Afterwar

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Was that “peace”? Enough to throw things away when you were full?

  Still, Spooky finished every single chip, tipped the leftover fragments carefully into her mouth, and even tore the package open to lick the salt free. Others could throw away good calories. She wouldn’t.

  But there, in the sunlight, she decided she wouldn’t go digging in the garbage for them, either. Not while she didn’t have to.

  That was her own measure of peace.

  “Huh.” The skinny flannel-clad man behind the counter at the needle exchange pushed his heavy black-rimmed glasses up on his forehead. “One hand?”

  “Left hand’s missing,” Pana supplied helpfully. “Amputated a little above the wrist.”

  “Just enough to get rid of a magchip, huh? No wonder he’s riding the whitemare.” He made a soft clucking noise, tongue-clicking like a grandmother. Behind Spooky and Pana, the line stirred restively. Only a few people waiting looked like fugees—you could tell from the cropped hair and the circles under their eyes, as well as the worn-down soles. Shoe rationing hadn’t been necessary on this side of the Rockies. “You know…”

  He looked up and past them, at the line. Visibly weighed telling them more. Pana waited, so Spooky did too. So much of life was just waiting.

  The man—his name tag read DAVID—finally reached a decision. “I got to hand these out, okay? If you want to wait, I can look through paperwork.”

  Pana glanced at Spooky, who tipped her head back, staring at the ancient overhead fixture. No electricity rationing, either. It might as well be a different planet on this side of the mountains. When her eyes rolled over slightly, she saw Pana still studying her expression.

  Looking for a sign.

  So she brought her chin back down and nodded. This, she could work with.

  “Can you ask them if they’ve seen this man?” Pana spread the mugshot out on the tacky plastic counter.

  “Sure thing.”

  The two women sat on a hard wooden bench to one side, watching the line as it moved forward in fits and starts. Spooky’s eyes closed most of the way, only a faint glitter under her lashes showing she was conscious. Zampana kept a lookout for amputees. You never could tell when the bastard you were looking for would waltz right into your scope. Chance helped those who helped themselves, and all that.

  There were a surprising number of people in line, and some of them were rounder than she’d thought needle-riders would be. Some of them even looked like professional civilians—ties, heels, styled hair. Several brought their used needles in plastic baggies. One girl with wispy black hair had a small zippered pouch with appliquéd rhinestones that gave Pana a pinch under her breastbone, thinking of Minjae.

  Min would’ve had a few more things to say about this fucking state of affairs. Prink probably would too, but he was a bellyacher, and had been from the start.

  So many lost. If she started thinking about one, it led her to another, a long bloody chain. Plenty of them had died in her arms, or holding her hand.

  That was what “medic” meant.

  Spooky was so still Pana almost thought she was asleep. The line showed no signs of diminishing. Glasses behind the desk shot them one or two nervous glances, and Pana was considering whether his was just the usual apprehension of a former junkie or the tension of someone with something to hide when Spooky twitched, her elbow smacking Pana’s hard enough to hurt and her head knocking against the wall behind the bench with a soft thud.

  A thin thread of bright blood smeared across Spooky’s upper lip, and her dark eyes were glare-wide.

  “Shit, is she OD’ing?” The girl with the appliquéd bag sidled like a horse, and Glasses behind the counter swore.

  “She has epilepsy,” Pana said, a little louder than absolutely necessary.

  “And she’s a soldier?” This from a man in a gray worsted suit, his own plastic bag held almost hidden near his leg.

  “Hey, man.” A T-shirted boy with glaring, healing track marks up and down his arms shook his dreadlocked head. “Everyone did their part in the war, man.”

  “Yeah, like you fought,” Glasses snorted. “If she’s OD’ing, get her out of here.”

  Someone farther back in the line objected. “This a church, man!”

  Spooky’s eyes opened wide, her pupils dilated so far the irises were a thin ring. They shrank as Pana rose to peer into her face, ignoring the rising noise of commentary. Spooky shuddered, and consciousness returned to her slack expression. “—hill,” she mumbled. “On the green hill.”

  “Spook?” Pana held her shoulders. “You’re with me, Spooky girl. It’s all right.”

