Radio Hope (Toxic World Book 1)
Author: Sean McLachlan
Date: 2014-01-30 05:00:00+00:00

Radio Hope

Toxic World Book One
by Sean McLachlan

Copyright 2013 Sean McLachlan, all rights reserved.

Cover design by Andrés Alonso-Herrero. Photo by CWO E.R. Carlson, courtesy U.S. Defense Imagery.

The characters in this work of fiction are fictional. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. There are a number of actual radio stations called Radio Hope. The Radio Hope in this novel is not intended to represent any of them and is entirely fictitious.

Toxic Bay, on the other hand, is a real place. . .

For Almudena, my wife

And Julián, my son

CHAPTER ONE

The old man dove right into that punch. Annette Cruz was guarding the bar that evening and had a front row seat to the first good fight of harvest season. In he went, launching himself at an opponent half his age and twice his size. Annette saw the fist slam square in the old man’s face, heard the wet crack of his nose getting broken and saw the twin jets of blood shoot out his nostrils.

The old man’s head jerked back, but his hands still came forward, landing with uncanny accuracy on his opponent’s face, thumbs feeling out for eyes and pressing.

Annette had scoped out both men as trouble the minute they walked into $87,953. Being the biggest bar in the Burbs, it got plenty of hard cases coming in from the wildlands to trade, scavengers from the northern ruins mixed with herdsmen from the mountains and guns-for-hire from who-knows-where. They all came for the best wheat beer and the best corn whiskey for two hundred miles. They also came for the electricity, which $87,953 had every night from sunset until sunrise thanks to an underground cable direct from New City. Colored lights, music from New City Radio, a TV showing movies, it was just like the Old Times, not that Annette was old enough to remember the Old Times.

The older man had come in first. He was probably almost an adult when the last government fell, and the intervening years hadn’t been kind. He was hunched over, almost bald, with a lined, tanned face that stood out from a closely cropped gray beard. That face almost always scowled, and he looked around the bar with an air of suspicion as he drank steadily and without interruption.

The suspicion was probably for the sake of his companion—a girl of about fourteen dressed in jeans, a loose shirt, and a baggy jean jacket who devoured the meal the old man got for her with some trade Annette didn’t see because her attention was elsewhere for a minute. The girl’s hair was tucked into a cap in a vain attempt to make her look like a boy. Annette wasn’t fooled.

Neither was Roy. He gave Annette a look from where he stood behind the bar. Annette replied with a little nod. Yes, she’d watch these two.

An old man and a teenaged girl. A bad combination with all these outsiders about. Not that she blamed him for bringing her in. Leaving her outside alone would have been an even worse idea.

The other guy was obvious trouble too. Long-limbed and swaggering, he didn’t scowl, he examined. Sussed out the bar and everything in it like a boy about to steal something from a market stall. He was as filthy as he was mean-looking, even though the stream that flowed into the cove was free for everyone to use. He sat at the bar a few places down from the old man and the girl, slapped a wrench on the counter, and asked how much he could drink in trade for it. Roy lumbered over, a heavyset man with charcoal skin and white hair. He slipped on his reading glasses, held the tool at arm’s length, and turned it over in his hands.

“This looks good, barely a spot of rust. You lucked out finding this. I’ll give you a meal and three drinks for it.”

“I didn’t ask for food, I asked how many drinks I could get for it,” the scavenger growled.

“That will be six drinks.”

“Ten.”

“Seven.”

“Nine.”

“Eight, take it or leave it.”

“Deal.”

The scavenger and Roy shook hands. When Roy turned away Annette noticed the scavenger wiped his hand it on his grubby camouflage pants.

Roy walked to his lock box, put the wrench to one side, and pulled out eight copper coins dating from the Old Times. Turning back to the scavenger he placed them on the counter.

“What’s this?” the scavenger asked.

“Tokens,” Roy said, picking one up and holding it to the light. “See how I’ve stamped my mark on them? Each one is good for a drink here any time. Plenty of people use them to trade too, although the Merchants Association doesn’t like that too much.”

The scavenger swept them away with his hands.

“Don’t need them. I’ll drink through all those tonight. Give me a whiskey and a beer for starters.”

Roy shrugged his shoulders, took the tokens back, and served the man.

For an hour not much happened. The bar began to fill up and Annette had to keep an eye out for trouble elsewhere. She intervened in an argument between two scavengers and told them to quiet down or take it outside. A little while later she had to stop a tweaker at the door. Roy had a sign outside saying “Roy loves everybody”. That didn’t apply to tweakers.

All through that hour, though, her gaze kept going back to the scavenger, the old man, and the girl dressed as a boy. The scavenger was good to his word and he’d almost drunk through all his trade. He leaned against the bar, an arrogant leer on his face, not trying to hide the fact that he was ogling the girl. The old man gave him a sour look and tried to ignore him. The girl stared at her plate. Annette edged closer, keeping the scavenger’s back to her.

“Hey!” the scavenger called out.

Annette’s hands fell to her side, her left touching the short wooden club that dangled from her belt, her right caressing the grip of her revolver where it rested in her holster. A double-barreled 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun was slung on her back. She hoped it wouldn’t escalate that far.

The scavenger sauntered over to the pair. The old man slid off his barstool and got between him and his girl. The practice was so quick, so fluid, Annette could tell he’d done it a hundred times before. Without taking his eyes off the scavenger he reached for his glass, then glanced at the bar when his fingers didn’t find it. Roy had already taken it out of reach.

“Hey,” the scavenger said again. “How much for the girl? I got more tools to trade. Hell, she’s young enough I’ll give you a couple of Blue Cans if you let me have her all night.”

“Fuck off,” the old man said, his scowl deepening.

The two faced off. The scavenger cocked his head.

“What did you say to me?”

“I said—”

“Gentlemen!” Roy boomed from behind the counter, a big smile on his face. “This is a place for relaxation, inebriation, and stupefaction! There are no enemies here, only drinking buddies. How about y’all sit down and have another drink. I’ll bring you each a free snack.”

Both men ignored him. Annette edged closer.

“Look you old fart,” the scavenger said. “You come in here with a girl and I say I want to make a trade. Why you giving me trouble?”

“She’s not for sale to anyone.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the scavenger said, a tone of false realization dawning in his voice. “You keep that piece of ass for yourself. Poor girl, having that wrinkled old cock plowing into her every night, she must—”

That was when the old man threw himself forward. The scavenger was ready for him and landed him that killer right hook that shattered his nose. Annette could tell the old man knew it was coming, knew that he couldn’t win on fists alone and would have to win on viciousness and the willingness to take a beating.

The old man’s thumbs reached the scavenger’s eyes and pressed. The younger man yelped, tried to pull his head away, but the old man was in close and holding on for all he was worth, his fingers splayed out in the back of the scavenger’s head and gripping hard.

The scavenger gave him a one-two in the ribs. The old man grunted and took it, eyes glittering above a bloodied face.

The scavenger brought up his hands and smacked the old man’s arms away. Both staggered back. An instant later the old man dove in again, driving his boot into the scavenger’s knee. The younger man was still rubbing his eyes and blinking and didn’t see it coming. He went down. The old man took a step closer and rammed his boot into his opponent’s face, smacking his head against the tile floor.

“That’s enough,” Annette ordered, drawing her truncheon.

The old man turned on her. Annette’s heart did a flip flop when she saw the look in his eyes. She dropped the truncheon and drew the shotgun from her shoulder holster, flicked off the safety, and leveled it at his face in one quick motion.

“I said enough.” Annette growled.

The old man stood there, feet set wide apart, hands ready to reach out and grab, his look still crazed but with the light of sanity dawning.

A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. The girl was reaching inside her jacket.

“Honey, whatever you got in there better stay in there or you’re going to get your grandfather’s brains splattered all over your face.”

“He’s my father,” the girl said, her voice quavering.

Annette flicked her gaze back to the old man. “Is daddy going to behave?”

The old man took a deep breath and relaxed. He took a step back and looked down at the scavenger moaning on the floor.

“Guess I made my point,” he said.

Someone in the crowd piped up, “The guy on the floor started it, Annette. I saw.”

“I saw too,” Annette said, putting the safety back on with a significant click but not holstering her weapon. Not yet. “You and your kid can stay. Idiot here can go.”

Roy stepped around the bar and helped the scavenger off the floor. His eyes were red and he had the boot-shaped bruise blossoming on the side of his face. Roy patted him on the shoulder.

“Now what are you doing starting fights for? How about you just sleep it off and we’ll all be friends tomorrow, you hear?”

The scavenger pushed Roy away. “Get your hands off me, nigger!”

Annette leapt forward and rammed the butt of her shotgun into his mouth. The scavenger pitched backward, spewing blood and teeth and landing hard on the tiles.

Roy stood with his fist poised in the air, aiming at the space where a moment before the scavenger had stood. He stared at Annette.

“Could you wait long enough for me to hit one of these scumbags? Just once?”

Annette looked down at the sorry sight at her feet, shook her head, and slung her weapon. With the help of one of the regulars she hauled him up and pitched him onto the dirt road outside. Annette was disappointed to see him miss a puddle by inches. She’d have to improve her aim.

“And stay out! You’re banned from $87,953 on the grounds of starting a fight and using hate speech on a citizen. My boss will make it official tomorrow. Go drink somewhere that will take you,” she shouted.

Roy appeared at the door and tossed a couple of tokens onto the scavenger’s prone form.

“Here are the drinks you didn’t get to drink. You can trade them in the market. No man can ever say I cheated on a trade, not even with someone like you.”

Roy and Annette walked through the crowd to whistles and applause. Annette saw Roy smile. A fight was good for business as long as it didn’t get too out of hand.

Annette caught his eye and inclined her head toward the bar.

“Mind if I. . .?”

“Go on,” Roy waved his hand in that direction. “He ain’t coming back.”

Annette went behind the bar and through a doorway screened by a beaded curtain. In the darkened back room, a narrow cot stood behind a row of kegs and between racks of glasses and sacks of flour and corn meal. On it a thin shape lay curled up in a blanket, a shock of brown hair poking out. Annette crept up and knelt down by the cot. She reached out her hand.

A low chuckle came from behind her. Roy’s big frame stood silhouetted in the doorway.

“That boy doesn’t wake up for anything less than a gunshot,” Roy whispered.

Annette looked back at her son and stroked his hair. “Yeah, and every harvest market I wake him up at least a dozen times. I got to get him into New City, Roy. The Burbs is no place for him.”

CHAPTER TWO

Marcus Callahan woke to the sound of the tea kettle whistling. It was too damn early but with the harvest market starting up The Doctor needed him to help screen the goods. Rosie was already awake, bless her, up at dawn every morning like clockwork, even though they hadn’t owned a clock in decades.

Marcus winced as he sat up, his sciatica sending a sharp jab down one leg. The morning was cool and he put a sweater on over his shirt. Pulling on his jeans, a movement that gave him another jab all up and down the leg, he shoved his feet into his shoes and headed to the kitchen.

“Hey honey, how are you this morning?” Rosie said as she turned from the fireplace where the kettle whistled happily on its grating. She was a round little woman with a smiling face and gray hair tied up in a bun. She wore a faded old smock. Marcus reminded himself to find a new one for her in the market. The choice was always better around harvest.

“Too damn old and up too damn early,” he grumbled.

Rosie made a pouty face and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Oh you poor old man.”

Marcus gave her a squeeze and kissed her on the lips. “Not so old. Want to go back to bed?”

Rosie smacked him on the ass. “Come on back at lunchtime. You’re late already. Sit down and I’ll get your tea. There’s some of yesterday’s bread and a bit of that blackberry jam Sylvia traded to us.”

Marcus sat down at the wobbly card table in the corner of their kitchen and looked out the window. A feeble light poked through the gray dawn and he could see New City starting its day. A few people were about, either bundling up goods on carts to take out to the market in the Burbs or standing in the doorways of their little frame houses, trying to wake up just like he was. The entire view to one side was taken up by the huge concrete rectangle of the old warehouse. Beyond that he could see the gray line of the city wall, a haphazard collection of concrete slabs, steel plates, and old buses filled with sandbags. A few figures moved along the catwalk. Marcus could see their guns as black lines against the gray sky.

Rosie set a mug of tea in front of him and he drank gratefully. After a few sips he said to his wife, “Sit down with me.”

“Once I get a few more things done,” Rosie said.

“Doc’s paying me today.”

“Good.”

“Market’s picking up. Think I’ll go and find you a new smock, or do you want to pick one out yourself?”

Rosie made a face. “You know I don’t like the Burbs.”

Marcus grunted. Who could blame her?

“Any particular color?” he asked.

“I don’t care, just make sure it’s in good condition. Warm, too. We’re in for a bad spell of weather.”

“Your joints aching?”

“Oh, they’re all right.”

Marcus got up and went over to where she hunched over a washing bucket.

“First off,” he said while taking a pot from her hands and plunking it down in the sudsy water. “Let me do that. And second, give me those hands.”

Marcus gently massaged each swollen knuckle.

“You’re going to be late,” Rosie said.

“Doc can wait.”

“Clyde won’t wait. He’ll be opening the gate any minute.”

“Just let me get this last finger and do the dishes and I’ll be out of here.”

Rosie gave him a kiss on the lips and lingered there a moment, then she pushed on his chest.

“Go away,” she said with a smile. “Have fun with the scavengers.”

Marcus rolled his eyes, kissed her again, and headed for the door. At the front hall he paused by a group of framed photographs. Two boys and a girl smiled at him from behind glass. The pictures showed them as laughing babies, children hanging upside down from a tree limb, gangly teens. They were arranged every which way, so that one would show a child as a baby right next to one of her younger brother on his twentieth birthday. They were as jumbled up as his memories of the people they represented. In one photo a younger version of Rosie smiled from amid a tangle of the three waving children. In another the two boys, now young men, stood proudly in the uniform of an army long disappeared from a city-state whose name had been all but forgotten.

And there he was, his hair blonde instead of gray, and with a hairline that hadn’t crawled halfway to his butt, standing arm in arm with his daughter on her wedding day. By then they didn’t make wedding dresses anymore, but she had on a nice white shirt and a veil just like in the Old Times. There had been music and dancing. Rosie had even managed a wedding cake.

Marcus forced himself to look away. He unlocked the door, unlatched the chain, unslid both bolts, and headed out. He lingered in front of the house he had built with his own hands from the remnants of earlier houses. A seagull screeched in the gray sky. Winter’s chill was coming in strong and Marcus was glad for the sweater. Once he heard Rosie lock the door he headed to work.

Screening the goods always took place at a long table set up outside the warehouse since non-citizens were never allowed inside that building. As he approached he waved to two men lounging by the table with rifles in their hands. One of them called to him.

“Hey Marcus, The Doctor isn’t here yet. Could you get him? Clyde’s getting antsy.”

“All right,” Marcus replied, changing course for the warehouse door, where another guard stood. He shook his head. A good man, Clyde, but too high strung for the job of Head of the Watch. And letting scavengers inside always made him even antsier. Last citizens meeting he brought up the issue like he did every year but Doc shot him down.

“We can’t have a completely closed city,” Doc had said. “Makes us look elitist, and besides, I have to let in patients, don’t I?”

And that was that.

Marcus nodded to Bill, the guard on duty at the door, and walked on through. Inside, the ground floor of the warehouse was one giant room with a high ceiling. The citizens of New City had put up partitions throughout the place, which had been a shipping center for a major company back in the Old Times, dividing it into workshops, storage areas, a prayer room, even a few homes. It was snug in there, but Marcus and Rosie preferred to have windows. The lights were always kept too dim in the warehouse anyway. The tidal generator and a few solar panels gave New City plenty of juice but they traded most of it to the Burbs. On the opposite end of the warehouse was the loading dock, where Kevin and Rachel lovingly preserved a few vehicles and a supply of biofuel.

Marcus headed to a metal staircase along one wall and ascended, his sciatica twinging in protest. He passed Ahmed coming down. The young nurse had a smooth brown face, eyes as black as two opals, and spiked hair to match.

“How’s he doing?” Marcus asked.

“Poorly,” Ahmed replied. “You better go up.”

“Where are you off to?” Marcus called over his shoulder.

“The Burbs. I have broken nose to set. Some scavenger got into a fight.”

“Go figure,” Marcus muttered.

He rounded the landing and entered the second floor. Much of this level was empty except for some storage units. The freight elevator was broken beyond repair so nobody bothered putting much up here. The back half was blocked off for the Doctor’s personal use. Marcus went through another door and into the front office, where a teenaged girl sat at a desk with a radio. In a large tidy hand Marcus could read even at this distance, she was copying down the announcer’s every word.

“. . .and don’t forget to store your preserves in a cool dry place. If you can, build a root cellar. Broadcasting from somewhere in the wildlands, this is Radio Hope. Coming up next, my colleague will give easy-to-follow instructions on making a small root cellar you can hide under a board or even under your tent. . .”

The girl, named Catherine, gave Marcus a smile as he passed. He smiled and waved back. Kevin and Rachel’s girl, and the sharpest kid in the city. Sadness tugged at him. He shook it away and entered Doc’s quarters without knocking. He was the only person who could do that.

Stepping into The Doctor’s rooms was like stepping into the Old Times. Bookshelves lined the walls. A functioning computer sat on a desk. There was wall-to-wall carpeting and the concrete walls had been painted a clinical white, broken up with old paintings and engravings on the few places the bookshelves didn’t cover. Through the far door was a well-equipped medical office.

The Doctor sat at a table with a mirror in front of him, putting skin-colored cream on his gaunt face. Marcus saw he was developing that unhealthy gray pallor that showed he’d run out of medicine again.

“How are you?” Marcus asked, not that he needed to ask.

“Sarcoma’s coming back,” The Doctor muttered.

“I can’t see it,” Marcus said.

But I can see you’re covering something up with cream. Just how long do you think you can keep this a secret outside the walls?

“Clyde open the gates yet?” the Doctor asked, examining himself in the mirror.

“No, but if you don’t get down there soon you’ll have to treat him for a heart attack.”

“All right, all right,” the Doctor sighed, lifting himself off the chair. Marcus hurried to his side. “Help me down the stairs and then get your hands off me.”

“Wish the harvest had been better,” Marcus said, letting The Doctor drape an arm over his shoulders. “City’ll have to be conservative in its buying.”

“How’s Rosie?”

“Fine, just fine. You’d know that if you got out more often.”

“Yes, mother.”

Clyde hadn’t waited and the first scavenger was there with his bags when Marcus and The Doctor arrived. Abraham Weissman from the Merchants Association was there too, drumming his soft fingers on the table.

“Morning Abe,” they both said as they came up. Abe was old enough to remember the Old Times like they did, but time had been kinder to him. He had few wrinkles and most of his hair, although what he had was completely white. Blue eyes glittered from behind a pair of gold wire glasses.

“Morning,” he nodded. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

As Marcus and the Doctor sat down the scavenger dumped the contents of several sacks onto the table. Marcus recognized him as someone who had traded last year, so they didn’t have to explain the rules. Once they’d determined there were no medical supplies and the scavenger had traded for his market token, The Doctor wished him well and sent him back out the gate.

Clyde sent in the next one and Marcus and the Doctor fell into the familiar routine. Abe sat back and watched. The Merchants Association had no role in this but Abe always asserted his right to observe. Abe gave his opinion about a couple of items he thought the city could use but otherwise just sat there with his hands folded in his lap and kept quiet. Marcus preferred him that way, preferred him better when he wasn’t around at all.

Pickings were slim. The scavengers came with fewer goods every year, and every year their offerings were of worse quality. The whole region was almost picked clean, and except for a few lucky finds and some bold long-distance traders plying the coastline, there wasn’t much of any more than routine interest. Marcus did notice a nice collection of dresses he’d have to look at later. A few looked just Rosie’s size.

By midmorning Marcus could see Doc was getting tired. He told the guard to tell Clyde only one more before they had a break. Abe muttered about having other things to do but Marcus silenced him with a look. The Doctor’s health was more important.

The final scavenger for the morning approached the table and Marcus recognized him as the guy Ahmed must have treated. He was tough-looking old coot with face knitted into a scowl. Marcus didn’t have to wonder why he was scowling. A white cast encased his nose, affixed with white tape that made it look like a giant albino spider had latched onto his face. An old army pack was slung across his back and he carried a long cardboard box. Behind him came a youth carrying another pack. After a moment Marcus realized the youth was a girl trying to look like a boy.

The man and the girl set the packs gently on the table.

“Welcome to New City,” The Doctor said, “I don’t recognize you. Are you joining us for the first time?”

“Yep,” the man replied.

When no other information was forthcoming, The Doctor went on.

“Let me go through how this works. New City is only open to citizens and associates. The gates are closed at night and only citizens sleep inside. Anyone can live in the Burbs. Everyone calls me The Doctor because I’m the only one here. I and my assistant are always here to treat you free of charge, but you already know that. For the good of the community I get first dibs on any medicine or medical equipment you have to trade, and you have to trade although I have to give fair price. I also get to make first offer on anything I see that the city could use, but unlike the medicine you don’t have to trade if you don’t want to. For a stall you also have to trade. It isn’t much and you get access to the biggest market I know of anywhere.”

The stranger nodded. “That’s fine.”

“Well, let’s see what’s in your bags and that box then.”

The old man opened up the box and withdrew half a dozen long florescent bulbs. Then he and the girl emptied the first bag and laid out a few winter coats in decent condition. Wrapped inside them were a battered flashlight and a packet of medical gauze bearing the logo of the Red Cross, Crescent, and Star.

“A trip down memory lane for you, Doc,” Marcus said. He turned to the scavenger to explain. “They’re the ones who sent him to medical school.”

“There were no medical schools by then,” The Doctor said. “Just doctors training assistants.”

The scavenger opened up his second bag and pulled out dozens of little wooden boxes. Each was about the size of an adult’s hand. On one face they had a single dial and out of the side was a wire with an earphone.

The Doctor picked one up and examined it.

“What are these?”

“Put the earphone on and turn the dial,” the scavenger said.

The Doctor, Marcus, and Abe all did what he suggested. As Marcus turned the dial, a voice in the earphone grew louder.

“. . .is the time to gather mushrooms. There are some basic things to know to find an edible mushroom. Remember that the majority of mushrooms are poisonous, including all those that grow on yew trees. One type of edible mushroom is the pufferball. . .”

“That’s Radio Hope!” Marcus said.

Abe examined the radio he was looking at. “These look newly made.”

“They are. I found a whole cache of them.”

Abe turned it over in his hands. “How do you tune it? The Merchants Association operates a fine radio station called New City Radio. If you’re interested in an advertising spot we have good rates and—”

“It can’t pick that up.”

Abe looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s a crystal radio. Do you remember those? Instead of a tuner there’s a crystal cut to a certain frequency, in this case to 1010 kHz, Radio Hope’s frequency. It gets its energy from the electromagnetic waves of the broadcast itself, so it doesn’t even need a battery.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” Abe said.

The old man looked at his feet. “There was a note with the cache explaining it all.”

“So you mean to say that you just happened upon a whole pile of radios that only receive Radio Hope, just lying there for anyone to pick up?” Abe asked. “Where did you find these?”

The stranger turned to The Doctor angrily, “Since when does one man get to ask where another man got his stash?”

“Never,” The Doctor replied. “You don’t have to answer him.”

“Fine then, let’s get on with this. Market’s already started.”

“All right,” The Doctor said. “I’m calling my rights to buy the gauze and I’d like to buy the florescent lights and one of these little radios too. What do you want in trade for all that?”

“Now wait a minute,” Abe cut in. “I’m calling unfair competition. You can’t trade a radio that gets one station but not the other.”

“Overruled,” The Doctor said without looking at him.

“Why?” Abe asked. “We have rules about fair competition. This hurts my station’s listenership.”

The Doctor turned to him. “The rules about fair competition only state that you can’t discriminate with who you trade with and you can’t coerce a trade. You know that.”

“But this—”

“Overruled,” The Doctor said. He turned to the stranger as Abe seethed. “What do you want for these?”

“I’ll take a kilo of flour and six Blue Cans.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “You have too many radios for them to be expensive, and I’ll have you know that I don’t have a shortage of gauze and florescent lights.”

Marcus didn’t say anything. Actually they needed those lights pretty badly, and they looked in good enough condition that probably half of them worked.

“I’ll give you a kilo of flour and two Blue Cans,” The Doctor said.

“Kilo and three.”

“Done.”

The Doctor held out a hand. The old man didn’t take it immediately.

“I’ll take that or something else.”

“What?” The Doctor asked.

“A spot to pitch a tent inside the walls.”

“It’s only open to citizens, as I told you. You’d have to get nominated for associate status by a citizen and then voted in by a majority of the Citizens Council. And since you’re a stranger. . .”

“I heard that you let in people when there’s danger.”

“What danger would that be?” Marcus asked.

The old man made a sour face.

“Countryside’s getting bad. Some damn cult calling themselves the Righteous Horde.”

Everyone behind the table perked up. This wasn’t the first time they’d heard about this new group. All the rumors had been vague, though.

“What do you know?” Marcus asked.

The stranger looked at him.

“What’s it worth to you?”

Marcus fished into his pocket and held up an old silver-colored coin with a stamp on it.

“A meal token to $87,953. It’s a bar in the Burbs.”

“I’ve been there,” the stranger said, holding out a hand. Marcus gave him the coin. “The Righteous Horde came out of the north last year. You probably heard The Skullsplitters got wiped out. That was the Righteous Horde’s work.”

“Perhaps we should give them a citizenship medal,” Abe laughed.

“You wouldn’t get the chance. Convert or die is the way they work. They’re sweeping the countryside, getting everybody. Scavengers, tweakers, settlements, everybody.”

“What do they believe?” The Doctor asked.

“Who cares? Some mishmash from the old radical sects with the idea that they’re going to purify the world and start a new paradise.”

“How many fighters?” Marcus asked.

“Don’t know. Word is they have a few thousand.”

Marcus felt a chill. His glanced at the wall, that wall that had been almost breached half a dozen times before by forces nowhere near as large.

Abe leaned forward, his mouth a grim line. “What else do you know?”

The scavenger gave a nervous look over his shoulder in the direction of the mountains. “Last I heard they’re about fifty miles east of here and coming this way.”

CHAPTER THREE

Jackson Andrews drew the bucket out of the creek and poured the water into the large metal drum on the cart next to him. Bending again, he got another bucketful and repeated the motion. He looked inside the drum. Almost done and about time too. The breeze coming off the cove was chilly this morning and his hands were numb.

A couple of more buckets and he was done. He placed the bucket back on the hook from which it hung on a tree branch and clapped his hands on his sides to get some feeling back in them. He really needed to get some gloves before winter set in.

Jackson looked out over the cove. It was fed by three streams, the southernmost of which ran at his feet. A larger one ran almost at the center of the gentle curve of coastline, while the northern stream ran in a narrow gully parallel to the northern shore, running along the edge of the Burbs and under the wall into New City before turning south and emptying into the cove.

New City was built on a peninsula that made up the cove’s northern edge. In the gray dawn he could see the place was waking up. Smoke rose from several chimneys as well as the bakery. The rich smell of bread wafted over the water to him, making his stomach grumble. The city shoreline was lined with old crumbled concrete piers that had once served the giant box of a warehouse. The base of the peninsula was cut off from the mainland by a high wall, and both shores were protected by double spools of razor wire.

To the east, his right, past a stretch of empty land he could see the sprawling mess of the Burbs. A few old buildings stood out against a dozen newer frame houses and countless shacks and tents built every which way with no design or planning. Smoke emerging from chimneys and open fire pits showed him that the Burbs were waking up too. The real people, the workers, were starting their day of thankless toil while the rich in New City sat back and raked in the profits.

Jackson spat in the direction of New City, turned his back on it, and grabbed the wooden handles of the cart. He’d built this cart himself and was damn proud of it. Two large bicycle tires treaded with solid rubber were well oiled and light, while the wood was quality timber scavenged from an old house up in the mountains. It was perfectly balanced so that when he lifted up the handles and started pulling, there was a minimum of resistance and swaying.

He set out on the well-worn path away from New City and the Burbs, south toward a line of hills that ran like a finger from the mountains down to the shoreline. The shore itself was out of view for most of his way, hidden by sickly scrubs and irregularities in the land. Not that there was anything to see out there except the occasional beachcomber and fishing boats from the Burbs. The rattle of his cart drowned out the distant sound of the surf.

As he pulled the cart he began to warm up. The way was easy. Over the past year he’d taken out all the big rocks and filled in the deeper holes, so now he could make the journey in half the time that he used to. His eyes scanned the ground out of habit, hoping to spot something worth scavenging even though he knew this area had been picked clean before he was even born.

Only one trip today, he told himself. Then I’ll have enough to trade for some gloves and some more corn meal. Got to talk to the scavengers at the market too. Find out the news.

He’d talked to some newcomers from the wildlands the day before and what he’d heard troubled him.

A noise from the direction of the shore made him stop. He was about to set down the cart and grab the meat cleaver that hung from a leather loop on the side of the frame when he saw it was only a trio of young boys, all gangly limbs and laughing faces. They spotted him, stopped in whispered conversation, and then ran right toward him.

As they shot past, they pointed at his face and shouted, “Blamer! Blamer!”

Jackson frowned as he watched them disappear in the direction of the creek. He recognized them as kids from the Burbs. Typical. Children of the working class emulating the mindset of the wealthy. Probably heard their parents pining for associate status every day.

His hand went up to the brand on his cheek. He’d like to pretend that the way those kids acted didn’t hurt, but class treason always hurt. It hurt his father all his life. Father had been a mechanic in the last days of the Old Times, an important worker although invisible to those who really called the shots. His eyes had been wide open and all he got for it was mockery from his fellow working men.

Jackson shook his head and picked up the cart again. He plodded on toward the line of hills.

It was an hour to the hills and by then he was sweating despite the cool sea breeze. Luckily the path wound its way along a narrow gully, otherwise he’d have never been able to haul the cart up through the gravelly slopes.

While the prevailing winds blew southwards, from New City toward Toxic Bay, he was close enough now to get a slight breeze through the gully that wafted an acrid tang into his face. His nostrils tingled. He was almost there.

From around the next bend staggered a figure. Jackson guessed it was a man but couldn’t be sure. He was black from head to foot, rags and skin covered with a uniform filth. Underneath a twisted mat of black hair two glassy eyes bulged from their sockets. The cheeks twitched, and long strings of fluid ran from the nose and slack mouth. The figure held up a rusty old can to his face and took a deep breath.

Jackson set down his cart and grabbed his cleaver. The figure swayed and almost toppled over, then resumed its zigzag course along the gully toward Jackson.

He stood his ground. Backing away from a tweaker was a bad idea; it sometimes gave them the idea they were superhuman and then you’d have to show them otherwise. The last thing he wanted to do was cut down a member of the lumpenproletariat on his water run.

The tweaker was almost upon him before he spotted him. Glazed eyes focused on Jackson and the mouth broadened into a wide, drooling smile. Jackson’s nose wrinkled from the chemical stench coming from the can the tweaker held. He tightened his grip on the cleaver.

The tweaker stopped a few paces from Jackson. His smile grew wider and he burst out into an idiotic laugh. The sound came out more like a statement, a challenge, rather than real laughter.

“Ha. Ha ha ha! HA!”

The tweaker resumed his staggering course down the gully. Jackson turned and watched him go.

“HA. HA. HA!!!!”

Once the tweaker was out of sight Jackson waited a minute and when he didn’t reappear he stowed his cleaver and set out once more.

The gully opened up on the other side of the range of hills and Toxic Bay lay spread out before him. It was ten times as big as New City Cove. Across the stinking water a crumbled city stood rotting on the slopes of a steep ridge. The decayed buildings ran along the far edge of the bay, here and there leveled by blackened swathes from long-ago fires, to a port. Twisted remains of cranes hung limp like dead weeds next to collapsed warehouses. In a couple of places the rusted hulks of sunken container ships poked out of the water. Along one pier an old cruise ship lay half capsized, its once luxurious decks sloped at a crazy angle, streaked with rust.

On the near shore next to the port stood the remains of an old petrochemical works, its globular containers, connecting pipes, and chimneys all punctured with rust. An iridescent streak of effluent flowed from it in a broad band through the center of the bay and out into the gray sea.

Before him stretched a fetid swamp at the edge of which stood a cluster of reed huts. This was his destination. Jackson nodded in satisfaction. Less than a mile to go and downhill all the way. He’d have time to stay a while before he headed back to the Burbs.

Jackson stopped the cart long enough to tie a bandanna around his face. It would be nice to get some goggles at the market too, but he hadn’t seen any for a long time and the last time he did he couldn’t afford them. Rubbing his eyes, he picked up the front end of the cart and pulled it down the path leading to the settlement.

After a few minutes the path leveled out. A few figures passed among the huts. In the distance he could see a couple more gathering reeds in the swamp. Another came along the coast of the bay carrying a haul of fish. Jackson shuddered. He hoped the fisherman had taken the trouble to walk at least a couple of miles down the coast but he was sure he hadn’t. He knew these people too well.

The inhabitants of Toxic Bay—not the tweakers in the ruined city, but the real people in the huts—had chosen to live here because nobody bothered them. The roving bandits and cultists never came to this bay, for they like most people feared the toxins here and at other spots like this scattered across the landscape. Even when New City suffered one of its regular sieges the invaders never made the short walk to plunder this village. There was little here worth stealing and in any case it was all tainted. The people here had chosen to breathe poison and radiation rather than risk getting robbed, raped, and killed.

Jackson would like to think that the villagers of Toxic Bay had created a little paradise of culture, intellectualism, and egalitarianism, choosing quality of life over an uncertain quantity. But that wasn’t the case. For the most part the people of Toxic Bay were ignorant fools who lived in squalor before succumbing to any number of afflictions.

They did have enough sense to buy fresh water from over the hills, though, and he was dumb and desperate enough to deliver it.

A gaggle of children ran out of the village in his direction, waving and calling to him. The pair of adults gathering reeds turned toward him and shaded their eyes.

As he came to the final stretch to the village the children surrounded him, a half dozen kids of all different ages in tattered clothes. Jackson bit his lip when he saw them. Most had open sores. A couple had terrible deformations of face or body. One was a blind albino named Bobby who was led by a little girl, his eyes milky and unseeing.

“Water’s here! Water’s here!” they all chanted, except for the one born without a tongue. She grunted in time with her friends’ little song.

Jackson sighed. He’d never get used to this.

He rolled his cart to the center of town as several adults gathered around. Looking past them to a certain hut, he saw Olivia smiling at him from the doorway. He gave her a warm smile back and then turned to the village headman.

Oscar was a big brawny fellow, a head taller than Jackson. His skin was a patchwork of sores and dry, flaky patches. His hair had all but fallen out and when he coughed into a rag little drops of blood dotted the cloth. Oscar greeted him happily and pounded on the side of the barrel.

“Full as always,” he said in a booming voice that sounded unreal coming from that ravaged body. “I like a man who trades fair.”

“You like any man with balls enough to trade here,” Jackson muttered under his breath, wheeling the cart to the village cistern. He pulled out a short length of hose and stuck one end on a tap on the underside of the barrel. He ran the hose to the opening of the cistern, turned on the tap, and stood back as the flow of fresh water gushed into the cistern.

“So what do you have for me today?” Jackson asked.

Oscar passed him a coil of copper wire and a handful of nails.

“These look OK,” Jackson nodded.

“Until tomorrow then,” Oscar smiled, then winked. “Enjoy your stay.”

The headman walked off, as did most of the crowd. A few lingered behind waiting to take a drink from the cistern once it was full.

The blind albino boy was led up to him.

“How’s the market this year?” Bobby asked.

“It’s starting well enough. You’ve probably heard that the harvest wasn’t that good so most of the traders will go away unhappy. New City and the Burbs are set well enough for winter, though.”

Jackson resisted the urge to tell him more. He’d tell the adults later.

“I wish I could go,” he said, a distant look in his unseeing eyes.

“You know it’s not safe,” a young woman wheezed. “As long as we stay in the bay we’re safe.”

“We could trade!” the albino said.

“Enough, Bobby,” the woman snapped. “We’ve explained this before.”

The last of the water trickled out of his barrel. Jackson retrieved the hose, stowed it in his cart, and pushed it a little out of the way so everyone could get to the cistern. Then he strolled over to Olivia’s hut.

She greeted him at the door.

“Hey,” she said and smiled.

“Hey,” he smiled back. He moved to kiss her on the lips, saw that her sore was worse, and kissed her on the cheek instead.

“That’s all?” Olivia said, pulling close to him.

“No,” Jackson chuckled and nibbled her neck.

“That’s more like it,” she whispered.

Holding her close to him, Jackson cocked his head and looked down at her. She was a few years younger than his twenty-five, although no one know how much younger. She’d been found as a toddler, squalling and half-starved in the hills between the cove and Toxic Bay. The villagers took her in. Because she hadn’t been born of a mother who lived here she had been spared the worst of the toxins, but it was only a matter of time before they wrecked her health. Already Jackson caught little looks of pain she tried to hide when she made sudden movements, and he noticed she got out of breath easily. Their lovemaking had to be gentle, a quiet, warm thing that kept Jackson returning to this blighted place.

“Why the long face?” Olivia asked.

“We need to talk.”

“About you moving here?”

“No,” Jackson said with a trace of impatience. They’d talked enough about that. “About you leaving. Trouble is coming. Big trouble. And I don’t think it will pass over Toxic Bay this time.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Annette rummaged through a pile of sweaters at a market stall and shook her head. The selection got worse every year. The only one even remotely her size was so full of holes she’d have to trade just as much for yarn to mend it as for the sweater itself. The clothes from the Old Times were running out, and more and more people were wearing homespun.

Roy stood at the next stall looking over a selection of eyeglasses. The vendor had a faded eye chart hanging at the back of his stall and an open book lying next to the reading glasses. Roy bent over the book, putting on one pair of glasses after another.

“Aw hell,” he muttered.

Annette turned to him.

“What’s wrong?”

Roy had on a big pair of glasses with bright purple frames.

“These are the only ones in my prescription,” he said.

“So what’s wrong with them?” Annette asked.

“What, you need glasses too? Look at them!”

“Who cares what they look like?”

“These are women’s glasses!” Roy protested. The vendor looked irritated.

“Do you want to see or not?” Annette asked.

“Maybe I’ll keep my old glasses another year,” he grumbled.

“You need new glasses, Roy.”

“Yeah I do,” Roy griped. “Can barely see the dial on this thing.”

He pulled out a small box with a dial and an earpiece.

“What’s that gizmo?” Annette asked.

“Isn’t it neat? It’s a radio that doesn’t need a battery. Our eye-gouging friend has heaps of them. Trading them for cheap. Everyone’s getting them.”

“Well, then you’ll be in fashion,” Annette laughed.

“Won’t compensate for these damn glasses,” Roy grumbled.

“Mom! Mom!”

Annette’s ten-year-old son Pablo came running up to him, his brown eyes wide with excitement.

“What is it, kiddo?” Annette asked.

Pablo tugged at her arm. “Come on, I gotta show you something!”

Annette let herself be pulled through the crowds down one of the lanes of stalls. Pablo stopped in front of a stall and pointed at a baseball.

Annette cocked her eyebrow and looked down at her son.

“Pleeeeease?”

The ball was in almost perfect condition. It wasn’t going to come cheap. Pablo showing so much interest also raised the price. She turned to the vendor. The man smiled.

“Hey, you’re the bouncer at that bar with the weird name. Nice job you did on that asshole last night,” he said.

“Um, thanks. How much for the ball?”

“Three meal tokens and three drink tokens at your fine establishment.”

Annette turned to her son, “Sorry kiddo.”

“But mom!”

Annette started to move away. The vendor called after her, “OK, two and two. You don’t find these much anymore.”

“You’re trading a toy for food. One and one.”

“Two and one.”

“Two meal tokens and one drink token, you mean?” Annette asked.

“Yeah.”

She turned to her son. “You have to be specific in a trade to keep from having disagreements later.”

“Do we have a deal?” the vendor asked.

“Done,” Annette replied.

She and the vendor shook hands. She took some tokens out of her pocket and handed them over.

“Thanks mom, you’re awesome!” He gave her a big hug around her middle. Annette put a hand over her pistol.

“Watch the gun, kiddo. Oh, by the way, what are you going to trade for this?”

“Trade?” Pablo’s face was a study in shock.

“I traded for this ball with some of my pay, so what are you going to trade to get it?”

“I’ll sweep the bar tomorrow morning? You can sleep in.”

“You’ll sweep the bar every morning for a week and wash the dishes today.”

“But there are heaps of them!”

“Welcome to the world of trading, kiddo,” she smiled and plunked the ball in his hand.

Another boy about Pablo’s age came up to them. He was about to say something to Annette when Pablo held up the baseball.

“Look what I got!”

“Whoa! Can I see?”

“Did you have something to tell me?” Annette asked. The kid was a citizen.

The boy thought for a moment. “Oh, right! Abraham Weissman wants to see you.”

Annette bit her lip. Abe had to be her least favorite citizen.

“Let’s go play!” Pablo said. The two ran off.

“Hey, you have dishes to clean!” Annette called after him.

“You didn’t say when I had to clean them. You gotta be specific in a trade!” he called over his shoulder as he disappeared with his friend into the distance.

Annette shook her head and smiled, then turned and headed toward the New City gate.

Abe waited for her at the gate. While only citizens and associates were allowed through, any citizen could escort someone in during daylight hours and nobody would question Abe. The head of the Merchants Association and owner of the bakery and New City Radio, he was almost as powerful as The Doctor himself.

“Morning, Annette. Heard you had a bit of trouble at $87,953 last night.”

Annette shrugged. “Just a fight between two scavengers. Nothing serious.”

Abe inclined his head toward the interior of the city. “Come on in. We’ll have an early lunch and we can talk.”

Annette handed her pistol to the guards and followed Abe inside. He led her past a row of houses to the bakery, a low concrete building from the Old Times with a corrugated iron roof patched in several places. It sat near the cove in the shadow of the warehouse. Beyond it stood the shack for New City Radio, a tall antenna towering over it.

Inside the bakery the morning’s work was winding down. All the bread had been sent to the homes and market, and only a few workers remained to clean up. Some tables and chairs were arranged in the front room so people could eat within the warmth of the bakery walls, but Abe led her past these and into a snug little back office. Abe motioned to some chairs arranged in front of a metal desk and he sat down behind it.

He smiled and folded his hands in his lap. Those hands reminded her of a saying she had seen in books. They were “women’s hands.” Apparently back in the Old Times women had soft hands with clean, well-trimmed nails. No woman she had ever seen had hands like that, but Abe did.

One of the bakers brought warm rolls stuffed with sausage. Annette’s mouth watered while her mind raced. If Abe was serving her meat, he must really want something.

Once the baker had left and shut the door behind him, Abe spoke.

“Everyone’s getting worried about this new group called the Righteous Horde. Have you heard much from the scavengers?”

Annette shrugged. “Only rumors. They’re a pretty big cult, from what I hear, and some say they’re coming this way. You getting ready to defend the town?”

Abe nodded. “Clyde’s already on it. Word’s been sent to the families on outlying farms to keep watch and get packed in case they have to come in.”

“And the Burb children?”

“It’s not to that point yet. Don’t worry, if the Righteous Horde come close Pablo will get the first bed. It must be hard to raise a boy in the Burbs.”

Annette nodded. When she didn’t reply Abe continued.

“A mother shouldn’t have to watch her son grow up around a bunch of scavengers and tweakers. The Burbs are too wild but we don’t have the numbers to do much except keep a lid on it. Now you’re a decent woman, Annette, and I think you’d make a fine citizen.”

Annette perked up. “A citizen?”

Abe held up a calming hand. “Of course you’d have to be named an associate first. Everyone knows how well you keep the peace at Roy’s bar, and Roy would have sponsored you years ago if he wasn’t your boss. I’ve never agreed with The Doctor’s nepotism rules, but never mind.”

“You’d sponsor me?”

“Why not? And once you’d served at your place on the walls and shown your mettle against this latest bunch of savages, I’m sure everyone would see the value of naming you citizen. My nomination would pass the council easily.”

Annette was dumbfounded. This was what she’d been waiting for. Safety for Pablo, a place within the walls. . .

“What do I have to do?” Annette asked.

Abe let out a little barking laugh. “There was a time when that wasn’t the standard response to someone doing you a favor.”

Annette shrugged. Abe studied her for a moment and went on.

“I want to send out a patrol.”

“You want to send out a patrol? Aren’t Clyde and The Doctor sending out a patrol?”

“I’m sure they are, and I’m sure they’re picking the best citizens we can spare. But as head of the Merchants Association I feel I have an extra responsibility. Word is that the Righteous Horde is somewhere east of the mountains. Now they’ll probably come through one of the two passes, or maybe both if they have the numbers some people say they do. What I want to do is send out another patrol to go down the coast a bit, past Toxic Bay and a little ways on until you come to another pass.”

“I didn’t know there was another pass down there.”

Abe smiled. “Of course not. I don’t suspect you stroll through the old city very often. But this cult sounds just crazy enough to come that way, and I want to check it out.”

