Spare Parts
Part Seventeen
The haves really did have everything in this bunker. Physical books of course, a giant library plus individual collections, and undoubtedly a horde of online resources when online still meant something but some genius here really went above and beyond. A computer with a hundred terabytes of downloaded movies, serials, episodic shows, even documentaries. A catalog of human endeavor all recorded for posterity.
Garrett couldn’t believe that it all still worked, much less that it was all connected to a projector that cast out on a blank screen larger than a house. He had never seen a movie, only read about them in his books and he hardly knew where to start in such a vast catalog so he stuck to the books he knew. One of the criminals in his favorite piece mentioned a musical, the concept of that type of performance had always interested Garrett even though he wasn’t quite sure how it was done. He searched for the art piece within an art piece and came across it easy enough. He only dared to watch the first few minutes to make sure it all worked before he shut it off and hoped that it would all turn on again for the big night.
By the time Garrett sprinted from the booth and down the isles Sarah was already a slack jawed zombie. The Music Man was erupting in its opening number and she was lost entirely in it all. He sat down beside her and carefully poured two small glasses of a minty liqueur that best suited the basket of dried fruits and preserved meats he had set aside and struggled to procure.
Sarah could barely be turned away from it all long enough to eat or drink but he managed to get her to try a little of this and that along the way. He expected her to ask that it all be shut off, too much sensory overload perhaps. Even more likely, an immediate explanation of what magic or trickery was going on. Nothing like that. Sarah just, got it. She understood without knowing what was going on. Recorded people on a screen. A book, a story, come to life and even better, one with music too.
At the end of the night, after the snacks had been picked at and the minty drink had been drunk, Garrett took a moment to walk up and turn off the machinery before offering to carry Sarah back up the long, dark hallway of the theater.
“That minty stuff made me light headed, you can carry me all the way if you want.”
Garrett did just that as she whispered her way through a nearly perfect rendition of My White Knight.
She grabbed at his hand as he laid her down on her bed. “Of all the things that you have already done for me, kindnesses I could never imagine, that was something else. Thank you.” Garrett nodded and was quick to shrug off the old-world clothes and rub at his pinched feet.
Garrett was careful to listen to the first stirs of the chickens, even in the dark they still seemed to know when dawn was coming. He was all packed, dressed for the road and halfway across the entry way to the bunker door before she called out and stopped him. “I knew you were getting ready to leave, last night aside I figured it was coming, you don’t get to just vanish without saying it.”
“Goodbye, Sarah. I was very glad to know you. This time reminded me of what possibilities life could still hold for some. I hope your life here will be everything your life above ground was not.”
“You always have the best words. I don’t believe them sometimes. You’re not coming back are you? I mean not even maybe. You’re not leaving to get revenge. You’re leaving so they can kill you.”
Garrett tipped the brim of the slouch hat he picked to wear on his last journey. “You got me, sis.”
“All this food, these chances, and this life? I…helped you murder everyone I ever knew who was still living when you came to this place. I helped murder a hundred people. Why do I deserve last night? Why do I deserve to sleep peaceful at night? Why do I deserve anything and you nothing?”
“Life is rarely if ever about who deserves what. I didn’t balance any scales here, Sarah. Chance and I conjoined to throw the hour glass away in this place. I have never met, beside you, maybe one other young woman who deserved this kind of chance and I couldn’t give her near this, or much of anything. I walked away from her, and her companion, I walked away from everyone I still knew in the dead of night because I knew what I would find when I got back home. That is what serves for deserving in this world, that is what manages for balance in this world. I failed her, just like I have failed everyone I have ever known, I only have one thing left to do.”
“Yeah, die. I get it. You’re throwing yourself away, but I need to know why. Help me understand how you deserve to die but I deserve to live, and better than I ever have.”
Garrett tightened his pack and turned to the bunker door. “Like I said before. I’ve done what you’ve done, but more before that, and more again, and more still from the start. It all stacks up and it gets to a point. I’m tired, Sarah. I’m done.”
“I don’t think you are. I’ll be here, canning and pickling and gathering wrinkles and reading just like you taught me. I’ll do it all knowing that I’ll see you again. You always have a place here.”
Garrett didn’t reply, there was nothing left to be said. Goodbyes were like a bad ending to a good book. They tend to wash away some of the shine off life. Instead he walked out of the bunker and down the creek for a bit and then up over the next hill all the while hearing Sarah’s sing song voice from the night before. One way or the other he doubted he would see the grassy plateau and the steaming vents again but he stopped on his way at the rise of that last hill and nodded one last time at the palsied girl. “A long life, and a good one too.” It was all he could think to say but he figured it was enough as he turned his eyes to the west.