In the Drift Read online

  Before the motorcyclist could clear the road, the tank slewed around, catching the bike a glancing blow on its rear tire. There was a sickeningly loud crunch. Keith caught a glimpse of something flying through the air.

  Bowles was all elbows and motion, braking the truck and simultaneously fighting to keep it on the road. Tires screeching, he fought it to a halt, still upright, one wheel resting on the shoulder.

  Bowles leaped from the truck, his door swinging loosely on its hinges behind him. Keith automatically cut the motor, pulled on his mask, and followed.

  The woman’s fall had been broken by a tangle of dead brush. She lay still and crumpled, looking like a bundle of discarded clothing. Some way beyond her lay the dirt bike, bent and twisted, clearly beyond repair.

  “It’s not a mutie,” Bowles said. He straightened from his hasty examination, bent again to count the woman’s fingers. “Nope. You know any first aid?”

  “A little,” Keith said. “Jesus.” He stared at a trickle of blood creeping out from one nostril. It was paralyzing, this glistening, liquid red. He shook off the feeling, bent over the woman.

  “First we look for any obvious broken bones, um, severe bleeding—it’s been a long time since I learned this stuff.” She was a lean, muscular woman, somewhere in her late thirties or early forties. Slavic cheekbones, a fierce set to her face, even unconscious. A heavy caftanlike robe had fallen partially open, revealing khaki fatigues, the light green kind that the Northern Liberation Front had worn two decades ago. Her nucleopore was knocked halfway off her face. He checked to see that she was still breathing, reset it. “Well, I don’t see anything.”

  “What next?”

  “Um, we treat her for shock. Cushion the head, raise the feet.” He started to take off his jacket to form a pillow, stopped. “This is no good. We’ve got to get her into town.”

  They carried her to the cab, awkwardly distributing her weight across their laps. Keith took the wheel and carefully started the truck rolling.

  “What’s this tangled around her neck?” Bowles asked. He unstrapped a leather case, looked inside. “Binoculars,” he answered himself. He set them carefully on the dashboard, began going through her pockets. “Passport here, stamped in Philadelphia. Occupation: Scholar.” He paused. “Didn’t know you could make a living at that. Special Drift clearance to visit Souderton.”

  “Souderton’s nowhere near here. It’s hardly in the Drift at all.”

  “Do tell.” Bowles replaced the document, continued rummaging. “Hello. She’s got two of them.” He pulled a second passport from an inner pocket.

  “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t be going through her things like that,” Keith said uneasily. Bowles ignored him.

  “Says Suzette Fletcher on both of them. Same height, same color hair. Age: forty-two. That’s the same. Occupation: Reporter. Now isn’t that funny? She’s a reporter for the Boston Globe, up north. And it’s not stamped in Philadelphia at all.”

  “Hey, really, man. I’d feel a lot better if you didn’t do that.”

  “Yeah, okay, okay.” Bowles replaced the passport, smoothed the caftan shut again. He studied the woman’s face, nested in a mass of dirty blond hair in Keith’s lap. “This is one damn handsome woman. How’s it feel to have that face in your crotch?”

  Keith slowed to negotiate a tricky patch of road, where a careless dumping had let a frozen chemical slick form on the concrete. “Aw, come on,” he mumbled, involuntarily embarrassed. “She’s old enough to be my mother.”

  “Looks like she’s still got bright eyes, though,” Bowles said lightly. “Bet she’s got a bushy tail, too. A young man like you could learn something from an older woman.”

  They crossed the denuded strip of land that separated Philadelphia from the Drift, black from repeated burnings-over. The back—outward—side of the barrier fence was bright with hex signs, and beyond this cheery greeting was the city, safe haven from all that lay behind.

  Bored guards waved them through the blockades, and the truck cruised through the city fringes. It was largely rubble here, with a few Victorian buildings standing lonely as country tombstones. These were the haunt of self-styled witches and conjur men, who claimed to draw power from their proximity to the poisoned lands.

  “Hey. We’ll be going by a hospital; maybe we should dump her off there. She might have a concussion.”

  Keith considered this. The buildings were drawing closer together, and the streets becoming more populous. He braked to avoid hitting a gypsy child, then proceeded more slowly. “Wait a bit and see if she comes to. Let’s save the hospitals for a last resort.”

