Fight for Power (3 page)

“This road is clear. Check in with Herb, and then I'm going to swing by the neighborhood.”

After Todd radioed down the all clear, I banked to the right and I could see Todd grip the seat and tense up again. I eased off the turn, taking it slowly.

Down below were countless houses, surrounded by little patches of grass, black ribbons of asphalt stretching out, schools and stores and offices. If it hadn't been for the abandoned cars littering the streets and the burned-out houses and buildings dotting the landscape here and there, I could have almost convinced myself that nothing was wrong.

“It looks so peaceful down there,” I said over the intercom.

“I'm not sure how you can think it's peaceful,” Todd said.

“I didn't say it
was
peaceful, just that it
looked
peaceful. Height and distance are deceptive.”

“I wish it was all just deception, all just a trick. That I could close my eyes and open them again and it would be like it was. I'd be sitting beside you in your beautiful beat-up old car and us driving around, getting ready for a great summer and maybe finding a couple of girls to share it with.”

“I have a girlfriend,” I said.

“No, you don't understand, those couple of girls were for
me
. Then again, a couple might not be enough.”

“You're right. The rate that girls break up with you, a couple would only get you through July at most,” I joked.

“Strange how that happens,” Todd said. “I think I'm an acquired taste, like a fine wine, and sometimes the ladies don't appreciate what they have until it's gone.”

What a thought. Did any of us really appreciate something until it was gone?

I thought back to the lives we'd led just ten weeks ago. We had electricity, cell phones, fresh water, food, order, school, families, and a future that seemed certain and secure. Now we had
this
.

Then again, maybe I should appreciate what we had now because it had almost been taken from us. We were only one blown-up bridge away from death, or worse. How strange to think there was something worse than death.

“There's our school about a mile up ahead,” I said.

Todd gripped the side of the seat and tentatively looked over. “I can't see it.”

“Follow the line of the road.” I gestured with my hand. “See where it intersects with that other big divided street?”

“Yeah, I got it! I see the school and the police station across the road. You know, it does all look pretty normal.”

“Normal just means what you're used to. It's starting to feel to me like this is the new normal, us needing to carry weapons, the neighborhood walled off, me flying this ultralight—”

“Hundreds of dead men at the bottom of the valley?” he asked.

That, too.

“I didn't want to admit it to anybody, but I couldn't be down there,” Todd said. “The only reason I agreed to be here in your flying contraption was to get away from there. How pathetic is it that I'd rather risk death than face the dead?”

“It's not pathetic. I didn't want to be there either. I don't think either one of us will ever get to the point that that wouldn't bother us. That's just being human. It bothers everybody.”

“Even Herb?” Todd asked.

“Even Herb. Some people just handle it better.”

We were all alive because of Herb's ability to handle it better. He didn't just understand but was able to plan and then put his plans into action. He didn't just know what to do but was prepared to do it.

“Don't get me wrong,” Todd said. “I'll try to do whatever we need to do to help us survive. It's that some things are just … just so … difficult.”

“I get it,” I said.

But Todd didn't even know the half of what had happened. So much of what I'd seen, so much of what I knew, I couldn't talk to anybody about except my mother and Herb—and the bits and pieces I gave to Lori. She was the only good thing that had come of all of this. That was one dream that had come true among the nightmares that surrounded us.

“You know if you ever need to talk, I'm here,” I said.

“Most of the time you're
not
here. You're off on some mission with Herb or up here in your plane or lost inside your own head.”

“Well, you're always welcome to come up here with me.”

“I might take you up on that. It's not
too
terrifying.”

We were now right over the school.

“So there's where it all started,” Todd said.

“What do you mean?”

“Don't you remember? We were sitting in that computer lab working on my assignment when it hit.” He paused. “It's unbelievable that it's only been ten weeks.”

“Actually it's been slightly less than ten weeks. Sixty-six days,” I said.

“Don't be so nitpicky. Right down there is where the virus started.”

“It started
everywhere
, it hit
everywhere
around the world,” I said. At least that's what Herb thought … what he picked up on the shortwave … what made sense. “We're all in this together.”

“But that's where it started for
us
, for me and you. Right there. One minute my biggest worry was getting an assignment in, and the next,
poof
, no computers, no lights, and no cars. God, we had no idea how bad it was going to get.”

“Nobody knew.” Although Herb had suspected. But who could have really known that the entire world would be plunged into chaos in the blink of an eye?

Below us was the proof. No computers, no electricity, no water, no sanitation, no food distribution, gangs of armed people scrounging and fighting, just trying to survive. The same way we were trying to survive.

“The school looks pretty normal from up here,” Todd said. “Even the cars in the parking lot make it look like a regular school day.”

Those cars in the parking lot had been there from that first day, when the virus had rendered them undrivable. If we'd been low enough we'd have seen that the cars were vandalized, that equipment had been tossed through the school windows, lying on the ground where it fell.

“There's not much left of the police station, though,” Todd said.

The station—my mother's old precinct house—had been abandoned and all the equipment moved into our neighborhood. People had attacked it, looking for something to help them. Finding nothing, they had destroyed it. It had been set on fire. The whole roof was gone, burned up. All that remained of the station were the bricks and stones and charred wood.

Herb had said that arson was an act of anger and that anger had been hurled against the station because people felt like they'd been abandoned by the police. Some people
had
been abandoned. A hard decision had to be made, and my mother had made it. They couldn't protect
anybody
if they tried to protect
everybody
. She and some of her officers had retreated into the confines of our neighborhood. There, they helped protect us, and the neighborhood helped protect them.

