Kevin grabbed Luke’s arm, but the friendship between them was obvious – and that his son had some kind of big brother role as well. Lucas calmed the slightly younger boy and threw a look back to Tom that melted whatever concern or alarm he felt rising.
“It’s safe here,” Lucas said. “My dad’s cool.”
“What happened at School?”
“There was a . . . sort of a fight,” Lucas said. “The older boys, they jumped Kevin. I didn’t have a choice.”
“A choice . . . about doing what?”
“They took everything I had,” Kevin said.
The boy had a strange, hoarse voice, inflected like a deaf person speaking, not quite getting the volume or the intonation right.
Tom fixed eyes on his son.
“Tell me no one got hurt, Luke.”
His son opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Luke?”
“Lucas,” Lilianna barked from the far side of the room. “You have to tell dad everything, now.”
“Easy,” Tom said and held out a hand to her. “We’re all in this together.”
“One of the older boys got hurt,” Lucas admitted finally. “It was only a bloody nose.”
“Luke was protecting me,” Kevin said.
“OK, I get it,” Tom said, though he kept his eyes on his son. “No knives?”
“You took that knife, dad.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” Tom said. “Were there any knives? Any knives?”
The boys swapped guilty looks.
“The other boys had knives,” Luke said with a sigh. “They were holding them on Kevin, shaking him down. Taking everything.”
Tom stared at his son anew.
“You took on an older boy with a knife?”
“It was two,” Kevin said. “Tariq and Alban. They won’t do that again.”
“Damned straight they won’t,” Tom said. “OK, Jesus. You’re done with classes, Lucas. Pretty soon there’s going to be other work for you, and frankly I don’t know if I’m more worried about the School or the fact you’d take such a shitty risk. You could’ve been stabbed.”
“They were all talk,” his son sneered.
“Lucas,” Tom said, trying to inflect his voice with gravity without freaking out his son’s friend. Instead, Tom found himself speechless, and glanced back at Lilianna as if they might go ahead and tag team on this one after all.
“I don’t know what to say either,” Lila said. “Are you seriously going to let Luke’s friend stay with us, dad?”
Tom’s expression froze lest he betray himself. He shot an awkward chuckle at the younger boy, mindful he was still damned near apoplectic at the stupid danger his son had just faced down. He was proud to know his son had the balls for it – and God knew, they’d be needed in the world he’d inherited – but there was a recklessness there too, something that’d been flowering for some time in the ruin of Luke’s childhood, and now Tom feared it finally getting out of control.
*
FORTUNATELY OR OTHERWISE, his son’s reaction cut short the need to make a decision about the Kevin request on the spot. Instead, Lucas came around the kitchen counter and barbecue with an angry look, far from reassuring Tom’s other concerns, and nothing at all like a boy who still hadn’t explained his foolhardy risks.
“What do you mean about classes?” he almost yelled. “What am I meant to do?”
“If there’s kids pulling knives on each other, there’s no way I’m sending you back.”
“You’re not splitting up me and Kevin.”
“I’m not saying that,” Tom said, painfully aware he didn’t know what he was saying.
He couldn’t lift both hands to call the parlay, but Tom’s expression was obvious to everyone as he backed away from his irate son and took one of the glasses and walked into the corner to drink it instead.
“Stay hydrated,” he snapped.
“Dad. . . .”
Tom glanced to Lilianna staring at him with hands on hips demanding an outcome. Tom shot a look at Kevin as Lucas handed the boy a drink. Dkembe’d emerged from the front bedroom, hanging back and taking in the scene, as invested in this resolution as anyone.
And Tom sighed.
“You’re worried Kevin won’t be safe at School without you?”
Lucas nodded slowly, solemn. Tom again checked in on the other kid. Kevin dropped his eyes to the floor.
“There’s no reason he can’t stay here for a while,” Tom said. “There’s changes coming. It’s a good time to keep everyone we care about safe.”
