Assigned to go double-agent against the Kono struck her as a load of shit. A good way to get got. So she'd apply a light touch, dawdle a bit. No sense getting in too deep. All she had to do was play along until Nerve got her in front of Tilly. Then it was goodbye, Manhattan.
With that in mind, and with it being early afternoon and much too soon for sleep, she fired up one of her joints, headed downstairs, and wandered around the canyon-like streets. It was a spectacle, she'd give it that, and there was so much habitable space she had no doubt a person could dig up all kinds of useful leftovers from the smorgasbord of civilization that had so abruptly ended. But in the end, it was just a bunch of stuff. Every town had stuff. She didn't see why people gathered in New York when it would be a hundred times easier to make it in a place where you didn't have to farm the sidewalk planters.
Yet as she walked down the filthy avenues, an image of the city's post-plague history took shape in her mind's eye. Place this size must have had thousands of survivors. Plenty of those split in favor of less chaotic pastures. But enough had stayed that, after the aliens seemed gone for good and people began to crawl out of the woodwork—both native New Yorkers and fools drawn to the dried-out core of the Big Apple—they were able to put together a patchwork society.
No sooner had people started swapping wares and jury rigging electrical lines than the Feds had put on their dead daddy's hat and pretended they ran the place. Some sharp cookie with travel connections set up Distro, bringing foreign goods to sell to the locals, some of whom—those without farmland or the inclination to tend it—wound up driving Distro wagons or humping barrels off the docks. Others like them, but less interested in working for others and more interested in violence, established Kono. Who nobody was real impressed by, but were apparently feeling their oats enough to begin launching attacks on the dominant non-government power: Distro.
Just as clearly, she saw Manhattan's future. There wasn't enough farmland here to feed the population. Distro and maybe those Kono jokers had more shipped in from outside, but what were they trading for it? Goods and scrap scavenged from the stores? Well, most of that stuff was useless now, and what wasn't would rust, rot, and run out. You wouldn't think it, but some objects seemed to decay faster when they weren't used. Clothes, for instance, yellowed and grew stiff and brittle; bugs dug into the cloth. Chemical products separated into sickly layers of differing color and viscosity. Durable objects like chairs and tables were more or less oblivious to time on a human scale, but that meant everywhere had chairs and tables. Manhattan's were nothing special.
Now, could be that by the time the city's supplies of interesting goods ran short, Distro would be making enough from trading other people's goods to stay afloat. That the Feds would pull enough tolls and taxes to sustain their personnel and infrastructure. That Kono would continue...whatever it was they did.
But Lucy doubted. When Manhattan's output dwindled, times would get leaner all around. Those at the top would tighten their belts—and those at the bottom would get squeezed. Hungry people tended to riot. To loot from those who had wealth and food. To burn down the towers that had once held them in their place.
When that happened, the only person in Manhattan who'd be having a good time would be the Reaper.
Golly, she was stoned.
She walked back to the docks to grab some dinner and to requisition the rest of her gear. Belly full of fish stew, umbrella in hand and .22 pistol velcroed to her ankle, she biked back to her apartment and slept straight through to morning.
Her apartment was a northern exposure and the light was fine but she turned the electrics on anyway. Even better, it had running water. The temperature never climbed above lukewarm, but the shower was the first time she'd felt water pressure in over five years.
After, she lounged around a while, unconcerned about whether anyone was watching from the apartments across the street or about the chill of the 64-degree air on her bare skin. Because it felt good.
Because life was for enjoying. Easy to forget that when you're a big important person with big important things to do. She herself needed to extricate Tilly from this island before the dummy was snatched up for some bozo's harem or caught in the crossfire of warring clans. After that, she'd have to get them to the car, drive back to Florida, and convince Tilly this whole thing had been a big mistake. She had a lot of work ahead of her.
But she'd just had a shower. Not with a sun-warmed camp bag with zero pressure, but with heated plumbing. And once she left here, she wasn't likely to have one like that again for a very long time.
