Authors: Daniel Powell
THIRTY-EIGHT
They
moved through the bowels of an enormous building. They climbed two flights of
stairs before they stepped into a well-lit corridor tiled in industrial
linoleum. Scores of men and women in uniform moved up and down the hallway.
Ben looked straight at them as they
walked, but these people refused to make eye contact.
Perhaps every third woman looked to be
pregnant.
They were paraded through a warren of
guarded hallways until arriving at an expansive lobby. Merrick nodded at a man
in a booth and the front doors slid open.
A black limousine idled at the curb and
a driver opened the back door. Merrick forced a smile and swept an arm to the
opening. “By all means—our honored guests first.”
Alice sighed and took Ben’s hand, and
they slid onto the leather seat. The cabin was warm. A thickly muscled man with
a black buzz-cut and a telephone earpiece sat, one leg nonchalantly crossed
over his knee, on the opposite bench. He wore tailored slacks and a crisp white
dress shirt.
Merrick dismissed the guard and slid in
next to Alice. He nodded cordially at the big man, who returned the gesture and
smiled warmly at Ben and Alice.
“I’m Wade Marks. I’m the head of
security for Mr. Roan. You two—forgive me, but I have to ask—you two didn’t
come to Atlanta to hurt Mr. Roan, did you?”
Ben shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. Farmers, aren’t
you?”
This time, neither of them moved. It was
dangerous, maybe even fatal, to give anything away at this stage of the game.
Marks refreshed the smile. “Play it your
way. Roan can be pretty persuasive. He’ll find a way to convince you to share
with him.”
The man shifted his position, crossing
his other leg. The smile vanished and he stared at Ben with curiosity. “You,”
he said, frowning. “You present an interesting dilemma. Let me ask you a
question. Is that okay, Ben?”
“Go ahead.”
“Coraline. Coraline Prentis. Does that
name mean anything to you?”
Hearing her given name was like a blow
to the chest. He licked his lips, tried to keep his composure. “We grew up
together. We were…we lived on Calvin’s ranch as children.”
“I appreciate your honesty. It’s
commendable,” Marks said. “Please. Raise your shirt.”
Ben did. After missing so many meals,
the ridge of scar tissue looked particularly grotesque against his lank
ribcage.
“
Fascinating
,” Marks said. “Still
ticking, after all these years. Do you think it still works?”
Ben dropped his shirt. “I don’t know.”
Alice squeezed his hand, watching her husband intently.
“It doesn’t matter,” Marks said with a
shrug. “We’re not interested in the device. We’re really not that interested in
either of
you
—not even Ms. Coral, Ben. Sorry if that hurts, although it would
appear that you’ve moved on as well. What we’re interested in,” he rummaged in
a satchel on the seat next to him, “is this.” He took an enormous pistol out of
the bag and placed it casually on his thigh. In his other hand, he held an
apple.
Ben nodded. “We brought that here to
trade.”
“Trade?”
“We’d like an audience with Roan,” Alice
said. “We’ll discuss our offer at that time.”
“Your
offer
?” Marks said,
eyebrows raised. He wore a bemused grin. “You’re making
Roan
an offer?”
He laughed, shook his head.
“We can help him. And we’re willing to
do that, but he stole from us,” Ben said. “He took something very important
from us.”
Marks’s eyes narrowed. It was clear he
was in the dark, and Ben thought maybe they had some leverage. It might be
small, but it was something.
The big man turned his gaze to the
window, and just like that the conversation was over. Ben followed suit, and
for the first time he took notice of what Roan had done to the city.
The limousine picked its way slowly
through the poorly lit streets. Most of the buildings looked deserted, but
lights glowed in some of the houses they passed. A smattering of men, women and
children walked along sidewalks that had been cleared of debris. They were
bundled against the cold, and every block or so Ben noticed small collections
of people warming themselves around fires glowing inside old metal trash barrels.
“It’s amazing,” Alice whispered.
“Devolution. This…my God, Ben, it looks like something straight out of the
Great Depression.”
Ben shot her a quizzical glance and she
merely shook her head in response. “There’s so many more people here than I
thought,” she said.
Marks nodded. “We’ll do our first census
when the weather turns in the spring. Isn’t that a novel idea, Alice? A census!
