"c141" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)

11:50 A.M, Thursday, January 27, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand

"The Strong still hold the hospital, the school, and an assortment of other locations. However," police Sergeant Latham told Morgan and Desiree, wiping uselessly at the dark circles under his eyes. "The Strong are consolidating their power mostly at the hospital, where all their remaining hostages are. We bargained with food. We told the Strong we couldn't guarantee safe delivery of food anywhere else. We expect they'll be holding only the hospital in a couple days." The station was full of clambering civilians, but otherwise deserted, unless one counted a month's worth of grime. The usually desk-bound police were out riding shotgun on food or water deliveries, or directing traffic at the major intersections. "Our baby is in there. Is he..." Desiree asked. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I couldn't tell you if your son is okay, or even alive, I'm afraid. But it won't be long until it's over," he assured Morgan. "We can't afford to send them food any more, as our own folks are starving now too. I hate to say we hope the Strong just vanish some night, but that's the truth of it. It's funny in a way, if you know what I mean. They call themselves a country. But a responsibility of being a country is to feed and care for your people. They don't own so much as a single farm or a herd of sheep. I'll never understand that type." He shook his head. "You mean, like New Zealand is feeding her people?" Morgan regretted the remark the instant he said it. Never talk smart to a cop, his father had always warned him. But the fact remained. Most first and second world countries couldn't provide the basic necessities right now. These governments, too, might vanish like a burned off fog. "Well, sir," the Sergeant stiffened, "if you'll leave me your name, number, and address, when we find out anything, we'll contact you." "Mor—" Morgan started. "Morton Dunwoody." He shot a complicitory glance at Desiree and gave a false address. The newspapers had listed Morgan and Desiree as not only members of the Nation of the Strong, since Morgan had posted their manifesto; but they were also listed as "wanted on charges of terrorism, but missing, presumed dead" since Morgan's blood-stained wallet had been found at the theater. They had decided to lay low. Uncle Sam was still a powerful force, and if it should want to draft him into service right now, Morgan wasn't sure he'd want to be found. Not until Jeremy was safe. After dropping Desiree at the flat—and finding that Matty had restored it to a semblance of order—Morgan slipped out. He couldn't sit still. His every muscle trembled if he tried to relax. He joined the queue for, well, whatever it was the nearest queue led to. He plodded ahead, the mindlessness of the Y2K Shuffle like being captive again; a comforting release from responsibility. Shortly before he reached the head of the line, the queue dissipated, whatever necessity it was for having run out. People groused and a few shook fists, but they knew nothing could be done. They'd been handing out liters of milk, Morgan discovered from the policewoman guarding the distribution staff as they loaded empty cases into a van, and would he please move on. She held her assault rifle menacingly. Morgan felt lost. He was a babe in these post-apocalyptic woods. He had no ration passes. He didn't even have his wallet. Morgan aimlessly wandered the streets. It bothered him that he'd lied to the police about his identity. He could talk his way out of the terrorism charges. That wasn't the issue. It was a straight line proposition: He was a draft dodger. His father would be frowning in heaven, if he'd believed in heaven. Karol von Heiland had been a World War II refugee. His parents and sister were killed in Lodz, Poland, defending the city during the blitzkrieg in 1939. He knew his father had family in Germany, and his mother up north near Gydnia, but neither seemed particularly safe places to go. Effectively orphaned, the sixteen-year-old Karol vowed he'd get to America, the land of freedom and hope and built himself an image of it as the source of all good things. He sneaked to Greece with a band of Gypsies fleeing the oppression. From there he hopped a freighter and made a longer than expected stop in Sicily, where he'd been impressed into the Italian army, until the Allies liberated the island in 1943. Begging civilian clothes from a church, he'd escaped the irony of being caught as a POW. He tried to enlist with the Americans, but they laughed him off. Then he'd hitched more freighters to Tunisia, Morocco, to England, and finally one heaved Karol over the North Atlantic to the United States. "America pulled together to save the world," he'd tell little Morgan years later. "You owe her your life." Ashamed that he couldn't enlist, for fear he would be unmasked and deported, Karol found work as a bricklayer. He wasn't a large or strong man, but he sweated in the hours, always with a smile and encouraging word to his co-workers. "You owe America your duty," he would tell Morgan. For twenty-five years no one knew Karol wasn't a citizen. He'd worked up to foreman, and, feeling finally secure financially and less afraid of deportation, had married his sweetheart, Josephina. He was newly a daddy with Morgan in 1966 when a load of bricks spilled and crushed his legs. It all came out in the hospital, when the government said he was eligible for disability payments. But he wasn't. The government case workers were upset—he was an illegal immigrant! Yet after much teeth gnashing, Karol was set on the road to citizenship, and given a disability pension. Karol, a proud man, saved every cent of the pension for Morgan's and his younger sister's education. He sent them to private schools with it, from pre-school through college. Karol proudly fed and sheltered the family with his own earnings, though he never explained to his family the nature of these late-night, closed-door dealings with dour old Polish men whose belches smelled of kielbasa. Morgan always felt ashamed in the fancy rich kids' schools, ashamed that he couldn't invite any friends to his small house on the wrong side of the river, ashamed that he had to lie to the government case workers when asked if his daddy was working; but Karol never tired of reminding Morgan that America was providing him the best education a man could have. "You owe her your love," he would say. It was a heavy load for a child to bear, not understanding what he meant. Morgan felt his father's load again, a pallet of bricks on his back, each one his father carefully mortared in place. The country—the world—surely needed programmers now like a drowning man needs a lifevest. But it wrenched Morgan's heart to imagine leaving Jeremy and Desiree. He rationalized that if he were drafted, he'd be so distraught as to be ineffectual at the keyboard. When Morgan finally wandered home, he found the weekly mail delivery had come. With it, his draft notice.

