“It’s fine because you’re a single person. The issues occur only at scale.”
Madelyn nodded.
“Everything was kept strictly random. We used a distributed algorithm to determine what to produce and where to deliver. Innovations were never shared through the ether, and we were never allowed to complain or compliment.”
“Why?” Madelyn asked.
“You would never get to eat the food you produced, or use a machine you repaired. The best you could hope for is that someone in another base would like something you created and try to imitate it. When people were allowed to give any kind of review, it only led to a lot of people requesting transfers.”
“Seems like it would stifle innovation and improvement,” Madelyn said.
Jacob shrugged. “Some things are good enough. Trying to improve can break the system. Everyone had to go along with the system to keep it running properly. That’s what Dr. Cosgrow said, and he was right.”
“The collapse?”
Jacob nodded.
“It came fast. A rumor spread through the floors one afternoon. People rushed to tell their neighbors. They said that someone had gone crazy in number six. We watched from the top floor as Civi sent a phalanx out. We could only track them down to the auditorium. They disappeared around the corner and we waited. There was no way to get any info from the ether.”
Jacob paused again.
In the other room, the chime sounded. The incineration was done and it was safe to go above ground again. Madelyn kept her seat. She wanted to hear the rest of the story.
“Cosgrow is clear on the topic—if a base stops responding, we continue to keep them in rotation for two weeks with redundant coverage from the other bases. Dad gave a speech on it the second day. Civi was quiet. They’re not supposed to communicate status or else they might create a thought bridge. We were all fine until base three dropped off as well. That’s when people began to agitate. They wanted to send an envoy to Civi.”
“Wouldn’t that create a ‘thought bridge’?” Madelyn asked. She was trying to understand her nephew’s lexicon.
Jacob nodded. “The envoy wouldn’t bring back the specific status. She was supposed to come out of the Civi and turn towards our base if everything was clear. She would turn away if there was a problem and we should all disperse.”
Jacob looked down at his feet. He blinked and swallowed.
“Your father was pretty invested in keeping the base intact, I bet,” Madelyn said. Even after all those years, she knew her brother. She could picture exactly how it went. “He sent your sister out as the envoy and told her to turn towards the base no matter what.”
Jacob nodded slowly.
“He said that community is an act of faith,” Jacob said. “He sent Abigail out and told her that no matter what, she should come right home. It was perfectly safe.”
Jacob looked like he wanted to cry again. No tears fell.
“She came right back out of the Civi. She turned and walked away from us.”
Madelyn waited for more.
There was no more.
Chapter 8
{Parting}
Madelyn put together lunch while Jacob took some time outside. She had seen it before—people who spent a lot of time outside grew accustomed to feeling exposed. It was hard for them to adjust to being enclosed by walls again.
She opened one of the wall slits and looked at him. He peeled off his bandage and poked at the cut on his leg. Madelyn was surprised when Jacob produced a knife and reopened his fresh wound. Watching him do it, she thought of her brother. She was obliged to open her own cut again too. She shut the slit. If she kept watching him, she was going to bleed to death.
When she took the lunch out to the porch, Jacob joined her. At some point, he had retrieved a bag from the woods. It was tight and clean. He took good care of his stuff. He had packed up what remained of his father’s stuff as well.
Lunch was showy. She gave him bread and butter. She gave him sausage with a tart mustard. They drank iced tea. He ate them without comment.
“You can put your bag in your great grandmother’s room. It’s in the back,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said, wiping his mouth, “but I’ll be heading out before sunset. I want to make the ridge before dark.”
“But nighttime is no…”
He raised his eyebrows and she trailed off. Jacob had been outside for three years. What did she expect to tell him of nighttime?
“If given the choice,” she started again, “wouldn’t you rather have a nice night in a bed and then leave first thing in the morning?”
“Thanks, but no. Dad said that if the cabin didn’t pan out, we were going to head to the lake on the far side of the ridge. He said there were camps there.”
Madelyn nodded. “Yes, there are camps on the east side, but that’s not an easy place to make a go. They still get snow over there sometimes, and between the bear and wildcats, you can’t…”
He cut her off with a raised hand. “I can take care of myself.”
“I’m sure you can, but this is about making intelligent choices. Why would you make things harder on yourself for no reason?”
He rubbed his eyes and then rolled his shoulders. “I have reasons.”
She opened her mouth to object and then closed it again. She had known this boy less than a day, but it already felt like they had both been on each side of every possible argument. Instead of killing him or fearing for her life, now she was trying to convince him to stay.
“At least let me pack up some provisions for you. I can put them in a sealed container so the smell doesn’t attract anything.”
He looked at her and nodded.
“You drink coffee?”
“I guess.”
“Good,” she said. She went inside to pack.
Lunch had been about showing off all her best provisions. When she packed up supplies for him to take, she did the opposite. She packed plain, ordinary stuff that he could use every day. Flour wasn’t calorie dense enough. Instead of bread, she packed canned salmon, walnuts, and dried fruit. She threw in things like herbs, salt, and spices so he could liven up the game that he caught or trapped. While she was at it, she put in matches and a small first aid kit.
