A Hero's End by Sutherland Staatz (free e books to read online TXT) 📖

way. It looks better than that blood-red thing that you had during the revolution.””

Harry saw Vanessa smile as they left the station together.

#

Getting out of the station was easy enough: Harry simply hit the sequence to lock the station up. The sequence gave them a moment to drive through the exit door before the, large ‘closed sign’ light up above the store, sending everyone that was lined up to other stations. Harry was glad he didn’t have to see their expressions.

Harry was less pleased when they drove through the slums. After the great gas spike the working class could no longer afford to commute any distance. Harry had seen the beginning of it before he got a job as a manager in one of the new armored stations.

The beginning was bad enough; cheap hotels and apartments were already over-flowing with humanity. Families that had lived on the outskirts of town or the suburbs pitched tents on sidewalks outside of their work places. The price of food had just begun to follow the sky-high gas prices before Harry turned his back and got a job at one of the new secure-gas stations. From the station he had read about the food riots that followed, the overwhelmed government and subsequent brutal oppression by paid militias. Harry had read of the new economy where people barely lived on whatever the upper class wanted to give them in return for work. Harry hadn’t seen it, though.

It was a little hard to see the sidewalks now; there was a cement barrier with guard towers along a road that went from the interstate to some corporate offices deeper in the city. There wasn’t a lot of traffic so Vanessa stopped the car so that Harry could stand on the car’s roof and peer over the wall. The guards were only concerned with activity on the other side of the wall so they didn’t take notice.

Harry saw the sidewalks; or rather he saw the top of a thick layer of filth of all sorts. Harry supposed that the dumpsters and gutters eventually failed to keep up with the filth that was generated by the massive influx of new bodies, sweating, eating, defecating… there was just too much waste and not enough toilets to flush it all down.

The sight and the smell of the black slime on the sidewalk were not nearly as bad as the people. Distended stomachs, dead expressions… Harry remembered seeing pictures in a news magazine where the reporter wrote what he thought at the time: How could things have gotten as bad as they were in the worst places in Africa? But now he was looking at a boy and the boy was looking back at him. The boy had an expression on his face, a vacant look in his huge eyes with a partially open, toothless mouth. The expression cut into Harry like no gas station customer would ever want to, even on the worst of days. There was no hope, no loathing, there was only a deep and infinite hunger.

Harry climbed off the roof of the car and sat down on the passenger seat, beside the former revolutionary. He wanted to climb the wall and take the people away from their misery. He thought Vanessa might have a good plan. He looked to his left with a drained expression on his face and waited to hear what Vanessa had to say.

“Let’s go talk.”

#

They eventually reached a little corner of the industrial district. There weren’t many people left here, the only thing this place produced now was hiding places. Vanessa’s hiding place was impressive. She had power, which was a rarity in this part of the city. Harry wasn’t sure where or how she acquired it, he was even less sure about the plan that Vanessa presented him with.

“Look, Ms. Vilaramos-”

“Vanessa is fine.”

Harry blinked and continued. “Vanessa then, I don’t think that would help the situation that I saw in those streets. Yes, the people at the top are taking more than they are worth, but even if you were able to get rid of them and the price of fuel were to drop those people would still be starving.”

Vanessa grunted, “What about justice?”

“What about it?” Harry replied. “Justice wouldn’t solve things here. No, we need a new form of organization; people need to drag themselves out of the slums. Forget the CEOs, we can abandon them.”

“They have the very stuff that carries the food from the farmers to what’s left of the starving masses.” Vanessa sighed and begun a deliberate sentience that Harry thought may have been practiced. ”If we can kill the people on the top there will be a power vacuum, there will be chaos and then the people can take control. I’ve got a good plan but I’m old, I need someone who I can trust. All the other revolutionaries are dead. But then there is you…”

“Oh, and you can trust me?” Harry asked, honestly curious about her reasoning.

“Yes, your papers… you’re critical of everyone, from the poorest person to the most powerful. The people in charge don’t see you as a threat. They see you as an oddity. But I’ve actually read through everything you’ve written. I know you better than they do. You long to do something but feel stuck. Here I’ve presented you with an opportunity. Take it!”

Harry thought for a little while, looking out the window that he was standing by. There was a corpse rotting in a gutter that no one had bothered to clean up. “The death of a few individuals is nothing compared to the organization of many lives. I have an idea; it involves a good degree of organization and work, but very little in the way of your vengeance, outside of some missing workers.”

