aids. Independent private clinic. The phone numbers followed.

  “Has your Peter started a prosthesis business?” Mark asked.

  “As soon as we clean the yard and plant veggies! And you thought, the gas torch he bought the other day – is for some asshole sergeant to give gangsters free proctology exams? William may be interested too, but I have to give a fair warning: my son and his friends have never done an artificial arm, so you and William become their guinea pigs.”

  “I hope your son won't lose money.” Mark turned the card in his fingers. “In Limbs for Life, military vets get their arms and legs for free.”

  “The competition is gone, Mark! The Limbs for Life is closing down. Peter's business partner was laid off from it yesterday. Such an opportunity! With their equipment and skills, the boys are at the right place and at the right time.”

  Mark blinked. “Do you mean: a federal program had been closed? How come?”

  “Not only the federal clinics,” Benito replied instead of Alex. “Two days ago, the President declared our Harris County, and three others, a disaster zone. A lot of the usual political blah-blah in the speech, but the main message, even he didn't say directly: we got to use our internal resources to rebuild the city. No help will be provided, period! The county borders are quarantined; nobody can get in or out. We're on our own.”

  “That's because of cholera,” Mark said.

  “Nope! The President used word ‘self-reliance’ at least seventeen times. Towards the end – I lost the count. The feds abandoned Houston completely. Now, the good news: the FBI HQ in Washington is not your direct boss anymore! I am! Congratulations, dude.”

  Mark looked at the business card once again. VETS-TO-VETS. Houston-to-Houston. Slum-to-slum. By your own resources. And it wasn't the pre-election year either. This time over, no Air Force One with free school uniforms and the First Lady on board.

  “OK, boss,” Mark said. “Who is our prosecutor then? The District Attorney? I need to prepare the paperwork for the Butcher.”

  “No need, Mark,” Alex said. “Our mutual friend died before we got him to the Station. With the acid burns, it so happens: one minute you are kinda OK, then: bang! Sad to see how he suffered before the end!” He smiled and winked. Sarge had delivered as promised.

  “Good riddance,” Ben said, “I am already pulling twenty hours a day. Man, I always hated to fill the paperwork.”

  “And who ever liked it?” Mark said. “Have you got a positive ID on the Butcher?”

  “Oh! Good you reminded me!” Out of the breast pocket of his coverall, Ben extracted Mark's mobile phone. “Fully charged. Check your mail.”

  “Your Glock is a write-off, Mark,” Natalie said. “The plastic is no good. Tom will find you a new gun.”

  “Tell Tom to get a revolver instead of an automatic,” Alex said. “Forget your Weaver stance, Mark. I teach you to shoot a classic duel stand, – one arm is better than two.”

  “I am not in-hurry to have another gunfight!” Mark clumsily set his phone on the bed sheet and opened the message. A standard military personnel file. Judging by the photo – the night watchman.

  Farmer, Richard S. Born in San Francisco, California, 1994. Volunteered for the Army, 2015. A paratrooper training. Deployment to Mexico. No decorations. Became a Corporal in 2016. Extended his contract and was promoted to Sergeant in 2018. An accelerated chemical warfare training course. And after that, the paths of Richard Farmer and Eric Spalding had intersected: Sergeant was assigned to the same Royal Navy airbase in Yeovilton, the UK. In 2019, Farmer received a Distinguished Service Medal and a Purple Heart. And then, in 2020, together with Captain Spalding, he found himself at the US military correctional facility of the Royal Air Force base Lakenheath. But unlike Eric Spalding, he was not discharged. The file ended: Died, 01/11/2027.

  “Are you telling me, guys, I'm shot by a dead man? For a zombie of 2027 vintage, he is well-preserved.”

  “What you see is what you get, Mark,” Natalie said, “of course, we couldn't compare the iris scans and the fingerprints – all eaten by acid. But: we had a perfect DNA match. The error probability is less than one to ten million. Even more, it turns out this guy had criminal background. He volunteered for the Army to escape an investigation.”

  “They were trying to get him in for an assault and a rape,” Ben said. “The only witness refused to testify in court, so Farmer got away clean. How did he become Eric Spalding? Hard to tell. They had a big fire at the correctional facility, and many convicts and guards perished. Probably, Farmer swapped his identity in the hospital, from which he was released, without returning to the prison…”

  “I can bet you my right arm the Pentagon has all the details,” Mark said. I can bet it any time now, he thought. Being a vet has its perks.

  “You betcha they have! I sent my request to the Pentagon twice. My first returned: nothing we know. I asked the FBI liaison officer in Wash to help with my second. Finally, the Pentagon replied. You should have a copy in your mail.”

