Columbia

by Chris Pourteau

  All eyes turned to Trick. He was looking at his empty glass like maybe the first free serving of water had been a tease. “We’re going to pursue our mission to the best of our ability,” he said, quoting the manual. “And do what we came here to do.”

  “And do right by our friends,” said Pusher.

  Trick looked over to her. “Yeah, and that.”

  The Tick-Tock of the Okcillium Clock

  “Oh, I don’t do this because it’s my job,” said Gutierrez. He turned around to face her directly. “I do this because I enjoy the work.”

  Mary Brenneman sat strapped in a converted dentist’s chair in the middle of a cold room. The tile on the floor was chipped. The walls were concrete blocks pitted with what could’ve been bullet holes. A lone bulb hung overhead, surrounded by a wire cage.

  “That much is clear,” she said weakly. “That’s why I like killing porters, too.”

  Gutierrez smiled wolfishly. The scar running along the left side of his face stretched at an odd angle. “It’s important to find satisfaction in what you do,” he said. “Would you like some water? I know it’s easy to get dehydrated in our facility.”

  Mary thought she felt the saliva in her mouth actually dry up at the suggestion—a strange reaction. It was as if her body feared Gutierrez so much that even his thinking about her need for hydration made her want to curl around what little fluid she currently retained.

  “Oh, wait,” said Gutierrez. “You haven’t answered my question. So, no water for you then.”

  She hated how her body still reacted to him—exactly as he wanted it to, even after all these years. Her mind knew the game he was playing, knew that he knew exactly what he was doing by suggesting the water. He knew how she’d respond, even involuntarily, and that she was powerless to stop her own reaction. She hated that he was so damned good at the job he loved so much. And she hated Gutierrez, as she had for a long time now.

  “You’ve come a long way from that scared little murderess I met, what, a quarter century ago now? My how time flies,” he said wistfully, pouring himself a glass of water.

  Mary watched the liquid fill the glass. Listened to the delicious sound it made.

  “A long way.” Gutierrez took a long, leisurely drink from the glass. “What were you … twelve? We were all a lot younger then, of course. Less efficient at our jobs.” He shrugged. “Gotta learn someway, right?”

  Mary found the strength to smile at him pleasantly. The skin of her dry lips stretched thin. The cotton in her mouth … maybe she couldn’t control that. But what she showed him outwardly—that was entirely within her power.

  Even that appearance was hard for her to maintain though, and she knew, from long acquaintance, that he knew it was hard. When they’d first met, she’d been a terrified but defiant young girl, ripped from her family. Gutierrez had been young and zealous and, yes, less efficient at his job.

  Her defiant side had come to dominate as she’d grown older. It had taken over her inner voice from that frightened little girl the young Lieutenant Gutierrez had questioned so rigorously. Sometimes the little girl—alone, cold, unsure if her entire family had been killed by Transport—still held up the mirror of Mary’s fears inside her mind. But for now, Captain Mary Brenneman, the QB to her soldiers, the woman who bucked authority and often placed courage before prudence, soothed the little girl and said with her adult’s inner voice, Let me handle this.

  “How’d you get that scar?” she asked around a thick tongue. “Displease the wife again? Or is it that you can’t please her at all?”

  Gutierrez set the glass down on the table and sighed his satisfaction. Apparently he’d been thirsty.

  “On the other hand,” he said, gathering up his coat, “some things never change. Your humorous attempts to incite me to anger are as sad as always. The desperate braying of a frightened farm girl who needs to see herself as stronger than she really is. A bark that sounds so fierce to her scared ears. Pathetic to mine.”

  “Shove it up your scar, you sadistic bastard.”

  His smile widened. “Truth is, Captain, I’m going to miss you. I’m leaving the City. For good, I guess you could say. And you and all your friends from …” He paused a moment to appreciate a private joke. “From Bedrock—what a name, I love it!—well, you all won’t be leaving this fair city. Ever again.”