“Oh come on Harry, you can’t tell me that after all of those articles that you wrote about me that you really think I’d only be interested in Vengeance.”

Harry noticed Vanessa’s voice was as soft as the lighting from the smog-filtered light that was coming in through the window, he adjusted his accordingly. “No, I suppose not. But I know that you think violence can get results, but I’m telling you that it doesn’t.”

Vanessa looked hurt, for just a moment. “The partially organized revolution that I took part in didn’t get results, but my plan will. Besides Harry, you don’t want to go it alone any more than I do.”

“Then why don’t you help me rebuild…“ Harry stopped as he saw Vanessa’s face shift and loose some of the soft light.

“Because, nothing short of physically eliminating the oppressing class will turn the situation around.”

Harry stopped; he found he had to force the next words out through his throat. “I’ve seen enough violence. We just can’t work together.”

Vanessa’s face lost the last of the soft light as she turned away from the window and stared into her white hot electronic lamp. “Fine. Do what you will. I’ll try my plan alone.” Her expression softened slightly as she turned towards the window, and Harry standing next to it, “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

#

Vanessa dropped Harry off at his gas station, neither person wanted to know the details of the other’s plan. The good-byes were short.

Because the gas station had been closed for most of the day and would not reopen for a while yet the street and surroundings were vacant. Harry was sure that his supervisors would have radioed him. Harry also knew that he would have time before they sent anyone out to check on him. Harry set about his work. He went into the store and took the shotgun and the rifle from behind the counter. He then went into the large storage building behind the station and stripped it of all the food, water and spare mines. He then loaded everything up in the station’s truck and set off for the city.

Harry marveled at how easy it was. He supposed that his employers were counting on his fear of his own customers and the potential loss of a job to keep him locked down and behaving. The problem with the company’s psychological safeguards was that his fear of people had diminished since his trip into the city and he already had his eye on a new occupation. He filled up both the truck’s fuel tanks and then set off.

#

The farmers were pretty agreeable. Harry got quite a lot of excess seed and fertilizer stock in trade for the truck and the fuel that was left in the truck’s tanks. The farmers dropped his purchase off and Harry turned the keys over to them. Farmers weren’t hurting quite as much as the lower class city folk and former suburban dwellers, but gas was valuable everywhere.

Harry was now left in an abandoned part of suburbia with almost everything he needed to grow a good crop; there was even a good sized water tower in the neighborhood. Of course there were just two more things that he needed; open ground and a spare hand or two.

#

“Hay you want some food?”

The starving urban man sounded like he was tiring to laugh, although it came out more like a cough. “Naw, I’m good for food. Why do you ask? Is my dirt-and-shoe diet not working?”

“Err… let me start over. I’ve got some seeds and some food and I was going to go and start farming in suburbia. There is plenty of land and I could use an extra hand.”

“You are crazy.”

“Tell you what, take this” Harry handed the man a jar of peaches; “I’ll give you one more just for coming with me and seeing my plan first hand.”

The man shrugged, “Sure, if you want to give away a fortune I’m not going to stop you. Say what’s your name?”

“Harry. Yours?”

“Robert Tillings. I can help you find some more workers too.”

Both men had the beginnings of a smile on their lips as they started of towards their destination.

#

When the group of workmen reached the spot that Harry had picked, one of them, Robert Tillings, asked the obvious question: “Where are we supposed to plant stuff with all of these houses?”

“We’ll get rid of them.” Harry replied to the group at large.

“That’s an awful lot of labor. How do propose we even break up the foundation, Humm? Unless you’ve got some equipment around, and the gas to run it.” The workmen all had a good laugh.

“Like this!” Harry said, right before the first set of mines detonated, breaking up a house nicely.

The chatty worker adjusted his cap and said “I suppose that’ll do.” The newly promoted demo men all got to work.

Harry was sure that he saw some hope in their eyes.

#

There was just enough game returning to the erstwhile vacant suburbs that they were able to get by until the first harvests were in. They even managed to scrape enough spare parts together from the abandoned houses to trade for a few of the farmer’s mules.

Harry had half-expected the gas companies to send out some of their mercenaries to arrest him or attack his little community but none came. He thought that they were probably too busy guarding their last luxury condos and keeping what was left of the cities together. Who knew, Harry thought, maybe they figured that I’m relieving some