Chapter Ninety-Seven: Two Steps From Disaster
Anna Carrero was almost home.
She waited on the curb of Route 113 for the traffic light to change, watching dozens of cars and trucks whiz by. Route 113 was one of the busiest roads in the area, and morning rush hour was no joke.
It had been years since the last time Anna did some serious biking, and she took the opportunity provided by the red traffic light to massage her aching calves. Biking all the way from Downingtown had parched her throat, and she needed water.
Anna glanced to her left, gazing at the Wawa and the CVS further down the busy road, and she could easily see herself walking inside either establishment, strolling up to the drinks section, grabbing a big bottle of water, drinking half of it, and pouring the remaining half onto her face before the cashier realized what was happening and freaked out.
"C'mon, we're broke," Anna reminded herself. "Whose money are we buying it with?"
Then again, who said anything about buying the water? Fuck capitalism. A vast chain like CVS or Wawa would not go out of business if a single bottle of water disappeared from their inventory, and Anna was really thirsty. A missing candy bar wouldn't hurt, either. After Monday, it's not like anyone would be alive enough to care.
"Uh-uh. Nope." Anna shook her head, waiting impatiently for the stubborn traffic light to change. "I am not getting arrested three days before the apocalypse for stealing from a stupid CVS or a significantly less stupid Wawa. Not happening."
Anna looked away from the CVS and Wawa. Across the street she could see Downingtown East High School, tucked away behind a moat of athletic fields and a packed student parking lot. Somewhere inside that very school, right this moment, was Anna's past self, and she could only wonder what Past Anna was up to. Checking her phone, Anna saw that it was 8:27am. "You're getting buzzed in the bathroom, right now," Anna mused to the high school. "Who needs 1st Period Algebra?"
The speeding cars and trucks slowed to a crawl and came to a stop as their traffic light turned yellow, and then red. When Anna's light flipped green, she biked across Route 113 and headed east on Devon Drive, past the high school and the neighboring YMCA.
As she approached the Whitford Road stop sign, Anna looked at the Lionville YMCA, and she smirked. Over the past few years, Anna had enjoyed a handful of discreet sexual encounters with classmates in the YMCA bathrooms. Anna never went to the YMCA to swim. What was so appealing about swimming in a massive concrete tub of chlorine and child pee?
After crossing Whitford Road, Anna took the next left onto Concord Avenue, watching the suburbs scroll slowly by. Each house occupied an entire patch of land, and no two houses looked the same. Colorful flowers decorated a few front porches, and the naked trees were beginning to sprout leaves, but what pleased Anna most were the unkempt lawns adorned with dandelions.
Dandelions were awesome. So many people thought dandelions were just weeds, but Anna knew better. As one of Spring's first flowers, dandelions were a crucial early food source for bees. Plus, they were pretty, and they turned into wishers, which was incredibly cool, and—
A blaring car horn startled Anna, and she realized she was drifting towards the middle of the road. Readjusting, Anna glanced over her shoulder at the mustang bearing down on her. The car just screamed douchebag, from the obnoxious bright yellow color to the license plates which said NOT–POOR. It wasn't slowing down, and Anna was forced onto the sidewalk.
"Outta my fuckin' way!" screamed the driver through the open car windows as the bright yellow mustang roared by. "Fuckin' BITCH!"
Trembling, Anna walked the rest of the way home.
"Stupid split-dicked shit-whip will be dead in three days," Anna murmured, taking deep breaths in an effort to calm down. "Forget him."
Thankfully, home was nearby. Concord Avenue brought Anna to Marchwood Road, which was very short, barely longer than the length of two football fields, serving only to connect Concord Avenue with Route 100. At the end of Marchwood Road, next to the Route 100 traffic light, was the Exton Diner, which Anna made a mental note to visit later. She enjoyed their greasy breakfasts and their shitty diner coffee.
