The Cured (23 page)

Henry felt his stomach grow tight. He hoped the other rules didn’t carry such harsh punishments. Rickey raised his arm as if he were in a classroom. “Hey,” he said, trying to get the soldier’s attention. The video paused.

“Yes?” said the soldier.

“Look, do we really have to watch this broad? I mean, can’t you just give us the rules or something, tell us how things really work?”

The soldier shrugged then walked to the door and peered into the hallway. He closed it and flipped the lights back on. “I guess it’d be okay, most of this stuff is for Immunes anyway. They don’t care so much what we do.”

“We?” asked Melissa.

The soldier rolled up his pant leg to show them and ill-fitting prosthetic leg. “We. I was Cured a few years ago. Thought I was one of the last actually. We haven’t seen many more roll in and never ones that didn’t get the run through at a Cure camp.” He sat next to Henry at the conference table. “You guys must be so messed up. No offense, of course. But I mean, you wake up eight years later with no one to tell you how things are or what to do, with all those memories. I’ve got ‘em too, but at least at the Cure camp they help you try to deal with them. Explain things, sort of.” He shook his head. “I can’t even imagine how confused you guys are. That video is supposed to run another two hours so we’ve got time if you want to ask me anything.”

“How about what else gets us tossed out or executed?” asked Rickey.

“Well, about what you’d expect. Violence or theft will get you one or the other. There’s no tolerance for either here. Even if you’re starving, you don’t steal from other people around here. And even if the guy that ate your wife or kid is living next door, you don’t attack him. Well, I guess in our case it’d be the guy that shot at us or our wife and kid. The City would fall apart otherwise. It was really bad in the beginning I guess. Cured folks would come in and be hunted down for stuff they did when they were sick. But this Military Governor took over eventually and he’s kept a tight control over that sort of thing. If you have a problem with someone, you take it to the police. We have courts, just like before, for things like vandalism or shady trading, small stuff like that. The big things go before the Governor himself.”

“What happens for the small stuff?” asked Rickey, as if he were already contemplating doing something not-quite-legal.

The soldier scratched at the back of his neck. “Mostly extra work or repairing the damage that you caused. But breaking the vice laws are usually just extra work penalties.”

“Vice laws?” asked Vincent.

“Yeah, but like I said, they mostly only care if the Immunes do those. Alcohol is illegal and so is smoking,” he said pointing to the cigarette behind Rickey’s ear, “but as long as we don’t get drunk in public and cause a problem, no one cares too much. If we were Immune though, we could get in trouble. They don’t want to lose any of that precious Immune DNA, so anything that causes bodily harm is not allowed. So drugs, alcohol, we’re all tested for STDs when we get here–”

“Us too?”

“Yeah, that’s what the blood work was for, among other things. If you have one that’s not treatable (and they’re mostly not treatable these days) you’ll be monitored by someone from DHRS and if they find out you’re interested in a healthy Immune, they’ll warn that person away. Not that Immunes and Cured get together that often. Some stuff is more scarce than illegal. Like the cigarettes and cars– they just let us sort of run out and then it’s not a problem anymore. Only military people and emergency workers get gas for cars and alcohol is reserved for medical use at the hospital. But everyone knows where the closest moonshine bar is and you can get all sorts of contraband from them, not just alcohol. Like I said, for us, those rules are far more relaxed. We’re allowed to endanger ourselves as long as we do it in private.” The soldier looked like he wanted to spit, but didn’t.

“So we’re second class citizens then?” Henry asked.

“You asking me what the official orientation would say or what I would say?”

“Both I guess.”

“It’s not overt. I mean, there’s no rule to put us in our place or tell us we can’t be friends with the Immunes or have the same rights, in fact it’s clearly written in the code that we all have the same rights and are meant to be treated as equals. But things are different when you give actual people a say. I mean, I guess I can understand how it all started. All of a sudden, these people that have forced them to the brink of extinction wake up and realize what they were doing was wrong. Not only do these people need massive amounts of medical care, but they need food and shelter and jobs too. And there’s no place for them to go but right alongside their old enemies behind this wall. I can understand putting them down on the dock side. There’s lots of empty, ready to go houses down there, and it’s near the hospital which they’ll need on an almost daily basis. And then, there’s not
quite
enough food to go around, so maybe the new people get skimped a little bit. After all, they’ve just woken up after eating your relatives. Why do they deserve to eat more than someone who never did those terrible things? Yes, yes, they were sick, they were out of control and wouldn’t have chosen to do it- but still, the fact remains that they committed murder. Part of what the City needs is more laborers. There are thousands of ‘em, just been Cured. You don’t know what’s really happened in their brains. Are they functional? Will they revert? Are they even capable of skilled tasks? So they get put into grunt work, even if they are skilled at other things. Just in case.

I can see how it started. Doesn’t have to be rabid zombie hunters to make things go south for us. You just let these things slide by long enough and it sort of gets ingrained in how people think. You get people like Maureen down the hall there. People that
should
know better, but truly don’t see things the same anymore.”

Henry grinned ruefully at the name. “So none of the people in charge are Cured?” Melissa asked.

The soldier shook his head. “Not unless you count people like me. This is about as far up the ladder as we get, and I had to work for years to get this far. There are a few former doctors that are allowed to do simple procedures at the hospital. You know, stitch up a small wound, mix ointment for rashes, check on older folks. But that’s it. Former surgeons and obstetricians and cancer doctors reduced to activities a housemom would routinely do. Just because they got sick. And it’s like that pretty much everywhere. There are a few Cured engineers at the electric plant, just because the City was so desperate for them and there’s that lawyer, Frank Courtlen, in the trial, he’s Cured. He’s only there because no one else would defend Robert Pazzo though. Other than them, we’re pretty much all in the lower paying, harder jobs. We live segregated from the Immunes in fact if not by law, in the most rundown pieces of town. The police take their time responding to emergencies down there as do the utilities people. In fact, eight years after the power came back on, we still have to boil our water because no one has bothered to restart the filtration system on our side of town. We aren’t welcome in the north side restaurants and some people will outright refuse to trade with you. Sometimes, if you aren’t paying attention or you are too scared to say anything you even get stiffed at the Farm if there’s a bad harvest. Even though the overwhelming majority of the people that work there are Cured. Just not the food distributors.”

