We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3) Read online

  “Come to my office after the day’s work is done. I want to give you a checkup.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Doctor’s orders.”

  Marcus smiled. “Oh all right. Just don’t stick your finger up my ass, you old pervert. My prostate is just fine.”

  The Doctor grinned. “I wouldn’t go there for ten solar panels and a thousand kilos of clean wheat. That’s Rosie’s job.”

  A middle-aged man hurried up to him, his bare, muscled arms grimy with grease. “Doc, I need to talk to you.”

  “What is it, Kevin?”

  “It’s about getting the Hummer back from Weissman.”

  The Doctor rolled his eyes. “We’ve been through this.”

  “He doesn’t know how to take care of it! It will deteriorate. What if he leaves it out in the rain?”

  “He’s smart enough to keep it sheltered.”

  “We need to offer him some trade to get it back.”

  The Doctor frowned. “Trade with the enemy? I don’t think so.”

  “His people can’t fix it! It’s useless to him. He’ll trade it cheap.”

  “No. We have enough vehicles.”

  “But Doc—”

  The Doctor took two steps forward, making the bigger man cringe and step back. “I told you twice goddammit NO!”

  Kevin flung up his hands and hurried away. The Doctor strode out of the warehouse, Marcus and the guard following at a discreet distance.

  He found his trading table set up where it should be just outside the warehouse. To his right and left spread New City, a collection of frame houses and Quonset huts on a spit of land surrounded on three sides by sea and cut off from the mainland by a wall made of steel plates, concrete cinderblocks, and old buses. A heavy steel gate stood open before him, and beyond that spread the shantytown called the Burbs.

  When he sat with Marcus at his side and Kent standing behind, the guards at the gate took that as a signal to let a young Asian woman through. She looked like a typical scavenger, hard-eyed and lean.

  She came up to the table. “Good morning.”

  “You’re late in the season,” The Doctor said.

  “From what I hear that’s a good thing,” the scavenger said as she took off a bulging pack.

  “Oh hey, I know you!” Marcus said, giving her a friendly smile. “You’re that artist’s gal. How’s he doing?”

  The scavenger smiled at him. “My name’s Song Yu-jin. Randy’s doing fine.”

  “Randy, that’s right. He did a fine portrait of me and my wife Rosie—”

  “Can we get on with it?” The Doctor snapped.

  Marcus shrugged. “OK, Doc. Just making conversation.”

  The scavenger started unloading her goods on the table. The Doctor fell into his familiar routine. “The rules are the same as last year. If you have any medical supplies you are required to trade but I have to give you a fair deal. If you have anything New City needs I get first bid, but you don’t have to trade. You need a market stall? There are some available.”

  The scavenger shook her head. “I don’t need a stall. I work at the pottery kiln with Randy in the winter. And I don’t have any medical supplies. I hardly ever find anything like that anymore.”

  She spread out her goods. The Doctor looked through them. There wasn’t much. Trade got worse and worse every year as the scavengers picked everything clean. She had some wiring she’d stripped from an old machine, a collection of electrical switches that looked ten years dead, a few light bulbs, some copper tubing, a car part he couldn’t identify, and a cracked magnifying glass.

  The last thing she took out caught his eye—a pair of Blue Cans, those preserved foods from the Old Times that never went bad. One still had its label, which was a rarity. Holding it this way and that, he couldn’t quite make out the faded lettering. The picture looked like peaches, though.

  God, when was the last time I had peaches? Must have been when North Cape still was a city-state and not a heap of ashes.

  “Marcus, go get Kevin to look at this car part. No, wait, he’ll still be in a sulk, Go get Rachel.”

  “She’ll be in a sulk too. They’re like peas in a pod,” Marcus said as he hobbled off.

  The Doctor looked at his uneven gait with a trace of worry, then turned back to the scavenger. “Well, Ms. Yu-jin, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Blue Can with a label. It’s usually pot luck with them.”