Across the street from the diner awaited Marchwood Apartments; the sprawling neighborhood of two-story apartment blocks which Anna called home. Entering through the main parking lot, Anna cut across the grass yard to her apartment, stopping for a moment to stare at the front door. "This is just surreal," she murmured, producing the house keys from her sylladex. After unlocking and opening the front door, Anna stepped inside, wrinkling her nose at the residual stench of Great Uncle Andrés's cigarettes. No cigarettes had actually been smoked here in a very long time, but the smell never seemed to fully go away.
The fact that no one was yelling at Anna meant Great Uncle Andrés was probably asleep, and sure enough, when Anna listened closely, she could hear snoring from the master bedroom upstairs. After wheeling her bike inside and leaning it against one of the walls, Anna closed the door, locked it, turned around, and that was when she noticed the partially finished handle of Captain Morgan rum sitting on the kitchen counter next to the fridge.
Anna froze.
What a perfect solution to all of her problems. It tasted like shit, but enough of it could make a gray world colorful again.
Slowly, without taking her eyes off the rum, Anna entered the kitchen and retrieved a cup from one of the cabinets. She filled her cup with water from the sink and drank, quenching her parched throat. Then she looked away from the rum, put her cup down, and headed upstairs, tiptoeing to avoid waking Great Uncle Andrés.
Once inside her bedroom, Anna shut the door, set her glass of water down on the nightstand, and crawled into bed without even bothering to take off her shoes.
Cuddling with a pillow underneath the covers, Anna closed her eyes.
Cass Galavis opened her eyes, yawning and stretching in bed before sitting up.
How long had she slept?
Groggily, Cass swung herself out of bed and slipped into her Sylph robes, walking over to her bedroom windows, where she took a moment to enjoy her view of Greenflame Plaza below.
It was a difficult view to enjoy. "Easier each day," Cass murmured to herself, watching the slow progress of the reconstruction teams.
Turning away from the windows, Cass exited her third-story apartment via the shared stairwell, pausing at the door of the second-floor apartment downstairs, which now belonged to a wounded veteran of the Bloody Road. "Argo?" Cass knocked on the door of her downstairs neighbor. "Are you coming to the Public Conclave?"
Raspily, a quiet voice on the other side of the door replied, "Of course not."
"You should consider attending," encouraged Cass. "Participating will bring you a sense of purpose."
"Will it bring me painkillers?"
"Our supplies are dwindling," said Cass. "And you aren't in the hospital anymore. You won't get any."
Argo coughed several times, clearing her throat and spitting. "You can get them. You're the Sylph."
"You know I can't do that."
"Can you give me back my leg?"
Cass grimaced, backing away from the door. "No."
"Well, then what use are you?" snapped Argo. "And what use is your mouse-brained conclave?"
"It's your conclave, too," Cass reminded her neighbor. "And don't be so quick to underestimate the intelligence of a mouse."
"Leave me alone."
Without saying another word, Cass descended the remaining stairs to the ground floor, opening the front door and stepping outside into the perpetual twilight of the dimly lit city. She glanced through the dusty windows of the abandoned bakery occupying the first floor of her building, wondering if bread would ever be made there again.
A dark sky yawned silently overhead, though Cass did not bother to look up. What was the point? These days, the only thing Cass ever saw in the empty sky was existential dread.
Everywhere Cass looked, she saw echoes of the Red Miles. Many of the buildings surrounding Greenflame Plaza remained partially collapsed and uninhabitable. Gaping cracks and craters had been gouged into the cobblestones, forcing Cass to take a meandering route through the wreckage, where she crossed paths with several of the reconstruction teams.
A Dersite landscaper with a wheelbarrow, hard at work filling in a crater with dirt, saw Cass approaching. He put down his wheelbarrow and said, "Good morning, Sylph!"
"Hello, Ido." Cass waved back, stopping at the edge of Ido's crater to chat. "Are you sure it's morning?"
"It's afternoon!" hollered another landscaper from the next crater over.
"Don't listen to Olfie," Ido said, waving dismissively at the other landscaper. "It's late morning."
"Are you coming to the Public Conclave?" asked Cass. "You have experience with construction. We could use your help."
"I am needed here." Ido dumped all the dirt in his wheelbarrow into his crater. "At this rate, we will have Greenflame Plaza completely restored within a decade."
