He cut a willow sapling that would make a good bow. A roll of twine would make a strong bowstring. He didn’t have enough flint to make arrowheads, but a workshop held jars containing nails, among them spikes at least two inches long. He set up a target behind the house. Within a couple of hours, he could hit the bullseye from fifty feet.
On the fourth day, he went into the bush and hauled back a deer.
Behind the house, he set up a drying rack where he could smoke and dry some of the deer meat. The rest, he hung outside on the balcony. The winter air would freeze it. For now, he had enough food to last a couple of months.
But he still had the problem of how to get to the coast. Or maybe he could just stay here. There was plenty of game. In the outbuilding, he found seeds, so he could grow food in the summer. It was tempting. He was comfortable here with food from the woods, water from a nearby stream, and heat from the fireplace. But staying meant he would be alone with no goal but his survival. Even now he knew that wouldn’t be enough. Still, the thought of making a home here pulled at him.
Of course, with winter coming on, the question was academic. The air warmed slightly, causing the snow to melt in places, but it would return. Even if he knew where he was going, he would never be able to walk out. For now, he was stuck.
Over the next week, he wiped the dust from the furniture. From pieces of metal in the workshop, he fashioned a frame he could use in the fireplace to cook his meals.
He found fishing gear. As a boy, he had fished, but this equipment was unlike anything he had ever seen. The rod was long and flexible, the line thin and unbreakable. A spool with a handle allowed him to let out the line and reel it back in without having it snarl or knot. A tray held lures and flies and shiny spoons. A nearby stream would freeze in the winter, but for now, it ran clear and cold. He dropped the line into the water and watched as fish toyed with the lure. Over a few hours, he tried different ones until he found a couple that worked. That evening, he fried one of the fish he’d caught. The rest he placed in his rack to smoke.
One of the features of the house that astonished him was the library. It was a separate room with easy chairs and a bookshelf that covered three walls of the room. Only the floor-to-ceiling window at the front was bare of books. They numbered in the thousands. Darius had never seen, never even imagined this many books. His parents had books, but they wouldn’t fill a quarter of even one of these sets of shelves. During the day, he would pick a book, settle down in a chair next to the window, and read until the darkness of night. His aunt had made tallow candles from the fat of the deer he and his uncle killed. Now, he wished he had asked her to teach him how. But he hadn’t, so when the sun set, all he could do was sit in the dark until his eyes drooped, and he groped his way to bed. But in that darkness, his fear that a random Peak patrol would spot his chimney smoke would resurface. He told himself that nobody would see the smoke at night, but the darkness stoked his fear, a constant presence in his background.
In a desk drawer, he found notepads of blank paper and pens. Pens. It had been years since he had used one. When the ones in his uncle and aunt’s house had run dry, there were no refills available. He ran a pen over the paper. Nothing. Apparently, these had also run out of ink. But the people who lived in this house were used to these luxuries. They wouldn’t keep a drawer of useless pens. He didn’t know if ink would congeal, but it was worth a try. He put the pens into a pan of warm water. About an hour later, he pulled one out and tried it. Nothing. In frustration, he ran the pen back and forth with enough force to tear the paper. He was about to throw the useless thing away when a line appeared. A blue line flowed from its tip. He could write. By the end of the day, all the pens were working again.
He began to fall into a routine. There was little to do. The work to survive, to be comfortable, kept him busy for at most a couple of hours a day. The rest of the time, he perfected his bow, made more arrows, practiced, and watched as the days grew shorter and the snow began to pile up, covering the path. In the grip of winter, the stream froze over, forcing him to break the ice to get water. For now, all he could do was to wait for the sun to return, the snow to melt, the air to warm.
18
RECRUITMENT 2
Baxter couldn’t sleep that night. Addison’s words, so gentle in tone, so brutal in reality, pounded in his head. Confronting them carried the harsh truth of a slaughterhouse. Violence, force, weapons. These had not been part of his life. He knew they existed, that there were times and conditions that made them necessary. The police were armed for a reason. The world could be a violent place. A peaceful society depended upon quelling that violence. But deadly force against political demonstrators? Live ammunition? In Canada? That, he couldn’t reconcile.
In the morning Ivan Kryss took him to the mess hall where the previous night he had tried to force down supper. This morning, he ate as much as his churning stomach could digest. Now, he was back in Addison’s office.
“Mr. Baxter, were your quarters satisfactory?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Good. I am satisfied with yesterday’s interview, so we can move on to full disclosure of your duties here.”
Baxter couldn’t avoid the question that had been niggling at him. “What would have happened to me if you weren’t satisfied?”
Addison shrugged. “Depending on my assessment, we’d either have removed you from this facility or we would have found less substantial work for you to do. In the latter case, you wouldn’t have had the central role we expected of you. Now, that’s not a problem.”
“So what is it you want me to do?”
“Yesterday, we discussed the importance of putting an end to civil disobedience and the methods needed to do so. I can disclose that the government has authorized the establishment of a paramilitary organization to enforce the peace. At this point, it’s still hush-hush. The only people who know about it are those involved in organizing it. We estimate three years before it is operational, and the government can make the formal announcement.”
“Three years? That long?”
“Mr. Baxter, this involves establishing training camps, organizing recruits, acquiring equipment. Something this complicated takes time to set up. In the meantime, our role, and yours, will be to get it ready.”
“How is this organization going to help?”
“We are recruiting men and women who recognize the necessity of force to stop rioters and who are psychologically prepared to use it.”
“Psychologically prepared? You mean they’re willing to shoot their fellow citizens?”
“Willing? No. Ready? Yes. We expect we’ll just have to use them a couple of times. Once they’ve stopped a riot, other protestors will back down when they appear. That’s what we’re counting on. Their mere presence will be a deterrent. But I’ll be honest with you, the first two or three confrontations will not be pleasant. The government will take a lot of flak, but they are already preparing the spin to handle that.”
“Okay, so why do you need me? I’m not a soldier.”
“Of course not. We need you to do what you have been doing. Maintaining software. Let me ask you another question. Do you believe most Canadians are willing to riot, loot, kill people, and destroy property?”
“No, of course not.”
“I agree. So who is behind all of this?”
Baxter shrugged. “I guess a few troublemakers.”
“You’re right. Troublemakers who have learned how to create chaos. The problem is that once a riot is happening, nobody can tell the troublemakers from the innocents who have been caught up in the turmoil. So deadly force can’t discriminate between the instigators and the bystanders. Does that seem fair to you?”