Mike Mullin - Sunrise

“No.”

“Before your time. Anyway, they interviewed victims and perpetrators of violence in the apartheid era—not necessarily to prosecute anyone, just to bring closure. We could try something like that.”

“Have them talk to all the refugees and prisoners— sort out who the really bad ones were and who we might be able to integrate into Speranta?”

“Sure. A commission like that might help us get Mayor Petty’s bunch integrated too.”

“I know the perfect person to run it too. Thanks!”

“You bet.”

Uncle Paul turned back to the kale chips as I got up to look for Zik. He was perfect to lead the commission. Anyone who had fought for Red was suspect, and who better to sort out those who might be reformed from the rest than Zik, who’d lived in Stockton and knew most of the prisoners personally? It also would give him a chance to question them about his daughter, Emily, who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. I told Zik that the top priority was getting rid of the prisoners—they all needed to become members of our community or be exiled as quickly as possible.

I also set up the constitution committee I had promised over a month before when we had held the vote to confirm me as mayor. I tapped Reverend Evans to run it. If he were in charge, I figured he would have a tough time arguing that the constitution was invalid. I insisted that he put my sister, Rebecca, on the executive committee and asked her to keep an eye on Evans for me.

On the evening of the second day after battle, I summoned Anna and Charlotte into the base of the Turbine Tower 1-A, my improvised conference room. When I opened the door, though, Max and Alyssa were already in there. It looked like Max was trying to shove his tongue down Alyssa’s throat. She didn’t mind, though—she was pressed up against him, moaning softly. Their hands were everywhere.

I cleared my throat. Then cleared it again, louder. Max broke the kiss and looked over at me, startled. “I need my conference room,” I said.

Alyssa tossed her hair, smiled, and marched out with her head held high.

Max’s face turned tomato sauce red, and he slinked past me with a muttered, “Sorry.”

I caught his arm, holding him there a minute. “Is she still getting gifts under her pillow?” I asked in a whisper.

“Sometimes,” Max said.

“Did you tell her it’s not you?”

“Um, not really.”

I made a mental note to move Darla and my bedroll closer to where Alyssa slept. I wanted to know who was giving her gifts surreptitiously, before it exploded into some kind of drama. “You should tell her.”

Max shrugged and pulled free of my grip. He nearly crashed into Anna on the way out of the turbine tower. She shoved her way past him, and Charlotte followed her into my conference room/improvised make-out spot and closed the door so we could have a private conference. “How bad is the food situation?” I asked.

Anna spoke first. “We can handle it. If we cut back to survival rations now, go on a crash building program, and borrow some food from the Wallers, we can feed everyone. But it’ll be rough for about three months.”

The most critical project was building greenhouses, so I threw my energy into that. I sent a team led by Nylce to trade with the Wallers for more food. Thelma, who’d started as our hostage but was now our guest, went along as an advisor—she had finally decided we weren’t going to kill and eat her. Now she saved her paranoia for all the other ways she might die: a flenser raid, a rare disease, or a fall from a turbine tower were her three favorites. I normally tried to avoid her. Nylce took Ranaan Kendall—the

Iraqi war vet—along with her too. He hadn’t made the trip to the WalMart warehouse yet and wanted to see it.

After dinner a few days later, Ben approached me. “Mayor Halprin, may I speak with you?”

“You can call me Alex,” I said for the gazillionth time. “And sure, what’s up?”

“The sniper’s nest is above us,” he said.

Okay. That wasn’t like Ben anymore. I mean, yes, sometimes he was way too literal, but he was getting a lot better about interpreting figures of speech. He must have been incredibly nervous to misunderstand a simple expression like “what’s up.”

“I mean, what can I help you with?”

“Could we talk in private, Mayor Halprin? I am sorry, I forgot to call you Alex, Alex.”

“It’s okay. Sure. Step into my office.” I ushered Ben into the bottom of Turbine Tower 1-A, careful not to touch him. Normally these days a casual touch didn’t seem to set him off, but he was clearly already tense. I pulled the door closed behind us and asked, “What can I do for you, Ben?”

“You can grant me permission to call on Rebecca.”

“Call on?”

“May I have your permission to take your sister out on a date?”

I rocked back on my heels in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Where had that come from? “Rebecca doesn’t need my permission to go on a date.”

“It is appropriate to ask the father of the young woman for permission to court her, but if the young woman’s father has passed on, one may seek permission of an older brother.”

“You’ve been reading some really old books on dating, haven’t you?”

“I have read The Marriage Guide for Young Men, Courtship and Marriage: And the Gentle Art of Homemakmg, and The Way to Woo and Win a Wife—”

“No, never mind, that’s okay. I don’t need to know them all. Yes, you may ask Rebecca if she would like to go out on a date with you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Ben held out his hand to shake. I took it—every muscle in his hand was corded and straining. I could feel how much mental and physical effort the handshake cost him and cut it short after one arm pump.

I didn’t catch up to Rebecca until breakfast the next morning. “Did Ben talk to you?” I asked.

She just about bubbled over right before my eyes. I could practically see the hearts rising from her head and bursting, spreading a heady scent around her. “He brought me flowers! Real flowers! What kind of guy plants real flowers in the corner of a greenhouse and tends them for three months just so he can give them to you on your first date?”

“A keeper?” I guessed.

“Hell to the yes!”

“I’m happy for you. You… um… Mom, she talked to you about, you know, all that—”

“You are truly disgusting, Alex. And yes, she did.” Rebecca flounced off while I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Not long after dinner that evening, Rebecca yelled at me from the phone across the room. “Something’s going on in Longhouse Five. You’d better get over here.”

Normally I don’t stand much on ceremony, but did she have to yell it across the entire longhouse? And Longhouse Five? That was where my mom and Mayor Petty were staying—were they in trouble or causing trouble? Everyone turned to stare at Rebecca and the phone outstretched in her hand. I ran over, taking the receiver.

The line was a confused jumble of voices. A woman said, “Throw it up there. Over that rafter.” Another voice said, “The trunk line is over there.” With all the noise, I couldn’t recognize either voice. Suddenly, the circuit went completely dead. Since we only had one party line, I couldn’t communicate with anyone—none of the longhouses, not even the sniper post nearly three hundred feet above me.

Ed was at my elbow. I hadn’t even noticed him approaching. “Full mobilization, manual protocol. Phone line’s dead.”

Ed ran for the door of the longhouse, unslinging the rifle from his back as he went. He yelled, “All platoons, arm and form up!” and Longhouse One instantly transformed from a relaxed, after-dinner scene to a barracks in the midst of a full mobilization. A few seconds after Ed cleared the front door, I heard three shots—the signal that we were under attack. Several more-distant three-shot bursts sounded moments later: other longhouses acknowledging the signal and passing it on.