Blackout

“Some of my fondest family memories are from the 2028 Power Crisis. I found an ancient copy of Monopoly in an upstairs closet and made everyone play. My father landed in jail, waved his arms angrily, knocked over a candle, and nearly burned up all the Chance cards.”

— Elizabeth Marsh, “What We’ve Lost”

February 2044.

Trawsfynydd, Wales.

Gemma stood outside the door to the toilet, having left Cian behind at the bar. She’d given him permission to just head back without her, but she wasn’t sure if he’d actually go. She rapped her knuckles on the back of the door again.

“Mike?” She figured she’d try again. “I’m not saying you need to come out. I can come in.” Silence. She knew he had gone into this one. “Mike, I’m going to be right out here, okay?” She leaned against the door, wishing she at least had her phone to fiddle with while she waited.

In the moments after they saw the explosion, a lot had happened. The presenter let them know, in broad strokes, there had indeed been an explosion. Police weren’t taking questions. They said they’d go live now to the scene, and then didn’t cut away, instead leaving another awkward shot of the virtual character, staring ahead silently, with their virtual breathing. And then? Nothing. The screen had gone completely dead. One by one everyone went into a bit of a panic, and had pulled their phones out, desperate for more news, some kind of information. Except none of their phones had service either.

Mike had flown into a rage, rambling, shouting. He had to get to her, he’d said. He had to get to London. But first, he told them, he had to use the toilet. That was 45 minutes ago. And so Gemma had waited. And waited. And waited. Waited through the speculation that some sort of coordinated attack was ongoing. Waited through further speculation that it was some sort of “Skynet type situation,” and soon all the humans would be dead. And finally, watched everyone filter out, alternatively wanting to just go home, wanting to go see if their phones worked elsewhere, or wanting to get off the grid before the robots descended and killed them all.

The bartender didn’t seem to care. Good for them. Keeping calm in the face of madness was an important bartender skill. But Cian couldn’t cope. And Gemma was worried. So she bid him goodnight and took up her post by the door to the disabled toilet.

“I need to close up soon,” the bartender said, poking their head round the corner. “You need me to get you through that door?”

“I know how to do it,” Gemma replied. The bartender nodded. She rapped on the door one last time. “Mike. I’m going to come in, okay? I hope you’re decent.”

“It’s locked,” said Mike. Finally, contact.

“Love, this is a bar,” she said. “You think there’s no way to get the bathroom door open when it’s locked? They probably have to do it multiple times a night.”

After a moment, the handle turned and the door popped open a crack. She pushed on it gently and it creaked open a bit further. She slipped inside, shutting it behind her again. Mike sat on the toilet lid looking frazzled. “Have they said what happened?”

Gemma shook her head. “No, love.”

“I’m sorry. I know they’re kicking us out. I just needed some space.”

“I know, love.”

“You don’t have to be like this, you know. I know what you really think of me. You don’t need to pretend to be nice just because I had a panic attack.” He wouldn’t look at her, instead staring down at his shoes.

She kneeled down in front of him. “Hey. Listen.” She tried to strike a warm, playful tone. “A guy out there? Older guy? He looked pretty wise. He said, and remember, he looked quite wise, he said if we’re not out of here in the next ten minutes, a load of Terminators are going to burst in and gun us all down.”

She could see him fighting a smile, which made her smile. “We’d never get that lucky,” he said.

“No, I know. You’re right. The bartender will actually kick the door in and murder us though, honestly, if we don’t get out of here.”

Mike sighed heavily and looked up at her. “You can go. I’ll be fine.”

“Nope,” she said. “Can’t do it. It’s taken me a few years but I’m finally paying it forward. Okay? Come on, up you get.” She put her arms around him and started trying to stand him up, and he quickly relented.

They’d stood at the shuttle call point for a while, pushing the button at varying frequencies and with varying degrees of desperation. But it never came, and indeed, the ring around the button never even lit up. “Whatever knocked out the TV must have also knocked out the bus,” Gemma said.

“Famously on the same system, buses and tellys,” Mike said.

And for that glib remark, she declared they had to walk back. “Just be happy it’s not raining,” she added. “Come on.”

The road seemed to stretch on infinitely, the blackness complete, total, except for the stars in the sky, and a thin strip of slightly lighter dark at the edge of the horizon. Their phone torches could barely show them the road under their feet, but with them off, their eyes adjusted just enough to be able to stay on the road. A few tiny specks of light danced in the far distance, guiding them to the facility.

