Emergency Transmission

by Sean McLachlan

  A cry from outside told him one of the tweakers was having a fit. It happened sometimes, and only David’s hands could heal them. He unzipped the tent flap and found it had stopped raining.

  “I’m needed. I’ll be back in a moment,” he said, as eager to be gone as he was to help.

  David stepped out into the muddy field, his boots splashing through the puddles and his hand pressing a cloth to his face. This stench was a sign. For all its sin and godlessness, New City and the Burbs could be the New Jerusalem. The speed with which people had flocked to hear God’s word proved that. He needed to give them one final gift—the concrete—both to save this place from material danger and spiritual damnation. Once he did that, God’s plan would be complete.

  But first he had to minister to the humblest of his followers.

  He came upon the tweakers sitting in the mud with the miasma of toxins rising about them. While they had once embraced such things, enjoying the rush to the brain and the obliteration of thought that some of the chemicals offered, now they had put those things aside.

  And here it was coming down from the skies. The tweakers looked miserable. The one who had shouted lay curled up, wailing and banging his head with his grimy fist.

  “Chemkalsbaaaad! Chemkalsbaaaad!” he moaned as David knelt next to him.

  “Yes, they are bad,” he said, and put a hand on his shoulder. The tweaker trembled and hit his head again. Gently he pulled the tweaker’s hand away. “Don’t do that. It’s not your fault. You’ve put all that in the past.”

  “Paaast.” The tweaker rolled his eyes.

  “It’s all right.” David patted his shoulder. The other tweakers gathered around, muttering reassurances. One patted the writhing tweaker on his back. David smiled. Even among these lost people he had found brotherhood.

  After a time, the tweaker calmed down. He gave David a cracked-toothed grin.

  “Everything’s all right, brother,” David said. “I have to go now. There’s someone in my tent who needs my help.”

  David stood and turned, just in time to see Aaron stealing away through the tents and shacks.

  David sighed. He returned to his tent and prayed for his old friend’s soul.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that he noticed his camera was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  When Roy tried to get out of bed in the morning, he had to grip the edge of the mattress to keep from falling. His head spun and his heart fluttered in his chest. He sat still for a moment, taking regular, deep breaths like Doc had told him. After a minute the fluttering stopped, the edge of his vision cleared, and his head felt normal.

  “Damn,” he muttered. “Happening too often these days.”

  It was all the stress, of course. Doc had warned him more times than he could count not to get stressed out, to take it easy, and drink less, but how the hell was he supposed to do that? He had a bar to run and shit kept happening.

  And now he was coming up for some more stress.

  He ate a quick breakfast, checked on the morning staff, and went to meet Pablo at the gate to New City.

  The kid was waiting for him, a large box wrapped in a sack tucked under his arm.

  “Hey, Pablo. How’s your mom doing?” Roy asked, tousling his hair.

  “Busy,” Pablo said with a shrug. “She’s always busy.”

  “She works hard to give you a nice place to live.”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, looking down at the ground.

  Roy put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Ready?”

  Pablo looked uncertainly at the gate. “Sure.”

  They approached the gate.

  Roy fixed that young guard with a level stare, waiting for the punk to challenge him again. Instead the guy just nodded and gave him an awkward smile.

  Once through, no one stopped them as they passed along one of the tidy lanes of New City, into the warehouse, and up to where The Doctor cloistered himself in his windowless rooms.

  They found him mixing medicines in the lab. Pablo paused at the door. Roy gave him a nudge. They walked in.

  The Doctor kept working on his mixture. This was one of the things he did. If he was in the middle of something, everyone just had to wait their sweet time for him to be done with it. The man thought he was the center of the universe.

  Roy was used to it, and Pablo was too scared to talk, so they waited in silence for another couple of minutes as The Doctor ground up various herbs and roots with a mortar and pestle. He put the resulting powder into a paper envelope, cleaned his work area, and at last leaned back and fixed them with a bloodshot gaze.

  “Pablo’s got something to say,” Roy told him, keeping a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  The Doctor forced a smile, looking at the box Pablo held. “What is it, Pablo?”

  “I want to trade for the radio,” Pablo mumbled.

  “Well, that’s good news. I’m glad you came to your senses. What would you like for it?”

  “A couple of things.”

  “No problem! Go on.”

  “First, I want to be Radio Officer. I know how to use the radio and I want to be the one to talk to the ship.”

  “Well, now Pablo I already told you that you could speak any time—”

  “No, I want this to be my job. It won’t be so much anyway. I can still study with Philip.”

  The Doctor thought for a moment. “Well, I already have kids monitoring Radio Hope, so this isn’t such a leap. Philip tells me you’re responsible, so all right.”

  “But only I get to know the frequency.”

  “We’ll need to know that too,” The Doctor said with an edge in his voice.

  Pablo gave him a defiant glance before looking back at the floor.

  “If I give it to you, you’ll have what you want. You’ll just tell me to get lost.”

  The Doctor made that little hissing sound that showed he was running out of patience. Roy had heard that sound an awful lot in the past forty years.

