After a long time, hours, maybe, someone touched her shoulder.
“Mrs. Ortey?”
She looked up. Her eyes had been closed. In another minute, she might have lain back across the foot of the bed and slept there.
A man stood over her, a portly black man with sad eyes and a cleanly shaven face. He wore a white doctor’s smock, and sweat had stained the underarms. “Mrs. Ortey?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said, whispering.
“I’m Doctor Armstrong. I’m the psychiatrist here at the clinic. Would you like to come to my office?”
She looked down at Tommy but he did not stir. She got up and followed the psychiatrist without saying a word. It was a long walk down the hall and up another to his office, a little cubicle with a buzzing neon light and a single window looking out on a dirty brick wall just two meters away. The psychiatrist offered her coffee and she gladly accepted.
“You’re from down south, end of the old five.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You lost your home, your whole town, your son told me.”
“Not the whole town. Some of us are still left. We’re the crazy holdouts who can’t leave our land, even if it is underwater. We just love the sea and the ’Glades too much.”
The doctor nodded. “Tommy has fond memories of his childhood. His memory is better than some of the people I see here who took rewrite.”
“And what’s the matter with him now? What is it you want to do?”
“I don’t want to do anything.” He sighed. “I mean, I’m not in a position to do anything. Please understand; I’m a community medicine doctor. We’re a clinic for patients that the hospitals won’t take, including a lot of psychiatric patients. Your son landed on our doorstep. I’ve done my best to stabilize him. But I can’t help him. The only thing that I know of that might help him is a course of properly tuned biogenetic machine implants.”
“More machines,” she said bitterly.
He nodded. “I know how you feel. I’ve seen other patients like him. He started with the drugs—I mean, lots of drugs, right, not just rewrite?”
“He thought they were going to make him smarter,” Tara said. “He started when he was a teenager. ‘Mom,’ he said, ‘I wanna code and if you code you gotta compete with every kid in China, you gotta compete against every kid in India, and there are millions of them, not to mention all the white kids in California, and every one is taking the brainhacks, they’re taking the enhancers.’ So he started on the drugs, different drugs. But he never really worked at his computer again. The drugs ruined him.”
The doctor nodded. “We saw a lot of patients with the side effects from rewrite and the other early mental-enhancement drugs: memory loss, tardive dyskinesia, and worse.”
“He got the wires next,” she said. “He thought that would fix the damage of the drugs and also make him smarter. He spent all day reading internet posts from hundreds of programmers who claimed the wires had made them lightning-fast thinkers.”
The psychiatrist nodded. “But the wires caused acquired epilepsy.”
He’d had this conversation before, Tara realized. But she could not help but feel a small satisfaction to get it all out, to someone who understood. The doctor’s sad eyes fixed on her, pleading that she continue.
“So, then he got the machines,” she said.
“Microrobotic neural control units.”
“I paid for it. Spent my entire 401(k). Everything I had left.”
“I’m very sorry,” he said.
“Well, it didn’t work.”
“It worked,” he said. “Your son has had no seizures, he tells me. And I believe him: He’s had no seizures here, as far as we can tell. But after a year or more, a significant number of the patients with the neural control units develop Parkinson’s-like symptoms and some ataxia symptoms because the units begin to interfere with the striatum and the cerebellum.”
She nodded.
“There is no known treatment,” the doctor said. “But there is a possibility. A clinic is experimenting with a new kind of neural control unit. Smaller, faster, less harmful. They are actually mostly grown out of organic molecules. I mean, out of, well, molecules that—”
“I was a bioengineer,” she interrupted.
“Sorry. You never know what’s clear, what’s not. So, these new units can be used to disassemble, in place, the implants he currently has. Then they take over their function in a reduced and, supposedly, less harmful way.”
“And if he doesn’t get it?”
“He’s getting worse. His speech functions have started to fail just in the last twenty-four hours. It looks likely that the damage will soon impede autonomic function.”
“He’ll stop breathing, you mean.”
The doctor nodded.
“How did we get here?” she said, looking out his window at the bleak wall beyond. In the cramped office, that view was worse than if there had been no window. It seemed to say, There is nowhere to go. No future.
“Mrs. Ortey?”
“How did we get on this rat race?”
The doctor sighed. “When I went to medical school, I imagined that I would work in a clinic like this, and I would cure people, people from neighborhoods like my own. But really, much of the time, it seems I just . . . move them a little farther down their road. One drug has this side effect, so we switch to another drug, and then another. Some treatment does such-and-such damage, so we add this other additional treatment to fix that and find yet more side effects. I wish I could make your son a boy again, before he ever started down this road. But I can’t. No one can.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She came prepared to fight. But this man was not one of the corporate drones that she’d met in every one of the clinics, their humanity completely consumed by greed, their every sentence a PowerPoint bullet meant to sell the idea. Faced with human decency, her resistance failed completely.
“How much would it cost?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, but because it’s experimental, the state won’t help.”
“It’s always experimental,” she said. “How much?”
She held her breath and he named a huge number.
