With the man I love and I’m like
Haiku.
Linus and I take off our suits and shake the sand out, then reapply. The fabric is sturdy and sheer, sticking like liquid paint once it’s on. I’m wishing Rex’s body would take to it as I bend over and pet his grumbling belly. He’s too tired to stand. But his color’s still pink, so at least he’s getting oxygen.
“Do you know when they cleared this place of survivors?” I ask Linus. Our ports aren’t connecting, so I actually have to use words.
“They didn’t clear it,” he answers. His voice is sand-clogged. “Not worth the effort. The specimens down here all had radiation poisoning. Genetic abnormalities. F-Class brains. Let ’em rot.”
So there might still be a few hanging around.
I look to the ceiling. There’s a crude old drawing up there of a town with a main street and stick figure people waving outside old-fashioned ranch houses. I remember the designer: Frank Lloyd Wright. A tempura yellow-white sun shines bright. It used to be such a wonderful world.
I remember the musician: Louie Armstrong. He sang happy songs, even when he didn’t have much to be happy about.
I clear the sand from Rex’s ears. I don’t dare touch his nose: He’s bleeding at the fusion sites where his metal respiratory tract and his organic tissue meet.
A gust of wind rushes down from the manhole. It ushers a sand devil with it. The whirling monster bears down. I’m knocked to the ground.
Stunned, eyes closed, I count to three. I dig at the mound I've found myself buried inside until I’m out. I keep digging, frantic, until I feel him. Rex!
“Help me, Linus!” I cry.
“No, it’s just a dog.”
“Fuck you.” I climb back up by myself.
Sand has collected on the steps. I crawl to get to the top. Then I grab the edges of the iron cover with joint-achy hands and use the soft part of my head to balance it closed.
Click! The wind’s shriek hushes to a whisper.
I go back down to find Rex laboring on a bed of sand at the bottom, but Linus is gone.
“Good boy. Hold on.”
I pull one of the metal rebars peeling down from a caved-in tunnel and gong it against the graffiti wall. The sound echoes all through. Linus, that jackass, doesn’t come back. Maybe he got scared. Maybe the sand got into his brain somehow and he went crazy.
I hate Class Cs.
Yellow goop has glued Rex’s eyes closed. His nose is clotted. I need two things: a medical kit, and water. I’ve got two tunnels that I can check for old supplies. I pick the left one, because I figure warriors always go right, artists left.
“I’m going to find medicine,” I tell him. Then I scratch under his chin, the only place where it looks like he’s not hurting. “I love you.”
Rex nods, and I swear to God, it’s because he wants me to know he loves me, too.
The tunnel’s too caved to walk through, so I crawl. Granite rocks fall around me, heavy enough to break my back. I know it’s stupid to do this for a dog. Rationally, I belong in the city with a modern lab and assistants. I ought to get over this disdain I harbor for my own kind and make real friends. If I did that, I wouldn’t feel so alone. I wouldn’t talk to myself and imagine that my dog understands me. Except, he does understand me. And they don’t.
I keep crawling.
Rocks fall behind me, blocking my way back. It gets dark so I shine a light. I go another few feet before a boulder stops me entirely. I’m strong. Under ordinary circumstances, I could lift it. But not here, without leverage.
I hear a scraping from the other side of the rock. Something digs. A mole? A mouse? A survivor?
God, please help me, I say as I try to roll the rock. I manage to push it a millimeter. It rolls back into place. I punch it. I punch the wall. I punch myself. It’s so dark in here. I’ve gone mad. What the hell do I care about a dog?
I try one more time. Use my legs as I push. The rock shifts. I keep pushing, groaning. I’m clear. There’s nine inches. Maybe I can squeeze.
A face appears on the other side. It’s got albino red eyes. “Ugh!” it grunts as it jabs an arrowhead through the crack, right into my shoulder.
The staff it’s using is made from a human tibia. I yank the tibia, get hold of the things’ skinny arm, and tear it off.
By the time I get back out, Linus has returned and is bent over Rex.
“Leave him alone!”
Linus stands back. Rex’s eyes are bandaged. He’s breathing better now, but coughing sand.
“Found a medicine kit,” Linus tells me. “He’s blind and deaf but he might live if we get him to the city and replace his respiratory tract.”
I drop the gristly arm I’ve found in front of Rex’s mouth. He tries to chew just to please me, but he’s too sick to swallow. I get on the ground and hug him so he knows he’s not alone.
“I thought you ran off,” I tell Linus.
“Class As are so neurotic,” he answers. Charming.
We wait out the storm down there, and don’t head up again until first light. I cuddle Rex for most of that time. His company calms me.
Up above, I pretend that the cave ceiling is a perfect blue sky. There are birds cawing. I’m playing catch with my shiny-pelted Collie while my wife and family watch from the windows of our beautiful ranch house in a town just like the drawing.
Wonderful World plays and I hum along.
The woman’s name is Lorraine, I decide, and she smells like tea. The child is a little girl. I imagine their warmth, the feel of them, and remind myself that this is love.
I remember.
I use my shoulder to shove the manhole aside. Then we’re out. The sand has shifted, obscuring the entire west side of the skyscraper canyon. Old balconies with rusted terraces peek out as if etched from stone. A sulfur red sun beats down. I check for a signal. It’s weak, but back.
Ship’s buried over there, I say.
Linus hurls himself like a burrowing crab into the great sand mountain where I’ve pointed.
It’ll take a day, at least, for him to find and repair our vehicle. By then, Rex will be dead.
I pick him up. It’s a few hundred miles to the city. On foot, we’ll make ten. But we can’t be the only people on this strip of road. I should be able to flag someone down. I start walking.
We’ve gone less than a mile in the hot sun, Rex slack in my arms and worrisomely heavy, when the droning starts. It comes slow from the direction of Las Vegas. As it gets closer, I recognize the Kanizsa Triangle.
I stop, more tired than I’d realized.
Linus pulls up. Sand weighs the ship low to the ground. He kicks down a rope ladder and I carry Rex with one arm and hold the ladder with the other, my stabbed shoulder screaming. Has it been hurting all this time, only I haven’t noticed until now?
Sand’s gotten inside my suit because of the hole. Linus looks us both up and down. I should change into my prototype, I say.
Yes.
I change. We sail.
It takes less than a day to get to the city, where the Pacific Ocean ushers a welcome rain. Sand’s less of a problem here than ultrafine particulate matter. Animal lungs turn to soup up here in just a few hours.
The city of the Pacific Colony is built in a semi circle around one of the last survivor tunnels on the West Coast. The genetic pool down there is fantastically diverse. Class As have been manipulating DNA for ages and have developed all variety of neural matter.
Linus docks our ship. The signal is strong with exactly the kind of chatter I despise, only more nonsensical than usual. They’ve found an old song they all like. They keep replaying it to different beats and instruments. Someone resurrected old photos of the first Above shelter and we’re supposed to have a moment of celebration at mid-day. Lastly, there’s been a survivor revolt in the Atlantic Colony.