Feedback (5 page)

In a land of beautiful, empty shells, our house was unique, because it was a home. It had belonged to Ben's grandparents. His grandfather had been a dentist, and had bought the place with cash back when that sort of thing still happened. Now, with them gone and his mother having chosen a safer life in Berkeley, behind walls that had been enough to keep the monsters out, it was our rent-free do-it-yourself paradise. We paid property taxes, sure, but they were nothing compared to what we'd have been paying if we actually needed to find someplace else to live.

Ben brightened as we turned up the driveway, coasting toward the waiting garage. He hadn't grown up here, but he might as well have, and most of his life's happy memories featured this house in one way or another. There was no better place for him to go after a terrible day.

The house had been built long before modern safety standards had been in place, which had necessitated a few modifications and workarounds to keep abreast of new security regulations. It was a good thing Ben and I were married in name only: Trying to bring the place up to code for raising a school-age child would have required us to sell it just to raise the money. The open garage door revealed a space large enough to park two midsize vehicles, assuming we weren't concerned about potential damage to the paint. There was no room to store anything else. Mat kept their bicycle in the front hall, where we all tripped over it constantly. Audrey would have parked her car on the street if we'd let her, but that would have opened us to the risk of tickets and spot inspections, since the authorities didn't like cars being left out in the open.

The garage door lowered as soon as we were inside. Ben looked at me.

“We're about to get the grilling of our lives as to why we were still outside the funeral home when the zombies showed up.”

“This is true.”

“And then Audrey's going to remember that we buried my mama today and get all awkward about the fact that you're still my wife, and have an obligation to me under circumstances like this.”

“This is also true.”

“I just want to say thank you before all of that happens.”

I blinked. “Thank you for what?”

Ben's shrug was brief, and slight enough that I would have missed it if I hadn't been looking directly at him. “For coming with me and then standing back. For being there. I knew that if it got to be too much, all I had to do was call, and that
kept
it from becoming too much. I understand why you didn't come into the funeral home, and I appreciate it. A few of her friends knew about our situation and kept quiet out of respect for her. If they'd started in on you… I might have punched someone, and you know I have delicate hands.”

“Like a bundle of yarrow twigs,” I said solemnly.

His snort of laughter was almost a relief. “I'm just saying thank you, Ash. Let me say thank you before we face the angry hordes of our housemates, all right? It's important and I need to do it.”

“Someday I'll understand why such random things are important to you,” I teased gently. He knew I already understood, and that I wasn't comfortable with gratitude; I knew he needed this, because he always needed this. He'd been old enough during the Rising to remember it, in bits and pieces, which was something I'd been mercifully spared. It woke him up some nights, gasping and clawing at the air. If little rituals of gratitude and appreciation anchored him, he could have them. He could have them all. “You're welcome. I liked your mum. She was a good lady, and the fact that I'm not a proper wife to you was my fault, never hers.”

Ben smiled. “Good.” He got out of the car. I followed.

There was a blood testing unit next to the back door—only one. We could approach it together, but we had to test one at a time, with the door locking for three seconds between uses. Rules and regulations don't always get along with the real world. This one was meant to keep us safe: If I turned up infected after Ben had already gone inside, I would be trapped in the garage, nicely contained and ready for the CDC cleanup crew to sweep in and save the day. But we could have been carrying passengers, and they could be infected. If a zombie was starting from the back of the garage, allowing two tests at a time could have seen up to four people safely through. Restricting it to one meant two people, at best, and one at worst.

Ben pressed his thumb to the pad, wincing as our outdated security system drove a needle that was slightly larger than it needed to be into it. He was going to be getting a good chunk of his mother's estate—it was all being split between him and his sister—and while most of that money was already quietly earmarked for weapons and equipment upgrades, hopefully there would be enough left over for a new door security system. Something modern, that used micro-needles and cooling foam to take the pain away, and didn't lock down the whole garage every time it needed to be rebooted, which was about once a week. It was a good thing Audrey almost never went out, or we would have been in serious trouble.

The door clicked open, the light over its frame going from red to green. Ben stepped through, and it slammed shut with enough force to break faces and fingers. We'd wedged a pool cue in it once, just to see what would happen, and the damn thing had broken the wood clean in half. When the system said “one at a time,” it meant it.

