“I dunno.”
“Average caloric intake? Don’t worry about breaking it down by carbohydrate type.”
His mouth gaped ineffectually.
The stylus hadn’t moved. “Do you meditate? At all?”
A shrug.
“Any head injuries or near-death experiences?”
“Grew up in Arkansas.”
Noted. “When you orgasm,” she said, and he straightened, attentive as a Jeopardy contestant, “have you ever seen patterns of force or mathematical symbols? Be aware that this stylus can serve as a weapon before you answer.”
“I,” he said carefully, “have not.” Then he actually considered it. There was sex, and then there was mind-blowing sex. He’d experienced mind-blowing sex. What had he seen? “Lemme think a minute, for real.” He leaned back, head against the bulkhead, and closed his eyes. “I’ve seen…colors…like somebody painting real fast. Sometimes maybe, like, jagged static?”
“What about when you dream?”
“I don’t dream,” he said.
“Never?”
“Not that I ever remember.”
She clipped the stylus to her pad. “I’ll have more questions later. This was helpful.”
“So, Bubbles is into me, huh?”
“Beg pardon?”
He made the universal male motion for gazongas. Without the much-needed shame.
“Neon? I have more of a chance than you’ll ever be blessed with. I leave that for you to fail to work into your dreams.”
“Hellbilly gets his; I ain’t gotta dream.”
She regarded him as though he’d grown the head of a slug. “There’s some part of you that thinks being an asshole is cute. It is not. Good day, sir.”
“Hell, I ain’t on this boat to be a monk. Atlantis better recognize.”
“I said good day.”
It was a pretty good day thus far, Neon decided. Clear sky, the ship zipping along under minimal guidance, no monsters, time warps, ocean weevils, or sleeper agents on the wide, beautiful horizon. Granted, there were three creepy people in the ship’s belly, but in this relatively short time knowing the captain, Neon had yet to find reason to mistrust Desiree’s judgment.
Not like Milo Jetstream letting twelve rogue clones of himself run loose, which he had.
The Linda Ann was bound for the Blank, then Atlantis, then—if Neon could convince her captain—maybe, just maybe, an actual full-stop break. Just those few days of quietude they’d sought in the first place. Although, having poked several bears in several butts, going back to hauling tail and kicking ass seemed destiny.
Yvonne and Desiree ran laps below her. Gods damn, she loved those two! She’d slap a dragon in the nuts for them, then pause to towel-flick it in the dick despite all the roaring and thrashing. They were so much more than friends, she didn’t have a word for it. Family didn’t do it, because thus far, family got as high a rating in her life as the average Goodreads review gave.
She didn’t see them as sisters.
She saw them as blood.
Menses for life, with all the understanding that entailed.
Soulmates.
Even Keita, whom Neon would invite into the shower with her in a hot minute, had naturally evolved into someone Neon Nichelle Temples, formerly of Day City, now of the world, would trust with the safekeeping of her immortal soul.
Big thoughts on this comparatively small boat on the huge ocean, but big thoughts were good from time to time. Kept the real real, relegated the fake to trifling.
If anybody deserved the Water’s Edge Rest Home for Retired World Savers, it was this group and every other group out there doing the thing despite a world doggedly inclined toward wrong. She’d invite ’em all in. Come rest, she thought. Come eat. Sing. Draw. Paint.
Be.
Desiree and Yvonne came back into view.
Yeah. Be.
“Will there be cooking again?” Shig Empa asked.
Shig looked a little haggard. That worried them.
“You okay, buddy?” asked Desiree.
“Oh, just three more for me to hold,” he said.
“No, no, they’re with us. They’re coming with us,” Desiree assured, careful, however, not to mention the Nonrich commandos already in “storage.”
“Not that I’m not happy to see you,” said Shig, sounding more rote than anything.
Yvonne stepped up to wrap him in her arms. She kissed him on the cheek, saying, “Shig, I know we complicate the beejeezus out of your life.”
He relaxed into the embrace. “You, my friend, saved my life.”
Which she had. But only once. Thoom sleeper, final Buford fight, whole entire thing.
