The interior was large, lined with concrete and lit by a few strips of tubular bulbs along the high ceiling. A huge truck with a strange, sloped metal barrel on the back took up much of the room. Lined up next to it stood several smaller metal barrels set on an angle on four metal legs. Next to these were hundreds of large bags in tidy rows.
“Flour!” Aaron said, hobbling inside. David rushed to follow.
“This will feed us for months!” Aaron cried out. “We’re saved! With all this food we can go anywhere we want. We could set up as farmers and eat hearty until our first harvest.”
The bags had writing on them. David’s parents, unlike Aaron’s, had taught him how to read. He was out of practice, though, and it took him time to puzzle out the label.
Meanwhile Aaron moved around the room, eyes wide with wonder. “Do you know what this means? No more marching! No more war! We could set up a town!”
The label read, “Pendergast Ready-Mix Portland Cement.”
David went over to another bag. It said the same thing.
“Did you hear me, David? Oh, I mean sir! You’ll be the king of your own little kingdom. What’s to stop us?”
David looked out over the orderly rows of thousands of bags. They all had identical labels.
A low growl rose up from David’s chest, tearing out of his throat to echo off the concrete walls as his voice rose in pitch to a shrill scream.
CHAPTER FIVE
Noon. Too damn early.
Roy Jones made his way through the Burbs towards New City, wishing he was still at home in bed. He had a hangover and he hadn’t slept well after what Xinxin had told him. Chinese New Year? At $87,953? That would end badly. He’d already had some acts of vandalism after the anti-Asian riots. If saving Asians from being lynched got “Chink Lover” daubed in shit on his wall, what would hosting Chinese New Year get him?
He needed to talk to someone. Unfortunately, that someone would have to be The Doctor.
Roy smiled and waved to the market traders and passersby as he moved through the Burbs, putting on a sunny disposition he did not feel. After a few minutes he came to the open, dead area between the Burbs and New City, two hundred meters of nothing to provide the guards on the wall with a good field of fire. No one could build on that patch or even loiter there. Roy couldn’t disagree with the rule, but it did emphasize what New City thought of the Burbs.
New City wall loomed up before him, a patchwork of old buses, steel plates, and sandbags. The settlement was built on a peninsula, so only one wall was necessary. A thick belt of razor wire along the shoreline cut off any approach by boat. Sentries stood every few feet on the wall, their M16s shining dully under an overcast sky. Since it was daytime, the gate stood open, with four guards standing in front of it. Every guard on the wall and at the gate was white. A scavenger stood near the gate with a bag slung over his shoulder.
Smile.
“Hello, gentlemen!” he said, grinning and waving his hand.
As he passed through them, the youngest guard, a blue-eyed kid barely out of his teens, cut him off. One of the other guards said, “Mike, don’t you know Roy’s a citizen?”
“Oh yeah, sorry Roy,” Mike said, blushing a little.
“Oh, that’s all right,” Roy said.
Yeah, don’t you know I’m a citizen? Don’t you know I was defending these walls twenty years before you were born, cracker? Or did you mistake me for another black man because we all look alike?
Stop it. Don’t be like that. That attitude never did anyone any good, least of all you.
Roy’s smile never faltered.
He found The Doctor at his trading table, dealing with a scavenger. A couple of guards flanked him, keeping an eye on the outsider.
The scavenger shook hands with The Doctor and turned away just as Roy came up.
“Hey Doc, you starting the trade late today,” Roy said.
“Oh, hello Roy,” The Doctor said, looking surprised. Roy almost never came inside the walls. “Yu-jin is making me sleep in these days. Gripes at me if I don’t get enough rest.”
Roy chuckled and took a seat next to him. “Careful, Doc, people are going to think you’re married to that girl.”
The Doctor shook his head. “People believe all sorts of stupid things. Nothing I can do about it. Smart people know better.”
Oh yeah, I know better.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Roy said.
