Scarcity

by Robert Calbeck

“You’re right, it is pointless,” Luthor said, “all of this, pointless! I thought that whoever had been chasing us would at least want to use our research. They might use it selfishly, but at least if we failed it would still get out there. But Dimarin wants to destroy it. He’s going to kill us all and burn every hard-drive to ashes.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Tenrel,” Vika snapped. “It’s time to fight back, not roll over and die.”

  “What can we do? You of all people should know how hopeless this is. You were a Saber for carbon’s sake! He isn’t just going to let us escape. As soon as he finds this apartment he’ll just bomb the entire block just to make sure we’re dead.”

  “But Luthor—” Qwiz said.

  Luthor shouted, bowling right over the diminutive Asian. “Probably blame that on my ass post mortem as well. I can just see the headlines. ‘Luthor Tenrel, the mother fucking terrorist, accidentally blows himself up!’”

  “Luthor!”

  “Goodbye peace, goodbye hope, goodbye every smogging good thing left in this world because it is all over now. Game over.”

  “We still have the research,” Qwiz squeezed in.

  “So what? We’ll be alive for another day before they find us and kill everyone we’ve ever known. Maybe you want to jump another train? They’ll never expect that!”

  Tanya had never seen him so furious. His face was beet-red and he was yelling at the top of his lungs. It frightened her.

  Bill stepped uncomfortably close to Luthor. “William’s been shot, Vika’s busted up too, and the goddamn Sabers are hunting us along with every carp from here to China. I don’t see how this situation can get much worse. The last thing we need is for you to go trying to make it worse!”

  “You don’t know the first thing about worse,” Luthor said, his voice suddenly cold and quiet.

  “I did not have to help you!” he yelled through gritted teeth.

  “I thought you were a marine. All you are is a pathetic old has-been.”

  Bill turned away, visibly shaking with anger.

  “Coward.”

  Tanya couldn’t help it. She reached back and slapped Luthor harder than she had ever slapped anyone, hoping it would slap some control back into him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Luthor gripped her wrist so hard that her hand started turning white. It hurt. She strained against him, but he didn’t budge. “What’s wrong with me? You really want to know what’s wrong with me?” Luthor shoved her arm away. “Antarctica! That’s what’s wrong with me! I fought and killed in that frozen cemetery for a country who valued a few liters of crude more than my life. What did any of you do? Were you forced to kill other men and watch them freeze to death before they bled out?”

  Vika glared at him. “That doesn’t give you the right to—”

  “I don’t have the right?” Luthor yelled as if he were trying to tear a hole in his larynx. “What gives you—any of you—the right to tell me anything? Have you had a general tell you to your face that he was going to let your whole unit die because diesel was too expensive? NO!”

  “Luthor, please stop…” Tanya pleaded, tears running down her cheeks.

  “I can’t stop now. You always wanted to know what’s wrong with me,” Luthor’s eyes bulged with a manic intensity. Tanya stepped back unconsciously.

  Tanya thought she knew him. They had dated for years. He was an adorable, focused scientist with a past that scarred him too deeply to mention. Even when she’d seen the full scope of his ability to kill, he hadn’t lost the core of the man she loved. But this tirading, frightening lunatic before her couldn’t have been more foreign. It was as if the war itself had indwelt him and was intent on spewing its horrors through Luthor’s mouth. Whatever monster he had locked up inside so carefully had finally gotten out.

  “Every night when I go to sleep, every time I shut my eyes, I see that bastard general condemning us to a slow death by Antarctican winter. You want to know why? He said we weren’t worth it. The diesel to rescue us was more valuable than all our injured and freezing men put together.

  “This is how your life could get worse. Imagine if you were starving in the middle of the smogging South Pole. Then you had to watch your best friend die only to realize the only way to survive is to eat him. That’s right. Me, and the fifty-three other survivors of Titan, turned into cannibals. I still see those picked-over skeletons. I see the meat from Chaz’s body.” Luthor shut his eyes slowly and deliberately as if to make a point. “Every time I shut my eyes.”

