The Culled Part 9

The t.i.the.

"Every child above age five," Nate had said the night before, like reading from a scripture written inside his eyelids, "and below age eighteen, to be inducted into the Ay-Cee-En-Dee."

That's Apostolic Church of the etc etc.

They'd spread the good news across the oceans. They'd conquered the airwaves when all other frequencies had fallen silent. They'd taken responsibility for the future when all the starving, dribbling politicians and leaders and generals left behind could not, and then they'd made it their business to take charge of the children.

They'd made the people want to give up their own kids. And they were just another New York gang.

I found myself wis.h.i.+ng I'd taken a little longer with the f.u.c.kers inside the plane.

Eventually, loving every minute of the guards' continuing bewilderment, Nate dug from his pocket a tattered eye patch and covered over his half-tattoo. He looked like he'd done this sort of thing before. The goons all but fainted in relief; apologising with twenty shades of uncharacteristic pomposity and explaining that members of 'The Great Klan' so rarely visited the Mart, they were unprepared. It's one of those sights that sticks in the mind: two seven-foot yetis fawning and sc.r.a.ping over a scrawny old git dressed like a tramp with a uniform fetish. Nate clucked and swaggered along the concourse.

The guards turned to me and let the panicky hysteria fade from their grizzled faces. They took my gun, glancing at it with suspicious eyes that said how inna h.e.l.l did you come by this, little man? and told me to show them my Klan marking.

"Ah." I said.

The way it worked, Nate had told me, was that you had your Klansmen, and then you had your scavs. The scavs were like livestock. Their loyalties determined by whichever mob happened to rule the territory in which they'd chosen to eke-out their lives. Some went wherever their Klans went, or chose the most profitable or benevolent of regimes to nuzzle up to. Others were just spoils, like land taken in territorial scuffles; unceremoniously re-branded as the occasion required.

It sounded feudal. It sounded f.u.c.king stupid.

"Why don't they just leave?" I'd said, in the airport, as Nate explained. "Why don't they just rebel? There must be thousands of them."

"They do." Nate shrugged. "All the time. Not a day goes by there ain't a little... revolution, uprising, whatever. Chaos on the streets, every f.u.c.king night. But here's the thing: you want a way to share out scavenged s.h.i.+t, or food, or whatever you got? Klans're the only way."

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

"Not bulls.h.i.+t. Good sense. And if not good sense then natural-f.u.c.king-order." He'd licked his lips, waving a hand as he hunted down an example. "Let's say you're a... a young girl, right? Only just escaped the t.i.the. No parents. No weapons. No friends or food. Who's gonna stick up for you? Who's gonna make sure that s.h.i.+tty squat you found to sleep in don't get raided, or burnt down, or torn-up by some crackhead rapist? Huh?"

I'd shaken my head, unable to bring myself to agree, but I could see what he was getting at. Just.

"And what if you're not helpless?" I'd said. "You've still got to... toe the f.u.c.king line. Join up, act like a piece of property, get branded like a sodding cow."

"Yes you do. Yes you do. But the only way is up. And what happens when you impress one of the hotshots, huh? Or maybe cosy-up to the Klanboss? Or kill someone in the communal bad-books?"

I'd shaken my head again.

"Promotion." He grinned. "Become a Klansman. Free to carry weapons. Free to roam. Work your way up. Maybe one day challenge for the top spot."

"And if you f.u.c.k up?"

His voice had gone quiet, all but lost behind the crackling fire.

"Then you out on your ear. And you better hope you can take care of yourself, or else find someone who can."

Talking about himself, again. Just like always.

Nate said the Klansmen wore gang colours, and let their brands heal over. They got to carry weapons and administer internal justice and expand territories and all the other bulls.h.i.+t war games you can imagine. They played at being generals, gladiators, law enforcers and conquistadors. They got all the best gear. They had first choice of any scav, ate the best pickings, collected on debts, upheld the Klan's integrity and generally acted big.

I told Nate I was shaking in my boots. I'm not sure if he knew I was joking.

Back to the power plant.

"I don't have a brand." I told the guards.

"You ain't a scav?" One of them ran his eyes up and down my pitiful clothing. "Look like a scav."

"Fully paid-up Klansman." I said, smiling, knocking-out my best US accent and still managing to sound (in my head, at least) like I was taking the p.i.s.s.

I was.

"Yeah?" The guard said, looking like he'd already had a bad day and couldn't be a.r.s.ed with it getting any worse. "What Klan?"

I thought for a moment, smiled sweetly and said: "The Culled."

They let me through, eventually, and as I pa.s.sed him by the biggest goon grumbled, half-hearted.

