Steam rose above the teacup, carrying with it the earthy scent of dandelion and honey. It was nearly enough to cover the smell of diesel oil and lye soap.

She lifted the teacup to her lips and blew gently, her eyes tracing the lines of the Eiffel Tower on the faded jigsaw puzzle glued to the wall. The orange sunlight that splashed from the ceiling lent everything a pastel hue and seemed to make the world somehow softer, quieter. Even the distant drone of propellers faded into the background when she closed her eyes and took a sip of rich tea.

With a smile, she sighed and unfolded a pristine napkin before placing it in her lap and smoothing it down over the jet-black jumpsuit that she kept unzipped with the sleeves tied about her waist. The cabin door slid open and let in a rush of chilly air just as she reached out for one of the half-dozen scones arranged into a perfect hexagon.

A young man stepped inside, closing the door and peeling off his fleece-lined leather jacket in a single motion before tossing it on the bottom bunk. He flopped into a chair on the other side of the little checkerboard table with a loud sigh. “Hey, Rennie,” he said, snatching a scone and cramming the whole thing in his mouth.

Rennie lifted the napkin to dab at the corner of her mouth as she glared at him. “Good morning, Ber.”

He grunted and pulled off his heavy wool cap, tossing it toward the bed but missing entirely. Barely taking the time to swallow, he grabbed another scone and popped it into his mouth, licking the butter off his fingers.

“Those,” Rennie said, squeezing her napkin hard enough that her raw red knuckles turned white, “are my scones.”

Ber grinned, chewed, and stretched out his hand one more time.

“I will cut you,” she muttered as she lifted the cup to her lips.

Ber pulled his hand back to cover his mouth as he snorted, chewing and laughing and breathing at the same time.

Rennie sighed and lifted the teapot, holding the lid with her other hand, careful to keep the blue fishermen and willow trees lined up as she poured a cup of tea. She set down the teapot and pushed the saucer and cup across the table.

After a loud slurp, Ber swallowed and shook his head. “That’s not very civilized. Grandma says that politeness is the backbone of civilization.”

“The way I said it was civilized.” She took a quiet sip. “Besides, Grandma also says that respect for others’ property is the foundation of civilization.” Another sip. “Also, toilets. How was watch?”

Ber drained his cup, then pulled a small chunk of wood and a folding knife out of his pocket as he leaned back in his chair. “Cold. I ain’t gonna complain though. I’ll never get tired of seeing sunrise from fifteen hundred meters. It’s the simple things in life, you know?”

“That’s why I love you.” She stretched out one leg and pushed his chair away from the tiny table with a chattering noise.

“Heh,” he said, pushing his knife into the wood and carving off one chip after another. “Did see an airplane though. Southern Illinois Commune’s crimson livery. Started pacing The Meek at first light.”

“I wonder what they wanted.”

“Dunno. We are in their territory, but they didn’t signal anything. I wonder if they could help us find the old Monsanto building?”

Rennie shook her head, her tight bun barely wobbling as she swallowed her sip of tea. “I doubt anyone’s been in Saint Louis enough to know where anything is. Or rather, I guess, lived long enough afterward to map it out.”

“Maybe the SIC heard about what we were doing in Pittsburg, and they want their own steel mill.”

Rennie began pouring herself another cup. “Hmmm. Rumor is that they have plenty of pig iron from the furnaces we installed last time we came through, what, four years ago? That and they should have enough coal and limestone for the Bessemer process.”

“I dunno about the rest of it, but they have plenty of coal.” He paused to blow some wood chips off of his carving. “We even saw what looked like city lights on the western horizon just before morning watch relieved us. I bet they got one of those old power plants working.”

“Wow.” She set down the teapot and turned to gaze at a poster on the wall, exactly centered between the door and the bunk bed. Dozens of people rushed their own way in an enormous canyon of skyscrapers with only the tiniest sliver of starless night above. Every surface was covered in brilliant screens whose advertisements and cheery slogans washed the darkness away with a multicolored artificial daylight. None of them were afraid of the night, nor of the strangers pressing at their elbows. With a smile, Rennie’s eyes lingered on the scene as she asked, “Did you tell grandma?”

“I wanted to stay and watch the sunrise. Sherwin said he’d do it.”

“Mmmm,” she hummed through a sip of tea. “Are we close enough to see the arch yet?”