Anyway, it’s hard to be precise but we think there might be between fifty and
sixty thousand souls living in the various quadrants. And how many poor
bastards are making a go of it outside of Roan’s walls?” he shrugged his
shoulders. “Who knows?”
“Where are we going?” Ben said.
“Roan’s house. He and Ms. Coral would
like to ask you a few questions. In person.”
Warden Merrick had kept quiet, but now
he spoke as they approached a roadblock. There was a little kiosk. Merrick
fished a card from his pocket and the window slid open.
“Quad three,” he said, flashing his
identification.
“Thank you, sir,” the sentry replied.
“Open the gate!”
The arm lifted and the limousine passed
through. “I’m in charge of quad two,” Merrick said. “Incarceration and
punishment. The people you just saw on the streets are but a step away from
Roan’s stockades.”
Alice shook her head. “What do you mean?
Are they…are they criminals?”
“Not yet,” Merrick admitted, “but give
them some time and they’ll commit an offense. Their kind always does. Even
after the deck was reshuffled and they had a fresh start, it didn’t take them
long to fall back into their old routines.”
“What do you mean?” Ben said. He felt
something swelling inside of him.
“Quad two is where we relocated the
marginalized. These were people scuffling through life before the Reset. Thugs
and petty criminals, eking out lives for themselves in the black markets.
They’ve shown us nothing to indicate quality or value. Quad two is home to almost
three quarters of our population.”
“And…and how about the other areas?”
Alice said. “How do they work?”
“Quad three is home to Roan’s scouts and
administrators. There are teachers there. Individuals with special skills.
Engineers and the like. I can assure you, our horticulture team has been
very
excited since they were given access to your wares.
“Quad four is home to the wealthiest—the
most…
vital
individuals that survived Calvin’s attacks.”
“And quad one,” Marks chimed in, “is a
no-man’s land. It technically exists inside Roan’s walls, but we don’t venture
in there very often. It’s a hard place, populated by hard people. But it’s
effective. It serves its purpose”
Ben watched the scenery changing all
around them. Here, the homes were brightly lit. They stood further back from
the streets, and some even had iron fencing. When they drove through the
occasional commerce district, he saw a few shops—a few restaurants where people
were actually eating together. At one place, he saw musicians playing
instruments on a stage.
“Effective at what?” Alice said.
Marks smiled. “It keeps
our
people in, and it keeps other people out.”
Alice frowned. “Is Roan that paranoid?
He doesn’t need to be. There’s nothing out there, Marks. Nothing.”
“And yet here you are,” Merrick said.
“Are you,” he grinned, “
nothing
?”
Alice nodded. “I don’t mean anything to
anyone but my husband and the little girl that was taken from us. I’m no threat
to Roan. None at all. I’m no threat to what he’s trying to build here. I just
want our Lucy back.”
“This girl,” Marks said. “Is she a
mutie?”
“She has a disability,” Alice said. “And
she’s ours. You people had no right to take her.”
Marks addressed Merrick. “I know her. The
little sightless one. I expected as much, when Crank told his story. That big
bastard was telling the truth, Merrick. It’s a shame, isn’t it?”
Merrick nodded. They were approaching
another checkpoint.
“What?” Ben said. “What’s a shame?”
Marks smirked. “We just assumed he was
lying. Crank’s never really been confused for being reliable, and Roan thought
he was high. He had Crank executed. The big bastard was skinned, his carcass
fed to the inmates. It was contaminated, I’m sure, but beggars can’t be
choosers.” He shrugged. “Guess it turns out that he was telling the truth.”
The sentries waved the limousine through
the checkpoint and the driver nudged the vehicle onto an expressway. The road
wasn’t lit and it was surreal to see the dark and deserted bowels of Atlanta as
they traveled the boundary of the city’s core. Far below the expressway, Ben noticed
occasional flurries of spark. He squinted. “Is that…?”
Marks nodded. “They’re expanding the
wall. When Roan’s scouts clear downtown, Atlanta will stand on its own two feet
once again.”
The driver departed the freeway. They’d
passed only two other vehicles. They cleared another guarded checkpoint and
turned onto a densely wooded residential street. There was a sign, illuminated
by a pair of upturned lights.
BROOKHAVEN
Here, antique streetlights twinkled
every few feet, and homes with sprawling, snow-covered yards and expansive
porches sat evenly spaced on huge plots of land. “How on earth…?” Alice
muttered.
