3
Kevin stood by the mayor’s reception room window, watching four gardeners tend the lawn. Two women knelt and worked on a flower bed while the men held odd-shaped scissors with long wooden handles. They trimmed the border where the grass met the little gully framing the flower beds. The men walked a step, snipped the grass, walked another step, snip. Kevin had never seen anything so perfect in his entire life. Like something from before the Great Crash, he decided, a slow-motion dance to the past. One of the women looked up and met his gaze. She was pretty in a bruised sort of fashion. Then she spotted the badge on his chest and returned her attention to the flowers.
Kevin was a sheriff’s deputy, serving the community of Overpass. Officially his region and the much larger Charlotte Township were the closest of allies. For a generation and more, that had been true. But no longer. Charlotte was now ruled by a despot hiding behind the old title of mayor. Silas Fleming was a man with ambitions that reached far beyond his city’s current border fences. As a result, the bonds between Charlotte and Overpass were gradually being whittled away.
The doors leading to Fleming’s inner sanctum were flanked by two armed militia. The mayor of Atlanta Township had recently offered a reward of ten thousand silver bars to the person who brought him Fleming’s head. Six days back, Kevin had apprehended three bounty hunters with forged Charlotte documents and a copy of the wanted poster. On the ride to the mayor’s office that morning, the sheriff had assured Kevin they’d been summoned so the mayor could reward him. Kevin hoped with every shred of his being that his boss was right. Every time he thought of the alternative, his chest froze up solid. If the mayor and his militia knew about Kevin helping refugees, he was a dead man.
He spared a silent plea that his mother had received his coded message. As soon as the summons arrived, Kevin had sent a note reminding Abigail not to forget that today was Monday—when, in fact, it was Tuesday. The message meant one thing. Leave everything behind. Don’t hesitate. Get to safety. Wait for word.
Kevin realized the sheriff had spoken to him. “Sir?”
Gus Ferguson sat on the leather sofa by the far wall, under a painting of some long-forgotten war. The sheriff was a twenty-year veteran, scarred and grizzled as an old tomcat. “The captain asked you a question.”
“Sorry, sir. I was . . .”
Captain Hollis was a man feared throughout the township, and for good reason. Among the sheriff’s deputies, the Charlotte militia was known as the mayor’s pack dogs. “How tall are you, boy?”
“Deputy,” Gus corrected.
“I’m six five, sir.”
Captain Hollis wore the all-black militia uniform, tailored to fit his lean form, and his ironed creases looked like blades. His brown hair was parted along the middle of his skull and plastered down tight as a helmet. He had grey eyes, blank and cold as a lizard’s. “You’re the one they call Kitten.”
All the deputies were given nicknames they referred to as brands. Being branded was part of belonging to the force. But the militia captain turned it into a slur. Even so, there was nothing to be gained from riling the officer. Kevin kept his voice as bland as his features. “That’s me, sir.”
“Strange tag for a man built like you. What, you ran from a fight?”
“Ritter teaches hand-to-hand combat to our recruits.” Gus kept his voice as mild as Kevin’s, only an octave lower. “He’s called that because he always lands on his feet.”
The captain’s response was cut off by the double doors opening. A guardsman stepped out and announced, “The mayor will see you now.”
“Come on in, gentlemen. Make yourselves comfortable.” Mayor Silas Fleming remained seated behind his desk, booming a cheery welcome that did not touch his eyes. “I see you’ve met Hollis, my go-to guy on matters like this.”
The desk was built upon a dais raised a foot off the carpeted floor. Only when Kevin was seated did the mayor rise from his chair. Kevin did his best to hide his surprise at how small the man was.
Fleming leaned against the corner of his desk and smoothed wispy hair over his temples. His cuff links sparkled like gold daggers. “How old are you, Kevin?”
Kevin hesitated, then decided the mayor already knew the truth. “I’m twenty-five, sir.”
“You lied about your age to enter your father’s old force. Allegiance is a fine thing, isn’t it, Hollis.”
The guards captain lounged in the room’s corner, where the shadows melted with his dark uniform. He did not speak.
“Where’s your father now, Kevin?”
“Dead, sir. He was killed in the line of duty.”
Gus said, “His father was my partner at the time, and my closest friend.”
“Now that is a shame. A boy needs his father to keep him on the straight and narrow. He surely does.”
Kevin replied, “Sheriff Ferguson has been the best mentor a man could ask for, sir.”
“I’m sure he tried, Deputy. I’m sure he tried.” The mayor glanced at something on his desk. As he shifted a page around so he could read the script, Kevin noticed the mayor’s fingernails were polished.