  Pedestrians scattered and hand-trucks were yanked from their path. A carriage horse shied away, and Bowles snickered, always pleased to see the wealthy inconvenienced. “Shortest way from here’s the Spring Garden Street bridge.”

  Keith nodded. “Okay.”

  Embalmed monsters hung from each of the old, nonfunctioning lampposts on the bridge, a constant reminder of the horrors that bred Outside. Most had been positioned decades ago, and exposure to the elements had battered them into brown shreds and an occasional exposed bone. Keith found himself glancing up at each pole as it floated by, realized that he was looking for yesterday’s Janus monster, and forcibly turned his attention from the grotesques back to the road. He didn’t even glance up as they passed Mummer Hall.

  The sun was a red smear against the horizon as the truck finally crossed Two Street. It was weakly echoed in the rearview mirror’s grimy streaks, and a wide smear on one edge of the windshield. Scattered sweepers were brushing the street clean of any lingering hot particles from the Drift wind, for tomorrow’s parade.

  The woman groaned and stirred softly. She opened her eyes, painfully drew herself into a sitting position. “Philadelphia,” Bowles said. “My name’s Jimmy Bowles, and my partner’s Keith Piotrowicz.”

  She bent forward, gingerly touched her forehead. “God, that hurts.” She snuffled slightly, accepted a handkerchief from Bowles, held it to her nose.

  “Jimmy’s the first man ever to create a traffic accident in the Drift,” Keith said with a touch of malice. Bowles glared at him wordlessly.

  The woman straightened a bit. A corner of her faded blond hair caught the sun, glinted red. “Oh yes, it all comes back to me now.” She forced a smile. “S. J. Fletcher. Everybody calls me Fletch.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Fletch,” Keith said. Almost simultaneously, Bowles asked, “What were you doing out in the Drift?”

  Fletch watched the worn dockside buildings glide by. Their brick walls were a warm red overhead, shadowed below. “Private genealogy,” she said. “I was researching the records in Souderton—they’re almost untouched, a real treasure trove—and I found my grandmother’s marriage license. It said she was born in King of Prussia, so …” She shrugged. “I was hoping for the family Bible, but it looks like a lost cause. Hey, you guys did pick up my stuff, didn’t you?”

  “On the ledge,” Bowles said. The truck had slowed to a crawl as Keith eased it through the narrow riverfront streets. He made a tight turn into the company lot, nearly scraping two buildings in the process.

  “Not that crap! My goddamn saddlebags. They’ve got all my—supplies and stuff. All my money, my letter of credit.”

  Keith exchanged glances with Bowles and shrugged. The lot was choked with trucks that had come in earlier; he turned his attention to the clumsy business of parking. They had come in late, and only Slot 23 was vacant.

  “Must be with the bike,” Bowles said. “We didn’t go look at it.”

  She slammed a fist into her thigh. “Damn, damn, damn.” Then, abruptly authoritative: “You’ll just have to take me back out there to get them.”

  “Hey, now,” Bowles objected.

  Keith cut the engine, yanked the key. “Look around you,” he said. The tankers stretched in long, even rows, their white bodies dull in the failing sunset. “The Company isn’t going to let us take this thing into the Drift at
night.”

  “I—”

  Bowles hopped out of the cab. “Keith, you come out back and read the meters for me,” he said. “Then I’ll go log us in, and you two can hash this thing out between yourselves.”

  “All right.” He stepped outside and inhaled deeply, savoring the city air. It was dirty, but it was safe. He opened his jacket, letting the cold air hit him, before strolling around back. He vaguely wondered what Bowles wanted to say. There were no meters, of course; either the truck was empty or it was full.

  “Listen,” Bowles hissed fiercely. “You can do what you want with that woman, tell her anything you like. But you will keep your mouth shut about me looking at her papers. You got that? This is Mummer business, boy, and you’d best keep that in mind.”

  Keith half shrugged, half nodded. Bowles looked at him in disgust. “Jesus! You wouldn’t know an opportunity if it came up and bit you on the ass!” He turned and began the long walk to the dispatcher’s shed.

