“Dud women recruits, Mr Burroughs?”
Dr Lowenstein’s lack of amusement was a bludgeon in her amplified reply. Tom turned his back on the face-off, returning his attention to Kent towering over the folks around him. Tom waved an arm, caught his attention, and motioned for him to come closer.
“Rightly or wrongly, the average woman isn’t up to the work,” Burroughs said into the mic. “We appreciate the extra workers, don’t get me wrong.”
Kent smiled amiably Tom’s way and gently squeezed his way forward.
“We find work for them to do, but look at our progress figures,” Burroughs continued. “We’re going slower when we need to move faster. Why are we cataloguing all this junk? We need supplies.”
Kent moved into Tom’s personal space on invite, the two men clasping hands.
“Kent,” Tom said as loudly as he could given the situation. “These are my kids. Can you hang here for a couple of minutes?”
“Watch your kids?” Kent asked, puzzled. “Sure.”
Tom clapped him on one brawny arm and offered Luke and Lila only a hand signal to stay where they were as the speaker’s voice rang on until silenced by the Council president’s rebuke for Burroughs to consider his request noted.
“We don’t have any announcements to make on this issue today,” Lowenstein said. “Let’s move on. Next speaker.”
*
TOM LEFT HIS children to pick his way back through the crowd as if leaving the meeting. Fifty feet from the entrance, he veered stage right, circumnavigating the assembly with frequent checks keeping out of sight, but within range of his quarry.
He focused on his breathing as he moved. There was nothing here, right this instant, to fear life and death, and yet that’s what his reactions told him – and it was hard to convince them otherwise. The breathing quelled the worst of it, Tom’s lungs laboring like unheard horses as he crossed the roped-off hallway behind the queued speakers, the brawler’s physique of the Forager boss Burroughs hunched in exasperation at the front still holding the microphone.
“That’s my third time askin’!” he said with a flippant sigh of defeat, lifting the microphone one final time. “You people enjoy what you’re gonna get comin’, one way or the other, you continue on like this. Gonna be fuckin’ cold this winter. Maybe after that we’ll chat again.”
He tossed the mic to the next Citizen in line as Ernest Eric Wilhelm’s reply rang out.
“We’d ask all speakers during Question Time to refrain from grim predictions about the future, please, everyone,” he said. “It’s getting kind of old. Let’s move on, huh? Keep it positive.”
Tom tuned out as a stooped, older man took his turn.
Tom was no more than forty feet behind Locke now. Almost every submerged memory of their few direct interactions vied for attention in his head all at once as he navigated around, politely thrusting his way through the literal unwashed masses as he skirted to the farthest side of the room, repositioning himself where two troopers guarded a side door. A bunch of Citizens had found plastic chairs and they stood on them in a line all along the far well, unable to block anyone else out, while renewed debate about some other pressing civic matter flared and died down.
“No, Mr Maker,” Lowenstein’s tired answer came. “The conduct of market traders isn’t our concern unless it’s a criminal matter. Anyone eating on the street knows it’s ‘buyer beware’.”
The remark brought ripples of faint laughter through the crowd as Tom carefully advanced closer on his mark, coming from Locke’s blind side. He considered maybe he’d been foolish thinking that after spending seven years on TV, he could enter a human settlement now without facing any payback from the past. But to think otherwise struck him more like narcissism than any real consideration of his profile as a city journalist hundreds of miles away and an eternity ago.
Yet Tom’s surveillance only confirmed his suspicions. Locke was joined by a much younger man, who leant in close whispering something in the fraudster’s ear. Locke rewarded him with a beaming grin, his profile and the glint in his eye so reminiscent of their last encounter on the courthouse steps, Tom knew then why he’d flared at the unexpected sight of him.
In the civilized world, Finnegan was a white-collar criminal. The type who surrendered when exposed. But here, he was a threat.
In the quiet space somewhere between his thoughts and his chest, Tom slowly relegated Locke’s resurrection to just one more problem he would manage – no matter what it took.
