by Joss Ware
“I don’t know where the hell you’re going to park this thing,” Zoë said. “Stop here.”
They were in front of a caved-in storefront. The roof had collapsed in the front, and its neighboring structure—with which it shared a wall—sagged on top of it.
Quent looked around and found a narrow space between buildings that wasn’t too overgrown due to low sunlight, and pulled the humvee into it.
“Watch out for Fang,” Zoë said as she climbed from the truck. “He’s not fond of strangers.”
Fang? That sounded ominous.
Quent pocketed the keys and opened the door for Marley, who murmured, “Not exactly the Chateau Marmont, hmm?”
“This way,” Zoë said, reappearing from where she’d disappeared behind the collapsed building. Impatience colored her voice and she disappeared again.
As Quent followed, he came around the corner and met Fang. At least, he assumed the mangy-looking wolf with iron gray fur and angry blue eyes was Fang.
The canine growled low in his throat, and although he wasn’t blocking the way, he was standing off to the side with his paws planted wide and his ears tipped forward menacingly. A very big deterrent to passing by.
“Quent, what the—oh, there are you are, Fang,” Zoë said, reappearing once more. Her voice softened as soon as she noticed the wolf-dog.
Fang glanced at Zoë, but then back at Quent and Marley, as if determining it was more important to detain them than to be petted. But he did give a little flick of the tail when Zoë spoke to him.
“Fang, chill,” she said, and walked over to pat him on the head, murmuring softly. But Quent heard her say, “They’re not going to bother us for long. I’ll make sure of that.”
Right, then. He guessed he knew where he stood.
* * *
20 November 2010
11:30 p.m.
Our little community has become as comfortable and settled as it can. We’ve established permanent electrical generators by using wind and solar power, which has allowed us to live in a fashion similar to our previous lives with lights and refrigerators and other electronics.
Of course, the power is limited—but we find it easy to live more simply. We are much busier outside, too, growing our food, rebuilding what makes sense to rebuild, and searching for any useful items we can find within a few mile radius of the community.
The change in climate is a great blessing, for if it had remained desertlike or become colder and more wintry, many varieties of plants may have been lost to this earth forever. As it is, I continue to seek out new ways to propagate everything from nuts to berries to herbs, spices, and vegetables.
Three nights ago, we were awakened by an odd sound. A low, anguished moaning that was almost human. We’ve become accustomed to the surge in wild animals—everything from wolves and mustangs to escapees from petting zoos, farms, and even circuses—and so we take care at night.
Devi insisted the sound we heard was not an animal, and he feared someone was injured. But he took a rifle with him and we went outside to look. We saw glowing orange eyes that belonged to some tall, bulky creature that was much too large to be a human. And it was sighing or groaning something like “Ruu-uuth” over and over again.
I confess, neither of us wished to investigate further. We went back into our house and closed and locked the door.
And even as I write this, I hear the same mournful “Ruu-uthh” sound again. I suspect I know what it is, but find it impossible to believe.
—from the diary of Mangala Kapoor
* * *
CHAPTER 10
Zoë’s hideaway turned out to be inside the collapsed building, with the entrance through a rear courtyard, well tended and flush with herbs and vegetables. Quent walked in and was immediately struck by the amount of light that made its way through the four large windows that Zoë was in the process of uncovering from heavy tarps and simple shutters. Because of the way the little building and its neat garden was situated, hemmed in on all sides by other structures, and its roof buckling, no one would suspect that anyone lived here.
Inside, the asymmetrical space was clean and smelled of cinnamon, of course, and other spices. Bright fabrics draped like canopies from the uneven ceiling and hung on irregular walls—orange and crimson and rust, along with indigo and violet. Large round cushions surprised him, for they mounded in the corner and were so feminine and tidy-looking that he could hardly assimilate this luxurious, cozy place with his hard-assed Zoë. The floor was covered with a variety of braided rugs and what could only be a bed was piled with fur pelts, including that of a white tiger that he knew wasn’t faux. In the corner by the cushions sat a low square table and rows of books on neat shelves.
Beads and shells, irregular and random, hung in long tails over an entrance to some other dark space beyond. A bathroom? A kitchen?
“That’s my forge,” she said, seeing him glance at it. There was an element of pride in her voice. “Where I make my arrows. I cook in there too. Don’t need a fire in more than one place.”
She walked over and turned on a small light. Electricity too?
“You live here alone?” Marley asked, looking around with wide eyes. She was the dingiest, most disheveled part of the room, an anomaly for a woman who had once worn only designer clothes and had a weekly spa appointment.
“Fang and I.” Zoë pointed to a corner with one flat cushion and two bowls. More books lined the walls behind it. “He comes and goes, but that’s his place.”
“This is beautiful. I haven’t seen anything this warm and inviting for…oh, God, for decades.” Marley’s voice broke and without being asked, she sank down onto a low, square ottomanlike chair.
“My grandmother was a mechanical engineer,” Zoë said, that pride still coloring her voice. “She and her husband survived the Change and they built their own place to live and farm afterward until he died two years later. She taught me how to do everything.”
