The Young World

by Chris Weitz

  His eyes are beautiful, deep brown over long lashes.

  He puts down a notebook with rows of numbers in it.

  Him: “I can let your hands loose, right? If you try to escape, we’re gonna have to kill you. I’m assuming that you are rational people, otherwise you’d probably already be dead. So…”

  He nods to the guards and they undo our handcuffs. When we’re settled back into some chairs, he says, “Okay, we good? I’ll do you a favor and give you my name. It’s Solon.”

  Jefferson: “The lawgiver.”

  Solon: (Smiles.) “That’s right.”

  Jefferson shrugs when I look at him, and just says, “Ancient history.”

  Me: “You know him?”

  Solon: (Laughs.) “No, he means real ancient history. Don’t worry about it.”

  McGee: “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Solon: “Get what over with?” He’s confused.

  McGee: “Come on.”

  “She thinks you’re gonna rape her,” says a plump girl I hadn’t noticed before because she’s been sitting in the shadows. Next to her is a skinny girl with a kind of brain-dead look.

  Solon: (Frowns.) “You seem to have us mixed up with our benighted neighbors to the south.”

  Benighted?

  McGee: “What?”

  Plump Girl: “He means he’d shoot you in the head before that happened, Miss Thing.”

  McGee: “Whatever turns you on.” I do sort of admire her attitude at that moment.

  “We’re not savages like you Uptowners,” says Solon.

  And at that moment, I don’t know exactly why, I decide that I like him and trust him.

  “We’re not from Uptown,” I say. “We’re from Washington Square.”

  Solon looks at the plump girl, like he’s asking her how possible this seems.

  “I believe they ain’t from Uptown. Ain’t no brother in Uptown.”

  “Hell, no,” adds the spacey-looking girl, who up to now hasn’t looked like she was listening.

  Solon (to Peter): “What do you say, brother? How did you end up with these folks?”

  Peter looks Solon in the eye. “Brother? I don’t know you. These people are my brothers and sisters. Well, not that crazy bitch.” He nods toward New Girl.

  Solon looks over at the plump girl again and laughs. She shrugs.

  Solon: “How’d you get up here? And why?”

  Jefferson: “The how part is easy. We fought our way through Union Square, escaped from cannibals in the library, won a cage match at Grand Central, went into the subway and managed not to get massacred by the Uptowners, then fought a polar bear in Central Park.”

  Solon: “Uh-huh. Okay, that sounds easy. Now tell me why.”

  Brainbox: “We’re going to save mankind.”

  Solon: “Come again?”

  Jefferson: “There’s a lab on the eastern tip of Long Island. We think that’s where the Sickness started. That’s where we’re going.”

  Solon: “And when you get there, you’re gonna know what to do?”

  Jefferson shakes his head.

  Solon: “Then why are you trying to get there?”

  Jefferson: “Beats waiting to die.”

  Solon thinks that one over.

  Solon: “But you’ll probably die on the way.”

  Jefferson: “We’ve made it this far.”

  Solon: “The night is young.”

  That stops conversation for a while.

  Solon: “I’m going to explain my dilemma to you.” He leans back in his chair. “I don’t know if I can take you at face value. I mean, that is one messed-up cover story.”

  Plump Girl: “Sounds like bullshit.” Except it sounds like buuuuuuulll sheeeeeeeeiiit.

  Solon: “Then again, who the hell would come up with a cover story like that? And what bunch of idiots would just walk into our territory?”

  Me: “Exactly! It’s such a stupid idea it has to be true.”

  Jefferson (annoyed at me): “Look, we’re not here to cause a—a dilemma. Just let us go on our way and you’ll never have to think about us again.”

  Solon: “That’s the problem. I don’t think I can let you go.”

  Me: “Why? I mean—I get it. We’re your prisoners, or whatever. But can’t you just believe us?”

  Solon: “Oh, I do believe you. I just can’t afford to let you go.”

  Me: “But why?”

  Then Brainbox speaks up. And it all makes sense. Well, at first it doesn’t make any sense at all, but after, it does.

  Brainbox: “Three-D printing.”

  Solon: (Looks surprised for a second, then smiles.) “There it is.”

