The Veil (Testaments I and II) Page 3

  Abel is fully loaded. I aim and take down some yuppie with a ponytail. A fraction to the right some office junior ignores the danger he’s in, the way all of them do. He looks a lot more junior without his head. Now Frieda’s right arm is free and some steel has come to her hand. I see her fit two, wait, three cartridges into her shotgun. It’s enough. She steers the barrel under the chin of some drippy, wet nosed secretarial type and makes a big mess. Gasping through a mask of hot gore she turns to the final Commuter but he turns with her. I aim but can’t fire because I could just as easily hit her now they’re moving so much. A hand takes hold of my shoulder. Without even looking I bring the butt up and stab it backward, this gives me long enough to turn and decapitate my suited assailant with a single shot.

  Frieda’s waltz with her last determined abductor has become frantic.

  “Get the fuck off me, you piece of scum.”

  I’ve never heard Frieda swear before. If she makes it through this she’ll be a changed woman. Believe me, I know.

  “Forget his head. Shoot his leg out.”

  She nods, teeth showing, points the shotgun down and kneecaps the Commuter. The dance ends. I pull Abel tight and the Commuter’s head evaporates. Frieda’s a real mess now.

  “Reload and run, babe. We’re going home.”

  “I’m out.”

  “Shit. Take these.”

  I hold out five cartridges. Her hands are iron-steady. She focuses like some kind of silently chanting priest as she counts the cartridges into the breech. Like I said, a changed woman. Side by side we lope back to the wall. It’s farther away than I thought but it’s makeable.

  Easily makeable.

  “Sherri!”

  I don’t know where my concentration was for just that one second. To my left there’s a group of Commuters coming in really fast. Sprinting. I don’t remember seeing them move like that before. They look like… like a pack. I’ve already made the necessary mental calculations. We don’t have enough shots to take them all down. We can fire but we have to make it to the wall. We have to race the fuckers.

  “Just run,” I scream. “Get to the ladders!”

  Monty and the rest of the crew are up there now and their faces remind me of the Commuters so much because they believe they are about to lose something precious. Isn’t that a nice thought? That we are a part of them they don’t want to be without. Take it forward a few months when the numbers are down still more. Each one of us that doesn’t make it back brings the rest closer to the end. The end we’ve all begun to believe is inevitable. Their expressions change, worsen. Hands are lifting to cover mouths. As they do I hear the sound of a shotgun clattering to the road and skittering away. Frieda has tripped. She is falling. Her hands are held out in front to protect herself. I gauge the distance between this new mob of running Commuters and us, and the distance between us and the wall. We can still do it but she has to land well and rise quickly for it to be possible. I realize, as a manic half-laugh escapes me, that this is the worst shift I’ve been on. Ever.

  Frieda falls, rolls and stands again, like a stuntwoman. I could kiss her.

  But then I see she can’t run. Her left foot is hanging at a strange angle. She hops onward but she’s falling back. The Commuters change course. They don’t want us anymore. They want her.

  I should keep running. I’ve watched her ass all night. I’ve been back once for her already. Once more than anyone else would have. She’s grunting against the pain and pushing herself on. She’s acting like someone who wants to live. And I decide then: Frieda is not a suicide. She’s a survivor. Like me, before I crewed, she just hasn’t developed the stomach for violence yet. I turn back and our eyes meet.

  She sees me. She sees the wall behind me. She sees the pack of racing Commuters and many more coming from beyond. She stops hopping. It’s like someone switched off the power to a remote control robot. She shakes her head at me, almost shrugging with her eyes. Frieda is not going to make it. She ain’t never coming back.

  The pack slam into her and they all go down. There’s still time.

  I draw the Paramedic from my boot and walk calmly to the downed scrum of bodies. Frieda’s face is pale in the green glow of the city’s unnatural night as the Commuters maul her, try to haul her in several directions at once. She looks desperate, impatient.

  I aim between her eyes, where they shoot horses.

