A Beginning at the End Read online

  Except this wasn’t a client swooping in at the very end. Or Moira texting to say that she’d decided Krista was right, and that she really loved Frank after all and wanted to have an even bigger budget, along with a long list of corporate-event referrals.

  Instead, it was an email. An email of emails, in fact. Krista watched as the bits and bytes traversed through the shaky data network and loaded line by line on her phone.

  To: Krista Deal

  From: San Francisco Email Archive Services

  Subject: New Server Restored! See Past Emails From Kristen Francis Now!

  Dear Krista Deal,

  Email Archive Services is happy to announce the completion of our latest email server restoration. And with our new Pacific Metro server clusters, the past is now at your fingertips—no more waiting for the national server to connect. Just imagine, re-reading messages from Kristen Francis and other loved ones. Remember getting these?

  June 2018: Im sorry about last night

  August 2018: Sober this time

  January 2019: Trying again

  March 2019: Rehab

  We’re currently working on restoring data from other pre–End of the World hardware and will have even more data available soon. Sign up now by calling 415-RECOVER.

  Note: Your privacy is important to us. To stop receiving these notifications, reply to this email with the word “Unsubscribe” in the body of the message.

  Kristen Francis, the type of mother who thought it was so clever to name her only child after herself—the type of mother that was worse than a worldwide pandemic. Clean? Sober? Alive? Krista checked the dates; of course she didn’t remember these messages. They’d arrived during that window between her cutting off her mother and the start of the End of the World outbreak. Those messages meant nothing then, and they’d mean nothing now.

  No thanks.

  Krista hit REPLY immediately, then typed in the word UNSUBSCRIBE before sending it off.

  Only forward. Never back. That’s what she discovered years ago. Krista snapped back and loaded up the Metronet headlines, anything to get away from her mother. President Hersh to address first fatality in new flu epidemic. She clicked on the article, though immediately switched off when she saw the name Dr. Dean Francis mentioned regarding communicable diseases.

  No thanks, part two. Krista kept Uncle Dean firmly out of her orbit.

  Father offers reward for missing pre–End of the World pop star MoJo.

  Reward?

  It was probably nothing, but she clicked it anyway. At this point, she’d take anything.

  Evan Hatfield, the father of pre–End of the World pop star MoJo, made headlines several weeks ago in the UK when he announced that he believed he found evidence that his daughter was alive. Yesterday, he made an even bigger splash on both sides of the Atlantic by claiming that not only was MoJo—real name Johanna Hatfield—alive, but living on the West Coast of the United States in a Metro area.

  Krista skimmed the bulk of the article, which covered MoJo’s final performance at Madison Square Garden and her discography, along with speculation that this was all a publicity stunt designed to go with Hatfield selling recently uncovered demo tracks and unpublished songs—a well-timed media event to offset the public’s growing paranoia about recent flu reports out of south Florida. Krista was about to snap her phone shut when the last quote caught her eye.

  “I’m happy to report that Reunion Services has offered to partner with me in my search to find my family. As it stands, whoever confirms the location of my daughter will receive a large payment. An unprecedented award with an unprecedented opportunity: this search is open to any and all Reunion Services agents, not just a single assignment. Of course, I ask that you respect her privacy in doing so. This is, after all, a family affair.”

  An unprecedented award? Krista was technically a Reunion Services agent—really, anyone with a Residence License could be one—and though she’d even completed a few contracts, the money hadn’t been worth the hours of calling and sifting through records. Plus you had to actually make the connection, and the last gig kind of wrecked that for her. She’d seen some weird, even uncomfortable stuff dealing with families and supposed loved ones while planning events, but nothing even approached the Reunion Services contract where a man looked for his sister, only leaving out the tiny detail that they were estranged.

  Reconnecting people without consent veered too close to her own blood ties, enough for her to disable text notifications of new available contracts.

  Except when “an unprecedented award” was involved. And for a pop star? She was a public figure; MoJo had to know something like this was coming. The singer might even be in on it for some sort of career relaunch.

  Plus, that kind of money would change everything. Maybe Krista could ride things out until everyone got over the current wave of paranoia and returned to the more fun kind of post-apocalyptic life, one that still went to PASD support groups and cried a lot, but also at least had weddings and work events. And if MoJo was supposedly in a California Metro?

  Between her networking skills and MoJo’s assumed location, Krista had a head start. She sent a text to the automated Reunion Services number to enable gig notifications. The first response showed that this MoJo business was indeed true. Including the reward.

  Those anxieties? Krista told herself her favorite piece of advice.

  Get over it.

  Krista stared at her phone, an outdated model even by today’s standards, but its battery lasted way longer than a smartphone—which meant a lot when Metros still urged residents to conserve power and the occasional blackout wasn’t a surprise. A low-resolution photo of MoJo was trickling down pixel by pixel on her screen. She squinted at the final image, though there was no way to tell who the real person was between the photo’s quality and the teen singer’s wild spiky hair and star painted over her left eye. Add a good six years to the mix and there was no telling who MoJo was now.

