by Bev Prescott
A knot of guilt lodged in her chest. She laid the pen on the paper and watched Inu. His eyes flitted back and forth beneath his eyelids as his chest rose and fell with each deep breath of sleep. Sharon lifted the blanket to cover his shoulders and hoped he was dreaming of only good things. The medicine of sleep, the witch-hazel salve, and Annie’s soup seemed to be shrinking the welts on his face. Even though Sharon’s body begged for sleep, the soup had helped to revive her too. The need to find Eve drove her forward.
She opened her backpack and laid its contents on a nearby desk. Going without the water-extractor, handheld solar panel, knife, bivouac shelter, fire starter, water filter, copper pot, shock of rope, synthetic sweater and two weeks’ supply of dried vegetables, beans, and beetles would be tough. But trying to make it to Chicago on foot posed an insurmountable challenge. Seven apples remained in her satchel. She set five of them in the pile for Annie and Inu.
Leaving everything but two apples, Eve’s medicine, the small box of insect drones and microbots, and a water flask didn’t make up for stealing Annie’s coat and leaving Inu. Plus the risk that Annie might try to trade Sharon’s clandestine apples and food was huge. On balance, though, Sharon bet that she wouldn’t. Every NONA soldier and Banditti in the area would descend on Annie’s private lair. Maybe even take Inu. Anyone savvy enough to survive three decades alone in Gaia’s Wrath knew that being under the microscope of NONA never ended well.
She laid the empty pack next to the things she was leaving. “Goodbye, brave boy,” she murmured. She raised the satchel strap over her head. After giving Inu one last look, she buttoned her jacket to conceal her hammer. She hesitated before taking Annie’s chartreuse costermonger coat from its hook.
Pushing through remorse, she descended the steep grade into the darkened tunnel. Musty damp air tickled her lungs, causing her to cough. Not wanting to wake Inu, she suppressed the urge and moved deeper into the darkness. Navigating by touch, she kept a hand to the wall. In the off mode, the voice-activated micro-flashlight sewn into her sleeve would charge with the movement of her body. Not using illumination helped her stay in the shadows. She’d use light only if necessary.
As she hiked farther into the tunnel, something snagged her right cuff. Holding her breath, she froze. When nothing moved, she brushed the fingertips of her free hand down her arm to a hard, cold and gritty rod. It stuck out from the wall just enough to hook her sleeve. She freed herself and whispered, “Flashlight on.” Its beam of light illuminated a piece of rusted rebar protruding from a patch of crumbling concrete. Sharon exhaled, grateful that it hadn’t sliced her skin. Ever since the antitoxin for tetanus had stopped being made, the deadly infection had become commonplace.
Aiming the light at the length of wall, she resumed walking, taking care not to touch the occasional exposed rebar. She traveled lower into the underground bowels of Gaia’s Wrath until the tunnel stopped abruptly at a T-shaped intersection. Her heart raced. Which way to go? She shone the light left, then right, exposing drawings on the walls. She lifted her light to see better. Images in bright reflective colors lined the adjacent tunnels.
Turning into the passageway to her right, she studied the figures and shapes. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp. The things of her nightmares played out in crude pictures. Earth, drawn in the form of a woman being gutted by two swords labeled gluttony and violence, pointed her bony finger to the next image. Dead trees, dried riverbeds, and denuded mountains knelt before the image of their matriarch dying by a thousand cuts. Children struck down by famine, drought, disease, and war were heaped lifeless at Mother Earth’s feet. One lay on its side, blood pouring from its eyes, nose, ears, and mouth.
Sharon stumbled backward into the left tunnel, away from the awful depictions. Her body trembled at the flashes of memory they conjured. She remembered her beloved farmhouse blazing with her parents’ bodies inside. The plague that had killed them played by the rule of kill or be killed. Since the disease succumbed only to fire, she had torched her home with their corpses inside in order to save herself and her brothers, Jon and Mark. Sharon, nineteen at the time and the oldest, had kept tears at bay as she and her brothers dug through the ashes for the charred bones of their parents. They buried them next to their grandparents on a hill overlooking the farm. Standing on the rise that day in front of their graves, her heart formed its first protective callus.
