BEN CHARLES RHODES

The Blue Light of the Moon

One evening, just after the President’s nightly broadcast, Mom and Dad sit me down at the kitchen table. Awful news, they tell me: Dad’s caught Factory Fever from the warehouse. “We didn’t want to worry you,” Mom says, removing her glasses. “But his voice is going to go and you’d have noticed eventually.”

“They told us I’ve got it bad,” Dad says, and it’s true, he sounds a bit fainter.

“But you’re only ninety-six,” I say, tearing up.

Dad sighs. “I have to retire a little early now.”

I sit back and try to process this, staring blankly at the peeling wallpaper behind my parents. Of their seven children, I’m the youngest and only daughter. My brothers aren’t close to them like me. “Are there treatments?” I ask.

“Yes,” Mom says quietly, “but they’re very expensive.”

My worry grows. My parents have declared bankruptcy five times in the last five years and most of Dad’s pay goes to my Selection classes. “How on earth,” I say, “will you afford MegaMed bills?”

They look at each other. “We were wondering,” Dad says, coughing, “if you’d consider finding a job.”

“Just a temporary one, sweetheart,” Mom says. “To help pay for meds.”

“Job?” I say, stunned. I’m twenty-nine and like my friends, I’ve never worked—employment before the Selection process can really bum your chances of passing. If you get Selected then you can be something awesome like a lawyer or bureaucrat or landlord or Crypto Magnate. But if the Committee guys see something useless like a cashier or server on your Selection application they might fail you entirely. They'll say look, man, you’ve chosen your station in life, just come to peace with it. Like the President says, someone needs to clean the streets after the Crypto Magnates have their Piñata Parades.

Mom sees the panic in my face. “You’d stay in your classes, of course. We want you to get Selected just like your brothers.”

“Can’t they help out?” I complain. “They’re Magnates. They’re not exactly struggling.”

Dad puts a trembling hand on mine, his fingers bloodless and thin. “We’ve been trying, Jenna. But you know they don’t answer our InstaFaceChat messages.”

Mom nods sadly and glares up at the acid rain hole in the corner of the ceiling, which has started dripping again. I can tell she’s repeating one of the new Everybody Calm Down™ mantras in her head. I’m angry too because Dad shouldn’t be getting sick this young, especially since the Secretary of Human Lifespan just raised the age expectancy to one-hundred and thirty-two. Look at Mom, for instance. She’s ninety-nine and her Pleasant Plasma Pills keep her in great shape.

“I’ll be taking more shifts at SharkWater,” she says, “even though I don’t like how the aquarium owners treat the fish. But we’ll still need a second income to afford this. It’s just criminal that our insurance doesn’t cover the Fever.”

Dad gives her a cautionary look. She keeps forgetting that the newest Regulations forbid criticism of economic matters unless you’re a Crypto Magnate. When the rule was announced, Mom said it didn’t make much sense to her since most of those guys are Politicos anyway, but who is she to question the President? That got our TV shut off for two months.

“It’s not fair,” I say, unsure if I mean Dad getting sick, his should-be-illegal insurance, my selfish brothers, or my need to get a job. Dad points at the hidden microphone in the ceiling and I lapse into silence.

***

I tell my parents I’ll consider it, then go to my closet-sized bedroom and call my brothers. I say Dad has Factory Fever and beg them to chip in for his medical bills. My brothers say they can’t, they’re tied up getting their own children Selected. I point out that their children are toddlers. They say, testily, that Selection takes everything into account, including the right private preschools. I say if you don’t help, all of Dad’s major organs will shut down in just four months beginning with his basic functions of speech and hearing. They say woah that’s pretty freaky but they don’t associate with warehouse workers anymore. I say what do you mean you don’t associate with warehouse workers, we just saw you at Extreme-O Christmas. They say that wasn’t them, they sent actors wearing those new HoloMime face masks.

“He’s a sinking ship, J,” my brother Kevin says, then corrects himself: “he’s a sunk ship. Dad was a heavy hitter when he was trading, but he’s gone way downhill since he got fired for refusing insider deals. I mean, what was he thinking? If you want to be a Magnate like us, you gotta get away from him.”

