Gleanings

by Alice Sabo

  The mood was festive at dinner. Dunham made sure that anyone on duty got served at the same time as those in the cafeteria. Bridget was so happy to eat a big meal that she overlooked any odd tastes to it. After so long living on the same food every day, a new flavor was a shock. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. The boar meat gave the Stew-goo base a slightly gamey flavor to it. She would have been equally as excited to find a secret plot of potatoes.

  Previously when they had gone out foraging, it had been for clothes, blankets, ammunition. Things that they didn’t have spares for. At that time, the storage closets had been packed with Stew-goo, Crunch and a few others that were similar. They hadn’t realized that their supply lines would be stopped with no warning. They hadn’t expected the flu to keep whittling them all down. When the supplies stopped coming, Dunham sent them out to the closest train station to take as much as they could.

  In her mind, the delivery of train food to the station meant someone knew about them. If the station was stocked with food, then surely it was meant for them. So that meant that there was a structure somewhere, a hierarchy of authority that wanted them to stay put.

  Bridget shivered despite the warm camaraderie around her. When the train stations shut down this year, she feared it was truly the end. They had been relying entirely on the train food for too long. Part of it, she suspected, was because Dunham, too, wanted to believe that there was some sort of government left. That eventually new orders would come for them. But she knew better.

  The days she spent crossing the country to get to this posting was the worst she’d ever experienced. Riots and wildfires and tornadoes and flash floods had made the trip perilous. Flu decimated her crew. They left bodies behind them as they moved on. Some of the soldiers had been posted here early on. They hadn’t seen the cities with the dead lying in the street. They hadn’t had to dig the mass graves or search house to house for survivors. In a way, she envied them. But maybe that ignorance was what had gotten the first hunters killed.

  Maybe now Dunham would admit that there was no government. No one left to care that they were holding down this fort against nonexistent enemies. But if he released her from duty today, she had no idea where she’d go.

  Chapter 26

  Leadership is so much more than the ability to enforce your will on the populace.

  History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss

  “SOMETHING CHANGED,” Wisp said.

  Nick looked up at him from over his mug of coffee. They were sitting in the nearly empty cafeteria late in the evening. “Everything,” Nick grumbled.

  “No, I meant with Ep.”

  “How so?”

  “He feels closer,” Wisp said, trying to narrow down the vague emotions he could feel from his brother. With a good portion of the settlement asleep, he’d opened his barriers a bit.

  “That’s a good thing.” Nick raised an eyebrow in question. “Right?”

  Wisp sipped his coffee. This was his first trip out of the infirmary. He didn’t want to admit how weak and dizzy he felt. His injuries must have been worse than he thought. For once, he was glad that no one else could read him the way he could read them. They would know he had lied about being ready to go. The first part of the trip would be by van. It would give him another day or two to catch up with himself.

  “Isn’t it?” Nick asked again, a rope of concern rising from him.

  “Yes. I just don’t know what it means.”

  “His captors are moving him.” Nick ate another cherry from the small pile they were sharing. “You think Washburn has him?”

  “It’s a possibility. If he’s looking for biobots, Ep would definitely be a prize.”

  “Is he a font?”

  “No.” Wisp claimed three more cherries. Nick was working through their allotment too quickly. “He sees patterns and trends.”

  “How is that helpful?”

  “He can help forecast things. It may help Angus plan.”

  “Sounds like a skill that might not be as useful nowadays.”

  Wisp shrugged and smothered a grunt as he felt his bruises tweaked by the movement. He wanted to go for a long walk to work out all his aches, but he didn’t think they would let him leave the building on his own, yet. “I think Angus will find his abilities helpful.”

  Nick nodded distractedly. “Just a quick rescue, right? In and out?”

  Wisp chuckled. “In and out of what? I have no idea where he is. If he’s in that fortress of Washburn’s, it’s going to take some time to figure out a way in.”

