by Ike Hamill
“How was your expedition up north?” Lisa asked.
“Aborted,” Corinna said. “There was flooding at some point and there was only so far that we could go.”
“We ran into that flooding once,” Lisa said.
Ashley looked to her. “Really?”
Lisa nodded.
“Your father was in a coma,” Romie said to Ashley. “He woke up just in time to not be swallowed by a river.”
“What?” Ashley asked. “Seriously?”
Both Romie and Lisa were nodding.
“He never told me that,” Ashley said.
“He probably doesn’t remember. He was just a kid—about Jim’s age…” Romie said.
“A little older,” Lisa interjected. The two almost never told a whole story without supplementing or contradicting each other.
“Right about Jim’s age,” Romie said.
“Actually, I think he was about fourteen at the time,” Lisa said.
“Like I said.”
“A little closer in maturity to Ashley, actually.”
“And he was in a coma. Pete and Brad had to carry him everywhere and we had just decided to give up on him.”
“We never really gave up.”
“When the van we were in almost went into a river in New Hampshire.”
“It was sabotaged,” Lisa said.
“Maybe,” Romie said. “And your father woke up enough for us to escape.”
“Judy used to call it his Deep Cycles.”
Romie nodded.
Jim held up his fork. “The river was Deep Cycles, or the coma?”
“The coma,” Lisa said.
The table was silent for a moment. Janelle flashed a mysterious smile at Ashley. Her teeth were red from the tomato sauce.
“Last expedition,” Corinna said, “we went up through New York to the Canadian border. Trent stopped at the border because he didn’t think it was safe.”
“Did you guys see something?” Lisa asked.
“Nope,” Corinna said. “He just doesn’t trust Canada, it seems. He said that the United States had been spared, and it was no accident. He came with us to the border and wouldn’t go any farther.”
“That’s absurd,” Romie said.
“Is it?” Lisa asked.
“Of course,” Romie said. “You think some planet eating extra terrestrial cares about international borders? How would it even know?”
“I’m just saying that everything is absurd. Why is one thing more absurd than another?”
“Spaghetti is absurd,” Janelle said. She was holding up a noodle.
Corinna laughed. “Why is that?”
“What does it come from? It doesn’t look like anything,” Janelle said.
“It comes from wheat,” Lisa said. “You’ve seen every part of the process, Janey. The wheat is ground into flour and we make pasta. You remember that field trip last fall?”
Romie toward Janelle and said, “Literally, a field trip.”
“Yeah, but why?” Janelle asked. “It doesn’t taste as good as just eating the flour in bread or something.”
“I like it better,” Jim said.
“Yeah, but you like clams,” Janelle said.
“Because they’re good,” Jim said.
“Corinna doesn’t think so. Do you?”
Corinna shook her head. “I can’t eat those at all.”
“See?” Janelle said.
“Okay,” Romie said, pushing away her plate. “This conversation has gone south. I think it’s time to kick the table over.”
“It’s my turn to clean up,” Ashley said, rising to pick up plates.
“Kids upstairs for homework,” Lisa said. She rose to round up the groaning kids and ushered them toward the stairs. Romie stayed put at the table while Corinna helped Ashley clear everything to the sink.
“You don’t have to help,” Ashley said to Corinna. “I’m just going to load all this stuff into the dishwasher.”
“I don’t mind. You guys don’t even understand what an amazing setup you have here. I’ve been camping since the spring. I haven’t seen indoor plumbing in so long that I barely know what to do with myself.”
She slipped in front of the sink while Ashley started to load plates into the dishwasher. As part of her schooling, Ashley had traveled around to different settlements to spend some time with various teachers. They really did have a great setup in Gladstone—everyone said so. Other places had running water, electricity, and septic, but in Gladstone they never had to shovel the walkways when it snowed. All the paths had pipes embedded in them to heat up the pavement from underneath. And they had a library of videos that they could watch at any time. Brad maintained a computer system that gave them access to millions of books and an endless library of music. None of the other communities that Ashley had visited enjoyed such luxury.
Corinna looked over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. She leaned closer to Ashley before she dared to share her secret.
“Your father sent me,” Corinna said.
“Oh?”
“He said that you’re going to take a trip. He asked me to accompany you for the first part.”
Ashley felt a flush of anger that was quickly replaced with melancholy. When she was younger, she had yelled at her father countless times. He always seemed to know what she was going to do just before she made up her mind to do something. For the longest time, she thought that he was somehow spying on her. Eventually, she realized that she didn’t even need to say something out loud for him to guess it.
When he figured out how much his predictions bothered her, he had stopped making them.
“I was supposed to apologize first,” Corinna said.
“What? Why?” Ashley said. She turned away from Corinna so she could wipe her sleeve across her eyes.
“He said that you would be mad that I came to chaperone you.”
“I’m not mad. I love spending time with you.”
“He said that too.”
Ashley laughed.
“Did he tell you why I was leaving?”
Corinna shook her head. “He said he didn’t know.”
“That’s a shame,” Ashley said. “Because I’m not certain myself.”
