Zone One

The Lieutenant said, “You figure it out, you get back to me. Personally, I like them. Not supposed to say it out loud, but I think they’ve got it right and we’re the ninety-nine percent that have it all wrong.” He waited for Mark Spitz to turn away from the window. He tapped his desk, lightened the register of his voice, and the new sweeper rejoined him. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll work. The symbolism. If you can bring back New York City, you can bring back the world. Clear out Zone One, then the next, up to Fourteenth Street, Thirty-fourth, Times Square on up. Those sweet crosstown bus routes. I used to take the bus all the time when I lived here, to see the Famous New York Characters in all their glory. Spitting, scratching, talking in voices. Them, not me.” He batted at a fat fly. “We’ll take it back, barricade by barricade. Tell me, Mark Spitz, are you known for your optimistic disposition?”

“Sure.”

“I can tell.” The Lieutenant smiled. “That wall out there has to work. The barricade is the only metaphor left in this mess. The last one standing. Keep chaos out, order in. Chaos knocks on the door and bangs on the wood and gets a claw in. Will the boards hold until morning? You know what I’m talking about if you made it this far. There are small barricades-across the apartment door, then a whole house nailed up-and then we have the bigger barricades. The camp. The settlement. The city. We work our way to bigger walls.” Across the room, Fabio tried to catch his attention, but the Lieutenant dismissed the man with a flick. From his assistant’s expression, he was accustomed to his boss’s rhetorical flights. “One naturally thinks of the siege, but we overlook that because the word takes away our agency. Sure, I can play that game. We are safe inside from what is outside. We had our modern conveniences, the machines at the end of the power strip that kept away the primitive. I had my beloved cloud, you had yours.

“I notice you are not staring vacantly at your palms. Good. Sometimes they ship these mopes in here, they’ve had their souls scooped out. They wash out pretty quick. The hard way. Now I screen everybody who comes in. See what kind of business they got behind the eyes. You passed the quiz. You’re still alive. Congratulations. Even got all your fingers. Which is a big plus in this line of work.”

The Lieutenant held up a hand to his assistant, acquiescing. “We’re almost done and then you can go. I know the first thing people want to do when they get to Zone One is walk around. See the sights.” Outside, the lunchtime fusillade erupted anew. He rolled his eyes. “You get used to it. Spend some time here and you get used to it. What made you volunteer? You don’t like farming? I come from a family of farmers.”

Mark Spitz didn’t know in that moment. It would take some time in the Zone for him to discover the reason. He said, “Just trying to do my part.”

“Good answer! That can-do pheenie attitude. Personally, I say wake me when you bring back cilantro. Got any family?”

He thought of Uncle Lloyd, but what was there to say. “I don’t know.”

“Mostly joking with that one. I’ve been thinking about how in the old days, we had these special-ops dudes who did all the batshit stuff. Parachute into hostile territory, baroque wetwork, tiptoeing into the tent to garrote the warlord-pretend I didn’t say that-and these batshit killing machines were always single guys, single men and women, no families. What do they have to lose, right? But who has a family anymore? Everybody’s dead. All those vacation pictures floating in the cloud. Zip. Been thinking about that. Now we’re all batshit killing machines, could be a motherfucking granny wielding knitting needles. I digress.”

The Lieutenant hesitated, then nodded wearily. “What we have here in Zone One is not a suicide mission. Just a bunch of stragglers. Welcome to the team.”

The Lieutenant stared at him and Mark Spitz wondered if he was dismissed. Then the man clicked on once more. “You bunk where you want in the grid. Take your pick. Try not to break anything. They’re really big on that now. Sundays you come back here for check-in. Besides that, pop ’em, bag ’em, drag ’em. Any questions?”

“Seems pretty straightforward,” Mark Spitz said. “This has been very informative.” Fabio handed him some paperwork. He was pulling the door shut behind him when he heard, “Think it might rain today. That’s what the old clouds say.”