Shadow of the Transition

Chapter 6

An hour or two later, Rick Jansen made another outing, or rather a swim, for reconnaissance and was away even longer than in the morning. When he returned and changed into dry clothes, he sat down, his face in his knees, either distressed by his failure or just dozing off. I wanted so much to encourage the boy, to stroke his short wet hair, but I didn't dare.

Rick spent the rest of the day chatting and telling all sorts of funny stories about his group, occasionally refreshing himself with the fish. Nevertheless, the vertical fold between his eyebrows did not disappear. Sometimes he would stumble in the middle of a story, as if deep in thought, and start talking about something else; one story he told twice and didn't realize it... And he never glanced at the bracelet lying on the concrete.

We were sitting on his jacket, back to back, so oddly alive in the middle of that empty inhuman space, and I was grateful to Rick for his efforts to fill the horrible silence of that place with his voice. The words meant nothing, but the voice... I almost loved his voice. If I knew what he knew but was not telling about our situation, I wasn't sure I could squeeze out a single word.

I moved my tongue and licked my lips. My tongue was numb, as if it were foreign. I knew the reason of it: I hadn't said a word since I saw the bodies of my husband and son in that crumpled car...

How had Rick said? "Only those who were deep in the Web at the moment of the Disaster survived." My husband had his cell phone brought to his ear, he had probably been discussing some problems of his business; my little son's phone with a game was next to him, he had dropped it before hugging his father and shutting his eyes. That is, both of them had been on the Web, that's why their bodies remained intact and returned to our world. Were they not deep enough there? Maybe so. As for me, I was in the virtual world up to my ears. But later, while searching for food in abandoned houses, I often fell into the zones of instability, into the gray blizzard of the Transition... How did I manage to come back? I didn't have any phones or computers there. Then again, if it was the mental attitude that mattered ... I would say I'd hardly ever fully existed in reality: I had either dreams, or another love, or artistic ideas and the fever of their implementation, or depression... In a word, the ordinary life of a creative person with a schizoid personality. For me, returning from the Transition was not harder than emerging from the twisted world of depression into the so-called "reality". Or not easier.

It became dark again. It was our second night here.

Rick said, "Lie down, lady. I'll sit yet and think what we should do tomorrow." I lay down on his spread jacket, on my side, trying to take up less space; Rick sat beside me, his elbows on his knees, either really thinking or dozing. I fell asleep too.

***

In the middle of the night I was awakened by a quiet sound – the creak of a gas lighter wheel. Rick held it over me for a minute or two, until the light went out, and looked at me. Why did he do it? Didn't he need to save resources anymore?

In the darkness, I felt his brief touch on my fingers, heard his sigh and barely audible whisper, "Oh, lady ..." How could I sleep after that?

I was lying in that universal cosmic darkness and thinking about Rick. Why had he behaved like this? Why hadn't he touched Evelyn's bracelet? Why had he told nothing about the prospects of our getting out of here? Why had he suddenly stopped saving gas in the lighter? Was it our last night here? But the guy didn't look like one who was confident of his future, but rather like this future didn't make him optimistic. That thoughtfulness of his, in the midst of the tales of his group's adventures, that sudden looking at me, to which the rest of the gas was spent, that touch...

Suddenly I thought, hmm, did he have a girlfriend in one of the Villages? Of course it was unlikely, given the ratio of men and women that he had talked about, but still? He had said he was twelve when the Disaster occurred; had he ever had a chance for a private life in the years that had passed since then, in this case? As I could understand it, ladies in the Villages had an enormous choice now. Had any of them glanced at the talkative and smiling guy with the dangerous job of a Transition Patrolman, who risked not returning from a mission each time? Unlikely... Well, Rick Jansen, I seemed to understand the point of you looking at me with the lighter, and touching me, too, but... what about the rest?

***

The darkness slowly receded, and I saw Rick's silhouette sitting next to me in the thick twilight. He never slept.

We took turns going to the far corner, washed ourselves, and refreshed ourselves with the rest of the fish. Rick sat down, twisting the plastic bottle in his hands; there was still a bit of water left. When we accidentally touched each other I would feel, through the fabric of my synthetic turtleneck and sweater, the shivering of the petrified muscles of his back. And I guessed that neither cold nor romantic motives had anything to do with it.

It got even brighter. Rick got up, did some exercises to warm up, picked up the bracelet and came to the opening. Apparently the time had come.

"Lady? It doesn't make sense to stay here. If we don't find my group today they'll die, just from dehydration. Besides, without them we won't get out either."

Rick carefully crumpled the plastic bottle were a few sips of water were left, removing the air out of it, and stuffed it into his pants pocket. "Let me put Evelyn's bracelet on you, like this," he said.

He fastened the black ceramlite bracelet on my wrist and looked up at me anxiously. For a second it seemed to me he was about to add something, but he returned to the opening.

"I think we can leave our boots, we can swim longer without them... And the jacket too."

The concrete floor was cold and wet. I started shivering from the cold and the adrenaline pumping into my blood. Rick was unlacing his boots next to me. He was breathing deeply too. I could see the ribs protruding on his back with each breath.

"Yesterday, I checked that place with rats where you appeared," he said. "There is nothing there, the dead end. But there is another way..."

Rick fastened around his wrist the tattered rag that had been his t-shirt the day before. I felt a bit easier: it meant he hoped to scare the rats off again, so it was not the end, was it? Moreover, he took the water with him.

"Come on, lady?"

We joined our hands and stepped into the water, which was as cold as death.