World After

4

I WAKE to my mom scraping something out of her sweater pocket. She puts it onto the windowsill where morning light filters through. It’s yellow-brown goo and crushed eggshells. She’s quite careful about it, trying to get every yucky drop onto the sill.

Paige breathes evenly, sounding like she’ll be knocked out for some time. I try to shake off the last of my dream, but wisps of it stay with me.

Someone knocks on the door.

The door opens and the freckled face of one of the twins peeks into our classroom. I don’t know which one so I just think of him as Dee-Dum. His nose wrinkles in distaste when he smells the rotten eggs.

“Obi wants to see you. He’s got some questions.”

“Great,” I say drowsily.

“Come on. It’ll be fun.” He throws me an overly bright smile.

“What if I don’t want to go?”

“I like you, kid,” he says. “You’re a rebel.” He leans against the doorframe and nods his approval. “But to be honest, no one has the obligation to feed you, house you, protect you, be nice to you, treat you like a human being—”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” I drag myself out of bed, glad that I slept in a T-shirt and shorts. My sword thuds onto the floor. I had forgotten that I had it with me under the blanket.

“Shh! You’ll wake Paige,” whispers my mother.

Paige’s eyes open instantly. She lies there like the dead, staring at the ceiling.

“Nice sword,” Dee-Dum says too casually.

Alarm bells go off in my head. “Almost as good as a cow prodder.” I half-expect Mom to zap her prodder at him, but it hangs innocently on her cot frame.

More guilt hits me as I realize how glad I am that Mom has the prodder in case she needs to defend herself from… people.

More than half the people here are carrying some kind of makeshift weapon. The sword is one of the better ones, and I’m glad I don’t have to explain why I’m carrying it. But there’s something about a sword that seems to catch more attention than I like. I pick it up and strap it across my shoulder to discourage him from trying to play with it.

“Got a name for her?” asks Dee-Dum.

“Who?”

“Your sword.” He says it the way I might say Duh.

“Oh, please. Not you too.” I pick through the random assortment of clothes my mom collected last night. She also came back with a bunch of empty soda bottles and other junk from who knows where, but I leave that pile alone.

“I used to know a guy who had a katana.”

“A what?”

“A Japanese samurai sword. Gorgeous.” He clutches his heart like he’s in love. “He called it the Sword of Light. I would have sold my grandmother into slavery for that.”

I nod like that’s a given.

“Can I name your sword?”

“No.” I pull out a pair of jeans that might fit and one sock.

“Why not?”

“Already has a name.” I continue digging through the pile for a matching sock.

“What is it?”

“Pooky Bear.”

His friendly face suddenly becomes serious. “You’re naming your collector’s-item, kick-ass sword that’s made to maim and kill, specifically designed to bring your ginormous enemies to their knees and hear the lamentation of their women—Pooky Bear?”

“Yeah, you like it?”

“Even joking about that is a crime against nature. You know that, right? I’m trying desperately not to make an anti-girl comment right now, but you’re making it pretty hard.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I shrug. “I might call it Toto or Flossy instead. What do you think?”

He looks at me like I’m nuttier than my mom. “Am I mistaken? Do you actually have a purse dog in that scabbard?”

“Oh, I wonder if I can find a pink sheath for Pooky Bear. Maybe with little rhinestones? What? Too much?”

He walks out shaking his head.

He’s just too easy to tease. I take my time changing and getting ready before following Dee-Dum out the door.

The hallway feels as crowded as the Oakland coliseum during the World Series.

A pair of middle-aged men exchange a feather for a prescription bottle of pills. I guess this is the World After’s version of a drug deal. Another shows off what looks like a little finger, then snatches it back as a guy reaches for it. They begin whisper-arguing.

A pair of women walk by huddled over a few cans of soup as if they held a pot of gold in their arms. They scan everyone nervously as they weave through the hallway. Next to the main door, a couple of people with freshly shaved heads tape up apocalypse cult fliers.

Outside, the overgrown lawn is eerily deserted with trash blowing in the wind. Anyone who looks down from the sky would assume this building is just as abandoned as any other.

Dee-Dum tells me that it’s already a big joke that the Resistance upper echelon has taken over the teachers’ lounge and that Obi has taken the principal’s office. We walk across the school grounds to Obi’s mission-style adobe building, staying on the covered walkway even if it means going the long way around.

The lobby and halls of the main building are even busier than mine but the people here look like they have a purpose. A guy rushes down the hallway dragging cables behind him. Several people move desks and chairs from one room to another.

A teenage kid pushes a cart piled with sandwiches and pitchers of water. As it rolls by, people grab the food and drinks as if they have the right to meal delivery if they work in this building.

Dee-Dum picks up a couple of sandwiches and hands one to me. Just like that, I’m part of the in-crowd.

I gobble up my breakfast before someone points out that I don’t belong here. But I almost choke on a mouthful when I notice something.

The gun barrels in this building are extra long. They look like the silencers you see assassins screwing onto their rifles in movies.

If we’re attacked by angels, noise won’t matter because the angels will already know where we are. But if we’re shooting each other…

The food in my mouth suddenly tastes like cold, slimy Spam and rock-hard bread instead of the delicious treat it was a moment ago.

Dee-Dum pushes through a door.

“—screwup,” says a male voice from inside the room.

Several rows of people sit in front of computers, totally immersed in their displays. I haven’t seen anything like this since before the attack. Some of them are quite a sight with their glasses clashing with their devil-horn gang tattoos.

More people are setting up computers in the back rows and rolling large TVs in front of the chalkboard. It looks like the Resistance has figured out how to get a steady power source, at least for one room.

In the center of all the activity is Obi. A line of people follows him around, waiting for his approval on something. Several people in the room seem to have one eye on him and one eye on something else.

Boden stands beside him. His nose is still swollen and bruised from our little schoolyard fight a few days ago. Maybe next time he’ll talk to people like they’re human beings instead of bullying them, even if they are petite girls like me who seem like easy targets.

“It was an adjustment in plans, not a screwup,” says Boden. “And no way in hell was it a ‘treason against humanity.’ How many times do I have to explain this?”

Amazingly, there’s a basket of candy bars by the door. Dee-Dum grabs two and hands one to me. When I feel the Snickers bar in my hand, I know I’m in the inner sanctum.

“Jumping the gun is not an adjustment in plans, Boden,” says Obi as he looks at a document handed to him by a crusty soldier-type. “We can’t execute a military strategy by letting a foot soldier decide the timing just because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut and spilled all the details. Every street pilgrim and hotel whore knew about it.”

“But it wasn’t—”

“Your fault,” says Obi. “I know. You’ve said it ad nauseam.” Obi glances my way as he listens to the next one in line.

After a moment of fantasizing about the taste of the candy bar, I slip it into my jacket pocket. Maybe I can entice Paige to eat it.

“You’re dismissed for now, Boden.” Obi motions for me to come in.

Boden gives me a snarl as we pass each other.

Obi grins at me. The woman who’s next in line looks over and eyes me with more than professional curiosity.

“Good to see you alive, Penryn,” says Obi.

“Good to be alive,” I say. “Are we having movie nights?”

“We’re setting up a remote surveillance system around the Bay Area,” says Obi. “It pays to have so many geniuses in the Valley who can make the impossible possible again.”

Someone in the last row calls out, “Camera twenty-five is online.” The other programmers continue to tap on their computers but I can feel their excitement.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“Anything interesting,” says Obi.

“I got something!” a programmer in the back yells out. “Angels in Sunnyvale on Lawrence Expressway.”

“Put it on the front screen,” says Obi.

One of the large TV screens at the front of the classroom comes on.