“How can you say that?” I ask. “He raised you.”

“Estrangement,” Kevin says, “is your only option.”

I tell him that getting Selected made him boring and mean. He says the Magnate parties on the Hover Yachts are anything but boring and I don’t have an answer for that.

After the call, I think it over. Could I really abandon Mom and Dad? I remember one time when we were kids they took us to Rollercoaster Nirvana and Dad rode Scream Your Lungs Off with me. There I was, upside down, screaming my lungs off, and then I looked over and noticed that Dad was silent. He was totally serene, just enjoying the view of the lava pit. I stopped screaming because I realized how stressful his life must be, constantly working eighteen-hour days to support us. To him Scream Your Lungs Off was pure relaxation.

I really want to be a Crypto Magnate like my brothers. But I can’t just let Dad die. So I start looking for jobs. Only three places are hiring and the first two seem pretty grim: Safe Word, an “elevated experience parlor,” and Everything Must Christmas, a hangar-sized trinket shop. The other option is Glam Grub, one of those old Mix’N’Match restaurants. They’re all in the same jumbo strip mall two hours away by Neutrino Train. I’ve been to Glam Grub before—Jared, my boyfriend, took me there one night after Selection class. I was impressed by the food but underwhelmed by the themes. Our server wore an Elizabethan court doublet even though we were in the Mobster Mania section. Halfway through our meal, the table next to us got jumped by busboys waving real-looking Tommy guns. I was like, can you let us eat in peace?

I don’t sleep a wink that night, worrying about my Selection application. I get cold sweats imagining the Committee guys opening my file and learning I worked in a strip mall.

***

The next day after Selection class, Jared and I go over to his apartment. We met two years ago in Posture and Public Speaking. He’d been the best Public Speaker and I’d had the best Posture. After I demonstrated my straight spine to the class he was so impressed that he gave a two-hour speech about why I should go out with him. I’ll admit I was a little awed.

Jared is playing Bio Attack! on his computer, the game where you have to obliterate all plant and animal life. The target this time is a half-melted glacier covered in polar bears. Jared has a ThermoRay at his disposal and the bears don’t stand a chance. When the glacier is totally Vaporized Jared jumps up and high-fives his poster of the President. It’s his official fourth-term portrait where he’s standing on a tank and looking roguish in a camo bandana. “Someday,” Jared promises the poster, “I’ll do that for real.”

He looks over at me and flexes. I’m not sure if I love Jared but I’ll admit I’m still a little awed. I like his focus and that he’ll almost certainly be Selected. I like the biceps he’s flexing and his carefully trimmed beard. If we’re both Selected we’ll probably get married. I try not to think about what happens if I don’t pass.

I tell him about Dad’s illness and he frowns. “Most people retire at 118 these days,” he notes. “Your dad quitting so soon could hurt your Genetics score on your Selection application.”

“But he can’t work,” I say. “All his major motor functions are shutting down.”

Jared doesn’t answer for a moment because he’s Attacking a giant penguin. “If you get a job in that mall,” he eventually warns, “you might be toast.”

Jared knows everything about Selection. If he says I’m toast, I’m probably crispy.

When I get home I find Dad shivering on the couch even though he’s got three blankets wrapped around him. On TV the President is saying that the Conflict overseas is under control—our boys should be home by ThanksChristmas, and there’s no need to worry about the enemy dropping the Bomb on us because we could just drop the Bomb on them. With great effort, Dad sits up and asks how class went. When he speaks I notice that his front teeth are missing.

I go to my room and cry for a long time, then send out applications to all three places at the strip mall. Seven minutes later Glam Grub startles me by calling back. A stoned-sounding guy named Ruben says congrats, you’re hired. In confusion, I ask so there’s no interview? Ruben says you’re not a computer right? I say no and he says okay good, you’re hired.

