Ex-Communication e-3

by Peter Clines

  Cell Nine was in the middle of the room. A pair of mattresses were stacked in the far corner of the cell, decorated by a mess of sheets and blankets. A few dozen books were piled in the opposite corner. They were all battered paperbacks, or hardbacks that had been torn out of their cover. Nothing hard.

  There was no toilet. Not even a bucket. The occupant never needed one, which made sense. He hadn’t eaten anything in almost a year.

  The prisoner didn’t look up when St. George entered. He had a book in one hand. He made a show of turning the page and reading another paragraph before his eyes flitted up to meet the hero’s.

  “Hello, George,” he said. “It’s been a while. I thought you might’ve finally given up on me.”

  Four

  Now

  “ DO YOU BELIEVE him?”

  St. George shrugged and set another tomato on the cutting board. “Not really. I mean, he was doing it again when I walked in.”

  Stealth gave a faint nod. “I have seen him go through the motions of conversations three times this past week alone. There was no evidence of another speaker.”

  “Did you check to see if he was talking to someone on the radio?”

  “I did,” she said. She carried a stack of plates and bowls to the table. She balanced them on one hand and held the silverware in the other. “I checked five months ago when his behavior patterns could no longer be denied.”

  “What?” The knife slipped to the side and grated against his finger. It ruined the edge of the blade. He glanced from the knife to Stealth and back. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I knew the answer would upset you. And there is currently nothing we can do about it.”

  He pulled another knife from the block on the counter and attacked the last tomato again. “And the answer is …?”

  Stealth did something quick with her left arm and a single plate slid onto the table in front of a chair. “He is not talking to anyone, George. I monitor all broadcast communications within the Mount, and many beyond it. There have been no radio conversations that match up with the ones he is having. I have checked during sixteen separate incidents since then. He is not communicating with anyone.”

  St. George stopped dicing. “What does that mean?”

  She didn’t meet his eyes. “It means he is talking to himself. Under normal circumstances, this would be seen as a sign of several possible personality disorders. Chronic anxiety. Dementia. Schizophrenia.”

  His eyes fell to the cutting board and he was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at her again. “Under normal circumstances?”

  Another plate slid onto the table from the stack in her hand. She framed it with silverware. “It is worth noting that Zzzap speaks to himself,” she said, setting down a spoon. “Barry does not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I cannot say conclusively. The majority of his time is spent as Zzzap, and most of his time in his human form is spent sleeping. However, in five months of observation I have never seen Barry speak to himself.”

  “So it’s something about being Zzzap that’s doing this to him.”

  “Perhaps. Or something he is only susceptible to in his energy form.”

  St. George glanced at the door. He lifted the cutting board and used the knife to sweep the diced tomatoes into the pot. “So what do we do?”

  She assembled the final place setting. “I do not know,” she admitted. “We have converted many buildings to solar power, but Zzzap still supplies half the electricity within the Big Wall. It would be a major setback if we decided he was unable to do this.”

  “You think it’s that bad? We couldn’t even keep him in the chair?”

  Stealth sighed and looked at him. “While Zzzap has often referred to himself as a small star, the truth is that his energy form is far closer to a nuclear bomb, one frozen in the instant after detonation. It is his conscious will that keeps the explosion from proceeding.”

  St. George set an onion down on the cutting board and cut it in half.

  “Consider the possibility of him seeing hallucinations as well as hearing them. If Zzzap were to fire one of his blasts at street level within the Mount, my best estimates have over sixty people killed or wounded, increased to one hundred fifty in the attempt to contain fires and damages.”

  “If he’s insane.”

  “Correct,” said Stealth, “although I have seen nothing yet that makes for a convincing diagnosis of any type. As I said, there is currently nothing we can do.”

  “We can keep an eye on him. Let him know we’re here.” He finished chopping the onion and added it to the pot.

  She came back to the kitchen. “I assumed that was a given.”

  He set a handful of mushrooms on the cutting board. “I’m still not sure sometimes.”

  “I care about his well-being,” she said. “Zzzap is a valuable asset to the Mount.”

  St. George smiled. “That’s what you used to say about me.”

  “It is still true. Any personal feelings I may have do not change that fact.” She gathered up the glasses. “I am no longer certain this is a wise course of action.”

  “Not confronting him?”

  “Dinner.”

  “It’s going to be fine. You’ll be fine.”

  She walked back to the table. “I feel very exposed.”

  “It’s dinner,” he said. “Not reconnaissance.”

  “Neither Barry nor Danielle is expecting to see me here, let alone in a casual situation.”

  St. George finished slicing and added the mushrooms to the pot. “Look, they have to find out sometime, right? I’m surprised no one’s figured it out yet. So this is a fine way to do it.”

  “I am not convinced of that.”

  “Are you getting scared?”

  She stiffened. “Of course not.”

  “It’d be totally natural if you were a little nervous about this.”

  She stared at him. “I am not scared and I am not nervous. You may stop your clumsy attempt at reverse psychology, George.”

  “I thought it was clever and subtle.”

  “It was not.”

  “Cute and endearing?”

