Page 9 of Evolved

That’s the best we could figure out to leave a clear message that will hopefully draw in other survivors to join us.

That’s what sits in for centuries of inventions now; that’s us playing surgeon to get the heart of the country beating again, and it feels like cavemen rubbing sticks together to make fire.

Knox pulls his gun and gestures with his chin for me to go behind him.

I do, pulling my own gun since now I carry one everywhere, and together, we slip silently into the darkened hallway.

Enough feeble gray light comes in through the open office doors that we don’t need a flashlight as we walk down the painted Cox Corridor.

If a mouse moved across this massive building, we might hear it, and that’s not an exaggeration.

I finger the edge of the sharpie cap as we walk toward the center of the building.

Gran didn’t even ask what I intended to write on the post-it notes when we got here, just waved us off as she scrolled through channels on her ham radio. She just assumed I’d have a solid persuasive argument tucked into my sleeve, but I’ll be goddamned if I can think of one good reason any of them should join us.

Of the four people in our little group, one is already dead, one is sick, one is Knox, and one is me.

TEN MINUTES LATER,I hover in one of the grandest rooms in North America, the Great Rotunda, holding a pack of assorted colored neon post-it notes, the sharp chemical scent of sharpiesingeing the inside of my nostrils, and my mind draws a blank.

It’s like I’ve lost basic command of fine musculature. My fingers know how to pop the cap, and they understand how to hold the marker, but every time I settle on a phrase, they freeze up, refuse to comply, and by then, I’ve decided how stupid the words were.

Knox watches me silently—at first, I think with patience, then confusion, then dawning understanding.

He’s figured out my secret.

The speechwriter can’t write.

“Maybe just go with something basic,” he says quietly, his voice a low rumble that takes the curve of the walls, the paintings of US history, and echoes like a motorcycle up to the dome above. “‘The President survived’ or ‘you’re not alone.’”

“It’s not enough. Imagine you’re a senator or a congressperson.” I glance up at him in the dim gray light flicking from the cloudy day outside through distant clerestory windows above, my voice echoing like it’s spinning up a drain instead of down. “You just buried your family, and you’re facing the rest of your likely sad and confusing life without them. What would inspire you not just to join someone but to follow them? Maybe fight for them?”

His lips curl sideways in amusement. “That’s a big ask of some marker scrawled on post-its.”

“It’s what we need, though. A slogan or a quick phrase that will instill hope and confidence.”

“Okay, we need it, but we don’t have it. What can we make now? A back-up sentence. Simple. How about ‘help us rebuild.’”

I shake my head. “They’ll think that sounds laborious. Easier to wander off or follow the first crackpot they meet.”

“Viola talked about a clean slate. Can you work with that?”

“Maybe.”The slate is clean. Now we decide what to add? Afresh start? Let’s build the world we want? The future is here?Slogans have a way of writing themselves. You have lines you like on the campaign side. Sometimes they land and sometimes they don’t. Other times, they soar and take on a life of their own. The pressure feels too big, though, to create the right one, right now, on the fly, to prepare them for following a tiny sick old person.

What if I get it wrong and people don’t join?

Worse, what if they do, only to show up and decide they won’t follow her?

My fingers start shaking, the sharpie tip waggling back and forth.

I keep seeing Gina’s face when we went in to bury her, dead and bloated and a hundred colors no skin should be.

A choking sound leaves me.

Knox takes the marker very carefully from my hand.

L-E-T--S B-U-I-L-D A F-U-T-U-R-E T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R he writes in clean block letters, one per post-it, and sticks them up in order on a painting of Washington signing the Declaration of Independence, right over his shiny black knee-high boots, a cacophony of neon squares no one who comes here can possibly miss.

He writes instructions below to return every third day at noon here in the Capitol Building to join President Viola Wagner in the rebuilding of the New America.

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