by Chris Weitz
I suppose, Dad, you could say I don’t need to do this. I just really want to.
That was the last thing he heard, the last thing his brain processed before he stopped and then I stopped.
I went out and told Sis. She called me a monster. But she looked grateful to me for the first time in her life.
I wondered if it mattered that, after all he had done to me and Sis, his last thoughts were of defeat and betrayal and humiliation. Or was the fact that he was now dead the more important thing—that everything, all his memories, were wiped from the universe—and how it had ended was irrelevant?
Of course, I was here, and alive, and that was what really mattered, and I would carry inside me the beautiful memory of his ultimate destruction.
But I digress.
Dad’s socioeconomic theories aside, I have worked a lot in my short life at distinguishing want from need—there were a lot of sessions with clever Jewboy Dr. Klein where we talked about nothing but that—so I’m pretty evolved. Back in the day, I might have just blasted Chapel and kept the biscuit, but I realize that this may not be in my long-term interest. I do make a little mental note to add this to my Reasons That I Am Going to Put a Bullet in Chapel’s Head at Some Point Down the Line, but for now, I just hand it back to him with a smile.
Let me do the talking, he says.
Another reason added to the list.
Then they bring in the prisoners, a tall, old white guy and a scrappy, little brown guy in military gear. My bros sit up and ooh and aah. At some point, I guess we’ll get used to seeing old people again but not yet. They look freakish, all crow’s-feet and patches of sickly gray hair.
The hell are you? I say. I’m not going to leave all the talking to Chapel. He looks at me sidelong. Neither of the prisoners says anything, but I catch them looking at the fat black briefcase by my chair and the biscuit in Chapel’s hands.
British special forces, says Chapel, judging by their uniforms. He says it in a way like, I know what I’m doing and you don’t, so step off.
What are “British special forces” doing here? I ask him.
Chapel looks annoyed, as if he doesn’t want me to show our hand by revealing what we don’t know, or something. But the way I figure it, we’re the guys with the guns and they’re the guys with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, so it can’t really hurt to cut to the chase. I’m showing them that they are totally in my control by not holding my cards close to my chest. Like, Look all you want because this is only gonna end with my boot on your neck anyway.
Still not a peep from the oldsters.
As I told you, says Chapel, the American Reconstruction Committee is centered in the UK.
So why didn’t they send some ass-kickers from the US to find the football, once they knew it had been located?
Then I figure it out. Because to get the job done, you might have to kill some folks, and it’s much easier to kill foreigners than your own people, right? Because the lives of foreign people aren’t worth as much. That’s why in the news when there was an accident or something, it would always go, like, One hundred twenty-six people feared dead, twelve Americans on board, because American people put a different value on American lives. And British people put a different value on British lives, and Tanzanian people put a different value on Tanzanian lives. It’s natural. That’s why we found it so easy to bomb the shit out of other countries—because foreign kids mattered, like, some fractional amount of our own kids because they were far away and they looked different.
Anyhow, it stands to reason that if you wanted to go kick ass and take names here in the Big Apple, you would send some dudes who didn’t feel particularly upset about killing the locals, like a bunch of limeys and other foreign types.
They think they can treat us like we’re not from the first world or something. This makes me angry, and they’re not saying boo in response to my questions anyway, so I make a snap decision, raise my AR-15, and—BrrrAAAAP—put a few bullets into the little brown guy.
He falls backward, and since he and the other dude have been tied together, it drags him backward, too, and what with the noise and the smell of gunshots, there’s quite a commotion.
Chapel looks at me like I’m crazy, which is good, because I want him to think that. Like, best to remind him that he is in my house and he should ask before going into the fridge.
My guys snip the bonds between the now-dead little guy and the now-freaked-out big guy. I bet he has had some kind of antitorture training or whatever, but that would help you if you were dealing with rational people. Whereas he is dealing with me.
He looks, to say the least, wrong-footed.
