by Joan He
“Fuck.”
I almost expect to hear U-me, defining my word in response. But she’s not here. It’s just me and Hubert, volleyed from wave to wave, a toy to the sea. I turn off his motor, hoping it’ll help. It doesn’t. Think. Lightning splits the sky and rain lashes into my face and a wave looms over us out of nowhere, casting us in the shadow of its maw.
Thinking time is over. I start the motor and seize the backup oar, rowing with all my might.
Slowly, we move.
In the wrong direction.
The wave curls us into its grasp. Crushes us.
My ears pop as we plunge. But I still hear it: the scream of tearing metal.
THE NEWS HAD RIPPED THROUGH the city like an explosion. The fallout lingered for weeks.
Celia Mizuhara, elder daughter of eco-city architect David Mizuhara, lost at sea.
It was a missing-persons case from pre-Intraface times, when holoing wasn’t a way of life, biomonitors didn’t correct neurotransmitter imbalance–driven behaviors, and a person’s whereabouts wasn’t a geolocation query away. And yet, authorities verified the authenticity of the public cambot footage. Prior to sunrise, Celia had indeed taken a duct down to the boat rental below the eco-city. Now both boat and body had vanished, leaving behind a ready-made news story. Friends and exes emerged from the woodwork, eager to fill in Celia’s blanks.
Only one relation was absent.
“Kasey Mizuhara!” She evaded the reporters; they holo-ed to her location whenever they could track her down in the public domain. “How are you coping in the days since city authorities declared your sister missing?”
“Presumed dead,” Kasey supplied, thinking they’d go away if she kept it concise. Instead, the sound bite went viral. People lambasted the monotone of her voice. Others defended Kasey, explaining her stoicism as if it were a mask concealing her grief. That disturbed Kasey more than the vitriol. Hope was a drug. Why self-medicate when the numbers were right there, time-stamped on the cambot footage? Three months and twelve days, her sister had been lost at sea. Celia was many things, but still mortal. Dehydration would have killed her first, given that she’d taken the boat as is, packing no additional supplies. Who did when going on a recreational spin?
Unless recreation wasn’t the intention.
“Attempts to geolocate your sister have failed,” reporters were always quick to mention. “Her Intraface seems to have gone completely off-grid. Kasey, would you like to comment?”
“No. No comment.”
“Might this be deliberate?” they’d press, and that would stop Kasey, wherever she was—usually at the ducts, waiting for an up-ride home after school, commercials blaring in the background, but even they couldn’t drown out the unspoken question.
Might your sister not want to be found?
What could she say? The Intraface was more likely out of range. The boat and body could very well be at the bottom of the seafloor. Possibility didn’t equate high probability, and anything was more probable than a conspiracy theory.
But sharing what she really thought would only appall people, so Kasey would simply shake her head at the reporters and step into the duct when it finally came.
Now, as her moving-on party continued in the virtual domain, she stepped out of her stasis pod, closed the door behind her, and left the room she was fortunate to call her own. Make no mistake: The Mizuharas practiced what they preached. Their unit, like most designed by David for a family of four, was only thirty-five square meters. But at least they had individual rooms connected by a narrow hall, and a window at the hall-end. Everyone else had filled in their walls to boost their units’ thermal efficiency scores, causing voice support for windows to be discontinued across the board.
Undeterred, Celia would manually open theirs after sundown. She’d made the task look easy; it was anything but. Kasey had calluses as proof. Tonight, as she had the night before, she grasped the handle beneath the sill and cranked. Turn by turn, the sheet of polyglass opened like a protractor’s arm.
On the tiny balcony outside, a ladder was bolted to the wall. Kasey gripped the rungs and climbed until her head met the stratum overhanging theirs. The ceiling—or rather, the stratum’s ground floor, was still voice-supported, thankfully, and at Kasey’s command, a circular entryway opened like an eye.