  Mark opened the second document and whistled. Dated 2021, but besides the names: Eric Spalding and Richard Farmer, – it was incomprehensible. Eighty percent of the text had been censored with a black marker. What was left vaguely described some kind of special operations, in the most difficult environment, in an unmentioned location and almost unclear when.

  “My gut feeling,” Mark said, “the Pentagon will keep sending us the same mambo-jumbo. For reasons
of national security, we aren't supposed to know. This Spalding, sorry: Farmer, told me what they did in Libya. He was in a Special Forces unit. The Firebirds.”

  “The Firebirds? Never heard of it.”

  “I too didn't know, not until I met the Butcher. You remember the incident, which started the war in Libya, do you? It was all over the CNN: a terrorist attack on our base.”

  “Operation Gas Shield? Sure! Chem' or bio' weapons. Four hundred dead from a single mortar shell. Then, later on, they found a mobile Ricin factory in Libya.”

  “Exactly! So it all clicks in. Captain Eric Spalding, with his cross-training in Quantico, was the group commander, and at the same time – a CSI expert. A specialist in planting fake evidence, to be precise. Sergeant Rick Farmer – a specialist in chem' and bio' warfare. What do you reckon – is it worth digging more into this crap?”

  “Probably not, Mark… Yesterday, I suddenly received a call – all the way up from the FBI in Washington, D.C. First, they asked: how is our Special Agent-in-Charge doing? I said: still listed serious, but getting better… Then, they asked: how sure are you this Richard Farmer is your Sheldon Butcher? I said: he is not mine, sir. Your agent caught him, and under the FBI jurisdiction. I've only helped. But the Sheldon Butcher – definitely, one hundred percent. The CSIs have positive ID on his knife. We have his tennis sneakers. The bastard glued chunks of old tire on the soles, so the footprints looked like from a pair of locally made 'flops. Besides, these shoes were once white, but he painted them black. And so goes all the other evidence: the black backpack, the balaclava, the polka-dot working gloves…”

  “We have also got a positive ID on the gloves,” Natalie said. “At the left index finger, two rubber dots are missing. Coincided with the imprint from the case number twelve.”

  “So, I said: all indications line up. And the FBI guys tell me: thanks for your assistance, Major. The perpetrator is dead, the case is closed. For the Special Agent-in-Charge – an attaboy from HQ. A bonus pay and possibly a grade promotion are to follow. The CSIs will also get something nice – directly from the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Blah-blah-blah, all hunky-dory. And then, these bastards gave me a friendly advice: the Butcher's military background – forget it ever existed. I responded as a real FBI: I can't recall, sir, what military background are you talking about?”

  “Well-done, Ben!” Mark succeeded a wry smile.

  “I take it, Richard Farmer is positively the Sheldon Butcher, but the former has never served in the Army. Should we dig into the Firebirds?”

  “I can't recall, Major. What Firebirds are you talking about?” Mark replied. He had no doubt the Pentagon had more Firebirds, all around the world. Now they sit in the jungles and prepare a ‘pirate attack of the Brazilian Navy on the United States' peaceful convoy.’ All the necessary evidence will be planted – with perfection: a war for the ability to make war for the ability to make war.

  Natalie started offloading the latest Police gossips. During the hurricane, CSI Tom got under debris and ended with a broken rib, but with a new girlfriend. Remember scav Alice he was after? Alan Moss was grumpy from caffeine deprivation: he lost four pounds of his last real coffee after the lab was flooded. Kate Bowen became a hero in her slum. With Kim and Tan, she organized volunteers, built rafts and evacuated two hundred kids.

  “Medals will be coming for all three,” Alex added.

  A rushing swish of feet on linoleum. Ben touched the plastic film and glanced outside. “We'd better be going, dude. Get well.”

  Samantha could not wait and delivered a hug and a kiss to her father. Frederick Stolz and Jasmine smiled.

  “What have you done to your face, Sam?” Mark asked. Tiny black dots of tattoo in-the-making surrounded a partially healed two-inch scar on Samantha's left cheek.

  “Mom said: it's OK. Since Jassy gave me this scar, I'd better convert it into something… practical.”

  “I called the best tattoo spec'list at the 'Fill,” Jasmine said.

  In tight jeans with strategically placed holes, and oversized military T-shirts, knotted at above belly-buttons, the girls looked twins. Both were barefoot and with identical haircuts: a practical half-inch 'Fill Crop. My daughter became a real scav, Mark thought. Fine occupation, nothing wrong with it.

  “You don't approve, Dad, do you?” Samantha asked.