Neon and Keita babysat the new three in the hall outside Shig’s office. The first thing the Hellbilly had said to this was “Atlantis got bureaucracies? Not slender people walking around in see-through robes and shit?”
Shigetei Empa, though slender, wouldn’t be caught dead in a see-through robe.
“Any complaints about the ban on incoming?” asked Desiree.
“Not yet. Most people here don’t really care about who comes through the Blank.”
“As long as they don’t come through like Buford,” said Yvonne.
“The False Prophet Buford was a rock up my ass. Correct?” Shig had a taste for out-Blank slang.
“Close enough,” said Yvonne.
“We won’t let them stay unless you give the okay,” said Desiree. “Besides, right now, just the one will stay.”
“The…hellbilly,” said Shig.
“Yes. Yvonne, can I have a word with our friend alone?”
“Aye.”
As the door shushed closed, Desiree said, “A friend of his has a connection with Bubba Foom. That’s worth pursuing. The world’s most powerful psychic doesn’t truck with just anybody.” The Hellbilly’s influence was, apparently, like goo stuck to a shoe. She made mental note to scrape that off. “I’ll leave him at the build site. Plenty of food, no transportation. And no communication except preprogrammed to your office, and only for emergencies. Strictly defined emergencies. He won’t be an issue. Hell, I’ll give him a fishing pole and let him sit to his heart’s content.”
“Maybe I’ll send Guerris to visit him,” Shig half-joked.
“Couldn’t hurt. Would likely help.” And for a good laugh, maybe she could get Death-Mael the dragoon to show up. Dragoons, much as their dolphin kin, loved fucking with fishing folk. “Shig, can I ask you something? How many times you been out-Blank?”
“Never.”
“Never been curious?”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Not every estrangement,” he said gently, “merits a reunion.”
“What if the out-world were to flood in here?” she asked.
“Not if. It’s truly when,” he said, again gently. “Through no action attributable to you, Milo, or any of my friends. It’s inevitable. When it happens, Atlantis will be changed, not gone. If that’s the worst, all is well.”
“That’s very optimistic of you, sir,” said Desiree. Like Yvonne, she drew him into a hug and, also like her, kissed his cheek. She had known Shig eleven years. He had never failed to be welcoming, get things done, or protect the entire world—not just his piece of it—by protecting and aiding the Brothers Jetstream, Desiree, Smoove, their ships, the Battle Ready Bastards, or any of hundreds of allies of the cause of simple, quiet existence to come through the Blank.
In the face of the world’s insanity, the irony of asking him to close his home to outsiders wasn’t lost on her. Nor did it sit right in her stomach. Yet this wasn’t xenophobia in the guise of any form of security. If, as Shig said, the discovery of Atlantis was inevitable, the influx—if she had anything to do with it, and by the gods of every sea imaginable, she would—had damn well be one of genuine exploration, not exploitation.
“Seems like we keep promising you we won’t mess up your lawn, don’t we?” said Desiree.
<
br /> “It’s been relatively quiet. Even our own squabbles have settled into hibernating states. No one’s heard from the secessionists since Buford’s removal.”
“Fancy that.”
“I’ve never considered this place,” he said, opening his hands out to the entirety of all he knew, “paradise, dearest heart.”
She smiled into his eyes. “No. But it’s where you grill your vegetables. That means something.”
“It does when you’re here,” he said.
“Do you want to go out-Blank with me?”
“No. Just hurry and finish your home. I want to sit with you on your grass and do nothing for long periods of time.”
“From your lips to the universe, my friend. Tonight we roam the restaurants of Liaan.”
“As a minor functionary of Atlantis, I’d be remiss in not pointing out we are in the capital city of Liaan right now,” he said at her bright eyes.
“Damn fortunate, that. Wasn’t feeling like Sip sausages or Abba pastries. What time should I pick you up? Just you, me, Neon, Yvonne, and your girlfriend.”
“Keita?”
“Yes.”
Shig Empa, for the first time since any of the crew of the Linda Ann entered his office that early afternoon, smiled.
