Seed (45 page)

Now, though, the Lobo’s passenger door hissed opened. Bass grew acute.

A landrace girl climbed out, wearing only a white
Chupe
tunic, her bare legs so long they seemed supernatural. A short
La Chupe
boy reached out as she passed, ran a hand up between her dark thighs. She pushed him away. The boy hesitated, looked scared for a second—looked to the other boys, who watched him closely. Then his face hardened and he wheeled back his fist and struck the girl. He said something to her, crossed his arms and leaned back against the Lobo, smirking. The other boys laughed. The girl said nothing, simply held a hand to her cheek and shouldered away, stepping barefoot and gingerly over squash rinds and discarded cornmash jugs, up the steps and into the darkness of the stash house entrance.

Brood pulled a wet peach slice from a ration can Jingo’d given him, and sucked it, waiting. The driver’s door swung open.

Richard emerged. He climbed down, wide torso puffed by his proximity to the Lobo. He propped a sandaled foot proprietarily on a strut and leaned forward, elbow on knee. He spoke briefly to a white
Chupe
. The two exchanged a complicated handshake, then Richard climbed back inside the truck. Both doors swung closed. The reactor throbbed. The engine revved, shook the air, reverberated in Brood’s chest.

Brood set the can of peaches gently in a patch of weeds between his feet. Reached under the blanket, fished around in a fatigue pocket, produced an old walkie talkie, switched it on. The LED indicating power glowed red. Brood double checked the channel: good.

The Lobo started forward. Lurched as Richard struggled with the clutch, then thundered up the street, fierce and hungry, shimmering through the dapple of long sunlight. Brood let it roll several blocks, beyond the ring of more densely populated squats surrounding Satori, then thumbed the talkie’s button.

Nothing happened.

Maybe Richard had found the bricks of crumbling Semtex, stuffed low in the chassis between the reserve Hercs. Maybe the battery in the adjoining walkie had died. Maybe—

The Lobo rose, hovered in the air for an instant, separated slightly at the seams. Then the air shattered. Everything flew apart. A noise like standing under a waterfall filled Brood’s skull. When it cleared, he counted backwards from ten and sat up. Found himself behind the old convenience store, ten paces from where he’d sat.

La Chupes
—those who weren’t rolling on the ground with hands cupped over their ears—gaped and pointed open-mouthed in the direction Richard had gone. Brood brushed debris from his arms, popped his ears by flexing his jaw. He squinted up the street.

All that remained of the Lobo was a single tire, standing miraculously upright, a coin on edge at the lip of a crater that stretched from one side of the street to the other. Big chunks of old brick buildings around the crater had simply vanished. Small fires burned.

La Chupes
began to yammer, yelling into one another’s faces. Reminded Brood of dogs barking at thunder.

He noticed the can of peaches sitting undisturbed in the weeds. He bent to pick it up, then looked back towards the crater. He whispered two words:

“Hondo Loco.”

It came out as prayer, because Hondo had prayed. He reached two fingers into the can, pinched a peach slice and slid it into his mouth, then turned and walked away.

….

He’d stashed the wagon under the viaduct beside the river where the old migrant camp had been. The shanties still stood, a bricolage of corrugated tin, rusted sheet metal, packed clay. But they’d been abandoned, their occupants now living inside the dome. The river ran gently this late in the year, barely a trickle. A frayed yellow dog stood at its edge, scoping Brood warily while its tongue lapped at a slow eddy.

Brood checked the fifty-gal barrel of assorted Satori seed Pollo’s landraces had given him. Still there, strapped to the wagon’s undercarriage. He threw the rucksack aboard and climbed up after it. Rapped a knuckle high on the water tank: full. Moved to the tiller. His foot found the switch on the motor and kicked it on. The motor filled with the low hum of deep cycle bats. He shoved the throttle forward and rolled in a long loop, wending out of the camp.

The dog watched him. Brood saw a hairless patch on its side. Pink skin wrapped over ribs.

He killed the throttle. The wagon halted. He stared at the dog. It trembled under his gaze.

“Fuck.”

He opened the rucksack, dug out a mason jar and twisted off its lid. The aroma of savory turkey-grape meat rose from it. He used three fingers to scoop out a dollop. Mashed it into a ball and hurled it into the dirt at a spot halfway between the dog and himself. The dog moved forward. Brood leveled a finger at it.

