The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

be happy enough to catch one of them, but what they want more than anything is just to reach Yuma itself. Because then the pain will go away.”
    Silence came to the car. They were passing through the suburb now, the two-lane bisecting separate reaches of it. Travis saw an overpass far ahead, where 495 crossed the road.
    “And how would Finn select the ones he wanted to keep alive?” Garner said. “Would he do that right on-site in Yuma, as people begin to show up?”
    Travis shook his head. “He could’ve done that part years in advance. He’d probably have to. He’d need at least some people with critical knowledge. Scientists, tradespeople, doctors. The rest could come from the profiling, which could be conducted over a span of years on people who probably aren’t even aware of it. Finn’s best attempt at choosing good neighbors. That process is probably already finished.”
    Garner was still thinking it all through. Travis could see that he understood it. It was acceptance he was struggling with.
    “Once these people are actually down there,” Garner said. “Once they’re in Arica, however many there are, ten thousand, fifty thousand… to be self-sustaining, they’d need so many things. I’m sure the city’s existing water supply could be kept running, however it already works. Same for irrigated farming. But what about power? What about manufactured things we take for granted? Everyday items that wear out over time. Even clothing.”
    “You could use solar power,” Travis said. “Arica has to be about the best place on Earth for it. And all the panels in the world would be left for the taking. Everything in the world would be left for the taking, at least until things started to decay. But in places like Vegas and Los Angeles, useful objects and materials would last a long time. You could send salvage flights up there for decades, if you had to. But I don’t think you would have to.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because that’s what the gathering site at Yuma is for. Think about it. All those cars, packed with the basic necessities people would naturally bring along. Clothing, dishware, in some cases computers or other electronics. All of it neatly stored in a place where it’ll last forever. For years after the settlement of Arica, flights could come up to Yuma and methodically gather that stuff. Take it back down there and store it in the Atacama. For a small enough population, it’d be a thousand years’ worth of everything they’d ever need.”
    Travis watched Garner process it. Watched him try to, anyway. The man closed his eyes and rubbed them. Exhaled heavily.
    “What else explains Yuma?” Travis said. “What else explains any of this stuff?”
    Garner opened his eyes again. Stared at the cross streets going by, each lined with dozens of homes.
    “How could anyone actually do it?” Garner said. “All those lives. How could someone sign up for a thing like that?”
    “Is it really so hard to believe?” Travis said. “The concept is hardwired right into our culture. We tell little kids in Sunday school a story just like it, and in that story it’s not exactly the bad guy who makes it happen.”
    “Christ’s sake,” Garner said. “That’s not meant to be taken literally.”
    “No, but you might ask yourself how the story got to be popular in the first place. Don’t you think it just appeals to people, on some level? You look around at the world and all its bullshit. This group hates this group, because of something that happened this many centuries ago, and these other people are suffering for it. I’m not saying I agree, but I can understand the attraction of the idea. The notion of just scraping everything clean and starting all over. And I haven’t seen a tenth of the ugliness Isaac Finn has seen.”
    “But Currey,” Garner said. “All the rest of them. I just don’t understand it. Cultured, educated people, trusted to govern. All of them standing up to be counted as part of something that’s… objectively evil.”
    “We don’t need to look to scripture for an example of that,” Travis said. “We don’t even need to look past living history.”
    Garner turned and met his eyes. Travis saw a chill pass through him. Along with acceptance, at last.
    The driver tapped the brakes and slowed. “Coming up on the L.I.E., sir. Back to the city?”
    “I don’t think so,” Garner said. “Pull off for a minute.”
    The driver parked on the shoulder, a hundred yards