Rebirth

anywhere near were practically nonexistent.

Inside Dor wrinkled his nose. “You smell like a sheep shearer.”

Cass smiled. “You should be so lucky-that would mean there were sheep left, and we could make them into mutton burgers.”

“I never liked mutton.”

“Bet you would now.”

“I suppose I would.” Dor nodded. “Nice big slab with American cheese melted all over it, one of those sesame seed buns, some iceberg lettuce and a big slice of tomato.”

“Stop it. That’s obscene,” Cass said. “But maybe some fries-”

“Fresh cut, with the skin still on ’em.”

“I like the ones that get stuck in the fry basket and go through twice-you know, extra crispy, almost burned?”

“Nice. Here, come sit where I’ve got it warmed up.”

Cass hesitated. The sofa was a short one, almost a love seat, and there was barely room for her to sit next to Dor without touching. He’d unfolded the afghans and spread them over his lap, and he held up the ends, and it looked warm and inviting.

“I was just going to go to bed with Ruthie. You don’t mind…?”

“The couch? No. I mean, I don’t fit on the couch but the floor’s fine. I’ve slept on worse. But seriously, come sit a minute-I’m not tired yet.”

Cass went to sit beside him.

She’d seen the interior of his trailer. It was crammed full, his desk and a couple of chairs sharing the space with file cabinets and a printer stand, power cords snaking out the window. There was too much furniture even before Dor moved his cot in: bookshelves and an old-fashioned wooden coat rack and a basin with a china sink that was rigged to drain through a pipe in the floor onto the gravel yard below. There was a space heater, but Cass didn’t think Dor ever used it. A shaving mirror hung on a nail.

Dor also had a tent, one as large as the one she shared with Smoke, and she knew from interrogating Smoke that it was there that Dor kept his clothes and even more books and his tools and collection of sports equipment: two sets of golf clubs, lacrosse sticks, and a couple of soccer balls. He changed clothes in his tent and showered in the communal showers. But at some point during the summer, he had begun sleeping in the trailer, and Cass didn’t know why. The cot wasn’t even one of the nice ones; it was FEMA surplus, like the ones near the front of the Box, the ones reserved for drunks and people who had nothing left to trade.

It was a lot to leave behind-but Cass knew that possessions meant little to Dor. He might spend his days overseeing a center of commerce, but in the end it was the trading, not what was traded, that mattered to him. And with Sammi in danger, even that ceased to hold him. He’d left the Box behind with barely a thought, and deep down Cass knew he would not return there. If they survived this adventure, his restless spirit would propel him to the next new thing, another empire, another lonely world for him to oversee.

“Smoke will be back, you know,” Dor said suddenly, as though reading her mind. “When he told you he’d be back, he meant it. The only thing that will stop him is if he gets killed.”

“I know that. But what are the odds? It’s just him against everyone, every Rebuilder out there from here down to Colima. It’s hundreds of square miles. They’re all going to be looking for him, and by the time he finds those guys they’ll probably have gotten themselves killed some other way. But there will be more to take their place.”

“Cass. You don’t understand. I have more…information than you realize. People inside the Rebuilders who talk, for a price. About where they go. Their routes, their plans. Smoke knows all of this, and he’ll be able to find the ones he’s looking for. They’re not just raiding randomly, you know.”

“So, great, so he’ll find the guys who set the school on fire-he’s still outgunned.”

“Not necessarily, Cass. He’s got the best weapons I could give him, enough ammo to do this ten times over and the element of surprise. Things go well, he’ll take ’em out clean, get home before we do. Look, I don’t take sides, but on this one I’m with Smoke and I’ve done everything I can to get him back safe.”

“And you think you can trust your spies? What’s to prevent them from turning around and double-crossing him? For all you know they’re just waiting for him-”

“Yeah, Cass, there’s a risk.” Dor, usually unprovokable, cut her off angrily. “But you ought to know by now that I pay well.”

“Fanatics don’t care about-”

“These aren’t fanatics. Just opportunists. Like me. People who recognize that there’s not really much difference between the people on the outside of the gate and inside.”

“Not much difference? I can’t believe you’re saying that-not after they took your daughter. Killed the mother of your child and a lot of other innocent people.”

“I hate what they did,” Dor said, “and I’m going to get Sammi back, no matter what I have to do. I’m not going to sit here and pretend to be a pacifist. Or an idealist, for that matter. I’ll kill them if need be. I’m not naive enough to think that there’s going to be peace in this new society or new world or whatever the fuck we have now.”

“It’s not idealism to- I mean there’s right and there’s wrong and-”

Cass was so caught up in the argument that when Dor’s hand settled lightly on her shoulder she jumped. Then she was embarrassed, and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened, but she was sitting on a cramped sofa in a house that had never been hers, with a man who was not her lover, talking about the violence that they might have to commit. She felt like she might cry, and hated that most of all.

“There’s not enough to go around anymore, Cass,” Dor said, his voice gentler. “That’s the bottom line. One way or another, the population’s going to come down to what the earth can support.”

“That’s not true,” Cass protested-even though she suspected it was. “Three-quarters of the people in California are already gone, dead. With kaysev there’s enough food for everyone who’s left. If people would cooperate-share skills, share the rest of the resources-there would be enough for everyone. It’s just when people start trying to profit from other people’s misfortune that it all goes wrong.”

“Is that meant to be a dig against me? Because I run a business? Let me tell you, Cass, if I wasn’t bustin’ my ass to coordinate supply with need, things would be a hell of a lot worse for everyone than they already are.”

Cass started to argue and then she stopped herself. Because he was right, at least a little.

Most of her anger, Cass knew, was not at Dor, even though it was easy to blame him. Much easier than admitting that much of her rage had nowhere at all to settle, that it was years’ worth of stored anger at people who were long gone, at herself, at circumstances that had been forced on her, at-messes she’d made and hadn’t had the strength to clean up. She’d earned this fury every time Byrn let his eyes linger on her body, every time his furtive hands found her in the dark; she’d stoked it with each man to pass through her doors and back out again; cherished and honed it when Ruthie had been ripped from her, when every scar was laid open at once.

This was a dangerous road to take, and one she had found was drawing her more and more in recent weeks. Until now, until the library burned and Smoke left her, things had started to feel settled. She had started to believe she might be able to have the family she’d never dreamed she could have.

It was everything she ever wanted, so why did she feel so restless? The old A.A. answers were there, right outside her consciousness, asking to be let in-but she didn’t want to try, didn’t want to do the hard work of living with her discomfort and feeling her feelings and all of those words that were just words. Maybe, if the whole world hadn’t gone to shit, if she had time to herself to do anything beyond the daily struggle of just living, if there was even the luxury of a single A.A. meeting to go to- maybe then, she could try to work through the bewildering maze of her own head. But in the Box, there were plenty of addicts but very few people who had any desire to do anything about it; it was hardly the place for practicing the twelve steps.

Still, she was sober. She hadn’t had a drink in almost a year. Wasn’t that enough? Why didn’t that calm some of the anger?

She fell silent and Dor didn’t seem to mind one way or another. He gave her shoulder a final squeeze, and folded his arms across his chest. His legs were extended out in front of him and he crossed his ankles at his feet and settled himself lower in the sofa. He looked like he ought to be sitting in front of a fireplace, or a football game on TV.