“How dare they!” The reverend sprang to his feet and pointed his calloused finger at Grapes. “Teach them a lesson! Kill half of them! That’ll put them in their place!”
“No!” Lucia blurted out. The Ukrainian and the lawyer turned to her, shocked by the passion in her trembling voice. “Don’t kill them, Reverend! I beg you!”
“Shut up, girl!” the reverend snapped. “Grapes, you know what to do.”
“Right away, Reverend.”
The Aryan turned and started out the door. The lawyer jumped to his feet.
Now what? thought Greene.
“Just a minute, Reverend. Spanish is my native language. Let me talk to them. Maybe I can find out what their demands are and avoid bloodshed.”
Greene sat back down and mulled over the lawyer’s words. There were hundreds of helots. They could always be replaced, but the situation was still explosive, and a purge wouldn’t calm that down. He couldn’t risk an all-out rebellion.
“Alright,” he said, as he grabbed his hat. “Come with me. Your wife and your friend can go to their new home. Mrs. Compton will escort them.”
Without another word, he strode out of the room. The lawyer exchanged a few rushed, angry words with his friends, but Greene was too enraged to care. You fix the problems in your home. I have to fix my problem. Now.
Grapes waited behind the wheel of the Humvee with the engine running. The reverend climbed in the back and the lawyer sat up front. They drove north for a few minutes in total silence, each lost in thought. When they arrived, the Humvee stopped at a bridge that crossed a wide river channel. A high, reinforced concrete wall, topped with barbed wire, ran along both shores. On the bridge was a rusted sign, riddled with bullet holes, that read, “Welcome to Bluefont!” Next to it stood a massive fortified tower that resembled something you’d expect to see on a castle from the Middle Ages, with searchlights on the top. Two Aryans were stationed up there behind M60 machine guns, aimed at the heavy steel gate that sealed off the bridge. On the other side of that gate was a group of about fifty helots shouting, shaking their fists, and throwing rocks and bottles at the tower. None of them was armed. The helots weren’t allowed to have weapons inside Gulfport’s borders.
“Well, my son,” Greene said, getting out of the vehicle. “Here’s your chance. Show me what you got.”
The lawyer got out of the Humvee and walked up to the steel door. An Aryan opened a side door and let him pass, slamming the door behind him.
The helots fell silent when they saw the nervous lawyer. He took a deep breath and walked toward them, trying to look more confident than he felt.
“Hello everyone,” he said in Spanish. “I’m here on behalf of Reverend Greene. What’s going on?”
A tall, dark guy in a military uniform with the name tag “Dobzhansky” on the pocket stepped forward. “I’m Carlos Mendoza. Who’re you? Whaddaya want?”
“I’m the guy who can stop those thugs from you wiping you out.” He pointed to the two Aryans with machine guns. “Tell me what the hell you want or Greene’ll order them to open fire. He’s right on the edge. So I’ll ask again, what’s going on?”
“They tricked us!” bellowed a voice from the crowd. “They promised us ten liters per person, and we only got three!”
A chorus of voices joined in. Carlos Mendoza raised his hand for silence and turned back to the lawyer.
“You heard ’em. They owe each person who was on the Ithaca seven more liters of Cladoxpan. Tell your reverend we’re not moving till he gives us what he owes us.”
“Cladoxpan? What’s that? Some kind of alcohol?”
Mendoza sighed. “You’re kidding, right? You don’t know what Cladoxpan is? Where’d you come from? Wait a minute. You’re one of the shipwrecked people the Ithaca rescued, aren’t you?”
The lawyer nodded uneasily. Mendoza laughed mirthlessly.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me, man. Those assholes don’t have the balls to come to this side of the fence. They send some poor fool who doesn’t know shit.”
“Tell me what you’re talking about and maybe I can help,” the lawyer replied calmly.
“Cladoxpan’s a drug,” Mendoza explained as if he were talking to a child. “It keeps TSJ at very low levels so we can live as humans. We’re all infected with that fucking virus. If we don’t drink at least a pint of that stuff a day, we’re screwed. Got it, white boy?”
The lawyer took a breath, thinking over what he’d heard. “So, it’s a palliative. Cladoxpan doesn’t cure TSJ. It just weakens it so it can’t take effect.”
“Very good, Einstein,” Mendoza said bitterly. “It’s like insulin for diabetics. If we keep taking it, we’re fine. If we stop… it’s over. That asshole promised us ten liters if we got on that fucking ship, so he owes us seven more. We held up our end of the deal!”
“How’d you get infected?” the lawyer asked, ignoring Mendoza’s demands.
“How do you think, asshole?” Mendoza rolled up his sleeve. He had a huge scar on his shoulder from what was clearly a human bite. Part of the muscle was missing too.
“Tell your fucking reverend to cough up what he owes us. We’re not moving till he does. Got that?”
The lawyer nodded and slowly walked back to the steel door. On the other side, Greene was pacing beside the vehicle while Malachi Grapes barked orders to the heavily armed Aryans perched in the tower.
“Well? What do they want?”
“They say you owe them seven liters per person of something called Cladoxpan. They say you promised it to them in exchange for participating in the operation at Luba. They say they’re not moving till you give it to them.”
The reverend turned bright red, and his lower lip trembled with rage. “Who do they think they are? Filthy, stinking wetbacks! I’ll kill ’em all! And good riddance! The wrath of the Lord will rain down on them! I won’t tolerate such insolence!”
“Wait, Reverend,” interrupted the lawyer. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Killing them won’t solve the problem, and Gulfport will lose a lot of brave men. I saw how they fought in Luba. They’re real tough guys. If you kill them, it’ll take a lot of time to train other men to be that good, and the city will be vulnerable without well-trained helots.”
Then, in a moment of inspiration, he blurted out, “On top of that, it would be an affront to God to wantonly destroy the useful tool He has placed in your hands.”
Don’t lecture me, boy, thought Reverend Greene. But after he reflected for a few moments, he saw some truth in what the man was saying.
“Fine. But I’ll only give them five liters each. Not one drop more. They can accept that or I’ll order my Green Guard to exterminate them—like a gardener weeding his garden.” Without another word, he got back in the Humvee, his gaze straight ahead.
The lawyer ran back to the other side of the Wall, where the helots waited restlessly. They debated Reverend Greene’s offer and then agreed.
Mendoza scowled. “Tell your Reverend Greene we accept. But this isn’t over.”
The lawyer nodded, relieved.
As he walked away, Mendoza called to him. “Oh, hey.” The Mexican had a bold smile on his face. “Say hello to Lucia for me. Tell her I was glad we got a chance to talk and get acquainted. Tell her she can visit any time.” Then he turned and walked away, leaving the lawyer confused. Uneasy feelings swirled around in his heart.
17
It was almost dark when Grapes’s men dropped me off in front of the house we’d been assigned. A gentle rain was falling and light from the streetlights was pooling in strange shapes. It felt like the rain was seeping into my bones as a strange cold flooded over me.