So once she was good and ready, dried and relaxed, she got some clothes on, her umbrella and pistol, lugged her bike downstairs, and hit the road. A cold wind blew off the harbor, carving down the barren streets. As she rode north, the towers got higher and higher, proud old things with fancy stonework next to modern monuments of dust-dulled glass. Had to wonder how much longer that shit would last. Glass, the material proverbial for its tendency to shatter and break, and they'd gone and built a whole city out of it.
She stopped her bike in Times Square. It was gray and quiet and the sidewalks wore a patina of dirt and gum. She spat in the street and continued on. Past the lower edge of the park, the buildings calmed down a bit. She took Amsterdam to 93rd and leaned her bike in the doorway of a Thai restaurant to finish to the Kono bar on foot.
Its sign called it Sicily, a brick place on the ground floor of an apartment tower. It had a sandwich board out front declaring "BEER" and "LIQUOR." Past the windows, the inside was well-lit and people sat at red vinyl booths and a long wooden bar. The door was padded red faux leather studded with brass buttons. As she approached, a tall, stout man opened it, filling the frame.
"You armed?"
".22 pistol on my ankle," she said. "Couple of knives around my belt. You want 'em?"
"You can pick them up on your way out."
She nodded, unstrapped the pistol, slipped the knives from their sheathes, and handed them over. The man eyeballed them, set them on a table inside the door, and passed her a receipt.
"You sure you're of age?"
She rested the tip of her umbrella on the toe of her shoe. "Don't tell me the Feds care."
"If you'd bought it, I would have declared you too naive to enter." He stepped aside. "You'll be fine."
The inside smelled like beer and sweat, both stale. Blue wildflowers thrust from a box lining the front window, but it didn't much help. Faces turned Lucy's way. Two women, fourteen men.
She didn't much like when grown men sat around public places in the middle of the day. It typically meant one of two things. First, that they were unreliable or otherwise unemployable, which did bad things to the male self-esteem and worse things to its judgment. Or second, they did specialized work that was infrequent yet important enough for them to have all kinds of down time. Such as the work she was doing right now.
Keeping one eye on these characters, she made her way to the bar. Her rear hadn't fully made contact with her prospective bar stool when a man approached from her left. He was in his early thirties and his eyes glimmered behind his long black hair. He said his name was Duke and Lucy almost laughed at him, but she was on a mission. She introduced herself.
"Bourbon," Duke said to the bartender. He grinned at Lucy. "They make the real thing here."
"That right?" she said. "You got a limestone cavern in the cellar?"
He looked confused but quickly shook it off. "What brings you to Sicily?"
"Looking for work."
"You don't say."
"Get that grin off your face. If I wanted that kind of work, I'd go into business for myself."
"We offer a safe, clean environment," he said. "You'd be great for it."
"I know. I got two of everything I'm supposed to have two of and one of everything I'm supposed to have one of. Pretty incredible to be so blessed, and maybe I'm a fool to not take advantage of my God-given talent to be fucked, but you know what, Duke? I got oth
er plans in life."
His self-satisfied glee froze dumbly to his face. The bartender rescued him, setting down two glasses a third full of thick brown liquor. Lucy took a smell and then a sip.
"I think you been had, Duke," she said. "This isn't bourbon. Where's the charred oak?"
The way his grin looked ready to topple, she expected him to thank her and retreat to a dark corner of the bar, but he recovered enough to laugh.
"I'm sorry for insulting you, Lucy," he said. "A lot of girls are happy to spend some time in the sheets if that's all it takes to put a roof over their head and a meal on the table. But it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round, doesn't it?"
"I like a man who's not afraid to admit when he's wrong," she said. "So how about other lines of work?"
"What are you looking to do?"
"I get the impression y'all are fixing to run this island. I'd like to help make that happen. Hop on board for the big win."
"I might have some sway." He watched her a minute. "Want another drink?"
