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“The part you aren’t selling. Did you come here because of Zeke, or because of the sap market? I know you were selling it, in the Outskirts. Big Pete Holloway said one of his boys supplied you, and that you did a fair amount of business with Harry, the chemist from Vancouver who set up shop in the Outskirts. ”
“I did better than fair,” Rector argued, on the off chance this was some kind of job interview.
“No, let’s leave it there. If you hadn’t smoked up most of your profits, we could perhaps call it good. ”
Rector swallowed. He couldn’t think of a reply, so he didn’t give one.
“It’s written all over your body,” Yaozu continued. “Your skin—the color’s changing, very slightly, around your eyes and mouth. Your gums are receding. Your hair, it’s very exuberant. But it’s been falling out, hasn’t it?”
“Maybe. ”
“Maybe,” Yaozu echoed with something perilously close to disgust. “You’re a user, Rector. A longtime user with heavy appetites and, I’d wager, a rather serious addiction. Addicts aren’t any use to me, Rector. Do you understand? I can’t trust addicts. Their minds are too far gone for detail-oriented production work, and they steal too much when they sell. ”
“I never stole anything. ”
“You skimmed. Extensively. Please don’t insult me by lying about it. ”
Rector didn’t like the way Yaozu said please. It didn’t sound like a request. It sounded like a bullet. “All right, I smoked and I sold. You want me to pay it back? I don’t even know how much I took over the last few years. ”
Yaozu shook his head. He squeezed the spot between his eyebrows and sighed. Rector got the distinct impression he was giving this man a headache, and that headaches and Yaozu were probably a bad combination.
He continued, “I can work it off, if there’s debt you’re worried about. I’m an excellent salesman. ”
“I bet you are. But since you’re now officially a grown man, with a troublesome birthday behind you, perhaps we can wipe the slate clean. Just this once. Consider it a birthday present. ”
“What? Really?”
“It’s no great risk for me to make the offer. If you persist in being trouble, or making trouble, then I daresay the slate won’t stay clean for long. But should you feel inclined to turn over a new leaf, then there’s no time like the present. Tell me, Rector. Are you interested in a new leaf?”
“Yes sir. Very much, sir. ” He’d never called a Chinaman “sir” before, but, like this whole leaf-turning thing, there was no time like the present to start.
He nodded slowly. “Well, that’s something. You still have the self-preservation to lie on the fly, so you’re not as far gone as I’d feared. ”
“You … you’d feared?”
“I’d heard stories. About you. ”
“From who?”
“Customers. Suppliers. For such a young man, Rector, you’ve developed quite a reputation. And lest you take that as a compliment, let me assure you it isn’t—it’s only an observation, and one that leaves me compelled to observe you further, in case your clean slate gets too dirty, too quickly. Let me put it this way: You appear inconvenient to me, Rector. And I am giving you the opportunity to prove otherwise. Now, under different circumstances, this would be the part where we talk about job prospects. ”
“Different circumstances?”
“Different from these, yes. ”
Rector swallowed again, anxiety welling up in his throat and making his mouth feel unaccountably wet. “And what are these circumstances?”
“Finally, an actual question. It bothers me when you repeat what I’ve said and make it sound like a query. Stop doing that. It’s the kind of thing people do when they’re only pretending to pay attention. ”
“Yes sir. I’ll stop it, sir. ”
“Let me ask you something, Rector. When you decided to enter this city, how did you choose your method? After all, there’s more than one way inside. ”
Whatever he’d been expecting, this wasn’t it. Caught off guard, he tried to answer. “I … I don’t know. I heard the water runoff tunnels caved in during that quake last year. And I didn’t know any of the airmen well enough to hitch a ride—”
Yaozu interrupted. “You know several well enough to ask, but you owe them money, don’t you?”
“Well, there’s that. Anyway, I heard you were building a doorway in the wall, something so people could come and go easier, but not too easy. So you can keep track of who comes and goes, I mean. Like me,” he added the obvious. And then, still searching for a comparison, he said, “Like a toll bridge. Or a toll door. ”
“A toll door?” Yaozu’s eyebrows lifted very slightly. “A toll door … On the one hand, we couldn’t charge too much, or people would take the more dangerous ways around the wall. On the other hand, it could help offset some of the repairs I’m making out of my own pocket,” he grumbled. “If we wanted to get ambitious about it, we could call it a tax, not a toll. ”
Rector frowned. “Could you do that? Tax, I mean? This ain’t a real city. ”
Yaozu squinted unhappily, and Rector realized too late that he’d talked out of turn.