Cass disagreed. "Not if we can't solve our food problem."
"I have faith that capable minds will prevail." Ido jumped into his crater and used a shovel to tamp down the newly added dirt. "I know where I am most useful, and it is right here."
Seeing little value in pressing the issue further, Cass took her leave and continued on her way. There was no arguing with faith.
"¿Dónde estás?"
Anna was jolted awake by shouting from the master bedroom, and she could not remember her dreams. She glanced at her alarm clock, which said 12:47pm.
"¿Dónde estás?!"
"God damn it." Anna clambered out of bed and into the hallway, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Great Uncle Andrés always threw a fit when she forgot to give him a bath, and her past self must have forgotten to do so earlier this morning before she went to school.
Come to think of it, Anna vaguely remembered attending a house party on the night of April 9th, which had been her final Thursday night on Earth, and she got wasted. Then she'd come home, slept, woken up early this morning with a painful hangover, and gone straight to school without remembering to tend to her great-uncle. "God damn it."
Anna opened the door to her great-uncle's bedroom and was immediately struck by the smell of human excrement.
Lying in bed was Andrés Carrero, a wizened stick of an old man with barely any teeth left, an erratic frizz of white hair about the sides of his head, and deep wrinkles which painted his face into a permanent scowl. Upon seeing Anna, Andrés's scowl deepened, and he pointed a knobby index finger at her. "Me olvidaste," he accused.
"No." Anna gently removed the bedpan from underneath her great-uncle and set it down on the floor, wrinkling her nose at how full it had become. "No te olvidé."
"Puta mentirosa," spat Great Uncle Andrés. "Puta borracha. ¿Por qué me abandonaste en mía propia mierda?"
Anna did not respond. Silently she helped Great Uncle Andrés into his wheelchair, wheeling him across the hallway and into the bathroom. She twisted the hot water knob for the bathtub and plugged the drain.
Great Uncle Andrés fell silent, mesmerized by the running water and whatever distant memories it provoked within his ailing and distant mind. Taking advantage of the lull, Anna retrieved a fresh set of clothes for her great-uncle, as well as the bedpan. She emptied the contents of the bedpan into the toilet and flushed, draping the fresh change of clothes on the towel rack.
Anna unbuttoned Great Uncle Andrés's flannel shirt and lifted his arms, slipping the shirt off and dropping it onto the floor.
Great Uncle Andrés blinked, glancing around the room, stirred from his reverie. "¿Quién eres?" he asked, sensing a glimmer of familiarity about Anna.
"Me conoces." Anna helped Great Uncle Andrés stand, relieving him of his sweatpants and underwear, using her foot to push the newly discarded articles of clothing over to the flannel shirt. "Yo te cuido."
"¿Eres tú la enfermera?"
"No." Anna encouraged her great-uncle, one leg at a time, to step into the bathtub.
"¿Dónde está la enfermera?"
"El martes ella estará aquí," assured Anna, adding some cold water to the bath before it got too hot.
Great Uncle Andrés blinked again, confused. "¿Qué día es hoy?"
"It's Friday." Anna retrieved the bath sponge, dunking it into the water and lathering it up with bodywash. Gently, she scrubbed her great-uncle's lower legs, moving quickly to keep ahead of the rising water level. "Viernes."
After working her way up past her great-uncle's waist, Anna encouraged him to sit down, helping him settle into the bath, saturating the water with soap suds. She filled a large plastic tupperware with non-soapy water from the faucet, pouring it over Great Uncle Andrés's head, careful to keep the water from trickling into his eyes. Anna then scrubbed her great-uncle's back, stomach, chest, and arms, humming quietly as she finished with the top of his head.
Refilling the tupperware several times, Anna poured water over Great Uncle Andrés's head and shoulders, rinsing off all the soap. Then she shut off the water, pulled the plug, and allowed the bath to drain away. She helped Andrés onto his feet, drying him with a towel before getting him to step out of the bathtub, feeding his legs into a fresh pair of underwear and sweatpants, easing him back into the wheelchair and dressing him in a clean shirt.
