“We’re representatives of the Goldman Dome branch of the Axiom Group,” Yellow Tie says. “We appreciate your patience as we determine how to meet your needs.”
“Are you not hearing me?” Rosso snaps, his eyes beginning to spark. “I’m asking what your name—”
“I’m afraid your attitude may be negatively affecting the outcome of this meeting,” Blue Tie interjects with a sudden spike in volume, and the corners of his grin fall.
Rosso closes his mouth. The pitchmen’s warm river of pleasantries makes it easy to forget the helicopters, the truck convoys, and the phrase “under new management.” But with that small shift in Blue Tie’s demeanor, everyone suddenly recalls the shape of the situation.
“Due to the sensitive nature of the materials,” Yellow Tie says in a gentle tone of deep apology, “we are unable to deliver our presentation in a public setting at this time. If you can take us to a private, restricted location”—her smile returns like the sun breaking through clouds—“we would be delighted to share our development plans for your enclave and the entire Cascadia region.”
Rosso glances at Kenerly. Kenerly’s face glistens with sweat and his fingers are tight on his rifle, but it’s just three lunatics in colorful ties. Whatever the real threat might be, it’s waiting in the shadows behind them.
Kenerly nods.
“We’ll take you to our command office,” Rosso says, then hesitates. “But just you three. Your ‘assistants’ wait outside.”
“Our assistants wait outside,” Yellow Tie agrees, a little too readily.
The assistants turn and exit through the gate, unfazed by their abrupt dismissal. Balt watches them go and frowns, glances at Yellow Tie, then at Rosso. “I’ll go keep an eye on them,” he says with the exaggerated volume of a bad stage actor as he follows the men outside.
But Rosso isn’t listening to Balt. He is staring at the pitchmen with a grim intensity, as if playing out unpleasant scenarios in his head. Without another word, he walks toward the nearest passageway and the pitchmen follow close on his heels. The gloom of the tunnel gives way to daylight, but although the sky is a dim purple and the air has cooled, I feel a dampness in my palms.
I have finally learned to sweat.
? ? ?
I trail behind with the soldiers, watching the pitchmen’s feet grind into the sticky asphalt, heavy black boots incongruous with their business attire. Ahead, Rosso and Kenerly walk in grim silence, leading these strange intruders into the heart of the stadium, and though they’re unarmed, it has the feel of a march at gunpoint to a secluded spot in the woods. Pick up that shovel. Start digging.
Yet what I feel isn’t fear. It’s loss. Nostalgia for something I can’t quite name. My mind drifts out of this fraught negotiation and into the streets and buildings around me. I hate this city. I wish we didn’t need it. But it’s filled with people I love and covered in their fingerprints. I think of Julie’s old bedroom, the multicolored walls and the paintings, her own raw splashes of emotion hanging alongside Picasso and Dalí’s mastery of form. I think of Nora in her foster home, older than some of the parents but refusing to take an apartment of her own, staying behind to mother three floors of frightened orphans whose faces she looks into like mirrors. I think of Rosso’s house, Ella and the younger women talking in the kitchen while Lawrence sits by the fire and reads the brittle pages of some ancient text, pulling more knowledge into his already vast inner library.
I think of all this, and I imagine it razed. Tank treads grinding over paintings and books. Children fleeing through bent steel and smoldering plywood. And me standing in the center of town, screaming everyone’s names through clouds of ashes.
An obsolete reflex twitches in my hand; I reach into my pocket for a phone that isn’t there and wouldn’t work if it were. Satellites drift dead in space. Earth’s atmosphere is silent, wrapped in a fog of interference so thick even carrier pigeons get lost in it. With most of the old landlines long since cut, humanity is back to the Bronze Age: isolated tribes peering into a world of shadows.
But I need to talk to Julie. I need to hear her voice and know that she’s still real, not just the pleasant prelude to a nightmare.
“Can I borrow your walkie?” I whisper to the soldier next to me.
He looks startled. “Why?”
“I need . . . to call my girlfriend.”
He hesitates, processing this absurdity, then hands me his walkie. These old-fashioned devices have become a precious commodity, and Julie usually carries the one we share between us. I’ve rarely had anything urgent to communicate as I pass my days with housework and the vegetable garden, forcing conversations with our taciturn neighbors, taking swings at an invisible enemy and just waiting for something to happen. Well . . . something is happening.
I dial in Julie’s frequency and press the talk button. I wince at the squeal of static, but I hold the device close to my face and murmur, “Julie?”
I hear bursts of noise that have the rhythm of words, but their sibilance and inflection are scrambled, draining them of meaning.