Madelyn smiled as she took the bag back outside for Jacob.
He was gone.
She looked towards the woods and laughed to herself. Of course he was gone. Leaving behind the provisions had been a small price to pay for his clean getaway. She could track him down, but what was the point?
Chapter 9
{Alone}
Madelyn opened the door to a dreary day. The low clouds blocked the sun. Rain drizzled for a bit and then came in sheets. Even tucked into the back of her porch, she got wet from the splash-back. She gave up on being outside and locked herself in her grandmother’s cabin.
She stared at the walls.
David’s skull hadn’t yet taken its place on her memory wall. He sat on the side table. On another wall, her grandmother had mounted family photos and rusty tools. Neither one of them had any sense of style. The decorations were depressing and only served to catch dust. She thought about taking everything down. There was nowhere to put them. She would have to drag everything deep into the woods and then leave her mess there. It was easier to close her eyes and forget about it.
But she couldn’t close her eyes.
The faces that came to her were much more disturbing than what she saw on the depressing walls. She imagined her brother and her father. She blinked and saw David smiling at her. She pictured Austin and the way the corner of his mouth would turn when he had a secret.
Madelyn screamed her frustration and hurled her coffee mug at the wall. It shattered when it hit a rusty pickaxe. The dregs of her coffee dripped down the planks.
# # # # #
She stormed towards the stairs. Once in the compartment, she stabbed the button to take her underground. She could feel the dirt pre
ssing in on the sides of the chamber. The lights came on. She stopped at the control panel and activated all the outside cameras. Most of them still worked. There were a few in the woods that showed only black. One was obscured by mud and twigs. Some bird had built its nest against the lens.
Madelyn took herself to the lounge and flopped down in her chair.
The display was still on. They had forgotten to power it down after the repair cycle.
Madelyn frowned and shook her head. She flipped through the view from the cameras again. She searched every image for a sign of Jacob. He was long gone from their limited range. Madelyn sighed and worked her way through the list of available movies. She had seem them all. Even the ones that sounded terrible had a little green check next to the title. Back when she was new to the idea of living alone, she had used up all the entertainment bundled into the system. Those rations were depleted.
She hovered over the option to query the ether. In the distant past, she had made a resolution—she would never pull anything down into her system. There were viruses out there. Electronic pathogens could take over her entertainment system and render it useless.
“What do I care?” she asked herself. She never used the thing anymore. It was spent.
She hit the button.
The list populated slowly at first. Once it gained steam, it exploded. People—the few who were left—had been busy. Madelyn put a sort on the list so the system would predict which of the movies she would like the most.
A title bubbled to the top—“Cause for Desperation.”
She clicked.
The movie began to stream from the ether into her screen. The notion was unsettling. Invisible hands were reaching out from the world and meddling in her business.
The screen went blank.
It opened to a beautiful field, filled with wildflowers.
The camera narrowed its focus to a single purple and yellow blossom. Everything else became blurry and then faded to black, until only the flower and its stem were visible. The music swelled and then turned menacing. The flower transformed into the shape of a child, huddled down in the dark. When the clicking started, the girl raised her eyes and looked every direction.
On the screen, the girl ran.
Madelyn pulled her legs up and gathered her knees to her chest. She had never seen a movie like this before. All the movies on her system showed happiness and young love.
The girl pressed herself against a brick wall. The camera swung around and Madelyn saw the long alley. There was nowhere to hide. The clicking rose in volume and sped up. Suddenly, Madelyn saw the world through the girl’s eyes. The camera swung around and shook as the girl ran. She dodged around a dumpster and under the metal ladder of a fire escape.
The clicking became a buzz. The buzz became a low tone. The tone broke into harmonics that seemed to play a rudimentary song. Madelyn wanted to close her eyes. The girl was just seconds away from death and Madelyn didn’t want to watch it happen.
A door slammed open and bright light spilled out into the alley. The girl ran for the light.
“No!” Madelyn yelled at the screen. Going towards the light was the perfectly wrong thing to do. If the girl got lucky, the light would distract the Roamers and she could sneak away. Instead, the girl was converging on the exact spot where they would go.
The camera pulled back and the girl kept running. Madelyn’s heart thumped in her chest as she watched with fascinated horror. Just as the girl ducked in through the doorway, two adults popped out. It was a man and a woman. They each held black boxes.
At the same time, the man and woman opened their boxes. Green light flooded out from each box. The edges of the light flowed like mist, curling and rising from the heat. The clicking tune of the Roamers climbed until it sounded like a scream. The sound was deafening. Then, at precisely the same time, the man and woman slammed shut their boxes, cutting off the sound of the Roamers.
The couple looked at each other and nodded in satisfaction.
The little girl appeared in the doorway.
“Can we make dinner now? I’m hungry,” the girl said.
The mother laughed.
