We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3) (14 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“They’ve taken The Doctor!”

Pablo stared open-mouthed at the man running through the Burbs. Pablo and everyone else in earshot hurried over to him.

“I saw the whole thing!” the man said, gasping for breath. “They set out a meal for the sneaky Chinks and just as they sat down to eat they pulled guns on The Doctor and forced him to go to the ship. It was all that Chinese scavenger’s fault. She betrayed them!”

“What about the others?” someone asked.

“They let them go. You should have seen it, Doc was such a hero. He threatened to kill himself unless they let the others go. The Chinks decided all they really needed was him. The rest are coming back now. But what do we do about The Doctor?”

Everyone started talking at once, but Pablo was no longer listening. If they had kidnapped The Doctor that meant they were going to attack soon. He needed to help Hong-gi.

He hurried for the market, and then stopped. Hong-gi said that Mr. Fartbag was going to hide out on his farm. If he still wasn’t allowed to come inside New City, what could he do?

The emergency bag! The one Mom made him pack. He could give that to Hong-gi. Pablo didn’t need it. Uncle Marcus and Aunt Rosie would take care of him.

Pablo sprinted back through New City gate to the house, grabbed his bag from the corner where he was sleeping with some of the other kids, and ran back out. No one was guarding the gate. Everyone was running around shouting at one another and looking like they didn’t know what to do.

As he ran through the open area between New City and the Burbs he heard Aunt Rosie calling his name. He saw her and the rest coming back. Mr. Devon and the guards weren’t with them. He hoped they were busy shooting the Chinese and saving The Doctor.

Pablo didn’t stop. Aunt Rosie could be mad at him later.

The Burbs were even crazier than New City. In the market everyone was packing up their stuff while others were taking down their tents and heading out of town. Lots of grownups shouted and waved guns. Down one alley he saw three guys beating somebody up, but he didn’t stop to watch. He had to get to Hong-gi before he left.

He found him and Mr. Fartbag packing up the last of their flour.

“Pablo! What are you doing here?”

“I came to give you my emergency bag! It’s got some food and spare clothes and stuff. You’ll need it.”

“Hey, thanks!”

Mr. Fartbag shouted at him as he tied the end of a flour bag. “Quit jawing and get to work, unless you want to get left behind!”

Pablo moved next to his friend. “Here, I’ll help you.”

“There’s one of them now!” someone shouted.

It was the mean scavenger who had sworn at Hong-gi the day before. He waved over a bunch of other angry-looking adults.

“This kid ripped me off on a trade. I bet he’s one of them! A secret Chinese just like that scavenger.”

Hong-gi trembled. Mr. Fartbag’s eyes went wide and he sputtered out something that didn’t make sense. The scavenger strode up. He looked really big.

“You are, aren’t you? Hiding among us and tricking us out of our trade.”

“He’s Korean,” Pablo’s objected, his voice coming out as a squeak.

“Shut up, brat.”

“Leave us alone or I’ll call my mom!” he shouted.

The scavenger laughed. “Yeah, I’m real scared of your mommy.”

“Watch it, bud,” one of the other guys in the crowd said. “That’s the sheriff’s kid.”

The scavenger paused and looked at Pablo. “All right, don’t you worry. We’re not going to do anything to you.” He turned back to Hong-gi. “But this Chink, on the other hand…”

The sound of running feet made everyone turn. Mr. Fartbag was sprinting away, a bag of flour under each arm.

A third bag sat on the counter, still open. Pablo grabbed it.

The scavenger turned back and leered at Hong-gi. “Looks like you’re all alone, you little yellow—”

The scavenger coughed as Pablo threw a cloud of flour into his face.

Pablo grabbed his friend. “Run!”

“Get them!”

Pablo and Hong-gi tore through the market stalls with a bunch of adults howling after them. They cut left around a big tent, ducked beneath a table, and crawled under a few stalls. They froze as they saw the legs of several of their pursuers hurry past.

Once they were gone, Hong-gi tugged at Pablo’s arm.

“Come on,” he whispered. Pablo shook his head. He was too scared to move.

Hong-gi looked around. There was shouting and the sounds of running feet all around them.

“We can’t stay here,” Hong-gi whispered.

Hong-gi was about to say more when he let out a yelp and flew backwards.

“Got you!”

The mean scavenger pulled him out from under the table.

“Leave me alone!” Hong-gi screamed. The man only laughed.

