Profiteering

Gwen Davies awoke to the drumbeat of rain against the bedroom windows. At least the weather was still cool enough that the windows weren’t open. She didn’t know how she’d defend the house over the coming summer when it would be too hot to keep it fully sealed. Hurricane-proof windows acted as added security against the recycling crews, but she thought she needed a dog even though Khyber and Kisangani would never forgive her if she brought one home.

The house was dark. Not just dark, black, with none of the telltale glows of modern living, no clock, no microwave, no streetlights, just like the rest of the neighborhood. The power was out again as it often was these days, whether due to rationing or a storm-related outage. She wondered what time it was. A year ago, she would have glanced at the clock on the nightstand then perhaps padded to the office and checked email. Now she lay awake listening for the clock to ring the hour instead of reaching for her watch. How much a year had changed.

But she was still here, still surviving, despite Stirling’s dire warnings nine months ago. Unlike so many others who had been forced to abandon the neighborhood before winter for distant, friendlier enclaves around the Great Lakes, New England, California and the Pacific Northwest. With the arrival of spring, she expected more defections soon.

She wondered whether the storm or something else had startled her from sleep. Kisangani was curled up by her feet, her calico fur standing out against the blanket. Across the bed Khyber’s ears were up, listening. Gwen tried to decide whether to risk a light. The granddaughter clock in the living room started to ring the hour, but was cut off by a peal of thunder. Was that two or three?

Khyber sprang to his feet. Pacing back and forth across the bed, he growled as he stared up at the ceiling, just like last fall when rats had taken up residence in the attic. Now she heard it, the hollow rumble of footsteps across the roof tiles that she had mistaken for distant thunder. That meant a recycling crew was on the roof again after the photovoltaics.

Gwen threw off the sheets and grabbed her grandfather’s over-and-under .22/.410 from beside the bed. Without bothering with a robe, she rushed out through the living room to the front hall, and unbolted the front door. Stepping out into a tattoo of heavy rain against the overhang of the front porch, she slammed the solid wood door. When that warning provoked no response, she levered back the rifle’s hammer using her weight as much as her strength. The metal ridges dug into the meat of her thumb as she slowly forced it back until, in a relief, it clicked solidly into place. She slid the selector knob up and then back down to ensure the shotgun, not the .22, would fire, braced the butt against her shoulder and aimed into the grass of front yard without getting the barrel wet.

The night exploded against her shoulder when her finger overcame the old, stiff trigger that no amount of oil ever eased. Her ears rang, but above the real and residual din, she heard the echo of heavy feet clomping along the roof tiles toward the back of the house. Gun in hand, she raced inside, through the living room again and onto the back porch just in time to hear the solid thump, thump of two people dropping from the roof into the backyard.

Once again, she pried back the hammer. She snicked the selector knob to the top position and aimed just to the left of where she heard the chainlink rattle as two nearly invisible shadows clambered over it. When she was young, back when life had less meaning, she had been a deadeye shot with a BB gun, able to pick off dragonflies and minnows in midair and midstream. Tonight, she had no desire to shoot anything. She hated wasting more ammunition, and having to repair a hole in the porch screen, but her father had taught her never to aim at something she didn’t want to hit. The last thing she wanted was to wound one of them and have the crew bear a grudge. Or worse, kill one and find it was a child. But she needed to send a clear message that she was capable of defending her property. The photovoltaics were the only things that guaranteed her survival.

Once again, her ears rang as the hammer snapped forward, though this time she felt no kick onto her shoulder. Through her gunshot deadened ears she heard two people splash headlong through the knee-deep water in the ditch and scramble up the far bank to the safety of the woods beyond.

She returned inside just long enough to rebolt the front door, throw on a pair of fatigues and a work shirt, and grab a flashlight and more ammunition before settling into a porch chair for the remainder of the night. She was lucky her father had kept her grandfather's unlicensed gun along with a cache of ammunition. She wished she had the pistol, too, but that had been lost to the family before she was born. The only difference between it and the rifle was that she knew that gun had actually been used to kill someone, if only its owner.

She wrapped herself in her long-sleeved shirt against the chill night air. She didn’t mean to sleep, but she did.

The trees across the ditch were awash in orange light when Gwen awoke. There was no further sign of the recycling crew. Rifle in hand, she retreated back through the sliding glass door into the house.

Inside, she paused to wind the granddaughter clock. She swung open the glass-front door and pulled down on the chains opposite the brass counterweights. The mechanism responded with a satisfying ratcheting noise. Like the gun, the family heirloom had become a sought-after non-electric antique. She checked it against her iPad. She had adjusted the pendulum to keep almost perfect time, less than a minute drift each week depending on the temperature and humidity.

Seven-thirty. Sunday morning. A year ago, she would have cooked a full sit-down breakfast then read the Sunday Times on her iPad and relaxed before another week began. Now, almost all the coffee was gone, as was the tea, cocoa, sugar and chocolate, casualties of the Pioneer Party’s no import, no export national Self-Sufficiency Laws that had been foisted on the public as a cure to their lingering economic woes. Where there had been a promise to end unemployment, there was now little work to be had other than survival which took no weekends off and carried no benefits or paid vacations.

Instead, Gwen had a full day scheduled. She needed to re-setup the wind turbine in the backyard. Last night as the thunderstorms approached, she had secured it by folding the blades and setting the brakes on the generator. After that, she had to go up on the roof to check the photovoltaics so she could recharge the hybrid and the house’s battery bank. She also needed to inspect the solar water heater for damage. Then she would run the weekly diagnostics on the charging system. At least the recycling crew wouldn’t have been able to get to that. Bad enough they had been on the roof. She hoped they hadn’t done much damage. Her spares were dwindling and she had very little left to trade for more.

Last night convinced her that if she was going to make it through the summer, she needed a dog. The park was awash with strays but taking one in was a tricky business. Though she’d heard the ones that hadn’t gone completely feral made fiercely loyal guardians out of gratitude. Coming up with food would be a trick. Two cats were hard enough to feed and Khyber mostly hunted for himself. Though since she’d found the half-eaten stray on the top of the ditch in December and later spotted a coyote eyeing the yard at noon, she kept him inside more.

Maybe she could trade for one of the co-op’s new puppies. Linda would ask about the clock again, but Gwen wouldn't trade it. It was one of the few things left from her mother. Most of the others she’d had to trade just to maintain the house. For too many, she hadn’t gotten half of what they were worth. Hard times drove hard bargains. Stirling had warned her early on how difficult it would be to stay.

She also had to find time to talk to Ted. The Neighborhood Watch was supposed to patrol even during storms. At the very least, someone should have checked on her when they heard the gunshots. The recycling crews didn't care about the weather. They used the park and the old rail-trail as transit routes for their hit-and-runs and conduits for their black market goods. As the fuel shortages had worsened, the Sheriff’s Department patrolled less. They were in the pockets of the bigger enclaves anyway. She was beginning to wonder if Ted had joined them.

Before she dealt with Ted or the co-op, she needed to use some of her Internet ration to download the latest spot market numbers to her iPad. The price of natural gas and coal would tell her how much credit she would earn from the mandated electric power buyback. That had been one of the few advantages anyone had seen from enforced energy independence since the Pioneer Party had taken power.