  “Song.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My family name is Song. We put our family names first.”

  “My apologies, Ms. Song. I forgot Koreans do that.”

  The trace of an expression flickered across her broad face, disappearing almost before he noticed it. What was that? He hadn’t been able to build New City out of the wreckage of a fallen civilization without being able to read people. Something in his words had affected her.

  Not that it mattered. She was just a scavenger. And now even the scavengers were organizing because of that weirdo who called himself The Giver. Everyone was against him these days.

  “How much you want for this?” he asked, holding up the can of peaches.

  Song Yu-jin smiled and studied him. “It’s a Blue Can.”

  “I know what it is. I’ll take two of the light bulbs and this tubing as well.”

  “Ten kilos of flour.”

  The Doctor shook his head. “Crops were bad this year, and we got a nasty toxic rain a few weeks back so crops will probably be bad next year too. Price of flour has gone up. I’ll give you six kilos.”

  “Nine. I saw your eyes when you figured out it was peaches.”

  “Have you ever had peaches?”

  Song Yu-jin shook her head. “Do I look that old? My parents told me about them, though.”

  Another flicker of emotion. Sadness this time. Her parents were dead. He wondered if they had been slaughtered by those religious lunatics.

  “They’re not bad,” he said.

  “They’re heavenly,” Yu-jin said, leaning close. The Doctor noticed she had a little silver cross dangling from a chain around her neck. “My father said that once you tasted them, no other fruit ever tasted as good. ‘Sweet, soft heaven,’ that’s what he called them. So you grew up eating peaches? That must have been wonderful. You must really miss them.”

  He shifted in his seat. “You drive a hard bargain, Ms. Song. I’ll give you seven kilos.”

  “Eight kilos or I’ll eat those peaches right in front of you.”

  The Doctor laughed, his voice ringing out and making the guards at the gate turn and look. “Just for that I’ll give you nine kilos, but I get three light bulbs.”

  “Deal,” Yu-jin said with a smile.

  Marcus came back with a mechanic named Rachel, who was even more covered in grease than her husband Kevin.

  “Got any use for this?” The Doctor asked, tapping the strange car part.

  “Huh, a perfectly good muffler,” the woman said as she turned it over in her hands.

  “What’s a muffler?” Yu-jin asked.

  “It stops most of the noise from coming out of an engine,” Rachel explained. “Without one a vehicle is really loud. This isn’t made for any of our vehicles, however.”

  “Damn, that thing’s heavy. I hauled it all the way here for nothing?”

  “Not quite. One of our ATVs is in bad need of a muffler. I could adapt this.”

  “You can adapt anything,” The Doctor said. “But if it’s not an essential part we don’t need it.”

  Rachel lowered her voice. “If we don’t get a muffler for the ATV, we can’t use it if we ever want to, you know, drive somewhere.”

  You mean to Weissberg to teach those sons of bitches a lesson? You haven’t forgiven them for shooting at your husband, have you? Well, neither have I.

  “An unessential part that needs to be adapted doesn’t command good trade, I’m afraid,” The Doctor said aloud.

  “Your machine shop makes good arrowheads, better than
I can make myself,” the scavenger said. “Give me twenty. You don’t have to make the shafts or the fletching, I can do that better than anyone.”

  “The machine shop is a private business. I’d have to make a deal with them, which cuts into my profit,” The Doctor said. “I’ll give you ten arrowheads.”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Sixteen.”

  The Doctor cocked his head. He liked this one. “All right, sixteen.”

  They shook hands to close the deal. The Doctor turned to Marcus. “Make a note of it. We also owe her nine kilos of flour. Take five of them out of my personal stock. I made a private deal for this Blue Can.”

  The scavenger gathered the rest of her things and left. The Doctor stood.

  “Now what’s next?” he asked.

  “Annette Cruz.”

  “Leave her to last.”

  “She’s right over there.”

  “Wonderful,” The Doctor sighed.

  Marcus chuckled. “Get ready, here she comes.”

