Tails of the Apocalypse

Kristy’s Song (a Pennsylvania short story) ^{by Michael Bunker}

One

Brighton Boxes and Q

She won’t go in a store when she’s not working. It’s just a thing of hers. I don’t explain it, except to explain it away. I tell people that she’d rather lie just outside the door, out of the way, and watch strangers zoned on Q pass by.

The door to Marty’s slid closed behind me with a whoosh, and I watched through the glass as she moved to the side, circled twice, and plopped down on the cement sidewalk to wait.

“She can come in, you know,” Marty said from behind the counter.

“I know.”

“I’d probably even find her a treat around here somewhere,” Marty said as he gestured with obvious irony at the sparse shelves.

“What can I say? Kristy doesn’t come inside unless she’s working. I don’t want to make her come in.”

Marty cocked his head to the side and smiled. “What is it you two do again, anyway?”

Again? I’d never told Marty what I do.

I smiled. “I run errands. Do some off-book deliveries if you must know, or if you’re taking notes for Transport. Nothing big.”

Marty’s face worked hard to feign hurt and insult.

“I… I… You know I don’t deal with Transport. I’m no rat spy.”

I smiled again, showing him I was joking. I didn’t know if he informed for Transport or not, but it wouldn’t do to make him think I suspected him. For now, I didn’t.

“Man, you gotta be careful with talk like that,” Marty said mostly under his breath. “Ain’t much love for TRACE around here, but a guy could get shanked if some people thought he was spilling to Transport.”

“I know,” I said. And I did. “I was joking.”

“Well, don’t joke around like that,” Marty said. His brow dipped and he looked at me through narrowed eyes. “We’re all just trying to get by, man, and besides, I don’t care what you do. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have some kind of extracurricular income. God knows I do.”

I nodded slightly and held Marty’s gaze, not giving anything away. As I expected, when I didn’t break in, he kept talking.

“Yeah, and on that note, I… And this is… you know…”

“I know,” I said.

“Well, it’s just that I have a large quantity of clean Q if you’re interested. Off-grid stuff. No tracking codes or tagents.”

“Nah.”

“Maybe if you were going out near the hangers or anywhere by a refusenik camp.”

“I’m not.”

“But…”

“I don’t use Q,” I said. “I’m still off-line and got no thought of logging on anytime soon.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I know,” Marty said. “I remember that. But… you move around a lot, you know. Doing whatever it is you do. And you meet people. Know people.”

I looked outside, and from up near the counter, I could see Kristy as she sniffed a passerby. I knew if she smelled TRACE or Transport she’d let me know. The real reason she chose to stay outside.

“Yeah,” I nodded at Marty. “I know people. I move around. But I don’t know the kind of people you’re talking about.”

Marty’s head rocked back a little and his lips pulled into a smirk. “I’m stuck here, man. I don’t get around. I have to make contacts when I can. Limited clientele and all that.”

“I don’t deal contraband Q, Marty.”

“Hey… Woah!” Marty said. His hands went out flat and he pushed them up and down slowly. They, the hands, said, “shut up, man. Keep it down!” He fidgeted with some protein packets on the counter. “I’m just saying, if you know anyone.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay, then. Just thought I’d, you know, keep you up on what’s down, you know? I gotta communicate to make a living.”

“No need for Q,” I said.

Marty nodded and shrugged.

“Got any Brighton boxes?” I asked. I made eye contact with the man, gauging his reaction. Looking for any information he might be hiding behind his words.

Marty’s eyes widened. “Woah again, my friend.” A smile touched his face. “Now we’re talking. Yeah, in fact I… Why? You moving some stuff? Anything good? Anything I… might want to know about?”

Brighton boxes are ultra-heavy-duty transport boxes of all sizes, from egg-carton size up to shipping containers, designed with some high-tech liner material that could obscure the contents from prying eyes, scanning, x-ray, infrared, or just about any other invasive technology, including all signal transfers. Transport uses them in moving ammunition and war materiel to hide the contents from TRACE rebels. Likewise, TRACE uses contraband or commandeered Brighton boxes to hide their own war goods from TRACER drones and crowd scanners. It’s the way of war. When a war lasts long enough and enough money is involved, both sides end up with most of the same technologies at some point.