When they had first arisen as a political movement, the Pioneer Party had promised to return the nation to its former glory. If the country didn’t make it, mine it or grow it, they didn’t need it. If they had it, no one else would get it. It proved an amazingly popular platform that quickly embedded itself into the public consciousness. In less than a year, the Pioneer Party had transformed from merely advocating isolationist self-sufficiency into an ultra-nationalist autarky. In the process, they succeeded in turning the Great Recession into the Great Dismantling. When the collapse came, it was spectacular.

Gwen walked her Internet connection through a series of anonymous proxies and blind cutouts so she could download the latest international bootleg of pirated news articles. Real news, not the propaganda from the official feeds.

She downloaded and skimmed some of the local headlines as she waited for authentication of her connection. Nothing much new. Alan Long had proposed a new Commission ordinance authorizing the bulk seizure of properties unoccupied for more than three months through a state-authorized urban renewal variant of eminent domain. The Commission would auction off the seized neighborhoods soon after. She suspected the enclaves were pulling the strings on this one. They played puppeteer for most of the Commission’s recent work. The Commission had already begun cutting services to neighborhoods less than half-occupied, following the precedent established in Detroit several years ago.

In an underground opposition blog, she read the last enclave loyal to the Commission south of the university was still holding out after a grueling ninety-eight days of siege. Only a narrow, dangerous supply corridor to the heart of Commission territory kept it going at all. The Commission could no longer justify the resources necessary to keep that corridor open, despite the propaganda setback it would mean. The university was sponsoring negotiations on relocation, though few communities seemed interested. Fifty households were more than most neighborhoods could absorb without significant aid. Given the level of creative violence committed by Matt McBride and his party-sponsored militia leading up to the siege, few seemed interested in seeing if they possessed a strong enough leash to hold that particular dog now that it had tasted of blood.

Gwen was grateful those fanatical divisions had yet to find their way across the lake. There had been a day when she’d bemoaned the lack of interest the rest of the county had in the area in which she lived. Now that anonymity was a blessing.

As she finished downloading and terminated her connection, Gwen noticed people from the neighborhood beginning to trickle down the street, all in the same direction. She wondered if she hadn’t been the only one to suffer an incident last night. She shutdown the iPad, locked up the house and followed after them to check. She was careful to make sure that Khyber didn’t dash through the open door, as he sometimes liked to. He had yet to get used to being unable to come and go as he pleased as he had a year ago.

She found people gathered in small knots and clusters along the sidewalk across the street from the Sinclairs, as if standing back from a police line or keeping a safe distance from a quarantine area. That was never a good sign. Ted Stuart watched from one driveway down as Pete Sinclair loaded items of necessity, security, sentiment and value into his family’s blue SUV, a job he approached with grim determination. Two deputies from the Neighborhood Watch armed with hunting rifles kept an eye up and down the street.

Gwen wandered across the no man’s land to stand next to Ted, the only one willing to cross into his personal zone of exclusion. The morning air was thick and heavy, as much with fear and distrust as with humidity from last night’s storm. Both men and women watched sidelong to see if there would be a confrontation between the mismatched pair. Ted was a full head taller than Gwen, and looked like he had once worked out. By comparison, she was a small, dark-haired waif. But the neighborhood knew she was the flint to Ted’s steel. When they clashed, sparks were bound to fly.

Ted stood like a soldier or a cop, straight, unmoving, eyes intently forward. He claimed to have been a Marine back before they’d all been brought back home to join the ranks of unemployed. The rumor Gwen had heard was that, at least, was true. The part he never mentioned was his official title of aviation survival equipmentman. He spent his only tour inspecting and repairing parachutes, a two-year stitch-bitch someone said. But every Marine was a rifleman, right? That was more training than anyone else in the neighborhood had.

Gwen stood in silence a moment, observing her part of their ritual. “Last night, I had a crew up on the roof after the solar panels,” she said after a moment. “Might have gotten them, too, if Khyber hadn’t tipped me off. But this looks more serious.”

“They’re pulling out,” Ted said, his voice as bereft of emotion as his expression.

“What happened?” Gwen thought the Sinclairs were long-term holdouts. They’d been targeted twice before but stayed.

“Someone wrapped a pair of girl’s underwear around a rock during the storm and launched it through the front window.” He said it as though it were an everyday occurrence, or soon would be, rather than the worst kind of predatory threat.

Aghast, Gwen turned to face him. “She’s only ten!”

“You think they care?” Ted didn’t move his eyes from the SUV. He watched each item that came out of the house as if making of mental inventory of what was leaving and what would be left behind. “They would have made good on that threat if that’s what it took to drive them out. Lucky for her, they didn’t have to.”

Lucky, Gwen thought, was not the word she would have chosen. The poor girl and her parents must be terrified. “And where was the Watch in all this? You’re supposed to patrol rain or shine.”

Now, Ted directed his gaze down at her. “We can’t help you out over here anymore, Gwen. We took a vote. This side of the neighborhood is on its own.”

“What?” Her voice turned flat and flinty, like Khyber’s or Kisangani’s when they felt she’d been gone too long.

“The recycling crews are getting bolder. We’re stretched too thin. We have to cut back patrols to the core neighborhood.”

“As I remember,” she said, staring up at him with all the intensity she could muster, “we’re members of this neighborhood, too. My father started the Watch. My mother helped establish the co-op.”

“Your parent’s are dead, Gwen” Ted said, then turned back to the Sinclairs. “We’ve decided to consolidate around the ponds. Only half of you are left on this side of the neighborhood anyway. With the roads up north set to open, pretty soon it’ll only be one in three. That’s too much territory to cover with no additional help.”

“You could let women rejoin the Watch,” she pointedly suggested. “We were out there all last fall and did just fine. At least a dozen would sign up.”

“If their husbands let them.” Ted dismissed the idea without even a flick of his hand. “If Rodriguez is willing to threaten a ten year-old girl, what do you think he’d do to a full-grown woman?”

“So what are we supposed to do now?” Gwen could not longer contain her anger and frustration. “Cut a deal with Crew 102? Pay them for protection? We might as well pay the Sheriff. His rates are cheaper, if more imaginative.”

“A few of you can always fold into the empty houses on our side of the neighborhood,” he said. “We can always use talent like yours.”

“Equipment like mine you mean. I generate half the power in this neighborhood.”

Ted ignored the remark. “The house across the street is still open.”

“You mean ‘Rainbow 6?’” Gwen said. Ted’s face twitched. “Yeah, I’ve heard what you call it when you think no one’s listening. Funny how they were the first to go. You never did agree with their politics, did you?”

“Careful, Gwen” Ted replied evenly, “Or you’ll find yourself defending this place alone.”

“Like we’re not already.” Gwen turned away and stalked back toward the house along the sidewalk. She had work to do. But first she needed to talk to Linda and the co-op. Armed with the new spot market numbers, she hoped to be able to cut a side deal for a dog and a pistol. If she were going to hold out on her own, they would be the minimum she required.

Three blocks away, Gwen found Linda preparing the soil in one of the co-op’s community gardens, a formerly empty lot on a utility easement. The time to plant the corn, beans, squash, peppers and tomatoes was only a week away. The co-op planted all five intertwined to maximize their yields in the weak, sandy soil. They’d found the technique in one of Gwen’s mother’s books. The fall crop had come in strong. The neighborhood was better fed last winter than most enclaves, but even that was relative.

