Leveling

by Diana Knightley

  It was dark in the stairwell and the flashlight was bundled in the blankets, impossible to find without dropping everything. Beckett said, “Hold onto my shoulder, right here, we’re going down, fast.”

  The darkness was total. Terrifying. The dripping sound intense. Stairs usually make sense. They have an order, size, and angle, and ought to be easy to maneuver even without sight, but in Luna and Beckett’s fright and friendly rush they slid and stumbled and held on and giggled, as they descended the one flight.

  Beckett shoved against the door and they fell through. They were on the 120th floor. It was fully enclosed in glass, not needing open port windows for Nomadic paddleboard landings. The view was epic, from two sides, the other sides were covered with more stacked and shoved office furniture. Outside was dark but the lights at every corner were spinning and shining all around. A clap of thunder and then lightning arced through the sky right in front of their view.

  Beckett said, “That was close.”

  Another boom and arcing light.

  They stood in the middle of the room, holding their bundles, watching the light show outside. Their arms within a half-inch of touching, yet not, because touching would be insensible, yet the tiny sliver of space between them felt more electrified than the lightning outside, more dangerous.

  Chapter 7

  Finally they settled to the task at hand. Beckett spread a sleeping bag on the old carpeting and Luna topped it with blankets. Once the bed was made, Beckett tossed into the middle: a box of crackers, a chunk of cheese, and a flask with water.

  Luna said, “Cheese and crackers? That’s literally all we needed.” She unzipped her jacket and pulled it over her head, going from overly outer-dressed, to revealingly under-dressed, in one graceful move.

  She had been wearing the same clothes all day, yet somehow now, at night, after the jacket, they seemed like not-enough-clothes, though Beckett would never be the one to say it. He looked away, rubbed his palms over his wet head, and gave a little shake to get the extra water off. Luna dropped to the bedding and pulled the quilt around her shoulders. “It’s okay if I have your quilt?”

  “Absolutely.” Beckett turned away, pulled his t-shirt off, and sat down across from her, wrapping a military-grade sleeping bag around his shoulders.

  He had a nice physique, strong and lean. Like a runner, instead of a paddler. Luna was used to men with the kind of bulk capable of steering and paddling across the ocean. Their center of balance was lower. Beckett was too tall to paddle well. She giggled as she reached for the box of crackers, thinking about how his height would turn a paddleboard into a sailboat.

  He asked, “What?”

  “Nothing, just thinking about something.”

  He pulled plastic off the end of the cheese, took a bite, and asked with his mouth full. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

  “You, sir, have everything in your teeth.”

  “I forgot to bring down a knife. But it works, you just have to bite, then shove the crackers in right after.”

  “That’s why we come to the Outposts, for civilization.” She ate a chunk of cheese and stuffed a cracker in. “Delithious.”

  Lightning struck, flashing and illuminating their room, demanding to be seen, causing Beckett and Luna to turn to the window and notice.

  At the next lull, Luna said, “So you have a giant back tattoo of an Eagle, that’s overly patriotic of you.”

  “It wasn’t very imaginative, I admit. I got it because everyone in the service gets one. My arms are my choice. Trees, here on my wrist, the mountains… This is my latest one, a Redwood tree. Have you ever seen one?” He looked up from his arms.

  She shook her head no.

  “You’re missing out. You really ought to see one someday. Are those wings on your back—a bird?”

  Luna said, “An albatross.”

  Beckett squinted his eyes, “You mean the bird that flies forever without coming to land?”

  “Nah, I’m kidding.”

  “I was going to say, that’s overly metaphorical of you.”

  “It’s a moth, or Saturniidae. A family name.”

  “I thought your name was—what was it—like that actress, Barlow?”

  Luna sat for a beat. “Yeah, the other name’s older.”

  Chapter 8

  The electrical portion of the storm moved east, becoming an interesting light show. Flashes of arced light shot from cloud to water and back, dancing on the surface. Luna said, “It’s so beautiful, but I’m incredibly glad not to be out in it.”

  “What’s it like to be out on the water in a storm?”

  Luna fiddled with the cracker box. The pause was long and her voice small when she answered, “We try not to be.”

  She stuffed a cracker in her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and swigged water. “I still don’t know why you’re here—Sam was a lifer. He was here because he didn’t want to leave, yet you don’t seem like someone who wanted to come.” The rain streamed down the windows on all sides. Their nest was cozy, dark, the flashlight dim. “I know! You were in, what do you call it, higher school?”

  “High School.”

  “That’s literally the same thing.”

  “If you’ve never been to High School, perhaps.”

  “Okay, so you’re in High School, you fell in love with a beautiful girl, she’s not very smart though, she’s silly and overly worried about her appearances, but it’s your first love and so you don’t think the underneath matters, and you let yourself fall, hard. And then she found someone else. She broke your heart, and she was mean about it too. And none of it made sense to you, though your friends could have told you it was coming, and because you’re in pain you signed up to come to an Outpost to get away from everyone and everything.”

  Beckett watched her with squinted eyes. “Not true. Not really. Okay, sort of true, that all did happen, but I was able to get over her before I came out here. How did you know all of that?”

