It was really nice to see the sky again.
It looked like it was late afternoon by the time we emerged from underground. The commuter tunnels had forked several times, but each time Neil had known which way to go. The tunnels were bigger than the subway tunnels had been, and less claustrophobic, but I had still started to yearn for something above my head other than concrete.
Then I felt a cool breeze, and I saw a light ahead of us. The tracks curved, and we could see daylight not that far ahead.
"Everybody be ready," Neil said quietly. "We don't know what we're going to find."
What we found was a pleasant suburban street, at dusk. Learning that we had walked from the darkest hour of one night to the beginning of the next made me feel even more tired than I'd been already.
The tracks continued up an embankment of stones to a station, but we climbed over a low fence and down to the street.
That took a minute or two, and there was no sign of any living soul other than the six of us. When we were all on the street, we stopped and waited for a moment, but there was no movement and no sound.
"It's a little creepy," Vicki said.
Neil shrugged. "There's no point in waiting around for people we don't want to see anyway. Let's go."
Katherine lit a cigarette as we started out.
Neil was leading now, since he knew the way, and each corner we turned led to another pleasant street. Small houses with large, well-manicured lawns, driveways and garages, curtains in the houses mostly drawn. And no people, and no movement, except for the occasional bird.
"Stop right there! Who are you? Identify yourselves!"
The words were assertive, but the voice was shaky, apparently coming from a thick hedge. Katherine didn't react, and Tammy said, "You sound tired. You should take a nap."
"Yes, ma'am," the voice replied.
A couple of blocks later, we turned a corner, and, instead of another identical street, there was a tall hedge, higher than our heads.
"It's a pretty big park," Neil explained. "This is where I'm thinking we can camp. We will have to–"
"I'll check it out," Vicki said. There was a rustle in the hedge as she slipped through it, moving very quickly.
Katherine dropped her cigarette butt and put it out with her toe. She looked around. "This looks like where where we lived when I was small," she said.
Neil laughed. "Not where I grew up. I used to see streets like this on television and wonder if they were real."
"And look at all you've accomplished," Katherine said, "despite your humble beginnings."
Neil glanced at her sharply, but she was smiling, and he chuckled. I had the idea that he was quietly proud of his accomplishments, and he'd thought for a moment that she was mocking him. However, her smile had convinced him that she was only teasing him, as lovers and ex-lovers (and wives and employers, of course) will do, from time to time.
Vicki was back in a few moments.
"It's pretty big," she reported. "There are people camping in a couple of places, but we can stay away from them. Even if they see us, they don't seem to be armed, so they'll probably keep their distance."
We walked a bit until there was a slight gap in the high hedge, then we pushed our way through.
Inside, it was a forest, or at least it looked like one. We followed Vicki single file, and after a few hundred feet the trees thinned out and it looked more like I expected a park to look. There were bushes, grass, low hills, a couple of large outcroppings of rock, narrow dirt paths, and the occasional bench and picnic table.
It was starting to get dark, and there were old-fashioned light poles here and there, but they were dark.
We found a small clearing in a grove of trees. Neil pronounced it satisfactory, so we decided to make it our home for the night.
Perry lay down and fell asleep immediately, but the rest of us sat and had some food. I made a mental note to make sure Perry ate something in the morning, or he wouldn't be able to do much.
I spoke to Jan for a few minutes, bringing her up to date, then I realized Katherine had moved a little bit away from us and was lying down. I'd noticed that, whenever we took a break, she kept a little distance. I suspected that it wasn't from any reluctance to socialize with us, but more likely it was a habit, from being aware that many people wouldn't be comfortable socializing with her (and might also be hesitant to say so to her face).
Vicki was strolling around the perimeter of our little clearing. I was sure she was thinking about what would happen the next day.
Tammy and Neil were sitting near me and talking.
"Are you really an attorney?" he asked her.
She nodded. "Yes, though I no longer practice."
"Well, you're obviously not old enough to retire, so I assume that there just wasn't any demand in U-town?"
