Rise Again Below Zero

by Ben Tripp

  “I’ll be in my room,” Danny said. She meant it. She needed a nap.

  • • •

  Amy visited Danny in the night. Her old friend was asleep, and she decided not to wake her. The hospital-school was quiet, except for the heating system kicking on now and then. Amy was deeply tired. The drama of the last couple of weeks had caught up with her, and along with it the grief. The Tribe had fallen apart, Danny had finally, irretrievably lost Kelley, a prisoner had been murdered, and if the kidnapped children were here in town, nobody was lifting a finger to reunite them with their proper guardians. She knew this was catnip for Danny. A windmill to joust at.

  Amy sat in the chair by the door, looking across the room at Danny’s bed. It was rare to see her at peace. She might even be awake, and only pretending. Danny did that sometimes when they were girls.

  “You’re a good egg,” Amy said, in a voice neither quiet nor loud. “It’s been a hard time and you made some good from it. I wish Kelley didn’t end up like she did, but she did. So there you go. Did and done. I’m sick of you being Mrs. Angry Pants all the time, and I’m sick of you being a drunken drunkard. But I don’t care about that. I heard from the nice Japanese doctor about your brain problem. It’s serious. I love you and I want you to get better. So don’t do stupid stuff, please. Me and Patrick and some others are leaving town in the morning, so we probably won’t see you again. I guess that’s it. The end.”

  Amy sat for a while, hoping to see some sign Danny had heard what she said. But the eyes remained shut, the face slack. It might be that Danny was having a proper sleep for once. Amy wasn’t going to wake her for that. She wanted to express her love of her battered friend somehow, but there wasn’t a way.

  “Good night,” she said, in the same soft tones, and left the room.

  • • •

  Danny walked into town the following morning with a light snow swirling down around her. It stopped before she reached the town center. She strode to the cadence of the church bells, like any of the worshippers around her, but didn’t turn to go into the church. Instead she positioned herself beside the war memorial in the middle of the square and looked up at the bank. To her surprise, the Architect himself was on the upstairs balcony of the bank, outside his office door. In the daylight, she could see he was wearing heavy makeup, painted like an old nearsighted showgirl. His head turned toward her and froze for a few seconds; despite the sunglasses he wore, she could feel his eyes on her. She showed no recognition, and neither did he. But he made a point of looking at his watch.

  Danny observed an unusual number of blaze orange vests in the area, and the outlines of men crouched at the rooftop parapets. A crowd of worshippers had assembled around the statue in the middle of the intersection, making a show of force before they went inside the church; there was a crowd of onlookers lurking around the perimeter. It was similar in atmosphere to the confrontation of yesterday. It wasn’t clear which way the general population’s sympathies lay. With whoever looked to win, Danny assumed. She was reminded uncomfortably of the finale to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or possibly The Wild Bunch, movies she would never see again.

  She saw Nancy emerge from the bank. A ripple of ill-tempered remarks spread out among the churchgoers, who recognized her as one of the Architect’s close advisors. She was flanked by security men with automatic weapons; despite the firepower they walked in a broad arc around the hostile part of the crowd. Danny realized they were heading in her direction.

  As the woman approached, Danny studied her condition. Not as far along as Cad, maybe. Not as dead as the Architect. But committed.

  “Good morning,” Nancy said, as she reached Danny’s position in the shadow of the bronze warrior. Danny said nothing.

  “So,” Nancy continued. “We noticed you were at church yesterday. Did you find it interesting?”

  “It made me puke,” Danny said.

  “So we saw. But you went in for a talk.”

  Danny didn’t reply. Let the silence do the work.

  “My employer has already said he will equip you as needed for your mission, whatever you want. A prerequisite he failed to mention, and he so seldom makes even a small error that it’s an inspiration to us all, but a condition he failed to mention is that you have no further discourse with his ah, um, opponent, or rival if you will.”

