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Glancing at my wings, his dirty face twitched. “Is that some kind of costume?” he asked.
I didn’t know how to respond, and stepped to him and cut the restraints from his wrists. “You’re Raja Garbos, aren’t you?”
He rubbed the welts on his wrists, then dragged the sponge from his forehead to his chin. Mud dripped down his neck and chest. “They took me.” He nodded. “Here I am.”
* * *
RAJA GARBOS WAS SMALL ENOUGH he could wear Mama’s old work coveralls and boots. Dewey made a pot of potato soup. As we ate, the actor told us how Jo Sam’s elite military force, the Pearl, had invaded New Los Angeles. Drones surrounding the valley, the Pearl swarming the city, adult civilians were forcibly separated from their children and loaded into hyperloop pods and taken to prison camps. The children were whisked off to God knows where.
The city emptied but for the Pearl and the Novae Terrae loyalists, a producer friend had let Raja hide at her house. The transport tunnels were sealed by storm gates. With no one coming in or out by road or hyperloop, drones seeded the clouds.
New Los Angeles was set in a caldera rimmed by man-made mountains. Seed-grown thunderheads made a halo above the rim of the valley’s bowl, the storm flooding the land beyond the mountains, the city made into an island.
Raja knew he wasn’t safe unless he declared himself a Novae. He decided to flee. An old stunt-pilot friend agreed to smuggle him out of the valley on a cargo plane in the dead of night. He escaped to his father’s ranch, not ten miles away, where he was going to lay low until the madness ceased. Then the storm drones came north.
Flash flood ripping over his father’s land, he was trapped in the ranch house. A military shuttle descended through the bluster, what he thought was a rescue team. But the aircraft was manned by Pearl, who shoved him to the floor, bound his hands with plastic restraints, and cut off his clothes. He screamed he was Raja Garbos, the actor. They said they knew who he was, and had been sent to take him back to the city to stand trial.
“Jo Sam had plans for me,” he said. “When the shuttle didn’t head directly to New Los Angeles, and landed here on your mountain, I managed to sneak off into the trees.” The little actor massaged his earlobe. “I saw what they did. Saw the Pearl kill those people. Saw how they took that child.”
“My mama was one of those they killed,” I said. “The child was my sister.”
“Savages.” He spat, and seemed genuinely moved. “And I brought them here. I should’ve just stayed in New Los Angeles. Should’ve just let them have me. I’m sorry. So very sorry.”
* * *
THERE WERE ONLY TWO BUNKS in the shelter. Raja insisted Dewey and I take them. I told the actor my wings would keep me warm, and said he should have my blanket if he was to sleep on the floor.
My wings proved awkward that first night in bed, but I’d been awake for so long, my eyes like stones, my body as if filled with sand, that I hugged Mr. Otter and fell quickly, and soundly, asleep.
I woke in the lightless shelter to Dewey tapping my shoulder. I asked if it was morning, and he said it was. He was going out to check on the boat. I agreed to join him.
We felt our way around the edges of the shelter so as to not step on Raja. Dewey went first up the ladder. I waited to hear the hatch lift, then the light poured in and I quickly climbed and pulled myself out onto the hillside and gently shut the hatch behind me.
The sky had cleared. The sun warm, fog lifted off the grass and gathered the golden light. We kicked through the dew of the meadow, then worked down through the cedar woods to the water’s edge, where the curve of the mountain made a natural cove.
Dewey stood stiff, hands on hips. “It was here, I swear.”
The water had greatly risen, the current surely wrenching the boat’s line from the tree to which it was moored. We stalked the shoreline, gazing out through the veil of morning haze. At the point of the cove, with the sun’s heat burning away the fog, we glimpsed the tiny box of the boat adrift far out on the water.
“No, no,” Dewey said. “We can’t lose that boat.”
I asked if the boat was complicated to operate. Dewey said not very, and explained to me the simple steps. I asked questions until I felt sure enough to leap from the rocks and into flight.