  “Hence you're using the best spec'list at the 'Fill, I can hesitantly give my permission,” Mark said. “Besides, you've already started.” After Arthur, his daughter's ‘real promise’ became irrelevant.

  “I'm so sorry Mister Mark,” Jasmine said, “I flopped acid on Spalding, but Sammy was too close. A bit more, and she would lose an eye!”

  Thanks God, Samantha's eyes were intact.

  “Don't apologize, Jasmine,” Mark said, “without your acid, we would be dead meat. Better tell me from the beginning. How did you end up on scaffolding with acid in your hands?”

  “In the morning, I took Bertie and Millie to school. But the school guard said: no classes today! So I said: let's go to the 'Fill.”

  “In the hurricane?”

  “No probs! In the rain – better! The garbage is washed away, and you may find good things. Just careful! You must go no tires and feel for rot-pits. And not in deep trenches – may flop on you. The guards let us in no-pay. One said: ‘Me-te-oro-logical conditions.’ ‘Me-te-oro-logical’ is a special word. Means: heavy rain.”

  “And then?”

  “Then, Millie found a treasure.”

  “A real treasure?”

  “Real! Somebody junked this? Nuts! An electric kettle! Like before, when a lot of electricity? The kettle is from stunt-less steel, so shiny. I said: we can't go through no gates. We found this treasure like we're rats, right?”

  “Rats? Were you digging outside your territory?” Mark asked.

  “Rats, it's like stealing. Not at any terratory, just at the other gang's stake. Well, almost like stealing… They're sissies and don't dig in the rain. But the guards may still take the kettle. They say: we let you in me-te-oro-ligically, – so the kettle's ours. No, we must go Mudway at the dam.”

  “Do you mean: ‘mid-way’?”

  Frederick chuckled. “New toponymics, Mark. Mudway! Below the dam, there is a secret passage to the 'Fill. So secret, everybody knows it, except the guards. And the FBI.”

  “If it's so secret, why everybody pay ten bucks at the gates?”

  “At Mudway, you cross the creek three-feet deep in the mud. For anti-sissies only!” Samantha said. It sounded like she had tried the Mudway already.

  “And the landfill guards are not anti-sissies?” Mark asked.

  Jasmine shook her head. “No-o-o. They aren't fifty pur-scent! So, we went Mudway and ran to Mister Frederick's plant.”

  “Was it you banging at the gate?”

  “Millie – with a brick. He's usually quiet, but can be loud – if he wants to! Nobody to the gates. So I said: Mister Spalding is gone, but no probs, we can open from inside. Bertie can climb our secret hole behind bomb number one.”

  “So secret, everybody knows it?” Mark asked.

  “Everybody knows, but a grown-up or a sissy can't climb. So, we went around. Suddenly: bang! Bang! A shotgun!”

  “Spalding was shooting…”

  “Goddamn Spalding!” Frederick said, “You know, Mark, it's all my fault. I sold Spalding the detos! Stupid! He said: his cousin got into stripping business, needed to demolish something. I even helped Spalding to build his TriSafe blasting box… Explained – everything!”

  “There is no fault of yours, Fred,” Mark said. “Spalding learned TriSafe detos in the Army. Clever bastard, he cheated everybody, yours truly including. Don't dwell on it. How you and the kids ended up behind the reactors?”

  “Oh, my story is simple enough. Because of the hurricane, I released all the workers, Denny, the foreman, and the
Kingsleys. Sam and I set two last reactors to finish their cycles and planned to bail-off too. Suddenly, Spalding walks into the office, points his gun at me and says: I'm sorry, Mister Stolz, but could you pass me the firesafe keys? I assumed it was all about the money. At Syntegas, we always keep one hundred grand in the safe, for running expenses: coal, chemicals, plastic scrap, and so on.”

  “In such case, I would surrender the keys. One hundred grand is a lot of money, but I wouldn't lose my life over it.”

  “That's what I thought! So Spalding walks me to bomb number three. Both hands to a relief valve! There is a relief valve, at the back of the bomb… I was very pissed off, but not too scared. No problems: Spalding leaves, – I unscrew the bloody valve and free myself. Started computing in my head, how much pressure was inside, so I would not burn everything to smithereens. Meanwhile, the bastard brings in Sam and Marty, and ties them too. And then: oh shit! He wrapped everything with Primacord! At that point, I remembered Billy's Operation Titanic and got ready to shit my pants. And then: boom! The FBI Superman arrived and saved the day!”

  “You are exaggerating, Fred. Your FBI Superman only shot off the freaking detonator. Jasmine is our Superwoman!”

