by Ike Hamill
“Thank you,” he said, ignoring everything but the fact that she was coming.
Mike waited in the living room while she got ready to go out. His leg was bouncing with nervous energy by the time she came through the doorway and raised her eyebrows. Something was going to happen—Mike didn’t know what it was, but he thought that it was going to be apparent that night.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She held the door open for him.
“Are you sure that you want to go?” she asked. She closed the door behind them. It was a quick walk over to the fire station where they were supposed to meet.
“Yeah,” Mike said. He let her lead the way. If he went first, he thought he might be running by the time they got there. Mike took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing himself to relax.
“So, this is Carrie talking about what her team found up north? And Robby and Brad are going to be there?”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “It’s weird stuff. I’m afraid of what it might mean for us.”
“Fear without a plan doesn’t benefit anyone.”
“I know.”
“Down at the Outpost, we were all afraid. Look what happened there—virtually nothing.”
“We might be learning of a threat to our water supply. That’s crucial to our survival.”
“It will be okay,” Sariah said. “Trust me.”
They rounded the corner and Mike saw the SUV parked in front of the fire station. Next to that, he saw the motorcycles that belonged to Corinna and Jackson. He had half expected that Corinna would already be gone. She was a wanderer. It wasn’t like her to show up for meetings.
Sariah was moving too slowly. Mike couldn’t help himself. He jogged around her and ran to open the door. She smiled at him as he waited, holding the door open.
“It will be okay,” she said again.
They were gathered in the fire station’s cafeteria. It had a small kitchen at one end and a bunch of tables that were pushed against the wall. The chairs were arranged in a semi-circle. Carrie stood at the front of the group. Mike sat on his hands and looked up at her, wondering how she would frame the discussion.
“Thanks for coming,” Carrie said. She smiled at Robby—he had come the farthest distance to be there. “The purpose of our gathering tonight is to share information about what we discovered up north and talk about the possible ramifications and what we should do about it. Because of the nature of this information, we’re keeping this meeting small and we’re going to keep the topics sealed until we decide to share with the general public. I’ll ask everyone to be discrete about what they hear tonight until we decide to make an announcement.”
“You’ve switched to water reserves though, right?” Brad asked.
“Yeah,” Carrie said. “That’s as much as we have discussed. Everyone knows that we’re investigating the quality of the groundwater. That’s all.”
“They’re talking,” Corinna said. “I’ve heard lots of people talking.”
“That’s fine,” Carrie said. “We don’t have a panic, so that’s fine. Mike, do you want to fill us in on your tests?”
Mike stood up, wiping his hands on his shorts as he did. He turned to the group and tried on a smile.
“I could, yeah, but Robby is here. He’s the one who came up with the water quality tests and standards. I’m sure he knows much more about the theory than I do. I’d be happy to share the results, but the details of the tests should come from him.”
Robby nodded.
Mike moved to the computer and brought up his results. He projected them onto the screen.
Robby stood up.
“These are the same values you sent me,” he said.
“Yeah,” Mike said. He moved the cursor to highlight the numbers as Robby spoke.
“Okay, we can see here that the dissolved gases, inorganic constituents, nutrients, synthetic organic… I can see that nobody cares about this. Suffice to say, everything looks perfectly normal. The pesticides are virtually nonexistent, which we would expect, but everything else is within the ranges that the instruments predict,” Robby said.
People nodded as Robby scrolled down.
“So here’s where we get into the weirdness. The pH, specific conductivity, and boiling point are all out of range. For the pH and conductivity, you could argue that the problem is with the instrument. It’s really difficult to explain the boiling point. And, as some of you have experienced, the boiling point deviation is accompanied by a change in the way that the water absorbs heat from its surroundings. So, in terms of water quality testing, everything I would measure says that the water is fine. It’s clearly not fine. Back to you, Mike.”
“Thanks, Robby,” Mike said, standing back up. He closed the spreadsheet and opened a video. “Most of you have seen this in person, but for the few who haven’t…”
Mike stood aside so they could see the video on the screen. Water from the river was set up in an apparatus for boiling. The camera showed a digital thermometer that tracked the progress of the temperature.
“Here is another test in a metal container. Here is ceramic.”
Mike brought up more videos.
“It’s interesting to note that the water doesn’t want to pick up heat from the metal. It takes heat from glass. Ceramic is in between. Regardless of how quickly the water heats up, the boiling point is very high. At this elevation, we’re looking at one-hundred-forty degrees Celsius.”
Mike scratched the side of his head.
Across the room, Brad put a hand to the side of his head and exhaled loudly.
“Exactly,” Mike said. “We’ve been looking for any contaminants that would explain this. Obviously, we haven’t found anything yet. It’s beyond reason.”
“No,” Sariah said. “It’s beyond science.”
“Do we have any idea of how long this has been occurring?” Robby asked.
Heads shook.
“I boiled water,” Corinna said. “No more than three weeks ago, I boiled water up north. So, I would say less than three weeks.”
“In that one particular place you were boiling water,” Carrie said.