“Sure, right after I see this last scavenger.”
The Doctor summoned the scavenger, a wiry white man who looked like he hadn’t eaten a square meal in months.
“You look new,” The Doctor said. “You been here before?”
The man nodded. “Couple years back. Been crazy out there, as you know. When the Righteous Horde came through I headed east, way east, and stayed there for a while. Just got back.”
“Anything good out there?” The Doctor asked.
The man shrugged. “Same as everywhere else.”
The Doctor grunted. “Well, the rules are the same as always. You have any medical supplies you have to trade them with me, but I have to give you a fair deal. Anything I think New City could use, I get first bid, but you don’t have to trade if you don’t want to. Need a market stall?”
“Actually I traded pretty much everything with some farmers out east, so I don’t need a stall. I only came in because I got some medicine for you.”
The man reached into his pocket and took out several glass vials with faded labels and set them on the table. Roy picked one and tried to read it, angling it to the light and holding it at arm’s length.
Damn, my vision has really gone to shit.
He pulled out his glasses, a pair from the Old Times he’d traded for a couple of months before. They were a woman’s design and bright purple, horribly embarrassing, but they were the only ones the trader had in his prescription.
“Nice glasses,” The Doctor said with a smile.
“Shut up.”
Roy put on his glasses and read the label.
“Dr. Brennen’s Homeopathic Flu Remedy.”
Roy didn’t know what “homeopathic” meant, but flu season was always a killer. He looked to The Doctor, thinking he’d be happy, and saw he had his poker face on. The Doctor wasn’t one to hide his emotions, so a poker face meant he was more pissed off than usual.
“I’ll give you a kilo of flour for these,” The Doctor offered.
“Two kilos,” the scavenger countered.
“One and a quarter, final offer. I have some better stuff in my office.”
The Doctor’s tone brooked no opposition. The scavenger didn’t look happy but said “deal” and shook his hand.
Once the scavenger left, Roy asked, “What’s the matter?”
The Doctor picked up one of the vials with a sneer. “This is fake medicine from the Old Times. Homeopathy was a premodern magical ritual pumped up by advertisers and sold as medicine. They put in ingredients that had no proof of curing any particular malady, and then added so much water that a little vial like this probably doesn’t even contain any of the original ingredients. That didn’t matter, you see, because these quacks thought water has memory.”
“Wouldn’t that make all water homeopathic medicine?”
The Doctor snapped his fingers and pointed at Roy. “Give that man a cigar.”
Roy sighed. “I remember cigars.”
“Oh come on, the last time anyone had any tobacco, you were a kid!”
“You forgot what kind of a kid I was.”
The Doctor chuckled. “Oh yeah.”
“So why did you give away a bunch of flour for some water?”
“Because if I didn’t, someone else would, and we have enough trouble containing the flu as it is.” He held out a vial. “Care for a drink?”
“I prefer to brew my own.”
“Suit yourself.”
The Doctor opened the cap and downed the entire vial with a single slug.
Roy glanced at the guards. “Let’s walk.”
The Doctor stood up and together they strolled towards the warehouse. The guards fell in a little behind. The Doctor glanced at them and they slowed, giving him and Roy some more room.
“Don’t worry about my guards, I’m only keeping the trustworthy ones close,” he said.
“So what are you going to do with Clyde and all them? You still going to call for that vote of no confidence?” Roy asked.
The Doctor grunted. “I’m an idiot letting Yu-jin talk me out of that one. She’s too lovey-dovey. Thinks she can turn people around just by forgiving them. But at least he’ll be kept busy spying on Weissberg. Still don’t trust them, though. Never will after what he pulled.”
Roy shook his head. Clyde had all but staged a coup over the Chinese ship. What would Clyde do about this party Xinxin had planned?
Roy took a deep breath and spoke.
“Don’t know if you know Xinxin, she’s the daughter of Moon Yong-jun.”