She touched the scarf at her neck and longed to be safe in the arms of Eve. Instinct always made her reach for her when the world got too heavy. Squeezing her eyes shut, she breathed in, catching a whiff of fried beetles and human sweat. She followed her nose and turned back into the tunnel at the right. Faint ribbons of light sliced the tunnel floor in the distance.
With her arm at her side, the sleeve-beam of light fell on her boots, her most scuffed and tough possessions. Sharon willed them to take her past the ghastly scenes and toward the light. The tunnel narrowed the farther she traveled. The occasional glance at the murals, which went on and on, lifted the hair at the back of her neck. Wiping at perspiration forming at her temples, she hoped whoever painted them was long gone.
Up ahead, the muddy light slicing the passageway grew brighter. She stopped to listen. A hum blending both human and mechanical sound drew her on. Something rustled in the bits of trash that lined the tunnel. She pointed her sleeve toward the floor. The glistening black eyes of a well-fed rat stared back at her. Where there are rats, there are people.
She pressed the light on her sleeve off and took deliberate, quiet steps. A square opening in the lower part of the right wall covered by a grate let light and noise waft into the tunnel. Sharon got to her knees. Taking care to be silent, and hoping not to be noticed, she peered into the openings of the grate.
A darkened corridor opened into a larger space where the sound and light came from. But she couldn’t see around its bend. Sharon sat and leaned against the wall with the grate in front her. She rummaged through her satchel for the box of insect drones and microbots.
Inside the box lay a collection of bugs constructed by her brother, Jon. She chose the cockroach over the housefly. The roach would go unnoticed skittering at the edges of walls in the dank place, which smelled of musky, unwashed humans milling about. She’d noticed her own odor while moving through the tight passage. The funk assaulting her nose here was that of countless men and women enclosed in tight quarters without a means to wash themselves.
Carefully, she activated the roach-bot, reached through the grate, and released it. Leaving the controller nestled in the box, she touched the icon for the cockroach and watched as it flexed its six skinny legs. Its antennae probed the dirty concrete. Sharon powered up its eyes and the microphone embedded in its abdomen. Watching the screen, she maneuvered it toward the space filled with people.
Keeping close to the edge of the wall, the bug scuttled along the floor of the first room, which remained dark. Its antennae brushed something solid opposite the wall. Sharon paused its movement and let the nocturnal eyes focus. Boxes stacked high and labeled NONA Surplus Food were piled all around the room. Sharon guessed it must be a storage area for things to be moved on the MagLev. After doing a quick visual scan, she directed the roach-bot toward the room’s doorway.
She watched costermongers hawking their wares to passersby from carts set up on the platform of the MagLev. The shoppers, wearing bright orange jumpsuits, milled from cart to cart, looking for a buy. Their eyes were milky: hydros. The few clean-clothed people hunched over carts looking at the wares were likely the rare passengers who could afford a train ticket. NONA soldiers carrying weapons randomly moved among them. Sharon directed the roach-bot onto the MagLev platform, careful to keep it safely near the wall.
“What the?” Something pinched at her calf through her dungarees. Sharon kicked out and whispered, “Light on.” The beam on her sleeve glowed into the eyes of a hungry rat taking advantage of her prone position. Through gritted teeth, she said, “Get away,” and rammed the heel of a
boot into its long body. It darted into the dark.
She shook off the encounter and resumed her inspection of the platform through the eyes of the bug. It jostled forward. With a swipe of her forefinger, the roach-bot turned one hundred eighty degrees. A live cockroach flapped its wings and lunged at the roach-bot. Stopping short, it turned and backed into the electronic bug. You’ve got to be kidding me. Again, the cockroach circled the roach-bot and backed into its aft section. You’re barking up the wrong tree. She’s not interested. Sharon pressed the battery icon on the controller just as the cockroach made his next attempt to mate with the roach-bot. A jolt of electricity flipped it onto its back. Its legs wiggled and went limp. Should’ve asked her first.
