Without warning

‘You know, Charlton Heston? End of the world, last man alive – a great, great flick. Even with those dumbass hippie vampires. I’m telling you, Jed. They won’t ever make ‘em like that again.’

‘No,’ said Culver, who was about to point out that he had not introduced himself. He decided not to, though, wondering what game this character was into, and what role that little gambit with his name was supposed to play.

He scrunched up the damp handkerchief and jammed it deep into a pocket. He could feel the smart phone in there. Loaded with dozens of names and numbers, any one of which could see him hauled in by the military police for extended questioning. That’s how things ran in this city.

‘Well, I am headed that way, Captain… uh…’ Culver knew what the gold oak leaf on the stranger’s Gore-tex jacket represented.

‘McCutcheon. Major McCutcheon,’ the man replied, smiling. If he’d taken Jed’s calculated affront to heart he gave no sign of it.

‘So you’re an army man, then, McCutcheon,’ said Jed, even though he knew full well that wasn’t the case. Precisely modulated buffoonery seemed to be the appropriate response to this gladhanding mountebank.

‘Nope. Air force,’ he replied as they continued towards the Municipal Tower, cutting across Marion into 5th Avenue.

‘Well, that’s all right too, I suppose. And what threat to national security are you dealing with down here, Major McCutcheon?’

‘Oh, I’m just a humble liaison officer, Jed… You are Jed Culver, right – one of Governor Lingle’s people? It is my job to know.’

Culver’s smile was knowing, but he allowed just a small twinkle of admiration to light up his eyes too. This guy wasn’t half bad. He certainly wasn’t nearly as stupid as he pretended to be. It was telling that he’d referenced Culver’s official designation as a Hawaiian delegate, and not his more infamous profile as the prime mover behind the ‘No’ lobby, the makeshift alliance opposed to any radical change in the nation’s constitutional arrangements.

They turned the corner into Fifth, where a line of trees leading up to the Municipal Tower had shed all their leaves and died. The exposed branches called up an image of witch’s hands, clawing at the poisoned sky.

‘I suppose the big pink calling card gives me away,’ he conceded, fingering the ID laminate for emphasis. Jed had wondered who’d picked the colours for the laminate cards when he’d received his a fortnight ago. It certainly wouldn’t have been his first choice, or Governor Lingle’s for that matter.

Culver stopped and turned to face McCutcheon directly. ‘But what gives you away, Major, is your non-regulation haircut, which is just a bit too close to the collar. Your whole hail-fellow-well-met routine, which is a little too practised at being a little too hip. And the small, almost unnoticeable hole in your left ear lobe, which tells me that at some point you had something stuck in there, possibly to fit in with an underground cell of Resistance nitwits or anarchist troublemakers. It was a nice save on the name, but I’ve been dealing with military people for weeks now, and none of them ever call me anything but “Mr Culver” or “sir”. So why don’t you stop trying to jam ten pounds of horseshit into a five-pound bag and tell me what it is you want.’

McCutcheon appeared to regard him with detached amusement. Staying in character then. Okay, thought Jed, one point for him.

‘You’re the guy that set this gig up, aren’t you, Jed?’ He smiled, with just a hint of steel in his voice.

‘The Constitutional Convention, you mean?’

‘Yeah. The clusterfuck down at the Municipal Tower of Babel.’

‘No, I’m not the one who set it up, Mac,’ Culver replied dryly. ‘I think you’ll find that the executive and legislative branches of the surviving states did that, in accordance with Article 5 of the Constitution. I’m just an observer for Governor Lingle’s office.’

‘Bullshit. Everyone knows what role you’re playing. It’s a dangerous game, Jed. Look at this place.’ McCutcheon waved a gloved hand at the dead city lying in state around them. ‘More’n half a million people bunkered down like rats, living on subsistence handouts. An active underground resistance, which is this close to flipping over into major violence, and the only goddamn thing keeping the lid on is martial law. And that’s just here. You know what it’s like back in Hawaii. You must have heard about the refugee camps down in Chile and Brazil. America isn’t a functioning nation anymore. It’s a fucking shambles, which is this close to going under. Do you honestly believe we can afford to indulge ourselves in partisan bullshit and self-seeking politics anymore – the whole fucking spin cycle, red state/blue state, inner/outer beltway psychosis? We are this close to going under.’ He held up two fingers, pinching them together.