Now Edie looked exasperated. “Why not?”
“Don’t—don’t hear me wrong. Or give me a break for saying it wrong. You, Edie: you can do anything. I believe that. But how are you going to do it all alone? Why would you want to do it all alone?”
“I don’t want to do it all alone,” Edie said. “I mean, I will. If I have to. But if anyone wanted to stay with me—well, they could. I’d welcome that.”
“You’d welcome it,” Wes repeated. Goddammit, he thought. Goddammit it all.
Her eyes skittered away again. “I value your friendship and your smarts. What you’ve done with Pocketz, I think it could be done in a different, more meaningful way. You understand people better than you think you do. What’s in their hearts. Not just what’s in their accounts.”
“Their Virtuz,” Wes said wryly.
“Well—I guess,” Edie said, clearly not hearing the word with the z at the end.
“You say you value my friendship,” Wes said. “Do you understand what I’d be hoping for?”
Edie seemed to think about it. Then nodded.
“And you’d still welcome me? Knowing that?”
“It’s a selfish fucking thing to do,” Edie said, “but yes. I would. As long as you understand what I’m capable of offering.”
“Which is friendship.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly,” Wes repeated. He smiled. He couldn’t help himself. He’d faced worse odds.
—
That afternoon, still symptom free, Wes requested a tablet. Edie brought him, apologetically, a sheaf of paper and a pen. “The chalet’s tablet is the control hub for the house systems, so Andy didn’t want you tying it up. Hope this is OK.”
“I’ll manage,” Wes said.
And he did, barely. His writing hand was attached to his bad arm, so he worked slowly and uncomfortably, trying to get the numbers clear enough to read, double-checking his work. He wrote by hand so infrequently in his regular life that his print had the sloping insecurity of a child’s. But he supposed it would serve. He put his signature at the bottom, not sure if the gesture would mean anything—but it couldn’t hurt.
After he’d finished, he felt well enough to join the others downstairs in the kitchen. They were having another makeshift meal at the counter, and they clapped awkwardly when he entered, made little exclamations over him: Oh, hey! There he is! Looking good!
“Coffee?” Andy asked after the little hubbub had died down.
Wes nodded. “Please.”
Andy poured him a cup. “There’s junk to eat. Plenty of it. And I fried some deer meat I found in the deep freeze. It tastes like salty shoe leather, but it’s better than soy dogs.”
“I’d pay a thousand credits for a cup of OJ,” Wes said, sipping the coffee. “That was my treat food back home.”
“That’s neither food nor a treat,” Edie said.
“It has a ton of sugar,” said Wes.
Marta favored him with one of her serene, knowing smiles. “I don’t suppose you’re going to find much OJ this side of the Salt Line.”
Wes blushed, feeling watched by the others. So Edie had told them.
“Is Edie for real?” Berto asked him. “You’re staying here?”
“Yeah.” He pulled a veggie crisp from an open bag and crunched down on it. It was stale and tasteless. “I am.” He exchanged a look with Edie, who favored him with such a pleased smile that his resolve halted its wavering.
“You’re both out of your minds,” Ken said.
Violet, nibbling the edge of a piece of the burnt deer meat, asked, “Did Edie tell you what we think happened to Ruby City?”
“She did, yeah,” Wes said.
“And you still want to be on this side of the Wall?” Berto said.
“I think,” Wes said, “that it’s more a reason to stay than it is to go back.” He felt the truth of this as he said it aloud.
After a moment, Andy offered: “I say it’s cool. Admirable. The revolution’s going to come from outside the zones. That’s a fact. That’s why I was willing to do the things I’ve done.”
“So are you staying, too?” Berto asked.
“Hell no,” Andy said. He slowly unwrapped a chocolate-flavored Moon Pie and held it up to the light. “Goddamn, these are good.” He downed it in three huge bites, then licked his fingers and thumb.
—
They decided to part ways at first light. Andy, Berto, Violet, Marta, and Ken would take the car an hour east to the fertilizer plant where Andy’s old smuggling contacts worked. Edie and Wes would stay behind at the chalet and make their own plan for what came next. The world—even between zone borders—was vast, the possibilities endless. There were ticks. But there were also, perhaps, the remnants of Ruby City, some vestiges of the drug operations there, perhaps even survivors. Wes wanted to stop in Asheville to see if he could find the house where his great-great-grandfather—the professor of sociology he’d told Marta about when they were first bused over the Salt Line—lived and died. Edie had said that sounded like as good a place to begin as any.
Late, as each of the others yawned and stretched and left to go upstairs to bed, Wes and Marta lingered. At last it was just the two of them. It was midnight, according to the clock—thirty-seven hours since Wes’s bite.
Marta was sipping whiskey, part of the stash Andy had told them a million years ago was hidden away somewhere as a special treat. They had turned on the gas logs, though it wasn’t very cold out, still. High fifties, even with the sun down.
“I’m going to cut right to it,” Marta said. “What in the hell are you doing, Wes?”
Wes sighed. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“For the first time, you sound like one of my sons. That’s not a compliment.” She peered at him. “Tell me you aren’t doing this for a pretty girl. Because if you are, Wes, you’re going to regret it. I like Edie. I like her almost as well as I like you. But she came out here with a man.”
“Jesse—”
“He died a few days ago. I’m well aware.”
“What I was going to say is that they were basically done before what happened to him.”
“Maybe that’s wishful thinking on your part,” Marta said. “Or maybe they were, and maybe she’s madly in love with you—”
“Jeez, stop.”
“—and maybe this is the start of some grand romantic adventure. It will end badly. This is a bad world, Wes. I think it’s bad all over, but some parts are worse than others.”
“What about you?” Wes said. “What’s next for you?”
“You know what’s next for me.”
“You go back to your husband.”
Marta laughed shakily and took another sip of her whiskey.
“He might have been the one to do that to the village. Just like June was worried he would.”
“Oh, there’s no ‘might have been’ to it,” Marta said. “It was him. I saw his eyes before Joe put that gun to my head.” She looked up, her own dark eyes reflecting firelight. “And the tracking device I showed you—I left it behind at the storage shed. He had an X to mark the spot.”
“So, to quote a wise woman I know: What in the hell are you doing?”