A Remembered Kind of Dream

by Rei Rosenquist

  “Do we stop for the night?”

  We've taken a break for dinner in a nowhere kind of place with nothing around us but dust and the horizon. Megaphone comes up to me while I’m roasting a stick of easy-to-catch, hard-to-eat roachies over a spitfire extension on Pancake Engine Number Three where Water Bottles and I ride.

  “No,” I say and turn my roachies over so the thicker top carapace can burn off, careful not to lose the smaller ones to the hungry bio-diesel flame.

  “Is it better to sleep in the hatches during sun?” Megaphone asks.

  “Err,” I fumble, not wanting to tell them the truth.

  The truth is if we sleep during sun, we'll cook. We could sleep now, during stars and moon, I just don't want to. Keep moving, get this over with -- that's what my bones say. And unlike the trees, I listen.

  “No, that'd be dangerous. We should stop now,” Water Bottles says, stepping up alongside us.

  "Err," I mumble, feeling caught, face burning hot.

  My scarred hand decides to burn right along with it. Irritated, I rub it against my thigh.

  Water Bottles takes off their water bottle mask for the first time to really give me the stink-eye. The contraption comes off surprisingly easily. Quicker than the tangle of my real gas mask with those floppy rubber straps. The water bottle device looks hand-designed for comfort, too. There are dozens of tiny cleverly placed pads and a kind of cooling fan? I’m so into the design that I don't bother to look at the person's face.

  “It's decided then. I’m going to find shelter,” Water Bottles says.

  "Excuse me?" I plan to say, real rude, like I'm the guide here and who the fuck are you?

  But then, I look up.

  And as soon as my eyes lock onto their face, I can't move. My mouth hangs open mid-word. Soot and ash get in my mouth from the fire. I choke but can't move.

  "Oh, know you recognize me," Water Bottles who isn't Water Bottles snarks.

  We haven't seen each other in years upon years, but I’d never forget those crystalline white irises, that high steep nose, those gold freckled cheeks. Not as long as I live. It's the face of a mountain peak, high and mean, covered in water frozen over forever.

  Jaq's face is like a physical promise that there are still untouched places left to go, still things you don't know. Like how life was once good, and it can be that way again.

  "Jaq," I say in a clogged breath.

  They smile, teeth like crags of stone hiding founts of fresh water. “It’s Jak, but yes.”

  I frown. “That’s what I said.”

  “No, you mispronounced it. It’s spelled with a K.”

  I can’t help the laugh that jumps out of my mouth. “You still remember camp jokes too?”

  "How could I forget?"

  I grin, wide.

  Jak shrugs and tosses the murky water bottles aside. "You been using old Survi's skills, I see," Jak says.

  The camp was this desperate place where paranoid parents sent their incapable urban kids to learn about the Earth and ecosystems. To learn what to do when the inevitable disasters hit.

  What our parents didn't know was that the Survivalist who ran the camp was actually a huge woo-woo hoo-ha spiritualist who claimed something bigger than humanity was going to solve the world's problems and when the end of the world hit, we would just need to sit tight.

  I never believed any of that, though.

  But the Survivalist was also the strong human being I'd ever met with big huge shoulders and dark wise eyes. They also had lots of cool intentional scars and knew so much about everything that how could a body not listen to them?

  "The skills themselves turned out to be useful enough," I say darkly.

  "You believe in that other stuff?" Jak asks, eying me careful now.

  Back in Survival Skills training camp before the world went upside down, the Survivalist told me and Jak that our spirits were undeniably intertwined. Something strong that would alter the shape of not just our lives, but the world.

  We swiftly had sex that night, but it wasn’t very good. We both left feeling ashamed and naked, and we never spoke again. After three years of training side by side and hand in hand, one night ruined everything.

  "I believe we are a culmination of the things we choose to do," I say with resolve.

  Jak nods like that's a good enough excuse to be friends again.

  I'm glad it is. Not that I want to pick up where we left off, nor that I think we can. But just having someone around with some history together feels good. A kind of physical contract from the world that it didn't forget about us.

