Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

by Max Brooks

  And I’m sorry I haven’t written more this whole week. Too busy settling in. No, that’s not all. I’m still getting used to the idea of writing stuff down. Even in this letter format you recommended. Yes, it’s easier to write once I get going, but the idea of sitting down every day, talking about what I’ve done. Not even on paper, not even to myself. It’s just hard. Looking in.

  And, to be fair, there’s a lot to get used to.

  I know telecommuting isn’t new. But it is for me. I never realized how much I craved the structure of going into an office; dedicated work space, work people, work time.

  At least the house is comfortable. So much nicer than our rental back in Venice. Clean, high-tech, effortless. Frank even told us that he’d left a “housewarming present.” Literally. All that methane in the biodigester. Every time I think about sleeping, eating, living above a giant tank of my brother’s poo, I just try to remember that it’s also one less bill to pay.

  Unpacking’s been slow, breaking down all those boxes, organizing all our stuff. It’s all gotta be just right, you know me. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

  I have been settling into a nice routine though. I need that. Structure. I wake up every morning with this majestic view right outside my window. The tall, green trees rising up to the top of the ridge behind the house. The way the leaves sparkle in the sun. The birdsong alarm clock. Not that I’ve ever needed one. Always up, always ready. But it’s so nice, for a change, to rise with excitement instead of nerves. I can’t remember the last time I did that. Middle school? When was the last time I didn’t open my eyes with a mental checklist ticking in my brain? Stuff to do. Problems to solve.

  I still have them, of course, but knowing that my day will start with a hike in the woods helps. I’ve been doing that every morning. Up and dressed, quietly as I can so as not to wake up Dan, and out the door. Easier to be quiet when you don’t have to worry about turning off a burglar alarm. Nobody sets theirs, no need! Then out and up the trail behind the house.

  Dawn is so peaceful here. Just me and the sun, and Yvette! She’s up way before anyone, in the Common House, teaching online classes around the globe. I haven’t brought myself to take one yet. Even though she won’t charge me. “Just perch yourself behind the webcam and it’ll feel like a private lesson.” I keep meaning to do it. Too intimidating, and, let’s be honest, it does get in the way of my hike!

  I can’t believe I get to do this whenever I want! Will it ever get old? How can it? I love that crisp, cool air in my lungs, on my cheeks, down my back when I warm up enough to take off my fleece. Frank warned me about when the weather turns, in a month or so, when it supposedly nosedives into real cold. I won’t mind. It’ll be nice to have real winters again, like we did back east.

  So far, I’ve been doing the same hike every day, the trail that loops around the neighborhood up to the ridge that overlooks everything. And I do mean everything!

  Mount Rainier is out of a storybook. The white peak rising in the distance. The morning light turning its snow an orange pink. You’d expect a princess to live in a castle on the summit, or an angry dragon to sleep under its base. Sounds crazy, but I feel strangely safe every morning when I see Rainier, like it’s watching over us. I know the tremors we’ve been feeling (we’ve had one or two since that first time at dinner) are coming from the mountain, but I can’t reconcile them with this protective giant ruling all he surveys.

  The Boothes don’t think I’m crazy. I mentioned it to them yesterday morning. They also do a pre-breakfast dawn hike. They’re so nice, so inclusive. I ran into them yesterday morning on my way up the ridge. I felt really uncomfortable at first, like I’d intruded in some way. Yes, we should probably talk about this, why on a public path I felt like their rights trumped mine. But they just waved me over.

  We chatted all the way up the trail. Bobbi asked how well I knew Seattle, and I confessed that I’d never really spent any time there. Vincent couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful it was, “cultured” was the word he used. The fish market, the theater scene, MoPOP.*1 Bobbi offered the use of their pied-à-terre, a condo they have in Madison Park and visit a couple times a month. “Otherwise we’d go crazy.” That was Vincent. “Just knowing that Seattle is only ninety minutes or so makes all the difference.” Bobbi added, “Depending on traffic.” And they laughed together.

