2 Degrees

by Bev Prescott

  “What good is that going to do if there’s a hole in it?” Dr. Elan asked.

  “You up for a walk, Doc?” Federico asked.

  “Of course.” Dr. Elan smiled. “A lovely full moon is in the forecast. You know I’m always up for an adventure, especially with Yěxìng milling about.”

  “It’s why you’re one of us, amigo. Always up for an adventure.”

  “Hm.” Dr. Elan nodded. “Indeed.”

  Federico squeezed his shoulder. “I’m going to need JJ to patch the cryo-converter tank. He’s the only one of us with the know-how. I have to stay with the ship to ensure it isn’t overcome by the Yěxìng. That leaves you and Sharon to find us some conversion materials. You’ll keep Sharon safe because you know the Yěxìng. And Sharon will keep you safe because she knows how to use a weapon.”

  “I’m up for it,” Sharon said. “Anything to get us on our way. But what conversion materials could be out there? I’d think any sources of energy would have been picked clean long ago.”

  “No, amiga.” Federico opened a large cabinet revealing a stash of spectraletto pistols and bulky turbo-vests. “You’ll be looking for something that lasts forever and that no one wants. Plastic.”

  “Ah.” Sharon nodded as the realization dawned on her. “The cryo-converter can superheat plastic into its hydrocarbon components. The hydrocarbon gets stored in the tank and burned as fuel. My brother, Jon, explained it to me years ago. But I thought the technology was lost after the War of Earth’s Rebellion.”

  “It’s when science went by the wayside,” Dr. Elan added. “Research came to a screeching halt.”

  “It’s when my wife, Eve, lost her job at Harvard.”

  “Yeah, well, governments may have stopped doing science,” JJ said. “But not scientists like Woody and Dr. Elan.”

  Federico passed an acupalmtell to Sharon. “There’s an ancient recycling plant in what used to be Boys Town, just outside of Omaha. The acupalmtell has the coordinates for the plant and our location programmed in.” He held the palm-sized computer in front of her. “See? Here. That’s where you’re going.”

  Sharon tucked it into her pocket. “What do we carry the plastic in?”

  Federico lifted a turbo-vest from a hook in the cabinet. “In the left pocket of each vest is a mesh cargo bag. You can clip the bags onto the back of the vest once they’re filled. If you stuff both, that’ll make enough fuel to get us to California. You ever flown one of these?” He handed her the turbo-vest.

  “Nope.” She slipped it over her shoulders and pushed her satchel aside in order to buckle the vest closed. The heavy red vest fit snug against her body like a second skin. Her satchel fit tight against her back beneath the vest. Sharon double-checked that each of the four buckles were locked.

  “May I?” JJ reached for her right pocket.

  “Go ahead.”

  JJ removed a black box with a touchpad. “The controls on this are like your run-of-the-mill drone. If you can fly a drone, you can fly one of these. Just go easy on the thrust.” He dropped it back into her pocket. “You’ve only got enough secondary thruster fuel to return to the Belostomatid. Use it as a last resort.”

  Federico handed Sharon a spectraletto pistol while JJ helped Dr. Elan into a vest. “If you do run into the Yěxìng, do whatever the doc tells you to do.”

  “Good advice.” JJ pressed a spectraletto into the palm of Dr. Elan’s hand. “They’re scary.”

  “Only if you don’t understand them.” Dr. Elan secured the pistol in the vest’s weapon slot.

  “We can track the whereabouts of the vests, which means we can track you.” Federico lifted his arm and pressed the time button on his cuff. “Try to be back here in less than three hours. Call if you get into a bind. We’ll notify Woody of the delay and get the ship patched while you’re out.”

  “A full moon is good fortune and good light.” Dr. Elan slipped a pair of night-vision goggles over his eyes. “But these old eyes are going to need some help.”

  “You ready?” Sharon asked.

  “Good to go.” Dr. Elan stood shoulder to shoulder with Sharon as Federico opened the door. JJ kept a spectraletto trained at the opening as it grew large enough for them to step through. Nothing moved outside; everything looked safe.