  And then I run. Like a survivor. Like a person who wants to stay alive.

  “What the fuck did you think you were doing out there?” I don’t answer. Can’t.

  Monty paces the cellar, pushing clawed fingers through his thinning hair again and again. The rest of the crew has been dismissed. He doesn’t want anyone else to hear this. That’s why we’re sitting back in the basement where we started out. I don’t know what time it is but it must be long after midnight. We’ve been sitting here in silence a long time already. Maybe Monty was waiting for me to say something first. Or maybe he just couldn’t think how to begin.

  Now he has. But I don’t feel like I ever want to speak again.

  “No one goes back, Sherri. Ever. You know that.”

  He’s stopped pacing now and he’s eyeballing me, but I’m staring through some gritty patch of basement floor. My mind’s a jungle of movement but my body’s a piece of stone. Maybe this is how catatonics feel. Alive within a motionless carapace. Monty reaches into one of the many pockets of a Banana Republic reporter jacket. Most of the pockets are full of shells. This is ammo of a different sort.

  He taps a Marlboro from the soft pack, holds it out. I could start smoking, I suppose, but I refuse.

  “Tell me what happened, Sherri. Tell me what went through your mind. I need to know what’s going on inside you. You’re old school as far as this thing goes, an elder of the crew, if you will. People look up to you whether you know it or not. They respect you. If you start taking risks, they will too. That means we lose, Sherri. It means we lose quick. And if they don’t think it was bravery that motivated you, they’ll think you’re a suicide and that’s worse.”

  I’m able to meet his gaze now but still no words come.

  “See, I can understand your thinking. Rather, I can understand thought had nothing to do with it. It’s where we all fall down. All of us. Even me. We’re not soldiers. We don’t have that discipline, that detachment, that remote control conditioning that makes us do things by the numbers out there. What we need are some fucking marines in here. Not just to do the crewing but to teach us how to do it properly.”

  He smokes for a while. Less tense, it seems.

  “In the old world… in the old city what you did tonight would mark you out as a hero, Sherri. Not only that, you acted out of utterly selfless compassion for another human being. You put your life at risk to save Frieda Hartley. It was the action of a saint.”

  He takes a big drag on his Marlboro, deflating its cylindrical skin, drawing a too-long red tip on it. He drops the butt to the damp ground and crushes it under his boot. Then he breathes out a mist of judgement and speaks for the last time tonight.

  “I love you, Sherri. I love you like my own child. But I’m standing here to tell you, you can never do that again. If I think you’re going to behave that way on my shift, if I get an inkling that you’re wigging out, if I think you look distracted or anything other than focused on wiping out Commuters, I will not allow you to crew again. Once I make that decision, I won’t unmake it. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  I really do feel like a sullen teenager. Is that just because we all step into the nearest, most appropriate roles for us? Is it because I miss my dad?

  I stand up from the crate that’s been turning my ass into a waffle and place myself a foot in front of Montgomery Wichita Spence. I look him in the eye and fold him in half with my fist. For years I’ve been practicing Bruce Lee’s one-inch-punch. I can’t do it with one inch but I can do it with six. While he struggles for breath, I leave. Some nights, I’m just not in the moo
d for conversation.

  ***

  Trixie rolls a double six and moves four white counters six spaces before scooping her ivory dice back into their fur-lined leather shaker. She’s a lucky girl but not as lucky as me. Right now I’m letting her win because I’m playing right-handed. I shake with my right hand, move the counters with my right hand. Playing this way leaves me vulnerable to the whims of the universe. When it comes to backgammon, I can survive a little rotten luck. Especially if it means seeing Trixie jump around like she’s queen of the city. If I play left-handed, I never lose. I get the numbers that stack my counters up like the walls of the Station. I get doubles ad infinitum. I land on every unguarded enemy counter. Usually, I save my left hand for playing Ike. He hates to lose.

  “Nice tricks, Trix,” I say after her double sixes.