"Oh, that's not it. I quit before that. Attorneys would always be necessary in any really sophisticated society. But, what you've seen me do, to you and to those two women from your gang and to the people in the tunnel, I can do that to a jury. As long as I want to win a case, I will never lose.
"But the problem is that I believe in the jury system, flawed as it is in practice. And it can't be even close to fair if I'm involved. So, I retired."
"It must take a lot of self-control, to have that kind of ability and not to abuse it."
She smiled. "There are things I won't ever use it for. Some things should be voluntary, or they're not worth doing."
He leaned closer to her. "I don't imagine a woman like you needs to resort to mental control to get men to do what she wants anyway."
She leaned toward him and kissed him. I got up and moved away, but I don't think they even noticed.
Katherine was sitting up again and lighting a cigarette, so I strolled in her direction. As I walked, I glanced back and saw a small pup tent where Neil and Tammy had been sitting. Tammy was providing them some privacy, of course. Then I heard a sound and turned to see Vicki start to move toward the trees.
There was a shot and she crumpled to the ground.
Katherine jumped up, grabbed her revolver and ran into the woods. Neil and Tammy burst out of the tent and ran to Vicki, and the three of us reached her at about the same moment. Neil was in his underwear, and I noticed absently that Tammy was now dressed again, though she had been naked when she'd come out of the tent.
Vicki's eyes were open, and her face was pale. "I'm alive," she said, grimacing, "but I am in a fuck of a lot of pain here."
Tammy sighed and stood up as Neil and I worked together to get Vicki's leather jacket off without causing her any more pain. She'd been shot in the upper arm, and there was a lot of blood.
Tammy looked around the clearing, her face grim. "Anybody in the woods, come down here now!" she said in a loud voice. "Come to the clearing, put your weapons on the ground, kneel and wait!"
After a moment, a man in his late twenties or early thirties appeared, wearing jeans, boots and a plaid jacket. He dropped his rifle and kneeled, as instructed.
We had removed Vicki's jacket, and Neil had ripped her black T-shirt off and was tearing it into strips as I applied pressure to try to stop the bleeding. Tammy turned back and looked at the wound. "The bullet went right through," Neil said as he started to bandage her arm. "Good thing. I hate to have to dig out a bullet without instruments."
Tammy turned to the kneeling man, looked at him for a moment, and said, "You cannot breathe." As he started to choke and claw at his throat, she sat on the ground, taking Vicki's tiny body in her arms as Neil finished bandaging the wound.
"I'll be okay," Vicki murmured, her eyes closed, her good arm going around Tammy's neck. "It will heal completely by tomorrow."
"I'm going to lessen the pain," Tammy said. "You'll hardly feel it. I won't make it go away completely, you could injure yourself more without even knowing it."
Vicki smiled and closed her eyes, her expression clearing, her arm clutching Tammy close. "I know," she murmured. "Thank you."
"Tammy," Katherine called. She was standing next to the choking man. Tammy turned, still holding Vicki. Katherine gestured at the man. "We need to find out why he's here, and are there any more with him."
Tammy nodded and the man fell to the ground, taking in huge gulps of air. "He'll tell you the truth," she said, her attention again on Vicki.
Katherine waited until the man had recovered somewhat, then she asked, "Why are you here, why did you shoot Vicki, and are there any others?"
"I'm alone," he said, panting. "I was hunting, trying to find food for my family. I didn't mean to shoot her, she stepped in front of you. I was trying to shoot you."
Katherine frowned. "Why were you trying to shoot me?"
"I recognized you, and I know there's a reward for you, dead or alive."
Katherine nodded, raised her revolver, and shot him in the head. He fell to the ground as she came over to us and asked, "How is she?"
It took a minute for any of us to respond. Even Neil appeared shocked at how quickly it had happened, and how calm she seemed about it.
"I'll be okay," Vicki said finally. "I heal very quickly. But Katherine, was that really necessary?"
She looked surprised at the question. "He shot at me," she said simply.
"But he was no threat at that moment," Tammy said. "He couldn't move, or even breathe, unless I allowed him to."
