Citizen Second Class- Apocalypse Next

by Robert Chazz Chute

  Her smile faded quickly as the guard stood over a still figure not far away. “If you’re not gettin’ up, you better be dead!”

  The man on the floor was dead.

  I stood and stared, unsure of what should be done. The dead man’s lips were blue, his face ghostly white. By the twisted look on his face, I was sure he had died in terrible pain.

  The guard did not remove his state trooper’s hat. Instead, he cursed, long, loud and imaginatively. He said terrible things about the dead man’s mother. Other than venting, the display seemed pointless. I said so to Mike and Miranda.

  “It’s not pointless,” Miranda told me. “Look at it from Old Hat’s point of view. They all do it. It makes their lives easier.”

  Mike rolled his eyes. “Yeah … or he’s just a dick. We better get going unless you want to get pulled into digging a grave for that guy. I’d rather not. He was the one coughing hard last night. That guy needed medical. He was yelling for help. Didn’t get it.”

  Miranda bent to finish filling her backpack. Everyone hurried to get away from the dead man. No one but me seemed to spare the corpse a glance.

  As we walked toward the exit, Miranda caught my horrified look. She patted me on the shoulder and whispered, “It’s the way it is.”

  “I don’t know how you smile in the face of such … casualness.”

  “You can fight the tide or tread water and learn to accept forces greater than yourself. Accepting the way things are makes me peaceful.”

  I didn’t feel peaceful. I wanted to fight the tide.

  Chapter Nine

  Once we were outside the building, I stuck with Mike and Miranda. They knew what to expect and seemed to be the only friendly faces in sight. We got in line for breakfast and the line was long. Every man wore a beard, usually quite ragged. Some younger children cried. I noticed the older children looked thin. When I remarked how well-behaved the little ones appeared, Mike observed that they were probably too scared or too tired to cry.

  “The Select won’t need so many of Citizen Security forces in another generation,” he whispered. “Once they teach all the kids that they’re helpless and their only choice is to surrender, the elite will have nothing to worry about, not from us.”

  Miranda swatted his shoulder and gave her husband a stern look that silenced him. Then she turned her hard glare on me. “If you repeat that, we’ll deny it.”

  Surprised by her sudden change in mood, I tried to assure them I wasn’t there to make trouble.

  Mike bobbed his head and stared at his feet. “I spoke too loud, too soon, too much. Sorry, Miranda.”

  Miranda studied me as if she could peer into my bones. “People disappear all the time, you know. Rumor is the people who go away leave this world in much worse ways than on a concrete floor in the night.”

  I thought again of the beggar outside the Mission back in Campbellford and how quiet he became after the black bag was yanked down over his face. “People are disappearing?”

  “Sh! Just wait for breakfast and if you must speak, speak of pleasant things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that you’re getting fed. We should all be grateful for what we have.”

  After another moment, Miranda seemed to reconsider her words. “Sorry if I came across too harsh. We only just met you. Mike lets his mouth get ahead of his brain sometimes. Making a little fun of Old Hat in whispers is one thing but sedition is another.”

  Her big grin returned as quickly as it had disappeared. I didn’t trust it anymore, though. What I’d first taken as sunny optimism and endurance, I now saw as collaboration. That smile, as empty as a slogan, was born not of bravery but from fear.

  The Select had replaced the Elect. It was said the elite had tired of our whining about all the things we did not have. Someone like Miranda would probably survive, smiling to the end of the world, a cheery worker drone come what may. She’d never be honest. She’d never admit that while it’s good to appreciate what you have, it isn’t right for the oppressors to demand we settle for next to nothing. Forced gratitude is every bit as satisfying as a forced apology.

  Miranda stood ahead of me in line. Her smile got even wider as she handed me a bowl. “Don’t forget to count your blessings.”

  I was familiar with the term soup kitchen. I did not expect soup for breakfast. It was a thin broth, lukewarm, with a sparse infusion of carrots, potatoes and split pea flavoring. There was nothing to drink except for the soup and there were no spoons. I tipped the bowl back and drank.

