Hollow World Read online

  When they were all seated, Warren folded his hands, and the others imitated him.

  “Dear Lord, thank you for this food, and for not frying Ellis’s ass like we’d thought you’d done,” Warren said briskly, followed by, “Amen.”

  “Amen,” the others replied in chorus.

  In all the meals Ellis had eaten with Warren, his friend had never said grace before. To his knowledge, while the man had always proudly declared himself a Christian, he’d never been to church—not even on Christmas. Thinking about it, Ellis wasn’t sure what denomination Warren was, and he wondered if even Warren knew.

  “May I get you more tea?” one of the others asked from across the table.

  “We also have milk and wine,” another said with eager-to-please eyes.

  They all stared in anticipation of his next word.

  Ellis didn’t care. “Ah—tea’s fine.”

  The one who suggested it failed to suppress a smile and jumped up as if having received a great honor.

  Standing at the head of the table, carving the meat, Warren smirked and shook his head. The scene reminded Ellis of a Norman Rockwell painting, if the artist had grown up in a community of identical Mennonite gas-station attendants.

  “I didn’t think religion existed anymore,” Ellis said as Yal passed a bowl of carrots into his hands.

  “One of the things I’m working at fixing,” Warren said. “Never thought I’d be a missionary called to spread the word of God among heathens. I guess that comes with that whole being-born-again experience. Got Dex to dig me up a copy of the Bible, and I have them all reading it. Oh—right. Guess I should introduce you.” Warren pointed with the carving knife that was dripping grease. “Dex, Hig, Ved One and Ved Two, and Yal. Dex is our resident surgeon and my third in command. He popped a new heart in my chest not long after we first met. Took care of the cancer and inoculated me against the new viruses too.”

  “I was a member of the ISP team before coming here,” the one with the DEX stencil said.

  “Was part of the problem, now part of the solution.” Warren slid out mutton chops to a parade of plates. “Hig was a tree hugger or something.”

  “A bio-doc,” Hig said. “I was a member of HEM.”

  “That’s the tree-hugger movement,” Warren added.

  “The Hollow Earth Movement,” Hig said softly, passing Ellis the potatoes.

  “Whatever. Hig is now our best fieldhand—great with the crops and the animals. Ved One plays a fiddle.”

  “I was a composer of holo symphonies,” Ved One said. “But yes, I also play a violin.”

  “Ved Two—no relation.” Warren laughed. No one else did, but Warren didn’t appear to notice. “Was a tattoo artist.”

  “I interpreted internal personal expressions into outward identities.”

  “And last there’s Yal—our newest convert. Yal is our cook. So if you don’t like the food, blame Yal.”

  Ellis looked at Yal and waited, but no correction or clarification was forthcoming. Yal sat at the foot of the table struggling to eat left-handed and not doing a good job. Yal’s other hand remained hidden under the table. Ellis noticed for the first time that the order of food passing was consistent. Warren dished out the meat to Ellis first, then to Dex, then Hig, the two Veds, and finally to Yal.

  The meal had all the wholesome purity that an unevenly heated stove could provide. The gravy had lumps, the bottoms of the rolls were burned, and the potatoes undercooked. The carrots were tasty, the sheep tough but savory, and the sausage and sauerkraut was wonderful, and Ellis didn’t think he liked sauerkraut. Imperfection bore its own virtue. Just as a concert album littered with technical errors was filled with more life than a perfectly tweaked studio production, the meal possessed more simple honesty than Ellis had experienced in years. This was what all those characters in movies had spoken of when they yearned for a home-cooked meal, back before the McDonald’s revolution, before the quintessential American meal came in a box.

  “Had four new lambs arrive this year,” Warren was saying. “Funny as hell to watch Hig and the Veds experience the miracle of birth.”

  “Doesn’t seem natural,” Ved One said. “More like a sickness.”

  “See what I have to deal with?” Warren sighed. “Oh—and a great job burning the rolls, Yal.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve only worked with a Maker. I’m not used to a stove.”

