Noise (7 page)

I remembered to depress the clutch. So the engine wouldn’t stall when the RPMs died. I tugged the sword past Ruth. I had to kick the door to get it open.

“Out, Mary,” I ordered.

Its fleece was white as snow
.

She didn’t hesitate.

He was getting up. A Hipster. A Strip-rat in old jeans and an undershirt. He had Salvage cryptography markered all over his clothes. A chunk of concrete sat nearby, where I’d stopped the car originally.

When the demolition started, they’d had nowhere to go, the rats. The Strip was all places to them. Panhandling, playing music. Trading crib sheets for baggies and cigarettes.

“Party, do you copy?”

He wasn’t getting up. Just rolling into better, flatter positions on the asphalt. A living cipher, straight from the derelict heart of Slade Salvage. Trying to get his esoteric shit together.

I wanted his information.

“Give us your clothes,” I said.

“What?”

“Give us your fucking clothes.”

“Fuck you, man. Give me your fucking car. I need a ride.”

He was drunk.

“You can give us your clothes, or we can take them.”

“Party, do you copy?”

“I don’t, I don’t …”

I knelt to take hold of his foot. To remove the boots so I could get the pants. “If you don’t cooperate—”

He kicked at me, just enough to wobble me out of my stance.

“Neutralize this,” I told Mary.

She had already drawn the gun, was already, in her own mind, shooting him over and over and over. She was standing, breathing, a ghost with a gun in the darkness.

Bloody Mary, quite contrary
.

He made a go of getting up.

“I need you to neutralize this.”

I could do it. But I needed her to do it. She needed to do it.

“Party, what’s your situation?”

“Jo! What are you doing?”

I stood, too, pacing him up. He stuck his hand in his pocket. He wasn’t even a sword’s-length away.

“Mary.”

Its fleece was white as snow
.

“You did the right thing.”

“HOC, this is Party.”

“Go ahead, Party.”

“Saying again, last lines from the Wall.”

“Copy. Go ahead.”

“‘Follow the grid to the yellow-brick road.’”

He paused. Swearing out loud into the House of Cards, our house, for the both of us. Northern Lights were not good—neither was the yellow-brick road. Slade was on a timer now. Chisolm’s last go before getting out of town. Pitting the Salvage hive-mind against itself. Phantom Cell Structure. Against Slade itself.

Because once called out like that, by any one Salvager to all others, to really, really get things going, they would all play along. They’d waited so long—some preparing, some fomenting, each with eyes only for the Event. And what they’d be allowed to do,
once the old rules were really gone. Chisolm was setting them after the municipal infrastructure—after the electrical substations. Salvagers would obey—each alone, and all together. The drone of their disconnected ideas too loud to realize they’re all one thought. The ghost in the Salvage machine.

That was the thing about Salvage—it knew something about everything, but it had no idea what it was doing.

“Copy. Is everything okay?”

“We’re coming back.”

“You did the right thing,” Levi said. Shutting the laundry room door behind me. I walked past him with Ruth’s packs.

Ruth stood in the kitchen behind Mary, looking at Levi. She hadn’t wanted to stay in the car—had wanted us to let her out, to let her go—but we ignored her. Drove her. Passing a pair of brawling gangs on State Street seemed to explain things to her well enough. She was quiet the rest of the way.

“I know,” Mary said.

I stepped up behind him. “Look, now, Mary. Look at us.”

She looked, her blue eyes black in the darkened kitchen.

“We needed you, and you came through.”

“Well, I needed you—”

“You don’t understand. ‘We’ includes you.”

We all stood there. Levi and I had only rehearsed this on each other. To make sure Members knew their acts of violence were necessary. Were appreciated. Were Group and Place and staying alive.

I cleared my throat. “Let’s get out of these paints. Take your mask off, Mary.”

We weren’t violent then. There is a difference between paint and not.

“You can have the first shower, Mary,” Levi said. “You earned it.”

“Don’t ask her about tonight,” I told Ruth. “Don’t bring it up when she’s not wearing paint. Don’t bring any of it up.”

