“While Malaspina laid waste to the Great White North, Americans paid little attention. They had their own disasters to attend to and besides, Americans never paid much attention to Canadians anyway unless they were good at telling jokes. When Winnipeg was reduced to nothing, few media networks even paid it a minute’s notice, the news overshadowed by certain revelations of a sexual nature involving a supporting cast member of a situation comedy. It was only when Malaspina veered due south, toward what was left of Detroit, that Americans began to pay attention.
“With polar bears roaming the streets of what had once colloquially been called the ‘Motor City,’ and a giant wall of ice not far behind, what was left of the U.S. government mobilized. The National Guard trained thermal beams on the marauding glacier, hoping to melt it down. Still it grew larger and faster, wiping Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Boston off the map. It headed for Chicago, then St. Louis, pursued all the way by helicopter gunships and tanks. Even its forays into the Southwest did nothing to reduce its size. In fact, residents of those stifling cities welcomed Malaspina’s arrival as a reprieve from the heat, realizing only too late the destructive properties of such a vast body of ice, not to mention thousands of angry polar bears. Once the glacier wiped out Dallas, it appeared to slow somewhat, and by the time it crawled over the Rockies into California it even appeared to be shrinking. It was in Los Angeles that Malaspina made its final stand.
“The history of Los Angeles was one of earthquakes and wildfires. They were familiar with disaster. As Malaspina approached, the mayor’s office, considering the long list of municipalities removed from the face of the earth by this frigid monster, decided to boldly destroy Malaspina once and for all by sacrificing their city in flames. At the moment the glacier came within city limits, specially trained teams in fire-retardant suits ignited strategically placed petroleum reserves. The polar bears let out great wails of fury and pain as their fur burned and the overwhelmed glacier began to melt. Back and forth these elemental forces raged, fire melting ice, ice turning into water that doused the flames, until only here and there fires burned and the glacier was the size of a compact car, surrounded by scorched polar bear meat, dissolving on Sunset Boulevard.
“As that fateful day came to a close, a girl named Deidre Franklin wandered through the wasteland of her city and came to the place where the ancient glacial ice turned at last to water. All that was left now was a single chunk, no bigger than a typical ice cube, containing the dying breaths of ancient mammals, which Deidre used to cool a glass of Mountain Dew X-Treme Lime.”
“Dude, you pissed yourself.”
Skinner lay supine on the guest bed while Carl peeled off his pants.
“If I could move,” Skinner said.
“I need towels,” Carl said and left the room. A bit later he returned with a wet, soapy washcloth and a bath towel.
“Wait, let me do it,” Skinner said.
“Your wife could show up any minute and I don’t want her to find you marinating in your own whiz. You gotta lay still so the system can map your current physical self.”
Carl swabbed Skinner’s naked lower half with the washcloth, dried him off, then helped his friend’s legs into underwear retrieved from the RV.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into that memory,” Skinner said.
“Yeah, it pretty much ruined my day,” Carl said.
“I’m sorry.” Skinner stretched his face. Still felt weird, mapped to his memory face.
“You saw the Last Dude again,” Carl said.
“Same as always,” Skinner said.
“Did he still have that extra-deluxe fridge?”
“Yeah. Stocked in the desert.”
“Did you get a look at the book titles this time?”
“No. I’ve never been able to. It’s always the same progression. There’s no variation to it. Same mesa. Same crows. Same beer.”
“Who do you think he is?”
“Maybe he’s the final judge of humanity. Building some massive message out of stones in the desert. ‘THE W.’”
“You let me know when you figure that shit out,” Carl said.
“Carl, man, what am I going to do about Roon?”
“You’re going to go up there and give her a hug and a kiss and meet your new grandson.”
“I’ve been a pig.”
“Not the first time.”
“I was hoping you’d disagree.”
“I never understood your falling out with her in the first place, so your being a complete asshole is the only logical explanation to me.”
“She hates what I stand for. She thinks of me as the enemy.”
“You’ve got political differences.”
“We’re repugnant to her. Says American Christians like us caused the FUS. She blames me for Waitimu’s… The last thing she said was she never wanted to talk to me again. I don’t know how everything went south so quickly between us.”
“She wants you to be her dad again, man. She’s trying to fix things. You’ve got to meet her halfway. What else are you going to do? Stew in your bad memories?”
“That sounds about right.”
“Well it isn’t. You need to get your ass to Seattle and see that grandson.”
“She said I killed Waitimu.”
“You wouldn’t be so hung up on that point if part of you didn’t agree.”
Skinner blinked at the ceiling. “Oh God.”
“You can’t fix what happened to your boy. But you can fix what happened with Roon.”
“Fuck, Carl.”
Carl consulted a Bionet monitor. “You’ve napped enough to move a little. Don’t even tell me you’re not hungry. Come on. I’ll feed you.”
After the great fire of 1889, when Seattle laid new streets atop the ruins of Pioneer Square, the ground levels of hotels, brothels, and dry-goods merchants became the underground. Post-FUS, a third layer arose, preserving Pioneer Square under a dome. In this district it was always night, lit with yellowish streetlights, real trees supplanted by facsimile trees of concrete and latex. Far overhead snaked the pipes of new water systems and bundled cables bearing energy and data. Walking the cobbles of Jackson Street, Chiho sensed that the neighborhood had been stashed in a vast warehouse, preserved for later extraction or to be simply forgotten. A few Seattleites chose to live down here away from the sun and rain, lured by cheap rents in charming, renovated brick buildings, tolerant of the bachelorette parties drunkenly boob-flashing their way through a dozen bars. It made Skinner claustrophobic. Chiho said she’d never live in a place that hid from what little sun shone weakly in the sky. Add this to the list of the many things they didn’t understand about Roon.
Roon and Dot’s condo took up half a floor of a building at First and Main. Roon claimed it was an easy commute to Bainbridge, and good for Dot, who had skin-related issues with UV rays. They’d lived here together for fifteen years. Approaching the building Skinner struggled to recall the few Christmases they’d spent here, when artificial snow issued from nozzles overhead, covering the streets in fluffy, nucleating proteins while Dickensian carolers roamed about singing pre-FUS hymns of charity and brotherhood. He’d stood at a window of the condo, watching the holiday display with a cup of nog, finding the whole experience a poignant simulation of a holiday spirit he’d never actually felt.