by Ginger Booth
“Hoo-ah,” Captain Deluca murmured. “Those decisions are above our pay grade, sir.”
“Kennedy, sir,” one of the unfamiliar sergeants introduced himself. From Zulu stiffening, Ava inferred Kennedy was from his platoon. “Our recruits still have night terrors. Insomnia, nightmares. Almost like a fear of sleeping. Disciplinary problems during the day are dying out. But we still get violent episodes at night. Especially from our Jersey recruits. Out of the blue. Miss Mora, at the quarantines, how did they handle that?”
Maisie nodded. “We had that in quarantine. I think it’s unnatural for gavis to sleep with just a couple strangers. That’s too intense. You might let them sleep in the hallway, or with the doors open.”
Sergeant Calderon raised a hand. “Panic, what do you think of that?”
“I think Maisie’s right. We’d be fine all sleeping in one room. But, the natural thing for us, is to assign night watchmen. We could take, like, the most high-strung, and assign them in shifts to police the hall. We’d decide that as a group. Maybe we could do it as a DTM.”
“A what?”
“A democratic town meeting. Decide group things for the platoon that way. We’re all voters.”
“The Army isn’t a democracy, Panic,” Calderon began.
“Sergeant, not now,” Captain Deluca interrupted him. “We’re seeking input.”
“Sir.”
Maisie continued, “You need to feel safe to sleep. If you go to sleep feeling not-safe, you have nightmares.” Ava nodded. “Or you can’t sleep at all. Or you’re half-asleep and freak out when something startles you.”
Sergeant Kennedy asked, “Did you use sleeping pills at the quarantine?”
“No sleeping pills,” Maisie replied. “No drugs except for treatment. You know, worms and stuff.”
Sergeant Clarke followed this up. “Maisie, some of the gang leaders have particular trouble at night. Like Panic here. During the day, too, they seem high-strung. Nervous, unhappy.”
Maisie nodded. “You were a gang leader?” she asked Ava. “Big gang? Girl gang?”
“Queen bee,” Ava returned. “Couple thou in our heyday. We had big gangs near Midtown.”
“Excuse me, what’s a ‘queen bee?’ ” Clarke interrupted.
Fox scowled at Ava. “Queen bitch.”
“Top girl,” Ava supplied. “Kept the girls in line. Kept the guys off them, mostly. Ran the younger kids, until Project Reunion took them away. Directed women’s work type stuff. Cleaning, food, take care of the sick.”
Clarke’s eyes narrowed. “Did you say a couple thousand in your gang?”
“Yes, sergeant. Not all under me. My boyfriend was gang boss. I only managed girls and kids. Maybe fifteen hundred, tops.”
“Gavi gangs were smaller,” Maisie said. “More like bands. But I knew this guy. I go to a youth group back home, for kids resettled from the Apple Zone. We get together for camping trips and stuff. You know, escape being ‘good kids,’ and be wild again for a while.
“Anyway. This guy used to be a gang louie – uh, lieutenant – in Jersey City? His dad’s new family was so thrilled to get him back. He tried to fit in. Be a teenager under parents. A good big brother to his half-brother and sister. I’ve never seen a guy wound so tight.” Maisie shook her head. “He was a mess. He’d try so hard. But then he’d go off like a bottle rocket. Practically shaking all the time.”
Ava grimaced, and willed her bouncing foot to sit still. Just listening to this was making her clench up.
Maisie pointed at Ava and grinned. “Like that. Finally his dad let him go back to the Apple Zone. I liked Panic’s suggestion, of the DTM, and organizing night watches and stuff. A leader needs to lead. Give them something to be in charge of, take some control. That might make them happier.”
“Yes!” The word squeaked out without Ava’s volition. She wanted that. She needed that.
Clarke asked Calderon, “Are you giving them leadership opportunities?”
“No. I told them to mind their own business and master themselves.”
Maisie laughed. “Yeah, that would drive them nuts. On the streets, they needed control, or they were dead.”
“Alright, thanks, we’ll try the DTM tonight,” Clarke declared.
Calderon winced his eyes shut beside him, but sighed.
“You get a vote, too, sergeant,” Ava consoled him. “And set the ground rules.”
“Damn right I will, Panic,” Calderon promised.
