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She didn’t know how long she sat underneath the sink, smelling the dusty air. It might have been only seconds, or it might have been ten minutes. All she knew is that one moment she heard the buzzing of the gnats inside her head, and the next the buzzing had turned off, like a switch flicked down. Her mother was still screaming. Some of the cleaning supplies had fallen over and Chal could feel the powder soap all gritty under her bare feet.
Her mother’s cries subsided into great moans, and Chal pushed the cabinet door open. There was light outside, still – light, even after all that noise and tumult. More light, in fact – it was brighter than normal, and as Chal tiptoed out to see what had happened she was struck by the brightness, causing her to raise one hand over her eye in an oddly adult gesture.
The building had been hit. The sunlight which poured through the window cheerily on normal days was brighter because the window was no longer there. Half of the wall had been destroyed by the blast. The bed had splintered and rubble was strewn across the entire floor. Chal stopped as soon as she saw her mother.
For an instant, Chal thought that the moaning person kneeling on the floor was a ghost, so covered in dust was her mother that she looked white as a spectre. But as she continued to keen, Chal realized that she was bleeding from many places on her body – her leg, her cheek – and ghosts don’t bleed. Then her mother heard Chal, or just sensed that she was standing there, and turned.
Tears had streaked the dust on her cheeks, and the tears continued to stream down her face. Chal was struck by this, even as she saw that her mother was holding Marie in her arms, and Marie wasn’t moving.
***
“Marie,” Chal whispered. The roar was over their heads, blindingly loud, and then it was moving away. Chal held her breath as it passed overhead, her eyes tightly closed. She felt Alan’s hand, warm over hers, squeeze tightly as the plane went by.
They sat like this for another few moments, waiting. The buzzing of the plane eventually subsided into a faint hum and then nothing.
Once it was clear the plane was not returning, Chal exhaled and let a shudder sweep through her body. She had been sweating, she realized, a cold sweat that had worked its way through the light fabric of her clothes. Her fingers were damp against Alan’s palms, and she pulled her hand away in a dazed kind of embarrassment.
“Chal?”
Chal wiped her hands on the leg of her pants. The pants were dirty, though, and only got Chal’s hands dirty. She rubbed them against each other so that the dirt rolled up with her dead skin cells and fell off.
Dead skin cells. Part of me.
Chal kept rubbing harder, trying to get every speck of dirt off of her hands. They were so dirty. She was still rubbing when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Chal?”
She stood up cautiously, shaking the dirt and leaves off of her shoulders. Her eyes darted over to the horizon where the plane had disappeared.
“Do you think they’ll come back?” Chal asked, trying to hide the quaver in her voice.
Alan shrugged. “No idea. If they did come, it would probably be by ground, not air. Or else helicopters.” He scanned the horizon and she looked nervously up with him.
“Are you alright?” Alan asked.
Chal opened her mouth to say that she was fine, that everything was fine, but the only sound that escaped her lips was a low whimper. Then Alan’s arms were around her and she was sobbing against his chest, her entire body pouring out her sadness and fear in an uncontrollable flow of emotion.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t know who she was sorry for, Alan or Marie or herself. Alan didn’t ask her to explain. He just held her tighter.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“How far are we from the town?” she asked.
Alan and Chal consulted the map. They stood shoulder to shoulder, peering down at the coordinates on the folded sheet of paper.
“Not far. We’ll reach it today,” Alan said, pointing to their location on the paper. “Let’s go.”
They began to walk, as they had been walking for what seemed like forever. Now that they knew the end was near, it seemed a bit easier to move one foot in front of the other.
Chal looked up. The sky felt infinite above her head, although she knew that of the whole earth the atmosphere was merely a thin layer, like plastic wrap over an orange. It seemed as though she would never be able to get home, wherever home was. Ahead of her loomed the vast mountains that guarded the playa with its end unseen within the dusting of the horizon where everything was just a light fuzz of vision. Behind her the dunes.
Though the mountains were growing only imperceptibly in her vision, she was startled whenever she looked behind her and saw the dunes farther and farther away. She seemed to be walking away from something without ever walking toward something else. That was the desert.
The road was far away, then closer, and then they were alongside it. Chal and Alan made sure to stay back far enough to avoid detection from anyone who might be driving around looking for them. They came upon the town sooner than Chal had thought. Her legs were so tired from walking that even just standing still made them tremble, as though they possessed a terrible need for motion.
“You should leave me here,” Alan said.
“What?” Chal said, taken aback.
“Leave me here and go to your mother’s friend. Lucia?”
Chal shook her head. “I don’t understand. How can I just leave you?”
“You can tell them that I took you hostage and used you to escape,” Alan said. “Tell them I killed Dr. Fielding.”
“I – I don’t–”
“Tell them that you stayed with me until you got a chance to sneak away,” Alan said. “You led me to this place because you knew it was safe, and then you abandoned me in the middle of the night.”
