Cooperton Bound

April 1st. Singed gold furled in whiskered breakers from sunrise east to sunset west. Smoke, sculpted by raw winds and fed on failed crops, dipped and peaked at the horizon. If a man didn't know better, he might've thought the Granite Hills marched on and on until they tumbled right off the edge of the Earth. Cassidy Ellis Ford knew better. No land but flat land on the south side of General Taylor Pass.

Taking up the back bench of a sweat and diesel shuttle bound for the Cooperton Lottery site, legs stretched to ease a cramping knee, Cass had passed the hours counting orange reptilian flickers that disturbed the cragged mirage.

As he squinted down the aisle, Cass imagined himself aboard a bouncing yellow school bus packed with rowdy boys on their way to rival turf. Blustering. Jostling. Making the driver swear into the rearview. Same drive, same sidewinder road, but the air smelled of pollen and promise back then. Walnut groves and emerald pastures. Calves kicking cowlicks around their mama's sagging teats. When had they all decided to lie back and let that happy green burn away?

Cass hadn't had the foresight to try and set a finger on it. Too busy with football and failing chemistry. Then came Tara Lee’s hippy van and Tribal Stomps. Shrooms to go around but no tribe to speak of, unless you counted the massacre noted on a plaque by the blue PolyJohn. When Tara Lee and the flower power gang rolled on up the coast, Cass took graveyard shifts at the Mill. Too much sawdust in the lungs to notice a smokier than usual tint to the air.

Uncle Roy liked to say while he brushed the char from his grill top that the Pleasant Valley fires got started when they dammed up Tin River. Tin River, now Tin Reservoir, was where Z-Dynamics slapped their hydro-powered plant, spitting out the nuts and bolts to send a king to his castle out yonder in another galaxy. No water left over for the farmers.

"Nah, nah, that ain't even the ass half of it," Old Lem swore over bandsaw fizzing. "Them government drones, they steered the storms to flood out Cooperton. They got minerals in Cooperton, but none in Pleasant Valley."

Uncle Roy and Old Lem spat their theories with abductee haywire in the eyes. When Six put in her two cents, she leaned back from the dinner table all cool like, grim wisdom embedded in her baby blues.

"Alright, let me ask you, big brother..." Six never outright said a thing; she led a man toward water to see if he'd drink or drown. "When was it that the first Z-Dynamics Liner blasted off?"

Cass searched for the answer on the cabin crossbeams. "I'd just asked Vanessa Hill to prom, and Archie Zimmerman broke my nose."

Six drummed a finger on the table. Correct.

"You still had that stupid piece of tape on your face whenever we rode up to Uncle Roy's and saw the Mill Creek fire on the news. Uncle Roy don't remember, but Mill Creek came before Pleasant Valley. And right after the fire story broke, that Nosferatu looking motherfucker comes on to announce he's investing his billions into colonizing GX-606."

Cass blinked once or twice, and disappointment drooped across her sarsaparilla mouth.

Sixteen Joan Ford had always been too damn smart for the likes of him. Even as a little bean sprout with briar patch hair, she walked him through the X's and Y's on his algebra homework with that same why-the-hell-don't-you-get-this grimace.

"Just spell it out for me, Six," Cass grumbled through his dumbass blush.

"How do you sell a piece of paradise when it's sitting two thousand lightyears away through an unstable wormhole?"

"By setting a field on fire?" Cass guessed.

Six dipped her wiry head. "Bingo. I knew you had a brain floating around in there. Pass the salt."

She paused to sprinkle her hash, or maybe let him catch up before she sprinted on ahead.

"Alright, big brother, next question. How do you get a nation of red-blooded Americans to subsidize lakeside real estate in a galaxy far, far away?"

"Offer it free to a lucky winner," Cass chimed. He knew all about the Lottery. The television ads rolled their slick slow-motion past rugged cowboys ready to seize destiny by the cojones. Sign on to work for a season, earn an entry to the gamble of a lifetime. If he was being honest, it didn’t sound so—

Six slammed her whole hand on the table.

"Twice right in one night. That’s a record. So. Two trillion dollars gets a couple of deserving, hard-working taxpayers a VIP ticket to the stars. Yessir! Here's my wallet and my asshole, thank you kindly!"

***

The shuttle jostled Cass's head against hazy glass. They pulled to a whimper-wheeled stop, and the doors steamed open. A frowning woman in an unseasonal puffer coat swished down the aisle, evaluating the greasy collection seated alongside.

Cass sat up straight and wedged his knees into a corner as she determined him—or at least the double wide back seat—her least unsavory option.

"You mind?" she asked, dropping onto the flaked vinyl without awaiting permission.

Brakes eased, and the journey resumed between ashen flats ceded to Satan's claim jump.

The newcomer's jacket blew out undignified puffs as she bunched its fat folds into makeshift padding. She appeared much smaller minus the puffer. Scarecrow-like. A strong wind might blow her away. The hell was she doing on a Lottery bus?

"None of your goddamn business, that's what," she said, a look to shank a crocodile in her eye. Reminded him of Six.

"I didn't say nothin'," Cass smirked.

"Didn't mouth breathe it, maybe, but you thought it."

"Ain't it a fair question of anyone hitching a ride on this particular vehicle?"

"Sure. Ain't fuck off a fair answer?"

"Sure," Cass grinned.

The newcomer dropped her prickly scowl by an eyelash.

"You ever been before?" she asked. No name offered just yet.

“To Cooperton?” Cass gave a weighted nod. "Yeah. Third season."

"Damn. Guess you never came out a winner, then."

"I'd say the odds ain't much in anyone's favor," Cass replied.

The scrawny stranger leaned her head askew. Not quite agreement but a flinch of sunken knowing. She sponged her tongue over cracked lips.

"What's it like?"

Cass turned his eyes to the smeared window, picking out rib-bone scaffolds and jagged mineshafts in the Rorschach grime. Muzzled Rottweilers snarled at patrol checkpoints. Masked Marines in fatigues waited at attention, rifles itching to lay down a reminder. Crossing inside the barbed and electrified perimeter constituted an act of free will. Crossing back early? Breach of contract.

Six asked it once at the dinner table, spoon digging craters in her mashed potatoes. "How do you figure they do it? Carve up Cooperton or any of the magic REM deposits those historic storms boiled up?"

Cass breathed in. Too slow.

"Did you know on average it takes two hundred men working split shifts eighteen months to mine enough rare earth for a single Liner's quantum navigation engine?"

"No, Six, I did not know that," Cass mumbled round a mouthful of stewed carrots. Carrots and potatoes—root vegetables in general—held up just fine at the protected elevation they enjoyed nestled away among the Granite Hills. He could've answered the conundrums of compost or crop rotation no problem. That kind of trivia she never bothered to quick draw on him.

"Well, now you know," Six smug-mugged across the table. "So, two-hundred bodies—able bodies, mind you. Bodies that can take a beating. Ain't afraid of heights. Can haul rocks for twelve hours straight in heat or snow. Two hundred times fifty Lottery sites. That's a work force of ten thousand strong just to claw out enough raw REM for one single component of the almighty Liner. How many more bodies does Uncle Sam need to get one whole ship halfway to the Jump?"

"Hm," said Cass.

Another bite in to avoid the calculation.

***

"That rough, huh?" The thin voice tumbled to a sore nerve swallow.

Cass turned up his slowest smile, choking down the sight of skinny scarecrow arms jostling toward a dead end behind electric razor wire.

"A trip to the stars. Alien lakeside view. Reckon it's worth a shot in hell, right?"