A Beginning at the End

by Mike Chen

“Let’s hope so. It’d be nice to trade supplies with the Sacramento Metro.” The rifle clicked as Moira checked the load on it, then patted her belt to confirm extra ammo. “Have fun giving birth.”

  “Right. Oh. Birthplace? You’re American now?”

  “Yeah,” Moira said, turning on her not-quite-there accent. “Uh-mare-eh-can.”

  She’d returned an hour later after a relatively uneventful watch from the campus water tower. Looter gangs by that time had begun congregating in the long stretches of nothing between communities, fighting themselves over turf more often than attacking Reclaimed communities for vegetables. By then, Fred had created her identity as Johanna Hatfield, not realizing she’d been joking. That one ill-timed slip probably created the lead that drew Moira’s father to San Francisco. He scrambled to add another entry but by then found he didn’t have permissions to delete Johanna. “Shit. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were kidding around,” he said on the rooftop at the time.

  “It’s okay. I just never want to be Johanna again. Make a new record.” Moira spoke the whole thing in her American accent, the one that would have to be her normal speaking voice when she drove out to the San Francisco Metro in a few months. “Let’s call her Moira Gorman.”

  “Gorman? G-O-R-M-A-N?”

  “Yeah.” Moira pictured Chris, his tired eyes, red cheeks, and constant gum chewing. “Gorman.”

  That was how Moira Gorman came to exist. But other than one bank account and one credit card, she didn’t have the true set of traceable roots that authentic identities did.

  But she would soon.

  Moira stood, echoes of footsteps and voices surrounding her in City Hall, then she opened up the scheduling binder for civil ceremonies and scanned for available dates: the first one was next week. She hadn’t told Frank about this yet, and given his reaction the other night, she imagined it’d be a mixture of confusion and resistance. But looking at the hanging TV screen in the corner, even now her dad watched over her shoulder. There he was, standing in front of a podium somewhere out in Manchester, holding up a press photo of her with the MoJo makeup and MoJo hair and MoJo smile from nearly a decade ago.

  She wasn’t going to play his games anymore. This was a clean break.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Krista

  City Hall wasn’t exactly the most impressive place in San Francisco, even after the End of the World and subsequent reconstruction. Clearly, Sunny had never seen anything quite like the building’s central hallway, with its sprawling central staircase and domed ceiling. The place supposedly suffered significant damage during the quarantine period, but from the look of it, it had been restored exactly the way Krista remembered it when visiting the Bay Area as a thirteen-year-old. During that visit, she didn’t quite have the wide-eyed stare that was on Sunny’s face, though it did trigger a mix of emotions in her. For every happy memory of being able to breathe easy, an entire country apart from her mom, there also remained the complication of protective lying every time her grandparents asked her how she was doing.

  “It’s so big.” Sunny took in a deep breath, as if some of the building’s majesty would rub off on her. Hydraulics on the door behind them gradually brought the front entrance to a close, its tinted coating dulling the afternoon sunbeams into a muted yellow glow.

  “Yep,” Krista said, and she jolted when Sunny took her hand.

  Still needed to get used to that.

  “So, I have to go to an office on the second floor there—” Krista pointed up and around “—and pay a bill. That’s it. But you can look around while I do that.”

  Were seven-year-olds allowed to wander by themselves at a building like City Hall while adults ran errands? Krista ground her teeth, unsure of what was normal for that sort of thing, either before MGS or after. Better to go with the safer route. “Actually, stay with me while I do that and then we’ll check it out.”

  “Like over there?” Sunny pointed to a small cluster of people by the hallway adjacent to the main stairway, their heads and shoulders blocking the sign for some exhibit tucked away in the corner.

  “Yeah...” Krista angled her neck to decipher the letters explaining the exhibit. “H-O... ‘How’ something. Well, we’ll check it out. Hey, what game are we still playing?”

  “‘Does she look like MoJo?’”

  “You got it.” Hands still clasped together, she led the little girl up the stairs and through a back hallway. They weaved through, getting the occasional side-eye from mask-wearers as they stepped through and around pockets of people. Sunny gave oohs and ahs at the tall photos showing snippets of San Francisco’s past, though she stopped halfway down the hallway.

  First came a tug on the arm. Then the quiet words, her cheeks bright with an excited smile. “Krista!” she said just above a whisper.

  “What’s up?”

  “She looks like MoJo.”

  They’d done this game at a few places. This was the first time Sunny made that proclamation unprompted.

  A flurry rippled through Krista’s stomach and her senses all turned up. Noises got louder, colors became brighter, she was suddenly more present and grounded despite the musky air of the corridor. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she scanned the handful of people in the hallway. Most were either too old or too young to possibly be the pop star, but then her eyes stopped on the short black hair of a woman leaning over a binder. “That woman?”

  “Yeah. With the binder.”

  Was that...?

  All of the excitement tempered, its wings suddenly clipped. That couldn’t be MoJo.

  “Okay, so don’t say anything. That’s, um, part of the game.”

  Krista waited until the woman snapped the binder shut and looked up to talk to an attendant in the office across the hall. The neat posture, polite gestures, the way she held a smile a fraction of a second more than necessary, it all instantly screamed that the woman standing there was her lone remaining client.