  “You sure it’s epilepsy?”

  “Petit mal,” someone else said. “Looks like it.”

  “You a doctor?”

  “Trained as a nurse, fuck you very much.”

  “Hey, no pushing!”

  “Hand out the needles, man, I got places to be.” A skinny black man pushed up to the counter, glancing at the taped-down mug shot. “You lookin’ for him?”

  It never rained but it poured, Pana thought sourly, and looked over her shoulder. “Yeah. That’s what we’re here for.”

  “Dude has one hand, right? Saw that cracker in the Greenbelt yesterday, askin’ around for Billy Bughead.”

  “Were you looking for Billy too?” Glasses sighed. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  The black man, his corduroy sports jacket once tailored but now a little too big, rolled his eyes. “Man, just give me the needles.”

  Spooky pushed Pana’s hands away, but gently. She rubbed at her upper lip, smearing the blood, and blinked. “He knows,” she said. “Go on. He knows.”

  “Give him his needles.” Pana let go of Spooky, turned on her heel. “Ese, maybe we should talk outside?”

  “There a reward?” The black man swept his packet of steri-wrapped needles off the counter. Glasses looked sour.

  “Maybe, if you make us happy.” Pana gave Spooky a hand up and made sure she could stand. “Come on.”

  Chapter Eighty

  Dragonfly, Conscience

  Nature was never really quiet. A hush generally meant humans were sneaking around looking to cause some hurt. All that said, it was still kind of peaceful along the river, frogs singing and insects buzzing, birds swooping and the trees rustling while they drank.

  Henny didn’t make any fuss about taking point. His back, bisected diagonally by the strap of his laptop waterproofer, bobbed as he edged carefully around the worst of the mud, and if his skin crawled at the thought of Swann behind him, it didn’t show.

  This was a reasonably well-traveled path, full of windings to take advantage of rocks and fallen trunks. Henny even shortened his long strides and took two jumps instead of one, so Swann could fit his stumpier legs into the rhythm.

  Nice of him.

  They walked in silence for a long while, alert for disturbed undergrowth, footprints, the subconscious tickle of There’s a mine around or the hair-raising sense that someone was drawing a bead on you through the bushes.

  Finally, the trail turned uphill a bit, weaving its way between dense brakes. A dragonfly zipped across Swann’s vision, an iridescent jeweled alien with buzzing double wings. Prink might have even known its scientific name. Lazy might have tried to get one to settle on his hand.

  Swann’s fingertips touched his sidearm.

  Lazy. Prink. Minjae. All the ones dead before the surrender, too. Was he going to add one more?

  Shit.

  Henny reached a small widening in the trail. On the right side, the river had taken a bite from the bank and ran smooth and fast past a screen of wild, thorny canes crumbling into its embrace. A quick shove from the brink would send a body crashing through and into the water.

  The Federal halted, edged for the bushes. He pitched forward a little, peering over the brambles like he saw something caught in their flow. He stayed there, and Swann’s fingers curled around the butt.

  “Go ahead,”
Henny said, without turning. His hair was no longer buzzed so tightly at the back or sides. In a little while he’d have a raider’s fuck-the-regs mop. “If you gotta, Swann, go ahead.”

  It wasn’t like Swann hadn’t shot a man in the back before, God knew. Traitors or Firsters weren’t worth giving a chance to bite back. “You think I should?” Tossing a body in here…it could be an accident, a refugee armed with something and Henny in the crossfire. Probably wouldn’t even be an inquest. It would piss off Henny’s masters back in DC, but they were bound to know the doctor was dead already. Maybe he hadn’t been carrying any data, or maybe they would find the one-handed bastard and have to make a decision about a goose laying a poisonous golden egg.

  “Captain’s gotta protect his own.” Henny nodded, his shoulders settling. “And this is a pretty place, you know.”

  It was. You could almost believe the war hadn’t happened. Or that it was really over, instead of echoing inside every shattered body, every frayed nerve.

  Swann’s pocket buzzed. The sound almost lifted him out of his skin, and his bootheel ground down sharply in gravel-laced mud. It was the handheld cell, and if it was doing its dance, that meant someone had something. Or a gigantic problem had reared its ugly head, probably in the Reaper’s general vicinity.