Katherine nodded. She was very calm, as if this was an interesting debate in an ethics class. "True. But you weren't going to keep on doing that forever, were you?"
Tammy turned her attention back to Vicki, clearly not willing to focus any more attention on this.
"Kat does have a point," Neil said after a moment. "We couldn't let him go, and we're not really set up to take prisoners." He shrugged. I don't think he was totally satisfied with the answer, and I know the rest of us weren't, but there wasn't much point in debating it further, since the man was already dead.
–Marshall? Is this a bad time? Jan asked quietly.
–Your timing is good, I said. It's all over, and we're okay, but we've had a few exciting minutes.
–I thought so, she said. I suddenly felt very anxious, but I decided I should wait until I felt a little better, so I wouldn't be interrupting in the middle of a crisis. What happened?
Reporting to her, accurately and completely and concisely, was one of my job skills, so I was able to give her a pretty complete picture in a couple of minutes.
Vicki noticed my expression. "Jan?" she mouthed. I nodded, thinking it was funny that she'd felt it necessary to lower her voice, as if her sister and I were talking on some sort of invisible telephone.
"Ask her not to tell Pat," Vicki continued. I passed this along, but Jan responded:
–I already have. She's sitting right next to me.
Vicki read my expression and sighed.
–How did she take it? I asked.
–She's a wee bit upset, Jan reported dryly.
I conveyed this to Vicki, who sighed. "Since I can't be there, I confess I'm glad we can't talk the way you two can."
After that, we got ready to move to a different area of the park to set up a new camp. We had no way to dig a grave for the man Katherine had killed, and we didn't want to stay near the body. One of the packs had held a small tarp, so we covered him with that, then Tammy woke Perry and we started out. Vicki indicated which direction was the best for finding another good place to camp. She wanted to walk, but Tammy insisted on carrying her. Vicki started to argue, but she gave in pretty quickly. Neil carried the pack she'd been wearing.
As in the tunnels, Tammy provided some illumination, and there were stars out as well, though there was no moon. I walked with Katherine, who had been very quiet since the shooting. She walked a little bit apart from the rest of us, not meeting our eyes, and I thought it was important to try to reconnect with her. It could easily become a life or death question, under the circumstances.
I said her name and she looked up cautiously. I smiled and leaned over to whisper, "Looks like Neil won't be getting lucky tonight after all." I jerked my head to indicate Tammy, who was carrying Vicki.
A corner of Katherine's mouth quirked up into a smile for a moment. "I guess he decided it wasn't such a terrible idea to be involved with a crazy woman after all," she muttered. She was trying to sound amused, but it came out more bitter than she had intended.
Well, that conversational opening hadn't worked out as I'd planned, so I tried to think of something else.
"Before," Katherine said slowly, "Vicki mentioned somebody named Pat. Is that her boyfriend?"
"Girlfriend," I said with a smile.
"Ah," she said. Then she said, "Oh," and glanced at Vicki, who looked like she was asleep in Tammy's arms.
"It just struck me sort of funny," she continued after a moment, "that she didn't want Pat to know."
"You'd tell Pete, wouldn't you?" I asked.
"Of course," she said. "I tell him everything. Well, not every little thing. But there isn't anything I'd hide from him."
She pulled out her cigarettes, and without thinking I brought out the lighter I used to provide "gentleman service" to my employer.
"Thanks," she said, smiling. "I'll tell Pete about everything when I see him. We usually talk things over before we go to sleep. Just talk about the day, what we did, what we thought about it." She smiled. "I'll have a lot to tell him about the next time I see him."
This made me think about Pete and Katherine. I didn't know them very well, but I had an image of them discussing things as she had described. I imagined them sitting together on a bed, cross-legged, in T-shirts and underwear, smoking, an ashtray between them, discussing the events of the day. Later on, when I got to know them better, I learned that this image was fairly accurate.
Except, of course, that my mental image didn't include one essential element, which was their dog, Daphne, who would always be lying on the bed with them (or, if she had been ordered off the bed, on the floor nearby).
