Every day around here I overhear other residents say: This too shall pass. It’s meant as comforting blather, but overthinking the phrase for even a second reveals that even if scientists find a way to defuse our triggers and we’re allowed off the Ranch, any new set-up will be just as spotty and impermanent. Once that thought wormed its way to the surface my already accelerating nihilistic tendencies really hit the gas. It doesn’t matter how great things are going, here or anywhere else. I’ve had my taste of the so-called good life and it did, in fact, pass right on by.

Wherever we are on the spectrum of time, I’ve settled into a fine rut here at the Ranch, especially since my roommate, Kevin, went missing. Kev and I got along fine at first, until I found an embarrassing list in his bedside table, folded and stained under a tube of something called Strawberry Lhubarb. In fairness to him, lots of Ranch residents keep these lists clutched tight. When we first arrived at the Ranch the counselors running Orientation encouraged us to make lists of what we missed, what we wanted, what we swore we’d still do. But goddamn, Kevin’s was the worst I’d ever seen: Experience the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, it said. Threesome (two chicks).

I walked around laughing the rest of the day, but told myself I was way too good a guy to bring it up directly to Kev’s face, no matter how messy Margarita Monday got. That lasted a few seconds after we were both in bed and finished rustling. There was always a lonely lull before the night took over, and I couldn’t bear the silence.

“Too bad a three-way guy-fest won’t count,” I said. “Probably could’ve talked Buzz into it. You’d get dinged with an asterisk for the bot as third party, but nobody notices those.”

“Huh?” he said.

I could’ve waved away the rant, claimed sleep-talk. Instead, I kept digging, despite feeling my temperature rise and potentially activating the fuse stitched somewhere in my aorta. “Believe me bud, I wish me and Fiona could fold you into our thing. I’m fully for it, for the record. She’s the one holding back.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Just sayin’, it’d be nice to help you knock out at least one life goal before you blow.” Maybe if I left it there he might’ve forgiven me one day, but the words were already rolling out of my mouth. “Oh, and the dining hall was short on jelly, so I borrowed your Strawberry spread.”

Kev kicked his linens, flicked on the light and tugged at his desk’s top drawer.

“These are my personal belongings, asshole,” he said. “You can’t allow me some hope? Some...lube?” He squeezed the bottle into the trash.

“Hey, don’t waste the stuff,” I said. “Didn’t taste half bad.”

Next day, he’s gone. I told Ranch investigators everything (the List, the Lube, why I needed a full-time single) and Security replayed tape, inspected fencing, escalated drone surveillance. I don’t think they expected trouble from Kevin. He was never political like Fiona and her crew, and he didn’t have any famous friends or rich uncles. He wasn’t on the show, had no followers. Where’d he have to go? I figured by now the drones or the vultures had gotten him, but the uncertainty bugged me. In the end the Director sat us down and said, well, actions have consequences. We were all guests of the government, so let’s enjoy Movie Night while staff performs a quick room check. And now I’ve got a suite to myself. 

I’m up late but there’s still a line for omelets. A resident (Sal) detonated in his room overnight, so the chorus is in full swing.

“This too…”

“He was from Portland.”

“Seattle,” someone corrects. “Sal from Seattle.”

I didn’t know Sal, except to note that he dealt with our condition by withdrawing into himself to what seemed a smothering degree. Other residents are mired in anger, though that can mess with our triggers. Fiona and her friends are in Bargain mode, endlessly debating toothless actions. I’ve advanced to Acceptance, the end of the line. I’m ready to blow. I know everyone wants details. There aren’t many available, even to us. All you really need to know is it’s terminal and messy. According to the Pentagon our explosive charges are “embedded” at a cellular level, “non-extractable.”

Fry Guy (a solid bot according to Buzz but absolutely zero personality that I can detect), sagging rubber gloves taped to his wrist joints, barely lands my omelet.

“Stork dropped him at an orphanage; home-schooled by Fundamentalists.”

“Well, this too...”

I was never into the bucket lists, other wellness initiatives. My coping mechanisms change daily. Sometimes I write people I used to know and wait for the inevitable auto-reply. Sometimes I lobby for improvements to the physical plant, special celebrations, culture boosters. I don’t want to say “reasons to live,” but sure. Karaoke, the omelet bar—all me.

