The Best of Us

by Karen Traviss

  “Population twelve thousand and forty-two. Or so it says here.”

  “Was.”

  The architects had tried to make Kingston look like a town that had grown from a few log cabins over the centuries, with random styles from block to block. But the map data on Chris’s screen showed that it was one of those instant towns built in the mid-2100s, all poured, printed, and extruded within a couple of years. The drone view of Main Street showed no signs of looting. Kingston just looked like it had closed early and everyone had headed off for the day: no broken glass, no abandoned shopping carts, and no streets strewn with the pillage that looters couldn’t carry. Only the weeds that had taken over the sidewalks and pavement showed that nobody had come back to open up the stores again after lunch.

  Looters. That’s us now.

  Chris tapped his earpiece and wondered why he was trying to put a human face on the past instead of just going numb and doing what he had to. He’d been away from reality for too long.

  “Six Zero to all callsigns — mount up. Everybody stay sharp and pay attention to the dogs.”

  It was like old times, but ones that Chris would have preferred to never see again.

  * * *

  Approach Road to Kingston:

  1045 Hours

  “Is that your dosimeter buzzing?” Zakko asked.

  Chris looked away from the drone feed and rummaged through folds of leather and webbing to check. “Yeah. Don’t worry. It says three hours max.”

  “Not long to search a whole town.”

  The radiation levels around here were a little higher than Chris had expected. He’d never hear the end of it from Jared. Yeah, hot spots shifted. Now everyone else’s dosimeter would be going off as well. He got on the radio.

  “Six Zero to all callsigns — if your radhaz warning’s activated, we’ve still got three hours to scope the place. If that changes, we withdraw early. Out.”

  The convoy rumbled down the back roads into town, following a route through an overgrown park that gave the vehicles more cover than the main road. Maybe they didn’t need it, but security was a habit not meant to be broken. Deer scattered. Crows flapped out of their path. Nature was reclaiming the land.

  “So maybe everyone moved out because of the radiation,” Zakko said. He slowed for another deer. “But it’s a long way outside the hot zones on the map.”

  There was no live government data to plug into these days. Chris relied on the information that Doug Brandt shared with him, and that came from Ainatio. It could have been wrong or incomplete, or the contamination might have been recent, an old reactor failing or a waste plant somewhere leaking into a river that fed into others and eventually reached the water table here. There was nothing they could do about it.

  “Radhaz source upstream, maybe,” Chris said. “I’ll call it in to Ainatio when we’re back in range.”

  “If they monitor this stuff and they can get a drone out this far, why isn’t it on their maps?”

  Zakko actually asked intelligent questions. Chris realised he should have co-opted him sooner instead of keeping him away from critical jobs.

  “Perhaps they don’t survey that often. I’ll put it on my list of things to ask Trinder.”

  Chris made a point not to brood on it. He couldn’t change the past and he couldn’t see a better future in his lifetime. The die-back would eventually burn itself out by running out of plant species to destroy, and one day people might drift back, but he’d be dead by then. Even if they put him on ice to wait it out, the world he woke up to wouldn’t resemble the America he’d known.

  He could only count on today. He reminded himself of that every morning.

  Zakko pulled up outside the goods entrance to the department store in the centre of town and craned his neck to look behind the high chain-link fence, strung with the remnants of some climbing plant. The gates were wide open. Two trucks were still parked in the compound, rear doors ajar as if someone had emptied the cargo and left in a hurry. Chris noted the exterior fire escape that went all the way up to the flat roof.

  “You want me to drive in?” Zakko asked.

  “No. If we need to bug out in a hurry, you’re in an enclosed space. You’ll be pinned down.” Chris realised he’d never explained tactical parking to him. It sounded like a goofy term until you found your escape route blocked by angry, heavily armed locals. “If you’ve got to shunt back and forth to get out, you lose seconds that you really need. Park facing the way you’re going to drive out, and leave enough space to manoeuvre around any obstacle put in your way.”

  “What if there’s a bunch of people blocking the road?”

