My back aches like a son of a gun, probably from lying sideways or on my belly for so long. I wiggle my feet. The movement of tendons in my thighs and calves feels like complex clockwork grating, but my feet move. I flex my knees, just the tiniest amount as the tightness in my stitches gets unbearable quickly, but they bend.
I lie there and wait. It's not long until Lara returns.
Hell, she is beautiful, maybe more so now. Her curly hair is tied back loosely, her eyes are as bright white as ever, and she smiles wide as she comes in, like she's really pleased to see me.
"Amo!"
She rushes over and drops to her knees, bringing her face next to mine.
"Hi," I say.
She kisses me on the lips. No tongue, but still it fires up an engine I haven't thought about for a while. She strokes my cheek as she pulls away.
"I'm so proud of you," she says.
I blush. "I just turned around on the stretcher," I say, displaying my trademark wit. "You could have done it too."
She laughs. She strokes my face. Then she kisses me again, this time with some tongue. It gets hot, and before I know it she's climbing onto the narrow stretcher and shimmying off her pants and her shirt.
"On your side," she whispers breathlessly, backing up into me. My paper boxer shorts come down, bristling against my stitches, and the heat of her skin against mine is overwhelming, the smell of her is intoxicating. My hands snake around to cup her breasts, and she arches her back.
"Condom," I whisper.
"Screw it, " she says breathily, craning her neck back to kiss me. I kiss her hard. I'm sure my mouth tastes like a shriveled sand pit, but she doesn't complain. She grinds back into me, and I seize her sheer brown hip and press myself into her. She gasps and so do I.
God, this is worth it. It is the right choice to have survived and be here like this, with a beautiful survivor just as hungry as I am, aching for the touch of another.
We move together, breathing hard and grasping like we might fall if we don't hold on. Sensation rushes through me like salvation. It means we aren't dead, and there are things to live for still.
We finish together; she cries out and so do I. It is a release, and the start of something new. Neither of us is alone any more.
* * *
Afterward I lie with her nestled in my arms, breathing warmly. I love it. I love that this beautiful, resourceful woman who has surely saved my life, has chosen me.
"He was having sex with them," she says eventually. "Don."
"He was," I say.
The fan's breeze drifts over us, tingling off bare skin. The generator chutters smoothly in the corner.
"He was mad," she says. "You didn't want to kill him."
I know what she's asking. I don't have a good answer. "He came into the battle-tank. He got worked up. Maybe I worked him up, I'm not blameless here. I could have done it better. But I didn't know, not for sure. He had the comics, he could know about you, about Cerulean. I had to be sure. And he wouldn't back off."
"You fought in the back of the battle-tank."
I talk through it. I tell her about the floaters, responding and tearing him apart. It leaves us both in silence.
"Do you think they were defending you?" she asks eventually.
"I don't know. I honestly don't. Perhaps if he hadn't shot them, all they would have done was hug him? I don't know. I've never killed them in view of others, then let them come close. Perhaps he triggered a kill instinct they couldn't switch off."
"Or they were protecting you."
I frown up at her.
"You asked them to. You are their father after all."
I consider that for a time. "That would make you their mother."
She laughs softly. It sounds partly like a sob, and I pull her close.
"Maybe. I never had a coma, though. I suppose I was just a catalyst."
"You weren't 'just' anything."
"I was a vessel. It's OK, it could easily have been the other way around. Whatever happened that night, it inoculated me. I'm glad."
I nod. I consider saying something like, 'I saved you with my magic penis', but probably that's not a good idea.
"Ground zero," I say instead. "Right."
"Right."
We lie quietly. I stroke her bare arm. It's good.
* * *
I recover steadily. She brings me freshly un-canned fruit and bolognese. I still don't need to eat much, but I eat more than before. I drink more. We make love several times a day, lying on the stretcher. We graduate to a double stretcher, lashing the two together with drip-bag tubing, so we can sleep comfortably side by side.
