Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(42)

Matt’s enormous hand shot out, catching her jaw. “You want that modem, Lindy, or no?”

She did. She wanted the modem and the antidepressants and she wanted to hold out in her studio until Missy lost an election and all her influence. She wanted peanut butter and tuna fish and ibuprofen and her own Mommy. He wasn’t wrong. What could she do for a child?

He saw it. Saw through her.

Zazu belched, dropped to her butt and began pulling her footies back on. “Let’s find that jelly, okay?”

“Sure, kid.” Matt smiled. “Say goodbye.”

“To who?” Zazu climbed up. “Zip your coat, Lindy.”

“Lindy’s staying,” Matt said.

“No!”

“I’ll bring her the modem later.”

“Like I believe that,” Lindy said. She didn’t meet his eyes; she’d have backed down for sure.

“Suit yourself.” He reached for Zazu, but Lindy slid between them, taking the girl’s hand.

They walked out to the edge of Yellowknife, the inner wall, where food supplies and scavenged treasures were kept in old container cars. The cache was guarded by a guy calling himself Customs Canada, but Matt tossed him a paper-wrapped package, and he waved them by.

We can’t trust Matt, Lindy tried thinking at Zazu, but if the kid heard her, she didn’t react.

Striding past several empty, open containers, Matt opened the first closed car. It smelled of dust and yeast.

“Come on,” he said, stepping inside.

This is not good. If he’s really the Hacker Giant… but a modem! And I can’t do the kid thing.

Zazu followed him into darkness and cobwebs, without apparent fear. The container was loaded with stuff scavenged from groceries: canned goods and snacks, things nobody got around to eating. Ghosts of the old food industry.

“Here’s your jelly,” Matt said, producing a jar. “There ain’t gonna be any peanut butter, but—” He fished around, coming up with a foil-sealed plastic jug filled with unsalted peanuts. “Dee Eye Why. Do it yourself.”

“They look pretty dry,” Lindy said.

“I got canola oil. Anything else you want, kid?”

Zazu turned a circle, then pointed her plastic pitchfork at a battered box of dead saltines.

“Great,” Lindy said heartily. “Say thank you.”

“Thank you, Leepold.”

Matt’s smile curdled.

Faking cheer, Lindy said: “Let’s get back, eh?”

“Canola,” Matt said. “In my truck. DIY peanut butter.”

They trooped out, thanked the guard, walked farther. Lindy wanted to run for it, but Matt lifted Zazu to his shoulders again. All she could do was drift along beside them.

Finally, she asked: “What’d you trade the guard?”

“Flash disk. Old top 40 hits.”

Matt’s truck was a reconditioned police SUV, battered and fortified, with spikes welded to its bumpers.

“Into the back, monkey,” he said, opening the rear door. Zazu began to climb in.

“Wait,” Lindy began, and that was when he spun and plowed her in the mouth.

She dropped into the snow – I was right, I was right! – as he lifted Zazu’s butt into the truck and shut it behind her.

“Go back to town,” he said. Behind him, in the car window, the girl was glowering.

Lindy wiped her throbbing face, shaking the blood off into the snow. Before Matt could drive off, she bolted for the truck, jumping into the passenger seat. Her heart was hammering.

She thought he’d drag her out and abandon her. Instead he laughed, starting the engine and heading between the containers, deep into a maze of stripped cars, stacked three and four deep.

“So,” she quavered. “Leopold Drummer?”

“You knew before she said. How?”

She swallowed blood. “I knew the real Matt.”

“Huh.”

“Rumour was that your sleeping app was what started the Napocalypse.”

“There were lotsa rumours.”

“It makes sense. They sent you to the Institution to experiment on Winkle prisoners.” She remembered news footage, pictures of a pale man, corpulent, with long golden hair and thick glasses. “You lost weight.”

“End-of-the-world diet. Biggest trend of Last Year.”

“Got your eyes lasered?”

“Fixed the astigmatism, changed the colour.”

“What do you want with Zazu?”

“It was the app. Delta Wave.”

“She’s too young for a modem.”

“I know. It jumped the firewall into people without tech.”

“How?”

“Dunno.”

“The app was around for years.”

“We’d posted an upgrade, for people on vacation. It was supposed to put you under, way under, into a healing sleep. You’d wake when you were fully rested.”

“Zero out your sleep debt,” Lindy said, remembering advertisements. “Your stupid app gave me migraines.”

“Jitterbugs,” he said. “We can’t relax.”

Was it as simple as that?

“But now – what? She wakes up for no good reason—”