  There were two paths beyond the soup line. One was toward a cashier. That line was short. The longer line was for us to pay with our labor.

  “One night’s sleep and a meal paid for with half a day’s work sounds fair, doesn’t it?” Miranda burbled.

  Several people within earshot hissed their disapproval but no more words were exchanged. Though the day had only begun, everyone seemed exhausted and ill-tempered.

  I excused myself to join a line to a portable toilet. When I finally got inside, the little cube smelled of feces and a chemical spray I assumed was designed to cleanse the toilet seat. If it was supposed to negate the fumes emanating from human waste, it failed miserably.

  There was no water to wash my hands but I put my hands beneath a device on the wall that issued a dollop of hand sanitizer and a blue light meant to kill germs. I’d been quick but the next person pounded on the door before I could exit the cube.

  I joined a new line, careful to avoid the one Mike and Miranda had taken. In a moment, two homeless people strode down the line, one handing out vests, the other giving out sticks with spikes on the end.

  A skinny guy wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat fell in behind me. “Clean-up duty for us today.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Pick up litter with the sharp stick. The CSS used to walk down the line to hand out the sticks. Then one day there was a riot. Two were killed and one guard lost an eye. After that, the homeless hand out the sticks to the homeless.”

  I turned to look at the man. He wasn’t much older than me. Someone had broken his nose and it had not set quite right. His eyes were a brilliant blue but it was distracting how his nose appeared to be pointing off to the left. The man might have been handsome in an interesting way but for his smile. When he grinned at me, his teeth were the color of mud.

  “I’ve never seen you before,” he said.

  “I’ve never been here before.”

  “That would explain it.” He offered his hand and I shook it. “Name’s Jason. People call me Picasso, cuz of the nose.”

  “Kismet. Which do you prefer? Jason or Picasso?”

  “Jason, if you call me Picasso in a mean way. Picasso, if it’s a friendly nickname. You know Picasso?”

  “I can call you Picasso and make it sound friendly. Never knew anybody with a name like that.”

  “You get the reference?”

  “Sure. I’ve seen pictures of the pictures.”

  “Refreshing. Most people don’t know the paintings.”

  “Where I come from, there’s nothing to do but read. My grandmother insisted I learn so I did.”

  “Nothing to do but read?” he echoed. “You sound like somebody from New Atlanta.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I’m from Campbellford, up north a little.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “That’s why there’s nothing to do but read.”

  “Sounds like heaven. Why’d you leave?”

  “Because there was nothing to do but read. What are the vests for?”

  “We don’t get citizen chips but the vests do. Once you clip on the vest, you’re tracked. First, you get on the back of a truck. They’ll take you where they want you to be. You pick up garbage and put it in the bag they give you. Around noon, the truck’s horn will blare. That’s your cue to head back. The clip on the vest will unlock. Then you put the vest, your stick and the bag of garbage on the back of the truck. Then you’re done f
or the day.”

  “Labor so cheap, it’s slave labor, huh?”

  Picasso smirked. “That’s some high-toned and sassy T&P talk. I like that in a girl.”

  “T&P?”

  “Torches and pitchforks,” he said. “You don’t hear enough of that around here.

  “We spoke more freely where I’m from.”

  “The villagers whisper about torches and pitchforks when they dream of going after the monsters in the high castle. I dream of guillotines.”

  “What do you do when you’re not dreaming, I mean, for the rest of the day?”

  “Catch as catch can,” Picasso shrugged.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Officially? I look for work. Unofficially, that well is dry so I beg. Not much luck unless it’s a citizen out and about. Sometimes they come out, slumming for the thrill of poverty tourism.”

  “I don’t know why that would be fun for them.”

  “Are you kidding? It must be a thrill to see the end of the world and not get any on you. Some Select come out of the castle for some fresh air. They might throw a bone or a crumb. Just be careful not to ask a military citizen for spare change. They don’t have much more than us and some are pretty mad about it. Ask them by mistake and you could get a broken nose.” Picasso touched his nose and winked.