* * * *
She got back to Daytona Beach late that evening, ate a stale bagel at the station’s dreary coffee shop, and then bought a ticket on the night train. She waited hours outside, watching the moon creep overhead, until the train came out of the dark, pushing dirty air and drawing so much power, the lights all around her flickered. Again, she found a seat against the window. Face pressed against the cool glass, she managed to sleep the two hours till sunrise.
When she leaned back, her joints creaked and cracked, sore from sleeping all hunched up. Outside, there was only water. She was nearly home.
She logged into the train’s internet, put on her net glasses, and began a search of municipal filings and SEC filings. It took her only minutes to prove her suspicions.
She took the lawyer’s business card from her pocket and touched it to her phone. It rang only once before the lawyer answered, “This is Kelly.”
“Ms. Lucy, this is Tara Ortey.”
“Mayor Ortey,” she said, her voice becoming forced with brightness.
“I’ve been doing some research.”
“Yes.”
“And I see that you have a project five miles northeast of us.”
“Yes. We have several projects underway.”
“Just that one, as far as I can tell. But you have filings to represent several hundred households in the areas south and west of us.”
“Yes.” She sounded wary now.
“A straight line from our location to the nearest train station at the Big Bridge would go right through the other island you’re making. If you organized some land swaps and then made our island big—big enough for hundreds of homes—you could convince the state to run a spur to the island.”
Silence hung on the other end of the line.
“
You need us to agree, however,” she said. “We get say over what is done with our land, even if we won’t own all of it after you make the island.”
Still the silence hung. Tara pictured the lawyer calculating furiously, wondering what she could say or deny without endangering their plans.
“My town will have another vote,” Tara said. “It’s inevitable. What I want from you is a bonus to my people.”
“A bonus?” She could not help keep the sound of relief from her voice.
“They’ll still vote, understand. I can’t say how that vote will go. But I want this in writing. A payment to each household if you build the island.”
“How much would you consider . . . equitable?”
Tara named a number. The same number that the doctor had quoted her for Tommy’s treatment.
“That’s a lot of money.”
“It would be for us. But not for you, not for your kind of people, Ms. Lucy. Not at all.”
“I’ll need time to discuss this. To make a counteroffer.”
“No counteroffer. That’s the amount. Take it or leave it.”
She hung up.
* * * *
The barge listed as the entire town all gathered on one side. People slapped at mosquitos and talked in voices that they tried and failed to keep hushed. But silence fell when Tara spoke up.
“Excuse me!” she called. “Excuse me!”
Everyone turned and faced her. She stood in one corner with the dark southeastern sky behind her. The smooth water reflected the first stars of evening.
She looked out at the faces. These were people she knew for many years now. Their children—children she had watched grow—pushed to the front and stared up at her; even they gave her their attention for a minute, though she knew they’d slip away soon to go chase each other across the deck.
“We had our debate about what to do, and I thought it was ended. But the company has come with a new offer, so it seems we need to reconsider. You’ve all seen the maps.”
“I haven’t!” shouted Bess Howe from the back of the crowd.
“Well,” Tara shouted back. “Go inside and look in a minute. Patsy will show you. Now, most of you have seen the maps, the plans. They want to make an island here. A big island.”
“And money,” Paul Cosby shouted. He was Pat’s husband, and Pauly’s father, a big man who still fished and somehow managed to find fish.
“That’s right, Paul. I managed to get them to promise some extra money.”
“A lot of money,” Grace murmured from the front of the crowd. And somehow, her voice carried. Others nodded and murmured in agreement.
“Yes,” Tara agreed. “They agreed to a lot of money. This is relatively high land here. Besides, you know the rules: Around here, if you abandon your land, it goes to the National Park. And most folks have abandoned their land. So, the company needs our land, and they need us to support some complicated land swap deals too before they can build.”
She took a deep breath. “It’s up to you all, of course. But here’s what I want to say. Mayor’s prerogative, I get to talk first.
“I’m going to suggest we vote no.” She let that hang in the air.
“But the money,” someone called. “You forced them. . . .”
“Yes. I’d like money too, you know. But . . . Well, all I can do is repeat what I said before. When we voted before.”
She turned slightly to face southwest. The sky was mostly dark, the sun a flattened red orb near the horizon. She gestured over the water. “We got ourselves—I mean everyone, all of us, the whole world—we got ourselves in this mess by rushing ahead with things that we knew couldn’t last. At any time, we could have stopped, found a better way to live—slower, maybe, and less easy, okay, but better. We could have saved Florida, and Bangladesh, and all the other places that are sunk now.
“Well, in that sense, nothing has changed. We can choose to live better now or just keep trying to fix things after they get worse. The Everglades are coming back here. The mangroves are coming south. We could live in this place, in a way that won’t make things worse. The new prefab elevated houses are strong—with solar roofs and walls tough enough to take a wave right against them, and with their own desalination plants. They’ll work. It wouldn’t be an easy life. But it would be a life that could last.
