Society imploded.
It started with the Kiribati islands. Rising seawater swallowed seventeen of the original thirty-three islands gradually, over previous decades, but then—all at once, it seemed—every last island went under. First, there was the typhoon. Next, the tsunami. It’s terrifying to think about, really, that the chain of events that sparked a world war began with the world itself—the ocean, more specifically—ravaging a people who were minding their own business out in the middle of the Pacific. Anything can happen to anyone, whether they deserve it or not.
But, as things go, no one here cared until it was our shores starting to go under. Our disasters piling up on top of one another, San Francisco and the Carolina coast and New York City. Our tourists dying in cliff-side resort collapses, our Girl Scout troops on the Kure Beach Fishing Pier when the posts gave out.
The floods weren’t major, weren’t national news–worthy, but they continually overstepped their bounds—up to thirty times during 2049 alone, in some places. Over and over, damage and ruin and death swept in with the tide. Still-healing wounds were repeatedly ripped raw.
Emergency response teams were unable to keep up. Contaminated drinking water, sewage flowing down every street, disease spreading among die-hards who refused to leave. FEMA distributed Havenwater bottles, one cartridge to be shared among every thousand who couldn’t afford them, one cartridge to every rich family who could. Once the mandatory evacuations kicked in, once the economy fractured and the dollar lost its wings—
That’s when people panicked.
They wanted a safe world. A forever world. One that wouldn’t get swept away, one where they wouldn’t have to fear their children going hungry, their children soaked up to their necks in contaminated salt water but never able to drink it.
The upheaval started with Kiribati, and was sealed with a promise: Envirotech will save you. Envirotech, pioneer of Havenwater bottles and silk technology and all manner of other eco-savior solutions. That’s when my father began to lose sleep, when the wallpaper Mom picked out before she died became plastered with blueprints, research about artificial limestone reefs and biosynthetic cities grown from protocells. That year, Envirotech presented him the award that bought us that most amazing steak dinner and a brand-new car.
It also bought us a war.
Envirotech planned to develop the Atlas Project—a cutting-edge, ocean-based habitat my father was entrusted to direct—but then the news broke that the residences on board would be extremely limited in number, and sold to the highest bidders. Come one, come some, come live: if you’re rich. That part wasn’t supposed to be public knowledge, not yet, but it took only one bitter insider—a coworker Dad knew, not well, from Envirotech’s financial department—to spill a flood of secrets.
Fear mixed with bitterness never ends well, and fear mixed with power? Ends worlds.
What began seed-small picked up speed, picked up strength, until it became a wrecking ball waiting for the perfect moment to drop. That moment came when the Supreme Court upheld Envirotech’s right to set their own prices, in the name of commerce and capitalism and centuries-old dreams. No doubt the honorable justices wanted to grow old with their grandchildren, like everyone else. Difference was, they could afford it.
The Wolfpack’s wrecking ball proved swift and colossally destructive, with enough momentum and manpower to smash the entire country to pieces. To this day, I still hear them chanting when I have nightmares of Zero Day: Prison for privilege! End Envirotech! Our time is now! Our time is now, our time is now: tattooed on their faces and forearms, on their backs like angel wings, on my memory forever.
In the beginning, during those first few weeks of camp, after we’d been sorted and stamped, a few of the officers—Wolves, we called them, though they were undeniably human to the core—would greet us, and they didn’t raise their voices. These, who were made more of fear than bitterness, would be almost apologetic over the fact that they weren’t allowed to let us inside the nice areas they’d claimed as Wolf territory. One even threw away his half-eaten ice-cream cone right in front of me and said there was no rule against us eating trash. It sounds cruel, but he meant it as a kindness, and I took it that way.
But not all factions were created equal. Some were more militant, with officers who went straight-up psychopath on us. And not only us—the rest of the world, too, when they tried to intervene in the Wolves’ efforts to flip the status quo on its head. All attempts at contact from the Global Alliance of Territories and Dominions were met with radio silence, then hostility, according to word around camp. The Wolfpack had already seized the lives they’d longed for—they’d broken into all the bankers’ systems, shoved the formerly privileged into barracks with naked wooden boards for beds. And later, into factories and foundries and fields. All of this, so they could eat, drink, live, love, sleep, be as we’d been, Before. I doubt a world war was ever part of anyone’s motivational propaganda, but, well. People defend what they love. The rest of the world loved justice—human rights.
The Wolves think they love justice, think they’ve created equality by inverting the scales.
I think the Wolves love only themselves.
It’s been nearly two years since I’ve eaten ice cream from the trash, and almost as long since my father’s vial of blood and teeth made its home in my pocket.
Two years can eclipse an entire lifetime, it turns out.
FIVE
A MULTITUDE OF stars dot the black sky, like snow clinging to the walls of a glass globe. It’s cold for this time of year, the sort of sandpaper cold that rubs you the wrong way no matter how you turn against it. I wish I had more than the yellow cardigan I wore to the boardwalk this morning. I wish I had Birch.
Finnley and Hope are huddled together on the port side, while I am stretched out on the starboard bench. They’ve spent most of today talking in hushed voices with only each other. Finnley’s spent today talking, anyway—Hope mostly listens, more patiently than anyone I’ve ever seen. I’d worry they were plotting a takeover, a course shift toward Matamoros despite it being the worst of bad ideas, but Hope isn’t as strong with the sails as I am. Whatever’s going on with them, that isn’t it.
Meanwhile, Alexa keeps to herself, hasn’t said a word in hours. I suspect she’s as sleepless as the rest of us.
The ocean shushes and rocks us, a lullaby. But she is not a mother to be trusted. Tomorrow, she could shake us until we break. She could toss us and flood us and devour us.