Raising Stony Mayhall (21 page)

“Maybe, but that’s a
hundred years
,” Billy said. “How many years do you think we have before they hunt us all down? How many
months
? You don’t think we’d be better off with just us? We’ll have the entire planet working on the problem of how to save us. We’ll get the smartest people in the world—”

“Whoever’s left after the outbreak.”

Billy lifted a gloved hand and pointed with an index finger that seemed a couple of inches too short. He seemed to be enjoying the argument. “That’s a lot of smart people! People who won’t spend all their time wondering where their next meal comes from, or how they’re going to keep a roof over their heads, or worrying about the bomb. You don’t think we can figure out how to save ourselves in all that time? You’ve got to show a little faith in your own people, brother.”

The man who’d climbed under the Winnebago reappeared. “All clear, Billy.”

“Go on inside, Stanley,” Zip said. “I’ll be right in.”

The secretary seemed reluctant, but then he stepped up into the RV. When the door shut, Zip said to Stony, “Give Delia a message for me. Tell her we’re bringing this to a vote. And fuck the Commander.”

“I don’t understand,” Stony said.

Tevvy grabbed Stony by the arm. “Time to go. Your hit man’s not here to save you.”

“It’s mass murder,” Stony said, raising his voice. Maybe there were other LDs in the RVs, listening. “Once you start you won’t be able to stop it. Every living person on the planet will be dead or converted in four days.”

Billy leaned in close. “Hey, is that what’s bothering you? That we’ll kill all the breathers?” The men behind him laughed. Billy said, “Don’t worry, kid, we’re not going to kill them all. That would be crazy—we gotta keep our numbers up. But you’re from Iowa, right? You know all about livestock.”

Stony marched back to Calhoun’s bus—he
would not
run while Zip might be looking at him—but the only people there were a pair of Blunt’s security guards. Everyone had gone to the main tent. At the tent, it seemed as if every delegate was trying to climb inside, and once inside, light up. The space was full, and several people were folding up the round tables to make room. Stony heard F.M.’s deep voice, laughing, and spotted the top of his big orange Afro. Everyone seemed energized, a machine fueled by a thousand cigarettes. Finally he spotted Mr. Blunt along the back wall of the tent. Beside him was a security guard speaking into a serious-looking walkie-talkie.

“I have to talk to you,” Stony said.

Blunt held a chunk of white wood in one hand and a knife in the other, whittling with great speed. Wasn’t he afraid of carving his own fingers? “You look upset,” he said.

“The secretary of the congress? The one-armed guy?”

“Stanley.”

“He’s in cahoots with Billy Zip.”

“Cahoots?” Mr. Blunt asked. “Ca
hoots
. That’s a lovely word.”

“He was meeting with him. They’re going to bring up the Big Bite for a vote.”

“
In
cahoots,” Mr. Blunt said, and kept whittling. “Not
on
cahoots. Not cahoot-
ing
 …”

“This doesn’t bother you?” Stony asked.

“Don’t worry about Zip,” Delia said. She’d come up behind him, and she was carrying a red backpack with the Commander’s face on it. “Once the Commander gets done here, nobody’s going to listen to him.”

Mr. Blunt said, “I was hoping you’d be able to talk him out of it.”

“I talked him out of some of it,” she said. “He agreed to stop before Phase Three.”

“Well, that’s something,” Blunt said. He held up the white length of wood. “Look, it’s the Lump.” Sure enough, it was a little half man, with one arm waving.

“What the hell is Phase Three?” Stony asked.

“Look at the farm boy, swearing,” Delia said. “By the way, don’t run off afterward. He wants to meet you.”

“Who, Calhoun?”

“Trust me, not my idea.”

The audience began to applaud, and Stony turned. Stanley, the secretary of the congress, climbed onstage. The podium had been moved off to one side, and the center area was taken up by a wide projector screen.

“At this time,” the secretary said, seeming a little put out, “the congress recognizes special delegate Commander Gavin Calhoun.”

The Commander strode onstage, waving like a politician. The crowd immediately broke into loud applause. Delia said, “He thinks he’s a Goddamned John F. Kennedy.”

“He looks more alive than Kennedy,” Stony said.

Mr. Blunt said, “I think he’s had work done.”

