Rafe dropped the chicken leg onto his plate. “Guess I’m getting this to go.”
“Bring the bike around,” Hagen said, picking up the plate. “I’ll wrap this and meet you in front.” She headed off.
“So, can you get to Chicago and back in time?” I asked as he rose.
He zipped up his knapsack and slung the whole pack onto his back. “We’ll find out.” His tone wasn’t reassuring. He left through the station’s back door — after shoving a bear-man out of his way. Even if I could keep up with him on a bike, and that was unlikely, I was just as happy not to go. I’d seen enough of the Feral Zone and had my fill of adventure. Staying here was a much saner plan.
Hagen returned with a child’s old lunchbox, into which she packed the chicken. “Don’t worry. He’ll do the fetch and wear himself out to get back in time. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Mack.”
“Because my dad got him out of an orphan camp?”
“Yes, after Mack saw how bad it was. The guards treat the kids like slave labor.”
My skin prickled. Everson had said he’d take the little girl, Jia, to an orphan camp. Were they all awful?
“Mack felt responsible because he was the one who put Rafe there,” Hagen added.
“Why?” I asked.
“On one of his fetches, Mack found Rafe living like a wild child out in the woods. Half-starved and alone.”
“What happened to his parents?”
Hagen pursed her lips as if considering how much to tell me.
“They were killed by a feral, weren’t they?” I guessed. That would explain why Rafe hated infected people.
She sighed, relenting. “I don’t know what happened to his parents. He was raised by his sister. But you’ve got the right idea. When her husband got infected, the three of them moved out of the compound where they were living. Not Moline. They were squatting in some abandoned house, making the best of it, and then one day, the guy turned and killed Rafe’s sister right in front of him. He was eight.”
I clapped a hand to my mouth. Eight?! No wonder he’d made a career out of killing ferals.
Hagen angled a finger at me. “Don’t tell him I told you. He hates anyone feeling sorry for him.”
I nodded, though it would be hard not to look at him differently. How could anyone help but feel sorry for him after hearing that story?
“You want something to drink?” she asked. “There’s no coffee, but we have tea.”
“What I really want is more information.” If I was stuck in Moline, at least I was going to learn as much about the East as I could — especially about my father’s life here. “Is my dad coming over just to fetch art and make money, or is it more than that? Dr. Solis said he brings medicine over here, to the compound.”
“The money’s a part of it, don’t kid yourself.” Hagen settled in the chair next to me. “But yeah, Mack brings medicine that we wouldn’t get any other way. It slows down the virus.” She gestured to the man infected with mastiff and another with froggy eyes who now sat on opposite sides of a checkerboard. They wore blue jeans and sweaters that were too small for them — probably scavenged from abandoned stores. The mastiff picked up a mug, his claws clicking on the ceramic handle, and tipped it to his muzzle. His black tongue lapped as he swallowed and hot chocolate dribbled onto his shirt, which he dabbed at self-consciously.
“Keeps them from mutating as fast,” Hagen went on. “But they have to keep taking it. Every month.”
A man approached the table. “Hagen, if you’re going to set a curfew, you should issue a shoot-to-kill order along with it. Post people on roofs. Anything out on the street tonight gets a gut full of bullets. That’ll solve our feral problem real quick.”
“The way the military gunned down people during the plague?” Hagen snapped. “Great idea, Nestor. Let’s bring back anarchy. It worked so well last time.”
“Forget the plague. Remember two years ago? Do you want to lose eight more people — full-blooded humans?”
“What I’m not going to do is resort to tactics that end in tragedy — always.” Hagen’s voice took on a steely edge. “Thanks for your input, but I got this one.”
“I hope so. Because a lot of people have been saying it’s time to hold another election.” He moved off.
Hagen massaged her temples. “This is going to get ugly before it gets better. I don’t see a way around it.”
“The rogue killed eight people two years ago?”
Hagen nodded. “We only found three bodies. But the other five people were never seen again, and those are just the ones we know about. No one notices a missing drifter, and there are a lot of those in the Feral Zone.”
“Does my dad know that there’s a man-eating feral on the loose?”
“He heard the talk last night before he took off. I wouldn’t worry about him. Your dad deals with worse every time he goes into Chicago. He says the people in that city have gone truly insane.” She leaned back with a sigh. “Actually what’s more surprising is that the rest of us haven’t.”
“Why didn’t you leave during the exodus?”
“You say that like it was my choice. The plague hit so fast — there were a million people diagnosed with a new, unnamed virus in one day.”
I imagined something like that happening now, in the West, and it staggered me.
“Of course,” Hagen went on, “all those people managed to go feral and bite someone before anyone knew what was going on. And animals were getting it too. By the third day, public transportation was shut down and the interstate roads were all closed to try to stop it from spreading any farther. But the hospitals were overflowing — there were just too many new cases — so infected people ran through the streets, and the police began gunning them down. The rest of us didn’t dare leave our homes for fear of getting bitten or shot. We barricaded our doors and watched the news as city after city was overtaken with feral people and animals, not to mention corpses, because back then most people died within days.”
I nodded. This part had been on the history sites.
“The exodus across the Mississippi began, and those of us stuck in the East stayed put, waiting for the government to get the situation under control, which they promised to do. But they never even tried.”
“What do you mean? They did get it under control. That’s when they set up the immigration checkpoints, to make sure the survivors would be safe.”
Hagen smiled at me grimly and shook her head. “I finally ventured out, and made my way here.” She cocked her head toward the river. “They’d already put up an electric fence on the western bank. Within a year, the wall replaced it. I’ve never seen anything that huge constructed so fast.”
“But did you cross to Arsenal and go to a checkpoint? They were still letting people in after the wall went up.”
“Only if you had a guaranteed contact over there who could give you a place to stay and help you find a job. They said they didn’t want refugees living on the streets.”
“What? No. You just had to be an American citizen and —”
“‘Not pose a health risk to the general population.’ On paper, it looked like you just had to test clean for Ferae. But that phrase was twisted to suit the gatekeepers. And it suited them to keep a lot of people out.”
My hands had balled into fists on the table. How could the government have abandoned all these people? “I just can’t believe it,” I said.
“Sorry, honey.” Hagen chuckled. She reached out and patted one of my hands. “It’s true. I should know, I lived —” A long, loud squeal cut her off. We turned to see Sid running through the front door. “Mayor!” he shouted.
She sighed. “It’s always something. Come over here and spit it out, Sid.”
“Line patrol,” Sid wheezed. As others turned to listen, the place fell silent, except for Sid’s hooves tappity-tapping across the marble floor. “They’re here!”