Houston, 2030

by Mike McKay

  “Shite!”

  “For the shoes, we came home, and Mom almost killed us! So difficult to find… Anyway, our nicely polished shoes were safely off, and we went straight into the crap. After that, – they cut our School-Smarts with razor blades. Back then, the boys had only the razor blades. Now they carry knives. We were standing there, in the middle of the crap, and the others laughed. Not just the bullies. It looked like half of the school assembled to see the sissies being properly initiated into the Null's Middle. OK, how much better, everybody agreed. Now the posh private school sissies can blend in.”

  “And your Mom?”

  “Mom was outraged. She went to see the Principal. He said: oh, no worries, just a little joke, the boys do such things all the time. The peer pressure, you must understand. He could not do much about it, and he did not care. And we didn't have much choice either. The only alternative was not to go to school at all.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “Had to blend in, what else? Mom washed and patched the uniforms, so we looked neither better nor worse than anybody else in the class. Well, there was this little problem: we had to go to school in flip-flops, but the 'flops were not allowed. The teachers were after us every day: why no shoes, why no shoes? But we did not give a damn. Many in the school had the same flip-flops problem, so we were not the only targets. Finally, about two months later, Mom found us the shoes, and it all settled down. Smartly enough, these other shoes were not brand-new. We learned the lesson. On the second thought, attending Null's made us a lot of good. Practical survival skills: kill or be killed…”

  “The schools are still a mess,” Mark nodded, “but at least they are not so damn crazy about those uniforms anymore.” The school rules have been relaxed over the last few years. By now, the state schools required any khaki-colored clothes, whatever the family could obtain. Most of the kids were dressed in assorted military second-hand. The footwear, considering the mild climate and ‘temporary difficult economic situation,’ was declared optional. The last two or three years, Samantha, Pamela and Patrick had been going to school barefooted almost every day. Not so that Mark could not afford three pairs of tire sandals for his kids. ‘No show-offs,’ this rule stood pretty much the same as during the Kim's time, and the unlucky kids wearing slightly better clothes were quite at risk of bullying from ever-barefoot and rag-clad urchins from poor slum families.

  Chapter 6

  Mark returned to the Station just before two o'clock. From the Korean cafe he checked his e-mails and made a couple of phone calls. Alan Moss, the Medical Examiner and CSI supervisor, wrote that both victims had been ‘processed,’ and he would be ready to discuss the autopsy results in the afternoon. Sergeant Investigator Zuiko finished with the potential witness search and was going to visit two or three addresses from the database. There was neither new information on Nick Hobson's relatives, nor positive ID on the female victim.

  On the way to the Station, Mark briefly stopped at the local Salvation Way Command to make arrangements for the victims' funerals. This place was formerly a Thrift Store. Now they removed the store name from the building, and slightly corrected the Salvation's red shield. The SWC was still performing some charity store functions, but the collection and sales were handled mostly from cargo tricycles, which traveled through the neighborhoods pretty much the same way as ice-cream trucks did before the Meltdown. The official explanation was that before the ‘poor’ had cars and could drive to the Thrift Store, but now the Thrift Store had to drive to the poor. William said it was only half-truth. In reality, the Thrift Store program was slowly winding down over the last few years. Nobody had any spare clothes to donate anymore.

  Mark left his bike in front of the large glass windows which displayed the official Salvation Way propaganda. On one poster, a man in the Salvation Way uniform held a donation bucket. The text read: “Say NO to beggars. DONATE TO THE OFFICIAL CHARITIES* ONLY.” The next poster stated: “You are not alone. THE SALVATION WAY* SUPPORTS AMERICAN VETERANS.” On the picture, the Salvation Way lady was handling a large box to a wheelchair-bound vet. The asterisks pointed to the small print, which was identical on both posters. Several lines in legalese explained that the explicit rights to solicit for charitable donations on behalf of the military veterans and few other underprivileged groups had been granted to the Salvation Way by such-and-such decrees on such-and-such dates. Mark grinned. His son William had never received any box, large or small, from the Salvation Way (or any other ‘official charity.’)

  Further on, one window was dedicated to the announcements and other running business. Mark's eyes stopped at two particularly prominent notes, written in black marker over recycled cartoon. The first read: “ATTENTION TO LCCs. To speed up the count, small bills will not be accepted. Please change your DR to large denominations, PREFER $2000 AND $1000 banknotes.” The second was even more cryptic: “NO SPOT-HOLDING. Effective immediately. No exceptions. Due to frequent spot-holding disputes, the permanent collection spots will be assigned TO QUADS ONLY. ALL OTHERS MUST DO THE LOOP.” In the word ‘LOOP,’ both letters ‘O’ were converted into a resemblance of donation buckets, and above somebody scribbled: ‘every day!!!!!’ Because William and Clarice had been working for the Salvation Way for over half a year, Mark could guess the meaning. The Local Collection Coordinators, or LCCs, were the organization members who retrieved the donations from the buckets and performed the money count. Each LCC looked after twenty or thirty vets and was in-charge of bringing the ‘DR,’ or ‘Donations Revenue,’ to the local headquarters. ‘Quads’ was the street slang for totally helpless vets: either quadriplegic or amputees without all four limbs. Only these were allowed to have a permanent collection spot at the markets and other busy areas. Thankfully, there were not so many vets in this category. All the others required to wander around the area, or how the slang had it ‘do the Loop.’

