“Not all of it. I only gave them the location of the resistance headquarters. And I only gave it to the Security Director’s assistant. She’ll have to torture the scat out of me before she gets the names.”
“We’d better lie low.”
“Where? There are P.C. security squads roaming the city, sweeping up young people who can’t explain themselves. The first place they’ll look is under the bridge.”
“I heard of a tree that’s popular with the fun crowd. It’s just west of the entertainment district, beside the Crosstown Creek.”
“Let’s go.”
Raccoon shapes slipping between buildings in the late morning mist. No one wore a revolutionary hat because of the arrest squads. It was impossible to tell friend from foe. The shapes bumped against Bandit and Frisk without stopping to apologize, not even exchange sniffs. It seemed everyone had something on their mind.
“This is getting heavy,” Frisk said. “I love it! In fact, I haven’t had so much fun since I got into an argument with the Etiquette and Deportment teacher and she sent me off to continue my argument with the Vice-Principal. It was …”
“Sssh!”
They had come to an entry place to the tunnel holding the Crosstown Creek.
“Frisk, if this is the only time in your life you’ll ever be silent, it is now. Those are P.C. thugs.”
“Mnff.”
Three Peoples Corps Volunteers and a young commanding officer-cadet controlled the pathway to the underground stream. They were letting individuals through after checking their intentions. Bandit walked right up to the Honour Guard cadet.
“Oh, greetings mate. I didn’t know it was you,” the lieutenant said.
Frisk was beginning to believe that her cousin owned the town.
“I’m on Detached Special Duty. Okay if we go through? This is my cousin, Frisk.”
“Hiya!”
“Sure, you can go through. Long as you’re not a rebel or a migrant.”
“Anything to watch out for up there?” Bandit indicated the hole in the culvert.
“No, it’s clear up to the western hill and beyond. If you see a skirmish, keep your heads down. We’ve got orders to stir up conflict. Create an excuse for the High Guard to take over the city and keep the peace. Our parents are getting nervous about their tree houses.”
“Weird! An alliance between the very rich and the very poor,” Frisk said when they were safely in the tunnel.
The passage up the tunnel was uneventful. The only raccoons in the Crosstown Thoroughfare were the elderly going about their business. The young were away staffing street barricades. Beyond the Entertainment Zone, the creek came out into the open and proceeded through a strip of parkland which had once been a railway bed. The ground sloped up to the west, one of those elongated hills called a drumlin, where the Protector had his headquarters. Sensibel was there. Bandit put Sensibella out of his mind. Times were too edgy to think of soft things. Beside the creek was the tree. Impossible to miss. An ancient stooping Sugar Maple that served as a tenement for young raccoons. Beer cans and pizza boxes littered the ground around its trunk. But the tree was eerily silent.
“They must all be sleeping it off,” Frisk said. “Let’s see if there’s an unoccupied cavity. Why are you sniffing?”
“It doesn’t smell right. The scents are old.”
The first cavity they came to just where a huge lower bough branched out was empty, except for two Revolution hats.
“What is it, Bandy? You froze.”
“Mom’s been here. I smell her. And another raccoon. Female. But there’s no one in this tree. Everyone’s gone.”
46
The Bin turned out to be a tool shed across a dirt parking area from the garage where they’d been tormented. It had a window, and through its cobwebs and grime Slypaws watched for changes in the activity of her captor. The fog had lifted, revealing a wrecking yard for old gasoline automobiles. No guard dog, fortunately. This was the headquarters for the secret police who were now enforcing the City’s security.
“Uh-oh!” she said.
“Let me have a look.” Twitch shoved her whiskers against Sly’s face. The other prisoners crowded in behind her.
A new raccoon stood blinking in the late morning sun. A senior male yet without the manner of belonging to a hierarchy. A loner.
“I wouldn’t let that one within a sniff of me,” one of the prisoners said. It was the newly pregnant Creeker woman who kept her misfortune to herself.
“Is he the one who made you this way?” Twitch asked.
“No. But he may as well have. He sells woman prisoners as entertainment escorts to the City Elders. The jailer is his accomplice.”
The jailer was a middle-aged female who had been born in a sewer. Her lip drooped on one side, suggesting she’d lost one fight too many, and her eyes peered through a greyish-white film of disease. Sure enough, she appeared from underneath a truck and with the ruinous memory of a sexual swagger sidled up to the male.
“Handsome couple,” Twitch said dryly.
“May I be sympathetic and ask why you are in the Bin?” Since the sufferer had volunteered to speak about her tribulations, Slypaws thought it wasn’t untoward to offer her friendship. How could she not with the broken-spirited Creeker pressed close to her behind the window?
“It is not presumptuous of you to ask under these circumstances. All of us in here are charged with Undesirable Activity in one form or other. In my case, all I did was pass on information as I should as a citizen of Creek Town. This is where citizenship gets you.”
“You have my sympathy and, if you desire, my friendship.”
“Thank you. My name is Lickfoot.”