The first of my stitches come out, and the wound holds. I rub the newly sealed skin repeatedly, fascinated and repelled by the bumpy ridges the stitches have left, like castle battlements.
"You won't be Miss California," Lara teases. She kisses me. "Don't wear tights."
"I had such plans," I answer. "The apocalypse has freed up my inner woman."
She chuckles. "Priscilla, queen of the desert."
I rub the healing wound until it feels like my skin again, no longer so horribly foreign. Welcome back, I tell it. The nausea fades.
More stitches come out. Lara's hand is steady and skillful.
"We learn this, for pouring milk," she says. "Carrying coffee requires a steady hand. It was a hard boot camp."
"I'm sure it was very rigorous. Coffee training has prepared you well as a surgeon."
She pinches my knee.
Spent stitches slip out of my skin with a little suck each time. Bright beads of blood prick up in the tiny gaps they leave. Lara dabs these down with iodine swabs, which sting. We leave the deepest few wounds a little longer.
Already I can flex my feet almost fully, rolling at the ankle. I can bend my knees halfway to forty-five degrees. I ask Lara to bring my laptop and drawing tablet, and she does. I start to work on the latest pages of my comic. There's no fulfillment center I know of round here, I don't know if we can print them out professionally, so I expect to just print them on the hospital machines and add the new pages as addenda to the back of the ones I've already got.
At the same time Lara goes out. She's working on my plan for the UFO.
"The walls will be slick," I tell her. "The heights will be terrifying at first. Double-check all your ropes, your cradle, your in-coil."
I don't tell her she shouldn't do it, or that she should wait until I'm fit and we can at least do it together. I can see that she needs to do this, and I need to be willing to share it. We started this thing, and now we have to see it through together.
A week passes. I work on my art and I recover. She comes back each evening splattered with paint but jubilant.
"You should see it," she says. "It looks amazing."
I pull her in and pull up her shirt to kiss her belly. "I will see it."
"I think it's your best work yet. Steady hand."
I rope her in tighter. My legs are sturdy enough that I can lie on my back now, with her straddling me. It's a whole different experience.
26. LA
In a week I finish the updates to my comic. Lara finishes her art. The last of the stitches come out, and I inch over to the edge of the bed, where I've been lying for nearly as long as I lay for my coma.
"Take it easy," Lara says.
Sweat beads down my back and my legs are already shaking, as I lower them carefully to the floor. I do my best to not let my thighs take my weight against the edge of the stretcher, but they take some and feel like they're being pinched sharply. I wince and she helps a little more.
We get me onto my feet. Without her I'd fall for sure, but with her I can just about hold myself up.
"It helps you've gotten so wiry," she says. "Like a zombie."
I grunt. With one hand gripping the drip bag stand like a walking stick, I slide a hesitant step forward. I make it.
"Hoorah," Lara says.
"Hoo
rah," I repeat. "Ok. Let's go see it."
"The UFO, now? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. We may need a wheelchair."
At the doorframe she rolls round with a wheelchair, heavily padded. Getting into it is hard, and twice it slides away while we're trying to drop my poor buttocks into it.
"Backstop it," I suggest, sweating and shaking hard now. "Stand there. Use your feet as chocks."
"I found the brake," she says, clicking it on.
I grab the elbow-rests and lower myself as slowly as possible onto the deeply piled pillows. I ride so high I feel like the princess and the pea. I need a seatbelt to keep myself in. My legs hurt, but the cushioning helps a lot.
She leans round and kisses me on the cheek. "It'll get better."
I focus on breathing. It's decent of her.
"Can you push? I can hardly move."
She pushes. We wend down the ward, and I peer through various rooms to the windows and the view of the city beyond. Las Vegas passes like images on a slowly spinning zoetrope.
We descend by a gradual slope at the end of the building. I try not to suck on my teeth at each little irregularity of the wheelchair's movement. This was Cerulean's life for so long.
"I've kitted out one of the wheelchair minibuses," Lara says. "The elevator works."
