“I don’t understand,” says Louise.
“Medicine,” the woman says. “Since most of the rural hospitals closed, people drive a hundred, two hundred miles just to see a dentist, except who can afford a dentist? So we go around the country and set up these clinics, try to get people straightened out.”
“For money.”
“God no,” she says. “This is—we’re not for profit. Started in the nineties to help third world countries, you know. Sending doctors to Indonesia and the Amazon rain forest. But now—well, there’s just too much need here.”
“Is that why all the people?” asks Louise, looking back at the campground.
The woman shrugs. “It’s kinda the chicken and the egg. Used to be folks would drive to us and sleep in their cars, waiting in line. But now, well, the lines are home. So we come to them.”
Simon nods, watching the men work. They are building a hospital like you set up a circus. A tent for the elephants. A tent for the clowns.
The thought of clowns makes Simon shudder.
Most of Vietnam will be underwater by 2050, as well as parts of China and Thailand.
He grits his teeth, his neck muscles tensing.
There used to be a country called Australia.
There used to be a country called Norway.
In the distance he sees the Prophet, standing under a willow tree, talking to a teenage boy, maybe sixteen, tall and wiry, wearing a leather duster despite the heat. As he watches, the Prophet points back toward the campsite. The kid in the duster shakes his head, points up the road. They argue for a moment, then the Prophet nods and the kid in the duster walks to the road. The Prophet follows.
Simon nudges Louise. She says goodbye to the woman with the clipboard, and they set off after them. It occurs to Simon to give Paul his privacy, but Simon’s anxiety won’t let him. There’s an idea in the back of his head that wherever the Prophet is going, he is going there to talk about Simon.
They follow the pair through some low trees. There is a clearing on the far side. The kids they saw doing mountain bike tricks are assembled in a loose circle. The Prophet stands in the center with Duster and Duane.
Simon grabs Louise’s hand, pulls her into the shadows behind a tree.
“Is this it?” she asks. “Are we gonna make out?”
“Sshh.”
Simon leans through the gap, trying to hear. Most of the kids are in board shorts and T-shirts, some of them vaping. Duane is showing his sword tattoo, flexing his forearm. Another kid is jumping his bike on its back tire nearby, making small clouds of dirt with each hop.
“I know,” says Duster, “but nothing ever changes. So maybe forget saving the world and just blow some shit up.”
“Each step is a step,” says the Prophet.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means of course things change. But slowly. One step at a time. This is what God says.”
Duster spits into the dirt. “We don’t believe in God.”
“Their god. I’m talking about ours.”
“We get a god?”
“We get the God. And he is mighty and righteous and pissed.”
Duster lights a cigarette, blows a smoke ring. “So on this quest you need what?” he asks.
“The right things in the right order. The Babe in Arms, the Burning Witch, the Last Stand.”
The Last Stand? thinks Simon, then feels a hand clamp down on the back of his neck. One of the crew has returned from the porta-potty and discovered Simon and Louise eavesdropping. He shoves them into the clearing.
“Spies,” he calls.
Simon shrugs himself loose. The sun is high overhead, and he’s sweating in the small of his back.
“Friendlies,” says Louise, then freezes. The skate punks and BMXers have all pulled pistols and knives. They’re aiming them at Simon and Louise. Duster holds an honest-to-God six-shooter that was holstered on his hip like a cowboy.
The Prophet waves them off. “Namaste,” he says. “We’re on the same side. Chill your aggression.”
They lower their weapons reluctantly. To pull a gun and not use it feels like going to a dance and leaving before the music starts.
“These are my friends,” says the Prophet. “Simon and Louise.”
“I’m a pacifist,” Simon tells them.
“Fuck pacifism,” says Duster. “I was at Parkland. I know the truth.”
“What truth?” says Louise, aware, always aware, that hers is the only black face in the group, and this group has guns.