“They could have tried.”

  Alonzo laughed. He glanced once more at the clock, silently called Jameson a six-minute late bastard and stood up. He approached the cell and pointed at the prisoner. “How old are you, kid?”

  “I’m this many,” Connor responded and held up his middle finger.

  “I’m guessing you don’t remember much about how things were before the world crapped out. And, judging from your behavior, I can’t imagine your folks were around to tell you how it was.”

  “Oh, please spare me the ‘when I was your age’ bullshit.”

  Alonzo laughed again and for a moment forgot all about that 7-minute late dipshit Jameson. “The whole world can change, and kids are still going to be the same. You don’t have to listen to me, kid. But we old people still have some fight in us, and the world’s moving on whether you like it or not. I know it’s not really fair to you. You grew up in a world without laws. Now, all of a sudden there are rules and people like me who are willing to make those rules stand. You’ve made some bad decisions, tiger. And you’re going to answer for them.”

  “Oh great, this sounds like one of those ‘It’s for my own good’ kind of speeches.”

  “See? That right there is the problem. You think this is somehow about you. This isn’t for your good at all. Screw your good. This is for everyone else’s good. The whole world is a lot better off that you’re not out there screwing it up for other people.”

  “Let me out of here!” The kid shook the cell door.

  It was solid. There wasn’t even the faintest hint of a rattle.

  “Sorry, kid. Not until you see the judge. And he’s even older and meaner and way not fairer than I am.”

  “Look, let me go and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “You don’t know shit, kid.” Alonzo looked at the clock. Eight minutes. That dick.

  “You think you know what’s going on in your stupid swamp city? You don’t know shit. You think you know your buddy, Mike?”

  “Kid, my shift ended eight minutes ago, and I stopped listening to you a long time before that.”

  The door to the office opened and Jameson entered.

  “Hey, Al,” he said like he wasn’t nine freaking minutes late, and walked over to the desk.

  “You’re late.”

  Jameson looked at the clock as he sat down. “Oh yeah, I forgot you cared about things like that.”

  Alonzo muttered a final curse under his breath—the longest and most graphic of the evening—and collected his stuff off the desk. “Have fun with this one,” he said with a nod to the kid in the cell. “He’s pretty sure he has more rights than anyone else.”

  “Uh oh, another constitutional scholar, huh?”

  Alonzo grunted and stepped outside. It was humid. It was always humid when you lived over the water. But it felt more humid than normal. He looked at his watch and sighed. He was going to be late. Again.

  “Are you as stupid as your friend is?” Connor asked.

  Jameson had his feet up on the desk and his eyes on a book. He didn’t look up from the page. “I’m just going to tell you once to shut your mouth.”

  Connor paced the cell. There was nothing normal about this. It was inhumane. So what if he killed someone? No one had any right to lock someone away and take away their freedom. The deputy was focused on his stupid book. He couldn’t see the cover from his cell. He wouldn’t be able to read it if he could. He’d never learned. No one had taught him. The cop was right about his parents not being there. That pissed him off even more. Not his parents, but that the cop was right. “Your friend sure likes to play God.”

  Jameson sighed and closed the book. The officer stood up slowly from the desk and turned towards the cell.

  “Where does he get off judging people?” Connor continued.

  Jameson walked over to the cell and held up a nightstick. “I told you two things.” He poked the baton through the cell bars into Connor’s chest and pushed him back into the cell. “I told you to shut up.”

  Jameson pulled the cell key from his belt and opened the door. “And I told you I was only going to tell you once.” He stepped into the cell and raised the club above his head to strike.

  Connor sprang off the back wall and tackled the deputy into the office. The nightstick landed across his back with a thud that he felt in his teeth, but he kept barreling forward until they both hit the desk and toppled over it.

  The deputy dropped the nightstick when they hit the floor, and he heard it clack against the bare cement nearby.

  Connor came out on top of the fracas and dove for the club. He grabbed it and spun back toward the guard as Deputy Jameson drew the gun from his belt.

  He wasn’t sure if he struck the pistol or Jameson’s hand, but the gun sailed across the room and out the open window to splash somewhere in the water below.

  Jameson grunted and came at him with fists and unbridled rage.

  Connor took one hit in the ribs before he could bring the baton down on the guard’s neck. The man dropped to his knees and Connor began screaming as he rained blows down on the fallen officer. The guard cowered on the ground and did his best to cover his face and neck.

  The beating continued until long after the cop had stopped moving. Connor dropped the bloody club into the mess the body had become.

  He grabbed a hooded jacket that hung in the corner and put it on before peering into the hallway outside the police station door.

  It was empty, and he did his best not to creep suspiciously to where the building met the city’s bridge system.

  The crowds had thinned considerably in the upper walkways, but they still gathered in the lower levels. The music was still blaring from several places and the party went on. If he could lose himself in the crowd and get down to the river, he’d find a boat and maybe make his way back south.

