by Neil Clarke
Bay shook her head. “No. Your type. You think you’re the first one to wash ashore? To step away from that approximation of life? You’re just the first one who made it alive.”
“If you don’t like the ships, why did you call them to come get me?” Gabby paused. “Or you didn’t. You just wanted me to leave. Why?”
“I can barely feed myself. And you aren’t the type to be satisfied with that life anyhow. Might as well leave now as later.”
“Except I’m probably going to die of this fever because I walked all night in the cold, you psychopath.”
Bay shrugged. “That was your choice.”
They walked in silence for a while. The rock star was either contemplating her choices or too sick to talk.
“Why?” Bay asked, taking pity.
Gabby whipped her head around. “Why what?”
“Why did you sign up for the ship?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Sounds like an epitaph fitting for half the people in this world.”
Gabby gave a half smile, then continued. “New York was a mess, and the Gulf states had just tried to secede. The bookers for the Hollywood Line made a persuasive argument for a glamorous life at sea. Everything was so well planned, too. They bought entire island nations to provide food and fuel.”
“I’m sure the island nations appreciated that,” said Bay.
The other woman gave a wry smile. “I know, right? Fucked up. But they offered good money, and it was obvious no bands would be touring the country for a while.
“At first it was just like any other tour. We played our own stuff. There were women to sleep with, drugs if we wanted them, restaurants and clubs and gyms. All the good parts of touring without the actual travel part. Sleeping in the same bed every night, even if it was still a bunk with my band, like on the bus. But then it didn’t stop, and then they started making us take requests, and it started closing in, you know? If there was somebody you wanted to avoid, you couldn’t. It was hard to find anyplace to be alone to write or think.
“Then the internet went off completely. We didn’t get news from land at all, even when we docked on the islands. They stopped letting us off when we docked. Management said things had gotten real bad here, that there was for real nothing to come back to anymore. The passengers all walked around like they didn’t care, like a closed system, and the world was so fucking far away. How was I supposed to write anything when the world was so far away? The entire world might’ve drowned, and we’d just float around oblivious until we ran out of something that wasn’t even important to begin with. Somebody would freak out because there was no more mascara or ecstasy or rosemary, and then all those beautiful people would turn on each other.”
“So that’s why you jumped?”
Gabby rubbed her head. “Sort of. I guess that also seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“What about now?”
“I could’ve done with a massage when I woke up today, but I’m still alive.”
Bay snorted. “You wouldn’t have lasted two seconds in a massage with that sunburn.”
Gabby looked down at her forearms and winced.
They walked. Gabby was sweating, her eyes bright. Bay slowed her own pace, in an effort to slow the other woman down. “Where are you hurrying to, now that I’ve told you there’s nobody coming after you?”
“You said there was a city out here somewhere. I want to get there before I have to sleep another night on this road. And before I starve.”
Bay reached into a jacket pocket. She pulled out a protein bar and offered it to Gabby.
“Where’d you get that? It looks like the ones I ate in the lifeboat.” “It is.”
Gabby groaned. “I didn’t have to starve those last two days? I could’ve sworn I looked every place.”
“You missed a stash inside the radio console.”
“Huh.”
They kept walking, footsteps punctuated by Gabby’s ragged breath.
“We used to drive out here to picnic on the cliff when my wife and I first got married,” Bay said. “There were always turtles trying to cross. We would stop and help them, because there were teenagers around who thought driving over them was a sport. Now if I saw a turtle I’d probably have to think about eating it.”
“I’ve never eaten a turtle.”
“Me neither. Haven’t seen one in years.”
Gabby stopped. “You know, I have no clue when I last saw a turtle. At a zoo? No clue at all. I wonder if they’re gone. Funny how you don’t realize the last time you see something is going to be the last time.”
Bay didn’t say anything.
The rock star held Deb’s guitar up to her chest, started picking out a repetitive tune as she walked. Same lick over and over, like it was keeping her going, driving her feet. “So when you said you traded things like aluminum foil and people, you were lying to me, right? You don’t trade anything.”
Bay shook her head. “Nobody to trade with.”
“So you’ve been here all alone? You said something about your wife.”
Bay kicked a stone down the road in front of her, kicked it again when she caught up with it.
The rock star handed her the guitar and dropped to the ground. She took off her left shoe, then peeled the sock off. A huge blister was rising on her big toe. “Fuck.”
Bay sighed. “You can use some of the stuffing from your vest to build some space around it.”
Gabby bent to pick a seam.
“No need. There’s a tear in the back. Anyhow, maybe it’s time to stop for the night.”
“Sorry. I saw the tear when you first gave me the vest, but I forgot about it. How far have we traveled?”
“Hard to say. We’re still on the park road.”
“Park road?”
“This is a protected wilderness area. Or it was. Once we hit asphalt, we’re halfway there. Then a little farther to a junction. Left at the Τ used to be vacation homes, but a hurricane took them twenty years ago. Right takes you to the city.”
Gabby groaned. She squinted at the setting sun. “Not even halfway.”
