Unsheltered

by Clare Moleta

  Li went closer to see what was on offer. The operator was a young woman with a folder of Cnekt cards clipped to her belt: solid build, safety glasses sitting on top of her dreadlocks. She was red-dusted and looked like she hadn’t slept inside in a while, same as her customers.

  A mini satellite dish and solar-powered battery pack were set up on a folding card table. Four handheld sat phones, all in use. That meant she could patch, or she worked with someone who could, and she had good access to tech. The whole set-up was lightweight, portable, well put together. Li couldn’t figure how a sole female operator had managed to keep it this long.

  She scanned the street for backup. A feral-looking young guy sat on the porch of the boarded-up feed supply store, lazily watching the queue. One guy. She wondered if there were others round the back.

  The operator was adjusting the antenna on a phone for a customer. She glanced up at Li. Two thousand for a ten-slot, she said. Cash or trade.

  Twice the going rate in makecamp, Li thought.

  People were looking at her sideways, hostile. A bearded man said, Hey. No jumping.

  Yeah, yeah, everyone knows the drill. The operator glanced at Li again and jerked her head towards the queue.

  Li stepped back and watched her taking payment in advance. Most people offered trade. Waterpure tabs or readies, half a dozen eggs, a wrinkled bag of apples, a good length of copper wiring, a torch. One woman had high-thermal wear, still in the plastic.

  Li needed to use a phone but she resented being suckered like this. Didn’t have enough trade to be suckered anyway. She itemised her supplies. Less than two days’ water. Enough dried fish for three more days, her camping gear, the plastic, the high-thermals, her tools. Nothing she could spare. But she had to call Agency. Just because the Port Howell branch had lost Matti didn’t mean her claim wasn’t being run through some other branch’s database right now. You never knew with government. That’s what kept people hoping.

  She wasn’t queuing anyway, fuck that. Went to wait in the dead phone box.

  Someone got up off a crate and the queue shuffled forward, dust clouding and settling again. There was none of the sociability of the road camps. These people were barely making eye contact with each other. Everyone looked hungry and beaten and older than they probably were. A woman with a young child halfway down the line had a bony, dust-coloured nanny goat on a lead. There was a man somewhere in his twenties with a missing arm and purple scars all over his face.

  Li turned her attention to the phone box, not expecting much. The handset had been broken apart and stripped of receiver, carbon transmitter, steel conduit. But the phone itself looked more promising. The outer armour had been comprehensively removed but the housing was basically intact. The lightning-bolt icons gave fair warning: try to pick the lock and you’d hit a breaker switch connected to the grounding terminal. That would trigger an electrical current upward of a hundred milliamps, shutting down the whole system. Shutting down whoever was messing with it, too.

  From the scorch marks, it looked like someone had triggered the kill switch on this unit. That’s what happened when amateurs tried salvage. Li had bypassed the kill switch on this exact model in Nerredin and a dozen other towns in West. Val had probably done hundreds, but pickings were a lot thinner now – most people didn’t even bother checking boxes anymore. Especially the young ones, like this woman, busy sharking her customers and missing what was under her nose. Because if the kill switch had already been triggered then this phone was easy tech.

  The four-pin angle was rusty. It took Li nearly a minute to pick with a tension wrench and a short hook, but the housing came off cleanly. Underneath it was the security layer – the trigger mechanism a burnt-out mess of wiring. Whoever died in this box had taken the risk for her but she was still slow and careful unscrewing this layer.

  Hey Stokes, the operator yelled. We taking goat?

  Li glanced over. The goat woman’s child was trying to pull the animal away.

  No, the guy on the porch called back. We are not takin fucken goat. Jesus.

  She’s a good milker, the woman insisted. I’d get two thousand for her easy at market.

  Then find a market, the operator said. We’re not running a farm.

  If you can’t carry livestock, butcher her.

  Mum, no! The boy was trying to wrestle the lead away. She slapped him and he crouched down with his arms around the goat.

  Please, she said to the operator. I need to call my husband – he went ahead.

  Can’t do it. You got a complaint, take it to Stokes over there.