Linda Patino was a wiry, weatherworn woman, bronzed from working the past nine months outside. She was of that indeterminate age where she might have been thinking about early retirement before it had been thrust upon her by the current crisis. She worked her rake with the patient vigor of a Midwesterner used to long days beneath a prairie sun.

“Lend a hand if you have the time,” Linda said, pointing to the pile of gardening tools as she saw Gwen approaching.

Gwen picked up a steel rake and started turning soil. It felt good to do something productive with her hands. Her mother had always enjoyed caring for living things. She’d tended toward her father whose affinity ran more toward the manmade. “I need to talk to you about a trade with the co-op. I heard the Novak’s puppies are already weaned.”

Linda leaned on her rake. “That could be a problem.”

“Are they all accounted for?” Gwen asked, hoping to change the likely answer. “I’ve still got a little excess power to trade.”

“It’s not that.” Linda went back to turning soil. “Ted’s made defense items a priority. No trade outside the enclave.”

“I’m not outside the enclave,” Gwen reminded her.

“You are now,” Linda said, tackling a stubborn weed with the tines of her rake. “He’s readjusted the boundaries.”

They worked together for a moment in silence, the only sound the shushing of the painted steel against the sandy soil interspersed with an occasional tearing sound as they dug out one of many encroaching weeds. The garden was right across from the neighborhood entrance to the park. Soon, it would need guarding from poachers. Gwen wondered how Ted would handle that since it, too, was technically outside the new enclave.

“And what if I stop selling my power to the co-op?” Gwen asked, trying to keep her voice level.

“Who else would you sell it to?” Linda sounded genuinely curious.

“The McMansions in the old orange groves. Maybe the farmsteads on Nina.” Gwen paused a moment for effect. “Crew 102.”

“They don’t buy power,” Linda snorted, “they take it. Rodriguez would drive you out before he’d pay.”

“How’s that different is that than the Neighborhood Watch right now?” Gwen asked, attacking a weed cluster with her rake. “Ted’s cut off my protection. Without a dog and more than a two-shot rifle, how long do you think I’ll hold out? Wake up, Linda. We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“There’s nothing I can do. Ted says we need everything to survive ourselves.”

“Sounds like he’s gone over to the Pioneer Party on you.”

“Look around, Gwen.” Linda paused in her raking, sweeping her arm to encompass the surrounding houses and the park. “Each day we get weaker and the other enclaves get stronger. We have to consolidate and hold on to what we have.”

“That’s not why my mother setup the co-op,” Gwen replied in a low, quiet voice that most people didn’t realize was a warning. “It was to share what we have. We all get stronger by trading what we have in surplus.”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Linda said in her negotiating tone, “there might be one thing Ted would accept…”

Gwen cut her off. “He already has the books from my parents’ library. I traded those at a loss for seed. I traded all the Wedgwood, the silver and the crystal so we could feed the children of this enclave instead of just the Watch. Once it was empty, I traded my mother’s china cabinet for spare parts. There’s nothing left of value except power and even that’s in short supply. Ted has everything.”

“There’s still the clock,” Linda said, undeterred. “I could get him to make you a good deal for that. In fact, I could do it right now.”

Gwen went with a fallback to see how serious Linda was. “I’m willing to offer the schoolhouse clock from the library.”

Linda shook her head. “You know he’s looking for the grandfather clock.”

“It’s a granddaughter clock,” Gwen corrected, “and it’s not for sale. My mother’s grandfather made it by hand. It’s the only thing I have left from her aside from a few blankets she crocheted that I haven’t given away.”

“Just mentioning it, Gwen.” Linda resumed her work.

“What’s he need it for anyway?” Gwen pulled at a particularly stubborn weed. “It’s not like he doesn’t have access to electronic time. I know he can’t store everything he’s acquired in his garage and he certainly doesn’t have the taste to keep it in the house.”

“I overheard him say it’s a gift for a friend, someone he needs to impress who likes that sort of thing. Someone powerful.”

Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “And that doesn’t raise a red flag to you?”

“Look, Gwen, you have to understand. Ted said no guns or dogs to anyone outside the core enclave. He said they’ll just disappear when the rest of you leave anyway. The co-op can’t go up against him. Everyone’s afraid they’ll be the next target. If Ted cuts off our protection, well, you know where we’ll be. None of us have outside contacts.” That was a direct shot at Stirling.

“I tell you what, Linda.” Gwen set down her rake. “You tell Ted I’m looking into other offers for my excess power. And don’t think I won’t wreck the machinery if someone tries to take it by force. It only takes about fifteen seconds. You want to be his negotiator, you can tell him that.”

“Ted won’t like being threatened,” Linda said.

“It’s not a threat,” Gwen said before she left, “unless he tries something stupid. Now, if he wants to negotiate like an adult, he knows where to find me. Until then, tell him his lights are on borrowed time.”

…

By the time Gwen arrived back at the house, the morning was gone. The day had turned warm, though not hot by summer standards. She still needed to verify her current generating capacity. If the salvage crew had damaged any of the panels on the roof, she’d need to repair or replace them. That would cut into the margins she had for trade. Not that trade seemed likely right now. But she needed to do something to burn off some of her anger.

Up on the roof, the south and east side panels both checked out. No cracks, no footprints across their faces, no pry-marks around their edges. The storm had washed away the accumulated dust, so she should see a slight boost in efficiency. A couple connections had been kicked loose on the west side as the crew had scrambled to safety, but she found no lasting damage.

Looking off to the east, Gwen watched the crowd disperse as the Sinclair’s SUV eased its way out of the neighborhood. Ten years ago, trees in the front yard would have screened her view, trees she’d climbed as a kid, trees her parents had planted when they were newlyweds. Gwen remembered how her mother had cried even as she’d helped Stirling and her father cut them down. That was in the early days of the Pioneer Party. Her father, while disagreeing vehemently with what he saw as shortsighted policies, had the vision to understand they would need as much solar and wind as they could afford as long as the party stayed in power. The trees blocked the morning and evening sun and cut the wind. So they came down.

With the Sinclairs gone, that made just over twenty-five abandoned houses in her three-block corner of the neighborhood. She wondered where they’d go. Pete Sinclair was local. His wife came from somewhere up north, Pennsylvania or Ohio. That was a long way to travel on degrading highways that needed petroleum to maintain them. They had been the last family in her section with children under thirteen.

People had fled according to the pattern Stirling had predicted a year ago, first the ones with money, then with an education, with moderate views, and finally with young children. Now he said all that were left were the partisans, the opportunists and those with nowhere else to go or no money to get there. Sometimes she wondered where she fit in her brother’s hierarchy. Probably as the lone idealist.

Stirling had left for Vermont, nicknamed “the People’s Republic of” by the Pioneer Party pundits, with both their halves of the inheritance from their parents, hers for safe keeping. He’d tried to convince Gwen to come with him while there was still time. But she couldn’t abandon her childhood home to be burned down, stripped or occupied by refugees from another enclave. There was no way to sell it in the continually depressed housing market.