Maybe it was the sunshine on the water and the salt air in my lungs, or maybe I was just becoming fluent with my wings, or perhaps it was the coward inside of me whispering I should fly away from my problems, but I felt a divine empowerment in my flight, so much so I had to fight the urge to keep soaring away over that glittering sea.
I landed on the boat’s deck and let myself into the cabin. I followed Dewey’s instructions and started the motor, eased the throttle, and slowly steered the boat back toward the mountain.
The boat trolled into the shadows of the cove, the hull scraping the submerged tops of trees as I bumped my way to the shore. Though I cut the motor, the prow struck land with a bracing jolt. Dewey scrambled aboard and let out a victorious howl as he grabbed the bowline and leaped back to the hillside.
I stepped out onto the deck, proud and relieved, and opened my wings to let my feathers bask in the warming light. Then I saw him; Raja in the shadows of the hillside, dressed in Mama’s clothes and perched like a gargoyle atop a boulder, silently watching us, as if to make certain we wouldn’t leave him behind.
* * *
I DIDN’T NEED RAJA to disclose he’d seen me flying, or to utter a single word about my wings, because I caught him staring at them on the way back up to the shelter, and again over our breakfast of oatmeal, and again as we surveyed the damage to the house.
I caught Dewey studying my wings, too. Later in the day, with Raja napping in the meadow, and Dewey beside me sitting on the stoop, he worked up the courage to ask what had happened to me.
I told him about Hercules and the bug fight, my march through the desert, the bright light that swallowed everything, waking in the bomb crater, how I saw Mama gray and cold, how I flew on new wings to find the base obliterated and thought maybe I was dead until he came up out of the shelter and saw me.
“It must sound crazy,” I said. “Maybe I’m crazy.”
“You’re right here beside me. If you’re crazy, what am I?”
Dewey didn’t pose what I had come to wonder, that maybe the Novae Terrae were responsible, as the same people who could levitate children could surely make a woman fly. Maybe when I was in that crater they did something to me. Maybe it wasn’t Mama sewing on my wings, but some White Sleeve surgeon.
I didn’t know what more to say, and Dewey didn’t press for further explanation. He only leaned his shoulder against mine and took my hand. “What do they feel like?” he asked. “Do they hurt?”
“Like me. They just feel like me.”
* * *
THAT NIGHT, we hiked up to the summit. The old fire tower smelled of must and bird droppings, its floorboards soft beneath the step. Through the glassless window, I peered out at the moon generously spilling its light along the horizon’s watery curve.
Staring down over the moonlit sea, I confronted the brutal truths. Mama was dead. Ava Lynn was taken. I had to get my sister back from the Novae Terrae, though I didn’t know where to find her, and even if I did I was no longer part of an army and alone, even with wings, I was no match for the Pearl.
I spoke to the glowing face of the moon. “I just want my sister back. Please, give her back.”
A shuffling stirred in the corner. Raja stood there, half in darkness, half in moonlight, leering at my wings like a drunk at the window of a pub. “I know people,” the actor said. “Important people who can help you.”
“What people?” I asked.
He stepped wholly into the light. “This man I know. Winifred Özdemir. He used to be in show business, but now he’s a general for the Pearl. He’ll know where they took the children. He can find your sister.” Raja lay his palms open before him. “Please, I’ve cost you so much. Let me make this right.”
“Why would this general help us?”
“Like I told you, Jo Sam had plans for me. Plans I rejected because I didn’t see myself the way he did.” Then Raja edged so near that Dewey stepped to Raja’s shoulder, towering over the actor and making his presence known. Raja’s eyes flicked to Dewey, then back to me. “That’s why I fled,” the actor said. “Why they found me. I’m a dead man when they find me again. But maybe Özdemir would forgive me if you were with me. I’ve never seen anyone like you. No one has. I’d tell him that’s why I left. To find you, to bring you to him.”
He reached to touch my wing, and I grasped his wrist just firm enough to let him know I was no one’s parcel.
“He’ll help us all,” Raja pleaded. “Help you, if you help him.”
“Help the White Sleeves?” Dewey asked, with disdain.
