Selection Event (9 page)

“You won't leave me here.” He was folding and unfolding the edge of his t-shirt around the plastic Superman.

“No, I won't leave you here.”

“My mom and dad are dead.” He was looking at his hands again. He turned his toes in toward each other and moved them back under the edge of the cot.

“Mine are dead too,” Martin said. “Almost everyone is dead.”

“Except these bad guys,” Max said. He bent his head down farther, his shoulders jerked a little, and then he brought his hands up to cover his eyes.

Martin sat on the cot beside the boy and wrapped one arm around him. Inside his grimy t-shirt, his skin was hot, and between sobs, Martin could feel the boy's quickly beating heart.

Later, as they talked, Martin learned that Max had been found three days earlier and had been kept in the room the whole time, for what reasons the boy didn't know. They had told him they were going to “bring back America” and that they were keeping him here for his own safety, but he didn't believe them.

The boy had wandered around Santa Miranda enough to know that it was safer now to wander around than it had ever been before. “No gangs or perverts,” he had said. “I seen lots of animals, though. Zebras, monkeys, hippopotamesses, and lots of things.” Loose zoo animals were more of a treat than a threat. He listened attentively when Martin told him about living underground and then coming out to see a giraffe grazing the top of a tree.

Later in the day, when both Martin and the boy were feeling noticeably hungry, Ryan rattled the hasp and opened the door. He brought no food but carried his pistol in his hand. He motioned for Martin to follow him.

“What about the boy? He's hungry.”

Ryan said nothing, but after a slow blink, he gestured again with the pistol and jerked his head at Martin.

“Do what they tell you,” Martin told the boy and then left the room.

Curtiz sat at the long dining table, which had been placed in the middle of the living room. He still wore his camouflage outfit, but he had his beret off, and his short black hair was as neatly barbered as his thin mustache. A half empty glass of red wine sat by one hand and next to that was a wooden pointer. Two maps were opened and spread across the table, one of Santa Miranda, one of the East Bay and San Francisco.

“To show you how much I trust you, Martin, you already have your first mission.”

“I'm not a religious person. Or a spy.”

“Very good! Yes. Would you like something to drink while I explain your... well, let's call it your 'assignment.'”

“Max is hungry. The kid.”

“Mess is at 1700.” He stood up and leaned across the maps, apparently studying them carefully. Martin remembered doing this with the boys on his street. They had an old map they'd found in someone's garbage can and with a stick from a peach tree they poked it full of holes as they made elaborate plans to defeat the Russians when they invaded Oak Street.

“We're going to establish an outpost of civilization here, Martin, and you're going to be a part of it, in on the ground floor, so to speak.” He looked up at him and raised one eyebrow. He pressed his lips together contemplatively and seemed to be tapping his teeth together. “Martin,” he said, “if I may speak personally and confidentially, I'd like to think I could count on you. A lot of these other people I have with me are not exactly mental giants. You, at least, can speak the mother tongue. Sit down, please.”

Martin sat.

“We have power, water, and food problems which will soon have to be dealt with. But before that, we need to set up our defenses. We need to see to it that we aren't going to be blown out of the water by some rival hotshot with a popgun. Defend, consolidate, and expand: DCE. That's our plan.”

He picked up the pointer, fondled it a moment, and then jabbed it at the Santa Miranda map.

“In the last two months, Martin, while you said you were lounging around underground, we've been at work. We've collected all the arms from retailers in the area, and we're systematically searching all the houses in the neighborhoods for weapons.”

“You must have quite an arsenal.”

“We're well supplied at the moment.” He glanced up from the map. “The more I can trust you, the more you'll find out. We've got signs posted on the perimeter of the area we've secured announcing the presence of the City State of Santa Miranda. It's our beginning, humble though it may be.” He smiled to himself and tapped his teeth.

“Marking your territory,” Martin said.

“That's right.”

Like a dog pissing on trees, Martin thought.

Curtiz' face returned to its serious demeanor just as quickly as it had smiled. “We now have two operations pending. First, since strength has many sources, we are now temporarily shifting our local squads from arms collection to generator collection. The last of the municipal power's going to fail any day now, and if you don't have electricity, you don't have much. Am I right? Second, and this is where you come in, we need more people. You and Ryan are going over to the Bay Area to check things out.”

He paused and turned the pointer in his hands.

“You may not like it, but I'm prepared to be brutal to build a new future. I don't want to be. It's not my nature.” He ran one finger along his mustache and again, without opening his lips, he tapped his teeth together. “Back in the old times, I managed the Santa Miranda Airport. I was a paper-pusher. I signed forms. When I was in high school, I thought I had a greater destiny in front of me.” He shook his head. “Whatever was meant to happen never happened. One trivial thing after another ate up my future. Then, last year, everything went to hell, and for some reason, I was immune. I lived. My wife, kids, everybody, they all died. I waited for my turn, but for some reason, Fate spared me for this. Martin—” He took his wrist. “Will you pray with me for success in our adventure?” The skin of his hand was soft and hot.

“Like I said, I'm not a religious person.”

The man stared at him as though he hadn't seen him before, examining him as if he were an insect. “That's right. You went to college, so you don't believe in God.”

“Sorry.”

The First Leader got up and went back to the head of the table. “I believe in religious toleration, even for atheists, as long as they're helpful.” The word did not sound neutral when he said it. “You and Ryan leave tomorrow at 600. I'll have the details for you before you leave. By the way.” He looked up at Martin again, his eyes flat and inexpressive. “That kid — like I said, we don't have time for pets. If you want to be responsible for him, fine. Otherwise, we turn him out.”

“I'll be responsible for him.”

“Fine. Ryan!”

