Among These Bones Boxset

Books 1-3

Amanda Luzzader

Copyright © 2020 by Amanda Luzzader

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Book 1: Among These Bones

Book 2: When It’s No Longer Night

Book 3: Maybe We’ll Remember

Book 1: Among These Bones

To my children, Hudson and Dawson,

from whom I have learned the most about love

Among These Bones Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Acknowledgments 1

One

We sat on our bikes in the empty street, my grown-up son and I. The son I didn’t remember, the son I would forget again. We sat on our bikes, watching the house.

It was an ordinary house, but nobody was home, and nobody had been for a long time. The windows were broken. A mailbox lay pushed over and crumpled. Chains hung from the swing set, whining as they swung in the breeze. One house on a street of such houses. One street in a neighborhood of such streets.

“That one?” I asked.

Arie unfolded his smudged and rumpled map of the neighborhood, where the progress of our searches was marked in pencil. He nodded, and so I tightened my ponytail. We rolled our bikes into the thicket of weeds where a lawn had once grown. It’d been hard to find a bike tall enough for Arie and almost as hard to find one that wasn’t too tall for me. We climbed the steps to the porch. The storm door had been ripped from its hinges, and the door frame was cracked, probably from a search a long time ago, but maybe something worse. Arie pushed on the door and it swung open.

We stayed for a moment on the porch.

“Careful,” I said.

“Mom,” he said.

At the beginning of the year, I’d told him he didn’t have to call me “mom”. He could call me Alison, like everyone else, but he called me mom, anyway. And I liked it.

“I don’t want to be here in the first place,” I said. “Just—be careful.”

We never knew what we’d find beyond the closed doors. Booby traps, wild animals, mummified corpses. And that was assuming the house was unoccupied. There could be Agency goons inside looking to make trouble, or other lawless characters.

I was there to make sure Arie stayed safe. Something about the houses compelled him to search them, and he’d search whether or not I came along. So, I helped him. I was his mother.

Arie stepped in first, like always. He stood in the living room a few seconds, then shoved his hands in his pockets and took a long, slow look around. He was thin, and tall enough that his head almost touched the ceiling fan. I might never remember how he grew from baby to kid to teen and then into this tall young man.

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “You coming?”

Even with my shoes on, I felt the crusted dust on the floor as it crunched underfoot. The odors of abandonment, of decay. How many years had passed since someone had stood in that place?

There was always a certain excitement when we searched the houses, but I also felt a sense of not belonging. Like the home itself was waiting vainly for the children to start up a Nerf war in the basement, waiting for the husband to steal a kiss from his wife in the kitchen. When we entered, there was disappointment in the air. We were the wrong family in the wrong home.

Arie went to a stack of magazines on a side table in the corner. He held them up with both hands and blew the dust into a gray cloud that lingered.

“I think I’ll be awhile,” he said, taking a seat on the deflated, filthy sofa.

“Don’t take forever,” I said. The longer we were outside of our Zone the more dangerous it was, but Arie was already thumbing through the dust-caked magazines, examining each of the covers.

“Seen it,” he said, tossing the first one aside. “Seen it. Seen it.” He tossed them away. The next one he opened.

I wandered into the kitchen. Most of the cabinets gaped open, the doors broken and hanging. Nothing in them but crumbs and cobwebs, anyway. The food was all gone. Had been for years. Medicine, too, and most other useful things. That wasn’t why we were there.

On the dining room table there sat a tea set painted with roses. Kettle, teacup, saucer. I took a seat at the table and looked into the cup. Inside there was a succession of brown lines where the tea had once been but had dried away. The teaspoon had been set on the saucer as though its owner had risen from the table expecting to return after only a moment.

Arie rummaged in the living room and then continued down a hall to the other rooms on the ground floor. Next, I heard him bumping around and sorting in the back of the house.

I looked back at the tea set. Someone had made tea, and it had remained there—undisturbed, evaporating. I wondered about the others just as much as I wondered about Arie and myself. What had really happened to them?

Arie poked his head into the kitchen and ran a hand through his hair to sweep the long bangs from his eyes.

“I’m going up,” he said. He shoved a few magazines and what appeared to be a photo album into his backpack, then headed for the staircase.

As I rose to follow him, I put the teacup and spoon into the pocket of my coat.

The curtains were drawn shut in the first bedroom upstairs, making it nearly too dark to see. Arie split them wide open and sunlight poured in. He stared out the window. I joined him.

“Hey,” I said, pointing, “a Ferris wheel.”

Out beyond the trees and shingled rooftops, the skeletal wheel with its spokes rose lonely and still on the horizon.

“Yeah,” said Arie.

“I never noticed it,” I said.

“You’ve never been this far south.”

“It’s getting late,” I said. “You about finished here?”

Arie stood there awhile, concentrating on the distant Ferris wheel, as though he might remember.

“Arie.”

He turned away from the window and said, “I’ll search this one if you’ll do the one down the hall.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s make it fast. I want to get out of here.”

“Look everywhere,” he reminded me as I went. “Not just the drawers and shelves. Under stuff, behind.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “People hide things. Don’t be so bossy.”

He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

The room had been a girl’s bedroom. A teenager. A four-poster princess bed sat ruined in the center of the room beneath the shroud of a faded canopy. Curled and faded posters clung to the walls. The makeup table and dresser had been ransacked. I stepped inside and knelt in the debris of school supplies and clothing.

I pawed through a pile of textbooks. Western Civ, Algebra II—useless. There was a spiral notebook the girl had kept for biology class—not enough blank pages to keep. There were dingy stuffed animals and once-pretty blouses and a curling iron. Nothing of any use. Arie was so much better at this. I lifted the dust-caked mattress, looked under the bed. Nothing.

I’d had a room like that once. I assumed so, anyway. It was only common sense. Before all the trouble, long ago, I’d been a teenage girl, somewhere. Maybe someday I’d remember.

In the corner of the room there was a bookshelf. Most of its contents lay toppled out and scattered. Books about teen lovers and winsome horses and young wizards. Arie never wanted any of those. The shelf was heavy and tall. At the top, where the top of the bookcase almost touched the ceiling, there was a dark line of shadow.

It was a hiding place. I stood up.

“Mom,” Arie called from the other room.

“Just a second,” I said.

“No. Now. Quick!”

I heard the engine rumbling as I went down the hall to the other bedroom where Arie crouched at the window. He made a frantic gesture to stop me. I dropped to all fours and crawled to the window. We peeked over the sill.

An armored troop carrier turned the corner at the top of the block and rolled down the street. Enormous, angular, with a machine gun protruding from a turret that traversed slowly, seeking.

“Patrol,” I said.

“They’ll see our bikes.”

It wasn’t against the rules for us to be here. Not officially. But that wouldn’t matter to an Agency goon bent on mayhem.

I put my hand on Arie’s arm to steady him, and then chanced a glance down into the yard where our bikes lay in the tall weeds.

“We need to get downstairs,” I said. “We could get stuck up here.”

Arie slung his backpack, and we crawled from the room through the drifts of dust on the carpet. The noise of the vehicle grew louder. We picked our way down the stairs, ducking to see out of the windows of the ground floor. We’d seen a few patrols before, but never this close, and never so far from our Zone.

“Are they stopping here?” Arie hissed. “I think they’re stopping.”

“Arie,” I snapped, “quit freaking out. Jesus. Just wait.”

“What if they catch us?”

I shushed him furiously. “Hold still.”

There were stories of what they’d do to us. We knew people who’d disappeared, and we’d even seen a few beatings and arrests with our own eyes. And that was inside the Zone boundaries.

The troop carrier slowed as it approached the house where we hid. Then it stopped. The hatch on the turret swung open, and a soldier appeared. I suddenly knew Arie was about to bolt. Something about the way his backed tensed—technically, I barely knew this boy, but I knew for sure he was getting ready to run. I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed hard.

“Hold still.”

The soldier hopped down from the fender of the troop carrier and walked to the side of the road. He looked in either direction as he unfastened his pants, and then he relieved himself. Our bikes lay in the weeds near enough that he could have sprayed them if he’d known they were there.

After a minute he fastened his pants, mounted the troop carrier, and slid down into the turret. The hatch swung closed with a thunk, and the vehicle rolled on until it was out of sight.

“He’s gone,” I breathed. “Time to get home.”

We waited in the living room for a few minutes to see if the patrol would return or if another would come along, but the street remained quiet and empty. My hands were shaking as we crept down into the living room. Arie opened the front door an inch or two and looked through the crack.

Then I remembered.

“Wait,” I said. “I nearly forgot. Wait here a sec.”

I took the stairs a couple at a time, raising clouds of gray dust. There were few windows upstairs, and it had gotten darker. I felt my way to the girl’s bedroom and found the tall bookshelf. I got on my tiptoes and felt along the top. There was something there. My fingers touched it. A box maybe, or a book. The shelf stood too high for me grasp whatever hid there. I stretched and reached and nearly pulled the shelf over on top of me, but then I had it.

A diary.

Arie waited at the bottom of the stairs. As I came down, I held out the diary. When he saw it, his mouth opened a bit, but he didn’t snatch it away from me or tear it open. He took it carefully, with both hands. Then he ran his fingers over the cover, which was a collage of flowered stickers and decals. He smiled a little.

“Good job, Mom,” he said opening the diary.

I knew that Arie was my son only because they’d told me so. I’d known for less than a year, and in three more months, they’d need to tell me again. We both had blue eyes and dark hair, but I didn’t remember feeding him or teaching him to ride a bike. However, as we left the Agency facility that morning nine months before, I knew I was his mother. When he coiled up on the stairs, ready to run, I knew. And when he turned to the first handwritten page of the flowered diary, I knew again. My son was happy. I’d made him happy. Even with how much it scared me to be caught out there in those desolate suburbs, it was worth it to see him smile.

“Read later,” I said. “We gotta go.”

“‘Kay.” He snapped it shut.

We climbed down the front steps and waded through the weeds to our bikes.

“Where’d you find it?” he asked.

“On top of the bookshelf in this little crack way up—did you hear that?”

“Hear what.”

Something was moving through the backyard. I heard the rustling of dead weeds, and when I turned to see, I caught a glimpse of motion.

“Get down,” I snapped at Arie.

We crouched.

“They must have seen us and circled back on foot,” I whispered.

Fast movement to our left and to our right. Then, behind us, too. It wasn’t the patrol.

“Dogs,” I shouted. “Run!”

Two

They burst from the overgrown brush at the side of the house. Three or four of them—snarling and barking. They barreled after us as we sprinted across the yard. Arie was a lot faster than me.

“Tree,” shouted Arie.

A fruit tree stood nearly leafless at the edge of the yard. Arie made it there first. He was taller than me by a head. He grabbed a branch seven or eight feet up, and he walked his legs up the trunk until he was perched like some enormous chimp. I ran as fast as I could, crashing through the weed stalks dry with autumn, the dogs so close behind I heard their hoarse panting and the popping sound their jaws made as they snapped at me.

Stretched out on the high branch, Arie extended his arm. I took hold, but as Arie swung me up, one of the dogs caught my pant leg. He was big and black. With a thrash of his head he tore me from Arie’s grip, and I tumbled back into the weeds.

“Mom!” Arie yelled. He jumped down.

The black dog clamped onto my leg, shaking his head and tugging at me. I felt his teeth tear open the skin of my ankle. A smaller dog bit the sleeve of my coat and pulled me in the other direction. The third dog loped in, snarling and nipping at me. I swung at them, kicked at them, drowning in a sea of hot savagery.

Arie got my sleeve free but then the two smaller dogs went after him. He raced around the weedy yard in a crazed game of tag, spinning and dodging as they snapped at him.

I kicked the black dog, connecting with his cheeks and snout, but he only flinched and bit harder. His body shuddered with guttural growls. The whites of his eyes showed when he shook me. I thought he might rip my leg off at the knee.

More dogs came galloping into the yard. Arie tripped and stumbled and was buried in a frenzy of fur and bared fangs. So many dogs. Beneath their snarling, I heard Arie shouting. The black dog let go of my leg and lunged for my throat, head low, ears flattened. I shoved him away and tried to rise, but his big paws were on my stomach, my ribcage, pressing me down. He forced his muzzle between my arms and hands, teeth bared. For a split second our eyes locked. His mouth opened.

There came a deafening boom.

The black dog convulsed and then went limp. I raised my head. The other dogs stood frozen, looking toward the street. Another boom, a gunshot. The dogs flinched in unison. A few scampered away, tails tucked. I rolled to one side and the black dog slid off me and lay still.

I stood. My pant leg was torn and bloody, and my leg burned. Arie kicked at the dogs as the last of them ran yapping down the street. Their claws clicked dryly on the pavement.

Standing in the street was a stout woman holding a pistol. She wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve.

“You kids all right?”

We checked ourselves, turning and twisting. Arie’s hand dripped blood. My leg began to throb miserably. We were covered in dry leaves, dead flower petals, and the broken stems of thistles.

“We’ll live,” I said, brushing the weedy debris from my clothes.

Arie went to the sidewalk and picked up his backpack. The magazines and books he’d found had spilled and lay fanned out on the concrete. He collected them and returned them to the pack while the woman watched.

“What’s all ’at?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said Arie. “My stuff.”

“You shouldn’t be out here,” she scolded. Her voice was loud and brassy. “But if you’re gonna be, you oughta least be able to defend yourself.”

The woman brandished the pistol and then put it away somewhere under her coat. When she ambled closer, she limped, favoring her left leg. Her face was lumpy and her hair was cropped short like a man’s. With the toe of her boot, she nudged the black dog’s body. It made no movement.

“Look at this,” she said, pointing to the dog’s collar with a stubby, grimy finger. The collar was sun-faded and frowzy. “This was somebody’s pet.”

I noticed the dog’s ribs and the thinness of its body. The woman bent down and tilted her head back to read the tarnished metal tag through her battered bifocals.

“Chieftain,” she said, frowning. “His name. This is what happens when living things get forgot. They turn mean. Some of these others might have been littered since Year One. But not this guy. He was part of somebody’s family. Back before.”

She patted him on the neck, then pushed her glasses higher up her round, pitted nose. She squinted at me.

My ears still rang from the gunshot, and I struggled to catch my breath. “Thank you,” I panted.

“This makes me really mad,” she said. “I love dogs. I’m an animal lover.” She jabbed her finger at me. “You owe me now. Big time.”

“What do you want? Food? We have a little food. Some good firewood, too,” I said.

“We’ll figure it out another day,” she said. Then she pointed to my leg. “You’re gonna need stitches.”

Arie was clutching his hand to his chest. Blood ran down his forearm and dripped from his elbow.

“You, too,” she said to him. “That looks bad.”

Arie nodded.

“What’s your names?” she asked. We told her.

She jerked her chin at Arie’s backpack. “Ya like books, huh?”

Arie didn’t answer.

“Guess you was real lucky I come round when I did,” she said. Then she shrugged and waddled off the way she came.

“Hey, wait,” I said. “Who are you?”

She didn’t look back. Over her shoulder she yelled, “Ruby,” and kept going.

I hadn’t been to the infirmary since the beginning of the year, and if there had been any way to avoid it, I wouldn’t have gone back. We knew of people who went there for a minor illness or injury but never came back out. A very nice man who’d lived across the street from us was taken into custody for misconduct and then never heard from more. We knew we had to go back at the new year to take the serum, but we’d only do that because we’d been told we would die if we didn’t, and the only reason we believed it was that we had no one else to listen to.

Cuts and bruises we could deal with on our own. But, as always, there was disease to consider. Infection, rabies—and worse. The meat of Arie’s palm was punctured and deeply lacerated. He’d wrapped it with a clean cloth when we got home, and I’d splashed it with iodine, but we couldn’t seem to completely stop the bleeding. It oozed continuously. There were ragged bite marks and a long gash on my calf, already surrounded by purple bruising. The pain radiated up into my hip and waist. Riding my bike to the Agency infirmary was agony.

We stopped the bikes on a wide empty street leading to the massive but spartan cinder block building. I traded a long look with Arie.

He shook his head slowly.

“We have to,” I said, nodding at his arm.

After chaining the bikes to a dilapidated chain-link fence, we went on. The entrance lay on the far side of an empty courtyard of crumbling asphalt. Barring the entrance there stood a low wall of concrete Jersey barriers and a squad of uniformed goons. Those we called goons weren’t actual Agency personnel, but they carried batons and wore sidearms on their hips.

When Arie and I were halfway across the courtyard, one of the goons stopped us with his outstretched palm.

“Stop there,” he shouted. “Turn around, put your hands on top of your head, kneel down, and cross your ankles.”

We did so. The pain in my leg made me lightheaded as I knelt, but of course we had to do as they said. My skin went clammy. Arie was breathing rapidly, and his eyes darted frantically.

I turned to him and said, “Take it easy.”

“No talking,” shouted the goon. “Sit tight there. Don’t move.”

My knees throbbed. After what felt like ages, I heard the crunching footsteps of two goons approaching from behind. I could not see them but I knew that one trained a gun on us while the other held an electronic ID chip scanner.

“Don’t move,” one of the goons repeated as he stood over me.

I held my breath. He passed the chip scanner over the back of my neck where my ID chip was embedded, and there was a beep.

“What happened?” said the goon.

“Dogs,” I said. “Dogs attacked us.”

“Get up,” he said.

They ushered us through the courtyard, and we were admitted through a series of air washes and tightly sealed doors. I limped along. Agency personnel eyed us from behind layers of Lexan as we moved through the gauntlet. Our ID chips were scanned a few times more, and at last we were shown to an examination room. There we were joined by a technician in a tight-fitting, plastic-skinned hermetic suit.

He was afraid of us. Through the clear face screen of the h-suit, we could plainly see he was nervous. Perhaps he was new. All that blood. His hands trembled as he swabbed the blood and dirt from Arie’s palm.

Arie winced as the technician turned his hand over to close the cuts with stitches.

“I’m gonna need you to hold really still,” snapped the technician. His voice was buzzy through the mask. “This needle is very sharp.”

Soon the technician was joined by another man in an identical h-suit. He had a pen and clipboard.

“And where did you say you were when this happened?” he buzzed at me.

“By our house,” I answered. “A bunch of dogs came from out of nowhere.”

He turned to Arie. “Is that what happened?”

Arie nodded.

“Please,” the technician pleaded coldly, holding the needle away from Arie’s wound, “quit moving, or I’ll go and get someone to hold you down.” A fog had formed at his mouth on the clear face screen. Only his eyes were visible. He glared at Arie a moment. Arie nodded and was still, and the technician returned to his work.

It felt odd to be considered a threat, but I understood. Because we’d almost died. I don’t mean me and Arie in the neighborhoods, attacked by dogs. I mean all of us. The entire human race, so they said. It was hard to wrap my mind around it, to even consider that humans almost didn’t exist anymore. But that’s what we were told—that it was a pandemic, that the world’s population shrank by an unthinkable eighty percent.

Of course, I didn’t remember any of that. No one did. Because the serum that saved us also wiped away our memories.

Everyone had received the first dose. Everyone still alive when the Agency released the serum, I mean. Infected or uninfected—everyone got the shot and everyone forgot.

That was Year One.

This was all explained to us at an orientation the day after we awoke from the serum treatment, about nine months previously. I was there with a class of sixty or so others. We were all dazed, and some didn’t seem to be paying attention at all, but I wasn’t alone in finding it all impossible to believe. An entire civilization with no memories. How did we survive?

I raised my hand and asked that question.

“There are few records from that period,” answered the Agency woman from behind the face screen of her suit. “We can only imagine that it was very difficult,” she added mechanically. “We are very fortunate.”

After Year One, only those who were infected got the shot each year, and that included Arie and me. The shot saved us, supposedly kept the virus down. But we forgot everything with every shot, and every year we got the shot again. The Agency was there to remind us who we were, who we had been.

I shouldn’t say we forgot everything. Some memories stayed no matter what. I knew how to talk and walk and eat. And there weren’t many cars around, but I knew I could drive one if I ever had the chance—I even knew somehow that I could drive a manual transmission.

“Procedural memory” it’s called, the things you can do without thinking about them. I could read and write just fine. Do math.

We retained what are termed “implicit memories,” too. I knew what roses, elephants, and ice cream cones were, even if I didn’t remember ever having seen one. And that’s the main thing we were missing: explicit memories. Context, events, identities. I knew what an amusement park was, but could not place myself ever visiting one. And our identities—all gone. The Agency had to tell us each year who we were and where we belonged. Worse than that, we started over every year, and we depended on them and had to trust them. It was like waking up in a different place than where you went to bed, only to be told by some stranger that the person who fell asleep no longer existed, and that it was your job to take her place.

“Maybe we’ll remember next year.”

That’s what we said. We sometimes said it as often as “God bless you” or even “hello.” Maybe we’ll remember next year. Agency scientists, it was said, were constantly working on the serum’s formula—desperate to remove the side effect—but how could they be expected to work in our best interest? They didn’t know us. No one knew anyone. How could they possibly be more worried about us than themselves? Who could blame them for staying behind their glass walls and hermetic suits? We had nothing to offer them, nothing to offer anyone, and only a dim and blunted hope that we might survive to see some kind of improvement.

We had become a race of phantoms.

Three

The man at the turnstile held out his hand.

He didn’t smile or nod. He just put out his open hand as though I might or might not give him something, but he didn’t really care either way. In my hand there was a ticket of some kind, so I stepped forward and gave him that. He took it and then retrieved a strip of brightly colored plastic from somewhere. He held it up. I stood looking at him.

“Wanna gimme your wrist?” he asked.

I raised my arm and with a quick motion he wrapped the band around my wrist and fastened it.

“Have fun,” he said.

The turnstile clunked as I pushed it and then I was through. The sun was going down but there were hundreds of electric bulbs strobing in the late-summer auburn light. Somewhere a calliope played a marching tune, and there was an aroma of popcorn.

I saw a ride with arms like an octopus which rotated slowly at first and then faster and then inclined until it was almost upright. There was another ride with a long fiberglass pirate ship that swung like a woozy pendulum, higher and higher, until the passengers began to squeal.

People milled in every direction beneath the galaxy of winking lights. Some of the people wandered unhurried, and others ran from place to place. I saw a young couple in a strolling embrace. Mothers with children in tow. I came to the tilt-o-whirl and in the gaps between the spinning riders I saw the blur of the faces on the opposite side, rushing past like memories of people I once knew.

I turned a corner as though I knew where I was headed and saw the ring-toss and milk-can games with their candy-striped awnings. The carnies leaned into the midway, cajoling. I ignored them and came to an open place where the tallest ride of them all rose shimmering like an immense and gaudy clock against the blushing sky.

The Ferris wheel.

Along the concrete entrance platform, the line of waiting revelers extended and folded back on itself and then folded again. I stood in the line shuffling forward and watching the wheel turn. There were arrays of incandescent lights and tubes of neon along its great spokes and their sequenced flashing created patterns like spirals and the waves made by a pebble dropped in a pool.

I reached the head of the line. A girl wearing cargo shorts and a visor waved me forward, and I was seated in the gondola hanging from the bottom of the ride. The girl clamped the safety bar across the bench and then stepped on a pedal in the concrete floor of the platform.

“Keep your hands inside the ride at all times,” she said without inflection. “Have fun.”

The gondola surged backward and up so that another gondola could be emptied of its passengers and reloaded. I moved backward and up. Each time the gondola swayed gently. Backward and up.

Soon I was at the top of the wheel and I could see the park glistening like an electric birthday cake. I saw the town beyond, too. There were street lamps and window lights and the headlamps of cars moving in the streets, sights not seen in the dead and dark streets of the Zones.

There were those who believed we still had memories, that they hadn’t been erased but were locked in the recesses of our minds, the key hidden but waiting, maybe even hoping to be found. That’s what Arie believed. And me, too. So, it’s no wonder we were fascinated by our own dreams. We wondered constantly whether the places and people we dreamed of were somehow significant.

Or real.

The gondola came over the top of the wheel, plunged down into the noisy park, swept backward over the platform, and ascended again. The girl in the visor worked some lever on a control board and the ride went a little faster.

As I came over the top again, I turned my head, and seated with me in the gondola there was a boy of eight or nine years old.

Did our night minds awaken at sundown and go to work in the dark, reordering puzzle pieces in hopes of someday re-assembling our lives? That was the question: whether our dreams were encoded messages to decipher. Or were they only random images—the arbitrary firing of synapses without meaning?

In some ways, it didn’t matter. Because in either case, the dreams at least revealed places and faces we couldn’t recall before, and there was hope in that. And so we longed for dreams, for the hope of them. Hope was precious.

That’s why I watched the boy as the ride spun faster. He knew who I was. He grinned at me. Then he gripped the safety bar, and we both watched the ground rush up at us as we fell to earth. Then backward and up again.

The wheel spun faster. Like a bicycle tire, like a fan. Everything was a blur, sickening. The carnival lights glared hotly. As the gondola arced over the top again and again, the ground rose and fell around me like the distressed breathing of a puppy or a baby.

And when I looked across the bench of the gondola again, the boy was gone. In his place sat a man who laughed as he looked at me with the lights reflected dazzlingly in his eyes

I always tried to write my dreams down. Always. But it was difficult. In that hazy space where the twin hemispheres of dream world and real world melted together, I often couldn’t tell fantasy from reality. Like the boy in the gondola. I knew who he was. Who he must be. Of course I knew. But holding on to the images in the dreams, especially the people, was like clutching handfuls of sand. The more tightly I held it, the quicker it leaked from my fingers. In the dreams I could see them clearly. The boy, the man. The lines and contours of their faces were familiar. But sometimes, before I could awake and find my journal and pen, the only thing that remained in my mind was the certainty that I’d dreamed something, somebody. Even now, as I wondered what it might take to rise and light a candle and grope around for my writing supplies, there was a blaze of light and thundering of footsteps in the hallway that wrenched me from my sleep.

“Power’s on! Power’s on!” Arie shouted, pounding on the wall as he stamped down the hallway.

I propped myself on my elbows and squinted at the electric light. We always left all the light switches on so that we’d know. The power might come on every day for a week, or it might not come on at all for a month. And it might stay on for a couple hours, or a whole day, or it might be just a few minutes. I rolled out of bed and followed Arie. By the time I reached him, he was tapping the side of the television impatiently, waiting for his devices to start up.

The television blinked on and displayed the input menu. Arie had cobbled together an assortment of video players and computers—devices to read virtually any data storage media in existence. He even had a VCR for the old tapes we sometimes found. Everything was connected by a tangle of cables and adapters decipherable only to Arie. He checked the connections, pressed a few buttons, and loaded a disc.

On the screen, a roomful of children with party hats appeared. I stared at the scene, at the children. The image bobbed and panned. The children laughed. A parent waved at the camera. Zoom in on the gifts stacked in front of a grinning, dark-eyed boy. He looked so happy. He had waited all year for this. Zoom out.

Arie shook his head and pressed the fast-forward button. The party continued in fast motion. Wrapping paper vanished from the gifts to reveal toys, a sweater, a basketball. A cake appeared, its candles pulsing manically. Arie pressed the button again and it went faster. The camera panned crazily as the children sang. Then the candles were extinguished, and the cake was obliterated in an eye blink. A party game commenced and was concluded in a few seconds. A few seconds more and the room was empty but for a few adults, and the video was over.

Arie pressed eject button, grabbed the disc, and tossed it over his shoulder.

“Mom!” he shouted. “Get the scanners going!” He grabbed another disc from the side table, where there was a foot-high stack of discs and a litter of memory cards from cameras and phones. He set the new disc on the ejected tray, which whined in protest as he crammed it back in.

I shuffled to the stack of police scanners which sat atop the unused refrigerator, turned them on, and set each to scan. The scanners beeped a few times and then the lights began to strobe in sequence, cycling from frequency to frequency, searching. One had green lights and another amber and on the top unit they were red. When they were all blinking, the effect was that of a tiny amusement park.

Next, I switched on a portable multi-band radio and held the speaker to my ear. I turned the tuning dial, drifting slowly through all the FM stations, listening. When the green plastic indicator needle slid to the end of the band, I switched to AM and rotated the dial in the opposite direction. Next was UHF, then the weather band, and there were others. The radio was probably manufactured in the 1960s, but Arie said it had a very high-quality amplifier and could pick up the full spectrum of commercial broadcasts—had there been any. There were terminals on the back of the radio and to these Arie had attached a length of flat wire that ran to antennas on the roof. With my ear touching the speaker, I moved the dial as slowly as I could, like a safe-cracker, backing up if I thought I heard even the whisper of signal. It was a tedious exercise, and so far, I’d never found anything apart from the signal broadcast by the Agency, which played nothing but a five-minute message about where and how to receive medical care, rations, and the life-saving serum. It looped endlessly. I could recite it by heart.

I closed my eyes, listening to the static hiss and woof in my ear.

A chorus of “Surprise!” rang out from the television.

Arie cut it off by jabbing the fast-forward button.

“Another one,” said Arie. “Did anyone care about anything besides birthdays back before?”

I felt it almost the instant he said it. Another thing that was taken from us, but something we didn’t remember. We knew what birthdays were. We knew what typically happened at birthday parties, but nobody celebrated them anymore. Our records didn’t show birthdays—only ages. The day we got our serum injections—that was everyone’s collective birthday.

I saw the muscle in Arie’s jaw tense, and I understood that he felt it, too. Longing, maybe anger, but mostly the strange sense of losing something you couldn’t remember—a feeling that any day could be your birthday and you wouldn’t even know it. Nothing distinguished one day from the next. There was nothing special, nothing to look forward to. And maybe that would be fine if you didn’t know what you were missing, but we did. We knew such things in a general sense, the same way someone can know the rules of baseball without ever playing it. We saw the people in the home movies unwrapping presents and having cake, and that made us feel like no one wanted to throw us any parties, and no one ever would. We all carried it—a longing for things and people forgotten but nevertheless missed.

I decided then that I would throw Arie a birthday party. There wouldn’t be cake or balloons of course, but I’d figure out some way to make it special.

Arie fast-forwarded through a few DVDs and then plugged in a memory card.

“Ah, here we go,” he said. I got up from the radio and went to Arie’s side. The video showed a man lying in a hospital bed. He was damp and pallid. A young woman’s voice narrated.

“Wave to the camera, David!”

David flipped the bird.

“He’s not feeling too hot,” said the woman. “We’re going to get some fluids in him and the doctors are doing some tests and he should be home soon. Anyhoo, toodles!”

She turned the camera on herself to wave goodbye. Her eyes were brown and her hair was blond. She wore makeup. She smiled, but you could tell she didn’t mean it. She was tired. The video ended.

“Time stamp is February 15th,” Arie said grabbing his pencil and notebook.

“Day after Valentine’s Day?”

“Psh,” said Arie. “No. I mean this is the first wave.”

“Oh, right.”

He selected the next file. It showed the blond woman holding the camera on herself again, only now she wore a white paper hospital mask and no makeup. She pulled it down to her chin and sighed.

“I haven’t been very good about recording,” she said. “I can’t believe what’s going on.”

She looked to have aged several years. Worry showed at the corners of her mouth. Dark circles under her eyes.

“David’s in quarantine; they won’t let me visit him.” She turned away from the camera for a few seconds, then she was back. “School’s canceled. They won’t say for how long. I haven’t been out of the house for three days.” The woman stared down for several seconds at something off camera and then shrugged.

The video ended.

“Now we’re at March first,” Arie said pointing at the list of files. “That takes us to—what? Two weeks out?”

Arie selected the next file.

The lady with the camera again. “Guys, I’m really scared. This is serious. Like serious-serious. People are dying and—”

She covered her eyes and sobbed. The camera wandered away from her face for a while. Then she pointed it at herself again.

“They think it’s spread through the air. We don’t even know if they know, so how can we—”

There was pounding on our front door and shouting outside.

“What’s that?” Arie asked. He paused the video.

More pounding. It had to be a goon squad. No one would be pounding on the door like that at this hour.

“Turn off the television!” I shouted. “Turn everything off! And hide!”

Arie frantically shut down his electronics. I ran through the house shutting off the lights, first upstairs and then down, and then my pulse accelerated as I crept in the darkness toward the window at the front of the house.

A heavy curtain was drawn across the window. I parted it just enough to see the porch.

There was a young woman there. She had a gash on her head and her nose was bloody. Blood trailed down her face and neck.

“Help!” she shouted into the surface of the door. “Please help me!” She glanced back over her shoulder then pounded with increased intensity. She knew we were inside. She’d seen our lights.

Arie reappeared. In the darkness, I could barely make him out.

“Are you going to let her in?” he whispered.

“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.

“Well we can’t just leave her out there,” he said, gesturing at the door. “We’ve gotta do something.”

“We have to protect ourselves, Arie. You know that. Whoever she’s running from will end up in here.”

“But we have to help her. Hide her or—”

“No, Arie, you go hide.”

“But—”

“Go!”

As he left, I sat in front of the door, my back against it. The woman pounded on the door, and I could feel the impact in my ribcage. I thought she might break down the door. A few moments later, I heard men’s voices. The young woman screamed and ran off. There was shouting somewhere down the street, and then it was quiet again.

I shut my eyes. Arie was disappointed and hurt. I could tell. He always wanted to help everyone, but he didn’t know how dangerous that could be. Sometimes it seemed risky to go and collect our rations or even just step out of the house. There was never enough food or fuel or clean water. I’d heard that we lived in one of the safer Zones, but still we saw fights in the streets in broad daylight, and when it was dark, the desperate and murderous preyed on the unsuspecting and the weak.

The Agency sent goons to patrol the Zones, but they weren’t disciplined or even trained, and they were known to cause as much trouble as they prevented. If we got involved every time someone cried for help, it would soon be us pounding on some random door and disappearing in the middle of the night. I wanted to help people. Of course I did. And I was proud of Arie for wanting that, too, but we had to take care of ourselves first. That was the world we lived in. Why did the woman have to come to our house? Who was she, and what would become of her? I tried to drive her from my mind, but she wouldn’t go easily.

In the morning, I woke up on the floor in front of the door. The electricity was off again, and Arie was asleep. I went quietly out onto the porch with a wet rag and wiped away the blood.

Four

Arie and I didn’t talk much that morning. He had powdered eggs and tea for breakfast, then busied himself in the den, reading and filing the magazines he’d found. Arie had amassed hundreds of magazines and newspapers just in the previous nine months, to say nothing of the videos and computer documents and all the electronic devices he’d found. He kept diaries he’d found, too, and appointment books, photos, and letters. Anything about the year or so before the pandemic—he read it, collated it, curated it.

There were documents at the Agency depot that told the official history of the pandemic, but they were unsatisfying, suspiciously vague, and—as Arie had discovered—frequently inaccurate. So, Arie devoured any scrap of information he could find. He filled one bookshelf and then another. Now his magazines and materials nearly filled three floor-to-ceiling shelf units in the den, and still he searched the neighborhoods outside our Zone boundaries whenever he could.

I had tried several times to make him give up the searching, but he wouldn’t. I tried to make him search less frequently, but at times it was all he ever wanted to do. And so we fell into a kind of rhythm. I insisted on moving quickly, quietly, and being as careful and safe as we could. Arie agreed to that at least. Some days I almost felt safer out there in the empty neighborhoods. There were certainly fewer people to deal with, fewer riots and enforcement sweeps, but the stakes were undoubtedly higher—the lone patrol we saw and that pack of dogs would probably be enough to keep Arie home for at least a couple weeks. I was glad for that.

In the afternoon it was cloudy and cold, but the chores were done. We had water and supplies to last a few days, and so Arie continued working quietly and intently, indexing and cross-referencing his findings. It was as if he thought he could construct a printed, freestanding memory of everything that had happened before Year One.

In a way, we were searching for ourselves, too. There was always a chance that we’d walk into a house and see dust-caked portraits of our younger, happier selves. We had no idea where we’d come from originally—it was said that the Agency had corralled all survivors into a system of Zones; we could have come from anywhere. But the minuscule chance of happening upon the house that used to belong to us was one of the few things that kept me going along, despite my fear.

That evening, as I was making soup for supper, Arie came into the kitchen and sat in the bay window with his knees drawn up nearly to his chin. He opened the girl’s flowered diary I found, holding it close to his face and straining in the failing gray light to read the former owner’s squiggly cursive. I stayed quiet, waiting for him to speak first. I stirred the soup, and the room gradually filled with its aroma.

“The Sky Dreamer,” Arie blurted.

He looked up from the diary. And I looked at him.

“The Ferris wheel we saw,” he said. “That’s what they called it.”

“Sky Dreamer,” I repeated, nodding.

“She rode it,” he said, holding up the diary. “She went with her friends.”

“Anything interesting?” I asked. “Anything important?”

Arie shrugged. “Nah.”

“Soup’s ready,” I said, turning the handle on the little propane burner we used to cook. It was just old canned tomato soup, but it steamed invitingly as I poured it into bowls. There were a few half-stale flour biscuits. Now that winter was approaching, we had to dress warmly, even indoors, with sweaters and scarves and fingerless gloves. The soup would warm us up.

“You should write down what happened with the dogs,” Arie said.

I shrugged.

“You’ll want to know how you got those scars,” he said, gesturing at my bandaged leg. “You’ve got to write down the everyday things, too.”

It was Arie’s idea to keep journals. The Agency said we didn’t need to. In fact, they gently discouraged it, said it would only confuse us when we woke up again each year. They said it was their job to keep our important information for us, stored on the microchips beneath our skin. Name, address, family, allergies, medical conditions. Every year, when we forgot, they gave it all back to us. But we lost everything else. Things we did, people we met, our experiences. We had one year of memories, and then we started over again. That is what they told us.

Arie said we had to write every day, that it was important. He said it would be a way to get to know ourselves again after waking up. He said it would put us ahead of the game, too, that it would help us survive in the harsh circumstances of life in the Zones. And that was true enough—there was so much to know, so many shortcuts and tricks to get by. But Arie thought it was more than that. He wouldn’t say what it was, but I knew he had other reasons for keeping his journals.

I had a hard time with it, though. It took time, for one thing, a commodity that often ran short, and the Agency couldn’t resupply it. It was also hard to believe it would make any difference, and the Agency personnel were always announcing that they were close to fixing the memory problems of the serum.

“When was the last time you journaled, anyway?” asked Arie when I handed him a bowl of the soup.

It was so like him to check up on me that way. As though he were the one in charge. There was so much in his personality that was different from mine—he could be bossy, stubborn, and sometimes arrogant. Where did that come from?

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I will.”

“Mom. Promise me.”

“Okay, okay,” I said taking a spoonful of soup. “I will.”

“Okay, but really do it,” he said. “It’s everything. What’s the point of doing anything if we’re not going to remember it? Having a family? Living a life? How can we know who we are without memories? Really, how can you love someone you don’t even remember?”

I blew on my soup. “It’s worked all right for us.”

Arie sighed and sipped his. “Yeah, but it’s like we die every year. We’re not the same people; we don’t exist anymore, but we keep on living. Whoever we are just disappears, but we don’t die. This started with a plague, a sickness, but it’s the zombie apocalypse now. We’re all just mindless zombies doing whatever the Agency tells us to.”

“It’s not gone,” I said. I took his hand. “You said yourself. The memories are still there. We just have to unlock them. And we will. But until then, we still have each other, and that’s what counts, whether I recognize you next year or not. Some things you know even when you don’t remember. Some things can’t be erased.”

He nodded.

“Do you think we ever rode one?” he asked.

“Rode what?”

“A Ferris wheel. The Sky Dreamer.”

I shrugged. “I probably did. But I’d never take you.”

“What?” He lifted his head. “Why not?”

“You get woozy just turning in a circle,” I said. “You’d probably barf all over me.”

He laughed a little. I chucked him on the shoulder.

“I wonder if that ever happened,” he said.

“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll remember next year.”

There was a familiar knock at the door. Two quick taps, a pause, and then one more. It was Gary Gosford, the Agency man. He always knocked that way. I went to the door and opened it.

“Hello, Alison,” he said, his thick eyebrows knitted. “I heard you got hurt.”

Gary wore a long coat of gray wool and a dark felt Homburg. He had a round face that was friendly but with a touch of melancholy. Around his waist he carried the spread of middle age, and his shoulders were rounded.

I held up a hand, tried to wave off his concern.

“Why didn’t you have them fetch me?” he complained. “You still have no idea what a difference it makes having a friend in the Agency. I’m sure I could’ve helped.”

Unlike the other Agency enforcers we knew and had heard about, Gary treated those of us in the general population like real people—especially, it seemed, when it came to Arie and me. He occasionally brought us extra rations, and sometimes he’d help us with big chores and heavy lifting.

Gary and the others who worked for the Agency had been certified as being in remission and no longer needing the annual serum treatments. Because he could move freely among those who carried the virus, and because he’d been able to keep the memories he’d accumulated since being Remission Certified, Gary and others like him were culled from the general population to act as Agency supervisors, liaisons, and security personnel.

Gary was a senior supervisor in our Zone, some kind of middle administrator and probably very busy, but he took time once in a while to check on Arie and me. Maybe he knew how difficult it must be for a single mom living in the Zones, and he really just wanted to help, but I often suspected Gary was interested in more than just friendship. It could never happen, of course—he was Remission Certified, and I was in gen-pop, but I had to admit it was mildly flattering.

“We’re fine, Gary. Really. You’re busy. There was no reason to bother you.”

Gary stepped onto the threshold. He didn’t come all the way in, but he touched my shoulder. “You’re really all right?”

“Completely. Just cuts and scratches.”

“What happened?” he asked. “Dogs, I heard?”

Gary was, technically, the same as the thugs who rough-handled us at the infirmary and the rollers in the armored vehicle we crossed paths with the day before—those we called goons. Gary was a goon. He dressed much better, but he did work for the Agency. Still, I trusted him. He knew about Arie’s collection, which he could probably find a way to construe as against the rules, but he’d never said a word about it. Aside from Arie, he really was the best friend I had.

“This is unacceptable,” said Gary, shaking his head. “I’m gonna order up a few extra teams this week. It’s bad enough dealing with some of the people in gen-pop. Now we’ve got rabid dogs running around?”

“That’s nice, Gary, but it was our fault. We were down by the river bottoms, looking for asparagus. Not a big deal.”

“Oh, not a big deal? You could have been killed.”

Arie sidled up next to me. “Hey, Mr. G.”

“Hey, Arie. How’s it going?”

“Pretty good.”

Gary’s eyes went to the bandages on Arie’s hands and arm. “You, too? Your mom was just telling me you guys got into some dog trouble.”

“She told you?” asked Arie, one eyebrow lifted.

“Yes, Arie, I told Mr. Gosford—”

“Gary.”

“—that we were down in the river bottom looking for asparagus and we got jumped by those dogs. Good lesson learned, right? But we’ll live, right?”

Arie’s eyes narrowed for a nearly imperceptible moment, but then he nodded.

“Yeah, but you guys are lucky,” said Gary. “Coulda been much worse. Next time you get an asparagus craving, let me know.” He chuckled. “I’ll come with you.”

Arie nodded, then gestured at Gary’s hand and the cloth sack he held. “Whadja bring us?”

“Arie!” I chastised.

Gary smiled. “As a matter of fact, I brought a few things.” He held out the sack.

“Gary, you know you don’t need to bring us anything.”

“Eh. It’s no trouble.”

Arie snatched the bag from him and peeked inside. “Yes. Peanut butter!” He rummaged through the sack as he went to the kitchen.

“I know you don’t like peanut butter, Alison, but there are some other things in there. Some soap. It’s lavender, I think. And some flour. Oh, and sugar—a cup or two at least. And some other stuff.”

“You’re spoiling us,” I told him. “But thanks, Gary. For everything.”

“I gotta go,” he said.

I was almost glad—I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that soap. It might be nice to smell good for a bit, but we’d probably end up trading away most of the items—there was no sense in having luxuries when we could trade them for necessities. Maybe I could just smell the soap, then trade it for eggs. But Arie was probably already halfway through that jar of peanut butter.

“I’m just glad you guys are okay. I gotta run. But I am gonna send a team or two to find these dogs. Or maybe I’ll just have to go after them myself.”

I grinned and Gary put on his hat. He turned to go but then stopped and faced me.

“Seriously,” he said. “Next time you get into any kind of trouble, tell someone to go and find me. If I’m available, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Okay. I will. Thanks.”

Gary had visited the house the first day we moved in, not too long after we’d recovered from our treatment and completed orientation at the start of the new year.

It felt so long ago. Arie had been in the backyard working on an old bike he’d found half buried in dead bindweed vines. I was unpacking and sorting rations and supplies on the living room floor when Gary came in the front door. He didn’t knock. He just walked in. At first, I thought it was Arie, and I screamed when I realized it was a stranger. I instinctively grabbed something to defend myself with—a small candlestick.

Gary hurriedly reached beneath the lapel of his long coat and fished out a clear plastic ID badge on a lanyard. It was inscribed with the Agency seal and a barcode with numbers.

“It’s okay,” said Gary, his voice raised but not threatening. “I’m with the Agency. My name’s Gary. Gary Gosford. They told you that name, right?”

I clutched the candlestick like a tiny baseball bat.

“I’m with the Agency,” he repeated quietly and more slowly. He removed his hat and held out the badge again. “I’m Gary. You’re Alison. It’s okay. I should have knocked first. I’m sorry.”

Unlike most of the other people I’d encountered around the Zone that first week, Gary was well fed and dressed in clean clothing. I set the candlestick down, but within reach. Gary tucked the badge back into his coat. I watched him carefully.

“I really didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “I’m just so used to walking in. I’ll knock next time. I’m your senior supervisor.”

“Well, I guess you know who I am,” I said.

“Yes. Alison. I know. And your son is Arie. It’s nice to see you again. You look well."

"They already told us about the rules," I said. "We've been careful. They gave us rations."

"Yes," he said. "That's good."

He worried the brim of the Homburg in his hands.

“Don’t worry,” said Gary. “You’re not in trouble.”

“Then what are you doing here?” I asked.

"Well, I know you don’t remember me,” he said, “but just a few weeks ago we were pretty good friends.”

It was so disorienting. To hear someone say something like that—someone you don’t recognize at all. Someone you don’t know.

And I didn’t believe him at the time. I doubted what he was saying, even though it had to be true.

He’d opened his mouth to speak, but then he stopped himself. He looked down and then up. He smoothed his hair. I waited.

“Awkward, isn’t it?” he said. “I get it. This is all very new to you, I know, but as a Senior Supervisor in this Zone, it’s my job to help, to make sure your needs are being met.”

"Okay."

There was an uncomfortably long pause. Then finally Gary drew a long breath. “Well, can I visit you, then? I used to come by a couple times a week.”

At the time, I didn’t want him to, didn’t want to invite some stranger into our lives, but it didn’t seem like I had a choice, and I was very alone and confused.

“Sure,” I told him without enthusiasm. “Whatever you say.”

He seemed nice, harmless, maybe even a little lonely. But still, he was an Agency man, and that came with a lot of power. Already I’d heard whispers that you couldn’t trust the Agency people. Already I’d heard people calling them goons. At first, I only wanted to avoid breaking the rules or making Gary angry at me, but over time he really had become a friend to us, just like he’d said that day we moved in. I felt a lot of guilt about how I’d treated him those first few days.

I stood at the door as Gary went down the porch stairs.

“Tell Arie to go easy on that peanut butter,” he said over his shoulder.

I waved goodbye and shut the door. Then I went to the kitchen, where Arie was gulping what I suspected was a cup of tea, syrupy with sugar. I laughed at him and sniffed deeply at the paper-wrapped soap.

“Where do you supposed he gets soap like this? Are there certain people who are getting nice soap and others who get none? Who was this for?”

“I don’t know,” said Arie, “but I’m gonna eat their peanut butter.”

"Don't get too attached to the other stuff," I told him. "We're trading most of it."

“You know,” Arie said, with a wink, “I bet we could get him to bring us a lot more stuff. He likes us. He likes you.”

“We’re fine,” I said. “Whatever extra he brings us is great. But you’re right. He does like us.”

“Especially you,” Arie teased.

I reached over and tousled his hair.

Five

A few days passed, and our injuries began to feel a little less raw.

“I’m going out to pick up our rations,” I told Arie as I pulled on my coat and wrapped a scarf around my neck. I thought I’d try riding my bike again.

He didn’t answer.

“Arie? You in here?”

I found him in the den, crouching by the window that overlooked the backyard.

He turned to me and put a finger to his mouth.

“Shh,” he whispered.

“What is it?” I asked, walking closer. “Is something wrong?”

“Get down,” he said, motioning.

I crouched and Arie motioned me to the window.

“Look,” he said.

He carefully pushed the curtain slightly aside.

“What? I don’t see anything,” I said.

“The apple,” Arie said.

I hadn’t seen it at first, but at the edge of the back porch there sat a red apple.

“What’s that doing there?”

“Just watch,” whispered Arie, stifling a laugh.

I watched the apple. Nothing happened.

“Arie—”

“Just wait,” he said.

We sat there for maybe a minute. Then, a hint of movement in the back corner of the backyard caught my eye, and a girl of about seven or eight years old poked her head out from around the old sugar maple tree there. She poked her head out, then retreated. She did this a few times, then stepped out from behind the tree. Her face and hands were filthy, and her hair was curly and blond, like buttered noodles, and when she stepped into the sun, it lit up like an angel’s halo. She stood still and looked around—checking, watching. Then she crept like a cat to the porch, snatched the apple, and ran away through an open space in the back fence.

Arie stood up, smiling. “I’ve been leaving food for her for a couple weeks now. She always comes around about this time.”

“She just came over and asked for food?” I asked.

“No, no,” said Arie. “She thinks she’s being really sneaky. One day a while ago I was working on my bike out there and I came inside to grab a wrench—left my lunch on the porch. It was a biscuit with some butter and cheese on it. When I came back, it was gone. Happened a couple other times. I’d turn my back and my lunch would disappear. She really is a little ninja, but one day I finally spotted her. But I turned away fast, pretended not to notice. So now I’ve been leaving something on the porch every couple days. As soon as I come inside, she sneaks up and swipes it.”

“I’ve never seen her. Who is she?”

“Not sure, but she keeps coming back. Sly little thing. I’ve been thinking about talking to her, finding out where she lives or whatever.”

“Arie, I don’t know about this. What if it makes trouble for us?”

“Trouble? She’s a little kid. What trouble?”

“I don’t know. What if she breaks in?”

“Well, quite frankly, she coulda done that already. But she’s just hungry, obviously.” He grinned. “Maybe she can become my new little sister.”

“I wish you wouldn’t encourage her. You should be eating that food yourself. We barely have enough as it is.”

“It makes me happy,” said Arie, “and that’s as good as food, sometimes.”

Even in the few months we’d been together, Arie already knew how to manipulate me. It was hard enough finding moments of happiness, and Arie knew I wouldn’t deny him. You just never knew who you could trust, though—even when it came to little kids. We’d seen so many bad things. The world was such a very dangerous place. The best way to be safe was to stay low. Stay out of the way. Look out for yourself.

I sighed. “Just be careful,” I said.

“I always am.”

The line had maybe a hundred people in it when I arrived. I stood behind a tall man with a bushy beard and wild auburn hair. On his shoulders was perched a small girl who had the same wild hair. She looked to be four or five years old.

“What’s the hold-up?” I asked him.

“Who knows.” He peered up at the little girl. “Tell ’em to hurry up, will ya, Penny?”

Penny leaned over shouted, “G-o-o-o!”

I scrunched my nose at her. “Your daughter?”

“S’what they tell me.” He grinned.

A joke everybody had heard before, but I nodded and smiled back. “I have a son. But he’s older. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the little ones.”

“Oh, no,” he said, “this is the way to go.”

He swayed a little but held onto Penny’s ankles. She giggled and held his head tighter.

“I figured she’d be real messed up,” he said, “but, you know, they’re not going to remember anything. They start fresh. Isn’t that right, Pen?”

She drummed unmercifully on his head. He was unfazed.

“I can make all the typical parenting mistakes but it won’t matter for you because you won’t remember, will ya?”

She drummed harder, pulled his hair.

The line moved a little. We took a few steps forward and craned our necks to see ahead.

“Finally,” said the man.

“Finally,” Penny mimicked.

The Agency Depot was the only place to get food and supplies in quantities sufficient to feed more than a single person. The Agency scanned our electronic chips, and these were used to withdraw rations of various kinds on a monthly schedule. They furnished the basics—rudimentary medical supplies, sanitary goods, and fuel for our stoves and heaters.

They gave us food, too, although it consisted mostly of staples and was very plain. There were rations of flour, cornmeal, rice, and beans. There were dehydrated meals with pasta and potatoes, and soy powder to make a sort of chalky milk drink for protein. In the growing season there might be heads of pithy cabbage, white onions, or grotesquely overgrown winter squash.

“So, she didn’t have a hard time?” I asked the man. “At the beginning of the year?”

“Nah. Like I said, the kids take to it better than we do. They don’t question. They believe everything. ‘Hey kid, I’m your dad.’ ‘Okay, get me a drink of water. Wipe my bum. Tuck me in.’ It doesn’t slow them down.”

“Right.”

“They’ll be the first generation to grow up without the mistakes of their parents,” he said. “Of course, I can’t remember my parents, either, but I figure the psychological damage was already done when the virus hit.”

The way he looked at her and talked to her—even the way he gripped her ankles—I could tell he was smitten. Nine months ago, like all of us, he’d woken up and not known Penny at all, and now she was daddy’s little girl, at least for a few more months. I knew just how he felt.

It wasn’t like that for everyone, though. For some, the fog of forgetting was too deep, the threads of attachment too strained. Or maybe mistakes were made—kids placed with people who weren’t really their parents. We’d never know. The Agency ran a home for orphans and the kids whose parents could not perform their duties, but I suspected lots of those parents simply would not. I thought that was maybe better than being in homes where they weren’t cared for. I didn’t know. Rumor had it the Agency would try to place the children in the home with their parents every year. Did it click some years and not others? The Agency seldom answered questions like that and never volunteered any information.

The line lurched forward, but then there was shouting ahead. Two Agency goons had taken hold of a young man and were fighting him into the building. He shouted in protest. Those in line strained to see, standing on their toes and leaning.

“What’s going on?”

“I can’t hear what they’re saying,” said the man. “Maybe he’s got a ripped chip.”

I glanced up at Penny and the man turned her away from the commotion. Two more Agency guards showed up and the young man was overwhelmed. They got out their clubs and then I looked away, too, but I glanced back when his shouting stopped. The man was limp, and I watched them drag him away. Nobody said anything and neither did I.

The line moved again and the man and his daughter were waved past the barricades. An Agency worker approached with a scanning wand. The man tilted his head. It was a peculiar motion, the head tilt. It was diffident, a little like bowing for prayer, and I’d often thought it would perhaps strike someone else as odd, but to us it was perfectly natural and we did it without thinking. Bow, scan, move along.

The same worker waved me through and I was scanned and then I moved along, too. When I bowed my head, I saw spots of blood on the pavement from where the young man had been subdued.

I collected my provisions without reading the labels and tucked them beneath my coat. I made it back through the barricades, and as I rushed to my bicycle, I saw the man with the girl on his shoulders. I waved to them. The man lifted his chin and showed me a sad smile. Penny waved. She looked happy.

When I was alone, well away from the Depot, I pulled over and checked the provisions. It was rice and black-eyed peas. Two pounds of each. Not much, but I could pad out the rice with what we had at home and probably make it until the next distribution. I put them in my backpack with the books I’d brought from home. Then I kept riding.

There was never enough of anything. We almost never had enough cooking oil or salt. Most people went months without fruit—even the canned kind. Liquor was so rare it was as though it simply no longer existed, like cable television and the Internet and birthdays.

So, we traded. We learned who might have extra and who never did. And we learned who traded supplies for skills, too. There was an older man in town who mended clothing and shoes. A lady down the street from us had located a small flock of chickens holed up somewhere just across the Zone boundaries. Each morning she sent her children to gather the eggs—I heard it was over a mile each way. And I’d heard about a person in my neighborhood who collected wild honey, but I never found out who it was.

I rode out past the burned-out factories on the edge of town and got on the highway. It was choked with a permanent traffic jam of cars and busses. They’d sat motionless for so long the sun had dulled their paint. The weeds growing up through the cracks in the pavement were so tall and thick I had to weave my way between them, too. After a few miles, I got off the highway and rode to a desolate drive-in movie theater where there was an enormous white and gold RV, parked as if ready to watch that evening’s feature.

Inside, Donna lived surrounded by her cats and her books.

Most of the cats scattered or dove beneath the RV as I rode up. A few sat in the dust and watched me. One ran up and rubbed itself against my ankle and walked a figure-eight through my legs. I reached up to knock on the door but before I could, Donna opened it—just a crack wide enough for her to see me.

“Hi, Donna. It’s Alison.”

She stood there peering through the space of the partially open door, blinking at me through the thick lens of her wire-framed spectacles. I saw that in one hand she held a hardback book with a finger inserted to hold her place.

“What are you reading today?” I asked.

She blinked at me like an owl.

“I have a few books for you,” I said. “And some beans.”

“Let me see,” she said, opening the door a little more.

“The books? Or the beans?”

“The books.”

I unshouldered my pack and rummaged inside.

“I found these,” I said, offering her the books. One was a collection of Isaac Asimov stories and the other two were spy novels.

She inspected the first spy novel and handed it back with a slight shake of her head. The second one, too. When she saw the Asimov collection, her expression changed slightly. The hint of a smile.

“Notebooks?” she asked.

“Yes, please.”

She went inside. The door swung closed but not all the way. I peeked into the RV. I’d never been in. The only light inside seeped in through the few windows and was filtered through heavy curtains. From what I could see, there was little in there apart from a couch completely walled around with piles of books. Books on shelves and others in boxes and there were tall but orderly stacks, too. She must have moved like a phantom in there to avoid knocking them over.

Donna came back with three spiral notebooks. I was going to give them to Arie for his birthday. With all the journaling and note-keeping he did, he’d need them. She held them out and I gave her the paperback books.

“Thanks, Donna.”

“Mm.”

“Here,” I said. “This, too.” I held up the sack of black-eyed peas.”

“I don’t need those.”

“Sure you do. When’s the last time you went to the depot? Would you rather some rice? You have to eat.”

Without taking it from my hand, she turned the packet of beans so that she could squint at the label. She made the little head shake again.

“Just take them,” I said, but she was already shutting the door.

On my trip back, a few miles from my house, I saw a bulky figure waddling between the tall, winter-dry weed stalks that grew up through the pavement.

It was Ruby.

I considered passing her by, but before I could decide for sure, I was steering the bike in her direction and I knew she’d spotted me. She limped along. When I got close enough, she showed me her grin and nodded, but there was something cursory in her greeting, something dismissive. Her face was florid and wet with sweat.

I swung the bike around and came up alongside her at a distance, pedaling slowly. She was breathing hard.

“Hey,” she yelled. “You. Get over here.”

“What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“That’s nonaya business,” she said. “But I need that favor.”

“Why?” I coasted closer to her. “What’s going on?”

We came to an intersection and Ruby slowed so that she could glance over her shoulder. I looked in that direction but saw nothing.

“Someone after you?”

“I gave ’em the slip back at the depot, but they’ll be along soon enough.”

“Goons.”

She nodded with her sly grin.

“What do they want?”

“I think they found out I carry this piece,” she said, patting her hip. “Been after me a couple days. I need you to take it.”

“What? Your gun? No. Just get rid of it.”

She clicked her tongue. “Not a chance.”

“What’ll they do if they catch you with it?”

“Well,” she said, “they ain’t gonna take me dancing.”

“Then ditch it,” I said. “Hide it somewhere for a while.”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Can’t risk it. It’ll get found or I’ll forget where I stuck it. And it’ll get rusted. You don’t know what it took to get it, and now I’m not going to lose it. You’re going to take it for me, and I’m gonna get it back from you.”

We looked down the street again. Four or five blocks back, I thought I saw something moving among the hulks of the derelict cars.

“That’s them,” said Ruby.

She squatted between the weed stalks. I got off my bike and laid it down. Then I crouched in the road with her.

“They haven’t seen you, don’t know ya. You got to get going now,” she said. She wetted her lips and dug around under the flap of her coat and produced the pistol.

It was worn and pitted with age. The handle grips were held on with friction tape. She held it in both hands, turned it over.

“Here then,” she said, holding it out. “Take it.”

“No way!”

“Listen, Missy,” she said, poking her stumpy finger at my face. “I saved your life. You owe me one. You take this gun and go on home.”

“What if they stop me?”

“They don’t know you, and it ain’t you they’re looking for. Now take it.”

She passed it to me and I took it. It was heavier than I thought it would be. She fumbled under her coat again and came out with a small bundle of greasy cloth.

“Bullets. Take ’em.”

They clattered like marbles in the cloth.

“If you double-cross me,” said Ruby holding up the stumpy index finger, “you’ll be sorry.”

I started to answer, but couldn’t.

“Where do you live?”

I hesitated. The last thing I wanted was this woman knowing where I lived.

“Damn it, where d’ya live?”

I told her.

“I know that street. Go straight home,” she ordered. Then she knitted her brows as though she might reconsider. “Get going. If I’m not there before dark, just hide it. I’ll deal with these knuckleheads. Don’t let ’em see ya.”

I walked my bike away from the intersection, staying low and watching down the street. When I thought I’d gone far enough, I got on the bike and rode.

The street was lined with volunteer elm trees growing up twisted and unpruned. On the tips of the leaves the blush of autumn was spreading. Between the trees there sprouted small jungles of unkempt ornamental shrubs and weeds gone to seed. Soon the warm colors of fall would displace the last of the greenery, and then the leaves would be gone. It wouldn’t be much longer after that and our memories would be gone, too.

Out on the street there was a man in a filthy and ragged ski parka skulking through the deepening shadows. Probably just another wanderer or maybe even someone like me on the way home, but you could never be too safe. Ordinarily, if I were alone, I’d dive for cover and stay quiet at the sight of somebody like that, but I thought of the cool metal weapon pressed against my tummy at the top of my jeans, and I wondered if it could protect me. I put my hand on the grip and watched the man pass by. He didn’t seem to notice me. It occurred to me that I wasn’t even exactly sure how to shoot the gun, and if I tried to pull it out, it might go off in my pants. And I knew I could be hauled off by the goons for merely having it on my person. Hauled off and never seen again, and Arie might never even be told what happened. I felt like I could barely breathe.

I’d been home for over an hour, pacing, before Ruby showed up. I saw her from the window and went out to meet her. Her right eyelid looked like a plum.

“Jesus, Ruby,” I said. “What’d they do?”

“Let’s have that piece,” she said.

“Yes, please take it.” I reached under my shirt.

“Not out here, you dummy. Go inside.”

I stood there for a second.

“You want the whole neighborhood to know?” she asked. “People watch. They see. They talk.”

We stepped inside and Ruby shut the door.

I pulled on the handle and Ruby grabbed the gun away almost before the barrel cleared the waist of my pants. In another second she’d hidden it under the great flaps of her coat.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Oh,” she scoffed, “they shook me down. You know how they are. Puny men with badges. They were plenty disappointed I didn’t have nothing on me. Said I musta hid it somewhere. So, they give me this shiner.”

She fished her eyeglasses from a pocket and wiped the hazy lenses with the tail of her shirt, which didn’t clear them up at all. Then she nodded to me.

“How’d they find out about your gun?”

“Oh, probably someone narc’ed on me. I got enemies. And them goons don’t like me much to begin with, neither.”

“I saw them use a stun gun on a guy across the street a couple months ago,” I told her.

Ruby scoffed. “They do a lot worse than that.”

“Like what?” I said.

She grinned, shook her head. “You don’t wanna know, but I’m sure you can guess.”

That was true.

“Whatcha got t’drink?”

She didn’t wait for me to answer, just waddled through the house headed toward the kitchen, not seeming to care whether I was coming.

“Nice place,” said Ruby.

I scurried behind her, wondering what Arie would think of this stranger flooding into the house.

“Wait,” I said.

“What? I need a drink,” she said.

“What can I get you? Something for your eye?”

“What, for this?” she said, pointing to her eye. “Nah, he hit like a fifth-grader. I’ve had worse.”

I believed it. “How about some water?” I asked.

She found the kitchen. “Yeah, all right. Unless you got something stronger.”

“Stronger? No. Where would I get something like that?”

“Oh, it looks like you do just fine,” she said, eyeing the shelves and cupboards.

For a woman with a limp, she was remarkably quick, moving through the kitchen and pulling out drawers as though conducting an inspection. She opened a cupboard, pulled out a packet of crackers, then shoved it back. I couldn’t decide if she was being rude or if it was her way of saying we were friends now, so I kept quiet.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just fine.”

“The cups are there by the sink,” I said.

Ruby grabbed a cup and I dispensed some water from our plastic water can. She continued her inspection.

“Interesting,” she said, pointing at the police scanners stacked on the fridge. She inclined her head to peep up at them through her bifocals.

“Yeah. Don’t know why those are there.”

“Uh huh,” she said, moving on.

She found the shelf where I kept some of the things I’d collected from the abandoned houses—a silver-plated jewelry caddy in the shape of a cat, a pair of dentures, a paper fan—tchotchkes that had caught my eye. They weren’t particularly useful or worth anything in trade, but I held my breath for a few seconds, hoping she wouldn’t ask about them. She bent down and lifted her eyeglasses to see them closer.

“Pretty,” she said, lifting the flowered tea cup I’d found the day the dogs attacked us.

“Are you finished?” I asked, reaching for her cup.

“No, not quite yet.” She sipped at the water and turned away to keep me from taking it from her.

Arie had left a stack of magazines on the counter. Ruby fanned them out to see their covers, then plucked one from the pile. She held it at arm’s length, tilted her head to read it.

Thankfully, Arie wasn’t home. I was displeased with the way she so boldly rifled our things, but Arie would surely have lost his temper.

She shuffled around the table and headed for the den, with its quagmire of cables, adapters, and monitors. The shelves of books. The radio. I rushed around her to block the entrance.

“Whatcha got back there?” she asked, smiling.

“Nothing,” I told her. “There’s nothing back there.”

Ruby knew the rules. Everybody did. It was the first thing they told you. Before you knew your name, before you knew what had happened, they told you the rules. Before we took our first steps into the murky dawn of our new and dismal lives, we’d already been told the rules three times. Obey Agency personnel. Be in by curfew. No stealing, no looting, no weapons. There were lots of rules in a book they’d given us, but they could also arrest you simply on suspicion of breaking the rules, or even a suspicion of intending to break the rules. They could arrest you because they didn’t like your face.

There was no way to prove that Arie’s collection of documents and gadgets was illegal, or that we’d looted much of it from homes outside zone boundaries. Gosford had seen the stash, watched it grow. He told me that some other Agency supervisor might find it all rather suspect, but I knew he wanted me to like him, and so he said nothing about it.

And now Ruby stood on tiptoe, looking over my shoulder into the den.

“Really, what is all that? Them computers and what not.”

“I told you. It’s nothing. Just things.”

Ruby chuckled and handed me her cup. “Guess I’ll be going, then, show myself out.”

I stayed at the doorway to the den, watching as she walked back through the kitchen and into the living room, where she stopped abruptly and lowered her head.

I could see only her profile, and I stared at her, waiting for her to go out the door, wishing for her to leave, but then I noticed that her lips were moving. Like she was whispering to herself or praying. But no—she was reading.

When I followed her gaze, I saw it: my own journal, sitting out and open on the side table.

I scurried over, banging my hip on the counter and nearly tripping. Ruby heard me coming and leaned closer to the pages. I snatched up the journal and held it to my chest.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“That’s yours, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s mine. And it’s private.”

Ruby lumbered over to our sofa and plopped into it.

“You know what, Alison,” she said, rubbing her knee, “I’m angry. You think it’s bad losing thirty or so years? Imagine losing twice that. A lifetime. And not only that. We lost the one advantage us old people had—our wisdom. I can’t sleep through the night without getting up to pee three or four times. I’m slow as hell. And now, on toppa alla that, thanks to that serum, I’m dumber’n a teenager. Don’t get old, Alison. It’s the pits.”

“It’s bad for everyone. We’re all at the same place,” I said.

“What if I told you we aren’t?” she sat up straight and spoke a bit quieter.

I crossed the room to be closer.

“The Agency knows a lot more’n they’re telling us,” Ruby said. “Shit, everyone knows, right? You know, don’tcha? Or at least suspect? I think everyone does. I think everyone suspects, but they’re too busy tryna live and too scared to say anything.”

“What do you mean?” I wanted her gone, but there was something about her, something that was subversive and hopeful at the same time.

“That journal’s a good idea, you know.” She jabbed her chin at my notebook. “Written in your own handwriting. You write everything down?”

“Try to.”

She nodded slyly. “I oughtta have my people doin’ that.”

“Your people?”

She chewed the inside of her cheek, thinking. “Listen. I got a place, Alison,” she said, scooting forward on the couch. “I got a place on the outside. I’ve gathered up a few things, too, and I’m making some plans. Folks like you and me—we don’t like this bein’ kept in the dark. I know you feel it. That’s why you got them radios and whatnot. We’re tired a’being sheeple, and we’re hungry for light. You’re smart. I could use your help. And I could help you, too. With lots of things. Food. Supplies. Get ya something decent to drink, for one. And more, maybe.”

“What kind of plans?”

“I’ll just say they’re the kind ’a plans worth keeping secret, but ones I plan on remembering.”

“Is it illegal?”

“It’s hard to start a revolution when ya still salute the king.” Ruby laughed.

“Is it safe?”

Ruby sighed. “No. It ain’t. There’s risks. But doing nothing is a risk, too. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not on my own. I have a son—he depends on me. I can’t put him at risk. Don’t tell me anything else.” I stepped back. “I don’t want to know.”

Ruby looked at me for a while, shrugged, and said, “Suit yourself.” Then she rocked a few times to raise up from the couch. “But if you ever change your mind, come out to the Harbor.”

“Harbor?”

“That amusement park out by where we met them dogs that day. You know. Out where that rolly coaster and Ferris wheel is at. I’m there most days. Come on out if you change your mind.”

I nodded—once. Then I went to the front door and opened it. Ruby stepped out onto the porch and then turned.

“One more thing,” she said. “Don’t be putting none of this in your diary. Don’t put me in there. For my sake.”

I nodded. She started down the street. I was watching her from the window when Arie rode up on his bicycle.

He paused and watched her go on down the block. Then he came up the stairs and opened the door.

“Hey,” he said pointing his thumb over his shoulder, “wasn’t that what’s-her-name?”

“No,” I answered.

“Then who—”

“It was no one.”

Six

Two weeks later, all I wanted to do was go back. Rewind. The word repeated in my mind like a plea or a prayer. Rewind, rewind. To change the outcome, maybe, but mostly to be in those last moments again—days that had seemed so dreary and ordinary, but moments which now had become sacred. How I longed to live them over again. It wasn’t possible, I knew, but that didn’t stop me from wanting it. Rewind, rewind. It’s all I thought about.

It started one morning as I passed Arie on the staircase. I was coming downstairs and he was heading up, his arms so full with stacked-up notebooks and magazines he had to hold them in place with his chin.

“What’s all this?” I smiled, stopping a few stairs above him.

“New indexing system. I’m re-doing everything.”

“Sounds like a big job,” I said.

“Huge. You’re going to love it.” He continued past me and up the stairs. “And don’t worry about lunch. I’ll grab a bite later.”

I didn’t see him at all that day. I fetched water and firewood without him. I ate lunch alone. I worked around the house. When it was time for supper, I called up the stairs for him.

“I’m busy,” he yelled down. “Can’t stop now.”

A couple hours later, Arie’s door was shut when I took him a bowl of the soup I’d made. I knocked. No answer.

“Arie? Got some soup for you.”

I knocked again. Nothing. I opened the door.

Arie sat cross-legged on the floor, three or four books open on his lap. A chaotic fortress of books and maps and photo albums stood around him. There was almost no place to walk or stand. Atop the stacks were candles whose lights leaned and flickered as I swung the door open. Shadows loomed and capered on the walls.

Arie was hunched forward, head down. His long bangs veiled his eyes. A pen was tucked behind one ear. He scanned the pages, jotting notes in a notebook every few moments.

“Arie.”

He flipped a page but didn’t look up.

“Arie,” I repeated, louder.

He finally heard me and glanced up. “Oh. Hi. What’s the matter?”

His face was pale and drawn, eyes glassy.

“I brought you something.” I offered him the bowl. “You need to eat.”

“Thanks.” His eyes dropped back to the notebook. “Just put it over there. I’ve got some crackers and the last of the peanut butter.”

I squeezed past the journals and files and set the bowl on the dresser. Cracker crumbs were spread across the blanket, and the little jar of peanut butter was half empty.

“Look at you,” I said, taking a seat on a small empty spot on the bed. “You need a break. You can’t keep working like this.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m almost finished for the day.” His words sounded slurred.

I sat with him a few more minutes, trying to put my finger on what might be wrong with him, but I couldn’t, and he didn’t seem to notice me. He opened the books and magazines, jotting notes in the notebook. Finally, I got up and went to the door.

“Well, night, son,” I said.

He murmured at me without looking up.

That night I awoke sweating and panting from some terrible dream, but unable to recall what had scared me so. The floorboards moaned and squawked as I left my bed to get some water. In the hallway, I saw a line of yellow light beneath Arie’s door.

Thinking he might have fallen asleep and left some candles burning, I went to his door and listened for a moment. I heard the faint crackle of turning pages. I opened the door.

Arie was awake and in the same place as before, huddled over the papers and books. The bowl of soup remained on the dresser, undisturbed and cold. A few of the candles were still lit, burned down to cool flames in warm pools of wax that spread and dripped.

“Arie,” I cried.

He raised his head. Deep dark bags drooped beneath his bloodshot eyes. He seemed barely able to hold himself up. The notebook was open to a page of dense, orderly writing, but I couldn’t make it out in the dim candlelight.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I’ll eat in a minute.” Lowering his eyes to the notebook again, he said, “Just put it over there. I’m close. I’ve almost got it down.”

“What are you doing? Do you know what time it is?”

“I’m seeing connections I never saw before,” he said. “This is amazing.”

“Go to bed right now,” I said.

“In a second,” he said.

“No. Now.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him up.

Piles of books toppled and slid as he reluctantly allowed me to steer him to his bed. I cleared away the books and papers, and he lay down stiffly, muttering about his notes, about his indexing. I blew out the candles.

“Get some sleep,” I told him. “You can finish later.”

I went downstairs and got a drink of water. When I came back up, I heard the floorboards in his room creaking, and a moment later I saw candlelight flickering from the space beneath the door.

I sighed and went to bed.

In the morning I went to his room expecting to find him asleep on the floor amongst his papers. But he was still awake, staring transfixed at a magazine open on his lap.

“Did you sleep at all?” I demanded.

“You know what?” he said, tapping the open page of the magazine.

I looked closer. It was a photo of a line of people waiting to get into a hospital or shelter. There were soldiers with guns.

“You know what?” he said again. “I think I remember this. From before. This place, this day.”

His face was paler now, and a thin layer of oily perspiration covered his skin.

“You’re frying your brain is what you’re doing. Leave it alone for a bit. I want you to go out to the Tanner’s and help them fix that wheel barrow of theirs.”

“Could you do it? I don’t want to lose my place.” His face was pallid. “I have a system going on.” He waved his hands over the notebook as if casting a magic spell. “It’s complicated. I need to finish.”

“I can’t go, Arie. I’ve got to soak a batch of beans, do the laundry, and caulk those windows downstairs before it gets seriously cold. And the bearings on that barrow need to be repacked. You’re the only one who knows how—”

A drop of blood fell from his nose and splattered on the open magazine.

“Arie? You’re bleeding. My god, you’ve got to stop. Now!”

He tilted his head back. “Oh, it’s just a doze bleed,” he said, pinching his nose. “Dis stuff is so dusty.”

“You have to stop.”

“I’ll be done by dinner, okay? I promise.”

I sighed. Where did his stubbornness come from?

“You’ll be done by dinner,” I repeated.

The afternoon was long and dim. The sky was gray the entire day. It was cold, and we’d probably see the first snows in another couple weeks. I got the water and soaked the beans and strung the laundry on lines we’d nailed up throughout the house. Then I went to the Tanners with Arie’s tools. Together with Peggy and one of her boys we figured out how to pack the bearings and put the wheelbarrow back together, but our hands were raw and numb by the time we finished. At sundown I was tired and eager to eat.

I called Arie’s name as I climbed the stairs. He didn’t answer.

“You said you’d be done for dinner,” I said, testily pushing open his door.

He was spread out on the floor on a layer of notebooks and papers, and he was convulsing. Paper crinkled and ripped beneath his kicking legs, and blood oozed from his ears and nose. A red foam bubbled out his mouth.

I screamed his name.

After crashing through the piles of books and paper, all I could do was cradle his bloody head in my lap. I didn’t know what else to do. His body jerked and twisted. I brushed away the foam from his lips.

“Wake up, Arie,” I cried. I said it again and again.

Seven

When it was clear Arie wouldn’t respond, I ran to a neighbor’s house and pounded on their door. Arie’s blood was on my hands, and I left smudges of it on the door. I thought of the woman who came to our house in the dark that night a week before. She was covered in blood, too, and she shouted desperately for help. Would my neighbors ignore me?

The door opened.

“Ron, thank god,” I cried.

“Alison? What’s going on?”

“It’s Arie. He’s—something’s wrong with him. It’s bad. You have to come.”

“Let me get Steve. He’s out back. We’ll be right over.”

When I returned to Arie’s bedroom, his teeth had clamped down on his tongue, and his mouth was full of blood. His open eyes were glazed.

Ron and Steve appeared in the doorway of Arie’s bedroom.

“He’s having a seizure,” Ron said.

Holding his head in my hands, I rocked back and forth, tears were dripping from my chin onto Arie’s face. I could barely breathe.

“What do I do?” I begged.

They surveyed the room with incredulous looks, then turned to one another for explanation. Finding none, they turned to me.

“What happened?” asked Steve.

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” I shook my head.

“We should take him to the infirmary,” said Steve. “Right away.”

Ron recoiled, and a look of dread flashed in his face for just a second. I understood. It was our instinct to avoid the sick, to fear any sign of illness. But Ron pressed his lips together, and he and Steve stepped into the room.

I got out of their way, and the two men struggled to hold on to Arie’s kicking legs and flailing arms.

Time went fast and slow.

I held his head as they lifted him, but there wasn’t room for all of us to move, so I let go. Arie’s head lolled and he thrashed like a giant fish. It was only with great difficulty that they got him out of the house and down the street.

It was dark when we got to the infirmary, and Ron and Steve were soaked in sweat. Workers in hazmat suits swarmed out into the courtyard and surrounded us. Their headlamps cast wild distorted shadows onto the pavement and the cinderblock walls. Someone cut Arie’s shirt off.

“I need to speak to Gary Gosford,” I cried hoarsely. “Gosford. He’s a—supervisor. Senior supervisor.”

They ignored me, shouting for a stretcher, examining Arie, scanning his ID chip. Ron and Steve disappeared in the commotion. I would have, too. When the Agency workers turned their attention to me, they scanned me and fired off a series of questions about Arie. I may have answered some of them. I don’t remember.

They placed Arie on a gurney and rolled him inside. I tried to follow, told them to contact Gary, but they kept me out and the door shut behind them and locked. I stood there breathless, watching through the small window on the door. No one said anything to me. No one had told me I should wait or what would happen next.

They took my Arie away.

I stood there for a long while—staring at the empty hallway through the window of the door. After what could have been more than an hour, I realized that I was terribly cold. Physically, yes—I had no coat or even a jacket. But there was a cold, mental sluggishness deep inside me, too, which made it difficult to think or even move. I knew I’d be cold until I saw Arie again.

Rewind.

Day after day, I went back to the infirmary and waited outside with my dread and my regrets. I wished that I’d had one more look at him. Just to really see him. The small details—the flecks of color in the irises of his eyes, the dimple in his cheek. I wished that I’d held on a little longer when we’d last embraced, and that I wasn’t always in such a rush to do other things. Maybe if I’d have been more firm in sending him to bed that night, or if I’d paid closer attention, I might have known he was so sick. If only I could go back—rewind, rewind.

After ten days with no information at all, my instincts told me to pound on the infirmary emergency admittance door until either they answered or it fell down. But I did not.

Instead I sat outside, staring at the stupid door. I stared at it so long that I memorized every detail of it. I stared at the edge where the paint was flaking off, at the residue of masking tape where a sign had once been posted. I stared at that infernal door so long that I saw it when I closed my eyes, when all I wanted to see was Arie’s face.

I didn’t know where my son was, and the only thing that stopped me from tearing the door down was knowing that they would keep him from me if I did.

So, I waited. Every day, outside, where the wind grew colder and colder. It tore at me, made my jaw and ears ache. I stayed all day and left only long after it was dark. I hardly ate. As soon as I could, I’d return to continue my vigil at the door.

The door would open once, maybe twice a day. Patients came and went, eyeing me warily. Workers and Agency goons appeared sometimes and I would rush to the door and question them. Sometimes I followed them as they walked away.

“My son. Arie. He was sick. He’s in there. I just need to know if he’s okay. I just want to see him.”

I was never told anything.

“My zone supervisor is Gary Gosford. Just tell him my name. Please. He said he’d help.”

Nothing. The door was shut in my face.

Sometimes I was too numb to think. Not knowing was the worst. At the beginning of that year, I didn’t know Arie. I’d been told he was my son. How strange it was to think about in that ghastly courtyard with the late autumn’s chill settled around me like concrete. How strange it’d been to ask, “I have a son?” and then in the very next moment state, “I have a son.”

I’d started to believe maybe there is something inside us that allows us to know when we love somebody. Something that we don’t have to remember, something that is simply a part of us. The way I sometimes found things in the empty houses we searched, things that spoke to me. I couldn’t explain it. But I would gladly give up my life for Arie. The boy I couldn’t remember; the boy I could never forget. I loved him and I knew that I had before, even if I had to be reminded of it.

The other people in town watched me. From a distance. They were curious, maybe a little afraid. No one said anything to me.

On the fifteenth day, the sky was gray. A fog settled around the infirmary, so that I could not see the edges or top of the building, so that nothing existed but the cinder block wall and the hated door and me and the space between. I hunched in my coat with the collar turned up and an old scarf wrapped around my face. I sighed deeply, and from the scarf there came a cloud of whiteness like dragon smoke that dissolved in the air.

Everything was frozen. The ground, the water in the rain barrel at our house, the puddles along the streets, even the air. And me.

I gazed up into the fog and spotted a single snowflake falling. It was the only one I saw. It floated to the ground and landed at my feet. I watched for more, but none fell. At some point, maybe soon, the ground would be piled high with snow. But at that moment, only one snowflake had fallen.

The door opened. It was Gary Gosford.

I was on my feet in an instant. “Where’s Arie?” I asked, rushing to the door.

Gary held the door open for me. “This way,” he said.

He led me deep into the building to a small room that had a table and two chairs.

“I’ve been waiting for days,” I said as I sat down. “For two weeks. Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?”

Gosford sat down across from me. His face was bristly with stubble.

“Alison, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Things don’t always work smoothly in the Agency. They’re very busy. We’re all so busy.”

“Where is he? When can I see him? When can he come home?”

“Keep in mind, Arie was very sick.”

“Was?” I felt suddenly weak. “Where is he?”

“I cared for Arie, too, Alison. You know how I felt about the two of you.”

Gosford kept talking. He wasn’t told, he said. He took my hands in his and squeezed. He said he didn’t know. I didn’t hear everything. Just the words, “Arie’s gone.” And once I heard them, I heard them again, over and over, increasing in volume until they resounded in my head like the world cracked open.

Eight

When I finally returned to my cold and empty house, I crawled into my bed and slept for what I guess was several days. How long I actually lay there, fleeing one nightmare into another, I can’t say. It felt like years. It felt like forever. I cried until the skin around my eyes became raw and abraded. I cried until I had no more tears.

Mostly I dreamed of how Arie might have died. What was wrong with him? What sickness had it been? Had he been in pain, crying out for me? I wondered when and why they finally gave up on him. Had it been a sudden ending, or had he slipped into unconsciousness and then to nothing without a sound? Or was he fevered, thrashing, like he’d been in his bedroom that night. Was he by himself? And which would be worse—alone in some corner of the dreary infirmary, or surrounded by indifferent Agency medical technicians, taking note of his condition but unable or unwilling to comfort him?

And then what? What did they do with him when it was over? The prospect broke and re-broke my mother heart. I must have dreamed of every possibility, no matter how grisly.

But the final nightmare was more frightful than all the rest.

I dreamed that Arie was still alive.

I dreamed that he was still up in his bedroom, indexing his information, sorting the books and news magazines he’d gathered over the past year. I made him soup and when I opened the door to bring it to him, he looked up and smiled at me in the candlelight.

“Smells terrible,” he said, grinning.

I laughed.

Setting the papers aside, he said, “Thanks, Mom. Oh, man, I’m starved. I think I’ll quit. Head to bed.”

In this dream the books and notes were not strewn in manic mounds like the nest of some mad librarian. And they weren’t on the floor, either. Instead, they were stacked on tables and neatly ordered. There was a system to their arrangement. An authority, even.

When Arie was alive, he never could tell me exactly why we searched the abandoned houses, scavenging for news reports and computer disks and the journals of children. Or he never would tell me. But he seemed to know that we needed them, and I knew only that I believed him. Despite how much it scared me to search the houses, I knew that, for Arie, I needed to.

In this final nightmare, the purpose of the information was clearer, and I eventually understood that somehow it would save us all, make us happier.

And I dreamed that Arie could actually explain it to me, opening one notebook, then another, pointing, reading to me. Little by little, he taught me his system, showed me the secrets he’d unlocked. And when he set the last notebook aside, I knew that something incredible was about to happen to us.

Then the dream changed. I saw notebooks on fire, notebooks sodden and moldering, torn pages blowing like dross down a forlorn road. Arie’s explanations, which had filled me with such hope, became raving gibberish. The orderly stacks of notebooks now stood in wretched towers that teetered, threatening to tumble and bury us. And in the ghastly lachrymose glow of the low-burning candle lights, when Arie lifted his gaze from his ragged haphazard papers, his face was twisted with hysteria.

Then the dream seated me outside the door of the infirmary again, the edges of the dark unfeeling structure vanishing into the sullen mist in all directions, as if that oppressive building was all that existed.

The rest of the dream I knew already. The rest was my new reality. My new, less-complicated reality.

I opened my eyes.

My journal was on the bedside table, as if beckoning me to record the dream, record it all. Write it down. I pushed it to the floor. There was no sense in writing down anything anymore. No sense in writing about Arie, about us together. Why would I want to remember any of this? It would only make things worse. And after the treatment—what would be the point of being reminded of such?

I rose from bed and went downstairs to sit in the big chair by the front window. The house was so quiet now. Through the window I watched the snow fall. First it covered the weeds and crumbling sidewalks. Then it buried the rotting cars. The temperature dropped. No one was seen outside. It kept snowing for three days.

In a few months, I’d go back to the infirmary and they’d put the needles in my arm. All of the horror of the last year wouldn’t just disappear, it would be as though it never happened, as though this version of me never existed. Instead of a curse, I began to see it as a blessing. With a little extra paperwork and red tape, I could have my record amended to show that I’d never had a child at all. I wouldn’t have to feel this pain. I could burn the journals beforehand—mine and Arie’s. I could burn them as fuel to boil enough water for a long, hot bath, take the serum, and when I awoke on the other side, there would be no life or love to miss or mourn. For the first time in nine or ten months, I longed for the end of the year.

I longed to be erased.

There were times when I slept through the day and didn’t so much as open my eyes until it was dark, which left me with the impression that the sun had stopped rising.

I had at least stopped crying.

One day I awoke in the chair by the front window and I looked outside. The sun shone through torn and broken clouds. The storm had almost cleared away. More than two feet of snow had accumulated. It lay undisturbed over everything like a vast covering of cake frosting.

A flock of pine siskins was attacking the fir tree across the street, prying the last of the seeds from its cones with their hard, tiny beaks. They chased and scolded in the branches. On the snow around the tree lay a dusting of fir needles and seeds and cone scales. As more of the noisy little birds arrived to raid the fir, they knocked the snow loose from the boughs, and it fell in cascading, powdery waves to the ground, where it buried the ring of seeds and needles.

I heard a noise from the front porch. Someone had trudged up the snow-covered steps and was turning the doorknob. After finding the door locked, there was a soft knock.

It was Arie.

Of course it was. It had to be. It had all been a mistake. That happened sometimes—fouled-up records, wrongful arrests, collapsed memories. I’d heard of that happening many times. Someone might vanish and be gone for a few days, even weeks, before reappearing without explanation.

Arie had been put in the wrong bed, maybe.

Misidentified. Misdiagnosed. Maybe they’d held him for questioning—they’d found out about his contraband, his searches outside the zone. It was some kind of mistake.

But now he was back.

I ripped my blanket away, scrambled from the chair, and pounded across the room to the door.

But it wasn’t Arie. There’d been no mistake. It was two knocks followed by a pause and then a third knock.

“Alison. Hello.”

“Oh. Hello, Gary.” I stepped aside to let him into the house.

“Are you okay? You look—am I bothering you?”

“No, it’s just—” I stammered and sighed. “I’m tired.”

“You should probably be resting.” Gary said. “I know it hasn’t been easy.”

I nodded.

Gary took a deep breath.

“Alison,” he said, “I want you to know how sorry I am about what happened.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I’m devastated, Alison. Really. I’m so very sorry. I would have done anything to help him.”

“But you couldn’t,” I said, realizing too late how much that must have sounded like an accusation.

“No,” he said softly, his gaze falling to the floor. He’d tracked snow into the living room. He watched it melt into the carpet. “I wasn’t told. They didn’t tell me. I didn’t know.”

“Then you have nothing to be sorry about.”

“Yes, but I feel like I need to make it up to you somehow. I can’t bring him back, but please let me help you. Some way.”

He took a step toward me. I could see from his face that he was sincerely troubled, hurt.

“You do help me, Gary. You helped us a lot. And I appreciate it.”

“I want to do more for you than bringing you a little food or propane. You’ve lost your son. I know he was a hard worker. I know he helped a lot around here. And maybe you get lonely sometimes, like I do. Maybe you’d like some companionship.”

All I wanted was to go back to bed.

“Could I come by and help you Alison? With anything you need around the house? Or just to talk?”

Maybe it would be nice to have someone around. To have company, at least. Someone to help.

I shrugged. “If you want.”

“I do, Alison. It would mean so much to me.”

Without Arie and his searches and our journals and adventures, I knew the tedium and strain of this life would grind me into sand. And I wanted to feel safe, if only until it was time to take the serum again. I wasn’t sure I even knew what it was to feel like myself, but there were several months remaining. Something had to change.

Having an adult in my house—how would that be? Having someone I could speak with, someone I could trust—how different it would be. And Gary was someone with connections, a man who could help me with matters more grave than drafty windows or a broken-down bicycle.

Gary said he would be back in a couple days to help me work around the house. The windows really did need caulking and there were other chores. He might have even worn the hint of a forlorn smile as he put his hat on and went out into the deep snow.

This made me slightly sorry for him—I longed for the new year now, and any kind of friendship we might cultivate would be wiped away in just a few months. Gary’s offer brought me a faint hope, but he wasn’t my way out. Instead, I felt the way I thought a patient of assisted suicide might feel—I was resigned. I would get through these last few months, and then I would embrace oblivion and escape from pain.

Nine

The house had fallen into disarray—my clothing was strewn on the floor and over chair backs; cups and bowls lay discarded around the place. One day I stepped and slipped on my journal as I came into my bedroom. I must have been stepping on it or over it for a week or more, because the cover was spindled and partially detached. Something made me pick it up and take it with me to my chair by the window. As I thumbed through the pages, something in my mind began to change.

Arie would want me to remember him. I knew on some level that was true even as I had fought through the blackest of my despair. Sitting in the chair and reading through the terse and lackluster entries in my journal, the truth gnawed at me. Arie wrote in his journals constantly, and he spent the rest of his spare time compiling what was basically a cross-referenced indexed history of the world we’d all forgotten. He’d want to be remembered, and he’d want me to write down everything else, too.

But this new realization concerned what I wanted, and what was good for me, as well as what Arie would want.

If I went to the infirmary at the end of the year and took my shots, I’d forget Arie—but only in a technical sense. His name, our past, and maybe even his face would be wiped from my mind, but was it that simple?

As soon as the Agency had told me that I had a son, back at the beginning of the year, I’d known it to be true.

The Agency worker had traced her gloved finger down her clipboard. “Your son, Arie, will be here shortly,” she said to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “My what now?”

“Your son,” she said. “Yes. Arie. They’re bringing him out now. Just take a seat.”

“I have a—son?”

“You have a son.”

In the months that followed, every time I finished one of Arie’s sentences for him, or knew what he wanted to eat for dinner before he asked, I became more certain that we were mother and son.

And this was the problem.

Because if I had carried that certainty with me through the memory-erasing serum, I could never really forget Arie. If there were no one to remind me that I had a son, I would instead feel his absence in my life, his negative image, and I would carry the sadness of his passing without knowing why.

I went to the kitchen, brewed a strong cup of tea, and ate several stale granola bars. Then I opened my journal to a new page and set it on the table in front of me. In the spiral binding there was a stubby pencil. I drew it out and sharpened it with my pocket knife.

Outside, the sunlight receded and then there was only cold starlight on the snow glowing dim and blue. The moon rose and still the siskins darted among the branches of the fir tree.

Without my journal, without a complete record, Arie really would cease to exist. It would be as if he had never existed. His name might appear in some inactive file or graves registry, but there would be no description of the way he ran his fingers through his bangs when they fell into his face, or how his nose scrunched when he laughed hard. At that moment, Arie existed only in my mind and nowhere else. I had to bring him out and write him down.

And so, I threw away my lonely, desperate plan—crumpled it up and tossed it like a page of unsatisfactory writing from a notebook. I would take the serum, but I would also leave behind a record of Arie that I could keep beyond the scrim of forgetting. And it would be a good record, one I could keep regardless of whether we ever regained our memories.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I could do it. How could I when he was so recently gone? Wouldn’t every page I wrote feel like losing him all over again? As I finished the last of my tea, I decided that it didn’t matter—it was my pain, and I was keeping it. Besides, the hurt would fade with time, as all hurts do, but the love would stay vivid. I smoothed the fresh new page and began to write.

I’d mentioned Arie in my notebooks before, of course, but I’d never written much expressly about him, never even described what he looked like. I’d committed the very error Arie had warned me about—I wrote as a diarist, not a journalist. My entries assumed the future reader would know everything I knew in those moments: background, context, and history.

“Write to your future self, not your present self,” said Arie. “Write like you’re writing to a stranger, because that’s what you’ll be when you read this next year.”

Now it made sense, and I wished I’d listened better. I’d written of Arie most when we were first re-united, immediately after our treatment at the first of the year. He’d conceived the journal-writing idea within the month, and I’d made a few notes back then. But the entries from that time were crude, cursory, as though I was still coming to grips with my responsibility to him. Not to mention I was still getting to know him, and I was enjoying our time together.

Later on, after I’d gotten accustomed to his constant presence in my life, he was mentioned even less—and less informatively. A stranger could learn little about him from my journal. I’d made too many assumptions, too many omissions.

I had to start over completely.

And so I scared up a new notebook and wrote through the night. My candle burned out as the sun rose on the drifted snow outside. The siskins merrily raided the fir tree in the cold. I kept on writing.

It took me almost three hours to reach Donna’s RV.

By the time I’d used up all the notebooks we had in the house, an icy crust had formed on top of the snow, and my snow boots broke through it with practically every step. The drive-in theater parking lot was a series of soft undulations covered over by the glittering, white blanket. The cats were gone, and there were few tracks in the snow around the RV. However, a pipe on the roof emitted a stream of vapor that whipped in the breeze.

“Donna?” I shouted as I approached. “It’s Alison.”

Winter clothes weren’t hard to come by, so I was dressed warmly, but I’d gotten sweaty and damp trudging for so long through the crusted drifts. The wind picked up and the sun was dropping and I shivered violently under my layers of fleece and Gortex. I rested awhile, made a few more post-holes through the snow toward the RV, and then I called to Donna again.

She didn’t come to the door, and I saw no stirring inside. I kept going until I stood thigh-deep in the snow at the base of the wooden steps.

“Donna!”

No response.

I stepped onto a lower stair and banged on the door with my gloved hand.

“Donna, please,” I shouted. “Kinda cold out here.”

I stood there a few minutes. She didn’t come. If I didn’t start back right away, I might freeze to death, so I unshouldered my backpack and drew open the heavy zipper. Inside there was a bundle of books held together with rubber bands.

“Donna, I’ve got books,” I said. My voice halted and hitched with my shivering. I held the books up in case she was watching. “I’ll leave them out here. But I really need more notebooks.”

I banged on the door again. It stayed shut. The speaker masts of the drive-in theater stood in their rows across the lot, casting blue shadows that seemed to lengthen as I waited. I cleared a flat spot in the snow on the wooden steps and set the books there like some shabby, unwrapped Christmas gift. Then I stood to go, placing my boots in the post holes I’d left.

When I’d taken ten or twelve steps, as I’d hoped, I heard the door handle click.

“’Bout time, Donna,” I whispered. Then I turned around.

The snow had piled up and froze in front of the door, and Donna had to put her weight behind it to push it open. She peeked out at me.

“Hi, Donna,” I said, waving. I gestured at the snow with a gloved hand. “Hey, wow! How about this weather?”

She crouched at the door and picked up the books.

“I hope you like those,” I said, pointing. “I know you like those classics, the brainy stuff.”

She examined the spines, read the titles—The Great Gatsby, Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Orpheus Descending.

“Donna. It’s awful cold out here. Any chance I could come in for a minute?”

She pulled one of the books from the bundle and took a close look and I saw the faint smile I’d seen before when she found a book she wanted. She nodded to me.

I climbed the staircase of hard snow as Donna got the door all the way open. Then I stepped into the RV. Donna backed into the dim interior as I entered. It was even more cluttered than it looked from outside. The books were everywhere, and the air was stuffy with their acrid, musty odor. Four or five cats appeared from under the stairs and slipped into the open RV, threading around and between my ankles. They climbed onto the piled books and sat monitoring me like Egyptian sentinels. Donna went to the couch by way of a narrow path that ran between the books. She sat down and then motioned with a stiff, awkward gesture for me to join her. I opened my coat and removed my hat and gloves. We sat a while without speaking.

“I was sorry to hear about your son,” said Donna. Her voice had a muddy quality, as though she might be medicated. Her eyes were always slightly glassy, too. But who could medicate her? And why?

“You heard?”

She nodded.

“How?”

“You’re not the only one who comes.”

“Oh.”

It was only marginally warmer inside the RV than it was outside, but we were protected from the wind, and a handful of ruddy embers burned like a clutch of incandescent eggs in the belly of a tiny wood-gas stove in the corner. Already I was feeling the painful, itchy tingle of restored circulation in my fingers and toes. The cats blinked drowsily but kept their watch.

“You’re here for notebooks?” asked Donna.

“Yes, please. And pens. Or pencils. Hell, crayons. I need to write.”

“About Arie.”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice hitching. “I have to write down everything about him, or he’ll be forgotten forever.”

“There are no more notebooks,” she said.

“What? Are you sure?”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry to bother you. It’s just—I need to write. I’m nowhere near finished.”

“How much more is there?”

That was a question I’d been asking myself for days.

My hand throbbed with writer’s cramp. My wrist was numb and stiff, and there were raw patches on the knuckles of my little finger where they rubbed the paper. I’d been writing for days, everything I could remember. I’d read all of Arie’s journals, some of them more than once. I’d read his notes about his searching and collecting. I’d scoured my own journal, too.

The process had been chaotic, exhausting. I worked practically from the time I awoke, writing, reading, thinking, writing more. I could not stop at night until I collapsed. Sometimes I would awake with a start in the middle of the night with some newly remembered image or nuance, and I would light a candle and write it down. Each morning I would start again.

It had not been unpleasant. Alternating between grinning and crying as I strained to recall each day and moment with Arie—no, it wasn’t unpleasant at all. As I read over what I’d written I’d laugh and cry some more.

There was the first day I met Arie at the Agency depot, and our long walk home, so awkward I thought I’d cry or maybe break down and giggle.

“What do you like to do?” I asked him.

He shot me a skeptical, sideways glance and then said, “How the hell should I know?”

We laughed, and things got better.

Then our first night as mom and son. It took us two hours to make one can of pork and beans because we couldn’t find anything in the kitchen of our own assigned house.

“We need to reorganize this kitchen,” I suggested. “Or else we’re gonna starve.”

Arie immediately pointed out: “That’s probably what we did last year.”

I wrote about the first neighborhood we searched and the way it seemed that Arie would never tell me everything he knew, or thought he knew. I wrote about the ideas he would share with me, especially when we talked all night.

“Do you really think it’s an accident?” he once asked me. “Do you really think there was some plague, and the treatment just happens to wipe out our memories?”

“You mean you think it seems kind of—”

“Made up? Yeah. That’s exactly what I think.”

I wrote about my final day with him and waiting in vain for him to come out of the door at the infirmary.

There were some events and things that I’d written about already, but my writing had since become stronger, clearer, and more focused. The memories I wrote down again during that journaling marathon benefited greatly from my new perspective and ability.

In answer to Donna’s question, I did not know how much there was to write down. I only knew there was more. With every memory and every line I put on the paper, two more would occur to me. But how to write it all? And when? How long would it take, and how would I know when I’d finished?

“There are a lot of blank pages in some of the journals,” I said, more to myself than to Donna. “I could collect those, write small. Maybe write between the words of the used-up journals, in the margins. I can write on the pages of magazines and books.”

“You know, Alison,” she said. “There may be something that you’re not thinking of.”

“What do you mean?”

Donna looked around the RV, at her shelves of books. All at once she seemed to be under the influence of some spell. Her eyes were suddenly brighter and her voice clearer. And although my mind had gone fuzzy with worry and exhaustion, I came to attention. Even the cats seemed to await Donna’s next utterance.

“Words on paper are—” she paused and blinked a few times, searching for the word. “Words on paper are ephemeral. They get lost. They burn.”

“Okay,” I said. “What are you trying to—”

“There is a time for writing,” said Donna. She looked my way. Her eyes were wide behind her spectacles. “But sometimes to unlock the secrets, it’s better to find the right book.”

Ten

Donna’s cryptic pronunciation immediately brought to my mind the flowered diary I’d found hidden in the girl’s bedroom that day the feral dogs had attacked us. It was like a cup of icy water had been dumped down my back. The secret journal that would have stayed hidden forever had Arie not admonished me to search carefully.

Donna began to talk about books. She tapped the paperback spine of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and said, “Ken Kesey faked his own death, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” I said.

Another journal.

She looked at me and blinked a few times. “Hemingway was bi-polar,” she said, tapping her temple softly with the book. “Heard voices.”

A hidden journal.

The cats left the room as if they’d been issued some cue. I couldn’t tell where they’d gone.

A secret journal.

Donna continued. She cited facts about books and writers. She told me how texts of ancient scripture had been corrupted in translation, and even faked or encoded.

Arie had a secret journal. That’s where he kept his real secrets.

I don’t remember what excuse I gave Donna, but a few minutes later I fled her RV, and it took me half as long to get home. I ran up the stairs to Arie’s bedroom without pausing to remove my coat or gloves.

I hadn’t gone into his room very many times since that night; it was too hard not to picture him still there on the floor. Someone, maybe Gary or the neighbors across the street, had come in at some point and neatly piled the papers and books, but it didn’t matter. I saw them there anyway, and Arie with them.

My mind keened at the prospect that there might be something of Arie yet to find, something he’d kept from me. I took off my coat and gloves and boots.

First, I reread all the notebooks and journals, looking for clues. So much writing, so many numbers. As the day brightened to afternoon and then faded to dusk, I read each one. Nothing. That night I sat on Arie’s unmade bed, careful not to disturb the pillow, which I imagined still held an imprint from when he’d last laid his head there. My eyes wandered around the room. So many places Arie had always told me to check when we went through the abandoned houses—under the mattress, between the mattresses, behind furniture, beneath carpeting.

But those hiding places seemed too obvious for Arie, and in any case the last thing I wanted to do was ransack his room. Arie liked his things neatly arranged. I would never be able to get it back the way he’d placed them, and even the undisturbed space between his meager possessions was something I didn’t want to lose.

The sunlight drained from the room, turning from dusk to night. Searching by candlelight would be slow and clumsy, but the curiosity was like a pointy rock in my shoe. Then again, I wondered whether I might spend hours in search of something I was simply hoping was there, but wasn’t.

And so I stayed there on the bed for a long while, trying to see the room the way he would. There wasn’t much in the room to search through, anyway. I saw his battered old basketball on the dresser. He’d hung a dartboard on the back of the door, but he never did find any darts. A collection of bike wheels and parts lay in one corner, along with his tool-set. There was a shelf with a few books and the desk with his indexing and cross referencing, but I’d been all through those already. Arie would never hide something by simply placing it under or behind something. He was too paranoid. If Arie hid something, it’d be concealed. It’d be inside something that was inside something else, and maybe inside something else again. When it got too dark to see, I lay down on the bed and thought I might just sleep there. I realized then that the mattress was really quite shoddy, too soft in some spots and too hard in others, and I winced at the guilt of that. So like Arie not to complain. In the gloom I turned to lie facing the wall and somehow managed to fall into a dark, dreamless sleep.

I awoke with the dawn and the first thing I saw in the gathering light was Arie’s dresser. Without thinking, I sat up, crossed the room, and searched the contents of every drawer. Then I checked each drawer for false bottoms. I found nothing. Next, I turned to the bookcase. I thumbed through each book, set them aside, and rapped on the shelves and sides, searching for secret compartments like some spy in a movie. Still nothing. It occurred to me that if I had searched the empty houses this way, maybe we’d have found a library of real secrets. When I’d finished dismantling and inspecting the desk, I got on my belly and peered underneath everything. I felt my way along the carpet for something slipped underneath. On a frenzied whim, I pulled up the carpet altogether, ripping it from the tack strips, jerking it out from beneath the furniture. I flung it into the hallway.

“I’m sorry, son,” I whispered. “I guess I’m ransacking after all.”

On hands and knees, I examined the bare floor for loose boards, ran my hands along each section of molding. There was nothing. Maybe there was no journal, no secret. By this time, it was growing dark again, and so I lit a candle.

Only the bed remained. I checked between the mattresses, flipped the box spring upside down. Dust bunnies swirled on the floor around my feet. I held the candle so that I could see through the gauzy fabric and into the wooden ribs of the mattress box. As I did so, something small and hard shook loose from the bedding and fell to the floor. I picked it up.

It was a plastic action figure. A small, poseable man with a brown leather coat and fedora—an adventure hero from the movies. Arie was much too old for such toys, and I had never seen this one. It seemed likely that it was in the house before we lived there, but I knew instantly that it was Arie’s, that he’d found it somewhere and kept it, and all at once I was reminded that despite his maturity and brilliance, he was a boy, too. He’d been my little boy. And he was gone.

“Alison, what are you doing?” A voice from behind me.

I screamed and flinched and spun around. Gary Gosford stood in the doorway staring at the disheveled room.

“Oh. Hi. I’m just—” My mind raced. The folds of pulled-up carpet, Arie’s things strewn around. The furniture askew.

“I knocked but nobody answered,” said Gary. “I was worried. What happened here?”

My eyes rose to meet his. “I needed to—”

He stepped into the room and took the action man from me. “This was Arie’s room?”

I nodded. He looked around the room slowly. He pressed his lips together.

“This is where you found him, then,” he said in a soft voice. “Must be really hard to be in here.”

“Hm? Oh. Yes. Yes. It is. Hard to come back. In here.”

“I’m sure it’ll get better, Alison. Try not to make yourself crazy,” he said. He gestured at the room. “I’m not sure all of this is, you know, healthy.” He stepped back, pocketing Arie’s toy as he did. “Maybe try to keep busy with something else. Can you do that?”

All I wanted was for him to leave. “I’ll try,” I said.

“I can stay with you tonight, if you want.”

“No, no,” I said. “I’m fine. And actually, I’m feeling kind of tired now. I should go to bed.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, I’m feeling better. Thank you.”

Gary looked around the room once more and shook his head. “I’ll come by more often. Don’t worry,” he said.

When I was sure he had gone, I blew out the candles and lay down on the mattress to cry awhile—for Arie and his boyhood and for the hidden diary I couldn’t find and probably didn’t exist. For all my lost memories. I thought maybe I’d sleep there again, and so I kicked off my shoes and pants and groped in the dark to pull Arie’s blankets around me. Again, that crummy mattress, that unevenness.

An unevenness that tattled on itself.

My heart thumped a few times. I rose up and patted the mattress. Something flat, rectangular, firm.

A notebook. It had to be.

Not under the bed, not between the mattresses, not even up in the space beneath the box spring, but inside the mattress.

“You sneaky little shit,” I muttered.

I threw off the sheet and blanket and, in the darkness, I felt along the sides and seams of the mattress—yes, there at the top was a neat incision, no wider than necessary to admit a notebook. I reached in, chuckling that I’d been sitting on it when I first came in. I lit the candle once more.

It was an ordinary notebook, like the others we used. This one had a red cover, on which Arie had scrawled the outline of a human skull. Within the round space of the cranium, he’d drawn a clock face that indicated three o’clock. He’d traced it repeatedly with a ballpoint pen, for the lines were deeply incised into the heavy paper cover. And then he’d burnished the lines with a pencil eraser, so that it stood out in white.

I’d read all of Arie’s journals—the first one began in January and the last one contained an entry from the day he collapsed. But I’d never seen this one. He must have felt he had to keep it a secret, even from me. What if he wouldn’t want me to read it? Even now that he was gone?

I ran a palm across the notebook’s cover and the clock-skull figure. I sat there with the journal in my lap for several minutes, afraid to read what might be Arie’s most intimate feelings. Afraid that releasing them, hearing them in my mind would mean that Arie would really be gone then.

With trembling hands, I took a deep breath and opened the notebook.

I scanned the first page and a gasp might have escaped me. Then I stood and turned the page. Row upon row of Arie’s neat, smooth handwriting. I sat back down and flipped through all the pages. Every page was practically alike, and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

Eleven

The parking lot stretched for what seemed like a mile in all directions. In the distance, the Ferris wheel towered over the amusement park, which sat decaying and inert.

“Sky Dreamer,” I whispered.

There was no evidence that anyone else was there or had been there recently. Most of the snow had vanished under two days of sunlight, but in the drifts and grainy patches that remained I saw no footprints, no bicycle tracks.

I drew a deep breath, took another look around, and started across the weedy expanse of pavement. Ravens and magpies atop the lamp poles tipped their heads to watch me cross below them. In the islands of melting snow, dry bleached stalks of weeds stood dead and trembling in the wind. The parking lot had begun to assume the appearance of a wild winter plain, and it was difficult to imagine that it had ever been filled with cars or the shimmering asphalt heat of summertime.

At last I reached the park entrance and stood beneath the arch which in faded and peeling letters welcomed visitors to Thrill Harbor. I turned to face the weedy pavement I’d crossed. Families would hurry in from their cars and minivans, converging here and passing excitedly through the turnstiles and on into the park. Now the place lay dead, a rotting checkerboard of melting snow and cracked tarmac. There were aluminum shutters drawn over the ticket windows and a cage-like barricade chained up and padlocked outside the turnstiles.

Some of the barricades had been partially pulled down, and so I clambered over them and then hopped over a bank of locked-down turnstiles. I thought of my dream and the man who took my ticket as the rides spun and strobed in the dusk, and that made me look up at the Sky Dreamer. There it was, arching into the empty sky above the buildings and lesser amusements.

Among the rides and shops, it was shaded and cooler, and so I zipped the collar of my coat higher.

When Arie and I searched the neighborhoods, there had been a constant impression of not belonging in the vacant houses, the guilt of trespassers in a burial ground. But something was different here. Something or someone was hiding here. Lurking. I folded my arms.

The earth was even more enthusiastic about reclaiming the interior of the park than the parking lot. Thick vines of bindweed and wild grape, now brown but nevertheless thick and sinewy, snaked up the walls and railings. Dead vines hung from the rides and power lines. On the roofs of the restrooms and concessions stands, black moss grew along the eaves, and wild maples and willows had taken root in the rain gutters. Shrubs had burst out of their landscaping beds and invaded the pavement thoroughfares. The grassy lawns were tall and dead, shoulder-high in some places along the margins of the midway.

A pillow of snow lay in each seat of the flying swing, and dirt-speckled snowdrifts were banked up on the sidewalks. The elements had exacted their price, flaking the paint and fading the plastic until all the colors merged to a kind of indeterminate gray.

Where to start? A sere breeze gusted down the midway, snatching my hair from beneath the hood of my coat. I tucked it behind my ear. So many buildings—gift shop, candy store, fun house—some burned, some collapsed. There were piles of debris and the occasional dead truck resting on deflated tires. So many places someone could hole up; so many places where someone might hide. I felt eyes watching me from every busted-out window and gaping doorway. Goosebumps rose on my neck and arms, and I wondered suddenly why I hadn't given a second thought to coming alone to find Ruby. I chewed my lip and went on.

I followed the midway and came to a grand carousel with fiberglass horses and hippogriffs skewered on masts striped with what must have once been gold and royal blue. Vines and woody weeds were growing up around bottom edge, and more vegetation had sprouted from the pipes of the calliope.

Beyond the carousel rose the Sky Dreamer, dark and tall against its backdrop of day. The midway continued into a broad tunnel that ran completely under the Ferris wheel and into the far half of the park. The wild grapevine grew thick and gnarly around the tunnel’s gaping entranceway, giving it the appearance of a portal into some subterranean world. Water pooled down in the floor of the tunnel and formed a frozen pond of black mud that splintered and crunched underfoot. In the half-light I saw names and symbols and rude words scrawled on the walls.

In one place, someone had scrawled Please Remember Me.

Along one side of the tunnel, there was a line of red letters two or three feet high. There wasn’t much light, but the writing stood out from the grime and older deposits of graffiti. In the darkness I could clearly make out the words: BOATS AGAINST THE CURRENT BORNE BACK.

The muddy water was deepest in the dark center of the tunnel, where its drainage had no doubt been choked by garbage and sediment.

As I sloshed along, worrying that the filthy water might over-top my boots, I became all at once aware that I was not alone.

I glanced up, and there where the shadows were deepest, I thought I saw the silhouette of a man leaning against the wall of the tunnel near the far end.

I stopped short and held my breath. Then I couldn’t see him. I cocked my head to one side and squinted.

I swallowed hard and said, “Someone there?”

The figure pushed off from the wall. “Who wants to know?” he asked.

A lanky, greasy-looking man unveiled himself from the dark and came my way through the muck.

I stepped back. My hands curled into fists.

As if the man’s mere presence in the dank tunnel were not enough to make me recoil, as he came closer, I saw that his face was scarred by a livid gash that ran from his forehead, down through one eyebrow, and into the unkempt scraggle of his beard.

In his bony fist he held a bowie knife.

All my energy was building inside me to run. I felt like a compressed spring ready to release. But then I pictured myself running through the unfamiliar and tangled maze of the park, with its snow banks and walkways blocked by weeds and debris. I imagined the man giving chase. He probably knew the place better. He could probably run faster than me. And what if he had accomplices?

In the firmest, steadiest voice I could manage, I said, “Stay back.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“You stay back.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“None of your business,” I said.

“Well, it is now.”

He came forward, covering the distance between us in three or four quick strides. I swung my fist at him but he deflected it without much effort. Then he grabbed my coat and brought me to heel as though I were a misbehaving child. I tried to pull myself free of him, but the grip of his hand was like some great iron clamp. He pressed me against the wall and showed me the knife.

“Quit fightin’,” he said. “You’re comin’ with me.”

He kept the scruff of my coat in his balled fist and dragged me from the tunnel. I stutter-stepped and staggered along behind. I tried fighting him, but he kept me off-balance and tripping.

We came out of the tunnel on the other side of the Ferris wheel. The man towed me along a pathway that ran behind the rides and down a flight of concrete steps.

“Let go!” I hollered at him. “Where are you taking me?”

He gave me another jerk, harsh enough to hurt my shoulder. He was tall and strong. “Shut your mouth.”

We approached what appeared to be the rear entrance of a low-slung brick building. Between two dumpsters there was a single metal door. The man looked around as if to ensure that no one was watching, and then pounded deliberately three times on the door.

It opened and another man stepped partway out. He was short and mostly bald with a big black beard.

“Who’s this?” he said.

“Just get her inside,” said the other.

The bald man did as he was told, and they dragged me in. My legs turned to water then, and I collapsed sobbing. I kicked and swatted at them. It had little effect.

Twelve

They tried dragging me deeper into the building but I screamed and caught hold of the door jamb. The tall one plucked my hands from the door and the short one got my legs. They wrangled me inside and shut the door. Then the only light to see by was that which filtered in from the small, high windows, but I know I saw a human skull impaled on a spear. Then another. Then a line of them, like a fence.

I twisted hard and they dropped me and so I thrashed and thrashed. They picked me up again, but my foot connected with someone’s groin.

“Ow, Jesus, fuck,” the bearded one squawked. “Glen, hold up. Chica just nailed me in the cajones, man.”

They dropped me, but the one called Glen stepped on me and leaned forward until his weight compressed my ribcage. The other one bent over and steadied himself, his hand on the wall. He blew hard through his pursed lips as he reached down between his legs and gingerly readjusted himself.

“Glen, man,” he said between gasps. “Who is this, anyways?”

“Caught her sneaking around up by the tunnel,” said Glen jerking his chin.

“Well, chill for a second, will ya? I think she thinks we’re gonna rape her.”

Glen snorted and took his foot off me. He crouched down and jabbed at my face with his finger. “You’re the one who was snooping around. I got a wife.”

The bearded man knelt beside me. “Chica,” he said. “You don’t look like no spy. Who are you?”

“Who are you?” I spat back.

He stood up and ran a hand over his bald head.

“Well. Fair enough. I’m Carlos.” He touched his chest with his palm. “This is Glen. He got a temper, but don’t be a’scared of him. Now. Who are you?”

“I’m looking for someone,” I said.

“That’s not really what I asked, but, okay,” said Carlos. “Who?”

“You wouldn’t know her. Now let me leave.”

Carlos shook his head slowly. “We need to know why you was out here.”

“I told you. I’m looking for someone.”

Glen lunged at me and bellowed, “Who!”

Carlos got between us.

“Her name’s Ruby,” I blurted. “She told me to come.”

Their eyes widened, and the two of them traded a hard look. Glen licked his lips.

“Jesus, Chica,” said Carlos. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

He grabbed my arm and helped me to my feet. We continued down the darkened corridor, Glen leading the way and Carlos behind me. There were a number of dark corners. I couldn’t say how many. Then we descended a roughly built wooden staircase into a tube-shaped brick passageway lit from above by a string of gloomy yellow utility lights. Along the way I saw alcoves to either side where shadowy figures lurked, frozen in menacing poses. In one alcove there was what had to be a mannequin zombie. In another I saw a coven of motionless witches.

“Haunted house,” I said quietly.

“Yeah,” whispered Carlos. “The old haunted house ride. Creepy down here, huh? I hate it.”

“Shut up and keep walking,” said Glen over his shoulder.

We passed by a vampire figure whose grotesque store-bought rubber mask was half-obscured by a shroud of real cobwebs. There was a lady mannequin who’d been hacked in two by an ax murderer, her papier-mâché entrails dusty and desiccated.

Then I heard voices ahead. The passageway turned a corner and there in the bend was an opening blocked by a black velvet drape. Carlos parted the drape and I spotted Ruby in the small room beyond.

She was practically a stranger to me, a woman I’d met only a couple times, briefly, and yet I laughed suddenly at the sight of her.

It was a small concrete room with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. A workroom of some sort, adjacent to the ride. Dim light bulbs shown here and there, bathing the place with the dusky luster of a conspirator’s lair.

Somewhere out of sight an electric generator hummed. Ruby leaned over a table, examining a large map through her bifocals. There was a candle burning at the center of the table, and when I looked closer, I could see that the map was actually a set of building plans. Ruby looked up and wrinkled her nose to reposition the spectacles. When she spotted me with my face red and hair wild, she straightened up and dropped her arms to her sides.

“Glen, what in Sam Hill is this?” she shouted.

Glen scratched the back of his neck.

“Well?”

“She was wandering around outside,” he muttered.

Next to Ruby there stood a stout man with a round boyish face fringed with curly blond whiskers. He regarded me with a cool, Zen gaze. Behind them on the floor there was a coarse pallet and a man was lying on it, his head pillowed by a leather jacket. He had one arm thrown across his face, but he wasn’t sleeping. Nobody could have slept through Ruby’s tirade.

“Well, a’course she was,” Ruby squawked, throwing up her arms. “I told her t’come!” Ruby’s honking voice reverberated harshly in the small room and Glen recoiled as if bombarded by a hail of needles. Ruby scowled at him. If he’d been closer, she probably would have smacked him.

She limped over to me. “Actually, sis, you’re lucky Glen found you. We’ve got the front entrance wired with explosives that’d blow ya here t’kingdom come.”

“Oh my God, why would you do that?” I asked.

“To keep out unwanted guests,” answered Ruby, as though the answer was obvious.

“But what about the new year? No one will remember.”

“That’s just it, sweetheart. This time I don’t intend to forget,” Ruby answered, tapping her forehead with a finger.

“She kicked Carlos square in the nuts,” Glen tattled quietly, tilting his head at his companion.

“Yeah, but that was totally my bad,” said Carlos. He waved a dismissive hand, but then he touched himself down there and winced a little.

“Alison, are you all right?” asked Ruby.

I nodded and joined her at the table.

“So. What’s she here for?” Glen asked warily.

“She’s got twice as much brains as you do, for starters.” She turned to me again, jabbed her thumb at the stout fellow and said, “This here’s Woolly.”

Woolly was wider than two of me, maybe three. His arms were slab-like and his legs were thick as tree trunks, but his eyes were bright and thoughtful. He wore a black t-shirt and baggy denim shorts.

I nodded and he nodded back, closing his eyes and bowing ever so slightly.

Ruby gestured at Carlos and Glen. “These two knuckleheads y’already met.”

They nodded and murmured diffident hellos.

“Everybody, this is Alison. She’s a friend I made. A good egg. And smart.” She rubbed my back and winked at me. “Had a feeling you’d come.”

From behind Woolly stepped a young girl with curly blond hair and dirty cheeks.

“Hey, I know you,” I said.

The girl looked up at me shyly. “You’re his mom,” she said. “The tall boy. He died, huh?”

“Gracie, shush,” said Ruby, nudging the girl. Then Ruby turned to me and in a low voice said, “We heard about your boy. Awful sorry ’bout that.”

“He used to give me apples,” said the little girl in a soft voice. “But then he stopped.”

“This here is Gracie,” said Ruby.

It’d been a while since I’d thought about the wraith-like little girl Arie had fed from our back porch like a stray cat. Neither of us had ever known her name. Gracie acted as though she knew me, and I wondered how much she’d watched us and our house. The motherly part in me wanted all at once to pick her up and take care of her. Not just because of her cherubic face and sweetness, but because she was a link to Arie.

“So, you’re here to help, ain’tcha, honey?” Ruby asked me.

“Actually,” I said, unshouldering the backpack, “I can’t stay. I just wanted to ask you something. See, my son kept this journal. You remember? We both wrote in journals.”

Ruby nodded, her brow furrowing.

I unzipped my pack and fished out Arie’s secret red notebook. “I found one that Arie wrote, and I can’t understand it.”

Ruby frowned and shot me a quizzical expression. She took the notebook from me and perched herself atop a stool by the table. She adjusted her glasses and flipped through the pages awhile. Gracie peered over Ruby’s arm.

It was only lines and lines of numbers. 55, 8, 12, 102, 10, 2.

Pages and pages like that. Nearly the whole notebook. Ruby scanned the notebook, then regarded me over the top of her glasses.

“Is this all ya come for?” she asked.

“I need to know what it means,” I said. “You seemed to know—things. What do you think this means?”

The others crowded close and leaned in to see. Somebody slid the candle closer.

“Was this kid on drugs?” asked Carlos.

Ruby socked him on the shoulder. “Idiot,” she hissed.

He rubbed his arm.

Ruby removed her glasses. “The question you should be asking is why would he be needing to write in code.”

“Is that what it is? Can you read it?”

“No,” said Woolly, shifting heavily. “No one can.” His voice was deep and coarse, but he had clear, refined diction. “Not without the key.”

“Key?” I asked.

“Every code has a key,” he said gently. He grabbed the waistband of his shorts and tugged them up, but they drooped again.

I looked at the journal. “So, how do I figure out what it says?”

“You don’t,” he said. “I’m sorry to break it to you this way, but that’s the whole point. He’d have to give you the key. Or you’d have to find it yourself. Whoever wrote this—your son?”

I nodded hastily.

“Your son used a key to encrypt his words into these numbers.” He tapped the journal with his finger, which was nearly as thick as my wrist. “Each number is a letter or a word. So, his words are all there, but they’re hidden, locked. Find the key, unlock the words.”

“What would the key look like?”

“Like a codebook. Or any ordinary book. Or just a chart. Depends on what he decided to use.”

Ruby passed the journal to Woolly.

“I could study it a little,” said Woolly, flipping the pages of the notebook with his thumb. “Then I could maybe tell you at least what kind of cipher it is. Wouldn’t help you decrypt it, but it might make it easier to figure out what he used as a key.”

“You would?” I said, “Oh, thank you.”

“Now, hold on,” said Ruby. “Woolly, you got plenty to do right now.”

Woolly nodded and gave the notebook back to me. “She’s right. I’m sorry. Maybe another time.”

“Alison, I’m real sorry, too,” said Ruby, “but we’re sort of in the middle of something here. Fact, I was hoping you could help us.”

I stared at Arie’s journal. There comes a moment when you think your pain couldn’t possibly be worse. That you’ve reached an end to it. Like when Gary told me about Arie. I thought that was the bottom. But then you discover that pain can exist in deep, hidden pockets. Unexpected blooms of misery that appear suddenly, and you begin to wonder if there is a limit to how much you can hurt, or if eventually it will just kill you. What was in the journal? Was it a secret Arie had carried all year? Was it Arie himself?

I didn’t plan to hurt myself, not with the new year so close, but I saw death in a new way after that: a sweet release. I was surprised by how often I thought about it after that. If I didn’t keep myself distracted—didn’t stay busy—that’s where my mind would go.

“I understand,” I said finally. “Thanks for your help.”

I turned my face as I went so that they couldn’t read my expression. Then I shoved the notebook in my bag and headed for the doorway and the black drape.

“Glen, show her how to get back out,” said Ruby.

Glen had lit a pipe and there was the sweet odor of leaf tobacco in the air. He joined me at the doorway.

“Hey,” Ruby called to me.

I stopped.

“You never seen his body, didja?” she asked.

I turned around. “What?”

“Your kid. J’ever see him? After, I mean. Not to be mean, but, didja?”

I shook my head.

“Didn’t think so.”

“Why?”

“Look. I’m not saying he’s alive,” Ruby said. “I’m just saying if you didn’t see his body, how do you know he’s really dead?”

“Why would they tell me that?” I asked.

“Why would he be writin’ in a code?” Ruby asked.

The man on the floor sat up and sighed. “When they can control your memories, they control everything.”

“Chase, get up. Come help figure this out,” Ruby said, rotating the blueprint one way, then another. “It’s gonna be the new year and I’ll still be standing here try’na read this here floor plan.”

The man rose stiffly and joined her at the table. He was tall and fit, but his clothing was disheveled and he wore a three-day beard.

“Chase, that there’s Alison. Alison, this here’s Chase.”

He shrugged at me, as if he had no choice but to admit his identity.

“Help me with this, Chay,” said Ruby.

“Floor plans?” he asked while tousling Gracie’s hair. “How’d you get these?”

“From my contact,” said Woolly. “If we can crack into this base, we might be able to figure out where they keep this uncut serum—if it exists. Maybe we find a lot of stuff.”

“If Arie’s alive,” I interrupted, “then where would he be? How can I find him?”

Ruby sighed and pressed her lips together. “Listen, sweetie, I feel for ya. But we’ve got things here that can’t wait.”

“Neither can I,” I said. “It’s almost the new year. If I don’t find out now, I never will. Please. He’s all I have.”

They all stared at me for a few moments.

Ruby pulled the glasses off her face and chewed the inside of her cheek. “We could use a hand here,” she tapped the plans with the folded-up glasses. “Maybe we can help each other.”

“Okay,” I said. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know,” said Ruby chuckling. “What can you do?”

“Let’s table this for now,” said Chase. He stretched and scratched himself sleepily. “Let’s focus. If that serum is sitting somewhere, then let’s go get it.”

They seemed to forget I was in the room.

“Can’t,” said Ruby. “We don’t know exactly where it’s at. There’s six, eight buildings here. Big ones. And these plans are old. Serum could be anywhere. And there’s fences. Guards. Locks. God, this is a big problem.” She indicated the plans with a nod. “So. Where’s it gonna be?”

Chase scratched his whiskers and grimaced. “All right. There’s gonna be an office. This much storage space, there’ll be records, you know, manifests. Probably on a computer. A database. Or maybe just a spreadsheet. We have to start there.”

Woolly nodded.

They bent over the table and scanned the plans. I took a step forward, but none of it made any sense to me. I’d crossed the zone boundaries countless times with Arie, but these people were planning to break in and steal things—directly from the Agency, it seemed. Serum? Why steal it? The Agency was going to give it to all of them whether they wanted it or not. Just thinking about what would happen if we were caught talking about these things made my mouth dry.

“There must be fifteen offices here,” said Woolly. “One here. A couple here. Most of these warehouses have office space. We could spend an hour just trying to find the right one.”

“Yeah,” said Chase. “We’ll never find it staring at twenty-year-old blueprints.”

“Then how?” said Ruby.

They all stood motionless for a while.

“Electricity,” said Woolly.

“Ah,” said Chase, nodding. “Right.”

“Whaddya mean?” asked Ruby.

“They can’t power the whole site,” said Woolly. “They can barely supply power at all. We just need to figure out which building has power, lights. That’s where the computer will be.”

“Woolly,” said Ruby, “go figure that out today. Take Carlos.”

Woolly nodded.

“Alls we need now is a vehicle to get it out of there. Chase, didja find us somethin’?”

“Of course I did,” he said. “And it’s a truck. But.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Ruby said. “But what?”

“It’s a manual transmission,” Chase said.

“So?”

“I—can’t drive a stick.”

“You kidding me?” she said.

“I guess I never learned. Or maybe I’ve forgotten how. I tried. Nearly dropped the tranny. I suppose I could try again, practice. But right now, I really can’t. Can you?”

“Well. No.”

“Me neither,” said Carlos.

“I can,” I said.

“Woolly,” said Ruby. “Tell me you can.”

“Sorry, Boss. I’m thinking I was more of a public transit sort of guy.”

“Glen,” said Ruby, her tone acid. “I know you can barely find your ass with both hands, but I don’t suppose—”

He shook his head. “Nope. Back to square one. Maybe we should spend our last days on earth enjoying life.”

“Ruby,” I said, my voice raised. “Hey. I can drive a stick.”

They turned their heads in unison to face me.

“Rube,” said Chase, jabbing his thumb at me, “who is she again?”

“Chase,” said Ruby, “shush.”

“I mean, I think I can,” I said. “I don’t actually remember ever driving one, but you just step on the clutch, put it in gear, then let off the clutch and step on the gas—right?” I did an awkward pantomime.

Ruby put both hands on the table. “Alison, this is really important. Do ya really think ya can?”

“Yeah. I do. When do we leave?”

She grinned, watching me over her eyeglasses. “We’ll have Chase take you to the truck and see what you can do. But first, there’s something we need to take care of.”

They all looked at me. Why were they all looking at me?

“What?” I said.

“You got a tracker,” said Ruby.

“My chip? What about it?”

They kept staring at me. No one speaking.

I put my hand to the back of my neck.

“You mean you’re chip-rippers? No. You can’t take my chip. I won’t be able to get rations without it. They’ll think I’m a criminal.”

Ruby sighed. “Listen Al, are you in or not?”

I’d read something once in a book about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. About how a person’s physiological and safety needs took precedence before social needs like family and love. But at the moment, I suddenly realized I didn’t actually care about where I’d find food to eat or live or get medical care. I didn’t care that involving myself with this group would put me at odds with the Agency. I only wanted one thing—Arie. I wasn’t sure if there was any chance that he was still alive, but at that instant I’d have given up everything to find out.

I fingered the slightly raised area of scar tissue on my neck.

“I’m in,” I said.

Thirteen

Around five miles from Thrill Harbor, on a remote dirt road far from any buildings, there was an old maroon Toyota Tacoma parked in the middle of the highway. It had big, off-road tires, and the back window was spangled with stickers from Moab and Yosemite and other places. The truck’s body was caked in dust and the paint was sunburned and hazy, but the tires were full and hood was still shut—both signs that it might start and drive.

“Here you go.” Chase tossed me the keys and then headed for the passenger seat.

The suspension was lifted six or eight inches. I wasn’t even sure at first how to get in. I tried stepping up with the wrong foot, but it was too high. Then I grabbed at the steering wheel.

Chase opened the passenger-side door, took hold of a grab handle on the door frame and hoisted himself in.

“Need help?” Chase asked, but in a tone that made me know he wasn’t really offering.

“No, I got it,” I said. I grabbed the handle the way he had and pulled myself up.

Chase watched me skeptically.

You could tell he was smart. The way he spoke, the way he figured things out. There was no good explanation why someone like him couldn’t drive a stick-shift, but there were cases of unexplained specific forgetfulness. I knew I had been a mother and probably a wife before the virus, but I couldn’t seem to remember how to make cookies or bread or cake. Had I known but forgotten with the serum, or had I never learned? I might not ever know.

Chase was handsome, or maybe it was just that he was rugged—his hair was auburn and he looked good in a beard. Despite his roughness, there was a time when I would have wanted to get to know him better, see if there was any chemistry between us, but that part of me seemed to have died with Arie. Not that any of it would have mattered. In a little over two months, we wouldn’t remember each other, anyway.