  “Walk along the riverbed until the sand rises enough for you to climb up to level ground.” Federico faced Dr. Elan and put his hands on his shoulders. Dr. Elan touched his forehead to Federico’s. “Be careful, amigo.” He turned and put his hands to Sharon’s shoulders. “Amiga.”

  Eve, as well as Dr. Ryan’s and Areva’s friendship, had been Sharon’s only source of human connection for so long that Federico’s gesture of friendship made her feel awkward. Yet, the camaraderie sparked a hope she thought had long been extinguished. Hope that she’d find Eve and avenge Areva’s and Dr. Ryan’s deaths. Hope that she had more room left in her heart to love. She bumped her head to his. The herbal scent from his hair reminded her of her brothers. How long had it been since she’d last hugged them? She kept her forehead pressed to Federico’s a moment longer, savoring the human touch. “We’ll be quick. I need to get to my wife.” She backed away.

  “And you will.” Federico peered both ways into the darkness. “Go now. See you both soon.” To JJ, he said, “Shut the door once they exit.”

  With Dr. Elan at her heels, Sharon moved quickly east along the shallow canyon formed by the riverbed. After several moments of silence, she could hear his breathing grow labored. She slowed their pace. “What’s the likelihood that we’ll run into a Yěxìng?”

  “Not along the riverbed, but I suspect once we enter Boys Town, the likelihood will rise dramatically. They have plenty of shelter there.”

  “How do they manage to survive with no water?”

  “Well, they get moisture from cactus plants, and collect rainwater during the brief rainy season.” His breathing slowed with the pace. “They’re really quite resourceful for such superstitious creatures.”

  “I can’t imagine it ever raining here.” Sharon gestured to the cracked walls of the arid riverbed.

  “For all intents and purposes, it doesn’t. Except for that brief window of time when the Pacific Ocean currents throw moisture hard enough at the Rockies that some of it manages to land in the Nebraska Desert before evaporating. They catch every drop.”

  “I’m afraid to ask, but what do the Yěxìng eat?” Sharon came to a stop to let him rest.

  He removed the night-vision glasses, put his hands to his hips and drank in a couple of deep breaths. Even in the dark, his grave expression showed. “Ah, mostly rodents, unlucky birds stopping along their way from point A to point B.” He shrugged. “Basically, any living creature unlucky enough to be herded into one of their prey lairs.”

  “A prey lair?” Sharon asked.

  “It’s a hole in the ground where they trap living things the old way—camouflage a pit along a game trail. Obviously, since they don’t have a way to store meat, they keep it alive until they’re hungry. As I said, they’re quite resourceful.”

  “That bit of information makes walking through Yěxìng territory seem even more ominous.” Sharon studied their way forward, straining her eyes for any signs of a disguised hole in the ground.

  “Well, my dear, the good news for us is that for all of their resourcefulness, they’re a deeply superstitious people. If one knows how to manipulate them, they’re quite prone to fright. Fear, as you know, is a powerful weapon.” He stuffed the night-vision glasses into his vest pocket.

  “And is that your specialty? Knowing how to scare the living daylights out of the Yěxìng?”

  “Indeed.” He chuckled. “Knowing what gets beneath their skin makes them more fascinating than frightening.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” She held her hand palm up toward an incline. “You ready? Looks like we can climb out here.” Her hand moved to the spectraletto at her side.

  “My advice is to use that only if absolutely necess
ary,” Dr. Elan said. “The sound will bring an army of them.”

  “Good to know. I’ve got something better, then.” She tapped the handle of her hammer tucked in its baldric. “What’s that old saying? Never bring a knife to a gunfight.”

  “Rest assured, the Yěxìng do not have guns. And knives do not run out of bullets.”

  “And, in the case of my hammer, it never runs out of spectral juice, or the gas needed to fire it.”

  “Then I am in very good hands. Shall we check the map?”

  She retrieved the acupalmtell and handed it to him.

  He studied its map and passed it back. “We’re right where we should be.”

  She dropped it into her pocket. “Let’s do this.”

  They carefully climbed out of the canyon and began walking on the soft sand surface toward Boys Town. When they crossed to hard-packed sections where loose sand had blown away, they picked up the pace. Sharon welcomed getting to stretch her legs and burn off nervous energy. The abrupt rise of a hummocky surface—the buried buildings and vehicles of the late town—along with occasional jagged fragments protruding from the sand, told them they were on track.

