After the Zap

by Michael Armstrong

  Max, Nivakti, and Rindi had come out of the woods, stood to the side. Red Armband looked them over, paused a moment on Nivakti’s sidearm, then glanced at me. “Friends of yours?”

  “Yeah. Max, Nivakti, Rindi. Who are you?”

  She slapped her head. “Where are my manners? I’m Suz, Ship Creek Militia.” She shook hands with all of us, then looked at me. “You?”

  “Holmes,” I said. I looked her over. Suz had the body of a small bear, broad shouldered, firm, but a little chubby. She wore her hair cropped short, a few green strands poking out from under a red cap. The armband had a symbol, but no letters on it: an anchor and a ship. The ship for Ship Creek? Maybe. Suz wore a white anorak, white ski pants, and white mukluks. Her submachine gun—what I’d heard called a gutter gun—was slung over her shoulder.

  “What’s the Suz mean?” I asked.

  “Suzuki,” she said. “Like the gun.” She patted the gutter gun on her back. I smiled. That gun must have had the only word she owned when she came out of the Zap. “You guys going into Ship Creek?”

  Max nodded. “Yup. Do a little trading.”

  “You looking to liberate hostages?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m looking for someone the God Weirders took—if they took her alive.”

  “Maybe the militia can help,” Suz said. She looked up at the sky, pointed at a bank of low gray clouds moving in from the south. “Looks like some snow coming. Why don’t you follow me into Ship Creek? We can put you up at the south militia camp for the night—least I can do for you.”

  Patagonia was helping Rindi get the two teams untangled. Suz started to walk to her team, looked back. “Heck,” she said. “What are we going to do about that God Weird team? Pat, you run dogs?”

  “A little,” she said, “But I’m not sure I can handle this big a team.”

  “I can handle it,” Nivakti said. “I’ll put Aklaq in lead.” He sidestepped over to the team, took his skis off, passed them to Pat. “Can you handle a gee pole?” He pointed at a pole lying flat in the right side of the freight sled. There was a fitting at the front of the sled the pole could be jammed in.

  “Sure,” she said. She took his skis, strapped the cable bindings around her boots.

  Nivakti tossed his toboggan into the God Weird sled, took Aklaq to the front of the team, moved him into single lead. He took the God Weird lead dog, put him back in an empty slot just in front of the wheel dogs. We got our teams straightened out, and followed Suz into Ship Creek.

  * * *

  The militia’s fort was inside a big gray two-story building that stretched for maybe five hundred yards. A sign on the front of the building said MOND CENTER. The building was surrounded by a rampart of rubble, that black road stuff you sometimes see. Inside the rampart were maybe a hundred rusting cars, and a dog yard of maybe twice as many dogs. We mushed through a gate that guards opened as we came up and right into the building.

  Mond was a huge cavern, unheated but out of the wind and snow. Buildings and stalls were built along the edge of the cavern, and other rooms went into smaller caves. More cars and trucks were inside the cavern, and men and women scuttled around the cars, working on them, painting them, tinkering with them.

  “Fixers,” I said.

  Suz nodded. “The only Fixer colony for about two hundred miles. Not that it does us any good. We’ve rebuilt maybe five hundred cars, but we don’t have more than ten gallons of gas to run them. Still, some day . . .”

  “Yeah,” I said. I thought of the Wonderblimp, with her turbo engines and her 5,000 gallon tank, and what the fixers would give to get their hands on her.

  Suz waved to some other militia people—she called them shippos—and they took the teams outside. Rindi went with them to make sure the dogs would be all right. Max, Nivakti, and I followed Suz and Pat upstairs to the kitchen and dining room of the complex. We passed a big room separated from the main complex by a big metal gate. LIBRARY, the room said. I thought I could see row upon row of books inside.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Our readers,” Suz said. “We have four of them. We keep them locked up so they won’t get hurt. They don’t seem to mind; they have all the books they could possibly read.”

  Locked up? I glanced at Max, and he nodded. Locking readers up was better than eating them, I supposed, but I liked my freedom, books or no books.

