Once we were finished, Sam idled the truck down D Street until we got to Ahkovak Street. Once there, he feathered the Ripsaw forward, picking up speed while trying to keep the sound signature as low as possible. Aside from us and a few bodies scattered along the street, that side of town seemed deserted.
We followed Ahkovak Street over the Damn Road (as locals called it), which split Isatkoak Lagoon in half. The lagoon provided fresh water for many of the people in Barrow. The pipes of the Utilidor ran all along the Damn Road, as it was called. As we drove past the pipes, I couldn’t help wondering just how successful the Order would’ve been had they not managed to get the agent into the water system.
I scolded myself. Concentrate on the tasks at hand, I thought. No sense of worrying about things that already happened.
Sam slammed on the breaks in front of the AC Store. He then backed the Ripsaw within a few feet of the entrance. That morning, we had gone over exactly what we needed from the store. Everyone had a specific list of things they needed to get. The plan was to keep the shopping excursion to less than ten minutes. We were on the clock.
Still no sign of the Order or Grays.
Unlike Miley’s fuel tank, the AC Store was locked up tight. Sam motioned for us to get out of the way. He slammed the butt of his M4 against one of the four rectangular window panes. The glass spiderwebbed and, with one more bash, fell into thousands of pieces. Even with the windowpane gone, there were two metal supports that seemed to have been designed to limit entry under similar circumstances – minus the end of the world shit, of course. It was going to be a tight fit trying to squeeze in between them, but we didn’t have time to get rid of them.
Damn, I was going to have to lose weight, I remember thinking.
The store was full of things we needed. Food, clothes, fuel containers, etc. With ten minutes to work with, we didn’t have time to be discerning shoppers. We would grab what we quite literally couldn’t live without, and we’d fit as much of it as we possibly could in the quickly filling cargo space of the Ripsaw.
Sam and Titouan oversaw organizing the supplies. I jerked my chin towards the library. Sam glanced over at a very much angry Tish before, saying, “Only take us a few minutes ta get ’is stuff packed. We need ta get goin.”
“Should just take a minute,” I said.
Sam glanced at Avery and then me. “Just hurry.”
It’s hard to find a book when you have access to a card catalog and good lighting. It sucked, trying to find one without either. Avery, aggravated he couldn’t find what he was looking for, tossed a heaping armful of books across the room. I had to walk away. One, for safety sake, and two, my getting mad would only make a bad situation worse.
Not quite finished with his tantrum, Avery ripped the hood off his head. In the process of de-hooding, he knocked his headlamp off. He kicked at it, missed, then picked it up and tried to put it back on, but because the headband had become twisted, he was having a difficult time making it fit his head. Finally, after cursing and hollering and a lot of twisting and untwisting, he managed to get it to fit his big noggin again, over his shaggy hair and all. Shaking his head in resignation, he said, “There are other foreign language books in this section. Why are there no Korean ones? Stupid library. I should have known.”
Rummaging around in the books he had tossed, I saw something interesting. “Huh,” I said, “Korean Language 101. What about Learn Korean in Ten Days?” I laughed. “Will either of these work?”
Avery walked over to where I stood, glanced at them, and quickly grabbed one of them out of my hands. “I did not see these.” He then turned and left the building.
“You’re welcome.”
By the time I got to the Ripsaw, Avery was already inside. I would’ve gotten in too had Sam and Titouan not been acting like idiots outside. “Do you guys really think this is a good time for this?”
“There ain’t no more damn room in the truck for all the shit we took. This thang has a rack on the roof, but Tit won’t listen.”
“Just throw me the damn bungee cord, Sam. Jesus, this isn’t nearly as hard as treeing a coon back in the hollow.”
“It’s holler, ya damn moron, and I don’t coon hunt.”
“Come on, guys. Leave what we can’t carry. We don’t have time for this.”
There was a rustling in the truck. Avery wasn’t happy about something. “What did you do to it?” I hopped up on the tread and peeked in the passenger door to see what was going on. Avery flipped his hood back for the second time in as many minutes, his face twisted in anger. “You killed the phone. Why — how did you do that, Tish?”
Avery elbowed the windshield and slung the phone. It bounced up and hit the front dash, and I picked it up.
“Try to turn it on,” Avery said, his face flushed with anger.
Just like he said, it didn’t work. The word “shit” escaped my lips as I looked towards Tish.
“You need to calm down, son,” Sam said as he got situated in the driver’s seat.
“You say that…” Avery struggled for words. “… but I heard Tish push several buttons… maybe she was texting someone. It vibrated… I tried to grab it from her, but she would not give it to me. Now it will not turn on.”
“Tish?”
“I accidentally pushed some buttons. It just turned off. I didn’t do anything to the phone on purpose.”
I motioned for Titouan to grab her rifle. She flinched but didn’t try to stop him. “Did you get one of the pistols, Tish?”
She looked straight ahead, not bothering to make eye contact. “No,” she said, tersely.
Sam grabbed my arm as I opened my door to get out. “What ya doin?”
“Playing things safe.” I waited for Sam to unclench my arm. He didn’t. Ignoring his probing eyes, I jerked away from his bruising grip.
“I love you, Tish, but we can’t take any chances.” I pointed my rifle at her. “Get out of the truck.”
“You can’t be serious, William?”
“I’m dead serious. Please, get out.”
“Come on now, dammit, William…”
I turned to face Sam. “We’re not taking any chances.”
Sam sent a string of curse words my way. Ignoring him, I waved my rifle towards her door. Tish’s hard demeanor ebbed softer as she looked towards Sam before settling in a much more ominous scowl towards me. “William, this is wrong…”
“Just please get out.”
She did as I instructed. I frisked her and no other weapons. “Did you kill it, Tish?”
“I don’t know what Avery’s talking about.”
Avery stuck his head outside the Ripsaw long enough to say, “She wanted to look at it, so I let her. The next thing I know, she is in the interface, which would have been impossible unless she knew the access key, and you and I are the only ones who know it.”
“You know what he’s talking about. The phone doesn’t just suddenly stop working,” I said, my voice echoed through the dead streets. My head was on a swivel, looking and hoping no Grays were within earshot.
Avery was right. Kelley gave me the code after everyone else was out of the room. I gave Avery the code and told him to tell no one, and it’s not like he would’ve even if I hadn’t told him not to. That’s just how he was. “What do you have to say to that?”
Sam was out of the Ripsaw and standing noticeably closer to Tish than he was me. “What you goin ta do, William?”
Before Tish was forced to answer the question, the sounds of vehicles could be heard in the distance. “Was that you, Tish?”
Sam’s face turned sickly pale. He turned to Tish. “Dammit, girl… tell me ’at wasn’t you.”