  Something bright on the ground caught Sharon’s eye. Moonlight hit the object just enough to make it glow a rich yellow. She stopped to study it: a tiny delicate flower that reached toward the light in rebellion against the desert. She lowered herself to a knee and touched it.

  Softly, as if not to disturb the yellow miracle, Dr. Elan said, “The Desert Golden Primrose. Also known as Desert Gold. A rare sight. It’s lovely.”

  Sharon touched the flower and resisted her grief. “Eve,” she whispered. “It reminds me of my wife, Eve.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” She got to her feet and brushed sand from her knee. “Eve used to . . . I mean, Eve says that the one thing she loves almost as much as me are flowers. Seeing it kind of punched me in the gut.” She shook her head and laughed in spite of her misery. “I’m lucky my wife is like a flower in the desert. The whole world could be falling down around her, but she remains. I miss her with every cell in my body.”

  “What a beautiful way to think about your wife.” His voice was soft and empathetic. “Hang on to believing that she will endure.” He touched her arm. “In the meantime, we’ll help you find her.”

  “Thank you.” She searched the shadows ahead. “We’re not far. Maybe four hundred meters.”

  “I’ll follow you. We should avoid talking as we approach.”

  “Okay.” She tugged the cuff of his sleeve. “Stay close, Doc.”

  “I’ll keep you safe,” he whispered, “and you keep me safe.”

  “You got a deal.”

  They continued walking in silence until they came to crumbling pavement. Sharon retrieved the acupalmtell and scrutinized the map. “This has to be the road to the recycling plant, based on our GPS location. We go left here.”

  “Careful as you do,” Dr. Elan reminded her.

  After walking another four hundred meters or so, the shadow of a metal hangar rose in front of them. Half of it, including the bottom section of its double doors, was buried. Sharon returned the acupalmtell to her pocket and started to push sand away with her hands. “I’ll dig. It’s not very deep. You keep watch.”

  “Good plan.” Dr. Elan squinted into the dark.

  Sharon dug until she was able to brush the last of the sand from the bottom of one of the doors. She got up and yanked it open. Lifting her arm, she shined the light on her sleeve into the void. Mounds of cans and plastic debris filled the hangar. “This is it.” She waved him in.

  They shut the door and scurried to dig through the heaps of plastic.

  “I assume we want the thicker stuff, right?” She held up a dented laundry detergent bottle and a scuffed skateboard.

  On his hands and knees, Dr. Elan rifled through the refuse. A strand of gray hair fell over one eye. “Yes, the denser the better. It’ll burn longer.” From the pile he pulled a thick, green object that looked like a doughnut. “Like this.” Holding it up, he explained, “It’s an old O-ring from the hover-tracks the U.S. government built during the War of the Second Crusade.” He opened his sack and tossed it in. “These things will burn for hours.”

  “Got another one.” Sharon dropped a burgundy-colored O-ring into her sack. “There’s a bunch here.” She tossed aside several Diet Coke bottles to reach another O-ring. “I would’ve guessed that it would smell in here, but it doesn’t.”

  “It’s too dry for microorganisms to break down the plastic. That’s why it doesn’t smell.” Dr. Elan tossed a plastic doll’s head over his shoulder. He plucked a black O-ring from the pile. “Oh dear, this is a great find. Let’s gather as many O-rings as we can. They’ll do the trick.”

  “I do feel like my lungs are being desiccated down here.” Sharon flung a vase with a hot-pink plastic flower in it.

  “We’ll both need a couple of liters of water when we get back to the Belostomatid.” Dr. Elan held up an orange shoe with a spiky heel. “This could not have been comfortable.” He dropped it and continued digging.

  “I’d rather poke my eyes out than put those on my feet.” Sharon smiled.

  “I wonder if that was the purpose of that dreadful heel.” Dr. Elan shook his head. “People are interesting creatures.”

  “If you say so, Doc.” Sharon stuffed her sack with another O-ring.

  They continued to dig. The volume and quality of the discarded O-rings made it easy to fill both sacks within minutes. Sharon cinched hers closed and helped Dr. Elan finish filling his.