“Fuck you,
perro
. Don’t say I never done nothing.” He turned, hung an arm over the tiller and with a fist banged the throttle forward once more.

He steered the wagon slowly along surface streets. Kept an ear to the motor’s steady hum as it sipped power from the bats, kept an eye to the needle bouncing in the amp meter as PV paint—cleared of
Chupe
red—sucked in late afternoon sunlight.

Out of downtown he rolled. Through the gridwork neighborhoods of mid twen-cen brick, then through the endless cul-de-sac ruination of the exurbs.

Migrants sat around firepits in mud lots in front of old houses they’d claimed, roasting clean Satori vegetables while they awaited entrance to the living city. Gaunt desperation rimmed their eyes as they watched Brood pass. The assessment hung there, framed by weakness and need, the way it always had: What did Brood have in the wagon that they could use? And was he a threat? Brood kept the M-8 handy, propped within reach against the footlocker, but no one moved to stop him.

The sun had almost set by the time he’d reached the city’s edge, where the remnants of gas stations and plexi solar condos dwindled into a stretch of undulating hills, scorched bare by brutal summer heat. Brood figured there were still miles to be had, that he could reach the edge of old C-Springs before it got dark. He angled the wagon up onto the berm of ancient freeway track and stopped to hook up the Hercs.

Cold wind blew in off the Rockies to the west, tangy with the metallic bite of oncoming winter. Snow had already settled up there. It would be a hard winter. He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and stood for a moment, looking back the way he’d come, watching long sunlight gild Satori’s dome.

Did Pollo feel its warmth, the way Brood did against his own skin? Did he get cold at night? Brood’d heard the dome grew fur in the winter. The notion unsettled him. He dug a hunk of peach out of his teeth with his tongue and turned to spit.

The yellow dog sat a few feet away, panting. It eyed Brood expectantly. Brood shook his head. He grabbed the M-8 and brought it to bear. Chewed his lip while he eyed the dog for a few seconds down the rifle’s sights, his thumb on the safety. The dog’s tail thumped the dirt three times.

“Fuck.”

Brood set the rifle down. Opened his rucksack. The dog stopped panting, cocked an attentive ear as the lid came off the turkey-grape jar.

A few minutes later, they were rolling. The dog lay at the wagon’s bow. Grizzled white hair covered its snout and chin. A sore oozed on its shoulder.

“You remind me of someone, cuz,” Brood told it. “Don’t mean I won’t eat you. I get hungry, I’m putting you on a stick.” He shoved the throttle way open. The dog put its nose to the wind, its tongue lolling happily. The motor sang with Herc power as the wagon jounced down the old asphalt, making a solid thirty-five miles per. South, past the last burned-out vestige of the city. Away from the
Chupes
. Away from the coming winter. South, towards Rosa Lee.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

t took me the better part of two years to rein in the various permutations of this story and mash it into one solid piece. Along the way I encountered innumerable helping hands. First, a big thank you to the Starry Heaven crews of 2009 and 2010, particularly to Sarah Kelly, who organized the workshops; also to Sarah Prineas, Gary Shockley, Sandra McDonald, Brad Beaulieu, Eugene Myers, Bill Shunn, Debbie Daughetee, Kris Dikeman, Adam “Danger Taco” Rakunas, Brenda Cooper, Robert Levy and Jenn Reese. Gratitude especially to my full manuscript readers: Deb Coates, Greg Van Eekhout, Sarah Kelly (again) and Jon Hansen. Their fingerprints are all over this thing, the good parts, anyway. Deb Coates, Greg Van Eekhout, Brad Beaulieu and Sarah Prineas also each played the role of shepherd to this book at crucial moments of its development, a favor I hope one day to pay forward. Enrique Jimenez and Sid Pink gave invaluable input on Chicano culture and slang. Thanks to my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, for her deft navigation of the publishing industry; and to the posse at Night Shade Books for so enthusiastically giving this book a home. A big shout out goes to Paolo Bacigalupi, in part for lighting the path, but mostly just for being really good company. And most of all, I want to thank my wife, Cindy, without whose unflagging patience and encouragement this book wouldn’t have happened. Much love.