Remembering made her angry again. Angry with the Sinclairs, angry with her parents, angry with Stirling, Angry with everyone who had left her behind. Each loss made life just a little harder. Each made waking up in the morning and getting back to work just a little more difficult. Most of all, she was angry with the Pioneer Party. Angry with the people who believed their threats and lies. She’d learned to harness that anger just to get the work done.

After the rooftop inspection, she ran the weekly diagnostic on the battery bank and its associated hardware in the garage. Her father had installed the charging racks along the back wall, using all the space that his workshop and her mother’s craft table had once occupied. All the readings came up within spec, though a few had begun to drift the wrong direction, an ominous trend if she wanted to increase the amount of power she put up for sale. Still, the equipment’s efficiency was holding solid. That meant a boost when she unfolded the wind turbine. She’d already missed the onshore breeze, but there was time to capture the middays and then the offshore. From her glance at the weather earlier, the night promised to be breezy and clear.

Back on the ground, Gwen unshipped the turbine’s blades and locked them in place. As she released the brake on the generator, a shot rang out from the park and ricocheted off the steel stanchion. Instinctively, she ducked to the ground, even though a remote part of her mind recognized it was too late to avoid that bullet. She scrambled around the corner of the house and crouched behind a blooming azalea. There was no other cover in the backyard, and she dared not expose herself to make a break for the front. She just hoped the sniper wasn’t in the wedge of park that still had an angle on where she was hiding.

She clung to the corner, her heart pounding so hard she wasn’t sure that she’d hear a follow-up shot even if it came. She rummaged through her mind to remember where she’d left the rifle. Inside, next to the front door, where it always rested during the day. She hadn’t thought to bring it out with her. No one had ever taken a shot at her before.

A minute passed, then two. Time for a decision. Either the sniper had abandoned the park, or he had moved to where he could get a clean shot on her and was sighting in right now. Either way, there was no point to staying where she was. After a mental count to three she darted toward the front of the house, keeping as low as she could without compromising speed. Her heart felt fluttery and light as she sped around the corner into the front yard and bolted toward the front door. Her hands shook as she sorted out the right key. She managed to get it into the lock after two or three jerky tries.

As the door slammed behind her, Gwen fumbled for the rifle and collapsed with her back against the wall. She felt as though she had run a marathon of fifty-yard dashes, though she had barely sprinted fifteen. She cradled her grandfather’s gun like a long lost lover or a rediscovered missing child.

A few minutes later, Khyber and Kisangani came to investigate why she was sitting on the floor. Khyber approached to sniff her. Once he had convinced himself that she was safe, he butted her elbow with his orange, tiger-striped head, then rubbed his face along her arm. She was glad he hadn’t decided to slip out while the door was open. Kisangani watched her from beneath one of the dining room chairs, her calico fur nearly camouflaged among the afternoon shadows on the carpet.

After recovering her breath to where she felt she felt steady, Gwen swept through the house dropping all the blinds. She wasn’t quite sure what else to do. Suddenly trade seemed both more and less important. A pistol would do little against a sniper unless she just wanted to throw some wild shots. A dog might only act as another target. Yet both took on a new urgency if only to help her feel more in control of her situation. There was only one player left she might be able to trade with. But now was not the time to venture outside, not so close to the incident and with the sniper unaccounted for.

She thought about Skyping Stirling but knew she was in peak hours for being online. She desperately wanted to hear his voice. He would never say, I told you so. He would offer to help her in any way he could. But she wondered if she might detect a silent judgment behind his concern, the unvoiced pressure to abandon their parents’ home and retreat to his farmstead in Vermont where such incidents did not happen, at least not yet. Following so many who had fled the neighborhood already would taste of copper and defeat. This was her home. She’d be damned if anyone would drive her out.

With that avenue of comfort denied, a wave of exhaustion washed over Gwen. Suddenly, she only wanted to sleep. She thought she might feel more safe tomorrow morning, though whether she would actually be more safe she was far from certain.

Instead, she busied herself checking her situation. First, she peered through a crack in the blinds to ensure that the blades of the wind turbine were turning and that its swivel was free for them to chase the wind. She verified the battery bank was changing and delivering all her excess power back onto the grid. She then calculated how much surplus power she had in relation to her existing agreements. Her margins were running pretty tight after turbine was down for an evening and morning, but she had enough to make a few emergency preparations.

Next, in a ritual not unlike the first day of hurricane season in years past with her parents, she reviewed her supplies in case she was trapped inside. She fired up the well pump and topped off her cistern. She verified all her electronics and flashlights had fresh batteries and their replacements were topping off in the chargers. She made certain her first aid kits were fully stocked. She inventoried her propane, her last-ditch means of cooking. Food wasn’t a problem, at least any more than it normally was. She had a full stock of dry goods in the pantry and meat packed into the freezer that was plugged into the inverter. She’d be forced to keep Khyber and Kisangani inside all the time, which meant tapping into their reserve cans of food. She’d figure out how to replenish those later.

Finally, she checked her supply of ammunition. She still had almost a thousand rounds of .22 long rifle. She’d been saving that for when she had to supplement her meat ration with small game. The .410 was more of a concern. She had less than a hundred shells of light buckshot left. That was her primary defensive round. Given that it had never been popular, reloads where nearly impossible to come by. That could be a problem long-term. But for now, she was as prepared as she could be.

By the time she finished, it was too late to venture out. The day had been nearly wasted, but at least she had succeeded in organizing away her fears. She double-checked all the windows and door locks, moved the rifle into the bedroom and tried to calm her mind to get some sleep. She was certain in the morning that she would have a better, more peaceful outlook.

Peace did not come that night. Kisangani slept, but Khyber roamed the house seeking ways to express his displeasure at having been cooped up during his traditional hunting time. Throughout the night, Gwen started awake at every real or imagined noise.

When she heard the clock ring three, then four and her mind continued racing, she got up and flashed Stirling a message to setup a Skype before he left for work. She wasn’t sure she slept again but she when she rolled over, it was dawn. Stirling’s reply was waiting on her iPad.

She didn’t waste any time once they established the connection. Any incidental news they could exchange by email. Time online was a precious and costly commodity. She set a countdown timer in a prominent position on the screen to keep from exceeding her Internet ration and running up too high a charge.

“What’s the price of silver on the Swiss exchange?” she asked by way of a greeting. “I need you sell another one of dad’s coins and deposit the money in my PayPal account. Can you still do that?”

“Yeah.” Her brother drew out the word slowly, hedging. “What is it that you need?”

“Information,” she said. “I need the money to pay for more Internet access so I can do some research. I’m looking for a tie between the head of the Neighborhood Watch and one of the enclaves.”

“Give me his name and whatever information you have. I can do the research from up here. It’ll be quicker and cheaper. We still have FioS online.”

“You sure you want to do that? This could attract a lot of attention.”

“Don’t worry, Gwen. I’ve been listening. I’ve downloaded most of the anonymity software you recommended, plus some you might not have access to just yet. It’s as safe for me as it is for you, maybe safer. They expect hits like that from up here, even if they back-trace it this far. Just send the information using an IronKey cutout, like you did before.”

“Ok. I’m setting it up now. You should have it in a little while. And thanks, Stirling.”

“For what?” He looked puzzled.

“For not trying to convince me to abandon the house and come up there.”

He sighed, and looked concerned. “I think it’s a bit too late for that, at least until the situation stabilizes.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s going on up there?”

“Haven’t you heard the news?”