*
IN SUCH A public place, there weren’t many options except to save his anonymity. After satisfying himself with his perusal, Tom made another laborious trip back around the busy theater as the speakers moved up in line and various Citizens came and went from the meeting.
Kent stood with Tom’s children like a reliable guardian, one big hand resting on Luke’s shoulder. One look and Tom knew the boy’d tried taking after him, and Kent knew well enough not to let it happen. Whatever else transpired during the past ten minutes, Lucas gave Kent a begrudging smirk, and as Tom arrived and Kent released his casual hold, Lucas turned, and he and Kent bumped knuckles, and Tom’s son at least looked for a moment like an eleven-year-old boy and not a tangle of nervous energy ready to break out at the merest threat.
The other Reclaimer lifted one big eyebrow, but Tom declined with a smile to explain himself. The Islander got the nod, smirked, and waved them farewell without saying a word, a verbal exchange rising in clamor on the sound system followed by a brief spike of feedback.
Tom saw Columbus Herald editor Delory Earle at the stand.
“If this is Question Time, you could at least answer my question,” he said.
Lowenstein spoke for the Council, though they didn’t all share her indignant response.
“If you’re going to continue on your enterprise, Mr Earle, your questions are best addressed directly to the Administration instead of taking up Citizens’ time,” Dr Lowenstein said. “This is their access time. You’re using it up.”
“Dana,” the news chief said. “If you’d answered me directly any of those other times, I wouldn’t have to stand up here to force it out of you. You know that.”
There was a hammering noise and Tom was surprised to see Colonel Rhymes had a gavel too. In fact, most of the Councilors had them, at least except for Ben-Gurion and the bearded man Mr Earle now again gestured towards.
“No disrespect to Dr Hamilton,” Earle said. “Don’t you think the arbitrary way you can add members to the Council without any consultation only shows why you need to give Citizens a firm answer about governance moving ahead?”
“Point of order,” the Colonel said.
Earle still had the microphone. He spoke over the old Air Force man.
“Madame President, tell us please, will you commit to elections?”
Now Lowenstein hammered her gavel. Despite his morbid ex-professional curiosity, Tom guided his bored-looking children further towards the left of the stage, glancing across as the Council President exchanged glances with her colleagues.
“Mr Earle, this is an open forum for questions about basic operations,” she said. “Future governance, that’s a complicated issue, and I’m not going to offer you anything here for . . . your premature speculation.”
And for added emphasis, she banged the gavel again.
*
THEY WERE FETCHED by one of Wilhelm’s aides when the meeting ended, strolling through the Town Hall’s side gallery crammed with the City’s surviving art. Like the disgruntled speaker Burroughs had said, Wilhelm’s assistant was a square-jawed young man topping Tom by about an inch. He had a college look about him, the slightest of reluctance around his eyes.
“Councilor Wilhelm’s just this way,” the young man said. “I’m Beau, if you want to follow me?”
It was clear straight away Lilianna was on high alert. With his fair, close-cropped hair, and farm-boy blue eyes, Beau was aptly named and probably knew it. He did well to
maintain a Stoic pose, ignoring the girl’s open stare with an out-thrust chin.
“How’d you know who we were?” Tom asked.
More than thirty other Citizens took the meeting as their excuse to walk the gallery arcade. A few vendors had set up stalls selling snacks, though nothing appealing enough to warrant the ordeal of working out a trade. A skinny girl selling homemade toffee apples asked Tom to “go big brother” – meaning to pay for all of them, apparently, in a local innovation simplifying trade – but Tom wasn’t interested, even with Lucas huffing disappointment.
“I read about the Raptor crash in the Herald,” Beau said. “Everyone’s heard about what you did for the Councilor.”
Tom nodded at that, giving little away, and true to his word, Beau led them back through the arcade, across the lightly crowded lobby, and back across the venue to the far side of the theater stage and a side door opening into a fluoro-lit hall, sensible double doors at the far end. Ernest Wilhelm stood there with Arianna, the young woman who often accompanied him. The Council man checked the cuffs on his sports jacket as Tom followed Beau and led his children closer.