Once Great Uncle Andrés was fully dressed, Anna wheeled him out of the bathroom and across the hallway, returning him to bed, where she equipped him with a fresh bedpan.
As Anna started to leave, Great Uncle Andrés told her, "Te amo."
Anna frowned, stopping in the doorway, unable to remember the last time she'd heard those words from Great Uncle Andrés. Was it a fluke? It was probably a fluke.
"Te amo," repeated Great Uncle Andrés. "Chela."
Fluke.
Anna left the master bedroom, closing the door behind her, walking downstairs into the kitchen, where she opened the partially-finished handle of Captain Morgan and tilted some of the liquor into her mouth.
Immediately Anna coughed out the rum, splattering the countertop and sink, doubling over and heaving several times before regaining control of her stomach. Without thinking, she upended the bottle and poured the remaining rum down the sink's drain.
"Fuck." Anna brought the bottle back to her lips and drank the last remaining drops. It was barely enough to coat her tongue. "Fuck."
Why the fuck did Anna have to dump it all out?
Setting down the empty glass handle bottle, Anna took a deep breath, licking her lips and teeth. She left the kitchen and went back upstairs to her bedroom. She opened her nightstand drawer, grabbing Great Uncle Andrés's credit card, as well as her fake ID.
Anna's real ID had been lost months ago, but that was okay. She didn't have much use for an ID card that said she was still a teenager.
Closing the nightstand drawer, Anna left her bedroom and hurried downstairs, grabbing her bike and leaving through the front door.
Cass walked along the sparsely populated Tenebrae Avenue on her way to the Public Conclave.
Before the Red Miles, Tenebrae Avenue had been one of the busiest thoroughfares on the Obsidian Moon. Mangled trolley tracks, deep craters, and an abundance of wrecked vehicle husks now prevented Tenebrae Avenue from supporting anything more than foot traffic.
In the near distance, Cass could see the spires and onion-dome turrets of the Royal House. According to the locals, the Royal House had once been the Black Queen's lunar home, but centuries had passed since her last visit. It seemed the Queen rarely ever graced the Obsidian Moon with her presence unless she needed to ruin lives or crush a rebellion.
Gradually, the severity of the damage waned as Cass continued along Tenebrae Avenue, which brought her from the ravaged Duskfall District into the neighboring Umbra District. Nowhere on the Obsidian Moon had been fully spared the Red Miles, but Umbra District fared much better than Duskfall. Most of the buildings were still intact, and the craters in the street were fewer and further between.
Cass, used to living in the dim light of Duskfall District, had to give her eyes a moment to adjust to the radiance as she passed through a stone entrance gate into the sprawling, brightly lit Royal Gardens. Rising from the center of the Gardens was the opulent Royal House, from which Cass could hear the clamor of hundreds of overlapping voices. The open surrounding area had been cultivated with grass, hedges, willow trees, and isolated patches of red roses. A few Dersites roamed the black brick pathways of the gardens, enjoying the willows and roses before entering the Royal House for the conclave.
A gardener knelt under one of the willow trees, tending to a family of red roses, and when she noticed Cass, the gardener removed her hat and waved. "Hello, Cassandra!"
"Hello Iris." Cass waved back, stopping to chat. "You remembered my name."
"Of course." With a trowel, Iris tamped down the soil around the roses. "You empowered us by suggesting we name ourselves. Remembering your true name is the least I can give you in return."
Cass smiled. "The roses are a nice touch."
"They breathe life into this place. These gardens are scant. I will help them bloom again." Iris removed her gardening gloves and picked up her watering can, moistening the roses and the surrounding soil. "I cherish my old willow trees, but nothing lights up an obsidian building like a serenade of red roses."
"Are you coming inside to the Public Conclave?"
"The other roses require my attention."
"If you starve to death, won't they die anyway?" Cass gently pointed out. "I'm going to shake things up today. We need creative minds working together. Our future is being decided, and I really think that's something you should be part of."
Iris looked forlornly at her roses. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt." She placed her watering can in a safe place between two hedges. "I can water them later."
