Fractured Read online

  “You’re so funny!”

  Lindy sighed. “Wasn’t joking.”

  “What woke her? The varnish?”

  “No.”

  “Mac and cheez?” Glenda licked her lips. “The real deal?”

  “Come have some,” Zazu said.

  Lindy shot the kid a dirty look, but what could she do? They had to have the margarine. “Mi studio es su casa,” she agreed weakly.

  “Do you have weiners?” Zazu added.

  “Pelee might. Sort of.” Glenda all but skipped down the hall to consult with the former veterinarian.

  Dinner for five. Now we are making the whole box.

  It turned out living at the edge of starvation tended to shrink your appetite, so that last box of prefab pasta went a surprisingly long way. And Lindy must have forgotten what real weiners tasted like, because the sealmeat-and-gut abominations that passed for them nowadays were delicious.

  Glenda, who’d always acted as though Lindy had a smell or something, made an appointment to come in when she saw the latest shards. She’d driven a bus full of Winkled biologists to Yellowknife from Galveston, Texas.

  What had she seen in America, as the world ended?

  Pelee, the veterinarian, went through the motions of examining Zazu. “Was it a smell woke you, honey?”

  “Lindy wasn’t varnishing.”

  “I’m not sure the city has a lot of kids’ clothes. You’ll have to scrounge. There’ll be an extra food ration.”

  “I want Berry Loops,” Zazu said immediately.

  I want antidepressants and a hot tub, Lindy thought, though she’d loved Berry Loops.

  “I don’t think anyone’s got breakfast cereal anymore, honey,” Glenda said.

  “Your majesty,” Zazu corrected.

  Pelee cocked an eyebrow.

  “She’s queen of the snow angels,” Lindy explained.

  After they were gone, Zazu went rooting amid Lindy’s pile of stuff again, coming up with a broken-toothed comb. “Can I brush your hair?”

  “You want to brush me?”

  Zazu nodded.

  “I guess.” Why argue? The kid would take a few swipes and give up. But Zazu pulled out all the knots, working patiently and painlessly, until she could fluff Lindy with her little spit-slimed hands.

  “Want me to do you?” Lindy offered reluctantly. Her head felt remarkably good.

  Zazu shook her head. She climbed back onto the stretcher with the two Winkles and stuck her fist in her mouth, falling asleep.

  Maybe she’ll go down again, Lindy thought, dozing in the comfy chair. A belly full of carbs and protein made it easier both to find sleep and to stay there.

  She woke late, and didn’t think of Zazu until she found the saucepan sitting out, half-full of day-glo leftovers.

  More leftovers than she remembered.

  She scooped up a clump with her fingers, licking them clean, savouring the intense over-salted old-worldy goodness as she turned her gaze to the gurney.

  The kid was gone.

  ◄ ►

  This was a chance. A truly unfit caregiver would go about her day. Someone would find Zazu soon enough, and there’d be a hue and cry.

  Oh, did she leave? I was varnishing.

  Someone must be dying to adopt an urchin.

  Lindy absolutely wasn’t going to do the thing where you freaked out and went begging people to help find your lost lamb.

  Wolves slip through the wall all the time, three people got eaten last winter…

  She won’t have got out of the building.

  Be negligent for an hour, and then free for a lifetime.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Who’m I kidding?”

  She grabbed her keys and ran out into the dim light of dawn. A wet, wheel-torn expanse of snow greeted her. Small footie prints, tinted red with leaked dye, led around the side of the building. There they met up with enormous tracks.

  “Zazu!” She sprinted to the corner, and saw faux Matt Cardinal with the girl astride his shoulders.

  “Hey!” she shrieked. Heads turned and Matt stopped.

  Zazu had a waxy cellophane cereal bag containing coloured lumps that might once have been Berry Loops, along with half a box of powdered milk and a steel bowl from Lindy’s studio.

  Matt offered up his lazy panty-peeler smile. “You lose someone?”

  Huffing, Lindy closed the distance between them. “Put her down.”

  “Kid’s walking around in her sock feet.”

  “Then bring her to the stairwell.”

  “I need snow,” Zazu said. She waved a steel bowl at Lindy.

  “Your Maj,” Matt said. “Dunno what you’re planning, but snow here is fulla husky shit and biodiesel.”