  Gutierrez stood, waiting expectantly. “Oh, I didn’t really need you to answer my question about your scavenger collaborator friends at all. I just enjoyed your thinking I did.”

  The confusion showed on Mary’s face. It sat, shaky and uncertain, atop the frightened expectations of a little girl who’d learned over time just how vast the human capacity for personal cruelty could be.

  “Yes, we scoured Bedrock last night. Killed everyone there.” Gutierrez was pleased by the reaction that formed on Mary’s face. He let his news sink in as he approached the door of the interrogation room. “It’s amazing the kind of surgical precision trained military personnel armed with heat-sensing equipment, night vision, and drones with Gatling lasers can accomplish. Especially when facing an enemy dressed in rags and living in caves. Even if they do have a few laser rifles stolen for them by TRACE to fight back with. A waste of good equipment, if you ask me.”

  Mary’s tongue wouldn’t move. But her eyes screamed bloody murder.

  Gutierrez smiled at what he saw on her face. “No sharp quips now? How disappointing. Well, goodbye, Mary Brenneman. We won’t be seeing one another again.” The man TRACE had nicknamed “The Inquisitor” touched his hand to the door’s bio-trigger. It popped open with a hiss of air. “I’ll send someone to take you back to your cell. You can die in this facility knowing that everything you’ve ever done in your life—poisoning Yoder, all the battles you fought, helping those useless scavengers … all of it—was for nothing.” He winked at her like he’d just shared a private joke between two old friends. “Your father says hello, by the way.”

  Mary stared, disbelieving, at the door as it snicked shut behind him. For the last twenty-four hours, he’d merely been playing with her. He hadn’t needed the location of Bedrock at all. If she could believe Gutierrez, it had already been destroyed. The little girl inside her began to weep, and the QB allowed a single tear to escape her liquid eyes.

  Hatch and Stug were thrown into a large common room with the rest of the prisoners from the airbuses. They kept to themselves in a corner, waiting for the Transport personnel to process them. Several soldiers were walking around, cutting the ropes used to bind the prisoners for transfer to the center. When one approached them, the two commandos made a good show of it, wincing and rubbing their wrists like one of his comrades had already removed theirs. He moved on.

  “I don’t see Logan,” said Stug, looking at the floor. He was careful to keep his voice down.

  Hatch leaned against the wall, scanning the large, gray room. “Me either. But I recognize some of the other council members. Don’t see the old tobacco addict, though.”

  Half a dozen Transport personnel worked the room, attending to the nearly one hundred Wild Ones packing it wall to wall. At least two of the Authority types were medical personnel. They wore the emblem of Transport overlaid with the caduceus—the traditional symbol of the medical profession, the staff of Hermes wrapped round by two serpents—on their uniforms. One was an older male doctor who took the lead in performing the examinations; the other was a female nurse.

  “You two wounded?” the doctor asked when he got to them. Stug rubbed his wrists again for show but said nothing.

  “We’re fine,” said Hatch. “Are these all that are left?”

  “I’m not here to answer your questions, scavenger. If you’re not hurt, I’ve got others to see and patch up.” The doctor moved on to an elderly woman sitting on the floor along the wall. The nurse lingered.

  “Those that weren’t killed in the attack are here,” she confirmed. “I’m sorry for your loss.” The woman seemed genuine in her condolences, if brie
f. She moved on to assist the physician.

  When she was out of earshot, Stug said, “This must’ve happened in the last day, after we went AWOL. I wonder if Neville sent any—”

  “What do you think?” scoffed Hatch. He noted his own reaction to the colonel’s name and calmed himself. “It probably happened so fast that there was no opportunity to help. You know Transport. Shock and aw-shit.”

  Stug blew out a breath. “Not for much longer. They’re on the retreat.”

  Hatch levered himself from the wall. “Does this look like a retreat to you?” He flicked his hand toward the wounded in the room. The former residents of Bedrock sat glassy-eyed, some trying to console others. Most seemed unsure where they were. Groans of pain had become the almost-forgotten white noise in the background of their communal jail cell.

