"They built a high-rise here, so they had to re-route the drains," Jo explained, climbing up. "Just before the colloids came."
"How do you know that?" Alex pushed himself up and joined her on the bed of rags.
"My husband was the architect, and I remember him complaining about all the trouble he was having with the city, because the building extended out over the sewer. The contractor had to dig a new drain."
How are the mighty fallen, Alex thought. This woman had once had it all, and now she lived in a sewer. Still, she had a better set-up than most of the survivors down here; and the sewer was one of the few places in the city where there
were
any survivors. She still looked pretty good, and sex was a commodity that was always in demand. She was doing all right, considering.
"Give me the picture," Jo said
He did as she asked.
She took off her torn clothing, revealing a slender, shapely body that immediately aroused Alex. He removed his clothes and she gently touched the raw scar on his back.
"Now I'll give you what you need," she said.
Embracing, they began to kiss. Jo showed more interest than she had to, Alex thought, becoming wildly excited. In the dripping darkness they made long, feral love until he was spent, and he was able to sleep fitfully at last.
Alex had planned to slip away, but he couldn't pull his arm out from underneath Jo's head without nudging her. She blinked and opened her eyes to the dim light. "Good morning," she said, seeming to be wide awake already.
"Afternoon is more like it."
"Yeah. This morning was nice though, Alex."
He scratched at his beard. "It helped get me out of a bad state of mind. Last night I was jumped by more colloids than I've ever seen before."
"Well, they won't come down here." She stretched, and said, "How's that cut on your back?"
"It's healing." Alex listened to the susurrant gurglings from below. The sewer water was murky, but there were few pollutants in it anymore. It had been three years since a toilet had been flushed or a factory had dumped toxins in the rivers, so there was little chance of catching diseases. Other problems were imminent, though.
"It's September now," he said. "In a few weeks it'll be too cold to stay down here."
"It gets rough in the winter, but where else can you go?"
"Out of the city."
"And starve."
"People lived off the land for thousands of years. Besides, there aren't many colloids out in the country."
"Farmer Alex, how do you know what it's like out in the country?" Jo asked.
He tried not to be annoyed at her sarcasm. "It stands to reason. Where there are fewer people, there have to be fewer colloids, too."
"What about animals?"
"Uh-uh. Humans are the food of choice." He felt Jo's warm body shudder against him. After all this time, she still didn't like to think about it. Who did? Still, it was a fact of life. Colloids ate people.
"I've got to get some kerosene. You want to go to Suburban Station with me?" Jo asked.
"What for?"
"Well, for one thing, you said you were in a fire fight last night. You must need more bullets."
She was sharp. "Yeah, I need some ammo," he admitted, "but now I don't have anything left to trade."
"You gave me all your valuables, did you? I should be flattered." He liked the throaty way she said that. "Look, come with me, and I'll get you some bullets."
"You'd do that?" He didn't have many rounds left.
"Why not? I could use a partner."
"Like a pimp, you mean?" Alex asked sourly.
"No, a partner. I can do other things besides selling my body, you know."
He felt like a jerk. "Sorry. I didn't mean to insult you."
"Forget it." She sat up, pulled on a tattered jersey and stuffed a few items into a navy blue backpack. "You want to come?"
He shrugged. "Why not?"
As soon as they were both dressed, they ate half a can of beans and headed east. Jo took the lantern, since their route frequently led them through total darkness. Along the way they talked a little about the old days. Alex learned that Jo had been a social worker, and she seemed amused when he told her that he had worked in the city planner's office. Their destination, half an hour away through a series of interconnected passageways, was the Suburban Station Concourse underlying much of Philadelphia's Center City. Abandoned shops and restaurants lined the subterranean corridors, leading to the decaying commuter train station. The silent tunnels provided quick escape routes should colloids interrupt the bartering in this makeshift marketplace.
Alex and Jo walked up the broken concrete steps of the subway and saw a few people, most of them hiding in the shadows of the wrecked shops. All of them were armed.