  “Go there.” Zazu pointed at the nearest tree, a big pine, laden with snow.

  Surrendering, Lindy took the steel bowl. “Here?”

  “Hold it up.”

  She had barely begun to lift when a clump of pristine snow dropped from above. The bowl filled. The rest slid into her collar and over her body, neck to ankles; an icy shock that left her feeling as though she’d been scrubbed.

  The branch waved, freed from the burden of the snow’s weight. She smelled pine oil.

  “Cute trick,” Matt said.

  “Can we go in now?” Lindy pleaded.

  “Go!” Zazu kicked her wet heels and they retraced the pink smudged prints. Matt had to duck low to get her in the door. Polyester devil horns scraped the doorframe, szzt, szzt, sending sprinkles of fabric paint swirling.

  “Down you go, your Maj.” He set her on the concrete steps.

  Grabbing Lindy’s hand, she began to pull her upstairs. “Breakfast time.”

  “Matt has things to do.”

  “Matt,” Zazu repeated, tone neutral.

  He was climbing along behind them.

  “Who gave you the cereal?” Lindy asked.

  “Lady. Vivian.”

  “Vivian Wu?”

  “She said it would rot my mouth.” Zazu bared her teeth, which were punky with orange macaroni and bits of seal.

  “You should brush those,” Lindy said.

  “I will if you will.”

  Matt chortled. “She’s got a point.”

  “Vivian didn’t know your Aunty Depressin.”

  “Huh?” Lindy could’ve sworn that part of her inner monologue yesterday had been, you know, inner.

  “Need meds?” Matt lit up. “I can help with that.”

  What would it take to get rid of this guy? He came up to the third floor, sticking like glue as Zazu trotted to Lindy’s studio, watching as she sprinkled a teaspoon of her powdered milk onto the bowl full of snow.

  She flopped on the floor, sticking her legs up. “My feet are wet.”

  Lindy pulled her out of the bottom half of the devil costume and swabbed at the little toes with a varnishing rag. “I have water, you know.”

  The kid stuck her thumb in her mouth and mumbled something that sounded like “Bleepul, bekka?”

  “Thanks,” Matt replied. “I had breakfast.”

  Kid clothes. What was she going to do for kid clothes? Lindy grabbed up a couple of her cleaner T-shirts, went over to the varnishing table and started stripping the girl and boy. Socks, underwear, shirts. No shoes—

  Matt let out a string of profanity, undertone.

  “What?”

  Zazu’s bowl of snow had melted, faster than it should have. The white flecks of dried milk were spreading within it, swirling chalky bits of colour. And the smell—

  “Cereal?” Zazu rolled to her feet.

  “Fuck.” Lindy said. “Kid, I think you just turned meltwater to milk.”

  Zazu peered into the bowl, looking puzzled. “Weird stuff.”

  “It’s cream.” Lindy touched the fluid: it was ice cold.

  “Part the cream, kid,” Matt said. “Like the Red Fucking Sea.”

  “I know that story!” Zazu made the Moses gesture, a reverse clap, arms straight. Cream sloshed out of
the bowl and onto the floor. “Sorry.”

  “It’ll dry,” Lindy said. Matt gave her a faintly disgusted look, plucked one of the T-shirts out of her hand, and started wiping.

  Lindy took a sip of what remained in the bowl. Homo milk, fresh, with just the right mix of fat. She hadn’t tasted anything so pure and sinfully delicious in 20 years.

  Part it. What made Matt suggest that?

  “Get spoons,” Zazu ordered. She sprinkled a few Berry Loops into the bowl. Lindy meant to stare at them, but immediately blinked. Like that, the bowl was full of crunchy pink and blue loops.

  Momma, don’t let her eat so much sugar! She remembered Missy, at 11. Already a tyrant.

  Matt went to the hotplate, returning with three spoons. He wiped them on the same shirt he’d used on the floor. “Don’t you wash anything?”

  “I’m clinically depressed.”

  “Clinically lazy.”

  “I see why you get along with my sister.”

  “No fighting.” The kid dug in, crunching. “Lindy, eat.”

