“No, that’s the thing. You know how Rob is, well, I caught him trying to dive with these last night. Wasn’t doing too bad a job of it—”

“Diving runs in your family,” Graham said. “Guild made a mistake not taking you in.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just these boots, see? No suit. But I felt what they could do to the sand and I wondered if you’d seen anything like this before.”

“You felt it,” Graham said. “So how far down did you go?”

Conner glanced over his shoulder, made sure they were alone. “A meter. Maybe two.”

Graham sniffed. He flipped the band inside out and adjusted the long-armed and multi-jointed light affixed to his desk. “People have toyed with these before. You can have some fun with a pair of boots. Skate along the sand, dip your toes and what-not. But they’re no good for diving. If you can’t keep the pressure off your chest, you can’t breathe. And even if you could, you’d be in a world of hurt when you came back up. Did Rob do the wiring?”

“Yeah.”

Graham looked up from his study of the band. “He’s better than you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Graham didn’t mean it with malice. He didn’t have a cruel bone in his body. But the power of dry observation sometimes felt the same. He made space on his workbench, setting that long steel barrel aside. He plugged in his soldering iron.

“Can I see the boots?”

“Sure.” Conner pulled the wires out at his knees and kicked off his dad’s boots. “He put the power charge in the left sole.”

“Interesting,” Graham said. He grabbed a magnifying glass from his desk and peered into one of the boots, removed the leather insole. He inspected the other one. “Looks like he made room inside the right one to stow the wires and the band. A visor too.” He glanced up at Conner. “A meter, you say?”

Conner nodded.

“Hmmm.” Graham studied the ceiling for a moment. “Could you leave these with me awhile?”

Conner frowned. “I’m sorry. I wish I could. I was just hoping you could rewire them for me while I wait. I have a few coin.”

Graham grabbed the iron and tested the tip with his tongue. The hiss made Conner cringe and bite his teeth together. Graham began touching the wires back to leads, seeming to see at once how Rob had rigged the band. “You’re always eyeing that pair of visors in the case over there. The green ones.” He didn’t look up from his work. “I’d trade you those visors and a mostly new suit for these boots.”

Conner didn’t know what to say. “That’s… uh… I appreciate the offer, but those are my dad’s boots.”

“They were his old boots. Even he didn’t care about them anymore.” He finished his work and blew on the band, smoke curling from the iron. He looked up at Conner expectantly.

“Well, I’ll think about it,” Conner said. He reached for the boots. “What do I owe you for the repair?”

Reluctantly, Graham returned the boots. “Tell you what, promise me you won’t barter these to anyone else, and we’re even. Trader’s dibs.”

“Okay,” Conner said, knowing it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to trade his dad’s boots, not after what he’d felt under the sand. “You got dibs.”

Graham smiled. “Great. You tell Rob to come by and see me when he gets a chance. Been a few weeks since he’s stopped by.”

“Yeah, about that…” Conner stuffed the band into the sole of one of the boots. He slipped them on, leaving the laces untied. “Knowing how useful Rob can be around here, if anything ever happened to me and Palmer wasn’t around to watch Rob…”

“I promised your dad I’d look after you boys,” Graham said. “I’ve told you that. I mean it. Don’t you worry.”

“Thanks,” Conner said. He turned to go, then paused by the door leading back into the shop.

“Tomorrow’s the day, isn’t it?” Graham asked.

Conner nodded. He didn’t turn around. Old Graham was too damn insightful. His rheumy eyes could see further into the deep sand than anyone else. He could tell at a glance how something was wired. If Conner turned to say goodbye, to ask one more question, if he even reached up to wipe the water from his cheek, the old man would know. He would know that tomorrow wasn’t just an old anniversary. But the start of a new one.

16 • The Long Hike

“Palmer sucks sand,” Rob shouted. He hitched the large pack up on his shoulders, had been complaining about having to carry such a heavy load since they’d left the house. “He promised us.”

“I’m sure he has his reasons.” In truth, Conner was tired of sticking up for his older brother. It was a full-time job keeping little Rob from being disappointed with the entire family. And here he was about to contribute to that. Just as the sand seemed to pile higher for each generation, so the youngest siblings ended up with the full brunt of familial mistakes. It was a tiring refrain, but Conner thought it again: Poor Rob.

He and his brother skirted Springston on their way toward No Man’s Land. Avoiding the open dunes, they stuck to the outskirts where they could spend much of the hike in the lee of homes and shops. They kept their kers over their mouths and rarely talked, shouting above noisy gusts of wind when they did. An escaped chicken flapped and clucked across their path, a woman in a swirling dress chasing it, calling its name. In the distance, the masts of a line of sarfers jutted up beyond the edge of town. Conner could hear the ringing bangs of loose halyards slapping aluminum masts. A solitary sail fluttered aloft, caught the wind, and the sarfer built speed toward the west, off to the mountains for a load of soil for the gardens or to trade with the small town of Pike, most likely. Conner and his brother pressed east. He scanned the horizon for other deserters, for families with heavy loads on their backs, but almost no one left town on a weekend. Mondays were days for departure. Wednesdays as well, for whatever reason. Maybe because Wednesdays were those depressing days as far from time off as possible.

When he and Rob got even with the great wall, they tightened their kers and adjusted their goggles and angled off into the wind and toward the roar of distant thunder. Conner took the lead and broke the wind for Rob. Off to the side, he watched the edge of Springston approach. The city sat near to the boundary of No Man’s Land—just a few hours’ hike—like some kind of dare. But the city also looked afraid. It seemed to sulk in the sand, a towering wall erected to hold back the wind and dunes and fear.

A handful of the tallest sandscrapers tilted sickeningly to the west, ready to topple. One of these towers had been abandoned a few years ago, such were the creaks and quakes felt by its inhabitants. It leaned with a promise of collapsing—and yet a refusal to do so. It had been so long since the place had cleared out that the once-great anticipation had relaxed into boredom. Talk had grown among those now eager to move back in. Conner knew that some squatters already had; pale lights danced up in those forbidden towers at night and could be seen from Shantytown. And the deeds to those apartments had begun to change hands as speculators bet on topple or stability, their moods as fickle as the alley winds.

Conner marched with his head to the side, goggles out of the peppering sand, and imagined the sound those rickety scrapers would make when they tumbled. The homes in their shadows would be crushed, the people living there buried, the shops and stalls flattened. The poorer people to the west must live in daily terror of what dangerous things their wealthy neighbors built. Those in the shadows didn’t speculate with their money but with their lives.

The great wall itself would topple one day. Conner could see this as they passed the boundary of Springston and the wall was viewed edge-on like he saw it twice a year. An entire desert pushed against the wall’s back. It had built up slowly and inexorably over the decades, wind howling and sand piling up, spindrift blowing over ancient ramparts to haze the sky with occasional gusts or to dim the afternoon sun with furious blasts. When it went, the sand would loose a hellish fury. He was quite glad he wouldn’t live to see that.