  “Actually, knowing Transport, it kinda does,” said Stug. “It looks to me like a five-year-old just had his toys taken away and he’s throwing a fit. Destroying everything—and everyone—because if he can’t have what he wants, no one else can have it either.”

  Hatch nodded. “Maybe.” Stug’s description of Transport as a spoiled child rang true for him. But the scene before him seemed like more the spiteful work of a petulant child with massive weaponry at his disposal.

  “Hey,” said Stug, motioning. “I recognize her. I know that little girl.”

  Hatch followed his gaze. In the center of the room, a young girl, not yet a teenager, stood staring. But she wasn’t in shock—she was glaring intently. She didn’t look injured, and she seemed to be following the doctor with her eyes as he made his rounds, as if she was making sure the physician attended properly to his patients, her people. She stood straight-legged, her arms at her sides, her fists clenched. Her face showed a kind of flat anger, hard and focused.

  Stug got up.

  “What are you doing?” Hatch’s tone carried a warning. He knew exactly what Stug was doing. “We’re trying to fly under the radar here.”

  The big man began to slide slowly toward the middle of the room. “I’m just gonna see if she’s okay. I like her grit.”

  “Stug, she’s not our mission—”

  “Sure she is.” The sergeant turned his head back and smiled, bumping lightly into someone. “Pardon, ma’am.”

  “Stug—”

  “Unwad your panties. I’ll be right back.” The sergeant winked and turned away.

  Hatch let him go. Pursuing him, making a bigger scene than Stug was already making, would only compound the problem. He sat down on the floor to make himself less conspicuous again. Someone has to, he grumbled in his head. Once in a while, he flitted a glance their way to see how the girl was doing.

  Still following the doctor on his rounds, the girl had her back to Stug as he approached.

  “Hey,” he said lightly. “Hey, girl from Bedrock.”

  She spun around, her fists jerking up to her chest. Her eyes tracked up, then up some more, and her mouth opened slightly. Then her teeth clicked as she clenched it shut again, and her eyes hardened to stones.

  “Get away from me,” she hissed. “I don’t know you. You’d better leave me alone.”

  Stug smiled. “I don’t want to hurt you, little girl. I want to help. What’s your name?”

  She took a half step backward. “I don’t need your help. And none of your business. I don’t know you.”

  “My name’s … Joseph. But most people call me Stug.” The big man bent down and held out a massive hand. It hung in the air, unshaken.

  “That’s a stupid name,” she said defiantly. “Sounds like a burp.”

  The sergeant stood up and chuckled so loudly, the girl took another step back. As his laughter tapered off, he realized he wasn’t sure how to proceed with her. He was more comfortable punching Transport officers than talking to children, and her reaction made him hesitate. Then Stug noticed how hard she had to crane her neck to see him, how high she held her fists in front of her face. She was a cute kid, maybe even pretty in a few years, if she washed the grime of Bedrock off. And, most of all, he admired her willingness to fight to protect herself.

  Stug knelt down on one knee so they were almost eye level.

  “Hey, I do know you,” she said over her fists. “You’re one of the soldiers that came through our village last week. You’re the Man Mountain.”

  Stug chuckled. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. That’s what the old man, the scout, called me. You remember me, huh?”

  “Yeah, I remember. And his name is Eeguls.”

  “What? Who?”

  “The scout. He’s like my grandfather.”

  “He’s your grandfather?”

  “No, he’s like my grandfather.”

  “Ah, I see. Where’s your family then?”

  “Dead.”

  She said it short and staccato and without flinching. Then her eyes softened, as if hearing it out loud in her own voice had made it finally, irrevocably true. Seeing his reaction, the girl flattened her gaze again.

  “I’m sorry,” said Stug.

  “Anne.”

  “What?”

  “My name’s Anne,” she said, lowering her arms. Her eyes tried very hard to stay angry, but the emotion stirring in them made that difficult.

  “I’m sorry, Anne.”

  “You should be.”

  Stug hesitated again and rested his hands on his knee. He wanted to present the least threat possible to this little girl. She’d had enough of feeling threatened already.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Anne.”