“Nah,” he said, digging the tip of his pocket knife into the wood and twisting it back and forth. “Strong headwind all night. We won’t reach Saint Louis until this afternoon or so.”

Rennie nodded as she set down her cup and reached for a scone.

The room lurched and tilted as the propeller noise increased in pitch. Both of the room’s occupants sat up straight, their heads whipping around to watch a strip of LEDs mounted just above the door. The splash of sunlight swept across the wall, illuminating half a dozen posters before glinting off a set of immaculately polished wrenches in a tool belt that hung by the door.

A siren spun up into a reverberating howl, followed a moment later by a flood of red light from the LEDs and the tromp of boots running both ways on metal grating. Ber dropped his knife and carving onto the table as he scrambled to pick up his coat and hat. The cabin door slid open just as Rennie was pulling the jumpsuit up over her shoulders, and a bearded man stuck his head into the room and pointed at them in turn. “Reynolds, damage control. Bernoulli—”

“Turret three, on it!”

“Nuh-uh. Mendoza’s out of commission, you’ve got his plane. Congratulations on your promotion, now get to the hangar!” He disappeared in a flurry of footsteps, leaving the door wide open.

The popping rumble of starting engines erupted from below as Ber blinked and ran the fingers of both hands through his curly hair. He rested his hands on top of his head and puffed out his cheeks with a long exhale.

Rennie strapped her tool belt around her waist. “If Rye says you’re ready to defend The Meek, you’re ready. I’ve seen you fly, and whoever these assholes are, they’re about to have a bad day.” She punched him in the arm. “Give ‘em hell. And stay safe out there.”

“Y-yeah. You too, sis.”

---

“Tits.”

Rennie looked at her trembling hand. Fingers weren’t supposed to bend that way. On instinct, she checked between her feet, but all she saw was the narrow duralumin strut she was balanced on and the distant fields below. The only trace of the wrench she’d been holding was a splash of black debris embedded into the skin of her palm. That wasn’t going to wash off, no matter how much soap she used, no matter how hard she scrubbed. And she was out one thirteen millimeter steel wrench.

With a grunt, she twisted around and screamed at the crimson biplanes swarming around the massive airship, “That was a matching set! Savages!”

The heartbeat pounding in her head and in her hand was louder than the POMPOMPOM of the Oerlikon twenty millimeter cannons just out of sight above the curve of the hull. She lowered herself until she could sit on the narrow beam, hooked her elbows around a pair of support cables, and took several deep breaths before squeezing her eyes shut and yanking on the twisted finger with her other hand.

When the stars in her vision had subsided, she flexed her fingers. Not broken, just dislocated. And dirty.

She sighed, looking over her shoulder just long enough to see one of the biplanes get shredded by a bursting twenty millimeter shell. Small consolation, but it was enough to make her grin as she turned back to her task. They probably thought these pre-war radar-fused shells were magic.

The lightweight aluminum engine block she was looking at may as well have been magic, too, for all that she could do to replace it. Only a handful of cities could make even cast iron, and there was exactly one functional steel mill in the world, nevermind aluminum.

Magic or not, the engine wouldn’t run without an oil pump. She poked at the jagged bullet hole, hands already caked in black grease from her first attempt to remove the pump. The housing was toast, but if she could get the rest of the bolts loose, then she could run it down to the machine shop in the hangar and at least cobble something together. She’d have to make two trips; one to borrow a wrench, and one to come back with the broken oil pump. Twenty minutes, at least.

As she started to shimmy back along the strut, the sound of one propeller rose out of the din, increasing in pitch and volume. Rennie turned around, squinting through her goggles into the brilliant blue sky. Several red biplanes littered the rich farmland below, and several more were still dodging the sleek little aluminum Zephyrs, but there was one just pulling out of a sharp turn as it lined itself up for a strafing run on the engine where Rennie was perched.

“Shitshitshitshitshit,” she hissed under her breath as she hooked her wrist over one strut and reached out to the next with her left hand. Even if she made it back to the catwalk, or inside the hull, there was no part of the entire ship that would stop a bullet. She swung around the rear of the engine, lifted herself onto the nacelle boom, and scrunched down behind the largest chunk of metal around.