Brighton boxes are also used widely by noncombatants. Bootleggers, forgers, and dealers in any kind of illegal contraband love the boxes… when they can get them.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out three small, solid-gold buttons and held them for a moment while Marty’s eyes focused on them. Then I let them slide from my palm onto the counter.

“What the f—”

“Easy, Marty,” I said, “I’m dealing in real money today.”

“Holy mother of many sons!” Marty said as one of his hands scooped the gold off the counter and into the other hand. “I… I have some boxes, but not that many!” He brought one of the buttons to his mouth and bit down.

“Wow,” Marty said. “I don’t think I’ve had a customer pay in gold in… hell, I don’t even remember how long it’s been.”

“The boxes?” I said.

“What size you need?”

“Shoe-box size.”

“I have five that size,” Marty said as he shuffled through a curtain of hanging beads to retrieve the boxes. When he returned, he set five of them on the counter. One at a time, he opened the boxes to show me they were empty and that the special liners were intact. When he got to the fifth box, he slowed down, caught my eye, and smiled.

“I don’t have change for that much gold, partner,” Marty said, “and I know you said you don’t need Q. But Q is what I have.”

He opened the fifth box, and I saw it was filled with the little white pills of Quadrille, the drug used by almost 100 percent of the population to minimize the negative effect the direct-Internet BICE chips can have on brain function. Basically, Q exists to keep people passive and mind-surfing so they don’t go crazy from too much information assaulting them all the time.

“I don’t need the Q, man,” I said again.

“Take it,” Marty said and threw up his hands. “Like I said, I don’t have change and you already paid for it.”

I frowned and sucked in a deep breath.

“Listen,” Marty said, “I already told you this’s pure, off-grid stuff and untraceable. No tagents. But it’s in the box, so it can’t be tracked even if I’m lying, which I’m not. So just do me a favor and take it. Dump it off on a Q dealer or something. I know you run into a lot of people I can never get to. It’s good stuff, and when they come back to you for more because it’s that damn good, just point ’em my way. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

“I don’t like the stuff,” I said. “It’s off my radar, and it’s dangerous to deal in. They put you under the retraining camp if they catch you moving this stuff in quantity.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Kristy alert. No one else would have noticed it because she was an old master at this, but I saw her slide backward, pushing herself with her paws like she was stretching; then her hind end stood up so I could see her through the door.

In two steps I was at the door and had kicked it open before spinning on my heels and heading back to the counter in a hurry. Kristy calmly entered the store before the door slammed shut behind her, and in a single bound she was on my heel.

“Back door?” I said to Marty.

“What? What is it?”

“Back door! Now!”

Marty popped to attention and pushed the beads back with one hand while indicating with the other. “Through here, man.”

I snatched up the boxes, including the box with the Q, and rushed around the counter with Kristy hard on my heels. Through the back door and left down the alley. We picked up speed without running, and in ten steps we were turning right down a darkened narrow street, staying in the shadows.

“I need a hide,” I told Kristy, who immediately bolted ahead of me.

We were fast-walking along a frontage of New Detroit’s endless blocks of mostly empty condos and apartments. The streets were deliberately narrow, designed to make sure there would never be ground transport traffic on them. The city was made to be walker friendly. Designed to avoid the mistakes of the old world. What resulted was a maze of dark roads walled by uninhabited buildings, like cliffs stretching up to the sky.

Two, three, four entryways and then Kristy bolted into one of the alcoves and bounced her front paws off the door.

“Good girl,” I said as I set the boxes down and pulled a code card and thin scramble box from my pocket. I slid the card into the reader, then clipped two small alligator clips from the scramble to the metallic leads and pressed my thumb to the reader on the box. The door buzz-clicked and popped open half an inch. I snatched up the boxes before propping the door with my foot just as Kristy jumped ahead of me and cleared the first flight of stairs before waiting for me on the landing.