***

Despite their costumes, everyone at Glam Grub seems mostly normal. All the staff are dressed to match the theme of their section, and there are a lot of sections to keep track of. Glam Rock Planet is the largest, followed by Swaggerin’ Safari, Bird Bash, Mobster Mania, and Rule Britannia. Several others are seasonal, like Pumpkin Party and Sleigh Bell Joyride.

I learn this from Monica, who does my first-day orientation. Monica’s a platinum blond thirty-something woman with really white teeth from chewing AstroGum constantly. She’s currently assigned to Swaggerin’ Safari so she’s wearing a straw hat and khaki work clothes with a machete strapped to her belt. It’s a pretty big jungle with lots of trees and they keep it at 105 degrees. I’m sweating like the President during a Rabid Re-Election Rally but she’s pretty chill while she tells me about the schedule.

“We’re open at different times each day,” Monica says. “They’re randomized by a computer because it keeps customers guessing. That drives business—people love the excitement of pure chance. One night we’re open until dawn. One afternoon we’re closed. Want brunch? Maybe you can get it. No way to know.”

“What if I get confused?”

“No big deal,” she assures me. “Just remember a watched pot never spoils.”

Down the hall in Glam Rock Planet, a six-year-old is breaking several plates by jumping on them like trampolines. I watch servers walk past him, unconcerned, all dressed in fishnet stockings and long wigs with guitars slung over their shoulders.

Monica goes on. “You’ll be constantly graded on your performance here, which determines your wages. We’re evaluated on the Glam Rock Concert Scale. Rock Star is the highest score, then down to Groupie at the other end. Report cards are based on the Four Keys: Memory, Hospitality, Speed, and Robustness.”

“Robustness?” I ask.

“Strong and healthy,” she says. “Vigorous.”

“How is that graded?”

Monica shrugs. “That’s up to the Board.”

“Who?”

She explains that the Board is Glam Grub’s upper-level management. Apparently, they monitor us with cameras and microphones hidden throughout the building. No one on the staff has ever met a Board member or knows who or where they are.

Chomping away at her gum Monica breaks down the chain of command. She says all staff are called Grubbers. I ask what patrons are called. She says Patrons, stop interrupting. I report to her, though her official position is host, but I can also talk to Ruben, whose title Monica can’t remember. He and Monica report to one another, but Ruben reports to Monica more than she reports to him. A busboy named Andrew reports to me, but he can also report to Hank the bartender, or Sierra the Mobile Order Specialist. Sierra also reports to Hank, but that’s only so he can report her reports to Ruben. If Andrew wants to talk to Monica, he has to go through Ruben instead of me or Hank. The cooks can report to anyone, including each other.

I’m pretty lost, so I say, “OK, so who’s my boss?”

“Good question,” she says thoughtfully. “Who hired you? Was it me? Sometimes I make those calls when I’m really high and don’t remember.”

I say Ruben. She turns to me in astonishment and asks if I’m sure. I tell her yes I’m sure, he called me last week.

“That’s freaky,” she says. “No one’s seen him for months.”

I get home completely drained from my eleven-hour shift. I find Mom and Dad hunched over the kitchen table, sipping warm ThunderBolt energy drinks from their tea cups. When Mom sees my new nametag she weeps with joy. Dad’s proud too, but when he smiles I see that the rest of his teeth are now gone and his mouth is just an empty red hole.

Despite this, they’re excited about an update from the AmeriBlood guys: Dad’s qualified for an experimental Factory Fever treatment called Kwik Fixx. If we can get the money for it in the four months he’s got to live, they said it’ll get him another thirty years. “That’s how sweet of a Fixx it is,” the doc told them.

Back in my cramped bedroom, I do the math. At Rock Star pay I’d have the money for Kwik Fixx in eight weeks. At Groupie it would take ten years.

***

Two weeks later I clock in for a shift at the Bird Bash Bar. On TV above the bar the President is giving a speech about the current Conflict overseas—turns out he was wrong when he said it was under control. It’s actually getting way worse and we might have to drop the Bomb after all. As I watch, protestors try to storm the stage but get mowed down in no time.

