Message sent, I pick my way back across the lake before it get too deep again. Daniel be waiting for me without a word to say for once. I hustle him back over the wall and we continue on to Mr. Go.
• • •
DANIEL PAUSED AND PLACED A HAND ON THE tree in front of him.
INQUIRY: Analyze compound sample.
RESPONSE: Desiccated live oak.
INQUIRY: Contaminants?
RESPONSE: High concentration of sodium nitrate.
Like the other live oaks he had seen, this one was tall, spreading its branches overhead in an umbrella canopy that blocked the sky. But instead of the gray-green spread of leaves and hairlike Spanish moss draped in their boughs, the tops of these trees were reddish brown, bleeding into a dry, powdery orange shade that faded to dun at the roots. In spite of everything, he could not quell his curiosity about this place.
After leaving the lake, they had wound their way silently through neighborhoods of crumbled buildings and wild greenery, and now this forsaken bit of woodland. All of the trees were orange, rising improbably out of the marshy earth. To Daniel, it seemed like they were standing in a forest of rust.
“What is this place?” he asked her. Fen was already foraging ahead along some unseen route through the mucky forest floor. Her narrow shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.
“A place, like any other.”
She paused by a tree made even more distinctive by the hole in its trunk and dropped something inside.
“But the trees?”
Fen looked at him, one hand cradling the baby’s bottom, the other at her shoulder, thumb tucked into the sling. “Boy, didn’t you ever hear curiosity killed the cat?”
Daniel half smiled beneath his encounter suit. It was a good warning for him.
“What did you just do there?” he asked, nodding toward the tree.
“What did I say about the cat?” she shot back, moving forward again.
Daniel grimaced. “Strike that.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t. “Smuggler drop. Leave a note, they pick it up, get you what you want.”
Daniel’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Does it work?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“What did you ask for?”
“A home for Baby Girl,” I say. “That about all I want. A good home.”
Daniel followed in silence a moment longer, but found he couldn’t help himself. “Why are the trees covered in rust?”
“You the one with the fancy datalink, you tell me,” Fen said.
“I think it’s got something to do with the water here,” Daniel guessed. He sniffed the air, splortching forward through the soft mud. “It’s briny. Like seawater. Like maybe there was a breach in the levees and the water from the Gulf came up too far and killed the trees.”
“Maybe, tourist. You got all the answers,” Fen muttered.
Daniel hurried to catch up with her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said.
Fen didn’t look at him. “I ain’t upset.”
Daniel slowed his pace and let her go back to leading him. He didn’t want to aggravate her. Instead, he turned to the trees, wondering at the flaking lacework of brittle, fire-colored branches beneath the pale blue sky. Such a strange place to live. He thought back to the men on horseback, swirling and chanting, waving their torches in the air. Yes, the Delta was dangerous, but it was still very much alive.
Ever since the Separation, the Outer States had been decaying. Back home, riots were more common than parades, protests over food and clean water. Torches were used to firebomb empty storefronts rather than light the night. Yes, there were still schools and grocery stores and amusement parks in the States, buildings without trees growing through their roofs. The Outer States had almost everything that Orleans didn’t. But the Delta still lived on.
32
THIS BOY BE DRIVING ME CRAZY. I REACH UP to tug at my braids but they ain’t there. Traded for this fool’s life. I shake my head. No point in regrets. Even with all his questions and jabbering, Daniel done put his neck out for me like nobody but Lydia’d ever do. And now I be doing it for him, too. I look down at Baby Girl dozing in my arms and wonder if being a baby mama making me soft. But I know we wouldn’t have made it this far without him.
We leave the dead forest and move into greenery again. Ain’t far now. I smell the water before I see it, heavy with salt and dead leaves. Mr. Go’s bayou be just up ahead. The woods around us be quiet, the sun softer as it head to the horizon. I wait and listen. This ain’t nobody’s territory, which make it everybody’s. I scan the trees, but we alone.
“This is the same river?” Daniel ask.