The next morning, Desiree was gone.
Amongst the scrub and flats of the Sahara: Cape hares, jerboas, and sand foxes. Walking the Sahara in shorts, tees, boots, and sweat because why not: Neon and Yvonne.
“There’s a lot of travel involved in saving the world,” Neon noted, although she felt she had a good handle on having her global legs under her. She never felt anywhere near as lagged as when first adventuring with this colorful bunch.
Yvonne hummed agreement, then added, “Yup.” She’d entered the zen of tracking the beads of sweat slipping from her clavicle that conveniently collected in her sports bra.
“I mean, a lot. Excessive. We could really use a transporter. Like the one we’ve got. In storage.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not about to happen. It ever strike you that we’d be doing anything like this, me and you?”
“You mean walking on sand knowing there’s giant elves beneath our feet? Anybody ever did, they need to be tested for drugs.”
“We’re in Africa, Nee.”
This particular part of Africa had a lot of sand and sparse scrub. Neon surveyed it, feeling several emotions arising at once, all of them on the uplifting side. “Yeah.”
“Home. What’re you doing?”
Neon bent, fiddling with her laces. “I need the sand for a minute. So do you.”
“Scorpions. Sand adders. Puffins with teeth,” said Yvonne.
“None of which are here, per Keita. You’ve seen too many movies. Shoes off. Most civilized countries, you do that before entering someone’s home, you know.”
“You know that’s gonna be a sonavumbitch in your socks and shoes, right?” But Yvonne knelt to undo her laces after thoroughly stomping the surrounding grounds to be sure there were no unwanted guests.
The sand was warm, firm, and smooth.
Neon took in the unbroken view. Every horizon lined with varying gulfs of tan. Eight billion people on the planet and not a single sign of another soul around.
The Earth was huge.
Why, then, so fucked? Didn’t make sense to this city girl nor, Neon was sure, to Yvonne. There was too much world for folks not to feel their own small, connective sense of home.
On nights when the wind and ground there didn’t conspire to throw a great haze into the sky, the view of the stars almost made Neon cry. She refused to call it heavens. Heaven—whichever variety—for most on the mudball was unattainable. The notion of a better life than the one you woke up to was torture dressed to wine and dine.
Even the early-morning sky now felt like a crisp drink of water, and she was aware of the irony of this thought in the desert, yet apropos was apropos. In Montana, they called it “Big Sky.” This, this took gargantuan and made it…wonderful. Made it dance.
“The sky’s a dancer out here, Vee.”
“Nothing but blue, nothing but light.”
“You’d think that’d be enough.”
“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” said Yvonne. “We out here looking for souvenirs?”
“I want to feel normal again sometimes,” said Neon. “I wanna just walk around.”
“Then that is what we shall do. Until my bra disintegrates.” It occurred to her: “How is yours not?”
“Superior wicking action.”
“Need John Wick to make a difference under those.”
“This is why I love you, Yvonne.”
“This is why I love you, Neon.”
“Wanna walk a little more?” the super woman asked just to be sure.
“Party on, Wayne,” said Yvonne.
“Party on, Garth.”
“Nerd.”
“There’s no going back for us, is there?” asked Neon.
This paused Yvonne. She dug her toes into the kiln of creation. If there was a satisfying answer to that, she didn’t have it. Going back might not necessarily have been a good thing. Maybe she wasn’t the first to run toward the future, but she didn’t run away from it, either. Going back, taking back: all retrograde. Evidence of the erosion of potential like sand was the evidence of larger things whittled away.
Stupid notions under her feet like grains of sand.
“What do you think of Desiree’s future?” she asked Neon.
“I think it’s sweet as fuck. A sweet house by the water with nobody bothering the living shit out of her? Yeah. Covetable. I’ma make sure she gets that.”
“What about our futures?” There hadn’t been much talk in that arena since joining forces with the Jetstreams. “We’re literally a world away from our old lives. I’ve got zero plans to ever visit Day again—”
“Well, Plenty Mo is still gunning for us,” said Neon, then heard it. “Plenty Mo. New Age Mack. The Hellbilly. Holy shit, we can’t get away from extra dudes. So extra.”