  But it was a start. Funny how technology and social media created millions of jobs a few years ago, and now one pandemic later, the lack of such a thing created this glorified bounty hunter service. Krista considered the possibilities when the door behind her opened, a man walking past her in a business suit and silicone breathing mask. Even behind the mask, under the suit, the man’s demeanor screamed PASD.

  PASD from...what? Mourning? Fear? Every symptom counselors and therapists used to make big bucks these days? People tiptoed through life now, and PASD was more like paused.

  Paused.

  Definitely a more appropriate term than PASD.

  Krista smirked at her own cleverness.

  They looked at each other for a second, and she stood, stomach in, chest out, and gave her shoulder-length blond hair a toss worthy of a shampoo commercial, then walked to the elevator, a little sashay thrown in for good measure.

  Not that she wanted this guy’s attention that way. It was more of a general statement—even at twenty-nine, men offered little more than a distraction, and she didn’t have the patience for distractions of any type, particularly Y chromosomes. Her last extended fling felt more like completing a social and sexual checklist, and even the energy expended to avoid his calls was too much trouble.

  But in a morning filled with rumors and unease, someone had to demonstrate that life still moved on. It might as well have been Krista. After all, she’d learned that lesson long before any mutant viruses ended the world.

  Only forward. Never back.

  And definitely never paused.

  Krista marched straight to the elevator, chin held high, the opposite of the shell-shocked vibe that she’d carried when leaving Moira just a few minutes ago. The elevator dinged, opening to a tense-looking man staring straight at the ground. He stood a few inches taller than her, no mask on, brown hair, his eyes and facial structure and light tan complexion gi
ving away that one of his parents was probably Asian.

  Most importantly: wedding ring.

  Case closed. Not a potential client. “Excuse me,” she said to the man, extra level of professional saccharine in her tone.

  He remained unmoved, and Krista let an instinctive eye roll go as she reached around him to hit the already lit Parking 4 button. The elevator door slid closed, which was the last thing that Krista saw before the things went black and the floor dropped out from beneath her.

  Excerpt from Mayor Sees Potential for

  National FSB Initiative,

  San Francisco Metro Times:

  San Francisco’s Mayor Janovitz proclaimed the Family Stability Board initiative a massive success after a trial run of six months. “Over the last half year, we have reduced migration to Reclaimed Territory communes by 32% while getting more families and individuals into PASD therapy and support groups. In addition, we have intervened with 19 at-risk families, rehoming the children to FSB dorms while the parents receive psychiatric treatment,” said Janovitz. “We’re an inspiration to Metros all over. In fact, we’ve received several inquiries asking how other Metros can adopt this initiative, even unifying into a national standard.”

  However, the Mayor refused to address fallout from the recent Greenwood Incident, which has shaken both the local Metro residents and nearby Reclaimed communities. When pressed, his only comment was, “The loss of any life at this point is too much, but when five hundred people vanish without a trace, it’s troubling.” He refused to comment about whether Kay Greenwood and the Fourth Path cult were categorized as missing or presumed dead.

  Chapter Four

  Rob

  Rob needed to get to Sunny’s school.

  Fortunately, the elevator stopped falling after a second, jolting to a halt. That was a start.

  He—they, actually, as a woman had walked in while he was lost in thought—was surrounded by pitch-black and thick air, the only illumination coming from the green LED 1 above the door. Something overhead clicked and a thud echoed in the space, then the floor dropped again.

  Not as bad this time, just a fraction of a second, enough for him to stumble and grab the handrail before emergency light kicked in, dim floor lighting causing his eyes to adjust to the sudden visual change.

  And then it hit him.

  He hadn’t been in a room so cramped, so dimly lit since five years ago, that horrible day, that horrible moment in Quarantine CA14, a converted prison.

  “Do you need some water?” a woman’s voice had asked at the time while he knelt in the storage closet turned infirmary, a room slightly bigger than this elevator, with one big difference.

  The storage closet had a hospital bed for his unconscious wife.

  Shadows had cast from one emergency light in the corner. It was starting to dim, meaning the crank on it would need a refresh in about ten minutes. “Thank you,” he had replied before looking over. He recognized the woman from the quarantine community—she’d maybe been in Elena’s book club—but couldn’t connect her face with a name. Without Elena to pull him aside and whisper names, he was lost. Even after they’d been married for several years, her social graces never rubbed off on him.

  He nodded at the woman, then turned back to Elena. The door shut without any further words.

  Right when the latch clicked, all of Rob’s hopes funneled into an audible gasp from his wife. For maybe ten or fifteen seconds, Elena had a surge of life. It radiated past her bruised skin and the layers of hospital tubing, animating her more than he had seen in hours. She turned to Rob, though her half-opened eyes seemed to look past him.

  “Don’t be so serious,” she said in a rasp.

  “I’m here,” he said. “I’m here. Sunny’s right outside. Everything will be fine. Look at you, you look badass like that.” His brain spun, trying to say things to engage her, but her eyes glazed over, a failure to focus that clashed with the slightest of smiles that came to her mouth. “Things will be fine. You’ll heal up, we’ll get out of quarantine. I can finally show you the little cove off Point Lobos my parents used to take me to. I can’t believe we still haven’t gone. We’ll take Sunny.” He continued blubbering nonsense, a mixture of forward planning and apology and asking for forgiveness and spouting out how much he loved her, how they were going to make it, how Sunny couldn’t wait to see her again.