The sound of bullets impacting the engine came a full second before the roar of the biplane’s machine gun. Hot oil and shards of metal sprayed across Rennie as lead slugs peppered the engine and hammered a path through the pistons and shafts inside. At the first pause, she flung herself toward the catwalk and sprinted forward, trying to be anywhere that someone wasn’t shooting at.

There had been too much air outside, and nothing but. Nothing between her and the savages. But here inside the hull, there seemed to be no air at all. Her lungs burned and the handrails swam around her as she fell.

---

She woke alone.

She shouldn’t have been alone.

Her mouth was dry, and it hurt to breathe. She reached up to brush a mop of chestnut curls away from her face but her right arm was in a sling. Three fingers were taped together on her right hand. Her left hand was filthy with grease and dried blood. When she looked up, the room kept moving for the space of a heartbeat after her head had come to rest.

Most of the lights were off, though a reading lamp still illuminated a ratty book on the table next to the bed. White cabinets and racks of vials lined the walls, filled with little brown bottles labeled in pencil. An IV hanger and oxygen bottle were crowded into one corner next to a sleek computer with its dust cover folded and draped over an empty chair. Doctor Govinda had told her once that in the old days, the machine was used to look at babies before they were born. Rennie had only ever seen it used to find bullets and cancer. Lots of cancer.

She sat up with a grunt, using her good arm to push herself into a vertical position before planting her feet on the floor. While waiting for the waves of dizziness to subside, she let the vibrations of the floor speak to her. Seven of the eight engines were still running. A quick glance around the room confirmed that her wrenches were gone. So was her jumpsuit.

In fact, she was wearing nothing but a full-torso wrap of bandages and the shorts she’d had under the jumpsuit this morning. It didn’t take too much effort to stand up, but trying to pull the sheets off the bed was impossible with one arm. She just didn’t have the balance to tug and stand at the same time—not without another arm to brace against something—so she lowered herself to her bare knees and lifted the mattress with her shoulder as she tugged at the sheet.

Once Rennie had wrapped the bedding around her shoulders like a shroud, she opened the door. Warm sunlight and all the sounds of home surrounded her. Pneumatic impact wrenches. Shouting and hammering. A song of propellers and wind that sang of life above the mud and disease.

The textured aluminum catwalk bit into her bare feet as she stepped out of the infirmary. She leaned against the railing, looking through the hangar’s open floor and taking a moment to watch the airship’s shadow glide over fields of grain baking in the summer sun. Beneath her feet, she could see the hangar work area through the metal mesh, with toolboxes and munition crates along the wall. Four of the Zephyrs were each dangling from a trapeze, suspended above the work floor where a team of mechanics were checking them for bullet holes or other damage. None of them looked up at her.

The fifth plane must have been scouting. That was why Ber hadn’t been at her bedside. He was a good pilot, and he had sharp eyes. First choice for any scouting missions, though he’d never been in combat before today. She wondered if he had seen the arch yet.

Rennie pulled the sheet tighter around herself, shivering in spite of the warm breeze that circled around her calves. Stepping deliberately, gingerly, she made her way towards the captain’s cabin at the other end of the hangar, past rows of cabins like hers, with their doors all standing open.

The captain’s cabin door was slightly ajar, and as Rennie approached she could hear voices trickling out of the cabin. One belonged to Rye. “… put him in that plane, and I have to live with that, but you and Katherine put those biplanes in the air.”

The captain’s voice was calmer. “We showed them how to build engines. It’s their choice whether to use them in airplanes or tractors.”

“Goddammit, Nancy. We shared too much, and now it’s bit us in the ass. We helped these assholes shoot us out of the sky.”

“We can’t keep everyone else in the dark ages just because it gives us an advantage.”

“We can’t help anybody if we’re dead.”

“We can’t give them hammers and not expect that they use them to make guns. We can’t give them tractors without also giving them airplanes.”

“And when we give them Monsanto wheat, what will they get then?”

Rennie leaned against the door frame and gave a thin, weak smile when she heard a smile in the tone of Nancy’s voice. “Fed.” A chair creaked. “Before the war, we had these highways. People driving cars both ways down the same road, at sixty miles an hour. Everyone around you was in control of half a ton of steel and gasoline, zipping past you just inches away. All it would take was a twitch of their hand, and you’d be horribly injured or dead. But for all of us, it was just routine. Everyone had to trust everyone else, and for the most part, it worked. Just because someone has the capability to hurt you doesn’t mean that they will. Do you know why it worked?”