  She sticks out her tongue. I’m the only one who calls her Trix. I’m one of the only ones she talks to even after all these months. Still, she doesn’t say much. We communicate by implication much of the time. By reading each other’s auras. By passing time together.

  I roll three and four from my right hand. My counters are a mess, no formation, singles left unmarked. Trixie takes full advantage on her next turn, sending two of my counters off the board. Already she’s getting her counters home and out. Looks like I’ll still have some in the starting box.

  Ten rolls later and the game is hers.

  She leaps up and does her victory dance. I don’t think anyone else in the Station has seen her this uninhibited. All of us are damaged but Trixie’s damage tore off her old skin and now she’s someone new. Someone I allow myself to be with without knowing. Do you think perhaps that’s how we all are with each other, how we always were before all this? Did anyone really know anyone else or did they just pretend to because it made them feel better than admitting they understood nothing of each other?

  Trixie is an island and there are no maps to tell you where her active volcanoes are situated, where her unpolluted streams are, her quicksand, her tribes of hungry cannibals.

  She sits down on a beanbag with a heavy flump. I swear she does this because she wants to see if she can burst it. One day I think she may succeed. I won’t bawl her out over it. Probably we’ll both fall around laughing until one of us starts to cry. We’ll cry because nothing matters anymore. Not true, we’ll cry because some things don’t matter anymore and others matter more than ever. The rules are all different. We don’t yet understand this new world.

  Her words, coming as they do from a planet of mostly silent gestures, startle me.

  “Why don’t the other women talk to you, Sherri Foley?”

  And then their meaning startles me worse. What do I say to her? Because I can shoot a gun and fight better than most men in the Station? Because they think I’ll try to munch their rugs? Because I have a wounded heart and a tongue like a bullwhip? Trixie’s just a girl. No, forget I said that. This world has no children, no matter how poor in years a soul may be. Still, what do I tell her? She’s taken a risk. Come out of verbal hiding in order to pose a question. Maybe she’s been thinking about it for weeks.

  Maybe months.

  I take a breath to reply. I really do want to try to explain. But there’s a problem. Three little words that have replaced the ones we all used to be so fond of. So I tell her that instead. “I don’t know.”

  She is very still for a long time. Far longer than any child ought to be capable of. Then she yawns and struggles out of the beanbag. She reaches a hand out to me and I struggle out of mine. We leave the backgammon set as it is, a battleground where the recent victory is still very obvious. In the old world I could never have afforded an item like this. Mine would have been plastic and cardboard, not ebony, ivory, oak, fur and leather. But it might as well be plastic and cardboard for these things no longer matter to us. Trixie leads me to my bedroom and, still yawning, strips down to her vest and pants.

  She has tiny points of nipple under which breasts have been willed to her, yet to be bequeathed. A suggestion of filament-like hair has taken root under her arms, and down covers her legs from ankle to groin. She is straight, going to be very tall if she lives that long, but has no curves yet to speak of. She is eleven years old. It won’t be long now. She sits down on the bed with a bounce and collapses into it as though she’s been running up and down hills all day.

  I wish I could say she reminds me of me when I was eleven but she doesn’t. I was shorter, later in developing, happier, stupider.

  I strip off and put on a long t-shirt but I keep my pants on.

  I slip into bed beside her and she snuggles back toward me, hauls my arm over her and nestles, hiding from the day world. I’m a lot more comfortable when Trixie stays with me than when I stay with Ike or when he stays here. I feel at peace. Only months before now a grown woman sleeping with a child this age would have been seen as deviant behavior, verging on the criminal. Some kind of abuse. Now it is absolutely and unequivocally necessary.

  Because our time is ending. Because this contact is all we have.

  As peaceful as I am, sleep is a long time coming. Trixie sleeps the moment her eyes are closed but in this surrender of her conscious mind she is paying a price I may never understand. Already her eyes are screwing up and her face is twisting into one of its many expressions of terror and abandonment. She will dream this way all night or all day and wake looking more tired than when she went to sleep.

