Dove Man's Secret

Most serfers in New Arcadia Zone were convinced the dove was made of porcelain. It was too shiny to be anything else, and ceramic would be too fragile. Still, it was difficult to catch more than a glimpse. Its owner kept it concealed inside an old silk glove, its head jutting out of the thumb hole. One of the oldsters, Senor Cortez, said it resembled the turkeys kids used to make at school around Thanksgiving.

Dove Man transferred into New Arcadia in the fall of 2061. The Wardens in the Western Keys Zone had given him the name, and he would answer to nothing else. He was certainly the oldest man anyone in the Zone had ever seen. Well into his eighties, his tanned leathery skin stretched taut over a thin frame. He might have been handsome once, with his thick snowy mane, but his face was heavily scarred and his nose had been broken a baker's dozen number of times.

He had been muscular, with still broad shoulders, but his clothes fit loosely on him now, like thin canvas draped across narrow tent poles. His gauntness was further emphasized by the tattered gray trench-coat he always wore. The over-sized garment always hitched to the right due to the weight of the dove concealed in an inner pocket. He wore a thinner jacket underneath with a label reading Member's Only. When the Boomers who could read asked him what he had been a member of, he would proudly proclaim “The Blue Öyster Cult”, mutter something about “more cowbell” and cackle hysterically.

Once, wearing a coat in Florida in September would have been unthinkable. Not anymore. In addition to resolving the climate change argument for good, the nuclear winter following the big BOOM of 2033 made global warming moot.

The oldsters still recalled the Covid pandemic of 2020. Over the next decade, the world's governments apparently focused far too much on the viral side of microscopic monsters. They had forgotten about bacteria and the overuse of stronger and stronger antibiotics. When the first outbreaks of virulent meningitis broke out, there was no treatment and air travel ensured it had spread effectively everywhere. Or everywhere important, anyway.

Ordered societies have a precarious tipping point before collapsing into absolute chaos. The world blew past it like a freight train running through a paper wall. The blame game which began after Covid ramped up again as governments tried to maintain control. But too many people were dying too quickly.

No one knows who launched the first missiles, or if anyone does, they aren't telling. No surprise there. There was one bright spot. The pandemic kept the geniuses in charge from completely destroying the planet. A couple of dozen nukes here and there were all they could muster before everything fell apart.

What followed was a closeted authoritarian's wet dream. Somebody had to be in charge. Order had to be restored. This was how the remnant which had been America ended up with the Wardens, and the Zones.

New Arcadia was a few miles east of old Arcadia in central Florida. It produced oranges. This was all it produced, and the Wardens were there to make sure this was all they did. There were cooks and cleaners, mechanics and carpenters, but everything revolved around the oranges.

Someone had joking started to refer to everyone in the Zone as serfers. They were in Florida. Some got the joke. Some were just poor at spelling. The rest couldn't read, so it didn't matter. The name stuck and the Wardens didn't seem to care. Dove Man would call them all Tropicanons and cackle his wild laugh.

Dove Man worked on the Zone's computers. The internet no longer existed and those few who remembered it were pretty sure the Wardens kept it that way. It was not discussed openly. The people in charge finally found their excuse to ban guns and banning excess knowledge was probably next highest on their list. Still, the Wardens and the Overseers used obsolete computers with green or orange screens which had survived the EMPs. They were necessary to program the solar panels interspersed among the orange groves and to organize shipments and inventories. And for security, no doubt. Security was a thing.

Dove Man had been stationed in the Western Key Zone, which operated enormous windmill farms. According to Chief Warden Gonzales, one day he had just sort of withdrawn into himself. He had always been eccentric, but he knew computers and was useful. When his Overseer suggested a transfer, he had reanimated. He was told New Arcadia could find a place for him and that was that.

The serfers first noticed the dove in the canteens. Ten canteens were scattered through the Zone places for people to gather of an evening if they wished to avoid the dorms, which most did. Alcohol was not banned, because the Wardens were not complete morons.

Initially, Dove Man would isolate himself in a quiet corner and retrieve the small figurine from its denim nest. Slowly, almost reverently, he would cup it in his hands, whispering to it, stroking its head as if it were alive before tucking it away. Then he would order a beer. He liked his beer. A lot.

Whenever asked about the figurine, Dove Man would contract a sudden onset case of selective deafness. He simply would not answer, though many tried over his first few months. Naturally, the dove became the subject of much conjecture in the Zone.

Dove Man might have been elderly, but he was like a piece of iron hard forged by time. Kerry Underwood, a Boomer of 22 years, found this out the hard way. The old man never moved very fast, but he never moved too slowly either. If anything, he moved deliberately. Two weeks after Dove Man's arrival, Kerry decided he wanted to hold the dove. To be fair, he had approached the table and asked, very politely at first, if he could see it, holding out one hand expectantly. After several rounds of selective deafness, he made the mistake of reaching for it. Dove Man grabbed Kerry's right forearm and, quite deliberately, snapped both its bones. The Wardens were ever present, so nothing escalated. Dove Man ignored the serfer's gasps and Kerry's screams and went back to slowly stroking the dove. Lesson learned.