Pablo looked around. The others had disappeared somewhere. In the distance he could hear a woman screaming. Pablo was still under the table. He didn’t think the scavenger had seen him. If he stayed real quiet maybe he’d go away.

“So, trying to cheat me, you little yellow bastard? Let’s see what color you are on the inside.”

Pablo closed his eyes so hard that lights flashed in them. That man was going to hurt his friend, and if he caught Pablo, what would he do to him for throwing flour in his face?

He heard a loud smack. Hong-gi cried out.

And then something strange happened.

Pablo remembered something Mom said to him once.

I want you to grow up here so you have a childhood. You don’t get one in the wildlands. When I was just about your age I lost my whole family to bandits. That’s when I had to grow up. It’s safer here. We have civilization. If you live here you won’t have to grow up until you’re an adult.

Why did Mom always have to be wrong?

Pablo opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was his clasp knife in his hands. It was the one Mitch had given him. It had been in his pocket and he didn’t remember pulling it out. The next thing he saw was the scavenger’s legs close by. He didn’t see Hong-gi’s legs.

Pablo opened the knife.

Ducking out from under the table, he stood up right next to the scavenger. The man was holding Hong-gi up by his shirt. His friend had a big red mark on the side of his face.

The man turned and looked at Pablo.

Pablo didn’t feel scared anymore. He didn’t feel anything except a weird prickly feeling. It seemed like everything was far away and he was watching himself face off with the scavenger. He held Mitch’s knife in both hands, pointing it at the bully.

“Let him go,” Pablo said. His voice sounded weird. Strong. Scary, almost.

The scavenger only laughed.

Hong-gi kicked him in the nuts. The scavenger yelped, more surprised than hurt, and dropped him. Hong-gi hurried over to Pablo’s side.

The scavenger’s eyes narrowed. “Get over here.”

“Stay away.”

The scavenger took a step forward.

Pablo jabbed with the knife a little and the scavenger stopped. “My mom is sheriff. If you want to hurt my friend you’ll have to hurt me. And if you do that, my mom will give you a necktie.”

The scavenger looked confused. “Huh?”

Pablo and Hong-gi edged away. The man took another step forward. “OK, kid, you win. I’ll let you go, but the Chink stays.”

“Leave us alone,” Pablo said, his voice coming out more scared than he wished.

The man grabbed a stick that was holding up a corner of an awning nearby. He swung it through the air with a whoosh. Gripping it, he stalked towards the two boys.

“What’s going on here?”

Another man stepped up. Pablo recognized him as one of the regulars at $87,953. He looked from the boys to the scavenger, his hands balled into fists.

“That Chink robbed me,” the scavenger said.

“Yeah, right. What did you do to him?”

The scavenger turned towards the newcomer. “Mind your own business.”

As soon as the scavenger’s back was turned the two boys bolted. They ran out of sight around some other stalls. They kept running and saw the Burbs were going crazy. There was another fight going on, with a whole bunch of guys beating on someone the boys couldn’t see. A shot rang out. Pablo wanted to clap his hands over his ears, but he didn’t dare let go of the knife.

They passed by Mr. Fartbag’s stall. It had been tipped over and all the flour was gone. Pablo spotted his emergency bag lying underneath the wreckage of the counter. He ran over and grabbed it.

“Now we have everything we need!” Pablo said.

“What do we do?” Hong-gi asked. Tears were running down his cheeks and his eye was swelling.

“I know a place we can hide, come on!”

They headed north through the Burbs. An old lady started swearing at Hong-gi and another old lady told her to shut up. That drew a crowd. Someone threw a clod of dirt at Hong-gi and hit a bystander instead. When the two men started fighting, they slipped away.

“Why does everyone think you’re Chinese?” Pablo dug into his emergency bag and pulled out a blanket. “Here, wrap this around your head so they can’t see your face. I’ll hold your hand so you don’t bump into anything.”

Pablo led his friend north out of the Burbs. Once they got past the last tent he told him it was safe to show his face.

When Hong-gi took the blanket off Pablo expected to see him crying. With that big puffy eye he had, Pablo sure would be crying. But he wasn’t crying at all. Instead Hong-gi had a blank look on his face that made Pablo kind of scared.

“You OK?” he asked.

Hong-gi didn’t answer.

“I’m going to take you to a secret place I know in the dunes. No one ever, ever goes there. We’ll be
totally
safe there.”