  “You should’ve come back,” the little girl said. Her tone was challenging. “We helped you. We helped you get food from the Amish. You should’ve helped us back.” The steel in her voice began to weaken. “You should’ve come back and stopped them. So my mother …”

  The stones in her eyes submerged.

  Stug didn’t know what to say—because he knew she was right. “I’m sorry,” was the only thing that would come out.

  “I don’t need your sorry!” she said, walking forward. “It’s too late now! I don’t need you! You’re too late!”

  Stug gathered the girl into the soft cradle of his iron arms. She struggled at first, the venom in her voice fueling her anger as she pounded his chest. Then she surrendered to her sorrow. She wrapped her own thin arms as far around his chest as they’d go and yelled into his shirt, “You’re too late! You’re too late! I hate all soldiers! I hate you!”

  The sergeant stood, lifting Anne, and held her tight while she sobbed.

  “What’s going on here?”

  A Transport soldier approached them, gun held across his chest at the ready, barrel pointed down.

  Stug turned away and ignored him.

  “Hey, scavenger, I asked you a question.” The sound of a weapon being dragged away from a uniform.

  A second voice. “This is none of your concern. Walk away.”

  Stug turned his head so his ear was cocked behind him, but he kept Anne protected behind his massive frame, away from the meddling guard.

  The soldier turned to the voice. “Who the hell do you think you are? If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve got a Transport symbol on this uniform.”

  “Oh, I noticed,” said Hatch, moving between the guard and Stug. “But unless you want to find out what it feels like to have a rifle barrel tickling your throat by way of your ass, you’ll move along.”

  The trooper chambered a round.

  “Hey!” called an officer from across the room. “Stand down, soldier.”

  “Better listen to your commanding officer,” said Hatch. “You might shoot me, but I’m guessing a hundred prisoners with free hands might decide a little revenge is worth dying for.”

  The man held Hatch’s gaze a moment longer.

  “Private! Now!”

  Slinging his weapon, the soldier walked away.

  Stug turned back around and met Hatch’s gaze. “Thanks.”

  “Sure. It’s not like we’re trying to keep a lo
w profile or anything.”

  With Anne’s face still buried in his shoulder, the sergeant noted Hatch’s sarcasm and glanced around. All the Wild Ones in the room that could were looking in their direction. Ironically, only the Transport personnel seemed occupied with something else.

  “Hey,” said Stug, shifting the girl in his arms, “they’re bringing in the guy on the litter.”

  Two medical personnel carried a converted cot into the room with an older man lying on it. His right arm was missing; his shoulder ended in a massive bandage with a dark, round bloodstain.

  The room was stirring.

  “Someone important,” said Stug.

  Anne sniffled against his chest. She brought her head up and looked where everyone else was looking.

  “It’s Logan,” she said.

  Hatch peered harder across the room. Several of the prisoners were making their way toward the cot. They were careful to give the medical team space until the two Transport personnel moved off, leaving the injured man alone.

  “Are you sure?”

  Anne sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Of course I’m sure. He’s been like a father to me.”

  Glancing first at her, then at Stug, Hatch said, “Stay here. This one’s mine.” He carefully made his way through the growing throng surrounding Logan.

  The murmur was a strange mixture of voices both concerned about their leader’s condition and angry over their own incarceration. Hatch heard one man already agitating for an immediate escape attempt. He was fooling himself, Hatch knew. Even armed, they’d already come to this end. How much more useless, then, would an unarmed prison revolt prove?

  Patiently, graciously, Hatch pushed himself to the front of the crowd and knelt beside Logan. One eye was hidden behind a white half-mask of bandages, his gray locks splaying out from underneath. Hatch glanced at the stump where Logan’s right shoulder ended. The blood seeping through seemed to be clotting. That, at least, was good news.

  The clamoring voices around Hatch were getting on his nerves. He turned and said, “Give him some air. Let the man recover a bit before you start looking to him again for answers.”