Rootless

by Chris Howard

  The scrap farm was outside the city, deep in the shantytown sprawl that hangs around the south like a bad smell. The wagon got too slow passing the tents and teepees, the heat frying the plastic shacks and sizzling on the crappy tin roofs. Before long, a filthy mob of little ones were swarming and pressed on my windows, singing snatches of old songs and screaming at me with swollen gums, their faces all covered in sores. Got so I was scared of running over the smallest ones, and I fired up some corn till the bag popped and the microwave pinged. Then I threw the bag across the street and soon as it burst open, those kids were pecking and scooping at the dirt.

  So that was one less meal I could count on. But what else was I supposed to do?

  I hadn’t rounded but two more bends when I spotted the GenTech tanker. You could hardly miss it — bright-ass purple truck all chock-full of corn. There were agents on either side of it, dust dirtying their purple duds, fancy goggles protecting their eyes. Masks shielding their lungs. They had their guns out, their spiky clubs raised. And out the back of the tanker, they were selling rations, making a killing on the prices like always. Even lowest-grade corn’s something most count by the kernel. Brew it into fuel or stuff it in your belly, either way, the stuff don’t come cheap. Not when only GenTech can grow it and it’s the only damn thing left growing.

  Sure, you can try planting those kernels yourself, and they’ll grow just fine if you find enough water. But each kernel on each new plant will be coded with GenTech in little purple letters. And then, when the agents find you, they’ll kill you.

  Simple as that.

  Shantytown was thinning out already. The winter exodus had started — strugglers braving the long road west to Vega in the hope of some better life. At least it was winter, though. Got to be a special kind of desperate if you head west in the warm months. Vega sits on the far side of GenTech’s fields, and those fields are where the locusts hatch all summer long.

  Cornstalks are the only thing left a locust can burrow inside, see. And they keep close to the one place left they can nest. But locusts can’t feast on corn kernels. GenTech made it so you got to cook the corn before you can chew it. They twisted the corn so it could survive about any damn thing at all. But they did such a good job that nature bred something equally wicked — if there’s a way to kill locusts, then it’s a way that ain’t never been found.

  And that’s why you steer clear of the cornfields in the summer months. Only folk out there are poachers tucked in their tunnels or the field hands that GenTech don’t pay worth a damn. Because once they hatch, locusts swarm after the one thing left they can still call dinner. And that’d be people.

  That’d be human flesh.

  My last dollar bought me a half hour of hose time at the drinking station, and I sat on the hood of my wagon, listening as dirty water dribbled into the tank.

  A ragged posse was gathering down the block, huddled around an old Rasta who was whipping his tongue. The Rasta was bent over so hard his beard was sweeping at the dirt, his hands clutching an old hockey stick he’d dressed as a staff and wrapped in his colors — red, gold and green. He kept rambling on about Zion and the King who’d lead us across the ocean. Raise enough funds and they were going to build a boat, the man said. Boat big enough to get past the Surge.

  And that’s when the Rasta lost most of his crowd. Because there was no getting past the Surge. No way. And there was no king going to lead you someplace where there were wild things growing. Pop had told me. Anything worth believing, you better be able to see it with your own eyes.

  I studied the dusty street, the plastic walls and dried patches of piss. And I guess it was being left with just shantytowns and Steel Cities that got folk started with the tree building. Because even for the rich freaks, life’s ugly. But build a tree, and you got something worth looking at. Something worth believing in.

  “Busy working, no?” a voice rumbled behind me.

  I spun around and saw Crow stepping out of a tent on the corner. He had his shades on, headphones dangling around his neck. Dude towered above me. Must have been seven feet tall.

  “Six loads,” I said, pointing at the metal stacked out the back of the wagon. “Gonna need more juice when I get home.”

  “Home?” Crow laughed. An old, slow sound. He stared up at the blood red sun and it bounced like a fever off his glasses.

  “I’ll brew you the juice, little man,” he said, starting off down the street. “But you a nomad. No mistaking.”