  "Can I talk to you privately?” Jak asks.

  I blush deep. "I don't know, Jak. That was a long time ago, our thing we had. I don't even know--"

  “I want to talk to you about the journey,” they clarify sharply.

  Oh. So, this is an attempt to get me to change my mind. To alter course. To account for everyone's needs, is that it? I frown deeply.

  “This isn't a democracy."

  Popular modern word among the City Fall folk, "democracy" doesn't mean what it once did. Once upon a time, it meant that every head got a vote. Votes were tallied and the winner took all. Nowadays, it's more like the loud and bold ones grapple for a chance to have their word heard while the quiet and timid ones lose out.

  Jak puts on a face I know too well – the one that’s a hard line, lips pressed flat together, with an angry semi colon in the middle of a heavy brow. Anger brewing like a storm, frustration, irritation at my stubbornness.

  Those magnificent eyes narrow into dark lazer beams of doom.

  I somehow manage not to instantly apologize and listen up, even if all I want is to make Jak smile again. But, I have my own sense of pride to stick to. My own moral guide.

  Jak’s lips part. “I'm not saying it is. But Ark. I need to talk to you about the oracle. Will you just hear me out?”

  Sounds democratic to me. Jak being the "one in the know," loud and bold.

  But then, Jak does have a point. If they know more than anyone else, maybe they are worth hearing out.

  "I don't care about oracles, super intelligent or otherwise," I say.

  Before the words make it out of my mouth, the weather shifts.

  A cold snap of air that means a storm is coming. No telling what sort at a glance. Could be electric, acid rain, or a full blown hurricane. But, judging from the clouds, mean black and nastier than ever, it's going to be bad.

  “Storm!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

  A gust of wind whips the word away into a roaring rush. A blast of white blue light slices the sky in two. A split second after it, a hammering crack of thunder jerks the air apart. I’m launched sideways by shock, my teeth rattling together painfully. Without my permission, my hand reaches out and grabs hold of Jak’s arm.

  I yank us in a direction my body says is safer than the surface.

  Jak doesn’t question me, gives easily. And for one hot shard of a second, it feels just like the first time. And the last time. Shit, the only time we’ve had skin to skin contact. And I’m filled – not with nostalgia or elation or longing – but fear. Because I’m worried that the old Survivalist was right: we’re entwined, tangled up like fraying straps, trapped to crash back together.

  What would happen if we did?

  Something bad, my gut says.

  I shudder and let go of Jak. But the electric storm keeps me moving on toward the underground safe hold I know of with Jak in tow. No reason to break our alliance in the middle of this mess. I’ll do it after. Tell this gang they’re better off out there on their own.

  “Where are we going?” Jak asks.

  "Down," is all I have time to say.

  I bring us up against what looks like a caved in wall. I move the “wall” aside to reveal that it’s only a piece of printed foam made to look like a chunk of concrete. It’s very convincing. Those old 3D printers really did a smashing job. I throw the hunk of lightweight fiberglass or PVCIII or someth
ing-urethane (material names I’ve seen on half-ruined labels). It falls with a thud into the dust and billows up a cloud that’s whipped away in less than two seconds by the wind.

  Down below, a hole opens up into black maw, a pit with no way down. But I know better because I hid here for the night before.

  “Watch your step. The stairs come up quick,” I call over my shoulder and take the first step into murky shadows to prove I'm not wrong.

  I light a tiny hand-lamp from my pocket I got off a scavenger ages back. It casts a narrow beam, straight in the direction you point the tip. A sharp black line of invisibility on either side. I use it sparingly to point out when the terrain changes. It burns out our eyes photo-receptors and makes everything hard to see afterward. The landscape down here is tangle. Stairs twist downward into tunnels that curve into archways and more tunnels, more stairs.

  Eventually, the way evens out into a long straight away where Jak and I can walk side by side. I mute the palm lamp with my hand, letting it make my fingers look skeletal and glow orange. Jak pulls up to my side and gives my hand a look, snarls, and looks away at the dripping stone walls.

  “How did you know this was here?”

  “I passed it on my way up. Seemed like it might be useful, so down I went.”

