We Had Flags (Toxic World Book 3) (17 page)

He turned and walked away.

A weak laugh from Yong-jun made Yu-jin kneel at his side.

“A crazy wildlands girl! Da-bin couldn’t handle you and it looks like neither can he.”

“The Doctor is a good man. He does the right thing if you explain things to him,” Yu-jin said.

“Pity no one ever explained it to him before,” Yong-jun placed a trembling hand on her cheek. “An even greater pity is that I never got to call you daughter. Go now. Salvage what you can.”

It took an immense effort to tear herself away. She joined The Doctor at the gate. The big bar that secured it had been taken off, but a smaller chain bolted to one door remained looped around a hook on the other. A guard stood by it.

She went up to The Doctor.

“Is he going to pull through?” she whispered.

He met her gaze. “It’s hard to say. I’d be prepared for the worst. I’m sorry.”

Yu-jin looked at the ground and nodded.

“You ready?” he asked.

Yu-jin sighed. “All right.”

The Doctor turned to one of the guards by the gate. “Give her her weapons.”

The guard looked surprised. “Sir?”

“You heard me!”

The guard went to a small shed by the gate and retrieved her bow, quiver, and knife and handed them to her without a word.

“Are you sure you want to go out there?” Randy asked. Yu-jin hadn’t noticed he was next to her until he spoke.

“I need to get my ancestral tablets.”

Randy frowned. “If they’d been in my house they’d be safe.”

From the tone of his voice she could tell he wasn’t coming with them. She strapped the quiver to her back, put her knife in her sheath, and readied her bow.

Another guard hurried up to her, a brawny, middle-aged man. He held something wrapped in a cloth.

“I’m John, New City’s blacksmith. You ordered these, correct?”

He opened the cloth up to reveal twenty newly crafted iron arrowheads, all razor sharp.

“Thank you,” Yu-jin said. She had completely forgotten about them. “Oh wait! The deal was only for sixteen.”

Suddenly the man looked uncomfortable. “Consider it a, um, gift. For helping out with the ship. I don’t like what folks have been saying the past couple of days, and now all this happened. You people deserve better than that.”

It came out awkward, hesitant, and heartfelt.

“Thank you.” Yu-jin turned to The Doctor. “I’m ready now.”

He nodded and gestured for a dozen guards to join them. Yu-jin noticed Clyde and Kent standing on the wall, watching them. Yu-jin suppressed the urge to shudder.

I wish I could be as brave as you always wanted me to be, Father.

The chain came off with a clatter and the gate groaned open.

A huge crowd stood outside, just at the edge of the cleared area that was a no-go zone when the gate was closed. Many were armed. As soon as they saw The Doctor and Yu-jin they started howling. She couldn’t understand a word but it was all hostile. An old flag waved above the crowd, its stars faded and its edges in tatters.

Yu-jin glanced at The Doctor. He had that steely look he got when he was truly angry. His hands gripped an M16. The guards fanned out to make a circle around them. Briefly Yu-jin considered nocking an arrow in her bow and decided against it. It would be of no use against so many and would only antagonize them. She tried to maintain her composure as they moved forward.

There was a disturbance in the crowd, jostling and curses, and a phalanx of young men and women burst through the mob. At its head came Roy, the owner and bartender of $87,953. He and the rest of them carried long wooden clubs and had pistols, knives, and other weapons strapped to their belts. Yu-jin recognized Roy’s two bouncers and several other regulars in the group.

“Hey Doc!” Roy called as they came up to The Doctor and his entourage. “You picked a hell of a time to go for a stroll. I hope you weren’t planning on coming over for a drink. We’re currently closed.”

“Sorry this is disrupting your business, Roy,” The Doctor said. “What’s all this?”

“Your escort. You need one. Oh, it’s all legal. Annette deputized every one of us. Two deputies aren’t enough right now. So where are we going?”

“To retrieve some property,” Yu-jin said. “I’ll show you the way.”

Roy’s group encircled them and hove through the crowd. In a second they were surrounded by a shouting, spitting, jostling mass of hatred. Yu-jin stayed close to The Doctor, who said nothing, merely glared at the rioters around him with an unmistakable look of contempt.