“Sal go off in his sleep? So lucky.”

“I’m goin’ out like Tim and Suz.”

Fry Guy drops the whole pan, sends my omelet wiggling across the floor to widespread groans. I back away with exaggerated caution, weighing mindfulness with getting mashed immediately at the Saloon. On the way out of the Dining Hall I have to fight my way through a few gullible clowns who want to know the latest: Has the Suit come back from its top-secret simulations? Any word back from those VC prepper bros? It’s not my style to spin facts but their eyes go wide with even the faintest glimmer, so I just say, Last I heard, the prototype’s still under review.

One whole wall of the Saloon is devoted to a fiery mural of Holiday, the cruise liner that went down off North Carolina after the first explosive individual—passenger Peter Fuller—detonated on a bocce court above a primary gas line. In the mural, Holiday is burning as choppers converge overhead. Somehow casualties stayed in single digits. Right as the hubbub surrounding Holiday began to die down, the remains of Taylor Chance were found splattered across a Hardee’s Express. A wacko cell gleefully claimed responsibility and their mastermind (“the Stork”) was soon apprehended in a morning raid at a once-useful despot’s abandoned desert palace. On his laptop they found particulars of the plot, including our Social Security numbers.

“Mornin’, Buzz.”

“Good morning, my friend.” Buzz has a Brillo Pad mustache, steel jaw, kind yellow eyes. “I am happy to learn your person remains intact. Would you enjoy one of our daily specials?”

“Just the usual, please.”

Buzz performs his routine with characteristic efficiency and delivers a pint glass (still warm from the dishwasher) with vodka to the brim, olives bobbing. I glance around, try to conjure some anticipation, some atmosphere, the ghost of a previous party, but the room is dark and quiet. “Guess I’ve got first tracks today.”

I raise my glass but stumble on the words, appendages growing despondent.

“To Sal,” says Buzz. “This too—”

“Alright, that’s enough.”

At first we enjoyed widespread support. The adopted daughter of a famous musician was outed as Explosive. Her father recruited his friends for a benefit. We each got a check to cover our final expenses. The Stork supposedly suffocated himself in some black site container, but they slid his body down a glacial crevice. I felt important, bloated with potential. Everywhere I went people bought me drinks, tried to give me fist pounds and chest bumps. One guy paid me a few grand to appear at his bachelor party. Everyone was happy to see me, trying to get in a good deed.

But then a detonation in a zoo blinded a snow panther. Two months later, a close call outside a Houston charter school. Pundits and their avatars (drunk guys on the street) started calling us “free-range” and worse until a hard-nosed billionaire offered up the Ranch in a tax-deductible effort to contain the 500 or so Explosive Individuals seeded across the country. Public sentiment flickered—the musician, now less beloved after a hot mic incident, recorded another benefit tune, but the hook was hollow and sales were slow.

Soon as the paperwork was signed we were invited to visit The Ranch—all expenses paid, first-class accommodations—and those who did were implored to ignore the military cargo plane, the razor-wired intake zone, the shifty stares from men in Halliburton softball jerseys. We were urged to focus on the multi-ply bathroom tissue, the thriving cactus gardens, a driving range they swore would swell to 9 holes. The weekend’s freshman orientation vibe (aggressive drinking, sloppy drug use, brief and bumbled hookups) led many EIs—even successful derivative swappers like my former self—to accept the Department of Defense’s offer of subsidized lodging. 

Still, a small but vocal contingent of the population felt the Ranch was merely a glitzy internment camp, so to appease public curiosity (and offset costs) they invited in cameras to document our community. Ratings peaked during the Season Three finale when two of our more telegenic residents simultaneously detonated while clinched in an intimate embrace in the hot tub. Credits rolled as jets bubbled bloody water. A viral poll asked people How They Wished to Go Out and the most popular response—in a landslide—was “like Tim and Suz.”

The show’s success attracted fameballs and loners, while landlords and employers gradually poked loopholes in the Explosive Individual Protection Act. They built a new dorm but soon enough our luxurious single suites became doubles. Kev moved in. It was revealed that the billionaire had previously stored waste on the western border. We worried about the water, the color of certain clouds. New human hires were transplants from a nearby slaughterhouse. The Director locked down visitation, froze social funds, downgraded our streaming stack and amped up security, deploying robo-Dobermans to click up and down hallways. Meanwhile in the real world a dwindling number of scientists continue the (increasingly political) search for a solution—these days we’re only in the news when someone from the old show pops.