She grinned back at him.
“Any other issues Maisie or I might help with?” Colonel Mora said. “I need to get back to Newsome soon.”
“Yes, sir,” Janette Mattey cut in. “Um, it’s a female matter. Could I borrow the girls?”
“Ah, yes. Please do,” Mora encouraged.
“Ew,” Maisie said, shrinking back in her seat. Ava and Fox encouraged her up and out into the hall.
“Maisie, how long did it take to get your period back?” Lieutenant Mattey asked her softly, once the door was shut.
Ava waited with bated breath. It wasn’t like she wanted her period back. But. And she didn’t have anyone to ask.
“I dunno. Couple months after I got home, maybe?”
“Not during quarantine on Long Island?” Mattey pressed.
Maisie shook her head. “Still too skinny. I ate like a pig back in Connecticut. My aunt dragged me to a gynecologist.” Maisie rolled her eyes. “He said it was normal.”
Ava and Fox avoided each other’s eyes, and Maisie’s, but were glad for the information.
“I see,” Mattey said. “You see, the female drill instructors are worried that we shouldn’t pass girls as fit for duty, when, you know, all systems aren’t in working order yet.”
“Don’t do that!” Ava blurted. “We’ll be fine!”
“It’ll take months,” Fox moaned. “We’ll be passed over for Basic.”
Mattey nodded thoughtfully, then smiled. “OK. Back in.”
“Anything you need to report, lieutenant?” Captain Deluca asked his exec, as they settled back to their seats. His tone was more resigned than eager.
“Yes, sir,” Mattey said. “Sergeant Weinzapfel, and I, and the other women non-coms. Female recruits are welcome to come to us, with girl problems. Reproductive system. They don’t need to go through their squad sergeants.”
“Thank God,” Sergeant Calderon muttered, echoed by a few others among the younger sergeants at table.
“Excellent, lieutenant,” Deluca said in relief. “We’ll pass the word.”
“You don’t have a gynecologist,” Mora gathered. “In a camp full of horny teenagers.” He made a note to discuss that with the doctor as well. “You realize that every recruit here is sexually active, right? Most have been in the sex trade, or raped, boys and girls both. Probably some rapists, too. Or all of the above.”
“Rapists?” Mattey echoed.
“Probably,” Daneel said.
“Definitely,” Zulu confirmed.
“We can’t have them here,” Mattey stated categorically. “No.”
“Amnesty,” Mora replied. “All crimes, including rape, are covered by the amnesty. They never happened. I understand your concern, lieutenant, but I agree with that decision.”
Maisie said, “Dwayne should give his sex talk, Daddy! Oh, but they aren’t letting the Rescos in.”
“Dwayne?” Mora asked blankly. “Cam’s Dwayne, Resco on Long Island?”
“Yeah,” Zulu agreed. “He gave a great sex talk at Camp Suffolk, um, the Long Island quarantine. When Maisie and I were there.”
Check. Ava was right, Zulu knew Maisie from quarantine. Ava’s guess was, they slept together there, and Maisie still had a lingering crush on him, and Zulu didn’t want her scary dad to know. Maisie was right, she reflected. Her head spun with minding other people’s business.
“We could give a sex talk,” one of the other captains said, without enthusiasm. “But they get that in Basic.”
“No,” Maisie said. �
�Dwayne’s talk is different. He –”
Mora cut off his daughter with a hand. “I’ll mention the idea to Colonel Cameron. With that, I’m afraid I need to move on. Could the recruits show my daughter around campus for a couple hours?”
Maisie nodded enthusiastically.
Ava enjoyed showing the younger teen around ‘Hogwarts.’ Along the way, she satisfied her curiosity about what life was like outside the Zone, from the resettled apple perspective. Maisie even joined Ava and Fox for afternoon circuit training. The officer’s kid and ex-gavi left Fox in the dust. But she could almost keep up with Ava. Tough kid.
After she bid Maisie good-bye at Stupid Statue, Ava realized she didn’t much envy Maisie getting her father back. Clearly she idolized her dad. But trying to be his little girl again was hard for her. Ava couldn’t imagine her own father accepting what she’d done, who she’d been, like Maisie’s dad. That was pretty special.
It seemed disloyal to think it. Sorry, Tata.
