34 The Suite Life

On my second day as Director we moved into Psi's old suite. It had three bedrooms, a decent kitchenette, and a living room. In the Before years most people wouldn't be able to rent a hotel room like that, not even for a single night. Tamala kept the second bedroom where she was already staying, and Sandy and I took over the big bedroom. We had caretakers change all the linen and clean the room thoroughly, which they accomplished with enthusiasm. Nobody wants to piss off the new director.

The third bedroom was dedicated to Psi's stash. Besides a ton of vodka, he had a little of everything there: canned foods that were only a year beyond their expiration dates, sex lubricant, antibiotics, marijuana gummies, various kinds of alcohol that he intended to trade for more vodka, fresh coffee from east Texas, chickory, spices, bolts of nice cloth, boxes of lace and thread, portable solar panels, brand-new tablets, viagra, hair dye, coveted brands of makeup, perfume, aftershave, and too many other things to go through properly.

Psi's stash, plus the goodies Merced's team brought in, bought me a lot of good will as I spread it around Imperial Yard. But first, Sandy and I bulked up our own go bags.

"Planning on going somewhere?" Tamala startled us at the doorway.

"Not even close," I laughed, relieved she wasn't a greenie come to confiscate all of Psi's hoarded wealth. "Just basic preparedness."

"Really? Because to me it looks like you're packing to escape."

"This?" I pointed at my backpack, the same one I dragged from Norcali to Utah and Idaho, and then to Colorado. "Most of this is stuff I already had. We're adding some meds and dried food. Don't you have a ready bag?"

Tamala shook her head.

Sandy shook hers too, but for a different reason. "That's not so surprising," she told me. "I didn't go outside for the first six years." By 'outside' she meant outside of a fence line, outside of someone else's protection. "If she was part of the original three thousand, it makes sense."

"Come here," I said, "and we'll make one for you too. Everybody should have one." We find a suitable pack among Psi's treasures and pack it full of necessary things. Layers of clothing, food that will keep, canteens, a tarp, some rope, stable antibiotics, fire-starting kit, and the largest folding knife New Kingdom will let her own.

"Always know where your bag is," I tell her. "I'm serious about this. We like to think the world is stable, but it isn't. I don't think it ever was, even Before."

Sandy cooks a light meal for us, just some cracked wheat and stir-fried vegetables with a few herbs thrown in, but for the time it was a luxury. Fan Girl was making enough power to run some appliances and the winter wheat was starting to come in. Most of my attention was on Sandy, and once in a while she glanced back to see if I was paying attention. Tamala watched the two of us.

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We ate in silence with our new roommate, and finished with drinks from Psi's stash. Sandy took small amounts on a lot of ice, while Tamala and I drank the bourbon straight. I remember we had the windows open to a blustery night. One minute we would be awash in the scent of a dozen different trees that grew on the streets of Denver, then suddenly the air would be mixed with the undead we kept parked next to the testing area. East Hell Gate, Sandy had named it in her secret message to Jaida.

"You're right," said Tamala suddenly, "I was one of the three thousand. I've always had men with guns around, ever since the plague started. Even during the Long March, I rode on trucks and busses instead of walking. I felt really lucky to be with Colonel Ludovic. But things went downhill when winter came. My parents died that winter, and I knew I had to make my way with whatever I had. My body has always been my best asset. Honestly, it feels weird to have a guardian who doesn't want to screw me. I feel like I can't trust you because I don't know what you're after."

"Simple," I said, "I want to kill all zombies everywhere. Not personally, that would be too ambitious. But if I figure out how, and then show others, we can solve the whole zombie problem."

"That's it?"

"Sure. Then Sandy and the baby and I can all live in a zombie-free world."

"So you just work up one day and said, 'you know what? I'm going to kill all the zombies'?"

"Almost." I poured her another drink and started to talk. Sandy and I didn't talk much about the years before we met. We had too much going on in the present for that. But Tamala was an important part of our present, so I was willing to give a little of myself to get some of her trust.

I told them about my hermitage in Norcali, the orchard I missed, and how a freak whale beaching had destroyed everything in short order. "That's why you keep a go bag at all times," I told her, "because you don't want to find yourself in the wilderness without any essentials."

I kept talking, about the Sojourners, HuSH Labs, Zee Muncher, and our eventual capture by the kingdom. Tamala was quiet for a while.

"I had heard there were good colonies out here. You see people like Maidens of Trent, and you feel lucky to be in the kingdom. So they really let women do what they want like that?"

"Two of the Sojourner council are women," Sandy told her, "and Green River was run by a woman. They lived just as well as the Sojourners did, before New Kingdom came along. The biggest problem was zombies, and E fixed that over a year ago."

Part of me wants to read Tamala in on our germinating escape plan. Instead, I tell her, "what you said earlier, about your body being your best asset? It might be your most valued asset, but it isn't your best one. You're a very competent organizer. Not many people can say that. You're just stuck in a place that doesn't value your best assets the way it should. If you were a Sojourner, they'd be training you for leadership."

The next morning, Tamala brings three men to our breakfast table and introduces them as her sexual partners for the immediate future. They're all of a type that's very different from Psi: middling height, coffee-colored skin, lean, and normal-sized eyes.

"All three have confirmed pregnancies with other women. I'll need frequent sex breaks," she says boldly, right there in the dining hall, "will that be all right?"

I nod in approval. "You're too important to loose to the palace, so don't leave anything to chance. Now you three, I don't want any marks on her, and you won't do anything to her she doesn't want. Understand? Do your best."

They all say, "yes sir," to me. Tamala grabs one and takes him away somewhere while the other two wander off to their usual tasks until she calls for them. Over time, I make sure some of Psi's stash makes its way to them. They are universally considered lucky men: they get to have the most beautiful woman in the Imperial Yard, and they get rewarded for it.