  Keith returned to the cab, feeling slightly amused. If Bowles wanted to play secret agent, that was nothing to him.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said to Fletch. “We can take you back out the day after tomorrow, if you don’t mind wasting a day in the truck. The dispatcher won’t like it, but Jimmy can work it for you. He’s got influence.”

  “Why not tomorrow?”

  “It’s the first of January—Mummers Day. Everything will be closed.”

  “And just what the hell am I supposed to do with myself between then and now? Sleep in the gutter?”

  He glanced away, to avoid her angry eyes. “Check into a hospital, maybe?”

  “I’ve seen your so-called ‘hospitals’ and no thank you. Give me someplace I have a fighting chance to walk out of alive.”

  “I suppose I could put you up,” Keith said unhappily. “I’ve got a spare couch.” He wasn’t sure he liked this woman, and he had a sick feeling he was going to regret the offer. But for the life of him he couldn’t see any alternative.

  When Bowles returned, Keith briefed him on the situation. The old man slapped Keith’s back. “Behave yourselves,” he said, smirking.

  It was no far walk to Keith’s apartment, a mile or so through the recycling district, what used to be Queen Village. He strolled easily, in no particular hurry to be anywhere.

  Fletch studied everything they passed, the piles of bricks from dismantled buildings, rusting steel for re-smelting, verdigrised copper tubing that would be melted down and recast to make new bank pennies—everything. She wrinkled her nose at a vat of rotting cloth destined to become paper, jabbed a finger at a bright, kachinalike figure painted on its wooden side. “What’s that mean? I’ve seen it painted all over the place.”

  “It means that the owner is paid up with the Mummers. Protects him from thieves.”

  “It does, hey?” Fletch hefted a brick from a nearby pile, tossed it back on top. It landed with a clink and a sharp puff of mortar dust. “I could’ve just walked off with that—if I’d wanted it.”

  “But you couldn’t have sold it. The Mummers have ears everywhere. If you tried to get rid of it, they’d find out. They’re all neighborhood people, see?”

  Fletch wasn’t listening. She was studying another vat, this one holding mounds of salvaged plastic in a water medium. Beside the painted Mummer was PLASTECOLI, printed in big block letters. “You’ve got tailored bacteria!” She found the spigot and filter arrangement where alcohol was bled off from the decaying plastic. “I thought Philadelphia had an embargo against high-tech.”

  “Only when it takes money out of the city.” They had arrived at his block. Three gated entryways led to the internal courtyards, and Keith nodded to one. “This way.”

  He led Fletch up to his fourth-floor walk up, and opened the door for her to enter first. He hung his nucleopore on a hook just inside the front room. “You can take the bedroom,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the couch, I guess.”

  She surveyed the cluttered rooms. “This place is a dump. Don’t you ever clean up in here?”

  “Well …” Keith lifted a clutch of dirty clothes from the floor, dumped them into an already crowded closet. Fletch examined a framed picture of the Virgin and Child, and smiled tolerantly. She wandered to the only window that wasn’t boarded over for the winter, jerked the shutters open.

  “Nice view of the harbor if you squint between the buildings on the left,” she said wryly. Keith fed a miserly few lumps of coal into the stove, starting a fire with twists of paper from last week’s Inquirer. He did not bother telling her that the apartment cost him extra because it faced away from the Drift.

  Fletch unslung her binoculars, peered through them. Without turning to look, Keith could imagine what she saw: the sloops and schooners, sails furled, riding in harbor. Mixed in with them would be a few others, the old retreads.

  “It’s too dark to make out for sure,” Fletch muttered. “But I could swear that one or two of those ships are coal-burners. Even—Good Lord! That looks like a converted oil tanker.”

  “Oh yeah, we got all kinds.” He blew gently on the fire, anticipating its warmth. Another few minutes and he’d be able to shed his coat.

  “But those things are old! Single-hull construction with the bottom rusting out and the rivets popping loose. How can you people allow that garbage in your harbor?”

  “What harm could it do?” Keith asked. “Any spill would just wash downriver. The Delaware feeds out of the Drift anyway—nobody’s going to be fishing in it for the next few thousand years.”

