Shame

Seb growled as he slammed the boot of the car shut. “I fucking hate this.”

In the harsh light of morning, as their hangovers bellowed, Samir's desperation had broken through. Hours of pleading, of laying his pathetic life bare on the floor of a hotel room, had secured him passage to San Francisco. An escape.

“I already regret this dude,” Seb sighed. “You don’t know what you’re walking into. This has to be temporary.”

“I get it.”

“Temporary.”

A brittle tension held for the first ten minutes of the drive, but as the city shrank behind them, the uneasiness dissolved. This was by no means their first road trip together. In the car neither the past nor the future mattered. There was only the present: snacks, easy chat, and the road ahead, the white lines of the road blurring under the California sun.

As they passed the Boundary, Sam wrung his hands and the speakers in the car crackled to life. “This is an official message from the Republic of California,” said the stilted digital man. “Surface transit through Central California is strongly discouraged.” As Sam squinted to listen, Seb rolled his eyes. His hand flapped sarcastically along with the warning, causing yet another warning from the car to put his hands back on the wheel. “Transit through this corridor is restricted to manual drive only. Services are highly limited and communications unavailable.”

“I’d turn this off if I could,” Seb groaned. “Fucking nanny state, right?”

“Is this safe, Seb?”

“It’s how I got down here, it’s fine.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“…do not stop to assist stopped vehicles or individuals who appear to be in need, for your own safety. Ensure you have the appropriate charge level necessary to reach way station now being indicated on your map…”

“It stops after this bit, I promise.”

Sam slid down the seat and pushed his sunglasses a bit higher on his face. He heard an unusual noise in his earpiece, a sort of whimper, followed by a click, and a repeated low beep. He tapped the side of it a few times to no effect.

“Oh,” Seb chuckled. “When’s the last time you were up this way?”

“Never?”

“Welcome to the past, my friend. You can take that out. It won’t work again until we get to the North.”

Two hours in, and Sebastian informed Sam they were just passing the old University of California campus in Santa Barbara.

“It was all right here, man. I mean, probably still is. Who knows. Sure someone’s using it for something.” Seb was so matter-of-fact about it. Sam had never really cared about CenCal, even though people like Seb thought you should. He was more curious up to a point, then dismissive. It was how you were meant to feel about CenCal. And it was a lot easier to just get onboard. The journey hadn’t been nearly as eventful as the Republic’s warning made it out to be. It was odd at first, how civilisation seemed to have a water’s edge, beyond which there was nothing. Just concrete barriers walling in the freeway, with frequent overhead signage: STAY IN CAR, DO NOT STOP, ENSURE TRANSPONDER IS ACTIVE. Sam had no idea what the ‘transponder’ was, but he did know the car chimed pleasantly every time they passed under one of those signs.

The barrier itself was at least ten feet tall, solid concrete, and covered top to bottom in all manner of graffiti and street art. Some of it seemed random, some of it was probably gang-related, and quite a lot of it was either anti-Magenta or anti-Republic. Hundreds of miles of liminal space. Sam tried to pick out patterns in the messages on the wall. A lot of it went over his head, references to laws or lawmakers, dates, names. But one phrase was repeated over and over, squeezed in anywhere it could fit: “SHAME ON YOU.” He muttered the phrase to himself a few times to fill the silence in his mind, lest it wander back to what they were running from.

Occasionally Seb would scoff at something, or make a bizarre claim about what was behind the barrier, but it didn’t matter. There was no way to verify his or any other claims. The barrier had no gaps. You could slip down quite a rabbit hole trying to investigate this online, should you choose to spend your time that way. And there had been at least a few nights over Sam’s unemployed years where he had. But of course, none of what you see is provably what there is. All the so-called drone footage has been genned-up, processed, constructed from descriptions. If anything more concrete existed, more “real”, you’d have no way to discern.

“It’s because they had to cover up what happened, you know. At the UCSB particle accelerator. That was the catalyst to all this.” Seb was staring at him with wild, expectant eyes for long enough that the car complained.

“All of what?”

“Look around!”

“I really don’t get into that stuff, Seb.”

“You Angelenos are so complacent, man. Just buy the lines we’re feeding you from up north.” Seb chuckled and gave a quick wink. He had the slightest bit of self-awareness that kept him tolerable. Sam spent most of their friendship praying he’d never lose that.