“Tom, so good to see you again.”
Wilhelm’s wide smile hesitated as the Councilor checked in with Tom, forcing the eye contact as if to show he was sincere and not playing some politician’s trick – Tom’s obvious skepticism somehow always radiating off him – and Tom allowed the older man the honor and they shook hands.
“Ernest,” he said all the same, ignoring Wilhelm’s title as if for the sake of greater sincerity. “My daughter Lilianna and my son Lucas. Kids? This is one of the Councilors. I guess he’s a pretty important guy around here.”
Tom winked at Wilhelm, checkmate, no interest in submitting himself to the Councilor’s authority whether friendship was feigned or not. Wilhelm patted Tom’s upper arm just like a real politician would and Tom only smirked at the disclaimer of it, wondering if Wilhelm could even help himself.
“Hi kids,” Wilhelm said. “Tom, I’m sure you remember Arianna?”
“Still keeping at it, huh?” Tom said to her.
The dark-featured woman flushed. The last time he’d seen her she was recovering from near-execution, after all. Life in the Enclave might be good, but clearly didn’t stretch to stress leave. Arianna fidgeted, tucking loose dark hair behind one ear while Lucas muttered, “Stop calling us kids.” But Wilhelm only laughed and motioned to the safety door and they went through with Beau leading the way.
“You’re a hard man to win over, Tom Vanicek,” the Councilor said.
“Maybe you should stop trying.”
The passed into the backstage area, several Admin crew powering down the grid. Beau clicked on a torch as they tracked through the cavernous space.
“I’m not going to stop trying, Tom,” Wilhelm said.
It was mostly just a conversation between the two of them. Beau and Arianna went ahead. Tom’s children trailed behind, lured along by his watchful looks with the Council man at his side.
“You saved my life, Tom,” Wilhelm said. “I don’t know how hard you think I need to try to be to be sincere.”
Tom blinked at the tortured syntax and Wilhelm chuckled and made an open-handed motion that explained everything at once: his tiredness, the latening hour, the unnatural state of the world.
“We’re walking to your place?”
“My place? No,” the Councilor said and actually chuckled. “We have a group dinner each week after our meeting. You and your children are my guests. It’s just this way. Please.”
Wilhelm kept up his beaming grin, another light source in the backstage area until they hit the very rear door, moving out into a parking lot and several troopers standing smoking cigarettes. Councilor Wilhelm only waved to them, rounding the turn of the building, a side alleyway with several parked Humvees crowding the way through to an electric-lit door.
Tom looked up briefly at the night sky, surprised at the relative coolness of the evening.
“I saw some of your colleagues are still using digital equipment,” Tom said. “The lady without the legs? She had an iPad.”
“Councilor Leng, yes,” Wilhelm said. “A handful of people, like Aileen, and also Abe Ben-Gurion, they’ve chosen to revive a limited degree of digital capacity, but it’s not enough to make viable for wider use. If people can manage the upkeep, they do. Not me, personally. The Administration works on Second World War principles.”
“That’s a shame,” Tom said. “I promised my kids we could watch movies.”
Wilhelm glanced at him sideways as they ducked into the second building.
“Why’s that, Tom?” he asked. “Found anything you could watch?”
*
TOM TRIED NOT to think about the dead Raptor pilot’s DVD sequestered back in his First Gates apartment lest it show in his eyes or through some other tell. Wilhelm might have a blind spot when it came to his own charm, but he was shrewd enough to smell the mere whiff of anything pertaining to the Raptor crash.
But Tom didn’t need to dismiss the remark. They’d barely entered the new building before Ernest led them on through a wide-open pair of double doors and into a wood-paneled conference room. There was an enormous corporate meeting table built from modular sections of walnut clicked together to seat thirty people at a squeeze, and already half that were gathered. A further half-dozen women of different ages clad in aprons helped deliver jugs of apple juice and water, the oldest of the team distributing cutlery, glasses, and ceramic plates.
