Rebirth

by Sophie Littlefield

  The front desk here was manned by a young man in a pale khaki button-down shirt who looked like a recruiting poster for the Marines. He had an old-fashioned wire rack full of papers, and he was writing in a spiral notebook. On the desk in front of him were a pager and a coffee mug.

  Here, as elsewhere, the doors and windows were propped open to allow air to circulate. This room did not receive as much sun as the old preschool and the man at the desk looked cold, despite the fleece vest he was wearing, the gloves with the fingers cut off.

  “Is Pace in?” Nell asked without preamble.

  “Hi, yourself, Nell. Good to see you. How am I? Oh, not too bad,” the man said, ignoring Cass and Dor. Behind him, tacked to a wall, were a large map of California and a hand-lettered sign reading HOURS: 9:00-12:00, 13:00-17:00. “Nice of you to ask, since you didn’t show up to Clearings Tuesday. What’s that, twice in a row?”

  “Hey, I got a different assignment,” Nell said defensively.

  “Everyone’s supposed to have Clearings. No exceptions.”

  “Not if you volunteer for Sanitary.”

  The young man’s eyes widened. “You volunteered?”

  Nell shrugged. “It beats Clearings. At least you know what you’re going to be dealing with. And it never changes.”

  “You couldn’t pay me enough-”

  “So like I said, is Pace around?” Nell cut him off. “You may have noticed I’m not alone, right? These are a couple of joiners. David MacAlister and Cassandra Dollar. David’s daughter, Ruth.”

  Ruthie, Cass wanted to correct her, but the desk jockey barely glanced at them. If this was what passed for security, maybe they could relax a little.

  “Yeah, he’s back there.”

  “Watch these guys for me?”

  He regarded them impassively. “Yeah, whatever. I guess.”

  Nell disappeared down a hallway, leaving Cass and Dor standing. There were no other chairs in the reception area. “May I use the bathroom?” Cass asked.

  “Not without an escort. Not until you’re in, anyway.”

  “In,” Dor repeated. “How much more in can we be?”

  The man lifted his wrist: there, tattooed in black, was the symbol Cass had seen once before-on Evangeline’s wrist. The koru, a spiral resembling a snail shell, the Maori symbol of renewal. The symbol of the Rebuilders, deceptively appealing in its simplicity.

  The sight increased Cass’s sense of anxiety, but Dor only smirked. “What, you got some sort of assembly line? Everyone gets one of those stamped on their ass on the way to the welcome cocktail party?”

  “Not everyone,” the guard retorted. “You have to earn it.”

  “Yeah, what’d you do to earn it, buddy? Rack up a dozen merit badges? Learn to tie your kerchief in a pretty knot?”

  Cass shot him a look. She didn’t doubt that Dor was baiting the man on purpose, trying to draw him into a dick-measuring contest so he would be less likely to question their story that they were together. A family. Cass was pretty sure they’d fail any kind of rigorous questioning; Dor sure as hell wouldn’t be able to prove that Ruthie was his. He barely knew her. It helped that she didn’t talk, but he wouldn’t be able to answer the simplest questions like whether all her teeth had come in or when her birthday was or what time she went down for a nap.

  It was a successful performance, Cass had to give Dor that. The man looked like he wanted to take a swing at Dor, but Nell returned, followed by a tall, thin man with rimless glasses and a salt-and-pepper beard.

  “I’m Bruce Pace,” he said, extending a hand as he pushed past Nell, who managed to look both irritable and chastened. “So sorry that you weren’t brought here directly. We’ll get you in with Evangeline right away-she’s most anxious to see you.”

  “All of us,” Cass clarified.

  “Yes, of course. You’re, uh, traveling with David and his daughter?”

  “We’re together,” she said, and ran through the list of words she could add: lovers, a family, he’s my boyfriend, we’re married. But “together” was the catchall term nowadays.

  Pace’s skepticism could be forgiven. Except Cass had to make him believe, had to make all of them believe so they could stay together and she could be with Ruthie.

