“Ugh, fine antique. Wish it wasn’t so heavy, though,” Kyle said. They started waddling towards the back room, the chair between them.
“It sure is comfortable,” David replied.
“Oh, got your hair cut, did you? Jaylen gave you the ‘start over’ option. I’d never do that myself. I want to keep what little I have.”
They set the chair down in the back room with a thud.
“I feel like a drink,” David said. “Want to join me?”
“Now you’re talking.”
They sat down at the bar.
“Best thing about being a farmer is that in winter you can have a drink at noon,” Kyle told him.
“I haven’t had a drink in ages. Roy, two beers, please,” David said.
“Coming right up. Just don’t fall asleep at the bar. We don’t allow that until the afternoon.”
Roy filled two mugs from a keg and handed them over.
Kyle lifted his. “To the rains cleaning up.”
“I’ll drink to that,” David said.
“Hell, I’ll drink to that too,” Roy said, pouring himself one.
They drank in silence for a time before David asked, “What do I owe you in trade, Roy?”
“Not much, what you got?”
David rummaged around in his pockets but didn’t have anything of value. He pulled a full AK-47 clip from off his belt.
“Here you go.”
“You buying a round for the whole Burbs? Just give me a couple of bullets, brother.”
“Well, keep it as credit for later drinks and meals. I don’t need it anymore. No, I don’t want it.”
It took until the words were out of his mouth before he understood that they were true. He was done with weapons. Just because he had broken his promise to the Lord minutes after he had made it, didn’t mean that he was free of his vow.
“That’s a big trade, David,” Roy said. “You need to see The Doctor first.”
“No one ever stops talking about this fellow. Has he replaced God?”
“No, but he’s in charge. Get your butt over there today before you cause any trouble. In the meantime, just give me a couple of bullets.”
“I’ll take him over there,” Kyle offered. He turned to David. “It’s getting late and they’ll be closing up the trade table soon. After that, next round’s on me. Probably won’t have a farm after next year so might as well live for today, right?”
“We shouldn’t live for today. We should live for the eternal. But show me this doctor who wants to see everyone’s possessions.”
They passed through the Burbs, winding their way between the plank and tin shacks, the tents, and an area where old shipping containers had been transformed into homes. Glancing into one, David saw blankets spread out side by side, crammed so close they made a carpet from one end to the other. He stopped and counted. Twenty-five. Twenty-five people slept in that metal box.
The Burbs smelled of cooking, unwashed bodies, and stale urine. Of course David had been accustomed to this in camp, but the Righteous Horde had always been on the move and so the stench never got too bad. Here, Kyle told him, almost a thousand people lived year-round, and during the summer it swelled to a few thousand as scavengers streamed in to work on the farms and trade what they had found.
“So how does this work?” David asked.
“Well, anyone new to town has to trade with The Doctor first. He gets first call on any medical supplies.”
“He’s the one who treats people for free, right?”
“That’s right. Best man in the world.”
“But he gets all the medical supplies.”
“No, he has to trade for it at a fair price.”
“Who sets that?”
Kyle looked awkward. “He always gives a good trade. He’s a good man.”
“I don’t have any medical supplies.”
“OK, but he gets to see what else you got.”
“And I have to trade with him?”
“No, he just gets first bid.”
They passed the last of the tents and came to an open area. The wall loomed ahead, cutting off the peninsula upon which New City was built. David tensed. This was the killing ground they had to charge to get at that wall. He could still see the burn marks of Roy’s brew blackening parts of the wall’s base.
But it was all peaceful now. No bodies, no discarded weapons or gear. Not even any shell casings. A couple of kids did cartwheels nearby. The wreckage of the battle had all been cleared away like a bad memory one has resolved never to bring to mind again.
David spotted another difference—the gate was open. His heart started beating faster as he got to see his first view of what lay beyond that wall.
He saw large houses, each with a little garden. Some even had flowerpots. The lanes between the houses were clean, and he saw no tents, no open fires. All the houses had chimneys. They all looked as good as the Reverend’s home. To one side stood the blank concrete box of the old warehouse.
A couple of guards stood at the open gate and a few more on the wall above. David stopped several paces from the entrance as the guards eyed him. He looked back at the Burbs, which had so impressed him when he had first seen it during the invasion. It was the biggest settlement he had ever seen, the most advanced, and now looking at the sanctuary behind the walls of New City, the Burbs appeared shabby and embarrassing. And what did that make the rest of his life?
This was beyond selfishness. This was insulting.
Kyle gestured towards the gate. “Here we are. This is New City. Aren’t you going in?”
“This is New City?” David snorted. “Looks to me like a den of thieves.”
He turned his back on the gate and walked back towards the Burbs.
Kyle followed him. “Hey buddy, where are you going?”
“I’m going to trade.”
“You can’t do that. They get first dibs!”
“They already have enough.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Then it should. Why should the rich get first choice of the pickings of the poor?”
