The old woman lived in a bunker, he told Taek the morning Taek was to start the journey of delivering his package. Cement entrance, reinforced steel doors, metal handlebars along the wall to help her move to and from her small garden up on the surface. A “porch” pavement lined the bunker with peeling pomegranate-pink paint—he chuckled at the alliteration before Taek even realized it was one at all—that hadn’t been redone ever since he moved out east. 

Her name was Denise Alvarez, he added 15 minutes after the conversation started, his widowed mother. His own name was Daniel “Danny” Alvarez; alliteration there, too. 63. Worker in Catastrophe Reconstruction Effort (CRE). Clearance Level 1. Father died during the first Blackout. Denise lived in District 2 of New Texas. He lived in D.C. with the rest of the CRE staff.

“Her porch’s jus’ leftover cement that ain’t lined proper,” he explained. His calloused fingers tapped an absent rhythm that only he heard. Tap-tap-tap. “Nothin’ fancy ‘bout it. But she got flowers ‘en ‘em linin’ the whole place up.”

“Where’d she get those?” Taek asked. 

The chip inserted behind her ear buzzed faintly as she brought the system back to life; her vision adjusted to attune to the chip before focusing back on Danny’s face. She neatly organized everything he said into simple, digital notes, pinning them in the corner of her vision’s heads-up display (HUD). The color of the font she used for the notes remained resolutely blue, not the pomegranate pink she wanted—the HUD’s program was old, and her chip older. She thought to get it replaced after this job if HQ had any leftovers. 

“Dunno. Growin’ ‘em’s my guess.”

“Up on the surface? Thought nothing grew outside of quarantined soil.”

Danny shrugged and leaned back in his wheelchair. “Soil’s gettin’ cleaner ‘n some parts. Plus. Green thumb.”

“Really green thumb.” Supremely green. She hadn’t seen a naturally grown flower since twenty years ago, when the first Blackout occurred. 

Taek had been 14 then—she watched from school as the sky turned a void black before everything electric blew up at once and nearly took out the entire planet. Things started to rot and corrode after that, with no real pattern or explanation: flowers, wooden houses, asphalt floors, tin cans, blades of grass. People, too, like her brother. Soil was the one constant, though. Much of America’s soil became toxic. The  few locations that remained were either less corroded (rare) or unaffected (rarer). 

It had only been five years since conditions had inexplicably started to improve.

“Making anything grow at all outside of mandated facilities is a miracle. She wasn’t a farmer before?”

“Nah. Fixed suits an’, uh, clothes. Hemmed ‘em.”

“Alterations? Worked in textiles, then.” Taek added another line to the notes.

“Old-fashioned tailor. Ain’t had no customers much, but she liked it.” He tapped his package Taek had wrapped in protective lining. “Got needles ‘n…whatnot in there.” 

She paused. Needles. Sharp object. Those hadn’t been listed in his order. She was not allowed to transport any hazardous material. She’d be trekking across the ravaged U.S. and dealing with who-knows-what. Needles could technically be used to hurt or be harmed. 

“Sewing kit?” She asked. She had to clarify before making the call.

“Yeah. Her favorite scissors ‘n all.” 

That was definitely a hazard. 

Danny smiled a little, crooked teeth poking out of his chapped lips. “She used to, uh. Make me lil’ puppets. Called ‘em my lil’ friends ‘n all. Still have two. She’d call ‘em scissors her ‘snip-snip’ pal to make my friends. Odd woman.” 

Well.

The goodbyes were pleasant. Taek shouldered the package and bid the man farewell. Danny offered a drink—good old-fashioned Jack Daniels, he said, laughing at the “Daniels” part—but Taek wasn’t allowed any until she was off the clock.

Still. She smiled and took the bottle he offered as memorabilia. She set off towards New Texas not long after. 

***

The route to New Texas, specifically District 2, followed a reconstructed highway that cut through the Appalachian Mountains—or what remained of it, anyway. It was a fairly easy walk to get there compared to other places Taek had delivered to. It was made easier when a young man with a kind smile offered his scooter to her around the halfway mark.

“Pretty new; rust is just on the frame,” he said. “Hovering works fine, too. Just don’t, you know…” He made a half-aborted hand movement she failed to decipher. 

She ignored it and nodded slowly. “You don’t need it?”

The man shrugged. “Looks like you need it more than I do.” He wiped down the seat of the scooter with the edge of his frayed shirt. “You’re a courier, right?”

She was, yes. 

“So you really travel on foot? All the time? Everywhere?”

Yes.

“What if the package is heavy?”

She’d suffer for a while, but the package would get to its destination regardless. That was why she was compensated with a house and food back at HQ.