  “It’s kind of too bad he didn’t bring that up,” Danny said. She saw motion in the tail of her eye and glanced back at the church. The acolytes were filing out through the doors, lining up on the steps as if there might be a rumble; there was a renewed noise from the crowd. The cordon of guards around the intersection closed in a few paces. “Because my buddy in there did make me a counteroffer.”

  “Then you’ve broken our agreement,” Nancy said, her voice flat.

  “Not if your boss up there is still on his feet, I haven’t. Tell you what, if you all want to fight it out right here and now, go ahead. You don’t need me. Kill that thing on the cross and burn down the church. I’m sure his followers will return the favor to your little bank. Me? I’ll be on the road a hundred miles away, laughing my ass off.”

  The crowd had spread out, people forming sides, until it was divided across the intersection. Danny’s anonymity had ended. She was now a player. Even the onlookers appeared to be choosing teams: They wanted a fight, and didn’t care what it was about. Danny didn’t know which side was stronger. It didn’t matter. The important thing was that the balance of power was thrown off: The authorities were evenly matched with the civilians. That’s when things got done. Nancy must still have had her human emotions intact, because she looked plenty rattled.

  Danny observed an earbud tucked in Nancy’s left ear: She must be in communication with the Architect by radio. The Architect, his balcony sufficiently distant from the onlookers so he could pass for human, appeared to be chewing; Danny now guessed he was speaking, probably into a lapel microphone. Such technology was available for free wherever looting could be done in the post-technological age they’d entered, but it had fallen out of use. Why rely on something that could never again be replaced?

  Nancy was listening, but watching Danny. Then she spoke. “You’re trying to play both sides against the middle,” she said.

  “In case you haven’t gotten too stupid, I am the middle, you dumb half-rotten fuck,” Danny said.

  “How dare you!” Nancy gasped.

  “You gonna eat some of those tasty little kids, Nancy?” Danny asked, stepping closer to the woman, keeping her voice down. “You gonna go around the mountain and visit those kids—”

  “Shut up!” Nancy hissed, her voice low but urgent. “If these people hear you there will be absolute pandemonium.”

  “I’d call this a standoff, then.”

  “You ruthless b—”

  “—Was that you talking, or did you just quote the Architect?”

  Nancy pursed her lips, seething, and listened to the earpiece again. Then she said, “He wants to show you something. Follow me.”

  Danny swept her eyes around the town square, taking in the guards, the civilians, the acolytes, the Architect, the bronze Civil War veteran on his pedestal above her. Beyond the train station at the end of the street, she could see the mountains shelving up beyond the rooftops, and thought she could tell on which ledge she and Topper had spent their brief time together. Her situation had become so strange she almost felt as if she must still be up there, watching all this through the telescope.

  “Why the hell not?” Danny said, and looked provocatively back at the church. The Preacher was standing inside the doors, now, surrounded by true believers. His arms were folded across his chest and his face was sour. Danny winked at him: Let him take it how he would. Then she sauntered on up the street after Nancy, swaggering much the way that sonofabitch did inside the church.

  • • •

  The arrival of Dr. Joe Higashiyama created a brief sensation at the farmhouse. He showed up in a pickup truck, alone, driving in
that slow, brake-tapping way that had once been associated with deliverymen in unfamiliar territory, back when there were deliverymen. The Boston Terrier had become alert to his approach first, snarling at the glass of the front window in the living room; Conn went upstairs and spotted the truck with binoculars, and within a couple of minutes there were armed scouts hidden all around the front of the property, waiting for the truck to arrive.

  Dr. Joe nearly got himself killed by climbing out of the truck with a rifle in his hands, but he placed the weapon on the roof of the truck, stepped away from it, and hollered, “Anybody here?”

  “The hell are you?” a gravelly voice called from an upstairs window.

  “I’m from Happy Town,” he said. “Sheriff Adelman asked me to show up here and ask for something.”

  The scouts emerged from their various hiding places, and Dr. Joe went pale; Danny hadn’t mentioned how rough-looking they were. But he explained to the tall one (who introduced himself as Topper) what he was looking for, and where it could be found; this cemented his credentials and it was insisted that he have a drink with them. The scouts wanted to hear how the sheriff was doing. The last time Topper had seen her she was incapacitated.