Then she seemed to snap into attention, to realize that she had softened, and her demeanor became more abrupt. “I’m going to get something to eat. Stay here.”
Zoë breezed out, but Fang remained, as if to keep an eye on them. Quent, intrigued and more than a little turned on, wandered over to the bookshelves. What would a crusty woman like Zoë read when she came back from her hunting trips? Before he got here, he would have guessed her passion to be…well, not books. And if books, then they’d be nonfiction, about wars and weapons and hunting. What was that magazine? Field & River?
But after seeing her cozy abode, Quent thought maybe she’d lean toward lusty romance novels. With harems and sheikhs.
He was wrong. Zoë’s library consisted mostly of murder mysteries. Many of the books were hardcover, with the dust jackets either missing, or with plastic protectors that identified them as library books. Some were familiar to him, others weren’t: Christie, Anne Perry, Kellerman, Cornwell, Robb, even Hammett.
Right. He could definitely see her reading Sam Spade.
Quent noticed multiple copies of many books, and saw that, as was to be expected, they were in a variety of conditions. Water stained, mildewed, warped, missing or obliterated pages. Burned or scorched.
“Some of those were my naanaa’s,” said Zoë, emerging with a few empty dishes from between the clicking beads. The waft of something that smelled delicious followed her. “Others I found over the years. I was damned pissed when I got to what I thought was the end of one and the last few chapters were unreadable. It took me three fucking months to find another copy, so now I don’t start a book until I have more than one of them.”
She put the dishes on the low table and Quent had the presence of mind to ask, “Do you want me to help you with anything?”
Zoë looked at him as if contemplating his ability in the kitchen—which, truth be told, was rubbish—and shook her head. “I don’t need anyone in my way.” And disappeared into the back with a swish of beads.
Surreal. The whole thing was beyon
d surreal.
Here, in this oasis of warmth and comfort with the brittle, foul-mouthed woman who was literally cooking dinner in the back room as if it were a dinner party. And Marley Huvane, sitting here with a goddamn crystal in her skin.
The reminder brought all of Quent’s anger and disappointment rushing back to the front of his mind and he turned to Marley.
“She’s a real piece of work,” she said with a breath of admiration. “To have put this all together herself. For God’s sake, I didn’t last two weeks in this wilderness.”
Whether or not she meant that as an entrée into the subject that had plagued Quent since he recognized her, he decided to take it as one. “You were running from the Strangers for two weeks?” He tried to keep the snideness from his voice, but wasn’t certain he succeeded.
As inconceivable as it had been to know that his father, that hated, narcissistic man, had been a member of the Cult of Atlantis, it was beyond comprehension that Marley had also been one of them.
But she reached for him, her fingers closing over his arm. “Quent, I don’t know how you came to be here, what you did to live through it all, but you have to understand. I didn’t want this. My father didn’t tell me what was going to happen. He just told me we were going into hiding because there was a nuclear war.” Her voice stretched and thinned and she looked up at him, eyes burning with anger. “When I figured out what happened—that’s why I ran away.”
He gave a sharp, hard laugh and pulled from her grip. “Fifty years later, you took a stand and ran away? It took you half a bloody century to realize that your cult destroyed the entire human race so they could live forever? Fifty years to realize that was a mistake?”
“It’s not my cult!” she cried. “Dammit, Quent.” She lowered her voice, but it still shook with emotion. “How do you think I felt when I finally figured it out? Yes, it took me a long time—almost thirty years before I realized it was all a lie. Everything was a lie. And it took many years for me to confirm my suspicions, and to figure out how to escape.”
“Escape?” Quent said, forcing skepticism to flavor his voice. But it was becoming harder to do so. He believed her. He knew Marley, and in spite of his need to lash out, he believed her.
“Yes. Did you think they were just going to let me walk away and tell everyone what I knew? Not that it’s that much.” She laughed bitterly. “And even then when I got out, I didn’t get very far.” Her voice turned grim and she looked down at her filthy shirt.
“And the worst thing is…” Her voice fell to a pained whisper. “God, Quent…I have this damned crystal. This horrible, horrible crystal inside me. I can’t take it out, or I’ll die. And if I don’t…I’ll live forever.” Tears filled her wide, anguished eyes. “I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t want it. I simply woke up one day with it in my body.”
“That’s how they did it?” he asked, horror filtering over him. Horror and renewed revulsion.
She nodded, composing herself as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t have any idea what was going on. They—my father, and…” She stopped and looked up at him as her voice trailed off.
“Mine.”
Marley nodded. “Fielding was one of the spearheads, Quent. He and a small group of others were the ones who managed it all. Oh, my father reaped the benefits, just like the rest of them. But he wasn’t part of the inner circle.”
“They just needed his money. And, yes, I know about Fielding,” Quent said. “And that’s what I need you for.” He gave her a pointed look. “Whether you want to or not, you’re going to help me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you think I’m going to do, play the prodigal son and ask for my own crystal? I’m going to fucking kill the bastard.”
