Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

It gets hot in the box.

It smells in the latrine.

No one really steals anymore.

Especially left-handed.

8. Base Omega will each memorize a work of classic literature to ensure that we do not lose touch with our vital literary traditions and a connection to the higher arts.

Larry Our Leader got the idea from a graphic novel called Fahrenheit 451 . Lizard bones were drawn from a beret. Jeff and Pink Lady pulled John Cheever. Dorsal Vent got Gertrude Stein. Crazy Apron Alice made a run at Green Eggs and Ham . But after a few days of laborious mumbling, Base Omega was all, Wait, what was the problem with burning books again?

Young Nick Drake got Naked Lunch and immediately had the exterminator parts down pat, could quote Dr. Benway in a Dr. Benway voice that even Larry Our Leader said was creepier than a run of bad Freon.

I memorized the first four pages of Madame Bovary and walked around for a month like, Monsieur Roger, I have brought you a new boy , and, You may now discard your helmet, young fop , but it turns out even the future hates Flaubert. Base Omega was all, We’re fine to lose touch with that French pussy. Base Omega was all, Fuck books, their pathetic reliance on recycled plots and ill-considered foreshadowing are no longer germane to our rapidly changing world. Besides, we’re tired and bored and would give almost anything for a chipotle-braised organic pork medallion right now.

I’m like, Wait, what wouldn’t you give ?

Base Omega was all, We would happily rekill our dead mothers for a chipotle-braised organic pork medallion right now.

9. All Base Omegans will be trained in self-defense and the use of modern weaponry.

At first it was guns, guns, guns. But that didn’t last. Ever try to fire a TEC-9 full of sand? Ever watch a movie where the hero’s pistol never runs out of hollow points? Here’s how the real apocalypse works: for the first seventy-two hours everyone left is terrified to the point of raggedy psychosis, so they shoot at whatever blinks, farts, or moves, and by Wednesday are out of ammo.

Even people smart enough to stockpile have to waste their stockpiles killing people dumb enough to try and take their stockpiles away.

Guns = hunks of metal not good for much except tenderizing rat meat.

It turns out the best possible weapon in the future is a sharpened length of galvanized pipe. Preferably about five feet long. The key to dystopic combat is not Korean assault rifles or suppressing fire or slow-motion kicks, it’s a Medium-Deep Puncture.

In the end, we are the thinnest of balloons filled with organy pudding, just waiting to be popped. Get stuck with a sharpened length of galvanized pipe and you might not die right away, but you will soon after. Sepsis sets in almost immediately. There’s no surgery, no fighting off infection, no antibiotics, no wrapping strips of dirty sheet around the wound and somehow it’s fine the next day. It’s infected the next day. It’s gangrene the day after that.

Get poked = you die.

So Pink Lady teaches Weapons N’ Tactics. Dorsal Vent leads Take Back the Night self-defense class.

Of course, Young Nick Drake refuses to train at all.

“I am committed to nonviolence.”

It makes Larry Our Leader very mad.

“If it helps, I’m happy to lead a Conflict Resolution seminar instead.”

Larry Our Leader is fairly certain that conflict cannot ever be resolved.

“Well, let’s just see who shows up.”

I am the only one who shows up.

Young Nick Drake puts away his notes, refolds the folding chair, and then leads me by the hand across the compound.

“Where are we going?”

“The Camry Lending Library.”

In the backseat Young Nick Drake leans very close, reaches into his pocket.

And presents me with a gift.

It’s so beautiful.

So perfect.

A rolled up tube of Crest X-Tra White that’s got, easily, two squeezes left.

It goes a very long way toward resolving our biggest conflict.

10. Never make out with Young Nick Drake.

His chin whiskers tickle. He strokes my neck softly and whispers my name with a longing that transcends the end of the world and everything in it.

“Krua. Oh, Krua.”

“If we’re going to be friends,” I say, trembling, “you’re gonna have to knock it off with that shit. My real name’s Sandy.”

Young Nick Drake kisses my knuckles. He kisses my filthy little fingertips. He wraps the empty toothpaste tube around my third finger like a ring.

“Does this mean we’re engaged?”

He winks and says, “Sandy, we gotta get out of this place.”

He says, “I know somewhere we can be alone, pitch our own decoratively embroidered yurt.”

He says, “I’ll be Romeo and you be Milla Jovovich.”

“But what’s wrong with Base Omega?” I whisper.

He shakes his head as if I’m a child.

“Isn’t it obvious? Larry’s insane.”

I wonder if it is obvious. Or maybe just predictable.

“We have to go, Krua,” he hisses. “Like, tonight.”

11. All empires invariably collapse, from Byzantium to Egypt to Vegas. And usually with a whimper of irrelevance. Except this one.

Larry Our Leader calls me to his yurt, asks what I think Dictate Eleven means. I tell him I couldn’t even hazard a guess.

He waits, slapping at insects that aren’t there.

So I say if forced to hazard at stick-point, Dictate Eleven suggests we’re nothing but vague organic amalgams, random cells made flesh, whose interior mechanics have no real purpose except to slowly degrade until they fail.

He takes a mighty huff of Freon, grins redly.

“Excellent. Continue.”

I tell him that the reign of any society is merely the interstices prior to its collapse. That all thought systems fall apart, philosophical conceptions nothing but buzzard carcasses waiting to rot and be replaced. I say that even Apocalypse Now eventually becomes Apocalypse Then.

In other words, we’re all just a big pile of crap.

“Sure. But why sentient crap?”

It’s a good point.

Larry gets up from the rusty architect’s table where he spends all day drawing pictures of displeased Asian women. He’s nude, oiled from head to toe.

“You’re a good girl, Krua. A real asset to Base Omega.“

It is clear that Larry does not believe this.

“One day you will lead us.”

It is clear that I will never lead us.

“But you seem distracted. Like there’s something you want to tell me.”

On the oak dresser is Larry’s collection of used candy wrappers. I hold a scrunch of plastic to my nose, inhale the scent of vintage Twix.

“I’m going to find out either way.”

We’re practically touching. My forehead comes up to his neck. Heat radiates from his sunburn. A lust for something far more complicated than lust exudes from every pore.

I try to keep my mouth shut, but it’s hard. Larry’s eyes beam directly into my skull, searching for lies. I have to give him something real, something true.

“Before the Collapse my father used to wake me every morning by making fart noises on my belly button with his lips. Then he’d say, ‘You must rise, my little pumpkin, but I give you permission not to shine.’ ”

Larry shakes his head, disappointed.

“The boy, Krua. His plan.”

A rusty knife is sunk to the shaft in the Eames bed stand. Several lengths of sharpened galvanized pipe lean against the wet bar.

I know Larry knows I’m considering them.

He grips my shoulder, squeezes way too hard.

“You’re a very lucky girl, Krua. Do you know why?”