"How's business, Jo?" a grizzled, gray-haired black man asked as they approached him. He sat with his back against the wall, resting his one arm on a stack of boxes. Alex had seen him before, but had never done business with him.
"Not bad, Victor. Got a sucker right here." She smiled at the one-armed man.
Alex looked carefully at her. Was she joking? Or was she so sure of herself that she dared to mock him?
"That man don't look like no sucker to me," Victor said, pointing his stump at Alex. "That's Alex Ward . . . and he's
bad
."
"He won't be bad for long, not unless you can sell me some bullets for that popgun he's got with him."
"Ingram nine? We might be able to do business."
It had never occurred to Alex that this guy would sell ammo. He was still learning, it seemed.
"I don't mind selling bullets to heroes," said Victor, "but I got to eat, too."
"You'll be able to get some food with this." Jo took out the picture and handed it to Victor.
"Pretty," he said.
"More than pretty," Jo replied. "That's real gold."
"Yeah, but it ain't got the value it once had."
"People still want it."
"Not when they got colloids crawling up they ass, they don't."
"Victor, don't give me that crap. You can get a lot of food with this, and a lot of ammo. You know that people want gold as much as they ever did."
Victor smiled, a beautiful, friendly smile. "Can't bullshit you Society Hill mamas about gold, I guess."
Jo stood with hands on hips, waiting to hear his offer. Alex tried to keep from laughing.
"I can give you two boxes."
"Two boxes! That won't last five minutes in a fire fight."
"If you can get it someplace else . . . "
Grudgingly, Jo shook her head and handed the photograph to Victor. They had all known that she would give in from the start. Nobody manufactured ammunition anymore, so its value went up steadily. It was, quite literally, as good as gold. Better, in fact.
"I meet you back here in a couple hours with the ammo," Victor said.
"Right now I need some kerosene," Jo said.
"Got that right here," Victor replied, moving the boxes around until he found one containing six stoppered glass bottles. He handed a bottle to her, and she stuffed it into her backpack along with the lantern.
"Are you gonna let him keep the picture without any collateral?" Alex said, feeling duty bound to comment on the apparent tenuousness of the deal.
Victor raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
"You can trust him," said Jo. "Don't worry."
Victor stood up and stretched. "Be cool, hear?" He walked away, his footsteps echoing through the nearly empty Concourse.
"Want to take a look up top?" Alex said a few minutes later. He had never been good at waiting patiently.
"Now?" Jo looked a little nervous.
"No time like the present." Some action would do him good, and he wanted to see how Jo would handle herself up on the street. She had selected him for a partner, but he didn't know for sure if she was good enough to work with him.
She looked at him earnestly. "Okay,"
They came up the stairs at Penn Center, across the street from City Hall. The giant clothespin statue lay broken on its side, part of it extending into the street. The colonnades of City Hall still stood, but the tower and the statue of William Penn had been destroyed by rocket fire during the war, in a vain attempt to wipe out the colloids before it was too late.
"I used to work on the fourth floor over there," Alex said.
"Oh, yeah?"
"What happened to your husband, the architect?" Alex asked as they were crossing the street.
"He woke up one morning with a growth on his chest," Jo said with controlled emotion. "He made an appointment with a dermatologist. They said they could squeeze him in next week. That was on Friday. He came home from his golf game early on Saturday. By midnight on Sunday, the colloid covered his chest. It ate him alive."
Alex felt a constriction in his throat. "That's pretty much what happened to my wife and kid."
They walked silently through the abandoned plaza, watching for movement. The sun was warm, Indian summer weather. A breeze moved dust lazily across the cracked pavement of 15th Street.
"Been in City Hall lately?" Alex asked.
Jo seemed a little annoyed at his bravado. "Not in the past three years," she said, referring to the time since the colloids had taken over. "I like it better in the sewer."
"Some people said that
before
the war."
"I would have thought we'd see a colloid or two by now," Jo said.
"Why? There's not much food for them around here, not above ground. This neighborhood's been deserted for a long time."