  No one tried interrupting him now.

  “Your son is going to lose his leg? Imagine having to chop it off and then eat it! Garcia gave his broken leg to us to eat before it got infected. Why don’t you just go chomp on William’s calf there, Stone? That might make this all worse!

  “Vika, you feel bad because you were working for the bad guys? Imagine finding out that your whole goddamn country is the bad guys!

  “So don’t tell me about worse. Don’t tell me it’s going to be alright after my only chance to prevent that from ever happening again is ripped from my hands by some polluted piece of greedy shit who wants to keep his power. We’re going to be dead tomorrow, and all of my suffering—all of their suffering— will have been for nothing.”

  Luthor turned and left the room, shoulders slumped. He looked deflated, like whatever fire had been driving him all the years since the war had just been snuffed out. He was deeply broken, but for the first time, he made sense.

  Chapter 24:

  Eleven Years Ago: Titan Dome Antarctica.

  It had been a month. A Month of freezing cold; the command cube providing just enough warmth to keep them alive. He’d lost three toes to frostbite already. The medic had amputated and cauterized them. The worst part was those toes had been added to their daily rations. Men had eaten the meager meat on those toes to help stave off starvation another day.

  The interminable cold, the omnipresent wind, the isolation without hope of rescue, all of it would have been bearable if not for the insatiable, ravenous hunger that plagued Luthor every second of every day. He could think of nothing else. If only he could fill his belly, then it would all be okay—if only for a minute. It hadn’t taken long for them to resort to cannibalism. They hadn’t been able to parachute in with much, and the reinforcements that had been captured in the battle of Titan had held the rest of their supplies. They had arrived at Foxtrot with nothing more than a few frost-protected protein bars. Those hadn’t lasted long. An amputated limb meant a handful of men could live for another week.

  Garcia had been so courageous. He’d voluntarily given his injured leg to the men. He worried it would get infected and they’d have to amputate anyway. They knocked him out with the last of the morphine and removed it. Luthor had eaten it. What else was there to say? It was awful, unforgivable, but Luthor had survived. What Luthor really wished is that both of Garcia’s legs had been injured. Then he’d have more food. A good calf muscle was hard to beat. Cooked to medium over the command cube’s coils… Maybe he could just cut Garcia’s leg off and—

  NO! Luthor shook himself back to humanity. He’d been consumed more and more by dark thoughts driven by hunger—manic, insatiable hunger. He tried to push them away, but it was just so hard to do when there was nothing to do all day but sit together and huddle for warmth with other emaciated men equally oppressed by their starving bellies. That and wait for the last team they’d sent out on recon to return.

  He hadn’t asked about where his food came from; he hadn’t wanted to know. He only asked once.

  One time.

  Chaz.

  Chaz had died. No amount of CPR could cajole his heart into rhythm, and no number of volts from the AED could resuscitate the lifeless muscle. Luthor had wished the damn electrodes worked like the paddles did in the hospital TV shows and brought him back to life. But they didn’t. That was fiction. Electricity wasn’t magic. If a heart had no rhythm, shocking it was useless.

  A piece of Chaz sta
yed with Luthor even after he died. There it was in his pocket. Luthor had been given half his tibia to gnaw on. He’d saved it. He hadn’t eaten it. How could he eat his best friend? He’d known Chaz since they were 18 and met at Western.

  Luthor shivered. Of all the horrors he expected to encounter in war—killing, death, gore, imprisonment, torture—he’d never imagined he would be so desperate that he would be forced to turn to cannibalism. But here he was, starving and freezing to death, a cooked piece of his friend in his pocket. He knew when he got desperate enough, he would give in and eat it. It had just been so long since he’d eaten. He didn’t know how long he could resist.

  Chaz’s cleaned skeleton stared out of the corner of the shelter with the rest of the picked-over bones. His vacant orbital sockets seemed to call out to Luthor. Why? Why would you do this to me? I was your friend. How could you eat me?

  When you were freezing and starving in the basement of the world—that’s how.