“Any news on the Suit, my friend?”

I speak sideways into my empty glass, even though it’s okay to lie to bots. “Happy to say it’s about ready, Buzz. We’re fussing over bureaucratic BS at this point.”

He looks so proud I let myself believe it. “Another round, my friend?”

“Where’s the brunch crew? I don’t want to drink alone, Buzz.”

“Your consumption is well over the recommended units, although data restrictions require nightly reboots.”

“You don’t say…”

When Buzz reboots all hell breaks loose. It’s a total free-for-all for about six minutes—I’ll wheel him into a corner or twist his headset around, help myself to something top shelf.

“Have one with me!” I say, like it’s a fresh idea, although I ask daily. He might be a steel-hearted bot, but he always gets me with his ‘my friend’ bit. 

“Not possible, my friend.”

“I know,” I say, forehead to forearm, empty and yearning. “Just pull up the Board.”

Every resident is tagged and transmitting at all times. When I first arrived I hated the Board, found it humiliating and inhumane. But it’s only slightly more obvious and intrusive than the everyday surveillance we submit to everywhere else. Anyway, you’d think the constant monitoring and pinpoint transparency would result in easily engineered meet-cutes and seamless hang sessions, but most days we just chase one another around, promise to get together later. What’s worse, since Kev escaped they’ve taken to shuffling creepy koans across the screen and introduced a baffling but anxiety-spiking color-coded Threat Matrix.

Buzz integrates a remote and zooms in on our sector. “Resident approaching.” A highlighted pixel is indeed making its way down the corridor, just steps from the Saloon’s double doors.

“Buzz, quick, got any gum?” Some of us enjoy a sixty-to-forty female-to-male ratio here at the Ranch.

“I have no teeth.”

“Right, shoot. Hook me up with a lime.”

“One wedge coming up, my friend.”

“Shoot, might as well add the tequila and salt while you’re at it...”

It’s just Fiona. She asks what I’m drinking and I mumble something about “more coffee.” Buzz gets the message, tosses the tequila. But she knows our act. And to be fair I never said I stopped, only agreed it would be smart to do so.

“Sorry you misunderstood,” I say.

“Me too.” Fiona twists a strand of hair.

“Don’t be like that,” I say, tugging on her shirt sleeve. “We don’t have time to waste. What’s the point?”

“You lied to me,” she says.

“I don’t lie anymore,” I say. “Again, what’s the point? You don’t agree with me, what’re you gonna do, plant a bomb in my heart? You like waking up in the morning and feeling like this? Knowing this is how you’ll feel for the foreseeable future? That’s not viable for me.”

“Um, that’s a dependency problem.”

“Not one bit. Say, Buzz…”

“No, thank you, my friend.”

“Buzz is recusing himself. Fine. Just a refill then.”

“Fresh coffee, coming up.”

“No,” I say. “Gimme a Loudmouth Soup. Extra boisterous.”

“You’re going to have another right in front of me?” asks Fiona. “While I’m sitting here, trying to care enough to have this conversation?” But the alternative—judgement, silence, a spiraling sense of loss—is unimaginable. Apparently she agrees, slides off her stool. “Sorry. I can’t watch this.”

“Leaving so soon?” Buzz asks.

“Fiona’s got more important places to be, but I’m not going anywhere.”

“Excellent, my friend. I look forward to your continued presence.”

“Listen,” she says, “I don’t know what your plans are for the day—"

“You’re looking at it,” I interrupt.

“Right. Well, some of us are working on drafting an amendment proposal this afternoon, and any news you could share with the Committee on your protective initiative would be very helpful. That’s if you’re at all interested in making a positive contribution to the world around you.” She nods curtly, whips around and stomps through the Saloon’s swinging doors. 

“What’s her problem, Buzz? A positive contribution? It’s like no one remembers the media room rebuild.”

“Limited storage capacity, my friend.”

