2 Degrees Read online

  Table of Contents

  Titlepage

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  About Bywater

  For Dirty Bird, a most pugnacious penguin.

  METRIC CONVERSION GUIDE

  1 Centimeter = 0.39 Inches

  1 Meter = 3.28 Feet

  1 Kilometer = .62 Miles

  1 Liter = 1.06 Quarts

  AN INCREASE OF 2⁰C IS EQUIVALENT TO

  AN INCREASE OF 3.6⁰F

  Scientists estimate that if the Earth’s average temperature increases by 2⁰C that life on our planet will forever change as we know it. Rising seas, mass extinctions, super droughts, increased wildfires, intense hurricanes, decreased crops, scarcity of fresh water, and the melting of the Arctic are expected. The impact on human health would be profound. Rising temperatures and shifts in weather would lead to reduced air quality, food and water contamination, and an explosion of infections carried by mosquitoes and ticks.

  TO CONVERT TEMPERATURES FROM CELSIUS TO FAHRENHEIT, MULTIPLY BY 1.8 AND ADD 32

  The boiling point of water at 1 atmosphere of pressure

  is 100⁰C and 212⁰F

  Temperature Conversion

  0⁰ Celsius = 32º Fahrenheit

  2⁰ Celsius = 35.6º Fahrenheit

  10⁰ Celsius = 50º Fahrenheit

  20⁰ Celsius = 68º Fahrenheit

  30⁰ Celsius = 86º Fahrenheit

  40⁰ Celsius = 104º Fahrenheit

  50⁰ Celsius = 122º Fahrenheit

  100⁰ Celsius = 212º Fahrenheit

  Chapter 1

  “There are too many of us.” Eve slipped the silk remnant from her pocket and looked up at Sharon. “We have to find another way. I don’t have the strength to fight through the crowd.” She wrapped the fabric adorned with the blues, reds, purples, and yellows of long-extinct flowers around her neck.

  Sharon pulled her spouse into her arms and kissed her forehead. “I know, my love.” She glanced from the ravenous human mass milling in the street to the building towering over them. Blood-red words and numbers scrolled across its solar wall panels, spelling out: Friday, September 4, 2092, 9:37 a.m., 20⁰C. The City of Boston, Regional Capital of the National Order of North America

  Eyeing the digital screen, Sharon considered the irony of such a benign description for a place that ate the weakest alive. “I’ll find a different road.”

  Eve’s hands shook as she tried to tie the scarf. The ashen pallor of her skin made the presence of cancer in her body obvious. “I’ll have more energy once I get a dose of chemotherapy from Dr. Ryan.”

  “Let me.” Sharon curled her fingers over Eve’s to still her trembling. “There’s a shortcut not too far.” She tied the ends of the scarf into a loose knot. “We have to get past the edge of this crowd first. I’ll hold you close.” She slipped an arm around her and struggled to move them forward against the arrhythmic cadence of Boston’s desperate inhabitants. Every cell in her body tuned in to the frequency of sheltering Eve from ugliness and keeping her safe.

  A clutch of masked street cleaners pitched another stiff corpse into the back of a lorry-hydro.

  “You’re going too fast,” Eve protested quietly, as Sharon maneuvered them through a tangle of jostling people, each ravenous for space along State Street, near the region’s only food distribution center. “I can’t keep up.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” The essence of the dead in the foul stench of the city clawed at Sharon. The reek reminded her that death wanted Eve, too. “We can’t slow down, though. It isn’t safe here.”

  To protect Eve, she cloaked her emotions and kept moving. The symbiosis between pain and life dictated that one didn’t exist without the other. No matter how much it hurt to see Eve suffer, Sharon kept them running from the dreadful alternative that freedom from pain offered.

  A derelict, wide-eyed and stumbling, veered into them, his filthy hands pawing at Eve’s body to keep from falling. Eve grunted and struggled to free herself.

  Sharon grabbed the frayed collar of his shirt and yanked him from Eve. “Don’t touch her,” she snapped.