  Me: “Three-D what? The thing with the glasses?”

  Brainbox: “Three-D printing.” He turns to us. “Have you noticed that everybody has a gun? Did you see how parts of them didn’t look metallic at all?”

  Yeah?

  Brainbox: “Well—that’s because they’re not. They’re made of plastic. Somebody here has managed to print gun parts out of plastic. They can make firearms. That’s why people are buying up LEGOs. They’ve got agents trying to corner the market.”

  Solon: (Smiles.) “Go on.”

  Brainbox: “And they must have a metal shop, too—you can’t make all the parts out of plastic. They won’t handle the pressure of the explosions.”

  Solon: “Uh-huh.”

  Brainbox: “And you’ve got a supply of gunpowder. Or you’re manufacturing it.”

  Solon opens his hands wide and looks at the plump kid. Like, You see? I told you they were smart.

  I almost feel proud of us until the plump girl says, “And that’s why we have to kill you.”

  Solon: “That’s a little harsh. But, yeah, that more or less sums it up.”

  Me: “So you’ve got guns. Why does that mean you have to kill us?”

  Solon: “We can’t have everybody know about it.”

  Jefferson: “If the Uptowners find out, they’ll attack.”

  Solon: “That’s right. And we’re not ready to move. Not yet.”

  Me: “Move where?”

  Plump Girl: “Everywhere.”

  This takes a second to sink in.

  Me: “So you’re gonna just—take over?”

  Solon: “I’m not happy about it. I’ve got enough headaches as it is. But the situation demands it. I’ve got the Uptowners to my south, I’ve got the Puerto Ricans, the Dominicans up here… and limited resources. If we get a technological advantage, I’ve got to use it. I’ve got to go to war so we can live in peace.”

  “Guns, germs, and steel, bitches,” says the plump girl. “Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.”

  “Let me get this straight,” says Jefferson. “When you have enough guns, you can just roll all over everybody else. The Uptowners, the West Side, the Fishermen, everybody. But you’re not ready yet. You’re worried that we’ll warn everybody.”

  “Well, I’m not worried, because you’re my prisoners. But, yeah, I suppose you could put it that way.” Solon smiles.

  Jefferson levels his gaze at Solon. “But—why? What’s the point? I mean—you’re, what, seventeen? So you take over New York. You’ll only be able to enjoy it, or whatever, for a year or so.”

  Solon shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. Call it Manifest Destiny. Call it the course of history.”

  “She said ‘guns, germs, and steel.’ You’re forgetting germs,” says Brainbox.

  “I’m not forgetting germs,” says Solon. “Who the hell can forget germs? Without germs, we wouldn’t be in this position. So, yeah, we’ve got germs covered.”

  Jefferson: “You could be in a better position.”

  Solon: “Explain.”

  Jefferson: “If you had the guns and a cure for the Sickness, well…” He makes an it’s obvious gesture.

  Solon: “And who’s going to find a cure for the Sickness?”

  Brainbox: “Me.”

  Solon: “You. After every scientist in the world dies
of it, some nerd from the Village is gonna crack it?”

  Brainbox: “Yeah.” Not, like, bragging. Just, you know, saying.

  Jefferson: “What if we don’t make it? So we die trying. We’re gonna die anyway, right?”

  Solon: “And how do I know you won’t just send a message to the Uptowners, telling them we’re going to attack?”

  Jefferson: “Two reasons. First, we hate the Uptowners as much as you do. They’ve been trying to kill us from the get-go. Second, you send somebody with us. Make sure we do what we say we’re going to do.”

  Solon: “And how are you fools going to make it to the east end of Long Island without getting yourselves killed? Seems like you’re pretty good at getting yourself in trouble.”

  Jefferson: “Oh, we’ll use your contacts on Long Island. The farmers.”

  Solon smiles like Jefferson has just made a good chess move or something.

  Solon: “What farmers?”

  Jefferson: “The ones that grew those apples downstairs. The ones that make it possible for everybody here to look healthy and well-fed and allow them to work on projects other than hunting and gathering. Am I right?”

  Solon: “It’s possible that we have agreements with producers on the island.”

