The first of these was the discovery of tiger rock practically next to their settlement. They had been looking for it far and wide, and it had been under their noses all the time! It was hidden in a narrow ravine that they"d always skirted because it was overgrown with th.o.r.n.y shrubs. Linda, however, had discovered that the thorns made great fish hooks, and on one of her visits dropped her knife when a thorn fought back and pierced her hand. It was a great knife, arguably the best knife they had in their settlement, with a blade that cut animal hide as if it was paper. Linda had spent very many hours chipping tiny flakes of stone away to make it sharp, and almost as many hours on the knife"s handle, rubbing it down with grit and sand until it was perfectly smooth. It was much too precious to lose.

They had to mount a special expedition to recover that knife. It took several hours, and they were all covered with wounds from the thorns by the time they"d found it. But in the process they discovered the ravine, and tiger rock.

Discovering tiger rock changed their lives, maybe even saved their lives back in the Old World. They immediately built a launch platform, and began sending all the food they could. They stopped after two New World days, when almost half of the back patio of Amanda"s Seattle home was covered with fish, wild roots, berries, and herbs. Then they did nothing but ate themselves stupid for two full Old World days: eating, sleeping, waking to eat even more, sleeping again.

The old saw that when it rains, it pours proved itself to be true yet again. On the third day of their gargantuan feast, they were visited by a couple of sailors from the U.S. Navy. When Amanda saw them, she initially thought they"d come because someone had tattled the Amazons were running a colony in the New World. But the sailors smilingly informed her the Navy was delivering thirty daily ration packs per person in a household: was it true the Amazons, the whole band, were staying at her place? Could they get autographs?

They got something better: signed photographs of every girl in the band, while the girls in the band got some variety in their diet. They all liked fish, but it was starting to get old.

All that food made them lazy. When Amanda managed to dig up an old, paper road map of Washington state, and discovered Skykomish was actually over a hundred kilometers away from Seattle, she did two things. First, she gave Sharon s.h.i.t for claiming Skykomish was just half an hour"s drive away. Then she announced that they"d put the trip off until the weather got a good deal warmer. Traveling a hundred kilometers on a bicycle would take at least one long, exhausting day.

The third factor that made them postpone the trip was that with the onset of winter in the New World, peace and calm came to the nascent Amazon empire. The weather discouraged new settlers, and those that had come earlier had learned to give the Amazons a wide berth. Fiona even said there was a rumor in town about a bunch of psychotic, bloodthirsty b.i.t.c.hes raging around New World"s Puget Sound. She claimed she"d heard it from two different sources during her periodic forays into town.

But after watching the third Sunday TV broadcast of the new world government, Amanda decided the trip couldn"t be postponed any longer. It was evident that there would be hordes of settlers rushing into the New World now that colonial licenses could be purchased with old currency, the old money that otherwise wouldn"t be worth the paper it was printed on. What was more, it appeared everything was scaled differently in the New World. The area corresponding to Skykomish in the Old World would be not a hundred, but a thousand kilometers away from the Amazon colony! Securing that route, and the area around it, involved a chain of at least twenty settlements! It was time to get busy.

For the first three days following that fateful broadcast the Amazons were kept busy working on their bicycles: they were all in lamentable condition, having been neglected for a while. This activity necessitated wandering all over town to get a half-full can of WD-40, and a cupful of machine grease. Everything necessary for bicycle maintenance and repair was in great demand.

In addition, each of them had to put in a couple of new weeks in the New World, where spring had just arrived. The previous year, they had successfully grown some oats from seedlings replicated in the New World. They had to clear a field to sow the seeds they had from that first harvest, and clearing a field with next to no tools turned out to involve back-breaking labor. Not one of them had a hand with less than two broken fingernails by the time they were done.

On Thursday, February 22nd, Amanda and Sharon set out on their journey to Skykomish right after dawn. It was a grey, chilly day, with light powdery snow falling and melting soon after it hit the ground. But they started out well-rested and fed and clean, and they made sure to mute the signals from their alter egos in the New World. They didn"t want to listen to any b.i.t.c.hing about how hard life was over there.

And so, they were in high spirits as they whooshed on their bikes down the quiet, still streets of the sleeping city. Once they got onto the freeway, they went even faster, spurred on by the immense empty road whose size made it seem they were hardly moving at all.

The snow stopped soon after they left the city, and Amanda was struck by how clear and pure the air was - it was almost as good as the air she breathed in the New World. As she pedaled on over the bridge across Washington Lake, she ran through some calculations in her mind: on an ordinary day back in the Old Times, there would be at least half a thousand cars per kilometer on the multiple lanes of the highway. Some would be electric, but there still would be several hundred combustion engines with many cylinders each, all running at least a couple of thousand revolutions per minute.

Every second, each of these engines emitted at least twenty or thirty farts of toxic gas. Every second, there were thousands of liters of poison pumped into the air around the highway. But now every breath she took was pure goodness, bringing a fresh jolt of power to her muscles. She was high on oxygen, and her body sang with joy.

Sharon was feeling the same way. They raced each other, riding side by side on the deserted road. They slowed down when the highway pa.s.sed right next to the seash.o.r.e. The sun had begun playing peekaboo behind the clouds, putting a light show on the water, and the view was magnificent. Amanda felt such joy that she came close to crying.

