by Zack Parsons
“Are you afraid?” asked Dr. Burns.
“If they kill me,” said Polly, “I’ll come back. I am afraid for the future. For the city. I grew up here.”
“I know,” said Robin.
“Yeah, I guess they teach about us in the schoolbooks.”
“They do, but I’m a little old for that. I read up on the three of you before we came. I wasn’t sure how closely we would be working with you. I’m glad it was you. Instead of a Warren or a Gideon.”
“I never knew the old names until later. After I’d ...”
“After they forced you into the Pool?”
“It wasn’t like that.” Polly allowed her anger to show, but it wasn’t at Robin. Not really. It was anger at the confusing way her many lives had unfolded.
“I’m sorry,” said Robin.
“It was ... do you have children?”
“I have two children, a son and a daughter. Evie and Clay. She’s still my little girl, and he’s starting to think he’s a man.”
“I didn’t know.”
Robin’s smile was forced. “It’s always hard to be away from them. I’ve been assured they are in a safe place. Seattle.”
“The farther from here, the better,” said Polly.
She realized belatedly that she was pushing Robin in an uncomfortable direction. She cursed herself. She should have known better than to talk about danger to her children. She changed the subject.
“What about you? Are you scared?” asked Polly. “For yourself, I mean.”
Robin leaned her head back against the wall and sighed.
“About ... fifteen years ago ... wow, fifteen already? Let’s say when I was young and beautiful, I was assigned to do some research in Alaska. Nothing like this, not even epidemiology. I was a junior scientist, and it was work with the natives on wildlife census information and populations. A lot of extinctions back then. Arctic wolves, certain types of seals, whales, and we were afraid polar bears were gone too. Habitat loss and pollution.
“As soon as they told me I was going, I went to the used bookstore near my house and bought a big, thick travel guide to the Alaskan wilderness. It was an old brown hardback with yellowed pages and cracks in the spine as if someone had really tucked into it. Printed in 1965. There was a lot of good information in there, but the chapter that will always stand out to me is this chapter near the end called ‘Avoiding Bear Attacks’ about avoiding and surviving polar bear attacks. Lots of practical advice, list of things to have with you, like a pistol to frighten the bear, common-sense advice like ‘always pay attention to your surroundings’ and ‘never turn your back on a bear.’
“At the very end of the chapter there were a few paragraphs telling you what to do if the attack couldn’t be avoided. How to survive it. The author said, and I’m paraphrasing from years ago, ‘The first thing you think when you are attacked by a bear is that this cannot be happening. You must stay calm and realize that it is happening. You are being killed by an animal force that cannot be reasoned with. It’s much stronger than you. The only way to overcome death is to convince the bear that you are dead. You must go limp and pretend to die in its jaws, and no matter how great the fear or pain, you must be perfectly quiet.’”
“I don’t think that would work too well in this situation,” said Polly.
“Maybe not.” Robin’s gaze was faraway. “I’m sorry, I got a bit lost remembering that trip.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“It was inconclusive. We found markings that might have belonged to an adult polar bear. We never saw a fresh trail or a live bear. As far as we know, they have been wiped out by human habitation, extinct outside of zoos.”
“At least those are still around,” said Polly.
The door opened, and several Gardeners piled in, separating the remaining scientists into manageable groups and escorting them, by twos and threes, out of the conference room. Polly was afraid, despite her previous arguments. Robin Burns must have shared the sentiment, for as they were escorted through the corridor, she took hold of Polly’s hand and squeezed.
Downtown Los Angeles glowed. Traffic moved in orderly grids. Military trucks did not patrol between the immense office towers. It was almost like the city was still alive.
Bottles brought Casper to the southernmost edge of downtown. It was a dark worksite, surrounded by chain-link and plywood. A sign depicted a mainsail of blue glass and banded silver. The Azure Tower, coming 2001.