Sharon depressed the power button to check the unit’s battery pack. The defensive use of electric current to ward off the sexual advances of the cockroach had drained the roach-bot’s power down to 50 percent. She swiped the forward icon on the controller. A quick look around was all the roach-bot could afford. It skittered along the wall, stopping to survey the expanse of the enormous platform.
The MagLev, ten cars long, sat flat on the powered-down electromagnetic tracks. Large fuel tanks labeled H2 were connected to the MagLev by hoses large enough for a human to crawl through. Geeze. If they blew, they’d take out everything and everyone for kilometers. No wonder NONA went to great lengths to hide the locations of the fuel.
Using the controller’s homing device, Sharon summoned the roach-bot to return. The bug scurried back through the storage room, coming to a stop at the toe of her boot. She shut down the system and returned the roach-bot to its spot in the box next to the dragonfly. Not wanting to be surprised by the harassing rat, she kept the sleeve light on as she removed her jacket and replaced it with Annie’s. She stuffed her jacket and the small box of insect drones and microbots into her satchel. After prying the grate open with the claw of her hammer, she slipped the hammer into its baldric and zipped the costermonger coat closed.
She squeezed through the opening into the storage room and replaced the grate. Getting to her feet, she gingerly wedged between the stacked boxes. Stopping short of the doorway, she waited for a moment when no one was looking, and slipped into the station.
Keeping her head down, she joined the underground bargain hunters. A variety of foraged foods were spread out on carts along the station platform. The mishmash of barely edible and not entirely nutritious plants had been dried, or made into salves or steaming soups that scented the air.
A man with a beard down to his skinny belly tossed and shook a pan of sizzling beetles. “Best damn beetles around,” he said to a passerby. “I got a secret recipe. Get ’em here.” He shook the sputtering pan.
Jars of cloudy liquid lined the cart of a tiny, ancient woman. With knobby fingers she twirled the jars. “Get your drinking water here,” she croaked. A ragged yellow shawl draped over her bony shoulders. She smiled as Sharon passed, showing a mouthful of decaying teeth. “Wet your whistle, honey?”
“No, thanks.” Sharon returned the smile and kept walking.
A soldier stepped into her path.
Sharon kept her head bowed at the floor, her eyes fixed on his heavy black combat boots. “Excuse me.” She tried to step around him, hoping he wouldn’t recognize Annie’s coat, and that the woman wearing it wasn’t Annie.
“Why aren’t you selling?” He sidestepped left, keeping her blocked. “Look at me.”
Sharon lifted her head. Keeping her breathing even, she answered, “Just looking for a good spot.”
“Show me your ID,” he ordered.
She slipped one hand into her pocket and lifted the other. “I have beetle larvae to sell,” she lied. “Would you like some?” Her gamble that well-fed people turned down the food of the poor, she hoped, would pay off.
The soldier flashed an indifferent expression. “No.” He pressed a handheld chip-reader to her raised forearm. After noting the readout, he clipped the reader to his belt. “Put your arm down and start selling. The MagLev leaves shortly.”
“Yes, sir.” She squeezed past him before letting out her breath and heading toward the back car of the MagLev.
Reaching into a pocket of her dungarees, she fished around for stray coins. Her fingers closed over a gritty pollo, a NONA coin minted out of sand from the Nebraska Desert. Not enough to buy a bottle of water, but maybe enough to buy something hot, fried, and salty. Annie’s soup had helped to take the edge off of her hunger, but only the edge. She needed to keep up her strength. Moving past cart after cart containing goods she didn’t have enough money to buy, she stopped in front of one operated by a skinny, hunched-over woman with a glass eye.
With one live eye and one dead eye, she stared at Sharon. “Goddammit, I don’t have all day.” She lowered her chin. “Three fried beetles for a pollo. Make up your mind or move along.”
Sharon laid the pollo on the cart.
“I don’t remember seeing you here before.” The one-eyed woman put three crunchy bugs into a scuffed wooden bowl and passed it to Sharon. “Coat looks familiar, though.”
“Thank you.” Sharon took the beetles from the bowl. “You must be mistaken.”
“You think I can’t see clearly with one fucking eye?” She pounded her fist on the cart, nearly upsetting the pan of beetles. “Get the fuck away from my cart.”