“Özdemir’s a practical man, a man of great vision,” Raja said, his earnest eyes peering up into mine, his face as bright as the moon. “A man who’d see the singular potential in a real-life angel.”
BELIEF WAS OFTEN A SYMPTOM of desperation. I’d witnessed otherwise reasonable people manifest faith in unhinged claims due to their desperation. I was potently aware I didn’t want to fall into desperate belief. But how does one tamp the desperate want for answers enough to know your belief is sound in judgment?
Should we leave with a man we barely knew, an actor who appeared under dubious circumstances, and was now asking me to help the Novae Terrae after what the Pearl had done to Mama and Ava Lynn?
I passed the night wandering amid the pines, begging God to reveal an alternate means to find my sister. But my thoughts kept circling back to Raja’s proposal, because finding Ava Lynn without his aid, in that vast and perilous world, would be like finding a single stone hurled into the bashing surf.
When dawn broke over the meadow, I watched the actor climb out from the storm shelter. Raja stretched his back and peered up into the morning sky. Like a prowler through a rear window, the thoughts unbidden entered my consciousness: Maybe God had sent Raja to me. Maybe New Los Angeles was the path God had ordained.
My mind was exhausted. Time was gravely pressing. I succumbed to desperate belief, at least enough to hike down from the woods and inform Raja that I’d wake Dewey and we’d set off for New Los Angeles before I changed my mind.
Raja was pleased, though Dewey protested, calling it madness. I assured Dewey that he was likely right. I told him I’d listen if he had another plan. If he didn’t, he should get dressed, pack what supplies we’d need for the journey, and ready the boat.
Within the hour, gulls scattered from the bow as the boat chugged away from the shore. Dewey manned the helm, the motor rumbling into a growl as we exited the mountain’s bay.
The cabin had a little table with two padded benches. Raja lay sleeping on one. My mind a tangle of puzzles and prayers, I lay back on the other. With the boat clipping south and the clouds coursing north, I gazed out the rime-hazed window and the blear of opposing movements felt like the earth’s rotation was wildly accelerating. I shut my eyes, imagining the moment gravity would fail and we’d be flung into the sky.
* * *
RAJA WOKE WITH A YELP. He sat up on the bench across the table from me, ran his fingers through his sweat-damp hair. He said he’d had a dream about a scene from Indigo Mist, a film he was shooting during the Great Quake of 2029.
“We were in a greenhouse,” he said. “I was supposed to confront this gardener who was really a killer. Eddie Langer. Fine actor. Scowl never left his face. Was really a jolly fellow, but his face cast him as the bad guy in a hundred films. The first tremor came out of nowhere. The ground shook so hard the greenhouse glass went crashing all around us. I dragged Eddie under a doorway and we held each other, bad and good gone, just two men trying to survive. The camera operator kept on filming, and the movie went from some cookie-cutter thriller into an existential statement about justice and humanity. It’s the only thing I ever made that was worth a damn. Was my first real film, not some bullshit game. It was going to relaunch my career as a proper actor, but then the megastorms hit and distribution fell through and no one ever saw it.”
I didn’t know what to say and lied, telling him how much I’d admired his performance in Rebel Rebel.
To that, Raja covered one eye with his hand and snarled, “Zip, zip, zoorah,” which was Captain Riot’s victory cry. Then Raja’s hand dropped from his eye to smack the tabletop. His snarl softened into a frown, his eyes crestfallen, and he was himself again.
* * *
DAYLIGHT BURNISHED THE WAVES that crashed against the bow, a curtain of golden mist swirling over the channel that split the approaching hills. We’d not seen land for hours. As we entered the channel, wild mustangs galloped out of the fog as if through a seam in time. Beautiful and free, the small herd ran the ridge for only a moment before pivoting away, back into the mist, a lone palomino left bucking against the veil.
The rain lessened and the chop calmed. I offered to fly ahead as scout. Dewey didn’t respond to me, and gripped the wheel with skittish intensity. He was out of his depths, was a fisherman and not a soldier, so I remained there beside him.
