Collapse (Book 1): Perfect Storm

by Riley Flynn

  The news, when he watched it, seemed so saccharine. It made his teeth hurt. Too much sugar. Alex could remember listening to his dentist. The man had been wise and sensible and had hairs in his nose. Alex had been fascinated by those hairs when he was a boy. Now he spent every other Sunday with a pair of tweezers and a mirror, trying to stay presentable. Too much sugar, the man had said, it rots your teeth.

  Alex needed something to eat.

  4

  Picking a place to eat was easy. Two blocks from his apartment, Alex knew that Al’s would always be open. Hot dogs, chili fries, wings, and minimal health bylaws followed. Pretty much what you’d expect from a place that was open till just before dawn. The neon lights inside were not only on, they lit up half the street in front of the store. It was blinding. Al’s was open, as always.

  “Hey, it’s Alex. Alex Early, coming in late. Look at this guy.” Al pointed toward Alex with a fork, speaking to a man in the back who was face deep in a plate of fries. “Eh, you don’t listen.”

  Offering up his respects and his greetings both, Alex looked around the room. There were a few empty seats. To call it a restaurant would give Al’s too much credit. There was no space for a restaurant. There were two sides: one was Al, sitting behind his grill, watching over everything with the meanest eye for detail; the other was a flat shelf, about chest height, and a row of tall chairs which spun in half circles and sat, ready for the customers. There was no better place to eat in the city.

  There was always a TV, stuck up in the corner of the room. Al used it for sparring practice. Stuck in behind the grill for fifteen hours a day, he’d shout back and forth with the screen, with the customers, and with pretty much anyone else.

  “You’ll have your usual,” Al announced. “You seen all this?”

  Alex nodded. His usual was rarely the same meal twice in a row. Sometimes it was a hotdog. Sometimes cheesesteak. Whatever, Al had a knack for picking the perfect food for any time of night. Tonight, it was a Coney dog. It filled a hole.

  All the while he was cooking, Al pointed at the TV. As well as Alex and the man with a face full of fries, there were two other people in the small room. One of them was a young man, blond and dressed up nice, in a suit and tie. The other was older, but not ancient. Middle aged, but not wearing it well. He dressed in military-store supplies, the kind of clothes which are colored in a very specific kind of green. Nowhere else to buy those, apart from the military stores. Tags around his neck, too, Alex noticed. The same air as Freddy. There were plenty of folks like Freddy these days.

  While the food cooked, Al was busy shouting about Koreans. He wasn’t shouting much, just making sure everyone was watching the TV. You hearing this, he’d ask, you see what they’re doing? He’d ask the room at large, waiting for a rumbling of support. Most people nodded in gentle agreement, but the younger man decided that he’d speak up.

  “Turn it all to glass, that’s what I say. Let’s see them try to run an ash field.”

  The man cackled while he said it, a thin wisp of blond hair falling across his eyebrows.

  “That right, huh?” Al responded, his eyes already back glued to the screen, his hands flipping meat on autopilot.

  But the younger man didn’t stop. Encouraged, he began to chat, talking about Korea this and China that. Alex ignored him. Lots of people talked in Al’s, though often not for long. But not everyone ignored the blond boy. Alex began to watch the other man in the room, geared up in fatigues and twitching every time this youngster ran this tongue about dropping bombs. Al offered up Alex’s food and turned back round to face the TV.

  “Got to show them we mean business,” the younger man snapped. “Only one thing they understand. Boots on the ground. Bombs in the air. It’ll be glorious.”

  And on he went, on and on as Alex chewed through the food. Eventually, the older man snapped.

  There wasn’t a shout, there wasn’t a warning.

  He simply got to his feet, walked across the room, and hit the blond man hard in the neck.

  As the younger man writhed on the ground, Al shouted over his grill, the older man dared his opponent to his feet, and the man with the plateful of fries just watched, Alex got up. He stuck a ten-dollar bill by the door, making sure Al saw it. He stepped out into the night again.

