Marta was overcome with vertigo, or something like it—a sensation like falling, but what she was falling into was the black, fetid pit of her own willful ignorance and cowardice. Oh, she’d kept the lights off—the drugs helped with that—and she’d stumbled around blindly in the dark halls of her marriage, but she’d felt around the edges of things in order to keep moving safely forward. She had intimate knowledge of the shapes in the dark.
“Last year,” June continued, “a military unit out of Atlantic Zone leveled a community like ours in West Virginia. They burned it to the ground in the night as people slept. Gunned down the runners. It’s an open secret that Perrone initiated that raid to settle a score with a rival crime boss out of Midwest Zone.”
Marta could see that Wes wanted to protest again, to claim these things weren’t possible. But he pressed his lips together, making a thin white line.
“That put us here in Ruby City on alert. But we thought we had fairly safe status. We thought we had a product Perrone wouldn’t want to do without, and we thought we’d done a pretty good job of safeguarding that product, keeping it proprietary, even keeping our village’s location secure. Perrone’s been trying for years to get us to make a onetime deal with him. He wants seeds, plants, formulas—for the street Salt and the therapeutic Salt. Says he’ll make a big onetime payout to us and then leave us alone. Sounds nice. But I’m not stupid. I know what happens if we hand all of that over. I know what he’s capable of. So I’ve put him off in every way I know how. So far, it’s worked.
“Then, three things happened.
“First, we got word of your deal. Microsuits, of all things. We’ve braced ourselves for all kinds of possibilities here, but I’ll admit that wasn’t high on anyone’s list. What’s the next big Pocketz investment, Wes? Aluminum foil hats?”
Wes seethed. June, unruffled, continued.
“Around that same time, some of our raw product went missing. Some seeds. Not much—it’s pure luck we caught the discrepancy, because whoever took the stuff was careful. It was literally a matter of a pouch being a tenth of a gram off during a chance weigh-in. Once we knew, though, we discovered the other thefts pretty quickly. And we haven’t figured out the who or the how, but we know the what. We have to assume David Perrone has them, or soon will.
“The last thing happened after your training started, and that’s when I told Andy to pull the trigger and get you to Ruby City. Another community out here became a crater in the ground. I don’t know the ins and outs of this one, but I have it on good authority that the community housed a lab bankrolled by private interests in Gulf Zone. Three, four hundred people, easy. I’m guessing they had their own little vitamins. I can only assume other people have figured out what we’ve figured out, or else they’ve solved another dimension to the problem, like curing Shreve’s specifically. Either way, it’s all gone now. And we’re looking at the sky, wondering if we’re next. We’re Perrone’s pet lab. We’ve got that going for us. But if he’s gotten his hands on our seeds, that might not matter. He hasn’t come knocking with his buyout offer again, and that makes me nervous. And if he’s making microsuit deals, maybe he isn’t interested any longer in getting into the business of fixing the tick problem. Maybe he’s discovered that he likes the tick problem just fine.”
She stopped finally. Downriver, the revelry continued. Marta shivered against a sudden breeze that rattled the weeds lining the water. A light rain started to fall, little more than a mist, but Marta sensed something heavy and ripe in the air, a coming storm.
“What is it you want from me?” Wes asked. He sounded very tired.
“First, I want you to process a hard truth. Those three or four hundred people outside Gulf Zone—that happened because of your microsuit deal. That’s what this man is willing to do. That’s who you’ve partnered with, and those are the stakes if you keep this deal with him.”
I have to do something kind of bold to clench it, David had said. None of Marta’s suspicions about David had prepared her for a possibility like this. But she couldn’t muster enough disbelief to doubt June. Could David have done what June said he’d done?
Yes, she had to admit. Yes. He could have.
Wes’s eyes were bright with dampness. “I had no idea—you have to believe I had no idea anything like that could happen.”
“I do believe it,” June said. “But now you know.”
“So what do I do then? Back out of the arrangement? It’s done. I won’t do it. You have my word.”
“That’s something, but it might not be enough for us. Because Perrone has our seeds. I have to operate on that assumption, anyway. So here’s what I propose: you make us your partners, instead.” June shook her head suddenly, as if arguing with herself. “Not even partners. Partnership is more than what I’m asking for here. I’ll let you have the deal Perrone wanted. I give you seeds, plants, and formulas to take back to Atlantic Zone, and you give us some kind of reimbursement to cover our losses from the alliance with Perrone. I can promise you we’ll be a lot cheaper than Perrone’s deal, and you’ll be getting a product that actually does something.” A sadness settled into her face, making her features sag. “A product that changes everything.”
“You don’t seem so happy about that possibility,” Marta said.
“I’m not. You know why this zoning business has gone on as long as it has? Because lots of us like it this way. The David Perrones of the world like living behind walls. Me, I like living outside of them. When Salt gets tested and packaged and distributed, and people’s insurance starts covering it, that’s the beginning of the end for all of this.” She motioned downriver, where the glow of bonfires etched the edges of the starlit sky. “It won’t be long before the zones are fighting about who owns us, which government gets to tell us when to bend and squat. But what choice do we have? I’ll take a few more years over nothing. I have lives to protect.”
Wes ran both hands over his shaved head, thoughtfully. It was quiet enough now that Marta could hear the dry rasp of his palms against the new stubble.
“If I do this,” Wes said. “If I agree to it. You let everyone go home tomorrow.”
June shook her head firmly. “No, Wes. I’m sorry. I have to keep you here until you’re scheduled to report back to Quarantine 1. Otherwise Perrone’s going to know something’s up, and we can’t risk that.”
“What will you do with us?” Marta asked.
“We’ll treat you like guests,” June said. “We have comfortable bunkhouses. You’ll all get doses of Salt—we drink it here in a tea, and it hits the system faster—and so you won’t be at any risk of disease. We’ll feed you well. Heck, you can spend the time doing all of the things you planned to come out here to do: hike, swim, fish. Sit under a tree and read. You won’t have to use a Stamp. And Wes, I can show you how our operation works. You can gather all the information you’ll need to bring back to your people.”
She held out her slim, pale hand. Wes studied it.