Madelyn's Nephew

by Ike Hamill

  “Do you dispute any of the charges?”

  “I wasn’t spying,” she said.

  She heard some murmuring, but couldn’t pick up what was being said.

  The older woman spoke again. “We agree to drop the charge of spying.”

  “It seems to me that all the rest of the charges came from the false spying accusation,” Madelyn said. “You can’t blame me for breaking out when you had me falsely imprisoned.”

  The old woman’s voice was flat. “The other charges stand.”

  Madelyn didn’t have a chance to respond.

  The woman’s voice grew louder, like she was announcing to a crowd. “On the charge of breaking free from jail?”

  “I saw it,” a man said.

  “Guilty,” the leader pronounced.

  “On the charge of fracturing a man’s hand while attempting to flee?”

  “It was me,” the man said. “She broke this hand.”

  “Guilty,” the leader pronounced.

  “On the charge of destroying the bonfires?”

  “She did it,” a young man’s voice said. “At the shopping center, at least. I didn’t see the airfield go up, but it must have been her.”

  “Did anyone see the second fire?” the leader asked.

  The room was silent.

  Madelyn wriggled her shoulders. Her hands were bound loosely, but the plastic cuffs were solid enough to hold her. If someone had offered to scratch her nose, she might have admitted to any crime at that moment.

  “We’ll drop the charge on the second fire if nobody can produce evidence.”

  “It had to be her,” a man said. Madelyn guessed that it was the man with the broken hand, but it was impossible to be sure. “She blew up the one at the center, and then continued on to the airfield. Why is there any doubt?”

  “We may not have doubt, but we also don’t have evidence,” the older woman said. “I pronounce guilty on the center fire only. Punishment?”

  When the crowd began to debate, Madelyn finally got a sense of the size of the audience. She picked out the occasional voice, but mostly what met her ears was a din of opposing viewpoints. Somehow, despite the chaos, a decision was reached. The voice of a young woman read the decree. “Imprisonment and starvation for two weeks during which she rebuilds the jail. Then she does Oliver’s right-hand chores for a month, and has primary fire duty for three months.”

  “And I say we still can’t trust her. Put her near that fire and she’ll blow it up again,” a man said. He cleared his throat as a punctuation of his statement. Madelyn thought his voice sounded familiar. It was too raspy to be Gabriel, but it sounded like him.

  “Horatio’s point is taken,” the leader said. “Let’s increase the prison term to three weeks and fold in the repairs. Then we’ll know.”

  Everyone stood at once. They marched her out of the courtroom with her blindfold intact. The person leading her didn’t jam her wrist up her back, like Oliver had. Madelyn was grateful for that. They also didn’t warn her of the stairs. She nearly had a heart attack when her foot descended through the open air. A hand caught her shoulder as she landed on the step.

  “Keep going,” a voice said.

  She walked for what felt like an hour. They passed outside and then back into a building again. She was warned of the next staircase. The world seemed to tighten in around her as she descended. The cuffs were removed and the lights went out.

  # # # # #

  The lights came back on and Madelyn’s eyes pulled in the details she already knew. She was back in the cell. Her hole was still there. There was no guard stationed at the desk. Madelyn wondered if she was being watched.

  She found a book on the bench.

  Madelyn picked it up and moved to the bars so she could tilt the cover towards the light.

  “Basics of Welding,” she read.

  She opened the book.

  The next time she looked up, it was because a cramp had formed in her neck. Madelyn set the book down and stretched her head to the side while she tried to rub the knot from her tight muscle. After a minute, she gave up on the cramp and returned her attention to the book. She was exploring the benefits of gas metal arc welding.

  She ran her fingers over the pictures and tried to imagine the regular ripples of a perfect weld. The hot metal would smooth, bridge, and then fuse the pieces. The welder would create order from chaos. It was a comforting notion.

  Some time later, the grunts of people on the stairs drew her attention. She looked up to see a burly woman back through the door, carrying one half of a generator. A spindly man brought up the rear.

  They dropped the generator on the floor. Madelyn looked at it and realized that it wasn’t a generator after all. It was trailing a heavy cord though. The door to the stairs was still propped open by the cable.

  “Do you have any water?” Madelyn asked.

  “You’re on starvation,” the woman said.

  “Right,” Madelyn said. “Starvation—not dehydration.”

  The man and woman exchanged a glance and the man shrugged. The woman took a heavy bag from her shoulder and dropped it next to the machine. They didn’t even give her a second look. The man and woman turned and headed for the door.

  “Wait!” Madelyn called. Her stomach rumbled, like it was calling to the pair as well.

  When the sound of their footsteps had faded, she got to work on the bag. The biggest thing in there was a helmet. Madelyn felt stupid that it took her so long to piece it together. The wire, the machine, and the helmet all went with the welding book. Someone was going to be doing some work down there—probably enhancing the cell with new bars. Once the idea occurred to her, she began to examine the bars and the door in front of her. She found some very good welds. She also found some poor ones. In fact, one of the sloppy, pitted welds at her foot didn’t even survive a good kick. Madelyn looked at the shears from the bag and began to wonder how long it would take to break out.

