The Variables

Lucy spun and tried to focus her eyes. Leading outward from the tower were four long sky bridges expanding out over the ocean. Those bridges co

She felt a nudge and turned, expecting to see one of her brothers, but it was Cass who stood holding a champagne flute in her hand, her other hand draped over her waist. She looked at Lucy expectantly, her eyebrows raised.

“Hello there my little Lark,” Cass said. “So? Thoughts?”

Lucy hiccupped. She frowned. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Cass laughed. She threw her head back and giggled. “Really? Already? We’ve only just arrived.”

“It’s just all the,” she hiccupped again, “bubbles.”

“Of course.” Cass laughed again and put a hand on Lucy’s bicep. “The bubbles. Of course.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “You ready to ditch this place? See my place?”

Lucy turned. “You have your own place?”

Cass nodded. “Bein sûr, ami.”

“Then why do I have to live with my parents?” Lucy asked with a hiccup. She wondered where Grant would live, since he didn’t have parents. Maybe he’d have roommates again. She hoped that he would also have his own place and that she could join him; she let her thoughts linger on how good it would feel to have a place of their own, just the two of them. Then she shook the thought away. She’d have to get him here first, and then she could spend time dreaming of hours alone in his apartment with an ocean view.

“You get your own apartment at twenty-two. The rules of Huck. It’s an arbitrary number...one that happens to benefit me.” She held her glass in one hand and grabbed Lucy’s hand with the other, pulling her toward one of the sky bridges. With one last look behind them, they left the crowd and journeyed onward, venturing along the enclosed walkway. The ocean floated by underneath their feet.

“It’s all glass,” Lucy said breathlessly. She watched her feet glide forward, suspended high above the waves. “It makes me feel...”

“Like you’re flying?”

“No.” She stopped and rested her hand along the transparent wall—nothing but horizon on either side.

“This way,” Cass said and she motioned for Lucy to follow. They tripped along, reaching the end and finding themselves in a small lobby with six doors. Each door opened to a different descending staircase. Cass pushed on door number five, and then they clomped down the stairs. The walls of the stairwell were transparent as well. Lucy looked up and stifled a shocked gasp. She could see several other people moving in adjacent stairwells across the way.

“We’re in the ocean,” Lucy said as she followed Cass downward. They paused on a landing and the water licked the wall beside them. Tiny collections of seaweed and foam pushed against the glass. She half-expected to see a shark fin swim by. “On the ocean. In the ocean. We’re on the ocean. In the ocean.”

With a laugh, Cass nodded. “Oh my darling, Lucy. Will you be okay?”

“The world is gone, all the people are gone, and we’re here on the ocean. An island...an island in the ocean.”

“He wants the earth to heal,” Cass replied. “So, he took the people from the earth and sent them to sea.” She opened the door and pushed it wide. In front of them was a long hallway, similar to the design of the System. As Lucy followed Cass, she felt like she was walking in a hallway of a moving hotel; the floor underneath her swayed. She blinked and took a gulp of cold air.

“Is it moving?” Lucy asked.

“Darling, that’s the champagne,” Cass said. She reached a door and pointed with a wide smile. “Look.” Her name, Cassandra Salvant, was written in a flowery script and engraved into a brass nameplate. She reached into her pocket and produced a silver key. Slipping the key into the lock and then turning the knob, Cass swung the door open. They walked inside.

The lights of the apartment were on a motion sensor and they engaged, filling the room with a low, warm, glow. The far wall was glass, like the sky bridge and the stairwell. Outside, the horizon was growing darker as the sun set out of their sight. Lucy walked forward and stared at the endless expanse of water just beyond the wall. The wall itself was a giant window—Lucy felt like she could just walk straight through and step into the ocean, like nothing would stop her.

“I feel so...exposed,” Lucy said. She looked at the rest of the room. A kitchen and a sunken living room with a sofa, a credenza against the shared wall, and a bookshelf filled with Cass’s favorites. To the left of the kitchen, in a small nook, was a queen-sized bed. It was covered in a tan comforter and bright orange pillows. There were cut flowers on a two-person kitchen table and Cass let her fingers slide over the petals. Real flowers. She leaned to inhale their sweet aroma.

“I’m going to change,” Cass a

Lucy put her bag down on the floor and walked to the glass wall in front of her. She could see Cass’s reflection to her side, slipping out of her pants and going through a small dresser for suitable replacements. She pulled out black sweats and a black hoodie, and laughed. Lucy turned.

Cass held the clothing out and dangled them. An emblem was stitched on the right thigh. It had intertwining circles with ivy growing around them and in big block letters across the top: Kymberlin.

“We’ve been issued matching sweatpants?” Lucy asked incredulously and she started to walk toward Cass, to inspect the clothes closer, but she stopped. Visible across Cass’s right side was a dark, purple bruise. Even against her already dark skin, the discoloration was striking. Across her abdomen and up her arms were deep scratches: four long lines etched from her breasts to her stomach.

Cass followed Lucy’s gaze and bit her lip. “Don’t—”

“You never showed me.”

“He cracked a rib. Punched me so many times in the side...like he knew it would hurt the most. Hunter did.” She said his name forcefully. “Hunter,” she said again as if she wanted to lay claim to it. “The other one scratched me...touched me...”

“The other one?” Lucy paused. Hunter’s name had been the only one that ever came up—Cass had never mentioned a second attacker.

“No,” Cass said and she put her hand up. “He knows he was spared. His friend paid the cost for their actions...I couldn’t...”

“Cass!” Lucy rushed forward and hugged her friend with a spontaneous burst of emotion. “I’m so sorry.” She stepped back and tried not to cry.

Cass squeezed her friend’s shoulder and then blew her a kiss with her free hand. “Thank you, but I am fine. Really. I mean…I’ll be fine…it will all be fine.”

“Why did they do it?” Lucy asked. “Why did they hurt you?”

It took a long time for Cass to reply. But when she did, her voice was smooth and calm. “Because they could not hurt the people they were truly mad at,” Cass noted with a nod. She tugged the sweatshirt on over her body and pulled the pants up over her legs; emblem-clad and comfortable, she leaned backward on her bed and stared upward at the ceiling. “All of this, all of it...it’s beautiful.”

Lucy stayed quiet. She looked out the window again, the ocean slipped into the darkness of the evening—the area outside the window nothing more than a black abyss.

“You don’t agree?” Cass asked.

And Lucy sat down on the edge of the bed next to her friend. “It’s beautiful,” she agreed. “It’s a beautiful disaster.”

Lucy left Cass alone in her new apartment and traveled back down the hallway, up the stairwell, across the sky bridge, and back into the welcome party. The effects of her drinking had already started to wane and her head pounded with the threat of a full-scale headache. She sca