I stepped up to the pad, glared at it for a moment, and put my thumb down. The needle stabbed into my flesh with more force than had been necessary in years, seeking a large enough blood sample to allow for thorough testing. I clenched my jaw, forcing myself not to flinch. There were no cameras on me now. I could have cried if I'd wanted to. Most of my online persona was crafted from the idea that I was cheerfully immune to pain, a manic pixie dream girl with a gun in each hand and a winsome sundress riding up my knee. I hated the archetype, hated how much I'd learned to smile through broken bones and bruised muscles, but oh, how the money rolled in.

Everybody's got to have a gimmick, and sometimes the one you have to go with isn't the one you would have chosen under any other circumstances. If it put food on the table, I was willing to keep trading on my dignity, at least until our big break came and I earned the ratings that would let me make my reports while wearing proper trousers.

The light flashed green. The door unlocked, swinging open for me. I stepped through into the warm, cream-colored hallway, my shoes scuffing on the hardwood floor, and smiled to myself, allowing my shoulders to unlock. I was finally home. Whatever happened here, I could handle it.

A head appeared through the kitchen entrance, hanging at a diagonal angle that meant its owner was clinging to the doorframe. “What took you so long?” demanded Mat. “We started the debrief like,
seconds
ago.”

“I was negotiating with the garage security system,” I said primly. “When you say ‘the debrief,' you mean…?”

“Audrey made soup, and we're going to eat dinner.”

I rolled my eyes. Mat smirked.

No one's sure how old Mat is, aside from “somewhere in their midtwenties” and “too young to remember the Rising firsthand.” It's never seemed like vital information, and so we haven't pressed the issue. What would have been the point? It wouldn't have changed anything. It would just have made Mat uncomfortable. Like many of us, they had things in their past they didn't want to talk about.

At the moment, Mat was wearing lipstick the color of watermelon flesh, and had glittery bows clipping back their midlength blue-and-green hair.

“Female pronouns today?” I asked, putting my purse down on the table outside the garage door.

“No, neutral,” said Mat. “I just felt like dressing up.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “I'll be down in a few minutes. I need to put this in the bin”—I indicated my ruined dress—“and put on something a little less apocalypse-chic.”

“See you.” Mat's head retracted back into the kitchen as I turned and walked toward the stairs.

It was good to be home.

M
y room was on the second floor because that was the highest habitable point in the house: high ground again. If there had been an attic, I would have worked out a way to shove a bed into it, and been proud of myself for the thought. Being that high up helped soothe the last of my ruffled nerves, and I came downstairs twenty minutes later, wearing a fresh sundress—this one patterned with sailboats and saucy mermaids, their painted lips puckered like they were getting ready for their underwater selfies. The old one had gone into the rag basket, to be used in Audrey's perpetual attempts at mastering the ancient and apparently difficult art of oil painting. One day she was going to burn the whole place to the ground by lighting a candle next to the wrong laundry basket, and then we were really going to be up shit creek without a paddle.

The sound of conversation and typing drifted from the kitchen. I followed it. Like all good Irwins, I'll take the path of least resistance whenever possible, if only because the path of least resistance is often where the action is. Also, the kitchen smelled like chicken, rosemary, and cinnamon, which meant the action was probably delicious.

All three of my housemates were already in the kitchen. Mat was sitting at the table, typing rapidly. Ben was leaning over their shoulder, pointing at something on the screen. Mat slapped his hand away. Ben laughed. Audrey was at the stove, stirring the soup as she balanced on her tiptoes, arching her feet like she was wearing imaginary high-heeled shoes. She was the first to notice me, picking up on some small sound or change in the atmosphere, and she was smiling as she turned.

I smiled back. It was reflexive: I couldn't help myself if I tried. Audrey was the sort of person you wanted to smile at. She was beautiful, with soft curves and bleach-streaked black hair cropped off just below her chin—too short to do much with, long enough to get in her eyes. She was a few years older than the rest of us, but you'd never know to look at her. Good genes and better lifestyle choices kept her fitting right in. As usual, she was wearing torn jeans and a paint-splattered plaid shirt that she'd probably stolen from either Mat's or Ben's closet. Her eyes lit up when she saw what I was wearing.

“You finished the mermaid dress!”

“I did!” I spun, showing off the way the skirt flared. “I have more of this fabric, too, in case this one goes the way of the last. All the Scotchgard in the world can't protect you from as much bleach as I got hit with today.”

“Aw, poor baby,” she said. “Soup's almost ready.”

“Awesome.” I turned my attention to the table, pitching my voice louder as I asked, “So what's the story? Did we get it right, or did we miss the mark?”

