The Salt Line

by Holly Goddard Jones

  Now was the moment of truth. Would they come?

  So quickly she didn’t have time to waver with doubt, the vac seal ran and the door slid open. Edie stood there, smiling.

  “Get some rest,” she said. “I’m on duty.”

  Twenty-Four

  Saturday morning. White light pours through the window blinds, illuminating the weave of his thermal blanket. Smell of coffee. Sweet dough and cooking oil. Downstairs his parents have a tablet cued to the Dawn of Pop music feed, those old-timey songs Wes can’t help but tap his foot along to, and he lies there for a few moments just savoring it all: the sunbeam, the mutter of rhythm guitar, the promise of a good breakfast, the promise of an unstructured day. Had he been a good son? Probably not. He hadn’t appreciated his prickly parents, had been too caught up in his own thoughts, his theories, his Land of Shadows campaigns, to consider their feelings. He hadn’t cared for hugging, so he hadn’t hugged them. He hadn’t cared about hearing “I love you,” so he didn’t bother to say it. They didn’t nag like other parents, or lay guilt trips, and so Wes assumed they didn’t need these gestures from him, valued them as little as he did, but now he wondered. They were alive and well in Atlantic Zone, divorced, living separately on generous infusions of Pocketz revenue, and Wes got together with each of them maybe once a month, for dinner, usually, or a few rounds of golf with his father. He didn’t fight with them. They didn’t fight with each other. Everything was perfectly mild, and amiable, though this mildness itself seemed a sign of something: a critical lack. But if he ever saw them again, Wes thought—from wherever he was now, this limbo, this whitewashed world that was turning out to not be Saturday morning in his childhood room—he’d thank them for the music and the pancakes, for loving him enough to leave him alone, and he’d hug them, even if it made them uncomfortable. You were good to me, he’d say. I realize that now.

  He opened his eyes all the way. Edie was sitting beside him in a cushy chair he didn’t remember from the previous night—something that had been brought in from downstairs, he guessed. Her feet were propped up against the bed frame, and she had a book spread open across her thighs: the Jane Austen she’d spent so much time reading back in Ruby City. He lowered his eyelids and watched her through his lashes for a little while, hoping she wouldn’t notice he was awake. The stresses of the last week had etched her brow with new lines, and her eyes were puffy—from lack of sleep, maybe, or crying. These little imperfections were a relief; they made her easier to look at, taking the edge off her astonishing prettiness. He had left his list about Edie back at Ruby City. Perhaps someone had found it already, was having a good laugh on his account. That was OK. Her eyes darted left and right, left and right, and she turned a page, and as she did so she looked up and caught his eye, and she sat up straight and folded the book closed over her finger.

  “You’re awake!” she said.

  “Yep. I guess I am.”

  “How do you feel?”

  His arm throbbed from shoulder socket to fingertips, but otherwise, he felt like himself. Rested, even. He said so.

  “You’ve been out cold for ten hours,” Edie said. “It’s nearly been twenty-four hours since the bite. It’s a good sign that you haven’t had any symptoms yet. Not a guarantee, but Andy said it’s promising.”

  Wes stretched his legs and his left arm, wiggled his fingers and toes. He held his free hand in front of his face, noting the clarity of the whorls on his finger pads, the pores on the back of his hand, and the curly tawny hairs that sprouted from them. His vision was as good as it ever was. He felt, minus the arm, as good as he ever had.

  He felt like he was going to be all right. But he was far too superstitious to voice this thought out loud.

  “I guess I owe Andy big-time,” he said instead.

  Edie made a sarcastic blowing sound, spraying spittle. “Save your gratitude for Marta. Andy’s already figured out how you can repay him.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “By footing the fee to get him smuggled back in-zone. Probably Violet’s fee, too. At least, I hope you’ll cover Violet’s. Berto and Ken have been pretty vague in their offers of help. And I don’t think Marta has it to give. Not in her own name.”

  “What about you? Do you have it?”

  She shifted her gaze to the cover of her book and traced the raised lettering with her thumbnail. “No,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters,” Wes said.

  “No, it doesn’t matter. Because I’m not planning to go back.”

  “What?” Wes pulled awkwardly to sitting position. “What do you mean, you’re not going back? I have the money. It’s not even an issue, Edie.”

  “That’s not it.” She lay the book on the floor and leaned toward him, making such intense eye contact that Wes felt light-headed. More light-headed. “I knew as soon as I realized it was an option that it was the right thing. I felt a weight coming off me. I didn’t want to be in Ruby City. But I didn’t want to go back in-zone, either. That’s not home to me. It’s not where I belong.”

  “So you belong out here? Have you seen my arm?”

  “No. And you can spare me the reveal.”

  Wes shook his head, exasperated. But there was something to the exasperation—something he wished he could sort out in a list, make sense of. Like, why would she be so stupid? But also: Why would she choose here? Knowing I’ll be there? But also: Why is it such a given that I’d be there?

  And then, a tangent: What’s waiting for me there?

  Well, that one was obvious. His parents. His company. His apartment and beach house.

  “Explain to me the appeal,” Wes said. “What’s out here?”

