Webster City Read online

CHAPTER TWO

  Davidson stepped out of an elevator onto the fifth floor of the Internal Security Bureau Headquarters and strolled down a narrow corridor to his small tidy office. He went straight over to the window and stared out across Webster City. In the far distance, the late-afternoon sun poured molten gold over the jagged stumps of Old Chicago. Many citizens wanted the shattered skyscrapers removed as an eyesore; others said they should remain as a reminder of the Dark Years and the Great Plague. Davidson wanted them to stay because they offered glorious scenic moments like this one. Right now, Old Chicago was not a graveyard, but a symbol of how great mankind once was and could be again.

  He sat behind his desk and recalled shooting Conrad. He'd killed a lot of people during his 15 years in the ISB. For a long time, he convinced himself that he was serving God and protecting the City. Now, he'd lost faith in both and each death left a raw mental wound.

  Rage welled up inside him. He was angry at Conrad for joining the Freedom Alliance and trying to shoot it out, at Delray for not guarding Conrad properly and at himself for putting his faith in Delray.

  If he stayed in his office, he would stew over the events in Conrad's apartment. Best to go home. He put his pistol and gun belt in a wall safe and headed for the door.

  Davidson and his wife, Barbara, lived in Sector 8, one of the best residential areas in Webster City, with lots of low-rise apartment buildings lining the shore of Lake Michigan. Their third-story apartment was about a hundred yards from the lake, with a large park in between, and had a good view of the greenish-blue water.

  The apartment was furnished with Charles Eames furniture scavenged from a mansion in Arizona 100 years ago. After being checked for radiation contamination, it was brought to Webster City and had several owners before the Davidsons bought it.

  When he got home, Barbara was watching television. Most men envied him his marriage. She was a beautiful woman, with raven hair, high cheekbones and an athletic body. When she walked down the street, men tracked her with their eyes. However, he now realized that, before their marriage, he paid too much attention to her looks and not enough to her personality, which was small-minded, self-centered and grasping. She was always asking when he would get promoted or get a pay rise, or they would move to a better address. Those questions were particularly annoying when his ambition was draining away.

  He also suspected she was cheating on him. She'd recently had the chirpy air of someone in love, and he knew it wasn't with him. He could have easily used his position in the ISB to obtain her phone records, to see who she was calling. So far, he'd resisted the temptation.

  She looked up with her big liquid eyes. "Hello, Darling. How was your day?"

  If he revealed that he shot a suspect, she would probably applaud his actions. She thought Freedom Alliance fighters were "scum" and "filth", and was proud that her husband stood on the front line of the fight against them. But he didn't want to bring the violent reality of his job home with him, nor see hatred and contempt for the enemy written on the face of his wife.

  He said: "Pretty boring. Mostly paperwork."

  "You always say that. One of these days, you'll have to tell me what you really do."

  "I just did."

  A lifted eyebrow. "Yeah, right."

  "What about you? How was your day? Any of the kids try to burn down the school?"

  Barbara taught at the nearby Adolf Hitler Elementary School. She frowned. "No, but it was very stressful. Some parents sent their child to school with a cold. Can you believe that? We called an ambulance and had the kid taken to a hospital."

  "Did you speak to the parents?"

  "Of course. They claimed he didn't look sick when he left home. That was obviously garbage. I gave them a tremendous tongue-lashing: told them they put all of the other children at risk and I would report them to the police."

  "Did you?"

  "Of course. The police went straight over to their house and arrested them. They suspect they're anti-vaxers. If that's true, they'll go to prison for a very long time."

  She went back to watching the television. It was broadcasting the blasphemy trial of the so-called Zen Ten. The accused were charged with deviating from the teaching of the New World Church by practicing Zen Buddhism. They claimed they were only trying to learn about meditation and exercise. However, their execution by firing squad was inevitable. That was how all blasphemy trials ended. At least they wouldn't be burnt at the stake, as would have occurred 100 years ago.

  While the trial judge screamed at one of the accused, Davidson went into the spare bedroom and spent an hour practicing karate. Hand-strikes. Elbow-strikes. Punches. Kicks. Blocks. Several times, he imagined himself punching Delray. Tension slowly leaked out of his system.