After several minutes of shoving, they made it to the Yao residence. The door hung open on one hinge. Many of the roof tiles were shattered or missing. As Roy’s deputies encircled the building and the guards manned the front door, Yu-jin plucked up the courage to go inside.

The interior was a shambles. Most things were missing and what wasn’t had been broken. Every picture and painting adorning the walls had been torn to pieces, their colorful images littering the floor. She stepped over them with care and went to the back room, the shouts of the crowd muffled as she went further into the house.

It was dim inside, the windows still shuttered. In the back room she could see the ancestral tablets standing where they had always been. She let out a sigh of relief. The room smelled heavily of incense. The joss sticks were all broken and littered the floor. They crunched underfoot as she walked.

The incense sticks didn’t matter. Those could be replaced.

“Are these what you’re looking for?” The Doctor’s voice came from behind her.

“Yes.”

“What are they?”

“Ancestral tablets. One for each ancestor.”

“So it’s true you people pray to your ancestors?”

“Who better?”

The Doctor shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with honoring people’s memory, but what’s talking to the dead going to do?”

“Jesus listens. Why wouldn’t the spirits in heaven?”

The Doctor gave her a look like she’d said something stupid.

Oh, you’re one of those,
she thought.

“Let’s collect these and get out of here,” The Doctor said.

“Hold on, I need to open a window. There are a few things I need to find and I can’t see well enough.”

Yu-jin unlatched a shutter. Opening it, she let in the sunlight and the shouts. Roy’s deputies stood in a line with their backs to the house not two steps away. Angry faces looked over their shoulders at her.

“Traitor!”

“Spy!”

“Go back where you came from!”

My cave in the mountains? Trust me, I’m tempted.

She turned away from the window and looked back at the ancestral tablets.

Her jaw dropped.

Every one of them was stained with half-dried streaks of liquid. Only then did she realize that she could smell something else beneath the heavy scent of incense.

Urine.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Doctor felt his stomach turn as Yu-jin put her face in her hands and started sobbing. He hated cruelty. Violence he could handle. Shooting cultists or lynching criminals barely gave him pause, but in a cruel world cruelty had never stopped bothering him. It was one of the reasons he had set up New City, to have at least one place that was safe from cruelty.

And like with most other things he had set out to do in life, he had failed.

“Why do they hate us so much? What have we ever done to them?”

That had been Lucas, long ago. It could just as easily have been the young woman in front of him.

“We have to stand up for ourselves. Show them who we are and demand they accept us.”

Lucas then. Yu-jin now.

If he wasn’t careful, Yu-jin would meet the same end.

Once Yu-jin pulled herself together, they hauled the ancestral tablets outside. The Doctor winced when he touched the tacky fluid on the stones. They set them up outside the front door as the crowd continued to jeer. Their baying had lessened a bit. He could hear arguments going on between the haters and those who had a little less barbarian in them.

Once they got all the stones outside, The Doctor wiped his sweating brow and pushed through the cordon of deputies. He grabbed the first three angry onlookers he came to.

“What are your names?” he asked.

They told him.

“Congratulations, you idiots pissed on a cemetery.”

“We didn’t do it,” one of them objected. It sounded like a lie.

“You and you,” The Doctor ordered, “get buckets of water from the nearest pump. And you, find some cloth and soap.”

One of them sneered. “We don’t have to—”

“Do it now or I’ll banish you.”

The three did as they were told. The Doctor and Yu-jin started washing the stones. The shouting from the crowd died down even more.

One of the deputies facing the crowd called over his shoulder. “Want me to help?”

“You’re already helping,” The Doctor said, rubbing at one of the stones.

“I’d like to help,” someone called from the crowd.

“Me too!” someone else said.

“Chink lovers!”

“Fuck off!”

“Let them through,” The Doctor ordered. Soon they had a small crowd washing the stones.

“So you bury your dead inside?” one of the volunteers asked Yu-jin.

“No. These are only memorials so we can show respect to our ancestors,” she replied.

“I knew it!” a stern voice called from the crowd. They turned and saw Reverend Wallace. The Doctor rolled his eyes. Why couldn’t the Biowars have killed off all the fucking Christians along with the cows, dogs, and horses?

“You knew what?” Yu-jin said, standing up and jutting out her chin. She looked like a defiant child.

