John Birmingham - Without warning

The city engineer blushed and began to shake his head, but Culver waved off his objection.

‘I don’t smoke, and I’m diabetic. I just thought your little girl might like them.’

‘Well, she would,’ Kip admitted. ‘But it doesn’t feel right. Things are so tight at the moment.’

‘What are you, a Catholic, with all that guilt? Take the fucking Milk Duds, Kip. They’ll kill me if I eat them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get insulin at the moment?’

The engineer thanked him and pocketed the small treat. ‘Suzie’ll love them.’ He had to raise his voice to be heard over the din.

‘This is a first-class shambles, isn’t it?’ said Culver.

Kipper nodded. He surveyed the scene as if discovering a bedroom left in chaos by a naughty child. The convention chairman was on his feet now, pointing his little wooden hammer at Guertson, demanding he give up the podium. The Sieg heil crew were being pushed around at the edges by a group of men who looked like they’d just come in from a logging mill, and at least two fist fights had broken out on the far side of the hall. Kipper muttered something, excused himself and hurried away. A minute or so later, all power to the room was cut, plunging it into darkness.

The effect was almost instant: a sudden change in tone from angry contention to confusion and surprise. After a short interval, the lights came up again, and when they did, Kipper was standing at the podium, smiling at Mayor Guertson, asking politely for the microphone. He got it and then spoke forcefully to the entire room.

‘Sorry, folks. James Kipper, city engineer. We’ve had some trouble with relays from the power station and this place is a major drain on the grid. The whole building is set to flip off when we get a spike. Perhaps a ten-minute break while my guys sort this out would be a good idea. It won’t take long, I promise.’

He flicked off the PA and waved a hand over at a man in overalls, standing by a junction box at the rear of the hall. His technician dimmed the lights and cut power to the sound system with an audible pop. Kipper hopped down from the stage, holding both hands up, with his fingers splayed. Ten minutes.

The crowd seemed to deflate as the malign energy that had been building up sluiced out of the room. Not entirely, but enough for everyone to retreat from their entrenched positions.

Culver stood to one side as a hundred or more people made straight for the coffee and sandwich tables where he was standing. He pushed through them, like a salmon swimming upstream, intent on catching Kipper before he disappeared again. He found the engineer, loitering by a side exit, watching over the room with a censorious air.

‘So, mass psychology and creative bullshitting,’ the lawyer said, impressed. ‘I didn’t realise the city engineer had to be so versatile.’

Kipper raised an eyebrow. ‘Multitasking, Jed. It’s all multitasking in today’s go-go world of local government.’

‘Uh-huh, so you’re going to switch off the lights and send them to the naughty corner every time they get out of hand?’

The other man looked at a loss for words. ‘I don’t fucking know. I mean, what the hell is this about?’ He waved a hand around to take in the entire auditorium. ‘I don’t know that we’re gonna get through this, you know. You’d have thought that people would be pulling together, not trying to rip each other down.’

Culver smiled gently. ‘Do you know much history, Mr Kipper? Do you know the Battle of Salamis?’

‘Some Civil War thing?’ Kip replied, looking slightly perplexed.

Culver shook his head. ‘Most important battle in history. Gallant little ancient Greece versus the enormous, evil Persian Empire. If the Greeks had lost that battle, we wouldn’t be standing here today. There would be no such thing as Western civilisation. Anyway, the point is, before the battle the Greeks looked a lot like the people in this room – beating on each other, calling each other dumb fucks and ignorant assholes. The only thing they could agree on was the need to kick Persian ass, but nobody could agree how. In the end, though, they did. And it was partly due to all that aggravating back and forth, as they sorted through their ideas. That and the fact that the Greeks all fought as free men, whereas the Persians were slaves to a God King.’

Kipper sort of squinted and sucked air in through his teeth. ‘I don’t really get it,’ he said. ‘We’re not about to fight a battle. We’re just trying to rebuild a working country.’

Culver leaned in closely now. ‘We are fighting a battle, Kip. And this…’ – he waved his hand at the room – ‘this is just a skirmish.’

Suzie’s squeal of delight was painfully, beautifully loud in the gloomy candle-lit kitchen.

‘Oh thank you, Daddy! Thank you!’ She hugged the bright yellow packet of Milk Duds to her chest. ‘I’m going to have a tea party and share them with Barbie, and Big Teddy, and Daisy the horse, and…’

Barbara Kipper stroked her daughter’s bobbing head and tried to calm her down. ‘That’s lovely, sweetheart, but remember, Daddy may not be able to get any more, so don’t share them all at once. Maybe just one tonight?’

‘Oh I know that, Mommy,’ she insisted. ‘I know that Milk Duds might not come back ever again. Or Oreos or Barney the Dinosaur. So I’ll share mine for real with Sophie and Anna. Because they’re sad.’

‘That’s very generous of you,’ said Kip. ‘That’s very good, darling… You go have a play now, and let Mommy and Daddy talk, okay?’

The little girl flicked on her Scooby Doo flashlight, turned on a dime, and shot away up the darkened hall to set up a tea party with her stuffed toys.

‘Any chance she won’t scoff them all down tonight?’ asked Barb sceptically.

‘Oh, she’s pretty good. She did share that army chocolate with her friends.’

‘And she got in trouble for it, Kip. Remember? That asshole ration Nazi at the school had her wait outside his office for an hour. A fucking hour …!’

‘Okay, honey, calm down,’ he said. ‘It’s a good thing, you know. She gets so little now. And she’s so good about it. It’s nice that we can still get her these little things.’

‘Nice for her, Kip, but you’re not here every day dealing with the neighbours and the school moms.’ Her voice hitched. ‘The th-things they say…’ Tears welled up in Barb’s eyes and her face creased as she leaned forward into his chest, sobbing. She was like this so often now. Brittle and prone to emotional collapse.

They stood like that, in the soft, guttering light of a half-melted candle, for nearly a minute. The house did have power, for the next two hours, but like most people they kept their energy usage to a minimum. Barb had the rice cooker plugged in on the bench, with some vegetables in the steamer basket, but that was it for appliances. They would turn on the battery-operated radio at nine for the Emergency Broadcast update, and then switch it right off again.

His wife was just calming down when three hard knocks rattled the door leading out to the porch and made them both jump. Kip left Barbara to compose herself and peeked through the curtains to see who’d come by. Visitors were a rarity these days, because of the shortages. Everyone stayed close to home. There was no mistaking the mountain-sized moonlit silhouette on the porch, however. It was his friend and former deputy, Barney Tench.

‘Holy crap, Barn, what are you doing all the way over on this side of town? How’d you get the gas?’

‘Can I come in?’ asked Barney, with a hint of urgency.

‘Sure, buddy, come in. Hey Barb, look – it’s Barn. Reckon we could break out the emergency bourbon?’