“And you don’t want The Doctor to know you’re doing it,” Annette said flatly.

Abe inclined his head.

“So what else is down there?” she asked.

“Something I want to scavenge,” Abe replied, more honestly than she expected.

“What’s that?”

“You don’t need to know right now.”

“That’s going to make it tough for me to find it.”

“You don’t have to. I’m sending Mitch Evans and Ha-Ram Lee along.”

Annette blinked. Mitch she could understand. The burly baker was almost as good a shot as she was, but Ha-Ram Lee was the technician who kept New City Radio going, along with helping out on anything else electronic. He was damn smart but wouldn’t be much use in a fight. Perhaps Abe was looking for some solar cells or an old generator.

Abe shifted in his seat and adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses. “There’s a third person I want to send along, but I can’t exactly ask him myself.”

“Who?”

“Jackson Andrews.”

“The Blamer? The guy who delivers water to Toxic Bay?”

Abe nodded. “He knows the coast and the wildlands better than anybody.”

Annette snorted. “I don’t think carting water between the cove and that bunch of fisheaters makes him an expert.”

“Oh, he’s much more than a water carrier. His father used to be a big man in one of the old factions, and he has a topographic map.”

Annette’s jaw dropped. “Jackson has a topo?”

“That’s right. The only one I’ve seen in twenty years, since before New City was established. Got a lot of use out of it too after he got branded. Turned scavenger for a while.”

“Why hasn’t he traded it? He could get a frame house and have enough left over to eat all winter.”

“I asked him the same thing once. He said ‘information is power.’”

Annette shook her head. Abe continued.

“He’s a tough customer. He won’t slow you down.”

Annette remembered Jackson’s branding after being found guilty of Blame four summers ago. He’d been tied to a post outside the walls and formally stripped of his citizenship in front of a gaping crowd. A member of the Merchants Association had bent the end of a piece of wire into the shape of a B, heated it red hot, and pressed it against his cheek. Jackson had glared at the citizens around him, winced as the wire seared his flesh, but never made a sound. He’d tried to make a speech then but the citizens gagged him and left him tied up for the rest of the day as a stark example not to break one of New City’s most sacred laws.

“Why do you think he’ll work for you?” Annette asked.

“For the good of the Burbs, which he still cares about. From what I’ve heard about the Righteous Horde, they’ll even lay waste to Toxic Bay.”

“After what you did to him I hope you’re ready to trade a lot to get him to come along.”

“I am. You’re going to have to handle that, though. It won’t do for me to be seen speaking with him.”

“I’ll try, but we need to make our trade first,” Annette said.

“I’m sponsoring you for associate status, as I already said. Plus I’ll be supplying food for the expedition, of course.”

“Going out past the farms while some cult is scouring the lands is worth more than that, as is whatever you’re looking for if you’re so worried the Righteous Horde might find it first.”

“What were you thinking?”

“That Pablo moves in here now and stays inside until the threat from the Righteous Horde is over.”

“They’re on the other side of the mountains. The Doctor isn’t going to authorize Burb children to come in yet.”

“Make him make an exception. We’ve been caught out before. And a loaf of bread each for him and me every day for a month, not counting the days I’m gone of course.”

“Pablo comes in and he gets a loaf every day for three weeks.”

“A month.”

“Done.”

Annette and Abe shook hands.

“Where can we put him up?” Annette asked.

“Marcus and Rosie Callahan will take him for not much trade. You know them, nice couple. Don’t worry. I’ll handle it. Just focus on getting Jackson Andrews to say yes.”

“That’s going to be a tall order but that’s not what’s worrying me. It’s trekking through the wildlands that I need to worry about.”

CHAPTER FIVE

As soon as Marcus got The Doctor back into the warehouse after a long day trading with scavengers, the leader of New City almost fainted in his arms. Marcus wanted him to rest before going upstairs but The Doctor refused. “No,” he said. “I don’t want a bunch of citizens gawping at me.”

So Marcus put one of The Doctor’s arms over his shoulders and practically carried him to his room. Through his coat he could feel how thin his old friend had become.

“You been skipping meals again?” Marcus asked.

“Food makes me queasy,” The Doctor sighed.

“I can get some pot at the market.”

“I need to keep my head clear.”

“What you need is some medicine.”

“I know, mother, but you saw the pickings today. Nobody has what I need. It’s getting harder and harder each year.”

Marcus laid him down on the sofa in his office.

“No more work today,” he told him.

“I have to see Clyde about the city defenses,” The Doctor sighed.

“That can wait until tomorrow. The barbarians aren’t at the gate yet.”

“Clyde won’t wait until tomorrow.”

“I’ll handle Clyde. You get some rest and try to eat something.”

Marcus headed out to the city gate. To one side of the gate rose a tall square watchtower. It was taller than the warehouse, taller even than Abe’s radio transmitter. Clyde had what he called an “operations center” inside and as Marcus expected he found the Head of the Watch there.

Clyde Devon was a middle-aged man with a perpetually worried expression and a paunch that he tried to suck in behind his camouflage shirt. While army castoffs were common gear for all sorts of people because of their durability, Clyde wore all camo all the time. Marcus supposed he thought it made him look military.

It didn’t. Clyde was too young to have been in a real army, but the heaps of books and magazines on the subject that he hoarded in his operations center had taught him a lot. While Marcus wasn’t impressed by Clyde’s airs, he had voted for Clyde to be Head of the Watch year after year because he was a good organizer and he wanted the job more than anyone else. He actually seemed to enjoy sitting up on the wall in all types of weather scanning the horizon for enemies.

When Marcus entered Clyde’s office he found him hunched over a crude, hand-drawn map of the region. His desk faced a slit in the steel wall from which he could look out on the Burbs, the fields beyond, and the distant mountains. A telescope stood on a tripod next to the desk. On the desk a multichannel radio hissed and crackled reports from the outposts beyond the furthest farms. Along one wall stood a rack of rifles and a couple of light machine guns.

“Hi Clyde, what’s news?”

Clyde nodded, moved a rifle off the chair next to him, and offered Marcus a seat.

“The Burbs have been pretty quiet. The usual fights, no stealing. Roy put in a complaint about some scavenger in his bar starting a fight and using hate speech.”

“That’s what he gets for living outside the walls,” Marcus said.

“Yeah, well, a man’s got to be where his business is. Annette smacked the guy around a bit. All above board. There was a bar full of witnesses so there’s no need for an investigation. Tell The Doctor I’m using Head of the Watch rights to make the scavenger leave town.”

“One less troublemaker sounds good to me.”

“We’ll have plenty of trouble soon enough,” Clyde said, narrowing his eyes and looking out at the mountains. “My ears in the Burbs have been hearing a lot. Scavengers talking about this new cult, the Righteous Horde. There are thousands of them.”

“Come on, thousands? How do they eat?”

“Strip the land clean, that’s what they say. Not like the usual bandits who leave enough for the farmers so that they can survive and be stolen from again. No, these guys take everything. And they give the people two choices, convert or die. That’s why their numbers are so big.”

“But still, they must be starving.”

Clyde looked at him. “Starving people get desperate. We can’t fight against those numbers. I only got 281 combat effectives among the citizens and 370 among the associates. Only half have guns, and only half of those are worth a damn.”

Marcus shook his head. “Their numbers have to be exaggerated. Have you ever heard tell of a roving band of more than a hundred?”

“The reports are too consistent to be dismissed. Here, look,” Clyde put the map in front of Marcus. “They can come through the mountains here and here. There are plenty of mountain paths but with a group that size they’ll stick to the main passes. I’ve drawn up a list of citizens to watch these. Can you bring it to The Doctor? I know it’s market time but I really need these patrols.”

“You’ll get whatever you need, Clyde,” Marcus reassured him.

“Once the Righteous Horde comes through the mountains—”

“How can you be sure they’ll come through?”

“Of course they’ll come through! We’re ten times as big as any other settlement within two hundred miles. Winter’s coming on and the only way they’re going to survive is to loot us. I’ve sent word out to all the farmers to be ready to come in. I also want to close the gates to everyone who isn’t a citizen or associate. You can screen the traders outside the gates.”

“We’ve already had this conversation.”

“The horde will send spies! They’re probably here now!” Clyde said, his voice rising to near-hysterical levels.

“They’ll see nothing that they couldn’t learn from hundreds of scavengers that have been in here before.”

“And whose fault is that?”

Marcus rolled his eyes. He supposed paranoia was a good trait in a soldier, but this was taking it a bit far.

“Look,” Marcus said once he’d regained a little patience. “Doc wants to keep an open city. It helps with confidence. You know what a symbol New City has become? There’s law here, a stable society. If we don’t have that, we don’t have anything worth protecting.”

“And if we don’t protect it properly we won’t have anything left to protect,” Clyde replied in a level voice.

Marcus didn’t make it home until almost past dinnertime. With The Doctor so sick he had a million things to do. So did Ahmed. The Doctor’s understudy was busy in the market all day treating boils, rashes, infected eyes, and all the other millions of illnesses the scavengers picked up. Marcus passed him on his way home and they gave each other weary waves.

“Anything serious to report?” Marcus asked him.

“No,” Ahmed rubbed his red eyes. “One case of the flu, but the scavenger is laid up in his own tent so hopefully it won’t spread.”

“Don’t tell Doc, OK? He’s got enough on his plate.”

Ahmed cocked his head. “You know I have to give a complete report, but don’t worry, there’s nothing right now I can’t handle.”

“He’ll want to go check on that flu case,” Marcus said.

“You’re not the only one who can badger The Doctor into doing what’s right for him.”

Marcus laughed. Ahmed was a good kid.

He paused and thought for a moment. Since when had he called twenty-somethings kids?

“Try to get him to eat something, will you?” Marcus said.

Ahmed shook his head. “He hasn’t kept anything down for two days.”

Marcus grunted and headed for home. A surprise waited for him at the door.

Abe, Annette Cruz, and a young boy stood talking to his wife. Rosie was smiling down at the boy and saying something.

“Oh Marcus, look who’s come to visit!” Rosie said as he walked up. “This is Pablo, Annette’s boy.”

“Hi Pablo,” Marcus said and extended a hand. The boy took it shyly. In his other hand he clutched a bag.

“Cómo sedice, Pablito?” Annette said.

“Hello,” Pablo mumbled.

“Oh, you understand Spanish!” Rosie gushed, “I could tell you’re a smart little boy.”

Marcus looked at Abe, “So. . .um?”

The head of the Merchants Association gave him a flat smile. “Annette here is going into the wildlands to check on the cult problem and we were thinking you might like to take care of Pablo while she’s gone. I’m sure you can clear it with The Doctor.”

Marcus glanced at his wife cooing over the kid.

Abe, you are a manipulative bastard.

“I suppose this is your deal so you’re trading?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Abe adjusted his glasses. “I was thinking two loaves of bread a day for the household while he’s staying.”

Annette cut in. “Not including the loaf Pablo’s getting every day.”

Abe gave her a sour look. “Well, I suppose not.”

Marcus stifled a grin. “Two loaves a day plus five daily radio spots while the harvest trade market lasts.”

“You have a stall this year?” Abe asked.

“Sure, not that I have time to watch over it myself. I got somebody reliable there. A few radio spots listing my wares wouldn’t hurt business.”

Abe shook his head. “I’m nearly full up with ad spots already.”

“Play less music, then.”

“People tune in for the music. Tell you what I can do. I can slip in two radio spots a day.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Done.”

Marcus and Abe shook hands. Abe looked satisfied. “Well, I’ll leave you all to get acquainted.”

As he walked away, Annette turned to them and smiled. “Thanks so much for doing this.”

“How long are you going to be gone?” Marcus asked.

Pablo looked up at her. Annette put an arm around her son and said, “Not long. We got to get back before. . .you know.”

Marcus nodded. If there was a siege, lots of the citizen families would have to take in kids from the Burbs. The Doctor had made it policy that anyone, even strangers, could leave their kids within the walls. With that and The Doctor treating everybody for free, New City had bought a lot of gratitude over the years.

Annette stroked her son’s hair. “You be good, OK kiddo? I’ll be back to see you in the morning.”

Pablo drew a long face. “You gotta go now?”

“Sorry, kiddo, the gates are closing soon. And I need to see someone on the other side of the cove.”

“All right,” Pablo grumbled.

Rosie gave him a smile and put her arm around him. “Why don’t we go inside and I’ll fix you up some nice soup for dinner. And we have jam for supper. There’s a spare room you can have all for yourself.”

Annette gave her son a final hug and turned away quickly. Marcus stood in the deepening dusk, watching her as she hurried out the gate.

CHAPTER SIX

Jackson and Olivia lay naked in the pile of clothes and blankets that served as her bed. Jackson’s hand made slow circles along her back, working its way up to massage her shoulders. The warmth from their entangled bodies made Jackson forget the acrid smell of the bay for a moment. But only for a moment.

“We have to leave,” he whispered.

“Not this again,” she moaned.

“It’s not safe here.”

“It’s not safe anywhere.”

“I’m not just talking about the water and the air, but that new cult, they say they’re sweeping up everybody.”

“Just scavengers’ tales.”

“No, I don’t think so. They have this idea of purifying the world. They’re killing all the tweakers and making everybody else convert or they kill them too. If they come here I don’t know what they’ll do.”

Olivia got up on one elbow and looked down at him. He ran his hand along her side and admired her body. How could someone so beautiful live in such a dump?

“We’ve always been passed over before. We’ll be fine.”

“No, We need to—”

Olivia silenced him with a kiss, and then kept him quiet with something more.

When he finally left the sun was slanting slow to the west, giving the oily water a crimson tinge. As Olivia waved from the doorway he picked up his cart and headed through the hills.

With the water tank empty he made better time. It was just as well. He didn’t want to be in the hills after dark. Soon he was in sight of the cove and back at the little stream where he filled his tank. Despite the evening chill he took off his outer garments and washed them, then scrubbed his face and hands to get he worst of the stench off. He washed his trade items too and carefully dried them with a cloth. Everyone knew where he went to make his living and nobody wanted to trade with him. He had to give a middleman a generous cut to trade his stuff at the market for him, and even so he had to get rid of all hint that they came from the city.

Another long walk took him to the southern edge of the Burbs, where the lights didn’t shine and the frame houses gave way to tents and shacks. His own shack was a little box made up of corrugated tin barely long enough to lie down in and not quite tall enough for him to stand up. Nevertheless the door was secured with a chain and padlock. Even the meager bedding, oil lamp, and crockery that made up his few possessions would be enough to tempt some of the scavengers that lived hereabouts. Once when he had stayed overnight with Olivia he returned to find someone had stolen his roof.

Jackson’s eyes narrowed as he saw a figure in the gloom near his doorway. A thief? He spotted a gun at the figure’s belt and was about to stop his cart and pull out his cleaver when the woman waved to him. The stranger approached and Jackson recognized her as a gunslinger from town. What did she want?

“Hello,” Jackson called to her, not knowing what else to say.

“Hello,” the woman replied. She came up to him and offered her hand. “I’m Annette Cruz.”

“Yeah, I recognize you,” Jackson said, taking her hand and shaking it. Even in the near darkness Jackson thought he could see a look of distaste on her face. “You work for that citizen at $87,953.”

“His name is Roy. He’s a good man.”

Jackson snorted. If he was a citizen he wasn’t a good man.

“Would you like a dinner there on the house?” Annette asked.

Jackson’s stomach grumbled. The only meal he’d had today was at Olivia’s, and he didn’t want to think about what was in it. Nevertheless he was wary.

“Why?”

“I have a job for you.”

“Let’s go somewhere else. I’m not welcome there.”

Annette looked about to object but then thought the better of it. Jackson took a key from his pocket, unlocked the padlock on his front door, and pulled away one of the chains, which he looped through the axle of his cart before putting it back through the padlock and locking it.

“OK, let’s go.”

He led her to the edge of the market. Although most of the trade stalls had shut down for the night, several food vendors remained open, illuminated by open fires and the lights from some of the buildings. One stall was a rectangle of tables around an open fire where a sweating woman turned a spit of whole chickens. Underneath was a metal trough that caught the juice, which was ladled back onto the chicken by a man in a greasy apron.

Jackson and Annette sat down. The man came over.

“A full chicken for me, with a side of greens and a beer,” Jackson said. If this brownnoser to the rich was paying, he might as well stuff himself.

“Half chicken and a beer for me,” Annette said.

As the gunslinger haggled over the trade, Jackson studied her. He’d never met Annette before but everyone knew her by reputation. Saw herself as a keeper of the peace, something the Burbs desperately needed. Too bad that peace mostly benefitted the rich in New City.

The cook served them and Jackson tore into the chicken, holding it in both hands and not caring how it burnt his fingers.

“I’m listening,” he said between mouthfuls.

“I’m going out on a scout, and I need you to come along.”

“The Righteous Horde?”

Annette nodded.

“Aren’t citizens supposed to do that?”

“They already are. We’re going further south to places I’ve never been, and we need what you got.”

Jackson looked around.

“And how do you know what I got?”

“Abraham Weissman told me.”

Jackson dropped his chicken on his plate.

“You want me to work for that turd?”

“He thinks the horde may come through a pass to the south of Toxic Bay.”

Jackson licked his fingers and considered. He’d never thought of that, but it could happen. Olivia and the villagers would be right in their path. Suspicion rose in him.

“So why is Abe sending out his own scout?”

“Something out there he wants to scavenge,” Annette said, taking a sip of her beer. “He hasn’t told me what.”

“He’s got a hell of a nerve coming to me after what he did.”

“Abe didn’t make you start Blaming people. If everyone went around pointing fingers and Blaming others for the mess we’re in everything would fall apart. Hell, that’s how the Old Times fell apart. You know the law.”

“I also know how society works, and that people like you and I get ground into the dust by the citizens.”

“You were a citizen too before you screwed it up.”

Jackson snorted.

“Look,” Annette said. “Do you want to deliver water to Toxic Bay for the rest of your life? Abe is willing to trade big for this job. I got myself a sweet deal and so can you.”

“Running to our masters for scraps from the table,” Jackson scoffed.

Annette’s eyes narrowed. “Watch it, asshole. Nobody’s my master.”

Jackson said nothing.

“So what’s your answer?” Annette asked.

Jackson took a long pull from his beer and leaned forward.

“Here’s my answer, and there will be no haggling. It’s all or nothing.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“He wants what?”

Abe put his elbows on his desk and frowned at Annette. The gunslinger merely shrugged and chomped into her sausage roll. Being next to the bakery, the office was warm and there was always good food. Pity about the company.

“Jackson wants you to sponsor a friend of his for associate status,” Annette repeated.

Abe leaned back again and stared at the ceiling.

“The nerve of that fellow. And who is this friend of his?”

“Somebody named Olivia.”

Abe snickered, as if the idea of Jackson having a girlfriend was amusing.

“And her last name?”

“She doesn’t have one. She was a foundling.”

“She isn’t from Toxic Bay, is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“She better wash before she comes into town.”

“So you’re going to say yes?” Annette asked.

Abe shrugged. “What choice do I have? You saw how pig-headed he is. He said all or nothing and he meant it, and he knows we need him.”

“How are you going to justify her nomination to the council?”

“I’ll make something up, don’t worry about that.”

“Oh, and he wants a gun too.”

Abe scowled. “He seriously expects the head of the Merchants Association to arm a Blamer?”

“Only a loan.”

“Was this part of the all or nothing deal?” Abe asked warily.

“No.”

“Then the answer is no.”

Annette shifted in her seat. “We’re going into the wildlands.”

“You and Mitch can handle it. You’re going out to scout, not get into a fight.”

“Avoiding a fight isn’t always easy. Is Ha-Ram going to carry a gun?”

“Yes, but don’t expect much marksmanship.”

“What about ammunition?”

Abe blinked. “What about it?”

“We need spare ammunition.”

“I’m sure you and Mitch have plenty. I’m giving Ha-Ram some out of my personal supply. I can’t give you any more, not with this group just over the mountains.”

Annette shook her head. This trade was looking worse and worse.

Abe reached behind the desk and brought out an old army pack. “Here. The pack is a loan; return it and any unused food to me once you get back. There’s enough for ten days in there, crackers and dried meat and some fruit and vegetables. Best if you leave immediately.”

“Immediately? I have things to do. I haven’t even said goodbye to Pablo.”

Abe frowned. “Am I paying you to play with your kid? Mitch and Ha-Ram are already ready. Pick them up, dig Jackson out of whatever toxic whorehouse he’s in, and get going.”

Annette ground her teeth. “It’s barely dawn. We’ll be gone by noon.”

Abe’s face reddened. “I said—”

“And I said I need to say goodbye to Pablo. I need to do some winter trading too. With the cultist threat the market will have scattered by the time we get back. I’m leaving at noon.”

“Now you listen here. . .”

“All or nothing.”

Abe sat back in his chair and glared. Annette wondered how often he heard the word “no”. He didn’t seem accustomed to it.

The merchant slapped his hand on his desk and stood up. “Fine. Now hurry up and get what you need to get done. Meeting’s over. I need to get out and watch The Doctor and Marcus deal with the scavengers. No telling what those two will get up to behind my back.”

Abe hustled her out of the office, locked the door behind them, gave her one last sharp look, and left without saying goodbye.

Annette went into the front room, where Pablo sat munching a roll and waiting for her. She got there just in time to see Abe storm out the front door.

“Is that the guy sending you away?” the boy asked.

“Yeah.”

“He looks like an asshole.”

“Yeah.” Annette nodded. “C’mon, kiddo, we have some shopping to do.”

Walking out the gate they passed through an open field. New City rules dictated nobody could build anything within two hundred yards of the walls, and nothing more than a tent within four hundred yards. Annette was glad to see that Clyde had kept that rule strictly in place. If it came to a siege the guards manning the walls would need a clear field of fire. Annette spotted a couple of citizens clearing out some bushes that had grown in the past couple of years.

The rumble of an engine made them turn.

“Cool!” Pablo shouted.

The city’s lone forklift came trundling out of the gate, carrying a concrete barrier in its metal arms. Rachel sat behind the wheel. She took a turn right outside the gate and lowered the arms, setting the concrete barrier down next to the gate. A loud beep beep beep sounded as she backed up, then stopped as she shifted into first gear and headed back inside.

Pablo jumped up and down. “Awesome!”

Yeah, awesome,Annette thought.They’re going to set out concrete barriers just in case these religious nutcases have a vehicle to smash through the gate.

“I want to drive one of those!”

“When you’re older maybe you can learn.”

Annette turned to go but Pablo hauled on her hand. She laughed. The little tyke was getting strong.

“Let’s stay and see it again.”

“We have shopping to do.”

“Just one more!”

“Oh, all right.”

A minute later Rachel drove back out with another barrier and set it down next to the first. Pablo waved and the woman grinned and waved back.

“OK, kiddo, let’s go.”

“Oooooh!” Pablo moaned.

“C’mon. I’ll get you some sweets in the market.”

The trade fair was now in its third day and in full swing. An open area in the middle of the Burbs acted as the biggest market in the whole region, and with the citizens having brought in their harvest, every scavenger within two week’s walk had come here to trade. Stalls were heaped with everything from fresh produce to baling wire. Men, women, and children haggled over trades, sending up a riotous noise.

Annette smiled. This was the noise of civilization, or something close enough. It was a hell of a lot better than the wildlands. She looked at the scavengers, some sick, many scarred, all thin. She’d been one of them once, long ago.

But not now, and never again.

“Ow! Mom, stop holding my hand so tight.”

“Sorry, Pablito.”

They stopped as a herd of sheep passed across their path.

“How did it go last night?” she asked her son.

“OK,” Pablo shrugged.

“Are Marcus and Rosie nice?”

“They’re fine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you have to go?”

“Of course, kiddo.”

“It’s to fight those bad guys, right?”

“I won’t be fighting them, just spying on them.”

Pablo looked up at her. “Only spying? No shooting?”

Annette bit her lip. When Pablo was eight she’d been hired to track down a thief who had bolted for the mountains. She found him all right, and found a bullet in her gut a second later. She came back on a stretcher. By some miracle The Doctor pulled her through. Pablo didn’t leave her bedside for a week.

“No shooting,” Annette said.

They looked through some clothing stalls and Annette picked out a homespun wool jacket for Pablo. He’d grown out of the last one and she traded that plus some tokens to $87,953 for it. Roy had given her a month’s pay in advance since it was market time. At a food stall she got him some maple syrup candy and while Pablo made a mess on his hands and face she browsed through a stall with a selection of books.

The woman was selling all kinds. Some were instruction manuals about mechanics and electricity, and of course those went for the highest trades. She wasn’t interested in them, though. Her only skills were shooting straight and raising a son and you don’t need books for that. Instead she went for the cheap books, the books most people passed over without opening. They were the books with stories in them. For a precious few minutes her worries disappeared as she sorted through them all.

There was an incredible selection, one of the best she’d seen at the market. Annette read anything she could get her hands on but her favorites, and the ones she always traded for, were what she thought of as the “quiet stories.” These weren’t about wars or spaceships or politics from the Old Times; they were about people. The quiet stories usually took place in small towns or on farms, back when the only thing a farmer would shoot at would be the occasional fox trying to get into the henhouse. The problems in these stories were always trivial—the bad people were never really all that bad, and the heroes only worried about things like getting a bigger house or whether someone they liked felt the same way toward them. She wished she had problems like that. When she had one of these wonderful books she’d lie on her bed and get lost in that long-ago world. Pablo knew not to interrupt her during these rare peaceful moments. Sometimes he’d snuggle up next to her and just lie there as she read, content to see his mother happy.

Annette hated the fact that she couldn’t give him a life like in those books, but what parent could? Did those times ever really exist?

She traded for three promising-looking titles and turned to Pablo, who now had maple syrup covering most of his face.

“Let’s go back to the bar. I need to get some gear and you need to clean yourself up.”

At this early hour, $87,953 was closed. Annette was surprised to find Roy awake. He was going over some figures in his account book, wearing his new purple reading glasses. He looked up at them and grinned at Pablo.

“Well, the wanderer has returned! How’s it like to live inside the walls?”

“We saw Rachel using the forklift!”

“Cool!”

“Marcus and Rosie treating you right?”

Everyone knew they were good people, but she didn’t like leaving him with strangers.

“They’re OK. I got a room to myself and last night we had rabbit stew.”

“I could have taken care of him, you know,” Roy said.

“It’s safer for him inside the walls.”

Roy only nodded, a hurt look on his face. Annette felt a twinge of guilt. Pablo had grown up with Roy and they were like grandfather and grandson. But she felt a lot better about going away with Pablo somewhere safe.

“Wish you weren’t leaving,” Roy said at last.

“Frank can hold the fort while I’m gone.”

“He’s a good man but he doesn’t have your style.”

“He can snap the average scavenger in half. That’s all the style he needs in the Burbs,” Annette laughed. Turning to Pablo she said, “You go wash up, I need to get the rest of my gear.”

Annette went into her room and stuffed a few essentials into the pack Abe had given her.

Loaned her,she corrected herself.Nothing’s for free with that guy.

She put in a spare pair of socks, underwear, a blanket, and a waterproof tarpaulin. Her .38 revolver and spare ammunition were on her gun belt as always. She strapped the holster to her double-barreled twelve-gauge sawed-off shotgun to the side of her pack, put on the pack and tested the draw, then added her spare shells to a side pocket.

Taking off her pack again, she knelt down beside her bed and pulled out a rifle case. Unzipping it, she pulled out a Dakota T-76 Longbow sniper’s rifle with telescopic sight. She cradled it lovingly in her hands. It was the best gun in the Burbs or New City. Clyde had begged to trade for it, everyone had begged to trade for it, but she said no to them all.

What had Jackson said? “Information is power”? Maybe sometimes, but the ability to pierce military-grade body armor at 1,500 meters was more powerful than any information she’d ever know.

She took out a nearly empty box of .338 Lapua Magnum rounds and slid one into the rifle’s magazine. Her mouth set into a grim line when she saw that only left four extra bullets in the box. She took the bullets out, stuffed them into her breast pocket, crumpled up the cardboard box, and set it on a pile of kindling next to her stove. Zipping up the rifle case again, she strapped it to the pack, put the pack on her back, and returned to the front of the bar.

Roy and Pablo were sitting at the bar laughing and playing coin football. Pablo shot a coin through the goal Roy made with his fingers and cheered.

Annette’s gut tightened. “Time to go, kiddo.”

Pablo looked at his mother, his face falling.

Roy tousled his hair and gave him a handful of coins. “I’ll check in on you. Here, don’t let anyone give you a bad trade.”

“OK.” Pablo mumbled.

“Cómo se dice, Pablito?” Annette prompted.

“Thank you.” Pablo shuffled to the door.

Roy looked at her. “Take care in the wildlands, now.”

Annette nodded. “I will.”

As they walked out the door Annette took her son’s hand. “Got a surprise for you.”

“What?” Pablo asked without enthusiasm.

“One of the people I’m going on patrol with works at the radio station. That’s where we’re going right now.”

Pablo perked up. “Really?”

“You’re getting a free tour.”

Annette left her weapons at the gate, with a sharp reminder to the guards that Abe would hear of it if the rifle was touched, handled, or even looked at funny, and led Pablo around the warehouse to the low concrete shed with the tall radio tower next to it. Above the door was a painted sign reading, “New City Radio”.

Mitch Evans lounged on a wooden bench by the door. A pack and an AK-47 leaned against the wall next to him. Mitch was a tall, muscular man in his late twenties. She knew him because he was a regular at the bar. Most citizens didn’t venture out of New City after dark but Mitch liked to go to the whorehouses after getting liquored up. He had cold blue eyes and a crew cut. A bit of flour clung to his cheek.

Looks like Abe made him work his shift at the bakery before heading off into the wildlands. Typical.

“About time you showed up!” he barked at them.

“Good morning to you too,” Annette grumbled.

“We need to get going. Abe wanted us gone an hour ago!”

“Abe can wait,” Annette dismissed him, pulling her son through the door.

The little building was all one single room divided by a wooden partition with a large glass window. The front half was cramped with tables full of unfamiliar electronic equipment. Through the window Annette could look into the back half and saw Ha-Ram Lee sitting at a table that had a computer, more electronic equipment, and something she had heard called a microphone.

Although the radio technician was barely out of his teens, he was an expert at anything electronic thanks to his father, who had died from cancer a few years before. Fresh faced and eager, with straight black hair above a round Asian face, he sat talking into the microphone. She could hear his voice faintly through the glass.

“Next up is an oldie for all you oldies out there,Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf.”

Ha-Ram pushed a button and a guitar riff started. He pushed another button, looked up, and motioned to them to pass through a door in the partition.

“Don’t touch anything,” Annette told her son.

“Hi guys!” Ha-Ram said.

Annette looked nervously at the microphone. “Can they hear us?”

“No, I turned it off,” the radio technician laughed.

Annette looked around at all the switches, dials, and flashing lights. Pablo did the same, eyes wide as saucers.

“Hi, you’re Annette’s kid, aren’t you? Would you like to be on the radio?”

“Really?” Pablo turned to his mother. “Can I?”

“Sure,” Annette said. She had hoped something like this would happen.

Ha-Ram stood up. “Sit here in my seat. Can you read?”

Pablo nodded.

“Great! See this piece of paper here? This is an ad spot for Marcus Callahan’s market stall.”

The child looked up at him. “An ad spot?”

“It’s to tell people what he has to trade. Now read over that while I get everything ready,” Ha-Ram fiddled with a few buttons while Pablo read the piece of paper and Annette stood to one side beaming. “OK, ready? Now when I push this button here I want you to read what’s on the paper slowly and clearly. Just speak in a normal voice. Get right up to the microphone. You don’t have to shout or anything; they’ll be able to hear you.”

“But the music is still on,” Pablo said.

“Oh, we’re recording. I’m storing your voice on this computer so I can play it back anytime. People are going to hear you every day until the market closes. Ready?”

“OK.”

“Go.”

Pablo stood up straight, put on a serious face, and announced, “Marcus Callahan has a great selection of items for trade at stall fifteen. Items include apples from his personal orchard, walnuts gathered from clean trees in the mountains, five sun hats, a civilian issue gas mask with spare filter, a variety of pens, several kilos of raw wool from his personal herd of sheep, and several kilos of flour. Other items are being added daily. Come on over to stall fifteen for a good deal.”

Ha-Ram hit a button and smiled. “Wow! You read great! Better than a lot of adults I know.”

Annette grinned. She’d made sure he wasn’t illiterate and ignorant like so many of the kids in the Burbs.

“Did they hear it?” Pablo asked eagerly.

“Not yet, but they will. Listen.”

The song played out and Ha-Ram hit a button. Pablo’s voice sounded through the studio. Annette grinned as her child pumped his fists in the air and bounced up and down in his seat.

A woman whose name she didn’t know came into the front half of the room. Ha-Ram put on another song and turned to them, suddenly serious.

“That’s my replacement. I’ll get my gear and me and Mitch will meet you at the gate.”

A cold feeling settled in Annette’s stomach. Ha-Ram didn’t look too happy either.

“All right,” she said.

Annette led her son out of the studio as he chattered on about how he was going to talk on New City Radio all the time, and how he was going to drive a fork lift too, and maybe he should go up in the mountains to tap maple trees so he could make his own candy, and on and on until she led him to Marcus and Rosie’s house. She kissed him goodbye but he was too excited to really notice what was going on, that the moment he’d been sad about all day had finally arrived, and he was too busy chattering to Rosie about all his adventures to notice that his mother was crying when she left.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Doctor was in good spirits. After Marcus helped him back to his quarters for his noon rest he sat down at his desk and pulled out a little vial, holding it up between his thumb and forefinger and grinning.

“Know what this is?” he asked.

Marcus shook his head. “Saw you trade four Blue Cans for it. Must be something good.”

“It’s a blanket antiviral. One of the late batch they produced with extended shelf life. Just as reliable as Blue Cans but for medicine instead of food. Good as the day it was made.”

“Will it cure you?” Marcus exclaimed.

A shadow passed over The Doctor’s face. “There’s no cure for what I have. This only works on common viruses, but if I get sick this winter it will take it away.”

“And if you get sick a second time?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Marcus, can’t you see the positive side to anything?”

“Well, it’s good news, I guess. But we still need to find you some meds. And you still need to eat.”

“I ate a little this morning,” The Doctor said in a tone that didn’t leave Marcus convinced. “Anyway, I need to rest now, as you always remind me. I had to deal with Clyde and his patrols at dawn, Abe all morning, and I need to go to the Burbs this afternoon. I’m taking a nap.”

“You’re going to the Burbs?” Marcus asked.

“Ahmed tells me a scavenger came in with a nasty cut. It’s infected.”

“Ahmed can deal with that.”

“It’s not the cut I need to check out. The guy says he survived an attack by the Righteous Horde.”

The scavenger lay on a bedroll inside an old shipping container, one of many that civilians rented out to the people in the Burbs. This one was shared by a dozen scavengers. A small window had been cut at the back, but it was still murky inside. Filthy too. Marcus wrinkled his nose in distaste. Yet another reason scavengers lived here and citizens lived inside the walls. Gear and dirty rags everywhere, and many of the scavengers were none too used to bathing. Near the back one of them lay curled up on his blankets, stripped almost bare yet sweating despite the chill.

Marcus put a hand on The Doctor’s shoulder.

“You’re not going in there,” he told him.

The Doctor opened his mouth to object. Clyde, who had tagged along on this visit, cut him off.

“I agree with Marcus. I’ll go get the wounded guy and bring him out.”

As Clyde ventured inside and talked in low tones with one of the scavengers, The Doctor muttered under his breath. “Great, another flu case. Just what we need.”

“This happens every harvest market,” Marcus reassured him.

Clyde emerged leading a man whose forearm was encased in a thick bandage.

“You The Doctor?” the scavenger asked. He was a young man, but skinny, his cheekbones sticking out through thin, leathery skin. Sunken eyes teared with pain.

“I am.”

“I want to thank you for sending out your assistant. The wound’s been leaking pus. He put some iodine on it. Imagine, iodine, and not a word about trading!”

“We take care of the sick for free here.”

Now the man’s eyes filled with tears that spoke of more than pain.

“Ahmed tells me you got cut by a machete,” Clyde said, sitting the man down at the entrance to the container.

The scavenger paled. He nodded and cradled his arm.

“What happened?” Marcus asked.

“It was those cultists, those crazies calling themselves the Righteous Horde. Righteous my ass. We had a little settlement by a river about fifty miles from the eastern end of the Northern Pass. Nothing like this, just thirty people, but we had a good setup. Clean water in the river, enough rabbits and squirrels to keep us in meat, and some decent scavenging in a few valleys most people don’t know about. Then they came.”

“When was this?” Clyde asked.

“A week ago.”

“They were two days march from the Northern Pass a week ago!” Clyde’s voice ran into a high octave.

“Calm down,” The Doctor said. “None of the outlying farms have reported anything. They’re not going to come storming through the gate this afternoon.”

He turned to the scavenger. “So tell us everything you can.”

The man swallowed, rubbed his arm, and replied, “They came charging at us from across the eastern fields. No attempt at hiding, no coming up through the gully off to the west like they could have, just right over the horizon and straight for us. So damn many we knew we couldn’t fight, so we legged it. Then we found out why they didn’t try to hide. They had already gotten us surrounded. Appeared to the south, then the north, then pouring out of the gully like the river was puking people. There were so many we didn’t try to resist, no point in that. Threw down what guns we had and threw up our hands. They surrounded us, stripped us of everything but our clothing, and lined us up.”

“How many were there? What kind of weapons did they have?” Clyde asked.

“Thousands. More people in one place than I’ve ever seen in my life, even here. Some had guns. Nothing heavy that I saw, just rifles and pistols and some shotguns. The rest had machetes or clubs with nails stuck through them. Whole crowds of them had spears made from tying old steel knives on the end of sticks.”

“Did you see their leader?” The Doctor asked.

The scavenger nodded, trembling a little as he remembered. “Once they had us lined up he stepped forward. A young guy with long hair and wearing a white robe, like he was trying to look like Jesus. Sure as hell didn’t talk like him. I’m a Christian and nutcases like that give religion a bad name.”

“What did he say?” Marcus asked.

“Gave us a long speech filled with nonsense about how they were going to make the world clean again. Take all the toxins away. Said to do that first they had to purify humanity.” The scavenger’s face darkened. “Then he pointed at Diane. She’d come across a leaking chemical container and got a rash something terrible. A couple of his men grabbed her and told us that unclean people weren’t permitted to live. They cut her down with their machetes right in front of our eyes!”

Marcus and The Doctor glanced at each other. The scavenger went on.

“After that they made us join the column and carry their gear. They had a whole bunch of prisoners. We were made to do all the heavy work. If anyone stepped out of line they were cut down without a thought. The young women were taken by the leader’s bodyguards. ‘Married to the faith’, that’s what they called it.”

“Which way were they headed?” Clyde asked.

“South. We stayed in the area for a couple of days as they swept it clean, then we headed south.”

“Toward the southern pass?”

The scavenger shrugged. “I don’t know. They didn’t tell us nothing. Hardly fed us anything either. Anyone who dropped by the wayside exhausted got cut down.”

“Did they look hungry?” Clyde asked.

“Half starved, the lot of them. Well, except for that Jesus imitator and his bodyguards. They looked as well fed as you do.”

“How did you escape?” Marcus asked.

“Slipped away. I knew none of us would last so I lit out in the dead of night. Made it out of camp but one of the sentries spotted me. Gave me this gash on the arm with his machete. I smacked him upside the head with a rock and ran. Just ran.”

The scavenger’s eyes stared off into space, seeing visions that Marcus hoped he’d never see.

“Anything else?” Clyde asked.

“Ain’t that enough?” the scavenger whispered.

The Doctor fished into his pocket and pulled out a little packet of folded paper. Opening it he revealed some fresh marijuana buds. Tearing off a couple, he handed them to the scavenger.

“For the pain,” he told him.

“Gee, thanks!”

Marcus cocked an eyebrow. Maybe Doc really did eat today.

Walking back to the gate, Marcus was silent. Every time he talked to a scavenger he was grateful for living in something that resembled the old civilization. That man had seen horrible things, yet accepted it with despondent resignation. This probably wasn’t the first time he had lost all his companions. Anyone who lasted out in the wildlands was a survivor, but it took them all sooner or later.

Clyde was fretting as usual.

“We need more ammunition. If we’re facing that many we need more ammunition. The scavengers aren’t trading any, though. They’re scared and want to keep it for themselves, even when they don’t have guns. Probably waiting until the last minute to trade it to us at a higher rate!”

“We don’t have to kill every cultist to make them retreat,” The Doctor said.

“Don’t be so sure,” Clyde said. “This isn’t your usual bandit group. The Skullsplitters we could deal with, same with the other bandits.”

Marcus nodded. Most bands were too small to threaten New City and contented themselves with raiding the outlying farms. Clyde’s patrols sent them back to the wildlands quickly enough. The Skullsplitters had been bigger, almost a hundred well-armed men, all long hair and leather jackets and attitude. A motorcycle gang with no motorcycles. Five years ago they’d taken over the Burbs and extracted tribute in exchange for going way. They’d come back twice since then. Each time The Doctor decided it was better to pay than fight. Better to lose some sacks of grain than a bunch of citizens.

But now the Skullsplitters were gone, wiped out by a group far bigger than any they’d ever seen, and it didn’t sound like the Righteous Horde could be bought off with sacks of grain.

For once Clyde wasn’t being panicky; he was being all too realistic.

The Head of the Watch hurried back to his operations center and Marcus made The Doctor go back to his room and lie down.

“Smoke more of that herb you never told me about and eat something,” Marcus told him.

“Yes, mother. How about you go back home and take a break too?”

“Probably should,” Marcus grumbled. “Pretty soon none of us will be getting any downtime.”

He found Pablo playing outside his home. The window was open. Music from New City Radio filtered out from the kitchen, where Rosie stood at the sink dicing carrots and watching the boy with a big smile on her face. Marcus suppressed a sudden sadness and waved to Pablo.

“Hey there, how you settling in?”

Pablo ran over and grabbed his hand.

“Come to the window, the song is about to end!” he exclaimed, pulling him toward the house.

“What’s all this about?” Marcus asked.

“Shhh,” Pablo said.

Rosie smiled at him through the window and put a finger to her lips.

The song finished. A thin, high voice came on the air, “Marcus Callahan has a great selection of items for trade at stall fifteen. Items include apples from his personal orchard. . .”

Pablo’s face lit up.

“That’s you!” Marcus said.

“Yeah, I got to sit in the radio studio and everything. Ha-Ram told me they’re going to play that every day until market ends.”

“Wow, that’s really something. Thanks!”

Marcus felt an overwhelming urge to scoop him up and give him a hug.

This isn’t your child, he reminded himself.

“Pablo has been a big help too,” Rosie said with a smile. “He swept the floor and cleaned all the dishes.”

“Mom makes me do that at home sometimes,” Pablo told her.

Marcus saw a trace of hurt flicker over his wife’s features. An instant later she was smiling again.

Oh Rosie, don’t get pulled in,Marcus thought.He’s a Burb child.

“So what’s for lunch?” Marcus asked to change the subject.

“Well, since there’s such a chill in the air I’m making more stew, but I think you’re going to have to wait to eat it,” she replied, gesturing to the street behind him.

Marcus turned around and saw Clyde leading The Doctor to the gate.

“Aw hell.”

Marcus stomped over.

“Now what?”

Clyde looked at him, his face blank with worry. “A big group of scavengers outside. Want to have a meeting. Wouldn’t say what for.”

Marcus turned back to The Doctor. His eyes were red.

“You eat something yet?” he asked.

“I was about to,” The Doctor replied, a slight slur blurring his words.

“Go eat and go to bed.”

“I should go see them.”

“I’ll handle it. Go to bed.”

The Doctor grinned. “Beginning to think you want my job.”

“Hell no.”

The Doctor headed back to the warehouse while Clyde and Marcus hurried to the gate.

Clyde was right, there was a large crowd, and it was growing. They kept a respectful distance from the gate but the two guards fingered their rifles nervously.

In front of the crowd stood the man who had brought the radios. He scowled at the guards from behind the spider of his nose bandage. Next to him stood his daughter, still dressed as a boy. Marcus recognized several of the regulars who came to the harvest market every year. He also saw a lot of newcomers.

Newcomers were always trouble. They didn’t understand how the deal worked and it took some time to get it through their uncivilized heads.

Marcus told Clyde to stay at the gate and went to meet them.

“Where’s The Doctor?” the man with the broken nose asked.

“I speak for The Doctor.”

“I’ve heard that said,” the man nodded.

“So what’s your business?” Marcus asked.

The scavenger fixed him with a cold gaze.

“We want to move inside.”

CHAPTER NINE

Jackson was yawning when they arrived at his shed. He’d made an early run to the village to make sure they had enough water to last them a while, and left his cart with Olivia. It wasn’t so they could use it themselves—none of the villagers ever strayed north of the hills—but he wasn’t about to leave his cart sitting around in the Burbs where it could get stolen.