Now I know we’re on the same page. This way, there’s no need to shout (a) because it’s suddenly very, very quiet and (b) because, you know, when you kill somebody, you kinda have the floor anyways.
I’d just like to clear the air, get to the point, that sort of thing, I say. By now it’s probably obvious that we have the biscuit, and I figure you’re looking for it. Am I right?
I look at the guy, and he nods, almost automatically, before his better instincts have the chance to override his survival instinct (which, if you ask me, is the best instinct there is).
The other dudes you were with, that was all the people who they sent, right?
Wakefield says, Support staff, back in the park.
That’s right, I say. Zeke? I call out to one of my best bros. Go peep on them, right, see what they’re up to?
Zeke nods and heads out, his shaggy hair flopping back and forth. I don’t have loads of people to spare, what with the chaotic state of affairs that the arrival of the Grown-ups has brought, but this seems like a pretty good use of resources. I will not miss him if he gets erased.
I feel like we’re finally getting places. Now my colleague Mr. Chapel will take over.
Chapel has now recovered some of his composure, which went out the window after I unfriended the little guy. He turns back from the aisle he’s been pacing.
Not exactly military discipline, Colonel, says Chapel. I apologize. I think it should be obvious that we both find ourselves a little out of our comfort zone.
The British guy gives Chapel a look like he’s not having any of this attempt at a bonding moment. Like, the whole good cop deal.
But, continues Chapel, as you can see, I have fallen on the winning side of the equation for now.
So it seems. Finally, the guy speaks, and like most people, he can only figure out how to act based on shit he saw on TV. Hence, the underplayed attitude, like he’s been through this kind of thing before.
Name? asks Chapel.
Wakefield, the guy says.
Wakefield, there’s a way that everybody can get out of this alive, with his skin and his dignity intact.
Except for Private Bahadur. The guy nods toward his dead buddy.
Yeah, says Chapel. I would have advised against that. But we’re dealing with a bit of a loose cannon. Is that unfair?
He looks to me as he asks the question.
I’m the loosest cannon, baby, I say. Looser than loose. I’m not just a bad cop, I’m the worst cop.
Chapel leaves it at that. Now, you must have some sort of means of keeping in touch with the outside world? Sat comms? I could, of course, use this—he indicates the biscuit—but I’d rather not mess around with it, get me? To prevent any accidents.
The guy says nothing. Then he looks at me and reaches his zip-tied hands toward one of many gear pockets on his cool-guy uniform. I nod to one of my guys, and he searches Wakefield and fetches out a little cell-phone thing with heavy rubber grips. Brings it to me. I decide to throw Chapel a bone, so I hand it on to him.
Access code? says Chapel. And not the panic signal. It’s in everybody’s interest that we establish communications.
Wakefield tells him a series of numbers and letters, which would be hard to guess, except, of course, pretty easy if you threaten to kill the guy who has it memorized. Torture is the u
ltimate hack.
Chapel enters the code, and somebody must pick up immediately, as if they’ve been waiting by the phone like a little bitch, because Chapel says, No, this is Chapel, USN. Which must mean “US Navy.”
I’ll wait, says Chapel.
Then I say to him, Speakerphone, please.
And Chapel looks at me like he doesn’t want everybody to hear, and I look at him like I don’t give a shit. Chapel thumbs a button on the satphone thing and sets it on the counter.
There’s the sound of some shifting around on the other end. Then somebody says, How did you get access to this line?
I took it from your man Wakefield.
We need confirmation of that.
Chapel nods to Wakefield, who says, This is Colonel Wakefield. I’ve been taken prisoner by— He doesn’t know who we are.
Uptown, bitches, I say.
There’s a silence on the other end. Then, What do you want? Kind of weirdly personal, weirdly peevish, when I was expecting something official-sounding, or at least threatening.
I want a line through to the Reconstruction Committee, Chapel says. And I want you to facilitate contact with the Resistance. I’ll give you the necessary IP address in my next transmission. In the meantime, so that you know this is important, your man Wakefield here will confirm that I am in possession of the football and the biscuit. Stand by.
