33 Taking Over

The morning after Psi "ran off", I met with all the section heads. That included Marcello, Helen, Matron Murati, and Merced. I wore two hats, as a section head and Director. I explained that Psi had gone missing, and now I was in charge. Not much would change, since Tamala would keep running things. In fact, they should run better without Psi's interference.

"So that's how it is?" asked Helen. I don't think any of them believed Psi had simply run off from his coveted position, but Helen was the only person who let their skepticism show.

"That's how it is," I said, as firmly as I knew how. "Is there any business, before we all get to work?"

"Yes, Director," said Murati, "there's a few men who are too hard on the women. I've had to warn them a few times, but they don't listen. I'd like them all to leave. I don't care how."

"It's not fair to the men who get conscripted to replace them," complained Merced.

He looked like he had more to say, but I stopped him. "True, but it will be a lot more fair to the women. Send me a list, Matron. I'll call them unfit for duty, and send them back to their colonies."

"What if they complain?" Merced looked doubtful that the men in question would want to leave. I had heard that some of the colonies weren't nearly as well-run as the Sojourners had been, and life nearer the center of New Kingdom was cushy by comparison.

"Hector can shoot them in the foot," I said. "That would make them unfit."

Murati looked sour at the talk of shooting people in any of their body parts. "If they complain, leave them to me," she said. "I can make them unfit without requiring surgery."

"Any other business?" I asked. "No? Let's get to work. Matron Murati, I have one more item for you. Tamala needs a new bracelet that says 'Foster Maze Episode'."

It was that easy to take over from Psi. Most people didn't care about the sudden change in leadership. The few who did care either hadn't liked Psi, or were too smart to get involved in something that might cause them to disappear like he had. As long as there was food and work and the zombies stayed on their side of the fence, the majority chose to be silent. The only change, other than a few men being sent down to their colonies, was more frequent goodies coming in from Merced's scavenging team. Any time he brought in something special I made sure to spread it around, unlike Psi's habit of trading it all for vodka for himself. That, as much as anything else, bought me the loyalty I needed.

Dealing with Jaida's signal required tact. She was transmitting at noon, on an old Sojourner frequency, using the NIV New Testament as a code book. Hector hadn't known because it was the first code Sojourners had ever used. By the time Hector was taught codes they were using one-time pads. Hector knew about book ciphers, of course, but it hadn't occurred to him what the key book could be. He had thrown out all his Sojourner paraphernalia when he joined New Kingdom, including the bible Father Caleb insisted we all carry around.

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That was Hector all over. He trained up well, which gave him competence in the things he had been taught, but he had so little imagination. His thought process couldn't draw the line from "that could be a book code" to "what book might they use" to "the book Caleb makes all Sojourners lug around". It was the same failing that sent him to blab to Psi so we wouldn't get into trouble with greenies: he couldn't imagine Psi would use the information for his own selfish ends.

Jaida would keep trying to reach us for as long as we were in Denver, and Hector knowing about her was a constant risk to all of us. I didn't want to kill him, in spite of all he'd done, and I probably couldn't get away with another disappearance so soon anyway. I would just have to take advantage of his limited nature.

"Jaida is using the original Sojourner cipher," I told Hector on my first full day as director. "She knows I know it, because I'm a founding member. She's in danger here, and a danger to you, Hector. If greenies find out you knew the sender and didn't tell them …"

"They might think I'm a traitor," he said. Even he could put that much together.

"Right. So help me come up with a message that will send her away. We'll send it at midnight tonight."

"It's almost noon," he said, "we should send it as soon as she's done transmitting."

"That's not how the code works," I explained. "One side transmits at noon, and the other side transmits at midnight. She'll only be expecting a confirmation, if anything. If we send a whole message at noon, it'll be very irregular."

"She'll think you're sending under duress, and she won't trust the message." It pained me to see Alfred's training shine so clearly through Hector, who had betrayed us twice.

Together, we chose an easy passage, Matthew 7:23. "Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’" The encoding was short and sweet: one, seven, twenty three, stop.

"Do you think she'll understand?"

"I do," I promised him. "After she reads this, we'll never get another noon transmission from her."

"I feel bad for her," observed Hector, "she survived Moab, and then hung around all this time, just to be sent away." He must have been thinking about her for a while, to come up with that on his own.

"It's for the best though, right? I know you like the kingdom Hector, but Jaida would never submit to the men here. She's a lesbian. This place would literally kill her. It's best for us to send her away now and let her live free while she can."

He looked stricken. "She's a lesbian?"

I taught him more about the book cipher, how to encode specific words instead of whole verses, and how to encode letters and numbers. I made sure to take up the entire noon hour by making him practice. Afterwards, I returned to the shed for our usual work, Hector still in tow as my guard. We took a box lunch for Sandy, who was feeling well enough to get up from her bed in the hut and work on the new signaling system for the deployment.

That night, Hector and I climbed to the roof of the hotel and sent our short message. After the third sending, we got a response in Jaida's voice. "Fourteen Three Six Thirty-Five".

"Received," said Hector, after working with my bible. "Do you think she understood? That we're still her friends?"

"I think she understood perfectly."

After my midnight outing with Hector, I spooned up in bed with Sandy, hands under her pajama top. We had barely touched each other all day. She whispered, "how did it go?"

"Perfectly." I put my palms over the firm bump in her belly. "What did you send her, at noon?"

"False midnight message confirm. East hell gate three nights." She breathes deeply, and I thought she was going to sleep. Instead she says, "I had to build a radio to just send that message you know, from scavenged parts. Without any plans."

"For anyone else that would be exceptional. But for you, it's barely worth mentioning. It's one step above your usual day. That's how good you are."

"I still deserve rewards," she moped, and dug her shoulder blades into my chest.

I whisper into her ear so she can feel my breath. "You always deserve rewards."