by Nova
For some reason I didn’t sweat as much as the others. Probably because I found that the heat and the load didn’t bother me much, especially when I got into the rhythm of moving.
I asked Max about it, since he didn’t seem bothered either. I liked getting into the rhythm, but had also noticed it numbed me to the flow. I lost a little of my edge.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Max said. “It’s actually pretty common.”
“Shit. I thought I was special.”
He laughed. “The only thing special you got going for you is Night.” He paused and became more somber. “Some guys will get into the rhythm and then drug for the awareness edge.” He shrugged. “It works until it doesn’t.”
“So what do you do?”
He went silent for a bit. “I’m not sure how to explain it. Nor do I know how I got there. I think it was always there for me, waiting.” He paused again. We were sitting on our haunches. I had come to relieve him of the watch. He took a pine twig and used it to scratch at the ground.
“Look, don’t get all twisted up about it. Think of it like this. The big You plods on while the little You rides along and does the watching and listening. After a while you will even be able to detach him and let him fly above you to watch.”
Then he leaned closer to me and whispered, “It also helps if you keep your head out of your ass.” I heard him laughing to himself all the way back to the camp.
Max told us that when we walked point, it was our call whether to “stop and talk” or “freeze and fade” us if we ran across other groups or individuals. This led to a discussion of what the hand signs for these would be.
I have to admit the whole hand sign thing amused me at first. Then I got to thinking about the usefulness of it. I jumped from that to wanting to invent our own secret language. I started talking about it whenever we took a break.
To my surprise, no one gave me a hard time about it or called me an idiot. Not that they had a problem letting me know when they thought I was being too offthe-wall. They just had different ways of doing it. Max would catch my eye and give a short shake of the head. Night had her public and private versions. Ninja, well, he never thought anything I said was completely stupid. I liked the kid for that.
We didn’t come up with a lot of additions, probably because there were only so many signs you could remember in a day. We did create signs that could be used around strangers. We had SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE and I DON’T TRUST THEM and LET’S GO SOON.
I also liked the idea of inventing our own sign language because I figured I could create a special sign for Night and me. I planned on calling it the LET’S +SLIP AWAY FOR A QUICKIE sign.
Night was relaxed about a lot of things, but asking her the question in front of the others just didn’t seem like the right way to go about it. We also had the problem of standing watches. One of us always seemed to be on watch when we weren’t walking.
I showed Night the sign I created. It was actually three signs done very quickly. I thought it was very subtle. She thought it was funny but she agreed to watch for it. I was delighted—and in a hurry to try it out.
The chance came soon enough. Max called a thirty-minute break the next day around midafternoon. We moved up into the woods and dumped our packs. Ninja had his boots off as soon as his ass hit the ground. Max picked a stalk of grass and began chewing it. I caught Night’s eye, grinned, and let my hands speak their magic. She grinned back and I stood up.
Then Ninja, the little asshole, began laughing. “Night and Gardener are going to go have a quickie!” he said in a singsong voice between laughing fits.
Max stopped chewing his stalk of grass but didn’t take his eyes off the trail. “Good. It’s about time. Shut the fuck up, Ninja.”
I led Night past him as we left. I planned on slapping him upside the head as we passed by. I didn’t need to: Night got to him first. She kicked him solidly in the thigh, generating a nice “Woof!” of pain from him. She was still smiling when we found a flat place to lie down.
CHAPTER NINE
As we moved further away from D.C. we saw an increasing number of signs that we weren’t the only people on the move. And that we were not the only ones in the woods. We passed well-worn paths that led away from the main trail. Occasionally we caught glimpses of Tree People tarps. Sometimes we would see Tree People watching us and pacing us for a short distance, until we left what they claimed as their territory.
The Mover migration was also just starting. This was in response to the new zones and the government’s carrotand-stick program that began with the expansion of the D.C. Zone. The government announced the formation of new communities. It didn’t call them “camps”; that word left a bad taste in people’s mouths.
The Feds had already had a camp system built and in place for a couple years. They were essentially homeless shelters on a large scale. Designed like military bases, including the gates and fences, the camps provided services for those who needed them.
That original system had schools for children and adults. All participants over eighteen had to complete the GED certification within a year or leave. For those who already had a high school diploma, there was mandatory online training in an approved field. The system also provided job placement, including daycare and transportation.
Clothes were issued: a mass-produced, easily identifiable uniform that was a parody of civilian attire. An entire black market industry sprung up in the camps for the modification of these clothes. There was a minor scandal about the government’s efforts to pay media people and others to wear the outfits—at least for propaganda videos going out on the Internet. That blew over fairly quickly.
The drawback—at least as I and many others saw it—was the price you paid. There was urine testing, which proved to be a problem for many until the prohibition on alcohol and marijuana was lifted. They replaced that with a prohibition on nicotine, as it was considered far more evil. You had to take a battery of tests, and your “profile” determined what programs were open or closed to you. And you had to supply a DNA sample. That in turn went into the national database and was part of your identification, which you had to carry at all times.
