The day after: An apocalyptic morning (67 page)

              "Now as you all know, the attack this morning gravely wounded Dale, my dear companion and a committee member. That leaves us without a full committee and without the ability to obtain a clear majority on any Micker until such time as Dale gets better or, God forbid, we are forced to replace him. However, there are still important decisions that need to be decided upon, most critically at this moment, what we should do about the criminal that walks among us."

              Some cries of "yes", and "that's right" came from the audience.

              "It is my suggestion," Jessica said, "that in the interim, critical decisions such as this should be made by a vote of the entire community. Unless there are any objections..." she looked at Paul and Skip as she said this, her expression daring them to object, "... I think that it would be appropriate to make and vote on motions right here, right now. I believe that a simple majority for routine Mickers would suffice, and a two-thirds majority for such Mickers as exile."

              The crowd obviously liked this idea. Neither Paul nor Skip nor anyone else had any objections to it. Jessica looked at them a little suspiciously - she obviously had a speech planned in the event that that happened - but they simply stared back at her.

              "Okay," she said, throwing off her suspicions, thinking that maybe they realized their number was up. "Let's vote this in and make it official. I move that that the community, in the absence of a full committee, should have the power to vote upon issues at hand during that time period. A simple majority for routine Mickers and a two-thirds majority for issues involving exile. Do I have a second for the motion?"

              Dozens of cries of "I second" were shouted out.

              "Then let's vote on the Micker. All in favor say aye."

              The ayes were so loud that it almost hurt the ears.

              "All opposed?" Jessica asked snidely.

              A few nays were meekly offered, mostly from the men or from those at Skip's table. Skip himself did not vote.

              "The motion is clearly passed," Jessica said, pounding her gavel. "This community has just empowered itself to vote on these issues. And now that it has done so, I move that we vote on the exile of Skip Adams from the town of Garden Hill on charges of gross negligence and various sex crimes. Since this is exile, two-thirds must vote in favor. Do I have a second?"

              "Skip," Paula whispered frantically, as dozens more people seconded her motion, "they're about to vote you out of town! Isn't it about time you did something?"

              "Yes," he said, cracking his knuckles. "It's about time."

              "There is a motion on the floor," Jessica, almost giddy now that she sensed her moment at hand, told the crowd. "The motion is whether or not to exile Skip Adams from the town of Garden Hill. All in favor..."

              "Wait," Skip said, standing up, his voice easily carrying throughout the room. People began to catcall to him, telling him to sit down.

              "There is no waiting, Mr. Adams," Jessica told him, a smile upon her face. "We are in the midst of a vote."

              "Are you going to vote me out of this town without even giving me a chance to defend myself against your charges?" he asked her. "That's not very democratic, is it?"

              "I hardly think you have a defense that we would want to listen to," she said.

              "But nevertheless," he said, turning to look at the sea of hostile faces, "is that not my right? Were we not once Americans? Will you sentence me to death out there without even hearing what I have to say for myself? Surely you people are not that callous, are you?"

              There was a confused muttering of voices at his words as they tried to find fault with them and failed. He had struck a chord with them, that was plain to see. Jessica, no slouch at reading the mood of crowds, could see this as well.

              "I think we've heard enough lies from this man," she told the room. "I see no reason to hear any more. Now, back to the motion. All in favor..."

              "No," a voice called. It was Paul, who was standing up on his seat. "He has a right to be heard. Let him talk."

              Paula was the next. "I agree. If we're going to send someone out there, we at least have the responsibility to hear his side of the story first."

              "Unless," Skip, seeing his opening, put in, "Jessica is afraid to let me speak. Maybe she's scared that I'll say something to cut her influence down."

              There was an excited babble this time. Jessica's face reddened in anger. But still, he had neatly trapped her. "Very well," she said, feigning disinterest. "Go ahead and have your little speech."

              "Thank you," he said, walking over to the lectern and taking his place behind it. Jessica reluctantly gave him space.

              He looked out over at the crowd, seeing hatred for him in most of their faces, hatred that Jessica had placed there. They were expecting him to beg for mercy, to throw himself upon them. He did no such thing. "You people out there," he said, his voice tough, the voice he had used when addressing suspects, "are pathetic."

              An angry outburst followed these words, an outburst that caused both Paula and Christine to bury their faces in their hands and wonder if he knew what he was doing.

              Skip, ignoring the outcry, simply went on. "Look at yourselves," he told them. "Look at what you're doing, look at who you're following. You people are being led by the nose like fucking sheep by this manipulative bitch."

