“I hope so, sir.”
Norton took out his cigarette case, offering one to Carl. He accepted it with timid pride, nervously breathing in the smoke as Norton cracked a window to vent the cabin.
“The pen may be mightier than the sword,” Norton declared after a long period of introspection. “But it seems from now on, we must use both.”
Chapter Eight
“We should use automatic, not burst,” Ian said.
Fred smacked the side of his head. “Automatic is for idiots. You burn through your ammo in seconds and hit nothing. It’s Rambo and retards. Got it?”
Ian nodded. Norton issued a directive to the entire newspaper staff: All reporters were to be given basic training in firearms and carry a weapon.
Carl listened as Fred continued with his instructions, directing them on the makeshift firing range inside a warehouse. While everyone else opted for the modern rifles, Carl chose the Thompson.
After they had fired again and brought back their targets, Fred brought them over to the tables against the wall and taught them to field strip their weapon, then put it back together. When could do that, he had them do repeat the process, this time blindfolded. He offered impromptu lectures on how each handgun operated and explained their strengths and weaknesses. He then reiterated an oft-repeated warning: They were not to treat their gun as a trophy to show off, but a tool to be used - when needed.
The next day, Fed brought reloading devices and showed them how to reload cartridges. It wasn’t a vital skill, but it would be helpful if there was ever a shortage or new supplies failed to get into their part of the city. It only added to the rumors of an imminent fight between the Cascadian and another newspaper.
After one day of training, Fred and Carl were left alone when everyone else headed for the bars. Wiping off residue from his revolver, Carl looked over as Fred rubbed the eye socket underneath his patch.
“You think I was wrong to kill those Tribune carriers?” Carl asked.
“I’m not your priest.”
“I want to know what you think. You told me never to hesitate, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“It’s just that you fought a war. You had to make the same choices. And you’ve had a long time to think about it.”
Fred went to wash his hands at the sink, ordering Carl to do the same. When they were done, Fred closed the firing range. Out on the sidewalk, he stuck a handful of chew in his mouth.
“There’s no such thing as right or wrong when it’s about survival,” he said. “But when you’ve done the shit I’ve done and seen the shit I’ve seen, you just get tired doing and seeing the same ol’ shit. Does that reply make sense at all?”
“Not trying to drudge up the past. Just figured since you’ve dealt with the shit before you might know something I don’t.”
“Here’s one thing I’ve learned; sometimes you gotta learn the hard way. Somebody telling you about it doesn’t cut it. Experience can be the best guide. The key is to make sure the mistakes you make are the ones you can live through. Remember that, at least.”
***
“Do we have the scoop on this?” Tom asked Carl.
They both peered out at the Westlake Park in downtown. Construction workers scurried beneath the scaffolds, pressed against the old Westlake Center Mall like a body cast. In the square, men stood around an unfolded table examining the mall’s old blueprints to their planned renovations.
There would be no shopping there. The new “owners” had elected to use it for something more practical. What that was exactly, had yet to be announced. Even Usher, who had tipped them off about the construction work, hadn’t been able to divulge the secret.
Carl reached for his notepad and pen. “No idea. Usher didn’t say.”
“I just don’t want to get out there and find other reporters.”
“What’re worried about? You got your gun, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like going into something without knowing if we’re not alone.”
“We’re always alone, and we’re never alone,” Carl said as they got out. “That’s what my old man told me.”
He paused, then added, “What little he told me.”
Tom double-checked the doors before they moved directly across the street, beneath the remaining sections of the Monorail; for decades, the raised light rail system had carried passengers to and from various parts of downtown. Many millions had been spent trying to keep it running, before the earthquake had destroyed most of it.
Before they got to the park, Carl flipped open his notepad and scanned the background information as a last-minute mental refresh. The company was run by two guys named Gerber and Winston; they had moved to the city three years ago.
Interestingly, they didn’t own the mall or the land. The absentee owner could try to reclaim it sometime in the future. That technicality posed a problem for the project. Not only were the two businessmen constructing on private property, but they also lacked a city business license and construction permit. The municipality had vowed to stop them but wasn’t willing to send anyone out there to try. Word had it that the police had been paid off.
A worker saw them and set down his bucket before confronting them. “You can’t come here.”
“It’s alright,” Carl said. “We’re friendly. Reporters from the Cascadian.”
The construction worker paused, repeating the message to his frowning supervisors. They sized up the two, then waved approvingly. With Tom keeping a watchful eye for danger, Carl approached the table and reached for their hands one at a time, introducing himself.
“I’ve heard of you,” the presumed manager said, a portly man with a goatee. “Usher said you’re alright.”
They all looked impatient, so Carl kept his questions short and sweet. The men gave concise, but standard replies, none especially fascinating. But he wouldn’t let them go at that.
Tactfully, he pressed for more details.
They revealed that the police had been bribed. They wouldn’t say it explicitly, but their implicit expressions added the necessary context to their ambiguous replies.
When they were finished, Carl thanked them and handed out business cards, then headed back to the car. Walking across the road, he spotted another vehicle arriving from the north. It parked hastily, and man leapt out of it like a rabbit as he ran toward the site. The voice recorder in his hand gave away his identity.
