It could have been any generic Japanese commuter car that we rode in. It might have been American or Korean. It didn’t matter. They all looked the same, and they were all two sizes too small for the bounty hunter.
He was dressed like he should have been driving a Jeep with big tires, roll bars, and extra headlights. He looked tough when he’d been standing on my parents’ back porch wagging his gun, but with his oversized frame folded into the driver’s seat of the econobox, he looked like somebody’s dad griping about the traffic on his way to the company costume party, more disgruntled than tough, more old than grizzled.
He smelled like a summer armpit, and the upholstery had a baked puke scent that punched me in the nose every time the wind blew through just right.
“Child safety locks are on,” he called over his shoulder after we’d been in the car maybe fifteen minutes. “In case you try to open that back door.”
That was disappointing. Still, I wiggled my wrists in the plastic strap. The band around my right wrist was looser than the one on the left, and I was slowly working my hand free. At least I hoped I was. “Where are you taking me?”
“Astrodome.”
“Why there?” I asked.
“Lots of law-breaking punks like you in Houston. Need the space to process you.” He slowed when we neared a stop sign, looking both ways. His attention lingered on a gang of men and women down the street to the left. He sped through the intersection without stopping.
“What happens after that?” I asked absently, as I looked at the people who’d gotten the bounty hunter’s attention. I’d seen plenty of degenerates to know them just by looking. They had a way of moving that was distinct, the same way a puppy moves differently than a dog, only degenerates weren’t cute.
“Your paperwork says oil.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
The bounty hunter laughed gruffly. “Houston’s an oil town, boy.”
I rolled my eyes. Everybody knew that.
He looked over his shoulder at me. “You’re assigned to that industry. You’re too young to have any experience at anything. I don’t think they’ll put you to work at a refinery unless they need people to sweep the floors. They’ll probably put you in the oilfields. Or maybe on a rig in the Gulf. Be sure and mind your fingers, boy—that business is hard on fingers.”
“How long?” I asked. “I only had one more year of mandatory counseling.”
“Don’t plead your case with me. I get paid to pick you boys up and take you to the processing center. That’s it.”
I was trying to think of what Levi might say in my situation. “Will there be a judge at the processing center, somebody I can talk to?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“The law is what it is. You had your chance with that letter that got sent. This is a done deal.”
That was discouraging. I pulled harder to try and get my hand free. The bounty hunter looked like he might be twice my weight. I wondered if I could choke him out from the backseat. “What happens next?”
“They’ll assign you to a place after you get processed. They’ll put you on a bus and take you there. You’ll stay as long as they sentence you for. Five, ten years, don’t know. That’s what I’ve heard.”
The skin above my thumb, under the pressure from the plastic clasp on the strap and all that I was doing to pull my hand free, tore. I caught my squeal between my teeth. The restraint didn’t let me go, though.
“Don’t cry.” The bounty hunter glanced back at me, mistaking my pained gasp for tears. “Five years seems like a lifetime at your age but by the time you’re as old as me, you’ll figure out five years isn’t anything. It’ll pass in the blink of an eye. Besides, maybe you’ll get lucky, and they’ll put you on a rig in the Gulf. Matter of fact, if they give you a chance, ask for it. The way the world’s going, it might do you good to get away from all the shit until it settles back down. Hell, that might take five or ten years anyway. At least out on a rig, you’ll have a roof over your head and three squares a day.”
I wasn’t going to do five or ten years in any kind of labor camp. I didn’t know how, but I was going to get away. A chance was going to come, I was sure of that. When it did, I’d slip away and leave this bounty hunter to scratch his ass and wonder what happened to me. I’d go back home, maybe move into the Simpson’s house down the street. They’d disappeared six months prior. Nobody knew where they went. I’d be close enough to help Levi with Mom and Dad and when the time came—when they died—Levi and me could go down to Mexico and hook up with Oscar, who’d surely be there by then.
The bounty hunter cursed.
“What?” I asked, surprised out of my thoughts.
He pointed down the road.
I leaned over to get a view through the windshield between the front seats. Five or six blocks ahead, red and blue lights flashed in the road. The police. “Accident?” I asked.
“I hope.” The bounty hunter powered up his phone, and he fumbled with the screen as he drove, pulling up a map program. He was searching for an alternative route.
As we came within a block to the lone police cruiser parked in the road, a car ahead of us U-turned and came back toward us. I noticed dark smoke rising from several distinct points far ahead. It wasn’t a car accident that blocked our way.
We neared the police car, and the bounty hunter brought his toy-sized auto to a stop. One of two policemen came over to the driver’s side. The bounty hunter rolled down his window and asked, “Riots?”
Something buzzed by overhead and the bounty hunter flinched. “What’s that?”
The cop casually looked up. “The department started using drones to help track the riots.”
The bounty hunter looked up at the sky again, shrugged, and then he looked at the smoke spreading columns of gray into the dusky sky, he asked, “Bad?”
“Started about an hour ago,” said the cop. “Might be three or four thousand involved now. You know how it goes if you don’t nip it in the bud.”
The bounty hunter nodded. He knew. Even I knew. When gangs of degenerates got agitated about something and started running through the streets with mayhem on their minds, others joined in—they always did. And with the prion debilitating more and more people every day, the fuel for those riots was getting too plentiful.
“You got the riot squads down there taking care of it?” the bounty hunter asked. “If they’ve about got it under control I can wait. Otherwise, I need to backtrack five or six miles and then work my way around through the western suburbs.”
Shaking his head, the cop said, “We’ve got nobody in there. We barely have enough uniforms to keep traffic from driving in.”
“Why?”
“Big riots over by the rail yards,” said the cop, “been going nonstop since the night before last. We’ve got the national guard in there now trying to help.” The cop sighed and seemed to deflate beneath an unseen pressure. “We can’t even get all of them we need. Everybody in the state’s got the same problems we do.” The cop turned and looked at the columns of smoke. “It’s enough to make a man want to get his family and just go. Maybe find a ranch where the owners died from the flu and ride it all out.”
“I hear ya,” said the bounty hunter. “Anything going on down by the Astrodome that you know of?”
“Nothing significant on the south side since last Friday.” The cop was still looking at the smoke. “We’ve got plenty of uniforms deployed down there to keep the processing center secure.” The cop turned away from looking at the smoky sky, bent over, and leaned in for a look at me. “Young.”
“I don’t make the rules,” said the bounty hunter. “I just bring ‘em in.”
“Just as well,” said the cop. “We’re going to need all the able bodies we can get to keep industry running if we’re going to get through this. What’d the kid do?”
“Assault with a deadly weapon.”
A pencil? I resisted the urge to laugh.
“Gang-related?” the cop asked.
“I don’t have that information in the file,” said the bounty hunter.
The cop nodded and stepped back. He took another look at the smoke rising from down south of us. “You best find another way around.”