  A minute, maybe two passed as he continued, the whole time Elena looking at him but staring elsewhere until finally she sunk back into the cot. “And be good to yourself,” she whispered before letting out a final exhale.

  He threw the door open, his jaw and temples aching from a continuous scream for help. Down the hall, Sunny’s cries only amplified with every passing shout. At some point, the quarantine’s head doctor and nurse pushed past him, medical terminology and beeping instruments filling his ears.

  The whole memory became a muted blur, a never-ending list of questioning. If only he’d been a little faster the night before, a little stronger, that sort of thing. That morning, they would have sat in their bunk, making paper dolls or something joyfully frivolous with Sunny and the other quarantine children.

  Rob may have shielded Sunny from the rioting mob hours prior, but he wasn’t quick enough to protect Elena from their fury and chaos, or loud enough to flag down the necessary quarantine medical staff when he saw her on the concrete floor. Those facts created a bottomless chasm of guilt. Absolution never arrived, not a year later when quarantine ended, and not now, this instant some five years following the quarantine, here, in this elevator.

  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, caught in the flood of emotions triggered by claustrophobic walls and bad lighting.

  “Guess we’re stuck,” the woman said.

  Rob finally looked up, struggling to pull himself back into the moment. But she was right. There they were, caught in an elevator with no power. He pulled out his phone and looked at the coverage icon, only to find a big black X in the corner.

  No signal. No way to call a character witness for the hearing. And he was already going to be late. And beyond that, how was he going to explain everything?

  “Come on,” he said, jamming the buttons on the panel. He pressed the emergency phone icon, again and again.

  Nothing.

  “You know how much time has passed?” Rob asked the woman.

  “Four, five minutes? The power outage a few weeks back only lasted like thirty.”

  “Yeah, but one lasted a few hours not that long ago. You get any phone signal in here?”

  She pulled her phone out of her purse, then shook her head. “You have some place to be?”

  “My daughter, I gotta—” Rob hesitated, catching himself before he revealed too much. “I have to pick her up from school.”

  “Ah. Well, we may be stuck here awhile.” Something in the woman’s demeanor shifted; Rob couldn’t quite pinpoint it given the lighting, but it was a whole body change—even her tone seemed to dance a fine line between polite and calm, like a nurse talking someone through surgery. “I’m gonna knit.”

  The elevator’s four metal walls gave off a tiny echo with every word. Rob leaned forward to make sure he’d heard her correctly. “Knit?”

  “Good way to pass the time. I always carry some yarn and needles with me just in case. My cat winds up with all sorts of odd-shaped toys this way.” She settled into the floor, knees awkwardly tucked under her pencil skirt and coat folded into a seat cushion. “My name’s Krista, by the way. I’m an event planner.”

  “Rob. I work upstairs.” He reached down to her on the floor, offering a hand to shake. “Let’s find a way out of here.”

  * * *

  A good hour passed. Rob’s chipped fingernails offered evidence that the elevator door would not budge. Even in the dim view of emergency light, the ceiling held no access panel, just overhead bulbs and mirrored t
iles.

  They were stuck. And during that time, Rob’s thoughts shifted from finding a way out to what would eventually happen once they did get out.

  He’d have to talk. And he was terrible at talking.

  He talked to his daughter, of course. He talked to professionals. But people? In a social setting with the purpose of enjoying each other’s company? That was different. Those skills had atrophied years ago without Elena taking the lead. But he had to have these conversations, whether he was good at them or not. With the principal and possibly worse waiting at the school, he’d need as much practice acting so-called socially normal as possible.

  Krista made for good practice, a blessing in disguise. He wouldn’t necessarily call it charm but he’d managed to get a bit of reasonable conversation out of Krista. Nice superficial topics, things that would keep any social normalcy audit scorers happy. Krista was a wedding planner. Krista had a client on his floor, Moira the admin (She was engaged? Who knew?). Krista grew up in upstate New York, went to Hofstra University. In turn, he’d told her the same types of details. He grew up in San Francisco. He was quarantined at CA14.

  He didn’t mention Elena.

  Simple facts, though the lack of light probably disguised that he’d had to force the words out.

  Still, all things two friendly people would discuss. Social, stable, and very normal, which was a start, but an hour later and he hit the point where he had to go there. There was no recruiting anyone to go with him to the hearing, not with him already being late.

  Krista rubbed her cheeks and let out a contagious yawn, one that Rob fought against repeating. “So,” he said, strategically opening with small talk, “were you knitting a scarf for someone?”

  “Nah. I only had a little bit of yarn in my purse, so it’s just a rectangular thing to pass the time. It’s twenty-twenty-five, you’d think we’d have, like, holographic yarn by now. You ever wonder what technology’d be if the End of the World never happened?”

  “I suppose not. They have those cool vacuum robots in our building.”