“They’d never believe me,” Chal said. Her mind was reeling. It was the right thing to do, the logical thing to do, but she felt her entire body strain with the effort of accepting the conclusion. Every particle in her wanted to stay with him. She had been too distracted by survival to think about how little sense it made to stay together.
“They’d have to,” Alan shrugged. “What other choice would they have?”
“And what about you?” Chal said. “Where will you go?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Alan said, smiling. “Then you would have to lie when they asked you where I was.”
“But Lucia will help us both escape,” Chal said.
“You don’t need to escape,” Alan said. He took her by the arms and looked into her eyes. “Your life is here. Your work, your career.”
Chal shook her head. “Alan, don’t do this. We can leave here. We can leave together.”
“It’s not about me,” Alan said. “You don’t have to go.”
“But I can’t just leave you!” Chal cried out. She couldn’t, she really couldn’t. After all they had gone through – from the lab to Alan’s malfunction to their escape – it was ridiculous to think that she would be able to just turn and walk away from him.
“Why?” Alan had a curious look in his eyes.
“Why?” Chal repeated. She opened her mouth to speak, and found nothing to say.
“You see?” Alan said gently. “Everything you want or need is here.”
“Not if you leave,” Chal said. Her head was spinning with the heat and she was miserable. All this effort, all this work – for what? So that Alan could take off on his own. She felt her heart breaking in her chest, and she stifled the sob that was rising in her throat.
“Chal,” Alan said, and pulled her close to him. She felt the tears run down the sides of her face. His heartbeat was loud in the quiet of the desert, and although it was burning hot she could still feel the heat of him against her.
He kissed her.
She was taken by surprise, but when she brought her hands up to his chest she realized that the last thing in the world she wanted to do was pus
h him away. Instead she reached up and pulled his head down deeper into the embrace. His lips were warm, his arms curled strong around her body. Chal let her fingers run through his messy dark hair.
What on earth am I doing? she thought. It had been so long since she had been intimate with any man. Her last stint in dating had been with an artsy type who had begrudged her every second of her work and spent more time bragging about his sexual prowess than he did on foreplay. Before that had been a rash of hard scientific types: an acoustical engineer, a biologist, another neuroscientist who balked in jealousy whenever Chal got another award or magazine article.
They had all been fine, at least for a while. But now that Chal felt as though she was being held, truly held, for the first time. Alan was always present with her when she needed it the most. And right now, this was what she needed. The pressure of their lips sent thrills of longing down Chal’s body.
It was Alan who broke the kiss, stepping back and looking at her from under lowered lids.
“I want to know more about this,” he said.
Chal shook her head, unable to breathe, let alone speak her confusion.
“This,” Alan said, taking her hand and placing his palm to hers. “Just touching you does something...I know what kissing is, but the way it happens makes me feel completely different from anything I had imagined.”
Chal swallowed hard. His hot fingertips rasped against hers as he enclosed her hand neatly in his.
“What did you imagine?” she asked.
“I thought the sensation would all be here,” he said, motioning to his face. “But it’s not, is it? I feel you through my entire being.”
“That’s a wonderful way to describe it.”
“If you want to stay, you should,” Alan said. “But if you want to come with me...”
He paused, trying to find the words. “I would like to learn more.”
“Yes,” Chal whispered.
She reached out to take Alan’s hand and they began the last stretch of their walk toward the town. She felt a bit stronger, a little more sure.
***
They were at the edge of the playa when she recognized the dirt road that she had played on when she was a child. The mailbox had beads glued all over it in a red and green pattern that had always reminded Chal of Christmas. She let her fingers drift over the mailbox and looked up to the small adobe house at the end of the dirt road.
“Lucia,” Chal said.
“How do you know this person?” Alan asked.
“My mother,” Chal replied. “They were both immigrants from Catalonia. Lucia stayed here, but my mother didn’t want to stay in America.”
“Why did she come, then?”
“She knew that life for me would be better here. Out of the war. That’s why most of her friends came.” Chal kicked a pebble, sending it skittering across the sand.
“War.” Alan’s face set in a deep frown.
“Just let me talk,” Chal said. “I hope she still remembers me. It was a long time ago.”
They approached the wood framed door and Chal knocked with the iron rapper. She darted a quick glance up at Alan, who smiled at her. She smiled back shyly.
As she knocked on the door, she became suddenly acutely aware of how she looked. Her hair was streaked with blood, her clothes covered in it, and she was dustier than the desert swallows that rolled themselves on the dry playa floor. She hoped Lucia would remember her.
The door opened.
“Who’s there?” the old woman asked, peering over her glasses. “Tsch, if you come about the bank you’ll have to wait for tomorrow. I don’t get my check until another day.”
“We’re not with the bank,” Alan said. Chal saw Lucia’s gaze turn to him, then back to her, taking them both in.
“It’s me, Chal,” Chal said. “Chal Davidson. You knew my mother Sara?”
The lady cocked her head and then her face brightened into a sunny grin of recognition.
“CHAL!” she cried, sweeping Chal into her arms and kissing her on both cheeks. “Pare nostro! What in the devil are you doing here? Come in, come in! I just finished to make supper. My goodness, what happened to you?”
