Fall of the Cities_A Mercedes for Soldier Boy Page 18

  Tessa wanted to know exactly what ADT consisted of, quickly finding out it was Harold’s main job. “All the tradespeople pay a cut of their profits, the ADT, Asshole Deterrent Tax. Rob charges extra if he goes to fix the toilets for the GOFS, for instance. I organise his security and Orchard Close takes a cut.”

  “It’s like a military operation.” Sharyn stopped and laughed. “It is a military operation I suppose. An old style one with hostages given and held against the safe return of the expert. Lots of grim types with machetes and scowls. The expert is allowed to take an armed man in with him so there’s no quick snatch.”

  Harold pointed up at the light fitting. “The gangs put up with it, because they sometimes need a real professional.They have to come to Orchard Closeto keep the lights burning.”

  “How come you’ve got so many experts?” Tessa looked up at the light, intrigued. “The guards were moaning about it before you visited, about how you had the only decent beer, knitting, stew and burgers.”

  “The stew is because we grow most of our veg, so we don’t have to be mean with them, and we’ve got our giant bunnies. Our brewers are the real deal, we rescued them and all their gear just after the Crash. Harold reckons there are other tradespeople out there, but they keep quiet because the gangs treat them as slaves. That means the likes of Caddi have to pay us.” Sharyn smirked, because she liked that part. “Here anyone with a skill keeps what they earn, apart from ADT to cover the security and the negotiating. Guess what, everyone here wants to learn a trade!”

  “ADT also covers those on guard searching anyone coming in for weapons, and dealing with trouble.” Harold scowled because the searching wasn’t easy. “We take most weapons off the visitors, but they’re allowed a knife. They don’t start serious trouble, because a crossbow trumps a knife.”

  “Or a stick.” Tessa turned to Sharyn. “Is it true? Do they really think soft lad is SAS?”

  “Yes, but he’s done a couple of things that mean he isn’t soft lad any more. The sort of things we were all grateful for.” Sharyn glanced at Harold’s gently shaking head and dropped the subject. Tessa would get it out of Sharyn once they were alone, but Harold wasn’t proud of some of the things he’d done to back the gangs off.

  “Then you can tell me who or what a Coven is. Have we got witches here?” Tessa looked around, eyes wide with mischief. “Do I get to dance around nekkid in the moonlight?”

  Harold shook his head. “No, you twerp. It’s what I call the women who run the place. They make out the shopping lists, and organise the cooking and gardening, that sort of thing. Sharyn is the head witch.” Harold smiled at his sister, teasing her for a change.

  “He started the witch thing, then some idiot actually gave me a black cat called Grimalkin. The reason I’m head of the committee is because I’m Soldier Boy’s sister. Most of the scroats that trade with us used to insist on dealing with me. They wouldn’t respect a woman unless she had a big strong man waiting to leap in if trouble started. If he’d just get a woman…” She hesitated, darting a glance at Tessa. “Er. Not like that.” Sharyn sighed, thensuddenly smiled. “Not now. The gangsters have to deal with other witcheslike Emmy, Liz, June, Gayle the dentist and Susan, Rob’s partner. Patty always sold her own knitting from day one.”

  “Patty never needed anyone to back her up,though she might not have time for the Coven now. She’s got her own squad,” Harold quickly explained.

  Tessa didn’t see a problem. “She’s a woman so she can multi-task. So what else do you sell? I’d like to earn extra coupons because of Eddie, but I can’t fix electrics and I’m hopeless at gardening or knitting. I’m used to being short, because Caddi took almost everything, but I’m not a fan. I kept very, very quiet about my extra Army coupons, or the arse would have taken them as well.” Her voice sobered now, talking about life under the Hot Rods.”We daren’t even grow too much veg, or the Hot Rods would come and take some.”

  Harold kept his voice cheery, trying to pull Tessa out of her memories. “Most of your coupons are yours now, including the Army ones, and you can earn more becauseour tradespeople are always after apprentices.You won’t have a garden because it all belongs to Emmy’s farm, which supplies us all.” Harold laughed at the next bit. “There’s jobs in the kitchen because our beer, burgers and stew really are famous. Big Mack does a great job of advertising.”