"Come with me." Cass took Iris by the hand and led her inside, passing through the Royal House's entrance hall to the spacious central courtyard, where more than two hundred people had gathered for the Public Conclave.
There was a vital undercurrent of energy about the conclave as the attendees talked among themselves, striking informal bargains with each other. Much of the business brought to conclave was resolved in this unstructured way, but vitally important issues could be brought to the attention of the entire assembly if needed, which was exactly what Cass intended to do.
Leaving Iris at the back of the crowd, Cass walked straight to the center of the courtyard and stepped onto the polished block of stone serving as an improvised rostrum. Whenever someone called for assembly-wide attention, it usually took a few minutes for the courtyard to quiet down, but with Cass on the rostrum, the Public Conclave fell silent in a matter of seconds.
"I heard many of you bartering services for food supplies," Cass addressed the hundreds of attendees. "I did not hear anyone discussing solutions for our food crisis."
"Have you come to give a lecture?" A tall, ambitious Dersite stepped forward from the crowd, radiating defiance. "Will your lecture at least include a solution?"
"It is healthy to enjoy the sound of your own voice, Atrex," remarked Cass, irked at having been so rudely interrupted. "And I am glad to see that you are in very good health."
Laughter rippled throughout the conclave, and a glowering Atrex withdrew.
"I'm also glad we still have our humor," said Cass, "but humor won't fill our stomachs. If we continue on our current trajectory, we will run out of food in less than three years. Who will have the energy to barter over scraps when starvation takes hold? What will we do when we are forced to choose between eating ourselves or wasting away?"
The laughter subsided and an uneasy silence took hold of the conclave.
"Three and a half weeks ago, for better or worse, you chose to be free," Cass reminded the gathered Dersites. "We left the old life behind and assumed responsibility for ourselves, but we need to go further. We must assume responsibility for everyone, and to do that we need to know what we have."
"Are you proposing a census?" asked a short Dersite wearing half-moon spectacles.
"Yes, Elunes, a census." Cass took a moment to clear her throat. "A census which will account not only for our remaining resources, infrastructure, and population, but also for the availability of viable gardening space. We need to begin the work of planting our first harvest."
"I volunteer to organize the census," declared Elunes. "Before the Black Queen shut down our learning centers, before my incarceration in the Silent Dungeon, I served as Administrator of Our Home's nine public libraries. I helped create the inter-library catalogue system, which kept track of millions of records."
"I will organize the census," announced Atrex, stepping forth from the crowd yet again, standing opposite Elunes. "During the final six hundred years of my Birth Campaign, I served as Quartermaster General for the King's Tyrian Rifles. Elunes is an astute librarian and record-keeper, but has she ever arranged for an entire army to be fed? I have more valuable experience."
"You served with distinction in a supply depot, it is true." Elunes made little effort to conceal the ice in her voice. "I also served in the King's Tyrian Rifles. On the front lines."
"Both of you have good experience," declared Cass. "You'll get it done faster if you work together, and time is of the essence."
"The harvest will need more light," someone in the back of the crowd interjected, and Cass recognized the voice.
"Iris?" Cass smiled again, gesturing for Iris to come forward. "Address the conclave."
The gardener emerged hesitantly from the crowd, standing between Elunes and Atrex. "When we plant our first harvest, we will need more light," Iris repeated. "My garden outside thrives only because Royal House Square's lights are powerful and well cared for. The ambient lighting throughout the rest of Our Home is too dim to support the harvest we need."
"Is there anyone here who knows the power grid?" Cass asked the conclave. When a slightly stooped Dersite raised his hand, emerging from the crowd and identifying himself as one of the power grid's caretakers, Cass asked for his name.
"Aethel, Sylph," replied the engineer. "The Grid is powered by omnicrystal. If we boost the power in certain areas, we will need to decrease power in other areas, otherwise the overabundance of energy will fry our infrastructure. Crystalline energy needs to be carefully regulated."
"Couldn't that be solved by simulating a day-night cycle?" asked Cass. "That would actually be ideal, because crops need a nighttime, and it will also stop us from constantly disagreeing about what time of day it is. Would that be something you can program?"