  Li got back to work. She was through to the circuit board now. It was intact. The circuitry was fried but there was plenty here she could use – the terminal block alone should buy her two phone slots, minimum. Couldn’t believe her luck. She glanced at the operator again, who was talking to an older man on one of the crates. No one was looking Li’s way. She worked fast with the screwdriver and needle-nose pliers. Nearly there.

  You’re done, the operator told the man. You want more time, you pay again.

  He fended her off, the phone still to his ear. No, please. I am second in the queue.

  Not my problem.

  They tussled over the phone and the queue stood watching, weirdly compliant but on edge. A wiry, middle-aged man near the front caught Li’s attention – the way his eyes were moving between the scene in front of him and the porch. He would be the first one to blow. The feral, Stokes, eased himself off the porch and lifted a sawn-off shotgun but he didn’t look worried enough. If he didn’t shut this down now there was going to be a free-for-all and then Li could forget about making her call.

  The operator got hold of the phone and pushed the man hard in the chest, knocking him off the crate. Stood over him as she cut the connection.

  No! He got up, shaking. You cannot! I paid good dollars.

  Back the fuck off. The operator had something in her free hand now, it looked like a water pistol.

  You know Agency is not a ten-minute call, the man said. You know this. But you take my money for nothing. For hold music and Company ads. He spat. Bloodsucker.

  The operator lowered her safety glasses, stepped back and sprayed him full in the face. He jerked as the liquid hit him and she stepped in close and sprayed again. This time he went down, clawing at his eyes.

  The people watching swayed, a mutter coming off them. Stokes fired a single shot straight up into the air. There were screams and the queue began to unravel.

  Li lifted the circuit board out. She wouldn’t be trading today – she just needed to get away from this mess before anyone saw what she had. She stepped out of the box, shielding her salvage awkwardly with her pack, and started moving away. Slowly, nothing attention-grabbing. Now four people from the queue had weapons turned on the rest. An older woman with a handgun, a man with curly hair and a meat cleaver. The bearded guy who’d told her not to jump the queue had a knife to the throat of the middle-aged man and was twisting one of his arms up hard behind his back. A girl in a beanie stood clear, aiming a hammer-grip slingshot.

  The rest of the queue scattered down the street. Li was dissolving with them, she was almost at the first abandoned shopfront when she heard Stokes’ voice behind her.

  Oi. Stick woman. Not you.

  She stopped.

  Come on back here and show us what you got.

  Li thought, Goddammit. Went back slowly. Stokes watched her come.

  The older man was still on his hands and knees, wheezing, spit coming out of his mouth. A woman came forward and knelt beside him, dabbing at his eyes with her scarf. Please, she said, will he be blind?

  The operator, glanced down from packing her gear into a duffel bag. He’ll be fine, just keep flushing his eyes.

  The woman helped him up, led him away.

  I saw you working away in there, all low-key, Stokes said to Li. Let’s see it then. She brought out the terminal block. Let her see it, he said.

  Li passed it to the
operator who turned it over in her hands and shrugged. Didn’t give it back. I can get us that kind of scrap with one call, she said.

  And? Stokes looked at Li. She gave up the circuit board. Well, I’m not, like, an expert or anything, he said, but this looks like a decent bit of tech. Looks like the sort of thing you should have spotted, Jas.

  The operator put her hands on her hips. Hey, Stokes, you think this crew’d do better without me, you just let me know.

  Stokes looked at her for a minute. The bearded guy was folding up the card table, the girl was keeping lookout for something at the point where the road opened out to the highway again. The other two had wandered over.

  I bet you can patch too, Stokes said to Li. So what do you think? Would we do better with you?

  Did he expect her to weigh in on this little power struggle? She just wanted to be gone from here, if not with her salvage then with the rest of her stuff. If they took her pack she would die of cold before thirst or hunger got a look in. So it was important to answer right.

  Serious question, Stokes said. Are you a better patcher than Jasmine?

  A stillness in the group, the operator’s expression unreadable. Li was tired of it suddenly. They would do what they were going to do.

  She said, I don’t know what she patches like. She can’t salvage for shit.

  Stokes started laughing quietly.