“But,” Sam asked. “Why would they put a particle accelerator at UC Santa Barbara?”

“It’s the right question, man.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re nuts. It’s just people living their lives back there. They probably don’t give a shit about us.”

“Okay man, sure. But look me in the eye and tell me you think they have electricity or water.”

Sam sucked air through his teeth and stared out the window. On the barrier just ahead he spotted a massive piece of street art: CENCAL, stylised as a sign made out of broken light bulbs. And trailing out of it was an electrical cord, lying unplugged next to a wall socket.

The day dragged on, and the extremely poor condition of the road made a mockery of Sam’s spine. He shifted and fidgeted in the seat, soundtracked by the vibration of metal against plastic, and the car’s desperate pleas for Seb to please keep his hands on the wheel. It was a miserably slow journey, owing to the speed restrictions applied when the car was in manual mode. They’d set out at around 10 a.m., and by 2 p.m. the endless stretches of ruined concrete, temporary fencing, bollards and warning signs had finally given way.

“Republic Corridor,” read a brown tin sign stretched across the freeway. “Way Station Ahead.”

Sam’s eyes drank in the change of scenery. A backdrop of gorgeous mountains. Rolling hills covered in dead grass and a smattering of ruined buildings. Abandoned cars littered the landscape in the middle distance, and nests of barbed wire were placed seemingly at random. Sam could see a huge piece of plywood up ahead with letters spray-painted on: “Warning Live Mines”.

“What the fuck?” He sat up sharply.

“They’re full of shit. There’s no mines. It’s some local militia bullshit. They hate that there’s a way station here. Afraid Republic tourists will wander off the corridor and interfere with their bohemian ways. You have nothing we want, assholes!”

“Where are we, anyway?” Sam glanced over at the car’s display. There was barely any information, aside from a flashing red banner indicating that there was no service. And below that, a flashing yellow banner indicating the car was running out of power. “Uh, Seb?”

“Yeah, yeah. Relax. We have exactly enough. Look.” He gestured out the windscreen as they passed under another overhead sign: the way station was only about a kilometre away now.

“And we can charge there?” Sam tried desperately to sound cool and relaxed in front of his old friend. He failed.

“We can charge there.”

As they approached the checkpoint Sam couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. The flag of the California Republic flapped in the breeze, one on each side of a massive steel sign. “Republic Corridor Way Station 1”, it read, with indicators for where variously-sized vehicles should proceed. Seb swung them across two lanes and straight under the arrow for “Passenger Vehicle Charging”.

“They make this sound like it’s going to be so intense.” Sam let out a machine gun of a laugh.

“When’s the last time you left the South, man?” Seb was in a constant state of checking mirrors and swivelling around.

“It’s been years. But never in a car, honestly. Always flying, out of LAX.”

“Shit, really?”

“We just never drove anywhere when I was younger. And by the time I was older, the north and east passages had gotten tougher. The idea of driving north genuinely freaked me out.”

Seb brought the car to rest behind a gate in a lane barely wide enough for them to fit. “Just relax, okay?” An ear-splitting metal-on-metal grinding sent Sam spinning in his seat. Four metal bollards had risen behind them. He stared for a moment, then spun back to face front. Four more had penned them in on the other side.

“What is this…”

“I said, relax.” Seb rolled his window down. Sam realised part of the wall on the driver’s side was actually a screen. It flickered to life.

“Sebastian Carr,” came a voice from outside. Soon after, a face appeared on the screen. It was the spitting image of someone you’d never remember. “Citizenship was able to be confirmed. You crossed South Boundary at 10:24 a.m. with one citizen passenger. Samir Patel.” Sam closed his eyes and looked away instinctively. It was pointless. The car knew who was inside. Plus, he’d done nothing wrong. “It is now 2:16 p.m. This is an acceptable pace, no deviation detected. The Republic appreciates your commitment to safe driving.”

“Anything for the bear, man.” Seb nodded and smiled at the fictional gate guard.

“No deviation in vehicle weight detected. No deviation in passenger manifest detected. No non-citizens detected in your vehicle. The Republic appreciates your commitment to keeping us safe and protecting the corridor.”

“Anything for the corridor, man.” Seb nodded again. Sam exhaled as the bollards began to lower.