  When does the killin’ stop, he’d asked himself, more than once.

  Maybe it was when a man had a chance not to, and decided to take it.

  “Get away from the edge.” Swann fished the buzzing brick out of his jacket pocket, thumbing the screen to pick up. “Could be undercut.”

  Henny turned, slowly, his hands out and easy. He studied Swann, his expression somewhere halfway between disbelief and thoughtfulness, his black hair messy since branches had combed it during passage.

  Pana’s voice crackled over the connection, blasting on speakerphone. “Captain? We have something.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “Got a fellow who saw One-Hand in the Greenbelt hanging around a junk dealer. Spooky had a sort of seizure, and she keeps wanting to run off southwest. She says there’s a cemetery—”

  Swann dredged the name out of short-term memory. “Morris Hill.”

  Pana did not sound relieved. “Gotta be, she keeps saying ‘the green hill.’”

  “Where are you?” Copper adrenaline filled Swann’s mouth, his heart giving its usual precombat prepare-to-get-the-shit-shot-out-of-you thump. “Right now?”

  “The second needle exchange on the list. Cathedral of the Rockies.” Pana swore. “Dammit, Spooky, just wait a second! Captain’s orders!”

  Swann shut his eyes, calling up the terrain.

  Henny saved him the trouble. “We’re halfway between them and the cemetery.”

  Swann was suddenly, deeply glad he hadn’t pulled his gun. It might make problems later, and the whole thing was a shitbag and a half, but he found, with a cold gush of relief-sweat all over his body, that his conscience was pretty goddamn clear, for once. “Henny, get Ngombe on your phone, have her pick us all up back at those fucking portables. Pana?”

  “Yessir?”

  “Grab a cab or whatever you can; get over the bridge to Ann Morrison Park. They’ll be waiting for you at the gates, all right? Call if you hit any snags.”

  “Yessir.” Pana’s relief was palpable. “Okay, Spooky. We’re goin’ that direction, work your magic and find us a fuckin’ cab.” The connection cut, and Swann found himself looking at Henny, who stared at his own phone’s face, frowning a little as he tapped with his index finger.

  Yeah, Phil Swann decided, conscience was clear. If he had to do something about Henny later, he’d do it to his face.

  And he’d give the other man plenty of warning.

  Maybe that was the beginning of peacetime—the luxury of a conscience. The rest of it might come when they caught this one-handed bastard.

  But Swann wasn’t gonna hold his breath.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Forgotten Corners

  It was restful, Gene Thomas decided, in its own way.

  The southeast corner of Morris Hill was where the buildings clustered, and most of the morons who thought this was a good place to camp were caught around there and dragged back to the Greenbelt or to holding for a night. Some of them skulked around the synagogue—wasn’t that a fucking irony—hoping for a handout or two, or to slide in during their refugee food hours. But if you were quick, and quiet, you could slip through a loose section of fencing and into the cemetery to the north. If you didn’t waltz right down the paved paths like you owned the place, and didn’t light a fire, you could find a space to tack up a little camouflage cloth to keep the dew off, especially in the marshy northeast corner. On the other side of the low concrete wall and high iron fence spikes to discourage climbers was a bus stop, and he’d heard the rumbles all night while he tossed and turned under the verminous blanket he’d taken from the degenerate drug dealer’s personal stash.

  He didn’t want to do his first solo cook-and-shoot at night.

  The doctor’s vials with their high-quality fluid were gone. Billy hadn’t had any of that shit, but he had a brick of some fairly good stuff. At least, Gene had figured out as much, watching the man conduct business in the Greenbelt. He’d also watched some of the others in the gallery down by the river too, until he was sure he could replicate the process. The itching had faded, but the pain wouldn’t go away, and what was worse, he hadn’t heard her since the bus station. Even if he concentrated, he couldn’t quite remember her face. Just words, like curly dark hair or big dark eyes or pretty hips.

  The buttons in his head were bleeding, and he needed it to stop.

