Scarcity

by Robert Calbeck

  The news had quickly picked up the story and blamed Luthor for the rampant destruction across the city. At least Jaili Fendra had made it look sexy when she described how Luthor had allegedly bombed the carbon police in protest of the twenty-year-old ban on coal. The story had centered on Luthor’s supposed involvement in 2180. When homeland security had come to arrest him, he’d blown up their helicopter too. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t a molecule of proof to substantiate their tale. The result was they couldn’t set foot in any police station with any hope of getting justice.

  Now they didn’t have a pot to piss in—literally and figuratively. But they did have Vika, and hell, maybe that would smogging be enough.

  “Why don’t we see if we can go find Luthor before they do?” Tanya asked pleasantly.

  #

  "And you’re sure that this guy Pain was with the Sabers?” Michael asked after hearing Luthor’s story.

  Luthor had been limping along the street aimlessly when they found him, trying to seem like just another refugee from the suburbs.

  “I’m sure,” Luthor said, “he had their emblem hand stitched into his boot. Let’s just say I got a pretty good look at it.”

  “How’d they get that many Sabers here? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Pain said that they were American troops, like they were already here.” It was then that Luthor recalled his mental note. “Vika, do you know what he was talking about? You seem to know everything,” Luthor paused then added, “oh, and thank you for saving our lives back there. That was smogging awesome!”

  Vika pursed her lips. “You are welcome. But that is troubling news. I thought I would know about an American division of the Sabers.”

  “How would you have known?” Luthor asked. “They’re secretive as hell.”

  “Because I used to be one,” she said.

  Luthor blinked. “Wait. What?"

  Michael seemed to completely lose control of his higher motor functions. “You were a Saber?”

  It was as if Michael’s hot air blew away the vaporous mystery that had enveloped Vika. It all fit. Of course she would know the things she knew and do the things she did. She probably hadn’t ever been a secretary. She was a member of the most elite force in the world. Or at least had once been. Luthor nodded to her in understanding.

  “More specifically,” she added, “I was a Black Saber.”

  “Holy smogging shit!” Michael raked his hands through his stubbly hair. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “After the Sabers killed Eli and tried to kill you, I didn’t think it was the best time to mention it.”

  She was right. Luthor wouldn’t have gone one step with her if he’d known she was a Saber. If she hadn’t just saved all their lives by killing Sabers, he probably wouldn’t trust her even now.

  “So that’s why you are… the way you are.” Michael said.

  Tanya slapped him on the shoulder. It didn’t seem to faze him.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “What…err… did you do with them?”

  “I was a sniper.”

  “Oh! You really don’t miss.”

  “No, I don’t. I had a perfect record in covert ops for two straight years.”

  While the enigma of Vika and her peculiar proclivities for combat now made sense, much about her story still didn’t. “Then why leave all of that to work for Eli?” Luthor asked.

  Vika frowned, “I do not like to talk about it.”

  Tanya gave her a sympathetic look. Luthor had withheld his own war-torn past from Tanya for long enough that she knew when it was a good time not to press the issue. “How did you know Eli?” she asked.

  “I grew up in the same apartment he lived in. I watched his kids for him. He is like the father I never had.”

  “Now he’s dead too,” Luthor said, “that’s why you are helping us.”

  “Yes. And I believe in your cause. The world needs your research, Tenrel. Badly. And… I have no problem fighting against the Sabers’ aims.”

  “What can you tell us about them?” Luthor prodded. Maybe she could give them a better idea as to what they were up against.

  “They are a covert branch of the European Special forces. I was recruited at fifteen to undergo training and in all the years since then I have never heard of an American branch of the Sabers.”

  “What was the training like?” Tanya asked.

  “Unpleasant... I was one of only three females in history to graduate."

  “Wow,” Michael said, “and you were still good enough to make it into the Black Sabers. You’re badass, Vika.”

  Vika still didn’t seem to know what to do with that phrase, so Luthor asked another question. “So, you never went on missions to the States?”

  “No. We did travel internationally, but rarely to the western hemisphere.”

  “What were your objectives?”

  “The same thing we did in Antarctica. The same thing every military does. We bombed energy sources, we secured energy sources. What else is there to do?”

  “Stealing research from scientists and killing civilians apparently,” Luthor said bitterly. “Oh, and robbing the world of free energy and descending it into war all for the sake of a profit also seems to be on that list too.”

  “Tenrel, I do not know why we were sent on our missions. They did not tell us. We just did our jobs. Who knows who is giving the orders to the Sabers we have faced, or why they want your research?”

  “Who gave your orders?”

  “A Colonel named Franco Dimarin. He directed them to Captain Jacques, my direct superior. We planned how to execute the ops as a team, but Jacques never told us why. We didn’t ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “Soldiers do not ask why, Tenrel.”

  “Garcia did.” Luthor didn’t say any more. The conversation where Garcia had confronted General Stutzman with that question was one of his worst memories. Anti-Luthor rattled his mental cage. Luthor held the door shut.