She hoisted herself through, into the moonlit unit above. It was devoid of life, unless you counted the cleaningbot, to whom Kasey was indebted. She wouldn’t last a minute here without it, for the Coles had been avid collectors, and aside from their stasis pods (lofted), they’d furnished the unit with a coffee table crafted from driftwood and armchairs upholstered in turquoise velvet, the degradable materials a magnet for particulates. The first time her parents had taken her to visit their upstairs neighbors, colleagues, and friends, Kasey had sneezed nonstop. She’d sneezed again, years later, when Celia dragged her back up the ladder even though Kasey said they shouldn’t. They were no longer invited. This wasn’t their home.
But Celia couldn’t resist the call of the windows. And what windows they were: 360 degrees drawn from floor to ceiling, the unit on stratum-100 a gleaming cone at the pinnacle of their teardrop-shaped city. Celia would sit on the chaise by the glass like their parents once had, their mother and Ester Cole, both policymakers, discussing the latest humanitarian crises while their father and Frain Cole compared microhousing blueprints. The two most influential families of the planetary protection movement, bathed in light.
In the dark, Kasey now sat and looked out beyond the glass, to the panorama of sea and air surrounding their eco-city and seven others around the world. The eight, collectively, housed about 25% of the human population. Seventy-five percent still lived in the land-bound territories—and not all by choice. Sky-bound immigration had risen to unsustainable levels; admission was now limited by rank. Rank was calculated from the planetary impact of an individual’s Intraface-tracked behaviors—and the behaviors of their ancestors. Territory denizens, many with family histories in carbon-heavy industries, decried the system as stacked against them. Was it? Kasey supposed it was hard for people to accept their own insignificance, their actions like droplets in a sea created by their antecedents.
But even in a sea, every life rippled far beyond its end. Rather than blame systems or ancestors, Kasey blamed human nature. People weren’t hardwired to think generations ahead. Entities like Mizuhara Corporation, who’d sponsored the first eco-cities for communities displaced by the arctic melt, were few and far between. So were the Coles, ranked number one for curing diseases such as the common cancer to curtail the effects of pharmaceutical production on the biosphere. More than doctors, they were humanists. To give people more agency over their lives, the Coles had invented the biomonitor, an Intraface app that put health in the hands of individuals, alerting them when corrective action was needed.
Like now.
Ding. The notification rung in Kasey’s head. She opened her biomonitor app and found her neurotransmitters reading in the MILDLY DEBILITATED range.
Odd. She didn’t feel debilitated. Functioned more or less fine. She stared at the corrective option in her mind’s eye.
ADJUST SEROTONIN LEVELS
Blinked it away, only to have it replaced by another.
COGNICISE RELEVANT* MEMORIES
*memories of SISTER, CELIA MIZUHARA
Cognicision therapy embargoed memories that triggered the body’s stress response, then reintroduced them gradually. But memories didn’t distress Kasey. They were unreliable and degradable, subject to the wear and tear of time unless you recorded them religiously like Celia, which Kasey didn’t. History was her least favorite subject for a reason. Even her memories of their mother, Genevie, were piecemeal at best. A manicured hand, reaching to fix Kasey’s bangs. An authoritative voice, telling her to go play with the Coles’ only child, a boy as silent as his pet rabbit. Too-loud laughter, from Genevie and Ester, when Kasey refused to, hiding behind Celia.
What
she did remember: the weather—25°C, humidity at 38%—that day David Mizuhara had taken the girls to see Genevie and the Coles off on their disaster relief trip to an outside territory. In a show of solidarity, they opted to travel in the flesh—a choice that proved fatal when the autopilot malfunctioned and sent the copterbot into a mountain face.
After the funeral (four urns of sea salt: three for the Coles and their boy, one for Genevie), David had disappeared into his room, where Kasey assumed he’d stay for a few days, like he usually did while working on his blueprints. It was to her surprise, then, when he emerged the next morning, clean-shaven and suited, leaving for the eco-city’s HQ as Genevie would have. But David wasn’t Genevie, and Celia wasn’t David, and Kasey’s confusion grew when her sister did stay in her room. For hours. Sobs came through the wall between them, and Kasey listened, helpless, unable to understand why her sister and dad were acting so out of character.
Finally, at noon, she hacked into Celia’s Intraface. Found files of her sister’s unfinished homework. Completed it for her. Saw a biomonitor recommendation to restore falling neurotransmitter levels.
That had to be the answer to her sister’s strange behavior, thought Kasey, selecting YES.