She didn"t know what had inspired her to turn her head and look the other way, at the uninspiring landscape of the suburbs. But she was glad something did, because that landscape featured a cougar. It was bounding effortlessly along the side of the highway, keeping pace with the bikes and getting closer.

"Sharon! Faster!" Amanda shouted, rising from her saddle to give the pedals extra push. She had taken her Glock pistol along, but it was in her backpack.

Sharon looked at Amanda and saw the cougar. It was almost within leaping distance of Amanda.

"f.u.c.k!" Sharon screamed, and that seemed to give the cougar food for thought. Startled by the new voice, it stopped to look at Sharon. When Amanda glanced over her shoulder a few seconds later, it was still standing by the edge of the road and thinking things over.

They kept going at full speed until there were absolutely no cougars within view. Then they slowed down, and Sharon asked:

"What the f.u.c.k was that?"

"A cougar," Amanda said. "I think they have some sort of cougar zoo around here. Can"t remember all the details, but I think it"s one of those setups where they roam around in a big enclosed area. They probably had nothing to feed the cats any more, so maybe they let them out. Or they escaped. Whatever."

"I didn"t get a good look, but it seemed in fine shape. If it was starving, it wouldn"t have given up on us that easily."

"Maybe it"s name is f.u.c.k," Amanda said.

"Or maybe it"s already made a meal of someone. Or something."

"Or something."

They cycled on in silence for a while, busy with new, sad thoughts and keeping an eye out for threats. They entered a town. They saw a few people out, some walking fast and purposefully, some standing and talking in pairs or little groups. Amanda was wondering why she couldn"t see anyone riding a bicycle - it seemed odd, they were all over the place in Seattle - when Sharon called out:

"Do you see what I see?"

"What?" shouted Amanda. Sharon raised her hand from the handlebar and pointed a finger and when Amanda"s eyes followed its direction, she saw a large restaurant signboard with big white letters spelling out: WE ARE OPEN.

"Interesting," she called to Sharon.

"Check it out? There"s an exit coming up."

"Okay."

They got off the highway and turned twice before coming to a stop in the restaurant"s empty parking lot. It was one of those old diners, with tinted gla.s.s windows that let them see there were actually a few people inside. It really seemed that the restaurant was open for business. This was the first time Amanda and Sharon had seen an open restaurant in quite a long while.

They got off their bicycles and Amanda said:

"Why don"t you go and find out what"s up? I"ll stay with the bikes."

"Okay."

Sharon set off and Amanda followed, pushing the bikes with a hand on each of the handlebars. She stopped by the pillar supporting the roof over the entrance and set the bikes against the pillar and took off her backpack. She thought it would be good idea to move the Glock into the big inside pocket of her parka.

She"d just finished doing that when Sharon emerged from the diner, looking pale. She walked up to Amanda, head down and moving fast, and as she did the door to the diner opened and a man stepped out.

He was tall and fat and ugly and had a flat, stupid face. He was dressed in dirt and grease: dirty greasy baseball cap, dirty greasy anorak, dirty greasy jeans. He called out:

"Hey girls! Come on inside. It"s been a while since we had some nice female company here."

Looking at him, Amanda was sure he was speaking gospel truth. She said:

"No thanks. We"ll be on our way." She put her leg over her bike and ugly fat f.u.c.k started walking towards her, saying:

"Now just hold on a minute. My treat! I"ll treat both of you nice girls to something hot, heh."

Amanda saw dark shapes appearing right behind the tinted gla.s.s door to the diner. She took out her pistol and pointed it at the ugly fat f.u.c.k and said:

"Stop."

He did, mouth opening in amazement.

"Now what the f.u.c.k - "

"Shut up! Turn around. Turn around now, or I"ll blow a hole in your stupid face. Good. Now walk back inside. Move, a.s.shole!"

The door to the diner opened and another throwback lumbered out, calling:

"Hey, what the f.u.c.k is this, what"s going on - "

Amanda fired. She"d aimed at the top of the gla.s.s door but forgot how hard the Glock kicked, and hit the light mounted over the entrance. It shattered with a loud crash, spraying both men with gla.s.s. One of them shouted in pain.

"Go!" Amanda shouted to Sharon, and they were off on their bikes like rockets. Amanda quickly fell behind: it was difficult to handle the bike with the gun still in her hand. She shot a glance back when they were exiting the parking lot. No one was chasing them; a small group of men had gathered in front of the door; one of them was bending over with hands to his face.

She put the gun back inside her parka, and caught up with Sharon. They didn"t have any breath to waste on talking until they were back on the highway, and at least a couple of kilometers from the diner. They drew level and slowed down and Amanda asked:

"What the h.e.l.l happened in there?"

"They had a body on the counter. They tried to block the view but I saw it anyway. An old body, all grey and with sagging skin and tufts of white hair. I turned and walked out the moment I saw it, before they said anything. They seemed pretty surprised when I walked in."

"What the f.u.c.k where they doing with that body?"

"I don"t know. I have no idea. But there was a very bad vibe in the air."

They cycled on in silence for a while. Then Amanda said:

"From now on, no stopping. We keep going until we reach your cousin"s place."

"Right on."

Small flakes of snow started to drift down from the sky again, sticking to their faces and melting instantly. It promised to be a very long day.

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