“I had some good stories in my time,” Tom said reluctantly. “We were just a local news affiliate, but we brought down some bad guys, kept more than a few more in line.”
“So?”
“I just got sick of the industry.”
“The TVs?”
“TV, online, the papers,” Tom said. “Eight or nine years ago, they all just started turning into the one big . . . enormous thing, you know? We were all getting sucked into it. We were adapting to online, multimedia, streaming on-demand – all of it – but we weren’t solving any problems anymore, just . . . becoming part of them, instead. Part of the culture. Cannibalizing ourselves in some kind of . . . race to the bottom.”
“And cheering all the way,” Earle said.
“Yeah,” Tom said. “Then there was this thing that happened, in Philly.”
“Go on.”
“A church leader with a big family,” Tom said. “I interviewed him a bunch of times because he was good for quotes, you know? He had a strong position, seemed really level-headed . . . and then he gunned down his wife and his whole family. They had eight kids.”
“Jesus.”
“No pun intended,” Tom said emotionlessly. “In the aftermath, there was just this . . . feeding frenzy . . . and because we were the on-the-ground guys, every douchebag reporter I’d ever crossed paths with hit me up for details, contacts, messaging me online, calls from overseas agencies, all hours . . . fucking Al Jazeera rang me, for fuck’s sake.”
Tom gave a mighty sigh and seemed to deflate, a long time before he drew in any more breath. Showing his experience, Earle said nothing and waited it out.
“It wasn’t that there were kids, you know, but . . . there were kids,” Tom said. “Eight little kids. I had to film them myself one time because we needed vision for the voiceover. But it wasn’t the kids. That was terrible. That kept me up at night. It was the calls from reporters, friends some of them, people just like me. They were reporters who had a job to do. I got that . . . but they didn’t pull any punches either, you know? They were polite about it. Respectful. Got the tone right. ‘Sorry Tom, but the boss wants me to ask’. . . .”
His eyes dropped to the floor, mesmerized tracing the contours of the rug embossed by the mote-heavy light.
“At that point, I had kids of my own,” he said. “I just thought . . . there had to be something better I could be doing.”
Now Tom shifted his gaze to Lilianna, her curled fingers resting on her bottom lip as she mulled his confessional as Tom cut it short, no desire to autopsy the start of a rough few years in his life that set fire to his marriage and never really got much better, the Fury plague coming on the heels of the custody battle with Maya, and Tom moving to his father’s place in the mountains for the sake of his mental health.
“Now you are the media,” he said to Earle slowly. “All that we’ve got. That’s a big responsibility.”
“You’re right,” Earle said. “Everyone has to do something. We work to eat, right? That’s what I’m doing, Tom. I saw a gap. People will pay for our services, but this is public service in its purest form. Something this place desperately needs. A free press to keep everyone honest. That’s why I need your story.”
The image of the crashed Raptor sprang back into Tom’s mind, and with it, thoughts of the dead pilot’s US Government laptop stashed in the bathroom behind them.
“I don’t think what you’ve been told is accurate,” Tom said.
“Then tell me what is.”
Tom didn’t say anything for a moment. As a former tradesman himself, it was weird to be on the other side of the interview – and aware he had tools at his disposal outside the gentleman’s rules journalism relied on.
“I’d hold on writing anything,” Tom said and stood. “I don’t know where the hell you’re getting your newsprint from, but I’m sure you don’t want to waste paper running corrections – at least, not if you want to save face.”
Earle’s expression hardened, faced with Tom’s obvious intransigence.
“You’re really not going to tell me, one old newshound to another?”
Tom shook his head.
“No,” he said. “That’s exactly the reason I’m not telling you shit.”
*
IT WAS THE mildest of lies, but a lie nonetheless. There was absolutely nothing for Tom to gain from widespread knowledge of the Raptor incident, let alone his role in it. The inert laptop buried in the cupboard emitted an unconscious radiation on Tom’s thoughts, the contraband like a vital piece of evidence, incriminating him in a one-man conspiracy of unknown rationale. In that radio play, anyone like Delroy Earle was effectively the police.
He and Lilianna showed the editor to the door with another of Earle’s exhortations for Tom to attend tomorrow night’s council meeting, though the newspaper man made it without any of his previous vigor. Disappointment leaked out of him, but Tom kept his mouth shut. Just like the aborted confessional about the mysterious crashed jet, he had no reason to disclose the invite he already had to dinner with Councilor Wilhelm the same night.
After Earle left, Tom glanced pointlessly towards Iwa Swarovsky’s landing, then closed the door and stood for a stupidly long time fingering the broken wood frame, eventually retying the elastic cable in place. Waiting for him in the kitchen like a model of diligence, Lilianna watched his every move, though she said nothing to break the silent spell. Tom surprised her instead her with words of his own.
“You must be pretty angry at me.”
Lila barely reacted to the comment, busying herself watering the small collection of indoor plants she’d collected and arrayed behind the living room chairs with the brackish water from the kitchen.
“I don’t know why you think that,” she said. “I figure you’re too busy being angry at me for inviting Mr Earle here.”