              While the latest outburst sounded itself, Jessica stepped up towards him. "That will be quite enough," she told him, grabbing at his arm.

              "No," said Paul, grabbing at her arm and pulling her back. "Let him speak."

              "But..."

              "Let him speak," he repeated, loud enough for everyone in the building to hear. "It's about time someone told the truth around here."

              "Here, here," said Paula.

              "I'm not here to apologize for my actions," Skip went on, his voice booming through the speaker. "I'm not here to beg for mercy. If you people want to vote me out of this town after I've had my say, then you're a lost cause anyway and I'll be glad to go. You'll all die soon and the human race will be better off without you."

              That got their attention. The voices quieted down so quickly that it was almost as if a switch had been thrown.

              "People," Skip said. "I've got some news for you all. Perhaps you haven't noticed this, but a fucking comet has struck our planet and wiped out almost everything. We are all that is left here, do you understand that? We aren't simply hanging in there until the National Guard gets its shit together. We're not just biding our time until the President diverts some relief funds in our direction. This planet is dead. The civilization that we grew up with and worshipped is dead. There is nothing left but us and the society that we make here. There are people out there that would like to kill us, that would like to take the meager food reserves we have left, but that is it. All we have is what we can make or find. There is no help coming here. We are alone and we are in the direst of straights imaginable!

              "And what do you, the survivors of this disaster, the future hope of the human race, what do you spend your time doing? Do you spend it trying to figure out ways to get food so we can survive until the sun comes out? Do you spend it trying to figure out ways to protect yourselves from those that are starving and desperate? No, you don't. You spend your time trying to pretend that you are all still high society women and looking down on others. You spend your time screwing each other at every turn, both literally and figuratively, and then criticizing those who do the same thing. We don't have that many people in this town yet you have somehow managed to perpetuate the petty prejudices that we used to hold so dear. For God's sake people, what the hell are you doing?"

              He looked at them all, disgust clearly evident upon his face. No one answered him or made a noise. Not even Jessica.

              "Do you people realize how stupid you look from an outsider's perspective? Do you realize that you've empowered a woman to lead you that has a clear-cut psychological problem? Why do you follow her? Why do you listen to her? I've heard you talk about her ever since I've been here. You call her a bitch, you deride her for her superior attitude towards you, you agree among yourselves that she is a callous, calculating person who is only out for herself, but you follow her! You cluster around her and try to impress her because she comes across like she's better than you are. And worst of all, you listen to her. You know she's untrustworthy but you listen to her and you pretend to agree with everything she says because everyone else is doing it. She has been playing you for fools probably since long before the comet impact. Look what you were just about to do because she riled you all up. You were just about to vote me out of town, to exile me to death out there in the wilderness, and you were willing to do this without even hearing my side of the story. Everybody knows that Jessica exaggerates and twists everything to suit whatever her viewpoint happens to be, yet you were about to yell out aye to her vote, weren't you? Weren't you?"

              Skip could now see doubt showing on many faces before him.

              "Shall I tell you my side of the story now?" he asked them. "Shall I? Would you like to hear a different version of how this attack came to take five lives? Would you like to hear a different version of how I molested that young girl that lives with me? Or should I just leave right now? If you are so led by her, if you are so convinced that I'm bad man that you don't want to hear my side, just say aye. If more than ten people say it, I'll leave here right now, in the clothes that I'm wearing. If just ten say it! So how about it?"

              Not a single person said anything. Not even Jessica, who was staring at him in fear.

              "Okay," he said, his voice dropping a little bit of the roughness. "I can see that I have your attention. So let's talk. Let's start with the attack, shall we? Now Jessica had the basic facts fairly accurate, but she left out a few pertinent points. The attackers came over the wall at two o'clock this morning after they had observed our actions for the last few days from the hill overlooking the northeast side of town. Now I don't know if any of you have ever bothered to go climb this particular hill, either before the comet or after, but the view from up there is quite impressive. You can see almost the entire northern wall. You can see the freeway approaches. You can see damn near the entire subdivision itself. And most important of all, you can see all of the ground between the freeway and the point where those invaders made their entry. These invaders found that a particularly fine place to observe us from. It allowed them to gather the intelligence that they needed to stage their attack.

              "Now, it may interest you to know that I spotted this hill on my second day here and that I identified it as the perfect place to move a guard position to. From atop this hill, our guards could not only engage any invaders long before they reached the wall, they could see any invaders approaching long before they got close enough to spot the wall. I made a strong recommendation that we construct and man a guard position there for that very reason. You see, I entered this town on the premise that I was knowledgeable in security Mickers such as this and that my expertise would be helpful. I was under the impression that my suggestions would be taken seriously. However, Jessica voted down this recommendation. Dale, who as you know, votes however Jessica does, added his vote to the tally and the suggestion was defeated."

