Reports on the Internet Apocalypse by Wayne Gladstone

Author:Wayne Gladstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Report 8

Stanton was good enough to fly us back to Sydney before he went off to California. I thought about following him out there, but Margo wasn’t ready to leave.

“We’re in another Apocalypse,” I said. “A member of ICANN has been murdered, and they’re holding a meeting right now.”

“I understand that,” she replied. “Let them have their meetings. You won’t learn anything more until they happen. Besides, you deserve a vacation.”

Margo clearly didn’t know how lazy I’d been the preceding month, but I agreed to stay back a few days and reconnect after the ICANN meetings. Stanton gave us the number of his L.A. landline so we could reach him.

We had dinner that night at some fusion place Margo was excited to try. She and the server had a long talk about tomatoes. Afterward we got rooms at a hotel for one night, and agreed we’d figure out longer-term plans in the morning. That night, I heard the phone ring in Margo’s room. I did a good job of not listening. I didn’t want to hear her speaking to her boyfriend. So I distracted myself, reading the pamphlets in my room about local attractions, and when that wasn’t enough, I grinded my leg into a bag of ice on the bed, rubbing the cubes where a batshit Australian billionaire had devoured my calf only hours before.

The next morning, Margo was in good spirits and had decided we should be proper tourists. “Let’s take the ferry to Manly,” she said.

“What’s there besides Stanton’s place?” I asked.

“Who cares?” she said. “We’re gonna take the ferry back once we get there anyway, but it passes right by the Sydney Opera House.”

* * *

I’m not sure if there’s much diversity in ferry design but the boat we got on looked just like the one in New York that takes you to Staten Island. Or, at least that’s my memory. I hadn’t taken it in years, and I certainly didn’t try to accost Gladstone on it the way he imagined in his journal. The only difference I could see between the Staten Island Ferry and this one was Aussies had no problem leaving tripping hazards around because, I guess, no one sues here. I stumbled over some rope left on the deck, catching myself on the railing.

“You all right?” Margo asked.

“Fine,” I said, even though the bite marks in my calf were flaring up.

Margo was happy, and why not? This Australian “winter” felt to be a lovely seventy degrees and the sky and water were having a fuck-you contest to see who could be more blue. I’d seen a bubbling giddiness in Margo that made her move in tiny hops when she let it, but today she was also keeping watch, not completely at ease.

“Grab us a seat on the left side,” she said. “Opera House side. I have to find a bathroom.”

I sat on a bench along the outside of the ferry and tried to pretend I was on vacation. After all, this was how I’d probably dress if I ever took one.

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