“Hard work,” Merrick replied with
obvious pride.
“But the job’s just starting,” Marks
said. “Despite everything we’ve accomplished, we still haven’t had much success
in agriculture. It’s been…well, it’s been one of our greatest failings, to be
honest.”
Ben pursed his lips, lost for a moment
in the memory of that beautiful summer he and Alice had spent tending the
garden together. He ached to be back home at the miracle farm (for that was how
he thought of it now—as home), but he also thought of the Lawtons.
He thought of Lucy.
“We can help you with that,” Ben said at
last.
“Oh, we believe you,” Marks said as the
limousine passed through an ornate wrought-iron gate. There were armed men, maybe
dozens of them, positioned along the cobbled lane that led to the mansion
glittering at the top of the hill. “In fact, we’re counting on it, Ben. You can
be sure of that.”
THIRTY-NINE
They
were searched yet again inside the foyer of the mansion. Roan was a very
careful man, it seemed. His home was a revelation. The ceilings stretched
impossibly high and a pair of graceful staircases bordered the space, providing
access to a veranda overlooking the enormous front room. Golden light filtered
down through crystal chandeliers, lending the room an almost heavenly glow.
It was beyond anything Ben had ever
seen, either before or after the Reset.
Marks noticed their admiration. “It once
belonged to a wealthy communications magnate. It would have been a shame to let
the place fall into disrepair, and Ms. Coral has given it her own personal
touch. She’s quite the designer. This way, then. There’s much to discuss.”
They followed Marks through a series of
stunning rooms. There was a well-stocked library with gilded leather chairs and
mahogany desks. There was a study with vibrant oil paintings on the paneled
walls and an enormous hearth with a cheery fire ablaze in its belly.
A long hallway with art on both walls
terminated in a pair of French doors; Marks pushed them open and they walked
into a cozy banquet hall.
“This room is for more intimate meals.
There’s a larger dining facility, but Roan’s found little use for it. It’s not
like we’re hosting heads of state for dinner, of course.
“Please, Alice. Have a seat,” Marks
said, ushering them both around the table. “Here you are, Ben. Make yourselves
comfortable.”
The circular table was set for seven.
Marks and Merrick sat across from the Stones. A pair of servants in formal wear
entered the room with wine. They moved efficiently, filling their glasses.
Ben picked up his glass just as the door
at the far end of the room opened wide and a man that was instantly familiar,
despite all the years that had passed, strode into the room. He wore a bright
smile.
“Good evening, everyone,” he said. He
walked around the table and shook hands with Alice and Ben. “I’m Quentin
Dunbar.”
“We know who you are,” Alice said. Her
smile showed her surprise.
“Please—don’t be so shocked,” Dunbar
said. He shook hands with Marks and Merrick and took his seat next to the head
of security. “More than a few Human Accord officials survived the Reset, you
know. I’m not the only one—just had the highest ranking when the shit hit the
fan.”
His wine glass was filled and he sipped
it with relish. “Thank you, thank you,” he said. “Damn, that’s good.”
He was charismatic and handsome, still
(and strangely) deeply tanned. He had silver hair and white teeth and he looked
every bit the politician he had been in 2038, when he had stood before the
American people and lobbied, with a perfectly dour expression, for birthing
restrictions on all citizens in the marginalized economies.
Dunbar had worked tirelessly to enact
policies that would shrink the marginalized population. His had always been a
hardline approach—even going so far as to propose that poor expectant fathers
survive a twenty-four-hour test of endurance in order to earn the right to
raise a family.
He’d made Alice’s skin crawl before the
Reset, and now he was seated across from her. She shook her head in disgust.
“Was it your idea to separate the people here in Atlanta? What am I saying—of
course it was.”
Dunbar grinned. “It’s
always
worked, Alice. Tell me, where did you live before you left Atlanta? We’ll find
out in due time, so save me the hassle.”
She turned away from him and Dunbar focused
on Ben.
“Hey, Ben! Quite the green thumb you’ve
got there, son! We’ll find good work for you here. Good work for
you both
.
In fact, I think you’ll…”
Before he could finish the sentence, the
door snapped open and a little man and a tall woman walked into the room.
Ben swallowed hard. Damn, it was really
her.
Coraline.
And she was stunning.