“Yao Yong-jun. Moon was the Korean name they went by before they came out as Chinese. Yao is their real name.”
“Oh, right. Anyway, Xinxin wants to host a Chinese New Year party at my place next week.”
The Doctor stopped in his tracks, closing his eyes and raising his face towards the sky. “Oh, fuck!”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“Fucking hell, Roy, like I don’t have enough on my plate right now!”
“Sorry. She said she’d trade for me to get some extra security. I know some folks who will do it.”
“But they won’t be enough, which is why you came to me.”
Roy shrugged. He knew he’d be a pain in the ass about this. The guy would bitch, moan, nag, and complain, and when it was all over he wouldn’t let Roy forget it until the next Chinese New Year.
But there was never any question about the mayor of New City helping out. That was the kind of man he was.
The Doctor sighed. “OK. Let me talk with Yu-jin and figure out what to do. You’ll get your extra security, but please, please, please get some trustworthy people of your own as well, and don’t come whining to me when someone shits on your bar again.”
Roy sighed. “I only hope that’s all that happens.”
The Doctor shook his head. “You and me both.”
He put a hand on Roy’s shoulder. Roy tensed.
“How you been? I hardly ever see you anymore.”
Roy pulled away. “Well, busy, you know. The Burbs have been pretty crazy and the bar always runs me ragged. Got to go. Bye.”
Roy hurried off. On his way out the gate, the young guard named Mike stopped him again.
Oh come on, Roy fumed silently. Have you forgotten already?
“Hey Roy,” Mike addressed him in a low voice. “Can you come up to the Operations Center for a minute? Clyde wants to talk to you.”
Roy turned to see if The Doctor was still around, but he had already disappeared inside the warehouse. When he turned back to Mike, he saw the guard giving him a flat smile and gesturing towards the stairs that led to the observation tower that housed Clyde’s operations center.
Feeling very much alone, Roy followed.
Mike led him up the stairs and onto the wall. Roy winced at the memory of defending this wall against the Righteous Horde a couple of months before. The fanatics had a terrible machine gun that had punched right through the armor plating. He’d seen friends and neighbors dropping off the catwalk like bowling pins, while he tossed Molotov cocktails at the charging cultists. He still had nightmares about it sometimes. A lot of people did.
Roy entered a tower built into the wall and greeted Clyde, who sat at a desk crowded with radios and maps. A telescope pointed out a slit in the metal wall.
“Hey Roy, take a load off. Thanks Mike, that will be all.”
Roy sat down. Clyde picked up a pitcher.
“Want some beer? It’s your own brew. I don’t drink anything else.”
“No thanks, it’s a bit early.”
“None for me either,” Clyde chuckled. “I’m on duty. Sometimes I feel I’m always on duty.”
“You work hard.”
A frustrated look came over Clyde’s face. “Yeah, I do, and no one appreciates it. Can you believe that show last night? How much have I done for this place? How many nights on the wall? How many firefights?”
“No one’s doubting your commitment, Clyde,” Roy said.
Clyde glanced in the direction of the warehouse. “He does. Doc thinks I want to take over. How can he think I’d stab him in the back after all we’ve been through together? I don’t want to be mayor. You understand that, right? I’m just looking out for New City.”
“Of course I understand that,” Roy said, putting on a smile.
They look down on us, ignore us, make fun of us, and they still want our approval.
Clyde put a hand on Roy’s shoulder and smiled.
“I knew you would, old friend. Could you talk to him? You know how he gets when someone goes against him. Hell, he doesn’t even talk to Ahmed anymore, one of his own nurses! I don’t want to get the cold shoulder treatment like that. Sure, I was against Ahmed for wanting to let everyone in during the attack, but he deserves to be treated better, and so do I. You can make Doc understand, can’t you?”
Roy looked at Clyde, feeling the first touch of sympathy in the whole conversation.
“Amazing how we all sort of orbit around him, isn’t it?” Roy said.