Deda, though – he’d been through the wars, the communists, starving times and better times and cruel choices. Deda might have understood.
After meeting with Colonel Mora, the doctor examined just a few recruits to confirm the suspected worms. Then he issued de-worming meds, anthelmintics, to the entire base, staff and student alike. The treatment was gross, but at least they all went through it together.
Ava started feeling better physically, without the parasite drain. The worms had been with her so long, she hardly noticed them until they were gone.
There was time for one DTM before they left for solstice. As Ava expected, enthusiasm was high for night watches. They scheduled one recruit from each squad to cover every two-hour watch. Doors would be left ajar for the watchmen to stick their heads in and check beds.
Calderon wanted to postpone the watches until after leave, because there were only two nights left. He was voted down by popular acclaim. He left himself open for that when he allowed the discussion. No doubt the sergeants would get more clever with practice.
Even Ava and Puño slept like rocks. Except during their watches, of course. They policed the hall back to back, from twenty-three hundred to three hundred, the witching hours, the very night of the meeting.
Ava often received a mesh from Guzman, and now Maisie too. But still no response from Frosty.
And then solstice furlough was upon them.
19
Interesting fact: Most Cocos in the Apple Core, and three of the borough Rescos, emerged as leaders during the Starve. The Cocos were granted some leeway regarding which of their prior strong-arm tactics could continue.
“Hey, hey!” Ava called. She met her squad mates at the narrow nose of the Flatiron Building, facing Madison Square Park. The park, which had seen worse days during the Starve, was a park again, with baby trees and everything. No one was trying to farm it. Hemmed in by tall buildings like the 22-story Flatiron, they wouldn’t get far growing crops here.
Ava’s eyes kept straying west onto broad 23rd Street. For nearly two years she lived just a couple blocks from here. But the wedge-shaped Flatiron was in no-man’s-land between gangs, not White Supreme territory. Her nerves were humming at being back in Chelsea. If she didn’t chicken out, she might see Frosty again today.
“Any trouble coming up Fifth?” Puño asked proudly. He’d advised her 5th Avenue was a safe corridor, from the Village straight up to Midtown. His gang Libre policed this section.
“Not even a rude whistle,” Ava confirmed, shaking her head in amazement. “Creepy. Six months ago, this stretch was a death sentence.” It didn’t even smell like sewage and rotting corpses anymore, just fresh salt air.
“Maybe a death sentence for white trash,” Puño replied. “And those assholes from Al Kebab.” Fakhir smirked back at him. “Doc’s turf is way over by the High Line. We don’t know those people,” he added for Marquis’s benefit.
Doc snorted. “Yeah, all of six blocks from here. Can’t walk straight there, though,” he explained to Marquis, standing beside him. “Somebody is using Twenty-Third as their living room. Somebody pale.”
Ava frowned. “I thought somebody else had the High Line.” The ribbon of park was built on an old elevated train line, running alongside Tenth Avenue. It stretched nearly twenty blocks, starting in Soho Ville turf, to end in the north of Chelsea. She seemed to recall tangling with Hispanics last time they raided that way.
“Prime agriculture, for Chelsea,” said Doc. “Three gangs hold a piece of it. We’re near Chelsea Pier.”
Ava nodded enlightenment. That was where she remembered the Hispanic gang, but she didn’t mention it. Borders shifted all the time during the gang wars of the Starve.
“Sorry I’m late!” Yoda cried, skidding to a stop to join them. He must have walked up from 14th Street, too.
“No Sauce and Fang?” Marquis asked.
“Sauce hates gangs, man,” Yoda said. “Fang’s Lower East Side, like you. Why are you asking me?”
“Chinatown’s not East Side, it’s middle,” Marquis argued.
“We’re all here,” Puño said, to put a stop to that. “Let me show you around Libre! Unless, Panic? You want to start with White Supreme?”
Ava shook her head slightly. “Let’s do that last.”
Of all the awkwardness of being ‘home’ in the city, Ava found touring Chelsea the most surreal. She’d lived here, and fought here, for nearly two years. Kids stopped and stared at them on the street. Not white kids, yet they were no threat at all. In fact, they looked skinny and frail. Ava’s group stood out starkly, a mixed-race, mixed-gender group of toughs. In their Army camouflage, even unarmed, no one dared go near them. Easy pickings were loser kids, with no backup. The Hudson Army was effectively unlimited backup, catastrophically well-equipped. Only a fool tangled with the Army.
