The Two That Remained

by Mauldin, J Fitzpatrick

  They were finding nothing useful other than designer toddler clothes and silver by the ton. They needed a means to charge that damn battery. It’s all he could think about. He locked Emily in a well-appointed child’s room, first checking to be sure there was nothing she could asphyxiate herself on. He needed a moment to think. A moment out of sight.

  A quick pass through a garage netted no result. Just a dusty Land Cruiser and a fucking yellow kayak.

  He ripped the kitchen apart, shattering bottles and plates on the floor, telling himself he was searching for food. He kicked holes in the drywall, ripped a small golden chandelier from the breakfast nook ceiling and tossed it into the cold fireplace. He stabbed the sofa with a chef’s knife, peeling it open from end to end. A cloud of down feathers filled the air. Sweat was pouring into his eyes.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he shouted and collapsed to the floor, face in his trembling hands. One small find was all that stood between him and his wife.

  “Come on, Emme,” he said, and they moved on.

  On the back lot of a massive seven-bedroom brick home with stark columns and an in-ground pool, he happened upon a white painted workshop whose function far superseded its cost. Parked out front was a red Chevy truck, solar panel left sitting on the roof, wires running under the hood. The panel looked as if it had seen better days, the wind and rain and nature’s debris having pelted it all these years to leave it filthy, but it looked as if it might just work. Delighted, he found a one-thousand-watt power inverter on the floorboard beside the feet of its deceased driver. He thanked the man and took both devices home with him, a smile cracking his face.

  “This might work, Lillian,” he mumbled.

  It was late in the afternoon when they returned home, but he cleaned the panel and hooked the charger to the battery. He set in the sun and hoped for the best. Joy swelled in his chest when a green light appeared on its side, indicating that power was flowing. He only hoped the battery could accept the sun’s gracious second-hand gift.

  “We might just get to hear from Mama yet,” Ryan told Emily, his fingers clutching Lillian’s dead cell phone where memories were trapped beyond reach.

  “Mama? Where Mama.”

  He smiled and mussed Emily’s wild hair. “Right here, baby. Right here.”

  Chapter 33

  The sun set and Ryan lit a series of oil lamps found two days earlier in a ruined brownstone. Emily was exhausted after all the walking that morning, and for once, didn’t fight going to sleep. He tucked her into the bed of the fancy bedroom, still wary of his own, the frilly bed now fresh with clean sheets and pillowcases that smelled of wildflowers.

  He went to retrieve the hopefully charged battery from the porch. Before he’d even left the room Emily was snoring with a line of drool running down her cheek. He paused for a moment before leaving, soaking in this beautiful moment. She was so peaceful. He wanted to take pictures and remember these days forever. For as low as the lows had been, the highs were unimaginable.

  The trickle charger showed fewer than twelve volts in the battery cells, but Ryan couldn’t wait any longer. He had to see if this worked now, not later. He was itching for answers. He attached the power inverter found in the truck to the deep cycle’s posts and plugged the phone into one of the inverter’s power outlets, light cast by oil lamps forming long shadows upon the walls. He heard a crack of thunder in the distance, then a rumbling roar as it rolled out across the sky like the breaking surf.

  He waited, power securely connected and phone in hand. He waited some more. Five minutes? Ten hours? He couldn’t tell. The sky boomed several more times. He settled into bed beside Emily, cord just long enough to reach. The back of his neck was damp.

  “What if it doesn’t work?” he asked himself.

  “You’ll carry on,” the other voice in his head declared. “You have to carry on. For her.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re right. You’re always right.” As time stretched out, sleep crept up on him. His head bobbed for a moment but he shivered and sat back upright. Even if the phone didn’t work, he couldn’t very well leave these lamps burning while he slept. He had to stay awake.

  A flash of light in his hands. Ryan started, shocked with an unexpected joy.

  Lillian’s phone blinked. He gasped and nearly tossed it across the room, excited as he was. His lip quivered as he swallowed his emotions.