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Chapter 14.1

11:50 A.M, Thursday, January 27, 2000
Manukau, New Zealand

"The Strong still hold the hospital, the school, and an assortment of other locations. However," police Sergeant Latham told Morgan and Desiree, wiping uselessly at the dark circles under his eyes. "The Strong are consolidating their power mostly at the hospital, where all their remaining hostages are. We bargained with food. We told the Strong we couldn't guarantee safe delivery of food anywhere else. We expect they'll be holding only the hospital in a couple days." The station was full of clambering civilians, but otherwise deserted, unless one counted a month's worth of grime. The usually desk-bound police were out riding shotgun on food or water deliveries, or directing traffic at the major intersections. "Our baby is in there. Is he..." Desiree asked. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I couldn't tell you if your son is okay, or even alive, I'm afraid. But it won't be long until it's over," he assured Morgan. "We can't afford to send them food any more, as our own folks are starving now too. I hate to say we hope the Strong just vanish some night, but that's the truth of it. It's funny in a way, if you know what I mean. They call themselves a country. But a responsibility of being a country is to feed and care for your people. They don't own so much as a single farm or a herd of sheep. I'll never understand that type." He shook his head. "You mean, like New Zealand is feeding her people?" Morgan regretted the remark the instant he said it. Never talk smart to a cop, his father had always warned him. But the fact remained. Most first and second world countries couldn't provide the basic necessities right now. These governments, too, might vanish like a burned off fog. "Well, sir," the Sergeant stiffened, "if you'll leave me your name, number, and address, when we find out anything, we'll contact you." "Mor—" Morgan started. "Morton Dunwoody." He shot a complicitory glance at Desiree and gave a false address. The newspapers had listed Morgan and Desiree as not only members of the Nation of the Strong, since Morgan had posted their manifesto; but they were also listed as "wanted on charges of terrorism, but missing, presumed dead" since Morgan's blood-stained wallet had been found at the theater. They had decided to lay low. Uncle Sam was still a powerful force, and if it should want to draft him into service right now, Morgan wasn't sure he'd want to be found. Not until Jeremy was safe. After dropping Desiree at the flat—and finding that Matty had restored it to a semblance of order—Morgan slipped out. He couldn't sit still. His every muscle trembled if he tried to relax. He joined the queue for, well, whatever it was the nearest queue led to. He plodded ahead, the mindlessness of the Y2K Shuffle like being captive again; a comforting release from responsibility. Shortly before he reached the head of the line, the queue dissipated, whatever necessity it was for having run out. People groused and a few shook fists, but they knew nothing could be done. They'd been handing out liters of milk, Morgan discovered from the policewoman guarding the distribution staff as they loaded empty cases into a van, and would he please move on. She held her assault rifle menacingly. Morgan felt lost. He was a babe in these post-apocalyptic woods. He had no ration passes. He didn't even have his wallet. Morgan aimlessly wandered the streets. It bothered him that he'd lied to