  We sat at a big wooden table in the dining room. Suz motioned at some more shippos, and a guy with pale yellow hair came over and set a tray of cheese, bread, and sausage on the table. The way people reacted when Suz snapped her fingers made me think she was some kind of big shot in the militia.

  “How’d you get hooked up with the God Weirders?” I asked Pat.

  She poured a cup of tea, passed it to Suz, then poured one for me. “My family has a homestead on the Kenaitze,” she said. “It was kind of rough: a lot of work and not much else. One summer the God Weirders came through on one of their recruiting missions. My daddy told me not to talk to ’em, and when they came up to our place he chased them off. The God Weirders camped right down the road, and that night I snuck out and went to talk with them. They gave me this drink, and next thing you know I woke up in God Weird.”

  “Why did you leave?” Max asked.

  “You know what a God Weird woman does? She works all the damn time. Sure, I worked on the family homestead, but everyone worked. At God Weird the women do most of the work. The men just get drunk, and preach about God, and go on raids. And the women are like whores. You have to sleep with any God Weird man who asks, especially if he’s a minister. Anyway, about a week ago I came up with a bunch to Ship Creek to do some trading, and I snuck away. I got asylum here, but then the God Weirders raided the place and took me. They would have had me if it wasn’t for you.” Pat put a hand on my hand, squeezed.

  “The dogs would have stopped,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Not God Weird dogs. If the driver falls off, they just keep running back to God Weird. I could never have stopped them.” Pat took the rainbow cap off, threw it on the table. She rubbed her head. Black stubble was growing in on the top of her head where it had been shaved. The hair on the edge of the bald spot had been braided into maybe a dozen long braids, each braid dyed a different color. I’d seen a blue braid and thought she was Lucy. “No more rainbows for me,” Pat said. “I’m through with that.”

  “Were you with the God Weirders when they tried to take that blimp?” I asked.

  Suz gave me a hard look, squinted. “How’d you know about that?”

  I ignored her. “Were you?” I asked Pat again.

  She nodded.

  “Did you—did they take a woman with blue hair?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “A blimper. But they didn’t keep her. She didn’t have a nuke, so they’re trading her through . . . well, it doesn’t matter now. She’s as good as dead.”

  I looked at her, stared into her green eyes. “Who did they trade her to?”

  “Bear Baiters,” Pat said.

  “Bear Baiters?”

  Suz took my arm. “Bear hunters. They live up in the mountains north of here. They take people and stake them out in the spring to catch bears. If the people live . . . well, they don’t usually live, but if they do, they become part of the tribe. This person with the blue braid a friend of yours?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Suz had laid her gutter gun on the table. She turned it toward me, set her finger on the trigger. “Unbutton your shirt,” she said. I did. The scar from my blimper initiation was still bright and pink. “You have a little recent open-heart surgery?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh.” I smiled. “Too much meat when I was a kid.”

  “Christ,” she said. “This makes things a little difficult.” She turned the gun around, hung it on the back of her chair. “You’re a blimper.”

  I nodded. Pat moved back in her chair. “You got a code?” she asked.

  “No,” I lied. “It’s only an
initiation scar.”

  “Damn,” said Suz. “We’ve got a little problem here.” Suz reached into a pocket of her coveralls, pulled out a crumpled cigarette. I raised my eyebrows at that. Cigs could get you about ten gallons of high-octane gasoline, or maybe even a small dog team. Suz lit the cigarette, sucked in the smoke, then exhaled in a sigh of blue mist. She passed the cig to me. I hate cigarettes, but it was an honor and I knew it. I took a small toke and let the smoke curl around my mouth and out my lips, never inhaling. I handed the cig back to Suz, and she stubbed it out on the table.

  “Here’s the problem,” she said. “About a year ago the news came up the memor line that nukers were working their way up the West Coast. About the same time word went out on the memor line that this guy up in the interior, Big Mac—and I don’t know who he is or what he wants—would pay well for a living nuker.