  Luthor pulled out the bone with the dried meat and looked at it again. He needed it… He hadn’t had so much as a nibble in a week. He would die without it… Chaz wouldn’t mind…

  Luthor’s brain finally disengaged completely and he grabbed the bone out of his pocket and started gnawing on Chaz’s calf. He didn’t even think about it. He was consumed by his hunger. He needed food. There it had been in his pocket for weeks, taunting him. He ripped the flesh with his teeth as fast as he could. He didn’t consider the consequences. When you were starving, sometimes the forbidden could be ignored.

  Luthor barely noticed the frenzy of activity as starving men began running around. What was going on?

  Luthor turned to ask Garcia.

  “They… they’ve returned…” Garcia said. He was sick. Luthor had trouble understanding him. His severely sunken cheeks seemed to impede his speech.

  “What?”

  Garcia just pointed at the door to the ice shelter, he didn’t have the energy to vocalize again.

  Luthor stood up with a groan. He dropped Chaz’s tibia in horror as he realized what he’d just done.

  How could you Luthor? Chaz’s skeleton said again. We were brothers. This is how you treat me?

  He went to the door of the ice shelter, trying not to look at those haunted eye sockets.

  “We did it!” men we shouting.

  “We can escape!” men crowded around and their voices mixed together unintelligibly.

  “Finally!”

  Luthor looked out into the windswept Antarctican desert and saw that the recon team had captured a massive Chinese troop transport. Equipped with tank treads and a hybrid gas-electric battery, it looked as if it could carry two dozen men.

  “We’ll hook up the command cube!”

  “It’ll get us at least 500 miles toward Shackleton base!”

  “We can drag skis for anyone that won’t fit!”

  “Fuck Stutsman!”

  “Fuck oil prices! We’ll get home anyway!”

  Luthor had trouble processing what they were saying. All he could think to do was to wipe his mouth.

  #

  Aurora, IL, United States of the West

  Luthor slumped against the wall of the stairwell to Bill’s floor. He had never told anyone about that event—no one but the worthless VA therapist who had prodded him like a lab rat. What will happen to the hopeless soldier if I poke him here? Now he had shouted his most desperate secret at the top of his lungs in front of six people.

  He was a cannibal.

  He felt naked, like his tri-fold science fair experiment in fourth grade, exposed for anyone to scrutinize and grade. He wouldn’t be awarded any blue ribbon for this. He shut his eyes, but the sight of Chaz’s half eaten calf forced them open again.

  He had eaten his best friend.

  At least he would be dead soon. It’s what he deserved. He half expected to feel the heat of a missile irradiating him in a high explosive baptism. Perhaps it would be painless, like Doyle in Alaska. Then he wouldn’t need to worry about the fate of the world, he would be dead after all. That was it. He wouldn’t be looking down from any cloud city of gold or up from a dungeon of fire and torture. The only bright light he would see would be the ignition system of a warhead.

  Strangely, despite the fact that he knew his life was over, he felt lighter somehow. Like a literal weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He might be naked for all to see, but at least he didn’t have to carry such heavy clothes on his back any longer.

  He was just thankful that whatever part of him was still good had kept him from hitting Tanya. No man should ever hit a woman. Tanya would leave him. That was a scientific certitude. Her Christian tendencies made it inevitable. He was quite certain that the Bible forbade cannibalism at least 400 times.

  It didn’t matter that he had stayed alive and had helped the recon team who captured that Chinese transport get them all back to Shackleton base. He had eaten his best friend.

  There could be no forgiveness for that.

  At least Tanya finally knows why I am broken. She deserves that much.

  Then there was Bill. The man selflessly had risked his life, watched his only son maimed, and Luthor had called him a coward. Why did I do that? Even in the moment, Luthor knew it had been horribly wrong, disgusting and cruel. PTSD had the power to make compulsions overwhelming, irresistible. But the worst part was that the calculating, science-side of his brain still functioned. It quietly took notes on the outburst and passed judgment, while simultaneously being impotent to affect his behavior. Luthor hated himself for it, he hated that he couldn’t control his temper, even though he never lost his rationality in the process. What did Aristotle say, “to know the good is to do the good”? Aristotle didn’t have PTSD.

