Welcome back to my post-post-apocalyptic novel, Ada’s Children, and thanks for reading! If you’re new to the story, please don’t be surprised that it’s paywalled. The Prologue and first three chapters are free, and you can start reading them here. The previous chapter, “Making Amends,” here.
In Chapter 6, Carol said goodbye to Michael and Shondra, not quite believing they would ever submit to deportation. Now she makes a quixotic attempt to follow them into New Texas.
MAY 2041
The Texas pre-dawn humidity was oppressive, like Minneapolis in July. But it was only early May, three days after Michael and Shondra had boarded their bus, and nine hours after Carol’s car had broken down outside Bloomington. She’d switched to an autobot, which had dropped her here at the side of the road south of Waco, claiming no Caucasians were allowed south of that point without government authorization.
Nice of it to warn her. Happy Cab would be getting a bad review, or at least it would have if there weren’t so many bigger things to worry about. Like catching Michael and Shondra’s bus before it crossed the border into New Texas.
Her automatic suitcase tried to follow as she walked along the darkened frontage road. The suitcase was cheap and old, and kept falling on the rough, gravel-filled shoulder. She was bending to pick it up for what seemed like the hundredth time when headlights lit the road behind her. The lights came with a strange sound—the roar of an internal combustion engine.
The beat-up pickup—what else should she have expected?—passed her, then slowed to a stop a hundred yards down the road before backing up even with her. The passenger side window slid down, but she still couldn’t make out the person behind the wheel. “I don’t mean to scare you, ma’am, but what in hell are you doing out here at this time of the morning?” A man’s voice, a hint of concern under the lecturing tone.
“I’m headed for the border crossing. My bot wouldn’t take me any farther.”
“I’m headed the same way.”
She took a few steps into the road to see him better. He helpfully flipped on the dome light.
He was Black, about fifty, with gray stubble around his jaw, wearing an old Texas Rangers ballcap. She smiled. She’d liked baseball too.
“Are you going to turn yourself in?”
“Emigrating to New Texas to be with my people, yes.”
How could he be so sanguine about it? Just like Michael and Shondra. It was infuriating.
He looked down the road for a moment, then back to her. “Tell you what, we could help each other out, if you know how to drive.”
“As long as it’s not manual.”
He grinned. “I’ll drive you down, then if they won’t let me take my truck in, maybe you could drop it with my neighbor on your way back.”
“I’m hoping not to come back.”
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