  The idea was stupid. If she wanted to break out, there was a hole right behind her. It was the thought of what was behind that hole that kept her inside. People might be watching. She was trying to gain their trust.

  Madelyn went back to the book.

  She read for hours. There was nothing else to do, and she was too hungry and thirsty to sleep. Her fingers wouldn’t stay still. She reached through the bars and set the dials of the machine to match the lesson she was reading. She imagined how she would position her body and hold the torch. She put the cable around her arm to feel its weight.

  Madelyn looked up when she heard a rhythmic banging ring down the stairs. She guessed what it was before the door pushed open. It was a big gas tank on a dolly. The man rolled it over next to the welder and gave Madelyn a nod.

  “Be right back,” he said.

  “Wait!” she called. “They said you’d bring me water?”

  Somehow, the lie worked.

  “Right,” he said. He pulled a plastic bottle from a rear pocket and handed it through the bars. It wasn’t much—maybe half of a liter—but it felt golden in her throat. She smacked her lips and opened her eyes. The man was gone again. A few minutes later, he struggled down the stairs with a bundle of metal bars.

  “Those aren’t weldable,” she said. Technically, she wasn’t certain of the statement. She wanted to show off.

  “You’ll figure it out,” he said.

  “Me?”

  “Almost forgot,” he said. He pulled out another bottle of water and handed it over. Madelyn wanted to drink it down, but she held it to her chest.

  “You expect me to do something with this?”

  “Yeah. Drink it.”

  “I mean the welder.”

  “Fix the jail, remember?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He disappeared up the steps.

  “But I can’t even reach the tank,” she called. “You left it too far away.”

  He was gone. Madelyn’s brain was already churning the problem. She coul
d reach some of the bars. Perhaps she could secure a couple of them together and reach the top of the tank. If she could tilt it down, she might be able to reach it. If she dropped it, she might break the valve. That would be a nightmare.

  Madelyn worked the problem. She used wire from the bag to join two of the bars together. She pulled the welder closer to the cell so she could put the bag on top of it for a soft landing. Madelyn dropped her hands and laughed. The helmet would never fit through the bars.

  She couldn’t weld if she couldn’t see.

  Her eyes returned to the bar that had come loose when she kicked it. Was it crazy to break out of her cell so that she could reinforce it?

  Madelyn sat.

  # # # # #

  She woke with the book in her hands. Her neck cracked when she stood up. Madelyn stood. Her eyes were so dry that her eyelids were scraping across the surface when she blinked.

  She leaned on the door of her cell and wondered when more water would come.

  They had left a welding book, all the equipment, and given her a task to complete. For Madelyn, this was the most effective torture she could imagine. She wondered if that was her real punishment. With her frustration, she pulled on the cell door. It swung inwards.

  She didn’t waste a second. Madelyn grabbed the empty water bottle and ran for the door. It was propped open by the thick cord of the welder. She pulled open the door and ran up the stairs. When she got to the top, she stopped.

  A big jug of water stood sentinel on the top stair. Madelyn smoothed her dirty hair back and thought about her imprisonment. This was a test. They were trying to see if they could trust her. Madelyn didn’t like being tested, but more than that she hated to fail. She filled her bottle and walked slowly down the stairs. If she could find a way to empty her waste bucket, her imprisonment would be self-sufficient.

  Her mood brightened when she went back inside her room. At least she had something to do.

  Madelyn practiced on the bars at the front of the cell. She dismantled the bad welds and then reconstructed them. It took several passes, but eventually she managed to make each of the joints both pretty and strong. While she took a break to rest her hands, she paged through the book again.

  Next, she set out the bars for the back. There wasn’t enough material to fill in all the spaces, but she could put together the scaffolding at least. She was tacking up the frame when he interrupted her.

  “That’s looking pretty good,” he said.

  Madelyn turned and lifted the helmet. He had slipped in during her last weld.

  “I need more stock.”

  His reply was to point to the corner. He had leaned another bundle of bars.

  “I thought you couldn’t weld these bars.”

  “I’m getting better. I’ll need more than that.”

  “I’ll bring them.”

  She set down the torch and sat on the bench to shake out her hands. They were numb. She had a bad habit of focusing so closely on a task that she ignored her body. It was a habit she would have to break before she did real damage to herself. So far, she had been lucky.

  “Who did this?” she asked, gesturing towards the front of the cell.

  “Robin,” the man said. He sat on the desk and swung his legs.

  “Just one person? Some of the welds were great, and some were crap. Robin isn’t very consistent.”

  “She learned as she worked. Like you.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “This will be good. We don’t have anyone who welds right now.”

  “What happened to Robin?”

  He gave his head a small shake.

  “Oh.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” he said.

  Madelyn reconsidered the man. Based on his hair, his smile, and the easy way he swung his legs, she would have said he was fairly young—twenties maybe. His age was revealed around the corners of his eyes when he referred to Robin’s death. She wondered if maybe they weren’t about the same age. If so, he was holding together well.

  “I’m Elijah,” he said. He didn’t offer a hand. She would have had to leave the cell to take it if he did.