  “We don’t want excuses here. Get your shit together. It’s a stove, not a rocket ship, and your days of relying on a Maker are over.”

  “I will do better next time, Ren Zero.”

  “The name is Ren!” Warren raised his voice. “Just plain Ren. We aren’t numbers here—we’re people, dammit.”

  Several shifted their eyes to the Veds.

  Warren looked annoyed. “I’ve been meaning to change your names, might as well start now so poor Ellis doesn’t get confused. From now on Ved One will be called…Bob, and Ved Two…” Warren twisted his lips, thinking. “Ved Two will be Rob.” He nodded, agreeing with himself. “Restitch your shirts right after dinner, understand?”

  The two nodded in perfect unison, which appeared to irritate Warren.

  Conversation dried up for a few minutes, the vacuum filled by the ticking of the clock and forks scraping plates clean. Warren glared around the table while the others stared at their food.

  “Just the six of you maintain this whole farm?” Ellis asked. He didn’t really care, just wanted the silence to disappear. He needed noise, the flow of words to knock out the thoughts crowding their way into his head, thoughts about Peggy and a photograph with the word sorry written on it. Warren said it was written in a Sharpie marker, but Ellis imagined it was scrawled in blood. He should have left a note. He should have said goodbye.

  “Just the six of us live here,” Warren said. “We add new converts by invitation only, of course.”

  “Mib will be moving in soon,” Hig said. Ellis noticed that this Firestone fieldhand had a slightly darker tan than anyone else at the table except Warren.

  “Which is good, because we could use someone who can run the glass shop,” Warren said.

  Dex pointed at Yal. “We’ve lost several glasses lately.”

  “Yes, it will be wonderful when Mib arrives.” Yal stood up then, and with a restrained look began to clear the table of empty bowls.

  “Yal’s tired of being the new kid,” Bob said—or was it Rob?

  “Six live here?” Ellis asked.

  “Technically there are seven, but Pol doesn’t live here anymore. Used to, but got picked for the underworld High Council. I gave him permission to serve. Thought it would be in everyone’s best interest to have a”—he formed air quotes with his fingers—“man on the inside, as it were. Pol was one of the original three who found me. You’ll meet Pol tonight. Great organizer. If I died tomorrow, Pol would take over.”

  “Take over what?”

  Warren just grinned.

  Yal came by and picked up the bowl of potatoes, and Ellis noticed the bloody bandages on the stumps of the last two fingers on Yal’s right hand.

  As night arrived, Warren lit the hurricane lamp near the door and escorted them into the living room, leaving Yal to handle the cleanup. “It takes a long time to break them of the bad habits they pick up living in the underworld. They think everything is easy. They get here and find they’re wrong,” Warren explained with his new wise man’s voice—the Detroit Dalai Lama.

  The living room’s décor was right out of the Civil War, with a couch and two matching black upholstered Queen Anne chairs that looked like something Lincoln might have been shot in. Pea-green-painted walls and dark mahogany only added to the formal funereal atmosphere. Everything had the smell of old books, old wood, and old people that might have been some form of rot. The place was hot too. The sun had baked the house, and the heat lingered in the wood, stone, and plaster. Dex and Hig shoved the windows open, hoping for a breeze, but got only the loud racket of crickets. This
had been the life of pre-air-conditioned homes and why so many houses had porches.

  Ellis, who felt his shirt sticking to him, was about to suggest moving to the porch when Warren took a seat in the big chair near the dormant fireplace. He put his bare feet up on a stool and said, “Don’t you love this room? I can’t walk in here and not think of Washington and Jefferson and all the others that created our great country.”

  “I don’t think the United States exists anymore.”

  Warren’s eyes lit up. “That’s just it—it does. This room—this farm is like one of those seed banks they created to allow us to rebuild the world after a global disaster. This village is the seed—the cutting—that will help us regrow America. We’ve got everything: a producing farm, blacksmith, glass, and pottery shops. Hell, we even have Edison’s lab here. This is the heart and soul of America.”

  Hig sat on the couch. Ellis sat beside him.