  It had been so long since he’d felt the thrill of this unique variety of lambent, artificial light. A portal into the past. He was starting to lose hope it was even possible that this would work at all, yet somehow, despite the odds, he’d brought a battery back from the dead, using the instructions from the trash section of a trade magazine, and it had been just enough juice to power this antiquity.

  To no surprise, as the display came on, it showed zero cell signal and no wireless connections in range. The battery icon was empty and had a red slash through it. He swiped through the icons on her phone, past the time-wasting games, note-takers, and apps for finding the best food trucks or selling junk on demand, single-mindedly selecting the photo gallery.

  “Videos.” He was so excited the screen was shaking. “Just my luck the data’ll be corrupt. No. Think positive thoughts. I can fix that problem if I have to. I’d just need my computer and about two years alone to piece it back together. That’s all.”

  The first picture he scrolled past was a selfie Lillian had taken at work and sent him a week before the event. A swarm of butterflies fluttered through his stomach. He’d forced himself not to look at pictures of her in the house, afraid of feeling like this. He zoomed in with thumb and forefinger, caressing her digital face with a soft fingertip, his eyes misty and warm. He took a deep breath and moved on.

  The five most recent videos were in a folder by themselves. He was sure there would be more he wanted to see, reminders of an earlier time another world away, but these five were what he was after. He knew in his bones they were important. That they were the answers to everything.

  He tapped on the first video.

  “Hey, Ryan,” Lillian said, her uneasy, yet devastatingly beautiful face taking up nearly the entire frame. He swallowed and forced himself to pay attention. “I hope you’re doing fine. I—eh—miss you and Emily already. Not because I can’t see you, ‘cause, well, duh, you’re right next to me. See?” She spun the camera around to reveal the black tube that had been Emily and his home for many comatose years. “That’s the cryo tube, or as it is also known, Alex Bridgington’s Cryogenic Stasis Unit, the CSU. After the sleeping gas knocked you out, you were exposed to a new type of cryoprotectant, while simultaneously being bombarded with a magnetic field, then brought to subzero temperatures. Cells stop moving, stop breaking down. Pure stasis.”

  A hint of pride was on her face.

  “Our company has been developing this for long duration space flights, possibly interstellar travel. No particular company was paying for this project outright, as we take no grants, like Peter says, but we were working on a highly educated guess that we could sell this product once it had been tested and was fully functional—and for stupid sums of money. Investments. Honestly, it’s an amazing feat and big kudos to Alex’s team for what they did. This is the sort of thing I imagine Walt Disney’s anti-Semitic ass is sleeping in below Tomorrowland, though I’m sure he spent ten times as much money building his than we did ours—adjusting for inflation.” She chuckled and rolled her eyes. Ryan’s heart fluttered.

  “Anyways, like you want to hear all about that. I know you’re curious as to what I’ve been working on, but this isn’t it. The CSU is not part of my team’s objectives. Do you remember the vault in Norway with all the seeds? My project is related to that in a way, though it’s a different piece of a much bigger puzzle.”

  Lillian paused, gaze drifting off camera for a moment. When she looked back, her bright eyes gleamed. “I don’t know how much time I have so I’ll be brief. I’m really sorry. Really, really sorry. I should have
said to hell with security protocol and told you more about this sooner. I’m sorry I trapped you in this tube. There’s no telling what the world is like for you now, there’s really no telling how long it’s been since it happened. The internal power of the CSU will either run for ten or twenty years, the team isn’t sure, which is part of the reason it hasn’t gone to market—that, and well, the animals it killed in the early part of Stage 3 trials. But yeah, imagine thawing out half way to Alpha Centauri. That would be bad. What I do know, is that when it reaches low power mode it will safely release the two of you before it runs out of reserve. Just know, please know, Ryan, I did this to save you both. You guys are my life, every single bit of it. Mom and Dad never cared so much about me, so whatever. You’re the only real family I’ve ever had. And, before you ask, yes, this is the only CSU in existence, or I’d be right there with you. Don’t think I haven’t considered trying to see if the three of us would fit inside. We won’t. I’ve run the numbers at least a hundred times.”