There was a maintenance bin near the bottom of the stairs and as I approached it, I snapped open the fifth box, the one with the Q in it, and dumped the contents into the container before kicking the bin back into the shadows.

Thousands of Unis worth of Q, but I didn’t need it, and no way was I going to get pinched moving contraband Q loaded with tagents that could lead Transport directly to me.

That’s if Marty was trying to screw me.

I couldn’t know if he was or not, and I wasn’t going to gamble and find out.

I took the stairs two at a time. Kristy bolted upward again, clearing each flight on her way up, watching for eyes in the night, sensing any danger. She knew what she was doing, and I let her work. In this part of the job I’m merely dumb hands, carrying contraband or working doors. She’s the brains of the operation.

She keeps me from getting caught.

On the seventh floor she waited at the fire door leading to a hallway, so I pushed through it and watched as she jetted to the left, sprinting toward the end of the hall. She stopped at an apartment, 794, and bounced both front paws off the door.

Scramble box and card out. The click as the lock retracted, and we were in the abandoned apartment. Not abandoned. Never inhabited. I pushed the door closed again behind us, and for the moment, we were safe.

She’d found just the right hide. Just enough walls to keep us from showing up on drone infrared or other scanning device.

Who knows how Kristy does it? I don’t. I just know she keeps me safe.

I try to do the same for her.

Two

Kristy

I sing an old song to her when she’s done a good job, and she loves it as much as she loves cheese sandwiches and canned meat. Dog food is impossible to find because there aren’t that many dogs up on the Shelf. Maybe there are a lot out in the wild, but in the cities they’re a luxury, I think.

Her tail wags and it’s almost like she smiles when I sing her song. At least that’s how it seems to me. I can’t tell you why or what this song might mean to her. It’s just an old song my mom used to sing to me back when I was young and before Dad died in the war and we made the move from New Pennsylvania up to the Shelf. To the Promised Land. Or promised city. New Detroit. One of the big cities built by Transport’s Central Planning Unit back when they thought the masses from Old Earth would be migrating here by the millions. Before the war came here too.

I press my back against a wall in the apartment’s back bedroom and slide down until I’m seated. Kristy sits in front of me and listens to her song.

Nobody came. To New Detroit, that is.

Almost nobody.

A city built for half a million colonists inhabited by a couple dozen thousand. Maybe fewer.

And here I am in a never-inhabited apartment in New Detroit singing Kristy’s song to her because I’m fresh out of cheese sandwiches and canned meat on this trip. She’s happy nonetheless. She’s always confident we’ll get home.

Home.

Funny word for a dissident camp where untagged refuseniks like me wait around to get raided and rounded up for lacking implanted ID.

Even as I think these thoughts, I sing for Kristy because I can sing that song without concentrating on it. My mouth knows it by heart and my voice knows it by feel, so my mind can drift.

So I sing and consider. Multitasking.

And Kristy smiles.

Another trip and, as I figure it, one day closer to getting caught. Everyone without some form of implanted identification eventually gets disappeared, and me with no BICE implanted in the back of my head, and no TRID in my arm… it’s always been just a matter of time.

I’ve said that to myself every day for the last three years. And if it weren’t for Kristy, any one of those days could have been my last as a free man. Would have been my last, for sure. She’s saved me from being captured—jailed or killed as a rebel—at least once or twice a week since I first made the decision to have my BICE removed. That was three years ago. Young and dumb and impetuous, I was then. Still am, but I was worse then. Not that I regret getting the BICE removed. I’d do it again. But I do wish I’d studied up on it more.

BICE. The Beta Internet Chip Enhancement. The ultimate means of control. It married Transport’s central monetary control system with a mandated personal biometric identification utility. The BICE is an all-in-one, easily implanted system that gives every user access to the Internet in their heads; and, of course, it makes sure every user needs regular doses of the drug Quadrille… Q… to help them assimilate all the information they’re bombarded with without frying their brains. All in one fell swoop, the geniuses at Transport had given people what they really wanted—round-the-clock information and entertainment—while ensuring that they’d remain passive and obedient and easily trackable.

