John Shirley: A Song Called Youth

A photocopy of Barbara’s poem and essay was sent by her teacher to her school guidance counselor. On it the teacher wrote, “I am very worried about Barbara and a lot of other students who seem to have despaired of ever growing up. There is also another group of students who seem to be reacting to the danger of a wide nuclear war by sliding into a jingoism which I also find disturbing…”

They were lying in the dark, each wrapped in his black-market US Army blanket. The cardboard pallet under Smoke’s blanket was cold, slightly moist, enough to give him chills.

Smoke said, softly, “Hard-Eyes.”

“Yeah.”

Sure, the guy was awake. No way he trusted Smoke yet. Lying there with his old-before-their-time eyes wide open and smoldering in the darkness.

“Hard-Eyes, there are some who are worse than others. Some Armies.”

“That right?”

“Yeah, The Second Alliance.”

“You call that an army? More like multinational MPs.”

“Uh-uh. SA’s run by the Second Circle. You know what that is?”

“I saw the NR leaflets. Say they’re fascists. Maybe, but no one takes them seriously. Just another gang.”

“That’s what a fascist army is, a big gang. The SA’s the Second Circle’s army. NATO’s using them, but they’re using NATO… You heard about the new war front?”

“No.” The cardboard rasped on the concrete floor—the looters had torn up the carpet—as he got up on an elbow. Hard-Eyes asked, “You been outside?” An edge of accusation. A traveler from outside the city was expected to share news, and rumors—which were indistinguishable. Survival protocol.

“Haven’t been outside Amsterdam except once this year,” Smoke said. “I’ve been mostly over by where the port used to be. Last time I was outside I got indentured into the NATO logistics line. Supposed to’ve been a ‘civilian freight porter’ with a salary.”

Hard-Eyes snorted.

“But you know,” Smoke said, “we ate once a day. Guaranteed.”

“That’s all right. Not bad. And you were behind the fighting.”

“Except some of the camp got a dose of forty-four.”

“Neurotoxin forty-four? I think that’s what’s wrong with Pelter. Got a dose of forty-four. He was raving, on and off, when we first found him. It shot his immune system to hell.”

“You took in a sick guy? You don’t seem like Red Cross volunteers…”

Two-second hesitation. Then Hard-Eyes said, “Jenkins knew him. Jenkins is a little limp-dicked in some ways. And it was like taking in a sick cat, nurse the cat to health and in gratitude the little fucker gives you ringworm or something… You said ‘we’ a while ago. About coming into town with someone.”

“I came in with…” He almost said the name. “A guy who still has connections with the Allies. But they don’t run him.”

“As far as you know.”

“As far as I know,” Smoke agreed.

They were quiet for a couple of minutes, because of a spasm of coughing from Pelter. He wheezed for a while and then it subsided. His lungs rattled when he inhaled.

Smoke shivered and pulled his grimy army blanket more closely around his shoulders.

“So how’s the front moving?” came Hard-Eyes, suddenly, a sharp question out of the darkness.

“It’s moving completely out of Western Europe.”

Silence, except for the dull patter of raindrops in the tub.

“Did you hear me?” Smoke asked.

“I heard some horseshit.”

“The guy I mentioned, he got it straight from the Allied commander’s radio code officer. NATO’s leaving a skeleton force in Amsterdam, Paris, Dresden… They’ve pushed the Russians back, and the story is the Russians are regrouping to hold the line along their traditional borders and around what used to be Warsaw Pact countries. Concentrating on a naval push. The Russians are losing the land battle and winning the sea battle, so who knows how it’ll equalize…”

“The Russian naval push. Finally. Those outdated nuclear subs. With the nasty missiles…” Sounding almost convinced. “Could be rumor number ten thousand five hundred and two.” In wartime Europe, contradictory rumors came and went like autumn leaves in a hurricane.

“You know it’s not. It feels right.”

“And you think the SA will step into the vacuum left by the Russians and NATO.”

“You really believe NATO can police the back-territory? That much land? Who’s left to do it? Who’d do it here? Paris is hanging together on a smaller police force than New York’s got in Central Park. They can hang together because of the military presence. The military moves out and the place is down the drain. And they’re moving out, mostly. So the Second Alliance is hired to move in to police things. The UN Security Council sponsored the SA in this.”

“The SA…” Hard-Eyes was quiet for a moment, then, all in a rush: “NATO couldn’t be that… I mean, just to turn it over to them. NATO’d try to set up provisional governments modeled on the ones that fell.”

“That’s what they’re calling it: transitional period to get them into the provisional government stage. ‘Until autonomy is practical.’ In the meantime the SA is providing the men to keep order, supposedly…”

“No, dude. Everybody knows about the SA. NATO wouldn’t give it them …”

“Are you serious? Are you that naïve?”

Silence. Then, “I guess mostly it’s people in the underGrid that know… but NATO couldn’t be that stupid.”

“NATO is mostly shot to hell except for Scandinavia, Spain, what’s left of Britain, the States. And who pulls the strings in the States? SA sympathizers.”

After a moment Hard-Eyes said, “No, come on. Okay, maybe it’s true. Then what? Is the blockade still up?”

“No, but the SA will be empowered to ‘enact migratory containment.’”

“Where’d you get that phrase?”

“Steinfeld has a printout—” Let him think it’s a slip. Oh, no, I said the name.

“Steinfeld. You’re with Steinfeld.”

The rasp of cardboard as Hard-Eyes sat up.

Smoke said, “I’m just a recruiter.” Too hasty. “I’m not initiated NR.”

“Shit: I’ve got a New Resistance operative in my squat. The NATO MPs will be dropping in, and we’ll all go to the work camps.”

“Nobody’s made me as NR. I’m freelance. I’ve known Steinfeld for a while, we were indentured together. He used Mossad connections, got us out. Some others. But I didn’t follow him like a puppy, just for that. I’m freelance, Hard-Eyes, for real. I wasn’t supposed to bring you along at this stage. But what the hell, come on, come with me. At first light, I’ll take you to meet Steinfeld. The man can do one thing for you, in exchange for a little work: he can get you out of Amsterdam. To Paris.”

“One crater to another. Foxhole to foxhole. Big deal.”

“Now that is real, bona fide horseshit, the certified stuff. You know it’s better there. Maybe it won’t be better for long. But you won’t have to stay there long.”

Hard-Eyes didn’t reply to that. His silence said, That’s hype, and it’s all been hype.

The crow was nestled on the back of Smoke’s neck now. It made a small, warm place there with its body. A circle of warmth and mindless friendship three inches across. Thinking contentedly, They might just kill me in my sleep. It’s fifty/fifty. Thinking that, Smoke focused on the three-inch circle and fell into it, and it was a gateway.

Smoke sat up and looked through the half-light at Pelter, and knew instantly that he was dead. The crow was gone. Something went cold in Smoke then.

You pathetic asshole, he told himself. You’re like a man in prison making a pet of a cockroach.