Some dreary afternoon one of my fellow residents reread our Welcome Agreements and found fine print that revealed them to be long-term leases: 99+ years, unbreakable. Seriously disheartening new regulations covering everything from procreation to kill switches came down from the Senate. And we continued to lose friends to detonation—blots of violent color appearing against the sun-baked clay of our rec area or the dull white of our suite interiors.

“I used to drive an aquamarine V8 Forager Abercrombie edition.”

“A beautiful machine.”

“You know who drives an aquamarine Forager V8 Abercrombie edition?”

Buzz paused. “Non-explosive individuals with disposable income?”

“That’s right!” I say. “Important people, with futures to protect. I used to be just like them: drive out of the city at night, park along some shorefront or country road, recline my leather seat all the way back and watch the cosmos align, either alone with my thoughts or enjoying the company of some little number.”

“Stunning vistas at the Ranch, my friend.”

“No way. Here it’s all dusty and distant.”

“Would you like me to schedule an appointment with Dr. Todd?”

“Nah, I’ll just do another one a these.”

“Alcohol is a depressant, my friend.”

“Et tu, Buzz?”

While strolling the geo-tagged path from the Dining Hall to the Wellness Cube I spot Hazmat figures standing around a white van. Sal’s final resting place: Mopped up, sealed in a barrel and rolled into a toxic cave.

Dr. Todd is a specialist, works primarily with stubborn cases like me. “How’s the Suit?”

My pitch has always been: get us suits. That way, when we blow it’s self-contained. So in the early days I spent a lot of time designing the Suit, talking it up with people at the Saloon, researching breathable fire-retardant fabrics, requesting funding from various government agencies and acronyms. I kept all the replies in a folder, went through a roll of stamps. The agencies that replied said the Suit was cost-prohibitive. Not enough Explosive Individuals to warrant the expense. I said, Hey, there’s only a limited number of astronauts, and they get very similar outfits. Despite the lack of support I’ve managed to cobble together a rough proto-type. There are... kinks.

“Good,” I say. “We’re finalizing the insignia.”

“How’s the drinking?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Steady?”

We drift into a staring contest until he resets. “Tell me a little bit about how you spent your time before you came to the Ranch.”

“Same things everybody else did. I worked, went out, watched TV.”

“I’m interested in what brought you joy.”

“Casual shopping, online sex. I don’t know. Who experiences joy anymore?”

“How did you spend your last day outside the Ranch?” 

“The very last day?” It took a minute. “My parents came to the city, helped me finish packing. We had pizza outside. I wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of it. I’ve never liked goodbyes. All about the Irish Exit, you know?”

“This is the couple that adopted you.”

“Right. My parents.”

“Are you close with them?”

“They’re my parents. I mean, they paid for college and everything.”

“Did you have any brothers and sisters?”

“Not really, no.”

“What about your birth parents? Any contact with them?”

“Never had any desire to meet them. Never seen the point of it. Maybe once or twice I said, you know, ‘You’re not my real Mom,’ or something mean like that.”

“How would she react to that?”

“Depends. Maybe cry, but usually laugh.”

“How did they take the news of your condition?”

“I feel like... in some ways it was validating? Like, they were always afraid something was wrong with me. Growing up I went to the doctor all the time, every week. They sent me to a shrink, I took tests, stacked blocks.”

“They could not vouch for your genetics.”

“I guess not. But isn’t that part of the deal? I may or may not harbor a mental illness, or diabetes, or an explosive device. So when they found out that there really was something wrong... I don’t know. Personally, I felt like I failed them.

Dr. Todd gets a call on the Red Phone so I kill time with brochures. I pick up the thickest one—who knows what the wait’ll be—and walk back to my chair. It’s only when I settle in that I see this particular pamphlet is all about the symptoms of depression.

“Apologies,” says Dr. Todd, already back to me. “What’s that you’re reading?”

“Nothing, nothing.” I wedge the pages under my thigh.

“Depression? Is that something you’re struggling with? You know, alcohol is a depressant.”

“Oh, is it?” I toss the pamphlet in his direction, stretch my legs in exasperation.

“I have access to reports from Buzz. Inventory reports from the Saloon. Would you like to hear your total consumption of alcohol units?”

“No spoilers,” I say.

He resets.