  We descend the cracked and broken stairs into the yawing mouth of a hole. Thick oily black wraps around our bodies like a hand, huge and suffocating. In that tangible darkness, Jak turns to me.

  "You remember the Survivalist's line about birds?"

  "Even in an empty sky, the bird can be a guide to help you survive," I quote from a submerged memory. "So what?"

  The wisdom is effectively useless. There are no birds left. The sky is always full of some threatening cloud. Some coming rage.

  "Anyway," Jak says like we've settled a topic. "About the oracle."

  "I don't want to talk about prophecies from a super intelligence," I repeat flatly. "What are they even supposed to mean?"

  "We didn't actually talk to the oracle."

  I stare blankly, an expression lost in the dark between us.

  "We made that up," Swollen Hand who's name I still never got says too close to my face.

  I jerk back. "Good for you. We all lie. Why the confession now?"

  "Just...seems like you ought to know."

  I can tell there's more there. More behind this confession. More behind Jak's desire to talk. But we're in the middle of a storm, and I don't have time to pin it down.

  "Great," I say and leave it at that.

  I don't ask how they found me. I assume it was Jak on some kind of spiritual woo-woo hoo-ha mission to make the Survivalist's words real. Seems like they still believe in that shit.

  “I guess we’re stopping for the night,” I hear a voice say as bodies move into the darkness out of the storm.

  “Guess so," I say, trying to ignore the thought that we might all die.

  I hear bodies shifting in the dark. I follow suit. Ear pressed to the ground, I can hear rain thundering overhead. Thunder booms and afterwards there's a roar like things right above us have caught fire.

  Jak, shuddering, presses against my arm in the dark. My mind wanders through corridors of time, finding rooms of questions unasked. Like what am I doing here? Why did Jak come looking for me specifically? Was the Survivalist right about birds? About Jak and I? About anything? Why don’t I just get up early and leave this weird crew behind? Go back to my solo wandering? Wasn’t it easier with no one else to worry about?

  “The engines are flooding,” Swollen Hand says from across the darkness.

  “You're right," I agree. “We’ll have to go the rest of the way by foot.”

  I can hear Megaphone standing up, clopping miserably across the room. Not angry, but distressed. I know exactly what the poor sap is thinking.

  “Yeah,” I say, “those boots are gonna suck for you. How far can you actually walk in them?”

  "A kilo, maybe. I've never tried."

  “We’ll cut them off.”

  “Whoa,” I snark at Swollen Hand’s asinine joke. “That’s not funny.”

  Swollen Hand blinks at me. “It’s not a joke. You said we had to walk, so.”

  “They’re stuck solid. Been that way for as long as I can remember,” Megaphone says in a dark monotone. “That’s why everyone calls me Boots.”

  Pretty common naming convention. Pick a notable characteristic and that’s your name.

  Save for Jak and me. Jak is a misspelling of an old name that once meant something to some people who are all dead now. Jak chose it out of reverence for the past or some bullshit like that. It doubles as the name of a tool though, so nobody really notices.

  My name is Ark because back before the mass systems crash, when names were a thing you earned legally from the government, those three keys [a k r] were the only ones on the damned touchscreen that worked. “Ark” was more interesting than the alternatives.

  “Care to lend a hand?” Swollen Hand holds their ruined hand -- a red nasty bulb of an appendage -- out toward me.

  The question isn't a joke, I know, but I chuckle anyway.

  "Fine. If you tell me your name."

  Swollen Hand hesitates like I've asked the most groundbreaking thing.

  "Oh come on," I say and roll my eyes. "You don't believe that naming-is-power hoo-ha, do you?"

  As soon as I say it, I catch myself. Why did I assume Swollen Hand would know anything about the Survivalist's camp? Weird fluke. Must have forgot in the dark that I wasn't talking to Jak for a second.

  “Bird,” Swollen Hand says at length.

  I stare, recalling Jak's question.

  Coincidence? Or is this some kind of plot?

  And if it is, to what end?