  When I got the last load back, Frost was standing in the middle of the lot and frowning at the stacks of scrap.

  “You get enough?” he mumbled, and I could tell from the stench of him, the sour shape of his cracked lips, he’d either hit the bottle when he woke up or he’d been working at it all night.

  “With this load we’re good,” I said, pulling out some rusty sheets of metal and a case of old headlights. Frost just plopped his fat ass on the dirt and sat watching me.

  “I painted you a marker,” he said. “Middle of the lot.” The liquor had made his voice sloppy and I could tell he’d clawed his way out of some gutter before he got himself rich. If your family didn’t hoard well in the Darkness, there’s only a few ways to get wealthy in the Steel Cities. Work for GenTech Corporation or the Salvage Guild. Scavenge well for yourself and barter better. Or else you’re a murderer and a thief.

  “So what’s it for?” I said, spotting the big red X Frost had sprayed on the ground.

  “Never you mind.” Frost prodded a finger at me and I noticed the burn marks on his thumb, the skin all broken and red. So he was a smoker as well as a drinker. A crystal junkie. And that meant that whatever gutter he’d crawled out of, Frost was now stuck in one that goes all the way down.

  He staggered up and started toward the house. Probably going to suck some crystal and sleep off his hangover, duck out of the heat that was rising from the ground now, hard as it beat off the sun. The hazard winds were picking up, too. Dust storm coming.

  “Keep it clear, Mister B,” Frost yelled as he wobbled away. “Keep it clear.”

  I’d no idea why Frost would want a gap in the middle of his forest, but I paid it no mind. Once I’d got the wagon full of juice, I could charge up the tools. And when the skies cleared, I’d start cleaning the metal and making it shine.

  Pop said trees didn’t just use to look pretty and grow food for eating. They didn’t just give shade and break up the wind. They cleaned the water and held the soil together, and they made the air feel good for those breathing. Just stories now, though. Even my grandfather hadn’t seen a real one. People date the Darkness more than a hundred years back.

  So they’re just stories and statues. And that’s what I’d be building. A forest of metal and plastic, velvet and lights. Trees I’d seen my father build and that his father built before him. Trees I’d seen in photographs or scratched in pencil. And trees I’d made up all on my own, named after words I loved. Names like Ponderosa Pear. Or Angel Leaf.

  I’d create a whole stand and then build the tree tattooed on Frost’s wife. A tree I’d not seen built before, nor seen drawn or once heard described. But a tree I’d no doubt had once stood breathing. You couldn’t make up something that looked so right.

  Next day I had the understory pretty much nailed. I’d learned to leave tall stuff till last. Build the canopy right away and they end up wanting to skimp on the details — guy like Frost couldn’t care less about the details, I guarantee. So I’d laid a load of old tire I’d cut up nice and jagged, and it gave a good squishy feeling underfoot. Out of that, I’d rigged plastic mesh to look like grasses, planted up some metal shrubs I’d been piecing together.

  Up north, I’d come across a fleet of carts folk used to wheel around markets the size of a village. I’d de-wheeled every one of those carts, and now I hung the wheels on bent piping so they spun if the breeze caught right. Might not look much in the daytime, but you get some LEDs blinking and those wheels turn real pretty. Those are the kind of d
etails you get if you build from the ground up. Your forest comes alive at night.

  I had that understory looking good and was laid out on the rubber, gluing strips of wire, when the girl from the window came right up, snapping pictures of me. She had an old world camera that clicked and buzzed and spat you out a copy of whatever you were looking at. A real fancy bit of salvage.

  I could barely see the girl, sun was so bright. She stood above me, a skinny shadow, and the weight of the sky hammered down above her, frying me up and making the rubber melt sticky on my clothes. I wiped the sweat and dust off my face and I strained my head up, shielding my eyes.

  She just stood there, one foot lifted and tucked behind the other, flapping her pictures around and watching for the colors to appear.

  “Never said you could take my picture,” I told her.

  “Never asked,” she said. “These are my trees. I can take pictures of them all day long.”