Hong-gi still didn’t say anything, so Pablo led him out through the fields. Every now and then he looked back at the Burbs. They’d gotten far enough away they couldn’t hear the shouting anymore, just the distant
pop pop pop
of gunshots. Smoke rose from a couple of places. He hoped Mom was OK. Knowing her, she’d be right in the middle of it trying to save people.

Suddenly he wanted to see Mom real bad. For a moment he forgot about her killing Mitch and all the times she said she’d spend time with him and got called away to work instead. All he wanted to do was get a big hug that would last all day.

He shook his head and looked away from the Burbs. That was baby stuff. He had to be a grownup now. They were heading into the wildlands.

They made it to the spot in the dunes where the radio was hidden. Hong-gi still hadn’t said anything.

“Sit right here. Don’t worry, it’s safe here like I told you. I’m going to the top of this dune and take a look around.”

Hong-gi sat down like he was told and wrapped his arms around his legs real tight, resting his chin on his knees. His eyes looked unfocused, like they were staring at a blank wall. Pablo stood there worrying about his friend for a moment and then remembered he had to act as lookout.

He hurried up to the top of the tallest dune and had a long look around. There was no one out to sea and nobody in the nearby fields. Far off to the east, though, he could see a big group of people walking along the main path towards the Burbs. Even though they were so far away there were just little black dots, he could tell there were a lot of them. They were coming from the north and heading south towards the Burbs and New City.

Pablo scratched his head. Who were they? Farmers coming into the Burbs to fight the Chinese? Or maybe Mr. Devon called them in to help Mom put everyone in jail. He hoped she caught that scavenger. He deserved a necktie.

He hurried back to Hong-gi.

“No one’s close by. We’re safe.”

Hong-gi didn’t reply.

Pablo forced out a laugh as he took off his shoes and emptied them of sand.

“The only bad thing about this spot is you get sand everywhere. Careful you don’t get it in your underwear!”

Hong-gi just sat there, staring at nothing. Pablo felt a cold feeling spreading out from his stomach and through his chest.

“Hey, you want something to eat?” Pablo asked, grabbing the emergency bag. His hands shook. “I got pemmican and a jug of water and nuts and oat cakes probably some other stuff too. It’s all fresh. When it’s been in the emergency bag a week we eat it and replace it with new stuff. My Mom only replaced this stuff like two days ago. Smart thinking, huh?”

Hong-gi didn’t even turn to him. Pablo saw that his entire body was quivering.

Suddenly Pablo was shaking all over too. He put his arms around his friend and they sat there, trembling together.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Cousin!”

A man and woman came running over to Yu-jin and embraced her. She could hear The Doctor shout something but she was too surprised to pay him any attention.

“I’m Able Seaman Song Jianfu,” the male sailor said, “and this is Petty Officer Third Class Song Panpan.”

Yu-jin couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Your family name is…Song? So’s mine.”

The female sailor grinned. “My family name? Your family name? What are you saying, cousin? It’s our family name!”

Yu-jin looked from one to the other. Their faces beamed with joy.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

The male sailor laughed. “You’ve lived too long among the Anglos, cousin. You’re a Song, she’s a Song, I’m a Song. We’re all related.”

“That’s very kind of you, but my family came here in the nineteenth century. We couldn’t—”

Song Jianfu laughed again, the deep smile lines around his eyes and mouth creasing. “So what? All Songs, everywhere, are family.”

Yu-jin’s head spun. She glanced around and saw Captain Wang had stepped back and was giving them a fatherly smile. The Doctor looked confused.

Song Panpan asked, “So where are your close relations? We’d love to meet them! Let’s get them all together and have a big party!”

The sadness that was lodged like a knife into Yu-jin’s heart suddenly twisted. She looked down at the rusted deck.

“My Aunt was the last. She died earlier in the winter. I’m alone.”

Song Panpan grabbed Yu-jin by the shoulder. Her grip was strong. Yu-jin looked up at her.

“No you’re not.”

“Never,” Song Jianfu affirmed.

They both embraced her. She tensed, and after a moment returned their hug.

“Three cheers for a family reunited!” a sailor in the crowd called out.

Everyone on board gave out three loud cheers. The two sailors tightened their grip on her. She nodded and smiled and wiped a tear from her eye.

She’d found it. She’d found her place. The place where she wasn’t the outsider, where she wasn’t the strange face in the crowd, where she didn’t have to have the safe name. She’d found the children in the picture.