“What do we want to do about this?” Carl asked Tom.
“Not worth the trouble.”
“I want to know how he found out.”
“Probably same person who told Usher.”
Gripping the car door handle, Carl privately debated what to do. Against Tom’s groaning protest, he got out and went back to the park.
The other reporter was holding the recording device out as he questioned the construction supervisor, who clearly had lost most of his resistance talking to Carl. Instead of verbal sparring, he gave the same answers without the fuss.
Putting the recording away, the reporter grinned and headed back to the road.
“Got here a little late, didn’t you?” Carl called to him.
The man threw a hand of dismissal. “If we didn’t go to press at the same time, it might matter. But we do. Getting here before me by a few minutes doesn’t make much of a difference. Tomorrow morning, it won’t be your exclusive story.”
He walked closer, a hint of swagger in him. “Then again, it never was your story. Whoever tipped you off did the same for me.”
Carl quietly studied the man. He tall and slender, but his large frame indicated he could handle a fistfight as well as an interview. He was also armed; a slight bulge on his hip gave away the pocket pistol concealed behind his overcoat coat. He was dressed sharply in dark brown slacks and a blue shirt, with a white tie. There was a sly matter-of-fact tone to his voice that seemed both out of place and yet fitting.
“What paper do you write for?” Carl asked.
> “The Herald.”
“Ah you’re a Fremonty?”
“The freest. And quite pride of it, thank you. I can see you’re with one of those anachronists from SoDo.”
Carl looked back at Tom. He was standing outside the Mustang, his gun at his side. His hand was off the trigger, his way of saying he didn’t think the Herald reporter was a threat.
Carl held out his hand. “Farrington.”
The Herald reporter’s grip was tight, but not too strong. “Tony Marconi. Friends call me Tony ‘Ten Lives.’”
“What’s the ten lives about?”
“Try taking away one of them and you’ll find out.”
“I think I’ll pass on that today.”
Tony smiled, touching the side of his head as a salute. “Good talking to you, Carl. We’ll see each other around, I’m sure. Ideally, it will be on as friendly of terms as it was today.”
“Wouldn’t want to deprive you one of those ten lives.”
Tom made no inquiries about the conversation as he drove them away. “Do we want to get back to the paper?”
“Any word from Usher?”
“Not unless he called when we were away. This is when cell phones would come in handy. Or something so we could communicate with him.”
“I’ve talked with Childs about it. He said they’re looking at installing phones for trusted contacts. We’ve also got the radio channels, if we want to set that up.”
“I don’t want to use the radios or those phones. I’d like to use cell phones and get a hold of people when I need to get a hold of them.”
“Well, that’s the price we pay. We don’t use certain technology; they can’t track us.”
“You think it’s worth it to act like the Internet never happened?” Tom asked.
“Yeah. I’ll admit it was a little hard at first, but I actually like the way things are without it.”
“Didn’t know you were such a nostalgic kind of guy,” Tom remarked. “But I should have known when you picked out the Tommy gun. Or was that to impress Norton?”
“Something wrong about that?”
“I’m not judging. But I notice the way you look at him.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not trying to say anything bad. I just think you admire him a lot. Nothing wrong with it. But it’s obvious, at least to me.”
The cigarette smoke filled the car. Carl rolled down the window to let fresh air seep in, then rolled it down completely so he could dangle his arm over the sill. “You have to admit he’s unlike any man we’ve ever met.”
“I guess I wanted to know what it is about him that you admire. Not that you shouldn’t, but what is it specifically you admire in him?”
“I don’t know. He wants something and gets it because he’s good at it, I guess. He has a dream and he pursues it and nobody gets in the way.”
The answer seemed to placate Tom’s interest as he puffed on his own cigarette. After parking in the lot behind the newspaper building, they went upstairs and instantly noticed an anxious Fred in the newsroom standing over the teletype with shaky hands.
“What’s going on?” Carl asked.
Fred completely ignored them as he accepted the paper coming out of the machine. As soon as it was finished he tore the paper out and brought it back to his desk, reading it with his good eye as he slowly typed up a story. He had an old friend in D.C., who fed him information whenever they could. No one knew he they were, including Norton.
Leaving Fred to his work, Carl used his notes to get his story ready while prepping for the follow-up that was sure to come in the week. Usher had promised to arrange a meeting with an organic farmer who was planning a farm in the middle of a deserted Seattle neighborhood, one of the several urban prairies created after the city had bulldozed the homes to prevent drug activity and prostitution.
A hasty Fred ripped the paper from his typewriter, wrote in large letters at the top of the page, and then shouted for a copyeditor. When no one arrived, he headed for their room, returning with his hat in his hand, the other hand on his hefty belt buckle. He slumped into his chair and reached for his bag of chewing tobacco and swore loudly when he found it empty. With a fresh cigarette pack in hand, Carl tossed one to Fred.
“One buys me the story you just wrote,” he said.
Fred slapped his hat on the desktop and smirked. “Two. It’s a big story.”