  Nick looked away. He had a worm of discontent burrowing through his emotions.

  “What’s wrong?”

  It was Nick’s turn to shrug. “I don’t like leaving with all these new people here. There was a fist fight in the cafeteria and a shoving match in the atrium. It’s just going to get worse. More people coming in every day, and we can’t vet them fast enough.”

  “You don’t want me to leave,” Wisp said quietly. Although he couldn’t feel any accusation in Nick’s words, there was the unspoken fact. If he left, High Meadow wouldn’t know if a bad one had arrived until it was too late.

  “We need to make it as quick as possible.”

  “I agree.”

  Nick’s next comment was cut off by the storm siren. A second later the storm shutters began clattering shut over the cafeteria windows. Martin stuck his head in the room. “Tornadoes. We got about fifteen minutes. Can you help with the shelter?”

  Wisp got to his feet carefully, fighting vertigo. “I’ll need someone with me.”

  “I was talking to Nick,” Martin said, reaching for his arm. “I think you need to go back to bed.”

  “You aren’t doing a sweep?”

  “If they can hear the sirens, they’ll know to hunker down. Anybody further out on the road is going to have to get to one of the new storm huts. This is going to be the test of the new systems.”

  “Is everyone in the neighborhood coming into the shelters?” Nick asked.

  Before Martin could answer his radio chirped. “What should we do with the sheep?”

  “How many?” Martin asked.

  “A lot.”

  “Ask the owners to tie them up in the tunnel. It’s got drains, so we can hose it down later.” Martin shook his head. “I’d better go find some rope. We need to have a better plan for animals,” he grumbled as he left.

  Nick gave Wisp a sharp look. “Can you get back to the infirmary on your own?”

  “Yes,” he lied. Once Nick was gone, Wisp sat down again to wait for the room to stop spinning. The cafeteria had emptied out when the siren began, but he thought there were one or two people in the kitchen. He had his barriers shut so tightly that the world felt fuzzy. He couldn’t sense any of the people hurrying through the corridors. He drank the last of his coffee, breathing deeply to try to make his body behave.

  “Would you like a refill?” Eunice asked. She was reaching for his cup when Wisp flinched. He hadn’t felt her approach. “Sorry, did I startle you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You look terribly pale.” She took Nick’s seat across from him. “Are you hungry? I can get you anything you want.”

  Wisp forced a smile for her. He didn’t need his other senses to hear the concern in her voice. “Thank you, but no. I think I’m going to finish up Nick’s cherries.”

  Eunice nodded, but she didn’t leave. She looked past Wisp to the shuttered windows. “Things change all the time,” she said softly. “Before I got here, I worried about food and shelter. Now that I am here, I have all the food I need and a safe place to sleep, but I still have worries.”

  “What makes you uneasy?”

  “Oh, it changes.” She huffed out a sigh. “Today, it’s the fruit trees. With a storm like this, will there be anything left on the trees tomorrow?”

  “Depends on how bad the wind is, or if we get hail. We might be able to collect the damaged fruit.”

  “And I will have a crew
to clean up everything we can. But that isn’t it. There’s always something beyond our control that’s going to make life difficult. Bruno has found all this lovely fruit for us, and now this storm is going to take it away from us. No matter how hard we work, it feels like we’ll never get ahead.”

  “The fact that you can worry about that, says to me that we are already ahead.”

  Chapter 27

  A hungry man cannot think beyond the acquisition of food. Once his stomach is filled, he has the leisure to plan at least for the next day. For a society to remain viable, hunger must be conquered; otherwise, we will all spend our days searching for food.

  History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss

  A CLAP OF THUNDER RATTLED the building. Tilly refused to flinch, but her muscles tightened of their own accord. This would be the first bad storm since people had spread out into the neighborhood. She worried that they would stay in their new homes instead of coming to the storm shelters under the school. If anything happened to them, she would feel at fault, even though she knew she couldn’t make them come.