“Damn. Respect.”

She thanked him. She thought to bring back some kind of souvenir for the young man on her way back if she managed to spot him somehow.

She fastened the package onto the scooter and powered it on, watched in silence as it sputtered to life before hovering. Her chip buzzed lightly—connected to the scooter’s display. It was almost at full battery. The man offered her a silent handshake; she shook firmly, once. His palm was warm. She offered him an energy bar to aid him on his way home.

***

It rained like Taek owed the clouds money when she reached the outskirts of New Texas. Wasn’t it supposed to be just hot and dry? She didn’t know.She’d never been to New Texas before. 

Others had, evidently. A makeshift shelter sat at the edge of the highway: metal, sprayed down with anti-corrosive spray. CRE often made such shelters on routes well-traveled by couriers. She knocked on the door and waited before walking in—shoes off. The soles weren’t worn, thanks to the scooter.

Next to a neatly made bed was a table. A cup on top of it smelled sickly sweet. She sniffed it; juice, not too old. Someone had been resting here not long ago. She eyed a folded piece of paper that stuck to the bottom of it and tugged it off.

Ran out of juice before I left! Sorry! Godspeed to whoever rests here next.

Taek tucked the note into her pocket. Sleep came to her easy and sweet; the downpour outside tapped against the metal rhythmically. Nature’s own lullaby.

***

They used to live in the bunker together, the old woman told Taek the evening she arrived. The cement entrance was painted blue, reinforced steel doors colored a washed-out green, metal handlebars along the wall covered in faux grass. The “porch” was still a peeling pomegranate-pink. Taek made sure to tell the woman Danny had said that, delighted by the way her chuckle mirrored her son’s. 

“Name’s Denise,” she said 20 minutes after the conversation started. “You know my son, then? He eatin’ right?” 

Taek rummaged through her pack with a finger in the air, one second, please. Under her ration packs and wrapped in her heating pack was the bottle of Jack Daniels she had received. She glanced at the corner of her HUD—26 minutes off the clock—and held it with gentle hands towards Denise. Her eyes were red and glossy before Taek said anything at all.

“He offered me this, but I think you’d like it better,” Taek said, handing it to her. 

Denise’s hands were calloused and warm as they brushed Taek’s. Her knuckles and divot of the thumb looked exactly like Danny’s, her smile even more so. Her front teeth protruded a tiny bit more than the others when she talked. She squinted to recall if Danny’s did the same and, yes, they did. 

“He has your smile and hands,” Taek added. She leaned back a bit as Denise worked to uncork the bottle—she didn’t offer to do it herself, as she knew Denise would want to—and gave her an honest grin when Denise glanced up at her with surprisingly bashful eyes.

“Has his pap’s nose. Shit, if you stay long ‘nough, I’ll take you to meet him. Buried him just ‘round that bend o’er there—” Denise pointed at a tree, corroded with holes with moss stretching to cover a good portion of it—“and he needs some more company than jus’ me, I reckon.”

An odd feeling arose in Taek’s chest. 

“I’d be honored,” she replied. “Maybe we can pour a drink for him, too. What’s his name?”

Denise smiled, full teeth, the smile stretching into every crevice of her face. “Damien.”

An odder feeling replaced the one already on her chest. Taek leaned forward, mouth open, eyes twinkling. A rush of air left her lungs and she felt like she was floating, carried away by the wind, feather-light and lightning-bright. She barked out a laugh, then another. She was laughing in earnest before she knew it. Denise laughed with her, curiosity hooking onto her thin brows and raising them in a beautiful arch.

“What?” She asked, coming down from the mirrored delirium. She put her hands on Taek’s and squeezed. Taek squeezed back, cheeks hurting and throat burning.

“No, I just…I haven’t heard that name in a while. My brother’s name is Damien.”

“Not here no more?”

“No, but you know—”

“—I’m sorry to hear that—”

“—but we called him Daytime, cause his ass was always up so early talking about nonsense all the time—”

“—I’ll be damned, girl!”

“What?”

“Shit, I called my old man Day, too. ‘Cause his ass was always wakin’ me up on some odd hours, paid no nevermind to my damn sleep.”

It was laughter again after that, simple and pure. The dead came back to life from the healing soil. Denise showed Taek the flowers she had planted—blue, red, white, pink, orange, a whole range—and took her to the tree, next to Damien. They sat and dined on rations and leftover stew from Denise’s last batch and laughed ‘til it was pitch black outside, stars dotting the sky like dust on a screen as they emptied half the bottle of whiskey. Denise held the bottle to her chest whenever she could the entire time.