6. CAVE-IN
Aidan—
We stick to the asphalt on our way into the GeeGee neighborhood, careful not to leave more tracks. I’ve put my shirt back on, and even Lawson’s bare shoulders can’t compete with the gardens for my attention. Each time we pass close enough, I reach out to stroke the vibrant green leaves. Everything is so alive.
Lawson turns his head this way and that, searching for threats in the morning light, as he leads the way up the walk to one of the round houses. He taps the door with his knuckles, and we wait.
The door opens on an elderly woman. She looks lost.
“Lawson,” Lawson prompts. “Zack’s son. Hi, Nana.”
“Lawson? My stars. You look just like—get in here.” Her gaze lights on me, stutters back. “Both of you.”
We step inside, and I wiggle out of my shoes and put them neatly to the side out of habit, while Lawson looks around. We’re standing in a half-circle-shaped living area. The taupe walls are hung with fabrics. Across the room is an open doorway to the kitchen. The couch looks softer than anything I’ve sat on in years.
“Where’s Grandpa?” Lawson asks.
She looks confused and like she’s trying to remember. “Oh, he passed away years ago, dear. The earthquake, you know. Can I get you”—again she stumbles over her words—“two anything?”
“Uh. I could use a toilet, if you’ve got one. I mean, not for you to get me, but to, uh, use.” I put my hands in my pockets and scuff my torn sock on the welcome mat, feeling more dirty than welcome. The thought lasts for only a second before the pulse-induced warmth in my chest washes it away.
“Well, there’s the community toilets, out there.” She gestures back the way we came. “But we do have a small electric potty for emergencies. Just through the kitchen.”
“Thank you.” I wander that way.
“So,” Lawson’s grandmother says behind me, “what’s your friend’s name?”
I pause in front of the fridge, waiting for Lawson to explain about how we’re not friends because we have nothing in common.
But all he says is, “Aidan.”
“Oh. Well, tell me about…your friend.” She hasn’t seen her grandson since the earthquake and she’s asking about me? I realize she can’t tell if I’m male or female, and this bothers her enough to hold her attention.
I shake my head with a smile. The GeeGee claims their civilization is so advanced, but they can’t even figure out—
I lose the idea as something on the front of the refrigerator catches my eye. A glossy flyer, held to the outside of the fridge door by a government-issued Positive Affirmation Magnet. I almost miss Lawson’s response as my calm takes on focus.
I must stop the GeeGee. I can.
“Brave. Tough.” Lawson says from the other room. “And stupid. Aidan needs to learn to fight back.”
I slip the flyer out from under the magnets and carry it with me to the toilet room. I fold up the flyer and stash it in the waistband of my jeans—not the most secure location, but I just need to get it out of the house. I run water over my hands and dry them on my pant legs on the way back to the living room.
I can hear them talking. “Nana” is trying to get Lawson to tell her about his life, but he keeps responding with questions about what she’s been up to. I catch his eye, trying to convey that I want to go, but either he doesn’t understand or the effects of the pulse won’t let him worry about it.
“We have to go,” I say after a few seconds.
“You just got here,” Nana points out.
“Yeah, I…sorry. We…” I give Lawson a pleading look.
He nods. “Okay, yeah. Aidan has to get back, or that one’s family will worry.”
“Oh, you still have family,” the old woman says. “That’s good. I thought—do you live with…Aidan’s family too, Lawson?”
I open my mouth in denial, but Lawson talks over me.
“Yeah.” He’s backing toward the door. “Yeah, thanks, Nana. I’ll come see you soon.”
“Are you sure you can’t stay for lunch?” Nana’s eyes say, please don’t go.
“Soon,” he says again, like lying twice will make it truer.
“Stay,” she pleads.
We’re already backing down the walkway.
“It’s not like your father thought it would be, Lawson,” she calls softly, gaze fixed on me.
Lawson keeps moving, following after me.
“What was that?” he asks, as soon as the door closes behind his grandmother. “We were safe there.”
My gaze lights on the community toilets, and I pull him across the intersection—this one decorated with a bright yellow sun—and into one of the small buildings. Then I stick my hand in the waistband of my jeans. I have a moment—while I unzip my pants and search around inside, thinking I’ve dropped the flyer—when frantic feelings almost break through, but the flyer’s just lodged into the top of one of my socks. I hand it to Lawson. His eyes are already a little wide, and they open further as he takes in the images.
The picture of The Dance is taken from above, like from a helicopter, and there are no D-towners around it. How long must they have waited to get an image with no kids? Underneath that photo, it says, BEFORE.
In the AFTER image, the building has been altered. Rounded curves, no windows, and a large round sign on the front with the universal symbol for recycling and the words CENTRAL URBAN RECYCLING CENTER 4. Parts of two surrounding buildings are visible in the drawing, as well. Both have been converted to the round farms-in-a-building the GeeGee is so fond of. In the distance, the Arena is just visible. The glass dome has been repaired, and there’s a giant picture of a honeybee painted on one side.
“It’s not just The Dance,” I say. “They plan to get rid of D-town.”
The “community toilets” are glorified outhouses. Much more glorified than the sewage situation in D-town, but still. Crammed inside one is not the best place for a conversation. It smells like composting crap, as might be expected. Even the stench doesn’t dent my pulse-induced joy.
“Okay, okay.” Lawson turns in the small area, like he means to pace. He comes up against me instead, knocking me onto the toilet with a crash. He looks down at me. “I still think we could have waited the day out at Nana’s, don’t you?”