  “Your trees?” I said, going ahead and sitting up. “Well, I got news for you. These ain’t trees, they’re flowers.” I nodded at a spiky mound. “Bushes, some of ’em. But not a damn tree in sight.”

  She glanced at her pictures, blew on one of them. “Then you’d better get back to work. You’re supposed to be building trees.”

  “Hell,” I said, staring up at her. “Between you and the watcher, anyone would think this is a rush job. Only one seems in no hurry is the guy that’s footing the bill.”

  “Frost?” the girl said, her voice losing its swing. “You’ve no idea.”

  “He gonna get mad, you talking to me?”

  “Of course.” She fixed me with the same kind of look her mom had used when I’d been staring at that tattoo. “If he gets back and catches me out here.”

  “How long you got?”

  The girl shrugged.

  “Long enough to show me your pictures?”

  She slumped down next to me, covering her mouth as the dust curled around us. Then she tucked the photos into her hip pocket. Out of sight.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  “Zee.”

  “Mine’s Banyan.” I reached out my hand like we might shake or something. But Zee just glared back at the house.

  “Ever seen the ocean, tree builder?”

  “The ocean?” I said. “Yeah. I seen it.”

  “Know how far it is from here?”

  I thought about it. Journey gets steep in places. “Two hours in the wagon. Three coming back.”

  “Take me to see it,” Zee said, as though this were the kind of request I got most days. “Take me there and I’ll show you my pictures. All of them.”

  I laughed, but her face stayed stony. I started to say something but she shot up, began walking back toward the house.

  No thanks, pal. That’s what I was going to tell her. No way in hell. Risk my neck to go look at the Surge? Some rough roads out there and the coast’s a whole lot rougher. And Frost wouldn’t approve a damn bit. She was crazy. And I’d be crazy to go.

  But then I saw the photograph she’d left on the dusty rubber beside me, just sitting there in the little dent her body had scooped out.

  One photograph. A single picture.

  I snatched it up and stared at the image.

  Trees.

  Whole stand of them.

  Trees that bent in the wind, rolling beneath a pure blue sky. My heart beat hard in my chest, my head spun. The trees were twenty feet tall at least. White bark and yellow leaves. Like Frost’s tree. The tattoo tree. Only these trees were living. These trees were alive.

  I’d seen photographs before, of course. Trees in photographs. Smudged images, cracked with time. But the picture in my hand was recent. Had to be. Because there, slumped on the forest floor, bound with metal chains against a tree trunk, was a man dressed in rags. A man with hair like mine.

  A man with a face that was all my father’s.

  I staggered up on stiff legs and peered at the house, studying the windows for sign of the girl. Her mother. Hell, I’d have taken the fat kid at that point. All I wanted was to scream at someone till there were no words in me. But the house just stood there, every window blank.

  I’d been sweating all day and now I was thirsty, my whole body buzzing in the heat. I stumbled across the sticky rubber and grabbed water from the wagon. The sun was dropping and with it the wind started to settle and the dust eased up. All I wanted was to look at the picture again. See the trees and my old man’s face. I sank down so my back was against the front of the wagon, the metal hot on my skin.

  Across the lot, my understory looked crooked and clipped, nothing like the forest in the picture. I stared at the photograph. Leaves shaped like petals, branches outstretched like wooden fingers. And I stared at Pop. Arms bound behind his back. A faraway look in his eye.

  It was him, all right.

  I felt a churning in my belly. Whole load of feelings I’d thought I was too tough to feel. My old man had been taken. Snatched away from me in a dust storm. For months I’d looked for him, and for almost a year I had feared him dead. But now here he was, frozen in a photograph. Strapped to the things he’d spent a lifetime trying to forge.

  Pop always told me there was nothing left. No forests but what we built. No flowers or moss or vine. Don’t go believing in fairy tales, he’d tell me. Don’t go kidding yourself.