  “Now, three weeks ago we get the message that you guys are down in Kachemak. Kachemak tried to get you, but that Myers is dumber than shit, and we hear he blew it. But the word comes up the memor line again that you’re moving north. Our militia figures, hey, maybe we’ll get a shot at you. We had a little reception worked out, but then those dumb-ass God Weirders had to go and try to nab you. Damn blimp flew right over our heads.”

  I looked at Max. “You know about this?”

  He shrugged. “I’d heard rumors before. But I never believe anything a memor says—bunch of damn liars. Besides, you know what the Wonderblimp has is worth far more to me than anything I’d get from selling you to some crazy in the interior.”

  “What’s the blimp got that’s worth so much to you?” Suz asked.

  “My secret,” Max said.

  I looked at Max, back to Suz. “What’s this problem you’re talking about?”

  “You’re worth a hell of a lot, Holmes,” she said. “Hell of a lot. By rights I should keep you hostage. But the problem is”—she shook her head—“the problem is that I am one ethical dumb idiot. You did me a favor, and now I am obligated to you for that favor. I cannot keep you hostage. You saved Patagonia here”—she jabbed a thumb in Pat’s direction— “and preserved our militia’s honor. So I owe you. I have to let you free.”

  I looked down at the table, bit my lip. “Thanks,” I said quietly. I stared at that gutter gun hanging casually on Suz’s chair. She could take me, I knew. Kill me, even. But she chose not to. The first damn honest person I’d really met in the PRAK—well, no, Max and Rindi seemed okay. But one of the few. I wanted to kiss her. So I did. I got up, walked over to her, and put my lips to her lips, my arms around her arms, and kissed her like she’d saved my life, which she had. “Thanks,” I said again.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  * * *

  Rindi had gotten our dogs fed and watered while we were talking; they were fresh and ready to go when we got down to the main hall of Mond Center. Since I’d nabbed the God Weird team, it was by rights mine. I didn’t want it, but asked Nivakti if he could use it. He took the lead dog out of the team, gave it to Pat, and kept Aklaq in lead, “in case the team gets the idea that they might want to go back to God Weird.”

  Our teams were harnessed and ready. The doors leading out of the big hall were cranked back and open. It was dark out there, dark and cold with a snowstorm blowing in. Suz told us that we would find a good place to camp five miles up the trail. “I’m sorry I can’t put you up for the night here. But the rest of the militia . . . I don’t think they’d be as ethical.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “I put food in your sled bags. I also thought you might want this.” She handed me a small book. I held it upside down, pretending stupidity.

  “What do I need this for?”

  “You’ve got to learn to keep secrets better, Holmes. I mean, catching Pat’s name right off—only a reader could do that. Be careful.”

  I turned the book over, read the cover. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Yeah. That about summed up where we were going. “Thanks.”

  “About your friend,” she said. “Blue Braid?”

  “Lucy,” I said.

  “Yeah, Bear Baiters won’t be giving her to the bears this spring. She’ll live. She’s worth a lot alive to them. I hope you find her.”

  “Me too,” I said. A thought occurred to me. “How come the God Weirders got the Bear Baiters to trade for them? Why didn’t they make the trade with this guy in the interior?”

  Suz spat. “God Weirders are pariahs. The only ones who will trade with them are Bear Baiters or Snow Angels. Big Mac wouldn’t trade with the Weirders—might hurt his image.”

  “Okay. Thanks for telling me. I’ll find Lucy.”

  “Yeah.” Suz put her arms around me, hugged me tight, then patted me on the back. “Look me up when this is over. I’d . . . I’d like to see you again under more pleasant terms.”

  I squeezed her, let go. “Sure.”

  Rindi led the teams out of the center and into the night.

  CHAPTER 12

  A fog rolled in upon us while we slept, and we woke to a dawn that had dusted Ship Creek in spiky hoarfrost. Our camp was on the top of a flattened hill, just off the Strange Trail. I looked south and could see the trail humping over hills back to Kaditali Marsh. Birch and alder trees lined the Strange, and the frost had turned their leafless limbs into ice sculptures. The morning light came in low and dim and orange, pouring fire into the ruins of the city.