“Same as what?”
“The Mississippi. That the hunters took us across.”
I shake my head. The wind around my hacked hair feel strange and I take a minute to run a hand over my head again.
“We got more rivers than land these days,” I say. “But this ain’t part of the old river. It be Mr. Go’s bayou.”
I stop and point ahead. The river ain’t more than thirty yards across here, and in the middle of the water be a lemon-shaped bunker with the river flowing fast around either side. The roof covered in baby trees like the ones close to shore for camouflage. It be hard to find if you don’t know what you be looking for. But I do.
I walk over to a tree stump a few feet from the shore. It be wide enough for one person to sit on. But it ain’t for sitting. I knock on the pale exposed surface of the inner wood and Daniel’s jaw drop for the second time today.
“Who’s that knocking at my door?” a man’s voice say from the stump.
“Fen,” I say.
“And who’s that with you, Fenny Fen Fen?” Daniel be looking around for cameras, I guess.
I lean toward the stump. “A friend.”
Suddenly, the water level drop, like Moses parting the Red Sea, ’til the canal bed be damp, but not dry. I scramble down the bank and across the mucky river bottom, Baby Girl in my arms and Daniel right behind me. Together we scale the mound of land in the middle of the river, like a beaver’s dam, where Mr. Go make his home.
The minute we top the sloping walls of the island, the protective waters swirl back into place. Mr. Go designed the canal, and I see Daniel be impressed. I lead him around to a set of stairs and a doorway that weren’t visible from shore. The door slide open and Mr. Go be standing there, smiling.
“Welcome,” he say, his square teeth bright in his mahogany face. Mr. Go’s hair be almost as white as his teeth, but streaked with gray, in a springy bush that be higher on top than the sides. If I ain’t careful, my hair be looking like his soon.
Dressed in a pale gray tunic and loose pants, he make Daniel and me look sloppy in our dirty clothes. Daniel peek around me, trying to look inside. Mr. Go smile even wider.
“Please, come in. Make yourselves at home.”
“Home” be a massive greenhouse dense with life. It run the length of two hogans and be full of fruits, vegetables, trees, and flowers. The old man point to a funny set of white wrought-iron chairs and a small table holding a wooden tray of food. “Fen, I see you’ve brought a smuggler with you,” he say. “And, is that a child?”
“This one been a help,” I tell him, with a nod toward Daniel, who look surprised. Telling him about Baby Girl gone be a bigger conversation. Mr. Go give me one of his studying looks. He know I’m stalling, but he let me.
“I’m sure he has,” he say smoothly. “Please, have a seat, sir.” He point to the table. “I know I have some bottled water and packaged food here somewhere, if you are tired of your nutrient packs. I assure you it is quite safe in here without your suit on.” He point to the plants—banana trees with they upside-down bouquets of fruit, sweet potato vines snaking along the wall, tomatoes, roses, and a dozen other kinds of flowers, fruits, and vegetables in these first few yards. “You see, the flora in here acts as a filter for the toxins in the water. The first generation cleansed and the next purified. M
y garden is fourth generation now, and purely hydroponic.” He show Daniel the roots of the plants, rising out of glass basins, roots like white worms in a swamp. “Quite independent of the outside world. Quite safe.”
“Thank you,” Daniel say in his filtered voice, but he don’t remove his mask.
“As you wish.” Mr. Go give him a little bow and take a seat. “At least sit with me. I haven’t dined yet. And Fen, you certainly are welcome to eat your fill. Then you can tell me about your little companion and what brings you here today.”
“Can I use your bathroom first?” I ask. I ain’t got a suit like Daniel, but I didn’t want to stop with evening coming on. And I ain’t talking to Mr. Go about Lydia until I’m straight. I see Daniel looking at me and Mr. Go, like he trying to figure something out, but that can wait.
“No need to stand on formality here, Fen,” Mr. Go say, taking a bite of sliced mango. It sure smell good and sweet to me, but that can wait, too. “We’re old friends. Please.” He wave me down the long hall before turning his full attention to his meal.