  Me: “But not all of them, right? I mean, that’s why the Uptowners have milk and pigs.” I want to get in on the acting-smart deal.

  Solon: “That’s right. That’ll change soon enough, though.”

  Jefferson: “So what do you say? Can we do business?”

  CHAPTER 33

  SOLON LEANS HIS CHIN ON HIS HAND, then looks over at the plump girl. She shrugs.

  He holds his hand out to me. “You’re alive,” he says.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “What are you thanking me for? You’re working for me now. If you find a cure, which I doubt you will, that cure belongs to my people. Understand?”

  I think about how I could possibly deny a cure to anybody, how I could give life to some and not others. Then I think about the Uptowners. And my heart hardens.

  “My people get the cure as well,” I say. “Washington Square.”

  “Goes without saying,” says Solon. “You need a little skin in the game, don’t you?”

  I reach out and take his hand. This will have to do, for now.

  “Oh. There’s another part of it. If you don’t find a cure… well…”

  If we don’t find a cure, we’re through.

  “I’m sending some of mine with you,” he says. “If you make it back here, you can go home. Until then, you belong to me.”

  Before we set off, they give us the tour.

  They’re proud of what they’ve accomplished, and it’s hard to blame them. They’ve managed all kinds of things we couldn’t or didn’t down in the Square—generators, sanitation, medical facilities.

  And a nondescript, heavily guarded building holding the gun factory.

  In one room, piles of LEGOs are melted down over big propane burners, slowly and constantly stirred to get rid of air bubbles. In another, there’s a lineup of small lathes where gun barrels are fashioned. Next to that one, a crew works on refurbishing spent bullet casings, casting lead bullets and tapping them carefully into place over gunpowder.

  And then, at the center of it all, the fast-prototyping machines. Boxy, scrappy constructions that look like props from a sci-fi movie. They slowly extrude plastic parts, layer by layer, using instructions from a set of laptops running design software.

  The strange girl with the eyes that never meet yours hands a newly minted piece to Brainbox, who turns it in his fingers, fascinated. According to the file open on the computer, it’s an AR-15 lower receiver.

  “This changes everything,” says Brainbox.

  Which is true. When there are enough plastic guns, the population of Manhattan is set to go down even faster than usual.

  But I have a theory. Maybe if people actually thought they would live longer, they wouldn’t be so ready to fight. It’s easier to put your life on the line when you think you’re going to die soon anyway.

  Lastly they show us the hospital. In a long, tall-windowed room, they care for people giving in to the Sickness. It isn’t any prettier than I’m used to seeing, but it’s clean and comfortable and free from chaos. A nice, peaceful place to die.

  There’s a big crucifix hanging on the wall, suffering Jesus looking at the sufferers. Bibles by the beds, and people reading passages to the dying kids. There’s something to this—this shared feeling of a story in which things make sense in the end—that seems to ease their pain.

  I ask Solon why he thinks they’ve come through so well. He says, “We didn’t identify with the way things were. So we had less to lose when America went down.”

  One of the kids who arrested us, the one with the scar on the back of his head, meets us as we’re leaving the hospital. He’s got a big pack on his back and a half-plastic AR-15 hanging from his shoulder. His name is Theo, he tells me in a barely audible rumble, quiet but powerful like the bass woofer of a party going on next door. I shake his hand, and his grip is like iron.

  Theo is our minder, I guess. Him and our guide, who everybody calls Captain for some reason. If we stray from the path, they’re supposed to do us in.

  We clamber into the bed of a pickup truck and drive east toward the river. A police car keeps us company as we slide past a redbrick housing complex, lines of ten-story rectangles with overgrown bits of grass out front. Kids wave at us as we pass. It seems to me like they are waving good-bye.

  We drive to the edge of the FDR.

  “You got people chasing you?” asks Solon.

  I hesitate. Then, “Yeah. Uptowners.”

  Solon nods. “Scouts on the south edge had a run-in. We turned ’em back.”

  I look over at Kath, who seems oblivious.

  We come to the embankment above FDR Drive and stop.

  “We aren’t driving?” I ask Solon as we get out.

  “Roads are blocked. Cars can’t make it through.”

  “So—we walk?” says Donna.

