No one here wanted pity. No one wanted the few government handouts that were still being given to them. All they wanted was survival and a chance to get the hell out of Squat City.
The mad yuppie was through with his screed by the time I reached the covered terrace at the top of the stairs. The terrace was at the rear of the amphitheater, and it was crowded with people trying to get out of the drizzle. Through the stone arches and past the wrought-iron gates, I could see the glow of dozens of trash-barrel fires in the adjacent parking lot, silhouetting the people who huddled around them for warmth against the cold spring rain, watchful for the apes …
Yes, apes. Real apes, not metaphorical in any sense whatsoever, although a case could be made for the ERA troopers who patrolled the park. One of the unforeseen side effects of the quake was that the Forest Park Zoo had practically split open at the seams, allowing lions, tigers, and bears-not to mention a few giraffes, antelopes, rhinos, and elephants-to escape. Most of the animals were recaptured by zoo personnel within the first few days after New Madrid, although quite a few wild birds had taken wing, and a handful of coyotes and bobcats had been wily enough get out of the inner city and into the county’s wooded west side. Some of the zoo specimens, unfortunately, didn’t make it back to their cages; two weeks after the quake, a rare Tibetan white leopard was shot by a redneck National Guardsman after it was cornered foraging through garbage cans in the University City neighborhood. When zoo officials arrived at the scene, they found the leopard’s decapitated carcass lying in the alley; the weekend warrior who had shot the leopard had carved its head off and taken it back to his place in Fenton as a trophy.
But the apes that had survived the collapse of the monkey house had done much better. Only a handful of apes had been recaptured, mostly gorillas and orangutans; most of the chimpanzees and baboons had taken to the trees and had survived the short, relatively mild winter that followed the earthquake summer. Indeed, they had been fruitful and multiplied, adding to their numbers as the months wore on. Now monkey packs roamed the park like street gangs, raiding tents and terrorizing squatters.
Even the ERA troopers were frightened of them; there had been one rumored account that a chimpanzee pack had fallen upon a parked Hummer and chased its crew into the woods. If the story was true, then good for the chimps; I had more sympathy for runamok apes than for runamok goon squads.
There was no sign of apes, either human or simian, so I found a vacant spot beside one of the Doric columns holding up the awning. After looking around to make sure I wasn’t being observed, I unzipped my leather bomber jacket and reached into the liner pocket to pull out my PT’s earphone.
“Joker, can you hear me?” I said, switching on the PT and holding the earphone against my ear.
“ I hear you, Gerry.”Joker’s voice was an androgynous murmur in my ear: HAL-9000 with a flat midwestern accent. It was picking up my voice from a small mike clipped to the underside of my jacket collar.
“Good deal,” I replied. “Okay, open a file, slug it … um, ‘park,’ suffix numeral one … and get ready for dictation.”
I usually typed my notes one-handed on Joker’s miniature keyboard. Like many writers, I intuitively prefer to see my words on a screen, but there was no way I was going to fish out my palmtop and open it up in plain view, thereby revealing myself to be a reporter. During the December riots, too many of my colleagues had been attacked by rioters who had seen them as being authority figures, and a Post-Dispatchphotographer had been killed by crossfire during the torching of the federal armory in Pine Lawn. Even if some of these people didn’t necessarily see the press as their enemy, there was always the chance someone might try to mug me in order to grab Joker. A stolen PT was probably worth a few cans of tuna on the black market.
But somebody in the crowd knew there was a reporter among them.
“Gerry?”
“Yes, Joker?”
“There’s an IM for you. I would have signaled you earlier, but you told me not to call you.”
Indeed I had; Joker’s annunciator would have tipped off anyone nearby that I was carrying a PT. “This is a little strange. Although the IM was sent directly to me, it’s addressed to John Tiernan. I was not informed that we would be taking John’s messages.”
I frowned as I heard this. John was another reporter for the Big Muddy Inquirer.Although he was my best friend, we normally stayed out of each other’s work. Someone trying to send an instant message to John should have reached his own PT, Dingbat, not Joker; nor could we access each other’s palmtops without entering special passwords.
But there was no sense in asking Joker if it was mistaken; my little Toshiba didn’t make errors like that. “Okay, Joker,” I said, “read it to me.”
“IM received 6:12 P.M. as follows,”Joker recited. “‘I got your message. Need to talk at once. Please meet me near the rear entrance of the Muny at eight o’clock.’ End of message. The sender did not leave a logon or a number.”
I felt a cold chill when I heard this message. I believe in coincidence as much as the next superstitious person, but this was a bit too much.
An IM intended for John had been sent to me instead, requesting a meeting at the Muny … and, as synchronicity would have it, where would I happen to be when I received it? At the Muny.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, Joker,” I said, “what’s the gag?”
“What gag, Gerry?”
“C’mon. Who really sent the message? Was it John?” I grinned. “Or was it Jah?”
“Negative. The message did not originate from either of those individuals. The person sending the IM did not leave a logon or a return number, but I can assure you that it was not received from any PT with which I regularly interface.”
This was flat-out impossible. E-mail could not be sent anonymously; Joker’s modem always logged the originating modem number. Joker must have contracted a virus of some sort. “Please run a self-diagnostic test,” I said.
“Running test.”There was a long pause while Joker’s disk doctor pushed, prodded, asked embarrassing questions, and slipped a rectal thermometer up its cybernetic asshole. “Test complete,”Joker said at last. “All sectors are clean. There is no evidence of tampering with my architecture.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, Gerry. Nonetheless, I do not have a return number for this IM.”
I mulled it over for a second, then Joker spoke up again. “ I have opened a file, slugged ‘park,’ suffix numeral one. Are you ready to dictate, Gerry?”
I shook my head, watching rain running down from the slate roof onto the awning. Squatters wandered back and forth around me, ignoring the guy leaning against a column with a hand clasped to his ear, apparently talking to himself. Down on the stage, a neogrunge band had replaced the killer yuppie; discordant guitar riffs and high-pitched feedback threatened to overwhelm the stolen PA system they had set up behind them. Black-market vendors were circulating through the aisles, hustling everything from wet popcorn to expired pharmaceuticals. Off in the far distance, beyond the trees, were the lights of the city’s central west end: clean, brilliant apartment towers, easily seen by thousands of people who were on prolonged camp-out in old U.S. Army tents, eating cold MREs by firelight and crapping in overflowing Port-O-Johnnies. Your tax dollars at work.