Lovers in the Great Collapse ◊ NOVELLA

vi. » Brave New World

vi. 

BRAVE NEW WORLD

The birdsong comes from a long way off. At first, it doesn't mean anything. It's just the whisper of the leaves and the twittering of bluejays, soft and sweet. Ice and steel, blood and chrome, a thousand memories swirling out of order in a frosted hourglass...

Until someone speaks.

Closer than any of the ghost-figures behind my eyelids, closer than any of the voices in my dreams.

"FIFTEEN MINUTES UNTIL DEPLOYMENT."

I can't cry out past the tubes crammed down my throat. The nuclear bomb floats down like a dandelion wisp and kisses the horizon; huge white clouds unfold like morning glories; even from miles away and behind thick walls, waves of heat blister my cheeks—

My fingers flex on hard, cracked leather. I'm slipping from the fog that pooled in the crevices in my skull, drawn back to earth like a flyaway balloon by creaky joints and hair damp with sweat.

"TEN MINUTES UNTIL DEPLOYMENT."

It's now or never, and my heart cries now, now, now.

The bands snap away from my body. Creaky and reluctant, the hull shudders open.

A brilliant cerulean sky opens up above.

▲▲▲

Groping blindly for the sides, I heave myself onto the earth. The dirt. The tubes in my throat slide out from the pit of my stomach, slow and sickening. Great hacking coughs wrack my body, dislodging something, and I begin to vomit, expelling blue gel from my lungs. It comes and comes until my guts are hollow and my throat is on fire and I'm trembling like a leaf—panting hard, for the first time in an eternity.

"Oh man," I rasp. "Oh man." My body spasms; twitchy legs, jittery stomach, shuddering breaths. And suddenly I'm laughing and laughing, through sore, hollow stomach and raw throat. I muster the strength to prop myself up on my arms. Hakim's voice echoes in my ears: 'Slow, Gillian. Take it slow.' Everything's dizzy. It takes awhile to remember how to focus my eyes, how to send impulses through my body that should've been so instinctive.

'The lenses, Gillian.'

Shakily, I remove them. They're slimy to the touch, bubbled at the edges; too much sun, melting straight through the plastic.

My vision focuses.

Station 111 looms above me. The Mayflower rests at the bottom of a hill, with a path of broken twigs and flattened grass marking its path all the way up to where a Station wall seems to have collapsed. Once, this landscape was scrubby, bare. Now, a forest of goliath trees stretches its limbs across the sky, like impossibly green fingers of spilled paint. All the colors feel turned on, like LSD, like Alice in Wonderland, like a freshman photography student fiddling with saturated filters. It smells of dirt, of loam, of cleanness, of life. Birds trill, and I spot the source: a splash of yellow feathers no larger than my fist, perched in a leafy nest. One bird, singing melody and harmony at once.

With an explosion of feathers, it erupts into flight, boughs creaking. And after that...

Silence in the neon forest.

One thought rattles in my head:

This is no longer my world.

"Okay," I whisper.

As I turn, my heart lurches. Another pod rests in the corner of the clearing, nestled in ferns dotted with spiny yellow pods. The foliage is trampled in its path, glittering with shattered glass and metal. The landslide, or—or collapse, or whatever it was, must've rolled this one further than mine. The name on the pod is faded, but legible:

Excelsior.

My heart skips a beat.

Ever upwards. Rows of smooth, stainless steel pods; Jackie putting her hand on mine—

Jackie. Jackie!

I'm off like a shot, wobbly and unsteady. Ragdoll girl, my father's daughter. I am a knock-kneed foal unable to coordinate its limbs. I race to Excelsior's side and hit my knees hard.

There she is. Snow White, inches away, the glass fractured into spiderwebs. She's peaceful from this angle, tight brown curls resting on her cheeks, her dark skin unusually pale. Oh, thank God, thank God, her chest is rising and falling. She's breathing, she's alive.

With all my strength, I wrench the pod's handle. Gas whooshes out.

"DEPLOYMENT INITIATED."

Jacqueline's thick eyelashes flutter.

As the restraints retract, I grab her hand. "Jacks?" I whisper. My tears are dripping onto her cheeks, but I'm—I'm not sad. "Jackie, there was a landslide. We're awake now. We survived the Great Collapse. We survived. It's—it's figureoutable."

Best of all, I'm not alone.

Hakim never lost faith in me. Neither did Jackie.

After all I've overcome, maybe I believe them.

Jack and Jill will climb this hill. We'll wake the others. And we'll start at the beginning.

Jackie's eyes are glassy. I don't think she heard anything I said. Yet as I stroke her hair, her gaze drifts to mine, and a brilliant smile cracks drowsily across her face.

"Larchwood," she slurs. "Are you... you looking up my skirt?"

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