I wondered about Daphne. As Pete and Katherine were talking, did she ever sit up and give her opinion? Did she ever stop being a dog?
As we settled down for the night, Vicki stood up and we all looked at her. Neil had made her a sling for her arm, and she had her leather jacket zipped all the way up, over the arm and the sling.
"A couple of things before we go to sleep," she said. "For one thing, I don't suppose anybody happened to bring a very small black T-shirt? I didn't bring a change of clothes, and it's going to create the wrong impression if I try to win people over wearing a leather jacket and a bra."
Tammy leaned over and she started to unzip Vicki's leather jacket.
"Mother!" Vicki said in shock, trying to squirm away until she saw that she was wearing a T-shirt after all. In a pale shade of blue.
She giggled. "Tammy," she said, "if you can do baby blue, you can do black, I'm sure, which I would prefer."
"Do you really want to go through life looking like a little hoodlum?" Tammy asked. She was smiling, since she obviously knew the answer.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. Like the little dyke I am. I'm sorry."
"That's not baby blue, by the way, it's sky blue." She sighed. "But I can change it, of course."
Vicki's T-shirt became black, and she hugged Tammy briefly with her good arm. "Thanks," she said quietly.
She turned to Katherine and said, "Speaking of clothes, Neil and I had a disagreement before we started out, about whether it was better to have you dress and look like yourself, or whether it made more sense to try to disguise you. You probably noticed that when we were in the tunnels, he was sending you up to the front, and I was sending you to the back."
Katherine nodded. "I guess tonight settled it," she said.
"I'd say so." Vicki turned to Neil. "Any objections?"
He shook his head. "Not at all. I did indicate that the main advantage would be in the tunnels, where we would be coming up on people suddenly, and nobody would be able to see her from a distance."
Vicki turned back to Katherine, who was starting to unlace her boots. "Did you bring the clothes?" Vicki asked.
"I didn't bring the clothes I got married in." She smiled. "I don't want anything to happen to them. But I have some clothes from a while ago, when Pete and I were hiding out. They're pretty similar."
"That will be . . ." Vicki began, but her voice trailed off as Katherine stood up and unzipped her jeans. She dropped them to the ground and stepped out of them.
"You can go behind those trees or something," Vicki said hesitantly. "If you want to."
"Hm?" Katherine raised her eyebrows as she took off her coat and her shoulder holster. "That's okay," she said with a shrug. "I'm not modest."
"Well, if it was me," Vicki said, "I'd be hiding in a hole in the ground or something." She laughed as Katherine pulled off her T-shirt. "Nobody ever sees me naked except for Pat."
Katherine nodded as she squatted and started to pull clothes from her knapsack. Being a married man, I was not examining her body in detail, of course, but I did notice that it was lean and bore quite a few scars.
Neil chuckled. "Kat," he said, "is that really appropriate underwear for combat?"
Katherine's remaining garments were indeed black, sheer, and rather minimal.
"You know one reason I don't worry about that? About people seeing my body?" Katherine asked Vicki, pointedly ignoring Neil. "Because if I guy looks at me wrong, or says something I don't like, I kill him." She shrugged. "I probably wouldn't do that now, but I still could, if I wanted to." She smiled at Neil as she pulled on a pair of corduroy trousers.
"Besides," Tammy said, "this won't be combat. Combat is for the inarticulate."
"Where's your cane?" Perry asked Tammy as Katherine pulled on a sweater and ran her fingers through her hair.
"I left it behind," Tammy said. "It was too much trouble when I was carrying Vicki. Besides, I don't really need it anymore. I've been working on an integration with Terry, and I think I've convinced her–"
"Really?" Katherine asked. "I read an article about–"
"I think perhaps we should get some sleep," Neil said. "Busy day tomorrow."
Katherine laughed. "Oh, you want to talk about my underwear, but you don't want to talk about psychology. You have not changed."
We were debating the best way to approach the stadium when we heard the explosion. Neil crawled up the small rise and peeked over. He turned and grinned. "They started without us," he said.