Fleming went on, “I understand you recently apprehended three armed men dispatched by our enemies to the south. Men intent upon doing me harm. That is highly commendable work, Kevin. Or should I call you Kitten?”
“Whatever you prefer is fine with me, sir.”
“See, it’s this can-do attitude that made me certain you were the man I needed. You can’t imagine how hard it is to find good people these days. It’s why I value Hollis like I do. He is the best, absolutely the best there is, at his job. I hope I’ll soon be able to say the same about you.”
“I hope so too, sir.”
“Splendid. Which brings us to the matter at hand. Here I was, planning to reward you for your fine work, when this other item lands on my desk.” He used two fingers to lift the paper. “Terrible, this. You know what I have here, Deputy?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s a death sentence, for not one but two people. Just terrible.” He squinted at the page as though studying it for the first time. “I see here we are due to execute a Professor Abigail Ritter and her son. Two upstanding citizens, upright in every way but one.”
Time locked up as tight as his chest. Kevin could count the dust motes in the air. He watched the mayor drop the paper to his desk. The light spilled around his minuscule frame. Impossible a man this small could hold such might. The power of life and death. Over him. And his mother.
The sheriff exclaimed, “Deputy Ritter is one of the finest—”
“Gus, we’ve got the evidence, and we’ve got the witnesses. The boy and his mother will dangle from two of the township’s lampposts at sunrise.”
The sheriff protested, “Mayor Fleming, I’ve served Overpass Township . . .”
The mayor locked gazes until he was certain Kevin’s boss was good and silenced. “That’s all I’m going to hear from you, Gus. Are we clear?” He turned back to Kevin. “I’m sorry, Deputy. I truly am. But you’re guilty, and you’re going down.”
“Sir, my mother didn’t have anything—”
“Don’t you even start. It won’t do you any good, and it’ll waste my time. And there’s nothing I hate more than a time waster.”
“Sir, please—”
“You keep on, you’re going to get me riled. And you don’t want to see that happen. Does he, Hollis.”
“No sir. That he does not.”
“Hollis here is a specialist at taking care of folks who rile me. It’s a dark and painful aspect of this office, needing the services of a man like him. Are we clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“I’ve got to hand it to you. You and your mother ran a tight ship. We’ve known for some time that an unauthorized conduit for refugees had been at work. Hollis spent far too many hours trying to find the folks in charge. Then a little bird sings in my ear. Not his. Mine. You can’t imagine the joy and the sorrow of learning I could finally crush the railroad, but in so doing I would have to end your and your mother’s lives.”
The words were a hurricane rush in his brain. Entry into the township was officially governed by the mayor’s office, but in reality it was controlled by the militia. Everyone who entered Charlotte Township paid in full. One way or the other.
The mayor drew him back with, “Let’s get down to business. I have a proposition for you. A get-out-of-jail card. Do this one thing, and you and your mother will be free to go about your lives. The slate wiped clean. Are you hearing me, Kevin?”
He heard himself say, “I’ll do anything.”
“Of course you will! I liked the look of you as soon as you walked through those doors. I told myself, this boy’s got the makings of a survivor. And I was right, wasn’t I.”
“Splendid.” He turned his back to the room. “Now tell us everything you know about those folks called specials. Or abominations. Names don’t mean nearly so much as what they represent, far as I’m concerned.”
Kevin jerked in surprise. Of all the possible avenues of escape he could have imagined, this would not have even registered.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hollis shift forward slightly. The crucial matter was now exposed. This was the strategy of a good interrogator. Control the situation by knowing as much as possible going in, never revealing the precise target. He took a shaky breath. Everything depended upon him getting this exactly right. No hesitations, no signals, no responses except those from a man fueled by raw fear.
He replied, “I’ve heard the rumors same as everybody, sir.”
“You’ve never brought one into Charlotte Township?”
“Sir, I couldn’t say for certain they even exist.”
“Oh, they exist, all right. There are too many reports coming in from too many directions for them to be just a myth. Now tell me what you’ve heard.”
“Over the past year or so we’ve received reports about young people with special talents. Some of the claims are ridiculous.”
“Being able to hear people’s thoughts,” the mayor said. “Ridiculous.”
“But some of the others, well . . .”
“Describe them.”
“The ability to heal with one touch, we have heard that one a lot.”
Hollis scoffed. “Refugees desperate for medical care could have come up with that one.”
The mayor glanced over, but all he said was, “Go on, Kevin.”