"I am not a programmer. And even if I was, the power grid is not centralized," Aethel replied. "Our Home's power is derived from many overlapping local substations, and what you propose would require all of those substations to be networked, which theoretically is possible-"
"Who here has experience with programming and networking?" Cass asked the conclave, sensing Aethel was about to lose their attention. A few people raised their hands. "Okay, come up here and talk with Aethel. Work out a solution for that day-night cycle."
"The soil will also require ample fertilizer," Iris added. "We do not have fertilizer on a large scale."
"Not yet, but we can start composting. With the proper facilities, even our own excrement can be composted," said Cass. "Iris, why don't you take point on Project Harvest? Who here has horticultural experience?"
Several more attendees raised their hands.
"Okay." Cass quickly counted the twenty raised hands. "Alright, horticulturalists, get together with Iris, figure out which areas can be converted to community gardens, then work with Elunes and Atrex on adding that data to the census. Aethel?"
Aethel stepped forward once more. "Yes, Sylph?"
"Can you put together a team of engineers to draft designs for community composting centers?"
"I know a few people," replied Aethel. "Yes."
"Work with Iris's team, they'll tell you what the designs need," said Cass. "By year's end, we need a viable-"
Before Cass could finish her mandate, Elunes, pointing suddenly at the sky, exclaimed, "What is that?!"
Cass looked up to the sky, saw a tiny orb of indigo light shimmering in the distance, and for a brief moment she teared up. It was a relief to see something, anything in the colorless and empty sky.
Then the moment passed, Cass realized she had no idea what she was looking at, and to make matters even worse, she could see that the mysterious orb of light was slowly approaching.
"We need our rifles!" Atrex exclaimed. "We need to deploy our-"
"We don't need to militarize over a ball of light," Cass interrupted Atrex before his charged fear could spread throughout the rest of the Public Conclave. "What we need is a harvest. Focus on Project Harvest. I'll deal with the light in the sky."
As Anna biked uphill on Garris Road, a car sped past her and she tensed up, instinctively expecting verbal abuse from the driver.
No abuse came. The car turned right at the upcoming traffic light onto Route 113 and accelerated away, vanishing from view.
The traffic light turned yellow, and Anna increased her speed, clicking her bike into a higher gear. She sailed across Route 113 after the traffic light turned red, but before the opposing traffic light could turn green, continuing her uphill push.
On this side of the traffic light, the commercial sprawl hugging Route 113 quickly gave way to woods, houses, wooden fences, and gardens. After a short distance, Anna reached the top of the hill where Garris Road morphed into Bell Tavern Boulevard, allowing Anna a beautiful view of Lincoln Highway, the Route 30 bypass, and the blooming trees under which the eastern outskirts of Downingtown hid during the warmer seasons.
In the near distance, on the other side of Lincoln Highway, Anna could see the massive Wegmans grocery store, as well as the Downingtown Regal Cinema, and she knew she was very close. She gently applied her brakes as she hurtled downhill, following Bell Tavern Boulevard past several streets of cookie-cutter suburb neighborhoods.
At the bottom of the hill, Anna biked past Bell Tavern Park, taking note of the picnic tables and pavilions where she'd gotten drunk on many past occasions.
Looking away from the park, Anna continued through the tunnel underneath the Route 30 bypass, emerging on the other side next to a Wawa. Just ahead was the traffic light to turn onto Lincoln Highway, but Anna didn't need to go that far. She turned into the small Wawa parking lot and crossed to the other side. Dismounting her bike briefly to step over the curb, Anna traversed the grassy divide between Wawa and the neighboring parking lot.
Anna got back onto her bike and pedaled hard across the massive parking lot, past the Hibachi, past the Palace Bowling Center and the Home Depot, until she finally glimpsed her destination and shivered with relief. Her leg muscles ached and protested, but she did not care, because everything was going to be okay.
Realizing she had no way to lock up her bike, Anna simply left it leaning against one of the trees in the parking lot.
Anna took a deep breath as she walked up to the entrance of the Wine and Spirits store.