  “I promise not to do that.”

  Roy bent over and talked to the boy. “You can trust him, Pablo. Besides, what if you got hurt or sick? Then nobody could contact the ship. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  “No,” Pablo moped.

  The Doctor stood and walked around the table. Roy could feel Pablo’s shoulders tense. The Doctor extended his hand. “So we got a deal?”

  “That’s not all.” Pablo’s voice came out firmer than Roy expected.

  The Doctor rubbed his temples. “Of course it isn’t. What else?”

  Pablo paused.

  “Kid, I’m busy.”

  You have such a way with people, Doc.

  Pablo took a deep breath and forced himself to look at the mayor.

  “I want you to make my mom a citizen. If you tell the Citizens Council, they’ll go along with you.”

  The Doctor went pale. He couldn’t stand Annette, who stood up to him more than anyone, and to have her as a citizen would only make it worse.

  After a moment the mayor controlled himself. With what Roy knew was a supreme effort of will, he made himself look reasonable and accommodating. Or at least tried to.

  “Are you worried about another attack? You can always come behind the walls. We changed that rule, remember?”

  “It’s not that. She wants a nice house with lights and stuff, just like Uncle Marcus and Aunt Rosie. And she wants me to sleep behind the walls where we don’t have to worry about riots or people breaking in or weirdos grabbing me.”

  The Doctor inclined his head. Roy’s hopes rose. Presenting him with a logical argument usually worked eventually, and Roy had primed the kid for this. Roy had gotten good at turning his old friend around to his way of thinking, and if the kid just said what Roy had told him to, it would all work out in the end.

  But then Pablo went off script.

  “And I want something more, something I can only get if I’m a citizen.”

  That earned a raised eyebr
ow from the most powerful man in New City.

  “And what’s that?”

  “I want to grow up to be mayor.”

  The Doctor snorted. “You don’t want my job, kid. Trust me.”

  “Yeah, I do. Because I can do it better than you.”

  Roy smacked his forehead. “Aw, jeez!”

  There was a long pause. To Roy’s surprise, neither he nor The Doctor had a heart attack.

  He had another surprise coming.

  The Doctor knelt down so he could look Pablo directly in the eye. The kid took a step back, breaking out of Roy’s grasp. He looked like he would take another, and then stopped. His eyes flocked in every direction except The Doctor’s.

  After a minute, though, they met the mayor’s, and stayed there.

  “And why do you think you can do all this better than me?” The Doctor asked.

  Pablo bit his lip, summoned his courage, and replied.

  “Because people aren’t scared of me. If people are scared they only pretend to agree. And I’m out seeing people all day. You can’t be a good mayor hiding inside all the time.”

  Roy felt his chest clench, convulse, and struggle to take another beat. Lightheaded, he watched for The Doctor’s reaction. Roy had seen him swear, throw tantrums, threaten, and sulk, but he had never seen him hit anyone outside of an actual fight.

  He was pretty sure this moment would be the first.

  And then he’d have to intervene and protect Pablo.

  But this turned out to be one of the rare times Roy was wrong about human nature. The Doctor didn’t scream or rage or sulk. He didn’t say anything at all. Instead he slowly stood and turned away, shoulders hunched. He did not turn back as he cleared his throat and said in a soft voice.

  “Tell your mom you have a deal.”

  Pablo looked about to say something but Roy tugged on his elbow. Pablo set the radio on the worktable and Roy led him out and closed the door behind them. As they got halfway down the hall they heard the bolt snap shut.

  “Did I hurt his feelings? I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK, Pablo. You only said what he needed to hear.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Reginald was a mess when Yu-jin saw him the next morning. His eyes were bloodshot and hooded from marijuana, and his breath stank of alcohol. One of his guards had told her he had been shut up all night and hadn’t answered the door. He hadn’t answered to her knock either, and only opened up when she called out and told him who it was.

  She didn’t say anything. Trying to make him see sense when he was in one of these moods was pointless.

  She noticed the marine radio sitting on a table.

  “Pablo finally traded it to you. Well, that’s something!” she said in a chipper voice.

  All she got in response was a grunt. He sat on his sofa, where he had probably been sitting all night. She went over and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “What do we have to do today?” she asked.

  “Same old shit.”

  “Same old important shit,” she corrected.

  Reginald made a helpless gesture with his hand. “Not that anyone appreciates it. I’ve busted my ass for forty years and not a God-damned one of them appreciates it.”

  “That’s not true. People look up to you. And they like you too. Marcus and Rosie are always inviting you over for dinner, and people loved it when you came out to eat in the Burbs. You should do that more often.”

  “Yeah,” he said, sarcasm lacing his voice. “I should get out and meet the people more.”

  Yu-jin frowned at him. How could he be so high functioning and such a baby at the same time?

  “Let’s get to work,” she said. “What’s the first thing on the agenda?”

  “It’s almost time for trading. But sit down first. I want to talk to you about that new preacher.”

  She sat. “David is amazing. He’s really bringing people together. He’s due to speak at the New World United Church next Sunday.”

