The Western Highway

The plains of Kansas stretched out before Julio.  He looked at his speed, he looked at the time, he looked at the road.  He unfocused his eyes, and then refocused them.  Fuck I hate this place, he thought.  The drive from the east coast of the United States was criminally boring, but the mountains of Colorado loomed in the distance.  He ached for the natural beauty, the refined air, the beautiful stream and mountain passes.  Not that he’d explore anything beyond his car, he wasn’t insane.  The scenery tempted him more every year, and for a decade he had spent his summers basking in that desire.  

One day, when I’m near death, maybe I’ll really step Outside there.  He dreamed of it, the smells and sounds, the lack of walls surrounding him, but it was a pipe dream.  No one in his generation left their vehicles anymore; well no one that didn’t have to.  Of course, the poor had jobs on the Outside, and some of them didn’t even have money for climate suits.  He’d heard stories that the very poor wandered the countryside like bandits, drinking unfiltered water from streams and growing vegetables, or made permanent Outdoor homes.  No one expected that they lived very long.

A road sign breezed by advertising power refills, water refills, and black tank emptying.  His levels would be fine until the border, and he hated the idea of staying longer on these roads than he had to.  He kept moving.

–

Three centuries ago, a small Russian border conflict had attracted the attention of the world’s most powerful nations.  Tensions escalated, and soon these nations were wrapped into the conflict.  Two schools of thought exist around what happened next; some think nuclear conflict could have been avoided if a policy had been enacted at the right time, and others think the Sword of Damocles always had to fall.  History doesn’t care, it happened.

In the span of half an hour, most of the world’s population was decimated.  In the weeks that followed, radiation poisoning killed more.  A decade of nuclear winter, caused by all the soot released into the atmosphere, wrecked crops globally, and famine was widespread.  Another decade of nuclear summer followed, temperatures intensifying globally from the massive concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane.  Very few survived these years, and living conditions were unforgiving.

But underground, in bunkers built years before the first bombs fell, people thrived.  Starting in the early 21st century, governments had begun investing in long-term living solutions in case of climate or nuclear disasters.  These self-contained units grew crops, expelled waste, purified fresh air, and cleaned water from the aquifers they were built near.  They had doctors, and medical supplies.  Hardlined communications were created to other bunkers in case of broad wireless system failures.  As tensions rose globally, governments secreted some of the population down in these centers.  Of course, they primarily picked from those highly educated; minority populations were barely represented, and a large percentage of politicians were chosen.

This group of survivors became the new human race.  Several generations were born in the confines of these bunkers, and to them the space didn’t feel as claustrophobic.  Technology development had continued, and engineers from around the globe worked together to create a suite of technologies to allow people to leave their confines.  A century after the first bombs fell, doors swung open on bunkers around the world, and construction started on the first Ecosystem Cars.

–

Julio pulled into the fill station, it was the first one across the border.  He stopped his vehicle in a stall, and put the lights on to indicate that he needed a full service.  An attendant walked over; every inch of his oversized climate suit was covered in bright brand logos and advertisements.  The suit resembled historical pictures of diving gear, but was more loose fitting than a wet suit.  An air purifier sat on the attendant’s back, with a hose going into a gas mask.  The suit was covered with small, localized air conditioning units to withstand the extreme heat.

The attendant hooked his vehicle to the charger, and inserted the bi-directional pump that removed waste and filled fresh water simultaneously.  These facilities usually supplied their energy from a local solar farm, and processed waste into clean drinking water on site.  When the job was complete, the attendant scanned the barcode on the back of his car, and knocked on the rear window before they walked away.  Julio noticed that most of the advertisements on their suit were for a local Love Hotel called Desert Oasis.  People would meet in these sealed bunkers for a night of revelry, but Julio had no idea who was doing that in this wasteland.  

Julio steered back onto the highway to continue the drive west.  Mountains loomed in the distance with an unforgiving finality.

–

The centuries following the opening of the bunkers were known as The Great Migration.  As the infrastructure expanded along the antiquated highway system, people struck out in their self-contained ecosystems.  Some of them left as families, but most chose a nomadic life in solitude.  Wireless communication networks were re-established, and people drifted further from physical interactions.  Still, population numbers slowly climbed as new families formed on the road.

In the beginning of the great migration period, there was no formal economy.  People traded locally in skilled labor and bartered crops grown in different bunkers, but all necessities were available to each person.  As the transportation and infrastructure needs of this new society grew however, so did the industry alongside it.  Fifty years after the start of the great migration, an economy and international currency had been established, and the trends of socio-economic stratification started again.  Within the next fifty years, this had forced humanity into a caste system where it was nearly impossible to ascend.

–

Julio ended the trip in the remnants of an old town, the map called it Crested Butte.  This was the same destination as every year, the road ended in a valley surrounded completely by steep mountain faces.  The terrain was extreme and uninviting, and the closest fill station was far back on the main highway.  Here was complete solitude.