  “Her brain is damaged,” Dr. Joe explained, holding a coffee mug full of tequila in his hands, seated in the living room on a shabby floral couch. “She’s totally fine, I mean she can do anything, but if there’s another shock to her head I don’t know if she’ll survive it.”

  “Are you a good doctor or a shitty one?” Topper inquired.

  “I’m pretty good, I think,” Dr. Joe replied. He wasn’t offended by the question; he knew what Topper meant. How qualified was he? “I’m not a brain specialist, but it’s unmistakable. Subarachnoid lesions and stuff. What’s amazing is how well she’s doing despite it. I guess I can tell you guys she’s been in at least one fight since her episode, and it didn’t seem to have any negative effect on her.”

  “That’s the sheriff,” Ricardo said. He was a little guy with a huge mustache. “How long has she got?”

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Joe admitted. “But she has a deathwish, that’s for sure. What’s in this backpack she wants so bad?”

  “Nobody knows,” Topper said. “Weapons, anyway. Any time she needs a little extra firepower, it’s usually in there. Maybe grenades, maybe a flamethrower.”

  “Maybe we should look in it,” Conn said.

  “I’ll tell her it was your idea,” Topper said.

  “Maybe not,” Conn reflected. “Anyway, whatever she got in mind it’s her fuckin’ business.”

  “You Oriental cats can keep secrets, right?” Topper said, addressing Dr. Joe. He was taken aback, but nodded as if agreeing. “Okay, I’m gonna take this pack back myself. Ain’t leaving it to you, nothin’ personal. But I don’t know you from a fuckin’ serial killer. Thing is, though, if the sheriff wants out of there, she’s gonna need inside help. I want you to be that help.”

  “I’m prepared for that, as long as it’s nonviolent,” Dr. Joe said. “Showing up here is a hanging offense, I have a feeling. Might as well go all-in.”

  “We might not need nothing from you, but an inside man is always a good thing.”

  They didn’t have any specific role they’d need him for; Topper’s real goal was simply to get Dr. Joe feeling like he was in too deep to cause them any trouble. Like if he snitched, he would be implicated. This wasn’t the kind of work any of them were good at. It was like spycraft. Most of all, he knew he was going to drop the backpack off in a specific location; that meant he would be right where an informant said he’d be, and holding a backpack that could be full of sarin gas, for all he knew. The sheriff liked the dangerous toys. It occurred to him Conn might be right: Maybe he should see what was in there. But he was still going to drop the pack off, because Danny wanted it. No point looking at its contents, even if it meant getting caught by the Happy Town police and thrown into the clink like Ernie. Fuck it.

  • • •

  Nancy was chatting with manic brightness as she, Danny, and their escort of guards walked the five blocks from the town center. Danny didn’t say a word, but cut her eyes back and forth, taking in every window, every doorway, every means of escape or attack the length of the street. They were surrounded by orange vests, and beyond that the civilians lurked in every corner, down every alley, watching. Nancy had been talking the entire walk, but it was only when they got closer to the train station that Danny tuned in.

  Nancy was saying, “. . . best possible care, of course. We have the MRI machine, superb surgical facilities, a burn care ward, a dialysis center, and we even have a cancer center in another building with complete chemotherapy and radiation treatments available.”

  “Radiation?” Danny muttered, half-aware she said it. By now they were at the gate; the bored-looking man waved them through, Nancy being well-known to him.

  “Yes,” Nancy said, and looked suspiciously at Danny. “Is that so odd? The rate of cancers has skyrocketed in the last few decades, and these days of course it’s going untreated. Why, going forward, it could kill more people than those nasty moaners out there.”

  The first security perimeter was a chain-link fence about five feet high, not too heavy, no barbed wire; just a kennel fence for keeping people organized. There was a gate in the fence with a man in winter clothes sitting on a stool, opening and closing his hands to keep them warm. He had a clipboard tucked into the throat of his jacket.