“But you’re still alive, and you’re complaining about a blister, not the cough or the sunburn.”
“I didn’t complain.”
“I don’t see you walking any farther, either.” Bay dropped her knapsack and untied a sleeping bag from the bottom.
“I don’t suppose you have two?”
Bay gave Gabby her most withering look. What kind of fool set out on this walk sick and unprepared? Then again, she had been the one who had driven the woman out, too afraid to interact with an actual person instead of the ghosts in her head.
“We’ll both fit,” she said. “Body heat’ll keep us warm, too.”
It was warmer than if they hadn’t shared, lying back to back squeezed into the sleeping bag. Not as warm as home, if she hadn’t set out to follow. The cold still seeped into her. Bay felt every inch of her left side, as if the bones themselves were in contact with the ground. Aware, too, of her back against the other woman, of the fact that she couldn’t remember the last time she had come in physical contact with a living person. The heat of Gabby’s fever burned through the layers of clothing, but she still shivered.
“Why are you living out there all alone?” Gabby asked.
Bay considered pretending she was asleep, but then she wanted to answer. “I said already we used to picnic out here, my wife and I. We always said this was where we’d spend our old age. I’d get a job as a ranger, we’d live out our days in the ranger’s cabin. I pictured having electricity, mind.”
She paused. She felt the tension in the other woman’s back as she suppressed a cough. “Debra was in California on a business trip when everything started going bad at a faster rate than it’d been going bad before. We never even found out what it was that messed up the electronics. Things just stopped working. We’d been living in a high-rise. I couldn’t stay in our building with no
heat or water, but we couldn’t contact each other, and I wanted to be someplace Debra would find me. So when I didn’t hear from her for three months, I packed what I thought I might need into some kid’s wagon I found in the lobby and started walking. I knew she’d know to find me out here if she could.”
“How bad was it? The cities? We were already on the ship.”
“I can only speak for the one I was living in, but it wasn’t like those scare movies where everyone turns on one another. People helped each other. We got some electricity up and running again in a couple weeks’ time, on a much smaller scale. If anything, I’d say we had more community than we’d ever had. But it didn’t feel right for me. I didn’t want other people; I wanted Deb.”
“They told us people were rioting and looting. Breaking into mansions, moving dozens of people in.”
“Would you blame them? Your passengers redirected all the gas to their ships and abandoned perfectly good houses. But again, I can only speak to what I saw, which was folks figuring out the new order and making it work as best they could.”
Gabby stayed silent for a while, and Bay started to drift. Then one more question. “Did Debra ever find you? I mean I’m guessing no, but …”
“No. Now let me sleep.”
—
Inside the Music: Tell us what happened.
Gabby Robbins: You know what happened. There is no you anymore. No reality television, no celebrity gossip, no music industry. Only an echo playing itself out on the ships and in the heads of those of us who can’t quite let it go.
—
Bay was already out of the sleeping bag when I woke. She sat on a rock playing a simple fingerpicking pattern on her guitar.
“I thought you didn’t play,” I called to her.
“Never said that. Said I’m a lousy singer, but didn’t say anything about playing the guitar. We should get moving. I’d rather get to the city earlier than late.”
I stood up and stretched, letting the sleeping bag pool around my feet. The sun had only just risen, low and red. I could hear water lapping on both sides now, beyond a thick growth of brush. I coughed so deep it bent me in two.
“Why are you in a hurry?” I asked when I could speak.
She gave me a look that probably could have killed me at closer range. “Because I didn’t bring enough food to feed both of us for much longer, and you didn’t bring any. Because I haven’t been there in years and I don’t know if they shoot strangers who ride in at night.”
“Oh.” There wasn’t much to say to that, but I tried anyway. “So basically you’re putting yourself in danger because I put myself in danger because you made me think I was in danger.”
“You put yourself in danger in the first place by jumping off your damn boat.”
True. I sat back down on the sleeping bag and inspected my foot. The blister looked awful. I nearly wept as I packed vest-stuffing around it.
I stood again to indicate my readiness, and she walked back over. She handed me the guitar, then shook out the sleeping bag, rolled it, and tied it to her pack. She produced two vaguely edible-looking sticks from somewhere on her person. I took the one offered to me.
I sniffed it. “Fish jerky?”
She nodded.
“I really would’ve starved out here on my own.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thank you. I mean it. I’d never have guessed I’d have to walk so long without finding anything to eat.”
“There’s plenty to eat, but you don’t know where to look. You could fish if you had gear. You might find another crab. And there are bugs. Berries and plants, too, in better seasons, if you knew what to look for.”
As we walked she meandered off the road to show me what was edible. Cattail roots, watercress. Neither tasted fantastic raw, but chewing took time and gave an excuse to walk slower.
“I’m guessing you were a city kid?” she asked.
“Yeah. Grew up in Detroit. Ran away when I was sixteen to Pittsburgh because everyone else ran away to New York. Put together a decent band, got noticed. When you’re a good bass player, people take you out. I’d release an album with my band, tour that, then tour with Gaga or Trillium or some flavor of the month.”