“We don’t get much national news down here anymore, Stirling. Local politics is pretty much all we can handle and even that’s censored.”

“The Pioneer Party cut our remaining ties. From NAFTA to the Euro-zone, they’ve cancelled all our free trade agreements. Our biggest source of income up here right now is black market smuggling to and from Canada. New York is trying to close our border. They enacted a $10 migration fee under Article I, Section 9, which has effectively shutdown trade. Massachusetts is considering the same.”

“That’s not what the Constitution says,” Gwen protested. “That clause was about slavery.”

“Constitutional law has never been Pioneer Party’s strong point. But it doesn’t matter. No one has the money to cross the border. In retaliation, Vermont has enacted strict immigration limits. So, for the moment, you’re on your own. I can get you anything we can transmit electronically, including money if you need it. But that’s going to be all for a while.”

Gwen rubbed her hand across her forehead, just like her father used to do, and caught herself self-consciously. The clock was ticking down to zero on her timer. She needed to leave enough in her Internet ration to download Stirling’s response whenever it came. So she said a terse goodbye and cut the connection.

That conversation set the tone for the rest of the day. Mid-morning, she saw Ted headed up the driveway. Two of his deputies from the Watch waited at the corner. As he turned up the walk, Gwen opened the front door and stepped outside, rifle in hand, hooking a quick foot under Khyber and redirecting him into the office as he tried to sneak past her.

“What can I do for you, Ted?” she asked from the front porch, keeping the rifle pointed neutrally between her feet and his.

He stopped a couple yards away. “I hear you’re still making trouble, Gwen. I told you where that could lead.”

“I’m not making trouble.” She adjusted her grip on her gun. “I’m just trying to keep my home safe and the people who matter to me fed. You need power, I need a dog and a gun. It’s really pretty simple, who needs what the other has more? I’m thinking that it’s you.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Gwen. I have information that could make your life uncomfortable pretty quickly. Valuable information.”

“What are you getting at?” Gwen glared at him. “You know nothing about me.”

“No, not you,” he said, “your father. Remember the couple who lived in Rainbow 6, the ones with the Darwin fish on their car? Friends of your parents, right?”

Gwen nodded.

He went on. “Well, the husband told me something interesting just before they headed north. He said that his wife was the executor of your father’s will before you and Stirling were adopted. Yeah, I know you’re not his real family, not in any meaningful way.”

Gwen sneered but stayed silent. Ted was trying to antagonize her, but she needed to hear what he had to say.

“More interestingly,” Ted continued, “he said that your father had a safe deposit box. It contained something valuable, though your father never said exactly what. Now that got me thinking. You’ve done pretty good for yourself since your parents died. Even with the Self-Sufficiency Laws, you always have coffee and Internet access. You’re always talking to your ‘brother.’ How is that, Gwen? What did your father have tucked away?”

Gwen saw where the direction he was headed and cut him off. “There’s no family fortune, Ted. My father was a planner. He saw this day coming, stocked up and prepared. No one else wanted to listen. Including you, as I recall.”

“Really.” He ignored the last thing she said. “If he was such a planner, how is it he didn’t he plan that as well? I think there was something in that box. What was it, Gwen? Gold? Jewelry? Coins?”

Gwen’s heart froze for an instant, but she tried not to let it show on her face. He was only guessing. He couldn’t know. She thought quickly. “Have you ever seen me trade anything like that? No. All that was in that box were worthless insurance papers and my mother’s wedding rings that Stirling sold off to buy his ticket out. He gave me the house in exchange. There is no family fortune,” she repeated, hoping it would sink in.

“See, that really doesn’t matter, does it?” Ted took on a lecturing tone like she’d heard him use with the kids in the neighborhood. “People believe what they want to believe. All I need to do is start a rumor, and certain folks in this enclave will be digging up your yard with shovels. They’ll take pickaxes to the foundation of your house. That’s after they run you off and burn it down. Or leave you inside.” He left that final threat hanging naked in the air between them.

“I tell you what, Ted.” Gwen adjusted her rifle to point from the ground to the sky, including Ted in its sweep for just an instant. She’d learned with bullies it was sometimes best to escalate rather than capitulate. Though only if she thought she could win. “You start your little rumor and see how far it gets you as you’re sitting in the dark. I’m ready to ink a deal with any of three other enclaves for my power. And now my price just went up. Armed protection will be part of any bargain. The people I’m talking to have more than just a few hunting rifles. And they aren’t so afraid to use them that they hide in the woods like snipers. Though I doubt they’d be above doing that, either. But if they did, they’d hit what they aimed at.”

“Maybe next time they will,” he said. Then, he motioned his deputies to watch her as he retreated down the walk.

Now she’d done it. Gwen wished she had inherited her mother’s patience rather than her father’s temper. She had no one lined up for her power. She had no allies, just an inkling of one that might pan out, but only if she had some leverage. Now, she’d have to seek them out, leverage or not. She hoped Stirling came up with something soon.

Gwen headed back into the house, quickly collected what she needed and hurried out again. From this point forward, she would go everywhere armed. Not that she agreed with violence. She just didn’t want be an easy target for someone who did. Normally, she might have risked going out through the back, but she wanted the house locked up tight. She quickly circled around to the back gate, hoping not to be seen as she disappeared into the trees across the ditch. In her rush she didn’t notice the eyes watching her intently from the bushes.

She began searching the park for Crew 102. She found signs of their handiwork near the bathrooms but didn’t see any of their people. Perhaps the Sheriff’s Department had run them off. Or maybe they were watching her through the trees. If so, they were probably wondering how one woman could be so bold as to invade their territory armed only with a break-action antique. Or maybe they were busy with a salvage operation somewhere else. She just hoped she hadn’t read the situation wrong. If the sniper was one of theirs, it would be a short trip.

After a few hours wandering the trails and concrete paths, she decided she’d better give up and look again in the morning. As she entered her yard through the back gate, she decided to complete a circuit of the house, just to make certain nothing had happened while she was gone. Everything checked out.

As she turned up the walk to the front door in the long, afternoon shadows, Gwen noticed Khyber lying on the doormat, almost as if sleeping, with what might have been a severely mangled, clay-stained baseball lying near his front paws. No, that wasn’t quite right. Something was wrong with that picture.

Gwen edged closer. At first she couldn’t figure out was what it was. Her mind couldn’t sync up the color, size and shape with anything she knew. Or maybe she didn’t want to. When she spotted the two glassy yellow eyes staring blankly back at her and the pink slip of a tongue peeking out from the curved slit of a mouth, she almost fainted.

It was a cat’s head. Khyber had left a cat’s head at her door. No, her mind slowly worked through the image, not another cat’s head. It was Khyber’s head, six inches away from his decapitated body.

Gwen closed her eyes and stopped moving. It didn’t help. She could still see the picture in her mind.

Her breath came in ragged gulps. Her body started shaking. Her stomach sank and turned over. She covered her mouth with a hand to hold back a scream. Why would anyone do this to her baby? They couldn’t have. Could they?

She knew she had to look again. She had to make sure. She hadn’t gotten that good a look before she shut the vision out, hoping to erase it. She remembered finding the coyote-killed stray, its intestines snaking out from where its hind legs had been ripped away. That day, she’d been afraid it was Kisangani, but it hadn’t been. Maybe today the universe would be as kind.

