Radio Hope (Toxic World Book 1) (13 page)

“Nothing you need to know about right now,” Mitch said.

He and Ha-Ram started down the hill back to their campsite. Jackson and Annette paused for a moment, and then followed.

Something troubled Annette. Her mind was working on something that she didn’t quite get. What was it? The dial rising and falling, Ha-Ram trying to pinpoint the source of something his contra
ption could detect. What was it?

And that number—1010
. What did that mean? He had flipped through a range of numbers before the stopped at it. Why?

Then it hit her.

1010.

1010
kHz.

Annette stopped in
her tracks, mouth open in astonishment. Jackson stopped too.

“What?” he asked.

“1010 kHz,” she said. “Radio Hope’s frequency.”

Jackson gave her a puzzled expression.
She turned to him.

“They’ve found Radio Hope.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Marcus had to do a lot of convincing to get the scavenger to sit down to a meeting without bringing the entire Burbs along. As it was, a full thirty scavengers came with him to the meeting point at $87,953, proudly proclaiming they were the Burb Council. The Doctor figured showing up in the Burbs would be a sign of goodwill, as would the free food that Roy served. Clyde nearly had a heart attack and insisted on half a dozen armed guards as an escort.

They sat at a long table, The Doctor, Marcus, Clyde and the guards on one side, the scavenger, his girl, and his entourage on the other. Marcus wondered why the kid always seemed to tag along for everything. Roy and his help busied themselves serving everyone a vague approximation of pizza made with goat’s cheese and mutton.

Clyde started the conversation, exaggerating the city arsenal’s power and how if the Righteous Horde attacked they’d be decimated, how they’d be stuck out in the Burbs with no food and no way to get into the city. After a few days they’d leave just like all the other groups that had failed to take New City. Faster than the other groups, even. Their numbers, the very thing that everyone feared, was their weakness.

Then it was The Doctor’s turn. He laid out his proposal in a calm, measured voice, explaining how the citizens couldn’t be expected to let a bunch of strangers past the gate. Those scavengers they knew would be allowed in but would have to check their weapons until they were needed on the wall. The strangers would have to stay outside. He even offered the city’s small flotilla of boats for the strangers who wouldn’t be let in. They could sail just outside the cove and moor there until the siege was over.

The nameless scavenger and his entourage listened in silence. They didn’t object to the proposal that strangers be left outside, didn’t object to the proposal that everyone be disarmed. They didn’t object to anything. They simply sat and listened.

And when The Doctor and Clyde were finished the scavenger with a broken nose stood up. His daughter looked up
at him. He yanked her out of her chair and led her outside. The rest of his group followed.

Clyde leaned over and whispered into The Doctor’s ear. “I think we better get back into the city and close the gate.”

The Doctor looked up at the ceiling.

After a long moment he said, “For once, Clyde, I don’
t think you’re being paranoid.”

Roy locked up the bar and rolled down the shutters. He and the others hurried back to town
in a tight group. All around them on the street were circles of scavengers in huddled conversation. As they passed the conversations died and the scavengers stared at them. Marcus did not like the look on their faces. Clyde kept glancing over his shoulder. Dreading what he would see, Marcus did the same. A large crowd of scavengers was coming up the street behind them.

“Let’s move, people,” Clyde said.

They got into the dead zone between the Burbs and the wall. Several of Clyde’s guards manned the ramparts. He glanced behind his shoulder and saw the crowd close behind, all angry faces and upraised fists. They saw the riflemen on the wall too. The crowd stopped at the last tents of the Burbs.

Marcus and the rest of the citizens hurried through the gate.
The Doctor was panting. Marcus hurried to his side and let him lean on him.

The guard
s slammed the gate shut, passing two large iron bars across it.

Marcus closed his eyes and tried to calm his pounding heart.

The siege had begun.

Marcus and the rest of the group that had met with the Burb Council climbed the stairs up to the catwalk that ran along the wall. Looking out, they saw a large crowd lingering at the edge of the dead zone, shouting and shaking their fists at them. Beyond them, the Burbs had gone crazy. People were running in all directions. In half a dozen spots they could see fights had broken out.