I pulled the door shut. There was a stale smell inside. The steering wheel felt grimy. It looked like the windshield hadn’t been wiped in years.

“Where’d you get this? Doesn’t seem to be a lot of cars that actually work anymore.”

“I know how to get stuff.”

“I see.”

“So, what’s your story? Lost your kid? How old was he?”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” I said.

“Oh. Good.”

I shot him a frown.

“’Cause neither do I,” he said with a shrug.

I pulled out my seatbelt and as I turned my head to find the latch, the seatbelt rubbed against the bandage on my neck where Chase had removed my Agency chip. It’d hurt more than I expected to have it removed and the skin was still tender. After they removed it, I had second thoughts about destroying it, but before I could say anything, the gang had already stomped it into a tiny pile of glassy dust.

Chase didn’t buckle up.

I put the key in the ignition, tightened my ponytail, and adjusted the rear-view mirror. Then I examined the instrument panel and controls—out of some reflexive impulse, I suppose. I wouldn’t really need blinkers or wipers or the radio, but I wanted to know where the knobs and levers were, nonetheless.

When you’ve lost your memories, you can’t always trust the things you think you know because you don’t know where they came from. Had I really ever driven a car with a manual transmission? Who had taught me that skill? Someone presumably had, but there was no reason to know for sure until I gave it a try.

“We won’t drive too far,” Chase said. “Can’t waste gas. Just enough to see what you’ve got.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

I stepped on the clutch and turned the key. The engine rumbled to life. It had a deep, throaty idle. Definitely a guy’s truck. So far, so good. I took the shift lever in my hand and waggled it—to ensure it was in neutral. Who had taught me that? Where had I seen it? As surely as someone had taught me to walk, someone had taught me how to put a car in gear. With a foot on the brake, I depressed the clutch and shifted into first. Then I took my foot off the brake and pressed down on the gas pedal with my toe, but I released the clutch too quickly, and the truck lurched forward violently and stalled so abruptly we were launched into the seat belts.

“Jesus,” snapped Chase. “I knew it.”

“Hang on. I’m trying, okay? Maybe you oughta put your seatbelt on.”

Chase rubbed his forehead. “This isn’t gonna work.”

“Give me a chance,” I said. “Who knows how long it’s been since I drove. And it’s my first time in this truck. That I know of.”

“We don’t have time for you to learn how to drive all over again,” he said.

“Well then we definitely wouldn’t have time for you to learn,” I shot back.

“Touchy.”

“Would you shut up and let me do this?”

Chase folded his arms and slumped in his seat.

My hands had gone sweaty, making the large steering wheel slippery. I exhaled and turned the key again, but it wouldn’t start.

“Now what?” said Chase.

“I don’t know. Oh. The clutch.”

With the clutch in, I started the truck again. I put it in gear, released the clutch, and applied the gas.

“Come on,” I muttered.

The truck jerked again, nearly stalling, but then it rolled ahead.

“Yes! Yes, I did it!”

I looked over and caught Chase rolling his eyes. He clapped his hands silently with a patronizing grin on his face.

As the truck gained speed, the engine revved beneath the hood.

“You need to shift,” said Chase, raising his voice over the noise. “Even I know that.”

“I know. I know.”

I shifted into second and we put on more speed. The packed-earth road was one of the few I’d seen that wasn’t obstructed by old cars.

“See?” I said. “No problem.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Chase made a half-hearted effort to sit up in his seat. “I wouldn’t call it a stellar performance, but we don’t have a lot of options.”

“I’d like to see you do better,” I said.

“Turn here.”

I downshifted and slowed. It was coming back to me.

“I don’t know where you’re planning to go. Most of the roads are blocked or broken up,” I said.

“Drive into the field.” Chase pointed. “The ground’s frozen. We’ll go this way tomorrow.”

I steered into an old farm field grown wild with grass, and the truck squeaked and groaned as it bounced over the uneven ground.

“So, what is this top-secret mission, anyway?” I asked.

“Gotta pick something up.”

“Pick up?” I turned to him. “You mean steal, right?”

“Don’t sweat it,” he shrugged. “Should be pretty basic.”

We drove around for a while, and even with Chase’s sarcastic remarks, it was kind of fun. It felt almost carefree. I even did a donut in the dirt. Then we parked the truck and walked back to Thrill Harbor. Chase set a time to meet early the next morning, offered up a terse “thank you” and “good night,” and then I biked toward home.

The sun had almost completely set by the time I got to my house. The birds had quieted; the street was empty. I chained up my bike at the side of the house. Arie’s bike was still there—one of thousands of painful reminders I encountered throughout the day that reminded me he was gone.

I was worn out for a change and eager to sleep. For weeks I had simply drifted in and out of a nonspecific state of feverish torpor. Writing the journals, reading them, sleeping and eating whenever. But that night I felt like I’d been productive in some new way, and I looked forward to lying down in bed for a restful night’s sleep. Or was I just eager for morning? For the first time in a long time, I had something besides notebooks and pencils to wake up for.

I was taking off my coat by the front door when I thought I heard something in the house. I paused, but heard nothing. But as I hung my things on the coat rack, it came again—the creak of a floor, the feeling of an unseen presence. The house was dark. I looked into the living room and in the shadows, I thought I could see someone sitting there.

“Alison,” Gary said.

As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, he rose from the couch and slipped something beneath his long wool coat. A gun?

“My God,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”

“Dead? Why would you think that?”

He gave me a big hug and sighed.

“Don’t you know I keep an eye on you? With everything that’s happened and you being on your own—there’s a lot of danger out there.”

“I don’t understand.”

He tapped the back of his neck. “Your chip,” he said. “It’s off. I couldn’t ping you. What’s going on? What happened to you?”

“Oh, right. That. Yes. It’s gone,” I said. “They ripped it out.”

“Who ripped it out?” cried Gary. “Who’s ‘they’?”

“I don’t know, Gary. I don’t know who they are. I was visiting some friends and as I was coming home someone attacked me.”

“Good God, Alison. Are you hurt? Let me see.”

“Was that a gun? Do you have a gun?”

“Yes. I carry one at times. I thought something might have happened to you—had to be ready if someone came to loot your place. Now what happened here?”

He leaned in to see my neck. I went to the kitchen to light a lantern.

“I slapped a dressing on it,” I said. “It hurts a little. Why would someone do this, Gary? Why would they attack me?”

“There are some individuals—outside the zones, mostly,” he said. “They remove their own chips but steal others to get supplies. I’ll see that they’re found. Are you all right?”

“I think so. They held me down. It was over quick and then they took off. It just stings.”

In the harsh lamp light, Gary examined the dressing, lifted it.

“This doesn’t look too bad. Not too much damage, anyway. Thank God.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll be okay.”

“Let’s get you down to the infirmary right away. They’ll install a new one. It happens. I’ll submit an incident report. They won’t question you that way. Your account is flagged, so as soon as someone tries to use your chip, they’re screwed.”

“Thanks. I’ll go first thing tomorrow.”

He frowned. “Straight in tomorrow, okay? You don’t want to get caught without your chip. It’s too risky.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

Fourteen

It had been awhile since I’d been awake and up so early before the dawn. I couldn’t remember when, but it would have been with Arie. Sometimes when he wanted to search somewhere far from the house, we’d rise early and make breakfast in the dark. We’d pack up food and water for the day and go out and sit on our bikes to wait for enough light for riding.

How imperceptible the moment when darkness crosses into dawn and then from dawn into day, and yet how irrefutable. You can say it’s day only when it’s no longer night.

I found Chase already waiting for me in the dark by the Toyota. He was eating wild sunflower seeds from his pocket and spitting the husks on the ground.

“Why so early? Won’t even be light for another hour.”

I unlocked the doors and we got into the truck.

“Morning’s best for this kind of thing,” said Chase. He’d kept the passenger door open so that the dim little dome light in the cab stayed on. He drew out a compact commando knife. It looked sharp—and well-used. He began to clean his thumbnail with the point.

“Will there be, like, guards and stuff?”

“Depends.”

“So, you’re just never going to tell me what we’re up to,” I said.

“Why don’t you settle down.” He spat. The husks fluttered to the floor.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” I said.

“I said ‘settle down’,” he replied blandly.

“Whatever. I have a right to know what I’ve gotten myself into.”

“Well, we’re not dropping by to pick up a few cans of soup,” said Chase looking up from his thumbnail.

“That doesn’t mean you have to treat me like an idiot.”

“Then quit acting like one.”

I opened my mouth to reply with some withering comment, but Chase went on.

“If something goes really wrong and you get arrested and questioned, it’s better if you know as little as possible. If anything, it’s for your protection.”

“Gee, thanks so much for looking out for me.”

“I knew I shouldn’t’ve passed on that Camry.” He shook his head and spat the shells onto the floor of the cab.

“Do you have to do that? Why don’t you spit them out the door? The one that’s open?”

He spat some more.

“How long are we going to sit here, then?” I asked, folding my arms. “Can you tell me that, or would it be too dangerous for me?”

He peered up through the windshield into the dark sky. “Let’s give it ten minutes and then go.”

“Do you have a watch?” I asked.

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

“So.”

“So,” I said, “what good is it to say we’ll go in ten minutes if we have no way of knowing what time it is? Why not just tell me when you want to go, and we’ll go.”

“Just be ready,” he said.

“I am,” I huffed.

He squinted up through the windshield again, as though there were something in the sky only he could read. Then he sheathed the knife.

“Let’s go now,” he said. “Start her up.”

I exhaled my exasperation and turned the key. The engine rumbled up and idled in the cold morning. I switched on the heater. The pink glow of dawn had emerged faintly on the horizon, and now that my eyes were adjusted to the low light, I could make out the surrounding countryside.

“Which way?” I said.

“Stand by.”

Chase fished around in his knapsack and brought out a small, two-way radio. He held it to his mouth and depressed the talk button.

“Mountain Lion’s on the move,” he said. When he released the button, there was a burst of static and then a tiny electronic beep.

The only response from the other radio was an answering static and the tiny beep.

“Go,” said Chase.

“The Mountain Lion, huh?” I laughed.

“It’s just ‘Mountain Lion’,” he said. “No ‘the’.”

“Right. Mountain Lion,” I said laughing. “Grr!”

“Just go.”

“Tell me where,” I said, putting the truck in gear.

“Head that way.” He pointed.

We bounced down through the grass and down the field. I shifted into second, then third. The smaller bumps weren’t so noticeable when I drove faster.

“There’s a road about a hundred yards past the trees. See? To the left. Get on the road and head east.”

“Which way’s east?” I asked.

“Toward the sun,” he sighed and pointed. “Toward the light.”

I steered the Tacoma smoothly through the trees, but the truck’s suspension grunted and squeaked in protest as we slammed through the deep trough of a dry ditch. Chase bounced up and bonked his head on the roof of the cab. He braced himself and shot me a look. I slowed as we dipped through the barrow pit and up onto the dirt road, then I turned the truck into the coming dawn.

When Chase finally told me we were raiding a data center, I had envisioned an immaculate, brightly lit building with glass walls and row upon row of computers, the kind with magnetic tape wheels and lots of flashing lights, but instead it was a large, mostly empty office building in the middle of a sprawling business park. It lay within the boundaries of a neighboring zone, but well away from any homes.

I drove with Chase in the growing light until he told me to stop.

“All right,” said Chase. “I walk from here. Keep your radio on, but don’t transmit unless you absolutely have to. If you don’t see us by noon, park the truck at the place, go home, and just lay low.”

I knew the plan was for me to wait with the truck, but the prospect of staying there by myself hadn’t fully occurred to me until then. I wondered what I would say if an Agency goon found me—if they rolled up in one of their armored vehicles to find me without a chip, nowhere to go, and no way to defend myself. They could arrest me. They could rape me. They could do anything.

“Could I come with?” I asked.

“You want to? Could get dicey.”

“I wouldn’t want to miss out.”

“Well, it’d really be better to stick with the plan. You really want to come along?”

“Yeah. I could probably help.” I thought about Arie and me in the neighborhoods. Watching out for each other, splitting up tasks. “Two is better than one.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I can always use another set of hands.”

He passed me a baseball bat.

“Know how to use one of those?”

I swallowed. “I think you hold the skinny end.”

“Then let’s be on our way.”

We walked together further into the business park. There was no one around, but we moved carefully.

“Here,” said Chase quietly. We knelt beside a retaining wall.

I recognized the roads and buildings from the map I saw in the gang’s ready room at the haunted house.

“Which one is it?” I asked. “That one?”

“No, that one,” said Chase, pointing across the street and up the block. It was a dark-colored building with vines creeping up its metal sides.

“You sure?”

“Positive. Why?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Looks deserted.”

“Yeah, probably just one guy inside. Patrol vehicle drops them off in shifts. Probably just one goon with a sidearm.”

Chase produced his pistol. He flicked the cylinder open, then closed. He replaced it in the holster at the small of his back.

“Have you ever shot anyone?” I asked.

Chase looked over, but I couldn’t read his face.

“Probably,” he said.

“Recently?”

“Nope. And I’d rather not. So, let’s be careful.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and got out the little radio.

“Hey,” I said, pointing to the radio, “can I do it?”

He shrugged and said, “Sure, okay.” He smiled and handed it to me.

“What do I say?” I asked.

“Just tell them Mountain Lion is in ready position,” he said.

I pressed the soft rubber key and spoke softly into the handset. “The Mountain Lion is in the ready position.” Then I turned to Chase.

“Let go of the button,” he said.

I winced with embarrassment, and when I did, there came the burst of static and the beeps. A few seconds later came an answering static burst and beeps, and then another.

“It worked?” I asked.

He shrugged again and then nodded.

“What? I did it wrong?”

“It’s not ‘the’ Mountain Lion. It’s just Mountain Lion.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“And keep the commentary to a minimum,” he said with a nod.

“Okay.”

“When I get the doors open, tell them we’re in.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll cross here,” said Chase, “following this line of shrubs. Then to the corner and through that far set of doors. Woolly’ll come in from the west. Ruby from the south.”

He nodded at the bat. “You said you know how to use that.”

“I said I’d do my best, coach.”

“Just keep your eye on the ball,” said Chase. “Let’s go.”

We rushed across the street, paused, then moved on. The landscaping around the building was beyond overgrown, and it formed a kind of barrier wall around the building. We stayed low and worked our way up alongside the volunteer trees and enormous tangled hedges to the steel door. We crouched in the shadow of the doorway, and from somewhere inside his coat Chase produced a set of steel picks in a leather slip case. He removed two of them and began poking at the lock.

“Peek in that window,” he mumbled, jabbing his chin at the window beside the door.

I peered inside over the bottom edge of the window, the glass of which was filmy from neglect. It was dark inside.

“I can’t see anything,” I whispered.

“No lights?” he said.

“No. Nothing.”

“That’s good,” said Chase. He opened the door. Then he stood and pocketed the lock tools.

“You’re fast,” I said quietly.

He shook his head slightly. “Just good.” He motioned me in.

As I moved into the unlit space within, I came very close to Chase. It felt like we were nose to nose. Then I stepped inside. Chase flicked on a small flashlight and stuck it in his mouth like a cigar. It shined into the room. I moved farther inside.

“Alison, wait.” He took me by the wrist and pulled me back to him. I turned and faced him again.

His eyes were sharp and shrewd and brown, and when he looked my way I felt as though no detail about me went unnoticed. But there was kindness in his eyes, too.

“What is it?” I whispered. His face was no more than an inch from mine.

“The radio,” he said. “Tell them we’re in.”

“Oh. Right,” I breathed. “Sorry.”

Without taking my eyes off Chase, I lifted the little radio to my mouth and pressed the key. “The Mountain Lion is inside. I mean—Mountain Lion is inside.”

The others answered back by keying their radios, and then we proceeded.

“Seriously, though,” I said. “Your signals all have double meanings.”

Chase turned and went into the darkness.

I knew there were people in that building, or that there had been recently. For one thing, there were no cobwebs—a dead giveaway. Most buildings and houses abandoned since Year One were draped in thick cobwebs and filled with dust. Most long-vacant buildings had a breach somewhere, like broken windows or doors left open, which allowed astonishing amounts of dirt and dust to accumulate inside. Arie and I had seen houses with so much dirt on the floor that vast indoor gardens of ferns and moss had sprouted.

And then there was the wildlife. Lots of houses had birds inside. We had seen families of raccoons and skunks and squirrels denning up under beds and in closets. We’d seen houses teeming with mice in such numbers that the floors seemed to surge beneath our feet, and there was a windowless supermarket so infested with bats that we’d had to flee from the place before suffocating in its guano stench.

But I didn’t have to go inside to know the data center was occupied and cared for. I knew as soon as the door opened. Chronically disused buildings have a certain odor, too, even those that are still weather-tight. A smell of dirt and mildew, but something deeper and richer, too—a loamy smell, the smell of a place made by human hands but ready to be devoured by nature.

The building we’d broken into was not immaculate, but it had at least been swept occasionally, and there was a heat source, too. I wouldn’t call it cozy, but it was at least ten degrees warmer than it was outside.

There was an entryway that opened onto a small receiving room, where a corridor stretched to our right and left into the darkness. Chase tapped me on the shoulder and pulled me close so that his mouth was at my ear.

“No sounds,” he breathed, still almost too softly for me to hear. “Follow me.”

We went to the left, hugging the wall and walking noiselessly. Chase led the way and I followed closely enough to touch his back. It got darker as we got further inside and away from the windows. Chase held his gun in one hand and in the other he had the flashlight—ready to switch on in front of him. From time to time he stopped for as much as a minute to listen.

We followed the corridor and then another, stopping, listening, and then moving on. We’d reached an interior corridor, where there were no windows and nearly no light. At times I wasn’t sure if I could see Chase in front of me.

He holstered his gun and then clicked on his flashlight. “Radio,” he whispered. I handed it to him. He turned down the volume and held it close to his mouth.

“Say status,” he said.

A few seconds later I heard Woolly’s voice faintly in the speaker. “This is Panda. We got nothin’.”

Then Ruby: “Godmother. Same.”

“All right,” said Chase into the radio. “Everyone duck down for a sec. I’m gonna bird dog.”

When two bursts of static came over the radio, we retraced our steps to the intersection of four corridors. There was a small waiting area, with two frowzy wingback chairs. Chase told me to huddle behind one of them.

“Stay right there,” he said.

Next, he motioned for the baseball bat. I handed it to him, and he took a few steps up the corridor until he was lost from my view. My breath grew shallow and the seconds seemed to stretch into hours.

I heard a sharp clack. It resounded loudly but flatly through the corridors. The suddenness of the noise in that stillness made me think a lightning bolt had struck my eardrum, but I knew in fact it was not even as loud as a gunshot. As I heard the soft shuffle of Chase returning, I realized that he had struck the tile floor with the bat.

Chase crouched behind the other chair and we waited, ears straining to detect any noise apart from that of our own breathing.

And then there came a sound.

A door unlatched.

There came the faint squeak of a door hinge, and we saw the glow of an electric light source at the far end of the hallway. We peered around the sides of the chairs.

A man appeared. He stepped out of a room somewhere at the far end of the long hallway, and there he stood, looking our way and holding open the door—perhaps for the aid of the light emitting from inside the room, or perhaps because the door might lock behind him. He was much too far away to see us in the dimness behind our chairs, but then he switched on a flashlight and shined it in our direction. I scarcely had time to dodge the beam as it swept over the chair, and I thought for sure I’d been spotted.

But all at once the flashlight winked off, and I poked my head up to see. He’d gone back into the room and the door was closing behind him. Then it was dark once again.

“I flushed him,” said Chase into his radio. “Stand by.”

Ruby and Woolly acknowledged.

“All right,” whispered Chase. “All we gotta do is get him to come out again without phoning in. He wasn’t acting too worried, was he?”

“He didn’t seem worried at all,” I said.

“Yeah. Okay. Here. Take the bat.”

I took it from him.

“Now,” he continued, “we’re going to go to that door.”

“Which one was it?”

“Seventh one on the right. Pay attention. We’re going down to that door. Then it’s me on the right side, you on the left. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make a sound. A knock or something. Homeboy comes out. You clobber him.”

“Clobber him?”

“With the bat, yeah. We can’t kill him. He might be useful. I mean, don’t worry—if he’s armed and he draws, I’ll take care of him.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“What then?”

“I can’t just bash someone on the head,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t do that.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“He’s a person, Chase. A living being.”

Chase snorted. He stood up.

“Gimme the bat,” he spat. I held it out in the dim light and he snatched it away. He came out from behind the chairs, opened his mouth to say something, but then only scoffed and shook his head. He turned and walked away. I saw his outline for a moment, and then he vanished into the dark hallway.

“Wait!” I hissed. I followed him.

“Thought you had my back,” he said. He was whispering, but only just.

“It’s not that,” I said.

“Ah, just shut up a while.”

He walked fast. No more creeping silently. I tried to keep up, and I knew he’d stopped only when I blundered into him from behind.

Chase’s flashlight came on and I saw his face. Tight and annoyed, but calm somehow. He put his flashlight in my hand.

“Shine it on the door,” he said. “Like where his face will be when he opens it. Shine it in his eyes.”

“You’re not going to hit him, are you?”

“Just do it.”

I did as he said.

Chase reached out to knock on the door, but then he paused and turned to me.

“A ‘living being’?” he asked.

I held the flashlight. Chase knocked on the door.

“What did you think we were gonna do with the bat?” he added. “Play some slow-pitch?”

The man came to the door. He squinted at the flashlight glare. Chase hit him with the bat.

It was quick, efficient. It made me flinch, but it wasn’t angry or brutal. The bat came down on the man’s head with a wet, meaty sound, and he began to sink to the floor as if a patch of quicksand had materialized beneath him. Chase caught him by the shirtfront and eased him down.

“Don’t just stand there,” Chase hissed at me. “Help me get him inside.”

There was a gash on the man’s brow, just at his hairline. It bled steadily, pooling around his eyes and leaving burgundy dots and smears on the floor as we dragged him into the room.

The data center was just that one room. It looked as though it was once a large meeting room, but now it was lined with computers, perhaps fifty of them, set up on long folding tables. And they weren’t the kind of computers I’d pictured, beeping and tall with spinning reels of tape. Instead it was as if everyone in the neighborhood had brought in their home computers. The cases were of different sizes and colors and no two alike. Wires and cables snaked between them and in chaotic webs across the floor and it reminded me very much of the cobbled-together systems Arie used. There were monitors and keyboards here and there, and there was a dull soft hum of computer fans. The room was warm with their exhaust.

Chase disarmed the unconscious goon. He’d had a small pistol tucked into his belt. Then Chase checked the room to see if there was anyone else around. It was as he’d said—one goon with a sidearm. We emptied his pockets, then Chase radioed the others and told them where we were. We found a length of stray networking cable and bound the man hand and foot. With much effort we moved him to the center of the room, turned him onto his side, and left him there like some heavy and inconvenient piece of luggage. He lay still awhile, half-awake and muttering.

Chase sat down at a workstation and began scrolling absently through the system. I flopped down in a corner of the room and pouted as Ruby arrived and then Woolly a few minutes later.

Ruby checked on the goon and sorted through his liberated belongings. Then she approached and stood over me.

“What’s the matter with you, Kiddo?”

Chase scoffed but didn’t look our way.

I didn’t answer.

“What happened?” Ruby demanded.

“She got all soft when I told her she had to konk this clown on the head.”

“I don’t like violence,” I said.

“You said you wanted to come,” said Chase.

“I didn’t know I’d have to do something like that,” I said. “I’m the driver, remember?”

“You’re not a driver,” he shot back. “You’re a scared little girl who happens to know how to drive a stick.”

“Ease up, Chase,” Ruby ordered. “So what if she don’t like beating up on people?” She rubbed my back. “Al, you can ignore him. He’s a sweet fella, but he’s also a real prick.”

“She should have stayed with the truck,” Chase insisted.

“I didn’t want to stay in the truck alone,” I shouted. “Okay? I guess that makes me a big chicken.”

Woolly came in. “You two again?” he said.

“Stay the hell out of it, Woolly,” said Chase.

“Everybody shut the hell up!” Ruby hollered. The room got quiet. “Now. Get to work.”

Fifteen

Woolly sat in the room’s only chair. It was an old creaky rolling office chair and it seemed ready to buckle under Woolly’s prodigious mass as he scooted up to a computer workstation. Chase took a knee beside him. Woolly plugged a small memory stick into a port on the computer case and after a few moments, he began typing furiously.

Ruby was watching over the goon. I sat in my corner and watched Woolly. He typed one command and then another. They appeared as long strings of green letters and symbols, and after each one Woolly hit the Enter key with his pinkie.

But it didn’t seem to be going well. On the monitor, there was a procession of error messages and failure notifications. The computer beeped as if annoyed or disappointed.

Woolly let out a soft curse and typed some more.

“We got the goon,” said Chase, tilting his head in that direction. “Let’s wake him up. Get his credentials.”

“Nah. Don’t trust him. He might give us some contingency command or fake account that sends out an alert. Let me see if I can get in without him,” said Woolly. “Then maybe we’ll talk to him.”

He typed some more and the computer emitted a series of beeps that I was sure did not indicate anything good. Woolly cursed again and shook his head.

This went on for what seemed like an hour. Chase kibitzed at Woolly, pointing at the screen and making suggestions. Woolly shook his head sternly. They bickered back and forth.

Woolly said, “I keep telling you—that might work for a sysadmin, but this is basically a guest account. Gotta be careful or I’m gonna hit a tripwire and red flags are gonna start going up all over the Agency network. Is that what you want?”

Chase had no reply.

“I didn’t think so.”

“Okay,” said Chase, “but I doubt they’re going to be checking often enough to—”

“Chase.” Woolly interrupted him, voice raised. “Shush. Gimme a minute.”

Chase threw up his hands and was quiet.

“Give me a minute,” Woolly reiterated, “to myself. Go away. Let me think.” He made a shooing motion.

Chase got to his feet and walked away in a huff. He stood a short distance off, but kept an eye on Woolly’s computer monitor. I kept watching.

Woolly’s fingers burst into motion and pages of text appeared on the monitor, as if Woolly were consulting some manual or operator notes. He scrolled through numerous pages of text, nodding at times, rubbing his whiskers. Chase began to pace.

“You got this, Wool,” said Chase.

Woolly dismissed him with a wave of his beefy hand. He typed something and the text on the monitor vanished.

Then Woolly bowed his head. I thought he might be saying a prayer. But then, with his eyes still closed and head down, he began to type. Slowly and without looking at the monitor, he entered a short command on the keyboard and tapped the Enter key with his pinkie. He entered another command, and another. There were no cross-sounding beeps or long error messages.

Woolly kept his head down a moment longer. Then he opened his eyes and raised his head to see the monitor. Chase stopped pacing and stood looking, hands on his hips. I leaned forward to see better, as if I’d understand anything on the monitor.

Woolly nodded once at the text displayed on the monitor.

Chase and I traded a look. Chase nodded at me and bit his thumbnail.

Next Woolly entered a long series of words and symbols—a command that went on and on. He entered lots of characters, backspaced over some of them, entered more, paused, then typed more. Soon there was a single command that wrapped around almost two complete lines of text. Woolly squinted slightly and traced a fingertip over the green characters, checking, double-checking.

When he seemed satisfied, he placed his index finger over the Enter key. He let it hover there a moment, and then he pressed it.

Nothing happened for several seconds. A blank line appeared beneath Woolly’s extra-long command, but nothing else. Then, unceremoniously, there was a single, friendly beep, and a new prompt appeared. I wouldn’t have known what to make of it, but Chase clapped and said, “Yes!”

“Okay,” said Woolly. “I am—as they say—in.”

Chase came up behind Woolly, clapped him on the back, and took a knee by his side again. I got up from the corner and came up behind Woolly. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, gave him a squeeze, and kissed his whiskered cheek.

“I don’t know what just happened,” I said, “But, it was magnificent. Well done.”

“Thanks, Al,” he said, patting my arm. “What’s got you in such a good mood all a sudden?”

“After this we look for Arie,” I said. “Right?”

“Yep. Looking forward to it.”

“I’d give anything to see him again.”

“Sounds like a sharp kid,” said Woolly.

“Oh, he is smart,” I said. “Scary-smart. Like you, Wool. You two will get along great.”

It was the first time I’d allowed myself to speak of Arie as though he might still be alive. It was emotionally reckless, I knew, but the situation seemed to call for positive thinking. If Ruby’s band of misfits were anything at all, they were positive, and it was infectious.

When Gary told me that Arie was dead, I didn’t believe it. Eventually I thought it was simply a matter of denial, of not wanting to believe, of not accepting reality. However, when Ruby hinted that Arie might not be dead after all, a question arose in my mind and gnawed at me: wouldn’t I know if he was really gone? Wouldn’t a mother know?

Woolly resumed typing his cryptic computer commands. His big hands moved with remarkable deftness over the keys. System beeps emitted from the computer and the contents of files and directories flashed on the monitor.

“We’re in business,” he said to Chase, still typing. “I’m gonna download as much as I can find, then we’ll be ready to talk to this goon you got tied up. This connection is slow as hell, though, and this computer is no Deep Blue. Tell Ruby I’ll be ready to roll in—three hours, maybe.”

“Ya got two!” Ruby cried shrilly from the other side of the room.

Woolly chuckled. “Tell her one,” he said.

I gave him a pat on the shoulder and turned to join Ruby. She was poking the goon with her toe. He moaned a little and stirred as I approached.

“Al, let’s get this dope woke up and then pump him for everything he knows.”

“Will I have to clobber him at all?”

“Only if you want to.” She chuckled.

“Okay,” I said.

The goon was awake, still lying on his side with his face caked with drying blood. He turned his head awkwardly to see us. Ruby and I dragged him into a corner and propped him into a sitting position. I sat cross-legged on the floor with him. He was pudgy, unkempt, and shockingly pale, with a reddish-blond beard of sparse curly whiskers. His gloomy blue eyes darted from me to Ruby and the others.

Ruby gathered the contents of the man’s pockets into a pile at his feet, and now she sorted through it, inspecting each item before setting it on the floor again. There was a pocket knife, a few ration cards, some keys, papers folded into fourths, and a beat-up stainless-steel pocket flask.

“What’s your name?” asked Ruby.

She unfolded the papers and peered at them. It was a series of tables and what looked like computer commands.

“Phil,” said the goon. “Phillip. Phillip Carlton. Most people call me P.J.”

“Got a family, P.J.?”

“Uh huh.”

“How ya feeling’?”

“Head hurts.”

“Ya. Sorry about that. Nothing personal. And don’t worry. We ain’t gonna hurt ya no more.”

She picked up the flask and shook it. A liquid sloshed inside.

“Maybe this’ll help,” she said. “What’s in it? Sasparilla?”

“Special brew,” said P.J. with a guilty smile.

She twisted off the cap and took a sniff, but then she scrunched her face.

“Brake fluid?”

P.J. nodded. “And other things. Try it. It ain’t bad. I water it down, filter it through bread and raisins. Tastes all right.”

“P.J., it don’t matter if it tastes like cherry cola. This stuff’s got ethylene glycol in it. It’ll kill ya.”

She emptied the flask on the carpeting and then dropped it back in the pile. P.J. watched glumly as it clunked on the floor.

“I don’t want you drinkin’ that no more,” said Ruby. She felt around in the folds of her coat and presented a flask of her own. “Here. Try a slug a’that.” She twisted the cap off and held it to his lips and he drank.

“Smooth,” he said.

“Course it is. It’s scotch. Have another.”

He drank, deeper this time.

“Who are you people, anyway?” said P.J. licking his lips. “Don’t you know how much trouble you’re in?”

“We’ll get to that,” said Ruby. “What’s this mean?” she showed him the unfolded papers.

“Just my maintenance schedule. And I was already behind when you jerks showed up. Hard enough to keep these junkers running without some chip-rippers whacking me in the face with a—what was that? A baseball bat?”

From someplace else within her coat Ruby found a large folding Buck knife. She flicked it open with a practiced gesture. The blade was as long as my hand and looked very sharp.

P.J. recoiled.

“Ah, don’t be a ’fraidy cat,” she said. “If I was gonna stick ya, I’d a done it while you was knocked out. Gimme your hands.”

He held out his hands warily and Ruby passed the blade through the strands of network cable. P.J. shook his hands free and then sat rubbing the red grooves in the skin of his wrists. Ruby took a slug from the flask.

“Here,” said Ruby, offering it to him. He took it and drank, then gave it back.

“Tell me about alla this, P.J.,” said Ruby, gesturing with the point of her knife at the rows of computers.

“What about it?” he said with a shrug. “It’s a data center. Databases, account information, you know, for the Agency. We manage data for eight zones from right here. Me and three other guys in twelve-hour shifts. Personal records, tracking data, ration schedules, security stuff. It’s all here on these shitty computers.”

“Ya. We done broke into your computers, P.J.” She jabbed her thumb at Woolly. “That big fella over there—he done hacked you. ’Zat how ya say it? ‘Hacked’?”

P.J. nodded.

“Ya. Well, we’re downloadin’ what we come for, so you’re off the hook for that. But, listen.”

P.J. blinked nervously.

She tilted her head in my direction and said, “My friend here used to have a family. A son. Her and him—that was her whole family. But then they took him away. Your bosses. Now she needs to get some information off’a these computers to find out what they did with him. I want you to help her. Can you do that for me?”

“What if I don’t?”

Ruby rolled forward onto her knees and pinned P.J. into the corner. She held the knife to his throat. Her face was close to his.

“Then I’ll kill ya,” said Ruby. “And then I’ll go find any family ya got and kill them, too.”

P.J. held still, eyes wide.

Ruby held him there for a few long moments. Then she chuckled and said, “Relax.” She eased back onto her haunches. “I already toldja I wasn’t gonna hurt ya.” She folded the Buck knife and put it away. “But ya get the point, right? We all want to protect those we love, ya know?”

P.J. sighed and nodded sadly.

“We’re the good guys, P.J., honest. Them assholes you work for—they’re the bad guys. You know it’s true. I bet you’ve seen things. How they do. The hurt they cause. Haven’cha?”

He looked at the floor.

“If ya say you won’t help,” said Ruby, “we won’t hurt ya. But if you do help us, we won’t tell no one. You got that konk on your head. You can tell your boss we knocked you out and we was gone when you come to. I can even knock ya back out if you think that’d be better.”

“Thanks,” said P.J., running a palm over his pallid face. His eyes had begun to glisten with the alcohol.

Ruby held up her flask and P.J. nodded.

He took it from her and drained it.

“Chase,” said Ruby.

“Yeah, Boss?” said Chase over his shoulder.

“Come say hi to my new friend, P.J.”

Chase rose and joined us in the corner. He shook P.J.’s hand.

“Who do you report to, P.J.?”

“His name is Chandler.”

“We know him,” said Ruby, trading a nod with Chase. “He’s a class-A prick. A real role model for pricks everywhere.”

P.J. shrugged his agreement.

Chase spoke to P.J. of zone boundaries and security and chains of command. P.J. named Agency managers and supervisors. Ruby took notes on the back of P.J.’s maintenance schedule, scribbling with the nub of a pencil, but Chase and Ruby already knew much of what P.J. revealed.

I knew two or three Agency goons by name—Gary Gosford among them. Few Agency goons ever actually introduced themselves, and aside from a couple medical techs, I’d never even spoken to an actual officer of the Agency. Ruby seemed to know almost more than P.J.

After a half hour or so, Chase said he’d heard enough. He shook P.J.’s hand again and rejoined Woolly. Ruby stood stiffly and stretched her chubby legs.

“Nice talkin’ with ya, P.J.,” she said. She put out her hand and he shook it. She pocketed the papers but returned his other things. “Just sit tight.”

He nodded sleepily.

Ruby chucked me on the arm. “Keep him company, will ya? Tell him about your boy.”

“Okay.”

Ruby turned away and directed a procession of profane encouragement toward Woolly, presumably to make him work faster. Woolly stuck to his original time estimate of one hour, explaining in his placid and articulate way that he was unable to alter the way computers worked. I turned back to P.J.

“Was it you that hit me on the head?” he said, gingerly fingering the laceration. It had stopped bleeding, but it had swelled and turned purple. It looked painful.

“No,” I said. “I was holding the flashlight.”

P.J. nodded.

“So,” I said, searching for something to say, “how long you been a goon?”

He sighed. “I’m not a goon. And it’s not like I volunteered. When I came to, they told me what to do. I’ve been coming here since then. People from gen-pop call me a goon. To me, it’s my job. I have a family, too. A wife and a couple of sons.”

“My son got sick and the Agency took him away and wouldn’t tell me what happened. I haven’t seen him since.”

He swallowed. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

We sat there awhile.

“When was that?” he said.

“What? My son? Last month.”

“I could look him up for you,” he said.

“Could you?”

P.J. wetted his lips and looked around the room. Then he nodded. I pulled him to his feet and steadied him as he hopped to one of the workstations and knelt at the keyboard. Woolly rolled the office chair over and we set P.J. on the seat.

Ruby saw us and hustled over. “What’s going on? He helpin’ with the Arie situation?”

“He said he can look him up. Maybe we can find out what happened.”

Ruby beamed. “P.J., I knew you was all right. But no tricks.”

A wan smile showed on P.J.’s pale face as he typed. Chase came to my side. Woolly watched intently.

We stood there watching the monitor as P.J. entered a username and password. He pressed the Enter key, but nothing happened, and nothing kept happening for a minute or two.

“If this is a trick,” said Woolly, “we’re going to have a problem.”

“Is it not working?” I asked.

“P.J.,” said Ruby. “This better not be a trick.”

“No, it’s not that,” said P.J. “I’m logging into one of the central databases. It’s off-site. Our connections are really slow.”

“We’ve noticed,” said Woolly.

At last a new prompt appeared on the monitor, and we all leaned in to see.

“Okay,” said P.J. “How do you spell his name?”

I told him. He typed it.

There were another series of commands. P.J. typed almost as fast as Woolly. He hit the Enter key with an emphatic flourish.

“Okay. It’s searching. I don’t have privileges to access his full record, but I’m pretty sure it will show me his profile code. That’ll at least tell us where he’s at. If he’s anywhere, I mean. Sorry it’s so slow.”

“Woolly,” said Ruby, “you know about this profile thing?”

Woolly shook his head and nodded at the same time. “A little. It’s encoded into the chips,” he said, tapping his neck. “Right?”

“Yeah,” said P.J. “Everyone’s got a profile,” said P.J., turning in his seat and looking up at us. “It’s basically the Agency’s shorthand for a person. A summary. First four numbers are the zone you’re assigned to. Next is your illness status—whether or not you take the serum, your dosage, annual treatment date. Next is employment status, rations, living arrangements, things like that. There’s some other codes I’m not sure about. The last few numbers indicate your age.”

Woolly raised his eyebrows and nodded approvingly.

“Wool, you want some paper to write all this down?” I asked.

“Nah,” said Woolly. Then he tapped his temple and grinned. “I got it.”

After P.J. typed more commands, and we’d waited several minutes, Arie’s full name appeared, followed by the long string of numbers P.J. mentioned. Seeing his name that way—glowing green search results on a computer monitor—it almost made Arie alive again. My breath hitched, and I was suddenly as sure as I’d ever been that he must be alive.

“Okay,” said P.J. “This says he’s in zone 1891. Where was he when he was taken?”

“In that zone,” said Chase.

“Oh,” said P.J. “Okay, well, that’s no help, then. I wonder if he had a location account.”

“What’s that?” asked Woolly.

“You know we can track you using your ID chip, right?”

We all nodded.

“Right, well, it’s a passive system. It’s not real time or anything. The battery’s tiny and we couldn’t handle real-time tracking telemetry for every single person, anyway. So, most people never get tracked at all. Only people who are interesting in some way—usually people who are up to something.”

“So?” said Woolly.

“So, if one of the officers wants to track a user, we have to open a location account. Let’s see if Arie’s got one,” said P.J. He typed a few commands. “Yeah. He’s been tracked.”

“Show us,” said Woolly.

“Okay,” he said. “But only because I’m a little drunk. I could get in a shit-load of trouble for this.”

“We really appreciate it,” I said.

P.J. produced a spreadsheet on the monitor. Line after line of information, mostly numerical.

“Here you go. GPS coordinates, times. Looks like my bosses were really interested in your son.”

“Where are all these places?”

“No way to say for sure without a GPS system and a basemap, but I’m assuming this location is your house.” He pointed to a number on the monitor that appeared most often. “This one is probably the depot where you get supplies. Look at these, though. I’m not a cartographer, but these have got to be way outside your zone. This Arie guy really got around.”

I chewed my lip.

“I assume alla you guys are chip rippers?” asked P.J.

“That’s confidential,” said Ruby.

I wanted to ask him if I’d been tracked. Or rather, how much I’d been tracked. Gary told me he knew that my chip went dead. What else did he know about Arie and me?

“We’ve got to wrap this up,” said Chase, tapping his wrist. “It’s just about quitting time for P.J. here. His replacement will arrive in about an hour.”

“Oh, yeah,” said P.J. “Hey, I know you’re busy, but will you guys tie me up again before you take off?”

“Course we will, Peej,” said Ruby. “We’re all friends now.”

“Thanks.”

Woolly held up his memory stick. “I’ve got what I came for. I’m taking off.” He headed for the door.

“Al,” said Chase, “we oughta be going, too.”

“What else can you tell me about Arie?” I asked P.J. “Where is he now?”

P.J. toggled back to the previous display. “Let’s see. Says he’s taking the serum and his treatment date is January second. Sound right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“All right. Ration code is 105; subsistence level. That’s no help, either. Housing code—family of two, single dwelling?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Okay. Well, all that’s left is his age—oh.” His hand went to his mouth. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” I said. I bent forward to see. “Three zeros? What’s that mean?”

P.J. turned to me with a bleak expression. He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

But wouldn’t I know? Wouldn’t a mother know?

“Sorry, Al,” said Chase. He stepped away.

Ruby placed her hand on my neck. She pulled me into the folds of her coat, and I cried.

Sixteen

My knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel as we drove away from the data center.

“Al? You okay?” asked Chase.

“Of course I’m not okay,” I said.

Chase was quiet for a few minutes. Maybe he had nothing to say. Maybe he was trying to think of something. I didn’t care. All I could think about was the Agency and what they had done to Arie.

“I want you to find me a gun,” I said finally.

“What? Why?”

“What’s the difference? That’s what you do, right? Get things? Well, get me a gun.”

I pushed down on the gas pedal. The truck bounced across the rough surface of the hayfields.

“You said you don’t like violence. Guns are very violent, Alison. Do you even know how to shoot one?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

I stared straight ahead but without really seeing. I was on auto-pilot, but with an objective: justice for Arie.

“Listen,” said Chase, “I know you’re angry—”

“Angry? Angry doesn’t begin to describe it. They were following him. Why? What reason could they possibly have? And then he mysteriously gets sick? Goes missing? Then he dies? They can’t do this. I’ll take them out one by one if I have to.”

I was starting to realize that, on the one hand, Arie’s death was senseless, but in a way some parts of it actually made sense. All the attention Gary paid to us—was he involved? Did Arie discover something dangerous? Is that why he had an encoded journal?

“This is the grief talking, Al, not you. It’s totally understandable. Getting your hopes up, then finding out he really is gone—”

I pounded on the steering wheel. “He’s not gone! Arie is not dead! I know he’s not! They’ve taken him. They’ve taken my son.”

“Just tell me what you’re planning on doing with a gun.”

I started to cry. “I don’t know. I just—I have to do something.”

Chase put his hand on my shoulder, and I was mildly surprised that the tenderness in his touch actually had a sedating effect. My shoulders relaxed and my fingers loosened around the wheel.

“Alison,” he said, “I don’t know you very well, but I do know that you’re not a killer. We can figure this out. I’ll help you. But don’t let your anger make you blind. You’ll make a mistake and it’ll all be over for you, and then you’ll be in no position to help anyone.”

I breathed in ragged gulps of air to avoid crying uncontrollably.

“If your kid really is out there somewhere, he needs you to keep it together right now—not lose it.”

What he said was right, but my jaw clenched. What was I supposed to do with this rage? With this sense of complete helplessness?

“I wouldn’t be a good mother if I didn’t fight for my son.” I looked over at Chase. “Just get me a gun.”

Chase tromped along in front of me without speaking as we wound through the shadowy bowels of the haunted house. Ruby and Woolly had gotten back already and sat on benches at the table eating. I smelled the sour but homey scent of stewed cabbage.

Glen stood at a high table where he stirred a pot with a wooden spoon. “Come eat up,” he said.

Chase grabbed a bowl and Glen dished up some cabbage for him. Chase took a seat on the bench across from Woolly and tore a hunk from a loaf of dark, coarse bread.

I wasn’t hungry. Glen offered me a bowl, and I shook my head.

“How about a game?” Woolly asked Chase.

Chase nodded, but his expression was dark.

Woolly jammed his hand into the cargo pocket of his shorts and produced a miniature folding chess board with tiny magnetic chessmen.

They set up the board and Chase made an opening move. The two men noisily slurped up spoonfuls of the cabbage. I realized that many of the utensils there had been lifted from the fake scenes of terror in the haunted house. A beverage tankard shaped like a human skull, beakers and bowls from the mad scientist’s lab. When I came to the table, Woolly scooted over on the bench to make space.

“Are you doing okay?” Woolly asked me.

I hunched my shoulders and nodded.

Ruby plopped a bowl in front of me and it splashed onto the table.

“Eat,” she said. “You’re going to need your strength.”

I took a bite of cabbage. It was mostly flavorless and tepid, but it was comforting.

Gracie walked up to me holding a piece of paper and a broken crayon.

“I drew this for you,” she said. “So that you can remember.”

She handed me a paper with two stick figure drawings. Arie and me. To remember him. Arie would certainly approve. Without cameras, Gracie’s likenesses of Arie and I would have to do, and like all crayon portraits rendered by children, this one was not only oddly accurate but deeply affecting. I knew Arie was fond of Gracie. It would be impossible not to be. If only he could have gotten to know her better.

“I love it,” I told her. “Thank you.”

She smiled at me and I wrapped my arms around her. She squeezed me around the middle. Then I saw that she had lost a tooth.

That’s how things are with kids, I thought. They’re always changing and progressing. Even when we’re not ready for it. They’re always moving on—even when we don’t want that, when we want them to stop and wait for us to catch up. Gracie sat beside me and rested her head on my arm. We watched Woolly and Chase play their game.

I suddenly thought of how she’d been watching our house and something occurred to me.

“Gracie,” I said. “Remember how you used to hide in my backyard? And Arie would bring you food?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever see anyone else around there? Anyone hiding or following Arie?”

She looked at Ruby.

“S’alright, kiddo. You can tell Al.”

Gracie swallowed and nodded again.

“Who was it? Agency men?”

She nodded again.

“Do you know who they were? Or what they wanted?”

“No,” she said so quietly I almost couldn’t hear her. She turned away from me. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She walked away and lay down on the pallet bed in the corner of the room.

Ruby shook her head. “I think they did something to her. You know? We found her half-starved and scared to death that we’d take her to the Agency.” She scowled.

“Check,” said Woolly.

Chase frowned and moved his king.

“So, what are we up to, anyway?” I asked. “The stealing, the hacking, the secret plans.”

“Guess you oughta know everything”—Ruby tapped her neck to indicate where her chip used to be—“now that you’re really one of us.”

“Check,” said Woolly again.

“Dammit,” muttered Chase.

“We don’t think it’s like this everywhere,” said Ruby. “The way we are. We got no memories. We’re barely surviving. It can’t be like this everywhere, and if it is, it shouldn’t be. Know what I’m saying?”

I’d thought about this a lot—before I’d ever met Ruby, I’d wondered. Arie had, too. The Agency told us staying healthy was a matter of containment, quarantine. There was suspicion, of course. I was dubious about everything, almost from the moment I woke up in the infirmary, and so were a lot of people. But there was no TV, no Internet, and few utilities. We could talk to one another, but there was no way to trust anything we heard, no way to know what was going on even fifty miles away, let alone out in the rest of the world. The fences and patrols kept us penned up like sheep, but it was the lack of information that really isolated us.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Of course. But how can we know? How can we establish what’s really going on? Or what really happened?”

“Those are the questions we’re working on,” Ruby said, squinting one eye and jabbing her chubby finger at me.

“Something happened,” Chase said glumly. “I’ve seen the graves.”

“It’s safe to assume there was a global pandemic,” Woolly said. “The evidence is there. It’s in newspapers and recordings that pre-date Year One. It’s the memory effects of the serum, obviously, that are suspect.”

“So, what do we do?”

“Figure it out, Al,” said Woolly. “Start from the assumption that the pandemic was real, and that the need for the serum is real, but the memory effects are unnecessary.”

I thought about it. “Well,” I said, “We need to find a way to keep our memories or get them back. Because if we keep losing our memories, we just stay in the dark.”

“Correct,” said Woolly. “But we also need the serum. And if we’re assuming that the supposed memory-erasing effects of the serum are simply a measure to control us, to keep us in the dark, as you say, then it’s not the serum we’re afraid of, is it? What we have to worry about is—” he trailed off and held up his hand to let me finish the thought.

“What we have to worry about is taking the serum from them,” I said. “It’s not the serum. It’s something else. It’s a treatment or drug they add in or give us at the same time.”

“Check,” said Woolly.

Chase bonked the table with his fist. “Dammit!” He moved his king again.

“So,” I said, “we steal the serum before they put in the memory-erasing part.”

Woolly nodded.

“And we give it to ourselves,” I said.

Woolly moved his queen across the board. “Checkmate.”

Chase tossed his spoon into his empty bowl, then got up to get more cabbage.

“So, that’s why we broke into the computer room?” I asked. “To find out if this is all true?”

“Yes,” said Woolly, taking a bite of the dark bread. “Or, more accurately, to find out where the serum is stored so that we can steal it and test our hypothesis.”

“But,” said Woolly

“But what?” Chase said.

“My computer bit the dust today,” said Woolly. “Power surge or something. Or it overheated. The mo-bo melted like a s’more.”

“Toldja you should have lifted a couple from the data center,” said Chase.

“Yeah,” said Woolly with an exasperated sigh. “You mentioned that. I can build another one.”

“With what? You got no parts. You got no source for parts. You got no source for a source for parts.”

“I’m gonna check with that old guy out by the bridge who fixes radios.”

Chase laughed. “Nope. I’ve checked. He doesn’t know a hard drive from a hole in the ground.”

“I’ve got computers,” I said.

“I’ll just have to keep looking,” said Woolly.

“Better look faster,” said Chase, tapping his wrist. “Tick-tock.”

“Hey,” I said, my voice raised. “Guys. I’ve got hard drives.”

They looked at me as if they’d forgotten I was there.

“My son collected them. Computers, cables, adapters. Lots of hard drives. Piles of computer parts.”

Woolly raised one eyebrow, as if I’d just said something suggestive. “When you say, ‘lots of hard drives’—”

“I mean boxes of hard drives,” I said. “Some are new, haven’t even been used. Dozens, maybe. All kinds of parts.”

Chase grimaced. “No wonder I could never find any.”

“This is the last piece of a big old puzzle,” said Ruby. She leaned forward and squeezed my arm. “Wool’s finally got the files. If he can get his computer back up and runnin’, we can really make some head-way. Then we can find out what happened to Arie.”

“So, this will really work?” I asked. “We’ll keep our memories—and not get sick?”

Ruby grinned. “That’s the idea.”

“And what if they catch us?” I asked.

Chase was scrutinizing the little chessboard and his humiliated king. “Checkmate,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Woolly. “So, let’s not let it get to that point. Let’s go computer shopping. Alison, you driving?”

“Wait till dusk,” said Ruby holding up a cautionary finger. “Don’t attract any attention.”

“There’s just one thing,” I said.

“What is it?” Ruby asked.

“I want a gun,” I said.

Chase frowned at me. “That’s not a good idea. Ruby, you know it’s not.”

“What’re you wanting a gun for?” Ruby asked.

“I just do.”

Chase shook his head slowly. Ruby just chuckled.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The truck was a big mistake after all. The people in my zone were accustomed to seeing Agency patrol vehicles, and maybe the occasional gas-powered scooter, but not loud, fully-functioning pickup trucks. Automobiles were not illegal, but they were quite rare. From behind their curtains and blinds, my neighbors peeked out as the Tacoma rumbled conspicuously through the streets, weaving past the debris and the hulks of abandoned cars. Woolly stood in the truck bed bracing himself on the roll bar.

By the time we reached my street, people were stepping out onto their porches to watch. Woolly waved at them like some humongous pageant queen on a parade float.

“Gosh, this is how rumors start,” I moaned, slouching in the seat as low as I could.

“You didn’t tell me you lived in the burbs,” said Chase, waving at a little boy who ran alongside us. “Don’t these rubes have anything better to do?”

“We’re driving through their yards,” I said.

“They’re gonna think we’re newly married.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Chase laughed. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

I parked in the driveway of my house. It was the first time I’d seen a car of any kind there.

Woolly began to climb down out of the bed. At least twenty people gathered on the perimeter of my yard.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Chase said, heading to the front door. “We’re attracting attention.” He waved at the people. They waved back.

“You think?” I said. I prayed Gary wasn’t inside waiting for me. I went to the door and unlocked it.

“Anyone here?” I called as I opened the door.

“Who are you talking to?” Chase asked.

“No one,” I said.

“Then why’d you ask if anyone was here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Habit?”

He narrowed his eyes.

Woolly clapped his big meaty hands and then rubbed them together. “Al? Where’s the stuff?”

“In the den past the kitchen. I’ll show you.”

“No need,” he said, and with that he pulled a flashlight from the pocket of his denim shorts and clicked it on. Then he scooched his bulky frame around us and continued into the dark of the den. Chase gave me a questioning look but then followed after Woolly.

Just a few seconds later, the beam of Woolly’s flashlight came wobbling back into the living room, followed by Woolly himself carrying a huge plastic tote of Arie’s computer parts.

“I’ll be back,” he said as he passed by.

Chase was close behind with a second load. He nodded his head and went out, and soon they came back for more. I stood there in the living room and thought about Arie’s collection and how long it had taken to assemble. I wondered to myself what he’d think about Chase and Ruby and Woolly. I was at least happy the computers and adapters and other electronics would not sit in this empty house and be covered over with dust—it was good to know they might help us out after all.

When Chase and Woolly had made several trips apiece, Woolly came into the house and stood in front of me. He had a contented smile on his face and he bowed at the waist.

“Once again,” he said, “you have bailed us out of a very tight situation, Al. My thanks to you and your son. Shall we?” He gestured at the door as if inviting me to dance.

The evening air was cool—fresh and alive. As I started up the Toyota, I felt fresh, too. And alive. Maybe it was again that inextinguishable optimism of Ruby and her little team. Maybe it was having friends in the house where Arie and I had lived. It definitely had to do with the prospect of not losing our memories anymore—the thought of that was like the thought of salvation. Only the hope of seeing Arie again was brighter to me, and as we drove out of my neighborhood under the strange and fascinated gazes of my neighbors, I was sure that with Ruby’s help, I was going to find out what happened to my son.

Even if I had to kill to find out.

Even if it killed me.

Seventeen

Woolly went to work with the computer cases and parts the moment we got back. He unfastened the screws on the back of one of Arie’s old computers and began pulling out circuit boards and cables as if he were cleaning the innards of some animal. Then he cracked open another of the cases. He examined each component before sorting it, nodding or shaking his head as to their usefulness.

We stood around him for a while, watching, thinking maybe it would take him only a few minutes or an hour. Soon he looked up at us.

“What?” he said. “What are you waiting for? Leave me alone. This is gonna take me some time.”

We wandered off. I sat down on the worn-out old sofa in the far corner of the room. The armrests were frowzy, and on the cushions were overlapping stains in disturbing shades. I idly thumbed a book I found nearby. Chase sat at the table and opened a wooden chess set, arranging the pieces into various positions. As I watched him, I began to nod off to the sound of beeps and the whir of computer fans and Woolly’s grunted curses.

Sometime early in the morning I awoke to a shout of success. I opened my eyes just as Woolly spun around in his computer chair with a wide grin on his face.

“I’ve got a location. Wake up, kids. It’s time to plan.” His face was puffy with the lack of a night’s sleep, but his eyes twinkled. He winked at me and then spun around to face his monitor.

Chase’s face was tucked into the crook of his elbow on the table where he’d likewise fallen asleep. His face was crisscrossed with lines left from the wrinkles in his shirt sleeve. He smiled weakly and nodded his approval.

Ruby stirred from a chair she had settled into. She struggled to stand and limped over to Woolly.

“How far?” Chase asked, his voice froggy with fatigue.

“Two hours. Give or take,” Woolly said. “A chemical refinery, a great big compound up in North Richmond. We’re looking for warehouse 8234-C.”

“Think it’ll be guarded?” Ruby asked.

“Definitely,” said Chase.

Gracie had woken up, too. She climbed onto Woolly’s lap, sleepily wrapping her arms around his giant neck and burying her face in his chest. He shifted her gently so that he could reach the keyboard.

“It’s a pretty big site,” he said, zooming and panning over an aerial map displayed on his monitor.

Yawning and stretching, we gathered around him to see better.

“Several buildings,” he said, pointing. “Entrance here. Checkpoint here. That’s where the guards’ll be. Warehouse is over here.” He scrolled the map to one side.

I looked at Ruby. She clasped her hands together and rubbed them vigorously.

“Today’s the day, kids,” she said. “Today is the day.”

Woolly nodded and patted Gracie’s back.

Ruby sharply clapped her hands, once, and then started barking orders.

“Somebody get Glen and that little fart Carlos over here. Chase, you find them maps we swiped a while back.”

Gracie scampered over to Ruby and said, “What can I do?”

“Gosh, I dunno, Gracie. Oh, I know—see if you can find us something to eat.”

I waited for her to give me something to do, but she seemed to have forgotten me. But then I caught her eye.

She grinned at me with a sort of larcenous squint, then said, “Ah and you. I got something special for you. Come on over here, Al.”

She motioned me over to a battered ammo box. From inside it she produced a bundle of oily cloth. She unwrapped it to reveal a small revolver.

“Got you a gun,” she said. “Here. Hold out your hand.”

I did, and she gave me a box with a handful of bullets inside.

“Let’s go outside,” she said, “and I’ll teach you to use it.”

The winter sun was just rising, and the air was brisk. Ruby seemed to have a kind of pride or satisfaction in having gotten me the gun.

“Now, we can’t practice as much as we need to on account of not having many bullets and we don’t wanna attract all kindsa attention, but let’s take a few shots.”

She pressed a button or tab with her thumb and the cylinder fell open. I held out the small box, and she removed six bullets.

“See here?” said Ruby. “These holes? They go in like that.”

One by one she dropped the bullets into the cylinder. I watched carefully, but her hands moved so quickly.

“Then ya slap it shut.”

She tilted the pistol with a smooth motion and the cylinder fell into place with a neat click.

Before she handed it to me, she said, “First rule is you never point it at no one unless you’re ready to kill.”

Later that day, when everyone had arrived, we circled around the computer.

“We’ll come in right here,” said Ruby, pointing at Woolly’s monitor. “Woolly says the serum’s in here. We don’t know where at exactly, but we’ll figure that out. Grab as much as you can, along with anything else that looks useful. But don’t hang around too long. We gotta haul ass on outta there.”

“Goons? Guards? How many?” asked Carlos.

“There’s bound to be some security,” said Chase. “But it’s such a remote facility we’re counting on just a few goons—no Agency troops or vehicles.”

It was already getting dark as Ruby outlined the rest of the plan. Once again, we’d ride out before dawn. I was the only one who could drive a stick and Chase was best with a gun, so he would ride with me in the truck. The rest—Glen, Carlos, Ruby, and Woolly—would ride in the only other vehicle they had, a beat-up old Ford Taurus that used to be a police car. The decals and markings had been removed, but you could see the outline of stripes and lettering on the hood and fenders if you looked at it from the right angle. The holes on the roof where the lights had been were filled in with putty. The old Taurus still had its spotlight though, and Ruby said the car had “great get-up-and-go.”

“All right,” said Ruby. “That’s the plan.” Then she added, “Any questions?” but she didn’t wait for us to ask any. “Good. Let’s get a few hours of shut-eye and then head on out.”

Eighteen

We stretched and yawned in the darkness, but there was the crackle of anticipation in the dry, chilly air. I stood in the doorway at the back of the haunted house as I watched the others double-check their equipment and murmur last-minute contingencies. Chase and Carlos divvied up their meager stockpile of ammunition. Woolly had a collection of pry-bars, bolt cutters, and sledgehammers in a large canvas tool bag. It clanked heavily as he heaved it into the trunk of the Taurus. At the front of the car, Ruby and Glen had the hood propped up and were checking the clamps on a makeshift hose repair Glen had made.

“Where are the keys?” said Ruby.

Glen held them up and jangled them. “I’ll drive,” he said as he slammed the hood closed.

“My ass,” said Ruby. “Gimme them.”

As we made ready to leave, I said, “Hey. What about Gracie?”

“What about her?” Ruby asked.

“Who’ll watch her while we’re gone?”

“Oh, she’ll be fine,” said Ruby.

I laughed incredulously. “You’ve got this place wired with explosives. You can’t just leave her here.”

Gracie had been sitting forlornly in the dark anteroom of the haunted house as we got ready to go. She was petting a toy stuffed lamb as though it were a cat or puppy. There was water and food in the haunted house, enough to last for several weeks, probably. And there were beds. Gracie seemed consigned to stay there by herself, but she looked up when she heard us talking about her.

“I can come?” she asked, her back straight.

“Hell no, you can’t come,” Ruby barked. “Al, if you think we’re going to bring her with us, you’ve lost your mind. This is gonna be dangerous.”

“I don’t think we should bring her along,” I said. “I’m just saying we can’t leave her here alone.”

“She’s taken care of herself almost this whole year,” said Carlos. “She ain’t no regular kid.”

“But she is a kid,” I said. Maybe it was the way Arie had taken care of her that made me feel responsible. Or maybe it was motherly instincts. “Don’t we have anyone else that can watch her?”

“Lemme come with you!” Gracie said. “I’ll be quiet. And won’t get in the way. I promise.”

“Ain’t enough room in the car, kid,” Glen snapped. “Not with Woolly and Carlos and alla them guns in back.”

“No, I already called shotgun,” said Woolly.

“I told you, jeffe,” Carlos objected. “You gotta be outside to call shotgun. You can’t just call it two days before—”

“Oh, would you two knock it off,” snarled Ruby.

“Maybe someone could stay with her,” I suggested.

“No way,” Ruby said. “We need all the help we can get.”

“Then what if she rode with me and Chase until we get close to the compound?” I suggested. “We could drop her off somewhere and pick her up on the way back. She’d only be alone while we’re at the warehouse. We’re not going to be in there long, right?”

“The place’ll be guarded, Al,” Ruby said. “There’ll be guns.”

“But only a couple guards, right? Isn’t that what you said, Chase?”

“Well, I think so, but I don’t know for sure,” Chase answered. “Could be one, could be dozens.”

“We could give her a radio,” I said. “Leave her with some snacks? I don’t know. I just hate the thought of her being alone so long.”

Ruby and Chase exchanged glances.

“I really think she’d be fine here,” said Ruby. “But if yer gonna keep yapping about it and keepin’ us from leavin’, then I guess we can bring her along. But you’re responsible for her.”

“Hear that, Gracie? Let’s go!”

Gracie jumped up and clapped her hands together, then ran into my arms.

When we got outside and unlocked the truck, Chase shook his head and said, “You are nothing but trouble.”

“I don’t think she’ll be a problem,” I said.

“I wasn’t talking about her,” he replied.

“Oh,” I said, “in that case I agree with you.”

Chase regarded Gracie warily as she climbed into the passenger-side jump-seat of the cab. I tightened my ponytail and started the truck.

We drove out of Thrill Harbor and along a back road. We kept our headlights off, driving slowly. Ruby and the others followed us in the Taurus. Chase gave me directions, and he relayed them to Ruby using the walkie-talkie.

The drive was tedious, down narrow dirt roads and over the grown wild farm fields blanketed thinly with the remaining snow. We wound through the quiet, motionless traffic jams of the paved highways. Some of the time we drove with the running lights on and sometimes with no lights. Gracie lay curled up in the jumpseat and was asleep most of the time.

It took us more than two hours to drive just forty miles. The sky had just begun to turn pink when we closed in on the North Richmond industrial park.

“Okay,” said Chase. “In a half mile or so we’re gonna hit an intersection. There’s a ranch house there. We’ll drop off Gracie.”

“Gracie?” I said. “Wake up, sweetie.”

Chase keyed his walkie-talkie and said, “We’re stopping.”

Gracie looked so pathetic there in the front yard of the dilapidated ranch house. She wore a heavy winter coat and boots, and her hair was wild. My heart broke a little, and I began to doubt my idea of bringing her along instead of leaving her in the relative safety of the haunted house. We left her with a blanket, a jug of water, and a few wild apples.

“Go on in the house, Gracie,” I said, trying to sound like everything was fine. “You can watch through the window. We’ll be back soon.”

Gracie turned to the house but then shook her head. “It’s too scary.”

I had to chuckle a little at that, considering she’d been living for several weeks in the haunted house of a derelict amusement park.

“It will be light soon,” I told her. “Will you go in then?”

“Okay,” she said.

Ruby waved goodbye, and she and the others in the Taurus drove off, planning to circle around and approach the warehouse complex from the far side.

I got back into the truck, but stayed still watching Gracie for a few moments trying to build up the courage to leave her.

Chase rolled his eyes and said, “Jeeze, quit it, wouldja? She’ll be fine. She’s a tough little runt.”

I sighed and started the truck. We drove for a few miles. It was getting light.

“There’s a road up here a couple miles,” said Chase. “It turns off to the right. You’ll see the complex of buildings. There’ll be a chain-link fence around it.”

We came to the road and I turned.

“Okay. This is it. In a couple miles, you’ll see the fence. I’m gonna need you to drive through it.”

“What do you mean ‘drive through it’?”

“I mean drive through the fence.”

“Really?”

“Really. You’ll need to be going faster, though.”

I gave it some gas.

“Faster,” said Chase.

“How much faster?”

“Fifty. Sixty.”

“We won’t crash?”

“That’s up to you,” he said, without taking his eyes from the road ahead. “When we get through the fence, you’ll see a little building kinda off by itself. That’s where we’re going. Stop right by the door. As soon as we’re through the fence, put on the brakes. Not too hard, though.”

I looked over at him. He gave me a sly smile. Then he reclined his seat and put one foot up on the glove box.

The speedometer read sixty when I saw the compound. It was some kind of processing facility, like a cannery. There was an old factory and a series of warehouses. It was coming up fast.

“See the gate?” said Chase. “That’s where we’ll go through.” He’d slouched back in the seat with his arm draped over his knee, as if we were on a summer road trip.

“I don’t think I—”

“Don’t think, Al,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Just go on through.” He stole a glimpse of the speedometer. “And don’t slow down.”

I pressed the gas pedal.

Chase put his seat back upright and from under his coat he removed a pistol. Not like Ruby’s or mine. It was in better shape, well cared for. He let the cylinder fall open, eyed the chambers, and slapped the cylinder home again. Then he got out his radio.

“This is Mountain Lion,” he said. “We’re here.”

The Tacoma thundered down the road, throwing up bits of asphalt and debris.

“Don't slow down,” said Chase. He didn’t shout it at me. He didn’t seem excited or panicked, nor did he act as if anything particularly unusual was happening.

With my face frozen in a test-pilot grimace and my arms locked out straight, we rammed the gate. There was a heart-shaking crash, the chain link fabric made a high ringing sound with the impact, and we were jolted forward into our seat belts with the deceleration. The side windows of the truck shattered as the fencing wrapped around the truck, sending crumbs of safety glass flying like sea spray. The clattering chain-link gate clung to the hood and fenders like some destroyed animal, and there was a deep thudding as the gate posts were wrenched from the ground like great steel carrots.

We rocketed into the compound.

“Brakes,” said Chase. “Brakes!”

I stomped the brake, and we were pitched forward once more. I felt sure that the truck bed would flip up behind and over top of us. Chase braced himself hard on the dash with one hand and held up his pistol in the other as the truck swerved sideways into a juttering skid.

From somewhere in my mind came the impulse to steer into the skid and so we swerved in that direction, and I somehow avoided over-correcting.

“This building,” cried Chase, signaling desperately, but by then we were almost past it. “Stop stop stop!”

I stood on the brake pedal, pulling myself up on the steering wheel so that my butt came out of the seat. The wheels locked up, and the tires made a rough howling as we shuddered to a stop.

“Stay right here!” he shouted. “Stay put!”

The passenger door had flown open before we came to rest and Chase was gone from his seat before I managed to look over. I suddenly felt very concerned for him and I craned around inside the truck to see where he’d gone.

It was a small brick building with floor-to-roof windows on all four sides—a dispatch office of some kind—and I’d overshot it by a hundred feet or so. Chase sprinted toward it. He flung open the door and went in, and through the windows I saw a struggle. I thought I heard shouting, and then there was gunfire.

The truck had stalled when we’d skidded to a stop, and it took a few tries to get it started again, but when I did, I u-turned to better see what was happening. Inside the office, two people had taken hold of Chase. They held him by the arms. A third trained an assault rifle on him. Through the glare of the morning sun on the window, I thought I saw Chase look my way.

I’d only known him for a short time, and so far, I wasn’t too impressed. He was rude and self-important and reckless. But as I sat in the cab of the Tacoma, with the rubble of broken auto glass in my lap and the steering wheel gripped tight in my bloodless fists, I knew I had to help him. Whether it was because I wanted to find Arie or because I cared for these people, something reflexive and maternal ignited inside me.

I slammed the truck into gear, stomped on the accelerator, and the let the clutch pop out. The rear tires chirped on the pavement and I aimed directly at the building as the little truck surged forward. With a little over a hundred feet before impact, I got it up to only about thirty miles an hour, but that was enough to elicit terrified sideways expressions from everyone inside the building, including Chase.

The two who were holding him jumped out of the way, and Chase did, too, but the other man turned in my direction and pointed the rifle at me. I saw pale orange flashes as he fired at me, but the nose of the Tacoma came blasting through the tall window, and I hit him square-on. The rifle flew away spinning, and the man was tossed like a limp doll through the window on the far side of the small office. He landed on the pavement outside, where he squirmed in pain among the glittering shards of window.

Much of the brick front of the building was pushed into the office space, and half of the ceiling collapsed. I jumped from the truck, pulling the gun Ruby had given me from my waistband. I stepped through the dusty bricks and glass and into the ruined office. Dust still hung in the air, and pieces of the ceiling and roof were still falling. Chase rose up in the debris and turned to me. He was coated with chalky dust and particles of glass. His eyes were wide and wild and incredulous.

The other two men had their hands up, and they struggled to their feet.

I waded swiftly through the rubble to the goon nearest to me, pointed the gun directly at his face, and shouted, “Where’s Arie? Where’s my son, you sons of bitches?”

The two men glanced at each other. I clicked the safety off the gun.

“Answer me!” Rage and anger bubbled up inside of me, ready to overflow.

“Alison.” Chase had raised his hands as well. “They don’t know. They don’t know what you’re talking about. Okay? That’s not why we’re here right now.”

“It’s why I’m here.” I didn’t take my eyes off them. “I want to know why they were following him, and I want to know what they did to him. And I want to know right now.”

There was an animal growl in my voice. I almost thought someone else was speaking—it surprised me. Something was surging inside me that wouldn’t recede. I knew these men weren’t responsible, but at the moment I didn’t care. They had to know something. I had to start somewhere. And weren’t they a part of it? The Agency? Voluntarily or not. They were the ones who stole my son from me.

And then it happened. One of the men laughed.

It was just a chuckle, but then he got a dopey grin on his face and he couldn’t control it. Then the other man started laughing, too.

“Why are you laughing at me?” I shouted.

“Alison stop,” Chase yelled.

But it was too late. My finger was already pulling the trigger.

I missed my target by several feet. The bullet went through the wall, but one of them fainted. The other man stayed frozen with his hands in the air. He stopped laughing.

“Oh, my God,” I cried. I dropped the gun and collapsed to the floor. All the anger that had erupted within me suddenly changed to sorrow.

Chase scrambled from the dust to zip-tie the hands of both guards. I sat down and cried.

After Chase finished with the men, he wrapped his arms around me.

“I just want Arie back,” I said.

“I know,” Chase said. He stood up and began collecting the assault rifles that lay strewn in the chaos.

Woolly came running toward the building, flanked by Carlos with his hunting rifle. Woolly stepped into the building over the demolished window sill and surveyed the destruction.

“Interesting approach,” he said, stroking his beard. He looked over at Chase and me on the ground. “What happened?”

Chase frowned and gestured vaguely at me, as if that were all the explanation the scene required. He laid the rifles into the bed of the truck and then shook the glass and plaster dust from his hair.

There was only one computer in the office. It lay beneath an overturned desk half-pinned by the bumper of the truck.

Chase told me to get in the truck and rest, and so I sat sheepishly in the driver’s seat as the others set to work.

Chase questioned the guards while Woolly worked to extract the computer from the wreckage. He did his best to dust off the monitor and find a level place to turn it on, finally setting it on the fender of the truck. He got it plugged in and powered up, then sat on a chair with the keyboard in his lap, staring up at the monitor, which had numerous cracks running through it. It flickered and displayed crazy sprays of color. Only a few small shards of it actually worked properly.

Nevertheless, within five or ten minutes, Woolly announced, “I got it. The manifest for 8234-C. I think I can find the serum.”

Ruby appeared, accompanied by Glen. They were winded and red-faced.

“We checked the north end,” puffed Ruby, putting her pistol away. “No one else around.”

“Yeah,” said Chase. “These chumps say they’re the only ones here, and they won’t be rotated out for a couple days. We’re safe, I think.”

“Everyone okay?” asked Ruby.

Chase nodded.

Ruby glanced at me through the truck window—my red eyes and puffy face—but said nothing.

“Did someone cut the phone line?” she asked.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Chase said. “We arrived quite suddenly.”

“Good,” she said. “We know where we’re going yet?”

“Yeah,” said Chase. “I think so. We might all be leaving in the Taurus, though, if that truck won’t start.”

Ruby assessed the Tacoma. Its grill was veiled in a web of twisted chain link. The crumpled hood was buried in plaster and mortar dust, and a wisp of steam rose from the radiator. A galvanized fence post lay uprooted and bent and dangling from one fender, and the pebbles of pulverized safety glass rattled around in the cab like sparkling popcorn. The windshield was crazed with silvery cracks, and the driver’s-side door would no longer open.

“Well, Alison,” said Ruby. “Will it go?”

I turned the key, and the engine roared instantly to life.

Chase rolled his eyes. Carlos and Woolly looked at one another and nodded.

Ruby flashed a grin and said, “Let’s go shopping.”

Glen cut the lock to the warehouse and everyone but me scattered inside. Woolly rushed back to the truck with a crate labeled MEDICAL SUPPLIES. The others loaded up more—food, clothing, and other supplies and equipment they’d found. In fifteen minutes, the truck bed was full. Ruby tapped the hood of the truck. “Get her home, Al.”

Chase was quiet as we drove back to the ranch house to pick up Gracie. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t killed anyone, but I’d tried. Ruby had said to never point the gun at someone unless I was ready to kill. And I’d been ready to kill. It scared me. Even though I’d asked for the gun, until that moment, I didn’t know I could actually be capable of killing someone. Especially that way—someone defenseless, maybe even innocent. It more than scared me; it terrified me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “For back there.”

He wouldn’t look at me. “You could’ve killed someone, Al.”

“I know. I know. I just—”

“You just let your emotions get in the way of your brain, is what you did.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I did.”

Chase looked out the passenger side window. “You’re outta the team. I’m telling Ruby to take you off.”

“No, Chase, please. I’m sorry.”

“You know this whole time you’ve only ever thought about yourself. You realize that? All the rest of us are out there risking our necks trying to make life better for everyone, and you’re out there putting us all at risk just to get some revenge.”

“That’s not it,” I protested. “It just—hurts so much, Chase. Please. I’ve learned my lesson. I was wrong.”

“You have? What lesson is that?”

I recalled that moment when Chase sprinted to the office, and how I tried to protect him and how I would for any of the others on the team. It wasn’t all selfishness. It really wasn’t.

“That I’ve been going about it the wrong way. I’m not going to be able to find out what happened to Arie with a loaded gun. I’m going to have to plan it out and work with the rest of you. I need the team to get what I want, but I want to help the team get what we all need, too. I promise.”

Chase scoffed. “You just don’t get it, Alison. Your broken heart doesn’t give you license to do whatever you want. You’re not the only one who’s ever been hurt.”

I heard something in his voice. A vulnerability. A longing.

“You lost someone, didn’t you?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

“You didn’t lose somebody?”

“I did.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“You’ve forgotten them already?”

“No.” He waved his hand. “It was before the new year. Maybe a long time before.”

“You remember something from before? How?”

“Al, no. It’s not that. I don’t remember them. I feel them. I miss them. I don’t know who I lost but I know they’re gone.”

His words struck me inside and rang like a massive, brooding bell. It was a deep, mental chime that resonated.

“You ever feel like someone’s missing?” he asked. “Someone you can’t recall, but someone you know is gone?” He finally glanced over.

It took a while for me to answer. I was worried that my voice might crack.

“Yes.”

Nineteen

As we drove up to the old ranch house, I keyed the mic of the walkie-talkie.

“Little Lamb,” I said. “This is Toyota Girl and Mountain Lion. Can you hear us?”

There was no response at first. I got ready to transmit again, but then we heard Gracie’s tiny voice. “Hi,” she said.

Chase chuckled and looked over at me.

“Hi, Gracie,” I said. “I mean—hi, Little Lamb. We’re coming to get you, okay? See us coming?”

“Yeah,” she said. Then she keyed the walkie-talkie again and added, “I’m bored. And hungry.”

“Okay, sweetie,” I said. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. Sit tight.”

She apparently had not gone into the house, but she was smiling when we pulled up. Chase smiled, too, and I was glad. I was still smothering under a cloud of regret and embarrassment, but it seemed to dissipate a little when we saw her stand and wave to us. Chase waved back.

Then, Chase and I climbed down from the cab and went straight to Gracie. She had delicate features and such tiny teeth—she reminded me of a kitten. You couldn’t help but smile when she was around. No wonder Arie liked her. On the patch of ground where we’d left her, Gracie had constructed a small village of pebbles and twigs and grass. In another place, she’d used a stick to scratch tic-tac-toe games into a flat spot of dirt. All of the games had ended in cats’ games.

“Let’s get going, little girl,” Chase called.

Gracie bounded into the truck and scrambled into the jump seat. Chase and I got in and buckled our belts.

“Why were you gone such a long time?” said Gracie.

Chase shook his head. “Hard to say.”

Before I started the truck, I paused for a few moments. The way we were seated. Chase and I up front and Gracie behind—it felt so comfortable, so correct. I thought of how nice it would be to just drive, the three of us—just drive with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Maybe go to a beach or somewhere warm.

I glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw that Gracie’s eyes were already closed, her arms wrapped around her lamb.

I began driving, but steered carefully so that I wouldn’t disturb Gracie. She was so little. It was hard to imagine that she’d been surviving on her own for a year. And what had she done before that? I didn’t remember our world from before, but I knew it had existed and I longed for it.

The drive back to Thrill Harbor took us through a small canyon. I steered onto the left-hand fork and the road took us higher, banking up and around a gentle curve. The sun was high in the sky now, and I squinted as it glared in through the windshield, which was hazy with grime and lined with silvery cracks.

The roads there in the foothills had been mostly devoid of cars; it was the highways and the closely packed residential streets in town where the failed evacuations had trapped so many vehicles, which now sat in impotent ruin on their rotting tires. That’s why I immediately took notice when we rounded the broad bend and a massive black vehicle came into view just a few hundred yards ahead of us.

I stood on the brakes.

We flew forward hard, catching in the shoulder belts.

“Al, a little warning, jeeze” said Chase, rebounding into his seat.

He followed my gaze and saw it, too: an Agency troop carrier.

“Back up, back up, back up,” Chase ordered, his hands flat on the dash.

“I know, I know,” I said fumbling with the gear shift.

Gracie began to cry.

We’d come up on the troop carrier from behind; it was traveling in the same direction and it kept going, but I knew only one backward look by one Agency soldier was all it’d take for them to spot us.

I rammed the shift lever into reverse and got the Toyota backing up, and I turned in my seat to see out of the rear window of the cab. Chase watched out the front window, then behind, then front again. I caught sight of Gracie—her eyes were wide, her little mouth open.

The Agency vehicle disappeared around the bend and over the hill, but I kept backing up for another hundred yards.

“I’ve never seen a mounted patrol this far outside the boundaries,” said Chase. “Must be something going on. Must be looking for something.”

In the rear-view mirror another angular and hulking form caught my eye. Another black troop carrier, this one coming up from behind.

“Us,” I said, jamming in the clutch and putting the truck in first gear. “They’re looking for us.”

Gracie was crying steadily, her arms over her face and eyes.

Twenty

Chase shouted a series of crazed driving directions laced with more profanity than I’d expect even from him. He pointed, swiveled in his seat, looking forward and then back. He shouted some more. I floored the gas pedal, and we raced back up the road, but then there was a new series of curses—from both of us, this time—when we realized the two Agency vehicles were converging on us.

“Off the road! Off the road!” hollered Chase. More cursing. More pointing and waving.

“Stop screaming at me!” I shouted back at him. “I can’t drive while you’re screaming.”

“Get off this goddamn road!”

“And stop swearing at me!”

Chase bit down hard on his lip and held up a hand in an apparent apology. He looked behind us. Gracie shrunk down in her seat.

“Should I just stop?” I asked.

“No!” Gracie shouted.

“They’ve seen us,” Chase said through bared teeth. “There is no place we can go but off the road.”

“Where do I go?”

“There! There!” he blurted, pointing. “Off the road and down the hill.”

I veered sharply left and the Toyota’s suspension squawked noisily as we dropped off the highway and began to cross a down-sloping checkerboard of overgrown vacant lots. The grass was higher than the hood, and it hissed against the fenders. The dense clumps of sage and rabbit brush were topped with little caps of snow, and as we lurched over them, the snow exploded onto the hood and windshield.

I checked the mirror. The patrol vehicle proceeded along the road as though it might not follow. Chase spun around to see.

“Maybe they haven’t seen us,” he said with a maniacal little half-laugh. “How could they not see us?”

In the mirror, I saw the troop carrier slowing to a stop, and then the turret traversed until the massive barrel of the machine gun was trained on the truck.

“They’ve seen us,” I assured him, hunching my shoulders to brace myself.

There came the rapid booming of heavy automatic gunfire. I felt it concussing in my inner ears, in my lungs. Chase cursed wildly. I pushed on the gas.

“Serpentine, Al, serpentine!” he said.

The gun ripped off another burst, and I saw the rounds impact ahead of us in tall dirty plumes.

“Serpa what?” I screamed.

Chase grabbed the steering wheel and pulled it hard to the right. The truck swung right and all three of us were pitched over to the left. After a moment Chase pushed the wheel suddenly in the other direction and we leaned opposite. The truck’s springs squawked and moaned.

“Serpentine,” Chase hollered, letting go of the wheel. He made a snakelike motion with his hand. “Don’t make it easy for them.”

I snaked left again just as another deafening burst of gunfire erupted behind us, and the rounds kicked up dirt a mere yard away. I yanked the wheel hard right, and they missed again.

Now just couple hundred yards behind us, the troop carrier left the road and followed our path down the face of the hill and into the sea of grass. I watched it in the mirror. The gun muzzle flashed and smoked and there came an unsettling delay as the sound caught up and another volley of rounds shrieked our way. This time the little Toyota shook with a series of sickening clanks and I knew we’d been hit. In the mirror, I saw the truck bed pitched up crazily and mangled, as if an enormous shark had chomped on it. The tailgate swung merrily from some remaining tendon of its hinge.

“Faster, Al!” yelled Chase. “Down the hill.”

The incline got steeper and down we went, picking up speed and tearing through old fence lines and debris buried among the grass. Gracie screamed as though we were riding a derailing roller coaster. Clumps of brush whooshed past the busted-out driver’s-side window, the last jagged fragments of which jounced on the floor of the cab.

It sounded as though the troop carrier was firing continuously now, and I heard it with my whole body. When my eyes darted to the mirror, I knew the Agency vehicles were gaining ground on us.

“The trees!” cried Chase.

With a flurry of pointing motions, Chase indicated a long row of old cottonwood trees at the edge of the lot ahead. “Head that way!”

The truck caught a low berm and went airborne for a second, then crashed down again. Gravel and dirt rattled against the undercarriage, and I fought the wheel to keep control as we thundered over the broken ground.

As we barreled down the slope and on toward the line of trees, I realized suddenly why Chase had steered me there. The thick trunks of the ancient trees were spaced far enough apart to allow the Toyota to pass, but definitely not the bulkier Agency vehicles. If we could crash through the wall of trees and brush, we might buy back some time and distance.

For a second or maybe two I narrowed my eyes in an attempt to calculate which two cottonwoods were best spaced to accommodate the width of the truck, but this was utterly futile in the time remaining before impact, and so I chose two at random and locked my elbows as I white-knuckled the wheel. The troop carrier kept firing.

We hit the tree line. There was a split-second roar of scraping metal, both of the side mirrors vanished in a leafy blur, and I knew we’d passed between.

But the wall of cottonwoods apparently marked the boundary where the gentler hillside ended and the cliff-like face of a much steeper slope began, and when we emerged from amidst the trees, the ground fell away beneath us, and the truck dove into an empty space. It was a drop of perhaps only twenty feet, but it seemed as though we descended for minutes upon minutes through open air. In the pit of my stomach I felt the sudden tickle of vertigo, such as when a car reaches the top of a steep hill and then plunges into the dip beyond.

At last the truck slammed to the steeply pitched ground blow. The windshield disintegrated in a startling shower of pebbled glass and we shot down the precipitous grade, bouncing from our seats so violently that not only did our heads strike the top of the cab but our shoulders, too. All I could do to keep the truck from veering too far and flipping into a rollover was squeeze the wheel in my two small fists.

When I came to, there was the taste of blood in my mouth and the smell of burning oil. But it was quiet. The engine had stopped and there were no sounds of gunfire or other vehicles. All the windows of the truck were broken and the pebbles of glass were all around—down my shirt, in my hair. I looked over to see Chase slumped in his seat—his eyes shut, mouth open.

I turned and saw that the jumpseat was empty. Gracie’s little lamb was there on the floor, but Gracie was gone.

“Where’s Gracie,” I muttered.

Chase opened his eyes and blinked.

“Where’s Gracie!” I clicked the button to release my seat belt and tore it off. I shouldered the door open. Deep gouges down the side of the miserable vehicle told how we’d had absolutely no space to spare between the tree trunks. And the tires were not only completely flat but had begun to unravel. The truck sat in the dirt on its rims in the furrow-like tracks it left, looking like it had exploded into its component pieces and then clumsily reassembled. It steamed and hissed.

“Gracie? Gracie!” I called.

I searched through the cottonwoods looking for her—desperation flooding my mind as I feared what may have happened.

Then I spotted a tiny bundle—so small—lying just beneath the line of trees we’d bashed through. It so easily could have been just a discarded jacket or bundle of clothes. But I knew instantly it was her.

I raced over. Blood covered her face. Her eyes were open—but fogged over and glassy. Already the skin around her mouth had turned blue.

Dead.

I screamed, and Chase was suddenly beside me.

“You’ve got to save her,” I said, tugging furiously at his jacket. “Please, please, please. You’ve got to.”

He knelt beside her, but then looked back at me. His eyes were wet.

“No,” I cried. “Do CPR. Do something. She can’t be gone. No.”

He turned back to her and gently picked her up—she was limp. Like a doll. And so tiny in his arms.

He looked like he might say something, but then his chin crumpled and he pressed his lips together to keep from sobbing.

I wanted to die. It hurt so much—seeing Gracie’s broken body and Chase’s sorrow. It was more than I could bear. All that had happened—it was too much. For as little as I knew Gracie, I loved her. Chased loved her. We all did. And now she was gone.

“This is my fault,” I said.

Chase shook his head. “No.”

But I knew it was. Insisting that Gracie come along, pulling the gun on the Agency Officers, driving the car off a cliff—I had killed Gracie. I had killed her. A living angel of a girl.

It was dusk by the time Chase finished digging the grave. We had both cried on and off as he worked. Our eyes and noses were red. We didn’t talk much at all. I didn’t feel real. I felt like an outsider watching a horrible scene take place.

We had no shovel and so Chase had loosened the soil with his knife and then cleared it away using an old board he found in the truck.

“It’s not very deep,” he said.

“It’ll be okay,” I said.

He gingerly laid her body in the grave and covered it with her blanket.

In the weak sunlight, he used the board to push the soil back into the grave. It felt wrong to be covering her up that way.

Once Gracie was buried, Chase and I collected a few dozen large stones to cover over the grave.

“I feel like we should say something,” I said.

“What is there to say?” Chase asked as he stared at the pile of stones.

What was there to say? I couldn’t make sense of it. Losing my memories, Arie, and now Gracie. Why? Why was it happening?

We opened the boxes we had stolen from the Agency and box after box was filled with broken glass—the life-saving serum seeped out. Not even one dose had survived the chase. And so then it was all for nothing.

“I should have stopped when we saw the Agency vehicles,” I said.

Chase shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“She’d still be alive then,” I said.

“We’d have been arrested,” Chase said. “And with all that stuff in the back, we’d almost surely been shot.”

“But she’d be alive.”

Chase swallowed hard. “You don’t know that.”

Rewind. Rewind. Nothing could fix this. Nothing. I considered the trajectory that had taken us to this moment and wondered where a change could have been made, where things could have been altered. There were so many forks in the road, so many chances. If only I’d known.

I was disgusted with myself. What kind of person was I? I’d failed Arie. I’d failed Gracie. I’d failed Chase and all the others. What was I good for? Nothing.

Chase got out his binoculars again and scanned the darkness. I sat in the rubble watching him.

“We should go,” he said, lowering the binoculars. “They went to the bottom of the foothills. Probably looking for us down there, waiting for us. But they’ll make their way up here, eventually.”

Chase got to his feet and slapped the dust from the seat of his pants. “Let’s get moving. Find someplace to bed down.”

We walked down through the foothills toward town, but we found no homes. Soon the temperature dropped until the nightly hoarfrost appeared on everything, and so we settled for a small brick pump house in a ravine by a road. It had one door and two small windows, and there was nothing inside but an electric pump with its water pipes, which came up through the floor and exited through the back wall. I looked around. It was bleak and dusty but it was well sheltered from the cold, and there was just enough room for us to lie down.

“Can we make a fire?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Chase. “A little one won’t hurt.”

We gathered up some tinder and a few armfuls of deadfall. Chase produced a lighter and built a small fire beneath a window that swung open. In a few minutes the small space grew reasonably warm. I lay down with my head on my pack. Chase sat with his back against the wall, and his stretched-out legs almost reached me across the tiny room.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

His face was ruddy and somber in the firelight. “I’m going to miss her,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “Me too.”

Chase sniffed and looked down. “Won’t matter in a few months. We’ll just forget.”

I sat up. “What do you mean? What about the other serum?”

“Well, you’re assuming that Ruby and the others managed to get away with their load of serum, and you’re further assuming that it won’t wipe our memories. And on top of that, you’re assuming that I’m willing to take it.”

“If you’re not even going to take it, then why are you working with Ruby and the rest?”

He shrugged. “That was before.”

“So you’ll go back to the Agency? Forget again?”

“You want me to remember this?”

“We need our memories to be ourselves. And we need your memories. This is how you want to deal with it? Let them poison you again and erase anyone you’ve ever loved? Erase Gracie?” I could hear the angry growl in my own voice.

I’d heard somewhere that anger wasn’t a primary emotion—that it was always a cover for some other emotion—like fear or sadness, and I knew in my case it was both.

“Why do you care?” asked Chase. “Why are you angry with me?”

“It’s fine, Chase. Go ahead and start the new year with none of your memories. But what about what you know? What you’ve learned?”

He sighed. Then he shrugged. “I apparently woke up with the ability to take care of myself. I assume that’s how I’ll wake up next time.”

“Maybe you could use what you know now to help other people.”

“How could I possibly use any of this to help other people? How does seeing that little girl’s face in my mind make one damn difference?”

“Chase, if we can’t remember anything, then what’s the point? All we have is our memories. And even when they’re taken from us, we feel the people we’ve lost. You said it yourself. You lost someone—you don’t know who but you miss them.”

“I want to live peacefully more than I want to remember,” he said.

“Not me. I’d rather die than take that serum again. And you can’t forget anyway. You’ll always miss Gracie, even if you can’t remember her. You know that, right?”

He looked down at the fire and said nothing.

“I can’t just give away everything I know again,” I said. My voice caught and hitched. “I can’t forget—”

“Them,” he said.

We looked at each other across the fire for a while. It snapped and fumed.

“Hell, I might even want to remember you,” I said. “But I can’t keep letting them take everything away from me.”

We were quiet then. After a while we lay down with our backs to the fire. I took off my coat and draped it over myself for a blanket, then dozed a little. Chase shifted on the concrete.

“Chase?” I said.

“Yeah.” His voice was oddly clear in the small, quiet room.

“Tell me the truth. Would you really be okay if you forgot?”

“No, Al. I’m starting to think it’d be a big mistake to forget any of this.”

Twenty-One

In the morning we began the trek back to the amusement park. It was far enough that we agreed it’d take most of the day to make it back—maybe two. But we could drink from the river, and we both had a little food in our packs. Chase had his radio, but the battery was more than half expended.

He radioed Ruby as we walked and told her about Gracie.

“Dammit,” Ruby had said. That was all. We figured she turned off her radio after that. I could picture the rest of them hearing the news and the gloominess that would permeate the space. The anger and sadness and regret they would feel and that we still felt. Woolly, Carlos, even Glen—we all adored that little girl.

I suspected they’d blame me, and I deserved it. Over their objections, I’d put her in harm’s way. I knew I could never make it up to them. It made my heart heavy.

What had happened changed things between Chase and me, and it was the last thing I would have expected. I thought he’d want nothing to do with me, but instead it seemed to make us closer. His opinion was that Gracie’s death was a consequence of the toxic, dysfunctional world she found herself in. A hundred different perils awaited a child like Gracie in this world—being thrown from the truck was simply the one that claimed her.

And passing through that heartbreak together—placing her in that shallow grave and then covering her with dirt—was something few others would be able to understand. He held my hand as we walked, helping me over fences and jumping across creeks.

We had a new bond. It was a sad one, but it was strongly forged—as long we remembered.

Still, we didn’t speak as we walked back, almost as though we were carrying out a silent vigil in memory of little Gracie.

The trees along the path edged closer in, so Chase walked behind me, occasionally bumping into me.

“I can’t get over thinking about it,” Chase finally said.

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Is this how it was? When you lost your son?”

I nodded.

“Does it get better?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “You just make room for it.”

“You’re a good person, Alison. You’re nice. Everyone knows that. Makes me want to be a little nicer, too.”

I didn’t feel nice. Not after all that had happened. Not after the poisons that had seeped into me—rage, vengeance, selfishness.

“I don’t blame you,” said Chase. It was almost like he was reading my thoughts. “And I mean that.”

The trees began to thin, allowing the sun to shine through. It warmed our faces. The air was crisp and fresh. The ground was soft with wet leaves and bark.

“I think we want to head up there, cross the bluff, then back down into town,” said Chase.

I nodded, and we went. The sun stood high in the sky now, and it grew warm. Winter birds darted among the bare branches of the trees, fluttering in petty disputes over the sparse forage.

We crossed the river over a rotting footbridge, then pressed through a thicket of Russian olive. When we came through, we found ourselves at the edge of an enormous meadow of low, gently rolling mounds. With only patches of snow remaining, the meadow was grown with tall, bronze-colored grass that seemed to glow in the sunshine. Off in the distance a herd of doe deer raised their heads from grazing and watched us.

“Wow,” I said. “Pretty.”

The only signs I could see that people had ever been there were on the far edge of the expanse, where a few yellow-orange bulldozers and some trucks stood idle in the otherwise pastoral setting, and even the machines were grown around with weeds and saplings. It was some abandoned excavation now almost obliterated by nature. I walked into the waist-high grass and let the sun warm my face.

“Al,” said Chase from somewhere behind me. “Hold up a sec.”

I turned. Chase had stopped. His hands were on his hips, and he looked at the ground with a frown. He took a few steps, kicked at something.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

He bent down and wrested something from the soft ground. It was a sneaker.

I chuckled. It was just so random. “What’s that doing here?”

His eyes had darkened and his lips were pressed into a hard line. “On second thought, let’s go back and follow the river down,” he said.

“Back that way?” I asked as I walked his way. “Won’t that take forever? And it’ll take us closer to the highway. There could be patrols.”

“It’s just—”

That is when I saw it. A human arm, and a hand. Just bones pressed into the earth and almost obscured by the grass. There were a few shreds of shirt sleeve, and a wristwatch, its metal parts covered with green and white scales and corrosion, loosely circling the bleached white wrist.

Then I looked across the meadow, noticing for the first time that the rolling mounds were orderly, evenly spaced.

“What is this place?” I said.

“Let’s go back.”

I walked on. The meadow whispered as wind shushed through the blades of grass.

“Al, really,” said Chase.

The ground was littered with tattered and half-buried artifacts. Bits of clothing, a pair of crushed eyeglasses, purses. And the shoes—hundreds of shoes. There were bones, of course, showing whitely in the sun. Femurs, ribs, the round caps of skulls—all of them disarticulated and scattered. My stomach twisted.

We came to one of the mounds. It was only twelve feet tall. I crested it and counted ten more ahead in long rows. I raced over them with an urgent curiosity. The little herd of grazing deer fled into the tree line at my coming. Across the meadow there was another row of the mounds, and another beyond.

Chase followed me, but at a distance.

Then I reached the bulldozers and saw what they had excavated years ago. The contours of the grim work site were softened by erosion and the prolific grass, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. A shallow, empty trench and beside it a pile of pushed-up earth—bulldozers still standing by to push it back into place. The trench was thirty or forty feet wide and its length was three times that.

On the near side of the trench the grass grew unevenly. I knew what I would find there, but I had to know.

The remains of hundreds of people, lined up and stacked. Disturbed now by scavengers and the elements, but it had once been a wall of corpses awaiting interment in hasty, industrial graves, the final abandoned project of the society that was. The skeletons lay intermingled now, each bone belonging to all. Weeds grew up through eye sockets and between the startling white ribs, and all picked clean—first by birds and mammals, and finally by maggots and beetles and ants. So many skulls they formed a whited cobblestone path. So many toes and foot bones they lay piled like reefs of gravel. Child-sized skeletons in once-brightly colored coats were cradled in between the adults. Decaying clothing melted over them all, like dripping rags.

Arie and I had visited their houses, ransacked their belongings. Street after street, block after block. And I’d wondered where the people had gone to. I looked back at the mounds I had crossed and the field of human debris beyond that—the remains of those who were dumped with even less care.

They were here. At last I’d found them.

I’d often envisioned them outside somewhere. Evacuated past the zone boundaries, living lives that were at least somewhat normal and happy. And remembering. How lucky they were, I’d think. But they never got out. The dead lay here by the tens of thousands, so many of them that the toil of burying them had surely turned desperate and sloppy and enormously repugnant to those who were left to do it. And the open trench and pile of unburied dead was a final testament that it was a job that ultimately went unfinished.

The rest of us, living in miserable circumstances without memories and only little hope of something better—it turns out, we were the lucky ones.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a person so long dead. Sometimes Arie and I would creep into an abandoned house and the putrid, musty scent of death would still linger delicately inside. People who hadn’t been found or processed. Once we saw the body of a man from the front window of his bungalow, before we had even tried the door knob. He was desiccated, eyeless, his skin a dusky gray, black mouth agape. His blond hair was standing on end—the shocking result of the way his scalp had shrunk and hardened and he slowly mummified.

The Agency had drilled us on the dangers of approaching the corpses—because of the pandemic and other possible infection. And so we’d pull the door shut and back away if we knew there were dead inside.

And we’d seen those who died much more recently. The chip-rippers and squatters who decided to go it alone without the Agency’s help and died outside the Zones. The virus likely got most of them, but there were other causes. Starvation, exposure, murder—the death who stalked us wore a hundred faces.

Some of the dead, I often suspected, simply had insufficient purpose to live. No one can predict the future, but the ability to recall the past can be a strong shield against the vicious blows of future uncertainty. Without that awareness, without any idea of who they’d been, the amnesiac pandemic survivors labored under the wild and shifting burden of the present moment, trapped in that instant, without memories or wisdom to look back on, and no hope to look forward to. Little surprise then that some ended their own lives and others simply collapsed in the street without apparent cause.

And no wonder the living skirted those unfortunate fallen until the hazmat team arrived to sweep them up and carry them away like spilled garbage.

In fact, you could say it had become commonplace in this world to pass by the dead and dying without the wherewithal to mourn or ask after them. But even that pathetic existence hadn’t prepared me for the evidence of death we saw there in the meadow. The sheer scale of it. And the truth of it—for the first time I knew the pandemic was something actual. Not something abstract or falsified. It wasn’t propaganda or even something historical. Here was a journal of the plague written in an alphabet of bones. Acres of them. The Agency might have been stealing our memories for some sinister purpose, but that did not mean we hadn’t died by the thousands and millions before they took over. How many more graves like this must there be?

Who were they, really? A toddler running through a sprinkler, a teenager driving his first car, an elderly couple sharing a sunset.

Among these bones, upon which fell both sun and snow, were there people I once knew? Or loved?

All at once, the fragility of not just my own life and the people I knew but that of all humanity weighed on me with such force that I grew dizzy, and could only breathe in gasps.

Chase joined me at my side; his face bleak and arms folded.

“So, what they told us is true.” I said.

Chase stared at the ground.

“You’ve been here before?” I asked.

“Not here,” he said. “There are others.”

“So many.”

Without a word, Chase wrapped his arms around me, tucking my head beneath his chin, and we stood there a long time—the only two people alive.

Twenty-Two

It was night again by the time we made it back to Thrill Harbor. The great spokes of the Sky Dreamer masked the sea of stars in the moonless night. We climbed over the barricades in the icy gloom and walked. The funhouse door was a huge clown’s face with a mouth frozen in a grotesque laugh which loomed darkly as we passed by.

Soon we reached the tunnel under the Ferris wheel, where I’d first met Glen, and my throat tightened involuntarily. Despite the more-or-less favorable conclusion to that encounter, I all at once recalled the fear that gripped me that day as he stepped from the shadows and put his hands on me. I looked up and saw Chase getting ahead of me and so I quickened my pace.

It had been sunny that day. The icy mud in the bottom of the tunnel must have melted and then refrozen in the night, because the ground was now as smooth and hard as an ice rink. As I walked faster to catch Chase, my boot lost its grip, and I fell—the kind of a fall that begins with pin-wheeling arms and a frantic frictionless shuffle, then continues with a feet-in-the-air free fall, and ends with the dull thud of landing squarely on the back with a smart crack to the skull. Electric sparks strobed for an instant behind my eyelids.

I wasn’t sure if Chase had heard my head bang on the ice or the breathless “oof” I emitted, but he stopped and turned back.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I thought about the question for a few seconds.

“Yeah,” I croaked.

“You sure?”

I thought about it.

“No,” I sighed.

He chuckled.

“I’ll help you up.”

I heard him moving toward me and so I lay there on my back and waited.

“You really hurt?” He knelt by me.

“I don’t think so.” I propped myself on one elbow. “Just hurts.”

“Hit your head?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, hang on,” he said. “Stay still a sec.”

He got out his flashlight and clicked it on. I touched the back of my head, squinting at the sudden brightness.

“I don’t see any blood,” said Chase. “But as your doctor I’m afraid I must recommend that you not try out for the Ice Capades this year.”

“Just help me up,” I said, grabbing at him feebly.

“Wait a sec. Hold still. Jeeze.” He took off his jacket, rolled it up, and set it under my head. Then he shined the flashlight into my eyes, first one and then the other, gently holding my eyelids open with his fingers.

“Feel sick?” he asked. “Nauseous?”

“You mean nauseated,” I corrected.

He laughed. It was a curt guffaw, but was good to hear even that much laughter. “Do you feel nauseated?” he corrected.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “I guess not.”

“Okay. Let’s get you up.”

He stood, gripped my forearm, and leaned back to haul me up. I was partway upright when without warning Chase’s feet slipped and he repeated my pinwheeling spill onto the ice. He landed on his back and I landed again on mine. For a long moment we lay there on our backs and neither of us said anything.

“You all right?” I asked after a minute.

“Yeah,” said Chase.

“You sure?”

“No,” he sighed.

I laughed, then Chase laughed. And we kept laughing for a while. It was as though my body could take no more sadness, and though it really wasn’t that funny, I found I couldn’t stop. And it was the first time I could remember having really laughed since I’d been with Arie. It was as though I’d been denying myself the privilege of smiles and laughter, and through that one tiny rupture it came pouring out like a lake through the breach in a burst dam. Tears filled my eyes, I held my sides, and soon I hadn’t enough air to breathe.

When I finally recovered, I looked at over at Chase. His little flashlight had bounced away from him and it lit part of the tunnel wall with its sideways-shining beam. Chase sat on his butt watching me, his folded arms resting on his knees.

“Are you quite finished?” he asked with a weary smile.

“Oh gosh.” I wiped my eyes and took several deep breaths. “Yeah,” I chuckled. “I’m finished. But if it’s all right with you, please don’t try to help me anymore.”

As I got to my feet on the slippery ground, I saw the graffiti painted in red, which I’d seen the first day I’d come to the amusement park to find Ruby. My eyes absently scanned the crazy lettering, but then locked onto the large symbol sprayed nearby in the same color paint.

It was the figure of a human skull combined with the face of a clock on the forehead.

Chase must have noticed the change in my expression because he stood hastily and came to my side.

“Al?”

“Look!” I cried, pointing.

He read the words and stepped forward.

“Okay,” said Chase, squinting at the crazy writing. “Boats against the current. Great Gatsby. So?”

“The skull!” I said. “That’s the skull!”

He bent down and picked up the flashlight, then shined it directly on the symbol. “Yeah. I’ve seen this. Where have I seen this?”

I tore Arie’s coded notebook from my backpack and nearly shoved it into Chase’s face.

Chase shined the flashlight beam on the red cover of the notebook, then the tunnel wall, and back again.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

My spine tingled in the damp darkness of the tunnel, and I shivered. For a moment, it was as though Arie had joined us in the tunnel, or we had joined him. I pictured him standing there painting the letters with spray cans he’d found somewhere, crouching and lifting himself onto tiptoes to elongate the letters.

“All these times I’ve come through here,” said Chase. “I don’t think I’d ever really looked at that.”

“Wait,” I said. My heart hammered in my chest. Blood roared in my ears. I grabbed Chase by the sleeve of his jacket to steady myself. “Wait.”

He cradled my elbows and frowned. “What? What?”

I spoke slowly. “What did you say about The Great Gatsby?”

He swept the beam of his light across the wall and the red letters.

“Boats against the current,” he said, suddenly unsure of himself. “That’s—a line from The Great Gatsby. The last line. Isn’t it?”

“Oh, no!”

“What?” cried Chase. I felt as though I might collapse.

“That’s the key,” I said. “The Great Gatsby. The code. The key. I have it. It’s at my house.” I let go of Chase and stuffed the notebook into my backpack. Then I turned back and started for the mouth of the tunnel, nearly slipping as I slung the pack onto my back again.

“I have to go. I have to go right now.”

“Hold on,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Al, wait up. Wherever it is you need to be off to, I’ll help.”

Just then Chase’s radio squawked.

“Mountain Lion, where the hell are you?” asked Ruby.

Chase looked at the radio.

“You need to be with them,” I said. “They’re in mourning. I can get the book on my own.”

Chase pressed his lips together, but then he nodded.

It felt like we needed to be together—all of us—after we’d lost so much. But discovering what could possibly be the key to Arie’s secret diary held an immediacy I couldn’t avoid. I’d been given the chance again to talk to him, and I couldn’t turn down that chance for anything. The red paint screamed out on the wall of the tunnel like a neon sign.

“I’ll get the book, and I’ll come right back,” I told him. “Tell them all how sorry I am.”

I found my bike at the park entrance and I hurriedly unlocked it and then I was off. I stood up on the pedals and rode fast toward home in the frigid night. The icy air rushing across my face made my eyes water, and my hands ached and then turned numb with cold, but I was warm inside from the mixture of hope and adrenaline.

At the time, I didn’t know the significance of my decision to leave Chase there in the tunnel. I didn’t know that it would change everything.

Twenty-Three

I biked faster than I ever had before. An urgency pressed on my mind, an excitement. Had I ever in the past nine or ten months been so excited? My legs burned and then they ached, but I only pedaled harder.

I knew just where to find the book. It was in Arie’s room. A bluish book cover with a painting of a woman’s face and an amusement park. While I rode, I imagined holding it in my hands, sitting on the bed with it and Arie’s notebook. Finding out, at last, the secret words that could be the key to understanding his disappearance or at the very least knowing him more—unearthing another layer of my son who already in my mind was so complex and beautiful. I needed to hear his words in my mind. I needed it.

My hands shook as I ditched the bike in the front yard without locking it, and I scrambled up the porch steps and into the house.

I raced up the stairs and into Arie’s bedroom, which was still in disarray from my earlier frantic searching. But I found the messy pile of books which I’d removed from his bookshelf. I knelt and sorted through them. I knew what I was looking for, exactly what I was looking for. Blue cover. Woman’s face. Amusement park.

But it wasn’t there.

Perhaps I’d just missed it. I forced myself to slow down, to pick up the books one at a time. I arranged them in a neat pile, double checked, triple checked.

But it wasn’t there.

After taking a few breaths, I deliberately slowed down. I tried to calm myself. It was here somewhere. It had to be.

“Okay, just breathe for a sec,” I told myself.

My eyes surveyed the room. There was the desk, the bed, the dresser. The books had been there. I’d searched through them before finding Arie’s notebook and then—

A sudden sick feeling seeped into my stomach.

I hadn’t given the book to Donna, had I? When I’d gone to get more notebooks—was it one of the books I’d gathered up for her?

It was. It had to be.

I closed my eyes trying to bring myself back to that moment. I had so few memories, surely I could remember. My mind took me back that day—how was it that it seemed so long ago? I remembered the heavy sadness, the way my heart felt like lead, and my urgent need for more notebooks and pens. And yes, there was Donna with her glasses and big eyes and all her cats. I’d handed her the book with several others. I’d handed her the key to unlocking everything.

I cursed myself and grabbed my backpack from the bed. It’d take nearly twenty minutes to get to Donna’s trailer. Every minute I had to wait was agony.

“God, please let her still have it.”

I raced back down the stairs, nearly stumbling, and then jumping down the last three steps all together.

I had no idea they were there, waiting for me.

Maybe it was because I was so focused on getting the book that I didn’t hear them.

Maybe it was because I was breathless and my heart was pounding.

Maybe they’d just been very quiet.

When I opened the front door, I was greeted by six Agency men with their guns trained on me.

Standing behind them was Gary Gosford, looking grim-faced and angry.

“Hello, Alison,” he said.

Twenty-Four

We sat on opposite sides of my couch—Gary and me.

Gary had folded his arms, and he scowled deeply. I sat impassively. Gary could have one of his goons shoot me in the head and leave me there in my living room, and all I was able to think of was where my copy of The Great Gatsby might be.

Two Agency goons stood guard at the entrance to the living room. They were young—early twenties, not much older than Arie—but they looked hardened and mean, like the type that would throw rocks at a cat for laughs. Or maybe I only thought they looked that way because they were here in my house, uninvited, with guns. The other goons were elsewhere in the house, maybe even stationed outside. One of them had taken my backpack and with it Arie’s notebook.

“I’m hurt that you would lie to me, Alison,” said Gary. “I thought we were friends.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure what he knew or why he was there. It was better to stay quiet than to accidentally reveal too much.

I’d seen people beaten by goons, get dragged away. I’d heard that people were sometimes interrogated, seemingly at random. And I knew people who vanished and never showed up again. I tried to keep my face from showing emotion, but my heart began to beat so hard I could feel it in my throat.

Gary stood up. He held his hands behind his back and paced around the room—though there wasn’t much room for pacing—as if deep in thought.

“It’s funny,” Gary said, “there are some people who, no matter how many chances we give them, no matter how many times we erase their memories, they still turn out the same way. Bad apples. Bad seeds.”

I looked up at him. It was the first time I’d heard any Agency man comment on our memory loss as something other than a side effect of the serum. He’d said, “we erase their memories.”

“I’m not talking about you, of course,” Gary continued. He didn’t look at me as he said this. He walked with his chin up, affecting a countenance of authority. “You just fell in with a bad crowd. They’re like a disease, you know? They infect others—good people, like you. God knows we’ve tried to be humane, given them more chances than they deserve. But we can’t tolerate it anymore. They’re a cancer, and they need to be removed.”

I wasn’t entirely sure who or what Gary was talking about. Ruby and Chase and the others, I assumed? But was he referring to others that I maybe didn’t even know about? Had Ruby been working against the Agency all along? Year after year? How could they fall into the same roles without their memories? Could it be what Arie thought? Did he know? Did he know that we still had all our memories and somewhere, unconsciously, they still influenced our actions?

Gary stopped pacing and looked at me. “I forgive you,” he said. His voice was earnest and steady. “Personally, I mean. I forgive you. And I don’t blame you for lying to me. In fact, I haven’t been completely honest with you, either.”

There was a clock in the living room and as Gary paused for a moment, I heard it ticking. It was solar-powered, a nice little clock that Arie had found in the neighborhoods. And it had kept great time all the while Arie and I had been together, but usually the sound it made was nearly imperceptible. Now it seemed as loud as a drumbeat. Tick, tick, tick.

“I know you think I’m just an Agency supervisor. You call us ‘goons’.” He smiled bitterly but didn’t look at me.

I watched him, my heart still pounding. The clock went tick, tick, tick.

“I’m actually a recruiter for Lotus.”

Now I was sure I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Have you heard of Lotus? The Lotus Project?” He looked my way. “Ring any bells?”

I shook my head.

“Good. That’s as it should be. Lotus is a very special program that is meant to improve things for everyone. We know things are bad. Things are bad for people here in gen-pop and they’re bad in other places, too. And we all want to make it better. Even your friends, the bad seeds—they think they’re fighting to make things better. Right?”

I didn’t answer.

Gary smiled his bitter smile, then continued. “The difference between Lotus and your pals running amok outside Zone boundaries is that Lotus will succeed because only the brightest and most highly skilled are invited to participate.”

I fought to keep myself from responding, fought to keep my expression neutral, but Gary had certainly gotten my attention. What was he talking about?

He sat on the couch again, but this time very close to me, so close that our legs were touching. He grabbed my hand.

“Arie is very, very smart. You know that, don’t you?”

Is?

Not was.

I felt the rage again, the rage that made me pull the trigger of a gun I’d pointed at a person. It was an animal savagery born from desperation and helplessness. It bloomed suddenly like some brutal flower in my heart. I felt as though I could pounce on Gary and begin to pull him apart like a plastic doll. This talk of a mysterious program and recruitment—it made a certain sense in the rational recesses of my mind. Some secret he’d kept from the wretched members of gen-pop—it was an answer to lots of questions I’d carried around for the last year. But at that moment, my mind had space for one thought, one word: is.

It was a word that meant my doom.

Gary stopped speaking and examined the sleeve of his coat. A thread had come loose from the buttonhole on the cuff. He frowned at it for a moment before pinching it between his fingers and plucking it sharply away. Then he stood again and cleared his throat.

“You and your companions down in that filthy amusement park have committed treason, Alison. Unless I intervene, you’ll be shot. Summarily. No questions, no trial, nothing.”

Gary blinked down at me, searching for any response, any sign I might give. I knew where this was going now, but I made no signal. The clock ticked.

“But because this is your first offense,” said Gary, “and because I personally know you to be a law-abiding member of our society, I’m going to make you a deal.”

I swallowed hard. I couldn’t help it. I knew what he was about to say, and it was something I both longed and dreaded to hear.

He chuckled. “Yeah. We know they’re down in that neighborhood. Down in some little lair. I’ve got almost a hundred-armed men ready to storm the place. They’re ready to burn the entire area to the ground. But I know they’re clever, these friends of yours. If I send my men in, I just know your friends are going to make a lot of trouble. There’ll be casualties, and your friends could slip away, and that won’t look good on my record. Plus, I need to know what they know, what they’ve got planned, what they’ve already done. They’ve got to be questioned. I need this to be a clean incision, Alison.”

I don’t know why I kept listening. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

“You could help,” said Gary. “Tell me exactly where they are. I mean exactly. And if you do, the Agency will forgive you for your crimes.”

I thought about it. Even though I knew I could never accept the offer, I thought about it. Gary was right—Ruby and the others were clever. They’d set up their operation and had reached the verge of freeing themselves from the Agency, all in one year. Of course they had secret passages, traps, and who could say what else. They were heavily armed and highly motivated. And they knew the park inside and out. They could make so much trouble. They could hold out for a week or maybe more. Or they could fade into the woods with their serum and take up the fight somewhere else, on their own terms, raiding and running and then fading into the woods again. Gary really did need me.

“I won’t help you,” I said.

Gary nodded. “I understand. And I actually admire your loyalty. It’s a quality I value highly. You know, loyalty is all I ever wanted from you and Arie. I always had your best interest in mind.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t turn them in just to save myself.”

“They’ll torture you before they execute you, Alison,” said Gary. “They’ll torture it out of you.”

“You mean you’ll torture it out of me.”

Gary inhaled abruptly. “Alison, I’m thinking only about—”

“Yourself. You’re thinking of yourself. I don’t know what’s going on with your project or why you took Arie, but I see it now—it was you all along. That’s why you didn’t come to help when I told them your name. That’s why you were following Arie and me.”

Gary shook his head.

“And that’s why you poisoned Arie. It was the peanut butter, wasn’t it? You’re evil.”

Gary paused. He looked at the floor and took some deep breaths. “As I was saying. You’re loyal to your friends,” he said, stammering a bit. “I can understand that. But I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that Arie isn’t dead. Are you loyal to him? Tell me where your little team is and I will take you to him tonight.”

And there it was.

I should have been happy. I would have given almost anything to see Arie again. And I actually trusted Gary’s offer—I believed that he would let me see Arie if I cooperated. But as Gary stood over me there in my living room, I resigned myself to never seeing Arie again.

“Okay, Gary,” I said. “I accept.”

Twenty-Five

They handcuffed me and wedged me between two armed goons in the back seat of a black Crown Victoria. My neighbors watched from their windows. A few came out onto their porches. The same people who’d come out of their houses to watch me drive around in the jacked-up Tacoma now watched with the same slack-jawed amazement as a detachment of goons stuffed me into a very different automobile to take me away forever.

Gary sat in the front passenger seat and another goon did the driving. We set out for Thrill Harbor with two troop carriers following.

Arie was alive. Of course he was. I was his mother, and I’d known all along. So, why did I feel such relief and happiness? Why did I need Gary to confirm what I already knew?

Maybe it was like our memory loss—somewhere in my heart I’d known I had a son, but someone from the Agency had to remind me of that. It had already been real in my heart, but it had to be made real in my mind. Likewise, my heart knew Arie was alive, but I needed Gary to say the word “is” so that my mind knew it, too.

And when I knew with both my heart and mind, I realized there was only one path for me to follow. Yes, I could see Arie again if I wanted to—all I had to do was betray the only friends I had in the entire world. All I had to do to get what I wanted was sell out five considerate and selfless human beings to be summarily executed.

We drove along the streets and the highway, edging and swerving past the derelict cars. I saw the Ferris wheel looming in the distance. That is where I’d meet my end. I’d resigned myself to my fate, but that didn’t keep my stomach from churning like a washing machine.

“I feel sick,” I said.

Gary pressed a button and the rear windows opened an inch or so.

Cool air flooded into the car.

“How’s that?” said Gary with surprising sincerity. “Better?”

It wasn’t better.

Gary explained his plan to the goon who was driving. “Bill, you’ll take the two squads from the APCs and follow us into the amusement park. Twelve men should be enough if we’ve got a lock on their location. We’ll have the others in reserve in case things go south.”

The driver nodded.

Gary swiveled in his seat to face me and the two goons who flanked me in the back seat.

“Oberman, Manwaring,” he said. “I want you two with me and the prisoner at all times. Don’t let her out of your sight. If she tries to run, shoot her.”

The goons nodded, but I had no plans to run anywhere.

“No offense, Alison,” said Gary. “I just need this to go smoothly.”

“It’s fine,” I replied.

“We’ll go in dark and quiet,” said Gary to the goons. “As soon as the prisoner gives us the location, Oberman and Manwaring will escort me and the prisoner back here until the op is complete.

Bill and the two other goons grunted their acknowledgment.

“Alison, I’m a man of my word—that’s when I’ll take you to Arie.”

I nodded.

We drove on.

As we got closer to the amusement park, a strange sense of calm and contentment welled up inside me. With me out of the equation, I knew Ruby and her team would continue their work and continue fighting. Serum or no serum, memories or no memories, they would find a way. And Arie? Gary was right about him. He was very, very smart. Smarter than me, I’d come to learn, and certainly much smarter than Gary. I didn’t know where he was or if they’d taken his memories or if he was a prisoner somewhere, but I knew he’d continue his work, too—in whatever form that might take.

When I accepted Gary’s amnesty bargain, I’d offered to tell him exactly where Ruby’s team was holed up. I told him I’d draw him a detailed map.

But he said, “No, no, Alison. You’re not getting off that easily. You’re taking us there. In person. Once we have them in custody, you’ll see Arie.”

I knew Gary would want me to be there, not just to ensure I didn’t trick him somehow, but also to parade me in front of Ruby and the others like a Judas.

I not only knew he’d take me personally to the park, I’d counted on it. It was the only way my plan would even work.

“You’ll want to kill all your lights now,” I said as we approached the turnoff to the Thrill Harbor parking lot complex. “They’re probably asleep by now, but with all the excitement lately they’ll be standing watch. One of them is probably out walking a patrol, too. If they even think someone’s coming for them, they’ll vanish.”

Bill turned to Gary.

“Do it,” said Gary.

Bill turned off the Crown Vic’s headlights, then radioed the troop carriers and told them to do the same.

Gary turned his head and gave me a commendatory nod.

Soon the big Crown Vic with its troop carrier escorts rolled up to the vast and empty Thrill Harbor parking lots. We parked on the outer edge of the lot, farthest from the park entrance. We were perhaps a mile from the haunted house and the soldiers moved like cats in the darkness—if Ruby and the others were keeping watch, they’d have to look or listen very carefully to detect us.

From each of the troop carriers came six black-uniformed men. They were armed with new-looking submachine guns, and they wore armor and helmets with visors. The twelve of them gathered in a rough formation around Bill.

One of my goon escorts—I never did figure out which was Oberman and which was Manwaring—pulled me from the car and made me sit on the pavement. They stood over me with their submachine guns, trigger fingers ready. I looked up and saw the Ferris wheel, the same one Arie and I had spotted while searching the neighborhoods that day, the one that I had dreamt about.

“Bill,” said Gary. “You heard what she said. They might have guards and they may be patrolling. I want your three best men to recon the park. No sounds. Quick and quiet. We’re looking for any sign of activity. Don’t engage unless fired on. Have them report ASAP.”

Bill chose three of his Agency soldiers and sent them out.

Gary breathed in deeply and then leaned against the Crown Vic not too far from where I was seated on the ground. He seemed very content, almost relaxed.

“You’ve made the right decision, Alison,” he said. “It’s better this way.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “You’re right.”

“You know,” he said, “I didn’t think you’d come around this easily.”

It was dark and I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I knew he was smiling. I could hear it in his voice.

He said, “I thought things were going to have to get really ugly. With you. With Arie. Guess I was wrong.”

I shrugged. “People can change.”

We stayed in the parking lot for almost an hour. I sat on the pavement with my cuffed hands in my lap. The cold stars shone down. Then Bill got a report on his radio. He spoke in low tones, nodding.

“No patrols,” he told Gary. “No sign of anything.”

“Outstanding,” Gary replied. “Get them back here.”

Bill radioed the recon team.

“You know,” said Gary, raising his voice a little. “If this thing goes as smoothly as I think it’s going to, you’re all getting steak and eggs on me for breakfast—and a three-day pass.”

A murmur of appreciation rippled through the troops.

When the recon team returned, Gary said, “Okay, we’re moving out. First squad, you’ll be in the lead. Bill, Oberman, and Manwaring, you’re with me with the prisoner in the middle. Second squad, bring up the rear.”

The soldiers spread out and shuffled into a loose tactical formation.

Gary approached me and my goon escort. “You two,” he said, pointing to Oberman and Manwaring, “remember what I said about her.” He motioned to me.

“Don’t worry, chief,” one of them said. “She ain’t going nowhere.”

True.

“Let’s move out,” said Gary.

And so we stalked into the park. The lead soldiers darted from cover to cover, waving Gary and Bill along as each new passage was cleared and secure. They were well-trained—even I could tell. There were fifteen of them, and I barely heard any footsteps. They shuffled along with their weapons ready. They used hand signals and half the time I couldn’t even see them in their black uniforms and armor.

I didn’t actually know if any of Ruby’s team was at the haunted house or even anywhere near. When last I’d spoken to Chase, I told them I was going to return to the ready room after I’d found the book I thought to be the key to Arie’s coded notes. If they were leaving or going out on another mission, they would almost certainly have tried to get word to me, but Gary had been waiting for me when I got home. For all I knew, the team could be sound asleep in their bunks in the haunted house, or they could be miles away.

My plan would work either way.

Gary asked me for directions to the team hideout as we skulked through the amusement park. I told him exactly where to go, and Bill relayed the directions to the lead squad. We proceeded down the midway and past the Ferris wheel.

There were some nervous moments at the mouth of the tunnel, as the troops immediately realized it would be a perfect place for an ambush or trap.

Bill and Gary consulted at length as the troops crouched and knelt with their gun barrels pointed toward the tunnel.

“Let her go first,” said Gary, pointing at me.

I walked through their ranks and into the tunnel, fifteen automatic weapons pointed at my back. When I made it to dim light at the far side of the tunnel, the soldiers followed me through and re-assembled in their formation.

Soon we stood at the front entrance to the haunted house. Everyone crouched in the darkness, weapons trained on the darkened building.

“Ah, the old hide-in-the-haunted-house trick, eh?” Gary whispered to me. “Very nice.”

“That’s their base,” I said softly. “You have to go through the ride. It’s a tunnel that winds around, but it’s the only way in. It’s like a maze in there and it’s pitch-black. But there’s sleeping quarters and a workroom inside. That’s where they’ll be.”

“I don’t like this,” Bill whispered. “More tunnels?”

“Gary,” I cut in. “I did my part. Your big tough goons can do the rest. Take me to Arie.”

“No,” said Gary. “Not yet. Alison, you’re going in first.”

“What? Why? What if there’s shooting? I’ve done my part. We didn’t say anything about me being your shield. Take me to Arie.”

“You’re a traitor,” said Gary, his voice low. “I don’t have to hold up my end of this deal. You’re going to lead these men inside, or you won’t see your son and you’ll be executed for treason. What’s it going to be?”

I said nothing. For all Gary’s supposed power and troops, I found it almost disappointing that he was so easy to trick.

“That’s what I thought,” said Gary. “Now get over there.”

I went to the front opening of the ride, where there was a gauntlet of turnstiles for the guests to pass through. The cars had all been removed, but there was a large archway where the ride began.

Interestingly, I’d never been through the front entrance. I’d always come through the back. I wouldn’t have been able to find my way from the front entrance to the ready room or anywhere else.

But that didn’t matter.

“First squad, follow her in,” said Bill. “Second squad, cover the entrance.”

Six of the men lined up in a sort of wedge behind me, ready to follow. Bill and Gary knelt a few yards behind me. The other six took up positions nearby, ready to fire on anyone who came out.

And so it was my time.

I stepped toward the turnstile. At the other rides, the turnstiles were locked. But I knew this one would not be locked. I knew that even with my cuffed hands I could push right through it.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel ready. I wanted more time. A natural impulse given the situation, I suppose. But Arie was alive, and although I was sure his path would not be easy, I knew he would take care of himself. And for Ruby’s team this was merely a courtesy for them—if they even needed it at all. Ruby’s team? I didn’t worry about them in the least.

I pushed the turnstile forward, and it clunked once. I had promised myself I wouldn’t hesitate or look back, but I couldn’t help it. I looked back at Gary. It was nearly dawn again, and in the gathering light I could just make out his expression—satisfied, self-possessed, on the cusp of getting his way. I didn’t know what kind of silly promotion or privileges he thought he was buying with his petty little attack on Ruby’s team, but Gary knew, and you could tell by the look on his face that he could almost taste it.

When he saw me glance his way, however, his expression all at once changed. My true plan must have dawned on him. I’d accepted his offer of betrayal, but it wasn’t Ruby I meant to betray.

“No,” shouted Gary. “Stop her!”

I pushed the turnstile forward. It rolled forward again with a clunk.

Then came a cataclysmic, soul-shattering boom, and I was thrown back like a dry autumn leaf in the fiery wash of a jet engine.

And then the air was on fire.

And then I was on fire.

And then I was dead.

Twenty-Six

For a long time, I heard angels singing. It might sound corny, but that’s what came next. A chorus of harmonious notes that rang clearly and steadily without pause. Angels. And from behind my closed eyes, I saw white light.

But it wasn’t angels. It was only a ringing in my ears. Or dreams. I was fading in and out of consciousness again, fading in and out of dreams. Dreams of Arie, dreams of Ruby and Chase and Woolly. There were dreams of fire, too.

Sometimes I thought I was alive and awake only to realize it was a dream, and at other times I wasn’t sure about anything.

After what felt like a lifetime, I opened my eyes and knew I was somewhere real, and that I was alive.

I was in a bed. It was softer and warmer than any bed I’d slept in for as long as I could remember. The room had yellow walls and there was a window with white curtains that waved in a breeze. I sat up. My head pulsed with pain. My ribs, too. And my arms and legs.

“Hey, kiddo.”

It was Chase. He sat in the corner, writing in a notebook. He smiled.

My ears rang continuously. I gaped open my mouth to pop my ears, and the ringing subsided some. It would be a long time before it went away completely.

“How you feeling today?” Chase said. “Recognize me? Know who I am?”

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Let’s just say you have good days and bad days,” said Chase. He chuckled and set the notebook aside.

“I’m not dead?”

“No. Not anymore.”

“What?”

“Well, you were dead when we pulled you out of the rubble. No pulse, no vitals. It was touch and go. We worked on you for quite a while. That’s what happened to your ribs. CPR. Sorry. The rest is, apparently, self-inflicted.”

“What do you mean? Where are we?” I asked.

“Safe house,” Chase said. “We’re safe.” He stood up and walked to a bedside table where there was a pitcher of water and a tin cup. He filled the cup and handed it to me.

“There’s tea, too, if you want that.”

“My head hurts,” I said, after drinking up the water. “And all the other parts of me.”

“Yeah. It’s a miracle you’re alive,” Chase said.

I touched my hand to my head and found it bandaged. My arms, too.

“What happened?”

“You don’t remember anything?”

I shook my head.

“From what we can gather, you somehow got a bunch of goons to the front door of the HQ at the park and then tripped the C4 charges we wired to the turnstiles and front entrance.”

That actually sounded like something I’d do.

I nodded a little.

But then a panicked feeling swept through me. “What about Ruby? And everyone else?”

“All safe,” Chase said.

“Of course.”

“You all right? This too much for ya?”

“How long have I been out?” I asked.

“Couple weeks,” Chase said. “Well, you’ve been in and out. Like I said—good days and bad. Bad knock on the head, and then there’s the matter of being, you know, somewhat dead. You’re bound to have some memory gaps. I’ve actually told you all of this about twenty-five times over the past nine or ten days. Every now and then you’re lucid. Other times you wake up and ask if you’re in heaven, and so in case you’re wondering about that, for the twenty-sixth time, no, this is not heaven.”

“The goons?”

“Dead, most of them. A few might have pulled through. We patched them up and dropped them off at the infirmary. Gosford didn’t make it.”

When Chase said his name, all at once I remembered something else.

“Chase.”

“Yeah?”

“Arie’s alive.”

“You found him?”

“No. Gary told me.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yeah.”

He came to the bed, wrapped his arms around me, and held me—though gingerly. “I’m so glad.”

“I have to go find him,” I said.

Chase nodded. “We’ll find him. But you’ve got to recover, and there’s something else to think about.”

“What?”

Ruby stepped into the room. “I thought I heard y’all in here. How you doin’ today, sweetie?”

“Ruby! Are you okay?” I said.

“Eh. I’m okay. Other than needin’ to find a new HQ on account of you blew up the old one.”

“You leveled half the park,” Chase said. “We’re beginning to notice a pattern here.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” said Ruby. “It’s at least half my doing. Guess I went a little crazy with the explosives. You doin’ alright?”

“I think so. I don’t know.”

Ruby limped in and sat in the chair that Chase had vacated. “Wish you’da woken up a bit earlier. So we coulda had a bit more time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“That’s what we gotta talk about,” Chase said. “It’s the new year. Past it. We need to take the serum.”

“Okay. So? We have the clean serum, right? Don’t tell me I destroyed that, too.”

“No,” said Ruby. “It wasn’t at the park. We stashed it here. And we got enough for a hunerd people. But there’s a problem.”

“It’s the wrong serum,” Chase said. “Or maybe there is no clean serum. The serum we have has the same memory side effects.”

“Glen and Carlos took it. Memories gone. They don’t know any of us from a deep hole in the ground.”

“No,” I said. “I can’t forget now that I know what I know. I’ve got to find Arie.”

“You’ll have to write it all down,” Chase said. “That’s what we’ve been doing. We’re going to stagger the doses and try to explain everything to one another as we wake up.”