Rye sighed. “Because nobody was starving. A hungry dog will bite anyone, I know. But if we go through with this, we’d be feeding their people and their soldiers.” His footsteps approached the door before it slid open. He was still facing into the room as he said, “I hope your conscience is—”

He turned around and saw Rennie, then immediately broke eye contact and turned toward the catwalk with his head lowered. He strode toward the spiral staircase and quickly began to descend, pausing just long enough to throw a final glance at the young woman before disappearing completely.

Rennie peeked around the edge of the doorway, and saw a white-haired woman looking back at her. She stepped inside, padding silently across the floor until she was standing next to the older woman’s desk. “Grandma?”

Nancy reached out and put a wrinkled hand on Rennie’s shoulder, rubbing it gently as she said, “How are you doing, sweetie?”

“I’m dizzy, and confused. What happened?”

“You were injured. Nothing too bad, but you went into shock. Something about your pneumothorax? Doctor Govinda got you fixed up, though. How’s your hand?”

Rennie lifted her left arm and inspected her good hand, turning it over and flexing her fingers. Crusty dried blood almost covered the black grease that filled every crease and crinkle in her skin. It had even worked its way under her fingernails. “I… th-this is going to take hours to get clean.”

“Your other hand, doofus. The one that got shot.”

She stuck her bandaged hand out from under her makeshift shawl, and turned her hand palm-up. “I think it’s permanent. There’s soot or something under the skin.”

Nancy grunted with a half-smile as she slid a pair of wire-rim glasses onto her nose and turned slightly toward her desk. “Well, I’m glad it doesn’t hurt too much. How are you doing?”

Rennie leaned to the side, looking around her grandmother at a yellowing paperback that sat open on the desk next to a notepad and the stub of a pencil. She reached out and lifted the front cover of the book. The blue paperboard cover was curled around the edges and the glossy plastic laminate clung only in patches near the center, but the title was still legible.

WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, 21st edition, 2019

“Second watch saw electric lights,” Nancy murmured as she tapped her notebook with two fingers. “That means a power grid, and that means—”

“Grandma.” Rennie took the book from the table and closed it gently before turning and placing it on a bookshelf out of her grandmother’s reach. “You’re not that kind of doctor. You’re trying to distract yourself. What happened? Rye wouldn’t even look at me. Nobody in the hangar would look at me.”

Nancy sighed and pulled her glasses off. She was silent for several seconds. “Bernoulli was shot down.”

Rennie didn’t move. She didn’t cry, or speak.

“They attacked us out of nowhere,” Nancy said as she pulled her granddaughter closer, rubbing her back gently through the bedsheet. “We don’t know why, but—”

“They’re savages. What more reason do they need?”

Nancy chuckled dryly. “You’ve lived most of your life in a castle in the sky. You don’t know what savage is.”

“I’ve seen children dying of typhus. Illiterates burning down libraries and shitting in their own wells.”

Nancy rose and guided the pair to a small couch. “The war started and ended on the same day. None of the missiles landed in Los Angeles, but they didn’t have to. The electricity went out, then the gasoline ran out, and within twenty four hours, there was no more food. Suddenly my friends and coworkers, the people with whom I had marched for peace and tolerance and causes you wouldn’t even understand… They were willing to fight and kill for a bite of food.

“The look in a starving woman’s eyes. Or a man’s eyes, with a different kind of hunger. That still exists today, of course, and it always will, but back then there just wasn’t anything else. There was no home to go home to, where you could lock the doors and sleep, or get a hot meal that would fill you up. We’re still not civilized, not by a long shot, but the Southern Illinois Commune waging a war because of some kind of shadowy political intrigue? That’s closer to civilization than it is to savagery.”

“No,” Rennie croaked, “we are civilized. We are. They—” she jabbed an arm toward the window where the distant Illinois horizon was rolling past “—are the savages. They have no place in the world we’re making!”

Nancy took Rennie’s hand and held it, rubbing off some of the dried blood as she talked. “I know you’re angry, and if we could go back in time and save your brother, I would drop everything to do it. But nineteen SIC planes got shot down, not just one of ours. There are nineteen families besides ours who lost someone important today, and we—”

“Good.”