  The Doctor watched as the sheriff of the Burbs strolled over. If he had been attracted to women he guessed he’d find her good-looking, beautiful even. Despite being in her early thirties she had no trace of cancer or boils or skin infection, not even so much as a sore on her lip. Living in the Burbs like she did, that was a medical miracle. She had dusky skin and long brown hair that she kept tied in a bun when she was on the job. Her eyes were dark too, and had an annoying ability to hold his gaze.

  Most people couldn’t. That Korean scavenger could, though.

  Annette sauntered up to them. An empty pistol holster hung on her hip and another holster for a sawed-off shotgun, also empty, was strapped to her back. If she had been outside the gates those holsters would have been full, but noncitizens weren’t allowed to carry weapons inside New City. Hell, they weren’t even allowed to enter without permission, a rule Annette had developed a bad habit of ignoring. Somehow she was able to intimidate the guards into letting her pass.

  “How may I help you, Sheriff Cruz?” The Doctor said in a suitably sarcastic voice.

  “Different attitude for one,” she said. “Besides that, you need to hear today’s crime report.”

  “Ahmed reported nothing serious.”

  “No serious injuries, but I had to detain three different people for hate speech.”

  The Doctor frowned. When he had founded New City after the fall of North Cape almost forty years ago, one of the first laws he’d passed was against hate speech. Hate was what had wrecked everything.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “A drunk scavenger at $87,953 called Roy an ugly old black bastard.”

  “Ugly? Not when he was younger. Quite the contrary.”

  Annette was unphased. She was never phased by anything he said. It was one of her more irritating traits.

  “It’s still hate speech,” she said.

  “Like he’s never heard that before. His fault running a bar in the Burbs. So his bouncer beat up the latter-day white supremacist and you threw him in that new jail you’re so proud of. Next.”

  “A market trader got in an argument with the deacon of the Baptist church and called him a Bronze Age throwback.”

  “Ha! That’s a good one. What was the third?”

  “Another drunk scavenger. I was arresting him for public disturbance. He was pissing on one of the water pumps—”

  “This is what I love about the Burbs. So refined.”

  “—and he called me a Spic.”

  “Hate speech against the sheriff? A towering genius, to be sure. So what do you want me to do about all this?”

  “Nothing. We can take care of our own law and order. All three are in jail and had to pay restitution to the victims, except the guy who insulted me. He’s paid an extra fine to Burb city funds.”

  “And probably got his ass kicked in the process.”

  A trace of a smile on Annette’s lips told him he was right. The smile quickly changed to a worried frown.

  “Hate speech has been on the rise. It’s the Righteous Horde that touched it off. Brought up too many memories of the religious wars.”

  “Anyone starting to Blame?”

  That would be just what he needed, for people to start Blaming each other for the fall of civilization.

  Annette shook her head. “I’d tell you if that happened. I don’t want to see anyone branded any more than you do, but we can’t have that.”

  “Does your deputy agree?”

  Annette glared at him. “Jackson is loyal.”

  “Jackson is a Blamer.”

  “He’s had his punishment, thanks to you, and that was years ago. I’m just telling you that while I can keep a lid on fistfights and stabbings, there’s not much I can do if everyone goes back to Blaming, and we’re not far off from that. I hope you can come up with something to head that off because I don’t have any ideas.”

  With that she turned and stalked towards the New City gate.

  “Always a pleasure, Annette,” The Doctor sighed, rubbing his temples. He felt a killer headache coming on.

  After a moment Marcus spoke. “Want to get some tea before we see Philip? I’m sure Rosie’s got a kettle going.”

  The Doctor shook his head. The last thing he needed right now was going to Marcus’ house to get served by his relentlessly chipper wife. The only thing more annoying than people who caused trouble were people who ignored it existed.

  “No, let’s see Philip. Where is he?”

  “On the roof, where else?”