“Should we leave?” asked Henry, knowing what the others were already thinking.

The soldier shrugged. “Where are you going to go? You saw how things are Outside. Even without constant threat of Looters, there’s nothing left to live on for miles. And as unfair as things are, it’s still better than that. In fact most Cured would be upset with the idea of leaving. This is the City that cured them and took them in after what they had done. Any family they have left is here. There’s been talk of expanding the City. Developing a satellite sort of colony or something, but there haven’t been many people interested. It just hasn’t got off the ground. Maybe in a new place we would do better, but no one wants to take a chance on it.”

There was a knock at the door and the soldier stood up to answer it, rolling his pant leg down again. He stepped outside to talk with someone. Henry looked at the others.

“I told you,” Rickey grumbled.

“We can’t change anyone’s mind by running away, Rickey,” said Vincent.

“I don’t want to change anyone’s mind. I just want to leave. Why should I live with people that look down on me, that treat me like crap?”

“You heard him,” said Melissa, “There’s nowhere else to go. For miles. Everything’s picked clean. Even the houses we hit were scavenged, we got lucky to find what little we did. You’d rather starve than put up with a few inconveniences?”

“It’s not just an inconvenience–” Rickey started, but Henry interrupted him.

“Look, at least here we have food and shelter and medicine. Even electricity. I hear you Rickey, and the first opportunity I get I’ll volunteer for whatever new town they want to set up in order to get out. But for now we need them. Until we can get enough together to make it on our own, we have to live by their rules.”
And until they help me find Marnie,
he thought, though he didn’t say it out loud. “So let’s just keep our heads down in the meantime. Besides, we can’t leave until Molly is better at least. She may want to come with us.”

“And Pam?” Vincent asked.

Melissa shook her head. “No way. She found her kids she’ll never go anywhere else no matter how bad things get here. The world could end again before she’d leave them.”

The soldier returned. “Sorry about that, we have the last Cure personnel coming back this afternoon and they need us to help with the supplies. Did you guys need anything else?”

Henry shook his head for them all.

“Well, look me up when you get to the dock side. We stick together down there, more than the Immunes do anyway. I’ll introduce you to the best moonshine bar in town.”

Rickey grinned and the soldier left them to their own devices.

Twenty-seven

“I’m sorry, sir, but all the government offices are on skeleton crews. It’s the trial. Even the Military Governor has gone for opening statements. He won’t attend the entire trial of course, but he won’t be back today.” The pretty secretary turned back to her files.

“Everyone keeps talking about this trial. What is it about?” asked Henry. He really didn’t care. He was just buying time, hoping someone important would walk through the office so he could grab them. The secretary looked at him as if he were crazy.

“Uh– I just got to the City two days ago,” he said quickly.

“Oh, that explains it then. It’s the Plague trial. The military found some scientists holed up in a lab and they are supposed to be the same ones that started this whole thing.”

“The first ones? How did they survive that long?” Henry was interested in spite of himself.

The secretary shrugged. “The typical way I’d guess.” She eyed him and added, “how did you?”

“Look, I just want to make an appointment to see someone. Anyone. I came from a bandit camp full of really bad people. There are kids and innocent people trapped there too. Some of them are just sick– like I was.”

“All right,” sighed the secretary sitting down at her desk and picking up a pencil, “But I don’t think you’re going to get much help. The world’s full of really bad people right now. Can’t chase them all down, you know?” She scribbled in an appointment book. “What’s your name?”

“Henry Broom.”

“Okay, Henry, three o’clock tomorrow, the Governor has a fifteen minute block. You need permission to leave work early?”

“I don’t know,” said Henry, blushing. The secretary glanced up at him.

“Jeez. You
are
new. You supposed to be at work now?” Henry shrugged. “What’s your assignment?” she asked holding her hand out for his folder. She pulled out the work assignment and picked up her phone.

“Hi Steph, it’s Cheryl over at City Hall. You expecting a Henry Broom today . . .”

The secretary’s conversation trailed off as Henry’s mind drifted off into it’s now familiar rut of frustration and worry and desperate planning. How many days was this going to take? Every day was one more that Marnie was trapped or worse.

“Okay,” said the secretary, “you’re late but you’ve been excused. Go to the All-Work Station now. You’re excused for tomorrow afternoon but don’t miss any more work or you’ll be short rations.”

“Thanks,” said Henry, halfheartedly. He headed out of the massive empty building to his bike and took off for work. He was glad the soldiers had given him the bike back. He hadn’t seen very many since he’d entered the City and it had already proved very useful, since he lived so far from everything important.

The All-Work Station was an unimpressive little brick building near the docks. Henry opened the door, where a woman in a threadbare jacket was sorting sooty work orders onto bulletin boards. Everything was dusty or grimy. The floor, the counter, the windows. The only bright thing in the place was a little gold bell on the counter. Henry found that oddly funny.

“Hello,” he said, and the woman turned around.

“You Henry?” she asked.

“I’m sorry I’m late, I’m still finding my way around.”

“Don’t worry. All-Work isn’t exactly a high pressure environment. Most times it’s a hurry up and wait kind of place anyway. I’m Stephanie. Normally I just lead a work shift, but Bernice is at the trial with everyone else. She’s the one that really runs things.”