  They’re so cute, the two of them, with their matching Patagonia outfits and double walking poles. When we reached the top of the ridge, watching the morning light color Rainier, it was nice, and, yes, sad to see them holding hands. When they’d been telling me how easy it was to get to Seattle “if you time it right,” Vincent started going on about the national highway system.

  “Practically erased distances,” he said, “especially when you think it used to take months, years, to cross this continent! And do you know the Eisenhower administration only managed to get the project built by selling it as emergency runways in a nuclear war?”

  Bobbi grinned and shook her head. “Yes, dear, and I’m sure she’s very excited to hear about national security infrastructure.”

  I suddenly stiffened, thinking that Vincent would be hurt, defensive, surly. Like Dan. But he gave me this over-the-top, “What, you’re not!” and the two shared a laughing hug. Their comfort, their ease.

  I’ve tried to invite Dan. Not in the moment, of course. I would never think of trying to shake him awake. A few days ago, when I’d gotten back from my hike and he asked, “How’d it go?” Instead of answering, “Great,” and going upstairs to shower, I actually sat down next to him on the couch to talk about it. I told him about the smell of the trees, the sound of the birds. I even described Rainier’s inspiring peak.

  And he pretended to listen. Pursed lips, exaggerated nod, eyes not meaning to but flicking down at his iPad every couple seconds. Okay, wrap it up. I didn’t really care, I was just being polite. I knew what he wanted, but somehow, I found it in me to say, “You should totally come with tomorrow morning.”

  See, I did take something from our last session. I tried putting myself out there, giving him the chance. I did my part. But he just nodded again, even raising his eyebrows to prove that he’d heard what I’d said. “Maybe, sure.” Then went back to his screen.

  Message received. No argument but no commitment.

  Dan.

  That’s something else I have to get used to, being together 24/7. I don’t want to say it was okay before, but at least back then, our old routine gave us space. He’d be sleeping when I went to work and still up when I went to bed. In between we had, what, a couple hours together if extra work or phone calls didn’t keep me occupied. Yes, weekends were tougher, when he wouldn’t want to go out with my friends or would disappear down to Intelligentsia*2 for a half-day coffee. I never realized how much it upset me, or, maybe I did, but the tension, the resentment, it always diffused first thing Monday morning.

  It’s not diffusing anymore. We’re trapped together all the time.

  Did I just say “trapped”? It’s starting to feel that way. Is that why Frank wanted us to move up here, to trap me here with Dan all the time, force me to watch him sit on the couch with his tablet while I unpack the house, organize everything, do everything?

  And the part that really gets me, now that I think about it, isn’t just the sitting around all day, it’s doing it with the curtains open so everyone can see him. Here I thought keeping them open would make me feel exposed. Now I feel…

  Embarrassed. Yes. I do. Embarrassed for him. On display. Doesn’t he care?

  He did when Mostar saw him! So did I. Gasoline on the fire. That’s the only way to describe what happened.

  It was delivery day, the one day every week when all our online orders come in. The HOA has organized this special to minimize the “environmental impact.” That’s how Tony puts it. �
��What’s the point of clean air if we’re just going to pollute it with drones?”

  The drones were insane. I was sitting in my home office, wrapping up a conference call, when I heard this crazy buzzing sound. Like an angry swarm of giant bees. I’d heard regular drones before, the high-pitched whir from the annoying little ones that fly around over the Venice canals. But these were deeper, louder, and a lot more numerous.

  I came outside to see Tony standing on the grass behind the Common House, one tan, muscled arm shielding his eyes as the other waved down the first laptop. That’s what they looked like: large, flat, and black. A robotic insect—no, arachnid, because of the eight legs. Each straight leg ending in a rotor spinning too fast for me to see. It still amazes me that those rotors could lift the grocery basket under its belly.

  “New from Cygnus,” Tony called over his shoulder as I approached. “Y-Q*3 Mark 1. Twice the payload and thrice the range of the HorseFly models UPS and Amazon use.” The drone hovered for a second, descended slowly, then gently settled on the large grassy patch big enough for a real helicopter. Did I ever mention the helipad?