  “We let gangsters eat in the canteen if we’ve got enough surplus to sell, and even supply takeawayas long as they bring their own containers.I sometimes serve in there to keep them polite.” Sharyn bared her teeth and tapped them. “There’s other benefits to living here. Gayle is a dental trainee soshe can give anaesthetics as well as fix teeth. We’ve got Lenny, who was a paramedic, and Patricia who was a trainee nurse, so medical care is free for residents. Lenny isa lot better than anyoneexcept the Barbie doctor for gang fight wounds.” This time her laugh had some malice. “The gangs pay his truly eye-watering prices because we let the patients go home again. Barbies don’t.”

  As Sharyn paused, Harold picked it up. “Kerry always wants more embroidery and sewing trainees. Patty is the knitting demon, and has imps in training. She designs patterns, logos, even names into knitted jumpers and scarves. Balaclavas with camouflage patterns are popular so the gangs can play at being SAS.” Everyone laughed, because all three knew thereal thing. Harold gestured through towards the hall. “Bright colours like those are popular, now that the Marts only sell earth tones and puce green. We’ve got a room half full of different sorts of wool.” He rolled his eyes.”It’s a status thing for Caddi to wear a hand knitted Arran or Cable Knit jumper, or for Cooper to wear a bobble hat in Hot Rod colours. Bloody crazy.”

  Tessa looked a bit overwhelmed. “So you buy and sell anything?”

  “No drugs!” Sharyn and Harold answered together.

  Harold continued. “We won’t sell people either, and prefer not to buy them. I’ve only bought two and they were youngsters. Soft lad, guilty as charged.”

  “It was Jilli’s lucky day when those scroats offered to sell her.” Sharyn scowled, but not at Tessa. “Jilli is fifteen now. She was a skinny thirteenback then, too skinny for horny gangsters. She sings like an angel, and can get a tune out of two pans and a taut washing line.”

  Harold nodded, because Sharyn wasn’t exaggerating by much. “Close. Jilli will never have trouble earning her way, because there’s no new or livemusic on the radio. Nor any rock, pop or protest now Barbie radio has stopped.”

  “That was mostly heavy rock anyway. Except Valentine’s Day and now and then when they felt the lurve.”The Barbie idea of lurve could include some odd choices.

  “Jilli spent years at a music school and can play any tune she hears.If I could get the music and words, and blank CDs, we’d be paid real coupons for recordings. Her songs would fetch even more if I could get more than a guitar andmaybe some music scores. The Barbies have got both, a shop full, allegedly.” Harold chuckled, with just a little smug in it. “That’s where the guitar came from.I insisted that was the payment when they needed electrical work.”

  “So why haven’t they traded the rest?” A lot of people had asked Tessa’s question about the goodies in Beth’s, the shopping centre that became the Barbie stronghold. Rumoured goodies, because nobody but the Barbies ever came back out once they went inside.

  “The bitches don’t need anything enough.” Sharyn scowled because she missed her music.

  “Except to get Barbie Radio fixed. That’s a big commercial transmitter so they need a real expert. Their bloke is dead, but I’m not letting Trev have a look. They’d never let him out again.” Harold’s rueful smile admitted the other problem. “That’s if I could get him in there. He’d pass out first.”

  “What does it need?” Tessa shrugged, smiling a little. “Not technically, but couldn’t they buy instructions?”

  Now Harold scowled, because the answer annoyed him. “If any of the crazy bitches would slow up enough to ask, I’d try and find ou
t. What they’d like is to steal Trev, so negotiations aren’t easy.”

  “Bloody radio. Bastards.” Sharyn meant the BBC now. The music on the BBCdidn’t include any protest songs, or even tunes considered slightly anti-establishment. Most pop and even many love songs apparently fell into the banned categories. “I swear there’s nothing that was made after 1940. If then.”

  *

  Eventually they finished their drinks and went to bed. Tessa paused on the stairs to inspect Harold’s bedroom door. “I reckon I could open that, so you’d better sleep lightly.” She grinned beforeheading upstairs to the spare bedroom.

  Harold didn’t get to sleep straight away,but not because he expected Tessa to break in, nor because he missed Mercedes and her hand roaming around the bed. The evening talk, with a new perspective on Orchard Close, had churned his thoughts up again.Harold had been sheltered from the worst effects pre-Crash,until the Army brought him home. The speed that all organisation collapsed, and the mindless violence, still baffled him.