  “I'm not no Superwoman, Mister Mark,” Jasmine said. “I was shit… Sorry, I mean: I was very scared. Even more than my first time on rot-pits! Millie and Bertie stood against the wall, I climbed on them – and through the hole. I said: need a weapon! Lucky, – that big glass. Sammy calls it: ‘nitro-laser.’ A special word.”

  “That's ‘neutralizer,’ Jassy,” Samantha corrected, “I prepared it for Mister Stolz to flip pH in number one.”

  “In fact, it's only called ‘neutra-lizer,’ but really it's sulfuric acid! H2SO4. Like in a stand-art car battery, only much, much stronger. Con-cent-rated?”

  “Right,” Mark smiled. For a barefoot scav, who barely finished her fourth grade and was dropping funny words all over the place, Jasmine's knowledge was amazing. The future of modern Chemistry rested in good hands.

  “So I fought: what if I flop neutra-lizer on Spalding? But Sammy sat on the floor and I was afraid to spill on her. And then, Spalding, I mean: the Butcher… He shot Mister Mark! And I said: the city-action digger-or-ate-it beyond our can't-roll…”

  Frederick's eyes opened wide.

  “Deteriorated beyond your control? Did you really think in these special words?” Mark asked.

  “No, Mister Mark. I thought: holy crap! At the 'Fill, nobody thinks in special words. Only Mister Frederick can talk in special words can-tin-us-ly. But I need to learn too! The 'Fill words are no good. I like special words way better.”

  Frederick recovered from his shell-shock. “You don't have to use special words all the time, Jassy. If you thought: holy crap, just say: holy crap!”

  “OK, Mister Frederick. So I said: holy crap! So, I – bang! And flopped the glass!”

  “When I heard Sam screaming about the wires,” Frederick said, “I closed my eyes and said: Ladies and Gents, the show is over, we're dead. Suddenly: bang! We're still alive and through to the other side of my Year Zero!”

  Mark shook his head. “The Year Zero you say? Just this morning, I thought about it! Houston has landed in your Year Zero! Apocalypse now! The feds will quarantine us and send no help. We don't have ‘good neighborhoods’ and ‘slums’ anymore: the entire city is a slum. I even invented a new name for our little street: West Canal Slum…”

  “The West Canal Slum? WCS for short. Not bad!” Frederick tried the new name like an exotic foreign dish. “But about the Apocalypse – you're wrong! We've traversed a singularity!”

  “A singularity?”

  “In the math, Mark. For many years, people were convinced you couldn't extract a square root from a negative number. Then, Complex numbers were discovered, and any fractional power of a negative number became possible. Still, a problem: zero couldn't be raised to a negative power. So, Dirac invented his Delta-function.”

  “Fred, you are talking to a humanitarian who has not achieved even the first degree of your Masonic techno-enlightenment. I studied behavioral psychology in the Uni.”

  “The singularity is like a black hole, or a wormhole. You pass through the hole, and there is a new universe on the other side. Stephen Hawking and his baby universes, remember?”

  “I'm sorry, Fred, you've lost me. I admit, that book about the baby universes, I read it only to page twelve.”

  “OK – never mind. You can ask Billy later. What I want to say: the end of the world at the Year Zero is only our imagination. The end of our known world. I mean: the world, as our pre-Meltdown generation knows it. But the new world, on the other side of our Year Zero, is not necessary bad. Perhaps, even better. Humans will survive, at least as a biological species. We will adjust, Mark. We will learn to live in the new universe.”

  “You were not such an optimist, Fred. I remember, you said we targeted for a disaster, like in Detroit.”

  “In Flint and Detroit, they couldn't do it because they still had places to go. So, there was a cut-throat competition for the escape. The society broke apart. Finally, the strong were all gone to someplace better, and the weak were left to die. But here in the South – it won't be like this.”

  “Why?”

  “We have no place to go, Mark. You can't run away from the planet Earth, can you? So, the strong will sit here and help each other, and help the weak at the same time. For what I see, Houston will be fine. Polio and cholera? We're not in the Tenth Century and know few things about bacteria. The marauders? No problems! We will catch them one-by-one and send to cut coal for everybody. Our brand-new West Canal Slum will be OK. Happiness is the difference between what you have and what you want. We just need to adjust what we want, that's all!”

  “Have you converted to Ruth Levin teachings? Just-Adjust?”

  “Little to do with the Levins. Jasmine and her brothers moved to live in whatever remains of our house. Elvira is happy: now she has half the house and twice the family.” Frederick bent over the bed and whispered into Mark's ear, “I kid you not, Elvira and I haven't had such a wonderful sex for ages!”