Annette came down the dirty lane armed to the teeth. Next to her walked some big guy he didn’t know and a smaller guy he recognized as one of Abe’s technological flunkies who worked as a DJ at the radio station. Great, a mouthpiece of the system. What was he coming along for? They must be scavenging for some piece of technology.

All three carried identical army packs. The big guy had an AK-47, one of the later Chinese patterns, while the mouthpiece had an automatic pistol in a holster at his belt. Annette had a revolver, plus a shotgun and a rifle case slung to her back.

“Well, at least they’re well prepared,” Jackson muttered.

Jackson wasn’t. Besides a tattered gray overcoat, its pockets stuffed with scraps of food, and a small canvas bag containing a canteen, his cleaver, and a blanket, he had nothing.

“Hey Jackson, this is Mitch Evans and Ha-Ram Lee,” Annette said as they stopped before him.

“You the guy with the map?” Mitch asked, not trying to hide the fact that he was staring at Jackson’s brand. Ha-Ram was staring too.

“Yeah, but don’t spread that around. Plenty of people in the Burbs who would slit my throat to get it.”

Mitch grinned and said in a mocking voice, “Who’s to say I wouldn’t?”

“Very impressive, tough guy, let’s go,” Jackson replied, turning his back on him.

“Where’s your pack?” Annette said as they headed south from the Burbs.

“I don’t have one. Where’s my gun?”

“He said no to that, and I barely got him to say yes to sponsoring your friend. I got your share of the food in my pack. How are you going to carry it?”

“I’m not, you are,” Jackson said.

He felt bad giving this woman attitude, since she was just an unwitting and probably unwilling lackey of the powers-that-be, but he had to establish dominance from the start. Mitch he couldn’t take, Annette he couldn’t outshoot (even if he had a gun), so he had to hold firm. He was the one with the topo, after all. Information was power. Abe knew that all too well with his radio station.

Once they were out of sight of the last of the shacks, Jackson stopped and pulled out the map from where it was tucked under his shirt. Even though it was printed on government-issue durable cloth paper and well laminated, he handled it with care. He unfolded it and spread it on a flat rock, using small stones to keep the wind from catching the corners. Annette, Mitch, and Ha-Ram peered over his shoulder as he crouched over the map.

For a moment he looked at all the old place names, now wiped out by the greed and shortsightedness of the ruling class. How many millions dead in this region alone? How many streams poisoned? How many forests burned? All to enrich the lucky few.

And now he was working for them. Fuck.

“Here’s New City Cove,” he said, pointing to a little arc next to a blue expanse on the map, “and here are the mountains running from north to south. There’s the North Pass and the South Pass. What Abe wants us to do is check out this other pass that most people in these parts don’t know about, which is all the way down here.”

His finger jabbed at a narrow defile in the complex contours of the topo. He looked over his shoulder at his audience and saw only glazed eyes. Good. A topographic map was difficult to read if you’ve never seen one before, and were Annette and Mitch even literate?

Ha-Ram’s brow furrowed in concentration. His eyes lit up as he noticed the key in the lower right hand corner. Jackson tensed. He’d have to watch that one.

“Anyway,” he continued, hunching over the map again and just happening to block Ha-Ram’s view of the key, “As you can see it’s a long march southeast of Toxic Bay. I’ve arranged for a fisherman to take us across and—”

“Wait a minute,” Mitch interrupted him, “you want to cross the bay?”

Jackson looked at him. “The other option is to walk around it, which would take more than a day, and we’d be skirting the petrochemical works, the docks, the old industrial park, and the city. Oh, and since Abe had us start so late, we’d have to camp for the night somewhere close to the petrochemical works. You want to do that?”

Mitch jabbed a thumb in Annette’s direction. “She’s the reason we’re starting so late.”

Annette looked about to object, then she shut her mouth and shook her head.

Jackson folded the map and tucked it back under his shirt. “Let’s go.”

They continued through the hills. As the stench from Toxic Bay began to assail their nostrils, each of them put some cloth around their nose and mouth.

“I can’t believe you actually spend time with these fisheaters,” Mitch grumbled.

“Plenty of people in the Burbs and the wildlands eat fish,” Jackson countered. “When the rich take all the best grazing lands for themselves and hoard all the meat animals what do you expect people to eat?”

Mitch snorted. “It’s their fault if they don’t know how to survive. I bet you never ate fish before you fucked your life up.”

Jackson bit his tongue. This idiot was so deep in the system he couldn’t see its injustices. Typical ruling class tactic—give some scraps to a select few and they’ll defend the system until they die.

They passed out of the hills and the village came into sight. Ha-Ram stopped in his tracks.

“Ugh! Look at this place,” he gasped.

A breeze wafted off the bay, stinging their eyes.

“You never seen the bay before?” Jackson asked him.

Ha-Ram shook his head slowly. “It’s worse than I heard.”

Jackson grunted and led them down to the settlement, where a group of villagers stood waiting. They were all armed with spears and clubs. Oscar had a battered old shotgun. The children who usually greeted Jackson were nowhere to be seen. He was the only outsider who came here regularly. These people had moved here specifically to be away from outsiders. Outsiders meant trouble.

“Hey Jackson, boat’s ready,” Oscar told him in a tone that indicated they should get on it right away.

“Hold on, I just need to tell Olivia something.”

Oscar replied with an impatient sigh. Jackson turned to the others, who were looking about them uncertainly. Ha-Ram was coughing and pressing his handkerchief to his face. Annette was a bit green around the gills and had her hand on the butt of her revolver. Mitch looked like he was trying to hold his breath until they got out of there. He gripped his AK-47 and glared at the villagers.

Like how the other half live? Jackson thought.

“I’ll be back in one minute,” he told them.

“You better be,” Mitch said in a strangled voice.

Jackson went to Olivia’s hut. She stood at the doorway waiting for him and pulled him inside.

“I got it!” Jackson said. “All you have to do is go to the gates and tell them Abraham Weissman sent you. He’s going to make you an associate.”

Olivia smiled sadly and put her hand on his cheek. “We already talked about this.”

“But—”

“This is my home, Jackson.”

“Your home may get overrun. I’ve heard people say that the Righteous Horde is slaughtering anyone who looks sick.”

“Rumors. Scavenger talk.”

Jackson took both her hands in his. “Please go. For me?”

Olivia looked down at the floor, then back at him. “If they come near I’ll go.”

“But it might be too late then!”

“Oscar is putting sentries out. And we can always get on the boats.”

“There aren’t enough boats. Go to New City. I want to see you there when I get back. Come on, this is the only reason I agreed to go on this mission. I don’t even know what we’re really doing out there.”

Olivia kissed him. “OK, I’ll go the moment I hear they’re coming. Take care of yourself and come back in one piece, all right?”

Jackson kissed her and smiled. “I will. I always do.”

He hurried out the door before she could say any more. He didn’t look back as he gathered the others and headed down to the shore.

A dugout made from a hollowed tree trunk waited for them. Jackson figured the tree must have come from further down the shore. No trees had grown around this bay for decades. A pair of villagers holding paddles waited for them. One had a boil the size of an egg next to his eye. The other had a cancerous lump on his neck. Mitch muttered something under his breath that Jackson didn’t catch.

The stench was much worse this close to the water, a sharp, acrid smell that assailed the nostrils and stung the eyes. The dugout lay half on shore and half in the sludgy water. A few sickly looking reeds were all that grew here. Ha-Ram gagged.

Jackson climbed aboard. The others gingerly followed. Mitch cursed as he slipped and one boot plunged into the water. He pulled it out and an oily film slid off it.

Once they were all aboard, the boatmen pushed off and they glided out into the bay.

The surface was covered with a multicolored sheen. Dead fish bobbed here and there, rotting in the filth. It was strangely silent. No seagulls cried overhead. No insects cheeped from the swamp. No frogs or toads croaked their throaty songs. A viscous sludge on the water smoothed out the ripples their boat would have otherwise made.

The people, too, kept silent. Jackson felt unnerved. He had never ventured out into the bay before. He couldn’t imagine how the others must feel. He turned and looked back at the ragged group of sickly people who had chosen to live here. They had gathered in a crowd by the shore. Olivia stood a little apart, unmoving. The children had reappeared too, including Bobby. The blind albino boy waved at them. Even though he knew Bobby couldn’t see, Jackson found himself waving back.

The dugout cut through the water toward the center of the bay. Jackson looked around with the curiosity of one seeing a familiar place from a new perspective. Behind him the village dwindled into the distance. A cluster of ruins stood not far off where once stood a town in the Old Times. A ruined harbor lay in front of it. From there a bridge spanned the mouth of one of the rivers that fed this bay. The concrete had cracked and darkened with years of acid rain. The center of the bridge was gone, the jagged, blackened edges to either side speaking mutely of some long ago explosion. On the other side of the bridge crumbled another little town with another little harbor. He’d heard one of the villagers say these two places were once pleasure resorts for rich people who visited on their yachts and wanted to stay in a quiet little town instead of the city on the opposite shore.

Jackson snorted. If that was the case it must have been some time ago, because just beyond the second town stood the petrochemical works. The rich wouldn’t have parked their yachts next to that! Apparently this bay had been like most places and suffered years of decline before the final fall. Father had told him terrible tales of once-beautiful forests and valleys ravaged by war and strip mining and the other horrors born of the greed and violence of the ruling class.

A gagging sound snapped him out of his reverie. Ha-Ram was puking over the edge of the boat.

They were almost dead center of the bay now and had entered that horrid lane of iridescent sludge that oozed from the petrochemical works. Father had told him that most rivers had been diverted for industrial use, and so after this place had been abandoned, the water running through it was in a perfect position to catch anything coming from its rusting pipes and containers. He wondered how long it had been leaking, and how much more poison lay in that great beast’s belly.

His eyes stung and he blinked acidic tears. Mitch was lucky enough to have brought some goggles so his eyes looked fine, but Ha-Ram’s and Annette’s were red and bleary. He noticed that Annette kept one eye closed.

Her shooting eye, Jackson figured.

The boatmen seemed unaffected. They paddled on silently, having no interest in speaking with or comforting their passengers.

Neither did he. They needed to see how the other half lived. Perhaps it would raise their class-consciousness. Breathing in a few toxins was no more than what they deserved.

But he wasn’t getting whathe deserved. He’d been a good fighter for the proletariat all his life, and for what? He lived in a shack, an outcast from his own city and forced to breath in toxins just to make enough trade to eat. And he hadn’t changed society one bit.

He heard his father’s voice chide him.We have to keep up the fight, son, like your grandfather did and his grandfather before him, until the Revolution finally brings equality to mankind.

Ah, the Revolution. There had been plenty of revolutions in his grandfather’s day and his great-grandfather’s day. Even his father was around for the last of the organized class struggles, dwarfed as they were by the plagues and the rich men’s wars. And now what? Back to barbarism. Back to the first phase of human development, but with all the old sins of the capitalist times remaining—social inequality, centralized power, workers not owning the means of production and earning less than the value of their labor, and of course the opiate of the people in the form of crazed religion.

That’s what had convinced him to go on this trip, that and getting Olivia safe. This new cult was a threat to everybody. You couldn’t strive for equality if you were a slave to some self-styled messiah.

“Was that a warship?” Mitch asked.

Jackson jabbed his chin in the direction of the rusting hulk in the port. “You mean that? No, that was an old cruise ship.”

“A cruise ship?” Annette asked.

“I’ve heard of those,” Ha-Ram said, his voice coming out choked. “They were pleasure craft. They used to sail around the world and people had parties on them.”

“Nobody’s having a party on it now,” Annette said, looking at the capsized hulk of rusted metal.

“Actually there’s a party there all the time,” Jackson said. “A bunch of tweakers live on it, the worst of the worst. This whole bay is infested with them. The villagers have to hunt them when they get too bold. Those on the cruise ship tend to keep to themselves, though. Must be a good supply of chemicals to snort on board. Sometimes I see lights shining there at night.”

Mitch looked around. “We’re too damn exposed out here.”

Jackson looked at the ruined city sprawling along the opposite shore and knew they were being watched. When the villagers came here to scavenge, they always came in large numbers. Jackson studied the cracked concrete facades, empty windows, and exposed steel girders. There would be tweakers looking at them right now, and you could never tell how those burnt-out minds would react.

“Annette,” Jackson said softly. “You have three guns and I have none.”

Annette studied him for a moment before drawing her revolver and handing it to him butt first. Jackson nodded and took it.

“You’re giving a criminal a gun?” Ha-Ram exclaimed.

“You want four guns on our side or only three?” Annette asked, pulling some bullets off her belt and handing them to Jackson.

“Only six extra bullets?” Jackson asked.

Annette gave him a look. “Don’t push it, Blamer. I got a lot of experience dealing with troublemakers like you.”

Jackson met her gaze. “I’m not the real problem.”

The boat drew close to the opposite shore now, and everyone kept a sharp eye out. Nothing moved amid all the empty streets and darkened buildings. It was as silent in the city as it was on the bay.

The villagers steered their dugout to a broad esplanade that ran along the shore. Jackson imagined how it must have been a hundred years before, with laughing families strolling along a bay that still harbored life, back when people could fool themselves into thinking the toxins wouldn’t poison the water and that wars were something that only happened somewhere else.

The dugout bumped against the concrete wall. The surface of the esplanade was at chest height with a rusted old railing running along it. Jackson got off first, hauling himself onto the walkway and standing with Annette’s revolver in his hand, scanning the old shop fronts and apartment buildings for movement.

Mitch came up next and crouched with his AK-47 at the ready. Annette came third with Ha-Ram just behind. Annette cradled her shotgun and Ha-Ram had a 9mm automatic that he held uncertainly. The young man’s eyes were wide with fear and he was unsteady on his feet after being sick.

Without a word the villagers turned their dugout around and made haste for the other shore. All four of those left behind watched them go.

“How do we get back over there?” Mitch asked.

“We can signal,” Jackson said. “They’ll be keeping watch.”

“How the hell are they going to see us?” Mitch demanded.

“They have a good pair of binoculars. You can scavenge all sorts of things in the city if you’re willing to look.”

Mitch snorted. “They can have it. Whoever uses them will probably get eye cancer.”

“Let’s get moving,” Annette urged.

Jackson turned and pointed. “All we have to do is go straight over this ridge. The city continues on the other side for a time but we can be well out of it by nightfall. It wasn’t very big even at its height. My father said only 200,000 people lived here.”

Annette gaped. “That was what they called a small city?”

Jackson shrugged and led them up a road heading straight up the side of the ridge. A few cars sat like the husks of dead beetles by a sidewalk heaped with rubble. Telephone poles and streetlights lay across the way in a few places, but the path was relatively clear.

“Let’s keep to the center of the road,” Jackson said. “Sometime tweakers drop things from the upper stories.”

“Nice,” Ha-Ram whispered.

They walked up the street, peering through empty storefronts and shattered windows. The stench from the bay was still strong, and as they walked a new, even more powerful stench mixed with it.

“Damn, what is that?” Ha-Ram asked.

“Somebody died,” Mitch said.

Jackson nodded. Yeah, he knew that smell too.

They found the body another block up, lying halfway inside a doorway. There was little left. It had been a tweaker judging from the filthy skin, at least the skin that remained for him to see. The fleshy parts of the torso and limbs had been cut away.

Ha-Ram gagged again but didn’t vomit. He’d left the contents of his stomach back in the bay.

“Jesus Christ,” Ha-Ram groaned. “They ate him!”

“Sick fucks,” Mitch growled.

“Let’s go,” Jackson said. “It’s not safe to stay around here.”

They hurried on. At one point they found the road blocked with a heap of rubble from a collapsed building. Instead of climbing over the twisted mass of concrete and jagged metal, they took another, narrower lane a block over.

They’d made it another block when Mitch stopped.

“Did you hear that?” he asked. He looked around with his Kalashnikov leveled.

“What?” Jackson said, looking around.

“I heard movement,” Mitch whispered.

A soft patter of pebbles falling down a slope sounded from somewhere behind and to their left.

“The wind?” Ha-Ram asked.

“That would be nice to believe,” Jackson said. “Let’s get moving. Keep an eye on those windows.”

They crept forward, looking in all directions. Jackson gritted his teeth. The stillness of this place oppressed him. They were almost to the top of the ridge, and from there they’d get a better view and find the shortest way out to the countryside.

“Ha.”

They stopped, looked around.

“Ha. Ha. HA! Ha.”

The sound had come from behind them.

“Ha.”

They spun around. That had been from in front of them.

“HA HA HA!”

They turned again. That had come from the darkened interior of the building just to their right.

“Shit,” Jackson said. “Tweakers.”

CHAPTER TEN

Annette snapped the safety off her shotgun and scanned the buildings that stood to either side.

“Ha!”

Annette spun to her right just in time to see a dark figure dart across a doorway.

“Stay calm,” Jackson said. “If you stay calm sometimes you can pass right by them.”

“That works in the wildlands or the edge of the Burbs,” Ha-Ram said, his voice shaking. “We’re in the city. They’re probably pissed off we’re on their turf.”

Annette bit her lip. The kid was probably right.

“Fuck ‘em,” Mitch said, “We’ll mow the motherfuckers down.”

“Let’s just keep moving forward slowly and calmly and we might get out of this without having to,” Jackson said.

“I knew you liked fisheaters, didn’t know you tumbled with tweakers too,” Mitch said.

“Shut up,” Annette snapped. “Let’s do as he says. He’s got more experience in these parts than any of us.”

To her surprise Mitch complied. Maybe it was easier taking a suggestion from her than from a branded criminal.

It brought up a question, though. Who was in charge of this mission?

A motion out of the corner of her eye made her look up. Someone was in one of the upper stories.

“Hoooooooo.”

The long, hollow call sounded like it came from the roof of the building where Annette had seen the movement.

The group picked up their pace. They were almost to the crest of the ridge now, huffing up a steep hill, the cracked pavement tripping them up as they looked everywhere except their own feet.

A cross street ran along the top of the ridge, a forlorn traffic light still hanging from a cable strung across the intersection, its three lights forever extinguished. A figure staggered into view, looking almost like a silhouette it was so filthy. It held a plastic bag up to its face and sniffed. It stumbled to one side, righted itself, and stared at them.

“Keep calm,” Jackson said. “Don’t show fear.”

Easier said than done, Annette thought.

“Hoooooooo HO!”

More tweakers stumbled into the intersection. With a sense of dread Annette looked over her shoulder. More closed in behind them, blocking the last intersection.

Without saying anything to each other the four of them stopped and stood back to back.

“Now what?” Ha-Ram asked in a voice raw with panic.

“Steady,” Annette said.

A chunk of concrete arched down from a nearby rooftop and shattered on the street not five feet away. Ha-Ram bolted for the shelter of the opposite building.

“No! Don’t run!” Jackson cried out.

“HA! Ha ha ha hoooooooo!”

In an instant the tweakers transformed. Their shambling, uncoordinated movements disappeared and they raced forward, their once-slack faces now twisted in mad rage.

Annette gave the surging crowd in front of them both barrels of her shotgun and saw three tweakers go down. Another spun around, his arm shredded. He landed hard on one foot, steadied himself, and moved forward again.

“Ha!”

Mitch laid into the tweakers in front with three-round bursts, knocking at least one down with each pull of the trigger. They flew backwards, arms cartwheeling. Wounded tweakers toppled over one another, blackened rags now soaked in blood.

“Move forward, we gotta move forward!” Mitch said.

He yanked out his clip, slapped the backup into his weapon, and let off another burst. Annette cracked open her shotgun, tore the spent shells out of the barrels and fumbled for another pair. Beside her Jackson was taking steady aim and dropping the tweakers behind them one by one. Another slab of concrete crashed onto the pavement not a foot from where he stood. Bits of rock hit him on the face and torso, but he barely flinched.

He’s seen a few firefights in his time,she thought.I wonder where?

Annette shoved two shells into her shotgun, snapped the piece closed, and blasted at the crowd. Between her shots and two full clips from Mitch’s AK-47, virtually all the tweakers in front of them went down.

“Let’s go!” he shouted.

Mitch charged forward, giving one of the few tweakers left standing the butt of his weapon full in its face. The thing toppled backwards, its head hitting pavement with an audible crack. Another grabbed him. Mitch spun around and threw the tweaker onto the ground. Annette stomped on its face.

“I’m out!” Jackson called, holding up her revolver. The tweakers behind them were closing in. “No time to reload. We gotta run for it.”

A half dozen bricks landing all around them emphasized his point. Annette gave thanks that the tweakers had terrible aim. One brick even hit one of the wounded as he moaned on his hands and knees, blood pouring from a gut shot. The brick smacked him on the back of the head and knocked him flat.

Annette looked around. “Where’s Ha-Ram?”

A series of shots from one of the buildings gave her the answer.

The crowd of tweakers coming up behind them shifted direction and moved for the building in a filthy, cawing mass.

“Fuck!” Mitch said. “We gotta get him.”

Annette did a double take. She didn’t expect Mitch to actually stick up for anybody.

Mitch must have seen the look on her face because he said, “We need him.”

Need him for what, exactly?

No time to discuss that. Ha-Ram had a nine-round clip and probably didn’t have the foresight to put an extra round in the chamber. Plus Abe had said he wasn’t a good shot. They needed to get to him fast.

“Wait!” Jackson said. He was loading more rounds into the revolver.

“We don’t have time!” Annette shouted. She was reloading too, but she’d get done a hell of a lot faster.

Mitch looked at his AK helplessly. He’d burned through two clips and definitely didn’t have time to reload. He drew a bayonet out of a sheath on his belt and slipped the guard loop over the barrel of his weapon, snapping it into place. He looked at the other two.

“Done?”

“Yeah,” Annette said.

“Wait a minute,” Jackson said. He had two more rounds to put in. One. He snapped the cylinder into place. “Hold it!”

“Now what?” Mitch demanded.

No more shots came from inside.

Jackson fished into his bag and pulled out a meat cleaver.

“Should have had this out before. Let’s go!”

They hustled toward the building as the last of the tweakers crowded through the front door. No more missiles came from above. Whoever had been up there seemed to have lost interest.

The place was a five-story apartment building with a large shop on the ground floor. All the windows had been smashed years ago and nothing remained inside but rows of empty shelving.

They stopped by one of the large windows and saw the crowd heading down one of the aisles away from them.

“They’ve forgotten all about us,” Annette said in wonder.

“They’re easily distracted. They’re focused on him now,” Jackson said.

He stepped through the window, careful not to cut himself on the few slivers of dusty class that still clung to the bottom of the frame. Annette and Mitch followed.

“I don’t hear any fighting,” Mitch whispered.

“Maybe he’s hiding,” Annette whispered back. She didn’t want to think of the other possibilities. Visions of that half-eaten corpse came back to her.

The last of the tweakers rounded the corner of the aisle at the far end of the store. Enough daylight filtered in that they could see the landing of a stairway there.

Annette peeked down the next aisle. Nothing. They hurried to follow the crowd, trying to make as little sound as possible. Annette gritted her teeth as their boots crunched glass and bits of drywall. She winced as Mitch accidentally kicked a rusty can and sent it clanging against a metal shelf.

They came to the landing and saw three tweakers huddled over something in the hallway. Annette’s heart pounded as they approached. It couldn’t be. . .

She left out a gasp of relief to see it wasn’t Ha-Ram’s corpse.

It was his backpack.

That was only slightly less ominous.

The tweakers pawing at the backpack looked up. Their eyes were unfocused again, their jaws slack. One brought a plastic bag partly filled with some sort of clear fluid to his face and breathed in deeply.

He took the bag away and smiled at them.

“Godd frwt ailsyanope?”

Jackson leapt forward and swung his meat cleaver down, lodging it in his skull with a crack. Mitch lunged at the tweaker next to him and stuck his bayonet through the addict’s throat. Annette hesitated, not having anything lethal to kill quietly with. She was just bringing up her shotgun as a club when Mitch gutted the third one.

Mitch looked over at Jackson with new respect.

“That wasn’t half bad,” he smiled.

“Thanks,” Jackson grunted, putting his foot on the dead tweaker’s head and yanking his meat cleaver out of his skull.

A series of shots rang out upstairs.

“Let’s go!” Annette said.

They hustled up the steps, Annette taking point and Mitch and Jackson two steps behind. They came to the first floor and looked around. No one.

Another shot rang out. Annette pointed up the stairs with her gun.

“Next floor!”

They continued their ascent. Rounding the landing, a dark figure leapt from the shadows. Annette gave it a barrel in the chest.

She cried out, realizing she had fired without seeing who it was. A wave of relief washed over her to see the filthy form of a chem addict jerking its death throes on the floor.

They hurried up the next flight of steps to the second floor. A long hallway stretched out ahead of them with open doorways to either side, the doors having long since been used up as firewood. A couple of tweakers wandered about the hallway, staring into doorways. They’d lost sight of their quarry and their miswired minds had forgotten the hunt.

A shout from the other end of the hallway made the tweakers turn and head away from Annette and her companions. They didn’t even notice them sneaking up behind until they were getting clubbed and stabbed in the back.

The tweakers in the hall dealt with, the three crept forward, poking their heads in each of the doors. Another shout told them where Ha-Ram was.

They sprinted to the end of the hall and saw him backed into a corner, fending off half a dozen tweakers with a metal table leg. His pistol lay on the floor.

Mitch charged forward with a roar. The chem sniffers turned. Ha-Ram used the opportunity to smack one upside the head. Mitch lunged, planting his bayonet its full length into one’s stomach. Jackson slashed another across the throat with his cleaver, the tweaker going down with a wet choke, grimy fingers clutching its spurting neck. Annette, frustrated she couldn’t use her shotgun in such an enclosed space without hitting her companions, swung it as a club instead, hitting first one, then another of the addicts.

Just as she knocked the second one down, another barreled into her, scrawny arms grabbing her around her middle with incredible strength and hurling her to the floor.

In an instant it was upon her, raking her face with its nails, bring a hand up to strike.

Its head burst into a fountain of blood and it fell to one side.

Jackson stood above her, the smoking revolver in his hand.

“Let’s get going,” he said.

“One minute,” Mitch said, stabbing each tweaker in turn. “Got to double tap these motherfuckers to make sure they don’t come back.”

“Thanks guys,” Ha-Ram said as he scooped up his pistol.

Annette staggered to her feet, heart pounding. She wiped the blood off of her stinging face the best she could, and wondered how much of it was her own.

She looked at Jackson, “How bad is it?”

His mouth made a grim line.

“You got some open scratches.”

Annette’s stomach clenched. “What if its blood got into mine?”

Mitch gave her a concerned look. “I have some iodine in my pack. Once we clear out of here we’ll put some on it.”

“Give it to me now!” Annette demanded.

“We don’t have time,” the baker said.

“I don’t have time. Give it to me!”

Mitch stripped off his backpack and rummaged around inside. Ha-Ram took the opportunity to reload. As he did he glanced out the window.

“Shit.”

“What?” Annette asked dancing from one foot to another as Mitch took an agonizingly long time to find the damn iodine.

“More coming,” Ha-Ram said.

Mitch pulled the iodine out of the pack. “Look, we need to—”

Annette snatched the iodine from him. “Fuck you. I’m not getting whatever that tweaker had.”

She tore of the cap and started pouring it onto her face. The sting burned into every line of the scratch marks.

“Not like that, let me,” Jackson said. He took the iodine and turned to Mitch. “Got some clean wool for that?”

Mitch tossed him a ball of wool from his medical pack. “For fuck’s sake hurry up!”

Ha-Ram started firing out the window. Mitch gave Annette and Jackson a furious look and started reloading his magazine.

Jackson poured some iodine on the ball of wool and started dabbing her face. An instant later she pushed him aside, blew away a tweaker who appeared at the door, then told him to continue.

Ha-Ram burned through his clip and started reloading. Mitch finished loading his own magazine and snapped it into place. He glanced out the window.

“Holy crap. We gotta gonow.”

“There’s a million of them!” Ha-Ram said.

Jackson finished up, gave the iodine and wool back to Mitch, and peered out the door. He turned back to Annette.

“I’m out of ammo.”

Annette pulled the half a dozen bullets from her gun belt and handed them to him.

“Just how long are we going to hang around here?” Mitch demanded.

“I got to load,” Jackson said.

“Load as we go,” Mitch said, shoving past him out the door with Ha-Ram close behind.

As the four of them got into the hallway Annette pointed. “Look, another hallway. It probably goes to a back entrance.”

Ha-Ram stopped. “We have to go back downstairs and get my pack.”

“Fuck your pack,” Annette said.

Ha-Ram looked uncertain. “We need it.”

“Why?” Jackson demanded.

Mitch drew Ha-Ram to his side.

“We just need it, is all,” Mitch said. “We’re going downstairs to get it. You coming or not?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“What do you mean you want to come in?”

Marcus faced the crowd of scavengers. The newcomer with the broken nose cocked his head and studied him.

“Exactly what I said. Danger’s coming and we want to move inside the walls.”

“Your children will get to stay inside,” Marcus said, gesturing toward his daughter. “That’s always been the deal.”

“That was fine when it was only a few bandits,” another scavenger spoke up. Marcus recognized him as one of the regulars who had been coming for years. “We could scatter to the wildlands and wait them out. But this time there’s thousands of them. Word is they’re sweeping the whole countryside.”

“The only safe place is behind those walls,” the scavenger with the broken nose said, jabbing a finger toward the barricade.

“What’s your name, anyway?” Marcus asked him.

“My name’s my business.”

“You won’t even give me your name and you want to come into my city?”

The regular chimed in again. “This is our city too. We’ve built it same as you. You think you could have created all you have without our trades?”

Marcus looked at him. “We’ve always given you fair trades, not to mention free medical treatment and a refuge for your children.”

The man wavered. Marcus felt a pang of guilt. He didn’t want to be arguing with these people. While he didn’t like scavengers in general, not all were bad. This one, he knew, was a family man. Twice now his children had stayed inside during raids while his wife and he went into hiding until the danger had passed.

Plus he had a point. New City couldn’t exist without the scavengers, and the scavengers would have a tough life without New City.

But what did these people expect him to do, open the gates to a few thousand strangers?

The scavenger who wouldn’t give his name wasn’t cowed by Marcus’ words.

“You can’t stand alone against the Righteous Horde. Several people here have seen them. They’re practically an army like in the Old Times.”

Marcus scoffed. “What, they have tanks and jets now?”

The scavenger glowered at him from over his bandage. “You know what I mean. They don’t need the equipment when they got the numbers. If we spread out into the wildlands they’ll hunt us down like dogs, and they’ll break right through that wall you’re so proud of and enslave the lot of you.”

“We’ve fought off all other attacks before,” Marcus said uncertainly.

“We’d add a thousand fighters to your force, at least a quarter of who got guns. You need us. We need you. Let us in.”

Marcus didn’t say anything for the moment. “I’ll ask The Doctor. We’ll have a citizens meeting.”

The scavenger nodded. “You do that. And be quick about it. There ain’t much time and if the horde comes near, we’ll come back. And next time we won’t be asking.”

Several hard cases behind him let out a little cheer. Many of the others, regulars mostly, looked uncertain.

The man with the broken nose turned and stormed off, motioning for the others to follow. Far too many did.

When Marcus returned to The Doctor’s quarters he found him stretched out on a sofa, apparently asleep. A half-eaten sandwich sat on a plate on the floor next to him. Marcus was about to tiptoe away when The Doctor’s eyes opened.

“How are you feeling?” Marcus asked him.

“Never mind me, what happened out there?”

“The scavengers want to camp inside.”

The Doctor got up on one elbow. “Not a chance!”

“I tried explaining it to them but they wouldn’t listen. That guy who brought the radios is acting as a sort of a leader.”

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. “Something off about him.”

Marcus nodded. “I think so too. Comes out of nowhere, Roy said he acted like a madman in $87,953, brings a bunch of newly made radios he claims he just happened upon, and now he’s set himself up as some sort of authority. When I asked him his name he basically told me to go to hell.”

“Those radios are sure popular,” The Doctor said.

“Yeah,” Marcus agreed. They were all over the Burbs and even some citizens had picked them up. From what he’d heard, the scavenger was practically giving them away.

Neither spoke for a moment.

“So what do you think he’s up to?” Marcus said at last.

The Doctor simply shook his head.

“Do you think he knows where Radio Hope is? You think he might be one of them?” Marcus asked.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of person we hear on the air telling us how to make preserves.”

“No he doesn’t, but seeing as we don’t know a thing about that station. . .”

Marcus left his sentence unfinished.

“I shouldn’t authorize them to come in without a citizens meeting,” The Doctor said.

“That’s what he wants done.”

“I’ll call one for tomorrow, but I’m not looking forward to it.”

Marcus let out a bitter laugh, “Neither am I.”

“Oh, and there’s another thing,” The Doctor reached over to a side table and picked up a bundle of wires and little electronic parts. After a moment Marcus recognized it as one of the scavenger’s crystal radios. Someone had taken it apart.

“I had a couple of the techs look at this,” The Doctor said. “Like we thought, the casing and electronics are newly made. Pretty simple to do. Any one of a dozen people inside the walls could make one. But there’s more. The earpiece is newly made too.”

Marcus’ brow furrowed. “And that’s not so simple?”

“It isn’t something you could just slap together from spare parts. This is advanced electronics. You need a proper electronics factory to build one of these.”

Marcus cocked his head and looked at it. “Are they sure it’s newly made?”

“No serial number. Everything electronic during the Old Times had a serial number. There was a law.”

“Maybe during the Plague Years? The City-State Wars?”

“Maybe, but why would they be making crystal radios at a time like that? That’s all these earpieces are really good for. The techs tell me you need a really sensitive earpiece to boost the signal from the crystal. Regular radios and sound equipment have an electrical boost, so you don’t need earpieces like this. And besides, the techs tell me this is recycled plastic. Even during the City-State Wars they still had plastics factories.”

Marcus said nothing for a moment while it sank in.

“So Radio Hope isn’t just broadcasting helpful information for free, they’re rebuilding the industrial sector?”

The Doctor nodded slowly.

“But why don’t we know where they are? You can’t just hide a factory. Why hasn’t one of the scavengers stumbled upon it?”

The Doctor met his gaze. “Who’s to say one hasn’t?”

Marcus let out a low whistle. “I think we need to sit down and have a chat with this man.”

The Doctor gave a curt nod. He played with the electronics in his hand. “Yes we do. But we have to bring something to the table first. We can’t concede to all his demands, Abe and Clyde and a bunch of the others will never agree to them, and I don’t want to agree to them either, but we can meet him halfway.”

“He doesn’t strike me as a halfway kind of guy,” Marcus said.

“Announce a citizens meeting for an hour before the gates open, and send word to this scavenger that we’ll meet with him at noon tomorrow.”

“Right.”

The Doctor looked at him. “You better go home. Rosie’s going to be mad at me for making you late for lunch.”

“Aw, she’s so happy to have Annette Cruz’s kid around the house she probably won’t even notice I’m gone. Want to come over?”

The Doctor waved him away. “No, you go on. I need to go to the lab and cut up some willow bark to make aspirin. Ahmed reported another two flu cases today.”

Marcus came home to find Pablo and a couple of citizen children tossing a baseball around in front of his house. Like before, Rosie stood at the window watching. When Marcus came up she made a show of washing some dishes.

“Hey guys!” Marcus called out.

“My ad spot was on the radio again!” Pablo called out.

“Yeah, I heard it,” Marcus fibbed.

Pablo tossed him the ball and Marcus surprised himself by catching it. He looked down at the ball, its fine leather and regulation stitching, and wondered when was the last time he’d held one.

“Good throw, but it’s better to bring your hand to the side, like this,” he threw the ball back at Pablo, who dove and caught it, rising from the ground with a dusty grin.

Pablo tossed it to one of his new friends, who tossed it to the third boy before it went back to Pablo.

“Here,” Marcus said. “Let me show you.”

He got behind Pablo. “Now line up your body like this. And take your hand like this. Let’s do it slow motion.”

Marcus guided his hand.

“Now try it for real.”

Marcus threw the ball and it whizzed past one of the boys, who ran after it laughing.

“Nice one! See? Better already,” Marcus said.

A grumble from his stomach reminded him of why he was here. Pablo must have heard it too because he said, “We ate already but Aunt Rosie is keeping some warm for you.”

Aunt Rosie?

He turned and saw his wife had stopped washing the dishes and was watching them both with a big grin on her face.

Well, why not? Doesn’t she deserve to be happy for a little while? Pretty soon none of us will be grinning.

The Citizens Council met in the upper story of the warehouse, in the vast, all-but-empty room in front of The Doctor’s quarters. Seats had been set up and a low wooden platform stood at one end, on which sat The Doctor and Marcus. An empty chair stood next to them. In the rows of seats in front of the stage, Abe Weissman and the other members of the Merchants Association sat front and center. The rest of the room was taken up with almost every adult citizen who could get away from their work. Even Roy had come in from the Burbs, as had several of the farmers who lived close by. Marcus estimated some four hundred people were there.

The Doctor stood up and raised his hands for silence. The buzz from the room fell to a low murmur.

“Now I’m sure you’ve all heard why we’re here. The scavengers and associates are all scared of this new cult, The Righteous Horde. Word is they number in the thousands. While I’m not sure that’s true, the point is the people outside the wall don’t think they can scatter and hide like during a usual siege. They’re not content with leaving their children here. They want to come in too.”

An angry cacophony filled the room as several people tried to complain all at once. Abe stood up and asked for the floor. Marcus shifted in his seat. He knew what was going to come next. The Doctor motioned for him to begin.

“This is insane!” the head of the Merchants Association said. “We can’t let a bunch of scavengers inside the walls. The walls are there to separate us from them. You want to turn the city into the Burbs?”

“Yeah, how can I protect my family and property?” someone called out.

A chorus of angry approval rose up and drowned out Abe’s next words. The Doctor raised his hands for silence again and the noise ebbed away. Abe looked around with more confidence now that he saw most people agreed with him. After a moment he went on.

“I care about the people of the Burbs just as much as you—” Marcus suppressed a derisive snort—“but we have to be practical. Sure, we know some of the regulars, even trust a few of them, but most of these people are strangers. New City has survived because we keep the gates shut to strangers. In my personal opinion we shouldn’t let scavengers in even for screening goods and medical treatment.”

The Doctor cut him off. “Those rules were established years ago and I’m keeping them.”

Abe raised a calming hand. Marcus wondered whether Abe felt he had gone too far or hadn’t gone far enough.

“Now Doctor, you have always served the community well. And we appreciate that. We understand why you want an open-door policy. But these are times of war. We have to put New City first. The scavengers have to be made to understand that.”

Marcus spoke up. “That’s all well and good but you didn’t talk to them. They’re not going to take no for an answer.”

“They’ll have to!” Abe replied.

“Not if they think it’s a choice between getting in or getting killed,” The Doctor said.

“So what?” another member of the Merchants Association chimed in. “You saying we should open the gates to everybody?”

“I’m saying we need to seriously consider it, at least for those we know personally,” The Doctor replied.

The room rose up in an angry babble and the crowd descended into dozens of individual arguments. Abe huddled with the other members of the Merchants Association.

Just then Clyde hurried in, his sweating face a mask of worry. The conversations began to die away as people saw him.

The Head of the Watch hustled up to the stage and took his seat.

“What’s happened?” The Doctor asked.

Clyde wiped his face and tried to catch his breath.

“Bad news,” he managed to gasp out. “The worst.”

Clyde looked at the audience when he realized that they had all fallen silent and were watching him.

“I concede the floor to the Head of the Watch,” Abe said and sat down. He looked as worried as everyone else.

Clyde stood up, cleared his throat, and looked back at The Doctor. Receiving a reassuring nod, he turned to the audience, cleared his throat again, smoothed his camouflage shirt, and took a deep breath.

“The patrol in the South Pass just radioed in. The Righteous Horde is coming through. An advanced group of their scouts surrounded our patrol. The last radio message said they were cut off and most were down. I could hear gunfire. Then the signal went dead.”

A woman stood up near the back.

“Who was on that patrol?” she asked in a quavering voice.

Clyde’s mouth made a grim line. “Charles Leslie, Edward Hall, Lester Freeman, Marsha Crawford, Johnny Kim, and Virginia Barnes.”

Gaps and sobs rose from the crowd. The woman turned pale and sat down.

“How long before they get here?” The Doctor asked.

“They didn’t have time to radio in their position but given that they only left from the outer farms yesterday and that the signal was pretty clear, I’d say two days.”

Abe Weissman sprang out of his seat. “We need to close the gates right away!”

“You don’t have the floor,” Marcus snapped.

“The hell with the floor, they probably have spies here right now. Who’s to say that guy selling the radios isn’t one of them? He’s sure eager to come in.”

“Why would he be trading crystal sets that pick up Radio Hope if he’s with the Righteous Horde?” Marcus scoffed.

“Maybe they’re one and the same,” Abe said.

“Now you’re just being stupid,” Marcus shot back.

Murmurs of agreement came from the crowd. Someone shouted, “Sit down, Abe!”

Abe looked around him. Marcus could tell he was cursing himself for going too far. He was about to say something more when The Doctor cut him off.

“If reports of their numbers are true—”

“We don’t know that!” Abe interrupted. The Doctor rolled right over him.

“If reports of their numbers are true, we can’t stand against them. I move that we let in the associates immediately. . .”

The Doctor paused. There was no objection to that since there was precedent for it.

“. . .and that we let the scavengers we know in.”

Once again the Citizens Council burst into a dozen arguments. The Doctor raised his hands for silence.

“We don’t have time to deliberate all day. Let’s have a voice vote. All in favor of this plan say aye.”

A few dozen voices called out.

“And all those in opposition say nay.”

A chorus of nays rumbled the room, significantly louder than the ayes.

Rachel Barry stood up, her mechanic’s overalls smudged with grease.

“May I have the floor?” she asked.

“Yes,” the Doctor replied. “Thank you for asking.”

Marcus stole a look at Abe. The merchant looked like he had just sucked on a lemon.

“I move that we let the scavengers in who we know and can vouch for, but disarm them. If it turns out we really need them on the wall, we can give them their weapons back.”

“They’re aren’t going to go for that!” someone called out.

Rachel scowled at the crowd, looking for the dissenter. “Well we won’t know unless we ask them, now will we?”

“I second the motion,” Marcus called out.

“All those in favor say aye,” The Doctor asked.

The ayes were much louder this time.

“All those opposed say nay.”

The nays lost by a narrow margin.

Ahmed stood up and raising his voice to be heard over the grumbling of the Merchants Association he asked to be given the floor. The Doctor nodded to his assistant.

“I’d like to propose that all scavengers be allowed in under those circumstances,” Ahmed said.

Abe sprang from his seat again. “Are you crazy? There’s got to be three thousand people in the Burbs. We let them all in they could take over, plunder every storehouse, every home!”

Ahmed gave him a withering look. “I know you’re very concerned about your property, Abe, but have you considered we’re talking about people’s lives?”

Abe made a face. “Scavengers, only scavengers.”

“Watch it!” someone shouted. “Some of us were scavengers once.”

Marcus looked around nervously. So many angry faces, angry for so many reasons. While he liked seeing Abe put in his place, this sort of disunity was bad news before a siege.

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Ahmed said.

“You need your proposal to be seconded,” The Doctor said.

“Well, second it then,” the nurse replied.

The Doctor didn’t reply, his face stony. Ahmed’s eyes narrowed.

“I second it,” Rachel Barry called out.

Virtually no one said aye and the nays won easily. Ahmed frowned and took his seat.

The Doctor nodded. “I’ll bow to the will of the gathered citizenry. But I’m warning you,”—and he stuck out his index finger like he was chastising a group of children—“they may not go for this. This newcomer seems to be banding them together. He’s bought a lot of goodwill by practically giving away those radios.”

“I move that we grab him and make him tell all he knows!” a member of the Merchants Association shouted.

“That’s a security issue and is up to Clyde and me,” The Doctor replied. “Don’t worry, we’ll be talking to him. But there won’t be any grabbing or we’ll have a siege on our hands a lot sooner than two days from now.”

Marcus looked around at all the frightened faces, the citizens who had turned ugly against the traders who supplied them their needs in exchange for the surplus from their farms, and realized that in a sense, the siege had already begun.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jackson cursed. They wanted to go back downstairs into a crowd of tweakers for Ha-Ram’s backpack? What the hell was in it that he and Mitch cared about so much?

They clattered down the hallway, Jackson lagging behind as he tried to load Annette’s pistol while running at the same time. He cursed again as he dropped a bullet. He hesitated, then grabbed it and put it in the chamber. Snapping the cylinder into place he sprinted to catch up with the others, who had already made it to the stairway.

“Ha!”

“Hoooooo!”

Mitch angled his AK-47 down the stairs and let loose on full auto, the muzzle of his weapon sending out a bright flare that lit up the dim staircase. A moment later he hustled down the steps with the other two behind them.

Jackson got to the top of the stairs and saw them rounding the next landing down past a heap of crumpled bodies. He felt a rising panic, the raw fear of being left alone in this place. He’d always been a loner, even more so after being branded and cast out, but the thought of being alone in the city for even a second gave strength to his tired legs and hurled him down the steps.