“Yeah,” Corinna said, nodding.
“What if we take this water elsewhere?” Brad asked. “Is it the water, or the environment here?”
“I don’t know,” Mike said. “But we have water here that still boils.”
“Are there any effects on plants and animals from this water?” Robby asked.
“I talked to Ty,” Carrie said. “He will stay vigilant, but he said that nobody has come in with any unusual problems. We didn’t see any issues with the vegetation around the river. We didn’t catch any fish, but I observed birds and squirrels near the water and they didn’t seem troubled.”
The room was silent for a moment.
Robby spoke. “I think we quarantine the area that we know is affected and keep an eye on the water here. If we don’t see any ill effects up there in, say, a week, we go back to consuming local water. That’s assuming that it continues to act normally.”
“So we ignore this?” Mike asked.
Carrie was already nodding.
“Wait. We can’t ignore this,” Mike said.
“Nobody is suggesting that we ignore it. I would advocate that we monitor and observe. What good does a panic do?” Carrie asked.
“What if we’re all dead in six months?” Mike asked.
Carrie shook her head.
Robby opened his mouth to speak. He didn’t get far.
“I think the locals should have more of a say in this,” Mike said to cut him off. “You’re not going to be drinking this water on a daily basis.”
“Fair enough,” Robby said with a shrug.
“Big picture,” Brad said. “What does this mean? Forget about drinking water for a moment. What does this mean?”
“More than likely, it’s some unknown contaminant,” Mike said.
“Let’s not be naive,” Brad sai
d. “We have lived a couple of decades without anything truly supernatural happening, but let’s not forget what we’ve been through.”
“He’s right,” Sariah said. “We can’t pretend that this is business as usual.”
“Do you think this is somehow connected to what you observed at the Outpost, Sariah?” Carrie asked. “You’re a scientist. Can you connect these dots?”
“I wouldn’t describe myself as a scientist,” Sariah said. “But, yes, I think I can connect these dots. These things are happening because science is dead.”
Chapter 24: Sariah
She knew that what she had said was inflammatory and shocking, but there was a reason she had wanted to shock the people gathered. They were all approaching this problem the same way that they approached everything. In her opinion, the world was shifting beneath their feet. Old approaches wouldn’t work anymore.
“What do you mean?” Robby asked. “Do you mean that science can’t explain what we’re seeing?”
“No,” Sariah said. “That’s not what I mean. This is going to be really difficult to explain, so I’ll ask that you all go along with me for a moment. Could you all close your eyes for a moment?”
She waited for them to comply.
“Imagine a grassy meadow. You need to get to the other side. Every day, you cross the meadow, taking what you believe is the straightest path. With each passing day, you’re killing the grass along that path and making a rut. Over the course of time, your rut becomes so deep that it’s not just the most convenient way to get to the other side of the meadow, it’s the only way. The walls of your rut and the grass on either side become so tall that climbing out would be impossible. All you can see, and the only way to cross the meadow, is the rut.”
One by one, they all opened their eyes again.
“How does that apply to our situation?” Robby asked.
“Science was that rut. It worked well enough for the problems at hand, so people kept using it. Eventually, the world depended on it. But the other parts of the meadow—other ways to think about reality—became so overgrown that they weren’t even real to us anymore. It’s not just that science became the most convenient way to describe the world. It literally changed the nature of the world itself. We became incapable of moving around it, and the groove we made altered the landscape of reality.”
“What’s your point?” Mike asked. Sometimes, when he was mad, Mike got dismissive of what he called, “nonsense.” She didn’t hear that tone in his voice this time. He was legitimately asking her what her point was.
“There aren’t enough of us to keep that rut alive anymore. Because of that, science doesn’t have a stranglehold on this world anymore. Electricity and magnetism aren’t necessarily connected because they don’t have to be. Water doesn’t obey the same state changes that it used to because we’re seeing it outside of the rut again for the first time since humans were barely able to speak. This is new territory and it’s our new reality.”
“Why only at the edges?” Robby asked. “I was studying the electrical phenomenon beyond the Outpost and it keeps to a fairly regular border. Why would it be localized like that?”
“You’re still thinking of this wrong,” Sariah said. “When I say that science is dead, I mean it’s dead. You can’t take a scientific approach to trying to explain it. Reality is a butterfly now. You can’t predict where it will land.”
Robby’s eyes widened and then he blinked.
“Interesting,” he said, eventually.
“You have any way to prove this idea?” Brad asked.
Robby was the one who answered. “No, of course not. That’s the point.”
“Exactly,” Sariah said. “He gets it. Your idea of proof is all part of what I’m saying is over. You can give up on experiments and proof now. They will soon be a thing of the past. We’re entering a new age. This is just the beginning.”
Mike sat down.
Glancing around, Sariah saw that everyone looked either depressed or defeated. She hadn’t intended for that to happen.
“I’m not saying this is a bad thing. It’s neither good nor bad. This is a new age.”
“But we’re not done with the old one yet,” Corinna said.
Carrie nodded.
