Laura Lane and Oona Kozlowsky, in the trailer next to Earl’s, were indeed a ‘trip’, as archaic as that description was. They were dressed in a peculiar kind of battle armor that looked like it was borrowed from the set of a Mad Max film. They appeared to be under the impression that the apocalypse had already transpired and they were the only ones who fully understood this.
That opinion was actually shared to a certain degree by everyone there. A kind of cognitive dissonance was taking place among these (as Annie called them) experiencers, whereby the spaceship actually had done a thing and they were already living in the aftermath of that thing. In that sense, they had a little more in common with Ed—who thought the ship actually was having an impact on the collective psyche of the town—than he was fully comfortable admitting to. But their version of ‘done something’ and his varied drastically.
One particularly impressive iteration of this theme was espoused by a man named Gunter, who was convinced the world effectively ended when the ship landed and everyone was living in a kind of Matrix-like artificial reality. His proof was that he could find no proof, which proved the program was so seamless it could only be designed by a superior alien intellect.
Laura and Oona were a little less dramatic, but only a little. Their camper, normal-looking on the outside, was a reinforced tank on the inside, with a bomb-shelter store of canned goods and at least ten guns. Ed didn’t know much about guns but was pretty sure two or three of the ones they had weren’t legal for private ownership.
Annie made the introductions, and then went into the preamble.
“Mr. Somerville is doing a story on the ship, but what he’s really looking for is the whole picture. Everything, just from your perspectives. Like, when you got here, what you’re here for, what you’ve seen, what you think. All that stuff.”
“Sounds like a goof hunt,” Oona said.
Oona described herself as ‘the big butch dyke of the Sorrow Falls’, which appeared to be a deliberate attempt to embrace what might be said about her behind her back. She was a heavyset woman with a buzz cut, wearing an appreciable quantity of studded brown leather.
“It’s not a goof hunt,” Annie said. “He’s talking to everyone in town, I just brought him here first.”
“What’s your part in this sweetie?” Laura asked. Laura introduced herself as a ‘lipstick lesbian’, but was only stereotypically effeminate in contrast to Oona. She was more petite, certainly, and kept her hair longer. The hair even had a barrette with a plastic flower. But she favored the same leather clothing; she just wore it a little better.
“Tour guide. Mr. Somerville’s interested in the people nobody’s talked to before, and not the ones everybody’s talked to. I know everyone, so…”
Laura laughed. “You sure do.”
“Still sounds like a goof hunt,” Oona said.
“I’m sorry,” Ed said. “What is a goof hunt?”
“It’s when a reporter shows up and promises a fair perspective, then goes on back to New York or wherever they’re from and writes up a goof piece. Look at what these dummies believe. That’s a goof hunt.”
“Oh. No, this won’t be anything like that. Promise.”
“Well I don’t trust you, mister.” Oona turned to Annie. “This is on you, girlie.”
“You won’t see any goof stories coming from Ed,” Annie said. “I promise.”
“All right. So what do you want to know?”
“Hey, we should tell him about the thing,” Laura said.
Oona glared at Laura. Laura was either oblivious or deliberately ignoring her partner.
“Something cool started happening about six weeks ago,” she said to Annie and Ed.
Annie said, “we can just start at the beginning and—”
“Actually, let’s start there,” Ed interrupted. “What happened six weeks ago?”
Annie shot Ed a look, and all of a sudden there were three conversations going on at once in the trailer, and only one of them was a verbal conversation.
“Nothing,” Oona said, her eyebrows screaming at Laura.
“Oh, for goodness sake, if we keep secrets we’re just as bad as they are.” The ‘they’ was conveyed as meaning the government but, tellingly, she pointed at Ed when she said it. “Come on, you guys, let’s go to the roof, I’ll show you.”
THE ONLY WAY to the roof was up an internal ladder, which distinguished Oona and Laura’s trailer from all the others Annie was familiar with.
It was easy to understand why the women preferred this design: their roof was a gun tower. A three-foot wall augmented the edge, making it possible to crouch down and—assuming the wall could stop bullets—hide from an attack on the ground, and there were four rifles mounted on hooks at strategic points. A Gatling gun would not have been entirely out of place.
Annie had never been to their roof before, and only really seen it from a distance, from Gunter’s roof two spots over. (Gunter was nuts, but he was also really nice.) It drove home the paranoia she’d seen in small doses before from the women.
“It’s over here,” Laura said, attracting the attention of a suddenly eager Edgar Somerville. This was an enormous annoyance to Annie, although she couldn’t say why. She already knew he wasn’t telling her things, because he told her specifically he couldn’t, so there were no surprises here. Still, this was the first time he’d responded this way. Dobbs thought the ship moved two inches a few days ago, Johnny Nguyen insisted he saw the ship alter the migratory patterns of geese ten days ago, and Mika and Morrie said the ship’s aura turned ‘more purplish’ fifteen days back. Ed didn’t even raise an eyebrow then.
What happened six weeks ago, Edgar? she thought.
“What’s all this do?” Ed asked Laura, referring to a large bank of equipment. Already, they had seen multiple arrangements of electronic toys. Ed asked the same question each time, and the answer was almost always disappointing. Either what the equipment did wasn’t all that interesting, or it would have been interesting if it did what the owner thought it did.
Behind them, Oona lumbered up the ladder. She fit through the opening only barely. It was close enough for Annie to wonder if they had plans on either widening the hole or reducing the size of the owner any time soon.
“Well, it’s pretty basic. I know we’ve got, what, a hundred gadgets pointed at that thing, right? Altogether?” She looked to Annie for affirmation. She was still ignoring Oona, who was actively glowering in a way that would have made angry Earl proud.
“At least a hundred,” Annie agreed. “Plus the ones on the other side of the fence.”
“Right, the government sensors. That’s some state-of-the-art stuff, isn’t it Mr. Somerville?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“You should know if you’re going to write about it. You didn’t ask general Morris when you were over there yesterday?”
Ed blushed. Annie nearly laughed out loud. She warned him.
“No, it’s… it’s all classified.”
“Everyone loves that word,” Laura said. “Classified. Anyway, we’re all playing the same game of ‘let’s see what the invaders are going to do’, like it’s going to make a difference.”
“It isn’t going to make a difference?” Ed asked.
“Maybe I’m being naïve or… help me out.”
“Fatalistic,” Oona said. She was settling into a beach chair near one of the rifles. “That’s what dear old daddy called us.”
“My daddy, not hers,” Laura whispered.
“Go on, give up the whole story. I’ll just be over here cleaning the guns.”
Ed had the good sense to look alarmed.