  Not a pop star. Just Moira.

  “Are you sure?” Krista asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Well, see, that’s—” The phone in Krista’s back pocket began buzzing, and she pulled it out to see a text from Rob.

  Do you mind watching Sunny a few more hours? Paid of course. Found a speed dating event tonight. Should be done by 7. Just please don’t tell Sunny specifics, she won’t understand.

  Some people married for love. Some for stability. Some for money, or at least they used to. Rob apparently was in the market so he could prep for a meeting. An important meeting, of course, but still. This must have been the new world’s version of getting married for a green card.

  No problem. We’ll hang out, Krista texted back.

  The Send icon floated onto the phone’s small screen, then vanished. Krista looked up only to find Moira gone. Not at the binder, not farther down the hall, not at the water fountain next to the large canvas print of the Bay Bridge, nothing. Her head swiveled back and forth, eyes scanning for Moira, but she was nowhere to be seen. “Did you see that woman leave?”

  “Uh-huh. She went that way.” Sunny pointed out to the main hallway. “I swear, she looks like MoJo.”

  “Okay. Let’s keep that in mind,” Krista said. They walked down the hallway to the Residence License registrar, slowing down only to read the sign by where Moira had stood: Office of the County Clerk.

  Some twenty minutes and one renewed Residence License later, Krista and Sunny made their way downstairs after touring the entire second floor of City Hall—something that, when you got down to it, really was just a bunch of offices with nice stone tiling on the outside. Downstairs, the small crowd of people still lingered.

  Krista’s phone buzzed, and pulling it out revealed the usual Reunion Services message about a pending local contract, except this time Krista recognized the target’s name: Donita Finch, a woman who�
��d hired her last year. “Hey, Sunny, go check out the exhibit over there for a second. I have to handle this but I’ll be right here.”

  The girl nodded, and as she trotted off, Krista yelled, “Don’t forget to play the game.” Whether she heard her or not, Krista couldn’t tell; Sunny disappeared into the space, though Krista kept glancing up from her phone to make sure she tracked the girl’s mop of black hair. Her contact list loaded up, and she scrolled to the name Donita Finch.

  A perfect match. This would be easy. Someday, when citywide phone directories or even old-school phone books returned, an entire industry would vanish. For now, this was money in Krista’s pocket. She entered in her Reunion Services agent code as a reply to the notification text, though her finger hesitated to hit Send.

  Echoes of her last reunion attempt rattled her mind, the woman’s desperate pleas asking her to do anything but connect her with her brother. “Tell him I’m dead. Tell him you couldn’t find me. You don’t know these people, this family. Let me escape.” There was a reason, the target had explained, why she’d never reached out. Krista understood that all too well.

  Did she really want to confront that again?

  On the other hand, the stark reality of losing her Residence License tickled different memories, the sheer urgency that came with every breath when her mother searched for some place for them to stay. No, she needed a home of her own, some place she controlled. She wouldn’t go through that again. And that meant taking on easy money.

  Krista hit Send and a reply message appeared about fifteen seconds later.

  We’re sorry, this contract has been claimed. We look forward to working with you soon.

  Claimed already. Probably by someone who didn’t hesitate. Her attention returned to the exhibit, to catching up with Sunny, who’d moved past the crowd to examine a series of photos lining the room perimeter.

  “Why’s she sleeping?” Sunny asked of the image, an oversized picture of a woman sleeping on the floor of an airport terminal.

  “Maybe she missed her flight. They used to have a lot of them.”

  The next one featured what looked like a makeshift stage of some sort, performers using sewn-up blankets as costumes as they stood in a courtyard in front of a small group of children.

  “Those are weird costumes,” Sunny said.

  “I knew theater kids in college. It’s probably some sort of interpretive thing.”

  After that, a woman and a child laughing, their clothes dirty from soil as they knelt next to a rooftop garden. And after that one, a man sitting at a table, lines of concentration bored deep in his face, clipboard in one hand with stacks of canned goods around and behind him. And even farther, the weathered face and fragile hair of an old man, standing by himself but holding up a photo of a teenager, a long line of people running from left to right behind him.

  With each progressive image, Sunny grew quieter and the discomfort unfurled in Krista, first from the feeling that this was some sort of artsy fartsy photo exhibit to the grueling realization that they’d walked into a PASD trap.

  Then the next one: a group holding hands around a makeshift grave, the domed walls of a stadium in the background.

  Not just a stadium. A stadium turned quarantine. Tension returned to Krista’s shoulders, though in a different way from the creeping dread of losing a Residence License. This was sharp and immediate, prompting her to arch her neck to finally see what the exhibit was called.

  How We Remember: Life in Quarantine.

  This couldn’t be good for anyone’s PASD, and yet here they were. “You know, we should probably go. Sunny?” But Sunny still stared at the image of the prayer circle around the grave, and Krista could practically see the little gears churning in her head. Krista scanned the scene for the quickest way out when her eyes landed on the next photo: a swarm of people pushing each other during ration handouts—in the middle, a toddler with a mop of black hair sat on her father’s shoulders as he was shoved out, his hand reaching to a woman falling to the ground.