And Chapel gets up and fetches the briefcase, opens its maw, riffles through some laminated pages of numerical codes. Then he holds up the biscuit, which is like a bigger version of what we’re talking on.
Wakefield looks at it, stifles a gasp, and says, I can confirm that.
There’s more silence on the other end. You can actually hear people whispering to each other. Pathetic.
Let me lay it out for you, says Chapel. You’re going to get the prime minister’s office and the US embassy on the line. I’ll wait one hour. I’ll be in touch. If I don’t get a response, I’ll start warming up the missiles.
Then he presses the Off button. Boop. Nuclear threat made.
It’s not going to work, says Wakefield.
What’s not going to work? says Chapel.
Whatever it is you have in mind.
Well, you’d better hope for your own sake it does. And for everyone’s sake. He waggles the biscuit in his hand.
My boys take Wakefield away. He can chill at the bar next door. With his ankle manacled to the footrest.
Okay, so you boosted his cell phone. Why are we keeping him alive? I ask.
Because he’s useful. He can validate what we say to the Reconstruction Committee.
He’s like a—what do you call it—a certificate of authenticity.
Unless they think we’ve been torturing him. Chapel gives me a look.
If you can manage that. So don’t mess him up, is what you’re saying.
Like I’m some kind of sadist.
I go quiet for a while. Who does this guy think he is? He wouldn’t be alive if I hadn’t vouched for him. And here he is giving me orders. But I’m the one in charge here.
Okay, I say, What now? I mean, what is your plan? Other than getting to meet famous people?
The plan, he says, is to begin negotiations with the Reconstruction Committee. That’s a joint US-British authority that effectively runs the world. A little hard to explain the ins and outs to you, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t go too far wrong if you just thought of a big version of parents.
I say, I didn’t get along very well with my parents, in the end. He looks like he kind of wants to know what I mean, but kind of doesn’t. Why negotiate?
Because, for one, they have a lot of my people in prison. They have to release them. Then they have to release the rest of the world.
My bros are watching the conversation like a tennis match, but if they didn’t know the rules of tennis. Probably they’re trying to figure out what’s in it for them.
Sounds pretty communist to me, I say. In point of fact, I don’t really know what communist means, but anything that sounds sort of namby-pamby seems to work. And what does the Rest of the World do when it’s released?
In theory, whatever it wants. Opinions vary. Some of my associates think that a new era of peace and harmony will begin once the one percent are forced to reckon with their crimes. Myself, I think it’ll be a global clusterfuck.
So why are you making it happen?
Chapel looks away, thinking. His expression is kind of hard to read. Like, maybe sad. But why is he doing it if it’s such a bummer?
I suppose because something has to give, Evan.
I don’t like being Mr. Question-Asking Guy, but I do have one more that I want answered. It’s what the bros are thinking, and I’d prefer to stop them from thinking at all.
So where do we fit in? I say. I mean to say, I don’t really give a crap about your global justice or whatever.
No. You are about the here and now.
That’s all there is.
You’re very Zen.
Never thought of it that way.
Well, Evan, the way you fit in is, you do what you do. I have the biscuit. I know how to use it. You have the men to guard it. From people like Wakefield. I don’t think he’ll be the last.
Let them come, I say. But look, bro, I’m not exactly stoked to be the captain of the guards, you get me? Like you sitting on the throne and me… What did they call it in Dad’s office? Reporting to you. I think you should report to me. To emphasize the importance of this, I take my pistol out and twirl it around.
Chapel looks at me.
Fine, he says. By the powers vested in me by the International Resistance, I hereby give you the rank of general and confer on you the political command of the plague zone. I humbly submit my résumé as advisor to Your Excellency.
He thinks he’s playing me, but I find these things end up counting for something. Your Excellency. I like the sound of that.
You’re hired, I say.