Chapter 25: Lisa
Their trip was filled with constant disagreement. Lisa wanted to keep walking, regardless of all the strangeness. When her feet were moving, she could ignore everything else and assume that they were going to reach somewhere better. She pushed aside the idea that they were getting farther and farther away from the Outpost and the comforts of home.
“We need to cut down another tree,” Tim said.
“That’s a waste of time, but we do need to be more diligent about marking the trees. If we make sure that each mark is aligned with the previous two marks, it will keep us moving in a straight line. It has to,” Ashley said.
“You’d be surprised at how far off of straight we can deviate while still keeping three marks in alignment,” Tim said.
“Can you two argue while you walk?” Lisa asked.
It seemed like every time they got into a disagreement, the forward progress would stop. When Lisa started moving again, it appeared that Penny was on her side. The dog trotted ahead, leading the way through the brush. Behind them, Lisa heard Tim and Ashley reluctantly following.
“Aunt Lisa, I don’t want to get lost out here. This is an enormous area and we could wander in circles for the rest of our lives.”
“Then I guess you should have stayed at home,” Lisa said. “You live and learn, Ashley. The best you can hope for is that your mistakes don’t haunt you forever. But, guess what, sometimes they do.”
“That’s a little bleak,” Tim said.
Lisa turned up her hands and let that be her only response. For a while, they walked in silence. She heard the rattle of a can and assumed that Ashley was making another mark on a tree. A little while later, she heard running steps as Ashley jogged to catch up again.
Beneath her feet, it felt like the ground was descending.
Lisa didn’t say anything about it. The descent was subtle and could have simply been her imagination.
Finally, from the back of their line, Ashley asked, “Tim, what’s the elevation at the Outpost?”
“A couple of thousand feet. Why do you ask?”
“It feels like we’ve been dropping, like we’re going downhill,” Ashley said.
“Agreed,” Tim said.
Lisa kept moving.
They hiked all day, stopping four times to snack on food from their packs. Ashley didn’t do any real foraging. Along the way, she collected some nuts that were in thick green husks. When the light was low and they decided to camp, Tim and Lisa built the fire while Ashley husked the nuts. Once roasted, they smelled like chestnuts. Ashley declared them to be sweet. Lisa decided that she would wait and try them another day. Ashley had an iron stomach for such things. Lisa wasn’t so lucky.
“This is almost like a meadow,” Tim said. “Aside from the tree cover, I mean. This grass is so thick.”
“It looks like Juncus,” Ashley said. “The soil is dry now, but I would bet that it’s normally wet. That would explain the rushes.”
Lisa stomped down an area for the tent. It looked lumpy, but soft.
“Maybe we’re close to a body of water,” Ashley said.
“Is that a good thing?” Tim asked.
“Maybe.”
Lisa lost track of time. The marks on Tim’s leg were a good idea, but that hadn’t worked out very well. Since they had caught him making marks at random times, they couldn’t trust the number of marks to actually mean anything.
All that mattered was putting one foot in front of the other.
As long as they were moving, Lisa could ignore the voice in the back of her head that suggested that this jungle was going to be the last thing she would ever see. The trees were skinny and packed close together. Lisa found herself reaching for one and then the next
as her feet twisted on the uneven ground. Behind her, Ashley stopped frequently to mark. The young woman shook the can more and more often.
“We’re going to run out soon,” Ashley said. “Can we stop here? I want to check something.”
Lisa sighed. There was no good place to sit. If they stopped now, there wouldn’t even be somewhere to set her pack down without worrying about the soggy ground soaking the bottom. Then, she would be wearing a wet pack for the next few hours.
“A little farther,” Lisa said.
“Veer right,” Tim said. “There’s higher ground.”
Lisa sighed again. She kept moving.
“I don’t want to veer. I want to keep going straight.”
“Just a little,” Tim said.
She heard him deviate from her path and ignored him. He seemed a little crazier each day. In the night, he talked to Penny in a low voice. She couldn’t tell what he was saying in his tent, but she knew that he was having a one-sided conversation with the dog. Lisa wondered if Tim could hear Penny’s replies.
When Tim led the way on their hikes, he would reach out, knocking aside invisible spiderwebs. Lisa hadn’t seen or felt a single one, but to Tim they were everywhere.
“Aunt Lisa!” Ashley called.
Lisa kept walking.
“Stop! Aunt Lisa!”
Lisa rolled her eyes. Slowly, with a deep frown, she turned. Ashley didn’t seem to realize how much energy it took to change momentum. After a certain age, changing course seemed harder than simply moving forward.
Ashley wasn’t there.
“Lisa!”
“What?” Lisa asked. “Where are you?”
“Hold still and keep talking,” Tim said.
Lisa saw the underbrush jostle and then saw Penny’s tale, like a periscope, moving through the leaves. The dog’s wet nose found her first. Lisa couldn’t help but smile. A moment later, the dog was gone again.
“Lisa?” Ashley called. “Can you say something?”
“What is it with you two? Can’t you just follow me without inventing all this drama.”