After a deep breath, Nancy lifted Rennie’s chin and looked her in the eyes. “Remember when you said that you saw illiterate savages contaminating their own drinking water? Part of being civilized is dealing with your own shit so it doesn’t make you sick.”

“What’s making me sick isn’t in here. It’s out there. If the world was civilized, I’d still have a brother. We’d still have a mother. My hands would be clean. I could go to a grocery store. We’re trying to make the world a civilized place, but they don’t want to be civilized.”

“Yes,” Nancy said as she stood up, reaching down to help Rennie stand as well. “That’s exactly the kind of thing you have to deal with. You need a good nap, some good food, a good cry, and probably some pants. We should reach Saint Louis in a couple of hours, and without Bernoulli I’ll need you to coordinate the effort at the Botanical Gardens Library. Go take a nap, and I’ll send someone to wake you up.”

---

Rennie awoke tumbling through the air.

When she opened her eyes, she was on the floor and couldn’t remember what she had been dreaming about. Rye stood over her with a grimace while one hand rubbed his face. “Briefing starts in five minutes. Try not to punch anybody else on your way there.”

As the sound of footsteps on the catwalk receded, Rennie stood up and winced before stumbling over to the window. She leaned against the glass and looked to the west, easily spotting the lazy curves of the Mississippi river, though she was on the wrong side of the ship to see the city of Saint Louis.

With a grunt, she pulled the gauze wrap off of her right hand and made a fist several times. After one more glance at the river, she turned around and began digging through a chest of clothes, eventually pulling out a pair of cargo pants. They were at least three sizes too big, and required a belt to hold them against her hips, but they weren’t frayed or patched.

Her arm was too sore to pull a tee shirt over her head, so she picked the only button-down shirt she had; a white, lacy blouse with puffy shoulders. She stopped to look at herself in a mirror and frowned. Her hair was tangled and oily, and there was grease and dried blood on her face to match her hands. She’d already managed to get greasy black-brown finger stains on her blouse, too.

She picked up a bar of lye soap and turned toward the door, but stopped when she saw an unfinished wooden carving laying next to a few scones on her little table. Ber’s knife lay, still open, with a tiny chip of wood hanging on to the edge of the blade. Rennie picked up the carving and turned it over in her fingers.

It had the form of a horse’s neck, arcing up and forward in a graceful curve of powerful muscle that ended in an unrefined head-shaped block. The surface was uncomfortable to touch; every edge was rough and covered in splinters that threatened to embed in her skin.

The block of soap in her left hand was smooth. It was comfortable. Her fingers slid over its surface easily and painlessly. It promised clean skin, clean hair, a clean smell, and a civilized appearance.

Rennie placed them both on the checkered table, leaving a finger on each one as she looked over the positions of the soap, the knight, and the stale scones. Two teacups and one teapot. After a deep breath, she tilted the bar of soap until it fell over, then picked up the knight and squeezed it against her palm.

With one last glance at the abandoned bar of soap, she stuffed the unfinished knight in her pants pocket and shuffled toward the door, picking up a pair of boots as she left.



“There she is,” Rye announced as Rennie sat down on a toolbox and started pulling on her boots. “Now, we’re about twenty minutes away from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. Jim’s passing out the mimeograph of titles we’re looking for. These should help farmers across the continent make the best use of their land and the crops they have access to. We’ve got Mr. and Mrs. Branson here to compile the information into a single book while we’re en route to L.A. There’s a printing press museum there that will make enough copies for us to distribute, and then it’s up to the folks on the ground. That should help increase food security across the continent, even if we can’t find where Monsanto sent that grain.

“That’s what’s at stake. Here’s the problem. We suspect the Southern Illinois Commune is on our tail after we kicked theirs. We don’t know why they’re after us, but they’ve basically declared war. We can’t afford to spend the night, so we need to get in and out of the library quick enough to proceed west to Monsanto before dark. That’s why you’re all here, instead of just the twins and me and Jim. Any questions?”

One of the mechanics spoke up. “Do we even have enough rifles for everyone, if the SIC is coming after us?”

“We’re worried about their airplanes, not their army. The most we can expect down there is wild dogs. There’s too many hotspots to station any soldiers here, and we hope to be gone before they can get anybody here on horseback. Nobody’s bringing rifles, just pistols. Travel light.”