Tonight I’m assigned sixteen tables in Rule Britannia. I’m in full Redcoat getup and customers are encouraged to boo. If they pull their bayonets on me I’m supposed to surrender my musket and pledge allegiance to the newborn Stars and Stripes.

A family of five arrives and I seat them next to the 1/50th scale replica of the Houses of Parliament. I direct them to our electronic menus on the Tasty Tableside Tablet, the kid-friendly supercomputers conveniently located at each booth. The younger daughter, who’s maybe seven, immediately seizes a Tablet and begins playing Wipe Them Out, a complex war game that rewards preemptive strikes against possible belligerents.

“What’s in the Commonwealth Carbohydrate Casserole?” the mother asks.

I take a quick breath. The microphone beneath the table records every word I say, and if I make mistakes during Dish Explanation my pay is automatically docked. “It’s a real crowd-pleaser. It’s got three inches of stacked Scottish bacon, an entire New Zealand kingfish, ketchup, mustard, pickles, half an onion dipped in bread batter and fried, a pound of baked beans, and the star on the UltraChristmas tree is a thin-sliced West Midlands duck egg. When it’s prepared our chefs face Buckingham Palace to pay due diligence to Her Majesty.”

Inside I’m cringing because the bacon is Welsh, the kingfish Australian, and there’s two pounds of beans. I’ve just lost three percent of my next paycheck.

“We’ll have two of those,” she says, smiling at her husband.

I turn to their daughter, whose eyes haven’t left the Tablet. I see her Wipe Out most of Europe and she ascends a level. “And what would you like, sweetheart?”

“Kids Kaviar,” she says, not looking up.

***

Dad gets worse over the next month. His hearing is failing and Mom’s throat is sore from yelling to be heard. Since Dad worked every day for the last seventy-five years it’s weird to have him home all the time. Mom says it’s like we got a dog. Plus we’re all tired of the acidic monsoon water that keeps dripping through the rain hole. The President said the rains are here to stay, but they might become basic at some point. Mom doesn’t know what that means and she doesn’t want Dad to overexert himself trying to explain.

Dad’s weight is dropping so fast that they start him on NutriStorm, a grain-sized capsule that bulks immune system health and kickstarts your energy levels when you need it most. It’s not cheap so I pick up more shifts at the restaurant, but all the randomized hours keep conflicting with Selection class. This worries me because low attendance can tank your application chances. Plus I see less of Jared, who’s been growing more and more distant.

One night after work I go over to his apartment. I know he’s home but it takes him five minutes to answer the door when I knock. Turns out he was in the middle of an important Bio Attack! level, spraying acid on an ecologically vibrant coral reef. Jared barely seems to notice me and scampers back to his computer. Soon enough the reef is Vanquished. There was a time when he’d pause the game to chat, but not since I started working at Glam Grub.

I decide to confide in him like he’s still someone I can trust. “I feel old,” I tell him. “Almost like an adult.”

“You should,” he says without turning around. “People in the Lower Workforce before Selection only have a forty-two percent chance of being chosen.”

I swallow a sob. “Everyone told me not to grow up. I should’ve listened.”

“It’s the latest round of Regulations. Everybody’s adjusting.”

“I liked the old Regulations,” I say.

“Nobody liked those old things. You’ll get used to the new ones.”

“No I won’t,” I say, crying. “I’m too stressed. Dad’s got less than three months now and I’m not even close to paying for Kwik Fixx. There’s too many menu items to remember.”

Jared sighs and pauses the game, then comes over and sits beside me. “Try impressing your boss,” he says. “A good recommendation letter jumps your chances to forty-six percent.”

“I would,” I tell him, “but I don’t know who my boss is.”

He shrugs. “Figure it out, I guess.”

***

With two months to the deadline, I talk with Dad often, trying to keep his spirits up. We talk about how his favorite bike as a kid had pedals instead of an engine. We talk about his old job at TailorMade Traders and how, when Dad stonewalled on an insider deal, his boss had gone so red in the face he thought the guy popped a blood vessel. Since the Fever has now destroyed his power of speech Dad doesn’t actually talk—instead, he communicates through rudimentary HandSign. His fingers are pretty stiff so the translations take a while.