  “As we repopulate, we can expand outward from here. We can clear the land, build more farms, and then send some men to start looking for old mines. Maybe we can get a refinery working again.”

  “Hard to repopulate without women.”

  “Dex has that covered, right, Dex?”

  “The ISP kept all the patterns going back to the first ones. They won’t be exactly originals, not like the two of you,” Dex said with reverence, as if speaking to twin popes. “They were altered for disease resistance, and aesthetic appearance, but natural selection should erode these initial genes back to a random state.”

  “Still, a pretty small gene pool, right?” Ellis said. His mind filled with thoughts of royal families and jokes about rural West Virginia.

  “Hey, the whole world started with just Adam and Eve, and we did fine with that,” Warren said. “So the plan is for Dex to grow us a little harem of women. We’ll be like two old pride lions, like the biblical patriarchs of old begetting a whole new nation of Americans. Go forth and multiply, you know? Think about that. We’ll literally be the founding fathers of the new United States.”

  “And what if these women don’t have any interest in being human incubators? You ever consider that?”

  “Outdated thinking, my friend. That’s the product of a feminist movement that doesn’t exist anymore. We’ll teach them it’s a sacred duty and great honor. They’ll be thrilled to contribute in such a vital way.”

  “Even so, you’re in your sixties now, right? By the time these women are of age, you’ll be in your eighties.”

  “Not a problem. Dex says he can extend my life for another hundred years at least.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you…you got your new heart and clean pancreas. I don’t think I’m gonna be around much longer.”

  “Jesus, didn’t they fix you already?” Warren asked.

  Ellis felt the crackle in his chest—wind across a field of steel wool. “No.”

  Warren turned to Dex and hooked a thumb at Ellis. “Needs a new set of lungs.”

  Dex nodded. “Absolutely. Not a problem.”

  Are all major surgeries dispensed out of vending machines now? Ellis was thinking to ask when he noticed a flash outside. No one moved—no reaction at all. Just as Ellis was thinking they didn’t see it, he heard a creak followed by the slap of the screen door.

  “Pol is here,” Yal called.

  Pol-789—or fake Pol—Ellis didn’t know anymore—entered the living room. As youthful in appearance as all of them, and still dressed in the flamboyant orange robes of state, Ellis thought the Chief Councilor looked a bit like a college freshman attending a Halloween toga party.

  “Aha!” Pol said the moment he saw Ellis, and added with a big smile, “Wonderful. You made it. I’ve been looking everywhere.”

  “You’ve met?” Warren asked.

  “Yes,” Pol said, smiling. “Briefly, at least. Ellis Rogers was in my office yesterday with Pax-43246018.”

  Ellis was impressed the Chief Councilor remembered Pax’s full name. Ellis had never been good with names, particularly foreign ones with odd-sounding vowels and double consonants. Memorizing a series of numbers after a single telling was hopeless. He imagined Pol was the sort that could have recited his license number—if only they still had them.

  “We’d just been introduced, and I was making plans to come here to reunite old friends, when events transpired beyond my control.” Pol stared at Ellis, marveling, studying him until Ellis felt uncomfortable.

  “What kind of events?” Warren asked, indicating Pol should take a seat.

  Pol turned back to the kitchen. “Yal? Can I get a glass of wine?”

  “Of course, right away.”

  Pol smiled at all of them before sitting in the other Queen Anne chair, which Dex had promptly vacated. Hig got up from the couch to let Dex sit there. Then Rob, or Bob, got up in turn to shift position. Ellis felt he was watching a silent version of musical chairs.

  “We have a seating order,” Warren explained. “In the down-under they’ve forgotten all about authority, hierarchy, and structure. People just do whatever they want. I’m getting them familiar with discipline and the pecking order. Pol is number one, then Dex, then Hig, then—” Warren squinted at Ved One. “Are you Rob or Bob?”

  “Bob, you said.”

  “Okay, then—Bob, then Rob.”

  “Do I have a place in this order?” Ellis asked. “And does it require me cutting off my fingers?”

