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Tom took a moment on that. “Looking.”
“Looking for what?”
“There’s only a few hundred people in town. And maybe twice that many in a second town just north of us. That’s not enough. If we’re going to come back from this, we need everyone we can.”
“Five thousand minimum,” said Ledger, nodding. “That’s the standard model for rebuilding the gene pool.”
“We’re nowhere near that.”
Ledger nodded. “Let me put it this way, then. If the skull-riders are sending multiple packs to San Jose, what do you think they expect to find? I mean, it’s a very specific target. Don’t you think there have to be at least some reliable rumors about survivors?”
Tom said nothing.
“That’s what I think,” said Ledger. “And since I’ve got nothing better to do than try to do what I can—which is a passive way of saying it’s a moral imperative, just in case you weren’t following—I’m going to follow every lead I can. Every rumor I can. Every chance I can. Do I have to explain why?”
Tom stood up and walked a few paces away, his hands thrust into his back pockets.
“My brother . . . ,” he began, then stopped.
“Your brother needs a world to inherit,” said Ledger gently.
The birds still filled the air, moving from tree to tree to tree.
“I . . . ,” Tom said, then stopped again, shaking his head. Then he sighed and turned. “Okay.”
Ledger stood up.
“Just for a little while, though,” said Tom. “I don’t want to be away from Benny for too long.”
Ledger offered his hand. “Welcome to the war,” he said.
After only a slight pause, Tom took the offered hand.
4
Benny and Chong
(A few weeks before Rot & Ruin)
“Happy birthday,” said Chong, and handed Benny a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.
Benny grinned. “Hey, thanks, dude!”
They sat in the shade of Benny’s porch with cold glasses of iced tea and the crumbling debris of Mrs. Riley’s corn-and-walnut muffins. Overhead the summer sun was a fireball, but there was a breeze off the reservoir that was damp and cool.
“How’s it feel to be fifteen?” asked Chong, who would pass the same milestone in ten days.
“Same as being fourteen, eleven months, and thirty days.”
“What I figured,” Chong said. “We have to get jobs.”
“Yeah.”
They both sighed. The town regulations were inflexible. All teens had to get a job within two months of turning fifteen or they’d have their rations cut by half. Chong was no more enthusiastic about it than Benny. Fifteen had always seemed a million years off.
“I’m probably going to get a job at Lafferty’s,” said Benny. “Work inside. All the pop I can drink.”
“Lafferty’s isn’t hiring. I asked.”