  Martin had hooked up spotlights at the entrances to the tunnels in the neighborhoods. They should be visible for miles, even in a storm like this. Between that and the sirens, people should get a good idea of the severity of the storm. The Soap People, as Angus was calling them, brought their entire flock of sheep into the tunnel. The Watch was all in, channeling people through the maze into the storm shelters.

  Tilly made her first stop at the kitchens. They should plan some extra breakfasts and something that was easy to carry in case they needed to send out rescue crews. Eunice and Mary were both there and were already planning. For a moment, Tilly felt superfluous. They didn’t need her to guide them. But then Eunice saw her and gave her a report on what they had in mind. She fine tuned it a bit then left them to it.

  Her next stop was down to the shelters to see how it was going. There were a lot fewer people than she expected. “Where is everyone?” she asked Clay who was leaning against the wall by the door.

  “This is all we got so far.”

  “But we sounded the siren,” Tilly said nervously.

  “Most of ‘em probably just stayed put.”

  Tilly headed back up the stairs grumbling at every landing. She’d built up a full head of steam by the time she got to Angus’s office. For once it wasn’t crowded. But then she realized he wasn’t there either, so she had to go to the Strategy Room.

  The room was surprisingly quiet. There was a recent addition in the center of the room, a large table with a layout of High Meadow, the surrounding neighborhoods, and the train station. Nick, Martin, Tall Joe, Young Joe, Coco and Angus stood around the table. She was pleased to find everyone she wanted to yell at in the same place. “Will they be all right?” she asked of the group.

  “Who?” Angus asked.

  She joined them at the table. The houses that were occupied were marked in blue. She tapped the closest one. “Are they safe?”

  “Of course, my dear. We wouldn’t have let them move in if the houses weren’t able to handle this kind of a storm.”

  “I don’t like it,” she grumbled.

  “That’s not my main concern,” Martin said. He leaned over to run a finger along the road away from the train station. “We’ve got some Rovers that haven’t checked in.”

  “But we sounded the siren,” Tilly began.

  “The relay stations in that section might not be fully functional, yet,” Angus said. “They are probably too far out.”

  “Without shelter?” Tilly yelped.

  “We sent the warning out,” Young Joe said. The Rovers were his men. Tilly could see the concern in his eyes. “We used the relay tree. Everyone should have sent on the message.”

  “It works,” Martin said firmly, but Tilly thought he was trying to convince himself as much as the rest of them. “No one should be too far from shelter.”

  Young Joe crossed his arms nodding at Martin. “They know the drill. They should have been dug in by sunset.”

  Tilly could tell that they were just mouthing the words to reassure themselves. “What kind of damage are we expecting?”

  Angus blinked at her, obviously miles away in his thoughts. “Damage to what?”

  “Crops? Buildings? Roads?” Tilly said tartly. “What kind of repairs are we going to need?”

  “Won’t know ‘til the storm’s done,” Tall Joe commented in an exaggerated drawl. He gave her a smile to counteract any disrespect.

  She ignored him. “Have we heard from Holly Hill or Creamery?”

  Angus took her arm and led her to the door. “Both were sent warnings as soon as we knew. Maybe you could have the kitchen send us some tea?”

  She pulled her arm away, narrowing her eyes at him, but before she could scold him, he planted a kiss on her mouth. “There’s nothing to be done right now,” he whispered taking her hand.

  She squeezed his fingers. “It’s got me restless.”

  “You need to let everyone do their jobs.”

  “Did you send Wisp out?”

  “In his condition?” Angus shook his head. “We can’t always rely on him. We need back up, or we leave ourselves open to trouble. This will be the first big storm that we’ve had since all the refugees arrived. How we manage this will show us whether our systems are working or not.”

  “And if we fail?” she asked softly. She didn’t want to think about losing people to a stupid weather event.

  “Then we learn from our mistakes.”

  “People could die.”