  Philip was New City’s best electrician and an expert on solar panels, as much as there was an expert on anything technological in this fallen age. Too young to remember the City-State Wars or the fall of North Cape, he was nevertheless as tied to the Old Times through his love of technology as any of the older citizens were through their fond childhood memories of the days when the lights never went out.

  Philip was a scrawny man in his early forties with a receding hairline who wore thick glasses and moved with a nervous energy. As soon as The Doctor, Marcus, and Kent climbed up the stairs to the warehouse’s graveled roof, Philip ran to them through a forest of solar panels.

  “What seems to be the trouble?” The Doctor asked.

  “Electricity generation is down eight percent this month!” Philip said in something close to a panicked howl. The Doctor always found his manner irritating, but at least he cut through the bullshit and got straight to the point.

  “Why? And why haven’t we seen a drop in power supply?” The Doctor asked.

  “Second question first. Know how it’s been windy and stormy lately? That’s helped the wind turbines pick up the slack, but even so the power cells aren’t at full capacity like they usually are.”

  “So what’s causing the drop?”

  Philip gave the nearest solar panel a nervous glance. “Some of these panels are fifty years old. They’re wearing out.”

  “Solar panels wear out?”

  Philip nodded, his thick glasses flashing in the sunlight. “It takes decades, but they do.”

  “Well, fix them!”

  “I can’t! The substance inside them is a compound that includes rare earths that aren’t found on this region. Hell, they’re hardly even found on this continent. The mines were exhausted ages ago.”

  The Doctor paused. A strange tingling sensation went through him.

  “There’s nothing you could use instead?”

  Philip shook his head.

  “How long?” The Doctor asked.

  “The deterioration speeds up quickly. Within a year, some of these panels will be at half capacity, some will be totally dead. Then the newer panels, the ones made in the final years of the City-States, those will start to go. And you know the wind turbines and tidal generator won’t be able to compensate. No way we can build a tidal generator ourselves, and while we can make more turbines, we don’t have the materials to make enough. Unless we find some rare ea
rths, it will be lights out for the Burbs in a year. We won’t have sufficient power within the walls either.”

  The Doctor walked away without replying. There wasn’t anything to say anyway.

  The rest of the day was a blur. He treated a sprained wrist, checked on the half-empty grain silos, took status reports from the outlying farms, negotiated a quarrel between the fishermen and some market traders, diagnosed Marcus as suffering from angina, and did a thousand other things. But through it all floated one image in the back of his mind—the lights going out in the Burbs. The shantytown outside New City’s walls had always been chaotic and independent. The Burb Council and Sheriff Ballbreaker were just the latest manifestation of an old problem. They’d always been dependent on New City for power, though, and that helped keep them in line. Take that away, and he didn’t even want to think what might happen.

  The only other thought that came to his head was a hope for the day to end. Finally, sixteen nonstop hours after he first opened the door, he went back through it. After telling the evening guards that he was not to be disturbed, he locked the door, closed his eyes, and rested his back against it. A long, despairing sigh passed his lips, followed by a guttural sound that came out like a growl, moan, and sob all in one.

  His eyes opened. Taking a deep breath, he made a beeline to the medicine cabinet in his dispensary. He’d almost forgotten to treat himself.

  Opening a medical kit that bore the proud and all-but-forgotten emblem of the Red Cross, Crescent, and Star, he picked out a vial of white cell rejuvenators, snapped it into a hypo, and gave himself an injection.

  He nodded, satisfied. Another two weeks with a normal immune system.

  The sight of the empty hypo gave him a tug of regret. How many people could he have saved over the years with the medicine he used on himself? But if he had let the virus in his bloodstream kill him, who would be around to save them? He sighed and shook his head as he sterilized the hypo and put it away.

  “Now for the real medicine,” he said to himself.

  Opening another cabinet, he pulled out a sealed bag that contained fresh marijuana buds grown on his personal farmland. Excellent for pain relief, nausea, glaucoma, and a wealth of other complaints. It was the pain relief he was after.