Weapons, of course, were prohibited. Possession of a weapon meant mandatory jail time. What you ate, or didn’t eat, was monitored as part of the health program. Internet use was monitored. Porn sites were not blocked, but those sites whose content was deemed destabilizing were.
Now the government was touting something different with its new program, and on the surface the vision was commendable. The new facilities would provide long-term, total-care disaster relief. The future promised “open, mixed-use, planned communities with a full range of amenities.”
Minus all the verbal engineering, the government’s goal was to identify, tag, and transfer any wandering or lost sheep into easily manageable flocks.
People were to report to an assembly point where they could sign up for a place in a new community. They would stay in the temporary holding areas while the communities were being built. The plan was that people would participate in the building and earn stakeholder privileges. Whether the government would ever allow people to leave once the communities were done was never mentioned.
The government did not want everyone driving to the assembly points. If refugees brought their vehicles, they might cling to the idea that they could keep them and use them. When they discovered they couldn’t, well, the Feds would inherit thousands of abandoned cars. Who needed the headache?
The solution was to send buses into neighborhoods to pick up the people who wanted a new life. They would be sent to the Planned Community Holding Area assigned for their zip code.
Unfortunately, the system didn’t work quite as it was supposed to. Then again, it was new and it involved the potential relocation of more than a million people. As with most government programs, it soon became clear that you could game the system. What sparked the gaming was the populace’s realization that certain camps wer
e better than others. The Movers were those folks who managed to relocate to a nicer zip code just before the scheduled assembly.
We were counting on the confusion and the government’s failure to execute the program as planned to help us get clear of the Zone and into what they were now calling the Badlands.
To my surprise there were more people moving into the Zones than out. For some, it was the direction of the new “promised land.” But none of the Movers seemed to be well equipped for what they were trying to do, nor in shape to do it.
We began to find lots of useless belongings jettisoned along the trail. The stuff looked as if it had been dropped wherever people were standing when they decided “to hell with carrying this another foot.” No attempt had been made to toss things into the grass or bushes. Some of what we came across included fancy rugs, lamps, a plasma TV, and a lot of clothes. A vacuum cleaner stood out for the total stupidity of hauling such crap. Basically, it was the contents of a yard sale, repeated over and over. The Tree People may have found a use for some of the stuff. At the very least they could resell it at a local market. We encountered a few of them working the trail for the trash.
Night had point the next time we ran into a group of Movers. She insisted on walking point. I was not happy about it, but that was the way it was. It looked to be a twofamily group. They were white, clueless, and, like most Mover groups, totally unprepared. They were headed back the way we had come. Night gave us the FREEZE AND FADE sign. We did. I don’t think the group even saw us until they were almost on top of us. One of the kids saw Night but didn’t say anything. She just stared.
The kid—my guess, she was about seven—looked to be the only one in the group who was enjoying herself. She had been walking, skipping, and hopping her way down the trail. Her Hello Kitty backpack was not much of an encumbrance. The stuffed rabbit that poked out of it was probably the heaviest thing she was carrying.
The adults, especially the females, looked very unhappy. It was hot and they were all packing extra weight in rolls of fat around their waists and asses. So were the men, one of whom looked like a prime candidate for a heart attack. They weren’t walking so much as doing a heads-down, sullen trudge to the promised land.
They wore daypacks, probably leftover school backpacks from the kids, and pulled Samsonite luggage. The little wheels had probably been adequate when the trail was asphalt. It no longer was, and one suitcase had already come off its rollers. It didn’t stop the woman, who dragged it behind her anyway.
The leader, a white male in his forties, had a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder. One of the other men had a holstered semiautomatic pistol in a SWAT-style holster. As he was the one who looked on the edge of cardiac arrest, I didn’t see much of a threat.
Night didn’t want to bother with them. If she had stepped just a little further back into the bushes, they might have trudged past us. Then again, I doubt if the kid who had seen her would have kept silent.
The kid stopped and was almost run over by the woman behind her. She pointed at Night and said, “Hey, Mom! Look at the woman with the gun!”
The G word got everyone’s attention. The entire Mover flock stumbled to a halt. We advanced to support Night with our weapons ready. Cardiac Dad put his hand on the butt of his pistol. I saw Night give him the look and shake her head. By then Max and I were facing them, and Ninja was somewhere behind us watching our backs.
The leader was the first to speak. “Hi there! What can we do for you?” This was accompanied by a wide grin.
Max answered for us. “Nothing. We’re just passing through. Same as you.”
The rest of the Movers eyed us with a mix of exhaustion, apathy, and curiosity. I would say they were all glad for the chance to take a breather. One of the women certainly was.
She let the handle of her suitcase drop and sat down on it with a plop. I heard her mutter, “Thank you, Jeebus.” It was as if she’d given a signal to the rest of the herd. Everyone dropped handles, packs and plopped down, too.
“Okay, everyone, let’s take a break,” the leader announced. I had to grin at that. One of the women, perhaps his wife, rolled her eyes and began fanning herself.