              "Dale does not vote the way that I do every time!" Jessica shouted. "Don't think that trying to shift blame to someone who is wounded and unable to defend himself in front of you is going to help you."

              "Do you deny that you controlled Dale's votes?" Skip asked her.

              "Of course I deny it!" she yelled. "Dale voted however he wanted."

              "And strangely enough," Skip said, "the way he wanted was always the same way that you wanted; in every single case since the committee was formed. Don't bother trying to say differently, I've looked through the minutes of every meeting that you've held. 268 times a vote has been called on a Micker, and 268 times, Dale voted exactly as you did."

              Jessica was stunned again, unable to think of a way to counter what he was saying. It had not occurred to her that she was dealing with a man who was very familiar with courtrooms and testifying, a man who knew how to sway a group of people sitting in judgment over to his side. That lack of insight was now biting her in the ass.

              "And such was the case with the Micker of Hill 1557," Skip went on. "Jessica and Dale voted it down. Why? Because Jessica didn't think it was wise to put the guard force outside of the wall. Jessica has no military training of any kind, but she didn't think it was wise. I explained to her that the basic principal of defense is to occupy the high ground around your position, but she didn't change her mind. I tried to be as persuasive with her as I know how to be, but she refused to vote for my suggestion because it was my suggestion and I am someone she doesn't like. And as such, Hill 1557 was unoccupied when our attackers decided to use it to learn about our community.

              "Nor was this the only Micker that Jessica and Dale refused to vote for when it came to security. In all, and you can check these figures in the minutes if you'd like, I requested a total of thirty-three separate improvements to the community security apparatus. Thirty-three times since I've been here, I've asked to change something or improve something because, as I told you before, that is supposed to be my job. Thirty-one times Jessica and Dale voted no. These were not piddling things that I was suggesting either, but basic improvements that would have prevented the invasion we experienced today. That is not speculation on my part. I can say with certainty that if I had been allowed to do my job, those invaders would never had been allowed to even attempt a reconnaissance of our town, let alone invade it."

              "That is a lie!" Jessica shouted, standing up and pointing at him.

              "Is it?" he asked. "If you'd like, I can provide a list of each suggestion and we can go over them one by one. I'll hang a map up here on the board so that everyone can see exactly what I'm talking about. Would you like me to explain to them Jessica, how I suggested weeks ago that we occupy Hill 1519 on the west side of town and how I showed you exactly why we needed to do that? Should I explain to them how such an occupation would prevent anyone from approaching us from the north or the west? I can go get the maps and minutes right now if you'd like."

              She said nothing, slowly sitting back down, her eyes daggers.

              Skip turned back to the crowd, seeing that they were all staring at him in shock. "I don't like to lay blame," he told them. "I really don't. My motto is to fix the problem, not the blame. But if Jessica is going to accuse me of dereliction of duty, I am going to see to it that you people have the facts before you cast judgment. And the fact is that if I had been allowed to place guards on those two hills as I wanted to, those invaders wouldn't have tried us in the first place because they wouldn't have been able to get close enough to even see how to go about an attack. But let's move on to the battle now, shall we?

              "The penetration did take place and the invaders were able to get inside of the wall at approximately 2:00 AM. They hid alongside the houses next door to the two guard posts and they planned to make their strike at 8:00 AM, while we were all at breakfast. Their intention was to take our food and to kidnap at least one woman for each of them, and then leave." He let that point sit in the air for a moment.

              "They were not able to do that because of one person. Paula Westover, at guard position 2, spotted the attackers before they were able to throw in their weapons. She drew a sidearm and shot the first one, which in turn caused his bomb to go off on the ground. This, in turn, caused the second one to miss and resulted in the deaths of both of them. Since Paula did not allow her position to fall, she was able to radio ahead to me in the community center and I was able, with the help of Mick and Paul, to get somewhat of a defense together.

              "Unfortunately, the guards at position number 3 were not so lucky. I am sure that rumors of what was going on in that position at the time of the attack have reached you by now, but allow me to confirm them for you. Jeff and Lenny, who were supposed to have been watching out for intruders, were engaged in a sex act with Missy when the bombs came flying through the window. All three of them were found naked and dead of organo-phosphate poisoning - perhaps one of the most horrible ways on this earth to die." He stared at them all, looking from face to face as he said the words. Most showed horror at the thought, particularly those who were regularly assigned to guard duty.