Radical (11 page)

“Who needs stealth?” Zach mocks. “We’ll have power.”

“The extra weight will give it extra ramming power,” the tall kid says. The others laugh at his “ramming” motion. “Ram our way through. Full provisions, ammo, the works.”

They probably see themselves as action heroes, kicking ass and taking names, probably with a harem of women they collect on the way.

“Where are you going to fuel once the grid goes down? Most gas pumps these days run on electricity. Those massive trucks are guzzlers. And what about food, water?”

“Hunt,” Zach says, “raid stores and businesses. Whatever, until we could get somewhere defendable.”

“What place could you defend with the number of people you could fit in a truck — along with everything else you’d be carrying? Assuming, of course, that you’re not killed for that truck in your first confrontation with a hostile group.”

“What do you know?”

“I know that none of you could make it on foot, and it’s unlikely you could make it long in a truck. You couldn’t possibly carry enough provisions and people to defend yourselves. You could maybe fit three or four of you in that truck, but that would be it, unless you started pitching your provisions. And then how are the four of you going to defend any site worth defending, alone?”

They don’t argue. Zach and the tall guy are red-faced pissed, but I’m on a roll.

“What you need is to be mobile, and in a small-enough unit to move efficiently. A three-day assault pack, holding just what you absolutely need to defend yourself and make shelter and find water and food, and then the skills to survive. If you’re relying on a truck full of crap, you’ll be dead in a month. Sooner if it’s winter.”

“Won’t need any of it when this place is ready,” the tall guy says.

“Maybe,” I say. “But a compound is a refugee magnet. And there’s trying to defend it with the number of people it could support. But, again, how are you even going to get here if the crisis hits without warning and the roads are closed or blocked? If what we’re facing is the police state you were just talking about?” I ask, waving toward Zach. “You four are going to all fight through the barricades and forces to get here? Without bringing the hostiles with you? You think
that
gate is keeping anyone out who really wants in?”

The two guys in back look at each other.

“Assuming you keep the truck gassed up, stocked, and ready to go, and the crisis scenario doesn’t hit until you are fully prepared, there is still no guarantee you’ll be able to get here. We need to be doing more than shooting. Survival skills. Foraging and shelter. Scouting and evading.”

“You’re not even a member,” Zach says. “But even if we keep your family on,” he says like that’s in doubt, “we’d have a better chance than you would.”

I smile at him. “No, you wouldn’t. Because I could get here, or wherever else we decided to go, on foot. We’d be mobile. Adaptable. We wouldn’t need a truck or a compound to survive. I know what it’s like to live out of a pack. To find food and water and build shelter. Do you?”

“Sure.”

I feel the smirk creeping up my face. “Really?”

He advances. “You think you could really take any one of us?” he asks, and then he pushes his finger into my chest, daring me.

I smack it away and spin, moving to sweep his legs, and then someone yells, “Hey!” and I pull back. Zach stumbles, and then one of the other guys has Zach by the arms. “Cut it out,” the guy yells, like we were goofing around.

I hold my stance in case Zach comes at me again.

“Come on, dude,” one of the others says.

“She’s not worth it,” another says.

Finally Zach shakes him off and falls back.

“No,
it’s
not,” he says. “Stupid dyke,” he adds, just loud enough for me to hear.

I watch until they seem to be moving away, Zach included, and then I turn to get my bag where I dropped it.

I’m shoved out of the way by someone moving fast.

“Oh, I know you aren’t that chickenshit,” Karen says, advancing on them. Zach looks like he just sucked on a lemon, caught readying to hock a loogie at my back. “Go ahead,” she says, “swallow it down.”

Zach looks trapped, and the others shift their feet, putting a little distance between them and Zach. Instead of swallowing, Zach pulls back and lobs a huge gob of spit into the dirt off to the side.

“Nice.” Karen shakes her head in disgust. “The way you shoot, you should do less talking and more watching. You might learn something.”

“You gonna teach me a lesson?” Zach asks.

“Sure.” Karen smiles, and then says, “I could whoop your ass any way you want. Any day. You just name it.”

“Really,” one of them says, stepping up beside Zach. He grabs his crotch. “You got a dick after all?”

“No, you little pissant, which is why it would make it all the more satisfying when I kicked your ass. And let me tell you,” Karen says, “you whip that thing out around me, you better make sure you came to play. I have no issue with slapping you — or it — down.”

“Bring it in,” Randy yells over from where he and Carl are waiting to dismiss the others. It’s clear Randy knows something is up, but not what, and that he’s letting Karen handle it. I walk over, not really knowing what to do. But Karen walks up front as if none of that just happened.

“Hi,” the girl with the sparkles says, sitting down beside me at the back of the group. “Trinny,” she reminds me.

“Trinny, yeah, hi.”

She’s just so happy, in her sparkly shirt and sparkly headband and weird rubbery belt.

“I like your hair,” she says.

“Thanks,” I say, but I’m not sure she means it. Her braids are very girly and old-fashioned.

“Don’t worry about those guys,” Trinny says. “They’re just jerks. Are you coming next week?”

“Maybe,” I say.

“Good,” she says. “You did good.” She is up and moving toward the path before I can even register that Randy is done talking. She catches up with one of the older guys and they walk on together, looking very friendly.

Mark’s already gone.

I have a dilemma. I can run ahead and put some distance between me and Zach and them. Or I can stick close to Randy and Carl. Either way, those jerks will know I intentionally took a defensive posture. I’ll have to watch my back forever around them. Or I can attack and go on the offensive, and maybe get double-teamed and marked as a troublemaker. Or I can hang back and let the chips fall, but not be the aggressor.

“Are you ready?”

“What?”