  The sounds of the fight spilled onto the street. The light from Al’s diner was interrupted by the shadows, the men moving fast behind them. People on the other side of the road were stopping to watch. Alex left them be. He walked home.

  The last two blocks were the hardest. It was cold now, the last warmth of the day having risen up into the sky, and the wind off the lake blowing in low and hard. Alex had his bag slung over his shoulder, the sleeves of his T-shirt billowing about his arms. Just two blocks to walk, though, and then he’d be home.

  Across the flat side of a concrete tower block, a person had crawled up to the gutter with a spray can and written the words APOCALPYSE NOW SEPTEMBER 2027. They’d crossed out the month regularly, different dribbles of paint poking out from beneath the month. It had been January, then March, then May.

  At least it was up to date.

  Alex walked in silence. He was quiet, at least, but the city offered no such option. There were sounds everywhere. The ambulances, the squad cars, the freeway–it all came together in one chaotic din, mixing together along the length of the street and emerging as a single, untidy racket.

  It was the sound of the city, as Alex had come to understand it. Different than life on the farm, for sure, but not worse. Just different. If the sounds were out there, he thought, it meant people were busy living. Going about their business.

  Even now, Alex could remember the shroud of silence which settled over his parents’ farmhouse every night. Nothing for miles, nothing but rustling corn and calling birds. It was never quiet but it was silent. It was only the world turning; there were no people making themselves apparent. Anything could have happened on the other sides of the fields and no one would know any better. Instead, the hum, the drone, and the noise of the city was reassuring.

  One street from his house, Alex was stopped by a cop. Tapping his pockets, searching for his documents, Alex began to worry. They weren’t in his front pockets, or the back of his jeans. Had he left them in his car? These regular stops weren’t too tricky to navigate but if you were one piece of plastic short, you’d be spending a night in the cells.

  “Sorry, officer,” Alex said. “I just need to search my bag. Is that all right? I just want to reach inside.”

  Bending double over the bag, Alex watched the cop’s face for permission. The man said nothing. His uniform was crisp and his dark trousers had a crease which could cut cold butter. Alex took the silence as agreement and began to unzip the bag. The cop’s hand moved to his hip, unclipping the button beside the gun. Alex continued, slowly.

  The bag was full of junk. Not stuff he ever needed but stuff he’d regret not having. Cables for this or that device. Old work for the office. Pens. Paper. Keys. But not the documents he needed right now. They were buried somewhere, underneath the dirty laundry. Alex kept fishing around.

  The cop’s radio crackled into life. Still rummaging, Alex couldn’t hear all the words. They were drowned in static, lost to the ether. But the cop seemed to understand. He called in his position, told them that he was waiting on a “possible miscreant.”

  Alex dug harder down into the bag. The radio continued. The words were scattered. Hospital kept coming up. Doctors. Ambulances. A siren sounded in the distance. Disease, Alex was sure the radio said. Back-up. Roadblock.

  He stopped, looming over his bag, listening to the radio. The cop kicked the closest pocket, jerking Alex back to attention. With frequent apologies, the search began again, fingers finally falling against something laminated and hidden in a corner of the bag. That had to be it. Looking up, making eye contact with the cop, he began to remove the item unhurriedly from the bag.

  “It’s my ID. I’m just taking it out
now,” Alex said. “Is that all right?”

  The cop didn’t say a word. Alex pulled out the object and, without looking down to check, pulled it up and presented it. It was his ID card. It would suffice. The cop ran his eyes over the picture for half a second, turned around, and walked away to his patrol car.

  As he left, he began to mutter something into his radio. There was no way to hear what he was saying, but it didn’t matter now. The ambulances were moving in the distance again. Alex wasn’t far from home.

  There were three locks on the door but only two really worked. The third, the biggest, was mostly for show. But, even when standing at the door, Alex made a spectacle of unlocking it. It was all theater. The entire world was a stage, even this boring, bland Detroit street where Alex happened to live.

  Once inside the building, Alex began to walk to the second floor. It was an older building, built in the seventies. But it had been built well back then. There were three floors. He lived in the middle. His apartment was four rooms, sandwiched between two neighbors he barely knew. It was good. Their homes provided insulation.