  The door to the stairwell opened. It was Bill.

  Luthor noted that his heart increased its pace. Bill might have thirty years on him, but he was not a man Luthor ever wanted to meet in a death match. Luthor waited for him to pull a gun and end his misery early, but he just stood there. Watching, reasoning. If he’d had a pad of paper, he might have made a good observational scientist.

  “Are you going to kill me or what?” Luthor said impatiently. “Now everyone knows I deserve it.” He would be dead soon, he might as well die to a good man with a just cause, rather than a bureaucrat with a hard-on for power.

  Bill scrutinized some more.

  Luthor wished he would just make up his mind and do whatever he planned to do.

  “You are broken.”

  What the hell does that mean? Luthor thought.

  “I’m such a dumbass. Should’ve noticed it right away,” Bill didn’t sound angry. A good sign. Luthor knew he should apologize. But his anger hadn’t yet abated enough.

  Bill continued in his smoke-stained voice. “You know, I really oughtta rip your balls outta your sac and make you eat them.”

  Luthor nodded. That would be a fair punishment for a cannibal. “But the truth is, I’ve been there too,” he continued.

  “I don’t really think—”

  “Shut up, Luthor. You got yourself calmed down now, don’t go smogging up your chance to make it right.”

  Luthor shut up.

  “I’m telling you that I’ve been broken too. Diagnosing PTSD wasn’t as common during Iraq and Afghanistan as it is now, but we all had it. Only a few in a hundred can go through real combat and not come out as polluted as the other side of my ass.”

  “And they’re often the ones who weren’t right in the first place,” Luthor said, remembering his own learning on the subject. A high percentage of people who came out of war without any measurable PTSD were hypothesized to be psychopaths—in the sense that they didn’t have normal emotions. “The ones who could have just as easily been serial killers if they hadn’t been in the military.”

  “Bingo. Only you aren’t a serial killer.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “You’re just an asshole.”

  Maybe this wasn’t going as well a
s he’d hoped. He liked it better when Bill was describing how Luthor should take communion with his own testicles, rather than outright insulting him. Punishments implied restitution was possible. Insults? They implied something worse.

  Bill let his comment sink in before he continued. “But an asshole is someone I can relate with. I came back an asshole too, you know. I drank myself stupid for years. Gambled away my family’s money. Shouted at anyone whose shoes I didn’t like, punched anyone who rooted for the wrong team. I can relate, Tenrel. Hearing yourself curse out your own kid, throwing things, all the while knowing its wrong but you just can’t stop yourself.”

  “How did you deal with it?” Luthor asked, surprised at Bill’s level of empathy for his condition; Luthor didn’t think anyone else besides Garcia understood. Not only that, he certainly looked pretty collected and in control—apart from the conspiracy theories. He didn’t seem to struggle to contain the bad memories from leaking out.

  “I didn’t want to beat my kid and my wife, I was afraid I might kill them. So I left. I was too afraid of reliving Iraq with my own family.”

  Luthor had often found himself making the same choice with Tanya. So many nights in the lab... Sometimes being alone was the only good choice he had the power to make.

  “I drank myself homeless, took a long time to get straight again. By then my wife was dead, and my kid hated me. I had just never been able to get over what I had done in Iraq.”

  “What did you do?” Luthor found himself asking. It was easier to ask now that Bill knew Luthor’s own past.

  “It’s not just one thing. You know how it is. Every time you make somebody die, a little part of you dies too. But sometimes it’s a bigger part than others. The one that pushed me over the edge was when we were chasing these terrorists through the city; they had just blown up a medical supply truck, killed eight civilians, and destroyed life-saving antibiotics bound for an orphanage. Real sons of bitches, you know? The cowards were dressed up in women’s Burqas and blended in with the civis. I followed one of those goddamned jihadists and when I got a clear shot, I took it. Put a three-round burst in his back.