I wasn’t sure. Dare looked heartbroken. But she was his sister, and who knew him better?
The terrain wasn’t too bad back when we’d climbed over the levees. Those relatively clean waters streamed straight from the churn of Lexington Avenue – sorry, the Lexington River – where the old bodegas and tech shops had been picked over.
But after an hour’s slog, we hit the deeper waters – the ones where the Roosevelt River had spilled into the apartment complexes. The streets had buckled and filled with water, then collapsed the buildings, then the dead had spilled into the rivers to eddy up and rot. Five years later, you could still find cold limbs bobbing in stagnant waters.
Overhead, the remaining apartment buildings rocked, shifting in the wind. The muck-water had sluiced out their foundations – but the aircoral had mutated, grown aggressive, spreading out in huge, skin-ripping encrustations.
“Everything’s unstable here,” Gumdrool warned us. “Coral collapses, sinkholes open up, buildings topple. Watch each step and you’ll stay alive.”
“Gee, Ian,” I shot back. “Keep this up, and I might even think you care.”
He blinked. “I do care. President Wickliffe told us how to live: ‘all should pass through, but for the lowliest criminals.’ You, Amichai, were in danger of becoming a lowly criminal.”
“Hey.”
He held his hands up. “I understand the temptations. If you knew all the things I’ve done, I…” He blushed, then looked away. “If I was certain of my chances in the LifeGuard, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Have you considered the LifeGuard might not want a mean sonuvabitch like you?”
He shrugged. “That’s living-talk. If I do my job right, you have hundreds of years to forgive me. But if I mess up, you void. Haven’t you felt the need for the servers yet?”
I had. Little Venice made us exquisitely aware of our mortality. Every time I slipped on a scree of loosened coral, my body shrieked, This is the end!
I’d never realized how good immortality felt until someone took it away.
But despite the crunch of human ribcages underfoot, I was excited. This was my last vacation. After this, my life would consist of nothing but LifeGuard missions; I would relish this freedom while I had it.
So we climbed a creaking staircase up to an old brownstone to rest briefly in an abandoned apartment, the coral walls bulging cancerous. We stripped out of the thick wetsuits, poured our pooled sweat out of the boots. Peaches combed muck from her hair while I chomped on a wrinkled apple.
Back in the days when the living had outnumbered the dead, they’d shipped all sorts of foods halfway across the world – oranges, coffee, chocolate – squirting them full of preservatives. Such a waste. All that energy could be better spent on new servers and magnetorails to deliver circuit boards, so people ate local foods. Which supposedly tasted way better than chemical-stuffed crap.
Still, how great would a can of tuna have been right then?
Dare slumped down next to me, and we both stared out over the collapsed apartment buildings.
“Ew,” said Peaches, opening the door to the bedroom. “More bodies.”
“I’ll get it,” Gumdrool said, opening up his Limbo Bag. To avoid twinning, you couldn’t get into the Upterlife without a DNA sample from a corpse to prove your death. Until then, the ones who’d died here were stuck in a Limbo server, neither alive nor Upterlifed.
Gumdrool photographed the remains before extracting tiny scrapes of jerky-like flesh, but his Limbo Bag sagged with the weight of a thousand specimens. It slowed him down, but Gumdrool stressed it was important to get as many lost souls into the Upterlife as possible.
“We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before dark,” Gumdrool said. “Don’t abandon your duty to yourself, Dare. Eat something.”
Gumdrool pressed a pear into his hands. Dare chewed it mechanically.
Our GPS maps hadn’t been updated with Little Venice’s current layout – who’d bother? It had flooded five years ago, when the guys who manned the pumps that kept this section of New York afloat had died. Maybe men more devoted to their jobs might have fought their way to the pumps and pulled off a miracle, but nobody was that inspired these days.
And once it was clear the underground flooding was sluicing holes in the substrata, causing skyscrapers to topple, the rescue effort began. It drew few volunteers, though. Rescuing was dangerous work, normally a plus, but there was a chance your body might be swept away. So millions died, too sick to get to the rescue spirocopters.
