The Book of Sand by Theo Clare

Author:Theo Clare [Clare, Theo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529156232
Publisher: Cornerstone
Published: 2022-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

22

MCKENZIE AND NEWT get into the car and begin driving into the city. The Audi smells of oranges and suntan lotion, and has little buttons to readjust the seats and endless computerised dashboard displays showing the road ahead, the local amenities, the time of sunset, the weather, et cetera. Newt drives, because McKenzie knows she’s too clumsy and will drive them into an arroyo or something. He follows the network of canals that run sometimes under the city and sometimes through it. The long concrete-banked structures are everywhere: sometimes they are derelict, with weeds growing and rubbish-strewn sand piles on either side; in other places they have been rejuvenated, with apartment buildings reflected in the silent canal, a waterfall, the water rushing on either side of a viewing platform, lit-up balconies casting their otherworldly light as the sun goes down.

Once this was a flourishing Hohokam settlement, thanks to the genius engineers’ irrigation system that allowed them to grow squash, corn and cotton. Five hundred years ago they abandoned the region, and the new city that centuries later rose in the ashes was named Phoenix, after the mythological bird. A celebration of renewal.

The Phoenix that McKenzie sees out of the window is placid and non-confrontational: the adobe houses, the endless boulevards, which are so stretched out and connected to the sky, drift past leaving a haze of images on her retina. Here people walk more slowly, with none of the clip-clipping, hurry-hurry business-like walks of the DC lawyers and military bigwigs; and no one wears the buttoned-up business suits and flesh-coloured tights of the interns and lecturers. Instead the women wear cotton frocks in shades of gelato – peach and strawberry. Or shorts and sneakers, little yellow T-shirts with glitter motifs, even the older grey-haired women. Men wear baseball caps and bandanas, and some grow their hair long.

‘People will watch us,’ McKenzie tells Newt. ‘We’re two young people in a top-dollar hotel, with a fuck-off awesome car. We’ll be very obvious to anyone who’s trying to find us.’

‘I don’t know who’d be trying to find us.’

She chews the side of her thumbnail thoughtfully. Outside, she sees scrubby carob and mesquite trees on the pavements, and tall palm trees. She sees sleek electric trams covered in advertising, and native jewellery stores painted sandstone-red. She sees the reflection of their Audi, ghost-like, sliding along the windows of the car showrooms.

‘Like you said – we’re closing in on something big,’ McKenzie says. ‘I’ve been reading about FEMA and all the camps.’

‘Me too. There aren’t any in Phoenix itself. They’re all south of here, near the Mexican border.’

‘But there is a FEMA office here. Except – well, I’ve looked at it on Google Maps and it’s straightforward, they’re not hiding anything. It’s based at the fire department. No blurred areas, nothing weird. You wanna see?’

She holds up her phone and Newt glances at the image. ‘But you said it wasn’t the FEMA base we’re looking for; it was other camps they’re creating.’

‘Yes, I’m still working on that.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.