“You got it
so
right that I'm asking you to pick my lottery numbers this week,” said Mat. “Look at this.” They turned the laptop, enough for me to see the screen. A schematic of the fence was sketched there, drawn blueprint-style, white on a slate background. That was good. That looked official, and people would respect it.

Red “X”s marked the fence line in four places, one of them only about five feet from an official gate.

“Missing bars,” said Mat, turning the laptop back to face themself. “They were removed sometime between the beginning of December and the beginning of January. There were a few pretty intense rainstorms in the area during that window, which would have made great cover if someone was desperate enough.”

“Someone is always desperate enough,” I said, hooking out a chair with my foot and sinking down into it. “Have the police released a statement?” Overlooked vandalism in a residential area, leading to deaths, was a
very
big deal. Some heads were going to roll over this. Not ours, thankfully, which meant we could just sit back and enjoy the show.

“No, because they haven't found the holes yet.” Ben looked briefly triumphant. “We can get the jump without technically breaking any laws, since they never told us to keep quiet. How long will you need to splice a report together?”

“About two hours, if Mat can help with the noise levels. Hey, Mat, can you help with the noise levels?”

“For you, oh shrieking banshee of my heart, anything. If only because I don't want you to kill me in my sleep.”

I smiled serenely. “Now that's a person who knows what side their bread is buttered on.”

Mat laughed. Sometimes it seemed like Mat had been laughing ever since Ben had brought me home.

There are genderfluid people in Ireland, because there are genderfluid people everywhere in the world. Some folks aren't boys
or
girls, or they switch between those states on a regular basis, sliding toward whatever direction currently serves as their soul's magnetic north. I don't understand it like I should; I was born a girl, I've always been a girl, and one day, when I misjudge a situation a little too badly, I'm going to die a girl. As for home, well, part of the post-Rising return to deeply religious values—not that Ireland ever slid that far away from them—was the suppression of our trans and nonbinary populations. If there's not room for lesbians, there's sure not room for people who refuse to settle down and be good little members of whatever sex the doctor called out when they were born. So yeah, it was weird for me when I met this brightly smiling, intentionally androgynous Newsie who said they wanted me to use neutral pronouns except when they said otherwise. Some days Mat wore a dress and wanted to be called “she”; some days Mat wore overalls and wanted to be called “he.” Most days, Mat wore skirts and fitted men's shirts, stompy boots and leggings, and wanted to be called “they.”

The adjustment was hard. I'm not going to lie about that. I'd had ten years to get accustomed to the idea that when I thought about love and sex and growing old with someone I loved sleeping in the bed beside me, I thought about a girl, and not a boy like my parents wanted me to. With Mat, I had about five minutes to decide whether I was going to embrace the singular “they,” or be one more in the long line of assholes who had looked at someone else's life choices and said “nah, my comfort matters more.”

I've never much cared for assholes. Mat was Ben's housemate and best friend, and that was what had mattered when we met, and that was what mattered now.

Besides, there was something to be said for having your own tech genius on the premises. If it had wires and a plug, Mat could take it apart, remove half the pieces, and put it back together in working order. Our water heater was a Frankenstein creation of panels and pieces that didn't make any sense, but somehow provided us with endless hot water and some of the best water pressure I'd experienced outside of a government sterilization facility. Our roof was a sea of solar panels and our attic was a battery farm. It would take a six-day thunderstorm with no sun getting through before we'd have to pull a drop from the municipal grid. Add that to the fact that Mat ran the only combination grease-monkey and makeup blog currently in operation, and we had plenty of reasons to appreciate their presence.

“This is a good example of municipal neglect,” said Audrey, giving the soup another stir. “There's no way that could have gone unnoticed if the checks that are supposed to happen were actually being performed.”

“Someone's been skimming the money that was supposed to go to inspections,” I agreed.

“Naughty,” said Audrey. “Are we going to expose a corrupt civil service department, or just go for the vandalism and need angle?”

“Vandalism and need; the issue is both that the holes were made and that they weren't noticed, but mostly, it's that they were
needed
,” said Ben firmly. “The local government's doing the best it can on limited resources. More than half the population is living in poverty, and would move if they could afford it—that exclusion zone again. I can't condone vandalism that leads to death. We need to be careful never to look like we are. But we also need to make it clear that this situation arose because of inequity of resources. If the people who stole those bars had been able to keep themselves safe without breaking the law, don't you think they would have?”