The same mechanic ran a hand through his hair, then held it up in front of his chest. “So, do we need to be worried about radiation?”

“No,” Rye said with a shake of his head. “Not unless you’re planning on hiking around for a day or two. Just don’t lick the dust off the windows or drink from any puddles. No eating or drinking at all, for that matter. We’ll have everyone wash up before they come back on board.”

A woman in thick glasses cleared her throat. “How, uh, how do we do it? Just wander around looking for the books?”

Rye nodded. “We’ll break up into groups, which will split into pairs. Everyone will get a section to search. Stick with your buddy and one scans titles while the other keeps their head on a swivel. When you find a book, call it out and Reynolds will radio it up. Your team leader will have more details, but that’s the basic idea. Anybody else?”

Rennie raised a hand. “How long do we have? What’re we shooting for?”

With a deep breath, Rye ran a hand over his beard and raised his eyebrows. “Well, we don’t know how long it’ll take to find those shipping manifests at Monsanto, so quicker is better.”

“Okay, but… At what point do I call it off if we haven’t found all the books?”

Rye shrugged. “Bernoulli was our expert, and you’re the next most knowledgeable. That’s got to be your call. Sorry to put you on the spot so soon after, but that’s what life is right now. Anybody else?”

The hanger was as quiet as it could be with the wind and propellers just outside.

“Alright. Everyone grab your pistols and bags, then meet back here.”

---

Rennie’s fingers traced the lines of the automatic pistol in her pocket as she watched Rye drag the last of the bodies into the foyer.

A clunky submachine gun dangled from a strap across Rye’s back, made of surplus plumbing and hardware store scraps. He kicked the dead man’s legs until he was laid out roughly parallel to the other five uniformed men. Five SIC soldier uniforms, and one in a traditional pilot’s jacket of leather and wool fleece.

Rennie ignored the sobbing of the woman in thick glasses, and squatted down next to the pilot. She took a double handful of the dead man’s coat and lifted, flipping his body over as the jacket unwrapped from his torso. One of the sleeves caught on his arm as it refused to bend in the direction she needed, so she stomped on his elbow with a visceral crunch. The jacket came loose and swung from her fingers for a moment before she swept it around her shoulders and slipped both of her arms through the sleeves.

When she looked up, Rye made eye contact with her, but nobody else seemed to care. He gave her half a nod, then turned to the sobbing woman and the bloody man in her arms.

Broken glass crunched under her boots as she turned to face the remaining crew of The Meek. Afternoon sunlight filled the foyer, no longer hindered by the dingy windows that had been shattered by the same twenty millimeter shells that annihilated half of the ambush. Her radio crackled with a young man’s voice, “Rennie?”

She keyed the button. “What is it, Sherwin?”

“We don’t see any more gliders. Looks like it was just the one.”

Rennie felt a dozen sets of eyes on her. She turned around and stepped through a window, letting the dry grass of the parking lot brush past her pants legs. Across the parking lot, visible on the other side of the maple trees that had sprouted through the asphalt, was a decorative fence twisted by the growing shrubs. Past the fence was a line of ancient cars, their tires rotted to powder and their windows covered in green mold. She held the button again. “You sure they didn’t land another one somewhere?”

“The only road clear enough to land a glider looks to be I-44, and that’s the only one we can see for miles. That said, I have no idea how many people were on the glider, so keep your eyes open. Stay safe down there, Ren.”

“Roger that.” She turned back to the library and strode toward the broken window, hollering inside, “There might be more, but probably not many of them. We need those books, but keep your eyes open!”

Everyone seemed frozen to the floor. Rennie didn’t stop her march; she just grabbed the first person in her way and shoved him in front of her, heading into the stacks. She pulled the pistol out of her pocket and held it by her leg, letting the warm weight of it soak into her sore hand as her unwilling partner shone a little flashlight over the rows of books. Voices and footsteps erupted behind her as everyone else made their way into the darkened library.



Screams and sobbing came pouring out of the darkness where two pairs had disappeared in search of mold-related tomes. A man was crying and denouncing all manner of crimes against civilization. Rennie stepped out of the shadows and dropped her clipboard onto a table, watching four of her shipmates drag him into the foyer.

His uniform was crisp, clean, and very fancy. Gold braids and rigid shoulder boards decorated his coat, with a billboard of colorful awards on his breast. Rye yanked a handful of cords from behind a dead computer and began tying the man’s wrists together.