But it filled her with dread.

The joy was there. The relief, the feeling of homecoming, the awe at actually seeing a dream come true when she had spent the last twenty-two years thinking that the only dreams that could come true were having meat for dinner and not getting rained on. All that was there.

And at the same time she wanted to bolt down the gangway, grab an oar, and row like mad for shore. Suddenly all she wanted was to be back in the new life she was creating in the Burbs with a slightly better chance of survival than in the wildlands and a doomed but fun relationship and friends and a place she had built up over the last five winters to be her new life.

All that work, all that compromise, all that “good enough”, had just been dashed into nothing by two strangers who shared her name and called her family. It had all been dashed to nothing by her inability to disagree with them.

Through sorrow and suffering and danger she had moved from one life to another, and been pulled right back into the first one again.

At last she let them go and turned to The Doctor. He looked completely at a loss.

“These two people share my family name,” she explained. She heard her words come out wavering, indecisive. She took a deep breath and tried again. “These two people are my family.”

The Doctor studied her for a moment and took on a petulant, almost adolescent look. “Family’s a bitch. Let’s make a trade deal.”

If you were my age I’d smack you for that,
Yu-jin thought.

A moment later she wondered if that was true.

I need to learn more about you.

She turned to Captain Wang.

“Sir, coming onto this ship feels like coming home,” she said, knowing they wouldn’t understand the full meaning of what she said. “But we have serious business to discuss. Our two lands have fought too much and we have almost fought again. So if my relations will forgive me, I would like to speak with you about how we can get beyond that.”

Captain Wang inclined his head. “I’m delighted to see such a joyous occasion happen on my ship. Let’s make it two joyous occasions.”

When Yu-jin translated this, The Doctor replied, “Tell him it is my greatest wish to come to a peaceful agreement. I must remind him, however, that my men will take action if I am not back soon, and while I am happy to accept his hospitality, we need to finish our preliminary business quickly, so that I can show my people that I am all right.”

Captain Wang replied through Yu-jin, “That is a wise move. Since my sailors tell me you have already eaten on shore, let’s go below decks to enjoy some tea. Then we can talk.”

The Doctor’s eyes lit up. “Tea? They have tea? I haven’t had anything but cheap substitutes for years.”

Yu-jin smiled. “If you’re willing to trade as much for tea and you are for peaches, I think we can make a deal.”

The Doctor laughed. “Just wait until you try real tea, kid, and not some nasty scavenger’s brew made out of bark and weeds. You’ll be trading everything you own for some more.”

Captain Wang led them to the large white tower at the center of the ship. Yu-jin looked at it in wonder. Her whole surroundings seemed surreal. She had never seen a ship larger than a four-man sailboat before, at least one that wasn’t a rusted hulk beached on the shoreline. This one was not only functioning, but it had a whole building in its center that looked like something from an Old Times city.

She had always avoided the old cities. Too many tweakers and too many toxins. Stay deep in the wildlands, that’s what Father always said. Stay far away from the people who could hurt you.

A rasping cough from Captain Wang brought her back to the present. He paused, bent over, the cough getting worse. He spat on the deck.

Apparently spending so much time on the sea hadn’t made him immune to the noxious fumes in this bay. Her own eyes watered and she had been suppressing the urge to cough ever since she had taken her gas mask off out of courtesy. She was surprised to see The Doctor was able to retain his poise, although he looked a bit green about the gills too.

“Ask him if he’s all right,” The Doctor said.

“It’s nothing,” Captain Wang replied through Yu-jin. “Thank you for your concern.”

“That cough sounds serious. I am a licensed physician. I would be happy to examine you for no charge.”

Captain Wang looked surprised. “Licensed by whom?”

They had started walking again, the captain moving slower than before, his wheezing louder. A sailor opened a metal door in the side of the tower with a creak.

“I was the last physician I know of to be licensed by the Red Cross, Crescent, and Star. It was a medical organization sworn to treat anyone without prejudice. We had a lot of work to do during the City-State Wars, and after.”

“I’ve heard of them!” Captain Wang said. “They did a lot of good work in my homeland during the Biowars. They even found cures for several of the plagues that got released, but sadly not for all. Your people are very fortunate to have you as their leader. Luckily we also have a skilled physician on board, so thank you for your kind offer but I will be fine.”