The transformation in Lucas’ expression was dramatic. He rushed forward and wrapped his arms around Tom’s waist, though his father wasn’t having any of it. He urged the boy a step back and lit his most serious scowl on them as well as Lilianna.
“There are rules here,” he said sternly. “And we have to trust each other. Got it?”
Now Tom dared eyeball the fragile Kevin directly.
“One breach, and we’re done,” he said. “My family come first.”
Kevin wore the expressionlessness well, and anything he might’ve said or done by way of acknowledgment was stifled by Lucas stepping in and throwing a happy arm around his friend’s narrow shoulders.
“It’s OK, Kevin,” he said. “Things are going to be OK. Let’s take through your stuff.”
Lucas grabbed a filthy black backpack left unnoticed on the floor and started for the back bedroom.
“Whoa there,” Tom and Lilianna both said at exactly the same time.
Tom gently put a hand out to block his son’s forward transit, then shot an apologetic look at Dkembe.
“Lucas, that’s our family’s room,” he said.
“Exactly.”
Tom frowned, might’ve said something sensible, but Lucas spoke again.
“He can stay with us,” he said. “Dr Swarovsky too. You don’t have to sleep down there.”
“What?”
Tom ignored Lilianna’s question and the accompanying look of curious shock. He instead guided Lucas around so he was facing the front of the apartment.
“Just until we figure things out, there’s room to bunk in with Dkembe.”
“What?” Kevin murmured. “No.”
Tom swallowed an irritated scowl and looked to his son instead.
“Kevin’s family too,” Lucas said. “Can’t he sleep with us, dad?”
“No way,” Lila said. “Um, no offense, kid.”
“Lucas,” Tom said. “We can talk about this later. I’m not really sure what you’re thinking. For tonight, Kevin can have the sofa out here, alright?”
Tom yet again looked at the kid, trusting to God the boy wasn’t a Fury risk on top of everything else. Lilianna stepped in closer and the boys backed away, relocating Kevin’s meager gear to a corner of the living room among Lila’s indoor edible topiary.
“What do you mean things are going to change, dad?” she asked.
“Aren’t things changing already?” he replied.
“You and Dr Swarovsky?”
“I was thinking more about you and the Enclave.”
“Jesus Christ, dad,” Lila snapped like she had no idea how harsh the habitual blasphemy sounded in her voice. “Why does everything have to be this shitty dance with you?”
“But I’m a good dancer.”
“This is the point where I’d normally punch you in the arm or something, but you’re too injured,” Lila sighed. “I might change my mind about that in a minute.”
“What do you mean by change, dad?”
Now it was Luke’s turn to ask the question. As always, Dkembe looked invested too, though also relieved at dodging a bullet with their weird new little lodger so that he kept his mouth firmly shut.
“You know I have to go back to the Confederates,” Tom said. “If things go well, we’re going to have full-time work on our hands just trying to work out how the hell to make this deal happen.”
Tom flicked his eyes to Dke
mbe.
“There’s a job in it for you too, if you want,” Tom said. “We might even need a few good people. People you’d trust.”
Dkembe nodded.
“I know one or two,” the young man said. “Guys on Construction with me. Good with their hands. Not known for braggin’.”
“Sounds good,” Tom said, then motioned to Lilianna. “And I meant what I said. If you really do . . . get what you want out of the Enclave . . . things might change there eventually too.”
His daughter slowly nodded, acknowledging the truth. Sixteen years old was the new twenty-five – in zombie years, at least.
“I’ve had my doubts about classes since day one,” Tom said now to Lucas with Kevin making a good act of not intently listening in. “I’ll need you, might even be able to use your friend there if he’s smart and knows a good outcome for us is a good outcome for all of us.”
“Kevin knows that,” Luke replied.
“Yeah?” Tom eyed the boy in question. “He’s gonna need to learn to speak for himself . . . eventually. Think you could do that, Kevin?”
The dark eyes flicked briefly at Tom and the nod made his long hair bob.
“OK,” Tom said and exhaled long and loud. “Then I think we should think about some food. It’s nearly time for me to go out.”