  I hold her tight and still I am afraid. I hold her tight because I am afraid.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Money has no value here anymore. We share most of the stuff we find and if we come across something particularly special we keep it for ourselves. No one cares. There’s plenty to go round. A whole city’s worth of stuff between a couple hundred people.

  Day shifts are different. There’s no Kill Crew out there. No Commuters. There are three rules you can break at your own peril: one, you don’t leave the Station alone. Two, you don’t leave the Station unarmed. Three, you always tell someone you’re going out. There’s an unspoken rule too: if you bring stuff back, bring it for everyone, not just for yourself. For the good of the Station. For the good of the Stoppers. Got our own little communist kibbutz going here, I swear.

  Today I’m taking Trixie out. She says she wants some new games to play but I plan to walk her way the hell away from the Station. Far enough that she can forget about it for a few hours. Maybe in the rhythm of our footsteps on the deserted streets she’ll find a way to talk to me. I can only hope for that. I can’t make it happen. This girl needs healing and I wish I could be the channel for it. I have to accept it could be my wishing that’s stopping the healing from coming. Sometimes I wonder if I’m really any help to Trixie. If I’m any good to her at all.

  I’m pulling my boots on when there’s a knock at my apartment door. Rap-tappa-rap.

  Shit.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s me. Can I come in?”

  “I know who it is, Ike. What do you want?”

  “Uh… neighborly visit? Pizza delivery? FBI? Whatever opens the door.”

  “I’m not dressed yet,” I say, as I lace up my left combat boot.

  “I can wait.”

  And he will too. That man’s got way too much patience. It’s unattractive.

  In the living room, Trixie’s ready. She’s been up and ready for an hour or more. I study her face without staring and I see she’s unconcerned about Ike. Is she unconcerned that he’s outside the door? Unconcerned that he might want to come with us when he finds out what we’re doing? Or deliberately unconcerned?

  I take my time slipping on my other boot, remove the lace and replace it twice before tying it tight and double. As I walk to the door, Trixie puts away the backgammon as though she’s stacking gold coins.

  “Hey, Ike.”

  “Morning.”

  He’s smiling. Unharmed by waiting, Ike seems to expand when he sees me. I turn and walk away before he tries to lay a kiss on me bu
t when I turn around he hasn’t moved.

  “So, can I come in? I could come back later if you two are busy.”

  I stand with my arms folded.

  “Are you going to tell me what you want?”

  Ike’s gentle eyes harden and I realize I’m being inappropriately bitchy. I don’t even know why. Under his gaze I’m regretting my attitude but I won’t let him see that. He looks like he’s going to say something, you know, politely remind me that we’re sleeping together, going steady, going steadily nowhere, but whatever that thing is, he doesn’t say it. He says, “I was really sorry to hear about Frieda. I know this isn’t the time but if ever you do want to talk about it, Sherri, well… you know what I’m saying.”

  Trixie looks from his face to mine watching every unspoken communication, every buried gesture and emotion. I wish she wouldn’t do that. She doesn’t need to know about this stuff. She’s too young. Then I remind myself that Trixie has seen far worse than this when she was younger than she is now. Who am I to say what she does or doesn’t need? And Ike’s patient, caring blankness is driving me nuts. He’s got no fucking personality at all.

  “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

  Three little words. More than he deserves.

  “You two getting ready to go out?”

  I shrug like we might or might not. Like, who cares anyway?

  “Can I tag along?”

  Tag along? He must know it’s the most lame thing he could have said. The wimpiest way of asking to accompany us he could have dreamed up. He does know. I can see a little burn creeping from his neck to his cheeks. His stature deflates. For a moment I’m happy. I could almost smile.

  “This is a ladies’ day out.”

  “Okay. But… I mean, will you be… safe?”

  “It’s daylight, Ike.”

  “Sure it is… but—”

  I could laugh now. The idea that we need to be accompanied. Protected by Isaac Delgado.