"No Klan business inside."

I grinned and told him to perish the thought.

As we pa.s.sed the checkpoint and wound our way further into the facility, I caught Nate staring at me, like some freakish version of a pirate, uncovered eye twinkling.

He'd been carrying my pack since the airport - to spare my shoulder, he said - and now he unslung it carefully onto the floor, staring at me with a curious smile.

I wondered for the fiftieth time what he was hoping to get out of all this. Out of helping me. Out of saving my life and bringing me here.

Call me cynical, but Nate didn't strike me as the sort of guy to do something for nothing.

"Take another cigarette?" He asked.

He'd earned it. Of course he had.

Currency's currency.

"Go ahead."

But as he dipped his hands inside the pack they moved with a speed and confidence that betrayed all kinds of stuff, if you're a paranoid b.a.s.t.a.r.d like me. If you know what you're looking for.

Familiarity.

Confidence.

Avarice.

When he saved my life, when he made the choice to attach himself to me rather than kill me, as I lay with a dying man's blood pulsing into my veins, he'd had hours and hours to go through the bag. Was that it? Was that all there was to him staying with me?

He'd seen the goods and wanted to earn his share?

No. No that made no sense. He could have just let me bleed out, let me die there on the runway, then taken it all for himself.

What then?

That same scratching. That same itching something at the back of my mind.

Something not quite right.

Something not adding up.

"Nate."

"Mm?" He said, sparking the cigarette.

Just ask, dammit...

"Why are you helping me?"

The air smelt of salt and car fumes. For a long time, there was silence.

He watched me. Eyes unmoving.

"Thought we'd established that." He said, slowly, as if I was being ungrateful. As if I'd told him I didn't need him.

"Try again." I said, gently.

He sighed. Pursed his lips.

"I walked out on the Clergy, pal. Saved my own skin when I shoulda... shoulda died like a martyr. That's what they expect. Thoughtless obedience, you understand?"

"So?"

"So if they catch up with me, it's... It'll be..." He looked away, face fearful, and coughed awkwardly. Another long suck on the cigarette, calming his nerves.

"Anyway," he said. "I seen you in action."

"And?"

"I kept you alive, raggedy-man. Now all you got to do is return the favour."

And it was an explanation, I suppose. It made sense. It all added up.

And underneath it all the dark voice in my mind, shouting: Don't you f.u.c.king give up, soldier.

Don't you get distracted, boy.

Don't you let things slip.

Sir, no sir, etc etc.

Nate was helping me. Because of him I was healthy enough to carry on; to get the job done; to go after it like a flaming f.u.c.king sword. Everything else was just dross. Everything else was just peripheral s.h.i.+t that didn't matter. Who cared why Nate was helping me? He'd given his explanation. Now move on.

Except, except, except.

Except that as Nate dropped the cigarettes back into the bag his hand paused - a split second, no more - next to the battered city map with its New York scrawl and red ink notes, and his lips twitched. A fraction. Just a fraction.

Then he caught me staring, and closed up the pack with a friendly smile, and led me further inside the power plant.

I took the pack and shouldered it myself.

"How you feeling?" He said, as we walked. "Got your strength back? Lot of blood you lost, back there."

Reminding me. Keeping me indebted.

Not subtle, Nate.

"I'm peachy." I told him, a little colder than I'd meant.

Basic training, year two: Call in favours. Get people good and beholden. Make friends. Make the f.u.c.kers owe you one.

But don't you let yourself owe anyone anything. You hear me, soldier? Don't you get yourself in arrears. Don't you feel obliged to take care of anyone.

People are parasites, boy. They see something strong, they clamp on.

They slow you down.

They complicate s.h.i.+t.

"Just peachy," I mumble-repeated, morose.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

By then, the TV broadcasts were getting random.

The signal itself was okay. Would continue to be for another year or two, up until the power died and the generators sucked dry on fuel and all the diehards up at White City gave up. By which time barely anyone had a TV left working anyway.

But at the start, loud and clear, picture-perfect, 100% dross.

Mostly it was repeats. A computer governed the scheduling, I guessed, to cover holes and overruns. Endless episodes of Only Fools and Horses, long-gone seasons of Porridge and The Good Life, a smattering of game shows whose contestants won or lost years before. Friends reruns, over and over and over and over, and anyone who gave a s.h.i.+t waited in vain for an episode called 'The One Where Everyone Dies of an Unknown Flesh-Digesting Virus.'

No one was making anything new. No doc.u.mentaries about the present emergency. No one had the time or energy to programme the channels.

Everyone was too busy staying alive.