Jennifer Government Part 6

"Thanks." He eyed her pants. "Hey, Calf...I think they got you."

"What? Aw, s.h.i.t!"

"Well, well!" Finch said, arriving. "A good day for the blue team!" He walked to the flagpole and began tugging at the ropes. "I think the blue team will all find secure NRA positions."

"You got everyone shot shot," Billy said. "Everyone except me."

Finch looked around. "Well, perhaps not all of us, then."

"You a.s.shole!" Calf said. "You let them know we were coming!"

"I did not," Finch said. "That was your own fault, snapping branches and so forth."

"You did, man," one of the enemies said. "I heard someone say, 'Go, attack!' "

"Thanks a lot, Finch! You probably cost me a job!"

"Your inept.i.tude in combat isn't my fault," Finch said. He began folding the flag, tucking one end under his chin.

Billy said, "You think you're a real squad commander? This is a game game! You think they'd ever put you in charge for real?"

Everyone fell silent. Finch raised his paintgun. "Shut your mouth, Mouse."

Billy laughed. "What are you going to do? Shoot me?"

"I said stand down!"

"Give me the flag. You don't deserve it." He reached for it.

Finch pulled the trigger. Billy felt something sharp strike his chest. He looked down and saw a mess of blue paint on his jacket. He raised his head. Finch said nervously, "Now, Mouse" and Billy punched him in the face.

Finch fell to the ground. Arms grabbed at Billy. He flailed wildly and connected with something soft. Someone yelled, "Ahh, my nose!" Then Billy was on the ground and a lot of angry people were holding him down.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Get out of here," a man said. "The NRA doesn't need thugs like you."

"The NRA will hear about this, Mouse," Finch said, his voice shrill. "You can forget about your job!"

Billy looked at Calf, hoping for support. She looked at the ground. "You'd better scoot, Mouse."

"Fine!" He scrambled to his feet. He tore off his blue armband and threw it to the ground, but no one seemed very impressed. He almost shouted, Screw you all, Screw you all, but strangled the impulse. He turned on his heel and walked away. but strangled the impulse. He turned on his heel and walked away.

Twenty minutes later, he realized he didn't have a solid grip on his bearings. The bushland looked the same in every direction. In places it was so thick he had to scramble over fallen trees and hack through bushes. The blue paint on his jacket dried to form a hard layer that chafed against his skin, and he pulled it off and hurled it at a tree. Ten minutes later his arms were attacked so violently by mosquitoes that he headed back for it.

But this was harder than it sounded, and Billy realized he was well and truly lost. He spent half an hour smashing through the bush, getting increasingly irate at himself, the NRA, and misleading blue birds. He wished he'd never met those NRA suits at the firing range. When he got out of this, the first thing Billy was going to do was cancel his membership.

About three hours later, he stumbled across a dirt road. He was so relieved he fell to his knees. He was dirty and tired and his throat made clicking sounds when he swallowed. He was also dying for a cigarette, but scared of how much worse his thirst would get if he smoked one. He peered down the road, first one way, then the other. Neither looked especially promising.

He walked forever. Not a single car pa.s.sed him. The sun began to fall below the tree line and a chill settled in the air. Billy was now really regretting pitching that jacket. He was thinking he might be in real trouble. He was beginning to think he might die.

Then he glanced to his right and saw the Jeep. There was a tiny track off the road, just a gap in the trees, really, and a few hundred yards down it, a red glow of brake lights. Billy stopped and stared. Then he ran toward it.

It was an NRA vehicle, he could tell even in the gloom, with a few NRA uniforms sitting in it. One of the men was looking in his direction. "Hoy!" Billy yelled, waving his arms. "h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo!"

The man raised a rifle. Billy stopped running. A spotlight snapped on, blinding him. He raised an arm to shield his eyes.

"Identify yourself."

"I'm Billy! Billy NRA!"

Silence. His legs started to tremble. He had a terrible feeling he was somewhere he shouldn't be. He heard someone jump down from the Jeep and walk toward him, boots crunching through the undergrowth. A man entered the light. He was short and maybe fifty and wearing a uniform with a lot of shiny bits and pieces. None of this made Billy feel any better.

"You're Bill NRA?"

"Yes."

The man exhaled. "Jesus. We thought you weren't going to show. I'm Yallam."

"I'mpleased to meet you, sir." His legs wouldn't quit shaking.

"You all right?"

"I'm fine, sir."

"We heard about the trouble in Sydney. Sorry about Damon."

"I" Billy said, then realized there was only one correct response here. "Yes, sir."

Yallam turned around. "Frank! Turn off that light."

The light died. Billy blinked in the sudden darkness.

"We'd better get moving. You disposed of your vehicle?"

"Myyes, sir."

"Good man." Yallam clapped him on the back and began steering him toward the Jeep. Billy very much didn't want to get into that Jeep. "You're a credit to the NRA, son. Don't think your work this last week won't go unrewarded."

