Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(38)

Matt Cardinal had been even crazier than Lindy herself. This guy didn’t know that, so he couldn’t have been in lock-up.

“I got a million stories, you don’t like that one.”

She tried to smile. “Sure you do. Bear fights and Winkle retrieval.”

“Worst was Hinton, near Jasper. Nine hundred Winkles stored in a barricaded mall. Cougars got in. I’ll write you a poem about it.”

Don’t, she tried to say, but the words froze in her throat. The man calling himself Matt Cardinal slid out of the room like a slick of dark oil.

Lindy collapsed to the floor, hands over ears, shaking. Now what, who is he, gotta run, what’s he want, can’t someone just come along and take care of this, of me…

When the hand touched her face, she shrieked and hurled herself backward, banging her head on the wall.

It was Satan.

? ?

“Prime minister’s office.”

“I gotta talk to my sister.”

“Hi, Lindy. I’ll see if she’s free.”

Missy’s window was mounted at Town Hall.

Melissa Hertz is prime minister of Canada.

I was visiting my teenaged sister at work – her first real job was printing windows at our dad’s auto shop in Etobicoke – when a car drove itself in. It had an appointment to get its AC fixed. The owner had gone down in the back seat, and the summer heat killed her. It was… Lindy, you freaked out, remember?

While we waited for the police, I checked the news. A tenth of the city was comatose. There was a heat wave on. Thousands of Winkles might bake.

The electrical grid hadn’t yet fallen apart, and the Internet was mostly working. People believed it would stop, we’d ride it out. But I’ve always been a pessimist.

That much was true.

“Lindy?” The assistant was back. “Could you email her?”

“Tell her it’s a f*cking emergency.”

“Is it about your modem?”

Missy wanted the modem to die; she wanted Lindy on a work crew. Regulated mealtimes, laundered uniforms, barracks and a daily shower. That was her idea of taking care of little sis.

She imagined telling the assistant that Missy’s precious Poet Laureate was the guy who’d stalked, drugged, and f*cked her, all those years ago when Missy was off at college. The guy wanted to play identity thief; why not give him all of Matt’s illustrious past? “No, not the modem.”

“Hold on.”

I put out the word. Bring cars. Bring evacuees.

We loaded Winkles five and six to a vehicle, packing supplies in the trunks. Canned food, blankets, batteries. We’d lay children across the laps of the seated, strapped-in adults.

There were so many.

I wanted to hook up trucks to pull bigger loads, but Lindy convinced me they’d crash and block the road.

We programmed routes to autopumps, to rechargers, and we sent the cars north, where it was cold, so the Winkles wouldn’t fry. Port Saint John, Thunder Bay, Yellowknife – anywhere you could reach by road.

Within a week, people started going to bed in their vehicles. Deliberately, I mean. They’d set an alarm: if it didn’t wake them, the car would automatically upload the route and head north.

I may have sent that first car up to the Arctic, but the Uplift wouldn’t have worked if not for thousands of hardworking, dedicated Canadians who pulled together as the crisis worsened, keeping the roads open, the Internet functional, the fuel pumping— “Lindy? You okay?” Melissa’s voice, in the here and now, drowned out her remembrance of Missy’s testimonial.

“I got a Beauty on my hands.”

“What did you do?”

“Excuse me?”

“Were you varnishing? StatsCan says one in 600 Winkles are awakened by smells. Solvents—”

“StatsCan? Which is what – some guy with a calculator implant and three college stats courses?”

“I’m not having this argument with you again. Was it varnish?”

“Right. I routinely force the kiddies to sniff glue as they take up shelf space in my studio.”

“Call Health Canada.”

“You know what they’ll tell me. I broke it, I bought it. Missy, can’t you take care of me here?”

“I can’t give you special favours.”

Stretching, uncomfortable silence. Missy knew that Lindy’s studio was bugged. She wouldn’t say anything to damage her approval rating.

“Please?” She couldn’t quash the whine in her voice.

Missy said: “If you join a work crew—”

“I have a job.”

“Uh-huh. The first night – do you know this? – after someone’s awake, they’re at risk of self-harm and harm to others.”

“We’re talking about a four-year-old.”

“A child probably doesn’t seem dangerous—”

“Fine, I’ll hide the knives.”

“If the solvents in your studio are that strong, they’re probably not doing you any good.”

“Fuck! I wasn’t varnishing.”

“What is it, anyway?”

The devil had been sucking on most of one fist. Now it announced: “I’m a girl.”

“That’s great, sweetheart,” the speakerphone enthused. “Do you know your name?”