I had to laugh to myself. It’d all worked so well for the ruling Transport Authority; that is, until TRACE said no to all of that. Even here on New Pennsylvania.

I had the chip removed at a hack shop with no understanding at all what it meant to be on New Pennsylvania untagged. The hack shop sure didn’t tell me I’d be lucky to last two days out there with no chip. Especially up on the Shelf. They didn’t tell me the odds. Maybe because the word odds implies there’s a chance to win. A chance to escape. The probabilities were so miniscule, they just chose not to disclose that to the young and dumb and impetuous.

They weren’t in the business of warning away customers. They were in the business of slicing open heads and pulling out BICE chips in exchange for gold.

They talked about keeping the wound clean and how to avoid infection.

They talked about getting off Q and how to ease the withdrawals.

What they did not talk about is the fact that the whole system was designed to ferret out rebels and refuseniks. To arrest them and remove them from society. They didn’t tell me that I could no longer use Unis… Unilets… the system of money used on New Pennsylvania. They didn’t tell me that Transport’s TRACER drones could scan for BICE or TRID data on people as they fly by. They didn’t tell me that by removing my BICE, I’d basically declared war on Transport. No… those things they forgot to tell me. Most of their customers disappeared in a day or two, so no one else told me either.

Maybe I’m making it sound totally hopeless.

There are refuseniks. And the salvagers who come in from the flats and deadlands. The brave ones who make their way up from off the Shelf. Some of them are smart and they survive. The refusenik camps are always around, even if the men and women who live there are usually caught; the population rotated. Replaced by someone else young and dumb and impetuous like me.

And I’ve been out here three years now. Making runs and trips without a BICE or TRID into New Detroit on a weekly basis. And I haven’t been caught. Yet.

But that’s only because of Kristy.

Kristy finally sensed that song time was over and she curled up at my feet. She didn’t even ask for a cheese sandwich by sniffing at my pockets. She knew the song was her only payment for now.

I stacked the Brighton boxes against the wall next to me and then closed my eyes, pressing my head against the wall. When I did that… pushing my head firmly like that… the lack of the BICE there reminded me that I’m not safe. I’m never safe.

Don’t get too comfortable, Kevin. That’s what I’d say to myself whenever I had time on a trip to close my eyes. They are coming for you.

My eyes are closed now, and I reach over and touch the boxes again with my right hand. I don’t know why the strangers need the Brighton boxes, but they’re paying well and paying in gold, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know why they want them. Some voice around a fire back at the refusenik camp speculated that the newly arrived strangers wanted the boxes in order to acquire and move okcillium. That was always the rumor, though. I wondered if it was true this time. The strangers had TRACE rebels written all over them, and I wondered what they would do with the okcillium if it were true. Five Brighton boxes of okcillium was a ton of the stuff. Enough to blow up the planet a few times over, if that’s what they wanted it for.

Though my eyes were closed, I squeezed them even tighter. None of that is my business. I’m only selling the boxes. What the strangers do with them… well… that has nothing to do with me.

I’d found okcillium before. A source for the stuff. At least I’m pretty sure it was okcillium. But I hadn’t told anyone where I found it.

One time, Kristy and I were trapped in an apartment complex just like this one. I’d been forced to tear through a wall to escape a wily Transport agent, who was closing in on us.

Trapped, Kristy had bounced off a certain spot on the wall, so I’d kicked through the sheetrock to make a hole for our escape.

That’s when I found it. A small ball of metal-like material clamped to the wiring of the apartment. Like a fishing weight squeezed tight around the wires that ran through the walls.

It had to be okcillium because it fit the description and because I’d done wiring like this before and had never seen anything like it.

I’d heard a rumor from an old salvager, half drunk and blathering near a fire in the refusenik camp. He said Transport had rigged the whole city with okcillium. So they could zap it somewhere else if they wanted to.

Everyone thought the old man was nuts. Maybe he was. But then I found the stuff clamped to a wire. And I didn’t have time to remove it or check it out. The Transport agent was on our tails, and Kristy was through the hole as soon as it was big enough. She’d found a place in the wall that even had a gap in the firewall, so we were able to escape into an adjacent apartment.

