Harry Turtledove - Supervolcano :Eruption

Then again, the Rockies also disappeared when it got smoggy. Till Vanessa moved here, she hadn’t thought Denver could get smoggy. Surprise! Too many cars in not enough space could do that almost anywhere. Denver had so many cars, and so many people who’d moved here in the past twenty-five years to escape the crowding and pollution in wherever the hell they were from, that its freeway system was hopelessly overstretched. Morning and afternoon traffic crawls made Vanessa miss L.A.’s commutes. Before she moved, she wouldn’t have imagined anything could.

Pickles was not a big Denver booster. He’d spent the first couple of days after he got here pissing and shitting on the apartment rug. She’d gone through a bottle of that Nature’s Miracle enzyme junk, but the place still smelled of cat. Part of that was marking his new territory, of course. And part was expressing his opinion of anybody who could coop him up in a carrier for as long as it took to get from California to Colorado. He couldn’t write angry e-mails, but he got the message across.

Vanessa’s new job didn’t pay as well as the one she’d left. But the apartment was bigger, newer, and cheaper than the one she’d had before. People in Denver bitched about the high cost of housing. Vanessa wasn’t impressed. Even after a couple of market meltdowns, L.A. still cost more.

She didn’t particularly like her new job. Amalgamated Humanoids made everything from crash-test dummies to fancy audio-animatronic robots. They competed for a lot of government grants, so they needed someone to write and edit proposals. Reading RFPs from the Feds proved that Washington did believe in capital punishment, at least by boredom. Reading what allegedly bright Amalgamated Humanoids engineers fondly imagined to be English proved some people grew up without a native language. That was the kindest explanation Vanessa could find, anyhow.

She hadn’t likeeli job she’d quit so she could move to Denver, either. And she hadn’t liked the one before that. She really hadn’t liked the classes she was taking at Long Beach State, which was why she’d got a job instead.

She wasn’t happy unless she disliked something, not that she’d ever put it like that. Bryce had, not long before she told him to hit the road. Cause and effect? She would have denied on a stack of Bibles that the crack had anything to do with the breakup. She would have said the same thing about the poem he’d had accepted. It was, when you got right down to it, a pretty goddamn stupid poem.

One thing she didn’t love about Amalgamated Humanoids-she was starting a collection, the way she always did-was the wild up-and-down workload. Proposals had iron deadlines. If they had to go out by 3:27 p.m. Tuesday precisely, you made sure they did. If that meant pulling sixteen-hour days Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, you pulled them.

And if, after that, you spent the rest of the week counting paper clips and rubber bands and goofing around online, the boss didn’t care. You stored up energy for the next crazy time.

Not everything in Denver was perfect, then. But it was no worse than L.A. As soon as Vanessa turned in her California license plates for ones stamped out by Colorado convicts, she felt more or less at home.

The one down spot-the place where she was unhappy without wanting to be unhappy, in a manner of speaking-was her love life. When she was in the throes of writing, or of translating into English someone else’s godawful attempt at writing a proposal, she didn’t have time for Hagop. And she soon started to wonder if Hagop ever had time for her.

“I am too busy,” he would say when she called him. Not all the time, but often enough to be annoying. More than often enough: Vanessa had a low annoyance threshold.

He wasn’t always too busy. Oh, no. When he woke up with a bulge in his pants, he was charming and attentive and sweet… till she put out. Then the carpet business consumed him again.

Bryce had been horny all the damn time. He’d sulk and get pissy when she said no. And if she said no two or three days running, he’d play with himself instead. It made her feel she was just a convenience for him, maybe a little more enjoyable than a hand but not absolutely necessary. She’d told herself things would be different with an older man. He wouldn’t keep bugging her the way Bryce did. And he’d be grateful when she gave herself to him.

Well, yes and no. Hagop wasn’t horny all the damn time. Biology wouldn’t let him be. But, when he was, he bugged her just as much as somebody half his age would have. Once he got what he wanted, he ignored her till the next time he started feeling the pressure again.

Vanessa had never been one to suffer in silence. As soon as she got irked enough-which didn’t take long-she called him on it. “The only reason you want me around is so you can fuck me,” she said one evening, after he’d done just that. The blunt language would have made her father flinch, so she hoped it would have the same effect on any man his age.

No such luck. Hagop leaned up on one elbow and looked at her, his heavy-featured face expressionless. He liked a light on in the bedroom; seeing what they were up to helped him get where he was going. After a moment, he said, “And this surprises you because…?”

“If we’re lovers, you’re supposed to love me. Not just lay me. Not just make love to me. Love me,” Vanessa saidot just›Or what the hell did I go and get rid of Bryce for? She kept that part to herself: she had an accurate suspicion that Hagop wouldn’t care why. Bryce sure hadn’t cared why she’d dumped the guy she was living with before she met him. All he’d ever cared about was getting it in.

Hagop’s face remained studiously blank. “I am afraid you may ask more than I am able to give.”

“Oh, yeah? I’d better not.” Vanessa glared at him. “I’ve got news for you-I didn’t pack up and move to Colorado just to be your fuck toy.”

“I did not expect you to move here at all,” he answered with a shrug. “As long as you did, though, do you expect me not to enjoy it?”

Things were falling apart. Vanessa didn’t need to be the King of Babylon to see the writing on the wall. “You filthy son of a bitch!” she snarled-not the ideal endearment when they were both naked in her bed and his seed still dribbled out of her to make a wet spot, but most heartfelt. “You moved here to get rid of me!” It was obvious now. Why in blue, bleeding hell hadn’t it been while she was still back in San Atanasio?

With dignity, Hagop shook his head. “I moved here for exactly the reason I told you in California: I saw the chance to make more money.”

“Rug merchant!” she jeered. “That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it?”

He got out of bed and started to dress. “I am going to pretend I did not hear that. Count yourself lucky that I am.” His voice held.. nothing.

Vanessa knew all about hot rages. Meeting a cold one gave her pause. She’d fight like a wildcat. All the same, it wouldn’t be hard for her to end up dead in this apartment where she hadn’t lived very long.

“So I did not move here for the purpose of getting rid of you,” Hagop continued tonelessly, tucking his shirt into his slacks. “That, as they say in the trade, was an added bonus.”

An added redundancy. But she didn’t say that, either. She did say, “What am I supposed to do now?”

He shrugged again. “This is no longer my worry. You are old enough to be an adult, unlikely as it sounds. You will land on your feet or on your back-whichever suits you. And then, before too long, you will find out that the next one, whoever he is, does not measure up to your imagination, either.”

He walked out of the bedroom. Pickles meowed at him. He didn’t answer the cat. The front door opened. It closed. It didn’t slam-Hagop was still holding things in. His footsteps faded down the stairs. With the door closed, she couldn’t hear them at all by the time he got to the bottom.