  She forced a smile and slipped her hand into Dor’s. He hesitated for only a second before giving it a squeeze. “Ruthie’s become very attached to me,” Cass said. “She’s been traumatized, and she doesn’t talk much-but I think I’m getting in to her.”

  “Okay, right. Well, let’s get you all back to see her, then.”

  He led them up the stairs. Windows had been cut in the stairwells, foot-wide square openings leaking insulation and wallboard, a crude but effective way to get light into the interior of the building. Two flights up, they exited into a large room that was divided into cubicles by chest-high walls. Most were empty, though there was evidence that someone was using them-jackets slung over chairs, cups and papers littering the desks. In a large open area, a couple of guys wearing old-fashioned headphones leaned on their elbows, staring at radio equipment that looked like it had been cobbled together from used parts. One made a note on a piece of paper. They barely nodded at Pace.

  Beyond the open area was a glass-enclosed office whose tall windows overlooked the quad. On the polished black desk lay a notebook flipped to a blank page, a cup of water sitting on a folded paper napkin. Pace herded them inside, but there was only a single chair besides the one behind the desk, and none of them sat. Cass stared out the window, Ruthie leaning against her, until a cold, hard, familiar voice at the door made her jump.

  “This must be our lucky day.”

  Evangeline strode around the desk, barely sparing Pace a glance; he backed out of the office as though he was happy to be gone.

  The woman had changed very little since the last time Cass saw her. Her hair was still short and pale-shorter than Cass’s, a butter-yellow blond versus Cass’s bleach-white. She was still elegant, still beautiful; her brows tapered in a high arch that made her appear both curious and cool, and her mouth was set in a thin line. Her high cheekbones were perhaps a bit more prominent than before, and she was even thinner, her khaki shirt too large on her, her belt notched tight. But she looked more dangerous, somehow.

  She stood behind her desk and regarded Cass coolly, extending her hand but ignoring Dor. “At last. I must say, I wondered if we would ever see you again, after your little disappearing act with Smoke.”

  “I never meant to go with him.” Cass hastily launched into the story she’d prepared. “After you told me I could live here, you know, that you’d protect me, I wanted to come. But Smoke said he’d killed someone and that if I didn’t come with him people would think I was part of it. Later…well, eventually he told me it wasn’t true.”

  “But not until after you escaped with him. A…disappointment, from our perspective. And a greater disappointment that one of our own helped the two of you leave.”

  Cass knew Evangeline had hoped to send Smoke to Colima to be sentenced. His “tribunal” had been rushed, he was to have been taken away the next morning. The tall, bulky man who came to Cass’s cell in the middle of the night made it clear he was only helping her to pay a debt to Smoke. Cass felt a twinge of guilt-Smoke had insisted on her freedom, and she’d never been sure if the Rebuilders were more angry about losing an outlier in her, or in missing a chance to make an example of Smoke. Had that big man suffered for her? Smoke could easily have left her behind, not just then but a dozen other times. He’d brought her to the Box; he’d waited for her when she entered the Convent to search for Ruthie. He’d been standing in the street in front of the stadium when Cass escaped with Ruthie in her arms, wearing the blood of the innocent.

  But he had also made her love him. And then he’d left her.

  “I never saw anyone helping Smoke,” Cass lied. “I don’t know what happened before he came for me, but he was alone when he came to my cell.”

  Evangeline raised one per
fect brow. “Gallant of him. We went to considerable trouble to find out who the traitor was that day.”

  “Okay…and?”

  “We established a man’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.” Evangeline let a moment pass, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “He was punished. That chapter is closed.”

  Cass could guess what that meant-someone had been executed. She wondered if they had accused the right man. Either way, the rebellion was quelled.

  It was cold justice, a ruthless order where anyone who found themselves in the crosshairs was destroyed. Cass had no illusions that it was fair. But this still might be the only place where someone like her-not an idealist, not a trouble-seeker, just an ordinary citizen looking for an ordinary life-could find a measure of safety, a routine to live by.

