Alexandra Duncan - Salvage

“Course she will,” I say, even though I not sure if she’ll let me stay.

“Why should she?” Miyole kicks at the line of glow paint by the edge of the platform. “I’m not her blood.”

“I wasn’t your blood when your mother took me in. But now . . . you’re my blood, now.” I squeeze her hand so she’ll know I mean it. “I won’t stay without you. We’ll go back up in the ship and find work at Bhutto station if we need to. Your mother—”

I choke to a stop. A soft hum rises from the magnets below us, and far down the track, a sleek white vessel turns toward us. TWENTY-FOUR glows on the smartboard across its face.

“The train,” says Miyole.

We step back as it blows past us into the station, glass doors and windows tripping by. It brakes to a smooth, sudden halt. The doors open, and we climb in, wary of the dark gap between the car and the platform. It reminds me of the shark-filled gaps between the Gyre’s pontoons. Miyole sits with her back to the window, the sun setting the tiny curls that have escaped from her braids alight and casting her face in shadow.

Bodies pack in around us. Men in dark suits and collarless white shirts buttoned at the neck, chins shaved and hair oiled and tucked behind their ears; women dressed the same, with diamonds or gold rings studding their ears and noses; others in pretty printed dresses and scarves, or wide-cut, flowing pants. The ones standing alongside me in middle of the car grab hold of a rail above our heads, so I do the same. The sharp odor of so many sweating bodies packed together nearly suffocates me.

The city whips by, the closer buildings a blur of metal and glass, and gray stone, with only the faraway towers and treetops moving slow enough for our eyes. Suddenly, the train’s windows darken. Thick, white letters glide over the glass, BAY MOUTH STATION, and at the same time, a calm voice rings out from the ceiling, repeating the name aloud in English and that same bubbling language I don’t know. We come to a stop. Our train empties half its passengers out one side of the car, then opens the other side to let more pour in. A young man calling, “Chai! Chai!” edges through the car with steaming drinks balanced on a tray hung around his neck.

We pull out again. The train is building into its steady, silent glide, slipping under the midday sun, when a rushing sound swells up beneath our feet and the floor jerks under us. The car fills with screams as we crush together, too close packed to fall to the floor. The gravity’s malfunctioned, I think for a half a breath, but then I remember we’re groundways. Something’s wrong—bad wrong. The train screeches and shudders to a halt.

A stunned silence holds us all for a moment. Then a baby breaks into a frightened cry, and the car fills with shouts.

“De! Watch it!”

“. . . every time I’m running late.”

“Hawa aane de!”

“Damn. What, again?”

“Miyole?” I shout.

“I’m here.” She clutches the bar beside her seat. Her eyes are wide, but she looks unhurt.

I breathe a sigh of relief and right myself. “Sorry, so. Sorry,” I mutter to the man in front of me, whose back I slammed into.

“Ava?” Miyole slips her hand into mine. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.” I go up on tiptoe to look. My back prickles with sweat.

“It’s a washout,” the man I fell into says. He points up to the ceiling. “Any minute now, they’ll call it. Listen.”

The speakers sound a soft bong, and a woman’s soothing voice fills the car. “Attention, we are currently experiencing flooding in the line—”

A collective groan goes up among the passengers.

“Remain calm and stay in your seats until a transit authority officer comes to escort you to the nearest station.”

Near the front of the car, someone has forced open a door and people are jumping, one by one, across the small gap between the track and a walkway. The crowd nudges forward, pushing us along with it.

“Aren’t we supposed to wait?” I ask the man in front of us.

He shrugs. “You wait if you want. I have to make it downtown by three.”

I glance back at Miyole, worry building in the pit of my stomach. If we leave this train, how will we find our way to the other one that’s supposed to take us to my modrie?

But we don’t truly have a choice. I try to press myself against the row of seats, stay out of the way, but everyone is pushing. There’s nowhere to go but out the door, into the steaming afternoon heat. The man in front of us jumps, lands with a heavy clang on the metal walkway, and then turns and holds out a hand to help us across. Miyole takes it and springs over the gap. He reaches back for me. I know I should take his hand, know he’s only doing me a kindness, but his hands are so large, with soft skin and perfectly rounded fingernails. I can’t let him touch me. I leap across on my own and land with an awkward wobble.

All up and down the tracks, people pile out of the train cars, into the burning sun. Most of them choose the walkway, but a few climb up onto the lev train’s back and skirt the shuffling crowd altogether. Below us, a muddy trickle starts to fill the bottom of the magnetized pit.

“Do you think . . . ,” I look down at Miyole and stop. Even though her hand is in mine, she isn’t with me. Her eyes stare unfixed at something I can’t see, and her mouth turns down in a way I’ve come to know means she’s sunk deep in her own thoughts.

By the time we make it back to the nearest station, the sun is past its peak and my shirt is plastered to my skin. The backs of my eyes burn. Everything comes to me muffled, the way the world sounded with my ears beneath the water in the desalination pool. This silvery city seamed with green, the constant roar of ships passing overhead, the bright colors and burning sun . . . none of it seems real. My head swims.

I drag us to the nearest smartboard and wait behind the other passengers lined up to use it. When my turn comes, I squint at the lines twisted around one another like wires. One of them flashes blue. OUT OF SERVICE. What was the one we were aiming for again? One-oh-five? I scan the board, but there are so many different numbers and words and lines. I finally find one-oh-five, but now twenty-four won’t take us to it, and I could maybe figure out if another might, but I don’t know the name of the tiny station we’ve wound up at or which of the trains will be coming through.

“Miyole?” I say hesitantly.

“Jaldi karo!” The woman behind me huffs. “Hurry up, please.”

“Sorry, so.” I can see the way everyone is looking at me. It’s the same look I’m sure I had when the kitchen girls forgot to add protein powder to the bread meal or something dull headed like that.

I pull Miyole back through the crowd and sink down on a bench beneath a tree in the middle of the platform. I’ll check again when they’ve all cleared away, when I have more time to trace the lines. I try to swallow, but my throat is dry.

“Are you thirsty?” I ask Miyole. If I am, she must be too. Maybe more so, since she probably swallowed saltwater in the storm.

She nods.

I push myself to my feet again and scan the platform. Most of the other passengers have their own bottles of water clipped to their belts or the bags they wear over their shoulders.

“Please, so.” I stop a woman wearing darkened glasses and carrying a slick black bag. “Do you know where we could get water?”