Meeting
St Cloud wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief. It was warm, and the air smelled of green, growing things. He took a sip of his drink and closed his eyes, trying to imagine it was something else. Recycled water had its merits, but taste wasn’t one of them. Better than nothing, however.
He opened his eyes and looked around the gardens. Originally, they had served a dual purpose: both to supply the kitchens with fresh produce and a ready supply of common herbs, and to give his employees and customers a curated green space for relaxation. Now, they mostly serve as a place to supplement daily scavenging runs. It was all very basic, but enough to keep scurvy from the door, at least for the moment.
“The new seeds?” he asked the garden overseer, a thin, toned woman named Boudin. He could detect the faintest aroma of human waste beneath the green. Night soil was an integral part of his agricultural expansion plan. He watched a group of people trundling wheelbarrows to the elevators. Survivors, impressed into service where they could do the most good. A pair of armed guards watched them work, alert for the slightest sign of dissent.
Boudin shrugged. “As far as I can tell, they’re growing. I’m not a gardener though. I always had people to do that for me.” Boudin had been a minor celebrity prior to the world’s collapse; she’d hosted her own radio talk show apparently, though St Cloud had never had the misfortune to listen to it.
“You still do,” St Cloud said, pointedly. She laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She’d been a guest at the casino when things had gone bad. One of around twenty high-profile and well-heeled individuals who now had to earn their keep with honest labor. Boudin was more amenable to the new status quo than some, but she still wasn’t completely onboard. None of them were. Yet one more problem he was going to have to deal with.
His kingdom needed haves to oversee the have-nots. People with a vested interest in keeping the wheels from flying off his new society, if only to keep themselves from having to shovel shit. But if the current crop wasn’t producing, maybe he needed to change things up. It might even improve morale among the lower orders if he tossed a few overseers into the arena to face Brewer’s creations. From the covert looks that Boudin’s people were throwing her way, he thought that there’d be more than a few people celebrating her demise. Then, much the same could be said of him.
“Word is, we got a good haul of supplies from the pier,” Boudin said, avoiding eye contact with him. St Cloud smiled and took another sip.
“Yes. Canned, mostly. Some medicine. Not enough, of course.”
“It’s never enough,” Boudin said, harshly. “Harold told me that there are more zombies clogging up the streets every day.” Harold was Harold Dix, a former casino whale and professional poker player. He also had a military background. St Cloud had put him in charge of the scavenging teams. Dix was not happy about that. Few of them were happy about their roles in the new world, though they were smart enough not to say anything.
“Harold talks too much,” St Cloud said. “Have you started expanding the gardens to the lobby as I requested?”
“Yes, but it’s still not big enough. Especially with thirty more mouths to feed.”
“Twenty,” he corrected, idly.
“My point stands. An increased population means an increased demand.”
“It also means a larger workforce,” he said. “Which we also need. This place wasn’t meant to be inhabited long term and by so many, even if the guestrooms on the lower floors have been converted into dormitories. It will take time and sweat to make it into something… lasting.” He looked at her “If we are to do more than survive, we must have a redoubt. This is that redoubt.”
“We could leave,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “Harold and I and some of the others were talking. We think maybe…” She faltered as she caught sight of his expression.
“What do you think? Tell me. I’m all ears.”
She swallowed and looked away. “It’s just… the city isn’t getting safer, no matter how many zombies we shoot or how many fences we put up. They keep coming and soon there won’t be anything left to scavenge. It’ll just be us, in here, surrounded by them.”
“Ah,” St Cloud said, in a mild tone. He didn’t like such talk. It was defeatist. Defeatism led to despair, and despair led to foolishness. “And what was the consensus you reached? What do you think we should do about that, eh?”
“Maybe we should leave. Go somewhere else. We have the- the trucks, the buses. We could move nearly everything…” She trailed off again.
“You know, I based our defenses on the descriptions of the Roman camps in Gaul,” he said, idly. “Some difference, of course. Modern materials and city planning require different solutions.”
He took a sip of his drink. “As we expand our perimeter, the defenses will expand as well. I am planning to establish frontier redoubts at the furthest extent of our territory. All self-sustaining, with a monthly rotation of personnel. We do not want anyone out in the bush for too long.”
“Expand our…? But we don’t have enough people for that!”
“Not yet. But there are a few more survivor camps left in the city. Perhaps a hundred, maybe one hundred and fifty people all told. Then, of course, we can go outside the city for resources.” He eyed her and was disappointed to see her face go pale. “It was never my intention to stay here. There is a whole world out there.”
She stared at him. “Someone… someone said that the new people made radio contact with another camp. In the mountains.”
St Cloud tensed. “Was this someone Mr Keates?”
“One of the guards, I think,” she said, quickly. Too quickly. “I’m not sure which one. They all look alike in those black uniforms.” She licked her lips. “Is it true?”