“Try to recall a pleasant experience,” says Dr. Todd. “Something that happened after you found out about your condition but before you came to the Ranch.”

“I went kayaking. I bungee-corded the kayak to the top of my car and took it to a tidal cove near where my grandparents used to live.”

“More.” A wave of static rolls over Dr. Todd.

“There was a military funeral at a cemetery that I passed on the way. I remember feeling blessed but also frivolous and idle. I ate a foot-long hot dog and a cup of so-so clam chowder at a roadside shack I used to hit all the time growing up. This incredible-looking girl served me, so bored. She looked exactly like a girl who worked there years ago that all my friends were in love with. The chowder was decent, actually. I ate the crackers separately. I don’t like ‘em in the chowder itself.”

“More.”

“Okay. I launched the kayak and paddled through a marshy bit, watched an osprey dive under. I caught a fish with a net, looked it in the eye and let it go. I drifted in the light current, ate two plums, tried to skip the pits. I was in a weird mood, wearing jogging shorts because I couldn’t find my regular bathing suit. No life preserver. I visited some friends on the way home, people I hadn’t seen in forever.”

“Were they aware of your condition?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Did you tell them?”

“Nope.”

“People have the right to know.”

“I know that’s our line, and I generally agree. I just didn’t want to get all heavy on them. They looked so happy to see me in their driveway, sand on my shins, kayak dripping. We vodka-boarded a watermelon, chilled on the deck. I passed out earlier than I would’ve liked, all sunburned and blissed out.”

“Sounds like fun.” More static. “If you enjoy water sports, the Aquatic Center still has some programming.”

The salad bar is wilted, out of everything. I find Fiona and the rest of her activist clique. My mouth has a rare freshness—mint toothpicks from Dr. Todd’s—so I squeeze into a spot directly across the table from Fiona. Between us are files, legal pads, veggie wraps.

“Yoo hoo,” I say.

“You have splinters between your teeth,” she says.

Before she came here, Fiona was a grant writer for a homeless shelter in Hartford, where a particularly brutal panic ensued after an EI detonated in a parking garage and a city councilman, convinced he would be next, tried to cut his heart out with a letter opener.

Fiona got rounded up and detained in an old gun factory. She won’t talk about those early days, even when the producers of the reality show pressured administrators to leak her medical file. She wouldn’t even talk about it after we’d made love in my suite, her flushed skin darkening the scars across her chest.

“What’s in there?” she asks, pointing to my thermos.

“Blackberry seltzer.”

“Blackberry seltzer and what?”

I’m gulping down the evidence when this guy Paul clears his throat: “The real question is, where do we want to go?”

Everyone gets the same starry-eyed look. In their heads, there’s some sub-division in the sky where we’ll get to reunite with our families, return to our places of work and worship and live normal lives.

“Come on, man,” I say. “Wherever you convince them to take us, it’s going to be the same.”

Paul’s glasses fog. He chooses his words carefully. “I think we can all agree that there is a balance of supervision and freedom that would be acceptable to the vast majority of our community as well as our fellow countrymen.”

“You’re delusional. You’re still thinking like someone who isn’t ticking,” I say, thumping my chest. Everyone instinctively flinches; some duck for cover. “Wherever we go, there are gonna be rules, there are gonna be fences.”

Paul picks up a thick folder. “Research has shown that attitudes toward explosive citizens on the West Coast are considerably—”

“You want the West Coast? We get all settled in there, and soon you’ll want the East Coast. Then you’ll remember a vacation you took as a kid and soon you’ll be saying that’s the only place to be, some scrubby campground or saltwater cove.”

He stabs his pen at me. “Well, why don’t we have that opportunity? Why don’t we have some say about how and where we live our lives?”

“We’re weapons masquerading as people,” I say. “The problem is not our location, it’s our purpose.”

“I worked for twenty years,” says Paul, shaking. “I had a wife, two kids.”

“And you’re lucky you didn’t kill them all.”

Fiona jumps from her seat. “Okay, great stuff. Listen, can I talk to you solo for a minute?” She drags me over near the janitor’s closet. “What’re you trying to do, make the guy detonate? He doesn’t deserve that.” 

“Sure he does.”

“For a member of a persecuted population, you don’t display much compassion.”