The building was unfinished, construction halted, according to Bottles, “When the economy got fucked up.” The exterior of the lower floors was finished with polished metal and Gothic flourishes, too big to be easily looted, that reminded Casper of a larger-scale version of St. Philomena’s. The building ascended several floors, mostly intact, before receding into girders strung with billowing tarps, half walls and safety cages, and finally ending entirely in a jagged, steel jigsaw. An unfulfilled promise to the city skies.
Two massive cranes stood idle nearby, skeletal sentinels defending the gates of the incomplete tower. As they passed beneath them, Casper picked out details of broken struts and disconnected hydraulics that suggested the cranes were waiting to be scrapped, not waiting to resume work.
Bottles sought and found a sun-bleached rectangle of plywood, nailed into a window frame, apparently unmarked. He worked the toe of his shoe beneath it and pried it out at the bottom. It was nailed in the other three corners, but he was able to open it wide enough for Casper to duck inside. Bottles followed him into the darkness, glass crunching underfoot, closing the plywood behind them, but not before the dog scurried in as well.
“Don’t talk to nobody,” Bottles warned.
The sprawling ground floor of the building was occupied by dozens, maybe hundreds, of squatters. There were families of normal humans mixed in with a lot of dupes. They crowded into unfinished rooms, lay in sleeping bags in the dry fountain of the lobby, and talked quietly around fires burning in the empty sockets of never-potted plants. A woman—a Veronica, Casper realized—wrapped in a blanket, wearing a stocking cap and layers of filth, upended a bucket full of shit down the empty shaft of an elevator.
The secret place Bottles had described at St. Philomena’s was revealed at the bottom of three staircases, in the stinking bowels of the building, behind a riveted access panel cleverly made to pivot.
“Ain’t showed nobody this for a while. Come on, you gotta crawl.”
They descended through a tunnel, at times so cramped not even the dog could stand, and they were forced to go on their bellies. The stifling heat of it at first reminded Casper of the cave in New Mexico, but the deeper they went, the cooler and fresher the air became, until Casper could hear rushing water and the dirty smell of city rain.
“Watch your step,” said Bottles. “We’re getting to the ladder.”
The shaft ended abruptly, the space yawning open into a dark space echoing with the sound of rushing water. There was faint yellow light glowing from fixtures bolted into the stone walls, and Casper was able to see a ladder set beneath the access shaft descending to a ledge. The cavernous space was some sort of massive, high-tech storm sewer. A central channel was flooded with rushing water, but it was clearly designed to accommodate a much larger capacity.
“It goes all the way to the ocean,” said Bottles, an expression of pride on his face as he helped Casper down off the ladder. “I walked it when I first found this place.”
The dog leaped down from the shaft, into the rushing water. Casper thought for a moment it would be swept away—he wished it would be—but it pulled itself out, shaking off the moisture before rejoining them.
“This a storm sewer?” asked Casper.
“I figured, but like none I seen before,” said Bottles, leading Casper deeper into the tunnel. “You could drive a truck through here. Two maybe. It ain’t finished out east—stops in this big pit that seems like they’re not working on it anymore. Lets you off right downtown. But, man,
you go the other way, you can go all the way to Sugarside and sit there and watch the sun go down over the boats. I do it sometimes. Did it yesterday. Most of the boats are gone now, just a real big one, like a Navy ship, and some stragglers.”
There was a maintenance door, heavy but unlocked, that opened into a power and flow-control shed. It wasn’t a big space, ten feet by seven or eight, hemmed in by pipes but partitioned into more than one room by hanging sheets and builders’ plastic. It smelled of perfume poorly masking sweat and urine, and beneath that a complexity of warm metal pipes, machine grease, corrosion, mold, and long-ago meals soaked into the porous concrete.
Soft music played behind a curtain printed with cartoon ducks. Old music, crackling with AM distortion, old enough that Casper felt he should know it, but he didn’t. The walls were built up with shelves made from plywood and bent wire, each supporting a bewildering assortment of junk.
“A lot of it comes floating down from above.” Bottles picked up a tin can filled with toothbrushes, pens, pencils, and combs. He showed it to Casper, put it back, and picked up a toy made from articulated, brightly colored plastic. “A lot of it I got to go get myself.”
