Peter Clines: Ex-Communication

St. George bit back a smile. “Stealth suggested something similar a few weeks ago,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how the idea would go over.”

“You could’ve asked us,” said Billie.

“She said if I waited you’d probably come up with the idea yourself. You specifically, Billie.”

“’Course she did,” smirked Jarvis.

“What if we try this? I can do a few scouting runs out into Van Nuys or maybe out toward Glendale. Maybe there’s another small studio out there we could use, or a school.”

“There’s a National Guard armory out in Van Nuys,” said Billie. “We had you check it out once. You said it still looked secure. We could definitely use whatever ammo’s there.”

The hero nodded. “We’d need to check it again. It only had one fence, right?”

She nodded.

“There’s also downtown,” said Jarvis. “We’ve avoided it till now, but maybe it’s time to think about heading that way.”

The hero shook his head. “Downtown’s still a death trap,” he said. “Stealth figures there’s still at least six or seven hundred thousand exes down there. Plus it’s wall-to-wall cars and tons of barricades the National Guard left behind. We wouldn’t get five blocks before we were overrun, even if we had Cerberus and all of Freedom’s soldiers with us.”

“You could do some advance scouting and pave the way,” Billie said. “You’ve made it down to the toy district three years now for Christmas.”

He nodded. “That’s why I know downtown’s a bad idea. It’s hell to grab a few trash bags full of Barbies and knockoff Transformers all on my own.”

“One other issue,” said Jarvis, “if y’all don’t mind me bringing it up.”

“Depends,” said St. George. He gestured up the street and the three of them walked north along the Big Wall.

“Elections,” said the bearded man. “We still shooting for six weeks from tomorrow?”

“Last I heard,” said the hero. “Why?”

Jarvis shrugged. “Still time for someone to throw their name in the hat for mayor.”

St. George shook his head. “I told you, not me.”

“You should,” said Billie. “You’re the natural choice.”

Jarvis nodded in agreement. “Everybody knows you,” he said. “Pretty much everyone likes you. Only ones who don’t still have to admit you’ve saved us all a dozen times over. You’re a natural, boss.”

“Same holds for you and Billie,” the hero said.

She snorted.

“I’m serious,” he said. “Jarvis, you’d make a great mayor. Why aren’t you running?”

“To tell the truth,” said the salt-and-pepper man, “I couldn’t stand the cut in pay. Got me a pretty extravagant lifestyle to keep up.” He raised his chin and straightened the lapel of his threadbare coat. “All kinda besides the point, though. If someone else don’t step up, it’s going to come down to Christian and Richard. And Richard just ain’t mean enough for politics here in the big city.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m just saying, if nothing changes in the race there’s a good chance six weeks from now things are going to be real different around here. Might be best to get stuff done earlier than later, know what I mean?”

St. George shook his head. “We can’t start making this an us-and-them thing,” he said. “It took us over a year to get the Seventeens integrated. Last thing we need is to start making up political parties and dividing everyone that way.”

“People are already divided, boss,” Jarvis said. “Just the nature of the beast. Some folks want to go forward, some folks want to try to go back. There’s all the religious nuts, too.”

“Hey,” said St. George. “Tolerance.”

“Sorry, boss,” said Jarvis. “Seriously, though, have you listened to some of this A.D. stuff?”

“It’s all classic Book of Revelation,” said Billie. She tipped her head at the Big Wall. “It’s not that out there, all things considered. Pretty easy to think we’re living in the end of days.”

“I never knew you were religious,” said St. George.

“I’m a Marine and I was in Afghanistan for a year and a half,” she said. “I’m religious enough, I just don’t push it on anyone. You know they all back Christian, right?”

“The A.D. folks?” asked the hero. “Not too surprising. She’s been with them from the start, hasn’t she?”

Billie nodded. “Someone told me she lost a niece when everything went to hell.”

“I think I heard that once.”

“Still,” said Jarvis, “y’all get my point. Still a lot of work to do and we ain’t quite the unified front we were a couple years ago.”

“Yeah,” said St. George. “I was saying something about this the other night. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that we’ve gotten big enough for people to start splitting apart?”

“What’d you decide?”

“That we’d have to wait and see.” He shrugged. “Anything else?”

Billie shook her head. “I was going to put together a weapons detail tonight, make sure everything’s good for tomorrow’s mission.”

“Did that yesterday with Taylor,” said Jarvis. “Double-checked everything.”

Billie shrugged. “So I’ll have them triple-check it. What else is there to do?”

St. George shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Maybe we should just relax.”

“Sorry,” said Billie, “you used some word I don’t know.”

“I’m serious,” St. George said. He gestured at the Big Wall and let his hand swing back to the gate. “Things are tight, but we’re at the point that we have to start living again. All of us. We can’t make every minute of every day about survival.”

“Legion’s still out there,” Billie said.

“Out there,” said St. George. “Not in here.”

Jarvis shrugged. “Okay.”

Billie looked at him, then at St. George. “That’s it?” she asked. “We’re just supposed to do … nothing?”

“Not nothing,” he said. “Just take a night off. Have a beer with some friends, play a game, watch a movie, hook up with someone. Go … I don’t know, do whatever you used to do on your nights off.”

Her lip twisted toward a frown, but he saw her force it back into a flat line. “What if I go work on some ideas for that forward base? Some basic supplies and requirements?”

St. George sighed. “If it’s what you want to do, fine, but you don’t have to. You can just take the night off. It won’t be the end of the world.”

“Yeah,” agreed Jarvis. “End of the world happened years ago.”

IT WAS Alittle over a block from the West Gate down to the church, maybe two blocks from where St. George left Billie and Jarvis. He knew flying there was silly, but it was always good for people to see one of the heroes during the day.

Plus, it just felt cool to fly. Breathing fire and bending steel bars were great, but pushing himself away from the ground and hanging in the sky was just amazing. He’d never felt so free in his life.

He soared up a good thirty feet above the trees and spun once in the air. Far to the north, up in the hills, stood the letters of the Hollywood sign. It was getting gray after years of neglect. The thought crossed his mind of going up there with a few gallons of water and washing it. It’d be a big boost for everyone to see the whole thing bright and white up above them.

Two blocks west were the walls of the Mount, their original fortress. From here he could see the huge globe of the Earth balanced on one corner of the studio wall. Just past the globe and the stages there, he could see the top floor of the Hart Building. He knew he had to head over there soon, but wanted to make another stop first.