Still tall, still slender, she wore a
long ivory dress that displayed her shapely arms and shoulders and long,
graceful neck. Her chest, and the scars Ben knew still stretched the length of
her sternum, were concealed by the stylish garment.
She looked just like the runner she’d
been back on the ranch, when they’d taken so many jogs together through the
Deschutes National Forest.
She had trussed her blond hair with
silver ribbons and her blue eyes shone from across the room.
She looked just the same, all except for
the ugly scar that snaked down from her forehead and across her left cheek. It
terminated at the little dimple just to the left of her mouth. She smiled at
them, and Ben’s heart went numb.
It wasn’t
her
smile. It held
nothing of the warmth, of the playful companionship and honest, open affection
that had bound them to each other all those years ago on Oregon’s high desert. This
smile was a rictus—a thin and pained expression that spoke to sadness and…and
anger
?
And the eyes…they said the same thing.
She studied Ben with contempt, as thinly veiled as the disdain a general might
hold for his opponent on the night before battle.
“Coraline,” Ben said.
“Hi, Ben,” she replied. “I always knew
you were still out there.”
The little man (Ben assumed he had to be
Roan) craned his neck upward to regard Coraline with amusement. “It’s a damned
small world, isn’t it?” he said. His voice had a raspy quality to it, and it
grated on Ben. “So…you two kids finally found each other. After all these
years. Pity it’s under such rough circumstances. Come, Coral. Let’s not be
ungracious hosts.”
He might have topped out at 5’5”. Coraline
easily had five inches on him. Ben guessed, based on Roan’s stilted gate, that the
little tyrant might even be wearing lifts in his shoes.
He sported a spiffy tuxedo with a pale
green pocket square. His dark hair had been slicked back and a pair of tiny spectacles
sat atop a nose just a hair too big for his face.
This
was Roan?
This
was the
man Coraline had chosen to be with?
“I’m Alice Stone,” Alice said. She
smiled sweetly at Roan and Coraline. “Ben’s wife.”
Marks and Dunbar were amused by Alice’s
forward introduction, and it had the intended effect on Ben. He stopped staring
at Coraline and turned to Alice; he took her hand.
Roan and Coraline joined them. Seated
just a few feet from her, Ben noticed that she’d tried to conceal the scar with
powder. A sudden sadness for the girl he’d loved so completely filled him. How
had she been disfigured? What pain and sadness had she been forced to live
with, in the aftermath of the Reset?
“I always knew you’d come to Atlanta,”
Coraline said, staring intently at Ben. “I just didn’t think it would take you so
long to get here.”
“I…listen, I tried, Corr,” Ben
stammered. “I looked
everywhere
for you. I came here a few times, I
swear...”
“Before we even met,” Alice interjected,
“Ben had made plans to come looking for you again. Even though he’d almost been
killed in the past—even though he’d ducked into the city
multiple times
,
he was going to try again. I promise you, Coraline, Ben never gave up on you.
Never
.”
Coraline sipped her wine, turning her
attention to Alice. Her blue eyes narrowed over the rim of the glass. “You’re
beautiful, Alice. I’m sorry about…about what happened to your husband.” Her
voice was perfectly neutral. There was no anger there, no protest. Just one
stranger expressing sincere sympathy to another, and Alice smiled and nodded in
response.
Roan just shook his head. He grinned at
Dunbar. “Women, am I right? It’s like we’re not even here!”
He leaned forward. “Hey, Ben? Alice?
This is a business dinner, okay? Let’s keep our eyes on the ball tonight.
Coraline and ol’ Benny here might have a history, but that doesn’t mean one
fucking thing anymore. You two have something I want.” He locked eyes with Ben.
“And I recently learned that I have something you want as well. Perhaps we can
make a deal.” He chuckled. “Wow. I mean, who would have thought that a pathetic
little mutie could be such a bargaining chip, am I right?”
Roan took a long pull on his wine. “Oh,
well. Such is life in these barbarous times. Now,” he rubbed his palms
together, “let’s eat, shall we?”
The door to the galley snapped open and
a cadre of servants delivered bowls of steaming soup. It smelled like potato
chowder; Ben’s stomach pitched violently at the scent.
“Dig in,” Marks said, and Ben and Alice
had to check themselves to keep from scarfing the soup down in seconds. Despite
the tension in the room, there was still an air of decorum. There was still a
pretense of civility.
