Miljan was watching Drinkers. Sitting on a park bench in the barricaded courtyard of a housing block, he could see the street reflected in the large mirror nailed to a nearby tree. The summer rains, which were acidic and contaminated because the wind carried them in from east, had stripped its branches of leaves. The brittle few that remained dropped one of their number onto the mossy pavement every few minutes. Miljan crushed a few of them with his sandal and continued to stare at the passersby. A faded cosmetics magazine lay in his lap, but he had given up trying to record the frequency of scanner patrols and the CPs on their rounds. There was hardly any space to write between the advertisements, anyway.
The Drinkers had easy lives. Short-term memory loss, it turned out, resulted in considerable docility when it affected the entire (documented) population. Citizens of Breen's city could look to their Benefactors for all their basic needs, take a sip of drugged water, and let the days slip by in idleness. There was a lot to be said for a pastless and futureless existence. It allowed only the barest threads of a life, but when you couldn't remember the normal length of a day, each sunset had its own special novelty.
More ambitious citizens who wanted the finer things in life—new bedding, books, household items—had to scrounge up what they could, always taking pains to conceal their surplus possessions from confiscatory CPs and their stun batons. They would write the locations of stashes on the inside collars of their standard-issue denim shirts, lest they get thirsty and forget. Rations were sufficient, but only just, so that one had always to be on the hunt for more food in order to keep weight on. That was all the activity a Drinker was allowed, unless they were tapped as informers or menial workers by Civil Protection, which happened only occasionally.
Iskander and Miljan were refugees, non-citizens that had crept into the city at one point or another by crossing the polluted and Xen-haunted hinterlands and the expanding and retracting Apron wall. They could not live among the citizens, lest there be a Miscount, and they were not issued rations. Instead they traveled by the underground, charting and tunneling to reclaim living spaces and storage in structures far from Combine patrols. Now that they had adopted some sort of settled life in the margins, they were called fugees, drainrunners and other less savory things in a dozen languages. Iskander preferred the term creeps. They were distrusted and shunned by legal residents, but were valuable contacts for those who sought rare goods to trade for food and electricity.
A scanner slid lazily overhead. Their orange eyes read faces more easily than clothes, and nothing about Miljan's appearance was suspect. It was possible to move about the city mostly unmolested, so long as one did not draw the attention of the chronically bored CPs. Checkpoints were the main problem, with their ID cameras and alarm klaxons.
Miljan patted his grumbling stomach and envisioned the juvenile tomatoes in Iskander's rooftop garden. How nice it must be to have guaranteed meals everyday. It was easy, in fact, to shed fugee status and register as a full citizen. All one had to do was inform on another outlaw—or perhaps report a particularly heinous civil violation among the Drinkers—and take a pill. He and Iskander preferred the underground life, however. Death by bad luck was only slightly more probable, and their illegal existence granted them a certain élan. Every now and then Resistance couriers would take shots at him for using their tunnels, so as far as Miljan was concerned, he was a thoroughgoing City 17 hajduk.
"Hey! You over there! Moleman!"
Miljan almost fell off the bench. He spun around to see a white-haired man beckoning from a ground level window in the nearest building.
"Christ! How did you get—what the hell did you call me, you fucking Drinker?"
The newcomer didn't bat an eyelash; he was already agitated enough.
"Could you come give us a hand? It's urgent and—"
"What did you call me?"
"Mole! Moleman, you dig in the ground like a mole. Okay?"
"Odjebi, kurac."
"Now listen, pal, we've caught a scanner!"
Miljan bolted to his feet. The magazine fell from the bench and opened to a page showcasing spray-on tan lotion for men. He covered it with his foot.
"No joke? Where is it?"
"My neighbors found it behind the apartments across the street. We don't know how to disable it and its noisier than—Hurry the hell up, or it'll fly away!"
Miljan swore again and began to climb in through the windowsill.
"Lead on, then. How did a bunch of sorry Yanks like you catch one, anyway?"
There were there too many damned Americans being shipped into the city these days.
"It caught itself, mostly."
They reached the end of a drafty hallway and turned a corner. There was a gaping hole in the wall where, judging by the tire tracks, an APC had smashed into the building. Civil Protection's monthly alcohol ration always made for a number of unpleasant, perilous, days.
"Huh. So much for this block, anyway. You Drinkers can just walk right in."
"They'll make us brick it back up, don't worry," the American said bitterly, and walked into the street. Miljan hung back out of habit and checked both ways along the road. Nothing but downed power lines and heat haze to the left, the Citadel framed between two houses to the right.
Hajduk and citizen darted down a trash-choked alleyway and through an empty lot filled with broken-down Ladas. They heard the sounds first, a cacaphony of metallic wailing punctuated by urgent chirps. The American turned the corner into a bare cul-de-sac of concrete and blankly staring windows.
"There it is. We can't figure out what to do with it."
Miljan scratched his head. The noisy distress calls were all coming from the scanner—as emotive as all Combine machines—that was careening around the confined space in irregular circles. It seemed to lack altitude control entirely, was listing to the right and could not stay on course for more than a few seconds. Two gypsy women were watching furtively from a doorway while another man chased the malfunctioning drone to and fro, ludicrously trying to snare it with a dogcatcher's net.