“The power to tell when someone is speaking the truth.”
“That would make for an especially damaging opponent at the negotiating table. Wouldn’t you agree, Hollis.”
Kevin went on, “The ability to turn just about anything into a weapon through thought alone.”
The mayor tapped the desk with his knuckles. “And that is precisely what interests us here today.”
Hollis demanded, “You actually think some kid out there can blow things up with his mind?”
“We’ll just have to see, won’t we.” The mayor rocked up and down on his polished shoes, his hands locked behind his back. “Kevin, last month you attended the gathering of elders from the smaller enclaves south of Washington—what is it called?”
The mayor kept shocking him, both with his knowledge and his changes of direction. “The annual assembly.”
“Your mother was supposed to go, wasn’t she. But she’s taken ill, so you went as her alternate.”
“How . . .”
“I hold this office by keeping hold of the township’s pulse. Now back to the topic at hand. The matter of these specials came up, didn’t it.”
“Yes sir. It sure did.”
“As a matter of fact, it dominated the entire assembly, especially after it came to light that almost every enclave has confirmed reports of these so-called specials among their numbers. The arguments raged all day and night. I’m given to understand that several august members actually came to blows. Why is that, I wonder.”
Kevin swallowed. “A group of elders believes these young people with their special talents are heralds of the Second Coming.”
Hollis demanded, “The second coming of what?”
The mayor offered his militia officer a patronizing smile. “Never mind Hollis. He might be uneducated in the finer points of religious thought, but he knows all he needs to. Go on.”
“Others talked about how these specials are all the result of illegal experiments. Supposedly the national government started this work just before the Crash.” Kevin wiped at the sweat beading his forehead. “There was some kind of secret facility where they changed the genes of human embryos.”
“They’re not just rumors,” Fleming said. “I know because I’ve had my people in Washington track down the truth. These experiments took place. And now the result is springing up everywhere. Go on, Kevin. Tell us what happened at the vote.”
“The elders split right down the middle. Out of seven hundred votes cast, the opponents won by two.” That was when the fights had broken out. The losers accused the winners of being more interested in holding on to power than in the safety of future generations. Swift to condemn, exclusionary, blind. Those were some of the words Kevin had heard swirling about the halls. He wiped away his perspiration a second time.
The mayor said, “So the assembly has decided to class these specials as a threat. Why do you suppose that is?”
“My mother thinks . . .”
“Go on, Kevin. Tell us what your mother has to say on the matter.”
He saw that the mayor had stopped his heel-to-toe rocking. He knew Fleming was listening intently, even with his back to the room. “The assembly leaders are afraid. They are also resistant to change. They fear the uncertainties these specials represent, especially because their forces are mental. Which means they’re also unseen. My mother says the elders fear these specials could threaten their power structure.”
“Professor Ritter is a wise and perceptive woman. As are you, Deputy. It’s a shame we had to meet under these circumstances.” Fleming spun about on one small, polished shoe. “Her analysis is right on the money. But here’s something your mother doesn’t know. Washington has started rounding up every special they can get their hands on. What happens after that, nobody knows. And a few months back, some of their representatives showed up here. Offering me all sorts of rewards if I’ll let them hunt around Charlotte for members of this new breed.”
The mayor began pacing between the desk and the window. “Now we’ve learned our foe to the south, the mayor of Atlanta Township, has started gathering up specials. That is highly confidential, of course. But we have our spies, or rather, Hollis does. Atlanta’s mayor wants to set up a secret cadre. Gather together a group of these specials, especially a bunch he’s calling forecasters. He wants them to tell him which way to jump.” He reached the edge of the dais and flicked a hand in Kevin’s direction. “I want you to go out there and find me half a dozen specials. We’re going to build ourselves a . . . what was the name we decided on?”
“Task force,” Hollis replied.
“The very thing! A special task force. Washington’s promised to send us their best hunters very soon now. But there’s no telling if they’ll let us keep what they find. So before they get started, I want you to round us up a group. Give us a chance to judge these specials for ourselves.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“You’ll do more than that! Else I’ll have to bring in Hollis. Tell the deputy what will happen then.”
The guards captain replied from the shadows, his voice soft and easy and emotionless. “I’ll bind you and make you watch as I personally string your mother up from a lamppost. The way I do it, she could last hours. Then I’ll end you the same way. The two of you could take all day.”
The mayor beamed down at Kevin. “There, you see? Motivation is the key! Now you get out there and show me some results. You and your mother have got yourselves one week.”