Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗

“Your car is ready, sir. It’s waiting outside the main entrance.”

San Jose City Councilman Mario Santorello looked up from the contract he had been reviewing. The Council secretary hovered in the doorway.

“That’s great, thank you,” he said, offering a tight smile. Almost eight months into his term, Mario could not remember the woman’s name. After years of not bothering with the names of underlings, he had trouble remembering even the names of those it would be helpful to know.

Mario straightened the papers before setting the contract aside. He pushed his chair in with a precision the task did not require, then checked his watch. Might as well go straight home after and spend an hour with the kids, he thought as he buttoned his suit jacket.

Outside, the sun’s rays were blinding as they reflected off the squat glass and silver dome beside the San Jose City Hall tower. Mario squinted against the glare, the pupils of his light-brown eyes contracting to pinpoints. He slipped on his sunglasses and headed for the open rear door of the black SUV parked at the curb.

“Mario!”

He stopped and turned. His younger brother Dominic waved his arm above his head from halfway down the block.

“Glad I caught you,” he said when he reached Mario.

“I’m on my way to the Julian Gate. I can’t stick around,” Mario said.

“I’ll tag along. You can give me a ride home,” his brother answered, then ducked into the SUV ahead of Mario. Dominic grinned as he settled himself on the cool leather of the back seat. “Julian Gate means a riot and you’re still the new kid on the block. The first year sucks, but someone else will be getting the glamour jobs before you know it.”

Mario sighed, then looked out the window. Falling into the pecking order of siblings, Dominic did not try to engage in conversation during the three-minute drive.

The Julian Street Gate towered ominously at the intersection ahead. The fortified concrete wall that demarcated San Jose’s border could have given the Berlin Wall a run for its money with its drab grayness and oppressive aspect. The walls and gates that surrounded San Jose always reminded Mario of the ugliest examples of Soviet architecture, but they got the job done. He supposed that was all the Soviets had cared about, too.

Mario opened the SUV door. The roar from the other side of the wall always surprised him. He knew it was a riot, and by definition riots were loud, but he could not shake the years of conditioning for quiet and stealth.

He nodded to the Watch Commander who waited at the bottom of the tower stairs. “What have we got?” he asked as they started up the metal stairs two abreast, his brother following after.

“Approximately five hundred subjects gathered over the last hour. Twelve minutes ago, they demanded entrance to the city. They were given two minutes to disperse, then tear gas canisters were fired. They fell back for a short time but regrouped.”

Mario walked to the railing of the observation deck at the top of the stairs. The ashy smell of tear gas still hung in the air despite the stiff breeze against Mario’s back. A wave of raggedly dressed people rushed toward the wall, then stopped short as if on cue. Arms flipped up like the levers of a line of catapults and rocks filled the air, smacking feebly against the fortified concrete. Flames burst to life at the edge of Mario’s peripheral vision as a Molotov cocktail ignited.

Beside him, Dominic said, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

Mario shot his brother an annoyed sideways glance.

“Lighten up,” Dominic laughed. “And don’t pull that fox face with me. I pulled more of these the first month of my first term than you’ll ever get now. Order the live ammunition.”

Mario turned to the Watch Commander. “Why haven’t you used the water cannon?”

“We’re still on water restriction until the rains start, sir. We can let it run its course if you’d like.”

“Tick tock, tick tock,” Dominic muttered.

Mario shook his head. “We don’t need five hundred more zombies along our walls. Give another order to disperse, then use live ammunition.”

The Watch Commander nodded. He turned away and started barking orders.

“Now the fun begins,” Dominic said as the dispersal order blared over the loudspeaker.

Mario waited. The mob offered rude gestures and cat-called insults. When the crack of the rifles began, the taunts turned to screams and panic.

“And they’re off!” Dominic said, his voice like a child’s with a new toy. “Look at them run.”

Mario felt his face tighten into a hard mask. It started at his eyes, then his nose, followed by his mouth and square chin. Mario looked at his brother again and headed for the stairs. He was almost at the landing before Dominic called after him. Mario waited while Dominic caught up.

“Don’t be such a crab ass, I’m just having a little fun. Migrants can’t turn up on our doorstep expecting to be handed the vaccine as some sort of entitlement, Mario. They have to pay for it or earn it like everyone else. It’s not like they matter.”

Dominic had been on the City Council for almost six years and enjoyed the idea of being senior to his older brother entirely too much for a thirty-four-year-old man. Mario’s motives for wanting to be on the Council could not have been more different than his brother’s, and he’d fought like hell to prove his loyalty before he was finally awarded a seat. The sibling rivalry, and, if he was honest with himself, his brother’s lack of recognition of how hard he had to work to get where he was now, got on his nerves.

“Of course they don’t matter. I just have better things to do than watch fish being shot in a barrel.” Above them, the gunfire ceased. “You still want that lift home?”

“Yeah, though I’m not in a rush,” Dominic answered, opening the SUV’s door.

“Alan still trying to run the Farm?” Mario asked, not trying to hide his amusement. He directed the driver to the Axis building, then turned his attention back to Dominic.

“If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a million times: all he’s supposed to do at the Farm is keep an eye on things and report back, but does he listen?” Dominic asked, his voice filled with long-suffering. “He and Miranda got into it again, but this one was bad. She threatened to throw him out the window.”

“You still have your looks,” Mario said. “It’s not like you’ll be a widower for long.”

“You suck.”

Mario laughed. “That may be, but he needs to cool it. We cannot touch Miranda without pissing off the Jesuits, and you know what her temper is like. If she gets angry enough—”

Dominic groaned. “I spent lunch trying to explain political realities to him. He refuses to believe the Jesuits have the support they do with the unwashed masses. Or that they’re stronger now than when we tried to get rid of them before. ‘We have the vaccine’ is his answer to everything, as if having the vaccine is all that matters when we need their import network from the missions. He has this ridiculous notion that we can just step in and take them over, too. And he cannot comprehend that they started the Farms to feed people, not to make a buck.”

“That’s what happens when you let a bunch of academics run things.”

“Talking to Alan about any of it is like talking to a stone.”

“You should have married a Catholic, Dom,” Mario teased. “If you hadn’t strayed from the One True Church, your husband would understand that priests live for that social justice crap.”

“If I hadn’t strayed, I wouldn’t be married at all, you dick,” Dominic retorted, but he smiled. The SUV slowed as they approached his building.

“You picked him.”

“It’s self-inflicted, I know.” Dominic opened his door. “Give Emily and the kids my love.”

“You bet. I’ll see you later.”

The SUV door slammed shut.

“Home next, Councilman?” the driver asked, making eye contact via the rearview mirror.

Mario nodded, then looked out the window without seeing anything. Fucking Miranda, he thought. A ghost of a smile played around the corners of his mouth as he pictured her: a five-foot-seven fire-breathing dragon squaring off against his idiot brother-in-law. She had probably been sticking up for someone who could not stick up for themselves, like she always did.

A wave of loneliness caught Mario in its undertow, tightening his throat and hollowing his chest. He tried to shove the feelings aside. He could not afford to dwell on Miranda, but that left him thinking about Dominic. His brother regarded shooting unarmed people as entertainment, even people as dispensable as migrants. It shouldn’t have surprised Mario, yet somehow it did. What was it that Miranda had read to him once?

A riot is the language of the unheard.

“What’s that, sir?” the driver asked.

Mario looked up, surprised to realize he had spoken out loud.