I’d already written down everything about Arie that I could think of. I didn’t know where those journals were now, but even if I could get my hands on them, would it be enough?

“No,” I said. “No. I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t do it.”

“We have to,” Chase said. “You have to. You saw the graves. We’re out of time.”

“No,” I repeated. “I was ready to die once. I’ll do it again.”

“What about Arie?” said Ruby.

Chase nodded.

“He’s alive. Gary told me he is. He meant it and I believed him. And he told me I could see Arie if I showed him where the team’s HQ was. I think Gary has recruited Arie into some program or group of his own. I know I could have seen him. So I know Arie is alive, and I’d give almost anything to see him, but I know he’s smart and that he can take care of himself—and there are just certain things I won’t do now, even if that means never seeing him again.”

They argued with me. Tried to reason with me, but I refused to listen, and after going round and round until it was evening, they left. Later, Ruby brought me potatoes with a little very dry ham. I ate a bit, and when it was dark, I fell asleep.

Then came a new series of vivid, nerve-wracking dreams. I dreamed I was with Gary in a house. I dreamed I was with Arie, but he didn’t know who I was. I dreamed I was on the run from the Agency.

When I awoke it must have been after midnight. I sat in the bed, staring out at the night and the brilliantly black winter sky and its blazing star field.

Something tugged at the corners of my thoughts. Something I’d forgotten to do? Something I’d forgotten to say? Or was it something someone had said to me?

I stood up, and before I knew it, I was limping around the house to find Chase’s bedroom. I would have shaken him awake, but apparently, I’d already woken him up by shambling through the house. I stood in the open doorway of his room. In the starlight I saw him sitting up in his bed.

“Al? That you?” he said in the dark.

“What if there is no serum?” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Chase asked. “Are you okay? Come over here and sit down. Do you know where you are?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said, crossing the room. I sat on the bed with him. “I’m awake. I’m lucid. I know we’re not in heaven. Okay? Chase, what if there’s no serum at all? I mean what if the so-called serum does nothing else but erase our memories?”

“Sure,” he said, “I’ve thought of that, heard rumors.” He sounded perplexed. “But it’s pretty risky to stake your life on rumors generated by a bunch of half-starved people who can’t remember anything from longer ago than a year, don’t you think?” Then through a big yawn, he added, “Why are you awake? What’s this about?”

“It’s something Gary said,” I told him. “He threatened to have my memory wiped. Like it was a punishment. Like it was something they could do at any time—not a side effect of the serum, but something the Agency did to keep us in line.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Still risky, Al. Still really risky.”

He was right, of course. It’d be betting my life on a hunch and rumors. I considered everything that had happened in the past year, and before that, and all that I wanted to do next. I wanted to find Arie, and I wanted to be together with him again. But the Agency was obviously keeping secrets—the most deep and damaging sort of secrets—and I couldn’t give in to them for another year, or sell myself out in any other way, even if the reward was a reunion with Arie. I didn’t want that and neither would he.

And what world was I living in, if not a world of risks and high stakes? We almost died—the whole human race. I’d already overcome incredible odds just to sit there in the silvery darkness with Chase. Yes, I was afraid to die, but I’d tried it once, and it’d worked out all right. I would not keep living the Agency’s way—one life at a time, the ghost of a ghost.

“Chase, I remember now. I remember how we ended up at the haunted house. Gary had me cornered. It was checkmate. I knew I couldn’t betray you and Ruby, and I was out of moves. It was weird. As soon as I realized I’d have to trip those explosives, I saw everything with incredible clarity. And I knew if I could just take Gary out of the game, you guys and Arie would be okay. You’d carry on. Even if it meant taking myself out. It was like I saw the whole game board for the first time. Clearly. And I feel like I’m seeing things clearly now. I’m telling you: there is no serum. It’s all a game.”

In the dark I saw him raise a hand. “But you saw the—”

“—graves,” I said. “I know. We saw the bones. I believe there was a virus. Of course there was. But we survived. I think that’s what happened. We’re immune, or our immune systems adapted. I don’t know. All I know is I’m not playing by their rules anymore, Chase. Live or die. I’m done. I’m never going to take it.”

“Me neither,” said Ruby. “Me neither, goddamit.”

She’d been standing in the doorway. It made me jump.

“She’s real sneaky,” said Chase.

“When I need ta be,” said Ruby with a laugh.

“So—what?” said Chase. “We’re having a meeting about this? Now? In my room?”

“Should we wake up Woolly?” I said.

“You can try,” said Ruby.

“He sleeps like the dead,” said Chase. He fumbled at the side table by the bed and lit a candle.

“There’s no convincing either of you?” he said.

“No,” we said in unison.

“Well, I never intended to take it,” said Chase. “But I wasn’t going to tell you that.” He laughed and then sleepily rubbed his face.

“I got a bottle of Dewars,” said Ruby. “Let me run and get it. Get the cups and wake up ole Woolly. Might as well have a drink. We may not have much longer on this old earth.”

Twenty-Seven

Carlos and Glen were gone. They’d never been much more than hired hands to Ruby, and I guess she saw no further need to put them at risk—especially now that their memories had been erased. And they weren’t much of a threat to Ruby’s operation anymore, so Chase told them as much as they needed to know and led them blindfolded to the Taurus. He said he dropped them off just outside the Zone boundary, where they’d hopefully be recovered by a patrol and reunited with their families.

Woolly was different. He was an essential member of the team, and, frankly, we all loved him.

At first, we were devastated when he told us that he’d decided to take the serum.

“I’ll even out the odds,” he explained after we’d toasted with our tin cups of Dewars. “If you three fall over and die, I’ll be around to carry on. I’m not giving up. If what Alison says is true—or rather if what Gary told Alison is true—I’ll read my notebooks and yours, and then fall into my old wicked ways and pick up somewhere close to where we all left off. We have to even out these odds. We have to guarantee that somebody lives through this. In fact, one of you three should do what I’m doing. Then we guarantee that two of us live. You guys aren’t thinking this through.”

But we were as steadfast as he was—I was convinced the serum was just a game, and even though Woolly’s arguments made perfect logical sense, I would never willingly take the serum again.

However, when I thought about it too much, it did feel like an extraordinary gamble. Sometimes the fear wrapped around me like a thick wet blanket. I had panic attacks, didn’t sleep well.

But we kept our agreement, our joint decision to die—maybe. Woolly would die for sure, but only his identity, and he’d have his notebooks and ours to back him up. The rest of us might also die but if we lived, we’d live intact, with a year of memories, and we’d re-train Woolly. It was like some kind of open-ended suicide pact.

Arie had told me once about an experiment he’d read about in a magazine. It began with laboratory monkeys kept in cages, and in every cage researchers placed a toy—a doll or rubber ball or something. Naturally, the monkeys wanted to touch the toys, but when they did, the researchers subjected them to a harsh and startling blast of air. And so the monkeys quickly learned that the toys were not to be touched under any circumstances. Next, the researchers placed a second group of monkeys into the cages. These new arrivals wanted to touch the toys, too, but the original group prevented them from doing so—saving the new monkeys from the unpleasant stimulus. Then, the original monkeys were replaced with a third group of monkeys. The only monkeys to have ever been subjected to the harsh air blasts were now gone, but again, the new monkeys were curious about the toys. The monkeys in the second group intervened, however, even though they’d never been subjected to the negative stimulus. The researchers wouldn’t and didn’t subject the monkeys to any more blasts of air, but even so, none of the monkeys would touch the toys, based solely on the passed-along knowledge of the monkeys from the first group, who’d known about the air blasts firsthand—monkeys which were now gone.

I was placing my bet that we were like that third group of monkeys, continuing to take the treatment, giving up our very identities, and doing so based on some long-ago threat that probably no longer existed and maybe was never really there in the first place.

How does one characterize luck? My life in the Zone had been rather miserable at times—scraping by without hope of a better life, going to bed hungry, living in fear. But I had been lucky, luckier than a person had a right to expect in an entire lifetime. I had survived the pandemic, for one thing, which, judging from just that one mass grave site, was an astronomical stroke of fortune. And I had Arie. Surely other survivors could not have been so lucky. Arie and I had survived for who knew how many years without the benefit of our memories—how much luck had that required? And then, just over the last few months, I’d been shot at and driven off a cliff and blown up by C4 explosives.

So, why me? Why had I survived when others hadn’t? Why had I been adopted into a group that seemed poised to free a population of abject refugees from an unending annual cycle of misery? It certainly wasn’t because I had a survival instinct or was particularly smart or brave. There was nothing special about me that would make me more likely to survive than anyone else. It had all come down to luck.

Outside, the birds were chirping. Spring was coming. The days were warm, but it turned bitterly cold at night, and in the morning, hoarfrost sometimes covered the trees and winter-dead grass.

It had taken a while for me to get well enough to move around much. In addition to a periodic fogginess of mind and unsteadiness of my balance, the explosive blast at the haunted house had left me with lots of lacerations and burns. My ankle and knee were sore and stiff, and there were the cracked ribs Chase had given me in the process of bringing me back from the dead. But after a few weeks, I was able to walk to join the others for meals.

“Still alive, I see,” Chase would say to me when I appeared at breakfast.

“Have we met?” I’d reply. “I’m not sure I recall.”

But it was an odd time for all of us, even given the bizarre turns we’d already taken together.

After taking the serum, Woolly slept for almost three whole days. He’d wake up once or twice a day, long enough only to sip a bit of water or broth or tea, and he didn’t forget all at once. On the morning of the second day, he opened his eyes and said he was thirsty. I gave him a tin cup of water, and after he drank it, he handed it to me and said, “Thanks, Al.”

But the following day at sundown, Woolly came out of his room with a look on his face that told us he was utterly lost. We knew then that the serum had taken its course and that he’d no longer remember us.

Ruby greeted him by wrapping her arm around him.

“I know you probably feel really outta sorts right now,” she said lovingly, “but we’re gonna explain everything to ya. You can ask us any questions you like. We’ll answer.”

He regarded her with more than token suspicion.

“My name’s Ruby. That there’s Alison, and he’s Chase. We’re your friends.”

“Hello,” he said weakly.

We waved.

“What would you like to know?” asked Chase, smiling sadly at his friend, his chess partner.

“Well,” said Woolly in his polite but deliberate way, “for starters, who am I? I can’t seem to remember my name.”

“Oh, right,” said Ruby. “I forgot ya’d forget because normally you don’t forget nothin’. Anyhow, your name’s William. We call ya Woolly, on account of your woolly hair and your big beard, see. And you’re one ’a the smartest fellas we ever met.”

Ruby ushered him to a chair in the living room.

Woolly nodded slowly as we told him about the pandemic and the serum. The next day we explained the Agency and the Zones and the events of the entire last year. I told him about Arie and Gracie. Chase told him about Carlos and Glen. And there were others.

Woolly read and re-read the notebooks he’d written, sometimes staring incredulously at his own handwriting.

“It’s hard to take in,” said Woolly. “It’s hard to believe.”

“Yah,” said Ruby. “It’s too bad you had to take the serum. It was your idea, an’ it was a smart one, but it’s still too damn bad.”

Ruby had stories of people who’d been on the team but had been captured and killed—stories I’d never heard.

We told Woolly everything we knew, everything we could think of. It seemed to rush out of us, almost as though we couldn’t tell him fast enough, maybe because we honestly didn’t know how much time we had.

Days passed by. We sat around for hours talking as we drank tea or took walks after sunset—all the while waiting day by day for the virus to emerge, to take effect.

Chase kept us all on a watch schedule, but we never saw a sign of the Agency.

“They’re rebuilding, planning,” theorized Chase one night as he relived me on guard duty. “A lot of what they knew about us probably died with Gosford and his pals. Whoever replaced them will resume their search for us at some point, but with the end of the year serum treatment and the security breaches and the casualties, they won’t be ready to move on us again for a while.”

And so even though those days were little more than a tedious group death-watch, there was laughter and overall it was a very good time. We played chess and wrote in our journals and in the evenings, we sat at the fireplace and speculated about where we might be in another year or two.

God, how precious those memories became.

The days grew longer. It was like a new sun was rising—not the dreary depressed sun of winter, but the bright energetic sun of spring. It was the beginning of March and none of us had shown any sign of illness. In fact, we seemed to become healthier with each passing day. The rations stockpiled at the safe house were not luxurious, and at times they were somewhat vile—stale flour and grains, canned foods that had exceeded their optimal shelf life, and dried meats and fruits that were barely more palatable than old gym shoes. But something about being apart from the Agency and its enforced misery revived us.

Then, one morning as the four of us shared a breakfast of cracked wheat and blackstrap molasses, I made my announcement.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

Chase looked up abruptly.

“Whaddya mean?” asked Ruby.

“We’re alive,” I said. “We’ve survived. The serum is a sham. I have to go tell the others.”

“What others?” asked Woolly.

“Everyone,” I said. “But first, I’ve got to find my son. He’s alive. The Agency knows where he is. I can’t wait another day. If we were going to die, it would have happened by now. I’m well enough to travel. I have to go.”

“Where you gonna start?” asked Chase. “What’s your plan?”

I didn’t know. Not for certain. I had to go back to the Zone that Gary supervised to pick up Arie’s trail, but what was I going to do then? Break into the depot? The infirmary?

Ruby dropped her spoon into her bowl. “Well, y’ain’t goin’ alone, if that’s what you’re tryna say.”

It was exactly how I’d hoped she’d respond, but still I replied, “You don’t have to come with me. You could head south, like you’ve talked about. Find out what’s going on out in the world. This is something I need to do, and it doesn’t have to involve you.”

“The hell’s that s’posed to mean?” clucked Ruby. She turned to Chase. “Chay, what’s she talking about?”

Chase shrugged. Ruby turned back to me.

“That was our bargain wasn’t it? The trade for you drivin’ the truck? We got what we wanted—we don’t gotta take the serum no more. Now let’s get that smarty-pants son ’a yours and burn them lying bastards to the ground. Ain’t we still all in this together?”

“Yeah, Al,” said Chase. “Don’t be dramatic. Of course we’re coming with you. If you’re ready to start again, then we are, too. Woolly’ll come, won’tcha?”

“Well, not so fast,” said Woolly without looking up from his bowl. “I don’t fully know what I’m getting myself into here. I don’t know any of you very well, and I don’t even know if anything you’re saying is true or reasonable or valid. I hope you understand. It would be exceedingly reckless of me to get involved in what sounds like some very dangerous activity.”

We all stared at him. He ate a spoonful of his porridge.

“Thing is,” he went on. “I don’t have anything else to do. I’ve got literally nothing else planned. Ever. So. I’m in.”

“Psh,” exhaled Chase. “Some things don’t change, I guess.”

I never could get Ruby or Chase to explicitly calculate the odds that we’d be killed or captured by going back, and even though we didn’t talk much about the prospect of being dosed again and having our minds swept clean once more, we’d already proven that the Agency wasn’t strong enough to keep us apart. We were ready to prove it again.

As we prepared our gear for a trip back, a knot of dread sometimes formed in my stomach. We were going back to the Zone, back to that bleakness, that hellscape of dark, ramshackle neighborhoods populated by blank stares and ghosts. Back to the streets patrolled by skulking goons and hulking black war machines. Back to that prison of the mind that some person or group had tried to hold us in.

This time, though, it would be different. Not only were we going together as a team, but this time we were heavily armed. With rifles and weapons, yes, but also with something much more powerful—this time we had our memories. We had what the Agency desperately did not want us to have—ourselves.

Without Chadd VanZanten, this book would not have been possible. I still remember standing in his kitchen while he tried to convince me that the short story I had written should be expanded into a novel. It was only with his insistence and encouragement that I began this endeavor. Chadd helped me by co-writing an earlier version of this book and then by acting as editor and copywriter. He is a writing genius. I’d be thrilled to have even one-tenth of his talent. Chadd is my brilliant editor, forever friend, confidante, and now passionate lover and husband. I admire him endlessly.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to my writing group. Learning about writing would not have been nearly so much fun without them. Thanks especially to our fearless leader, Tim Keller. To E.B. Wheeler, Tim “Turbo” Tarbet, Britney Johnson, Felicia Rose, Eric Bishop, Sherrie Lynn Clarke (SLC), Jeremy Gohier, Casey Gasper, Lori Johnson Parker, Dustin Earl, Jeff Ricks, Jeff Bateman, Robyn Buttars, Emily Olsen, Lora Ann Stead, Arielle Hadfield, Shauna Leavitt, Neil Dabb, Isaac and Aaron Timm, Lynne Allen, and Wally Pride—thank you for your advice, insight, and help, but most importantly for making me laugh until my eyes watered over cherry pie at Village Inn or sweet potato fries at Angie’s. I’m glad that we agree that Solo shot first and that Picard is better than Kirk. Thank you for indulging my obsession with Downton Abbey and How I Met Your Mother. These are important matters.

Thank you to my family. To my children, Hudson and Dawson, who are so patient with the extra time I spend writing and make super creative and thoughtful suggestions: you are both brilliant. I am so lucky to be your mother.

To my sister Jennifer, I think I would have given up multiple times if it hadn’t been for your encouragement. You believed in me more than I believed in myself. I am so thankful. Thank you for your psychiatric help, brainstorming with me, and motivating me.

Thank you, Melissa, book expert of our family. Thank you for giving me good books to read, for sharing your knowledge of what makes for interesting and compelling plots, and for being my friend. I’m sad you’re moving. Let’s hang out.

Finally, to my parents, Bob and Barbra. If I have any talent for writing, I believe it comes from you. My mother has a gift for words and language, and my father has a gift for thinking outside the box and coming up with solutions. Both have proven that they will always be there to help.

To everyone mentioned above—I love you! It is all of you who make life worth living and worth writing about. I will never forget you.

Book 2: When It’s No Longer Night

For my husband Chadd

Let’s experience life’s adventures

while holding hands.

I’ll love you always!

When It’s No Longer Night Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Acknowledgments 2

One

Sorrow is watching a person suffer; misery is knowing you’ve caused their suffering.

I couldn’t sleep. Again.

Moonlight poured past the bars on my bedroom window and through spaces between the bedroom curtains, illuminating the white-painted cinder blocks and lending the room an iridescent shimmer.

Out in the front room, my husband lay on the couch, his back turned to me, as always. I had a narrow view of him through the bedroom door and the hallway beyond. I could just make out the rise and fall of his breathing, and I knew he was sleeping.

After my reawakening and the few days it took for me to fully recover, it was his idea for us to sleep in separate rooms, his idea for him to sleep on the couch and me in the bedroom.

“I should take the couch,” I had said. “Really. I’m the newcomer. I can’t take your bed.”

“No,” he said, as though there were never any debate to be settled. “I insist.”

That was over a year ago.

At the time, I was grateful, because he really did feel like a stranger to me, and I knew I couldn’t lie in bed with him in the dark, let alone be a wife to him. I thought sleeping apart would only be temporary though. Even though it had been explained to me that I would never—could never—really remember him, I guess I thought that we would get to know each other as wife and husband again eventually, and perhaps even fall into the patterns and ways we’d shared before.

But there he was, over a year later, his back to me, down the hall and on the couch.

And here I was, pulling the blanket up to my chin, then my nose. The room wasn’t cold. It wasn’t freezing. The heater sighed on and then hushed, and the entire apartment maintained a constant, comfortable temperature, but I felt cold anyway. The man on the couch remained a stranger of sorts, but I wanted him to cuddle into me, or at least to add his body heat to mine beneath the blankets. I wanted someone who would share his warmth.

More than anything, I wanted someone to touch me. I wanted to be touched, even if it was only a hand on my back, or the touching of feet down at the end of the bed.

Maybe then I’d sleep.

I often laid awake at night, thinking there was something I needed to see to, something urgent that needed doing. Something I needed to fix.

But what? And where?

Was it the knowledge that I needed to make things better for that poor guy out there lying on the couch? Maybe. Was it to atone for what I’d done? Maybe.

What had I done?

He was there at my reawakening, and probably when I was put to sleep, as well. He’d brought flowers—daisies—to greet me when I woke up.

Disorienting is not the word for it. Confusing is not the word for it. To slowly awake, like a child, and then to open your eyes, remembering nothing about yourself—but to see a man smiling down at you. You don’t know who he is, but from the way he smiles at you, you know he knows you. Like when you bump into someone on the sidewalk and they know your name but you don’t know theirs—that’s the kind of awkwardness I’m talking about, but you don’t know who you are, either, and so it hardly matters whether you know the other person or not.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he’d said. “Hey, Alison.” He was nodding. His hand lay on my shoulder.

I blinked a few times and lay there propped on an elbow in the bed in the unknown room. I frowned up at him. My pulse and breathing quickened.

“Try to just focus on breathing,” he’d said hastily. “You’re safe. There’s no need to be afraid or panic. Don’t try to figure it out. Not yet. Just breathe in and out.”

My crazed gaze roamed around the room. It was mostly bare but for the few medical items you’d find in a hospital room. A blood-pressure cuff, a latex glove dispenser. Cinder block walls.

The man, the stranger, spoke to me in a voice meant to be soothing.

He was saying something about going home and getting things back to the way they were supposed to be, the way they’d been before. He said something about an Agency, about a project. I tried to listen and to process, but it was like drinking from a five-gallon bucket tipped up to my mouth. I only understood every few words.

Why don’t you start with where I am, I thought. Why don’t you tell me who you are, I thought. How about who am I? Start with that.

I went back-and-forth thinking this was a dream and knowing that it wasn’t. I couldn’t rest my glance on anything for more than an instant. My perception faded in and out of focus.

Then he kissed me on the top of my head before I had a chance to flinch away. I would definitely have pulled away if I hadn’t been so befuddled. And it wasn’t his disfigured face that I’d have pulled away from, though that had something to do with it. It was more because I was lost, floating. I knew I was in a “bed.” I knew this must be some kind of “hospital.” I knew that if someone would just hand me a hair-tie, I’d pull my brown hair back into a ponytail to get it out of my face and that would help me calm down a bit and sort this out. Because I knew that I knew things. I could think and speak and put words to objects.

But I didn’t know this man. And I didn’t find his tone comforting. Not at all. If anything, his purring and cooing did more to worry me than waking up in a strange room without any immediate recollection of how I’d gotten there.

So, he kissed my head before I could react and then he left the room at a purposeful, though limping, half-jog.

“I’ll go down and get a wheelchair,” he said. “Won’t be a minute.”

That’s when I realized there was another person in the room. A nurse. She was tall and broad-shouldered. I got the impression she might have been selected to assist the man in case I needed to be restrained.

“Where am I?” I asked. “Why can’t I remember anything?”

She gave me an understanding but unfriendly nod and from the look on her face I knew she’d been asked this before. “You’ll be briefed,” she said impassively. “Really, you should just try to focus on breathing and not going into panic mode.”

Interestingly, her unconcerned tone was more comforting than the man’s urgent attempts to keep me calm. She was icy, but she was in control, and that was maybe what I wanted to know—that someone was in charge. I took a breath.

“What happened to him?” I asked the nurse, with a gesture to my face to indicate the scars and droopiness of his.

She turned away from me to make notes on a sheaf of papers. Without facing me again, she shook her head. “Be still,” she said in a firm tone. “You’ll be told everything.”

I exhaled again, loudly this time. “What is this?” I demanded. “Am I being detained? You can’t detain me. Why won’t you tell me anything?

The nurse turned and took a step or two toward the bed until she loomed over me. Then she shot a glance at the door as if judging when the man might return.

I thought she was going to hit me. I drew back.

“You really want to know what happened to him?” she said, her voice acid.

There were so many other things I really needed to know more, but I looked out the opened door too. And then I nodded.

“You did,” she hissed. Her fists were balled up. “You did that to him. You betrayed him, betrayed us all. And he paid for it. And here he is anyway. To take care of you.” All at once she frowned and glanced at the door and then turned away from me again.

I lay down on the bed and drew up my knees. What was this place, I thought. What was happening?

“Who is he?” I asked in a quiet voice.

She sighed wearily. She turned her head and over her shoulder she said, “His name is Gary. Gary Gosford. You’re his wife.”

Two

In the days that followed, I was told everything that had happened. Officers from the Agency came to brief me. They told me about the worldwide viral plague that almost wiped out all of us. They told me about how, in the rebuilding of society, memories were now almost a kind of privilege, and how some people who struggled to contribute to society were kept in a perpetual state of forgetting until they could improve. It was for their own good. The Starting Zones they called them, mere camps really—depopulated residential neighborhoods that had been walled off. These neighborhoods were where the Genpop, the general population, were kept. The Agency officers explained how those in the Zones were watched and screened and tested for moral rectitude and ethics and even physical stamina and strength.

“Whenever there is a crisis, there is also an opportunity,” Gary told me. “If we have to rise from the ashes of a catastrophe, we may as well make a good start of it, don’t you think? In fact, not doing so would only lead to a future downfall.”

Then Gary told me of how terrorists and assassins had infiltrated the Zones and even the Agency, and a small group of them had managed to make contact with me and had somehow corrupted me or turned me to do their will. I’d somehow been forced into betraying the Agency. There was a battle, and I had detonated a bomb that had killed dozens of men. The blast had nearly killed Gary.

“It was a tremendous setback,” said Gary. “I don’t mean because I was hurt, and I’m not even necessarily talking about the people we lost. We lost good people, and I was hurt, but the worst part was that it stopped our momentum. I can’t tell you how infuriating it is. We’re trying to make things better for everyone, and certain people just want to stop it, to ruin it. There’ve been other security problems, other insurgents. So now half our time and effort are wasted on investigations and security and rooting them out.”

He stopped and looked at me. His eyes were narrowed and his jaw was clenched. He held the look for a few moments, and then his expression softened.

“We’ll be back on track, eventually. We’re playing the long game here. We’ll get back on track.”

Gary told me that he wasn’t supposed to tell me any of this, that those who had their memories confiscated were supposed to wake up and start fresh, but the nurse knew who I was, who I had been, and she let her loyalty and commitment to the Agency get the better of her.

“Susan’s good at her job,” said Gary. “I shouldn’t have left you two alone. She was reprimanded—quite severely if what I heard is accurate,” Gary said. “The point is, she contaminated your new start. I feel like you have to know the whole story now. Just don’t let anyone know we had this talk. I could get into even more trouble.”

“More trouble?” I asked. “What do you mean ‘more’ trouble?”

“Some of my superiors didn’t understand my”—he paused for a second and pressed his lips into a tight line— “my approach. I was accused of putting people in danger. Long-story-short, I was transferred. Lost my job as Zone supervisor.”

“Because of me. Because of what I did.”

Gary shrugged faintly. Then he shook his head.

“I don’t know. It was them. It was me. I should have dealt with them differently from the start.”

“If I was one of them,” I said, “then why didn’t they throw me in prison? Or worse? Is there a worse?”

“You weren’t one of them. You were never one of them. I convinced them to allow you to stay if—well, everything’s arranged now.”

“If what?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s all arranged now. You’re here and we’re still together and—”

“If you stepped down.”

Gary didn’t say more, but I knew that was it. He’d given up the position he cherished to make sure I wasn’t kicked out into the Zones or put in prison.

I think it was Gary’s disfigurement and scars that made him sleep always facing away from me. He often spoke to me and others with his face turned away. He didn’t want to be seen, by me least of all. He didn’t want anyone to see the parts of him that were damaged—the parts that I had damaged. But that of course wasn’t everything. Even so, it was nearly impossible to know to what degree he held me responsible. He theorized at times that the terrorists had threatened me or blackmailed me into playing my treacherous role. With my memories of the whole affair now gone forever, it was difficult to say if I were really to blame or not. I thought about it for weeks without ever arriving at any conclusion except that Gary’s injuries weighed him down so deeply that I wondered if he’d ever be well.

“You know, it doesn’t bother me—the scars, the injuries.” That is what I wanted to say to him. That his disfigurements, the way he looked, did not matter to me. In addition to Gary’s face, the right side of which was pitted with the shiny wrinkles of burn scar tissue, his right arm was shriveled and useless, and he shuffled when he walked, favoring his right leg. He’d evidently angled his right side in the direction of the explosion, as though his own uprightness would be enough to stop it.

I’m sure the same could be said of the other survivors of Gary’s team, the men who’d survived my treachery. They saw past the scars, too. Some of them had lost hands and arms. One of them was blind. They visited Gary sometimes and you could tell they still looked up to him, despite his dismissal and demotion.

But that didn’t matter to Gary. His injuries seemed to run deeper than his pink puckered skin and ruined limbs. He’d been kind to me when he first brought me to our apartment, and for a week or two he’d been consumed with the nervous energy of new beginnings. He talked of things we might do, like picnics or hikes, and earning a house. Soon after, however, Gary turned quiet, sullen, and even resentful. He’d lie on the couch for hours, or he would sit on the steps outside watching the crows in the courtyard.

Gary provided for me. He took care of my needs. Aside from his breezy, downcast neglect, he never mistreated me. But we barely spoke, and when I spoke to him, he was nearly always turned away.

And underneath it all was the nagging and ever-present certainty that all of this was my fault. No matter that I couldn’t remember even the faintest impression of what had happened. No matter that I had to take Gary’s word on all of it. It was my fault, and the fact that I couldn’t remember it made it impossible to ever resolve the situation.

“Oh my god. I am so sorry,” I’d said to Gary when he told me the stories.

“You weren’t then,” he said without the slightest hint of irony.

“I can’t imagine ever wanting to hurt you,” I said, “or anyone else.”

He nodded, but in his face was disappointment. Gary was the husband I didn’t know, couldn’t remember. He was the husband I had ruined, the one I betrayed. I should have loved him, but I didn’t.

I knew Gary didn’t love me either, or I thought I knew. I often wondered what had really happened. Because every story is colored by its teller, and certainly someone as wrecked as Gary would have certain biases. Moreover, did he love me before I betrayed him? Did I love him? Could he forgive me?

At night, our Agency dormitory was noisy with the sounds of the other tenants, water pipes, squeaky floors. I tried so many things to sleep—herbal teas, soothing sleep tapes, exercise, reading. But night after night, sleep didn’t just evade me, it mocked me.

If I rose from my bed and opened the curtains, I could stare at the moon. But bars crossed the windows—for our protection, Gary said, to keep out those living down in the Starting Zones that sprawled in the shadow of the immense Agency housing blocks like a garbage dump inhabited by phantoms. The bars protected us from those phantoms who occasionally rose up in their muddled rage to hurt us.

Most maddening of all, I knew what I needed to sleep. I knew what would bring me peace and sleep, and it wasn’t tea or recorded sounds or an unobstructed view of the sky.

I needed to talk.

As strange as it sounds, the thing I knew would put me straight to sleep was companionship. Human voices, human laughter. I needed to speak with people and be spoken to.

And touch, human touch. When my body was utterly overcome with fatigue accumulated after a week or so of no sleep, I would sleep, and in that sleep, I’d dream of someone holding me.

I hadn’t had any meaningful companionship since I’d been awakened that day with Gary and the big nurse in the recovery room. Gary had touched me that day, and I’d wanted to cringe away. Now I’d pay a ransom for a side hug or a pat on the upper arm. When I handed him a glass, I’d try to arrange my grasp so that we’d touch fingers for a split second.

I couldn’t go out much—there was nowhere to go, or at least nowhere I could go. There was unrest outside, trouble in the Zones. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a conversation, or was embraced, and that made it feel like it had been forever.

I stood at the bedroom window as Gary slept on the couch. The bars cast a crisscrossing of shadows across my nightgown and the floor behind me. I don’t know how long I stood there, but after a while I went back to bed and lay there awake, wanting and needing to do something, my mind screaming at me to do something but knowing nothing, remembering nothing, and having no idea where to start.

In the morning, Gary arose from the couch in the front room, folded the bedding, and set it on the floor to one side of the couch. He made almost no sound. I sat on the bed watching him. I could see only a narrow slice of the front room. I watched him cross the room and go into the kitchen, but I didn’t need to see him to know why he’d gone into the kitchen. Every day was the same. I could close my eyes and picture every move he made and every move he was going to make.

Because every day was exactly the same.

That’s not true—every day was almost exactly the same. There were small differences, variations. For one thing, we spoke a little less each day. We interacted less often with each passing week. But aside from such subtleties, the days were all alike.

Except today.

Today would be different.

Today would be different because I would make it different.

From my place on the bed, Gary was out of my view for the moment, but I knew he was filling a filter with coffee grounds and then he would turn on the coffee machine. I could count it down. Three, two, one—and the coffee machine hissed to life.

Next, he’ll come into the hallway, I thought, and a few seconds later there he was in the hallway. If I hadn’t watched this routine a few hundred times before, I might have said that he was limping down the hallway to the open bedroom door and straight to me. Like maybe he was coming to the bed to give my foot a friendly squeeze and to say good morning.

But he wasn’t.

I thought, will he look up this morning? Some mornings he looked up and sometimes not. It was one of the variations. At this step of his routine Gary sometimes looked up and made eye contact with me. Spotting and noting even small things like this had become part of my day.

He didn’t look up. Ninth day in a row.

Next, he made a sharp left off the hallway and disappeared into the bathroom. He still made very nearly no sound. I sat on the bed, on the right side, because when I’d first come home to the apartment, Gary’s things were on the nightstand on the left. After a year I was still sleeping on one side of the bed.

The toilet seat clunked open. The toilet seat clunked shut. The toilet flushed. Shower water running. Shower curtain rattling open. Shower off. Shower curtain shut. Like clockwork. Sink faucet on. Sink off.

Only after he was showered and shaved did he come into the bedroom. He wore a bathrobe, and he shuffled into the room. At this point Gary finally established eye contact and gave me a head nod. It was the dying remnant of the more lengthy greetings he’d once given me each morning. At first he would tell me good morning and we’d exchange a few words, but that had devolved into a muttered “morning,” which had devolved over weeks to a mere “mm.” A few more months later it was just the eye contact and a nod, and I knew that sooner or later it would all vanish until there was no acknowledgment at all. What would that be like? To live with someone and simply never have any contact?

But that day wasn’t today. Today would at least be much different from the last couple hundred. And maybe they’d be different from now on.

From the closet Gary removed a pair of slacks and a shirt and his underwear. I could describe how he rotated through his pants and shirts so that he dressed alike each day but not exactly the same, and I even knew how he selected his underwear—it had taken me a while to piece that together, but even I had grown bored with tracking it.

He returned to the bathroom to dress.

Only a few more steps remained in the morning routine. I had made attempts to break him out of this strict regimen. I made him breakfast a few times, and he politely ate, but eventually he said, “You needn’t bother with all of this. I’m not a big breakfast eater. I have coffee and toast. That’s it.”

Now I lay in bed as he moved through the same ten or twelve almost-silent steps with their four or five variations.

I heard the toast pop up, and then the faint scratching of the butter knife against the bread, and I knew there was less than five minutes until he was gone. I looked at the clock. Four minutes and ten seconds later, Gary crossed the front room again, this time on his way to the front door.

Before what Gary referred to as “the incident” (by which he meant the explosion that maimed him), he’d worked as a supervisor out in the Zones.

“It was rough work,” he’d told me, “but I was making a difference. I really was. It was a job that mattered.” Then he had let his gaze fall, and I knew he was thinking of what he’d lost, what had been taken from him.

He worked at a desk now, doing some kind of data entry and record keeping of people who lived in the Zones. I’d asked him about it several times but he seldom wanted to talk about it.

“It’s busy-work,” he’d told me testily one day. “Okay? They’ve parked me at a desk, and they give me tasks that a monkey could handle.”

I’d never been to his office, but I had a mental picture of it. The ubiquitous cinder block walls painted white, frosted plastic panels over fluorescent light tubes. Beige computer and keyboard. He sat there typing, pecking and poking at the keys because his injuries left him unable to properly home-row.

I didn’t have a job.

“There’s no need,” Gary said. “In fact, it’d be a bad idea. You’d have to travel to the Depot every day and there’s just so much trouble out there right now. It’s a weird time.”

Terrorists had somehow made contact with me, which had led to the trouble he referred to. He never said it explicitly, but I knew he worried about it happening again. When I did occasionally leave our housing unit to pick up provisions or visit the doctor, Gary would question me.

“Did you come straight home?” he’d say.

“Yeah, of course,” I’d answer. “Where else would I go?”

“I don’t know. Just expected you sooner.”

“I went slow. The sidewalks are all covered in snow.”

“Talk to anyone?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“The dentist.”

“He say anything?

“That my gums look good.”

“Maybe in a few months we can look for something you can do,” he’d said. “Maybe we can find something you can do here in the housing blocks.”

“I’ll do anything,” I said. “Clean, wash windows. I’ll clean the toilets.”

“My rank and position are more than sufficient for now.”

He was right, but of course this had little to do with clothing or getting enough to eat. It would be nice to have a little income to put away in my account for extras like chocolate and mango-scented body wash, but what I really craved was some kind of break from the endless, quiet, eventless days. And contact with other people—if I’m being honest, that’s what I wanted most of all.

There were people in the housing block to speak to, but most of them certainly must have known what had happened with Gary and me, and almost none of them would say more than a few words to me. I’d become acquainted with Mrs. Carlyle, a resident in our housing block, but she wasn’t a friend—she’d posted a note by the entrance of the commissary saying she was interested in someone to wash her linens for a pitiful weekly sum, and I’d responded immediately—mostly because it meant someone to speak to, but aside from a few brief conversations to set things up, she now communicated strictly through the written notes she’d pin to the laundry bags she left outside her door each Sunday morning.

These days if I got a curt nod in the courtyard from one of the guards, I counted that a good morning. If one of them said, “Hey, Mrs. Gosford,” it made my day.

Members of Gary’s old team would sometimes visit him, but I never spoke to any of them—barely even saw them.

A few weeks after I’d first come home to the apartment, Gary sat me down and said, “Okay, a few of my old team are going to stop by later tonight.”

“Oh, really?” I said. “I’ll make something for dinner. Beef stew, maybe. Or lasagna. We can go to the commissary and get ice cream—”

“No, no. That’s not actually what I was getting at. They’re gonna stop by, and I’ll be leaving with them. We’ll be gone until late.”

“Oh, I see. Of course. A night out with the boys, huh? That’ll be good for you. Sure.”

“Right,” he continued, “but what I’m trying to tell you is that it might be best if you were in the bedroom when they get here. Or maybe at the commissary. We’ll only be a minute, and then we’ll be gone. My concern is that I don’t want you to feel awkward. So.”

“I understand. I’ll be in the bedroom. It’s no problem.”

“Good.”

At first, the team came to get Gary a couple times a month, but soon it was pretty much every Friday, then Fridays and Saturdays. As his morning greetings became more curt, his nights out with his team became more frequent. After a few months he was gone more nights than he was home, and his absence became the new routine in these days that all looked alike.

Today would be different.

I heard the deadbolt unlatch, and the front door open. The final step of the morning checklist.

“Have a good day, Gary!” I yelled.

This was a variation of my own—provoking him into interacting with me. Sometimes he’d answer, “Yeah, you too,” and other times it was, “Okay, thanks.”

I listened. I knew he’d heard me because there was no sound. I closed my eyes and I could picture him with one hand on the door knob and the door open, maybe halfway out the door already and looking over his shoulder, deciding how he’d reply.

This time there was nothing. After a few more seconds, I heard the door close. No reply at all. That was new.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said under my breath. “Today’s gonna be full of surprises.”

I got out of bed.

Three

My only real responsibilities in Gary’s apartment were cleaning the house and preparing dinner. This meant that my only responsibilities in the entire world were cleaning and dinner. I suppose some people would think that wasn’t a bad deal. I heard of people who worked jobs that were much more difficult and distasteful than mine—backbreaking jobs, or jobs that simply never ended. I heard about Agency security personnel who spent three days marching on border patrol and then just two off before starting again. I heard about Agency drivers who were on call twenty-four hours a day and sometimes worked that long at a single stretch. There were those who worked in production facilities for twelve hours a day and more if told to. People in the Zones were given manual labor such as farming, construction, and road maintenance—without the benefit of machines and electrical power.

And so I cooked little dinners for Gary and kept the already-tidy apartment tidy. I made casseroles and pot roasts and lasagna. It turned out I wasn’t much of a cook, but Gary was easy to please, despite his almost never paying me a compliment. With no kids or pets—which in a funny way made my simple chores even more challenging—there wasn’t enough to keep my mind occupied.

When I complained of boredom and tedium, Gary replied, “Find meaning in the things you do each day. You can’t just sleepwalk through your tasks. We all have a part to play in this project, and even if those tasks seem inconsequential, we have to believe in them.”

This was much easier to say than to do, of course.

Without true human companionship, it all seemed pointless. The rooms were clean but not comfortable, the food adequate but not a source of any kind of satisfaction. It was what I imagined a prison hospital would be like—not a dismal place, not a desolate place, but hospitable only in the barest sense of the word.

I tried to find a purpose in my existence, but what I arrived at more easily were small moments of distraction. In the courtyard I sometimes fed food scraps to the ravens and magpies that lived around the apartment block. If I put my ear to the heater vents I could sometimes hear my neighbors bickering about petty things. He accused her of being too critical. She told him he was lazy. He said she was rude. She said he didn’t spend enough time with her kids. They never shouted at one another, but they were sharp and they hurled the most shocking insults. I listened to them, not caring who was right but wishing to be with someone who cared enough to raise an objection or to argue and shout.

And then there was the bathroom window.

The bathroom had only one window—in the wall where the shower was, and it was made of frosted glass—you couldn’t see out of it unless it was open. But scaly deposits of hard water residue built up on the inside every week, and the outside would become grimy with tiny spider webs and windblown dust. So I removed the window every so often to clean it.

The window looked out on an alley between two apartment buildings—the view was just another wall of windows. But one day I removed the window panes and heard voices and shouted commands down below. I put my head out the window and at the open end of the canyon between the two adjacent buildings, there was a crowd of people.

It turned out to be a queuing station where some of the people from the nearby Zone came to collect their weekly rations and supplies. I couldn’t see the entire line, but if I looked out at just the right angle, I could see the front of the line and the Agency people who dispensed food and other needs.

Even from that distance I could see that they were shabby and tired-looking. Men, women, young people, old people. They came with their frowzy sacks and busted baskets to collect whatever was on offer. Sometimes it was packets of food or coarse bundles of vegetables, sometimes bundles of clothing, sometimes cans of fuel.

When I figured out this was a weekly event, I set my bathroom window cleaning schedule to match it, and I would watch them for an hour or more at a time, thinking of who they might be and how they got along. Sometimes the schedule changed, and on days when there was no queue, I wondered how they could get by without a weekly re-supply.

One night, in an attempt to make conversation, I asked Gary about it.

“You watch them from the bathroom window?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah. Well, I saw them by accident, but now I watch them sometimes after I take the windows out.”

“Don’t do that anymore,” he said. “If the security personnel see you, they might think you’re up to something. They’ll come and question you.”

“I’m just looking out my own window.”

“Don’t do it anymore.”

“They seem so sad. So broken. Those people down there.”

“Most of them are lazy,” said Gary. “Or they have no useful skills. They’re weak, unproductive. Freeloaders.”

I deduced that I used to be one of them. Gary didn’t say so, and I couldn’t remember, but I’d been told that we all began in the Starting Zones. And when Gary had first brought me home to the apartment, I’d shown obvious signs of malnutrition. I was underweight and my heart palpated at times. My gums were shrunken, like they were drying out. My hands were hard, cracked, and calloused. My fingernails were grimy and worn down to mere patches of rough keratin. I used to be one of them, out there beneath my bathroom window. I was watching myself down there.

When the people reached the front of the line, they’d bow their heads. I couldn’t make out what this meant at first, but then I figured out that the guards were passing a wand over the backs of their necks to read an implant of some kind that held their identity. Only after being identified could they have their rations.

These tiny distractions and the slight variations in the routine of Gary’s comings and goings didn’t seem to hold any real significance, but they were in fact the only things keeping me from losing the will to even get out of bed.

But that was about to end. That is what I’d told myself. Today was the day I would change things between Gary and me. And I was partially right—things were about to change, but not in the way I thought.

As soon as Gary was out of the apartment, I was up. I had coffee with toast and eggs and I even allowed myself a few curls of bacon. The apartment was already fairly tidy, but I cleaned it from top to bottom anyway. Then I showered, set my hair in curlers, and retrieved the cardboard box I’d hidden under my side of the bed. Inside the box were a few items I’d bought from the commissary with the money I’d earned by doing my neighbor’s laundry every Sunday.

First out of the box was a pair of simple, open-toed shoes. I had only two other pairs of shoes—a pair of gray sneaker-type sensible shoes like the ones nurses wear, and a pair of brown work boots that I wore when it was cold out. My new shoes were made of navy-blue canvas with white piping and a cork wedge sole. I thought they would be good for the summer, for a walk on a beach. They were shopworn, or more probably they were previously owned, but I liked the way they looked on my feet.

Next was a simple dress with cap sleeves and a pattern of white and blue flowers. It didn’t exactly match the shoes, but I thought it was reasonably flattering.

The pièce de résistance was a small tube of red lipstick. Ordinary lip balm was scarce enough; actual red lipstick was a real luxury. I almost never saw anyone wearing lipstick, and this tube had cost me more than the dress.

There were a few other articles in the box—a blue hair band, some trial-size make-up samples, and a little tube of scented hand lotion that might function as a substitute for perfume.

These were the tools I’d assembled to make Gary accept me—or at least notice me.

My plan was not to seduce him. I was pretty sure Gary found me attractive, and I longed for human touch and companionship, but this wasn’t so much about getting turned on as it was about prying him out of his routines—and my routines, for that matter. I thought that if I could make something different happen, if I could just change a few of the mundane variables in our day, it might lead to one real conversation. After that maybe we could sit on the couch now and then and open up to one another. And after that—anything might be possible. Gary and I had been living this way for almost a year, and even though I had no memories of my previous life, I knew it was insane to go on. I knew Gary wouldn’t sweep me up into his arms at the sight of me in my mismatched finery, but I was hoping he’d smile and be just a little delighted at my efforts.

I did wonder what it would be like to kiss. I knew the mechanics of kissing, knew I wanted to kiss someone, but I, of course, had no memory of ever doing it. The thrill of it, the tingle of it, was like something I’d read about but had never felt for myself.

As I looked at my paltry collection of almost-contraband supplies lying there on the bed, I felt a sudden pang of despair and doubt. Gary was obviously resentful of me, or ashamed, or dissatisfied. Probably, it was all of these. Probably, it was more than these. How could lipstick or open-toed shoes change that?

I took a deep breath. It didn’t matter. I had no way of knowing what would happen, but I had to try. I had to make a change happen.

I didn’t want to put on the dress or make-up until just before Gary got home, so I left my bathrobe on while I made dinner. It was shepherd’s pie, which Gary seemed to appreciate slightly more than most of the other dinners I made.

I started my plan first thing in the morning, but I ran short of time nevertheless, and I had only just enough time to put on the dress and lotion and make-up and shoes before Gary came through the door. The table was set and the food ready. We had no tapered candles, so I’d turned off most of the lights and lit one of the plain, squat utility candles we used during power outages.

Gary stood at the threshold for what seemed like a long time, looking at me, at the table. From the hallway fluorescent light poured into the candle-lit space.

I stood at the table. Gary kept staring.

After what felt like several minutes, I squeaked out a “hello.”

Gary blinked a few times and shut the door. Then he turned to the coat rack and slowly removed his scarf, his coat. He hung them on the rack. He set down his shoulder bag and turned to face me again.

“Hello?” I repeated.

“What’s this?” he said, waving his finger in the direction of me and the table and me again.

“What’s what? It’s dinner time. Shepherd’s pie. How was your day?”

“Same as usual, I guess. Why do you want to know? Is that a new dress? And—lipstick?

“Yeah, do you like it?”

“Where’d you get it?” His expression hadn’t changed. He was confused, suspicious.

“I’ve been saving. I’ve been doing laundry for a lady here in the building. That Carlyle woman. And I’ve been saving the money.” I straightened the already-straight hairband and smoothed the already-smooth dress over my tummy and waist. “I really wish everything matched better, but it’s all just from the commissary, and you know they don’t have very many—”

“Alison,” Gary said, “what is this all about?”

“I told you.” I tried to stay in the moment, tried not to consider the possibility of failure. “It’s dinner. Sit down. Tell me what’s going on with you. You said something about quarterly filings. Are you finishing those up?”

He opened his mouth but frowned as if unsure whether he should reply at all.

“You know what?” I said. “I’m being dumb. You don’t want to talk about work when you just got back from work. Sit, sit, sit. We don’t have to talk right now. Sit down and let’s eat before it’s cold.”

He blinked a few times more and then shook his head as if surrendering a little. We sat down and the little candle flame quivered with our movements. I served the shepherd’s pie, and we ate awhile.

“I had a dream that I was flying last night,” I said abruptly, with a nervous titter. “Do you ever have those? Flying dreams? I never know if I like them or hate them. It’s so exhilarating, but then I’m always afraid I’ll fall.”

Gary shrugged and nodded his head a little—without looking up from the food.

“Everything taste okay?” I asked.

“Mm,” he muttered with a slight nod, eyes still on his plate.

“A little less chili powder this time. It’s not easy to get. I think it tastes better with less.”

“Mm.”

The candle flame was still now, hovering over the wick.

Gary pushed the last of his shepherd’s pie into the center of his plate, scooped it up with his fork, and put it in his mouth. He set down the fork.

“Gary, there’s more. Did you get enough?”

He looked across the table at me. In the candlelight he looked wary. A few seconds ticked by.

“Thank you,” he said flatly. “I’ll have a little more.”

My god, it’s working, I thought.

He passed me the plate, and I spooned up a second serving for him.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be taking odd jobs,” said Gary. “It’s—not encouraged.”

“Oh, it’s just a couple hours a week. I just do it while I do our laundry. I don’t even speak to her most of the time—she sets it outside her door and I bring it back the same day.”

“Still.”

“So, tell me what’s going on,” I said. “Is it still really nasty out there? Shootings and attacks? Can you say anything?”

“Not really.”

“You used to. At first, I mean. You told me how things had gotten out of control. And that they were going to change. You can’t say anything now?”

Gary pushed his plate away and sat back in his chair. He dabbed his mouth as he looked at me again.

“What’s wrong? Food’s no good?”

“I told you it’s fine,” he said in a low voice. He placed his elbows on the table and knitted his fingers as though he might pray. “But you know what would go really good with it?”

“What?”

“A little peace and quiet to eat it.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“The dress, the lipstick, a candle,” he said. “And all these questions? What’s going on?”

“I just want to talk,” I said. “I thought we could open up to each other a little and talk.”

“I’ve told you what I do. I’ve told you who I work with. It’s not work that’s rewarding. It’s not work that’s exciting or worth talking about. It’s the job they gave me after—after what happened to me—and I do it, and I try not to complain but when the day is over, I don’t want to think about it, talk about it, explain it. I just need peace. Rest.”

“But we never talk. We never do anything together.”

“I’m not sure what you want from me, Alison.” He ran a hand over his face. “Times are hard. What should we do? Play Backgammon? Go for a walk? Hmm? Arm in arm?” He held up his shriveled arm. “I can’t work all day and provide for us and then come home and think up ways to keep you entertained, too.” He stood up, but he bumped the table and everything clanked loudly. A glass of water splashed on the table.

I felt like crying.

There was a shelf on the wall by the table that held all the books I’d managed to collect. I’d read all of them. Many of them several times.

“What about your precious books? Here. Read. The Old Man and the Sea. Gone With The Wind. Great Gatsby.” He tossed them one by one onto the couch.

“Why did you bring me here if you don’t want me here?” I blurted. “You go days without saying anything to me! You barely even look at me! I’m trying to be good to you!”

“If this is your idea of having a conversation, I think even being at the office would be better. Don’t wait up.” He went to the door and slipped his feet back into his shoes. With his good arm, he took his coat from the rack and struggled into the sleeves.

“Wait, Gary,” I pleaded. “Don’t go. I’m sorry. Please just don’t go.”

But he was already opening the door. The fluorescent light flooded in from the hall, and then the door closed.

Failure. The exact opposite of what I’d planned. I slumped onto the worn leather couch and watched the spilled water drain off one edge of the table and onto the floor. I sat in the candlelight and the quiet.

One of the books in the meager little housing block library was a college textbook on human development. It told of infants in orphanages in what were called “third world countries” back before. The orphan babies were furnished with food and formula and water and clean diapers and even toys, but they often became unresponsive or catatonic for no apparent reason, and many of them died. Later the book explained it was a kind of starvation they died from—not a starvation for food, but human contact. Odd to have found that book in my situation, I’d thought, but I understood the hypothesis perfectly. Understood what would have made those babies better, what would’ve kept them alive. How long before I became catatonic? How long before I died?

A tiny sound broke into my thoughts. A scratching or rattling. It was the doorknob. Someone was quietly turning it. I sat up and smiled and turned to look at the door. It turned gently. It was Gary, fumbling with his key, coming back in. Had he softened? Did he realize I was right or did he just not want to be in his office at this hour? I wasn’t even sure how long he’d been gone, how long I’d sat there on the couch. But it didn’t matter how long it’d been and it didn’t matter why he was coming back. I took some deep breaths and thought hard for a few seconds.

I told myself: When he comes in, don’t make demands. Let him talk—or let him not talk. Don’t pester. Maybe the plan had been too much all at once. I’d shocked him out of our routine, all right—but maybe the timing was wrong. Start over, I told myself. Go slow. This can still work.

I stood up from the couch, straightened the dress again.

I unlocked the door and opened it.

It wasn’t Gary.

Four

Electricity.

It was electricity I felt there on my arm where he touched me—it was his right hand, my left arm. Just above the elbow. There is no other way to describe it. It was a mild electrical shock that originated from that place where he grasped me, and it radiated all the way up into my shoulder and down into my chest, and down my forearm and into my wrist and hand, and it seemed to dissipate from the fingertips. But it lingered, too. My arm tingled that night until I fell asleep.

He’d put his hand on my arm and gripped it firmly enough that it felt as though I would not be able to easily pull away from him, and yet it did not feel forceful or in any way hostile.

“Al,” he said, “I would never hurt you.”

He was tall and what most people would describe as rugged. Even in the uncertain light I could see that his skin was dark from long days spent outdoors. But he was also more than a little disordered—several days of stubble on his face, hair wild and badly in need of trimming. His jacket and flannel shirt were battered and frowzy, and his trousers were spattered and streaked, as though he’d been crawling or hiding in the mud.

When I’d opened the door, he’d been crouched at the doorknob, working at the deadbolt with picks. He stood up quickly, as though embarrassed, mouth working without forming any words.

I’d let out a panicked yelp and shuffled clumsily backward through the front room and into the kitchen where I blundered into the table and set the dishes and knives clanking again.

The man must have known I was drawing a shuddering breath to raise hell, because in an instant he’d stepped inside and closed the door silently behind him, holding out his palm to me and with his other hand shushing me with a forefinger at his lips.

“No no no no no no no!” he said in a furious whisper, finger still crossing his lips. “Don’t do it, Alison. I will not hurt you. Shh. Shh.”

I was breathing hard already. He knew my name. I did not know him. Tucked into the waistband of his pants I saw the handle of a pistol. I fought to keep my wits.

“I’m Chase,” he explained in a rush. “You’re Alison. You don’t remember me, but we’re friends. You just don’t remember.”

There was a panic button next to the thermostat on the wall. It was by the hallway, only ten or twelve feet away. I might not even have to press it. If I could just lean back on it, maybe I could activate it. I edged around the kitchen table, taking small, sideways steps, but I’d leapt out of one of my new shoes when I’d opened the door, so it must have looked like one of my legs was longer than the other, or that I was stepping into small holes with every other step.

“Your memory was wiped,” said the intruder. His words were quick and urgent, yet measured. “You know that, right? ’Bout a year ago? Right? You don’t remember anything before that, do you?”

I stopped for a moment.

“Yes. Good.” He held his hands out, palms toward me. He spoke slower now. “That’s where I’m from. From that time you don’t remember.”

“I don’t know you.”

“Well, now, that’s a matter of interpretation. Semantics. I know you and technically you know me, but you don’t remember me, so do we know each other? I don’t even know. We could argue about it all night.”

I edged a little farther.

He took a step in my direction. It wasn’t quick or startling, but it was a long step, and smooth. He’d halved the distance between him and me. The panic button was still at least seven feet away, and it was dim in the room. I pictured myself scrambling toward the thermostat and tripping over something on the floor, or running smack into the wall.

“Don’t come any closer,” I muttered, my voice hitching in my throat. “I’ll scream and scream. These walls are paper thin.”

He stood still, hands still outstretched.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He smiled. “Well, it might sound funny, but I’m here to rescue you.”

“Rescue me? From what? I don’t need rescuing.”

“Maybe rescue is the wrong word,” he said, shoving a hand into his pocket. With the other hand he scratched his beard. He looked at the floor and sighed. “Again, it’s semantics. We could argue about it forever, and we both know you would.”

That sounded right.

“I’m here to remind you of who you are.” Chase looked around the darkened room, eyeing the barred windows, the spartan furnishings, the weird candle-lit table-setting. “You don’t belong here. Alison, I know you. Really well. And this? The Agency? If you could remember what they did to you, you’d know. This isn’t for you. Come with me.”

“The Agency has given me everything. They even gave me a second chance.”

Chase laughed. “They wiped your memories, Al! How can you be okay with that?”

“They had their reasons.”

“Sure. Of course. They told you—what?—that you’re bad? That you’re a criminal? Al, you’re not. You’re annoying as hell. And you’re stubborn as a goddam donkey. But you’re not bad. You’re good.”

How could this intruder, this unkempt stranger with a gun in his belt, confront me in this darkened room alone and in less than two minutes put me almost at ease? An odd sensation was rising from my gut. Some unreconciled blend of feelings like a sharp, spiky ball was coming up through my body. I glanced at the wall where the thermostat waited in the uncertain light.

“Let me ask you one thing,” said the man. “Did they at least tell you about your son?”

Without meaning or wanting to, I took a step in his direction. “Son? What? My son? Gary and I have a son?” I almost laughed at the absurdity.

The man seemed to intuit my confusion. “No,” he chuckled, “not with him.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and then continued: “I don’t have time to explain it all right now. We’ve got to move.”

With this, he stepped to one side, bowed slightly, and made a gentlemanly gesture toward the front door.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

With another long, smooth stride, he closed the distance between us and stood just a couple inches from me. His face was tilted down, mine upturned. With only the slightest movement, we could have kissed.

That’s when he put his hand around my arm. His hand was hard and calloused, like mine had been. And yet his grasp was tender. It was so gentle—tears started in my eyes.

“Al, I would never hurt you.”

I remained still, letting the voltage of that contact course up and down my arm, letting it nourish me. But then something in my mind turned or snapped and I was seized by a fit of panic and shame. It was my past, the past I didn’t remember. There was betrayal and subterfuge there. Had this been how it had started before? With some stranger offering rescue? I’d done something, and the man I’d lit a candle for just hours earlier had been hideously maimed and broken because of it, so broken he couldn’t even look at my face anymore.

And now I’d been so starved for attention that I would apparently take it in any form, even from this thug, this conman.

“Don’t touch me,” I screamed, and then I lunged across the room and palmed the panic button.

He came at me, arms spread as though he’d scoop me up in a bear hug, but some instinct or dormant training activated like an alarm in my brain. I dropped into a sly crouch and drove my shoulder into his solar-plexus. As his diaphragm seized, he gasped deeply with a croak and staggered lamely backward. I scrambled forward and took the gun in his waistband by the handle. As I shoved him to the ground, I pulled the gun free.

Now the intruder scrambled toward the door. I brought the gun up, my arm straight, and pointed it at the man as he clawed at the doorknob. I placed my thumb on the hard, knurled lobe of the hammer and drew it back.

When had I learned to use a gun? Who had taught me?

The intruder once again raised his palms toward me, but this time it was defensively, in a surrender.

“Put the gun down, Al,” he said. A high-pitched keening sounded out in the hall, like a fire alarm. I knew security personnel were on their way.

“Shut up,” I said. I kept the gun pointed at his breastbone, but my hands were shaking.

We stared at each other for a moment, neither one moving nor speaking. I could almost see him deliberating, plotting.

I opened my mouth to warn him not to try anything, but he was fast. In an eye-blink he feinted right. I tried to track him with the muzzle of the pistol but he sprang to the left and with a strong, swift motion he hurled the coat rack at me. As I dodged the heavy wooden rack and the coats fluttering in my direction, the man got the door open and he was gone.

But I wouldn’t be blamed for this. I wouldn’t have my memories wiped again. I could already hear Gary debriefing me, defaming me, demanding to know who’d been in the apartment, why I’d let him in, what I was planning.

As quickly as I could manage, I stepped into the hallway. The man was nearly at the stairwell. I raised the gun and fired. The man stiffened and spun around and crashed onto the floor. As he struggled to his feet, I took aim and fired again, and I kept firing until the bullets were gone.

Five

For all the days I had spent wishing to be around other people and to have conversations, now I just wanted to be alone. Within twenty minutes of my encounter with the man who called himself “Chase,” five Agency officers were tromping through the apartment. One of them told me to sit on the couch and keep my hands in view. Two of them stood in the living room looming over me, watching. One of the others roamed through the rooms, searching the place, taking photos, and going in and out of the front door. The one who introduced himself as Jensen was apparently the officer in charge although he also seemed like he might be the youngest of them. He took notes, and examined things that were found, issued orders, and muttered into what was apparently a small recording device.

I sat on the couch as I was told.

After a while, a few of the officers left the apartment, and Jensen made a show of coming ominously into the living room. He brought a kitchen chair into the room and, without taking his eyes off me, he set it down opposite me, between the two officers who’d been standing over me. Then he spun it around and swung one leg over the seat back so that he sat backwards in the chair—his eye still locked on me. He draped his arms over the chair back. The two other officers stood motionless, watching. Jensen looked at me for another long while, making a point of saying nothing.

He wasn’t very old. Not exactly a kid, but younger than me. Late twenties? Early thirties? He wore a stony expression, eyes narrowed, jaw firmly set, staring at me like I was someone he’d just caught slashing his car tires. But there was something uncertain in his face, too. I could see it. Something tentative, as though he were new to his job and wanted badly not to mess things up. I knew there’d been shake-ups in the security services—killings, defections, corruption, and officers who’d simply vanished.

Yes, I thought, Jensen is new.

He took the recording device from his jacket pocket and placed it on the small coffee table with a deliberate gesture, and then he finally broke eye contact with me.

“This will be recorded,” he said, jabbing a finger at the device.

Was he trying too hard? Was that what I was detecting? Or was he just unsure about what was expected?

Still, although I didn’t know the intruder who’d come to my apartment, didn’t welcome his presence, and had even emptied his own gun at him as he fled down the hallway, Jensen had succeeded in making me feel like I had done something seriously wrong. And so I tried to play it safe—without telling any actual lies, I stayed as vague and imprecise as possible.

“How did he get in?” asked Jensen.

“It’s—it’s kind of complicated,” I stammered.

“Complicated?”

“Well, I heard the doorknob turning, and I thought it was Gary—that’s my husband—”

“We’re acquainted with Officer Gosford. Continue.”

“Well, so, he’d left the apartment and—”

“What time was that?”

“What time? I’ve no idea.”

“Continue.”

“So, after he left the apartment—”

“The intruder or your husband?”

“Husband. My husband. I’m trying to tell you how the intruder got in. He’s not in the apartment yet. If you’d just let me finish my—”

“There’s no need to get agitated. Just tell me what happened.”

“I heard someone at the door.”

“Could you speak up a little?” He inclined his head at the recording device.

“Someone was at the door,” I said, raising my voice. “You know, turning the knob.”

“The door was locked?”

“Yes. But I unlocked it. I thought it was my husband. And then I opened the door.”

“That’s when the intruder entered?”

“Yes,” I said.

“In other words, you let him in.”

Maybe he wasn’t that new, I thought.

“No,” I said. “I mean, I did, but not on purpose. I opened the door, and he just came in.”

“He didn’t force his way in?”

“Well, no.”

“So, you allowed him to enter.”

And it went on that way. It felt like the other two officers had closed in on me and now formed a wall. The guy who’d been going in and out of the apartment was back again. He muttered something into Jensen’s ear, and Jensen nodded his head curtly, but then the in-and-out guy didn’t go back out. He stood there with the others and so now there were four of them staring at me, and my mind became increasingly disordered and flighty, like a bird trapped in a house, flying into the windows and not understanding how to get free.

“Describe the man.”

“What did he say to you?”

“And what did you say to him?”

“Had you ever seen him before tonight?

“Have you ever been contacted by anyone else like this?”

Jensen repeatedly asked me the same questions, phrased slightly differently each time, and my confused answers kept coming back on me to hold me liable. Remain vague, I told myself. But Jensen wanted me to recite the entire conversation word-for-word, and I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to. Jensen’s rapid-fire questions kept on coming. He interrupted, changed the subject, and twisted everything I said to make me seem suspicious.

He excused himself a few times to leave the apartment while his men stood silently over me. When he came back, he’d swing a leg over the backwards chair and then look at me for a few moments again before speaking.

“Do you always dress like this?” said Jensen.

“What do you mean?”

“The dress. The hair. Lipstick. Eye shadow.”

“Is there a law against trying to look nice?”

“It’s unusual. Like you were dressing for a special occasion.”

“I made a special dinner for my husband.” I pointed in the direction of the kitchen table. “He’s been working really hard lately. I wanted it to be a nice night. But then he had to go to work.”

“That’s not what he says. He says you two had a fight. I have him outside. He says he has no idea why you’re dressed up like this and you’ve never dressed this way before. No offense, but it sounds to me like maybe you were planning to meet someone else and your husband showed up instead. When your husband left, the so-called intruder showed up.”

I opened my mouth, but didn’t know how to answer. “No!” I managed to blurt after spluttering incoherently for several seconds. “I mean, yes, we did have a fight. But no, I wasn’t expecting anyone besides him. No one ever comes here to see me.”

“Hm.”

Jensen continued, but he seemed to have gotten the information he wanted. He asked a few final questions of little consequence, and then at last he retrieved the recording device and slipped it back into his pocket.

“We’re going,” he said. “Don’t leave the premises until cleared to do so. I mean do not leave this apartment. Someone will be in touch.” He stood and all of them turned to leave.

“Can I ask a question?”

He didn’t say yes or no. He just turned and looked at me again.

“Is he dead? The man.”

He looked at me and blinked a few times. Then he said, “Yes.”

Liar, I thought. You are a newbie. He’s alive.

When Jensen and the others finally opened the door to go, Gary immediately rushed in.

“Alison, are you all right?” He crossed the room and sat on the couch with me.

“I don’t know. I’m not hurt.”

Gary put his good arm around me and hugged me to him. It was a strange sensation. Not unwelcome, but it did little to comfort me.

“I shouldn’t’ve left,” said Gary, more to the officers than to me.

“Officer Gosford,” said Jensen. “I’ve instructed your wife to remain in the apartment until cleared to do otherwise. She’s in your custody right now.”

“Okay,” said Gary. Then he turned back to me and with his face close to mine he said, “You sure you’re all right, Alison? I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”

“I’m fine I think,” I said, but now I wasn’t sure who was on the couch next to me.

“You shouldn’t go out either, Officer Gosford. At least not tonight. We’re still sweeping both of these buildings and patrolling the area. If she needs medical attention, we’ll send somebody over,” he added.

“Oh, thanks,” said Gary.

“I’m fine.”

“That’s good. I’m glad,” said Gary, hugging me close again. “I’m here, Alison,” he added, but again it was my impression he was saying it for the benefit of the security personnel.

Jensen went out the door, and the others followed him.

They shut the door behind them, and I could hear their footsteps proceeding down the hallway to the stairwell. When all was quiet again, Gary stood.

“Who was he?” he demanded.

“Who was who? The guy who came here? I’ve no clue. He wanted me to go with him. He was going to take me by force. I shot him.”

“You did what? How?”

I told him what I’d told Jensen—the barest version of what had actually happened. I didn’t say that the man had told me that his name was Chase or that I knew he had told me the truth about my past. And I didn’t say anything about what I felt when he touched my arm, but even as I avoided that part of the story, my hand went to that place, and the tingle started again.

When I finished, Gary was quiet for several minutes. He sat at the kitchen table where the dinner I’d made lay in ruins. His elbows were on the table, his mouth and chin buried in his heels of his hands.

“What is going on, Gary? Who was that guy? I feel like you know who he was.”

“I’ve got to think.”

“About what? What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you tell me,” he shot back.

“Me? What did I do? Besides trying to get along with you?”

“You’ve got a history, Alison. You don’t remember, but I know all about it. And they do, too.” He pointed at the door in the direction the officers had gone.

“Yeah, but you know who doesn’t know anything? Me! They took my memories! So how could I be responsible for any of this?”

“I’m just warning you, Alison,” he said, voice raised, “if you know something you haven’t said, you better spill it. You better not try to hide anything. This could be very, very bad for me.”

“For you?” I yelled. “Is that all you care about? A guy broke in here and I chased him out with a gun, Gary,” I shouted. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No more talk tonight,” said Gary. “Go to bed. Get some sleep. I’m almost sure they’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Fine,” I said, and I got up to go into the bedroom.

“Alison.”

“What?”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“Jensen told me he was dead when they got here.”

“He lied.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he asked me for the guy’s description.”

Gary thought about this and then gave a little shrug.

“Rookie move,” said Gary. “He’s only been on the job for a few weeks.”

Six

Gary offered to stay home from work the next morning, but the offer felt half-hearted, a gesture he hoped I wouldn’t accept.

“If you think you might not be okay alone,” he said, “I could maybe stick around, go into work late, or maybe not go in at all. You had one hell of a night, I know. I mean you’re okay, right? You said you were. But, you know, I’m sure I could probably arrange it if you maybe wanted me to be here for a while.”

I figured he was still trying to cozy up to me for the sake of appearances, perhaps laying cover for himself if I were questioned more about our relationship. He’d put on such a show for Jensen and the other Agency cops—he’d almost fooled me, but now his heart obviously wasn’t in it.

“No,” I answered. I was in the front room with my back to the kitchen doorway, arranging my books on their shelves after Gary had tossed them around the room.

“You should go into work,” I continued. “I’ll manage. In fact, I wouldn’t mind being alone. To decompress from it all.”

“Okay, good,” he replied.

I heard him pour his coffee and set the decanter down. The toast popped up.

“Yeah,” he said from the kitchen. “You’re right. It’s better if I go in. Someone would notice if I wasn’t there. Might lead to questions I’d rather not deal with right now.”

I rolled my eyes. Not even twelve hours ago, a man had come into this apartment with a gun and he was considering the inconvenience of idle gossip in his office.

Gary came to the kitchen doorway. “Alison,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said without turning his way.

“Are you sure—” he stopped mid-sentence, chewed his lower lip. “Never mind. I’ll get going.”

“No, Gary. I had never seen him before. Hadn’t talked to him. Don’t know him. I did shoot him though. Those big splotches of blood by the stairs? I did that.”

“Yeah,” he said. “All right. I’ll get going then.”

I stood at the book case while Gary gulped down his coffee and then set the mug in the sink. He left the toast in the toaster. Then he went to the coat rack—the one that had been thrown at me last night—and shrugged into his coat.

“Call if there’s a problem,” he said in a quiet voice as he opened the front door. “Call me right away if they contact you again. And remember, you’re not to leave the apartment.”

I nodded. He went out.

I’m not really sure how I spent that day. It didn’t seem to drag on, but it didn’t pass quickly, either. It was just a day, one that could have been pieced together from parts of all the other eventless days I’d already lived through. I sat in the apartment awhile. I must have cleaned up after the disastrous dinner. I stowed away the 30-hour survival candle—which I judged to have perhaps twenty-seven hours of life remaining. I made soup, I think. I laid my dress and make-up and shoes back in the box, slid it under the bed. I read some from one of the books on the shelf; not sure which one. I remember wondering if I might befriend one of the cats wandering around the courtyard—if I were ever cleared to leave the apartment again, that is.

And then the afternoon light came in through the bedroom window as the sun lowered in the sky.

I expected Gary within an hour after that, so I went to the kitchen and looked in the cupboard to see what I might make for dinner. Certainly nothing would top that candle-lit shepherd’s pie, but maybe some rice and pinto beans would work.

As I filled a pan with water to boil, the front door swung open and banged against the stopper embedded in the baseboard. Gary limped inside without removing his coat or hat. He continued through the front room and burst into the kitchen without even closing the front door.

“There’s a problem,” he said. He was short of breath, and his eyes were wide. He paced the kitchen. “Big problem.”

I set down the pan.

“Let’s go over everything you told them. One more time.” He shuffled back to the door, slammed it shut, locked the knob, and latched the deadbolt. I heard him try the knob to ensure it was secure. Then he was in the kitchen again.

“I told you everything I told them,” I said. Technically true. I’d been purposely vague with Jensen, but I’d told Gary everything that I had said.

“Think, okay?” said Gary.

I studied his face. He was trying to keep his voice even, but it quavered, and the muscles in his neck were pulled tight.

“Think hard. Did you say anything—anything—that might be construed as anti-Agency? Anything, you know, subversive?”

I chuckled. “Me? Subversive?”

“You’re being called in,” he blurted. “A guy at the office tipped me off. I’m surprised I got here before they did.”

“Called in to what? To where? Nobody called here.”

Gary shook his head. “No, not a phone call. They’re taking you in. It’s serious. I think you’re being rendered.”

“My god. What’s ‘rendered’ mean?”

“It’s like—” he chewed his lip and ran his good hand over his damp, pallid face. “It’s like being indicted, but there’s no presumption of innocence. Kind of the opposite, actually.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong. All I did—”

Gary waved his hand in front of my face to shush me.

“Focus,” he said. “Were you cooperative? Fully? When Officer Jensen interviewed you—did you resist the questioning? Were you evasive?”

“No. I answered the questions.”

“Yeah, but did you hold back at all? Or even act like you might be? Like were you reluctant? Or vague?”

My throat constricted at that word. Vague. I couldn’t speak for a moment and stood there blinking and trying to swallow.

“Well?” demanded Gary. His voice was strained, cracking.

“I answered the questions, Gary! Isn’t there anything you can do about this?”

“It depends,” he said, raising his hand as if to slow me down. “Tell me. Did you say anything about me?”

“No, not really. I mean—no, I didn’t.” My heart thudded against my ribs like something wild that had been shut up in a cardboard box.

“Well, did you or didn’t you?” he groaned.

“No! I didn’t! He told me you were being held outside. He said you said you were suspicious about what I was wearing, how I was acting.”

“Yes, I understand, but you spoke of me. Right? He said things; you said things. Right? What—things—were—said?” he implored.

I heard footsteps in the hall. Two sets. Or three. Gary heard them, too.

“Quickly. You have to tell me,” said Gary. “I have to know in case they question me so that—”

There came a pounding at the door. Three fast thumps, and not polite raps with knuckles, but booming thumps from a balled fist. We turned in unison toward the door.

Then a muffled voice outside in the hallway: “Mrs. Gosford? Come to the door. It’s Officer Jensen.”

Gary faced me and put his hand on my shoulder. He lowered his voice. “I should tell you that you might not come back from this.”

“Jesus, Gary! What are they gonna do to me?”

“I don’t know,” he hissed. “Nobody does.”

Another trio of heavy thumps landed on the door.

“Now, Mrs. Gosford. Right now.”

Seven

I didn’t have a wristwatch, but it felt like we drove for more than an hour. It was the first time I’d been in a car since I had awoken. The sensations were familiar—the car smoothly banking into curves and surmounting hills, the sun flickering between the trees as we sped past them. But there was also a newness to it, and at times I forgot that I was probably being “rendered,” the word that Gary had used so ominously before the officers came to the door, the word that could only mean disaster.

There comes a point in any crisis when the psyche simply tops out, when the anticipated hazards trip the breakers in one’s mind. When that point is reached, desperation and panic retreat like dismissed defenders, replaced with a sense of acceptance or capitulation, and these can be mistaken for calm.

I sat in a large SUV behind a thick-necked driver, my head reclined on the seat. Jensen sat in the passenger seat. He spoke little. I asked him why I was being taken and where we were going, but he only shook his head. I wondered if the driver even knew I was in the vehicle.

But wrapped in the odd sense of calm I felt, I didn’t press Jensen or ask him anything else. I could not remember being anywhere but the housing block campus, and my eyes were constantly drawn to the SUV’s windows. Gary had driven me home from the Agency Depot when I’d first awoken, but I was groggy and confused and didn’t remember much. I had seen glimpses of the Starting Zone nearest to our apartment—it looked like a fairly normal residential area, but with an abandoned, unkempt aspect, choked with dead weeds and derelict cars and little knots of dark, shabby people.

Now I saw open countryside and mountains and open sky. I saw a massive flock of starlings wafting and warping in their peculiar unison through the sparkling air. The flock veered, compressed, veered again.

On the utility poles there were red-tailed hawks watching the ground like sentinels. A small herd of deer made its way along a roadside barrow, nosing the grass and nibbling at the new spring growth. Everywhere I saw the signs of spring.

I slouched into the seat and watched all of this speed past my window view. I may have dozed for a few minutes.

Eventually we arrived at a tall, glass and steel building, tall and well-maintained. I’d never seen it before. The big driver of the SUV stepped out and opened my door, and I stepped out. The air was cool and fresh and alive. Was that fresh-cut grass I smelled?

Jensen and the driver walked on either side of me, but I wasn’t handcuffed or handled roughly.

“This way,” said Jensen. He pointed to a glass-enclosed entryway.

A few other people could be seen along the walkways around the building. They looked at me and the officers without concern.

We went in and came to a security checkpoint. There was a showing of badges and paperwork and there was a clipboard to be signed.

I kept remembering that I was in the complete control of a governing organization I knew nothing about. I knew nothing about it because they had made me forget everything. Anything I might have known or that might have helped me was removed from my mind—by them. And yet, if there were any panic or fear left in me, I wasn’t feeling it.

Jensen still remained silent, steering me through the immaculate corridors by pressing on the small of my back with his hand.

“Will you ever tell me where you’re taking me?” I said in a low voice.

No answer.

“Am I in trouble? Do I have any rights at all?”

We got into an elevator—an actual elevator, clean and functional. Again, the sensations were familiar, but it was in effect my first time.

As the doors slid open, there was a chime, which struck me as very out of place to hear just before being thrown into jail or meeting some even worse fate. We were on the third floor now and we walked down a long tile hallway.

At last Jensen led me to an office and told me to sit. Then he and the driver left without so much as a word or a nod. They did not even shut the door behind them.

The office had a big window and a magnificent mahogany desk with the surface so shiny I could see my face in it. The desk was bare but for a simple office telephone, writing blotter, and green-shaded reading lamp. A few files lay on the blotter. Behind the desk were neatly organized bookcases and a bank of wooden filing cabinets. On one wall there was a smartly framed map of some unknowable region, but there were no other wall hangings nor any framed pictures on the desk, and no mementos. There didn’t seem to be anything of the room of a personal nature. Everything seemed to be job-related and purpose-oriented.

Time passed, and I noticed more. Certainly this office was better appointed and tidier than any place I’d ever been since waking. But there was more to it than that. I hadn’t visited a great many other offices, but I’d seen a few, and in them there was always a sense that everyone was doing too much with too little. There was always a frantic aspect of impending trouble, of undeserved consequences. There was shouting, arguments, and a grim edge to every conversation.

This office was quiet. Very quiet. No, “quiet” wasn’t even the right word for it. This office was peaceful. The door of the office where I waited stood ajar, and from out in the corridor I heard voices. Calm voices, conversations, even some laughter.

I’d immediately noticed the large window in the office and its view outside. I noticed right away that it did not overlook a bleak ruined neighborhood where disheveled survivors were penned inside. And it didn’t overlook some wild and bushy unkempt abandoned place that nature had rudely taken back. The window instead looked out on a swath of green valley, and not just any valley but a checkerboard of agricultural fields that had been cultivated. Beneath the springtime sunshine, the shades of light green and fertile loamy brown shone brightly like promises of better days. Again, there was an impression of order, and I felt myself relax further into the chair.

By now the sun was just beginning to set, blushing the sky and reflecting off a series of ponds in the distance. I knew about sunsets, but to my remembrance, this was the first one I’d ever seen. The sight of it nearly brought tears to my eyes, and I considered how marvelous it was to see something as gorgeous as a sunset in adulthood, for what was for all intents, the first time. As a child I suppose I saw a few thousand sunsets but most likely failed to fully acknowledge how miraculous they could be. And so I thought suddenly that this was a gift. I might be arrested and in the deepest kind of trouble, but I certainly did not feel that way now.

Climate control. This office had climate control—outside it must be growing colder, early spring as it was—but it was perfect in here.

It was difficult for me to mark the time, and soon I tugged at the sleeves of my sweater, feeling as though surely I’d been forgotten or that the officers had placed me in the wrong office. It seemed ridiculous that they would bring me here to wait in silence for hours. I tried to estimate how long I’d been in the office, but the best I could do was somewhere between fifteen minutes and two hours.

I thought about Gary. What did he know? What didn’t he know? Did he know the man who called himself Chase? Why had he been so worried when Jensen had come to the door?

As I thought about the sound of the security forces tromping into the corridor outside our apartment, I heard another sound, a rhythmic sound like those footsteps, but sharper.

It was the clicking of heels on tile. I heard the heels of a woman’s shoes clicking smartly on the tile on the floor of the hallway outside. Click, click, click, click. Purposeful and powerful, but unhurried. Somehow, these footsteps were reassuring, and something told me that they were headed in my direction.

Eight

She was poised, polished, perfect. The impression I got from the woman who at last entered the office where I waited was that she was in charge, that she was in control. She was tall and thin but not gaunt or lanky. Her hair was blond and tucked into a neat chignon, and in the coppery light from the window, it glistened warmly. The woman was my age, or maybe slightly older, but this was difficult to determine because she wore her years very lightly, as though she were simply too busy to show her age. She was dressed in a simple but well-tailored slate business suit with attractive, but not flamboyant, black heels.

There could be no mistaking this woman for an assistant sent to relay a message, or even an executive who played some secondary role. This person was second to no one.

When she came into the room, I leaned quickly forward in my chair and gripped the armrests to stand up. It was as though I’d been caught sleeping. It was the only action that seemed appropriate.

But she immediately said, “No, no. Don’t get up. Relax.”

She walked behind the desk, pulled out the big chair and sat down, and then placed her elbows on the desk with her fingers lightly tented. She smiled. Not a clinical smile or the smile of someone who is about to administer a punishment, but a smile of contentment. The sun was now shamelessly pouring in from the window behind her lighting her like some legend. I really expected her at any moment to float away on the sunbeams up into heaven.

I gawked at her elegance, in spite of myself.

“Alison,” she said warmly, “thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I’m Rachel.”

I nodded. I think. And I blinked. I can’t be sure.

“So,” said Rachel. “We will get to know each other very well in the next few days and weeks, you and I. We have a lot to talk about, but right now I want to get right to it: that was a very brave thing you did yesterday.”

I blinked some more. “I was just trying to protect myself. You know. I did what anyone would.”

Her smile broadened. “I’m not sure I would have the sense or skill or whatever it takes to grab an intruder’s gun and then chase him out of the building with it,” here she laughed, “but okay, Alison, I’ll take your word for it.”

This made me smile. She seemed to wait for me to say more, but I had no idea what to say next. Instead I looked around the office as if this were all some sort of cruel and elaborate pre-prison prank.

Rachel said, “You thought you were in some kind of trouble. Those security officers—so grim and tough with their uniforms and their guns. But we’ve had so many attacks, you know. There’s security everywhere now. Unfortunate. But you thought you were in big trouble coming here, didn’t you?”

“Yes!” I blurted before she had finished. “I’m not? I didn’t do anything wrong?”

Rachel examined the surface of her desk and thought about this for a few seconds. Then she raised her eyes to mine again and said, “Alison, you certainly were in trouble.”

My eyebrows went up. “I was?”

“Yes,” she said. “The trouble was that you were a wasted asset out there in those Agency apartment blocks, making dinners and folding underwear. You are needed here. I want you here.”

“Here?”

“I am director of Lotus,” she announced.

I was unclear about the Agency’s various levels and chains of commands. Gary told me very little aside from the crimes I’d visited upon him. But it didn’t matter—what Rachel said came as no surprise. I knew almost before she had entered the office that she was director of something important.

Rachel opened one of the files lying on her desk and turned over the pages inside. “Alison, you are a perfect example of what the Lotus project was designed for. Do you know why your memories were erased?”

My heart sank a little. I’d only met Rachel moments earlier, but she was the last person I wanted to talk to about my former problems, my treason. She was at once so powerful and yet so accessible and sincere.

“I don’t know everything,” I said. I swallowed, and it made a clicking noise in my throat. I gazed at the floor. “I know I was a criminal. I made mistakes, I guess.”

“What happened? You’ve been told, I assume.”

I hesitated. I suddenly felt very small. I stared at the floor and chewed at the inside of my cheek. I could feel Rachel’s gaze on me as she sat at her desk, straight and seemingly flawless.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m okay.”

“Go on, then. Tell me what happened.”

“I’m responsible for what happened to Gary. And his other officers—their injuries. And Gary’s removal from his job in the field. Other people died. Gary almost did. I was a traitor. He said I made bad choices. Terrible choices. I somehow got involved with the terrorists, criminals. I don’t know everything.” I shut my eyes to squeeze back tears. I felt like a child who’d been taken to the principal’s office.

Rachel closed the file. “You weren’t supposed to know any of that. You weren’t supposed to be told. And do you know why?

I shook my head.

“Because you were not being punished for what you did. You were being given a new start. And what good is a new start if you’re just burdened with guilt and shame? We choose every day what kind of people we will be.”

I listened and said nothing.

“How do you feel right now, Alison?”

“Not very good.”

“Guilty. Right? Ashamed?

I nodded.

“With the technology we have access to now, we have a unique opportunity as a society—as a species. We have the opportunity to be free of our past mistakes, to stop repeating them, and to be free of the shame that stops us from moving past them.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said. “You wipe people’s memories every time they make a mistake? So they won’t feel guilty?”

Rachel leaned back in her chair. “Let’s back up.” Her expression was of a parent explaining a dense topic to a young child. “You don’t remember what it was like before the serum was first developed, but I do. There aren’t very many of us left who do, but I remember. It was chaos. A complete collapse. Human society was balanced on the edge of a knife. The violence, the fear. The only thing I can say is that it was truly breathtaking. Some people gave up. A lot of people did. Most survived by simply growing more and more brutal, devolving into animals.”

She spoke in low, even tones. She had broken her gaze with me and now stared into the middle distance.

“But as terrifying as that was, it was exhilarating, too. That sounds awful, doesn’t it? But think for a second. When primitive humans a hundred thousand years ago came in from the savannas or down from their trees, who were they? Animals, right? Not people. They had no law, no bond, no order. They were murderous, savage. But that wasn’t the ending of them, was it?”

I shook my head slowly, trying to understand. “No, it was the beginning.”

“As we stared into that chaos,” Rachel continued, “some of us saw something else. We saw a new beginning.”

She looked at me, and I could tell that she knew I understood.

“Do you know anything about forest fires?” she said, as if this were the next logical topic we should cover.

“Forest fires? You mean like put out your campfires and be careful with matches?”

“Yes. Precisely. Forest fires are bad, right?

“Yeah, I guess they are.”

“Forest fires are destructive,” said Rachel. “They burn down our beautiful forests, they kill wildlife, they ruin rivers—and they’re a threat to nearby houses and towns. So back before, they used to send airplanes and helicopters and firefighters to contain the fires and put them out.”

“Sure,” I said. “Right.”

“But what people don’t realize, is that forest fires are necessary for the survival of the forest. They’re part of the growth cycle of forests and prairies and many ecosystems. Fires clear away undergrowth and deadfall and even pests like insects that infect tree bark. Fires thin out the trees so that new forest growth is always occurring. Some trees and wildlife are consumed, but healthy trees can survive small, periodic fires, and with forest growth pruned back, the entire forest gets healthier. But protect the forest entirely from fires, try to prevent all fires, and that is when fire becomes truly devastating. Because undergrowth and deadfall build up, creating massive fuel loads so that when fire finally does break out, it burns for longer and much more intensely, so that the forest isn’t just cleared and thinned, but burned completely to ash. By trying to prevent all fires, forest managers make each fire worse.”

I was still trying to understand.

“It’s the same throughout the natural world. When populations become too large or weak, or when they lose their way, there is always a predator or disease or some other force that corrects them. The Black Plague of Europe was followed by several hundred years of great prosperity and enlightenment. Yellowstone National Park actually benefited from the fires that nearly leveled it decades ago.”

She got up from her desk and walked around to me. She leaned against the edge of the desk.

“Picture this,” said Rachel, “a world where you didn’t have to constantly worry about crime, rape, violence, theft. A world where people just live their lives in order and peace. We have a chance here to not only make this possible, but to do it compassionately, without prisons or death sentences, so that everyone has a chance to enjoy it.”

“Mm,” I said, “it all sounds very good. How do I fit into it, though?”

“You, Alison, and this incident you were involved with, are a great example of how the system we’re creating can work. You made mistakes, you sided with the wrong people, and you caused a tremendous amount of trouble. And if you’d been allowed to keep your memories of that time and those choices, things might have gone differently, don’t you agree?”

“I guess so.”

“But you didn’t side with them again. You didn’t go down the wrong path. Not only were you brave, you stood up for what’s right. I find this very encouraging. That’s why you’re here. I think you have the potential to be a great help to Lotus. Lotus is a new kind of place, away from the Starting Zones, where we’ve begun rebuilding society. I’d like you to move there and be a part of this project. What do you think of that?”

“It sounds exciting. More exciting than what I’ve been doing for the last year or so.”

“Oh, it will be. I can assure you it will not be boring. It won’t be easy, either. We face challenges on a virtually daily basis. But let’s first get you moved in and settled and then we can talk about details.”

She stood up straight and held out her hands. I put my hands out, and she took them and pulled me to my feet. Then she clasped my hands in a sort of double handshake.

“I know you will love Lotus,” said Rachel, her teeth flashing white in a broad smile. “Do you have any questions? Is there anything I can clear up before we move you out of the Agency housing?”

There was a big question that had been pressing on my mind ever since Rachel had entered, ever since I realized that I wasn’t being arrested or rendered or sent to prison. I didn’t know if this was the right time to ask, though.

“No,” I said. “I guess I don’t have any questions right this second.”

Rachel cocked her head to one side and showed a small, wry smile. “Really?” she said.

“Well,” I said, “maybe. There was something that man—the intruder—said. He told me I had a son. Is that true?”

“Jensen told me. We checked into it,” Rachel said, nodding. “And I have news.”

She paused for a moment. It was probably a very brief moment, but in the time it took to pass I thought that my heart might explode. After what felt like a very long time, she continued.

“His name is Arie,” she said, opening the other file that had been lying there on the desk. “He’s almost eighteen, and like all those who have proved themselves worthy to advance from the Starting Zones, he is living in Lotus.”

A sob escaped me. I hadn’t known it was there. “I’m sorry; I don’t know why I’m so emotional,” I said. “I didn’t even know until the other night. I don’t know him.”

Rachel placed her hand on my shoulder. “We’re going to reunite you.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she said. Then she raised a hand. “We will if that’s what you’d like. Have you thought much about it?”

I had thought about it. Probably not enough to weigh all the implications—whenever I tried to look ahead and puzzle through what it might mean to have a son, my mind would simply stop and stick at the overwhelming impulse to see him, meet him. I couldn’t seem to think about it in a way any deeper than that.

“The Agency in general and the administration of Lotus in particular all agree that families should be together if at all possible. We have found that related people really do restart better when they are not alone. So I’ll go ahead and recommend that you and Gary join Lotus, and we’ll transfer Arie to your household and family. We can move you there by the end of the week. Would you like that?”

“Does he know? Does he know about me? Does he remember me? When was the last time we were together? Oh my god. I have so many questions.”

“That is understandable, Alison. Really, it is. Within Lotus, situations like this come up all the time. Don’t be upset or disappointed, but I’m going to ask you to just hang on to those questions. You’re going to be making some really big changes in the next few weeks, and it’s important to take things step by step.”

I bit my lower lip hard and nodded deliberately. “Okay,” I said. I took a deep breath and breathed out through pursed lips. “Wow. Yes. It’s probably better. One step at a time. Okay.”

Rachel nodded, her brows knitted up to show how sorry she was to have to defer all my queries. “I can practically feel your excitement. That’s just really encouraging to see. And it’s infectious. I’m looking forward to seeing your contributions.”

“It’s like a dream come true,” I said. “A dream I didn’t even know I had.”

The setting sun had almost disappeared, and its ruddy light made the room glow. Rachel laughed, and I laughed.

“Well,” said Rachel. “Let’s get you back on the road. There’s lots to do.”

“Okay,” I said.

I waited for her to go on or lead me out, but instead an impish expression flashed in her eyes.

“I shouldn’t do this, Alison.” She stepped around the massive desk and looked down at the file folders. She picked up Arie’s file and opened it again. “You know, as we rebuild and re-make everything, certain things we took for granted back before can sometimes be, you know, scarce and rare.” She cradled the file for a moment and unfastened something from the rest of the papers. Then she passed it to me across the desk. “Take this.”

A photo of Arie.

“Don’t tell anyone I gave it to you,” she said. “Paper and printing supplies aren’t easy to come by these days. I could get in trouble.”

She laughed, but I didn’t pick up on the joke. I could only stare at the photograph.

It wasn’t a portrait I’d frame and hang on the wall. It was just a small and simple snapshot for identification. But there he was, Arie. He stood straight facing the camera, his back to a plain white wall. It might have been a police booking photo, except that Arie wore the hint of a smile on his face. His bangs were long and hung down into his face, but his eyes were clear and bright, and in them I could plainly recognize the signs of wit and intelligence. And contentment, I thought. The young man was thin but handsome, and I could see my face in his.

I felt warm. A warm sensation was seeping into my core. Not necessarily the warmth from a hearth or a cup of tea. This was something deep, spiritual perhaps. A void inside me was filling, a longing was in the process of quenching. I had felt Arie’s absence in my life but did not know—did not remember—why.

“All right?” said Rachel. I felt a touch on arm. “Alison?”

I blinked and looked up at her. “What did you say?” I asked, my face reddening. “I’m sorry. I guess I spaced out.”

She chuckled. “It’s okay. I get it. It’s been a big day, and it just got even bigger.”

I blinked some more and shut my eyes to squeeze away the tears that had started. “Gosh. I’m sorry.”

“No, all I said is that we should go downstairs and find you a driver now, and make some other arrangements, if that’s all right?”

For the first time I could remember, I felt happy.

The car Rachel assigned me sped through the last light of the evening and just when it was dark, the car reached the barred gate of the housing block. I saw the apartment towers and their dimly lit windows rising into the dark. The guard waved us through and in the electric lamp I saw his face—expressionless, without affect. I saw a few people moving along the sidewalks and corridors, and my nerves thrilled to know I would soon leave this place. I thought this is what it must feel like to win a lottery and move out of a slum. Having been in such a gloom for so long, I felt pangs of actual guilt at my fortune. In fact, I briefly felt as though I must have been selected in error, by some mistake, and I panicked that someone might find out and cancel the whole deal.

But then I slipped the little photo of Arie from my pocket and looked at it again, and even in the glaring, brutalist lighting of the housing block campus, the knowledge that I truly belonged to someone and that someone truly belonged to me erased those feelings of uneasiness or guilt or error.

I had a son. I would be with him now. Nothing could be more fair than that.

After taking the stairs two and three at a time, I came to the front door of the apartment, but I felt so different now, it was almost as if this were a different door, and I paused in front of it to mentally assure myself it was in fact the door to the apartment where I lived. Used to live. Past tense. Because it actually seemed different, looked different. Same shape, same color. Same apartment number and same nicked-up lock and knob. Same everything, but smaller, less significant, and with no meaning to me whatsoever. I put my key in the lock to open it, but it was unlocked.

Inside, Gary sat on the couch in the dark with a drink on his knee. In the darkness I made out a bottle on the low coffee table. Gary squinted a little at the light that came in from the corridor, but he did not turn his head to look at me.

“Gary,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, “I have incredible news.”

He sipped his drink. I fumbled around and turned on the lamp on the side table. He squinted more but ignored me still.

“Gary,” I repeated.

He turned his head, regarded me coolly, blinked, and then looked away.

I sat down in the easy chair and waited. Gary only sipped his drink again. His eyes were glassy and his cheeks were flushed. I’d never known him to drink anything but a little dinner wine produced by the Agency, and in fact did not know there was anything else available to drink at all. How much had he had to drink? The bottle on the table was almost empty. Where had he gotten it?

“Gary?” I said after what felt like a full minute, but was probably only a few seconds. “What’s the matter?”

“They already told me,” he said, without turning to me. “Your news. Your ‘incredible news’.”

“You mean our news. About Lotus. And our son. Gary, what is the matter with you? Are you drunk?”

“He isn’t my son,” Gary said. There was a slur in his diction. He gulped the rest of the drink and rested the glass on his knee.

“But—”

“He’s not my son, Alison. He’s not.”

Rachel hadn’t told me, and I couldn’t begin to guess why not. I still had so many questions, but all at once I knew Gary wouldn’t answer them even if he knew. And I knew that he’d run the entire plan aground. Why did he hate me?

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” I said, trying to salvage the plan, trying to press through Gary’s dark and silent objections, or maybe to go around them. “I just spent the afternoon with the director of Lotus. The director. She says we’re going. You. Me. Our son—my son—Arie. We can leave this awful place and start new lives.”

“This awful place, huh?”

“You know what I mean,” I said. “It’s dreary here. The guards, the rules. Your job—you hate it there. I think we’ll be safer, too. A man came in here with a gun, for god’s sake.”

“Yeah, the people who live here aren’t any good, either, I guess.”

Gary had rarely, if ever, been particularly kind to me, but suddenly I felt sorry for him in spite of all of it, and sorry for insulting him, although I hadn’t meant to.

“Wait a second,” I said, “Isn’t this what you’ve been working toward? An assignment in Lotus? This is the next step. We’re going. Who knows? Maybe it will change things between us. I have this really great feeling about it all. I met the director. She’s amazing. She’s the first person I’ve met here who seems to know what she’s doing.”

“Is that so.”

I dropped my face into my hands. “Gary, stop. You know what I mean. I just think it will be good for us. I can tell things will be different there.”

When I looked at him, he was watching me sideways with his eyes without turning his head.

“I’m not going,” he said. “I don’t belong there. Look at me. Do I look like I belong there?”

“I don’t think Lotus has anything to do with the way people look.”

Gary scoffed. “Ah. So I really don’t look like I belong there.”

“That’s not what I meant, Gary. I mean there’s nothing wrong with the way you look and it’s irrelevant anyway. We’re going to Lotus. I’m very unclear about everything and my head is just spinning a million miles an hour over this, but if I understand everything correctly, this is it—Lotus is the goal of all this. Lotus is how we rebuild after all the terrible shit that’s happened in the world.”

Gary held his glass over his mouth and shook the last drop from it. Then he emptied the bottle into the glass and took another drink.

“Gary, please don’t ruin this. They said Arie will be with us. My son. I have a son. Are you saying we can’t go?”

“I have no say in the matter. I was informed about it just as you were, except I was told over the phone. Go on. Go to Lotus. I can’t stop you. I can’t do anything.”

Nine

Rachel had given me a whole week to pack, but when it came down to it, I found I needed almost nothing from the apartment, and the few things I decided to take with me fit into one backpack and one small cardboard box. Although my time with Gary had not been overly happy, I packed a few keepsakes—a favorite teacup, a wool throw blanket that I’d snuggled in on cold mornings. I took some of my books, although I had a feeling that books would be easier to come by in Lotus.

I didn’t see much of Gary during those few days, though in spite of myself I hoped we would meet at some point. I wanted to repair things with him, to make sure we didn’t hate each other when we parted ways. But he simply quit showing up at the apartment.

When the day came for me to leave, I was up early—I hadn’t slept much anyway. After a cup of coffee, I made the bed and straightened the place up. I cleaned the few dishes I’d used and toweled down the shower. It was like I was trying to sanitize the place to make it so Gary might forget I’d ever been there if that’s what he wanted. That’s what I would have liked if he were leaving me. Or I may have been stalling, lingering to see if he might show after all. I knew I wouldn’t miss Gary, but I guess I also wanted to know if he thought enough of me to meet with me for a last time, or to say goodbye. So I worked slowly and sat around for an hour or so before calling the number Rachel had given me. And I finally did call, but the lady who took my call said I should wait two hours before going to an appointed meeting place to be picked up. So I waited some more, and I thought with the extra time he’d be sure to come to the apartment, if only because he’d figure I would be gone by then.

But he didn’t.

To hell with him, I thought. I left my keys on the kitchen counter and walked out. I walked out of the housing block campus, past the guards and barricades, past the barren concrete quads, and as I went my way, I made a point of not looking back.

I’d been told to wait at the outdoor rest area adjacent to the housing campus. It was a sad little place, shaded all winter by the apartment buildings and still choked with little banks of dirty snow. There were benches and a few big concrete landscaping beds, but nothing grew there but weeds and wild grass, which hadn’t greened up yet. Some urban eddy of wind apparently deposited piles of litter and leafy debris. Security guards came there to take their breaks and smoke cigarettes. And even though it was late morning, it was still cold there and it would be all day.

I waited there for an additional hour, and to my surprise, Rachel picked me up herself in one of Lotus’ large SUVs. Her clothing was a bit more practical this time, but she again looked sharp and purposeful—cotton pants and walking boots instead of slacks and heels, and she’d traded the blouse for a work shirt and a functional, close-fitting jacket. A ball cap and aviator shades finished the outfit. To me she looked like a very beautiful but formidable military officer.

“Such service,” I said, placing my backpack and other things into the vehicle. “I feel like a celebrity.”

Rachel smiled her winning smile and looked at me over the aviators from her place behind the wheel. “You know what, Alison? You are. You really are. I actually don’t do a lot of driving like this, but I wanted to show you how glad I am that you’re joining us. And I thought the trip might give us a chance to talk some more.”

I got into the passenger seat and buckled my seatbelt.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

“All set,” I said.

And we drove away.

“Well?” she said, after she swung the SUV onto the highway. “How are you feeling?”

“Honestly? I’m a bit overwhelmed,” I confessed. “In a good way, I mean, but still overwhelmed. Maybe it just hasn’t sunk in?”

“Yeah, could be,” she said, nodding.

After a few moments, I said, “I noticed that you didn’t ask about Gary. I guess you already know he refused to come.”

“Yes. Unfortunate. Really it is. I’m disappointed but not surprised. But this is no tragedy, Alison, and it has nothing to do with you. I don’t want you to worry too much about it, either, because I’ve got too much for you to do to have you distracted.”

I nodded. I didn’t want to be distracted, either. But I certainly was at the moment. I remembered that it took around an hour to get to the big Lotus campus I’d visited a week before to meet Rachel, but I could only guess how much longer it might be before I met Arie. I couldn’t ask Rachel without feeling presumptuous, so instead I tried to appear calm as we drove along the same road Jensen and his driver had taken a week before.

It was another beautiful spring day, and that was a big help. A little rain had fallen that morning, and it had left everything newly green and freshly rinsed. It was exhilarating to be on what I guess others would call a “road trip,” especially with someone like Rachel, this strong and forceful person who had taken such an interest in me. We drove along without speaking much for a while, and I really did begin to feel calm and content. Rachel broke the silence.

“I have a question for you, if you don’t mind,” she said.

“Sure,” I replied.

“Have you been looking forward to this move? To Lotus, I mean.”

“Well, yeah, of course,” I said. “I thought the wait was gonna kill me.”

“Good,” she said. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why were you looking forward to joining Lotus? I mean I know you’re going out of your mind waiting to meet Arie, and to start over with him, and I know things with Gary weren’t great, but what is it about Lotus specifically that you’ve been looking forward to?”

“Gosh,” I said, “I dunno where to start. I’ve just heard so many fantastic things. Better housing, better food. I’ve heard it’s safer and I’ve even heard it’s prettier, cleaner.” I looked at Rachel to see if she thought I was babbling, but she looked back and nodded in a way that told me to continue.

“Let’s see—I’ve heard the houses have flower gardens? And they say the electricity stays on all the time. And hot water. I’m sorry, I don’t know why. Just everything. What’s not to look forward to?” I laughed.

“Well,” she replied with a laugh of her own, “I will tell you that everything you’ve heard is basically right. Better homes, better food, better everything. Flower gardens? Yep. The rumors are true, I’m happy to say. But—and you might not understand this right away—but unfortunately all of that is kind of a P.R. failure on my part.”

“No, I don’t understand. Why’s it a failure?”

She thought for a moment before answering. “Is there anything else you’re looking forward to?” Rachel had a way of doing this—answering questions with questions.

“Well,” I said, “this might sound dumb, but I’m really wanting to meet new people, you know, like friends. And I really want to have an actual job and meet people there.”

Without taking her eyes from the road she nodded long and slowly. “Not dumb at all. I’m glad to hear you say that. I think you’re really going to like Lotus, because the living conditions really are better—but it’s actually more about people.”

She looked over at me to gage my reaction. I nodded a little.

“That’s the real advantage we have,” she continued. “In Lotus we’re really trying to eliminate this notion that we’re all survivors. Back in the Agency, everyone’s a survivor. We’re all just trying to survive, you know, to hang on until some new calamity arrives.”

“Yes,” I said, loudly, and almost in spite of myself. I’d often felt that the Agency was simply an extension of our collective but feeble will to scrape by.

“And we did survive, yes,” added Rachel, turning to me and gesturing emphatically. “But let’s live now. Let’s live and advance.”

I was nodding and nodding.

“And you know what you need to live and advance and prosper?” she asked, more rhetorically I think than to get an answer from me.

“People?” I said.

“Yes. People. Not just survivors. Not just ghosts from the back before, but people. Family. Connections. Community.” With her finger she drew invisible lines between her and I and everyone else.

The building where I’d first met Rachel came into view ahead.

“We’re not stopping here,” said Rachel, breaking off her monolog. “You need anything? Need to stop? Bathroom break?”

“No,” I said hastily. Don’t stop, I thought. Keep going.

“Good,” she said. “Where was I? Oh. See, Alison, we gotta be looking ahead to what our society is going to be like after we’re gone. You know, in fifty years and a hundred years after that. And so on. What are we doing here? What are we building? What will we leave behind? Ever think about that?”

I was tempted to say I had, not only to ingratiate myself with Rachel but because I felt guilty for not having thought about these things. But I thought she’d probably see through that, so I said, “No, I guess not.”

“Right, see, that’s what Lotus is for,” with each mile she spoke more rapidly, but she was also utterly clear. “Under some of the harsher circumstances of society as it stands right now—you know, scarcity of basic needs, memory loss, living in fear—it’s easy to totally lose sight of our responsibility to future generations. Hierarchy of needs, you know, basic needs before higher ones. Right? Well, Lotus is where we meet those needs. Food, water, shelter, clothing, security—you got it. We give you fruit. We send you electricity and hot water. Why? Well, fruit is delicious and hot baths are awesome, but it’s not a reward for behaving, or being a robot. We give you those things so that you can spend your time focusing on important matters, like working and thinking and dreaming.”

“Wow,” I said. It was all I could say. She was a powerful speaker, and she seemed wiser than her years allowed. We drove on for a while, and Rachel expounded on her philosophy and her grand ideas about laying the foundation of not just new towns filled with happy, productive people, but an entirely new world, one with new rules and ways fashioned by her, and me, and everyone else in Lotus. And I can honestly say it was the most hopeful thing I’d ever remembered hearing, but I also had difficulty deciding how much of it would ever be realized and how much was the grandiose imaginings of an obviously ingenious and ambitious survivor of the back before.

We drove on for several hours through increasingly open country. I saw farmhouses and barns along the highway and in the distance, but they were vacant, with yards overgrown and windows gone. Telephone poles stood in their never-ending single-file along the road, but their drooping wires showed that they, too, were disused. We even drove through a few blink-and-you’ll-miss-it towns, all abandoned and crumbling, of no use, mere relics of the past civilization.

At last we arrived, or at least I thought we were getting close, although close to where or what I couldn’t say. The only indication that we had gotten anywhere was that Rachel braked, and we slowed down as we approached the highway’s intersection with a smaller road. At the crossing stood a guard shack and a gate that barred passage to the side road. The shack was small but tidy looking—one could almost call it “cute.” I judged it to be newly built.

“Almost there now,” said Rachel as she turned the wheel. We eased around the corner, off the highway, and pulled up to the shack. “Sorry for the long drive.”

“No problem,” I replied. “It’s actually been really relaxing.”

The SUV rolled to a stop and Rachel pressed the button to lower her window. A guard stepped out of the shack.

“Afternoon, Rachel,” he said, with a casual salute.

“Hey there, Hassan.”

“How was the drive? Any problems?”

“Very nice drive. No problems.”

“Good to hear. My day’s been quiet, too.” He smiled, gesturing vaguely at the wide-open space around us.

Rachel smiled and then said, “Hassan, this is Alison, the resident I was telling you about. She’s moving in. Alison, Hassan.”

I waved and said hello.

“Hi, Alison. Welcome to the neighborhood, as they say.”

Now that I could see the gate up close, I knew it would never keep out an intruding vehicle. Even a small car could knock the little gate aside or drive around it. A larger vehicle could probably plow through the guard shack itself. The gate was apparently a formality meant perhaps as a friendly reminder to stop in and say hello to the lonesome guard. But all at once I was struck by the contrast between this little barricade and the heavy, military-grade fortifications erected on all sides of every Agency building I’d ever been to. I thought briefly about if I should feel safer here or less so.

Hassan released a counterbalance, and the gate swung upward in an almost cheerful manner.

“Drive safe,” said the guard. He seemed mildly disappointed our visit was so short, but he made his friendly salute again.

“Thanks, Hassan. See you around,” said Rachel, and we drove on.

Rachel was speaking to me about Lotus and other things, but now I was beyond distracted. Arie was waiting out here, wherever here was. I would meet him. At last. I gave curt, half-aware answers to Rachel’s side of the conversation as my mind buzzed with questions—trivial questions, but they preoccupied me nevertheless. What would Arie think of me? What should I say? Was a hug in order? What would he call me?

Rachel must have sensed what was going on, because after a while she looked over at me and laughed and shook her head.

“What?” I said, but I knew.

“You can hardly stand it, can you?”

I covered my face and managed a choked and nervous laugh. “I’ve never been so nervous. I’m sorry.”

“No, no.” She said. “It’s good to see you like this.”

The weather of the prior few weeks had been cold and gray, and as I left the Agency campus that morning, I’d stepped through patches of dirty, slushy snow, the last ragged fragments of winter. And I knew we’d only driven three or four hours to the east, but there was no sign of winter here. As we drove farther down the Lotus road, I saw trees showing buds and even a few with blooms. Spring had arrived at Lotus and it seemed it had arrived for me, and I doubted that I’d ever forget the way the warmth and brightness mingled in me just before I met Arie.

“Have you met him?” I asked.

“Arie? I meant to, but no, I haven’t had the pleasure. I may not be as excited as you are, but it’ll be exciting for me, too. I’ve heard he’s super smart, well liked, a hard worker.”

“It’s just so crazy,” I groaned. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Rachel said, giving me a playful backhand on the arm. “You’re his mother. You know, so many families have been separated and moved and a lot of them will never see each other again. I mean, it is what it is. It’s too bad. It’s terrible. But you’ll be with your son. You’ve got DNA results—this was meant to be.”

I nodded. That’s how I felt, too—that this was meant to be. I wished that I could remember Arie as a baby, as a boy, but this was the hand we were dealt, and I had already accepted it, and I wouldn’t trade the chance to know him now for anything.

“You know, Rachel,” I said in a low tone. “I don’t really have any way to thank you for all this.”

“Sure you do. You can do your best. Be yourself. That’s how it works here. And besides, you should thank yourself. You belong in Lotus.”

“I’m really happy to be here,” I said.

She grinned and then reached over to give my wrist a squeeze.

We drove down into a shallow valley where we crossed over a small creek flanked by cottonwoods and sycamore trees. The sunshine winked between the new leaves. Then we crested the rise on the far side.

Off in the distance, about a mile further on, I saw houses and buildings. Even from that distance, I could see that these were also newly built, tidy, and yes, cute. As we came closer, Rachel slowed the vehicle. The homes had a quaintness, painted and trimmed in cheerful colors, a rainbow of cottages. The small lawns were richly green and lined with little fences or neatly groomed hedges.

I felt instantly at home.

Rachel turned to me and said, “Welcome to Lotus.”

Ten

There was a second, more formidable checkpoint, one that appeared to have heavy concrete reinforcement and steel gates that could be shut against vehicle passage, but it was tastefully landscaped and it was unobstructed when we arrived and so Rachel whipped through with a carefree wave of her hand and without slowing.

We drew closer and passed by smaller residential streets. The homes were arranged in loose, roomy groupings, with lots of open space between them, along with trees and greenery. The streets were flanked by wide walkways with street lamps and benches. Everywhere I looked there were people walking and riding bikes. I didn’t see any other cars aside from Rachel’s, and I thought she might stop and tell us that we would go on foot.

The place was like the set of a movie, or a better yet, a musical. The overall effect struck me as orderly but not regimented, uniform but not anonymous, although perhaps slightly sterile. It looked as if the team who’d designed the place was thoughtful and smart but perhaps just a bit fussy.

“It’s incredible. Better than I imagined.”

Rachel only nodded.

Between the groupings of homes, there stood windbreaks of trees and shrubs, open pitches grown with deeply green grass, and parks with gentle hills and ponds and pathways of wood bark. And, just as Rachel had told me, there were beds of flowers everywhere. Some had been recently filled with dark-brown soil and little green starts, but others were blooming like crazy already.

A couple on bikes passed slowly by and waved at us.

“Lots of bikes,” I said, waving back.

“That’s how we get around, mostly,” she said. I could tell she was very proud of the place. “Most areas are designed around pedestrian and bike traffic.”

“Oh, I’d love to have a nice little bike,” I said.

“We have one waiting at your house.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“I think it’s red,” she said with a laugh.

“What do people do if they can’t ride a bike?”

“Hm. Hasn’t been an issue to this point.”

A flock of children on bikes rolled past. They waved, and through the SUV’s windows I heard them shouting and giggling.

Despite my nervousness, I realized all at once that the homes had no garages or driveways, and this was something that gave the whole place a certain quietude and quaintness. The homes were cottages in the truest sense—small, simple, but well kept and handsome. Functional but friendly.

One of these is mine? I thought. Just for Arie and me?

“Ascension Avenue,” said Rachel cheerily, nodding at the street ahead. “This is where you live now.”

We turned the corner to find all the trees along the avenue had large and bright yellow ribbons tied in bows around their trunks.

“They wanted to make you feel welcome,” Rachel said.

A very nice gesture, I thought, but my heart was tripping along now as though it might break free from my chest and continue on down the road. My hands were trembling.

Rachel gave the horn a couple quick honks, and a few people on the sidewalks and yards waved at us as we went by.

We stopped at a blue house with white shutters and flower boxes that had been planted with pansies. Over the door was a paper banner painted with the words, WELCOME HOME MOM.

That got me. I’d been on the verge of tears since we’d passed by the second security gate, but now they spilled down my cheeks and I heard tiny tap-taps as they landed on my coat.

“We’re here,” said Rachel. She raised her eyebrows and grinned broadly as she switched off the SUV.

I stepped out of the passenger side to find that my legs were slightly shaky, too, and I suddenly felt a bit light-headed, enough that I steadied myself momentarily by leaning against the SUV’s fender.

The front door of the little blue and white cottage swung open. A young man stepped out. He didn’t burst out as if meeting some grand and long-awaited reunion. He stepped onto the stoop and paused there to smile at us. Then he swept the bangs from his face with his hand, waved diffidently, and hopped onto the walkway. His face split into a wide grin as he came closer.

Arie.

I recognized him at once, of course. I had the photo, but more than that I again saw his face in mine. I’d imagined myself running to him with my arms flung out, but instead I stood there at the SUV for what I thought must have been several minutes, just watching him. Even the way he stood and smiled and walked was familiar to me, I suppose because there were echoes of myself in them, but I also fancied that I could maybe remember. Maybe unconsciously? It didn’t matter. The nervousness was gone now, and I felt strongly that we hadn’t been separated for very long at all. On the other hand, I could have imagined all that, so anxiously had I been looking forward to meeting with him this way.

Rachel said nothing as Arie approached the SUV. She only maintained her grin and made a sweeping gesture in my direction, like a showman presenting an assistant.

But Arie appeared to need no help in identifying me. He crossed the grass, walking easily and with a confidence that I knew or imagined I knew—whichever; it didn’t matter. And when at last he stood before me, he held out his arms and we hugged. My tears were just gushing now, and I felt pangs of embarrassment, but I let them flow. Arie held me and I held him.

“Wow,” Rachel said, dabbing her eyes.

Arie broke the embrace but held onto my arms and stood looking at me with a big smile on his face.

“I really thought I’d be able to control myself better.” I laughed but sniffed and wiped my face.

Arie laughed.

“I told myself I wasn’t going to cry,” I added. “I mean I knew I would, but I thought telling myself I wouldn’t would maybe make me cry less.”

“I think the opposite happened,” Arie said with a snicker.

“Gosh, I’m a mess.”

“It’s okay,” Arie said.

I reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I can’t believe you’re really real.”

“I feel that way sometimes, too,” he said, patting himself all over. “But I am.”

So, he’s funny. Of course he is.

Rachel joined us and said. “Arie, I’m Rachel.”

“Yeah, of course,” said Arie.

He wasn’t quailed by her, but there’d been an immediate change in his voice—a deference or respect. So, he’s mannerly, too.

“I’m Arie,” he said. The two shook hands. “You’re our director,” Arie continued. “I’ve seen your photo. And I know you’re very busy, or at least I assume you are, so I’m honored and very grateful. Thank you for delivering my mother safely.” He bowed his head to her.

“Oh, no,” she said, “this has made my day, my week.”

“Shall we go inside?”

The home was clean and warm. The furnishings were simple but to me they seemed as smartly arranged as a kid of seventeen could manage—simple but welcoming.

So, he’s not a slob, I thought.

And in the air was the smell of food. Chicken, I thought, and something spicy. Chili peppers.

So, he cooks, I thought. This must be some kind of dream. Was I allowed to be proud of him? Was this my doing, or was he just that kind of kid? I decided that he was probably just that kind of kid, but I could be proud anyway.

“Um, Rachel,” said Arie, “wait—do I call you ‘Rachel’? Or—”

“No, no—don’t you dare call me ma’am or madam or something. Everyone calls me Rachel.”

“Okay, gotcha,” said Arie. He clasped his hands politely and went on with a kind of nervous courtesy. “Well, Rachel, so, could I ask—I mean would it be, ya know, like presumptuous, if I asked you to stay for dinner? I have been trying to sort of build up my cooking repertoire, and I’m not like a chef or anything, but I have a chicken enchilada recipe and I think it’s pretty good. There’s enough for everyone. Enough for the whole block, probably. So, te quedarás a comer?”

I turned to Rachel and said, “Oh, please say yes.”

It was plain to see Rachel had not anticipated this invitation and was likely due back soon for some meeting or engagement, even though evening was coming on and she had what I knew to be a long drive ahead of her. She blinked a few times at us and opened her mouth without saying anything while we stood waiting.

After a moment she said, “You know what? Sure. I was planning to have an apple and some trail mix in the car on the way back but, no. I want enchiladas now and I especially want to hang out with you two. Yes. I’ll stay. Thanks, you guys.”

Arie ushered us into a dining room where there was a small round table. He had set out beautiful little place-settings complete with cloth napkins and properly arranged silverware—the knives even had their edges turned in. The arrangement of tableware was another one of those things that in without remembering how I knew it or where I’d learned it, and I wondered if I’d taught it to Arie sometime in the back before when I was his mom and he was my little boy.

“Oh, my,” said Rachel. “Look at all this. I think I may need to drop by unannounced more often.”

“Smells delicious,” I said.

“Thank you, kind ladies,” he said with light-hearted cordiality. “If you’ll be seated, I will see that your dinner is as pleasant as possible.”

Rachel and I took our seats and looked at each other, wrinkling our noses at his adorable manners. Arie went out through a doorway and into the kitchen beyond where we heard the clatter of utensils and the squeaking and bumping noises of an oven door being opened and shut. Arie returned in a few minutes and dished out his enchiladas. The food steamed invitingly, smothered with red sauce and topped with lightly browned cheddar cheese.

Muy bien, I thought, realizing that I was actually feeling a bit weak from hunger.

It was a simple meal with simple ingredients, but marvelous for that very aspect because it really was delicious. Arie poured us lemonade from a pitcher tinkling with ice cubes and dripping with cool condensation.

“Arie, this is fantastic,” I said between mouthfuls.

“Yes,” said Rachel. “Very good. So glad I stayed.”

“Where’d you learn to cook like this?” I asked.

“Well, uh, from you, I assume,” he quipped.

We all chuckled.

Rachel pointed to a shelf in the living room. “Is that like a transmitter, Arie? Like a, whaddyacallit? Ham?”

Arie glanced in that direction and nodded.

“Yep, it’s a ham radio—when it works, that is. It’s more of a decoration at the moment. Needs some work.”

“A hobby of yours?”

“Yeah, I dabble,” he said. “It turns out the real hobby is tracking down replacement parts for it. There’s not much traffic on the airwaves around here, anyway, but I have a few acquaintances in the Agency that I keep up with.”

“I had no idea we had anyone here who used ham radios,” said Rachel. “Where would you even get a unit like that?”

Arie shrugged and said, “I bought this one from a guy who left a note on the bulletin board in the pool house.”

“There’s a pool?” I said.

“Olympic size,” said Rachel and Arie together.

“Big hot tub, too,” said Arie.

“Jeeze,” I said. “This place just gets better and better.”

I felt very happy, and by the time Arie had offered me a third enchilada, I felt myself beginning to feel at home in the place. But there was something underneath it all, something that kept me from relaxing completely. Maybe it was our over-eager laughter and the constantly pattered compliments. Or the way we couldn’t move past the small talk, couldn’t proceed into topics any deeper than how best to avoid long waits at the gym or what the neighbors were like. I suppose I should have been content with it—I’d arrived only a couple hours before, and neither I nor Arie had any memories or any connection to one another aside from our genetic relationship.

And indeed the three of us chatted very pleasantly even after we could eat no more. But there was something underneath it all.

I tried to tell Arie about myself, but I quickly realized there wasn’t much to say. It’s not very exciting to say that the only things that you can ever remember doing in your life are cleaning a small and not very cozy apartment and cooking mediocre meals from cans and boxed food. And Arie somehow very politely avoided asking any follow-up questions anyway, and he had an almost sly way of avoiding my gaze when there were pauses in the conversation.

“You have a job here, I guess,” I said to Arie.

“Yeah, a good one,” he answered.

He said it to me but he nodded at Rachel as he said it. She looked pleased. Arie continued.

“There are some education courses you can enroll in. I got a few technical certificates and got a production job.”

“Mm, sounds cool. What do you do there?”

He glanced at me as though I’d made some error in my etiquette. “Well, like I said, I work in production.”

I frowned and looked at Rachel.

“Arie is not being impolite,” she said. “He is actually following one of our more recent guidelines.”

Arie smiled sheepishly.

“We don’t discuss our occupations in very great detail,” explained Rachel.

“It’s called the ‘shop-talk directive’,” said Arie.

“Yes,” said Rachel.

“Oh,” I said. “Because—” but I couldn’t think of why such a rule might be needed.

Rachel assumed the public relations tone of voice she’d used when she first began to explain the workings of Lotus to me.

“Maybe you noticed last year,” she began, “when security problems kind of got a little out of hand?”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “For a while there I was getting woken up by gun shots outside every other night.”

“Mm.” Rachel closed her eyes and nodded. “Well, here at Lotus we really weren’t affected, and—”

Arie cut in. “There were a few incidents in the West Tens,” he said.

“Right, of course,” said Rachel, her voice now suddenly firm and businesslike. “But we weren’t getting woken up by gunfire every other night in any event.”

Arie conceded with a head tilt.

“As I was saying,” she continued, “we have not been overly affected by the uprisings and security problems here in Lotus, and we like it that way, want to keep it that way, so we implemented some firmer guidelines. A bit of confidentiality, you might say, so that those who cause trouble don’t have an easy time obtaining information that can be used against us. Our security experts say that terrorists take the most innocuous pieces of information and compile them to make plans for disruption and attacks.”

“I see,” said.

“So,” said Rachel, “that’s where the shop-talk directive comes in—we don’t talk about what we do at work, and any terrorists who are listening get less useful information from us. Besides, who wants to talk about work over a delicious dinner like this anyway?”

“You’ll be told about this at orientation,” said Arie.

“That’s right,” Rachel added. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just nitpicky rule stuff. You’re gonna love it here.”

Soon Rachel told us she really had to be moving on, and while Arie took the dishes into the kitchen, I walked out to Rachel’s SUV with her.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

“I don’t know. You seem a bit subdued.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “It’s been a really long day. I was up so early and hardly slept at all last night. Then all this excitement. Still taking it all in, I guess.”

“Mm. Well, these big changes can rattle you,” said Rachel, “even if the changes are good. Lotus can be a big shock to the system, and on top of that you’ve just met your almost-grown-up son for what is for all intents the very first time.”

“Yeah. Gosh. I should probably get some rest.”

“Great idea. It was a really nice dinner, though. Can you believe that kid?”

“Oh, I know,” I said, laughing. “The table all set just so and waiting on us and everything.”

“The candles on the table! So considerate,” said Rachel.

“Yeah, wow. I really can’t believe how nice he is.”

“You deserve it. You deserve this. I’m sure it’s overwhelming, but try to enjoy it.”

I nodded.

“All right,” said Rachel. She set her hand on my shoulder. “You’re really okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m off. We will talk again soon.”

She got into the SUV and drove away. I watched the red tail lights recede from my view. They were the only vehicle lights I could see, but the window lights and street lamps of the neighborhood were twinkling on. In the air there was still a little warmth from the day. I looked around. I heard music from somewhere far off, and some voices. But otherwise all was quiet and very peaceful.

Maybe I was traumatized in a way, I thought before going into the cottage. Could that be it? Could Gary’s neglect and my grim, featureless year in the Agency housing campus have turned me suspicious, untrusting? Maybe that was what I felt underneath it all.

“Relax,” I said aloud. “Just—relax.”

I took a few deep breaths. The sun was down and the remaining light was draining from the western sky. A chill crept into the air. I shoved my hands into my pockets and went inside.

“Hey, Arie,” I said. “Let me help you with those dishes. I can dry and put away. I’m one of the all-time great dish dryers and putters-away.”

But there were no sounds from the kitchen. Arie was not around and the lights in the house had been turned off except for the light in the entryway. I looked in the kitchen. The dishes had been cleaned and put away and Arie wasn’t there. I checked the other rooms. All dark, and no Arie. The door to the room I assumed belonged to him was shut. I stole up to it and put my ear close to it, but I heard nothing.

Eleven

When I awoke the next morning, I couldn’t remember where I was. The bed was comfortable and warm, and the house was very quiet. Gary’s apartment was very noisy—there were sounds from above, below, left, and right. Sounds of people coming and going, sounds of doors and water pipes and drains, but most hatefully the sounds of the armored vehicles and bullhorns used by the guards and yes, occasionally there was gunfire. Compared to my old neighborhood, Lotus was like a tomb.

After being so tired the day before, I had surprisingly fallen into a restless sleep, but one without dreams. What would it take to have a night of deep and satisfying sleep? I awoke that morning and lay in the bed with my eyes open, dozing fitfully, and trying to recall what had happened over the last twenty-four hours. There was not enough light yet to make out anything in the room. My eyes and mind worked to make sense of the unfamiliar shapes and the calm that hung in the air.

And then it was as if every moment from the previous day flashed simultaneously into my mind. The little rest area with the dirty banks of snow, Rachel in her ball cap and sunglasses, the long drive across those abandoned open places, talking and laughing like roommates on a road trip, the man in the little guard shack, the streets and cottages and bicycles of Lotus, the appearance of Arie like some character from a legend, his dinnertime manners and enchiladas, our semi-awkward conversation, the odd tension that seemed to run beneath it all, and, finally, Arie’s curt disappearance after Rachel went away.

“Relax,” I whispered.

There was an alarm clock on the nightstand next to the bed, one with hands and a round face and two little tin bells on top with a clapper between them. I picked it up, but it had no lights or luminous paint and I couldn’t make it out in the darkness.

I guess that means it’s really early, I thought.

I got out of the bed and turned on the light. There were a few clothes in the closet and drawers, as Rachel had said there would be—simple clothes that she said would have to do until I could order more. I got dressed and headed for the kitchen.

The door to Arie’s room was still closed, which I hoped meant that he was still home and asleep. The sun was coming up now. After a few minutes of opening and shutting the cupboards and fumbling around, I found a drip coffee pot and some coffee grounds, and even cans of evaporated milk. I brewed up a strong pot of coffee and in ten minutes or so I was feeling energized. The fridge and cupboard were decently stocked and so I rounded up the makings of a hearty breakfast—there were eggs, bread, a little bacon, and even berries.

I worked fast but kept poking my head out of the kitchen doorway so that I wouldn’t miss Arie when he got up. Food smells filled the house.

The bacon was almost perfectly crisp—did I know what Arie liked to eat without actually remembering? In other words, would the few cooking skills I had but did not remember acquiring be satisfactory to the tastes he’d developed without remembering when? What an odd situation, I thought. I cooked slice after slice of French toast, piling it up on a plate—in case he was a big eater. I poured two glasses of orange juice. I sliced the berries and sprinkled them with some sugar. If Arie didn’t emerge soon from his room, I’d have to go and wake him or let the food get cold. I started feeling slightly nervous.

At last he appeared. He was dressed already, with a jacket and ball cap. He came to the doorway kitchen and looked around with a cool brevity, and then he continued toward the front door.

“Arie!” I cried. “Hey! Good morning!”

He stopped and looked back. There was a strange look on his face, one I couldn’t read.

“Hey, give me a hand here. Help me get this stuff to the table. And come sit down to eat.”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t move.

“Come on,” I said. “Sit, sit. Breakfast. French toast, bacon, the works. C’mon.”

He made a small head shake. “No thanks.”

And he walked out the door.

When Rachel asked about my first evening in Lotus and how things were going with Arie, I debated internally for a second or two about what to tell her.

She had left instructions on where I should report for work. Even after cleaning up the unwanted breakfast (how I kept getting myself into the situation of making special homemade meals for people who didn’t want them was a question I didn’t take time to ponder), I still had plenty of time to make it there with fifteen minutes to spare.

My red bike had been stored in a small utility shed behind the cottage, and the ride to East Ten Administrative Office was a very pleasant ten-minute ride away. I was assigned to a small office and shown around the building, and I’d met a few people. Then Rachel found me and it was time for our meeting.

“And how was the rest of your night at home with Arie?” she asked.

I turned the question over in my head. Did I want her to know the truth? Or did I want to keep the truth from her? The last thing I wanted was anything that put me on awkward footing with either Lotus or Arie.

“It was very nice,” I said. “Just a nice, quiet evening.”

“Sounds great,” she replied. “He seems like a really sweet kid.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Really, really sweet.”

“I’m glad to hear it’s going well,” said Rachel. She had no office in this building, so she ushered me into a small meeting room. “I think you two will get along famously.”

Again, I debated in my mind about whether I should tell her what had really happened. There seemed to be no point in that. What if I had read the situation wrong? What if Arie were simply a little nervous about suddenly living with a woman he’d never met before? What if he were just shy? Not a breakfast lover—or maybe it was just French toast he didn’t love, or the bacon looked too crisp? Maybe he was a pancakes man. Or scrambled eggs? Why had I settled on French toast? Everyone loves scrambled eggs.

None of it mattered anyway, because what help could I expect from Rachel? She couldn’t tell him to behave or eat his breakfast, and I felt like I couldn’t burden her with every little misgiving or concern. I was a newcomer—I’d been in Lotus for less than one entire day, and I wasn’t at all eager to mark myself as easily injured or a complainer.

Then again, I didn’t want to be a liar, either.

“I think so, too,” I said.

Rachel began the meeting. Thoughts of French toast and degrees of crispiness in breakfast meats were tripping and tumbling through my head, and I was just telling myself that I should probably be paying more attention when I heard Rachel say something about being selected to be “an officer in the Lotus administrative corps.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “did you say, ‘officer’?” I stammered.

She nodded, but added, “An administrative officer. But yes. An officer. Are you okay with that?”

“I—well, yes. I mean, I guess so. I just—well, I thought I’d be doing something else. You know?”

“What did you think you’d be doing?”

“I—I don’t know. I just didn’t picture myself as an officer. I thought maybe I’d be, well, maybe working in a factory? Maybe working with Arie.”

“Arie is doing an excellent job right now,” said Rachel, “but we’re not going to have him running machinery and manufacturing doo-dads for very long. He’s too smart for that. And so are you. I can’t afford to put someone like you into production or landscaping or anything like that.”

“I’m flattered,” I said, “and I want to help however I can.”

“Good. The way you can help is by being in the administrative corps,” she said with a laugh. “I want you to start out as a case manager.”

“Case manager,” I said, more to feel the words on my tongue than anything else.

“Admin officers, and case officers in particular, are people who can think on their feet, see things from lots of angles. Someone who is sharp and analytical but also open-minded and compassionate. Do any of these things sound like you, Alison?”

I actually thought they did, but rather than admit that, I said, “Wow, I’m just kind of blown away that you would trust me—”

“And humble, fine,” said Rachel, “but I suspect that you agree that you fit this description. You seem to have a sense of what’s fair, and fairness is a value that you hold. And yet you’re complex enough to consider and evaluate extenuating conditions, nuances. You value fairness but you realize sometimes things aren’t cut and dried. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” I said, with no little surprise. “Yeah, I actually do feel that way.”

“I thought so. I meant what I said when I told you that I’m looking forward to seeing what you can contribute. I want you to start as a case manager and we’ll see where you go from there. I suspect you won’t stay in this job long before you’re onto bigger things.”