Ashley took the footbridge over to Brad’s house to put as much distance between herself and Romie before she went down the stairs. Romie wouldn’t try to stop her, but she would wake the whole house yelling at her for leaving.
Ashley wanted to slip away quietly.
In Brad’s kitchen, Corinna was sitting at the table, penning a note.
“Did you leave a note?” Corinna asked. She folded her paper and put a salt shaker on top of it.
“No,” Ashley said. “I can always send one over the network, from the road.”
Corinna nodded. “That’s true.” She stood up and shouldered her pack. When Corinna moved quickly to the sliding door, Ashley almost wanted to tell her to slow down, that there was no rush.
But it had to be done quickly. The last time, Ashley had failed to get away because of her own indecision.
Corinna opened the door and Ashley walked through it.
The night was warm and damp. Later, the ocean breeze would cool everything off, but it hadn’t swept through yet. The air was still and perfumed by the summer flowers in Lisa’s garden.
“What’s the plan?” Corinna asked as they crossed the back yard.
“Dad has some electric vehicles at the high school. I figured I would take one of those as far as it will take me and then find a bicycle.”
Corinna nodded.
“Yeah, I’m with you on the first part of the plan, but we’re not doing the bicycle part.”
“How far are you going to come?”
Corinna shrugged.
After ducking under the lilac bushes, Corinna fell in next to Ashley. They walked side by side down the street. After walking a couple of minutes, they saw the lights of the high school.
“Who mows all these lawns?”
Corinna asked as they passed under a streetlight.
“Brad set up robots. They go around at noon, every few days. It’s not all the streets, just the ones that Romie likes to bike on. She hates open doors and tall lawns. Doesn’t matter if the interior of a house has trees growing in it, or whatever, but Romie hates it if the front door is open or the lawn isn’t mowed.”
“Huh,” Corinna said. “She should move to the city then.”
Ashley shrugged. She had been down to New York once as a child. From what she remembered, it looked terrible. Everything was falling apart and some of it had burned. It looked spooky and abandoned.
“You don’t bike?”
“Nope,” Corinna said. “I would rather walk, but I don’t think we’re going to have to do that.”
“No?”
“I have a map,” Corinna said.
She pulled something from her back pocket and handed it to Ashley as they walked. The next time they passed under a streetlight, Ashley unfolded it to look.
“You know how to read one of those things?” Corinna asked.
“Yeah. Dad always made us use the map. Every time we went somewhere, one of us kids would have to navigate. One time we all kept quiet while Jim took us a hundred miles in the wrong direction.”
“Good. Let’s not do that.”
Ashley picked a side-by-side four wheeler that had plastic sides, in case it rained. She unhooked the charger and put their bags in the back.
“You father was driving something just like this the first time I saw him,” Corinna said.
“Oh yeah?” Ashley said. She glanced through the overgrown bushes. One of the school teachers, Mr. Burkhart, lived on the other side of those bushes, and he always kept his windows open.
“I think he thought he was being stealthy,” Corinna said. She was practically shouting.
Ashley held up a hand to quiet her, and then had to say, “Shhh!”
Corinna turned to see what she was looking at. A light had come on in Mr. Burkhart’s window.
“Get in!” Ashley whispered. She threw herself behind the wheel and turned the machine on.
Corinna was peering at the bushes, waiting to see what might happen.
“I’ll leave you here,” Ashley said. She saw another light come on in Burkhart’s house. It was her own fault. When she was smaller, she had led a group of kids in a mission to vandalize the school. She figured that if the school didn’t have power, she wouldn’t have to go in the next day. It was her own crime that had led Mr. Burkhart to keep such a close eye on the school and sleep with his window open.
Corinna was still climbing in when Ashley put the vehicle in gear. As soon as Corinna’s butt hit the seat, they were off, bouncing across the lawn, toward the soccer field. The machine tipped hard when Ashley took the turn.
“Whoa! Slow down,” Corinna said. You’re going to kill us before we get out of Gladstone.
“Mr. Burkhart will call Romie and she’ll be after us in that Jeep that she keeps,” Ashley said. “I have to get across the Fisk Street bridge before she gets word. There are cameras on the bridge.”
Corinna clipped in her seatbelt and started to snap up her door against the night air.
“Ash, who cares?”
“Romie. She’ll try to stop me.”
“You’re eighteen. You can leave whenever you want. I get that you prefer to sneak out at night to avoid a long goodbye. I would do the same thing. When I was your age, Prince and Liam would pitch a fit if I went to the bathroom alone. But she can’t really stop you. You’ll lose your vote, since you won’t be conforming to our rules, but nobody would try to stop you.”
Ashley felt her foot ease up on the accelerator as she processed what Corinna was saying. She pictured the exchange—Burkhart would call Romie, who would take the lift upstairs and verify that Ashley had left. Then what?
“It’s a lot of responsibility,” Corinna said.
Ashley shot a look at Corinna. She had just been thinking the opposite. All the pressure had just been lifted. There was nobody to disappoint anymore.
