Volume 6: Constituent Parts

Constituent Parts
by Steven Ormosi

“I want that motherfucker found,” Kelly shouted, “Alive or dead, I don’t give a damn anymore. After what he did to Jonah, he doesn’t deserve that distinction.”

Perry, her right hand man, nodded, “We’re working on it, Kel. He’s just not going to be that easy to find. Unfortunately, we don’t have too much manpower for searching. We have, what, ten people to cover an entire city? All we can do is canvass the neighborhoods and you said yourself you don’t want innocents getting hurt. Well people are scared of Billy and scared people aren’t always the most forthcoming unless they’re more scared of something else. We’ll let you know as soon as we’ve got something.”

Kelly and Perry were sitting in the bar. She had called him here to discuss hunting down Billy the Kid. So far they hadn’t found shit, but that couldn’t be helped. The little fucker was slippery as an eel and a lot more dangerous. Kelly was not keen on losing any more of her friends or associates to that scumbag, so they had to be careful.

She was still mourning Jonah, who it had turned out wasn’t killed that day on the Wall as everyone had been told, but had been kidnapped by Billy’s underlings to try and swing the vote towards Donovan. When he had dissented, they killed him. Not only did they kill him, but they did it in the most horrific and undignified way possible. Jenkins’ men had found him in a quarantine cage, changed into a null skull as they called them on the Wall. Jenkins had to have him put down. Like a fucking dog. When she found out, Kelly had vowed that Billy and Max Donovan would be put down too.

She missed Jonah, missed talking to him at nights, missed drinking with him. She even missed saying goodnight to him. Cute little Jonah, always half asleep over a book, waiting up to say goodnight because he wanted to make sure she’d made it upstairs alright. She always told him that she could take care of herself and he would say, “I know. This is for me, not you.” And she would say, “Thanks, but go to sleep you sound like a fucking high school kid with a crush.” And he would say, “Oh, fuck you, sorry for caring.” But he meant, “Sleep tight, I’ll be here for you if you need me.”

But that was a lie. Because she needed him now.

She shook off the daydream and got back to the task at hand. “Well make sure everyone is on this. It is the most important thing right now. Priority one.”

“Got it. What else do we have going?” Perry asked.

“We’re sending a mechanic on the trip outside. I told Ed I’d get him a good one. Find someone we can trust, I don’t want any screw ups out there. We’re going to need to be able to salvage what we can in order to keep the wheels here oiled. Eventually we need to be able to bring more gas in here, siphoning it from the abandoned cars in the city is only going to go so far. We’re going to be waiting on citywide electric for a while. Ed’s got people working on converting the power plant inside the walls to wind and solar, since we don’t have nearly the amount of coal we need to run it anymore, but who knows how long that could take. I mean, we really just don’t have the tools for it yet. I try to stay away from that stuff for the most part, let the scientists and politicians worry about it, but it is something we’ll hopefully have within a year or two. Meantime, we need to keep our gennys running.”

Kelly continued, “I could use more liquor too, people seem to be shying away from the moonshine, don’t ask me why.“

“Well it tastes like acid mixed with shit, for one,” Perry interrupted.

“Whatever, you’d think people would be happy for anything that makes them forget at this point. Anyway, if you could rustle me up a few bottles from the market, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Ok, I think some scouts may have found some in no man’s land between the walls. I’ll see what I can do.”

“And can you tell Al to take it easy with the bar fights? We’re trying to get on people’s good sides here. We need to rally people around us, not tear them limb from limb.”

“I’ll tell him, Kel. Anything else?”

Kelly walked behind the bar and poured two shots, “Yeah, get some sleep, maybe get laid. You look like shit.”

“That sounds nice.”

“But do all that other stuff I told you first. Here, drink this,” she said, handing him a shot of moonshine.

*************************************************************

After Perry had gone, Kelly took a walk over to City Hall. She had to talk to Ed Jenkins. Luckily she had enough on her plate to keep her mind from drifting to Jonah too often. When she arrived she walked straight into his office.

“You know Ed,” she said, “Security here is for shit, I wish you’d let me post someone to watch your ass. You are aware that you have enemies, right?”

“You worry too much. The only reason you got in here is because my guards know who you are. I want to maintain the appearance of being fully accessible to everyone, not have a brute squad outside my door.”

“I’m just saying, someone strapping the right mix of cleaning supplies could turn you into an ugly stain on your wall.”

“At least then humanity’s fate would be in someone else’s hands.”

“Oh shut up you big cry baby.”

“How’s the mechanic search going?” Ed said, pouring himself a glass of water from a pitcher on his desk.

“It’s going. I’ve got Perry on it right now, actually. We’ll have one by next week. No worries.”

“Good,” Ed said, taking a gulp of water. “It’s amazing. The things we have to worry about now. This water I’m drinking. Know where it comes from?”

“No idea.”

“Filtered rain water. No shit. We collect the rain water, then filter the hell out of it. It’s probably still horrible for you, but that’s about the best we can do. We still have a small store of bottled water for long drought contingencies, but most of the water we have available literally falls from the sky like manna. Since we don’t really have access to any good water supplies here, we have to collect it, we have dozens of rooftop containers that do the job. The point is, I’m worried that we have so much to pay attention to, just to survive, that we’re going to miss something. And if we miss something, that’s curtains for us. Maybe as a species. Why am I responsible for that?”

“Because you were the best person available for the job.”

“Just because I’m better than what we had doesn’t mean I’m the best. I don’t know. I feel like the world is expected of me. How am I supposed to live up to that?”

“Look, Mr. Mayor, I’m not the kind of person that goes in for trying to make someone feel better about themselves. I’m here to get things done. You wanna wallow, do it after I leave, but for Christ’s sake, do it privately. We don’t need the population thinking you’re some whiney pussy right now, or ever.”

Jenkins looked her in the eye, “You think I don’t know that? Why do you think I’m trying to talk to you about it? You’re the one person I can trust to know that this isn’t a sign of weakness. I’m just working through everything that’s going on. Listen, Kelly, you have nothing to worry about with me.”

“Good.”

Jenkins shook off his malaise, “I’ve got some information that will interest you. We think we have the whereabouts of Billy. You know that after his weapons depot mysteriously exploded, he went into hiding. He’s had his head down for weeks, but we got a tip yesterday that he was seen on the east side of town, about two blocks in from the Wall over there. It appears that he has a place on Williams St. So, use that information as you will. I’m going to have some people start combing the area three days from now. It would be a damn shame if he were already dead.”

“I’m sure the public would be outraged,” said Kelly.

“Alright,” said Jenkins, “I’ve got a meeting I need to be at, so we’ll leave it at that today. It’s been a pleasure as always.”

“The pleasure was all mine, sir,” Kelly said, extending her hand to shake.

Jenkins grabbed it and smiled, “Keep doing what you do, Kelly. You’re making this a better town for all of us.”

“You too, Mr. Mayor. Come grab a drink sometime.”

“I will, I will. See you soon.”

*************************************************************
Kelly found herself at the makeshift graveyard near the center of town. It was full. She didn’t like coming here, there were always too many people grieving for their lost loved ones, she felt like she was at a social gathering, not a cemetery. Kelly walked up to Jonah’s grave and took out a copy of The Odyssey and a bottle. She placed his favorite book against his marker and poured two shots of moonshine.

“To liver explosions and brain aneurisms,” she said pouring the shot over his grave and then tipping back her own. “Who dies, you pussy?”