There’s not much laughter around the house these days. “I can’t believe they won’t let you into the Citizen’s Health Fiesta,” Mom says one afternoon, furious. “This home is no place for a man with the Fever.”

“You know the rules,” Dad signs. “The Fiesta’s only for Magnates.”

“That’s bogus,” Mom says. “Last time I checked you’re a citizen too.”

“Mom,” I say. “You know they can hear us.”

She’s on a roll. “Imagine if the President’s son got sick. Do you think they’d make him hang around breathing in acid rain fumes? They’d get him Fixxed so fast your head would spin.”

“Ellie,” Dad signs slowly.

It’s too late. The TV shuts itself off and Mom starts weeping. We probably won’t get it back for weeks now. I go over and hug her. She buries her face into my shoulder like I’m her parent. In a muffled voice, she says, “We’re so proud of you, sweetheart.” Dad sits up to nod his agreement, then collapses exhausted back onto the pillows.

I go to my room in shame. My six-foot-tall Lagoon Lamp dims as it senses my mood. Mom and Dad might be proud of me but my Glam Grub grades aren’t cutting it. With my endless Groupie ratings in Robustness, I’m a Roadie overall, and Roadie paychecks won’t cover Kwik Fixx in time. I’ve promised them Stage Manager wages but I still don’t understand Robustness and my marks are always poor. Even if I could remember the menu my earnings still wouldn’t be close to enough.

“How do I become more robust?” I begged Monica to tell me last night.

“Beef up,” she said.

I explained what Jared told me about a recommendation letter. “It would really help if you could tell me who our boss is,” I said. “Is it that missing Ruben guy?”

Monica frowned and said kiddo some things are better left secret to all voices heard and unheard. I said you have no idea, do you? She said okay Sherlock you got me, then rushed off with her machete to Swaggerin’ Safari, where one of the chameleons had hidden itself in a three-year-old’s Toddler Tapioca Treat.

Now I stare at the ceiling and feel so hollow that I want to fill it all up. Fill my parents’ pockets, fill the living room with clean air, fill Dad’s emaciated frame with health and wellness. But I’m a Roadie. And whoever heard of a Roadie getting Selected?

***

Nothing changes for a few weeks. One shift during my four-minute break, I call Jared and ask if he wants to grab dinner tonight and then sit on a park bench under the blue light of the moon. He says his tummy is upset from monsoon season allergies and he can’t eat anything even if he wants to. He sounds fine to me but I don’t challenge him. Then he tells me the moon isn’t actually blue, that’s just the replacement atmosphere they had to install ten years ago. “It’s really more of a yellow-green,” he says. “Like puke.”

He hangs up. I clock back in and Monica appears with her feathers all over the place. She explains that a five-year-old in Bird Bash threw a tantrum and wrecked her ostrich costume. I’m sweating in my toucan suit and talking through the beak is tough work, but people tip me pretty well because it’s colorful.

“Our specials tonight are the Ragin’ Raven Talon and the Flightless Fowl Frenzy,” I’m soon telling a family of seven.

“Which fowl are in the frenzy?” the mother asks.

“Emu, penguin, and kiwi. You can substitute DNA-replicate dodo meat for a surcharge. The dodo has been extinct since the Seventeenth Century but our brilliant scientists have devised a way to extract its genetic code from petrified maple syrup. Then they take the DNA and grow it into live dodo birds. When they slaughter the dodos they offer heartfelt prayers for defiling God’s lovely and bounteous creation but that only takes a minute. It’s a real fan favorite.”

“And the Necro Nightingale Nachos?” the father asks.

I recite the description, hiding my disappointment that I forgot to mention the dodos “look like ducks but dumber and weirder.” That means a four percent paycheck loss and a five-point reduction in my Memory score.

They order the nachos. I ask if they’d like their Endangered Species Sauce on top or the side. They say on top and I squawk the Happy Toucan Call like I’m required.