Yet even if someone had bothered to update the GPS maps, our batteries were low. Back at the orphanage, we were surrounded by electrical broadcast signals that recharged low-wattage devices. Only a handful of working charge stations remained in Little Venice.
Last time, Gumdrool had told us, his batteries had died before he got to the branch server, forcing him to return without evidence. So we kept our cameras off. And respected Gumdrool because he’d forged this path alone.
We covered a mere ten blocks the first day. When the sun set, we took shelter in what had once been a performance hall. It was an empty space that opened up to the sky, with ruins that sloped down towards a fetid pond. Dare hung up our suits to dry – my feet already crawled with fungus – while Gumdrool boiled and filtered water for tomorrow’s trip.
“My legs ache,” I told Peaches.
“Well, there’s one solution for that.” She rose to her feet, graceful as a dead ballerina, and offered me her hand. “Let us dance.”
“What? You’re crazy. There’s no music…”
She tugged me up to place my left hand at the small of her back, taking my right hand in hers. “We can hum our own rhythm. And dancing always comforts me.”
Peaches took the lead, counting an oldfashioned “one-two-three, one-two-three” rhythm, until I figured out where my feet should go. We spun in time, sweeping across the sunset’s dwindling light. Cobbling together beauty from whatever we had on hand.
I felt alive.
Peaches kissed me on the cheek. “Told you,” she said, walking me through a twirl.
“Usually you rave-dance. You pirouette sometimes when you’re distracted – I thought that was just a quirk…”
“No,” she laughed. “I dance whenever I can. It centers me. And I mean, I was classically trained.”
“Who trained you?”
“My family, who else?” She shook her head fondly. “At first I thought it was torture. Who wanted to learn how to use their stupid meat-bodies? ‘When I’m in the Upterlife, I’ll program perfect dance routines for myself,’ I told them. They insisted a proper lady knew ballet. It taught character. Obedience.”
I knew that wasn’t the whole truth. “…and?”
“…and I was still knotted with Bubbler scars,” she admitted, pulling her arms in; she wore long-sleeved shirts to cover her pockmarked skin. “They said dancing would unstick my fused muscles.”
“Did it?”
“Not at first,” she allowed. “I was as stiff as steel. Once I loosened up, the other girls made fun of my toned body – they said I was too into my meat-body, that ugly weightlifters didn’t make the Upterlife…”
“Girls said that?”
She chuckled at my naivete, still dancing. “Amichai, teenaged girls cut other girls open and dump in salt. They’re the most vicious creatures in the world.”
“You’re not vicious.”
“I look harmless,” she snapped absently. “That’s something I cultivate. Don’t idolize me, Amichai.”
She walked me through another set of steps in silence.
“Anyway, after a while, I started to, you know, crave the dance,” she continued. “That motion. That promise the next time will be the perfect movement. I began practicing in secret.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because the great-relatives watched all my classes. They told me I was too fat, that I moved like a cow. I know you get lonely sometimes, Amichai, but… having p
arents who care too much isn’t all that great, either.”
She laid her head on my shoulder, drawing me into a hug.
“So I found places without cameras,” she said. “I made my own moves. And I never let anyone see them.”
I slid my arms around her neck. She was strong enough to carefully reveal this fragility.
“And that’s…” I swallowed. “That’s why you went to the Blackout Parties, wasn’t it? You heard about a place with no cameras where people danced…”
“I was so scared, Amichai.” She shivered. “I’d always been such a good girl. I couldn’t imagine what it would mean if I got caught sneaking out. I was only twelve. But… I would have died if I didn’t.”
“And?”
She stepped away from me, spreading her arms wide to show herself off.
I shook my head in admiration. “You must have been the most beautiful thing on the dance floor.”
I’d never seen Peaches blush before. “I–”
“I’ll take first watch,” Gumdrool interrupted, hauling the fresh canteens back. “Two-hour shifts. Who wants second shift?”
I’d never found it easier to hate Gumdrool.
“…We’re sleeping now?” Peaches asked.