“What kind of cases will I be managing?”

“Well, like I said before, we are trying to build something here. And when I say ‘we,’ I really mean that. You and me, you and everyone else. Me and all of you,” she gestured to include everyone in the building. “Ask any of the people here. What we do is cooperative and we all contribute. This isn’t me telling you what to do and you ‘cooperating’ by doing it. I need your ideas, your honest effort. That’s how we will create a community that is stable, productive. Something that will last, something that will continue to grow and improve.”

When Rachel spoke about Lotus, about its inner workings and its grandiose objectives, I couldn’t help but be inspired. What she said honestly sounded right and good. But doubts crept in, especially when I recalled sitting in Gary’s sad little apartment, and how it seemed that everything related to the Agency was broken down, behind schedule, corrupt, or simply just bleak.

“Do you bake, Alison?” said Rachel.

“Do I bake? You mean like cakes and bread and things?”

“Yes, do you like baking?”

I shrugged. “I’m no good at it, but I’ve tried.”

“Perfect. Have you ever tried to bake a cake with substandard ingredients? Coarse flour? Powdered eggs?”

“Oh, yes. I can’t remember using anything but substandard ingredients.”

“Then you’ll take my point. If you want to bake a very special cake, a high-quality cake, you will want the very best ingredients, yes?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“The best chocolate, baker’s flour, fresh eggs, real butter, and so on.”

“You’re making me hungry. Sounds delicious.”

“Precisely,” said Rachel with a smile. “And to make Lotus into the most delicious society it can be, we are likewise in search of the best ingredients. You’ll be on the front lines here, looking out for those who can best contribute to this effort, to this cake. I sometimes handle cases myself—like yours. Technically, I’m your case manager. But I can’t vet and evaluate everyone. And that’s where case managers come in.”

“I’m not sure what to say to all this.”

“Well, say yes, first of all. Unless you really do want a job landscaping.”

“No, no,” I said, my face heating a little. “I’ll take the job.”

“Excellent,” said Rachel. “I have some reading for you—more about the Lotus philosophy, mission statements, guidelines. You dig into that and we’ll talk some more tomorrow.”

She produced a notebook filled with printed pages.

“I’ll get started right away.”

“Got any questions?” she said as she rose from the table.

“I’m sure I’ll have lots,” I said.

We walked through a hallway and outside where a driver was waiting at the door of another SUV. He opened the door.

“I’ll see you soon,” said Rachel. “Don’t get overwhelmed. Call a staff member here if you do think of any questions you need answered. If it’s something they can’t answer, they’ll pass it off to me.”

“This is going to be so different,” I said.

“Different is good.”

“That’s true. So, just to be clear, I’ll be, well, evaluating people who are being recruited into Lotus? Like deciding whether they can join or not?”

“Yes, you will,” said Rachel. “And you’ll deal with people who might need to be reassigned, too.”

I furrowed my brow.

“Mm, maybe I rushed through this. You’ll evaluate Lotus candidates, of course, and that’s a big responsibility, but you’ll do the same for people who have, well, made mistakes, or aren’t committed to their work. Some cases, hopefully rare, may require memory suspension and reassignment to the Starting Zones.”

I looked at her.

“Don’t sweat it,” she said. “We’re gonna make the most delicious cake you’ve ever had. Read the notebook. We’ll talk soon.”

Twelve

With a chubby round face, white beard, and a stout build, the man who sat across my desk from me could have been a department store Santa Claus, if things like Christmas were still celebrated. He even had slightly rosy cheeks and a nose like a cherry.

His name was Archie, one of the first cases I’d been assigned, and certainly the first challenging case—he had a drinking problem. Alcohol was not a contraband substance in Lotus, but neither was it freely available. Still, gray-market supplies were available, and I’d talked to Archie several times over the past few weeks about his reported excesses. Public drunkenness was one of the milder of the charges he’d accumulated. He’d been found multiple times urinating in public, and there were other infractions, mostly related to disorderly conduct and failing to report for work.

“Archie, my recommendation is for you to return to the Starting Zones,” I told him.

I hated saying it. It was the only part of the job I hated at all.

Archie’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened, but he said nothing. He just sat there, his face frozen like a mask or photo of someone who’s been slugged hard in the gut. Archie had been warned many times that his indiscretions might become a real problem for him—perhaps he’d thought they never would.

“For our society to reach its highest potential, we have to hold its citizens to the highest standards,” Rachel had told me, repeatedly, phrased in different ways, using a dozen different analogies and examples. “We simply don’t have room for those who are not living up to their potential.”

“For our society to reach its highest potential,” I recited, “we have to hold everyone to the highest standards.”

Archie’s face remained frozen. “Please,” Archie said at last, with a sort of dry squawk. “Don’t do this. I have a problem, I know. I’m working on it. I am. But you can’t do this. The punishment doesn’t fit the crime.”

He went on, speaking faster and faster. I shook my head and held up my hands.

“Archie, Archie—no. We’ve been over this. This isn’t a punishment and you haven’t committed a crime. You have potential. The Lotus admin board saw it, and they recognized it and that is why you are in Lotus in the first place.”

“Then let me stay, please. Don’t send me down. I promise I’ll—”

“Archie, stop. We’ve talked and talked about this. You’ve been in here to see me four times in the past five weeks, and you were working with—” I checked his case file “—Bernadette before I got here.”

“Okay, I know, but—”

“Listen,” I said. I held up my hand again, raised my voice a little. “Nothing we can do will eliminate your potential. I’ve spoken to several people at your branch and they all say you’re a gifted programmer and you get along great with everyone. It’s just—look, I’m almost sure that after a cycle in the Starting Zones you’ll be right back here to try again. There’s no prejudice against you, Archie. No bad record or reputation to dog you, no fines, no jail. You just need a fresh start.”

His face had reddened and now contrasted angrily against his white whiskers. “You don’t know what it’s like down there. You wouldn’t be saying any of this if you did. They starve you. There’s never enough. Old guys like me get the shit knocked out of us. You’re never safe.”

I’d heard this from more than a few of my cases.

“The Zones are definitely no picnic,” Rachel had told me. “I don’t think they should be that way, but I kind of have my hands full trying to re-build society, so there’s not much I can do.”

“The Zones are definitely no picnic,” I said to Archie. “But starvation? Let’s not exaggerate.”

“Ah, god, don’t do this,” said Archie. “You obviously don’t know how it is. It’s a nightmare. It’s hell. I can’t go—”

“Archie, I’m sorry. It’s settled. The recommendation was filed on Monday and it’s already been accepted. Keeping you in Lotus would be unfair to you. It’s obvious that you’re already burdened by your past mistakes and the odds are that you’ll repeat them. It’s a downward spiral. A fresh start will break the cycle and you can start again—hopefully soon.”

He leaned forward, his hands reaching out to me in a pleading gesture.

“I’ll do anything. I will do anything you say. Just don’t send me back there.”

I put my hand in the air and through the window of my office I caught the attention of the Agency handlers who were seated outside my door. They stood and came into my office.

“Archie, I have a lot of confidence in you. Like I said, I think you’re going to be right back here before the year is out, but we will be in-processing you, not out. Now, Archie—look at me for a sec. Archie, will you please accept this? Don’t make trouble?”

The man was shattered. His eyes were downcast, but they had a frenzied gleam in them. His breathing was shallow, almost asthmatic.

“Archie. No trouble, okay?”

He nodded very slowly. One of the Agency handlers placed a hand on Archie’s shoulder. Archie looked up at him and then at the other. He stood from his chair and turned toward the door. The handler behind Archie caught my gaze and made a silent gesture by crossing his wrists to ask me if I thought Archie should be handcuffed. I thought about this for a moment and then nodded my head. The phrase, “For his own safety,” came into my mind, which always made me cringe. We said again and again that we did not hand out punishments. That losing memory privileges was not a punishment. But how could it not feel like a punishment when two burly men cuffed you and drove you silently away?

The handler gave me a quick and subtle thumbs-up, produced a pair of cuffs from somewhere beneath his jacket, and said, “Hold up there, sir. We’re gonna restrain you—just a precaution, as much for your own good as ours.”

And then the handler placed his hand on Archie’s back and pointed down the hall.

At least they don’t remember being cuffed, I thought. They don’t remember any of this.

I took my job very seriously. There was no way I couldn’t—Rachel had preached the Lotus philosophy to me so fervently it had become very like a religion. When she explained our procedures and objectives, it all made so much sense, and I felt I had to do my best in service of the cause.

Also, of course, meeting with others living in Lotus had become, in a very short time, a very personal matter. Discussing their innermost fears and desires and problems could be exhilarating and rewarding but it also affected me deeply.

And so I tried to be as fair as my conscience allowed, and that usually meant being as lenient as I could possibly be without being reprimanded myself.

All the other case managers seemed very serious and very dedicated, too. Most of them who I’d spoken to recommended re-assignment only after repeated infractions and many warnings. We even utilized tools like counseling and probation and incentives. And we encouraged our cases to improve, advised them as though they were our own relations and close friends. It was only after our cases found themselves trapped in the familiar cycle of failure (as Rachel called it) that we reluctantly recommended re-assignment.

In-processing was much more pleasant, obviously. Telling a confused and cagey Zone dweller that her life was about to improve by about three hundred percent—there was nothing better than that.

Mostly we made minor adjustments, minor corrections, issuing friendly reminders and warnings to cases who had slipped a bit. We let people know when they were falling behind, when they were failing themselves. We let them know when it was time for them to remember the trust Rachel had placed in them. Almost all of them responded immediately and favorably. We told our cases that we were proud of them for remembering and reaching for their potential, but if I looked at things in a more cynical way, it sure looked like they were simply afraid of being sent down.

There were other kinds of work, like long-term follow-ups and evaluations and training. Most of the time, I felt good about the job, and I got the impression that Rachel at least was pleased with me. It was difficult to know if I was “making a difference,” but when I got home, it was sometimes difficult to stop thinking about a certain problem or case, and that at least made me feel like the job meant something to me, and that I meant something to Lotus.

And then another Archie would walk through my door, and I’d carry him around in my mind for a few more days.

Out in the hallway, Archie began to shout. I couldn’t make out exactly what, but I knew, and when I turned in that direction, I saw that he was resisting the handlers, too, jerking away from their grasping hands.

He won’t remember any of it, I thought to myself. I turned away and lifted the receiver of my phone to tell Lloyd to send in my next case.

That afternoon I rolled home on my bike and parked it in the shed, as always. I came in through the side door and shrugged off my backpack, and then my coat, and I threw these on the sofa—again, as I almost always did. But when I got to the kitchen to make my usual cup of tea, Arie was sitting at the kitchen table. I flinched a little and stopped in my tracks.

He wore a dark scowl and his arms were folded across his chest.

“Hey there,” I said brightly. “I’m surprised to see you. You’re hardly ever here when I get home.”

I tried to keep my voice cheery but not overly so. Arie only glowered back at me.

“What is it?” I asked, hoping that I was misreading his expression but knowing otherwise. “Is there something wrong? Hey, since you’re here, and we’ve hardly even seen each other, wanna make some dinner together? You know what they had in the produce distribution yesterday? Avocados!”

Arie maintained his angry gaze and chewed his upper lip, as though trying to avoid screaming at me.

“Real avocados,” I said, my voice growing smaller. “Two of ’em. A whole one each. I guess I don’t even really know if you like avocados.”

Arie took a deep breath and then let it out with a huff.

“What is it, Arie? What’s wrong? What did I do?”

“Is it true you sentenced Archie to have his memory erased?”

I tried to absorb the question without looking too stunned. There were so many problems with his raising such a question.

“Well?” he said.

“Well,” I said, “first of all, that is confidential information. So, whoever told you that or however you found out is kinda shady, from an Administrative Services standpoint.”

“So it’s true.”

“Hang on,” I continued, holding up a hand and keeping my voice steady. “We both know that A.S. doesn’t give out punishments, so this isn’t a ‘sentence.’ You’ve been here longer than me—you know this. It’s an administrative move. I make recommendations based on long and sometimes very in-depth interviews with the cases who are assigned to me. This isn’t a court. This isn’t a punishment. It’s a change of status.”

Arie scoffed. “There’s no way you really believe that. Those bureaucratic double-speak words.”

“This is my job. I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but I’m pretty sure you don’t know all of the—”

“He was my friend,” said Arie, his voice raised. “We worked together. Did you know that?”

“As a matter of fact, I did know he was employed at the same facility that you—”

“These reassignments are basically death, Alison,” he shouted back. “I know you’ve been brainwashed to believe they’re something else—that you’re being compassionate or looking out for everyone’s best interest, but it’s a death sentence. Without memories, the person you are just goes away!”

“It was his third major offense, Arie,” I said, and my voice was growing louder, too.

“Ah. So. It is a sentence. A sentence for an offense. So kind of you to give him three chances—three strikes and you’re dead.”

“You would over-dramatize it. There’s no cruelty, no jail, no punishment. It’s a chance to start over. That’s all it is. We have a unique technology that allows us to—”

“—kill people without having to bury them! Yes! It’s brilliant! When they do things you don’t like, kill them and bring them back so they can keep working. You’re gonna erase him for getting drunk? Having too much fun? Missing a little work? You can’t really believe this horse shit you say every day, can you? Do you really believe it?”

“Arie, you’re not thinking clearly about this. You’re taking it personally. I’m sorry if he was your friend, but we are building a new society here. Friends are nice to have, but there are some things higher than personal satisfaction and having friends. You know? This isn’t the back before. The human race is on a knife edge here. We have to be better; we have to have higher standards. That’s how we’re going to survive—no, thrive.”

As he stood to go, he rolled his eyes with a deeply disgusted aspect.

“Why are you doing this? I mean, I know you’re basically an adult, but I am still your mother, you know.”

“No. I can’t believe that. I can’t believe that someone I’m supposedly related to would ever even attempt to set themselves above everyone else this way. I refuse to accept that we’re related. And if we are—” here he waved his hand dismissively “—I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Arie, stop. Don’t say things like that. These aren’t my rules. I didn’t ask for this job.”

“No, but you’ve taken quite a liking to it all, haven’t you? Does it make you feel powerful? Does it make you feel special?”

“As a matter of fact, I happen to think that Rachel’s system makes us all special and useful. She’s made it possible to feel like we really are part of something wonderful.”

He stabbed a finger at me. “You’re part of the problem.”

He may as well have stabbed me with a dagger. In fact that would have been less painful.

“I’m your mother!”

“No!” he shouted hoarsely. “I had a mother! And Rachel and your goddamn Administrative Services took her away!”

I took a faltering step back. “What are you talking about?”

“They took my mother when some stupid test showed that you and me share some stupid genetic material. I had a mother. And she understood what’s going on in the world, and we were working to set things right. She was smart, and she was actually compassionate. She actually cared about people.”

“You’re not making any sense. How could you have another mother?”

Arie stomped over to me. From his pocket he produced a small color photograph and held it up for me to see. It was careworn and frowzy at the edges. In it, Arie had his arms around a woman of about my age, but she was taller and had red hair.

“You think I was just living here by myself before you came? No! I lived with her,” he said, tapping the photo with his finger, “my mother. My real mother. I don’t care what some stupid fake test says. This is my mother and your people took her.”

He stormed out of the house and slammed the door.

Thirteen

I didn’t sleep much for the next few days, by which I guess I mean didn’t sleep at all.

I would have liked to have had a more civil conversation with Arie about what he said about Lotus and my job and our relationship, but I hadn’t seen him for almost two days. This was the source of some worry about where he might be and if he were okay, but his angry shouts and arguments about the core of Lotus philosophy told me that there was probably even more to Arie than I’d first reckoned, and that he was more than capable of taking care of himself.

And so all the things he had said just swirled in my head and for a few days there were several things I found I couldn’t do very effectively—eat, sleep, work, sit quietly.

There had not been a lot of communication between Arie and I for weeks, and no familial affection whatsoever, but in my mind, I doggedly maintained that the unquestionably bad state of affairs might really be due to some combination of his personality, my personality, and the situation we found ourselves in. I’d never been re-united with a son I didn’t remember. The experience might actually have been familiar to Arie, but I hadn’t known that and the change in his life arrangements must have been jarring, nonetheless. In any case, I also considered the possibility that he might be suffering from something like culture shock. Family relationship shock? Something. I had trouble accepting that he didn’t like me and never would.

Rachel would be visiting my Administrative Services branch in just a couple days, as she did several times every month. We met to discuss policy changes, escalated cases, and other matters. Sometimes she just came to make sure we were in good spirits.

In actuality, I could have reached out to her at any time to talk about my problems with Arie—as busy as Rachel was, she almost never failed to take a phone call from me, and she seemed pleased at the chance to give me advice or listen to me when a particular case made me feel bad.

“We’re in this together,” she’d tell me. “Your problems are my problems. You call me anytime.”

Despite how Arie seemed to despise me, I found that I loved him fiercely in spite of it all. This came as something of a surprise to me. I was fond of Arie from the moment we met there on the front yard that night we ate enchiladas, but after he’d treated me coldly, and especially after our confrontation about Archie and my position in Lotus, in a weird way I felt even closer to him.

It was maybe just a way to soothe the hurt I felt that night, but I reasoned with myself that something like caring or affection toward me had prompted Arie to talk about Archie with me that day. If he had absolutely no care for me at all, would he have said anything? Can someone let you down if you don’t care about them?

And, I told myself, perhaps grabbing at a straw that was the very farthest from me, Arie was at least very passionate about what he believed and quite able to put forward a solid argument.

But clearly, we could never build any kind of family bond on the basis of shouting at each other. So, after my meeting with Rachel I would ask her what she thought of it. But first, I had to know about this other lady who apparently Arie thought of as his mother.

During Rachel’s visit to our department meeting, I couldn’t concentrate on anything that was discussed. There was something about a member of Lotus suspected of visiting A.S. just for attention, but I don’t remember how such a case was to be handled. There was a policy shift about the timing of recommendations, but I didn’t listen to what it meant for managers. Rachel warned us that there might be more in-processing cases, but I missed the reasons why. My co-worker Andre had some questions about cross-referencing cases to get better information for interviews, but Rachel’s answers went into my head without staying in my memory.

And so I listened with one ear, with half my brain, waiting for the clock on the wall to count down an hour or so, which is typically how long Rachel spared for such meetings. All I really thought about was Arie and the person he said was his mother.

When the meeting finally did adjourn, after more than ninety minutes, Rachel remained in her chair making some notes while the others filed out of the room. I stayed seated, too. Without looking up from her work, Rachel dispensed encouragement and little inter-office reminders as the room emptied.

I’d planned to wait until everyone was gone and then ask Rachel if she could give me a few minutes more, but before I could say anything to her, Rachel said, “You okay, Alison? You seem a little out of it.”

“I am,” I said. “Or maybe not. I’m sorry. Something’s come up, something that’s upsetting me a little.”

“Close that door,” she said. “Let’s chat.”

I swung the door closed and sat down again.

“What is it?” asked Rachel, putting her pen and pad away.

I had intended to ease into the matter, but instead I cut right to it. “Arie told me last night that he already had a mother before I came.”

She blinked, made a little head-nod, and said, “Arie had a caregiver, yes. I’m almost sure he was told not to discuss that, but he did have a caregiver before you joined Lotus.”

“Why?”

“Even though he’s nearly an adult and very capable of looking after himself, there are policies about people under eighteen years old. He’s technically still a child. She was a caretaker.”

“Arie seems to think of her as his mother.”

Rachel shook her head again. “Well, that makes sense. They were together for more than a year. Makes sense that they’d grow close. Why is this a concern?”

“Well, where is she now? His—caretaker?”

“She was re-assigned. I’m not deeply familiar with the case, but I’m sure it was handled in a routine way. When these kinds of familial connections are uncovered, there are policies regarding the re-uniting or re-arrangement of the people involved. We have found that family members tend to harbor their connection to one another even after their memories have been revoked. Would you rather not be with him?”

“No,” I said. “It’s not that.”

“Then I’m still not sure I understand how this presents a problem for you or Arie.” Her voice may have taken a colder tone.

“Oh, it is apparently a huge problem for Arie,” I said. “For one thing, he is furious with me. I haven’t told you this, but I think he resents me for replacing her. We’ve barely spoken since that first night when I arrived.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” asked Rachel, placing her elbows on the table and leaning in my direction.

“I don’t know. I guess I thought I was being over-sensitive. I thought I was over-reacting. I wanted to see if things got better. But now they’re a lot worse.”

“Why now? What happened?”

I drew a big breath and let it out. “He confronted me about one of my cases. The man with the drinking problem—I guess he and Arie worked together and were friends.”

“You told Arie about one of your cases?”

“No, no,” I protested. “Arie knew about it. I’d recommended the guy for re-assignment, and that evening, Arie knew about it.”

“Did Arie say how he’d found out about this?”

“No, he didn’t,” I said, putting my palm on my brow. “But he was beyond angry. He shouted for a while at me and ran out of the house and I haven’t seen him since.”

“Did he say anything else?” asked Rachel.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you say he didn’t tell you how he knew about the re-assignment of his friend, but did he say anything that might clue you in as to how he knew? Or anything else that was curious?”

“Curious? No, nothing else aside from the fact that he’d had some other mother before me—that was curious.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out about it like that.”

“Well, then he ranted about how re-assignment to the Starting Zones is like a death sentence. That’s what he said—death sentence. And he ranted about how cruel it was. I guess I kind of get it. I mean, having your memories—revoked—is a fairly drastic life change for someone who—”

“Alison, do we need to go over the grounding of this system? You know how it works. We are leveraging an opportunity that no one in the history of humanity has ever held.”

And she went on from there and I nodded and I even agreed, as I usually did.

When she stopped, I asked, “Did you know her? Arie’s mother? Or—caretaker?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Can I speak with her? Maybe get together with her and Arie? Maybe we can iron things out. I mean, I feel connected with Arie, but he’s obviously very shaken up about the change, and it’s obvious they’ve not had contact—he’s carrying around a tattered little picture of them together. I just think maybe if we could all get together in the same room? Do you think that might help out?”

“Well, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter because that’s just not possible, Alison,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I told you. She’s been re-assigned. To the Zones. If my memory of the case serves, there were certain shortcomings in her participation at Lotus, too. In a way, it was fortuitous that we found you at that time. It was good that you could step in.”

“Shortcomings?”

“I don’t have the case in front of me and it’s been a while since I reviewed it. But yes, she’s been re-assigned and as you know, it wouldn’t be helpful or productive to know the reasons anyway. We’ve put those things behind not just for her but ourselves, too, and besides all of that—she wouldn’t know Arie now, obviously. She’s had her memories revoked. It would just be confusing for everyone.”

I sighed and nodded. “I just don’t know what to do. Arie clearly doesn’t need me to take care of him, which is fine, I mean that’s what any parent wants, but I’m terrified that he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. He seems to hate me, and it just hurts so much.”

“Let’s give him some time,” Rachel said as she patted my knee reassuringly. “Let’s see if he’ll come around.”

“I hope he will,” I said.

“I really think he will,” she said. “I still have a good feeling about you two. He’s a really smart guy and very mature for a teenager in his position, but don’t forget that he’s also still a kid. And this situation we’re in—it’s not easy for everyone.”

“Do you really think that’s all there is to it?” I asked hopefully.

“I think chances are good that’s all there is to it,” said Rachel. “And I’m awfully sorry you’re struggling right now, but I need to talk to you about one of your cases. Do you remember the case of Megan Williams?”

I did. Mostly because the case was so heartbreaking, especially given my situation with Arie. Megan was a young mother with a two-year-old boy named Sam. She’d been cooking something on the stove and left the handle of the pot extending out over the edge of the stove top. When she left the kitchen for just a moment, Sam had toddled over and grabbed the handle, and the pan of boiling-hot food had spilled onto his face and down his body. He’d gotten prompt medical care, but he developed an infection and had almost died.

Rachel and I discussed it for a while. The boy had apparently survived, though no one knew how. He was badly disfigured, however, was blind in one eye, and suffered from mobility problems. I thought of Gary, his face shiny with scar tissue.

The mother, Megan, had been assigned to me as a case manager and I’d been told a recommendation of re-assignment would almost certainly be accepted. The case looked like it should go that way to me, too. Megan had made other lapses in her parenting. Sam had gotten away from her once and had spent several hours outside, wandering, which had led to a nasty case of bronchitis. In severe cases like Megan’s, there were almost never counseling or warnings. In the most severe cases, we did not give warnings. I never saw little Sam with his burns or bandages, but I could only imagine the small child, slathered in sticky antibiotic creams, oozing fluid, and wrapped in gauzy dressings. The thought of this tiny creature defenseless against his own mistakes and with such bleak recovery prospects troubled me to my core. I could only imagine what Megan was going through. Others involved with her case told me that she cried all the time—for the child, surely, but also for her negligence.

After the stove incident, however, Megan never left the little boy’s side. She stayed with him every second until he was released, ignoring the nurses’ urgings to leave to go get rest or at least a change of clothes.

“I remember,” I said.

“You recommended taking no action on this case,” Rachel said.

“I recommended further counseling and follow-ups.”

“You upheld her behavior as acceptable?”

“I guess that’s true,” I said. “Megan’s actions may have been neglectful, but I didn’t see them as negligent or deviant in any big way. She would never hurt that little boy purposely. It looked to me like she had learned her lesson.”

“Alison, we’ve gone over this. We’re not here to teach lessons. We offer encouragement, we offer counseling, but we don’t have the capacity to carry people who’d shirk their duties that way. We could have lost that little boy, and as it is, he’ll never be the same.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “And Megan knows too. I doubt that anything remotely similar will ever happen again. She feels just awful about the whole thing.”

“Exactly. She would have been burdened by this careless incident for the rest of their lives. Every time she looked at him. It was just too big a mistake to let pass.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Are you saying you want me to look at the case again? Change my recommendation?”

“No, I already did,” said Rachel. “It’s been taken care of. The reason I wanted to speak to you about it is to make sure you understood your role. When Megan was referred to you, I thought we were all in agreement that she needed re-assignment. I was very surprised to see your recommendation. I don’t second-guess my managers often, but in this case, it was called for.”

“Wait, she’s been re-assigned already? She’s been wiped?”

“You know I don’t care for that term. Wiped. Megan has been re-assigned and so has little Sam.”

I sat dumbstruck for a few moments. Rachel put her hand on my shoulder.

“Like I said, Alison, I try not to micromanage or reverse recommendations very often. This was an exception. But I need you to know that your track record is somewhat on the lenient side, and there’s nothing technically wrong with that, but please don’t let it turn into a problem.”

“I’m just shocked. I would have liked to have talked to her again. To make sure she understood. I mean, I don’t agree with this. It was a mistake.”

“It was a series of mistakes,” Rachel reminded.

“Okay, it was a series of mistakes,” I said. “She didn’t deserve the Starting Zones.”

“Alison, I know you’re new, but re-assignment is not a matter of ‘deserving’,” said Rachel. “These aren’t punishments. Megan will be better for the re-assignment. We gave her what she needed, not what she deserved.”

All I could think about was poor Sam wondering where his mother was, spending his life in someone else’s keeping with little chance of knowing his mother. Would Megan simply be replaced? Like I had been? For all Rachel’s talk of placing priority on keeping families together, I found this decision hurtful.

“They were accidents, oversights,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else. The case was shut. There wasn’t a point to debating it any further.

“It was a pattern of behavior,” said Rachel. “If she has the excellence we’re looking for, she’ll be re-instated. You know that. But listen—I didn’t inform you of this to get your opinion about it. It was just a courtesy. And I know you’re having trouble at home, and I know you think you’re doing people like Megan a favor by showing leniency. I’m not reprimanding you right now, but I need you to be more careful from now on or you might find you don’t have a position here anymore.”

There was a growing iciness in Rachel’s voice that I’d never detected before. She’d always been warm and positive to me before. Was it all an act? Were we friends or was she just a boss who was friendly until the first moment of disagreement? At first I was slightly frightened by this—the woman did after all have complete control over my life. But all at once, the combination of all of it—Arie’s behavior, the overriding of my case recommendation, and even the odd undercurrent of uneasiness I felt on that first evening I arrived at Lotus—seemed to focus now like sunbeams through a magnifying glass. I almost felt that if there were any dry leaves nearby, my sudden hot anger might set them alight. It was perfection Rachel was after, and there is no warmth in perfectionism.

“Do you mean,” I asked, my tone more acid than I intended, “that I won’t have a position as case manager, or that I’ll be re-assigned to the Zones, too?”

Rachel stood and placed her fingertips on my shoulder. She looked down at me for a second or two longer and said, “Just promise me it’s not going to be an issue.”

Fourteen

When I’d gotten out of the building and down to the bike racks, I discovered that my bicycle had a flat tire. And I laughed at my rotten luck, though if I knew where that flat tire would lead me, I might not have.

“Can this day possibly get any worse?” I muttered.

Of course, I thought, replying to myself. It can always get worse. It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll walk, I thought. But I turned my face heavenward and flipped the bird.

Despite everything that had happened and everything I knew was yet to unfold, I couldn’t deny that it actually was a beautiful evening. The days were growing longer now and everything was green and warm with the full expression of springtime and hints of the fast-approaching summer. The sun was dipping down, and the sky was indigo turning to purple and red.

Along my way home there stood a small food-processing plant, and its grounds were lined with a tall row of cottonwood trees that hissed softly against the breeze.

In the warm evening air, the ancient trees cast away their downy seeds, which fell like snow and were carried along on the gentle wind. The setting sun illuminated the white puffs, making them glow like giant sparks blown free from a fire. When these wisps of flame reached the ground, they collected and swirled on the lazy currents of air, spinning slowly. One after another the wispy whirlwinds approached me, whirled around me, and then dissipated.

It took much longer to make the trip to my house on foot than on the bike. I began to feel so tired that I thought I might just go home and sleep instead of making any food or reading a book.

I mused that when I awoke, maybe Arie would have forgiven me for replacing his former caretaker and for working with Lotus and their system of maintaining order. How lovely it would be to wake up and find things with Arie improving, to find my work at Lotus was rewarding and productive.

But the thing that lurked underneath it all was making itself known again, and in stronger terms. Something didn’t sit right, though I couldn’t quite say what, nor could I think of how to fix it. How can you fix something when you don’t even know what is wrong?

Mostly, of course, it was Arie. Despite my attempts to explain it all away with justifications and excuses, Arie wanted nothing to do with me, and apparently he didn’t have much confidence in Lotus, either. I had no good way to change that—might he show up in my office one day for acts against the community?

I thought of the two other mothers I had learned about at Lotus—Arie’s caretaker and Sam’s mom, Megan—who’d been cut off from the children they loved and had cared for. I was beginning to know the misery they must have felt. Or what they were still feeling.

The fiery cottonseeds rode the breeze in the coppery light, falling around me like a slow, warm blizzard.

Rachel had told me that people in families consistently out-performed those who were on their own in Lotus, even those who didn’t remember each other at first. This made perfect sense, of course. I was overcome with an almost instant sensation of connection and belonging the moment I learned that I had a son who had survived—I hadn’t even met him and I felt it. Even the presence of Gary in the apartment at the Agency campus was a mild reassurance against complete isolation.

Rachel said that Lotus had been designed such that our collective actions would lead to more family units, more belonging, more connectedness. Not necessarily moms and dads and kids. Not necessarily nuclear families, but units where people in various roles lived together, cared for each other, and could help cope with the pressures and difficulties of these days of rebuilding after the back before.

So what about Megan and the woman who’d been assigned to Arie? Where were they now? How were they getting along with these pieces missing from their hearts? And which was worse: to remember the bad things we have done or to forget everything that was good?

The buildings and landmarks that I saw each day on my bicycle commute passed by me that evening at walking speed, giving the impression that time had slowed down. The cottonwood castings fell slowly around me.

I had fallen into a kind of trance, the half-drowse of the long walk, when I noticed something unusual. I don’t mean I noticed something and then evaluated it as unusual, like if I’d seen a hot-air balloon float by or a penguin wobbling along the sidewalk. I mean that in my hazy state of mind, I determined that something unusual was happening and was then left to say what it was.

It was a sound.

And it wasn’t the kind of sound that put me instantly on alert. It was just unusual.

I approached the final landmark on my homeward trip—a cluster of metal sheds that seemed always to be closed, but that I assumed stored some useful goods or industry. My house was now just a mile off, and it was then that I puzzled out the sound and why it was unusual.

It was a vehicle. Approaching me. From behind.

There weren’t many motor-vehicles in Lotus, so you got used to marking their presence. And I probably would have caught on sooner had I not been wandering in my slow-motion thoughts as I walked home.

I turned and saw that it was a van. But again, it was unusual. Most of the very thin vehicle traffic in Lotus took place in the morning and early afternoon—business deliveries and pick-ups. You hardly ever saw vehicles roaming around at this time of day.

Also, this van was rugged-looking, with big gnarly tires, and it was covered in mud and dust. The vehicles that drove around Lotus were, by and large, well-kept and clean.

I stopped, and the van slowed. It passed by me but stopped about fifty feet ahead of me. A door on the side swung open and three men jumped out onto the sidewalk.

And now, the situation no longer seemed just unusual but mildly threatening, and my nerves began to tingle as though I’d suddenly picked up a static charge from a balloon or deep carpet.

All three men were lean, athletic. They moved like they were preparing to take the court for some vigorous sport. I was about to make a rapid turnabout when I realized they were looking intently at me.

There is so much that we communicate and understand without words or other explicit signals. There’s so much material that our minds can use to figure out when someone means us harm or when there is danger. A look in the eye. A firmness of step. Body language that is hostile. I don’t know what details made me all at once ready for action. Only my subconscious knew, but that was enough.

One of the men waved at me, beckoning me to come to the van.

“Hey, Alison, come over here,” he said—his voice was calm but heavy, serious.

“No,” I said. “Who are you guys? What do you want?”

Two of them looked at the other guy, the one who’d waved at me. He made a quick, almost imperceptible nod, and then the other two men bolted in my direction.

They were fast. I had almost no time to decide what to do before they crossed most of the distance between me and them. I swung the bicycle in front of me so that it stood cross-ways between us, and then I let it go, shuffle-stepping furiously backward. The bike stood there for a split-second, balanced on its flat tire, then began to slowly fall. I was now practically within reach of the faster of the two men. He leaped to hurdle the bike, and his form looked terrifyingly perfect to me, but one of his feet struck the seat or handlebars and both he and the bike went flipping and sprawling onto the concrete.

I turned to run but the other man took hold of me and stopped me short, pulling me back by my backpack as I strained to keep running. It felt like I was suddenly tied to a tree, but I let my arms slip free of the straps and he too staggered back and down onto the pavement.

I fled into the easement between two of the metal buildings, but I heard their footsteps not far behind me.

“Hey,” one of them said, “stop!”

Despite my slowness to react at first, I was fast, too, and now there was some distance between us again.

“Stop! Alison! We just wanna talk!” he shouted, his voice jagged with his running.

I didn’t look back but he couldn’t have been more than four or five long strides from catching me. Between the buildings I turned first one corner and then another before I came to a chain-link fence that barred the way.

For an instant I slowed my pace and thought, this is it. I’m trapped and there’s nothing to do but turn and fight. But then, to my surprise certainly as much as anyone’s, some kind of muscle-memory-impulse took over, and I hurled myself onto the fence. My hands caught the top edge and my feet landed high up on the chain-link and in another instant I’d clawed up the fence and vaulted over to the far side.

This gave me a moment to look back. One of the men was close behind and he made the fence ring as he too leapt upon it. The other man was running too, but he was much farther behind and favoring one leg, probably the result of his involvement with my bike.

I sprinted on, and with what must have been an entire pint of adrenaline dumping into my bloodstream I felt very light and fast. The metal buildings were of various sizes, a makeshift storage yard. I zigged and zagged between them and around corners, and when I chanced a glance behind me, I didn’t see anyone there. If I could get out of their sight, they’d eventually run down the wrong alley and I could gain more ground on them and get out of reach.

Beyond the complex of buildings stood a wooded area, and I made for that, hoping to lose myself in the trees and undergrowth. After that and perhaps when it got dark, I could circle around quietly to my neighborhood and get to a phone. I ran harder.

As I turned another corner and was about to make for the trees, a figured stepped in front of me and swung his elbow into my face. The impact made me see a split-second of the most celestial white, and I was knocked hard to the ground like a big sack of oranges.

And then there was only blackness.

Fifteen

The touch of something icy on my arm woke me, not from sleep but from a kind of stunned stupor, a fog of pain. Everything around me was black; I couldn’t see a thing. I wondered how much time had passed since I’d been cracked in the face. I was sure that had really happened because my nose felt broken. My entire face felt caved in.

That’s a swab of alcohol on my arm, I thought. Someone is getting ready to stick me with a needle. And my nose is broken, I thought.

These were the only coherent thoughts I could put together at first, but a few moments later it occurred to me with a cruel, too-late clarity that I’d been consigned to return to the Starting Zones, and that in a few seconds more, or probably less, I’d be injected with the memory serum and my mind would be scrubbed clean again. My past, my identity would be gone, just like that day in the hospital room with the big nurse and Gary.

So this is how a case manager’s recommendation are enacted, I thought. A crew of guys jumps out of a scratched-up old van and bashes you on the head while you’re going home from work, and then they jab a needle in your arm.

It didn’t fit.

It didn’t seem to square with everything else I knew about Lotus. However, to my mild surprise, it really did seem exactly like meeting death. What little I had done and the few memories I had accumulated were not particularly happy or compelling, but those thoughts and memories were mine, and they were basically who I was. Arie was there. My new start was there. They weren’t just “my” memories; the memories were me. And like anyone who had contemplated this kind of memory loss—which included everyone involved with Lotus and surely all of those in the Starting Zones—I knew that the person who awoke afterward would not be me. More accurately, the person I was now, in the present moment, would lose all future influence over the future of the person who would awaken.

Was that not exactly the same as having no future events to influence? Was that not death?

I wondered if this had been the way it was when I’d met this memory-death before, this prick-in-the-arm death. As they took Gary away burned and dying, did they hood me and inject me to flush away whatever memories I’d made to that point? Was it the same squad of guys maybe even? The memory-death squad? Did they hold me and press down on me this way? Break my nose?

I waited for the needle to puncture the skin of my arm, just below my shoulder, the spot that long ago someone had decided was the place hypodermic needles should go.

Was this really for my own good? I asked myself the question. Were they justified in taking away my memories of Arie? I’d sided with the wrong people and apparently there was a deadly explosion and, yes, that sounded terrible, but what other memories had been taken from me? What knowledge might I have had that could have helped with the effort of rebuilding? What other people were in my life and my past that I might never be reminded of?

No, I thought. Not again.

I drew my knees up to my ribs to mule kick whomever was holding that needle, but I then felt additional hands hold me in place—there were at least the three of them holding me now.

“Three against one, you cowards,” I said, only I quickly figured out that I didn’t really say it, or, if I did, no one heard. In any case no one replied. I really was out of it—head spinning, hardly able to tell which direction was up. “Get off me, you slimy goddam cowards,” I repeated without speaking.

I twisted and squirmed and bucked, but I was also bound at the ankles and wrists. I pulled at the restraints. It was duct tape.

“Get off me!” is what I wanted to (but did not) shout.

And then the needle stung me.

Not painful, I thought. Well done, memory-death squad. A quick sting. Like a flu shot.

This was followed by another touch of icy wetness.

I wondered how the memories would go away. Would I sense their departure or would I black out first? Would it be painful? Would it be sad?

A new layer of grogginess seeped into my senses. My limbs suddenly felt like they were made of lead.

Wait, I thought. No, this can’t be right. This thuggish treatment. This cannot be right.

This was not Lotus, I thought. No, Lotus is about order, safety, dignity. So, they’re not from Lotus, and this is not a memory wipe. They’re drugging me. Taking me somewhere. They’ve bound me and thrown me into their van, and now they have to drug me so I don’t flail around.

Yeah, I thought, good idea, you pathetic creeps. Clobber me, sit on me, tie me up, and then, just to be sure the hundred-and-thirty-pound office worker doesn’t kick all of your asses, drug me up. Because I’m just that threatening. Well done, you jerks.

But I didn’t think any of that, I spoke it aloud.

“Oh, quiet down,” said a man’s voice. “You’re worse than they said you’d be.”

The hands let me go, and I was lowered on my side onto the hard, cool floor of the van.

As a drowsy warmth spread from my chest and into my extremities, I noticed that my surroundings were not dark, but that there was some loose covering over my head, a sack of some kind. I could see light through the weave of the fabric. It had an unpleasant smell, like old motor oil or engine parts. I drifted down and away from consciousness. I heard quiet voices, and I heard the sound of the van’s doors slamming shut. Then the engine started. Then the springy jostling of driving.

I thought: it really can always get worse. But I said that out loud, too.

“Very true,” said the male voice. He chuckled bleakly. “Sorry about your nose.”

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded. At least I thought I demanded that. But there was no answer. As I drifted off, I realized that I was at least no longer feeling any pain.

Sixteen

When I awoke, again, I was still bound at the hands and wrists, still lying on my side, still shrouded in darkness.

But not in a vehicle.

Everything was still. I moved a little. I ached all over. The floor was of cool concrete, I decided, and it was gritty. I tried to sit up but couldn’t.

My head was pounding like a hangover now, my nose throbbed miserably again, and I felt a little sick to my stomach. I was dying for a drink of water. I struggled to sit up again, but this time I heard footsteps approaching me from a short distance. Then hands beneath my arms hoisted me up and into a chair with my wrists taped together behind me, sitting wasn’t much more comfortable than lying on the floor. I felt woozy and everything from my neck up ached and throbbed.

“Sorry about leaving you on the floor.” It was a gravelly male voice, one I hadn’t heard before. “I put you in the chair when you got here, but you almost fell over.”

“Where am I?” I demanded. This time I was pretty sure I got the words out, but they were slurred.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” said the man. His voice was gruff and baritone, but it wasn’t unkind.

“There’ll be people looking for me, you know,” I said. “I’m a Lotus officer.”

“Mm, yeah, an admin officer.”

“They’ll come for me.”

“I’m sure someone is out looking for you right now,” said the man. “But they’re not going to find you anytime soon, so maybe just chill out for now.” His voice was modulated not for scorn but for comfort, and he was oddly reassuring.

“Easy for you to say,” I spat back.

“Also, we’re not going to hurt you.”

I scoffed at this. “A little late to say that,” I said. I sniffed and swallowed the clot of blood that slid down the back of my throat.

“Please just relax.”

“Why am I tied up?” I growled. “You afraid of me? Why is this bag on my head?”

“Orders,” he said.

“Whose orders?”

“Ruby’s.”

“Who’s Ruby? Who are you? Where am I?”

“Still so stubborn,” he muttered. “My name’s Woolly. I can’t tell ya where you are. Just wait. You’re safe.”

“Can you at least take this bag off my head? It’s making me sick. It stinks.”

The man sighed. “I’m not real sure what I’m allowed to do or not do here. I didn’t think you’d wake up so quickly. So, if it’s all right, I’d rather we wait until Ruby gets here and let her explain everything.”

“Please,” I said. “Please, Woolly?” I tried playing to his evidently compassionate nature. “I was having a really shitty day before you thugs chased me down and punched me in the face.”

“Someone punched you in the face? Who punched you?”

“How should I know? Probably you!”

I heard the man get up from the chair and I heard his quick, heavy footsteps approach. He snatched the sack from my head and threw it aside.

We were in a small room, probably a basement, judging from the concrete floor and the heavy beams above. It was cluttered with debris and dusty, and the only light came from the yellow kerosene flame of a lantern that hung from a nail on the wall behind my captor.

The man who’d called himself Woolly glared in disbelief at my face, which I assumed was caked with blood from my nose. Woolly was probably in his late twenties and massively built. His arms hung at his sides like enormous cables. His legs were like young oak trees. He wore a black t-shirt and denim cargo shorts. His bushy, faintly red hair was cropped short, and his round face was fringed by a beard of coarse and curly whiskers. He examined my face for a couple seconds more with his appalled expression, and then he stormed off behind me. I craned my head around and saw him pass through a dark doorway.

“Henderson!” he barked, his voice flat and harsh in the small space.

Someone far off answered.

“Get down here!”

I heard someone descending stairs, and then there was a scuffling of strong men and not a little bit of cursing.

Woolly returned, dragging another man, presumably Henderson, into the room by the arm like a misbehaving toddler.

“Apologize,” growled Woolly.

“I’m sorry,” said the man. “Really. I didn’t mean to be so rough.”

Had I not been tied up, I’d have socked him in the nose, but I also knew he really meant it.

“All right,” said Woolly. “Get back to work. This isn’t over. You better stay away from Ruby.”

The man shrugged at me and said, “Really. I am sorry. I’ve heard you’re really nice.” And then he scuttled from the room.

“I apologize, too, Al,” said the big man with a long, heavy sigh. “I hate violence.” He went and sat spraddle-legged on a chair about ten feet from me.

Who were these thugs, so apologetic and reassuring?

“It’s okay, I guess,” I said. “I don’t think it’s broken.”

“Oh, I’m glad,” said Woolly.

With the oily sack taken from my face, I felt a little better, and my head had cleared some. It now seemed less likely that I’d been abducted for some summary execution, and I felt safe enough for the moment, but I didn’t need any of my original memories to know I was still in a dicey situation. And although the man who watched over me seemed at least decent, if not actually quite civil, I really just wanted to be at my home in Lotus. I thought of Arie, and then I bowed my head to cry.

“Oh boy,” Woolly groaned. He stood, holding up his hands and shaking them. “Oh, don’t do that. We’re not gonna hurt—I mean they’re not gonna—I mean no one’s gonna hurt you. I promise. We—they—just want to talk to you is all.”

“I want to go home,” I half-sobbed.

He stood by my side. “I know. But you can’t. I’m sorry. How ’bout a drink of water instead?”

I nodded. He went back to his chair and picked up a steel canteen. He came close and gently set the spout to my lips so that I could drink.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem,” he said, patting me on the shoulder with a massive paw. Then, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wetted it with the water and gently dabbed at the blood on my face.

“Would it help if we talked?” he asked. “Let’s talk.”

I didn’t answer.

“I’m going to get in a lot of trouble for all of this. The talking. The letting you see me. God help Henderson when Ruby sees your nose. Anyway, I toldja who I am. I’m Woolly.” He placed his big hand on his chest. “And you are Alison. We used to know each other. We were friends, if you can believe that, and then you were—well, you left.”

I blinked at him and then attempted to wipe my eyes with my shoulder.

“You know me, too, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s a weird feeling, isn’t it?”

“I’m getting used to it,” I said. “Seems like everyone I run into lately says they know me and I don’t know them.”

He shrugged and nodded glumly. “Well, believe it or not, we knew each other before we knew each other the last time. Does that make any sense? It’s all still very bizarre to me.”

“How did we know each other?”

“Well, I had only just taken the serum and reawakened myself about a month before you and Chase took off, so there’s not much about you that I remember. But you and me sort of had this same conversation when I came to. But that time it was you telling me that we were friends before, and it was me deciding if I believed it.”

Chase. I stiffened in the chair. I took the mention of his name to mean that this Woolly person and possibly the person named Ruby to be players in my past life, the criminals who’d somehow ensnared me, and had eventually led me to somehow setting off a bomb that almost killed a person who may or may not have been my husband.

“Well,” I said in an acid tone, “I can tell you right now I don’t want to have anything to do with you or Chase or this Ruby person. Thank you for not hurting me—anymore—but I have nothing to say to any of you.”

“Suit yourself,” said Woolly, “but they are gonna wanna talk to you.”

“So, why not just come to my house? Knock on the door? Ever heard of that?”

Woolly smiled. “Believe it or not, Lotus isn’t that easy to get into. We only just discovered this place existed a few weeks ago. The place is crawling with plain-clothes guards, and the uniformed guards you see around town aren’t carrying water pistols. Plus, word on the street is that a lot of spying goes on in Lotus. It’s hard to know who to trust.”

“So, you’re criminals, terrorists. I’m telling you, I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I won’t cooperate.”

Woolly shrugged his big shoulders, rolled his eyes with pure exasperation, and said nothing.

I stopped talking, equal parts frightened and angry. What would Arie think when I didn’t come home? He probably wouldn’t even notice. Would anybody miss me? I supposed I’d be reported for not showing up at work, but I wasn’t scheduled to work for three days, and the truth was I had no one in the world to actually care for me. Not Gary. Not Arie. Not Rachel. Nobody.

Woolly had crossed his thick arms over his chest and was looking at the floor with a meditative gaze.

I sat in the chair with my limbs bound, growing more uncomfortable.

“How long before they get here?” I asked, thinking that I might at least be untied.

“There’s really no telling,” said Woolly. “But hey, do you like chess?”

“Do I like Chase?”

Woolly scoffed merrily. “I already know the answer to that. No, I said chess. The medieval game of kings.” From a knapsack at his side he produced a miniature magnetic chessboard.

“Oh. Chess. Do I like chess? I don’t know. Yeah?”

“How ’bout a game?”

“What did you mean you already know the answer to—”

“Black or white?”

I glared at him.

He stood and placed his chair across from me, then he unfolded the beat-up little board and began setting up the pieces.

“Black or white?” said Woolly. “Do you have a preference?”

I shrugged and nodded vaguely to my hands, which were bound behind me. “No, but I don’t think I can move the pieces. Not like this.”

“Right,” said Woolly, “I thought you could just tell me where you want to move and I’ll move the pieces.”

“Psh. How? I don’t know what they’re called.”

“I thought you said you liked chess.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, who doesn’t love the medieval game of kings after getting clubbed and drugged and abducted?”

Woolly looked at me with a hurt expression. “You weren’t supposed to be treated rough. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“And yet here I am with a broken nose and tied up with duct tape.”

“You don’t know any of the pieces?”

“Well, I know the queen. And the king. Horse. And what are those little guys called?”

“These? Pawns. Look, how ’bout you just point at a piece and I’ll move them.”

“Point with what? My broken nose? Listen. Forget the game. It would really just feel good if you could just undo my hands. It’s awkward like this. My shoulders are killing me. If you could undo my hands and tape them in the front, that’d be wonderful.”

Woolly pressed his lips together and gave me a stern look. He sat quietly for a few more moments, then leaned forward. “If I cut the ties, you won’t make any trouble for me will you? Because the Alison I know probably would.”

I stared back at him. What did he know about me that I didn’t? What kind of trouble could I make? We were miles from anywhere, it was dark out, and he was a human bulldozer.

Woolly shook his head. “On second thought, I don’t think you will.” He reached into a pocket, pulled out a pocket knife, and flicked it open. I twisted around and he cut the wraps of tape from my wrists.

“Now,” he said. “White or black?”

By the time Woolly’s boss finally appeared, it was very late—maybe near morning. Woolly had checkmated me six times. He’d tried to offer me pointers, and once he even tried to let me win, but apparently I was something of a hopeless case when it came to the game of kings.

After that, Woolly cut away the tape on my ankles, made us some hot tea on a tiny alcohol-burning stove he carried in his knapsack, given me two tablets of ibuprofen for my aches, fed me some strangely tasty cakes made from coarse grains and molasses, and then loaned me his enormous jacket to curl up into. And when at last I sighed contentedly, and did as he’d first told me and relaxed a little, Woolly smiled at me as if I were a stray sick kitten he’d rescued from a rain storm. I slept a little and was beginning to feel almost human again when I heard a woman barking orders outside.

“Keep a watch, you knuckleheads!” Her voice was a brassy squawk. “Stand up. Put them cards away. Stand your post. Criminy, you people.”

Woolly stiffened in his chair, and though he’d turned down the kerosene flame, in the dim yellow light I thought I saw his Adam’s apple bob in a nervous swallow.

He looked over at me. I caught his eye, and he said, “Let me do the talking. At least at first.”

“By all means,” I said. “Be my guest.”

Woolly stood up, but I only sat up a little straighter. Woolly turned up the lamp’s flame and faced the door.

Although she walked with a limp, the woman descended on the room like she owned it and everything inside it, including the people, and everything outside, too. She was short and stocky, and while her gray hair was cropped short like a man’s, it stood up on her head at wild angles. She noisily chewed a piece of gum, and from behind a pair of scratched and filmy plastic eyeglasses she peered keenly at me and then Woolly.

“Well, shit,” she said, gesturing at me and shaking her head sadly.

Woolly shrugged sheepishly.

“Why ain’t she secured like I said? And why’s her eyes black? Who hit her?”

“Sorry, boss,” said Woolly.

“Ah, jeeze, wha’d I tell you not twenty-four hours ago?” she griped at him. “We don’t identify each other in front ’a prisoners! An’ she’s s’posed t’be blindfolded!”

“Sorry, Rube,” said Woolly in a quiet voice.

“An’ no names!” she shouted. Then she turned to me and held out her arms in exasperation. “Hopeless!” she said to me, shaking her head. “You—you would not believe how hard it is to find good help anymore.”

She turned to Woolly. “I don’t suppose you checked her for weapons.”

Woolly cringed. “They might have. I forgot to ask. I didn’t.” Then he looked at me and said, “You got any weapons, Al?”

“Kinda late for that now, ain’t it, seein’ how she’s untied and all.”

“It’s just I thought you’d get here sooner,” said Woolly. “Seemed kinda mean to keep her all tied up that whole time when she didn’t really do anything to deserve it. Did you want to keep her blindfolded this whole time? Even when we get up there? Anyway, we played a little chess, and it’s fine.” He trailed off.

The woman swept the glasses from her face, pinched the bridge of her nose, and squeezed her eyes shut.

“S’alright,” she said. “Ya done good bringin’ her here. And I don’t even wanna know who her hit her in the nose.”

“I took care of it,” muttered Woolly.

“Was it Henderson?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll kill him.”

“I’ll keep him away from you.”

“Yeah. Do that. Sorry for snappin’ at ya, Wool. You all done good grabbin’ her and gettin’ her here.”

Woolly gave me a quick glance and I could see the relief in his big round face. He pantomimed a motion like stabbing with a knife and mouthed, “Do you have any weapons?”

I rolled my eyes.

The woman took a deep breath and let it out in a quick, heavy sigh. Then she turned to me and leaned over, resting her hands on her knees.

“Well. It’s real good to see ya, Al,” she said with a weary smile.

It was strange again to hear in her voice the tone of sincere compassion I’d heard with the others—Chase back at the Agency apartment and now this one they called Woolly. As I looked into Ruby’s eyes, no one had to tell me that she knew me, and that she’d cared for me at some earlier time.

I said nothing to her in reply.

“I know ya don’t remember me,” she continued, “and you’re probably real mad at me right now, but you and me used t’be good friends and we went through some things. I’m Ruby, like this big dumb fella here probably already toldja.” She held her hand out to me.

I ignored her cordiality. “Why’d you bring me here?” I snarled. “You can’t just abduct people. Ever hear of law and order? Let me go. Take me home.”

She blinked and there was a flash of disappointment or injury in her eyes before her expression changed and she peered at me again as she had before, with a look of grim determination. Her jaw made a circling, rotary motion as she slowly and loudly chewed the gum.

“Cuttin’ right straight to it, huh? Well, okay. Tie her back up, Wool, and lock her in here and let’s get some sleep. In the mornin’ we’ll go on up.”

And she limped out.

Without saying much, Woolly locked me in the black and dusty basement room, but he didn’t tape my wrists or ankles again, and he tried to make me as comfortable as possible. He made us another cup of tea and he gave me some crude bedding to sleep with. I made a bed of flattened-out cardboard boxes, and when I managed to get comfortable, I fell into a deep and exhausted sleep.

Seventeen

Early the next morning, before sunrise, Woolly wrapped my wrists in duct tape—in front of me this time, not behind my back. He blindfolded me, too, but this time with a strip of cloth tied loosely around my head instead of the smelly burlap sack.

Then he guided me to the van and helped me into the passenger seat.

“Not gonna throw me in the back today, huh?” I said.

“Get comfy now,” he replied. “It’s a long drive.”

And we were off.

Despite the blindfold, I could tell we went slowly and on rough, unfinished roads, and we were somewhere with trees—I could tell that the sunlight was peeking and flickering through trees alongside the road. The blindfold left me feeling carsick at first, but I slept awhile and when I snapped awake again, Woolly had opened his window and the air whipping in felt cool and refreshing.

“We’ve got to be hundreds of miles from Lotus now,” I said, “so, I assume I won’t be returning home? Ever?”

“If I understand right, that’s kind of up to you,” said Woolly. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll like it where we’re going.”

“I like my home back at Lotus. That’s where I want to go.”

“Ah, Al, where’s home, really? What is home?”

“Well, I have a house, for one thing. A nice house—that’s my home. I have electricity and a bicycle and a coffee machine.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“It is. My son is also there.”

“Mm. Right. But I’ve heard he’s not too happy with how things are going. Is that true?”

“What do you mean? How do you know anything about it?”

“We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t.”

I got the feeling that our drive took us gradually and steadily upward in elevation. Along with the steeply pitched parts of the drive, there were many downhill parts and parts where I couldn’t tell if we were going uphill or down, but the main thing was the air seemed to be growing cooler and keener as we went along, and there were often the fragrances of pine and juniper, which added to the impression that we were heading mile by mile deeper into forested lands.

The final leg of the drive was definitely a mountain road that went up and up without turning down. It was very bumpy and dusty and winding, and we drove slowly.

“How ya feeling?” Woolly asked.

“What difference does it make?” I replied.

“Good point,” he chuckled.

After what seemed like hours, I felt the van slow and turn into a tight circle, and then we stopped. I heard the brake squeal and the crackle of gravel under the tires of another vehicle slowing and stopping nearby.

“We’re here,” said Woolly. He patted me on the shoulder.

The van jostled noticeably as Woolly hopped out of it. He came around to my side and opened the door, and with his knife he cut away my duct tape restraints. I stood up and got out.

“It’s okay to take off the blindfold now,” he said.

So I did.

My eyes twinged momentarily as they adjusted to the brightness. All around me were pine and fir trees under a blue blazing sky. We were encompassed by mountainsides and peaks. There were valleys and meadows of mountain grass and wildflowers. A breeze touched my face, so clean and fair that I thought for a moment that I might begin to float away like a kite.

We had parked at the edge of a vast, tremendous gorge that stretched for miles to my left and right. I looked over the edge to the bottom. The huge ravine was hundreds of feet deep, lined with tall pine trees, and at the bottom I saw a line of frothy white and blue—a river gleaming in the early afternoon sunshine.

The granite peaks rose above us, shining in the sun. Patches of snow clung to their south-facing shoulders. Between the impressive peaks, I saw a series of distant stony mountain ridgelines marching to the horizon. The sky above was speckless, and the blueness of it was almost mesmerizing.

I was definitely angry and resentful at the people who’d taken me—even Woolly, who seemed to be doing everything he could to comfort me or at least make me less angry. I was also somewhat afraid for my overall safety, and I was very worried that I might never see Arie again. I was weary and cranky from the coarse living and being knocked around.

And yet, my mouth fell open as I spun slowly in circles to take in this seemingly endlessly grand mountain wilderness, the gorgeous forested hillsides, and the towering cliffs and peaks.

“Beautiful,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. The word came out in spite of me.

“Yep,” said Woolly, gazing out over the gorge. “My new favorite place.”

Ruby rocked herself awkwardly up out of the passenger seat of the other car. She was accompanied by the three henchmen who’d chased me down back in Lotus. Ruby limped over to me at the edge of the cliff where Woolly and I stood gawking.

“How do ya like this?” she said, grinning.

“Beautiful,” I said again.

“Yeah, thought you’d think so. Howd’ya like ta’ live up here? With us?”

I scoffed, the spell broken like a popped soap bubble. “I said it was beautiful, but this isn’t where I live and this isn’t where my son is. I’m still a prisoner, aren’t I?”

“Hey, Wool. Notice she’s still as stubborn as she was before?”

Woolly smiled and nodded.

“Gettin’ yer memory wiped ’parently don’t make ya less contrary.”

I glared at her.

“Well, c’mon,” said Ruby, “let’s keep a’goin’.”

The henchmen led the way. The rest of us fell into a single file and hiked down a trail that headed away from the cliff at the edge of the enormous gorge and wound a way downhill between the trees. The sunlight streamed down between the branches and undergrowth, dappling the trail. Little blue damsel flies darted among the trees, and little birds twittered and flew after them.

We hiked for more than an hour. Ruby’s face was slick with sweat.

She must be a tough old bird, I thought, to limp along all this way without complaining.

Woolly was sweating, too. His face was red and I could hear him breathing. The henchman had outdistanced us and were out of sight.

“Not too much farther,” Ruby panted.

We entered a clearing where bumblebees and small butterflies flitted over a low carpet of wildflowers, visiting each bloom and then buzzing on. The sun shone down and warmed my face.

Then I heard voices ahead. Not just the henchmen. I thought I heard children and women. And then I smelled the smoke of a campfire. We crossed the wildflower meadow and then proceeded onto a wider footpath, and I saw people coming our way along the trail. It was a few men and women with shallow baskets woven from reeds or willow shoots. They greeted us and passed by, apparently off to collect food of some kind.

“Here we are,” said Ruby with a wide smile.

We stopped, and I looked up from the trail and realized that we had walked into the middle of a large camp. I almost hadn’t noticed it. Tucked between the trees at wide intervals, and nestled among the forest undergrowth, there stood tents and shelters and small log cabins. Had it not been so sunny, and had there not been people here and there occupied with chores like woodcutting and rinsing clothes, I might not have noticed the camp at all.

Also among the trees were small cook fires, clothes lines, fish-drying racks, and water stations. Many of the people had dogs, and I even saw chickens scratching in the underbrush.

There were ladies and men and kids dressed in a motley collection of clothes—some in colorful but weathered outdoor clothing, some in heavy flannels and work clothes, some in costumes that looked quite rustic and probably handmade—like colorful and loose cotton dresses and buckskin pants.

The men had long hair and bristly beards. The women had long, braided hair. The kids wore their hair long, too. All of them were tanned and wild-looking, but they didn’t look grim or desperate. They looked relaxed, contented.

Most of the tents were the large, heavy-canvas kind that looked to be military surplus, but there were red and blue and yellow camping tents, too, and I saw makeshift shelters of canvas tarps draped over cables strung between trees. Near the middle of the camp were a few cabins or lodges made from stacked logs with sod roofs so thick that grass and flowers grew there.

A low, pleasant murmur of voices ran throughout the camp, and there was in the air the gentle energy of industry. From somewhere not too far off, I heard singing and laughing.

Woolly led the way to a place on the uphill edge of the camp where a large canvas tent stood, held up by stout wooden poles. The tent was a dark olive color and was perhaps sixty feet long and twenty feet wide. Woolly pushed aside the large sheet of canvas that evidently served as the front door, and we all went inside.

The only light in the tent came from a few window openings with their coverings rolled-up. Inside I saw a man with his back to us. He turned around when we entered.

It was Chase. He smiled at me.

“Hey,” he said with a little chuckle. “You don’t happen to have my gun, do ya?”

My hands were trembling a little, so I folded them in front of me. A nervous tingle raced up my back, though whether it was because I felt danger or something else, I wasn’t sure.

In the tent there was a large table with chairs around it, and there were a couple smaller tables that seemed to be used as desks. There were maps and other papers pinned to the canvas walls. A canvas curtain hung down from the center of the tent and divided it into two large rooms. The curtain was drawn aside and beyond it I saw crates and supplies and food and even a few rifles.

Alongside the nearer of the two main support poles sat a small wood-burning stove that appeared to have been made from an old steel barrel. A chimney pipe climbed up out of it and ascended to an opening in the roof.

A tea kettle steamed on the stove’s top. Chase picked it up, and from it he filled three metal cups. Ruby and Woolly each took one.

“Here you go,” said Chase, handing me the third cup. “Mountain tea. Careful, it’s hot.”

“Go on and have a seat why don’t you?” Ruby said to me.

She motioned to a folding chair at the table, and I sat down.

“I think I’ll get going,” said Woolly. “I have some things to take care of.”

“Thanks for getting her up here, Wool,” said Chase. “It was more than I was able to do.” He grinned at me.

“I couldn’t help but notice that you’re not dead,” I said to Chase in reply.

“No, not yet,” he said, chuckling, “although you came as close to doing the job as anyone else has.” He lifted his shirt to reveal a livid, sunburst-shaped scar at the edge of his abdomen, just above his belt. He turned around and there was another similar disfigurement on his back. “Bullet went in and out without causing too much chaos. I appreciate that. Five inches to the left and you’d’ve hit me in the spine. That woulda been a little harder to walk off.”

“Now listen, Al,” said Ruby, setting her cup on the table. “We ain’t your enemies, you understand. We all used to be friends before you ran off and got yourself pinched and they wiped your—”

“Ruby,” Chase interrupted, his voice suddenly stern.

“Right,” said Ruby, holding up a hand in surrender. “That’s all in the past.”

She went on to explain our previous associations, how we’d met, but I knew who they were. Of course I did. These were the terrorists that had somehow gotten to me before. The ones who had tricked me into joining their side, which led to my involvement in the explosion that nearly killed Gary. I almost asked for their version of that story, but I’d told myself I wouldn’t talk to them—not in any meaningful way. And here they were trying to get to me again.

I stared at the ground as Ruby spoke and Chase added the odd detail or perspective. Whoever I was in the past was weak, but I would not let them get to me this time.

“I can’t make you stop talking to me, but I won’t talk to you,” I said. “I won’t answer your questions. I won’t help you.”

Ruby leaned back in her chair. “Hell, ya don’t even know what we want.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, clenching my teeth. “I just want you to take me back home.”

Ruby exhaled heavily and leaned back in here chair to study me. “Chase,” she said. “Talk some sense into her, will ya?”

“Al, I don’t know what you think or how you feel about it, but Lotus isn’t some kind of magic utopian societal reboot. It’s an evolution of the Agency, which was basically a gestapo system that kept us down and helpless and mindless with fake medicine and memory control. Am I telling you anything you don’t already know?”

“There was a pandemic,” I said.

“That’s true,” he said. “We saw the bones, you and me together, though I suppose you’ve forgotten that. But the serum is a fake. The pandemic passed over some small proportion of us, and we survived, but that was years and years ago and we’re no longer even sure if the original serum had any real effect on us apart from the amnesia. Now the serum and the threat of infection are just measures of control, ways to keep the world’s survivors under their management.”

“I already know that,” I said.

Chase and Ruby looked at one another.

I went on, my voice edged with anger. “The Agency and the people of Lotus have been upfront and honest with me from the very beginning—unlike you. Lotus works with the Agency Starting Zones for their own benefit. They—we—are trying to rebuild, not just survive. And to rebuild better. The serum is a gift that can make the new world better.”

A disappointed expression clouded Chase’s face. Ruby rubbed her brow.

“And do you know what else?” I said. “They treat everyone with respect and dignity and they certainly don’t go around kidnapping people.”

“Are you sure about that?” Chase asked smugly.

I clamped my mouth shut, determined not to say another word.

“Now listen here,” said Ruby. “You say ‘dignity’ and ‘respect,’ but what about them in the Starting Zones starving and living like animals? Like zombies? The memory serum is just another form of death penalty—they kill the person and then brainwash the poor sucker who wakes up in their place. And now, in this Lotus place, you brainwash ’em into this new society where everyone’s supposedly perfect, but you send them down to the ghettos when they don’t behave.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. We make assignments based on ability and adaptation and, yes, based on mistakes. But everyone benefits—every time someone returns from the Starting Zones, they’re strong, and the society is stronger,” I said.

I was basically regurgitating what Rachel had told me so many times.

“People make mistakes. We unburden them of the guilt and shame and stigma, and we allow them to return as new people. Eventually, we’ll have a society where crime and violence and other societal ills are practically non-existent, and the problems that remain are handled without cruelty.”

“Mm,” said Ruby. “So, in this Lotus, there’s no cruelty or unfairness, ya say.”

“Don’t patronize me,” I said. “You obviously don’t want to understand any of it.”

“No, no,” said Ruby, her tone conciliatory. “I do want to understand. It’s just that there’s a woman I know. Her name’s Sandy. She used to be in the Lotus Project. Fact, she had a son, like you. She was living her life and doing her duty in Lotus, but someone else came along, someone who was maybe more important, so one day she gets taken away—for no reason at all—and gets her mind erased. And this other person got moved in and assigned as Arie’s mother.

“I don’t believe you,” I said, but my blood pressure seemed to be in free-fall. “If that were true, she wouldn’t remember.”

“She doesn’t,” said Ruby.

“Then how would you know about any of this?”

“We pieced it together. Not everyone in Lotus is perfect. People talk, Al. People who ain’t happy.”

A cloud of dread had moved into the tent and settled around me. I knew what was coming next. I knew what Ruby was going to do next.

“Hey, Chase,” she sneered, “do you know if Sandy happens to be around right now?”

“Yeah, Rube,” said Chase, his voice quiet and sad. He looked at me and sighed. “I think she might be around.”

“Why don’tcha go fetch her?” said Ruby. Her smile was cold and hard. “Alison here might want to make her acquaintance.”

Chase left the tent. Ruby finished her tea with a gulp and then rose to refill her cup.

“Can I get ya a refill?” she said with a smile.

I shook my head.

“You may not remember me, Al,” she said quietly, “but I know you, and I know you know what I’m sayin’ is right. You know alla this Lotus business is just a way to keep people down, keep ’em dumb, keep ’em slaves.”

She sat down and watched me as she blew on her tea.

“We’re the good guys, Al. And you’re one of us.”

“Do good guys blow people up?”

“Whaddya talking about?”

“I’m talking about the explosion that almost killed my husband.”

“You had a husband? That’s news to me, and you oughta listen t’me because I was there when they took Arie away from you and you came to me for help. You didn’t have no husband.”

“So, what about the killings? What about the bomb?”

“You don’t know anything about it,” she said. “Alls you know is what they told you. I’ll tell you what happened, and when I do, you’ll know it’s true. Because you’re a mother, and a mother knows things.”

Her words landed on me like physical blows. I swallowed hard.

“You set off that explosion to save Arie. To make sure he got away someday. You meant yourself to die in that explosion and to take out as many of the bad guys as possible. It was only blind, dumb luck that any of you made it through.”

I shook my head. “No. You tricked me somehow. You set me up. Blackmailed me or something else, and then you sent me on a suicide mission.”

She smiled a warm, sad smile. She reached over and gave my forearm a squeeze.

“Tell yourself both stories, kiddo. The one I’m tellin’ ya, and the one they toldja. Then let your heart tell ya which one is right.”

No, I thought. No, I won’t.

“The whole reason your memory was erased was because you wouldn’t tell them what you knew and they couldn’t let you keep those memories. But we can help ya. Up here you don’t have to forget. Up here it’s just people living. We got problems here, too, sure. But there’s no mind control, no death by memory wipe. We can help you, Alison. We can make it so you never have to forget again.”

“So that’s why I’m here? Huh? Just so you can help me? There’s nothing you want in return?”

“Well,” she said with a sheepish laugh. “This society up here is based on mutual assistance. Each of us bring what we can to the table. So. It wouldn’t hurt if you were able to also help us some, now would it?”

I wanted to hit her in the nose. I could see the deceit so clearly in her face—the false pretenses. Just like when Chase had shown up at my apartment to rescue me. Even as I tried to understand how I myself felt about Lotus, my strongest impulse was to not give into these terrorists, these criminals who crept around trying to subvert what I knew was the only serious and coherent attempt to raise the pandemic survivors from the ashes.

I sipped at my tea and tried to pretend Ruby wasn’t there.

Chase returned a few minutes later with a person I recognized at once as the woman in the picture that Arie had shown me. Chase came with her into the tent but didn’t stay.

The woman nodded at Ruby and said, “Hello.” Then she turned to me and likewise smiled and nodded.

Ruby struggled up from her seat. She put her arm around the woman.

“Sandy, I wanted you to meet Alison. Alison, Sandy. Sandy, Alison has never been to the Zones. At least she can’t remember bein’ there. You were there for a while, weren’tcha? Think you could tell her a little bit about what it’s like?”

Sandy sat down and Ruby got her a cup of the mountain tea. Then Ruby sat down again.

“Why do you want to know?” Sandy asked, but before I could answer she said, “It’s awful. There’s never enough to eat, not enough fuel, no electricity. It’s a nightmare. You never knew if you were going to be robbed or attacked.”

Out of habit I opened my mouth to repeat the lines I’d been coached to say—lines about how the Zones met the “basic needs of the residents,” lines about “let’s not exaggerate,” about surely the conditions described were a result of “terror attacks and security problems,” and were not general to all of the Starting Zones. I had many answers to Sandy’s grim assessments, but she didn’t pause long enough for me to say a word.

“I saw a gang of teenagers attack a man just a few blocks from the depot. They beat him with baseball bats and took his rations and his shoes. I almost wish someone would erase my memories so I could forget the place. I just—I couldn’t believe it. Neighbors and strangers would turn on each other in just for a few extra rations. There were guards everywhere but they wouldn’t actually help you if something went wrong. Honestly, we were more afraid of them than anyone else—they had the guns, and they could haul you in for any stupid excuse. They could make you do whatever they wanted. If they found a woman attractive, they just took her. I hated the way they looked at me, but I guess my luck held out until I came here.”

Then she was quiet. She sipped her tea, her eyes wide and blank.

“Sandy,” said Ruby, “you got any family? Any kids?”

She looked at Ruby and then at me, as though weighing her answer. The hint of a smile was on her lips.

“No,” she said. “Technically, I don’t. My records in the Zones said that I’m alone, no kids or known relations, and I don’t remember anything from the back before of course. But—”

She trailed off.

“But what?” said Ruby quietly. “Go ahead.”

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m a mother. Maybe my family was wiped out back before, or maybe we were separated. But I feel like I am a mother. Or maybe I just want to be.”

“I think a lot of us miss people we don’t remember,” said Ruby, her eyes on me.

“Yeah,” said Sandy, nodding. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

“You like it here, Sandy? Reason I ask is Alison here is thinking about joining us. Just wondering what you think of it.”

Sandy took a gulp of tea and narrowed her eyes. “Yes. I do like it here. It’s not easy. I don’t think I was much of an outdoor person before. It’s cold at night, and there’s lots of hard work to do. Like the other day I was on rock patrol.”

“Wassat?” said Ruby. “I don’t think I’ve been on that detail yet.”

“Oh, gosh,” said Sandy. “Well, see, we need flagstones for cabin floors and walkways. They’re building a winter lodge down in the gully,” she jabbed her thumb in the vague direction of downhill.

“Yah,” said Ruby. “I heard about that. It’s big, huh?”

“Yeah, huge. It’s for when this whole place is under fifteen feet of snow. And we need lots of flat rocks to sort of pave the floor and walls and build little brick furnaces. So, a group of us went down to the river and gathered up flat rocks. We had to haul them up out of the river bed and we put ’em on these sledges and pulled them back here. For three days it went on. It was exhausting. I smashed my thumb, split it open, which if funny because a few weeks ago I was on fish-cleaning duty and I cut the same thumb then with the fillet knife.”

She laughed and held up her thumb. It was bound in a coarse dressing. Ruby and I frowned our sympathy.

“Seems like I’m just constantly wrapping up my thumb in bandages. Anyway, I’m off duty today, but I walked down to the gully to see how the lodge is coming and it’s gonna be beautiful. That’s kinda how it is here, I guess. It can be difficult and exhausting, but it’s amazing what people can do when they work together. You feel like you’re making a difference.”

Ruby beamed. “Thanks, Sandy. Glad it’s working out for ya. Sorry to hear about’cher thumb.”

“Thanks for the tea,” she said with a diffident laugh. “Guess I’ll get going now. I was going to take a walk to the ravine with my roomies.”

“Sure,” said Ruby, her grin still wide and warm. “Come by anytime.”

Sandy got up from her chair and looked to me. “It’s good here. I shouldn’t complain about the duties. Before the rock patrol, I was gathering wild greens. That was very nice. Peaceful, you know? I don’t know how you feel about full-time camping, but it’s peaceful here, at least. And you can trust people. It’s safe.”

She had a shy friendly way, and she seemed genuine and honest. She told us goodbye and then left the tent.

She’d make a good mom, I thought. Hell, she’d make a good friend.

But that’s where I had to leave it. That’s where I had to stop. She would make a good mom—nothing further, because I knew if I dwelt too long on who Sandy was, and where she’d been, and what had happened to her, I’d find myself in a very difficult emotional place.

“Nice lady, in’t she?” said Ruby.

“You know, you might not have the whole story,” I shot back. “She wasn’t just dragged out of her house and stuck with a memory-wiping injection. She was making trouble in Lotus.”

“Mm, yeah,” said Ruby. “Seems like a real troublemaker, that one. We’re keeping a close eye on her.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Seems like she was given a death sentence so that they could make a little space for someone else.”

“It’s hardly a death sentence—she’s going on a hike with her roommates.”

“Yah,” barked Ruby. “But who is ‘she’? Is she the lady who took care of Arie? If Arie met her, that’s not who she’d be. The lady who Arie knew is gone. Sure, they could get to know each other again, and maybe it’d be almost the same. But all them memories, all that time, and the person who was Sandy before is dead. Just like the Alison we knew is dead.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Why would they care who was with Arie? Why would they wipe her memory just for my sake?”

“Good question. Why would they push her aside and move you in? Why are you so important? Whaddya do in Lotus? Push papers? Make ‘recommendations’?”

I tried to come up with something that’d put Ruby in her place, but I couldn’t.

Ruby leaned in my direction. “If I was trying to control a person, someone who might be useful to me in a bigger plan, I think telling her that they’d found her long-lost son might be a good start. That way she’d be happy to work for them, be loyal, and if things went south, they’d have something to hold over her head. Like say if someone might have connections to a group they wanted to knock outta commission.”

“But I don’t want anything to do with you,” I said firmly. “And I don’t remember any of you.”

“Yeah. But maybe they got a way t’bring your memories back. And ’sides, we remember you. And you saved us all. So when Chase came and tried to grab you, maybe they realized they could put you right out on display, in Lotus, like bait. They’re devious, Al. We’ve seen ’em pull shit like this before, and it don’t surprise us a bit that they treat you and Arie this way to get at us.”

I felt blood rushing to my face. “I am Arie’s mother,” I said. “That’s why I’m with him. I’m his mother. We have DNA test results.”

“Sure ya do,” Ruby said, nodding soberly. “But you’da believed he was your son without any old test, wouldn’t ya? Like ya said to me before they took you—you knew he was yours.”

“Maybe. I still don’t see what is so bad about reuniting a mom and son.”

“You’re a pawn.”

“How am I a pawn? Because I work for them?”

“They let us grab you this time. They let us get away with you.”

“Who?”

“Your bosses. Your Lotus people. They were seeing if we’d come after you and we did.”

“Oh, please,” I groaned. “How could they possibly benefit from letting you kidnap me?”

“They thought they could follow us,” said Ruby. “We don’t think they did. Chase and Woolly saw to that. They’ve gotten good at throwing Agency bird dogs off the track.”

“Then what?”

“Well, they know you want to be with Arie more’n anything. Right? You’ve probably told them that yourself, haven’tcha?”

I bit the inside of my cheek.

“So,” Ruby said, “they didn’t follow us, but now they figure you’ll be back for him—whether or not you wanna join us—and they’ll hold Arie over your head until you lead them to us.”

“You people are full of conspiracies, aren’t you?”

Ruby pressed her lips together and took in a great lungful of air through her nostrils. Then she exhaled it in a huff. “Chase?”

“Yeah,” said Chase. He’d slipped back into the tent and was standing behind me. He sat in the seat next to me.

“You wanna jump back in here?” Ruby said to him. “I think I’m just pissin’ her off at this point.”

“Sure,” he said. “Listen, Al, I refuse to believe that someone as smart as you isn’t making sense of at least some of this. We really think they want to get to us through you.”

“Fine,” I said. “So what if you never let me go back or I never got away? Then what?”

“Well, like Rube said, you’re a pawn, Al,” said Chase. “Not the only pawn. They’re a crafty crew. Arie’s a pawn, too. We’ve always thought we have too easy a time contacting him.”

“You’ve been in contact with Arie?” I cried, half raising out of my chair. “Is he here?”

“No, no,” said Chase hastily. “I’ve never even met the kid. I’ve only ever talked to him a coupla times, and only by radio.”

He motioned warily with his hands for me to lower myself back into the chair. His mention of radio communication agreed with what I knew of Arie, so I sat down again.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed he’s not exactly satisfied with Lotus. He doesn’t share your feelings about the way things are there.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“He’s part of some kind of grassroots thing in Lotus,” said Chase. “I’m not even sure they have any organization at all. We’ve reached out to them a few times. Nothing has ever come of it though.”

“So, you’re saying you can’t ever let me go because I’ll go back to Lotus and sell you out? Is that it? Or are you going to erase my memories here and then let me go? Hm? You going to give me the death sentence?”

“Absolutely not,” said Chase, his eyes suddenly bright. “Just the opposite, really.”

“I don’t understand.”

Chase looked at Ruby, and she nodded at him. My glance darted between them. Then Chase reached over and cautiously touched me on the arm. The tingle of his touch swam upstream against my anger and resentment.

“Let’s go on a hike,” he said.

Eighteen

The day had gotten warmer, and I had to admit a part of me wanted to stay at Ruby’s mountain sanctuary for a week or so just to take the place in. The air was cheery with laughter and talk and birdsong. Someone was cooking meat somewhere, and its tantalizing odor made my mouth water.

Chase took me back to his tent where he grabbed a small backpack. Into it he stuffed a water bottle and a sweater and some other items.

There was a dark blue hooded jacket hanging from a hook on one wall of the tent. Chase took it from the hook and held it up.

“This is yours,” he said, with a smile. “From before. I’ll bring it along. It’ll be chilly before we’re back. Just let me know if you get cold.” He rolled it up and stuffed it into the pack.

“How long have you been living here?” I asked as Chase fastened up the backpack and slipped into the harness.

“About a year,” he said. “There’d been a smaller group of survivors up here since year one, but they were barely hanging on. We joined with them and things got better—for both groups. We’ve been bringing more people here every month.”

We left the tent and went back through the camp. Chase waved and greeted people as we passed by them.

“And this is better than living in a real community? Living in the dirt? Eating nuts and berries?”

“Hey, you ever had fresh buffalo berries?” he asked.

“I think you know the answer to that.”

Chase stopped on the trail and faced me. “They’re tiny,” he said, indicating the size with his fingers. “Maybe half the size of a green pea. Some of them are the size of BBs. Bright red and delicious. But buffalo berry bushes have thorns on them about an inch long. Sharp as needles. You kind of have to get the hang of getting at ’em without getting too punctured up. A quart of them could keep you alive for a week. We make wine with them.”

“You make wine up here?”

“We make all kinds of things.”

We made our way through the camp. At the tree-line, there was a fork in the trail. Chase stopped again and gestured to the spread of tents and people and fire pits.

“Look around, Al. This isn’t just some refugee camp,” said Chase. “It’s a community. We have a schedule of duties. We cooperate to gather in food, to maintain security, to build and maintain our shelter. We stay busy, but it’s a good place. We eat well. We’re healthy. We have some livestock down in the valleys, and we make runs down into the real world to scavenge the things we can’t make or grow or raise. We’re getting a band together—do you play an instrument?”

“You can’t just live up here like cavemen.”

“Oh, I think I might could do. And sure, there are those who want to go back to the way it was in the back before, with cars and houses and offices. I suppose that’s the long-term goal of all this, but nothing like that can happen while the Agency exists. They’ve taken the most dangerous technology to come along since nuclear fusion, and they’re using it to enslave anyone they encounter. Don’t tell me this doesn’t seem like a good alternative to you.”

“I’m not a slave. What I have at Lotus looks good, too. To me. Running water, electricity, books, coffee.”

“Mm. I do miss a good strong cup of coffee,” said Chase. “I’m working on getting coffee beans in a more-steady supply, but UPS doesn’t deliver out here. Not every day, anyhow.” He pointed to the fork in the trail ahead which turned and climbed steeply. “Let’s go up this way.”

We left the trees and climbed a series of switchbacks that took us up the mountain’s bare face. With the sun low over the surrounding peaks, the views were stunning. I saw broad, lush valleys in every direction, rivers twinkling in the afternoon, and a broad lake that glimmered in the distance. The high peaks were turning golden. Again, I felt the impulse to exclaim how beautiful it all was.

Instead, I said, “So, you’re saying I should just forget Lotus and join alla you hippie campers up here in the woods.”

“Well, you will never have to worry about having your memories wiped up here,” he said over his shoulder. “That’d be the worst thing that could happen to one of us—once you get trained on how to find and harvest buffalo berries, we want you to remember that, and show other people.”

“How many people are here?”

“At this camp? Just two hundred. Don’t tell Ruby I told you that. A little shy of two hundred, actually. The land will only support small groups. We have to kill game and forage from the surrounding mountains, which means we can’t camp up here too densely. When we get too many people, a group leaves to start a new camp.”

“How many camps are there?”

“That’s what I want to show you.”

The trail became even more steep, like a rocky staircase. At times the hiking was more like climbing a ladder. A few times Chase helped me up an escarpment, and when we touched, I’d again feel the thrill I felt the night he broke into Gary’s apartment.

“I’m getting a bit tired,” I told Chase. “Where are we going, and how much longer?”

Chase looked upward. I followed his gaze. The trail zigged and zagged up the face of the hill and above that there was a craggy mountain peak. Chase pointed at the spire.

“All the way up there?” I whined. “Seriously?”

“It’s not as far as it seems. But let’s refresh ourselves,” he said, unshouldering his backpack.

The water from Chase’s steel bottle was icy and had a mineral sweetness, a few gulps of which seemed to revive all of my senses. Then we ate a few grain cakes like those that Woolly had shared with me the night before. Suddenly I felt as though I could hike all night, and so we went on. And Chase had been right. We came to the top of the mountain more quickly than I thought we would. There were still a couple hours of daylight left and the gold-tinted mountainous wilderness stretched out in stony convolutions in all directions.

“It really is beautiful up here.”

“Just a little further.” Chase pointed to a copse of trees just below the very peak of the mountain.

We went there and found a man sitting on a large, flat rock. In front of him was what looked like the remains of a large campfire.

“Hey, Miguel,” said Chase.

“Chase,” the man said with a wave. He stood up and clapped the dust from his butt.

The two clasped hands, and then Chase gestured at me.

“This is Alison,” said Chase.

“Did we know each other before, too?” I asked, shaking the man’s hand.

Miguel laughed. “No, but I have heard about you. What you did for us.”

“Well, I’m sure the good parts are true,” I said.

“I think I can see that, now that I’ve met you in person.”

“Miguel’s been here as long as me. He’s a good friend.”

“Now that’s true,” he said. “But there is supposedly fresh trout tonight, and I’m not missing out, so, you two enjoy the view.”

He gathered up a backpack and walking stick, and then he went down the trail we’d just ascended.

“Happy trails, Miguel,” said Chase.

Miguel waved without looking back at us. Chase and I stood there looking over the vastness of the landscape.

“Well, let’s get to work,” said Chase.

“Why are we here?”

The rock we stood on was large and flat, like a shelf jutting out over the steeper ground below. Beneath it lay a large cache of firewood, brush, and green tree branches.

“Help me out,” said Chase. He began collecting arm-sized branches and a few bigger logs. He tossed them up onto the rock shelf, into the black and gray ashes there. Soon he had a sizable fuel stack, and he stacked them tee-pee-like to make a new fire.

“We came all the way up here to make a fire? Why’s it so big? It’s not even cold out. Are we staying the night up here or something?”

“Nah, we’ll be back before dark.”

“Then what?”

Chase took what looked like a small flint and tinder kit from the pack and set the great stack of wood on fire. It blazed hotly for some time with only a little gray smoke.

“Will you tell me what we’re doing?” I said again.

“There,” said Chase. He pointed to a far distant peak.

I looked where he indicated, and for a moment I saw nothing, just a faraway mountain. But then I realized that what I’d thought was a tiny cloud was a puff of smoke arising from the peak or somewhere near it.

“Smoke signals?” I said, an involuntary smile hiking up one side of my mouth.

“Yep,” said Chase. Then, from under the flat rock he took a large rolled-up canvas. “Now grab those branches, those green ones, and throw them on the fire.”

I did what he said and the green lumber sizzled and began to steam on the fire. Chase hastily tossed the canvas across it. A cloud of whitish smoke accumulated quickly, and soon it was roiling out around the edges. Chase waited a few seconds more and then whipped the canvas into the air, and with that a massive plume of the white smoke rose into the air like a balloon.

“Look over there,” he said.

From another peak there was another white plume.

“And there,” he said, pointing. “One cloud means everything’s okay.”

And with that, he kicked at the center logs of the fire. With the fuel separated, the fire burned low, and he smothered the remaining flames with the tarp.

“So, you just send smoke signals to each other all day?”

“No, it’s just one way to keep in touch. We have a mail system, too, people who ride horses between the camps on a circuit. We’ve got other ways, too, like message-drop points.”

“And the point of showing me this is what?”

“I wanted you to see what we’re about. This isn’t just some silly camping trip or escaped Zone dwellers hiding in the woods. There are a series of camps, loosely affiliated, and we know of others, too. There are probably tribes like this all across the world. The camps you see here are off-shoots of this one, but they’re independent, too. We try not to be too connected. It’s a resilient network because we’re connected but not dependent on each other. Just trying to show you there are alternatives to a system that controls people by wiping their memories.”

“If you’re so comfy and secure,” I asked, “why do you care about the Agency or Lotus?”

“They’d take us if they could find us, if they could overpower us. You know that. They’d take us, wipe us, and stick us into the Zones. And we’d either be ground down and left in the Zones permanently, or we’d be promoted to Lotus—and they’d grow. They have to grow to be successful, see. I’d love to ignore them, but they’d never return the favor.”

“Why do you care about me, then?”

“You’re in Lotus,” he answered, “which means you’re at least somewhat trusted by the Agency. Plus, you’re married to an Agency officer, which means you could access a lot of information that could be helpful to us.”

“Helpful how? I don’t understand why you care about any of that down there. In all the time I’ve been there and even in the Zones, no one ever said they were looking for mountain hippies to take into the Zones. The only taking that I’ve ever seen is you taking me.”

“We can’t just sit here and wait to see if they come. At the very least we need to let them know we will defend our independence, and at the best, we need to shut them down.”

“So, it’s really so bad, huh? You have to go to war with them?”

“There’s no way to say no to them, there’s no opting out. Lotus collects the people they want and sticks everyone else into the Zones. They’ll use your family and friends to keep you in, and if you don’t comply, poof, you’re gone. I won’t join them, I won’t let anyone I know be sucked in, and I plan to do everything I can to take them down and free those who are already in. And that’s where you come in—maybe. You’re an officer in Lotus. You’re married to an Agency officer.”

If you only knew, I thought. I could barely get Gary to say “good morning” to me when we lived together. How was I supposed to gain Agency secrets?

“I would never do that,” I said. “I believe in Lotus. They’ve given me a life with my son. I can’t betray that. I can’t walk away from it. Let’s just stop this. Take me home. Or just let me go, and I’ll find my own way there.”

“I wish I could show you what you’ve lost at Lotus,” he said. “You know the whole reason your memories are gone is because you cared for your son so much that you would have done anything to protect him. That included risking forgetting him completely. I feel like I failed you.”

“What do you mean? What happened after the explosion? After Gary?”

“We were doing what we did back then. We were breaking into a depot again to find their network or an officer so we could find Arie.”

“I was breaking into an Agency facility.”

“You wouldn’t stop trying to find Arie. You’d have done it on your own if we didn’t help. You’re a stubborn little donkey, Al. So, we worked on it together.”

“So then what?”

“Bad luck.”

“We got caught?”

“A security patrol literally stumbled onto us. We got out of the building all right, but we got separated. I thought you were right behind me. Honest, I did. I never would have left you behind.”

“I was captured?” I asked.

“Yeah, of course. Why?”

“I guess I always assumed I had turned myself in.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever done that,” Chase snorted.

“Well, when I think about it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. But I guess I’d always thought I had just gone back to be with Gary,” I said.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Chase said sternly. “I tried telling you this before, but that guy is not your husband. Before the explosion you were in the Starting Zones with Arie. Gary was your area supervisor, not your husband. Do a DNA test with Gary—see what that tells you. He’s not Arie’s father.”

I folded my arms and stared at him. He folded the tarp in thirds and began rolling it up.

“And if he was your husband, you had a funny way of showing your love for him. You nearly killed yourself and him—presumably so that he wouldn’t have any further influence on Arie.”

“Why would he have my memories wiped and then tell me we were husband and wife?”

Chase paused from stowing the tarp and exhaled roughly. “God knows. The guy always seemed a little twisted to me. But this is kinda the whole point, Al. People shouldn’t forget who they’re married to or who their kids are. Ever.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but I didn’t know what I was going to say.

“No,” said Chase, pointing an accusing finger at me. “Don’t answer. Because I know it’ll just be more of your Lotus propaganda horseshit, and to be honest with you, I can tell that of the two of us, you’re maybe more fed up with it than I am.”

Chase put the rolled-up tarp under the rock. The sun was setting, and a chill had crept into the breeze. I sat on the shelf rock and hugged my knees. Chase opened his backpack and withdrew the jacket he said was mine. He handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said.

The jacket was a little weathered and needed a good washing, but it fit me perfectly, and it kept the chill away.

“They can erase minds,” Chase said, “clear out memories, but do you think people really forget everything? Every single day a part of me aches for something missing and I don’t even know what it is.”

I thought about the way just knowing about Arie seemed to fit into and fill up an empty place in my heart that had nothing to do with what I did or didn’t remember.

Chase continued. “And here’s something else for you to think about—you know that the Agency is using the serum as a way to enforce rules and govern. But do you know that people in the Starting Zones are being told they have to take the serum every year to fight off the virus? The virus from the pandemic?”

“Every year?”

“Yeah, Al. Every year. Lotus claims to use ‘memory management’ as a means to improve society, but those poor bastards in the Starting Zones are getting dosed just because January has come around again. What kind of life is that?”

I couldn’t look up at him, couldn’t let him lock eyes with me, or he’d see the doubt that was collecting in me like a plume of acrid smoke. He’d evidently formed some good guesses about how I felt about it all, but I couldn’t help him make his case.

“Tell me something, Al, when was the last time you saw someone in a wheelchair in your Lotus town? Or a person who wasn’t able-bodied? How many old people live in your neighborhood?”

I’d noticed. I assumed people like that lived in Lotus and I just hadn’t encountered them yet. But everyone in Lotus was healthy and if not educated, at least able-bodied and in possession of at least one valuable skill. Rachel had told me that Lotus was in search of the best, but I’d never thought of this as being any sort of societal fascism.

“So what,” I said. “It’s not me. I’m not making these decisions. It has nothing to do with me.”

Chase gave me a hard look. “It absolutely has to do with you and any other person who looks the other way while the disadvantaged are trampled. It’s not fair, and it’s not right. It isn’t the better world, and I’ll put my life on the line to stop it.”

“What would you have me do?” I yelled. “Huh? You have all the answers, what would you have me do?”

“We need information. You could go back into the system, supply us with intel.”

“No, I can’t! I’m literally the last person that would be able to get any information. I’m a no one.”

“You’re married to Gary Gosford—”

“—and he hates me,” I interrupted.

Chase frowned.

“That’s right,” I said. “He hates me. I could no sooner get information from him than I could from this rock or that tree.”

“Well, surely he’s talking to other people, or he has files—”

“There’s nothing,” I said. “I have no special access, and if I tried to get it without authorization, I’d be detected and sent down to the Zones. I can’t help you.” My face burned with humiliation.

Chase bowed his head. “How could anyone hate you?” he asked.

“It’s cold up here,” I said. “Can we go back now?”

“Yeah,” said Chase. “Let’s go.”

Nineteen

As Chase had told me, we got back to the encampment just before dark. Lanterns and candles flickered here and there. People were clustering around the fires, and there were smells of cooking food everywhere. Chase first stopped at his tent.

“Wait here a sec. I gotta pick up our dinner reservations.”

I raised an eyebrow at this, but he darted inside without explaining and in less than a minute he emerged holding something heavy wrapped in a rough canvas sack.

He made a little bow and held out his hand, saying “Your table awaits, if you’ll come right this way.”

I held out my hand and Chase clasped it gently and warmly. Then he led me through the camp to a circle of tents on the lower slope of the hill. There, in a small round clearing in the trees, twenty or so people stood gathering around a large dutch oven suspended from a crude tripod straddling a bed of red coals. At a distance from the fire pit, atop sticks driven into the ground, torches flamed merrily. I took them to be bundles of reeds dipped in oil or tallow, and their reddish flames cast a festive mood over the clearing.

A tall, slender woman with long silver hair stepped away from the others and came in our direction.

“Chase!” she cried. “Will you be joining us for supper?”

She was perhaps old enough to be my mother, and she practically shone with the easy, unforced beauty of maturity and wisdom. Around her shoulders she wore a vast shawl knitted from undyed wool, and beneath that she was wrapped in a sort of full-length sun dress of light-colored linen.

Chase grinned and reached into his canvas sack. He withdrew a large, corked bottle with dark glass and presented it like a sommelier. The woman smiled and nodded and beckoned us into the clearing.

“Everyone,” she cried, raising a hand into the air. Her voice was silky and clear like that of a storyteller. “Everyone, Chase is here with his lady friend. Make them welcome, if you please.”

The cheerful group gathered around us and there were several minutes of handshakes and back-pats. There were young people and old, but all appeared quite fit and very comfortable in their rustic surroundings. Something was steaming in the big black dutch oven over the fire, and its savor distracted me in the worst way. At last the tall woman appeared before Chase and me.

“Alison, this is Brigitta,” said Chase.

I was not very surprised when Brigitta performed a dramatic, courtly curtsy.

“This is her tent circle,” Chase added. “Her people excel in cultivating and gathering fresh herbs and wild greens. They have some of the best food in camp.”

“I’m so pleased the two of you could join us,” Brigitta said.

And then she approached me. She was taller than me, as tall as Chase. With her chin upthrust she looked down at me, and I might have taken this for stuffiness or arrogance, but it was hard to mistake the kindness in her eyes.

“Please get your supper,” she said, looking at me and then at Chase. “And then we will talk.”

We were given heavy clay crocks and spoons carved from hard, gnarled root wood. From the dutch oven Brigitta’s people spooned out a thick, aromatic stew of venison and garlic and some kind of wild tubers. Slices of grainy and fire-scorched flat bread were passed around. Chase and I were given seats near the fire. I took a mouthful of the stew. It was richly flavored with spices I apparently had never tasted. I held the memory of Arie’s enchiladas close to my heart, but I thought the stew might be the best meal I could ever remember eating, and I felt instantly warmer and more at ease. I wolfed down the stew and the bread, and I accepted eagerly when asked if I wanted more.

Brigitta appeared and gave Chase and me cups made from the same heavy clay, and then she filled them from the bottle Chase had brought.

“What shall we drink to?” said Brigitta.

“To hippie campers and cavemen,” said Chase, raising his glass and winking at me.

“To hippie campers and cavemen!” cried Brigitta with a silky laugh.

The others laughed in kind and repeated the toast.

I hoped it was too dark for Chase to notice my face coloring, but I had to laugh, too. I raised my cup and took a deep draught. It was a sweet and rich wine, and it warmed me even more deeply than the stew.

“Buffaloberry,” said Chase, with a grin. He clinked my clay cup with his.

A young man brought a chair and placed it near us, but it wasn’t a folding camp chair or a chair of ax-hewn slats of pine. This chair appeared to be fashioned from twisted gray tree roots and planks of smoothly worn driftwood. Brigitta lowered herself into the chair—her hippie camper throne. Her long silver hair cascaded down her shoulders and spilled over the great shawl. She crossed her legs with a flourish that made her dress flag into the air momentarily, and then she reclined in regal repose, and there she sipped her wine while Chase and I ate more of the stew and sooty bread.

“So,” said Brigitta after a few minutes, “you’re the little lady who has the camp in such a dither,” said Brigitta.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to cause any dither,” I said.

“You’ll be joining us, then?” Brigitta asked me. “You’ll become a hippie camper cavewoman?”

“Me? Um, I’m not sure. I guess I’m sort of here on a fact-finding mission.”

Brigitta set aside her cup on the armrest of her throne and leaned forward. She looked at me again with that haughty but kind, evaluative gaze. Then she held out her hands to me. When I did not react, she fluttered her fingers impatiently to take my hands in hers.

I looked at Chase, my spoon halfway between my bowl and mouth. Chase only made a small shrug. I clumsily set aside the cup and food, and then let Brigitta take my hands.

“Alison. My child. What is your purpose?”

“My—my purpose?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Well, I have a job, and I, you know, I’m assigned to—”

“You don’t know, do you? Your purpose.”

I had no answer.

Brigitta smiled at me. “Don’t be embarrassed, child. You have one. Even if we don’t know what our purpose is, we still have one. We all have one. I. You. Even him.” She inclined her head in Chase’s direction.

Chase chuckled and before I could stop myself, I did, too.

Then Brigitta said, “I walked the earth for more than sixty years before I knew what mine was.”

I raised my eyebrows. She looked no older than about fifty.

“Then came the plague,” she said, looking at me earnestly. “Plagues tend to serious you up pretty goddam quick. Don’t they? You know what I mean.”

“What’s yours?” I asked.

“I’m a healer,” she said without hesitation. “Before though? Who knows? Today I am a healer to people who have no one else. These people,” she gestured with her chin to the faces and voices all around us, “and to others.” She fixed me with a smiling gaze. “Now, tell me about you.”

“I’m a mother,” I said quietly.

She closed her eyes and nodded once. “I know. One mother knows another. Listen. Child. Gather your facts. Do whatever you have to do. But find your purpose. Because do you know what happens when you find your purpose?”

“What?” I said.

“You can stop looking and start living.”

She arose, gave us a very formal goodnight salutation, and walked slowly to the edge of the clearing like some graceful, queenly phantom.

As the chill of night set in, they served us more of the ubiquitous mountain tea and the grain cakes, only now they were glazed with hot, sweet preserves.

“Wild blackberry,” said Chase, munching and nodding approvingly.

As we sat watching the fire and listening to chatter of the others, Chase reached into his jacket and withdrew a silver flask. He held it up, offering. I was already feeling flushed and drowsy from the wine, but I shrugged and held out my cup of tea. Chase poured a little clear liquid into my cup and his.

Even with the buffering effect of the tea, it was obvious this was some kind of backwoods, high-test grain alcohol, and it landed hot and rough on my palette. I coughed and sputtered a little after gulping too much. Chase chuckled and shrugged.

It must have been closing in on midnight when, with the wine and liquor buzzing pleasantly in my head, Chase walked me to a tent not far from his. We stepped inside. There was a tiny candle lantern inside hanging from a cord fastened to the roof. Chase lit it with a small plastic lighter, and the tent was filled with a soft glow. Along one wall there was a cot piled with blankets. In the corner there was a plastic milk crate upon which sat a small bucket of water and what looked to be a towel and soap and other comforts.

It wasn’t a large tent. It was tall enough to stand up in, but Chase’s head brushed the roof, and he had to stand close to avoid bumping the cot and the tent walls.

“We got you bunking in this tent for now,” said Chase.

“It’s lovely,” I said sleepily.

He nodded. “But if you need anything, knock on my door.” He jabbed in the direction of his tent, but he was slightly tipsy and it was the wrong direction, so he pointed the other way.

“Thanks,” I said.

He handed me the plastic lighter. “Hang on to this. For the candle.”

“When do you think Ruby will let me go home?”

“I don’t know. I think she thinks you’ll cave in sooner or later.”

“I won’t.”

“We all know you’re stubborn, Al, famously, but if they hadn’t wiped you, you’d know you’re kind of out of your league when it comes to Ruby.”

I shook my head and let out a sigh.

As Chase moved to the tent door he came yet closer to me and we stood there for a few moments, our thighs brushing together. His chest grazed against mine. Our faces were just inches apart, and the wobbling candle flame was reflected in Chase’s kind, brown eyes. Neither of us spoke. We stood still and stared. There was comfort and kindness in the closeness.

I knew Chase had known me before, and I didn’t need the token of a jacket for proof. He’d known me and, like Woolly and Ruby, I knew that Chase cared for me—then and now—and that he’d never hurt me. I didn’t remember him, but in his eyes I could see a past, a history. He had feelings for me. I could sense it, and it drew me in. I wanted someone to care for me, and here he was. Ready and waiting. His arms were ready to embrace me and never let me go.

“Okay,” I said at last, and I let my gaze fall from his. “Well, thank you for the hike and the wonderful dinner and—everything.”

He nodded. “G’night, Alison.”

He turned and went out of the tent.

I stripped to my underwear, blew out the candle, and got into the blankets on the cot. I must have been asleep before Chase ever reached his tent only twenty or so yards away.

But I awoke very early in the morning. Again, even though I fell asleep quite easily, a truly restful night would have to wait.

Nothing specific woke me. No sounds or disturbance. I woke very deliberately, and in the darkness of the tent I arose and put on my clothes and shoes and the jacket Chase had returned to me. I detached the little unlit candle lantern from its cord. And then I slipped into the cold and the dark.

Twenty

The night’s chill clawed at my jacket and clothing. My breath condensed on the air. I wondered if it was always this cold in the mountains, and I hoped I would warm up after an hour or two of hiking. I worried about getting my bearings and finding my way in the darkness, but the moon had risen by then and the stars blazed brightly, and the entire encampment was awash in enough dim bluish light to see and walk, as long as I went slowly. I picked my way along the trail making almost no sound, and I heard nothing aside from the occasional chirp of a cricket or the tweet of a night bird.

The trail that ran down the camp’s middle had many branches, and a couple times I strayed off, but I knew that I really just had to follow the upward incline of the campsite to the upper tree line, and there, somewhere, I’d find the big canvas tent.

I was still putting a plan together in my head, and it wasn’t my best. It was rather bold, depended heavily on luck, and was probably more than a little stupid, but I knew I couldn’t stay here with Ruby and Chase and the others.

After ten or fifteen minutes of moving slowly and stopping occasionally to ensure I hadn’t alerted anyone, I found the tent hulking among the trees. Before going in, I walked all the way around the tent, listening, looking for any signs of people. There were none, and so I crept to the front flap. It was tied shut with a series of strings along the seams. I fumbled in the deep blue of the night shadows and one by one untied them. Then, after taking a long last look and listening to make sure I hadn’t been detected or followed, I entered the tent.

Utter blackness greeted me inside. I wouldn’t have been able to see a full-grown man standing an inch away from me, but after creeping forward with my hands outstretched, I managed to locate the table without tripping over the chairs and crates. From inside my coat I produced the small candle-lantern, set it on the table, and lit it using the lighter Chase had given me earlier. It provided only a small halo of light in the large space, but I remembered the general layout well enough, and it was better that the flame was smaller, so as not to be easily noticed.

“Hey, Al.”

I gasped and startled back violently.

It was Chase. He sat at the table.

“Dammit,” I muttered. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“How did you know?”

“I know you.”

“I don’t want to be here.”

Across the dark space in the tent he tossed something in my direction. It arced across the table, jangling softly. A keyring. I caught it.

“Take the Subaru,” he said. “The tank’s full and there’s almost a full refill in cans in the back. It’s parked out there with the van.”

I stood there for a few seconds, wondering if this were some trick.

“Oh, and it’s a stick, too. I know you can drive one. Hey, did I tell you I learned? Guy here in camp showed me.”

“You’re letting me go?” I asked, my temper deflating as rapidly as it had flared. “You’re letting me take one of your vehicles?”

“Doesn’t seem like I can stop you. I thought maybe if I make things easy for you, you’ll start trusting me—and the others, too. I know you know that we’re not the enemy.”

“You know, I know, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What else do you know I know?”

“I think you’re really confused, Alison,” he said. “I think you got re-united with your son and you were thinking that everything was gonna be great, but now your eyes have been opened and you’re all churned up and you’re responding to all this with fear and anger.”

“Must be great to know everything about everyone.”

“Not everyone. Just you. Al, you don’t even know what you’ve lost.”

“I can go back down the trail we came in on? And find this Subaru?”

He nodded, but in the dimness I could only just detect it.

“Thank you.”

There was a backpack on the table. Chase gave it a shove, and it slid across the table to me.

“Take that with you.”

I set the bag upright and opened it. There was a large plastic bottle of water, some food, a blanket, a flashlight. There was also what looked like magazines. I pulled them out to better see them.

“They’re notebooks,” said Chase. “Look at ’em later. I wouldn’t let your Lotus friends see them, though.”

“I have no idea how to get home from here,” I said.

“It’d take too long to give you directions. Take the ’Ru, follow the dirt road until you come to a paved road. It’s a state highway. Turn south. That’s left. Keep driving south till you’re outta gas.”

“And that’ll just take me straight to Lotus?”

“No. It won’t take you anywhere near Lotus, but if you go far enough south, you’ll start seeing Agency patrols—or rather they’ll see you and pick you up. They’ll take you home.”

I put on the backpack. Chase stood up. I turned to go.

“Al, wait,” he said.

I stopped and turned back to face him. He came around the table and stood in front of me. Again we stood almost nose-to-nose in the darkness.

“Is there any chance you’d stay?”

“No,” I said. “Why’d you give me these keys if you thought I’d stay here?”

“Like I said, I know you,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Or, I thought I did. Besides, Ruby’s gonna kill me for this. If you really wanted to help me out, you could stick around.”

“You’re being serious?”

“About her getting pissed off about me letting you take one of our valuable automobiles? Yeah, of course.”

“Then why go against her?”

“Ruby and I agree, well—broadly—about how to approach most problems. Sometimes we differ just as broadly in terms of specific execution.”

“Then I better be good and gone before she wakes up.”

“I guess so,” replied Chase.

He reached under his coat and pulled out a pistol. It was much like the one I’d taken from him that night he’d come to Gary’s apartment.

“Might as well take this,” he said. “It’s not safe out there. Don’t stop unless you need to, and don’t stop in any towns, and chances are you won’t run into another soul until you hit Agency country. If you do run into anyone, blast ’em.”

I nodded and stuffed the pistol into the backpack.

“You’re getting really good at separating me from my sidearms.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks again. Thanks for everything.”

Twenty-One

According to the little LED clock in the Subaru’s dashboard, I’d been driving for four hours by the time the sun came up, and I drove for another four before stopping for the first time to pee and stretch my legs. Assuming Ruby discovered my departure around dawn, I had at least a four-hour head-start on whomever she’d send after me, which was further assuming that the pursuers would know to follow me due south instead of turning off onto one of the many intersecting highways.

I’d made it down out of the mountains in only a couple of hours and now I drove through the sage-dotted and low-rolling open rangelands of what had been the very sparsely inhabited American West. I hadn’t seen any other vehicles at all, let alone any Agency vehicles, but Chase had said I’d need to drive until I was out of gas before I started meeting patrols.

When the gas gauge light came on, I stopped on a featureless stretch of road and emptied the three plastic gas cans into the tank. Then I took another pee on the roadside and went on.

A few times I tried pushing my speed to eighty or ninety miles per hour, but the highway was pitted and rotting with disuse. Tall stalks of weeds and even sagebrush had invaded the road, too, and although I could drive over or around them without issue, the whipping sounds they made against the car were startling, so I slowed to fifty or sixty.

My supply of gasoline would last longer that way, too, I reasoned. But after driving a few more hours through that immense, empty landscape, fifty miles per hour began to feel like only a little faster than running speed, and I began to think I’d never get anywhere.

The inside of the car was quiet but for the thrum of the engine and the occasional banging and clatter of the weeds and rough road beneath the wheels. Inside my head, however, it was as though my mind became a passenger, a chatty one who wouldn’t stop talking.

I thought about what I’d tell Rachel—if she or anyone noticed that I’d been gone.

I thought about what I’d say to Arie and how I might be able to connect with him.

And amid these thoughts of what might happen tomorrow, there were all the people and things I’d seen over the past couple days. I thought about Sandy and if it might be true that she’d been pushed down into the Zones simply to make way for me. I thought about what Ruby and Chase and Woolly had said. What did I really know about the Agency and Lotus? Ruby and Chase made a convincing case, but I knew that I’d been drawn to their side before, turned against the Agency, and for that to have happened they must have had convincing arguments then, too. How can you know if you can trust someone if you can’t remember what you once knew about them?

Of course I already doubted almost everything Gary had told me, but what about Rachel? Was Lotus a bold experiment at the dawn of a new, promising age for humankind, or was it just a way to grab power from the ashes of the back before?

And I thought about Chase. Not that he’d come into Gary’s apartment with a gun or that he’d orchestrated my kidnapping—I just thought about him. As a person, as a man.

I came to a large hill. When the car had climbed to the top of the mile-long grade, I could see a long way all around me, and I felt very insignificant. As I drove down the far side of the hill, I knew that if the Subaru broke down and I were stranded, I’d probably perish of hunger and thirst within a week, and it’d likely be a week or more after that before anyone discovered me—if anyone ever did at all.

According to some embedded memory from when I’d learned to drive, I’d been dutifully driving all day on the right side of the highway. Not even the Agency’s memory-killing drug could suppress such habits—not just regarding driving, but how to hold a fork and knife, how to write, or how to throw a baseball. And so it suddenly occurred to me that I’d been obeying the long-dead traffic laws of a civilization now extinct.

I drifted into the middle of the road until the wheels straddled the centerline. I even felt the need to justify this violation, telling myself it was smoother and less sprouted with weeds in the center, and I felt the odd thrill one feels when willfully breaking well-established rules.

Out of the same set of deeply ingrained habits, I’d been checking my rearview mirror periodically, and for the first time that day, I saw something.

There was a vehicle on the road behind me.

At least I thought it was a vehicle. A dark object had crested the large hill I’d passed over minutes before, and I saw it for only a moment as it was silhouetted against the sky.

However, at first, I did not even register this as a threat. I’d fallen into a sort of driving daze, my senses dulled by hours of driving and fatigue. Nothing, evidently, could have seemed more natural to me than seeing a car in my rearview mirror.

It was a few seconds before it dawned on me just how much danger I faced, but the vehicle had disappeared into the folds of the land that lay between us. I kept my eyes on the mirror for so long, that my car kept creeping onto the shoulder, and I kept swerving back into the middle.

Chase told me there might be raiders out here, wild people, who’d slipped the Agency’s grasp but took a wholly barbaric approach to survival. And so I looked forward and pressed the gas pedal.

I now had the speedometer at eighty-five miles per hour and it was fluttering up to the mark indicating ninety. Weed stalks whacked alarmingly against the bumper and the tires banged against the pot holes and the road’s weathered surface. I worried about the tires, the suspension, the entire automobile, but I couldn’t slow down.

According to the little LED dash clock, I’d driven fifteen minutes and therefore about twenty miles without seeing the dark spot behind me again. Was there really some murderous raiding party behind me, masked in the folds of the road, or had I simply imagined it? Had it been just a trick of the heat that was beginning to wobble and refract on the pavement as the day warmed?

Then it reappeared.

As I swerved around a long bend and onto a straight, flat section, the vehicle was in the mirror again, much closer now, maybe just a mile back. It was a pickup truck.

I sped up again. The car bumped and boomed horribly over the crumbling road. What could they want? I forced myself to think. It was definitely not an Agency or Lotus vehicle. Even from this distance I could tell it was a truck of significant age, and my gut told me I still hadn’t driven far enough south to encounter any Agency personnel—I was only a little more than halfway through the gasoline.

Could it be someone from Ruby’s camp? No, I’d seen all the vehicles in their small fleet, and they had no pickup like this one. And they could never have caught up to me so fast, anyway.

This narrowed the possibilities to two. It could be someone without ill intent, just another drifting survivor who’d happened upon the same stretch of highway. But what were the odds of that on so remote a road, and why would they want to overtake me?

A raider, then. Someone who meant to kill me.

After a few more minutes, I saw the truck more clearly. The rearview mirror vibrated violently, but I could tell the truck was a genuinely ancient model, perhaps older than me. Its panels and fenders were crumpled and so rusted and dirty, the truck was the same neutral gray-brown of the surrounding land.

It was also close enough that I could hear the growl of its motor, and I saw a blackish blue trail of exhaust pouring from the tailpipe.

And it was still gaining.

Between the jiggling mirror and the truck’s hazy, cracked windshield, I could not clearly see the driver. It may have been an old woman or a young boy for all I could tell, hunching darkly behind the wheel.

But then a man rose up from the bed of the truck and stood behind the cab. The rags he wore and his long wild hair whipped crazily in the wind, and he had something in his hands, something long and black—a rifle, I supposed. I pressed the gas all the way down, waiting for the Subaru to shake into pieces. If not for the seatbelt, I might have bounced right out of the seat, and it was difficult to stay on the road.

Something struck the car with a thump. The man had started shooting. There was another thump, then a third, but we’d entered a series of bends in the road, and I couldn’t look back long enough to see anything of use.

Together we hurtled down the road at sickening speeds. The loose pavement against the underside of the car made a fearsome racket that drowned out the sound of the engine. I chanced a glance in the mirror and saw the truck’s headlights were now only a few feet from the Subaru’s bumper. Then came a loud, hissing crash, and the back window shattered in a blizzard of pebbled safety glass.

Without another thought, I stomped as hard as I could on the brake.

Maybe it was panic or maybe it was some canny tactical impulse arising from my reptilian brain. I pressed my head into the seat back, locked my elbows to brace against the wheel, and practically stood up on the brake pedal.

The car shuddered and bounced as it slowed, and an instant later the truck rammed the rear of the Subaru with a dreadful crash. My eyes flicked to the mirror again, and I saw the man who’d been standing in the truck bed was now floundering there, his legs in the air.

I down-shifted and floored the gas, putting some yards between me and the truck. The truck accelerated, too, its back tires squalling on the loose road bed and the growling engine louder now through the gaping back window, but I spotted tendrils of white smoke coming from under its hood.

When I’d gained a few hundred feet, I fumbled furiously for the backpack Chase had sent with me. It had been on the seat but now was wedged upside-down into the floor-well of the passenger side. Keeping the gas pedal pinned, I grabbed the pack and hoisted it upright onto the seat, but the engine revved, demanding I shift into fourth gear. After clumsily shifting, I tore at the top of the pack to retrieve Chase’s pistol.

Smoke billowed from the truck’s engine, and I thought if I could just keep it behind me for a few minutes it might slow down or stop running altogether. Instead, it gained on me, engine roaring madly. This time it came alongside the Subaru on the passenger side. My head swiveled from the road to the truck and back as we thundered along.

The man in the bed of the truck was on his feet again. He was gaunt and spindly and filthy. His face was deeply tanned and lined with desperation. Woven into the tatters of his clothing and hair, I saw what must have been small bones—finger bones or toes or molars. They whipped and blew around him.

Then I saw that it was not a rifle he was shooting but a hunting bow, with heavy fiberglass limbs and pulleys and cables. Standing with his feet far apart, he drew the bow back, aimed at the Subaru, and let an arrow go. It came through the roof on the passenger side at a shallow angle and froze there, its sharp-bladed tip only a foot away and pointed directly at me.

The truck pulled slightly ahead of me now. The driver was likewise gaunt and wild-looking. She turned and leered at me savagely.

I leveled the pistol and fired at her through my passenger side window, which erupted into powdered glass and was gone. In the small space of the car, the gunshots deafened me, but there were finger-sized black dimples in the truck’s driver’s-side door. I fired a few more times and now the driver’s-side window of the truck likewise vanished in a glittering spray of shattered glass, and the driver slumped out of view.

The truck slowed and careened away to the right, but in my peripheral vision I caught a flash of dark motion, and I knew the man had hurled himself from the truck bed. A half-second later there was a heavy, metallic whump as he landed on the Subaru’s roof.

I stood on the brake again and braced against the wheel as the car practically stood up on its front end, tires squelching hotly against the pavement. The man flopped across the windshield and hood, but he avoided sliding off the front of the car by hanging onto the roof rack. His face was pressed against the windshield and I saw his eyes blaze with fiendish triumph, knowing the thin sheet of glass was all that remained between us.

As I tried to shift gears, I dropped the gun, and it fell between the seats. I down-shifted, hit the gas, and popped the clutch. The car bucked forward, but not only did the man not slide off the hood, he hauled himself to his feet. I floored the gas and felt around for the pistol.

Then, with his hands still on the roof rack, the man hopped into the air and stomped on the windshield. A spiderweb of cracks appeared under his boots as the safety glass strained to hold together. I fumbled around for the gun. The man jumped again, and the windshield dished inward, raining jewels of glass into the car. My hand, wriggling between the seats found the gun just as the man jumped again and came bashing boots-first into the car.

I let go of the wheel and raised the pistol. In the close awkward space I gripped the gun in both hands, pointed the barrel at the man’s chest, and pulled the trigger.

It only clicked.

Twenty-Two

When I opened my eyes, I was treated to a rugged and sunny western vista. Small dark desert birds darted between the clumps of sage brush, which trembled in the light wind. The prairie stretched into the distance, specked with the dark dots of sage and occasional stands of dark-green juniper. Farther away rose the blackish-brown desert hills that formed a jagged horizon against the deepening blue of the sky, where far-off clouds might, with a little coaxing from the sun, become thunderstorms.

It was stark and beautiful.

It was also upside-down.

I don’t know how long I hung in the seatbelt and shoulder harness of the Subaru, staring at the inverted desert. Perhaps I’d been knocked out or perhaps I was so exhausted I’d slept that way. Slowly I came to my senses again. I ached all over. My head throbbed. I reached down to my side and pressed the button to release the seatbelt and fell into a heap onto the Subaru’s roof.

All the car windows were broken out, and the roof was partly crushed. I was covered with shattered safety glass. I wormed my way out of the car and into the powdery dirt of the desert. There was a thin, salty crust on top, and a flour-like dust beneath.

The Subaru lay on its roof like a stricken beast about a hundred yards out into the sage at the bottom of a slope at a bend in the road.

The last thing I remembered was the man crashing through the window and into the car with me. The marred floor of the desert told the rest of the tale. We’d left the road at the bend, rolled several times, and then came to rest upside-down. I’d been bashed around and my ears rang harshly, but I was apparently in otherwise decent working order. There was a cut at my brow but I wasn’t bleeding from anywhere else. I shuffled and staggered along up the incline, backtracking along the car’s disastrous trail.

About halfway back to the road, I found my backpack. I stopped in my tracks, picked up the backpack, grabbed the water, and then let the pack drop back into the dirt. The water held a trace of last night’s cold, and it was marvelously refreshing. I knew I shouldn’t, but I drank a good third of it, letting it run down my cheeks and neck. Then I put the pack on my back and continued.

Soon I spotted the tattered, dusty figure of the man from the truck. It looked as if the car had tossed him from a window and into its own tumbling path. The man lay tamped partway into the soil, a crushed and twisted tangle of unmoving, half-buried limbs and rags.

“Is he dead?” someone shouted.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “He’s dead.”

Then, over the ringing in my ears, I heard the idling of an automobile.

I felt around for the gun, but it was gone. I looked up, and there at the edge of the road above me was a clean, dark-colored semi-tractor with a white trailer. It grumbled quietly. A man in blue overalls was making his way down the hill in my direction.

“What about you?” he said.

“No,” I answered. “I’m alive.”

He came closer.

“Stop,” I said. “I have a gun.”

He stopped and raised a hand.

“It’s here somewhere,” I added, searching the surrounding ground.

“I won’t hurt you. Just come to see if I could help.”

“Come from where?”

He pointed. “The Interstate’s over there. Saw that pickup smoking, and all the kicked-up dust.”

I looked where he pointed and saw a straight white line cut into the desert. Then I saw the old pickup truck. It lay on its side, a thin column of black smoke rising from it and carrying on the wind.

“There’s an exit ramp a mile or two further south,” said the man in overalls. “I figured I’d come down to see if there were any survivors.”

“That was nice of you,” I said. “Did you find any?”

The man smiled grimly. He wore an ancient trucker’s hat and a thick mustache. He was short and rotund, which lent him a friendly disposition, regardless of whether he really had one.

“Where were you headed?” he asked.

I thought about whether I could trust him. His clothing and the clean truck in good repair told me he was somehow connected to the Agency, and I was an officer of Lotus—in good standing as far as I knew. If he’d meant to harm me, he’d have done so already; I could barely stay on my feet. As far as I could tell he wasn’t even armed.

“The Agency Depot,” I said. “South of here. The Zone 1891.”

He chuckled. “Well, you’re in luck,” he said. “That’s not far from where I’ll end up. After a few other stops.”

The man introduced himself as Bill and told me that he trucked supplies between Agency installations. I asked him what he hauled and where the other installations were located, but he just shook his head.

“Oh, I can’t tell you much. I’d get in an awful lotta trouble,” he replied.

He didn’t seem to know anything about Lotus, and I felt it was probably better that way.

Bill stood looking around at the wreckage.

“Someone else was driving the pickup?”

I nodded. He put his hands on his hips.

“Kind of a shame to leave ’em unburied this way,” said Bill.

I scoffed. “They were trying to kill me. Or worse probably.”

“Still,” he said.

I got my backpack from the dusty ground and Bill helped me up the hill to his truck. He retrieved a shovel from somewhere.

“You don’t gotta help,” he said. “I just feel it’s wrong to leave people to the coyotes and ravens like that. Wait here. I’ll be quick.”

I sat on the running board of Bill’s truck and sipped at my water as he dug two shallow graves. It was comforting to see Bill observe the ritual on behalf of people who’d all but given away their humanity.

He did work quickly, and soon he brought the woman over from the pickup truck and dragged the man over to the graves. Then with a care and civility that seemed wildly out of place, he laid the two barbarians to rest.

When he’d covered them over with dirt, he began to cover the graves with rocks from the surrounding desert. I went down to help him. The stones were all alike—dark and rusty-looking and sharply jagged.

“Thanks for the hand,” said Bill. “T’be a shame to bury them just to be dug up again by varmints.”

I nodded.

When the graves were complete, Bill removed his hat, bowed his head, and stood quietly with his eyes shut. I bowed my head, too, but kept my eyes open.

After a minute, Bill stood straight again. He took a deep breath, let it out, and then looked at me.

“Well, shall we?” he said.

The interior of Bill’s truck was tidy and comfortable and very warm. I immediately fell asleep in the passenger side seat. I must have slept for several hours, because when I woke up, the sun was setting. We were pulling away from some kind of storage facility. I should have paid more attention, watched for road signs or other info that might come in handy. We were so seldom allowed to travel around or know what was going on around us. Unfortunately, I was too warm and groggy for that level of discipline.

I did step out of the truck on our next stop, however, to stretch a little. It was another loading dock in a place I didn’t know. I walked around the truck and then climbed the steps to the loading dock. It was a large facility, most of which looked abandoned.

As I strolled along the dock’s enormous length, I saw Bill come out of the warehouse. He was looking at a sheaf of papers on a clipboard. He waved to me when he saw me, and I walked in his direction. We converged at the back of the semi trailer, the doors of which stood open.

“Well, let’s get back on the road,” Bill said cheerily.

But before he could get the doors swung closed, I saw that the semi trailer was almost completely full of wooden crates painted with labels indicating what I thought was ammunition. 5.56 BALL AMMUNITION 1000 RDS, 7.62 BELT AMMUNITION 500 CTRGS, and more. Crate upon crate.

Bill didn’t seem to feel sheepish about me seeing what was inside the trailer, but he shut the doors without another word.

When we got back in the truck, he said, “We’ll be on the road for a while now. Seems like you been through the wringer. Feel free to go back to sleep. We won’t get to 1891 until after midnight. You could even jump into the sleeper if you want. Just lay down and zonk out.”

The height of the rig was impressive. We seemed to be flying through the air rather than driving on the road. The rig’s suspension took almost all the roughness from the road.

“Maybe I’ll do that,” I said. “I am pretty tired.”

“What happened to you out there?” Bill asked. “Where’d you come from and where were you going?”

As we bounced gently along, I told Bill that I, too, worked for the Agency. “I was on a, um, fact-finding mission,” I said.

“And them two somehow hunted you down?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Just got lucky, I guess.”

“Guess I probably shouldn’t ask you too much about your job,” he said, laying his index finger alongside his nose.

I laughed and nodded knowingly.

“I’ve run across folks like that,” he said, jabbing a thumb at the road behind us. “That’s why I use these small highways. I figure they’re less traveled. But maybe not.”

I nodded.

“This here outfit has armored panels,” he said, “especially around the engine compartment. Not so many up here where the driver is. I guess they figure if I get shot up, they’ll find someone else to drive it, but if the truck is shot dead, that’d be really bad. I got some guns hidden here’n there, so I feel pretty safe, but every time I see some other car or truck, I always start wondering if my number’s up. I’ve had some close calls.”

“Thanks again for helping me out, Bill,” I told him. “I hate to think what would’ve happened if you hadn’t seen me.”

“Glad to help.”

I climbed into the sleeper cab. There was a small sink there, and so I washed my face and hands and brushed my teeth.

And then I couldn’t sleep.

The dark empty road unfolded in the intensely bright headlights of Bill’s rig. I lay awake watching for a while. Bill played old music from back before on a sound system at low volume, singing along sometimes.

Then I remembered the backpack, and I felt around inside it for something to eat. Instead, however, the first thing I felt was the notebooks. I removed them and squinted at them in the darkness. There was a small reading lamp near the bed, and I switched it on.

Once I opened the first notebook, I knew I wouldn’t sleep. They were diaries. Mine and Arie’s. I recognized my handwriting. For the first time, things were finally making sense.

I cried when I read about my life with Arie. We’d ridden bikes everywhere, we ate together, worked together. I read of our adventures outside the Zone boundaries, searching the houses. We’d been attacked by wild dogs and we’d found a little girl in our backyard. We wrote down our memories so that we’d never lose them.

And then the Agency took him.

There were entries about meeting Ruby and Woolly, pleading with them for help. There were passages in which I told my future self how I’d felt about Chase. We searched for Arie, we broke into Agency buildings, we snuck around, and we stole. Little Gracie was killed, and they sent soldiers to kill us, and still we didn’t find Arie. The Agency had told me he was dead. And I’d wondered if he had died.

But I saw no sign whatsoever of trickery or subterfuge or blackmail. I’d never been involved with the Agency, and Ruby’s gang hadn’t subverted me. Arie and I were just a couple starving Zone dwellers looking for a way out. I’d gone to Ruby, and she’d taken me in. The whole gang had taken me in and treated me like one of them.

There it all was, in my own handwriting, dated, annotated, and in my own words. I could of course never truly remember writing those stories, but I could hear myself speaking from the pages, and more than once I finished the written lines in my head before I’d finished reading them—not because I recalled what I’d written, but I knew how I would write it were I to write it again.

Chase’s words came back to me like an indictment: “You don’t even know what you’ve lost.”

How right he’d been. I’d known nothing about what had been stolen from me and what I’d been fighting for. Even now, reading the journals from before my memories were erased, I probably couldn’t even begin to comprehend what was lost. There were so many moments between the lines—little things like watching Arie repairing our bicycles or cooking cans of soup on a little burner. Had we really done that?

The journals comprised only one year of my life, but what a year it had been. A lifetime of living and learning and loving all in a year. A year of work to free myself and my son and my friends. A year of finding out who I really was. All of it had been taken from me—to say nothing of what might have been lost in the years before that.

I’d been murdered, brought back to life, and reprogrammed.

The journal also confirmed that Gary hadn’t been my husband. He was mentioned in the journals a few times, but only as an acquaintance associated with the Agency.

There wasn’t any writing about the explosion. My guess is that I was on the run and had been captured and that these journals had been left behind, and that is when the journals must have fallen into the hands of one of Ruby’s people. But I’d pieced most of the rest of the details together from clues in the journal that led up to that day, and from things Chase and Ruby told me. I’d led Gary and his small army to Ruby’s headquarters and then triggered the booby traps she’d laid there, fully intending to kill not only Gary but myself as well.

I knew why, too. I was still more or less the same person, I could map out my rationale without even trying very hard. It was for Arie. It was so that Arie could get free of Gary and the Agency.

And so the question that emerged was why on earth Gary had kept me with him, why he’d let me live at all. It could certainly have no relation to Gary’s feelings for me. I’d left him ruined and pushed aside by the Agency. It had to be something much darker which had eventually resulted in my recruitment by Lotus to be a pawn in their game.

As the night wore on, I felt my eyelids drooping. It must have been close to midnight, and I struggled to stay awake. But the more I read, I realized that the notebooks and the contents of Bill’s trailer were connected in a way that was immediate and terrible, and that the coming of Bill’s truck was like a black storm cloud on the horizon.

Twenty-Three

Bill dropped me off at the Agency Depot. I asked at the all-night office about finding a ride to Lotus. The on-duty guard looked at me warily but confirmed my identity and took me to a room where I could wait until a series of morning deliveries were headed to Lotus.

As we came to my neighborhood, I immediately noticed that there were official-looking vehicles parked at intersections and at certain buildings. They were security patrol cars and black SUVs without any markings. People in fatigues stood on the sidewalks by the vehicles. They weren’t carrying rifles, but each had a sidearm in a holster. They waved at me as we passed by.

“What’s all this?” I asked the delivery man. “Do you know?”

“No,” he said. “I was just about to ask you. Been more and more security lately. I don’t know why. I mean, I assume there’s trouble.”

The delivery man dropped me at my house, and I found a sheet of paper folded up and wedged into the crack between the front door and the frame. No doubt a note from Rachel or a co-worker noting my absence from the office. I took it inside and set it on the table. I checked to see if Arie was home, but he wasn’t.

I went straight to my room and took off the clothes I’d been living in for three days, and then I took a long shower.

I had to admit that if I ever joined Ruby and Chase, it would be difficult to get over the loss of such luxuries. The refrigerator at least partially full of good food would likewise be missed. I made myself a little soup and had a cup of tea. Then I went straight to bed.

As I lay in bed, I thought about what I should do. Even before I’d gotten home I had decided not to report Ruby or what had happened, but I wasn’t sure what to do with myself next. How could I continue working in Lotus, knowing how I now felt, and knowing how things stood before I’d gotten my memory erased? And what about Arie? He might find it suspicious if I told him I agreed with him about Lotus. He rarely spoke to me and seemed to regard me as an enemy. How could I speak to him about any of this without arousing his suspicion? I could never even be sure about when I’d next see him.