  “My dad worked out here. And he died out here. I thought he did it because he had no other choice. I’ve lived my whole life making a saint of him, but I think now that the truth was more complicated than that. I think he lived so much of his life out here because he loved it, despite the risks. Or maybe he loved the risks, too.” She shrugged. “There’s a way to live out here, Wes. A cure. It exists! June didn’t always do the right thing, I know that, but you can’t deny that she built something good. She built something good, and that could be done again. It must be done again.” Suddenly downcast, she traced a circle on her knee with her middle finger. “I think the zone’s a bad place in some ways. Lots of ways. I don’t like the price we have to pay to have its protections. And if that man—Marta’s husband—if he really can climb to power . . . Well, that terrifies me. Worse than ticks.”

  “You heard Perrone. You heard the cost of the cure. June didn’t deny it.”

  “I heard,” Edie said. “Infertility. I can live with that.”

  “He said cancer, too,” Wes said. “So maybe you can’t.”

  “My mother died of cancer. Cancer is everywhere. Cancer’s in-zone. It might already be inside me somewhere, waiting to come out.”

  “And it has to be you out here, saving the world? Why?”

  Now Edie looked exasperated. “Why not?”

  “Don’t—don’t hear me wrong. Or give me a break for saying it wrong. You, Edie: you can do anything. I believe that. But how are you going to do it all alone? Why would you want to do it all alone?”

  “I don’t want to do it all alone,” Edie said. “I mean, I will. If I have to. But if anyone wanted to stay with me—well, they could. I’d welcome that.”

  “You’d welcome it,” Wes repeated. Goddammit, he thought. Goddammit it all.

  Her eyes skittered away again. “I value your friendship and your smarts. What you’ve done with Pocketz, I think it could be done in a different, more meaningful way. You understand people better than you think you do. What’s in their hearts. Not just what’s in their accounts.”

  “Their Virtuz,” Wes said wryly.

  “Well—I guess,” Edie said, clearly not hearing the wo
rd with the z at the end.

  “You say you value my friendship,” Wes said. “Do you understand what I’d be hoping for?”

  Edie seemed to think about it. Then nodded.

  “And you’d still welcome me? Knowing that?”

  “It’s a selfish fucking thing to do,” Edie said, “but yes. I would. As long as you understand what I’m capable of offering.”

  “Which is friendship.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly,” Wes repeated. He smiled. He couldn’t help himself. He’d faced worse odds.

  —

  That afternoon, still symptom free, Wes requested a tablet. Edie brought him, apologetically, a sheaf of paper and a pen. “The chalet’s tablet is the control hub for the house systems, so Andy didn’t want you tying it up. Hope this is OK.”

  “I’ll manage,” Wes said.

  And he did, barely. His writing hand was attached to his bad arm, so he worked slowly and uncomfortably, trying to get the numbers clear enough to read, double-checking his work. He wrote by hand so infrequently in his regular life that his print had the sloping insecurity of a child’s. But he supposed it would serve. He put his signature at the bottom, not sure if the gesture would mean anything—but it couldn’t hurt.

  After he’d finished, he felt well enough to join the others downstairs in the kitchen. They were having another makeshift meal at the counter, and they clapped awkwardly when he entered, made little exclamations over him: Oh, hey! There he is! Looking good!

  “Coffee?” Andy asked after the little hubbub had died down.

  Wes nodded. “Please.”

  Andy poured him a cup. “There’s junk to eat. Plenty of it. And I fried some deer meat I found in the deep freeze. It tastes like salty shoe leather, but it’s better than soy dogs.”

  “I’d pay a thousand credits for a cup of OJ,” Wes said, sipping the coffee. “That was my treat food back home.”

  “That’s neither food nor a treat,” Edie said.

  “It has a ton of sugar,” said Wes.

  Marta favored him with one of her serene, knowing smiles. “I don’t suppose you’re going to find much OJ this side of the Salt Line.”

  Wes blushed, feeling watched by the others. So Edie had told them.

  “Is Edie for real?” Berto asked him. “You’re staying here?”

  “Yeah.” He pulled a veggie crisp from an open bag and crunched down on it. It was stale and tasteless. “I am.” He exchanged a look with Edie, who favored him with such a pleased smile that his resolve halted its wavering.

  “You’re both out of your minds,” Ken said.

  Violet, nibbling the edge of a piece of the burnt deer meat, asked, “Did Edie tell you what we think happened to Ruby City?”

  “She did, yeah,” Wes said.

  “And you still want to be on this side of the Wall?” Berto said.

  “I think,” Wes said, “that it’s more a reason to stay than it is to go back.” He felt the truth of this as he said it aloud.

  After a moment, Andy offered: “I say it’s cool. Admirable. The revolution’s going to come from outside the zones. That’s a fact. That’s why I was willing to do the things I’ve done.”

  “So are you staying, too?” Berto asked.

  “Hell no,” Andy said. He slowly unwrapped a chocolate-flavored Moon Pie and held it up to the light. “Goddamn, these are good.” He downed it in three huge bites, then licked his fingers and thumb.