They entered through an arch and moved cautiously into the passageway at the south entrance to City Hall, opposite Broad Street. Limestone boulders stood embedded in detritus, the remains of the fallen tower. They climbed over these to reach the open square at the building's heart. On the east side, Alex noticed a metal door that had always been locked before; he had failed to force it open on more than one occasion.
Nevertheless, it was ajar now.
"Somebody's been in there," he said softly. "Looks like they bent the door when they smashed the lock, and now they can't get it completely shut."
They approached the door, finding that it opened easily. When they saw what was in the dark storeroom beyond, they wished that they had left it alone.
A man lay on the floor, gasping and shuddering. A colloid sucked at him, clinging to his torso from crotch to throat. A pseudopod stretched across the right side of his face, and through the clear, pulsing gel, the corroding muscles of his jaw worked visibly.
The colloid, sensing their presence, oozed off the dying man in a pink gout, slurping toward a rusted vent.
"Burn it!" the dying man cried.
"Jo, the kerosene!" Alex fired a burst in front of the colloid to slow it down, as Jo yanked the jar out of her backpack and tossed it to him. Cradling the Ingram in the crook of his left arm, Alex unstopped the bottle and splashed it onto the colloid. The colloid heaved and flattened against the wall.
Alex reached inside his shirt and withdrew a tiny box. He smiled as he felt its dryness. Opening it and pulling out a match, he snapped his thumbnail against the matchhead. The light of the match flared in the dim light, revealing tools and cable spools. The acrid smell of sulphur stung his nostrils.
While it still burned, Alex tossed the match at the colloid. A shrill, unearthly scream filled the cramped space as the crawling thing went up in flames, writhing and blackening, shivering and shrinking into a charred, black heap. Its scream faded as it was consumed, until it was silent. An almost intolerable stench filled the storeroom. Black snowflakes fell around Jo and Alex as they tried to comfort the dying man.
"Didn't think they'd be downtown anymore," the man said, his words distorted through mutilated lips. It was hard to look at him, despite all the colloid hosts Alex had seen. "Thought they were gone."
"So did we, man," Alex said. "There's always one around, though, God damn it."
Jo stroked the man's head, where it had not been eaten away by the colloid.
"Fire," the dying man said. "The only way to deal with them."
Alex nodded as the dying man sighed. His ribs showed through translucent flesh. Veins and arteries pulsed sluggishly. His liver was clearly visible.
"Kill me," he said.
Alex did not hesitate. "Jo, you don't have to watch. Go on outside."
She looked straight at him. A tear glistened in the corner of one eye. "We're partners," she said. "I'll stay."
He nodded, gently pulling her away from the dying man. He stood over the shuddering, prostrate form and said, "I'm sorry."
"Me, too," said the dying man.
Alex shot him in the heart.
It didn't take long to get back to Suburban Station, and Victor was waiting as he had promised.
"Everything cool?" he asked, seeing in their faces that something had happened.
"We ran into a colloid having lunch," Alex said.
Victor nodded. "How far gone?"
"Half way. It died of indigestion, though."
Smiling, Victor said, "Heartburn?"
"Right. Your kerosene came in handy."
"Too bad it's in short supply." Victor withdrew two boxes of ammunition from a sack. "But not as short as these."
It was better than nothing, Alex thought grimly as he accepted the bullets. He would have to scour the underground for more ammunition . . . after he secured something to buy it with. Life could be a bitch.
"Tell you the truth, man," Victor said. "It's the best I could do."
"Sure, Victor," Jo said. "You aren't hoarding anything, are you?"
"Babe, would I hold out on you?" Victor smiled broadly.
Jo grinned, too. "Someday I'll find out where your stash is. You'll go there to get a few goodies and find yourself cleaned out."
"Shee-it." Victor leaned back against the wall and wiped his brow with a red handkerchief. "The way things are going, it probably don't much matter."
Concerned, Jo reached out and placed her palm on his forehead. "You've got a temperature, Vic. Better find some place to lie down."