  The dinner plates were piled in the sink, waiting for the nighttime water rates, when there was a knock on the door. Fletch, wearing one of Keith’s old sweaters over her fatigues, answered it.

  Over a dozen of the building’s tenants stood in the hallway. “Mummers Gift, Mummers Gift!” they shouted in loose unison. A lone Mummer stood to the fore. He wore a sequined green top hat and baggy blouse and pants that were figured in bright geometric patterns of mirror fragments and embroidery. His cape, which he’d wear in tomorrow’s parade, would never have fit through the doorway, and had by necessity not been worn. He stepped inside, sweeping off the hat, and looking like a glittery Hollywood Indian.

  “They’re here for the Mummers Gift,” Keith explained to Fletch. The Mummer held up a muslin sack, and Keith hastily scooped two rolls of silver dollars from a dresser drawer and handed them over.

  With a flourish the man broke the rolls open and dribbled the coins into the sack. His lips moved as he quickly counted them. Keith smiled ruefully. The Gift had eaten up most of his savings.

  The Mummer was a short man, with a slightly bloated face, and the flush of alcohol accentuated the broken veins in his nose. “Paid in full,” he announced. The tenants crowded in, as he waved a benign hand in the air. “The protection of the Mummers is extended to this house for another year. Let the revels continue!”

  The tenants cheered and surged through both rooms. Somebody shoveled more coal into the stove, and somebody else waved a jug of grain alcohol in the air. Keith hastened to dig out what was left of last October’s cider for mixer. The floating party was an ancient and hallowed custom, and in a city that ran more on tradition than actual intent, it was best to go along with all these things.

  Not all the partiers were from Keith’s building. Cynthia Doring was among them, and she lived blocks away. She closed in on him with the single-minded intent of a shark, and when she latched onto his arm he imagined white teeth shredding the flesh. “Keith darling,” she said. “It’s been so long. It has been literally years since I’ve seen you.”

  Keith refused to meet her eyes. Her green eyes, with flecks of gold and bottomless pupils. “Yeah, well. These things happen, you know.”

  “But they shouldn’t. They mustn’t.”

  There was a tug on Keith’s sleeve. He turned, found himself facing Jerry from the third floor. Jerry was not quite drunk; his eyes were bright with excitement. “You’ve got to introduce me to your blo
nd friend,” he whispered. “Is she yours? Where did you find her?”

  “I’ll introduce you.” Keith was glad for the interruption. “Excuse me, Cynthia.” He led Jerry over to Fletch and performed his duties. “We sort of ran into each other in the Drift,” he concluded. Knowing it would be a minor bombshell.

  “You didn’t!”

  “Really?”

  “What was she doing out there?—the Drift is dangerous.”

  Fletch smiled a polite, almost motherly, smile. “The radiation count is only dangerous if you’re right on top of the Meltdown site. For most of the Drift, all you have to contend with is particulate matter. You’re perfectly safe as long as you don’t eat, drink, or breathe.”

  There was a slight uneasiness to the group’s laughter, but they clustered about her, fascinated. Cynthia seized the opportunity to reclaim Keith. Taking his arm again, she said, “Keith, you worry me. At first I thought it was just me, something I’d said or done. But I keep running into your old friends, and you haven’t been seeing them either.

  “What is it you’re hiding from? You could’ve talked it over with me. I haven’t moved. Hell, I still work the same shift at the hospital; you could’ve met me there.”

  Somewhere in the background, Fletch was explaining the rudimentaries of genealogy. “Where were you when Joey died?” Keith asked.

  Green eyes widened. “I’m just a nurse, Keith—I empty bedpans. But I looked after your brother, and there was nothing anybody could do for him.”

  “Nobody dies of rat bites.”

  “It was rabies. Rabies virus 2017B—they were lucky even to identify it correctly.” When Keith said nothing, she tightened her grip, pressed her soft young body against him. “I came here with Timothy,” she murmured. “But say the word and I’ll ditch him. I think we had something going, Keith. Save what’s good from the past, and let the rest go.”

  With a sudden wrenching motion he tore free of her. One hand fisted and rose shoulder-high, and only a deeply ingrained inhibition against hitting a woman kept him from lashing out, striking her in the face.