  —

  They decided to part ways at first light. Andy, Berto, Violet, Marta, and Ken would take the car an hour east to the fertilizer plant where Andy’s old smuggling contacts worked. Edie and Wes would stay behind at the chalet and make their own plan for what came next. The world—even between zone borders—was vast, the possibilities endless. There were ticks. But there were also, perhaps, the remnants of Ruby City, some vestiges of the drug operations there, perhaps even survivors. Wes wanted to stop in Asheville to see if he could find the house where his great-great-grandfather—the professor of sociology he’d told Marta about when they were first bused over the Salt Line—lived and died. Edie had said that sounded like as good a place to begin as any.

  Late, as each of the others yawned and stretched and left to go upstairs to bed, Wes and Marta lingered. At last it was just the two of them. It was midnight, according to the clock—thirty-seven hours since Wes’s bite.

  Marta was sipping whiskey, part of the stash Andy had told them a million years ago was hidden away somewhere as a special treat. They had turned on the gas logs, though it wasn’t very cold out, still. High fifties, even with the sun down.

  “I’m going to cut right to it,” Marta said. “What in the hell are you doing, Wes?”

  Wes sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “For the first time, you sound like one of my sons. That’s not a compliment.” She peered at him. “Tell me you aren’t doing this for a pretty girl. Because if you are, Wes, you’re going to regret it. I like Edie. I like her almost as well as I like you. But she came out here with a man.”

  “Jesse—”

  “He died a few days ago. I’m well aware.”

  “What I was going to say is that they were basically done before what happened to him.”

  “Maybe that’s wishful thinking on your part,” Marta said. “Or maybe they were, and maybe she’s madly in love with you—”

  “Jeez, stop.”

  “—and maybe this is the start of some grand romantic adventure. It will end badly. This is a bad world, Wes. I think it’s bad all over, but some parts are worse than others.”

  “What about you?” Wes said. “What’s next for you?”

  “You know what’s next for me.”

  “You go back to your husband.”

  Marta laughed shakily and took another sip of her whiskey.

  “He might have been the one to do that to the village. Just like June was worried he would.”

  “Oh, there’s no ‘might have been’ to it,” Marta said. “It was him. I saw his eyes before Joe put that gun to my head.” She looked up, her own dark eyes reflecting firelight. “And the tracking device I showed you—I left it behind at the storage shed. He had an X to mark the spot.”

  “So, to quote a wise woman I know: What in the hell are you doing?”

  “He is the only way to my sons,” Marta said. “All roads to Sal and Enzo pass through David.”

  “But he isn’t,” Wes said. He pulled the papers he’d been working on all afternoon from his back pocket, leaned forward, and spread them flat on the huge stone coffee table. “Listen, OK. Hear me out. Will you do that?”

  “Yes,” Marta said. “I’ll do that.”

  “What’s here—well, it’s a mess is what it is. But I think it’s enough. I’ve written down account numbers, verification codes, keys, passwords, answers to security questions. Everything I have except my retinas and my fingerprints, and those have to stay with me. Sorry about that.”

  “Wes.”

  “You said you’d hear me out. Anyway, do me a favor and make sure not to leave this lying around, OK? Anyway. On another sheet’s a kind of legal document, or the best I could come up with. I’m handing over my assets to my parents’ protection. If I’m not back in five years, it goes to them permanently. I’ve made similar arrangements for operation of Pocketz and its subsidiaries.

  “Over here. This sheet.” He pointed. “This is an account I hold under another name. Untraceable. Make the transfers to get you back in-zone through this one. There should be credits enough to cover you and Violet. Let Berto and Ken foot Andy’s bill.

  “About two seconds after you set foot back in-zone, I want you to call this guy.” He licked his finger and peeled back another sheet. “Gio Slattery. Give him these papers. I trust him. Only him. He can get you clean new d
ocumentation and a validated passport to London. He can get your sons clean documentation.”

  “They’ll never do that. They love their father. More than I even realized, apparently.”

  “I can’t say one way or the other about that. They’re your sons. You know them, and I don’t. But don’t make the assumption. Have you ever sat them down and told them about your husband? All of it?”

  “Of course not,” Marta said. “How could I do that? He’s their father. They idolize him.”

  “Maybe because they need to know? Because he’s their father and they idolize him?”

  Marta shifted uneasily on the leather sofa.

  “I’ve instructed Gio to set you up an account under the new name with enough credits that you shouldn’t have anything to worry about for a long time. Let him do it, Marta. Let me do this for you.”

  “I can’t accept all of this,” Marta said. “It isn’t right.”

  “You can accept it, and it is right.”

  “David will find me. He’ll never let it happen.”

  “David thinks you’re dead. Doesn’t he?”

  Staring into her glass, Marta nodded. Then she knocked it back.

  “So he won’t know any different until it’s too late for him to do anything about it.”

  “Let’s say I do this,” Marta said. “Let’s say I let you help me, and I go to London and find my boys. That’s not the same thing as what you’re doing. You’re setting me up as if it is, but it’s not. You have a life. You have family. Your parents will be worried sick. You have a company and influence and money. You’d be a damn fool to walk away from it all for a nice girl you barely know.”