Tom scanned the room, noting two troopers in the corner, but instantly recognized the faces of the other Councilors as well as a few of their managers. Half of those gathered faltered in ongoing conversations at Wilhelm’s entrance anyway, and the Council man at once commanded their attention with an open wave and a booming tickertape declaration.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Council, I give you the hero of the hour, Tom Vanicek and his family,” Wilhelm said. “Please make them welcome.”
Several of the Councilors stood, though not all of them. The wait staff were the most enthusiastic in their brief applause, quickly self-conscious about it as they returned to work – but none of them as uncomfortable as Tom, who made like a statue, a mugshot smile stuck in place. For their part, Lucas and Lila deemed it pretty cool if for no other reason than their father’s still half-unexplained heroics had greased their path to an easy meal.
“Please take a seat, Tom,” Wilhelm said. “Lilianna? Luke, was it? Grab a seat. Please help yourself to a drink. We try not to stand on ceremony around here anymore than we need to to keep the place running.”
Tom chuckled to himself, leaders often nowhere near as well-spoken as they thought, but Wilhelm mistook Tom’s smirk for something else and grinned handsomely or as best as he could manage with the hand life’d dealt him. The female Councilor Carlotta Deschain entered the room behind them and went straight to Wilhelm’s side and demanded an introduction, and after that, Wilhelm palmed his wife onto Luke and Lila and then saw Tom through the personal introductions to each of the other four original Councilors and then their two adjuncts, the recently-arrived Australian immunologist David Hamilton, and brilliant retired engineering genius Aileen Leng.
*
ABRAHAM BEN-GURION hung back with a bemused young Lex Luthor grin, a hand on his clean-shaven chin as Tom shook hands with the Colonel and accepted more compliments from him and Dr Hamilton. Aileen Leng rolled around to them in her wheelchair and sized Tom up with a surprisingly lewd grin only her age and disability allowed her, like a kind of hall pass on general social conventions.
“Now here’s a good-looking specimen of City manhood,” she said with a chuckle.
Tom tried not to wilt with discomfort and favored the older woman a tight smile instead.
“Don’t mind Aileen.”
Abe Ben-Gurion stepped in to join them and the Colonel and Dr Hamilton resumed their seats. The serving women – because that’s what they were, it hit him – hurrie
d in and out of the room as several more people arrived, each Councilor apparently with their own “guests”.
Tom and the former computer nerd shook hands.
“She’d have you sitting in her lap if she could get away with it,” Ben-Gurion said.
“My legs are gone, but not what’s between ‘em,” Councilor Leng chimed in.
Tom coughed in surprise at the bold remark and met the woman’s twinkling eyes and she winked at him instead, nothing at all flirtatious in it. Tom’s smirk deepened. The smell of spiced pumpkin wafted into the room and his stomach awoke.
“Damn that smells good,” he muttered. “You always eat this well?”
“Perks of government,” Ben-Gurion said – and again with that damned smirk.
Aileen Leng snapped her fingers to win back Tom’s attention as she then wheeled back to her place.
“You be sure to come talk to me, handsome. OK?”
Tom gave her a brief salute of agreement, then followed a meaningful glance from Ben-Gurion directing his attention to Dana Lowenstein as the Council President chose that convenient pause to approach.
“Mr Vanicek, if the tales of your heroics are to believed, we owe you a debt.”
They shook hands and Ben-Gurion made the slightest gesture.
“You can check the story yourself,” he said.
Delroy Earle walked into the conference room and Tom felt Dr Lowenstein’s hand wilt as a chagrined look overtook her passive demeanor.
“Wonderful,” she said.
Before the newspaper editor could join them, Lowenstein arched a brow at her fellow Councilor.
“You do like to create a stir, don’t you, Abe?”
Ben-Gurion had his arms around himself as if to still the occasional flutters, otherwise hale and whole for someone diagnosed with such a severe condition as MS. And it didn’t disturb the subtle, knowing grin on his late 20s or early 30s face.
After The Apocalypse Season 1 Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 32