  “Will this be too heavy for you?” she asked.

  “No, I can do it.”

  She helped him lift his bag, and shrugged hers over a shoulder.

  “That was easier than I thought it’d be.” Sharon pushed the door open. When she crossed the threshold into open air something whacked her on the side of the head. The sting forced her eyes shut. “What the hell was that?” She opened them and noticed a small rock at her feet.

  A clicking sound not unlike crickets, although definitely human, replaced the quiet. She touched her head and felt a swelling bump.

  Dr. Elan emerged from the hangar. “Well, this is an unfortunate circumstance.”

  Sharon reached for her spectraletto.

  “Wait.” Dr. Elan grabbed her elbow. “Don’t. Remember what I said. Make a loud enough noise and you’ll conjure them all.”

  “Why are they making that weird chatter?”

  “They’re trying to frighten us. It harks back to a form of prayer. The method is twofold. They’re asking whatever gods they believe in to help them, and they know it scares the hell out of their adversaries.”

  “I hope you have a plan B, Doc.” Sharon shuffled back as human figures emerged from the shadows. “They don’t look friendly.”

  Men and women who no longer bathed or cut their hair gathered into a small, pungent crowd. They wore remnants of clothing over their genitals, mouths, and noses. Sharon lifted her sleeve, shining the light onto wild faces. Bloodshot eyes framed by scruffy hair stared back at her. Dark, leathery skin sagged in wrinkles. Even the children were shriveled by the sun. A variety of painted religious symbols covered their skin. The clicking from their mouths grew furiously loud. They carried sticks, rocks, and an assortment of repurposed household items as weapons. One held a hubcap at his side like a shield.

  “I count twenty-three,” Sharon said. “And those are just the ones I can see. What do we do?”

  “First, don’t panic.” Dr. Elan lowered his bag of plastic to the ground. “Follow my lead.”

  “All right.” Sharon set her bag next to Dr. Elan’s. Her fingers itched to grab her hammer in one hand and the spectraletto in the other. “Just so you know. I’m pretty good with a hammer.”

  “I have no doubt.” Dr. Elan tugged the hem of her shirt. “The thing is, if you show them that you’re powerful, they’ll keep you around for a while. You’d be viewed by the o
nes who’d eventually overpower us as breeding stock. They’d mate with you before they ate you.”

  “Okay, then.” Sharon relaxed her hands. “Let’s take the hammer off the table for the time being. But let’s be clear, Doc, I don’t intend to be eaten. And I sure as hell am not going to be mated.”

  “Again, I have no doubt. Confidence is healthy. Usually.” He scrunched the hem of her shirt again, but did not let go. “They’re herding us.”

  “What does that mean?” Sharon asked.

  “They expect us to run. They’ve left a path for us to go.” He pointed. “There. That’s where they want us to go. It’ll most likely lead to a prey pit. This is actually a good thing for us.”

  “I don’t mean to be dense, Doc. But how is that a good thing?”

  He let go of her hem and slipped his arm around hers. “Follow me.”

  “To the prey pit?” Sharon asked. “I mean, never mind.”

  “Not to worry. They no longer understand language beyond grunts and hand signals.” He marched forward with Sharon in tow. “As for our plan, the Yěxìng began their transformation to feral during the War of the Second Crusade. They’re stuck in a purgatory of religious beliefs. Universal among them is the superstition that food must not be eaten in the dark.”

  “So that means we’ve got about six hours to figure out how to escape.” Sharon glanced over her shoulder. The ominous clicking followed.

  “Precisely. If they don’t sense that we’re dangerous, they’ll let their guard down.” Dr. Elan patted her wrist. “That’s why, for now, we don’t challenge them.”

  “And because they have us outnumbered by at least ten to one, right?”

  He laughed quietly.

  Sharon felt Dr. Elan shiver next to her. “The desert gets cold at night,” she said.

  “Yes, it does.” He huddled closer to her. “We’ll have each other to keep warm.”

  They continued walking until a large hole in the ground gaped before them. A rusty ladder dipped into it.

  Grunting preceded a harsh shove at Sharon’s back. Dr. Elan stumbled and she caught him by the waist.