He appeared in the hall doorway. In the evening light, his thin hair was the same color as his skin. He looked bald.

“Martin here says the kid's hungry. Throw some food at 'im.”

Ryan nodded and crossed the room into the kitchen. A minute later he reappeared with a paper plate filled with cold canned raviolis.

Martin took them without saying thanks and was escorted back to the converted bedroom. He handed them to Max, who thanked him and sat in the middle of the floor and ate ravenously.

Chapter 14

When Curtiz took Martin out to the front of the house the next morning, it was dark and drizzling. Rain dripped out of the trees and made heavy metallic plops on top of the van that had been brought up. It was idling quietly with its interior lights on. Ryan sat with his hands on the wheel staring straight ahead. Through the opened side doors, Martin saw a cooler of canned drinks, a few plastic packages of lunchmeat, Curtiz' bullhorn, and a half dozen five-gallon gas cans tied against the inside.

A couple of the other men, both wearing their camouflaged uniforms, were bringing other hardware from around the house and loading it into the van — chain, a hand winch, crowbars, several sizes of rope, and some road flares. Martin guessed that their mission involved more than looking for survivors.

Curtiz stood near the front of the van, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. His hair was wet and combed down and he wore a freshly pressed tan bush jacket. Around him hung the strong smell of menthol aftershave.

“Bon voyage,” he said, sipping his coffee.

“Could I have some breakfast first?” Martin asked. “I haven't had anything to eat since day before yesterday.” He was asking matter-of-factly, but in truth hunger had kept him awake and he had felt dizzy several times since being awakened half an hour before.

From one of his pockets, Curtiz pulled out a candy bar and tossed it to him. “Bon appetite,” he said with a grin. “Maybe you can convince Ryan to give you something out of the cooler.”

“You'll give Max some breakfast, won't you?”

“As per our agreement yesterday, he's yours. You can feed him when you get back. He's your responsibility.” He sipped his coffee and steam swirled out around his face into the cold dark air. “You don't come back, he's on his own.”

The candy bar crinkled in Martin's hands. “Would you give him this?” He tossed it back to Curtiz.

“He's your responsibility, Marty. But sure. This one time I'll do your work for you.”

“Let's go,” Ryan croaked from inside the van. He didn't turn his head when he spoke, still gripping the steering wheel with both hands. He looked drowsy and sour.

“I might cooperate more willingly,” Martin said, “if every order didn't have a threat behind it.”

“You might, but then you might not. You're an atheist, Marty, and that means you've got no morality except what you choose to have. You don't have any Higher Order to tell you right from wrong like we do, so you could cut my throat in my sleep and not be bothered a bit. Isn't that right?” He tapped his teeth together inside his closed mouth.

“No,” Martin said, “that isn't right.”

“Come on,” Ryan said dully.

He sipped at his coffee again. “Ryan has your orders. I turn the kid loose at ten tonight. You want to be back before that. He'll probably be wanting a second candy bar.”

“We'll be back,” Ryan said. “Come on. Get in.”

Martin got in and slammed the door shut. “Drive,” he said.

....

The wide rich fields on the west side of Santa Miranda were overgrown with waist-high weeds. These broad fields, the richest farm land in the world that had at one time fed millions, were now weed-clotted and flooded with wind-whipped rain. Along the highway, weeds grew nearly as tall as the van's windows, and sheets of water slid from one side of the road to the other. When the rain would slacken, the noise of their van would startle great gatherings of birds. Thousands of them would rise up out of the foliage and make the air vibrate as they turned and swooped over road. So many of them perched on the power and telephone lines that for hundreds of yards at a stretch not an inch of wire could be seen. Where the highway wound along the San Joaquin River for several miles, Martin counted a dozen hawks of one kind or another. Nature had started to re-balance itself.

“I hate birds,” Ryan muttered, leaning forward and looking up through the windshield. “They sneak up on you.”

“Kind of like Curtiz,” Martin said.

Ryan gave no response. He just drove, keeping to his side of the road.

“What's our mission?” Martin asked, trying not to sound too interested.

“We go to Oakland, I got some addresses, we get any heavy weapons we find. Do the same in San Francisco. We look to see there's any people around and bring back some women if we can. I just drive and you do what I say.”

“No problem.”

“Curtiz has your kid.”

“Right.”

“We'll be back in time you can get him some dinner.”

“I'd appreciate it,” Martin said. Maybe, he was thinking, Ryan had a heart after all. “You ever been hungry?”

“Yeah, I been hungry. Not in a long time, though.”

The highway turned west, toward the pass in the Coast Range. The land, as far as Martin could see was emerald green and range cattle grazed everywhere in the belly-high grasses. Calves stood next to their mothers. Twice, through the dim light under the heavy overcast, Martin thought he saw movement along the highway, next to the weeds. He suspected that coyotes had already moved back in. How long before the wolves returned?

“The kid's name is Max,” Martin said. Ryan kept looking straight ahead, but he nodded. “He said there was a woman back at the house.”

Ryan expressed nothing.

“Is there a woman back at the house?”

“I don't know. There was.”

“Did something happen to her?”

“I don't know. I only saw her once, a week ago.” He seemed profoundly uninterested. In the dimmer light inside the van, hovering over the steering wheel, Ryan's face looked even more hollow.

A flock of blackbirds swooped near the car and Ryan jerked sideways and then breathed heavily. “God damned birds.”

“What did you do before you hooked up with Curtiz?” Martin asked.

“I did head jobs up in Alaska.”

Martin glanced at Ryan, dreading the explanation.

“Mike would shoot 'em and I'd chainsaw the heads off,” Ryan said without expression.

“Off people?” Martin asked casually.