  “Most days the truck drops us off so far afield I have to spend the better part of the afternoon making my way back here to sleep. Then the world spins around again and, if I’m lucky, I’m back in this line talking to a pretty girl and givin’ her the what’s what.”

  The way he leered at me, I wondered if it was really a military citizen who gave him the reason for his nickname.

  “I’m not interested in getting your what,” I said.

  “Kismet, there are two kinds of people: Those who understand that life is short so you may as well grab what fun you can and those who lie down and die. Me? I’d like to lie down and not die.” He leaned closer and whispered, “They say don’t hope, do, but the Slow Apocalypse makes me horny. I say, don’t hope. Do me.”

  “Gross!” I stepped back, grimacing. Picasso’s breath smelled of rot. “That’s not what DHD is about!”

  He shrugged. “So you’d rather die than slip away someplace with me after dark?”

  “Correct.”

  “Harsh. Things keep going the way they go, I could be the last man on Earth someday soon. If you end up as the last woman, I’ll ask again.”

  I glared at my new acquaintance. “I’ve heard transgressives get sent to the re-education camps in Kentucky.”

  Picasso smirked. “Church Camp, they call it. You clear brush or work the synthetic food farms. Doesn’t sound too bad to me. Three hots and cot and, apparently, sometimes they have orgies in the woods.”

  “What?”

  “Hey, you put all the freakified people together, something juicy’s gonna happen.”

  “Gross times ten. Plus, I doubt that’s true. If you get an STD, the CSS declares you a bioweapon and exiles you south of the border.”

  Picasso shrugged. “Oh, well. When nothing ventured, nothing fails miserably. Friends, then?”

  “Friends, sure.” I smiled but my smile was only as genuine as Miranda’s grin. Was Picasso a bad guy? I couldn’t say with certainty but I didn’t think he was a particularly good one. He was so eager to ingratiate himself, I distrusted his motives. It was possible he was just another person trying to survive, looking for sex, comfort and companionship in troubled times.

  It was equally possible Picasso was a spy for CSS, trying to entrap me. Security and safety were not for people like me.

  Sissy had warned me to trust no one. “A friend today can be a traitor tomorrow. Trust me. I’ll make a path for you.”

  It was a lonely path.

  Chapter Ten

  A dozen people crammed themselves into the back of the truck I boarded. We were packed in so tightly, someone sat on my left foot. There was barely anywhere to move so I didn’t make a fuss. Soon, my foot fell asleep. I wished I could sleep right along with it, numb to the world.

  Only one guard drove us to our assignments. Most of the people on the truck looked quite young or very old. Half-starved and already exhausted at the beginning of the day, few looked like they were up to mounting much resistance to the Select. Through our vests, we were all chipped and we couldn’t take them off until we’d earned our keep.

  One man toward the front began to mutter angrily under his breath. Then he got louder, descending into a rant about how bad the food had been. “Thin soup and a bit of stale synth bread and they think they own us! I guess they do if we let ‘em. Look at us, shoved in here like cattle to the slaughter. These vests may as well be collars … or brands!”

  The man’s beard was matted and his lips were wet with drool. I wondered if he’d somehow gotten hold of moonshine or suffered a mental illness. His sentiments were not a revelation so why risk saying out loud what was supposed to be a whisper at most?

  An old man near me muttered something about how right he was. “Collars, leashes … or tattooed numbers on our arms.”

  A woman warned the old man not to encourage the complainer. Other voices rose to shush them all.

  It was too late. The drooling man had all the encouragement he needed. He ranted on, repeating his complaints about the food at the shelter.

  An older woman struggled to her feet, balancing against the rocking of the truck over potholed streets. “Shut up! You’re a troublemaker, blaming all your troubles on somebody else!”

