“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Hinchcliffe wants to see me.”
“Does he? And did he say you could come in here and start looking through my stuff?”
“No, I—”
“You nosy fucker. I’ll break your fucking legs if I catch you at it again. He shouldn’t let a freak like you just wander around.”
“You tell him, then,” I stupidly say, and Llewellyn wraps his hand around my neck.
“You wiseass bastard. Watch yourself, McCoyne, I’m going to—”
“He’s coming,” another fighter says as he bursts into the room. “I’ve just seen him. He’ll be here in a sec.”
Llewellyn lets me go. The other man is Curtis, his deputy. He’s half Llewellyn’s age but just as vicious. He always wears full body armor, taken from his first-ever kill, he’ll regularly tell anyone who’ll listen. Llewellyn grunts at him, then snarls at me, and they walk away together to study the crumpled map, finally leaving me alone. I rub the back of my head and sit down on the edge of the nearest desk. Llewellyn’s got a real problem with me, but I don’t care. If he touches me, Hinchcliffe will kill him, and he knows it. Maybe that’s why he hates me. He doesn’t like the fact that Hinchcliffe seems to trust me, if trust is the right word. It’s a thinly veiled, childlike jealousy, and it’s pitiful.
As I wait for Hinchcliffe to arrive, I watch three other fighters I don’t recognize crowding around a thin slip of a man who’s trying to repair a radio with shaking hands. Sitting at a desk facing me, keeping to himself and working on a battered old laptop, is Anderson, Hinchcliffe’s “stock-keeper.” He’s another gopher, like Rufus. I’m told he used to be an accountant, but now he’s the man charged with keeping a tally of everything that Hinchcliffe owns and controls: the land, food, weapons, vehicles, people … I walk farther into the room and pass him, but he doesn’t even look up. I glance back and see that he’s playing cards on the computer, not working at all.
The man trying to fix the radio makes a mistake. There’s a bright spark, accompanied by a sudden loud cracking noise, a wisp of smoke, and the smell of burning, and he yelps with surprise and pain. Obviously not impressed, one of the fighters watching cuffs him around the back of the head, then shoves him into the wall, face-first. Dazed, he reels away with blood dripping from his nose. He wipes his face clean and immediately tries to work on the radio again and avoid another slap, hands trembling, barely even able to focus, frequently stopping to wipe away more drips of blood.
Hinchcliffe appears through another set of doors, which swing shut into the face of a woman I don’t immediately recognize who’s following behind him. She’s straightening her clothes as she walks, and the reason she’s been here is obvious. It’s unusual to see anyone female around here unless she’s been brought in for sex. It’s another sad indictment of the backward direction this new “society” is taking. The days of women’s lib and equality are long gone. Women fighters are easily as aggressive as men, but generally they’re less physically strong. As a result, fewer of them rise up through the ranks. It’s ironic; the arrival of the Hate temporarily wiped out all the divisions and prejudices that used to split society, but now the war’s ending, they’re flooding back and are even more divisive than before. Hinchcliffe and I talked about it a while back. He told me it’s tough shit, because that’s just the way it is now. There are no human rights groups to help you anymore, he said, we’re all on our own. I don’t care if you’re a black lesbian Jew with one leg, I remember him saying, enjoying belaboring the point, if it comes down to a straight choice between you and me surviving, you’re fucked.
When he finally notices I’m here, Hinchcliffe says something to the woman and she slopes away.
“Danny,” he grins, his voice full of obviously false enthusiasm, “how are you this morning?”
My head aches, my body aches, and my guts are still in turmoil from last night’s dinner of dog, but I spare him the details.
“Shit.”
“Excellent!” he says sarcastically. “Come through. I need to talk to you.”
He turns, and I follow him down a short corridor, up a flight of stairs, and into the first of his private rooms. I’ve been in here a couple of times before, but it still takes me by surprise. It’s more like a teenager’s bedroom than anything else. There’s a flat-screen TV on one wall—possibly the last unbroken TV left in the whole town—and numerous game consoles lying around. There’s a recently vacated, unmade double bed opposite, and the air is heavy with cigarette smoke and other stale and equally unpleasant smells. We continue through to his office, a slightly more businesslike room. There’s a large oval wooden table, covered in as much shit as everywhere else. The grubby cream-colored carpet is stained heavily with blood in several places, no doubt left by those unfortunate people who managed to piss the KC off.
Hinchcliffe sits at the head of the table on a tall-backed leather swivel chair that’s bigger than the rest. He gestures for me to sit next to him, and I do as he says, still doing all I can to disguise my nerves. Despite his inner circle of fighters, his is the only seat that really matters. He is the lawmaker, judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer, jury, and executioner, all rolled into one, and I try not to let him see how much he intimidates me. I act casual and do my best to maintain eye contact, but the fucker just grins and I’m the one who looks away first. Is he really such a threat, or am I blowing things out of proportion? He reminds me of the senior managers I used to work for at the council, but far, far more intense, and, unlike them, he has a personality. He’s no stronger than many of the people he surrounds himself with, but he’s clever and witty and smart, and that’s the real danger. When he looks at me like this it’s like he’s trying to work out exactly what I’m thinking, trying to get into my head and take me apart so he can understand what makes me tick. The war has made most people shed absolutely every aspect of their former selves. Hinchcliffe, though, is different. He used to be an investment banker who’d probably have sold his own mother to turn a profit. He still has the same arrogance and swagger, but now he trades in lower-value currencies for much higher stakes. The rumor according to Rufus (and I really don’t want to know whether it’s true or not) is that when the Change took him, Hinchcliffe wiped out virtually an entire floor of more than forty City traders single-handed.
Take it easy. Don’t let him see you’re nervous.
“You really don’t look so good,” he says, looking me up and down.
“You’re the second person who’s said that to me today.”
“How many people have you seen?”
“Just two.”
“Well, we both must be right, then,” he says, continuing to stare at me, his face an unreadable mix of fascination and disgust. Then his expression suddenly changes. He ducks down, reaches under the table, and pulls out a four-pack of beer, which he slides over to me.
“For helping us get rid of those Unchanged fuckers yesterday. Good job.”