Tom glanced surreptitiously between Kevin and his son.
“And Lucas, why don’t you show Kevin into the bathroom and see what spare clothes you might have that’ll fit.”
*
TOM LEFT DKEMBE giving the boys a detailed rundown about all the varieties of fast food that used to exist in the world, as well as his own long-atrophied habits from back in the day.
It was dark in the apartment stairwell with night only just coming on, and Tom merely trailed fingertips across the front of Iwa Swarovsky’s door rather than let himself get derailed from the business at hand. And it occurred to him chasing down the City’s problems was a damned sight less confronting than sorting out what he even felt about the still-mysterious doctor and what their newfound liaison meant for the days ahead.
He had to survive those days before he could even think about the possibility of the weeks or even months ahead – and with thoughts of an ongoing life in the City, Tom trembled to imagine what future years or decades might bring.
As he made his way across the City, past Speakers Corner and the bustling Night Market, scores of people coming and going from The Mile in the fading light, Tom mulled over everything he’d read and the things he’d already forgotten from the USS George Washington’s web forum. He was used to long periods of contemplation – a meditative life banished by the hectic pace of life in the City, which at the same time somehow failed to do away with the random bursts of violence he thought they’d left back in the wild.
He’d dismissed old fantasies about trekking across the great isolated wastes middle America had become, but knowing something as enormous as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier survived from the old world, that wanderlust and sense of curiosity trilled through him afresh, counter-point to his ever-increasing awareness of the new round of challenges he was thrusting himself willingly back into. He recalled Delroy Earle’s words about Melina Martelle making her way across that same decrepit wilderness with a notebook and camera in hand. Had Anna Novak done the same? It took long moments to register his jealousy for what it was, but a lot less time for thoughts of his children to rush in and not just crush, but actually quench such foolhardy desires.
That day, he told himself, might one day come where there would be no meaning left except to live out his last days in servitude to his need to know, no matter the risks it posed. For now, such ambitions were merely phantasmal, the ghost limb of a life he couldn’t have.
The security guards at the main entrance to the Enclave took his name, but a bright-looking young Asian woman bobbed up from a nearby camp chair clutching a clipboard like her life depended on it.
“Mr Vanicek, hello, I’m Trudy,” she said. “I’ve been asked to ask you if you could leave your weapons here at the gate and then I can take you to Councilor Wilhelm direct.”
There were four troopers on the gate and another four standing off to one side. For some reason they all watched Tom closely as he licked his lips and held out his one good hand.
“I didn’t bring my bow,” he said. “I’m a little bit disarmed already, wouldn’t you say?”
The troopers broke ranks to chuckle and Trudy maintained her pleasant smile as if for lack of any other expression, eyes bobbing up and down as she clutched the clipboard tellingly against her neatly tucked-in navy-blue t-shirt.
“OK, sorry,” she said. “Silly of me, just following the instructions on my sheet.”
“Cool.”
“OK, let’s go,” she said.
Tom kept his low wattage smile in place as he nodded to the nearest guards and let himself in past the sand-bagged barrier, moving stiffly for good reason with the pressing weight of the Colt Python at the small of his back.
*
THE CORRIDORS OF the top floor apartments were like something from an expensive old-world hotel. The eight-floor edifice probably hadn’t come that way prior to the Council’s occupation, but now Persian rugs and other fine carpets covered most of the floors, and exquisite furniture rescued from other locations within the sanctuary zone included tasteful settings upon which a row of huge urns were set, their mouths gaping with arrays of long-cut flowers. Candles set in upturned old frosted glass light fixtures lit the way, and the soft light was caught and amplified by a pair of gigantic mirrors mounted in ornate frames either side of the doors at the end of the most grand corridor of all.
Trudy quickly rapped on the double wooden doors, officiously looking down and listening with a tiny frown at footsteps on the other side before stepping back as one of the doors cracked open. A tough-looking bearded man with a shaved head and neck tattoos stared out at them, an assault rifle at rest suspended on a combat harness strapped across his broad chest.
