John Birmingham - Without warning

His back muscles, clenched against a bullet, only relaxed a block later.

His stash of freeze-dried rations at home was beginning to look mighty good as James Kipper surveyed the buffet in the main convention hall. The military had stocked trestle tables with light tan, plastic-wrapped MREs while a couple of ancient urns, dug out of the city council dungeons, hissed and steamed, providing hot water for powdered coffee. First cup free, then you had to supply your own makings. Kipper ripped open a sachet of army coffee, wondering if the navy’s would’ve tasted any better. He’d heard that once. Too bad if it did, because the US Army had a lock on the coffee market in Seattle now.

The air in the hall was hot and cloying. That was his doing. Power restrictions meant that the air-conditioning had to be dialled right back and the lighting had been dimmed too. Kipper had taken a lot of grief for that decision, but every time some angry state congressman with three-day body odour harassed him about it, he just shrugged and pointed out that the citizens of Seattle were restricted to eight hours of power a day for the foreseeable future. The city engineer made up his one sachet of free powdered coffee and grabbed an army chocolate bar for his daughter to have later. The soldiers called them ‘track pads’, and after sampling one, he could understand why. They were as hard as bricks, but they seemed to mollify Suzie. Kip looked at the MREs and tried to figure out which one had either Skittles or M amp;M’s in it. He’d learned that you could never tell.

He was getting ready to make a clean getaway when a Mack Truck in an expensive-looking three-piece suit suddenly blocked his way.

‘Mr Kipper, the city engineer?’

Kip kept his face neutral, wondering if he was going to get in trouble for stealing the chocolate. As one of the city’s senior administrators, he had unrestricted access to the conference floor – in case he had to speak urgently to any of the now-released city councillors – but he probably shouldn’t have been grazing at the buffet. It had been laid out for delegates. He palmed the chocolate bar, or attempted to anyway.

‘Oh, don’t sweat it, son. I have a sweet tooth myself,’ the suit said with a grin. ‘Culver is the name. Jed Culver, with the Hawaiian delegation. And you’re James Kipper, aren’t you?’

‘City engineer, yeah,’ replied Kipper, who felt the need to explain himself. ‘This, uh, this is for my daughter. She’s six and…’

Culver held up his hand and shook his head. ‘Say no more, I have two of my own. Although, they’ve moved on a bit in years now-terrible teens. Back in Honolulu, thank God. Listen, Mr Kipper, I wonder if I might bother you for a few moments of your time.’

Feeling as guilty as hell over the confectionery, Kip didn’t feel he could say no. ‘Is there something I can help you with, Mr Culver? I mean, I’m not a delegate. Not elected either – I’m just the city engineer. I’m trying to keep things running.’

Culver nodded. ‘I know. That’s why I wanted to talk, briefly. But not here. Do you have an office? Or, even better, somewhere we could talk that isn’t likely to be bugged.’

Culver spoke in such a matter-of-fact way that the meaning of his question took a second to register with the engineer. Kip blinked and shook his head in surprise. ‘I, uh… well.’

‘I have good reason for caution, sir. Doesn’t need to be anywhere special – indeed, the less special the better. Somewhere you wouldn’t normally transact business. Somewhere your elected officials would be unlikely to frequent.’

‘Somewhere not worth bugging?’ said Kip.

‘Yes,’ replied Culver, nodding gently.

Kipper shrugged. ‘Okay, I suppose so, if you want to follow me.’

‘Tell you what, I understand it may be an inconvenience for a busy man, but could you meet me in half an hour? Wherever you think best.’

Kipper wasn’t sure whether to be pissed off, intrigued or worried. A little of each perhaps. He gave Culver directions to an empty office on the twenty-ninth floor. An auditor had been working in there all last year, causing untold angst for the various department heads. But he was gone now, and the office had not been reallocated. It was a bare space full of paper files awaiting the shredder.

The chief engineer had enough time to squeeze in a quick meeting with his own section heads, detailing their priorities for the day – sanitation and sewerage were the new headaches – before excusing himself for ten minutes to call Barb. To his surprise, he found Culver waiting for him there, in his office. He wasn’t entirely happy with that.

‘Do you mind if I ask how you made it up here, Mr Culver? I mean, you’re not really supposed to be on this floor.’

‘Nope,’ the big man admitted. ‘But in my experience just looking like you should be somewhere is ninety per cent of the battle won. And you don’t have any armed soldiers up on these floors, do you?’

Kipper released a deep breath out of his nostrils. ‘No, we don’t. Not since they released the councillors. Military’s handling security downstairs, but the city looks after its own up here now.’

Culver seemed to chew this over. ‘I hear tell you were the one who dragged this town through the worst of the aftermath. Heard you were the de facto mayor and governor.’

‘City employs a lot of people, Mr Culver,’ Kip replied, shrugging off the attempt at flattery. ‘They all worked long days after the Disappearance hit. I wasn’t unique. There are thousands of city and state-government workers, thousands more in private firms, tens of thousands of individuals citizens, all of whom pitched in to help. Most of my people wouldn’t have seen their families awake in a month.’

‘And the military,’ said Culver. ‘Do you mind if I ask how they… fitted in?’

Kipper snorted. ‘Fitted in? More like stormed in. Was a time there I was seriously thinking about following one of my guys out the door. He quit after Blackstone arrested the councillors. Said it was fascism, no less.’

‘But you didn’t quit.’

‘How could I? The army are good at some things but not others. You want something destroyed, they’re your guys. You want something saved, preserved, built, whatever – not so much. Believe me, Mr Culver, I had my doubts. But this place would’ve fallen apart if enough of us had just thrown up our hands on a point of politics. And it did get sorted out in the end.’

Jed Culver waited to see if Kipper claimed any credit for that. His sources told him the engineer was responsible for sorting out the ‘misunderstanding’ between the city and Fort Lewis, and for ensuring that everybody moved on from it as quickly as possible. A remarkable piece of hog trading, in Jed’s considered opinion.

But the engineer said nothing. He didn’t even raise it. Culver decided to nudge him.

‘I have to say, Mr Kipper,’ he began, ‘I am surprised it got sorted, as you put it. People must have been a tad upset with General Blackstone, no? I would’ve thought a lot of folks might have wanted him arrested and court-martialled. Or at least relieved of duty.’

Kipper shrugged. ‘Look, it’s a tough call. Blackstone is an asshole. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but he gets as much credit for pulling this place through the last month as anyone. More than most, really. I guess unusual times call for unusual methods.’ The engineer checked his watch before going on. ‘Look, I don’t want to be rude, Mr Culver, but is there some reason we had to arrange such a cloak-and-dagger meeting for a conversation you could have a hundred times over down on the conference floor?’