  “Hey, Lillian?” a timid man’s voice came from off frame.

  The camera shifted its angle to the ceiling and Lillian’s face vanished. “Yeah, Steve?”

  “Have you seen Peter? His office is locked and I can’t get ahold of him on the phone. Things are looking bad.”

  “I know. I’ve been keeping an eye on the model.”

  “Know where he is? I really need to talk to him.”

  Lillian paused, carefully choosing her words, something Ryan was quite familiar with. Most often, it implied she was constructing a clever lie. “Peter’s gone.”

  “That’s weird. Why would he leave? Especially now? He’s not like that.”

  “I don’t think he had a choice in the matter.”

  “Fine, I’ll track him down. I need approval on a few things. By the way, what are you doing in the CSU room?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just taking a look at Alex’s project in light of everything that’s going on.”

  “Ohh-kay.” Steve sounded uneasy. “Well, we need your help down the hall. The tissue samples are starting to change, especially those we took from muscles. The cardiovascular samples are literally hardening. It has to be the model.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  There was a set of footsteps walking away.

  “Ryan, I have to go. If this is my last message, tell Emily that I love her. Hold on to this phone so she never forgets my face. I’m sorry I won’t be there for her to grow up. I’m sorry I’ll never be able to see her ride a bike for the first time. Never be able to comfort her after a breakup or bake a cake for her third birthday. Never—” Lillian’s voice caught. “Never be—”

  The phone went black.

  Ryan’s clutched hands trembled. His cheeks were slick with salty tears. He tried to turn the phone back on, pressing the power button repeatedly, holding it and waiting, trying a hard reset, but the battery was dead. Lillian was once again beyond his reach.

  Chapter 34

  Waiting for a battery to trickle charge was like watching liquid nitrogen come to a boil on an open flame. It wasn’t going to happen. So long as he kept his parched, ocular receptacles focused on the load needle of the charger it would remain the same. A watched trickle charger never charges.

  Ryan felt this was a philosophical discussion in quantum mechanics, the idea that things weren’t truly real until they were observed. The reality here was that this pot wasn’t fucking boiling. But reality, as it was, had become pretty hazy in Ryan’s mind. Thoughts crept into his head like, Is any of this real? and If it isn’t, how would he be able to tell? This sent his mind spinning out of control. Am I even real? Do I exist? Or is this just some elaborate dream…in which I’ve created a mannequin stalker?

  Philosophy was a class that always made his head hurt.

  ”Forget the freaking mannequin.” He shook his head. “Want to color, Emme?” He led them back inside.

  She did not want to color. She felt the need to unload every toy from her garish toy box, searching for something not even she was sure of, and scatter them across the living room. Ryan followed her and tried to clean up what he could. In her wake were countless pieces of toy sets that did not go together.

  “No! No clean. Dis mine toys.”

  “They are your toys, I’m not disputing your rights of ownership, but we need to keep things tidy.” Bent over, he caught a glimpse of a framed photo of Lillian taken at Gateway Park hanging on the wall. He removed it from the nail and his butt landed on the couch. Emily scooted up beside him, excited.

  “Mama?”

  “Yeah, that’s Mama.” He pointed at Lillian’s grinning face. The set of Emily’s hooded eyes and the gentle fold of her lips was just like her mother’s. Ryan knew it would be both beautiful and heartbreaking to watch her grow into Lillian’s shadow.

  “Park?”

  “Yeah. That’s the park with the arch. You remember it?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A doggy playing behind Mama.”

  Emily’s face turned serious. She shook her head.

  “You miss Mama?”

  “Mama? Where’s Mama?”