I balance myself on the seat. “Yeah, sorry.”
He leans against the door. “We always knew they’d come for us someday.”
I blink, because I never thought that at all. We leave the GeeGee alone, they leave us alone, I thought. As though they were all Bees.
I try to get comfortable but, with my narrow hips, I feel kind of like I’m going to slip and end up stuck in the toilet. There’s no room to stand, though.
In the outhouse to the right, feet step, and a seat clinks. We lapse into silence. Lawson’s fingers tap the wall.
“Shh,” I whisper.
“Sorry.”
After a minute or two of Lawson’s fidgeting, the other door opens and closes again, and footsteps retreat. Lawson turns and leans his forehead against the wall.
“Okay,” he says. “Let’s find a place to hole up. A place that doesn’t stink.”
He’s turning his head to look at me when the door opens and smacks the side of his face. A young femme stands there. She’s much younger than us in D-town Age—she’s never seen much of anything—but in calendar years the difference is probably not more than a couple of years.
She takes in Lawson’s appearance—I don’t think she sees me at all—his worn, stained jeans, his scuffed boots, the dirt-covered shirt hanging from his belt loop. For all I know the butt of his gun might show above his waistband. Her eyes open wide.
“Gangs!” Her shout is sharp and fearful, evidence that enough adrenaline is running through her to temporarily swamp all the happiness hormones from the pulses. “There are gangs in the toilet!”
I stare at her.
“Quiet,” Lawson hisses. He reaches for her, but she’s already out of
his reach. He grabs my arm, yanks me off the toilet, and propels me out. “Run!”
I’m going for the cornfield, but he keeps hold of my wrist, changing my course with a jolt to my shoulder, and then we’re running side-by-side back to Nana’s. He crashes through the door and drags me inside, shutting it behind us.
“What?” Nana steps out of the kitchen. “Lawson?”
“Nothing!” he shouts, like she’s accused him of something.
She cringes back, and he runs a hand through his hair.
“A little femme saw us in the bathroom is all. A girl,” he says, responding to her confused look. “Do you have a car?”
She shakes her head. “No. For car use, you have to—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waves her to silence. “Look, we can’t stay here. We have to get… Aidan’s family lives a ways away. Do you have anything?”
They exchange a long look.
She sighs. “I have what you need.”
She leads us down into a cellar stocked with root vegetables, food canned in glass jars, and a sleek little motorbike.
“This was your father’s. It should hold you.” She keeps her back to me, shoulders up near her ears, and the way she deliberately ignores me is louder than words.
If Lawson notices, he gives no sign. He pushes the motorcycle up the packed dirt incline into the house proper, and I trail after Nana, who follows close behind him, giving instructions.
“I have a permit, so no one will question it being on the road,” she says. “But keep your speed to something an old lady would do. When you have a chance to bring it back, you can leave it out front with the keys in the ignition. I really would love for you to come for lunch, though.”
By then, we are out the front door, on the walkway, and sirens wail in the distance, almost certainly on their way here. Lawson puts his shirt back on. He throws a leg over the bike, centers it between his thighs, and holds it steady while I climb on. I wrap my arms around his waist, and we’re off, momentum plastering me against his back.
Lawson does not keep to granny speeds. The last time I rode in a moving vehicle was before the earthquake—where would we get biofuel in D-town?—and when narrowed to motorbikes that figure drops to never. The sight and feel of the road rushing by holds me between nausea and freedom, especially when the bike teeters on straightaways and threatens to topple on curves. But for someone who can’t have had a chance to learn to drive, Lawson’s doing pretty well. Sure, I swallow a bug every mile or so, but I’m pressed tight against his solid warmth, and I don’t have to pull away because there’s nowhere to go but splat on the highway.
I finally give him the address Mom and Dad made me memorize so long ago, the location of the local FOLM headquarters—my godfather Pete’s house, where I lived after my parents died. Until the quake.
Lawson pulls off the highway into a neighborhood that hasn’t been replaced by cornfields or round houses. This community is instead surrounded by CAUTION tape.
Once we dismount and duck under the barrier, bike in tow, it’s easy to see why. The whole place hangs suspended. Houses sit half caved in, some have folded from center out, others right to left, or front to back. Chunks of roof balance on less wall than seems necessary to hold their weight.
The earthquake had Her way here. Oh, yes, She did.
“Which one is it?” Lawson asks.
I point to a house with faded purple paint and white shingles. We’re at a higher elevation than the headquarters. The view from here shows that the walls still stand, but the roof is caving in the center, as though the house is poised over a sinkhole. Not ideal, since what we need was stored in the basement.
I wonder whether the destruction makes it more or less likely that the chains and other supplies remain. Depends on whether the GeeGee sent anyone in to clean out the bodies. I send out a fervent wish that the chains be here and the weapons be gone, and then head down the hill with Lawson following.
We pause just before the porch, as though by silent consensus, and turn to face each other.
“We might die in there,” Lawson says. And then he kisses me.
My awareness fragments into pieces.
The soft, forgiving warmth of Lawson’s lips contrasts with the calluses on his fingers when he cups my cheeks in his hands / I must have expected him to be rough / How odd that I would assume that, since he’s rarely been anything but gentle with me / My lips are chapped, I probably have bad breath, and I haven’t bathed in more than a day…
Desperate to drown out the rest, a mental voice chants, Don’t waste this; don’t waste this; don’t waste this.