Gwen took a deep breath through the hand clamped across her mouth. She hardened herself against what she might see. She tried to wall off her emotions, as she had often seen Stirling do. Slowly, almost unwillingly, she opened her eyes and forced them down, dreading what she might find. She leaned in closer. It couldn’t be him. Please don’t let it be.

But it was. The body’s coloration was exactly the same as Khyber’s. It was same size, the same build, had the same orange stripes and the same classic tabby markings on its forehead. Definitely Khyber. The cut was clean as if made by a machete. There was no blood, so the killing been done somewhere else.

Gwen felt her world tunnel in until she realized she’d stopped breathing.

Slowly, she exhaled, closed her eyes again and stood up straight. As the tears began to flow, a sudden wave of guilt washed over her as she understood. This was a message, just like the rock with the Sinclairs. Someone had killed her cat just to drive her out. The same cat who had lovingly welcomed her home just the day before. Her baby. She just hoped he hadn’t suffered.

Averting her eyes, Gwen skirted around his body and unlocked the front door. Just inside, Kisangani sat with her paws tucked under her beneath one of the dining room chairs, watching intently. Thankfully, she didn’t try to dash outside. Not that she ever did. That was Khyber’s trick.

Gwen closed the door on the horror behind her. She quickly toured the house, rifle in hand, looking for any sign of forced entry. She found none. Nothing was missing or out of place. Only Khyber.

She wondered if he’d dashed when she’d left for the park and she hadn’t noticed. She had been in a hurry. Then a chill rushed across her face like the first blush of a freezing fog. Had her parents given someone in the neighborhood a key? She’d never changed the locks. Were she and Kisangani now in danger?

No, nothing else had been disturbed. Khyber would not have gone quietly. Still, the thought of the Neighborhood Watch being in her home left her nauseous. If she could leave for Vermont tonight, she knew she would and abandon everything. Nothing in the house was worth the price she’d just been forced to pay.

But it was too late for that thought now.

Gwen collapsed to the floor beside Kisangani. As Gwen stroked her silky fur, she began to cry. How could someone do that to an innocent creature just to get to her? Kisangani rubbed her whiskers along Gwen’s cheek then licked her nose tentatively as if to remind her that she was still alive. Her rough tongue tickled. Gwen’s laughter came out as sobs.

Soon, Kisangani went in search of her bowl. Gwen wiped her tears on her sleeve, then went into the garage to retrieve a shovel. Returning to the scene outside, she carefully buried the Khyber in the front garden deep enough to ensure no scavengers would dig him up. When she finished, she glanced sidelong down the street. Sure enough, one of Ted’s deputies was watching. She turned away and went back inside as if she hadn’t noticed.

…

The next morning, Gwen arose before dawn. She hadn’t slept well again. Kisangani had spent most of the night calling for her lost friend as if her mournful cries could guide him home. Gwen hated leaving her alone, but she had no choice. She desperately needed an ally and Crew 102 was the only one left. She needed to find them and get back before anyone noticed. As the sky had just begun to lighten, she slipped out the back gate into the park.

Gwen found the men she was looking for along one of the concrete walkways, dismantling an aluminum safety rail as salvage. She watched them through the trees a moment. There were three of them. One with a rifle keeping watch along the park road while the other two worked at disassembling the railing with a socket set and wrenches. A reciprocating saw lay on the ground between them, but she figured that might be a last resort given the noise it would make. Either that or they were conserving recharge time. Two more rifles leaned within easy reach against the rail.

Slowly, she emerged from the woods with one hand raised and the other balancing the rifle butt against her hip, its barrel pointed toward the sky. The man with the rifle spun around. The other two scrambled for their weapons.

“I’m here to talk,” Gwen said, hoping she hadn’t made a grave mistake. “Maybe offer you a deal.”

The man with the rifle squinted. “I know you, don’t I?”

Gwen tried to place his face. He was older, his black hair graying at the temples. He was no one she recognized. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, you’re from the Sandy Lots co-op. You used to stand night watch at the garden by the gate. You’re from the house with the windmill.” He had a slight, lilting accent, neither heavy nor unpleasant.

“Gwen,” she said. Stirling told her to always give people a name so that she became a real person in their minds. “The one you took a shot at yesterday.”

He waved the other two back to work. “Brad. You’ve got the wrong people, Gwen. Wasn’t us. Someone tipped us off three days ago that it was a good time to clear out so we did. We stay on our side of the ditch, just like our agreement. We’ve got no quarrel with you.”

“But it seems that someone might have a quarrel with you,” Gwen said. “I think Ted Stuart is setting you up to take a fall for a number of incidents on our side of the fence. I want to make a deal for your help. Or see if I can buy out whatever deal he made.”

Brad stared back at her impassively. “We’re not interested in your internal politics. We’re just trying to keep our families fed.”

Gwen thought for a moment, taking in Brad and his crew’s appearance. All three looked thin and hollow. Their jeans were ragged, their equipment worn. Surely this couldn’t be the feared Crew 102. They could only be a few months away from starvation and outright banditry. “What if I can point you with an untapped food source in your territory?” she asked.

“Go on.” Brad sounded dubious. He fingered his rifle.

“See those vines there behind you,” Gwen said, pointing, “The ones with the ragged, heart-shaped leaves?”

He glanced over a shoulder. “Yeah, they cover everything. They’re a nuisance. Someone should burn them down.”

“Come mid-July, all those tiny, green clusters along the vines will grow into small, sweet grapes the size of large blueberries. Enough to supplement a minor enclave’s diet for the summer. Most people don’t know they aren’t poisonous. Now you do.”

“July is a long time to wait.”

“You can start with the brambles behind you.” She pointed to them now. “Those are blackberries. There aren’t many in the park, but enough to get you started until the grapes come in.”

“Why should I believe you?” Brad made it sound not so much like a question as a way of life.

“You have a phone and Internet access?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “Then snap a picture and check it out yourself. When you do, remember how many of those clusters you see.”

Brad looked up and down several vines as if doing mental calculations. “And who says someone else won’t harvest them before we can?”

“Our people are afraid of you,” she said. When he didn’t react, she explained, “Everyone in the neighborhood knows that Crew 102 controls the park. No one else is strong enough to even try, at least not yet. It could be a whole new sidelight trade for you.”

Brad's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘yet?’”

“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about. What if our enclave recognized your claim? Full rights to the park with no more poaching or clearing out?”

“In exchange for?” He ran one hand along a remarkably clean-shaven chin.

“A mutual protection pact,” Gwen stated her full position quickly as she might not get another chance, “plus preferred trade, power and food for materials and parts, and any surplus from the park.”

“That’s not a deal.” Brad smiled slyly. “Your enclave is on the verge of collapse. All we have to do is wait it out.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Gwen shot back. “By the time you decide to move, someone stronger will already be in there. And, trust me, they won’t negotiate.”

“And if I already have a deal with Ted?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Then you are about to be disappointed,” Gwen answered without hesitation. “The Pioneer Party has its eye on this side of the lake. It won’t be long before they move in with the Commission’s full backing.”

Brad’s brow furrowed. “You have proof?” He sounded interested, not surprised.

“Not yet, but I will.” Her tone reinforced a confidence she did not feel.