  He almost grinned and put his arm around her, more for his sake than hers. “She’s a long way away. But we’ll see her again one day. ‘Til then, you’re stuck with this old fart.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. “Super.” And Ryan burst out laughing. How had she picked that one up?

  “Hungry?”

  She shook her head.

  “Come on. I have a candy bar. It’s chocolate.”

  “No candy.”

  “How about some,” he tried to make it sound exciting, “Rice!” And he sang a rice song.

  “No rice.” She got up and walked off.

  “What?” His voice raised in pitch. “No rice? Come on. You love rice!”

  “No. No. No.” She went back to making her mess, then after a moment returned with a pink shoelace.

  Within a couple minutes Ryan had on two different plastic crowns, a tutu, a Radiohead t-shirt covered in so many stickers it could have been referred to as sticker-mail armor, five translucent rings of bright colors, six necklaces, and of course, two shoelace bracelets. Emily might have gone a smidge too far in accessorizing Daddy.

  “Am I pretty?” he asked, batting his eyelashes.

  Emily put a finger to her lips and tapped her foot, considering her words carefully. Again, in that moment, she looked just like Lillian.

  “No, you princess.”

  “I’m a princess? Doesn’t that make me pretty by default?”

  “No. You princess. No pretty.”

  Ryan stuck out a hand and started inspecting his nails with a twisting, flamboyant flair. “Well, if I’m not pretty I guess I’ll just have to save myself, can’t wait for some prince to do it for me.”

  Emily nodded in agreement. Princesses didn’t need anyone to save them.

  His thoughts remained focused on his wife.

  If he closed his eyes he could imagine Lillian’s face, recall memories of her lips against his own, recall the feeling of contentment her love brought into his heart. He was surprised to no longer find anger there. All he wanted was for her to return, to walk through their front door and give both of them a big hug. She was lost, yes, but did she no longer exist because she no longer thought any thoughts? Could he do the thinking for her? Be her proxy? His head was starting to ache.

  “Fix my hair,” Emily asked and he obliged.

  He stared at the wad in his fingers. Emily was excited but he knew the truth of his skills. “I’m as bad at French braids as John Lackey is trying to start without his PB&J.”

  “It’s pretty hair?”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s real pretty,” he replied, trying to hide his disapproval over the shoddy workmanship. He had a suspicion she could have done far better herself. Time to get with it or die trying. “Okay, let’s do this again.”

  He untangled her hair and brushed it straight, gathered it at the top of he
r head, and divided it into three sections; right in right hand, left in left, middle section between right thumb and forefinger. Emily twisted impatiently, making the lengths of the sections shift constantly.

  “Sit still, Emme.” And she would—for about point four seconds.

  He crossed the sections, right over middle, left over both, and worked his way back. She kept up her squirming, and as a result made more humps in her hair. By the time he reached the bottom the humps had grown even larger. The hair was slipping from his fingers like it was greased with vegetable oil.

  “Maybe it’s too clean? That’s a thing, right?”

  Emily preened, twisting her head and showing him her hair. “Pretty hair. I like.”

  He shrugged and then nodded. “So long as you like it, who the heck cares. Hungry?”

  She turned and walked off, going to play with her VTech Smart Animals Playset. She picked the plastic Zebra off the ground and let it run down the orange ramp into a seal’s pool.

  “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

  “No eat eat. I no hungry.”

  Looking out the living room window, Ryan guessed at the time. The day was overcast but well past lunch. She’d not eaten the night before. He fixed them both rice for lunch, sighing at have to eat the same old crap. He wondered how hard it would be to make rice flour, so at least he could bake some breads or cookies. While the grains boiled he covered a section of granite countertop in uncooked rice and beat the shit out of it with a wooden cutting board. Emily enjoyed this activity and wanted to help.

  After ten minutes they both set down their wooden grinding instruments and sighed together.

  “No work,” Emily commented.

  “You got that right. I think we need a stone.”

  “Stone?” She turned to regard the back yard.

  “Yeah, a big rock.”