by Ginger Booth
“And this somebody who recruited you was in the Army?”
“Probably. Maybe National Guard.” Zack shrugged. “Dee, there’s this idea that the armed forces are this monolithic, obedient single-minded creature. They’re anything but. They’re millions of active citizens, with different strong opinions, in a bunch of different services. The whole Federal government is just a mob of citizens. A whole lot of them are as disgusted as everyone else, especially with the Calm Act. Some of the most disgusted were selected for other initiatives. Like mine.”
“Wouldn’t that kind of secret cabal be treason? But Emmett treated with Homeland as though he had some kind of inter-agency dibs.”
“He does. We’re actually authorized under one of the secret parts of the Calm Act.”
“Huh? Wait, you’ve read the secret parts of the Calm Act?”
“No. Emmett summarized the parts related to us. We are ‘resource centers.’ Not just the community organizers, but outfits like Adam’s brain trust ark, and this Niedermeyer. One of the secret targets of the Calm Act is to reduce the U.S. population to ‘sustainable levels and geographic distribution.’ Aside from the utter moral bankruptcy, one of the problems with that is the complete breakdown of civilization. The resource centers are supposed to find ways to limit the damage, and build civilization up again, each within our assigned areas.”
“Good God, Zack, you’re saying this really was intentional?”
“Yeah. The deaths of millions of our own people – yeah. They planned that.”
“How many… I saw a ‘countdown’ on the ark. It said 294 million.”
Zack swallowed. He stared out the window into the black. “Nearly 50 million down. The target is 200 million. Or next March. Whichever comes first. If we organize well enough, and make it through next winter with more people alive, it’s still over. All the other initiatives to cull the population have to stop.”
“After we saw the news about L.A., the ark captain said he hadn’t been released to act. Is that…?”
“Yeah, that ark is forbidden to act until next March or 200 million. At that point, Emmett has a couple markers we can call in on it. There’s talk of trying to pool our markers between districts, maybe even across state lines, to take on big things like the relief of New York and Boston-Providence. But who knows what we’ll need 13 months down the road. If we wait that long.”
“Zack, are you involved in ‘culling’ the –”
“Fuck no!”
“Who would do that?”
Zack sighed. “Who would put borders around New York City to contain epidemics? Who would hand out oxycontin to patients when there’s no other treatment available? Who would shoot to defend their home and food and family? Dee, no one is being asked to murder people, not exactly, not directly. Or rather, if anyone is, we will find them and execute them when this is over. If this is ever over. I don’t even know what ‘over’ means, here.”
I contemplated that for a minute. The climate was destabilized. That wouldn’t be ‘over’ in my lifetime. Cutting CO2 emissions, or the population, or managing water better, wouldn’t persuade the planet to restore some temporary state that humans happened to enjoy. It was hard to imagine the U.S. being at peace in my lifetime. It hadn’t been so far. Trust in the government was broken beyond any hope of repair. I couldn’t see anything likely to put the U.S. Humpty Dumpty back together again.
“What is a ‘marker?’” I eventually asked.
“It’s essentially an I.O.U. Somebody owes you a favor, or you owe somebody else a favor. We’ve all got markers to call in some help, not a lot, from outside. Or that was the Plan, anyway. In practice, we all like the markers, and helping each other, a hell of a lot more than we like the Plan. So we keep inventing new markers to offer. Like that drone strike. Nobody had a marker for that. It was just an idea Adam dreamed up. But it worked, and now there’s a black market in drone attack markers. The C.I.A. operates the drones, and they’re not supposed to do it. Niedermeyer is Coast Guard, so theoretically he shouldn’t be able to authorize it. But we’re all sickened by the progress of the Plan, and bypass it when we can.”
“Why would anyone support this ‘Plan’?”
“Because 200 million is all the people they believe the climate can support with water and food in the U.S. The whole Calm Act is about trying to collapse in a controlled fashion instead of into brutal anarchy. It was the best the think tanks could come up with. Without the Calm Act, the projection was a collapse to more like 50 million people, because the collapse went more slowly, more violently, and destroyed the environment along the way.”
“And here I just thought you weren’t a very cheerful man.”
