Authors: Better Hero Army
Forty-One
Hank’s eyes lounged under heavy, half-open lids, a glaze of welcomed inebriation softening his usually blunt and watchful appearance. Tom sat low in the chair beside him. Several empty bottles of beer stood on the table between them. Tom took another sip of his and put the nearly empty bottle on the table beside the others. Hank rested his own opened bottle on his belly.
Penelope lay on the bed past the television and beyond the two men. She stared out
the window of their apartment inside the EPS at the darkness outside and the suggestion of a river beneath them. Lights on the far shore drew long, undulating lines toward her. She watched Tom and Hank in the reflection of the glass.
“She’s going to be OK,” Hank said, referring to Doctor O’Farrell. Tom and Hank had been talking about her for a few minutes.
“My Dad needs her right now to watch over Larissa. She’s planning on trying to use it as leverage to get him to clear her name in the Rock Island investigation.”
“Good for her,” Hank said. He took a swig of his beer. “They fucked her. She may as well fuck them back.”
“She needs them too much, and I don’t think fucking them is her way.”
“I don’t know, Tom. She knows how to hotwire a snowmobile.”
Tom and Hank laughed.
“
So what was your deal with Peske?” Hank asked. “What did I earn out of all this?”
“
A Districts Pass,” Tom said. Penelope knew what it meant now. A pass to the good life, to any of the protected cities on the other side of the river, past the Rurals. A place where zombies, even the sanctioned ones sold for labor, weren’t allowed.
Hank laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Tom asked.
“
I already have one.”
Tom looked at Hank suspiciously.
“Seriously?”
Hank stuffed a hand into his cargo pocket and took out an old, worn, leather wallet. He opened it, thumbed through some plastic separators, and turned the wallet to show the white and blue card.
“What else have you got?” Hank asked, putting his wallet away.
“
What else is there?”
“Money. I need a new rig.”
“For what? In a few weeks, my Dad’s going to retract the Rezoning Act, and probably rescind the Reusability Law. There won’t be any more sanctioned hunting.”
“You’re not thinking like a businessman. Once word gets out, everyone will start selling off their stuff at rock-bottom prices. I’ll be there to buy ‘
em out. Then the government is going to come in and realize they need hunters like me to round up all the loose biters around their work sites. I figure there’s plenty of work for me for years to come. I just need money for another rig.”
“
Aren’t you going to repair the duck?”
“
That hunk of junk?” Hank didn’t answer Tom’s question. He lifted the beer and took another swig. He sighed as he looked at how little beer he had left in the last bottle.
“How long do you think it will take to repair?”
Tom asked.
“Shit, the duck’s done in,” Hank said sourly.
“It ain’t worth even trying.”
“I need a reliable vehicle for out there.
”
“What the hell for?
Your dad’s not going to do anything to you. He might be pissed at you right now, but he’s your father. He’ll get over it. Just apologize and go on doing what you’re doing.”
“Yeah, but there won’t be anything left to do in a few months. It’ll all be gone. Then what?”
“Do what I’m going to do. Help with the reconstruction. What else is there?”
“I don’t know, but there’s got to be something still out there.”
“You’re not going back to Midamerica, are you?”
Tom didn’t answer.
“Tom, God damn it, what’s wrong with you?”
Again
, Tom didn’t answer.
“You’ve got Kitty, now. Think about
her
.”
“But there
’re others still out there! Others like Penny. I saw them.”
“So what?”
“So what?!”
“Yeah, so what? How can anything ever be done for them now? It’s over, Tom. Just be thankful you’re alive after all we’ve been through.”
“Right,” Tom said unconvincingly.
“It’s over,” Hank reiterated.
“End of story.”
“Right, you said that.”
“God damned right I did. Kitty, do you agree that it’s over?”
Penelope thought a moment
. She wanted it to be over, once and for all, even if she still didn’t know where she fit in the world. The channel, with its endlessly sweeping currents, carved a rift between the two worlds, and she lay on her bed looking out over the edge. She imagined herself hovering above the water, neither on land nor in the water, just stuck somewhere in limbo, but thankfully not drowning in the middle anymore.
She had Tom.
She nodded.
“See?” Hank said
, waving his hand with satisfaction toward Penelope, content that she agreed with him. “End of story.”
Then Penelope shook her head.
The End