I nod thanks. I want to give a little more, but it's all I can do to keep from cursing her out every time the wheelchair's momentum changes. Of course it's not her fault. I'm the one who wants to see this, now. I bite down my frustration.
We pull through bright sunshine, and I relinquish my iron grip on the rests to shield my eyes. We pull over to the minibus, and she revs it up. The side door opens electronically, and an elevator platform unfolds and descends.
"Like the Delorean," I manage.
She chuckles. "Those doors opened upwards."
I laugh breathily. "Yeah."
She rolls me on, keys it to raise, and the minibus lifts me in. The drive is not far, and I cling to the minibus handles throughout. We pull round a currency transfer stall near to the Strip, and Lara leans back over the seat.
"Close your eyes."
I close them. I feel the turn. We'll be passing the spot where the ocean swallowed Don about now. I try not to think of how that makes me feel. The minibus stops.
"Keep them closed," she says.
The door opens, the side door opens, then she's wheeling me out. The elevator drops me to the ground, then we're rolling forward.
"Just a little further," she says.
"To the viewing platform," I answer. I keep my eyes closed, feeling part excitement and part annoyance, though I'm trying to repress the latter. This was my thing, and now I'm a spectator. This whole thing was my idea, and though I know better, and I want to share it with Lara more than anything, I also want it just for myself.
It's ridiculous. A week back I'd have done anything to see her face. Now I just want a little more time for myself. I snort.
"What's funny?" she asks.
I think I'll keep this one to myself. "Nothing. I was thinking about Jeo. Digital cairns and all that."
It's a white lie, as cairns are something I've been thinking about plenty recently. We used to let everyone know where we were, just by clicking a geo-location button. This cross-country slog has been pretty much the same thing, an analog trail across a once-digital world.
More people is what I wanted. That takes adjustment. I grit my teeth and adjust.
"There," she says. "Open them."
I open my eyes. For a few seconds I get used to the light, then I pick out the shapes of giant green and purple aliens, like stalky octopuses frozen out of water, holding ray guns, and beyond them her work.
It's better than I ever imagined. It is awesome, and it stands out starkly on the UFO's sheer silver saucer. It is a message from a modern-day hero that cannot be denied. Everybody who sees this will know what it means.
It is the silhouette of Michael Jordan, as seen on millions of shoes around the world, flying. His arm is up and touching the peak of the saucer, his legs spread across the widest point at the middle, and under his legs lies the famous strapline, adapted just above the dying brown palms in the brown grass fore-gardens, in letters a story high.
JUST LIVE ON
It staggers me. He's an outline only, drawn in thick yellow paint, but the work is exemplary, on the largest scale yet. It reminds me of white chalk figures carved out in English hillsides that survive for millennia. It is a new Mt. Rushmore for a brand new world.
"Shit," I murmur, feeling truly humbled.
All selfish thought of getting away from Lara for a minute, all peevishness about her taking this role away from me, fades in the face of how perfect this image is. It is inspiring, and across his middle she's emblazoned my tag, a touch I never would have been arrogant enough to add.
LMA
"You don't think it's shit do you?" she asks.
I look at her, thinking she must be joking, but she isn't. The nerves are plain on her face. I understand then, that this is about acceptance for her as much as it is for me. We both need to play a role in this thing, and I need to move over to make room. I can't complain. She has done her bit beautifully.
"God no, it's not shit," I say. "It's fantastic. I really mean it. I never thought a corporate logo would move me so much. Well done, Lara."
She smiles shyly. She pops down to kneel beside me, placing her arm awkwardly around my back. The added weight presses down on my legs and hurts like a bitch, but I am so high on awe that I don't even grimace. I suck it up and kiss her.
"I'm so glad," she says softly, whispering against my cheek. "I was worried."
"Steady hand," I say. "Draw that in your latte and smoke it."
She laughs.
"You should add your tag too," I say. "LBA."
She grins and points. "I did. You can just see maybe, across his shoe."
I peer. I see it.