“Big day tomorrow. We need rest. You can support the population rebuilding efforts later, but tonight you get some shuteye.”
“What do we need to watch for?” I asked, looking around at the empty buildings and dead water.
“You don’t…?” He swallowed. “Those things patrolled.”
“The NeoChristians?”
“…yes.”
Gumdrool had clutched his truncheon all day, which surprised me – he was a match for any NeoChristian. I guess a group of them might have scared him.
I lay down on the broken rubble, sure I’d never sleep with Peaches so close. Then Gumdrool shook me awake.
I opened my eyes onto the deepest blackness I’d ever seen; there were no Upterlife servers glowing, no firefly-green cameras staring at us.
“It’s your watch,” whispered Gumdrool. “But don’t rely on your eyes. They can hide in the darkness… but they can’t be quiet. Don’t fall asleep.”
“They’re not things,” I corrected him, remembering Evangeline. “They’re NeoChristians.”
He shuddered. “Whatever they are, they’re… not subtle. You’ll hear them coming.”
“And if they come?”
“We run.” He shut down his earputer. “Good night.”
He rolled over and started snoring.
I listened to the wind whistling through broken windows, the creak and teeter of unstable skyscrapers. A clatter, and something splashed into into the water; I nearly grabbed at Gumdrool before realizing it was just debris falling into the river.
After a while, I heard something slurping down where the water sloshed against the building’s foundations. A gurgle. A choke. Muffled tears.
I almost yelled “Run!” Then I remembered how I’d almost panicked over the debris. Yeah, that’d impress Peaches, rousing her from a dead sleep to flee from a stray dog.
More slurping. More muffled retching.
I thought about waking Gumdrool, but I just couldn’t. I could yell loud enough to wake people, if I had to. And the shore wasn’t that far away.
This wasn’t nearly as stupid as the pony.
I crept up on the water. My shoes crunched on coral, but whatever it was didn’t seem to notice. I saw a hunched figure, lit by smog-choked starlight, crouched over the water…
…Dare.
He brought up mouthfuls of gummy water in cupped hands, slurping it down. Then he gagged, swallowing back vomit.
“What are you doing?” I whispered. “That water’s full of germs.”
His eyes glittered. “It’s my key to the Upterlife.” He gulped down another mouthful.
Uh-oh, I thought.
“Dare, you can’t… can’t suicide.” Even the word sounded Criminal in my mouth. “That’s a straight ticket to the void.”
He laughed. “You were right, Amichai; I can’t make it in this world. I’ll never get that architect slot.”
“So you work at the family Mortuaries. That’s not so bad…”
A bitter chuckle. “You think I renounced my family and moved into an orphanage on a lark? You should see my grandparents. They can’t think for themselves. All they can do is echo my ancestors’ decisions. They quiver like custard when you ask them for an opinion. After twenty years, I’ll be sucked so dry I won’t be worth Shriving.
“I need to die now.” He gulped more water. I slapped his hands away.
“You can’t start a career as a dead man!”
“Why not? I’m young. Someone will take me on as an apprentice. When I’m dead, I’ll be able to walk through my plans, touch them, see the flaws as the dead do. Don’t you see, Ami? The only way I can make this work is to transition now.”
His logic was sickeningly accurate.
“Everyone has a baby suicide attempt, Dare,” I told him. “I drank a bottle of floor cleaner when I was eight. But that’s childish fantasy. You can’t get into the Upterlife that way…”
“Oh, I will. I didn’t Shrive before I left – the only me the Upterlife has access to is yesterday’s happy Dare, the Dare who was positive he’d get his slot as an architect. That Dare’s sure to get in.”
“But the cameras – they watch everything – they’ll know you–”
He gestured at the lightless sky. “Who’s watching now? If I die of dysentery, who’s to say it wasn’t something I caught in the water? A sad end, they’ll say – but no. I beat them.”
He lifted water reverently in cupped hands. “This is the sacrifice I make for future Dare. He’ll never even know I did it.”