“When you do, let me know.” Brad gave her a text address to contact him. “If someone’s double-dealing me, I want to know. Until then, we won’t get involved. But we will give you alone safe passage out, if you want it, for the info on the grapes.”

…

When she arrived back at the house, Gwen checked for a message from Stirling. She desperately needed some kind of leverage to sway people, whether the community, the co-op or Crew 102. After her recent conversations, she knew no one would move without rock-solid proof. While she didn’t find a message, she did find video file waiting in her Dropbox. No attached message or information accompanied it, though if it were from Stirling, she wouldn’t expect any. So she fired up her virus scan and anti-malware programs then spooled it up in quarantine.

The video was less than five minutes long. It appeared to be cell phone footage taken at a party. A posh party in a century-old house, maybe in the North Shore district from the look of it. The video had no sound.

Gwen quickly identified the host, Alan Long, powerbroker and head of the county’s Pioneer Party dominated Commission. An elegantly seductive Daphne Christiansen draped herself across his arm, her youth and pale complexion forming a perfect juxtaposition against the dark, rich wood cabinets containing his antiques. Both were well known public figures that spent a considerable amount of time together. Nothing useful there. So what was Stirling getting at? He wouldn’t have gone through the expense of sending a video for only that.

Three minutes into it, Gwen found what must have attracted Stirling’s attention. The video followed Alan’s hand as he gestured first to a delicate porcelain figurine in a strikingly familiar, cherry wood china cabinet then to someone standing in a shadowed entryway across the room. The camera took a moment to adjust, but Gwen recognized Alan was pointing to Matt McBride, the leader of the Pioneer Party’s besieged enclave south of downtown that was about to be consolidated out of existence. He hadn’t been seen in public for a couple months. She wondered how old the video was. Interesting, but still not of much value.

That was when she noticed who McBride was standing next to in quiet consultation, just for an instant as his face made an appearance from behind McBride’s head just as the camera phone started to swing back. She had to freeze-frame it just to be certain, but there was no mistaking who it was. Ted Stuart. And that threw into question exactly who Alan Long had been pointing at.

Suddenly just enough of a picture dropped into place to tell her she was paying attention to the wrong things. Now she understood why the china cabinet looked so familiar. It was her mother’s. Stirling must have seen that too. That’s when she began to notice how many of the other antiques were similar to ones remembered seeing around the neighborhood, including the porcelain figurine.

She restarted the video from the beginning, this time focusing on the background rather than the people. Over the next hour, she replayed it several times, freeze-framing as she went, tagging times and items, and doing screen grabs on the zoom-ins. Whoever’s cell phone that had shot this had remarkable resolution. She wondered how much it had cost Stirling to dig this up. She then burned what remained of her month’s Internet ration to research all the names and faces, and retrieve articles related to everyone she saw.

By the time she was done, she was confident she had the leverage she needed. She loaded the video and her newly created files onto her iPad then made arrangements to gather all the parties she needed in one place tomorrow.

First, she sent word to Linda that she wanted to address the entire co-op the next day, mid-morning. She knew that meant Ted would be there, too, without her seeking him out directly. Technically, he wasn’t part of the co-op, but would want to know what she had to say regardless. That’s if he didn’t try to strike first.

Next, she sent a text to the leader of Crew 102. She prayed no one noticed Brad Rodriguez sneak through the back gate just after sunset. When he left an hour later, they had the workings of a deal. She just hoped she could deliver her end. At least she knew there were friendly eyes watching over her from the park that night.

The next morning, she watched through the front window as her neighbors gathered for co-op meeting. She waiting until the trickle slowed to single drops before collecting her iPad, heading out onto the back porch and signaling the woods. Brad and two of his crew armed with high-caliber, semi-automatic hunting rifles met her at the fence. They fell in beside her as she headed down the ditch toward the community gate near the garden she’d helped till with Linda three days earlier.

“You sure this will work?” Brad asked. His sparkling eyes from the night before had turned hard in the morning sun, as hard as the pistol at his side.

“I’m not sure of anything,” Gwen said. “Just make sure your crew keeps an eye out. They do know how to use those rifles, don’t they?”

“We know our business. I just hope you know yours. If this thing blows up, we’re all screwed.”

“Even if it works, we might be screwed anyway,” Gwen whispered under her breath.

They walked in silence down the right-of-way on the neighborhood side of the ditch. One of Brad’s crew out front, the other trailing behind. Both alternated between watching the woods and the gaps between the houses.

As the rounded the corner at the retaining pond, Gwen turned to Brad and asked, “Out of curiosity, what did you do before the collapse?”

“I was a county building inspector when my Reserve unit got called up for a couple tours overseas. When I got back, the Commission laid us all off. I tried general contracting, but by then there was no work. So I hooked up with these guys and we formed a crew.”

Gwen nodded, not wanting to push any deeper. That he had no love for the Commission was all she really needed to know now that she’d already sold her soul.

They re-entered the neighborhood through the community gate. They approached Linda’s along the sidewalk from the blind side. Linda’s house, the unofficial co-op meeting place, was around the next corner on the far side of the street. Most of the houses on this backstretch were abandoned. One had been burned out and two more stripped back to the studs. Brad’s handiwork, or Ted’s? Now she no longer knew.

As they rounded the corner, Gwen saw more people clustered around Linda’s than she expected. Most of the families in her section of the neighborhood were there. They were all looking down the street the other way, toward the road to her house. She spotted Ted standing next to Linda in her driveway, a pistol on his belt. A quick scan revealed two deputies, one at either of the cross-streets she would normally use.

She and Brad were halfway up the block before anyone noticed them. They had just started to cross over to the far side of the street when someone pointed. In an expanding wave, people turned their heads. Murmurs of dismay rippled behind as the crowd recognized Brad Rodriguez and the members Crew 102. A few people began to edge away.

Ted shouted for Gwen to stop, then shouted for his two deputies when she didn’t. Gwen ignored him and just kept walking. Brad’s crew drifted up the street on an intercept course with Ted’s deputies. Fifty feet away from each other, both sets of armed men stopped, and glanced back at their leaders. Ted made a subtle hand gesture. Brad did nothing.

When Gwen was a driveway away, Ted put a hand on his pistol butt. More people began to disperse. No one wanted to be caught by stray gunfire.

“That’s close enough, Gwen,” Ted said in a voice that didn’t shout but still carried. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to see the co-op,” she called back, “not you.”

“With an armed guard?” Ted shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“In the past two days, I’ve been threatened, shot at and had a pet decapitated as a warning. You’re damned right with an armed guard, Ted. Besides,” she lifted her iPad high so everyone could see it, “I have something here I think the co-op will want to see.” That sent another shock wave through the crowd.

Ted motioned for everyone to stay where they were then strode out to meet Gwen and Brad. Linda followed a few steps behind like an adopted stray that didn’t know quite what else to do.

“What are you doing here, Rodriguez?” Ted said in a low tone once he was an arm’s length away. “You’ve got no business in this.”

“Does that mean our deal is off?” Brad replied, the sparkle returning to his eye. “That makes me rethink Crew 102’s position.”

“What’s that, some kind of threat?” Ted asked.

“Enemy of my enemy,” Gwen said. Brad didn’t contradict her. Ted narrowed his eyes.