  “Drive over them.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’ll be you or them, Zakko. If shit gets real, you get out as fast as you can and any way you can.”

  No, Zakko wasn’t bad, just naive and undisciplined. Chris doubted he’d mow down hostiles to escape. But he might have to learn one day.

  “Like we did in Fairview?” Zakko said.

  There was no “we.” Chris had done the driving. He would have died rather than surrender that bus. It was fuelled, he had vulnerable civvies to transport, and if the assholes didn’t get out of his way by the time he hit the roadblock, it was their problem. They didn’t. That was their choice.

  “Yeah, like we did in Fairview,” Chris said. “Sometimes you just have to pick the least bad option.”

  That wasn’t going to happen today. He’d checked out the area with the drones, and unless the dogs found anyone hiding, this was going to be an unopposed reclamation. But he had to stop relying on the tech. One day, the few pieces of fancy gear they still had would be beyond repair, and even if Ainatio was feeling generous, help usually came at a price. Chris preferred to rely on the same soldiering skills that guys with flintlocks or even spears would still recognise. It didn’t break down and it couldn’t be taken from him.

  Damn, there I go again. I didn’t even think of enlisting as a kid. I don’t think I even played soldiers. How the hell did I end up being this gung-ho?

  Because the job needed me, that’s why. And now I need the job. Purpose. Identity. Tribe.

  The squad stood in the cover of the vehicles, rearranging rifle slings and poacher bags while Chris gave them their instructions. Conway had his battering ram, breaching shotgun, and charges ready to force an entry.

  “I’m guessing the store will be gutted, but if we find anything, remember to run a sensor over it in case it’s contaminated,” Chris said. “Treat this as a recon with a few freebies if we’re lucky. If it’s promising, we come back again with a proper roster and equipment to minimise exposure.”

  “How about further out?” Jamie asked.

  “That’s a job for another day.”

  “Twelve thousand people, so that’s at least three thousand homes,” Rich said. “And no guarantee they’re all empty. Even if the area’s low radhaz, that’s weeks of search and recovery for ten people.”

  Chris checked his watch. “Okay, we’re on the clock, guys. Support teams — Erin on the roof, Jackson at the front entrance, and Matt and Lee at the back. Assault team on me. We go in via the fire escape, bomb dog first. Let’s move.”

  It was more a rummage than an assault, but at least they had the luxury of clearing the building from the top down. There was no room to stack safely on the fire escape, so Erin went up first to get to the roof. Dieter carried Sal the sniffer dog up the stairs behind her. Sal, a springer spaniel, was trained to find explosives and firearms. Chris hoped the dog didn’t run into a booby trap primed with spikes instead of substances that she was trained to recognise. She sniffed around the fire exit at the top but didn’t indicate that she’d picked up anything. Dieter pressed the handle slowly and carefully. The door swung open.

  “Good girl, Sal. Find.” Dieter ushered the dog in and leaned over the rail.
“Power’s out, guys. The doors are open.”

  Conway looked up the metal stairs, feigning a glum face, and slung his battering ram and shotgun over his shoulder. “I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find something for you to smash. There’s bound to be something still locked manually.”

  Dieter whistled for Sapper and Girlie, both standing on the back of the truck with ears pricked, awaiting the signal to go, and the dogs raced for the fire escape. Everyone seemed pretty upbeat, humans and dogs alike. This was a day out. However mundane the task, they didn’t get many days now that reminded them what they did best.

  “Here we go, then,” Chris said. He ran up the steps and paused in the doorway to let his eyes adjust to the light. “Stay sharp, guys.”

  Sunlight slanted in from the glass frontage and silhouetted the eerily cosy room settings of a furniture department. Chris always found the fake home-sweet-homeness creepy, as if this was an example of the ideal life you could lead if only you made the right choices. But the sofas were frosted with a thick layer of dust and pigeon shit, and the place reeked of mould. Chris could hear the pigeons burbling somewhere, probably roosting on the sprinkler pipes.