"Sranje! What the hell happened?"
"It zapped itself on an extra power line we rigged on the fourth floor," the old man answered, pointing towards the small rectangle of sky that was visible. "Then it fell down here and bounced around for a while. Do you know how to disable it?"
"That's the easy part. You have to catch it first."
The seemingly panicked automaton was snapping pictures wildly, and it appeared to have smashed its headlight. Taking care to conceal himself behind the wall, Miljan turned towards the women, who were watching impassively.
"Joj! Pićke! Do something useful. Throw some rocks at it or something!"
They looked at him momentarily and then vanished into the building's interior. He realized with consternation that they probably understood Serbo-Croation, and flung a few more epithets after them for good measure.
"Oh, give up!" Miljan growled at the man with the net. "Or else go find a bigger stick." The Drinker obeyed as if used to it and sprinted away, ducking to avoid the scanner's crazed trajectory. He returned moments later with a tire iron and offered it to Miljan.
"Nuh-uh, you do it."
To his surprise, the scrawny fellow ran nimbly up to the flying camera and fetched it a blow that made the whole yard resound. With an echoing crack, the chase staggered out of the air and bounced into the well of a casement window, It was still doggedly trying to move ahead, but trapped. Massaging the index finger that had once gotten caught in the gears of a scanner in a very similar situation, Miljan approached.
"Nice work. Now hand me that."
Pinning it down by the front panel, he jammed the metal bar into the workings of the turbine and sprang back. Sparks and grease vapor filled the air, followed by the sound of a large firecracker and a rain of shattered components. The aluminum window well was now hot to the touch, and Miljan used the tire iron to sift around inside.
"About time!"
He reached down and lifted out his prize—a large cylindric battery with translucent sides that gave off a faint blue glow. Grinning, he thought of Iskander's water pump. There was probably a hundred hours' worth of voltage in his hands, and no need to shovel charcoal.
"There! This here is the good stuff."
Both citizens were watching him closely; even the women had returned.
"That's our battery," the American said, jaw clenched.
"The hell it is! You ask me my help and then—what would you do with it anyway? You get free power for being good little roblje."
The second man spoke for the first time.
"I brought it down. It's ours..."
Miljan spat by way of response.
"Fine then, you fugee greaseball. Show him, Tsura."
From the doorway, one of the women rooted around in the pouch of her tartan shirt and pulled a pistol out by the barrel. Miljan froze. Where could that čiganski witch gotten herself a Makarov?
"Hokay, hokay, okay, Amerikanci, hold on a moment." He stood slowly, holding the battery as if it were a shield. "You don't need this so very much, and truth be told neither do I, but we should have a trade, yes?"
"You don't have anything to give, Ivan."
'Ivan?' Fucking Americans.
"That's where you're wrong! Look here." He turned his back, keeping his hands visible, and pulled a thin plastic pouch from the rear pocket of his boiler suit. Tossing it to the citizens, he grinned affably, or tried to.
"That's rare stuff there. UNICEF nutrient and vitamin gruel. You mix a teaspoon or so up with water and it'll keep you alive and kicking for a week. You could walk clear back to... Chicago, with it."
Their faces registered little interest, although at least the American was reading the label. His scanner-killing friend made an exasperated sound.
"You've got to be joking—"
"I swear it by your dead mother! I'm no Armenian; when have you ever known a Serb who could swindle worth a damn? Hey?"
"God, this must taste awful. We don't need any more food than what they give us for nothing."
Miljan's face suddenly brightened.
"Oh, but you will soon."
"What?"
"That scanner snapped pictures of all four of you, didn't it?"
"Tsura, just shoot him if he talks too much longer."
"You don't get what this means, do you? You sorry Drinker bastards, the only thing the Combine see right now is the four of you running around trying to destroy one of their scouts. I don't have to tell you what's going to happen to you."
The American blanched.
"You've all blown it. You can do whatever you want but I would be hitting the sewers right now. And that little miracle bag could probably feed all four of you clear to the Apron and through the badlands to the nearest Resistance outpost. Really, you're lucky you found me."
He sensed victory, but the gypsy with the gun appeared unmoved. That was, to say the least, the deciding factor. Then the thrice-blessed, darling institution that was Civil Protection saw fit to sound a noisy alarm at one of their checkpoints. All four citizens looked towards the alleyway in alarm.
"Okay! We'll do the trade, but please, show us how to get to the Underground Railroad."
"The what?"
"Station 15 is the closest, but there's half a dozen checkpoints on the way."
Miljan wrapped the battery in a handkerchief and looked up to see if the handgun was lowered yet.
"Sorry, narodni, but that's not my area of expertise. I stay far away from those goons. You'll have to squirrel away somewhere and find out where to go from someone else. This Yankee here found my naptime spot in the courtyard, so maybe you can all hide in there."
Now the two men looked ready to bolt, and the women vanished from the doorway again. Suddenly, there was no gun in the equation. Miljan cradled his newest possession lovingly, and gave the American a pat on the shoulder as he walked towards the sunny street.