“What if it is?”
“What does it mean for us?”
“Nothing.” St Cloud poured the dregs of his drink onto the nearest patch of soil. “It means nothing.” He looked at her. “And you would do well to remember that. All of you. You have the privilege of my trust. It’d be unfortunate for us all if I had to revoke that privilege – but mostly for you.”
She fell silent and looked away again. He took a breath. “You’ll be at the celebration later, of course. A new crop of gladiators will be testing their skills against Brewer’s creations. I’m assured this new crop of zombies will be a bit more durable than the last. And there’ll be a special surprise at the end.” When she didn’t reply, he frowned and said, “Attendance is, of course, mandatory.”
She swallowed and nodded. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.” He turned to go. There were other people to speak to, other problems to solve. Some days it seemed as if his work was never done. Either way, he was looking forward to tonight. He took the elevator down to the main floor of the casino to see how things were shaping up.
Accompanied by his guards, he made his way out onto a large open landing overlooking what had once been the casino floor. Only now, where there had once been slot machines and blackjack tables, there was only a stretch of sand and rock. It was, or had been, intentionally reminiscent of the main floorspace of the MGM Grand which he’d seen once on a trip to Las Vegas, but this was, if anything, larger.
The main floor was on an open plan, hovering above the lobby on the ground floor. Once, you’d been able to look down from one to the other, but he’d had it all walled off with plywood to better isolate it. The new walls extended down into the lobby, blocking off a portion of it. He had plans to use that area for gardens, but nothing had taken shape yet.
The stores and restaurants on the level above had been refurbished into improvised stadium seating, all of it angled to give a view of the sands below. The casino wasn’t a casino anymore, but games of chance were still played. Only now, the wagers were matters of life and death. He was quite proud of himself for coming up with the idea. Books were too valuable as fuel or compost, and televisions didn’t work. That left live entertainment.
He leaned against the rail and looked down at the sand and gravel where once there had been expensive carpet. He closed his eyes, remembering the way it had sounded before. A riot of noise, coming from everywhere at once. Beautiful.
The feeling didn’t last. His chat with Boudin had unsettled him. Thing were clicking along well, but that meant they were also at their most precarious. Too many days of poor pickings by the scavenging teams, too many casualties, and it would all unravel. He needed something big to keep his subordinates in line.
Unbeckoned, Ariadne popped into his mind. His sister the smuggler. But where was she finding these supplies that she was doling out all willy-nilly? Some cache or bunker he had yet to uncover, obviously. Perhaps it had been a mistake to ignore her. To leave her free and running about the city. But at the time, he’d had better uses for the resources at hand than trying to find his errant twin.
She’d tried to take his casino from him once. Who was to say she wasn’t planning to try again? Maybe that was what she was up to with this supply and trade nonsense. She was making alliances, making herself welcome. Something he’d never bothered with. There’d seemed no point to it, given his goal. There weren’t enough survivors in the city to make a decent army, not really. Nothing equal to Keates and his people.
But what about outside the city?
He was still pondering the thought when a voice called out behind him, “Boss, you’re looking good!” St Cloud turned. Herc Mondo strode towards him, dressed in slacker best. Another of his valued guests-turned-overseers, Mondo was, or had been, a former MMA fighter turned digital celebrity – a streamer or something, whose channel and podcast had made him the voice of a certain slice of humanity. Herc Mondo was clearly a pseudonym, but he never answered to anything else.
St Cloud allowed him his quirks because he was good at keeping the crowds entertained. Kept them invested and cheering instead of thinking about the cost of their entertainment. “Thank you, Mr Mondo. You look well yourself. Have you had a chance to check out your new gladiators yet?”
Mondo grinned. “The pier folks? I’m heading down there now, as a matter of fact. Want to come with me, watch me explain the rules?”
“No, thank you. I trust you to make the limits of their situation plain to them. Brewer has promised some interesting zombies for tonight. Have you seen them?”
Mondo shook his head. “Nah, but I’ve heard them. Lots of rattling and snarling in the chute,” he said, referring to the set of rooms that had been converted into holding pens for the zombies marked for the arena. “Whatever the doc has done to those deadheads, it ain’t made them any friendlier, that’s for sure.”
“Well, friendly would defeat the purpose somewhat.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Mondo said, and laughed. He paused. “These new folks though, I don’t think they’re going to last any longer than the previous ones. They’re starving, scared. I’ll be surprised if any of them last longer than the first night.”
St Cloud nodded. Every dead body left on the sands went either to feed the gardens or the zombies penned up in the parking garage. Some of them even joined the latter, depending on their condition. “Either way, the house wins, Mr Mondo.” St Cloud smiled coolly, and knocked on the rail with his knuckles.
“The house always wins.”