Zack chuckled, gradually building up to a full laugh. “Yeah. No. Well, to be fair, I probably wasn’t very cheerful even before I knew all this.”
“No doubt because of your deplorable taste in women. Or wait – did Grace know about this?”
“She dumped me because I agreed to join, yes.”
I was getting remarkably irate with this dead Quaker ex-girlfriend. “But you only agreed to do what you intended to do all along!”
“I didn’t ‘intend’ to have military resources to draw on. At least, not officially. I expected I’d have to beg, or subvert, or train some up. I didn’t discuss that with her, though.”
“Then she realized that you expected to fight for us all along.”
“Yeah.”
Zack tensed as headlights came up behind us. The other car slowed and pulled up alongside. It was Emmett. He and Zack rolled down windows to talk. The sudden rush of night air felt as though it had dropped another 10 degrees out there.
“Did you get Tom?” I blurted, while they were still on the ‘Hello’ stage.
“He’s in the back, a little worse for wear,” Emmett reported. “Hey, what are you doing?”
I jumped out of our car, and stepped quickly to open the back door of Emmett’s car. “Tom? Are you OK?” Opening the door turned on the car’s dome light, so I could see.
No one laid a hand on me, the whole time I was in the Navy brig or the HomeSec conference room. I even felt I’d bonded a little with my jailors, Marine Corporal Tibbs and HomeSec’s Mark. But Tom Aoyama and his mouth – literally – were bloody and black and blue. His teeth were jagged, with several missing or broken. He was clutching his right wrist in agony. Several fingers on that hand were bent at wrong angles, that made me wince in sympathetic pain just to look at them.
“You’ve had a rough day,” I murmured to Tom, and patted his shin. His head lay at the other end of the back seat. “But you’re safe now, Tom. Right, Emmett? He’s safe now.” I held Emmett’s eye.
“He is. Safe.” Emmett’s grudging tone showed his lack of pleasure at my challenge.
“Thank you, Emmett,” I said. “I owe you. Come by for a good meal any time. You can even bring some friends.”
“Well, well, darlin’. I think I’ll take you up on that,” promised Emmett. “We might want to do a little intelligence inventory while I’m there.”
I bridled, but then recalled that thing where he now owned me as an asset. That would take some getting used to. “Of course,” I acquiesced, with what grace I could muster. “I’m all in for whatever I can do for Zack’s crew. I’ve told Zack that all along.”
“She’s a major asset,” Zack allowed, backing me up.
I liked the term ‘asset’ even less when Zack used it. I turned back to Tom. “I’ll try to get a message through to Beth, that you’re OK. Is there anything I can tell her, so she knows it’s really you?”
Tom thought about it. “Tell her when this is all over, we’ll have a nice cottage again. I’ll plant another pansy-ass planter for her in the garden.”
I chose to smile. “Pansy-ass planter,” I repeated.
“Yeah, I had this gnome with its pants down –”
“I get the picture.” I patted his shin. “I’ll tell her. You relax and get better, OK, Tom? You’re saf
e now.”
Zack’s phone rang as I closed Emmett’s rear door. Zack handed it out to me. “For you. Mangal.” Emmett started making a move to leave but Zack signaled him to wait.
“Dee! Glad you’re safe!” Apparently someone, maybe Adam or Zack, had already gotten through to Mangal with that news. Though he did have the satellite feed. Maybe he was just watching our progress from above. Before I could reply, he continued, “Hey, listen. There’s a caravan barreling toward Wallingford. There’s a gentleman here – I’m at Dave’s – who came a couple hours ago to ‘fix the hoses.’ He wants you to stay put and meet with the caravan. I don’t know if that’s a good idea –”
I gather the phone was ripped from his hand. An unfamiliar man’s voice cut in with, “Stay put. The caravan will rendezvous with you, after we take out Homeland Security. Movers will be fired upon.” He hung up.
“Movers will be fired upon,” I echoed, for Zack and Emmett’s benefit. “Um, guys, we need to stay put for a bit. Apparently a gran caravan is on its way to meet us.”
“What the –” Emmett and Zack both attempted.