"Well-deserved."
* * *
We dredge and sieve a nearby pool for sand and pond scum, until it's relatively clean. We take two days to relax, spreading out the work of filling up the UFO cairn with material. We drink cold piña coladas with freshly crushed ice, after hacking power to one of the icemakers, then think to add those same ingredients to the cairn. They can have coffee and cocktails, all those who follow on behind.
We lounge and sunbathe and recuperate. We drop in the warm pool water, now about halfway down the side thanks to evaporation, strongly redolent of chlorine, and walk up and down. It is rehabilitation for me. We take it in turns to carry each other around, held like rescued damsels, bobbing on the surface. We skinny-dip without shame.
At times we get drunk, giggling and trying on sunglasses naked in the lobby. We pose and lounge around like bohemians. We end up putting racks of sunglasses into the cairn, so others can share our fun. We print out my new pages on A4 and fold and staple them into the comics in fat stacks. We make love lazily on the pool loungers, listening to soulful crooning from the Rat pack.
"What if someone comes now?" Lara asks, "and they see us like this?"
"We'll have a toga party," I answer. "Set up some disco balls. Party at the end of the world."
She presses her hot chest against my chest. My legs hurt less now, even with her weight. Getting them in the sun seems to help. They tan irregularly, the newly forming scar lines remain a tight white, but the inflammation is fading.
"Do you really think there are others?" she asks.
"There have to be. I've seen two already. There must be more, hiding out there somewhere. Looking for us. They might be on the trail already."
She 'hmms' softly, starting to doze. I stroke her ringlet hair. It smells like coconuts, after we raided one of the expensive body-cream shops, and she had a crazy field day picking out a trolley full of beauty and cleansing products.
"It's not just for me," she'd protested when I rolled my eyes. "It's for the cairn." br />
It was a nice touch, I had to admit it. She made everything a lot prettier than I did. More welcoming and feminine I suppose. Mother and father, didn't somebody say that?
"Cerulean's out there too," I say softly, into her hair. She 'hmms' again.
Cerulean's out there.
* * *
After two days we pack up the convoy. I stand at Don's sword-marker grave, leaning on a fancy silver cane Lara found, and think about what I'd do if I found another person like him.
I don't know.
Perhaps if I'd just handed him the gun on the battle-tank, he would have looked it over and handed it back. We could have drunk whiskey or tea. I could have raised the issue of the cheerleaders later, shaming him less, adjusting his behavior gradually, and maybe he'd be here with us now, a valued member of the team. I could have helped him, maybe, and we might be friends.
But I couldn't know then. He might have turned the gun on me, and spent the next three days torturing me to death. He'd already let go of civilization the minute he started to have sex with the ocean. When he tied them up, when he dressed them for his own pleasure, when he raped them, he crossed a line. It didn't matter if anyone saw it or not.
I know better than any. There is a line out there in the wilderness, and once you cross it, the only way back is long, hard and lonely.
I turn and walk away. The ocean rendered judgment in the end, and for that I'm grateful.
The JCB only has one seat, so I sit on the battle tank roof on my beanbag, strapped to the ceiling, as we roll out of Vegas. I don't feel jealous or possessive of this work anymore, I don't need to be in the driving seat or the one making the cairns. It's open-source for the masses now, and I don't own it. I wave goodbye to the hero on the UFO, and wonder what he'd think, if he saw what we'd done.
A corporation raised him up for profit, it's true, but I don't care about that. He was a hero to millions for his skill and his dedication, a symbol of perseverance as potent as any other, and he's a hero and a symbol still. Him and Pac-Man both.
"Goodbye Vegas!" Lara cries out from the cab.
"Yeeha!" I shout out. She echoes it. We're on the final cattle-drive home.
* * *
The ocean follow us down to the sea. It takes a few days, and we stop and take shelter in mansions set back from the road along the way. Some of them have front grounds that stretch for acres in dead brown grass, withered for lack of water. I know California is notoriously dry.