Reaching up, I grabbed her wrist and she pulled me up out of the crater. Hand in hand, we sprinted into the forest, leaving the sounds of protesting pan flutes behind.

Chapter 26

26

Without this kind of preparation, even the most re-skilled person who has made excellent logistical preparation will very likely be overwhelmed in a world of terrified, angry, depressed human beings. A person can have the most awesomely equipped “doomstead” on Earth and yet completely lose their grip emotionally in just a few minutes, without emotional and spiritual resilience.

—CAROLYN BAKER, therapist and survivalist

We ran through fern as dense and as tall as a cornfield, past redwoods visible only by the columns of blackness that blotted out the stars. I never questioned how Andria managed her way so easily in the dark, having seen her negotiate the night when we hunted for food during the GDO.

Oscar and his companions were following us; I could hear them moving desperately through the canopy to close the distance.

And then I saw why.

Fifty more yards, and the forest humidity vanished with the trees, transporting us into an open field recently torched by fire. The stench of charred wood wore heavy in my nostrils as we progressed through the deliberately cleared land, my lungs aching, my legs cramping—the strain easing as ABE came back online. Increasing the hemoglobin levels in my blood cells, the bio-chip flushed my muscles with oxygen while raising my pH, accelerating the conversion rate of glucose into mechanical energy.

At some point the scorched earth became a prairie—miles of knee-high grass undulating beneath a sea of stars as far as the eye could see. Andria slowed to a walk, fishing a compass from a jumpsuit pocket to gauge her bearings.

“You holding up okay?”

“No problem,” I lied. “How much farther?”

“Not far.” Returning the compass, she retrieved a four-inch nightscope from a chain around her neck. Stretching the telescopic viewer to its operational length, she placed the eyepiece to her right eye and scanned the terrain we had just crossed. “They’re still following us. What’s their interest in you?”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been awake long enough to figure out much of anything, let alone the interest of a land-dwelling squid.”

“The savanna should slow them down, they don’t move well through tall grass.” She turned and kissed me, her lips full and soft, her tongue tasting of salted meat.

I jumped as her hands took inventory of my groin.

Her lips moved to my ear, her mouth panting heavily as she whispered the words every heterosexual man would have sacrificed his right arm to hear …

“Ike, can we make a baby?”

“Wait, what?”

“I want you to impregnate me.”

“You mean right now?”