“What do you think’s going on?” Mike asked. “Do you really think it’s a coordinated attack or something?”

“Well, the lights are clearly on out there,” Gemma said. “And they were on where we came from. And there’s no sign of a fire, smoke, anything. So no, I’m going to say no, I don’t think that.”

“This walk is going to take an hour, at least.”

“But hey,” she said, “we get to walk for an hour. So swings and roundabouts, really.”

He tried to laugh, but it just came out as panting. They were both perpetually out of breath: they rarely visited the gym, left the facility or did anything resembling a cardio workout. “Your set was amazing, by the way, Gemma. I still want to know about the Walsall song.”

“You know,” she said, “you can talk about her. We’ve got nothing but time.”

“It’s fine. I was just, I think I was in shock. I’m okay now.”

“Bollocks.”

“I’d obviously like to know she’s okay.”

“Will you go?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose I should.”

“Should you? She’s your ex-wife. It’s been what, a decade you said? Why haven’t you both moved on? Has she?” Her words were unexpectedly acidic.

“I still care about her, Gemma. We were married for⁠—”

“—for what, four years? Barely?” He stopped walking, causing Gemma to stop as well. She looked at him as best she could in the moonlight, but couldn’t quite make out his face. Just that he was staring at her. “Mike, I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”

“It’s been more like… fifteen years. Since we divorced, I mean.” He sounded a bit ashamed. “I just say a decade. At some point I stopped counting up.”

“After about ten years?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “I guess so.”

“You can’t get hung up on people like this, Mike!” She hammered him, her voice quite forceful. “You can’t get stuck like this. Look at you, you’re a fucking old man. You’ve let her take the best years of your life and she wasn’t even around.”

“Old man!” Mike was indignant. “I’m not even 50! And it’s not exactly like I wasn’t dating, working, living my life.”

“All while Elizabeth Marsh lived rent-free in your head, her memory stalking around in there, making you self-sabotage.”

“Why are you acting like you know me? Gemma, you don’t know me at all.”

“Mike! We talked on Linkup every night for months! Months and months! Do you know how often you brought up Elizabeth? It was a fucking lot! I never wanted to talk on the phone, or see you, because I didn’t want to come in second place behind a ghost.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Mike shouted back. “You never even gave me a chance. You could’ve at least told me hey, you talk about your ex too much.”

“How does she even still qualify as an ex! It was so long ago! If you’d had a child together, they’d legally be able to drink if they got it with a meal!”

Mike paced back and forth in the dark. They had to go far enough as it was without all the extra time they were wasting on his endless tantrums.

“You know me so well from all our months and months of talking, you say. You know how much I know about you, Gemma? I didn’t even know your goddamn surname until I saw it on your ID badge. What are your hobbies? Where are you from? What did you do before all this? How did you wind up in Wales?”

“Why would I share any of that with you?” Gemma rolled her shoulders, the weight of the guitar on her back starting to become unbearable. She lifted the straps up and slid it down, letting it dangle in her hand just above the ground. Her back and shoulders both gave one final cry of pain before settling into a soreness.

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “Why wouldn’t you?”

Gemma turned and wandered a few steps away, off into the grass on the side of the road. It was thick, soft, clearly not having been mowed in a while. She slowly lowered herself and the guitar down into it. “Mike, I don’t owe you my life’s story. I don’t owe you anything. I waited for you, can you not punish me for it by berating me?”

“Are you serious? You⁠—”

“—can we please, I can’t,” she interrupted. “Please. I’m so tired, Mike. This night has obviously not gone to plan. I’m fucking knackered, I just want to sleep. I’m not walking all the way the fuck back at this point.” She slid her shoes off one at a time, putting her socked feet into the grass. “You can keep going if you like.”

“Fine.”

She pushed her lower body out, slowly, taking care not to damage it further. She was feeling extremely fragile. Finally, ensconced in the long grass, she lay her head down on the padded guitar case. It sank down into the grass as well, leaving it at a decent height to serve as her makeshift pillow. She looked up into the sky, at all of the stars. The night air was brisk, and made her shiver a bit when the wind blew. But it was dark. Finally.

She heard shoes scraping aimlessly on the road a few feet away. Closing her eyes, she let out a light sigh. “Come on, then.”

“Are you⁠—”

“Hush now.”

Mike laid down in the grass next to her, putting his head on the other side of the guitar case. She didn’t look over at him, instead looking again at the stars.

“I was in a band,” Gemma whispered.

“What?”

“You asked what I did, before all this. I was in a band.”