He caught up with them halfway down the next flight of stairs, having to pull himself up short because the three of them had formed in line across the stairway and were giving everything they had into a mass of tweakers below.

Jackson brought up the revolver and tried to find a position where he could safely fire between them.

He didn’t get a chance. All the tweakers were down in an instant.

Ha-Ram hurried over to his pack, stumbling over the writhing forms of the dying chem addicts in the rush to get it. He picked it up, grimaced as his hand smeared a spray pattern of blood, and opened it up.

“Everything looks OK,” he said to Mitch.

The burly man looked it over. “No bullet holes. We were lucky.”

Jackson glanced from one to the other. What was going on here?

The sounds of approaching footsteps brought him to a more important matter. He looked around, saw the opening to another hallway leading toward the back of the building, and jabbed a thumb in that direction.

“Let’s look for that back exit now.”

“Cover us,” Annette said, “I think you’re the only one’s who’s loaded.”

They hurried around the corner, Jackson taking point. To his relief he saw the welcome rectangle of sunlight from an open doorway at the end.

A few seconds later Jackson burst out, pistol at the ready. They were on the broad street that ran along the top of the ridge. No one was in sight.

“Let’s go!” Jackson urged them on.

His companions didn’t need a second invitation. They sprinted the next two blocks, humping it over the ridge and running fast down the steep slope on the other side. Beyond they could see the other half of the city spread out below them. Much of it was charred from some long-ago fire, only blackened shells of buildings remaining. Off to their right they could see the blue sea, the brown countryside, and a thin ribbon of sand between, all bright now in the sunlight that had broken through the clouds.

The group slowed down to a panting walk. Despite the chilly sea breeze sweat poured down their faces. Jackson gave Annette a concerned glance. She’d been scratched pretty bad by that tweaker’s filthy nails, and then got its blood sprayed in the wound. Good thing Mitch had some iodine. No telling what could get in those scratches. From the look on her face Annette was worried about it too.

Of more immediate concern was getting out of the city. He didn’t think the tweakers would pursue them. Chances are they had forgot about them already and were feasting on a bounty of fresh meat. Jackson shuddered.

After another block they stopped by unspoken consensus. Everyone reloaded. Mitch cursed under his breath.

“What is it?” he asked the baker.

“Burned too much ammo back there,” Mitch grumbled. “Only enough left to fill one magazine and leave the second a couple rounds short.”

“I only have enough for two more clips,” Ha-Ram said, reloading his 9mm.

He looked to Annette.

“I got plenty of shells for this shotgun,” she told him.

Jackson gestured at the rifle case strapped to her back. “And that?”

A troubled look passed over the woman’s face. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“I’m more worried about this,” Jackson said, holding up his pistol. “Only six rounds. Mind not being so stingy and giving me the rest of your supply?”

Annette paused for a moment, then dug into her breast pocket and came up with a handful of bullets. Jackson counted. Ten.

He looked back at her. “That’s all?”

“Yeah.”

Jackson sighed and stowed them away.

Mitch snapped a full magazine in his Kalashnikov and said, “We got enough for one good firefight and then we’re screwed.”

They started walking again.

“We going to have another firefight where we’re going?” Jackson asked.

Mitch shrugged. Jackson looked at Ha-Ram.

“Mind telling me what’s so important about your pack?” he asked.

Ha-Ram looked about to reply when Mitch gave him a hard look.

“Nothing,” the technician mumbled.

Jackson shook his head. Olivia better get her ass inside the walls after all the shit he was going through to get her there.

This part of the city seemed all but abandoned. Large sections of it had been burned. Jackson figured there was less to scavenge here and the tweakers preferred the more industrial part of the bay where they could get more chemicals. Only twice did they see lone figures in the distance. One was staggering away from them, the other squatting in the middle of the road with his pants around his ankles. Jackson hurried them on, eager to avoid contact.

By sunset they had left the city behind them and walked by the side of a highway that snaked along high ground overlooking the sea. The old highways were good direction finders in the wildlands, but nobody actually walkedon them anymore. Decades of weathering had cracked and buckled the asphalt, making it rougher terrain than the soil to either side. In some spots grass and bushes grew out of the middle of the road. Further on away from the toxins Jackson knew that even trees had pushed their way through.

They found shelter for the night in an old gas station. Its pumps had been stripped for scrap metal, its windows shattered and its interior cleared out of everything except the counter and a few rusted shelves. The roof was still good though and after checking it out they broke out their food and blankets and settled down.

Annette found a sliver of mirror behind the counter and sat applying iodine to her face. Mitch didn’t object to her borrowing it again. He looked horrified that she’d been touched by one of those things.

Jackson sat near the front looking out to sea, wondering why Abe Weissman hadn’t lent them his boat. It would have made the journey quicker and safer. Then he realized why—Abe only had one boat.

Wants a backup plan in case the cultists break through the wall.

Jackson shook his head. He’d bet his life the rich scumbag wouldn’t take anyone with him. Probably had a year’s worth of Blue Cans stored in the hold too.

Ha-Ram stood outside looking up at the faded sign in front of the store. Jackson followed his gaze and saw it read “Choi’s Gas and Groceries” in English and then another line of text in some Asian language.

“Can you read that?” Jackson asked.

“Yeah, it’s Korean. Says the same thing as it does in English.”

“I thought you were Chinese,” Mitch said.

Ha-Ram laughed and shook his head. “No. My great-grandparents came from Korea right after unification.”

“Unification?” Mitch asked.

“Korea used to be two countries. Then it became one. Then none.” Ha-Ram’s face darkened.

“And here I thought your ancestors came with the invasion!” Mitch laughed.

Ha-Ram shook his head. “Came to escape an earlier invasion. My family was big into the old country, though. My grandparents had never been there but told us all sorts of stories they’d heard from their parents and made sure everyone in our family learned the language. We all got traditional names. Mine means ‘gift from heaven’ because my mother was so happy that she finally gave birth to a live child.”

“With all the shit those assholes spread it’s a wonder any of us were born at all,” Mitch grunted.

“What we got was nothing compared to Korea,” Ha-Ram replied.

“You’re steering close to Blame, guys,” Annette called out from where she sat dabbing iodine on her face.

Jackson shook his head. “If you’re going to blame someone, blame the right people. The rich of all countries—”

“Watch it!” Annette snapped.

Jackson turned to her. “What are you going to do, brand my other cheek?”

Annette looked down at the floor.

“Instead of screaming about people with better survival skills than you, how about you break out that map while there’s still light enough to see? We need to plan tomorrow’s march,” Mitch said.

Jackson shrugged. Might as well. He pulled out the map from where it was tucked into his shirt and laid it out on the dusty counter. The others gathered around. Ha-Ram stood right next to him. Jackson laid his hand over the map’s key.

“It’s hard to tell since the coastline has changed a lot since this map was made, but I think we’re about here,” he said, pointing to a spot on a road leading south from the city.

“How can you tell that?” Ha-Ram asked.

“From the contours of the land,” Jackson replied.

“And how does the map tell you that?” the technician pressed.

Jackson gave him a steady gaze. “It just does, OK?”

“So now what?” Annette said, looking at the map with a stare that was reassuringly blank.

Jackson’s finger traced the line of the road down to where it intersected with another road heading east into the mountains.

“We need to follow this road until it links up with one that goes east and through the pass.”

“How far?” Mitch asked.

“Twenty miles to the intersection and another five to the start of the pass.”

“That’s not far,” Annette said. “Why do so few people know of it?”

“The mountains take a loop to the west just where the city is. The edges of the city go right up to its foothills. Since everyone sees it as a no-go area, hardly anyone ever comes this way.”

Ha-Ram measured the first distance with his fingers. Jackson glanced at him just in time to see him mouth the word “twenty.” Then he narrowed the space between his fingers and laid them out between the intersection and the mountains. He got the distance almost perfect, his forefinger touching where the contour lines crowded close to show a steep rise in elevation.

The Korean technician studied those lines for a moment. Jackson saw understanding dawn in his eyes.

Better watch this one,Jackson thought.Abe probably told him to figure out how to use my map. Probably means to take it. Sorry, Mr. Weissman, but you have too much power already. You try to steal mine and your lackeys are going to suffer.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Annette struggled. The tweaker was on top of her, his blackened nails reaching for her face. She batted his hands away but he kept coming, babbling and drooling, reaching out with those filthy hands. In the distance she could hear the screams of her family and friends as they were slaughtered. The tweaker’s hands tore at her face, ripped her clothing. . .

She bolted awake, her hand already gripping her shotgun. For a moment she was disoriented, looking around an unfamiliar room from where she sat in her bedroll on the floor.

“You’re safe,” a voice said nearby.

She looked over. Jackson stood watch next to the window. She sighed.

“Go back to sleep,” he said. “It’s not your turn for watch for another hour.”

She didn’t reply. Her heart was racing and she struggled to control her breath. Mitch and Ha-Ram slept peacefully nearby. She envied them.

“I hate those dreams,” Jackson said.

“Shut up,” Annette replied, “You don’t know shit about me or my dreams.”

Nobody did. She got them at least once a week. Sometimes she woke up screaming, and had to tuck Pablo back into bed with the explanation that she saw a spider. Pablo was convinced his mother had a phobia about spiders. She’d let a thousand spiders crawl over her if she could just stop having the dreams.

Annette rubbed her eyes. It was the damn tweaker that had triggered it. The memory of when the bandits came.

They’d come on a dark, cloudy night like this one. They slit the throats of the sentries and were upon them before the rest of the adults had a chance to wake up and defend themselves. Annette had run, and because she was so young they hadn’t tried too hard to catch her. She hid in the bushes and watched as they slaughtered her father and big brother and all the rest of the men, and did something else to her mother and the other women. She was only nine and didn’t know what those naked bodies were doing, but the screams and struggles had stayed in her memory. The sight of the bandits killing all the women once they were done with them stayed with her too.

She swore to herself as she trembled and cried in the bushes that she’d survive, that she’d never get hurt like her mother and the other women had been.

And she never was. She learned to kill to protect her body, learned how to hide so she wouldn’t have to kill. For a few years she was practically feral, a half-starved beast in rags wandering the wildlands, but a deep loneliness twisted her insides and after a time she found another group to join, another band of scavengers trying to live off of the wreckage of the Old Times. They were wiped out one harsh winter when they got caught in a mountain pass. She survived by wrapping all of their clothing around her and making a shelter of the frozen corpses.

There followed another couple years of loneliness. By then she’d grown into a young woman and came upon a lone scavenger just a little older than her. They became lovers and wandered the wildlands together until he opened up the wrong barrel and took a breath of something lethal. Later she found another group and met her second love, the man who would become Pablo’s father. He died of cancer the year after their son was born.

One autumn the group heard of a city over the mountains, not a destroyed city, not burnt-out ruins inhabited by nothing but tweakers and memories, but a real city, with streets and lights and laws. They arrived during the harvest market to trade what they had scavenged. Annette took one look around and decided this was the place to raise Pablo.

Roy took her in. At first she was wary of him. Too many men had offered to help her and then wanted something in return. But Roy wasn’t like that. The only woman he cared about had died years before. Annette washed dishes and served tables at his business until one night a drunk scavenger couldn’t take a hint. He grabbed a handful of ass and got a bottle in the face in return. Roy fell off his chair laughing and made her the bouncer.

“You OK?” Jackson asked.

Annette looked back at him again. When she didn’t reply Jackson went on.

“I get bad dreams sometimes too. About the city, mostly, and what I’ve seen there.”

“Shut up,” Annette said. She lay back down and turned her back on him. She forced herself to relax and tried to sleep.

The next morning after eating a cold breakfast of crackers and dried meat, Jackson suggested they cut across the wildlands.

“The two roads we need to follow make right angles to each other, so if we cut diagonally across them we’ll save several miles,” he explained.

Ha-Ram nodded. “Good idea. Being on the road makes me feel like a target.”

“But if we go off the road we won’t spot the Righteous Horde if they come this way,” Annette said.

“The reports say it’s a pretty big group. If we miss them we’re sure to see signs of where they passed by,” Jackson said. “If there are enough of them they might even kick up a dust cloud.”

“And who wants to bump into them anyway?” Ha-Ram said.

Annette studied him. “I thought one of the reasons we’re out here is to find them.”

Ha-Ram looked at his feet. Before she could press the issue Mitch cut her off.

“I vote we do it Jackson’s way. Save time.”

Annette looked between Ha-Ram and Mitch. Something was up with those two. She shrugged. They’d outvoted her, and it was unlikely the horde was this close in any case.

Jackson studied the map and then led them off the road through low hills and fields on which grew grass and half-withered shrubs. The few trees grew stunted and sickly, and there were patches of soil where nothing grew at all.

“Looks like we’re not away from Toxic Bay quite yet,” she commented.

“We’re only a few linear miles from the industrial park,” Jackson said.

“It’s amazing you can translate all those squiggly lines into a landscape in your head,” Annette said. “I’d love to be able to do that.”

Jackson snorted. “Yeah, I bet you would.”

They ascended a low rise and a sharp tang prickled their nostrils.

“Shit, toxins!” Ha-Ram said.

They looked out over a narrow valley between bare hills. Almost nothing grew in it. Mitch pulled out a compact pair of binoculars and scanned the valley floor. Annette blinked when she saw them.

Would have been nice to mention you had those, she thought.

“There, look,” he pointed to a spot near the middle of the valley and handed the binoculars to Annette.

She looked where Mitch had indicated and saw several corroded metal cylinders stuck into the ground.

“Are those artillery shells?” she asked.

“Yup, chemical rounds,” Mitch said.

Jackson and Ha-Ram took turns looking through the binoculars. Jackson then knelt down, opened up his map, and took a red grease pen out of his pocket. Comparing the landscape and the map for a moment, he put a red mark on the map. Annette noticed other marks on the map’s lamination. Some were green, others were blue, but most were red.

He stood up, stowed the map, and led them on a different route.

By late afternoon they were skirting the east-west road that led to the mountain pass. They had seen no one, which was just fine by Annette. The few houses they came across were ruins, picked clean of anything even remotely valuable. This was dead territory for everyone—farmers, scavengers, even the tweakers would head to the city where they could find a more ready supply of chemicals.

The mountains loomed up ahead of them, their summits reddened by the setting sun. The pass was clearly visible in front of them and through Mitch’s binoculars they could make out the narrow ribbon of road snaking up and into it.

“I haven’t seen any standing buildings for a while,” Jackson said, “I guess we’ll have to camp in the open tonight. I’d rather not risk trying to find a house on the road this close to the pass.”

Annette looked around. They were in a narrow swale with hills all around.

“This is as good a place as any,” she said. “It will be hard to spot us.”

Everyone took off their packs. As Annette laid out her bedroll she saw Ha-Ram give Mitch a look and incline his head to the side. Mitch looked up at the hill in that direction, which was the highest one around them, and nodded.

“We’ll be back in a minute,” Mitch said.

“Where are you going?” Annette asked.

“Just got to check something,” Mitch said over his shoulder as he and Ha-Ram walked toward the hill. “Stay here, we’ll be back in a minute.”

Annette and Jackson looked at each other.

“Fuck that,” Jackson said.

Annette nodded. “Ditto.”

They got up and followed Mitch and Ha-Ram, bringing their packs with them. Both had enough experience in the wildlands never to leave anything behind. You could never know when some hidden scavenger was watching. When Mitch saw them following he gave them a glare but didn’t object. Annette smiled. The guy may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but he knew better than to try to stop them.

They came to the top of the hill and got a clear view of the darkening landscape all around. The sun had just set, turning the distant water into a crimson line on the horizon. Sunlight still shone on the mountaintops but the rest of the plains and hills were blanketed in deep blue.

Automatically Annette scanned the area for campfires but saw none. Mitch pulled out his binoculars and looked around as well.

Ha-Ram opened his pack and pulled out something wrapped in cloth. Unwinding the cloth he revealed a long metal rod with a series of crossbars. On one end was a black box with electronic dials and switches and a compass set into one face. The crossbars were wider on the end near the box and tapered off gradually toward the other end of the main rod.

“What’s that?” Annette asked.

Ha-Ram flipped a switch and a LED readout flicked on. He tuned a dial until the numbers read “1010”. Then he started turning slowly to the left. As he did, the needle on a meter fell down a numbered scale. He stopped and started turning to the right. A needle began to climb the scale and then started dipping down again. Ha-Ram began to turn back to the left and made little adjustments with his body back and forth until the needle held at its highest level. He now faced almost directly at the pass, with the rod of his instrument pointing a little to the left of it.

Ha-Ram carefully set the device down on the ground and pulled out a paper and pencil. On it was written “107º ESE”. Below it he added “89º ENE”.

“What is that?” Annette repeated.

“Where we’re going,” Ha-Ram said.

“Those are compass coordinates,” Jackson said.

Suddenly it made sense. She’d seen compasses before but had never seen coordinates written down. During her time in the wildlands, she and all the other scavengers she knew had gotten around by the stars and the knowledge of the land.

“But why two directions?” Annette asked. Automatically she looked to Jackson for the answer, knowing that she wouldn’t get one from Ha-Ram or Mitch.

Jackson’s brow furrowed for a second, then his face lit up.

“Triangulation! You’re pinpointing something.”

Mitch looked angry. Ha-Ram shrugged and told him, “They would have found out sooner or later.”

Mitch didn’t reply to the technician, instead he asked to see Jackson’s topo map.

Annette saw Jackson struggle between wariness and curiosity. Curiosity won. He pulled out the map and laid it out on the ground.

“Here,” Ha-Ram said, pulling out a notebook. “Use this as a straightedge. You can read this topo way better than I can so how about you draw in the lines?”

Jackson looked at him. “The first comes from New City, I suppose?”

Ha-Ram nodded. Jackson pulled out a black grease pencil and a field compass. Annette’s eyebrows shot up. Jackson had a compass as well as a topo? And Mitch had a pair of binoculars he hadn’t told anyone about before they set out. And Ha-Ram had this weird device. Just how much stuff was everyone hiding?

Jackson fiddled with the compass and the notebook for a minute, and then drew a line across the plastic coating of the map. He studied the landscape, put his finger one a set of irregular concentric circles that Annette now recognized as marking a hill, apparently the very hill on which they stood. Consulting the compass he then drew another line. The two intersected at a point in a maze of lines not far to the east.

Annette studied the map. If these lines denoted changes in elevation, then this point they were looking at was just north of the pass and right in the middle of the mountain range.

She didn’t get to deduce any more. Jackson folded up the map and put it away.

Yeah, hide that map, Blamer. It’s not too hard to figure out given a bit of time.

“So what’s there?” Jackson asked.

“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 contraption 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 guards 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 the 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 Doctor 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 gesture. 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 Two calling city. Urgent. Over.”

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

“City to Base Two, Clyde here.”

“Large force seen coming through the pass. Sentries report numbers in the thousands. We’re pulling back. Farmers left six hours ago. Enemy moving slow enough we should all get away. We’ll reach you by tomorrow afternoon. Enemy will arrive at the city by the following morning. Over.”

Clyde turned and looked at Marcus, who suddenly had the horrible realization that he was being deferred to for a decision.

“Um, yeah, tell them to come as fast as they can,” Marcus blurted out. “Send a general alert out to all outlying farms.”

Clyde stared at him for a moment before turning to the microphone.

“Base two, confirm evac. Take all food and essential supplies. Put the rest in predetermined hiding places. Don’t leave them anything. Over.”

“Confirmed. Base Two signing off.”

Clyde slumped over the microphone, then looked out the window. Marcus did too. The Burbs had gone quiet. The guards the scavenger had posted in various places were the only ones standing outside.

“Now what are they doing?” Clyde asked.

“I don’t know, but I know what I’m doing,” Marcus said. “I’m calling another citizens meeting. We got some hard decisions to make.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They’ve found Radio Hope.

Jackson let Annette’s words sink in.

It was like a dream come true. The one pure organization in this world, a radio station that broadcast information everybody needed without asking for anything in return. No false charity like The Doctor offering medical care in exchange for acceptance of the class system, but real help for everyone regardless of their station in life.

Jackson had always yearned to meet the people behind Radio Hope. He wanted to be one of them, learn from them. He imagined a dedicated group of scientists and engineers striving to build a better future, an egalitarian community of educated proletariat. And now he was going to really meet them!

His enthusiasm died as he looked at the woman who had revealed this to him. Why was she on this mission? She wasn’t a citizen, wasn’t even an associate, but like everyone else in the Burbs she wanted to be.

Was that it? Had Abraham Weissman offered her a place inside the walls?

And then there was Mitch and Ha-Ram: both citizens, both working for Abe, both tools of the worst capitalist in the region.

Suddenly he realized what this was all about. Information is power. He’d told Abe that once, when the rich bastard had offered to trade for his topo. Looks like Abe had taken it to heart. If he could find Radio Hope, he’d have access to the riches of their knowledge, and not just what they freely transmitted, but their equipment and their personal expertise.

Then another thought struck him. Abe had the only other radio station on the air. If he found Radio Hope, he would try to wipe it out, have his own monopoly on information.

Not on my watch.

Jackson turned and continued walking back to the campsite. Annette walked beside him. She looked like she wanted to talk about it, but what was there to say? She was on the other side. Even though she hadn’t been told what the real purpose of the mission was, she was like everyone else in the Burbs, eager to please their citizen masters in order to get a place inside the walls.

He had felt sorry for her last night when she woke up with nightmares. He got plenty of those himself. Yet that same fear inside her, from whatever crap she’d lived through in this ruined world, that would only make her more desperate to get a little more safety.

Jackson shook his head at the irony of it. The ruling class wipes out its own power structure with a century of wars, nukes, biological agents, and toxic waste, and the fear of those very things puts them right back on top.

No, he couldn’t trust Annette. She was the most dangerous of the three. Mitch was tough but dumb, Ha-Ram was smart but weak, while Annette was both smart and tough.

I’ll have to watch her, and when we do find Radio Hope, she’s the first one I’ll have to take out.

The next day they entered the pass. Jackson and Annette said nothing to each other or the others about what they knew. Jackson wondered how long Mitch and Ha-Ram thought they could keep their destination a secret. And what would happen when they found Radio Hope?

Abe sure isn’t going to want someone like me knowing his plans. I wonder if he told them to off me? He’d get silence plus my topo map.

Information is power, Abe, information is power.

He checked his pistol—Annette’s pistol—and found that he only had a dozen rounds left.

I’m seriously outgunned unless I can get the jump on them.

Not yet, though. Not before we find Radio Hope. The map is too large a scale for that dot we drew to be enough. We’re going to need to use Ha-Ram’s direction finder to search for it once we’re in the area.

Jackson cursed himself for not being a better observer, and for not being as technically capable as he’d like. Ha-Ram had nearly figured out how to use the topo just from a few minutes of looking at it. Staring at the simple radio detector, Jackson had been baffled by all the dials and switches.

Father would have figured it out. He could figure out anything with pistons or wires. Wish I had inherited more of that.

The next day they made it to the pass. They had seen no one. It was unnerving. Jackson had been to the two northern passes and the land between New City and the mountains was dotted with fortified farmhouses and broad fields. The old roads were kept clear of the biggest obstacles and there were fortified outposts in strategic locations. There were people and the semblance of civilization. You could light a campfire at night.

Here all was eerie silence save for the sloughing of the wind. Now that they were further from Toxic Bay the land was healthier and could have been cultivated, but being cut off from the relative safety of New City it remained abandoned.

Jackson looked around. There should at least be some scavengers. Had everyone already fled from the threat of the Righteous Horde? What if they were up there in the mountains somewhere, ready to sweep down and turn north, passing through the city, ignoring its toxins in their mad faith and then descending on Olivia’s village?

What was she doing right now? Had she done as he asked? She had an independent spirit, it was something he admired in her, but that same independence could cost her her life.

The pass was a narrow cleft between sheer mountains. The old highway snaked up the side of the northern, left-hand cliff face. The way was steep and the road blocked by the remains of several avalanches. They slogged up the incline, panting and sweating.

“You ever hear of horses and mules?” Ha-Ram asked.

“Yeah,” Jackson said.

“I wish they hadn’t been killed off in the Biowars. We could use some right now.”

“I wish that every time I go on my water run.”

Annette laughed, “My son wishes there were still dogs. One of his kid’s books is about a boy and his puppy. Thinks it would be nice to have one in the house.”

Jackson looked at her. “You have a kid?”

Annette’s face took on a happy glow. “Yeah, his name is Pablo. He’s ten.”

Jackson’s heart sank. He didn’t know Annette had a child. She hadn’t mentioned that before, and hadn’t mentioned any husband either, something women usually did when they with a group of men.

I might have to get into a gunfight with a single mother?

They came to a point where the highway had once crossed a deep gorge at the bottom of which a river sprayed across jagged rocks. The bridge was shattered. The little concrete that remained was blackened by some explosion.

“Shit,” Mitch said.

Jackson took out the map and studied it.

“Judging from where that point is that you’re so interested in, we’re going to have to continue on this road for a while. There’s nothing for it but to go down to the river and climb back up again. There’s another bridge a little further on. Hope that one wasn’t blasted too.”

“Can we even cross here?” Ha-Ram asked.

Mitch scanned the bottom of the gorge with his binoculars.

“We’re in luck,” he said at last. “There are big chunks of the bridge down in the water. Looks like we can hop from one to another.”

Annette looked at the sky. “It’s already late afternoon. We won’t get to the other side before nightfall.”

“We’ll camp by the river. Give us a chance to refill our canteens,” Mitch said.

“What if the Righteous Horde decides to march along the river instead of taking this highway?” Ha-Ram suggested.

That was a disturbing thought. Jackson looked at the map again. The river meandered through the gorge, making several hairpin turns. The elevation lines on either side ran so close together as to be almost a single black band.

“No,” he said, folding the map away. “The river is almost impassable. They might try it, but they’d get back to the highway soon enough.”

“Assuming they’re even coming this way,” Ha-Ram said.

“I think it’s best to assume they are and to be on the lookout,” Jackson told him.

“I agree,” Mitch said. “Let’s get going.”

They picked their way down the steep slope, careful to avoid the many areas where the incline was gravelly and treacherous. It was an exhausting descent, but they made it safely to the bottom. They camped there that night, sampling the water and finding it clean.

The next day they clambered over the fragments of the bridge. It was impossible not to get wet from the spray. At one point Ha-Ram slipped and only grabbed onto the stone at the last minute. Even so he was soaked to the waist.

The wind had turned bitterly cold and once they got across they had no choice but to stop, risk a fire, and dry themselves.

“We’re going to be spotted for sure,” Mitch grumbled.

“Only if there’s someone to spot us,” Jackson said, trying to convince himself that was the case.

With the delay it was almost dark by the time they made it up the other side of the gorge. They found a side valley in a turn in the road and camped out of sight.

The night was frigid but they didn’t dare light a fire. Jackson was grateful for the knitted gloves he’d traded for at the market just before leaving. They were a bit thin, so he kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of his gray overcoat and wrapped his blanket around him. The others were better equipped and he looked with envy at Ha-Ram’s warm winter coat and Mitch’s and Annette’s thick blankets.

Jackson had first watch that night. Night came quickly in the mountains and while the summits were still mantled in the deep blue of dusk, the valleys had grown pitch black. The cold distant specks of stars peeked through scattered clouds.

A crescent moon shone through the ravine where they lay. A little pinpoint glinted on its surface at the border between light and shadow. The International Lunar Station. Seeing it always filled Jackson with a deep sense of loss. It had been one of humanity’s greatest achievements and now it was a tomb housing a few dozen skeletons in spacesuits. To have gone so far and to have lost it all.

Jackson stood up, feeling restless. The others had just lain down and weren’t asleep yet.

“I’m going to go to the main road and take a look,” he announced. “Back in a minute.”

“Careful walking,” Annette said.

“It’s only a quarter mile. I’ll go slow.”

He had to. The jagged rocks clawed at his ankles and more than once he almost sprained himself. He thought about turning back but decided to go on and check out the main road.

He was glad he did.

As he stepped out onto the cracked asphalt the wind moaned through the crags and he clutched his blanket more closely around him. He looked up and down the pass and stopped short. A point of light twinkled further up the pass on the opposite side. It was hard to see in the dim light, but it appeared to be located by the side of the road.

A campfire, a campfire set by someone bold enough not to care if they’re seen.

Shit.

He hurried back as quickly as he dared over the rough terrain and told the others. They all came to the road and checked it out.

“Yep, it’s a campfire all right,” Mitch said, looking through his binoculars.

“Looks like we’ve found the Righteous Horde,” Jackson said.

“Not much of a horde,” Ha-Ram said.

“Probably an advance scout,” Mitch said. “It’s a pretty big fire, so there’s probably a big group up there. And who knows? There might be more fires we aren’t seeing, if they’re camping in a side valley like we are.”

“We should go back and warn the city,” Annette said.

Mitch looked at her. “We got other things to do.”

“The point you want to go to is beyond that campfire,” Jackson said.

“You’re the one with the topo, find another way,” Mitch said.

“Warning New City is more important than finding. . .” Jackson caught himself, “. . .than your boss’s scavenging.”

“We got our orders,” Mitch said stubbornly. “We go back now and the deal’s off. Your toxic bitch gets to stay where she belongs.”

Jackson took two steps forward and put his face inches away from Mitch’s. The baker glared back at him. For a moment neither moved.

Annette stopped it.

“Fine, you’re both tough. You both have big dicks. Now back off. We have more important things to worry about.”

“I don’t see what we can do about it right now,” Ha-Ram said. “Let’s go back and get some sleep. We’ll need it.”

Jackson went back on watch while the others slept. After a couple of hours Annette started tossing and turning. She sat up with a curse.

“Whatever it was, it’s past,” he told her.

“Don’t pretend to know me, Blamer.”

Jackson snorted. She was polite enough most of the time, but try to get personal and the claws came out. Did she think he was hitting on her? Olivia was the only woman he wanted. Even if he was single he wouldn’t make a play for her. Annette wasn’t bad looking but she was ten years older. Besides, there weren’t many women who could look beyond the brand on his cheek and Annette sure as hell wasn’t one of them.

He wasn’t here to make friends anyway. He was here to get Olivia associate status and find Radio Hope.

And keep these threefrom getting back with the information, he reminded himself.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Where did they go?”

Annette didn’t really expect an answer to her question because none was obvious.

They had crept up the pass, keeping off the road and as much out of sight as possible. They had made agonizingly slow progress but fear of bumping into the cultists urged them to play it safe.

Just before noon they had come across the campfire they’d seen the previous night. It lay at the mouth of a little side canyon. A heap of coals and a few half-burned logs sat in a ring of stones. Annette touched the coals. They were still warm. Of the people who had lit them there was no sign.

“Looks like there were about a dozen of them,” Mitch said once he’d made a circuit of the fire. “See? There’s where one slept, and another.”

Annette noticed the areas where the sparse grass was pressed down and where it had been cleared of sticks and rocks. Yeah, about a dozen.

Mitch isn’t as dumb as he looks, she warned herself.

For the hundredth time that day the baker pulled out his binoculars and scanned the surrounding area.

“Nothing,” he shrugged.

“Could they have gone down to the river?” Ha-Ram asked.

“Maybe,” Jackson said. “Or maybe they went back to the main body to report.”

“We could have passed them and not noticed,” Ha-Ram replied, looking nervously over his shoulder.

Mitch shook his head. “I doubt it.”

“Anyway I don’t like it,” Annette said. “Let’s look at the map and see how much further we have to go.”

Jackson pulled out the topo and laid it on the ground. Annette noticed that he gave Ha-Ram a suspicious look and put his hand over the map key.

“We’re about here,” he said, pointing. “Around the next bend is another bridge and from there it’s less than a mile before we’re close to that spot you want to go to. There’s a little side canyon near there. I bet they’re, I mean it’s, somewhere in this maze of canyons.”

Just as Annette was puzzling out the maze of wavy lines, Jackson folded up the map and put it underneath his shirt.

“At least it’s close,” Ha-Ram sighed.

“As long as the next bridge isn’t busted like the last one,” Annette said.

They continued on their way, trying to stay out of sight. At times the road cut along cliffs and they were forced to walk along it in full view. Annette felt like someone had painted a target on her chest. From the looks on the others’ face they felt the same.

Annette couldn’t stop thinking about Pablo. If it wasn’t for the offer of associate status and getting him inside the walls she would have never agreed to go on this mission. What was happening back there? The Callahans seemed like good people, everyone said so, but she always hated leaving Pablo behind. And with the Righteous Horde on its way. . .

Annette pushed those thoughts aside. The best thing she could do for her son was to get back in one piece, and that would require all her concentration.

The second bridge was still standing, but only just. It had been hit by a bomb or a missile near its center and one lane had been knocked away. The other was cracked, with rusted rebars poking through the crumbled concrete. The group stopped and looked at it. Annette looked down.

And down.

The gorge here was sheer and far deeper than before, their constant ascent during the morning having taken them further above the river. Annette’s mouth went dry as she looked at the thin ribbon of blue far below that she knew to be a wide river.

“Well. . .we know they didn’t go down,” Ha-Ram said.

Mitch let out a deep sigh. “If they went across, we can too.”

“Anyone scared of heights?” Annette asked.

“I’m scared of these heights,” Ha-Ram said.

“Don’t look down,” Mitch advised.

“I’ll have to look down. Look how crumbly it is,” Ha-Ram said.

“Yeah, watch your step everybody,” Mitch said. “I’ll go first. I’m the heaviest. If it holds my weight you got nothing to bitch about.”

Jackson surveyed the nearby slopes. “You better hope the Righteous Horde doesn’t have any good hunting rifles.”

“They could have wiped us out in a ton of good ambush spots way before we got here,” Mitch said. “But yeah, I’ll hurry.”

Mitch crouched low and walked with deliberate speed out onto the bridge. Near the center was a span of about ten yards where deep fissures spiderwebbed the concrete and the way narrowed to only a few feet. Mitch slowed down as he got to that part and picked his way over the worst of cracks. Annette’s breath caught when a piece of concrete near one of his feet sheared off and plummeted into the gorge below.

Annette watched it disappear into the distance, the only sign of its impact being a white dot in the river as it impacted the water. She listened for the sound but never heard it.

“He’s across,” Ha-Ram said, the words coming out in a great gust that showed the technician had been holding his breath.

Mitch waved them over. Annette looked at the other two. Jackson had grown pale.

“Ladies first,” Ha-Ram said with a mock bow.

Annette stepped cautiously onto the span of concrete. She’d never been particularly afraid of heights, but damn. Ha-Ram was right; there was no shame in beingafraid ofthese heights.

The first part was no problem. The road was broad enough that if she kept her eyes trained on her feet she didn’t see the heart-stopping drop to either side. But then she got to the place where the bomb had hit and one-and-a-half lanes had disappeared. The hairline cracks became wider, and to either side at the edge of her vision the vast empty space yawned beneath her. The way narrowed, and narrowed.

A gust of wind buffeted her just as she was taking another step. She wobbled and let out a little cry. She got down on her hands and knees and stopped for a moment, catching her breath. The concrete felt rough and crumbly in her hands. As she crawled forward she found a loose section. She stopped and tested it, pushing it back and forth.

Annette looked back at Jackson and Ha-Ram waiting their turn and pointed with exaggerated emphasis at the spot.

If it cracked off someone could go right over the edge. She probably wouldn’t have felt it if she hadn’t touched it with her hands first. Mitch must have missed it by pure luck.

She edged away from the spot, and far too close to the other edge for her liking, and scuttled along as fast as she dared.

Soon the road widened and she could breathe easier. After a time she stood up and trotted to the other side.

“No sweat,” she said as she came up to Mitch.

Mitch gave her a wide-eyed stare. “Bullshit it wasn’t.”

Ha-Ram came next and moved across with surprising speed. That made Annette nervous. She got the impression he was trying to impress them, and that was plain stupid. He avoided the spot she’d indicated, however, and got across with no trouble.

Now it was Jackson’s turn. He stepped out slowly, his whole body stiff. Long before he came to the narrow part he got on his hands and knees and kept stopping every few feet to look around him.

“What’s he doing?” Mitch growled.

“Looks like he’s scared of heights,” Ha-Ram said.

“Oh, great,” Mitch moaned.

Jackson was approaching the narrow center of the bridge now and had all but stopped. He groped forward with his hands, testing every inch of the surface ahead of him before edging forward a little more. Annette held her breath as he came to the spot with the loose slab of concrete.

He tested it and Annette could see it wobble even from a distance.

Crap, it’s gotten looser.

Jackson tested the rest of the span in front of him and found it solid, but still he didn’t move.

Annette knew why. It was too narrow. She didn’t have a fear of heights and it freaked her out. For him it must have seemed impassable.

Mitch brought his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Come on!”

“That’s not helping,” Annette said.

“We can’t wait here all day,” Mitch snapped.

Ha-Ram stepped a little onto the bridge. “Come on, Jackson. It’s OK. Just a little more and it widens out.”

“Get off the damn bridge!” Jackson shrieked. “You’re adding weight!”

Ha-Ram put his hands up in a calming gesture and backed off.

“He’s panicking, we got to go get him,” Annette said.

Jackson moved forward a little onto the narrowest part of the span.

“You’re doing good, keep it up!” Ha-Ram called.

Jackson was lying flat on the concrete now, not daring to raise himself up even an inch. He wormed his way along, face pale and sweating. He kept his arms and legs splayed out for maximum support.

He was almost across when the loose chunk of concrete shifted with an audible crack and angled down. Jackson wasn’t on it but it opened up a space just an inch to his side. He stopped, knuckles white.

“Come on!” Annette called. “It’s fine. You’re fine. You’re almost there.”

Jackson didn’t move.

“Aw, shit,” Annette said, shucking off her pack.

“What are you doing?” Mitch asked.

“Going to get him.”

“He’ll freak out of you go onto the bridge,” Ha-Ram said.

“He’s freaked out now.”

Annette hurried along the wide part of the bridge.

“I’m coming to get you!” she called to him.

As she approached the narrow center she slowed down and got on her hands and knees. Jackson lay frozen where he was, eyes bugging, face drained of blood, the scar from his brand standing out as a crimson “B” on his ashen face. Suddenly Annette was reminded of Pablo during a thunderstorm.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Hey, it’s OK.”

She reached out a hand. “Come on.”

“C—can’t.”

“Yes you can. Come on.”

Jackson slid forward another inch and stopped when the loose slab next to him crackled and sank a little more.

Annette glanced over at it. If it fell, would the rest of this section fall with it?

“Hey, we got to go,” she said.

Jackson shook his head, and then gripped the pavement harder as if even that little motion might fling him off the precipice.

Gently Annette put a hand on his cheek.

“Look, it’s all right. Everyone’s on your side,” Annette said in a calm voice, praying that Mitch didn’t take this moment to shout something stupid. “Imagine this was only five feet up. It would be no problem, right? Come on; just slide forward. See? I’m holding onto your shirt, if you start falling I’ll pull you back up, but you’re not going to fall. Just take it easy and slide on forward. There you go. Just another couple of feet.”

“Annette!” Mitch called out.

“Not now,” Annette whispered.

“Annette, hurry the fuck up!” Mitch shouted.

Shut up, already!

Jackson started shaking. His locked-muscle terror had been replaced by an all-body shake, something far more dangerous considering where he was.

“Annette!” Ha-Ram called.

“Quiet!” Annette cried, exasperated.

The crack of a rifle echoed through the gorge. Jackson jerked and tipped over the edge.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Marcus faced the Citizens Council, trying not to itch as the sweat trickled down his back. Clyde stood by his side and most of the citizens not manning the walls sat in the audience. Rosie sat front and center. She’d gotten there first and had unwittingly taken Abe Weissman’s usual seat. The Merchants Association were arranged all around her, Abe just two chairs away with arms folded on his chest and an irritated look on his face.

He’s about to get a hell of a lot more irritated.

Marcus looked back at Rosie and she gave him a reassuring smile.

Oh, honey, I don’t think you’re going to be smiling in a minute.

He looked around for Pablo and didn’t see him. He must be outside playing with that baseball of his. Marcus felt an almost irresistible urge to run out and play with him.

The room was silent save for the occasional cough or the squeak of a metal chair on the floor. Marcus realized he was stalling.

He cleared his throat, paused, and then began.

“I’ve called another citizens meeting because there’s been a change in our situation. The Doctor has fallen ill.”

Gasps and whispers echoed through the room. Rosie brought her hand to her mouth and went pale.

They really need him. Hell, I really need him.

He glanced at Abe and saw a calculating look. Marcus gulped and went on.

“The Doctor named me as acting mayor. Clyde here was a witness.”

“I was.” Clyde nodded.

“And just before he fell ill The Doctor declared a state of emergency. That means that the mayor has special powers. Now the scavengers have said they won’t let in the farmers unless they can come in too. All of them, even the strangers. Now I can try and talk with them again but we don’t have the time. The Righteous Horde is coming through the South Pass and they’re just as many of them as the rumors say. Even with the scavengers we’ll be outnumbered.”

Marcus paused. Silence. Even Abe looked worried.

“So I’ve decided to concede to their demands.”

A roar of disapproval drummed his ears as everyone rose to their feet. Marcus and Clyde had to shout for a full minute before the crowd calmed down enough for them to be heard.

“If we don’t let them in everyone on the farms will be wiped out, as will everyone in the Burbs,” Marcus yelled. “All citizen property in the Burbs will be gone too. We don’t have enough food to survive a long siege without the farm and Burb supplies. It’s let the scavengers in or get wiped out. Clyde’s with me on this.”

Marcus turned to Clyde.

You are still with me on this, right?

Clyde hesitated for a second that seemed to stretch for hours, and then said, “It’s the only strategic alternative.”

A dozen people started yelling their objections. Marcus raised his hands again.

“Quiet, everyone. QUIET! As I said before, I’m acting mayor and this is an emergency situation. I didn’t call you here to ask your opinion; I called you here to tell you what’s what. Now you got until tomorrow morning and I suggest you get busy. Get all your belongings locked away and keep your children in your houses. We’ll disarm the scavengers until the Righteous Horde gets here but there’s bound to be trouble. Clyde will have patrols in the city.”

As soon as he stopped talking everyone started shouting again.

“That’s all, folks! Meeting’s over! Quit yammering and get to work,” Marcus said. This whole thing was getting irritating. Did these people think he liked it any more than they did?

As Marcus stepped off the stage Abe cut him off. Marcus merely sidestepped him and kept on going. He caught a glimpse of a supportive smile from Rosie and using that as fuel he sped out of there.

Ten minutes later he was standing outside the gate.

The scavenger with the broken nose, the one they called The Giver, walked up to him from the Burbs. They met halfway, perfectly exposed, Marcus realized, to rifle fire from both sides.

“Your daughter’s not with you?” Marcus said with surprise.

“He’s my son, and I wouldn’t put him in the line of fire.”

Marcus cocked his head. “My friend, you may be able to survive in the wildlands, you may be able to become some sort of messiah among the scavengers, you may even be able to hold the Burbs if we decide to attack you, but you really suck at hiding the fact that you have a daughter.”

“You got any business with me or are you just going to keep yapping?” the man snapped at him.

Marcus jabbed a thumb over his shoulder.

“See that guy with the machine gun up there? That’s Clyde. Clyde has a nervous disposition and an itchy trigger finger. He didn’t want me to come out here and he figures that if you get capped this little rebellion in the Burbs will fall apart.”

The old man scowled up at the wall for a moment, then turned back to Marcus. “OK, threat made. Let’s get down to business.”

“How’s Ahmed?” Marcus asked.

“Fine, you want to see him?”

“In a minute.”

“He wants some things from his house. Spare clothes and his prayer rug.”

“He can get them himself if this conversation goes the right way. Here’s the deal, and this is the only deal you’re going to get so give me a yes or no right now. Lift the siege immediately. We’ll let everyone into the city. Everyone. You’ll get let in starting tomorrow morning; we have to prepare first. Anyone suffering from the flu will be quarantined. Even you can see the sense in that. And anyone we don’t know will have to give up their guns until the Righteous Horde attacks.”

The scavenger nodded. “All right.”

Marcus almost fell to the ground weeping with relief. He was really bad with the tough leader act. He never could figure out how The Doctor did it.

“One thing, though,” the scavenger said.

Marcus caught his breath. The man went on.

“What’s the name of that bouncer in the bar, the Hispanic girl?”

“Annette Cruz?” Marcus replied, confused.

“You’re taking care of her kid, right?”

“Yeah,” Marcus replied slowly.

“I want you to take care of my kid too.”

Marcus blinked, “Huh?”

“I gotta go,” the scavenger said.

“What? Where?”

The scavenger shook his head. “That’s my business, not yours.”

“You cause a riot in the Burbs, hold our farmers for ransom, and now you’re just going to traipse off to God-knows-where and leave us to clean up your mess?”

The scavenger glowered at him. “You got it turned around. I cleaned up your mess.”

Marcus raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “You won’t even tell us your name! Why should we trust you?”

“Because you’ll have my daughter.”