  What the hell. She took a spoonful, and the sugary goodness damn near blew her mind. She’d forgotten how she’d loved preprocessed food. Cereal, pasta. All we need to complete the trip down memory lane is…

  Zazu spoke to Matt. “Can you find peanut butter and jelly for lunch?”

  Lindy’s skin rose up in gooseflesh.

  “Anna loaf of Wonderbread while I’m at it.” Matt grinned. “That shit lasts forever.”

  “You said you could get Aunty Depressin.”

  “I know a guy with a hoard of Paxil and Xanax.”

  Hey, little girl, want some candy? “Zazu, I don’t need the pills.” The eff am I saying what if he can get it, just a little Paxil to soften the edges…

  “Anyway, Matt should—”

  “Rumour has it you’ve been asking about a glazier’s modem,” Matt said.

  Lindy ran dry, mid-sentence. The only thing she could hear was Zazu, crunching her cereal.

  Modem modem modem modem, need a modem, Matt’s got a modem?

  She got another modem, things stayed the same. She wouldn’t have to fight Missy and her work assignment. Things wouldn’t go from awful to even worse.

  “Um. Would you excuse us?”

  Matt gave her a half nod, “I’ll hit the men’s.”

  When he was gone, she said: “Kid. Zazu. Matt’s not – I don’t think we should trust him.”

  “Trust who?”

  “This loaves and fishes shit, you can’t pull that in front of other people. You know where that kind of thing ends up?”

  Crunch, crunch, crunch. Uncomprehending baby deer eyes.

  “You said you knew the Moses story… ” Did people tell little kids about Jesus on the cross? She had a sudden vision of the girl, nailed to a wall, crowned with icicles.

  “Don’t you want peanut butter?”

  “Zazu, what woke you up?”

  “I was done sleeping.”

  “Do you read minds?”

  “I’m too little to read.”

  Shouldn’t a superpowered four-year-old be supersmart?

  “No.” Zazu scoffed.

  She sighed. “People will freak. There’s nobody like you, kid.”

  “Is too.” She held up her hand, curling the smallest two fingers under, showing three.

  The words made her skin crawl. “There are others? Beauties waking up without acupuncture or caffeine enemas—”

  “Acca punch her.”

  “Do they read minds too?”

  “What’s enema?”

  “If there are others, where are they?”

  Zazu stuck her nose in the cereal bowl, like a horse in a feedbag. Words echoed out of a slurp. “At Leepold’s.”

  “Leopold? As in Drummer? He’s missing, he’s on the Mountie’s most wanted list—”

  “Is not missing.” That childish scorn again.

  Identity thief. Lindy lunged across the room and hit her speakerphone: “Give me Missy.”

  “What are you doing?” That was Matt, back from his piss and looming over her, close.

  “The kid,” she said, breathless. “Matt, we have to tell Missy—”

  “Tell Missy what? The Second Coming has a thing for pre-Napocalypse instant foods?”

  “Zazu says—”

  “You really want to have another pointless convo with Big Sister?”

  “No, but… ” He was crowding her; she could barely draw breath.

  She gestured at the windows on her varnishing table. All the testimonials. So many versions of “We let it happen. If only we’d done something. We waited until it was too late…”

  That’s why Missy was prime minister, right? Because she’d acted. Got people off their asses. Filled the cars with unconscious refugees, nagged people to staff fuel stations.

  “If Winkles are waking, we have to tell.”

  “We fucking do not.”

  “She reads minds, Matt.”

  “And you can’t handle her, I know.”

  “I couldn’t keep a cat alive.”

  “I’m tagge care offoo,” Zazu said, around a mouthful of loops. I’m taking care of you.

  Lindy’s hand went to her detangled, shining hair. Her skin felt clean where the snow had run down her dress. Longing rushed through her: all she’d wanted, for so long, was to be mothered.

  “You’re not giving her to a politician,” Matt said. “But I’ll take her off your hands, if you want.”

  Oh.

  When she’d first seen him, he was looking over the kids’ monitors.

  Out in the snow, earlier. He’d have walked away with her.

  She managed to say, “No.”

  Matt’s enormous hand shot out, catching her jaw. “You want that modem, Lindy, or no?”