“What the hell are they fighting each other for?” Marcus asked.

“They don’t know,” The Doctor said, shaking his head. “They’re angry and scared, so they’re fighting.”

“Hey, look!” Roy said, pointing. “They’re trying to ransack my place!”

Marcus could just make out Roy’s bar. A crowd
had gathered around it and was kicking at the steel blinds that covered the door and windows.

They watched helplessly as the crowd managed to yank one of the shutters partway off the window frame. Someone brought a crowbar and started prying it loose.

“Motherfuckers,” Roy grumbled through clenched teeth.

“Sorry, Roy,” Clyde said. “I can’t risk men to go out there.”

Roy said nothing.

Marcus saw another group heading toward the bar. The person leading it looked familiar, but his tired old eyes couldn’t make him out for sure at this distance.

“Clyde, give me your binoculars.”

The Head of the Watch handed them to him and Marcus focused in on the man he’d spotted. Just as he suspected, it was the newcomer with the broken nose, the self-appointed leader of the scavengers. He ran right up to the men prying open the window and started swinging. One, two, three men went down. The others backed off, and the crowd he had brought with him started dispersing the looters.

“Well I’ll be,” Marcus said, and handed the binoculars to Roy.

“Who is this guy?” The Doctor asked no one in particular.

“I’ve been asking that same question,” Ahmed said from a few steps away.

The Doctor spun and looked at his assistant. “Oh what a relief! I was worried you were still out there!”

“No, I came back just a few minutes before you did. Felt the tension in the air and wanted to get the wall between me and the Burbs.”

“Smart man,” Marcus said.

“I’ve been asking around, though. Turns out a bunch of the scavengers know him,” Ahmed said.

“What’s his name?” The Doctor asked.

Ahmed shrugged. “Nobody knows.”

“Come again?” Marcus asked. He looked back at the scavenger. He’d completely dispersed the looters now and looked like he was setting up guards around Roy’s business.

“Nobody knows him personally, but plenty have met him out in the wildlands. Some call him The Giver. He’s got a reputation for helping people out. One scavenger was caught out in a rainstorm and this guy gave him a tarp to put around himself. He’s given other people food, even Blue Cans. Doesn’t ask for trade or anything. There’s something weird about it, though.”

“Weirder than giving away Blue Cans?” Marcus asked.

“He never lets anyone stay with him. Give them aid and makes them camp somewhere else,” Ahmed said.

“‘Here’s some help, now fuck off?’” The Doctor said.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“He’s sure protective of that girl of his,” Roy said, studying the man through the binoculars.

“No kidding,” Ahmed nodded. “When I treated his broken nose I asked her if she needed a checkup and he nearly slugged me.”

As they watched, the man they were all wondering about organized groups to watch over several businesses. Marcus noticed he took special care to guard the businesses of citizens in the Burbs.

“An olive branch?” Marcus wondered aloud.

“He’ll need to give me a whole damn olive grove before I trust that guy,” Clyde said as he walked out of his operations center with a machine gun sloped over his shoulder. He opened up the bipod and positioned it on the wall.

“Whoa, hold it there, Clyde,” The Doctor said.

“We’re under attack, in case you haven’t noticed,” the Head of the Watch snapped.

“Nobody’s attacking anybody,” The Doctor said. “Let’s see what he’s got to say.”

After a few minutes t
he scavenger they called The Giver led a crowd up to the open space in front of the walls. Some of them had guns. Marcus did a quick count between them and the guards Clyde had posted on the wall. They could handle this bunch easily. That made Marcus breathe a little easier, but only a little.

The crowd stayed at long range while the scavenger, his daughter, and a few others moved to within fifty feet of the gate.

“Brave,” Marcus grunted.

“Is The Doctor up there?” the scavenger called out.

The Doctor showed himself. “Yeah, I’m right here.”