What would he say about the journals?

As I began to doze off, I remembered the note on the table. I got out of bed and opened it. It was written in shaky handwriting. I assumed it had been written by an adult, but there was something childlike about it. It definitely wasn’t from Arie or Rachel. I’d seen their handwriting. I didn’t think it was from anyone at the office. Could it be a note from one of Ruby’s people? This seemed unlikely—how would any of them gotten to my house before me? I got back into bed, too tired to unravel the mystery just then, but I couldn’t deny it: something about the note caused goosebumps to raise on my arms.

Alison, I’ve been looking for you. I’ll come back later. —D

As I walked into my office the next morning, I was wary about what might be said of my absence. And though I had covered the bruises on my face with makeup, I also worried that it was still noticeable. I had excuses ready to fire if necessary, but aside from curt head-nods and “hellos,” nothing was said.

Something was different, though. It apparently had nothing to do with me specifically, but I could feel it in the air—a heavy nervousness that hung in the air like a bad smell. Then Rachel showed up, and I knew something was definitely amiss. She wasn’t scheduled to meet with any of us for several days.

I went to Cathy’s office, next door to mine.

“What’s going on?” I asked her.

Cathy waved me in and shut her door.

“I’m glad you’re okay. Where were you yesterday?”

“Oh. I wasn’t feeling well. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“There’s been some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Trouble at some of the manufacturing plants. Trouble with the younger people.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The younger workers are grumbling, pushing back. I don’t know. Like a—rebellion? Everyone keeps saying it’s nothing to worry about but everyone’s worried. I’ve heard some production lines are shut down completely. Worst thing, though, Henry got attacked.”

Henry was another case manager, perhaps best known among us for always saying, “Howdy” instead of “hello” or “hi.” He was admittedly a stern-looking guy. He wore a perpetual frown, even when he was happy, and his large forehead seemed to squat down over his prodigious, grumpy eyebrows. Despite that, we all found him quite pleasant.

“Oh, no,” I said. “Is he okay?”

“No one knows,” said Cathy. “He was working with a case, a young guy, and he somehow got Henry down onto the floor and beat him with a shoe.”

“My god.”

“Yeah,” repeated Cathy. “He was still unconscious when Andre and Terri found him. They took him to the infirmary. No one ever found the kid. He was getting recommended for reassignment. It’s a group of young people making all the trouble. After everything Lotus has given them. They’re not satisfied.”

“Well Cathy,” I said. “Let’s not panic. I’m sure they’re working on it.”

The trouble Cathy spoke of seemed to be confirmed when an unscheduled meeting was announced.

Nearly everyone gathered into the large meeting room—case workers, supervisors, security people. Extra chairs were awkwardly carried in. Rachel spotted me filing into the room and seemed to single me out for a warm smile. She was the picture of calm and composure, with her hair in her trademark chignon and her immaculately applied lipstick and eyeliner. I searched her face for alarm or worry or doubt. If she felt any of those things, she wasn’t showing it. She gave me an affectionate pat on the shoulder as I passed.

When we were seated, Rachel stood at the front of the room, leaning on a table there. She looked us over for what felt like a full minute. Her gaze went from face to face, and she gave each one of us a look of smiling approval.

“Before I get started,” she said at last, “I’d just like to let you know how much confidence I have in each one of you, and really how much I think of you. We all suffered a terrible calamity when the human race was practically snuffed out by a deadly virus. Many people succumbed to the virus, and many people died in the aftermath. People die every day from effects that stem from that worldwide event. Some people die simply from the despair of it all.”

Again I asked myself what it was about Rachel’s oration that so moved me.

She continued: “But I want you to just take a quick look around at each other.”

We did so, smiling and nodding diffidently, chuckling a little.

“You were all there,” said Rachel in a grave tone. “Yes, you don’t remember it, but you know you were there. As others were dying, as others were turning against each other, against you, as others lost hope—you survived. And now you’re here, and you’re not just surviving, you’re laying the foundation of a new world. In a hundred years or a thousand, your names will be among the histories people study and celebrate. And I’m proud to know and work with each one of you.”

Her voice didn’t rise or crack at all.

“Now, I have some very good news,” said Rachel. “As some of you may have heard, we have been facing some challenges. There are a few individuals at some of our production facilities who’ve been, shall we say, misbehaving, refusing to work, acting out.”

Having the rumor promoted to an official bulletin, several people in the room murmured, nodded, and exchanged glances.

A supervisor named Angelo raised his hand.

“Angelo,” said Rachel, pointing at him, “you’re going to ask me why I said this was good news.”

Angelo lowered his hand.

“I’ll tell you,” Rachel went on. “These ‘troubles’ are like growing pains. Anyone know what causes growing pains? You know, like when kids with growth spurts get all achy and sore?”

“Something about their muscles and bones,” Cathy offered.

“Exactly,” said Rachel. “The child’s bones are lengthening. The child is running and playing hard all day. The musculoskeletal system is under stress, heavy use. So, it’s not an illness, it’s not a sign of danger. It’s a sign of vigor, of success. Personally, I’m encouraged to see a little resistance out there. It means we’re doing something right. It means we’re growing, maturing, we’re seeing success.”

A few more nods.

“I’ve got more good news,” she said. “I know that there has been some violence, and I apologize that something like this was allowed to happen. I visited Henry.”

There were gasps and little exclamations.

“He’s banged up, but he’s doing fine,” said Rachel. “I told him I’d tell you all ‘howdy’.”

A wave of quiet laughter at this.

Rachel went around to the other side of the table and leaned forward with her hands flat on the surface. “The good news is that Lotus cares deeply for all of its workers, for all of you, and this little hiccup will be cleared up shortly. And while we work on that, I’d like you to stay home from work so that those appointed to maintain order can do their jobs. Everything should be back on track within the next few days.” She straightened. “Now, does anyone have any questions?”

Angelo raised his hand.

“Angelo,” said Rachel. “Let me guess. You’re wondering who these people are. These troublemakers.”

Angelo nodded and lowered his hand.

“Great question, Angelo,” she said. “I’m guessing you’ve heard it’s young people. Teenagers and people in their twenties.”

Nods all around.

“There are some members of that demographic,” said Rachel, “but there are others, too. And more to the point, I think that many of these people are not troublemakers at all. That is, they wouldn’t make trouble if left to their own devices. You’d be shocked if I told you who some of them were.”

Were? I thought. What does she mean by were?

“Because these are some of our really great people,” Rachel said with a frown, “and they’ve been misled. Someone has gotten to them. Someone with the worst intentions.”

Rachel’s glance landed on me for the briefest of moments, and a chill raced down my neck and spine.

Angelo raise his hand again.

“Who is instigating this?” asked Rachel on his behalf. “Another great question. I’ll be very honest with you. We don’t know exactly. But we have some good leads and I think, again, you’d be very shocked to discover who some of these people turn out to be.”

She was looking from person to person as she spoke, but when she looked at me, I read something in her expression that made my face turn hot.

“That’s why I want you to finish what you’re doing and then head home. We’ve got the best people working on it, and it’ll all be solved soon. And let me reassure you again—this is good news.” She smiled her winning smile. “If we weren’t doing something right, we wouldn’t attract this kind of trouble.”

Rachel dismissed us, and I headed for my desk. It wasn’t that I loved my job or would ever miss doing it. After all that had happened, I wasn’t sure what to think. I had just sat down at my desk when Rachel came in.

“Alison. Got a minute?”

“The majority of the problems we are having are coming from a few very specific facilities,” Rachel told me. “A few specific groups.”

She’d shut the door and sat in the seat where my cases normally sat. I hoped she couldn’t tell that I’d started to sweat.

“Okay,” I said.

“We have several production lines where we manufacture armaments,” she said. “That’s where most of the problems are centered, it seems.”

“Armaments as in guns?” I asked.

“Right,” said Rachel.

“I guess I didn’t know we made that kind of thing. Why would we need so many guns to have entire factories?”

Rachel smiled at me like a parent smiling at a child who had asked an adorably naïve question.

“Alison,” she said kindly, “we can’t always expect to prevail on our strong ideas and work ethics alone. We often encounter resistance when we recruit. We sometimes encounter armed resistance. We have to be armed as well. For defense.”

“We recruit people with guns?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she said. “I’m simply saying that we must be armed in order to be successful. To protect ourselves, to keep our operations safe.”

“I’m not sure I understand where this is going,” I said finally.

“Arie works at our main facility. Our munitions facility.”

“You think Arie is involved in this?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Has he said or done anything you’d consider unusual? Have you noticed anything unusual about him at all?”

“To be honest, I don’t see much of him.”

Rachel tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.

“What I mean is,” I hastily added “we don’t spend a lot of time together. He does his thing; I do mine. I guess you might call him a moody teenager,” I lied. “He’s quiet. Spends a lot of time alone, in his room.”

She looked into my eyes with a searching expression. My breath became suddenly shallow.

“Yes, teenagers,” Rachel said with a smile that was somehow not a smile. “Luckily they don’t stay at that stage forever.”

I nodded.

“Keep an eye out, Alison, will you? If you see anything, let me know. Tell me directly. Even if it’s something that might not be otherwise out-of-the-ordinary. Does that make sense? Dial up your sensors to super-sensitive and let me know.”

“Do you think we’re in serious danger?”

“It’s nothing to worry too much about.”

“What are you planning to do? I mean to resolve the problem?”

“Well,” she said, “normally, Lotus doesn’t work very closely with the Agency. They have their way of doing things and we have ours. We often disagree.”

“I thought the Agency and Lotus were the same,” I said.

“Hardly. We have formed a kind of symbiotic relationship, but it’s an uneasy one.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Recently, however,” Rachel added, “we’re both facing greater opposition. From inside, from outside. Various groups, individuals—people we usually refer to as ‘terrorists,’ but it’s more than people simply trying to make trouble. They’re getting sophisticated and organized to an extent we’ve never seen. It used to be people just trying to escape, to get away, trying to avoid treatment or reassignment. Now we’re seeing what looks more and more like groups that are attacking us, subverting us, trying to bring us down. If that makes sense.”

“Not everyone wants to rebuild the world your way, I guess?”

“Exactly,” she said. “It’s unbelievable. So, we’re working together with the Agency’s security forces. They’re sending a large force. I hate to resort to such brute-force measures, but we can’t allow these attacks to continue.”

“A force?”

“They’re sending an army. Working with the information we have, there’s going to be a—” she stopped to think of the right word. “There’s going to be a quick and vigorous clean-up. It won’t be pleasant but it’ll get us back on track.”

“You’re talking about a counter-attack,” I said, and I thought about Bill’s trailer packed with ammunition.

“A reckoning,” she corrected. “There will be a reckoning.” Then she clenched her jaw, and in her eye I detected the faintest glimpse of what I’d call desperation. She stood up and then looked me in the eyes.

“Keep watch, Alison. I mean it. One person can make a big difference.”

“I will,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I see anything.”

She nodded at me, and then she was gone.

I’d seen the military forces of the Agency. They were heavily armed, and they were not careful about how they used force. They shot first and asked questions later, if they asked questions at all. They would demolish an entire building to dislodge one or two armed malcontents. I’d often wondered where they’d gotten their guns, their supplies.

And then I thought of Arie. According to the journals, he’d been more than a little interested in subverting the Agency—not necessarily in acts of aggression or terrorism, but by simply finding out what had really happened and finding a way to keep our memories. Was he still fighting? Was he part of some kind of resistance or uprising?

I remembered the security forces positioning themselves on the streets of Lotus. Soon troop carriers and armed vehicles from the Agency would be rolling in as well. I pictured armed columns of the reckless and deadly Agency troops filing through the city. And then I remembered how Arie had spoken about Lotus’ processing of members, memory treatments, and reassignments. If he spoke out or even said an untoward word—I might never see him again. And if he were, as Rachel seemed to suspect, part of some organized group—I wasn’t sure I was ready to fully weigh those possibilities.

All I knew was I had to find him, and soon. I looked at the pile of filing and paperwork on my desk, but I didn’t even think about touching it.

When I got home, I was winded and footsore. I’d run almost the entire distance to the house. I saw the Lotus security patrols. They’d smiled and waved as I jogged past.

I stood on the lawn bent over with my hands on my knees, breathing hard. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting to find—a Lotus security detail out front? Arie being dragged away in cuffs?

The house was as I’d left it, and when I’d caught my breath, I headed for the front door.

And I saw people inside.

Twenty-Four

In the living room, chairs had been gathered into a rough circle—all the chairs in the house, I figured. A group of at least twenty people were seated there, and they were in the middle of some kind of meeting.

Though there may have been two or three people who looked to be twenty-five years old or a little older, almost all of them were Arie’s age, eighteen to twenty-one.

When I’d thrown open the front door of the house, I’d heard their urgent voices, but when I came into the house and they saw me, they all went quiet. And then they sat looking at me.

Arie stood from his chair. He held up a hand to signal the group to remain quiet, and then he ushered me—also without saying anything—into the hallway and out of sight of the others.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Arie asked me, his voice low and cold.

“We have to talk,” I told him, keeping my voice quiet. “I think you need to get those people out of here and then we need to have a very serious talk. There’s trouble.”

“Why? Why are you here? Why now?” he hissed.

“In a way,” I said, “I think we’re here for the same reason. I work directly with Rachel, Arie. You know that. And so you know that if I tell you that these people have got to get out of here, you should believe me.”

“They’re my friends. There’s no rule in Lotus saying someone can’t get together with friends.”

“Okay, but something tells me you guys aren’t planning a game of kick-the-can. Tell them to go, Arie. I mean it.”

He pressed his lips together until his mouth was just a taut, hard line, then he turned away in a huff and returned to the living room. I knew he wasn’t obeying what I’d told him to do. It was simply that he knew he couldn’t continue the meeting with me in the house. I followed him to the corner of the hallway but didn’t show myself.

“We’re going to have to leave this for another time,” said Arie to the group, his voice quiet but quavering very slightly.

The group muttered their assent.

“Leave the regular way,” said Arie. “One or two at a time. Three-minute intervals. Half on bikes, half walking. There’re cops everywhere. Spread out and separate. They’re watching us.”

I stayed in the hallway. There were a few murmured exchanges, but for the most part, they all stayed very quiet. Then they began coming down the hallway where I stood. They passed by me without saying anything and continued on to the back door. They’d left their bikes in the backyard, I realized. Every few minutes, I heard the front and back doors opening and closing. I took two chairs from the living room and brought them to the kitchen table. No one said anything to me.

It took them a half-hour to disperse. I sat at the kitchen table. When it was just Arie and I, he joined me in the kitchen. He was wearing his coat and ballcap, as though he were going out.

“This was stuck in the door for you,” he said, tossing a folded piece of paper onto the table.

On the outside of the folded paper was my name in the same childish scrawl as before. I unfolded it and inside it read, Missed you again. I’ll come back soon. —D

I folded it up again and shoved the note into my pocket.

Arie didn’t sit down. He stood at the window, watching the street through the cracks between the blinds.

“Okay,” he said. “Start talking. But make it fast. I’m leaving.”

“Tell me what’s going on,” I said.

“What does it look like?” he sneered. “We’re getting organized.”

“So, you’re one of them?”

He laughed. “Them?”

“You know what I mean. I heard what you said to them. You know you’re being watched. They’re taking names, making lists, Arie.”

“You might know what’s going on with Lotus, but you don’t know what we’re doing. Other than not showing up at work, we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“What, you’re just on strike? Like you want longer lunch breaks or something?”

“There’s going to be changes,” he said.

“Arie, this is a really dangerous little game,” I said. “I don’t think you understand.”

“Don’t talk to me that way. You think I’m some kid. You think I’m your little boy. I’m not.”

“You are. You’re my son. I’m your mother.” I stood up and stood in front of Arie.

“I’m not a little boy. I’m a person, my own person. And I don’t want to live like this.”

“Live like what? In a comfortable house? With heat and running water and safety?”

“We’re not safe here!” cried Arie. “No one here is safe. Every single one of us is one little mistake from death. One little case-worker recommendation from being executed. One little office form with your signature and any one of us could get the needle.”

“Arie, I understand how you feel about Lotus, but you don’t understand—”

“I understand that this so-called society of yours is a complete lie and a waking nightmare. I won’t live in it, and I’m not alone. I’ll die before I live in this vile society.”

“You can’t do that, Arie,” I said, grabbing the front of his coat. “You can’t die. You can’t leave me again. Maybe there’s something we can do from the inside. Maybe we can work with the system instead of working against it.”

He pushed me away and scoffed harshly. “You know exactly how Lotus would react to that. Not even you can speak up against them. We’d both be brought into your own case-working office and they’d make very fine recommendations for us, wouldn’t they? Reassignment, therapy, re-starting. It’d be so good for us, too. You’d be the recipient of your own recommendations, your own disgusting little memory-death sentences.”

“Arie, you have to listen to me.”

“No. Don’t try to tell me that it’s all just in the name of some goddam perfect society. I saw the notebooks.”

“The notebooks?”

“Yeah, the notebooks. In the backpack. I read them all.”

“Then you know I’m your mother. You know you’re my son. We were together before.”

“And I know you fought the Agency after they took me away,” he said, raising his voice. “Did you actually read those notebooks? Because the Alison that wrote those journals would never put up with shit like this.”

“I did those things to survive, Arie,” I pleaded, “so that we could be together. And that’s what I want now. I want us to survive this. To be together.”

“How? By hiding? By rolling over? Don’t you see what they took from us? It’s all there in your handwriting. They took everything from us. They took our lives. And they’ll do it again.”

“Okay,” I said. “I know. But I can’t lose you again.”

“Then help us. You could be a huge help to all of us.”

“No!” I said. “I can’t. You talk about doing what’s right, but you’re not thinking practically. You really think you can change things? They have the power, Arie. You and your little friends are just kids. Rachel and Lotus—they know things. I don’t know what, but I think they’re watching you. Rachel asked me today about you. Specifically. I think she knows you’re involved. And she won’t let you get away with this.”

He quailed at this—just slightly. The set of his jaw softened and defiance relented. But then his resolve returned.

“Rachel has no idea what’s waiting for her,” he said. “There are too many of us. I know some of us won’t make it, but that’s just how it has to be sometimes when you want to make big changes. It’s a sacrifice worth making.”

“Arie, I am begging you to stop this.”

“You should leave Lotus,” he said. “Pack up your backpack there and go somewhere. Find somewhere to stay for a while. I’m warning you because I owe it to the Alison from those notebooks. I think I would have been proud to call her my mother.”

“They’re bringing in Agency troops,” I said. “The real goons. Whatever you want to call them. I lived at the Agency Depot. I’ve seen them. You must have read about them in the notebooks. They’re not like the Lotus cops. They’re brutal. They shoot first and don’t even bother to ask questions. They’re coming. And there are a lot of them.”

“It won’t matter. We’ve got an army, too.” He turned and went out of the house. He strode fast on his long legs down the walkway and out onto the sidewalk. I drew up the blinds and watched him go.

“It won’t be enough,” I said.

Twenty-Five

Arie was right. I wasn’t the person who’d written those journals. I had enough sense to know he was right about that. But having the sense to know what had changed between then and now wasn’t so simple.

My memories had been wiped, of course, but was that enough to account for the differences? I could say it was, but it felt like an easy way out.

I’m simply not as bold as I was then, I thought, or as strong. After living with Gary and now in my beautiful little Lotus cottage, I’d gotten complacent and soft and sad.

When Arie had been gone for an hour or so, I removed the notebooks from the backpack and set them in my lap. I picked up one and then another, reading pages and entries at random. And just like when I’d read them in Bill’s truck, my mind tingled at the risks we took—Arie and I. We’d risked our lives—not just for extra food or fuel (though we’d done that, too), but for knowledge, to find out if there was a way out of all this, to find a path to something better. We had no idea if we’d survive from week to week, and still we defied the Agency and its goons for nothing more than clues—clues to mysteries we didn’t even understand.

And now, here I sat in my comfy little house on my comfy little couch knowing we had been lied to, knowing there was a better way but afraid to even dwell on it because the way I had chosen was at least better than where I’d come from.

The sun was getting low. I got my coat and went out.

It was cool that night. The day had been fair and warm, but now a cold breeze prevailed, and there were clouds piling up on the eastern horizon, as if preparing to work a night’s worth of mischief while the sun wasn’t watching.

Only a few lights shone in the cottages as I walked through my little Lotus neighborhood and on toward the town center. Word seemed to have gotten around that tonight might be a good night to stay indoors and go to bed early. I saw almost no one outside.

It was quiet, one would almost say peaceful. The streetlights winked on and glowed softly. The wind sighed in the trees. And yet, as the last light of the day drained into the west and the sky shone in shades of gold and burgundy, I knew it was a false calm.

Or maybe it was better to call it an anticipatory calm, because it was obvious the entire city was waiting for something to happen. It crackled in the air like the seeds of lightning forming in the gathering clouds overhead.

The security patrols appeared to have doubled. They were parked on the corners of main roads and they were now driving slowly through the streets, too. Somewhere far off I heard multiple sirens, and there was thunder in the distance, too.

I didn’t know how I could find Arie and I didn’t know what I’d say to him if I did. We’d said just about everything we could to each other already without agreeing about anything. But I had to try.

And I laughed at myself—grimly. As angry and frustrated as I was at Arie, I had to laugh. I was secretly proud of him. Just as I had seen in the journals, he was bright and audacious. And with these qualities he had beckoned me out into the streets to search for answers, to seek the truth, to join in acts of subversion and rebellion. He was strong. He was smart. How could I be anything but proud?

When it was dark, and as I approached the town square, I saw small knots of young people here and there. They weren’t strolling or socializing or laughing. They huddled in the shadows between the buildings and scuttled from one dark place to the next.

The wind was blowing harder now, and there were flashes of sheet lightning in the clouds overhead, creating snapshots of time along my way: three boys watching and pointing at a patrol car two blocks up the road, a Lotus cop leaning on the fender of his car, arms folded.

I knew that I’d never simply run into Arie walking around the town this way, but I also knew that one of these kids lurking in the shadows might lead me to him. And so I walked slowly and quietly toward a cluster of the young people standing at the back of a low office building where the street lamps cast a dark shadow. But as I crossed the street to reach them, they suddenly and conspicuously dispersed, each walking in a different direction.

“Wait,” I said, breaking into a run. “I just want to ask you—” I stammered.

But they made no answers and fled.

There were two others not far away, walking at a determined pace toward the park, so I hustled over and fell in behind them. I walked fast, and after a block or so I was only fifty or so feet behind—almost close enough for them to hear me if I spoke. I redoubled my pace, but they suddenly veered into the park where there was a copse of closely spaced trees. I jogged up to find them, but they too had vanished into the blackness.

It was pointless, of course. Arie was too smart to be found unless he wanted to be, and the thunderstorm had grown so potent and heavy overhead.

And so I turned for home and saw no one else until a Lotus security car pulled up next to me on the street.

The driver lowered his window and hung his arm out the door. “Hey there, ma’am,” he said.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Everything okay?” said the driver. “Noticed you’ve been kinda crisscrossing the area here. Is there a problem?”

“No. No problem,” I said, glancing at him. He wore a Lotus uniform. “I’m just walking.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ve heard we’re kind of on alert at the moment. We’re getting reports about altercations, property damage, stuff like that.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard,” I said. “It’s too bad.”

“Right,” said the officer, “but I guess my point is you might want to head home and stay in tonight. Gonna rain anyhow.”

“Right. Sure. I’m on my way home now.”

“Sounds good, ma’am.” He tipped his cap. “Have a nice night.”

I walked quickly home, noticing there were more sirens now. Thunder pealed and there was more lightning. The thunder boomed and rumbled and made me flinch. Waves of rain passed over. Two patrol cars raced past me in the darkness, obviously on their way to the scene of some new disturbance. It began to rain steadily as I returned to my house. As I approached the walkway, I saw immediately that something wasn’t quite right.

Someone had broken out the front windows and kicked the door open. Across the front of the house, painted in blood-red letters two feet high, someone had scrawled expletives and epithets. On the front door were the words FORGET THIS.

I went in.

“Arie?” I yelled. “Arie, are you here?”

Inside it was all dark. I flipped a light switch, but it appeared that all the light fixtures had been broken. I went from switch to switch, trying to find one that worked. The floors were littered with broken glass and rubbish. Most of the furniture had been overturned. There were holes kicked into the walls, and there was more profanity and graffiti in red paint.

At last I found a reading lamp on the floor in the living room. It had been knocked over but the light bulb was intact. I set it upright and turned it on.

“Hello, Alison,” said a voice.

A woman was sitting in the living room.

I yelped a little, startled. “Who are you?” I demanded.

“It’s me, Donna,” she said.

The woman wore large eyeglasses with thick lenses. This gave her the appearance of an owl in a frumpy cardigan. I judged her to be in her late fifties. She had a very petite frame, and she was even shorter than me. She stood up from the chair.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded as rain water dripped down my face.

“Did you get my notes?” she asked, sounding incredulous. “You’re hurting my feelings, Alison. Why are you acting like you don’t know me?”

“Because I don’t,” I said.

“So you didn’t get my notes.”

“Wait, you left me the notes?” I asked.

“Of course. Who else?”

“What did you say your name was?”

She harrumphed and blinked behind her big lenses. “Alison, I’m Donna.”

“Donna!” I cried. “The notebooks. Donna! Yes! You have an RV. And cats. And books. You used to live at an abandoned drive-in movie theater.”

“I still live there,” she said with a little shrug. She looked at me curiously. “You remember now?”

“Well, in a way, yes. I wrote everything down—I mean, yes, of course I remember. Yes. You’re Donna!”

She nodded and said, “Yes, I know that.”

“Yes, yes,” I cried. And before I knew what I was doing, I threw my arms around her.

She received the embrace rather stiffly, as though it were some ritual that she acknowledged but was not overly fond of. I kept it short and when I released her, she stepped back conspicuously to re-establish her personal space.

The notebooks didn’t say whether I’d ever fully trusted Donna or not. It was hard to know if the Agency even knew about her. I never knew where she stood, and I’d even speculated that she was a little unstable, but it occurred to me that if I had mistrusted her I would have said so in my journals. Or at least I hoped that was the case.

“You stopped visiting,” Donna complained.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “There’s been so much going on. And that was such a long time ago.”

“I see you’ve had a little trouble here,” she said, nodding her head at the room.

“Yeah,” I said. “Trouble seems to follow me.”

“I’ll be quick, then,” said Donna, “though I’m pleased to see you again, and to find out that we can still be friends.”

“Wait, Donna, wait,” I said holding up a hand. “Do you know Ruby? Or Chase?”

“The mountain people? Yes. I know lots of people.”

“So, are you part of them? You don’t live in Lotus?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“Well, how did you find me? How did you get here?”

“As I said, I know a lot of people. I asked around. It’d been so long since we’d spoken. I had to find you. I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

From a canvas book bag at her side she produced a red notebook and handed it to me. On the front there was a rough, curious drawing of a skull with a compass or clock face, apparently scrawled white into the red cover with a pencil eraser, then traced with an ink pen.

“I think you lost this,” she said.

“Another notebook?” I asked.

“You were always wanting notebooks.”

I opened it up. It was filled with page after page of numbers. Every line was just a series of numbers. Perhaps Donna really was crazy.

She said, “I need to go now.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay. Sure. Of course.”

“You should come and visit me. The way you used to.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

She reached into the canvas book bag and withdrew a rain slicker and umbrella. She put on the slicker and made for the ruined door, which crookedly stood open by about a foot. Donna moved through the gap without the need to open it further. I followed her and saw her umbrella pop open.

“Thank you, Donna,” I said, but she didn’t answer. I watched her disappear into the cool, wet night.

The first thing I did was search among the overturned furniture and broken things to find the notebooks. They’d been stepped on and kicked aside, but I found them all and returned them along with the red notebook into the backpack. The house was equipped with a few spare light bulbs, so I replaced a few of the broken ones and turned on some lights. Then I began to pick up the broken glass and trash and demolished flower pots. I’d started in the kitchen and had been working for only fifteen or twenty minutes when there was a knock at the front door.

“I believe it’s open,” I yelled.

I went out to see who it was. A strobe of lightning framed her for an instant in the splintered doorway, standing cool and erect and perfect.

Twenty-Six

“This is my fault more than yours,” said Rachel.

Her voice was smooth and steady. Thunder boomed and the rain hissed as her guards calmly bound me to a kitchen chair.

“Every time someone in Lotus fails,” she went on, “it’s my fault. Well. That’s not entirely true. I don’t mean every single solitary little failure, obviously. It makes no sense, for example, for me to take responsibility if some new transfer from the Zones simply cannot master the supply depot software system, and she sends five cases of baby formula to our main dairy production farm, while sending five cases of bovine-grade antibiotics to the neo-natal care wing of the hospital. That happened, you know. Last week. And the two are not interchangeable. Powdered baby milk and livestock medications, I mean. Both are very much indispensable, but one can in no way be substituted for the other.”

Rachel paced the living room floor, her high-heeled boots grinding the glass into powder. Her security guards stood by, watching impassively, not even blinking as the thunderstorm raged outside.

“But you see what I mean, don’t you? If someone has overstated his skill as a bricklayer and the gymnasium he built collapses not ten minutes after forty-two second-grade volleyball players have left—which did also happen, two months ago—there is no advantage in me taking his blame. People let me down on a very nearly daily basis around here, and I simply can’t be responsible in the strictest sense for all of them, can I? No. I can’t.” She laughed abruptly without smiling. “Do you understand where I’m going with this, Alison?”

I didn’t. But I nodded anyway. Because of the zip-ties around my hands, my head was more or less the only part of my body I could move. The security guards blinked sleepily.

“However,” said Rachel, “in this case, I feel a very real sense of my own culpability. Because I trusted you, Alison. Personally. That may have been the problem right there. It was personal. I don’t know what they were doing with you over there at the Agency. Were you a political prisoner? Some kind of symbolic exile? Were you being used as bait? Or was it some perverted revenge thing? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care.”

She ceased her pacing and stood directly in front of me. She looked at me. The stern but beautiful contours of her face were lit by a series of lightning strikes. I saw pity in her face contending with her anger.

“The only thing I knew about you, Alison, is what you’d done before they wiped your memory and stuck you with Gosford. What a creep, by the way. Gosford. Ugh. Never liked him. You know who got him put out to pasture after the whole amusement park thing, right?” She jabbed her thumb at herself. “Uh huh. I didn’t know anything about you at the time, so I had no idea what was up with him sort of like almost purchasing you, like claiming you, like a stray cat. It wasn’t until long after that that I saw what you were capable of, and I said, ‘Yes. This is the kind of soldier I need.’ Someone ready to sacrifice everything.”

With her immaculate boot, Rachel kicked at the remains of a mangled lamp on the floor. The curtains were blowing into the room from the broken windows. A few wisps of hair had strayed from Rachel’s severe up-do, and they swirled around her face in the breeze. She made a sour face at the shambles that lay around us.

“Loyalty,” she scoffed.

There was a boom of thunder overhead that rattled the house. Rachel swept the tendrils of errant hair back behind her ear with her index finger, and she was perfect again.

“Loyalty was what I was looking for, and that is what I saw in you. Pure, unbreakable. Were you loyal to the Agency? When you were in the Zones? No. No one is, obviously. There’s nothing to be loyal to, except maybe keeping your belly full and avoiding rape. They treat people like swine in the Zones. You know it, I guess. But this team of yours, that was a different matter, wasn’t it? What do they even call themselves? Nobody knows. How many members are there? Five? Six? A hundred? No one knows that, either. They don’t have a name or members; they just get things done, don’t they? God. I’m impressed by that. That impresses me. And your loyalty to them was unbreakable, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it, Alison?”

“I don’t—I really don’t know. I don’t rememb—”

“Of course you don’t remember. It was a rhetorical question. Take my word for it—it was. Your loyalty, I mean. It was unbreakable. I saw the final report on what happened to Gosford and those men he took into the amusement park.”

I could only blink up at her and listen. Lightning lit her from all angles like the firing of paparazzi camera flashes on the face of some superstar.

“And after you chased off that piece of garbage who broke into your apartment? I looked you up. You went to the mat for them, Alison, you gave them everything. Or you thought you did—it was pure luck that you weren’t successful in killing yourself along with Gosford. Do you know what I’m talking about? Have you been told, reminded? Is that what he came to your apartment for? To remind you? Don’t answer. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I thought, ah, here is someone willing to give her life for a cause. Here is an opportunity to take some of that resistance DNA and splice it into Lotus. All I had to do was plug you into my cause. Because the cause wouldn’t matter. How could it? You wouldn’t remember which side you were on before. All I had to do was treat you right, let you make a real difference, and give you a purpose.”

Although I was zip-tied to a chair, and although I was fairly certain my fate would be memory death, if not the actual kind, I couldn’t help but be impressed by Rachel’s rhetoric. I now knew how uncompromising and ruthless she really was, how she used people like building materials to be chopped up and pieced together and discarded if necessary. But I could never say she lacked the ability to inspire.

“Oh, and I would have treated you right,” she said, her voice void of any sarcasm or irony. “This desk assignment was just your initiation. After that, you could have risen as far as you pleased.”

Rachel stopped pacing again and rubbed her temples.

“But I was wrong,” she said. “About your loyalty, I mean. There’s something about your loyalty that shifts, and apparently it shifts in the same direction every time—to them. To whomever it is that is not us, if that makes sense. I counted on you when I shouldn’t have, and that, Alison, is my responsibility. That redounds to my accounts payable, so to speak. So, you see, what I’m trying to say is that what will happen to you will not be a punishment, it will be, as you know, a re-purposing. You’ll be re-purposed.”

“No,” I pleaded. “Rachel. I need another chance. It was just so much at once. Arie and the case worker assignment. I was overwhelmed. That’s all. I was—”

“You’re lying,” she said. She purred the accusation, but she said it as there came another crushing peal of thunder. “Just like you were lying when I asked you about Arie. And just as you almost surely lied about the man who broke into Gosford’s apartment. If you had come to me two weeks ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’ve known about his leanings this entire time.”

“No.”

“You’re being sent down, Alison. And you’ll be flagged. You’ll never come out of the Zones again. And I feel bad about that, not only because I will miss you personally but because things are getting worse in the Zones. You had the chance to work with me, with Lotus—to develop candidates, to rescue those who can make a difference. To shape society rather than being ground underfoot by it. I offered you a purpose—you declined. Now you’ll spend the rest of your life down there in the sewers. You’ll die there.”

“Let me find Arie first,” I shouted. “Please. I think I can find him and bring him to you.”

Rachel sighed. “Why would you do that? And why would I let you try?”

“I don’t want him to be killed in the fighting,” I said. “They don’t stand a chance. If I bring him to you, at least he’ll be in your custody. And even if you wipe his memory, he’ll be alive.”

“See?” said Rachel. “This is one reason I had so much hope for you. You are smart. You see all the angles. Oh, how I would have liked to have had you on my team. My inner circle. I wouldn’t mind having the boy back. Look at what he’s accomplished. He could be useful. Ah, but here again, I can’t trust you.”

“Of course you can. Think about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Arie’s all I care about. Even though I’ve forgotten everything at least twice and maybe more, he’s all I’ve ever cared about. You can trust me to not just run away. You can trust that I won’t stop until I find him. You may not be able to trust my loyalty to you, but you can trust my loyalty to my son. He’s my purpose.”

Twenty-Seven

Rachel gave me twenty-four hours. And she must have had supreme confidence in her own security forces and in the army she was borrowing from the Agency, because there were only two elements to the bargain she made with me.

“Bring me Arie before this time tomorrow, alive, or you’re dead.”

Rachel had a way with motivational speeches and philosophical discussions, but she was also very capable of reducing things to their essential components.

Without another word, she turned on her heel and left the house. Her security detail cut the zip-ties that held me to the chair, and they followed her out.

I rubbed at my wrists and promised myself that if I could find Arie, I’d also find a way to live that didn’t involve so much getting tied to chairs.

When I heard Rachel’s SUV drive away, I found the backpack with the notebooks inside, including the mysterious red one Donna had given me. Into the backpack I shoved some food, water, spare clothing, and a few other necessities.

The rain showed no signs of relenting. There were several bicycles left in the backyard of my house, stashed there I assumed by the young people who’d left on foot after their meeting with Arie. I walked a bike around to the front of my house, and for the second time that night, I headed for the center of town to search for my son. This time, however, I knew I’d find Arie. I knew exactly how I’d do it.

The rain continued to pelt down, and after only a mile or so, I was drenched. In the distance, among the flashing lightning, I saw the steady blaze of burning buildings near to the center of town. Above the sounds of the wind and the rain, I heard more sirens and gun fire. There were now even more people moving in the shadows, too, with their faces masked like old western bandits. Some of them carried baseball bats, tire irons, and other makeshift weapons. And we all seemed to be heading in the same direction.

I proceeded very slowly and carefully. I rode fast through the shadows when it would be difficult to see me, but I walked the bike to skirt open well-lighted areas. And I stopped and ducked into the dark places when anyone came near. The rain seemed to deepen the shadows, like all the world had been drenched in a thin layer of black paint.

As I approached the city square, I heard constant gunfire and booming noises that I was sure were not thunder. I ditched the bike and went on foot.

Even from a distance of several blocks, the city square now resembled a war zone. A small army of what I thought were Lotus cops were forming up in a line outside the sprawling city park. They were equipped with riot armor, clubs, and clear polycarbonate shields. A ragged force of young adults held the park from behind a chaotic barricade of overturned picnic tables, garbage bins, and flaming debris. Lotus patrol cars circled the park, their brilliant spotlights sweeping the rioters’ battlements like the feelers of a giant insect. The kids hurled rocks and bricks and the occasional Molotov cocktail at the troops, who retaliated by firing teargas canisters. Lit by the glare of flames and the blinding spotlights, an oily black smoke roiled up from the park, and the acrid smells of aerosol mace and burning plastic carried on the cold, wet wind.

When the Lotus cops had formed up into a long rank with their shields and clubs, they charged into the park. Some of the rioters scattered, but most of them held their ground and clashed with the troops. There were shouts and screams and I searched the melee for Arie, but I was too far away to recognize anyone.

I crept away from the park, but everywhere I went it was the same—ragged bands of marauding young rioters wrecking buildings or huddling wretchedly behind thrown-together barricades, while Lotus riot troops attempted to dislodge and disperse them. In the alleyways and behind the dark, looming office blocks, the rioters gathered and regrouped and nursed their injured.

On a corner along one of the main roads that ran through the city center, there was a cluster of brick food shops. Two young women huddled on the sidewalk in the shadow of the buildings, while a third stood with her back to the bricks, watching the street. I took them to be lookouts, probably observing movement along the main through-way. I showed myself on the street and began walking toward them in long, fast strides.

The one who was standing watch signaled the two others. They stood. One of the women hefted an ax handle and another of them had a clumsy grasp on what looked like a large knife from someone’s kitchen. The third, somewhat comically, wielded a garden shovel.

“Stop,” said one of them. “That’s close enough. Who are you?”

“Alison,” I said, still walking. I was close enough to see their faces now. “Alison Gosford.”

They hissed and muttered to each other as I approached, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Who are you really?” barked the woman again. “Don’t screw around. You could get seriously hurt.”

By now I was only fifty or so feet from them. I kept walking. The one with the kitchen knife stepped off the sidewalk and took a few steps in my direction. I walked faster.

“You better stop,” she said. “Stop and tell us who you are.”

I punched her in the nose. She dropped the knife and fell on her butt. Then she rolled onto her side and cupped her nose in both hands. I picked up the knife and held it overhand. Then I continued to the sidewalk where the other two women held up their makeshift weapons, gripping them and re-gripping them nervously.

“Didn’t anyone tell you to never bring a shovel to a knife-fight?” I asked.

The woman glanced at the shovel and looked slightly ashamed.

“You two know who Arie is?”

They locked eyes with each other for a brief moment, which I took as a yes.

“Who are you, lady?” said Ax Handle. “What do you want?”

“Take me to Arie. Right now.” I pitched the knife into the blackness. It made a thin clatter on the pavement some distance away.

“Who are you?”

“I’m his mother.”

Twenty-Eight

“What on earth are you doing here?” Arie demanded when he saw me. His face flushed hotly.

The three young and inadequately armed ladies I found on the streets of Lotus grudgingly but stealthily brought me to what appeared to be an inactive construction site at the center of town. It was a concrete office building four or five stories tall. The exterior appeared nearly complete, but the concrete interior was dusty and bare. The ground floor was tall and open and spacious, broken up by only a few concrete walls and pillars, but I was taken down a doorless staircase to the basement, where Arie and a dozen or so others had set up a secret command post in a complex of cramped utility rooms and hallways, lit by a few electric lights. A gas-powered generator puttered quietly somewhere not far off, and the cluster of rooms also served apparently as some kind of communication hub as well, because I heard radio chatter from one of the rooms.

“You’re not glad to see me?” I said in a pained attempt to lighten the mood.

He sighed wearily. “Not especially, no.”

“I had to find you,” I said.

“I told you to leave.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m your mother. I don’t take orders from you.”

I could have been mistaken, but this time it looked like he tried to suppress a smile.

“All right,” he said, “but I’ve got a lot going on here. What exactly did you think you were going to accomplish coming here? Make it quick. You know, technically, you’re the enemy.”

“Two things,” I replied. “First, I want know if there’s any chance at all of talking you out of this. This, this—revolt of yours. If there’s anything I can do or help with to get you out of here.”

“No,” said Arie, without hesitation.

I sighed. “Okay. Well, you may not want to hear this, or you may not care, but I know somewhere we can go—somewhere full of people who feel the same way you do. The same way we do, Arie.”

At this he raised an eyebrow.

“It’s up in the mountains,” I continued hastily. “They have camps. Hundreds of people. Maybe you and all of these, well, kids, can team up with them and do something more effective than setting things on fire and waiting for the Agency army to crush you.”

“I think I know who you’re talking about,” said Arie. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been in contact with them, and it might be great to team up with them, but our plans here are already underway. This isn’t my revolt. There are, well, I can’t say how many, but there are more people involved with this than anyone knows, and if we don’t go through with this plan, we won’t get another chance.”

“But you could be killed,” I cried. “You could die. Here. Tonight. Another chance for what?”

He nodded. “To change things. To live the way we want to live.”

“But if they kill you all, rebuild, and start over without you, will that be worth it?”

“We’ve all committed our lives to this,” Arie said. “If one of us backs down, the entire effort collapses.”

“What is ‘this’?” I pleaded, gesturing indistinctly in all directions. “What are you trying to accomplish, specifically?”

Arie scrutinized my face. He certainly had no reason to trust me with an explanation of plans that had probably taken the better part of a year to lay, but as I looked back at him, I knew he was about to. He beckoned me and we stepped outside onto the sidewalk.

“Okay, look. It’s the production,” Arie said. “Tomorrow, every factory in Lotus will cease to exist. Everything’s arranged. But we’ve got to hold on to the city center to make that happen.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’ve located and infiltrated just about every factory in Lotus, and we’re going to destroy every goddam one of them. Barricading ourselves into the city center is just a distraction, a cover story. They’re completely focused on us, sending all of their attacks here. Meanwhile, while we’re on strike, every factory in their system is being rigged for demolition, and as far as we can tell, they’ve got no clue. But it’s a slow process. The demo teams have to visit each production line, every factory. If we can gut Lotus logistically, they’ll have no way to keep us as prisoners.”

“Arie, this makes no sense. Blow up those factories and come with me to the mountains. You can’t stay here. They’re coming for you.”

“No, you don’t get it. We’ve got to provide cover until we can take them all down at once.”

“Why? Why does it have to be at the same time?”

“Because if we execute the plan one or two or three facilities at a time, Lotus and the Agency will figure out what we’re up to and short-circuit the plan. This distraction won’t keep their attention, and they’ll shift to securing the factories.”

“Oh, so you’re bait. That’s just great. You’re going to stay here and be overrun while your bomb people wire up the factories?”

“I think we can hold off an all-out attack on the city center until every thing’s ready. Have you looked around? This place is a disaster area. They can’t just roll through and sweep us aside. It shouldn’t be much longer. A day or two at most. As soon as those explosives start going off, Lotus will peel off of us pretty quickly, and that will allow us to run for the hills. Then maybe we can visit those friends of yours.”

“I think you’re wrong, Arie. I think they’re going to level this place with you inside it.”

It was difficult to know if Arie thought I might be right, but it was simple to see that he wasn’t backing down.

“I’m sorry, but I have to believe that in the end, we’ll win, whether or not everyone survives,” he said. “If we just surrender now, we’re truly doomed. If, on the other hand, we stick together and go down swinging, someone will carry on for us. That’s how revolutions work. They evolve. It’s not necessarily the individuals who matter. It’s the idea, the plans, the spirit.”

“That’s very noble,” I said, “but you seem to be forgetting that they can wipe memories. They can make it so no one remembers you or what you did, and no one has a reason to keep fighting. They can erase your ideas, plans, and spirit.”

Arie didn’t have an answer to this. He took me back upstairs.

I thought about all the things mothers did to keep their children safe. It starts with keeping them wrapped in blankets as infants, I thought, then moves on to preventing them from falling down stairs or burning themselves on the stove. Later, mothers try to protect them from other children, from other people—bullies and bad influences and predators. And it continues into adulthood, wanting to protect them from life’s disappointments and setbacks. It never stops. Mothers start out trying to child-proof their homes and back yards, and if they could, they would child-proof the entire world to keep their children safe.

All I wanted to do was to take Arie and get as far away from here as possible. I wanted to force him away from danger.

But I knew I couldn’t.

Because he was trying to make the world safe, too. We really just wanted the same thing, Arie and I. And so the only choice was to fight with him.

“Listen,” said Arie. “Mom.” He looked sternly into my eyes, but the hostility and skepticism were gone. He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve really got to get back to work. People are depending on me, and I’m depending on them,” he said. “What was the second thing you wanted to tell me?” Arie asked.

“I’m through with the Agency, Arie. Through with Lotus, with Rachel, with everything,” I said.

“What do you mean?” asked Arie, his face darkening.

“I mean I want to help, but I’m a dead woman walking. I’ve been given twenty-four hours,” I said. “If I don’t bring you back to Rachel within that time, she’ll have me killed. If I do bring you back, she won’t kill me, but she’ll wipe my mind and send me back to the Zones—permanently.”

“That’s insane,” said Arie. “Why?”

“Treason, I guess. I didn’t report the suspicious things you’ve said. Didn’t turn you in when I found you meeting.”

“Then you really do have to leave,” Arie exclaimed. “You have to run.”

“I can’t do that,” I said.

“I see,” he said with a sarcastic grin. “You’ve just been lecturing me about how I need to get out of here, to run. So, are you gonna let Rachel kill you? Or send you down? Mom, you’ve got to get out of here.”

“I can’t run,” I said. “I can’t just run away.”

“I get it,” he said. “So, what are you going to do?”

There was someone I could turn to, I thought. Someone who might be able to help, if I could find him in time.

“I think I might have a way to help us all,” I said, “but I need to borrow a car.”

Twenty-Nine

It took all night and much of the next morning to sneak me out of Lotus and arrange for a vehicle. I’d read in the journals that Chase was known for his ability to scrounge up supplies and material such as vehicles. And he was apparently better than Arie’s people because the best they could do was a decrepit old Honda. The odometer didn’t turn but had frozen at 299,999 miles. The motor was just about whipped, and it chattered loudly even when I drove slowly.

I arrived at my destination just as the sun was going down. I made my way through the barricades with an unsettling lack of scrutiny, and when I reached the front door, I wasn’t sure if I should knock first or just walk on in. One could argue that this was, technically, still my home.

I put my hand on the knob. It was unlocked. I opened it, and a moment later I was standing at the doorway of my old dining room.

“Hello, Gary,” I said.

He was at the table with his dinner laid out before him. Lasagna, it looked like. He’d spread a checked tablecloth, and he sat with a napkin in his lap. He’d poured a glass of the cheap, vinegary wine the Agency circulated in its vain attempt at making its officers feel civilized. It was all so proper and formal, I almost laughed.

For the briefest moment, Gary looked at me in what could only be called unconcealed astonishment, a forkful of lasagna halfway between his plate and mouth. But then, in his sly and practiced way, Gary banished the surprised expression and replaced it in an instant with the smug, almost sleepy expression he always wore when he knew he had the upper hand.

“So,” said Gary in what I knew was the very blandest tone he could manage, “you’re back.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Gary looked away contemptuously and placed the bite of food in his mouth. He chewed deliberately, as if I wasn’t standing in the room with him.

“Gary, this is going to sound crazy, but I need your help.”

He said nothing. Instead, he swallowed, set his fork down, dabbed his lips with the napkin, and with a flourish placed it on his lap again. Then he lifted his glass and slowly drank what remained in it. All of this without speaking or even looking in my direction. He set the wine glass down, patted his lips again with the napkin, and took up the fork again.

In a mocking tone he said, “Oh, dear. How rude of me. Would you like to join me?” He gestured with the fork to the table. “There’s plenty for us both.”

“No. Gary, please. I don’t have time for this.”

“Time for what, Alison?”

“I don’t have time to try to—I don’t even know—reconcile?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to keep you.” He took another bite of his dinner, again chewing slowly and then setting the fork on the plate.

“Gary—”

He held up a prohibitive hand. He refreshed his glass from the wine bottle and took a drink. When the lasagna on his plate was gone, he carefully mopped up the remaining sauce with a hunk of bread and ate it. Then he washed it down with a final draining of his glass. He next emitted a satisfied, “Ahhh,” and moved his napkin from his lap to the plate.

He faced me. “You were saying?”

“I need your—”

He raised his hand again to silence me. He’d furrowed his brow and tongued his teeth and cheek. After a moment, with his hand still raised, he stood and limped into the kitchen. He returned with a toothpick and made a show of working at his gumline to remove some particle of food. Finally satisfied, he sucked at his teeth and tossed the toothpick on the table. Then he poured himself more wine.

“Of course you need my help,” he said, standing then limping toward me.

I made way and Gary shuffled into the living room.

“Won’t you sit down?” he asked. “Unless you’re in a hurry to go.”

I sat on the couch. He remained standing.

“I knew you’d come running back here at the first sign of trouble,” said Gary. He swirled the wine around in his glass.

My pulse felt a bit thready. This had been my home. The familiar sights and smells and even the way the light played on the walls and furniture brought me back to that time when I felt each day that I might simply fall over dead from Gary’s treatment of me. How long ago it felt, and yet here I was, back again. But it wasn’t my home any longer, and I grudged myself for ever letting Gary contain me here.

Still, there was no way to ask what I wanted to ask without enduring his gloating, his crow-plucking.

Gary finished his wine with a gulp and set his glass on the coffee table.

“Please make yourself at home,” he said. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” He turned and limped into the hallway that led to his bedroom.

When he returned, Gary held a small steel box. He sat on the couch beside me and set the box on the coffee table. He opened it, and inside there was a pistol. He lifted it from the box and the barrel was pointed in my general direction. He must have seen me quail at the sight of it.

“Oh,” said Gary. “This? Don’t worry. It’s just overdue for a cleaning. You don’t mind if I work while we talk?”

“Gary, I—”

“Good. Now. I believe you were saying you need my help.” He began to take the pistol apart, placing the pieces on the coffee table.

“It’s Arie,” I said. “He’s gotten involved in an uprising in Lotus. And the Agency is sending troops to annihilate them.”

Gary scratched his chin. “Yes,” he said, “so I’ve heard. The troops have been massing for the past forty-eight hours. Maybe longer.”

“Can it be stopped?” I asked. “Is there something you can do?”

He wiped each piece of the gun, holding them close to his face, as a thorough inspection was important.

“Not sure. What do you think I could do?”

“I don’t know. There are lots of young people involved. Is there someone you could report it to? I know you’re still in an advisory role of some sort.”

Gary said nothing but took a metal rod tipped with a brass brush and contemplatively ran it down the unpieced barrel of the pistol.

“Gary, please—”

“Alison,” he interrupted, “I’m flattered that you think I hold some kind of sway in these matters, but I have no real power in the Agency. Maybe before—” here he examined his withered hand with a forlorn expression “—but now? No. They don’t ask me what they should do, and I don’t presume to tell them.”

“They’ll listen to you. They still respect you. Wouldn’t they listen to you? File a complaint. Or an injunction. Or simply tell the officers that it’s kids they’re going to be fighting. Maybe they’ll refuse to mobilize, or maybe they’ll stall or hesitate. I think Rachel is going to tell them to roll in there and shoot on sight, to just gun them all down. Isn’t there something you could do? Someone you could contact?”

Gary shrugged. “Oh, perhaps. But the question then becomes, why? What’s in it for me?”

“They’re just kids, Gary. It’s the right thing to do.”

He rolled his eyes.

“My god, Gary. You Agency people sit up here and dose those poor phantoms down in the Zones. You act like gods and you treat them like cockroaches.” I leveled this at Gary with the iciest tone I could summon, but the words made me cold, too. “If you have any humanity, think about several hundred kids over there in Lotus about to be slaughtered. You’re telling me you won’t lift a finger to stop it?”

“Maybe. Difficult to say.”

“Would you do it for me?”

Gary snorted. “For you?”

“I’m your wife, aren’t I?”

He gave me a hard look.

“Or am I? Why’d you do it, Gary? Why’d you say we were married when we weren’t? Someone gave me my journals. I know everything about that year. I know about us, and I’ve figured out the rest. You nearly died after that explosion. Why on Earth would you bring me here and say we were married?”

Gary began to reassemble the pistol with obvious haste.

“You know,” he said, pausing to lick his lips, “you have no right to question me. To question what I’ve done.”

His voice was low but there was a tremble in it, a ragged edge. He gritted his teeth as, piece by piece, the dark metal components became a pistol again. When he was finished, he took an ammo clip from the box and slipped it into the magazine well in the handle.

“How dare you, Alison. How dare you come into my home demanding answers and telling me what to do.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not that.”

“You have no idea what I’ve gone through. The way I pushed myself. You’re right. The explosion nearly killed me, but you don’t know the agony I went through. When I woke up, the air was filled with the most putrid odor. I vomited, it made me so sick. Do you know what it was? It took me a while to realize it was the smell of my own burnt flesh and hair and the smell of my clothing melted to my skin.”

“I understand that you suffered,” I tried to say.

“You understand nothing!” he bellowed.

The gun was in his hand and his finger was on the trigger. I could only wait for him to pull the trigger.

“They didn’t find me,” he hissed. “Not at first. Not for several hours. I was thrown, see. A long way, Alison. Left for dead. I had to crawl I-don’t-know-how-far to get noticed, dragged myself across that rubble and glass and weeds to get their attention.”

I winced at this.

“And they found me,” he jabbered on, “but that’s not where the story ends, either. The skin grafts, the operations, the infections—I prayed for death. I still hurt all the time. All the time!”

He stood.

“Somewhere between the misery of wanting to live and the hope of death, I realized that I had to address the source. You.” Here he pointed the pistol at my forehead as though it were an extension of his hand and finger. “Every time I wanted to give up, I pictured your face. Every time I fell down, I pictured you.”

He pointed the gun at me again. But then he took a step toward me, bent down, and took my hand. Gently. He then turned my hand over and placed the gun in my palm. It sat there cold against my skin.

“I knew I was stronger than you, Alison. And I had to remember that,” he growled barely contained rage. “That’s why I brought you here. To make sure I never forgot that I am strong. I am stronger and I am better than you. And you didn’t take anything from me. Do you understand? Answer me!”

He stood over me, leaning down and shouting into my face.

“Answer me!”

I shrank from him. He overturned the coffee table, swept the lamp from the table by the couch. Veins stood out on his face and neck, and spittle flew from his lips as he screamed at me to answer him.

I gripped the gun and pointed the muzzle at him. “No, I won’t answer you!” I yelled back at him. “Because it doesn’t make any sense! I did what I did to protect my son from you, and I’m still sorry that it had to happen! But you. You’re twisted. You can’t get over the fact that I beat you, that I won, that you got what was coming to you. You’re so twisted with rage and revenge you’re barely a person anymore. I’m sorry you were hurt, but you took my son from me!”

“No!” he screamed. “You’re not sorry! You don’t even remember it! How can someone who doesn’t remember something feel remorse for it?”

He drew nearer until the gun jabbed into his chest.

“Do it,” he growled. “Pull the trigger!”

I dropped the gun and shrank away until I was practically burrowing into the cushions of the couch. Gary remained there for a short while longer, bent over me, panting and trembling with fury. Then he stood upright. He lifted his chin and ran his good hand through his hair and over his face. He straightened his shirt.

“You see? You’re not stronger than me. You’re afraid of me,” he said, still short of breath. “Me. A crippled-up, washed-up wretch.” He scoffed at me.

I said nothing.

“You don’t understand any of it, do you?” he spat. “Of course you don’t. How could you? You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be humiliated, emasculated, thrown aside.”

“Grow up, Gary,” I said, getting up from the couch. “We all have pain. We all have scars. You use yours as an excuse for being dark and terrible. You blame me, but the truth is you’re weak and too afraid to face your own mistakes and shortcomings. You’re a little man. I don’t need my memories or journals to see that.”

“Get out of here,” Gary hissed. “Do your Lotus people know you’re here? Does Rachel know? I bet she doesn’t. I should call security and have them turn you over to her.”

He couldn’t have known I was living exclusively on borrowed time now, and that my contract with Rachel would expire within an hour or so. But the mere mention of Rachel chilled my blood, and I backed toward the door.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I’ll go.”

“Then get out! Get out! Get out!” he pawed around in the cushions of the couch and found the gun.

I opened the door and fled down the hallway, gunshots ringing out behind me.

Thirty

I’d seen the armored vehicles and troop trucks moving around and gathering when I’d first driven the old Honda into the Agency apartment block, and Gary had confirmed my worst fears of an enormous military force assembling. But in the twilight, the scale of the troop movements could be seen even more clearly. I saw vehicle headlights everywhere. More than I’d ever seen. The sounds and odor of diesel engines were thick in the air. It had to be a collection of troops and vehicles from multiple Zones and Agency installations, and to me it looked like they needed only a signal to move out.

Oddly, with the gathering of so many troops and military vehicles, the checkpoints around the Agency facilities stood empty or were manned by soldiers who simply waved me through.

Without Gary’s help, there was only one person left to contact. I had to find Donna.

Armored vehicles and trucks and troops lined the main roads, but they seemed to pay me no mind. They seemed eager to get on to their more important mission.

It turned out that the journals were of only a little help in finding Donna. My entries contained vague directions, but I didn’t find the drive-in by following them. Driving out yet another abandoned and ruined road, I spotted the giant movie screens in the distance, tattered and falling apart.

I turned and drove there as quickly as the worn-out old Honda could carry me over the neglected roadways. At last I drove into the vast empty parking lot and stopped with a harsh, gravely skid.

The setting sun shone redly on the looming screens. Beneath them was parked the white and gold Winnebago. I had at least accurately described the old RV, for it was just as I had imagined it. I ran to the door and mounted the wooden steps. Then I pounded on the door as hard as I could.

No one answered.

A cat sat in front of the closed blinds in the window.

“Donna,” I yelled. “Donna, it’s me, Alison. Are you home?”

No answer. Where in the world could she be?

I ran back to the car and retrieved one of the notebooks. It had a blank page or two. In the rapidly dwindling daylight, using the Honda’s hood for a desk, I wrote Donna a long letter. I folded it carefully and inserted it into her front door in a way I hoped wouldn’t be missed.

Before I left, I stood on the rickety wooden stoop and shouted her name a few more times, in case she was close by. The cat in the window watched me, blinking serenely.

“Come home, Donna,” I whispered. “Please come home soon.”

Thirty-One

As I drove away from the Agency Zones, I saw the military vehicles were at last beginning to move. When I drove over a hill or into a long, straight section of road, I could see dozens of headlights formed into long twinkling chains behind me.

There must be hundreds of vehicles, I thought, carrying what must be a thousand troops, just miles behind me.

The invasion was underway.

I pushed the little Honda to its limits (which were not impressive), and soon the troops vanished out of sight. They would travel more slowly, I reasoned, but they could not fall much more than an hour behind me.

It was in the small cold hours when I approached Lotus. When I was still a few miles away from the first Lotus security gate, where I’d met the friendly guard on that first day with Rachel, I ditched the Honda, cinched on the backpack, and began walking.

If I hoofed it fast, I reasoned, I could be in the city limits in an hour, hopefully just ahead of the advancing Agency army. I could already see the flickering glare of the fires and police vehicles. I hurried through the pre-dawn darkness, along the edges of Lotus’s tidy soy and sugar beet fields. From there I climbed into the low foothills so that I could drop down into town through the Lotus border fences, which I hoped would be unpatrolled at that moment of disorder. From the foothills, the town center looked like a smoldering crater left by some massive meteor impact. There were fires and clusters of strobing police vehicles, and a column of smoke rose into the pinkening sky. Somewhere in that disaster Arie was hunkered down.

I realized with a discouraging suddenness that I could not remember how long it had been since I had slept. When had it been? A day or two ago? When had I last slept happily? Contently? More than a week or so, I thought, when I was still kidding myself about Rachel’s plan to rebuild society. But even then I was plagued by insomnia. And before that, when I was with Gary, I seldom slept at all.

I felt suddenly weary, as though somehow I just did not deserve the pleasure of deep, uninterrupted slumber, and would simply never know what it was like.

Arie must have passed around information about me, because when I was able to make my way far enough into Lotus to contact one of the young rioters, he knew exactly who I was and he immediately abandoned his post and spirited me through the barricades.

He said his name was Brady. He was older than Arie, perhaps in his mid-twenties. He had black hair cut very short, and large, brown eyes. I asked him what had happened in the past day.

“We’ve taken control of practically the whole city center,” said Brady. “Some of the bigger teams demolished a few buildings, cut some of the roads completely. We’re dug in pretty good now. Like an Alabama tick. The Lotus cops don’t seem to know what to do, but we’re hearing rumors that the Agency army is on its way.”

“It is,” I said. “They can’t be more than an hour or so behind me.”

“I don’t know how we’ll perform against real soldiers,” said Brady. “Security forces are one thing, but if they bring in mechanized troops and armored vehicles, our barricades won’t hold up for very long.”

“What do you know about the demolition teams?”

He seemed surprised that I knew anything about that.

“Well, we’ll know just as soon as they’re done,” said Brady. “There are I think nine factories right here close to the city—food processing plants, a textile mill, the water treatment plants, and of course the arms factory where this all started. As soon as the demo teams are ready, signal or no, the local factories and facilities will go off like World War Infinity.”

We reached Arie’s basement headquarters just as dawn broke. Arie was down there, cloistered in a small, dark room with a table stacked with a motley spread of radios and transmitters wired to a transmitter in a room with a window somewhere. Tiny lights winked red and green and gold. It looked like an electronic Christmas tree.

In the cold light of a fluorescent lantern, Arie sat on an old folding chair so rusted and broken down it looked like it might not hold his weight for another minute. He had his feet up on the table and his hands laced across his middle. As I approached, I saw that he was cat-napping. But he opened his eyes when I knocked on the door frame. He stood when he saw me and gave me a quick hug. It was only a simple gesture, but meant everything to me in that chilly, bone-tired morning.

“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” he said.

Arie introduced himself to Brady and thanked him for helping me. Then Arie asked him to stay.

“We can use all the help here that I can get,” said Arie.

Brady said, “I’d be honored. I already know some of your crew. I’ll let them know I’m moving in. It was good to meet you both.” He went out of the room and up the stairs.

Arie turned to me and said, “Part of me hoped you’d just go. Just go and get away to somewhere safe.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” I said, “you’re stuck with me.”

“I guess that’s okay.”

Arie explained that he and the other leaders of the Lotus revolt were scattered throughout the city and there were a few in hills nearby. He said he’d taken on the task of coordinating radio communication for as long as possible.

“When the real attack comes,” Arie explained, “we might have to bug out of this building. Look at this—” he pointed at a red plastic toggle switch mounted to his main HAM transmitter “—this entire set-up is rigged to short out violently if I flip this switch.”

“All that work, and you’re just gonna melt it down with the flip of a switch, eh?”

“I hope I don’t have to.” The lantern cast deep, sullen shadows onto his face. “We’ll stay as long as we can, but we can’t just give them our comms net.”

Arie went on to explain that he had twenty people in the building to defend his command post and the radios. Most of them were stationed in the upper floors, watching for the arrival of the Agency’s forces. The rest of the rioters, he said, were spread across the city in small, autonomous bands.

“Basically,” explained Arie, “we’re each independently in charge of getting ourselves out of here alive.”

I nodded approvingly, but a heavy, black stone was forming in my gut.

“So, what happened with you?” Arie asked.

“I spoke to Gary,” I said. “He wasn’t open to the idea of helping. It was a stupid idea to go to him. Waste of time.”

Arie shrugged. “We have to leverage every resource. Have the Agency troops mobilized?”

“Oh, yes. Definitely,” I said. “I saw them.”

“Then it was good you went,” he said. “I’ve gotten some second and third-hand reports, but nothing definite until now.”

“They’ll be here any time.” I told Arie everything I’d seen as I was leaving Agency territory. Vehicle and weapon types and rough counts I’d made. He produced a pencil and wrote notes on a pad of paper.

“I think they’ve gathered troops and vehicles from more than one Agency Zone,” I told him. “Maybe several. I lived there for a year and never saw that many vehicles. It really is an army.”

“Well, I think we have more troops than they think. I have a lot of confidence in these people.”

A series of conversations and reports began to crackle between the radios, different patrols and observation points checking in on the hour and reporting to each other. Arie put a finger to his lips and listened. He flipped his notebook to a clean page and made more notes. Several people gave reports directly to him. There was a great deal of static and electronic noise. Arie acknowledged and answered the reports, all the while scribbling notes. He relayed information between teams who could not transmit to each other, then he disseminated the info I’d given him.

“Pass the word,” he said into his mic. “Agency attack is imminent.” Then he set down the mic and sighed.

“What do we do now?”

“Nothing,” he replied. “It’s just a waiting game, really. As soon as the demo teams report that all facilities are ready to blow, we’ll give a signal and then disperse as best we can. Once the explosions start, I think they’ll pull back pretty dramatically. Then we’ll run like hell.”

“I saw the convoys. It looked to me like they had plenty of firepower to keep the city surrounded even if they sent half their strength away to check on the already-destroyed factories. I really hate to be a Debbie-Downer here, but are you sure we can get out of here once the plan goes off? I mean you’re armed with baseball bats and kitchen knives. I saw a girl with a shovel.”

“You realize we’ve got guns, right?” asked Arie.

“What? Wait. You’ve got guns?” I struggled to decide if this made me feel more confident or less so.

Arie gave me an incredulous look. “Of course we have guns. We’re armed to the teeth. What did you think we were planning to use? Harsh language and garden tools?”

“I just haven’t seen anyone with a gun.”

“Good,” said Arie with a nod. “We thought it’d be best to stash them until the real fighting starts. The Lotus cops have not seemed interested in shooting at us because we’re not shooting at them. There have been a few exceptions, some casualties. But right now we’re keeping that ace up our sleeve.”

My mouth opened, but then I realized that I was about to say: “I don’t approve of you using guns, young man.” It was just too absurd to say, so I shut up and we sat in silence.

I thought: we should be getting into disputes about whether you can borrow the car for the weekend, son, or what college you should go to. I’m your mom, I thought. You’re my son. We shouldn’t be having arguments about the use of deadly force. I kept this to myself.

Then I thought: we are together for now, at any rate, and maybe someday we can have a normal mom-son argument. I’m looking forward to that, I thought. Yes, maybe someday, when the world has rid itself of this darkness, and when it’s no longer night, we’ll be able to do the things moms and their kids are supposed to do.

The radios hissed and crackled, and there were occasional clipped conversations between teams. The lights winked green and red.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” said Arie. “I could find someone who could get you away from here, though that will get a little more difficult when the Agency moves in.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Yeah?” he said with a sleepy, sarcastic grin. “You gonna stick around?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Is that all right?”

“Definitely.”

Morning was breaking. Sunlight slanted in down the staircase and brightened the dark basement. We went upstairs to warm ourselves. It would have been a beautiful day, but the sky was marred by black columns of smoke.

“You read all the journals?” I asked.

“I did.”

“We used to ride bikes through the empty neighborhoods, searching.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” Arie chuckled. “What were we looking for?”

“My journals say that was your idea, if I recall correctly.”

“Yeah. That is my recollection as well.”

“It sounds like it was a great mysterious adventure,” I said wistfully. “Riding around, breaking in, looking. Sounds fun. I mean except for the part about almost getting shot by patrols.”

“And mauled by wild dogs,” added Arie, pulling back his sleeve and pointing at the scars that confirmed the stories.

“Sure,” I said, chuckling, “that, too.”

“What on earth could I have been searching for?” he said, looking more closely at the jagged, livid marks.

I shrugged. “Maybe someday we’ll remember.”

Thirty-Two

The day passed slowly. The order had gone out to take up arms, and I watched with my heart in my throat as the people in Arie’s command post produced their hidden cache of rifles and machineguns. Arie fetched himself a pistol with a small belt pouch of spare ammo magazines. He gave me one just like it. Most of the others had assault rifles and sub-machineguns, most of which were manufactured—in secret, Arie said—at the factory where he’d worked.

“These are ours,” said Arie. “We built them.”

Still, no one seemed sure about what to expect. Would the Agency swarm into the area with troops and vehicles? Would they wait until night and infiltrate quietly?

In the afternoon, spotters reported that Agency vehicles were moving into position, surrounding the city center and blocking any egress. An hour or so later we heard gunfire and received reports that small patrols of Agency soldiers were slipping through the perimeter, drawing fire and provoking skirmishes.

I slept a little but jerked awake at practically any noise louder than a footfall. Arie mostly stayed below by his radios, taking hourly reports and spreading information to the other teams and leaders. As the afternoon passed to evening, the reports of small-arms clashes increased. The sounds of gunfire and explosions both near and far were almost constant now.

“They’re just probing us,” said Arie, “trying to figure out how many of us there are, and where we are.”

“No word from the demolition teams?”

He shook his head.

“Do you think something happened? Like they got captured or killed?”

Arie shook his head, but I knew he was weighing the same thought, and this chilled me. Without that part of the plan, I was sure that the Agency army would simply exterminate everyone inside the perimeter. We were nothing but a hoard of ragged rebels encircled by ten thousand tons of weaponry.

We languished in the command post until well past midnight. Guards were set and patrols were sent out, but whereas we were almost at the very center of town, Arie’s people met no patrols, and there came no generalized or large-scale attacks.

Feeling that the night might pass without major trouble, I pulled my arms into my jacket, found a corner at the top of the stairs where I could sit and slouch, and dozed off.

I awoke to an explosion that seemed to heave the entire earth’s surface ten feet into the air.

And there was another. I heard the Lotus kids shouting in panic. Then more explosions. Arie was bellowing orders from down the stairs, but they were lost in the cacophony.

When I’d gathered my wits, I joined Arie in the radio room. He stood in the stark buzzy light of the fluorescent lamp. His lantern had been knocked over and so had his chair, and together they cast a ghastly network of skeletal shadows across everything. Arie spoke into his mic in a frenzied voice, then strained to hear the replies over the din.

He turned to me between transmissions. “Mortars,” he said. “They’re softening us up with short-range artillery. They’ll attack soon. Maybe at first light. Be ready for anything.”

A mortar struck the building somewhere high above and shook us so violently that we were knocked from our feet. The tower of radios wobbled crazily. Several more shells impacted close by, followed by a terrific crashing sound from above, like a hailstorm of bricks. Cracks had formed in the concrete wall and floor of the small room. Dust rained down from the ceiling with each impact, as if the building were falling apart particle by particle. The dusty haze hung harshly illuminated in the air. Round after round struck. We staggered to keep on our feet and keep the radios from toppling.

Brady appeared. He was thoroughly coated in powdered concrete, and his nose and ears were bleeding. In the eerie electric light he looked like some horrific walking corpse.

“The whole west side of the building is gone,” he stated frankly. “Stewart and Rodrigo are dead,” he added, again impressively calm. “And I can’t find Ignacia.”

“Tell everyone to get to ground level and get behind cover,” said Arie. “This won’t last much longer. They’ll lift their fire and then come after us on foot. We gotta be ready for that.”

Brady nodded and darted away.

“We should get ready to move,” I said.

“No, we’re solid. I’ve got twenty people up there shooting from behind concrete.”

“Well, twenty minus three, Arie.”

He clenched his jaw and turned his attention back to the radios. Urgent reports flooded in. It felt as though everyone was simply waiting for death. And then, all at once, it was quiet. A few seconds ticked by. Then a few more.

“They’ve stopped,” I said, turning my head upward.

“No,” said Arie. “They’re just getting started. Come on.” We went upstairs. “Everyone get ready!” he shouted. “Here they come.”

As Brady had reported, the western side of the building was now a rubble slide. Parts of the other walls were still standing but were blasted through by ragged voids, and the windows gaped, their glass shattered. We took up positions at the windows. In the dim light, clouds of smoke and dust drifted between the buildings. Everything was still. I peered into the shadows.

“Look!” I shouted.

In the moonlight, I saw squads of dark-clad troops creeping up the street in our direction. The Lotus kids opened fire, and I saw a few of the Agency troops fall and falter back. But within a few moments they returned fire, and I realized how outnumbered we were.

Bullets slammed into the building, sending concrete and brick fragments flying. I saw another squad of Agency soldiers coming toward us from another alley. I fired at them, and they dodged out of sight. Arie called out orders, spotting the incoming troops and shouting directions.

“Brady, watch the right side! They’re coming up through the alleyway!”

Enemy fire was pouring into the ground floor of the building. The concrete walls and floors were disintegrating almost before my eyes, like a swarm of insane rock-eating locust had descended on us.

“We’ve got to move,” I shouted at Arie. “We’ve got to fall back!”

“No, it’s way too soon!” he shouted back. “Keep firing! I’m going to the radio room to see if we can get some help!”

He sprang up and ran for the staircase, but bullets were snapping and crackling thickly through the air. I raised my hand to pull Arie back down, but he was already halfway to the staircase.

Then he spun around and staggered limply and I knew he’d been hit. He collapsed at the staircase.

Keeping myself practically on the floor, I crawled frantically to where Arie lay writhing in pain. His face was drawn up tight. A volley of gunfire strafed the floor very near me, raising gritty little columns of pulverized concrete.

“Arie!” I cried. “How bad is it? Let me see!”

He only muttered and clutched at his chest and shoulder.

Another burst of automatic gun fire struck the floor nearby. I knew we couldn’t stay there on the floor. I dragged Arie further into the building and into the cover of a column of concrete.

“You know, I think you might be right,” he grunted.

“What?”

“We should move now.”

“I’ll tell the others,” I said.

“Kill the radios first,” he mumbled. His eyelids fluttered.

“Arie!” I said again. “Stay awake!”

“Hurry,” Arie repeated. “The radios.”

I crawled to the staircase and scampered down into the radio room. There in the fluorescent glare was the red toggle. I heard the static-haunted cries and urgent pleas of the Lotus kids. How many of them were there? How many would there be when the sun came up?

I flipped the toggle. There was a loud crackle of wild electricity, a shower of blinding white sparks, and the radios went silent. I grabbed my backpack and went back upstairs.

I knelt by him. “Arie! Still with me?”

“I’m not sure,” he groaned. “I feel awful.”

I tried to examine him, to find his wound, but it was too dark. All I knew was that he was covered with blood.

“We have to fall back now,” I said.

“You go,” he said woozily, fumbling for his pistol. “I’ll stay here and cover your ass.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

I raced between the firing positions of the Lotus kids and told them we were moving out, then returned to Arie.

“Time to go,” I said. Then I put my hands under his armpits and hauled him to a standing position. He steadied himself by clutching a fistful of my jacket in his bloody fist.

The others gathered to us. There were only four of them now. Arie wobbled a little, then sat down hard, legs splayed out and his back to the column. The kids kept their weapons at the ready.

“Arie’s hit,” I said. “But we’ve got to fall back.”

“Which way is ‘back’?” asked a girl who wore her brunette hair in pigtails and held her assault rifle braced on her hip.

“Anywhere they’re not shooting,” said Arie. “That way.” He gestured vaguely to the south.

Brady stepped forward and asked, “Where are you hit, man?”

“I don’t even know,” said Arie, coughing. “My whole body hurts.”

“Let me bind him up,” Brady said to me. “If we don’t stop the bleeding, he’ll be passed out in five minutes and dead in fifteen.”

We laid Arie down in the rubble and someone switched on a small flashlight. Arie was pallid and shivering. Brady tore open Arie’s blood-soaked jacket, then his shirt. I took out my water bottle and rinsed his chest and shoulder, and we saw the wound.

“Ooh, that’s gonna hurt in the morning,” said Brady. “But we’re in luck. It’s in and out. Look: entry, exit. Broken clavicle, soft-tissue trauma. You’ll be playing tennis in eight weeks.”

“What are you, some kind of army medic?” I asked.

Brady pressed his lips into a hard line and sighed. “I’m no medic,” he said, gesturing with his head to the gunfire outside. “But I used to be one of them.”

Arie feebly poked Brady in the chest with his index finger and said, “I knew you’d come in handy.”

“I got no med kit,” said Brady. “We need something for a bandage.”

“How ’bout a t-shirt?” I said.

“Perfect,” said Brady.

I clawed around in my bag and found the shirts I’d packed.

Brady unsheathed a hunting knife and cut the t-shirts into long strips. With these he applied a pressure dressing to Arie’s wound.

“Pretty basic,” said Brady.

“This is taking too long,” Arie said. “I’ll be okay now. You guys go. Give me a rifle. I’ll cover you.”

“Just another second,” said Brady.

He adjusted the dressing while I gave Arie a few gulps of my water. Brady shucked his coat and carefully helped Arie put it on. He was still pale, but his breathing was not so ragged now and he was already looking better.

“Let’s get you up,” said Brady.

We helped Arie to his feet.

“That’s better,” he said. “Yeah. I think I can keep up.”

Just then, something arced into the room.

It was small and dark and metallic, and it landed on the floor nearby with a muted clank, rolled noisily in our direction, and came to rest almost at our feet. The kid with the flashlight pointed his beam, and there on the concrete was a black metal canister stenciled with white letters. More of the canisters flew into the room.

Someone screamed, “Grenade!”

There came a blast of light and noise, and again I found myself enveloped in whiteness. My ears rang with the high, keening note of an angel choir, and I seemed to float away on a dull, muffled sea of insensibility. I was dead, apparently.

No.

The beams of six or eight military-grade, rifle-mounted flashlights swept with dazzling menace through the dusty air, and behind each one a dark figure came rushing into the building. Over the ringing in my ears, I heard their hoarse, savage voices.

I struggled to my feet, dizzy, head pulsing in pain as though I might have bounced the back of my head off the hard floor when I fell. My ears rang unceasingly. Dark-clothed soldiers streamed in. Arie lay on the floor beside me, not moving. I saw the other Lotus kids stupefied and reeling, rising up like boxers under a referee’s ten-count.

I looked down at myself to see if I correctly remembered that I was carrying a pistol. I was. It was in a holster. I groggily removed the pistol and pointed it. They would not take Arie. They would not take me.

A man with a rifle approached me, calmly swung his weapon end-for-end, and with the hard metal butt of the stock he struck me in the face with a quick, effortless precision. Everything went black.

Thirty-Three

They’d bound our hands, the six of us, and placed us side-by-side and face-down on the floor like luggage.

Arie lay next to me, Brady was on the other side of him, and the other Lotus kids were on the far side of Brady. Arie’s face was turned away from me.

“Arie,” I said, “you all right?”

He flinched and turned his head to face me. He looked tired and gray.

“I think I’m good,” he said. “But we’re screwed.”

“Just stay with me,” I said.

“Shut up over there,” said a gruff voice. “No talking.”

“Can we at least sit up?” I said.

“No. Now shut the hell up.”

And that’s how they left us until Rachel arrived.

An armored vehicle pulled up close to the building, and a soldier jumped out and came around to open the hatch. From there he helped Rachel down to the rubble-strewn street. She’d chosen her ballcap-and-fatigues ensemble again, looking again like a ladies’ fashion magazine conception of a military field commander. She’d added at least one accessory since I’d last seen her in this ensemble, however. It was a sleek black holster and pistol strapped to her thigh.

“I want something lethal, but tasteful,” I imagined her telling an underling.

She picked her way toward us through the rubble without compromising her commanding posture. Two riflemen preceded her and followed her, escorting her to a place where the exterior wall was torn open. She ducked through the gash and came inside. From the pocket of her jacket she fished out a flashlight and shined it on us.

“Is this all of them?” Rachel asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” said her lieutenant. “Prisoners and area secured.”

Rachel came my way and stood above me. I squinted at her flashlight. Lying face-down as I was, I could see her only from the ankles down. She nudged my shoulder with her boot.

“So, uh, were you going to bring Arie to me?”

“Well, I did find him.”

She chuckled, then crouched beside me and I could see her face. She brushed some grit from my cheek. “Hard core to the bitter end, aren’tcha?”

I scoffed, and my breath raised a little dust from the floor. I turned my face from her.

“You knew it,” she said archly. “You knew these kids didn’t stand a chance. Didn’t you? Did you come here to see if you could change their minds? Hm? But ended up fighting with them? Is that what happened? God, what I couldn’t do with ten or twelve Alisons.”

“Just get it over with,” I grumbled. “Wipe me, kill me, whatever.”

Rachel exhaled harshly and said, “Tell me what is so wrong with my way?”

“What way?”

“My way. Why couldn’t you fight this way for me and my plans? What’s so wrong about my way of doing things?”

“I think you know the answer to that. Get it over with.”

“All right.” She nodded and stood up again.

Vehicles approached. Their headlight beams swung through the dark space, and they stopped out on the street, diesel engines idling.

“The transport trucks are here,” said Rachel, voice raised. “We’ll only need one, as it turns out. Get them ready.”

Someone straddled me, grabbed me by the shoulders, and lifted me to my knees.

“Stay on your knees,” he said. “Keep still.”

Arie and the others were likewise hoisted to their knees. In the glare of the flashlights, the Lotus kids glared up into the dark faces of their Agency captors with unveiled contempt. Were any of them still fired-up and foolish enough to try something?

Rachel stood in front of Arie. “What about you, Arie?”

“What about me?”

“What was all this for? Longer lunch breaks? Foosball table in the lounge?”

He rolled his eyes and gave her a little head shake. “You haven’t won,” he said.

There came a subtle change in the light outside. Like slow-motion lightning, or a sunrise set at high speed. The strobe spread in the sky to the west, yellowish but bright, the color of hot but distant flames.

Everyone noticed it. All eyes turned to the windows and gaping damage in the walls. It was bright enough to make us squint slightly, bright enough to render the flashlights momentarily unnecessary. Rachel crossed the floor to where the building’s demolished western wall lay in a heap. There she stood gazing at the sky as though it were engaged in some act of flagrant disobedience.

The light faded in only a few seconds, but as it did, there came a deep and ponderous boom. I felt it as much as heard it, and then the ground bounced ever so slightly like the floor of a ballroom. A bit of dust drifted down from the ceiling.

“What is that?” Rachel demanded.

Her lieutenant was already muttering urgently into a small handset and pressing on the headphone in his ear. Another flash of the yellowish light brightened the night sky, this time from slightly more southwest. The sky flared and after a few seconds’ delay came the boom and the light springiness in the ground.

“Who is firing?” Rachel said, returning to her lieutenant. “We’re supposed to be at a cease-fire.”

The lieutenant shook his head and pressed his ear piece to hear better. “No ma’am,” he said. “That’s not ordinance. Those aren’t mortars. Stand by.” He listened at the ear piece.

Arie bowed his head and snickered quietly, but Brady joined him, and together they laughed louder. The other Lotus kids laughed.

“What is that?” Rachel repeated to no one, to everyone. She left the lieutenant and came to where the Lotus kids knelt. “What is that?” she snapped at Arie, pointing at the western sky.

“It’s just what I told you,” he said. “You haven’t won. You’ve lost.”

There came another flash and a deep, concussive booming.

“Ma’am,” said the lieutenant, splitting his attention between what he had to say and the ear piece, “we got reports of—major demolition charges—out in the western quads. Production structures. The water plant.”

From far in the distance a series of drum-like thudding explosions could be heard—boom, boom, boom-boom-boom. Like the finale of some massive but faraway fireworks show. The strobes of light from the west had become a warm, yellow-tinged twilight that persisted.

There was another sound, too. High above the resonant, booming rumble of gigantic demolition charges and collapsing factories, I heard the faint noise of voices raised in victory.

Rachel drew her pistol and pointed it at Arie’s face. “What have you done?”

Arie turned his face slightly, the pistol’s muzzle just inches from his forehead.

“Rachel,” I cried, “don’t kill him.”

“Don’t worry, Alison,” she said, racking the slide. “You’re next.”

A burst of gunfire erupted from behind me, and Rachel was knocked back. As a storm of opposing gunfire ensued, Rachel inclined her head to look at her own middle. The pistol slipped from her hand and her eyes flew open as she dipped her fingertips in the blooming of wet redness on her blouse. Next she fell down roughly into a seated position, her dismayed incredulity spreading across her face just as the blood on her clothes spread and blossomed into the fabric. She sank to the floor and lay there motionless.

We dropped awkwardly back down onto our stomachs as automatic weapons fired volleys back and forth over our heads, the noise deafening and echoing flatly off the concrete. Arie and I wriggled with ridiculous desperation to find cover.

Brady rolled calmly onto his back, drew his knees nearly to his chin, and then slipped his zip-tied hands beneath his butt and feet so that his hands were in front of him. He fiddled with his belt-buckle and drew out a small knife blade. He cut the zip-ties and a moment later he freed me and then Arie.

I turned to see who had opened fire on Rachel’s troops. They looked in every way to be more Agency troops, coming in from the front of the building. Then I spotted a figure limping doggedly forward and firing a pistol.

It was Gary Gosford.

Two soldiers dragged Rachel’s limp form away across the floor, keeping themselves low and firing blindly at Gary’s men. I grabbed Arie and we dove for cover with the other Lotus kids.

The number of soldiers in the place had dropped to only a handful, and the up-close gun battle ground them down. Soldiers on both sides dropped precipitously, but Gary’s troops were outnumbered, and more of Rachel’s men were coming in from her armored vehicle and the transport trucks. Gary and his men pressed forward, but I saw Gary take a bullet and fall. His men faltered back but kept firing.

And then something caught my eye. Something outside, moving fast. A pair of headlights were veering in our direction, straight at the battered building. Something about its shape told me it was not a military vehicle, but it was large and boxy, and as it closed in there was something about it that struck me as familiar.

It was Donna’s Winnebago.

The front of the big RV crashed through a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side of the ground floor. Concrete, window mullions, and what little glass remained in the window panes came flying into the ground floor in a clattering, dusty blast. I saw Donna behind the wheel, blinking behind her Coke-bottle glasses.

From the resulting roil of dust emerged Chase, Woolly, Ruby, and others. Ruby wielded a sawed-off shotgun, which she fired one-handed like a pistol. Chase shouldered an assault rifle and immediately made short work of several Agency troopers. Arie and Brady had rounded up a few rifles from the soldiers who’d been injured or killed, and we joined the melee. I saw Woolly open the cab of the Winnebago, where Donna was still sitting, eyes wide behind her spectacles and gripping the wheel in her tiny fists as though she were still driving. Woolly helped her out and together they hunkered down out of the line of fire.

With the surprise entrance and added firepower of Ruby’s gang, Rachel’s troops retreated and were driven into the darkness. A few of Gary’s men gave chase but, quite abruptly, it was quiet again. At first the only sounds were the gritty rasping of the wounded moving in the debris and the low sounds of their pained groans. But in a moment I realized there was another sound. I looked around and realized that, among the rubble and wounded fighters, eight or ten meowing cats from Donna’s Winnebago were prowling.

Thirty-Four

“Care for a lift?” said Chase with a grin. “Your friend Donna here asked me to drive.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Donna, shaking her head. “I really shouldn’t drive at night with my prescriptions.”

“Yes,” I cried, “We’ve gotta get outta here now.”

“For once we agree,” said Chase. “Pile in.”

Woolly had gone out and fired up Rachel’s armored vehicle. He flung open the ballistic glass window and hollered, “I can take a few with me!”

We hastily loaded up all the injured troops—no matter who they’d been nominally working for—and with Woolly’s new ride in the lead, we tore off to the south.

It appeared that Arie had been at least partially right. There were many road intersections and choke-points where there should have been Agency troops to block our escape, but we found very few troops. Perhaps they had been pulled off their stations to defend the production facilities, canneries, and factories, or perhaps their plans had changed when they learned that Rachel had been shot.

In any case, we took a little fire from a few lightly manned roadblocks, but with Woolly bulldozing a path in the armored troop carrier, we were soon clear of the city center. And after scrounging for fuel and circling back a few times to ensure we were not followed, we got clear of Lotus.

It was very late when we finally set out for the mountain camps. The Winnebago was cramped, but Donna’s cats made space and everyone took a place as Chase turned the RV to the east along the decrepit two-lane highway. Arie lay wrapped in blankets on the couch, weakened but apparently stable. I later learned that Brady was treating the other wounded in Woolly’s armored vehicle. As we headed toward the eastern horizon, I climbed up into the passenger seat of the RV and sat next to Chase.

We drove along slowly using only the running lights for illumination to avoid attracting attention.

Chase looked into his rearview mirror and said, “Hey Al. Take a look behind us.”

I turned and looked out the rear windows.

“Look, everyone,” I said, pointing.

Here and there along the dark foothills of Lotus, there were what looked like giant bonfires blazing a few miles behind us. But it was a trick of the darkness and distance, and we knew we were seeing the glare of fires much larger and very far away. It was the factories and production plants that had kept Lotus alive, now consumed by flames. I suspect they burned and smoldered for days and maybe weeks.

After we’d driven what I judged to be thirty or forty miles, Woolly turned off the highway and led us up into the foothills along a packed-dirt road. It was a place, Chase said, where the gang had holed up a few times before. The only way to detect that it was a road at all was that there was just the faintest remnant of tire ruts, and slightly less grass and weeds growing in them than on the surrounding terrain. We went along slowly. Woolly stopped a few times to flip on the headlights to ensure we hadn’t strayed off.

The almost imperceptible road ended in a cove among the low hills, where there was what looked like an old sheep camp, complete with a tumbled-down wooden pen and a sod-covered shack with sun-bleached timber walls. There was also a freshwater well with a hand-pump. Chase primed the pump and the water that issued out was sweet and icy cold. We all drank our fill, and then, using buckets and basins, we washed away the dust and blood from our faces and arms and hands.

I sat down on the ground and watched the others washing and drinking in the light of flashlights and lanterns. The stars burned brightly overhead. Crickets sang to us from the shadows. Chase came over and stood by me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I will be,” I said.

“Need anything?”

“Nah.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Have a seat,” I said.

He sat next to me, knees up and forearms resting on his elbows. “We’ll set out first thing in the morning,” he said. “We’ll make sure we’re not being followed. Then we’ll go on. We’re not far from the camps. Two, three hours.”

I nodded.

“Arie’s okay?”

“Seems to be, yeah. He’s asleep in the RV.”

“I looked at his shoulder. I bet it hurts like hell, but it’s nothing Doctor Terry up at camp can’t handle.”

“You guys really came through for us,” I said. “Thank you.”

Chase waved his hand. “Eh. You’d have done the same thing.” He laughed.

I laughed, too, but then I said, “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Nah, I’m sure,” he said. “You read the notebooks, right?”

“I did.”

“Then you know we’ve gotten through a lot of scrapes together.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Hey,” I added, “maybe there is something you can help me out with.”

“Sure,” said Chase. “Name it.”

I fished around in my backpack and produced the odd, red-covered notebook that Donna had given me. Chase switched on a small flashlight, and when he saw the notebook, he raised his eyebrows. I was about to ask him if he knew anything about it, but before I could, he snatched it away from me.

“The notebook!” he said. He stood up and thumbed the pages under the beam of the flashlight. “This is it!”

I stood up, too. “It’s what?” I asked.

“Arie’s encoded, boats-beaten-back, skull-clock, secret Great Gatsby notebook! Oh my god, you don’t remember.”

“Arie? Boats? Great Gatsby?”

Chase tapped the notebook with the backs of his fingertips. “This is the notebook you found in Arie’s room after they took him. It’s not mentioned in your journals, is it? No, of course not. You came to Ruby with this notebook not too long after they took Arie. You thought it might lead you to him or unlock some big secret.”

I took the notebook from him and looked at the writing. It was similar to his, but the numbers were so ordered and so unlike ordinary writing, I must have missed the fact that it was his handwriting.

“This is Arie’s?” I asked, flipping the pages.

“That’s what you told us a couple years ago,” said Chase. “I guess we can’t ask him what it says, can we? We’ll have to get a copy of The Great Gatsby.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. My thoughts were whirling like fallen leaves in wind.

He poked a finger at the cryptic lines of numbers. “Your leading theory was that the key to the cypher was The Great Gatsby.” He stopped and shrugged. “I don’t suppose we’re likely to find a copy where we’re going.”

“Oh my god,” I sighed.

Chase turned to me with a questioning look.

“I had one. I had a copy of that book. At my house. It’s one of the few things I held on to when I moved to Lotus. I know right where it is.”

“Mmm,” said Chase, “I guess you know you can’t go back for it, right?”

“I guess so,” I said, shaking my head. “Yeah. No.”

“Because I’ve read your journals, and I knew you before. It’s just the kind of thing you’d do. You’re back with us now—if you run off and get your memory wiped again, I’m not gonna be happy.”

“Is that so?” I said. I turned to him, and we found ourselves again facing each other, bathed in starlight.

“Well,” said Chase. “The others would be super pissed-off, too.”

“If this notebook was the key to finding Arie,” I said, “it might not be so important now. Maybe we can work on de-coding it later.”

“I like the sound of that,” said Chase.

“Hey,” I said. “There’s something else you can do for me.”

“Name it.”

“Kiss me.”

He chuckled and shot me a curious glance. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“You want me to kiss you,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, “on the lips. Don’t get any fresh ideas, but yes. I want you to kiss me right on the mouth.”

“You sure you’re feeling okay?” He put his palm on my forehead to check my temperature.

“Positive,” I said. “You don’t want to?”

“Oh, I want to. You want me to?”

“I want you to.”

He moved closer.

As I closed my eyes and raised my face to meet his, Chase said, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why a kiss?”

“I don’t remember ever having been kissed. I want to remember.”

He nodded as though that was a satisfactory reason. I closed my eyes and tilted my head.

Our lips met. Yes, I thought. That’s it. His mouth was soft, and there came the renewed tingle of his touch, but this time it spread warmly through my body and to my extremities, like the warmth I felt when we drank the mountain wine. He put his hand gently on the nape of my neck and pulled me closer. I felt my face and neck flushing. After what was a long, satisfying moment, Chase pulled away, just a little, and we sat there almost nose to nose for a while longer.

“How was that?” said Chase.

“Unforgettable,” I said.

“Any time,” he said. He put his hand on my shoulder and rubbed it fondly. “I’m gonna go help everyone bed down for the night.”

“I’ll help,” I said.

“No, why don’t you sit here and rest a bit?”

Ruby’s crew withdrew a small stash of blankets and sleeping pads from the old shack, and these were distributed. The wounded were given priority space inside the shack and the vehicles. We’d picked up four of Gary’s wounded men. Two of them had died during the short drive, and they were given perfunctory burials.

Gary himself was in very serious condition. They wrapped him in a heavy wool blanket and laid him on the floor of the shack. I went in.

Brady was trying unsuccessfully to get Gary to take some water. He looked up at me and said, “I’m not sure there’s much we can do outside a first-rate trauma treatment facility. He’s been shot three times. Nothing else I can do.”

I thought Gary was unconscious, but in a raspy whisper he said, “It’s okay. Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

“Gary?” I said, “Can you hear me?”

He didn’t open his eyes, but he nodded.

Brady seemed to sense some intimate moment might be pending between Gary and I, and so he went out of the shack. There was a small candle lantern hanging from a nail on the wall. I took it down and placed it on the floor beside Gary’s head. In the flickering light of the flame, Gary’s face was bloodless and clammy.

“Gary?”

He stirred and opened his eyes and looked at me.

“Hey,” I said. “Stay with me.”

He shook his head slowly, his eyes narrowed to mere slits. “I’ve had it,” he whispered.

“Why’d you do it?” I asked. “Why’d you come after me? Why’d you help?”

He blinked his eyes wearily. “I didn’t do it for you,” he muttered.

I smiled. Obstinate ’til the end.

“I did it for me,” said Gary, his breathing labored. “But you were right. I didn’t want to be on the wrong side anymore. So, thanks. Thanks for that.”

I nodded at him, and he closed his eyes. I had to cry a little. Brady came back in and sat with us. Gary seemed to have gone into a very deep sleep. Brady felt his pulse. Then he looked at me and gave me a grave nod. A few minutes later, Gary’s breathing became very shallow and rapid, and then it stopped. Brady covered Gary’s face, and then I followed Brady out of the shack.

On one side of Donna’s RV there were ladder rungs that led to the roof. I climbed up with a sleeping bag and a foam mattress and made myself a bed. Then I sat there with my feet hanging over the side of the RV.

Chase said it was best not to have any fires, but a few lanterns were lit, and an almost peaceful atmosphere descended. Down between the vehicles I could hear Ruby and the others quietly good-nighting each other. One by one, the lamps and lights winked out.

The last light was Chase’s. I saw him making himself a pallet just outside the door of the shack on what remained there of a wooden porch. He lay down, a rifle practically under the blanket with him, and then switched off his light.

“Night, Chase,” I called to him.

“Night, Al,” he said. “See ya in the morning.”

I lay down on the roof of the RV. I pulled a knit cap down over my ears, zipped up the jacket Chase had returned to me, and drew the heavy sleeping bag up to my chin. The stars looked down on me. My limbs were heavy, and I could only just keep my eyes open. And yet I felt alive. My entire soul felt as though it were electrified with new life and purpose. I let my eyes close and felt myself falling softly into the bosom of a deep and restful sleep.

Many, many thanks to Chadd VanZanten who is my husband and developmental editor and makes the story so much better with his help. He fills in the pieces that I leave blank. Thank you also to my mom, Barbra Yardley, who edits and proofreads on fast deadlines and catches all the errors I miss. Thank you to my sister Melissa, who helped me when I got “stuck” on the storyline. Thank you to my other sister, Jennifer, and to my dad, Bob, for their support and encouragement. Thank you to my children, Hudson and Dawson, who support me in pursuing my dreams. And thank you to Ingrid, Dez, and Gretchen, for coming to my writing events. I appreciate you showing up for me.

Book 3: Maybe We’ll Remember

For Lilly (spelled like Billy),

An intelligent, charming, and beautiful

young woman.

I write for readers like you.

Maybe We’ll Remember Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Available for purchase

About the Author

One

It wasn’t a cane, Ruby insisted. It was a walking stick.

“Canes are for old ladies,” she said, “an’ I might be old, but I ain’t no lady.”

The walking stick helped Ruby negotiate the uneven terrain and sometimes rocky mountain trails between camps, but it was mostly for her “bum knee,” she said. It hadn’t improved, of course, and the stick took just enough weight off the leg to make the pain tolerable. It still hurt, though. You could tell. It showed when she slowly lowered herself to sit and when she winced and strained to stand. She’d rub the muscles around the knee absently while she sat talking, debating.

It was a nice piece of maple, the stick was. Ruby had inscribed intricate patterns along its length. The knob at the top was carved into the head of a grizzly bear. A crude countenance but nevertheless fierce-looking, not unlike the stick’s owner, I thought.

And the stick certainly did not make her seem like a weak old lady. Instead, she brandished it like a field marshal, pointing at a distant ridge line where she wanted a new observation post, or thumping it into the ground to drive home a point. She was even known to use it to administer the occasional rap upon the head of some underling who’d screwed up or failed to follow orders.

Ruby stood by the executive fire pit, where a few officers were still seated in a ragged circle after their breakfast and the first of the day’s coordination meetings. Ruby had one hand on the walking stick. The other was balled into a fist and planted on her hip. She stared at the dying fire. Her long coat was hiked back behind her fist to reveal the old pistol she wore on her hip. One might mistake her for a stout, immovable military commander standing for a battlefield portrait.

Someone offered to fetch her a chair. Ruby didn’t answer. The offer was repeated a minute later.

“Don’t want one,” she said without taking her eyes from the fire. “If I sit down, I’ll just hafta stand back up again. But thanks, Dan. For the offer.”

In a strangely direct contrast, Arie was tall and rangy and remained in a sort of constant, youthful motion. He stood across the fire pit from Ruby, staring at her and shifting his weight fluidly from foot to foot. He’d crossed his arms high across his chest, fingers tucked tightly into his armpits, thumbs sticking up. It was a statement of body language I understood to mean he was annoyed, anxious.

“Well?” Arie said after remaining there, fidgety but silent, for several minutes.

Ruby shot me a look as if to say, “Would you please do something about him?”

I only shrugged.

When she didn’t answer Arie said, “Rube?”

“Jeeze, kid,” said Ruby, “y’ever consider givin’ it a rest?”

“You said you’d have a decision this morning,” said Arie, yanking his hands out of his armpits and holding them out imploringly. “Then you said wait ’till you had your coffee, then you said wait ’till after breakfast. Well, it’s morning, it’s after breakfast and—” here he stepped up to the fire pit and lifted the lid of the blackened coffee pot that sat on the fender “—and the coffee is gone.”

“Fine,” said Ruby, looking up at him and jabbing her stick into the dirt. “The answer’s no. Not this month.”

“What? Again? When then?”

“Sorry, kid. We’re just too busy providing for and protecting ourselves. I got a thousand people strewn across these mountains.” She flourished the stick vaguely at the surrounding hillsides.

“We aren’t the only people who matter,” Arie replied. “What are we gonna do about the people still in the system? You think just because they can’t remember anything that they’re not suffering?”

Ruby’s jaw muscles flexed.

“We’re free,” Arie continued. “We have a responsibility to them. We should at least be making plans, gathering intel. That’s all I wanna do. I’m not proposing some full-on frontal assault, but we can’t just forget about them.”

“We got plenty of people here who need looking after, kid. I can’t forget about them, neither.”

“They won’t need looking after if we bring down the Agency once and for all. The best defense is a good offense.”

“We been over this, kid.”

Ruby was right about that. It was an old debate. How to move forward? Were we to risk our own safety for those still held captive and ignorant by the Agency, and possibly become captive again ourselves, or should we stand off a bit and build our resources and capabilities? I couldn’t begin to count how many times we’d been over it. I could recite Ruby’s retort almost word for word before she made it.

“Every time we go down there, even just t’look around or do some reconning, we put ourselves at risk ’a bein’ found, and every time we go up against Agency troops, we just make them stronger—our people get killed or captured, and to be honest I’m not sure which one ’a them two options is worst, cuz it’s terrible when someone dies, but at least when they’re dead, those Agency thugs can’t wipe their minds and put ’em back to work against us.”

“Yeah but so if we—”

Ruby held up her hand and pressed her mouth into a straight line. “Kid, you’re smart. You got a good head and a good heart. You wanna help them people. I do, too.”

“Yeah but that’s not what it sounds—”

She snatched up her stick and pointed it at Arie, as though it might shoot out some dreadful magic spell. Arie shut his mouth.

“We’re just not in a position to take them kinda risks right now. You wanna talk about helpin’ people? Let’s talk about last time we got found and how many people got taken and killed when we got attacked. You wanna help people? There’s mushrooms to be foraged ever’ time it rains and we need a bigger pottery kiln and hell you know you can go bring up water from the crick any damn time y’like. Felix’s peas are comin’ on an’ he’s got bushels of ’em that need shelled. You wanna help? Then help. You asked me for an answer. Answer’s no. Least for now.”

Arie looked at me as if to say, “Would you please jump in here and help me out?”

I only shrugged.

Ruby leaned on her stick again and looked at Arie. “Now. You’re gonna stop hounding me about this, or I’m gonna put you on latrine duty for the next year.”

Arie pursed his lips and tried to make his face impassive. “Fine,” he said, his voice flat. He stormed off.

“Dan!” Ruby barked. “Were you gettin’ me a chair here ’er what?”

Dan sprang up and placed his own chair behind Ruby, then stood without appearing to know what to do with himself as Ruby eased herself down into it. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair before turning to me.

“Quite the revolutionary ya got there,” she said testily.

“I don’t know where he gets it,” I answered.

She scoffed loudly and rubbed at her bum knee. “Like he ain’t the spittin’ image ’a you.”

The fire had dwindled to white-flaked coals. Ruby leaned forward in the chair and stabbed at them with her stick, sending a plume of ash into the air. A few flames were rekindled.

“Not many kids his age care s’much about other people that way,” she added.

I smiled and nodded.

“Thing is, I wish we could do more. I really do.” She sighed. “This world—” She closed her mouth, then opened it again, then shook her head, as though she really couldn’t find words to complete the thought.

“I know what you mean,” I offered.

“Will you talk to him, Al? Make him understand I ain’t tryna be the bad guy here?”

“Sure,” I said, rising from my chair. “But right now I’m on dish detail.”

Ruby kneaded her knee and thigh. “I’m gettin’ too old for this.”

“For which part?” I asked.

“All of it. Everything. Don’t ever get old, Al. It’s the pits.”

Two

I appreciated the communal nature of Ruby’s camps if only because I was a lousy cook. Everyone pitched in to help on nearly every kind of task at one time or another, but we were more often given duties that matched our capabilities, which allowed me to enjoy the delicious meals the others produced—venison and squirrel and wild greens and even garden produce like carrots and squash and garlic—before going to work on guard duty or hauling water or, like today, dish detail. The camp fostered a lifestyle that I would have considered entirely wholesome and healthy and even enjoyable, if it weren’t for the constant threat of being found by Agency troops or roving raiders.

A pile of tin cook pots and cast-iron pans was waiting for me at the wash station by the kitchen fires. The cooking crew was finishing up, and we exchanged waves and smiles as I approached with the other members of the dish detail.

I began by placing the cast-iron pans face-down over the coals of a cook fire to scorch away the oil and food residue, then I put on a large pan of water to boil while the others took the bushel baskets of scraps and leavings to the composting area.

After my first couple times working on the cooking crew, I wasn’t invited back. I could hardly peel a potato properly. But apparently, I had a knack for doing dishes, and I rotated onto that crew more often than almost any other. I didn’t mind. Not at all. It was simple work that allowed me to think and let my mind wander. And lately, my thoughts turned to what I’d began to think of as “the Arie Problem.”

When the water reached its boiling point, I filled a washbasin with hot and cool water until it was hot enough to wash but not too hot to tolerate, and then I set to work. The others chatted quietly around me as we worked. Telicia, busy with her own wash basin, had been trying to get the attention of a young man she’d met on a foraging trip, and now she was being pressed pointedly for any romantic updates.

“What’d you guys do?”

“Just went down to the big tree by the stream. Put our feet in the water.”

“Anything happen?”

“We talked.”

“About what?”

“Just whatever. Nothing. Everything.”

The others groaned with disappointment.

I had developed a dish-washing sequence. First tin mugs and flatware—they dirtied the wash water the least, so they came first, followed by the plates, which everyone was asked to scrape clean before placing them in the dirty-dish bin. Next was the crockery, which was liable to break if washed with lots of other pots and plates. Last in line were the big pots and pans, which were blackened and crusted with cooked-on food. If I cleaned the dishes out of order, I had to refill the basin more often. Oddly, the dirty pans and pots were my favorite. We used sand from the riverbed and a little crude, camp-made, lye soap to scrub them clean. There was a meditative aspect to polishing away the soot and food.

Arie acknowledged that I was his mother, and so did everyone else in camp. Ruby and others had uninterrupted memories which confirmed our relationship, but things nevertheless could be odd between Arie and me. After all, I didn’t know him. Not truly. And he didn’t know me. And we got along well enough. I felt an unmistakable kinship toward him, but I felt continually that I should be doing something “motherly” for him without knowing what exactly that might be or how to go about it. He was too old to take orders or discipline from me, and he was too smart for me even to provide much useful guidance. He was practically an adult, but still he seemed lost.

And while I was happy with the quiet, rustic tranquility of Ruby’s camp, it was clear Arie was deeply dissatisfied. Even without my memories of our previous lives together, it was obvious to me that Arie was smoldering inside. He wanted challenges, and he wanted change. Most of all, the injustice of our world goaded and galled Arie. I sensed that the heat inside him was likely to consume him completely if he wasn’t able to put it to some good purpose. It had occurred to me more than once that if Ruby and the other officers kept turning down his proposals to undermine the Agency, Arie might go off and do something on his own, something that could easily go wrong and make things worse, maybe much worse. This is where I felt I should step in as a parent, to provide comfort or advice or just an understanding ear. But what could I say? What could I do?

I placed the last of the cook pans on the drying rack. Their burnished metal sides shone dully in the morning light.

Surely it was my responsibility to encourage and nurture Arie’s ambitions and opinions. No one knew exactly what the future held for us, but everyone agreed that Arie would make an excellent leader in the years to come—if we could keep him from turning resentful or reckless.

The Arie Problem.

The dish detail was finishing up and going their separate ways.

“See ya after lunch.”

“Kay. See ya.”

“We want more details, Telicia.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I had no idea what I should say or do for Arie, but as I untied my washing apron and hung it on a tree branch, I knew it was time to talk to him.

I went to find him. It took a while, but I finally spotted him sitting beneath a stand of aspens at the far edge of the grassy, hillside meadow up above the camp. It was almost like he was hiding there. One of his long legs was stretched out before him, and the other was bent and gathered in almost to his chest. He sat there shelling peas. He worked mechanically, his hands dropping into the bucket for a handful of pods, splitting them open with a practiced motion, and spilling the peas into a small basket. He repeated the process without ever seeming to pay attention to the peas themselves. Instead, he stared across the meadow at something happening at the lower edge. I followed his line of sight. Just down the hill was an open, sunny area where lines had been strung between the trees for clotheslines. A group of people was there hanging laundry. That’s when I understood why he’d come all the way out here to process the pea pods, and I felt a twinge of sadness. Sandy, the woman who had cared for Arie when they’d been part of the Lotus project, was there hanging laundry with the others. I continued crossing the meadow.

When I came near, Arie smiled faintly and waved.

“You all right?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s just frustrating.” He grabbed a handful of pea pods and let them drop a few at a time into the bucket. “Shucking peas and doing laundry are bigger priorities than helping people who are where we used to be just a year ago.”

“You gotta remember that Ruby has a lot on her plate,” I said.

He shrugged.

“She knows it’s important to go after the Agency. She agrees with you. But she’s also looking out for all of us, too. She’s trying for a balance between making progress and managing risks. You know the argument better than anyone.”

Arie shrugged again and took up another handful of pea pods. He was no longer looking down at where Sandy was, but I knew she was on his mind. I looked down the hill. The blankets and sleeping bags they’d hung to dry waved sluggishly in the breeze like wet, heavy flags.

I picked up some pods and worked on them. Arie and I sat there awhile that way, silent except for the muted plinks of the peas dropping into the bowl. He stole a quick look at Sandy as they gathered up their empty baskets and left the meadow in the direction of the camp.

“Have you talked to her?” I asked.

Arie looked up at me, maybe a little embarrassed that I’d read his thoughts. But then he shook his head. “A little. Not really.”

“Why not?”

“What am I supposed to say to her?” he replied. “‘Hello, my name is Arie. You don’t know me, but I feel like you are my mother, even though you aren’t really. Please accept me into your life’?”

It stung to hear Arie say that he still considered Sandy to be his mother. He and I had a good relationship, and I would do anything for him, but my heart nearly burst with longing for him to see me in that way—to think of me as his mother, someone he desperately wanted in his life.

But I would never tell him that.

“Honestly?” I said, “I don’t see a problem with some form of that conversation. None of us here remember everything. I think she’d really appreciate someone who knew her before, someone who could fill in some gaps. She’s very nice, you know. I’m sure she’d be understanding.”

“That’s just it,” said Arie. “I know she has no memory of me, but part of me keeps thinking that if I just hang around her and interact with her, there would be some, you know, like a glimmer of recognition. I don’t expect her to just alla sudden remember me, but just maybe see that I’m someone more in her life than some annoying kid that always seems to show up where she is. But there’s nothing. She doesn’t know me, doesn’t care. I dunno. It’s stupid. Doesn’t matter. It’s just that—”

“It’s just that you remember.”

“Exactly,” he said with a heavy sigh, voice cracking. I thought I saw tears start in his eyes. “I remember all of our time together and our routines and all the stupid little in-jokes and I can’t make those memories go away and so from my point of view it’s like she’s just stopped caring. I just want her to, you know, like see me. Just notice me.”

“If she could remember, she would still feel the same way. You know that, don’t you? Intellectually, academically, you know that?”

“Well, yeah, sure, of course.”

“So?”

Arie scoffed and with the heel of his hand he roughly rubbed his eyes. “Maybe one day we’ll remember,” he said, a sardonic edge to his tone.

“Don’t be that way, Arie. Really things aren’t that bad.”

Sometimes I went too far in thinking that I could know what was in Arie’s mind. I felt a genuine connection with him, and I knew I could read him in a way others could not, but I often had to caution myself that I didn’t know everything about him. And sometimes I almost acknowledged that it might not be a motherly connection at all and instead was the simple result of paying him so much attention and thinking about him.

Whatever the reasons, the Arie Problem had come into sharper focus, and I saw a reason he might be so restless and petulant lately. It was his way of dealing with the crushing confusion and frustration of our lost memories and connections, our long days in limbo, resisting the Agency but not confronting it as the source of our misery. If Arie couldn’t have the relationships and connections that the Agency took away, he would pull the Agency down brick by brick. I knew this was how he felt.

And as much as I wanted to be Arie’s mother, his one and only true mother, it wounded me to see him so upset. It wasn’t enough to escape the Agency serum and to keep our memories—we had still been robbed. I wished then that Sandy could remember Arie. I wished that she too would feel that she was Arie’s mother and would regard him the way I did—with pride and love and the terrible and constant worry that is in some ways the actual foundation of parental joy. How could something like that detract from the way I felt about Arie? How could five or ten additional mothers ever do that? I didn’t own Arie, I loved him.

I wished Sandy would remember because Arie was my son and he was hurting over her, and a mother will do anything to keep her child from pain.

And with that I felt a smolder begin to awaken in me, too.

All the peas were shelled. Arie sat looking at the tree line where the laundry party had gone.

“Hey, I know it’s hard and things aren’t perfect,” I said.

Arie shot me a look of unvarnished skepticism. He was probably right to do so.

“But things are going to get better,” I went on. I wasn’t sure what else to do. “Look at us here. Out from under the Agency’s thumb. Living free, keeping our memories.”

Arie nodded in a passive, almost impatient way, as if only waiting for me to stop talking.

“Just try to be patient, Arie. We’ll figure it out.” The words felt weak and awkward even to me.

Arie gathered up his peas and the bucket of empty pods and then without answering he stood.

Just then we saw Chase hurrying toward us from the lower end of the meadow.

Life in the mountain camps agreed with Chase. He was leaner through the middle and broader in the shoulders. He wore a faded, plaid flannel work shirt, which was repaired with his own coarse mending and patched at the elbows with buckskin. The knees of his pants were similarly mended and reinforced. His face and arms were as brown as a nut, and his gray and black beard was wild and bristling. He’d let it grow out for weeks until it was impossibly thick and aggravating, then he’d chop it down to stubble like it was some troublesome hedge of brambles. And then it’d grow out again.

“Ah. There you are,” he called, half walking and half jogging up toward us. “What are you guys up to?”

“Shucking peas,” I said as he approached.

He stood over us and examined the bucket of empty pea pods. Then he looked around.

“Came all the way up here for that?” he asked, squinting.

“Chase. What’s up?” I asked.

Chase shoved his hands into the front pockets of his pants, tried to act nonchalant. He failed. “Well, I don’t want to interrupt. I mean, I love peas as much as the next guy.”

“Chase?”

“Well, I just need to talk with you for a second, Al.”

“I’ll see you later,” said Arie.

“You don’t have to go, Ars,” Chase was quick to add. “Stick around. It involves you.”

“Nah, I got some stuff to do.” He was already striding away.

I caught his arm as he passed by me and gave it a squeeze. He smiled his faint smile again as he continued toward the camp, letting the down-slope pull him along. I watched him go, shielding my eyes against the sun with my hand at my brow. When Arie had passed into the trees, I turned to Chase.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Can we go somewhere?”

“Okay, but I got dish duty today after lunch.”

“This won’t take long,” said Chase.

“What’s this surprise?” I asked.

“Just hold on,” said Chase. “I want the moment to be just right.”

We walked down a game trail, off the hillside, and into a shady hollow. The morning breeze gently shook the leaves of the aspens, and the shushing noise they made seemed to heighten my anticipation. We came to the old gray trunk of a fallen tree, and Chase spun me around and pulled me close to him, tucking his hands into my back pockets as I wrapped my arms around him.

“Tell me you love me,” he said as we embraced, swaying together.

I smiled. “You know I love you.”

“Come on,” he said. “Tell me.”

“Chase, I love you.”

“I love you too, bunny.”

We kissed and for a moment, all my thoughts and worries vanished as I felt the security of Chase’s arms and the warmth of his body. When we finally parted, my lips tingled.

“I’ll never get tired of that,” Chase said.

I smiled.

“But are you ready for the surprise?” Chase asked.

“Yes! I’ve been ready this whole time. You really have a surprise?”

“Yep. A big one.”

“Okay, already. What is it?”

“Guess,” he said.

I chuckled, bit my lip, and blurted, “A book.”

Chase frowned.

“What?” I said.

“You’re no fun. You always guess everything on the first try.”

I laughed. “It really is a book?”

He frowned and nodded.

“Well,” I said, “I don’t know which one.”

Chase reached behind him and pulled the book from the waistband of his pants.

“You had it with you this whole time?” I said, still laughing.

He handed it to me.

The cover was a deep bluish-purple with a lady’s face superimposed over a view of an amusement park and a Ferris wheel. Goosebumps formed on my arms.

“It’s—”

“The Great Gatsby,” said Chase, tapping the cover with his finger. “I thought you’d like it.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“Oh, I’ve been asking around here and there since back before you can remember.”

“Arie’s notebook.”

“Yeah, it’ll help with that, too, but I know you’re just as curious to find out what happens with Daisy and Gatsby.”

I held the book close to my chest. “Oh, I am.”

Chase grinned.

“Thank you,” I said. “I can’t think of a better surprise.”

“You sure about that?”

“Well, I can’t think of many that’d be better right now.” I looked at the book again, it was worn with yellowed pages and water damage, but to me it was priceless.

I was thinking about the Arie Problem. The real surprise was still to come.

Three

Ruby’s big cabin tent was festooned with a crazy assortment of tools and tchotchkes and needful things. Bundles of dried herbs, little bleached mammal skulls strung together on a length of jute, a hunk of flint with a steel striker on a key chain. Tattered maps with curled edges covered the back wall like faded wallpaper. One shelf of her small bookcase was set aside for wooden animals and figurines she’d whittled—she gave them to kids who’d “done a good turn.” On the upturned, sawed-off log she used for a nightstand there lay an obsidian knife someone had knapped for her. I had once made the mistake of idly testing its edge with my thumb, and there was still a small white line through my thumbprint to remind me of how amazingly sharp it was. There was a dream catcher the size of a hubcap suspended from the roof. Woven with cream-colored deer sinew and complete with raven and eagle feathers, it turned slowly in the air over Ruby’s cot. She had a basket of woven willow branches that held scavenged magnifying lenses and reading glasses in various states of wholeness and repair.

The place reminded me of a shaman’s laboratory.

Ruby sat at a desk that served as her headquarters, her workstation. It was constructed of rough-sawn planks of knotty pine or fir, held together with rusty nails salvaged from who knows where. Along with the big central command tent and the main fire-pit, Ruby’s desk was one of the camp’s primary nerve centers.

Arie, Woolly, Chase, and I had gathered one by one in Ruby’s tent and we stood almost shoulder to shoulder just inside the front door flap. Ruby sat at the desk with a camp-fired clay mug of steaming coffee.

“All right, one ’a you lay it out for me,” said Ruby between sips of the coffee. “I never did get the whole jist of it.” She gestured in Arie’s direction with the mug. “You, kid. Go. What’s this here book ’a codes all about?”

The spiral notebook in question lay on the desk. It was now battered and water-warped and beginning to fall apart, but the skull-clock symbol scratched whitely into its red front cover was still distinct, and the page upon page of number-code were all still very legible.

“Would you believe I don’t remember?” Arie said with a diffident laugh. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “But I have been informed by those who do remember that the notebook contains coded information that I wrote down before my last memory scrub, or maybe the year before that, and in any case, we need to find out what’s in it.”

I held my breath. Arie wasn’t exactly making a strong case. Chase tightened his hold around my waist. Woolly looked on with a sort of clinical curiosity, stroking at the now-thick fringe of whiskers that lined his jaw.

“Al? Chase?” Ruby waved the coffee mug in our direction, as though she didn’t care one way or another if any of us had a better argument to make.

“I just want to know what’s in it,” I said, with a jittery exhale.

Chase pointed a finger at me and nodded his head in assent. We weren’t making the case, either.

“Guess I shoulda started with you in the first place,” Ruby said to Woolly. She took a slurping sip of coffee and then let out a loud, “Aaah.” Then she nodded at Woolly and said, “Well? Can ya figure it out, Wool?”

Woolly picked up the paperback edition of The Great Gatsby Chase had given me. The book was also battered and appeared strangely small in Woolly’s big hands. He thumbed the frowsy pages. Then he opened the notebook and examined it as if it were the last remaining documentation of some passed-away culture. He blinked, turned the pages, blinked.

“Yes,” he said at last.

We waited for him to go on. Ruby had just lifted the mug to take a sip, but had stopped with the mug just shy of her lips, as though she couldn’t drink until Woolly continued. Woolly laid the books on the desk again. No one said anything for a while. The mug hovered at Ruby’s lips.

“That’s it?” she said after a few moments more. “Yes?” She plopped the mug down.

“Yes,” Woolly repeated. “I can figure it out. It’s a cypher. To decode the cypher, I’ll need the key. I have what is purported to be the key—” here he held up The Great Gatsby “—and I have the person who created the cypher.” Here he gestured at Arie.

“Yeah, but I don’t remember this,” said Arie, pointing at the red notebook.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Woolly. “I think I could sort it out without you. But if we look at it together and talk about it, maybe it’ll shake loose faster.”

“Well,” said Ruby, “what’re ya waiting for? Grab a pencil. Piece a’ paper. Tell us what’s in it.”

Woolly chuckled softly. Then he tented his fingers beneath his nose again and said, “No. No, it’s not that simple. It’s not like a crossword puzzle or the Daily Jumble.”

“What’s it like then?” I asked.

“Right off the bat?” His finger traced a line of the numbers in the notebook. “I’m thinking maybe these numbers represent page numbers, line numbers, and then words or letters. First number: page. Second number: line on that page, counting down from the top. Third: letter in that line counting in from the margin. Something like that. You go through the code number by number, and then consult the book page by page, and you end up with a string of letters that form words and sentences.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Arie.

“No,” replied Woolly, “unless I’m wrong, which I probably am. Maybe the numbers are in the reverse order of what I said. Or some other order, or maybe the entire notebook was encoded from the last page to the first. Or upside-down. Or maybe the code is something entirely different or has more layers to it. Maybe Arie translated the entire matter into Latin before he encoded it with The Great Gatsby. Arie, do you know Latin?”

Arie thought about this for a moment, looking as if he thought it would be good if he did. But then he answered, “No.”

“Point being,” Woolly continued, “there are any number of permutations, but I’ll never know which one it is without trying a few lines in a few different ways and seeing if they pencil out as words and sentences.”

“Why in tarnation would someone go to all ’at trouble, though?” Ruby asked.

“I wish we could ask him,” said Woolly, aiming an arch grin at Arie.

Chase spoke up. “I think it’s safe to say Arie had a secret, and this was his way of keeping it, preserving it through a potential memory wipe. Something he wouldn’t want just anyone to find. Like if his house was searched or if someone stole the notebook—there’s obviously a secret here, and if it was worth the trouble of all this coding, it’s probably information that will be valuable to us.”

Woolly nodded emphatically.

“Yeah,” said Ruby, “okay, but how would he remember what he did after he had his memory scrubbed? How would he remember he even had a secret? Or a notebook fer that matter?”

I looked at Arie. He’d furrowed his brow and one of his eyebrows stood about two finger-widths higher than the other. How odd, I thought, for him to be a party to a conversation about an earlier version of himself, a person he knew but had never met, a person he was but wasn’t.

“I’m not sure,” said Woolly in answer to Ruby, “but if I had to guess, I would say he left himself clues or reminders that would lead him back to the notebook and the code after his memories were confiscated. Clues explicit enough for him to investigate, but meaningless to others.”

“That’s exactly what he did do,” I said excitedly. I turned to Chase. “Right? I’ve lost those memories, but you remember—right, Chase?”

“Yeah,” Chase confirmed. “We figured it out that night we slipped on the ice in the tunnel at the park. Things got pretty wild after that, you remember, but we figured out that the kid left symbols and quotes from the book in places that he knew he’d be drawn to. He used graffiti at Thrill Harbor, at the Ferris wheel. The book has a Ferris wheel on the cover, see? A clue, a coincidence too coincidental to be a coincidence. He kept the book at their house, knowing he’d notice that kind of thing. And who knows what else there was that we didn’t notice? Because he knew he was smart and would keep being smart even if they scrubbed him.”

Arie’s awkwardly pained expression told me that while he was impressed with this person everyone was talking about, he felt weird about admitting his own forgotten plan was impressive.

“It’s brilliant, really.” I spoke up for him. “And this was years ago, when he really was a kid.”

Arie smiled at me as his face reddened.

“Doesn’t matter, though,” said Woolly, spreading his hands and then tenting them beneath his nose again. “We have the encrypted material and the key. I think we owe it to ourselves to decode this. Doesn’t matter how it fell into our hands.”

We all nodded. Ruby did, too, though she was chewing the inside of her cheek as she did so. Arie and Woolly leaned in to peer at the books. They pointed to the lines of numbers and turned the pages of The Great Gatsby. Ruby put her chin in one hand and drummed the fingers of her other hand on the desk.

Chase put his mouth to my ear. “You doing okay?” he whispered.

I nodded. “I just want to know what’s in there. It’s killing me.”

He nodded, kissed me on the ear.

Ruby stopped her drumming. “Here’s what’s bothering me, though,” she announced, taking up her walking stick and thumping the floor with it. “What if there’s like a hunnerd of these per— perm—”

“Permutations,” offered Woolly.

“Yeah, those,” Ruby continued. “What if there’s a hunnerd of ’em? Won’tcha hafta work on this for a whole day to find the right one?”

“No,” said Woolly.

“No?” echoed Ruby.

“No, much longer than that, I would think,” said Woolly. “Several days. A week, maybe. Or even longer.”

“Yeah,” replied Ruby. “That’s what I thought. And then ya still might come up empty, and even if ya do come up with the right per”—

—“mutation,” said Woolly—

—“you’ll have to spend time un-coding it, and that all by itself is a whole other big job.”

Woolly stuck out his lower lip and gave a nod.

“See? Now follow along what I’m tellin’ ya. Back when Al and Arie and all of us lived in Zone 1891, back when we were holed up in the terror ride at the park, we thought we needed the Agency serum to live, right?”

Nods.

“Everyone did, didn’t we?” said Ruby. “Oh, we thought the serum was legit but maybe the memory effects was bogus, and we was runnin’ around trying to find a serum without the memory effects, but we also was tryna figure out just what was true and false about everything, and course we know it was all a bunch of horse-hockey now, but back then we was obsessed with finding it all out.”

“Right.”

“Sure.”

“Now,” Ruby drawled, holding up her hands leading us further into her argument, “’parently, sometime back then, Arie found out something that he figured was important enough to put down into a code. Great. But what was it? Hell, I wanna know as bad as you all do. Sure I do. But it’s gonna take manpower to find that out, which is something I ain’t got a lot of. So, best thing for me to do is narrow down what it could be. Yah? Narrow it down before we waste that manpower, see. And when I start narrowin’ it on down, I betcha that was it—Arie found out that the serum was a fake. Or that the memory effects was fake. Or something related to that. Follow? That’s the most likely thing it could be, and we already know alla that.”

Arie objected. “Yeah, but we don’t know—”

“Bup bup bup,” Ruby held up her stick. “You’re right. We don’t know, do we? We don’t know nothin’. But follow my logic. That’s the most likely thing ya found out, kid. And so not only could this notebook un-coding burn up a whole lotta valuable manpower and not amount to nothin’, it might amount to somethin’ we already been knowin’ for a while, and in fact I think it’s most likely that that’s the big secret! No offense, kid, but what else could you of found out back in the 1891 that we haven’t already learned for ourself since we got outta there? We pretty much know everything now, and nowadays it’s not s’much about finding out more about the Agency as it is about stayin’ outta their way so they can’t make us forget all of what we done learnt.”

She was right. I had forgotten what had happened to Arie and me when we lived in the Zones, but I spent an entire year living within the Agency. What was there left to discover?

Several seconds passed without an answer from any of us.

Then Woolly held up an index finger and opened his mouth to speak.

Ruby cut him off. “An’ don’t you go tellin’ me you’ll work on this in your spare time just outta your own personal curiosity, ya’ big lummox. Y’ain’t got no spare time ’less I give it to ya, and even if I did, you’d burn up alla yer candles stayin’ up nights working on this without any sleep.”

Woolly shrugged his guilt and nodded again.

“See? I can’t afford that,” said Ruby.

I somehow caught Ruby’s gaze and in the span of a second or two, a complicated exchange took place. In that short glance, I managed to remind Ruby that Arie needed this. This or something like it. He’d been told “no” too many times. Even if the notebook were a wild goose chase, and I was beginning to agree that this was probably the case, Arie needed something to occupy his mind, something besides hanging laundry and shucking peas. Sometimes I thought it would almost be better for Arie if he were back at Lotus or even out in the Zones somewhere, because from what I could tell, that was where he thrived—building a resistance, making plans, working under pressure. All this peace and quiet was driving him nuts.

Ruby was disappointingly right. The notebook almost certainly contained information that we’d already discovered, but here at least was a solution to the Arie Problem, I told her, pleading with my eyes.

And Ruby understood.

When the moment passed, I saw the twinkle of covert understanding in her eyes, though it was shadowed by a certain dark reluctance. She sighed loudly and stared at the notebook for a few seconds.

“All right,” she said. She thunked her walking stick on the floor and then passed a heavy-lidded gaze over each of us in turn. “Maybe there’s something here. Maybe there ain’t. Personally, I think there ain’t. But I think you’s have got a point about valuable info. We eat peas and garlic and them little funny wild strawberries, but we live on information, don’t we?”

“Indeed,” murmured Woolly.

“So, tell ya what I’m gonna do,” said Ruby, her voice low and a little apologetic. “You got three days. Woolly? Just you and the kid. Not you, Chase. Or you, Alison. Just them two.” She wagged her finger at Arie and Woolly.

They traded a look and nodded with no little eagerness.

“I’ll relieve ya both from yer camp duties, but if this ends up being another one of them diaries about what kinda soup you ate or howta fix bicycles for your neighbors, so help me I ain’t gonna be real pleased. Three days, and after that it’s back to business as per usual. Got me?”

There was a collective sigh of relief and repeated assurances from all of us that the notebook would not be a distraction. I gave Chase a squeeze.

“We won’t let you down, Boss,” said Woolly.

“There’s no way you can,” Ruby replied gruffly. “Now go on. Git.”

Four

All throughout the first day, I popped into the big command tent every couple hours to see if Arie and Woolly were making progress, trying each time to avoid being caught by Ruby—even when I wasn’t supposed to be busy at some camp duty or assignment.

It didn’t seem to be going well.

When I peeked through the front door flap just after breakfast, the notebook lay open between them on the table, and they sat writing lines of letters and passing The Great Gatsby back and forth. It seemed like the most tedious thing in the world two people could do together. Woolly consulted a page in the novel, ran his finger along the lines of text, wrote down one letter, then passed the book to Arie. Arie ran a finger along a line from the notebook, consulted the novel, and then passed it over to Woolly. This happened over and over. I slipped inside the tent as quietly as I could manage.

Neither of them looked up at me.

“Arie,” I hissed, looking behind me through the gap in the tent door to see if Ruby might be watching.

Arie looked up and met my gaze, but he only gave me a curt, almost dismissive head-shake and then went back to his work. I stepped out of the tent and hoped for a better result next time.

When I came just after lunch, I could see the guys had been served hash and coffee and water and camp cakes. This time Woolly read numbers aloud from the notebook while Arie looked up letters in the paperback and wrote them down. There were balled-up wads of paper and more dirty dishes scattered on the table top.

That time I didn’t even try to get their attention.

Lamps and a few candles were lit when I came around just before my post-dinner shift on dish patrol. This time when I saw them, I thought they were sleeping with their chins in their palms, but then I realized they were staring at long lines of letters they’d been writing down all day, presumably looking for words or maybe even just patterns. They were beginning to look a little weary. Rumor had it they’d downed a full week’s ration of coffee between them.

“I knew it!” barked Ruby from outside the tent.

I considered diving under the table.

“An’ don’t go and try hidin’ in there, Al,” she said. “I saw ya go in. I knew you’d come sniffing around.” She swept the heavy canvas door of the tent aside.

“You said you wouldn’t hang around ’em,” said Ruby, shaking a finger at me. “Said you’d stay busy and not bother ’em.”

“I’m not bothering them,” I told her. “They barely know I’m here.”

“Not entirely true,” said Woolly dryly. “We’ve just been ignoring you.”

Arie nodded without looking up from the decoded lines. Then he paused, rubbed his eye with a fist, the way a little boy would, and went back to his work.

“Go on,” Ruby said to me in a loud whisper. She jabbed a thumb at the tent door. “Git. You think they’re not gonna tell us if they find somethin’?”