  She did. She wanted the modem and the antidepressants and she wanted to hold out in her studio until Missy lost an election and all her influence. She wanted peanut butter and tuna fish and ibuprofen and her own Mommy. He wasn’t wrong. What could she do for a child?

  He saw it. Saw through her.

  Zazu belched, dropped to her butt and began pulling her footies back on. “Let’s find that jelly, okay?”

  “Sure, kid.” Matt smiled. “Say goodbye.”

  “To who?” Zazu climbed up. “Zip your coat, Lindy.”

  “Lindy’s staying,” Matt said.

  “No!”

  “I’ll bring her the modem later.”

  “Like I believe that,” Lindy said. She didn’t meet his eyes; she’d have backed down for sure.

  “Suit yourself.” He reached for Zazu, but Lindy slid between them, taking the girl’s hand.

  They walked out to the edge of Yellowknife, the inner wall, where food supplies and scavenged treasures were kept in old container cars. The cache was guarded by a guy calling himself Customs Canada, but Matt tossed him a paper-wrapped package, and he waved them by.

  We can’t trust Matt, Lindy tried thinking at Zazu, but if the kid heard her, she didn’t react.

  Striding past several empty, open containers, Matt opened the first closed car. It smelled of dust and yeast.

  “Come on,” he said, stepping inside.

  This is not good. If he’s really the Hacker Giant… but a modem! And I can’t do the kid thing.

  Zazu followed him into darkness and cobwebs, without apparent fear. The container was loaded with stuff scavenged from groceries: canned goods and snacks, things nobody got around to eating. Ghosts of the old food industry.

  “Here’s your jelly,” Matt said, producing a jar. “There ain’t gonna be any peanut butter, but—” He fished around, coming up with a foil-sealed plastic jug filled with unsalted peanuts. “Dee Eye Why. Do it yourself.”

  “They look pretty dry,” Lindy said.

  “I got canola oil. Anything else you want, kid?”

  Zazu turned a circle, then pointed her plastic pitchfork at a battered box of dead saltines.

  “Great,” Lindy said heart
ily. “Say thank you.”

  “Thank you, Leepold.”

  Matt’s smile curdled.

  Faking cheer, Lindy said: “Let’s get back, eh?”

  “Canola,” Matt said. “In my truck. DIY peanut butter.”

  They trooped out, thanked the guard, walked farther. Lindy wanted to run for it, but Matt lifted Zazu to his shoulders again. All she could do was drift along beside them.

  Finally, she asked: “What’d you trade the guard?”

  “Flash disk. Old top 40 hits.”

  Matt’s truck was a reconditioned police SUV, battered and fortified, with spikes welded to its bumpers.

  “Into the back, monkey,” he said, opening the rear door. Zazu began to climb in.

  “Wait,” Lindy began, and that was when he spun and plowed her in the mouth.

  She dropped into the snow – I was right, I was right! – as he lifted Zazu’s butt into the truck and shut it behind her.

  “Go back to town,” he said. Behind him, in the car window, the girl was glowering.

  Lindy wiped her throbbing face, shaking the blood off into the snow. Before Matt could drive off, she bolted for the truck, jumping into the passenger seat. Her heart was hammering.

  She thought he’d drag her out and abandon her. Instead he laughed, starting the engine and heading between the containers, deep into a maze of stripped cars, stacked three and four deep.

  “So,” she quavered. “Leopold Drummer?”

  “You knew before she said. How?”

  She swallowed blood. “I knew the real Matt.”

  “Huh.”

  “Rumour was that your sleeping app was what started the Napocalypse.”

  “There were lotsa rumours.”

  “It makes sense. They sent you to the Institution to experiment on Winkle prisoners.” She remembered news footage, pictures of a pale man, corpulent, with long golden hair and thick glasses. “You lost weight.”

  “End-of-the-world diet. Biggest trend of Last Year.”

  “Got your eyes lasered?”

  “Fixed the astigmatism, changed the colour.”

  “What do you want with Zazu?”

  “It was the app. Delta Wave.”

  “She’s too young for a modem.”

  “I know. It jumped the firewall into people without tech.”

  “How?”

  “Dunno.”

  “The app was around for years.”

  “We’d posted an upgrade, for people on vacation. It was supposed to put you under, way under, into a healing sleep. You’d wake when you were fully rested.”