Wipeout | Book 4 | Overdrawn

by Richards, E. S.

  Walter was taken aback by what his captain was saying and how foolish the man was being. He couldn’t believe that they didn’t understand what he was telling them. Maybe they had to see it with their own eyes. There was no mistaking that the current measures across the city weren’t working and that more of the same would only make things worse, not better.

  “With all due respect, sir,” Walter continued after taking a deep breath to steady himself, feeling his cheeks reddening as he got more and more wound up by the debate. “Things are far from equal out there. I held an old man in my arms as he died tonight, after being robbed and beaten by a group of men simply because they wanted to.”

  “Well, you see that’s what the zones will stop,” McManaman jumped in. “The gangs won’t be able to do things like that and if they do, they’ll be found and held accountable as they’ll be restricted to their zones.”

  “Do you really think that simply telling people they have to stay in a certain area will make them do just that?” Walter questioned, singling in on what he believed the most stupid part of McManaman’s plan. “How are you going to police that when we can’t stop them killing or stealing? We put a curfew on the city in the hope it’d help with our clean up overnight and all that’s done is increase the gang activity at night. If we now tell them to stay in a certain zone that’ll only push people to spread their reach even wider. We need to stop telling people what we think they need to do and start actually listening to them. What we’ve done so far isn’t working, can’t you see that?”

  The tension in Captain Banes’ office sizzled as Walter finished saying his piece, looking from his captain to McManaman in turn. From the expressions on their faces though, there was little chance of that.

  “Walter,” Captain Banes started speaking, using a soothing tone now, rather than trying to argue. “You’re tired. Why don’t you get some rest and we’ll talk about this in the morning? We’re not going to figure anything out like this.”

  “No!” Walter’s voice rose again. “How can you not understand this? People are dying every day. Hundreds of them! They can’t get access to food and clean water and we sit in this building drinking our freshly brewed pots of coffee and eating our biscuits like we’re solving things, when in fact we’re doing the complete opposite. How can we claim to be helping people, when we’re just –”

  “Lieutenant, that is enough!” Slamming his fist on the table, Captain Banes finally brought an end to Walter’s rant and plunged his office into darkness as the movement of his arm had caused a gust of wind and blown out the candle. “Oh, bloody hell,” the captain muttered under his breath, “where’s that damn lighter.”

  Sitting in the darkness for a few peaceful seconds, Walter made an effort to steady his breathing and calm himself down. He didn’t like to lose his temper like that, especially not in front of his commanding officer. Truth be told he was rather embarrassed, but he refused to let that show—he cared too much about what was happening to his city.

  When the candle was finally relit and their faces illuminated once more, Walter knew he had to say his final words and be done with it. If Captain Banes and McManaman couldn’t see eye to eye with him tonight then he would try again in the morning and he would try with other people. He would not stop until change was finally put in place across the city and they started doing things to help people. He couldn’t let these zones be put in place, but he had to choose his battles and right now, Walter realized he was in one that he could not win.

  “Look, captain,” Walter spoke steadily. “I really think you should reconsider what you’re proposing. There are other problems which I don’t think you’ve given enough thought to and should be prioritized. I understand that it’s late and we’re not going to come to any agreements just now, but I ask you to please wait and hear me out on this. I’ve seen some things that I can’t just ignore. This city needs us and I want to make sure that we give it everything we can.”

  “We’re on the same page there, Walter,” Captain Banes replied, mirroring Walter’s calmer tone of voice. “I think addressing this again in the morning is a good idea. We’ll get the whole group together and discuss it as we’d planned, providing time for you to speak as well. How does that sound?”

  “Thank you,” Walter nodded and stood up. He was exhausted and just wanted to get out of the captain’s office for now. At least they’d be readdressing it in the morning. “Goodnight gentlemen.”

  As Captain Banes and McManaman nodded their heads in his direction, Walter pulled open the office door and stepped outside. He hadn’t achieved as much as he’d wanted to but, faced with the potential to try again in a couple of hours, he knew he needed to get some rest so he could do a better job of it. Walter made his way to his sleeping corner and crawled onto his little camp bed. He pictured the children sleeping rough on the floor as he pulled his sleeping bag over his body and closed his eyes, aware that he had to do better in the morning.

  Chapter 17

  “Walter? Hey, Walter? Are you awake? Our meeting is about to start.”

  Turning in his sleep, Walter was slowly pulled away from the tranquil dream world he had been inhabiting and brought back to reality. Stretching his legs inside the sleeping bag and uncurling his toes, the sensation of weightlessness, which often captured him in sleep, faded away and Walter peeled open his eyes to reveal the familiar and frigid police station which had become his home.

  “I brought you a fresh cup of coffee.”