“It seems like this might be a bigger challenge than I led you to believe,” said Woolly. His mouth gaped in a great, lionesque yawn, and then he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah?” drawled Ruby. I could tell she wanted them to give up. “Well, fellas, that’s all right. Ya did your best. Maybe you can try again when things settle down.”

The pair looked at each other and nodded slowly, their eyelids puffy. Then they stood. Arie put his hands in the small of his back and arched his spine backwards. Woolly gathered up The Great Gatsby and the notebook and handed them to Arie, who nodded wearily. Then the four of us shuffled out of the tent and off in different directions. I wanted to say something. I kept quiet and went off to work the dinner shift.

That night, as I got ready for bed, I saw a glimmer of lamplight on the other side of camp, where the admin tents and structures stood. I put on my sandals and crossed the camp in the dark. My feet knew the way without any light.

Lights burned brightly in the command tent. I crept up to the nearest window, and there they were in the light of two oil lamps and three or four candles, reading numbers and letters to each other again. I smiled. Then I looked more closely at the table, and I saw sheets of paper with writing on them. Not just strings of random letters or numbers, but words, fashioned into sentences, with spaces, punctuation. I couldn’t read any of the writing, but I knew what it meant, and I gasped, surely loud enough for them to hear me.

If they did hear, they made no signal to indicate it. I turned to leave, but as I turned away, Woolly did look up, craned his head around, and saw my face in the window. There were circles under his eyes and his face was drawn.

But he smiled at me and gave me a thumbs-up.

I was aching to know what they’d decoded, but I felt strongly that I’d break the spell they’d finally conjured if I interrupted for even a few moments. And so I stepped away and spirited back to my tent.

I did not sleep, and just before first light, I got up and peeked out of my tent. Light still shone from the command tent. I got dressed.

Five

I was never really sure about how Ruby felt about me after I’d gotten my memory scrubbed, after the time I spent with Gary Gosford in the Agency housing block. It was nothing she said to me directly. She never had a truly unkind word, and she often told me how much she loved me and how highly she thought of me. She treated me like I was her daughter or niece—she gave me advice and asked me for advice sometimes, too. I’d never heard from anyone else that she’d said anything negative about me, either. But I got a certain feeling from Ruby, like she no longer fully trusted me, no longer thought of me like she did before. Maybe, I sometimes thought, Ruby suspected that my time with Gosford and Rachel had endowed me with some kind of hidden loyalty or a Manchurian-style plan to betray everyone.

In fact, in the back of my mind I thought Ruby might have excluded me from her leadership team had it not been for the fact that Chase and I were together and had grown quite close. Ruby seemed to realize that wherever Chase went, I went, too. We were partners, and even if we hadn’t been a couple, we often thought alike.

“I think Alison’s right.”

“I like Chase’s idea.”

In planning or strategy meetings, that was sometimes all we had to say.

I’m sure we annoyed others with this closeness, but there was something that drew Chase and I together. I never wanted to be very far away from him, nor for very long. I knew I could take care of myself—I knew that Arie and I had lived for at least a year and probably longer out in the Zones on our own—but there in the mountain camp, Chase had a way of stepping in to help me out at just the right times, whether I asked him for help or not. Sometimes it was something as simple as bringing a bowl of stew to my tent after a long day, so that I didn’t have to walk across camp for dinner. Other times he’d take a shift of my duty when I wasn’t feeling well, or when I wanted to spend an afternoon with Arie.

Memory erasure and the conditions the Agency forced us to live in caused all kinds of conflicts and in-fighting, so I tried not to return Ruby’s supposed mistrust in-kind, but I wasn’t about to object that it might be Chase’s influence that kept me close to Ruby’s decision-making, especially now that Woolly and Arie might have wrested something important from the mysterious red notebook.

As I came out of my tent, I saw Chase approaching in the half-light.

“We’re meeting at the firepit,” he said. Then, turning about-face he headed in that direction, waving his hand and beckoning me.

When we got there, someone had started a small fire that snapped and clicked quietly, sending a plume of grayish smoke into the still air. The chickadees and mourning doves were busy singing the morning into life, but it still felt like the middle of the night to me. My head buzzed with a lack of sleep.

Arie sat in a camp chair with his elbows on his thighs and his head hanging practically between his knees. Woolly was pitched back in his chair, fingers laced across his big chest. His eyes were closed, his mouth was open, and he was beginning to snore.

“Guys?” I asked. “You all right?”

Woolly stopped his snoring and nodded slightly but did not open his eyes; Arie nodded without lifting his head.

“Where’s Ruby?” asked Chase.

“She’ll be along,” croaked Woolly.

“I’m here, I’m here,” said Ruby, limping up from behind us, her cane thudding in the duff. There was a weary edge in her voice.

We all came to a sort of collective alert, as we often did when Ruby appeared among us. She shuffled into our midst and stood in front of Woolly and Arie. They’d sat up in their chairs and were yawning and stretching and blinking.

“So?” she grunted.

“We’ve only decoded the first ten pages,” said Arie. His voice was thick with fatigue.

Ruby took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “And?”

“And the first part explains the purpose of the journal,” said Woolly. There was the same sleepy, baritone rattle in his voice. “It’s like we all figured—he coded the information because he thought it was important, and then he left himself little hints and puzzles to point him back to the notebook on the far side of a memory scrub. So, we were right about that.”

“Yah, yah,” said Ruby. “So, what’s the big secret?”

“Well, summarizing a little here,” said Woolly, “but it was close to the end of the year, and Arie came across a man named Eudrich on the side of the road.”

“Yoo-jrick?” said Ruby.

“Close enough,” said Woolly.

“How’d the kid find ’im? He was just laying there in the road?”

“Arie was out searching some old buildings outside Zone boundaries, as was his habit at the time, and he found this guy, who’d apparently been left for dead. Basic Agency goon, young Arie thought, but this guy had been ambushed by thieves and for whatever reason, Arie decided to help him. Pretty bad shape. So, Arie helped the guy make it to a friendly house where some friends treated his injuries and fed him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked Arie.

“Maybe he did,” said Woolly. “Or, maybe it was to protect you.”

“Right,” continued Arie. “To keep the information compartmentalized. But then I found out he wasn’t just some goon. He was a scientist, a researcher. He told me that a lot of what the Agency had told us was true. For example, they really were working on a cure for the memory loss, at least back then. Eudrich was one of their main researchers and, according to the coded journal, he told me that at that time they could successfully and reliably restore memories almost back to the most recent previous dosing incident—they could bring back a year or so worth of lost memories. And they were working on reaching further back.”

I almost didn’t believe that I’d heard Arie correctly. I guess it was because he’d said just what I wanted to hear—that there was a way to reclaim our memories, if only some of them. Our memories before Year One—surely those were out of reach, but even one year of lost memories would mean so much. We would remember each other. Sandy could remember Arie. Arie could remember me.

I couldn’t read Ruby’s expression.

“Keep going,” I said, but my breath was so shallow it came out in a whisper.

Woolly and Arie looked at each other as if deciding who should go ahead.

“Well, that’s kind of it,” said Woolly, “at least so far. The journal documents the details of the Agency’s research on restoring the lost memories, as told to Arie by Eudrich before he died,” said Woolly.

“He died?” asked Chase.

“Yep,” said Woolly.

“We were recording everything in our journals at the time,” said Arie, “and the Agency didn’t approve, but we were apparently getting away with writing down mundane details like where to find firewood and how to stretch our rations and who had what to trade. But Gosford was breathing down our necks at the time, gently discouraging us from using journals and looking into the past. If I wrote down what happened with Eudrich, I could have been disciplined or taken prisoner or who-knows-what. End of the year was coming up, and Eudrich said the virus was real. So, it’s like we guessed—I put it all in code.”

“So, nothin’ new,” said Ruby. “Like I said.”

“What are you talking about? This means there really is a cure,” I said, “for the memory loss. This changes everything.”

“Now hold on, Al,” said Ruby. “Simmer down. These fellas ain’t got but to page ten yet. What if on page eleven they find out this You-jerk guy was lying, or delirious, or just plain wrong?”

Woolly nodded. “There’s a lot more to this notebook—there’s obviously more to it than this first revelation. And it’s slow-going. We’ll probably need four or five more days to finish the rest of it.”

“I still say this changes everything,” I blurted. “How could it just be wrong? Or a lie?”

“Well,” said Ruby before I could go on, “maybe it ain’t wrong or a lie but it’s just a red herring, something we chase and chase and never get nowhere. We’re doing all right just as we are.”

I scoffed. “You’re telling me that if there’s a solution to our memory loss we’re not going to do anything about it?”

“I’m not sayin’ yay or nay, Al,” she replied, a defensive darkness in her tone. “Course I want my memories back, but it’s a matter of risk and benefit.”

“Sure, but the benefit in this case is everything!” I said.

“It would give us a huge advantage,” said Chase to no one in particular, “depending on what we knew before. It really could change everything.”

We’d taken shelter and established our camps in mountainous wilderness areas that were remote and had been difficult to reach even before society collapsed. Still, detection by the Agency was a constant threat, something we had to be constantly vigilant against. I imagined Rachel relentlessly sparing no expense or resources to find us, leading the charge even, ordering all the camps to be wiped out until every person submitted or lay dead. I even had the occasional nightmare that it would be her who swept open the door to my tent and shined her blinding white LED flashlight into my face.

“I’ve got her,” said Rachel in my dream, staring down at me from behind her light. “Get in here and secure her.”

And Ruby was fiercely protective of the camp network—preached vigilance constantly. She considered the camps her own—every path, every guard post, every patch of wild strawberries. And it was all hers and we were all under her protection—she was the mastermind of the sanctuary. I understood why she was so protective.

“There was another name in the book,” said Woolly. He turned to Arie. “What was it? Bellingson?”

“Bellington.”

“Bellingson?” Ruby perked up.

“Bellington,” said Woolly. “Ton. With a ‘t’.”

“That’s what I said.” She was snapping her fingers, trying to recall something. “Hey, don’t we know a Bellington? From the old days?”

Chase was already nodding. “David, I think. David Bellington. Did a bunch of surveillance on him for a few months before we met Alison and Arie. I mean, it’s been a while, but yeah, we know him. What’s the notebook got to say about him?”

“Nothing, really,” said Woolly. “Eudrich mentioned him to Arie, and so he’s in Arie’s narrative, but we’re not sure yet why he’s important or if he is. We were hoping the next few pages would say more.”

“Rube,” said Chase, “we have been talking for a while about grabbing a prisoner or two to see if we can short-circuit the whole cat-and-mouse game, find out how they keep finding us up here in the woods. If this Bellington guy is more or less where we left him, he wouldn’t be hard to nab, and we might squeeze him for answers we were already looking for and maybe get something about the info in this notebook, too. It’d take a week or so to pull off, but it could pay off big.”

Ruby was chewing the inside of her cheek again, as if she had been thinking the same thing already. Lately she’d been moving against the Agency in safe, conservative maneuvers, trying to protect what we’d gained, trying to keep moving forward, even if it was slowly. But the Bellington issue had gotten her attention. It was one thing to nab an Agency goon and pump him for random bits of information, but it was another to interrogate a prisoner with pre-determined objectives in mind. Those moves had leverage, potential. Even I knew that.

“Rube?” said Chase. We were all looking in her direction.

“Sounds like we should pick him up,” I nudged.

Ruby rubbed her chin, trying to downplay her interest, but her eyes had narrowed. She still knew a good move when she saw one. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt just ta’ ask him a few questions. Chase, go ahead and put together a team. Bring me a plan.”

Again, there was a collective sigh of relief. Chase made a fist and smacked the palm of his other hand with it. A calculating grin spread across Woolly’s face, and he nodded slowly.

I tried to stay quiet and still, not wanting to jinx Ruby into backing out. But Arie reacted the way I would have if I could have—he leaped from his chair and pumped his fist in the air. He’d wanted to go prisoner hunting for a while. He’d been told no so many times he could practically answer on behalf of Ruby. But it was more than that. It seemed we had all been feeling like Arie—the restlessness of sitting around and playing it safe for too long. It seemed we were all growing impatient to take it to the Agency again, like the old days, waging war in the shadows. We felt stuck. I know I did, anyway, and I’d forgotten almost all the skullduggery I’d ever played a role in.

“Meanwhile,” Ruby hastened to add, “Wool, you and the kid keep working on that damn notebook. I don’t care how long ya stay up. If we’re picking someone up, we gotta know what it says in there.”

“We’re on it,” said Arie, barely concealing his excitement.

Woolly made a half-bow to likewise consent.

I thought they might head in the direction of their tents to grab a few hours of rest before starting again, but they were going in the direction of the command tent. I didn’t object. Let them sleep when they want to, I thought.

“Everybody else,” said Ruby, turning to me, “which pretty much just means you, Al—you’d best be on your best behavior and go about your business like normal, which in your case probably means doing some breakfast duties.”

“I’m on it,” I said. I mimicked Woolly’s half-bow and then I turned on my heel and almost sprinted to the kitchen area. I no longer felt tired, I no longer felt worried. For the past few days I’d been feeling that I could only take about half a breath, that I could only half-relax. Now it was as though I could fill my lungs all the way up.

Of course none of us knew what this Bellington character would have to say, or if he could even be found, but my reckless optimism had kicked in again and it seemed like almost anything could result from this coded notebook information and the impending prisoner grab.

We could end up with a year’s worth of restored memories.

Or more.

I almost tripped on the trail to the kitchen as I fantasized about it, and I actually did trip when my thoughts turned to the possibility of having all our memories restored. As I got up and clapped the dirt from my palms and knees, I laughed. That was the entirety of all my wishes for the future—that we would find ourselves again. Cost-benefit analysis goes out the window when something like that is at stake.

And so there was an energy in the camp, a crackle or current that I’d felt before, but not for a long while. I felt it in my head and my chest and I’d seen it in Arie’s face before he’d turned to go back to the command tent. I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to name it for fear that it would vanish or burst like a bubble of soap.

It was hope.

Six

For days, I begged Chase to tell me their plan to take Bellington prisoner.

“How long will you be gone?”

“Al, you know I can’t say.”

“Where is he at? Main Zone complex? Where I was? Is he farther north? Is he out in the new settlements?”

“Al. Quit. Please.”

“Well, do you even know where he’s at? How are you gonna find him?”

“Al.”

“Just tell me who’s out looking for him, then? Is this thing even happening? Just tell me something!”

For days, he wouldn’t budge.

I knew he wasn’t supposed to say anything. It was for my safety, of course, and Chase’s, too—the less I knew about where he was or what he was doing, the less I could say about it if everything went to hell and we were captured. It’s not like they wouldn’t torture me either way, but it’d be better if I had nothing to divulge.

I knew this; I just wasn’t happy about it.

Just about everything in our existence was supposed to be on the QT, need-to-know, etc. Who were the leaders of the other camps? We didn’t know exactly, didn’t even know precisely how many camps there were, unless we needed to know, and we were supposed to keep everything to ourselves. Compartmentalization was our motto, our mission. And it wasn’t just to prevent getting information tortured out of us. The Agency had on several occasions tried to infiltrate our camps with outsiders posing as wanderers or Agency defectors, and so we were not supposed to gossip or share information or ask each other about our roles in camp. In fact, Ruby had implemented a policy that forbade us from even talking about or asking each other what jobs we did in camp from day to day—picking berries, cutting wood, boiling water—not because it would endanger anyone to know that I did dishes all the time, but because it helped to develop good, tight-lipped habits, so that we weren’t blabbing about everything we knew or thought we knew.

But Chase also knew that I couldn’t not ask.

Whenever there was any kind of operation, I was consumed with knowing all the details. For a week I obsessed about knowing when the prisoner grab would happen, extrapolating what would happen next, and from there predicting how long it might take before we made any progress on the whole getting-our-memories-back thing. It was a light at the end of the endless tunnel.

I’m sure I drove Chase absolutely insane. And it made me angry, but he finally told me that we needed to stay apart for a few days while he worked on the plan.

“Babe, I can’t say no to you forever,” he said, “so I’m gonna have to ask you that you stay on that side of the camp and I’ll stay on this one.”

I harrumphed at him, shot him my most withering glare, but he held his ground.

“It’s for the best. You know it is.”

“So, you’re just going to ignore me until it’s time for you to go?”

“I’ll come by and tell you good night,” he said, “but we gotta do this by the book if we’re gonna realize any benefit from it.”

The rest of the day crept by with a glacial deliberateness. I watched the shadows on the ground outside my tent slowly slant with the changing angle of the sun. I barely ate, I did my dishes in a half-trance, skipped dinner, and crawled into my bed as soon as the crickets began to sing.

How long could something like this possibly take? A week to catch this Bellington guy, a week to interrogate him, and a week to get back? Add a week for unforeseen happenstances—that was a month. Add another full month for making the plan to get the memory cure, or synthesize it, then a full month after that to execute that plan—so, we’d be getting our memories by early winter? Let’s say something goes really bad wrong, I thought. Something always does seem to go sideways, so let’s add two months to recover—could we maybe get back on track over the winter, and maybe get the memory-restoration up and running by next summer? Could this take a year? Could it take longer than that?

Chase came to my tent as he said he would. He ran his finger along my temple, tucked my hair behind my ear, and kissed me on the forehead. I pretended to be asleep already.

“Sleep tight, bunny,” he whispered. “I love you.”

I lay still, kept my eyes closed.

As he blew out my candle and turned to go, I snagged his arm and pulled him back.

“Ah,” he said, laughing. “Not sleeping after all, eh?”

“Please!” I blurted. I thought I might wake up the whole camp. “Just tell me something. So I can sleep? Please?”

It was almost dark, and there was only a faint light remaining inside my tent, a hint of the dusk that was still draining from the sky, but in that half-light, I thought I detected a smile stealing across Chase’s bearded face. The crickets had fallen into a synchronous rhythm and thrummed softly outside. Chase shook his head slowly.

“Okay,” he said, smoothing my hair with his hand. “If I tell you one thing, you’ll go to sleep?”

“Mm-hm.”

“You promise you’ll go to sleep and shut the hell up?”

“I promise.”

“Okay,” said Chase, with a sigh of relief. “They found him. Bellington. I won’t say where, but a runner came into camp tonight with the news. We know where he is. It’s on. We’re gonna go grab him.”

“When?” I said, sitting up in the bed and tugging on Chase’s arm. “How long will it take? When will you go? When will you be back?”

He laughed and ran his hand over his face. He was exasperated at me again—I didn’t need any light to know that. But I couldn’t help it.

“Go to sleep, bunny,” he said. “I gotta go. Lots to be done. Sleep now.”

“I can’t,” I cried. “Not now that I know it’s really happening. Chase, can you imagine? Getting it all back? Getting yourself back?”

“Yeah, babe. I do get it. And I’m excited, too. Haven’t felt this way since back in the early days, back at Thrill Harbor, back when we met. It’s all very exciting, for sure. But you gotta learn some patience.”

“You’re right,” I confessed, shaking my head emphatically. “I’ll work on that. Right after you tell me how it’s all going down.”

“Dammit,” he breathed. “How can I say no to you? Okay. I’ll tell you a bit. But if you breathe even a word to this to, well, anyone, at any time, even after it’s all over and even if it all works out fine—if anyone anywhere ever finds out I told you anything—you know Ruby will have me skinned alive, right?”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone. I swear it. Cross my heart.” In the darkness I drew an X over my heart. “It’s just—I’m going crazy, Chase. Just tell me when, how long, and when you’ll be back. Tell me that and then I swear I can lay down and go to sleep.”

“It’s tonight, babe,” he said, cupping my face. “Me and Bostwick and Thompson.”

“You were just gonna leave me without saying good bye?”

“That’s why I came over here, babe. I’m saying good bye.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know that!” I insisted.

“Babe, all of this is supposed to be classified.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep myself from crying. “I know. I’m sorry. Where will you hold him? The Bellington guy. How long will you question him? How long will you be gone?”

Chase sighed deeply, and I saw him shake his head. “We’re bringing him here, Al. Ruby’s plan. Ruby’s orders.”

“Here? My god,” I said. “Isn’t that kinda crazy?”

“Definitely. A huge risk. But Ruby wants to question this guy himself, and she just can’t travel very well anymore. She’s been wanting a prisoner for a while, of course, we all have—to try to get some distance on the cat-and-mouse. Now that the boys are making headway on that crazy notebook, who knows what else we might find out? But remember, no one knows we’re even grabbing a prisoner, and even if they do, they don’t know why. So keep a lid on it, for god’s sake.”

“Okay, so when? How long will this take? When will you grab him? When will you be back?”

“Grab him probably on Thursday, Friday at the outside. We’re hoping to be back here within nine or ten days. If the weather is good, we could be back within a week, I guess.”

I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of me. The cot squeaked in rickety protest. We lay that way for a while, noses touching.

“I want to know who I am, Chase,” I said. “I want to know who you are.”

“Ya know, babe,” he replied, “we know quite a bit about each other already. For example, I know that I love you.”

“I love you, too, Chase,” I whispered.

We shared a long kiss.

“You happy now?” he asked, getting to his feet again.

“Yes, very.”

He sighed. “You’re my weakness, Al, you know that? Back when we were in the 1891, before Gosford got to us, I told Woolly that you would be the end of me. He doesn’t remember, of course, but I did. Fact, I’m not sure how I’ve survived this long.”

“Well, give me a little more time,” I said.

“Get some sleep,” he said.

“How can I sleep knowing it’s happening tonight?”

“Al!”

“Just joking.”

He bent over, drew the top of my sleeping bag up, and tucked it under my chin. Tucked it tightly, just the way I like it. Then he straightened, but I took his hand in mine.

“Be careful, Chase.” I squeezed his hand.

“I will.” He squeezed back.

“Come back.”

“I will. I told you I will.”

“Getting my memories back won’t mean much if you’re not here to make new ones.”

He went out without another word, and the only sound then was the slow thrumming of the crickets in the darkness.

I didn’t think I would be able to sleep, but I felt sure now that we’d have the antidote, soon, or at least eventually.

Antidote.

I didn’t even really know what it was. Was it a drug? Some kind of brain-stimulus treatment? Maybe a psychological technique. The details didn’t seem important. What mattered was that this was not just another plan to survive better or to find a new and safer place to subsist. This was an actual antidote for everything that was wrong with our lives, our world. I didn’t think I would be able to sleep that night with all of this running through my brain, but I’m almost sure that before five minutes had passed, I was fast asleep.

Seven

I woke up early. The air was crisp and cool and even though it was still late summer, there in the mountains the mornings were getting cold enough so that you could see your breath. I sighed and a tiny cloud billowed up into my tent.

Most of the camp was still sleeping, but the birds in the trees were awakening. I lay on my cot staring at the roof of my tent, sleeping bag pulled up to my chin. Had it been five days now, or six?

Soon I heard cook pots clanking and a few distant voices. The breakfast crew was up and working. I heard their laughter, muted and muffled by the distance. I got up, rinsed my face, and got dressed.

I wasn’t on kitchen duty or any other duty that day, but I joined the others and found the coffee and filled the scorched, blue-enamel percolator and set it on the fender of the main fire-pit. I don’t know why, but it felt better just to be near other people, even if I didn’t speak with them or interact.

After a few minutes, the deep-brown coffee was bubbling up into the glass button at the top of the pot, and a steady stream of water vapor issued from the spout. I filled my cup and cradled it in my hands, the warmth radiating up my wrists and into my arms.

Chase wasn’t back yet. Every day when I got up, I checked his tent first and then looked around down at the vehicle yard. Two vehicles were missing—an F-150 we’d recently acquired and the old Taurus that seemed to have been around forever. Chase didn’t tell me those were the vehicles he and his small team had taken, but I assumed, and I ached to see them parked there again.

The kitchen staff was making grits with eggs, and it would have smelled wonderful if I’d been hungry. I pulled up a chair and sat in front of the fireplace. I’d brought my unzipped sleeping bag with me and I sat there with it wrapped around my shoulders.

The steam from my coffee mug curled up. I took a sip, and just then I heard a soft commotion from the tents. I turned to see Ruby stumbling out of her tent with apparent difficulty. Another charlie-horse, by the look of it. She limped back and forth in front of her tent, kneading the back of her thigh, punching it with her balled-up fist.

It was no secret that Ruby was in frequent pain. She would sometimes mention her bum knee or the effects of getting old, but more than that, it was most evident in the way she’d plant herself somewhere and have everyone come to her. Once she got comfortable, the other officers and anyone needing to speak to her would have to line up and wait.

Even with her new walking stick, she struggled to get up and down, and there were certain areas there on the mountain that she simply could not access. Although there were nicely worn paths, most of which were easy to walk, in most ways the camps were still very much wilderness and there were many paths that were steep, rocky, uneven, or strewn with cobbles. And when it was dark, Ruby required an escort just to go down to the latrine or cross from the command tent to her own.

I worried all the time that one misstep could put Ruby out of commission for good, but then again in other ways she seemed indestructible, like she could stand up against a tank. God knows she would almost surely try if it ever came to that. And when her physical body sometimes failed her, her unflagging mental toughness compensated.

Like when she contracted walking pneumonia the previous spring. She had horrendous coughing fits—I heard once that you could hear her at the remote guard posts—but in some ways she was more productive than ever because she didn’t have to take a break from working to walk across camp for meals or do anything for herself.

But there were other times she surprised everyone—she was often the first one up and about in the morning, especially when the weather was dry and warm. And if there was a major operation to complete, she’d stay up long after everyone had gone to bed. She had some bad days with her health and her knee and all the rest, but she had good days, too.

I sometimes thought about what Ruby might have been like when she was my age. At first, I pictured a younger and sexier version of herself—kicking ass and taking names and never backing down from an adventure. Had she been in the military? A rough woman-warrior who’d seen combat? Or a merchant sailor? Or maybe she’d been part of some criminal element before Year One, too. Maybe she had always been a ringleader like the one we all knew—boosting warehouses and running rackets.

In the end I thought maybe the opposite were true. What if Ruby was a UPS driver back before, or a waitress, or something completely innocuous, and she’d only taken on the persona we knew after the world had gone to hell?

I loved Ruby, we all did, but mingled with that love was more than a little fear. I’m not sure what we were so afraid of—even the slowest of us could easily outrun her on her best day. I think it was more about wanting to please her and impress her and the fear of letting her down.

I was painfully unlike Ruby. I wasn’t a natural-born leader, nor was I particularly adventurous. But I hoped that she saw some value in me, and I took pride in knowing I was much more like her than I had been when we’d first met.

And so I was careful about what I did and said around Ruby, and I often felt like I was faking it until I made it—pretending to be like her until someday I would be. I wanted her respect, but more and more I felt that my efforts fell short of that aim. It seemed like I either wanted too much or too little. I was too complacent or naively ambitious.

All of this was in sharp contrast to people in the camp like Chase, who had many skills and abilities that were valuable in a place and time like this. If it came down to choosing one or the other of us, Ruby would pick Chase in a heartbeat. Still, I tried. Even as it seemed like we might be nearing some new and better chapter of our life outside the Zones, I still wanted to win Ruby over.

Ruby labored up the path in my direction, still clutching at the back of her thigh where I knew a muscle cramp was knotting up and spasming. She winced and muttered as she came along. When she came near, she nodded at me but didn’t say more, and when I realized she was joining me at the fire pit, I hopped up and got a chair ready for her. She limped past me and collapsed into the camp chair, then nodded at me again by way of thanks. Then she sat there panting.

The kitchen staff must have detected her presence because one of them, a girl of about Arie’s age, almost immediately brought her a coffee. She hadn’t caught her breath and so she nodded at the young lady to thank her. Then she scowled into the fire pit, her expression one of deep annoyance and exhaustion.

Today would be one of her bad days.

She looked somewhat like a cat might look after being doused with a garden hose. I could tell that she was in no mood to talk, but the silence was just too much for me.

“Sleep okay?” I said. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Ruby looked in my over at me without turning her head. Then she looked at the fire pit again.

“I haven’t been sleeping well, either,” I went on. “Can’t seem to get warm these days. I’m thinking I need some new wool socks, but I can’t think of what I might trade for some.”

Ruby nodded her head almost imperceptibly, but said nothing.

“Smells like grits and eggs for breakfast,” I rambled. “I wonder if there’s any bacon this morning. We haven’t had any in so long. And I hear we’re running low on coffee.”

“Al,” she said.

This time it was my turn to nod and say nothing.

Then, there came a sound from the upper half of the camp. A low rumbling and a high, keening sound. The sound of an old truck engine and of tired old brakes squealing to a halt.

We both sat up straight in our chairs and looked in the direction of the vehicle yard. The sound of another approaching engine drifted up from that direction. I stood up and threw off my sleeping bag.

“Where ya goin’?” Ruby drawled.

“It’s Chase!” I chirped. “They’re back! Finally!”

“Yah,” she returned. “I know that. But you ain’t sposed’ta.”

I sat back down.

“Chase was s’posed to’ve told you he was going on some routine business to the lower camps. But I guess you got the real story out of him, huh?”

Ruby rocked herself back and forth and then rocked up out of the seat and onto her feet. I stared into my coffee mug like there was something amazing inside it.

“Now you listen here,” said Ruby. “You stay away from them this morning. I know you and Chase’re tight and all, but I get the sense you already know much more than your sposed’ta. And there’s nothing you can do right now to help anyway, so stay out of it.”

I didn’t dare say anything back to Ruby, especially not on one of her bad days, but I watched as she hobbled toward the vehicles.

I followed a little ways behind, hoping Ruby wouldn’t look back. I had to see. Through the trees and underbrush, I glimpsed Chase, and a man with a pillowcase over his head and his hands tied behind him.

We had kidnapped the man, and I couldn’t say that fact sat very comfortably with me. In fact, I felt awful about it—kidnapping and interrogating seemed beneath us. We were trying to avoid being forced into doing things against our will, and yet here was a man who was almost certainly minding his own business a few days before and now here he was a prisoner and his fate a complete mystery to him. We were supposed to be the good guys.

Still, there was no doubt in my mind that this was something that had to be done. We needed that information. Ruby had pointed out many times in the past week that, even if there was some kind of medicine or technique that could bring our memories back, all we’d really gain was more to lose if we were captured again by the Agency.

And she had a point—it didn’t matter if you woke up in the Agency infirmary after having lost one year’s worth of memories or thirty-six years—you were still a walking shell of your former self.

But I was hoping she was wrong. Something inside me said that if just some small portion of us could regain all of our memories from back before, something would change. The world would somehow change back.

And after that, perhaps we could work on making it up to each other—to Bellington and all the other Bellingtons who’d been punched in the head and tied up and thrown into a truck.

I saw Chase gesture to Bostwick and Thompson, and they led Bellington to the command tent. A couple guards were posted as Chase and Ruby spoke outside for a moment. Chase nodded at something Ruby said, and then they both went in the tent.

Woolly walked up beside me.

“What’s all the excitement?” I asked. “Do you know?”

He gave me a sideways glance. “Don’t even try it,” he said. “I know you know way more than me about what’s going on over there.”

I shrugged. “Thought you might know something I don’t.”

He stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head slowly. “I know what I know and that’s all I need to know.”

Sometimes I wished I could be more like Woolly, too.

“What about the notebook? Anything new you can tell me?” I looked up at him and gave him a sheepish grin. “All this knowing about stuff just makes me want to know more.”

Woolly took Ruby’s chair and looked at the fire.

“Arie wrote a lot about the memory effects and his theories about why the memory loss was occurring,” said Woolly. “Pretty technical for a kid that age, but not particularly revealing or useful or even interesting. Plus, Arie apparently started using an entirely different encoding system about halfway through the notebook. That set us back a day or two. We don’t know if it was extreme paranoia, or if the notebook might have been written through not one but two memory scrubs. But we’re still working on it. We’re kind of into a rhythm now. Won’t be long before we’ve got the rest of it decoded.”

I nodded. Arie was busy and Chase was back in camp. It might not be a great day for Ruby, but things were looking up for me.

“They got the guy in there, huh?” Woolly gestured with his chin at Ruby’s tent. “What’s his name again? Bellingham?”

“Bellington.”

“Right. They got him, huh?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“Ruby told me they’d canceled that trip, and that Chase was heading to the lower camps to trade for coffee and bacon.”

“And you believed her?”

“No. Especially after I realized Thompson was gone, too—our best driver—and Bostwick; our best grab-and-bag guy.”

“I’m just glad they’re back,” I said.

“Yeah,” Woolly nodded. “Think this Bellingson will help us?”

“Bellington,” I said. “ton. And yeah, I hope so.”

“Think he’ll want to?”

“I dunno. Our best grab-and-bag guy just bashed him on the head a few days ago.”

“True. But Ruby has a way of getting people to talk.”

“That’s true, too,” I said.

Woolly tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “Not like the Agency does though,” he said.

“No,” I said. “Not like the Agency. I mean she has a way of showing people how things could be better. I don’t know how to say it.”

“According to the journal,” Woolly said, “the memory cure they were working on could at the time restore a test-subject’s memories to the point just prior to the last time they were dosed with the serum. It differed from subject to subject, apparently. Wanna know something funny, though?”

I nodded.

“I think I remember some things. Things you don’t remember. Like you and Chase debating about if the serum was really necessary and deciding that it wasn’t. I think I remember that.”

“How can that be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Even just that,” I said, “I’d be so thankful to remember. Chase has memories of me, of us, that I don’t have. It makes me feel like I’m missing something. Like he knows me better than I know him. Or something like that.”

“Well,” said Woolly, “maybe someday we’ll remember.”

Eight

I did my chores that day. I carried water from the stream to camp several times. I helped harvest garlic and asparagus. But I was in a haze the entire time. My mind was on the man held captive in the command tent. We brought water up from the river in five-gallon jerry cans mounted to backpack frames. They were terrifically heavy, and it was one chore I didn’t like very much. Usually, it wore me out completely, and I could only make two trips. This time I made three, and all I can remember was getting to the top of the hill and to the place on the trail where I could see the command tent. I don’t know what I thought I’d see-it’s not like they’d bring him out or something. I never saw anyone come in or go out at any point. Not even to use the latrine, apparently.

I was sure that few people in camp even knew about the new prisoner, and if they didn’t know, I didn’t want to tip them off and get in hot water with Ruby, so I found Woolly. He was in the wood pen splitting logs.

Woolly was large, his arms like great slabs of meat, and he was known throughout the camp as one of the best at chopping wood. The big maul we used for splitting was nearly too heavy for me to swing, but Woolly wielded it like a flyswatter, and when it came down on an up-ended log, the two resulting halves flew around the pen like bowling pins hit by a speeding ball.

“You again?” he said with a chuckle. He brought down the maul and a stout log burst asunder. “I suppose you’re here to gossip.”

“Is that okay?” I winced.

“Sure. I was just starting to get bored.”

He leaned down and picked up one of the split hunks of wood. I picked up the other.

“How about, you crack ’em, I stack ’em?” I said.

“Sounds good to me. The cracking is my favorite part. The stacking, not so much.”

“I can barely lift that thing.”

Woolly set up another chuck of pine, stepped back, and swung the maul. It was less like the cord-wood was being split open and more like it was detonating. The flying pieces even sounded like scattering bowling pieces. I picked up the pieces, stacked them.

“What do you think is happening?” I asked, craning my neck to see the command tent.

He shrugged and set up another chunk on the block. “I would theorize that they’re trying to establish whether the information in the journal is accurate, but without letting Bellington know that they don’t know. You know? It’s very important in these situations to manage what the prisoner knows about what you know. If he detects that he knows something that they have no way of knowing he knows, things get difficult. If I said that right.”

I shrugged.

The maul came down in another detonating blow. The wood flew apart and tumbled across the pen. I thought for a moment about how I would not want to be on the receiving end of Woolly swinging that maul, or anything else for that matter.

I stacked the resulting firewood and said, “So, you don’t think they’ve discovered anything yet? They’re just, what? Probing?”

“Most likely, yeah. You know. It’s a dance. It’s all about finesse. Speaking of which, watch this,” said Woolly. He set one small log on top of a large one and swung the maul again. When he brought it down, it split both logs, wood flew in all directions.

“Now you’re just showing off,” I said.

“Just a little trick I’ve been working on.”

And he split another half dozen pieces of cord-wood, but I’d fallen into musing about what Ruby or Chase or whoever else was questioning Bellington.

“Al?” said Woolly.

“Hm?” I replied.

He gestured at the wood pieces that lay scattered all around him. “I stack, you crack? My shift’s almost over, and I wanna finish up this pile.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” I collected up the shivered hunks of firewood.

“Listen, Al, we’ll find out soon enough, okay? You got somewhere else to be? Got other plans? Why’re you so impatient? When they’re finished with him, I’m sure we’ll find out what they’ve learned.”

Woolly was right, of course. But that didn’t stop me from sneaking up behind Ruby’s tent and establishing my own personal listening post. I brought a book with me, and I held it up to my face at first, so that if anyone saw me, I could semi-plausibly claim to be just taking a break to read. And so I sat there straining to hear something, anything.

The voices were muffled. Bellington was apparently in the far corner of the tent, but I couldn’t go to that side without being spotted by the guard they’d posted out front.

“Just seems odd, see.” Ruby’s voice. “I mean I understand why you’d never invent something like this for the poor schmucks in the Zones or out in Lotus, but I happen to know a lot of you in management have been scrubbed at one point or other, too, an’ something like this could come in handy for you all almost more’n us.”

“Sorry.” A man’s voice. Had to be Bellington. “I keep saying this, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Really. Nothing? Never heard anything about nothing like this. Here we got hunnerds ’a thousands ’a people with huge memory losses cuz of a treatment for a disease that really can’t do us no harm anymore, and you’re saying you never heard about someone working on getting those memories back, even just for you mucky-mucks in the upper esh-ee-lons?”

“No,” said Bellington calmly. “Never. But, look—I’m in project management. There’re dozens of project managers in my region alone. Comms aren’t what they used to be. Maybe this fantasy memory antidote is out there under someone else’s department.”

“Chase?” said Ruby.

“Doesn’t smell right,” said Chase. “Seems odd.”

“Yah,” said Ruby.

“The complete denial,” said Chase.

“Uh huh,” said Ruby.

“You’d think he’d throw out a red herring. You know?”

“Right.”

“The cave?” Chase asked.

“Yah,” replied Ruby. “A week.”

“Bit harsh,” said Chase.

“Yah? What were you gonna say?”

“Couple days.”

“Couple days? Hell, Becky’s two kids stay in there overnight fer fun.”

“Yeah, but they have candles. And food. And sleeping bags. And they can come out whenever they want.”

“Oh, come on,” sneered Bellington. “A cave?”

“What?” said Ruby. “You okay with a week?”

“I’m telling you,” he replied, and I thought maybe his smugness was waning a little, “I don’t know where you’re getting these ideas.”

“And when was the last time you took the serum? When was the last time you got scrubbed?” Ruby asked, her voice raised.

“I don’t know. It’s been years. Five, I guess. Yeah, five. They diagnosed me virus-free and classified me for no serum. Lots of people are that way. You should know. Here, tell you what—go back and pick up a couple of my co-workers. They’ll tell you the same thing. I’m in project management. I know nothing about medical matters.”

“Okay,” said Chase. “That’s what we’ll do. It’ll take us some time, though. Let’s get you to the cave and we’ll catch up with you when we get back.”

“I don’t know anything about this!” he growled, but there was fear in his anger.

“Right,” said Ruby. “It’s just, see, that ain’t what Eudrich told us.”

The man paused. “Eudrich? Benjamin Eudrich?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you take him, too? Is he alive? What did you do to him? Where is he?”

There was a pause in the tent.

“He’s dead,” Ruby said. “But we had nothing to do with that. How’d you know him?”

There was another, longer pause. “We worked together. We were friends.”

I couldn’t hear anything clearly after that. Just movement within the tent, but no talking. I thought I heard Ruby whispering, then Chase. I moved closer to the tent, almost placing my ear on the canvas.

“Al!” shouted Chase. He was behind me. I startled so hard I practically threw the book across the camp.

I stood up.

“What are you doing? You really can’t stop yourself, can you?”

I shook my head.

“Well, Ruby says to tell you that if she catches you out here again, you’re going on permanent latrine duty,” Chase said.

I frowned. “I’ll go,” I said. “I’m just wanting to know what’s going on. You guys really should issue some updates or something. The waiting is killing me, Chase. I feel like I’ve won the lottery but then finding out that before you can pick up your prize, you have to jump through ten more hoops and fill out paperwork and do a bunch more requirements and then when you do those you go back and they say, ‘not yet,’ and add even more red tape.”

“I know, I know.”

I wrapped my arms around Chase’s neck. “I just want to remember.”

“You gotta be patient, Al. We’re doing the best we can. I’ll tell you everything that happened when we’re finished.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he said.

There was nothing to do but wait.

Nine

Chase found me late that night. I hadn’t gone to bed, but I was lying on my cot dozing. There was a chill in the air, and I was thinking of making myself some tea when he poked his head through the tent fly.

“Come in, come in,” I said.

He stepped inside, hands in his pockets. I could tell before he spoke that he didn’t have any good news for me.

“We questioned him all day, all evening, and he maintains he doesn’t know anything. Says he’s just a middle-management goon. We did pick up some good intel about how the Agency squads conduct searching, but he’s adamant that he doesn’t know about this memory treatment.”

“So, nothing? Nothing at all?”

Chase shook his head slowly. “Even me and Ruby are beginning to believe him. For all we know there might not really be an antidote.”

“He’s lying,” I said.

“Maybe,” said Chase, “but what can we do?”

“Put him in the cave. Beat him up. I don’t know. This is what you guys do. Get the info. Make him talk.”

“Al, we don’t torture. You know that. Feels wrong even to grab prisoners, sometimes. I don’t know. We are gonna stick him in the cave for a few days. We’re giving him forty-eight hours to change his story, tell us something we can verify, but, I’m thinking, hell, we did our best. If he knows something, he’s not going to tell. We’ll just have to live with that. I mean, think about it—this whole thing was kind of a longshot to begin with.”

I sighed. For every one step we took forward, it felt like two steps back.

“So, what are you going to do with him?”

“Ruby offered to let him stay in the camp, if he could tell us about the treatment, but he didn’t seem to be very enticed by that.”

“So now what?”

Here Chase frowned. “Well, we’ll hold him. Work on him. See if we can’t bring him around to our way of thinking. I don’t know. We can’t just let him go, obviously, because he might be able to lead someone back here, even if he was drugged for the trip in.”

“Well, when you kidnap a person and keep them under guard, it shouldn’t be that surprising that they wouldn’t find the place all that appealing.”

“Hey,” snapped Chase, “this isn’t easy. It’s a fine line. We want to better ourselves, but we can’t do that by kicking the shit out of people who have information we need. I suppose you got a better idea?”

I wasn’t angry at Chase. I could tell he really was doing his best, but it was infuriating—the better life we wanted was always dangling just out of reach. And all of this frustration seemed to aim itself right at Chase, with no help from me.

“So,” I said, “that’s it?”

“Like I said, we’re keeping him here for a while. We’ll sweat him out in the cave. After that? Not sure. He hasn’t been mistreated—other than being detained. Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

“He’s just sitting in the command tent?” I asked.

“He’ll be under twenty-four-hour guard for a while, yeah. I’m gonna take another shift with him later tonight.

“And if he doesn’t change his mind and join the camp? What then?” I asked.

Chase didn’t answer.

“What do we do then? Kill him?” I asked.

“What? No! You know better than that.” He looked horrified.

“Then what?”

Chase rubbed his forehead. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe we’ll take him east. Drop him off and let him fend for himself. I’m not sure. But I gotta go grab a couple hours of sleep before my shift. I’m exhausted. Gonna be a long night.”

“Fine,” I said, my voice low and buzzy. Of course I didn’t mean fine. “Fine” was the word I always used when I felt that nothing was fine. And Chase knew it. He’d been around me long enough to have figured that out.

But he left anyway.

I tried to sleep that night, but my mind roiled. I felt certain Bellington knew something that he wasn’t saying. I could almost hear it in his voice just in the short time I listened. He was hiding what he knew, and we were losing what could be our only chance to get our real lives back. Something made me certain of all of this.

And so the fire inside me was stacked and stocked and grew hotter. It was the flames that had first started during my conversation with Arie on the hillside about Sandy and his frustration with the camp’s inaction. The flames had grown with the news of the notebook and the antidote. Now it felt blinding and unquenchable and ready to break out and burn wild. I had to do something.

Ten

“Hey,” I said.

Chase was sitting on an up-ended log with his back leaning against the tree, watching the command tent. There was a lantern burning with a low flame, hanging by its bail from a nearby branch, and Chase was listlessly polishing a pair of army boots.

“Oh, hey, Al,” he said. “What are you up to? Thought you were mad at me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry about that. I’m not mad at you. Just frustrated with the situation. You’re right. I need to be more patient. Give it time.”

“So, what are you doing up?” he asked.

“Couldn’t sleep, so I brewed some tea. Then I got to thinking about you staying up out here all night.”

“Ah, bless your heart, bun,” he said, setting down his boot and polishing brush. “C’mere. It’s freezing out here and you don’t even have a jacket on.”

He unzipped his coat, and I slipped my arms underneath it and leaned into the warm pocket of air around him. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on top of my head.

“How’s your prisoner?” I asked.

“Sleeping, I hope,” said Chase.

“And how much longer are you here for?” I asked Chase.

“Couple more hours. Larson should be coming around three or four to take his shift.”

“You said you were exhausted, and that was a couple hours ago,” I said. “How you doing now?”

“Actually, I’m glad you came along when you did. I keep dozing off. Don’t tell Ruby. It’s been kind of a long few days. I think I’ll be fine. I mean I’m really knackered, but I’ll crash later.

I don’t know when I came up with the plan. It may have started stirring in my mind as I lay in my tent, before I got up out of my sleeping bag and sat on the edge of the cot, and it may have begun to take shape as I tied my boots and crossed the dark camp for the command tent. I don’t know when it became an actual plan. I wasn’t sure if it even was a plan. I just started talking.

“That tea is in my tent. Still hot. And it’s warm in there. Got a couple coals burning. Go have some tea and take ten minutes. Take twenty. Take a nap, for all I care. You know what, in fact? I think I still have a shot or two of that homemade hooch that Lorenzo and Chester cooked up. Have a drink. I’ll sit here.” I hoped that the moonshine would seal the deal.

Chase pursed his lips and squinted at the command tent, as though weighing the risks. I looked, too. Everything was still in the soft light of the lantern. There was no light or sound issuing from the tent. Chase unwrapped my arms from his middle and put his finger to his lips. Then he crept to the front flap of the command tent and quietly opened it. He stood there, listening. After what felt like a full minute, he walked softly back to me.

“He’s asleep, pretty sure,” said Chase. “I can tell by his breathing. And if he’s not, he’s doing an outstanding job of faking it, so, respect to him. And if he’s planning to make a run for it or something, he’s gonna have to get out of a pair of handcuffs and those leg manacles hitched to a twenty-two-pound boat anchor.”

I nodded. “So, go ahead.”

“Okay. If he comes out, just scream like hell, okay?”

“Sounds like a pretty easy job. Maybe you don’t really deserve a break.”

“You really don’t mind?” said Chase. “You said everything was ‘fine’ just a few hours ago. We all know what that means.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I don’t mind. I said I was sorry about that.”

“All right,” he replied. “If I’m not back in like, a half-hour, jog over and get me.” He kissed my cheek. “Thanks, hon. I appreciate it.”

As I watched Chase disappear into the shadows between the command tent and mine, I felt a sudden twinge of guilt form in the pit of my stomach. It dropped there and rolled around a few times. I’d never tried anything like this before, but there was no way Chase would go along with it if I told him what I planned to do, girlfriend or not. And there was no way I could lie in bed and watch the one thing I wanted just evaporate.

He’d forgive me.

If I could even pull it off, that is.

Would he forgive me?

Would Ruby?

Of course they would. Because I was certain that the ultimate, eventual pay-off was finding ourselves again, meeting ourselves, and starting again. I wanted to remember. I had to. I wanted Arie to remember. And Chase and Ruby and Woolly and everyone else. It was the first and last thing that been taken from us. It was what we were owed. What we deserved. I had to try. I don’t know if I realized it fully at that time, but the fire inside me had gone wild and tumbled from the andirons and spilled out over the fender and flagstones and into the room and the walls were now ablaze.

And so I stared at the kerosene lantern Chase had left hanging from the tree branch. Reaching through the darkness I turned the wheel that raised the wick and the flame grew. I had to squint my eyes, accustomed as they were to the dark of the night. I lifted the lantern and went quietly into the command tent.

Bellington lay on his back on a low, aluminum-framed cot. His wrists were encircled by a pair of Chase’s nickel-plated police cuffs, and his hands and fingers were sort of spraddled across his chest in a way that to me looked very uncomfortable. His feet were likewise cuffed in a set of prison manacles which looked positively indestructible and were, as Chase had said, threaded through a big steel boat anchor. What that particular piece of equipment was doing in this mountainous place was anybody’s guess.

I set the lantern down and looked at Bellington for a few long moments. He looked to be very peacefully sleeping in spite of his situation.

“Tell me what you know,” I said in a voice almost too quiet even for me to hear. Bellington didn’t stir.

I slid my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers around a folding Buck knife. This was Chase’s, too, but he told me I could have it. It had a dark wood and brass handle, and the locking blade was perhaps five inches long. It wasn’t much of a weapon, and I wasn’t much of a fighter, but the blade itself was terribly sharp, and I supposed I hoped that my appearance in the middle of the night and the blade in the dark and Bellington’s hapless state as a prisoner far from home would give me an advantage in the early going.

I took the Buck knife from my pocket. The care-polished blade glowed dully in the flame light. When I opened the blade, it locked open with a sharp click that seemed like it might be as a rifle shot in the stillness.

Then I came closer and crouched at Bellington’s cot, near his head. I took a deep breath to steady myself, but in that moment, I felt panic rising in me. What am I doing here? What am I hoping to accomplish?

Chase would be so angry. Would he leave me? And Ruby. Ruby would lose her mind completely. Would she banish me? Maybe she’d turn me over to the Agency to have me out of her hair. Did I really think I could get him to talk when no one else could? The seriousness of the situation, along with its absurdity hit me like Woolly’s maul impacting a hunk of firewood. It was all so stupid. My little plan.

I stood up slowly, moving as quietly as I could manage. My heart thudded like some broken machine. I began backing away from the cot, backing slowly and gingerly toward the tent flap. What if Chase came back? Or Chase’s relief? Or anyone? Or what if Bellington woke—

He opened his eyes.

Eleven

Maybe, I thought, he wouldn’t see me? Maybe he’d think it was just a dream and roll over and forget the whole thing? Or would he spring up and stick my own knife into my heart.

A look of terror was on Bellington’s face. I could only imagine the expression on mine. His eyes darted from my face to the knife in my hand and back again. Mine darted from his face to his handcuffs and manacles.

Running on pure instinct, I lunged, crouched at his side again, and put the knife to his throat. He flinched a little but said nothing.

“Listen here, you little goon,” I hissed at him, “it’s time for you to start talking. I know you’re lying. Tell me what you know about an Agency memory cure or I’ll make you pay.”

Even as the words left my mouth, I knew nothing like that would ever happen. I didn’t believe it myself—how could he? Me? Cut a person? Chase once told me a story of a night back before they wiped my memories—we’d broken into an Agency building together, and I apparently didn’t have the heart even to bonk some Agency goon on the head with a baseball bat.

Still, I gritted my teeth and pressed the Buck knife closer to Bellington’s throat.

He stared at me, the light of the lantern reflecting in his eyes. He blinked a few times, and his terror seemed to transform into confusion, then irritation.

And then—he laughed. With a knife to his throat, he laughed. Then he shoved me away with a great heave of his arms and shoulders. I fell back on my ass like a puppy tossed aside. I dropped the knife and it thumped away into the shadows.

“I—I’m sorry,” he said, chuckling. “It’s just so—” He groped for a word.

“Ridiculous?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

For his answer he just laughed more and nodded his head.

I sighed hard and sat there on the tent floor with my arms on my knees.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes sleepily. “Whose idea was this? Was it theirs? I guess I should say, what’s the plan here? What are you up to?”

He had a faint British accent. I glared at him.

“I mean, really,” he said, his voice thick with drowsiness. “I bet there’s not even a real cave, is there?”

I sighed again and looked at the floor.

“Oh. Listen. My pardon. It’s just—no offense, but you’re about as frightening as a three-legged kitten.”

“I was that bad?”

He shrugged, nodded.

“What gave it away?”

“Oh, it was everything. Your posture, your tone of voice, your word choice. Even your weapon there. I mean it’s a pocket knife.”

I frowned.

“I haven’t offended you, have I?” asked Bellington.

“No,” I said. “I guess not.”

“Good. That wasn’t my intention. But you’re all quite desperate, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “I don’t know when the last time was that you lost your memories, or if you ever have, but it leaves you feeling very unsettled. You’re missing parts of yourself, but you don’t know what the parts were. It’s like you don’t know yourself anymore.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, his gaze drifting to the tent floor. “That I know well.” He tilted his head. Then he added, “Uhm, look, this may sound odd, and I assure you I’m not trying to trick you, but, haven’t we met?”

I hadn’t recognized his name, but now that I looked at him closely, he looked familiar.

He raised his brows and held up a finger. “I know. You’re married to Gosford!”

“You—knew him?”

“We worked together on projects sometimes. I went for drinks with him a few times at the canteen, and I saw you once or twice, scurrying off into another room when we’d drop him home.”

I hoped he wasn’t one of the men I’d tried to blow up at the amusement park.

“So you lived at the Agency dorms?” I asked.

“Building F-9,” he replied. “Right across from yours, G-9.”

It was almost surreal, catching up and comparing notes with someone who was apparently fond of Gary Gosford.

“Oh, trust me, you’re lucky,” said Bellington. “In F-9 lives an old retired general who took to karaoke, serenading the entire building every night, singing at the top of his lungs in his bathroom.”

Despite myself, I laughed. “Serious?”

“Well, I’m being somewhat overly generous when I use the word ‘singing,’ of course. Sounded like an alley cat trying to perform an opera.”

“Oh, wait!” I cried. “I think I may have heard him! He sang rock anthems, right? Like ‘We are the Champions’ and ‘Don’t Stop Believin’?”

“Yes!” said Bellington, laughing. “‘Don’t Stop Believin’ is his favorite!”

I laughed again. “Well, did you have anyone in your building who tried to make liquid rubber by melting their shoes?”

“What? That didn’t happen,” he said.

“Yes! Mr. Murmont!”

Bellington shook his head. “Maybe you did have it worse. Wasn’t there a shooting in your building? Didn’t someone gun down an intruder in the hallway near your flat?”

I gasped and covered my mouth.

His mouth gaped. “No, it was you?”

I nodded sheepishly.

He leaned back. “Well, well, well. P’raps I should be more frightened of you.”

“I really didn’t intend to harm you. I guess I was just so hopeful. So eager.”

“No harm, no foul, as they say,” Bellington drawled. “But tell me, how does a high-ranking officer’s wife end up here?” Bellington asked. “Is Gary—here?”

“No,” I said. “Gary’s dead.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. My condolences.”

I gave a slight nod.

“I didn’t know, hadn’t heard,” said Bellington softly. “I thought they merely transferred him. Huh. Second bit of bad news I’ve had today.” Then he raised his cuffed hands to point at the tent door. “Did they—?”

“No, no,” I said. “It wasn’t them.”

“Was it the Agency? Is that why you’re here, with them?”

“No. I’m here because I’ve escaped from the Agency and I’ll never go back. That bullshit serum and their mind-control techniques. It’s inhumane, unjust.”

“About that,” he said, his tone earnest. “Do you know why your friends think that I of all people know something about a memory cure? A treatment that will restore the memories erased by the Agency serum?”

“It was in a journal we found.”

“A journal?”

“Yes, with information about you, and an Agency scientist named Eudrich.”

Bellington grew quiet, then contemplative.

“What is it?” I asked.

He looked toward the door and pressed his lips together.

“The thing is,” he confessed. “I do know some things.”

“About an antidote?” I asked.

He nodded, but lifted his chained hands to place a finger on his lips.

“Why wouldn’t you tell us?”

“Would you talk to someone who had abducted you off the streets, placed a bag over your head, and took you to god knows where?”

“Listen,” I said, “even they regret having to do that. But the Agency won’t leave us alone. They hunt for us constantly. We’ve lost dozens of people just this year alone in Agency raids. They killed some, they took others back. Chase and Ruby—they’re not bad. We just want to remain apart from the Agency and taking the occasional prisoner seems like the only way we can stay a step ahead of you.”

“Did you ever hear of just asking nicely?”

“You would have told us?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have this horrendous crack on my skull and a pounding headache.”

We were quiet again. The lamp had burned low. I stood up and adjusted the wheel and it was brighter in the tent.

“It’s David, right?”

He looked up and nodded.

“I’m Alison.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said with a smile.

“Likewise,” I said.

I went to him and put out my hand. There was a soft metallic clatter as he raised his hands to take mine. We shook hands.

“Well, David,” I continued, “listen to me. If there’s any way you could help us out on this, I’m begging you, please, consider it.” Tears formed in my eyes and my voice cracked. I was asking him not as an enemy soldier, but as a mother. It was the only thing I could do.

Bellington looked at me for a moment, but then looked away.

“Please? Neighbor to neighbor?”

“It’s not a cure,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily bring back all your memories.”

“But it’ll bring back some?”

He nodded. “Some, most for some. It’s different for everyone, seems like. They’re still working on it. Refining it.”

“Oh, gosh, even just that would be a miracle for me, for us. To even just get a glimmer of memories back. You understand that, right?”

He nodded again. “There’s a reason I was working with Eudrich. You must remember those of us in the Agency lost our memories, too.”

But how many times had the Agency continued wiping the minds of citizens when it was no longer needed? I wanted to ask him, but knew I wouldn’t be able to control my anger if I did so.

“So, David, will you help us?”

“My friends call me Davey.”

Twelve

Chase whistled a lot. While he was fishing, while he was walking or working. Chase whistled while he worked. And not just idle, disconnected notes—anything but. He was actually really good, and he’d whistle entire songs, start to finish. He had great pitch, too, a great range, and he could whistle a seemingly endless number of tunes. I could almost always pick them out—the tunes he whistled—and I’d sing or hum along, or, if I didn’t know the song, it was nice just to listen. Old rock tunes, opera arias, folk tunes. All very clear and sweet. He was the closest thing I had to a radio.

And so I heard Chase before I saw his headlamp bobbing along through the trees. He was a whistling the refrain from a classical piece I recognized but didn’t know.

When he came into the lantern light, I was sitting cross-legged outside the command tent, just where he had been when I approached him. The lantern was on the ground at my side, glowing warmly. His headlamp was turned to a low setting, and he had a mug, which he sipped as he approached. It was probably coffee to help keep him awake or maybe it was tea.

“Sorry, hon,” he said.

“What for?”

“Didn’t mean to be away that long. Guess Chester’s hooch knocked me out for a bit. You all right? You still don’t have a coat on. You must be freezing.”

I stood up, and he unzipped his coat and I slid my arms inside again.

“I’m okay,” I said. “Everything’s okay.”

Chase leaned away from me and looked me in the face. His headlamp made me squint.

“What’s going on? What’s up with you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You seem—different. Not mad. Not worried. Something else, something weird. Satisfied? Content?”

I grinned into his headlamp, my head lolling, eyes lidded. I knew there was trouble ahead, but I’d gotten what I wanted.

“Oh my god. Why are you content? What’s happened?”

“Chase,” I said. “I know how to get the antidote.”

Chase immediately set his mug on the ground, pushed past me, and went to the front flap of the command tent. He ripped it aside and looked into the dark void, shining the beam of his headlamp this way and that. Then he looked back at me.

“Oh, Al,” he said. “What did you do?”

Thirteen

“We’ve got to go get him,” said Chase. “Where is he?”

“I gave him the keys to the red car,” I said.

“The red car? You mean the Honda? You gave him a vehicle?”

“No, he’s just borrowing it. He said he’d leave it for us to pick up outside the Zones.”

He was pacing furiously around the command tent. On his face he wore an expression I couldn’t exactly describe. He looked like he might be sick.

“Are you angry?”

“Angry?” Chase spluttered. “I’m—I’m—I’m—.”

But he didn’t say what he was. He just grabbed his hair as though he might pull it out and emitted a high-pitched growl.

“But Chase, Davey told me about the antidote. We’re going to get our memories—”

“Davey?” Chase’s eyes were wide, wild.

“We kinda got to be friends.”

“You set me up, Alison. You used me to get your way!”

“No, I—”

“—used me. You tricked me into leaving and you let our prisoner go without even a thought of talking to me or Ruby or anyone else. Ruby will have your head for this. Shit, she’ll have my head for it.” He rubbed his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” I moaned. “It’s just I knew you’d never let me talk to him.”

“And there’s a reason for that, Al. Did you ever think about that?”

I looked at the ground. “I’m sorry; I am.”

Chase groaned. “Ugh, what do we do?”

“We could go after him,” I suggested feebly, though I didn’t want to. Bellington had only given me the information about the antidote on the condition of his release.

“In the dark? When he’s had a head start? In a car? We’d need a whole team for that.”

“He won’t tell about us,” I said. “He promised.”

“And you believed him?” The tone of Chase’s voice was cutting. My stomach fell.

“Chase, don’t be mad.”

He looked at me, his jaw muscles bulging.

“I’m hurt, Alison,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I said. “I was trying to help.” I hugged him, but he stiffened and didn’t hug back. I dropped my arms from around him and began to cry.

“No,” said Chase. “You don’t get to do that right now. Not after what you did.”

“I can’t help it,” I said. “I didn’t think about how you’d feel about this. I want that memory antidote so bad.”

Chase sighed and his face slackened. Then he set his jaw and his eyes narrowed and he gave me a hard look. But then he sighed again. “Come here,” he said at last. I went to him and he hugged me. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Love me,” I whimpered.

“No, I’m serious. What am I actually going to do with you—hide you in camp? Take you to another camp? Because you know you can’t stay here—Ruby’s gonna go ape-shit on you. I wonder if I could drop you off at an Agency depot and just drive away.”

I jerked away from him and pounded his breastbone with the heel of my fist, and he hugged me closer. Something in him had shifted at that moment. He was still angry, probably would be for a long time, but in that moment, I could tell, he had decided to forgive me.

I sniffed. “Should we wake Ruby?”

Chase took a deep breath and released it slowly. I looked up at him. He was thinking hard. He always got a certain occupied look when he was puzzling over a hard problem.

“Just go to bed, Al,” he said finally, a weary edge in his voice. “Just go. I’ll take Larson’s shift so he won’t know, and we’ll just have to figure it out in the morning.”

He wouldn’t say anything more. Every time I tried to speak, he only shook his head and pointed toward my tent.

It’s difficult to say if it was my biggest victory or my biggest mistake. It resulted in a lot of suffering—for me, for the others. But it also changed absolutely everything. I’d have to work hard to avoid getting lost in musing about that night and the days that followed, wondering if I should have done things a different way. Was there an easier way? Was there a smarter way? Was that night a fork in the road that led to two entirely different places, or was it one of those forking roads that ended up at the same place?

It was so wrong to set Chase up that way. He trusted me implicitly, and I know he was probably as hurt about that as he was angry about Bellington. But what is a mistake, really? In the middle of a fight, in the middle of a struggle to win back the person you used to be, can there really be what is known as a right and a wrong way?

Fourteen

I awoke to someone shouting. And someone was blowing a whistle. Within a second or two I realized it was lots of people shouting. I heard distant vehicles starting up. I got up from my cot and fumbled for my shoes, and I was too groggy to puzzle out right away what was happening, but there could be no mistaking that it was directly related to what had happened the night before. Or, I should say, what I did the night before.

I opened the tent door and stepped out. People were hustling up and down and across the camp. Tents were being pulled down. People were wearing backpacks. I saw the big cargo truck parked in the middle of camp. An older woman named Maria hurried by, but I stopped her.

“Maria, what’s going on?”

“A prisoner escaped,” Maria said.

“Oh.”

“I didn’t know we even had any prisoners,” she said, eyes wide.

“Well, so what’s going on? We’re bugging out?”

“Yeah, Ruby said so. We gotta evacuate.”

Maria continued on without saying more. I sprinted for the command tent.

I didn’t know how Chase had broken the news or when Ruby found out. I didn’t want to know.

Before I ever got near the command tent, I heard Ruby yelling, haranguing. Then I saw Chase. He had his hands on his hips, and his head hung low. Ruby was shouting at him, waving her arms. Woolly and Arie were nearby, too. Her voice carried throughout the camp and echoed off the nearby hills.

“Who was it?” She was practically shrieking. “Who done it? Huh? One ’a you knows somethin’ I just know it.”

The three men all tried speaking at once, holding out their hands, trying to calm Ruby, trying to quiet her. Her voice rose above theirs, cut them off.

“It was you, wa’nnit?” Ruby jabbed one of her stubby index fingers at Arie. “You let him go so’s we’d hafta take action, didn’tcha! Alla your talk about the Zones and alla the people. You’re tryna force my hand, aint’cha!”

Arie was protesting, his face splotchy red with rage, but he could only just be heard over Ruby.

I never in a million years thought she’d pin it on Arie.

“You can’t just accuse me that way, Ruby! You can’t just say, ‘Oh, well this guy’s got a different opinion, so he must have done something idiotic!’”

Arie was lunging at Ruby, shouting, pointing his finger. Chase was between Ruby and Arie, and Woolly was holding Arie back.

I ran faster, “No, Ruby! Wait!” I cried.

Everyone was screaming. I’m not sure they even knew I’d joined them. Woolly’s booming voice called for everyone to “quit acting like a pack of fools.”

Ruby was screaming, “Admit it! Just admit it!” Chase was saying something without raising his voice, but I couldn’t hear him.

“Ruby! Ruby!” I shouted. “Listen! It was me! I did it!”

Chase was repeating something over and over, and I think I heard it from the first but couldn’t believe it, couldn’t process it. He said it again and again.

“Ruby, I did it. Ruby, I did it. I did it. Rube, it was me, not him. I did it,” said Chase.

One by one, we all went silent.

“Everyone just shut up and listen, okay?” said Chase. His voice was low and even, as though he might announce that he had a blister on his heel, or the kitchen was out of vegetable oil. “It was me. I let him go.”

Ruby stood still, her mouth open. She and Chase looked each other in the face. Ruby blinked a few times, closed her mouth, opened it again as if to speak, but then just stood there.

Chase nodded, his face calm, serious.

“Chase,” she breathed at last, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Not you.”

“Yeah. Me.”

She squinted at him, leaned forward, as if there were something she herself had to decode before proceeding. Then she shook her head. “No,” she huffed. She trembled with anger. “Don’t cover for whoever did this. I know you didn’t do it. I won’t believe it.”

Arie scoffed. “Oh, oh, oh,” he stammered, “so, he comes right out and tells you it was him and you don’t believe it, but I tell you I didn’t, until my head practically explodes, and you don’t believe me! Well that’s just great!”

He was leaning again, stabbing an accusing finger at Ruby, but Woolly grabbed him and reeled him in.

“Well, yer a kid!” Ruby exclaimed, “an’ not only are kids always doin’ stupid things, but I’ve seen you do things that was even stupider’nis!”

“Quiet!” boomed Woolly. “All of you. Seriously. The whole camp can see and hear you. They’re panicking. Get a hold of yourselves. You’re embarrassing me.”

Woolly was right. An entire gallery of onlookers had gathered, an expression of collective mortification in their faces. Ruby sheepishly looked from face to face.

“Yah,” she said. “Yah, you’re right, Wool. All right, you all go on. Go about your business. We’re just havin’ a polite disagreement.”

“You heard her,” said Woolly, not angrily, but loud enough to be heard and obeyed, and the crowd reluctantly dispersed.

“Call off the evacuation,” said Chase. “It won’t be necessary.”

“Waddya mean call it off?” hollered Ruby.

“Ruby!” barked Woolly. “Everyone, let’s finish this discussion in the command tent.”

Within a few minutes, Ruby had given a tentative order to pause the evacuation, and we were in the command tent. Woolly put on some coffee, and the rest of us took seats. Ruby thudded her walking stick into the tent floor. Arie glared at her. Chase sat with his elbows on his knees, looking down.

“All right,” said Ruby through gritted teeth. “We’re here. We’re calm. We have coffee. So. Now. Chase, start talkin’.”

Chase sat up straight in his chair, but as he started to speak, I interrupted.

“He didn’t do anything,” I said. “It was me.”

“Aawww, dammit all!” Ruby growled smacking her forehead with her big, meaty hand. “What inna name of sweet baby Moses is goin’ on around here! Who in the mother-slappin’ hell is in charge!” She looked from person to person. They flinched as if she might attack if they spoke. “Cuz it sure as shit ain’t me!”

“I made a deal with Bellington,” I went on. “And he won’t betray us. And I know how to get the antidote.”

“You? You, Al?” she moaned, her voice hopeless, desperate. “But how did you even know about—and how did you get in here to—” But then she looked at Chase, whose facial expression looked more guilty than it had outside.

“Aw, hell,” said Ruby. “I get it.” She shook her head, rubbed her face as though trying to wipe away some distasteful, filmy substance. And if her face had been red before, it now took on a purple hue. Her anger was conspicuous, radiating from her like fumes off gasoline, like heat from a radiator.

“Al,” she said, with a calm that was actually fairly terrifying. The kind of calm that can only result when someone is seething. “Al, do ya even realize how much danger you put us in?”

“Rube, come on,” said Chase, getting to his feet. “Calm down.”

She swiveled in her chair, turning savagely on Chase. “And you!” She held the walking stick out as though she might skewer his head on it. “You of all people shoulda known better. You’re s’posed ta be my right hand. You’re s’posed ta be on my side. I just don’t know what ta say anymore. I’ve never been more betrayed in my entire life.” She glared fiercely at Chase, but her eyes were watery. A single tear started from each one, but she wiped them away with the palm of her big hand before they fell.

“Ruby, it wasn’t Chase,” I said. “I tricked him. I trapped him. I set him up.” I described how I sent Chase to take a break and then did what I did without him suspecting anything. “But, I really think we’ll be okay. I don’t think he has any interest in turning us in.”

“Ah, just hush up,” Ruby said. “I am so damn turnt around and flustergated I don’t even know if I got any more t’say t’any of ya’s.”

“No, really. He and I, Bellington, Davey, I think we connected. We knew some of the same people and—”

Ruby interrupted me. “Al, I never thought I’d hear myself sayin’ this, but sometimes you are really stupid.”

I could never explain what it felt like for Ruby to say that to me.

“No, Ruby, let me just tell you what I—”

“Al, not now,” said Chase.

Woolly nodded in assent. Even the look on Arie’s face told me he agreed with them. I’d gone too far, they seemed to say, and there was no explaining it, no justifying it. And then I knew, too. I hadn’t ever been sure what I was up to, I suppose. I’d been looking for a fast way forward. It hadn’t been a scheme I cooked up and sat on and nursed and then hatched when the time was right. It was all just kind of thrown together and set aflame when I saw the opening. I couldn’t explain or justify it to Ruby because I couldn’t explain or justify it for my own sake.

When I looked at Ruby again, her head was bowed and she was digging her fingers into her eye sockets, slowly sobbing. The tears filled the lines in her face around her eyes and they seeped down into the wrinkles and creases on her hand and they drained down her wrist and into her sleeve. She sniffed wetly and sobbed more. No one seemed to know what to do. All I knew was if someone was going to do something, it should definitely not be me.

“Rube,” said Woolly at last.

“What!” she bleated. “Whaddya want?”

“I’ll walk you back to your tent.”

“Thanks, Wool,” she said, sniffing again. Her face was wet, and she’d dropped her glasses onto the tent floor. Chase picked them up and handed them to her. Woolly helped her up by the arm and she leaned hard on her walking stick.

As she walked past me, I caught her gaze, and there was no anger in it any longer. Only deep, hopeless hurt.

Fifteen

Things quieted down, eventually, or maybe that is just how it appeared. Ruby ordered extra guards and deeper patrols, but Chase convinced her to cancel the evacuation—based on the way I convinced Chase. The tents that had been taken down were put back up. Everything was put back where it belonged. Everyone tried to go on as before, making breakfast, making lunch, carrying water from the river.

But I saw people looking at me in the chow line and at the nightly campfire. It could have been just anxiety or paranoia but I thought I saw them lean toward one another and whisper. In my sleeping bag at night I could almost hear what they must be saying to each other in their tents, and I didn’t like it.

I actually didn’t know what was known and what was only guessed at among the camp’s population. The shouting match outside the tent the morning after I let the prisoner go was heard by a few and likely misheard by lots more. And like any group of people with limited opportunities for entertainment and distraction, games of Telephone were probably well underway and into multiple rounds of mangled whispers by now, so who knew what they all might think?

There wasn’t anything I could do about that, though, and with a few very select exceptions, I didn’t care what anyone in the camp thought of me, and so I kept to myself and kept my mouth shut.

Late summer thunderstorms had been rolling through periodically, so I at least had an excuse to stay in. They didn’t seem to miss me at kitchen duty, and so on the day after the incident, I sat in my tent all day reading the same page of some stupid book over and over again.

Around sundown, Chase brought dinner to my tent so I didn’t have to leave the tent and stand in line. It was like he knew I didn’t want to anymore. He brought two bowls of rice and beans, but it was on the watery side, and the flavor was quite bland. We both poked at it with our spoons but didn’t eat much.

“I thought I heard we were out of red beans,” I said.

“I kinda wish we were,” quipped Chase, scooping up a spoonful of the grub and letting splat back into the bowl.

“How is it out there?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Morale is low. Everyone’s confused. The kids don’t like to see the grown-ups fighting.”

I knew what he meant. The evacuation was off and everyone was going about their regular business, but there was a tension in the air that you could feel.

“Did anyone say anything to you?”

“Nah. They just stare. Just like little kids. Just staring, wondering if everything is gonna be okay. Something needs to be done.”

Yes, something needs to be done, I thought, we need to move ahead. We need to move into the next phase. The memory cure.

“Do you think Ruby will ever talk to me again?”

Chase shrugged again.

“Really?” I said, putting down my bowl and spoon. “You don’t think she will?”

“Well, of course she will, Al. But, you know. It’s a little—I don’t know. Weird.”

“Weird how? What do you mean?”

“Al, come on. It’s complicated. She’s hurt. Hell, I’m hurt. We’re all hurt and confused and no one knows what to do. You’re gonna have to give it time.”

“Chase, I know I messed everything up, but we have a chance here. We have an opportunity to move into a new phase.”

“I understand, Al. I do,” he replied. “But do not approach Ruby right now. I am one-hundred percent sure she does not want to hear anything about any new plans right now.”

“What does ‘right now’ mean? How long should I wait?”

“Wait until she comes to you, Alison. Seriously. Don’t make a move.”

Chase poked at his dinner, pushed it around in the bowl. The evening was cool, and I was completely out of firewood for the small stove in my tent, but I didn’t want to go out and find more. I pulled my hands into the sleeves of my sweater and hugged myself against the chill.

“Don’t worry,” said Chase. “I’ll grab you some firewood when I take the dishes back. Might be cold tonight.”

I smiled inwardly. Chase was very good to me—not just in the way he accepted my mistakes and shortcomings, but the way he often read what I was thinking, was always a step ahead, anticipating my needs.

“Thanks, hon.”

He stood and picked up my bowl and spoon. He went to the tent fly, but before he went out, he said, “Are we on the same page? Do not talk to Ruby. Not until she comes to you. There’s no exception here. She’s not talking to me, either, and if you two have another big blow-up, you and me might be looking for a new place to live. Wait for her.”

“Okay.”

He went out.

Sixteen

I didn’t have to wait very long.

Four days after I’d released Bellington, Woolly came to my tent. It was a gray, rainy day. The sun had just risen, but clouds obscured it, and the dreary patter of rain sounded on the tents.

“Hey, Al,” said Woolly. “You awake in there?”

“Yeah, come on in.”

He wore a bucket hat made from waxed canvas, and he was draped in an olive-drab army poncho, which fit him more like a barber’s cape, barely covering his wide shoulders, massive chest, and expansive middle.

“Hi, Al,” he said in a way that made me think he might apologize for something. A chain of little water droplets were suspended from the brim of his hat. When he moved his head, they fell onto the poncho and drained down to drip from the corners and onto the tent floor.

“Hey,” I said.

“How you been doing?”

“Okay, I guess. Ruby wants to see me?”

He held out his hands in a conciliatory way. “Not exactly,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows.

He smiled apologetically and continued. “She wants to hear what you think should happen next—not because that’s what she wants to do, but I guess, you know, like to understand your thinking, to understand what you thought would happen. If that makes sense.”

“Sure,” I said.

“So, mind if I sit down? And you can tell me?”

I sighed. “I really think it would be best if we all sat down and discussed it. The whole leadership group. And Ruby.”

“Ruby’s been talking to the others,” he said. “She’s got some ideas about what to do next, but she’s having some trouble—” he paused and grimaced faintly “—I wanna say she’s having trouble getting past this?”

“That doesn’t sound like Ruby.”

“I know,” he answered hastily, dropping his diplomatic facade. “I’ve rarely seen her this worked up over something.”

I didn’t like hearing that. “Do you think there’s any chance I could have just a quick word with her? We wouldn’t have to discuss anything about plans or intentions. I just want to make sure she and I can get past this. Even if it’s not right away. I’ve been thinking of leaving, moving out.”

“Al, that might not be the worst idea,” said Woolly, his eyes narrowed and a pained expression on his face. “Ruby’s talking about a lot of changes, and that’s one of them.”

My talk of moving out hadn’t been a bluff, exactly. I had considered it. But to know that Woolly was ready to call that bet—it felt final and sad. I loved Ruby and even though I couldn’t remember all of our adventures, I didn’t relish the idea of parting ways with her.

Woolly stood there without saying more. The rain made multitudinous popping sounds on the roof of the tent that blended to sound like very loud radio static. There was thunder in a distant valley and it rolled and echoed against the mountains like a barrage of far-off cannon fire.

“I really burned a bridge, this time, huh?”

“I don’t know if that’s the best way of putting it,” said Woolly, his eyes downcast. “It’s just—well, like I said, she’s having a hard time wrapping her head around this.”

I nodded.

“And it’s not just this,” Woolly was quick to add. “There are so many problems, so many people relying on her. It’s not just you, not just this Bellingson thing.”

“—ton,” I said quietly.

“Right. Bellington. It’s not just him. Ruby’s getting, well, tired. You’ve noticed, I’m sure. She’s getting up there in years.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’ve wondered how long she would keep at this. I guess I just figured she’d last until we won.”

“Me, too,” said Woolly. “And whether she does or not remains to be seen. But, will you talk to me? Tell me what happened? What you were thinking?”

I thought about this for a while, maybe for as long as a minute. And then I said, “No.”

Woolly flinched, blinked, as though the word struck him like a blow.

“I may have royally screwed up here,” I said before Woolly could reply, “but I’m owed more than this, Woolly.”

He nodded, once, almost too subtly for me to notice.

“She has to talk to me herself,” I continued. “She can’t just send you. No offense.”

Woolly held up his hands again in his diplomatic way and said, “None taken. You have a point.”

“Will you tell her?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding so that more droplets fell from his hat brim. “I have a feeling she’ll agree, even if it’s reluctantly.”

The rain seemed to increase as he walked out. I sat on my cot and lit a small fire to warm some water for tea. When I heard Woolly’s heavy tread outside my tent just a half-hour later, I knew it could only mean that Ruby had refused my request. And it made sense. Why would she agree to speak with me? What good would it do? Just stir up a bunch of hard feelings. No one wanted that. Maybe not even me.

“Al,” said Woolly as he came to the tent flap. “Still in there?”

I went to the front flap of the tent and pushed it aside. Woolly stood there, the bucket hat pulled down low over his eyes.

“She said no?”

He said, “No. She said she wants to talk to you.”

It was a long walk across the camp to Ruby’s tent. When I got there, I said, “Ruby? It’s me.”

“Come on in,” she said, her voice flat, almost void of expression.

I pushed back the tent fly and ducked inside. The window covers were drawn down and it felt dark inside. Ruby lay on her bed at the far end of the tent. The light was such that I almost could not make out her features.

“Have a seat,” she said with the same flatness of expression.

I sat in her desk chair.

“Are you sick?” I asked.

“No,” she answered. “Just very tired. Everything makes me very tired nowadays.”

“Ruby, I’m so sorry for everything.”

“Eh,” she said with a wave of her hand. “You don’t gotta be. I was only ever in charge because I said I was, because I called the shots and everyone seemed to go along. Weren’t no vote made me boss. Truth is there’s better people to be in charge than me. Maybe you’d do a better job.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Ruby continued.

“Anyhow. Ya did what ya did and now it’s over.”

“Okay, so—”

“So, here’s what I gotta say. That what you want? Ta’ cut t’the chase? Hm?” Her voice drifted in from the shadow where she lay and I noticed that she wasn’t looking in my direction. She seemed to be just speaking into the air, to the canvas of the tent above her.

“Well, yeah,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. Then she took a deep breath and let it slowly out. “Well, it’s like this. They’s some of these people here in the camp who want me to keep bein’ in charge ’a them, and if I’m to do that, I gotta have everyone signed on and stayin’ in line. Maybe we do need a vote or a signed paper or something like that, but what I can’t have is someone who’s gonna make a move like that with no kinda checking in or asking.”

“Oh, Ruby I would never—”

“—do something like that again? I guess I believe that’s how ya feel. Or that’s what ya think. But, see, I can’t know that anymore. We been together a long time, Al, longer than you remember, ’a course. But somethin’ changed when you let that feller go. It’s a trust thing.”

My heart sank.

“I can’t run things here with that kind of—I don’t know what ya call it. Uncertainty? Yeah. That. I’m already plumb ragged just managin’ them that do what I tell ’em.”

“Ruby, I’m sorry for what I did. I honestly won’t ever—”

“No, Al, stop,” she said, holding her hand up. “You notice I ain’t never said you did anything wrong? I’m not sure it was wrong, what you did.”

I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it ain’t necessarily that you did something wrong so much as you did what you wanted to do, what you thought was right, but without consulting the rest of us—not even Chase. I just need one less chief around here so I can be the best chief I can be.”

“Yes, but I’m telling you—”

“Al, stop a second.”

“No, I want to explain what—”

“Al!” she cried rising from her cot, “shush!” Her eyes gazed at the roof of the tent but she wasn’t actually looking at it. She was listening. “Hear that?”

I listened for a moment and heard what she had heard. The bell. The big brass bell at the southern approach observation point. The guard on duty had spotted an intruder, and from the way the bell kept clanging, it wasn’t just one or two people.

“Your man Bellington brought them back,” said Ruby, getting to her feet. “They’re coming for us.”

Seventeen

The panic which erupted after that could not have been more acute if an actual god reached down from the sky and turned the camp upside-down. My friends and camp mates ran literally in every direction. Some even ran in circles, but none of them had any apparent idea of what to do or where to go.

We had emergency procedures—Ruby and Chase had made sure of that. Everyone had a bug-out pack, which was supposed to contain shelter, clothing, and supplies to last a week or so. In case of attack, each person in camp was supposed to grab their pack and race into the woods along one of a dozen designated routes, faintly marked game trails mostly, or routes that followed ridge lines and other discrete geographical features.

As Ruby put it: “Grab your shit and scatter.”

And most of us had executed this plan many times. We’d been attacked by the agency before, and we also held regular emergency drills. Everyone should have known almost exactly what to do, but when Ruby and I emerged from her tent, it was actual pandemonium.

That’s because this time was different.

In the past, the Agency troops hadn’t been so incredibly close when the alarm was raised. In the past, our own patrols and look-outs had spotted the Agency troops from a distance, giving us time to mount a defense and make a more orderly retreat.

This time, however, the troops were practically on top of us from the start. The sound of gunfire clattered and echoed down from the north ridge. I heard people shouting, “Run! Run! They’re here!” as they fled down from the high side of camp.

“Grab yer shit and scatter!” Ruby shouted, her hands cupped around her mouth, “like in the drills!” she added, but there was too much noise for anyone to clearly hear even her shrill voice. “Damn these people!” she shouted to no one particularly. “They never learn! Panic last, you idiots! Not first!”

Now the gunfire was closer and was followed instantly by the sickening zip! of bullets in the forest canopy. I thought I heard the rumble of heavy vehicles out by the motorpool. They really were close.

“Ruby,” I said, grabbing the sleeve of her sweater.

I could not stay one instant longer. I had to find Arie, had to find Chase. I had to get away. But there stood Ruby, turning her head one way and then the other, watching her city in the mountain disintegrate. And she looked so tired, so worried.

“Ruby, I—”

“Go!” she cried without turning to me.

I didn’t wait. I sprinted away. On the way back to my tent, I saw Woolly hustling in Ruby’s direction. As he ran, he was trying to adjust the shoulder-straps of his bug-out pack, which looked absurdly small on his broad back. I slowed and watched him join Ruby. She had evidently ducked into her tent and got her worn bug-out pack, which now dangled from the crook of her elbow like an enormous purse. Woolly took the pack, grabbed Ruby by the arm, and turned to go. I ran on. Everyone else seemed to still be heading in random directions. The gunfire was getting closer and heavier. I smelled the sickly smell of diesel exhaust, and I heard barked commands that I knew had to be from Agency troops. Some massive and dark vehicle was pushing through the trees on the far side of the camp.

They weren’t just close. They were in the camp. And surely, they were already rounding up everyone they could, and those they couldn’t round up, they were shooting.

As I came to the bend in the trail where my tent stood, I saw Chase. He had his pistol in one hand and my bug-out pack in the other. He tossed the pack into my path and I caught and shouldered it without breaking stride as we ran for our escape route. Chase fell in behind me and we ran like hell.

“Have you seen Arie?” I panted.

“He’s ahead,” he said. “Pick it up, Al. Run like you got somewhere to be.”

To my amazement my stride lengthened, and I thundered so hard down the trail that by the time we caught up to Arie I’d put six yards between Chase and I.

“Pick it up, Chay,” I hissed over my shoulder at him. “Run like you got somewhere to be.”

Arie led the way. I followed him, and Chase followed us, keeping an eye out behind us.

“Know where we’re going, kid?” said Chase, his voice calm, raised just enough for Arie to hear.

“Down the ravine and over the river,” Arie said. He sounded calm, too. Good. I was the only one panicking.

The three of us pounded down the muddy trail. I couldn’t remember the last time I ran so fast. My lungs burned but my pack felt light and I thought maybe I could keep going that way all day.

Because there was no way I was going back. They would never take me.

We went deeper into the forest. The sounds of the chaos in the camp became fainter. The rain fell steadily. When we came to the ravine, we slowed down some. The way down was a rocky staircase, but the rocks were slick with rain. We hopped down from rock to rock with care, but I knew we were making better time than in any practice drill. Soon we came to the river. There was a shallow ford there, a way to cross quickly without leaving any trace, and it wasn’t easy to find if you didn’t know about it. We stopped at the bank.

Chase crouched behind a big shaggy growth of intertwined bristlecone pine trees.

“You guys go on,” he said, his voice very low, “like we practiced. I’ll see if anyone’s coming up behind. Go, go, go. Get across. Quietly. Quiet like mice. I’ll be right behind you.”

I clenched my jaw at the thought of leaving him behind, but this really was how we practiced. If we could get to the other side of the river, our chances of getting away clean were better. Arie stood looking at me. Chase nodded, and we turned for the ford.

Eighteen

It was all my fault. I knew it. Everybody knew it.

That’s why it was very good, in a very dark way, to be fleeing for my life deeper and deeper into the forest. Yes, I had to get away from the Agency troops, but it also meant getting farther and farther away from everyone whose existence I’d turned upside down, some of whom had almost certainly died. I wouldn’t have to face what I’d done. No more pointing at me and whispering as I reported for dish duty. And I wouldn’t have to discuss anything with Ruby. They wouldn’t have to send me to another camp.

At least not anytime soon.

Because it would be a week or more before we could ever regroup. And how long after that before we could re-organize and begin to re-establish our camp? Winter was on its way and soon these mountains would be covered in fourteen feet of snow. We might be able to wait for spring at some other camp, if we could find one that escaped the Agency’s notice in this latest attack, and even if we could, they might refuse us—winter provisions were always scarce. We’d been pushed so far into the wilderness, the nearest un-scavenged towns were now days away by vehicle—who knows how far on foot?

And these speculations were, of course, best-case scenarios, which assumed the camp leadership would not only evade Agency capture or murder, but also survive a stay in the wilderness for long enough to come back out of hiding, and the chances of this were particularly shaky with Ruby, who, when last I saw her, was moving at a velocity more associated with toddlers and tortoises. The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how grave things were for us.

So, I did the only thing I could think to do: I ran harder.

It was only when I felt that my lungs would burst that I finally stopped. Arie was ahead of me and must have noticed that I had stopped, because he did, too. He turned to me, his breath smoking in the damp air. I stood on the tiny game trail bent over, hands on my knees, gasping. A drop of sweat hung from the tip of my nose but would not fall.

“What’s up?” Arie panted. “We stopping? You good?”

I couldn’t draw a breath deep enough to answer, so I held up my hand and waved him onward.

“What’s the matter?” he said, still breathing hard. “You hurt?”

Between breaths I said, “Just need—to rest—for a second.”

“I could use a break, too,” he said. “I’ll circle back a ways. Stay right here.”

Arie broke from the trail and stalked through the brush, working back the way we’d come. I stood up and put my hands on my hips and tried to catch my breath. A fit of coughing overtook me and I felt lightheaded. I bent over again and rested my hands on my knees. After two or three minutes, my breath came more slowly, and I felt like I could go on.

And then, from behind me—from only a few feet behind me—a man’s voice: “Hands in the air.”

I startled violently, and some primitive center in my brain almost triggered me to bolt away at a full gallop, but the voice was Chase’s. I turned around to see him walking toward me. Arie was behind him. I gave Chase a hard shove. He chuckled, but I didn’t.

“So?” I asked. “Anyone follow us?”

“I don’t think so,” said Chase.

“You don’t think so?” I returned. “What’s that mean?”

“It means I don’t think they followed us.”

“Do you think Ruby got away? And Woolly?”

Chase’s face was dark and shadowed. “I don’t know. But all we can do is assume they got away and hope to link up with them later.”

I sat down on a fallen tree and took some deep breaths. Arie joined me.

“So, what now?” I said.

“Well,” said Chase, “we can’t just stop. We’ve only come a few miles. I don’t think we have to keep running, but we ought to keep moving west.”

“To where?” asked Arie.

“There’s a ranger station not too far from here. I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen it on a map. And I’ve talked to someone who’s been there.”

“How far?”

“Well, only about six or seven miles, if I’m remembering the maps right.”

“Oh, that’s not bad,” said Arie.

“No,” said Chase, “but.”

“But what?”

“But it’s over that pass,” said Chase. Squinting into the sun and pointing upward.

We turned our heads to look. Chase pointed to a saddle slung high between two rocky peaks.

“Oh heavens,” I moaned quietly. “Can we even get up there?”

“It’ll be a climb,” he answered. “But I heard once there was a truck at the ranger station. Probably doesn’t run. Anyway, probably take us a half day to get over the ridge. We’ll need to go slow, cover our tracks as we go. We can try for it tonight and maybe get stuck halfway up in the dark, or we can hike to the base of the ridge, make a cold camp, and then climb over in the morning.”

“I gotta get some water,” said Arie. “Sounds like there’s a creek down that draw. Anyone want a refill? I’m buying.”

We got out our plastic bottles, drank the remaining water, and handed them to Arie.

“Thanks, Arie,” I said.

“Yeah. Thanks, kid.”

“No problem,” said Arie.

“Hey, keep your eyes open,” said Chase.

Arie gave us a thumbs-up without looking back as he headed toward the stream.

I sighed wearily.

“You okay?” asked Chase.

I nodded, trying hard to keep my composure and probably failing. My chin and bottom lip began to quiver.

“Wrong question,” said Chase. “You’re not all right, are ya?”

“This is all my fault,” I said.

“Well—yeah,” he replied, “but you didn’t know any better. People who’re scared do dangerous things.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“Come here,” he said quietly.

Now that I had my breath back and my legs were no longer rubbery with fatigue, all I wanted to do was dig a hole, climb in, and cover myself over. I wanted to be by myself so I could suffer without witnesses, but I knew I couldn’t be alone. I wanted to feel the full weight and measure of my guilt, but I also didn’t want to think about it.

Chase wrapped me in his arms. I buried my face in his shoulder and cried. I cried deeply and desperately—for what I’d done to Ruby, for what I’d done to everyone else. But there was something in Chase’s embrace. I wouldn’t say it was absolution, but perhaps a sense of safety, though I hardly deserved it. He blamed me for what happened, and perhaps at some point he would say so, and maybe he’d even hold me responsible, but I knew he was there to help me carry my burden.

Nineteen

That evening we hiked very quietly and very slowly westward, staying on the faintest of the natural game trails left by the elk and deer. Every half hour or so we stopped and hid ourselves in the brush and trees. Then we’d spend ten or fifteen minutes watching and listening for any sign that someone was following us. Chase said we should even sniff the breeze for a stray whiff of cigarette smoke or the smell of a sweaty Agency trooper. Chase scanned the forest behind us with his binoculars. All the caution and paranoia had me feeling like we really were being followed.

We gradually neared the great flanks of the mountain and the approaches to the high pass we’d have to cross to leave the valley. Hopefully, on the other side, we’d find somewhere to hole up. When the sun set and left us within the cool blue shadow of the mountain, we stopped for the day and found a grassy hollow to rest for the night.

Each of our bug-out packs contained a small tarp and some cord. We stretched these between two trees to fashion a ramshackle shelter, then huddled close beneath it, sharing our collective warmth.

We had food, but not much. We each had a supply of dried berries, a little corn meal, and some oily pemmican that was grudgingly ingested only after vigorous chewing. Enough for four or five days, but Chase said we’d probably have to make it last for much longer.

“I can’t see us finding any way to resupply for at least a week, probably longer. Might wanna chew real slow.”

I’d hoarded away enough tea to last at least two weeks, but Chase wouldn’t allow a fire.

“Not even to heat up a little water?” I pleaded. “Just to get warm so we can sleep?”

“No. Sorry, Al. Tonight, as the air cools, this breeze will turn around and head down into the valley. We make a fire and the smoke will lead anyone following us right to our front door.”

Chase piled up a floor of dry brown grass that made our nest under the tarps slightly more comfortable and warmer, but it wasn’t even as comfortable as the cot I had in my tent in camp, which itself was quite rickety.

Still, we’d been on the move all day, and with the nagging shadow of paranoia that we might be followed or found, it felt good to at last lie down. With Arie to my left and Chase to my right, I suppose I got the best bargain in terms of staying warm. I put my head on Chase’s chest and he wrapped an arm around me. Even though I was leaner and probably in better condition than I’d ever been in my life, I felt utterly used up for the day, and I dropped off in just a few minutes.

At some point very early in the morning, maybe an hour before dawn, I awoke. At first, I thought Chase was still there with me. I thought I smelled him or felt him, but then I realized he was gone, and my head was resting on his coat, which was balled up like a pillow.

I sat up under the tarp. My eyes having been shut all night, they were well adjusted to the night. To my eyes, the little grassy hollow was as bright as midday, but instead of bright white sunlight, everything was awash in bluish and silvery starlight. I looked around. Arie was lying on his side, facing away from me, breathing in a deep and steady cadence. But Chase was not around. I crawled out from under the shelter and stood up.

Probably off taking a pee or getting some water, I thought. I put my hands in the small of my back and arched myself backward. My back made sad little popping sounds. I rolled my neck from side to side and it popped, too.

In the sky, the stars were brilliant and unthinkably numerous, like some whitish liquid flecked with specks of silver. I never tired of the sky in the mountains. But I was missing my little cot and everything lay in ruins. Above me loomed the ridge we’d have to climb in the morning. It seemed to head straight upward like a wall.

A few minutes passed, and I stepped away from the shelter to see if I could spot Chase. Had he left the shelter and was sleeping out here under a bush or something? Maybe I’d been snoring. Had he crept off for a pee and been nabbed by Agency troops?

“Chase?” I hissed. “You out here?”

I walked a circle around the makeshift tent where Arie lay asleep, but there was no sign of Chase. I quietly said his name again but there was no answer. My pulse quickened.

Then I heard something. I couldn’t say it if was the snap of a twig or the crunch of grass underfoot—it was quiet enough to register only as a noise. There was another noise, louder now, and I turned in that direction. Was it the sound of a pine branch brushing on someone moving through the woods? Was it the sound of a boot scuffing on stone? I still couldn’t tell, but now I saw something moving, too.

It was just a dark form among the other dark forms, but this had to be Chase, I told myself. It had to be him.

“Chase?” I said, almost too quietly for me to hear.

“Al?”

I let out a long breath and the dark form coming through the trees took shape.

“Al, what are you doing out here?” Chase whispered as he took me in his arms.

“What am I doing? What are you doing? Is there someone out there?”

“No, no, no,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “I was just making a little patrol. Doing a little security. Can’t be too safe. Come on. Come back and lay down. We got a big day ahead of us.”

As we went back to the shelter I looked back over my shoulder, too.

Twenty

I woke up sore and creaky from sleeping on the ground. It took me a while to get up and start moving around, but I was looking around for danger right away. I sat on a rock with my back to the sun. Arie had gotten up early and brought us all water from the nearby creek, but Chase still wouldn’t let us have a fire.

“Chase,” I complained, “I just need a little cup of tea. I’m not gonna be the same without it. It’ll take like five minutes.”

Arie nodded his head. “C’mon,” he said, “don’t be such a hard-ass.”

“I’m telling you guys, it’s just not a good idea,” Chase said quietly. “One little wisp of smoke like that can be spotted from miles away. And another thing—we should keep quiet if we can. Keep your voices down and talk as little as possible.”

“Why are you being so paranoid?” I asked. “We’re probably ten miles from the camp and we haven’t seen or heard another living soul in almost a day.”

“I’m not being paranoid,” he answered. “I’m being careful. And the way I’d put it is that we’re only ten miles from the camp and it’s only been a day since we saw a whole platoon of Agency thugs.”

We ate a little breakfast, which was indistinguishable from what we had for dinner the night before. It wasn’t particularly satisfying, and without the tea I really was feeling sluggish.

Arie sat with me in the sun, but we didn’t say much. Chase went off to re-fill the water bottles and didn’t return for something like thirty minutes.

“Where’ve you been?” I said. “I was getting worried.”

“Just checking our backtrack,” he said. “Just following SOP.”

“For a half-hour?” I said. “Did you see anyone?”

“No,” he said. “You guys ready to head out? It’s up and over the mountain today. Quicker the better.”

Arie and I stood up, scratching and stretching and yawning. We collected our things and took down the shelter and got our packs on.

“Look at this mountain for a minute with me,” said Chase.

We looked.

“Okay,” he began, pointing, “we will follow this incline up to the ridge, and we’ll cross over that low point. See it?”

I nodded a little but I sort of shrugged, too.

“Well, do you see it or don’t you? If we get separated, you’re gonna have to make it up there without me. There’s a low place along the ridge that I think we can get over with a minimum of climbing. Right there. Do ya see it or not? Arie, do you see it?”

“Yeah,” I said, “okay, I see it. The little notch up there, by that big triangular rock?”

“Yes, that’s it. I think there’s gonna be some switchback trails heading up, but there might not be a trail leading all the way up there. From here it looks like there’ll be a lot of scree and loose rocks, but I think we can make it. Once we get up there, we’ll know more, but the point is we wanna go over the lowest point if possible and then get down the other side fast. Okay?”

Arie and I nodded.

“Good,” said Chase. “Now, the other thing is that we’re gonna be more and more exposed as we head up these switchbacks. There’s not a lot of cover, not a lot of trees. So, we’re gonna go fast and we’re gonna go quietly. Minimal breaks, minimal rests.”

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get moving then.”

“No, Al,” stammered Chase, “listen, maybe I’m not being clear. We really need to get over this ridge quickly, and we need to do it without attracting attention.”

“Attention from who?” I said.

“Yeah,” said Arie, “attention from who? What’s going on?”

Chase sighed and ran his hand roughly over his face. “All right, all right. I should tell you. Someone’s following us.”

“What?” I cried. “Who? Where?” I didn’t know if I’d really been having the impression of being watched, stalked, but now it didn’t matter.

Chase held up his hands to quiet me, then he held a finger to his lips. “I don’t know who exactly,” he said quietly.

“It’s them,” I hissed. “They’ve found us. They’ve followed us from the camp when they attacked. We’re screwed.”

Chase held his hands up more emphatically. “This is precisely why I didn’t tell you. We can’t panic. Besides, I don’t think it’s a full Agency detachment.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because if it was, they’d’ve overtaken us by now. Or they’d have just shot us. Whoever it is, they’re back there following us very carefully. I get the vibe that it’s just one person. Like maybe he’s trying to figure out what we’re up to, where we’re going. And that’s why we gotta get over this ridge without being spotted. If we can get up and over, we might leave our stalker in the dust.”

“Why don’t we wait until dark, then?” asked Arie.

“I’ve thought about that,” Chase replied. “But we’ve never been up and over that trail. I’ve seen it on a map, but without light, we could get lost or fall or go up a blind trail and then just have to come back down. Might be a big fiasco.”

Arie looked up at the route. “If someone’s following us, they’re gonna see us before we’re even halfway to the top of the ridge.”

“Right,” said Chase, lowering his voice to a whisper, “but I figured whoever’s following us will have to show himself, too, in order to stay behind us. On that last long pitch.”

He pointed. We looked.

“When we get to that point, there’ll be no hiding for either us or him, or her, or whoever it is,” said Chase. “Maybe if we get him up there on that last pitch, we could ambush him, turn the tables, and then we could find out who it is and deal with them accordingly.”

“That’s what you meant by us getting separated,” I whispered.

Chase nodded.

“I don’t like this,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Arie, “what if they don’t even follow us? They could easily just watch us from down here, then follow when we get over the top.”

“Good thinking, kid,” said Chase. “If that happens, then we’ll ambush them on the other side.”

“They could pick us off with a rifle,” Arie added.

“Nah, the closest shot they’d be able to take is at least 500 yards. And if that’s what they were interested in, I’m sure they’ve been much closer than that before.”

“I don’t like this Chase,” I said. “And why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t want to cause a panic. We needed rest and I know you wouldn’t rest with something like this on your mind. Hell, I even thought you’d up and run off and make things worse. You were running like a jackrabbit before—I was worried about even catching up to you.”

“Fair point,” said Arie, giving me a sideways glance.

I gave him a shove.

“Look, let’s focus,” said Chase. “We’ve been going slow and careful, and whoever’s back there has been keeping a very respectful distance. I’ve already laid some false trails out of our camp. We’re all well rested, and I think if we haul ass straight up the mountainside, we’ve got a good chance of getting up and over that ridge without being detected. If we’re followed, we’ll know it, and we’ll deal with that.”

Chase looked from my face to Arie’s and we nodded.

“We together on this, then?” asked Chase.

“Yeah,” said Arie and I together.

“Then let’s boogie,” said Chase.

Twenty-One

The first mile or so of the hike to the ridge was not challenging, and it ran along within the deep cover of forest at the foot of the mountain. The incline was gentle at first and we made our way along the trail as though we might be out on an excursion for wild forage. In fact, just off the trail, in the shady patches of grass, I saw a few scatterings of morel mushrooms that had sprouted after the recent rain. I recognized their tall, withered-looking caps, and I reflexively paused on the trail for a split-second to gather them. Then I remembered what we were up to. They were a real treat up there in the mountains, sometimes hard to find, and none of us in the camps ever passed them by. I laughed inwardly a little when I thought of how Chase might react if he came up behind me to find me picking mushrooms, even though he’d been the one who’d taught me to identify morels.

“You can eat these?” I’d asked.

“Oh, these are gourmet forest forage, Al,” he’d told me.

“They look like evil baby aliens.”

“Try one,” he said.

I refused at first, but I later learned that they were truly delicious—raw or cooked.

When we emerged from the shady cover of the trees, the way became rockier. We jumped from boulder to boulder up a steep staircase of rock.

“Careful, now,” said Chase. “We need to make good time through this section, but we can’t do that if someone falls and breaks an arm.”

With his long legs, Arie made easy work of the hopping and climbing, stopping and turning back to give me a helping hand.

As we progressed higher onto the face of the mountain, the trees and shrubs thinned out until there was no cover at all, and I realized what Chase meant about being exposed. Along this stretch of the trail we could look down into the valley, meaning anyone looking up could see us. We walked up the trail but kept our eyes on the terrain below and behind us. The sun rose higher in the clear sky, shining down hotly like a glaring, searching eye.

We came to a section of the trail where there was a flat place in the rock like a shelf where we could sit and hide ourselves from the view below. Chase signaled us to stop, and Arie and I sat down and took off our packs. Chase joined us as we were uncapping our water bottles.

“Good job, team,” said Chase, his voice low. “We’re making decent time. Anyone see anything down there? I haven't seen a sign of anyone.”

“No, nothing,” said Arie. “I’ve been hauling ass out ahead and stopping to watch while you two catch up. I haven’t seen a bit of movement or anything.”

“Good scout,” said Chase, drinking from his bottle. “How about you, lady?”

“No, I haven’t seen anything. Sure feels like we could be spotted easily, though. It feels like we’re being hunted,” I said. “But I don’t know if it’s real or if I just know.”

“Yeah,” said Chase, “I get it. That’s the whole reason I stayed behind us and happened to see whoever it is that’s following us. I just got this feeling. But I think we're doing good. Here’s your reward.” With this, he produced two handfuls of morels wrapped in a square of old cotton shirt. They were almost surely the ones I’d seen.

“Ahh,” exclaimed Arie, helping himself to several of the mushrooms. “My favorite.”

“I think I passed by these mushrooms by on the trail back there because I thought you’d yell at me for slowing down!” I told him.

“Well, yeah, matter of fact I probably woulda, but I’m at least glad your mind was on survival. Here. Have the rest.”

Chase said we should wait an hour and then continue if no one came up behind us. Arie and Chase stared down the trail while I laid my head on my backpack and dozed in the shade of the advancing day. When Chase was convinced no one was coming up behind, we went on.

In the early afternoon, the sky clouded over again, and even the patchy shadows they cast made me feel a little better about walking up the barren switchback trails that led us higher and higher on the mountain. When we were a mile or so from the ridgeline, we stopped again and hid among the rocks to check behind us. This time Chase got out his battered old binoculars and glassed the valley below.

“See anything?” I asked.

“No, nothing,” he said. He sounded almost disappointed.

“Is that bad?”

“I’m not sure. I was hoping to see something.”

Arie chimed in. “If whoever was following us came up to our camp, we should have maybe glimpsed them down there somewhere. Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah,” Chase answered. “I was hoping to see him following one of the false trails I laid the other night. Or I was thinking maybe he’d come up here and lose our tracks in the rocks and have to cast about a bit looking for us.”

“But we don’t want him to follow us,” I said.

“Sure,” said Arie, “but it’d be nice to get a good look at him. Make sure it’s just one guy. Or gal. See how he’s armed. See what we’re up against.”

Without taking his eyes from the binoculars, Chase jabbed his thumb at Arie as though to say, “What he said.”

Chase continued to scan the forest floor with the field glasses. Then he handed them to Arie.

“Give it a good look, kid. Your eyes’re younger than mine.”

But Arie reported no sign of movement. I was happy for another rest, but I took a turn looking, too.

“Nothing,” I said. “I see some deer, though. Wanna look?”

Chase sighed and sucked his teeth and put the binoculars away. “Well, I think we have to assume that we’ve either lost him, or that he doesn’t want to follow us.” He chewed the inside of his cheek for a few seconds and then said, “Let’s keep going. Drink up the rest of your water. This last bit is liable to be kind of a grunt, and going down the other side won’t be much fun, either. But there’s a stream on the other side where we can fill up.”

We put on our packs and took deep breaths and squared our shoulders. But Chase was right. The climb was strenuous and soon we were dripping sweat, despite some cloud cover that had moved in and the breeze that blew across the mountainside.

Arie came to a place where it looked as though we’d have to climb straight up a craggy face of rock. Chase and I caught up to him and we examined the way.

“If we back up and go up there,” said Arie, panting and pointing back down the incline, “it might be easier than going up this.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Go back to that big slide and then cut up that way. What do you think, Chay? Will that be easier than this way here?”

He was nodding. “Yeah, I think that’s where the trail is supposed to be. If there were hikers and hunters up here every summer, there’d be cairns to mark the right way, but those are long gone now. Let’s go back. But let’s hurry.”

Chase led the way now. We scrambled back down the mountainside a couple hundred yards and found the faint line of a trail in what little dirt lay between the boulders and rock faces. It was likewise steep, but now we could see the way to the ridge and over it.

“Everyone feeling okay?” Chase asked. “This is it. We’re almost over.”

We nodded and flashed thumbs-up, but the final piece of the ascent took us through loose scree, and the footing was precarious.

Ruby came to my mind. She would never be able to make even the simpler parts of this trail, and I wondered with sudden despair if she’d gotten away. Where was she? Was she okay? Was she alive? All at once I wished I could see her, talk to her.

Chase stayed ahead of us and climbed to the crest of the ridge. He drew his pistol and looked over to the other side, as though someone might be waiting there in ambush. Then he beckoned us and we exchanged quiet little high-fives as we climbed over the knife-edge ridge.

On the other side, another valley lay below. It looked tranquil and lush and I could hear the distant roar of a steeply flowing river.

“The cabin’s down in that ravine there, I think,” said Chase. “Or the next one over. Been a while since I’ve seen the map, but there’s the logging road. See it? All we gotta do is get to that road and it’ll lead us to the ranger station. The accommodations will be better, that’s for sure. From there we’ll decide what to do.”

We nodded to each other and smiled. The breeze blew over us. The way down the mountain looked rugged but not severe.

“Shall we go, then?” I chirped.

“Yeah,” said Chase. “Hey, listen, you two. Great job today. Proud of you.”

“Yes, I agree.” It was a voice from behind us.

“You’ve done quite well,” said the voice.

In terrified unison, we spun about.

Standing on a rock a hundred feet away and slightly above us stood a man. He took a few steps and emerged from the shadow of the mountain. His arm was extended, and he trained a pistol down on us. He looked to be on the short side, maybe only a bit taller than me, but very solidly built. He wore a uniform of some sort, but it was faded and worn to the point that it would be difficult to identify its origin. Even though we could see him, he seemed to blend into the backdrop of the mountain. His skin was browned deeply by the sun, and his head and face were cleanly, eerily shaved.

“Hands on your heads, folks,” he said. “Right now, please.”

We looked at each other. Chase nodded his head with weary reluctance and then laced his finger and put his hands on his head. Arie and I did the same.

“Good,” said the man. The tone of his voice was steady, relaxed.

He was older than me and Chase. Perhaps by a decade or more.

“Spread out a bit, please?” he said. “Step away from each other.”

He waved the muzzle of the gun as if to disperse us, and we complied.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now, if you would, just turn around, face away from me, go to your knees, and then cross one ankle over the other.”

We stood there looking up at him, our hands on our heads. Chase breathed hard through his nose.

“Do as I say, please,” said the man. “I won’t hurt you. If I wanted to do that, I’d’ve done it last night, while you were asleep.”

I looked at Chase. His lips were pressed firmly together, and he had a look in his eyes I knew very well—it was the look he got when he was getting ready to do something sudden, crazy, and violent.

The man took a step in our direction, and he braced the pistol in his free hand, training it on Chase.

“Listen, you three. The weapon is fully loaded. Sixteen in the mag and one in the chamber.” His voice was calm, as though he were giving us driving directions. “I am a well-trained and very experienced marksman. I can shoot all three of you before the first of you could make it to me. That is why I am standing up here.”

Chase’s chest rose and fell conspicuously. I could hear his breath pass in and out of his nostrils.

“Sir,” said the man to Chase, as though reading his thoughts, “I have the advantage. Clearly. Please comply.”

“What do you want?” said Chase.

“Right now? For you to comply. You don’t really have a choice.”

Chase let out a loud, heavy sigh. Then turned on his heel and kneeled down. Arie and I did the same.

“Thank you, folks,” said the man. “I’m grateful. Now. Just remain still. Remember, I have no desire to hurt any of you. If I wanted that, I would have already done it.”

I heard the rasp of his boots on the rock as he came down from his vantage to join us.

“Don’t speak to each other, please,” said the man, again with an almost aggravatingly relaxed tone of voice.

He came around to stand in front of us. The sun was in our eyes, and I got the impression he’d planned that, too. We squinted and blinked up at him. He maintained a distance I judged to be several long steps. He kept the gun pointed at us in a way that made me believe he could shoot us all before we could to our feet.

“Good afternoon,” he said cordially. “My name is Colonel Steele.” He spoke as though addressing guests at a luncheon.

Arie scoffed and clucked his tongue. “Seriously?” he said. “That’s your name? Colonel Steele? Sure it’s not Major Slaughter or General Mayhem?”

I shushed Arie.

The man raised an eyebrow, and by way of answer he tapped the right breast pocket of his uniform with his index finger. We squinted through the glare and sure enough the name STEELE was stitched there.

“There’s one more thing I didn’t tell you guys,” said Chase with a heavy sigh.

“What?” said Arie.

“The guy who I said was following us? He’s good. He’s really good.”

Twenty-Two

Later that day, I finally got to have a cup of tea.

Colonel Steel had bound our hands with zip-ties, tied us together with a length of strong cord, and marched us back down the mountain.

“Who are you?” I asked as we walked down the trail we’d just climbed.

“I believe I introduced myself before,” he answered. His reply was not sharp. It was matter-of-fact and almost friendly.

“Yeah, but who are you?” I insisted, turning back to address him.

“He’s with the Agency, obviously,” said Arie. “You’re with the Agency, right?”

Steele didn’t answer.

“You went over the ridge to the south,” said Chase. “Didn’t you? Got ahead of us and then came down to the trail where you reckoned we’d cross over.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Phew,” breathed Chase, raising his eyebrows. “Nice work.”

“Tell us why you’re holding us,” I demanded. “Who are you?”

“Let’s just say I’m the one with the gun, and so for now I’ll ask the questions,” he said, as if patiently addressing an errant teenager. “So let’s have no talking for a while, please. If you’ll comply with that request, I’ll maybe answer a few questions when we’re back down off this mountain and settled in for the night.”

Steele had sifted through our belongings and he’d patted us down very thoroughly, relieving us of anything that might be used as a weapon, even the string we used to build our tarp-tents, and including a pencil and some pens I had in my pack, but actual weapons, too—he found a small fighting knife Chase had hidden up his pant-leg, something not even I knew Chase carried. Our packs thus neutralized, he returned them to us with our supplies and water and provisions.

And so we walked in front of Steele, strung together like resentful livestock. The cord wasn’t thick, but it seemed strong enough to hinder us from running off together, and I knew that Steele could have used it to pull us off balance if we turned on him. But it also got in our way, tripped us up, and we often stalled and pulled at each other awkwardly.

“Arie,” I snapped, “slow down. You’re gonna pull me off my feet.”

“I’m sorry,” he hissed back at me. “I’m not even walking fast!”

“Cool it, guys,” said Chase wearily.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“All of you,” said Steele in a firm voice. “Stay quiet, please.”

That suited me. Oddly, I grew even more nervous than I was before, and the feeling that someone was watching or following us had not gone away. As we returned to the valley floor, I swiveled my head around, expecting to see someone following the man who’d been following us. It was a weird form of paranoia within a greater paranoia.

When we finally got off the mountain, not far from where we’d camped the night before, Steele halted our little pack train and, just before sundown, he built a fire that burned hot and with very little smoke.

And he let me brew some tea.

The tensions between Chase and Arie and me eased just a little. Arie and Chase regarded Steele with wary, hostile gazes.

“Ahhh,” I sighed. “This is all I’ve been wanting for two days.”

We ate our food in silence as it got darker. Steele would not remove our zip-ties (he said they were “getting regrettably difficult to come by these days”). But he removed the cord that strung us all together so we could move freely. He opened his large military rucksack, the fabric of which was patterned in camouflage but so frowzy and faded you almost couldn’t tell what color. From the rucksack he brought out some chocolate-covered oat-bars and shared them with us. They tasted good, and freshly made, and they were packaged how I remembered Agency food was—wrapped in brown waxed-paper with terse, military wording on the labels: OAT BAR, CHOCOLATE, 300 CALORIES.

Steele sat with his back to a tree. He’d put a knit beanie over his clean-shaven head and he was reading a battered volume of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. In a small tin pot he’d warmed up some kind of reconstituted soup. He blew on it to cool it.

“Thank you,” I said to him, sipping my tea, “for the fire and the food.”

He nodded, and after a while he put the book back into his rucksack and said, “If you’re still hungry, please say so. I have some spare rations set aside for you.”

“You said we could ask some questions,” said Arie.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “And you behaved reasonably well, so, yes. Ask your questions.”

The three of us began all at once, asking three different questions all in unison, talking over each other. “Where are you taking us?” “Who are you?” “Why’d you take us prisoner?”

Steele laughed, and we stopped, paused for a few moments, then tried all at the same time again.

Steele held up a hand until we were quiet again and then pointed at me. “You go first.”

“Well—we want to know all of that. Who you are, why you’ve taken us hostage, where you’re taking us. Et cetera. Obviously.”

“Of course,” said Steele, nodding and setting his soup aside. “Uncertainty leads to fear, and fear leads to poor judgment. I’m not here to hurt you, least of all kill you, and I don’t want any of you to do anything that will lead to any harm, especially to me, so I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability.”

Chase and I traded a glance. He was so polite. For some vague reason, this was annoying to me.

“As I said,” he began, “my name is Colonel Steele. I’ve been hired by an individual—I can’t say who, of course—to apprehend the three of you and bring you in.”

“You’re not Agency, then,” said Chase.

Steele considered this. “I’m a private contractor.”

“Rachel,” I said. “She hired you.”

Steele didn’t respond to this. His expression didn’t even change. “As I mentioned, I’m not free to tell you very many details.”

“How can you work for them?” sneered Arie. “You have to know what they do to people. It’s inhuman. They treat people like animals. Not even as good as animals.”

“I respect your opinions. I’m sure we differ on many subjects, but unfortunately, such disputes these days are most often resolved with force. There was a time when it wasn’t that way, and I miss those times. I will say I’m glad you three seem reasonable and I haven’t had to use much more than the threat of force. In any case, I’ve been hired to apprehend you, and I have to do my job, and I can’t say much more than that. Speculate all you want. I can neither confirm nor deny.”

I realized what it was about Steele’s politeness that was off-putting. It wasn’t that it came off as false or patronizing. It did not. It was very much the opposite—Steele was respectful and even genuinely kind when possible. This almost had me believing that everything would be okay. And that bothered me—I knew that everything would definitely not be okay and I did not want to be put at ease.

“Were you hired to round up anyone else?” I asked. “Anyone we know?”

Chase shot me a glance as though he thought I might give too much away. I returned Chase’s gaze but then looked back to Steele and waited for his answer.

Steele pursed his lips. Then he shrugged. “Normally, I wouldn’t respond to a question like that. Details, you know—you never know when a piece of information can be used against you. But I’ve taken a liking to the three of you, and I can’t see how this can cause any trouble, so I’ll admit I was assigned to take you three. No one else.”

“Do you know anything about anyone else who was in our camp?”

“No,” he said. I believed him.

“You’re military,” said Chase.

“Former, yes.”

Chase furrowed his brow and said, “So, you came out of the Zones?” asked Chase. “Or you were in the Agency before and left them?”

“Neither. I’ve been on my own since Year One. I’m not in anything nor do I belong to any group. I serve my own interests.”

“That’s all we were trying to do,” Arie complained, holding up his bound wrists. “We’re all just trying to be free. We deserve to be free.”

Steele looked at me as he jabbed his thumb at Arie. “Quite the revolutionary you’ve got here.”

I tried not to crack a smile, but it didn’t work.

“So, you’ve never been in the system?” Chase asked. “Never took the serum?”

Steele shook his head, took up his pot of soup, and sipped it.

“Well then you’ve gotta let us go,” Arie cut in. “You don’t know what it’s like. They wipe your memories, make you into zombies. Slaves.”

“I’ll remind you that I can’t remark on who hired me. You assume it’s the Agency, as if that organization is the only one who might take an interest in you. I won’t insult your intelligence by acting like I don’t know what you’re talking about. I know of the Agency. I sometimes take contracts from the Agency. But there are other, similar organizations and individuals. Some of which, I might add, are worse than the Agency.”

“We know you’re with the Agency,” I scoffed. “We know better than anyone who’s out to get us and who’d pay to get their hands on us, and we know what they’ll do to us when they’ve got us.”

“Well then,” he returned with a relaxed shrug. “I suppose you have no further questions.” With that, he gulped down the rest of his soup.

“You saw it all happen,” said Chase with a tinge of what I thought might be envy. “You saw everything collapse, and you remember it.”

Steele admitted this with a small shrug and nod. His admission didn’t strike me as proud or superior. Again, his expression didn’t change much. He seemed patient, conciliatory, but he didn’t say more for a while. He only stared at the campfire. The reflected light of it flickered in his eyes.

After a few minutes, Chase said, “I think I know the answer to this next one. But I’ll ask anyhow. Can you tell us about what happened? In Year One? Before and after? We’ve all been scrubbed, obviously, probably more than once. We don’t remember anything. We don’t know much of anything beyond the past few years.”

Steele nodded some more and looked at Chase. Did I see envy in Steele’s expression, too? All at once it seemed likely. Because of course Steele must have lost family and friends and comrades in Year One, just as we all had. But Steele hadn’t forgotten a single face or moment from those times. That would be a burden of sorts.

I’d never considered that being free of memories, being free of the past, could be something enviable. I’d always considered it a vile thing to take away someone’s memory, someone’s true identity. Could it be that the Agency was correct in this one, twisted way? Did I really want to know what had happened to me in the back before? By some astronomical chance, I’d been reunited with Arie, and I’d found (or had been reunited with?) this man Chase. Wasn’t that enough? Did I really want or need to know what happened before? Did I want to know what I’d lost?

As Arie and Chase and Steele continued to converse across the campfire, I thought about this, retreated into the questions. Did I want to know who I was or what I’d done before my last memory scrub? Did I want to know who I’d been before the first memory scrub? What regret and loss and irreversible decisions lurked behind those memory wipes? Did I really want to know?

Yes. I did. And, no, the Agency was not right. Not in this one aspect, and not in any other.

Because I wanted to know myself, wanted to know who I really was. If that meant recalling bad and painful things, I would find a way to own them. Had I not suffered pain already? And had I not owned those parts of myself? Indeed, my life since my last memory wipe had been largely pain and hard times and even regret—I thought about Ruby. No, I would have my memories, all of them, and I’d own them.

“The Agency surely told you some version of what happened,” Steele was saying. “They had some kind of story they told you, didn’t they?

“It’s a bullcrap version of the history,” said Arie. “I pieced together a lot of the timeline from old media and snooping around, but even an accurate, detailed newspaper or magazine article is still just a single point of view, a single point of reference. And, of course, the news reports run out. As people died, as everything fell apart, there are no records of the very end. So, we have some information, but it’s like there’s this black hole in our minds, you know? Wondering how we ended up like this. Maybe not so much wondering what happened, but wondering what it was really like.”

Steele was quiet for so long I wasn’t sure he was even planning to answer. But then he drew a deep breath, exhaled, and said, “Yes. Yes, I know what you mean. I know many people who don’t remember it all, who don’t remember all the way back. I know some people who do. Not as many of us remember everything. What I can tell you is this: knowing everything that happened back then won’t make you feel any better about how things are now.”

I didn’t believe that.

“Okay,” said Chase, “but what else have we got to talk about?”

Steele stuck out his bottom lip, tilted his head, and raised his eyes to gaze into space above our campsite. Then he looked at us. “I suppose I could tell you a few things,” he replied. But then he blinked and shook his head a little.

The sky was rapidly darkening to black and a sharpening chill was in the air. Steele rolled up onto his knees and placed a large, bleached-out log on the fire. It took flame and burned brightly.

“But it’s gotten late,” said Steele. “So, I’m sorry. Not tonight. On the other hand, we’ll be on the trail for a few days, so, perhaps another time.”

He stood. We looked up at him. Then he did a singular thing. He drew his pistol. There’d been no disturbance, no apparent reason to do it. And he drew the pistol with such quickness, I didn’t even see it happen in the truest sense. There was a blur of motion, and in an instant the barrel of his gun was aimed directly at my forehead. I thew my zip-tied wrists up and turned my head away. Chase scrambled on his knees to place himself between me and the gun.

“What are you doing?” cried Chase.

“Hold still. Everything’s fine. However, in situations like this one—multiple-captive situations—I find it prudent to periodically remind everyone of two very important points.” He maintained a cool, almost charming demeanor. “First, while I am sympathetic to your situation and your disappointment at being captured, I will use deadly force if I have to. Second, although it’s not exactly something to be proud of, I am very skilled at the use of deadly force, and I have a reputation for successful multiple-captive work. I don’t mean to boast—if you’d had to work as long as I have in this occupation, you’d be just as good as I am. It’s not bragging. It’s a warning.”

Steele holstered the pistol almost as quickly as he had drawn it, then put his hands on his hips. We stayed still. He calmly picked up a few branches of firewood and set them against the burning log. The fire gave off a pleasant warmth. I felt exhausted.

“I like you three,” said Steele after he’d stoked the fire. “I can tell that under other circumstances, we might be friends. I’d like to have this mission over with as quickly as possible, without you coming to any harm. And me, too, of course. I don’t want anything to happen to me. Once you’re out of my custody, you can work on saving your skins or escaping or whatever else you want to do. Just—please, let me do my job. Okay?”

I nodded.

Then I felt myself getting very drowsy. Not just sleepy, but deeply tired. It had been a long day, but a profound need to lie down suddenly overtook me.

Through a mild stupor, I listened as Steele instructed us to retrieve our coats and tarps and make ourselves comfortable on the ground near a few large trees that stood close together a few paces from the fire. It would provide a little cover in case of rain, he said, and was still close enough to the fire to feel its warmth. Low grass and moss covered the flat area beneath the trees. We stood and shuffled in that direction. I felt as though I might fall asleep in mid-step.

“Hey,” said Arie woozily, holding his bound hands up and pointing an accusing finger at Steele, “you drugged us.”

“The oat bars,” said Chase, nodding.

“Merely a sedative,” Steele returned with a smile. “It’s for your own good. But mainly for mine.” He chuckled.

We went to the flat place among the trees and lowered ourselves groggily to the ground, spreading our tarps and wrapping ourselves in coats and blankets.

Steele collected our packs and set them near his own things. Then he returned and kneeled on one knee at our feet, where he began to tie something to my ankle. I blinked at him sleepily. My eyelids seemed to close and open again at a half-speed. It was the length of cord he used to keep us stitched together on the trail. I began to doze off, my eyes closing now and refusing to open again, but I fought it, trying to see what Steele was doing. He tied the cord around our ankles and then looped it over a tree branch and back to where he’d been sitting at the fire—it was a tripwire.

When he finished, he crouched by the fire and laid on another large log.

“I appreciated our chance to talk this evening,” he said arranging the wood and banking the coals. “As you can imagine, this kind of work involves long periods of solitude. Even a short conversation is sometimes welcome, if it’s pleasant.”

I looked at Arie and Chase. Arie was lying still, apparently asleep already. Chase was scooting around, trying to get comfortable on the mossy ground.

As my eyelids dropped for the last time, I heard Steele say, “Sleep well.”

Twenty-Three

I dreamed of a Ferris wheel. A man at the turnstile of an amusement park put a colorful band of plastic around my wrist and I clunked through the gate and into the park. There were games and food and rides, and there was laughter all around. It was nighttime and the lights of the rides shone festively as they strobed and flashed. I walked through the crowd. There were families and couples and groups of young people. I came to the place where people waited in line for the Ferris wheel. When it was my turn, I sat in a gondola and a young lady in a sun visor secured the restraining bar over my lap, and then she worked a control on an instrument panel and the gondola went backward and up, backward and up. Other people got on the ride in the other gondolas, and then it was turning. I looked out over the amusement park, at the trees and the flashing rows of lights and the bars of neon on the other rides. Then I noticed that Chase was on the ride with me. He looked over at me and put his arm around me. He smiled and laughed. Then Arie was with me. Arie as a boy, Arie as a man. Then it was the three of us together. Soon the Ferris wheel turned very fast, like a bike wheel. I rocked and swayed as it moved faster and faster.

Then I realized it wasn’t the movement of the ride I felt. Someone was nudging me. I felt the chill of the damp ground, heard the crackle of my tarp wrapped around me. Nudge, nudge, nudge. Someone’s foot was nudging me, gently but rhythmically. Nudge, nudge, nudge, nudge, in the small of my back. Something hard, like an elbow or the toe of a boot. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were heavy, and I felt as though I were emerging from some dark and deep cocoon. I’d been drugged, I recalled. The tarp crackled like a gigantic newspaper. My arms and hands ached from being bound so long. And I was cold.

I opened my eyes and lifted my head.

The sun was shining but, as far as I could tell, it had not risen. Everything lay in a cool purple glow. My breath smoked in the chilly air. I looked around, and as my surroundings came into sharper focus, I saw Chase’s face. We were lying on our sides, four or five feet apart and facing each other. Chase had his bound hands up to his chin, and he held a finger to his lips. I blinked at him and nodded.

By way of reply, he parted his hands to show me they were in fact not bound. One of the zip-ties was broken but remained looped around his wrist. It looked like it had been mangled or chewed. He pressed his finger to his lips.

I nodded again and mouthed the word, “How?”

Chase bared his teeth and mimed chewing on the plastic.

How long had that taken? I wondered. I looked around for Steele. At first, I couldn’t see him, but then I spotted him thirty yards off, squatting in the undergrowth. He was looking idly around the small copse of trees where we were camped. I saw his bare knees, legs, and part of his bottom and I reflexively averted my glance when I realized he was relieving himself.

I turned my head and saw Arie—he was lying farther away, but he was on his back and I saw that his eyes were closed, mouth still gaping open, and he breathed deeply and steadily. My eyes returned to Chase. He was showing me two ends of the cords that Steele had used to make his tripwire. They were shockingly frayed and severed and soggy-looking. Apparently, he’d chewed through these, too.

I heard sounds coming from Steele’s direction. He was standing now, pulling up his pants and fastening his belt. Next, he leaned down and picked up an armful of branches he’d evidently collected before his bathroom break. I turned back to Chase with a questioning look.

With small, minimal motions, Chase pointed at himself and then he pointed in Steele’s direction. Then he clenched his fists and made an angry face.

I shook my head and mouthed, “No!” but Chase closed his eyes and nodded steadfastly. I could hear Steele returning. Chase pointed at me, put his hands alongside of his cheek, and feigned sleep.

“Lie down,” he mouthed.

I shook my head again.

Then Steele was at the campfire again. “Time to wake up,” he said.

He dropped his bundle of branches near the campfire. I heard him poking at the fire. He laid some branches on the coals, and they began to crackle and smoke.

“I hope you all slept well,” said Steele. “We’ll have a hot breakfast this morning, and it’s on me. It’ll be ready in, oh, say twenty minutes. Just gotta get this fire—”

Chase sprang up and was sailing over the fire and across the space between us and Steele before I could draw another breath. I knew Chase could move fast, but I’d never seen him move like this before. I lifted myself from the brush to see.

Chase collided with Steele like a charging bull. He was larger than Steele, and I thought Steele would crumple under Chase’s bulk like a kicked-over lawn chair.

But Steele was quicker.

He absorbed Chase’s lunge, twisted, and hurled Chase to one side, flinging him headlong into a clump of scrub-oak as though he were a clumsy child.

With blinding speed, Steele produced a long, savage-looking knife. Again, I didn’t see him draw the knife—it was almost as if it materialized in his hand.

Chase was getting to his feet, but Steele was on him in an instant.

I cried Chase’s name and fumbled to my feet and ran in their direction but stopped short when I realized that Steele held the point of the knife at Chase’s throat. Chase lay tangled in the brushy growth of scrub-oak. Steele was coiled on top of him like a python. He’d pinned one of Chase’s arms with his boot, and he’d pinned the other with his free hand. The point of the knife made a small divot in the skin of Chase’s neck. As best he could, Chase showed his palms, capitulating.

“Alison,” said Steele, coolly, without taking his eyes from Chase. “Go back over to the trees by the fire and sit down, please. I don’t know what you’re thinking of doing, but the best thing to do right now is to sit down and stay out of this. I’m in control.”

I did as he said, quickly. Then I said, “Chase?” I couldn’t see him clearly from where I sat. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” said Chase from his place in the brush, his voice full of disdain.

“That’s right,” purred Steele. “I’m going to stand up now. Chase, I’d like you to stay on your back, please. Now that we know who’s the better fighter, the choice should be clear.”

Chase must have signaled his agreement, because Steele stood up. He drew his pistol and pointed it down at Chase.

“You had a busy night,” said Steele. “Gnawed through a zip-tie and my best para-cord. That’s a new one. What’d ya do? Spit the oat bar out when I wasn’t looking?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you faked sleepiness and stayed up all night chewing on my zip-ties. Yes, sir. That’s a new one.” Steele nodded; the gun still pointed down at Chase.

I watched without moving or even breathing.

“Well, it wasn’t a bad effort,” said Steele. He shrugged one shoulder and smiled grimly. He hadn’t raised his voice throughout the entire incident. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

He calmly cocked the pistol.

“You know,” he continued, “in the service, we were taught that escaping captivity wasn’t just something we ought to try to do if we got a chance. We were obliged to attempt it. It was a standing order. So, I understand that you had to make the attempt.”

Chase said nothing. I saw the steam of his breath rising from the scrub-oak.

“And we all knew you would go for it,” said Steele. “I knew it, she knew it. Shucks, even the kid knew it, and he’s still asleep. Unfortunately, I find it’s best to kill captives who attempt escape. It’s just a sound policy decision, one that’s kept me alive for a long time. Because the prisoner who attempts escape will often try again. Right? That itch to try again is always there.”