Clyde let out a short laugh and shook his head.
“Yeah, we do, don’t we? Been that way since the beginning. It’s been a long forty years, hasn’t it? And it never seems to get any easier. And now I have to go on patrol with that ch—, um, chick Doc’s shacking up with. You don’t think he’s straightened out in his old age, do you?”
Roy chuckled. “No, I don’t think so.”
Clyde smiled. “Yeah, I guess not. She’s a looker, though. Pity she’s, well … anyway, I needed to talk to you about something. I heard a weird rumor coming from the Burbs, something about a Chinese New Year?”
Roy shifted in his seat.
“Yeah, the Chinese community wants to celebrate their New Year at my bar. Free food! That should go over well.”
Clyde scowled. “Yeah, like a ten megaton strike.”
“Now Clyde—”
“Come on, Roy, we only found out they were here a few weeks ago, and now they want to have one of their rituals in the most popular hangout in the Burbs?”
“It’s not a ritual, it’s a party.”
“Whatever. Look, I’m not Blaming the good Chinese, the ones that have been here for a while. Not all of them could be bad. If they got Chinese blood, fine. They’re not responsible for what their great-grandparents did, but why do they have to shove our faces in it?”
Roy really, really wanted to punch him right now. He decided against it. Two pot-bellied old men getting into a fistfight just wasn’t a good look. He knew. He saw it in his bar on a regular basis.
Clyde went on.
“Do you think you could talk to these folks, maybe get them to change their mind? If they want to have a celebration in their own homes that’s their business as long as it doesn’t make too much noise. I just think things are too unsettled to have some Chinese ritual in public right now, especially at your place. Everyone goes there. It will make people feel uncomfortable.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want people to feel uncomfortable, now would we?”
Clyde slapped his knee and smiled. “Exactly. Glad you see my point.”
Roy stood up. “I best be getting back. I have to get everything ready before opening.”
“You sure do run a fine business. I have to say your talents are wasted on all those scavengers and market folk, but hey, you’re making those stacks, eh? Raking in the green. And
Roy, thank you for seeing eye to eye with me on this.”
Roy put on his best accommodating smile. “Not a problem at all, Clyde. Always a pleasure.”
Roy went down the stairs and out the gate fuming. He felt his heart do a little skip like it did anytime he got stressed. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
Remember what Doc told you during your last checkup. You got to cool it or you’re going to have a heart attack for sure.
Easier said than done.
As Roy walked across the dead space between New City and the Burbs, between the two worlds he had to live in, he allowed himself a bitter laugh.
“It’s not what that fool said that’s got me stressed,” he whispered. “It’s what he’s gonna say when I don’t do as he asked.”
CHAPTER SIX
“They’re idiots,” Randy said over breakfast the following morning. “You saved New City. You saved everyone. You deserve to be a citizen.”
Randy and Yu-jin sat in their house in the Burbs, a clapboard structure that Randy had built with his own hands. The construction was good but the materials were cheap. It wasn’t as drafty as some buildings in the neighborhood, though. Randy had the whole place stuffed with his art supplies, canvasses, pottery, and works in progress. As Randy always said, “clutter acts as insulation.”
“They really should have voted for you,” Randy repeated.
Yu-jin grunted and continued to eat her eggs. She was still angry at how things had turned out. Not surprised, just angry.
“Don’t worry,” Randy went on. “Your home is here. People are beginning to relax a bit now. That shipment of rice helped. It’s not like it was a few weeks ago. You can go anywhere you want now.”
“Yeah, maybe we can go back to church!” Yu-jin snapped.
She and Randy used to go to the New World United Church until she came out as Chinese. The Reverend Wallace had led a lynch mob against her.
Randy made a face and stirred around his scrambled eggs with his fork.
“I’m not saying there isn’t racism, Yu-jin. I’m just saying give it a little time. People will come around.”
Emergency Transmission Page 5