Rather than scaring the serfers, the incident only served to deepen their curiosity. Dove Man was not especially reclusive. Caught at the right moment, maybe while digging through some computer's innards, he could positively run off at the mouth. He was old, and because he was old, he knew things. Lots of things. About lots of subjects. He often claimed his was the last generation required to actually memorize things. According to him, even most of the oldsters never had to remember a damned thing. All they had to do was look things up on a computer. The Boomers liked him, even if they had no idea what he was talking about half the time.

His strange sense of humor was baffling. Every single time he finished an assignment, he would lower his voice in a halting foreign accent, someone said it was European, and mutter “I'll be back”. Then he would cackle wildly. Every single time. No one knew why.

As the months passed, Dove Man eventually visited all of the canteens, never seeming to pick a favorite. He would often join in on conversations. Everyone had questions about before the Boom, though they were all careful. The Wardens frowned on certain subjects. It seemed he really wanted to get to know everyone in the Zone, especially other oldsters like himself. Still, he never brought the dove out unless he was alone. Not until one evening in July 2062.

Dove Man had been avoiding the canteens for more than a week, spending evenings in his dorm instead. People started to wonder if maybe his time had finally come. Strangely enough, they were right. On July 4, precisely at 8:00 in the evening, Dove Man walked into Canteen #5.

Jared Price sat alone at a table near the back. He was an oldster in his late fifties who drove one of the Zone's tractors. He seemed a bit surprised when Dove Man joined him.

“Evening, Jared,” Dove Man said, rather deliberately.

“Dove Man,” Jared acknowledged, his expression curious.

Every eye focused on them. Conversation, at first muted, ceased entirely when Dove Man withdrew the figurine from his coat and placed it on the table. Without its concealing glove. There was an audible clunk as he set it down. The following silence was palpable.

“It's not porcelain,” Dove Man finally said. “It's metal coated with a hard enamel.”

Jared's eyes were wide and wary. He licked his lips nervously and stared.

The dove was simple in design but exquisitely crafted and polished to high sheen. It was beautiful and yet there was something awful about it as well. Something ominous.

“Go ahead,” said Dove Man, gesturing encouragement with one hand. “Pick it up, but be careful. It's heavier than it looks.”

Almost reluctantly, Jared grasped the dove in his right hand, hefting it from the table. “It is heavy,” he murmured, rotating it with both hands. Then he turned it over and paused. A round, circular plug with a groove down its middle was centered on its underside.

Jared looked confused. “What is it? he asked. “A bank?” He shook it lightly, but it made no noise.

Dove Man looked almost buoyant. He smiled. “Of a sort, I guess you could say.” He cackled once. “Open it and see.” He pulled a small screwdriver from one of his many pockets and offered it across the table.

Other than Jared and Dove Man, the silence was absolute. No one moved. No one even so much as whispered. Not even the Wardens.

Jared set the dove back down before using the screwdriver to loosen the plug, then unscrewing the rest by hand. As it fell free, a small amount of grayish powder spilled out. He looked up, bewildered. “Is that ash?”

Their eyes met. Jared's widened to the size of saucers. Dove Man's narrowed like a hawk's. He bolted up from his chair, leaning across the table so their faces were mere inches apart. A sudden glint of recognition crossed Jared's face.

“Ashes to ashes,” Dove Man said coldly. “Dust to dust.” The box cutter seemed to just materialize in his right hand. Reaching up, he cut quite deliberately, slitting Jared's throat from ear to ear just below the jawline. He severed the carotid and jugular on both sides while neatly bypassing the hard cartilage of the larynx.

Blood spurted across Dove Man's face in a fantastic deluge. Unfazed, he caught Jared by the collar with his left hand, reaching inside the shirt and grasping something. He ripped the object free, snapping the thin, silver chain which held it.

Dove Man straightened, stepped back into the silence, eyes bright, mouth stretched in a beatific smile. Then his left side stiffened and he gave an involuntary grunt before toppling over backward to the floor. The box cutter clattered away, but his left hand still grasped what he had taken in a literal death grip.

Pandemonium reigned. Screams erupted. Wardens blew whistles and blared horns, shoving serfers out of the way to get to Dove Man. The canteen grew quiet again. It took two Wardens to pry the old man's hand open. In his palm was a silver, heart shaped locket with delicate filigree. On its back was an etched thumbprint and the words “Edwin.. Beloved Son”. Below these was an 8 turned on its side. The symbol for infinity. It seemed to echo Dove Man's beatific smile.