“I’m not sure, but it’s OK. They’re, um, friends. You remember that gran caravan I met at the Canadian border, right, Zack?”
“Dee, what does a gran caravan have to do with any of this?” Zack asked slowly.
“Well, that’s complicated. Hold on a moment while I make a call.”
I dialed Adam again, and let him know that there would be a large explosion at Homeland Security in Wallingford, and that it would be really good if everybody just sort of turned a blind eye to that. Zack stared at me in disbelief through this. Emmett made a few quick calls.
“Oh, and Adam? We got Tom out safe. If you could get word to Beth Agrawal, his wife? Tell her there was something about a nice cottage with pansies for her, but it got garbled.” I was back in the passenger seat next to Zack by then. Tom didn’t need to hear that. And Beth sure didn’t need a ‘pansy-assed planter’ if those were the last words she would ever receive from her husband.
22
Interesting fact: Canada never accepted the U.S.’s right to withdraw from NATO or its free trade agreements. They claimed to retain co-ownership of North American NATO assets, satellites, natural gas pipelines, the Internet, and a host of other things.
There was something immensely satisfying about the massive fireball that erupted over the dark woods from the Homeland Security office building. I hoped my e-cig-sharing pal Mark had already left for the day. I hoped Ms. Humorless and Mr. Bad Cop were working late. But I’ve felt more guilty placing ant traps in the garden. I was still pretty shocky, I suppose, but my conscience hasn’t twinged since, either.
“Dee,” Zack asked patiently, “how did who do that?”
“I don’t know much about military stuff, Zack. The guy said the caravan would meet us here. Maybe they’ll have someone who’s willing to answer questions.” Maybe not.
“‘The guy.’ What guy, Dee?”
“He didn’t really identify himself. Mangal put him on the phone with me.”
Zack didn’t bother to frame another question. He just stared at me expectantly.
“That thing I was going to confess earlier,” I hazarded. “I called someone I met in the gran caravan, to help get Amenac back online. Um, I think he’s Canadian. He says he’s French. Jean-Claude Alarie. He’s a doctor.”
Zack gave an exaggerated nod. “Could you please cut the bullshit, Dee?”
“I think I asked Canadian intelligence to hook Amenac back up with real weather. It worked. While I was on the phone, I let Jean-Claude know I was being held in Wallingford. He suggested coming to get me, but I said no.” I contemplated that for a moment. “I didn’t really understand his suggestion.” I glanced back at the lurid glow and black smoke above the trees. “I was afraid you might be mad at me for, um, sharing my little problems with a foreign government. Are you? Mad at me?”
Zack’s face was in his hand, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes. No.”
‘Both’ seemed a reasonable answer, under the circumstances, and I left it at that. “I didn’t realize they were in Connecticut,” I said. “Maybe they were coming to visit anyway.”
Zack put his head back on his headrest. “A gran caravan attacked an ark earlier today in Litchfield. Not the one Adam’s family is in – I already covered that with Adam. The security goons for this particular ark were stealing all the locals’ food, raping and murdering as they went.”
“Oh.”
Another car arrived soon. Emmett’s car, then the newcomer’s, pulled ahead of us to park, to clear the road. The two drivers got out of their cars to chat. Zack told me the newcomer was Emmett’s peer for Middlesex, the county just east of New Haven. Counties aren’t used much in Connecticut, so I had only the haziest notion of how these fit together. Apparently Wallingford lay at a cusp between three Emmett-level coordinators’ turf. The northern New Haven County guy, whose turf we were actually in, never joined us that night. He was probably busy with that Litchfield situation on the other end of his area.
Another vehicle drew up behind us and flashed its high-beams at us jauntily. Jean-Claude popped out. “Dee?” he called gaily. “I look for Dee Baker.”
“Jean-Claude! How good to see you!” I cried, exiting my car. The car that delivered Jean-Claude to us took off.
We hugged and did the French cheek-kissing. I continued, “I’m so glad you’re here! I have a friend, Tom, who got a bit beat up by Homeland Security.” I drew Jean-Claude along to Emmett’s car and pointed to Tom in the back seat. “And this is my friend Emmett MacLaren, who got us out of Homeland. And his friend I haven’t met yet?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Mora,” the beefy greying man supplied, along with a handshake. Emmett shook hands with Jean-Claude as well, who in turn introduced himself with his familiar French Doctors Without Borders identity.
