Suddenly he was weeping. Tears rolled from human eyes onto cheeks of flesh and pebbles.
“I don’t feel nothing except . . .” He pointed a thick stone finger at the flesh of his face.
“Yeah,” Lana said. Her irritation was gone. Her burden was smaller, maybe, than Orc’s.
Lana pulled her hand away to see the progress. The hole was smaller. Still crusted with blood, but no longer actively bleeding.
She put her hand back in place. “Just a couple minutes more, Orc.”
“My name’s Charles,” Orc said.
“Is it?”
“It is,” Howard confirmed.
“What were you guys doing going into the worm field?” Lana asked.
Howard shot a resentful look at Albert, who answered, “Orc was picking cabbage.”
“My name’s Charles Merriman,” Orc repeated. “People should call me by my real name sometimes.”
Lana’s gaze met Howard’s.
Now, Lana thought, now he wants his old name back. The bully who reveled in a monster’s name was now a monster in fact, and wanted to be called Charles.
“You’re all better,” Lana announced.
“Is it still skin?” Orc asked.
“It is,” Lana reassured him. “It’s still human.”
Lana took Albert’s arm and drew him away. “What are you doing sending him into the worm field like that?”
Albert’s face went blank. He was surprised at being reproached. For a moment Lana thought he would tell her to take a jump. But that moment passed, and Albert slumped a little, as if the air had gone out of him.
“I’m trying to help,” Albert said.
“By paying him with beer?”
“I paid him what he wanted, and Sam was okay with it. You were at the meeting,” Albert said. “Look, how else do you think you get someone like Orc to spend hours in the hot sun working? Astrid seems to think people will work just because we ask them to. Maybe some will. But Orc?”
Lana could see his point. “Okay. I shouldn’t have jumped all over you.”
“It’s okay. I’m getting used to it,” Albert said. “Suddenly I’m the bad guy. But you know what? I didn’t make people the way they are. If kids are going to work, they’re going to want something back.”
“If they don’t work, we all starve.”
“Yeah. I get that,” Albert said with more than a tinge of sarcasm. “Only, here’s the thing: Kids know we won’t let them starve as long as there’s any food left, right? So they figure, hey, let someone else do the work. Let someone else pick cabbages and artichokes.”
Lana wanted to get back to her run. She needed to finish, to run to the FAYZ wall. But there was something fascinating about Albert. “Okay. So how do you get people to work?”
He shrugged. “Pay them.”
“You mean, money?”
“Yeah. Except guess who had most of the money in their wallets and purses when they disappeared? Then a few kids stole what was left in cash registers and all. So if we start back using the old money we just make a few thieves powerful. It’s kind of a problem.”
“Why is a kid going to work for money if they know we’ll share the food, anyway?” Lana asked.
“Because some will do different stuff for money. I mean, look, some kids have no skills, right? So they pick the food for money. Then they take the money and spend it with some kid who can maybe cook the food for them, right? And that kid maybe needs a pair of sneakers and some other kid has rounded up all the sneakers and he has a store.”
Lana realized her mouth was open. She laughed. The first time in a while.
“Fine. Laugh,” Albert said, and turned away.
“No, no, no,” Lana hastened to say. “No, I wasn’t making fun of you. It’s just that, I mean, you’re the only kid that has any kind of a plan for anything.”
Albert actually looked embarrassed. “Well, you know, Sam and Astrid are working their butts off.”
“Yeah. But you’re looking ahead. You’re actually thinking about how we put it all together.”
Albert nodded. “I guess.”
“Good for you, man,” Lana said. “I gotta go. Orc will be okay. As okay as he can be, anyway.”
“Thanks,” Albert said, and seemed genuinely grateful.
“Hey, let me see that hand,” Lana said.
Albert seemed puzzled. He looked at his own hand, swollen and discolored from punching Orc’s stone face.
“Oh, yeah,” Albert said as Lana briefly took his hand in hers. “Thanks again.”
Lana put her headphones back on and trotted a few steps. Then she stopped. She turned and took them off. “Hey. Albert. The money thing.”
“Yes?”
She hesitated, knowing that in this moment she was perhaps starting a chain reaction. Knowing that it was dangerous to the point of madness. It was eerie, as if fate had intervened in the person of Albert, showing her the way to her half-formed goal. “Wouldn’t gold work? I mean, as money?”
Albert’s sharp eyes found hers. “Should we get together and talk?”
“Yeah,” Lana said.
“Stop by the club tonight.”
“The what?”
Albert grinned. He fished a half sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
Lana glanced at it. Then at him. She laughed and handed it back. “I’ll be there.”