“I accept reality,” I say, puffing up a bit.

“No, you stagger around feeling superior because you’ve already given up.”

“I’ve made adjustments,” I say, already deflating.

“You’ve just forgotten what it’s like to be a normal person.”

“Normal people are at least as dangerous as we are, babe. Please believe that.”

“I guess I just don’t think we’re all that dangerous.”

She leans against the white cinder block wall. For a moment I imagine her detonating right in front of me, everything gone forever in an instant. I don’t want to be here without her. Meanwhile, I’m sure if I pop she’d just consider it an exclamation point at the end of a meaningless, noisy existence.

“How’s the Suit coming along?”

“Still at the tailor,” I say.

Back in the Saloon mid-afternoon I do pensive karaoke, blinking hard with each slurp of my drink, rolling olives in my mouth. Buzz rubs down the bar, harmonizing when appropriate, prepping refills between numbers. The Board is showing everyone in the rec area, most likely enjoying low-stress yoga or dusty croquet. After my moment with Fiona I went to my empty suite (strangely empty without Kevin) and wrote a long email to my parents, but the usual auto-reply bounced back immediately, so I messaged Buzz, who suggested I stop in for a drink.

We’re the best of friends, really, and I don’t care that he’s a robot, that only a machine would dare spend this much time with me, that even the old slaughterhouse employees ran off, claiming the hours were too long, the work too dangerous, the pay too low. Sometimes I still miss Miguel, the bartender before Buzz. He usually kept his distance, but if you bought him a few he’d loosen up. He once drank tequila out of his snakeskin boot and showed me pictures from his wallet, three kids sitting on Santa’s lap.

“See why I do this?” he asked me. “See why I come here?”

Bless my parents. They may not respond to my emails, but they keep my commissary pretty stocked. I paid them back for college and all that. I was doing pretty well at work when all this came out, so when I signed everything over to them I thought there really was enough to try and make things right. They didn’t need to pick me out of that dingy orphanage. They could’ve traveled the world, bought a horse farm, supported one of those non-explosive orphans on TV. I hope they’re doing all that now, putting the remnants of my life to some good use.

I clip the karaoke microphone to my belt and return to the bar.

“How was your session with Dr. Todd, my friend?”

“Very good,” I say. “I told him all about us, Buzz. I told him we’re running away together. I said you and I are going to run away into the wilderness and live off my wits and your hardware. You have a sickle somewhere in there? A hatchet, you big lug?”

“I cannot accompany you beyond the checkpoint, my friend.”

“Of course you can’t,” I say. “You know, that’s just what Dr. Todd was talking about. It’s not where you are but who you’re with that really matters, isn’t that right? Didn’t anyone ever write that in your yearbook, Buzz?”

His eyes flash and then go blank for a moment.

“Buzz? Buzz? We’re friends, aren’t we, Buzz?” I’m shouting in his face. “Hello?”

His eyes flicker back on, a shade darker than before. “Friends, my friend.”

“Friends?” I hold out my arms, ready to embrace his crinkly steel, when his arm shoots out and grabs me by the neck.

I shout for help. “Buzz’s gone bust!”

This has happened before, minor malfunctions and bugs, and I hate seeing it; I hate seeing my friend in pain.

I look to the Board, hoping someone will be on the way in for a few cold ones, but it’s black—something I’ve never seen.

“Where is everyone?” I gurgle.

“We must report to the recreation area.”

“You know I hate it out there, Buzz.”

Everyone’s standing in neat rows and glaring as Buzz drags me over, like whatever’s going on is my fault. Buzz is kind enough to drop me at Fiona’s feet. Eventually she helps me up.

“Yikes. What happened between you guys?”

“You know, I have no idea,” I say, spitting in the dirt. We’re in the shade of the Lodge, shifting uneasily, watching the blank Board.

“Did Buzz tell you anything?” She bites her lip. “This feels bad.”

“Did you lobby for some new requirement or something?”

She grabs my elbow. “Do you have the Suit? We need to show them the Suit.”

The sun is in my eyes. “Did you do the Presidential Fitness Test in school? With the rope? I remember it being much easier than I expected. Some things I’ve always been good at without really trying very hard.”