  The man struck Krista as familiar, from the lines around his mouth to the wide-eyed stare. Between that, the child on his shoulders, and the tumbling blonde woman, puzzle pieces fit into place. She reached down and grabbed Sunny’s hand just as the girl began to step to the next image.

  “We should go.”

  “Are we done here? We didn’t even look for MoJo.”

  “Yeah. We really should go.”

  The image seared into her mind, even the tiniest of details, while her legs pumped at full speed to get back into City Hall’s main lobby. The way the little girl had one hand on the father’s shoulder, the other covering her ear. The way the man’s wide eyes screamed desperation, panic, and horror all at once.

  The man was Rob.

  Krista found her jaw locked up, teeth pushing so hard against each other that even her cheeks ached. She tried forcing the picture out, pushing it all away or at least far into a corner of her mind where she could bury it under trivial things. Like remembering that today was supposed to be about business, or the fact that she needed to pick up cat food on the way home.

  Her focus finally shook free when her phone buzzed again. But instead of Rob texting about his speed dating, it was, of all people, Moira.

  I have a question about civil ceremonies at City Hall. Can we talk?

  Suddenly, the county clerk’s office made sense.

  “So what were all those pictures about?” Sunny asked. “Was that the quarantine?”

  “Hold on one sec.” Krista looked back at the photo exhibit, the people standing in solemn observation of the photos, their quiet demeanor and serious expressions making far too much sense now, then down at her phone, the name MOIRA in all capital letters on the primitive pixelated screen. “Did you really think that woman upstairs looked like MoJo?”

  “She did! She had MoJo’s eyes! And smile!”

  The images of MoJo in her pop star regalia buried the real person under makeup and glamour. But eyes and smile, that would never change.

  Krista smirked to herself.

  They needed something to do while Rob was at speed dating. This was a hell of a something. “I’ve got an idea,” she said as she typed back to Moira.

  How about we drop by your place?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rob

  A large banner greeted Rob when he walked into House Tornado Wine Bar; its reflection bounced off the mirrored decor to create infinite Welcome Love Solutions Daters! He held the door open but waited to step inside while he took a closer peek.

  The women appeared to be between their midtwenties to midforties, and the men seemed to be five or ten years older as a group. Difficult to tell these days; depending on how people handled PASD, some appeared wearier than their actual age. And surprisingly, none of them wore masks. Instead, a sign stood at the entrance. Please remove your masks so we can get to know you better! Hand sanitizer is provided at each table.

  Rob adjusted his tie and stepped in, the glass door behind him coming to a close.

  “Hi!” A tall, skinny blonde woman approached, clipboard in hand. “Are you here for Love Solutions?”

  “That’s right.”

  “All righty, then. Many of our singles have already arrived and are enjoying our free appetizers and drinks. Just fill out this form, then I’ll give you your name tag and information packet.”

  Rob nodded, and the woman disappeared, leaving him with a single sheet on a clipboard. Men and women littered the bar, but the PA system overpowered their voices with the horns and brushed drums of jazz from nearly a century ago. The soundtrack made for a safe choice, given the dire mood of today’s music and the potential emotional baggage songs from a decade or two ago might trigger—though Rob couldn’t help but think of Moira and her impromptu alleyway performance. The chaos sprawled all around him, forcing him to retreat into the
bar’s lone quiet corner.

  He worked his way down the form from the obvious contact info to the more open-ended questions probably used for marketing surveys. Why did you choose Love Solutions? Little check boxes sat next to “A friend referred me,” “Advertisement,” “Coupon/special,” and “Other,” which Rob marked and noted “My dying wife told me to be good to myself” in the blank space next to it.

  That truth was better than “I meet the Family Stability Board soon.”

  “All done,” Rob said, handing the clipboard back to the excitable blonde woman.

  “Fan-TAS-tic!” She bent down over her little table and scribbled ROB on a name tag, then pasted it on his chest with a hearty push. “We’ll go over the instructions in this packet together, so don’t worry about it now. Here are your two free drink tickets,” she said, handing him square scraps with the Love Solutions logo. “Go ahead and mingle. You never know who you might run into.”

  Mingle. Rob chose the path of least resistance, walking over to the thin Asian woman standing closest to him. Her black pixie cut had a dark red tint in it. “Hi,” he said, reminding himself why he was there. “I’m...”

  But before he got any further, the woman turned and stepped away. Rob scanned the room, but outside of people asking the bartender for drinks, it might as well have been filled with statues. Men and women stood in various frozen poses, looking everywhere except at one another.

  If the hostess’s enthusiasm was intended to be catching, it failed miserably; instead, Rob found himself trading his free drink coupon for a bottle of beer and then blending into the corner, watching the TV news: first a report on the surge of people moving to the Silicon Valley extension of the Metro despite resource and power limitations, then a look at the repurposed Benicia oil refinery plant that now acted as a processing-and-distribution center for pre-MGS unopened products, then finally talking heads arguing about Miami and whether another outbreak was even feasible given the scattered population centers and flight travel limitations. No one else seemed to notice.