John Barnes - Daybreak Zero

At last the ceremony ended with three volleys from the honor guard. ( Love, honor, and shoot the right people…, Heather thought.)

For the reception, Quattro had brought over a boxcar load from each coast—jars of pickled and dried fish from Washington, coffee from Lisa Fanchion’s fleet, dried and canned vegetables from California, molasses from Florida, sweet potatoes from Alabama, oysters from the Gulf, and beer and wine from everywhere. Quattro had contrived to give the whole town one big unrationed meal, sharing about as much happiness as he could. “That’s Patrick and Ntale’s fourth trip through the chow line, by my count,” Heather observed.

“I counted six,” Jason said. “But I might’ve missed one. Patrick said that when Ntale’s wedding comes up, he’s going to be as rich as Quattro and throw a feast like this—but bigger, and with chocolate .”

Arnie grinned. “It’s what I told you, Heather. Heroes. It’s a rough world nowadays, and kids can’t get by anymore on mere role models—they need heroes .”

“Maybe Quattro could adopt a characteristic slogan,” Heather said.

Arnie laid a finger on one cheek. “Let me guess. Anything as long as it’s not the mail must go through .”

“Mid-day from Crypto Incoming, Ms. O’Grainne. Hey there, Leo,” Patrick said.

Heather looked up from her lunch. “Hey, you have to stop bringing me more work than I can do before the next batch comes in.”

“Oh, sure, you say that, but if I stopped bringing it, you’d be extra mad. Wouldn’t she, Leo? Your mom is a tough lady.”

“Don’t try to enlist my son in this, he’s too young to encounter bad influences.” Heather gave Patrick the usual allotment of meal tickets, and a hug. He hugged back, hard, collected her outgoing crypto, and was gone, The mail must go through! echoing as his moccasined feet slapped down the steps.

She pulled out her big yarn and card chart and began sorting through the implications of the messages. Dave Carlucci, FBI in San Diego, reported that Harrison Castro was making more blustery noises about his right to have vassals; Carlucci thought he’d finally found a Federal judge who would issue the order Heather had asked him to seek. The message ended with PS SAW YR DAD. STILL HAPPY, HEALTH GOOD, WANTS 2 HEAR EVTHING RE LEO ASAP. Heather decided to leave CASTLE CHALLENGES as an area to watch but didn’t move its priority up or down.

Sally Osterhaus, overflying a tribal area in Central Oregon, reported what looked like a performance area for a Daybreak play; her sketch would be run by Debbie or Larry ASAP. TRIBAL/DAYBREAK LINK, no change.

From Athens, Red Dog reported that General Phat, being held incommunicado, was healthy, in good spirits, and willing to discuss the issues she’d asked him to; that advanced the FIND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE path substantially. Nice to see some green spreading down a board dominated by red and yellow.

After the first five lines of the message from Carol May Kloster, Heather spoke aloud, and immediately added, “Leo, honey, do not make any of those your first word.”

She scribbled five notes, and leaned out the window; sure enough, Patrick was sitting on the park bench, reading Great Expectations for James Hendrix’s class. “Patrick!”

Heather would have sworn that somehow, from three storeys below, that kid managed to get to her desk before she did.

“Deliver as addressed—while they’re alone if you can, but don’t delay if you can’t. Make sure they see my OPEN ALONE IMMEDIATELY note. They won’t need to send a reply. Come right back; I’ll have another batch.” She handed him his coupons. He and Ntale’ll eat for weeks on this. Her feelings must have leaked through, because he went silently—but if anything, faster than ever before.

Patrick appeared beside Chris as if he’d blinked into existence, and handed Chris the note from Heather. Chris nodded, set down the page proof he’d been going over, handed Patrick three meal coupons as a tip, and carried the message into the bathroom.

Immediately prepare anyone who needs to know for your disappearance for an indefinite period of weeks. Grab any hand-carryable items vital to your comfort or security; otherwise plan to live out of one of our standard pre-packed field packs. Come to my office at once. You will be leaving from there. Explanations on arrival. Sorry for any inconvenience but do it. Heather.

“Yow,” Chris said, emerging. “Extra special executive meeting. We need the chiefs of production, advertising, editorial, and subscriptions in the conference room now.”

The Post-Times actually had only three full-time Pueblo employees, one of whom was Chris, who handled all those areas, and their production room was one big former auto garage.

Abel Marx looked up from his battle with the old press and laughed, a huge white grin splitting his dark face. “Man, that joke never gets old for me, either, Chris.”

“Middle-aged men are all brain damaged,” Cassie Cartland said, from behind her desk. “That’s why they’ll keep making the same tired joke over and over. Let me finish one thought…” Her fingers clattered over the keys like hail on a tin roof. With her freckles, bowl-cut brown hair, and nose and chin too prominent from sheer skinniness, Cassie looked like a kid on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. She was almost seventeen, the daughter of the printer Chris had used for the Olympia Observer and for his first try at book publishing, and possibly had the best instinct he’d ever seen for what went into a news story. “Done. Just thought of a perfect closer and didn’t want to lose it. Do we want to use the big conference room since it’s the whole staff?”

“Wouldn’t that be another same tired joke, over and over?” Chris asked.

“Oh, my God, being a middle-aged old poop is catching ,” Cassie said. “By the time I’m your age I’ll be as old as you are now.” In her ancient wooden swivel chair, she looked like a sixth-grader playing in Dad’s office. Abel set his compositor’s stool into the open space at the center of the room; he looked like a rhinoceros roosting on a mushroom. Chris sat on the only corner of his desk that was not buried in papers, and avoided thinking about what he might look like.

“Here’s the deal,” Chris said. “Over in that other job that you guys never talk about, there’s something I need to do, now , and I might be gone for months. Cassie, open my mail, take over correspondence for the paper, what you say or decide is good with me. Any messages relating to my other job’ll be sealed in separate envelopes; take those over to Heather that second, or send them via Patrick, but no other messenger. Drastically overpay Patrick or Heather will have your guts on a stick. For any personal correspondence, remember to respond with ‘Baby’ or ‘Dearest darlingest’ followed by their name, tell them I feel just the same way, and sign it ‘Your rampaging love-rhino.’”

“Yeah, right. If I see one like that I’ll suggest psychiatric help.”

“Abel, I wouldn’t begin to tell you how to do your job, because you’d stomp me into a grease spot.”

“And you don’t need to tell Cassie how to do hers, or I will stomp you into a grease spot.”

“Exactly,” Cassie said. “Headlines for the next issue are: World—Indian and Australian delegations arrive for Big Three summit in Buenos Aires. Nation One—Provi Congress passes Civil Discourse Act, President Weisbrod threatens veto. Nation Two—Post Raptural Church declares Natcon’s proposals ‘Satanic.’ Local—Larsen Weds Castro. Soon as you’re gone I’ll replace it all with celebrity gossip and beauty hints.”