  Abruptly, Jasmine laughed too. Gutsy move, she said, and dropped the terminal block at Li’s feet in a soft explosion of dust.

  From up the road the girl whistled. The operator shouldered her bag and walked towards her, ignoring the crates and the table. The others collected them as they followed, like picking up after her was routine.

  Just Stokes left now, but he had the sawn-off and enough ammo to waste shots. Which way you headed?

  She thought about lying, jerked her head east.

  Going against the flow. I like it. You should come with us.

  Li stiffened.

  I’m not telling you. It’s an invitation. We could use you.

  I’m not interested.

  He nodded. But you want to get somewhere, right? She followed his gaze out to the highway and saw a ball of dust barrelling towards them. Stokes grinned at her. We’ve got wheels.

  Then she was lifted, flying, and the road was not an endless obstacle ahead of her but a means to cover distance. To raise dust instead of choking on it.

  She didn’t ride up front like she’d imagined but in the tray of the ute with the canvas top pulled down over the frame. Her and Stokes and the other four, plus swags and packs and strapped-down fifty-litre water containers. She watched the highway through the dusty plastic windows in the canvas, scanning and discounting the groups that blurred past on foot. She wasn’t expecting to see them this soon but she looked anyway. She would know her just by her walking.

  They sat with their backs to the sides of the tray, like on a taxi, their personal gear stowed between their legs. The curly-haired guy was Lucas, the older woman was Eileen, the girl in the beanie was Mira, and the one with the beard was Dev. A dusty kelpie curled between them with its head on Mira’s feet. The operator, Jasmine, rode shotgun with the driver, a baby-faced man in his thirties called Shaun. No one talked much after Stokes did the introductions – the ride was too loud and the dust worked its way in through the canvas seams, so it was better to keep your mouth shut. Li figured there’d be time to ask about the children walking later. Right now, this was enough.

  Mira’s head lolled onto Dev’s shoulder. In sleep she looked even younger – not more than fifteen. Dev handed round a bottle. It came to Li, too, and she drank. The water had a stored taste but it was clean. Lucas griped quietly to Stokes about Jasmine but Stokes’ attention was always on the road. Like hers.

  Eileen rested a folded newspaper on her pack, doing the crosswords between bumps. She was greying but it was hard to pick her age. Older than the others, Li thought, and carrying her damage deeper. Once she banged on the cab window for Shaun to pull over and they all piled out, dispersed into the scrub. Li too, her bladder tight with the unexpected water.

  They stopped again late in the afternoon when Stokes spotted a roo flung back from the side of the highway and so camouflaged with dust that Li had missed it. It was a boomer, a big one. She and Dev helped him haul the carcass onto the bonnet and tie it down. Lucas swapped the front seat with Jasmine, who chose the spot beside Li, facing Stokes. She sat braced with her legs apart, dismantling one of the phones for no good reason Li could see, except to demonstrate that she had plenty of kit in a metal toolbox bolted to the tray. Stokes started whistling some three-note tune and kept it up until Dev elbowed him quiet.

  Halfway through putting the phone back together, Jasmine dropped a screwdriver. She hunted cursorily among the bags and legs and then turned to Li. You got a Phillips eight-mil?

  Li considered denying it but to stay in the ute she had to be useful. She picked out the screwdriver by feel – no need to show Jasmine what else she had. Waited for her to hand it back. Then she turned away and watched the road and the scrub and the fence and the sky running together. The faces on the roadside were easy to account for now because there were so few of them and they were all going the wrong way. She felt speed, acceleration. No ache in her ankle. Played it over and over, the moment she caught up to Matti, how she wouldn’t be empty-handed. Twenty-one days. She opened her mouth and swallowed the road.

  * * *

  They’d been driving about two hours when a tyre blew out. The ute swerved and skidded into the dirt, Shaun fighting for control. He jacked it up and they examined the tyre in the fading light.

  Well, shit, he said.

  Stokes and Eileen went to look for a place to camp. Li saw that the ute had been modified to fit truck wheels, suspension raised and the rims ground out to fit the oversized hubs. She’d learned to do this in Teresa and Navid’s garage. She wondered if Shaun had done it, and where he’d got a welder.