The fog-diffused sunlight lacquered the land. We trolled between the shores slashed with wind turbines, hundreds of posts topped with slowly spinning blades, all facing the muzzy sun like devouts at benediction.
Soon the channel opened onto a vast reservoir. Halfway across the span of water, Dewey abruptly cut the motor. He studied his depth finder, tapped a knuckle to his thigh.
“Boats,” he said. “Sunken boats.”
Dewey peered out beyond the water. I followed his gaze to the far shore of the reservoir. There lay the only slopes cleared of turbines. The land was scorched. In the circles of char we saw the downed planes, a helicopter on its side like a slain dragon, everything blackened within the rings as if doused in tar.
Raja edged in between Dewey and me. “They made a go of it,” he said. “Sent in the Air Force. It was pretty hairy for a day or two, but the Pearl got the best of them.”
* * *
WE DECIDED it was too much of a risk to travel farther during daylight. Dewey hid the boat in the shoreline cottonwoods. While waiting for the cover of darkness, I studied the mix of certificates and licenses on the cabin’s wall. Among them hung a framed illustration of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee.
Waves rippled about the hem of Jesus’s robe as he offered a rescuing hand down to a drowning man. In the open boat behind Jesus, the fishermen looked on in terror.
Of course the fishermen would be afraid of a man walking on water. It defied everything they’d learned from years on the sea. Stay in the boat. Revere the boat. How could they trust anything but that Jesus would at any moment sink?
I worried how people would react to seeing a woman fly. Would they doubt my wings were real? Would they believe them real, but find me grotesque? Would they gape in terror at my flight, expecting me at any moment to plummet? Or would pictures be made of me, framed and hung on walls?
Which of these was worst, I did not know.
* * *
WITH THE BOAT LIGHTS OFF, we let the current carry us out of the reservoir, down the southern channel and toward the city. From a distance, we saw the churning wall of clouds pulsing with lightning.
As we broke the perimeter of the drone-seeded storm, whirling sheets of rain buffeted the boat, lightning flashing across the heavens and allowing a glimpse of the old power towers toppled by bomb or gale, their girders twisted, wires crisscrossing the hills like twine encasing a hog.
We wended our way downstream. Dewey squinted through the drubbing rain, heroic in his concentration. Then the channel ended, and for a time there was nothing but rain and darkness. The water wild and tossing the boat, Raja assured we were near, then bitterly added, “Weeks ago this was a stream in a chasm. How high will these lunatics make the water rise?”
Soon a dim glow appeared through the rain, then we saw the broad earthen shoulders of New Los Angeles hunched above the water. We followed the shore’s curving slope west, then south, and passed an enormous concrete wall, like a gate guarding the gods.
One of eighteen hydroelectric dams, they’d been hailed a marvel of modern engineering, built to make the valley energy independent, resistant to tsunamis, and impervious to floods. New Los Angeles was the pride of America, an entire city built in less than a decade, testament to American resilience, work ethic, technological superiority, and exceptional wealth.
The soldier in me wondered how the Novae Terrae had taken a valley of such national investment. Where were the battleships? Why weren’t the Marines surrounding the city? Had America designed a city built to defeat America? Maybe there was an advantage to no longer being in an army. Perhaps our little boat’s seeming insignificance allowed us passage all the fighter jets and war copters and platoons were brutally denied.
* * *
THE CITY’S MIGHTY BERM SHIFTED from barren slopes to granite crags and a stretch of towering redwoods. Raja told Dewey this was the spot. He motioned to pull the boat within the trees, then hurried out onto the rainswept deck to shout directions. One eye on Raja, the other on the depth finder, Dewey steered through the titan boles and to the shore.
In case the floodwaters continued to swell, Dewey had me fly up and secure the bowline high around a redwood’s thick branch. We did our best to camouflage the boat under a tarpaulin and a layer of boughs, then followed Raja through the rain, slipping and clawing the mud-slick bank, up through the trees, to a high chain-link fence topped with razor wire.