  He made his way to the lower level, passing those that were stumbling from below to their hotel rooms for the night. They never gave him a second look. The more people he encountered, the more he noticed that they weren’t even paying attention to their surroundings. He had grown up watching his back constantly. Everyone did. It was how things were now. You were always on alert because someone, or something, was always out to get you. It was a rule of the wasteland, “You snooze, you lose your shit and probably get killed and they might even do something to the corpse.” This indifference the crowd showed to their surroundings baffled him. It was amazing that there could be any place in the apocalyptic world where people didn’t feel the need to look over their shoulder.

  What was wrong with this place?

  “You!”

  The shout came from one of the bridges above and he instinctively looked up. A River City cop was hanging over the bridge rail with his gun trained on him.

  He fired back a middle finger and raced for the safety of the crowd, daring the cop to shoot.

  He could hear the officer shouting up above him, calling out his position to unseen backup below.

  Connor pushed his way into a group of friends that were doing their best to remember the words to a pre-Crappening song about a roof being on fire. Once in the huddle, he stripped off the jacket and found his way out the other side.

  A second officer was down in the crowd. He was looking up at the cop on the bridge who was still trying to shout out Connor’s location.

  He cut right to avoid this new threat and bounced off a large man who had somehow found a way to keep on sweating once the sun had set. He hit the man’s bare chest with a wet thwack and stumbled back a few feet until he lost his feet and hit the ground.

  A large hand pulled him back to his feet, and he soon discovered it was attached to the man who called himself the King of the River.

  “You dare strike a king?” Mason roared with joy. “I should have you… Don’t I know you?”

  “No, I don’t think you do,” Connor said, and tried to not look like himself. “I just got here. I don’t think you could know me.”

  “No.” Mason had clearly been drinking a living legend’s share of booze that night. “I definitely know you.”

  “I think you’re mistaken and⁠—”

  “You’re that smartass from the Boomer,” Mason pointed a wavering finger as he made the connection. “Mike’s passenger.”

  “Yes, that’s it. That’s where you know me from.” Connor looked over his shoulder. The cop was getting closer. “Good old Mike.”

  “How is Mike? Is he here?”

  “He’s good...” The two cops were getting coordinated now. There may have been a third now. “Listen, there are some men after me and I need to hide. Can you help me? Since we’re all friends with Mikey after all.”

  “Sure, yeah. Boys,” Mason called to the crowd, and a small army of men gathered round.

  The kid wasn’t sure what happened next. He didn’t feel like he’d been pulled from his feet, but he had been swept away, off the main thoroughfare and down a side street.

  The group then dispersed, and he could breathe again. There was no sign of the cops. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, anything for a friend of Mike’s,” Mason said with a laugh that was echoed by his men. He snapped his fingers, and one of the men pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket. He handed it to Mason.

  “Besides,” the self-declared King of the River continued as he unfolded the sheet and handed it to Connor. “We get more if we turn you in ourselves.”

  Connor studied his own wanted poster. It didn’t even look like him. But he couldn’t argue with the list of crimes. Those were definitely his.

  “Wrap him up, boys,” Mason said.

  “Wait.” He had to do something. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  “Kid, what could you possibly have that’s worth more than that reward?” Mason asked.

  “How about twenty times that? Or more?”

  Mason stuck out a sweaty, dirty hand and smiled. “Hand it over.”

  “I don’t have it. But I know how to get it. I know where the Librarian is.”

  “The hell you do, kid. No one knows that. Now shut up while we tie you up.” Mason laughed and signaled for his men to resume the hogtieing.

  His men moved in to oblige, and Connor pushed himself farther back against the wall.

  “I know! And you know, too.”

  Mason held up his hand. “What are you going on about, kid?”

  “Our good friend Mike,” he said. “How long have you known him?”

  “Are you saying Mike is the Librarian?” One of the men asked.

  Connor nodded, and it sent a wave of laughter through the men.

  “Sorry, kid,” Mason said. “We like the guy and all, but can you really picture him doing all the things they say he did?”

  “I’m telling you, it’s him. How long have you known him? They say he went over the Falls a year ago. When did your friend show up on the river?”

  “Let’s say you’re telling the truth, kid.” Mason said. “What’s that mean to us?”

  “You get him. You get the bounty.”

  “Oh, we’ll talk to Mike. But we’ve already got you. And it would be pretty dumb to trade on a sure thing.” Mason waved and his men closed in.

  Connor had few advantages at this point. His sobriety was about it. Mason’s men had been drinking enough to uphold a myth, and he hoped it was enough. He dove between the legs of the first man and then scrambled between two more as drunken hands grabbed for him. One closed on his shirt, but he spun around and backed out of the loose-fitting tee. The cursing intensified as he threw himself left and right to avoid their attempts to grab him. He fidgeted and flopped about until he found himself back in the River City crowds, running once more. He watched for the cops. He watched for Mike’s men. He was watching for anyone with one of those stupid wanted posters. The only thing he wasn’t watching for was pirates.

  They were drinking as well, celebrating something. It only briefly occurred to him they weren’t supposed to be there at all. These men were probably more wanted than he was.

  He raced over and sat down at the table with who he assumed was the captain. Connor hit the table hard enough to shake the drinks and risk some spillage.