  Not just the heat–though that was welcome during the Michigan winter–but the sound. The fury of the city life was blocked off well inside Alex’s apartment. It was why he loved the place.

  Alex undid the final lock on his door and entered the dark rooms beyond. He didn’t turn on a light. He didn’t need to. There wasn’t much furniture and he knew the layout better than the palm of his hand. There was the sofa, the book shelf, and the cabinet with the broken television.

  He’d never gotten around to getting it fixed. Back when it had worked, he’d only used it to watch old movies. They didn’t make anything good anymore. Besides, he appreciated the quiet inside the apartment. It made a nice change.

  Throwing his bag beside the door, Alex showered and readied himself for bed. He’d have to take the bus to work the next day, have to get Timmy to drive him out to his car. The chores just piled up, one after another. As he prepared himself for bed, he opened a window. It was cold out. He listened to Detroit singing its song one last time, reveled for a moment, and then shut the window and went to sleep. He didn’t dream. Not these days.

  5

  Alex sat at his desk and tried not to think about anything. The cubicle was small. The computer sitting on the desk in front of him was loud and cheap. All around the office, the sounds of a hundred fingers hitting a thousand plastic keys sounded like a million drops of rain against a tin roof. A thunderstorm, really.

  There was a coffee cup, now empty, and a selection of pens. Papers were stacked in trays. Certain pieces had to be stamped. Certain forms had to be signed. The name above the office door was an acronym. No one seemed to know what the words stood for. Maybe no one ever had.

  Alex stared at numbers in a spreadsheet, as he did every day. If he stared long and hard enough, they became shapes. If he stared even longer, he might be fired.

  The computer made a noise. The same noise it made when the mouse or the keyboard had not moved for a few minutes. The noise that meant work was not being done. If Alex left the computer untouched any longer, a similar, shriller, noise would sound. If there was no movement after that, that same sound would be heard at the workstation of Alex’s superior. There would be a discussion. Alex looked up and tapped a couple of keys. He moved the mouse.

  Alex had his phone balanced on his lap. The computer had been gutted, locked down and prevented from accessing the outside world. A security risk. But Alex could still read on his phone, when the device decided to work. Today, it was well behaved.

  The problem with many of these Chinese devices was the localization. Like the search bar, plastered at the top of the screen, which asked, “What do you want?” Blunt. To the point. Lacking delicacy or etiquette. But an important question, nonetheless. A troubling one.

  What did Alex want? Every time he looked at the screen, he faced a tiny existential crisis. What did he want? To be back with his parents, for the white sheets to be taken from the farmhouse furniture? For Sammy to call him up again, just so he could refrain from answering? For a raise? A better job? What did he want? Right now, he’d settle for just knowing what the hell was happening in the world. A bit of sense.

  The cubicle was very open. Only three walls. Anyone walking past could look right in. But Alex had found a position, leaning slightly on his right arm, where he would hide most of his body from passers-by. To them, he might seem as though he was concentrating incredibly hard. But, in actual fact, he was reading articles, news, books, and everything else on the small screen on his knees.

  But it wasn’t enjoyable. It was worse than actually working, in a way. Flicking between stories, reading only headlines and isolated sentences. Every time he started to read, Alex felt his attention snapping to something else. There was always a more important matter, a more deserving way in which to waste his time. In the end, he tried to read everything and eventually read nothing. A Teflon attention span. Nothing stuck.

  At this moment, Alex found himself determined to read. Korea, the headline began, has today announced… Already he could feel his attention slipping. Alex resolved to read the rest. What had they announced? But his eyes were darting over the text, picking out random words.

  China. Boat. Airborne. Injection. Warning. Alex was drawn in, determined to read properly. This seemed important, he told himself. He had a duty to know more. The work be damned; they weren’t paying him to think. He squinted harder at the phone balanced in his lap.

  “Hey.”

  Alex snapped to attention, dropping his phone to the floor.

  “What’s up?”