“They’re not so bad.” Kyle said, his voice lacking conviction. Then he warmed to his subject. “Look, where else can you find a safe trading market? Where else are there patrols keeping the land free from bandits? And you sure aren’t going to find another honest to goodness doctor who gives out medical care for nothing!”
“He sounds like a good man who has been misled. Perhaps he needs to listen to his people more.”
That made Kyle chuckle. They were entering the market and David started examining the goods.
“Look, David. You’re new here, so let me explain a few things. Where you’re standing isn’t New City, it’s the Burbs, and we aren’t his people.”
“What do you mean?”
“The old folks behind the walls founded New City forty years ago. They were survivors from North Cape, plus a few people they picked up in the wildlands. They put up the wall and cleaned up the warehouse and got the tidal generator working. Did a bunch of other stuff too. Pretty soon scavengers discovered what they had here and starting coming to trade. The citizens of New City didn’t let them come inside. For security, you know.” Kyle hastened to add this last part when David shot him a look of outrage. “You know how tough the wildlands can be. Can’t let just anyone in. But they did set up the market and let anyone stay outside the gate as long as they liked. So then we had the Burbs.”
“So the poor from before the fall of the last city state stayed poor, and the rich from that time stayed rich,” David said.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” Kyle replied, obviously flustered. “A lot of people have done good here. My family has. Mom and Dad were scavengers. They got tired of the life and came here. Worked on someone else’s farm to the get trade for seed and tools, and then cleared some land of their own. Now I’m doing pretty good thanks to them, and thanks to New City’s protection.”
“Are you doing as good as
the people behind the wall?”
“Well, no, but—”
“And I bet they own most of the land, right?”
“Now wait a minute, we had a guy who talked like that. You want to know what happened to him?”
David found a clothing stall and started haggling for some clothes. Kyle tried to convince him to stop, but he was determined. He had suffered under one unjust ruler, and he wasn’t going to suffer under another just because he was less evil.
Kyle’s protests got the attention of the stall owner, who asked what was the matter. When Kyle told her, she refused to trade.
“Never mind. I’ll trade somewhere else,” David replied.
“You can’t do that!” Kyle objected. “There has to be law!”
David nodded. Yes, there had to be law. This place was better than any he had seen, but it was still unjust in the eyes of the Lord.
Things needed to change.
Kyle dogged him for a while, trying to change his mind, and finally left in a huff. David felt bad for angering him. Kyle was a good man. His only flaw was that his eyes were shut like so many others.
Once he was left in peace, David found another clothing dealer who had a stall heaped with Old Times castoffs and a few homespun garments. He traded his camo gear for a pair of Old Times jeans that weren’t too patched, a loose homespun shirt, and a heavy coat. He kept the olive drab poncho and army boots he had brought with him. He looked at himself in the cracked mirror hanging from a nail on one of the stall’s posts and admired the result. While many people wore camouflage, since military garb was the most enduring of all Old Times clothing, few were clothed in it from head to toe like he had been. His big frame, his two AKs, and full military garb might make people jumpy, and the Righteous Horde and taught him to fear jumpy.
As he turned to leave, Kyle came back. With him were a Hispanic woman with a truncheon and a 9 mm automatic hanging from her belt. The butt of a shotgun was just visible over her shoulder, obviously sheathed in a back holster. Beside her came a thin white man, a little younger than David, who had an AK slung across his back. He moved with the stiffness of someone recovering from an injury. He had the letter “B” branded on one cheek.
Both of Kyle’s companions had a wary but confident look as they approached him.
“Good afternoon,” the Hispanic woman said in a brusque manner. “New to town?”
“I just washed up here earlier today,” David said, keeping his hands away from his weapons.
“I’m Annette Cruz, the sheriff of the Burbs. This is one of my deputies, Jackson Andrews. I hear you’re trading without having gone to The Doctor first.”
“That’s correct,” David said. He had no reason to lie to this woman, and judging from the look of her eye she’d be pretty good at detecting a lie anyway.
“Kyle tells me he told you the rules. Someone always tells newcomers the rules. Stops incidents like this.”
“Hey wait,” the stall owner piped in. “I didn’t know he hadn’t been to Doc first.”
“What did he trade for?” Jackson Andrews asked.
The merchant told him.
“Not your fault,” Sheriff Cruz told the merchant. “We’ll overlook that.”
She turned to David. “But you, my friend, need to come with us.”
“Where?”
“Away from all these people so we don’t bother them, OK?” The tone didn’t match the polite words.
David walked in the direction the sheriff indicated. She and her deputy fell in behind him and a bit to each side. He didn’t want to startle them, so he didn’t look over his shoulder, but he knew that woman’s hand was hovering over her holstered pistol and that wounded man had eased his AK into a better position. He wondered how the deputy had come to be branded. Had he been a slave once and that was his owner’s mark? He didn’t have the look of an ex-slave, though. Too confident.
It didn’t matter. He would not fight these people. Until now, no one had ever been able to threaten him this much and not get killed. David smiled to think that those days were over. We would deal with them fairly and honestly.