That was what had happened today at the bridge. That was just us trying to protect ourselves. Nothing more. Nothing less. We killed the men in the trucks because if we hadn't they would have killed us. I knew that. I had to just keep saying it to make me feel less like a murderer and more like a soldier.

“It's not normal and it's not peaceful down there, but I don't see anything that's a danger,” I said to Todd.

“I'm glad. Herb had me scared.”

“He never tries to scare people.”

Todd looked over at me. Okay, maybe that wasn't strictly true. I tried again. “He never says things just to try to scare people. He wants to warn them, get them prepared. In fact, there's so much he never says to most people.” I stopped myself. Now I was saying too much.

“I've always found it's easier to be ignorant.”

I laughed. “I've noticed. It would be easier, but I don't think it would be better. I want to know what's going on.”

“And do you really know?” Todd asked.

“Anybody who thinks he knows everything is stupid,” I said. “Even Herb is only making guesses.”

“Well, if he's the one who is really running the place, I hope his guesses are mostly right. Or we're in even worse trouble than I thought.”

“The committee is in charge, and he's part of it. Really, in the end, maybe my mother has the most authority, although she and everybody else have learned to listen to what he has to say. But in the end, it's the committee that makes the decisions.”

The committee was made up of my mother, as the police captain, along with Herb, Judge Roberts, Councilor Stevens, the fire chief, two engineers, a lawyer, Howie, who was one of my mother's officers in charge of the forces on the wall, and three other people in charge of various departments in the neighborhood, including Lori's father, Mr. Peterson, who was in charge of all the efforts to grow food.

I couldn't let the conversation distract me from what I was sent up here to do. I was now high enough to have a look along Highway 403, over its bridge and into the distance. There was nothing that could present danger. Well, immediate danger.

Now I could see our neighborhood. The perimeter was clearly visible. Inside the walls I could make out the lush green of crops growing, sprouting up in large patches that used to hold the school playing field and the electrical towers, in front yards and backyards, and along the walking paths. Sprinkled like diamonds among the fields were swimming pools, now used to store water for drinking and washing and irrigation—and flushing our toilets manually—along with the glass of dozens of little greenhouses that had been put together from windows and materials scavenged from the surrounding buildings and cars that had been destroyed or abandoned.

I came in low over the north wall. It seemed like everybody was out on the street, and as I passed they jumped up and down and waved. While I couldn't hear them over the noise of my engine, I could see them screaming out.

“It looks like a street party down there,” Todd said.

“People are so relieved that they're out celebrating.”

“Just get me on the ground—alive—and I'll join in that celebration.”

“I have to bring us around so that we're landing into the wind,” I explained.

I did a low, long, slow bank that would take us over the woods and the highway before coming back around to land from the north with the wind in our faces.

“I can't believe how many more tents there are down there in the woods,” Todd said.

There were little flashes of red and yellow and orange canvas and nylon visible through the foliage of the trees south and west of our neighborhood. “They're springing up like mushrooms.”

“I sure as heck wouldn't want to be camping out,” Todd said.

“I don't know if anybody wants to camp as much as they don't have any choice. Maybe their homes have been destroyed or they think it's safer to be hidden among the trees.”

“How can it be safer to be behind canvas instead of walls?”

“Walls only help if you can defend them. There are lots of people out there taking advantage of anybody who doesn't have a way to defend themselves, so they hide in the forest instead.”

“I guess we're lucky to have what we have.”

“Luck is only part of it,” I agreed. “Hang on, we're going to come in now.”

I'd made a full turn and we were coming back toward the neighborhood. I was going to land the ultralight right on my street.

“Didn't you once tell me that landing is one of the most dangerous times?” Todd asked.

“You heard me wrong. It isn't
one
of the most dangerous times. It's
the
most dangerous time.”

“I'm okay with you keeping more of this stuff away from me. Feel free to offer reassuring lies at any time.”

“Okay, there's nothing to be worried about. This is so simple that even you could land the plane. Is that better?”

“Much better.”

We crossed back over the highway, dipping under the useless electrical wires linking the towers, and then dipped down lower and lower, so low I could see the guards on the walls. They waved wildly at us as we passed over.

“Isn't the ground coming up too fast?” Todd demanded as he braced himself.

“Of course not. It's not coming up at all. It's just that we're going down real fast.”

We were now lower than the houses—fifteen feet, ten, five, and I looked up—there were people on the road! In all the excitement I'd forgotten to check the street! I went to pull up, but they scrambled out of the way and the road suddenly opened. The wheels touched down on the roadway with a bump and a big bounce. I hit the brakes hard and throttled back to an idle as we rolled along.

“We made it!” Todd screamed.

Not yet, I thought, as I hit the brakes even harder to bring us to a stop before we ran out of road. Finally we came to a stop. I killed the engine, and the roar of the motor was replaced by the roar of people all around rushing toward us. Todd tried to jump out, but he was held in place by his harness. He struggled with the buckle before I unclicked it for him and he jumped out and was mobbed by people—including his mother and father.

People offered me greetings, handshakes, and pats on the back, but I was only looking for a few people—my sister or brother, or— There she was. Lori pushed through the other people and wrapped her arms around me. No matter what had happened I knew it had all been right.

 

3

I stumbled out of the house and took a deep breath. The fresh air filled my lungs. It was good to get away from the committee meeting, which had just been suspended. It had been going on all morning. Three hours of details about yesterday's attack and its aftermath.