We had walked most of the morning, and now we were only a few hundred feet from the grounds of the stadium. The small rise, and a four-lane highway, were the only things between us and the first of the stadium parking lots.
"It's a riot," Neil said as he slid back down to us. Tammy smiled, since she knew that meant Neil would drop his questions about whether she could make us all invisible. She could have, of course, and she had not been able to persuade him that the last thing she wanted in the world was to be invisible.
They had slept some distance apart the night before, and I wondered if Neil was thinking about how things could easily have gone very differently, if Vicki hadn't been shot. Vicki had completely recovered overnight, by the way, and in the morning there had barely been a scar, and she'd said that would be gone within hours.
Vicki stood up. "Come on," she said. "Let's go."
We got to the top of the rise and started to move quickly across the highway. There were no cars, of course.
On the other side, we could look down at the parking lots. People were all over, fights were going on, and as we looked someone threw something, I couldn't tell what, at a police bus. The missile, which was burning, hit the bus and it exploded. At least two other vehicles were burning, and we could smell the smoke.
Neil put his hand on Vicki's shoulder. "This is pretty wild," he said. "I don't think we can risk you–"
"Excuse me?" she demanded, laughing. "I am not Dr. Lee." She gestured at the area where the riot seemed to be centered. "I'll meet you guys over there."
She ran in that direction, jumped, bounded off the top of a car, then off the top of a truck, then vanished into the smoke.
As we got closer to the center of the action, Tammy stopped, and we stopped with her. "This is outrageous," she said, looking at the violence and disorder. "Everybody wait here for a minute." She stalked off toward a group of men who were standing a little off to the side, apparently not sure whether they wanted to join in, or sit it out, or try to leave.
A few moments later, she returned, followed by several of the young men. "Come on," she said. "These young gentlemen will help us get where we're going."
She turned to Neil and Katherine, "Carry those things like you mean it," she said, gesturing at the Neil's shotgun, and the rifle Katherine was carrying, which had belonged to the man she had killed the night before, "but don't shoot anybody unless you have to. I think we'll get a lot farther by being imposing and determined than we will by slaughtering people." She turned to her young troops. "Wedge formation, gentlemen" she said, "as we discussed."
They immediately formed a "V" around Tammy and the rest of us, and we moved quickly toward the other parking lot. Tammy set the pace with her long strides, and it was obvious that the lack of her cane was not a problem at all.
Perry nearly had to jog to keep up with us. "Why are you all so happy?" he asked Neil.
"Well, I can only speak for myself," Neil said, his eyes moving around to take everything in. "I'm just happy we didn't actually have to try out that cockamamie plan to get into the stadium."
"I thought that was your plan."
"Parts of it. But it sucked, and it could easily have got us all killed."
"Then why carry it out?"
He laughed. "It was the best plan we had at the time. But this is much better." He shook his head. "I can't understand why we waited for Tammy, though. We could have started off, and then Tammy could have followed us with her helpers. I seemed to make sense at the time–"
I laughed. "Welcome to the wonderful world of Tammy. She told us to stay, so we stayed." I looked around as we crossed the grass divider into the other parking lot. "Even so, how do you think Tammy arranged it, in the limited time she had, that all of her helpers here are so good looking?"
Neil laughed again. "And they say she's crazy." He shook his head then, looking displeased.
"You had the idea that it wouldn't work on you, didn't you?" Perry asked. "The rest of us suckers, but not you. Am I right?"
Tammy signaled that we should slow down, and we looked around. The violence had mostly abated, people were standing around listening to Vicki, who was sitting cross-legged on top of one of the police busses. There was a lot of yelling and arguing, but of course her voice carried more than anybody else's.
The doors to the stadium were open, and more and more people were coming out. Many of the people coming out now were older than the ones who had been rioting, but they looked equally beat up and hungry.
We paused as we assessed the situation. People were crowding toward the bus where Vicki sat.
"We need to get inside," Neil said.
Tammy turned. "Inside?"
"There was a riot going on out here. The people the police have been rounding up weren't all young gang members, they were all ages, all types, any survivors they could find. Not all of them would have joined a riot, no matter how they've been treated."