"Little early for that," she said. "I don't like to start unless I can finish."
"Let me close my tab."
He walked to the far end of the bar and spoke to the bartender. The bartender shook his head, as if they were haggling, then poked his head through a side door, returning a moment later. He and Duke talked some more. Duke slid him a small cardboard box, like the kind you might keep a ring inside, then thunked back across the hardwood toward Lucy.
"Let's find someplace we can talk."
Lucy got up and followed him to the back of the bar. The bartender glanced up at her, then down at the bar, which he scrubbed with a soiled rag.
Duke held a door open to a narrow brick hall. "Tell me more about what you'd like to do. We're always on the lookout for skilled people who can establish new business leads, but there's a big need for people who can enforce our existing contracts, too."
Lucy's laugh echoed down the hall. "Enforcement? Sign me up."
"Think you got the muscle for it?" He smiled and opened a dented metal door, beckoning her through. Lucy mock-curtseyed and stepped into a shadowed cobblestone courtyard enclosed on all sides by high walls.
Even before the men moved from the shadows, she knew she'd made a mistake. The door slammed behind her. Two men emerged from behind the planter trees. Duke tapped a knife against his thigh and smiled.
12
"You're staying right here." Ellie pointed at the ground. "There's every chance this is just a wild goose chase. Except the goose can shoot back."
"It's too dangerous for me?" Dee said. "Is that the problem?"
"The problem is I don't have any idea."
Dee rolled her eyes. "So it makes a lot of sense for you to run off to find out all by yourself."
Ellie bit back a reply. She turned to George. "What do you think?"
He pushed his lips together. "Do you think this is a real lead?"
"It's a lead. I have no idea how 'real' it is."
"It's still possible he's out here hurt in a field. If you think we ought to play to our strengths, that would argue that I should continue the search here. I know these lands better than anyone."
"Agreed," Ellie said. "This lead doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It could be a complete red herring. But if it's real, and we don't run it down, the consequences could be unpleasant."
"Why would they take him?" George blurted.
"That route leads to nothing but stress and speculation."
Ellie felt self-conscious about all the aphorisms she'd been spouting lately. Not because her advice wasn't meaningful, but because she didn't like making such blatant displays of expertise.
Matters like this, however, were best approached with a certain mindset. One that rarely if ever came up in the quiet, patient life of lakeland farming. George and Dee needed a crash course. And maybe Ellie needed to remind herself.
"Focus on the goal," she went on. "Not what might happen if we don't reach it."
Dee huffed. "How am I supposed to 'focus on the goal' when you won't let me help achieve it?"
"You can help here. We haven't even begun to search the mountains."
"I'm going crazy here. I want to get out. To move."
Ellie smiled in anger. "Do you remember what happened in New York? It wasn't an adventure. It wasn't a game. We barely made it out alive."
"But you did," Dee said. "Because you had Dad."
"And what did it cost?" Ellie regretted the words at once. Dee's eyes went bright. Ellie's stung, too. "Do you need to go? Or do you just want to go?"
"I love him."
"That's a terrible reason!"
"It's why you came for Dad, isn't it?" Dee laughed, spilling tears. "It sure wasn't for me. But you did it. For the same terrible reason. How dare you say I can't do the same?"
The gears of Ellie's head circled wildly. Most of this churning was emotional. Irrelevant, for the time being, though she knew she'd have to sort through it eventually. Once she'd gotten the messy feelings shut down for later maintenance, two factors remained. First, finding Quinn without getting anyone else she cared about hurt. And second, continuing to shape Dee into the kind of person who would someday be capable of navigating situations like these without any help from Ellie.
The understanding made her queasy. But you had to start somewhere.
"You follow my lead," she said. "You don't get to argue. You don't get to run off on your own. If I say it's too dangerous, you turn around at once. Do you understand?" She waited. Dee nodded. Ellie folded her arms. "I need to hear you say it."
"I understand," Dee said.
"Then come on. We've got a lot to pack."