I didn't say anything. Ben always thought the best of people: It was part of his charm, that and his endlessly outstretched helping hand. I knew more of the darker sides of humanity. There would always be thieves and liars and cheats, people who didn't think the rules applied to them. We were acting on the assumption that the fence had been vandalized by someone who needed to increase their home security, and it was a good assumption; it was a
comfortable
assumption, one that left us with a sympathetic villain. But it could just as easily have been a middleman, someone who promised the poor and the desperate whatever they said they needed, only to go out and steal it for them. Those people were the scum of the earth. They overcharged for vital necessities, and when they were called on it, they said they'd been “forced” by the people they supposedly served. It was a bad scene all the way around. Better to stay with the narrative that left everyone at least a little bit sympathetic, and leave the shadows alone.

Audrey put a bowl of soup down in front of me, the ceramic hitting the table with a thump. I blinked, first at it and then at her. She smiled.

“Eat,” she said. “I know you missed lunch.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said, and picked up my spoon while she was passing bowls to the others.

Audrey wasn't our chef: She was our Fictional, the third arm of our unbalanced tripod. She wrote hard-boiled pre-Rising crime sagas, following a group of fictional detectives through a series of seedy underworlds and dockside dives. She had a good following, and stood out from the pack by eschewing romance in favor of brutal murders and quippy one-liners. Her most popular detective, Li “Lethal” Jiang, had been optioned by a small film studio, and was now appearing in a series of direct-to-download serials. And oh, how the money rolled in. Audrey could have bought her own place, hung her hat with any blog site in the country, and she stayed with us in our weird little collective, where we all took turns doing the chores, and someone else was always in the downstairs bathroom. It was a nonsensical choice on her part.

Love makes us do stupid shit sometimes. Audrey settled next to me at the table, bumping her shoulder against mine. I grinned at her around my spoon.

Audrey joined our blogging team a year after Ben and I got married. I fell in love instantly, which led to some serious “this is a bad romantic comedy masquerading as my life” complications when she realized that I was flirting with her. She was smart, pretty, accomplished, and knew how to make the best potato leek soup I'd ever tasted: I never stood a chance. She, on the other hand, had some fairly strong objections to dating a married woman. When Ben and I had first sat down with her to explain the nature of our relationship, she had thought it was some sort of cruel joke. Then, slowly, she had come to understand the facts—why we had married, why we had
stayed
married, and why it was important that we
look
married, at least in the eyes of the INS.

And then she had kissed me in the hallway as we were on our way to our respective rooms, and I had been well and truly fucked.

In public, the three of us were poly, Ben married to me and dating Audrey, me married to him and dating her, her dating the both of us and smiling serenely when anyone commented on how she was a home-wrecker. It was a pretty fiction. If I'd been even slightly interested in boys, or if Audrey had felt that way about Ben, it might have worked out. As it was, we were still keeping it up now that I had my citizenship, waiting for… I don't even know. For the right time. For Ben's mother to die. For me to stop worrying about being deported. For
something
.

If I was being honest, most of the waiting had been on my part. Audrey had made her intentions toward me clear ages ago, and was just waiting for me to catch up.

Mat scrunched up their nose, looking at their laptop. “Well, damn,” they said, with deep frustration.

I looked up. “Can't scrub the sound?”

“What do I look like, an amateur? I've already scrubbed the sound. It's in your in-box, ready to upload. All I needed to do was isolate that dispatcher's voice, and that was half done before you hung up the phone. No. It's the Ryman campaign.”

Everyone went quiet.

Senator Peter Ryman was the golden boy of the Republican Party. He was also young enough to believe in freedom of the press. His campaign was trying to be “edgy” and “modern” by bringing their own blog team along for his run at the White House.

“What about it?” asked Ben cautiously. Mat had been a big advocate for us putting our applications in, which had required a
lot
of paperwork: proof of our license status, proof of our firearms training, and in my case, consent to a deep background check by the Ryman team, since I had only recently become a U.S. citizen. If they had found anything they didn't like, they could have contested my naturalization—and since my commitment was a part of my record, I'd been on pins and needles until our applications were filed.

“We didn't get it.” Mat looked so morose that it was all I could do not to bust out laughing. It's not nice to mock the pain of others, but the fact was, none of us had been banking on this opportunity the way Mat had. Sure, it would have been nice to spend a few months basking in the limelight of someone else's problem, and the ratings would have been incredible—we could have done all the house renovations we had to keep putting off—but we'd never really been in the running. An Irish expatriate, a black man, a lesbian, and a techie who didn't want to be nailed down to a gender? Not the sort of thing that says “we'll sell you to the masses” to a political campaign.

“Sorry, Mat,” said Ben. “Any idea who did?”