Stephen Baxter - Ark

Then she was dumped on the ground, still surrounded by the mob. A face loomed over her, a man’s face, neatly shaven. The man she had first attacked. “I’m sorry!” he yelled down at her. “Sorry! It’s for my daughter. Try to understand…”

She felt hands at her neck, her waist, her clothes being pulled from her. A blinding pain erupted in her head.

“You might want to put those on.”

A breeze on her face. Something hard, lumpy under her back. Fragmentary impressions. She felt water trickling into her lips, stale, sour. Was somebody fooling around, Wilson or Kelly maybe?

But she wasn’t in the dorm. She shook her head, trying to get away from the trickle of water, and moaned. Her head hurt.

She opened her eyes. She saw a slab of blue sky, between the walls of two tall buildings. The water hitting her face came from some overflow pipe, high on the wall above her.

Disgusted, she rolled over. Every movement set blinding lights flashing in her eyes. She was sitting in the dirt, on flagstones. And she was stripped to her underwear. “Shit.” She closed her arms over her chest and crotch.

“I said, you might want to put those on.”

She turned around. Somebody sat in the shade, leaning against one wall. He had bare feet, ragged jeans, a jacket with a logo faded almost to invisibility. His hair was a black mop, and he had a wisp of beard. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen, eighteen. He was staring at her chest.

“Quit looking at me.”

“Well, you’re the one with her boobies out. I say again, you ought to put those on.” He was a Latino, she thought, his voice lightly accented.

She looked, and found a heap of filthy clothes beside her, a kind of coverall, an undershirt. They stank. “These aren’t mine.”

“I know. The guy dumped you here, he left them. Said they were his daughter’s. Said you’d understand.”

She stared at him. “Where are my clothes?”

“He took ’em. Guy with the daughter. Fancy red and blue gear, right? I thought I knew your face. You’re a Candidate. What’s it like to be f amous?”

She heard shouting, whistles blowing, a crackle of radios somewhere nearby. Dogs barked. She stared at the garbage clothes, uncomprehending. “This guy-this man. What was he trying to do, make out his daughter is a Candidate? Who did he think that was going to fool? We know each other. Our families, our tutors- you know us.”

“That’s true, but it’s a kind of mixed-up day, don’t you think? Lot of people going to end up in the wrong place today. Can’t blame a man for trying. And he didn’t do you much harm. Left you your boots.”

So he had, she saw; her blue plastic boots were still on her feet, below bare legs.

“Course,” said the Latino kid, “I left you your boots too. Mind, blue ain’t my color.” He cackled another laugh, and she saw his teeth had great gaps. “You put your clothes on now.”

“These aren’t mine.”

“Well, you can tell that to the sweep when it comes, can’t you? They come block by block.” He got to his feet stiffly, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

“What sweep? Where am I?”

“Corner of Garfield and East Colfax.”

Only a couple of blocks from the City Park, where the museum was. She got to her feet, ignoring the banging in her head. She could hear the whistles, the dogs coming closer. If she could talk to the cops maybe she could get some kind of escort back to her people, and this nightmare would be over.

The kid was staring at her again. She couldn’t stand here in her bra and pants. She grabbed the filthy, ragged clothes and pulled them on. She snapped, “I’m going to star in some kind of porn movie in your head tonight, aren’t I?”

He shrugged. “Could have taken your boots. You were out cold. Could have hurt you. You could have done a lot worse than have me find you.” The whistles and barking grew louder. He turned to face the north end of the street. “Coming that way, I reckon. Listen. Tell them you know how to mix concrete.”

“Tell them what?”

“Just remember. Woah, here’s the man.”

A squad of military types, National Guard maybe, came marching around the corner from the north end of the block. They wore body armor and helmets that hid their faces. To Holle’s disbelief they carried a net, like a fishing net, stretched out on two poles, extended across the width of the block. Engines growled behind her, and when she turned she saw a lorry, a big farm wagon, pulled up at the south end of the block. More troopers jumped down and lined up in front of the truck. They carried nightsticks and wielded handguns, and they had dogs that barked and snapped.

Now the units from the north end began to work their way down the block. Only Holle and the kid stood here in the street, but troopers broke down the doors of the properties to either side, yelling orders that anyone inside had to come out. Holle heard shouted protests, the yap of dogs, the crack of weapons-even a dull crump that must be a grenade.

People came trickling out of the houses, some ragged eye-dee types who must be squatters, but others who looked like regular residents, old folk, a young couple with a kid of about ten. Some had belongings, others came out empty-handed, bewildered. There weren’t many, maybe twenty. Holle guessed that most had gone already, trying to join the official exodus west.

A family had to be dragged out of one house. A girl, just a teenager, was hanging onto her dog, a ragged mongrel. Pets weren’t allowed on the evacuation marches. Maybe that was why this family had refused to leave. Eventually a trooper got hold of the dog and threw it against the wall. The girl’s father held the girl back as she raged and wept.

And that net swept on down the street, step by step, inexorable as the flood itself, driving them all forward toward the waiting truck.

Holle pushed through the sullen civilians toward the net. None of the troopers looked like an officer. She couldn’t see their faces, their eyes behind their faceplates. “Hey! Can you help me? I shouldn’t be here.”

There was a rumble of laughter. The troopers didn’t break their step, and she had to back up.

“None of us should be here, lady. What you gonna do?”

“I’m a Candidate.”

“Yeah, you look like it.”

“I should be on the buses to Gunnison. Maybe there’s still time. I’m Holle Groundwater. My father’s Patrick Groundwater, who-”

“Yeah, and I’m Kelly Kenzie’s left tit. Just get in the damn truck with everybody else.”

Holle glanced around. She saw that the people driven out of their homes were clambering meekly onto the bed of the waiting truck. This couldn’t be happening. To these other people, yes. Not to her. “I’m a Candidate! Oh, listen to me, you fools-”

A nightstick came out of nowhere, wielded in a gloved hand, and slapped across Holle’s face. She was thrown to the ground. Maybe for a second she lost consciousness again. The line closed on her, the heavy net dragging across the ground. She tried to move, couldn’t. She got a kick in the chest that knocked her back out of the way, rolling like a rotten log.

Somebody was pulling at her. “Come on. Up you get. That’s it.. ”

Leaning on the stranger’s arm, she got to her feet, and managed to stagger away from the advancing line, one meter, two. But now she was nearly at the truck.

“Are you all right, dear?” The person who had helped her up was a woman, maybe sixty, solid, her hair a mass of gray. She was wrapped in a heavy coat and had a backpack on her back and sturdy shoes on her feet. She, at least, had been prepared for the day.

Holle said, “All right? I-”

“I know. None of us are all right today, are we? And now it’s come to this.” The woman climbed up a short stepladder onto the truck bed. She reached down and helped Holle up in turn. “I lived here with my husband, even before the flood, you know. It was our first home but we never thought we’d stay here. A nicer place in the suburbs, when we could afford it. That was the plan. Well, that never came about, did it? But I don’t complain, and nor did Herb before the consumption carried him off in ’35. We’ve had it better than many in this suffering world, haven’t we?”