Cammie gives me a
duh
look. “Are you ready?” she asks. “To go back? I’m heading that way.” She looks at Karen and rolls her eyes. Karen nods. Karen appointed her my bodyguard.

“Oh, yeah, right.” Good. This is good. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

I want to thank Karen before we go, but Cammie says, “She has to take the range guns back to the Box for her dad.”

“Box?”

“Armory,” Cammie says, like I should have known that. “We call it the Box. And I don’t have all day, so . . .”

“Right.”

We walk in silence for a while. Not because I don’t want to talk, but because pretty much everything I’ve said in front of her thus far has made me sound like an idiot, and I don’t know what to risk next.

And Cammie doesn’t seem to want to talk.

“Karen’s really good,” I finally say. “I mean, you’re good, too, but, I mean . . .” I stop talking.

“Thanks,” she says, dripping with sarcasm. “And yes, she is. She should be officially on the training staff.”

But she’s young and a girl. “Yeah.”

“Think you can find your way from here?” Cammie asks. I look up to realize we are at the main path that runs behind the buildings and near the trails. “Just around that bend it will open up to the lot. Okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “And thanks. And tell Karen —”

“Bye.” Cammie turns and heads off down the path toward the buildings, one of which I know is the armory — the Box — without looking back.

I make it to the lot without incident and then cop a squat on the rail of the gazebo to wait for Dad. I scroll through my phone while I wait, but it doesn’t get great reception out here.

“Hello.”

Riggs is crossing the grass.

“Don’t get down,” he says when I start to climb off the railing. “I hoped I might find you.”

He comes over and sits down on the top step, facing out toward the lot and the administrative buildings. He’s so tall it feels sort of like we’re sitting next to each other, even with him sitting on the step.

“What did you think of the training session?”

“It was fine.” He just looks at me. “Good, I mean. It was good.”

“I know we’re starting slow, with the basics, but we think it’s important to . . .”

I nod, because we already heard all this from Randy. And Carl.

“Anything I should know about?” he asks.

“What?”

“About training, anything you think I should know?”

“About?”

He studies me and then smiles. “Okay,” he says, looking back toward the lot.

He knows something — I just don’t know what. I can’t believe he would be down here about Zach, but maybe Cammie ran right to him? Or one of the others? Karen? Or maybe he thinks
I’m
the problem, like I shouldn’t have provoked him? Or maybe Zach went right to him, saying I was talking trash about Clearview? Crap. Dad will kill me if I’ve made Riggs think he’s the one being critical.

He waves to someone in the lot.

“You’re right about the survival skills.”

Someone did run to him.

“We’re planning to integrate foraging, trapping, scouting and evasive techniques, finding water and shelter”— he waves his hand —“all the basic survival skills, into the training sessions. But when you’re building something like this from the ground up, you have to start with the basics, and with the areas of highest interest.”

Meaning they don’t have any confidence the guys would show up for hiking and survival skills. Or they really are making all this up as they go along, and they hadn’t really thought through the immediate survival needs.

“I heard that you’re handy,” he says, finally twisting on the step to face me. “That you can fix things. That you’re learning auto mechanics from your uncle. Those are valuable skills.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe we can find you some work around here.”

For fees? Or free labor? Because I don’t think either Mark or Dad has gotten a single cent for what they’ve been doing around here. Yeah, no. But Riggs is waiting for a response, looking like he’s just made me some great offer.

“Maybe,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. “But I’m not sure how much time I’ll have between working at the station and training. And I need to be earning money. Things are tight. I can’t work for free. I mean, if there are fees or . . .”

“Of course,” he says, smiling wider, like I said exactly what he thought I would say. What he wanted me to say. “I appreciate your focus. Your father said you were loyal,” he says. “To your uncle, I mean.”

I look at the buildings, wishing for Dad. Or that Riggs would just go away.

“Well, I should get back to work, but I wanted to check in with you.” He gets up from the step, brushes off his pants. “It’s important that these sessions run smoothly while we’re getting organized. You have good ideas, Bex,” he says. “And from what I hear, strong skills. But it’s going to take some time for everyone to gel and buy in, so that we can all benefit from each other’s strengths and evaluate our weaknesses.”

Weaknesses like my big mouth?

Weaknesses like fighting?

Or weaknesses like they really only want Dad’s free labor and then we’ll be out?

I break from the last bit of tree cover and sprint full-out for the back door. Once my feet hit the cement, I check my watch, gulping air, while I do the math. Thirty-two minutes from the kitchen door to the station, without going on any roads and without being seen. At least I don’t think I was seen, and I cut across several private stretches of land, so I’d have heard a holler if I had been.

Next week I’ll try for thirty minutes. By the end of the summer, I want to be under twenty. And still not seen. That’s the real goal. If something happened, something bad, being able to get clear of people would be the first crucial step. It doesn’t much seem like anyone else thinks about the first hours, when getting away from town, from roads, unseen, would be the biggest obstacle. The one thing that makes out here better than home is how much easier it would be to get away clean. Here we could conceivably get to open woods on foot if we had to.

I clean up and change in the cramped, grimy bathroom in back, shoving my sweaty workout clothes into a plastic bag and then putting them in my pack.

I start the coffee, flip on the computer, check the messages, and then it’s time to get to work for real.

The morning is quiet. It’s storming again, and that keeps away most of the regulars who come by just to talk. Mike finishes the two repairs early and then goes off to pick something up, and probably take a long lunch.

Uncle Skip’s been hovering. He clearly wants to say something, but you can’t rush Uncle Skip. He gets there when he gets there. He watches me sort through some invoices and then get the clipboard to restock the snacks and note what needs to be ordered. All the while, he stands there by the counter, having some kind of conversation with himself, or maybe me, in his head. It’s almost annoying, but I know better than to ask.