  But I tried to think if somehow he could have known different and kept it secret. What if the picture was older than I was? My whole life I’d been running to keep up with that man, and he and I had never seen a sky like that one — the air clear of dust, everything sparkling it was so damn clean. But Pop looked old in the picture. Streaks of white in his hair, silver making his stubble glint. So the picture had been snapped since Pop had been taken. This was my dad after he’d been stolen away.

  I searched the photograph for a weapon or a stranger. I studied Pop’s body for wounds. But there was nothing else. Just the beautiful trees and my father chained against one like a man who’d been caught in a trap.

  My head ached like I’d tried shoving too much inside it. I turned the picture over. The GenTech logo in purple ink, faint and scratchy. And that just got me more confused, because what the hell did they have to do with anything? And how did the skinny chick have the damn picture anyway? I thought about her, stuck in her house with her chubby little friend. Frost scratching for crystal and groping the momma’s tattoo.

  I stood up. Stared at the house as its lights blinked on in the dirty twilight. Had the girl taken the photo herself? She was the one with the picture box, after all. So had she been there with the leaves and branches? Had she seen my father chained up and bound?

  I stuffed the picture in my back pocket.

  And then I started toward the house.

  Before I had the chance to hammer at the steel door, it came flying open at me. I was on the back porch already and the fat kid could see I was all kinds of pissed.

  “What are you doing?” he squeaked, and I was about ready to thump him for no reason except for how mad I was. I stared past him into the house.

  “Where’s your sister?” I whispered.

  “She ain’t my sister, tree boy.” The kid cracked himself up and I pushed him aside, ready to just sneak in the back door and see what happened. But then Zee came rushing out, cutting me off. Her eyes stretched wide with fear.

  “Not here,” she said. “He’s back.” Her voice was hushed as she wrestled me across the porch. But when we reached the top of the steps, I quit shuffling. Stood my ground.

  “Sal,” she hissed at the fat kid. “Go inside.” The kid’s mouth hung and quivered like he was about to start crying. “Please,” Zee added, softening her tone. “You got to keep your daddy in there.”

  “You’re going to run away again,” he said, glaring at her. “Without me.”

  “But we look out for each other now. Remember?”

  The kid ducked away, still bugging out by the look of things, but he closed the door and l
eft us alone.

  Zee stared at the house. She watched the windows. “You can’t be here,” she whispered. “Frost won’t like it.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” I shot back, though it wasn’t really true. The sun had sunk like a stone and with it my resolve had faded.

  Stay away from the house, Frost had told me. The rich get spooked if you go spying on their shit.

  Still, I pulled the picture from my back pocket and held it up. “Where the hell did you get this?”

  “We can’t talk here.” She shook her head at me, her hands trembling on my chest.

  “I ain’t leaving till you tell me what this is.”

  A door slammed in the house behind us, and Zee jumped at the sound.

  “It’s trees,” she spat, her head bent around at the house again, her hands trying to shove me off the porch. “Real trees. I thought you’d like them.”

  “Like them? You know who this is?” My voice had gotten louder now. I jabbed at the photograph.

  She stared at me, confused. “Some guy in trouble.”

  “Some guy, huh?” I shoved her hands off my chest, leaned in close. There was another thud in the house, then the sound of someone shouting. “Where’d you get this?” I said.

  “Zee?” the voice moaned inside the house. Frost’s voice.

  She pleaded at me with her eyes, begging for me to do the right thing. “It came with the camera,” she whispered, frantic now. Steps inside the house. Frost yelling. Closer. “From Crow,” Zee said. Then the steel door began opening behind her. I could hear it, see the light splitting out from inside.

  “The ocean.” Zee fixed me with a look. “Take me and I’ll show you every picture I’ve got.”

  I went to speak, but my feet were yanked from under me. I was dragged down off the porch.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Frost yelled as he stomped out of the house. I heard Zee scream as he came toward her. But the old bastard hadn’t seen me in the darkness.

  “I told you,” Frost bellowed. “You don’t go outside the house.” There was a struggle and Zee screamed again. I felt awful for it. I should have shouted something. Done something. But I was too busy now. Too busy being dragged off toward my wagon with Crow’s hands around my neck.