She nodded and turned to her troops. She gestured at the nearest entrance to the stadium. "Tube formation once we get inside, gentlemen."
Neil stood beside her, and a raised eyebrow asked her if he could speak to them. She nodded graciously, gesturing as if introducing him. "We won't know where we're going until we get inside," he said to them, "so stay alert for sudden changes in direction. Don't hurt anybody unless you have to. We just need to talk to all the people inside. Questions?"
There weren't, so we set out again. At first, once we were inside, we didn't see anybody, just the empty tunnels and corridors of the stadium. But we could hear someone talking with a bullhorn inside.
Tammy turned to her troops. "Where is the stage?" she asked. "How can we get there?"
There was a brief discussion, and then we set out down a corridor. There was trash everywhere and the smell was bad.
A few more turns, and we found ourselves at the edge of a raised platform. A military officer was standing on the stage, talking into a bullhorn, addressing the people who were sitting around the stadium. Therer were people scattered around, but the majority of the seats were empty. There were clothes and bags everywhere, and the smell was even worse than in the corridor.
There were soldiers in a row in front of the stage, protecting it from the audience (none of whom seemed inclined to do anything even as active as walking).
Neil turned to Tammy and said quietly, "We need to . . ." but Tammy gestured at Katherine. She had climbed up onto the stage and was walking quickly toward the officer.
She held her revolver against the back of his neck and said, "Quiet." He turned, and his eyes widened. As he stopped talking, the soldiers at the foot of the stage turned, but Neil was standing beside Katherine by then, his shotgun aimed in their general direction. They looked very tense, as if they'd been under constant stress for a week with no sleep (which was almost certainly true), and some raised their guns, but Tammy went to the edge of the stage and sat down, her feet dangling, and motioned them to come around her.
Meanwhile, Katherine moved the officer so that he was with his men, next to Tammy, and Neil motioned Perry to the front of the stage.
Perry was not a public speaker, and he had trouble being heard, even with the bullhorn. But, more importantly, he had trouble figuring out what to say. And, after a minute or two, it became obvious that some people in the audience were starting to take offense at the celebrity coming to lecture them. A couple of people yelled, and that was a bad sign, since these were the people who had not joined the riot, so they were presumably less violent or less active than those outside.
Then, a tall man with wild hair and a scraggly beard got up and started to walk unsteadily down the aisle toward the stage. He was broad-shouldered, though his dirty clothes hung on him in a way that made it clear that he had once been larger than he was now. But he was clearly making for the stage, and even half-starved he looked like he could take Perry Nelson apart like a boiled chicken, so I moved to stop him, but Neil's strong hand gripped my arm. I turned, puzzled, and he smiled. I was missing something, obviously.
The man clambered up on the stage (I could smell him by then), and Perry turned with a look of panic, though the man didn't threaten him in any way. He merely went over to Perry and lifted him gently out of the way, then he stood at the front of the stage and started to speak.
"Friends, fellow sufferers, flotsam and jetsam who have washed ashore on this particularly polluted beach, I gather that we have a choice." I confess that, at the sound of that voice booming out though the stadium, not needing any amplification any more than it ever had, I had to wipe a couple of tears out of my eyes.
Jack Longstreet had fled U-town when the going had got too rough for him, but he hadn't got that far, any more than the Jinx had. I had started to think he was dead, mostly because we had had the memorial for him and it didn't seem likely we'd ever see him again, but here he was.
"Mr. Nelson was not entirely clear what alternative he was proposing to our current predicament, and I confess that I know as little about it as you do, but are we in a position to reject anything out of hand? It would be foolish, of course, to say that nothing could be worse than where we are, but, at least in my opinion, almost anything I could imagine would be better, and I've got a good imagination.
"Based on who I see here, I'll bet that some of my other friends are outside, and, if I know them, they have a very good idea, much better than being in this large and uncomfortable plastic toilet where we've been living for the last few days.