Madelyn watched the rest of the movie without moving a muscle. She was transfixed as the family worked their way through the city, clearing out all the danger and leaving behind peace. At the end, with the city safe, the family retired to the countryside and their beautiful field of wildflowers.
When the screen went blank again, Madelyn reached up and wiped away her snot and tears.
Her heart felt too big to fit inside her ribcage.
She made her way upstairs and opened the front door.
The rain had cleared. The day was bright and beautiful. The breeze from the forest was rich and clean.
Madelyn smiled. She was full of energy and knew exactly what she needed to do.
She left the door open as she went to gather her things.
# # # # #
Madelyn stopped at the edge of the stream and filled her lungs. It felt good to jog. Even with the pack, she felt light and lively. She stepped quickly across the stones and crossed without even getting her feet wet. Madelyn smiled and then turned back. She hadn’t been across the stream in forever. There was no need.
The wall of trees climbing the hill looked like a different world. It was the closet that she had locked herself in for so many years. Somewhere back in there, along the path and under a canopy of fall color, her little cabin sat.
She scanned her memory—had she remembered to lock the place? Patting her pockets, she discovered the key, but she couldn’t remember actually turning the lock. It pulled at her. The cabin wanted her back.
“No,” she whispered. She shook her head and turned away.
Just over the hill, the land flattened out into a brown meadow. There were no wildflowers here—this wasn’t the meadow from the movie. Still, the open space challenged her eyes. She traced the ridge and wondered what she would see from the top.
The excitement left over from the movie robbed her of patience. Madelyn broke into a jog again.
# # # # #
The sun was falling fast behind her when she reached the lake. She hadn’t anticipated being outside and alone when the sun set. She began to remember something that was once obvious—excitement was a close cousin of panic.
Madelyn hurried along the bank of the lake.
She saw the first camp and began to rush. In her haste, her feet went out from under her and she slid towards the water. She recovered only after her right foot was soaked and muddy. Madelyn clawed her way back up to solid ground and took more care as she worked through the woods towards the place.
It was completely impractical. Giant windows faced the lake. The big deck didn’t even have a roof. She didn’t even bother to look inside. Nobody would be stupid enough to take refuge in a place like that.
Madelyn slogged on to the next camp. A million years ago, the places had been vacation refuge for the wealthy. Some people arrived by float plane. Others trekked in on four wheelers. Those days were long gone.
The camp she walked to was better, but not great. It had reasonable windows that could be blocked with some of the furniture she spied through the door. Even better, she saw stairs that must lead down to a root cellar or utility room. That could be a safe place to spend the night. The door was locked. Madelyn knocked and waited. She cupped her hands on the glass and wondered where Jacob had gone.
After a minute, she got moving again.
The movie had filled her with such hope and purpose. She felt the energy draining from her as she walked through the woods and saw the next derelict camp. These were places of happy getaways, but they had been abandoned. To Madelyn’s eyes, they were starving dogs, tethered to a tree and forgotten by their owners. She had the impulse to burn them down and put them out of their misery.
That was a thought for another day—her nephew was likely hiding in one of the structures.
She had
one more camp to investigate. Compared to the first two, this one was a mansion. It had three floors towering above the lake and a big balcony over the front porch. She pictured bankers sitting up there, drinking laced coffee as they looked out at a chunk of nature they had yet to spoil. Jacob could do worse than pick this place. It had a good lookout from the upper floors and escape routes on all four sides. It had a vented stack through the roof, which wasn’t great, but it meant that the place was at least equipped for modern services.
Madelyn climbed the steps and knocked. When there was no answer, she glanced around and tried the door. As it swung inwards, the lights ramped on and she heard the environmental systems come to life. Stale air rushed by her. She left the door open a few centimeters. The place had positive pressurization—giving it a leak to contend with would help cycle the air faster.
When she let go, the door shut on its own.
The first floor was wide open. The lights twinkled in the ceiling like little white stars. They were brightest in the kitchen. Madelyn headed that direction.
“Intrusion detected,” the kitchen said.
She searched her memory for the word to use. It came with sadness.
“Greetings,” she said.
“Welcome,” the kitchen responded. It was a woman’s voice—mature and confident.
“Mode?” Madelyn asked.
“Our mode defaults to hospitality after ten years,” the kitchen said.
“Last occupancy?”
“Last visitor, eighteen years.”
The time meant nothing to Madelyn. She had stopped counting the years. She hated talking to the kitchen. It was like having a conversation with a haunted house.
“Where’s the control panel?” she asked.
“We offer the following interfaces—voice control, ether, and biofeedback.”
Madelyn shook her head. It figured that there would be no physical control. They expected that the user would have an ether-enabled controller. Even if there was one around, the drive would be long dead by now.
She sighed.
“Just tell me—is there anyone else in the area?”
“Please define area of interest.”
“On the property—as far as your sensors reach—can you detect anyone else aside from me?”
“Eleven sensors in the requested area are currently malfunctioning. We detect no other human activity.”