  Sal, oblivious to it all, was having a great time. Chris followed her progress with his flashlight. Her stump of a tail was wagging so fast while she rooted around that it was almost a blur. Sapper and Girlie trotted here and there in their search for lurkers, alive or otherwise. Sal finished her search and returned to Dieter for her reward, a squeaky plastic squirrel that had seen better days. She settled down with it gripped between her paws and gnawed on it, making it squeal.

  “No guns, Sal?” Chris decided not to pat her on the head while she was chewing. “No ammo?”

  “There’s nothing much left for her to detect if this place has been deserted for years.” Dieter smiled at her like a proud dad. “If only humans would work that hard for a chew toy.”

  “Yeah, I used to think that when we ran into dog packs.”

  “Ah, come on, Chris. You don’t mean that. Anyone who doesn’t like dogs is a wrong ‘un.”

  “They’re loyal even when we abuse them,” Chris said.

  “I think that indicates a purer soul, not a failing.”

  “Well, I don’t blame them if they turn on us.” Chris didn’t want to get into anything profound. He went on searching, hoping to find a loaded pistol stashed under a paypoint that had been forgotten in the exodus, but there was nothing. “We’re done on this floor, guys. Move on.”

  “So what do we want to find if there’s no ammo?” Conway asked.

  It had never been an issue when they were trying to stay alive on the journey south. They knew what they needed — really, desperately needed — and took it wherever they could find it, and that felt okay. Now that he was well-fed and relatively comfortable in Kill Line, Chris thought differently. Maybe they were drifting into looting. He shot looters. He didn’t want to become one himself. It was funny how the line of legitimacy shifted.

  “Just ammo,” he said. “Unless we come across something else survival-related. Knives. Radios. Tools. Electricals.”

  Jamie chuckled to himself as they headed down the stairs to the second floor, flashlight beams crossing. “But no ball gowns, right? Chris, you remember that crazy woman we saw coming out of the store in Ashland? Everyone else was wheeling out carts of food and bottled water, but she was wearing a sequinned evening dress and carrying a dozen more. The bright blue one. Remember?”

  “Hell, yes. Probably wasn’t even her size.”

  “If you’re going to die, you might as well look classy,” Dieter said. “People do value the damnedest things.”

  “Wait up — store directory,” Conway called. He shone his light on a damp-stained sign on the wall. “Second floor — men’s and women’s fashions, children’s clothes, and shoes. First floor — luggage, cosmetics and fragrances, stationery. Basement — kitchenware, sporting goods, hardware.”

  “No gun shop?”

  “This is the kind of store you visit to have coffee and hang out. Not buy supplies for a winter wrestling bears in the Yukon.”

  They continued downstairs with the dogs a few yards ahead. Yeah, Conway was right — this was a shop for entertainment, a place to browse and maybe place an order to while away a Saturday afternoon, because people still liked somewhere to congregate. No amount of retail technology would change human nature. At the doors to the fashion floor, Chris stepped over a few brightly-coloured skirts that had dropped from their hangers onto tiles covered with dead insects, and tried to construct a sequence of events from the few goods that were left and what had been taken.

  Every scenario had a plausible alternative. Some picked sensible stuff, others grabbed garbage. He’d seen it all. He didn’t expect any random looter to take large items of furniture from upstairs — there was always one crazy guy who’d try, of course — so the most portable goods would go first. But most of the store looked like it had been cleared systematically. That could have indicated anything, from repeated visits by looters with plenty of time to a store that had closed before the evacuation. He couldn’t afford the time to look for paperwork to give him a timeline. It was a curiosity to be investigated later, if at all.

  There were still shoes left, boxed in a storeroom. Chris ran the pen-sized sensor over them and got a safe reading. There were even kids’ sizes.

  “Hey, we’ve got people who could do with these.” That was when he realised that his personal red line was looting for himself. But this was for people who depended on him. It was his duty. “Let’s start moving them out.”

