shattered. In one window, dozens of naked mannequins lay piled on top of each other like logs in a fireplace.
The building directly behind me was a looted diner. The people who broke into the restaurant seemed to have had a certain reverence for it. They did not break the windows or steal the tables and chairs. Except for a missing door, the restaurant looked clean enough to open for business.
Whoever was talking was right around the corner from me when he said, “Careful with that, it’s worth something.”
“This thing? I wouldn’t want to wear it. It’s got clone meat inside it. Clone probably rotted all over it.”
“I’m telling you, that helmet is worth something. That Marine combat armor, that’s good shit.”
“If you don’t want it, I’ll take it,” a third voice said. “I’ll give you five hundred bucks for it.”
I did not recognize the voices. I knelt in a shadow to listen for clues about who these men were.
“Money doesn’t buy jack,” the first man complained.
“Might sometime.”
“Only if the government comes back. If that happens, we’re all screwed.” That was the second speaker, the only one who sounded like he could read.
“I’ll trade you a canned ham for it,” the third man offered.
“A canned ham? No shit?” the man sounded impressed.
Staying low to the ground, I slipped over towards a broken display window. The floor inside the display was covered with sparkling shards of glass. Whatever had been on display inside this window must have been valuable since the looters had picked it clean.
I climbed into the window and found an open door that led into the store itself. This particular shop had sold gourmet foods, not that there was anything left on the shelves. Posters showing kosher this and imported that covered the walls. Banners for cheeses and special brands of coffee hung from the ceiling. Toppled refrigerator display cases, demolished shelves, and cast-away shopping carts littered the floor. The store was huge and dark except for the bright sunlight that shined in through small windows in distinct rays.
I sorted my way through the wreckage. Checkout stands were pushed over and computerized registers lay on the floor, their drawers hanging open and empty. Stepping over a register, I approached the front door of the store and peered around the edge.
The plaza did not look busy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was well-trafficked. It looked like a downtown shopping district might look on a Saturday afternoon, in a city that closed on weekends. Groups of men and women sat on walls or around a fountain. The fountain was full of sloshing blue water, but its jets were turned off.
I recognized the canned ham boys instantly. They were the ones standing around the corpse of a Marine. The biggest of the men had stripped the helmet off of the dead clone and held it in his hands. As I watched, he placed one boot on the dead man’s back. I decided the man was an idiot as I watched him hold the helmet to his face and stare into the visor. “What’s so good about this thing?”
I could have used that visor. In my personal opinion, Marine combat armor, with its audio sensors and lenses, was the most important innovation in soldiering since the invention of gunpowder. Also, I did not like seeing these grave robbers abusing the body of a fallen Marine.
Looking around the plaza, I noted that all of the men were armed. Most had government-issue M27s. They must have taken these from dead soldiers and Marines. I wondered if looters had found their way to Fort Washington and how thoroughly they had picked over the base.
“Why do you want this so badly?” the goliath with the helmet asked the runt sitting beside him.
“No reason, I just like the look of it.”
“You wouldn’t have offered a ham for it for no reason.”
At the edge of the plaza, three men looked under the hood of an Army supply truck. The truck’s dark green paint stood out against the cement courtyard and slate fountain. Any number of warlords had probably carved up the city and claimed sections for themselves. I had located some warlord’s stronghold. There were a couple of heavy-caliber machine guns mounted on the front and back of the truck, but if that was the best this dime store daimyo could do, he and his tribe would not last long.
“Throw in some chocolate bars and you can have it,” the big man said.
“I ate all my chocolate bars,” the runt sounded embarrassed. “How about a half-box of Twinkies?”
I went back into the store and let myself out through a window on the other side.
The warlords with downtown territories mostly concerned themselves with survival. They held small areas, kept their gangs grouped in tight clusters, and gathered whatever small arms they could find. I passed more than one dozen similarly doomed fiefdoms on my way through Safe Harbor.
What if every city in the galaxy had degenerated this way? Had Washington, D.C. been carved up by a handful of self-appointed warlords? Maybe not. Maybe cities like Safe Harbor, cities that had been evacuated, collapsed more readily into anarchy. Cities that still had soldiers and police to keep the peace might be okay. It occurred to me that this anarchy was probably not restricted to U.A. territory, either. The Confederate Arms probably had the same problem.
As I reached the outer suburbs around Fort Washington, however, I discovered signs of a different disorder. Someone had claimed these streets, and I had a pretty good idea of who had done it. Someone painted the letters JC on signs and walls. Like a dog urinating to mark its territory, JC, possibly Jimmy Callahan, had painted graffiti around this part of town. On one larger building I saw, “JC ‘Resurrection’.”
“Resurrected,” I thought, it had to be Callahan.
I thought about Silent Tommy and Limping Eddie, the two men who had been his bodyguards. Were they his seconds-in-command? The notion of Jimmy Callahan running this section of town should have made me laugh. Instead, it sent a chill through me.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The ruins of Fort Washington blended in with the stores, churches, and houses in this ugly suburb. I found my way into a neighborhood that could only have been officer housing. The houses were three-bedroom jobs that all looked alike from the outside, right down to the flower beds and white picket fences. These homes had no more floor space than a two-bedroom apartment. They had patios the size of postage stamps and shingled roofs. Looking up the drive-ways, I saw upended tricycles and plastic swimming pools. I could almost hear the children playing.
Not wanting to approach the fort in daylight, I broke into one of these homes and hid inside it until nightfall. The front door of the house had been marked with a red JC, but the contents inside had not yet been picked over. I entered a clean kitchen that was orderly except for the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Inside the pantry I found a jar of peanut butter that I ate by the spoonful as I waited for sunset.
The officer who had lived in this home was a family man with a pretty platinum-blond wife and two little boys. I saw pictures of the family on the walls. The boys shared a single room sleeping on bunk beds with steel tube frames. Searching the house, I found a flashlight and a cheap pair of binoculars, both of which I took. I also found a book of fairy tales and a Bible, both of which I left behind. The wife had jars of fruit preserves in the garage. She and the boys had undoubtedly left the planet during the mass evacuation. Even if he was alive, her husband would never find them again. Not without the Broadcast Network.
Before leaving the house, I stowed my M27 and four grenades in the family linen closet under a stack of children’s blankets. I would need to travel light and kill quietly. I kept my particle beam pistol and the ridiculously large combat knife.
As the sun dropped on the horizon and the sky turned dark blue, I slipped back on to the street and traveled the last mile to Fort Washington. A tabby cat followed me from a distance as I walked down the street. The people had left their pets behind. The cats would roam free. Dogs left in houses would likely starve to death.
Fort Washington was a large compound encompassed by a chain link fence and razor wire. No lights burned anywhere that I could see, but I saw the glow of fires around the grounds. Lasers or looters had destroyed much of the fence. Making one last inventory check, I knelt beside the chassis of an overturned bus, examined my pistol to be sure it was charged, and stole on to the base.