Chase remained quiet on the ground.

Steele released a heavy sigh. Then he thumbed the hammer of the pistol and let it down gently. “Lucky for you, it’s obvious to me that if I kill you, I’ll have to kill your friends, and I’m not fond of killing anyone, least of all friends, a family, I guess, is what you are. And, without easy access to conveniences like photography and DNA analysis, the methods of verifying the identity of a deceased captive have become limited and, well, very—” here he paused and sighed “—distasteful.” He holstered the pistol.

I exhaled.

“However,” added Steele, “if you try it again, you’ll force my hand.” Steele then looked at me. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

Steele bent and offered his hand to Chase. Chase reached up and Steele pulled him to his feet.

Steele looked up at Chase’s bearded face. “How about you, big guy? You all right?”

Chase clapped the dirt and leaves from his clothes. “Yeah,” he said, almost too quietly for me to hear.

“Nothing broken?”

“Just my spirit.”

“Don’t take it too hard,” said Steele, giving Chase a friendly slap on the arm. His voice was genuine, kindly. Not arrogant. “You’re reasonably quick. And you’re definitely a big ’ole boy. But this is what I do. Truthfully, unless I’m confronted by a force of exceptionally overwhelming strength, I’m confident I’ll consign the three of you without further incident. Now, could you have a seat over there, please, while I fetch another zip-tie?”

Chase rubbed his wrists and joined me by the trees where we’d slept. He collapsed disgustedly into a seated position.

Arie raised his head. Twigs and leaves were suspended in his long, tousled hair.

“What’s up?” he croaked. “S’morning already? When did I even fall asleep?”

Twenty-Four

I didn’t get any tea that morning.

“In light of what happened,” said Steele, “I hope you’ll understand that we’ll skip the hot breakfast this morning.” But there was no anger in his voice.

“We were gonna have a hot breakfast?” said Arie as he stretched and brushed the duff from his hair.

“Feel free to snack on whatever rations you have,” Steele added, tossing our backpacks to us.

As the sun came up, Steele marched us farther down the valley, and I knew from the ridgelines and mountain peaks which came into view that we were not too far from our camp, and that Steele was heading for the main highway. There was an eroded, crumbling remnant of a jeep trail in the vicinity that had run between our camp and the highway, but my guess was that Steele had sneaked into our valley on foot from the highway and probably had a vehicle stashed there to take us to Rachel. Or perhaps the highway was where he’d deliver us to the Agency and to the oblivion of their memory-erasing treatment.

I heard branches snapping far off to our right, up the hillside. It was a very faint noise, and could have been anything from a dead branch falling from a tree to a deer nibbling fresh shoots of grass from under the deadfall, but my eyes went there almost involuntarily, searching, trying to penetrate the thick undergrowth and trees. Was no one else hearing this? The impression of being watched had never really left me. At first, I told myself that it was because we were near our old camp and I was expecting to see some of our old camp mates or perhaps Agency thugs, but the feeling grew as we walked. I began to imagine movement in the spaces between the trunks of the trees.

“Colonel,” I said, “do you know anything about the raid on our old camp?”

“Only that it happened,” Steele replied.

“You weren’t there?”

“No.”

“Do you have any partners? Team members?”

“Can’t say,” he said.

“Where were you?” asked Chase. “When they attacked, I mean.”

“Close by,” he said. “Close enough to hear all the racket.”

“All that ‘racket’,” I said, “was the sound of our friends being chased down, captured, and probably shot.”

“You’re right,” Steele admitted. “Forgive me for my insensitivity.”

Chase said, “There were probably twenty of us that could be called soldiers, combatants. The rest were just regular civilians. A couple hundred. Old people. Kids.”

“I had nothing to do with that attack,” said Steele, “but it is unfortunate. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“But you’re still taking us in,” said Arie.

“Yes, young man, I am. We’ve been over this.”

“You know,” said Chase, “I think you’d fit in with us. I think we’d get along well. Ruby would love you. You’d be her new favorite.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” said Steele.

We walked along. I could have sworn I saw movement in my peripheral vision. It wasn’t just once. It wasn’t just a trick of the light. I was going to try to somehow bring this up with Chase, but he wasn’t through goading Steele.

“How long do you think you can keep this up, Colonel Steele?” he said. “I mean, if you think about it, you’re really living on the edge here. This job of yours. It’s hazardous. You know? You could give it up and have a good life with us.”

“I have a good life now,” Steele replied, and I thought I heard something slightly defensive in his tone.

“Do you?” asked Chase, turning and walking backward to address Steele. “What? Sneaking around and ‘apprehending’ people? Constantly risking your neck to deliver prisoners to an organization like the Agency? And you say there are worse organizations? More murderous? How long until one of your prisoners gets lucky and gets the drop on you? How long till one of your employers turn on you?”

“Turn back around,” said Steele.

Chase did, but he talked louder. “You don’t know anything about any of us—what if we’re innocent? What if we’re the good guys? I mean—I got a feeling you know we’re good guys.”

“We’re all good guys,” Steele said. “Just depends on who’s telling the story. Besides, we’ve been over this.”

He was definitely getting defensive. This was new. I took a quick glance back at him.

He said, “We definitely differ in how we view the various forces and influences of the world as it is today. You fight your battles and I’ll fight mine.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the point,” said Arie. “We’re fighting for a cause. You have no cause, no purpose, and every time you turn someone over to these ‘employers’ of yours, you’re basically committing murder. You’re not doing anyone any good but yourself.”

“And just what makes you think you know anything about me?” asked Steele.

“You’ve said so yourself,” Arie continued. “You said you work for whoever pays you.”

“That’s what we all do,” answered Steele. “That’s how life works. That’s how it worked before, and that’s how it works now. You wanted to know about happened in Year One? Well, aside from a whole lot of people dying, not very much changed. We work. We get paid. We survive.”

“No,” said Chase. “You might work for a paycheck, but we don’t. We’re working to improve our lives and the lives of the people around us. We’re not just doing jobs, collecting pay. We’re trying to build something. At least we were before the Agency attacked us and you ambushed us.”

Arie looked back over his shoulder at Steele and shot him a disdainful glare.

“That’s just how you view it,” said Steele. “You want to view the world and yourself a certain way, so you frame it that way with your words. You tell a story about yourself, and in that story you’re the good guy. But you’re still just working and picking up a paycheck. Just like me.”

Arie scoffed loudly.

“Yeah, how do you figure that?” Chase sneered.

Without hesitating, Steele said, “Your sense of building a better world, and the gratification you receive from helping these people you speak of—that’s your payment. You’re taking that as your pay. You could have your pay in the form of coin or food or anything else. But you’ve taken your pay in a certain kind of companionship and camaraderie and the feelings you get from fighting for a cause. But it’s still just a transaction.”

Chase and Arie gave no answer.

“You have a family,” I said. I waited to say it until there was a switchback in the trail so I could look him in the eye without having to turn around. I looked him in the face. “Don’t you? You’re a family man. You do this for them.”

From the moment Steele captured us, the look on his face had been one of utterly cool composure. Even in tense moments, like when he first took us as prisoners, or while he subdued Chase by holding a knife to his throat, Steele’s face was a serene mask, as if none of this were any more challenging than making a peanut butter sandwich. Now, however, for the first time, Steele’s gait faltered, he slowed his pace for a few steps, and a surprised and uncertain aspect flashed across his face. This lasted only a moment. Had I not been hoping it would happen, I would have missed it completely.

But I saw it.

So, I thought, he’s not just a cold-blooded bounty-hunter or hired killer. He has someone in his life. There were so many people in this world we lived in who had no heart, no soul, no feelings. Steele wasn’t one of them.

Then the moment passed. Steele’s confident stride returned, and his face was the inscrutable mask once more.

“And what makes you say that?” Steele said, trying hard to sound less-than-completely interested.

I couldn’t see him now, but I continued. “You’re too human for this job. You said yourself—it’s something you ‘have’ to do. You wish you didn’t have to. But like you said, it’s what you’re good at, and you think it’s the only way to keep your family safe.”

I turned my head quickly to see his face again. He was gazing at the trail, lips pursed. The bill of his cap screened his eyes.

“So is it your family, then?” I asked. “What’s left of it? Or is it the people you adopted after Year One? How many are there?”

I looked back at him again. Arie and Chase did the same.

“I’m gonna need you all to keep your eyes forward,” said Steele. “Last thing I need is for one of you to stumble and turn an ankle.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “Whatever you say.”

“And let’s walk awhile without all the chatter,” Steele added.

“Nice job there, babe,” whispered Chase with a chuckle.

Twenty-Five

Hiking through the woods, arms bound and strung together, and with Steele at our backs was much more tedious and fatiguing than all the fleeing we had done after the Agency attack days before. My wrists and arms burned and ached, and the paracord jerked and tripped us, which made it difficult to walk properly, but it was more than that. It doesn’t matter what you remember or what you’ve forgotten, there is something about involuntarily being under someone else’s control which is onerous, taxing, exhausting.

And hateful, too.

On the morning of the second day, Chase was feeling it acutely, I could tell. I could see it in the stiffness with which he walked, the way he stole looks behind him, and scanned the trail ahead. I knew he wasn’t satisfied, wasn’t ready to give in and let Steele hand us over to the Agency like sacks of some commodity. Just as Steele predicted, Chase needed to scratch the itch, needed to try his luck again. I was feeling it, too, the restlessness of the captive, but Steele was too ready, too quick. I couldn’t think of any plan that didn’t end with somebody dead; maybe all of us.

Steele had done an exceptional job of putting us at ease at first, almost becoming a friend to us, but I knew our time with him was almost at an end. He had told us we’d be on the trail for “a few days,” and the terrain we crossed agreed. We’d descended out of the pine and spruce forest and now we saw more aspen and tall grass and I knew we weren’t more than a day and a half from the road.

“May I ask a question?” I asked as we hiked.

“You can ask anything,” said Steele.

“Do you have a security team?”

“Security team?”

“Yes, is there someone out here with you? Following us?”

He thought about this as we continued down the trail a hundred feet or so. Then he said, “I suppose I’m not opening myself up to any risk if I tell you, no, I don’t have a security team. I work alone. Why do you ask?”

I weighed the risks of telling him what I was thinking. “I just feel like we’re being followed. I keep hearing things. Or I think I do. And seeing things, I think. Is it just me?”

Steele slowed his pace and looked around at the hillsides to either side of our trail. “No,” he said. “It’s not just you.”

It was around seven in the evening when Steele halted us as we crossed a lush meadow near a small, spring-fed pond.

“We’ll stop here for the night,” said Steele, “camp up there on that rise.” He pointed.

We turned off the trail and climbed the low hill. There were trees for shelter and a small, clear-running stream nearby. We were still strung together, so we all sat down in the shade of the trees, just at the margin of the hilltop, which was covered with waist-high grass. Steele surveyed the area and took a long drink from his water bottle.

Chase had almost gotten a knife in the throat just the day before, but I could see the furtive glint in his eyes again. His gaze roamed restlessly, and I knew what it meant. He was looking for an opening, any bit of leverage. I gave him a stern, prohibitive glare, but he pretended not to see it.

Steele said. “Well, if you three will gather a little firewood, I’ll make dinner tonight and give you a break from your seeds and berries. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Chase abruptly, “but if you’d take this cord off us, it’d be about ten times easier, and it’d happen about a hundred times faster.”

“True,” answered Steele, “but pardon me if I veto that plan. You chewed up one my best lengths of para-cord just the other night.”

“Yeah, and I’m really sorry. But like you said, I had to try. I tried, and I failed. You win. Just take the cord off and I promise you won’t have to gather a stick of firewood tonight.”

I would have shot Chase the glare again, but Steele had his eye on us and Chase wasn’t even looking my way.

“Yeah, come on,” Arie joined in. “It’s really hard just to walk down the trail all tangled together like this, let alone pick up a bunch of firewood.”

Steele looked from one face to another. “All right. Turn around and kneel down. But no funny business.”

We did so, and he removed the cord. Then he backed away, and we stood up together to go hunt for fuel.

“Alison,” said Steele, “you stay here, please. Stay with me. We’ll take a break and let these two gather tonight’s firewood.”

Chase and Arie shrugged and then went off into the grassy area, bending now and then to pick up branches and twigs and logs.

Steele watched them as he unshouldered his rucksack and leaned it gently against a tree. I took my pack off, too. I sat in the grass while Steele kicked a few fist-size granite stones together to form a small fire ring.

“Chase is right, you know,” I said. “About you living on the edge.”

“I take risk-management very seriously,” he said, arranging the stones with the toe of one boot.

“So, you really don’t have any partners or team mates out here? Watching your back?”

Steele shook his head, and I saw the muscles of his jaw pulse. He looked out on the grassy area where Chase and Arie roamed in their search.

“No,” he said. “I honestly do work alone.”

I believed him.

“But you’re right,” he added. “We’re not alone out here.”

A half-hour later or so, Chase and Arie came back out of the grassy meadow with big armloads of branches and logs.

“Wow,” said Steele. He was kneeling at the ring of stones he’d made, fashioning a little bird’s nest of tinder and kindling. “I’m impressed. Well done.”

“Where ya want it?” asked Chase.

Steele jabbed his chin at a clear, flat space across the fire ring and said, “There.”

Arie dropped his armload where Steele had indicated. It landed in the dirt with a clatter. Arie sat down by the fire ring. Chase dropped his firewood, too, but when the branches and logs had fallen from his arms, one stout log remained, grasped in his fists like a baseball bat.

Steele had only a split second to realize anything was wrong before Chase was swinging the log in a swift, powerful arc. The log looked dense, heavy, and sound. Steele was only just beginning to react when the log connected with his shoulder and neck. The sound was unpleasant. Something in Steele broke or tore or shattered, and this time it was he who went tumbling onto the ground.

Chase pressed his advantage, moving in quickly and placing his feet for another heavy swing of the log. I thought I heard him growl savagely. Arie and I were scrambling to our feet to assist. Chase had already drawn the log back for a blow that I judged would lay Steele out cold and insensible, but Steele would not be over-matched.

His pistol was in his hand. He was so fast. He leveled it at Chase.

There was only six feet between Steele and Chase, and there was no way someone like Steele would ever miss, even if the distance between them was ten times what it was. Steele fired the pistol.

Not at Chase.

Not at Arie or me.

Steele fired the pistol at the enormous brown shape that had emerged that instant from the tall grass of the meadow twenty yards from our would-be campfire. He fired at the enormous bear that barreled at us like a speeding, runaway train. Chase dropped the log and turned around. Arie turned around. I felt the pounding of the bear’s furious gallop in the ground beneath us. I’d never seen such a display of animal speed and power.

The bear was more massive than the four of us combined, a full-grown male grizzly, and he was on us in only a second or two. But even in that flash of nerve-freezing terror, the bear’s swift, bounding grace was impressive, beautiful. He crossed from the grassy margin to the firepit in an eye-blink. Steele may have fired his pistol again; I’m not sure. If he did, it had no effect on the bear. There was cursing and screaming and the sound of a huge animal snarling with fury. Dust and dry grass swirled in the air. The bear swung a massive forepaw and Chase was flung out of sight. The bear swung again, and I was airborne, tumbling. I landed roughly in the trees some fifty feet away and when I came up again, I saw the bear looming over Steele. Chase was back on his feet and sprinting in my direction. His eyes were wide and crazed, but he’d apparently had the presence of mind to grab Steele’s large military rucksack on his sprint away from the bear.

As I watched him approach, I saw Arie get to his feet and run in my direction, too.

Steele was on his back and the bear was pressing in, snapping with his long fangs at Steele’s arms and legs. The man seemed tiny beneath the animal, but he kicked mightily at the bear’s snout nevertheless, delivering solid blows with the heels of his boot that certainly would have caved in the skull or ribs of a grown man. To the bear they were nasty swats that made him squint and flinch like a dog smacked with a rolled-up magazine.

The bear reared up as if he would stomp Steele to a pulp with his front legs, but Steele had animal quickness of his own. He rolled backward, out from under the bear.

Chase and Arie reached me, and we cowered like primitive humans by the trees, just fifty or sixty feet away from where Steele faced the bear. All we could do was watch. Steele was on his feet now. His face was streaked with blood and dirt, and he bled freely from a gash in his head, probably from where Chase had struck him with the log. His uniform sleeve was torn and dark with blood, too, perhaps from being clawed or bitten by the bear.

But Steele had put a few paces between himself and the bear, and he held his long knife in his fist. He side-stepped and circled and backed away from the bear, feinting then angling away from the bear like a boxer. The bear lunged repeatedly, swinging his massive paw at Steele, but Steele was quick, dodging the blows by the narrowest of margins, angling out of the bear’s path like a toreador facing a bull. And so they circled. Steele held his combat knife at the ready. I remembered how long and murderous the weapon had looked when he held it to Chase’s throat. Now it looked tiny. I wondered if he could hurt the bear at all with it.

As we watched, Steele’s eyes darted to mine. In that moment I knew that Steele was ready to admit that the “force of exceptionally overwhelming strength” had indeed arrived, and that his mission had failed.

I could not help but feel a terrible pity for him. In this world, which had gone so hopelessly savage, here was a man who had maintained his dignity, humanity, and kindness even as he escorted Chase and Arie and I to what was certain doom. He’d shown us more compassion than he really could afford to. I wondered about his family, or whoever it was he cared for, whoever it was that depended on him. I knew they were somewhere waiting in vain for his return.

With a deft motion, Steele flipped the knife in his hand so that he held the point lightly in his fingers. Then, with a quick sideways snap of his arm, he flicked the knife in our direction. It whirled through the air, end-over-end. I thought it would hit Chase square in the face, but it instead buried its point in the tree we stood next to.

“You three better take off,” said Steele without taking his eyes from the bear.

Chase grabbed the knife and tore it from the tree, and then he took two or three steps in Steele’s direction. But I grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him back.

“He’s finished, Chase,” I growled. “He’s trying to help us.”

“She’s right,” said Steele. “The jig is up. My time has come.”

Chase looked back at me and I knew he felt the same stab of pity.

The three of us traded a quick, soulful look.

And then we ran.

Twenty-Six

And so we found ourselves running yet again. Chase had cut the zip-ties from our wrists, and we made good time going back up the trail we’d just walked down earlier that day. We stopped to look down the trail periodically, but we said little to each other. We had left our own backpacks behind, but Chase at least wore Steele’s large military rucksack on his back.

A few hours later, as the sun got low, we reached a grassy place by a creek where we could camp. We stayed by the trail for a while, watching to see if the bear, or by some miracle Steele himself, would come along. Then we opened Steele’s big military rucksack. Inside it we found rations enough to last the three of us at least a few days. There was also a bottle with a water filter and other survival essentials. We found a syringe and the drugs Steele had used to dose us. There was even a very well-used but also well-maintained Swiss Army knife.

“Dibs on that,” Arie said.

Chase said, “I suggest we camp here tonight. Then, in the morning, we go back to where the bear attacked.”

“Out of the question,” I cried.

“Yeah, why would we wanna do that?” said Arie.

“We’re gonna need our supplies,” he said. “We’ve got some rations here and a Swiss Army knife and a water filter, but we don’t have any for shelter or our rain jackets. Steele’s got a rain coat in here, but we can’t all three wear it. It’s getting colder. Without our shelter stuff, we’re gonna freeze our asses off tonight as it is, and if one good snowstorm comes along, we’ll be in deep shit.”

“I don’t know about this,” I said.

“I also want to know what happened to him,” said Chase.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I do, too.”

And Chase was right—we spent a very cold night without our tarps and coats and blankets. But it turned out Steele was not kidding about making us hot breakfasts and dinners. He had freeze-dried soup and oatmeal and even some dehydrated fruit. The next morning, we ate a hearty breakfast and then set out.

Being able to walk freely, without the cords and zip-ties to slow us down, we made it back to the site of the bear attack in just a few hours.

I had a surreal sensation as we approached. It was quiet, peaceful. Chase had Steele’s knife in his hand, but I only recalled how small it looked as Steele faced the bear.

We walked slowly toward the flat place by the grassy margin where we would have camped. Chase was in the lead and he stopped before we got there. He was looking down, studying the ground. He pointed—my bootprints. We took a few steps. He pointed again—his own bootprints, and some of Arie’s. We went a little farther. The firewood Arie and Chase had collected lay scattered, stepped on. More prints. Chase’s, Steele’s, mine. Then we came to the place where Steele had faced down the bear. We saw the bear’s tracks and the prints of Steele’s small boot. Chase crouched and pointed. The prints overlapped. There were dark patches in the soil—blood. Smears of blood on the grass.

Chase followed the confusion of prints through the dirt. There was crushed grass and brush and more dark patches. Then Chase stopped and put his hands on his hips.

“Well?” I asked.

Chase shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s no body, obviously. No human body and no grizzly carcass.”

“Well, do you think he’s dead?”

“The bear or Steele? Either way, I’m not sure. I mean there’s blood here. Right there. More back there, and there. But none of these are like a big kill site. There’d be lots of blood if either one of them died. And there’d be drag marks if the grizzly hauled Steele off.”

“Look what I found,” said Arie, behind us.

We turned. He held up Steele’s pistol.

“That doesn’t bode well for Steele,” I said.

“Any ammo in it?” Chase asked.

Arie removed the magazine, then racked the slide. A bullet was ejected from the pistol, which Arie deftly snatched from the air. He’d become quite an expert in guns and fighting and other brutish arts; my feelings were mixed about that. He examined the magazine, then said, “Fourteen in the mag and one in the chamber.”

“Two shots,” said Chase. “So he fumbled the piece when the bear hit him, and he never got it back. That does not bode well for him at all. Poor bastard.”

Arie joined us. Along with the pistol, he’d found all three of our small backpacks. They appeared to be intact. I looked inside mine.

“Ah, my tea,” I said, removing the small cloth bundle and pressing it to my nose.

We spent an hour crisscrossing the grassy hilltop and along the creek looking for Steele or the bear or any additional signs of what might have happened. We even called Steel’s name and listened for any response, but both combatants had left the arena.

“Could he really have just gotten away from that bear?” I asked when we regrouped and prepared to go. “It was so huge, so fast.”

“Well, I couldn’t have gotten away,” Chase reasoned, “and you couldn’t have, and any other mortal human probably could not have gotten away. But that guy? I guess I wouldn’t put it past him. And the signs and tracks definitely do not indicate that he was killed here.”

“What if he’s still around?” asked Arie. “What if he finds us?”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that, kid,” Chase said. “He’s totally unarmed, for one thing, and I know I gave him a good walloping with that tree branch. The bear knocked him flat on his ass, too, which surely didn’t do much for his health. He’s lost some blood, maybe a lot. If he really is still drawing breath, he’s busted up and at least no threat to us.”

“And what about the bear?” asked Arie.

“A more serious threat, for sure,” said Chase, nodding. “But we know Steele got two shots off before he lost this pistol, and he never struck me as the kind of guy who missed at that range. Those little 9 mm rounds weren’t enough to stop the bear in its tracks, obviously, but even a grizzly feels a nine-millimeter bullet when it hits center-mass. My guess is that he’s holed up somewhere he feels safe, and he’s gonna need a few days to get back on his feet, too.”

“So,” I said, “they fought to a draw.”

Chase nodded.

“Okay,” I went on, “then let’s head for that ranger station and see if there’s a vehicle we can use to get us back to Agency turf.”

Chase looked at me. “Agency turf? What are you talking about?”

I looked between Chase and Arie. “So we can get the antidote,” I said, “get our memories back.”

Chase furrowed his brow. “You still think there’s an antidote?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“But that Bellington guy,” said Chase, “he tricked you. Told you what you wanted to hear.”

“I know. I know.”

“So, why on earth are we going back? To follow-up a ridiculous pack of lies?”

“Chase, I know this may not make much sense, but I have a feeling. A gut feeling. I think what he said was true.”

Chase’s expression was contorted with incredulity. “Huh? You just said—”

“I know, Chase. Just listen. Yes, I think he told me what he knew I wanted to hear. He told me what he had to tell me to get away, but I have this deep-seated feeling that what he told me was the truth. He told me the truth because he knew it would sound truer than anything else, and he told me the truth because he thought I’d never have the chance to take advantage of it.”

“That’s a lot to bet on a gut feeling.”

“How can I convince you?”

“I’m not sure you can,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t follow you.”

“Really?” I said, putting my arms around his neck.

“I don’t know. Let’s talk about it when we’re off the trail.”

“If we can get the antidote, and if we can join up again with Ruby and the others, it might help to make up for this disaster I’ve caused.”

Chase seemed to both nod and shake his head. “Let’s just get to the ranger station and then we’ll figure things out from there later.” The way he said it reminded me of a parent placating a child who’d asked for a treat. “Later” was just a soft “no.”

I looked at Arie, but he nodded in agreement with Chase. “Sounds like a plan,” said Arie.

“Okay,” said Chase, “but I want to do something, first.”

He unshouldered Steele’s rucksack and removed the heavy paracord, the water bottle, the rain jacket.

“What’re you doing?” I said.

“Leaving Steele a little care package if he comes back here.” Chase opened up his own small backpack and into it he stuffed Steele’s water bottle, filter, raincoat, sleeping bag, and the chocolate-covered oat bars. “It’s all stuff we don’t need,” he added, “I’m not eating those oat bars—they’re probably dosed.”

Arie reached into his pocket and produced the Swiss army knife. “Here,” he said, holding the knife out. “I should give this back to the poor guy if he’s still out here somewhere all tore up by a bear.”

Before Chase took it from Arie, he asked, “You sure? I mean he’ll probably never even find this.”

“Yeah,” said Arie. “I’m sure.”

“Tell ya what,” said Chase. “If we’re gonna give him a knife, let’s give him a knife.” Chase produced the big survival knife Steele had bequeathed us. “You keep that little folder, kid. I’ve got my own Buck knife back and this big pig-sticker of Steele’s doesn’t have a sheath.”

Chase dropped it into the small backpack with the other articles and closed it up. He then tied the paracord to the backpack and tossed it over a tree branch about twenty feet up. He secured the loose end of the cord to a tree trunk so that the backpack was suspended fifteen feet or so off the ground. The pack was red—anyone coming to the hilltop would notice it eventually.

“I guess it’s the least we can do,” I said with a shrug.

Twenty-Seven

After all the running, stumbling, consecutive nights of sleeping on the ground, stale rations, inadequate rations, rations with drugs in them, and on top of it all, the specter of being turned over to the Agency once again, we were disheveled and hollow-eyed.

“I feel like I’ve been dragged by the feet behind a train,” muttered Chase.

Even Arie, usually out front and practically jogging up the trail, was trudging more than hiking. I felt especially filthy, as though I were coated in a layer of fine, dark dust. Grime had worked its way into the creases on my hands and fingers, and my elbows were sooty-looking. My clothing stank.

It was early morning when we wearily prepared to again ascend the high ridge and cross into the adjacent valley. I hadn’t slept well. I’d drifted in and out of a light doze, hearing twigs snapping in the night and glimpsing the shadows of huge forms stalking through the trees. I’m sure I’d dreamed or imagined it all, though I certainly didn’t feel that way at the time. Chase and Arie looked similarly sleep-deprived.

Still, I arose that morning feeling grimly eager to be underway.

“Think we can have a fire this morning?” I asked Chase.

He chewed the inside of his cheek and scanned the woods surrounding us. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anyone out here anymore.”

“I’m glad you said that,” I said with a yawn.

“Why’s that?”

“Because I was gonna make some tea no matter what,” I said, gathering some tinder.

Chase laughed quietly. “Well, I only said yes because I want some, too.”

We cooked up more of Steele’s oatmeal, and I shared my tea with Chase and Arie. My supply was running low. How would I get more when it was gone?

After we’d splashed our faces in the creek and refilled our water bottles, we got on the trail. Having already walked this trail once in each direction over the past few days, we made it to the top swiftly, easily, crossing over the ridge before the day had even warmed up. That’s another outcome of living rough for long periods—even though you feel grimy and tired, you begin to forget the comforts of indoor life and adapt to your surroundings, becoming a sort of forest creature, only partially civilized.

Once over the ridge, we picked our way down the opposite mountain face, still making good time despite our fatigue. Chase once again pointed out the fold in the terrain where he thought the ranger station stood. It looked to be about a full day’s walk from where we were, though it would be faster if we found the logging road. The hope of (at the very least) a roof over our heads seemed to lift all of our spirits. I was feeling a reserve of energy from somewhere. I didn’t know where it came from, but I was grateful for it and picked up my pace. In fact, I was beginning to again feel hopeful that we could pursue the plans we’d laid.

We hiked into a long, narrow valley. The stream widened here and cottonwoods and aspens grew to either side of it. The sun was beaming down, and I had one of those rare and welcome moments where the surroundings you’ve become so familiar with suddenly strike you as stunning. I made a suggestion.

“Hey, you guys,” I said. “Hold up for a second.”

Arie and Chase stopped on the trail and looked back at me with weariness showing starkly on their faces.

“It’s pretty hot out,” I said.

They shrugged, nodded.

“Well,” I continued, “the stream is right over there. Bet it’s got some nice sandy pools in it.”

“Yeah? So?” said Chase. “Whaddya wanna do? Go swimming?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do. I haven’t had a bath since before the attack. Fact, I can’t even remember when my last bath was. I feel like I’m covered in dirt. We’re making great time. Let’s have a bath, sun ourselves dry, have some lunch, and then hit it hard again.”

Chase looked to Arie, as though disbelieving it was me who was being laid back and not one of them. They both chuckled and took off their backpacks.

We stripped to our underwear. The water was freezing, almost glacially cold, but we found a shallow bend in the stream with a large, flat floor of granite, and here the water slowed and the sun warmed it up enough so we could sit in it without shivering too violently.

And so we washed ourselves and our clothing. I became more relaxed than I could remember being in a long time. We even had a water fight. I rinsed my hair again and again, and I scrubbed my hands and feet with sand until they were clean and soft and wrinkled. I brushed my teeth with the pulverized end of a willow twig, as Chase had once showed me. Soap and shampoo and toothpaste would have been nice to have, but it was so lovely to be at least rinsed clean with river water. I began to consider myself an actual human being again, rather than the primitive forest-dweller.

I draped my clothes on the scrub-oak, where they steamed a little in the heat. Then I climbed onto a big rock with a large flat surface tilted toward the sun. There I lay on my belly, sunbathing like some vacationer. The rock was warm against my bare stomach and thighs. I lay my head on my arm and closed my eyes.

Chase and Arie joined me.

“Hey,” I protested, “this is my rock. Go find your own.”

Arie set my freshly filled water bottle next to me, within arm’s reach.

“Thanks, kiddo,” I said. “You can stay.”

Chase swept my hair from the nape of my neck and rubbed my shoulders with his large, strong hands.

A moan escaped me, almost involuntarily, as he kneaded the stiff, knotted sinews.

“Mmm,” I purred. “Okay, you can stay, too.”

Arie sat with his bare back to the sun, idly scanning the little valley with the field glasses.

“Any sign of large, murderous animals?” asked Chase, “or bald-headed, lethally skilled little bounty hunters?”

“Nah,” said Arie. “Nothin’.”

I breathed deeply and began to doze a little as Chase rubbed my back. A light breeze passed through the trees. The aspens shimmered and made long, soft whooshing sounds, their leaves beginning to turn brown and gray here at the close of summer. Mountain ravens clucked and quarreled. The ever-present water-dippers cried and darted up and down the river. The river sang its endless song of white noise.

Chase had massaged a fair amount of the fatigue from my back and neck and shoulders. The warm rock had dried and warmed me. I turned onto my back. Chase lifted one of my calves, cradled it in his lap, and began to massage my foot. I flinched at first, but then my eyes rolled back into my head.

“Oh my gosh,” I moaned. “That is heavenly. What did I do to deserve this pampering?”

“Shh. Just rest.”

I did exactly as he said. He rubbed one foot and then the other. The pain was exquisite.

“Hey,” I said to Chase, “Don’t think you can pamper me into taking a day off. We need to get back on the trail.”

“Who, me?” said Chase. “Never.”

“Hey, Chase,” said Arie.

“What’s up?”

Arie held out the field glasses. “Here, take these and look—” he pointed “—over there, across the stream, by that tall dead tree.”

Chase took the glasses. Arie pointed. Chase peered in that direction.

“See anything?”

“No,” said Chase. “Oh, wait.” He looked a moment longer, rolling the focus knob on the glasses. “Good eye, kid,” he said, lowering the glasses. “We’re not alone.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Arie.

“What is it?” I said, sitting up. “The bear?”

“No, no,” said Arie. “Look over there. By that big tree.”

Chase handed me the field glasses, and I swept them over the valley. I wasn’t very good at looking through field glasses, but with a little more direction, I saw what they’d seen.

A tent.

And what looked like a camp chair.

Our clothes were still damp, but we hastily dressed and put on our packs, glancing repeatedly toward where we’d seen the tent. We didn’t speak. Chase kept his pistol in his hand as we crossed the stream on a snag of waterlogged fallen trees. Arie had Steele’s pistol at the ready. Even though we’d been laughing and splashing around in the stream only a couple hours earlier, we crept like cats to the big dead tree. Behind a brake of cottonwoods and undergrowth, there was a flat, narrow clearing. They kept the pistols ready.

Then we saw the tent. Secluded and well away from the trail, it was a perfectly screened and almost charming little area, perfect for a small campsite. And the tent was erected almost as if the campers wanted to avoid being seen. Only by the faintest random chance, using binoculars, had Arie spotted it.

But it had been standing there for many years, abandoned.

The tent was roomy, the two- or three-person variety, with lightweight aluminum poles arched across one another. A rain-fly was stretched over the outside. But it was just the ghost of a shelter now, sun-faded from its former bright colors to a kind of blue-gray. The fabric was dry-rotted and deteriorating; thready shreds of it moved lightly in the breeze. Around the bottom hem of the tent there grew generations of black lichen and mildew that spoke of multiple seasons of rain and snow and heat.

The camp chair was also of the ultralight, packable type, and it had also sat there for years upon years. Blades of wild grass grew up through where the canvas seat had rotted away. There was an old ring of stones for a fire, too, but its remnant of scorched firewood was now almost obscured by a lush growth of late-summer wildflowers.

I walked around the tent, lifting the sagging rain-fly and looking into the mesh windows.

“Found the campers,” I said.

The forms of two people lay wrapped in a two-person sleeping bag inside the tent. They looked to be spooning each other. There was no smell of death, nor even the musty odor of the very long dead. The couple must be have died here long ago, mere bones by now. The way the sleeping bag had been pulled up around their shoulders, their heads and faces were mostly obscured from view, and they appeared to be only sleeping. And they’d cuddled so long in their nap, grass had sprouted in the tent around them.

“Did they freeze to death or what?” said Arie peeking into the tent.

“No,” I said. “They’ve been here for years and years, probably since the back before. I bet they had the virus and got sick out here and died.”

“Yeah,” Chase agreed, “this has been here for, what, eight years? Ten? Not a bad place to be for the end of the world, I guess,” he added.

Arie wandered away, surveying the rest of the camp. I stared into the tent. Shreds of rotted fabric waved in the breeze. I had to admit the couple looked cozy, contented in their eternal mountain sleep.

“Why are we going back?” Chase mumbled, almost as though he’d meant to say it to himself.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Why are we going where?”

“Back,” he repeated, louder. “Why are we going back to the Agency?”

“Because they’ve got a treatment, Chase. The memory treatment. We have a plan.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but why? Why are we always on the run here and there and all over hell? Why not stay here? Build a cabin—” he turned and surveyed the valley “—right over there, maybe? Or there, on that hilltop? It’s got a southern exposure. We can catch fish, eat wild strawberries, hunt rabbit and deer, maybe grow some potatoes. We might find a dog somewhere. Train him as a watchdog. Why’s this such a bad place to spend the end of the world?”

Nothing he said was unreasonable. But that’s not what I wanted. “No, Chase,” I said. “We’ve got to keep going. We can’t change the plan now, here, in the middle of the forest, with winter coming on.”

Arie came over. “We’re changing the plan?”

“No,” I said, without taking my eyes from Chase.

Arie stood there, questioning.

“No,” said Chase, holding my gaze. “We’re not changing the plan.”

“Well,” said Arie, looking from my face to Chase’s. “Okay. Then let’s keep going.”

“Yeah,” said Chase. “I just wanna look around before we get going again. Make sure there’s nothing here we might could use later.”

He and Arie kicked around at the backpacks and gear bags moldering into the ground and at first, he found nothing.

“Well, they packed light,” said Chase. “Good for them.”

Arie picked up a rotted backpack, but it was empty and encrusted with mud and duff. He dropped it again. “Yeah, nothing much here. It’s all rotted and ruined.”

Then Chase shouted, “A-haaaa!”

“What? What?”

From the grass and brush, Chase unearthed a large metal tube or case.

He clapped the dirt that clung to it. Then he unlatched the closures, opened it, and inside there was a beautiful fly-fishing rod and reel. It had been inside its weatherproof case all these years and looked like it was perfectly ready to go fishing. Chase grinned like a little kid.

“We dine on trout tonight,” he said.

Twenty-Eight

That day just before nightfall we continued down through the mountain valley. We were refreshed and in lighter spirits than before, but Chase was quiet. I wondered what he thought of me and my plans.

We reached the ranger station. Indeed, there was a vehicle there, out in a shed next to the main building. But it was a decrepit military jeep so old it looked like it had last been driven during the Korean War. It lay under a heavy tarp and a thick coating of dust.

Chase and Arie pulled back the tarp and raised the dust into a dense, choking cloud. They opened the hood. The ancient hinges made a pained squawking noise. Dust motes wafted and turned in the bars of sunlight that fell in through a south-facing window. Arie turned on his flashlight and they checked out the engine.

“She looks like she’s intact,” said Arie with a cautious shrug. He pulled on some cables and rubber hoses. “Electric looks good. Belts look all right. It all just looks really old.”

“Well,” said Chase, “hop in and see if she’ll turn over.”

Arie got behind the wheel and pressed the push-button starter.

The thing roared to life.

But only for about three seconds. Then the engine chugged to a stop. Arie tried again, and the engine turned over once. And then it did nothing.

“Battery, probably,” Arie said.

Chase nodded with a look of deep disappointment.

“Been sitting here for who knows how long,” Arie added.

“Let’s eat some dinner, get some rest,” suggested Chase. “See what we can do about it in the morning.”

There wasn’t much of anything useful in the ranger station itself, but there was a large fireplace made of stones, and there were actual beds—sort of. They were ancient bunk beds made of angle-iron and springy, metal fabric. Some were equipped with musty old plastic-clad mattresses. I didn’t complain a bit. Anything was better than sleeping in the dirt again.

Everything was very dusty, but Arie and I found a broom and some desiccated towels, and so we did some housecleaning while Chase went off to try his fly rod on the nearby stream. He came back after dark with several trout as long as his forearm. He’d also collected a few armfuls of firewood.

“Let’s eat!” he cried.

Built into the big rockwork fireplace there was an iron grill that swung in over the andirons. Arie made a fire and Chase dressed the fish with some salt from Steele’s supplies. We ate a huge dinner of roasted trout fillets and dried fruit.

There was no furniture in the place except one wooden chair so rickety that none of us dared sit on it. Instead we dragged the mattresses from the beds onto the floor and sat around the fire to eat. It was only fish and salt, but it was surprisingly delicious. I ate till I thought I might burst. My body seemed physically grateful for the infusion of fat and protein. I could almost feel my tissue repairing and restoring itself.

Still, when Chase offered me a third helping, I said, “I couldn’t eat another bite. But I do think I’ll brew up some tea.”

“I’ll take some more fish,” said Arie.

“Eat up,” said Chase, serving him more of the pink, flaky flesh.

After dinner, we lay on the mattresses by the fireplace, staring sleepily into the flames.

“So, you can get that jeep running?” I asked Arie.

“I think there’s a good chance, yeah,” he said. “We can push-start it. We can try, anyway. First thing in the morning, we’ll give it a go.”

“Let’s just hope it’s got some gas in it,” said Chase. “And that all the other parts hold together.”

Arie nodded and looked intently into the fireplace.

Chase stood up like he’d all at once remembered some important thing. Then he moved around the room as if he’d set down his wallet or keys and wanted to find them. He lit a candle and held it up while he studied the floor. He pressed on the floorboards with his toes. Now and then he turned on his flashlight and shined it on the floorboards. He banged the heel his fist on the wall.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I just remembered. I once heard a rumor about this place,” he said. “Guy I knew in the camp told me something. That guy Brett. No—Burt. Remember? The tall guy with the really thick glasses that were basically just all tape and wire?”

Arie said, “Oh yeah. Brett. He was nice.”

“Yeah, he told me a secret about this place. I’d almost forgot.”

“What is it?” I said.

“Well, hang on and let me look around,” he answered, still searching. He banged the wall again. Then he rapped it with his knuckles. “Did he say it was the wall or floor?” he muttered. He stomped on the floorboards, searched the floor with his flashlight again. This went on for fifteen minutes.

“What is it, Chase?” I said. “Either tell us what you’re looking for or come back to the fire.”

He snapped his fingers. “The fireplace!” he said.

He came to the hearth and ran his hands along the stonework. After a few more minutes he said, “Bingo!” and removed one of the large stones from its place in the mortar. This he set aside and then he reached into the void it left. He felt around inside.

“What’s in there?” said Arie excitedly, getting to his feet.

Chase grinned and produced a long-necked bottle made of dark glass.

“Oh my gosh, is that wine? Real wine?”

Chase flashed us a broad grin.

We got our tin camp cups out without saying much.

“Ah, hell,” said Chase, his shoulders slumping. “We don’t have a corkscrew.”

“Yeah, we do,” said Arie. He pulled out Steele’s Swiss army knife and flipped open the corkscrew.

“That doesn’t mean you can have any,” I said. “You’re too young.”

“Ah, c’mon!” protested Arie.

“A sip,” I said.

We laughed. Arie passed Chase the knife and Chase opened the bottle and held the cork to his nose. He passed it to me. It had a dark, fruity aroma, like cherries or blackberries, but smoky, too. Chase examined the bottle as he let the wine breathe.

“Gianni Paoletti Cabernet Sauvignon,” he read, sounding out each word as he turned the label into the fire’s flickering light. “I’m not sure this pairs well with fish and dried prunes. But, holy smokes, it’s from nineteen ninety-nine!”

I gasped a little. To think we would drink something so old, and that it might still be delicious not just decades later but after an entire changing of the world. I suddenly grew very thoughtful. Here was an expression of civility and culture that I couldn’t recall, created long before the world I knew, back in the back before. Chase and I were just kids then, and Arie hadn’t even been born. And yet here it was, hiding in these mountains, waiting for us, a firm reminder that our past was real, that it existed, that it could be found.

And that’s when the answers to Chase’s questions came to me. Why keep going back? Why the risks? Because this dusty cabin or a late-summer mountain valley did not have to be the end of the world. Why keep tangling with the Agency and flirt with having my few memories yanked again? Because we had the ability to start over. It was possible. With the secrets the Agency held, we could remember, and with those memories we could tear the Agency down and re-boot the world and start again. We could have the lives we truly deserved. The mountains and the camps we built and the earthy lifestyle we lived were often beautiful and fulfilling in their way. But that wasn’t our objective. We wanted to live free, safe, and happy. And obtaining that was worth almost anything.

“That should be long enough, I think,” said Chase. He poured for each of us.

Before we drank, Arie held up his cup. “Aren’t we supposed to drink to something?” he asked.

We chuckled and then we were quiet for a moment, thinking.

“To remembering,” I said.

Chase and Arie smiled and nodded.

“To remembering,” said Arie.

“To remembering,” said Chase.

Our cups clinked in the firelight, and we drank.

If I’d been a connoisseur of wine in the back before, I didn’t remember much about it now. I didn’t know or remember how to talk about how the wine tasted, but that meant it was, necessarily, the best wine I’d ever remembered. It was rich, complicated, and satisfying.

Arie, on the other hand, wrinkled his nose at the taste.

“Did it taste better in 1999?” he asked, sticking out his tongue and setting his cup aside.

Chase and I laughed.

The fire popped and cracked and collapsed into orange glowing embers. Arie wrapped himself in a blanket and fell asleep.

Chase lay next to me and I leaned into him. He put his arm around me and pulled me close. I felt warm, and the warmth felt hopeful.

“Chase,” I said, turning my face to his, “I don’t want to live in the end of the world. I want to live in the beginning of it.”

He thought about this for what seemed like a long time, but I knew he understood, and I think he felt the same way.

After a while he picked up his cup and said, “I’ll drink to that.”

Twenty-Nine

We slept late. For the first time I could remember, I slept past dawn. It was just too irresistible. I justified it by telling myself I was recharging, healing, recouping my strength for what was to come.

It was warm in the cabin; I was lying on something that was almost exactly like a bed, and I felt safe. So the sun came up, and I opened one eye to see its rays coming in through the windows, but I turned over and kept sleeping. I didn’t wake again until I absolutely had to get up to relieve myself.

Chase and Arie had the same idea. I heard them rise, go outside to pee, then return to their beds. I got up and built a small fire, but in the name of conserving my reserve of tea, I did without my morning cup. Instead, I sipped hot water to drive off the chill and then ate some of the dried fruit. Arie and Chase soon joined me, and we dressed and made our way to the shed.

“Let’s check it out as best we can, first,” said Arie. “Check the plugs and fluids and everything.”

“There’s a tool chest right over there,” said Chase.

“Yeah, we’ll check out what we can. I’m not what you’d call a mechanic. I mean, squeeze, bang, blow—that’s about the extent of my expertise.”

“Same here,” said Chase with a shrug.

“If it seems like there’s a chance that it’ll run,” Arie went on, “we’ll push it out onto the road. Then we’ll pack up all our stuff and get it rolling and then pop the clutch and hopefully be on our way.”

“What if it won’t run?” I asked.

Arie tilted his head and shrugged. “Guess we keep walking.”

“I’ve got a back-up plan,” said Chase, biting his upper lip.

We looked at him. “What is it?” I asked.

“Let’s check her out and then try getting her started, first,” said Chase.

The guys fetched the tools and lifted the squeaky hood again. I packed our gear into the backseat and then watched them, trying to learn something. I hated to be the girl who didn’t know anything about cars, but not much of it made sense to me. I could build a fire with only flint and steel. I knew my way around a gun. But there just weren’t that many chances to work with cars, and so it was a bit of a mystery to me.

For an hour, the guys moved around the jeep, disassembling and opening up various covers and cowlings and plates. They peered into hoses and banged on various parts with a wrench.

“This gas gauge is obviously wrong,” said Arie, tapping the little circle of glass on the instrument panel. “It says it’s full, but the tank is obviously not. And the gas might not be any good.”

“Yeah,” said Chase. “But it’s got at least some gas in it. We’ll just have to see how far it takes us.”

They took off the distributor cap. They removed the spark plugs. They yanked on the fan belt. I had a fuzzy sense of what these parts were and what they did, but I wouldn’t know if they were in working order or not.

Arie got underneath the jeep and looked around.

“Looks good,” he said, though it was almost a question.

Finally, they put everything back together, slammed the hood, and shrugged at each other.

“I can’t see anything that’s obviously busted or missing,” said Arie, clapping the dust off his hands. “It really should run.”

“You probably know more than me,” said Chase, “but I think you’re right. Let’s give it a go.”

“Mom,” said Arie, “I think you should be in the driver’s seat.”

“Yeah, you’re good with a manual transmission, Al,” said Chase with a smile. “Trust me, I know.”

“I just put it in first and then pop the clutch?”

“Wait ‘til we’ve got you going fast,” said Arie. “Like a slow run.”

“Slow run,” I repeated. “Then let the clutch pop out?”

“Yep.”

They pushed me down the logging incline. But the road was uneven, and the jeep had practically no suspension. It was like driving on square wheels. I bounced around in the seat, barely able to hang onto the wheel. I pushed in the clutch. The jeep bounced wildly. I somehow grabbed the stick shift, but I couldn’t find first gear. The jeep was going faster, now. The guys were barely pushing it at all.

“Now! Now!” they cried.

I tried to say “I can’t find first!” but I was bucking and bouncing in the seat so furiously it just came out as gibberish.

“Pop it! Pop it!” shouted Arie.

The jeep reached a steeper incline and gained speed. I fiddled with the shifter, groping to find the pathway into the gear. The guys gave the jeep one last big shove and then let go, but they ran alongside panting. The jeep gradually pulled ahead of them as they shouted for me to pop the clutch. I finally found what I thought was first and slammed it into gear. Then I released the clutch, and the jeep slowed suddenly, as if it had hit a wall of gelatin. It threw me forward in the seat and crushed me against the steering wheel.

But it started.

The engine turned over a few times and then started.

It sputtered and chugged alarmingly, and a big plume of blue smoke billowed from the exhaust, but the engine was running.

Arie and Chase jumped onto the jeep and gave it some gas. The engine coughed like some old jalopy. The guys hooted and cheered, and I put it in second, and we wound down the logging road.

And then the engine stopped, and we sputtered to a halt.

No one said anything for a few seconds.

“What happened?” asked Chase.

“Just stopped,” I replied.

“Damn,” said Chase.

“It’s fuel,” said Arie.

“Think so?”

“Yeah. Just kind of a gut feeling, but it sounds like it’s out of gas. Maybe it’s the fuel filter, or the pump, or maybe the gas in the tank is just too dirty or jellied up.”

Chase nodded. “We could siphon up some gas from the tank and pour it right down the carb.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

They tried that idea. And some others. They took a few more things apart. We tried pop-starting it again. And with every try, they got the motor to start up briefly, but it always died again.

“It’s something simple,” said Arie. “Something just barely above my pay grade.”

“It’s the fuel pump,” said Chase. “Like you said. Or the filter.”

“Well,” said Arie, wiping the grimy sweat from his brow with his shirtsleeve, “it’s getting late. Too late to be monkeying around with this heap.”

“What’s your back-up plan, Chay?” I asked.

Chase nodded, capitulating.

“Okay, look,” he began. “This logging road goes pretty steep downhill, right? Why don’t we just coast this bucket of bolts as far as we can?”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Just ride it down the hill like a giant go-cart,” Chase went on.

Arie and I nodded at each other.

“This logging road connects with a highway,” he said, “way down the mountain. Probably a good eight, ten miles. And I’m not sure, but it’s gotta be downhill most of the way. So, we stick it in neutral and coast.”

Arie and I nodded. “Then what?”

“Then,” Chase continued, “we go west on the highway ‘til we find the cut-off that leads to our old camp.”

“Why go there?” Arie asked.

“Because the way I figure it, ole Steele has a vehicle somewhere around there.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too,” I offered.

“He had to have some way to haul us off, right?” added Chase.

“Yeah.”

“So, I’d be willing to bet he’s alive. He’s a tough little turkey, but I think he’s like the old grizz—he’s resting somewhere up there in the mountains until he recovers from his beat-down. So, we roll downhill in the jeep, hit the highway, head west, and search the area for Steele’s ride. Considering how he was outfitted, I bet it’s a pretty nice set of wheels.”

“Then we better get going,” I said, “while we still have some daylight.”

Thirty

The plan wasn’t a terrible one. We coasted down the rocky and bumpy logging road for several miles. Sometimes the road was very steep, and I rode the brake pedal so we wouldn’t careen out of control. Other times the grade was rather gentle and we would almost run out of momentum before reaching the next steep part. But we jostled along, and it was a beautiful day, and we made progress. The guys were doing most of the hard work—I was enjoying myself.

Then, inevitably, we hit a longer level stretch of road and the guys hopped out and pushed the jeep along until the road inclined and we were off again. But as we came down out of the mountains, there were fewer and fewer long downhills, and there were even several slight uphill pitches. Now I was getting out to push, too, staying by the driver’s seat and pushing with one hand on the fender and the other on the steering wheel.

“This isn’t fun anymore,” I complained.

“Yeah, it’s less and less productive,” said Chase as we began rolling to a stop. “We might have to ditch this old bucket soon.”

After a short downhill pitch, the road leveled out again, and the jeep slowed. We jumped out quickly and pushed, trying to keep it going. Arie and Chase were both panting hard by this time, and they looked tired. Sweat darkened their shirts. We leaned into the task and the jeep rolled along.

“How far do you figure we’ve come?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” panted Chase. “Maybe six miles, I guess. At least five.”

“Wrong,” I said. I was breathing hard, too. “You’re not far off, though.”

“How do you know that?” he said.

“She’s been watching the odometer,” said Arie.

“Yep,” I said smugly.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” gasped Chase. “Okay. How far have we come, then?”

I grinned. “Guess.”

“Ten miles,” said Arie.

“Way off.”

“Nine?” guessed Chase.

“Eight.”

“Ah, well, that’s not so bad,” said Chase. “The road can’t be much farther.”

“No,” I said.

“Let’s push to the next downhill, ride it as far as it goes, then leave this old heap behind.”

I was about to agree with him, but we had come to a section of the logging road that passed through a narrow place with hillsides close on either side, and in the gap ahead, four men stood pointing hunting rifles in our direction. The weapons looked old and rusty.

“Ya’ll can stop right there,” one of them shouted.

Arie stopped pushing the jeep, but Chase, at the rear of the jeep, had evidently not heard the man and was still pushing. Arie walked along and watched the men. I jumped into the driver seat and pressed lightly on the brake.

“Chase,” I said in a low voice. “Stop.”

Being at the back of the jeep with the sound of the wheels on the gravelly dirty road, Chase apparently didn’t hear me, either, and when I pressed on the brake, he strained hard to keep the jeep rolling, both hands on the spare tire bolted to the back of the jeep. In fact, he pushed harder as the jeep stopped. He put his whole weight into it, grunting and straining with his head down between his shoulders. The men in front of us were now just fifty feet ahead, and they brought their rifles to their shoulders to aim down the barrels.

“Hey, what’d we run into up there?” croaked Chase, still vigorously pushing against the motionless jeep. “Rock? Log?”

“Chase!” I turned and shouted at him.

His head popped up from behind the spare tire. “Oh,” he said when he saw the armed party. His chest was heaving and his face was smudged with grime. “Hey, fellas,” he said with an arch grin.

“Get away from my truck,” said one of the men. He was tall and gangling, with long hair that hung lank about his bearded face. His voice was rough and baritone.

“What, this hunk ’a junk?” Chase sneered, still breathing hard. “Doesn’t even run.”

“I know that,” the man answered. “I’m planning to fix it up.”

Arie and Chase scoffed in unison.

“It’s a hundred years old,” said Arie.

“Never you mind. Just shut up, put your hands in the air, and tell me who you are.”

“Well,” I asked, “do you want us to shut up or tell you who we are?”

The gangling man opened his mouth, but he said nothing, his mouth working, waiting in vain for the retort to arrive. Instead, another of the men, this one short and squat like a fire hydrant, stepped forward and shouted, “Just shut up and get offa that jeep! And getcher hands up!” This one’s voice was rather high and squeaky.

We held up our hands and moved away from the jeep.

“Who are you guys?” said Chase. “You’re not Agency, and we’re obviously not, either. I’m thinking we’re on the same team, here.”

The short squat fellow held his rifle on us while a third man searched us. They took Chase’s pistol and Buck knife from him. They took Steele’s pistol from Arie, and they piled our packs and other belongings on the ground alongside the trail, arranged like some tiny yard sale.

“If we was on the same side, you wouldn’t be stealing my truck,” said the tall one, poking our things with the muzzle of his decrepit rifle.

Arie rolled his eyes and said, “You know, it’s a jeep. Not a truck.”

“We didn’t know it was yours,” said Chase, bemused. “And, frankly, I’m still not convinced it is. It was sitting up there on the hill ten miles away under two inches of dust. Doesn’t belong to anyone. Might as well say you own that tree over there. Or the ground.”

The tall man stormed over to Chase and poked him with the barrel of his rifle. And again his mouth gaped open to retort, but before he could speak, Chase snatched the rifle by its barrel, wrenched it away from the man, and tossed it easily aside, where it clattered into the dust of the road. Two of the other men hastily pointed their rifles at Chase’s head. Then the lot of them fell into shouting and shoving and threatening.

Arie got into the middle of it, too, and I suppose I could have easily picked up the thrown-aside rifle, but instead I placed my index fingers between my lips and did the loudest horse-whistle I could manage. They paused their shoving and grabbing for a moment to swivel their heads in my direction.

“Listen,” I hollered. “Everything’s cool. We’re with Ruby. You know, Ruby?”

They stared blankly.

“Central camp?” I continued. “It was raided by Agency thugs, in case you haven’t heard. We’ve been on the trail ever since. We really are on the same team. I’m Alison. Okay? That’s Chase. Ever heard of us? Chase has probably even been to your camp. Right, Chase?”

Chase nodded. “Yeah, most likely.”

“Well, tell them—aren’t they part of our collective? Haven’t you met these guys?”

“Maybe,” Chase breathed.

My face reddened as I considered that maybe these were Agency soldiers. If that was so, I’d just given them some useful intel and an invitation to ask for more.

But they didn’t look or act like Agency troops. Not at all. No uniforms, no military weapons, and no discipline. And it wasn’t as though every Agency goon or trooper I’d ever met was a super-genius or tactical prodigy, but these guys were just dimwits.

I wondered if we should try to make a run for it. Grab the gun, fire a few warning shots, then high-tail it to the trees. After several camp attacks and fending off wandering raiders, all three of us were good at both fight and flight. We’d catch them off-guard. I glanced at Chase, knowing he was thinking the same thing, or that he would catch my meaning.

He caught my glance, but he shook his head—nearly imperceptibly, but sternly. “Bad idea,” he was saying. Arie sent the same message with only the look on his face.

“We ain’t never heard of you,” said the tall one, trudging over and lifting his rifle from the dust.

The others stepped back and trained their rifles on us again.

“Okay, well, do you know Mac?” said Chase. “He still runs your camp, I assume.”

Their faces darkened, and there was a jittery nervousness in the way they glanced at each other.

“Mac’s dead,” said the short one after a quiet interval.

Chase shot me a look. He said nothing, but I knew what he meant: “Not now. Not good.”

Thirty-One

They herded us with their absurd hunting rifles into their camp, a hike of two or three hours. As we stopped to drink from the stream, Arie and Chase and I tried to coordinate a whispered plan, but the dimwits shushed us, and we were quiet until we reached their camp. If it bore any resemblance to the camps we established with Ruby, it was only in the strictest sense. It was a camp. It had tents and firepits and a few crappy chairs, but it was untidy, squalid. The tents leaned and drooped, unkempt and ragged, and there were piles of debris and food leavings here and there, over which swarms of flies and ants held sway. And instead of manicured trails running efficiently from place to place, the vegetation of this camp had been generally trampled flat, and in the bare soil there were puddles of brackish, standing water.

The people we saw wore a sullen, miserable aspect, and they regarded us with a suspicion that bordered on open hatred. Most of them were armed, too. This was unusual—in Ruby’s camp only those assigned to guard duty or patrols carried weapons in the camp. It was a safety thing. Here everyone seemed to have a gun, though most were in poor condition. One had a rusty pistol jammed into the waistband of her pants. Another had a battered .22 rifle slung across his back with a length of frayed twine.

Our armed escort stopped us outside a sort of shack-tent pieced together with lengths of cord and frowzy tarps and tent parts. The tall man ducked inside and there was a testy exchange of words. Soon the tall man came back out, accompanied by another man, plump and pale with heavy-lidded eyes and large, wet lips.

“Who are you?” the man asked.

Chase spoke up. “Is Mac around? He can vouch for us.”

“Mac?” the man said disdainfully.

“Yeah,” said Chase. “Mac.”

The plumpish man stepped over to Chase and struck him across the face. For a moment I felt bad for what Chase would do to him in retaliation, but Chase absorbed the blow as if a child had playfully slapped him.

“I’ll let that one go,” said Chase. “But don’t do it again.”

The man lifted his chin haughtily, but reading his body language I knew he’d take Chase’s advice to heart.

The guy with the lips and the other camp men moved a short distance away and quarreled with each other, occasionally looking in our direction and gesturing. After a few minutes, the tall man who’d captured us left the group and approached us.

“Come over here,” he said tersely, motioning with his rifle. “Sit down.”

Lips and the rest of them walked off toward a cluster of tents. We found a place on the ground that wasn’t too muddy and leaned against an old fallen tree. The tall guy sat on a log nearby, ostensibly to keep watch over us, but he was soon pre-occupied, using a twig to absently scrape the mud from the treads of his boots.

“Chase, I don’t understand,” I said, my voice low. “What’s going on?”

“Yeah, aren’t these guys aligned with us?” asked Arie. “Aligned with Ruby and the other camps? I thought we were all on friendly terms.”

“Hey,” said our guard. “No talking. Shut up.”

“Or what?” said Chase. “You’ll shoot us?”

The man waved a dismissive hand and went back to scraping the mud from the creases of his boots.

“I don’t know these guys,” said Chase quietly. “I mean I think I recognize a few of them, but I haven’t been here since spring. Back then a fellow named Mac was running things, and—” he paused, sighed, scratched his beard.

“And what?”

“And I guess my opinion was Mac wasn’t exactly what you’d call executive material,” said Chase. “I got the feeling he didn’t have a firm grip on the reins, if you take my meaning.”

“Think these clowns got rid of him?” asked Arie.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I think,” replied Chase. “And whoever took over apparently doesn’t seem to know or care about Ruby or anything else. I mean look at this place. No organization, no discipline.”

The tall guy flicked the muddy twig away, stood up, and stormed over to us. He pointed the rifle at us.

“I said no talking,” he barked.

“Go sit down,” said Chase, glaring up at the man. “I took that piece of junk away from you once. So unless you mean to pull the trigger, you better put it away or I’ll take it again and club you over the head with it.”

The man took what looked like an involuntary half-step backward.

“Because that’s all it really is, right? A club? It’s not loaded, is it?” scoffed Chase. “Remington .207? Where would you even get any? The gun’s empty, isn’t it?”

The man’s eyes widened with sudden horror. He didn’t have to say more.

Chase rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen, pal,” he said to the tall guy, “what is going on around here? Who’s in charge?”

The man’s eyes blazed for a moment with anger, and his jaw muscles pulsed. But then he blinked a few times, looked around as if to check for eavesdroppers, and his face went slack. He looked around again and came closer.

“Everything’s gone to hell,” he whispered, crouching beside us. “Mac’s gone. There was a fight. Big one. ‘Bout a month ago.”

“So who’s in charge now? The pudgy little squirt?”

“You mean Hickman. No, he ain’t in charge. I mean he was at first. But now I guess we got a new leader. They’re off talking to him now about what to do about you.”

“In other words,” said Chase, “the camp’s falling apart.”

The man nodded reluctantly, his expression forlorn. “There’s never any food. No one will work. People keep fighting. People keep leavin’.”

Chase sighed and shook his head.

I smiled and extended my hand. “I’m Alison. This is Arie. Chase you’ve already met.”

The man looked at my hand for a moment as if he might have forgotten what the gesture meant. Then he reached out tentatively, took my hand in his, and shook it.

“I’m Chester,” he said with a faint smile.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, “such as it is.”

Chester nodded wearily.

“I’ve met you,” said Chase, his tone conciliatory now. “Right? When I was here in the spring?”

Chester again hesitated but then said, “Yeah. I ‘member you. I met Ruby once, too.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why are we being treated this way?”

“I couldn’t vouch for you. Too dangerous. Hickman thinks you want to take over.”

“Well, I don’t, but you’d think he’d want me to,” said Chase with a chuckle. He looked around the camp. “Hell, a ten-year-old could do a better job.”

“Like I said, we got some new guy running things. He seems more, what’s the word? Competent?”

Chase shrugged. “I don’t see how things can get much worse.”

Just then something caught Chester’s eye, and he sprang to his feet. “They’re coming back,” he said.

We turned to see. Hickman was tromping in our direction, flanked by a few men with rifles. They came within a few steps of us and then stopped.

“So,” said Hickman. “You’re with the Agency.”

“Yessir,” quipped Arie before either Chase or I could answer. He threw up his hands in a cartoonish surrender. “Ya got us. Fair and square. I’m the Agency president. He’s my vice-president, and that lady there is commander of the Agency submarine fleet.”

“We’re not with the Agency,” Chase sighed.

“No?” said Hickman. “Prove it.”

“How do you suggest we do that?” I said. “You want to see our IDs?”

Hickman’s moist lips parted in a sneer. “Come with me,” he said.

His men pointed their rifles at us. I wondered how many rounds of ammo they had between them—if any at all.

“Chester,” barked Hickman. “You can go.”

Chester’s gaze wandered from Hickman to us and back again.

“I said you can go,” growled Hickman.

Chester wandered off, looking back at us a few times as he went.

“Get up, Agency goons,” Hickman shouted at us.

We got slowly to our feet and followed the pudgy little figure. His armed men stayed behind us, their rifles leveled at our backs. When we came to the edge of the camp, Hickman looked back as if to confirm we hadn’t been followed. Then he waved us on and we continued into the woods.

“Hey, uh, Hick?” said one of the men behind us. “I thought we were s’posed to bring them back to—”

“Quiet,” snapped Hickman. “Shut your stupid mouth.”

“Where are you taking us?” I said.

“I’ll ask the questions,” said Hickman.

We kept walking. I caught Chase’s glance. Now it was him who had the scheming look in his eyes. They hadn’t even bothered to tie our hands.

Hickman stopped the group in a small clearing.

“Sit down here,” said Hickman.

We sat. The men stood about twenty-five feet away, gripping their rifles and shifting their weight from foot to foot. Hickman stood behind them.

“Let’s make a move,” I hissed at Chase.

Arie shook his head.

Chase scoffed. “They’re not gonna kill us.”

“Kill them,” ordered Hickman loudly. “They’re spies from the Agency,” he declared. “Kill them. Now.”

Two of them raised their rifles and aimed at us. The other went on looking perplexed.

We were on our feet in an instant.

“Shoot them!” hollered Hickman frantically.

“You can’t shoot us!” said Chase. “We’re on the same side!”

One man was squinting down the barrel of his rifle, his finger on the trigger. I’d decided to sprint into the woods, and I was almost positive Arie and Chase would be close on my heels or three paces ahead of me, but before we made any move, a gunshot rang out. I flinched and dropped instinctively into a crouch, but the only thing that happened was that the gunman yelped and dropped to the ground like a giant sack of potatoes. Almost before he’d hit the ground, there was another shot. We dropped to our bellies. A third shot rang out.

I poked my head up and saw both of the men who’d pointed their rifles at us, along with Hickman, lying on the ground, squirming in the dirt. The third man flung his weapon into the grass and raised his arms. My ears were still ringing with the concussion of the gunshots. Hickman was yowling and writhing, clutching at a bloody wound on his arm.

Chester appeared from the shadows at the clearing’s edge. He stepped into the clearing diffidently, gripping his rifle and keeping his eyes on Hickman. So he had ammunition in his gun after all?

Then I saw another figure emerge from the trees, a smoking revolver in his hand. He was bandaged, and he limped, but I recognized him instantly. We all did.

It was Colonel Steele.

Thirty-Two

As evening came on, we sat around a richly blazing firepit. Arie and Chase and I sat on a crude bench constructed of big logs stacked and stabilized on rocks. It must have been quite old—the seat and back were worn smooth with use and it was surprisingly comfortable. We’d put our coats on and cupped mugs of tea in our gloved hands.

Steele sat across the fire from us on an ancient aluminum lawn chair. Chester was there, too. It was he who’d fetched Steele when it became clear that Hickman meant to execute us.

Chester hung a cast-iron pot from a cross-member over the fire and made a thin stew from rabbits he’d captured using snares and deadfalls.

“Know what they really go for? As bait, I mean? In the traps?”

We said nothing but nodded for him to tell us. I for one really wanted to know.

He grinned. “Carrots. Can you believe that? You figure rabbits only eat carrots in old cartoons and books, like it’s just a joke, but they really love carrots. They’re easy to grow; I got some growing up there on the hill and some closer in here by camp, but I don’t know how I’ll catch rabbits when I run out.”

Soon the stew was bubbling in the pot. I sipped my tea as the evening’s chill crept in around us.

“He broke my arm right away,” Steele was saying, “swatted me like a damn housefly. Gave me some pretty good lacerations.”

He indicated his various bandages.

“And he must have stepped on me at some point and cracked a couple of my ribs. I don’t remember everything clearly. I think I had a concussion, too, from when you clubbed me.” He pointed at Chase.

Chased winced, shrugged.

“He bit me on the ankle,” Steele added, lifting his foot, which was wrapped with what looked like strips of an old beach towel. “That one still hurts.”

We shook our heads with equal parts sympathy and amazement.

“But you got away,” said Chase with an expression more worshipful than he probably intended.

“I put a couple slugs into him,” said Steele with a nod. “When he first came at us. I got two shots off and then he hit me hard, and the pistol and I parted ways. At first, I thought I’d missed because the bear wasn’t acting injured at all, but later I figured I’d hit him in the liver or guts and he was probably bleeding internally. Anyway, I guess I managed to keep out of his reach until he realized I might not be worth the effort.”

“You made it over here in good time,” I said.

“Yes. Infection was my biggest concern,” Steele went on. “That kept me moving. I knew there was a camp around here somewhere. I suppose I could’ve walked back to the road, but I came here first to see if I could get my hands on some antibiotics.”

“We won’t be joining you,” Chase said.

“No,” said Steele with a grim smile, “I’d given up on that course of events the moment the bear appeared.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Steele gazed at the fire for a few moments. “I wouldn’t try to re-capture you even if I were in perfect health and had the means to subdue you. I thought about what we talked about while we were on the trail together,” he said. “About payments and purposes. And I agree that I was in the wrong line of work. I think I’ll pursue a new one.”

“So, you’re taking over this place?” asked Chase.

“No,” Steele answered with a curt chuckle. “They just needed a little guidance,” he continued. “They had a couple idiots in charge, taking advantage of them. They’re all pretty desperate. Not a lot of leadership or expertise among them. I’ve heard them say things have gotten so bad that people have left here with the intention of returning to the Agency.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“They get three squares and a bed with the Agency,” said Steele with a shrug.

“So, you’re going back to your family,” I said.

He nodded. “When I’m fit to travel, yes. I’ll help these people as much as I can. Help them decide what they want to do. When I’m healed up, I’ll go.”

We ate the stew and talked more as it grew dark.

“What will you three do now?” asked Steele.

“We’ve got some plans,” I said.

“What kind of plans?”

“We’ll just keep those private,” said Chase.

“I understand,” Steele returned.

“Actually,” I said, “I have a couple questions for you.”

“About the back before?”

“No, about why you came after us.”

Steele pressed his lips into a tight line. “Okay,” he said after thinking awhile. “Ask me.”

“Do you know the name Bellington?”

“Yes,” he said with a nod.

“He sent you?”

“No. You already know Rachel sent me, but I was directed to consult Bellington about you and your camp and other things that might help me apprehend you.”

“Did he ever say anything about a treatment or medicine that restores memories of people who’ve been wiped?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Steele, nodding again but looking a little surprised at the question.

“So there is an antidote?”

“As far as I know, yes.”

Arie and Chase and I exchanged astonished looks.

“Do you know where it is? How it works? Where to find it?” I would have peppered him with more questions along those lines, but he held up a hand.

“No, no,” he said with a smile. “He didn’t say anything about any of that. I only know that Bellington told you about it to entice you into letting him go.”

My face reddened. “He told you he tricked me?”

Steele tilted his head thoughtfully. “No,” he said, shaking his head, “he didn’t say that. He never said explicitly that he’d told you a lie or the truth.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It means it was probably a lie,” said Arie.

Steele was shaking his head. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. What he said to me was, ‘I told her about the treatment we have to restore memories’. Those were his words, as close as I can recall. You see? If he was telling me about a falsehood he’d told you, he almost certainly would have put it a different way. He’d have said, ‘I told her we had a treatment,’ or ‘I made up a story about a treatment.’ Instead, he said, ‘I told her about the treatment.’ That makes me think he was telling me that he told you about something that really exists. See the difference?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, that makes perfect sense.”

Chase had been listening intently. Now he spoke up. “You’re telling us the truth,” said Chase. It sounded like not so much a question as something he needed to tell himself, aloud.

“We’re no longer rivals or adversaries, Chase,” said Steele with his usual cool frankness. “At this point I have no reason or interest in telling you anything but the truth about what I know.”

The air seemed charged with new potential, a new purpose. I’d had the feeling that the antidote was real. Now I knew.

“Colonel,” I said after a few moments of quiet, “can you help us?”

“If you mean will I join you in going to some Agency installation to steal the treatment, then no. I wish you well, but I’m going home, and to paraphrase Chief Joseph, I hope to fight no more forever. Now, if there’s something I can do for you before that, here, while I’m convalescing, then yes, I’d be open to discussing it.”

We sat thinking for a minute. “Well, we need a vehicle,” I said. “We coasted down here on an old jeep, but we need a vehicle that runs. We need to get to the Agency borders.”

He grinned broadly, paused, and then let out a deep, hearty laugh. It was the first time any of us had heard him do so. He seemed genuinely amused. We looked at each other bemused until he composed himself again.

“Alison,” said Steele, “as you know, I’m a highly skilled tactical operative.”

“Yeah,” laughed Chase, “it’s been several days since you reminded us of that.”

Steele smiled sheepishly at the wisecrack, then said, “Well, you’ll all be interested to know that there’s probably only one area in which my skills are more excellent.”

“Fixing cars?” I asked hopefully.

He grinned and slowly shook his head. “No,” he said, “Fixing jeeps.”

Thirty-Three

We couldn’t get Steele down from the camp to the jeep nor the jeep up to Steele. Not right away. Steele could walk only short distances before he risked tearing the crude sutures he’d stitched into himself to keep his wounds closed. The lacerations on his feet looked especially gruesome, and I saw no signs of infection, but even standing up for more than an hour left him exhausted and in pain. So, we stayed in the camp for a week while he healed. We rested and took turns teaching the people who remained in the camp how to make a living in the woods. I taught them how to gather and preserve wild forage. Chase taught them how to capture fish and grouse and even muskrats and beaver.

Steele stayed in his tent, sipping protein stock made of boiled rabbit and bird bones. In the afternoons, Chase caught fish with his fly rod and brought fish to Steele four or five at a time.

“It’s protein I need,” said Steele. “I’ll eat as many fish as you can catch.”

There were almost no books in the camp, but I somehow got my hands on a big paperback romance novel about a duchess whose illicit lover was secretly the pirate who’d murdered her beloved father in a bloody raid on the high seas. The duchess didn’t know this, however, because although she had been aboard the ship and indeed at her father’s side the night of the fatal raid, she had of course gotten a nasty case of amnesia during the melee when a free-swinging yardarm conked her over the head. The duchess turned out to be the only survivor of the attack and would have perished herself had she not fallen quite conveniently into a passing lifeboat, and had she not been rescued by the very same father-slaying pirate captain, with whom she immediately fell in love.

I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Oh, puh-leeze.”

The front and back covers were missing, and the book was stained and swollen with water damage and difficult to read. I almost tossed it aside, but soon the duchess began remembering things about the night her father was killed, seeing flashes of the pirate captain’s face, and I was almost ashamed at how engrossed with the story I eventually became—until I realized that the final chapter was missing.

After a week, I think I started going a little crazy. I was having dreams of getting all my memories back. I was dreaming about remembering. I dreamed that I was Chase’s wife in the back before. I dreamed that Arie was our son and that we’d resisted the rule of the Agency together but had eventually been captured and mind-wiped. I dreamed that Chase was secretly an Agency operative. I dreamed that I was the Agency operative and that once I got my memories back, I would turn on Arie and Chase. Even when I’d just doze off in the sun after eating in the afternoon, I’d dream of various lurid versions of my past. That wasn’t so bad at first, but then I started to dream that my dreams of remembering were actually my mind’s way of remembering my real past. I distrusted my own thoughts. I walked around in a sleepy fog of anxiety.

After ten days, I burst into Steele’s tent.

“Alison?” he said, blinking awake and hiking himself up on an elbow. “Everything all right?”

“Colonel, I’m sorry to bother you, but I gotta know when you think you might be well enough to hike down the hill and get that jeep running. I’ve got to get back there. To the Agency. I’ve got to know if there’s an antidote and, if there is one, I’ve got to have it. I’m losing my mind. I’ll walk all the way if I have to, but if there’s any way you could give me an estimate, well, yeah. Please. Did I say I’m sorry for bothering you?”

He blinked slowly, a look of fatherly understanding on his face. “You’re not bothering me,” he said. Then he lifted his foot off the bed and flexed his ankle. He thought for a few moments more and said, “Plan to set out first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow? Really?”

He stuck out his bottom lip and gave me a firm nod of his head. “I’ll be ready.”

Thirty-Four

Steele worked on the jeep for almost a week. Every hour was agony to me. The jeep needed various parts, tools, and fresh fuel and oil. Runners were sent off to other settlements to find what was needed. Steele enlisted Arie and Chase and others to hold things, fetch things, hand him things. At first, he returned to camp in the evening and by candlelight he disassembled virtually every mechanical item there was to be found—lanterns, rifles, an old gasoline generator. He spent hours hammering and plying and filing away at bits of the cannibalized iron. Then he ordered a tent and cot be brought down to the jeep and worked there practically around the clock. Chase and Arie and I likewise got tents and bedrolls and slept at the jeep.

Steele would start the jeep, turn it off, work on something, then start it again, but it seemed to be always just shy of being truly fixed.

After the fifth day, I despaired. Steele never seemed discouraged, but I knew in my heart that we’d be walking back to the Agency. How long would that take? Weeks? Where would we get provisions? Water? We’d have to live rough and arrive at our objective totally spent and probably half-sick with exhaustion—assuming we made it at all. I cried myself to sleep.

But when I got up before dawn the next morning, Steele was already lying across the fender of the jeep beneath the hood, working by lantern flame. He was so short that his legs dangled off the ground, and when he needed to reach deeper into the guts of the jeep, his feet flailed in the air. When he heard me approach, he straightened up, slid down off the fender, and gave me a friendly wave.

“There’s hot water on the embers over there,” he said. “Have some tea.” And then he ducked back under the hood.

“Dare I ask?” I said.

He chuckled. “There’s never any harm in asking.”

“Okay. How’s it going?”

“I’m getting close,” he said flatly, and without looking up. “You’ll be driving away tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest.”

For an instant I could not draw a breath to reply. Something about the tone of Steele’s voice told me this was not just optimism nor even informed speculation. He was stating a fact, like always. I made us both some tea.

“You’re gonna need to find more fuel,” he conceded, his head still down in the engine compartment. “And I’d recommend you keep her under about 50 miles per hour, but this old heap wouldn’t be fun to drive any faster, anyway.”

It wasn’t easy to say goodbye to Steele. I felt a keen sense of loss as we packed up the jeep. The things we could accomplish with Steele on our side, the things we could learn from each other—it was painful to think of the unrealized potential.

“He’d be an incredible asset,” said Chase that night as we turned in.

“The guy knows, like, everything,” said Arie.

I sighed and shrugged. “He’s got his own plans.”

As we pulled away the next morning, Steele raised his hand in farewell, kept it raised for a few seconds, and then turned back to Chester and his other men as though he were immediately ready to move on to the next item of business.

Thirty-Five

It took three days to reach the outskirts of the Zones. Bellington had explained that there were a few places we were likely to find the Agency’s memory antidote, but I was familiar only with the dispensary near the housing block where I’d lived with Gary, so we focused our planning on that location. We discussed various approaches as we drove, scrapped a dozen plans and formed a dozen more. We planned as we drove, raising our voices over the jeep’s clattering engine. Sometimes Arie disagreed with my ideas, sometimes Chase did, and often they both did. There were arguments. We drew diagrams in the dust on the hood during rest breaks, and we bickered long into the night before we fell asleep on the ground around our small fires.

As we passed through the final mountain pass that lay between us and our fate, we adopted a plan that Chase and Arie accepted with no small skepticism. I thought it might work, but even to me it seemed too simple, too direct. We agreed that we’d need to be flexible, and we formulated alternate plans B through F, but even though I knew I was flying mostly by the seat of my pants, I just wanted to get there. I just wanted to see if it might be true.

A prickly dread stole over me when, as we crested a low rise along a back road in the foothills, I saw the dark spot of an Agency troop carrier cruising along a highway down in the valley. Beyond that lay the sprawling Zones gray and grimy looking. I felt a heavy but familiar knot forming in my gut.

When night fell, we were creeping along the outer protective fencing of the Agency infirmary. We were all familiar with how easy it was to move in and out of Zone obstructions—they simply didn’t have the personnel to patrol the entire rambling perimeter effectively, but getting into the infirmary was a different matter, a piece of the plan I thought would either go very smoothly or disastrously. During my time with Gary, the infirmary sometimes seemed to be heavily guarded, but there were other times when there was hardly anyone there at all.

“Here’s where I find out if I’m a genius or a damned fool,” I said in a hoarse whisper.

Chase and Arie didn’t agree out loud, but even just their body language told me they were thinking the same thing.

“So, if I understand correctly,” said Chase, “the first step was us cutting this fence, then you go up to a side-door in a secure Agency facility and try Gary’s old access code on the keypad to a building that he wasn’t authorized to enter.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s the plan.”

“And you think the door is just going to—open. Just like that. It won’t set off some alert? And what if Gary’s code doesn’t work at all? And what if this is all just a trap anyhow?”

“We’ve been over this,” I sighed. “If he thought I was gonna be captured or killed in a raid he’d order, he’d have no reason to lie.”

Chase squeezed his lips together and shook his head slowly.

“Chase, you weren’t there,” I said. “I really think Davey was being honest with me.”

“Davey,” spat Chase.

Arie laughed quietly.

I rolled my eyes. “Look, guys, I may not remember the overwhelming majority of my own birthdays, or what I used to do for a living, but I know that I have become very adept at detecting deception. Besides, what do you want to do? Change the plan now? Here?”

“She’s right, Chase,” said Arie. “This is the plan. Let’s do this. I’ve been wanting to take them down for so long I can practically taste it.”

“I should have said something earlier. You’re okay with this, kid?”

“If her gut feeling is all we’ve got to go on, I guess I trust it,” said Arie. “Yeah. I’m okay with it.”

“I think it’s wishful thinking,” said Chase.

“You’re outvoted, hon,” I said. “This is happening, with or without you.”

Chase blinked slowly and made a small nod. “We’ll cover you from here,” he said. “If anything goes wrong, you know what to do.”

Chase drew his pistol and Arie produced a pair of bolt cutters. He clipped a gash into the heavy chain-link and then pulled on the fencing until there was a void for me. We’d returned Steele’s pistol, but he’d given me a snub-nose revolver that fit perfectly into my pocket. I checked to see that it was ready and then slipped through the torn fencing. As I set off across the expanse of brown dead lawn between the fence and the door, I looked back and saw Chase gazing at me from his place in the gloom.

I thought the first time I’d kissed Chase was shortly after we left Lotus burning, crumbling, but I found out later that wasn’t true. I’d asked Chase about it once, and he smiled slyly, but then shook his head. He said it didn’t matter. It was in the past. But it mattered to me. How could anyone be okay with special moments like that just being erased? Even bad times had their own special place in our hearts, and forgetting them, letting them drift away like autumn leaves on the current of a stream simply wasn’t an option for me. I had no doubt that we’d make many new memories, but what about the past? Whenever I had ever said anything like this to Ruby, she would call me to attention.

“Stay in the present, Al,” she’d bark. “The grass ain’t never greener.”

But I rankled at her admonishments. Remembering Arie as a little boy? A baby? I’d risk almost anything for that. And what if Chase was there, too? What price was too great? If I could feel such excitement and joy over just the idea of it, how much grander would it actually be to experience it? The best part was, it wouldn’t just be for me. We’d share it with everyone. We’d get to find out who Ruby really was. Chase. Woolly. And everyone else. I was just as excited for them as I was for me. What greater way to show my appreciation and gratitude to the people who meant the most to me than to give them their memories back? To give them their lives.

I ran through the half-light toward the door and the keypad that just might unlock many lifetimes of memory. It was only fifty yards. When I’d cut the distance to forty yards, I felt a thrill of victory. When only twenty yards remained, I knew the plan would work.

When I was just ten yards away, the door opened and two people stepped out.

I dove onto my belly and held still. Surely, they would see me.

It was a man and a woman. They looked around suspiciously. How could they have detected my approach? The man seemed to look directly at me, but his gaze passed over me, and he made no sign that he’d seen me.

Then the man and woman turned to one another and embraced, sharing a long kiss.

Agency goons in love, I thought.

They stood just outside the door and kissed for what seemed like an hour. I was starting to shiver on the cold ground. They talked quietly, laughed, and then kissed more. Then the man looked around again, and again I thought he looked directly at me.

They walked away together.

I let out the long breath I’d been holding, but I waited there on the ground for what I guessed was another ten minutes before I finally started to get to my feet. When I did, I felt a presence coming up behind me. It was Chase, and Arie was behind him.

“I couldn’t wait back there for something like that to happen again,” he whispered. Then he kissed me on the cheek. “Let’s do this then.”

We crouched down and scurried over the remaining lawn to the door. Chase and Arie had their guns drawn. Chase nodded at the keypad, signaling me to enter the code.

“It’s not going to work,” Chase said under his breath. “It’s just too easy. That door is not going to open.”

8-2-3-5-Enter

And just like that the door clicked unlocked. I pushed the door handle, and we were in.

Thirty-Six

The interior was a long hallway with many old metal doors painted with blue paint. Again I felt the prickly dread of returning to this terrible place. But my purpose drove me ahead. The ceiling was dropped-in with ugly tiles and the lighting was that especially grim yellow-gray fluorescent. They buzzed and flickered and a couple moths that came in with us bounced against the lights.

Chase stopped us just inside the door, as if expecting a rush of guards. But after a full minute, nothing had happened. No one had appeared. No alarms had sounded. The only sound was that of the lights and the bumping moths.

So far, it was just as Bellington said it would be.

We walked down the hallway quietly.

There were camera pods here and there, but Bellington had told me they were poorly monitored at night, and sometimes they weren’t working at all.

I counted the doors. One. Two. Three. Four. Then fifth on the left. Another keypad.

It wasn’t a struggle to remember the numbers. I memorized them practically the moment they passed Bellington’s lips, like they were engraved on my brain. But still, I’d repeated them to him several times to be sure I knew them and later I wrote them down. The paper was rolled up in my pocket. I didn’t need to look at it, but my fingers shook as I pressed the buttons. Not from fear. It was pure exhilaration.

0-5-2-1-Enter.

Again the door unlocked, and we moved into a darkened room.

“I don’t like this,” said Chase. “It’s too easy.”

Arie turned on a flashlight and shone it around the room.

“Look, there’s a camera in here, too,” he said.

It was indeed a lab or depository of some sort. There were an industrial sink and marble workbenches. There were shelves and cabinets of medical supplies and bottles of powders and pills.

Bellington said the cabinets would be locked, but the key was under the sink, hanging from a nail up underneath out of sight. I knelt by the sink, opened the doors underneath it, and groped around inside.

I found the key.

Chase got a look of panic when I held it up to Arie’s light. His composure seemed to deteriorate a little more after each small success.

I unlocked the cabinet and opened it. Bellington had told me what to look for. A small, gray plastic case that looked like a first-aid kit.

“It’s here,” I said. “Just like he told me it would be.”

“I think we should abort,” growled Chase. “This is a trap.”

“I agree,” said Arie. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

But it was all just as Bellington had said. I set the case on the workbench and opened it. Hypodermic syringes. Small vials. As Bellington had said, the liquid in the vials had a slightly amber tint.

“Al,” said Chase, looking out the small window in the door. “We leave. Now.”

“But it’s here, Chase. It’s all right here.”

“Then bring it with you, but let’s go. Now.”

“Chase, think about it. If this was a trap, they’d already have us. They never dreamed we’d make it here, never dreamed we’d make it this far. If they did, they’d already be lined up outside this door with twenty armed thugs. It’s not a trap!”

Chase’s face was red. He breathed a frustrated sigh. Arie looked cagey, the whites of his eyes flashing. They came to my side.

I picked up a syringe, and then I picked up a vial.

Thirty-Seven

“You’re not using that here,” said Chase. “No way. I insist, Al. What if it knocks you out for three days? Like the wiping serum? What if it is a wiping serum? There’s just numbers and codes on these vials. It could be anything.”

“He’s right,” said Arie, placing a hand on my arm. “We should get out of here.”

I returned the vial and syringe to the gray medical case. We left the lab room and headed down the hall toward the door. I held the case tightly in my hands.

But as we hurried down the hall and toward the exterior door, we saw the bobbing beams of flashlights, headlamps. People were approaching. We stopped and watched, frozen and silent. Then we heard their voices, a lot of them. The flashlight beams grew brighter. They were getting closer.

“Follow me,” growled Chase.

We turned around and ran further into the building.

As we sprinted down the dark halls, we heard them enter. A door thrown open, banging, echoing. There were barked commands and more slamming doors. They were quartering the building, searching each room, moving in. Shouts of “move up!” and “clear!” clamored sharply down the hallways to us, even though I thought we were getting farther away. We turned one corner and then another, running almost blindly through the lightless hallways. We came to an open foyer and a row of glass doors that led outside.

“There!” hissed Chase. “Come on!”

We ran toward the door, Arie out front, then Chase, and then me. Chase glanced back to see if I was falling behind. I gave him my “keep-going-I’m-fine” look.

But then we both almost blundered into Arie, who’d stopped short of the exterior doors. In another instant we saw why—three more armed men stood outside the doors in the light of the lamps outside. They hadn’t seen us—it was brighter outside than inside, and the men only stood there looking bored. We backed slowly away from the doors and were just turning to run again when one of the men outside must have caught sight of our movement. He pointed. The others looked. They all rushed toward the doors.

We practically flew down a new corridor. The men from outside would enter slowly, I thought, their weapons ready. Chase was trying doorknobs as we fled. They seemed to all be locked.

“In here!” he said, at last finding an unlocked door. “Maybe we can find a window! C’mon!”

We hustled inside. It looked like a small classroom. No windows, but there was another door.

“You two, go through there,” Chase whispered, pointing at the other door. “Find a window. Bust it out.”

“But—”

“Now!” said Chase.

“What about you?”

He was already shoving a huge steel desk over to the door. We heard more shouting from the corridor. They hadn’t located us yet, but they were close.

“I’m right behind you. I’ll block this door and follow you. Go! Hurry!”

Arie tried the door. It opened.

“Let’s go,” said Arie.

I looked at Chase and our gazes locked. Arie looked at me and then Chase. We knew it was the end, but there wasn’t time to process it. I’m sure I was afraid, terrified, infuriated, but I didn’t feel it. And so we had this moment, a last look shared between the three of us to somehow say the things we had no time to say out loud. In that moment, we had to say everything about the way we felt about each other—all three of us. We loved each other. That is how it felt to me.

I learned something. I learned that when death literally arrives at your door, you look at the people who have traveled with you, the people you’ve invited into your life, who have become your family, and the thing you are thinking is not what you will lose, but the reality of all that you have.

So much, I thought. I have so much.

“Arie!” snapped Chase in an urgent whisper. He was pulling a huge bookcase over to join the desk. “Get her out of here!”

Arie nodded, and we went through the door.

I had often thought of how Chase and I would grow old together. Even without our memories, and in the midst of the Agency chaos, I thought of being by his side for the rest of my days. Because that’s what you do with the people in your life. You see them day after day, and you assume they will always be there. And when I thought of death, I thought of it coming at the end of my life, after we’d escaped Agency tyranny, after I’d done all I’d wanted to do. When I reached that stage, I’d be ready to go, eager for my next adventure, whatever that might be.

I never pictured it would end this way. There was no final embrace. No kiss. No tender words. Arie pulled my arm, trying to lead me. There were no windows here, either. Only another anonymous door. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t said goodbye.

If I’d been able to, I’d have said three things to Chase. First, I’d have told him I was sorry. Sorry that my impatience and eagerness had led us here. I had no long-term memories, of course, but I had a feeling, a deep-seated hunch, that this was not the first time I’d been here before. Not this place, not this exact situation, but something like it. I wanted to tell Chase that I was sorry for not listening to him, for dragging us down into another disaster.

And I would have told him thank you. Thank you for being a light in my life. Thank you for every moment we spent together. The times when we sat in the grass and ate wild strawberries. The times when we walked trails in the sunset. And for the times when we were fleeing and in danger. The good times and the bad.

And finally, I would have tried, but probably failed, to tell Chase just how much I loved him. Not just to say “I love you,” but to explain it to him.

Maybe it was because I was stunned or because everything happened so fast, but I didn’t even think to say the words until Arie and I were engulfed by the darkness of the next room. I shouted, “I love you, Chase!”

But it was too late. The door was shut. And if he heard me, I didn’t know.

Thirty-Eight

“Stay down,” Arie told me. “Stay low.” It was another classroom, almost identical to the last one. There were no windows here, but no other door, either.

We heard muffled shouting and the sound of someone pounding on the door where Chase was. Soon they’d break through and capture us all.

What was the point of it all? We couldn’t escape. Chase might buy us some time, but there was nowhere to go from here.

Rachel most likely wanted us all dead. Would her soldiers kill us, or would they take us back to Rachel first?

It didn’t matter. I pictured Chase with his gun drawn, coolly waiting for them to storm the room. Would he put up a fight? I thought maybe he’d surrender and maybe try to divert the troopers’ attention from us.

He’d put up a fight, I decided. He wouldn’t make it easy for them.

There came a great crash and then the back-and-forth blasts of exchanged gunshots. Guns firing indoors never sounded right to me. It was incredibly loud, but the sound was somehow too brief, unreal.

I crouched with Arie and covered my ears and waited. They had killed Chase and would now kill Arie and me. I squeezed my eyes together as tears ran down my cheeks.

And then all at once it was quiet.

Arie and I exchanged a short glance, knowing what the silence must mean. Chase would not have surrendered, but could he have slipped their noose? Could he have gotten away and made a run for it? I didn’t want to think about any other possibility.

“They’re securing the room, now,” whispered Arie. “Checking it out. Then they’ll come in here.”

“Arie,” I said.

“Don’t say anything,” said Arie. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He shook his head. “You don’t need to say anything.”

We heard their voices outside.

Arie trained his gun on the door.

I opened the gray plastic case in my lap. I took out one of the vials. It seemed to glow in the dim light.

“What are you doing?” snapped Arie.

I looked at him and shrugged. “What does it matter now?”

I plunged the needle into the vial and pulled back on the stopper, filling the barrel.

What was the right dose? I didn’t know, couldn’t know. But I didn’t care. I tapped at hollow of my elbow, looking for a blood vessel.

“Alison,” said Arie, “don’t do it!”

I squinted in the darkness and stabbed the needle into my vein. A rush of icy electricity flowed up into my shoulder and on through my chest.

They were at the door now. I heard their boots scuffling on the smooth floor outside, heard their voices. They were setting up to rush in. Then the door flew open. I saw their rifles, black and sinister, and their armor and goggles. They looked like nightmare beasts. They shouted and pointed their weapons. I think Arie threw down his gun and put his hands up. I think they wrestled him to the floor.

I was only partly paying attention. Because I saw Chase. Seated as I was, I saw between and beyond the legs of the troopers. Chase lay on the floor, a smear of shiny darkness spreading around him, and the troopers left dark, wet footprints. More troopers crowded in around me. I leaned and tilted to keep my eye on Chase. Someone was dragging him away by his feet. He was limp and lifeless.

I heard a trooper say, “We’ve got two in custody,” and the finality of that shot through me like a bullet. I surrendered to the cold sensation that now seemed to be ripping through me like radiation. My thoughts began to disconnect, to wobble independently. The Agency troopers shouted, but the noise of it receded. Arie shouted back—but I heard him as I would through thick layers of cotton. My vision blurred, blackened.

I shut my eyes tight and images flashed through my mind, chaotic, busy, impossible to interpret. There were faces, houses, places, each followed by the painful sting of a hot, white flash, as though I were being beaten on the head, or receiving electrical shocks directly to my brain.

I saw Arie’s face. Flash. A teacup. Flash. Chase’s face. A Ferris wheel. Flash. Faces, colors, doors, sounds. Flash. Flash. Flash. I knew they were memories, my memories, and they were all there. I saw everything, but it was too fast, too loud, too large. My mind sizzled. Agency troopers grabbed my arms and were hauling me out of the room but I was only vaguely aware of it.

Thirty-Nine

I was in a bare place, a strange place. I won’t say I awoke there because my first realization was simply that I was there, in this bare room. It was square with concrete walls and concrete floors. One metal door, shut, presumably locked. No windows. Jittery fluorescent light tubes flickering high overhead in a protective metal basket bolted to the concrete ceiling. I was lying on a metal cot which was also bolted to the concrete. In one corner there was an odd metal fixture that appeared to double as toilet and sink. Bolted to the wall above that was a plastic mirror.

I sat up and was struck by a strong wave of nausea. I dove toward the toilet, almost too late. I vomited several times and when there was nothing left, I went on dry heaving.

My head pounded and my eyes felt hot and scaly. The air and floor were cool, for which I was mildly thankful. I lay on the floor and tried to work out where I was, how I had gotten here.

I couldn’t.

I’d never been here before. Nothing seemed familiar. And that would be bad enough, but I couldn’t remember where I’d been before this. Or where I’d ever been.

The room stank of body odor and urine.

I stood and tried the door. It was locked. So, this is a cell, I thought.

Again I tried to remember where I was, or anywhere I had recently been, and even where I wanted to be. Home? Where was that? Nothing came to mind. I lay back down on the cot.

I was dressed in a simple gray shirt and pants made of cotton, like you might see at a mental hospital. Or prison. Is that where I was?

Back up, I thought. “Where am I?” might be the wrong question for right now.

“Who am I?” I said.

Alison. That was my name. I knew it, but it took some time to realize that I knew it. I tried to think of something else, anything else, but there was nothing to think of.

So, for now I was Alison.

But who was Alison?

There was the feeling that all the rest was on the tip of my tongue, I just needed something to get it started, to jog it free. There had to be in explanation for why I was here and where I had come from.

I told myself I was probably just very ill, feverish. I’d fallen sick and was in one of those dreadful hospitals in some impoverished, foreign country.

Okay. So. Where?

I should just rest and let my mind relax, I thought, and then it would all come back to me. But my heart slammed around inside me in a panic. My hands shook, moving around almost on their own, as if groping for something I’d dropped or lost. I was missing something I badly needed, something precious.

I began to dry heave again. I went to the sink and turned on the water. It was ice-cold. I cupped it in my hands and splashed it on my face. When I looked up, I saw my reflection in the warped and hazy mirror above the sink.

I didn’t recognize it, which is not to say that I didn’t know it was me. I knew it was me, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing this face before. I couldn’t place a time when I’d looked at myself before. So I spent quite a while looking at myself. There was a bandage on my forehead. I lifted it and saw a gash there, only a day or two old. Where had it come from?

I looked at my eyes. They were tired-looking, and they seemed sad to me. My hair was frizzy and unkempt. I needed a bath.

But these thoughts came to me as though I were observing someone else—a separate person—because I knew nothing of this person in the mirror. I didn’t know where she came from or what her childhood had been like. Or her adulthood for that matter. Didn’t know what things made her happy or what things made her sad. She looked sad now. Why?

“Hello,” I said. It was an introduction. And my voice seemed familiar, though, again, I couldn’t recall ever having heard it before. I felt immensely curious about this person—who was apparently me, though I felt like I’d somehow stolen someone else’s body. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I turned my head side-to-side, touching my face, lips, nose, ears, collar bone.

“Who are you?” I asked the mirror.

When I’d had my fill of looking in the mirror. I went back to the cot and sat on it. The dizziness and nausea were passing, and I suddenly felt quite hungry. I wondered how I’d get food. Would someone bring me some? Why was I locked in? Did anyone know I was here?

I shook my head. Stop being foolish. You’re a prisoner.

But am I a prisoner who is fed?

I wasn’t particularly thin. I wasn’t starving. So they must feed me. Unless I was new here. Was I new? Would I have food or not? Would I ever leave this room? How long was it that people could go without food? I had water. So, I could go quite a while. Somehow, I knew that without water, I would die very quickly—a few days, maybe—but I could survive quite a while without food.

Maybe it was because I was alone with no apparent memories, that these questions and thoughts circled in my mind. My brain felt as though it had nowhere to rest, so instead it brewed and agitated over these few questions I had.

My name was Alison. I knew that I knew things. I knew that if there were a book in the room, I’d be able to read it, yet I had no memory of when I learned to read. I could conjure up images of what an apple was or a banana, yet couldn’t remember having ever eaten one.

How does this happen? My brain felt as though it were pushing a rock up a mountain and though I had done nothing but sat there, I felt exhausted as though I’d used up all of my physical strength in thought. I faded in and out of something similar to but not exactly the same as sleep. Time passed, but whether it was days or minutes I did not know.

Then I heard footsteps outside my door. I don’t know why, but I was keen to work out how many sets of footsteps there were, and who they might belong to. There were two or three sets of footsteps, I concluded. At least one of them must be wearing boots or heavy work shoes, for they clomped dully on the floor outside. The other footsteps were the click-click-click of a heeled shoe. A lady’s high-heeled shoe.

Next came soft, muffled voices and the rattle-jangle of keys.

Forty

The door swung open and in billowed a breath of fresher air.

A woman stood at the threshold of the door. Attractive, statuesque. She was a professional of some sort. A lawyer, perhaps? She wore a slate-colored pencil skirt, a lovely black blouse, and black, patent-leather heels. She didn’t enter.

Three soldiers or policemen stood just behind her. Those were the boots I’d heard. But I’d miscounted them and felt a tinge of disappointment in myself. The soldiers were young looking, baby-faced.

I smiled. Involuntarily, I suppose. “Hi,” I said, eager to finally get some answers.

The woman peered into the room. Her expression was almost completely passive, but for a hint of disapproval. A sinister look. She looked directly at me, unblinking. She didn’t change her expression or even blink, but I somehow knew that she recognized me. I didn’t know who I was, but she did.

I rocked forward to stand, to ask the woman, beg if needed, to explain why I was here. But before I got a word out, she nodded to the soldiers, stepped backward into the hallway outside, and I heard the click-click-click of her heels retreating down the concrete floor of the hallway.

The soldiers entered, their faces angry, already flushing red. Not so boyish now. They raised their fists, and that is when I saw their batons. I crouched down desperately, covering my face and head with my arms. Without a word, they each hit me with the batons. I screamed and scrunched myself into a tighter ball, absorbing strike after strike. After a while they abruptly stopped, for what reason I don’t know—whether one gave a signal or they’d been some sort of earlier instruction. Then they swiftly left the room, pulling the door shut behind them. Another rattle of keys, the lock turned over, and then the only sound was my sobbing.

I checked myself, and bruises were already showing on my arms and my side where they’d hit me.

“What did I do?” I asked the room, sobbing, and then lay still until I fell asleep again.

Maybe an hour or two had passed when I heard the booted feet of the soldiers returning. I immediately shrank into a corner, balling into a fetal position, trying to expose the least of me as possible. The door opened, and I saw an arm clad in the same black uniform. A tray of food was placed on the floor and the door slammed shut again.

It wasn’t much. Some runny lukewarm soup and a few stale crackers. But I was hungry and didn’t know when I’d get to eat again, and so I ate it eagerly.

And that is how it was for a long time.

The soldiers came in periodically and hit me with the batons and kick me, for no apparent reason. Or they came to bring food. But they never spoke with me. Never seemed to even regard me as human. Sometimes I would plead with them for information. Where was I? Why was I being punished? Why couldn’t I remember anything?

But they never answered. I felt certain I was being punished for something, yet I couldn’t remember what, and that seemed wholly unfair. I didn’t know how long I’d be kept there and speculated that the most likely answer was forever.

A despondency grew in me to the point that when the guards brought food or came to beat me, I couldn’t even muster a response. I didn’t get out of bed. All I knew of life and living was misery.

It occurred to me that I had not even one happy memory.

In the early days of that captivity, I tried creating an imaginary life for myself outside the concrete walls. But it was very difficult. The thing I tried to imagine the most often was being outside—out of this prison, yes, but more than that, actually outside where there was sunshine and flowers and trees and grass.

I always started with one tree. I’d look in the hazy plastic mirror by the sink. I looked at myself and then tried to imagine a tree next to me. If I managed that, then I’d try to add another, and another. Try to add grass and dirt. Some days I did better than others. But always, the vision in my mind was fleeting. Difficult to hold on to.

And when the despondency grew too great, the imaginary life required too much effort to conjure. For all I knew, me and my entire life were the full sum of misery. I’d never known happiness, and I never would.

So when the soldiers came to hit me. I’d lie there unmoving, until a baton would connect with my stomach or the side of my face, and I’d react reflexively. But my lack of reaction seemed to take some pleasure out of it for the soldiers, so it seemed to become half-hearted for them, the same way one might mop the floor only because they’d been told to and not really caring if the floor was cleaned.

I stopped eating. The tray would be brought and then picked up again.

I didn’t care. Not about the food. Not about my imprisonment. Not about feeling pain. Nothing. I only wished to fade away. To disintegrate, to somehow cease to be. I could no longer be hurt because I was numb to everything.

I don’t know whether I would have starved to death or if the soldiers would have intervened before that happened, but one day, there was a change. Two soldiers came to beat me, but they simply couldn’t anymore. Instead, they swatted the wall next to my cot a few times. Clack, clack. Clack-clack! Clack. It was as if they thought that even though they could no longer stomach the idea of beating me, they must do something or be punished themselves. So they hammered on the wall several times and abruptly left the room.

When the heavy tread of their boots was gone, I heard something else. There was a banging or rapping on the wall, seemingly where the soldiers had struck the wall with their batons, and something more—it was in the same pattern or cadence of the batons.

Clack, clack. Clack-clack! Clack.

I stared at the wall, and the sound repeated. It shook me from my stupor. Goosebumps formed on my arms. I fetched the metal dinner tray, not caring that the food on it spilled on to the floor. I hit the wall with the tray twice. Tap, tap. Tap-tap! Tap.

I waited.

After a few seconds I heard it. Tap, tap. Tap-tap! Tap.

I tapped again, this time in a different pattern. Shave-and-a-haircut…two-bits.

The tapping from the other side came back the same way.

I reached out and touched the wall. And I pictured that there, on the other side, was another person, who understood what I was going through.

From that point on, my wall-mate and I would share taps throughout the day. I’d tried shouting to see if he or she could hear me, but I never heard a response and that always seemed to trigger the guards barging in with their batons. Soon we established that the pipes worked even better. There was a short length of exposed drain pipe at the sink and I could rap on this just with one knuckle and be heard. We exchanged our tapped-out messages every day, all throughout every day. I began to imagine trees in the mirror again. And a river. And warm rocks to sit on and take in the sunlight.

I wish we knew Morse code so that we could have conversations, but the noise itself was enough for me to imagine what the other person was saying. A tap first thing each day meant, “Good morning.” At meal times was, “Mush again?” After the guards left my room, “Are you okay?”

I felt like this other prisoner was my guardian angel. I began eating again. I started exercising. I would sing and talk to myself and whenever I was feeling sad or lonely, I’d rap on the pipe and wait for the response and then smile and nod. We were the same, the two of us. Strangers, but friends.

And while this crude form of communication had made the conditions somewhat bearable, it was still a miserable existence.

Nobody had told me why I was there or even who I was. Nobody had told me anything. Besides what I could do to keep myself clean with the water from the sink, I stayed in the same dirty clothing. I used the crude commode, but it was never cleaned, and the cloying smell of sewage hung in the room. Having known no other way, however, these conditions seemed normal to me, and I had to work hard with my mind to imagine anything different or better.

I named my wall-mate Winn. And besides the tapping, I’d converse with Winn through the wall. Which is to say I spoke in the direction of the wall and imagined how Winn might respond.

I had settled into a routine, complete with even a social life of sorts now that I communicated with Winn. And maybe life would have been okay, maybe I could have lived forever that way.

Then, one day, Winn didn’t tap back.

Forty-One

Usually it was Winn who sent the first greeting, the shave-and-a-haircut…two-bits knock we’d used after our first contact. But a lot of time had passed without hearing from Winn. I tried the morning knock, waited for the reply.

Silence.

Maybe Winn was still sleeping.

So I waited a bit and then tried again.

No response.

I tried not to think about it, but I became obsessed and moved to continuously knocking on the wall every few seconds.

I’d put my ear on the pipe itself, straining to hear even the slightest tapping response, but there was nothing.

Had the guards discovered what we were doing? Had they moved Winn to punish me?

I began crying. “Winn, Winn,” I moaned.

I knew then that it was only the knowledge that someone else was there, that at least one other person on earth would offer me kindness—I knew that it was the only thing keeping me sane, keeping me alive. If Winn was gone—I didn’t know how I could cope.

Terrible thoughts filled my mind. I wondered if Winn were dead. Still in the room, body decaying and rotting away.

Was Winn sick? Barely hanging on, desperately in need of medical care? Could Winn hear my knocking but was unable to even lift a hand to knock on the drainpipe?

When food came, I got off the bed and banged the tray against the door, hit it with all my strength, bending the tray in my hand and leaving dents in the metal door.

Soon guards came to the door, opened it, looked in with surprised but disapproving faces.

I knew they would beat me but I cried, “Where’s Winn? You need to check on Winn.” In my panic, I’d forgotten that the prisoner’s name wasn’t Winn and that was only the name I’d given them. But my desperation left no room for logic.

The guards didn’t have batons though. One of them held an electroshock weapon, and as soon as I saw it, I yelped, and went to run away, but it was too late. Tiny barbs shot into my filthy clothing, and hair-like wires sent a burning, convulsing shock through my body. And then the guards left, leaving me on the ground, trembling, gasping. When they left, there wasn’t any more pain, but I was filled with dread and unease, hoping to never experience something like that again.

I wouldn’t act up anymore. Wouldn’t make any more noise. But I kept my face pressed against the pipe and cried for Winn.

Forty-Two

At some point I must have fallen asleep, or perhaps I slipped into the awake but dazed and incoherent state that I sometimes languished in for days. Without stimulus, without a break in routine, one can fall into a sort of waking catatonia, neither aware nor unaware, letting time unreel like a ball of kite string. I don’t know how much time passed, but when I came to my senses, I heard a noise outside.

Footsteps.

There were lots of footsteps, more than I could count, more than I’d ever heard, out in the hallway. There was shouting out there, too, and the lights in my room flickered.

Then there was a tremendous explosion. I heard it, and it was deafening, but I felt it, too, and the vibration shook my insides. Then came what I took to be gunfire. Rapid runs of machinegun fire and the pop-pop-pop of smaller weapons. More shouting. What could it mean? I huddled on the floor. I could only assume this had something to do with the disappearance of Winn’s signaling, but how? Outside my door there was a commotion of footsteps and voices and then a short but powerful boom, and the door was dished in and deformed and suddenly hung limp on its mangled hinges. The door swung open and a cloud of acrid smoke billowed into the room.

From this cloud a woman appeared, but she did not wear a pencil skirt or stylish shoes. She was not tall nor was she young. She was old, stout, and draped in a long coat. She was not a soldier or police officer. She wore spectacles that were small and scratched, and her hair was short and wild. She entered with a slight limp, and she supported herself with a cane. There were others with her, and these also were not dressed like any others I’d seen. No uniforms, no machineguns or armor.

“Here she is,” said the woman over her shoulder. “We found Alison.”

More shouting echoed through the hallway and I heard my name repeated. I heard distant gunfire and explosions. The woman looked at me. I huddled on the floor in the corner where the sink pipe was.

“Hi, there,” she said.

I was too afraid to answer. It was the first time I could ever remember that anyone had actually said anything to me.

“Do you know me? Ya don’t know me, do ya?”

I shook my head.

“I’m Ruby,” she said with an unmistakable heaviness. “Let’s get you the hell outta here.” She stuck her fingers into her lips and blew a loud horse-whistle.

Two people came into the room and helped me to my feet. They gingerly guided me into the hallway. My senses blazed. I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, away from here. But I stopped.

“I can’t go with you,” I said, “without my friend.”

I looked to the place where I assumed there would be another door, but it had been wrenched loose, like mine. Coming out of the door were two people carrying between them a thin, bedraggled figure. His face was wet and clammy and gray and overgrown with a filthy beard.

Winn. Had to be.

I stumbled toward the door with the man and woman still supporting me.

“We gotta hurry,” someone said. “They’ll be back with reinforcements soon.”

Ahead of us were a few more people, assisting a young man who was wearing similar clothing to me. He was limping, leaning heavily on a man beside him.

Outside the enormous concrete fortress, an armored truck sat idling. There was a door in the back of the vehicle, and I waited while they helped several other people inside. They looked like me and were dressed like me. Desperate-looking, shattered. Then they lifted me and placed me inside. There were two benches that faced each other. A few people seated on the benches were bleeding. Others were smeared with soot, their eyes darting around, impatient.

One of them smiled at me, a big man with a fringe of beard around his round face. He smiled and nodded and patted my shoulder with his beefy hand.

I could smell blood and gunpowder and the sewer stench of myself and the other prisoners. Still, I thought, this must be what heaven was like. The hardships and sorrow are over and now you can rest. It’s hard to describe exactly how that felt. It was joy, overwhelming joy. I felt it in my whole body, so much that my heart actually physically hurt. Tears streamed down my face. Sitting next to me was a young man, shocking thin and pale looking, dressed like me, filthy like me. He was crying, too.

“Thank you,” he said to the big man. “Thank you so much.”

And I likewise turned to each of them. “Thank you. Thank you.” The tears ran down my face. The others smiled back, nodding.

Then they were helping Ruby into the truck.

She looked solemnly at me. “This ain’t over yet,” she said.

The bearded man they’d taken from the cell next to mine, the man I assumed was Winn, was lying on his back, wrapped in a blanket. I looked down into his face. He’d saved me, and now he lay here looking like death. He was pallid and slick with sweat.

“He’s got an infection,” said Ruby to no one in particular. “Looks bad. Looks real bad.”

Forty-Three

I worried for the man, my so-called wall-mate, the man I’d called Winn. Ruby said his name was Chase. He was obviously someone close to her because she doted over him and fussed about him even as she barked orders at the others. Before loading him in, they’d cut off his shirt to reveal two oozing black wounds that smelled terrible.

Ruby had produced a small bottle of clear liquid—probably moonshine—and had poured it over the wounds. Then she scrubbed his torso with a clean cloth. The man was unconscious, and even with the vehicle’s bouncing and the whine of the diesel engine and the caustic liquid poured over his festering injuries, he didn’t stir in the slightest. I wrung my hands.

Another of the rescued prisoners, a young man they called Arie, likewise seemed completely consumed with the welfare of Chase—he wore deep creases in his forehead as he stared at the man on the cot in the center of us all. I assumed they knew one another.

Through his knocks on the wall, Chase had rescued me. It had kept me physically alive. Perhaps the young man didn’t know him either but had been similarly rescued. Had Arie been on the other side of his wall?

We drove for a long time. I wanted to know what was going on, ask fifty different questions, but I was exhausted. Someone pressed two small red pills into my hand and gave me a bottle of water. “Take these,” she said. “It’ll help you relax.” Someone else had thrown a blanket around my shoulders, and after the initial clamor, the transport vehicle got quiet and pleasingly warm. My eyes grew heavy. They shut once, and I opened them again. They shut again.

To my embarrassment, when I opened them again, I wasn’t in the truck anymore.

I hadn’t just fallen asleep. The drugs reduced me to something beyond sleep, because I didn’t wake when the truck stopped nor when someone evidently moved me from there to a bed. When my eyes fluttered open, I found myself in a green nylon tent. The sun shone on the fabric, giving it a warm, comforting glow. I was lying on the most comfortable bed and pillow I could ever imagine, and I was wrapped in a frowzy flannel sleeping bag.

At last, I thought. A pleasant memory.

Sitting next to the camp cot there was a bottle and a small burlap sack. In the bottle was cool water with a sweet mineral flavor. In the sack were two small apples. I drank and ate voraciously.

I arose, drank the rest of the water, and unzipped the tent. Nearby in a big camp chair was the large bearded fellow who’d given me had told me that I’d be all right that night in the transport vehicle. Had that been just last night? He rocked himself up out of the chair when he saw me.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “We were thinking you were a regular sleeping beauty.”

“How long have I—”

He looked upward, squinting, calculating. “Almost thirty-six hours,” he said with a chuckle.

I gasped.

“Don’t worry about it. Francesca gave you some sleeping pills. Plus, after what you’ve been through, you needed the rest.”

I nodded, as I looked around at what appeared to be a city of the nylon tents. And trees—a dense forest of the most beautiful trees.

“I’m Woolly,” said the man extending his giant paw. I extended mine, and we shook hands, mine dwarfed in his.

“Alison,” I said.

He smiled. “I know who you are.”

“You do?”

“Afraid so,” he said, smiling again. “But don’t worry. We’ll explain everything. We thought you might want to get cleaned up, so down the path a’ways we have a tub with hot water waiting for you.” He handed me a bundle. “Here’s a towel and some clean clothes.”

“Thank you,” I said, looking down at the clothes. “Woolly?” I asked looking back at him. “You know who I am? You knew me before all this?”

He nodded frankly.

“Were we—were we friends?”

He blushed deeply. “Yeah. Good friends,” he said.

I smiled. “What was I like?” I felt like a shell of a person. Who we are, what we’re like, so much of that is based on our experiences. On our memories. I had none. Not many, anyway.

Woolly rubbed his scruff of a beard. “That’s hard to answer. You were nice—are nice, I mean. Always took the time to talk to me. Hard-worker. Didn’t mind being on dish-duty or helping haul rocks, things like that, even if you couldn’t lift much. But, uhm.” He paused, glanced down. “You’re different from most the folks here.”

“How so?”

Woolly shrugged. “I don’t know. You seem to think the impossible is possible. You take action.”

I looked at the ground. “I caused a lot of trouble, didn’t I?”

“Hey,” he said. “No risk, no reward. Anyway, go take your bath, and then come get some food and we’ll talk. It’s barley stew tonight.”

The tub sat in a copse of trees on a hill that overlooked a ravine. A small fire burned there with buckets of water and a kettle to boil it. There were coarse rags for washing and few hunks of what looked like homemade soap. I lowered myself into the tub.

It was a cloudy day. Banks of gray damp clouds moved across the face of the sun, and the valley glowed and shadowed by turns. It was glorious. I scrubbed myself, soaked myself, ran the soap through my hair. My feet and fingers were completely pruned when I finally got out to dry.

As directed, I joined Woolly and some others, including Arie, around a campfire. My hair was still damp, but I was clean and warm and the fresh clothes were soft and comfortable. I was given a crock of hot soup. It was simple but very filling, better than anything I could remember ever eating.

Noticeably absent were Ruby and Chase.

But that’s where Woolly recounted everything he knew—about the pandemic that almost wiped out civilization, the serum that erased our memories, how I’d joined Ruby’s small gang, and on and on. Arie laughed to hear about his leadership in Lotus. I was surprised to learn that Chase and I had been lovers. All that Woolly told us—it didn’t seem real. It felt like campfire stories. And finally, Woolly explained how we’d gone looking for an antidote and ended up back in the Agency’s hands and how Ruby found out and put together a rescue team. They’d lost one man in the effort, the news of which caused all of us to grow solemn and to stare into the fire.

Then Woolly asked us what it’d been like in the prison cells. Arie and I had similar stories—of mind-collapsing tedium and desperation and hunger and abuse. And of the tapping on the wall to communicate. So Chase had been Arie’s wall-mate, too.

“And Chase,” I asked. “How is he?”

“Doing better,” said Woolly. “Ruby won’t let him get any worse. I think he’d be scared to even try. Color is returning. Antibiotics seem to be working.”

“Good,” I said, nodding. I didn’t want to say it, but I wanted desperately to see him. In part because I was curious about this man with whom I apparently had a past relationship, but also because I felt enormous gratitude to him. He’d been my beacon of hope in those dark cell days, and I needed somehow to let him know.

“So Ruby, is she still mad at me?” I asked. “For—well, everything.”

Woolly and the others were silent, exchanging glances with each other.

“Yeah,” Woolly said, almost apologetically. “She’s still mad.”

“But she’ll be okay with me, right? I mean she rescued me.”

“There’s no way Ruby would’ve let you suffer in the Agency prison, Al. Despite everything, she cares an awful lot about you. She always has.”

I bit my lip. “I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I let that prisoner go.”

“No one else can, either, Al,” he said.

Forty-Four

The next morning, I joined the others by the campfire and was brought a cup of what everyone referred to as “mountain tea.” There were also eggs, a little fish, and some coarse, grainy bread. It was all just so delicious. I looked around for Woolly, then I heard someone say he’d be along later.

Arie was there, too, eating his breakfast. We’d been told that we were mother and son, but there was an awkward unfamiliarity between us. Arie nodded toward me by way of greeting, but said nothing.

Behind me I heard a harsh voice. “Lookie who’s up and feeling better.”

I turned to see Ruby and Chase coming down the trail to the meal area. Ruby was limping and using her cane. Chase had a blanket draped over his shoulders. He walked slowly and carefully.

The other campers gave a cheer. Chase waved back, though he looked perplexed at the recognition. Camp chairs by the fire were pulled out and Ruby and Chase were helped into them.

“Well, well, well,” said Ruby. Her voice had an edge to it, a chiding quality. “Lookit all three of youse here, together again. Good. Cuz I wanted ta give us some instructions, so listen up.”

She took a deep breath, looking slowly at Chase, then Arie, then me. We sat still. I could almost feel her gaze on me, like it was something physical that pushed against me.

“Ya’ll look like crap,” she pronounced.

We smiled nervously.

“Especially compared to whatcha looked like just a couple months ago, which since ya can’t remember I’ll tell ya was just fine. Ya’ll were doin’ just fine. And so that tells me you had it hard in that there prison. So—” here she slapped her leg “—you three are gonna take some time to rest and heal up, ya hear? I don’t want you worrying about chores or cooking or pullin’ your weight, at least not yet. You focus on building your strength and recovering.”

“Ruby, I—” I began, wanting to talk to her about the incident that had started all of this, the incident I couldn’t remember but somehow still felt poignantly responsible for.

She raised her hand up to stop me. “I don’t wanna hear it. Just do as I say and stay outta my way. Capeesh?”

We nodded.

“Good,” said Ruby. She slapped her knee again. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I got things to do.” She rose unsteadily, using her cane as a lever to pry herself from the chair. Then she hobbled away, leaving the three of us alone together.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Chase.

“There’s room for improvement,” he said, wincing as he shifted in his chair toward me. “But it beats yesterday.”

A man named Andre brought Chase a plate of breakfast and mountain tea. Chase balanced the plate on his knee and took a sip of the drink. He sighed. And I understood what his sigh meant. It is soothing to the soul to be in a safe place with something warm to drink. It was soul care. A new memory, still only the first of a very few we even had.

“Do you know who we are?” asked Arie.

Chase nodded. “I got the basic story. We were co-conspirators and, later, after some, um, trouble, we were prison neighbors. Right?”

We nodded.

“So,” Chase went on. “We’re friends.” And then he gestured toward me with his mug, “And, um, apparently, something more.” He smiled awkwardly.

I blushed deeply and cleared my throat. “Yes, that’s what they told me.”

“Leave me out of this,” said Arie with evident sarcasm, waving his hand dismissively.

Chase smiled faintly and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”

“I don’t remember you either,” I said.

“Right, but what I mean to say is that I’m sorry that I don’t remember you. You seem like someone I would want to remember.”

Was he—flirting?

It all seemed so strange. Like we were play-acting roles. Like we’d just been given parts in an acting class and were told now to play our parts.

Alison, you’ll be playing the role of mother and girlfriend. Chase, you’re the boyfriend. Arie, the son. And, action!

“You don’t have to act like that,” I said. “We can just start over.”

“Act like what?” Chase asked.

My cheeks got warmer.

“Act like—you know—like you’re interested. Or something.”

My eyes darted to Arie. He was listening intently while trying to pretend not to be listening intently.

Chase chuckled. “Sorry, I’ll try to ignore you from now on.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I stammered. “What I meant was—”

“These two at it already?” it was Woolly. He’d sidled up and was standing behind Arie.

“Apparently, yeah,” said Arie.

Woolly shook his head, but then pulled some notebooks out of a bag. “I saved these when we had to leave the last camp. I knew you’d want them.” He passed a couple to each of us. “They’re diaries that Alison and Arie kept. It details a lot of the stuff you’ve forgotten. It’ll help you refresh your memories.”

Woolly kept one of the notebooks. It was red with a skull erased into it. “This one I’m going to keep hold of,” he said. “It was a project that Arie and I were working on, and well after you, uh, went away, I kept working on it on my own. It’s not quite ready, but I’ll give it to you when it’s done.”

Woolly went away then, leaving the three of us relaxing by the fire, reading the journals. When there was something particularly interesting, we read it aloud to share with the others.

“Alison, listen to this,” said Chase. He read from the journal: “There are several new people I’ve met who I’m working with. I’ve been working a lot with a man named Chase since he apparently doesn’t know how to drive a manual vehicle. He is cocky and stubborn. I hope I won’t have to work with him long.”

My mouth dropped open. “Oh, I didn’t actually write that, did I?”

Chase laughed, and I honestly wasn’t sure if he was making it up or not.

Later, Arie looked up from one of the notebooks and said, “Here are some entries from after this Agency group took me away and told you I was dead. Jeeze. That’s just evil.”

“What do I say about it?” I asked, without immediately realizing what an odd question that was to ask.

“You say that you miss me. You seem pretty broken up. It’s really touching. I mean, I can’t say it feels like me that this forgotten you is talking about, but the person who wrote this—they really cared, obviously.”

“I get what you mean,” I said, holding up the pages of the journal I was reading. “It’s one thing to read about it, but it’s different living the experiences. It’s crazy to be reading about things that happened to me. I mean, it’s insightful, I guess, but it doesn’t bring the memories back. I wish it did.”

A few weeks passed. Chase, Arie, and I spent a lot of time together. Maybe it was because we had all experienced the Agency prison together, or had been rescued together, or maybe it was because the journals told us that we were close. Whatever the reason, we felt bonded together in a way that was different even from how we felt about the people who’d rescued us and helped us out of that horrible place. It was almost like that experience had made a dark mark upon our hearts, a sensitive area that only other people who had gone through the experience could understand. The three of us acted passively in our actions, reserved, as though any loud noise or actions could trigger an Agency soldier to step out of the woods and beat us with a baton. Woolly said we were traumatized and that it would take a while to get past it.

“If you feel like your memories are upsetting you, just try to focus on the present,” said Woolly. “Try to notice the things around you—what you see, smell, hear. If you find you can’t stop thinking about something bad that happened to you, tell yourself, ‘I’m having a thought about something unpleasant.’ That will put some distance between you and the experience.”

We nodded. It made sense.

“Where did you come up with all this?” asked Arie.

“I didn’t,” said Woolly. “I read it in books.”

“My dreams are always about the prison,” I said.

Woolly nodded. “I’m sorry. That must be difficult. But I’m not surprised. You guys don’t have many memories, so it’s easy for you to get stuck in the few that you have. Focus on today, now. Stay with us here.”

Eventually, it felt like things were getting better, like it was easier to breathe.

I’d cry sometimes, for no clear reason. I’d just be sitting there doing something else, and a wave of fear or sorrow would wash over me, and I wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears.

“I’m so sorry,” I’d always say to the people around me. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

The other people would always nod and pat my hand reassuringly, but I felt so embarrassed. There was something wrong that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Or sometimes someone would move past me or go to hand me something and I would flinch and my hands would start shaking.

These were the internal scars left by the Agency.

Still, it felt manageable. It felt like I had it under control. Until one day, Woolly came to me. He had a strange look on his face and there was a heavy gloom between us.

“Woolly, what’s the matter?” I asked.

I was reclined in a chair, reading a book.

“Hey, Al,” he said, his voice heavy and low. “You know I am your friend, right? I’ll always be your friend.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why are you saying this?”

He kicked at a rock on the ground. It was about the size of a grapefruit and was embedded in the dirt. He kept kicking at it until it dislodged.

“Ruby wants to see you,” said Woolly. He said it without looking at me. My stomach fell.

Woolly walked me over to her tent in silence. Whatever it was, it was serious. I wondered if someone had died.

When we reached the tent, Woolly said, “You have to go in alone, Al. I’ll see you later.”

I stepped inside. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside, but once they did, I saw Ruby sitting in a chair. There was another chair set up across from it.

“Have a seat, Alison,” she said.

I did, keeping my eyes on her while I sat. She looked sad, or maybe just tired, or maybe it was both.

Even though I hadn’t seen her much outside of the night I was rescued, she somehow seemed older than I had remembered her.

I liked Ruby. A lot. She rescued us. She had risked her life and her team for me.

She opened her mouth to speak, but then paused, before letting out a deep sigh.

“This is a lot harder for me than it is for you, you know,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What is going on? Have I done something wrong?”

She exhaled with a kind of laugh, and then said, “That’s kind of an interesting question, innit?”

“Whatever it is, just tell me.”

Ruby nodded and took her glasses off and wiped them with the tail of her shirt.

“What I mean is you’re like a daughter to me. I care about you, which makes what I’m about to do really difficult. But you barely know me. From your perspective, we are essentially strangers.”

“That’s not true, Ruby. I feel very close to you.”

She sighed again.

“Alison, I’m moving the camp. After the Agency stormed our last site, we lost fifteen people. They were taken or killed. More were injured and the amount of supplies and resources we lost were substantial. We can’t risk another loss like that. It’d devastate us.”

I nodded. “No, of course not.”

“This time I’m going to move the camp far away from the Agency. Too far for them to give a rat’s ass about us.”

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “That’s sounds like a great plan. Whatever I can do to help, I’ll be glad—”

“Al, you’re not invited. Not this time.”

Her words fell on me like a tree. “I’m—not invited?”

“Al, I know you don’t remember, but I do and the other people do, too, and the fact of the matter is that you let us down. We’re at the point where we can’t be taking any more risks. It’s not your fault and I’m not saying you’re a bad person, but frankly, you’re a liability for us. And I can't in good conscience bring you along. Not after what’s happened.”

I could only look at her, my mouth open.

“Al, I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you. Never. That’s why we rescued you from that prison. But now it’s time for us to go our separate ways. We’ll set you up with whatever supplies you need and we’ll take you where you want to go. Within reason, a’course. If you want to go find folks to stay within the Zones, we’ll do that. If you want to meet up with another group in the mountains, you can’t wander too far around here without bumping into one of ’em. And if you want to just be on your own, that’s fine too. You just can’t be with us.”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart beat rapidly. “But Ruby—”

“No ‘buts’ Alison. It’s already been decided.”

She looked away from me, and I heard her sniff. I wondered if she were crying.

“I wish you the best, Al. I really do. Woolly will help you gather up the things you need and then he’ll take you wherever you want.”

She stood up to go.

“Wait,” I said. “What about Arie? He’s my son.”

Ruby paused at the door without looking back at me. “He’s just about grown,” she said. “I don’t own him. He can do what he wants. If he wants to go with you, he can decide that for himself.”

Forty-Five

Arie didn’t want to come with me.

“I feel bad,” he said. “But it’s just—I don’t really know you. Not that I know anyone anymore, but I feel like my chances are better here with the group. I hope you understand.”

I understood. We were strangers, connected only by the finest of threads. Yet, when I’d read about him in both his journals and my own, and when I’d learned he was my son, something had changed. I’d already had an affinity for Arie before the journals, as we were spirited from the prison in the troop carrier. I’d attributed it to our shared experiences, but once I learned about our relationship, I wondered if it was more than that. If maybe the heart remembered, even when the mind forgot.

I wanted the chance to build a relationship. I wanted to be there to make sure he was okay. But he hadn’t picked me. Logically, it made complete sense.

Still, Arie’s choice stung more than expected, and I had to clench my jaw to avoid letting my disappointment show on my face. And after that, I didn’t want to stick around any longer than necessary. Every time someone asked how I was doing or why I was packing things up, my eyes welled with tears. I was so ashamed. I just wanted to gather my things and go.

That’s what I was doing when Chase appeared. He poked his head into the tent where I’d been staying, the tent I’d almost gotten ready to call home.

“You going somewhere?” he asked.

I glanced briefly at him, then returned to packing a large backpack that Woolly had given me.

“I can’t stay here,” I said tersely, flatly. “I, uh, I’m gonna, just, you know, go.” I couldn’t say more, couldn’t talk about it.

“Oh,” he said. Then he was quiet, his head still poked into my tent. After a long moment he said. “Okay.”

I said nothing in reply.

“So,” he said, “just to be clear, you’re leaving the camp?”

I didn’t turn in his direction. Just nodded.

“And you’re leaving now?”

“It’s as good a time as any.” Now my voice had a bite to it. An anger that I couldn’t keep back. I suppose I knew on some level that if I let in even a little vulnerability, I would fall apart and bawl my eyes out.

“Do you need help?” Chase asked.

“Woolly’s helping me,” I said.

“Is it all right if I come in?” he said. His voice betrayed his confusion.

I kept packing.

“Al?” he said. “Can I come in?”

I nodded, again without looking at him. He stepped inside. I stole a glance at him. His brows were knitted and he was blinking rapidly. He removed his ball cap and scratched his head.

“Where will you go? Kinda risky to wander around on your own, you know.”

I stopped shoving things into the rucksack. Where would I go?

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I need some alone time.”

He nodded. “Well, good luck then.” He went out.

As he walked away, I went to the tent door and called his name. He turned around, took a few steps toward me.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. For, I guess, you know, everything. The things they told us about. For tricking you and involving you in my stuff that got us captured.”

“You remember doing that?”

“No,” I said, “but it sounds like me.”

“I don’t think you need to go apologizing for things neither one of us remembers,” said Chase.

“The others remember.”

“So apologize to them. Besides, they don’t know how we got captured and neither do you. You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

I started crying and looked at my hands. “I’ve messed up,” I said. “I’m messed up.”

Chase was quiet for a moment. He looked at his shoes. “Well, who hasn’t? Who isn’t?”

“Not like this,” I said. “People died. And everything’s ruined. And I can’t be here anymore.” I rubbed my eyes.