I opened the fridge. “How about a beer?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

I smiled, looking, I imagined, less like a guerrilla hero and more like a raccoon. She was our guest, Mary’s guest—I wanted to be cool. Wanted it to be cool. I knew how she felt.

“You can ask anything else.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t look like things were cool.

“You want an ashtray?

You smoke?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Why do you call her Mary?”

I stacked the Strip-rat’s clothes by the door. Levi turned back to the black-and-white. The rat had been carrying a code in ink between his shoulder blades that we hadn’t encountered before: the code for the frequency of a magazine in Morse code—continuous broadcast. It must have been new. Levi found the frequency, and the ringing, arrhythmic Morse began chirping into the room. There was no video.

“Was it worth it?” Ruth asked from the couch.

“What?”

“Taking his clothes.”

Mary walked in, dabbing at her wet head with a
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND
beach towel.

“Yeah.”

“What news?” Mary asked. “Word on the Lull yet?”

Levi was transcribing the broadcast magazine on a stenographer’s pad. One of several we’d taken from the office at work.

“Not yet,” he said.

“What’d you get from the rat’s clothes?”

I looked at Ruth. “You’re going to need to make a decision.”

“Why ‘Northern Lights’?”

“Because when they burn, at night, it looks like the Northern Lights,” I said. “Lots of weird colors, not much sound.”

Ruth snorted. “Some secret code that is.”

Mary tucked her legs up under her. “Chisolm wants to burn all the substations at once? Kill all the electricity?”

“After they do the Nine, maybe.”

“Which one’s the Nine?”

“It’s on the east side of the square, near the municipal center.”

“It looks like an old brownstone house from the outside,” Levi said.

“I’ve never noticed it before,” Ruth said.

I smiled. “Exactly.”

“Substations are eyesores,” Levi said. “So the city planners disguise them to maintain property values. Make them look like houses, office blocks—that sort of thing.”

Against one wall, underneath the old display case my mother had used in her wedding shop, we had stacks of photocopied civil documents. Codes, edicts, census information. We’d paid almost a thousand dollars for it. Five hundred each, after financial aid
had disbursed last spring. The new city planners were into beautification. Substations, brick walks, renovating the Strip. We had it all.

Levi pointed at the stack. “Read up if you want.”

“Why’s it called ‘the Nine’? Is that code?”

“No, it’s just substation number nine.”

I didn’t say that we’d thought it was code, too. At first. Before we bought the stack.

Ruth lit a cigarette. Mary did, too.

“Why will they start there?” Ruth asked.

Levi was transcribing the Morse ’zine again. He wasn’t listening.

“Center of town,” I said. “Once the Nine goes, it’ll be easy for Salvage to move to the closest others. They aren’t far—a couple miles apart each. Once they’ve killed Three, Four maybe, transformers will start blowing all over town.”

“Which means fires,” Mary said.

“Yep. They want to start downtown to get the municipal center to start drawing from its generators. The sooner those die …”

“What’s the grid? The yellow-brick road?”

“The grid is the grid, the electrical grid.”

I heard a bit of the ’zine ’cast. It was a schedule. I wasn’t sure what for. I’d missed the first part. Levi was being very quiet.

“And what’s with all this terrorist shit? I thought you conspiracy-heads were about surviving, not … revolting.”

“They’re speeding up the process. Salvage isn’t
supposed
to be out to
hurt
anybody—it’s
supposed
to be a
reaction
to the Event—but the sooner it cuts the systems that most people rely on, the sooner the unprepared will start dying off.”

The girls just looked at me. Some jammer got ahold of the frequency, started ’casting numbers into the code. It would take
a while before we knew whether they were random or another code themselves.

“The sooner they start dying, the easier it will be for the rest of us, the prepared, to survive.”

“
Three, ought,
” the jamming-code said, crackling through the black-and-white’s tiny speaker. The ’casts were feeding back on one another, making theremin sounds between the dots and dashes and the numbers. The voice sounded like a robotic child’s.

“That’s the theory, anyway.”