the police about his identity. He could talk his way out of the terrorism charges. That wasn't the issue. It was a straight line proposition: He was a draft dodger. His father would be frowning in heaven, if he'd believed in heaven. Karol von Heiland had been a World War II refugee. His parents and sister were killed in Lodz, Poland, defending the city during the blitzkrieg in 1939. He knew his father had family in Germany, and his mother up north near Gydnia, but neither seemed particularly safe places to go. Effectively orphaned, the sixteen-year-old Karol vowed he'd get to America, the land of freedom and hope and built himself an image of it as the source of all good things. He sneaked to Greece with a band of Gypsies fleeing the oppression. From there he hopped a freighter and made a longer than expected stop in Sicily, where he'd been impressed into the Italian army, until the Allies liberated the island in 1943. Begging civilian clothes from a church, he'd escaped the irony of being caught as a POW. He tried to enlist with the Americans, but they laughed him off. Then he'd hitched more freighters to Tunisia, Morocco, to England, and finally one heaved Karol over the North Atlantic to the United States. "America pulled together to save the world," he'd tell little Morgan years later. "You owe her your life." Ashamed that he couldn't enlist, for fear he would be unmasked and deported, Karol found work as a bricklayer. He wasn't a large or strong man, but he sweated in the hours, always with a smile and encouraging word to his co-workers. "You owe America your duty," he would tell Morgan. For twenty-five years no one knew Karol wasn't a citizen. He'd worked up to foreman, and, feeling finally secure financially and less afraid of deportation, had married his sweetheart, Josephina. He was newly a daddy with Morgan in 1966 when a load of bricks spilled and crushed his legs. It all came out in the hospital, when the government said he was eligible for disability payments. But he wasn't. The government case workers were upset—he was an illegal immigrant! Yet after much teeth gnashing, Karol was set on the road to citizenship, and given a disability pension. Karol, a proud man, saved every cent of the pension for Morgan's and his younger sister's education. He sent them to private schools with it, from pre-school through college. Karol proudly fed and sheltered the family with his own earnings, though he never explained to his family the nature of these late-night, closed-door dealings with dour old Polish men whose belches smelled of kielbasa. Morgan always felt ashamed in the fancy rich kids' schools, ashamed that he couldn't invite any friends to his small house on the wrong side of the river, ashamed that he had to lie to the government case workers when asked if his daddy was working; but Karol never tired of reminding Morgan that America was providing him the best education a man could have. "You owe her your love," he would say. It was a heavy load for a child to bear, not understanding what he meant. Morgan felt his father's load again, a pallet of bricks on his back, each one his father carefully mortared in place. The country—the world—surely needed programmers now like a drowning man needs a lifevest. But it wrenched Morgan's heart to imagine leaving Jeremy and Desiree. He rationalized that if he were drafted, he'd be so distraught as to be ineffectual at the keyboard. When Morgan finally wandered home, he found the weekly mail delivery had come. With it, his draft notice.


back | next home