Sharon shoved the bugs into her pocket and hightailed it away from the cranky one-eyed woman.
Someone who smelled of cut sweet fern crashed a shoulder into hers. “Watch it,” a man growled.
She stopped to look back.
He looked at her over his shoulder. Wearing a neatly trimmed beard and unsoiled clothing, he had the air of a passenger. “Watch where you’re going, costermonger.” He flicked his fingers at his shoulder as if to brush off any of her residue left on him when they’d touched. But instead of returning his head forward, he studied her.
His scrutiny seemed excessive. As if he, like the one-eyed woman, was trying to place her, but couldn’t.
“I’m sorry.” She turned and hurried away from his gaze.
A tall, thin man sitting cross-legged playing a guitar smiled as she neared him. His light brown eyes matched the color of his hair and skin. He had a thin mustache that curved around his mouth into a goatee at his chin. An aura of kindness surrounded him. “Mujer.” He strummed again and sang a song she recognized.
The lovely sound made her stop. It soothed her clattering nerves and made her think of Eve. Plus, maybe by interacting she’d look more like she fit in. “Is that the song ‘Amigo’?” she asked.
He laughed. “Ah, you know it.” Continuing to strum, he said, “Not many people know the names of songs anymore. It’s such an old one. How do you know it?”
“My father was a farmer. A man named Elliot who worked for him used to sing it.”
“Was the man Latin, like me?”
“No.” Sharon glided closer, drawn by his gentle demeanor. “His parents were South African. But he loved music. That song in particular.”
“The South Africa that no longer exists?” He smiled. The twinkle of his eyes suggested that laughter rather than age had etched the fine wrinkles into his face.
“That’s the one.” With the beetles held loosely in her fist, she removed her hand from her pocket. “I don’t have any money.” She turned her hand palm up and opened it. “Will these do for another song?”
“Money buys food.” He stopped strumming and pointed at the open instrument case next to him. “Food is what I’m after. Yes, it’ll do. More of ‘Amigo’? Or something else?”
“Do you know anything from ‘Madame Butterfly’? It’s my wife’s favorite opera.” His manner calmed her. Eve liked to say that some people carried their hearts on their sleeves. This man seemed like one of them, and with a good heart. It felt safe to be honest with this stranger. She dropped the bugs into his case. “I’m trying to find my way back to her. I miss her more than I can describe. Maybe hearing it will help me feel c
loser to her.”
“As you wish.” He set the guitar in the case and got to his feet. “In honor of love, I shall give you my best.” Waving his arms in a flourish, he sucked in a deep breath, then let it out on the most beautiful singing her ears had ever experienced. His voice was like a river that flowed clean and pure from snowcapped mountains, down, over and around boulders.
It paralyzed her as it moved in and over her with its soothing sweetness. She closed her eyes so that only her ears took in the experience, which somehow helped to block out the noise of people and machines. She thought of Eve and their farm and their beautiful, life-giving apple tree. Her arms felt empty without her wife to hold and touch. Listening to the man’s voice was like reaching through space and time to Eve. Sharon listened until this subterranean troubadour’s voice slowed like a river reaching its destination in a cool, fresh pool of blue water.
He sighed at the end. “I hope it was worth the beetles.”
She opened her eyes. “I only wish I had more to give.”
“I’m Federico.” His expression turned serious. “What’s your name?”
Sharon turned to follow what had caught his attention and tried to remember the name of the dead costermonger. Dammit. She couldn’t remember whether Annie had even mentioned it. Before she could make something up, a bald man dressed in an orange jumpsuit tried to rip her satchel from her. She shoved him away.
“What are you selling?” The bald man yanked at the satchel strap. “Bitch, what are you selling?” His milky eyes bored into hers.
Federico touched the man’s shoulder. “Let me play you a song, friend.”
“I don’t want a fucking song.” The bald man put an open hand to Federico’s chest and shoved him.
A soldier looked up from his conversation with a nearby costermonger.
Sharon glanced from the soldier to the man in orange. His bald head reflected the light beaming down from the ceiling. The absence of ultraviolet radiation in the synthetic light left his skin chalky pale. He shook her satchel strap. “Sell me something.”