The line split, feeding into five smaller lines each with their own clerk, and Lyle soon found himself standing before a large woman with a laptop and an assortment of boxes. “Name?”
“William Shears,” said Lyle quickly.
“Address?”
“Homeless.”
The woman looked up, her expression only barely concealing her disdain for anyone without an answer to such a basic question. “You need an address. Finding out who you really are is the whole purpose of the Amnesty Camp program. Give me the last address you had, and when your number comes up they’ll try to connect you to your old life.”
So they are trying to catalog us, thought Lyle. What will they do when they find out who I am?
“Sir?” the woman pressed.
“It’s 4770 Ring Street, Star City, Iowa.” They’d know it was a false address when they tried to process him, but at least it gave him time to think of some other way to hide.
“Thank you,” said the woman. “You will be processed and interviewed in the order you arrived.” She hit a button on her laptop, and a small printer spat out a plastic label with the number 11874. She stuck it firmly to a bracelet and snapped it around his arm. “Do not lose this.”
“Is this an identifying code or a like a ‘take a number’ number?”
“Both.”
“Wow.” Lyle looked at the number again. “What number are you on now?”
“We’re on 463.”
“Wow,” Lyle said again. It’s going to be easier to lose myself in here than I thought. He looked at the squalid camp again. “How does the food work?”
“Army MREs, once a day. Make it last.” She looked at him pointedly. “And get in line early.”
“Gotcha.”
The woman turned to look over his shoulder. “Next!”
“That’s it?” asked Lyle.
The woman glared at him. “What else do you want?”
Lyle stared at the camp, too lost to even answer the question. “I don’t know. How … do they tell each other apart?”
“Hell if I know. Next!”
Lyle stepped away from the table, and the guards ushered him through the gate. He stared at the vast sea of Lyles, trying to comprehend it but it was too big.
Or, he told himself, exactly the right size. He looked at his bracelet number again: 11874. If he played it right, he might never get processed at all. He walked to a Lyle who was leaning against the wall of the factory, and leaned up next to him.
“There were a hundred of us on that truck,” he said, “give or take. How often do the trucks come in?”
“Every day.”
“The same size?”
The man nodded. “Give or take.”
Lyle nodded, watching the crowd. “And how many do they interview?”
“On a good day? Fifty. Most days we’re lucky to do half that.”
Lyle nodded, and tugged on his bracelet. “Do these come off?”
The Lyle by the wall shook his head. “You don’t want to lose that—it’s your only ticket out of here. And anyone farther down the line than you are is going to be awfully interested in taking it away from you.”
“Or they might be willing to trade for it,” said Lyle. “A little bit of their MRE, for jumping a hundred people forward in the line? That’s an easy trade to make.”
The Lyle by the wall raised his eyebrow. “Are you crazy? You’ll never get out of here.”
“That,” said Lyle, “is exactly the point.”
50
Friday, November 23
1:23 A.M.
An abandoned warehouse in New Jersey
21 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
