“There was a dust storm,” I said. “And folk lurking outside.”
“And your dad got taken.”
I nodded.
The man rubbed a finger on his glass eye and stared out across the rows of junk metal and plastic, his face all puckered and sorry. “I heard there are slavers. I heard they snatch folk up. Cut deals with the Salvage Guild.”
“Could be,” I said. Was a time I’d thought stories about the taken were just told to frighten you from wandering out of sight. Must have been a dozen tales about what happens to those who go missing. Them that vanish and never come back. I’d bought into this one about slavers, though. Ended up checking every salvage crew in the Steel Cities, north to south, but I never found Pop’s face nor spoke to a crew boss who’d seen him.
“Others say it’s freaks out of Vega,” said old One Eye, and my stomach twisted. I’d heard this one, too. The one about a meat trade. Corn’s all that grows and people are all that’s left, so I guess someone might be sick enough to mix up the menu.
“Be honest with you,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “My old man being turned into someone’s dinner ain’t nothing I can think about.”
I remembered how I’d sat in the back of the wagon, sweating and shaking and scared. There’d been nothing left to see when the red dust quit spinning. And there was no place left to look now. Nearly a year had gone by.
“All that matters is they never come back.” I leaned and spat. “I reckon getting taken just means you wind up dead.”
The man studied me with his good eye. “Pull that wagon around, son,” he said, turning away. “We’ll get her loaded up.”
It took me six trips to haul the metal, and I had to wait out two storms along the way — hazard winds churning dirt in a frenzy, dust clouds shutting down the sky. I wound up low on juice hauling the last load. The wagon started to crawl and whir reluctantly.
The scrap farm was outside the city, deep in the shantytown sprawl that hangs around the south like a bad smell. The wagon got too slow passing the tents and teepees, the heat frying the plastic shacks and sizzling on the crappy tin roofs. Before long, a filthy mob of little ones were swarming and pressed on my windows, singing snatches of old songs and screaming at me with swollen gums, their faces all covered in sores. Got so I was scared of running over the smallest ones, and I fired up some corn till the bag popped and the microwave pinged. Then I threw the bag across the street and soon as it burst open, those kids were pecking and scooping at the dirt.
So that was one less meal I could count on. But what else was I supposed to do?
I hadn’t rounded but two more bends when I spotted the GenTech tanker. You could hardly miss it — bright-ass purple truck all chock-full of corn. There were agents on either side of it, dust dirtying their purple duds, fancy goggles protecting their eyes. Masks shielding their lungs. They had their guns out, their spiky clubs raised. And out the back of the tanker, they were selling rations, making a killing on the prices like always. Even lowest-grade corn’s something most count by the kernel. Brew it into fuel or stuff it in your belly, either way, the stuff don’t come cheap. Not when only GenTech can grow it and it’s the only damn thing left growing.
Sure, you can try planting those kernels yourself, and they’ll grow just fine if you find enough water. But each kernel on each new plant will be coded with GenTech in little purple letters. And then, when the agents find you, they’ll kill you.
Simple as that.
Shantytown was thinning out already. The winter exodus had started — strugglers braving the long road west to Vega in the hope of some better life. At least it was winter, though. Got to be a special kind of desperate if you head west in the warm months. Vega sits on the far side of GenTech’s fields, and those fields are where the locusts hatch all summer long.
Cornstalks are the only thing left a locust can burrow inside, see. And they keep close to the one place left they can nest. But locusts can’t feast on corn kernels. GenTech made it so you got to cook the corn before you can chew it. They twisted the corn so it could survive about any damn thing at all. But they did such a good job that nature bred something equally wicked — if there’s a way to kill locusts, then it’s a way that ain’t never been found.
And that’s why you steer clear of the cornfields in the summer months. Only folk out there are poachers tucked in their tunnels or the field hands that GenTech don’t pay worth a damn. Because once they hatch, locusts swarm after the one thing left they can still call dinner. And that’d be people.
That’d be human flesh.
My last dollar bought me a half hour of hose time at the drinking station, and I sat on the hood of my wagon, listening as dirty water dribbled into the tank.
A ragged posse was gathering down the block, huddled around an old Rasta who was whipping his tongue. The Rasta was bent over so hard his beard was sweeping at the dirt, his hands clutching an old hockey stick he’d dressed as a staff and wrapped in his colors — red, gold and green. He kept rambling on about Zion and the King who’d lead us across the ocean. Raise enough funds and they were going to build a boat, the man said. Boat big enough to get past the Surge.
And that’s when the Rasta lost most of his crowd. Because there was no getting past the Surge. No way. And there was no king going to lead you someplace where there were wild things growing. Pop had told me. Anything worth believing, you better be able to see it with your own eyes.
I studied the dusty street, the plastic walls and dried patches of piss. And I guess it was being left with just shantytowns and Steel Cities that got folk started with the tree building. Because even for the rich freaks, life’s ugly. But build a tree, and you got something worth looking at. Something worth believing in.
“Busy working, no?” a voice rumbled behind me.
I spun around and saw Crow stepping out of a tent on the corner. He had his shades on, headphones dangling around his neck. Dude towered above me. Must have been seven feet tall.
“Six loads,” I said, pointing at the metal stacked out the back of the wagon. “Gonna need more juice when I get home.”
“Home?” Crow laughed. An old, slow sound. He stared up at the blood red sun and it bounced like a fever off his glasses.
“I’ll brew you the juice, little man,” he said, starting off down the street. “But you a nomad. No mistaking.”
When I got the last load back, Frost was standing in the middle of the lot and frowning at the stacks of scrap.
“You get enough?” he mumbled, and I could tell from the stench of him, the sour shape of his cracked lips, he’d either hit the bottle when he woke up or he’d been working at it all night.
“With this load we’re good,” I said, pulling out some rusty sheets of metal and a case of old headlights. Frost just plopped his fat ass on the dirt and sat watching me.
“I painted you a marker,” he said. “Middle of the lot.” The liquor had made his voice sloppy and I could tell he’d clawed his way out of some gutter before he got himself rich. If your family didn’t hoard well in the Darkness, there’s only a few ways to get wealthy in the Steel Cities. Work for GenTech Corporation or the Salvage Guild. Scavenge well for yourself and barter better. Or else you’re a murderer and a thief.
“So what’s it for?” I said, spotting the big red X Frost had sprayed on the ground.
“Never you mind.” Frost prodded a finger at me and I noticed the burn marks on his thumb, the skin all broken and red. So he was a smoker as well as a drinker. A crystal junkie. And that meant that whatever gutter he’d crawled out of, Frost was now stuck in one that goes all the way down.