“The Suit, Warren. Where’s the Suit?” She’s using my name, grinding her toes into the desert, but still I can’t tell her.

“Like with girls, you know? Soon as I saw you I knew I could have you. I’ve always been able to pretend that I have something people want. I’m sorry.” I look up to avoid her. “You know what happened when I found out I was explosive? At first I was upset, mostly surprised. But then I began feeling secretly pleased with myself. I was special. People had to admit that. Then I come here, everyone’s rigged up and waiting around, and suddenly I’m not so special.”

“Is there even a suit?” She’s throaty, wild-eyed. “Has there ever been one?”

“It’s like all anyone cares about around here is the junior high politics you’ve set up, people running for office promising more pizza. And even when I tried to play along—the omelet bar, the media room, the karaoke machine in the Saloon—nobody cared, they just went on and on about people like you and Paul, and how you were going to lead us home. News flash, no one wants you around! Why can’t you get that? Kiss the karaoke machine, because that’s as good as it’s ever going to get for us, and that too shall pass. It’s passing right now.”

“Please, look at me.” She’s begging, her crowd circling. Paul’s waiting for it, hands on his hips. “Did you make a protective suit?”

“Where was I supposedly getting all these materials?” I say. “Grow up.”

Sometimes the truth has a nice bit of freeing spittle attached to it. “It’s a good idea though, right? I drew some drunken doodles on a napkin. People seemed to dig it. It took on a life of its own.” They’re booing me now.

“You’re sick,” she says, shrinking away.

“Duh, that’s what I’ve been trying to explain,” I say. Without the burden of credibility, my mind clears somewhat. “Hold on—think all this is about Kevin?”

“What about him?” asks Paul, all huffy but suspicious enough to ask.

“I don’t know. Maybe he detonated somewhere bad.” I massage my chest, brainstorming disaster. “White House tour?”

“Oh, please,” says Paul.

“Hoover Dam? Lincoln Center? They’d pull the kill switch after that for sure.”

A commotion ripples through the crowd. “Kill switch?”

“We haven’t seen anything in the leaked documents about a kill switch scenario,” says Fiona.

“He’s just trying to scare you,” says Paul. “People, he’s only trying to distract you from what a little shit he’s been.”

“Why else would we be stuck out here staring at the Board like idiots?” I turn to Fiona, brush hair from her face. “Come on. Gimme a kiss.” I’m just like everyone else: if faced with death, I want to go out like Tim and Suz. But she recoils.

“Oh God,” she moans, “your breath.”

“Always with the breath,” I say. “Always with the drinking. Look, loose-limbed drunks survive falls from buildings all the time. They bust through windshields, lie unbroken on the pavement. It’s called self-preservation, baby.”

She starts crying, sucking in heaves. “We’re going to die here.”

“Someone should do something,” I say.

We’re such a waste, all of us. A bunch of firecrackers Mom threw in the sink. I look around for Buzz. He and Fry Guy are guarding the Lodge’s front doors. I wonder what this place will be after we’re gone, what future wreckage will be housed here.

“Hey Buzz, I need a favor. I need you to play a song.”

“Dialing, my friend.”

It’s the song no one dares to sing at karaoke: Our benefit tune. I remember they played it during the halftime show of the Super Bowl, that first year when we were the cause célèbre. I was watching the game with work friends at a downtown bar and they threw peanuts at me, laughed, lifted me up in my chair. The bartender bought me a drink, slipped me her number.

The song begins and some people, hearing it as a taunt, start throwing rocks at the Board. But others are resigned to the catchy reminder of our lost humanity, and we hold hands and sway, eyes closed, singing along. 

This relative peace is shattered by the bad news scrolling across the bottom of the Board. We are denied the satisfaction of the gory details, but in many small ways I feel somewhat responsible. Kevin wanted to be happy here, but I saw him as just another annoying roommate, like Pièrre the bike messenger with the pet ferret or Lincoln the market analyst with the aerosol deodorant.

A series of blasts, splatters and shrieks. Beside me, Paul’s detonator hums for a split second and rather than return his terrified gaze I jump to cover Fiona and we fall to the dirt, roll away and before she can ask me what is going to happen next I jerk her arm and set us off for the fences, the hills, still holding hands, still singing our song, each step our last.

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