The workers wore orange convict jumpsuits and skid-lid motorcycle helmets. They played sandblasters over the marble to scour away the black scabs where the dead had melted. A cancerous seagull from somewhere far away wheeled down and perched on the head of one of the workers, pecked at its runny gray eyes.
Eagle saw a few other encouraging signs––sickly yellow weeds pushed through the cracks in the sidewalk, cockroaches ran in the gutter––but the domed palace of the Civic Center still looked like an ancient ruin. He remembered the day he’d delivered twelve pizzas to a wedding feast on the steps, the last weekend gay marriages were legal in the City. All of them now, as dead as the Romans.
The airlock on the back of the truck hissed and irised open as Eagle parked his bike and hefted the thermal pouch with their order in it.
Eagle stepped in and closed his eyes to the spray and blowoff. He kept his mask on until the inner airlock popped. The lucky pizza pies were way better protected than Eagle. A piping-hot message of love in a hermetic polystyrene metaphorical bottle, they would stay warm, yet crispy for at least twenty-four hours. Or until someone opened their boxes.
(Some Navy jerk on Treasure Island had bitched about the soggy cardboard when Eagle shipped a batch of deep dish pies out there; but the next day, he shipped a batch of these space age containers the submariners designed for keeping food hot without noisy microwaves. Another breakthrough for the evolving world.)
“Hey, Eagle,” Ernie cheered. “You remember that pizza place, Escape From New York, over on Van Ness? Ada says they gave you free pie if you could order in Italian. Is she full of shit or what?”
Eagle peeled off his mask, but he was in no hurry to jump into the argument, or breathe the air in there. Ernie Nardello and Ada Glaublich worked Red Zone cleanup 24/7, so they practically lived in the truck. Somebody must’ve pissed in their air recirculator. Hazmat suits, masks, dirty longjohns, and more than a few of Eagle’s special pizza boxes lay ankle-deep on the floor.
“I dunno, Ernie. I never delivered for them.” Popping the seal on the pouch made the truck warmer by five degrees. Garlic and oregano overpowered the truck’s manifold stinks. Even Ada made a noise, and Eagle had never heard her say a word. At least not to the living.
Born Adam Glaublich, the shy civil engineer was on top of the list for sex change surgery when the dead fucked up everything. Ada was a stone bummer, but Ernie loved her, and talked more than enough for both of them.
Ernie cracked the top box and nearly fainted. “Aw shit, I thought you said there was no more pineapple!”
“We got a couple more cans out of the Holiday Inn, so I saved ’em for you.”
“Dude, I could blow you right now.”
Eagle held out his wrist. “I love you, too. But how’s about you just pay me instead?”
Laughing, Ernie scanned him with a light pen. “They don’t pay you enough to come out here, man.”
“No, that’s your job.” He looked at the screens, the fly’s compound eye view of the Civic Center, the sinkhole, his bicycle. “Working hard?”
Ada munched a slice while she monitored their crews. “17, you’re cold,” she purred. “Warm up and work. Shovel faster.” She jogged Ernie’s elbow and pointed at a blinking indicator, but Ernie ignored her.
“This is bullshit busy work, man,” Ernie said. “The Navy says the shit got washed out and neutralized eighteen months ago. That’s why the fuckin’ Bay is dead, right? There’s never gonna be enough live people in this city for them to open the Green Zone this far.”
“I beg to differ, dude,” Eagle said, wiping the steam out of his goggles. “There’re still people out there. It’s our town. You’re cleaning it up, so the people will come back.”
“We’re just polishing rocks for a life-sized museum, but thanks. They’ll have meat puppets good enough to do our jobs by then. Hey, if anybody shows up at the gates who can turn my partner’s hot dog into a taco, let me know, okay? Then I’ll be at peace with the world.”
Ada punched his shoulder. “17’s acting up. Seagull ate his eyes.”
“So shut him down,” Ernie growled. “I’m not suiting up now. I’m eating lunch. You going back to the Bubble?”
“Not right away.” Eagle picked the old boxes out of the mess on the floor. “Got another delivery.”
“Out here? Where?”
“Haight and Stanyan.” Eagle strapped on his mask in the airlock.
Ernie’s eyeballs bounced off his HUD goggles as he dropped the first seal. “Say what?”
“It’s a long story. I gotta go, guys. Take care.”
Eagle popped the outer airlock and jumped down.
The zombie was waiting for him.
#17 stenciled on its helmet. Seagull shit and a sparking wire in its empty eyesockets. It dropped its shovel and lurched at Eagle, who threw the empty pizza boxes in its face and instinctively backed into the gate of the truck, groping in vain for a weapon worth having.
He hated guns, but he always carried one. A cop-issue Glock 9mm with soft hollowpoint rounds hung in its holster on his bike, next to his canteen, about ten unreachable feet away.
“Ernie! Call off your fucking dog!”