  Swollen Hand – Bird – hands me a dull scalpel before I can react. The handle's been snapped off, making it too short to really get a good grip on. I take it clumsily and lean in to get a closer look at Boots’ shoes for the first time. Sure enough. The rubbery plastic is melted and sucked tight against Boots’ agitated calves. Even if I wanted to get a blade in between the two, I’d do a ragged job at best separating flesh from whatever cheapo plastics this stuff is.

  The scar on my palm itches hotly. I clench my fist. Not now.

  “I think we should leave it,” I say, standing.

  Bird reaches a hand out for the scalpel and frowns, kneeling down.

  Boots doesn’t move but doesn't protest, either.

  Bird starts cutting the shoes away.

  The burning/itching in my palm gets worse. I fidget, feeling the sudden need to stop Bird.

  “That’s not safe,” I say.

  Boots looks up at me in an emotion that's not quite agony, but once I can't place. Stupidity, I think and look away. All that blood is going to lead to something bad.

  “What do you suggest?” Bird snaps.

  The blunt scalpel has to be sawed back and forth to do any cutting, but eventually a long sliver of skin peels off attached to the black uneven plastic. Blood pours slick and thick from the wound and pools somewhere in the sole of the shoe. Boots bites down on their lip, choking, and looks away.

  I can't watch.

  “I’m going to find some place quiet to sleep.”

  I'm not tired. Not even close. And the storm overhead is loud everywhere, even this far down. But, before anyone can question me, I bolt out of the room. The rest of the hallway is cave-like, so dark I can't see my hand in front of my face. From behind me, the smell of blood rises up and fills my nose, warm and thick and unavoidable.

  I have to get away from here.

  I move in a straight line, feeling the wall as I go, so I don't get lost. I only get about twenty paces down the hall when something happens. The sounds of the storm drop out. The air goes still.

  Too still. Hardly even the hiss of a faint wind.

  “Serene,” someone from the old world might have called it. But in our world, it’s a bad thing. A building up of tension. The stress of
the land before a massive earthquake snap. The eye of a hurricane before it gets volumes worse. The beautiful bending cloud before a deadly tornado drops.

  Something very bad is about to happen.

  I turn to bolt back in the direction I came and run smack jam into Jak's chest.

  "The storm's changing,” I blurt out.

  Jak doesn't hesitate, but grabs my hand. “We have to warn the others.”

  My gut tightens. "I can't go--"

  Jak turns and yanks me along before I can finish my sentence. I don't fight because Jak is right. It'd be monstrous not to warn them. So, I go. Back to the room full of Boot's blood.

  We both take two at a time. I nearly trip when I notice because no one keeps pace with me. These awful shorts legs – I’m always at least five paces behind. I steal glances to my right where Jak runs, step for step.

  Through the dark, color sparks sparkle into existence. A glittering energy, bright white-blue.

  My favorite color.

  I blink and the light -- the aura for lack of a better word -- is gone.

  It's my mind playing tricks on me, of course. Because “auras” don’t exist, regardless of what a heavy-handed spiritualistic Survivalist says. That place in those high pine and cedar woods wasn't the truth -- it was just a place we camped once long ago. It's gone now, which means the Survivalist didn't actually know much useful truth.

  And with the camp died whatever weird "wisdom" that old cracked-pot had to give.

  We get to the door and burst into the surgery room where Bird has a tiny light in their mouth shining on Boots’ exposed and mangled feet. The shoes are entirely removed. Bird’s shirt has been shredded into strips and wrapped tight around what I guess are the gaping wounds. Even without the wounds, Boots' feet are a disgusting rotted mess. The shirt is so soaked it’s leaking blood everywhere.

  “The storm's shifting,” I say.

  Bird stands, stretching their one good hand. It's dripping in blood.

  My stomach lurches. Because the blood, yes -- but also, because of a taste that fills my gaping mouth. It’s worse than a chewing on baking soda. Way worse. It feels fizzy and tingles my sinuses. A fine grit clogs my nostrils, and a thick slimy something fills my mouth. I touch a finger to my lip and pull away a glob of my own blood. I lick it away, but the feeling on my tongue is like sand, only sharp.