Reverend Wallace pointed an accusing finger at her, reaching between the two deputies separating them. “You’re an ancestor worshipper. A pagan. You sat in my church going through the motions and you weren’t a real Christian at all!”

Part of the crowd howled in rage. A couple of The Doctor’s guards hurried over to his side.

“You’re the fake Christian, preaching hate against your neighbors!” Yu-jin shouted back, her voice breaking.

That got a few howls too.

“I think we should be going,” The Doctor said. He’d heard sermons like this before.

“How dare you judge me?” Reverend Wallace fumed, “You with your pagan practices and lies. Yes, lies! You lied to all of us about what you truly are.”

“No I didn’t! I’m a Christian and a scavenger and a law-abiding winter resident of the Burbs. My ancestry is no one’s business.”

The Doctor tugged at her sleeve. This was going to end badly.

“It’s our business when you’re spawned by the Devil’s people, when it means you lie about your faith. All this time you’ve proudly worn a cross about your neck, and where is it now, eh? You probably tossed it in the sea.”

Yu-jin blushed. She reached into her pocket and pulled it out. “No, it’s right here.”

Reverend Wallace looked triumphant. “You see? See everyone? She isn’t wearing it anymore. Yes, the mask had slipped, hasn’t it?”

“More like your mask has slipped! What about the brotherhood of humanity? What about God’s forgiveness—”

“There is no forgiveness for creatures of the Devil!”

The Doctor grabbed Yu-jin as panic rose up within him.

Howling crowds. Religious lunatics talking of Devil’s creatures. A broken body in a ditch.

“We’re leaving. Now!”

Yu-jin objected, tears in her eyes. “But he’s—”

“Unstoppable. We’ve got your graves, now let’s go.”

In a frightened blur he ordered the men to grab the stones Yu-jin had come for. He hefted one himself as a show of unity, his cold practicality cutting through his terror.

But only just. He felt like he was only partially in the here and now. The rest of him was witnessing the horrors of forty years before.

“We have to join the march,” Lucas had said. “No one’s going to hurt us. We’re doctors.”

“All right,” he had said, finally giving in. “But we have to be careful, OK?”

“We can’t just let him say those things,” Yu-jin said as Roy’s posse hustled them through a crowd that was baying like hungry wolves.

“We’ll deal with it later. Right now we have to get out of here.”

They hustled back through the gate and The Doctor ordered it shut. He let the ancestral tablet slide to the earth with a thud. Sweat soaked him and his chest heaved from the unaccustomed effort.

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit,” he panted. The world spun and he fell.

Dimly he heard shouts and felt hands pick him up. Things slowly began to focus. He shook his head and found he was being carried by a group of guards back to the warehouse.

“Get the fuck off me!” He flailed around, smacking people indiscriminately until they let go. He staggered, righted himself, and looked around at all the worried faces.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled.

A hand rested on his arm. Yu-jin.

“You should take a break,” she said.

“I will if the world will. Where’s Clyde? Where’s Marcus?”

“I’m right here, Doc,” Marcus said, coming up. “Clyde’s at the edge of town. He got a call that his team stopped The Giver a few miles north. He’s going to meet them.”

“Well, that gets them both out of my hair for a minute,” The Doctor muttered.

“Long enough to rest,” Yu-jin said, her hand still on his arm.

“For once I agree with the Chink,” Marcus said.

A spike of anger rose up in The Doctor.

Marcus, of all people!

“Hate speech,” he snapped. “Drop off a kilo of flour at the central granary as a fine.”

Marcus look dumbfounded, as did everyone else within earshot. “You kidding me?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding? A second offense and I’ll bring you up in front of the Citizen’s Council and call for your citizenship to be revoked.”

Marcus gave him a stunned, hurt look. It cut The Doctor deep, but he hardened his will. Too many people were watching.

“Got anything else to say?” he demanded.

Marcus stomped off, grumbling and shaking his head. Suddenly The Doctor felt dizzy again. Yu-jin held him tighter. He was grateful to see that she did it in such a way that it didn’t look like she was supporting him.

“I’m going to consult with my translator about our next move,” he announced to his assistants. “Call me at my office if anything develops.”

He tried to ignore the mutterings as Yu-jin led him away. There were always mutterings with this bunch.