  Mark had some split opinions about the Salvation Way. On one hand, he respected all the charity work the Salvation Way was doing in the slums, and considered this essential for the poverty-stricken neighborhoods. The volunteers did an outstanding service. Hey, he himself donated frequently! On the other hand, after William started working in the Change for Vets program, Mark was growing progressively upset about the organization's cynicism. Despite William and Clarice always played by the rules, and never ever complained, Mark suspected the vets in the program were treated pretty much as simple, mindless cash-generating machines. The vets had an insider joke: ‘we are not human robots, we are half-human robots.’ The ‘half-human’ obviously referred to all the missing body parts. No organizational effort was spared to make sure these ‘half-human robots,’ with their red collection buckets, would cover every square foot of the assigned area, appear on every street, every cross-road, and in front of every shop and every house, and do the Loop for as many hours every day as physically possible. Seemingly everything was rotating around the Donations Revenue, those 50% due to the Salvation Way every day. And the Salvation Way commanders were not much interested in anything else.

  Inside the Salvation Way Command, Mark was met by the local Senior Officer, a short balding man past sixty. The man was dressed in the resemblance of the former Salvationist's uniform: a dark-blue officer hat and a light-blue shirt with little shoulder emblems, but with khaki trousers and cheap tire sandals. Similar to the schools, the Salvation Way somewhat relaxed the uniform requirements over the last few years. The Senior Officer and Mark needed no introductions: Mark knew Mr. Todd for several years, – through his FBI duties, Mark had been visiting this particular SWC on multiple occasions previously, about two or three times per year.

  The relations between Mr. Todd and Mark had been cordial, but chilled down a bit after Mark's last visit, in October or November 2029. William had just joined the Change for Vets program at the time. Obviously trying to please Mark, Mr. Todd back then went into a lengthy speech, why the participation in the Salvation Way program would be essential for the vets' m
ental and physical well-being. “Outstanding, Mister Pendergrass,” he said, “your Billy is just a perfect type! He will fit right in!”

  “Perfect type? How is that?” Mark asked. He was not yet used to seeing his son in the role of a disabled vet.

  “I mean: without both arms and nearly-blind, he will make a great donation collector,” Mr. Todd replied. “To be honest with you, all these legless vets… They don't collect as much as it used to be. But if somebody has no arms and no eyes – oh, it is still rare. I am sure our Billy and Rissy will turn an outstanding revenue. They will love doing the Loop, take my word for it.” The charity man was totally oblivious to the fact that Mark was not pleased, but rather hurt.

  “Mister Pendergrass!” the Senior Officer got up from the desk to greet Mark. “Have not seen you for a long while. How is our armless Billy doing? How is Rissy? She hasn't delivered yet, has she?”

  “Afternoon, Mister Todd! Our William and Clarice are fine,” Mark replied. William could hide his true feelings all he wanted, but Mark himself did not feel it quite right if his son and daughter-in-law were casually referred by their beggars' monikers. “F.Y.I., Clarice is not due in about two months.”

  “Can't remember everybody, Mister Pendergrass. As of today, in the Change for Vets alone, this Command has six hundred and twenty four collectors. This year, added twenty-eight new vets!” Mr. Todd did not quite catch Mark's displeased intonations and continued as normal: “I am happy Billy and Rissy are doing all-right. What brought you here? Oh, can I pour you some tea?”

  Mark decided not to press the point. Today, he needed the Salvation Way more than the Salvation Way needed him. “I would not mind a cup of tea… As you may guess, we need your help with the funerals. We have two victims in the Station morgue. Could not identify any relatives…”

  “Sure, anything we can help with,” Mr. Todd replied, pulling out an extra mug from the desk drawer, “the victims. You mean, that couple on TV yesterday? Unfortunate… The boy, they said, was a Marine vet…”

  “They lied, as usual. Our SRTV never checks any info. The boy was from the Corps of Engineers, actually. This is one other thing I need some help with. Could you check your records? Perhaps, we can locate the victim's family members?”

  Mr. Todd picked up a chipped teapot and poured some tea into Mark's mug. The grass tea had some unusual scent, something like burr or sagebrush, but otherwise was drinkable. “Positively, Mister Pendergrass. Everything for the FBI. OK, I have: the personnel list, the volunteers' list, the top donors' list, and then, for each of the support programs, we have a separate list. Which one of them?”

  “All, if possible. Can't we simply search by the surname?”

  Mr. Todd took a sip from his mug and turned towards his laptop. The poor contraption seemingly held on rubber glue and duct tape. “And the name is?”

  “Nicholas S. Hobson.”

  “Hobson, Hobson…” He clicked with the mouse and typed something, while scrutinizing the screen through his half-rim glasses. “OK, let start with the personnel list. I have two hundred and sixty two personnel and over fifteen hundred volunteers under this Command… Hobson, Richard. Hobson, Rowan. These are our soldiers, since the Salvation Army time. Great family. Missis Rowan Hobson has been our Thrift Store program supervisor for ages.”