  Once the shock of Vika being a member of the Sabers had begun to wear off, Luthor felt hopelessness creep back into the periphery of his mind. He sagged against a grimy wall in a suburban-infested alley. “I don’t see how we are getting past this.” The traffic rumbled as if emphasizing his words. “The laptop is a complete loss. Now we’re fugitives on this continent too, and we might as well be Markless because none of us can so much as walk into a store without the whole damn Carbon Coalition coming down on us.”

  “What about Garcia?” asked Tanya. “I thought he was on our side.”

  “I’m sure he still is, but at this point I doubt it’s safe to contact him. He could end up as collateral damage.”

  “I think it would be foolish to trust him,” Vika said. “Perhaps he’s the one who told them exactly where you would be?”

  “I trust him with my life!” Luthor yelled.

  “And yet he didn’t personally escort you? And you were kidnapped minutes after leaving his company. That is dangerously suspicious.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Luthor felt the fury begin to boil up in him. He strained to keep Anti-Luthor contained, but it was hard. He had shared more with Garcia than they would ever understand. He would not stand for an insult to his honor.

  “Bullshit or not. It is not safe.”

  Michael interrupted, “you guys are forgetting one important thing.”

  “What?”

  “Pain—or whatever his name is—is still alive. Do you think he would hesitate, even for a moment, to blow up the whole police station to get to us if we went there?”

  “How would he know?” Luthor asked.

  “Think about it; he knew just which carp car to blow up, to trap us. Maybe Vika’s right and it was Garcia, maybe not. But it sure looks like someone tipped him off.”

  “Garcia wasn’t helping them!” Luthor shouted.

  Michael shook his head. “Even if we could trust Garcia, we wouldn’t be able to use a trial to release the 126 method anymore. Beca
use we don’t have it! That laptop is toast. Without any research we are up shit’s creek without a paddle.”

  “What about Qwiz?” asked Tanya. “What if he was able to save everything from your apartment?”

  “All we know is he’s alive,” said Luthor, “but I don’t know if he was able to save anything.”

  “Then that is our objective,” Vika said, “contact this Qwiz.”

  “How are we going to get our hands on a phone?”

  Vika raised her eyebrow and smiled. She looked like a viper ready to strike. “I can take care of that.” Michael watched her muscular body for a little too long as she left.

  Luthor was no weather-man, but rain seemed to be inevitable so the three of them began to look for shelter. Luthor didn’t want to be both cold and hungry. Fortunately, his angry joints were beginning to feel better; walking had loosened them up.

  “Look at all this trash, Luthor. Entropy at work.” Michael folded his arms and smiled, as if impressed with his handiwork. “It’s a perfect illustration of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.”

  Luthor hadn’t been contemplating thermodynamics. He had been thinking about the sheer volume of trash piled up against every wall, and the vast number of vagrants clustering in every nook and cranny around them. But Michael’s sentiment certainly made sense. The second law of thermodynamics stated that the entropy of a system tended to increase. He had explained it to Tanya by saying that the disorder of a system tended to increase over time.

  It was a simple enough concept, but had far-reaching consequences. If someone discharged a bunch of helium in one corner of a room where Luthor stood, his voice would resemble a chipmunk’s. But over time the entropy would increase, and the helium gas would distribute itself evenly throughout the room making the helium undetectable. It wouldn't clump up in the opposite corner, or spontaneously inflate a balloon. Maintaining order required energy, something this city was ravenously short of.

  When left alone everything degenerated to a less orderly state, even the universe. Most experts in theoretical physics expected the universe would – trillions of years into the future—eventually die a heat death, as the aggregate entropy increased to such a degree that suns and galaxies no longer shone. When no external energy was applied to maintain the system, entropy—thus the second law of thermodynamics—reigned supreme. The city, unable to afford to power mechanized garbage trucks, was a victim and unwilling example of this universal law.

  Any useful garbage was scavenged immediately leaving constantly growing piles of entropy in the form of dirt, refuse, plastic, and paper. In more civilized quarters of the city, people applied the external energy to keep things orderly by hauling their trash to local transfer stations where it would be converted to Biofuel or paying Markless with slices of bread to do it for them. Trash duty was the only dependable source of food for the poor bastards who didn’t have CPI chips. It was the government’s token attempt to keep people alive that weren’t legally allowed to buy food or have a job.

  “It’s still hard to believe that they used to have giant, carbon-spewing trucks whose sole purpose was to pick up trash. Such a waste.”

  “They didn’t have four million people on the street to pick it up for them,” Luthor said.

  Chapter 16:

  New York City, United States of the West

  Tanya shivered in the rain. Their meager cover helped some, so long as the wind didn’t blow at all. Naturally, it hadn’t stopped blowing all evening.

  She stared across the street at what had once been a public park. Now it had a four-meter fence with barbed wire at the top and armed guards patrolling its periphery. They guarded the posh garden plots owned by the ultra-wealthy. Even in the dark, Tanya could see succulent tomatoes and laden fruit trees just waiting to be plucked. Her stomach grumbled.