She looked over at Night. “Hey, honey. You wouldn’t have a Pepsi or a beer inside that pack, would ya?”
“No.” Night moved past them, watching them out of the corner of her eye, as she took up position a little further down the trail.
“I didn’t think so. Damn.”
“Don’t mind her,” Leader man said, indicating the woman. “You wouldn’t have any extra water”—he saw the look in our eyes—“for the kids, of course.”
In the back was a twelve-year-old boy with long brown hair. I watched as he cringed when the Leader added “for the kids.” Interesting, I thought. Probably his stepfather. Hopefully.
Max just stared at Leader man. “Hey, kids, you thirsty?”
The little girl piped up, “No, but Mr. Bunny is.”
“Okay. Bring Mr. Bunny over here. How about you, kid?”
The boy nodded his head.
“You got a bottle or canteen?”
“We appreciate this,” Leader man told Max, who ignored him.
“Here,” said the woman sitting next to Cardiac Man. She reached in her pack and pulled out a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. She drained the little bit that was left and handed the bottle to the boy. “Freaking Pepsi is for shit as a cure for thirst.”
The little girl took Mr. Bunny out of her pack and held him up to Max. Max uncapped his water bottle and held the opening up to Mr. Bunny’s lips for a minute until the girl pulled him away.
“Mr. Bunny says, ‘Thank you!’”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Bunny. Do you want a drink too?”
She nodded her head yes. “All we have is Pepsi and Mrs. Slarmy isn’t sharing.”
“It’s Slarami, and yes I have been sharing, you little—” She cut off whatever she was going to say when she saw Max’s look.
We had two Camelbacks that we weren’t using. The problem here wasn’t finding water; it was filtering it. Max took the two-liter bottle from the boy and poured about a liter of water into it.
“Keep it. Make sure you and the girl drink a lot before you let anyone else have some.”
The boy nodded.
Leader man decided he needed to assert himself. “Look, you guys are going the wrong way.”
Max smiled. “Is that so?”
“You should come with us. That’s it!” He looked around at his group. “Nobody here would mind, right?” He got a few heads nodding except for the woman sitting on her luggage. She just shook her head and muttered something that he ignored.
“That’s the ticket! Why, you stick with us and I bet I can get you in. You know they say these communities are really nice and spaces are going quickly. Why, I heard they were not going to be making a lot of these communities so you’d be getting in on the ground floor, and—”
“Save it,” Max spit out.
“But—”
Max patted the girl on the head. “Take care of Mr. Bunny.”
“Don’t worry, I will. Say goodbye, Mr. Bunny.” She waved his little furry paw.
Max growled, “Move out.”
We walked away. I heard the luggage-sitter say, “Worked that ol’ sales magic again, didn’t you, honey?” and laugh.
His only reply was, “You heard the man. Move out!”
Max was moody the rest of the day. So was Night. Later that evening, after we had eaten and before she went on watch, she pulled me aside.
“Do you ever think about kids, Gardener?”
I thought about it a bit. It was a serious question, especially coming from her, so I wanted to answer her honestly. “Not really.” I saw the light in her eyes change. “But that kid today was cute. You want to know something?”
She nodded her head.
“I wanted to kill all those people and take the kids. Mr. Bunny deserves better.”
She nodded again. A
faint grin appeared. “That might have been a little extreme, Gardener.”
I shrugged, “I know. I’d have to kill them away from the kids and then come up with a convincing story.”
“Gardener.” She shook her head. “You know there are other ways.”
“Sure. You can buy them.”
She punched me. “You know what I am saying.”
“I know.” The only thing was, I had never thought of it like that: Night and me, hatching little gunslingers. Maybe a couple of gunslingers and a Mr. Bunny lover. She could be a ninja bunny lover . . . “What are you thinking?”
I told her about hatching gunslingers and a ninja bunny lover. I was surprised. Her eyes welled up and she pulled me close.
She whispered in my ear, “When?”
“When we find a safe place to settle down.”
We quit talking and I became distracted. My last thought before losing myself in her was, But I don’t think I want to stop killing.
CHAPTER TEN
We kept moving. It took us almost a week to get beyond the heavily built-up areas, partly because the sprawl covered so much land, but mostly because Night and I were not physically up to the challenge yet.
Instead of pushing for miles, Max would run us through tactical drills. He would stop, pull us off to the side of the trail, and ask us questions: “What would you do if we began taking fire from over there?” Over there, in this case, being a creek bed. Or, “Suppose the point tells you he suspects there are people waiting to ambush us. How are you going to do a counterambush?”
We would work each scenario from the perspective of being in charge, and we’d create a plan and detail what was expected of each person when the plan was executed. There was no sense of unreality anymore about doing this. This was our reality.
We met only one organized group along the way. We came up on them from behind. They had someone watching their back, and he reacted as we approached. I got a brief glimpse of women and children ahead of them, but they moved off the trail within seconds after I had been spotted. It was tense for a minute or two.