  Mark checked his list in the telephone, “I have them already. Do you have an address in your spreadsheet?” He bent over to check the laptop screen. The addresses matched. Well, by the sound of it, Richard and Rowan Hobson were above the mid-age and probably lived in the area well before the Meltdown, so they left plenty of traces in the databases: driver licenses, Medicare, Insurance… The Identifications would have them for sure. “OK, let's continue,” he nodded.

  “Hillary Hobson, a volunteer. Nice old lady. A widow, if I am not mistaken. Runs a charity soup kitchen. Do you have her in your list?”

  Mark looked into his telephone and nodded again. “Yep. We have her too.”

  “Talking about the volunteers, Mister Pendergrass, the kitchen superintendent tells me they are very pleased with your Rissy, very pleased. Rissy never says ‘no,’ and always smiles! I'm thinking: after your daughter-in-law is done with her pregnancy, we can give her a permanent position in the soup kitchen. Of course, only if there is a vacancy…”

  “Unlikely, she will be able to accept the permanent role, Mister Todd. After Clarice delivers, she will be busy with the newborn for a while. Then, if I understood her right, she has a firm intention to become pregnant again. As soon as possible. Why they are such in hurry nowadays to have kids?”

  “Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong at all. Francine and I were stupid to have just one. And – you know what happened…” His face went bleak. Mr. Todd's only son died in Libya four years after the Meltdown.

  “I am so sorry, Mister Todd,” Mark said.

  “Oh, don't apologize about… I mention this myself… Shall we continue?”

  “Yep. But I think we can save time if you just copy and paste all the Hobsons into a separate spreadsheet and e-mail it to me.”

  “Oh, great idea, I did not think about this,” Mr. Todd agreed. He went silent, clicking the mouse button. Maybe, Mr. Todd was not very computer literate, Mark thought, mentioning droplets of sweat on the Senior Officer's forehead. Or it was just a bit too hot in here. Mark wondered how this SWC would cope with all the heat between June and September. These huge glass windows were designed with air conditioning in mind, and there were no air conditioners anymore. The propaganda posters in the windows, naturally, were the dual-purpose technology. Besides the routine brainwashing, they were intended to reduce the sun glare.

  “OK, all done, sir,” Mr. Todd reported about fifteen minutes later, “eighteen all together.”

  Mark spelled his e-mail address. Eighteen addresses were more than he was hoping for. William told him this particular Command was responsible for the area of about eighty square miles, which would be an equivalent of a five-mile radius search. Yesterday, the Identifications gave him fifty-two addresses in the ten-mile radius, which was apparently much less per a square mile. The telephone made a short vibration, indicating that the e-mail from Mr. Todd had arrived. Mark opened the attached file. It was clear the Senior Officer was not very adept to the spreadsheet technology. All the rows obviously originated from multiple different spreadsheet pages, were formatted differently and all had bright, unreadable background colors. Blissfully, the names were in the first column, and the surnames were ahead of the first names, so it did not take Mark long to sort the names alphabetically. He removed the cockerel backgrounds and began comparing the names with his list of ‘hits’ obtained from the Identifications. He quickly realized Mr. Todd had everybody listed individually by names, while the Identifications listed the people by addresses, so at each address could be more than one person with the same surname. Amongst the Salvation Way records, there was just one address which did not appear in the Identifications' list.

  “Here, Mister Todd,” Mark pointed to the screen: “it says: ‘Hobson, Andy’ and here, below: ‘Hobson, Suzy.’ They have the same home address, must be relatives.”

  “Andy and Suzy… Hobson, Andy…” The Senior Officer started to scroll the spreadsheet on his screen. “Ah! Here they are. The comment says: moved here from Chicago, Illinois, this February. The boy is twenty one years old. He is a collector in the Change for Vets. The usual thing: no legs.”

  I could have guessed, Mark thought. These silly street names again. Naturally Mr. Todd did not see anything wrong with the names like ‘Andy,’ ‘Rissy,’ or ‘Billy’; the Salvation Way even had it this way in the damn spreadsheets! He also mentioned the striking gradation: ‘Missis Rowan Hobson’ for a long-standing congregation member, ‘Hillary Hobson,’ with no ‘Missis,’ for a kitchen volunteer, and mere ‘Andy’ for a legless vet with the donation bucket. ‘Hey, cripple, here is your dollar!’

  “And Missis Susan Hobson – is she the wife of Mister Andrew Hobson?�
�� Mark asked, purposely stressing the full names, ‘Mister,’ and ‘Missis.’

  “Oh, our little Suzy? Not wife. She is the older sister of this legless dude, I believe,” Mr. Todd replied. As expected: ‘our little Suzy,’ and who needs to add the ‘Missis.’

  On his phone, Mark copied the names and the address into his master list for checking. Although, these ‘little Suzy’ and her ‘legless dude’ brother were from Chicago, and not from New York, and likely had nothing to do with the dead vet he was after. “I see. Obviously, if they moved here this February, none of the official databases would have them. Excellent find, thanks.”