Extinction (38 page)

Clara wasn’t entirely sure. So she gave the only answer she had.

“What no one expected.”

CHAPTER 45

For the first few days, as the food held out — shrink-wrapped dry goods like crackers and preserved meat sticks, plus bottled water and juices — Lila occupied herself by watching the tablet, staying amused with its stored media, taking a strange and savage pleasure in knowing they had no connection to get
more
media, and that for all they knew, they were the planet’s only survivors and that no media would
ever
be made by humans again.
 

She watched reruns of Piper’s favorite old show, which just so happened to be her late mother’s favorite old show.
Friends
. It had been old when the world ended the first time, when humanity learned it wasn’t alone. And it seemed ancient now — memories of a day gone by when people had no more pressing concern than getting to the coffee shop to sit around on an orange couch, worrying about their ongoing relationship issues.
 

Lila watched the show, numb, playing the tablet too loud, without using the headphones she’d found in one of the compartments. Hours passed.
 

For the next few days, after the dying satisfaction of watching mindless entertainment had lost its edge, Lila watched the waterline, occasionally popping the sub’s top to scan the horizon. Kindred told her to be careful, but that was a laugh; if there were humans left, they’d have better things to do than concern themselves with one and a half rebellious viceroys. And if there were still Astrals? Well, there would be worse things, after days in an endless ocean, than getting shot to bits.
 

Lila’s father told her to watch for land if she had to go topside. But that was a laugh.
 

Piper said nothing. She’d kept to herself since the electrical equipment had come inexplicably back online — divorced, it seemed, from the power that should have come from the engines. None of them were mechanics or engineers, but Lila knew that something was fishy with the sub and that they were all pretending it wasn’t so they wouldn’t break the spell, causing ruin. And since that time — since that little bit of sub-related magic — Piper had been strange. Almost secretive. She woke some nights screaming, clutching a small purse she’d found — a purse she wouldn’t let anyone else touch. And Piper would say that she remembered nothing of the dreams. And she’d look at Lila with wide eyes and repeat the same:
It’s nothing. I don’t remember why I was scared, only that I had a bad dream
.
 

 
But Piper looked at Lila as if she thought Lila knew something. As if whatever she knew, Piper didn’t want her to know. So she kept to herself more and more, clutching her purse, peering inside it, obsessing over the sub’s broken navigation, seeming to pretend that she knew a way to go even if there was no way she could. There was no GPS. Only a nonsense heading. A place toward which Piper kept them pointed, without notes or calculations.
 

After five days, the food ran out.
 

After seven, Lila remembered that Peers was an enemy. But she forgot
why
, exactly. There’d been a time in which she’d had all sorts of problems with the man. She’d considered stabbing him once she found something sharp —
that
thought had come on day two. But she hadn’t killed him and couldn’t remember why. There was something between them, so for the sixth and seventh days she sat across the sub and stared until he looked away, over and over again. And when he went topside to look futilely for land as Piper tweaked the controls, mumbling to herself, Lila considered following him up and shoving him overboard. There must still be sharks in the ocean. She could cut him before knocking him into the water. Let Peers bleed and the predators come.
 

On the ninth day, Lila found herself forgetting her own daughter. Worse: She remembered that daughter suddenly one day and realized that not only had she forgotten Cora but that she’d
been forgetting
her for days now. But Cora might still be alive. Cora might not have been killed by …
 

??

Or she might not have perished in the …
 

??

Except that her daughter’s name wasn’t Cora, it was Clara.
Clara. Clara. Clara.
Lila repeated it over and over like a chant.
 

“Lila. You look like shit.”
 

Lila’s father, talking to her, looking a whole lot like shit himself. It took her a long time to remember why there were two of him, and once she remembered that, she couldn’t recall the circumstances that had created the second. Were they twins? Was the other her uncle?
 

“Are you okay? How’s your … your head?”
 

Lila was annoyed by the question. She hadn’t hit her head. But then she realized why her father was asking, and it wasn’t about Lila at all.
His
head wasn’t all that well, and he seemed to be seeking company in some sort of mental misery.
 

“Why?” she asked him.
 

“Have you been having dreams?”
 

“Why?”
 

“I’ve been thinking about when you were a kid. Do you remember that?”
 

Of course she didn’t. What a stupid question.
 

“Do you remember that, Lila?”
 

And he, the great Meyer Dempsey, who might be a twin, didn’t remember either. At least that’s what Lila thought.
 

“Do you remember what it was like, growing up in Colorado?”
 

Had Lila grown up in Colorado? She thought it had been somewhere else.
 

The questions were too hard. Lila went to lie in her bunk. She fell asleep, and dreamed of eight people, crossing the desert.
 

CHAPTER 46

Carl’s arm snapped out as if it were spring loaded. Without opening his eyes, he wrapped his hand around the wrist of someone much smaller than him. Someone whose arm — if they were doing what he thought they might be — he could break like a twig.
 

“Carl! Jesus! You scared me!”
 

Only then did Carl open his eyes. Lawrence fell a half step back but came up tight in Carl’s grip and stopped.
 

“What you doing, Lawrence?”