The bridge was just ahead. To Ashley, it marked the boundary of their little domain. She had grown up in the protective bubble of Gladstone, and all the convenience that the people of her town had engineered. They had crops, heat, water, and protection from the winter storms. They had seen it all before. All she had to do to stay in the good graces of the community was to follow their rules.
She didn’t slow at all as they crossed the bridge. In case Romie checked the recording later, Ashley waved as they passed beneath the camera.
Chapter 4: Tim
“Machines on machines on machines,” Tim said, shaking his head.
“I thought you liked the machines,” Gloria said. Her eyes twinkled when she was trying to get a rise out of him. Sometimes he took the bait anyway.
“He set up all these solar panels to gather enough electricity to power the machines that keep the solar panels clean. What’s the point of all that?” Tim asked. “We could have kept our original set of panels and kept cleaning them off by hand.”
“We’re getting old to keep cleaning stuff off by hand,” she said. “He’s probably planning for what’s going to keep them clean after we’re gone.”
Tim sighed and nodded. She had a point. He was the youngest person there and he was pushing retirement age. He moved to the edge of the building. From up there, he could see all the way to the three houses where most of the people of the Outpost lived. Most of their power came from the bank of panels behind him and the array of batteries below. That meant that they had to maintain the building, and that was a huge chore. It seemed like their time could be better spent.
“What if we moved out there?” Tim asked, pointing to the green expanse on the other side of the boundary.
Gloria laughed. “You’re crazy.”
“Am I?”
“Nothing works out there. Used to be, you could fly over that jungle. Now, you can’t even do that.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention, right? I bet if we moved out there, we would figure a way to make the electricity work.”
“That’s pretty much all anyone is working on now. You think we would do better if we didn’t have running water and a warm place to rest our heads at night.”
“We might,” Tim said. “We might.”
“Do I have everyone’s notes?” Dianne asked, as she took the floor.
Tim reached down to pet Penny’s head. His heartbeat slowed as she looked up to him with her deep brown eyes. She had her father’s eyes, which could be both a blessing and a curse. Sometimes it only made him sad to see Buckley’s eyes looking up at him from her face. She was a good dog, but Buckley had been really special.
At the front of the room, Dianne collected together all of the notes and started the meeting off by paging through them.
“I see we have some interesting developments from the border analysis. You want to fill us in, Warren?”
A man over at the side of the gathering stood up. He had his own copy of the notes and he studied one page for a moment before he looked up and smiled at everyone.
“I’m happy to say that we can definitively put a name to the waveform that makes up the border fluctuations. The high frequency is a sine wave, but it’s modulated by a…”
Tim looked up at the ceiling, tuning out the rest of the explanation. Everyone had heard it before. Discoveries were never announced at the status meetings. It was only where they were formally recorded. By the time the weekly status meetings convened, everyone had heard all the details of whatever new theory had been postulated, negated, or verified. It was a function of the small size of their group and the mundanity of their lives.
Tim knew that the research was probably important. On days like these, it was impossible to convince himself of the fact.
Still, he waited patiently, stroking Penny’s fur until Warren finished.
“Tim?”
“Pardon?” he asked, snapping bac
k to reality.
“You have a proposal?”
“Yeah. I do,” he said. He didn’t plan to stand, but found that he couldn’t control himself. He wanted to convey all the energy he felt inside. “I propose that we set aside all the instruments, readings, and experiments, and we just move to the other side of the border. In the old days, we rolled the dice and it felt like we were doing something, you know? I’d like to get back to that. I propose we vote and then pick up and move. We have all the gear. It’s up to us.”
“What if not everyone wants to go?” Dianne asked.
Gloria raised her hand. She surprised Tim when she supported his position. “We’ll vote, of course. Nobody has to volunteer, but those of us who are willing are currently restricted by the Outpost’s bylaws.”
“I’ll remind everyone that the bylaws are not meant to take away any personal freedom. We only declare what we’re willing to spend group resources on,” Dianne said.
“That’s the problem, though,” Tim said. “Anything that we have here—all of our provisions and supplies—are declared as group property. There’s no way to support an independent mission because anything we spend time creating automatically belongs to all of us.”
“The five-percent rule is meant to…” Dianne started.
“Nobody can survive on five percent,” Tim said.
“Well, then I think you have your answer,” Dianne said. “I can see a way around your conundrum. All you have to do is move out of group housing, set up your own Outpost, and stockpile your provisions that way.”
“I did that once already,” Tim said. “You’re standing in the building that I restored for just that purpose.”
Dianne folded her arms and frowned. To suggest that he had some ownership of the building that they all shared was going too far. He knew that he had made a mistake and probably lost any support he had in the room.
Again, Gloria surprised him. “Wait,” she said. “We still haven’t voted. As a group, we still haven’t decided to reject Tim’s proposal.”
He glanced around. Of the nine people in the room, Tim expected that he and Gloria might be the only ones who would vote to cross the border into the green jungle on the other side of the river. That area had always seemed foreign and inhospitable. In recent years, when nothing electronic worked over there, the area had been deemed off limits.