Sunrise

I cleared my throat. Then cleared it again, louder. Max broke the kiss and looked over at me, startled. “I need my conference room,” I said.

Alyssa tossed her hair, smiled, and marched out with her head held high.

Max’s face turned tomato sauce red, and he slinked past me with a muttered, “Sorry.”

I caught his arm, holding him there a minute. “Is she still getting gifts under her pillow?” I asked in a whisper.

“Sometimes,” Max said.

“Did you tell her it’s not you?”

“Um, not really.”

I made a mental note to move Darla and my bedroll closer to where Alyssa slept. I wanted to know who was giving her gifts surreptitiously, before it exploded into some kind of drama. “You should tell her.”

Max shrugged and pulled free of my grip. He nearly crashed into A

A

The most critical project was building greenhouses, so I threw my energy into that. I sent a team led by Nylce to trade with the Wallers for more food. Thelma, who’d started as our hostage but was now our guest, went along as an advisor—she had finally decided we weren’t going to kill and eat her. Now she saved her paranoia for all the other ways she might die: a flenser raid, a rare disease, or a fall from a turbine tower were her three favorites. I normally tried to avoid her. Nylce took Ranaan Kendall—the

Iraqi war vet—along with her too. He hadn’t made the trip to the WalMart warehouse yet and wanted to see it.

After di

“You can call me Alex,” I said for the gazillionth time. “And sure, what’s up?”

“The sniper’s nest is above us,” he said.

Okay. That wasn’t like Ben anymore. I mean, yes, sometimes he was way too literal, but he was getting a lot better about interpreting figures of speech. He must have been incredibly nervous to misunderstand a simple expression like “what’s up.” “I mean, what can I help you with?” “Could we talk in private, Mayor Halprin? I am sorry, I forgot to call you Alex, Alex.”

“It’s okay. Sure. Step into my office.” I ushered Ben into the bottom of Turbine Tower 1-A, careful not to touch him. Normally these days a casual touch didn’t seem to set him off, but he was clearly already tense. I pulled the door closed behind us and asked, “What can I do for you, Ben?”

“You can grant me permission to call on Rebecca.” “Call on?”

“May I have your permission to take your sister out on a date?”

I rocked back on my heels in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Where had that come from? “Rebecca doesn’t need my permission to go on a date.”

“It is appropriate to ask the father of the young woman for permission to court her, but if the young woman’s father has passed on, one may seek permission of an older brother.”

“You’ve been reading some really old books on dating, haven’t you?”

“I have read The Marriage Guide for Young Men, Courtship and Marriage: And the Gentle Art of Homemakmg, and The Way to Woo and Win a Wife—”

“No, never mind, that’s okay. I don’t need to know them all. Yes, you may ask Rebecca if she would like to go out on a date with you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Ben held out his hand to shake. I took it—every muscle in his hand was corded and straining. I could feel how much mental and physical effort the handshake cost him and cut it short after one arm pump.

I didn’t catch up to Rebecca until breakfast the next morning. “Did Ben talk to you?” I asked.

She just about bubbled over right before my eyes. I could practically see the hearts rising from her head and bursting, spreading a heady scent around her. “He brought me flowers! Real flowers! What kind of guy plants real flowers in the corner of a greenhouse and tends them for three months just so he can give them to you on your first date?”

“A keeper?” I guessed.

“Hell to the yes!”

“I’m happy for you. You . . . um . . . Mom, she talked to you about, you know, all that—”

“You are truly disgusting, Alex. And yes, she did.” Rebecca flounced off while I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Chapter 72

Not long after di

Normally I don’t stand much on ceremony, but did she have to yell it across the entire longhouse? And Longhouse Five? That was where my mom and Mayor Petty were staying—were they in trouble or causing trouble? Everyone turned to stare at Rebecca and the phone outstretched in her hand. I ran over, taking the receiver.

The line was a confused jumble of voices. A woman said, “Throw it up there. Over that rafter.” Another voice said, “The trunk line is over there.” With all the noise, I couldn’t recognize either voice. Suddenly, the circuit went completely dead. Since we only had one party line, I couldn’t communicate with anyone—none of the longhouses, not even the sniper post nearly three hundred feet above me.

Ed was at my elbow. I hadn’t even noticed him approaching. “Full mobilization, manual protocol. Phone line’s dead.”

Ed ran for the door of the longhouse, unslinging the rifle from his back as he went. He yelled, “All platoons, arm and form up!” and Longhouse One instantly transformed from a relaxed, after-di

I leaned close to Rebecca, yelling to be heard over the hubbub. “How’d you know the problem is in Five?”

“Mom was monitoring the line in Five. She started to report something, and then there was a smacking sound and a crash, and she quit responding. I asked the rest of the operators to stay off the line so we could listen in.” Some invisible cord tightened deep in my gut. I handed the phone back to Rebecca. “Line’s dead. Monitor it in case it comes back.” I grabbed my hat, glove, and gun and ran for the door.

Ed already had four Bikezillas formed up outside and waiting. “Leave half your force here to defend the long-house. The other half converge on Longhouse Three.”

“Yes, sir.” Eight soldiers jumped onto the load bed of each Bikezilla, so we had forty-eight packed onto the four bikes. The others would have to follow on foot.

Because of the pattern we’d built them in, Longhouse Three was the closest one to Five. So Five came in view right before we reached Three. Nothing seemed out of order—nobody was outside either longhouse. I was off the Bikezilla ru

When I pulled open the door, I was in for another shock. Longhouse Three was nearly empty. About a dozen kids and two old women were there, washing and sorting part of our black bean harvest.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

Neither of the adults answered me. One of the kids— a girl of maybe eight or so who had survived the massacre outside Warren—said, “They went to a party.”

“Shh,” the older woman beside her said.

“What kind of party?” I asked.

“It was a Halloween party!” the little girl said.

“Halloween was four days ago,” I said.

“But they took masks and a big rope so they wouldn’t get lost on the way to the party.”

“Quiet!” the old woman said.