“Seattle is absolutely a ‘real city. ’ We have real neighborhoods and shops, restaurants and facilities. We have a sheriff—I believe you’ve met her. She comes from a long line of them. Or a short line, perhaps; I can’t vouch for her lineage beyond Maynard, come to think of it. I’ve even been accused of being an informal mayor—which I find quite funny, and not altogether incorrect. Think of it, Rector: a woman sheriff and a Chinese mayor. The world would either laugh or cry. ”
Rector thought the world might indeed laugh, but something told him it wouldn’t laugh long.
Yaozu continued. “Soon, we will have a real airship dock. The Doornails are absolutely giddy at the prospect of sending and receiving mail like civilized people. All these things are happening, Rector. Seattle is not dead. It is stirring, and we will bring it back around. ”
Rector thought, but had the good sense not to say aloud, Under your control, I bet. “You’re right. I didn’t mean anything by it. You’ve got a lot of people down here, that’s for sure. ”
“I wouldn’t say a lot,” Yaozu mused. “That’s rather the problem, really—and it relates to why you’re here in my office. ”
“It does?”
“Yes. Seattle’s population hasn’t exactly boomed since the Boneshaker turned the Blight loose and the wall went up. We’ve always had more dead men than living ones here on the inside, but lately we’re running low on both. ” He paused and pointed a finger between Rector’s eyes like a dagger. “That’s why you’re getting the clean slate, young man. If I could afford to be pickier, I would choose someone with a better reputation for usefulness. ”
“But … isn’t that good? Being low on dead men? On the way here, I was talking with Zeke and Huey about how we hadn’t seen so many as we expected. ”
“There are fewer rotters these days, and the reasons are varied, but obvious. First, they are running out of fuel. Even dead things need energy to move, and after all these years, the oldest rotters are slowing down. Second, something is killing them. Whatever this something is, I’ve heard only rumors, but the men down here have started calling it the inexplicable. I don’t know where they even heard that word, but whatever makes them happy, I suppose. Third—and most alarmingly, in my opinion—some of the rotters have recently escaped. ”
“Escaped?” Rector’s mind boggled.
“Escaped, yes. A good number of them. And here’s where your usefulness will be tested, Rector Sherman. ”
Utterly aghast, Rector couldn’t keep the horror out of his voice. “You want me to round them up and bring them back?”
Yaozu sighed heavily. “I don’t want you to bring them back … though that would be nice, wouldn’t it? No, I want you to tell me how they got out. ”
> “How they got out? Of the wall?”
“Very good, yes. Tell me how they got past the wall. Over it, under it, through it—I have no idea, but they’ve been trickling steadily into the forest and Outskirts, and we’re down to a skeleton crew of the damn things. No pun intended. ”
“Wait,” Rector said again. “You want the rotters here?”
Yaozu sighed again, as if he were second-guessing his decision and wishing he had someone smarter immediately at hand. He spoke slowly, enunciating so carefully that if Rector had closed his eyes, he might’ve imagined it was a white man speaking. “Yes, Rector. I want the rotters here. They’re disgusting, they’re ravenous, they’re violent, and they keep the city safe from outsiders. ”
“They do?”
“Even more than the gas, they prevent people from coming and going. The gas can be managed with a mask and a handful of filters. The walking dead are something else entirely—not just a physical threat, but a psychological one, too. No one wants to become a rotter, Rector. People chop off their body parts to keep from becoming rotters. They shoot their friends in the head to prevent the fate from befalling others. ”
“No, you’re right, I understand. But still … why keep them around?”
“You aren’t paying attention, or you aren’t thinking. I do hope your brainpower improves once you’ve had another day or two of rest. At this rate, I’m not sure you’ll survive a week. ” Yaozu retrieved his wire-rimmed spectacles from the stack of paper, then unfolded them and put them on. He picked up the topmost sheets and shuffled through them. When he found what he wanted, he pushed the glasses up onto his forehead.
“Rector, do you have any idea how much money comes and goes from Seattle in any given year?”