“Yeah, I did tell you I wanted nothing to do with it.”
“Actually, you didn’t,” Lila said. “You just ignored everything I said about it, and like usual, kept your own fucking counsel instead of telling us anything.”
Tom was waiting for her tears anyway, so he walked back into the apartment unaffected as Lila straightened from her gardening and wiped away her teardrops also falling on the thirsty plants.
“You’ve said that a couple of times lately,” Tom said. “Without the cuss words, though.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I learnt all my naughty words from you.”
“Maybe you could explain a bit more about why you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Lila, are we really doing this?”
His daughter harrumphed, mostly in irritation at falling short of the unreasonable expectations she often shouldered, setting down her empty container on the coffee table and slumping on the sofa in a tacit invitation for Tom to join her, which he took his time doing.
“Frustration, anger, yeah whatever,” she said. “I’m sixteen, dad. There’s so many things you never told me, and just to hear it all while you’re spelling it out to some . . . stranger. . . .”
Lila’s eyes circled the kitchen and fell on Tom’s archery gear.
“Lost your tag and now you’ve got grandpa’s bow back,” she said. “When do we get ours?”
She looked at Tom for a long moment.
“It feels like a weight’s missing without a bow in my hands.”
Tom nodded, imagining even Lucas felt the same. Bows were unwieldy and maybe not needed in the City, but they felt like insurance of some sort against a peril he couldn’t quite discern.
Lilianna dried her eyes and chanced a look at her dad.
“Sorry,” she said. “Listening to you talking to Mr Earle, I didn’t expect it to upset me so much.”
“That was a very subtle form of negotiation,” Tom said. “It’s weird, I know. Sometimes in the adult world, one form of disclosure . . . It’s like a false flag. Admit a truth, you can hide almost everything else.”
“I don’t think w
e think about things the same way, dad,” Lila said.
“I really hope not.”
“Everything you think, it’s so . . . strategic,” she said. “I’m older now. You protected us. You did . . . being in the City now, it’s made it so clear to me . . . You did an amazing job and . . . and you know we’re grateful, right?”
“I don’t need you to be grateful –”
“But now I’m really . . . sick of getting kept in the dark,” she said much more fiercely.
“I don’t think it’s for my own safety anymore, dad. Maybe it’s just a bad habit. Or how you’re wired. I dunno, dad. Sorry for all the analysis, but hell, maybe I am your daughter after all, huh? I feel like there’s stuff going on . . . and not knowing it, now that feels more unsafe than anything since we were out in the world before. Do you understand what I mean?”
“When you put it that way, yes,” Tom said. “It makes a lot of sense.”
Lilianna bowed her head and the remaining unshed tears finally started to flow. Tom spent a moment deliberately resting his hand on her shoulder. Rather than crumple into him, Lila sat in her own reflection and let the tears fall like fat raindrops onto her dirty jeans. The moment eased a tremendous sigh out of Tom, and now it was him who moved slightly into her, their communion, the weight of the hand on her shoulder turning into an arm around her back.
And then Lila leaned into him and squeezed one of his scarred hands and asked, “What the hell happened to you yesterday, dad?”
And so he told her.
The bits she needed to know, anyway.
*
FROM THE WINDOW, Tom watched three dirty-faced boys sitting on a stack of wooden crates on the far side of the corner block, one of the many structures built during the day and then removed at night from the walkway along the boundary wall because Department of Public Safety patrols didn’t want any easy way of getting out – or into – the sanctuary zone under cover of darkness.
The three boys threw more than the occasional look towards Tom’s apartment building and the bike repair shop downstairs, several itinerant vendors set up for the day in front of the alfresco chairs and tables, women selling handmade soaps, recycled jewelry, cigarettes, a teenage girl drifting back and forth on the cracked sidewalk offering men directions to where they could “get a hot shower” and her attentions with it.
The Urchins straddled their packing-crate fortress alongside a stoop-backed old man watching over several more similar crates filled with living, breathing chickens, while a rakish-looking black dude in a stained Armani suit and a puck-faced redhead toted crossbows guarding their precious trade. The loitering boys had no interest in hustling for chickens – at least not while the sun was up – and their ongoing casual interest in the apartment block was easy enough to discern once Tom dedicated half an hour to it.
“What’s going on?” Lilianna said. “I thought we were going to trade these hard goods? You’ve been watching the street outside for forever.”
She moved alongside him and he declined to do anything except continue his scrutiny of the Urchins. Lila’s keen blue eyes played over the scene and finally followed his just as one of the street kids nudged a comrade, lit a cigarette, and waved the others farewell. It left an unwell-looking redhead kid no more than Luke’s age, plus a slightly older, hard-faced Asian boy still on duty, the motivation behind their behavior still as impossible to discern as the attack on the apartment building the night before.
“You’re worried about those kids?”
“Maybe it’s just me,” Tom said. “I find it disturbing how easily everyone takes in what happened last night.”
“‘Everyone’?”
Tom laughed at himself and hung his head a moment, nodding, not bothering to let Lila in on the joke or its accompanying rebuke.