  “I have brothers, lots of brothers. It’s the oldest story in the world. I tell them, it’s okay to have a broken heart, take care of yourself, learn from it, next girl make sure you’ve seen below her surface.”

  “That’s good advice.”

  “My family travels everywhere together day and night, you can’t imagine how terrible it is when an insufferable, fiddly-wink of a person gets added to the group. The worst.”

  “Have you fallen in love?”

  Luna fiddled with the zipper. “Yes, he was hot, muscular, handsome. Come to find out his underneath wasn’t mysterious as I believed, he was a shallow butthead.”

  “So are you following your own advice now?”

  “Well, every male I meet seems to keep secrets from me, so I’m beginning to suspect they’re all shallow buttheads.”

  Beckett’s cheeks dimpled with a smile. “Every male, huh? Okay, I’ll tell you.”

  Luna guessed he had been hiding those dimples all day to break them out when the light was low for ultimate hotness effect. She had to look away. Seriously, the bedding, the back tattoo, it was all a little impossible to carry on with normal thoughts and actions. She forced herself to focus on his words—

  “I’ve been in the service for a few years, mostly building dykes, piling sandbags, bridging, stuff like that, but I wanted to do more. I had always heard about the Nomadic Water Dwellers, I was fascinated, and then I heard they were in—um, trouble, and that there were volunteer positions to save them, and so I volunteered.”

  “Wait—you heard that the ‘Nomadic Water Dwellers’ needed rescuing and you volunteered to come save us?”

  “Yes.”

  Luna laughed a high tinkling laugh.

  “What’s funny?”

  “From a Nomadic Water Dweller perspective, I own the paddleboard, I’m far more likely to have to rescue you. Do you even like to swim?”

  “Nope.”

  She looked at him with squinted eyes.

  “But I don’t need to swim. I’m trained to tel
l you to head east to the mainland and give you supplies.”

  “And monitor the water levels.”

  “I just do that on my own.” He plucked at the piping on his sleeping bag. “They seem higher.”

  Luna laid down on her side, leaned on an elbow. “How long did you train?”

  “They trained us for many contingencies, it took a few weeks.”

  “Like?”

  Beckett dropped to his left side, propped on his elbow, mirroring Luna. “Nomads with attitudes, combative adults, obstreperous youths.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly used your training with me.”

  “That’s what I meant when I said you were not what I expected. You got it when I read the edict. You were willing to go. So far, my contact with Nomads has been pretty adversarial.”

  Luna watched him quietly as he picked at the blanket with his fingers.

  “When you say you’re worried about the water level, what are you worried about, exactly?”

  Beckett wanted to tell her that the Outpost wasn’t safe. That it could fall at any moment. That every centimeter of rise, meant a centimeter closer to collapse. That he still had to finish his tour of duty and every second he felt more desperate—until she showed up. But he couldn’t tell her that. He couldn’t speak it. And he didn’t want to scare her. So he said, “Nothing, just the usual wanting to stay on higher ground.”

  She sighed and curled within the quilt. “I’m sleepy.”

  She was gorgeous and sleepy and in bed, wrapped in his blanket, within reach. Beckett’s hand itched to reach out and touch the side of her face. “Go ahead and sleep, we should probably stay down here through the storm.”

  “Thanks, but it’s not usually easy. When we’re out, we have to lash together and someone has to keep watch and we sleep in shifts and—suffice it to say it’s hard to sleep, even when it’s safe to sleep.”

  Luna’s gaze was direct, and Beckett lost himself for second in her eyes. “Oh.”

  Safety. The beautiful girl laying beside him in the Outpost needed to feel safe. Wanted to sleep—safe. He had volunteered for this but hadn’t trained for this. Instead he thought back to his stint as a camp counselor two summers ago, tucking the kids into their bunks, making them feel safe. He sat up and pantomimed wrapping a thick strong rope around her half of the bedding and tying a tight knot. “How’s that? You’re securely anchored.”

  “Better.” She closed her eyes but felt him watching her for a few moments.

  Then with a deep breath he rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, and then Luna opened hers and watched the side of his face for a while.

  She wanted to feel safe. She wanted to fall asleep without worry, because her new friend had tied her securely, but in Beckett’s pantomime she had seen that the knot he created wasn’t a good strong knot. And, at sea, the knot was everything. Everything.

  Chapter 9

  Luna did finally sleep. Then she woke up. Beckett’s deep breaths were long and rhythmic. She tried four different positions then unknotted the pretend ropes and stepped from their coil. She strolled down the eastern wall of windows, peering out into the darkness, craning up at the sky. It was black except for the roving floodlights flashing by, sparkling on the drips rolling down the windows. Drip, driiiipppp, driiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppp.

  A lone Nomad watching water roll down an Outpost’s windows was perhaps the most lonely thing in the world. Lonelier even than an afraid-of-the-water serviceman watching water levels rise all alone in an Outpost. Or maybe not, but it was all kind of the same. She turned and walked up the southern wall. Still black. Pitch black.