“It’s okay, Lucia,” Chal said.
“But you have bleeding all over you!” Her hands moved over Chal’s wounds, and Chal winced.
“Really, I’m fine,” Chal said, knowing the woman would have none of it.
“Come in, girl,” Lucia said sternly. Chal felt like a little girl again, a little girl who had scraped her knees while playing. “We will fix you up to be all better.” She brushed them into the middle of the room. “And who is this young man?”
“This is Alan,” Chal said. Alan held his hand out to Lucia, who took it primly.
“I am very please to meet you,” she said. Alan smiled and returned the compliment. There was some fuss while Lucia insisted on having Chal wash up and dress her wounds; she bandaged Alan’s cut and made him wash up as well. It all seemed so familiar and strange at the same time, but Chal was grateful to be free from dust and blood.
Washed up and presentable, they sat down on the couch while Lucia brought out some drinks, an iced tea made from hibiscus flowers.
“Chal, dear Chal,” Lucia said. “It has been too long. How long is it?”
“Much too long,” Chal agreed. “I was five when I came here for school.” She drank a sip of the tea, and another. It was all she could do to keep from gulping. The sweet, cold tea was perfect after their long walk.
“Oh yes,” Lucia said. “I remember that. And I remember before, when we were all living near to San Sebastian. Your poor sister...”
Chal nodded. “I need your help, Lucia.”
“Anything, my child, anything,” Lucia said. “Anything I can do for you, for your mother...”
“We need passports,” Chal said.
Lucia’s eyes narrowed. She went to the windows and looked out, then came back to her chair and sat, drinking her tea as though nothing had happened.
“Where are you going?” Lucia asked.
“Catalonia,” Chal said. She hadn’t been sure where they would go, but now that she had to decide she knew that it was the right choice. A non-digital nation where they could disappear if they needed to.
“Why are you asking me for this?”
“You know–” Chal said. “My mother always said that you were the one who could do it. Sneak people across.”
“To America, yes,” Lucia said. “What make you think I can get you back into Catalonia?”
“You can’t?” Chal blinked, tears springing to her eyes. She hadn’t considered what would happen if Lucia couldn’t help them. She had no plan. This was the plan.
“The Catalonian government is become very strict about guest visas, especially now from the digital nations,” Lucia said. “It is hard to go back, even for me, with the dual citizenship.” She put her hand to her chest and made a face of affront, as if she couldn’t believe any country would be so impolite as to not let her come inside.
Chal was distraught. She bit her lip, trying not to let the tears in her eyes fall over her cheeks. They had come so far.
“Is there anywhere else you could help us escape to?” Alan asked. It was the first time he had spoken, and his voice sounded deeper in the small room.
Lucia leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea.
“Yes,” she said after a moment’s pause. “It is possible. I know someone in the Portuguese embassy and I have the visas. You would have to go to Portugal first, then make your way to Catalonia. It is easier to get visas there than to Catalonia. I also have Spanish visas. That would be closer yet.”
“Not Spain,” Chal said. “They have digital intelligence there, and I can’t have my face scanned. They’ll be looking for us.”
“Tcha, Portugal, then,” Lucia said. “You will have to cross Spain somehow, but it will be easier if you are not flying in.”
“That border crossing is hard,” Chal said. She remem
bered the long wait at the border, guards with their guns on either side, military dogs sniffing under the tires of every car.
“You should not be crossing normally,” Lucia said. “Not if you are in danger. They have the scanners now too at the land borders.”
“Then how–” Chal began to ask, then stopped. She knew what Lucia was going to say already. In her mind she saw the ocean whipping across the shores of Catalonia.
“Yes,” Lucia said. “That is the best way. Travel by water; it is easiest to hide that way. We will talk more later.”
The old woman stood up, dust shaking from her skirts and twirling up into the air. The candlelight caught the motes and made them twinkle in the light.
“But now,” Lucia said, “does anyone want some supper?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The digital Divide itself had given rise in the higher circles of government to a thriving black market of favors, bribes, assassination bids and conspiracies made real. In the commotion of the Divide’s changes and upheavals, many dictators and governments were overthrown, supplanted, or infiltrated by spies. The United States was, as ever, no exception, and there were leaks in even the highest levels of military and intelligence.
Lucia worked as an assistant to the consulate at the U.S. embassy just on the Mexican border. That she was able to get a position in government work as an immigrant herself spoke to her persistence. Lucia had wheedled her way into the higher reaches of the embassy through sheer determination.
Once she had gotten herself hired in the embassy, though, Lucia was ruthless. She used all manner of bribes and blackmail to pull the strings that needed pulling. At one point during the European blockade of 2111, she was the sole provider of U.S. guest visas to those who wished to come to America. The National Advisor for Immigration had personally given her embassy the right to continue issuing visas during the blockade. Anyone who asked was given the explanation that their embassy was authorized solely to provide intellectual capital to the military stationed in San Diego.