"So, here's what I propose. I'm going outside. I'm going to find out what's up, and then I'm going to see if it's better than where I am now, though I can guess that it probably will be. I encourage you all to come with me, and make up your own minds, too. Now, if you don't want to come with me, I'll try to come back in afterwards and tell you about it, but, since I don't know what it's going to be, I may not be able to. So, your choice."
He grinned, and a couple of people stood up.
"Anybody who can't walk, somebody else should help them. Work together, and let's get the hell out of this place."
A couple more people stood up, and we started to move toward the door. Tammy led the soldiers, who were all completely under control, and we started for the exit.
Some people were not moving, and Tammy said loudly, "Come outside, and make up your minds there." Her voice didn't carry like Jack's, of course, but they didn't need to hear her to get the message. Jack came over to me, obviously hesitant about how I was going to react, but I threw my arms wide and embraced him, horrendous stench and all.
Then he looked and saw everybody in the place moving toward the door, following Tammy's orders. He turned to me, puzzled, but I said, "That's what you get for missing meetings. We'll have to catch you up at some point."
Outside, Vicki was still sitting on top of the bus, and obviously making progress. The riot was over, and most people seemed to be listening to her, though the scene was still messy and chaotic, especially as the other people who had been in the stadium streamed out the doors behind us. Vicki saw us coming, but I was too far away to see if she recognized Jack.
"Where's Jan?" Jack asked.
"In U-town, or in transit," I replied. "They're joining us later today."
"Who is? Her and Ray?"
"And everybody else. The entire population, or at least the survivors."
He frowned, though a corner of his mouth twitched. "I can tell I've missed more than just meetings. How–"
There was a shot, and we turned to see Katherine slowly lowering her revolver. A soldier tottered and fell from a ledge on the side of the stadium, a rifle slipping from his hand as he fell.
Jack looked at him, then turned back quickly to look at Katherine. "Oh, my God," he said. "That's starling, isn't it? I didn't recognize her at first. Is it really a good idea to involve her in this?"
"She just killed a man who was apparently about to kill one of us. He may have been going to assassinate Vicki. She already killed a man who shot Vicki last night. I'd call that a valuable contribution, wouldn't you?"
I had to stop at that point, rather than say something more hurtful than I intended (and I knew I was fudging the facts of the killing in the park, but the point I was making was valid).
Jack nodded and lowered his eyes. "She's been more helpful this past week than I've been, I'm sure."
"She's gone out on medical teams, she almost single-handedly got us several days' supply of food and medicine, and she left her husband behind on their wedding night to come along and help us."
Jack smiled. "starling's married? To that guy she lives with, Pete?"
I nodded. "Just yesterday. Well, the day before, I guess it was. And Perry's been very helpful. I know he wasn't that impressive in there, but he's gone out on medical teams, and his girlfriend is organizing our army." I had to laugh. "Wait until you meet her, she's a holy terror. And I heard that he faced down some soldiers on the bridge when they wanted to shoot Katherine." I caught his expression. "starling's real name is Katherine. That's what we call her."
"I thought Perry was against the whole idea of U-town."
"He was. He changed his mind, and he saw people in need and decided he had to help."
He nodded. Then he gestured at Neil, who was helping to organize people to move out. "And the Jinx have joined us?"
"No, the Jinx left. But some of the members, a lot of them, quit and stayed on with us. Like Neil. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."
Jack nodded again. "And who is that incredible creature?" he asked, indicating Tammy.
"Tammy Everett," I said. "She's an attorney, retired. She's Vicki's mother, and Jan's as well."
"Can I ask a question about her? Or maybe two?"
"Sure. She's in a relationship, by the way."
He laughed. "Thanks, but that wasn't my question, or at least not my first one. How did she get all those people to leave that shit-hole in there? And why is her hair and her coat blowing around like that when there is, in fact, no wind?"
Neil came over and nodded at Jack. "Longstreet," he said. "Good to see you." He turned to me. "Marshall, we need to meet, quickly. Come on."
I followed Neil to the bus, where the others were already standing. As we reached them, Vicki held up a hand. "We'll talk about Jack later. Marshall, we're ready to go, but we need to start to move quickly or the whole thing is going to start to come apart. So," she grinned, "where the hell are we going?"