  She returned to bed and curled up in the quilt watching Beckett in the ambient glow of the occasional floodlight flash. Gravity had gotten hold of his face. There was something spectacular about sleeping on land, a true letting go—loss of control. On land if you went to sleep in one place, the chances were high you would wake up in the same place, without being accosted by things that swim by in the night.

  Out on the ocean sleeping required sentries and one-eye-open and lightness and concern. Sleep was never total; it was always a half-sleep. Itself a type of rest but different.

  Luna fell asleep.

  Luna woke up.

  The sky was lighter, but the moon was high. The cloud cover must have dissipated. She considered climbing to the rooftop to see, but didn’t want to scare Beckett with her absence if he woke up. Being left was never okay, especially when you’re sleeping. Please don’t go when someone is sleeping.

  She went to the window and watched the floodlights dance on the smaller waves. Tomorrow would be a comfortable day, clear skies, light breezes, but middle night crept by with it’s worrisome sleeplessness. She turned from the window and looked at the pile of bedding that was Beckett and crept back to bed.

  Chapter 10

  When Beckett opened his eyes in the morning, he had a weight along his left side. He opened an eye to check and see what he sensed already: somehow the beautiful Nomad girl was draped on half of his body. His arm was wrapped around her as if without his brain being aware. Had he reached out and pulled her to him in the night? He stealthily rolled his arm from under her head, prying her elbow from his chest, and turned his back to her, hoping she hadn’t noticed his indiscretion.

  There were two things of which Beckett was not aware.

  One, that a Nomadic Water Dweller sleeps too lightly for that much movement. She watched him as he turned away.

  And two, Luna knew full well that she had been the one who needed harbor last night and had climbed into his arms.

  Chapter 11

  Luna rolled onto her back, and stared at the dripping, stained, broken ceiling tiles. Last night, with the lantern and the dark and the rain, the room had looked so—romantic. Last night, with the conversation and the laughs and the bedding, Beckett had seemed so—safe.

  Now he was rolled away. Gone.

  The day’s dawn was subtle and gradual, drawing her to the bank of windows. She was joined, after a few minutes, by Beckett, returned, and they stood together watching the sun break over the horizon, bright and glorious.

  Luna said, “It’s odd to watch the sun rise through a window, like it’s separate. When I wake up on my board, it’s as if the sun is personally rising for me, just me. The heat and light, I can feel it, smell it, hear it.”

  “The closest I can offer you is the roof,” Beckett gathered up their things. “I’ll feed you then you can begin your journey east...”

  “I need to check on Steve, first. I’ll put him in the water and do a sprint around the perimeter, get my blood flowing before breakfast. Would you like to come?”

  “Um, I ought to, uh...”

  She smiled, “No worries, it’s just that I have to. Everyone knows if you don’t get wet every couple of hours you lose your ability to talk to dolphins.”

  Beckett chuckled, “You talk to dolphins?”

  Luna smiled a big smile, “If they’re local.” They parted on the stairs.

  Chapter 12

  When Luna stepped onto the lower level landing her foot splashed in a puddle. She pushed open the door to floor 118, to see the doused carpet’s colors had become dark, vibrant, wet. Her paddleboard wasn’t floating, yet, but rocked on its axis and fin. As she neared the opening in the windows, water lapped over, onto the floor.

  She untied the rope from its anchorage and heaved her raft with Tree to the opening and dropped it down to the water. It bobbed, tilted, and tipped, “Shhhhh, Boosy, it’s okay, you’re okay,” before righting itself. Next she shoved her paddleboard into the water while pushing Boosy away with her foot to make space. Once her watercraft was afloat and tied together, she boarded it, and paddled away from the Outpost by ten strokes.

  The whole ocean was glassy and calm. In the morning, noises seemed amplified, like the water wasn’t awake yet, and her paddle splash was vibrant and sparkly. It was different from the afternoon when the lapping of the ocean buffered and overcame all othe
r noises. Luna turned right and paddled long strokes fast and strong and fearless. She got into a rhythm—stroke, stroke, stroke. She switched sides—stroke, stroke, stroke.

  Beckett’s voice called, “Hello, coffee is on!”

  Luna arced to look up to the rooftop. He was difficult to see because he was about ten feet back from the edge.

  She teased, “Come closer, I can’t hear you!”

  He counter-teased with, “What? I can’t hear you, I’m a safe distance from the edge!” Even from across the way, she could see his dimples. She rather liked his smile and wished he would come down and paddle with her. He dropped away, back to his work.

  She passed the marks on the corner and turned, sprinting along that length, passing the final corner. She was proud of her speed. To celebrate her awesome force she spun the paddleboard in a wide circle and then went around the other way, watching Boosy and Tree spin and follow in her wake.

  After about a half-hour she pulled to the opening with a bump.

  Beckett had come down from the rooftop to meet her and confronted with the wet carpet had lost all of his morning cheer. Now he was back to thinking of nothing but water level marks and was kneeling, checking for the fortieth time. And it was pointless really, the water had clearly risen. Anyone could see.

  She stepped to the floor and tied her paddleboard with a good strong anchor hitch.

  Still in his kneeling position, he said, “I think I better, um...” He stood and attempted to brush the water off the knees of his pants. “I need to feed you before your journey.”

  Chapter 13