“David?” a soft voice called out, barely louder than the sound of the rushing water and the gentle music playing from the radio.
“Toilet is in there.” Bottles pointed to a door frame hung with plastic sheeting. “I got to see Carlos.”
He immediately passed through the hanging sheet covered with ducks. Casper inspected his cramped surroundings again. The dog was lying in the open doorway, at least somewhat rinsed of blood by the flow of water. There was a milk crate topped with a beaded cover, a table made from layers of cardboard, and the hot plate with a surprisingly clean but well-seasoned soup pot on the burner.
Casper sat down on the milk crate and took out the chapbook of propaganda Polly had given him. He became almost immediately distracted, straining to listen to the conversation Bottles was having. He pushed aside the sheet just far enough to get a finger in and peer through to the other side.
Carlos was propped up with pillows beneath him and heavy blankets over his body. He was dark-haired and heavy browed, slight, young seeming, handsome under better circumstances. His face was pale, his eyes sunken and dark, and his flesh waxy. He was gaunt; the smell of piss was emanating from him, and something else, medicinal but not quite covering a rancid odor like rotten meat. Casper had witnessed cancer do that to people he loved. It would have done it to him if he hadn’t ended it first.
Bottles shifted empty plastic containers and old magazines aside and crouched next to Carlos, talking so quietly that Casper could only hear every few words. Bottles stroked Carlos’s head tenderly, feeling his cheeks with the backs of his fingers, talking in an affectionate tone that nevertheless betrayed his concern. He offered the smashed clamshell of food, but Carlos shook his head. Bottles emptied the contents of the bag and tried to cheer Carlos with the various things he had collected.
“Who is that with you?” asked Carlos, his voice fragile.
“He is a friend. I met him at the church. He’s an okay guy. Good guy.”
“Just a friend?” There was jealousy, teasing but evident.
“He is a good man, only a friend. Don’t worry your head.” Bottles reached for the bottom of the blanket covering Carlos, but Carlos seized his hand.
“Not now, please,” he said. “It was better this morning.”
“That’s because I scraped it. You got to let me check. I can put some more medicine on them.”
Carlos let go of his hand. Bottles lifted the sheet, and as he did, the rancid-meat smell intensified, and Casper caught sight of red, suppurating wounds covering Carlos’s feet up to his shins. Tufts of white threads sprouted from the wounds, anchored in the gory ruins of his limbs. Some of these vermicular thatches were large enough to grow broader near the tips of each thread, forming translucent diamond shards, like leaves of frosted glass. Bottles was as transfixed as Casper by the horrific sight.
“He’s watching,” said Carlos, his feverish eyes on Casper.
Casper dropped the sheet back into place.
They continued their conversation in hushed quiet. Casper could only follow the general ebb and flow, the increase in pitch or the occasional word. When Bottles finally emerged from the sheet, his eyes were puffy and red, and he was still wiping away tears with his fingertips.
“I got to go,” he said. “You get some sleep. Lock the door. When I get back, I’ll knock five times. You got to let me in.”
“You’re trusting me?”
“No choice.” Bottles unscrewed the lid from a water bottle and took out a small wad of cash. The money was different colors, red and orange bills, a large green one. Casper recognized Benjamin Franklin on a hundred-dollar bill but could not place the other portraits. Bottles stuffed the money into his pocket.
“Where are you going?”
“Man”—Bottles turned, his brow cinched tightly, his lips curled in a snarl—“you mind your fucking business, and quit with the questions. I got to get medicine, okay? And you are not invited. You are not ...”
Bottles sighed. Casper took out his debit card and pressed it into Bottles’s hand.
“Take it,” he said, and Bottles did take it, wiping his tears again, feet shuffling into the tunnel. The door clanged shut, and the room became very quiet. Casper was alone with the sounds of the dying man.