Her door flung open shortly afterward. “What the hell, Kay?”
“You’re in pain.” And pain was an objectively undesirable sensation and emotion.
But Celia had looked at Kasey as if she was one with bloodshot eyes. “What’s wrong with you?”
Her sister would take back the words two days later. Two years later, they’d mend their rift.
But immediately after their mother’s death, a nine-year-old Kasey would ask her biomonitor Celia’s very question, and be disappointed to learn there was nothing biologically or psychologically wrong with her. Nothing to cure, nothing to fix. Kasey had a hard time buying it. Something inside her had to have been misinstalled. Why else hadn’t she reacted like Celia to the death of the woman who’d birthed them, or like the public to Celia’s disappearance?
Why else, now, when she blinked away the option to cognicise her memories of Celia, would she be faced with the following field?
INVALID REQUEST
more details
more details [x]
All citizens must maintain minimum mood level above SEVERE_DEBILITATION [value ≥-50]
However, your minimum mood setting requires corrective action at MILD_DEBILITATION [≥-10] due to court override†.
† P2C court records: see past felony.
Failure to take corrective action will result in eviction.
She wasn’t as good as Celia, Kasey thought as she returned to the previous field and selected neurotransmitter adjustment instead. If Kasey had gone missing, Celia would’ve traveled to the ends of the earth looking for her. If Kasey had died, Celia would have been more than mildly debilitated. She would’ve stared into the reporter’s cams with tears in her eyes and spoken her mind, not lied as Kasey had.
Might your sister not want to be found?
To be honest, Kasey didn’t know. Didn’t deserve to dissect Celia. Present her with any other problem and she wouldn’t rest until it was solved. Her sister was the exception. When Celia insisted on seeing the sea in person, as if that was somehow different from holoing to it, Kasey had followed along, trying to understand. When Celia snuck out at night to go Joules knew where, Kasey let her, resisting the urge to track her geolocation. Had she, she could have prevented this. Celia wouldn’t be dead. Instead, she’d respected the sanctity of what went on in her sister’s head. Surely that had to count for something.
Yet here Kasey was.
Unable to sleep at night, as if she might stop her sister from sneaking out one last time.
Running a search for Celia’s Intraface, long after authorities had deemed it off-grid.
Staring at the sea from the highest stratum, as if she might be the first to spot the boat’s return.
Three months, twelve days.
Her actions made no sense. Logic couldn’t explain them. Only hope. It’d leaked into her system, despite her best efforts to keep it out, and in the morning, when Kasey woke to an alert flashing in her mind’s eye, she got her first taste of its addictive rush.
[CELIA MIZUHARA] INTRAFACE LOCATED
WHERE AM I?
Who am I?
What’s my name?
Cee. I smile in relief when I remember, eyes shuttering against the sun, white overhead.
Then I roll onto my stomach and vomit onto the sand.
My relief sours to panic. No. No, no, no. I can’t have my taro and chuck it up too. I need to hold it in. But the only thing coming out of me is a cocktail of seawater and bile. No taro. Not in me. All in the ocean, dissolved to slime. Months’ worth of taro, food for the fish.
And Hubert . . .
I wobble to my feet. My legs are already weakening, my vision zooming in and out of focus before finally stabilizing on an object farther down the shore.
A hull.
Or half of one, resting on a crescent of wet sand.
Hubert.
I thump to my knees and crawl to his remains. “Morning, Bert,” I manage.
And lose it.
I bawl until the tide rises, then, as I hold Hubert down so the sea won’t wash him away, I form my first truly coherent thought: I need to bury him. Give him a proper goodbye.
I drag him onto safe, dry sand, and stagger around to face whatever lies behind me.
And what do you know.
There’s a house on the rocks that looks suspiciously like M.M.’s.
Then there’s me. Standing. On a shore. The shore. After sailing Hubert seven days out into the sea, plus however much time has passed since, I’m back. Waterlogged but alive.
Which begs the question: How in the fucking world?
Did I swim? Did I cling to Hubert and drift on some lucky waves? And even then, shouldn’t I have thirsted to death?
I rack my brains, trying to remember something, anything, but all I’ve got are muggy memories of drowning.