Chuckling, Carl slapped the two cigarettes on the desk. Fred scooped them up in his hand, pushing one between his lips as he reached for his Zippo. After a long draw he moseyed over to Carl’s side.
“The feds just overrode Washington state law,” he said. “They’re claiming they have the right to have unrestricted drone surveillance wherever they want to.”
Carl was solemn. The state law Fred referred to prohibited warrantless use of drones. Even in Seattle, police required a court-issued warrant before sending one out. Drones were used in certain instances, and from time to time they could be spotted in the sky. However, they were regarded as little more than a nuisance and of no threat to the newspaper’s operations.
“Can they do that?” Carl asked.
“They passed the Cybersecurity Act, even when it overrode state law. They created the Information Security Administration and had them practically take over local law enforcement. Why couldn’t they do this?”
“But what about the state legislature? Won’t there be a lawsuit or legal challenge?”
“They’ll buckle. They might bitch about it for a while, but then when the feds dollars are in jeopardy, they’ll quietly change the law, maybe even make it a technicality. Anything to save face.”
“What does this mean, though?”
Sweat trickled down Fred’s eyebrows. “It means they can send a whole bunch of ‘em over here whenever they want without any warning. They may not, but I wouldn’t bet on it any more than winning the state lottery.”
“But how will it affect us?”
Fred shrugged. “I don’t know, kid. I don’t know. But I know how well those things work, and I think we might be in for a rough time in the future if our glorious leader doesn’t figure out a way to deal with it.”
***
Usher reclined in his sofa chair, loosening up the rope tied around his dark blue smoking jacket. A cigarillo in hand, he switched between long draws on it and sips of a single malt whiskey he had in his other hand.
Carl sat across from him, the same drink and cigarillo in hand, but he neither sipped nor smoked. He watched his host, taking short breaks to admire the luxurious room.
“You’re too young to have that worried of a look,” Usher said. “Far too young. Let the old men worry. They’ve lived long enough to have a reason for it. The young? They should enjoy their ignorance while they have it. Knowledge comes with responsibility.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with the drones.”
“Nothing. It has to do with the fact that you look like you personally have to solve this problem or else the sun will not rise or set until you do. I’ve seen terminally ill cancer patient more at ease than you are right now.”
Located in Magnolia in a tucked-away section of a solitary street, the edifice was a magnificent specimen of Seattle’s historic residences. Although not large by any means, both the exterior and interior had been well maintained. The inside was decorated with lush carpets, valuable artifacts, old yet well-preserved furnishings. They were in the parlor, where it felt like they had stepped back into the Victorian age. Bookshelves lined the walls, with an oak desk in the center. On the right side, a fireplace roared with real flames. With fireplaces prohibited in most homes, Carl had only seen them on rare occasions.
Carl held his drink in front of him as he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I want to know how I should react to this. You’ve been here for a long time. You’re not worried at all. I want to know why that is, so I know. I haven’t been here long enough to decide that without help.”
&nb
sp; “Ah, you know that you don’t know. Impressive. Far better to be aware of your ignorance than to be ignorant of even that.”
Usher got up and moved to the fireplace. Taking the poker from its stand, he prodded at one of the logs, turning it over so that the red coals glowed as sparks crackled in the air.
“People in power have tried to control this city before. They’ve tried to stop us from doing what we want. They’ve tried far more forcible means of coercing us to behave as they want us to. They’ve also failed, no matter how much it’s cost us to keep going. This will just be another tactic they use, but it will be no more successful than throwing rocks at the Moon to make it go away. On a fundamental level, they both hate us and need us. They hate that they can’t control us, but without us what would they have? Everybody needs a scapegoat, something or someone to blame for your problems. They don’t like anything they can’t control. We’ve adopted ways to keep their shackles off our legs. It may make a lot of our lives difficult, but we know it’s better than the alternative, of submitting to them and living like slaves.”
“You don’t seem to be doing so bad.”
“There will always be rich and poor. I am one of the rich, but it’s easy for that to change at any time. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.”
“How did you get to where you are?” Carl asked, waving around at the room. “You seem to be doing well for yourself.”
Usher got up. “Walk with me.”
They went outside to the front patio, offering a full view the front garden. There, the mixture of roses and rhododendrons were dormant for the winter. At the front gate to the house, two raven statues perched atop the twin lampposts as though guarding the entrance to the property.
“I made my bones learning to survive,” Usher said. “You can’t last long in the city playing by some Boy Scout code. That’s how it is. They can tell you whatever they want outside of this city, but it’s all comforting lies designed to keep you enslaved. Here, you make your own destiny.”
He turned to Carl. “One thing you should keep in mind is that your best defense is making yourself valuable, but only when you’re alive. The fastest way to end up dead is to be valuable only when you’re dead. When you’re valuable to someone alive, they will go out of their way to keep you that way. They’re not being altruistic by any means. No one is selfless. Everyone looks after themselves. The key is to make sure that what benefits them benefits you, that your interests and theirs aren’t conflicting. Make yourself valuable to as many people as possible.”
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