  No, I just looked back over my first description of this place. Sorry. We’ve got one. Part of our HOA dues includes a medical insurance package that pays for an emergency medical evac. According to Tony, if anyone gets sick or hurt for any reason, they can zip us to a downtown Seattle hospital. “Faster than driving from right there in the city.”

  He really has thought about everything.

  Anyway, as the drone’s rotors stopped, Tony opened the basket, checked the contents of the bags, removed them, and tapped an app on his phone. The blades zeeeezzzed back to life and then it was gone. “I’m sure yours is coming,” he said, turning to me with those sapphire eyes that made my fingertips tingle.

  I just nodded and pretended to look past him for what should have been my incoming drone. I hadn’t ordered my food by air. I’m still not ready for that. But Tony didn’t know that, and I wanted any excuse to spend just a few extra seconds with him.

  “Pretty amazing”—he nodded at the next approaching automaton—“civilization coming to us.” And with a wink that tickled my vertebrae, he said, “Now if only they’d legalize ‘certain products’ nationally so we could order those online as well.”

  Even walking away, the feeling I got from his confident stride, the muscles in his back showing through his thin T-shirt…And there was Yvette, waving to me, opening the door for her husband in a twenty-first century version of—what was that ’50s show all my professors used to rail against? Ozzy and the Beaver? Whatever. Their life looked pretty damned good to me.

  As I watched them disappear inside, the second Y-Q landed a few feet away. “Here it is!” That was Carmen, calling back to her house as Effie, in the doorway, fumbled to get her Crocs on. We hadn’t talked much since we’d moved in. Carmen had been gone for a few days at a conference in Portland and Effie always seemed busy homeschooling Palomino. She was there too, trailing behind Effie as the three of them gathered around the now-silent drone. She wouldn’t say anything to me, even as I tried to include her in my morning greetings. “Hey, ladies. Hi, Palomino.” Nothing, just a blank, silent stare. Creepy kid.

  Our awkward moment was compounded as Carmen riffled through both bags before sending the drone on its way. “No broccolini?” A glare at Effie, who tried to come up with an answer, but ended with an embarrassed sigh. Carmen must have suddenly remembered I was there because she recovered with, “Well, I guess we’ll just have to survive somehow!” They both chuckled. Effie’s seemed a little forced.

  I was almost happy when Mostar came along. Almost.

  “What, no van yet?” Loud, terse, barreling in from behind us. Carmen and Effie traded a quick, almost imperceptible look, then both smiled at me and started back for their house. “We’ve got to get together for dinner soon,” said Carmen, then, Effie, looking embarrassed like she didn’t think of it first, said, “Yes, yes, yes, soon, next week.”

  That was when the van rolled up. I almost didn’t hear it. So quiet! All electric. And that wasn’t the crazy part. No driver! A cab with a steering wheel, but nobody behind it. Okay, it’s not like I haven’t seen driverless cars before. Tons of videos on Dan’s iPad and a few, I think, in L.A., but those always had people behind the wheel. Something about a city ordinance, that they can only be used in “assist” mode, like an autopilot in an airplane. Not in this van though. Just a giant, empty land drone.

  “Finally!” Mostar stomped over to the building’s charging station, connected its cable to the van, then typed her password into its side access panel. With a chirp and flashing green light, the back doors slid open. And there were the groceries: Mostar’s, Reinhardt’s, the Boothes’, and mine. I’m not much for ordering food online. I’ve done it a few times, Postmates, FreshDirect. But I like physically going to the store, smelling the produce, picking out just the right branzino. I used to spend hours roaming the aisles, which, now that I think about it, might have also been an excuse to get away from Dan. Maybe I was lingering on that thought too long, and maybe Mostar thought I was weirded out by the idea of a driverless car. “The only thing I miss is a delivery boy to help me.”

  I saw she was struggling a little bit with her grocery bags. “You need some help?”