• • •
DANIEL STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM, uncertain what to do once Fen was gone. Things tended to go badly when she wasn’t around. Stupid, Daniel. All of the danger they had faced and now he was afraid of a smiling old man. An old Orleanian who had no record of existing.
“Mr. Go is not your real name,” Daniel said.
Mr. Go wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin. “No, it’s not.”
“Um . . . my name is Daniel,” he offered belatedly, and slowly pulled out a chair across from the other man.
“Daniel, a pleasure,” Mr. Go said, not accepting Daniel’s proffered gloved hand. He indicated the fruit juice on his own hands and gave an apologetic shrug. “I’d rather not make a mess of things,” he said. “Daniel. A good name, by the way. Strong. It means God is my judge, like Daniel and the lions’ den.”
Daniel laughed, an odd burst of static through the suit’s filters. “That’s what Fen said.”
“Ah, that’s because Fen was a student of mine years ago. It’s good to know she remembers the old stories.”
“A student?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, I should introduce myself properly. My Christian name is Simeon Wells. I hail from Chicago, Illinois, in the Outer States of America. I used to work for the Department of Agriculture. This would have been before you were born, before the great storms, even before Katrina.” He wiped the juices from his mouth with his napkin, then folded it in half to draw his knife through, wiping it clean. “And then after the storm years, I joined the Army Corps of Engineers.”
Placing his napkin down, he selected an apple from a bowl on the table, and methodically sliced it into wedges, scooping the seeds from the core as he continued. “The people here affectionately call me Mr. Go because I helped redesign this canal we are sitting in. It drains the surrounding areas the way the original Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, or MRGO, was meant to.”
“It was supposed to drain off floodwaters,” Daniel said.
“Indeed it was. A miracle of modern engineering. But it failed in Katrina, burst like an aneurysm, flooding the surrounding area with raging toxic waters. So we widened this bayou before the Two Sisters struck, hoping to hold off the lake water from the north. As they say, history will teach us nothing. It proved the fatal blow.” He chewed thoughtfully on a piece of apple, his eyes distant, seeing the past. After a moment, he started and came back to himself with a chuckle. He poured some honey onto his plate from a small jar. “But it makes a good home. I keep bees here, too, Daniel. I shall have to show you the apiary. They make germinating the plants so much easier.”
“Bees?” Daniel repeated. “But honeybees are extinct.”
It was one of the reasons for the riots back home and the slow migration of people on the freeways, fleeing the countryside in search of jobs and food. Daniel had assumed the honey on Mr. Go’s plate was synthetic. The man expected him to believe it was real?
Mr. Go gave him an amused smile. “Not here, Daniel, not in the Delta. You see”—he mopped up some of the honey with a piece of apple—“despite our failings, the Delta is the Promised Land. The land of milk and, quite literally, honey.” The golden syrup dripped from the white and red apple slice, forming viscous tears as it fell to the plate and coated Mr. Go’s fingers. Daniel hadn’t had real honey since he was a small boy. His mouth watered and he licked his lips. The suit responded by recycling his saliva away.
“I hate to waste it,” Mr. Go said by way of apology, and tilted his head beneath the fruit, eating it whole, licking his fingers afterward.
“In some ways, by killing New Orleans, it seems we have saved it,” he theorized. “Now, I am no saint, and indeed when I moved to Orleans before the Wall went up, I knew what the government had planned. I simply could not let them seal the Delta off without trying, trying to fix what went wrong.” For a moment, a look of pained anger flashed across the weathered old face, and Mr. Go stopped to sip some water before he continued.
“To understand Orleans today, you must understand what happened in the beginning, son. In 2005, 2015, 2018. The chain of events that led to the downfall of the greatest city in the greatest nation on earth. Don’t believe for a minute that the rest of the United States has survived any of this deep tragedy. Oh no, for we are no longer a nation. There is the Delta on the one hand, and the Outer States of America on the other.” He tapped the table with the edge of either hand as he spoke. “As our great president Abraham Lincoln knew, a house divided cannot stand. We are divided, young Daniel, and so your homeland dies, while ours flourishes, and yet we die, too, every day, for want of the things your world could provide. The land of milk and honey, Daniel. What will it take for them to see it?