  “Madelyn.”

  He nodded.

  “We know,” he said. “We all know. There isn’t anyone within a thousand kilometers of here that we haven’t scouted out. Just so you know.”

  Madelyn tried to show no reaction on her face. This detail was something that she would tuck away and consider later.

  “Do you know Harper?” Madelyn asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  This was a tricky question to answer. Madelyn still wasn’t sure how much these people knew.

  “I haven’t seen her in a while. She helped me once.”

  Elijah took in her explanation without reaction.

  “Where are you from originally?” he asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Sure. Why not?” he asked, smiling at her.

  “Once upon a time it might have mattered. The network of people was deep and strong. I could say Detroit, and you might say, ‘I had an Aunt who lived in Detroit. What part?’ We would find out that her neighbor was my grade school teacher. Small world. The world’s not small anymore. There are vast areas that people don’t stray into and it divides us into these tiny clans. Nobody knows each other. There is no connection to that old life. We’re just lonely asteroids out here orbiting a dying sun.”

  “Bull!” he said with a merry laugh. “If anything, we’re tighter than ever. I’ve seen people sit around, tracing their lineage back seven generations just so they can find commonality with their neighbor. I’ve seen people form blood bonds over nothing more than the type of car they used to drive.”

  “I thought the people here were all young,” Madelyn said.

  “Just the ones you might meet walking around. A lot of us older folks enjoy jobs where we spend more time indoors. I work in a greenhouse.”

  “Sounds suffocating,” Madelyn said.

  Elijah shrugged. “You never said where you’re from.”

  “Detroit.”

  “I knew it!” he said with a big smile. “I’d recognize that accent anywhere.” His smile disappeared fairly fast as he realized the implication. Detroit was where it had started. Very few people made it out of there after the cull. He tried to rescue the conversation by turning back to a happy memory. “Did you ever see that movie called Gaucho? Those guys were from Detroit, right? I remember how they talked. They sounded like you.”

  “They were supposed to be from Pittsburgh,” Madelyn said. “I had such a crush on Nigel Devons when I was a little girl.”

  Elijah smiled. “He was an old man!”

  “He was handsome and strong.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do,” Madelyn said.

  “He might still be around somewhere,” Elijah said. “He was rich, right? Maybe he took the Option.”

  “Don’t say that,” Madelyn said. “Those people are less than human.”

  “Do you really think so? I haven’t said this out loud to anyone, but I think that the older I get, the more sympathy I have for those people.”

  “I have to get back to work,” Madelyn said.

  “I know it’s an uncomfortable conversation. People have so much animosity, even now, but hear me out.”

  “Hold on,” Madelyn said. She was on her feet. “You say, ‘People have so much animosity,’ like you’re not quite sure where it all comes from. This isn’t a case of being shortsighted or oblivious to consequences. Those rich, entitled thieves strove for a way to make themselves immortal and then tried to murder off everyone else on the planet.”

  “The planet was going to die either way,” Elijah said. “You can’t necessarily lay all that at their feet.”

  “Can’t I? There’s a huge difference between an act of God and people creating machines to murder other people.”

  “First, you’re giving them way too much credit. That’s like blaming a toddl
er for burning down the house. Who let them play with the matches?”

  Madelyn expelled a frustrated grunt and threw up her hands.

  Elijah chuckled at her again and then continued. “You’re giving those people a lot of credit they probably don’t deserve. Second, the changes to our weather and our orbit would have killed off ninety-nine percent regardless. Those changes came from machines that humanity built. What’s the difference?”

  “Motive,” she said. “If you drop a gun and it accidentally kills someone, it’s not as bad as aiming and firing. Motive matters.”

  “And some people say that the Zumbidoes were designed to help and heal,” Elijah said.

  “Bull!” she said, spitting his word back at him.

  “I’m not saying I believe it. I’m just saying. What’s your theory? Where did they come from and what’s their purpose?”

  “It’s obvious,” Madelyn said. She honestly couldn’t figure out if Elijah was teasing her or if he was perhaps a little dim. “Everyone knows this. As soon as enough people Optioned into regeneration, they realized that everyone would eventually want to do it and the prices would do nothing but drop. The world can’t support an immortal army of consumers, popping out their own immortal babies every minute, so they released the Roamers to thin the herd.”

  Elijah rubbed his chin and looked like he was considering her explanation. His act only made her angry. She wasn’t spouting some strange conspiracy theory. She was stating known facts.

  “A lot of people do say that,” Elijah said. “There is another perspective though. The cull was very popular. There were so many sick and dying people opting out of life that the population was declining very rapidly anyway. Given another year or two with the Earth changing so dramatically, I think it’s arguable that the population would have reached the same numbers with or without the Zumbidoes.”

  “That’s so ignorant,” Madelyn said.

  “In what way?”

  “People strive to expand. We fight.”

  “How does that contradict what I just said?”

  Madelyn had to put her hands to work. The conversation was too irritating to continue. She took a breath, opened the cell door, and grabbed some of the new bar stock that Elijah had brought her. She didn’t know what time it was, but she figured she had about another hour of work in her before she would have to sleep.