We escaped that night because of Kristy. Again. And now I knew a secret about okcillium.

I felt Kristy move and my eyes flew open. She wasn’t fully alerting, but I could tell she was checking things out. I blinked a few times, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the darkness. That’s when Kristy bolted to the door. As fast as I could, I snatched up the boxes and I was right after her.

Down the hall, back the way we’d come in, but this time Kristy halted at the stairs and stood still for a moment. Frozen. Tail pointing straight back. Then she was rushing past me again, back toward the apartment we’d just vacated. This can’t be good. It has to mean that Transport is either already in the building, or close to it. Kristy is smart. No way she’d run down stairs if we were trapped.

But now what?

Three

Lost

I’ll have to kick a hole in the wall. Just like that last time I had to do it.

We’re back in the apartment where we were resting only moments earlier, and I watch as Kristy sniffs the wall before bouncing off a place closer to the closet.

I kick. Kick and kick as sheetrock falls to the floor and dust floats in the air. Dust is a common thing in New Detroit, when the wind blows the limestone powder from the cliffs and coats the town.

Now it’s sheetrock dust in the air and as soon as the hole is big enough, Kristy is through it to the other side. I kick some more, expanding the hole to man size.

I hear noise coming from down the hall. Most likely it’s Transport agents on our trail. I wonder if the agents found the Q I dumped in the bin downstairs. I wonder if the Q had tagents that would trace it first to Marty, then to me. Probably. I’d even bet on it. Even if I escape this, they’ll be looking for me now.

That’s when I see it again. An okcillium ball clamped to the wiring. Just like before.

This time I pull out my knife and take the precious time (time that I don’t really have) to pry the soft metal from the wiring. In a few moments and with a few twists, I work the ball free and drop it into my pocket. Maybe when I’m caught I can bribe the Transport agents with the okcillium and the gold buttons I have with me.

Probably not. Why make a deal when they can just arrest me and take the stuff if they want it?

I’m through the wall, where Kristy is waiting impatiently. She knows what to do but she always has to wait for the dumb human to catch up.

Once I’ve cleared the hole, Kristy darts through the facing apartment and bounces off the front door. Then we’re through the door and running down the hallway, and for a moment I feel like we’re going to make it again. Another narrow escape.

Kristy is ahead of me and she bounds down the stairs at a full gallop. Fur and feet and purpose, and that’s all she is now. This time she doesn’t wait for me at the landings, and I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Why isn’t she waiting for me?

Something’s up. I get it. She knows there are Transport agents waiting downstairs, and we don’t have time to go through another wall. I keep following her, but the feeling of loss and despair washes over me like a baptism. Cold fear, unmixed.

I think about dropping the boxes. I should drop them, but I don’t.

I make it to the bottom floor and see Kristy engaged in battle with two Transport agents just inside the door leading to the lobby. One of the agents has dropped his pistol and then landed on it hard when Kristy attacked, while the other one shoots wildly, trying to scare Kristy while not killing his partner. Neither one sees me.

My mind races. Kristy has made this sacrifice for me. To get me out of the building. But can I leave without her? No. She looks up at me and barks twice before launching herself at the standing agent who has his gun aimed and shaking but isn’t firing.

The agent stumbles backward and reaches for the door, trying to effect his own escape. I think about dropping the Brighton boxes again, abandoning the mission altogether, but for some reason I don’t do it. Agent #1 is still down and not moving. Shock and fear, I guess. I think about going for his gun, but he’s lying on it, and I know I won’t get it before Agent #2 cuts me down. I clasp the boxes against my chest with one arm and push myself against the wall near the door. I’m frozen, not knowing what to do.

Then the tide turns.

Kristy takes down #2, dragging him groundward by his arm, twisting it as bone and flesh give way, and his gun hits the ground. I scramble for it and snag it just before he can reach to reclaim it.

I point the gun at the injured agent and Kristy releases his arm. The appendage is bloody and wrecked. Twisted. Like this world and all that’s in it.