“
One.
”

The girls smoked. Mary looked pointedly at the ashtray, tapping her cigarette into it. She wasn’t looking at me. “What’s the yellow-brick road?”

“
Four.
”

Fluff stretched herself on the carpet. She blinked at me, her affronted green eyes staring, judging. Edmund—the other cat, the black one—looked, too, sitting beside Ruth.

“
One.
”

“It’s Broadway,” I said.

“Fucking … Can’t this asshat jam something else?” Levi said.

“
Five.
”

“Wait,
Broadway Avenue?
Like, outside the front door?”

“Yeah.”

Ruth looked at the window. The blinds were drawn.

“What happens on Broadway?”

“
Nine.
”

“It’s fucking pi,” Levi said. “Give me a break.”

“
Nine.
”

“Wait.”

“
Nine.
”

“
What happens on Broadway Street?
”

“That isn’t pi.”

“
Nine.
”

“What was that schedule, Levi?”

He looked at the window, too. “The fires.”

“
Nine.
”

We were quiet for a moment.

“Shit, everybody to the back of the house. Pick up the goddamn cats.”

“TWO”

SEC. “I,” SUBSEC. “C”

(“EVENT EXIT STRATEGY”)

(cont’d)

[10] (i) When the Event occurs, monitor news programs in constant shifts. (ii) If such programs are unavailable, allow capable Members to perform reconnaissance in graduated distances from the first-place. (iii) Reconnaissance operatives should follow the same guidelines as Members approaching the first-place on foot. (iv) You are watching for clear signs of the Collapse of Old Trade. (v) It is likely that looting, violence, arson, and vandalism will either accompany or precede the Collapse. (vi) When it has become clear that civil unrest has outpaced local authorities, you will begin the First Phase of your Event Exit Strategy.

[11] (i) As uncontrollable disorder becomes the new rule of law, law enforcement and military personnel will necessarily abandon their cohesion to tend to their own Groups and families. (ii) At this point, though your Group is now in considerable danger, you may Forage without fear of legal reprisal. (iii) Should you begin the First Phase while the rule of law still prevails, then your Group is Criminal. (iv) Contrary to popular anarchic thought, your new society is unlikely to develop order, and therefore operation, if it takes its infantile steps criminally. (v) The Plan is a reaction. (vi) It is not a catalyst; neither is it a revolution.

I.C.I.

“THE FIRST PHASE”

[1] (i) The First Phase is the acquisition of supplies before the Evacuation. (ii) This acquisition necessitates at least three Members. (iii) Additional Members can strengthen the operation, but care must be taken not to expand an excursion Party beyond the tolerance of its central, task-based Leadership. (iv) It is primarily an exercise in vigilance.

[2] (i) The excursion Party must only include Group Members who are capable of and willing to commit violence against others. (ii) Members who are willing yet incapable may assist as an Auxiliary Demolitions Party.

[3] (i) Contrary to the Narratives of contemporary media, committing acts of severe, debilitating violence against others is monumentally difficult for all but a small percentage of society. (ii) As such, overcoming the aversion to violence is best effected through disguise. (iii) Party Members should adorn themselves with masks. (iv) They should wear clothing or armor that obscures their skin.

c
alm down, Ruth,” Levi said. “You have to make a decision.”

I glanced at the others in the circle. Each sat cross-legged on a different rug. Some of the rugs looked Middle Eastern, some Navajo. Mine was simply a giant rug-picture of a wolf. It had been provided.

The others had their chins up and their eyes closed. Cassandra, the evening’s hostess, sat in the center, small votive offerings to each of the four corners around her. North, South, East, West—she appeased the compass before we all sat down to become spiritually lost.

“You have to decide that the ‘you’ you know is mistaken. It is occluded, screened by the smokes and muds of our contemporary society.”

I closed my eyes. I wanted this to work. Wanted to experience
something
. Spiritual.

“Your totem animal is the better you. The wild and natural you. You must decide that it is a better ‘you’ than you are.”

I didn’t know how these ceremonies went. I had just followed a flyer on the wall at The (D)rip, the coffeehouse on the Strip.