“What I mean is,” Tom continued with a shaky sigh, “there’s nothing here to convince me the City’s safe.”
“What you said this morning?” Lila asked. “Are you still . . . thinking . . . of us not staying?”
“No,” Tom said with a quickness which somehow undermined the conviction of his words. “Like you were just saying, in the world as it is, you’re an adult now. The decision to stay, that’s yours.”
“Mine?”
Lilianna returned her gaze to the street. Another boy aged no more than eight or nine hustled up to the other two Urchins and they traded shorthand for handshakes and then the pair followed the newcomer away, disappearing along the boundary line headed back to The Mile a hundred yards down the street where the street foliage and the next solid building along Boundary Street cut short their view.
“If the decision’s mine to stay, then that’s also true for you,” Lila said.
“Not really,” Tom said. “I don’t have much of a decision here. I’ll never leave you.”
“You’ve always said that,” Lilianna said and smiled.
She reached out for Tom’s face as if to comfort him. He intercepted her hand and guided it down, giving it the usual fatherly squeeze.
“I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure we can thrive here,” he promised her. “Meanwhile, there’s a lot of options here for you.”
“Like?”
“Like . . . whatever you set your mind too, as long as it’s feasible.”
Lilianna nodded.
“And there’s men here, too,” Tom said.
Like at any point in the past when he’d found himself playing the unnatural role of his daughter’s confidant, Tom didn’t relish the subject of other men – and what he’d seen of male-female relations in the City so far, there wasn’t much to celebrate in the way of romance, either. All those fairytale wishes a man might want for his little girl were gathering dust in abandoned libraries amid the bones of the old world.
He told Lilianna that he only wanted what was best for her – and that included future courtships he’d also rather not confront at all – but nothing he said, standing holding her hand at the living room window as the afternoon sweltered on, strayed far from his awareness that every step she might take on the path towards womanhood could trigger unintended and potentially deadly consequences. The recent altercation between Walter and his troupe of survivors – and the offer made for Tom to whore his daughter out for trade – still clung to him.
And it wasn’t as if Lilianna threw herself into the topic either. She turned the conversation back towards the boys from the street as if they still lurked outside the window.
“If you think those boys are behind a murder, dad –”
“I can’t work out if that’s even a realistic thing to think,” Tom said.
“Oh, it’s realistic,” Lila said. “Some of the ‘children’ in this place are feral. There’s plenty of quick, clever kids who survived long after their parents were dead.”
She added, “It’s not just parents who lose children, you know.”
The reference wasn’t subtle. Lilianna felt denied her grief for her mother because of Tom’s troubled marriage, but that wasn’t the case – at least to his mind. Yet his thoughts flew instead to Lucas, departed by his own choice to the Day School despite so many similarly “feral” youths in there with him.
It felt more like sending his son to prison every day. He remembered the shiv wounds to the dead man with the Confederate jacket.
“If those kids are capable of murder,” Tom said – and not entirely sure which children he was referring to – “then we have to consider our situation carefully. Whatever triggered them, it wasn’t you and me. Let’s not make it that way.”
“But that’s your area of expertise,” Lila said. “You worked with troubled teens, back when everything happened.”
“That’s just another reason why I know we should be careful,” he said.
*
Foragers ‘hero’ saves Councilor’s life during mystery find
by Delroy Earle
A sensational story has emerged from a Foragers mission this week that also uncovered a US A
ir Force fighter plane believed crashed in recent months.
Councilor Ernest Eric Wilhelm III and his staff were observing Foragers operations outside the sanctuary zone on Tuesday when it is understood the crew were ambushed by bandits.
No Citizen lives were lost in the deadly encounter thanks to intervention from one of its crew.
The Herald understands a new Citizen named Tom Vanicek single-handedly rescued the entire Foragers crew and Cr Wilhelm at risk to his own life.
Witnesses familiar with the mission said Mr Vanicek killed three bandits who ambushed the crew while clearing a farmhouse.
Mr Vanicek disarmed one of the gunmen and used the weapon to disable or kill the other bandits.
“They got the drop on the Foragers because they (the bandits) were hiding in a cellar,” a witness who asked not to be named told the Herald.
“They were lining us all up for what looked a lot like execution.
“Vanicek came from nowhere,” the witness said.
“He tackled the first guy and took him out with his bare hands.”
Mr Vanicek then shot two other bandits who were holding guns on the troopers assigned to the mission.
Of equal interest, Foragers discovered a crashed US military jet near the scene believed to be a recently-operating F-22 Raptor.
Sources familiar with the mission said the jet crashed in recent months, as indicated by the state of the debris and damage to the surrounding area.
Pressed for details, Council President Lowenstein could offer no explanation.
“There is no solid evidence to suggest the crashed Raptor was in recent use, despite suggestions,” she said.
“Foragers examined the site and no further information was recovered.
“On behalf of the Council, I thank Mr Vanicek for his timely and heroic intervention which undoubtedly saved many lives.”
Cr Wilhelm said the encounter would “stay with me for the rest of my life – a life that will be much longer thanks to my friend’s actions”.
He had no comment on the crashed jet and declined to “speculate” about its origins.
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