“Easy cowboy,” I say. “Don’t get killed over this.”

The agent slides down to the ground in silence, cradling his arm. The fight’s gone out of him.

Once out the door, Kristy and I beat feet through the lobby, and I kick open the front door and we’re onto the narrow street.

That’s when I see the TRACER drone. Too late. It spins on me and I’m trapped.

I see the aiming eye, and think I hear the drone thrum into action, ready to fire. Now I drop the boxes. Finally.

Kristy brushes by my leg and I turn to see her race down the street. All brown and gold and speed. In a split second, the drone that has me dead-to-rights spins and fires at Kristy. But she’s bobbing and weaving as she races down the street, and the drone misses every time.

I aim steadily with both hands and fire, hitting the drone broadside. It sparks and whirrs and spins back in my direction. I fire twice more, hitting it with both shots, and watch as the TRACER spins wildly, sparks flying, crashing into the complex across the street in a brilliant fireball. Another drone buzzes by, seemingly unaware of me or the wrecked TRACER. I figure the last message the downed drone sent was when it fired at Kristy escaping up the block. The second drone is after her now, but she’s long gone.

I gather up the Brighton boxes.

I’m alone.

I made it back to the camp. I don’t know how I did it without Kristy, but I did.

I looked for her on the way. At least I tried to, but the drones were getting too thick in that sector. So I headed to the only place I figured she might go. The refusenik camp. I hoped to find her waiting there for me.

I didn’t even know if the camp would be there. The untagged move around a lot, rarely staying in the same place more than a few nights in a row. There is no real leadership among the refuseniks. No one decides to move the camp. It’s just a feeling that comes over the place and soon one after another of the refuseniks, salvagers, and rebels pack up their meager belongings and shuffle off to the next hide.

But it was there. The camp was. Right where I’d left it. Down in a small valley not far from the cliffs, where rainwater had cut a hide, fifty feet deep and a hundred yards long into the raised limestone floor.

Small fires cast shadows on the valley walls and a sentry, who had no fire, recognizes me as I shuffle down into the hide from the darkness.

The strangers are happy to get the boxes, but I find no joy in delivering them. My eyes scan the camp for Kristy, but I know if she were here, she’d have found me already.

The man who seems to be the leader of the rebel strangers, a man they call Pook, tells me he’s pleased and thankful to get the boxes. I tell him they’d cost me a lot—too much—so I hope he makes good use of them.

“We will,” he says. “I guarantee it.”

I don’t know why I do it, but just then I reach into my pocket and clutch the small okcillium ball. At least I think it’s okcillium. What do I know about okcillium that isn’t rumor or hearsay? I roll it around my palm in my pocket as I stare at Pook, trying to read him.

Friend or foe?

Friend, I think.

Pook is inviting me into the strangers’ small camp for a cup of coffee, but I feel like I hear his voice afar off. Part of my brain is turned off, nonfunctioning, and another part is thinking about Kristy. Only the tiniest bit of my attention hears the word “coffee.”

Coffee? Who has coffee up on the Shelf?

That’s when a blur of motion catches my eye, brown and gold fur catching light from the small fire.

Kristy!

She bounces off me and goes immediately to sniff out Pook and his team.

Satisfied. Friends.

She bounds back into my arms and we both fall to the ground, me laughing hysterically, her licking my face.

Lying on the ground, I see Pook smile. He doesn’t know the story, but he knows it. Know what I mean?

A man and his dog. It’s an old story.

I struggle to my feet, with Kristy trying to wrestle me back to the ground. I reach into my pocket again, grabbing the okcillium ball. I toss it to Pook. He sees it move through the light of the fire and catches it deftly before drawing it up to his face. His eyes narrow and he smiles again.

“Where did you get this?” he asks.

“I’ll tell you for that cup of coffee,” I say.

“Deal. And we have some canned meat for your dog if she likes it.”

“She does. She does.” I pause. “Cheese sandwiches?”

Pook smiles. “We can fix something like that I’m sure.”

“Then maybe this relationship’ll work out,” I say.