“So tell me, Ben—what’s left of
Jacksonville?” Roan asked after a bit of small talk. “My scouts pretty much
stay clear of the city proper. They said there’s a bad fellow that’s set up
shop there—some hopped-up warlord who fancies disembowelment as a punitive
measure.”
Ben shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you, Mr.
Roan,” he replied. “I haven’t been there in years.”
“So this,” Roan said, fishing a bit of
potato from his bowl and displaying it to Ben, “didn’t come from Jacksonville?”
“How should I know?”
“Because it came from
your stores
,
Benny m’boy. It came from
your
supplies. When you two were having your
little lunch break back at the park and we hit you with the tranks, we took
everything
.
We’ve been working around the clock since then. Around. The. Clock.”
Marks put his spoon down. He cocked his
head. “Is there more where this came from, Ben? Do you…do you have seeds? You
can answer too, Alice, if you’d prefer.”
They shared a glance. Ben nodded.
“We can produce any kind of fruit or
vegetable that you want, Mr. Roan,” Alice said. “Where is our Lucy?”
“She’s fine,” Roan said. “The girl
hasn’t been harmed.”
“Can we see her? We’d like to verify
that for ourselves.”
“Not just yet, I’m afraid. Tell me, is this
Lucy the
only
reason we caught you two trespassing in my city? The walls
will be finished soon, by the way. You two were captured in the very last
section that was still fairly open. Unlucky for you, of course, but more good
fortune for me.”
Alice sighed. “Look, we have no problem
sharing with you, Mr. Roan.” God, how it hurt her to lie like that! An image of
her murdered husband, of the horrible things they’d done to him, flashed in her
mind and she bit the inside of her cheek to quell the sudden urge to cry. “There
are people here that need fresh food. We know that, and we can help you feed
them. We just want our girl back, and then we’ll be on our way.”
The soup plates were cleared and the
main course was delivered. “You’ll have to forgive us for forgoing the salad
course,” Roan quipped, “but maybe we can remedy that little oversight in the very
near future. This, by the way, is just about our
finest
Angus beef.
Coraline insisted on nothing but the best for her old school chum.”
Coraline just stared at her plate. When
she looked up, there was a cool grayness in her eyes. She offered Roan a
dismissive smile and looked away.
“My darling is really quite shy tonight,
Benny m’boy. You certainly have had an effect on her.”
They endured another awkward moment
before Dunbar clapped his hands. “Let’s eat, shall we? We can manage that,
can’t we kids?”
Roan grinned, and a servant stepped
forward and lifted the warmer on a steaming, thinly sliced rib roast. Carrots
and potatoes and onions rested in a thin au jus, and Ben felt the saliva
flowing in the back of his mouth. Another servant moved from chair to chair,
depositing a dollop of white sauce on each plate.
“Sour cream,” Roan said. “Produced by our
very own dairy cows. Not bad, eh?”
Alice ignored the man’s boasts. “How can
we be sure?” she said. “How do we know you aren’t lying to us about dinner? I
know what happened to my husband. I know what you do with the prisoners in the jail
quad. Do you really expect us to believe that this is beef?”
Roan chuckled. “Avoid it altogether, if
you like. Your loss.”
He nodded his head, the gesture an act
of concession. “Look, I’ll admit that I’ve consumed human flesh, Alice. I had
to. You do what you have to do to survive. But it’s been
years
. Years.
I’ve dined on nothing but good old prime beef since my little organization climbed
the ladder. The product might be tough, sure,” he shrugged. “Our cattle might
be a little underfed, given our problems in producing decent feed—but it’s beef
nonetheless. Like I said, you don’t have to eat it. I’m sure we can find a home
for it if you’d prefer not to join us.”
A servant parceled out portions, and
Alice reluctantly accepted hers. Roan ate like a slob. He chatted with food in
his mouth, punctuating his points with little jabs of his bloody steak knife. “Look,
you two, we’re trying here. Honestly, we really are. We’ve got electricity.
We’ve got livestock. We’ve got schools and a hospital and restaurants and three
different marketplaces. We’ve got irrigation and sewers. We’re...we’re
rebuilding our population. You might just consider staying here, even with your
precious Lucy back in the fold. Hell, you just might like it.