Marcus blinked. The man’s overprotective nature was legendary in the wildlands, and Annette and Roy had seen it firsthand at $87,953.

What was he playing at?

“So do we have a deal?” the scavenger asked.

“All right.”

“I have a load of food I can give you for her keep,” the scavenger said.

“When will you be back?”

“Maybe in a week, maybe never. I intend to come back, though.”

Marcus snorted. Considering the guy was headed out into the wildlands with the cult on the prowl, that was as good an answer as he was going to get.

The scavenger glared at him. “You touch her I’ll skin you alive.”

“I figured as much. So do we have a deal?”

“Done.”

Marcus offered his hand and the scavenger took it in a bone-crushing grip.

“Roy and the other citizens with property in the Burbs want to come out and get their things.”

The scavenger nodded. “They won’t be harmed.”

“They won’t be harmed because they’ll have an armed escort.”

“Nobody will bother them.”

“Glad to hear it, because if anything happens, deal’s off.”

“Until tomorrow morning then.”

The scavenger turned and walked away.

That night was one of fevered preparation. Clyde organized the citizens and checked every available weapon. Even Marcus had to turn out with his old Henry .22 to have it inspected. That little formality came between checking that the citizens got everything inside the walls, taking a complete inventory of the food and what was coming in, organizing the arrangement of shipping containers and other shelter for the 3,000 people about to flood inside, listening to updates from Clyde’s radio, checking on The Doctor as he lay exhausted in bed, worrying about Roy who for some reason decided to stay overnight at $87,953, a brief dinner with Pablo and Rosie in which he spent a glorious ten minutes forgetting about the real world while holding forth on the rules of baseball to a rapt audience of one, and trying and failing to convince Abe and the rest of the Merchants Association to keep from stringing barbed wire around their houses and creating a fort within a fort.

The next day got even busier. Just before dawn the Merchants Association barricaded themselves in their cordoned-off homes. Marcus had never noticed how they all lived in a set of closely grouped houses, and how all the houses stood bunched together so it was easy to block the gaps in between. They’d obviously thought about the possibility of the walls being breached, and had formed a backup plan that included only them.

Marcus decided not to waste his time trying to talk with them, even when Clyde came with the news that they wouldn’t be manning the walls. They both had too much to do dealing with the influx from the Burbs.

The associates were easy to deal with. Most already had a home they were accustomed to stay at. The rest got spaces in the warehouse. The regulars among the scavengers were put in shipping containers unless they had decent tents of their own.

The newcomers were more trouble. Some didn’t want to surrender their weapons and got yelled at by The Giver and other members of the Burb Council until they gave in. Marcus was surprised to see Ahmed going through the crowd talking quietly to them, using a gentle manner to convince the most intransient among them.

Being a healer gives him credibility, Marcus realized.Even more than The Doctor’s got because Ahmed doesn’t have any power.

About noon there was a crisis because Marcus had misjudged how much shelter everyone needed and they ran out. This was solved by some of the Burb residents who volunteered their houses. A huge crowd went out, dismantled them, and set them up within the walls.

The farmers started coming in later that afternoon, driving herds of bleating sheep and pushing carts piled high with sacks of grain and chicken coops. The animals were put in a large enclosure that had served them well on previous sieges, and the citizens helped offload the food into the warehouse. Clyde, of course, put guards at the entrance and had regular patrols passing through New City. The Merchants Association had their own patrols, keeping everyone a good distance away from their perimeter. Marcus told Clyde to avoid trouble with them. There was enough trouble already.

By dinnertime Marcus was almost fainting with exhaustion and there were still a million things left to do. The Doctor forced him to go home. He was feeling a little better and had made a brief appearance.

“Go,” The Doctor said. “I’ll stay out here and glad-hand the barbarians until you get some food in you.”

Marcus shuffled off home. As he approached the house a baseball came flying out of the doorway. He caught it absently.

“You’re really good!” Pablo said, leaping down the front steps.

“I used to be shortstop for the North Cape Ramblers.”

Pablo cocked his head and looked up at him. “Who?”

“City-state. Long before your time,” he said, tossing the ball back to the boy.

“Aunt Rosie says you’re always late for meals when The Doctor’s sick.”

Marcus nodded. “Yeah.”

The corners of Pablo’s mouth turned down. “I have to share my room with Jessica now.”

“Who?”

“Some creepy guy with a bandage on his nose dropped her off.”

Marcus slapped his forehead. “Aw, crap. I forgot about that.”

“We’re supposed to call her Jessie because she’s pretending to be a boy, but I could tell she was a girl right away.”

“You and everybody else.”

They went inside to find Rosie bustling about the kitchen singing to herself.

“There you are! Dinner’s been ready almost an hour. The children are getting hungry,” she said as she planted a big kiss on his cheek. She drew back to arm’s length and studied him. “My, you look tired. I’ll brew up some tea. Jessie’s all settled in with Pablo in the spare room. Oh, and I’ve invited Catherine over for dinner, you know, Kevin and Rachel’s girl? They’re just the same age and I think they’d make great friends. They’re talking in the living room.”

And talking they were. They didn’t even notice when Marcus poked his head into the room. They sat on the couch chattering away at ninety miles an hour. Marcus had never heard the girl speak, but there she was, gossiping with Catherine like they’d been friends forever. She’d taken her hat off to let down her long blonde hair and had taken off her loose outer coat. It was typical for scavenger children to be hungry for people their own age, but Jessica seemed completely transformed since the disappearance of her father. Catherine was telling her about all the cutest boys in town.

Dad wouldn’t like that, Marcus thought with a smile.

A small hand tugged on his own.

“Come see what I drew,” Pablo said.

The kitchen table was strewn with paper. Drawings covered them all.

“This is me and the dog I’m going to have when I find where they all went to,” Pablo said, holding out a paper to him.

“That’s not a bad drawing for someone who’s never seen a dog.”

“And this one’s—”

“Dinner’s ready!” Rosie called in a singsong voice.

The girls burst into the dining room, still talking, while Pablo scooped up his drawings and took them into his room. Marcus set the table while Rosie laid out the food.

Marcus said grace and everyone set into eating. Marcus and Pablo sat at one end and talked about baseball, the dog Marcus used to have, and all the friends Pablo was making in New City. Rosie sat at the other and chattering with the girls with a face lit up as bright as the sun. She looked like she had in the Old Times, as if all the death and the fear and the suffering had never happened. Rosie wasn’t in denial, or crazy, she simply had a talent for embracing any trace of joy this life could offer. It was one of the reasons Marcus loved her.

Her happiness, however fleeting, always caught him up in its stream and carried him along. Within minutes he was telling Pablo corny jokes that made the boy laugh and the girls roll their eyes. Catherine cut in with the news that Radio Hope had taught her how to pattern her own sweaters and that she was going to trade for some wool and make a new one. Jessica eagerly joined in with the plans, saying she hated the clothes that she had to wear in the wildlands and now that she lived in New City she was going to dress any way she liked. Rosie gave them some advice about what colors would go best for their looks, Marcus cut in with a complaint that Radio Hope should broadcast how to brew beer, the girls rolled their eyes and ignored him, and Marcus laughed and tucked into seconds and heaped some more food on Pablo’s plate. His weariness was gone and they ate and talked for far longer than Marcus had initially allowed himself to go on break. He didn’t care. Tonight was tonight, and if he didn’t think about it too hard, didn’t analyze it, it was perfect.

The following morning the Righteous Horde arrived.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jackson screamed as he slipped off the edge of the bridge. The world spun. He had a fleeting view of the jagged rocks and white water of the river far below.

A strong pair of hands gripped him below the shoulders and hauled him up. In desperation he flung his arms around the far edge, his fingers finding the crack between the level surface and the slab that had shifted.

Annette pulled again and he made it another precious few inches back onto the hard surface. He swung a leg over.

His foot smacking the cracked slab was enough to send it plunging into empty air. Jackson was left straddling a narrow span of concrete.

Annette looked over her shoulder.

“Shit, it must be the Righteous Horde!” Annette said.

Jackson saw Mitch and Ha-Ram crouched behind a rock and firing off to his right. Looking in that direction, he spotted a number of figures making their way up the road, firing as they came.

“They’re still far enough away that we can make it to the others and get away,” Annette said, “but we have to movenow!”

Jackson clung to the concrete, his arms and legs wrapped around it, muscles shaking from the strain. His mind was gripped with panic and he couldn’t think, couldn’t move.

“Come on!” Annette yanked at him.

“I’m going to fall!” Jackson shrieked.

A bullet whined overhead.

“Now or never!” Annette said.

“I—I can’t,” Jackson replied helplessly.

And he couldn’t. Terror had plunged him into an icy bath and had frozen his body. It was ridiculous, humiliating, he who had faced so much yet couldn’t stand high places, but he couldn’t fight it. The figures on the far cliff drew closer. Mitch shot one, sending the man doubling over and clutching his gut, but the rest kept coming. Ha-Ram was waving at them.

Annette looked in his eyes. “Please come.”

Jackson merely shook his head.

Annette looked back at the approaching men. She’d have to sprint if she was going to have time to reach the others before getting cut off. More gunfire crackled in the air.

Annette gave him another tug. Automatically Jackson clenched the concrete even harder.

“I’m sorry,” Annette said, moving back.

Jackson had a sudden thought.

“Wait!” he cried.

“I can’t wait. Move!”

“No, come back.”

Annette crawled forward again as another bullet sang through the air near their heads.

“Reach into my shirt and take my topo,” Jackson said. “Find Radio Hope. Ask them to help New City. But don’t let the others find it. Abe will try to shut it down. He’ll destroy the only good thing in the wildlands.”

Annette reached forward. Jackson pressed his chest against the bridge.

“Promise,” he demanded.

Annette looked in his eyes. “I promise.”

Jackson summoned the will to raise himself up a little. Annette’s hand slipped into his shirt, found the topo, and yanked it free.

“Come with us, please!” she said as she tucked it inside her own shirt.

Jackson merely shook his head and pressed his face against the surface of the bridge, sobbing.

He could hear the others calling to them over the sound of the gunfire. Annette hesitated a second more.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she was gone.

Jackson watched as she sprinted across the bridge, hunched low to avoid the shots the cultists sent her direction. They were still a ways off, but well within rifle range.

She made it to the end, grabbed her pack, and ran down the highway as Mitch and Ha-Ram gave her covering fire. The three of them scurried around a bend in the road and were soon out of sight.

The cultists went after them. He could see about a dozen, probably the same group who had camped nearby. One of them spotted him clinging to the bridge and pointed his direction.

With chilling clarity he saw one of the cultists stop and take careful aim with his rifle.

The bullet cracked off the concrete inches from his face, spitting grit into his face.

He leapt back, scuttled away, and found himself on a wider part of the bridge. It had been an automatic reaction, his body flinching from the bullet, and it had gotten him back across the narrow section.

He didn’t need any more incentive. He hurried to the far end as another bullet whined past his ear.

Once back on the side of the bridge from which he had come, he dove behind an outcropping of rock next to the road.

For a moment he lay there panting, body soaked in sweat, then he dared a look around the rock. The cultists were hurrying after the others. The man who had shot at him paused, looking his direction for a moment before joining his companions.

As the sound of gunfire receded into the distance, Jackson caught his breath. Mopping his brow, he made an inventory of what he had with him, an automatic habit bred from dealing with life in the worst parts of the wildlands. To his surprise nothing had fallen while he had slipped and panicked on the bridge. Annette’s gun was still tucked into his belt, the spare bullets still in his pocket, and his bag was still on his back. The thing had yanked at him as he wavered on the edge. He remembered wanting to claw it off and toss it into the deep, but panic had locked his hands onto the bridge.

So he had all the basics for survival except food. It was only two days back to the Burbs. He’d be hungry but he’d make it, assuming the Righteous Horde wasn’t there yet.

But he couldn’t go back. His topo was with Annette.

Why had he given it to her? He hadn’t trusted her, still didn’t, but the way she cried out in the night, and the look she gave him when she tried to coax him across the bridge, that had made him see her differently.

Maybe she isn’t so bad,he thought,but the other two are. I can’t let them keep my topo, and I can’t let them find Radio Hope.

He needed to follow them.

But that required going across the bridge.

No, impossible.

He might as well call it quits and go home.

But then Abe wouldn’t honor his agreement. Olivia would be stuck outside.

Jackson smacked the back of his head against the rock.

Why? Why? Why had he choked? He couldn’t go back to Olivia like this even if she was safe behind the walls. He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye.

And then there was Radio Hope, somewhere in a valley not far off. There, hidden away, was a community of people who thought like he did, a group that understood what equality and social progress were all about. Heaven lay before him, and only hell waited back the way he came.

It was a ridiculous analogy, mired in the primitive superstitions thrust upon the proletariat by the ruling classes, but it was the best analogy he could think of.

But to go across that bridge. . .

“Fuck.”

Jackson smacked his head against the rock again.

“Fuck! Fuck!”

He stood up.

“FUUUUUUCK!!!!!!”

He sprinted for the bridge, trying to keep his mind a blank. He raced across the span of concrete and didn’t slow down as he bolted across the crumbled narrow section and onto the other side.

“Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus fuck!” he bellowed as he kept running to the other side of the bridge, body shaking, arms flailing, and eyes wild from the realization of what he had just done.

“Holy fucking crap!” he bellowed, his words echoing off the canyon walls.

He stood at the far side of the bridge, that spot that had seemed so unattainable ten minutes before. Panting, he looked around him. No one. Cocked his head, listened. Nothing.

Composing himself, he loped up the road after Annette, his topo, the cultists, and Radio Hope.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Annette ran with Ha-Ram and Mitch along the winding mountain road. Tears stung her eyes and her body felt the heavy drag of a suffocating guilt. She had left him to die, took his precious map and ditched him. The look on his face, she knew, would haunt her the rest of her life.

A bullet cracking off the rock face near her head reminded her that her life might not last very long. Mitch turned and let out another three-round burst. Annette had her shotgun out and Ha-Ram gripped his 9mm, but the cultists were too far away for either of those weapons to be effective.

Their pursuers, on the other hand, were all armed with rifles.

They were well trained. Annette could see that right away. While half kept up a steady fire that forced Annette and her companions to keep their heads down, the other half rushed forward. Only once did Mitch catch one with a head shot, and he nearly got killed himself when he exposed himself to do it.

They came to a turn in the road where a large boulder had come down from a landslide. Using this as cover, they could sweep the road behind them.

“I can hold them off for a while here,” Mitch said.

“Yeah, but then what?” Ha-Ram asked.

“We got to lose them,” Annette said.

“Why don’t you break out that sniper’s rifle I always hear people talking about?” Mitch asked.

“It’s only got five rounds,” Annette replied.

Mitch sighed. “Now she tells me.”

“I have a better idea,” Annette said.

She sat down under the cover of the boulder and pulled out the map. The others let out cries of surprise. Ha-Ram crouched beside her. Together they examined the confusing lines and symbols that covered the paper. Annette felt like she was betraying Jackson. This map had been his prized possession, something he hid from everyone else. What had he said?Find Radio Hope, and don’t let the others tell Abe where it is.

Ha-Ram jabbed a finger at a point on the map.

“I think we’re here,” he said.

“Yeah, which means that the road keeps curving away in the direction we already see it going, and this little side valley will get us in the direction of Radio Hope,” Annette replied, pointing to the first valley beyond their position.

“Once we get closer,” Ha-Ram stopped as Mitch let out another burst. “Once we get closer I’ll use the direction finder again.”

“We got to lose these motherfuckers before we do anything!” Mitch shouted.

Annette stared at the map again. She pointed to a spot a little beyond the side valley they had been previously studying. “How about here? See this little maze of valleys? We could lose them here and loop back.”

“Or get lost,” Ha-Ram said and bit his lower lip.

“Anything is better than this, I’m half done with this magazine and my backup is the last ammo I got,” Mitch said.

A couple more bullets whined through the air over their heads. Another cracked off the boulder.

Annette tucked the map back under her shirt.

“Get going,” Annette told Ha-Ram, “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

After Ha-Ram hurried away she got in close beside Mitch. “You’re faster than we are. Give us two minutes head start while you hold them off, then come running after us. It’s a blind corner so they won’t see you for a while. Go to the second side valley and join us there.”

“All right,” Mitch nodded. “I’ll give them a burst just before I go. Buy us a little more time.”

Without another word Annette sprinted around the corner after Ha-Ram. The road took a sharp curve around the mountain at this point and soon Mitch was out of sight, the sound of gunfire dampening out into a distant echo. The road kept curving, so that there was little to see behind them.

Good, Annette thought.

“So tell me what we’re supposed to do once we get to Radio Hope,” she asked as she ran by Ha-Ram’s side.

The technician looked shocked. “Who said anything about Radio Hope?”

“Cut the bullshit. I saw the frequency on your direction finder.”

Ha-Ram shrugged. “OK, fine. Abe wants us to find Radio Hope.”

Annette spared a glance over her shoulder. The crackle of gunfire was fading as they continued around the mountain.

“But why now, when the Righteous Horde is all over the place?”

“We only got the direction finder working a couple of weeks ago. Abe got worried that the cult might find Radio Hope and destroy it.”

“Who’s to say they haven’t?” Annette asked.

“They’re still transmitting. I checked last night while you slept.”

I bet a lot of things go on while I sleep, Annette thought.

“You still haven’t answered my question. Once we find them, what then?”

Ha-Ram didn’t say anything for a moment, and then replied, “We’re supposed to offer a trade.”

“What sort of trade? What could Abe have that they could want?”

“Well, we have some spare radio equipment they might be interested in,” Ha-Ram answered vaguely.

“I’ve never heard Radio Hope go off the air. They’re not hurting for equipment. What’s Abe really trading?”

Ha-Ram said nothing. They came to the turnoff point, a narrow, gravelly side canyon that quickly curved out of sight. Annette scrambled over the gravel.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Mitch?” Ha-Ram asked.

“He knows where we’re going. He told us to go as fast as we could and he’d catch us up once he’d delayed the cultists.”

The canyon took a sharp turn and the highway disappeared from view. Annette couldn’t hear any more firing, but wasn’t sure if that was a trick of geography or if Mitch had disengaged and was making a run for it.

They scrambled up a steep slope, Ha-Ram panting to keep up. Annette slowed down a bit. Her pack felt heavy. Her back was slick with sweat.

They slowed to a fast walk.

“Shouldn’t we stop?” Ha-Ram asked.

“Mitch will catch up to us. We need to keep moving. And you haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?”

Annette cut in front of him and smacked him on the shoulder. Ha-Ram stopped short.

“What does Abe want to trade with Radio Hope?” she demanded. She hated being lied to and she’d been lied to constantly since she left the Burbs.

“Nothing! That’s his business.”

Annette gave him a shove. “Tell me.”

“Hey, watch it!”

Annette pushed him again. “Tell me.”

“He wants to trade information,” Ha-Ram blurted.

“What kind of information?” Annette asked, pushing him again to get him moving. They needed to get more space between themselves and their pursuers. At least they were out of sight of the road now.

“Just information.”

Annette smacked him upside the head. Not hard, just hard enough.

“Every night in the bar I make drunk scavengers do what I tell them. You think you can keep this from me?”

“What’s got into you?” Ha-Ram hurried along, looking back at her with wide eyes.

“Abe is a corrupt piece of shit and this whole thing stinks. We left Jackson to die back there. He’s dead because of whatever Abe is hatching, and I want to know what that is.”

Ha-Ram looked down at his feet as he walked. Annette moved closer beside him, invading his space.

“He’s not a bad guy. He treats his employees well,” Ha-Ram replied lamely.

“Tell me,” Annette smacked him upside the head again.

Ha-Ram flinched. “He wants to see what technical information they have, what spare equipment they have. Maybe even see if they have someone they can let go. Someone we can bring back.”

“And what does Abe have to offer in return?”

Ha-Ram’s mouth turned down. “Silence.”

“You mean not telling everyone where Radio Hope is? Is that what you mean? If they don’t give him what he wants he’d broadcast their location over New City Radio?”

Ha-Ram wouldn’t look at her.

“That little bastard,” she whispered.

So that was it. He wanted to plunder Radio Hope for their technological wealth, and if he couldn’t have that, he’d get rid of his only competition on the air. He’d be the only one broadcasting to the region, the only one with a voice.

What had Jackson said he had told Abe once? “Information is power.”

Ever since she’d figured out that they were looking for Radio Hope, she suspected Abe was up to no good. This confirmed it, and confirmed that she had done the right thing back there on the highway. In the wildlands Annette had learned to trust her instincts, following her gut even when her mind said otherwise. She’d made the right choice both times she’d joined scavenger bands, even though she’d been afraid of approaching anyone. She’d made the right choice ignoring her mistrust of men when she accepted Roy’s offer of a job. And now, when her mind was screaming to stick to the original plan for her personal safety and for the sake of the deal she’d made with Abe, she’d plunged into the unknown by trusting someone who should have been a natural enemy while betraying someone who should have been a natural ally.

She had followed Jackson’s wishes. Mitch wouldn’t find Radio Hope. She had given him the wrong directions.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Marcus stood on the wall in the cold dawn, feeling the unfamiliar weight of a rifle in his hands. Clyde had sent a guard to rouse him at first light because he had spotted a large group of people approaching from the eastern fields.

Clyde had arranged the best shots from among the citizens along the walls. He walked back and forth along the catwalk wearing an old army helmet, a Kevlar vest from some city police force whose name Marcus didn’t recognize, and an M16A8 assault rifle sloped at a cocky angle over his shoulder. The wall was crenellated like an old castle, with gun loops in the raised portions so that no one had to expose themselves. He’d also brought out the city’s two machine guns—a Chinese-made DShK-4 with far too little ammunition and an ancient, battered, and constantly jamming M60.

Marcus and The Doctor were there too, not for their dubious fighting ability, but to show leadership. The scavenger with the wounded arm, the one who had been with the Righteous Horde and had managed to escape, stood by them.

Marcus kept giving The Doctor nervous glances. His friend’s face looked pale and sunken. He’d forgotten to put on more makeup and the sarcoma on his face showed through. Despite that he stood with an air of determination and barked out commands to the men and women guarding his city.

In the distance, they could just make out a black line on the horizon. Peering through Clyde’s telescope, the line resolved into countless tiny black dots, heading toward them. Every time the horde passed a farmhouse some of the dots veered off and entered it.

“They won’t find shit,” one of the riflemen said. Marcus recognized him as a farmer. “We cleared out everything.”

No columns of smoke marked the horde’s passing. There had been a time, decades ago, when marching armies left destruction in their wake. No more. Houses were too valuable to burn, fields too precious to sow with salt. Nowadays armies wanted to own property, not destroy it.

The Doctor kept glancing back inside the city. The Merchants Association remained barricaded inside their new compound. Each house had a sniper on the roof. It wasn’t just the residents there either, but many of the merchants’ employees. The Doctor had sent word that if they didn’t send men to the wall they’d risk expulsion. No reply came back.

Just behind the wall stood a large group of scavengers, waiting next to the fortified and heavily guarded building where their guns were being kept. The Doctor hadn’t yet given the word to distribute them. They would have to wait for an attack before they got their guns.

Marcus wasn’t kidding himself. That moment would come soon enough. He wished he had time to drop by home to check on Rosie and the kids. She had the family’s other gun and the walls were thick, so Marcus had to just hope for the best.

New City remained strangely silent except for the odd cough or nervous shuffle of feet. Nobody talked. Everyone stood silent, waiting.

Roy wheeled a cart with a large barrel to the bottom of the stairs. His bouncer Frank followed with another cart rattling with a load of empty bottles, heaps of rags, and a pile of short poles each with a plastic triangular head strung with netting.

“Sorry I’m late for the party,” he called up, his voice sounding startlingly loud in the quiet dawn. “I had to distill this special brew.”

“What is it?” Marcus called down.

“Pure grain alcohol. We’re going to make Molotov cocktails, a specialty of the house!” Roy laughed.

Marcus pointed at the strange poles with the nets on the end.

“And what are those?” he asked.

Roy turned and swept out his arm toward them in a grandiose gesture. “A blast from the past! Lacrosse sticks. Remember those? A scavenger brought in a bunch of them. Not sure why he thought they were worth hauling across the wildlands. I took them anyway figuring I’d form a league. They’ll do as Molotov cocktail launchers just as well.”

“Good job!” Clyde said. “Assemble some of the citizens who don’t have guns and get them up here.”

“They’re getting closer,” one of the guards said.

Everyone turned to look.

A trick of the landscape made the horde look like they’d leapt forward a mile. They’d dipped into a low spot in the land that obscured the crowd’s size. Now they were cresting the near rise and everyone on the wall could plainly see their numbers.

“My God,” Marcus gasped.

The word “horde” was appropriate. Marcus hadn’t seen so many people in one spot since the Old Times. The fields were black with them, and more and more appeared marching with a constant, steady tramp that came over the fields to Marcus’ ears like a steady crunching.

“Ants.” The Doctor said.

Marcus looked at him.

“They sound like wood ants eating through a tree.”

“That ain’t all of them,” the scavenger said, cradling his wounded arm.

“What?” Marcus said, turning to him.

“That ain’t all of them. It’s only half, maybe two-thirds.”

“Then where are the rest?” The Doctor asked.

The scavenger shrugged.

Clyde scanned the crowd with a pair of binoculars.

“I’m seeing lots of blade weapons. . .spears. . .clubs. . .and guns too. Plenty of guns. A bunch of them are carrying ladders. Well, they don’t waste any time.”

“They don’t have time,” the scavenger said. “They’ve always had to move, live off the land. If they can’t bust in here in a couple of days they’ll run out of food.”

Clyde leaned over the parapet, jaw dropping. “Oh, shit.”

Marcus was standing next to him. Clyde handed him the binoculars.

“Right next to the banner,” the Head of the Watch told him.

Marcus focused in and saw a crimson banner fluttering in the wind with a golden fist emblazoned on it. Right next to the standard bearer, three men in helmets and Kevlar hauled an immense machine gun. Several others, similarly armored, had long belts of bullets draped over their shoulders.

“That thing’s huge!” Marcus gasped, handing the binoculars to The Doctor.

“A Gau-18/E, really late model,” Clyde said, voice hushed with awe. “Never seen one in real life before. Where the hell did they get that thing?”

“Sweeping the countryside of everything worth scavenging,” The Doctor replied.

As they approached the edge of the Burbs the tramp of feet grew louder. From a shifting in the crowd of scavengers behind him, Marcus could tell they were hearing it now too. When the Righteous Horde came to the first buildings they fanned out. Groups went to each house as the rest poured down the streets toward the wall. As with the farms, nothing was harmed. Locked doors were kicked in, but otherwise the structures were left intact. The invaders obviously meant to stay.

Marcus licked his lips and got a tighter grip on his rifle. The Burbs were filling up with people. The reports of their numbers that he had thought exaggerated were in fact low.

He could get a closer look at them now. They were a ragged bunch, and thin. Most carried homemade weapons such as crudely forged machetes or spears, while others had clubs with nails stuck through them. They plodded along listlessly, hardly even looking at their goal.

“Most look ready to keel over if they don’t get a square meal pretty soon,” Marcus said.

Most, but not all. Among the crowd he could discern groups of men who stood tall and looked well fed. They carried rifles and shotguns and wore identical red bandannas, some with the golden fist on the front. These, Marcus realized, were the true cultists. The others were followers, or slaves forced to fight and left half-starving.

But Clyde was right; starving people get desperate. That’s why there are so many fights in the Burbs.

At the promise of a good week’s eating these people would tear New City apart.

A movement beside him made Marcus look. The Doctor had shifted his weight and was now leaning against the parapet.

Damn, getting tired already.

“Where are the women?” Clyde asked. On the New City wall there were as many female fighters as male.

“There,” The Doctor said, pointing to the back of the crowd, which was just cresting the rise more than a mile away.

Marcus squinted. A vast throng of women, children, and a few older men came staggering up behind the army, a ring of guards around them. They were all loaded down with heavy bundles.

“Pack mules,” Marcus said, pity heavy in his voice.

The vanguard was drawing close now. A bugle sounded from somewhere in that mass of humanity. The whole army came to a halt, the foremost of the Righteous Horde stopping a little short of the dead zone between the wall and the Burbs.

Marcus looked out over all those facing looking right back at him and his friends. The crimson banner fluttered in the breeze, its folds catching the rising sun. Spear points and gun barrels gleamed in the dawn.

A long, high call came from near the back. They all raised their weapons and pumped them in the air.

“Purity! Purity! Purity!”

The thousands of voices thundered at Marcus’ ears. The very wall on which he stood seemed to shake.

A man dressed in a patched woolen white robe detached himself from the crowd and walked forward. He held his arms akimbo, hands open to reveal that he carried no weapons.

Nothing visible, anyway, Marcus thought.

“That the leader?” The Doctor asked.

“Nope, that’s another priest, his second in command,” the scavenger said. He pointed with his good arm. “See that other white-robed guy, next to the banner? That’s him.”

“Staying well out of range, the coward,” one of the guards laughed.

“Wish Annette was here,” Clyde said. “She’s got a sniper’s rifle that could take him out and end this right now.”

The priest walked to within a few yards of the wall and looked up at the men and women standing guard along its top. He raised his hands to them in supplication and spoke.

“Brothers and sisters! I bring you good news. The Righteous Horde is heralding a new dawn. Too long we have breathed in the stench of the old impurities. Too long we have rubbed shoulders with those who are unclean. Why, not an hour’s walk from your front gate there is a pestilential place called Toxic Bay, a breeding ground of tweakers and other unclean creatures. We even found a village of the poisoned on one of its shores. We have wiped them out, my friends. Wiped out these abominations in the eye of a vengeful Lord. We have done this to please Him and also as a gift to you.

“And we are not done giving gifts. We want you to join us, my friends. You are not like the scavenger scum that prowl around the wildlands, living off the old world like crows live off carrion. You have rebuilt. You have moved forward. Yet from what I hear you harbor the unclean among you. The diseased. The poisoned. Those in whose blood the sins of the Old Times still flow. . .”

Marcus glanced at The Doctor. He was gripping the parapet, glaring down at the priest as he went on in a smug voice.

“We have no such in our ranks. In the Righteous Horde march only the pure. The Lord does not abide sinners in his host, and raises up those who fight for purity. Open the gates, brothers and sisters, open the gates and we will make New City truly new. We will make it into a tabernacle of purity that will shine forth and transform the world.

“What say you, brothers and sisters? What say you to the good news of purification?”

The Doctor stopped leaning against the rampart and stood to his full height. He looked down at the priest with contempt.

Marcus marveled as he watched his friend. This was the man he admired, the one who could carve a city out of a toxic wilderness.

“Go fuck yourself!” The Doctor shouted.

The men and women on the wall broke out into a cheer, picked up a moment later by the scavengers standing behind the gate.

If the priest had anything to say to that remark, it was drowned out by the roar from the defenders of New City.

But it looked like he had nothing to say. With a satisfied smile he turned and walked back to the Burbs.

This is what he wants,Marcus realized.He’d rather plunder New City than have us join them. Fewer mouths to feed through the winter.

Marcus looked out at the bedraggled rearguard of women and children who had thrown themselves down on the ground by their packs and lay exhausted, not even caring to watch the approaching battle.

What will happen to them come winter?

The Doctor turned to the scavengers assembled below him.

“Men and women of the Burbs and the wildlands. We were wrong to mistrust you. We must stand united against these barbarians. You can’t see what I am seeing, so let me tell you that all the rumors are true. There are thousands of them, and they have enslaved hundreds more. We are backed into a corner and we need to stand together to survive. Will you fight for New City, fight for the only civilization in the wildlands, or kneel down to the worst elements from the Old Times?”

“Fight! Fight!” the scavengers shouted.

The Doctor made a gesture to the guards at the armory.

“Give them their weapons!” he called to them.

Another cheer. Marcus saw The Doctor waver and positioned himself behind him, putting a supporting hand on his back.

“That was none too soon,” Clyde said. “They’re getting prepared to attack already.”

Marcus and The Doctor looked back out. Some of the bundles the slaves had been carrying were unpacked and they could see they contained more belt ammunition for the machine gun and a series of metal plates. A group of men bolted these together and added wheels. The metal plating was pierced by a small square hole near the top and another wide rectangular one at the center.

“What’s that thing?” Marcus asked.

“A mantlet,” Clyde said grimly. “A portable bulletproof wall for that Gau-18/E.”

“Can our machine guns punch through that?” Marcus asked.

“Probably not. I bet their machine gun and the riflemen are going to lay down covering fire while the skinnies bring up the ladders and swarm us.”

“We’ll give them some warm hospitality,” Roy said as he ascended the stairs. Several men and women followed him with lacrosse sticks in their hands. Each was supplied with a Molotov cocktail and more people carrying more Molotovs brought up the rear.

“OK, everyone stay low behind the crenellations. Only fire out of the loopholes. We don’t want to lose anyone,” Clyde called out.

Oh, we’re going to lose people all right, Marcus thought.

They could see the white-robed man by the banner giving orders with wild gesticulations. His thin, high voice carried over to them in the dawn air. Marcus couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“Doc, you better get inside,” Marcus said.

“I think not,” The Doctor said. He reached over to Clyde’s belt and pulled an automatic from his holster.

“You taking my sidearm?” Clyde said with a hint of anger.

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. “You mind?”

Clyde grinned. “Kill a few cultists and I’ll forgive you.”

The men with the ladders and hand weapons arranged themselves in a mass at the front, just at the edge of the Burbs. Right behind came a line of riflemen. Marcus noted that many of the rifles were leveled at the crowd in front, not at the defenders on the wall. The machine gun crew wheeled the mantlet into position almost a kilometer away at the center of the empty marketplace, with the gun itself just behind and out of sight.

“We kill enough attackers and that machine gun won’t matter,” The Doctor called out. “They can’t take the wall with that. They can only take the wall with men. Aim well and wait for a good shot.”

Clyde was already hunched behind one of the raised portions of the wall, his assault rifle resting in the gun port, a tight grin on his face.

He’s actually enjoying this, Marcus thought.

Marcus peeked over the wall. He could see the high priest, the one who sported a Jesus look, extolling his men. Other than his bodyguards few seemed to be paying him much attention, and with a flash Marcus realized that it wasn’t faith driving these people on, but a mixture of fear, desperation, and opportunism. The religion was just a veneer. He’d be surprised if one person in ten out there actually believed in it.

But damn that guy had created something rare. Marcus hadn’t seen a crowd this big under one command since the City-State Wars, and that was forty years ago. How did he do it? Marcus found himself wanting to sit down with this fellow for a few minutes, find out what made him tick. That sort of knowledge could be useful, especially trying to run this zoo.

Mr. Fake Jesus over there wouldn’t abide Abe and his cronies hiding away and slacking on their duty to defend the wall.

Clyde called over to the DShK-4 crew. “Give that machine gun a couple of bursts. See if you can punch through that mantlet.”

The crew of the tripod-mounted heavy machine gun took careful aim and fired. Marcus saw dirt kicked up in a line a little to the right of the enemy’s gun. The crew stopped, made an adjustment, and fired again. This time they hit. One of the enemy crew fell and Marcus saw sparks fly off the mantlet.

“Cease firing! Cease firing!” Clyde shouted. “It’s not getting through. You got first blood, though! Punched right through that guy’s Kevlar.”

A cheer broke out on the wall. The crew grinned and gave each other high fives.

“Don’t fire again until I give the word,” Clyde told them. “Your ammo is too precious to waste except on something important.” He turned to the crew of the M60. “As soon as they get into range, give them all you got.”

The crowd outside pumped their weapons overhead three times.

“Purity! Purity! Purity!”

The cult’s machine gun roared to life. For a moment the air reverberated with the sound like a buzzsaw.

Then the gunners found their range. A terrific clanging noise battered at Marcus’ ears as countless rounds ricocheted off the metal wall. Not far from him a woman peering through a gun port got shot in the face and fell flat on her back. Another bullet punched through a weak spot in the wall and right through the thigh of a man who was crouching out of sight, thinking he was safe.

Everyone hit the deck.

The machine gun paused, then made another sweep of the wall. Marcus flinched as the clanging of bullets on the metal surface passed right by him. He opened his eyes, not realizing he had shut them, and saw another man a little further down pitch over. Once again the bullets had found a weak point.

They’ll find more,Marcus thought.Hell, they’ll make more.

Clyde must have had the same thought because he was screaming at a couple of men beside him to go fetch sandbags from the base of the wall and bring them up.

The machine gun paused again, although Marcus knew by now that it was only because the gunners would take a moment to adjust their aim before making another pass. In that brief lull he heard another sound. For an instant he dismissed it as the ringing of his ears, but it sounded different.

It was the roar of a crowd.

Marcus dared to peek through a gun loop.

A mass of men was charging at the wall, bearing their spears and machetes high. Others carried ladders over their heads.

“Here they come!” Marcus shouted.

An instant later he had to dive back down as the machine gun spat out another deadly fusillade. A spot on the wall just inches from his face sprouted open, a finger-wide hole appearing in what he had always assumed was a bulletproof barrier.

There are bullets and then there are bullets, Marcus thought.

Clyde waved his hand at Roy, shouting something no one could hear. Roy nodded and signaled to the team he had assembled. They were divided into pairs, one with a lacrosse stick and another with a lighter or matches ready to light the Molotov cocktails. Roy himself gripped a lacrosse stick while his bouncer Frank stood by him as a loader.

Frank lit the end of the alcohol-soaked rag sticking out of the bottle in Roy’s lacrosse stick and Roy flicked the stick, launching the Molotov cocktail in an arc over the wall. The others followed suit.

Marcus peeked out of the gun loop, ignoring The Doctor as he tried to claw him back out of danger.

A dozen Molotov cocktails smashed into the rocky ground in front of the wall, right in the midst of the swarm. Men fell in twisting flames. Others jumped back or veered to the side, knocking over those next to them.

The M60 got into the action, cutting a line through the tightly packed attackers. The crowd convulsed like a living thing. It paused, wavered, then surged forward again. . .

. . .only to be hit by the next volley if Molotov cocktails. Flames flared all up and down along the line. The cult’s machinegun still hammered away, shooting forth so many bullets one actually caught a Molotov cocktail in mid air. It burst and lit. A sheet of flame settled on those below.

Marcus stared in wonder, forgetting the danger from the machinegun as he saw dozens of men screeching and rolling on the ground, trying to douse the flames. A few others, panicked, ran through the crowd trailing fire.

This time the crowd didn’t waver, but moved resolutely on. The machinegun stopped firing as a score of ladders clanked against the wall. The M60 stopped firing too. Its crew cursed and wrestled with it, trying to eject a jammed round.

“Rifles!” Clyde shouted.

The Head of the Watch led by example. Giving up the safety of his gun loop to another man, he stood between the crenellations of the wall and poured auto fire from his M16 into the thickest part of the crowd.

All up and down the wall other men and women opened up with their guns. Marcus kept his own gun loop. He admired Clyde’s gung-ho attitude but lacked his Kevlar. He aimed into the surging mass of humanity beneath him and squeezed the trigger.

The gun didn’t fire.

He stared at his weapon. Something was wrong. He had stripped and cleaned it the night before. Clyde had inspected it.

Then he saw the safety was still on.

Cursing his stupidity, his snapped off the safety and aimed again.

The crowd was pressing against the wall to avoid the fire. Heaps of their comrades lay bleeding on the ground behind them. Marcus couldn’t angle down enough to get a good shot. Instead he aimed at the line of riflemen fifty yards away and fired.

As if that had been a signal those riflemen began firing back. A man right next to Marcus cried out and clapped a hand to his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of Ahmed dragging him away. Once again the defenders hid behind their protection to avoid getting hit. Those with gun loops fired at the riflemen, picking off several, but Marcus knew the real threat was coming up those ladders.

“Have some balls, dammit!” The Doctor shouted and stood up.

“No!” Marcus tried to stop him.

The Doctor, his sallow face twisted in rage, leaned over the parapet and emptied his clip into the people below.

“Die, you throwback motherfuckers, die!” He screeched down at them.

Marcus only managed to drag him back when he ran out of bullets.

“That was a damn stupid thing to do!” Marcus shouted at him.

“Was it?” The Doctor replied.

Marcus could barely hear him for the cheering. The scavengers had gotten a good view of his bravery and were roaring their approval. Most had retrieved their weapons from the armory and clamored to join them up on the wall. Several started coming up the stairs.

“Stop! No strangers on the wall!” Clyde shouted. He pushed past the riflemen and Roy’s assistants, who were lobbing Molotov cocktails over the wall as fast as they could light them, and got to the top of the stairs. Two other citizens joined him. Marcus trailed behind.

“Why can’t we fight? This is our war too!” a scavenger said.

“No strangers on the wall!” Clyde repeated, almost panicking now.

“There will be fighting enough for everybody before this is all through,” Marcus added.

Another citizen got picked off and tumbled off the back of the catwalk.

“Who’s going to replace your losses?” the scavenger in front shouted over the gunfire.

Clyde hesitated for a second, then called out “Associates! Get some associates up here. You, whatsyourname, you’re an associate, get on up here. And you, Lashonda, get up here too. Everybody, let them through!”

There was a scuffle on the stairs as people tried to get up, down, or simply out of the way. One man tipped over the edge and landed hard on the ground below. Marcus pointed out a couple more associates and motioned for them to get up the stairs if they could. Scanning the crowd for more familiar faces, his gaze settled on a stranger.

Something about his look caught Marcus’ attention. Maybe it was the wild eyes, maybe it was the tight grin.

Maybe it was the fact that he was looking right at The Doctor.

Marcus went cold.

With gripping clarity he saw the man raise a pistol.

“No!” Marcus shouted. He ran for The Doctor.

The pistol flashed. The Doctor clutched his stomach. Marcus got to him just as the scavenger let off another shot, this time grazing Marcus’ ear.

Then everything fell apart.

Clyde roared and opened up on the stranger with his M16, taking out him and several of the people around him. Scavengers started firing at the civilians on the wall. Men and women pirouetted and fell, or turned and poured fire on the scavengers.

And the scavengers fired at each other too, blasting away at point blank range. Marcus spotted a group of scavengers move as a body toward the gate, mowing down the citizens guarding it. Clyde turned and concentrated his fire on them, only to get knocked off his feet a second later.

The Doctor slumped in Marcus’ arms. He dragged his friend inside the operations center just as the first cultists made it over the wall.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jackson had to move slowly. He could hear firing up ahead. That meant the others were still alive, or at least some of them. And that meant his topo wasn’t in the hands of the Righteous Horde, or at least it wasn’t yet.

Jackson would have liked to feel relieved because of that but he couldn’t. Abe and his flunkies were just as dangerous as the cult, more so in a sense. The threat from the cult was obvious and brought everyone together. Abe and his ilk were snakes in the grass. They divided society and made it war on itself.

The overriding question in his mind was—what would Annette do? For a moment there on the bridge it seemed that she had really got it, that some real communication had passed between them. She had promised to protect Radio Hope, and from what he’d heard she was good to her word.

But would she be in this case, or would her unthinking support for the social order turn her into a class traitor like Mitch and Ha-Ram?

Jackson felt a twinge of guilt for doubting her. She had come back for him, passing over that terrifying bridge a second time under fire to try and save him. Shame washed over him at the memory of clinging like a baby and whining that he couldn’t move. But that drop. . .it made him shiver again just remembering it. His father had led union strikes during the City-State Wars and he couldn’t even cross a bridge?

He’d make good. He’d have to. Annette might do the right thing, but her companions definitely wouldn’t. They needed to be stopped, and he needed to get his topo back.

Jackson slowed down. The firing had died away. He kept to the edge of the road, where there were enough gullies and large rocks that he could get cover if he needed to. Still he felt terribly exposed.

If those cultists come back this way I’m a dead man.

Gripping his pistol, he moved resolutely forward.

The road took a sharp turn. As he came around it he spotted a man sprawled on the ground by the side of the road. Jackson ducked back, then relaxed when he saw it was one of the cultists who had obviously been hit. The man lay on his back, his last breaths gurgling from a shot to his throat.

Beyond the dying man the road straitened out for a hundred yards or so before taking another sharp turn. Just before the second turn a boulder took up nearly an entire lane. His companions had obviously made a stand there, while the cultists had been left with the much less effective shelter of a few large rocks and a heap of eroded soil.

“Wasn’t enough for you,” Jackson said as he approached the cultist.

At the sound of Jackson’s voice the man turned his eyes and spotted him. He didn’t move his head or any other part of his body. Jackson wondered if the neck shot had paralyzed him. No matter, he’d be dead in a minute anyway.

Taking a quick glance around to assure himself they were alone, Jackson bent over the dying man. The man followed him with his eyes, his breath coming more ragged now as he choked on his own blood.

The fellow was thin like most scavengers, but wore good clothing. A red bandanna emblazoned with a golden fist was wrapped around his head. His gun was gone.

“So, your brethren on the spiritual path took your weapon and left you to die, eh?” Jackson snorted. “Let’s see what else you got.”