Marcus edged over next to Clyde and kept a close watch on him. The last thing they needed was for him or one of the other guards to get panicky.

“We don’t want to fight you,” the scavenger said.

“Well, you have
a funny way of showing it.”

“You backed us into a corner. Anyone left outside is gonna die. You say we can use your boats, but who’s to say the Righteous Horde doesn’t have boats, or guns good enough to shoot us as we float in the cove? And how are we to eat while we float out there?”

“We can give you some food.”

The scavenger shook his head. “If we don’t all get in there’s no deal. We won’t allow any looting of your property
out here, but we won’t let you bring it inside the walls. And we won’t let any of the citizens on the farms to come in either.”

“You’re holding my people for ransom?” The Do
ctor asked, his face turning red.

“And what are you doing to us?” the scavenger shot back.

“You’re not coming in,” The Doctor said.

“Then I’m going out,” Ahmed announced loud enough for the scavengers to hear.

Everyone looked at him.

“There’s flu
spreading out there and someone needs to treat it,” he announced.

The Doctor walked up to him and looked him in the eye. Marcus had seen that look before. Even though he was a sick man, The Doctor could summon an incredible amount of energy, and that look he sometimes gave wasn’t easy to stand up to.

Ahmed did, though.

“What you are doing is wrong,” the nurse said. “If we don’t let them in we’re no better than those scum
laying waste to the wildlands, just keeping what is ours and screwing everyone else.”

For a second there was silence.

“Well I guess this is goodbye, then,” The Doctor said in a harsh whisper.

Ahmed held up his medical bag. “This is your property.”

“Keep it.”

Ahmed nodded and walked down the stairs. The guards at the gate looked up at The Doctor, who waved his hand in a dismissive g
esture. They slid open the bars and opened the gate a crack. Ahmed squeezed through and they slammed it shut and bolted it behind him.

They watched Ahmed walk up to The Giver
. The two huddled in conversation for a moment and the scavenger slapped him on the back. Then they and the crowd all turned and walked into the Burbs. Ahmed did not look back.

“Now what?” Marcus asked no one in particular.

“We go into emergency mode and prepare for a siege,” The Doctor said. “Clyde, call out and arm any citizen you need. Establish watches with double guards at the wall and patrols along the wire. We don’t want them trying to get in by boat. Check and clean all the weapons. Marcus, get everyone else organized. Do a complete inventory of the food we have inside.”

“I can tell you already it won’t be enough. We have the emergency stores but we haven’t had time to move in supplies from the Burbs or the farms,” Marcus replied.

“Then institute a rationing program and. . .” The Doctor’s face went blank, he wavered and would have fallen if Marcus hadn’t caught him.

“Get him into the operations center,” Clyde said. “Get him out of sight!”

Marcus and a guard hustled him inside the tower, where they lay him on a cot.

“Doc?” Marcus slapped his friend lightly on
the face. “Doc, can you hear me?”

The Doctor let out a low groan and said something incomprehensible.

Marcus turned to the guard, “Go get some water.”

Clyde looked on, his face registering panic.

“Has he run out of medicine again?” the Head of the Watch asked.

“Yeah,” Marcus said, holding The Doctor’s hand.

“Shit, why didn’t he tell us?”

“He didn’t want you to worry.”

“We need to get Ahmed back,” Clyde said.

The Doctor’s eyes fluttered open.

“It’s OK,” The Doctor whispered. “Just a fainting spell. I’ll be OK in a minute.”

“Do you need anything?” Marcus asked.

“Just rest. So tired.”

Marcus put a blanket over him. “Here. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Clyde,” The Doctor whispered. “I want Clyde.”

Clyde bent over bed. “I’m here. What is it?”

“You’re my witness. Marcus is in charge until I’m back on my feet. What he says goes.”

“Sure thing,” Clyde said. “You just rest.”

The crackle of the radio tore through the quiet room.

“Base Two calling city. Base T
wo calling city. Urgent. Over.”

“That’s the southern pass!” Clyde said as he hurried over the radio and picked up the microphone.