“Your friend, he is banged up,” Jean-Claude observed. “And you, Dee, you are hungry, yes? Let’s go to my place so I can treat your Tom, and we will eat!”
“You just blew up Homeland Security and invaded our turf,” Emmett observed cordially. “Care to tell me about that?”
“Me? No! I am just a doctor,” Jean-Claude laughed. “Maybe you come to my place, too, and someone can answer your questions.” Jean-Claude helped himself into the passenger door of Emmett’s car. “I show you the way. You follow us, Dee!”
“Dee?” Emmett inquired.
“Let’s hear what they have to say,” I said. “Jean-Claude can get Tom patched up. And I am hungry.”
“Right,” replied Emmett with sarcasm. But he drove off under Jean-Claude’s direction. Zack and I, and Colonel Mora from Middlesex, followed behind.
“Lieutenant Colonels outrank Majors, don’t they?” I asked Zack idly, while he drove.
“They do,” Zack confirmed. “Mora grew up here, though.”
“Is Emmett in trouble with his boss?”
Zack bobbed his head yes-and-no. “I’m not worried about Emmett.”
“Aren’t you guys coming with us?” Emmett asked. We were in Jean-Claude’s camper, parked in a strip mall on a main drag shopping road in Wallingford. An elderly man who walked with a cane arrived to take the military types to speak with ‘the General’. Emmett and Carlos Mora rose with alacrity.
Zack started to rise next to me, but I kept my seat in Jean-Claude’s compact kitchenette. I pointed. “Is that brandy?”
“Help yourself to brandy, Dee!” Jean-Claude called merrily from the back. He was cleaning up Tom while he let a dose of oxycontin take effect, before he could straighten Tom’s fingers. “Dee can stay with me!”
Zack sank back beside me. “I’ll stay,” he told Emmett.
Emmett rolled his eyes and set off to meet ‘the General.’
“Good! More for us!” called Jean-Claude from the bunks in back. “Dee, there’s steak and leftover gratin in the fridge!”
My knees wobbled as
I stood. Zack gently pressed me back down and supplied a snifter of brandy. There wasn’t room in the micro-kitchen for both of us to cook, anyway. So I put my feet up and sniffed my snifter. The elegant root vegetable and potato au gratin, beautifully cheesy and golden brown on top, could not possibly have been baked in the camper. The camper’s compact two-burner propane stove and a grill pan worked fine for the succulent steak, though. While the steak rested, Zack heated the gratin on the stove, too. Jean-Claude called out cooking suggestions here and there.
Eventually the well-tended Tom was out like a light, and supper was served for three.
“À la vôtre,” Jean-Claude toasted us with a chunky wine goblet. I think that’s ‘to your health’ in French.
“To freedom,” Zack returned, with a plastic cup of water.
“To good friends,” I offered, with my crystal brandy snifter.
After we applied ourselves to the meal for a while in near-religious earnestness, I said, “Jean-Claude, this steak is incredible – and perfectly cooked, Zack! Where did you get it?”
“Ah, payment during a medical clinic. My patients often pay me with food. A few towns northwest of here. The locals had some trouble with security thugs from an ark. The thugs felt the surrounding town should serve them with food and sex. The locals disagreed.” Jean-Claude gave a jaunty Gallic shrug. “The caravan helped them with that.”
“That was pretty impressive ‘help,’” Zack commented.
Jean-Claude waved that away with a smile. “I am just a doctor.”
“What brings you to Wallingford?” I asked.
“Ah, the caravan is always eager to clean out nests of Homeland Security. And we like your Amenac website very much, Dee! That must continue. Indeed, we’ve contracted for a more private site with your colleagues. The satellite spy data is very helpful! But it needs a more selective audience. Yes?”
“Yes,” Zack and I both agreed.
“So we have business here. The caravan would like to stay, but that is for those other people to discuss. I think they talk all night. Feel free to go home after dinner. The last few days have been very tiring for Dee, yes?”