***

One month to go and I’m staring up a steep hill at Kwik Fixx. If, for just one week, I could nail all my menu descriptions and get Rock Star in Robustness, we’d have enough. Anything less and the AmeriBlood guys will hold up their hands and say sorry pal, we did all we could, even though they didn’t. Dad’s Fever has spread throughout his body and his gray, peeling skin hangs off limbs about as slender as pipe cleaners. He’s lost his hearing and sight completely so we can’t use HandSign anymore. Now we talk through a Hola Helmet, a knockoff thought-to-speech machine. When he’s awake he’s brave and calm but when asleep he looks deeply troubled, like his face is at war with itself and he’s losing.

The stress is getting to Mom. When she’s not working at SharkWater I keep finding her in the living room staring at the blank screen of our useless TV. She says it better turn back on soon because the Conflict overseas is escalating and we need to stay abreast of the news. Meanwhile, I’ve picked up so many shifts that I haven’t been to class in a month.

I saw Jared last night, but he spent the whole time recalibrating the Crypto Ball on his desk to match the next round of Regulations. The only time he looked up was when I told him I had to cancel our trip to Rollercoaster Nirvana because of work. “You promised to ride the Barrelin’ Bull Bronco with me,” he said, wounded.

Before work I put on more makeup than usual, hiding that I’d been crying as I contemplated the unforgiving future. When I step into the living room Mom and Dad are sitting hand in hand on the threadbare couch, the Hola Helmet secured to his head.

“How’s our patient?” I say into the Helmet’s microphone.

Dad smiles his empty smile and gives a thumbs-up.

Mom grabs the microphone. Glaring at the hidden camera in the ceiling, she says, “Your father is a brave man, Jenna.”

The Helmet interprets Dad’s brain waves and robotically reads his words through the speaker next to him. “Life’s a gift I’m still opening. I’ve never felt better.”

“Never better?” Mom yells. “Tell her about the times when we went to beaches with sand that wasn’t created in a lab. Tell her about the times we danced in the street without being clubbed by a GI waving a rifle around. Tell her about the times we went and saw mountains you could touch with your own hands instead of holograms. Randall, you tell her right now how we used to be better. You tell her about the time when there were more than two brands of milk.”

Dad puts his finger to his lips but the effort costs him and he falls back gasping for breath. It doesn’t matter anyway. The lights in the house switch off and nothing happens when I change the fuses. Mom finds the flashlights and we cling together for warmth. We sit that way in beaten silence until my alarm goes off. Then I have to leave my parents in the dark and take the Neutrino Train to work like always.

***

Later that night, Glam Grub is packed and Monica and I are assigned the Slammin’ Shakespeare Party Room. It looks like the Globe Theatre and we’re both totally spent from dragging the authentic wooden benches around. Earlier an eight-year-old hit his head on one of the wall-mounted lanterns and bled everywhere. At first, I thought we could pretend someone spilled a glass of Cherry Capulet Lemonade, but the metallic smell was a dead giveaway.

Monica’s uptight but not about the blood. “Where’s their food?” she asks, indicating a family of ten seated near the stage. “We put the ticket in an hour ago.”

“It’ll be out soon,” I say.

“We’ve just got too many cooks in the mitten,” she says.

Then all the Tableside Tablets start flashing red and beeping really loud. The President’s handsome face appears on each one. “Seek shelter,” he says, smiling behind his sunglasses. “The Bomb will soon fall. This is not a drill.”

Sirens start going off outside. Through the window I see people running down the sidewalk and screaming in horror as the President’s message repeats over and over. Hank the bartender is yelling that he always knew this day would come. A father passes out next to the Globe’s stage and his young son tries fruitlessly to revive him. His wife is pulling her hair so hard it comes out in clumps. The customers who have Bomb shelters sprint to their cars and peel out of the parking lot. Those without a shelter follow Monica to the kitchen’s enormous walk-in freezer, Glam Grub’s official Fallout Avoidance Area.

I’m very, very scared.