The refrigerated prep area was all white tile and chrome panels and heavy glass doors. Rukundo, Dr. Roux, Captain Dryson, and all the others who had disappeared were there and dressed in puffy white insulated suits. Except they were similar to the padded suits warn by cosmonauts, with hardened helmets and glass face-plates. Large backpacks and thickened joints restricted movement so that they even had the ponderous, bounding gait of a cosmonaut on the moon.
The Gardeners dressed Polly and Robin quickly, handling them almost like small children as they directed their arms into sleeves and closed pressure clamps without regard to complaints.
“Where is Sergeant Funkweed?” asked Polly, realizing he was the only man missing.
“He possessed some information we required,” said Milo. “He gave us what we wanted, but he is no longer in a condition to participate.”
The Marines bristled at this comment. It sickened Polly as well. Despite their initial differences, she rather liked Sergeant Funkweed. The thought of him being tortured in strange ways by the Gardeners did not renew her own hopes for a happy, or at least survivable, ending.
A young Gardener, maybe only days out of the Pool, lowered a domed helmet over Polly’s head and engaged the seals. The outside world was abruptly muted, and the loudest sound was her breathing and the click of an air circulator. Each suit was connected to three hoses feeding in cold air from a backpack unit, coolant liquid to pouches in the lining of the suit, and evacuating heated air.
“The temperature beyond the door has increased recently as high as 350 degrees. It is currently 268 degrees.” The Gardener spoke into a headset that relayed his voice into their helmets. “The suit is self-sealing, but if you tear it open, there is a good chance you will die. Be mindful as you walk, and do not make sudden movements.”
They were joined by similarly-equipped groups of Gardeners. The Gardeners brought with them a long, insulated case resting atop a wheeled cart. It was the size of a coffin. The Gardeners distributed themselves among the UN inspectors as the entire group began a deliberate shuffle toward the airlock.
Movement in the suits was plodding and uncomfortable. Despite the painfully cold feel of the coolant pockets and the cold air, Polly found herself sweating in the helmet. These awful contraptions were like a faded childhood memory of wearing a snow suit. This suit, with its rigid joint protection, was even worse. Bending at the elbows and knees took concerted effort.
The heavy airlock door cycled slowly closed. There was a hiss of equalizing pressure as the outer door opened. It only took a moment for the
heat to hit her. Their suits crackled and clicked as the polymers expanded. The rocky corridor was revealed by the rotating door, lit yellow by lights recessed in mineral-tinted domes.
The underground world was alive with the heat. Steam lifted from rocks; drooling strands of plastic hung from the ceiling where the temperature spike must have liquefied the fixtures. The air shimmered, and the rocks seemed soft at their edges. Polly could feel it now. Fingers of heat reached between the packs of liquid coolant in her suit like swords finding weaknesses in a suit of plate armor.
The voice of a Gardener crackled over the helmet radio. “Get moving.”
She trudged slowly, minding her step. The corridor curved gently around the lowest point of the Pool. There were handholds built into the rock walls, and the floor was textured to reduce the chance of someone slipping. They passed beneath a toothy forest of pale stalactites.
“I wish I’d thought to bring my camera.” Dr. Cochrane’s voice sounded weak and nasal over the radio.
“Your camera would have been ruined already,” said a nearby Gardener. “Don’t worry. There are cameras watching your every step.”
They trudged on, following the curving corridor. Huge quartz crystals jutted from the red rocks of the wall. The pink formations of rock reminded Polly of the color of strawberry milkshakes from Swiftee Burger. The thought of a cold sip from one seemed only to make the heat reach deeper through her suit.
Moving was a great labor, and the exertion showed in the way each person’s arms now hung limp and heavy at their sides. The walls of the corridor ahead were covered in sheets and scraps of paper. The group divided to follow the walls on either side, looking at the papers. Some papers were new and white, the writing clear; others were colored by the mineral gases or marred by heat damage to the inks used in writing. Many of the sheets were decorated with elaborate illustrations of nature scenes and animals, of esoteric symbols. Polly stopped at one, a drawing of a Veronica, amateurish but very detailed.