John Barnes - Directive 51

“Well, that’s twice,” Bambi said.

“And both times when a stranger said something to her about defecting,” Bolton pointed out. “Maybe Daybreak really does have a mind-control virus or something.”

Harrison Castro turned back from where he’d been giving orders to a servant. “We’ve got four doctors sheltering with us, and I think one of them is a neurologist. And we have a clinic inside. We’ll patch her up.”

“Is there anything you don’t already have here, Dad?”

“No lawyers. Figured I won’t need them. A baron makes his own law.” He had his same old sly smile. It made Bambi edgy; Dad spoke too much truth in jest.

“About two hours to dawn,” Lenny said, waking Heather. “Time to get moving.”

They made last use of the generator-driven pumps and auxiliary propane system, taking hot showers and fixing a big, hot breakfast. Sherry ate with them, saying nothing, but when they had finished, she said, “I’ll go with you, if one of you will go with me to get my hiking boots from Stan’s closet.”

Heather went with her, and because it seemed to make sense, she kept her hand on Sherry’s shoulder the whole time, as the young woman stepped around both the bodies and found boots, socks, and a big warm sweater. “Christmas last year,” she whispered, as she pulled it on.

With a half-sob, half-cry, Sherry turned back for a moment and grabbed two pictures from Stan’s desk, slipping them into the big pockets of the sweater. Heather held her for a moment till her sobs subsided, and they went out, not looking at the bodies.

Lenny had packed bags for Heather and himself, and after a last visit to “what’s probably the last working toilet in Chevy Chase, you can say you were here before they put up the plaque,” as Lenny explained it, they folded Lenny’s mountain racing wheelchair.

Down the stairs, Heather carried Lenny—he weighed less than a hundred pounds—and Sherry managed the folded wheelchair. They trotted back upstairs for the packs as Lenny sat in the dark lobby behind the front desk, with a path of retreat through three doorways, and the machine pistol in his hand.

“How’d you find him?” Sherry asked.

“Through work. We’re not in the same office but now and then we had to talk to each other.”

“He’s very cool. You’re so lucky.”

Oh, Christ, I’m no good at this social stuff. Do I ask her about Stan? “Thank you,” she said.

“You both work for the government, for like, the army and stuff, or you’re spies or something?” Sherry grabbed up her own pack and Lenny’s, leaving Heather the single large one she was planning to take.

Heather pulled it on. “Yeah, I guess it shows.”

“Kind of. Not too many people have all those pictures of Republicans on their walls, or quite so many guns, or a big poster of a tank in the front room.”

“Actually it’s an armored fighting vehicle.”

“And very few women—even if they’re Lenny’s girlfriend—would know that difference,” Sherry added, smiling. “I’m glad to have you guys to walk out with, really. Didn’t mean to sound critical. I was just leading up to a question. If you know, and if it’s okay to tell me, you know? Did somebody do this to us, or did it just, like, happen?”

Heather checked one more time; Lenny had accidentally acquired a perfect weapon, a rebuilt M4 with the plastic parts replaced with good wood and metal, and all surfaces plated or anodized, about as Daybreak-resistant a gun as anyone could have made. Of course, there would be trouble later on as so much ammunition was reported to be deteriorating, but at least yesterday Lenny’s H&K had been working just fine.

She just hoped she would turn out, if necessary, to be as good a gun-fighter as this was a fighting gun.

“We should get going,” she said. “The answer to your question is we don’t know if it was an enemy action yet, or something that just sort of happened to happen, but whatever it was, the thing to do is get the country back to functioning.”

“Good enough.”

They went down the stairs quickly and quietly. “Nothing’s moved out on the street since you left,” Lenny said. “I vote for going as quick as we can, all the way south in one fast trip.”

“Makes sense to me,” Heather said.

“I’m just along for the trip,” Sherry said. “You know, you’re the first people I’ve ever seen who just have guns—not like showing them off the way the gangsta wannabes do, just like, it’s a tool is all. Right now, I wish I was that way.”

“There’re three spares in my pack,” Lenny said, “all loaded and ready. That’s why it was so heavy. Heather, when we’re going through open spots, in daylight, maybe you can give Sherry a fast course.”

“ ‘The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Shooting People,’” Sherry said. “Sounds good to me.”

For the hour before the sun came up, they hurried south along Connecticut Avenue, occasionally having to dodge around clusters of abandoned cars but mostly able to just proceed quickly.

“Aren’t you worried about snipers?” Sherry said, after a while.

“Very,” Lenny said. “But I’m more afraid of getting into something hand to hand. Tip me over and I’m fucked; at gunfire distances, it’s at least even, maybe better. And I can always shoot to make them keep their heads down while Heather closes in to rip their heads off with her bare hands.”

“Pbbbbt.”

“Hey, you and I know we’re a couple of scared desk jockeys. Sherry thinks you’re Daniel Boone and I’m Q. This way at least one of us has some confidence.”

The sun found them near a pocket park with good views in all directions; Heather gave Sherry a fast course in using the pistol, finishing by telling her, “Look, it’s really nothing more than this: You point it at people you intend to shoot. Don’t point it at anyone you don’t. Put your finger inside the trigger guard only if you plan to shoot someone. Once they’ve seen you point it at them, they’re going to be pissed, so shoot. If you decide to stick around after this, then we’ll go into exciting subjects like cleaning and maintenance. For one long day in the street like we’re doing here, it’s a magic stick for blowing holes in people, so only point it at people who need holes in them, but if they do, put a hole in them quick. ’Kay?”

“ ’Kay. And thanks.”

When they had all had a rest, a long drink of water, a sandwich, and a well-guarded trip behind the bushes, Lenny said, “Time to get rolling again, I guess,” and they were back at it.

It was about ten A.M., and they were looking for a good place for their next rest stop, when they saw another living human being—an old man in tattered clothes pushing a grocery cart. He waved at them in a friendly way, hollered “They ain’t got nothing at Rescue, I’m tryin’ Salvation Army,” and kept going.

“How much of all this do you suppose he’s noticed?” Heather asked.

“Everything or nothing,” Sherry said, “that’s what most of them are like. Some of them are at the public library all day and are better informed than most congressmen, even if their take on things veers into weird; and some of them, if ten-legged aliens landed at noon, they’d have forgotten it by the time they started looking for their afternoon bottle.”

“You sound like you know your way around.”

“I used to be in social services. Went down into bad places with just my cell phone. Plus, of course, all the police in DC to get my middle-class ass out of there if anything went south. So I spent some time around bums.”

“Aren’t you supposed to call them the homeless?”