  The man smiled and waved a finger at the scold. “See that? Do you all see that? In every crowd, there’s always one or two brave enough to stand up and defend the Select, as if they need your help to shove us down and keep us down.”

  “Shut up, I said!” The old woman scowled and cursed.

  He gave a bitter, guttural laugh. “Every time. There will always be collaborators hoping for mercy. They never get any slack, though. As if they’d ever let you inside the castle gates! You’ll always be on the wrong side of history and that damn wall!”

  The truck stopped abruptly and a few people, looking relieved to escape, stepped down from the truck.

  The drooling man waved at them.“ Go perform your community service for the sin of being poor!”

  The truck idled for a few minutes, unmoving.

  Picasso looked at me and whispered, “Trouble’s brewing. Keep your head down.”

  It was getting warm. We all shifted uncomfortably. The woman sitting on my foot shifted her weight and I got my foot out from under her.

  Someone banged on the back of the truck and two CSS officers appeared.

  “Here we go,” Picasso whispered. “Don’t look them in the eyes. They’re like wolves. They’ll take it as a challenge.”

  I hung my head. Neither of the guards was willing to get into the back of the crowded truck. I don’t think they were afraid. It was probably the smell that repelled them.

  A CSS officer climbed up to get a better look at us. The centurion pointed at the man who had ranted so vehemently. “Hey! Seditionist! We’ve got you recorded. C’mon out. We need to talk.”

  The man shook his head and lowered his gaze. “I didn’t say nothing important. Just letting off steam.”

  The older of the two CSS officers stepped up on the truck’s tailgate and offered a kind smile. “It’s no big deal. C’mon, now. You don’t want to hold up all these nice people. If they don’t start working cleanup soon, we’ll have to keep them longer until they put the hours in. Nobody wants that bother.”

  Several men near their target grumbled and the old woman who had scolded him stood again. “I can bear witness to confirm what he said! He said awful things.”

  The drooling man seemed to talk to himself for a moment. “No badge numbers. CSS has no badge numbers, no names. That’s how you know … they do what they want. The law used to mean something. It was supposed to be for everybody.”

  The officer smi
led. “I’ve got a name. My name is Martial. Martial Law. Don’t make me come in there and get you.”

  “Anything they want. The biggest crime is to disrespect even one of them.”

  “C’mon, buddy! Don’t make me say please.”

  “What is there to talk about?”

  When I glanced up, the CSS man was surveying all of us with a sour look on his face. I wondered if he would wade into the back of the truck and swing his baton indiscriminately.

  “Cooperate or you’ll be charged with impeding my investigation. I have to make sure you’re not on the side of the folks who assassinated our president. Anyone who helps you will be arrested.”

  This is how they want us to feel all the time, I thought. As long as we feel powerless and paralyzed, they’ll stay in control.

  Those around the drooling man had had enough. Two men on either side grabbed an arm. Another rose behind him to slip an arm around his throat to yank him to his feet. He resisted briefly until Picasso leaned forward and, with a vicious slap, tagged the drooling man in the groin. The seditionist grunted in pain and almost lost his footing. A woman prodded him forward with the blunt end of her stick.

  The man drooled some more as he was pushed toward the tailgate. “There you go. Just a chat. That’s all we need. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  He fell into the waiting arms of the CSS. The centurion smiled as he threw the man off the back of the truck. I heard a wet smacking sound that made me shiver. I don’t know how I knew, but I was sure that was the sound of a human skull bouncing off concrete.

  The truck got into gear and pulled away. I looked back to get a glimpse. Three guards surrounded the man. Their victim appeared unconscious. He certainly was not resisting. It was not an interrogation. It wasn’t an arrest, either. They beat him.

  Citizen Security and Safety’s bloodlust was well-known. I’d watched a report on a protest in Seattle with my grandmother once. As the CSS brutally attacked and maced peaceful protesters, Grammy’s mouth became a thin line. “I hope your parents are fighting forest fires right now. I’d hate to think they’re in the middle of all that.”