  One of his hands curled around the strap to Sharon’s satchel. “What is that?” He sniffed the air, and tugged. “Give it to me,” he growled. “That smell. It’s good. Give it to me, stupid woman.”

  Panic pulsed through Sharon. One man she could handle. But she didn’t stand a chance against a crowd of starving people keyed in to the notion that food might be in her satchel. “I don’t have anything.” She lifted him to eye level. “Let go—or I’ll hurt you.”

  “Give it to me.” Spit bubbled at the corners of his mouth. The pointed end of a shiv tipped from the open pocket of his coat.

  Sharon stared into his milky eyes, searching for a reason not to harm him. “I said let go. If you don’t, you’ll regret it.” She mourned the little piece of her soul that would be lost with all the other little pieces if he forced her to make her point. But like water, food and shelter, violence kept her and Eve alive in an unforgiving world. She’d pay whatever the price to keep Eve safe.

  “Fuck you,” he snarled, and slapped her face.

  Sharon put a hand to her stinging cheek as he reached for the shiv.

  “No!” Eve cried.

  “I warned you,” Sharon said through gritted teeth. She rammed the heel of her boot hard into the side of his knee. Bone crunched as his leg snapped into a grotesque angle.

  Clutching the hem of Sharon’s jacket in his dirty hands, he shrieked and crumpled at her feet.

  She shut his agonizing screams out of the fragile part of her heart, and pushed his hands away. An urgency to get Eve to safety and the medicine that kept her leukemia contained drove Sharon past the disgust at what she’d done.

  “Wait.” Eve reached for the man writhing and moaning on the ground. “You broke his leg. We can’t leave him.”

  “He didn’t give me a choice. We have to keep going.” Sharon took Eve’s hand. “You’re my worry. Not him, nor anyone else.”

  Eve glanced over her shoulder. “He needs help.”

  “We don’t have any to give.” Sharon searched for a way through the twisted tangle of people unfazed by the bawling man. “Just a little farther. Please, let’s keep moving.” To support more of Eve’s weight, Sharon pulled her close and wove through the throng.

  Graffiti-covered buildings battered by war and storms flanked them. Jagged fingers of broken glass jutted from rotting window sills, all of it reminders of the time before relentless storms, disease, and human conflict ripped the world apart. The couple stepped over and around trash picked clean of calories by starving people and animals alike.

  Soldiers prowled the streets in pairs, fingers poised above the triggers of their spectralettos. The sleek and steely laser weapons hung from thick braids of parachute cord over their shoulders.

  The feeling that she was being watched skittered up Sharon’s back. Had the soldiers witnessed her skirmish with the derelict? She scanned for a way through the street heaving with the hungry.

  A lanky soldier eyed them from a doorway across the street. The letters NONA spread out in gold across a black helmet that sat low on his head. Sharon looked at the ground. Adrenaline surged
through her blood. “We can’t stop here.” She pressed her cheek to Eve’s and pushed through the crowd with her shoulder. “If the soldiers notice us, they might want to search my satchel.”

  The stink of the dying city hitched a ride on each breath, guaranteeing that even after Sharon left this place behind for the sweet earthen scent of her fallow farm, the funk would persist inside of her like a parasite.

  Eve’s shallow breaths against her neck made Sharon’s pulse quicken. She tamped down the urge to scream and shove her way out of the pitiable herd. But going unnoticed by the soldiers or anyone in the swarm of people kept them free to move. Her resolve to protect Eve by delivering her to Dr. Ryan at the gated community on Beacon Hill helped Sharon to maintain her wits.

  “Let’s rest. Just for a second.” Eve tugged Sharon to a stop in front of a stone bench. Taking Sharon’s hand, she sat and pulled Sharon down with her. “No one cares about two ragged women. There are thousands of us in the crowd. Besides, I’m worried about you. That man back there. He’ll surely die with a broken leg.” She put a hand to Sharon’s cheek. “Where is the kind farmer who gave me food and a place to rest all those years ago? Where is the woman I fell in love with?”

