Dee nods at a ferry moving our way. It used to be white once upon a time, but it looks like someone threw dark paint all over it to try to camouflage it.
‘Well, at least there will be four of us in the fight.’ I try to sound extra cheery.
‘Three,’ says Sanjay. ‘I’m just here as the expert. Guys like me, we’re lovers, not fighters.’
‘You’re a fighter now,’ I say, pulling him toward the water.
By two o’clock, Dum comes back with a smug grin, strutting like he just accomplished something big. There are also enough people now who have come out of the woodwork for us to have a real working crew. Lumber, hammers and nails, stereo equipment, and lighting are all being ferried and put together on the island chunk of the Bay Bridge that we’ve selected for our final stand.
By three o’clock, the first gangs roll up to the shore. By this time, there is a respectable number of refugees and freedom fighters. We’ve collected some of Obi’s old citizen soldiers who heard our announcement.
‘Better to go out like a man than run like a cockroach,’ says one bearded guy leading a bunch of others with gang tattoos as he struts into the group.
If the other survivors weren’t already scared, they’d be at least a little afraid now. These are the guys the rest of us avoided on the streets.
Although the new guys may have decided to join the good fight, as soon as they come, they’re more interested in establishing who’s boss. People get shoved, told to leave the shade for the gangs, tolerate food being snatched on the way to their mouths.
Everyone is exhausted and afraid, and all they seem to want to do is fight each other. Honestly, I don’t know how Obi managed all this. I wish I could figure out a way for all of us to run and hide, but we can’t do that with this many people in all their various conditions. So once again, I’m back to the last-stand concept.
I don’t like the sound of that phrase, last stand. Did I inherit the Resistance only to see it go down on my watch?
As new gangs walk into our area, they begin clashing with the other gangs. If it’s not the color of their shirts or the shape of their tattoos, it’s some other seemingly random choice of who’s on whose team as the gang population gets bigger. Some are divided down racial lines while others are split among regional lines – the Tenderloin gangs versus the East Palo Alto gangs, that kind of thing.
‘This is an explosive combination. You know that, right?’ asks Doc who has volunteered to be the field medic despite his arm still being in a sling. We all know he would have been rejected by the Golden Gate crowd had he gone there. There are too many Alcatraz refugees there to leave him in peace.
‘We don’t need to keep it together for very long,’ I say. ‘They’re healthy fighters, and we’ll need them tonight.’
‘When Obi asked you to take over, he might have meant that maybe you should take over for longer than you’re considering.’ Doc sounds like one of my old teachers, even though he looks more like a college student.
‘Obi knew exactly what he was doing,’ I say. ‘He asked me to keep people from dying. If they bruise each other while I’m trying to keep them alive, that’s just something we’ll have to deal with.’
The twins nod, looking impressed at my tough love attitude.
‘We’ll take care of it,’ says Dee.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘What we always do,’ says Dum.
‘Give the masses what they want,’ says Dee as they walk over to two growing crowds facing off with each other.
The twins walk right into the middle of the face-off with their hands in the air. They talk. The crowds listen.
A large man struts forward from each side. One of the twins talks to the two large men, and the other twin begins taking notes as people from the crowd call out. Then everyone steps out into a circle, leaving the two large men in the middle.
As if on cue, the combined crowd begins shouting and jumping for a better view. They’ve closed the circle, so I can’t see what’s going on inside, but I can guess. The twins have started an official fight and are taking bets. Everybody’s happy.
No wonder Obi kept the twins around and put up with their antics.
By four o’clock, we have as many talent show contestants and audience members as fighters. I’m so busy I hardly have time to think about Raffe. But of course, he’s always in the back of my mind.
Will he do it? Will he kill humans in order to be accepted back into angel society? If we have to fight each other, will he hunt me like an animal?
The end of the world hasn’t exactly brought out humanity’s finest qualities. Raffe has seen people do the worst possible things to each other. I wish I could show him the other side – the best that we can be. But that’s just wishful thinking, isn’t it?
There are familiar faces among the volunteer fighters. Tattoo and Alpha from Alcatraz are there. Their real names are Dwaine and Randall, but I’d gotten used to thinking of them as Tattoo and Alpha, so I keep calling them that. Others are picking the names up, and if they don’t stop it soon, they’ll become their permanent nicknames.
It seems that half the group goes by nicknames. It’s as if everyone feels like they’re different people now, and so they shouldn’t have the same names as they did in the World Before.
I look up when people step aside to let a man in a suit and chauffeur’s hat walk up to me. Everyone stares at his exposed teeth and the raw meat where skin should have covered the bottom half of his face.
‘I heard your announcement,’ he says in his tortured way. ‘I’m glad you made it out of the aerie alive. I’m here to help.’
I give him a small smile. ‘Thank you. We could use your help.’
‘Yeah, as in right now,’ says Sanjay, waddling by us, trying to hold up his end of a stack of wooden planks. My ex-driver rushes over to help.
‘Thank you,’ says Sanjay with much relief.
I watch them load the planks onto a boat with easy camaraderie.
I feel like I have a lead submarine in my stomach when I think about all these people who will probably die because they believed me when I told them this was worth fighting for.
56
The sun flashes off the dark water of the bay below us. Even though it’s still afternoon, the sky has a fiery tinge with dark tendrils reaching across it. In the distance, the fire on the south end of the peninsula billows smoke into the air.
It’s not quite the reddish glow of the Pit, but it reminds me of it. Instead of being suffocatingly red, though, our burning civilization is ironically beautiful. The sky is alive and in motion with the reflected colors of the fire in hues of maroon, orange, yellow, and red. There are plumes of dark smoke shifting through the air, but instead of blotting out the colors, the sky blends and absorbs it, darkening some while contrasting with others.