I think about my parents sitting on the couch, defenseless against the apocalypse. I want to run to the train station but there’s no chance I can reach it in time. Meanwhile, Monica is opening the freezer door with fifty people trailing her inside. I hesitate as I picture Mom and Dad but I know I have no choice. I join the line. As I cross the threshold into the silvery light I feel like I’m stepping into one of those igloos people had up north, when all the water was still ice.

Monica closes the door like she’s sealing a tomb. People huddle in groups, shivering in the bracing cold. I look around and see only panic and fear, the ax we’ve always feared is finally about to fall. The cooks are sobbing quietly and holding one another. Some families bow their heads in terrified circles, trying to remember how to pray. Off to one side, a little girl in a creased pantsuit sits apart from her family. She seems to be on an important video call. She tells someone to “sell PeaceKeeper stock at $570” and though I’m baffled I’m in no state to question her.

Monica turns up the freezer’s temperature and the Aviary Awesomesauce Ice Cream starts to drip from the cartons. It slowly gets warmer but I’m still shivering violently.

We all hunch against the iron walls, waiting for the sound of the Bomb.

For several long minutes, I listen for doom. Then something shifts inside me for reasons I can’t explain. Maybe it’s all the days I’ve worked here, forgetting myself to raise money for Dad and risking my Selected future. Maybe it’s all the eleven-hour shifts in Glam Rock Planet, balancing trays of Divine Drumset Dumplings while my guitar bumps against my side. Maybe I’m just tired of panic and ready to start living with confidence. Maybe it’s all of these things.

I look around the freezer and my terror fades. I see people who need assistance, Grubbers and Patrons who are shaking and cowering, and to my surprise, I feel good that I’m here right now, glad that I can help them.

I get off the floor and pass out thawing packets of Peanut Butter Paradise. I give my extra Juliet dress to a busboy, who drapes it gratefully around his thin shoulders. I go up and down the freezer to comfort each of these luckless souls trapped beneath the heavy oppression of the Bomb. I say things like hey kids, I know it’s scary, but we’re all in this together. I say look guys, let’s take it one step at a time. I say forget what’s out there, we’re safe in here. I grasp a lot of hands and people grasp tightly back.

At the far end of the freezer, I see something behind the rack of octopus meat. I push through the tentacle curtain and find a small pup tent and cookstove surrounded by hundreds of empty jars. Each one has a small rodent pictured on the side. I think oh, so that’s where all the missing muskrat mustard went. I crouch down and unzip the tent. Inside a beefy guy with a thick beard is snoring peacefully in a sleeping bag. The nametag clipped to his ski hat reads Ruben.

“Ruben?” I say curiously, shaking his ankle. “You OK?”

Ruben wakes up, groggy. He doesn’t seem too concerned to have been discovered. He says hey man what’s up, welcome to the Ice Palace. He unwraps a Grit’n’Granola bar and takes a bite, then peers through the tentacles and says woah man what are all these people doing here?

I explain that we’re all waiting to die. “The Bomb,” he says appreciatively. “Damn, what a bummer. And I was just starting to feel better too. A year back here has been nirvana, man.”

“You’ve been back here for a year?”

He shrugs, his parka rustling. “I just needed a break. Work, the acid rain, my kids. Plus the President is always on TV. Too much was happening and I needed to chill.”

“You look pretty chill to me.”

“Thanks, man,” he says. “By the way, who are you?”

“I’m Jenna. You hired me three months ago.”

“I was stoned to the moon that day,” he says, remembering.

“Are you my boss?” I ask him flat-out, tired of all the mystery.

He stares at me and takes another sloppy bite. “Does it look like it?”

***

Six hours later everyone’s phone starts beeping. The President appears on our screens and says sorry folks it was all a false alarm. We cheer and hug one another. I’m pretty relieved to not be annihilated. The President continues and says the SafetyFirst technicians are working around the clock to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again. Ruben finishes a granola bar and says yeah right. Monica says careful, they can hear us.