They made it to his office and he closed and locked the door behind him. Then he slumped on his couch and closed his eyes.

For a minute he sat there in silence. To her credit, Little Miss Peaches didn’t say a word. He appreciated people who knew when to shut up. They were rare. Finally he opened his eyes. She sat in a chair opposite him, concern etched on her face.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to die on you.”

“Good. You’re the only one on my side.”

“That’s not true.”

“You’re the only one with power on my side.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Well, yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “Long ago I took an oath. I joined the Red Cross, Crescent, and Star, and I took an oath to be a neutral. I heal anyone, no matter what side. But that wasn’t enough. After the fall of North Cape, doctors became scarce. Within a few years I was the only one left. Everyone looked to me for leadership. I founded this place and banned hate speech. I also banned Blaming any one group for the fall of civilization. The only way forward was to not look back.”

“But people do look back.”

The Doctor nodded and cradled his head in his hands.

Yu-jin went on. “All you did was bottle it up. The scavengers and independent farmers talk about this stuff all the time. It probably happens here too, behind closed doors.”

The Doctor rubbed his eyes. He needed a smoke and a ten-hour nap.

“Yeah, I guess it does. I didn’t know what else to do, though. I thought if people cooled down a bit, that after a few years they’d stop picking some group and Blaming it for all their troubles. Get on with rebuilding. That maybe there wouldn’t be any more…”—his breath caught and he looked away from her—“…pogroms.”

“You lost someone like that?” Yu-jin asked.

The Doctor nodded.

“Your wife?”

“My husband.”

Silence.

The Doctor looked at her with a wry smile.

“Shocked?” he asked.

“Surprised.”

“You’re not going to give me some lecture about it being unchristian, are you? Because I’ve heard that lecture before.”

Yu-jin shook her head. “That’s not the God I worship.”

“Then I think you need to find another church.”

Yu-jin slumped. “He’s showing his true colors now, isn’t he?”

The Doctor lay down on the sofa, then sat back up when he realized that would only send him off to sleep. Too much to do.

“The good Reverend Wallace was only a kid when North Cape fell. He was part of my refugee group. We had two, maybe three hundred people. Marcus, Clyde, Weissman, a bunch of the names you know. And him. His parents were preachers or something. I can’t remember the name of their church but it was one of the OK ones. Didn’t try to stone me, anyway. There were a lot of bandit groups roving the countryside then, and the last remains of the old armies. One night we got hit by a band of Chinese. Still had their tattered old uniforms. We lost a third of our number. Wallace’s parents were among the slain.”

Yu-jin looked contrite. “The poor man.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Somebody took him in and eventually we all settled here. Started building New City. He grew up and became a Reverend like his father, founding one of the first churches in New City. When scavengers started settling outside the wall, he moved outside too in order to preach to them.”

“He’s a citizen?”

“He is. And he’s the only citizen to live fulltime in the Burbs besides Roy. Quite a pair, eh?”

“But he’s been so welcoming until now,” Yu-jin said. “Ever since the ship arrived he’s been like a different person.”

“Everyone thought the Chinese were gone. I guess you can’t forgive unless you’re faced with whatever it is you hate.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Yu-jin pulled the chain with the little silver cross out of her pocket and looked at it sadly.

“I took this off after he preached a sermon against us. I shouldn’t have done that. It was a test and I failed.”

She kissed the cross and put it back around her neck.

That thing won’t save you from a lynch mob, kid. Believe me, I know.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Yu-jin asked. The Doctor shrugged. “Did your husband get killed in that attack too?”

A radio on a nearby table squawked. The Doctor leapt up to get it, grateful for the interruption.

“Hey Doc, this is Kent. I’m in the Operations Center and I just got a call from Clyde. He met with The Giver. He wanted to bring his scavengers into town but once Clyde explained the situation, and that Jessica is safe inside the walls, they left.”

“Left? Where?”

“Headed east. Clyde thinks they’re going to make a loop around our territory and go to the bay.”

The Doctor grunted. “Smart. He knows that if he cuts through town we have the men to stop him, but with all the trouble here we can’t spare enough to stop him if he’s outside town.”

“Clyde’s got a patrol dogging them. He’s coming back to town.”

“Fine. They won’t make it to the bay before nightfall, which gives us time to get to the ship first tomorrow morning.”