Chasing after the hows drains me, so I focus on the shoulds. I should be ecstatic. I should be grateful I’m not a bloated body in the sea. I should rebuild Hubert. Try finding Kay again.
Instead, I feel nothing.
I’m back.
I’m fucking back.
I failed the greatest mission of my life, the one goal that kept me going day after day, and I couldn’t even die in peace. I’m back to exactly where I started: marooned, color-blind, memory-less. I’d be furious if I weren’t so fatigued.
“All right, Cee,” I mutter as the clouds move in—not enough to visibly dim the beach but enough to chill me. “So what if you’re back? You’re a pro. You know what to do. Climb the ridge. Find the pieces. Build. It’ll be easier than before. Trust me.”
The pep talk fails. I let out a strangled chuckle, self-pity tears leaking from my eyes. Who am I kidding? I spent months digging through rusted piles of junk, looking for a single propeller. There’s no workable metal left. Not enough for a whole boat.
Wiping my eyes, I look up, in the direction of the house.
No metal?
No problem.
“Strongly disagree,” intones U-me when she finds me crouched by the porch, prying at the wooden steps with my bare hands. “Strongly disagree. Strongly disagree.”
“For Joules’ sake, shut up.”
U-me goes silent.
I cover my face and exhale into my palms. “Sorry.” It’s an apology to U-me and to the porch. After everything M.M. has given me, this can’t be how I repay her. “I’m sorry.”
U-me doesn’t say anything, just rolls close.
Uncovering my face, I rise. “Stay,” I order, heading across the beach. U-me follows. “Really, stay! I’ll be back this time.”
But when I make it to the end of the sunken pier on the west side of the coast, I’m not so sure if I want to go back. Everything’s still gray, including the water lapping over
the pier planks. I’ve stepped off the end before to swim. I don’t want to swim anymore. I want to sink. The memory of pain returns to my lungs, and I can almost feel them filling again. It’ll suck. A lot. But then things will go still. Tranquil. Easier than this.
Megajoules. What am I thinking?
I get to my knees and dunk my head into the water. The salt stings my lips. I part them to scream.
Nothing comes out.
No point in screaming if there’s no one to hear.
I say her name instead. Kay. I ask if she’s out there. If she knows I tried—really, really tried—to find her.
And if she’d forgive me if I don’t try again.
• • •
In the end, I don’t bury Hubert. Feels wrong to trap a part of him on this island when at least one of us can be free.
“Goodbye, Bert,” I say, releasing him.
The waves carry him out. For a second, regret fills me like wind in a sail. It blows me deeper into the water, after Hubert. I’ve changed my mind. I want to bury him. Keep him near, in case his other pieces wash up.
The ocean reclaims him before I can.
I stumble to a stop. Foam rises around my knees, pulls away. Sand slips out from under my feet. I keep my footing. I stay until the gulls circling me lose interest. They go home and I do too.
The fifty strides from shore to house feel closer to a hundred. My calves burn as I climb the sandy steps to M.M.’s porch, and as I clutch the rail for support, I find myself eye level with the tally marks, all 1,112 of them.
Now 1,113. I gouge it in with the metal scrap, drop it. It plinks onto the porch.
1,113 days.
Three years, and then some, on this island.
Now back to square one.
“This calls for a renaming of an era,” I say as U-me joins me. But life-after-life-after-Hubert sounds uninspiring, and frankly, not much has changed. The kitchen is the way I left it: empty jar on the counter, broken taro biscuits on the scuffed floor. I pick up the pieces, de-fluff them of mold, and begin refilling the jar. Don’t know why—pretty sure I can sicken and die from eating mold just as easily as not eating, but it’s something to do, and when I’m done refilling the jar, I wipe down the dust covering the countertops and check the water tank. The pipes run under the house and draw salt water from the sea, which is then passed through a solar-powered boiler that traps the steam and condenses it to fresh water. The system failing would seriously throw a wrench in my whole I-will-survive thing, so I’m relieved, as always, to find it still working. I turn on the valves and head to the bathroom to run a bath, shrug out of my sand-caked sweater and cargos as I wait for the porcelain tub to fill.