  Fires from other camps rose straight into the sky like pillars of soot, and south of the dead skyscrapers, close to Cook’s River, a great bonfire lit the dawn, a great column of smoke climbing up to the mountains and flattening into a pancake of haze. That bonfire was a beacon and I knew it was where we had to go: the trade fair.

  Before we set out, Max set me down and gave me a lecture. “No reading. Don’t even think like a reader. Ignore words. Don’t go reading people’s pockets. I’m not sure what folks will think about readers, and I don’t want to find out. You’re just a dumb bush punk helping me to trade picture Bibles, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “Okay. We’ll try to make a deal for your Lucy friend, and we’ll try to find the damn Wonderblimp. Maybe we’ll get out of this mess yet.”

  The four of us took our teams into the center of Ship Creek, really all that was left of the town. A light snow from the storm that night had made the trail easier on the dogs’ feet, so we took off the little booties, but with the slight frost over the snow, their feet made soft little thumping sounds as the paws crunched down on the trail. The Strange Trail was a broad swatch for about four miles, and then after it crossed a big creek, it split in two. Max said the right fork went north, to We’ll See Ya, and the left fork went into town.

  At the top of a hill, the Strange hit a dead end in a pile of rubble, but there was a smaller trail that made a sharp left, and we followed that. We went through more piles of rubble, more clumps of new alder, and up a street that ended in a big, long open stretch of land that ran east-west for about a mile, and was bordered on the north by a large concentration of tall buildings.

  The trade fair.

  A squad of Ship Creek militia stopped us as we came into the fairgrounds. They walked up and down our teams, looking us over, glancing at our faces. One shippo put her hands on her hips, nodded to her left. We eased the teams down a small lane, and another shippo, but with a blue, not red, armband, walked up to Rindi.

  “You all together?” he asked. Rindi nodded. “Okay, make camp anywhere along the strip here. When you’re done, check in with me and I’ll explain the rules here. My name’s Tex. Tex A. Co.”

  On the south edge of the strip were blocks and blocks of torched houses. Most of the houses had been razed to their foundations, but I could see the frame or chimney of a house or two sticking up out of the snow. On the north side of the strip was what Max had called Down Town. He said that a group called the Rubblers was taking all the rubble it cou
ld find and dumping it on Down Town; they wanted to make a mountain or something, but had only succeeded in putting a low wall around the edge of the buildings.

  We camped in an open spot next to a wall that had lots of pieces of colored glass in it. There was a cross on top of the wall, but nothing else was left of the church. We staked out the dogs and set up tents, then Max and I went back to talk to Tex.

  Tex had a face that was mostly jaw and a body that was mostly shoulders. He wore a green-and-white cap that had a star on the front and the word TEXACO inside the star. Tex motioned us inside a little cabin, no more than a shack, really, and we sat on big logs before a warm wood stove.

  “I’ve seen that symbol before,” Tex said, pointing at the three-triangle patch on Max’s parka. “You that Hammer fella?”

  Max nodded, stuck out his hand. “Maxwell Silverhammer Everton. This is Holmes.”

  Tex smiled, shook our hands. “I guess you’ve been to a trade fair before, then. We’ve changed the rules a little, though, so I better fill you in.

  “First, if you want to be liberating a hostage or trading one, you’ll want to register with one of the memors. If you’ve got a reader with you, you can write the names down.”

  “We don’t have a reader,” Max said.

  “Good,” said Tex. “Okay, talk to a memor. Our memors have been getting full dumps from all the memors around— you got any news, it’s worth a few points in negotiations—so if you’re expecting any messages, you can ask. Most folks come to these just for the news, you know.

  “Now, if you’re just trading stuff, you still want to register with one of the memors, and they’ll set you up with whatever deal you’re looking for. Any questions?”

  “Yeah,” Max said. “What if we’re trading stuff for hostages?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Tex, “you might. Just go to the hostage memor and tell ’em who you want and what you got to trade. You want to do a little speculating, they can set you up, too. Now, we got us a few rules here at the fair, okay?