On the drive here through Old Denver he’d parked next to one of the city parks while he ate lunch.  It was now completely overgrown, but some of the old charm remained.  Giant elms dominated everything else in the park, and chest high weeds choked the field.  To his astonishment, Julio watched a deer stop and graze for several minutes at the edge of the park; it was seemingly there just for him.  Suddenly, the deer spooked, and he caught something else moving in the park, but it was obscured.

Julio drove deeper into the park, and through a gap in the weeds he could see two small homes and a large greenhouse.  There was a man standing in the clearing Outside the greenhouse.  He was tall, and covered in black dirt up to his elbows, and was shirtless.  His skin was ravaged by the sun, but otherwise he looked healthy.  Julio wondered why this scene was so strange, and then in a flash realized the man wasn’t wearing a climate suit.  He’s going to die before he sees anything from that greenhouse, he thought, but to his astonishment his skin showed no signs of radiation poisoning.  Quietly, Julio reversed out of the interior of the park, and without looking back he drove away as fast as he could.

Shaking the memory from his mind, Julio kept moving towards his camp.

–

It was night, and Julio had parked his car in a field at the edge of the old town.  By pressing a few buttons, the interior space of the vehicle had converted to a spacious bedroom, and the screens on all the walls displayed the images behind them.  It gave the appearance of being in a completely translucent dome; there was endless night sky in every direction.  The stars slowly drifted, and Julio made up patterns in his mind between them.  In those patterns, his mind drifted.

He dreamt that he was Outside, walking up the hillside with the sun blazing down.  The tall grass felt soft and friendly against his bare legs; he heard bees humming somewhere nearby.  At the top of the hill he saw the deer from earlier, it was drinking from a stream and looked at him as he approached, but it wasn’t scared.  He was transfixed, and he approached the deer with an outstretched hand.  He stroked the deer’s fur, it was coarse like twine.  

And then he noticed red welts appearing on the deer where he’d touched it.  The deer cried out in pain as the welts spread across its body in a flash.  Julio looked at his hand and saw the same welts extending up his arm.  Radiation sickness he thought, the panic racing through him.  He swiped at the sores with his other hand but saw them extending up that arm too.  Blood was pounding in his ears; he watched the deer collapse in front of him and then sank to his knees.  The pounding in his head intensified; he covered his face with his hands and wept.

Sunlight drenched him; it streamed in through every window and filled the vehicle like a warm blanket.  His eyes darted to check his arms; it was just a dream, he concluded.  But then the pounding continued, and he realized it wasn’t in his head, but on the window.

A woman’s tanned face was pressed against the window, the loose curls of her chestnut brown hair splashing across it.  She had one hand cupped against her face to block the sun, and the other raised to knock again.  Her eyes were like chipped jade, and when they locked with Julio’s she smiled radiantly.  He was paralyzed in her gaze.

“Hi there, sorry to wake you, but only it’s already midday and I got tired of waiting for you to wake up and I was just so excited to see another human that I just couldn’t wait, you know what I mean?  It really is beautiful out here, and you wouldn’t believe how good it smells.  I mean, who knew the Outside could smell like this? And there’s so many sounds, the nights are really alive!”

She paused and took a deep breath, composing herself.

“Sorry, that was a bit too much.  I’ve come here for a long time and never seen anyone else.  Did you know the radiation dissipated years ago?  Some places still have small traces, but not enough to drastically shorten life expectancy.  The data has been there for years, but our generation grew up in the specter of it, and we’re too damn scared to think the world could be safe.  I know I was, it took me a year here before I was brave enough to take my climate suit off.  This zone is completely free of radiation; it’s safe to go Outside, the water is clean, even the soil is fine for growing crops.”

To prove this to him, she reached down and held up an old geiger counter and turned it on.  It didn’t register anything.  Julio stared at the indicator dial, waiting for it to move and tell him the climate was poisoned and this girl was going to die.  He kept staring at the gauge as she continued to speak.

“I’ve built a small hut back in the trees, right on top of that hill.  If you want to come Outside, there’s a place you could sleep.  I know this is a lot to process, but if you decide to not come out yet can I come back tomorrow to talk?”

Julio nodded, barely.  

“Till later, then.  My name’s Doe, by the way.”  She waved and then walked away.  Julio stared at her skin, beautiful and clear of sickness.  She disappeared into the trees, and Julio shifted his gaze to her hand print left on the window.

He stared at that hand print for the rest of the day, dreaming of possibilities.  When he closed his eyes he saw her clear skin moving away from him through the tall grass.  

–

In one universe Julio had the courage to leave his car.  He trusted her readings, and went Outside.  It was beautiful, and perfect, and real.  In that universe he fell in love with Doe, and they built a home together.  They were the start of a community that lived Outdoors, and news spread steadily across the world.  It inspired others to go Outside, and other safe places were found.  Like a boulder rolling downhill, civilization gained momentum.  Julio died an old man, surrounded by his family, and was buried in the earth.

Julio could taste the sweetness of that, even in this life.  He saw it as he drove back down the highway out of town.  Days later, he could feel it when he’d put his hand over her hand print.  At the next major stop he paid for a car wash. Tears streamed down his face as he watched the foaming chemicals wipe out the memory.  The next day was new, and he chose a new road.