I realized that was more than she had asked for, but she hadn’t told me to shut up yet, so I kept going. “The funny thing about being on a ship with all those celebrities and debutantes is how much attention they need. They throw parties or they stage big collapses and recoveries. They produce documentaries about themselves, upload to the ship entertain ment systems. They act as audience for each other, taking turns with their dramas.
“I thought they’d treat me as a peer, but then I realized I was just a hired gun and they all thought they were bigger deals than me. There were a few other entertainers who realized the same thing and dropped down to the working decks to teach rich kids to dance or sing or whatever. I hung onto the idea longer than most that my music still meant something. I still kinda hope so.”
A coughing spell turned me inside out.
“That’s why you took my guitar?” Bay asked when I stopped gagging.
“Yeah. They must still need music out here, right?”
“I’d like to think so.”
I had something else to say, but a change in the landscape up ahead distracted me. Two white towers jutted into the sky, one vertical, the other at a deep curve. “That’s a weird looking bridge.”
Bay picked up her pace. I limped after her. As we got closer, I saw the bridge wasn’t purposefully skewed. The tower on the near end still stood, but the road between the two had crumbled into the water. Heavy cables trailed from the far tower like hair. We walked to the edge, looked down at the concrete bergs below us, then out at the long gap to the other side. Bay sat down, her feet dangling over the edge.
I tried to keep things light. “I didn’t realize we were on an island.”
“Your grasp of geography hasn’t proven to be outstanding.”
“How long do you think it’s been out?”
“How the hell should I know?” she snapped.
I left her to herself and went exploring. When I returned, the tears that smudged her face looked dry.
“It must’ve been one of the hurricanes. I haven’t been out here in years.” Her tone was dry and impersonal again. “Just goes to show, sooner or later everything falls into the sea.”
“She didn’t give up on you,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
I was quiet a minute. Tried to see it all from her eyes. “Anyway, I walked around. You can climb down the embankment. It doesn’t look like there’s much current. Maybe a mile’s swim?”
She looked up at me. “A mile’s swim, in clothes, in winter, with a guitar. Then we still have to walk the rest of the way, dripping wet. You’re joking.”
“I’m not joking. I’m only trying to help.”
“There’s no way. Not now. Maybe when the water and the air are both warmer.”
She was probably right. She’d been right about everything else. I sat down next to her and looked at the twisted tower. I tried to imagine what Detroit or Pittsburgh was like now, if they were all twisted towers and broken bridges, or if newer, better communities had grown, like the one Bay had left.
“I’ve got a boat,” I said. “There’s no fuel but you have an oar on your wall. We can line it full of snacks when the weather is better, and come around the coast instead of over land.”
“If I don’t kill you before then. You talk an awful lot.”
“But I can play decent guitar,” I said. “And I found a crab once, so I’m not entirely useless.”
“Not entirely,” she said.
—
Inside the Music: Tell us what happened.
Gabby Robbins: I was nearly lost, out on the ocean, but somebody rescued me. It’s a different life, a smaller life. I’m writing again. People seem to like my new stuff.
—
>
Bay took a while getting to her feet. She slung her bag over her shoulder, and waited while Gabby picked up Deb’s guitar. She played as they walked back toward Bay’s cottage, some little riff Bay didn’t recognize. Bay made up her own words to it in her head, about how sooner or later everything falls into the sea, but some things crawl back out again and turn into something new.
Margaret Ronald is the author of the Hunt series (Spiral Hunt, Wild Hunt, and Soul Hunt) as well as a number of short stories. Originally from rural Indiana, she now lives outside Boston. This story is dedicated to her parents.
AND THEN, ONE DAY, THE AIR
WAS FULL OF VOICES
Margaret Ronald
It’s near the end of the first day of the conference when Randall shows up. I’m in the middle of the “End of a Zeitgeist” panel, waiting for one of the other panelists to wind up an interminable digression about SETI, when I see him at the back of the room, checking his glass. I meet his eyes, just long enough to acknowledge that he’s there, and he nods. He’s wearing a badge; he must have paid the money for a one-day pass, even though he can’t stand Coronal academics and the fringe element even less. Got enough of one from me, and enough of the other from Wallace, I’d guess.
The other panelist—I’ve forgotten his name—isn’t winding up, and because he’s remoting in he doesn’t notice the moderator casting irritated glances at him. “The mistake we’ve always made, it seems to me, is that we have always assumed that communication must be the same no matter whether human or xenosapient. The Corona Borealis informational space proved the exact opposite.”
“That isn’t exactly true,” I interrupt. The panelist blinks; he must have assumed that I was zoning out. Safe assumption, these days. “The actual transmissions found in Coronal infospace are remarkably similar to what you’d find in a thirty-year slice of human broadcast media—in fact, what we find in most recorded communication: lists, transactions, announcements, stories. The context is different, but the content is similar. It was the method that was opaque.”