But I think to myself, Soon as I figure out how to work this biscuit thing, you’re fired. I’ma go Trump on your ass.
IT’S STRANGE TO BE IN a motor vehicle again. The Harlemite pickups move at impossible speed, hours of distance flying past in minutes. We approach the future too fast, a bloodbath sucking us toward itself before I can think my way around it.
This isn’t the first time, of course, that presentiments of death have come up, and like before, I try to think of other things to keep my mind from shorting out. I look at the passing scenery, trying to identify things from their ruins. Pet groomer. Hair salon. Vitamin store. They seem to vibrate tinnily, echoes of life from long ago.
But among the reminders of the past, there are flashes of now. A kid turns the key of an opener on a can of dog food. A random runs after our trucks, asking us to take him along, but the girls bat him back. Dogs chase cats chase rats.
I have a new long gun, a boxy version of an AR-15 in fluorescent-pink plastic. It’s from a special run made out of scrounged girl-focused LEGO kits. Imani’s tribe melts them down and extrudes them into a fine plastic thread, which their MakerBot 3-D printers turn into gun housings. A separate crew fabricates the high-impact innards of the lower receiver from aluminum; yet another turns metal tubing into rifle barrels.
Yet another crew puts colorful stickers on. Unicorns vomiting rainbows, kittens giving thumbs-up.
We pull the trucks into a big, flat snow-covered space in a park on Seventy-Seventh and Amsterdam. We’ll use the playground, whose structures look like wintry little castles in their mantles of snow and ice, for a staging area before the raid.
Imani sweeps the snow off the deck of a play structure and sets down the map. The residual snowmelt bleeds into the paper.
They found the blueprint at the public library, a while back when they were preparing to take over the entire island. That was before I brought the news of the Cure. When everyone realized that they could live for decades longer, their calculations of risk were thrown, and suddenly a Harlem bli
tzkrieg didn’t seem worth it. But they had already, under Solon’s diligent command, compiled an intelligence trove worthy of a proper invasion, including schematics of all the major tribal headquarters. One of those being, as it happens, the Museum of Natural History.
I wonder where Solon is now. Imani says he ran but not where. It sounds like he escaped, if she’s telling the truth. I’m relieved, but I’m also afraid of having to explain myself to him someday. I thought it would be best that the tribes of New York would learn the truth like a frog in slowly heated water, but obviously that plan didn’t work. And by the time the truth came out, in a single blast, Solon had staked his office and reputation and maybe his life to back me. I hope he’s someplace peaceful, a stoic in retirement, like he wanted to be.
“There,” says Theo, planting down his thick finger on the map. “That’s the best way in.”
He’s pointing out a side door around the corner from the ornamental entrance portico. A narrow staircase to the first floor.
I say, “If this interior door is shut, we’ll be stuck in this corridor.”
“If the interior door is shut, I’m gonna make it Not Shut.” He holds up a piece of gray putty—plastic explosive. “’Sides, it’s not up to you.”
Theo has been giving me a fairly frosty vibe all the way down. Not that I can blame him. The way he sees it, I left him in the hands of Resistance fighters on the east end of Long Island and took off for Manhattan. I didn’t realize that they were about to kill him, though—luckily, Kath and the Thrill Kill Twins were there to spring him loose.
And I wonder if there isn’t something else that makes him like me even less. Something about the way he looks at Kath. Something about the time they spent together. I remember that when they met, the first time we were in Harlem, she was convinced Theo was some kind of thug. But I guess they got to know each other pretty well, bushwhacking their way from the Hamptons back to the city with the twins, because she doesn’t talk about him that way anymore.
And though I may have my own difficulties with Theo—he did, after all, nearly get me killed at the UN—I’ve always thought of him as solid, pensive, self-contained. Dangerous, but not to his friends. To tell the truth, I’m glad to have him in the fight. Imani didn’t want him along, saying it was a woman thing, but Theo wouldn’t have it.