Sophie Littlefield - Aftertime

Elaine led her to one of the small windowless offices down the hall from the conference room. “Take a good look around,” she said, “because when I lock the door you won’t have any light.”

“You’re locking me in?”

“It’s the procedure,” Elaine said. “Don’t worry. It’s standard. Everyone who comes here from outside, even if they’re known to someone here, they have to stay in these rooms until they figure out what to do with them.”

“What to do with them?”

“Whether they can stay…whether they support the Rebuilders.” She shook her head, a very small motion that held a warning.

“What exactly are the Rebuilders?” she demanded in a fierce whisper.

“Hasn’t Smoke told you? He’s, like…” The look that passed over Elaine’s face was part incredulity and part admiration, but she frowned and glared into the sparsely furnished room. “His actions against the Rebuilders are well-known.”

She wasn’t going to give Cass any information. It seemed unlikely, but maybe others were listening, even here. Cass entered the small room and did as Elaine told her, looking around and trying to memorize the room’s features. A mattress on the carpeted floor, made up with relatively clean linens and a pillow. A bucket. A plastic jug of water pushed into a far corner, where she wouldn’t trip over it and spill it. The walls were bare, but there were holes in the drywall where pictures or bulletin boards had once hung, and Cass had a flash-memory of a cheerful space decorated with pictures of a laughing family, a dog with a Frisbee, a plaque decorated with flowers and the words Blessed Are the Poor In Spirit.

“It’s like I never lived here at all,” she said softly, touching a gash in the drywall where something had been ripped free.

Elaine handed back her pack. “I kept the can opener, and your blades,” she said. “But you’ll get them back when you leave, assuming…well, you know.”

She left the room, and while Cass waited for the click of the lock and the light to disappear, she wondered what her alternatives were. It sounded like being released, sent out to fend for themselves, was the best she and Smoke could hope for. But first, she had to find out what, and where, this Convent was.

She turned it over in her mind, trying to remember if there was anything in the mountains that could be called a convent. There were churches, a Catholic elementary school…and why would they have sent the girls away? What threat did the Rebuilders pose for children?

There were too many questions. Cass needed to talk to Smoke. Maybe he knew what Elaine was talking about. Clearly, there were things he’d been holding back, whatever happened at the rock slide, for instance. She had to have faith in him, a prospect that felt far more tenuous than mere hope, but there was no one else to trust, no one to depend on. Maybe Elaine would return…maybe she would bring more information. With any luck, Elaine would tell her where to go, and they would be allowed to leave while it was still dark. It couldn’t be much past midnight; they could make shelter by morning if they could manage to get out of town and use the darkness for cover.

Assuming their next shelter hadn’t already fallen to the Rebuilders. Assuming they could leave behind the things Smoke had done.

Cass shivered. If she believed the others, it meant Smoke had killed . What did she know about him, really? They’d shared a night she wasn’t sure she wanted to remember. He’d come with her-all right, he didn’t have to do that, but on the other hand maybe he was already on the run, maybe he knew it was only a matter of time until he would be held accountable for what he’d done.

And what about you? the voice inside her nagged. Cass knew there was no point in trying to ignore it: she had been on the run most of her life. Smoke had accepted her, trusted her, even without knowing all of her story-even with the way she looked, her filth, her wounds, even after what she’d done to Sammi.

In the back of her mind she’d been considering trying to sneak out alone, if she could find out where the Convent was. Unlike Smoke, she had never challenged the Rebuilders. With Elaine’s help, maybe she could gain their trust, convince them to help her find Ruthie. They had weapons, power and information.

But she knew that she would be killed if the Rebuilders found out she’d been attacked. And if there were still others here from before, people who recognized her, who remembered her, it would be impossible to keep that a secret. Besides, she wouldn’t get far without Smoke-she needed help if she was going to stand a chance at survival, given how much more organized the Beaters had become. Alone in the unpopulated areas was one thing, but up here in the mountains, the roads were dotted with clusters of houses, and that meant Beaters.

And there was something else: she also owed Smoke. For giving her a chance, if nothing else-it was more than anyone had done for her in a very long time.

Cass sank down onto the mattress. She sat with her legs crossed and listened hard, but the only sound was her own breathing. After what seemed like a very long time, she tapped gently on the walls on either side of her, in case Smoke had been brought to the next room, but there was no response.

A little later she lay down, thinking she might as well get some rest, in case she and Smoke were going to be made to leave, but a few minutes later the door opened.

It was Miles, the man who’d held the gun on them. “Come with me,” he said impassively.

She followed him down the hall to the conference room. She was ready to duck her head and cover her face if they encountered anyone, hoping her haircut would disguise her, but the halls were empty. If there were people here, they were in the main rooms of the library, the stacks and the classrooms, the kitchen and the courtyard; the administrative area seemed to be reserved for those in charge.

In the conference room, there was no sign of Skiv. Smoke sat alone opposite two men and a woman dressed in basic khaki short-sleeved shirts and fatigue pants.

“Sit here,” Miles said, pointing at the seat next to Smoke, and then he took up a position at the door, watching the room with his hand resting lightly on his gun belt. Smoke gave her a penetrating look, not smiling, but his hand brushed her leg under the table.

“I’m Evangeline,” the lone woman said. She sat between the others, a commanding presence. Cass figured her for the leader. Her light brown hair, tinged with silver, was pulled into a severe ponytail. She wore no jewelry, but she had a blue-black tattoo above one wrist bone, a fat, tight spiral. She saw Cass looking at her wrist and held it up for her to examine.

“The koru. Symbol of renewal. From the Maori. I understand you’ve been…away.”

That was putting it mildly, and Cass was tempted to roll her eyes, but there was something dangerous about the woman, and she merely nodded.

“Yes. Well. The koru is the symbol of the Rebuilders.”

Smoke made a sound of barely suppressed anger.

“I’m lost,” Cass said. “I’m sorry, it’s like you all think I know things that I don’t. Who exactly are the Rebuilders?”

“Just what it sounds like,” the man on Evangeline’s left said. His facial hair had been carefully shaved to a very thin line along his jaw, something that would be difficult under any circumstances but far harder in Aftertime with its scarcity of grooming aids. “We’re rebuilding. We’re taking what’s left after the rest of the world tried to bring our country to its knees-the raw materials, the resources, the people-and we’re building it back into a civilization.”

“‘We’ who?” Smoke demanded. “All I see is half a dozen folks with guns and a few dozen more without any.”