“Here’s good,” the woman said.
They had stepped away from the main bustle of the market and stood in the center of an open lot. A heap of cold coals, a few bits of refuse, and some holes in the dirt from pegs showed there had been several tents here. It looked like a group had left earlier today, perhaps to flee the rains by heading inland.
“So what’s your name, friend?” Deputy Andrews asked.
Oh, we’re friends now?
“David.”
“David what?” the sheriff asked.
“Don’t have a last name. Grew up kind of wild.”
The sheriff studied him a moment, and said, “You have nice gear for a fisherman.”
“So you’ve been checking up on me.”
“Seems odd for a fisherman to have two AKs and a bunch of other nice gear, all military.”
“I’m a scavenger. I used to be a fisherman, though, when I was a kid. I was scavenging down south just east of the mountains when this crazy cult marched through. I’m told they attacked you guys. There’s a couple of thousand left, all hungry, many almost starving. They left a lot of dead in their wake and I got some of the gear that way.”
“They ditched two AKs?” the deputy asked, clearly unconvinced.
“No. One I got in a big trade after a lucky scavenge. The other I got same time as the boat. This guy tried to bushwhack me as I was walking near the shore. Probably afraid I’d find his boat. Well, I did find it after I killed him. He was acting like a bandit. No one can blame me for what I did. Might have been someone who fled that cult.”
David realized he had just told a string of lies a minute after resolving to be truthful to these two.
Why does every one of my vows get compromised by necessity? he fumed.
“Our law doesn’t extend to the wildlands unless it affects us somehow,” the sheriff told him, although the suspicion hadn’t left her eyes. “But there’s still the flouting of the trade law. Kyle says he explained it all to you. Now we’re willing to cut you some slack since you’re new, but only this once. You’re going to have to pay a small fine. Second offense is a big fine. Third offense is banishment.”
David thought about it. The officers of the law waited.
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
“What will you accept as payment?”
The sheriff shrugged.
David pulled out the Kalashnikov magazine that Roy had refused. “Is this enough?”
The female sheriff looked surprised. “That’s a bit too much. Take some of the bullets out.”
“I don’t need them,” David replied.
“Stop screwing around and take them out.”
David obliged and handed the half-depleted clip to the deputy.
“Come with us,” the sheriff said.
“Am I still under arrest?”
“You were never under arrest, but you will be if you don’t come and trade with The Doctor right now.”
“I was interested in meeting him, but under my conditions, not his.”
The sheriff laughed. “It doesn’t work that way.”
So for the second time that day, David Nimitz was led to the great open gate of New City.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Roy was in the market shopping when he saw Annette Cruz and Jackson Andrews escorting David towards New City gate.
“Uh-oh,” Roy muttered, heading for the gate himself. The ground still stank from the last rain and Roy had been looking forward to getting back indoors. He also didn’t want to deal with Doc right now. But this looked too important.
Roy found him at the trade table just finishing up with the last trader in line. The Doctor wore a cloth over his face and a pair of goggles. In his precarious state of health, he shouldn’t be out of the warehouse at all. But there was no point trying to tell him that.
Even through the face covering, Roy could
see him scowl. The Doctor did not greet him as he came up to the table and sat down. The trader nodded and left.
“Trouble coming,” Roy said.
“Not your problem, just wash your hands of it,” The Doctor snapped.
Oh, for fuck’s sake!
The sheriff and deputy came into view with David between them.
“Friend of yours?” The Doctor asked.
“Some scavenger who landed his ship this morning. He’s loaded with gear. Not sure what his story is. I mean, he told me his story, just not sure I believe it.”
“What’s he like?” the Doctor asking, becoming all business again.
“Like all the scavengers. A little bit simple and a little bit crazy.”
“I can’t blame them for the crazy part. If I had to live out there I’d be crazy too.”
Oh, you plenty crazy.
The two watched while David left his weapons with the guards and entered flanked by the two Burbs law officers. Roy heard a low growl come from the mayor when he saw Annette and Jackson hadn’t checked their weapons at the gate. Noncitizens were supposed to, but those two had been flouting that rule for some time now. Jackson wasn’t even supposed to pass through the gate at all.
“Hi Roy, hi Doc,” Annette said as she strolled up to the table. She always took a casual tone with them both. Roy didn’t mind. The Doctor did.
“What do we have here?” The Doctor asked.
“This scavenger, at least he says he’s a scavenger, decided he didn’t need to check in with you before doing some trades.”
“He got a haircut and a drink at my place,” Roy conceded. “We’ve always let little stuff like that slide.”
“Yeah, but then he traded his clothes at the market,” Annette said. “I’ve already fined him.”
Roy turned to David. “Damn it, Kyle told you the rules, and I did too.”
“If a rule is unjust, the just man should break it,” David replied in a cool tone.
“If you find our rules unjust, you can head on back into the wildlands where you came from,” The Doctor said.
Emergency Transmission Page 19