  It was Timmy, his flustered red hair moving into view. Alex bent down and retrieved the device. It had turned itself off. The reboot sound chimed around the cubicle. Had it been his boss walking past, that might have saved him. Saved by the unreliable nature of cheap technology. It was almost profound. Maybe it wasn’t.

  “Not much,” said Alex. “Shoulder’s still a bit sore.”

  “Sure thing, shooter,” Timmy replied. “You get used to it. How about that beer tonight? Don’t tell me you got your car already?”

  “Nah, I still need to collect it. Once I’m free, I can pick up whatever.”

  Timmy looked around the cubicle, eyes lingering over the stacks of paper that still demanded Alex’s signature.

  “Great. Hey, weird question. That girl. With all the… blue. Works two cubicles down. Seen her lately?”

  “Tan?” Alex said, rubbing his head. “I think that was her name.”

  “Yeah, her. You seen her around lately?”

  Standing up, head poking up above the cubicles, Alex looked out across the sea of bobbing heads. Tan had a shock of blue hair, which was easy to spot from pretty much anywhere in the office. That could be an advantage, when sailing an ocean of anonymous, damn-near-antonymous workers. Easier for a superior to pick out.

  But that could be a bad thing. For the same reason. Alex would never had risked it. Safety in numbers. Herd immunity. Better to keep plugging away. Tan’s blue hair was missing from the crowd of cubicles. He slumped back into his chair.

  “Haven’t seen her in a few days, actually,” Alex thought aloud. “Though I’m sure there’s less people working here than before.”

  “Fewer. Who raised you?” Timmy said. “Shame about Tan. Probably canned her. Thought we had a spark, though.”

  Sitting back in his chair, Alex realized that the office was quieter than usual. The stacks of paperwork were shorter than normal. He’d been having too many emails bouncing back. Out of office. Sick day. Leave me a message.

  “This company’s going belly up, I guess. Hiring freeze? Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Hey, people hear you two talking like that, they’ll start asking questions.”

  It was Eddie, who’d wandered up to the cubicle, coffee cup in hand. Eddie had worked at the company for years. Back when it had been an entirely different acronym. He had the nicest ch
air in the office, a holdover from the good old days. A man devoid of any sort of hustle. A worker. A drone. A nice guy with a funny tie. Eddie was clean shaven and ten years older than almost everyone else. Alex liked him.

  “Hey, Eddie. Working hard?”

  “Or hardly working,” Eddie replied, apparently hoping that such a statement might contain some trace vestigial humor. He beat the funny out of the line with a bat, an old slugger who’d overstayed his retirement. Second base was Eddie’s world. Nothing more, nothing less. Steady Eddie, no one called him. Not to his face, anyway.

  “Watching the Tigers tonight, Eddie?” asked Timmy.

  Eddie patted the pocket on his shirt. Two tickets were conspicuously placed, visible behind a row of three pens.

  “Got an extra if you want one. Always room for one more.”

  “Nah, I’ll watch it at home,” said Timmy. “Got a trick to get around the blackout. You get a screwdriver, you see, and then…”

  Timmy talked Eddie through how to take the plate off the back of his television, how to fiddle with a few screws, and solder this and that. Alex tuned out. Eddie seemed to do the same, but he was politer. Eddie nodded and smiled. Alex looked down at his phone. Alive again. He restarted the article.

  At least, he started looking at the pictures. It was easier to focus on the photos. Images of American military ships, patrolling the high seas. They were shot like an action movie, placed near the top of the article. All those clean-cut men, it seemed to say, ready to defend the country. Probably more men like Freddy than you’d expect, Alex thought, not quite so slim and bountiful as they’d once been. Probably an army of computer geeks buffing up the men and whitening their teeth in some government sub-basement.

  Scrolling down through the pictures, the images of the military ships and men vanished. They were replaced by pictures of different ships. Cobbled together boats, made from plastic oil containers and railroad ties. Rope lashed across anything buoyant. These photos were not shot as dramatically. They were seen from afar, flotsam and jetsam bobbing on the water. Alex crouched his head down by the phone.