According to Puño and Doc, even without the uniforms, they could stroll unmolested on the designated safe routes through Chelsea. That was a huge change from when Ava left in August.
The street toilets, rigged shelters over the passive storm sewers, were gone. The corpse and trash mounds were gone, too, and the derelict cars. The streets weren’t exactly open. The December wind howled down narrow dark canyons, bitter as always. But the streets themselves were clear of obstacles. They didn’t even have the ubiquitous brick ‘apple boxes’ to grow vegetables on the sidewalks. No point. Not enough sun reached down into the streets here.
Puño’s pride and joy was on Sixth Avenue at 20th, the Libre inventory. Puño was only fifth in line on the Libre hierarchy, but clearly the entrepreneurial visionary of the outfit. And who knew? With so much peace going on, maybe the salvage kingpin would outrank the muscle someday. Puño seemed to think so. Marquis was downright jealous.
“So you trade directly with the Resco Raj?” Marquis asked. “You run your own salvage operations, and they fork over the food? Just like a ville with a Coco?”
“Yup! Juba brokers our trade. Coco in Midtown. Man, Midtown is cutthroat compared to LES and Soho Village. Same way during the Starve. Hey, Panic, Doc, you ever run ops with Midtown? The Jersey raids with Chet? That man was evil.”
Doc nodded, with a blank thousand-yard stare. Fakhir shook his head.
Ava nodded curtly. Evil was a good word for the SWAT-team armored war band she accompanied into Jersey. Chet’s tanks terrorized the locals in the main attack, blowing people up in their homes, while gang rats mopped up, stealing food. Jersey gangs and suburbanites were soft targets compared to the Manhattan gangs. For Ava, once was enough, especially the hellish march through the Lincoln Tunnel. With no active ventilation, the tank exhaust fumes lay in their path like a blanket. Frosty went back several times, and Ava was a ball of nerves until he came home safe.
She paused and hugged herself, studied her toes. Breathe out. The flashback passed quickly, and she resumed walking. Flashbacks were coming fast and furious here, where her life once was.
Another block down, Puño pulled them into the Libre main c
afeteria for lunch, slightly after their mid-day rush. The space was garishly orange, with hard plastic seats and tiny tables, some kind of giant fast food place Before. The two-story dining room was dim, the only light reflected in from the glass windows across the street. Surprisingly warm raucous steam enveloped them.
They tried to buy three lunches apiece at the proctor before the serving line, but house rules said one standard lunch per customer. Otherwise they wouldn’t have enough to go around. Ava received a cup of hot Manhattan clam chowder, with warm cornbread fresh from the ovens, and her choice of warm or cold milk.
“You serve hot food at lunch?” Marquis demanded. “You suck!”
Puño shook his head. “Villes, too. Margolis decreed, for winter, we serve hot food, all three meals.”
This was only their second meal back in the city. Last night they left West Point after supper. At breakfast, Ava hadn’t thought twice about her cup of tepid oatmeal with a drizzle of maple syrup. Or rather, she mostly noticed how small it was, compared to the plate full of bacon, eggs, and potatoes she struggled to swallow for breakfast at West Point. She enjoyed the option of hot cider to drink. Like Marquis, she hadn’t realized this was official new policy for winter work. Sweet! She held the chowder under her nose as they made their way to a table, breathing deep of tomato clam vapors to open her sinuses.
“Guys, I want you to meet my wife, Cantora!” Puño presented her with a proud flourish.
The girl sat with an all-teen salvage crew in the familiar coveralls. Discarded work gloves and goggles, tangled with hats and scarves and winter jackets, sat in a mound on the floor beside them. Cantora rose and beamed at them, but didn’t say much. Ava took her for Puerto Rican, too, with thoroughly mixed racial warm brown features and cornrow hair. Cantora was even shorter than Ava, and much thinner. She wasn’t objectively pretty. But joy oozed from her to make that irrelevant – her happiness made her attractive as bright sunflowers in the gloomy city. She obviously worshiped the ground Puño walked on, and the feeling was mutual.