  “My love, we have done all that is humanly possible to safeguard those in our care. We have a few shelters on the road. If someone is out there that we don’t know about, there’s nothing we can do.”

  “I know,” she conceded. “Do we know how long it’ll last?”

  “The weather committee is watching the barometer and all the little gizmos the kids have built. You’ll know as soon as we will.”

  “I could open a window and watch the sky,” she sniped at him but followed her words with a smile.

  He kissed her fingers. “About that tea?”

  Chapter 28

  A family grows into a clan, a clan into a village, a village into a tribe and all along the way there must be someone with forethought and planning, or we turn into mere beasts, each individual struggling to survive.

  History of a Changed World, Angus T. Moss

  RESTLESSNESS DROVE Bridget outside into the steamy darkness when she should have been in bed. The air was still. She could almost sense the storm coming in, but she needed to walk off her worries. The security lights showed her worn pavement and shaggy lawns. It had been raining so often that they’d gotten behind on mowing. That was one chore that left her feeling like she’d accomplished something. Like a freshly vacuumed rug, a mowed lawn felt tidy.

  She picked up the pace, nearly jogging around the building. Their assignments were mostly make-work. A day out hunting had made her remember what a real patrol was like. They might be safe here, and they might be protecting something of importance, but it wasn’t going to last. Eventually, the rations would run out. Then what?

  A flash of lightning nearly blinded her, it was that close. Thunder cracked a heartbeat later, and she ran for the building. The wind pushed her along the path plastering her with wet leaves. In the next instant, rain poured down so hard, she could barely see in front of her. The door opened and hands pulled her in.

  “You okay?” Jace asked.

  She pushed her hair out of her eyes. It was barely collar length, but now it felt too long. “Ugh. I feel half-drown.”

  “Lane says his knee is killing him, and that means this is going to be a really bad one.”

  They both jumped when a branch hit the door.

  “Is everyone in?” she asked as they headed for the cafeteria. It was the only room in the building large enough to hold them all at one time.

  “I hope so.”

  They heard the
rumble of over three hundred people murmuring as they approached. The room smelled of wet clothing and too many people. General Dunham called them to order as they entered the room. Bridget and Jace reported to Gary, leader of Fox Squad . There was a rustle of movement and lowered voices as squad leaders reported to platoon leaders, and they then reported to company leaders.

  “We’re missing six men,” Dunham announced.

  Bridget knew exactly who that would be. As soon as the clouds had come rolling in, Badger Squad started bitching about how the rain would spoil the rest of the plums. She knew they had snuck out to finish picking the tree. “Is it Badger Squad, sir?”

  Dunham glanced at a clipboard. “Three from Badger and three from Wolf. Do you know where they are?”

  “They might be out by the plum tree?”

  Dunham’s mouth flattened into a straight line. “There are reasons for the rules.” His words were flat, unemotional, but Bridget knew he was furious. “Storm stations, please.” He turned away without another word.

  Bridget looked over at Jace.

  “They’re in deep shit now.”

  “If they survive,” she said. She was angry, too. The people in the room were reluctant to move. They looked from face to face, waiting for someone to speak.

  Someone from Ox team burst into the room, out of breath. “They’re trying to come in,” he hollered.

  Orders were barked out. Some were sent to ready the infirmary. Fox Squad was one of the ones sent to help. Bridget ran to the front doors, dreading the outcome. Leaves and small branches were whipping by on the wind. It was going to be hard to open the door without letting it be torn off the hinges. The overgrown lawn was flattened by rain and wind. She could just make out a body in the grass. “Is that him?”

  Jace squinted through the rain-smeared glass. “Is he alive?”

  Bridget peered through the rain, willing the body to move. “Only one?” she asked, but no one answered her. Monkey team arrived with their few, precious ropes. They started tying off and lining up to create a human line out to their man. Bridget tested the door. “It’s going to take at least two of us to get this open and hold it.”