They headed down the path through the woods to their house. Dee didn't talk, but her face was etched with the spinning of a worried mind. That was something she'd need to learn to cope with. Anyway, Ellie had her own concerns.
At the home, she saw to the chickens, then got out a road map. Albany was roughly 150 miles dead south, most of it along I-87. It was a good road, as far as she knew. Should be able to bike there in two days. Give it another two days to investigate, and one more in case of detours or difficulties, and they'd be back within a week.
She got out one of her checklists—Winter, Intermediate Duration—and copied it to a fresh sheet of paper, adapting it for two people. It was her most hated list. You could almost convince yourself you could carry it on your back and/or a bike basket. Especially with two people, who in many ways required no more equipment than a lone traveler. You had to double up food and water, but you didn't have to double your cooking supplies. Just one extra cup/bowl, one more fork, one more spoon. Same situation with the bedding: extra blankets, but no need for a second tent.
But no matter how hard she tweaked the numbers in her favor, they always wound up supporting the need for a trailer. It would slow them down. On the other hand, if you rode out under-supplied and had to stop to forage or scavenge, that usually wound up hurting more.
It wasn't the trailer itself that was the problem. It was that, as close as the non-trailer solution felt, she could never get it to add up.
In the garage, she pulled the tarp off the bike trailer and started packing. Jugs of water. A tent, blankets. Spare socks and shoes. Sweaters and jackets for layering. A couple boxes of ammo. And, since they were visiting a human settlement, the goods of trade.
This was a dilemma in itself. There was no single currency. Some still favored gold, silver, and jewelry, but that stuff was no longer scarce. Humans were scarce. Spend enough time picking through the old homes and safe deposit boxes, and anyone could become "rich" with metals and gems, devaluing all of it. Ammo was better, because much of it had been hoarded during the collapse, and was now hidden or lost, but ammo was heavy. And some of the more survival-oriented crowd were drowning in it.
The true coin of the realm was anything consumable or semi-perishable—meaning people often ran out—that couldn't be easily replaced. Coffee. Tea. Chocola
te. Antibiotics. Herbs. Spices (which, she had discovered, were often more useful as preservatives than for their flavor). Recreational drugs were favored by some, and she'd toyed with the idea of growing marijuana, but Chip would have frowned on that. Although, now that Dee was an adult...
Focus. She settled on a diversified portfolio. A few gemstone necklaces and small bars of silver. A couple boxes of ammo she didn't use herself, .357 and .223. Half a box of chocolate bars, stale but delicious enough to anyone who hasn't tasted chocolate in years. A fat baggie of coriander seeds and tiny Tupperwares of oregano, turmeric, and chili powder. Packs of disposable lighters.
The camping and cooking gear was already sorted and boxed on the garage shelves, ready to be used. Ellie loaded it into the trailer. Dee came in with a couple of bags and added them to the load.
"How much of that is clothes?" Ellie said.
"You said we'd be gone for a week."
"That means two pairs of jeans. Max."
"That's gross. We're going to be biking all day."
Ellie set down the fishing net she'd been considering adding to the hunting/foraging supplies. "If this is how it's going to be—"
Dee grabbed a bag from the trailer and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Two pairs of jeans. When we're sharing a tent and I smell like a football team at halftime, you'll know who to thank."
Ellie continued packing, then went to the larder and bagged up all their bread. Over the short term, you didn't need much more, though she tubbed some dried apples and venison, too. The garage door was open and it smelled like cold and the fresh scent of the lake. As she finalized the trailer and triple-checked her list, Sheriff Hobson appeared in the entry and doffed his hat.
"I hear you're on your way to our fair former capital."
"Ruling out a lead," Ellie said.
"I hope it's a strong one." He leaned on his cane. "A trip to Albany will require, say, a week? Forgive my indelicate words, but if Quinn Tolbert is still missing by the time you return, he may not ever be found."
Reapers (Breakers, Book 4) Page 14