  The Marts bugged Harold. The TV said that civilisation had collapsed, all around the world, but the new clothes, electrical gear and computer gameshad to be made somewhere. Unless, which always gave Harold a chill, there really weren’t many people left so the stockpiles were lasting. It didn’t take much infrastructure to design new games and make lots of copies of them, or put bar codes and different labels on clothes and electrical items.

  *

  Harold’s head went round and round until he finally slept. He slept too well and had to be woken up.That led to merciless teasing over breakfast about his sleepless night with Mercedes. Sharyn immediately took over sorting out her new ally’s house, but it would be afew days before Tessa moved. As Harold had expected, a lot of others living in Orchard Close pitched in to help. They understood, because many had arrived with even less than Tessa.

  Harold didn’t have time to worry about fixing one house. Finn and Charlie now had a list and some sort of master plan for generating electricity. That meant scavenging plenty of pipe fittings, some other bits of plastic, and any copper wire of any thickness anyone could find. Haroldorganised parties for collecting, and teams to strip the covering from what would probably be miles of wire. After consulting with the electrical experts, Liz took drawings, wire and steel away to her forge.

  Useless bits of electrical equipment, usually leftout in the ruins, now had to be dismantled for a list of pieces. Quite a few components had to be explained, with examples or sketches where possible, since the names meant nothing to the scavengers. If in doubt the scavengers were to bring the whole item. Fortunately, Orchard Close scavengers were used to working to a list now, trusting the experts to make something useful of whatever they brought back. The collecting and wire stripping would be a slow process, because Emmy and her gnomes were into farming mode. Anyone even pausing for a moment found themselves commandeered for working in the fields.

  Once he’d got the teams moving, Harold headed off to get on with his own work, firearms repairs. Patty waited for him at the gun room. “With that big heap of guns to fix, I knew you’d be coming here as soon as possible. Did you mean it about me learning to shoot a rifle?” She frowned, thinking about that. “You haven’t taught anyone since Holly died, have you?”

  “It’s actually since we lost Curtis, except when I gave Roy some tips.The crossbow bolt that hit Curtis should have hit Emmy. I reckon someone tried to thin out our shooters, and I didn’t want to set anyone else up as a target.” Harold sighed, then fixed Patty with a stern look.”Don’t tell Emmy, she still thinks they were trying for me.” Hecontinued with a wry smile. “Now, after seeing how the Hot Rods step around Mercedes, it crossed my mind you are at least as dangerous. Or you could be if I get over my hang-ups.” Harold’s smile became a chuckle as something occurred to him. “You’ve even got similar rules about touching. So yes, you will learn to shoot a rifle. The two-two.”

  Patty pouted, not her usual look. “I still think it’s a toy gun, not dangerous until I can hit their eyes.”

  “I used to do that, but onlybecause I didn’t know how well the rounds would penetrate. The new ones will make a hole in a skull up to a hundred yards away, then rattle around in there like a pea in a can.” Harold offered her a two-two rifle.”Dangerous enough for you?”

  “That’s why you still carry it! We all wondered why you always have that one of yours handy-like when there might be trouble. It doesn’t look up to the job and I know the scroats don’t rate it.” Patty had a gleam in her eye as she took the rifle and inspected it. An underrated weapon that would kill them at a hundred yards, she wanted some of that.

  “That’s the idea. Their two-twos won’t do the same, so you keep very, very quiet about ours.” Harold didn’t smilethis time.

  Patty sobered, quickly. “Done. When do I start?”

  Harold pointed at the steel and wire contraption slung on her back. “You already have, with that great big crossbow. Recoil or weight won’t be a problem after using that,whileaiming a rifle is easier because it has sights.Unlike the crossbow there’ll be no appreciable drop at fifty yards, so that’ll take getting used to. What you need is practice at loading. The faster you can do that, the more times you shoot when the time comes. It’ll be a lot faster than your crossbow.”

  “I don’t care if mine is a bit slower than most.” Patty reached back to tap her heavy,crude crossbow. “The original pre-Crash versions are lighter and faster than this but not as powerful, and I’m always terrified they’ll finally break.” She didn’t add that hers was a relic,an early experiment the Geeks built too heavy. Patty kept it because of the sheer power, more than the perfected, lighter versions had.