“Mr Vanicek, this is Amsterdam,” Trudy said. “Councilor Wilhelm’s personal security advisor.”
“You’re expected, Mr Vanicek.”
Amsterdam nodded to Trudy and offered Tom his grip, radiating no sense at all of the deference one might expect from an employee. A half-dozen different symbols were tattooed haphazardly across the inside of the big man’s broad forearm.
“I expected a Dutch accent,” Tom said.
“It’s my surname,” he said. “Not everyone reinvents themselves in the City.”
Amsterdam had about two inches on Tom and it almost seemed like in that moment he knew it, deliberately taking a step back so as not to crowd him, also then able to offer him a way inside.
“Come in,” the man said. “They’re expecting you. It’s good to finally meet you, Vanicek.”
“Yeah?” Tom said as if just expressing casual surprise. “Why’s that?”
“The Councilor told me I could thank you for the job.”
“He did?”
“Didn’t say why, though.”
Amsterdam settled in as if for an answer, arms folded across his chest in a Superman pose with his rifle stowed safely across his back.
“Beats me, fella.”
“Let’s hope not,” the mercenary said with a smirk. “You look pretty ‘armless.”
“Droll,” Tom said. “I think I’m here to meet the Councilor?”
“Yeah,” Amsterdam agreed with him. “This way.”
The first room had a few nice couches and a low table. Maybe it was as far as some guests got. Around the corner, an archway led into another bigger, yet somehow more intimate living space with even more plush furniture, fine decorations and winter-retardant carpets on the floor, thick drapes peeled back to reveal a row of tall, post-industrial windows letting in some of the electric light from the courtyard outside.
There was another wide archway presaging the next room, but Tom lingered at the elevated vantage to take
in the gigantic lantern-lit courtyard of the Enclave framed from within by its solid defenses, and lit up by arrays of solar garden lights and several big mounted halogen traffic lamps. Two columns of jogging young men and women passed in through the main checkpoint and disappeared into the riot of awnings and tarpaulins in the center of the complex.
A quiet cough drew Tom’s gaze to Ernest Eric Wilhelm III and Carlotta Deschain slightly behind him in the next room losing their patience with Amsterdam as Tom’s guide.
“Sorry,” Tom said. “Pretty view.”
“Yes, Tom,” Wilhelm said. “Welcome.”
The Councilman advanced out of the dining room, though Tom found himself entering alongside him almost at once. Amsterdam halted at the entrance like he didn’t have permission, and Carlotta made the most subtle and polite of dismissive finger waves. The mercenary guard checked back to Tom, adamant not to leave until he’d given him a bromantic nod, then departed of his own free will back to his security detail.
“You’ve met my wife before?”
Tom and Carlotta nodded at the question and she stepped forward to shake hands. Even in that moment’s eye contact, Tom saw her widen her eyes as if in an unspoken question because they were set to meet even later that night, if Earle had done as asked. But Tom stayed stony-faced, glancing to the candelabra-lit dining table set with three places.
“Dinner?” Tom said.
“I thought that’s what we agreed?” Wilhelm replied. “I still feel like I owe you a dinner invite, Tom. That last one wasn’t much fun, I think you’ll agree.”
“Beats sitting through a Council meeting,” he said.
“Please have a seat, Tom,” Carlotta said. “What can we get you to drink?”
The woman moved expertly to her own chair, leaving it implicit whose job it was to play bartender. Wilhelm laughed softly like a man who’d missed the joke and put his hands together prayerfully and looked back to Tom.
“Whiskey?”
“I’ll have a drink later,” Tom said and glanced Carlotta’s way.
The Council woman tilted her head as if questioning the need for so much subtext, despite what Tom took as her agreement to the meet at the Dirty Vixen with Ben-Gurion. Wilhelm was too focused on Tom and calmly waited until his gaze swung back the correct way.
After The Apocalypse Season 1 Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 52