Jackson rummaged through the man’s pockets. He found a clasp knife and a few nuts. There was a satchel by his side, already soaked from the widening pool of blood. Jackson opened it and found a blanket and some dried meat and bread.

“Good, Annette has my food so I’ll take yours,” Jackson told him.

The cultist didn’t hear him. He’d taken his last breath.

Shoving his loot into his own bag, he turned and ran to the boulder. He peered around it. Nothing except for a scattering of 7.62×39mm casings that told him Mitch had made a stand here.

Jackson paused. The road kept bending here and he couldn’t see much further ahead. He couldn’t hear anything either. He ducked back behind the boulder and closed his eyes, trying to picture his topo. Yes, this had been the final turn before the canyon. There should be a narrow side canyon not much further on. That was the one that led to a network of canyons, and somewhere in there was Radio Hope.

Had Annette gone the right way? There was nothing for it but to find out. Making his way around the corner, he soon came to a narrow, gravelly side canyon.

This is it, Jackson thought.

Despite the danger and his eagerness to be on his way, he stopped to savor the moment. Somewhere beyond this valley lay Radio Hope and the people who ran it. He couldn’t believe he was finally going to meet them. He had to ask for their help to straighten out New City, wake up the proletariat in the Burbs to their exploitation and have them rise up and force the citizens to share their wealth so that all could benefit from the fruits of society’s labor. The people behind New Hope would understand this. They were kindred spirits. Who else in this world gave something for nothing?

He set out. Only a few steps into the valley he heard the crackle of gunfire. He stopped. That hadn’t been from up the valley; that had been further down the road.

Shit,he thought.Annette took the wrong path.

The gunfire sounded again, the distinct staccato rattle of an AK-47 replying to thepop pop pop of several rifles.

He looked up the valley, then back toward the road. The gunfire escalated in intensity.

Annette tried to save my life.

“Aw hell!” he grumbled, and headed back to the highway.

He didn’t have far to go. Rounding a corner, he came to a straight part in the road. Once again the others had found a barrier to hide behind, this time the rusted hulk of a tractor parked by the side of the road, and once again the cultists found themselves with only scant protection. About twenty yards away from Jackson, two lay prone and fired from behind a few rocks and a tree that had cracked right through the asphalt to grow in the middle of the street. Several yards beyond them, more hunkered down in a drainage ditch by the side of the road. The other side of the road dropped off sheer. There was nowhere to hide there. In the distance he caught a glimpse of Mitch popping out from behind the tractor to let out a burst. Jackson ducked as the bullets zipped past his head.

The men in the ditch were partially obscured, but those in the road were in plain view from where he stood. Jackson took careful aim and fired. The head of the man on the left jerked forward, blood bursting from his skull. The other one turned in amazement, only to get Jackson’s second shot in his chest.

The cultists in the drainage ditch turned and poured fire at him. Jackson rolled into the same drainage ditch, thanking his luck that the road curved just enough that he was out of sight.

Now what? Jackson risked a look over the lip of the ditch and nearly got his brains blown out by a snap shot from one of the cultists. He heard another burst from Mitch in response.

Jackson kept low. For a moment there was no sound at all. Then he heard the crunch of boots on gravel. Jackson risked poking his head out of the ditch again. This time no one fired. He looked around in confusion for a second until he spotted them.

They were hustling up the slope beside the road. There were only half a dozen of them now, their running battle having whittled away their ranks. Even so, they still outnumbered Jackson and his companions. Three ran forward while the others covered them, then they ran to catch up. Mitch tried to take a shot at them and leapt back out of sight as bullets panged off the tractor.

Jackson looked on helplessly. They were already too far away to hit with his pistol. Glancing over at the two men he killed, he realized the cultists had been in too much of a hurry to retrieve their rifles. He ran over, zigzagging in case any of them were watching and hoping that Mitch looked to see who it was before he fired.

His luck held. He dove down beside the two men and grabbed the nearest rifle to hand, a Remington .30-06.

Bracing the rifle against one of the bodies, he aimed at one of the running figures. He squeezed the trigger and dust kicked up next to the man’s feet. Two of his companions turned and snapped shots down on him, both their bullets going high. Jackson fired again and he saw blood erupt from one of the cultist’s shoulders.

The sound of running feet made him look. Mitch was sprinting down the road toward him. Jackson turned back and fired a couple more shots at the cultists. All were running now.

Mitch rolled to a stop beside him and grabbed the other rifle.

“What happened to your AK?” Jackson asked.

“Out of ammo. You came just at the right time, Blamer.”

Mitch squeezed off a round and one of the cultists jerked and fell, rolling partway down the hill.

The remainder humped over a ridge and disappeared.

“Grab any spare ammo and let’s go,” Jackson said. “If they decide to start sniping we’ll be fucked.”

Jackson rummaged around the pockets of his man and found a dirty rag wrapped around a fistful of bullets. Stuffing these into his overcoat pocket, he and Mitch ran back to the shelter of the tractor.

“Surprised they didn’t shoot at us,” Jackson said, panting and trying to catch his breath.

Mitch grabbed his backpack from where it leaned against the tractor. “Probably thought there were more of you. Glad to see you got over your claustrophobia.”

“Acrophobia.”

Mitch looked at him. “What?”

“Acrophobia is fear of heights. Claustrophobia is fear of enclosed spaces.”

Mitch’s mouth dropped open. “You afraid of those too?”

Jackson shook his head. “Never mind. Where are the others?”

“Must be on ahead. I stopped behind this thing to delay the motherfuckers a bit more,” Mitch replied, gesturing to the rusted hulk of the tractor.

“On ahead?” Jackson asked.

“Annette looked at your map. We need to go to the next canyon we come to.”

Jackson resisted the urge to shout in frustration.

Damn, she got my directions wrong!

“Let’s hurry up and find them before they get too far,” he said.

Mitch and Jackson headed out and soon found the side valley, the one Jackson knew was wrong. A little stream ran through it and had eroded out the stretch of road that passed over it. Jackson imagined years of rainstorms bringing down gravel and branches from further up until the drainage pipe that ran under the road had gotten clogged. The water would have flowed over the road then, wearing it away in a few seasons at most. Yet another of the creations of the Old Times swept away.

A couple of hundred yards up the valley branched into three, where smaller creeks ran between peaks and converged into one stream.

Mitch bent down and examined the soil.

“I don’t see their tracks,” Mitch said.

“Would you see them if they passed this way?”

Mitch nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

Maybe Annette did go the right way. Maybe she kept her word and gave you the wrong directions. She kept Ha-Ram with her because he’s got the direction finder. If she is lost, I’ll never find her among all these little valleys. If she isn’t lost, I need to get back on the right path right away and catch up to her. But what about you? What do I do with you?

Mitch was crouched next to the stream, examining the damp ground on its banks for traces of their passing.

Jackson raised his rifle and pointed it at the back of Mitch’s head.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Where’s Mitch?” Ha-Ram asked, looking over his shoulder for the tenth time in the past mile.

“He’s coming,” Annette replied.

“Maybe he got shot,” the technician said.

“Maybe,” Annette said, not sure how she felt about that possibility. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”

Ha-Ram stopped. “What’s going on?”

“You’re being too clever for your own good, that’s what’s going on.”

“What’s gotten into you?”

“Jackson getting killed changed my perspective on a few things,” Annette mumbled, pulling out the topo map and unfolding it.

Ha-Ram kept silent while Annette studied the map and tried to compare it to the features she saw all around her.

Damn, this is complicated.

“Pull out that gizmo of yours and search for Radio Hope’s signal.”

“Who made you boss?” Ha-Ram demanded.

Annette looked up from the map. “I did.”

Ha-Ram turned away and opened his pack. Pulling out the radio direction finder, he swept the area.

“That way,” he pointed.

Annette compared the compass reading with the map, her brow furrowing in confusion. The map was on too big of a scale. All the valleys in this area were tiny squiggles of closely packed lines. She looked at the landscape, then back at the map, then back at the landscape again.

“Let’s go up that hill,” Annette decided. “We’ll see better from there.”

Annette had her shotgun in her hands and Ha-Ram carried his radio detector. She eyed the 9mm in his holster. Should she disarm him? She decided against it. Ha-Ram didn’t seem like the type to turn on her.

They mounted the hill but couldn’t see much as it was only an eminence between two valleys. The rest of their view was blocked by higher ridges and peaks.

“Damn, this whole area is like a maze,” she complained.

Ha-Ram tested his detector again.

“That way,” he said and pointed.

“There’s no valley going that way.”

“What does the map say?”

“How the hell should I know?” Annette snapped.

Movement out of the corner of her eye made her turn. On top of a ridge back in the direction of the road she caught a glimpse of several figures. A moment later they were gone.

“Shit, let’s go,” Annette said.

They hustled down the far side of the hill and up one of the valleys. It proved to be a dead end. Cursing, Annette led them back to the other valley but found that it turned away from where they wanted to go.

“We’re going to get lost in here,” Annette said.

“No we won’t, not if we keep following Radio Hope.”

“Climbing over hills and ridges and who-the-hell-knows what else?”

Ha-Ram shrugged. “What choice do we have?”

They scrambled up a steep gravelly ridge, trying to keep low in case the cultists spotted them. Annette could tell they were working their way north, moving around the mountain that stood between them and the highway.

After another half hour of walking Ha-Ram stopped.

“Look,” Ha-Ram said, pointing to a distant hilltop.

They’d passed around the back of the mountain they’d been skirting all this time and come to a series of jagged peaks and steep valleys that formed a low point in the mountain chain. It was more open here, with clear views to the west and east. Behind her Annette could even see the distant sparkle of the sea. But that wasn’t what caught Ha-Ram’s attention. The hill in front of them stood alone, higher than most. Atop it was a tall radio antenna stood silhouetted against the sky.

Annette stopped and stared. Radio Hope had started up years ago, back when she was still wandering the wildlands with the scavengers. Its messages had taught them how to gather food, warned them of locations with toxic waste dumps, gave them instructions for splinting a broken bone and mixing herbal remedies. Radio Hope had probably saved her life a dozen times. And she wasn’t alone. Everyone, from the richest citizen down to the most ragged scavenger, looked to Radio Hope to give them exactly what the name implied.

Back in the Burbs, people would have listening parties, sitting around scarce radios and absorbing the life-giving information transmitted twelve hours a day. When the stranger had brought those crystal radios, suddenly their signal was available to even the poorest scavenger. In just a couple of days the listening parties had disappeared, replaced by people sitting with an earplug stuck in their ear. After the harvest trade fair, those radios would spread across the wildlands. She had a feeling that the mysterious man who first came to her attention protecting his daughter in the bar would be back next year to trade more radios at almost giveaway prices.

He’s from here,Annette realized.He must be.

They’re going to make sure everyone can get their transmissions. They’re going to give everyone a chance to survive. And Abe wants to shut it all down.

She turned to Ha-Ram. What to do about him?

The technician stood staring at the distant transmitter, his face transfigured with joy. Suddenly she wasn’t so worried about him anymore.

“Let’s go,” she whispered.

They headed down a gentle ridge and then zigzagged along a rough canyon. Ha-Ram had to use the direction finder to check their way and led them over another couple of ridges.

And then they were there. A broad, green valley of fresh grass led gradually upwards to a narrow cleft with the hill on the left. The radio transmitter stood out clear against the blue sky.

“It’s broken!” Annette said.

Wires dangled from its sides and the top section had fallen and lay on the slope in front. The portion that remained standing was covered in patches of rust.

“It’s a ruin like everything else,” Annette said. Tears wet her eyes.

“No, I’m getting a signal,” Ha-Ram said. His detector pointed straight at the transmitter, with the needle on the power scale all the way to the right.

“How is that possible?” Annette asked.

“Must be some sort of camouflage,” Ha-Ram shrugged. “Sure looks convincing.”

“But where is everybody?” she looked around.

Until that moment she hadn’t thought of what to say to the operators of Radio Hope if she found them. She had been too busy trying to survive and worrying about the other members of her team to figure out what to say to these living legends. Now that she was here, she couldn’t even find them.

“Maybe they’re watching us,” Ha-Ram said.

Annette turned slowly around, looking at all the hilltops and crevices. There wasn’t a sign of anyone. The field was littered with fresh goat and sheep droppings, though. Someone had been grazing a big herd here as recently as a day or two ago.

“Let’s keep going,” Annette said.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Ha-Ram said, beaming. “I can’t believe I’m actually going to meet them. I’ve looked up to these people all my life.”

“The people you planned to sell down the river?” Annette asked.

Ha-Ram looked away, a guilty expression on his face.

They continued up the valley and studied the transmitter as they approached. It still looked wrecked. Ha-Ram checked the detector again and got the same result.

As they drew closer they could see a low concrete building at the base of the transmitter, camouflaged so well with paint and netting that it had been invisible from further away. Annette stared at it as they walked. Would they be inside? What would she tell them? She had to warn them about Abe.

She turned to Ha-Ram and leveled her double-barreled shotgun at his belly. His face fell but he didn’t look surprised.

“Give me your gun,” she said.

“If we don’t do this Abe won’t honor our trade,” he said. “He told me what you traded for. Do you want to be stuck in the Burbs the rest of your life? You want Pablo to grow up dodging gunfights and getting chased by tweakers?”

Annette hesitated. What he said was true; she had to think of Pablo’s future. But what kind of future would there be if Abe owned the airwaves? Her grip on her shotgun tightened.

“Give me your gun,” she repeated.

A clank of wood hitting stone made them both turn. A figure popped out of a low pit in the ground, knocking aside wooden planking covered with grass.

The figure was dressed in fatigue pants and a heavy hooded sweatshirt. Beneath his hood his face was obscured by a strange, smiling white mask painted with a thin black moustache and beard. An M16 pointed straight at them.

A muffled voice shouted from behind the mask.

“Drop your weapons!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Marcus laid The Doctor down on a cot in the operations center as the battle raged outside.

Wincing, The Doctor pulled up his blood-soaked shirt with Marcus’ help and looked at the wound. Two closely spaced holes oozed blood.

“You got shot twice!” Marcus exclaimed.

“Entrance and exit wounds. Medical kit,” he gasped, pointing to a box sitting on a nearby shelf. Marcus fetched it and opened it for him. The gunfire outside rose to a fever pitch.

“It’s not so bad,” The Doctor said, fumbling for some gauze. “I got it.”

“Let me help you,” Marcus said.

“Get out there, I’m fine.”

“But—”

“Get out there!” The Doctor barked.

Marcus leapt back. This man was his oldest friend but when he gave orders Marcus followed. He looked with dread at he door. There was a shitstorm outside and now he was in charge.

He was also unarmed. He’d dropped his rifle when he grabbed The Doctor.

Marcus went to the door. The catwalk boiled with struggling figures. Cultists swarmed over the wall on a dozen ladders, hacking down defenders with machetes or gutting them with spears. Citizens blasted away at them from point blank range, sending attackers flying into the air to fall on their comrades below. Right in front of the door a citizen was firing a shotgun as fast as he could pump it, taking out each man that ascended the ladder in front of him. He leaned over to get a shot at the next one coming up and got a spear in his eye. Just beyond him two cultists had made it onto the catwalk and were swinging wildly with their machetes, tracing bloody arcs through the crowd. Further on Marcus saw Roy throw a Molotov cocktail into the face of a cultist climbing over the parapet. The man exploded into flames and dropped out of sight.

Marcus grabbed the shotgun of the fallen citizen. One of the cultists with a machete leapt at him. Marcus blew him off his feet. He turned to the other one but found him already down, writhing with a gunshot to the side.

Marcus pumped the shotgun to release the shell. A spear thrown from the ground below flew over his head and by reflex he knelt down.

That saved his life. The din of gunfire hammered his ears to deafness, but he felt the wind as a machete swung less than an inch over his scalp. He turned, falling on his back, and saw that another cultist had come up the ladder the citizen with the shotgun had been defending. Marcus shoved the shotgun into his gut and pulled the trigger.

He stood up, poked his head over the parapet. Two more cultists were scrambling up the ladder. He fired again, shredding the first man’s arm and toppling him over onto the man behind him. Instantly another replaced them. Marcus pumped his weapon and pulled the trigger again.

Nothing.

In desperation Marcus lifted the gun overhead and used both hands to heave it down on the man climbing the ladder. It hit him in the head and sent him tumbling.

Marcus grabbed the ladder, flinched as a bullet panged off the wall inches from his hand, and hauled it up. His sciatica sent a sharp lance of pain down one leg and crazily he remembered The Doctor’s warning against doing any heavy lifting. Ignoring the pain and the good advice, he pulled the ladder up rung by rung. Another bullet hummed past his hear, and a third shattered one of the wooden rungs.

Marcus tipped the ladder over to the back side of the wall and it fell onto the heaving crowd of scavengers.

The scene behind the wall was as chaotic as it was on it. Scores lay dead and dying, while circles of men and women were beating others to death. A big fight at the gate caught his eye. A dozen men had formed a semicircle around it and were firing at citizens and scavengers alike. Two more were pulling aside the heavy bars that locked it.

“Cultists!” Marcus screamed to the scavengers below and pointing in the direction of the gate. “Cultists opening the gate! Stop them!”

Of course no one heard him. And there was no way to make it the few yards from where he stood to the gate. One citizen on the wall noticed, turned and fired her rifle down on them, taking out two before she fell off the catwalk with a bullet in her brain.

That gate will be open in another minute,Marcus thought.Then it will be all over. Me. Rosie. The kids. . .

Not on my watch.

Marcus eased himself over the back of the catwalk, hung by his hands for a moment, and let himself drop.

As he hit earth his legs buckled. Agonizing pain shot through his legs and back. He even felt it in his teeth, each one becoming a sharp spike of pain in his mouth. A scavenger that he nearly hit on the way down looked at him, eyes wild with shock and recognition. They all knew Marcus from the trade fair screenings.

Marcus grabbed his pants leg.

“They’re inside the wall!” he shouted to be heard over the rattle of gunfire.

“Yeah,” the scavenger shouted with a grin. “We’re beating them to a pulp.”

“At the gate! More at the gate!”

The scavenger looked that direction but there were too many people in the way to see what was going on.

He got the message, though. The man ran to the nearest circle of his friends, shoving them away from the man they were beating. He pointed in the direction of the gate and shouted something Marcus couldn’t hear. They hurried away, grabbing more people as they went and leaving the bloodied pulp of their victim behind.

Marcus tried to get to his feet and more pain shot through him. He landed hard on his forearms.

A revolver lay in front of him, right next to the curled fingers of its dead owner. Marcus grabbed it, saw the chambers were full, and crawled in the direction of the gate. More scavengers were headed that direction now, while others ran away in panic, headed for the false safety of the warehouse, the homes, anywhere but this madness.

The first group he had sent for the gate burst on the cultists with a hail of gunfire, not bothering to stop until they were upon them. Fists flailed, knives flashed, guns were swung as clubs or shoved into faces and set off. Marcus raised his pistol but didn’t know who to hit.

A roar of gunfire from his right made him eat dirt. A dozen members of the Merchants Association stood not far off, each with an assault rifle on full auto, spraying the crowd by the gate with bullets. Friend and foe alike went down in a mass of flailing limbs and spraying blood.

The men and women of the Merchants Association slapped new clips into their weapons and hustled to the gate. While one slid the bars back into place, several more faced the scavengers, guns leveled but not firing. The rest hustled up the stairs and onto the catwalk. More rushed from the interior of the city to join them, leaving two of their number to guard the staircase.

As Marcus pulled himself painfully to his feet he saw the added strength was turning the tide. Those cultists who had made it over the wall were picked off, and then the defenders poured a hail of autofire and more Molotov cocktails onto the crowd below.

Marcus staggered up the steps, still clutching his pistol. Every step sent aching pains through his legs and lower back, but at least nothing was broken.

By the time he made it to the parapet the Righteous Horde was retreating. Hundreds of the first wave lay dead or wounded at the base of the wall. Pools of flame burned everywhere, living on after the consumption of their initial fuel by burning the clothes of the dead or those too wounded to crawl away.

The defenders directed their fire at the line of riflemen, who quickly moved back when they saw how the battle was going. Their machine gun opened up again, making everyone on the wall duck out of sight.

“Reload!” someone shouted. “They’ll use that as cover for another attack.”

Marcus dared a look over the wall. No, they weren’t massing for another attack. The machine gun gave another sweep of the wall and stopped. Its crew pulled it out of sight.

Marcus hurried into the operations center. He found The Doctor lying on the cot, suturing his own wounds as sweat beaded on his face.

“How bad is it?” he asked Marcus.

“I was about to ask the same thing.”

“No internal injuries as far as I can tell. I’ll be fine. The firing has stopped. What happened?”

“Please tell me you’re using local anesthetic,” Marcus said, looking with worry at the bloody mass in The Doctor’s midsection.

“Of course I am, now answer my fucking question!” The Doctor barked.

“We pushed them back. Lots of casualties on both sides. There were more of the Righteous Horde on the inside besides the guy that got you. They almost opened the gate.”

The Doctor finished suturing the wound and reached for the gauze and surgical tape.

“I’ll get that, you lie back,” Marcus said.

He applied the bandage. The Doctor lay unmoving on the bed, utterly exhausted.

“I’ll go find Ahmed,” Marcus said.

“I don’t want that turncoat touching me,” The Doctor whispered.

“Oh, come on—”

“He defied me!” The Doctor said, a bit of his strength coming back.

“Just lie there. You’re down for the count. I’ll go clean up the mess outside.”

He emerged from the operations center to find Clyde doing that very thing. The Head of the Watch was directing citizens to clear the bodies and take the wounded to the treatment station.

“I thought you got hit,” Marcus said.

“Got the Kevlar. Knocked me on my ass and might have cracked a rib but I’m OK. How’s The Doctor?”

“Alive and he’ll stay that way.”

“Get down and fix those people down there,” Clyde gestured at the gate. The Merchants Association was still guarding the gate and glowering at the scavengers, who glowered back. Guns were leveled on both sides.

Marcus hobbled down the stairs, every step a jab of pain, and made his way to the gate, where he stood in between the two groups.

“These assholes gunned down some of our own!” one of the scavengers told him, pointing an angry finger at the men arrayed around the gate.

“We killed a bunch of spies,” one of the Merchants Association shouted back, “and who knows how many more there are. They killed The Doctor!”

Marcus raised his hands. “All right, all right, hold on! The Doctor’s fine. He only got a graze. Everything went to hell when he got shot and nobody’s to blame but those crazies out there. And they’re still out there so the last thing we need to do is have a standoff inside our own gate.”

“We ain’t moving,” one of the men of the Merchants Association said.

Marcus turned to him. “Nobody asked you to. But we need more men on the wall so half of you are going up there.”

“And leave the gate vulnerable to this group of thieves? Hell no.”

Marcus walked up to the man who spoke. Dave Boeri, son of a big landowner. Always was a snotty kid.

“I told you to get on the wall,” Marcus growled.

“I take orders from Abe.”

“And where is he?”

“Guarding our compound.”

“Hiding like a baby, more like, now get up on that wall.”

“Abe is my boss.”

Marcus slapped him. “And I’m your acting mayor. Get your ass moving.”

Boeri stared at him in shock. After a moment’s hesitation he and a few others turned and went up the stairs.

I can’t believe I did that. Hell, I can’t believe that worked.

Marcus addressed the crowd of scavengers. “This is over. We have a city to defend. All of you set up a firing line a bit further back. If they make it over the wall again and kill the defenders, you can fire from there. Also, form three groups of ten people each to guard the shore. We got plenty of razor wire along but that doesn’t mean they won’t try and swim over and cut it. If they wiped out the village in Toxic Bay that means they got boats. We need to cover those areas. Also collect all the weapons and share ammo. Let no one run short.”

He turned back to the wall and waved to get Clyde’s attention.

“What’s happening out there?” Marcus called to him.

“They’re hanging back,” Clyde called back. “They’ll think twice about charging us again.”

Everyone cheered except Marcus.

They’ll come again, Marcus thought.

The cheer rose to a roar as The Doctor appeared at the doorway to the operations center. He looked pale but stood erect, holding onto the doorframe and raising a fist above his head.

This time Marcus did cheer. The man had a fatal disease, hadn’t eaten properly in weeks, just got shot, was pumped full of painkillers, and he was still a leader. Marcus thanked God the cultist hadn’t been a better shot. There was no way he could fill The Doctor’s shoes.

“Did you see him blowing away those bastards?” a scavenger nearby shouted. “Emptied a whole pistol right into the crowd.”

“I was next to him when he did it,” Marcus told him. “Got one with every shot.”

“One with every shot?” the scavenger said in wonder. “Hey everybody, you hear that? One with every shot!”

Marcus smiled. A little fib was forgivable at a time like this. He looked back up at the catwalk and saw Clyde ushering The Doctor back inside. The dead and wounded had been carried away, and the dead cultists had been chucked over the edge to lie with their own kind. A haze of foul-smelling smoke hung over everything but no thick columns rose up from outside the walls. Roy’s clever idea had burnt itself out. He wished the bartender had had time to brew some more.

Everything looked OK here for the moment. He needed to make the rounds and see how the rest of the city was doing. Wincing at every step, he headed to the Merchants Association compound first.

He found it well guarded. Hobbling up to one of the barbed wire and sandbag barricades that blocked a space between two buildings, he was greeted with a suspicious look from the civilian posted there. Angela Mackey, one of big landladies of the Burbs, not that she lived there. He was beginning to notice just how much these people controlled.

“Where’s Abe?” he demanded.

Angela looked down at the gun in his hand.

“You’re lucky I know you,” she said. “Lots of strangers in town right now and I got orders to shoot anyone who comes close.”

“Yeah, I’ve already seen the results of your orders. Go get Abe.”

Abe made him wait. After a few minutes Marcus got tired of waiting.

“I got things to do,” he told Angela.

“Abe’s very busy right now.”

“Heck with this,” Marcus grumbled. He tucked the revolver in his belt and started climbing the barricade, careful to avoid the razor wire.

“Hey! You can’t come in here.”

“I’m acting mayor and I’ll do what I like.”

Abe’s arrogant voice cut into their argument. “You sound like an ornery old man. Careful on there, you’ll rip your trousers.”

Marcus realized he must look ridiculous straddling a barricade and shouting at a woman young enough to be his daughter. He scowled at Abe, who stood outside one of the houses with a casual air.

“We nearly lost the battle because of you,” Marcus snapped as he eased himself over the rest of the barricade.

“From I hear we saved you.”

“And killed off a lot of innocent people!”

Abe shook his head, his mouth upturned in a sardonic smile. “Scavengers, Marcus, just scavengers.”

“The Righteous Horde is getting ready for another attack,” Marcus shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. “It’s every citizen’s responsibility to help in New City’s defense, and here you are hiding in your houses. You’re endangering the entire community. If you don’t come with me right now I’ll see to it that you are all stripped of your citizenship.”

Marcus started climbing back over the barricade. Abe laughed.

“Oh, open it up for him,” Abe told Angela.

The woman pulled aside a section of steel fence. Marcus hopped down, was treated to a twinge from his sciatica, and walked out.

He wheeled about and glared at the men and women of the Merchants Association. “Come with me now or you’ll all lose your citizenship.”

Abe let out a mocking laugh and shook his head. “Really Marcus, all of us? You’d let New City lose all those food stores, all those weapons, all that farmland? No. You need us. But expulsion isn’t a half-bad idea. We could always create our own settlement. . .”

Marcus looked him in the eye. “This isn’t over.”

He continued his rounds and passed a young girl who should have been hiding at home. Probably a scavenger kid with no home to hide in. He sent her to ask Clyde for an update. Marcus found the scavengers had set up patrols by the water on all three sides of the peninsula. There was no movement out on the cove but small groups of cultists were stationed every few hundred yards along the shore as far as he could see in either direction. He hobbled over to the warehouse and found Ahmed and a couple of medics elbow deep in blood. Dozens of wounded men and women lay on the floor, some past all help.

“Doc got hit,” Marcus told him.

“Yeah I heard,” Ahmed said, not looking up from the tourniquet he was wrapping around a man’s nearly severed arm. “Is he alive?”

“He patched himself up but you should look at him.”

“When I have time,” Ahmed said, still focused on his work.

Marcus stood and looked at him for a moment. When the nurse said nothing more, Marcus turned and left.

The girl met him at the door.

“Clyde says the Righteous Horde is still hiding in the Burbs. Looks like they’re aren’t planning to attack anytime soon.”

“Good,” Marcus said, giving her an affectionate pat. Blood smeared on her blonde hair. Marcus blinked and stared, then shuffled away.

He should get back to the wall, get back to Doc, but first he had to check on Rosie and the kids.

Someone else’s kids, Marcus reminded himself.

As he approached his house Rosie burst out the front door and gave him a big hug. The barrel of the rifle strapped to her back clonked him on the forehead. He didn’t care. He gave her a big squeeze and smiled.

“Thank God you’re alive!” Rosie said. “The firing sounded so terrible.”

“It was bad but we made it through OK. There will be more. How’s everything here?”

Rosie’s face fell.

“What’s the matter?” Marcus asked.

“Pablo didn’t get out of bed this morning. It’s that flu that’s going around. He’s burning up. He can’t eat; he can hardly even talk.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“You little son of a bitch.”

Mitch glared at Jackson from where he knelt on the ground. Jackson kept a bead on him.

“Drop that rifle,” Jackson ordered. “And your AK too.”

Mitch’s eyes narrowed. Jackson slowly shook his head.

“Don’t try it, you won’t make it.”

Mitch grimaced. “Nah, I guess I wouldn’t. You were smart not to try and take me in a fair fight.”

“I would have lost,” Jackson conceded. “Drop those guns.”

Mitch did as he was told. Both weapons clattered to the ground. He stood up. Jackson kept his rifle trained at Mitch’s heart.

“The ammo too.”

Mitch grumbled something under his breath and emptied his pockets of the ammo he’d looted from the cultists. He stood and faced Jackson.

“Now what, Blamer?”

“You were going to use Radio Hope for your personal gain. I don’t know what you were planning. Rob them? Threaten to reveal their location unless they gave you whatever Abe wants? It doesn’t matter. You are a class traitor, a traitor to all humanity. For the good of society you must die.”

Mitch’s face went through a rapid transformation. His hard look collapsed into one of abject panic, but quickly reassembled itself into defiance. If Jackson had blinked he would have missed it.

Jackson’s rifle lowered an inch.

“So you’re going to do it just like that?” Mitch asked, unable to keep a shrill note out of his voice. “Gun me down like some tweaker that’s gone on a rampage?”

“I’ll say you got killed by the cultists. I’ll give your stuff to whoever you want except Abe. You got family? A girlfriend maybe?”

That concession didn’t assuage the twisting in Jackson’s chest like he had hoped it would.

The corners of Mitch’s mouth fell. “Nah, I don’t have anyone.”

Get this done, Jackson told himself.

He aimed for Mitch’s heart. His finger started squeezing the trigger, then froze.

For the second time that day Jackson found himself unable to do something he thought necessary. He could no more move his finger another half inch than he could move across that broken bridge.

Jackson lowered his rifle.

“Go on,” he jerked his head in the direction of the road. “Get out of here. Go back to New City and make up whatever story you want. Just get out of here.”

Mitch looked at him wide-eyed, and then without a word ran down the valley toward the road.

Jackson let out a deep sigh and watched him go.

What would Father have thought of me letting a class traitor go? Well, Father’s dead, as are thousands of other revolutionaries and the people they killed. No good ever came from their deaths.

No good is going to come from leaving Mitch alive, either.

Jackson picked up the two firearms and slung them over his back. The second rifle was superfluous, the AK-47 was empty, and the extra weight would make walking uncomfortable, but no one left useable weapons behind in the wildlands. He walked along the stream, making sure to leave tracks before getting out of sight around a turn in the valley. He settled behind a rock and waited.

If he follows me, I’ll shoot him, Jackson tried to convince himself.

After about ten minutes without Mitch showing up, Jackson went back down the valley. Abe’s flunky was nowhere to be seen.

“Not as dumb as he seems,” Jackson muttered.

He looked around. How to get to the right valley? He didn’t want to return to the highway and retrace his steps. He might meet the cultists again. They’d probably head back to the road once they realized they weren’t surrounded anymore. That would be bad news for Mitch. At least his death wouldn’t be on his conscience.

Their presence brought up some troubling possibilities. If they were scouts coming ahead of the Righteous Horde that would mean thousands of people would be passing within a mile of Radio Hope. Wait, no, passing twice. They could never get an army over that bridge. And once they turned back, they’d be getting worried about food and would send out foraging parties to either side. What if they found Radio Hope? What if they found him? He had to stay away from the road.

But this mountainside was riven with countless little streams that cut a maze of valleys along its slopes. Just trying to get a couple of valleys over risked getting him lost. But what else to do? Shaking his head in resignation, he turned in what he hoped was the right direction.

He didn’t get far. A shout rang out across the mountainside.

“Hold it right there or we’ll blow you away.”

Jackson froze. The cultists appeared from a nearby ridge. Two kept their rifles trained on him as the others moved forward.

Jackson looked around for nearby cover and found none. He was a sitting duck. He cursed himself for being so unaware. Misery weighed him down like a heavy stone as he realized that again and again on this trip he had shown that he wasn’t cut out to be a fighting man.

“Drop your rifle!” one of the approaching men ordered.

Jackson did as he was told.

“And the spares too!”

He let his newly won prizes clatter to the ground.

The cultists drew closer. Jackson counted only five. One lagged behind, clutching a bleeding shoulder. Jackson felt grim satisfaction to see how few were left of the dozen they had met on the bridge.

“Brett, why aren’t we ridding the land of this tainted one?” one asked another.

Brett walked a little ahead. He had the best rifle and an air of command.

“He ain’t tainted as far as I can see, and I got some questions for him first,” Brett replied.

“He’s a scout for New City, what else do we need to know? They are enemies of the faith and need to be cleansed from the land.”

“Shut up,” Brett snapped. He gestured his weapon at Jackson. “You, what are you doing here?”

“Scouting for New City, like the man says,” Jackson replied.

Brett shook his head. “Naw, there’s something more going on here. You were on the bridge. I recognize you from that gray coat. Your friends left you and then you came after them, but by then they’d split up.”

“I froze on the bridge, too high,” Jackson admitted, shame washing over him.

“If you had faith you would fear nothing,” said the man with the shoulder wound, his eyes wild.

Bet you fear bleeding to death, Jackson thought.

He held his tongue. Life was too sweet.

Brett narrowed his eyes, “Maybe you did freeze, but why did your friends split up? And why did you come after them? We kinda forgot about you. Figured you had run away. When you came up behind us, we thought you were another patrol. Gave us a scare.”

“I thought the faithful weren’t scared of anything,” Jackson couldn’t help saying.

“Watch it. Now I want some answers. You saved your friend and now I see you got his AK. We didn’t kill him, so how did you end up with his gun?”

“But you did kill him. You got him with your last shot. He bled out,” Jackson said, giving a significant glance at the wounded zealot. The man paled.

Brett shook his head. “Naw. You iced him, or at least disarmed him. You marched all the way here with that guy and did that. Why?”

He jabbed the barrel of his gun into Jackson’s belly to emphasize his question.

“He left me on the bridge,” Jackson said.

Brett snorted. “Then why save him?”

Jackson had no response to that. One of the other cultists retrieved his guns while another patted him down and took his pack. He pulled the clasp knife out of his pocket.

“Hey, this was Aaron’s!”

“So?” Brett asked. “Who doesn’t loot a body in the wildlands?”

Jackson cocked his head and studied the scout party’s leader.

“You were a scavenger before you joined the Righteous Horde, weren’t you?” he asked.

Brett appeared surprised by the question. “Yeah.”

“Why did you join?” Jackson was curious, but he had another reason for turning around the conversation. If he was asking the questions, he wasn’t the one being asked.

“I joined to purify the land and herald a new day for man,” Brett recited.

“And get as much pussy as he can grab!” one of the other cultists laughed.

Brett turned to him. “I’m just as faithful as anyone!”

Jackson wasn’t convinced. The others didn’t look convinced either. The wounded man raised his eyes heavenward.

“An avenging Lord will smite the unbelievers and all those who pretend to believe but have impurity in their hearts.”

“Shut up,” Brett told him a second time. He turned to Jackson and gestured with his rifle. “Back to you. What are you looking for up here?”

“We’re scouts from New City, seeing if you guys were coming through this pass,” Jackson repeated.

Once again Brett shook his head. “Naw. You would have pulled back as soon as you saw us and gone home to warn everyone. You’re up here looking for something.”

“We had orders to wipe out any patrols.”

Brett cocked his head. “What’s that on your face?”

Jackson self-consciously touched the brand on his cheek.

“Something a bandit did to me,” Jackson lied.

One of the other cultists spoke up. “No, I’ve seen those a couple of times when I’ve been to the Burbs to trade, back before I joined up. It’s a brand they put on Blamers.”

“Blamers?” Brett asked.

“They have a law against saying whose fault the wars were,” the cultist told him.

The patrol leader studied Jackson with renewed interest. “So who did you blame?”

“The rich,” Jackson said. “All those who profited from the wars and the pollution and the oppression of the working class. They’re the reason for all this.”

“Greed is a form of impurity,” the wounded man nodded.

Brett glanced at him and turned back to Jackson. “Whatever. Now let’s get back to the point. Why are you here?”

“I told you,” Jackson said, exasperated.

Brett slung his rifle and pulled out a Bowie knife. Jackson’s heart turned to ice.

“Now I could start cutting you to get the answer and I’d probably get it, but it would take time and your screams might attract your friends, or your enemies, or whoever the hell they are.”

“Do not use tainted words!” the wounded man exclaimed.

Brett turned to him. “Shut. Up.”

Turning back to Jackson, he continued. “Besides, if I start cutting, you’ll probably give me some bullshit you think I want to hear. I’m good at this. I can cut through the bullshit, and I do mean cut, but it takes time. So I ain’t gonna cut you, not yet. We’re going to walk the way you were walking and see what we come to.”

They started down the valley Jackson had been headed into. The wounded man lagged behind. His wound leaked blood in a steady trickle through the man’s fingers. His entire right side was soaked in blood and he was growing paler by the minute.

“Aren’t you going to patch your friend up? I think that bullet hit an artery.” Jackson asked. That might buy some time, although time for what he had no idea.

“The Lord decides who lives and dies,” the wounded man said.

Brett wore a tight little smile as he said, “You are a good man, Graham, and the Lord will reward you. I am still a sinner, it is true, and I must continue in the path of the Righteous Horde through many trials to have the Lord smile the same upon me as he does upon you.”

He hadn’t turned around, and the wounded man didn’t see his smile.

“I pray for your true purification, brother,” Graham said in all faith.

A couple of his companions shot him worried looks but said nothing.

Lunatics,Jackson thought.Absolute fucking lunatics.

A prick in his side woke Jackson from his thoughts. Brett was beside him, the Bowie knife in his hand. There was a drop of blood on the tip. Jackson rubbed his side and shifted away.

“Don’t suppose you’ll tell us where we’re headed?” Brett asked.

Jackson said nothing.

“I’ll take out that tongue if it doesn’t get moving soon,” Brett grinned, brandishing the knife. He motioned to the others. “Let’s hump up that ridge and see what we can see. Graham, you can rest here.”

“Call me if I am needed,” Graham said, sitting down hard on a rock. He swayed a moment before righting himself.

They skittered up the gravelly slope.

“If you call out—” Brett began. Jackson cut him off.

“You’ll kill me. Yeah, yeah.”

Jackson was getting sick of this whole thing. After all those failures he was ready to die.

“Naw, I won’t kill you. I’ll cut out your tongue, blind you, and leave you here,” Brett finished.

When they got to the top of the ridge Brett told everyone to keep low. They crouched on the ground. Jackson looked around nervously. He saw no sign of anyone.

Jackson tensed. Looking past Brett, he could see a radio mast in the distance. He immediately looked away.

Shit, Think of something.

“I was going that way,” Jackson said, pointing away from the transmitter. “Promise not to kill me and I’ll lead you to it.”

Brett studied him. “Lead us to what?”

Glad for the excuse to turn back in Brett’s direction, he glanced over the cultist’s shoulder. The transmitter looked damaged.

That didn’t make sense. Hadn’t Ha-Ram detected a signal just this morning?

Jackson looked away before Brett got suspicious. “An old weapons cache one of the citizens found. Stuff was too technical for him to activate, so we came up here.”

“You’re technicians? That might be handy,” one of the cultists said.

Jackson’s muscles eased a little. He might just have bought himself more time. But the question remained, time for what?

“So what are these systems you’re talking about?” Brett asked.

Jackson shrugged. “Not sure. The citizen was vague. Didn’t know what he was looking at. Looked in pristine condition, though. Hidden in a cave. That’s why we’re here.”

“There’s caves all over these mountains. I been through here a bunch of times,” one of the cultists nodded.

Jackson felt Brett’s eyes on him, sizing up the options. He could almost hear Brett’s thinking, the typical line of thought of some lackey trying to climb the ladder of an organization he only cares about for the personal gain it can give him. Finding something in the mountains to impress his leader would give Brett better standing in the Righteous Horde, and a bigger share of the plunder, which was what he was really after. Brett was probably thinking that Jackson wasn’t telling the whole truth, that this may be a wild goose chase to buy time. On the other hand, he needed to catch the other three scouts from New City and check if there were more. He also probably figured that Jackson didn’t know where the others were and so couldn’t deliberately lead them in the wrong direction. He had little to lose following Jackson, and potentially a lot to gain.

“All right,” Brett said, pricking Jackson in the side with his knife again. “Let’s go, and you better be telling the truth.”

Brett turned and waved to Graham to come up. The man sat staring at them a moment and then toppled over.

Two of the cultists hurried down to him. The fourth man stayed crouching at Jackson’s side, his rifle at the ready. Brett gave him an appreciative nod.

Jackson’s mind raced. This was probably the last time he’d only have two of them around. But what to do? He couldn’t run, and even if he could overpower Brett and this other guy the remaining two could shoot up the slope at him. No, there was no chance. The only thing he could do to make good was to lead them away from the transmitter. They’d eventually kill him, but at least the Righteous Horde may never learn Radio Hope’s secret.

The two cultists kneeled down next to Graham and turned him over. Both took off their hats. They raised their hands and faces to the sky in supplication and started a prayer Jackson couldn’t hear.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, come on,” Brett whispered.

“Let them,” the other cultist said in a low voice. “It only takes a minute. It’ll make them feel better.”

Brett turned and scanned the surrounding area. Jackson tensed, ready to pounce if Brett saw anything, but his gaze passed right over the distant tower without resting on it.

The two finished their prayer. One took Graham’s gun and ammo. The other grabbed the bedroll and rummaged around his pockets. Then he pulled Graham’s boots off and exchanged them for his cracked pair.

Brett gave out an impatient sigh. Once the other two had rejoined them they set out. Jackson breathed easier once they got out of sight of the transmitter.

They scrambled down the back of the ridge and into the next valley. Some low hills hid the transmitter from view. Jackson ached to run in that direction, to finally see the station and meet the people he had always dreamed about.

He knew he couldn’t. That place was forever closed to him. He had to keep it closed to his captors as well.

The next valley lay broad and open. Jackson kept casting nervous glances to his right, worried the transmitter would come into view again. He bit his lip as they proceeded on and the hills opened up. Soon the transmitter stood in full view, closer than before. They must have turned a bit without his noticing.

Jackson hurried his pace.

“It’s this way,” he pointed, trying to urge the others on.

“Hey, what’s that?” one of the cultists said.

Jackson gritted his teeth. He forced himself to turn around. The man was pointing toward the transmitter, now clearly visible less than a mile away.

“Is that it?” Brett asked.

Jackson shook his head. “No, it’s this way. That must have been a substation to the old base. The citizen said there’s nothing there.”

Jackson could hear how lame and nervous the words sounded.

Brett’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s go take a look anyhow.”

“It’s busted, you can see!” Jackson said.

Brett jabbed him in the back with the Bowie knife. “Move.”

Reluctantly Jackson turned and led four heavily armed members of the Righteous Horde toward Radio Hope.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Annette stared in shock at the newcomer. He stood waist high in the camouflaged pit that they had passed right by without suspecting it was there. The white, smiling mask unnerved her almost as much as the M16 the figure held.

“Drop your weapons,” he ordered. At least Annette thought it was a he. The mask muffled the voice and made it hard to tell.

Slowly Annette set her shotgun down on the ground and eased off her pack and rifle case.

“State your business,” the muffled voice demanded.

Annette and Ha-Ram looked at each other. Before they could answer, the sound of running feet made them turn to the transmitter. Three more figures hurried down the valley, all wearing loose clothing, hooded sweatshirts, and identical masks to the sentry who had surprised them. One was heavyset and moved like an older man. One had the curves of a woman. It was difficult to tell anything about the third.

They came up to Annette and Ha-Ram, the heavyset one panting a little. Each had a sidearm and nothing more.

“Who are you?” the heavyset man asked once he had caught his breath.

“I’m Annette Cruz and this is Ha-Ram Lee. We’re from New City. Have you heard of it?”

“Of course. How did you find us and why are you here?”

