World of Trouble by Ben H. Winters

Author:Ben H. Winters [Winters, Ben H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-59474-686-4
Publisher: Quirk Books
Published: 2014-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

She was there. In Rotary, at the police station. This was four days ago. Wednesday, September 26; Wednesday, the day before Cortez and I arrived. My stomach tightens. I need to know he’s sure of the date, and he is, Mr. Miller has been keeping careful track of the time—careful track of each of his odd-job employments and the goods he receives for them—careful track of everything. He remembers the work at the Rotary PD, and he recognizes Nico’s face right away.

I ask him to slow down. I ask him to start at the beginning. I take out my notebook and I tell him I need the whole day—would he mind going slowly and giving me the entire day?

Atlee had gone out that morning as he goes out every day, leaving his people with their usual strict admonitions to remain on the property. In Pike, between here and Rotary, he met a young man with a long face and a nervous expression, who gave his name simply as “Tick.” The man promised him a crate of packaged meals in exchange for a small job of work at the Rotary police station.

“What do you mean, packaged meals?”

“Army food,” says Atlee. “He called it something.”

“MREs?” I say.

He nods. “That sounds right. Yes, MREs.”

I write it down, army surplus rations … Army?… long-faced man, “Tick”?… and motion for him to go on. Atlee agreed to take the job and he and Tick traveled together to the Rotary station, arriving at approximately 2:30. He went alone because it was a simple job that Tick described: sealing a stairhead with a slab of concrete that had been custom-built for the purpose.

When they got to Rotary, Tick told Atlee to wait, said it shouldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes, and Atlee said that sounded okay, although he wasn’t terribly pleased about standing around. He had other things he needed to be doing, there are always other things to do. But he waited, stood with crossed arms just inside the door of the police station, trying to stay out of the rain, and out of the way of a group of young men and women moving boxes and bags from the lawn down a flight of metal stairs into a basement.

Besides Tick, Atlee communicated directly with only one of them, a man who appeared to be the leader: a short stocky man, older than the others, with bushy hair and dark brown eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses.

“Did you get this man’s name?”

“Astronaut.”

“His name was Astronaut?”

“I might guess it wasn’t. But that’s what they called him.”

I write it down. Astronaut. Two circles around it and a question mark.

This man Astronaut was quietly but unquestionably in charge, Atlee says, giving the orders and keeping the group on task as they rolled up sleeping bags and zipped up duffels, stacked boxes of food and jugs of water and tromped up and down the staircase. There were boxes, too, big square shipping crates that looked heavy, that had to be carried by two people moving slowly as they descended the steps.

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