  “On a childish level, perhaps.”

  Someone knocked on the door, tapping out a rapid drum solo. St. George smiled at her. “Last chance to vanish into a shadow.”

  “Do you wish to answer the door or shall I?”

  He wiped his hands on a dishtowel. “I’ll get it. Don’t want to freak everyone out right off the bat.”

  She dipped her head and set the glasses on the table.

  Danielle and Barry waited in the hall. His wheelchair was aimed at the door, ready to enter. She stood behind him, one of her hands clutching the chair’s handle.

  “Hey,” said St. George. “Thanks for coming over.”

  “Free food, good friends, a night away from the chair,” Barry said. He tipped his bald head back and smiled. “You know I’m all over that.”

  Stealth was right. Barry looked calm. His thin frame was relaxed, free of the odd jerks and tics the energy form had developed over the past few months. He looked … normal.

  Danielle snorted. Her strawberry-blond hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, away from her freckled face. He could see a collar of black spandex under her shirt, the Cerberus contact suit. It served as her security blanket outside the armor.

  Her knuckles were white on the wheelchair’s handles. She lifted her free hand to reveal a bottle. “I brought presents.”

  It took him a minute to register what she was holding. “You actually have wine? Real wine?”

  “I’ve been saving it,” she said with a shrug. It was a tight, contained movement. “You said tonight was something special, so …” She shrugged again.

  Barry looked between them. “Special? What have you two been keeping from me?”

  “Beats me.” She pushed the wheelchair into the apartment and her shoulders relaxed by a few degrees once they were inside. “Is it just
us?”

  “Not exactly,” said St. George.

  “Please tell me it’s not Freedom,” said Barry. “I’m sorry, but that guy can be so upti— … oh.”

  Stealth stood by the table. Her arms hung straight at her sides.

  St. George stepped forward and took her hand. Her fingers wrapped around his. “Guys—Barry, Danielle—this is Karen.”

  Danielle’s eyes went wide. Her shoulders tensed back up. Barry gaped.

  Stealth shifted under their gazes. “Good evening,” she said. A moment passed and her free hand went up to sweep a strand of ebony hair away from her face. As she lowered it, she paused to tug at the collar of her blouse.

  The silence stretched out for another few seconds before Danielle cleared her throat. “Hello,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting … we … We didn’t know George was … seeing anyone.”

  “You,” said Barry, “are very pretty.”

  Stealth’s lips twitched and she dipped her head to him. “Thank you.”

  Danielle set the wine down on the table. Then she picked it back up. “George, do you have a corkscrew?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  The redhead nodded, glanced at the other woman again, and vanished across the room. St. George separated his fingers from Stealth’s and followed Danielle into the kitchen.

  She turned on him as soon as he stepped through the doorway. “It’s her, isn’t it?” whispered Danielle. It wasn’t a question.

  “What?”

  “Don’t play stupid, George.”

  “I’m not playing.”

  She glanced back at the living room with wide eyes. They could hear Barry filling the air with small talk. He was quizzing the dark-haired woman on her favorite movies.

  Danielle looked at St. George. “Want to know something? Women size each other up all the time. We’re way more competitive than men. That’s why no one ever knows who I am out of the armor.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I know those hips and that rack, I just never see them without black spandex and leather straps stretched across them. And besides, I screened her when we moved into the Mount, remember? I didn’t see her face, but I know she’s black.”

  A wisp of smoke sighed out between his lips. “Don’t say anything, okay?”

  “Don’t say anything?!” Danielle swung the bottle back at the doorway. “What the hell is going on?”

  “She’s trying to socialize, okay? She hasn’t dealt with anyone without her mask on in three years.”

  “And you know what that says to me? She’s going to kill us all because we’ve seen her face.”

  “Please,” he said. “Just be cool about this. For me. She needs it.”

  She glared at him for a moment, then thrust her hand out. “Corkscrew.”

  He pulled open a drawer, fumbled through the collection of kitchen tools, and held up a corkscrew. “Thank you,” he said.

  She pulled it from his fingers. “Don’t thank me yet.” She took a deep breath and headed back into the living room. She ran into Stealth in the doorway. They stood eye to eye for a moment.

  “Have you started the pasta?” Stealth asked.

  Danielle swallowed. St. George shook his head. “No, I was just about to.”

  “I will take care of it,” she said. She stepped to the oven. Danielle vanished back to the living room.

  Barry gave a couple frantic waves when St. George returned, and the hero crouched by the wheelchair. “Where?” demanded Barry. “Where in God’s name did you find a woman like that?”

  “What?”

  “Her. Karen. Where’d she come from?”

  He blinked and exchanged a glance with Danielle. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “You … you probably just never noticed her before.”

  “It’s the Mount,” hissed Barry. “You can’t hide someone who looks like that. Was she from Yuma?”

  St. George shook his head. “No, she’s been with us all along.”

  “Liar. I know her from somewhere, though.”

  “Maybe right here?”

  “Your Jedi mind tricks won’t work on me. I’ll figure this out.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of his wheelchair.