"Thank you, sir," Billy said. A soldier opened the door for him and he climbed in. He had never been so scared in his life.

14 Jennifer

The shrink said, "Now you're going to tell me you don't need to be here."

"Wow, you're good," Jennifer said. The plastic chair was uncomfortable. The office was small, dark, and had no view. She had been discharged, or so she'd thought. The Government was insisting on an outgoing psych evaluation. Jennifer just wanted to go home.

"Danger is part of your job, right? You're wasting time here when you could be out pursuing the perpetrators."

"Amazing," she said. "It's like I don't even have to be here."

The shrink rested his elbows on his desk. She could see an open file, which she guessed was hers. "Jennifer, I'm not going to ask you about your childhood, or your s.e.x life, or what an ink blot looks like. I'm only here to help you deal with the trauma. Prevent it from dominating your life."

"The only trauma was my stupidity. I was there to do a job; I screwed up. I practically deserved to get shot."

"Do you really think that?"

"No," she said. "I deserved to save that girl, and those two gun-toting a.s.sholes deserved to die instead of her. But you can't win them all."

The shrink paused. It was a meaningful pause, Jennifer suspected: it was to give her time to consider her response and revise it. She kept her mouth shut.

"You know," the shrink said, "some people, as they recover from trauma, obsess on the perpetrators. Their lives come to revolve around the enemy. They constantly think about obtaining justice."

"These people sound sensible."

"They withdraw from loved ones. Only the trauma is important to them. They can feel desensitized to violence; they can become aggressive. Does any of this sound familiar?"

"Well, we could discuss these people all day," she said, standing. "But since I have work to do"

"Sit."

She sat. "You know, this isn't even about me. This is about some a.s.shole at Nike thinking he can build a career out of dead teenagers. You don't know what these people are like. They don't stop until you make them stop."

"Yes, I'm aware of your corporate past," the shrink said. His eyes slid to her barcode tattoo. "You have scores to settle, yes?"

"Hey," she said. "That has nothing to do with this. It's not me who can't forget that, it's you people."

"Are you working for the Government to atone for your past?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'm a real idealist."

" 'From the single-minded idealist to the fanatic is but a step.' F. A. Hayek wrote that. 'There is only one step from fanaticism to barbarism.' That's Denis Diderot."

"Someone should shoot you and drop you three floors," she said. "You could write an article."

He sighed and made a note in the file. She didn't think it was a good note.

"You're recommending I be suspended? Is that it?"

"Jennifer, clearly you could benefit from a rest before returning to active duty."

"I don't need a rest!"

He looked up. "I'm told you don't date. Is that true?"

"I thought we weren't discussing my s.e.x life."

"It's relevant to your loss of perspective."

"I'm leaving." She stood up, too quickly. Her chair toppled backward and hit the floor.

"Wait! Jennifer!"

She slammed the door behind her. People in the corridor turned. She stared back at them. Outside the hospital it was dark and there were no cabs, so she stood by the road and waited. It wasn't until her jaw began to ache that she realized she was clenching it.

The cab dropped her on Peckville Street and she struggled up to the front door. Jennifer was discovering how difficult it was to do anything with one arm in a sling, even to get into her own house. In the end she rang the bell.

She owned a single-fronted house in North Melbourne, a small, innercity suburb that had so far mostly resisted the apartment block invasion. Jennifer had moved to Melbourne from Los Angeles nine years ago: she had needed an escape, Australia was completing its absorption into the United States, and the TV advertis.e.m.e.nts were calling it the new California. "Melbourne is L.A. without the smog," a real estate man told her, which she guessed was true, but it was also L.A. without the amenities. She had been shocked by how small the place was. That had changed, of course. There had been so much construction since then that she hardly recognized the city anymore.

The porch light flicked on. An eye appeared at the peephole. "Oh!" a girl said. She unlocked and swung open the door. "I wondered if you were coming home tonight."

"Isorry. I should have called."

"No, it's fine," the girl said. "I'm just studying." She hefted her bag. "I'll hit the road, unless there's anything you need."

"Um," she said. "No, thanks."

"Give me a call if you need me again." The girl banged her way out the front door.

Jennifer went in and dropped her bag on the sofa. The hallway light was on, but Kate's room was dark, so she snuck inside and stood there for a moment, letting her eyes adjust.

"Mommy?"

"Hi, sweetie." She knelt beside the bed.

"Your hair looks funny."

"They had to cut it. Look, I have st.i.tches."

Kate touched Jennifer's skull, feeling her hair. "I liked it better before."

"Well, I think it looks snappy," she said. "Were you good for the baby-sitter?"

"Yes."

"Good girl." She stroked Kate's face. "You want to have a gla.s.s of milk with me?"

"It's very late, Mommy."