“There’s no way,” Marley said, shaking her head. She crossed her legs and managed, somehow, to look elegant in her pose, despite her dirty shirt, tear-streaked face, and wrinkled trousers.
Zoë walked in at that moment, carrying a covered dish and a flat package of fabric. Absolutely delicious smells wafted with her to the low table.
“My God, she can cook too?” Marley muttered as Zoë disappeared back into the other room.
“Whatever it is, it smells unbelievable.” Quent realized how hungry he was. The last time he’d eaten had been late yesterday afternoon, when they’d stopped for the night to hunt. “And, I’m going to find a way, and you’re going to help me.”
“Even if you could get to him, how would you even do it? He’s not going to let you cut the crystal out of his skin. And that’s the only way. Believe me, I know.” She looked away. “I’ve thought of it myself.”
“There’s got to be a way. I’ll do it or I’ll die trying.”
Although Zoë must have heard his last statement, she gave no indication. “Eat before this shit gets cold,” she said, gracious as only she could be.
The meal consisted of flat brown bread called naan, as well as fresh tomatoes, carrots, and avocados sprinkled with cilantro and salt. She’d also pan-cooked some sort of poultry and seasoned it with lemon and cumin. The pot contained a mahogany-hued tea that was still warm.
“That’s tea made from canela,” she told him when he asked about it. “My grandmother had a cinnamon tree from…Mexico?” Quent nodded in affirmation, and she continued, “growing in her garden before the Change. She saved it and managed to keep one growing in every place she lived. Canela is just the bark.”
Then, as if she wanted to forestall any further conversation with Quent, Zoë looked at Marley. “After we’re finished, he can take you to the stream. It’s there.” She pointed off in a vague direction. “I’ve got things to do.”
Marley looked at Quent, then back at Zoë. “I could use a washing up. I…uh…don’t have any other clothes.”
Zoë looked pointedly at Marley’s generous rack. “I don’t have much that would fit you.” Then she seemed to recall her hostess duties, as grudging as they might be. “But I’ll look.”
Quent was managing to use the unfamiliar utensils and cup without allowing the memories of the objects to submerge his mind. Although they teased there at the periphery, like some low buzz of white noise, he was able to keep them there. Progress. Definitely making progress.
“Tell me about the compound where Fielding lives,” he said to Marley. The sooner he could start making plans, the better.
“It’s in the ocean,” she said. “An island, a floating community about five miles from the shore. They fucking named it Mecca—of all the insulting things they could have done, calling a symbol of destruction after a holy place.” She shook her head, bitterness evident in the action. “There’s a long bridge that leads to it and the only way onto the bridge is through a gate that’s guarded by crystaled mortals. CMs.”
“You mean Elite?”
She shook her head. “When we say Elite, we—they—mean only the people who were alive before the Evolution. The Change.”
“Members of the Cult of Atlantis.”
Marley nodded. “Yes, or people like me who were family members or friends brought along and given the immortal crystals.”
“How many are there?”
“Maybe three hundred Elite.”
“That’s it?” Fuck. Three hundred people had brought about the mass destruction of the human race and caused the whole planet to change. The seasons, the environment, even, according to Lou and Theo, the axis of the earth itself had shifted.
“We can’t procreate. Well, the women can’t. The men are able to, but they have to impregnate normal mortals. That was how I started to figure out that what happened was not as I had been told. All these young, nubile girls started showing up. It was like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Nausea rose in the back of his throat. “And CMs? What exactly are they?”
“They’re immortal too, but they weren’t original members of the Cult. They’re people who have been given crystals and immortality, but over the last fi
fty years. Some of the women had their boy-toys crystaled, or even their damned pets.” She glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes. “I didn’t, but that’s only because David Beckham didn’t make the Elite’s cut.”
“Did they actually find Atlantis?” Quent asked. “Is this what was all about?”
Marley’s lips pursed in thought. “They found something. I suspect it, but I don’t really know, Quent. They kept things pretty tight and close, and once I started asking questions, even more so. But, I mean, these immortal crystals have to come from somewhere. Maybe the bottom of the ocean, maybe Atlantis, maybe not. I know the Inner Circle of the Elite—the ICE—leave the compound regularly. No one knows where they go, but they could be mining more crystals, or going somewhere else. To Atlantis.”
“Some friends of ours, a set of twins from before the Change, hacked into satellites about a year after all the events. They found a new landmass in the Pacific Ocean, which now covers all of California to Vegas. Is that the compound you’re talking about?”
“What?” Marley said. Her eyes had grown wide and he saw her face drain of color. “I had no idea.” She shook her head, looking about as nauseated as he felt. “In Mecca, you’re completely cut off from whatever is left of the world. Until I got out of the compound, I had no idea what the rest of the earth looked like. In fact, I expected a wasteland. Like in…um, that old Mel Gibson movie…Mad Max? I mean, what about all the nuclear power plants? What happened to them and their waste? It’s got to be Radioactivity City around them for miles.”
“Or at least, it was. Even Chernobyl is—was—coming back green ten years after the accident.” He turned the subject back. “So if the compound is only five miles from shore, it couldn’t be the separate landmass they saw.”
