Resignedly, he sat down, as best he could in the cramped space, and waited. After a time he finally heard the wasp-like sound of motorcycles, which grew louder and louder before finally stopping, evidently somewhere very close. Next he made out the sounds of conversation between Teresa and what sounded like at least two others and, while he couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, he could tell that the visitors were questioning the young woman, and apparently at some length. At last, though, the motorcycles started up again and their noise retreated into the distance. Still he waited, for maybe another half hour, his legs starting to cramp, before the trap door was jerked open and, amid daylight that hurt his eyes, he was allowed to climb out of the hidey-hole.
“Who was it?” he asked, peeking out of the container, but Teresa didn’t say anything. Instead, looking worried, she shook her head and sat down at the table. He was going to try again but then decided against it; if she wanted to tell him who it had been, she would. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t. Simple as that. With a slight shrug, he went over and joined her at the table, where he sat in silence as she fretted and shook her head and muttered. Finally, after polishing off the cold coffee and having waited for a good fifteen minutes, he decided to chance it.
“What is it?” he asked her gently. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” she echoed, scowling. If anything, the expression only made her seem more beautiful, if possible. “What’s wrong, he say! Three outriders from the Wildwolf clan show up, askin’ ‘bout have I seen a normie name’a Doctor Case, and he ask me what wrong?! Sweet Jesus-aitch, what a Cem-head! And he thinks I dumb!”
“Well, how was I to know?” he asked defensively. “I was down in that stinking hole, you know. And, as I said earlier, I do not think that you’re dumb.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Thing is, we can’t stay here no more. I got to get you outta here, ‘fore they figure out where you is, heh?”
“But,” he said helplessly, “where do you plan to go? What are you going to do with me?”
“Zero,” she said cryptically. “He’ll know what to do with y’all. We go see him. See what he say.”
“And who—or what—is Zero?” asked Justin, not at all sure that he wanted to hear the answer.
“Baron Zero,” she said, as if explaining to a child. “Don’ tell me ya never hearda Baron Zero!”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Sheesh, where ya been?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Zero’s just the smartest dude around, that’s all. Prob’ly smarter’n you! They say he were this like, big-timer science-wiz, before the Sick.”
“Indeed? A scientist?” he asked, sitting forward. “Do you know in what field?”
“He ain’t in no field, doopy,” she said, rolling her eyes again. “He’s gotta, like, a whole great big house! Like in’a ol’ times.”
“No, I meant, what sort of science does—or did—he study? Biology? Chemistry? Astronomy?”
“Don’ know ‘bout none’a that,” she pouted. “Jus’ some kinda science, hey? The ‘portant thing is, he real smart and he alway knows what to do with this kinda thing.”
Justin nodded, thinking that he’d seen this sort of post-Fall reverence for science before, in several of the survie groups they’d encountered; it was almost as if they thought of it as magic, some kind of arcane lore now lost to the past. Interesting. But this was hardly the time for puzzling about it and, thinking that this legendary figure might be a potential ally, being a fellow scientist and all, he shook off the puzzlement and re-focused.
“Where is this Baron Zero?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Not so far. Day or three.”
“And when we do meet with this Zero person, what then?” And then, the really Big Question: “What will happen to me?”
“Prob’ly sellya,” she said simply, with no more emphasis than if she’d been describing getting rid of a used bicycle. “Prob’ly get top dollar fer a whitecoat.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “Did you say that you intend to sell me?”
“At’s right. So?”
“Well, the problem there,” he said desperately, “is that you don’t happen to own me!”
“Fuck I don’t!” she said, fixing him with an icy stare. “I own you same’s anything, like this here place, like my boomstick, like all my other stuff. Aintcha never heard’a finder’s keepers?”
“Yes, but,” he stammered, “people don’t own other people! It’s… well, it’s just not done!”
“Huh,” Teresa grunted. “Sez you. I seen plenny o’ people get bought an’ sold. Jus’ the way things be nowadays. Least with peeps who worth anythin’. Ain’t nothin’ personal-like about it.”
Blinking, utterly at a loss and unsure of what to say, Justin slumped into his seat. So slavery had made a comeback, it seemed. It stood to reason, perhaps, in a barter-based economy devoid of actual currency, but still, it was no easy thing to wrap his head around the idea that he was now just another tradeable good. That he was owned.
But that was secondary to the real issue: he was being separated from Lampert and the others. What would happen in his absence? Would they go on? Would they come looking for him? Would they be attacked by survies or starve to death or, or… Angrily, feeling impotent and disconnected, he forced himself not to think about it.
Oddly, he found that it also hurt his feelings no small amount to think that she could simply get rid of him like that, with no compunction or remorse, after what they’d shared. Didn’t their making love count for something? Had she no feelings for him? But then, he mused, probably she did not. To her, the casual sex was undoubtedly just that: Casual. And nothing more. Still, it kind of stung his male pride.
“Aw, suck ‘er up,” said Teresa, noticing his chagrin. “Maybe it won’ be so bad. Maybe y’all can still be a whitecoat, or one’a Zero’s thinkers or somethin’. Y’all got skills, hey? They won’ put you on no food gang.”
“Thinkers?” he said numbly. “What are Zero’s thinkers?”
She frowned in concentration. “They’s… well, they greeps what think, hey? Other smart dudes like Zero. Know all kinda ploop, I hear.”
“Uh huh,” he said, feeling as deflated and flat as a punctured beach ball. “Yes, well that doesn’t sound so bad. But what about my friends? I really would like to rejoin them. If that’s possible.”
“Well it ain’t,” she said firmly, and turned to look him straight in the eye. “Now hear up, heh? ‘Cause here is the straight-up, six o’clock sitch: you is mine now. I caughtcha, yer mine. An’ even if you is good at fuckin’ and gotta big cock, I can’t afford to jus’ keepya ‘round for that. So we gonna go see Baron Z, see what he say, an’ go from there. Ya got it? No goin’ back to yer friends, no more fancy whitecoat trucks an’ such. I don’ give’a stinkin’ ploop about none’a that, anyhow. Forget it. All I know is: you mine now. Unnerstand?”
Numbly, feeling his face flush at the crude, back-handed compliment, he nodded at her woodenly and raised and lowered his shoulders about an inch.
“I understand,” he said wanly. “I just thought…”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
She glared at him inscrutably for a moment but then relaxed, grinned in a wickedly adorable way, and slapped him lightly on the arm.
“You see,” she said lightly, rising from the table. “You be better off. Better’n wit’ them Sick greeps back in they trucks. Well, anyways, we gonnna be leavin’ soon as night come. So you prob’ly wanna get some sleepin’. Gonna be a long walk.”