Golden State

Seattle had sent its best. Piebald Alary of the Puget Sound Runners set a blazing clip through Oregon, keeping to waterways and away from roads, and thus, bandits. He stopped only for rest and macro pellets at PSR outposts. Lean and sinewy, with a metabolic rate remarked as the lowest ever for a Runner, Piebald was built for long runs.

This was the furthest south a Runner had ever been. As he crossed into Reclaimed California, the landscape became charred and sparse. He surmised he’d been climbing in elevation for the past 200 kilometers, and his heart rate climbed with it. The air was thin. His ankles ached. The signature gray uniform of the Puget Sound Runners traded comfortability for waterproof and fire retardant properties, and it was starting to chafe. Piebald needed to rest and find water—soon.

He unclipped his pack and pulled out a weathered California map. It was old—it depicted a California not yet reclaimed by Mexico, a relic of a time before coastal cities had slipped into saltwater, before forests had gone up in unholy smoke.

Piebald studied the map as he chewed a macro pellet, hoping the nutrients would stave off the discomfort of thirst. He felt guilty for wasting food he didn’t need yet. The pellets were scarce, supplied only to Runners and the few malnourished Californian refugees who survived the journey north.

Piebald had hoped against hope that the creeks depicted on the map would still be there—the Seed still didn’t control water this far north. But most of the waterways had simply dried up. Piebald had counted on them not only to keep him alive, but also to navigate. It was an uncharacteristic lack of foresight. In the parched, burned wilderness of Reclaimed California, Piebald Alary, darling of the Puget Sound Runners, was lost.

Alisa Castellanos rhythmically opened and closed the loading gate of her empty and obsolete Colt revolver—click. click. click. She didn’t know how to shoot. She’d never needed to. Guns were nothing more than toys to sate nervous fidgets since every magazine in existence had been carted off to the Interior. Alisa was glad the military had hoarded their ammunition and walled themselves off. Why should killing be so easy for anyone? Killing is a privilege for only some.

Thoughts of death always evoked the smell of fire. Burning rubber. Burning flesh. It was buried as deep in her mind as it was in the fibers of her clothes. The smell of smoke grew stronger.

Alisa marveled at the power of memory. Was she having a stroke? No, it was real fire. Bandits? The Seed? She was vulnerable with Mother out hunting. Nevertheless, she pocketed the revolver and embarked to find the threat before it found her.

The trees in the charred carcass of the Shasta-Trinity Forest were in various stages of regrowth. Most had given up, bare branches ominously outstretched like skeleton fingers. Piebald cleared a radius of scrub for a small fire. Fire was risky, but in his sore, delirious state, the prospect of shivering in the pitch dark for another night was unbearable. The tepid sun, weak and orange through the hazy air, was sinking. Piebald’s body temperature was dangerously low; his hands shook so badly he dropped three precious matches. Fortunately, once the brush was lit, it was easy to build the fire. The only thing in abundance was dry wood with nothing left to do but burn.

Piebald began drifting off to sleep just as the sun touched the horizon. Suddenly a command clanged out from the trees.

“Apaga el fuego.”

Piebald froze.

Louder now, with more urgency, “Put it out!”

Piebald sprang to his feet, whipping around to find the source. There was just enough light to make out a ferocious nest of blonde curls in the mangled trees. As the figure came into view, he saw the revolver pointed directly at his heart.

Piebald had never seen a gun, but he knew what they looked like. He knew what they did. He knew the protocol was to put one’s hands up when one was about to be killed, which he did, slowly.

“I—I will. I’ll put it out right now. Please put that down.”

“No.”

“Okay. Please don’t shoot.”

Piebald shuffled around the fire, kicking dirt onto the flames, hands still in the air. He stomped out the embers and turned to face his aggressor—and the barrel of the revolver.

“Drop your weapon.”

“I—I don’t have any weapons.”

“Drop that not-a-weapon.” She motioned toward the knife on Piebald’s belt. It was solely a utility tool. He hadn’t even unsheathed it since he left Seattle. Piebald moved to unclip the knife, then hesitated.

“Did you understand me? Idiot?” She demanded. Piebald noted a thick accent of Reclaimed Spanish, the pidgin language used throughout Reclaimed California. Her voice was high, thin, and raspy, characteristic of those raised in the smoky wasteland.

Piebald lowered his hands. “You won’t shoot me,” he said tenuously.

“Won’t I?” The gun was drifting, her grip loosening.

“Not unless you’re from the Interior. Which I assume you’re not…because…”

“I’m brown,” she said matter-of-factly. Despite the waning light and the film of dirt and soot on her skin, Piebald could see that she was distinctly Mexi-Californian. She would be shot upon setting one foot in the Interior.

“Because no one who goes into the Interior leaves. And you’re not with the the cartel. Not this far north. Because of—“

“El Oso,” she finished, lowering the gun. “You believe in El Oso?”

“I don’t believe in fairytales.” Piebald had been taught that all big game and predators were completely wiped out in the Coastal Electric Fire. Grizzly bears in particular had been decimated long before the States dissolved. The only survivors were small prey animals that could escape underground.