“Or . . . Or we could live here in a way that’s easier now, for a while, but that will require a bigger fix later, down the road. Because how long is any island going to last? A decade? Five years? They’ll be back dredging every year, trying to restore the sand that the winter tides take away.
“I say, let’s stick with our plan. Let’s say no to this company, and find another company, and do it right.” She dropped her hands so that they slapped against her thighs, a clear sign she was finished.
The people started talking all at once, first in a murmur, but the conversations soon rose to a roar. Tara did not stop them; she did not demand that they have a formal debate. There were only fifty-five of them. They could talk amongst themselves for an hour, even two, before she called order. She stepped back and let them talk.
The voting started at midnight. Pat passed around squares of scrap paper she’d cut up for ballot slips, and she told everyone, “Write ‘YES’ if you want to build the island and take the money! Write ‘NO’ if you want to stick with our original plan, and get new houses, up on pillars, brought out here!”
“Which one is no?” someone shouted. Pat moved into the crowd, passing out ballots, repeating herself.
It took only a few minutes for people to vote, and then twenty minutes for Pat to count and Grace to double-check her addition, the two of them huddled under a little LED lamp at a picnic table set out on the deck.
“Twenty-seven yes,” Pat said quietly.
“What?” someone shouted.
“Twenty-seven yeses!” she called. “And twenty-seven nos!”
They had lit torches, and the moon was up and nearly full. Tara could see all the eyes turn toward her.
“It’s up to you, Tara,” Grace said. “The mayor has to make the tie-breaking vote.”
Tara held her breath. The phone on her wrist began to buzz, buzz, buzz.
* * * *
Tara and Emma got back home very late. Emma lay asleep in the back of the boat, and after Tara tied to the house, she lifted Emma up to the deck, where the girl stood, wobbling and half conscious. The tide had only just started to retreat, so it was still high, and Tara took a single step up to the deck. She lifted Emma into her arms. She walked to the back of the house, not turning on any lights but feeling her way.
But when she stepped into Emma’s bedroom, her feet splashed on the floor. There was an inch of seawater in the room. She cursed and carried Emma to her own room. She laid the girl on her bed, pulled off her shoes, and climbed in next to her.
Emma snuggled up against her. A wave of relief rushed through Tara. Emma had been so angry with her when she’d come home. Grace had told Tara how the girl had waited, phone in hand, all the previous day. But Tara had never called to put Tommy on the line.
How could I? Tara thought. How could I show her that? Her father shriveled up, legs as thin as an egret’s, arms shaking, barely able to talk. So Tara had told Emma that it was not good to wake sick people when they were asleep. Somehow, Emma had known she was lying.
Now all seemed forgiven. “Will we get our house tomorrow?” Emma whispered.
“No, not tomorrow, honey,” Tara said. “They’re going to come very soon, though, with huge barges and big machines. They’re going to make an island, a big island, and put our house on that. You can run, like other kids, on the sand.”
“Will we still have a boat?”
“Yes,” Tara whispered. “We’ll have a boat parked by the beach. You can take it out whenever you want.”
“Will Tommy come? Will my daddy live with us?”
Tara hesitated a long while, staring into the dark. Finally, she said, “I don’t know,
honey. He’s got to go to a special doctor for a while. Then, well, we’ll see.”
“Why doesn’t he live with us, Gramma?”
“Your father . . . he had an illness, and they fixed that a little, but then another illness came from that, and then another, and he just runs ahead, just races a few steps ahead of the last disease. That takes all his time. Like how some people with a house by the water, they just keep moving their house back, and then back again, while the water keeps coming closer and closer. You see? Your father—he’s racing the tide.”
Emma’s soft breath told Tara that the girl had fallen asleep. Tara felt the exhaustion of her trip sink down in her. She could sleep for days. For a week. Of course, she had to make calls to doctors, get second opinions, and then call that psychiatrist; she had to do a hundred other things, but tomorrow. After she slept.
But sleep did not come. As the soft light of dawn seeped into the room, she lay with her eyes open, listening. Somewhere, a fish splashed. An engine puttered alive and then disappeared in the distance—Paul Cosby heading southwest to his fishing grounds. Atop a nearby house, two gulls began to screech at each other. Other gulls took up the chorus. And through it all, water gurgled around the support beams beneath her house as the sea pulled away from their little village. The tide was retreating. For a little while.
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CRAIG DELANCEY is a writer and philosopher. He has published dozens of short stories in magazines like Analog, Cosmos, Shimmer, The Mississippi Review Online, and Nature Physics. His novel Gods of Earth is available now with 47North Press. He also writes plays, many of which have received staged readings and performances in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, and elsewhere. His stories have also appeared in translation in Russia and China, and his writing has garnered numerous awards. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, he now makes his home in upstate New York and, in addition to writing, teaches philosophy at Oswego State, part of the State University of New York (SUNY).
THE MUTANT STAG AT HORN CREEK
SARAH K. CASTLE
I remember when I first saw it. Those were damn good days. Maybe the best, but I was younger then.
Loosed Upon the World Page 47