The man has a laptop. If that’s not the height of hypocrisy, I don’t know what is. Laptops are pretty much like unicorns and hot showers after the Rift—nonexistent. There’s no electricity to charge them, and the batteries have to be recharged via hand-crank generator. Some people still cling to the old technology, which means that when you find some, it goes gangbusters in the swap-tents. We’re talking enough food to live like kings just for one functioning laptop.
It’s my dream to find one. Just one. Then I can get a real home for Amy, Sasha and me. Enough foodstuffs to not have to worry about where our next meal will come from. New clothes. A functioning laptop is like winning the lottery. I’ve found a few batteries in the Scavenge Lands before, but never one that would hold a charge. Batteries are almost as hot—if not hotter—than the laptops themselves. Any existing electronics, like guns, were confiscated by the New Militia in the shocked wake of the Rift, and people let them. Because they’re banned and so rare, electronics are now the hottest things on the black market.
I should know; I was trying to sell a laptop battery to Tucker the Trader when I got busted.
“Claudia James, you know your crimes?” The mayor straightens a pair of ugly, thick glasses perching on his nose. He looks tired. There’s soot on his clothing and a smear of it on his forehead. Not unusual; everyone’s cleaning soot off of everything for days after a bad dragon attack…just in time for the dragons to come again. I’m probably grimy with a layer of it myself.
Do I know my crimes? Of course I do. I just don’t think they’re crimes. The question is, should I feign innocence or be forthright? I study the mayor’s face, and he looks tired and annoyed. Innocence won’t work, then. All right, I’ll go with ballsy. “My crimes? I can take a wild stab at it if you want.”
The mayor peers at his laptop, then frowns at me again. He closes it gently and picks up a yellowed dry-erase board. Man, I don’t even warrant real paper? That sucks. “Claudia Jones,” the mayor reads aloud. “Held by the New Militia for trespassing, theft, black-marketeering, and attempting to evade the law. How do you plead?”
He’s forgotten petty larceny, but I’ll keep my mouth shut about that one for now. I give him a faint smile even though my heart’s pounding in my chest. “Sounds about right, but I don’t feel like it’s fair to put someone in jail for stealing something from a place where no one lives anymore.”
“You know the rules. Fort Dallas does not want people going beyond the barriers. It’s not safe.”
Yeah, I know it’s not safe. It fills me with terror every time I go, and I jump at every shadow. But it has to be done, and it’s either that or starve…or sell myself. So scavenging I go. “We needed to eat. I didn’t have any money. So I took a chance.”
The mayor sets the whiteboard down and rubs his tired eyes under his glasses. “You do realize, Claudia Jones, that Fort Dallas doesn’t treat crimes the same as we did Before.”
The ‘Before’ doesn’t need explaining. I know what he means: before the dragons, before the Rift, before the endless fire and ash. Back in the good ol’ days when life was normal and our biggest worry was who was going to win the latest singing competition on TV.
That was before the sky opened up, the hole ripped in the heavens, hell came to Earth and everything changed. That was before millions—no, billions had died and the survivors had to scramble to protect themselves from the furious beasts that now reign supreme from the skies above.
Yeah, I know all about Before. I nod.
“Then you know the penalty you are facing for your crimes is exile?”
I suck in a breath. My heart thunders in my breast and the world grows faint around me.
Exile. He might as well just say ‘death.’ It’s the same thing.
If I’m exiled, I’ll be tossed outside the metal barrier that makes Fort Dallas’s protective wall—the barrier made entirely from old automobiles—and I’ll be forced out on my own to survive. No friends. No safe places to go. I’d be out in the open, unprotected against nomad bands, predators…and dragons. I’ll never see my sister or Sasha again.
I can’t be exiled. What will happen to Amy? A vision of my sister whoring for the soldiers flashes through my mind, and I squeeze my eyes shut, wincing. Not Amy. She’s still got innocence about her, and that deserves to be spared. She needs to be protected, and Sasha won’t be able to do it on her own. “Please…I have people depending on me, sir.”
“We all do,” the mayor says sourly. “Which is why the rules must be enforced. If you cannot obey them, you have no place here in Fort Dallas with the law-abiding civilians of this town.”
Law-abiding? Is he crazy? Fort Dallas is filled with scavengers of all kinds, whores, murderers, thieves—the only thing that makes us ‘civilized‘ is that we’re protected behind a wall and controlled by the murderers with the guns—the New Militia. Everyone cheats, lies and steals to put food on the table.
The only difference between me and everyone else? I was dumb enough to get caught. “It was just a laptop battery—”
“You broke the law.”
I clasp my hands together, trying to look penitent. “Please. I’m trying to feed my sister—”
The look on his face grows harder. “That is no excuse, Miss Jones. The New Militia will feed you; you know this. All you have to do is ask.”
Yeah, in exchange for a quick fuck, the NM will be plenty happy to give me a tin of moldy beans. Even a starving girl’s got standards. “Please. You can’t send me outside the wall.”
“Why not? You went there anyhow.”
“That was just to grab something to sell! Now you’re telling me I can’t come back!” Real panic sets in, and I’m gasping for air. There’s not enough air in the damn room. I can’t stop shaking. “The dragons. I can’t be out in the open with the dragons—”
“I’m not unsympathetic, Miss Jones, but we must uphold the rules.” He says he’s not unsympathetic, but the look on his face is anything but.
“You’re using a battery on your laptop right now,” I protest. “How can you condemn me for searching for more? Where do you think that one came from?”
As soon as the words leave my lips, I know they’re a mistake. His I’m-weary-but-benevolent look disappears, replaced by a deep frown at his realization that I’d dare to call him out. Like this is surprising. Everyone uses stolen goods, whether for nostalgia or other selfish needs, but no one mentions that they get them from scavengers like me. No one wants to sell out their source…
Except for my buddy Tucker, who sold me out to save his own ass when his shop got raided. I hope I never see him again, because he’s seriously going to regret ratting me out. Now’s not the time to think about Tucker, though. I have to think about Amy. And I have to think about myself.
So I clasp my hands tightly under my chin and make my eyes as big and tear-filled as I can. I don’t even have to fake the tears. I’m freaking out. My hands won’t stop shaking. “Please, please, Mayor Lewis. Don’t exile me. I’ll die out there. My sister will die in here with no one to take care of her. Please help me. I’m not a bad person.”
And I sniff to add woebegone drama to my tears. I need this. I need to stay.