  “Really? That might be helpful. I’ll have Clyde send some security.”

  “It won’t be needed.”

  “It’s always needed. There are still plenty of people who hate you, and they’re not done showing it.”

  “I know,” Yu-jin sighed. “Reverend Wallace and David are saying all the right things, but the hardcore of the anti-Chinese camp aren’t convinced. It’s helping, though. The people in the middle, the ones who can be pushed one way or the other, are getting convinced.”

  “Don’t trust them to stay convinced. I’ve seen this before. Way too many times. Do you trust him?”

  “Reverend Wallace? He’s seen how he was wrong. He got shot telling people he was wrong.”

  “I meant David Whatshisname. Still haven’t found out anything about that guy except for his bullshit story.”

  Yu-jin smiled and shook her head. “Why do you always have to be so suspicious? I’m sure he’s done some bad stuff in his past. Who hasn’t? What matters is what he is now. He’s just what this settlement needs.”

  “More religion?” he grunted. “That’s what got us into this mess.”

  “Isn’t that Blame?” Yu-jin asked, not trying to hide her irritation.

  “No, because I’m not faulting a certain group of people, I’m faulting a certain way of thinking. That damned magical thinking that people use to justify anything they want to do. You know back before the City State Wars there were religious groups who claimed the environment wasn’t getting destroyed? Said the scientists were conspiring to lie about it.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “The religious nuts didn’t have an explanation for that. Science was scary, something people didn’t understand, and it’s always easy to make people fear what they don’t understand.”

  “Maybe you don’t understand faith.”

  “I understand that people with faith have wanted to kill people like me for most of recorded history. Oh, and the example I just gave you? It’s not even the dumbest thing to come out of religion in the Old Times. Some religious groups accepted that the environment was falling apart but didn’t care. Said the world was going to end soon anyway so what did it matter? They were going to have a nice little apocalypse and all those problems were going to be solved.”

  Yu-jin let out a sad chuckle. “They only got a partial apocalypse.”

  “They got several. The World Wars Three and Four, the Biowars, the City State Wars, the Righteous Horde … it’s like these people keep trying to destroy the world but they can’t quite manage it.”

  “Real religion isn’t like that. Religious people help others.”

  “I’m an atheist and I’ve been helping others all my life.”

  Yu-jin put an arm around him. “Can you help us convince the anti-Chinese people not to hate us?”

  “Probably not. I can scare them into submission. That’s about as good as I can do. There’s always going to be racists.”

  “You’re not racist,” Yu-jin said, and actually meant it. She didn’t know many people who truly qualified for that compliment, no matter what their color.

  “Racism’s just another cheap way to feel good about yourself without actually achieving anything. All races are inferior. Mankind is consistently disappointing.”

  I really need to smack you some day, Yu-jin thought. Might do you some good.

  It sure would do me some good.

  Reginald went on. “Let’s go do that trading. We’re short of everything, as usual. Hopefully some scavenger will come in and solve all our problems.”

  Reginald stood, wavered, and fell back hard on the couch.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just a bit dizzy.” His words came out slurred.

  “Did you sleep last night?”

  “Don’t badger me.”

  “Sit here. I’m going to get you something to eat.”

  Yu-jin rummaged around his kitchen, bringing back some nuts, one of the nutrition bars he made, some dried apples, an
d a large glass of water. She put them down in front of him.

  “Eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I won’t let you work until you eat.”

  “You’re not in charge.”

  “I am until you eat.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he grumbled as he started to eat.

  He stopped several times, saying he was done, and Yu-jin kept having to prod him to finish.

  Is this what having a kid is like? She thought. Maybe I should be careful what I wish for.

  After he was done he struggled out of the sofa.

  “May I run the last outpost of civilization now, mother?”

  “Now that you can stand on your own, yes. But it’s not the last outpost.”

  “Good point. I’ve been saying it so long it’s become a habit.”

  They went downstairs, Yu-jin hovering close beside him in case he had another attack of dizziness, and went outside. It stank from yesterday’s rain.

  “How the hell are we going to fix that derrick?” Reginald muttered.

  He slumped down at the trading table. Clyde was already there, waiting to talk about the situation with Weissberg. Everything had gone well, all the prisoners and loot returned, but of course Clyde was still paranoid about an attack. Reginald fobbed him off with a grunt.

  “Anyone here to trade this morning?” he asked the nearest guard.

  “Just one,” the guard said, looking unsettled. “A scavenger, and the guys at the gate say he’s a suspicious type.”

  “Aren’t they all,” Reginald grumbled.

  Yu-jin wanted to mention that until a few months ago she had been a scavenger, but decided now wasn’t the time.

  “Shall I send him away?” the guard asked.

  “Nah, business has to go on. Send him in.”

  When the man first came through the gate, for a moment Yu-jin thought it was David. The man was black, and tough looking, and wore full camo like when Yu-jin had first seen the preacher in that half-sunken fishing boat.

  But then she saw all the differences.

  He had close-cropped hair instead of David’s shaved head, and instead of the preacher’s calm demeanor his face was stamped with anger, worry, and … something else.