Blueprints of the Afterlife

logic. That this magnitude of fortune paled in comparison to the wealth attained by certain pre-FUS oligarchs was almost metaphysically impossible to comprehend.

Carl and Hiroko Taylor lived outside Portland in an A-frame home amid thirty or so former suburban acres of new-growth cedar and hemlock. Carl was negotiating with a solar panel out front when Skinner and Chiho rolled up the driveway. He didn’t look like a soldier anymore, just an old black dude with white hair wearing a plaid flannel shirt and suspenders. Hiroko came out onto the porch clutching a mammoth mug of tea. Carl grabbed Skinner as soon as he had clambered out of the RV and the friends slammed their hands into each other’s backs.

“You dirty old fossil,” Carl laughed. When Carl laughed, his smile hung around on his face like the last guest at a party.

“Let me get some of this,” Hiroko said, separating the men to embrace Skinner. Carl lifted Chiho off the ground and the four old friends stood laughing and grinning, anticipating rich, copious food and stories, late nights of movies and video games. Skinner knew that the presence of their friends would put a damper on his and Chiho’s bickering. They were never as loving toward one another as when they were in the presence of friends. Spirits lifted, the four repaired to the kitchen where Hiroko zapped buffalo wings and Carl pulled out some blue potato chips with blue cheese dip. There were crudites and smoked salmon, huckleberry scones and homemade preserves, coffee.

“You’re sabotaging your solar again,” Skinner said.

“I might as well take a ball-peen hammer to it,” said Carl.

“You’re cursed. Put a machine in your hands and it takes itself apart.”

Hiroko said to Chiho, “I was worried you guys wouldn’t escape Phoenix this time.”

Chiho replied, “We ran into some demonstrators on the way out, but we did fine.”

“Yeah, because I showed off my Coke,” Skinner said.

“There was a testosterone moment,” Chiho nodded.

“We got out of there in one piece is all I’m saying.”

“Those people just want to get out before it gets too hot,” Hiroko said.

“Then they should move out altogether,” Carl said.

“I second that opinion,” Skinner said. “Slide that dip on over here, if you please. There are relocation programs, right? They can move up to Canada.”

“Or Alaska,” Carl said.

“And live in a camp?” Hiroko asked. “I hear those places are foul.”

“Some of them are,” Chiho said. “They’re improving, though. According to Reader’s Digest, anyway.”

The conversation was veering dangerously toward buzz-kill territory. They all seemed to recognize this, and with a collective breath moved on to other topics.

“School! How’s teaching this semester?” Chiho asked Hiroko.

“Fabulous. I taught Theory of Counterinsurgency, FUS History with an emphasis on the New England theater, a couple intro freshman classes. I had incredible students this semester.”

“Her students drove her to tears,” Carl said.

Hiroko said, “Please tell us you’re staying a couple weeks, at least. We’ve got a pantry full of food that’ll go to waste otherwise.”

“Football, barbecue, a little walk in the woods,” Carl said.

“Our thoughts exactly,” Skinner said. “I don’t know how much longer we can hold out in the desert.”

“You said that last year,” Chiho said.

“Every year I mean it a little bit more. Putting a prophylactic on my house four months out of the year.”

“Let me see your garden!” Chiho said. Hiroko did an embarrassed and proud little shrug and motioned for her to follow.

When the women were gone, Skinner and Carl looked at each other and shared a laugh.

“Jesus, we’re still here,” Skinner said.

“Still looking like shit, a day late and a dollar short.”

“When you can live forever, all you’re doing is postponing the inevitable. You’re just going to die in some stupid accident.”

“Could come any day.”

“And a welcome day that’ll be.”

They laughed again, matching the cadence of their guffaws. Carl said, “Seriously. You bring the memories?”

“Right here.” Skinner patted his breast pocket. “I told Chiho.”

Carl nodded. “I told Hiroko. We got into a fight about it.”

“Likewise.”

“But we gots to do what we gots to do.”

“Sort through the bullshit.”

“Get our past in order.”

“I promised Chiho I wouldn’t drink. You help me out on that?” Skinner asked.

“You got it. I’ll not drink with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You would for me.”

“True. You make these buffalo wings?”

“I wish I could take credit but they came out of a fuckin’ bag. Cooper died.”

“Wait, who—Cooper? Shit, no.”

“Lung cancer finally. One of those weird kinds of lung cancer that happen to people who don’t smoke. So rare the Bionet doesn’t have a reliable app to deal with it. He tried a cigarette when he was sixteen, puked his guts out, and never touched the stuff again, even when we were in combat. Now that’s fuckin’ willpower. I talked to him a month before he passed. He blamed the cancer on that one cigarette from ninety years ago. Cigarette smoke was the least of what ended up in our lungs.”

“I can’t say I ever got along with Cooper that well. God rest his soul.”

“You barely got along with anyone. You were the crew’s resident son of a bitch.”

“But when the shit went down is what I’m saying.”

“You don’t even have to say it.”

“I’m trying harder not to be a prick. I volunteer at the local pool. Hand out boogie boards to snot-nosed kids. Went door-to-door collecting toothbrushes for our church. Apparently they need toothbrushes in Alabama or someplace.”

“Guy on his fifth set of dentures collecting toothbrushes. That’s a good one.”

Skinner grinned. “How you keeping busy besides busting solar panels?”

“Dude, nothing much has changed since you were here last. I do my Tai Chi in the morning and my yoga at night. I reread all of Dickens and am back on a Melville jag. It’s all about supporting the wife’s career. She’s working on a book about the FUS. Trying to spell out once and for all why it went down, who was responsible. Most of the time she’s buried in books.”

“How’d a dumbass like you marry a woman so smart?”

“My thoughts precisely. She could’ve just retired a long time ago but she’s got unfinished business with the FUS. She thinks she did too little to prevent it is my theory. Like she was part of the whole propaganda apparatus that brought on the worst of it. It haunts her. I’ve been trying to tell her to give it a rest, what’s past is past. But she’s too much like you. Has to go over it and over it in her head.”

“An incredible woman. They broke the mold et cetera, et cetera.”

“Roon called here last week.”

“Say what?”

“She wants to get in touch with you and Chiho. I think she wants to make amends.”

Skinner rubbed his face. Audible stubble. “I wasn’t expecting that. Is she okay? Jesus, I’m a shitty father.”

“She sounded good. I talked to her maybe five minutes. She says she doesn’t have your new number. She