“We were scouting to see if the Righteous Horde was coming through this pass,” Ha-Ram said. “You got to watch out. They’re a new cult that’s—”

“We know about them,” the heavyset man cut him off. “But if you’re scouting the pass, why are you up here?”

Ha-Ram glanced at Annette. When she said nothing he replied, “We were chased by one of their scouting parties.”

Annette gathered her courage. “That’s not entirely true. We were sent to scout, yes, but a citizen named Abraham Weissman had other reasons to send us. I didn’t know this when we started. Ha-Ram here, and another companion named Mitch Evans, were sent by Abe to find you. Ha-Ram has a radio wave finder that he used to track your signal.”

The four masked faces were impassive. The man with the M16 kept his gun pointing at Annette. She found being surrounded by smiling masks more unsettling than being at the wrong end of a gun. That, at least, was something she was used to.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Ha-Ram said, almost crying. “Abe made me. He has something on me and threatened to reveal it if I didn’t come back with your location.”

The heavyset man inclined his head. “He has something on you? And what would that be?”

Ha-Ram grew defiant. “None of your business.”

“You are at our mercy.”

Ha-Ram frowned and repeated, “None of your business.”

The heavyset man nodded. “Interesting. You think yourself weak but you can be strong.”

He turned to Annette and asked, “So why do you reveal yourselves to us?”

Annette let out a deep sigh. “I live in the Burbs, a crappy and dangerous settlement outside the walls. I agreed to come on this mission to get my son a safer place to live.”

“But when you found out the true nature of the mission you wanted out,” the sentry stated. “Just before I popped out of my shelter you pulled a gun on Ha-Ram here.”

“She didn’t want to betray you,” Ha-Ram said, “and I don’t want to betray you either. Let us go and we won’t tell anyone where you are. You can have the direction finder. It’s in my pack.”

“If only it were that simple,” the heavyset man said.

“We should kill them,” the masked woman said, drawing her automatic.

“Don’t be so hasty,” the heavyset man said. He turned to Ha-Ram. “Where is this Mitch fellow, the one who was in on the truth from the beginning.”

“He was acting as rearguard fighting off the cultists so we could get away. He was supposed to join us. I think maybe he got killed,” Ha-Ram said.

“I sent him the wrong direction,” Annette admitted. “There was a fourth member of our party, Jackson Andrews, but he got scared on that bridge and froze. He must be dead by now.”

The heavyset man took a step forward. His entire body spoke of surprise and interest.

“Jackson Andrews? A citizen of New City?” he asked.

Annette blinked. Did this guy know about Jackson? How?

“Um, yeah. Well, no actually. He was cast out two years ago for Blame.”

“Ah,” the heavyset man nodded. “And who did he blame?”

“It’s illegal to repeat his words,” Annette replied.

The heavyset man chuckled and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Following the laws of New City and not even a citizen, eh? You do want to get within those walls. Never mind, you don’t have to answer. I have a pretty good idea what that boy said.”

Annette and Ha-Ram exchanged glances. This guy really did know Jackson.

“His father is dead, yes?” he asked.

“Um, I think so,” Annette said.

The masked man dipped his head. “A pity, yet hardly unexpected.”

“What are we going to do with them?” the masked woman asked. She still held her automatic pointing at Annette and Ha-Ram.

Annette heard a sigh come out from behind the leader’s mask.

“We can’t risk anyone knowing the location of the transmitter. Yet I don’t relish killing in cold blood, nor hot blood for that matter.”

“I want to join you,” Ha-Ram said suddenly.

Four smiling masks turned to him. He looked at each of them, uncertain.

“I—I told you that Abe’s got something on me. He’s got me backed into a corner. I feel like a slave working for him.”

“Don’t you have family in New City?” the masked woman asked, lowering her pistol a little.

Ha-Ram’s face darkened. “Mom and Dad died years ago. My little brother got leukemia and died when he was six. My sister got kidnapped during a raid on one of the farms. They. . .they found her body weeks later.” Ha-Ram shook his head. “No, there’s nothing for me back there, even if New City is still standing.”

The heavyset man nodded. “It is. Radio New City is still transmitting intermittently. They’ve stopped their usual music and silly advertisements and are broadcasting to anyone who may be listening that they’re preparing to fight the Righteous Horde.”

Annette let out a big sigh of relief. Worry for her son was always in the back of her mind. At least he was all right for the moment.

“We can’t let him join us,” the fourth masked figure said, speaking for the first time. To Annette’s ear it sounded like a young man’s voice, but it was hard to tell. “This may be a trick.”

“Could be,” the sentry agreed.

“Look, I’m an operator at New City Radio. I know all about electronic engineering and hardware and everything,” Ha-Ram said.

The older masked man chuckled. “We have the best group of engineers we know of.”

“Then teach me!”

Annette could see he was desperate to join. She wondered what hold Abe could possibly have on him that would make him leave the safest spot in the region to join a group of people whose faces he hadn’t even seen. But she, too, felt drawn to these same people. Their voices over the airwaves and given her faith that goodness still existed in the wildlands, that there was a chance at a better future.

“I’m afraid it’s quite impossible.”

“I’m giving you the detector, I’m offering you my expertise, my labor. How often do you get volunteers like that?” Ha-Ram said, his tone demanding despite having two guns pointed his direction.

“The rare eccentric occasionally stumbles upon us.” The older man said.

The scavenger, Annette thought. The scavenger in the bar. I knew it.

The crack of a distant shot stopped the conversation. A bullet whined through the air nearby. Further down the valley five men came into view, all but one carrying rifles. The flare of a rifle was followed an instant later by the crack of the shot and another bullet sang through the air, much closer this time.

Everyone crouched on the ground. The sentry hunkered down in his shelter and aimed his M16. His three companions readied their pistols even though they were useless at this range.

“What’s going on over there?” the masked woman asked.

Annette squinted. Two of the distant figures were struggling. For a moment she was confused. Then she recognized Jackson. He was pummeling another man, one of the cultists.

“It’s Jackson, they have him prisoner!” she cried.

“Be careful not to hit him!” the heavyset man said.

The sentry took careful aim and fired. One of the figures twisted and fell. Another cultist fired back while the other two ganged up on Jackson, fists flailing.

Annette dove for her sniper’s rifle. She unzipped the case and pulled it out.

“Stop!” the woman said, pointing her pistol at Annette’s head.

Annette glanced between her and the fight going on further away. Now that it was two against one, Jackson was getting the worst of it. The sentry and the other cultist exchanged shots and missed.

She had to make a decision. Annette looked into the woman’s eyes, vague reflections hidden behind that strange mask, then turned her back on her. Hoping the woman would think before she acted, Annette snapped off the safety, opened up the bipod, and set the rifle down on the ground.

Lying prone behind the rifle, Annette tried to ignore the argument she could hear going on behind her, ignore the flare of the cultist’s rifle as he fired another shot, even ignored the sight of Jackson getting beaten and kicked.

She put her eye up to the eyepiece of the telescopic lens. The rifleman firing in their direction appeared close and crystal clear.

“Goodbye soldier,” she whispered, and squeezed the trigger.

The cultist’s chest erupted as the bullet tore straight through him. Annette ratcheted the bolt back, ejected the spent casing, and reached into her pocket for another bullet. She was vaguely aware of the sentry staring at her, his blank smiling mask somehow expressing astonishment. A part of her mind also told her that the argument behind her had ceased. Everyone in their group was silent, watching her.

She clicked another bullet into her weapon and looked through the scope again. Jackson lay on the ground, battered but alive. The two remaining cultists were running down the valley. One turned to fire.

“Not your fault, but you’re a threat,” Annette whispered, and took him out.

The last cultist disappeared around the bend just as Annette snapped another bullet into her gun. She grabbed her rifle and ran after him. The sentry followed her.

“He can’t get away,” the sentry said.

“He won’t,” Annette replied, not keeping her eyes off the point where the man had disappeared.

They made it to Jackson, who had picked himself up and grabbed a rifle. They didn’t stop and so he ran alongside them, giving the masked sentry curious glances.

“This way,” the masked man said, pointing to the crest of a low, conical hill. They ran up it, and at the top they just spotted their quarry running around a corner in a gully nearby.

“He’s headed for the road,” Jackson said.

They scrambled down a hill and around the same gully, risking that he might have set up an ambush. He hadn’t.

“We can cut him off if we go this way,” the sentry said, pointing to a nearby ridge.

Great, let’s run up another hill,Annette thought.One good thing about fighting in $87,953, you never had to run anywhere.

Annette almost smiled as she wondered if she was getting too old for all of this. Growing old had never seemed an option to her.

Don’t fool yourself. Inside the walls is the only place that’s going to happen.

Let’s get inside the walls then.

The huffed up the ridge, down its opposite slope, and up another hill. The view opened up and the road curved below them.

In the distance they could see him sprinting down the highway at full speed, his regular leaps over cracks and fissures in the pavement barely slowing him down.

“Your friend’s a hell of a runner,” Annette said.

“I fed him a line about us searching for a weapons cache,” Jackson wheezed, the words coming out between great gusts of air. Annette noticed his nose was bleeding and he was swelling out one hell of a black eye. “He’s in a hurry to get back to his master and get some scraps from the plate.”

“He’s going the wrong way,” Annette replied, setting up her rifle. “That’s the way back home.”

“Unless there are two columns,” Jackson said. “And the leader is with the other one.”

Annette caught her breath. She turned to the sentry.

“What did you say back there? That New City Radio broadcast they were getting ready to fight the Righteous Horde? Did they actually say they had spotted them?”

The masked man shook his head. “No, but that was two days ago. We’ve been on scout and too busy to check in.”

Scout? Check in? Aren’t you based here? Annette wondered. She didn’t bother to ask out loud. She knew she wouldn’t get an answer.

“Hurry up!” Jackson shouted, “He’s getting away.”

Annette looked out over the road. He was more than a kilometer away now, a little speck approaching the damaged bridge.

Annette set up the bipod.

“You talked to this one?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Jackson said curiously.

“Tell me about him.”

She had seen too much anonymous death. No one’s death should be anonymous, even this guy’s.

“He was the leader of the scouting mission. A real bandit. Bragged about all the women he was getting being part of the cult.”

Annette snorted and got into a prone position behind her weapon.

“Does he have a name?”

“Brett.”

Brett looked so much closer through the lens of the scope. Annette could see him panting, his chest heaving noiselessly as he stood partway across the bridge, looking back up the road to see if he was being pursued. He turned and hurried toward the center, then slowed to a careful walk. He slung his rifle on his back and spread out his arms, bending his legs slightly to lower his center of gravity.

“Can’t let you live Brett. Nothing personal, but you can’t take what I have.”

Annette let out a slow breath, her body still. The wind blew fairly hard over the bridge, coming at a slight angle from her vantage point. The crosshairs climbed up and to the right. Brett was halfway across now, right in the middle of the narrow section.

She squeezed the trigger. The report of the rifle slammed her ears.

There was a second of waiting as the bullet sped to its target.

Brett pitched off the bridge and plummeted into the canyon. Jackson buried his face in his hands.

Annette rose to her knees and looked out across the canyon, feeling empty. Killing was easy. The thinking that came afterwards, that was hard.

But she had an excuse not to think just now. This wasn’t over. She turned to the sentry. A white, smiling mask looked back at her.

“So where do we stand?” she asked.

“I think we can come to some sort of arrangement,” the sentry replied.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Pablo lay on sheets soaked with sweat, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling as Jessica cooled his forehead with a damp cloth. She looked at Marcus and Rosie standing in the doorway, her face mournful.

“He’s burning up,” she said.

Marcus turned to leave. “I’ll go get The Doctor.”

Rosie gripped his arm. “Ahmed’s already been here. Says there’s nothing to do but wait it out. I’ve been giving him willow bark tea for the fever but it’s not helping, nothing’s helping,” Rosie said, her eyes filling.

A lump rose in Marcus’ throat. He and his wife clutched each other as Jessica continued wiping Pablo’s brow. The boy let out a weak cry.

Marcus clutched his wife tighter. He knew what Rosie was thinking because he was thinking it too.

Dear God, don’t let us lose another child.

He tried to reason with himself that this wasn’t his child. This was a child of a stranger, a child from the Burbs. He’d seen Burb children die all the time from disease or beatings or getting caught in the crossfire.

Nothing he could tell himself convinced him. He’d played ball with Pablo. The kid had laughed at his jokes. And he knew—it was too obvious not to know—that for the past couple of days he had been reliving the time when he had his own children. After the briefest initial resistance he had fallen into the wonderful illusion that he had a family again.

He couldn’t accept losing Pablo, yet he knew that dozens of people died every flu season. Back in the Old Times there was a cure. These days you kept them cool, gave them willow bark tea, and prayed for the best. There was no cure these days.

Then he remembered—that blanket antiviral The Doctor traded for! Wouldn’t that work?

“What?” Rosie asked.

“Huh?”

“What’s that look about? You have an idea?” Rosie asked.

Yes, he had an idea, but no hope. How could he ask The Doctor for his medicine? He’d need it sooner or later.

Pablo needs it now, and there may be no later.

“What is it?” Rosie insisted.

“Nothing,” Marcus said, pulling away, “I got to get back on duty.”

He found The Doctor at the treatment station inside the warehouse. His face was drawn, pale, and he moved stiffly as he wrapped a bandage around a head wound. Ahmed treated a patient on the other side of the room. He and The Doctor had their backs to each other.

“You should be lying with the wounded, not treating them,” Marcus said.

The Doctor’s voice came out hoarse and ragged, “Too much work to do. I gave myself some stims.”

“You’re going to keel over if you keep this up.”

“Yes, mother. So what are you doing here?”

Marcus tried to get the words out and found that he couldn’t. Instead he caught himself doing some terrible mathematics. If Pablo didn’t get the medicine, he’d probably die. If The Doctor kept the medicine, it would save his life once but eventually his disease would kill him. If the Righteous Horde broke in here they’d kill The Doctor and all the other adult males. They’d spare the children and use them as slaves. So if he got the medicine to cure Pablo and the cult broke in, would he be doing the child a favor or not?

“I’m busy, Marcus,” The Doctor sighed.

“Um, just wanted to tell you I set up scavenger patrols to watch the water. Clyde’s got the situation on the wall under control. Abe is still holding out at his compound.”

The Doctor shook his head and put a heavy hand on Marcus’ shoulder. “I’ll deal with that rat bastard later. You better get back to the wall and see how Clyde’s doing.”

Marcus hesitated again. At last he left without saying anything.

Approaching the wall he saw Abe’s men still guarding the gate, their boots sunk into mud made up from the blood of their victims, both guilty and innocent. A pile of ladders lay nearby. Clyde stood on the wall overseeing the M60 crew as they tried to unjam their weapon.

“How did you get the ladders?” Marcus asked when he joined them. Most had been pushed over in the last fight.

Clyde grinned. “Hook on the end of a rope. Don’t expect it to delay them long. Soon as we got them up they started pulling boards off of houses. Hear that?”

Marcus listened. The sound of hammering came from the Burbs. He peeked though a gun port. Enemy riflemen looked back at him from windows and around corners. The machine gun and its protective mantlet had been pulled to the far end of town, where the mass of men with machetes and spears sat and rested. A group of riflemen stood nearby watching them.

“Got it,” one of the M60 crew said, yanking a cartridge out of the ejector.

“Strip it and clean it,” Clyde ordered. “Looks like we have the time.”

“What about our other machine gun, the D-whatever?” Marcus asked. How Clyde kept all these acronyms straight he’d never know.

“The DShK-4? Almost out. I only let them fire a couple of bursts to test that mantlet. If things get bad I’ll let them open up.”

“Don’t be stingy with the ammo. If it saves New City it’s worth using every last round.”

Clyde grinned. “Remember the early days when we had heaps of 12.7×108 mm? That beautiful machine saved us a dozen times over.”

Marcus nodded. That was back when the remnants of the old city-state militias still prowled the land, looking for loot now that their homes had been obliterated. Once about fifteen years ago they’d even been threatened by some bandits who claimed they were a division of a national army. What a sad, sad, joke that was.

“You think they’ll attack again today?” Marcus asked.

“From what that scavenger said they’ll have to. They might wait until nightfall, though. What’s happening with Abe?” Clyde lowered his voice as he asked this question. The Merchants Association members at the gate weren’t far off.

“I don’t know. Looks like he’ll protect his own and nothing else. He’s smart enough to realize that if the wall falls he’s a dead man, though. That’s why he sent this bunch. The thing is, he’s so scared the scavengers will rob him that he’s putting the whole city at risk.”

Clyde’s mouth made a grim line. “He’s not entirely wrong, you know. My patrols arrested a couple of guys breaking into a house not far from yours.”

Marcus slapped a palm to his forehead. “Oh great. That’s just super. What did you do?”

“Hunted up a couple of members of that so-called Burb Council and told them I wanted to shoot them. They didn’t object so I shot them.”

“That’s not going to help with goodwill.”

“Like it’ll make a difference after what these Merchants Association idiots did.”

Marcus sighed. “No, I guess not.”

“Get some rest,” Clyde said. “You’ll need it soon enough. Try and get The Doctor to get some rest too.”

“Yeah,” Marcus turned to step away and then stopped and thought a moment. He knew he couldn’t rest, not while that kid was dying in his spare bedroom. He looked at Clyde. He had never really liked him with all his middle-aged bravado and paranoia, but they’d been through it all together. Met as refugees when The Doctor first found this place and decided to start a new home after the last city-state had fallen. They’d built this place together, made countless hard decisions together, grew older together. Life doesn’t give you many people like that. Should he ask him?

He took Clyde by the arm and led him a little away from the M60 crew. In a whisper he unburdened himself on him, telling him about Pablo, about how he felt, and how the boy would die if he didn’t get that little vial from the Old Times that sat somewhere in The Doctor’s medical cabinet. Clyde listened without interruption, once waving away a guard who approached to ask a question, and took it all in without a word until Marcus finished.

“Damn,” Clyde said at last. “That’s tough. If you ask he’ll give it to you, you know that right?”

“Yeah,” Marcus nodded sadly. “That makes it tougher.”

“Sorry buddy, I don’t know what to say,” Clyde shook his head and raised a hand toward the machine gun and the dead bodies littering the base of the wall. “I’m better at this stuff. It’s a lot more clear-cut. All I can tell you is to do go with your heart.”

Marcus nodded and left. He felt better for having told someone even if it didn’t give him a good answer. Clyde had given the best answer he could—to follow his heart. The problem was, his heart was telling him two different things.

The Righteous Horde waited until dark to attack. They brought up the machine gun and raked the top of the wall. The weakened metal burst in dozens of places, sending citizens and associates tumbling off the catwalk. The men with the ladders came next, covered by the riflemen behind. Despite having taken all the enemy ladders earlier in the day, the defenders faced even more in the night.

Desperate, Clyde ordered the DShK-4 to hit the line of riflemen. The crew poured an steady fire down the line, mowing a third of the men down before the final heartrending click told Marcus that gun would not fire in this battle again. It was enough to break the enemy rifle line into confusion and give the defenders on the wall the chance to fire on the oncoming horde. For once the M60 didn’t jam and shot down entire swathes of the crowd. Roy and his assistants threw the last of their Molotov cocktails. The scene was lit in the garish yellows and reds.

The cult’s machine gun focused on the DShK-4, spattering bullets around their gun loop. The enemy crew’s accuracy was frightful and the citizens on that section of the wall fled for their lives and bullets punched through metal and panged off the machine gun.

It didn’t matter. The DShK-4 was out of ammo and the damage had already been done. The emboldened defenders savaged the crowd of half-starved men trying to scale the wall.

Still they came, scrambling up ladders and dodging the falling bodies of their comrades. A few made it to the top, hacking at arms holding guns, jabbing at faces peering over the wall. Clyde was everywhere, his M16 blazing as he emptied clip after clip into the crowd. Marcus moved about the wall too, calling up familiar scavengers to help in the fighting, and then hurrying down to the gate to keep the scavengers away from the gate when the pounding of a dozen hammers told them this was a danger point too. The Merchants Association guards at the gate looked as afraid of the scavengers there to help as they were of the cultists there to conquer. Marcus had to impose himself between the drawn guns of both sides to keep the peace.

The gate buckled in several places. Marcus hurried back up to the catwalk, ignoring the agony in his back, and got the M60 crew to move directly over the gate, tip their gun to point directly down over the men with the hammers, and fire into them.

The M60 took that moment to jam again. Almost weeping with frustration, the crew tossed the gun aside, pulled out sidearms, and exposed themselves to pump .22 and .38 rounds into crowd at the gate.

The enemy riflemen concentrated on the M60 crew and took out two despite their Kevlar, but once again the damage had been done. The men with the hammers fell back.

The whole assault started falling back. The riflemen fired into the crowd, their own people, and the mass of humanity moved back to the wall.

Clyde snapped another clip into his M16 looked at Marcus with wild eyes. “Both machine guns out, no more Molotov cocktails, we better hope these guys break soon.”

Everyone ducked as the enemy machine gun raked the top of the wall again. A hole sprouted in the metal barrier next to Clyde’s head and the bullet panged off his helmet. The Head of the Watch fell dazed into Marcus’ arms.

“Look!” a guard said, pointing toward town.

Marcus saw the muzzle flashes on the shore along two sides of the peninsula. He grabbed Clyde’s binoculars from the case on his belt and put them to his eyes.

Cultists on rafts made of planks of wood and corrugated iron were paddling along the water to both sides of the peninsula on which New City stood. They kept up a steady fire into the city while the scavenger patrols Marcus had set up returned fire. Men splashed into the water, boats bobbed along the current empty of their crews only to be replaced by more boats.

“These people are organized. They’ve taken half the Burbs apart,” Marcus moaned.

One cluster of boats was approaching shore, too close to his own home for his liking.

Clyde groaned and sat up.

“You OK to take command here?” Marcus asked him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, getting up with the help of one of the guards.

“Good,” Marcus said. He grabbed his rifle and headed down the steps just as the roar of the crowd outside told him they were making another charge.

Marcus couldn’t worry about that now. He had to check on Rosie and the kids, and find out what was happening with this new danger.

As he hurried toward the fighting he ran into a group of Merchants Association men headed the same direction.

“What are you doing out of hiding?” Marcus asked.

“Shooting looters,” one of them grinned, missing the sarcasm. “Now we’re going to beat off this attack.”

They arrived on the scene to find the scavengers were doing that just fine. The razor wire came right down to the water so when the boatmen got to the shore they found they didn’t have anywhere to land. They stood waist deep in the sea, hacking at the wire with machetes and a couple of rusty wire cutters while their companions on the boats tried to give them covering fire.

They made easy targets for the scavengers, who picked off the riflemen on the boats first, then slaughtered the men at the wire. By the time Marcus and the patrol got there it was almost over. Most of the rafts were emptied of their crews, the few survivors swimming madly away as the rest bobbed dead in the water or hung bloodied on the wire.

Marcus told the Merchants Association to check the other side of the peninsula, from which he could still hear firing, and without bothering to see if they did what they were told he hurried back home.

Rosie stood at the door with her rifle in her hand. Tears ran down her cheeks. Marcus stopped short.

“Is he. . .?” he couldn’t finish the question.

“He lost consciousness half an hour ago. Now his heartbeat is irregular.”

Marcus looked at his wife, then turned and sprinted for the warehouse. He didn’t even notice his sciatica anymore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

When they got back to the others, Jackson saw Ha-Ram handing over the radio direction finder to three masked figures. One of them, more heavyset than the rest, detached himself from the group and walked over to Jackson.

“She got him,” the sentry told his friend.

The other man nodded. Jackson thought it strange to see two nearly identically dressed men in identical masks talking to each other. It gave them a mirror-like quality that made the scene seem surreal. He supposed that was part of the point. The heavyset man put a hand on Jackson’s shoulder.

“Ha-Ram here tells me you didn’t know any more than Annette about the true reason for your journey.”

Jackson tensed. It was weird feeling so familiar a gesture from a masked stranger.

“Once I figured it out I planned to stop them,” Jackson said.

Annette pointed at a Kalashnikov lying in a pile of weapons taken from the cultists.

“Isn’t that Mitch’s AK?” she asked.

Jackson nodded. “I disarmed him once I realized you led him in the wrong direction. Thank you for doing that. I should have trusted you earlier.”

“There’s been quite a bit of backstabbing in your little group,” the heavyset man said. His mask made it look like he was laughing at everything. “So where is he now?”

Jackson thought for a moment. “Well, the cultists didn’t get him. I figure he’s heading back to the city.”

Then a terrible thought came to him. He looked to Annette, who gave him a troubled look in return that said she was thinking the same thing.

“He needs to be stopped,” Jackson said. “He’ll tell Abe where the transmitter is. He doesn’t have the topo, but he knows the location close enough that it wouldn’t take long to find this radio station.”

“That won’t help,” Ha-Ram said, gesturing at the radio tower. “It’s a repeater. I couldn’t tell until I got close enough.”

“A repeater?” Jackson asked.

“It picks up a signal from somewhere else and boosts it. Radio Hope could be hundreds of miles away,” Ha-Ram explained.

The heavyset man tensed. “If you’re going to join us you need to learn when not to reveal what you know.”

“What!” Jackson and Annette exclaimed.

Ha-Ram grinned. “I managed to convince them.”

“How?” Annette asked.

“You’re joining them?” Jackson asked, trying to keep up with the conversation.

“That’s right,” Ha-Ram nodded. “Well, while this is a only a repeater, it wouldn’t be hard to find the original radio signal if you stood at this vantage point. And since I’m the only person in New City who knows how to make a radio direction finder. . .”

He turned and smiled at the members of Radio Hope. Their masks smiled back at him with frozen mouths.

The heavyset man still had his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. He gave Jackson a friendly squeeze.

“Tell me, how did old Casey Andrews end his days?”

“You knew him?” Jackson asked.

“Everyone from that time knew your father.”

“He died several years ago. He joined New City in the early days, when I was so young I don’t remember. He became a citizen but always fought for a better deal for the workingman. He was the one who established the idea of associate status, something The Doctor didn’t want. He got citizenship extended to more farmers too.”

“Sounds like he was true to the last.”

“He was. There’s still plenty of work left to be done, though. First thing is to stop Mitch.”

Jackson glanced at Annette, who looked decidedly unhappy.

“Try to reason with him,” Ha-Ram said.

Yeah right. Mitch is just like Brett, another lackey running to get approval from his master.

“Before you go I have a gift for The Doctor,” the heavyset man said. “Wait here.”

Jackson’s tension eased. So they really were going to get to leave. Ha-Ram had certainly helped with that, and his own and Annette’s actions had shown what side they were on. He looked at Annette with new appreciation. She just gave up a place within the walls for the sake of the greater good. That was hard for anyone to do, let alone someone with children.

The heavyset man and the woman walked away in the direction of the repeater tower and were soon out of sight. A few minutes later they returned. The leader carried a large case with red lettering and a logo Jackson immediately recognized.

“Medical supplies,” Jackson said as he took it.

“Give this to The Doctor. He’ll use it well. While he and your father didn’t always see eye to eye, he is a good man at heart.”

“A good man?” Jackson scoffed. “Have you noticed the brand on my cheek? That good man ordered it put there!”

The mask smiled back it him. Jackson felt an urge to punch it.

“You knew when you spoke out that such a thing would happen,” came the reply. “The Doctor was only bending to your will.”

Jackson blinked. The masked man went on. “You have marked yourself as a rebel, an outsider. It is people like you who often change society the most, whether for the better or worse depends on your choices, and your perspective.”

Jackson had no response to that. The medical pack had a strap, so he put it over his shoulder. He picked up Mitch’s Kalashnikov from the pile of weapons and two of the cultists’ rifles and ammo as well.

Might as well get something out of all this.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell us who you are or what your final intentions are,” Jackson said.

“Both those questions are answered well enough in our broadcasts,” the masked leader said.

Jackson shook his and Ha-Ram’s hand. Annette did the same.

“I guess this is goodbye,” Jackson said.

The technician nodded. “I may never see New City again, so best of luck to both of you. Tell Pablo I think he’d make a great radio man.”

Annette laughed, “He’ll love that.”

They walked away. After a few yards they turned and waved goodbye. Ha-Ram and the men and women from Radio Hope waved back before then turning and walking toward the repeater.

“I wonder how many of them there are,” Jackson said in a quiet voice.

“I wonder how many repeaters they have,” Annette replied.

That question sparked Jackson’s imagination. From what Ha-Ram had taught him on this trip, he knew that an AM radio signal could go hundreds of miles if it had enough power, and if a repeater could boost that signal hundreds of more miles, then Radio Hope’s base could be anywhere. They could be transmitting over the whole continent.

And their leader, or at least the leader of that scouting party. He had known Dad. His evasive response about everyone knowing Casey Jackson was just a dodge. From the way he talked it sounded like he actually knew him personally.

Jackson shook his head. There was no way of knowing now. Radio Hope wanted to stay secret, and that was for the best.

“I wonder what Abe had on Ha-Ram that made him willing to leave New City behind,” Annette said.

“Abe has his tentacles in everything,” Jackson said.

“He’s not going to honor our deal,” Annette said.

Jackson nodded sadly. “I know.”

Poor Olivia. She’ll be stuck in Toxic Bay. I’ll have to convince her to at least move to the Burbs. Assuming the Burbs are still there. I hope she got inside the walls. Abe promised. He’ll go back on that promise once we return empty-handed, but in the meantime if New City is safe then she’s safe.

Assuming she made it to New City. Assuming Abe wasn’t planning a double cross, refusing to see Olivia and ordering Mitch to gun me down and take my topo.

My topo!

Jackson stopped.

“Can I have my map back now?” he asked Annette.

She stopped and thought for a moment, then slid her shotgun out of its case and pointed it at him.

“Drop your guns, Blamer,” she said, glaring at him.

“You backstabbing piece of. . .”

“Drop them!”

Jackson did as he was told. He couldn’t believe it. How many times had he had guns pointed at him today?

A broad grin lit up Annette’s face. She reached into her shirt, pulled out the topo, and tossed it to Jackson.

“You need to learn to trust people more,” she laughed. “Come on, pick up those guns, we have a long trip ahead of us and the hard parts aren’t all over yet.”

They sure as hell weren’t. They got to the bridge in the late afternoon. Jackson had been dreading it every step. He couldn’t shake the image of Brett plummeting to his death.

“We can camp here for the night and try in the morning,” she offered with a sympathetic look.

Jackson shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t get any sleep. Let’s get this over with.”

Olivia is on the other side of that bridge,he told himself.And an approaching column of the Righteous Horde is on this side.

That was the last thought he allowed himself. Without hesitation he walked out onto the bridge, keeping his eyes on his feet until the way narrowed. Then he got on his belly and, focusing on the asphalt in front of his eyes, wormed his way forward.

Before he knew it the way opened up again. He was across the narrow point. He kept on his belly for several more yards before he had the guts to get on his feet again. Annette joined him.

“If it’s any consolation that scared the shit out of me too,” she said.

“I never thanked you for coming back to help me.”

“It’s all right,” Annette said, looking embarrassed.

They hurried down the road, making good time as it wound down the mountain pass. As they came around a corner Annette stopped short.

“What?” Jackson asked.

She pointed. Far below, he could make out a figure jogging along the road in the failing light. It was passing between two hills that blocked the view of the road and would only be visible for a minute.

Annette pulled out her sniper’s rifle and gazed through the scope.

“It’s him,” Annette said, her voice wavering.

I was dreading the bridge; she was dreading this, Jackson thought.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. We can find another way.”

Annette shook her head. “There is no other way. He’ll tell Abe where the repeater is.”

“But they don’t have a direction finder.”

“If Ha-Ram could figure out how to make one, another technician could too. It’s only a matter of time. Besides, when he hears what we did, what do you think Abe will do to us?”

Jackson paused. He hadn’t thought of that. Abe was a power to be reckoned with. If he wanted to crush someone, he could. He had no shortage of thugs at his command. A staged bar fight could turn lethal and Annette could end up dead. He could disappear one night, or Olivia could.

“I’ll do it,” Jackson said.

Annette shook her head again. “You’ve never used this rifle. It’s tricky at this range and I only have two bullets left.”

She was in a prone position already, gazing down the sniper’s scope. She paused for a second, blinking, and wiped a tear from her eye.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The crack of the shot echoed through the pass, a forlorn sound in the silent mountains. Through the sniper scope she saw Mitch jerk, his hands and face raised to the sky. He took two more unsteady steps before he fell on his face and lay still.

That was murder,Annette told herself.It was necessary, it was the right thing to do, it kept Pablo and me safe, and it’s still murder.

She kept looking through the sniper’s scope. She didn’t want Jackson to see her face.

I hate the wildlands, and I hate that I’m so good at living in it.

She moved forward to the shade of a large rock and lay down again. She could still see the stretch of road but this spot was less exposed.

“Shouldn’t we get going?” Jackson asked.

“No, we’re going to wait.”

“Why?”

“Old wildlands trick. I want to see if anyone’s around. A scavenger won’t pass up the chance to see what’s in his backpack. If we wait long enough they’ll show themselves.”

“How can you be sure there’s anyone around?”

“I’m not. Just a feeling. Keep a lookout while I watch Mitch.”

They settled into silence and waiting. The sun sank low over the distant sea, turning a deep red before finally winking out under the horizon. Shadows fell over the land.

Annette watched the body of the man she had killed. Mitch Evans. An asshole basically, one of Abe’s crowd, but he had done nothing to her that could justify taking his life.

He would have, though. He would have told Abe about Radio Hope and that might have led to its eventual shutdown. She couldn’t have that.

She remembered when she was pregnant, back when she still wandered the wildlands. She and her lover and their group had settled in a little concrete garage next to the ruins of a motel. It was rainy season and they didn’t want to keep moving when she was so close to her time. They’d found a good spot, with a clean stream nearby and wild berries in abundance. They fashioned rabbit traps and scavenged through the debris of the motel and discussed names. Everyone ate better than they had in weeks and people were in good spirits.

One of the older women had a radio with a windup battery. Every night she’d crank it up and they’d listen to Radio Hope. Back then it was the only radio station on the air, and the only one they needed. They’d huddle all together to keep warm, buried under their blankets and coats, Annette leaning against her lover’s shoulder and rubbing her belly.

They listened, rapt with attention, as the announcers told them how to treat burns or fashion a slingshot to hunt squirrels with or how to make shoes. It didn’t really matter what the subject was, they’d listen as those calm, confident voices gave them information to help them survive. Those voices lulled them to sleep every night and wafted into their dreams, whispering advice and telling them everything could get better.

One night the voice of a woman came on. It was time for the medical show, but this wasn’t the woman who usually did that show. Her voice was different, older and more forthright.

“I’m taking over the show tonight because our medical announcer, while a fully trained doctor, has never had a child. I’ve had three and they’ve all grown up healthy. Tonight we’re going to learn how to deliver a baby. . .”

Her lover pulled out the stub of a pencil and a book Annette had scavenged and started writing everything down on the flyleaf. As he scribbled away she sat back and listened, thinking that mysterious woman on the other end of the airwaves was speaking directly to her.

The instructions were clear and simple enough for everyone to remember them and carry them out two weeks later as she lay on her back hyperventilating and grimacing in pain. Pablo was born in the wreckage of an old motel, alive thanks in part to a woman she had never met.

Or had she? Could that woman in the mask have been the very same person she heard ten years ago?

She looked again at Mitch’s prone form, now blending into the deepening shadows.

“Sorry, Mitch,” she whispered. “Nothing personal, but it’s bigger than you. Much bigger.”

Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Someone was scuttling out of the shadows, moving fast and low on his hands and knees. The person stopped, looking around like a startled rabbit. Annette caught a glimpse of white at the center of the person’s face. It looked like a bandage.

A bandage on his nose.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she whispered.

Jackson peered over her shoulder.

“Who is it?”

“That guy who was trading the receivers, the ones that pick up Radio Hope.”

“Coming back home?” Jackson asked.

Annette shrugged. Maybe.

The scavenger hunched over Mitch, the two figures becoming one in the dim light. After a few moments they became two again. The scavenger hurried away, Mitch’s backpack on his back. Through her sniper’s scope Annette could just make out the silhouette of Mitch’s binoculars swinging from the scavenger’s neck. He headed into the rocks and disappeared.

“Do you think we’ll run into him tomorrow?” Jackson asked.

“No, he’ll make sure of that.”

Annette’s prediction proved correct. They walked in silence all that day, the only person they saw being Mitch. They buried him under a cairn of stones and moved on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The makeshift hospital was a nightmare of blood and screaming. A pair of stretcher-bearers was just bringing in Kelly Blackwell, the city’s best plumber and one of Marcus’ good friends, with a gunshot through the jaw. Marcus ran past her and found The Doctor, who looked more dead than alive as he tied a tourniquet around a severed finger of the woman lying moaning on a blood-drenched blanket.

“Pablo’s dying!” he shouted.

The Doctor looked at him through bleary eyes.

“Huh?”

“Pablo, Annette Cruz’s kid. He’s staying with us and he’s dying of the flu,” Marcus said.

“Who? What?” The Doctor looked confused.

Marcus grabbed his friend by both shoulders.

“That blanket antiviral. I need it to save a child’s life.”

“Yeah,” The Doctor sighed. “Hand me that roll of gauze. It hurts to move.”

Marcus did as he asked.

“So I can have it?”

“What? The medicine? Yeah, it’s in my medical cabinet. Top shelf. Bring some stims too.”

Marcus was off like a shot. As he climbed the stairs, sweat dripping from him, he knew The Doctor had probably already forgotten the conversation. That man was going to collapse any minute. Did getting a yes from him in those circumstances even count? Well, it would have to count. And Clyde was right, The Doctor would have said yes not matter what his state of mind. That was the kind of man he was. That’s why his rule was undisputed by almost everyone.

Still, he felt bad railroading his friend. As he opened the medicine cabinet and found the precious vial he shoved those feelings aside. He could feel bad later, assuming any of them survived the night.

Grabbing the vial, a hypodermic needle, and the packet of stims, he hustled back downstairs. He dropped the stims into The Doctor’s lap without even stopping and ran to the other side of the room to get Ahmed.

“You need to come with me,” Marcus said as he hauled him to his feet.

“Why? What’s happened?” the nurse asked.

“Pablo needs and injection and I don’t trust myself to do it right.”

“Who’s Pablo?”

“Move!” he shouted, pulling him out the door and to his house.

Marcus waited only long enough to see Ahmed give Pablo the injection and then he was back out to the wall. The shots along both shores had died down but there was still a blaze of gunfire going on in that direction.

He arrived just in time to see it finish. The starving men with the ladders, reeling from terrible losses, ran back for the safety of the Burbs. The line of riflemen fired a few shots into the crowd to make them turn back, but couldn’t stem the tide. They soon retreated too.

The riflemen regrouped around the machine gun in the marketplace. Their leader was there, clearly visible in the dim light with his white robe and flowing beard, arms gesticulating as he gave a sermon. The men with the machetes and spears fanned out into the Burbs.

For the next few hours no attack came. Scattered gunfire crackled through the Burbs, though, once erupting into a crescendo near the marketplace.

“They got a mutiny on their hands,” Clyde said, peering through the darkness. “Should we send out a counterattack?”

“No,” Marcus replied. “We’ve lost enough people.”

Clyde looked relieved.

After a while Marcus excused himself and went back home. He found Jessica and Rosie sitting by Pablo’s bed. The boy was sleeping with a peaceful look on his face. For a moment Marcus stared at that face without speaking.

“His fever’s down already,” Rosie whispered. “Ahmed said he’ll be just fine by morning.”

“Remember when you could just walk into a pharmacy and buy that stuff?” Marcus said.

Jessica looked up, “Really?”

Marcus nodded sadly. “Way before your time. Almost before ours. You young folks don’t even realize how much we’ve lost. Doc and me and the rest of us are trying to get back to that.”

“Father says that’s why you need to be helped.”

Marcus studied her a moment. “I’ll need to talk to you about your father sometime.”

Then he sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was so tired. More than anything else he wanted to curl up beside Pablo and snore for the next twelve hours. But the night wasn’t over yet.

He trudged over to the warehouse. He hadn’t heard a gunshot for more than an hour. The citizens and scavengers slumped at their posts, resting but still vigilant. Older citizens moved along the line serving hot tea and bowls of stew.

Inside the warehouse the wounded and dying lay in miserable, groaning rows. A couple of assistant medics did what they could. The Doctor and Ahmed were nowhere to be seen.

“Where are they?” Marcus asked one of the medics.

“Upstairs,” the woman said, her eyes wide with fright. “The Doctor collapsed.”

All fatigue gone, Marcus shot up the stairs. He found The Doctor unconscious in his bed, Ahmed leaning over him listening to his heartbeat with a stethoscope.

The nurse looked up. He was crying.

“He fell unconscious half an hour ago. His heartbeat’s irregular and he has a fever. His immune system is wrecked, and with all the stims and stress and overwork he couldn’t take it. His bullet wound is getting infected. I’m treating that but I think he’s got the beginnings of that flu that’s going around. Even fully rested he probably couldn’t handle that.”

And I took the only medicine, Marcus thought.

“How long?” Marcus managed to say.

“A day, maybe two or three. There’s nothing I can do.”

Marcus knelt down by his friend and took his hand. He touched his brow and felt how hot it was.

Oh, please don’t die.

Please don’t leave me in charge.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Their march through the wildlands was uneventful. They made good time, anxious to get back and check on their loved ones. They had no radio and had no idea if New City still stood. Only when they approached the ruined city on Toxic Bay did they slow down and proceed carefully.

They didn’t need to. Scattered along the roads lay dozens of tweakers, shot in the head or hacked to pieces with machetes. Jackson’s heart raced. So it was true, the Righteous Horde was annihilating anyone they thought impure. He yearned to run through the city to the bay, shouting for Olivia, but caution held him back. For a tense two hours they crept from building to ruined building, on the lookout for the cult.

They saw no one. Could they have really killed off every tweaker? Jackson discarded the idea. There were too many, and there were a million places to hide in the ruins. No, the Righteous Horde had themselves a righteous slaughter and moved on to more important pickings.

Like New City, and Olivia’s village.

At last they crept down to the crumbling esplanade. Jackson squinted and studied the opposite shore. The village looked intact, yet he saw no movement.

Jackson pulled a white cloth out from his pack. Olivia had given it to him so he could signal for a boat. Frantically he waved it over his head for a good ten minutes. Then they settled down in the shelter of a building to wait.

To Jackson’s profound relief a dugout nosed its way out of the swamp. He wanted to leap into the water and swim out to meet it. They had barely made it within hailing distance when Jackson ran to the edge of the esplanade and called out.

“Is Olivia all right?”

“Yes,” came the reply. It was the same two boatmen who had taken them across the first time. “An advance party came on our village by surprise. We fought them off but lost a few people. Olivia wasn’t hurt. Then we headed out into the boats and waited until the siege was over.”

“How is New City?” Jackson asked.

“It got hit bad,” the boatman replied as he and his companion steered the dugout to the side of the esplanade. Annette and Jackson climbed aboard. “They fought off those bastards, though. Slaughtered them. Most of those cultists were half-starved. Only the leader’s bodyguard had guns. You know what he did? Took his guards and some of the women they had and ditched everyone else. The countryside on this side of the bay is thick with starving refugees. You got to watch yourself.”

Jackson only half listened. Olivia was all right. The rest of the world could take care of itself for a while.

She was waiting for him at the shore. He leapt out of the boat, not caring that his boots squelched in the toxic water, and hurried over to her.

They embraced for a long time. At last she pulled away and put a hand to his face.

“You’re hurt.”

“Oh, I just got my ass kicked by some of the Righteous Horde. We won, though.”

She looked around. “Where are the other two?”

“They got killed,” Jackson said. Annette looked away. “But what happened here? Why didn’t you go into New City?”

“I tried. That man you said was going to sponsor me wouldn’t even see me.”

“Damn it!” Jackson said. “I should have known he was going to double cross me.”

Which means he was going to have me killed.

Jackson exchanged glances with Annette. It looked like she understood too.

Feel better about Mitch?

Jackson kissed Olivia. “I have to go to New City. We have something to deliver. I’ll be back later.”

“Can’t I come?”

“Of course! Glad to see you’re getting over your fear of going over the hills.”

They set out arm in arm.

“The Burbs wouldn’t be so bad if you’re going to stay there,” Olivia said, smiling.

“Been doing some thinking I see,” Jackson said, giving her a squeeze. “Well, I’m going to trade my shack and these two rifles I got from the cult. That should be enough to get building material for a proper house for the both of us. I used to work construction with my father.”

As they walked to New City they twice passed patrols. One was made up of citizens and the other was under the command of something called the Burb Council.

“There have been some changes while we’ve been gone,” Jackson shook his head. “Maybe things are starting to move in the right direction.”

But at what cost? He thought a moment later.

They were rounding the cove and came upon a large funeral. A mass grave filled with bodies was being given last rites in several different faiths. They paused to pay their respects.

