“I’m Erin,” she says. “I asked you what you’re doing.”
“I’m going to be a merchant,” he tells her. “I have some stuff I’d like to sell.”
“Really? You should definitely hire me, then.”
Todd laughs. “And why should I do that?”
“You’re new. I can show you how things work around here so you don’t get conned.”
He stops laughing. “How do you know I’m new here?”
Erin flashes him a glance that tells him she thinks it is obvious. “Do you know about the gangs? They will try to collect a tax from you.”
“How much should I give them?”
“Nothing, you dodo bird,” she says. “It’s just a con. If the sellers paid every gang, there would be no market. They can’t really do anything to you. The sellers look out for each other, and everybody here is armed to the teeth. Now aren’t you glad I told you that?”
“Yeah,” he admits.
“You need somebody,” she points out. “Every day you have to collect water and firewood and cook your food. Once a week you pick up your rations and they let you take a shower. That doesn’t leave much time to be a seller. All these sellers have somebody helping them out.”
He has to agree she makes a good argument.
“You could do all that for me?” he asks her.
She shrugs. “I’m doing it anyway for me. Might as well try to get paid.”
“And what do you want in return?”
Erin smiles as she leans in close, making his heart pound.
“I want in on the action,” she whispers close to his ear.
The school gym is hot and crowded and noisy. The tired volunteers and professional bureaucrats manning the tables feverishly write and type information that nobody will read and hand out poorly mimeographed information that few will actually use. The main thing people seem to come here for is decisions, but they appear to be in short supply. After days of working the system to try to find his family, Ethan is beginning to see the processing center as a flea market for dying government. One big going-out-of-business sale. Waiting for his number to be called again by the records people, he wanders among the tables, finally pausing in front of a clean-cut young man under a U.S. flag and a sign that says ASK ME ABOUT RESETTLEMENT.
“Would you like to hear about Resettlement?” the man suddenly asks him.
Ethan shrinks back, shaking his head.
“It’s all part of the President’s policy for a Fresh Start,” the man says. He is clean shaven and wears a business suit with a neatly ironed white shirt and blue tie. “When the pandemic is over, we’re going to have to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. This means people who still have assets out there, somewhere, will recover them. Those who have lost everything will be given the means to start a new life. This is Resettlement in a nutshell.”
“You’re going to do what, then? Tell me where to live?”
“Only if you sign up,” the man says with a smile. “If you enroll in the Resettlement Program, we will match you with a good community and give you a job as close to your old profession as possible, respecting of course your preferences, special needs such as any health problems, and surviving social networks. But of course the final decision is yours.”
Ethan laughs. “And the incentive is you’re going to give everybody a house and a car?”
“Whatever you need to start a new life.”
“How can the country afford this?”
“The nation is filled with dispossessed property, sir, previously owned by individuals and corporations. Property owned by individuals who die intestate will be passed on to the nearest surviving heirs in accordance with state and local laws. But in cases where there are no identifiable heirs, the property will escheat to the Federal government for redistribution.”
“My God,” Ethan says.
The man behind the table is talking about a massive seizure of property on an unprecedented scale, to be distributed to the survivors.
“Not God,” the man says. “The Wade Act.”
This Wade Act will conflict with numerous state and local laws. With the amount of power and assets on the table, it might even be enough to trigger a civil war.
Ethan does not care about any of this, however.
“I’m here trying to find my missing family,” he tells the man.
“Resettlement is about looking to the future, but there will be a full accounting. Every person, every dollar, every asset. If your family is alive, you will find them and you will be able to live together again under Resettlement.”
“Good,” Ethan says.
“Just fill out these forms,” the man says brightly, holding out a clipboard.
“Let me ask you a question first.”
“Of course.”
“You mentioned a full accounting. How full will that accounting be?”
“The fullest.”
“I’m speaking of the dead. We all have blood on our hands.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell, sir,” the man smiles, still holding out the clipboard.
Ethan stares at it longingly.
“Perhaps later,” he says.
The man frowns, dropping the clipboard back on the table.
Ethan adds, “Sorry.”
“You know, we will survive this,” the man tells him. “It’s okay to hope.”
Ethan says, “Not yet it isn’t.”
Mobs of people, angry, shell-shocked, dressed in filthy clothes, wander among the densely packed tents and shanties built on grass long trampled into dust.
Ray says this place is going to blow.
“It’s fucked up, but it works—barely,” he says. “And for now. You know the old saying about America being three days away from a revolution? Here, it’s a matter of hours.”
Wendy nods. “What are the biggest community problems?”
Ray laughs. “Everything. Wendy, we got people packed in here like sardines. The place is an open sewer that serves gruel for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have to truck in clean water for half the camp. Outside resupply is obviously touch and go. Then there’s the constant threat of fire, disease and of course Infection. Everybody’s carrying a gun. We got gangs, prostitution, drugs, con games, rapes, murders, suicides, you name it. All right?”
Just two weeks ago, this place did not exist. There was a sleepy small town here in the middle of eastern Ohio. Outlying farms. Open fields and woods. All of it now absorbed into a camp with the same population as Independence, Missouri and the poverty of Calcutta.
“I get the picture,” she says.
“Don’t worry about them. Worry about you. The main thing you got to realize is there are a lot of unhappy people in this place who had everything and now they have nothing. They are mad as hell and looking for somebody to blame. Every once in a while some asshole gets an itch to take a shot at a cop. So you keep a sharp eye out there.”
“I will, Sergeant.”
“My name is Ray. Use it. Dammit, Wendy, you should be calling the shots, not me.”
“I’m just fine with the way things are, Ray,” she says. “So when does my training start?”
The man snorts. “This is your training. You got a question?”
“Okay. How are arrests processed for trial? Where is the courthouse?”
“Stop right there,” Ray says, taking off his grimy steelers cap and wiping sweat from his forehead. “I guess I need to explain a few things. Wendy, I know you were a cop back in the real world but this is the far side of the Moon. We just don’t have what you want here. It’s frontier justice. We’re holding this ground by force.”
They approach long lines of people waiting for their turn to fill their jugs at a bright yellow water tanker guarded by a squad of kid soldiers with M16 rifles. A cloud of dust hangs over the scene. Ray changes the subject, pointing out landmarks on what will become her night beat—shower facilities, health tent, food distribution center, and a feeding center where new mothers can breastfeed and collect extra rations. The latrine area, a large battery of portable toilets, is especially dangerous at night. Women who come here after dark are often raped. Men, too, sometimes. As a result, many people drop their waste into the nearest canal, and sometimes fall in.