  She smiled with, “Oh, that would be lovely, thank you,” and gestured to three large paper sacks. I set down my grocery bags and hefted one of the sacks. The label said something about a “silicon-polymer blend.”

  “Careful, it’s heavy. Raw materials for my work.”

  I must have been wobbling, because Mostar asked, “You all right?” and when I said I was fine, she just clucked over at our house.

  “Why isn’t your man helping?”

  My man. Who uses that kind of language? So possessive.

  But there he was, on the couch, on display for all the world. She grimaced at the sight, then at me. “C’mon, let’s get him.”

  I felt like a character in an action movie, or a cartoon making fun of that movie, the iconic scene where someone screams “Noooooo” in slow motion. I didn’t do it, but it’s exactly how I felt as she trundled right up to our living room window, knocking hard on the glass, shouting, “Hey, c’mon, Danny, get up!”

  It definitely looked like a cartoon, Dan flopping off the couch, flustered, terrified.

  “Danny! Give us a hand!”

  I’d just reached Mostar as Dan came blundering out the front door. If he was the deer in the headlights, then I was in the car’s passenger seat.

  Mostar didn’t notice our silent exchange, or didn’t care.

  “Danny, I got two big sacks in the van. Just like the one your wife’s carrying.” He hesitated, slack-jawed, “Uh…”

  “Go on, your highness!” And then she hit him! Not hard, just a slight slap on the arm. “Go!” I caught my breath, so did Dan, but he took off for the van just as Mostar turned back for her house.

  It was the first time I’d been in her home. I’m not sure what I was expecting.

  Those sculptures!

  They line her walls. All glass! So beautiful, delicate. A lot of natural settings like birds and flowers. And flames! A lot of flames. Some blue and simple, like a stove’s gaslight. Others red and crazy, like wood fire. One particular piece, an explosion? Bright yellow expanding to orange, red, and fringed with cloudy brown.

  My favorite were the golden lilies. They’re exquisite little flowers about a foot high; three thin green stems topped with orange lightening to yellow petals. And all growing out of what looked like a maelstrom of burning detonations. I can’t imagine the kind of skill, patience, and talent it took to make.

  I was entranced, lost in their colors and shapes. The way the light would pass through them, all of them, as I walked by.

  “You like them?” She gestured to the
flowers and said, “My early work. Paddle and parchoffi, before I got into this 3-D printing racket.”

  We were standing in the entrance hall, not far from the open door to her workshop. I could see the printer humming, next to what she described as a “space age kiln.”

  “It’s really quite simple,” she said, waving her hand over the machinery. I hadn’t asked for a lecture, but got one anyway. She prattled on about making a 3-D CAD file, converting and importing it to the printer, loading it with the raw silicon-polymer blend, then waiting for it to extrude a nearly finished piece before popping that piece into the kiln to melt away the polymer. I do have to admit, this new process seemed interesting, and the finished objects were undeniably cool.

  There were at least a couple dozen of them, all lined up on shelves above the workbench. Rows of little houses, none more than an inch or two high. And one larger, arching structure. A bridge, maybe. All cute, and I guess amazing when you factor in how they were made, but nothing compared to the handblown works of art right in front of me.

  I wish I’d said something profound, insightful, anything except what I did say, which was, “They’re wonderful.”

  Mostar smiled warmly and put a hand on my arm. “Thank you.” Her eyes shifted to the flowers rising from the flames. “I like to think that beauty can come from fire.”

  Okay, this is going to sound weird, I know, but as she said this, for just a split second, she was someone else. Nothing you could put your finger on. Something with her voice, her face, the muscles around her eyes. Just for a second, and then one of those small rumbles hit and my heart practically jumped right out of my mouth. I must have made a move toward her sculptures, because her hand shot in front of my face.

  “It’s all right, don’t worry. I put that, what do you call it? That pasty material, like you use for earthquakes in California. I’ve stuck it to all their bottoms.” Her eyes scanned the shelves. “Can’t be too careful, eh?”