  Where’s your spare?

  Shaun pointed at the right front wheel. He sent Mira to hack off armfuls of spinifex and they packed the busted tyre tight. Stokes came back and said they’d found a place near a dry riverbed on the inland side of the highway. Shaun drove there slowly across the tussock and sand. It was a good spot, well into the scrub and with tree shelter.

  The group set up efficiently. They rigged up a big tarp between the trees and unrolled their swags under it, and no one objected when Li made her bed on the fringes. Mostly they acted like she wasn’t there. When Stokes asked her for a hand with the roo she helped him to rope the carcass over a branch and slit the throat and skin and gut it. It was good not to be sitting around.

  The phone gig, back in the town, Stokes said. You think we’re just ripping people off, right?

  She concentrated on where to make the cuts. You’re charging what the market allows.

  We’re providing a service people need. And we pay market for phone credit too. Bulk price, but still market. We have to make a margin.

  Why don’t you buy straight from Cnekt?

  We look like an approved provider to you? He shrugged. Okay, Jas lets it go to her head sometimes but we have to control the exchange, otherwise we’re just going to get overrun.

  Li thought someone like Jasmine would always find a reason to control the exchange. But Val had taught her a version of the same thing. If you couldn’t command respect, you might as well hand over your tools and do it for free.

  They worked in silence for a bit. She needed to ask about Matti, she would soon. It was just that she’d already heard so much bullshit on the road.

  You been much further north? Stokes asked. There’s some good salvage up there. Inland settlements off the main drag, not even on the map, most of em. Not as picked over.

  Li shook her head. I get by with the roadside dumps. People don’t know what to look for.

  True. But you need towns for dumps though. Tarnackie was the last highway town between here and the ra
nge. It’s mostly industrial and military from here.

  She should have guessed that. Her map was fifty years old at least. So, what, there’s nothing?

  There’s a roadhouse about eighty k east, he said. And then there’s Transit. We tend to steer clear. They have a bit of an aggressive recruitment policy.

  So that’s what Matti was walking into – a Company labour camp or a military zone. She tried not to let the fear in. There was no point. All she could do was follow.

  Why are you still going east then?

  Dev got a tip-off, so we’re checking it out. We’re just careful. Stokes whistled and the dog left Mira and came over expectantly. He threw down the offal. Not keen to stray from the highway, are you? I saw you watching out. Something you don’t want to miss?

  She told him.

  That’s shithouse, he said. Genuinely, as far as she could tell.

  Maybe you’ve seen something?

  He thought about it. Not anywhere we’ve stopped. On the road – harder to say. People are kind of a blur, you know. He helped her with the rump, where the skin clung hard. Shaun does most of the driving. Reccies and stuff. And Dev talks to people, sets stuff up. One of them might know something.

  When she asked Shaun at dinner, he thought he remembered passing a big group on the way back from a fuel run two days earlier. They looked young, you know? And they were heading east, which nobody else is. He scooped up his meat with the damper Lucas had cooked in the ashes. But I was mostly looking out for trouble. They didn’t look like trouble, so I didn’t look too close.

  After they’d eaten, Shaun and Stokes took off alone in the dark, driving gingerly on the stuffed wheel. No one commented. Li found a good river stone and sharpened her knife. Thought about the group Shaun thought he’d seen, adding up the days, trying to make it fit. She was about to get up and go to bed when Jasmine came and sat beside her. She was drinking some kind of turps out of a tin mug. Li hadn’t seen water to spare for making alcohol since makecamp.

  Sorry about your kid, she said. The words came out like she’d run them in her head a couple of times. And. She shrugged. I was a bit of a dick. Before. She leaned in and her breath stung the inside of Li’s nose. Everyone here’s got a thing, you know? Shaun keeps the ute running, Stokes is food and water, organisation. Dev’s ex-Company, so he’s connected. Fuck knows what Mira brings but she’s Dev’s kid so, you know, not optional. Lucas is kind of new but he’s good with weapons. Another shrug. I’m the operator. No one taught me to patch but I get by. If you can do it too.