“I just wanted to check the maps.”

Carl felt fully awake. For the past two weeks, he’d been sleeping right where he was, below the wheel on the big ship’s bridge. He’d never figured out how to operate the freighter, but that was okay. The engines had come on without him touching a goddamned thing, and now turning the wheel seemed to be the only thing required. Any fool could turn a wheel. Never mind all the other things that
should
go into navigating an ocean vessel.

“Ain’t no point,” Carl said, “unless you figured out how to read the stars.”
 

“I was just curious where we were.”
 

“Don’t matter where we are.” Carl’s upper back was still slouched against the console where he’d been dozing when Lawrence made the mistake of trying to steer. “We’re in water.”
 

“I think we’ve been going north,” Lawrence said.
 

“Yeah. To more water.”
 

“I can only guess at how fast the engines are turning.” He looked around, then said in a half whisper.
“Carl, nobody’s watching them.”
 

Carl let go of Lawrence’s wrist. “Guess the gas tank is still full. Don’t need watching.”
 

This had come up before. But Carl was a practical man, and it was Carl — not these others — who’d decided to try and steal a big ship. It was also Carl who’d decided to pull all the other poor suckers from their shitty little shuttle-target boats. If the engine situation wasn’t broke, Carl felt no pressure to fix it.

Lawrence’s eyes flitted around as if the man felt guilty. Then, seeing that they were alone, he sat. Carl slowly stood, shaking his head clean of cobwebs (couldn’t get them all; shit was foggier all the time) and sat as well. He put one hand on the wheel — guiding their ship on its trip to nowhere made him feel better.
 

“Everyone is worried,” Lawrence said.
 

“’Bout what? There’s food enough. And it’s raining plenty.”
 

“The food is fine.”
 

“What, then?”
 

“You, frankly.”
 

Carl turned another hard stare on Lawrence. The man didn’t flinch, and finally Carl said, “I’m fine.”
 

“My wife keeps dreaming about you.”
 

“That’s your problem.”

“Billy, too. And Wendy. It’s the same dream, Carl.”
 

“Good the fuck for them.”
 

“You’re in the desert.”

Carl looked out across the endless water. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”
 

“And you’re with other people. Seven others. One is a kid. And one of them … ” His face twisted, trying to articulate. “It’s like two of them are kind of one person.”
 

“Fascinating.”
 

“None of this sounds familiar to you?”
 

Carl turned back to the water. The answer was that, yes, it sounded crazy familiar. But these were crazy times, and the last thing this little floating commune needed after two weeks with no hope of an end was rumor or superstition. Those kinds of things, given the way they’d all been lately, could lead to panic. Or worse.
 

“No.”

“But there’s more. Roman Sands. Do you remember Roman Sands?”
 

“’Course.”
 

“Where was St. Augustine’s? Can you tell me?”
 

Carl’s lip curled. He should know, but didn’t.
 

“Fuck if I know.”
 

“Carl, that’s where my son was christened. Before the Astrals came, it’s where I was married. People came from all over the world to see us there, and now
I can’t remember where it was or what it looked like.”
 

“You just tired.”

“I can’t remember the street I lived on. Or the name of my high school. Half the time I have to think a while before I can remember
my parents’
names! And look at this!”
 

Carl turned. Lawrence had a small bag by the foot of his stool, and as Carl watched, he picked up the bag, opened its top, and removed a small black device that seemed to be made of metal and glass.
 

“What is this, Carl? Do you know?”
 

“Some Astral shit.”
 

“It’s
mine!
Look!” An image filled the screen: Lawrence and his wife standing in front of a waterfall. “It’s mine, and I don’t remember it!” He tapped on the glass. “Look! All this music in here. The ship’s outlets are all working so I can plug it in to keep it charged. And I’ve been playing the music. I kind of remember it, but like from a long, long time ago. You know how you’ll hear music in the background and strain to recognize it? It’s like that. But as far as specifics? I’ve looked at the name of every singer, every damned song. There I know like ten out of a thousand.”
 

“It’s nothin’, Lawrence,” Carl said, unsettled, trying to recall the house he’d lived in just two weeks ago and coming up blank. His mother’s name was Sondra, but she’d died … sometime.
 

“All of this!” Lawrence said, fishing device after device out of the bag. “I packed this. At least I
think
I did. And I don’t recognize any of it. What is this?” A long, silver device studded with square keys. “Or this?” Kind of like a tablet, but maybe not. Carl knew tablets because they used them on the ship most days, but then again, maybe not. “Or
this?”
 

Lawrence threw the bag to the floor. Something heavy broke.

“I’ve asked around. It’s happening to all of us, Carl. Everyone down there’s got bags of stuff, and they have no idea what half of it is. Terry has a shirt from a race, dated last year, that he swears he didn’t run in. LaShawn has that tablet, with TV shows on it, and yesterday she looked at me and said, “Why am I watching this? I’ve never seen this show before.” So we passed it around. Nobody remembered the show, Carl. And yet I’m sure we were all watching that tablet a few days ago, laughing. I remember how good it felt to laugh for a while … but now, nothing!”