  Midmorning sun thinned out as clouds came boiling in. Looked like rain, but under his cloth he was reasonably dry. Gene hunched, cross-legged, and shaved a little bit off the brick of strange, almost waxy white stuff. A stolen cotton ball went into the bowl of the spoon, and it took three tries to light the cheap birthday candle since he couldn’t cup his left hand to shield the flame. Forget matches, he’d had to swipe a candy lighter.

  Bubbling down. He had to pull his left leg up and tuck the spoon handle between thigh, knee, and calf, hoping he wouldn’t spill the shit. He’d take a hit, and with the craving retreated a bit he could go and sell some of the rest.

  Business. Entrepreneurship. The Amerikan way. In the kamps they called it organizing, but Gene had never truly liked the word. It was too…prissy.

  Working the needle with one hand, he managed to get a respectable few cc’s of oblivion loaded up. The wind had risen, and his stomach growled a little. Lunchtime, but he didn’t want food. A faint faraway noise could have been traffic, or threatening thunder.

  Rattling branches. He glanced up, fairly confident his hiding place was secure. The bushes weren’t trimmed back here. It was amazing how you could find forgotten corners anywhere. A lot could happen in those empty, ignored places. They had all—Fourteeners, sovereign citizens, Christian culture warriors—been in forgotten places, before McCoombs brought them into the light with a rush. You could be proud to be one of the masters of Amerika for a few years, and Amerika was the master of the world.

  Right now, though, Gene was going to see her again. He got the syringe tapped as well as he could, and wrapped the brick back up. Wouldn’t do for that to get wet. The birthday candle sent up a tiny thread of cheap wax smoke, black and pungent, whisked away by a breeze full of the green echo of approaching rain.

  “Oh,” he whispered, pumping his left arm to make the veins pop. “Oh, yeah.”

  Dark eyes. The curve of her lips. The smell of her nape. The moment in the quarry when she stood up and looked at him, and something blind in her tugged at a string deep in him.

  Gene pushed the needle in. His thumb rested on the plunger. He quelled a shiver, anticipation running along his skin, the fine small muscles around body hairs tightening to raise them.

  “Hannah,” he breathed, and pushed the plunger halfway. Stiffened, his head jerking up.<
br />
  Footsteps. Drawing closer.

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Among the Graves

  “Slow down.” Zampana grabbed the back of Spooky’s fatigue jacket. “Wait for the Captain, Spook.”

  Spooky didn’t bother saying she didn’t fucking care. Henny, arguing with the civilian cop at the eastern cemetery entrance among a milling cluster of refugees and other homeless, jabbed his index finger into his palm, emphasizing a point. Swann glowered, but he let the Federal do what he was along for.

  It didn’t matter. None of it did. Spooky wriggled, tough canvas popped a few stitches but didn’t tear. “This way,” she said, straining.

  It happened quickly. The cop was shaking his head, Spooky’s midriff pressed against a barricade bar, Pana attempting to get a better purchase on her coat, the sled’s cells making a low throbbing sound as Ngombe lifted it from the middle of a civilian road, pleased she’d been able to land so neatly and doubly pleased she’d been able to scare the shit out of a few cops.

  Chuck Dogg, watching the situation with his dreadlocked head cocked at what Simmons would have recognized as his I don’t believe this shit angle, decided it was time to do something, and cleared leather. He pointed his sidearm skyward and squeezed off a shot.

  Refugees scattered, pouring across the street that was well and truly blocked now. The civilian cop flinched, Swann almost hit the deck, and Henny flipped out his badge authorization and grabbed the cop by his shoulder.

  And Spooky, taking advantage of Pana’s dropping into a protective crouch, tore herself away, ducked under the barrier, and took off at a run.

  Cursing, scrabbling, ripping a fingernail on the concrete as she pushed herself forward, Pana followed, crossing herself as she lengthened her stride and plunged among the graves. Spooky stagger-stumbled, boots slipping on slick grass because she avoided the paved pathways like an animal conscious of human traffic. Adrenaline gave her the speed her trembling, starvation-wasted and barely rebuilt muscles couldn’t otherwise summon. Later, she couldn’t really describe what had pulled her on. It was like a hot wire, she would say, staring at something in the distance, her pupils swelling a little. Red-hot, pushed through me and knotted up at my back.