The Commander had brought his own microphone. He walked to the edge of the stage and said, “My friends, my fellow …” He pretended to read something on his palm. “Differently Living Individuals.” That got a big laugh.

“I don’t know about you, friends, but I’m mighty tired of hiding,” the Commander said. “Mighty tired. Some of you have been on the run since day one of the outbreak—twenty years! Some of you have had to live like animals to get by. Most of us have survived only because of the generosity of a few living souls. But how long can that generosity last? How long can we expect breathers to protect us?

“We need a place of our own, my friends. A place free from the government, free from the mad dogs of Dr. Weiss and the Diggers. A
place
in the
sun
. Anita?” A projector set up on a table in the middle of the tent clicked on, and a patch of green filled the screen. “I give you Phase One of Project Homeland … Calhoun Island!”

He sounded exactly like the announcer on
The Price Is Right
, telling the lucky contestant they’d won a Brand! New! Car! The audience cheered. Onscreen, a camera flew over the island, and the Commander began narrating in the same jocular tone he used in his commercials. “Located in international waters just forty-five miles from St. Thomas, my friends. This former naval testing site has been forgotten by the breather world, but for us, it’s paradise. There’s everything we could desire—beaches, mountains, hardened bunkers … plus a level of residual radioactivity that will keep the living off our shores and out of our hair!”

The rounds of applause were lessening in volume somewhat. Even the dead could be leery of radiation. The Commander, perhaps sensing he was losing them, forged ahead.
“I’ve already begun construction of housing,” he said. “And the airstrip is being repaved as we speak.” The movie was replaced by architectural drawings of condominiums, activity centers, bowling alleys. “As soon as the living crews finish their work, the emigration can begin.”

“When?” someone shouted.

“Now that’s a damn good question. There’s an awful lot of work to do, and as a cautious man, I shouldn’t say anything that I can’t back up.” He looked out over the audience. “My friends, you’ll be swimming in the coves of Calhoun Island by this summer, or my name’s not Commander Calhoun!”

The crowd stood up, and the shouts made the steel walls of the warehouse reverberate. Stony hoped they really were in the middle of nowhere.

When the noise had calmed down and the audience had returned to their seats, the Commander said, “This is only Phase One, my friends. Phase Two will include a clinic, where we can offer our services. The rich—and I have to tell you, I know plenty of ’em—have one thing they’ve never been able to buy, and that’s immortality. We can sell it to ’em, people! It’s our monopoly. Our little island will be
the
destination for the world’s rich and famous. We’ll take a bite out of their Goddamn wallets!”

“And that’s the pitch,” Delia said.

“Security and prosperity,” Mr. Blunt said. His eyes were on the crowd, scanning like every Secret Service agent in every movie with a president.

“Is he crazy?” Stony said.

“He’s not crazy,” Delia said. “He’s just …”

“How in the world are we supposed to keep all
this
secret?”

“That is definitely an issue,” Blunt said. “But if we can hold off—what’s he doing?”

The Commander was pointing at the screen, where it said in big blue letters:
PHASE 3
.

Delia said, “Oh, shit.”

Now the screen showed a painting of a tall, silver rocket. It had immense fins, like a 1950s sci-fi spaceship. “The island is only the first stepping-stone, my friends. We are capable of so much more. Our
destiny
is so much more. We can withstand intense g-forces. Radiation cannot kill us. We can survive indefinitely without food or water. In short, in
short—
”

He surveyed the crowd, his eyes glittering.

“—we can colonize alien worlds!”

No one spoke. No one moved. The crowd stared at him.

The Commander seemed confused. “Space, people! We can go to space!”

Stony looked at Delia. “Okay,” she said. “Maybe he’s a little crazy.”

Everyone in the tent began to talk at once. Mr. Blunt pointed at a figure in the crowd near the front of the stage, and Delia swore. “Stony, go turn off the damn projector.” Mr. Blunt was already gone—vanished through a new slit in the wall of the tent. Delia ran for the stage, pushing through the crowd.

By the time Stony reached the project table, Calhoun’s assistant, a marble-white girl named Anita, had already turned off the lamp and was shutting down a laptop. Stony had never seen a computer connected to a projector before. He yanked out the connecting cables anyway. “Sorry,” he told her.

A new voice boomed over the PA. “I have an alternate proposal!” Billy Zip had climbed onstage and seized the microphone. Delia was shoving her way to the front of the tent, still twenty feet from the stage and blocked by scores of people.

