“The Belt and Braces II,” she said. “But we’ll need a better name. Sequels suck.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Definitely close to the breaking point.
“You’ve taken this one away. We’ll make a better one.”
“Are you shitting me? You’re going to give up, without a fight?”
“We’re called walkaways because we walk away.” She didn’t add, you dipshit. It didn’t need to be said. “It’s a huge world. We can make something better, learn from the errors we made here.” She stared. His mouth was open. She had his fucking number. Any second later, he would talk—
“That’s—”
“Of course,” she steamrollered over him as only someone who has to work in every conversation not to interrupt can, “there’s a good chance that you and your friends will crash this place. When you abandon it, we’ll come back and use it for feedstock and raw materials.” She did her pausing trick again, waiting—
“You’ve—”
“Assuming you don’t burn it down or loot it.” Would he fall for a third time? Yes, he would—
“I wouldn’t—”
“You probably plan on keeping our personal effects, now that you’ve nationalized our home for the People’s Republic of Meritopia?” If you bite down the sarcasm every time it rises, it gets crafty. This one hit him so square in his mental testicles you could hear it. Four times she’d stepped on his words before he could get them out and then, wham, pasted him. That felt so good it was indecent. But fuck it. The prick had stolen her house.
“Look—” This time he did it to himself, couldn’t believe that he would get a word in, tripped over his tongue. His own douchebros sniggered. He was comprehensively pwned, metaphorical pants down. He turned bright red. “We don’t have to do this—”
“I think we do. You’ve made it clear that you’re so obsessed with this place that you’ll impose your will on it. You have shown yourself to be a monster. When you meet a monster, you back away and let it gnaw at whatever bone it’s fascinated with. There are other bones. We know how to make bones. We can live like it’s the first days of a better world, not like it’s the first pages of an Ayn Rand novel. Have this place, but you can’t have us. We withdraw our company.”
A bright idea occurred to him. “I thought there was no leader. What’s this ‘we’ shit? Can’t you see she’s manipulating you all—”
She raised her hand. He fell silent. She didn’t say anything, kept her hand up. Etcetera, bless him, put his hand up next. Moments later, everyone had one hand up.
“We took a vote,” she said. “You lost.”
One of his skeezoids—what must he have promised them, she wondered, about this place—gave a heartfelt “Daaaamn.” Had she ever won.
“Do we get our stuff, Jimmy?”
Bless his toes and ankles, he said: “No.” Set his jaw, made a mutinous chin. “No. Fuck all y’all.”
It would be a cold night, but not too cold. They knew where the half-demolished buildings they could shelter in were, and were carrying lots of this and that. Once they got into range of walkaway net, they would tell the story—the video was captured from ten winking lenses she could count—and rely on the kindness of strangers. They’d rebuild.
Figures, she didn’t have to say. However awful things got that night. However much work they’d do in the years that followed. However many sore muscles and blistered hands and busted legs they endured, everyone would remember Jimmy. Remember what happened when the special snowflake disease ran unchecked. They’d build something bigger, more beautiful. They’d avoid the mistakes they’d made the last time, make exciting new ones instead. The onsen would be amazing. Their plans had been forked a dozen times since they’d shipped, some of the additions were gorgeous. As she started putting one foot in front of the other, her mind went to these thoughts, the plans took form.
The girl, Iceweasel, fell into step. They walked, crunch, crunch, huff, huff, through the woodland. “Limpopo?”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you fucking kidding me?”
“Nope.”
“But this is crazy! You made that place. You just let him take it!”
“Wasn’t mine, I didn’t make it. I didn’t let him take it.”
She practically heard the very refined eye-roll with breeding, money, and privilege behind it. Someone like Iceweasel never had to walk away from anything she had a claim to. The army of lawyers and muscle saw to it. This was a horizon-expanding journey for her. Practically a good deed. Limpopo yawned to cover her smile before it could embarrass Iceweasel.
“You and I both know that you put more work into that place than anyone else.”
She shrugged. “Why does that make it mine?”
“Come on. So it’s not yours-yours, but it’s still yours. Yours and everyone else’s or however the orthodox high church of walkaway insists that we discuss it, but don’t be ridiculous. Mr. Tough Guy didn’t do shit for that place, you guys did everything, and you handed it over without a fight.”
“Why would fighting have been preferable to making something else like the Belt and Braces, but better?”
“This is the world’s most pointless Socratic dialog, Limpopo. All right: if you’d fought, you’d have had the Belt and Braces. Then, if you wanted somewhere else, someplace better, you could have built that, too.”
Limpopo looked over her shoulder. They’d fallen into a ground-eating stride while talking, left the column of refugees behind. She unrolled the insulated seat of her coat and settled down on a snowy rock, making sure the flexible foamcore spread below her butt and legs, ensuring the snow didn’t touch anything except it. Iceweasel followed, and did a good job. Limpopo liked to see people who were good at stuff, who paid attention and practiced, which is all the world really asked.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” Limpopo said. She pulled a vaper out and loaded it with decaf crack, which would keep her going for the three hours she’d need to reach the next walkaway settlement. Iceweasel took two hits, then she took one more, even though everything after that first bump was inert, wouldn’t do anything except turn your pee incandescent orange. The psychological effect of hitting the pipe was comforting. She did one more.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” she said again, admired the puffs of crispy fog that floated before her face, thrilled at the weight that lifted from her muscles, the sense of coiled power. Both of them giggled with stoned acknowledgement of the inherent comedy. “You have to understand that if I put this into your frame of reference, the frame of reference you want me to put it in, it doesn’t make any sense.