He looked from one person to another. “I-I didn’t shoot anybody! I swear! I’m just a political officer… I didn’t, I’m not, I…”

By the time he stopped talking, he was firmly tied to a rolling chair at the checkout desk. Even his boots had been lashed to the wheeled feet of the chair. Rye took the hat off of his head and tossed it into the debris near the door before squatting in front of him. “Now, you’re lucky you didn’t get a chance to burn down this library.” He turned to Rennie as he stood up. “You finish getting the books. I need to talk to our friend here.”

“No,” Rennie said. She stepped over and planted her hands on the tall back of the chair. “I’ve got this.”

Rye shoved the chair, sending it and its occupant rolling across the floor towards a reading room, then leaned in to whisper to Rennie. “We can’t count on the next ambush happening right in front of one of our turrets. We need to know if there’s more of them waiting somewhere. We need to know why they attacked us. On any other day, I’d say you don’t have what it takes to interrogate someone but… But right now, I think that asshole is the only one who’s not scared of you.”

Rennie stared at him while she let her hand run over the edges of her new leather jacket. She followed his gaze to the small crowd that had collected in the foyer, some with books in their arms and others with pistols in their hands. They were all watching her.

“I don’t think any of them have ever seen you with your hair down. Let alone—” he grabbed her hands and held them up in front of her own face, one covered in grease and flaky blood, the other painted black and blue “—like this. You were this one solid rock, a beacon of civilization. All about washing your hands and drinking tea with your pinkie in the air. And now everyone is lost because you are. Like you forgot what civilization is.”

She took her hands back and shoved them in her pockets. One touched the grip of a pistol, smooth and warm and heavy. The other found a piece of wood. Rough and organic. “I’ll figure it out.”



Rennie closed the door to the reading room. Her prisoner sat in the center of the room with sunlight painting his shoulders from behind. He cleared his throat. “I am Commissar John Myers, of the Southern Illinois Commune. I’m the only one left, there is no one else.”

She pulled the little gun out of her pocket and held it up in the light. “My mother made this pistol for me. It’s a very old design, from before the computerized machine shops. It’s a design that can be made on hand lathes. That was her specialty, you know. She designed machines, like engines, that you could manufacture with your blacksmith shops and water wheels. Engines that you put in airplanes.”

“I-I can help you, if you promise to take me with you on The Meek. Make me part of your crew.”

“The pistol was called a Savage, but do you know what she engraved on the side instead? See, right here, it says, ‘CIVILIZED.’ She was like that.”

“They have your man, the pilot. He survived his crash, he’s alive. With the SIC’s air force decimated, you’ve got a good chance of rescuing him.”

Rennie looked at him, both her hands on her gun, one finger still touching the word “CIVILIZED.”

John swallowed and licked his lips, never taking his eyes off of the pistol. “B-but we’ll have to leave soon. They’re going to hang him in the morning. I can take you there. It’s true! That’s how we knew you would be at the library. He told us everythi—”

Rennie put the barrel of the pistol against his kneecap and fired. Dust fell from the ceiling in streams, mixing with the smoke of burnt gunpowder and John’s howling. She stuck a finger in her ear, twisting back and forth as she worked her jaw.

The door burst open, and Rye stepped in with the pipe gun in his hands. “Rennie are you—”

She turned around, ignoring the hissing and grunting from behind her. “Get out.”

“Jesus.” He held his hands up and backed out with wide eyes, shutting the door behind him.

The chair shook and jumped as the commissar flailed with gritted teeth, his wide eyes tracking Rennie as she turned back to him. “N-no, it’s true! He’s alive! We have him. I can give him to you. Don’t you want your pilot back? Isn’t that what you want? He—”

She jammed the barrel of her gun into his knee, pressing it inside the wound and twisting it upward until the bore was aligned with his upper leg. She fired again.

This time, the report was muffled enough to hear his grunt over the sound of the gunshot. His fingers turned white against the arms of the chair and his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. After managing to catch a breath, he splayed out his fingers and said, “Okay, okay!” He looked at the blood seeping slowly out of his leg, and the tiny wisp of smoke curling out of the hole. “I-I’ll tell you anything. Everything!”