“You have three hours to reach the Way Station 2,” said the voice. Sam noticed the mouth on the face didn’t actually move. It was unsettling. “Please feel free to rest, stretch your legs, and enjoy our array of food and beverage options. The Republic appreciates your commitment to being rested, hydrated and well-fed.”

Seb gave a nod on the beat for each concept appreciated by the Republic. Almost exactly as the speech finished, the bollards had lowered, and the car started to creep forward. Seb’s hands were nowhere near the wheel. He stretched and flexed his arms. “They’ve got a fucking good steak sandwich here, honestly. It’s life changing.”

The car rolled itself past a dizzying array of automated firepower: turrets mounted on swivels, cameras atop them, turrets covering those, and more turrets on the rooftops. Sam relaxed even more as a steel gate rolled up. He hadn’t realised just how unsafe he’d felt the past few hours. Seb’s car navigated itself under the gate and into the building, which turned out to be a cavernous space, inside which they’d constructed an array of buildings, parking, sidewalks, a whole miniature city block.

Seb’s car pulled into the first available parking space, which was the very first one on the row, just in front of the glittering array of food kiosks. Something was odd though. They were the only car. Indeed, they seemed to be the only people at all.

“Wow, ghost town,” Sam said as he took it all in. It occurred to him they hadn’t seen more than one or two other cars on the road either.

“Nobody drives the corridor, man. It’s got a bad reputation on account of all the attacks.”

“The what?”

“Come on. I’m starving.”

Sam wasn’t hungry. Stress always killed his appetite. He walked with Seb to peruse the kiosks. It was a decent variety in theory, though as they walked he took note that most of the options in most of the machines had a red ‘X’ instead of an Order button. He supposed there wasn’t much use stocking these things if the corridor wasn’t seeing any action. But they clearly had high hopes for it at one point.

“I heard about something around here, actually,” Seb said with a mouthful of steak sandwich. “Girl that comes into the club sometimes mentioned it to me. Mind if we check it out?”

“I’m at your mercy,” Sam replied. He was staring at a memorial plaque next to the bathrooms. Three workers lost their lives in a terrorist attack during their construction. It was awful to think about, yet Sam couldn’t help but laugh. “A terrorist attack on the restrooms?”

“No, you ass. It was on the whole… it doesn’t matter. Come on, we don’t have long. Bring that camera of yours.”

Seb stared at Sam through the gap. “Come on, man.”

Sam hesitated. “Did you not see all the weaponry when we drove in?”

“Do you see any around here?”

“What’s even out there?” The gap was at the far corner of the far wall, past the kiosks and parking, past the edge of fake civilisation. A fork in the path.

“Would you just come on, man? I’m out here, do you think the sniper’s waiting for my buddy to come through so he can bag a twofer?”

Sam gulped and closed his eyes, then stuck his hand straight out ahead of him. “Pull me through.”

“Are you—what? “

“I can’t step through. Just pull me through.” He clutched his camera, the gift from Virginia, firmly in his other hand.

“Put that shit in your pocket first. I’m not going to have Magenta goons tracking me down for breaking it.”

As soon as the camera was safe, he felt Seb’s hand on his wrist and was yanked through the gap. They both stood there for a moment. Sam sneezed twice as the harsh mid-day sun crashed down onto him. “Where…” He looked down at the ground, a slate grey pavement with wide yellow lines, all cracked and crumbled. In the middle distance, a row of airplane hangars in varying states of disrepair.

“Cool, right?” Seb smiled before heading straight off around the corner. “This isn’t why we’re here. Come on!”

Sam jogged behind Seb, struggling to keep up. “Where is this?”

“It’s an old airport. They built the way station inside one of the hangars or something. But more importantly…” They snaked through alleys and around corners until they finally reached a fence. A slit had been cut through the chainlink, with a section clearly able to be rolled back. “Here we go. Yes! Look at that!”

Sam stared through the fence and his breath caught in his throat. Across an access road and a parking lot stood the hollowed-out ruins of an old bar. A derelict sign hung by a thread at the top of a pole: The Hammer & Nail.

“Fuck,” Sam said. A couple good memories mixed with about a dozen bad ones stirred up from the depths of his mind. “I know this place.” He turned to Sebastian. “Seb, I know this place.”

“Sam, everybody knows this place.”