  Harold nodded in reply. “For one shot, up to fifty yards and using Liz’s points, that crossbow is possibly more dangerous than a rifle. Even so, theGeeks rely on firearms to keep their neighbours at bay, not their crossbows or Tell’s archers. Firearms hit faster and further and a lot more accurately.” He bowed her inside. “Enter my lair, fair maid, though you already know your way. The workshop is too crowded so we’ll have to go someplace else for you to learn the basics.” He nudged her gently.”We could use the bedroom here? It’ll be safe if I don’t shower first?”

  Despite smiling at the reference to one certain night, and a shared shower, Patty shook her head. “You’ll be safe anyway, because I’ve got a new boyfriend.” She stroked the rifle. “I’drather keep the training private so nobody knows about him. Not until we kill the first totally surprised scroat.”

  Harold knew Patty liked surprising her victims.She always carried her handguns out of sight, so the gangsters thought she relied on her crossbow. “This part will be boring. Sit there for a few minutes while I make up five duds to practice loading and firing.” As Harold worked he explained about the sights and Patty had a look through them. “I’ll paint these rounds blue. While that dries we’ll sort out the sling.”

  “Why?” Patty slung the rifle over her shoulder. “That’s good enough.”

  Harold took the rifle off her. He put his arm through the sling and wrapped his wrist around to brace his hand against the rifle, holding it one-handed but locked in place. “This sling is right for me. Held like this you won’t have to worry about the barrel wobbling all over. Come on, we’ll need a bit of room so I’ll adjust it for you in the bedroom.”

  “Where have I heard that before?” Despite the joking, Patty stayed absolutelyserious about the rifle training part. After some experimentation the sling fitted her perfectly.

  Harold moved on to showing her how to load and operate the weapon, slowly. After that he did so with his eyes closed, quickly pulling the trigger, reloading and pulling again through all five duds. “You have to learn to do that.”

  “With my eyes shut?” Patty frowned, looking at the blue rounds on the floor and back to the rifle. “Are you taking the piss? Like with apprentices?”

  “No. If you’re watching the scroats diving in and out of cover, or fight
ing in the dark, this part has to be totally automatic. No thought, all your concentration stays on the target.” Harold moved on to the peep sight, explaining how that worked.

  “Fair enough, but learning the eyes-closed thing will take hours. I’ll be spending all my time in here.” Patty looked round the small bedroom. “People might talk, especially since you’ve already got two women.”

  “Take the rifle home. I’d better not visit to see how you’re getting on, or the rumour mill will have a field day.” Harold steered clear of the two woman dig; the Orchard Close gossip mill seemed to be alive and well.

  Patty laughed, stroking the rifle. “You are coming home with me, big boy. Well, not big, but I like your style, and I promise to be gentle.” Her eyes went back to Harold. “When do I get to shoot something?”

  “When I test one. You know the drill. I take them out into the rubble,usually at night, and only fire a few times so neither the Army or the neighbours get nosy.” Patty pulled a little face because that could mean long, slow weeks to get any real practice. Harold pointed at the wrapped weapons. “I’ve just taken in all these repairs, and you’ve already seen that one of them is a two-two.” Her face brightened with anticipation. “So the sooner you can load in the dark?”

  “I’ll nip home for a coat, because if I wear your dressing gown to hide this?” Her eyes widened, crinkling a little with humour. “If you teach Doll to shoot a rifle, she might not have my willpower once you’re in that bedroom.”

  “Doll isn’t up to either learning to shoot or bedrooms yet, so scat.” Harold went back to repairs, breaking off to run through the training again when Patty called back wearing a long coat. Rifles and shotguns had to be kept hidden, or the Army would shoot the owner.When she’d gone, he thought about Doll, and Patty had a point.Not about the bedroom, but about teaching her to shoot a rifle. He could give Doll a squad for starters,then assess her for rifle training.The exuberant blonde did well in her machete training and had already killed up close and personal with both a pistol and a machete, which made her another obvious candidate. Now that he’d got past his hang-ups,Harold thought of several other women who only needed a bit more training to become lethal surprises.