–Jan, we need a destination.
One of my wife's most wonderful characteristics is that she knows when the games have to stop.
–Have Neil get out his map, she said.
I turned to him, and he already had it in his hand.
–River's Edge, she said.
I found it on the map and pointed. Neil frowned, "That's a corporate park, just a cluster of big office buildings in the middle of nowhere. Why–"
"She's sure?" Vicki asked.
I nodded.
"Then let's go. Tammy, please get the people who can't walk onto the bus. Neil managed to get it started, and we have somebody who can drive it. I'll start leading people out on foot." She glanced at Neil. "What's our ETA?"
"Given our limitations, I'd guess by nightfall."
"I think Jack could help in keeping people organized," I said.
Vicki sighed. "Okay," she said. "But stick with him and keep him away from me. I still may decide to kill him when I have more time."
I trotted back to Jack as Vicki shouted to people to start moving onto the highway.
It took a while to get the whole thing into motion, as you can imagine, and we had to deputize quite a few people on the spot to help out.
Of course, not everybody came with us. Some stayed in the parking lot, apparently waiting for some more conventional form of rescue. Some returned to the stadium. Some of the soldiers came with us. Tammy was preventing any of them from trying to stop or harm us, but she was giving them free choice about joining us or not.
The people who were sure of their decision started out right away, so of course Jack and I, near the rear, were bombarded with questions from the undecided and the uncertain.
I was glad Jack was there, because he was more forthright than I would have been about how little we knew, and about the fact that people had to make up their minds anyway, and immediately.
It took a while to get everybody moving, and at a certain point we had to just start walking and let people come along or not. So, Jack and I ended up at the end of the huge column of people trudging along the highway.
We walked mostly in silence. Jack tried to start a couple of conversations, but I was exhausted and drained by that point, and I wasn't sure how I felt about Jack. I didn't want to snub him, but I didn't want to give him the idea that things with him and us were now back to "normal."
Either the silence was making him uncomfortable or he had decided to demonstrate how useful he could be, but he started trotting up along the side of the column, engaging people in quick conversations, and periodically drafting somebody to run further up to do something for him.
He didn't return to his questions about Tammy, and I was just as glad. I was not going to tell him anything about what she could do, beyond what he'd seen for himself. I could imagine Neil's voice in my head, reminding me that Jack had forfeited the right to be considered a friend, and that you don't reveal any information that might be used against you later on. All of which was good advice in this situation.
Then, as it was starting to get dark, I saw some big shiny office buildings ahead. I hoped they were River's Edge, and they were.
People were filling up a big plaza between the office buildings, and overflowing into an adjoining parking lot, and I trotted around the perimeter until I found Vicki and the others.
"Well?" Vicki was asking, looking around. "What happens now?"
"I'm afraid to ask," Neil said, "but we have around a thousand people here, probably more, and a few thousand more coming, apparently starting any minute now. Do we have a plan for what comes next?"
"Jan says we don't need a plan," I said with a shrug.
"Don't need a plan?" he demanded. "How can we not need a plan?"
Vicki nodded. "As far as I know, in all the world, nobody needs a plan right now more than we do, and we don't really have one. Not one that isn't going to kill a lot of the people who are depending on us."
"I have no idea what she's talking about," I said. "She's being as coy as she used to be when she'd just solved a mystery. But she must have something, she wouldn't kid about this."
"There's the entrance to the train station," Neil said, pointing at a wide doorway in the side of one of the buildings. "Are they going to come out of there?"
I shrugged. As I've said, I didn't see how thousands of people were going to walk through underground tunnels without lights, or even how they could be organized to do it at all.
–Patience, Jan said. We will be reunited very, very soon.
I was about to ask a question, but Vicki got a very strange look on her face and said, "Oh, my. I . . ." She looked around quickly. "Come on."
"Everybody wait here! We'll be right back," she yelled over her shoulder as we trotted past the train station entrance and down a narrow street.
Next Chapter: (At this Moment of) The World