  Walter’s smelled the delicious aroma and it pulled him out of his camp bed. He smiled at Samantha who handed him the steaming mug, pleased to see their conversation from the other day hadn’t caused a rift between the two of them. Looking up at Samantha Rice, Walter was astonished again at how good she looked: her hair was arranged neatly in waves over her shoulders and her skin looked soft to the touch, her cheeks blushed a light shade of rouge in just the right places. From the aches in his body and the weariness in his head, he knew he wasn’t exactly a pretty picture.

  “Thank you,” he spoke after taking his first sip of coffee, flashing Samantha a smile and giving himself a chance to wake up properly. As the memories of the night before fell back into place, he was on his feet, ready and raring to go. “Did you say the meeting is starting?”

  “Yes,” Samantha nodded. “I figured you’d want to be involved.”

  “Thank you,” Walter replied. “I appreciate that.”

  “What was all of that with you and the Captain last night?” Samantha asked as they started walking over to the large board room. “Apparently things got quite heated?”

  “Yes, well,” Walter took another long sip from his coffee, reminding himself as he drank that this was the exact thing he should be fighting against. He had lectured Captain Banes the night before about how shameful it was that they had the luxury of hot coffee every morning while children starved outside the precinct and yet he hadn’t batted an eyelid when it had been offered to him. With a shake of his head, Walter scolded himself and proclaimed to do better from there on out.

  “Let’s just say we don’t see eye to eye on everything,” Walter concluded as they approached the meeting room. “The Captain and McManaman have some big announcement that they think is going to change everything, but I’m not so sure. It’ll all make sense soon enough,” he added as he held open the door for Samantha, revealing an already packed room. “I hope,” he added under his breath.

  Walter entered the room and nodded politely to the captain, McManaman and several others who were already seated.

  His feelings about Captain Banes had shifted so suddenly overnight. After working with the man for many years, Walter respected him and felt like he owed him the benefit of the doubt, but the sheer lack of understanding which he had encountered the night before had changed that. Now he looked at the Captain and wondered where the man’s loyalties lay. Walter was inclined to think that McManaman played a large part in the change of opinion.

  “Thank you
all for getting in so early this morning,” Captain Banes rose to speak. “We’ve all been working very hard over the last several days and we’ve made great progress across the city. The rationing incentive seems to be working and the feedback we’ve received from the civilians is positive, for the most part.”

  Murmurings of agreement and approval rippled around the room, everyone clearly pleased with what they had done. Walter understood that it was hard to recognize failure, but when so much rested on the group of them sitting in this room, they needed to learn to hold themselves accountable and fast.

  “However,” Captain Banes continued, “there’s one problem which continues to plague us all, no matter how hard we try and fight back against it. The gangs are running roughshod over the streets. There’s nothing left to loot so they’ve moved on to stealing rations and threating the public. Something needs to be done to keep them at bay and we believe we have the solution.”

  The murmurs of agreement grew louder as the gangs were mentioned, the trouble they had caused uniting everyone at once. Walter sat back in his seat and listened as Captain Banes continued, explaining what he and McManaman had told him the night before about splitting the city into zones and policing the gangs and everything else that way. The captain fielded questions from around the room, but gradually everyone seemed to be falling in favor of the idea, thankful for any idea that might give them the opportunity to make the streets safe again. It was only once Captain Banes had effectively gotten everyone behind his plan that he stopped and looked over at Walter, finally offering the Lieutenant a chance to speak.

  Walter hoped his observations and other priorities would not be falling on deaf ears. Captain Banes had played the room like an expert politician. He’d presented them with a problem and fueled that fire until everyone was sufficiently riled up about it before finally presenting them with a solution. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Thanks,” Walter nodded at Captain Banes, giving everyone in the room a chance to turn in their seats and face him instead. “Look I’ll keep this short,” he started. “I spoke to the captain briefly about this last night and while we’re not entirely on the same page, we do both care about the people of this city and need to feel like we’re doing our best to solve the problems that are plaguing them.”

  Glancing up at the captain, Walter smiled as he saw the man shift uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Children are dying every day because they can’t access food, whether that be through the ration system we’ve put in place or through other means. Elderly and vulnerable people are being beaten to death on the street because they don’t have anywhere safe to go. Families are being torn apart and our society is crumbling quicker now than it was in the days after the collapse.

  “This is a time when we need to come together. We need unity and support; we need to present a united front and show the public that we’re all in this together. Splitting people into zones and restricting their movement won’t help them to trust us and it won’t help them to feel safe in a city that they call home. Gangs are a big problem for us, I’m not denying that, but there are other problems we need to deal with, too. Problems a lot closer to home. How many of us enjoyed a cup of coffee this morning? How many of us slept in a bed last night? Why are we able to do those things, when thousands across the city can’t? What makes us better than them? These are the problems we need to fix first before we start jumping ahead and making new laws. We have to clean up our own back yard before we can change the world.”