  Stealth stepped back into the main room. “Dinner should be ready in fifteen minutes,” she said. “The wine should have just enough time to breathe.”

  “It was only a step above Two Buck Chuck before the end of the world,” said Danielle. Her lips twitched into a smile. “I’m not sure if breathing’s going to help it any.”

  “Still,” said Barry, “it’ll be better than that fruit cider–stuff they’re brewing down in Larchmont.”

  “I’ve got a bottle of that, too,” said St. George. He tipped his chin at Danielle. “Did you finish gathering up all those helmets?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. I went out with Cesar riding shotgun and got maybe two-thirds of them. We might’ve missed a couple.” She sank the corkscrew into the top of the wine bottle. “Something kind of strange I meant to tell you. There’s a lot of military helmets out there.”

  “There were several units of Marines and National Guard in Los Angeles before the fall,” said Stealth.

  Danielle nodded. “I’d expect some, yeah, with all the stuff Legion scavenged. The percentage just seems kind of high. I mean, didn’t we gather up a lot of that stuff when we were setting up the Mount?”

  “Has anyone else thought that we need a new name?” asked Barry. He’d already started in on the first loaf of bread. “I mean, this is the Mount here, yeah, but are we going to call everything inside the Big Wall ‘The Mount’ or what?”

  “That would be up to the civilian government,” said Stealth, “would it not?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “sorry. Shouldn’t bore you with shop talk.”

  The cork popped on the wine. Salad was tossed. Pasta was drained. Danielle sat down across from Barry. St. George and Stealth flanked them. They passed the salad and the bread. St. George poured the wine.

  They paused with their glasses in the air. He realized they were looking at him. “Toast from the host,” said Barry.

  “Yeah,” Danielle said. “This may be the last bottle of real wine in the world. Let’s do it justice.”

  “There are nineteen pre-outbreak bottles in the Mount,” said Stealth. “Several families hold on to them for special occasions.” St. George gave her a look and her shoulders slumped. She gave a forced, awkward shrug. “Or so I have heard.”

  St. George raised his glass. “I guess … to bringing the world back to life.”

  “In the good way,” smiled Barry.

  “In the good way,” agreed St. George.

  Their glasses chimed together over the bread basket. Stealth put her lips on the rim, but barely let a drop touch her tongue.

  Barry began to load up his plate. Danielle, seated across from the dark-haired woman, had another sip of wine and seemed to relax. Stealth tore off a small piece of bread, then set it down on her plate. She pushed at some of the pasta with her fork, impaled it on the tines, and then pushed it back off onto the plate. She reached for her wineglass.

  Danielle watched her fidget. “Is everything okay?”

  Stealth straightened up with the wineglass. “I usually eat alone,” she said. “I feel somewhat self-conscious.”

  Barry shoved another wad of tomato-soaked bread into his mouth. “Don’t worry,” he said around the food. “Everyone’s watching my horrible table manners. Especially now that I’ve drawn attention to them.”

  Stealth’s lips twitched into something close to a nervous smile and she stuck her fork back into the pasta. She guided the bite around the plate.

  Danielle ate some pasta and swallowed some more wine. “So,” she said, “how long have you two been … together?”

  St. George and Stealth exchanged a glance. “I never really thought about it,” he said. “It just sort of happened over time, y’know?”

/>   “So … weeks? Months?” The redhead set her wine down and picked up a piece of bread. “How long have you been keeping this little secret from us?”

  “It wasn’t really a secret,” said St. George. “It just wasn’t something that comes up in casual conversation.”

  “It does for most people,” said Danielle.

  “The first time we slept together was five weeks after the convoy returned from Yuma,” said Stealth. “Is that what you wished to know?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Wait a minute.” Barry banged his palm on the arm of his wheelchair and turned to Stealth. “I know who you are.”

  She tensed in her chair.

  “You were on Jeopardy! ,” he said. “About a year before the exes appeared. You were champion for, like, a week and a half, weren’t you?”

  “Six days.”

  “And you won almost half a million dollars. You beat the highest-earning day ever and then you beat your own score three days later. It was amazing. People were talking about it for months. They all had you pegged as the next Larissa Kelly or Ken Jennings. You played two games where the other players didn’t even get to buzz in. You just swept both boards.”

  Stealth gave a hesitant nod, then swept back the lock of black hair that fell across her face. “There was only one game where no other player buzzed in, but there were two games where no other player scored.”

  “Amazing,” said Barry. “What’d you do with the money? Take a trip or invest it or what?”

  “I invested some,” she said. “I spent the rest on clothing and equipment.”

  “Ahhh,” he said. “You’re a sports nut.”

  “Something along those lines, yes.”

  They all glanced at St. George. He made a point of shoving a piece of bread into his mouth.

  They made small talk through dinner, and St. George surprised them all with some peanut butter cookies from the bakery. For a few hours, they were just friends having dinner together. When he saw them to the door, Barry bumped knuckles and Danielle gave him a hug. “Thank you,” she said. She even tried to hug Stealth, but then both of them thought better of it.

  St. George closed the door and turned to the dark-haired woman. “Well,” he said, “that didn’t go too bad.”