“Day City is dead to me. At least Plenty didn’t have any weirdness about him.”
“Unless you wanna count small-time drug kingpin. I mean, I can think of better ways to spend one’s time…” Neon snorted. “What would he say if he saw you now?”
“I don’t think my cousin could handle,” said Yvonne. “We are in the Sahara fucking Desert, Neon Temples.”
A smile crept surely into Neon’s mouth. “Shout it,” she challenged.
“I’m not shouting out here.”
“We’re in the middle of a desert that could swallow the US and come back for more. Desiree and Keita are puttering with that machine. What else you doin’ now but shouting in the desert?”
Yvonne spun in the sand, arms wide. “WE ARE IN THE FUCKING SAHARA DESERT!”
“And what are we doing out here?”
“SAVING THE GODDAMNED WORLD!”
“Better believe it,” said Neon.
“But I’m about ready for some air conditioning,” said Yvonne.
“Just a little while longer. Bilo himself might have walked these sands. Dude was everywhere. Hell, our great-great-grandparents might’ve walked these sands. It hurts, having to wonder that.”
“Yeah,” said Yvonne. “Yeah.” She looked around same as Neon had, hands on her hips in expectation of some sign or order to the universe. It was strange, not seeing another living soul, but she knew that was an illusion. There was life everywhere.
“Half hour more,” said Neon. “Maybe we’ll find trace of a dragon’s den. Po said there’s one out here.”
“You do know Po got jokes?”
“This was totally serious,” Neon affirmed. “He laughs at me that we’re two hundred thousand years old and don’t even know what the interior of our planet looks like.”
“Po’s a hollow-Earther?”
“No, but he knows there’re pockets if you know how to find them.”
“We’re not fighting dra
gons, too. We got enough on our plate. But just out of curiosity, he give you any details?”
“Said being surprised is the best part of finding a dragon.”
Yvonne dropped butt to ground, brushed off her feet with her socks, then shook out the socks and nodded at Neon to do the same, slipping boots on.
Eventually, they ambled back to the base entrance. It welcomed them with its usual sandy yawn, rising from the ground with automatic filtration and collection systems grabbing curtains of grit to re-deposit along its surface once the hatch sealed.
They went down the stairway, headed left for the kitchen, savored two tall glasses of elderberry-infused water, said hey to the Gang enjoying a game of dominos at a nearby table, a Trinidadian, Laotian, Kenyan, Somali buffet ringing out yet fascinatingly muted, rounded on their staterooms to birdbath, dry off, pad up, and change, met in the hallway, headed to the elves’ hive via the connecting passage—both women holding their entire shit together as they once again entered a hive of underground elves As You Do—and quickly found Desiree and Keita both standing hands on hips, watching the Bilomatic Entrance with matching frowns as though it had just farted.
The Entrance looked very much like a Lakota thípi minus skin, familial warmth, or obvious purpose, with various mechanical bits added on. It was bone. Perhaps not literally, but it looked like bone. Or stone. Speckled milk, smooth, vaguely organic, and dotted with trillions of microscopic resonance holes that not only allowed for instantaneous dimensional shifts but gave it intriguing shading as well.
Standing before it now, Neon was fairly certain Keita had dismantled its struts and other techy bits for easier transport to Po’s safekeeping after the test run.
Yet here it was, fully assembled.
Also vibrating.
Everything in the large honeycomb chamber looked stable and substantial. The Bilomatic Entrance, however, looked slightly blurred, which messed with Neon’s equilibrium no end. She immediately ceased trying to focus on it, allowing it to occupy peripheral space only.
“Po rebuilt it,” Dr. Keita said to the question marks on both women’s faces.
“Reassembled?” said Yvonne.
“No. Rebuilt.” Keita pointed. “That wasn’t there before.”
“I thought this was the pinnacle of human metatechnical achievement,” said Neon, quoting from briefing notes Keita’d provided before Moon Gank Alpha.
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