  Eve’s questions burned into Sharon like a hot branding iron. “I’m still here.” She covered Eve’s hand with hers. “Always.” Guilt and strength that came from indifference to everyone but Eve warred inside her. “No matter what, I can’t lose you. The man back there was already going to die. I only prevented him from taking us with him.” The words tasted like shards of glass. She craved the long-lost days when the idea of death existed as a far-off certainty that came for most only after a full life. Now, no one was safe. Ugly and regrettable things had to be done in order to stay alive. “You’re all I have left. I love you with my whole heart.”

  “My sweet farmer. You used to be so kind and trusting.” Eve turned Sharon’s hand over and kissed her palm. “Don’t lose you in order to keep me.”

  “Please don’t think less of me. It’s just—kindness and trust killed my parents. Carelessness murdered my brother Mark. And war took my other brother, Jon. I can’t let my guard down. You’re all I have.” Sharon caressed Eve’s cheek. “I love you so much.”

  “And I love you.” Eve leaned into her.

  Sudden shouting nearby flustered Sharon. She dared to look back at the soldier in the doorway. Relief pricked the bubble of disgust brought by the sight. Someone else occupied the soldier’s sadistic notice.

  He lifted a cigarette to his lips while the soldier next to him held a spectraletto to the head of a bare-chested man kneeling before them. Blood oozed from the scarlet, ragged hole burned into the man’s jaw by the weapon’s laser. The soldier’s thumb rested on the dial that adjusted the gun’s strength. Laughing at their new captive, one of them shot a finger of fire into the other side of their victim’s face.

  Fear pressed the air from Sharon’s chest. “We’ve got to go. I’ll carry you if I have to.”

  Eve nodded. “I know.” The acquiescent turn of her lips into a smile suggested that she’d do the thing she always did for Sharon: draw from her dwindling reserves of strength and keep going.

  Toxic guilt bubbled in Sharon’s veins. It paled in comparison to grief, though. She tried to escape her simmering emotions by focusing on the present. “Something doesn’t seem right today. There are more NONA soldiers than usual. Let’s get your medicine and go home.” She stood and helped Eve to her feet.

  Eve whispered into the side of Sharon’s neck. “We’ll be okay.”

  We’ll be okay. Sharon turned the words over in her head and clung to the strength that protecting Eve cultivated inside of her. “My Eve, you are my strength.” Slipping her hand into Eve’s, she made a path forward.

  The cacophony of the hungry mob drowned out the shouting soldiers trying to keep order. Soon the food distribution building’s doors would open and rations would be passed out to the thousands of people incapable of feeding themselves. Each person would receive a six-ounce freeze-dried patty of beetle larvae, potato, and kale.

  Sharon glanced around for a way through. Behind them, abandoned structures long ago drowned by the rising sea thrust up from the water like trees drowned by a wetland. Their decay, combined with the human waste clogging the Charles River and the stink of the refugee camp on Boston Common left the city washed in filth and disease.

  Ahead, the gold dome atop the State House glinted in a ray of morning sun peeking through the overcast sky. NONA soldiers stood along the length of the top of the concrete wall surrounding Boston’s only remaining government building, now the regional seat of NONA. Their spectralettos pointed at the voracious crowd. Famine pervaded all the nooks and crannies of the city. Everyone knew hunger and thirst.

  “There.” Sharon pointed to a narrow empty street leading to Beacon Hill. “The shortcut. We’ll have to keep an eye out for Banditti. They don’t wait in line for food. They steal it.”

  “I’ve got your back.” Grabbing the hem of Sharon’s jacket, Eve shadowed her into the dimly lit corridor.

  Sharon whispered, “It’s all I need,” and then slipped into the passageway.

  Nothing moved in the deserted, garbage-strewn street. A sinister energy oozed through the space. Instinctive reflex had a mind of its own; Sharon put a hand to the flap of her satchel. Closed, but she knew that already. She ignored her analytical inner voice, letting instinct drive. Her gut never let her down.