“We are the offspring of our own making; the way a potato vine can self-propagate into a mirror image of itself, so have we done. And that was New Orleans before the Wall, and that is the Outer States and Orleans now. Our children are thieves and murderers first by necessity, then by a self-determined sense of right. Where is the rule of law? After the first storm, Rita, there was looting, even without making landfall in the city. Then came Katrina, and when New Orleans was still on her knees, her children were killing one another. Killing out of petty dispute and personal gain when they should have been helping one another, lifting one another up, raising their city, their mother, out of the muck and the mire and rebuilding her anew.
“Is it any wonder that Orleans is a wasteland today? As much as Nature takes back and rebuilds, it is in her own image, and not those of the people of New Orleans. And the ones who survive, no better than vampires, waging war against one another for blood in order to live another day. What is a day in the life of a live oak tree, Daniel? What is one human day in the life of an ecosystem? Nothing. And still, we cannot see.”
He looked sad then, and patted Daniel on the knee. “You can’t build a future when no one lives to be older than fifty-five.”
Daniel paused, unsure how to reply to the old man’s sudden outburst. “Fen said you are the oldest man in the Delta.” Except for Warren Abernathy James, he thought. Not that the scientist in his chemically sustained twilight could truly be called alive.
Mr. Go stood up. “I am an anomaly. I live here for the protections it gives me, and I hold these plants, these life-forms, in trust for the Delta, for the world. This is Noah’s Ark,” he said with a smile, and walked over to a gardening table half covered in vines. He pulled a crate from beneath it and made himself busy lining it with moss. When he was done, he brought it over to the table, along with a stool to set the crate on. “As I recall, Noah lived to the ripe old age of nine hundred.” Again, the bright smile in the dark face. “But for me, the floodwaters have yet to recede.”
INQUIRY: Database search, Simeon Wells.
RESPONSE: Wells, Simeon. Doctor of Biology, University of Chicago. Doctor of Environmental Engineering, University of Chicago. R
hodes Scholar. Dr. Simeon Wells is believed dead. Last known location, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2015. There is an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
INQUIRY: Recite warrant charges.
RESPONSE: Crimes against the citizens of the state of Louisiana. Crimes against the citizens of the United States. Crimes against humanity.
INQUIRY: State evidence.
RESPONSE: Data error 4401.
The digital voice faded, replaced by a thin crackle of static. Daniel shook his head and checked his wristband. The battery still worked, but the chip inside had crapped out again. Daniel switched the datalink to the off position, disengaging it from his earpiece.
With all the vials lost, he’d been ready to give up, just find his way back over the Wall. Warning Fen would gain her nothing but worry. She might even risk going back down the hole. This way, the virus was at least hidden from the world. But now this. Honeybees, cultivated by a wanted criminal.
Little wings of hope tickled at Daniel’s middle. What would Mr. Go do if Daniel told him about the lost virus? What could he do? Help cure the Fever? Keep the virus safe?
Or finish destroying the city, the way the datalink implied he had done years before. Mr. Go was a mystery, not an ally. He didn’t seem dangerous, but the datalink’s last words had given Daniel just enough reason to doubt him. If only he could access the Internet.
“Son, are you all right?”
The interface with the broken datalink had only taken a moment. He nodded. “Sorry. Just some sort of . . . suit issue.”
Mr. Go gave him a considering look and nodded. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat or drink?”
“I’m sure,” Daniel replied. Inwardly, he cursed his equipment, his doubts, and everything that had brought him here. Orleans had been a mistake, his mission a failure. The sooner he got back over the Wall, the better.
Just then, Fen came back into the room, the baby cradled in her arms. “Okay, Daniel,” she said. “Show him the virus.”
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