Passing through the Burbs they saw the wreckage left behind. Several houses had been partly dismantled and were now being rebuilt by their occupants. New City’s wall was pitted with dents and bullet holes. Jackson could see a work crew adding extra steel plates. When they came to the gate the guards barred Jackson from entering.

“You know you’re not welcome here, Blamer!”

Annette interceded.

“He has something that has to be delivered to The Doctor personally, let us in,” she said.

The guards face fell. “Well if you’ll vouch for him, Annette, I guess it’s OK, but you’re too late. The Doctor is dying.”

They hurried on through to the warehouse with one of the guards. After a brief consultation with another guard at the warehouse door, they were ushered inside and straight to The Doctor’s quarters.

They found him unconscious in bed, his face and hands pale and skeletal. Clyde, Marcus, and Ahmed stood around the bed. Ahmed had just finished taking The Doctor’s pulse and gently laid his hand back down on the blanket. He looked to Marcus and Clyde and shook his head.

They turned when they heard Jackson and Annette entering. Annette gave Marcus an anxious look and he nodded and said, “Pablo’s fine.”

Annette let out a sigh of relief.

“And him?” Jackson motioned to The Doctor.

“He’s dying,” Marcus said, frowning at him. “Who let you in?”

“We were given some medicine for The Doctor,” Jackson handed over the pack to Ahmed.

The nurse’s eyes widened. “Allah be praised! Where did you get this?”

“Um. . .”

Ahmed wasn’t even listening. He opened the pack and exclaimed again. “A full medical pack! Everything in place! This should be in a museum. No, this should be in his blood stream! Wait, what’s this? Blanket antivirals? White blood cell rejuvenators? All the latest. . .”

Ahmed looked at Jackson, stunned.

“This isn’t just your standard medical pack, that would be miracle enough. This has the very medicine he needs. This was tailor-made for him.”

Jackson and Annette looked at each other, mouths hanging open. Everyone knew that The Doctor was sick, but neither knew just what kind of illness he had.

Radio Hope knew, though.

Ahmed prepared a hypo and injected it into The Doctor’s arm.

“This was just what he needed. He’s pretty far gone but he’s a tough old guy. He may pull through. All we can do now is hope.”

“Yeah,” Jackson laughed. “Annette and I know a thing or two about hope.”

POSTSCRIPT

Annette sat at her usual spot at the corner of the bar at $87,953. It was early in the evening and the crowd was already getting raucous. The attack had disrupted the harvest trade fair but the scavengers seemed just a thirsty as ever.

And rowdy. She had already broken up one fight this shift. You’d think fighting a battle with the Righteous Horde would have calmed them down, but no. She kept one eye on the crowd and the other on a game of bottle cap football she was playing with Pablo. The kid’s aim was scary. Must have gotten it from his mother.

Just as he was about to make another shot he looked over her shoulder and his eyes grew big.

“Uncle Marcus!”

Pablo jumped off the bar stool and ran to the door. Marcus and Clyde were just entering. Pablo barreled into Marcus and he grinned.

“How’s it going?” he asked, tousling Pablo’s hair. They walked over to where Annette sat.

“How’s The Doctor?” she asked.

“On the mend, thanks to you,” Marcus said with a smile.

“Thanks to Jackson too,” Annette reminded him.

“Well, that’s what we came over to talk to you about. After everything calmed down a bit Jackson and I had a talk. He told me about Abe’s deal with you folks and how he didn’t honor it.”

“Well, we didn’t really honor it either,” Annette said, wondering just how much of the truth Jackson had told.

Marcus snorted. “You can break any deal you want with that guy after what he did during the siege.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. Why don’t you exile him?”

“Can’t. The whole Merchants Association threatened to leave and take all their goods with them. They own too much. New City can’t survive without them and they know it.” Marcus smiled and went on. “But we can dig him in the ribs a bit. First off, The Doctor is going to sponsor Jackson’s girl Olivia for associate status.”

“He’ll be happy to hear that. Not sure what he’s going to think about her being sponsored by The Doctor after, well, you know.”

Marcus shrugged. “I can’t figure out why he didn’t just have me sponsor her. I’d have been happy to. Pretty young girl growing up on Toxic Bay, it just isn’t right. Anyway, please pass on the news. And I got some bigger news for you.”

“What’s that?”

Clyde and Marcus looked at each other and grinned. Clyde cleared his throat and spoke.

“Well, we’re still in a state of emergency, which gives me and The Doctor special powers. That’s damn useful right now considering what a pain the Merchants Association is being. Anyway, after the battle we realized that things are changing between New City and the Burbs. We need to get some more order around here. You’ve been doing a great job keeping the peace in $87,953, so how about keeping the peace in the whole Burbs?”

Annette stared at the Head of the Watch. “What do you mean?”

Clyde turned to the crowd of drinkers and waved his hands in the air to attract their attention.

“Listen up everybody! I got some big news for you. You all know Annette Cruz. She’s been knocking heads here for years.”

Everyone laughed and raised their drinks. Annette blushed. These people actually liked her?

“She’s done more than that. On more than one occasion the city council has sent out posses after criminals, and she’s always been at the top of the list to go. Well, times are changing and the Burbs are developing, so if she agrees we’d like to make that role official. Annette, how would you like to be sheriff of the Burbs?”

Annette’s jaw dropped. The crowd roared its approval. She was so stunned she barely noticed Pablo pulling on her hand and telling her how cool that would be. Roy came from around the bar and gave her a big hug.

Marcus leaned in close. “The job comes with good pay and associate status of course. Citizenship for you and Pablo won’t be far behind.”

Annette looked down at her son, then back at Marcus.

“Then I accept.”

***

An hour later, Marcus visited The Doctor. He was still ill and stayed in bed most of the time, but his skin had taken on a healthier color, the flu and infection were both gone, and the medication suppressed the nausea he got when he ate. As Marcus came in he was just finishing up dinner.

“She said yes,” Marcus told him.

“Good,” The Doctor nodded. “If anyone can knock the Burbs into shape it’s her. And she’s got no love for Abe. Making her into a power will help curb some of his.”

“Maybe,” Marcus said.

The Doctor put aside his tray of food and reached over for the medical kit. He set it one his lap and looked at it, passing his hand lovingly over the logo emblazoned on its side.

“The Red Cross, Crescent, and Star,” Marcus said. “Your old outfit.”

The Doctor sighed. “It wasn’t really an outfit by the time I got trained. All the international organization had disappeared. It was just scattered groups of doctors in my day.”

“Trained you up good, though. I don’t know where we’d be without you.”

“I don’t know where I’d be without this case.”

“Heaven. If anyone gets in it’s you.”

The Doctor shook his head. “You know I don’t believe in all that.”

“Yeah, well there’s been a hell of a lot of people praying for you these past few weeks.”

The Doctor didn’t reply. He ran his hand over the case again.

“So do you believe Jackson’s story about meeting people from Radio Hope?” Marcus asked.

The Doctor shrugged. “Where else could they have gotten this? What amazes me is that not only is this a complete and apparently untouched medical kit, but that it has two year’s worth of my medication in it. It’s like this came out of one of the RCCS’s clinics.”

“A blast from the past!” Marcus laughed.

The Doctor looked down at the case, running his hand slowly over the logo.

“Or a note from an old friend,” he murmured.

***

Jackson Andrews couldn’t believe the Burb Council’s meeting was being held at $87,953. While he approved of it being at a public place so that everyone could join in, why did they have to pick a place owned by a citizen?

Even more, he wasn’t the only person to be voted onto the council today. He’d heard Ahmed would be voted in too. Imagine, a citizen on the Burb Council! Well, considering what he’d heard about him defying The Doctor during the siege and moving out to the Burbs in protest afterwards, he supposed the guy had earned it. Class loyalties ran deep, though, and Ahmed would need to be watched.

All those thoughts fell away as he entered the bar. He’d never been in here before. Back when he was a citizen he drank within the walls. After he was banished he never stepped foot in $87,953 because it was owned by a citizen.

He could see why it was so popular. The lights were on, music was blaring, and people were drinking and having a good time. He passed through the crowd and saw Ahmed and some of the members of the Burb Council already there. A moment later he spotted Annette sitting at the bar.

One of the Burb Council waved him over. “Come on, meeting’s starting soon.”

“In a minute,” he called back. “I’m going to have a drink with a friend first.”

He slid into the bar stool next to Annette. “Evening sheriff. Why the long face?”

Annette gave him a thin smile. “News travels fast.”

“Aren’t you happy with your promotion? I hear they gave you associate status.”

Not that associate status is going to have much meaning soon. The first thing I’m going to push for on the Burb Council is to get citizenship for everyone. No more of this bullshit ranking.

Roy slid two beers in front of them. “On the house.”

Annette stared into her drink. “Yeah, well, I guess it’s just hit me how much responsibility comes with the job.”

“Be your own woman. Just because the citizens put you in the job doesn’t mean they own you,” Jackson said, taking a pull from his glass.

Annette reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a long bullet.

“That from your sniper’s rifle?” Jackson asked.

Annette held it up to the light. “A .338 Lapua Magnum round. It’s the last one I have. I asked Clyde if he had any in the armory and he said he hasn’t seen any in years. Neither have I.”

“I don’t think you’re going to need a sniper’s rifle to keep the peace in the Burbs.”

“Actually I think I will,” Annette said, turning the bullet over in her hands. “You see, the Righteous Horde is beaten but not beat. You can’t give a self-proclaimed messiah a bloody nose and expect him to turn the other cheek. As long as he’s out there he’s going to want to gather another army and come back here. Nobody’s safe until he’s gone.”

Jackson sat back. “You’re not thinking of going after him? They didn’t ask you to, did they?”

Annette shrugged. “No, no they didn’t, but chasing fugitives is part of the job description. The Burbs won’t be safe until that guy’s brought to justice. No place will be safe. Want to be my deputy?”

“Oh shit! Roy, I need a shot. Give the lady one too.”

Roy came over with two shots.

“She shouldn’t get drunk on the job,” Roy said with a grin.

“Then I’ll have both,” Jackson said. “I think I’m about to say yes to a really, really dumb idea.”

Jackson slugged back both shots in rapid succession. Roy leaned against the bar and chuckled.

As the alcohol eased into him, Jackson took a look around.

“You now, this is a really nice place you got here. I should have come in here before.”

“The sign says ‘Roy loves everybody’. Bring that girl of yours next time. I’m always happy to meet new residents,” the bartender said.

Jackson smiled and looked at all the circles of friends drinking and enjoying life, having cheated death in this ruined, toxic world for one more day.

“Yeah, a real nice place,” he said again. “But I’ve always wondered about the name. Why do you call it $87,953?”

Annette rolled her eyes. “Oh, here we go. It’s his favorite story.”

Roy stood up straight and his smile broadened. “Well, if you add up $27,680 for the mortgage on my house, $45,280 I owed on my farmland, and $14,993 I owed a moneylender, that comes to $87,953. That’s how much I was in debt before the last city-state government fell. I was stressed out day and night thinking I’d never get out from under all that debt. Then BOOM. North Cape had a coup, then an invasion, and it was all over. I was a refugee and more free than I had ever been. I ended up here with the first wave of settlers. I farmed like the rest of them, but my real talent was brewing. Always has been. So I started a bar and named it $87,953.”

Jackson laughed. “Damn Roy, sounds like you’re a bit of a revolutionary.”

Roy smiled at him.

“In my own way, Jackson, in my own way.”

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Thanks for reading Radio Hope! In the next few pages you’ll find a sneak preview of Book Two of the Toxic World series as well as more information about me and my writing. If you enjoyed my work, please take the time to write a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or another online forum, and spread the word! As a relatively unknown author I could really use your help. Also feel free to drop me a line at seansontheweb@yahoo.com

Special sneak preview Book Two in the Toxic World series

REFUGEES FROM THE RIGHTEOUS HORDE

Coming May 2014!

CHAPTER ONE

Susanna Waites knew that if she didn’t get something to eat soon she would die.

She lay on hard, rocky ground that was almost devoid of vegetation. That meant there were toxins nearby, but she was too exhausted to move. It had been a week since they had attacked the city, a week since they had been repulsed and The Pure One had fled with his guards and a few of the women. The rest of the Righteous Horde had scattered.

Her hunger had already made her weak by that point. Consigned to the rearguard to carry a pack of blankets for the soldiers, blankets she didn’t get to use on the cold winter nights, she had been abandoned with the rest of the porters. The men with the machetes and spears, also abandoned for not being among the Elect, had taken the blankets for themselves. They had suffered the worst during the attack, losing half their numbers to gunfire and flames before finally retreating. Now they were mad with hunger and terror, sweeping through the desolate land attacking anyone who might have something to steal.

She had nothing worth stealing. No food, no coat, even her body wasn’t worth stealing. All her life men had reminded her that she was ugly. During the march she felt a certain smug relief that she hadn’t been chosen to “marry” one of the Elect. For once her looks had worked to her advantage. Now her stomach told her otherwise. The Elect’s victims at least got to eat.

Her stomach clenched and a wave of hunger passed over her. The march had taught her that hunger isn’t a constant nagging feeling. That may be the case for people who eat regularly, but when you haven’t eaten for a week, and ate rarely for two months before that, then hunger fades into the background, a tremulous weakness that withers the spirit but is only physically felt at sudden moments when it takes over your entire body and mind.

She pulled out a tuft of grass nearby and stuffed it in her mouth, tasting the metallic tang of toxins that came from this soil. Susanna rolled over so she could reach another tuft of grass. Forget cancer. She’d never get cancer if she didn’t live past this week.

The grass would never be enough. She needed to get somewhere closer to food. New City, the object of The Pure One’s ambition, lay two day’s march to the south. She couldn’t go there even if she had the strength. They’d shoot her on sight. The mountains, with their green slopes and rabbits, looked impossibly far to the east. The same held true for the sea to the west. And to the north lay nothing. Many of the machete men had headed that direction and surely had stripped it of anything edible.

Her vision only took in the far places, the places where there may be something to eat, the places that her blistered feet and knotted stomach could never carry her. She was marooned on an island of her own weakness, doomed to only look longingly at distant horizons.

She didn’t want to look closer. She didn’t want to look at Eduardo.

He had been a porter like her. Too old to wield a machete, but young enough that he wasn’t killed outright when the Elect captured him, instead he was given a pack of food, a pack he was told on the pain of death not to allow anyone to touch. He had served faithfully, even believing a little in The Pure One and his prophecies.

Susanna had hated him for that until she realized that he only believed because to not believe would have made him as miserable as she was.

He wasn’t miserable now. Susanna’s eyes focused on him. He lay on his back, unmoving. He had died early that morning, not of hunger—the Elect gave him extra scraps to keep him honest—but of what appeared to have been a heart attack.

Susanna had taken his shirt and pants and put them on over her own. Maybe she wouldn’t be so cold this night. Maybe she could get some sleep.

Eduardo lay a few feet away from her, clad only in his dirty underwear. The slight curves of his arm and leg muscles fascinated her, as did the fact that his stomach wasn’t as caved in as hers. There was still some meat there.

She thought again, as she had a hundred times since Eduardo died, about the flint and steel and bit of char cloth in her pocket. The firestriker was her sole possession, something so common that the machete men hadn’t taken it from her.

She could light a fire. Using the last of her energy she could light a fire with grass and sticks and then find a sharp stone or a piece of glass from the Old Times and cut off some meat.

A terrible, seductive thought. Susanna was appalled that it had occurred to her the moment she realized Eduardo was dead. It had never entirely left her mind in the hours since.

“No,” she croaked.

She had said the same several times already today, and each time the little worm that was eating at her soul had wriggled through her conviction, whispering its justifications.

This isn’t about morality, this is about survival. Only the strong survive in the wildlands. Morality died with the Old Times.

“No,” she repeated, and felt something harden inside her.

Susanna reached into her pocket and pulled out her flint and steel. Struggling to her knees, she waited a moment until her head stopped spinning and then threw the flint as far as she could. The char cloth she let drop. The breeze carried it away, a little fluttering sail of black. Then she turned and threw the flat rectangle of steel as far as she could in the opposite direction of the flint.

The effort of the second throw made her topple over and land hard on her face on the gritty soil. She sobbed tearlessly for several long minutes, unsure if she was miserable because she had just killed herself or happy that she had done the right thing or simply relieved that it was over.

Eventually she turned herself onto her back and lay like Eduardo looking up at the pale blue sky. The winter breeze carried a sharp chill, and when she wasn’t bent over from the hunger pangs she shivered all over. During one of her spasms her hand brushed a single blade of grass, the only one left within her reach. She pulled it out and started to chew.

The Elect had attacked her settlement six months before. They’d been living far up north, far enough that New City was only a vague story some far-walking traders and scavengers told. Neither she nor anyone she knew had ever ventured this far south.

They didn’t need to. They had a good spot—a large, well-watered valley relatively free of toxins. Across this valley, which took two days to walk from side to side, were several little settlements where families farmed and raised cattle and chickens. Each settlement had a blockhouse to hide in when bandits came. Everyone ate well enough and they felt secure.

Then the Righteous Horde arrived. They only numbered in the hundreds then, led by a wild-eyed priest who called for a purification of the land. Some of the settlements tried to resist, but that terrible machine gun of theirs tore right through their wooden blockhouse walls. Susanna’s people tried to flee but were caught. Those too young or too old to follow the march were killed outright. The rest became porters or machete men. Some of the men tried to resist and were crucified as examples to the rest.

And now she was here. All her old friends were dead, as she would soon be.

With an effort she turned her head and looked at Eduardo. He had been the last from their old settlement, a foolish old man whom she never liked. Strange how she ended up spending her last hours with him, and how at the end she had done him a great favor.

Let him restin dignity, and let me die the same, she thought.

She felt a hard knot deep inside her that wasn’t hunger, and she realized that if she had the strength to stand, her back would be straight and her chin high. She had been pushed around and passed over her whole life and now that it was ending she had finally said, “No more, this is as far as I’ll bend.” A weaker person would have degraded herself by feasting on Eduardo’s corpse. She had heard of scavengers doing that in lean winters. But not her.

She looked back at the sky. Let the end come soon.

“Hey.”

Susanna blinked. Now she was hearing things. Maybe the end was coming sooner than she thought.

“Hey, are you alive?”

Susanna looked over at Eduardo in astonishment. He lay where she had left him, glassy eyes staring at the sky he would never see again.

“Hello?”

The sound had come from the other direction. She looked that way and saw a man.

The first thing she noticed was that he had a paunch. A wave of hunger passed over her, doubling her over so that her knobby knees touched her chin. Tearing her eyes away from that beautiful paunch she looked at the rest of him.

He was an older man, with white hair and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. He smiled at her and pulled something out of a satchel that hung from his shoulder.

A corn cake.

“Here,” he said.

Susanna got on her hands and knees. The man stayed where he was a few feet away. She crawled over to him, the allure of food giving her strength. He put the corn cake in her mouth.

“Eat that, but not too quickly or you’ll hurt yourself,” the man said. He pulled a canteen off his other shoulder and held it to her lips. The water tasted tangy, strange.

“I put a bit of lemon juice in it,” he explained. “It will build your strength.”

Susanna ate and drank, feeling nothing. She had resigned herself to death and now this had happened. She didn’t know what to think, so she simply allowed her body to take over the mechanical task of staying alive for one more day.

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” the man said once she finished.

Now that she was done eating and drinking, Susanna looked around and noticed that other people had joined them, well-fed men and women carrying guns. One scanned the horizon with a pair of binoculars. Another bent over Eduardo.

“This one’s a goner,” he said.

The man who had fed her put a soft hand under her chin and made her look up at him.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Su—Susanna.”

“I’m Abraham Weissman, and I’m here to help you.”

The man smiled at her but the smile came out flat. A little tremor of fear fluttered in her chest.

“Did you say you have more to eat?” she asked.

Abraham Weissman nodded. “That’s right, but we need to go now. We have a long way to walk. Can you walk?”

Susanna sank to the ground. It had been too good to be true. They were going to leave her.

The man whistled and two other men with a stretcher came over and put her on it. They lifted her up and the whole column started walking toward the mountains. Susanna looked around her and saw there were about a dozen of them. Trailing along beside them were ragged, starving men and women who must have come from the Righteous Horde like she had. Some lay in stretchers while others shuffled along as best they could. From what she could see none had been machete men. The only men were too old and The Pure One had made a solemn law against women carrying weapons. These people had all been porters, left behind by the Elect and not strong enough to keep any of the food.

They walked for the rest of the day, making slow progress because the starving people had to keep stopping to rest. The man who had given her the corn cake grew impatient and kept using a pair of binoculars to look to the south. At noon everyone was given another corn cake and some lemon water.

Dusk found them about halfway to the mountains. Abraham Weissman shouted at one of the men with the rifles about how they should have made it there already, but the man merely shrugged and gestured to the exhausted cluster of men and women bunched by the campfire.

Dinner was another corn cake and more lemon water. Susanna had regained enough strength to sit up through the entire meal. Little was said. The leader, whom everyone called Abe, talked quietly with a few of his followers but no one talked with the men and women from the Righteous Horde. And they talked little among themselves.

After all, what was there to say?

As the sun set, the men and women with the guns went among those left behind by the Righteous Horde and took their shoes.

CHAPTER TWO

Annette Cruz lay in her bed reading. Her ten-year-old son Pablo lay snuggled up beside her. The barroom buzz of $87,953 could be heard faintly through the sound of her closed door.

She ignored it. Instead she buried herself in one of her favorite books from the Old Times.Evening in Spring, one of what she called “soft novels.” These stories weren’t about war or adventures or romance. Instead they were usually set in small towns where nothing much happened and people lived out lives of minor dramas and quiet struggles. The hero ofEvening in Spring, for example, was a young boy about Pablo’s age whose only problem was that he was sensitive and artistic and while he was well-loved by everyone in town, nobody understood that part of him.

Imagine that being your only problem in life! Did a world like that ever exist, even in the Old Times?

Who cares,Annette thought.It exists here in this book.

And what a lovely book with its quiet descriptions of a peaceful town and its lush, clean countryside all around where farmers grew bumper crops of healthy food and everyone could go down to the river to swim and if they wanted to take a drink all they had to do was open their mouths, confident the water would do them no harm.

She must have read that book a dozen times and every time it relaxed her.Winesburg, Ohiowas almost as good, but the characters in that one had problems that could almost be called problems soEvening in Spring was better.

“Show me the first page again,” Pablo said.

“It’s called a flyleaf.”

“Show me the flyleaf again.”

She marked her place with a banknote from the Old Times (otherwise good for starting a fire or cleaning yourself in the outhouse) and turned to the front of the book. Tidy handwriting in pencil filled the page. Her eyes skimmed over a couple of lines.

“After you dry your baby, rest him on your bare stomach, warming him with your body heat. Cover yourself and your baby with a blanket that’s dry and porous enough to. . .”

“So he got all that from Radio Hope?” Pablo asked.

Annette nodded. “Yep. Wrote it down while I had you inside me. You should have seen me. I had a big belly!”

“Bigger than Roy’s?”

Annette laughed. Roy was her boss at the bar. “Yes, but filled with a baby instead of beer.”

Pablo giggled and looked back at the page, suddenly serious. “I wish I could remember Dad.”

Annette stroked his hair.

“He was a good man and he loved you very much.”

“Can you read me some more of the book?”

“How about you read to me?” she said, turning back to their place.

Pablo snuggled a bit closer so he could get a better view of the page and read, “The wind had gone down entirely now, and the night was fragrant beyond words with the freshness of rain, the rich aroma of earth riding the wind from over the newly ploughed fields on the prairie west of the village. We walked along, saying nothing, just breathing in the sweet air. . .”

There was a soft knock at the door. Pablo got up and opened it a crack.

“We’re done counting,” Roy’s voice came from the other room.

Pablo hurried back and gave his mother a hug.

“You’re going to win, I just know it!”

“I better or I’m in deep shit,” Annette said, getting up and putting the book on the side table.

“You swore!” Pablo laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

She stepped out of the back room that was her and Pablo’s home and appeared behind the counter at $87,953, the biggest and most popular bar in the Burbs. Even citizens from New City came out from behind their walls to drink there.

The crowd filling the bar roared its approval at her appearance. The place was packed for the first election in the history of the Burbs. She could see all the regulars as well as a fair number of scavengers and a few citizens. Assistant Mayor Marcus Callahan was there, as was Clyde Devon, the Head of the Watch. They’d both pushed for her to be sheriff of the Burbs but the man whose idea it originally was, The Doctor, was significant by his absence. The mayor of New City and the Burbs had stayed home.

She didn’t have to ask why. The day after he named her sheriff she had resigned and called an election. She didn’t want to be his appointee; she wanted to be her own woman. The Doctor didn’t take kindly to defiance, especially of this kind. The Doctor had never been elected.

Roy, the owner of $87,953, raised his hands in the air, a big smile spreading across his dark brown face. His voice boomed out over the crowd. “Quiet everyone, quiet! The votes are tallied. Will the candidates line up in front of the bar, please?”

Annette came around the bar and stood next to Charley Shibell and Frank Edgerton. Frank was $87,953’s other bouncer, a bear of a man who worked alternate shifts from Annette. He was a good friend and had gone on the ballot to make sure she wasn’t running unchallenged. That would have looked bad. Charley was a scavenger who had settled in the Burbs after the Righteous Horde had ravaged the countryside. He’d put his name in at the last minute.

Another scavenger named Milos Artur, who had announced his candidacy by standing on the bar, dropping his pants and declaring he was from the planet Sedna and had arrived on a spaceship to bring order to the Burbs, wasn’t present. He’d been last seen talking to a large boulder outside of town. The wildlands brought forth all sorts.

Roy produced a piece of paper, put on his reading glasses, and read aloud from a tally sheet.

“The official count for the election of sheriff of the Burbs is in. I and three other observers, Ahmed Abd-al-Karim of the Burb Council, Assistant Mayor Marcus Callahan, and scavenger Yoon Iseul have checked and rechecked the figures. From order of least votes to greatest, the results are. . .”

A snare drum tapped out a rapid tattoo. Annette looked around and saw the drummer was one of the regulars, a red-nosed man who owned a chicken farm a couple of miles away. Annette rolled her eyes. This was Roy’s doing. He had a cheesy sense of the dramatic.

“. . . Milos Artur, zero votes.”

Snickers from the crowd. The guy had forgotten to vote for himself.

Another drum roll.

“Charley Shibell, 287 votes.”

Shibell grimaced in disappointment. Another drum roll.

“Frank Edgerton, 598 votes.”

Annette looked at him with surprise. She thought Frank’s candidacy was just a formality. Apparently he had people behind him.

“And the winner with the most votes, the candidate who will be our first sheriff of the Burbs is. . .”

Another drum roll.

Oh get on with it! Annette thought.

“Annette Cruz with 2,070 votes!”

The crowd cheered. Pablo jumped up and down beside her. She gave him a hug, and then shook Frank and Charley’s hands.

“Speech! Speech!” the crowd called.

“All right, all right,” Annette said. “First off, thanks for electing me.”

“Thanks for calling an election,” someone in the crowd called out. “Even though I voted for you I didn’t want you shoved down our throats like those snobs in New City tried to do.”

“None of that, please,” Annette said. “This marks a new chapter in the relations between the Burbs and New City. When the Righteous Horde attacked it changed everything. We all had to fight together to survive. . .”

“Except for the Merchants Association, the selfish bastards!” someone else interrupted. An angry growl of agreement rumbled through the crowd.

“Enough already!” Annette said. Yeah, they were right, but couldn’t they see she was walking a tightrope here? “There were plenty of mistakes made, but we have to move on. There’s a Burb Council now, and precedent for sheltering within the walls when there’s an attack. And now there’s a sheriff. For too long the Burbs have been a place where decent people can’t walk alone at night. Too many shootings, too many knife fights, too many rapes. That’s going to change.”

The crowd applauded.

“We’re going to be a city worthy of the name,” she went on. “So as my first act as sheriff, I’m calling on the Burb Council to raise money for a jailhouse. Mostly we’ve just banished or lynched the bad offenders and let the minor offenders go. No more. Even minor offenses will carry penalties. It used to be that if you stole an apple from the market you had to give two apples back. Now you’re going to have to do that and spend a day behind bars at your own expense. I’ll be writing up a list of offenses and punishments and posting it all around town.”

She paused. Glancing at Ahmed and the other members of the Burb Council, she saw approval and worry in equal measure. She had just asked them to make their first municipal expense. They’d formed barely two weeks ago and had no funds and no means to raise them. Well, they’d just have to get more organized too. She took a deep breath and made her second announcement, one she knew would further the rift between her and the citizens of New City.

“As sheriff I’ve been granted to power to name two deputies. I name Frank Edgerton. . .”

There were murmurs of approval from the crowd. Annette tensed and continued.

“And for my second deputy I name Jackson Andrews.”

Silence.

She looked over at Marcus and Clyde. The look on the two citizens’ faces wasn’t pretty. Many of the Burbs people didn’t look too happy about her choice either.

“Jackson?” someone asked. “You mean the Blamer?”

Annette looked in the direction of the voice but couldn’t find the speaker.

“Yeah,” she said, the word sounding limp.

“He’s a convicted criminal!”

“Who’s had his punishment. Under New City law, by the way, not Burb law.”

“What, so you’re going to make Blaming legal now?” Marcus said. There was a threat in his tone that cut Annette deep. Marcus was a good man who had done her more than a few favors. Pablo called him “Uncle Marcus.”

“No, but I want someone I can trust, and I can trust him. We went into the wildlands together, fought the cult together, and do I have to remind you of what he brought back for The Doctor?”

That brought curious looks from the crowd. Clyde and Marcus didn’t reply. The medical pack Radio Hope had given Jackson had saved The Doctor’s life. That wasn’t general knowledge, though. The leaders of New City liked to pretend The Doctor wasn’t sick.

Annette addressed the crowd. “I have two other reasons for naming him. First, he’s on the Burb Council, which guarantees he’ll be looking out for Burb rights. Also he doesn’t buy into all this bullshit of one group being better than another. Citizens dump on associates who dump on scavengers who dump on the villagers in Toxic Bay.”

A mocking voice came from the crowd.

“Yeah, he liked them so much he even brought one into town. She stinks up the market every morning. Smells like an oil spill!”

Jackson’s voice cracked through the air like a pistol shot.

“Excuse me? Someone say something about my fiancée?”

Jackson Andrews stalked to the center of the now-silent room. A lean man in his mid-twenties wearing a tattered gray overcoat that showed he had just come in from the winter chill, his face was red with anger. The brand of a “B” stood out in livid white on his cheek, testament to his crime of placing Blame for the fall of civilization.

“Whoever said that, how about he steps forward?” he said.

Annette tensed.Great, his first act as deputy is to pick a fight.

The room stayed silent. Jackson nodded.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Now if Annette’s done,” Jackson turned to Annette, who shrugged, “I have something of my own to say. You were all happy with this election because it showed we were independent from New City. Well, me being deputy ensures that. We’re not going to take orders from citizens.”

“Aren’t they paying you?” a woman asked.

“Good question. Now that I’m deputy, are you still going to pay us, Marcus?”

The assistant mayor frowned at Jackson. “We’ll see.”

“You do that. Now I think Sheriff Cruz has one more announcement.”

Annette sighed.Oh yeah, that.

She went behind the bar, took a rifle case down from a shelf and laid it on the counter. Unzipping it, she pulled out a matte black sniper’s rifle.

“You’ve all heard about my gun. This is a Dakota T-76 Longbow. It fires .338 Lapua Magnum rounds that can punch through military-grade body armor at 1,500 meters.”

Everyone looked at it with awe. It was the most advanced firearm in New City or the Burbs. She glanced at Clyde. The Head of the Watch was staring at it like most men stare at a naked woman.

“When Jackson and I were out in the wildlands I took out three cultists with it. Jackson can back me up on that.”

“It’s true,” he said. “She got one at more than a kilometer.”

Annette let out a quiet sigh of relief that he didn’t tell the whole story. She’d also killed a civilian, and Jackson was the only one who knew that. Well, except for maybe Radio Hope. His knowledge was another reason she had named him deputy. She wanted to keep him close.

“Part of my job as sheriff is to hunt down fugitives. Well, that cult leader who killed so many of our people and enslaved half the wildlands is a fugitive. Once I get a few things squared away here in the Burbs I’m going to set out with a posse and go hunt that motherfucker down!”

The roar that came from the crowd rang in her ears. Men and women, some still swathed in bandages from the recent battle, pumped their fists in the air and chanted her name. “Ann-ette! Ann-ette! Ann-ette!”

Once the noise died down a bit, Clyde called over to her.

“When it comes to that you got our full support. Equipment, weapons, whatever you need. Just ask. I know you can do it, Annette. One shot one kill!”

The crowd roared again. Annette bit her lip.

It will have to be one shot one kill,she thought.I only have one bullet left for this thing.

CHAPTER THREE

Jeb Buckley had weighed his options and decided his best chance of survival was to join a group of starving machete men as they fled the vengeance of New City. There were patrols out there, strong patrols of men and women with assault rifles and Kevlar, hunting down groups like his. Not that they really needed to. The remnants of the Righteous Horde’s rank and file were all going to starve to death sooner or later. The group he was with hadn’t had any food for three days, and had been badly fed for months before that.

All except for him, of course. He had been one of The Elect, a favored follower of The Pure One, proud bearer of a rifle and a full stomach, with captive women to warm his bed at night.

No more. He had eaten the last of his food just before joining these losers, had hidden his rifle away under a rock after killing a lone machete man to grab his gear so he could play the part. Jeb had shaved his beard and lay out in the sun to tan his face so they wouldn’t recognize him.

Not that there was much danger of that. Nobody looked The Elect in the face.

He knew this group wasn’t going to stay together. When he had joined them three days ago they’d numbered more than thirty. Infighting and pitched battles with other starving groups had whittled that number down to fifteen. So far they’d managed to dodge the patrols, but that wouldn’t last either.

Still, it was the best option.

What had his options been? He had made a list in his head.

Option 1: Stay with The Elect and follow The Pure One on his mad crusade to wherever it took them next. Bad idea. Simmering resentments between The Elect and The Pure One’s bodyguard were bound to flare up sooner or later, and he didn’t want to be in that firefight. It would be worse than the assault on New City’s walls. Besides, even The Elect were running out of food and the only good source of it was the city that had just beaten them.

Option 2: Become a turncoat and give New City some valuable information in exchange for his life. Tempting, but he had no idea what The Pure One’s plans were.

Option 3: Surrender and throw himself on the mercy of the city they had just tried to pillage. Yeah, right.

Option 4: Set off alone for the mountains and try to blend in with the scavengers. Hell no, not with so many hungry people roving through the countryside. It was only a matter of time before they started eating each other, and they’d kill him for his boots and coat long before that.

He’d done the same with that lone machete man he’d come across. The man didn’t have any food, but he did have clothes three sizes too big for Jeb. That made Jeb look like he’d lost weight.

So he’d joined this bunch of weaklings. A bunch of scrawny “warriors” who only managed to keep walking out of sheer terror of what would happen to them if they stayed still.

They’d accepted him with suspicion but no comment. His simple disguise didn’t do much to hide the fact that he was bigger than most of them and far healthier, but he was used to getting his way, one way or another. No one dared challenge him.

Now they walked along a dry riverbed to keep out of sight of the open plains all around. They’d heard firing the night before. A New City patrol was close.

Jeb stopped. He was walking in front and spotted the footprints of half a dozen people. The trail lead down from the side of the riverbed and went off in the direction in which they were headed.

“Look,” he said, stopping and pointing.

The others stared. It took them a moment to see what he saw. Hunger had made them careless.

“We better turn around,” one said.

“No, look,” Jeb said, crouching down. “Two of them are barefoot. They’re not New City. They’re Righteous Horde.”

Everyone’s eyes lit up.

“Maybe porters!” one said.

“Hope so,” Jeb said. He was beginning to feel a bit dizzy from lack of food.

They headed down the streambed, machetes and spears ready.

They found them a mile further on, six ragged machete men resting in the sun. They leapt up when Jeb’s group came into view, fevered eyes startled, machetes raised. They had a large bag with them.

The bag decided it. Jeb’s group attacked. His companions charged forward, Jeb hanging back a little but not so much as to appear that he wasn’t trying to help. Machetes swung down, spears thrust at thin faces and sunken bellies. The sickening sound of steel parting flesh filled the dry riverbed. Just as the last of the other group were falling Jeb lunged forward and cut down an already wounded man.

He stopped, looked around as the blood dripped from his blade. His own group had lost only two, so that made thirteen surviving besides him. Two more had slight wounds. The loss of blood combined with their hunger would probably make them keel over sooner or later.

In the meantime, they had fourteen people to divide up whatever was in the backpack.

They tore it open, desperate for whatever was inside.

Blankets. Nothing but blankets. Everyone took one but that wouldn’t make any difference. Cold won’t kill you if you’re in a group. You can always huddle up at night and keep warm with the body heat of the people around you. No amount of warmth would ease the ache in your belly.

Jeb took the backpack, now strangely light for lack of anything in it. A decent backpack like this one was worth trading for, and while none of these starving fools thought they’d ever make a trade again, Jeb was going to survive.

“Now what?” someone asked. He seemed to be asking Jeb. Even without recognizing his old status these machete men deferred to him.

Jeb sighed, looked around. “This is the third fight we’ve been in with other groups and we haven’t found shit to eat. We need a new plan.”

“What?” the man asked. His eyes were pleading, almost like a child’s. They seemed to say,Tell me what to do, I’m scared and I need to be told what to do.

Weakling, Jeb thought.

“It’s been almost two weeks since the attack. I bet their farmers have gone out to their farms by now,” Jeb said. “You got to maintain a farm.”

“You suggesting we raid one?” Leonard asked. Leonard was the biggest of the group, nearly a head taller than Jeb with a broad chest, massive arms and a spray of brilliant red beard barely dimmed by a crust of dirt. He was the only one besides him with a bit of spirit left, and the only one Jeb thought might be trouble.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Jeb replied.

“They have guns, blockhouses!” another of the machete men said.

One of the men they had cut down moaned and rolled onto his side. Leonard pulled a clasp knife from his pocket and went over to him.

“Yeah, it’s dangerous. We’ll have to take them by surprise,” Jeb said.

“They’ll be on the watch, and there will be patrols,” another whined.

Leonard looked up from his work. His pants were stained with fresh blood. “If we can dodge the patrols we can get in to one of the farms closer to New City. I bet everyone else has been running away from that area, so they won’t be expecting us.”

The machete men looked doubtful. Jeb looked at Leonard.

“I’m in,” the big man said.

“Let’s go then,” Jeb said. “Anyone want to go a different way, feel free.”

Everyone followed him as he headed back down the dry riverbed in the direction from which they had come.

Jeb had been a scavenger most of his life. When times got bad he’d stay in a settlement or hire out to one farmer or another, but he preferred his freedom and mostly lived out in the wildlands. His sense of direction was flawless. With all the meanderings and nighttime rushes away from patrols and larger groups of machete men the rest of his group was hopelessly disoriented, but he knew exactly where New City lay.

The mountains to the east made a perfect guide. Judging from that one jagged spire to the left of the almost triangular peak, they had about a day’s march due south to get in line with the furthest farms away from New City. Then they’d have to walk another half day toward the sea. Of course the outlying farms would probably still be vacant. Call it two days march in total. That is, assuming these idiots could keep up. A couple of were already lagging behind.

After another hour’s march one of the wounded men stopped and sat down on a stone. He placed his machete point-down in the soil and rested his hands and forehead on the hilt. Two others took the opportunity to sit down as well. The rest stopped and looked back at them. Jeb and Leonard exchanged glances. They walked back to the wounded man. He had a decent pair of boots. He saw them coming and leapt unsteadily to his feet.

“I’m OK, let’s go!” he said in a weak voice.

Leonard looked disappointed. Jeb could tell he was the kind who killed for the fun of it. While Jeb himself had done more than his share of killing, he only did it to advance his own position. Thrill killing only marked you out as a psycho, and people got rid psychos, just like he’d probably have to get rid Leonard sooner or later.

Jeb studied him a moment longer before turning back toward New City.

It was going to be a long, hard, dangerous slog, but Jeb’s heart lightened a bit to be heading back to that place. When they had taken over the town outside New City’s walls, he had gotten a good look at it. As they tore apart buildings to make ladders to scale the walls and rafts to get around them, he had seen that the residents lived far more comfortably than any other place he’d seen. There were frame houses that looked like pictures from the Old Times, and even the poorest shacks looked good compared to the cold ground and campfire that had been his home most of his life.

There had been a time when he was a kid twenty years ago when he had lived in a frame house too. But that was long, long ago. He had done too much in those twenty years for him to even think of that playful child as being the same person.

There had been more to amaze him. All food and important possessions had been stored within the walls, but enough things were left behind to show that these people had something more than what it takes to survive. Cutlery. Furniture. Hell, some even had curtains on the windows.

Electricity too. It was shut off, of course. The technicians in the Righteous Horde pulled up the power lines and found they led to New City. Scouts who went around the cove and studied New City with binoculars said they had solar panels and a tidal generator.

Civilization, Jeb thought. A fucking civilization. If we’d won we’d have been sitting pretty all winter and The Pure One would have had the beginnings of an empire. Who knows how much we could have conquered? I could have really been somebody. Risen to bodyguard, hell, general!

But they had lost, mowed down by a pair of machine guns and scores of rifles. Burnt by firebombs. Then the machete men rioted, refusing to charge into that killing field again.

One nearly cut my head off before I capped him. And now I’m out here.

Despite where that left him, he felt a bit glad that New City had won. They’d built so much they deserved to keep it.

Jeb dismissed that thought as unworthy of him.

Don’t get soft,he told himself.Get soft and you’ll get dead.

Don’t miss Book Two in the Toxic World series

REFUGEES FROM THE RIGHTEOUS HORDE

Coming May 2014!

About the Author

Sean McLachlan worked for ten years as an archaeologist in Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and the U.S. before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of numerous fiction and nonfiction books, listed below. When he’s not writing, he likes to hike, read, travel, and most of all, teach his son about the world. He divides his time between Madrid, Oxford, and Tangier.

To find out more about Sean’s work and travels, visit him at midlistwriter.blogspot.com. He also runs a blog dedicated to his Civil War fiction, civilwarhorror.blogspot.com. Feel free to friend him on Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/623273.Sean_McLachlan

Fiction by Sean McLachlan

A Fine Likeness

A Confederate guerrilla and a Union captain discover there's something more dangerous in the woods than each other.

Jimmy Rawlins is a teenaged bushwhacker who leads his friends on ambushes of Union patrols. They join infamous guerrilla leader Bloody Bill Anderson on a raid through Missouri, but Jimmy questions his commitment to the Cause when he discovers this madman plans to sacrifice a Union prisoner in a hellish ritual to raise the Confederate dead.

Richard Addison is an aging captain of a lackluster Union militia. Depressed over his son's death in battle, a glimpse of Jimmy changes his life. Jimmy and his son look so much alike that Addison becomes obsessed with saving him from Bloody Bill. Captain Addison must wreck his reputation to win this war within a war, while Jimmy must decide whether to betray the Confederacy to stop the evil arising in the woods of Missouri.

Available in print and electronic editions!

The Night the Nazis Came to Dinner and other Dark Tales

A spectral dinner party goes horribly wrong. . .

An immortal warrior hopes a final battle will set him free. . .

A big-game hunter preys on endangered species to supply an illicit restaurant. . .

A new technology soothes First World guilt. . .

Here are four dark tales that straddle the boundary between reality and speculation. You better hope they don’t come true.

Available in electronic edition!

The Quintessence of Absence

Can a drug-addicted sorcerer sober up long enough to save a kidnapped girl and his own Duchy?

In an alternate 18th century Germany where magic is real and paganism never died, Lothar is in the bonds of nepenthe, a powerful drug that gives him ecstatic visions. It has also taken his job, his friends, and his self-respect. Now his old employer has rehired Lothar to find the man's daughter, who is in the grip of her own addiction to nepenthe.

As Lothar digs deeper into the girl's disappearance, he uncovers a plot that threatens the entire Duchy of Anhalt, and finds the only way to stop it is to face his own weakness.

Available in electronic edition!

History Books by Sean McLachlan

Wild West History

Tombstone—Wyatt Earp, the O.K. Corral, and the Vendetta Ride (Osprey Publishing: 2013)

The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang (Osprey Publishing: 2012)

Civil War History

Ride Around Missouri: Shelby’s Great Raid 1863 (Osprey Publishing: 2011)

American Civil War Guerrilla Tactics (Osprey Publishing: 2009)

Missouri History

Outlaw Tales of Missouri (Globe Pequot Press: 2009)

Missouri: An Illustrated History (Hippocrene Books: 2008)

It Happened in Missouri (Globe Pequot Press: 2007)

Medieval History

Medieval Handgonnes: The First Black Powder Infantry Weapons (Osprey: 2010)

Byzantium: An Illustrated History (Hippocrene Books: 2004)

African History

Armies of the Adowa Campaign 1896: the Italian Disaster in Ethiopia (Osprey: 2011)