  Luthor would probably say that being homeless was “suboptimal,” but she just thought it outright sucked. Now that Michael had finally quit complaining, all she had to deal with was the dark, the cold, the wet, the hunger, and the very noticeable lack of a bed. She had dealt with some severe hunger during the war, same as everyone else, but she had grown soft in recent years as the world struggled to return to normalcy. It had only been a day since she’d eaten and there was a terrible crick in her neck from sleeping in the dirt. She didn’t even want to think about what was happening to her hair and her complexion. Vika doesn’t seem to be having any smogging problems. But Vika hadn’t yet returned to show off her perfect skin. Tanya hadn’t extracted a promise from her not to kill anyone to procure a phone. Hopefully, their quest to contact Qwiz wouldn’t leave any bodies.

  The worst part was when she had to pee. She couldn’t go into any store to use the restroom because she would be scanned and they would be discovered; even if she could get in, no store manager in their right mind would let someone as dirty and disgusting as her use the facilities. She had never before wished she were a man. Until now. They could just whip it out and pee any old place. She had to find a secluded corner and squat. But the homeless and Markless were everywhere, it was almost impossible to go without someone watching, or worse, commenting. Her bladder became bashful with an audience. The boys never could understand that it is really quite difficult to pee with someone watching. They could carry on a conversation midstream—so to speak.

  She was not about to pee in front of Michael, so she walked out into the rain. She was already soaked, who cared if she got a little wetter? A row of bushes marched behind a bench in front of the barbed wire fence. She crouched down between them to relieve herself.

  Undoubtedly, she was being watched by not only her cohorts, but an indeterminate number of fellow homeless. But she couldn’t see them and that made all the difference. As she finished, she saw Vika return to their nonexistent cover and begin talking with the boys.

  Through the haze in the distance a solitary black figure with an umbrella walked in her direction. She had no interest in being caught with her pants down, figuratively or otherwise. Wishing for toilet paper, or even a half-clean cloth, she zipped her pants. She breathed faster. She could think of better things than being raped in the rain.

  She approached the others and Michael smiled broadly. “She did it! We got a phone! She even got the code to unlock it!”

  “Wonderful,” Tanya said, “but I think we have company.” She pointed to the person still approaching. The shuffling step of the silhouette had the look of an older man. Vika had raised her rifle, laser sight unabashedly targeting the stranger. The man stepped under their meager cover and Tanya got her first look at him. He wore a tattered black suit that had been repeatedly patched. It had a familiar look to it Tanya couldn’t place. He had wispy white hair without a bald spot that connected to a full, but groomed beard. His straight back implied he didn’t need the gnarled wooden cane he carried. He smiled and politely shook out his umbrella as if he were entering their home.

  “Close enough,” Vika said. “What do you want?”

  The man didn’t seem to be disturbed at her threatening posture and continued forward. Smile still on his face, he spread his hands wide in greeting.

  “Peace friends. I mean you no harm.”

  “Not a step closer until you tell us who you are,” Vika gestured at Luthor, “search him for weapons.”

  “Luthor always gets to do the cool stuff,” Michael said.

  “Don’t be pathetic,” she replied, “we both know you are too incompetent to do it properly.”

  Luthor frisked the old man thoroughly, rubbing his hands down the inside of his coat and down each pant leg. Both acted like being frisked was normal, natural, and expected. In fact, nothing seemed to bother the guy at all, not the gun, the frisking, not even Vika’s tone.

  “He’s clean,” said Luthor.

  Vika lowered her gun. “Speak.”

  The man bowed politely. “Thank you. I apologize for my intrusion, but I couldn’t help but notice that you look a little out of place around here. I, for one, do
n’t recognize you, and nobody who has any experience on the streets would try to weather a storm under this quality of shelter.” As he spoke, a big raindrop fell from one of the apartment balconies, splashed on his head, and dribbled down the front of his nose. He wiped it away casually. “Is this by chance, your first time being homeless here?”

  Are we that obvious? I suppose taking a pee out in the rain doesn’t help our cause any.

  “Yes, this is our first time, well mine, anyway,” Tanya said.

  Michael said nothing. Tanya didn’t know much about his past, but he hadn’t fared as well as she had during the Culling, that much was obvious.

  “I assumed as much,” the old man offered an empathetic smile, “allow me to introduce myself. My name is Rocky Farrano. But most everyone just calls me Father Roc.”

  “Father?” Michael said, “you’re a priest?”

  That was why the suit looked familiar, it had probably been the same suit he wore when he was a cleric. The collar had become too tattered to be recognizable.

  “I used to be. I formally forsook that title when the Catholic Church officially condoned being implanted with CPI chips. But I didn’t come here to tell you my life story. If you are interested, I can share more later. My true purpose is to offer you real shelter from the rain as well as a morsel of food.”

  Tanya frowned. Food was too scarce a commodity to offer, unless of course one’s motives weren’t entirely pure. Otherwise, the wealthy wouldn’t hire men with assault rifles to patrol their gardens. But the man’s kindly smile and twinkling eyes made it hard to believe that he would try to rob or rape them.

  “How can we trust that you don’t have people waiting to jump us and take our possessions?” Luthor asked.

  “Why haven’t you jumped me and taken my possessions, friend?” the priest asked.