“Do you think you meant for people to get hurt?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“No, answer me,” he said. “The woman who didn’t want to hit a goon with a bat—you’re saying that woman wanted people to get hurt? To die?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Look, things might have gone south, but I don’t believe for one second you intended for that to be the outcome. You may have been negligent. You’re paying for that. You may have made a terrible choice. You’re paying for that. But you didn’t shoot anyone and I know you didn’t want that to happen. In fact, I’m willing to bet what you were going for was the exact opposite. You wanted to help. I’ll bet you anything. Bet me right now. Name your stakes.”

He stepped up to me and put his hand out to shake on it. I smiled a little, then shook my head.

“No bet, huh? I thought so. Al, you’re not the one who put us in this horrible situation. The pandemic, the Agency, this life on the run, living in the forest. There’s evil at work here, some kind of incomprehensible evil machine, and we’re just being ground up in the gears. So. Yeah. Don’t apologize to me. From where I stand, you were just trying to help people. You just weren’t very good at it.”

I chuckled then. And sniffed and wiped my eyes.

“Chin up, huh?” he said.

I nodded glumly and watched him go. Again, he was there just when I needed him, first tapping on a pipe, now making a bet with me that maybe I wasn’t the most terrible person in the world. It didn’t surprise me to know what they said about Chase and me—it was more than just his rugged looks and his easy confidence. Turns out he was a decent person, too. Even now I wanted to go to him. But losing him was a price I had to pay for my mistakes.

Forty-Six

Woolly wasn’t melancholy as we bounced along the old logging roads. Now and then he turned his head to me, as though he might say something. But after an hour of driving, we had said little. Then the road narrowed and became very rough.

“I’m taking you to a spot I know,” he said. “It was a candidate site for our own campsite, but we thought it might be too small. It’ll be perfect for just one person. There’s a spring nearby, lots of deadfall for firewood, good cover and concealment. Plus, it’s just a beautiful area. You’ll see what I mean.” He gave me a searching glance.

I nodded.

“If you decide you want to join one of the other camps,” he added, “there are at least a couple that are close to here. You should be able to find them, no problem. Then again, if you want to keep your solitude, you can do that, too.”

I nodded again.

Woolly had asked me the night before where I wanted him to take me. I’d told him I didn’t care. One place was as good as another. I felt like maybe I was in shock. Like my mind wasn’t ready to comprehend the fact that I was being removed from my place of safety and thrust into the world all on my own. I was being abandoned by the only people who, to my knowledge, had ever treated me with decency. And so there was some anger, resentment, because although I’d been told what I’d done and why I deserved this sentence, I didn’t remember it. I was the whipping boy for someone else’s crime, and even though the someone else was an earlier version of myself, it felt unfair.

We bounced on down the road.

“So,” said Woolly, “what do you think you’re going to do?”

“What do you care?” I said. Woolly didn’t deserve that, but as my banishment drew closer, the hurt became more than I could handle.

“Don’t be that way, Al. I didn’t want you to leave.”

“And you didn’t try to stop it, either?”

“How do you know what I did? I gave my opinion, I cast my vote. It wasn’t up to just me.”

I stared straight ahead.

“Who put Ruby in charge, anyway?” I asked. “Why’s she so important?”

“Alison, I was hoping that you and I could have a nice drive, spend some time together as friends. Make a good memory. And maybe if you told me your plans, I could come back and visit you sometime.”

“My exile. What a fond memory it will be.”

“Al.”

“I’ll probably be dead within a week.”

Woolly stopped the truck. The tires hissed in the dirt and gravel.

“Alison, please stop. I’m going to miss you. I am. We can mope and whine about what’s happened. Or we can move forward. What’s it going to be?”

I clenched my jaw and folded my arms.

“Fine,” said Woolly. “I’ll just drop you off.”

He continued driving without saying more. I expected him to be angry or disappointed, but he was nonplussed. He grabbed an old battered CD player from under the seat which he plugged into the radio and began playing folk music. And he kept driving, calmly, contentedly, easing the old pickup over the rough road with a gentle ease.

This made me even angrier. I wanted a reaction. I wanted to have the fight I didn’t have with Ruby. I wanted to yell at someone.

“I’d volunteer to drive anywhere just so I could listen to music,” said Woolly as though he were speaking to himself.

He drummed his finger on the steering wheel and whistled to the tune.

I sighed. Then I sighed again, more loudly. I shifted around in my seat testily.

Woolly didn’t seem to notice.

“Just let me out here,” I said.

“We’re not there yet, Al,” said Woolly. “The spot I have in mind is much better, safer.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

The sun was setting and the sky was turning purple and pink.

“Alison, do you ever consider that you’re so anxious pursuing the future that you’re missing out on the present?”

“It wasn’t the future I was after,” I told Woolly. “From what I’ve been told, I was chasing the past.”

Woolly shrugged. “Same diff,” he said. “I’m just saying instead of worrying about the future or the past, can you just be in the moment?”

“How very zen of you,” I scoffed.

“I mean it. Here, close your eyes and listen to the music for a minute.”

“I’m not going to—”

“I’m not asking,” Woolly said in the sternest voice I’d ever heard from him. He turned up the volume. “Stop your fussing for just a moment and listen to this music.”

To placate him, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

There was the sound of a harmonica, the lilting words of the singer talking about being without a home and nowhere to go. I had to laugh. I opened my eyes and saw Woolly nodding along with the beat. His eyes were half shut and he wore a smile on his face. The song played. It was sad, but it seemed to carry away some of my sadness.

When the song ended, Woolly asked me, “Do you feel better?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. You can’t beat Bob Dylan.”

After a while, he pulled off the road and drove overland and up onto a hilltop that was mostly barren of trees. He turned off the engine and shifted in his seat to face me.

“You’re a rolling stone, Al.” He opened his door. “The campsite is just inside that line of trees,” he said, pointing.

“Woolly?”

“Yeah?”

“Could we keep listening?”

“You bet,” he said. “But I’ve only got the one CD.”

“That’s okay.”

We listened all the way through disc one of The Essential Bob Dylan before we were done unpacking the truck, and after that, we listened again as the sun set and the headlights shone into the forest. We listened to the songs so many times that I learned the words. Woolly played the air guitar and I fashioned a microphone out of a water bottle. We listened and we sang and laughed as if we didn’t have a care in the world. It was the best moment of my life.

And then when wound down, late into the night, with sleep weighing heavy on both of us, Woolly said we should just sleep in the truck that night. I had already propped my backpack against the window and was blinking sleepily.

“Woolly,” I said through a yawn.

“Hm?”

“You think I’ll be okay out here by myself?”

He waited a beat before answering. “I think you will, Alison.”

“And will you—” I stopped, my head nodding, unable to complete the question.

“Will I what?” he asked.

“Will you come visit me? Check on me?”

“Alison, old pal, you couldn’t keep me away.”

Forty-Seven

In the morning, Woolly helped me with the provisions and equipment Ruby had supplied me with. It looked like there was plenty to get me through winter. Woolly helped me site my new camp and erect my heavy canvas tent. It came complete with a tiny wood-burning stove made from a rusted-out propane tank.

“Why don’t I help you set up a nice big firepit,” he said when the tent was standing taut. He wiped the sweat from his face. “Let’s go find some rocks.”

I followed him into the trees and we stooped and bent among the brush, looking for rocks that would stack and fit together. We piled them up a few at a time.

“You’ll do great here, don’tcha think?” he said as we wandered, searching the ground.

“Yeah. Sure. This little camp is starting to take shape,” I said. “I think a little me-time will do me good. I got some books, a couple blank notebooks. Yeah. I’ll be okay.”

I was trying to be brave. Woolly had been so patient; the least I could do was let him believe I wasn’t afraid or depressed. And I suppose I’d made my peace with my exile, but it would be a long winter. Very long.

“Well, if you change your mind, just follow the river downstream,” said Woolly, picking up a big flat rock that would become the warming fender of my firepit. “Follow it for two or three days and you’ll find the Martinez camp.”

“Thanks,” I replied. We walked back to the campsite. “I feel like I’ll stay away from the communities for a while. You know, stay out of trouble.”

Woolly dropped his armload of stones and hitched up his sagging shorts. “That’ll be the day,” he said.

We built the firepit. It took a couple hours. It was large and sturdy. We banked soil and stones along the far side to reflect heat toward my tent, and we set flag stones around it in a kind of patio. Then Woolly built up the sides and installed a stout cross-member of green aspen to hang a kettle or cook pot.

Then we ate some lunch—canned chili from the supplies Ruby sent, warmed up in the can over a fire we made in the new pit. I thought Woolly would leave then, but he insisted on helping me drag a big gray fallen tree over to make a bench by the fire.

“Can’t have a firepit without a place to sit now, can ya?”

“I’ve got a chair,” I said.

“Well, this’ll be for when I come to visit.”

He busied himself with the bench, fitting it with rocks and smaller logs to make it sturdy.

“It’s gettin’ late, Woolly.”

He stood and squinted at the sun. “Mm. Guess you’re right.”

“Thank you, though,” I said. I didn’t want him to go, but the longer he stayed, the worse it would be when he finally went. “It’s a beautiful camp.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking around admiring the place, nodding, wiping the sweat from his face. “It ain’t bad, is it? So, you’ll be okay here?”

“I think I’ll be very comfortable.”

“Okay then. Guess I’ll get going,” he said with a sad smile. But then he held up a finger. “But there’s one more thing. Hang on.”

He went back to the truck and from under the driver’s seat he removed some kind of bundle tied together with coarse string. He grinned widely as he returned. It was the notebooks.

“These are yours,” he said as he handed the bundled-up journals and notebooks to me. “Well, technically, they’re yours and Arie’s, but you’re the one who saved them.”

I’d already read everything in the journals, but there wasn’t a better gift that Woolly could have given me.

“Thank you, Woolly. I mean it. That’s really nice.”

“There’s one in here you haven’t read,” said Woolly, tapping the notebook at the top of the bundle. It was the red notebook with the skull. “I’ve been working on this a long time. There were errors and inconsistencies that made it rather difficult. But it’s finally finished.”

“Doesn’t this belong to Arie?” I asked.

“He told me he wanted you to have them.”

My heart twinged a little at this.

“What’s in it? What’s it say?”

He raised one eyebrow and lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I would never encourage you to read something that might lead you to do anything rash or risky, Al. You know that. So, I’m not saying, ‘Hurry and read it,’ but I will say this: the whole reason we even know each other is because you were trying to figure out what this notebook said.”

I ran my finger over the symbol, the outline of a skull with a clockface. Staring up from the battered notebook, the symbol was sinister, haunting.

“It’s all there,” said Woolly. “An interesting read for sure. It might give you some answers I know you want. And, well, if you don’t find that interesting, there’s also a copy of The Great Gatsby there that you can add to your winter reading list. Pardon all the weird marks and notes.”

“Thanks, Woolly,” I said, “for this and for everything.”

He gave me a goodbye hug, lifting me off my feet as though I were just a doll. He promised to come and visit once the snow fell.

“If you move out of the area,” said Woolly, “or if something goes wrong, leave a note. Stick it under a rock in the fireplace.”

“Okay.”

“Take care, Al. Be careful.” His eyes were brimming, but he turned away and got into the truck.

I waved goodbye as he drove away in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. I watched until he was out of sight and stayed until I could no longer hear the motor of the truck.

Then, all at once, a solemn loneliness settled around me like heavy banks of snow piling up in a November storm.

Forty-Eight

I had food. I didn’t have a lot, but I was sure I had enough. They had supplied me with several cases of canned goods that, if they weren’t exactly delicious, they were at least palatable. I also had some cornmeal, beans, oil, salt, and a few other staples that would feed me comfortably throughout the winter.

And tea. I had resupplied my reserve of tea, begging and trading for any little extra I could get.

I had sturdy, warm clothing and shelter, a fine hunting knife, an ax, a rusty but serviceable bow-saw, and fire-making tools. Someone had gifted me a crude fishing rod and Chase had taught me a little about catching fish from the creeks and rivers so common in those mountains. A nice, older lady had given me a “winging stick,” a kind of smooth wooden weapon meant to throw at grouse, like a boomerang that wasn’t designed to come back. Woolly and the others had shown me how to set snares for rabbits and squirrels.

If I rationed my food and supplemented it with wild forage, I could probably hold out all the way to summer.

Happily, I had a few books to read, and notebooks of blank paper to write on. And there were the notebooks, the ones that Woolly had given me. I could read and re-read them all winter, read and re-read about my former self.

And I had work. There were many chores to do each day. Collecting water, gathering firewood, cooking food, improving my camp, and preparing for the hard winter to come.

I felt the weight of my solitude, and although I’d been showing a brave face to Woolly when I told him I needed some me-time, I hadn’t been completely disingenuous. In the prison I’d learned to be alone with myself, an ability that I found valuable. And I considered searching out the other camp, maybe just for a visit, but I decided it really would be best to give myself some time. I felt like a screw-up, a failure, someone who just made things worse for others.

For their sake, I would stay away.

And so I set out to keep busy, take care of business, and be content. I chopped wood, stacking up a supply against the cold. I set snares for rabbits, thinking I might make myself a rabbit-fur comforter. I didn’t catch any rabbits, but my luck was better with the fish. At first, I could catch one or two per day, but later I caught more, and it didn’t take as long. In any way possible, I tried to live off the land.

At night, I fell into bed with not an ounce of remaining energy, and I slept soundly.

Each day seemed to get colder. I sealed up and secured my tent until it was as warm as I thought it could be. I piled up firewood and even experimented with dried fish.

On some nights, however, sleep wouldn’t come despite my exhaustion. The few crickets that were still chirping reminded me of the klaxon that wailed out the night Ruby’s team had rescued me and Chase and Arie. That reminded me that someone had been shot and killed that night. And that reminded me of what they told me about before—how I’d put Ruby’s entire camp in danger, and how people had died in the raid that followed.

Chase had told me that I was a cog in an evil machine that I couldn’t control. He said that I couldn’t take so much responsibility. It had weighed on my conscience, but I had listened to and very much appreciated what Chase had said. It had helped me to push it out of my mind.

But now, all alone in a quiet, secluded place, I could not stop my mind from opening up the box and sorting the pieces of these events as though they were shipments I’d received. I examined every item in every package.

I wasn’t told who had died. I purposely did not ask. I wouldn’t have remembered them anyway, but at the time, I thought it would be easier to not know.

Now, I wanted to know. Not just their names, I wanted to know everything about them. What they looked like. Who they loved. What their dreams were. I felt it was part of the burden I needed to carry.

As the days wore on and light snowstorms blew through my little valley, an ache began to form inside me. I wanted to make things right, or at least better, but I knew I never could. How can you bring back something that’s gone? You can’t. I knew. I sniffed. My nose was already runny from the colder air. And sometimes, as I reflected on the people whose deaths I was responsible for, hot tears ran down my cold cheeks.

Almost a foot of snow fell, and it stayed. My camp was ready—I had firewood, a little dried fish, and I was even able to trap a few rabbits and wing some grouse. I’d barely put a dent in the supplies Ruby had given me.

But my mind was constantly whirling. How could I fix what I’d done? And always the answer was that, without the benefit of a time machine, I couldn’t. I lay in bed, not sleeping. With snow on the ground it was utterly quiet outside while my thoughts clamored inside my head. In some ways I welcomed the hurt and the anguish. I deserved the pain and accepted it. But there was nothing I could do with it. That was the problem. I could not trade places with those who had suffered, and I couldn’t otherwise reverse their suffering.

One morning, I went to the spring and hauled a three-day supply of water through the cold. Then I hiked a mile to the nearest creek and caught fish, chopped firewood even though I didn’t really need any, and set new rabbit snares in a wide circuit around the forest. I returned to camp in the dark, lit the coals in my little stove until the tent was hot, ate a big dinner of canned food, and lay down on my cot. Sleep came, finally, but before dawn the next morning I was visited by terrible dreams, ghostly images of dead people, those who I knew I was responsible for. They gathered around my tent, their fingers stretched out and pointing at me. Men and women, young and old. They came into my tent and pointed their fingers at me.

“You,” they said, one by one.

“You.”

“You.”

I woke abruptly, covered with sweat. The stove had gone cold. I lay back down and pulled my blankets up around my ears, but sleep did not come back. I lay on the cot with my eyes closed, but I was awake with my thoughts. When the sun rose, I knew I should get up. I needed to light the stove so that my water didn’t freeze. I needed to eat. I needed to check my tent lines and stakes to make sure they were secure against future snowfall.

But I was numb—the guilt had finally caught up to me. And so I didn’t get up. I just stared at the side of my tent, watching the sunlight move across it. I got up at some point to pee, but then I went right back to bed. I didn’t have the energy for anything. Eventually, I even quit thinking about anything. I’d shut down.

It was in the afternoon that I heard the vehicle. I don’t know if it was that same day or if another day or more had passed. I was in a mental fog.

The vehicle was obviously a truck with low gearing, something that could climb the logging road. At first it was far away, at the bottom of the hill, grumbling up the steep grade and through the slippery snow. It was at least something for my mind to focus on. I listened but didn’t move from my cot.

Was it an Agency detachment, rounding up stragglers from the summer’s raids? Was it Woolly, coming to check on me? I’d left him with the impression that I’d be fine, and he’d be disappointed to find me this way.

The truck neared. I could picture it at the clearing where the road stopped. Through the clear, cold air, I heard the engine stop. Then there was the thunking of doors. I may have heard a voice. Then the vehicle started again and slowly receded.

Silence again. I didn’t respond. I didn’t care.

But soon I heard a new sound. Boots crunching on snow, approaching. They came closer. First, they were at the edge of the woods, then they came down the trail to my camp, and to the front of my tent. I stayed quiet, not because of fear but because I simply didn’t care what happened next. Friend or assassin—what difference would it make? Someone fiddled and fumbled with the front flap of my tent. The outer fly was opened and there came the heavy metallic buzz of the heavy brass zipper being drawn open.

It was Chase.

Forty-Nine

“Hey, Al,” said Chase.

It surprised me so much that for a moment I didn’t respond. I blinked my eyes and tried to puzzle out if he were really there and, if so, why.

“Al? You okay?

“Yeah,” I finally said.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said again.

I felt that I’d reached some new low, some rock-bottom. At least in the prison I was looking for ways to survive. Now I was lying in bed wondering how long it’d be before the winter took me. And I’m sure I looked low. My heart broke at the sight of Chase.

He stood in the tent, taking in the scene. My red and swollen crying eyes, my matted hair.

“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

He didn’t have a ready answer. I wondered if Ruby had sent him. Or Woolly. Someone had brought him here. I wondered if they’d changed their minds; if they would let me back in. Was he bringing a message from them?

“Can I sit down?” he asked.

I didn’t move, but I nodded, and he perched himself awkwardly on the edge of the cot. He was sitting on one of my feet, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Did Ruby send you?” I asked.

“Uh, no,” said Chase. “In fact, she kind of ordered me not to come here.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked again.

He pursed his lips and scratched his beard, as though he’d been asking himself the same question.

“They’re leaving,” said Chase. “Ruby’s group. They’re packing up heading east.”

I nodded. “Ruby told me,” I said.

“Yeah. Well, I don’t feel like I belong with them,” said Chase.

“You don’t?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t know them. They don’t know me. Or, I should say, they know some older version of me, someone I don’t know.” Chase was quiet then. I still didn’t understand why he was here, so I asked him a third time.

“So—what are you doing here?”

He looked at me—right into my eyes. It felt as though he really knew me, didn’t just recognize me, didn’t just consider me an acquaintance, but actually knew me. But that wasn’t possible. His memories had been wiped the same as mine and we’d barely spent any time together at the camp. There was an unspoken intensity in his looks that gave me goosebumps.

“I—can’t really explain it,” he said. “When Woolly got back, I asked him where you were and I just felt like I needed to be with you.”

“What for?”

He looked away then. “I don’t know. I mean maybe I do, but I don’t.”

His responses irked me. There was something else I wanted him to say. Something else I was longing to hear, but he hadn’t said it.

“I don’t need your help,” I said sharply.

“Of course not,” he said. “Your camp looks incredible. The tent facing south. Got your little stove in here. Looks like you have enough firewood for a year. And that firepit outside, I mean. Wow.”

“Woolly helped a lot.”

“Still. It’s really great.”

“So?”

“So, I guess what I mean is, I think maybe I need your help.”

“With what?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling I have that I should stick by you. That with you is where I need to be. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?” He squinted his eyes at me. “Alison, have you been crying?”

“You’re just now noticing?”

“What’s wrong?”

I stared at the floor of my tent. “I killed them.”

“Who?”

“The people from camp, when I let Ruby’s prisoner go, and the man who died when they were rescuing us.”

“You didn’t kill them,” said Chase. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Don’t tell me that. My actions led to their deaths,” I said. “It was my fault. I know it. Ruby knows it. You know it. Their lives are over.”

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

“I should turn myself over to the Agency,” I said. “I don’t deserve to be happy.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you not remember what it was like there? Seems like a mighty big waste—these people sacrificing their lives for you to just throw yours away. You don’t deserve that.”

“Well, what can I do? How can I make it better?”

Chase put his hand on my shoulder. “Did you ever consider that we aren’t always supposed to make things better? That maybe that’s part the experience of life?”

“No! I did this, Chase! I did it. I can’t just move on,” I cried, raising my voice. “I can’t just say it was an accident or that it doesn’t matter. I can’t forget it!”

“Then don’t,” Chase said. “Remember them; don’t forget them.”

“But I don’t remember,” I said.

“Good point. Listen, Al, you’ve been put in prison, you’ve been banished. If you ask me, you’ve paid the price. If you really think there is something you can do, then figure it out and use that to move forward.” He pulled me up and into his arms. I collapsed into the hollow of his shoulder and cried.

“When will it stop hurting?” I sobbed.

“I don’t think something like this will stop hurting,” he said. “You just gotta make room for it.”

Chase held me for a long time, until I stopped crying, and then he made us some tea on the rusty little stove. The tent got warm, and we sipped the tea, and I started feeling better. We went out to my firepit and lit a big fire. We sat side by side on the log bench Woolly had built.

“You really have an impressive stockpile of firewood,” he said. “You certainly have not been lying in bed this whole time.”

I showed him my hands and the big gray callouses that had formed on my palms. Chase took my hand and kneaded the muscles between his fingers. His hands were rough, too, but warm and gentle as well.

We laid on more wood and the flames rose up brightly, pushing back the descending gloom of late afternoon.

“I brought some food with me,” he said, nodding at the giant backpack he’d set outside the tent. “But you’re doing fine. You’re curing fish?” He gestured at my drying rack.

I nodded.

“How’s it taste?”

I shrugged.

He walked over and plucked one of the pale fillets from a bundle. He had a bite and nodded approvingly before rejoining me on the bench.

“Have more. I’ve got plenty. Canned food, too.”

He sipped his tea with a thoughtful look on his face. “So, you’d really consider going to the Agency and having your memories wiped to forget alla that?”

I nodded uncertainly.

He looked at me sadly, and with pity.

“Forgetting doesn’t change the past. It doesn’t erase it from happening. It wouldn’t change anything except you wouldn’t know it.” He sipped again. “Wouldn’t you rather know?”

“It just hurts so much,” I said, and my chin quivered as I spoke. “Out here, where it’s so quiet, and there’s no one to talk with, I just think about it all the time.”

“Like I said, you’ve paid your price. Or you’re paying it. That’s the cost of life. When we make mistakes, we have to feel them, own them. That’s what makes us human.”

His words were reaching me somehow. That maybe my punishment, my real punishment, would be to remember—to know that I’d cost lives—but maybe it could be a blessing too. It certainly made me acutely aware of the value of life.

“Besides,” said Chase with a wink and a wry grin. “Who knows what other mistakes we’ve made?” He reached over and clinked his mug against mine.

I smiled for the first time in a long time. Then I remembered what they often said in the camp.

“Well,” I said, “maybe someday we’ll remember.”

Fifty

Among the provisions Chase had brought with him there was tea. Real tea. Not the stale and doubtful leaf shreds in metal tins we’d hijacked from the Agency’s always-disappointing food rations. This was from the back before, in a brightly colored (though battered and worn) box. It was probably stale, too, but it was so flavorful and different I either couldn’t tell or didn’t care. I rationed it carefully.

Chase had not brought enough food with him to support even himself alone for the winter, but he had a rifle for hunting game and a wrist rocket to shoot smaller prey. He said if he hadn’t found me or if I didn’t want him to stay, he’d plan to stay on the move, hunting and camping and moving southward to warmer climes.

But I wanted him to stay and he moved in. We settled into the harsher routine of winter living, working together, sharing chores, sharing our warmth. It was good. We read to each other and laughed and sat together staring at the fire.

Still, the thought of the people who’d had lost their lives—sixteen of them to be exact—was never far from my mind. When Chase made me laugh or when the sky turned crimson as the sun went down, I thought of those people and how they would not laugh anymore or mark the beauty of a sunset. I got accustomed to carrying them with me—whoever they were—but it got easier, especially with Chase around.

I discovered that when two people live together with no one else around—they develop a very strong bond. In the few weeks since Chase had joined me, we had grown so close. He’d come back from a full day of fishing or hunting, and just the sight of him would make me warm and happy, and I couldn’t help myself from smiling.

We knew, of course, that we had been a couple before. And so to us it seemed that we were fated to be together. It also seemed to us that we’d somehow been given our relationship all over again—it was something that had been taken and returned. It was new and fun and a sort of daily delight to learn each other’s ways, to adapt to each other. Even when we quarreled, there was a chemistry, an intensity.

“I don’t remember anything from before,” Chase said one night as he pulled me closer on the bench by the fire, “but right now it kinda feels like we’ve always been together.”

“Mm,” I said, leaning into him.

What I liked the most is that our love seemed more powerful than anything. Stronger than anything. The pandemic couldn’t kill it. The Agency could erase it. Ruby couldn’t banish it. Winter couldn’t freeze it.

And as I emerged from the cold cage of guilt that I’d built there in the woods, I realized there was another, sweeter ache I carried with me. At first, I didn’t want to mention it to Chase. I didn’t want him to think I was just one big collection of complaints and hurts and wants. But as my love for Chase grew and grew, there was something missing. Someone.

Arie.

At first, I just read and re-read his journals. I’d rest from our chores and find a sunny spot where it might get warm. I’d daydream about fixing bikes with him and collecting chicken eggs. I read scenes where we dodged Agency goons and searched old abandoned neighborhoods. It was strange—imagining being the person in those journals, even though I really was that person.

Soon I began talking about Arie a lot with Chase.

“How’d he seem when you left?” I asked.

“He seemed okay,” said Chase. “He was excited for the adventure, the exodus. That kid craves adventure.”

“Mm. Did he seem like he missed me at all?”

“Oh, he interrogated Woolly for a couple days after he got back from setting you up out here—how you handled it, where he’d brought you, asked about the camp.”

“What else?”

“He was sorry you couldn’t come along,” said Chase.

“He said that, or you’re just guessing?”

“He said it. Said it to me, to Woolly.”

“So, he did miss me.”

“I mean, we all did. But yeah, he missed you. He not only said so, but I could tell, too.”

It also felt strange to pine for Arie because he was as much a stranger to me as anyone else I’d met since coming out of the prison, including Chase. And Arie had decided for himself not to join me. I didn’t hesitate when it came time to accept his decision, but I was his mother. And I clung to that role, and although it felt like a chair I was saving for someone else, I was glad I was Arie’s mother.

What I didn’t do was read the coded notebook Woolly had given me along with the journals. I had grown afraid of what the strange red notebook might contain. Judging from what Woolly had said, the information in the red notebook had led me to do the things I’d done to get myself exiled in the first place. Woolly had been provocative when he pointed out the red notebook. He’d made a playful, teasing effort to tempt me into reading it, but that’d had the opposite effect. I took the white skull symbol as a warning, as a caution. I’d put the red notebook on the bottom of the pile and I had never even opened it.

And so it was a surprise when I found Chase reading it one day when I returned from checking my rabbit snares. He was boiling grouse bones for stew stock, and he sat near the fire studying a page of the strange text.

“What are you doing?” I said, dropping my captured rabbits into the snow and feeling slightly panicked. “Why are you reading that?”

“You’ve never read it?” Chase asked.

“No,” I said, “and I don’t want to.”

“Why not?” He furrowed his brow.

“Because it’s nothing but trouble.”

“Al,” Chase said, shutting the notebook, “I think we need to talk.”

Fifty-One

I’m not sure I would have gotten out of bed ever again if Chase hadn’t appeared, and I know I wouldn’t have read Arie’s coded notebook if Chase hadn’t read it first.

“What’s in it?” I had asked him. “What is it about this mysterious notebook?”

“Well, it’s information, Al. It’s a story.”

“Are you being purposely vague?”

“I guess I am,” Chase replied.

“Why? Why can’t you just tell me what’s in it?”

“Let me ask you a question before I answer,” said Chase. “Why haven’t you read it? You’ve been here all this time without reading it—why?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. And I meant it. Why hadn’t I read it? “I guess I thought reading it might be kind of, you know, dangerous. I thought it might nudge me into my old reckless and headstrong ways, which apparently has gotten me into more trouble than I can remember.”

“Fair enough,” Chase said thoughtfully. “So, would you like me to tell you what the notebook’s about?”

“Well, was there anything in it you found useful?” I asked, eying the notebook as though it might be a viper.

“Yes,” he said. “In fact, calling it useful would be putting it mildly.”

I folded my arms. Then unfolded them. I sat on the log bench. I stood up. Then I paced for a few moments. Then I sat down again and folded my arms. Chase sat watching me. I stood up again.

“Al, hold still for a sec.”

I stood still.

“I think you should read this.” Chase held out the notebook.

I took it.

I read it until the light failed, and then I did something I hadn’t done before: I lit a light. I had a few tallow candles from Ruby’s camp, along with a small bottle of kerosene and a lamp with a rough cotton wick, but I hadn’t used either until then. I’d been reserving them, knowing the days in winter would get shorter and darker and I’d need them then. As Chase lay dozing on the cot, I lit a candle and sat in my camp chair with a kettle of tea.

I read about Arie and the man who’d been attacked and left for dead, Eudrich. I read about the Agency’s attempts to restore memories. I read about various experiments they conducted and their failed attempts, and then about somewhat successful attempts. The language in the journal was often technical with scientific words difficult for me to follow or understand.

A lot of it had information we’d already been told—from Ruby or Woolly—and most of it was fairly dry and boring, not like the journals Arie and I had written, which I found completely engrossing and fascinating.

At one point I almost gave up reading the rest, as though it were a dull pulp novel or tedious history book. But then the story moved from medical experiments and chemical formulas and on to Eurdrich’s theories about memories that were more esoteric and philosophical.

Arie had learned that a group of about six people who’d been captured and arrested on some charge of thievery or subversion. This had happened in the Zone where Arie and I had once lived together, where we wrote our journals. The six people were imprisoned, of course, and they were, in Eudrich’s words, “closely examined.” Arie understood this to mean that they were questioned under duress. Tortured. And in the course of these close examinations, it was discovered that they had all of their memories. All of them. They remembered everything that had ever happened to them—before the serum, before the pandemic, and on back to their childhoods. The Agency records were consulted and re-consulted—these people had escaped from the Zones, after all, and should not have remembered anything but the past year of their lives. Even Agency personnel had lost their memories of the back before. And yet, the six remembered everything.

How had they gotten their memories back, Eudrich wanted to know, even after being dosed again and again?

They wouldn’t say at first. Eudrich said the examinations were “intensified,” which Arie took to mean life-threatening torture. And finally, they revealed their secret.

There was a man, said the six, who had a way to restore memories. This man, a recluse who they referred to as “the Guide.” did not use medicine. The encoded text was infuriatingly incomplete in this section of the notebook, and there were notes in the margins from Woolly explaining that transcription errors in the code had likely made these parts of the notebook untranslatable. And so there were several passages that were not decoded, and some had only fragments of decoded text, such as “when you make your secret journey,” and “walking with oneself” over some kind of “higher path.”

And there was this cryptic line: “Memory is not a matter of thinking of something that happened in the past. It is a matter of discovering oneself. To recall, you must discover.”

After studying with the Guide, after taking this so-called secret journey, the six had regained all of their memories, and the first thing they wanted to do was to return to the Zones to collect the friends and family members they now recalled with perfect clarity. But this was their downfall, because of course those they came back to rescue did not know them and did not trust them.

Tragically, they’d probably been reported by one of their own family members or friends, and this is what had led to their initial capture by the Agency.

The candle was burning low now, and it was very late, but I read furiously, my breath shallow. The Agency pressed the same question that I now had: Where was the Guide? Where could he be found?

The six refused to say. They would not give up their guide. The closest they ever got to a real answer was from one of the six, a man who was apparently quite old. Just before he died while being “examined,” he told the Agency the guide lived “deep in the forest, on the mountain of the bear.” The remaining five were also killed while imprisoned—Arie assumed they, too, were tortured to death.

At this I gasped, and something inside me awakened. I didn’t take time to think about it, didn’t even really acknowledge it at that moment, but on some level I knew it was the drive I’d had before, the urge to make things right, the urge that had led me to trouble again and again. I read on.

A search was made for this “mountain of the bear,” but nothing came of it. Sure, there were several mountains with “bear” or “grizzly” in their map names. They searched anywhere there was a road, town, river, or even trail that had anything to do with Bears.

The Guide was never found.

Instead, Arie postulated, this was how certain individuals within the Agency’s medical core, such as Eudrich and Bellington, were first alerted to the possibility of total memory restoration. Hypnosis? Exposure to familiar stimulus? Drugs? The information squeezed out the six under “intense examination” generated several hypothetical lines of research and testing began for ways to restore memories.

I read these pages furiously, my heart beating hard and an excitement growing within me.

“Chase,” I called, kicking the cot.

Chase mumbled and rolled over. He hiked himself up on one elbow and squinted against the candle light.

“You read this? About the Guide? About the man in the mountains?”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

“Well?”

“Well, I thought you’d find it very interesting,” he said. “That’s why I suggested that you read it.”

“Yes, but do you think there is really a man living in the mountains who can restore memories?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think he really lives in the mountains? Like these mountains where we are?”

“Yeah, I do.”

My body, my whole soul, felt energized. As if this whole time I’d been sleeping and only now had awaken.

“Well, how could we ever find him?” I said, feigning my skepticism. “I mean, it says here that they sent out search parties all over the place. They searched every bear place they could find, and they came up empty.”

Chase shrugged and said, “I think I know where he is.”

“What? Where?”

He stood, stretched, and then went to his backpack. “Al, I’ve forgotten everything about my past. Who I was, where I came from, what I did before—it’s all gone. But there’s a few things I know about me. One thing: I like maps. I’m fascinated by maps. I like looking at ’em, I find it easy to read them, and once I see something on a map, I remember it.”

“Okay. That’s nice. So?”

He drew a folded map from a pocket in the pack, sat on the cot, and unfolded it on his lap.

“I, uhm, ‘borrowed’ some maps from Woolly and Ruby’s stash,” he said. “They’re old. They’ll never miss ’em.”

I wanted him to hurry and show me whatever it was he wanted to show me, but I didn’t want to interrupt. He must have read this on my face.

“I’m getting to the point he said,” holding up a finger. “As soon as I read that this Guide fella lived on the ‘mountain of the bear,’ I knew where it was. I knew I’d seen it before on a map. A map of this area.”

He unfolded his map. It was deeply creased and worn. Some of it was only faintly legible. Chase picked up the candle, held it near, and pointed to a spot on the map. To me, maps were confusing conglomerations of lines and contours and colors. I didn’t have a good mind for scales or grids or terrain. I was more into landmarks, more of a “turn-left-at-the-big-crooked-pine-tree” sort of navigator, and I had to really try hard to find my way by maps. But I looked at the place on the map where Chase pointed. I could tell it was a mountain within a larger region of mountainous country. The whole space was covered with snaking contour lines stacked closely and precisely together, a two-dimensional representation of very three-dimensional ground. Chase tapped the map.

“This says Caspian Peak,” I said. “What’s it got to do with a bear?”

“Look closer,” said Chase, holding the candle closer. “Look at the lines.”

I looked. A few drops of tallow dripped from the candle onto the map. With my eyes, I followed the contours, blinking, squinting. Chase’s finger guided my gaze. Then I began to see what he meant.

“The bear,” said Chase in a whisper.

I saw it. Goosebumps formed on my arms and neck. Caspian Peak was shaped uncannily like a bear. Its valleys and draws and ridges outlined the body, legs, and head of a galloping bear.

It was the Mountain of the Bear.

Fifty-Two

We left the next day. There wasn’t any question of whether we should go. We didn’t even really discuss it. Instead, we immediately went to sleep and in the morning there was tea and a little breakfast and we loaded our packs. I wrote a note for Woolly and tucked it under a broad, flat rock on the firepit.

By midday we were on the trail.

The Mountain of the Bear was a mere twenty-five miles away. I had to believe that there had to be a time in my life when I thought at the very least that twenty-five miles through a rugged wilderness was a long way to hike. In a past life, I may even have thought it was impossible to make such a journey, especially with the cold weather and snow. But on that day, I knew it would take only three days—two days if the weather was good. It would be a cold trip, to be sure. And there was a very good chance that we’d encounter a storm or two. If it got bad enough, we’d have to hunker down and wait it out, but we wouldn’t stop altogether. We were going to the Mountain of the Bear.

We hiked with determined quickness for about two hours without saying much of anything. If there was any talking, it was about the trail.

“I think the trail turns back south up ahead, but it’ll be hard to see under this snow, so keep your eyes open.”

“Okay, will do.”

As we stopped for a breather and filled our water bottles at a stream crossing, I finally asked the question I knew we both were turning over in our minds.

“What are the chances?” I asked between gulps of water.

“Chances of what?” replied Chase.

“You know what I mean,” I said. “What are the chances?”

“That he’ll be there? That we’ll find him?”

I nodded, gulped my water.

“Well,” said Chase, “that’s a question within a question within a question, isn’t it?” He drank a mouthful of water and then wiped his beard with the back of his gloved hand. “First, is this really the Mountain of the Bear? Second, if it is, is the Guide still there or has he moved or died or been captured? And third, if this is the right mountain, and if he’s still here, can we locate him? I mean even narrowing the search area to the mountain that has the vague shape of the bear itself, we’re still dealing with something like ten square miles. That’s an almost impossible area for two people to search. And what if he wasn’t really at the Mountain of the Bear, but that was just a landmark? What if he’s somewhere in the twenty square miles surrounding that particular mountain?”

I shrugged.

“So, I guess it’s three questions wrapped up in a fourth,” said Chase, looking off toward the mountain.

“Then why are we doing this?” I said, again, faking a tone of skepticism to keep my own hopes at a manageable level.

“Doesn’t hurt to try,” said Chase turning back to me with a sarcastic grin. He clunked his water bottle against mine in a chilly, trail side toast, and we were off again.

We encountered a storm. Big flakes of early winter snow pounded the area, left another foot of snow. We trudged through it. We kept walking until it was almost too dark to see, and then even I was ready to stop. With the snow on the trails it was difficult enough to find our way. They were slippery, too. It was a miracle we didn’t fall and break our necks in the daylight; we couldn’t continue in the dark.

We found a level spot in the woods, tramped down a flat spot in the snow, and built the small tent Chase had brought with him. We took off our boots but left our snow clothes on and wiggled into our sleeping bags. Chase threw a mylar-coated emergency blanket over us to trap our heat, and then we lay on our sides, close together in the small tent.

“There’s another question to answer here, ya know,” said Chase. He lay behind me, one arm around my middle. “One that’s arguably bigger and more important than finding the Guide.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Do you want to remember?”

I would have thought that was an easy question. In fact I almost blurted, “Of course I do!” Who wouldn’t want to remember? But I didn’t say that. Because it honestly was a question I hadn’t answered yet. A question I hadn’t truly asked yet.

I knew why Chase has raised the question. He raised it because we were okay, he and I. We were happy. We had been together before, and we had either found one another again or had been thrust together, depending how you viewed it. But we were together, and we were happy. We stayed busy, we helped one another, and at the end of the day we collapsed into one another’s arms and slept peacefully. And it sometimes felt like we could go on that way for a very long time.

So, what did I need from the past? What could knowing about my past do for me now?

It was easy to think our memories would be nothing but happy times and delight, but I knew better now. A person can’t live through a pandemic without witnessing suffering or without feeling pain. I knew there was loss back there in the back before.

There may or may not be happy memories, but there would undoubtedly be sorrow and pain and suffering. I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember. Knowing that I’d been responsible for the deaths of others was already a heavy burden that affected me daily. What if there was more? What if I’d made even bigger mistakes?

Chase waited in the darkness as I considered these things.

I turned to him. “I’m not sure,” I finally said.

“I know,” he said. “It’s okay. I’ll be with you whatever you decide. My choice is to stay with you.”

Over the next two days of hiking, what I couldn’t discount was the excitement that I felt every time I thought about finding the Guide. I may have been theoretically or psychologically or intellectually unsure about the prospect of remembering everything, but my heart was all in. My mind pulled on the reins; my feelings cracked the whip.

I wondered sometimes if subconsciously we still knew everything, still made decisions based on our previous experiences. I may have believed that to be true, but which direction was my subconscious leading me? My heart pounded, and I felt full of life when I thought about getting my memories back. But it was always followed by a queasiness in my stomach, a feeling of dread and regret.

But in the end, I knew what I had to do.

“I’ve decided,” I told Chase.

“Great,” said Chase. “But this means we’ll have to hurry. The later it gets the harder it will be to find Arie.”

I scoffed in disbelief.

“That’s what you meant, right? That you want to re-unite with Arie? Convince him to stay with us?”

“I didn’t realize I was that easy to read.”

Chase exhaled. “You’re his mom, Al. Despite what you do or don’t remember or whatever the relationship has been lately, it’s obvious. I don’t think that’s something they’ve been able to erase out of you. Or maybe it’s because I’m almost as good at reading people as I am at reading maps. But I agree with your plan. We find the Guide, then we find Arie.”

I nodded. “He’s free to make his own choices, but if we find the Guide, and if he can do what the notebook says he can do, I think it’s imperative that I let Arie know. Is that selfish?”

“No. How could it be selfish?”

I couldn’t put it into words exactly, so I just shrugged. There was one thing I wanted desperately, and that was for Arie to remember me.

“Like I said, though, we have to hurry. Ruby’s got her plans to head east. I figured she was gonna need at least two months to get ready for that, which doesn’t give us much time. We’ll have to hustle.”

Fifty-Three

After the first day of our hike to find the Guide, Chase went back to warning me not to get my hopes up, even though I could tell he himself wasn’t taking this advice.

“I mean, look at this terrain,” he said as we trudged through the snow. “With the weather holding us back, and so much area to search, I don’t want to say it’s hopeless, Al, but I sure as hell ain’t hopeful.”

We were relying on fragments of rumors and hearsay, Chase reminded me, and we had re-assembled those fragments in the most optimistic way possible.

“I’m telling you right now, it could take weeks to find this guy, and we don’t have weeks. So keep your expectations low,” said Chase. “Very low.”

And I’d already adopted that outlook on my own—trying to convince myself that nothing would come of this—but I was only saying it to protect myself, and alongside my innermost thoughts, I couldn’t stop those hopes from rising secretly up, the way a helium balloon keeps floating up when batted down.

But all of the hedging and expectation management turned out to be for nothing. We didn’t so much find the Guide as he led us to himself. It appeared he wanted to be found.

It started with the sound of chimes. There were wind chimes hanging from high in the trees. First just one, and then one every mile or so, and then more. Some were made of delicate metallic slivers that rang and jangled ethereally with the slightest motion. Others were made of wood that made hollow, clonking notes. Some of the chimes were like those you’d find on a back porch; others were just tied-together collections of metal and glass that made discordant clankings.

After a while we saw strands of yarn and ribbon tied around branches, hanging down over the trail, and tied like fencing between tree trunks to guide searchers. Some of these trail markings looked to have been there for years.

Chase and I said almost nothing, but we exchanged amazed glances as we felt ourselves getting closer and closer to the Guide.

And then we found the camp.

It was a small oval-shaped glade in the trees. Not a clearing, exactly, but a place where the trees were larger and the forest floor was more open, with no undergrowth. It was an oval about three hundred feet long and maybe two hundred feet wide. At the center of this camp there stood a massive tee-pee, its outer skin made of canvas and animal hide. Long, slender pine trunks held it up, converging high in the canopy. The tapered ends mingled with the branches. There were more wind chimes here, creating an unending, atonal musical chord.

The tee-pee dwarfed several other tents, which had been erected in a rough circle around it. They were of various kinds—canvas, vinyl, and makeshift lean-to’s constructed from blue tarps. Some of them had been there long enough that they were anchored to the ground by grass and accumulated pine-needle duff.

The snow cover was only just a dusting here beneath the massive pine trees. Chase and I trudged toward the tee-pee with our heavy packs and our breath smoking in the cold.

Outside the tee-pee there was a large, ornate rug. On the rug there was a man seated cross-legged.

The Guide.

He was dressed in simple, coarse clothing—a loose woolen tunic and roomy, natural-cotton pants. He wore no shoes. His long, silvery hair was pulled back into a ponytail. His arms were outstretched so that his upturned hands rested on his knees, fingers touching thumbs. His head was slightly bowed and his eyes were shut.

Chase and I stopped about twenty feet from the man, waiting for him to notice us, but he sat completely still.

I set my backpack on the ground. The vinyl fabrics swished and zipped and the backpack thudded into the snow, disrupted the tinkling chimes and the generally serene setting. Then Chase took off his backpack in a similar noisy fashion. We exchanged a look. The man still had not looked up, had not done anything to acknowledge that two strangers were now standing in front of him.

“Should we say something?” I whispered to Chase.

“No,” Chase whispered back. “Let him finish.”

The man let out a rough sigh. “I can hear you,” he said.

He opened his eyes and stood up.

“Sorry,” I said. “We didn’t mean to interrupt.”

He smiled accommodatingly, but didn’t answer us. Instead, he rolled up his rug and headed for the tee-pee.

I approached him, my mouth suddenly dry and my breath ragged in my windpipe.

“Hey, uh, hi,” I said. “I’m Alison, and that’s Chase. We’ve been looking for you.”

He stopped walking and turned to me. “Looking for me? Who do you think I am?”

“Well, uh, what I meant was—”

“You said you were looking for me, right?” he said. “You must know who I am, then.”

“No,” I stammered. “Not exactly. It’s just—we heard there was a man here who knew how to restore lost memories.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“Well, can you?” asked Chase.

“Can I what?”

“Can you help restore lost memories?” said Chase, with an impatient buzz in his voice.

“You’ve lost your memories?” said the man with a bemused smile. “Where? How? Did you leave them at the bus station? Did they fall out of your backpacks?”

Chase and I traded a perplexed glance. It was like talking to the Cheshire Cat. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed with us, or if he was only joking, or if he was being completely serious. Chase was about to answer—angrily, I suspected—so I stopped him by placing my hand on his forearm.

“I’m sorry,” I cut in, smiling. “We’re being impolite. We haven’t even met you, and we don’t know your name.”

“Peter,” he said.

“Peter,” I said, “it’s a pleasure. My name is—”

“Alison, yes,” said Peter, “I heard you. And that is Chase. Hello. Nice to meet you both. Nice day, don’t you think?”

“Oh!” I said. “Yes. Well, it’s rather cold. But yes, lovely, I suppose.”

Peter nodded, surveyed the sky that shone through the trees. He stood barefoot in the snow with no apparent discomfort.

“Al!” grumbled Chase.

I shushed him. “So, Peter. Is it true? Can you restore our memories?”

“Restore your memories?” he said, furrowing his brow. He seemed bemused. “No. I can’t do that.” He turned and ducked through a canvas flap into the tee-pee.

Chase picked up his pack again. “I don’t think that’s the Guide,” said Chase.

I put my hand on Chase’s arm. “Hold on,” I said. “Look at this place. If this guy isn’t the Guide, then there is no Guide. We’ve come so far. We can’t just leave. Maybe he’s not the Guide. Maybe he tells us where the Guide is. The guide that leads us to the Guide?”

“I really feel like we need to talk to him. Let’s give him a day or two.”

Chase shrugged and then let out a sigh.

We picked up our packs and approached the tee-pee.

“Uhm, Peter?”

“Yes, come in,” he said.

We pushed aside the canvas door and went in. The interior of the tee-pee wasn’t what I figured it would be. It was roomy and tidy, with a clean floor of tarpaulins and animal furs. On one side was a bed. On the other side there stood a small table. There was a fire in the center of the floor, and it was comfortably warm inside, but it wasn’t at all smoky. A little smoke came from the coals of the fire, but it was drawn up through a vent at the top of the tee-pee, which also let in plenty of light. Peter sat near the fire, a small book in his hands.

“Take off your boots, please,” said Peter politely, “and then join me. I was going to do a little reading, but I enjoy company, too.”

We took off our boots and sat at the fire across from Peter.

“Peter,” I said, “we don’t want to keep disrupting your routine, so we won’t stay long, but, may we camp here for a while?”

“I don’t see why not,” he said. “There is good water nearby. I don’t have much food, but if you help with chores, I’ll share what I can.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Chase sat stony-faced next to me, watching Peter as if conducting an assessment.

“Can I offer you something to drink?” asked Peter. “The tea should be ready by now. It’s quite lovely.”

“Oh, you read my mind,” I said. “I would love some tea. Thank you. We’ll just have a cup, and then we’ll go see about our tent and such.”

“How about you, Chase?” said Peter, getting to his feet. “It’ll warm you right up.”

“No thanks,” mumbled Chase.

“Suit yourself.”

Peter stooped at the fire and lifted an iron teapot. He moved somewhat slowly but smoothly and deliberately, without wasted effort. A plume of steam rose from the spout of the pot. Peter took the pot to the table and from it he poured two cups of the tea. I stood and met him halfway across the floor of the tee-pee. He handed a cup to me, smiled, and bowed slightly to me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re most welcome.”

The tea was in a China teacup with matching saucer. Both showed signs of wear but were of very find quality, decorated by intricate and beautiful vines and flowers. I put my nose to the vapor that rose from the tea.

It smelled awful. It smelled like mud.

I sat down and, setting the saucer aside, cradled the little China cup in my hands, letting the warmth radiate up into my wrists and arms.

“So, Peter,” I said, blowing uncertainly on the tea. “How long have you been here?”

“Here?” he said, sipping from his own cup, “like what exactly do you mean?”

I chuckled. “Well,” I said, “I guess I mean how long have you been camping here? Here in the mountains. In this area.”

“Oooh,” he said, elongating the word as though he’d thought I meant something completely different. “Here. You mean like here.” He gestured broadly at the tee-pee.

Chase scoffed quietly.

“Yes,” I said.

“You know,” said Peter, “that reminds me. I went to the river one night this past autumn. It was in the evening, not too long after it got dark. Night of the full moon. Harvest moon. I went down to the river, and there’s a place there where I like to sit. It’s where the river makes a bend, and there’s a rock there that’s good for sitting. I go there a lot. I went there to watch the full moon come up. So I sat there, and the moon came up, and I had this, like, thought.”

Peter took a sip of his tea. Then he set the cup down and gazed at the fire as if maybe he had only just then realized it was there. There was a small pile of firewood nearby, and he took a few sticks and laid it on the coals.

I sat waiting for him to continue, but a minute went by, and then another. I looked at Chase. He rolled his eyes and shrugged. I looked back at Peter. He was staring at the rekindled fire now as though it were an old friend of his who was getting ready to leave him on a long journey.

“So—you had a thought?” I prompted.

“Hm?” Peter returned his gaze to me. “Oh, right! I did have a thought. At the river on the night of the harvest moon. It was a thought about here. And there. And being somewhere.”

“I’d love to hear it,” I said.

“Okay,” said Peter. He looked up at the vent at the top of the tee-pee. “Let me see if I can explain it.” He pursed his lips in concentration.

I took a little sip of the tea—and nearly spit it right back out again. It was bitter, like brackish water, but it tasted like soil, like rotten mud. No amount of honey or sugar could have improved it. I couldn’t imagine that this was how Peter meant it to taste. I held it in my mouth, trying to swallow it, but my throat reflexively constricted at the bitterness. I looked over at Peter. He was still contemplating the roof of the tee-pee, so I doubled over, pretended to cough, and spit the tea onto the canvas floor.

“All right,” said Peter. “I’ve got it.”

I sat up again.

“How wide is the universe?” asked Peter, holding his arms out questioningly.

“I have no idea,” I answered.

“No, of course not,” said Peter. “No one does, I suppose. It might be, like, infinity. It might be only approaching infinity. But if we just pick like an arbitrary distance, for the sake of argument, it’d have to be, like, big, right? Like a hundred-billion light-years? Right?”

“Sure,” I said, trying not to sound patronizing. “Works for me.”

“Okay. Good. Now, if the universe is a hundred-billion light-years across, then smaller distances mean essentially nothing, right? Like, say, two-hundred thousand miles is nothing in comparison, right? Doesn’t even count.”

I thought about this. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Okay. Good,” he said, holding up his palms. “Now, follow me down this rabbit hole. Two-hundred thousand miles is how far away the moon is from Earth. That’s the distance between me sitting on that rock and the moon itself. But, within the greater universe, which we have decided for our purposes is a hundred-billion miles wide, I am basically at the moon. Aren’t I? Like if you go to the store and you’re outside in the parking lot, you’d still say, ‘I’m at the store,’ even though you’re not, like, at the aisle where the breakfast cereal is, right? So, on a cosmic scale, I’m practically as close to the moon as I am to you or the continent of Africa. See? So, my thought was, what is the point of saying I’m here or there or anywhere? Because what if the universe in reality is so massive that even a hundred-billion light-years is a minuscule distance in comparison? Then what?”

He waited, as if I might give an answer. All I could do was blink a few times.

“I’m a point in space, Alison,” he said, putting a hand on his chest. “That’s all I can really say for sure. How long have I been here?” He shrugged. “This whole time, I guess.”

Chase said, “Huh.”

I looked at Chase, and instead of another eye-roll, he wore a thoughtful half-grin.

Then I looked back across the fire at Peter, and said, “Huh.”

Peter smiled back at us.

Fifty-Four

It went on that way for days. We’d ask Peter a question and he would answer with a rambling riddle that rarely answered the question but nevertheless made a certain kind of sense. And not just existential or philosophical questions, but practical questions.

Chase asked: “Hey, Peter, you think the fishing’s any good down below that big waterfall?”

Peter answered: “A wise man once said that the charm of catching fish is that it’s elusive but attainable. It’s an endless series of occasions for hope.”

Chase replied: “So, yes?”

I followed Peter around his camp, helped him with various tasks. Even now that there was snow on the ground, Peter was still harvesting tree bark, pine needles, and the roots of certain herbs and plants. These he dried over his fire in the tee-pee. He made a very strong liquor from juniper berries and wild grain. On the far end of the camp, Peter had built a sort of wigwam, a dome of stout, arched branches. This was covered with sod and formed a hump in the forest floor the size of a small car. On one side there was a small opening, covered by a door of densely woven willow shoots. Inside this mound it was completely dark, and the floor was covered with a fragrant black compost that was always slightly warm and steamy. A garden of mushrooms grew there—boletes, morels, and others I’d never seen. He lovingly tended the little fungi farm, harvesting only a few each day.

As I assisted Peter with these bucolic chores, I questioned him gently and obliquely about memories, about the Agency, about his life in the mountains. He didn’t exactly ignore these questions, but he’d never answer them straightforwardly. Sometimes he’d only smile at my questions, sometimes he’d just give me one of his existential answers.

“I don’t know anything about this Agency you’re always talking about,” said Peter, “but you sure seem to hate them.”

“I want to be free of the Agency,” I said.

“Ahhh,” he replied, holding up a finger, “well, you remember what Buddha said about hatred and freedom, don’t you?”

“No,” I answered.

“Oh,” said Peter. “I don’t either. I was hoping you did. It’s a really good quote. Something about chains and hatred. Oh, that’s it—hate is the ultimate chain, the ultimate enslavement.”

One day we were hiking a trail along the river where a swampy area of slow water had formed. Peter brought along an old rusty machete and a five-gallon bucket.

“I’ll show you how to harvest cattail roots,” Peter said. “They’re delicious in the fall, but you gotta get ’em before the water freezes over.”

I nodded and followed him, much less interested in cattail roots than in something, anything, he could tell us about his possible role as the Guide. He sat on the trail and shucked his boots and socks, and then rolled up his trouser legs to wade into the frigid, slow-moving water.

“How do you feel about memories, Peter?” I asked him. “Do you think memories are important?”

Peter pulled up one stalk and then another. “Well, Alison, life is just a series of moments, right? Like one moment followed by another, followed by another after that. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“But you can only actually, like, live in one moment at a time, right? The same way I can pull up only one of these roots at a time. Once I pull up this root, I can’t pull it up again, and I can only pull up the next root after I’ve finished with this one. I pull up the roots one at a time.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he continued, “so, do you agree that you can only really live in one moment at a time, the present moment?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then, try doing that.”

When he’d collected a few armfuls of the cattails, he hacked away the stalks with the machete and tossed the starchy, potato-like roots (”rhizomes,” he called them) into the bucket. I said I’d carry the bucket and Peter thanked me and put his socks and boots back on. We were walking back toward camp when Peter paused and gazed with a pleased expression at a large aspen tree that grew at the side of the trail. It was nearly as big around as me. I stopped behind him with the bucket full of muddy roots.

Peter stood there for a long moment, staring at the tree trunk and smiling. Then he patted the tree, nodded, and went on. I stepped up to the aspen tree and examined it. The white bark shone in the mid-morning sunshine, contrasting with its own coarse, black markings. There didn’t seem to be anything special about the tree, and I was almost ready to interpret the incident as part of Peter’s love for just about everything around us—trees, rocks, birds, small twigs, dirt—when I noticed something.

In the convolutions of the white and black aspen bark, there was the shape of a heart, a valentine heart. At first I figured it was just a large, heart-shaped knot, a happenstance of how the tree bark had formed, but then I saw that within the heart there were letters, words. They were only barely legible, but they spelled out:

PETER

MARY

It looked as if the folds and ridges of bark had grown the letters, but my mouth fell slowly opened and I blinked in amazement as I realized the more astonishing truth: Peter had carved the heart and the names into the smooth white bark long, long ago, and the bark had healed around the carving until the scar looked like it had grown there naturally.

But how long ago must his have been? More than a decade. Maybe more than two.

I hurried down the trail. “Peter!” I cried.

He slowed on the trail and turned his head to smile at me.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, gesturing vaguely back at the tree.

Peter laughed, waggled a finger at me, and said, “You’ve asked me that before.”

Chase and I doubled our efforts, questioning Peter to see what he knew—if anything. We asked him directly and indirectly. We pleaded with him sincerely, and we acted utterly unconcerned. But it didn’t seem to matter. I thought Peter might be toying with us. Or maybe he didn’t take us seriously. Or maybe it was that he didn’t know how seriously we took him.

“Why are you here?” I asked Peter forcefully. “Why here? Why you, here with all these tents, where other people have obviously come and gone? What is your role?”

“You say you were looking for me,” said Peter. He said it slowly, as though explaining something to a small child. “Seems like you should know the answers to all these questions.”

After a week, the riddles, the non-sequiturs, the evasiveness—they began to weigh on me.

“Come down to the river,” Peter said one day. “Sit with me. It’s warming up. It’s peaceful. I’ll bring some tea.”

“I don’t want tea, Peter,” I said, without hiding my mounting bitterness. “I want answers.”

He looked at me with an impassive expression. He wasn’t surprised or amused or hurt or moved in any way at my annoyance, my unconcealed resentment.

“Suit yourself,” he said with a wan smile. Then he filled a dented-up old thermos with the disgusting dirt-flavored tea and disappeared down the path to the bend in the river, the place where the sitting rock was.

I knew he’d sit down there for hours, sitting on the rock, his eyes mere slits, neither asleep nor awake. And if I followed him and pressed him with more questions, he wouldn’t say a word in answer.

That night Chase and I lay in our tent.

“I had so much hope coming here, Chase.”

“I know, Al. Me, too.”

“We had a good thing going back in our little camp,” I complained. “Tea by the fire. Our little cabin tent. Snuggling down in bed with a few coals in the stove.”

“The fishing was way better there, too.”

“Chase, I’m freezing.”

He drew me close, placed his stomach against mine. I pressed into him and wrapped my legs around one of his.

“What should we do?” I asked.

“Not much we can do,” said Chase. “The guy is a sphinx. An enigma.”

“Isn’t there some way we could force him to tell us something?” I asked.

“What—you mean like break his legs?”

I sighed. “No. We can’t do that. Maybe we can find something to barter with. Figure out what it is he wants or needs.”

And so in the morning, we offered him things. Everything we had with us and more. Vehicles. Food. Supplies. Weapons. Labor. Anything. Everything.

Peter held his arms apart and gestured expansively to the trees around us. “Take care of the earth, and the earth takes care of you.” He turned in a circle. “The answers you’re looking for are all right here.”

“He’s crazy,” Chase said to me when we lay down again in our tent that night. “We can’t crack this nut.”

I cried a little. “This has all been a big waste of time.”

“I’m sorry, Al,” said Chase softly. “I really hoped it would work out.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “It was a dead end.”

When we awoke, we packed our things and took down our tent. It was much like the day we set out for the mountain of the bear. We didn’t have to speak or make a decision. We simply began packing.

When we were ready to leave, we went to Peter’s tee-pee. We announced ourselves and Peter invited us in.

He was just laying on a brew of his tea. Always the tea, I thought, shaking my head.

“Hey, pal,” said Chase, “just wanted to let you know we’re gonna get outta your hair. We’re moving on.”

Peter looked up. “Already?”

“Yeah,” said Chase. “We’ve got other places to be.”

“But did you find what you were looking for?” Peter asked.

“No,” said Chase. “We didn’t find anything.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “That’s a bummer. I don’t suppose you’d like a cup?” He gestured at his teapot. “One for the road? No?”

Chase sighed heavily but said nothing. He only scrubbed his face roughly with his hand. He was getting to his feet when it hit me. The tea. I grabbed the sleeve of Chase’s coat and made him stay still.

“Peter,” I asked, “what’s in this tea of yours?”

He shrugged. “Just the mushrooms. I dry them, grind them into a powder. There’s nothing else in it. Want some? I kinda thought maybe you weren’t like a big fan, Alison.”

I thought about everything. The tents in a circle that looked as though they’d grown there. The ancient marking on the aspen. The mushroom garden.

“Peter,” I continued, “people have been coming here to visit you for a long time, haven’t they?”

He nodded as though this were common knowledge. He readied three of his teacups on the low table.

“People looking for answers,” I added.

Peter nodded again with a small, peaceful smile on his lips. Chase’s brow was rumpled and he looked from me to Peter and back, like he was following a tennis match.

The tea. The camp. Peter was the Guide, yes; but not just for people who’d had their memories scrubbed by the Agency. Peter didn’t know anything about the Agency.

“It was you and Mary at first, wasn’t it?” I asked. “And you were young then. Decades ago. People came here looking for answers. All kinds of answers. All kinds of people.”

Peter smiled wistfully. “Yeah. It was me and Mary at first.”

“She’s down at the bend in the river,” I said.

He nodded again, and the smile on his face was more to comfort me than himself. When the tea was brewed, Peter brought us the cups. They had been very fine antiques when Peter packed them here into these woods as a young man. They were still beautiful, finely detailed and slightly translucent. But they bore the marks of wear—small cracks and chips, and even a scorch mark or two.

“Thank you, Peter,” I said.

Chase took his cup from Peter but regarded me with a quizzical look.

“Drink it,” I said.

Fifty-Five

The tea was beyond awful-tasting. It made me think of the black mud where Peter pulled up the cattail roots. It was earthy and musty, and I gagged as I coughed and swallowed it in small sips. But I choked it all down, and so did Chase.

“What happens now?” I asked Peter.

He blinked at me serenely and held up a finger. Suddenly, I knew what his answer would be. I mouthed the words as he said them: “That’s an interesting question, Alison.”

“Peter,” said Chase, “you’re one of a kind.”

“I’m glad you two stayed,” said Peter, “if only for a cup of tea.”

Peter told us the story of the first day he’d climbed to the peak of the mountain of the bear. He said something about seeing the whole land stretching out before him. There was something he figured out when that happened, but soon I began to lose the thread of his story. I was staring at the fire, at the coals, and I was all at once intensely interested in the way they throbbed and flashed under the slightest movement of air. Then I noticed a floaty feeling, a feeling of well-being. And underneath all of this there emerged something even more profound. It was a sensation of complete mental openness, and a sense that I had stepped onto the very precipice of a massive discovery.

I looked at my hands. I looked at the woodgrain on the poles that held up the tee-pee. I looked at Chase’s thoughtful, scruffy face. We sat in the tent for several hours, staring at the fire, asking each other questions of the most wildly theoretical nature. Most of that conversation is hazy to me now, but this much I do remember: I was in the moment. I was living each moment as it arrived, and this felt so right.

At some point I must have drifted off, into sleep or some other state I’m not sure, but I knew it was evening when I was next aware of my surroundings, because the vent at the top of Peter’s tee-pee was dark. I saw the stars burning brightly in the sliver of sky. Chase was next to me, sitting up, drinking from his water bottle. When I stirred he looked over to me. He smiled and offered me the bottle. I sat up and drank.

I didn’t have any more memories than I did before, but I felt as though I did have something new. I couldn’t say what it was, but there was something new inside me.

Peter was boiling a starchy cattail root stew on his fire, and soon he ladled it into small pots and we ate. When the stew was gone, Peter made more of the tea.

“Is this how we get our memories back?” I asked Peter as I accepted a fresh cup of the bitter, brown liquid. “We know that others came here and got their memories back.”

Peter shook his head. “I told you guys. I don’t know anything about memories. And this tea can’t, like, give you anything. The answers you’re looking for can’t come from a pot of tea or a pot of gold or a pot of anything else.”

I thought: Then why drink it?

Peter, as if reading my thoughts, said, “The tea isn’t the answer. The tea is a way, a path, to the answer. The tea is, like, a guide. But you have to answer your own questions, Alison. Ultimately, the most important answers are for us to say.”

As the effects of the tea came on again, I figured out what was new inside me. It wasn’t that I had acquired something new—it was that I had let go of something old. My anxiety, impatience, and restlessness seemed to have vanished, melted away like a thick coating of ice. We talked more. Peter told us about his life in the camp, about the people who’d come and gone from here. And we asked questions of Peter, many of the same questions we’d asked him already, but instead of being confused and annoyed by Peter’s evasive, obtuse answers, I pondered them deeply. Sometimes they made sense to me, sometimes they left me thirsting for knowledge. I drifted away again, completely at peace for what I now know was the first time in many years.

As I faded into a waking dream, I saw Chase’s face far above me. He grinned and said, “See you on the other side.”

Fifty-Six

Somewhere a calliope played a marching tune.

I saw a galaxy of winking lights.

There were flashes of colors—red, purple, gold, green.

I saw human skulls on spikes lining a dark hallway with many doors.

I saw a Ferris wheel circling, the wheel spinning faster and faster, like a bicycle tire, like a fan.

There was the sound of laughter, someone singing a lullaby, the sound of someone crying.

The ground rose and fell around me. I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes.

I saw faces. Hundreds of faces. People talking, eating, reading, sleeping. They passed before me like visions. I ran after them. But they swirled around me like the Ferris wheel.

It was chaos and motion. Everything loud. Everything bright. Everything dazzling and explosive and alive.

I waved my hand in front of my face and a trail of hands followed the movement, as if I were watching in slow motion.

Thousands of birds dived and climbed, their flocks forming vast shapes in the sky that formed, stretched, and reformed.

There was an explosion in the distance. There was another explosion, this one so close I could say that I was in it.

The ground fell away from me and I fell. I floated, weightlessly. I could let myself go here—let myself be washed over by the colors and the sounds to be eased into a reverie of peacefulness. It would be easy to float through this place to drift where the whims of my mind wanted to carry me, but I remembered Peter saying that my questions were mine to answer.

So I tried to focus, tried to resolve the fuzzy colors and haziness around me into images. I swam in the space, making long strokes with my arms, until I reached firm ground. I concentrated on finding my memories and as I did rows of doors appeared in front of me. I ran to them, opening them, but behind each one was only darkness.

This isn’t working, I thought. There’s nothing here.

But the secret was here. I knew it. I just needed to keep searching.

I opened another door and found myself in a bedroom. There was shag carpeting and a twin bed. I felt an impression that what I was looking for was here in the room. Had I been here before? Was this a room I knew? I began searching the room. I pulled the drawers out of a dresser. Emptied a shelf of books and knick-knacks. Threw out the clothes in a closet. Pulled off the bedding from the bed. I even pulled up the carpet. But I’d done this before, been here before. The strongest sense of deja vu, like I was reliving some part of my life.

What was it I was looking for?

I sat on the bed to think and felt a strange lump under me. I remembered this. I remembered.

I ran my hand down the side of the mattress—and yes, just like I remembered—a slit cut right next to the edge of the mattress. Barely noticeable. I reached in and pulled out a red notebook.

My heart pounded and my hands shook.

I opened the notebook and a brilliant white light shone out, so bright I couldn’t see. So bright I shut my eyes. So bright that I could feel it burning into my soul.

Fifty-Seven

I opened my eyes knowing beforehand that I’d see a bright light. It had shone onto my eyelids as I came out of a sort of dream state, and I knew I was bathed in a warm, bright light. I opened my eyes slowly. The tee-pee was aglow. The rising sun beamed directly onto the western side of the tee-pee and the cream-colored canvas caught the light and glowed so brightly I thought it might burn the canvas away.

My memories had returned.

I didn’t have to think about it. I didn’t have to concentrate. I just remembered. Everything. Indeed, some part of my mind had already accepted all of this and was roving merrily through my entire catalog of remembrances—memories recent and those very distant. A million moments flashed in my mind so rapidly that they seemed almost simultaneous.

When my conscious mind caught up and realized what had happened and what was happening, I gasped so deeply it was as though I’d had the wind knocked out of me, and it took several frantic moments to breathe properly again. After that it was still a bit overwhelming but in a pleasant, bountiful way.

I wept for a while with gratitude, because of course I remembered the periods when I could remember only back to the prior Agency treatment. And I wept for a while for myself in those dark times, but soon I was laughing and nearly delirious.

I remembered my father, and his kindly face and glasses. I remembered my mother, plump and pretty and always busy, always smiling. I had an older brother who loved motorcycles and a younger sister who was a soccer champion in college. I remembered growing up in a suburb where kids rode their bikes everywhere, and we played night-games in the streets all summer. I remembered going to college and backpacking in South America and working in a big city and getting married and giving birth and holding Arie for the first time—the feeling of fascination and immediate and overwhelming love. I was transfixed by his inquisitive eyes. There were days at the park and first-days of school. There were lazy moments when Arie and I sat close together, doing nothing but just being together, even breathing in and out at the same rate. There was stress, too, so busy with a young kid to take care of and there were hard times that slowly got better and there were joyous days.

I remembered it all.

And I remembered Christopher. Chris. Chris, my husband, my love, Christopher. The memory of him and the loss of him was most wrenching of all. I had loved him with all my heart, still loved him. I remembered holding his hand as he died from the virus, holding his hand so tight, trying to keep him here with me, willing him to stay, praying for a miracle. Praying to please not take the light of my life from me.

Chris.

He was the husband who showed up to my first obstetrician appointment with flowers, who blinked away tears when we first heard Arie’s heartbeat. All of his life Chris had been so full of health and vigor. He was handsome and charming, and I’d fallen in love with him so quickly and overwhelmingly that it hardly seemed real.

And then I lost him, and when he died, it created an ache in me that never went away—I knew that now. I’d always ached for him in some way, even if I couldn’t remember him, just as I ached for Arie when I couldn’t remember him.

So many memories. Memories of the back before and after the first of the Agency’s treatments. All the horror and all the exhilaration. I remembered sweet little Gracie, the girl Arie coaxed with apples in our back yard. I remembered the wise and beautiful Brigitta. I remembered the defiant and reckless Lotus kids. My very happiest and my very saddest moments had filled up all the once-empty places in my mind, accessible at the speed of thought, and I cherished them all, with all of my heart. They were the most precious thing I could ever think of.

I stood up. I was alone in the tent. The fire had burned low. I crossed the tee-pee and pushed the canvas aside and went out into the light.

Chase stood outside the tee-pee facing the sun. He was shading his eyes with one hand. He turned to me as I approached.

“Hey,” I said. “I remember you.”

Chase smiled broadly and broke into an episode of laughter that consumed him until he was wheezing and bending over. I went to him and he took me in his arms. Then he turned me to face the blazing sunshine.

“Look at this,” said Chase, gesturing to the east. “I never noticed before but Peter built his tee-pee so that the door faces this open place in the trees and the valley out there so that the sun would shine right through here. It’s set up perfectly.”

It was an astonishing view. The sun rose between two far-off mountain slopes, and a complex series of overlapping mountain ridges. The sunshine filled the valley with light that radiated like a super-nova. It must have taken Peter weeks to find a site like this, and he awoke to it every single morning. No wonder he was always so calm, I thought.

“It’s gorgeous.”

Chase had tears in his eyes, too, and I knew why. I’d wondered so often if I knew Chase before all of this. Sometimes I’d been sure I had. Now I recalled that I’d never met him before that day in Ruby’s amusement park lair.

But as I watched him there by the tee-pee, facing the sun, his fogging breath golden-white in the morning sun, I knew that I loved him. With the full record of our many interactions—interrupted here and there by the Agency’s hideous treatments—and with the full recollection of my entire life, I knew I loved Chase with a heart-stopping, calamitous love. As much as I loved Christopher, and I loved him full-heartedly, I loved Chase, too.

Chase turned to me and smiled. There was something in his expression, something in his eyes that told me he was full of new realizations and recollections, too. All the memories of his life were back, and he knew now that we’d met only after our memories had been wiped. Had he lost a love, too? Surely he must have, but I knew he loved me.

That’s when I learned that there is no limit to our capacity to love. It’s endless and infinite. It can grow and grow and never run out.

“I want to tell you everything I remember,” I said.

“I want to hear.”

“I want to know everything you remember,” I said.

“I want to tell you.”

We got our boots and went down to the river bend where there was a big dry rock to sit on, and we began to talk. We talked and talked. We laughed and cried. We embraced and smiled. We kept talking all day, and it wasn’t enough time to say everything, but that was okay, because we’d have a lifetime together—to share old memories and to make new ones.

Fifty-Eight

In the afternoon we wandered back from the river bend to find a little food. Neither of us had seen Peter—it seemed that he’d left us on our own, knowing that he’d only be a distraction, even if we were very excited to tell him what had happened to us.

The sun had crossed through the sky above the camp and was sinking down behind the tee-pee, and we saw a plume of smoke rising from the vent. The air was cool and still, and we could smell the aroma of stewed meat and perhaps some kind of bread.

“I’m in here,” said Peter, his voice slightly muffled inside the tent. “Supper’ll be ready in like ten.”

We went into the tee-pee and it was warm and inviting. Peter had made a tremendous cauldron of rabbit stew and he’d made a kind of flat bread of wild grain flour. On the fender of the fireplace there was also some kind of dark pudding of berries and seeds.

“What’s all this?” I asked.

“A celebration,” said Peter. “You found what you were looking for, didn’t you? Or, I guess I should say you found out that what you thought was lost really wasn’t?”

I smiled and nodded.

“You too, Chase?” asked Peter, smiling.

“Yeah,” said Chase. “Me, too.”

“Well then,” said Peter, “take a seat. Alison, maybe you could check that bread—make sure it’s not scorched. Chase, you could fill up these cups—there’s a bota bag of currant wine there on that hook.”

“Sure, Peter,” we said, and he kept us busy as he put a few finishing touches on the meal.

When everything was ready, we ate slowly, savoring each bite and sip and morsel. It was all very rich and delicious, but as good as the food was, something else happened that overshadowed even the berry pudding.

We reminisced.

The rabbit stew reminded Chase of the squirrel stew his grandpa made when Chase was a kid in the South.

“He’d shoot these stringy little squirrels out in the woods,” said Chase, his eyes intense and gleaming with the wine, “like six or seven of them, and he’d skin ’em and dress them out, and my grandma would quarter them—just like a chicken, and she’d add all her spices and carrots, and this stew would just simmer in a huge iron pot for hours and hours, until it was thick enough to eat a whole bowl of it with a fork!”

That sent Peter into a story about how he worked as a prep chef in a restaurant in Oregon when he was in college, and his specialty was a Texas chili with mango.

“It was like this really crazy flavor combination,” he said. “The bite of the chili peppers and the smooth sweetness of the mango. Ahh, I’d eat half of it just tasting it in the kitchen.”

“Oh, that sounds heavenly,” I said, and then I launched into a story of a trip I took to Peru. “On every street there were vendors selling these things called antichucos,” I told them. “It was strips of grilled beef on a stick with a potato stuck on the end of the stick. And they gave you this aji sauce—it was so hot my eyes would cross, but I couldn’t stop eating them.”

They laughed, and I laughed, and the stories continued until all that remained was the wine in the bota. When we finished that off, we were quiet again, and we watched the fire reduce itself to a bed of embers that pulsed red and violet.

Peter smiled at us from his place across the fire. “You guys are two of my favorites,” he said. “I’ve really enjoyed our time together. I’ve learned a lot.” He was still slightly cryptic—surely the only thing he could have learned was that we were annoyingly impatient and persistent—but I felt that we were finally in the company of the real Peter, the one he kept secret, the one he saved for special occasions.

“We should probably leave in the morning,” said Chase.

Peter nodded serenely. “I know.”

I said, “A few days ago I couldn’t wait to leave. Now I want to stay.”

“No, you need to keep moving,” said Peter. “We all have different, like, purposes, you know? I don’t mean like one person’s a doctor and another person drives a taxi. I painted houses for years and years. That’s not what I mean. I mean your actual gosh dang purpose. I didn’t know what mine was at first, but now I know. It’s to be here in the mountains. That’s mine. Yours? Yours is to go. Find your son and friends do whatever comes after that. That’s yours.”

I had told Peter about Arie and Ruby and the others, but I never thought he was listening.

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.”

“Hey. Guess what?” said Peter suddenly. He clapped his hands once, making a bright, cheerful sound, almost like a chime. “I’ve got something for you. A going-away present.”

Chase and I watched him rise and wobble, a bit tipsy, to the wall of the tee-pee where from a peg there hung a satchel the size of a hefty paperback novel.

“I know you don’t like the taste,” said Peter, “but I thought maybe some of the people you’ll be meeting might like to try it.”

I put my nose to the satchel. “The tea?”

He nodded. “Doesn’t take much. Maybe like a teaspoon. But don’t be stingy. I know it tastes like soup made from dead bugs and dirt clods, but, well, I guess you know.”

“But there must be almost a pound of it here,” I protested. “How long did it take to grow this much? We can’t take this much.” I tried to hand it back to him.

Peter scoffed. “I’m not liable to run out,” said Peter. “Not anytime soon. Trust me. I can afford it.”

“And this will—?” I trailed off, unsure of what I was asking, precisely. “This will do for others what it did for Chase and me?”

“Like I told you,” said Peter. “I’m not sure what you were struggling with. Memories, I guess. There was another group with the same issue who came through a while ago. Will it help? I don’t know. But it can’t hurt.”

“How can we thank you, Peter?” said Chase.

Peter scoffed again and shook his head.

“No, really, Peter,” I said. “You don’t understand. You saved our lives. We’re different people now.”

“You’re always a different person,” said Peter sternly. “I’m not the person you first met here in this very tee-pee, and you’re not the person who walked in all cold and scared. One moment at a time, Alison. We discussed this. You can never step into the same river twice. Chase? Help me out. This is basic stuff.”

“Yeah,” said Chase with a smile. “He’s right, Al.”

“No, Peter,” I said, raising my voice. “We owe you our lives.”

“Why? You visited me. We talked. We shared. You learned some things. I learned some things. Now it’s time for you to go. You thank me and I thank you. There’s nothing owed.”

“You gave us a present,” I said. “We want to give you one.”

Peter stuck out his lower lip. “Hmm. Well, when you put it that way.” He put a finger to his chin and thought.

Chase and I waited.

“Two things, I guess, would make me very happy.”

“Anything.”

“Help your people find their answers. To be honest, I don’t think the tea is, like, necessary. I think it’s all about knowing yourself, questioning yourself, believing yourself. But the tea is like helpful. I’ll be here if you need more, and if I’m not here, well, this stuff just grows right up out of the ground around here. You’ll figure it out. But take what I packaged up for you and help your people. Show them the Guide.”

I wanted to do something for Peter, or give something to Peter, but it was obvious he wasn’t having it. “Okay,” I said. “Done. What’s the other thing?”

“Well,” he said. “You were looking for memories, right? Something like that?”

“Yes. So, what’s the second thing?”

“Remember me.”

Fifty-Nine

It seemed we reached Ruby’s camp just in time. As we came from the mountain of the bear, we hit the main trail and began to make the climb to Ruby’s camp, where we met a line of hikers carrying supplies, presumably down to the road, where they’d be loaded onto vehicles.

They smiled and greeted us as we passed them by, but it wasn’t long before we were intercepted by guards.

“What are you guys doing here?” asked a guard named Richard. He was armed, but he didn’t take his pistol from its holster, and the guard he was with left his rifle slung on his shoulder.

“I guess we’re back,” said Chase.

Richard sighed and put his hands on his hips. “Well, I’m sorry to have to do this, but we have strict orders to take you into custody on sight.”

The lookout guards recognized us, and we recognized them.

“That’s fine,” Chase said holding his hands out so they could be cuffed.

“I’m not gonna cuff you,” said Richard. “Long as you promise not to do anything stupid.”

“Oh, man,” said Chase. “If I had a buck for every time I made that promise.”

“I think you should cuff us,” I said. “I don’t want you to be in trouble with Ruby.”

“I appreciate that,” said Richard. He and the other guard each produced a pair of handcuffs. They offered to carry our packs, but we told them we could manage as long as they cuffed our wrists in front of us.

“So, Ruby’s still here?” I asked. “You’ll take us straight to her?”

“Those are my orders,” said Richard.

“Good,” I said. “We need to talk to her.” I was telling the truth, but I could hardly contain my excitement to see Woolly again, and especially Arie.

Richard and the other guard marched us into the camp. Very few tents were left standing, and there was gear and provisions stacked up here and there awaiting transport. We went to Ruby’s tent. The tchotchkes and fetishes and wood carvings had been packed up, and most of the maps had been unpinned from the back wall, but the warm scent of Ruby’s mountain tea remained. A torrent of memories came to my mind—not just of being in this camp, but going back to my first meeting with Ruby, when Arie and I were attacked by the dogs. I thought about her hideout under the haunted house ride at Thrill Harbor, and Ruby visiting me, basically uninvited, at the house where Arie and I lived in Zone 1891. We take for granted the places that are home for us—not necessarily just the places we live, but the places where our souls are comfortable.

And there, sitting in a camp at her pine-plank desk, was Ruby herself. She sat with her bad leg stretched out in front of her, tilting her head and angling her spectacles and reading that day’s notes and messages with a testy grimace on her face. Surely she’d heard of our coming from someone who’d run out in advance, but she would not raise her eyes to us. She let us stand there.

Standing behind her were Arie and Woolly. Arie was apparently a lieutenant now, and this was the new leadership team. They looked at us nervously as we entered. Arie shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. Woolly greeted us with his eyes only, then pretended to study something interesting on the canvas ceiling of the tent.

I couldn’t help myself; I broke into a broad grin. I remembered all the times I’d been reunited with these people, my friends, my family. There’d been times I thought I’d never see any of them again, and times I’d seen them again but didn’t remember them. There was the time we all helped Woolly after he took the serum. And I thought especially of re-uniting with Arie, meeting him so many times for the first time. This time it was different. This time I was not meeting Arie as a stranger who merely hoped for some connection. This time I remembered him. I remembered everything about him from the first moment I’d felt him stir inside me. I knew him. I knew him as a mother knew and loved her child.

“Ruby, it’s us,” Chase said, leveling his full power to charm directly at her.

But still Ruby kept her eyes on the page of notes she was reading. She read it to the end and didn’t look up then either. She made a few notes herself with the stub of a pencil, set the pencil and notes aside, drew in a breath and let it out, and only then did she raise her head to see us.

Chase and I smiled weakly.

Ruby’s face was impassive, almost sad. Definitely weary, but then again, she usually was these days. The last time I’d seen her was when she had banished me, and I imagined the last time she’d seen Chase was when he’d told her he was leaving to be with me. I thought she was probably trying to project a certain imperious dissatisfaction, but I detected a guarded uneasiness.

“Take them cuffs off ’em,” she said, exasperated. “Then you two go back on watch.”

Richard unlocked and retrieved the cuffs, and then they left. Ruby struggled out of her chair and stood, but then waited for the sound of their footsteps to recede. When she was sure they’d gone away, she shouted, “What in tarnation d’ya think yer doin’ here? I haven’t changed my mind about nothin’.”

That wiped the smiles from our faces, anyway. Ruby hurried on.

“You’re still ban—er—restricted from this here camp,” she said sharply, pointing at me, “an’ you walked out on us,” she added, pointing at Chase.

“We know,” I said. “We’re not here to stay.”

Ruby frowned at us, her mouth open, searching for words but not finding them. She sat in the chair again.

“Well, then git, both a ya’,” she said.

“Ruby,” said Woolly quietly.

“What?” she said, turning in her seat to address Woolly. “Whaddya want me to do? Throw ’em a damn party?”

“Just listen to what they have to say,” he said, with his quiet boldness. “Judging from the looks on their faces, this is gonna be pretty interesting.”

“Ah, hell,” said Ruby. “Fine. What is it? Why ya messin’ around these parts?”

Chase took a step forward. “Ruby, remember back when it was just me and you?”

Ruby knitted her brows, tilted her head.

“Back then,” Chase continued, “there was no sneaking into Agency buildings or planning raids. We were just two people who hated the Agency goons and were sick of the rations. Remember? And you came up with this system to trade and barter and make life a little easier. And you brought me in on it because I’d gotten that old Honda to run.”

Ruby’s eyes grew wide.

“Remember what you said to me?” Chase asked. “You said, ‘Nothing will change for the better if nobody tries to make a difference.’ Remember saying that?”

“And remember at the safe-house?” I added. “When you taught me how to shoot a gun? In fact, the first time I’d ever touched a gun, ever, in my entire life, was that day those goons were after you, and you gave me your pistol out in the neighborhoods. I hid in an old church until you got back.”

Ruby’s gaze zipped from me to Chase. Her mouth gaped and her eyes got big.

“How?” she whispered, elongating the word into an amazed sigh.

Behind her, Woolly stood with his arms folded but eyes narrowed, trying to decide what to make of all this. Arie was still and quiet, but listening intently.

“You went back to the Agency?” Ruby marveled, rocking in her seat to stand again. “You got it? You got the cure? It’s real?”

“No, not the Agency,” said Chase. “We don’t need them.”

“But your memories are back? All of ’em? How far back?”

“To the beginning,” I said. “Everything. The virus was real. The Agency serum was real. Whether or not the memory wipe part was necessary, we don’t know. But, Ruby—” my voice caught in my throat “—I have my life back. You can, too. All of us.”

She regarded us with open suspicion. Woolly and Arie seemed wary, too.

Ruby slowly shook her head and said, “Listen, you two, I ain’t gonna open up this whole camp to getting their hopes up fer nothin’. You’re gonna hafta explain to me how this all happened. You’re gonna hafta prove it. Take them packs off and sit your asses down. Woolly, take the kid and quick and get us some food and coffee and we’ll get to the bottom ’a this. Don’t leave nothin’ out.”

Sixty

I shouldn’t have been surprised at Ruby’s suspicious reception of the story we presented. Ruby’s doubt, her mistrust of us—I guess she had to approach our claims that way, for her own benefit and protection, and on behalf of the others in the camp. In fact, if I had brought the information to Ruby all by myself, I think she would have simply laughed in my face and sent me away again. But even with Chase to confirm it all, we had remarkable difficulty convincing her. We told the story at least three times. She cross-examined us again and again, asking for more detail, trying to trip us up, making sure my version of events agreed with Chase’s.

In the end, it was our actual memories that made the case. There were certain moments Chase and I had shared privately with Ruby that we could not know unless we had really lived them.

When Ruby had absorbed it all, finally accepted that Peter’s strange tea was our way forward, she sat in her chair for a long time. On her face she had a sort of shattered expression. I think I knew how she felt—a certain disbelief, a heavy sense of finality.

“Listen,” she said, her chin and lips quivering as though she were about to break down sobbing, “you all gotta give me a few minutes to myself here. I need a minute to just kinda think about—” and then she lost it.

Her stout frame shook heavily with great heaving sobs, and tears practically squirted from her eyes. She pressed the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb. Her cheeks and neck were wet in no time. We stood up to go, but we crowded each other awkwardly to get out of the tent.

“I’m sorry, everyone,” said Ruby between her moans and sobbing, “I just can’t hardly believe we’ve finally made it.”

Woolly put one of his large hands on her shoulder as we went out.

There was another meeting after that. We crowded back into Ruby’s tent and discussed at length how to test the tea, how to distribute it, and what to do after that. We decided that a test-subject or two would be best to confirm that the concoction that Peter had given us would work the same way it had in Peter’s camp. Arie and Woolly instantly volunteered.

“No,” said Ruby. “Not you two. If I was ta’ lose you two I think I’d about die.”

“You’re not going to lose them,” said Chase. “It’s a mild hallucinogenic.”

“It’s a mushroom!” cried Ruby. “Mosta them things is poisonous!”

“You mean toxic,” said Woolly.

“Same difference!”

“Ruby,” said Woolly, “this seems very safe. I’m still dubious about how or if it will work, but Alison and Chase are standing here, perfectly healthy and with their memories. Arie and I will be more useful for managing this project after we’ve gone through the process and after we have our memories back. Who knows what we’ll remember?”

But Ruby would not relent. She scolded, shouted, waved her arms.

After what seemed like hours of bickering, Ruby agreed to let either Arie or Woolly serve as the test subject, and a coin-flip would decide the matter.

Ruby produced a coin—an ancient quarter from the back before. It was rubbed almost smooth, it’s markings distinguishable but only just.

“It was in my pocket the day I first woke up in the Agency infirmary. Don’t know where it come from, but I kept it ever since.”

Chase took it from Ruby’s palm.

“Call it in the air, kid.”

He placed the coin on his thumbnail. There was a soft ping! as he flipped it. It arced into the air, rotating, a blur.

“Heads,” shouted Arie.

Oh, please let it be heads, I thought.

We all stepped back to let it bounce on the floor of Ruby’s tent. It came to rest and we leaned in squinting to see.

Tails.

Woolly said, “Yes,” quietly, through clenched teeth.

Arie’s expression fell. I winced internally, too.

Ruby sighed. Her eyes welled with tears. She said, “All right, then. Go an’ try it.”

“What do I do?” said Woolly turning to me.

“We should set you up in a tent by yourself,” I said, “Where you can be comfortable and relaxed for a day or two. There’s still time tonight for your first cup, and then I guess we’ll see what happens.”

“My tent is still standing,” said Woolly.

“Then let’s go,” I said.

Ruby’s face was a mask of fear. She tried hiding it with her grim impassive “boss” face, but it wasn’t working.

“You’ll be all right, Wool?” she asked pitifully.

“Yeah,” said Woolly. “I will, Ruby.”

We went out of Ruby’s tent and were crossing camp in the cold darkness when Woolly said, “Wait.”

“What is it?” Chase asked.

“I think it’d be better if Arie went first. I think it’ll sit better with Ruby. And she really would be lost if something bad happened to me.”

We returned to Ruby’s tent. She and Arie were sitting there in silence, their faces stony. But when they saw Woolly, it was almost as though they knew what had been decided. Arie sat up straight and Ruby’s face brightened.

“I think you should do the honors, pal,” said Woolly to Arie.

Arie stood up and smiled. “Really? You sure?”

“Yeah. You got more to remember,” said Woolly, tilting his head in my direction.

We took Arie to his own tent. He was packed up for the move, too, like the others, but his tent was still standing, serving as a storage place for the important and sensitive supplies that awaited transport to the vehicles. Arie made up his bed and shed his winter clothes until he was wearing only long underwear and socks. I stoked the small stove until the tent was nice and warm. Then I brewed the tea according to Peter’s instructions.

“Are you ready for this?” I asked.

Arie nodded. “I’m just trying to remember this moment right now,” he said. “What it feels like to not know your past.” He looked at me. “It really works?”

I smiled. “It did for us.”

He nodded and took the tea from me.

I walked toward the tent door, then paused and said, “See you on the other side.”

He was staring into the mug as I walked out.

Chase and I slept in the command tent that night, but I kept waking up and getting out of the bed and looking out the front door of the heavy canvas tent to see if there was any sign of change in Arie’s tent.

“Al,” croaked Chase in a groggy whisper around midnight. “Come back to bed. You’re letting the heat out.”

I wanted to be the first one to talk to Arie when he emerged. I peered across the darkened camp, but the night was too dark to clearly see Arie’s tent. The candle inside was out now; probably it had guttered and gone out by itself.

“Al!” hissed Chase.

“Okay, okay.”

I checked maybe five times throughout the night. Once I even considered getting my boots on and going over there to investigate, but Chase convinced me not to.

I may have fallen into a light sleep for a couple hours, but as soon as the sky lightened with the dawn, I was up and dressed and had had two cups of tea before I heard anyone else stirring. I put on my coat and boots and wrapped a scarf around my face, and then I took a chair and went out to the central fireplace, where I could sit and watch for Arie.

But he didn’t come out. The others awoke and joined me, but there were no sounds or signs of movement in the tent.

“I’m going to go check on him,” I said as the sun rose over the mountain ridge.

“Can ya do that? Is it safe?” asked Ruby.

“There really weren’t any procedures,” explained Chase.

Arie’s tent was only thirty or so yards away. I got up from my chair and faced the tent. The others watched me. Pine knots popped and cracked in the firepit.

“Go ahead, Al,” said Ruby.

“Yeah, Al,” said Woolly. “Go check on him.”

As I strode down the trail to Arie’s, he emerged. He’d slipped his boots on but was still in his long underwear. Around his shoulders he’d draped a sleeping bag. He had a contented smile on his face. His breath smoked in the cold.

“Arie,” I said quietly. I felt almost unable to breathe out.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” I replied. “How—how are you feeling?”

“Well,” he said uncertainly. “I feel refreshed. I feel good. I slept really good. Had a wild dream. It was good, though. Yeah. I feel good.”

“Do you—?” I began the question, but I couldn’t finish it.

Arie looked at the ground, and then at me. “Do I remember anything? Anything new?”

“Yes,” I said, exhaling in a sort of laugh.

But Arie frowned. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

Sixty-One

Chase and I had taken two cups of the tea before our memories returned, so we didn’t panic right away. But after two days and four cups of tea, brewed at various strengths ranging from “just a sprinkle” to “this is totally disgusting,” Arie’s memories had not returned.

“Maybe there was some additional ingredient that this friend of yours used,” suggested Woolly. We were seated around the fire on the third night. Woolly had made a soup of roots and grain, but I ate little.

“No,” I insisted. “Why would he send us off with some different version of the tea?”

“Why wouldn’t it work the same for Arie as it did for you?” Woolly countered.

“I don’t know,” I groaned. “I don’t know.”

Chase stood by the fire, arms crossed tightly across his chest. He stared intently into the fire.

“Chase?” I pleaded, “any ideas?”

“Maybe we got lucky,” he said. “Maybe it works on some people and not others, and we just got lucky.”

The lack of memory restoration was only part of the problem. Arie said he felt disoriented after so many doses of the mushroom’s compounds.

“I can’t do that again,” said Arie, as he came down from the effects of the tea. “At first it was amazing. I had all these wild thoughts about ideas and concepts. Like I had a dream about how to make a longbow and arrows. What trees to use and how to contour the wood and laminate it and how to make a string from sinew and cotton twine. And I really think it’d work. In real life. I want to try it. And I had these ideas about myself, about understanding who I am and what I’m like. But now—now I just feel like I’m in a permanent fog. I spent an hour just now trying to zip up my coat and put on my gloves. I couldn’t decide which order to do it in, so I kept starting over.”

As Arie’s mother, it pained me to hear all of this. How could I keep subjecting him to this? The anguish must have shown on my face.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Don’t cry. I’ll be all right. I’m sure I will. It’s just—that stuff is powerful.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Arie sighed and said, “I’ll drink some more if I have to, I guess. I volunteered to be the test subject. So, I’ll do it.”

“No,” I said. “The test is over. No more tea.”

“Was it something I did wrong?”

“No,” I said. “You need to rest now and just feel better. Ruby needs you. The camp needs you.”

“Okay,” he said.

I helped him back to his tent. He sat on the bed. I hoped he would sleep it off and feel better soon, but I didn’t know.

“I know you don’t remember me as your mom,” I told him, “but it’s painful for me to see you in any kind of discomfort or trouble.”

He blinked sleepily at me. His eyes wandered, trying to focus.

“You know, there was this one time,” I said, noisily sniffing back my tears, “back in the back before. You were seven, and you had walking pneumonia. You missed school for a week, and our doctor was thinking about hospitalizing you. It was serious. We were worried. Kids can die of pneumonia, you know. So, your grandma came to stay with us; your dad took days and days off work. On day ten, I think it was, the doctor said that if you weren’t any better by morning, we had to bring you in. So I put you in bed and you were so miserable and uncomfortable. All I could do was sit by your bed and watch. You tossed and turned and moaned and groaned.”

Arie narrowed his eyes and listened. Sitting on the edge of his cot, he leaned forward.

“So, I was changing the cloth on your little forehead. I had a damp washcloth to try and keep you cool, and as I lifted it up, I could tell that your fever had jumped up again. You were burning up. It was one-oh-five! We called the ER and they contacted our doctor. By the time they called back the fever was up to a hundred and eight—very dangerous. It was a twenty-five-minute drive to the ER from where we lived, so the doctor said to put you in the tub and splash you with cool water until an ambulance could come get you.”

Arie swallowed, as though very concerned for his past self.

“Your dad and I put you in the tub and filled it with a few inches of tepid water, which of course to you probably felt like ice. You bawled and bawled and squirmed and kicked and your eyes were so glassy and sad. We almost quit, almost just wrapped you up in a towel and waited for the ambulance, but we stayed with it while you howled and shivered, and within about twenty minutes, your temp was down to one-oh-two, and you settled down and fell asleep right there in our arms, right there in the tub.”

“Then what?” said Arie, his eyes blazing.

“Well, we put your pajamas back on you, and your coat, which wasn’t easy because you were as limp as a rag, and the ambulance came. We checked you in and you stayed overnight, and the whole ordeal cost a fortune, but the fever had broken. They let you come home the next afternoon. Two days later you were back in school.”

“Wow.”

“Anyway, that’s what all this reminds me of,” I said. “Making you miserable by trying to help you. I’m sorry it didn’t work. You should rest now.”

“Okay,” said Arie. “But tell me something. I’m not sure where I am. I mean, I know where this is.” He gestured indefinitely at the tent around him. “I’m just not sure if I’m here. Am I here? Are you here? Where are we?”

This broke my heart to hear. My heart had been broken by this damn world so many times, and just when I thought I’d found a way to be whole, once and for all, it went and crushed me again. I put my hand on Arie’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“A really wise man explained something to me,” I said. “He said this universe of ours is so big, just so unbelievably vast, that worrying where you are really doesn’t make much sense. It’s so big that it doesn’t matter if I’m here in your tent, or just outside the door, or clear across the world. Relatively speaking, we’re both here, and we’re together. I’ll always be with you, no matter where we are, Arie.”

A look of dawning realization fell across Arie’s face, probably a lot like it had when Peter had explained his epiphany to me that day in his tee-pee. Arie pressed his lips together and nodded slowly.

“You really should go to sleep,” I said.

“All right,” he said, slipping his legs into his bedding.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I said. And then I left him.

Sixty-Two

“Al, I want you to know I don’t blame you,” said Ruby the next morning at the firepit. “I still believe it happened to you an’ Chase, and a’course I can’t say why it didn’t happen for the kid, but I want you to know I know you come here thinkin’ this would work.”

I didn’t know whether to take her words as a comfort or a condemnation, so I said nothing. Woolly and Ruby and Chase and a few other members of the upper leadership talked through the morning about what to do next. Woolly was hesitant about taking the tea now—with Arie incapacitated it wasn’t wise for someone with so much institutional memory to be incapacitated for even a few days. Word had gotten about that Chase and I were back in camp and that we had our memories, but this information had metastasized into a rumor that the medicine that we brought had caused Arie to lose all of his memories. To further unsettle matters, a long-range patrol had checked in the night before and reported spotting vehicles eight or ten miles off. And of course the entire camp was halfway packed and halfway not. Ruby’s camp members were tripling up to sleep in the remaining tents, living off cold rations and growing confused and nervous.

“I’m sorry, everyone,” said Ruby, “but we gotta finish loading the vehicles and get started. This just ain’t the time to try this out. We’re scattered all over hell, Arie’s been asleep for goin’ on sixteen hours, I got reports of vehicles sighted on the plains, and it keeps gettin’ colder every day. Maybe in a month, when we’re settled in a new place and back on our feet, we can talk about givin’ this mushroom tea to a new test subject.”

I nodded indifferently.

“Well,” said Ruby, eying me cautiously, “let’s get back to work, then. Woolly, you’re gonna have to take over Arie’s task list. Either that or go wake him up and see if he can work. Meet me in the command tent when you figure out which way it’s gonna go.”

Woolly slapped his knees and stood up. “I’ll go see how he’s doing.”

“I’ll do it,” I said.

Woolly nodded and headed in the direction of the command tent.

Again, I arose and started down the trail that led from the firepit to where Arie’s tent stood, dark and still.

Again, Arie swept aside his tent fly and stood in the snow in boots and long underwear with a sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders.

“Morning, Arie,” I said.

He took a step and let the sleeping bag drop. “Mom!” he yelled, scooping me into an enormous bear hug and squeezing me so tight, I thought he’d never let go.

Sixty-Three

I knew Arie was my son, but hearing that word, “Mom,” addressed to me, “Mom,” melted me. But it restored me, too. My heart, cracked and fractured as it was, seemed to pull itself together. No matter how many times love gets knocked down, it will always get back up.

Arie kept his arms around me, and I gave him a little squeeze.

“You drank another cup,” I said.

“I did,” he said. “After what you said, I figured I needed a little more cold water splashed on me. And I think it worked. Finally. I remember that night. When I had the fever. I wanted that stupid Winnie the Pooh Bear in the tub with me.”

I laughed and squeezed him tighter. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s right.”

“I don’t remember the ambulance,” he said.

“You slept right through it.”

“Hey,” he said, pulling back so that he could look into my face.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for being my mom. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Son.”

There’s more to the moment, but it was more of the same. Tears, laughing, embracing. But we couldn’t stand there forever in the cold. Besides, no one had to be told what had finally happened in Arie’s brain, and they gathered around us, smiling, spilling tears of their own. And so Arie and I wiped our faces, promised for a long session of catching up and trading memories, and went to find Ruby and Woolly. Once Ruby saw that the treatment had worked on Arie, she reconvened her leadership by the firepit and proceeded to tell us that she and Woolly had already drawn up a plan to administer the treatment to the rest of the camp—in stages, but as rapidly as possible.

“We give the tea to ten people,” said Woolly. “The people who successfully regain their memories will then be employed to help others. Like a game of Follow the Judge. Anyone who gets their memories will become a member of the tea team, until we treat everyone. We’ve got everything lined up. Who goes first, who helps who, everything. And we need to start right away.”

“Are we sure we don’t want to wait until after the move?” said Chase. “I mean, I know I’d want to try the treatment as soon as possible, but, the added delays, the weather, the long-range patrol reports—”

Even though I could hardly wait for every single person to take the tea, I couldn’t help agree with him.

“Chase,” sighed Ruby, “I think you’re right. It’s risky, probably a dumb thing to do, but, this may be the only chance we have to do this. Who knows what’s gonna happen when we move? Who knows what the Agency is up to? If you two have brought us a way to remember everything, seems like giving everyone a shot at that is the ethical thing to do. You said you can get more, right?”

Chase and I nodded.

“Then I think we should give out what you’ve brought, give everyone a chance at remembering the whole sh’bang, and then move the camp.”

We all traded looks, nodding tentatively.

“Sides,” said Ruby, “there’s another possibility here.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Tell ’em, Wool.”

“I had a thought,” said Woolly. “What we’re dealing with here is a psychedelic, which were used in the back before to treat all kinds of conditions. Depression, anxiety, addiction. What if this treatment doesn’t just reverse the amnesia that the Agency serum induced? What if it makes it harder, or even impossible, to scrub us in the future?”

An excited murmur made its way around the fire.

“This stuff may give us partial or total immunity to whatever the Agency has been using on us,” he concluded.

“I have some thoughts, too,” I said, raising my hand. “Something about the tea.”

“Go ahead, Al,” said Ruby.

“I think the reason the tea worked on Chase and me so quickly is that our minds had been prepared,” I said. “We spent more than a week with Peter in a very secluded and low-stress environment. A very thoughtful environment. There were lots of discussions, talking, thinking. We knew what we wanted—our memories—and the tea simply opened the door for us to reconnect with them. Peter told us that the tea was not a medicine, not a cure. It’s not even really a treatment, not technically. Peter said it’s a guide, and that the effects were a journey—you find what you want to find. I think that everyone who gets the tea should spend a day thinking, meditating if possible. They should talk to someone close to them, talk about what they know, what they remember, what they’d like to remember. And they should only take the tea in the clearest and most relaxed state of mind. This might add time to each individual’s experience, but I have a hunch it will actually speed things up.”

Over the next four days, everyone in Ruby’s camp gained back at least some of their memories. It wasn’t easy for some of them—remembering the terror that they had lived through required them to live through it again. And the tea didn’t work on everyone the same way. Some of the younger people didn’t remember the back before, and a few people reported large gaps in their memories. Woolly had a theory that those people had perhaps forgotten events before the Agency memory scrubbing treatments began. Maybe, he reasoned, they’d seen or experienced things that their subconscious minds had involuntarily blotted out.

Overall, it was a happy time of tears and reminiscence. Many in the camp, like Arie and I, recognized the family members they’d been assigned, deepening their bonds. There were several people who’d known each other as friends in the back before. Everywhere in the disordered camp there were knots of excited chatter—people reuniting, sharing their stories, sharing their memories.

After a week, when nearly everyone had recovered and the moving plan was underway again, I asked Ruby: “What about you, Rube? When are you going to do it?”

Ruby looked down at the ground. “I want to make sure there’s enough of the tea for everyone else, first,” she said.

“There’s plenty left over,” I said. “More than half.”

“Good,” said Ruby. “We oughta keep a reserve, then. I can wait.”

Later that day, I followed Chase and Arie’s fresh prints in the snow to a ravine about three miles from camp where there was a good-sized stream. They’d brought along Chase’s hunting rifle in case they spotted some game, but they were catching fish after fish from the stream. It was cold but sunny. The air was crisp and clear, and the sky was a startling blue with a few lazy puffs of cloud passing by in the high-altitude winds. I perched on a tree-stump and watched, telling them about how Ruby was for some reason still waiting to take the tea.

“I don’t know how she can wait,” I said. “It’d kill me.”

Chase chuckled. “Well, you aren’t her. You’re a lot more impatient.”

“Rude,” I said.

“I’m sure she’s as anxious as anybody,” said Chase. “If she’s insisting on being the last one in the camp to take the leap, maybe you could help keep her mind off of it. Keep her company. You two could use some bonding time.”

“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” I said. “You guys all right here? I’m gonna head back.”

“You came all this way to say that, and then leave?” asked Arie.

“I guess,” I said. “I’ve got a lot of energy right now. I think I really just wanted the walk.”

“Well, if you’re heading back, maybe take my backpack with you? And maybe that rifle? With the fishing hitting this way, we’re gonna have a bunch of big fish to bring home. That’ll be less for us to carry.”

“Okay,” I said. “Sure you don’t wanna hang on to the rifle?”

“I find I catch more with the fly rod.”

“I mean if you see a deer, smart-ass. Or a bear? You do remember being attacked by one of those?”

Just then Chase hooked a fish and began playing it to the bank, but it was a large fish and it put up a tremendous fight.

“Have I told you how much I love fishing this stream?” he said to Arie.

“You may have mentioned it,” replied Arie.

When Chase got the fish close to his net, it darted away and swam upstream, taking line from the reel. Chase let the fish run, and it went downstream, making leaps from the water as it went. Chase and Arie hooted and laughed. This went on for several minutes, until the fish finally began to tire.

“Sorry, fella,” muttered Chase. “There’s no escape.”

Chase brought the fish to his net at last. It was fat and healthy-looking, flashing in the sunshine. Chase added it to the stringer of other fish, and then looked back at me and smiled.

“Nah,” said Chase. “Take the rifle back to camp, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Hey, Mom,” said Arie. “Maybe have Ruby show you how to shoot it. Seeing you with a gun in your hands will definitely take her mind off her other troubles.” He turned and winked at me.

I laughed and picked up the backpack, and then I slipped the rifle harness over my shoulder. “All right, you mighty fishermen. I’ll see you back at camp. Happy fishing.”

Chase gave me a quick hug and a kiss. “Love you, sweetie.”

“Hey, Mom?” said Arie, “Keep the safety on ’till you’re ready to fire.”

“Thanks, kiddo.”

The walk back to the camp was long and cold, but if I walked fast, I felt warm. I was content and relaxed, too. I had so much now. Chase—a man I loved and wanted to spend my future with, Arie, my smart and handsome son, and myself—my own memories. Ruby had said I could come with them to the new city they would build, far away from the Agency and their control. I guess I’d regained not only my memories but Ruby’s confidence as well. As I walked along the snowy path, I smiled. It was as though the cold sunshine was beaming through me, renewing everything. After all these years of struggle and sorrow and violence, we were ready to put it all behind us.

But as I approached the camp, an uneasy sensation stole over me. My muscles tensed, and my mind clouded. I stopped and stood still. Had I heard some sound of warning beneath the crunch of the snow and the swishing zing of my snow-pants and coat? I remembered how the bear had broke through the brush on the hilltop that day with Colonel Steele, and had moved with such astonishing speed and power. Had I heard danger at the edge of my hearing? A buzzing sound, like angry hornets? The popping sound of distant gunfire? My anxiety began to spiral upward. I looked behind me. I stared down the trail ahead. After standing still and listening for several solid minutes, I broke off the trail, climbed a small hill, and headed toward the camp through the dense woods on a southern-facing hillside. The unbroken snow made for very slow going, and it was difficult to find the way. I had to backtrack once, but after a lengthy meander through a spruce thicket, I pushed through and the camp came in to view below me.

And indeed something was terribly wrong.

I was still far away, several hundred yards, and there were thick trees masking my view, but there in the middle of the camp was a crowd of people. It was too big a gathering to be some kind of meeting or part of the exodus process. It had to be everyone in camp. And then some.

I dropped to my belly and crawled forward from tree to tree to get closer.

The Agency had arrived. The temperature of my blood seemed to drop twenty degrees.

Not a bloody attack like last time. I may have heard sporadic gunfire back on the trail, but there had been none since and there was none now. They had evidently learned from last time and launched some kind of rapid, coordinated enclosing attack through the snow and taken everyone by surprise. They had rounded up all of our campers and herded them to the middle of the camp. These Agency thugs were like none I’d ever seen. Their uniforms looked new and warm and they were all white and gray. They wore cowls that covered everything but their eyes, which made them seem more lethal, like assassins. Their weapons were likewise new and deadly looking, wrapped in strips of white cloth or tape for camouflage. My eyes swept over the snowy camp, and I saw the sleek, gray forms of small vehicles at the margins of the camp. Snow machines. I had heard the buzzing of deadly wasps. That’s how they’d done it. A smaller force had probably infiltrated early that morning, maybe a sniper or two to take out our outer guards. After an initial attack, the rest had come in on the snow machines. There’d been no warning this time, and it would have been harder for Ruby’s people to melt into the woods—the snow made it almost impossible to run, and the tracks would be easy to follow.

A few of the soldiers were frisking the campers and moving them to a second area, where they were kneeling in ranks and files. I also saw red patches in the snow, and a few casualties lying there wounded or dead. I wondered if the plan was to shoot everyone there and then. I took a chance and slid forward through the snow to the treeline for a better vantage.

Rachel.

Decked out in a typically smart-looking black-and-white camouflaged snow suit with a fur-lined hood was Rachel. In her hand was a pistol, and the pistol was pointed at Ruby, who sat in the snow slouching in utter defeat.

I could hear their voices now but couldn’t make out any words. Then I did hear a few rounds of gunfire, very far away, muffled by the snow, I suppose. They were probably sweeping the outer areas and the vehicle parking lot, collecting stragglers, or perhaps simply executing them.

I felt the old pang of guilt, the self-excoriation. If it hadn’t been for Chase and I bringing the tea and slowing things down, Ruby and her people would have been long gone, headed out on their exodus to a new location beyond the Agency’s reach.

But they had not seen me, and Chase and Arie were not only far away but even more paranoid than I was. If I could get back to them, we could maybe make a run for it. Chase and Arie always kept a few supplies with them these days. Chase and Arie both had sidearms, and I had the rifle. Maybe it could be like last time. We could run away and be safe with the three things I wanted, the three things I needed: Arie, Chase, and our memories.

I worried that I would hate myself for the choice I was going to make. Worried that Chase and Arie wouldn’t forgive me. But the choice was clear to me. Peter said that he was in the mountains because that was what he was meant to do. It was his purpose. He had his, and this was mine.

Sixty-Four

There were three or four guards clustered where various trails led into the camp, but there was no one between Rachel and me. I ducked behind a large tree and unshouldered the rifle. Arie was right to tease me—I’d only fired Chase’s hunting rifle a few times, and I could barely remember how to work it. Guns simply were not my strong suit, and now I regretted not learning more. With my back to the tree I examined the weapon. I pulled back the bolt and established that the rifle was, in fact, loaded. Good. I made sure the safety was on so that I wouldn’t fumble and fire accidentally. Then I put the stock to my shoulder and squinted into the scope.

I couldn’t see a thing.

But it didn’t matter. I wouldn’t have to use the rifle. I only had to look like I could. And so I stood up, my back still to the tree and took a few deep breaths. Then I turned and passed through the treeline and onto the open ground above the camp.

“Rachel, drop the gun!” I shouted. My voice carried down the slope and into the camp where the other prisoners cowered at gunpoint. I walked forward through the snow with the rifle aimed at Rachel.

Everyone turned in my direction. The soldiers spun and wheeled, shouting orders. They trained their weapons on me, but Rachel shouted, “Hold your fire!”

“Drop the gun, Rachel,” I repeated.

“Alison,” Rachel greeted me as I approached. Her voice was calm, warm.

“Drop it!” I shouted.

“All right,” she said, her voice clear and beautiful in the cold air. “All right. Don’t get testy.” She laid her pistol gingerly on a nearby tree stump, as though she didn’t want to spoil its looks by getting snow on it. Then she stood up and stepped back. She held up a hand to keep her soldiers at bay, and then smiled broadly at me. “You know, I’ve been looking all over for you. You’ve been busy since we last got together. Come on over. It’s time we talked.”

I moved slowly through the snow to maintain at least the illusion that I was really aiming the rifle, that I was ready to gun Rachel down. The soldiers kept their weapons on me, pivoting as I came into camp. When I was only fifty feet from Rachel, I paused.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now,” I said.

“My soldiers will gun you down, for one thing,” she replied, as though she were concerned with my wellbeing.

“Tell them to put down their weapons!”

“Do not put down your weapons!” She raised her voice, but again she was completely calm—almost relaxed.

“Tell them, Rachel. I swear I’ll shoot.”

“So, it’s true what I’ve heard? You remember me? And everything else?”

I took several steps forward, pointed the rifle directly her chest. “Do it!”

“Alison, stop,” said Rachel with a playful, dismissive wave of her hand. “You’re not going to kill me. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t even know how to shoot that thing.”

“What do you want, you parasite?” I spat, my jaw clenched. “Why can’t you leave us alone?”

“I want what you have,” replied Rachel, her tone suddenly icy. “And I want it now. You have a serum or treatment that cures the amnesia.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, knowing it was the flimsiest of bluffs. Rachel and her soldiers had the entire morning to round up, disarm, detain, and question Ruby, Woolly, and others. She knew everything, obviously.

“Don’t, Alison. Don’t play games. Give me what I want, and I’ll think about not killing you and all of your friends. Don’t give it to me and I’ll find it myself and then kill all of you. Oh, including them.” She pointed behind me.

I didn’t want to look, but I knew what I’d see if I did. I glanced in the direction she pointed, but when I saw Arie and Chase coming down the trail with their hands on their heads, followed by three more of the winter-clad soldiers, I couldn’t look away. I heard a soft crunch of snow underfoot and the zinging sound of Rachel’s snowsuit. I looked back down the muzzle of the rifle in time to see her crossing the final couple yards between us. She was quick as a cat.

I pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Rachel took the rifle by the barrel, swept it powerfully from my hands, and struck me on the side of the head with the stock. Down I went into the snow like a sack of dropped potatoes. I didn’t black out, but I was half-blinded with the pain. Chase and Arie called out to me, but I lay crumpled in the snow whimpering.

“You left the safety on, Alison,” said Rachel. She pulled back the bolt and ejected the round. Then with a deft motion she pressed some kind of release and yanked the bolt free of the barrel. “I knew you didn’t know how to fire it,” Rachel sneered, tossing the disassembled weapon into a snowbank.

Soon we were all assembled—Ruby, Woolly, Chase, Arie, and me. We sat in the snow with hands and feet zip-tied, guarded by two soldiers in white. The rest of the campers had been herded into a sort of pen a short way off, surrounded by the rest of Rachel’s snow soldiers. The gash Rachel left on my head with the rifle stock had bled copiously for a while but had subsided in the cold. I looked at the others. Each of us had a bloody nose or swollen eye or busted lip. Chase had a cut on the bridge of his nose and a trickle of blood coming from his ear. At least we hadn’t gone down without fighting back, I thought.

“Just give it to them,” Chase was saying. “She’s either going to wipe us or kill us, same diff. Just give her what she wants, Al. Maybe she’ll remember that she used to be a human being.”

“Agreed,” said Woolly. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Arie and Ruby nodded.

They were right. We’d stood up to the Agency and Rachel too many times and lost. I directed them to my backpack. One of the soldiers retrieved it from my tent and it was emptied out into the snow at Rachel’s feet.

“The leather satchel,” I said.

“This?” said Rachel? “This is the treatment?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a tea.”

Rachel opened the mouth of the satchel and held it to her nose. Then she grimaced and turned her face away. “Smells like a dead bird.”

“Tastes like one, too,” quipped Chase. “But it works. Now. You’ll let us go?”

“I said I’d think about it,” she replied, gazing at Chase down her nose, which had gotten red from the cold but somehow made her look even more imperiously beautiful. “

“How do I know this is really it?” said Rachel, her brow knitted. “How do I know it’ll work?”

“Ask anyone here. We’ve all taken it. We all remember.”

Rachel held a conference with her ranking soldiers a short distance from us. The sun was going down, and we all shivered with cold. We couldn’t hear what Rachel said to her soldiers, but some of them questioned eight or ten of Ruby’s rank-and-file campers, and within an hour, Rachel seemed satisfied that the tea was what we’d used to get our memories back.

“So, you drink the tea; you get your memories back,” asked Rachel, eying the satchel with evident skepticism. “Just like that?”

“For some people it takes more than one dose, more than one day,” I said. “For some people it takes several days and repeated doses.”

“I’m inclined to let you all go,” said Rachel. “A nasty generous streak I have, maybe. Is that all I need to know? Tell me everything and I’ll let you go.”

I traded glances with the others, who in a wordless consultation gave me to know I should explain more.

“There’s a certain mindset that seems important to the process,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Rachel wearily.

“The tea works best when you’re in a certain mindset,” I added. “Relaxed, meditative, open-minded, focused on what you want. It’s not a medicine. It’s more like a catalyst.”

“Seriously? Mindset? Catalyst? What kind of hippie tomfoolery is this, Alison?”

“It works, Rachel,” said Chase. “You win. It works. Now let us go.”

Rachel crouched down in front of us as we sat shivering in the snow. When she was eye-to-eye with us, examined us. I stared back at her.

“I believe you,” she said. Then she stood. “Sergeant,” she said, her voice gruff.

One of the two soldiers guarding us turned to Rachel. The sergeant was a tall woman and thickly built, but with the easy and lethal grace of the natural warrior. She pulled down her face mask. Her eyes were large and thoughtful. “Ma’am?” she said.

“Get your team over here.” Then Rachel pointed to me and Ruby and the others. “Get your team over here and execute them.”

Over the profane chorus of our protests, the sergeant frowned at Rachel and said, “Say again, ma’am? You want them executed? Shot?”

Rachel reached up and grabbed the sergeant by the front of her snowsuit, then pulled the sergeant’s face down to her own. “Yes, Sergeant, that is what I want. Shoot them,” Rachel growled. “The rest we’ll take back for processing. But these I want dead.”

As we continued to holler and struggle against the zip-ties that held us, the sergeant hesitated, glanced at us, her large eyes blinking. But then she whistled loudly and yelled, “Second squad! To me!”

Six soldiers broke from their places guarding the campers and hustled through the snow to join the sergeant.

“These prisoners are to be executed,” she said, her voice loud but with a halting, hollow quality.

Now protests erupted from the rest of the campers. Many of them stood up and moved toward us.

“If any of them interfere,” Rachel commanded, her voice shrill now, piercing the air and carrying in the icy air, “shoot them, too.”

I couldn’t see the prisoners behind us, but there was shouting and the sounds of rough treatment. One of the soldiers fired a warning shot into the air.

“Sergeant, now!” raged Rachel pointing at us again.

The soldiers looked at their sergeant uncertainly. The sergeant chopped a line into the snow with her boot heel. “Stand on this, uhm, line,” she said. “Stand here. Ready your—weapons. Fire on my command.”

The soldiers leveled their weapons at us. I stared into the tiny round blackness of six machinegun muzzles. I turned to look at the Sergeant, waiting for her to say give the signal that would end my life. My heart beat hard. But when I looked at her, I had a sudden recollection.

“Sonja?” I said. The Sergeant looked at me, her eyes wide.

I chuckled a little. “Sonja! I know you! You were a preschool teacher. You taught my son, Arie. There was a song you always sang: Good Morning Sun.”

She took a step back, keeping her eyes on me, but there was a softening in her presence.

“Fire!” shouted Rachel. “Shoot them now!”

The soldiers shifted, but the sergeant held up her hand. “Wait,” she commanded.

There was movement behind me. Something jostled me. I chanced a look over my shoulder. It was Woolly. Although he was bound hand and foot, he was struggling to rise. He had gotten to his knees, and then with a surprising deftness, he rocked onto the balls of his feet and stood upright.

The soldiers’ weapons remained trained on us.

“Cal!” shouted Woolly at the soldiers. He tottered a little but remained standing.

One of them lowered his weapon just slightly.

“Calvin Peter Roberts,” Woolly shouted, louder. His voice boomed across the snow.

“It’s me, Woolly. We used to play Halo in your mom’s basement. You drank Mt. Dew by the gallon. You planned to join the army.” Woolly paused a moment. “Looks like you kinda did.”

“Fire!” hollered Rachel.

We couldn’t see the man’s face because of his mask, but his eyes twitched with confusion, conflict.

Another cry rang out behind us. “Tamara Rodriguez! Don’t shoot! It’s Richard! Your brother-in-law! I married your sister, Valerie!”

And then others.

“Oscar!”

“Franklin Pavithran!”

“Hey, it’s me, Oscar! We were roomies at Nevada State!”

“I know you! You lived down the block from me!”

I rolled onto my knees, wheeled around. The soldiers were stepping back, lowering their weapons. One of them unharnessed his machinegun, hurled it to the ground, and staggered back, tripping and falling into the snow.

“Fire!” Rachel was shrieking. “Fire on them now!”

“Don’t do it,” Chase said hastily to the line of soldiers. “Ignore her! Join us. We’ll help you remember.”

The sergeant looked at me, her thoughtful eyes searching, questioning.

“It’s true,” I told her, nodding. “You can all remember.”

Rachel grabbed the sergeant roughly again, but the big sergeant brushed her aside with an almost thoughtless sweep of her arm, and Rachel flew sprawling in the snow like an elegant doll.

“Stand down,” said the sergeant to her squad, holding up a hand. The soldiers obeyed.

I looked around again, amazed. An old lady had her arms around one of Rachel’s soldiers, who accepted the embrace with a mixture of delight and total shock. Soldiers were shaking hands with prisoners. I heard laughter.

Rachel shrieked unintelligibly at the sergeant, but the sergeant lifted her weapon and let fly a cautionary burst of gunfire into the cold, darkening air.

“No ma’am,” said the sergeant. “No more. We’re done.”

Like a cat, Rachel sprang to the tree stump where she’d laid her pistol. The sergeant lunged toward the stump but Rachel was there first, and the pistol was in her hand. She fired. The round caught the sergeant in the chest and she fell lifeless into the snow.

The rest of the squad turned their machine guns on Rachel and opened fire. It was all over in one very short, very loud moment.

Sixty-Five

That night, we built the largest bonfire I’d ever been a witness to. A few dead trees were felled, their trunks were sectioned into logs four feet long, and these were tented like the campfire of a giant. Once the fire was blazing, we had to move back almost twenty feet to avoid being singed, but it nevertheless took me another hour to feel warm again after sitting so long in the snow.

Some of the soldiers joined Ruby’s camp on the spot, eager to get away from the Agency and its atrocities, but also very interested in the hallucinogenic tea that was purported to restore memories. However, most of them had families and a few of them felt the need to stay loyal to the Agency. No one made them stay, and they left peacefully.

Sonja, former preschool teacher and former sergeant of Rachel’s strike team, recovered. She’d been wearing a ballistic vest and suffered some nasty bruising, but she cavalierly laughed this off. Arie could not have been more amazed to meet up with her. He said he had hazy, fond remembrances of her, and he followed her around the camp offering his help.

They buried Rachel where she’d been killed. I was grateful to the soldiers who handled her body with such deference and respect, because as they laid her to rest, I felt my hatred for her melt away, leaving me feeling lighter and more free even than I’d felt before.

The bonfire burned through the night. The last reserves of anything resembling wine or spirits were produced and there was laughter and singing.

Some of us were still snuggled together under heaped-up blankets as the sun came up. We’d talked all through the night, moving our chairs and seats progressively closer to the bonfire as it burned lower and collapsed. It still gave off a great deal of heat as the night’s final chill clutched at us, but as the sky turned rosy with the dawn, coffee pots and pans of water appeared on the periphery of the coals and soon we had warm cups to drink from.

Sonja threw off the blanket she was huddling beneath. She stood and went to the fire and held out her hands to warm them.

“I take it none of you have been to an Agency facility in a while.”

“We broke into one not long ago,” said Chase, hiking up his shoulders flippantly, “but we weren’t exactly treated as guests.”

“I remember,” said Sonja. “I was part of the fast-response unit that night, though I wasn’t on the team that apprehended you.”

“Why’d you bring it up, though?” asked Ruby.

“The Agency is—struggling, changing, shrinking. It’s caving in on itself. Defections practically every day. Zones are being evacuated and collapsed as more and more people escape. And you saw what happened here yesterday. I volunteered for this detail half-expecting something like this to happen.”

“So, what are you saying?” I asked.

“Well,” said Sonja, “I’m not sure.” She winced and pressed her hand to her bruised ribs. “I guess I’m saying that there’s not as much for you all to be concerned about anymore. Rachel was really the last of what we called ‘the big-game hunters,’ the last of those in the Agency who are interested in rounding up folks like you, maintaining order at all costs. Most of the higher-ups are just desperately trying to carve out a decent existence for themselves and any family they have left.”

Ruby nodded slowly and stared at the coals of the bonfire. “That actually makes me kinda said,” she muttered.

“You think it might be time for a new strategy, Rube?” Chase asked.

“I dunno,” she said softly. “We been dreamin’ about this moment so long, when we could finally break free and move far away, it’s almost like I want to go through with it just because we always said we would.”

We nodded and murmured our assent.

“But I also been thinkin’ about what Al and Arie always said. That it ain’t right to leave all them people in the Zones when we know how to help ’em. And now we got this magic tea. Think about it. We sneak this here tea in. Not just to them in the Zones, but the goons, too. The soldiers, the management, everybody. Can ya imagine?”

“It’d be one hell of a party,” said Woolly.

We all chuckled.

“We’d need more tea,” I said.

“At first, yeah,” said Woolly. “But maybe Peter could teach us how to cultivate it, too.”

“So there’s no more exodus?” I asked. “No new settlement?”

“Maybe not,” said Ruby. “Or maybe the exodus goes back where we come from. Maybe it’s time we went home and started rebuilding.”

“And what about you?” Chase asked Ruby. “How are you feeling?”

She rubbed her knee. “Well. I feel pretty good, now that I think about it. Thanks for askin’. But maybe it’s time I take some a’ that tea and think about retirement. I got my whole leadership team back. And maybe a couple new helpers.”

Ruby nodded in Sonja’s direction. Sonja nodded back.

Ruby had been our leader for so long, it was hard to think of her not bossing us around.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” said Woolly to Ruby. “You’re not gonna retire just like that.”

“I never said I was, ya big galoot,” Ruby barked, “but maybe it’s time someone else drove the bus for a while.”

When every other person in the group professed to having their memories restored, Ruby finally drank the tea herself. Arie and I assisted her, making her comfortable in her tent, but she was so worried about what she would remember, it felt rather like a solemn, almost funerary ceremony.

“What if I’m awful person,” she protested as we prepared the tea. “What if I don’t like who I used t’be?” It took half the day to get her settled and calm.

Early in the morning two days later she burst joyously from her tent.

“Hey y’all,” she hollered, “come hear about me. I was a grandma! I am a grandma!” She hurried to the main firepit. A crowd of us gathered around her and heard the story of her life. There was a renewed sense of youth about her. I realized she didn’t have her walking stick. Her face glowed as she told about her children. “Six of them! Can ya imagine?” said Ruby, “Four boys and two girls.”

“No wonder you’re so good at running camp and keeping us all alive,” said Woolly. “You have experience with children.”

Ruby chuckled. She missed them, of course, and cried for them, wondering mournfully where they might have ended up, but gone from her eyes was the abject weariness I had seen before. Her eyes sparkled with new life and a new happiness.

“I’ll track ’em all down,” she resolved, “track all ’em kiddies down and add them to the rest of my family here,” said Ruby with a wide grin. And I had no doubt she would do just that.

Later that afternoon, I found a peaceful hillside to watch the sun go down again.

Arie found me and sat next to me.

“I remember,” he said. “The Ferris wheel. The Sky Dreamer. You and dad and me.”

I nodded.

“I miss him,” Arie said.

“I do, too. But I missed him before, before I remembered. It’s better to know.”

Arie nodded. Then he scooped up a handful of snow and threw it down the hill. It struck a tree trunk with a loud pop.

“Mom?” he said.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

I grabbed his hand. “I love you, too.”

Arie looked embarrassed. “Okay, well, this has gotten a bit mushy. I think I’ll have a game of chess with Woolly.”

Just then I saw someone else coming up the hill.

“You don’t have to go,” I said.

Arie smirked. “I know. But I’m gonna anyway. Someone wants to talk to you.”

It was Chase approaching, coming up the snowy hillside. His beard and hair had been trimmed, and as he got closer, I saw that he was wearing a vest, suit coat, and a tie. Where did he get those?

Arie walked down the hill and as he passed by Chase, they shook hands.

“Good luck, man,” said Arie.

Chase took a deep breath and nodded. Arie continued in the direction of the camp. Chase came closer, one hand behind his back.

“Look at you,” I said, standing up. “Handsome.”

Chase grinned sheepishly.

“I’ve come to ask you something.”

“No,” I said. “Me first.”

He looked puzzled.

I took his hand in mine.

“Chase, I love you. No matter how hard I’ve tried not to or how hard they’ve tried to erase you from me, I love you. And I feel like we are meant to be together. I want to spend my life with you. I want the rest of my memories to include you. Will you marry me?”

Chase laughed. He brought his arm forward to reveal a golden ring. “I thought you’d never ask.”

A week later, just before our rag-tag convoy got underway westward, Ruby married us beneath a tall spruce tree as it snowed. The flakes were like shimmering particles of glitter falling around us in celebration.

Today I sometimes marvel at how old I’ve grown to be. I never thought I would be this old, but I never knew I could be this happy, either. It amazes me that Chase and I lived this long, and that he’s still by my side. We have grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The world is better now than it was when I first met Chase and Woolly and Ruby. And it’s getting better. We have made a million memories since those days. Wonderful, precious memories that we never will forget.

Available for purchase

Creep Factor by

Amanda Luzzader and Chadd VanZanten

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J3X1CM5

It’s the feeling that something isn’t quite right. The glance of a stranger that lingers too long. A coworker who appears out of nowhere. Creep Factor is thirteen deeply creepy short horror stories that explore the awkward, unnerving, and the terrifying. From backstabbing roommates to vicious pets, from murderous spirits to soul-wracking nightmares, Creep Factor covers the savagely weird to the merely ghastly.

About the Author

Amanda Luzzader writes upmarket science fiction, horror, and middle-grade books. She is a self-described ’fraidy cat. Things she will run away from include (but are not limited to): mice, snakes, spiders, bits of string and litter that resemble spiders, most members of the insect kingdom, and (most especially) bats. Bats are the worst. But Amanda is first and primarily a mother to two energetic and intelligent sons, and this role inspires and informs her writing, which frequently involves mothers and women as main characters. As Amanda likes to say, “Moms are people, too.”

Amanda has worked as a technical writer and a professional editor and is currently employed as a grant writer for a Utah nonprofit organization. She was named Writer of the Year for 2019-2020 by the League of Utah Writers.

www.amandaluzzader.com