  Even thinking that way felt like a betrayal of Smoke, of his passion and his ideals, of his willingness to avenge innocents. But in giving himself away for the people from his past, he had turned away from her. From Ruthie. And now he was likely dead, just like the man who’d helped them escape. What did that make them? Wrong, Cass thought-and soon forgotten, just a couple more decaying corpses in a land already littered and layered with them.

  Life was for the survivors. And she would do what she needed so Ruthie could survive.

  “So, David.” Evangeline turned her chilly pale eyes on him. “What are you looking for? In our community?”

  He held her gaze. “Same as Cass. Same as anyone. I have Ruthie to think about. We’re trying to make a go of it. You can keep my family safe, I figure I can show you I’ll earn my place.”

  “Mmm. Sure. It’s just…” A thin smile, insincere, quickly gone. “It’s just strange, though.”

  Ruthie whimpered and hugged Cass’s waist, hiding her face in her shirt.

  “I just would never have guessed,” Evangeline continued, turning away from Dor and leaning in close to Cass, as though they were girlfriends exchanging confidences. “Leaving Smoke for someone so…different. Smoke’s an idealist-a mistaken one, I must say, but someone who’d fall on his sword for his principles. While David…well, to put it nicely, I mean don’t take this the wrong way, but he reads kind of…well, dependable. Salt of the earth. Hard worker, family man, all of that, but you’ve got a taste for the wild side, right, Cass? I mean, whatever caused you to fall for David? Just between us girls.”

  Her smile widened, and here she leaned forward, hands on the desk as if Cass’s fate hung in the balance. Evangeline truly was a beautiful woman, but cruelty made her seem brittle. “I didn’t leave Smoke,” Cass said, knowing she shouldn’t rise to the bait and trying to keep her voice steady. “I was never really with him. I only left the library with him because I didn’t have any other options. Besides, as soon as we got to shelter, it was only a couple of weeks before he was gone again. He went out on an overnight raid and didn’t come back. And by then I’d met David, anyway.”

  She turned to Dor and gave him the adoring smile that she’d practiced, an expression she hoped would convince Evangeline of her ardor-but when their eyes met her smile faltered. He was watching her with some dark emotion she couldn’t identify. Anger, most likely; she couldn’t blame him.

  If she’d hoped that helping Dor would balance the scales between them, she realized now that was not going to happen. He’d already said he didn’t need her to get inside the Rebuilder compound, and now she had burdened him with Evangeline’s suspicion.

  “So you fell in love with David because he was there,” Evangeline said in a faintly mocking tone. “That makes sense, for you. Convenient. A nice guy. Maybe he gave you an extra biscuit at dinner. Is that it?”

  “It was…just one of those things,” Cass said, struggling to find a way to convince her. “I was…”

  “Cass started a garden,” Dor said, swinging Ruthie abruptly up on his hip. Ruthie looked surprised, but after a moment she snuggled against his chest. “My daughter loves plants and flowers. Can’t keep her out of the dirt. She started spending a lot of time with Cass and…you know how it goes, one thing led to another.”

  The ease with which he lied surprised Cass. It wasn’t just a fiction, made up on the spot; it was as though Dor slipped on an invisible skin and became someone else, if only for a moment. The change was subtle, hard to break down into parts. Maybe there was a bit more swagger, as though he meant to prove that he was confident with women. He held his head a little higher so that he had to look slightly down at Evangeline, as if trying to establish dominance.

  The Dor Cass knew was not prone to self-importance. He was a watcher, a contemplative man who kept his own counsel.

  If he could be changeable, so could she. Cass realized Dor’s skill was less in the words he chose and more in the delivery, and she thought about what kind of woman would find Dor attractive, what kind of woman would be drawn to his power.

  She ducked her chin coquettishly. “I needed a man,” she said coyly. “David’s a good one. And Ruthie gives me a reason to get up in the morning.”

  For a long moment the two women stared at each other, neither blinking. Finally, Evangeline laughed, a surprisingly delicate, feminine sound. “Well, let’s see if we can give you another. Reason to get up in the morning, that is. As I’m sure you’ve already figured out, outliers are of great value to us, to our little society here.”