  There was more booty in the back office area: paper, half-used pens, and a stash of boxer shorts. Dieter found a janitor’s storeroom and liberated boxes of toilet tissue and bottles of soap. The first floor looked even more promising — purses, cosmetics, travel goods, and haberdashery, according to the suspended signs. The cupboards beneath the counters yielded dozens of small card boxes full of lipsticks and mascara. This was the stuff that morale was made of.

  “Yay, aftershave.” Jamie popped up from behind a fixture, brandishing bottles. He gave himself a quick spray under each arm and inhaled theatrically. “Something for the guys at last. Got to find some perfume now.”

  Conway pointed his flashlight to indicate another sign. “There’s the basement. Hardware. Kitchenware. Maybe the security offices. Worth a try.”

  Dieter sent the dogs down the stairs to check. When Chris caught up with them, all he could see was luminous eyes when he caught them in his flashlight beam. But he also saw a glint of something shiny that was worth investigating.

  “Kitchen stuff,” Chris said. “Awesome.”

  He felt his way along the shelves. Plates, glassware, a coffee machine, cutlery, pots and pans... how long did he have? He checked his watch. They’d been in here for nearly two hours. Well, there wouldn’t be enough place settings for a hundred people, but he’d take as much as he could find. Dieter came over to help him haul it.

  “Not a completely wasted journey,” Chris said, heaving boxes up the stairs.

  Dieter shrugged. He’d found some champagne glasses. That was his optimism in a nutshell. “If nothing else, it wards off skills fade.”

  “You better brew some fizzy stuff to go in those.”

  “Already on it.”

  They exited via the loading bay and started stacking the haul by the gates for Zakko and Matt to load onto the vehicles. The dogs settled down by the boxes, looking as if they’d decided to move on to guard duties.

  “No ammo, then,” Zakko said, studying a five-piece pan set. “How are you going to divvy this up?”

  Chris ran the radhaz sensor over everything again just to make sure. “We’ll tally it up when we get back. Everybody gets something, even if it’s pens and paper. We can put the household stuff in the ch
ow hall so everybody gets to use it.” He could have asked Doug to get most of these goods from Ainatio, but there was a primal, hunter-gatherer kind of satisfaction in foraging and returning to the camp to hand out the haul. He felt good now. “Let’s go. Where’s Erin?”

  “Still on the roof,” Zakko said.

  Chris called her on the radio. “Four Four, come on down. We’re done.”

  “Roger that, Six Zero. Did I see a coffee machine down there?”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Drip or espresso? Doesn’t matter, I’m in. Four Four out.”

  Erin came clattering down the metal steps and trotted up to the back of Chris’s truck to inspect the day’s harvest. Jamie sidled up to her and wedged a small package in her rucksack.

  “That better not be something dead. What is it, a pigeon? A rat?” She tried to look over her shoulder, then gave up and slid the backpack off. “Oh. Wow.”

  “Perfume, Private Piller.”

  It took a lot to silence Erin. She wasn’t yappy, but she normally had the last word, and Jamie was scared of her no matter how much he denied it. But she turned the grubby, battered box over in her hands, staring at the label like it was Christmas Day. Chris waited for her to say that it wasn’t a fragrance she used and grind Jamie’s hopes into the dirt, but she managed an uncharacteristically embarrassed smile. Jamie ran one hand over his buzz-cut dark hair, clearly embarrassed as well.

  “I never thought I’d see perfume again,” Erin said. “Thank you, Jamie.”

  “It’ll keep the flies away, if nothing else.”

  “You’re such a smooth talker.” She sniffed the air. “Actually, you smell good.”

  Jamie looked coy for a moment and then gave her a big grin. Chris could never work out if the guy was barking up the wrong tree. Some bereaved people fell into a new relationship soon after they lost a loved one, often with someone else who was also grieving, but others didn’t move on for years, and he had Erin down as one of the latter. Maybe she’d finally decided that life was still there to be lived. This was all there’d ever be: the world wasn’t going to improve magically in their lifetimes, and the dead were gone forever. Chris tried to translate that into encouragement that wouldn’t sound so bleak, but he didn’t have the words in him today.