It should have been a triumph. He’d beaten the system.
“I’ll tell them,” I said, trying to control the shivering in my voice.
He laughed bitterly. “Will you, Amichai? Will you tell the truth and kill me forever?”
My skin pimpled with goosebumps as I realized he’d backed me into a corner. If I told, I’d void him. If I didn’t tell, he’d die. Either way was my fault.
Dare shook his head. “You won’t tell.”
“Dare, I lied. You are that good. I was just protecting Izzy–”
He snorted in disbelief. “After your parents left, you’d say anything to keep me around. It’s sweet, Amichai. But I’ll see you in the Upterlife–”
Gumdrool kicked Dare square in the stomach.
Dare doubled over, choking, vomiting water. I stood shocked by Gumdrool’s sudden appearance as he booted Dare in the gut again, shouting, “Spit it out! Spit it out, you traitor!”
I lunged for him. He backhanded me so hard my ears rang.
He knelt on Dare’s spine; Dare moaned in protest. “Look here, you little runt – you do not sneak into the Upterlife before you’ve given every last ounce of your life. Cheats like you are the whole reason the Upterlife’s lost its way. Maybe Damrosch doesn’t have the guts to get you voided, but I do. I’ll bar you from those servers forever.”
He bent Dare’s fingers back until Dare screamed. “And if I catch you ‘slipping’ off an outcropping, or anything that even looks like it’s intentional, I will blind you. Think you could be an architect then?”
I rushed at Gumdrool. He shoved me back contemptuously.
“We’re both trying to keep him here,” Gumdrool told me. “Except my techniques work.”
“I hate you!” Dare shrieked, writhing in his own sick. “I fucking hate you!”
“You’ll forgive me,” Gumdrool said serenely. “In a century or two.”
He walked back to go to sleep, leaving us to explain everything to a furious Peaches.
17: IN THE ROOM OF ROTTING PIGEONS
* * *
“You guys ready?” Gumdrool asked the next morning. He tapped his truncheon against his thigh in warning.
“Lead the way,” Dare said, picking
up his backpack. His stomach must have hurt like void – I’d seen the bruises – but he hissed through his teeth, refusing to give Gumdrool the satisfaction.
Gumdrool looked surprised. “No debates?”
“That would imply we had better choices,” Peaches snapped.
We’d stayed up all night, discussing whether we could leave Gumdrool. We couldn’t. Even if you took me out of the equation – I had quit my job, after all, leaving me voided unless we pulled off something big – it was still a day’s hike across treacherous ground to return home. We’d barely made it this far with Gumdrool.
Gumdrool nodded approvingly.
“It’ll all work out in the end. Remember: half a millennium from now, you’ll thank me for hauling your sorry asses into the Upterlife.”
He clambered over a heap of coral-crusted wreckage. We followed.
As we headed deeper into Little Venice, we saw more toppled-over buildings. I could see how you could lose four collapsed skyscrapers in this mess.
We stayed out of the dangerous street-tides whenever possible, which meant forging our way through mazes of apartment complexes. The coral had metastasized; some colonies had swollen to close off hallways, while others had devoured each other to leave nothing but crumbling skeletal lace. We kicked in doors, tiptoed across bulging floors that flexed dangerously underfoot.
Gumdrool hounded Dare, forcing him to take point on anything that looked dangerous. “You go first.” He pointed out a path towards a kitchen window. “Then I’ll follow.”
It was cruel. Dare winced when he walked. Peaches and I wondered whether his ribs were broken. Yet Gumdrool never stopped.
“It’s all about revenge with you, isn’t it?” Dare whispered.
Gumdrool looked hurt.
It wasn’t about revenge, not for him. Gumdrool’s whole world had crystallized around one goal: get everyone into the Upterlife. Nothing else mattered: not remorse, not apologies, not humanity.
That flinty faith allowed him to assume any damage he did in this life would fade. It allowed Gumdrool to justify anything as long as it kept the servers running. He had a shark’s instincts: his first thought was always his first action, ready to react to any threat with instant, unblunted force.
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