  “Because of the research,” Cass said. “Yes, I remember you telling me that. How is that coming? Are you any closer to making a vaccine?”

  There was the faintest flicker in Evangeline’s eyes-a fraction of a second when her focus shifted, barely enough to signal that she wasn’t telling the truth. “So close. The team is all very excited, of course. You’re not just immune-you’ve used that immunity against a full infection. Let’s see if we can expedite your welcome. David will need to be tested, of course. And Ruthie.”

  “You’re testing everyone?”

  “It’s just a simple blood test.” Evangeline pushed back her chair and they all rose, Dor picking up Ruthie effortlessly. “A finger poke, that’s all they need. And I think you’ll be impressed with our research facilities. It’s the one area where we’ve retained power almost from the start.”

  “Electricity?” Dor asked as they followed Evangeline out of the office. She led them down the hall toward the rear of the building.

  “Generators, for now. We draw a little solar power but a lot of the panels were damaged during the riots. We’re working on that, but for now the team thinks we can get turbines operational by spring.”

  “Wind turbines?”

  “Yes. The university already drew some power from them. It’s just a matter of repairing the ones that were damaged and diverting the output. And we’ve been lucky to recruit people who know how to do that.”

  There was no irony in her tone, but Cass suspected that the experts they “recruited” were given little choice in the matter. Still, electric power from a renewable resource-the possibilities were boundless.

  There had been talk in the Box of rigging up a crude wheel in the creek to generate some power, but so far no one had figured out how to do that. Three men who spent a couple of nights in the Box a few weeks earlier had plans to travel to the oil fields in Coalinga and find a way to siphon out the fuel-if anyone did that, car travel could be a possibility again, at least until it ran out for the second time.

  And of course there was the ongoing quest to make ethanol from kaysev. Some people believed that eventually kaysev would provide the clean, sustainable fuel that had eluded the world for centuries; for now most attempts were far from an unqualified success, difficult to refine and yielding a lot of malodorous black smoke.

  Cass and Dor followed Evangeline out the back door, along a winding walkway that paralleled the new wall at the edge of campus. Between the walk and the wall was a lone building, three stories tall, plain and blocky and built of homely brown brick-a small dorm, from the looks of it. Many of the windows on the higher floors were obscured by narrow blinds, but here a
nd there they had been raised.

  Cass saw a face, round and pale, pressed to the glass of a window on the fourth floor, near the end of the building. It appeared to be a girl, perhaps a young teen. For the briefest second it seemed to Cass that the girl behind the window was staring directly at her, and her expression was one of the saddest Cass had ever seen. Then, abruptly, she disappeared.

  21

  “TAPP CLINIC” HAD BEEN PAINTED ON THE WALL next to the entrance to what had been a physicians’ office building. Someone had carefully detailed each letter and outlined it with black.

  “We aren’t using the main hospital facilities at this time,” Evangeline said, pointing out the large modern facility next door. The sign reading Emergency remained, but the doors were sealed with wood and more steel bars.

  But the office buildings arrayed around the facility looked neat and tidy. As they approached, a guard stepped out from an overhang.

  “Lieutenant Oxnard,” he said briskly.

  “Pace let you know we were coming?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Evangeline didn’t spare him any further conversation. Inside, the familiar sound of a generator ground in the background. The second thing that hit Cass was the smell-the same industrial cleaner they’d used in every hospital she’d ever visited. The sliding glass doors didn’t slide, and as they made their way through the lobby and up the stairs, they passed plenty of technology that, without power, was little more than junk taking up space-digital displays, elevators, door alarms, bays of equipment at nursing stations, telephones.

  They walked down halls lit with a very occasional bulb. A woman wearing hospital scrubs pushed out of a set of doors in a hurry, pulling off a pair of gloves. She wore a turban and a fabric mask over her nose and mouth. Cass peered past her and saw-thought she saw-a woman on a hospital bed with her feet in stirrups, surrounded by more people in masks and scrubs. But the doors closed quickly and Cass wondered if she’d seen something else in the blur of people and activity.