The three of them, accompanied by Lieutenant Selassie, Sub-Lieutenant Yu, the two sailors named Song, and a few of the others, passed through the door and entered a short hallway that ended in an identical door. A dirty light bulb surrounded by a metal bracket shone from the ceiling. The sailor closed the door behind them and flipped a switch.

Yu-jin looked around as she felt a breeze.

“Where’s that coming from?” she asked.

“Interesting that when you’re surprised you speak in English and not Chinese,” The Doctor said.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Yu-jin thought.

“Where’s that coming from?” she asked again.

The Doctor pointed to a grill on one wall. “There. It’s that air circulation system our African friend mentioned. Ah, my lungs are feeling better already! If we had stayed out there much longer I’d be hacking away like Captain Wang.”

“He’s sick, isn’t he?”

“It’s hard to tell without examining him.”

That’s a yes.

“I see you are impressed by our air filter,” Sub-Lieutenant Yu said as Yu-jin wondered how to translate his poorly hidden tone of smug superiority. “As you might imagine it is vital to our operations. We apologize that it doesn’t work at full efficiency.”

After waiting a minute for the air to clear, the sailor opened the next door and led them through a warren of passageways. Deep beneath their feet, she could feel the heavy thrumming of a great engine. The smell of steel and oil and rust hung in the air. Yu-jin was dazzled by the network of pipes and wires running along the ceiling and walls. Men and women hurried past them with quick apologies, heading to countless mysterious tasks.

After a moment her awe was replaced with a cold practicality borne of years of survival in the wildlands. Often out there you’d see something that would overwhelm you—a mirage, a strange old artifact, a mass of men heading your way. You had to snap out of your initial reaction and look closely at what you were really seeing. Her family had taught her that.

And what she was seeing now was a vast, complex machine that barely functioned. Half those pipes had gaping holes. Whatever they had once carried, they weren’t carrying anything now. Many of those cables ended in frayed tips, while others were patched in a dozen places. She was accustomed to seeing make-do repairs on old machinery, that was just a part of life, but this was more serious. She didn’t need to know much about machines to know that this one was running on luck and love.

The sailor led them to a large room with a long table down the center. It was spare, with utilitarian steel furnishings and walls bare except for a few faded old posters that made the child in her leap for joy. One was of a Chinese city from the Old Times, with a handsome young man and woman in uniform looking up at an airplane flying overhead. Another was a calendar from decades ago showing a long stone wall stretching over some hills off into the distance. Mother had told her stories about that wall. A few others showed traditional paintings like the ones the Yaos loved.

She paused and took it all in. She was in the bowels of a foul-smelling freighter surrounded by strangers with guns, and she had found the most beautiful room she had ever seen.

“Please sit,” Captain Wang offered a chair to The Doctor.

Once he sat, the captain did as well. Then it was everyone else’s turn. The two sailors named Song sat next to her. There had been no question about that.

“So is there a big Song family back in China?” Yu-jin asked. The idea that she had extended family across the sea, or at least people who considered themselves her extended family, fascinated and frightened her.

“In our city have a very active same-surname association,” Panpan said.

Yu-jin frowned at the unfamiliar term. “Same-surname association” had come out as a single word.

Panpan must have seen her confusion because she explained.

“A same-surname association is an old tradition from back in the days when the Chinese were spreading all over the world. I bet your ancestors who built the railroad joined one. People had travelled far away from their homes and the relations they had grown up with, so they banded together with others of the same surname. If you were new to a place you could go to your same-surname association and find friends, a meal, even a job.”

“But there would be no need for something like that in China,” Yu-jin said.

Panpan gave a bitter smile. “Do you think we’ve fared any better than you in the past century? The cities collapsed, there were wars, plagues from the Biowars, and worse. Most people were left with little or no family, so they woke up to the fact that they had a much larger family. People found a place again.”

Yu-jin stared at the table, not knowing where to look.

A place.

Maybe I should go with them.

A few sailors came out of a side door and hurriedly set out some teapots and cups.

“I hope our green tea is to your taste, cousin,” Jianfu said.

“I’ve never had green tea. We make tea out of herbs.”

“Really?” Jianfu exclaimed. “That’s a shame. Don’t worry, cousin. We get it every day. Once you’re part of the crew…”

His voice trailed away. The captain was glaring at him. There was an icy silence around the table for a second before the captain broke it with some pleasantry she had to translate for The Doctor.

The leaders fell into a conversation and she had to focus on her work. That icy silence, however, still filled her ears.