I start putting on my doublet since I’ve still got two hours in Rule Britannia. But then the little girl in the pantsuit walks up to me like she means business, her stilettos clicking against the floor. She grabs my arm and leads me to the Valentine’s Day Massacre tableau in Mobster Mania. She stops next to Capone’s leg and faces me. “Congrats, hotshot,” she says, her voice professional. “You’re in the big leagues now.”

“Thanks,” I say, unsure.

“I’m Cassie Palmer.”

“OK.”

“I’m on the Board,” she tells me, her head level with the statue’s thigh.

“You?”

“All the Board members are children.”

I’m not sure what to say to this.

“I’m getting forced out next year by term limits at nine.”

I say, “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“I want to thank you for your actions during the cold heavy hours in there.”

“I did what I could,” I blush.

“It was the definition of Rock Star Robustness, Jenna. On the next report card, you’ll move up to Stage Manager.”

I’m stunned. “No more Roadie?”

“No more Roadie,” she says, pocketing one of the gangsters’ plastic guns. “Good work. You’re what we’re supposed to be about. Don’t cry.”

I try to stop the tears and give her a hug, but she shrugs me off and disappears through a door riddled with fake bullet holes. I start dancing around the statues whooping for joy. I’ve done it. Dad’s deadline is still weeks away. The Stage Manager wages on the next paycheck will cover Kwik Fixx. He’s going to survive.

I tell Ruben and Monica that I need to leave right away. They shrug and say rock on, you’re the boss. I take off doublet in hand. Next door to Glam Grub I see that Everything Must Christmas has changed its name to Going Out Of Christmas. In their front window, I see a display with upgraded Never Wilts. I buy four bouquets and practically sprint to the Neutrino Train.

When I get home I’m just about bursting. I find Mom in the kitchen looking at baby photos of Dad by flashlight—real photographs that you can hold in your hand. I grasp one in wonder until she warns me the oil from my skin will ruin the image.

“Where’s Dad?” I say, ready to knock their socks off. “I want to tell you both.”

Mom looks up and I notice her eyes are swollen. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Somehow I understand instantly. I slump beside her in disbelief and feel like a test tube full of my blood just tipped over and shattered inside me.

“I thought he had another month,” I whisper.

“It was the Bomb warning,” she says. “The shock got him.”

***

I call Jared a few days later. “Look,” I say, “it’s over.”

“What’s over?”

“You’re toast,” I tell him. “Totally crispy.”

“Wait a minute,” he says. I hear him pause Bio Attack! “You’re breaking up with me? My Selection chances are in the nineties. Yours are like thirty-three at most.”

“I’ll survive.”

“I see why they don’t Select servers,” he grumbles. “Your eyes aren’t on the prize.”

“This has nothing to do with Selection,” I say. “You’re just kind of an asshole, Jared.”

He sighs. “I guess I’ll switch to morning classes. It’d be so awkward to see you now.”

“You can take your time. I’m getting Stage Manager pay for the next two weeks so I’ll be at work anyway. And I’m moving my mom into a new house.”

“You’re missing more class?”

“Can’t you see,” I ask him, “that Selection is just like one of your games, that jumping through all the right hoops and destroying everything in your way really doesn’t matter if you just go outside and smell the grass?”

“Smelling grass makes my allergies flare up,” he says, offended.

I hang up.

I go to the living room and put on my coat. Mom’s waiting there with Dad’s Incineration Urn. We take the Neutrino Train six hours north to the small lakeside park where he proposed to her seventy-five years ago.

When we get there Mom says “Well, it used to be a lakeside park.”

Now all I can see in the gathering evening is one of those giant ToxicBox holes, a big glowing green pit where you drop off your old battery acid.

Mom and I walk along arm in arm, ignoring the smell rising from the waste. I point heavenward at the waning moon that shines through the smog.

I say, “It’s funny, the moon’s not actually blue.”

Mom says, “I know, it’s white.”

I say, “No, it’s really more of a yellow-green.”

Mom takes a pinch of Dad’s ashes and tosses them into the flow of the wind. They’re gently carried through the razor-wire fence before drifting into the hole.

She says, “I promise, it’s white.”