  Warren looked uncomfortable, but only for an instant. Then the serene face of an old master returned. “The fingers…well, the finger cutting is necessary for a few reasons. Identification, for one. My way of making certain I can tell the good ones from the bad. These underworlders change their shirts and you can’t tell one from another. Tattoos are easily put on and taken off. Fingers are a different matter. Plus, sacrificing them shows a commitment to the cause. I don’t want anyone here who isn’t in one hundred percent, and these people don’t understand real commitment anymore. They do something for a while, then change their minds and try something else. They don’t have marriage, don’t have countries. How can they understand the concept of loyalty? People won’t sacrifice two fingers without giving things a lot of thought. It’s the dues they pay to join me—to be special.”

  “And me?” Ellis held up his right hand, wiggling his fingers.

  Warren shook his head. “You’re a Darwin like me.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Means you’re not one of them. You’re above the law.” Warren raised his voice a bit. “And in case there’s any doubt, Ellis stands equal with me, and you will show him the same respect and recognize his authority just as you do mine.”

  They all nodded. Ellis was sitting in a huddle of dogs that idolized a wolf.

  Warren turned back to Pol. “So tell me who this Pax is and what happened in your office.”

  Pol sighed. “Pax is an unusual case. Works as an arbitrator to some effect, but…well, there have been complaints of strange behavior.”

  Strange behavior? Ellis wondered what normal was in a world where people walked around au naturel, danced in the rain, no one worked, and their world leader dressed like Julius Caesar.

  “Then a few years ago, Pax tried to—”

  Yal entered and handed Pol a glass of blood-red wine.

  “Tried to what?” Ellis asked.

  Pol took a dainty sip. “Pax opened a portal to the vacuum of space and tried to walk through it.”

  No one said anything for a heartbeat. Each pair of eyes tried to process the sentence as if it were a riddle, one of those logic problems where a hunter who lives in a house with four windows all facing south shoots a bear, and people try to figure out the color of the dead animal.

  “What?” Ellis felt the empty sensation rock him again. He was beginning to feel a little punch-drunk, an emotionally battered fighter unable to put his arms up to defend himself.

  “I thought that wasn’t possible,” Warren said. “Thought those things—well, you said they had safety features blocki
ng people from doing stupid shit like that.”

  Dex, who was nodding, spoke. “They do. Living tissue is blocked from passing into hostile environments.”

  “They do now,” Pol corrected. “The original CTWs had fixed destinations, so no one thought anything about it, but the first few generations of portals—they could go anywhere. After a few accidents, safety features were added.”

  “But that was centuries ago,” Dex said.

  “Pax, it turns out, is an antique collector of sorts,” Pol explained. “If it hadn’t been for the residence’s vox blocking the field, Pax would have committed suicide.”

  Ellis felt guilty. He hadn’t had anything to do with the portal incident—didn’t even know how long ago it had happened—but he had just sent Pax away, crying. What is Pax doing right this moment?

  “Are you saying this Pax person is insane?” Warren asked.

  “Mentally ill,” Pol said. “Unstable. It’s why Pax lives with Vin-3667, a renowned artist. Vin volunteered to watch over Pax. I talked to Vin two days ago. Vin felt the excitement of being with Ellis Rogers has caused Pax to slip, and suggested Pax bring Ellis to me. Felt that Ellis Rogers was an upsetting influence.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The two arrived on schedule, but then Pax began venting, going sonic.”

  “Leave out your underworld slang, Pol,” Warren said with a growl. “We speak proper American here.”

  “Forgive me. Traveling between cultures is—”

  “Get on with it.” Warren shuffled his feet, recrossing them on the stool in a manner as decisive as a judge banging a gavel.

  “Pax became very upset,” Pol went on. “Acting threatened and frightened of me. Completely irrational. Before I could act, Pax had hauled Ellis Rogers through a portal, and the two disappeared. Thinking Ellis Rogers had just been abducted, I gathered people to help with a rescue. We chased them to Tuzo Stadium and into the jungles of the surface. Then we registered Pax stepping out into space.”