  She unbuttoned her jacket and unsnapped the clasp to the baldric that concealed her claw hammer. With her jacket open, she shivered in the dampness of the dank street. She’d never gotten used to the persistent cool, wet weather that settled over Boston when the melting of Greenland’s massive ice sheet shut down the ocean current that brought warmth from the Gulf Stream to the North Atlantic. When was that? She tried to remember. Five years? Ten?

  Sharon felt Eve tremble against her. The cancer that ravaged Eve’s body made it hard for her to stay warm. “Beacon is at the end. Dr. Ryan’s house will give us a chance to get out of the cold.”

  The stony structures along the narrow street blotted out the day’s indifferent light. Tension vibrated through Sharon as she let her eyes adjust to the relative darkness. A deep breath steadied her jangling nerves. Sight, hearing, smell, touch, and intuition kicked in like an army circling the wagons.

  A clicking sound, regular and metallic, stilled her momentum. She studied the space for the source. Her attention stopped on a rusted gutter that slunk over the top of a building and down its flank before curving upward a few centmeters from the ground.

  Water dripped in regular succession from its rusted mouth onto a piece of metal refuse. Tick, tick, tick like the antique clock that used to hang in her grandmother’s kitchen. A dumpster that likely hadn’t been emptied for years spilled over with trash. Sharon watched it for signs of movement as they continued past it to the end of the street.

  Muted light brightened their route. Just a few more meters to the relative safety of Beacon Hill. Iron fencing that walled off the brownstone buildings of their destination punctuated the end of the alleyway.

  Someone small and wrapped ghost-like in a blanket lunged around the corner, blocking their path. Sharon’s senses tripped into alarm. “Who’s there?” Her hand went to her hammer.

  The ghost person let go of the blanket. It fell to the ground, revealing a frail, dirty little boy. He wore frayed cotton pants and an unzipped leather jacket too large for him. Ragged embroidery of a long-extinct United States of America flag dotted the upper right breast pocket. He cupped his hands and said, “Please.”

  The last person Sharon had seen wearing a United States of America flag had been hanging dead from a broken light-post during the War of Earth’s Rebellion, the fourth world war. The United Kingdom of Asia had destroyed what was left of America’s electrical grid during the fighting and hanged those who tried to repair it. “Where’d you get that jacket?” Sharon asked. “You know it’s
considered treason to wear that flag? If NONA soldiers catch you, they’ll throw you in jail. Or worse.”

  “What’s your name?” Eve inched toward the boy.

  Sharon grabbed Eve’s elbow. “Don’t trust him.” She looked from Eve to the boy and back, wishing she could let her guard down, if only for a second. Let concern for a child smooth out the edges. “Eve, please, be careful.”

  “It’s fine.” Eve brushed the boy’s black shaggy hair from his eyes. “He can’t be more than ten.” She crouched to his level and touched the wooden carving hanging from his neck. “Is that a polar bear?”

  He scratched his cheek with dirt-caked fingernails and nodded. Grime covered his dark skin and black hair. But his wide brown eyes shone clear and bright.

  “He’s probably an Inuit refugee.” Eve let go of the carving. “Boston’s been taking them in for as long as I can remember. Once the permafrost melted and the polar bears and seals went extinct, they had nowhere else to go.”

  “These days, we’re all refugees,” Sharon said. “Let’s leave him be.”

  Eve put her hands to her knees and struggled to rise from the boy. “We should give him something to eat.”

  Sharon slipped an arm under Eve’s. “I’ve got you.”

  “Por favor.” The boy picked up his blanket in one hand while holding the other out. “S’il vous plaît.”

  Two bright red socks knitted into the weave of the dirty blanket whispered to Sharon of a long time ago. “My grandfather took me to see the Red Sox play when I was your age. You should go find your family. We don’t have anything to give you.” Taking up Eve’s elbow she tried to maneuver past him.

  “Bitte.” The boy kept pace. “Asseblief. Anugraha.” He raced ahead, blocking Sharon and Eve’s path. “Sila.” He reached for the strap of Sharon’s satchel. “Qîng.”

  She caught his wrist, but avoided looking into his eyes. “No.”

  He whimpered and pulled away. “Please.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But no.”