World of Hurt Read online

  Billy shook his head. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I gotta keep moving or else bad shit has a way of happening.”

  “You always been like that?”

  “Seeing your family vaporized has a way of putting a spring in your step.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry I said anything.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “Helps me to talk about it to be honest. Hell, there was a time when the things that happened in the days before colored everything in my life. All the bad shit back in Boston was like dye dropped in a clear liquid, you feel me?”

  I nodded. “And now?”

  “I can handle it so long as I’m doing something. Guess I’m like a shark, Deus. Gotta stay in constant motion.”

  Billy threw up a hand and signaled for everyone to follow and as we moved down past the Capitol Reflecting Pool which had apparently been bombed at some point in the past and emptied of water, we saw the first signs that Christmas would indeed be celebrated again. We knew this because the many tents and shanties (and a large number of repurposed shipping containers) that filled the National Mall, current housing for a portion of the city’s displaced, were decorated with ornaments and red and green swatches of fabric.

  Moving between the tents and stands of solar panels and wind turbines, we listened to the hum of generators as holiday tunes blasted from an old boombox, including the song “Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!” which echoed over everything.

  “The world is divided between Martin and Buble,” somebody said.

  I stopped and spotted Baila who was standing alone as the others continued ahead. I guess I had a perplexed look on my face because she pointed at the boombox.

  “I was talking about the song by the way. About how there are basically two, super old versions that most people know. One’s by Dean Martin and the other is by Michael Buble. You can tell a lot about a person based on which version they like.”

  “Which one’s this?” I asked.

  “The Dean Martin version.”

  “I like this one.”

  “Me too,” she said, grinning. “Dino had a swagger when he sang, y’know?”

  I nodded, humming along to the song as it ended. My gaze returned to Baila. “So now you know my deepest, darkest secret. I like Dean Martin.”

  “That’s about all I know,” Baila replied.

  I patted my pockets. “Well, somewhere I’ve got a resume and a list of references if you’re interested.

  She edged closer to me, whispering. “I’ve been meaning to ask how you got here, Danny. I mean … for real?”

  “Vidmark arranged it.”

  “Same with me,” she said. “Same with all of us. We were all injured, some worse than others, and Vidmark brought us together.”

  “It was destiny,” I said.

  “Vidmark says destiny’s the name of a singer in a night club. He says each of us makes our own destiny.”

  “The dude is a straight-up genius,” I said.

  “More like a grand chess master,” she replied with a smile that soured into a frown. “Always twelve steps ahead of everyone else.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  She summoned up another smile. “I … don’t … no … I guess that’s not a bad thing at all. It’s just … sometimes I get a feeling.”

  “A feeling like what?”

  She smiled again and looked like she wanted to say more, but before she could, the other operators began whistling and shouting. We turned to see them laughing and dancing to the music. Beside them, a small band of the city’s survivors were wearing red elf’s hats and a brace of bearded men were struggling to erect a fourteen-foot tall Christmas tree near a series of fires burning in metal trash cans.

  Baila waved to them and when her hand came down, it inadvertently brushed against mine and I felt a pulse of energy, a current shoot through my arm. Okay, I’m going to stop right now because you’re probably beginning to think that I’m a total weirdo, that ole Danny Deus is a stalker of some kind, but it wasn’t like that at all. Most people, at least in my experience, like to hear themselves talk. I could tell that Baila was the opposite of that. She was a good listener and I think we had a bond of some sort, an unspoken thing that passed between us when our hands touched. Okay, that last part sounded a little stalkerish, but you (