Rennie kneeled down in front of the chair, resting her elbows on his thighs and perching her chin on her palms. The warm pistol pressed against her face, but she ignored the blood it smeared on her temple. She looked him in the eyes. “Why did you declare war on The Meek?”

John hissed in a breath through his teeth. “Our spy in Pittsburgh t-told us about your plan to find high-yield wheat.”

“So what? We’ve always shared everything. You knew that you’d be getting the Monsanto wheat, same as everyone else.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “That’s the problem. It would help us some, b-but we’ve already got the best farmland on the continent.” He took a breath and swallowed loudly. “We don’t have droughts, or short summers. Giving everyone the grain would benefit everyone else more than us.”

“Even though,” Rennie said with one raised eyebrow, “your people would be better off with this grain.”

“A strong state m-makes a strong people. Our people are b-better off when our enemies are weaker than us.”

Rennie tapped her head with the side of her gun. “But why here? If you knew we were headed for Monsanto, why not just go straight there and burn it down?”

He hesitated, his mouth open and his eyes searching the ceiling for just a moment too long.

“You did!” She slapped the heavy gun against his thigh, then pressed the muzzle against his hip. “You sent someone there, too, didn’t you?”

“Y-yes, we did! We did! The glider holds twelve, the rest are hiking there now.”

“So why not just land the glider there?”

“You have—” He coughed, then took a few breaths. “You have m-more people, bigger guns, and air support. We couldn’t take the risk of The Meek showing up and stopping us. So we staged an ambush here to buy time.”

“I admit, right now I want to destroy the SIC.” She stood up, pushing off his wounded leg to lift herself to her feet. “And starving you ignorant savages sounds pretty damn nice.”

“Well, you”—he winced—“y-you’ll get your wish. What I said about your pilot was true. Your captain’s grandson, Bernoulli. He is alive.”

Rennie took a step backward and cocked her head sideways. “You… you really do, don’t you? You’re not lying.” She didn’t remember pulling the unfinished chess piece out of her pocket, but she was staring at it. Her grimy fingers had stained the wood over the last few hours, leaving clean spots only in the grooves and recesses left by Bernoulli’s knife. “He’s alive.”

He nodded. “You can go rescue him, and forget about Monsanto. Because we b-both know your captain. The legendary Doctor Nancy Borlaug, savior of civilization.” A dry chuckle escaped his lips. “She h-has all her sayings. Civilization is this and that. Did she tell you ‘leave no man behind’?”

“I’ve heard that one, yeah.” She looked at her hands; one holding an incomplete wooden knight, one holding a pistol called CIVILIZED. Both her hands were unclean, both caked in filth and injury. She tensed her jaw as she stared, finally mumbling, “And the one about washing your hands.”

“She believes it, all of it. She will save Bernoulli, and she will let Monsanto burn and my people starve so she can follow her sayings. We both get what we want.” John panted for a few moments, watching her.

Rennie settled her gaze on the knight in her left hand, slowly lowering her pistol.

“N-now, take me up to your doctor with his machines and surgeries, and I can help you rescue your pilot.”

As she slid the pistol into her jacket pocket, something inside crinkled. Leaving the pistol in the pocket, Rennie pulled her hand out, holding a black and white photograph. A family stood in front of a small house with a well-trimmed yard and white picket fence. She recognized the dead man whose arm she had broken, though here he wore a suit and tie with a fedora. The woman wore a polka-dotted smock that hugged her chest so tightly that Rennie could nearly count her ribs. The smallest of three scrawny children was cradled in her bony arms.

She turned over the photograph, and read out loud the words scrawled in pencil. “Gerald Robertson. Melinda. Patricia. Anthony. Twenty f-fifty nine.” She squeezed her eyes shut and stuffed the photograph, along with Ber’s knight, into a pocket.

As the commissar squinted at her, Rennie unclipped the radio from her belt and keyed the mic. “Sherwin, you there?”

”Yeah, Rennie. What’s going on down there?”

“There’s was a second SIC team on the glider. They’re headed to the Monsanto headquarters right now. We’ve got to beat them there. I’ll go round everyone up down here. We can come back to the library if we need to. Reynolds out.” She turned the radio off.

Commissar Myers blinked rapidly, sputtering, “B-but what about Bernoulli? You can’t—”

Rennie lifted the pistol and aimed it at the man’s head. “I guess I’m not ready to be civilized just yet.”