“We can’t live on fantasy island!” Zip shouted. “The government will never allow this thing to be built. The world will never allow it. We’re running out of time, people, and we’ve got to get—”

The sound cut off. Zip looked at the microphone, tapped it with his hand, then looked back to where the cord ran toward the stacks of equipment. Mr. Blunt stood there, holding the loose end of the cord. A long, thin blade had appeared in his other hand. Where had
that
come from?

Zip shouted something, and Blunt slowly shook his head. Zip hesitated, then threw down the microphone and stalked from the stage. Stony was surprised; Zip didn’t strike him as someone who’d give up so easily.

Stanley the secretary went to the podium and tapped the mike. This one was still working. “Two-hour recess,” he said.

The Commander was not happy. “Goddamn sheep!” He picked up a blueprint from the desk, started to rip it, but it was too long and he got only halfway down its length. “Goddamn—” He crumpled the paper and tossed it down the narrow corridor toward the back of the bus. “Complete lack of vision!”

Stony stood behind Delia, wishing he were outside. The Commander had been ranting for almost fifteen minutes, and Delia had given up on stopping him.

The interior of the coach was finished like a yacht, or perhaps the theme park version of one. The outward curving walls were gleaming dark wood, inset with porthole windows. The wall decorations followed the nautical theme: fishing nets, crossed oars, stuffed swordfish and squid, a gaping shark jaw like a bear trap, a dozen old-fashioned maps in dark frames, and
harpoons—lots of harpoons. Attached to the ceiling was what looked like a narwhal tusk. He reached up and touched it. It felt real, but then again, what did real tusk feel like?

The Commander was living in his own fantasy land, and Calhoun Island was more of the same. Zip was right. It was a colossally bad idea. Say that all the LDs moved there. Then what? The government could simply nuke them. One-stop shopping.

“Don’t touch that!” the Commander shouted. “Who are you? Delia, who the hell is this?”

“The young man I was telling you about,” Delia said.

The Commander’s expression changed immediately. “This is him? Goddamn!” He lunged forward and grabbed Stony’s hand. “Commander Calhoun,” he said. In extreme close-up, the Commander looked even more artificial. The skin of his face looked like molded plastic. His white hair, visible now that the skipper cap had been removed, was waxy as nylon.

Stony said, “I’m—”

“Johnny Mayhall,” the Commander said. “No need for introductions.” Stony started to tell him that his name was John, just John, but the man was going full speed now. “God
damn
, you’re handsome. If we ever do a marketing campaign, your face is going right up front. I’ve been wanting to meet you since I heard your incredible story.” He leaned close, still gripping his hand, and stared into Stony’s eyes. “A living dead baby. A Goddamn
growing
baby!”

“Yes sir,” Stony said. He looked at Delia. How much did the Commander know? Was there anything Stony was supposed to hide?

The man wouldn’t let go of Stony’s hand. He leaned forward until their foreheads touched, then threw his other arm around Stony’s neck. “My boy,” he said, his voice dropping,
“you are the
game
changer. Forget what all those corpses out there think. You are the hanging curveball. You are, what’s the word …” His head turned with a squeak. “You’re …”

Don’t say it, Stony thought.

“A Goddamn miracle!”

Miracle
was okay. It was the other M-word he’d been dreading.

“I want you to see something,” the Commander said, and abruptly released Stony. He began to unbutton his jacket.

“That’s okay …,” Stony said.

“Just a second.” The Commander pulled open his jacket, then began to unbutton his white shirt. “See this?” Under the shirt was a silvery material. “Touch it. Touch it!”

Stony touched it. It felt metallic, scaly.

“I call it the Integrity Suit. The I-Suit for short. Do you know why I wear it? Because of wear and tear! Every day, our dead bodies disintegrate just a bit more. Things fall apart. Now, cosmetic surgery can shore up the banks, so to speak, buttress the framework. You wouldn’t believe what the boys in the burn units can do. But our new bodies need something to hold us together—a bodysuit. I’m going to make sure that every LD in America will be wearing one of these, as soon as I can get the costs down. Maybe we go for something that’s not Kevlar. Doesn’t matter. We’re designing gloves and footies, and even a ski-mask thingy for those extreme cases.”