As Alisa approached, she noticed how small and skinny Piebald was, almost emaciated-looking. His uniform, designed to be skin-tight, hung and puckered in places muscles would otherwise be. A man in a boy’s body.

“You’re a Runner,” she said, placing the tip of the revolver against the sonic eagle on the front of his jacket. It was an homage to the United States Postal Service, from which the Puget Sound Runners was born.

“I didn’t know they were so small!” She laughed. Her laugh produced no sound, just raspy exhalations.

“Where are you going this far south, Runner?”

“…Pendleton,” Piebald answered cautiously.

“Pendleton! You’ll never make it past the Seed.” Pendleton was 160 kilometers south of Los Angeles, the de facto headquarters of the Seed Cartel. The Seed Cartel was named for one of the resources it controlled. The Seed ruled agriculture in California and Mexico. Any illicit farms were burned. But where the Seed gleaned most of its power was from controlling California’s most precious resource: water.

“And your message?” She pressed further.

“I…I’m not at liberty,” he answered, truthfully.

“Well, I will not stand in the way of you and Pen-dull-tin,” she mimicked his northern accent as she clicked on a flashlight. “You look like shit. You’ll stay with me. Tomorrow, I’ll take you to the springs. Out of my own kindness.”

Piebald sat up and took stock of his surroundings. He and Alisa had arrived under the light of the weak solar-powered flashlight. Now, in the daylight, he could see what the short, outlandish structure was built from: tires. Hundreds of car tires cemented with mud. Skins of small animals hung from the low ceiling. Miscellaneous items lined the walls—defunct appliances, cans filled with lighters, a downed ceiling fan, stacked plastic buckets, the body of a decrepit bicycle.

Alisa sat on a bare mattress, skinning a small animal. Flecks of blood peppered her legs.

“You live here alone?” Asked Piebald.

“Me and my mother,” she answered. There was no sign of the other woman. “She hunts and I do the trapping. My traps are good. They don’t see it coming,” she said, and took a generous bite of raw squirrel.

Piebald gagged. In the daylight, Alisa looked feral. Her blonde curls were matted and filthy, clothes stained and threadbare. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, but Californians tended to look older than they were.

“Where did the tires come from?” Piebald hoped conversation would quell the nausea.

Alisa paused. “Surplus. They burn for a long time.”

It took Piebald a moment to understand her meaning. While most fires in these forests were the result of drought and lightning strikes, some were set intentionally. When Mexico re-annexed California, many revolted. They burned their own towns and fled to the Interior. Some burned towns just to burn them. To hasten the end. And now Piebald and Alisa sat in a house of tires, past the end, past the epilogue, into some godless chapter that should have never been written.

“Is there a town nearby?” Piebald asked.

“Was.”

The solemn answer hung in the air. Alisa broke the silence.

“How are your levees holding, Runner?”

“We’re on borrowed time,” Piebald answered. Seattle would be underwater soon. So would the remaining coastal settlements in California, including Pendleton. That’s why it was imperative that Piebald deliver his message to Pendleton’s 30,000 inhabitants. Canada was finally opening its borders. There was escape. For so long there had been death on all sides of California: the Seed to the south, the Interior and certain death to the east, and the rising waters to the west.

Water. Piebald suddenly remembered his urgent thirst.

“Are the springs far?” He finally turned to Alisa, who was picking the last of the meat from her squirrel.

“No, we can go now.” She got to her feet. There was a ring of blood around her mouth. Piebald stooped to exit the hut. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the daylight. And then he froze. It was as if the leviathan grizzly bear was waiting for him.

“Meet my Mother,” Alisa was at his ear. “Did you know bears used to be omnivores? You know what an omnivore is?” She laughed her raspy laugh. “Drop your pack, stupid fuck.”

Piebald had seen grizzly bears in pictures. He knew they were big. This bear was a behemoth.

“Do you need help? Do you need Mother to help you?”

At her full height, the bear stood 12 feet tall. Her gruesome claws were the length of his forearms. The way she moved to investigate the stranger was oddly humanoid—it would be amusing to Piebald had he not been facing a violent death.

He hoped that if he moved slowly enough, the bear wouldn’t detect him. Alisa impatiently snatched the pack and looked inside. An empty canteen, purification tablets, a map, macro pellets—she pocketed those—matches, a sleeping roll, and a golden, heart-shaped locket with a tangled chain.

“Traveling with jewelry? You’re even stupider than you look.”

“It’s…sentimental,” Piebald answered. The bear loomed over him. He stared unblinkingly into her chest, her breath falling on the top of his head. He felt dizzy. He hoped he would lose consciousness for what was next.

“It’s nice,” Alisa said with mirth as she swung it back and forth, watching the sunlight glint off its curves. She’d pried it open. Empty. Its meaning, known only to Piebald, would die with him.

“I am truly sorry that Pendleton will never hear your message. Mama,” she addressed the bear now.

“Mátalo.”

Alisa opened the rusty lockbox, her fingers slippery with blood. All her shiny trophies—watches, rings, coins—winked at her from within. Before she laid the locket to rest, she folded up the bloodied sonic eagle logo and placed it inside the heart-shaped frame. Killing is a privilege for only some, she assured herself as she snapped it shut. Outside, El Oso gave a satisfied sigh. But living is a privilege for no one.