Макс Брукс - Devolution - A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

I still have them, of course, but knowing that my day will start with a hike in the woods helps. I’ve been doing that every morning. Up and dressed, quietly as I can so as not to wake up Dan, and out the door. Easier to be quiet when you don’t have to worry about turning off a burglar alarm. Nobody sets theirs, no need! Then out and up the trail behind the house.

Dawn is so peaceful here. Just me and the sun, and Yvette! She’s up way before anyone, in the Common House, teaching online classes around the globe. I haven’t brought myself to take one yet. Even though she won’t charge me. “Just perch yourself behind the webcam and it’ll feel like a private lesson.” I keep meaning to do it. Too intimidating, and, let’s be honest, it does get in the way of my hike!

I can’t believe I get to do this whenever I want! Will it ever get old? How can it? I love that crisp, cool air in my lungs, on my cheeks, down my back when I warm up enough to take off my fleece. Frank warned me about when the weather turns, in a month or so, when it supposedly nosedives into real cold. I won’t mind. It’ll be nice to have real winters again, like we did back east.

So far, I’ve been doing the same hike every day, the trail that loops around the neighborhood up to the ridge that overlooks everything. And I do mean everything !

Mount Rainier is out of a storybook. The white peak rising in the distance. The morning light turning its snow an orange pink. You’d expect a princess to live in a castle on the summit, or an angry dragon to sleep under its base. Sounds crazy, but I feel strangely safe every morning when I see Rainier, like it’s watching over us. I know the tremors we’ve been feeling (we’ve had one or two since that first time at dinner) are coming from the mountain, but I can’t reconcile them with this protective giant ruling all he surveys.

The Boothes don’t think I’m crazy. I mentioned it to them yesterday morning. They also do a pre-breakfast dawn hike. They’re so nice, so inclusive. I ran into them yesterday morning on my way up the ridge. I felt really uncomfortable at first, like I’d intruded in some way. Yes, we should probably talk about this, why on a public path I felt like their rights trumped mine. But they just waved me over.

We chatted all the way up the trail. Bobbi asked how well I knew Seattle, and I confessed that I’d never really spent any time there. Vincent couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful it was, “cultured” was the word he used. The fish market, the theater scene, MoPOP. [10] MoPOP: Museum of Popular Culture. Bobbi offered the use of their pied-à-terre, a condo they have in Madison Park and visit a couple times a month. “Otherwise we’d go crazy.” That was Vincent. “Just knowing that Seattle is only ninety minutes or so makes all the difference.” Bobbi added, “Depending on traffic.” And they laughed together.

They’re so cute, the two of them, with their matching Patagonia outfits and double walking poles. When we reached the top of the ridge, watching the morning light color Rainier, it was nice, and, yes, sad to see them holding hands. When they’d been telling me how easy it was to get to Seattle “if you time it right,” Vincent started going on about the national highway system.

“Practically erased distances,” he said, “especially when you think it used to take months, years, to cross this continent! And do you know the Eisenhower administration only managed to get the project built by selling it as emergency runways in a nuclear war?”

Bobbi grinned and shook her head. “Yes, dear, and I’m sure she’s very excited to hear about national security infrastructure.”

I suddenly stiffened, thinking that Vincent would be hurt, defensive, surly. Like Dan. But he gave me this over-the-top, “What, you’re not!” and the two shared a laughing hug. Their comfort, their ease.

I’ve tried to invite Dan. Not in the moment, of course. I would never think of trying to shake him awake. A few days ago, when I’d gotten back from my hike and he asked, “How’d it go?” Instead of answering, “Great,” and going upstairs to shower, I actually sat down next to him on the couch to talk about it. I told him about the smell of the trees, the sound of the birds. I even described Rainier’s inspiring peak.

And he pretended to listen. Pursed lips, exaggerated nod, eyes not meaning to but flicking down at his iPad every couple seconds. Okay, wrap it up. I didn’t really care, I was just being polite. I knew what he wanted, but somehow, I found it in me to say, “You should totally come with tomorrow morning.”

See, I did take something from our last session. I tried putting myself out there, giving him the chance. I did my part. But he just nodded again, even raising his eyebrows to prove that he’d heard what I’d said. “Maybe, sure.” Then went back to his screen.

Message received. No argument but no commitment.

Dan.

That’s something else I have to get used to, being together 24/7. I don’t want to say it was okay before, but at least back then, our old routine gave us space. He’d be sleeping when I went to work and still up when I went to bed. In between we had, what, a couple hours together if extra work or phone calls didn’t keep me occupied. Yes, weekends were tougher, when he wouldn’t want to go out with my friends or would disappear down to Intelligentsia [11] Intelligentsia: A popular coffee establishment on Abbot Kinney Blvd. for a half-day coffee. I never realized how much it upset me, or, maybe I did, but the tension, the resentment, it always diffused first thing Monday morning.

It’s not diffusing anymore. We’re trapped together all the time.

Did I just say “trapped”? It’s starting to feel that way. Is that why Frank wanted us to move up here, to trap me here with Dan all the time, force me to watch him sit on the couch with his tablet while I unpack the house, organize everything, do everything?

And the part that really gets me, now that I think about it, isn’t just the sitting around all day, it’s doing it with the curtains open so everyone can see him. Here I thought keeping them open would make me feel exposed. Now I feel…

Embarrassed. Yes. I do. Embarrassed for him. On display. Doesn’t he care?

He did when Mostar saw him! So did I. Gasoline on the fire. That’s the only way to describe what happened.

It was delivery day, the one day every week when all our online orders come in. The HOA has organized this special to minimize the “environmental impact.” That’s how Tony puts it. “What’s the point of clean air if we’re just going to pollute it with drones?”

The drones were insane. I was sitting in my home office, wrapping up a conference call, when I heard this crazy buzzing sound. Like an angry swarm of giant bees. I’d heard regular drones before, the high-pitched whir from the annoying little ones that fly around over the Venice canals. But these were deeper, louder, and a lot more numerous.

I came outside to see Tony standing on the grass behind the Common House, one tan, muscled arm shielding his eyes as the other waved down the first laptop. That’s what they looked like: large, flat, and black. A robotic insect—no, arachnid, because of the eight legs. Each straight leg ending in a rotor spinning too fast for me to see. It still amazes me that those rotors could lift the grocery basket under its belly.

“New from Cygnus,” Tony called over his shoulder as I approached. “Y-Q [12] “Y-Q” stands for Yi qi, a late Jurassic, bat-winged dinosaur found in China. Mark 1. Twice the payload and thrice the range of the HorseFly models UPS and Amazon use.” The drone hovered for a second, descended slowly, then gently settled on the large grassy patch big enough for a real helicopter. Did I ever mention the helipad?