  “We’re not gonna make you walk,” says Solon, smiling. “Are we, Captain?”

  “Hell, no,” says Captain, but he doesn’t explain.

  “You ready, Theo?”

  Theo nods. Solon hugs him. “Stay sharp.”

  Then Solon turns to us. “I hope you make it back. I do. And I hope you find what you’re looking for. For all of us.”

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if we’re his prisoners, his friends, his associates, his partners, his subjects. So I just nod.

  Captain and Theo lead us down onto the roadway. Solon was right—it’s littered with garbage, bodies, and cars abandoned at skewed angles. As we make our way to the East River, I try to reconstruct what happened. This car was driven by somebody who had a seizure and careered off that one. This car was abandoned when the way was blocked. Somebody fought over that one and got shot.

  At the water’s edge, tied to the stumps of two trees that once shaded the road, a tall, square construction pokes above the level of the roadway beside a big metal cylinder. As we get closer, it resolves into the wheelhouse and smokestack of a tugboat. A skinny kid makes his way up a precarious ladder from the deck below while I take in the brawny little ship, which looks like a giant bath toy.

  Something about the homely, colorful boat seizes at my heart. Maybe it’s the sheer unlikeliness—a childish, stout, romantic thing in the torn-up world.

  “What’s the matter?” says Captain, mistaking my look for skepticism. “You think brothers can’t drive a boat?”

  We board the Annie, which gives off a hum as my boots hit the deck. I’ve never been on a tugboat before, and I’m intrigued by the curious design. The sides of the hull dip close to the water, but the bow rises so high that you can’t see what’s in front of the boat unless you climb to the wheelhouse. Below, there’s a sort of living room, decorated with old nautical prints in wood frames screwed int
o the wall and a few family photos of whoever owned it Before. Fourth of July fireworks from the water, the sheer side of a big container ship from the deck. There are bedrooms in back and in front, past a little kitchen that Captain calls the galley.

  “You all are staying up top, in the wheelhouse,” says Captain. “I’m gonna trust you not to fuck around with anything. Understand me? Don’t mess with my boat.”

  When he says my boat, I can’t help looking at the picture of the former owners.

  “What you looking at? Them? Trust me, the Annie isn’t any use to them.”

  We take our stuff up to the wheelhouse, where we find a clean, tightly rolled sleeping bag for each of us. I look down to the shore and see Spider, the kid who was manning the ship, working at the lines while Captain fires up the big diesel engines.

  The next fifteen minutes or so are filled with the kind of boat stuff that makes you feel useless if you don’t know how to do it. We shuffle around and try to stay out of the way. It’s ridiculous, but I don’t want to seem like a landlubber or whatever, so I spend a while acting like I’m used to this sort of thing. Donna curls up into a compact little ball by one of the saloon windows and takes a disco nap. When we get under way, the Rottweiler rasp of the engines taking on a higher note, I decide to go in and get her up, but she’s already making her way on deck.

  We stand side by side as the ship floats free of the land and glides up the East River, with the Triborough in the distance.

  Our fingers are just a few inches apart on the rails. And I have an urge to take her hand. But it seems like nothing is going to bring them to touch.

  “This is weird,” says Donna. And I wonder how she’s read my thoughts. But then she says, “After all the goddamn walking.”

  “And running,” I add.

  Donna pauses. “Do you think… do you think we’re gonna make it there?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Really?” she says, her face brightening.

  “Yeah.” I want her to keep smiling. So I add, “Definitely.”

  Definitely maybe.

  The Annie is surprisingly powerful and nimble. Captain swings the boat around to go by the south end of Randall’s Island—“We could run aground up north. Fools might try to board us”—and we slip under the east leg of the Triborough Bridge, a cliff of metal gray and skeletal over our heads, with flocks of gulls colonizing the understructure. (“You ever had gull’s eggs? Good eating,” comments Captain.) Then under the old railroad bridge with the promising name of Hell Gate. This lets us into the wide, snaking throat of water sandwiched between the Bronx and Queens. He steers between two jutting green islands in the middle of the flow, then under the Whitestone Bridge and the Throgs Neck, which reminds me of a D&D character I had when I was in sixth grade. On the waterside, rubble, smoke, decay.