  ***

  As the doors of the precinct closed behind him, Walter knew that chapter in his life was finished. If the people who had banded together and devoted themselves to making things right in New York City again couldn’t see what truly needed to be done, then he couldn’t spend his time working with them any longer. He had poured his heart out to them in one last effort to make them see what was going wrong, but they didn’t want to hear it. Captain Banes’ plan and explanation lay no blame on their shoulders, whereas Walter’s made them reconsider if they had made the right choices. People didn’t like that and so the room had very quickly turned against him, casting him out of the meeting and out of the police station potentially for good.

  While he hadn’t exactly been exiled, Walter had made it clear to Captain Banes and the others in the meeting room that he didn’t agree with their methods and therefore couldn’t help them establish the zones or anything that went with them. Through doing so, he effectively handed in his resignation, unable to work within a police force that was dedicated to doing something he was entirely against.

  For the first time in his adult life, he stood outside of the police station and knew he couldn’t just walk back inside like nothing had happened. His belongings were all stuffed in a bag which he slung over his shoulder and while he was technically still a police officer and therefore still carried his gun and badge, he couldn’t feel more disconnected from the people inside the building. From now on he was an outsider, a renegade cop who was fighting against the rest of them. It was a weird feeling and Walter wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  But he didn’t have a choice. Now that he was out, Walter was determined to make good on the reasons he had left the precinct behind. He wanted to help people and he needed to immerse himself into city life to fully understand where the aid was needed. He wouldn’t have access to resources as easily, but he’d made many connections over the years that he was sure he could rely on. He might be alone, but he was not without purpose.

  With a steely expression, he set off into the city. It had been many days since Walter had been back to his apartment, so he figured that was as good a place as any to start. He could hopefully gather more supplies and see what had happened to his neighborhood; moving into the precinct had been convenient at the time, but it was a pitiful substitute for a real home.

  As Walter walked through the streets, he felt like a weight had lifted from his shoulders. All his life he’d been a cop and he’d been more dedicated to it than anything else. He always thought he’d be lost without it, when, in fact, he had gained a new part of himself. Perhaps it was because he was following his gut and sticking to what he believed was the right path, but he definitely didn’t feel as hollow as he had always feared he would.

  He looked around the neighborhoods as he walked, shaking his head at the broken windows of store fronts and the rubbish that littered the streets. A yellow cab was lying on its roof on a street corner, the interior stereo system ripped out by thieves, probably gang members. Thinking of the gangs, Walter wondered how they would take the news of the city zoning – Captain Banes was planning to try and roll it out within a week, channeling everyone’s time and energy into what Walter felt would be a waste of time.

  Suddenly, it came to Walter that he should try and inform people of what was to come so that they could prepare for it. Perhaps one of the key ways he could help people first and foremost was to share information with them. He knew a lot about what was planned for the city and hopefully telling others might enable them to deal with it better.

  The thoughts of spreading the information were top of Walter’s mind when his eyes drifted over a piece of graffiti on a brick wall and he paused. He looked at the graffiti and a voice popped into his head and whispered to him.

  “The eye will always guide you.”

  Looking closer, Walter regarded the painted eye, drawn onto the wall with flames coming out of it and dark swirling lines exuding from its center then spreading out across the wall. It was the same marking that he had seen on Henry Packham’s stall at the black market, the man speaking of a network of people who were unhappy with the way the city was rebuilding and who had ideas of their own.

  They were exactly the type of people that Walter needed to share his information with. If he could find them and pass on the news, then maybe he could work with them to actually make some change for good in the city. Looking more closely at the eye, Walter analyzed it and tried to figure out what
it was telling him. Mr. Packham had told him the eye would always be a guide and so Walter glanced around, looking for more of them in the area.

  Tilting his head to one side, he noticed that the eye seemed to be looking in a certain direction, the way the pupil was painted giving it an almost three-dimensional look to it. Cautiously, with his heartbeat quickening in his chest, Walter moved to stand next to the wall, looking in the same direction that he believed the eye to be. Finally, after a few short seconds, he saw it. Above a door in the distance was another eye. It marked an entrance. With his heart in his mouth, Walter walked over to the door and knocked, ready to find out what lay behind it.

  Chapter 18

  Sitting around a large, circular table in what would’ve been the dining hall of the extravagant island resort, Art, Jessie, Dennis and everyone else who was gathered there listened carefully to the report.

  Casey and Ben had returned from their scouting mission earlier that evening, both out of breath and frightened looks on their faces. As soon as the word got out that they were back, everyone quickly gathered to hear the news, even the children sitting quietly to discover what had become of Kauai.

  As expected, it wasn’t an enjoyable report. It very quickly became clear that the Chinese weren’t messing around and they had definitely come to colonize the island for China. Casey explained how life was almost carrying on as normal, but with Jamie no longer in charge and nowhere to be seen. This worried Dennis but the leader remained quiet, unwilling to let his emotions interfere with the serious affair.

  “One thing that is definitely different though,” Casey continued, “is the attention they’re giving the harbor. They’ve assigned loads of people to a work detail there and are removing all the boats which are still there. They’ve got people diving down too, though I don’t know what for.”