  Marco didn’t even flinch. Instead he pulled a knife from his belt and drove it into the tabletop. “You’d better have a damn good reason for sitting at my table, kid.”

  “I want to be a pirate,” Connor said quickly.

  This made the pirates laugh.

  “Of course, kid,” Marco said. “Everyone wants to be a pirate. Everyone wants to be like Marco. But not just anyone qualifies.”

  Connor looked around at the pirates around him. “I think I’ve got what it takes.”

  Marco squinted and leaned forward. “And just what do you think it takes? Hmm?”

  “A literal boatload of guns.”

  Marco lost the smile and picked up his drink with a sweeping gesture as if he was trying to sneak up on it. He put the glass to his lips, sipped and savored the cocktail. “Do go on.”

  “Not here. I need you to get me out of here, now.”

  Marco smiled and set down the glass, but didn’t say anything.

  He could feel the cops getting closer. And every drunken voice in the crowd sounded like one of Mason’s men. This pirate needed to think faster.

  Marco stared at Connor. Taking the measure of him. He finally put his hands on the table and said, “Okay.” He nodded and two more pirates appeared beside Connor. They stood him up by the elbows.

  Marco leaned back in his seat and shouted, “Another round.”

  “Wait!” Connor protested. “What about me?”

  “You’re too young to drink, kid. We’ll talk in the morning.” He waved once more, and the pirates escorted Connor away.

  15

  The Boomer was scheduled to set out from River City early in the morning, and the passengers made their way to the boat in various stages of alertness.

  A quick survey of the passengers’ demeanors told Eve who had enjoyed a restful evening and who had partaken in River City’s boisterous nightlife.

  Dalton was quiet and hid behind a pair of sunglasses, answering all greetings with a grunt and all questions with groans. Andy and Laura were clear as a bell but were in no hurry to break the silence of the morning. Even Fidget seemed to pick up on the reverence for the stillness and lay quietly at her feet.

  The city itself was finally asleep. The crowds had kept the streets alive until early in the morning and didn’t quit until just before the sun threatened to come out and shut it all down.

  Even those that had stayed sober the night before appreciated the quietness of the morning. A quietness that was broken when Thomas Caine returned to the boat.

  “Good morning, everyone!” he said with more enthusiasm than any morning ever warranted.

  Dalton, who had apparently dozed off behind his dark glasses, jumped at the greeting. “Oh, fanfuckingtastic. He’s a morning person.” He turned away from the niceties and laid his head back on the bench.

  “Didn’t everyone have a good night?” Caine asked. “I haven’t slept that well in weeks.”

  Lana stumbled up the docks behind him, her face hidden under a large brimmed hat. She struggled with the luggage even more than she had the day before.

  “I take it your work went well?” Laura asked.

  “Among other things,” Caine said with a dance in his step.

  “Yippity-doo, kid,” Dalton grumbled. “You got laid. Congratulations. Now if you don’t mind, some of us are trying to have a hangover and your happiness is ruining everything.”

  “Who am I to deny a fan?”

  Laura tried to move the conversation on from the parts that were making her uncomfortable. “Well, I’m glad to hear everything went well.”

  “Well, I don’t like to brag.”

  Dalton tried to offer up a harrumph, but it turned into a coughing fit and he eventually just turned away and tried to fall back asleep.

  “It’s true,” Caine insisted. “I don’t like to brag. Isn’t that right, Lana?”

  Lana heaved her way to the dock’s edge and dropped the pile of luggage as if she had just crossed a finish line.

  “Isn’t that right, Lana?” Caine repeated. “I don’t like to brag.”

  She looked like she was going to collapse. She’d enjoyed her evening in town as well. She didn’t even ask him to repeat himself; she just turned up her palms. “So?”

  “So, brag for me.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Mike and Andy stepped forward and started helping Lana with the luggage.

  “Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Captain Mike.”

  “Lana.” Caine prompted quietly.

  “Oh, right. The Librarian 4: Fall of the Librarian is now officially the best-selling movie since the world ended and then started again.”

  Caine’s smile faded. “Just say number one movie in the world. Why can’t you just say that?”

  “Well, that is wonderful for you,” Laura said, and patted Caine on the knee.

  There were a few other halfhearted congratulations that Caine faux-humbly accepted.

  “What exactly does that mean?” Laura asked.

  “We sold sixteen copies,” Lana said, and stepped down into the Boomer. “Librarian 2 only sold fifteen.”

  “Oh,” Laura said. “Well, uh, sixteen is nice.”

  “Just to be clear,” Caine said, and began making hand gestures that didn’t appear to match his words in any way, “that doesn’t mean that only sixteen people are going to see it. These are distributors. They’re going to screen it for other people in their own theaters. Thousands are going to see this movie.”

  The explanation of the modern financial models for film distribution elicited another round of congratulations. This one sounded more genuine. Whether that was due to the explanation or a practiced lie didn’t matter. Caine soaked them up with as much modesty as he could muster.

  Mike instructed everyone to settle into a seat and they cast off from River City with the help of a dock hand.

  Caine took advantage of the silence to tell everyone about his evening under the guise of extolling the city’s virtues. And some of its vices.