  There was a blaze-vested guard standing nearby, but he was making a show of boredom, and if he carried a firearm, it was concealed. Even the casual distance between him and the gate seemed calculated to project how relaxed they were, how mild the security was. The guard’s studied nonchalance was particularly ridiculous in light of the fact that fifty or more people had followed Danny and Nancy up the street and were now standing in an angry knot in the middle of the pavement, complaining loudly and trying to provoke the guard. From a safe distance.

  “I’m just surprised you’d bring radioactive material into town. Radiation kills zer—the undead,” Danny said, correcting herself, remembering that “zero” was apparently a pejorative with this bunch. She didn’t want to antagonize the woman; she wanted to destroy her. Be polite until then.

  “There are no undead here,” Nancy said, lamely. “I mean except that nasty thing in the church, God forgive me.” She was just repeating what she’d been told to say to the ordinary, ignorant people she met. Her slowly dying mind wasn’t equipped with a response for an outsider who knew.

  “Right,” Danny said. “Anyway I bet you keep real close tabs on those radium pellets or whatever they are. Are you at the point where it would kill you instantly, or are you still human that way?”

  “You disgust me,” Nancy said, when she had thought it over for a few paces.

  They had arrived at the next security perimeter. This one was considerably more serious: Three men in combat gear stood there, no vests, lots of guns. The gate stood in a twelve-foot fence with razor wire along the top, but only a short section of the fence was visible from beyond the station; it crossed an access road over the tracks between the station house and the next building, a luggage storage shed. Danny saw a forklift go past, its arms laden with crates of canned food; she caught a glimpse inside the building and saw stacks of crates up to the rafters.

  There were men working in this secure inner sanctum who had a frontier look to them, the kind of men who would drop their tools and pick up a rifle at the first sign of trouble. It reminded Danny of forward posts she’d been to in the deserts of the Middle East. She wondered if the workers could all be infected semi-living people like Nancy and Cad, and decided it was impossible: Zeroes, even part-zeroes, wouldn’t be able to heal or build muscle the way the living could. They needed living hands for the hard work. So these men (it was all men) must have some kind of special status here, some privilege others didn’t.

  Nancy explained their business to one of the guards, who looked fr
ankly skeptical and picked up an all-weather telephone to call someone. He listened for a while, nodded, then hung up and indicated his colleagues should pat Danny down. Danny spread her arms out and allowed the inspection to occur. They groped her thoroughly; as had happened before, she felt the probing fingers hesitate when they encountered the geography of her back through her shirt. But they moved on. Of course, none of the men had thought to feel the fingers in her gloves, or there might have been a delay at the gate.

  They passed through, and now one of the guards accompanied them as they turned left and moved down the tracks westward, the station behind them and the warehouses and train-repair sheds ahead. Danny estimated there were fifty or sixty men working here. In combination with the various security men around town, the Architect probably commanded a private army 250 strong. Not enough to stop a rebellion but sufficient to fight a decent rearguard action. These were definitely fully human, not the half-dead or unliving. She wondered what they had been promised in return for their service.

  Although she rejected the idea with every impulse in her being, she understood what Nancy, Cad, and the acolytes were in it for: immortality, of a kind. Stockholm Syndrome taken to the next level. They were like Dracula’s groupies. But what was in it for these other men with their unsmiling faces and heads-down labor? Did they get free whores? Better food? Maybe they got the nice bungalow houses in the suburbs, like the one from which Danny had stolen the jacket on her first night in town. Or it could be that they’d simply been given a little authority. That went far with some people. A little stamp of approval from the VIPs: You’ll make the grade. You’re better than the chooks. We need these pallets moved by noon.

  They walked past the train engine project, on which a crew was working at speed. There were showers of sparks and clouds of smoke and steam, all to the beat and clang of hammers and steel. The engine was mechanically finished, it appeared; there were men bolting cover plates on over the massive power plant, and all the drive wheels were in place. But they were adding a huge, hand-built plow of steel at the front, and armored baffles along the entire fuselage. It was becoming a war-wagon.