“What game are you playing, Gwen?” Ted asked in a low growl. “You know when you leave here, I won’t be able to guarantee your safety.”

“You’ve made that perfectly clear over the past two days,” she replied, “but I’m still here.”

“Your new buddy here is most likely responsible for that,” Ted said.

“Forget it Ted,” Gwen said. “There’s no one in earshot so you may as well drop your lies. I’m about to expose them anyway.” She waggled the iPad at him as a taunt.

“Nobody’s ever going see whatever’s on that tablet. So you might as well turn around and go home.” Ted reached for the iPad as if Gwen would just give it to him.

“Back off,” Brad said, advancing as Gwen sidestepped and pulled the tablet out of Ted’s reach. Both men’s hands dropped to their pistols, but before either could react further, Linda stepped up from where she’d been lurking and plucked the iPad out of Gwen’s hand from behind.

“I’ll take a look at that,” Linda said, retreating with the tablet. Brad quickly imposed himself between Ted and Linda, then looked to Gwen. She held her breath and nodded. Linda’s judgment would be the gold standard in the neighborhood, right or wrong.

Brad stood poised to grab Ted if he tried to muscle past. “It’s out of your hands now, Stitch-Bitch, so you may as well relax and wait with the rest of us.”

Ted stiffened at the nickname. “That’s almost funny from the leader of a recycling crew who probably thinks he was serving his country every time he picked up his welfare check. You even legal, Rodriguez?”

“Don’t test me,” Brad said. “I did two years in the mountains chasing insurgents, not six months with a sewing kit in an air-conditioned tent.”

Ted leaned back a fraction. He cast a venomous glance at Linda as she stared at the iPad screen in the deep shade of an ornamental palm. He sucked in his lower lip and chewed it, a sign Gwen took to mean he was either nervous or scheming. His eyes scanned back and forth as if trying to review what could be on the iPad that might incriminate him. After a moment, he stepped back and crossed his arms, seemingly satisfied there could be nothing.

Linda’s attention was fixed upon the screen. Occasionally she adjusted the controls. Gwen decided to see if she could shake Ted up.

“Pretty soon she’ll be calling people over,” Gwen said, eyeing the crowd to see who Linda might pick out. “She’ll probably start with the Clarks, the Sheas and the Johnsons.”

“What would she need them for?” Ted asked.

“To identify their stuff, I expect,” Gwen said. “You might want to think about what you want to do before she calls over Tom’s wife. After she sees where her mother’s porcelain figurines ended up, you might lose a deputy. Unless, of course, you cut him in.”

Ted licked his lips and shot a quick glance at Tom who was still in a standoff with Brad’s crew. “That doesn’t prove anything. Everyone traded me their stuff willingly. I got them what they needed to survive.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Gwen replied. “I think Linda is putting together the whole thing now. How you’ve been feeding our family heirlooms to your buddy Alan Long after paying us a fraction of what you sold them for.”

“That’s a bluff. You can’t have any proof.”

“Not just anyone gets into one of Alan’s see-and-be-seens at his house in North Shore, do they? How’d you come by an invitation anyway? Though his people really should be better about checking his guests’ cell phones. How do you think these people will feel when they see you sampling champagne and caviar while they’re growing corn in their backyards?”

The blood drained from Ted’s face as he finally understood what was on the tablet. He recovered quickly. “I’ll just explain it was the price of protection. Without it, we’d all be driven out.”

“And that’s why you’ve been emptying this part of the neighborhood as fast as you can,” Gwen shot back, “to make room for Matt McBride’s enclave before he loses his hold south of downtown? And why you’ve been trading the excess people here were forced to sell or leave behind? Maybe she won’t piece together how you’ve been playing the co-op against Crew 102, stoking our distrust into outright hostility, and killing off any beneficial trade to support the Pioneer Party at her expense. Maybe she won’t notice the same tactics here as downtown.”

Gwen paused to cast a meaningful look over at Linda who was running a finger across the screen as if confirming a calculation, then continued, “But I figure from Linda’s expression, she’s figured out just how badly the she’s been used. I give it another five minutes before she wanders over to start asking Brad some difficult questions. Questions he might be willing to answer somewhat truthfully.”

“Maybe completely truthfully,” Brad added with a hard look.

“I’ll deny it,” Ted said, shaking his head. “None of it true. Whatever you’ve got is a fake.”

Gwen nodded, casually dropping one hand into her pocket. “Denial is an option, of course. But it looks like Linda’s about ready to call over the first group. How long before someone starts a rumor about how much the Pioneer Party paid you to sell us out? They pay in gold, don’t they? How long before someone starts wondering where you stashed all the profit, and starts thinking about digging up your foundation with a pickaxe?” ‘People believe what they want to believe,’ isn’t that what you said?”

Ted’s hand drifted toward his pistol.

Gwen flicked her eyes to his hand and back. “As you think about what you might want to do next,” She pulled her hand out of her pocket to reveal a thumb-drive hanging from a lanyard, “remember, this is only one of a dozen copies that I’ve made.”

“Try anything, and I guarantee you’ll die second.” Brad whispered harshly, then gestured to his crew up the road. “Those two aren’t the only eyes I have watching us.”

Ted’s hand froze then eased away. He snapped his eyes back and forth between them. “I’m not done with you. With either of you.”

“See to your family, Ted,” Gwen said, conciliatory again. “Get them out before these people start gathering the torches and pitchforks. Crew 102 and I will guarantee your safe passage, you, your family and whatever you can fit into one car only.”

Brad nodded with feral smile.

Linda started calling people over, the same names that Gwen had anticipated she would.

Ted paled and stiffened, then stalked off toward his guards. Brad gave his crew a level hand signal. They allowed the man to pass. Ted gathered his two deputies and marched back toward his end of the neighborhood. Brad’s pair shadowed them to down the street, then took up positions to secure the connecting road.

“You think it’s over?” Brad asked, glaring narrowly at Ted’s retreating back.

Gwen shook her head. “No, we’re just buying time until people wake up to see that men like him just like to profit on human misery.”

A minute later, Linda handed off the iPad to one the women who had joined her, then strode over. She pursed her sun-cracked lips and gave Gwen a long, probing look. Gwen kept her face open and neutral. After a moment, Linda said. “I think you and I need to have an overdue discussion, Gwen. Something about a dog and a gun? I hear the Novak’s still have a pup from their rottie’s litter. That’s if you’re still interested.”

…

A few days later, Gwen awoke to the drumbeat of rain again.

The clock in the living room rang five. Kisangani was curled up by her feet. Gwen’s heart pounded as she sat up and looked around for Khyber. Then she remembered he was gone. She shivered as she tried to blot out her final memory of him. Like raindrops down the windowpanes, tears started streaking down her cheeks.

When she thought she heard a rumble on the roof again, Gwen reached for the .22 caliber pistol on the nightstand. Brega raised her head from her nightly position beside the bed, where Gwen couldn’t leave without disturbing her. It hadn’t taken Kisangani long to train the young rottweiler where she did and didn’t belong. As the rumble elongated into rolling thunder, Gwen relaxed and pulled her hand away. Brega settled back and sighed, satisfied there was nothing wrong.

Gwen lay back down, too, and closed her eyes again, comforted that at least she was still here, still surviving. At least for another moment. At least for one more day.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III