The End Has Come

My suits have to be sand-proof, yet porous enough for respiration. Remember that sand gets as small as one micrometer — just 20% larger than an oxygen atom. Not a lot of room for error. If my designs fail, we get brain sickness. I’m the best in Pacific Colony, which is why they let me live like a hermit. Every few years, I get transferred back to the city to oversee mass production. But other people make me anxious. The roughness of this world has hardened them in ways I never want to be hardened. Take Rex: Animals disgust them. But what’s the point of living if we can’t protect the things in this world that are weaker than ourselves?

Now, Rex licks my Driver’s sand-proof Mylar boot. It’s a way of letting the guy know he’s not a threat — he respects the chain of command. He hunches his forearms and play-barks, forcing extra air through his breathing apparatus.

Keep your animal to yourself, my driver warns. Why isn’t he wearing a suit?

What do they fill C brains with these days? Dogs can’t wear suits. Their skin’s too porous. They’d suffocate, I answer. And then: So, what do I call you?

Nothing, he tells me.

I’ll call you Linda, I say.

I’m male.

Great. Progress. Then I’ll call you Linus, after Linus Pauling. He liked Vitamin C, so I’ll keep an eye out for lemon concentrates for you.

Linus sneers. I can see the hint of it through his skin-tight sand suit.

I laugh, and decide I’ll spend the rest of the trip needling him. At least one of us will be entertained.

Sand blows against the hull. The boat speeds. My smile fades. I can smell electricity in the air: a storm’s coming. Trouble. I should have stayed home and ignored my orders. Screw these guys.

But maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe it’ll pass us over.

* * *

We’re not lucky. By nightfall, the wind hits fifty knots. Hurricane. I finger a heap of sand from Rex’s ears, then cover his orifices with tightly woven gauze. He’s trusting enough to hold still for me. “Don’t bite at it, Dog. It’s medicine,” I say. And then, “Good, good, dog.”

It’s dark except for the bow’s navigation lights. With all the airborne sand, I can’t see what we’re driving through. Lightning keeps flashing, but not for long enough. And then, suddenly, the whole sky goes ablaze with a loud crackle. A dozen sand devils whirl across the flat plains. They’re three-foot-wide, six-foot tall cyclones.

One of them scissors straight for our bow. I push Rex down and cover him with my body.

Slam!

Sand breaks through the plastic like a giant wave. Rex tries to jump out. I noose him to the seat with a rope. He struggles, rope tightening against his neck. The barking starts: Aaaackp! Aaaackp!

We need shelter, I say.

Linus ramps the engine to full power. We don’t speed up; instead we just groan and rattle. We push ahead like that for another half-mile, tacking hard to avoid the brunt of the sand-devils. We’re not sailing anymore, but boring like worms. Rex’s heart beats twice as fast as it should. At the bottom of his bark comes this mechanical grinding of interconnected metal gears that have lost synchronicity.

Stop the ship, I say.

Linus ignores me. He’s got orders, and Cs can’t think in abstractions.

There’s a way-station at Red Rock. Looks. . . due one hundred meters East. If you don’t stop I’m jumping out.

The dog is not essential, Linus answers.

I untie Rex and stand, trying to figure out how to jump with him in my arms, neither of us getting hurt, when Linus jerks the wheel and drops anchor.

Fine! He says as he seals-up the sails, secures my prototypes, and jumps off.

Rex and I follow.

We trudge through a skyscraper canyon. The wind’s worse here, focused. We walk with our backs bent eighty degrees. Sand pelts so hard that my joints feel like gristle. I hold whimpering Rex tighter, my lips humming against his warm, knotted hair. All around us are thousand-foot tall buildings with empty windows and smashed neon signs that used to read Gambling! Live Ladies! Las Vegas!

I’ve seen pictures. There was even a rollercoaster.

The manhole radiates a signal. It’s marked by triple orange triangles arranged in a circle like a cut-up pumpkin pie. Linus and I work together to lift its cover. He goes down first. I follow, carrying Rex. With my hands full, I can’t pull the cover back over us. I consider asking Linus for help, but the bastard’s already two flights down.

“Come on, Boy. ’S okay.”