The Crest

On some mornings, it grew chilly on the Crest. Margot blew on her hands, her breath lingered in the miasma. They sat on the crude wooden benches in the flanking tower, trying to warm themselves by the fire.

“How many stings did you get?” Margot asked.

“Two. You?”

“Three. My god it was painful.” She showed him her swollen arm. Her eye still puffy.

“Poor Agathe and Emilio. They’re lucky to be alive.” Keegan replied to his partner.

“Anaphalactic shock for Emilio. He was damn lucky.”

“How did we get here?” she asked.

“Huh?” Keegan mumbled.

“I mean, how did humanity end up in this climate netherworld with unbearable heat, deadly hornets, and the natural world turned upside down?”

Keegan laughed. “Jesus, what’s gotten into you this morning, sister?”

Margot laughed. “Your conversations are rubbing off on me, I guess. I mean, decades ago, people knew they were fucking up the climate, but they refused to acknowledge it.”

“Welcome to the future. Perched on a wall for two years. The boomers never took responsibility for anything, and now they’re too senile to admit their mistakes. The world became something like enlightened versus the unenlightened. The ‘woke’ versus ‘anti-woke.’ They say preaching about climate change to the public doesn’t work anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Because people don’t respond to preaching; nobody likes sanctimonious bastards, including me. But most people have already made up their minds. They listen to their own kind. Oh, you might convince a few, but when you got to lifestyle changes, nada, the buck stops there sister.”

“Wow, you’re the enchanting one this morning,” She exclaimed caustically.

“It’s true. The boomers proclaim our generation as the last hope. I mean how in-genuine, and, by the way, misleading. They lived their carefree lives, did nothing to stop the Shift, and now they put the pressure on younger generations to solve the problem. What the f--- is that?”

“I agree, but our age group needs to figure out ‘the why,’ to live now with the planet they handed us. Nothing we can do about the past.”

“Wow, now you’re the enlightened one,” Keegan said.

“You started it and besides, if I’m going to be posted up here for two years, I’d better learn how to push your buttons. So, I still don’t know how it all began,” she said.

“It started when we moved past 1.5 degrees C. 1.5 degrees C was the incantation of the time. The problem was we couldn’t innovate our way out of it anymore, and we couldn’t change lifestyles, and the government was, well… pathetic.”

He paused to poke the fire. “The middle-class and the rich had the food, at least the corporate kind. They thought they possessed the land, water, and cash to outlast the Shift. That’s the key part of this whole miserable fairy tale. The well-off moved to places with nice people around them while people in the cities dealt with the seething masses. Escapism. It became a geography solution. Move or have a shitty life. And when we scolded the rich and the corporations publicly, they labeled us activists. Oh God the activist label was a death sentence, like the plague, or you were a serial rapist or a pedophile. The Permafrost Corporation hated our guts.”

Vera, the coffee lady from food service came by as she usually did at 10:00 am. “How are you today, my dears?”

“Fine, Vera. What have you got for us today?”

“Hot coffee and sweet bread,” she said.

“Sweet bread?” Margot asked, intrigued.

“For you two only, but don’t go telling everyone.”

She handed them two pieces of the bread. “Baked it myself. Because you are both so special.”

“Thanks, Vera.”

Keegan noticed a hand-held radio sitting in her pack. “You use that much?” he asked Vera.

“Only when I’m running out of coffee, I can call in and have them bring it up to the Crest. Saves time you know.

What, no bad guys out there today?”

“None that we can see.”

“Of course, my dears. That’s always good news. I have milk for your coffee if you want some.“.

“Real milk, where’d you get that?” Margot asked.

“Oh, we pay a farmer in the enclave and they deliver it to us on occasion.”

Vera put some milk into Keen and Margot’s chicory coffee. Well, I’d best be on my way. Take care, my dears.”

“Of course, Thanks, Vera.”

They finished their break. “Back outside we go,” Keegan said to Margot. “See you in an hour.”

Keegan paced his 91 feet of terra firma, stopping, staring out into the haze, and continuing. Below him something moved. He took out his binoculars and scanned the foliage. It was a fawn. It looked injured.

“What the….” he said.

The baby deer limped. It looked overwhelmed; eyes wide open. Pleading.

Back at the flanking tower, he explained his plan.

“I’m going down to get it,” he said.

“Don’t do it. You’ll end up in the brig if not worse. More time on the wall,” she said.

“Come on, nobody will know.”

“Sergeant will see you.”

“You can deny you knew anything about it.”

“I will. You’re just stupid,” she told him.

“Still, I could take it down to the vet at the headquarters.”

“What if it’s a trap and they’re waiting out there?”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

“You’re fucking nuts, how will you get down there?”

“With the rope.” He pointed to a rope in the corner of the chamber. “Wish me luck.”

Keegan walked away with the rope. He tied one end of the rope to the rock merlon on the wall and climbed down the fifteen-foot embankment. He walked down the hill to the creature. He scanned the forest. “Nobody around,” he said to himself.

Slowly he approached the fawn. He saw it was dehydrated and near death. It wouldn’t be long. “How are you, girl?” he said to the animal. He could see the fawn trembling. It’s wide eyes staring. He touched it but the fawn did nothing. He took the emaciated creature and carried it up the hill to the battlement.

“What now? How do I get back up?” he thought. A plan emerged in his mind. He tied the fawn, weighing at least forty-five pounds to his chest and with his free hands he attempted to pull himself up the wall. No luck.

“Fuck,” he said. He sat down and tried to figure out what to do. He tried again to haul himself up the wall with the deer. He got half-way and descended. The Sergeant could show up any time and if he did, he’d be a goner. He tried again, positioning the awkward fawn higher up on his chest. He could feel the warmth of the fawn and its rapid breathing. He could feel its bones. He tried to scale the wall again, but again failed.

“Hey, you fucking idiot. Tie the deer onto the rope and I’ll pull it up.” Margot had been watching the debacle. “And hurry the fuck up, the sergeant will be here soon.”

Keegan tied the fawn to the rope and Margot hoisted the creature to the top. She dropped the rope back down and Keegan climbed up. They could see the sergeant now 100 feet away, he’d been scolding Ben and Lenore.

“Quick, get it in the chamber and put a jacket over the top of it.”

They hid the fawn in the flanking tower chamber just as the patrol sergeant arrived.

“Everything okay here?” he asked, looking closely at Keegan and Margot, reading their faces, sensing mischief.

“Okay, sergeant. Nothing to report. Margot’s got a nasty cough,” he lied.

The sergeant looked around the room. His eyes fixed on the jacket covering the baby deer. “Pick up your damn shit off the floor and you.” He pointed to Margot, “You get some medicine to the infirmary when you get off shift.

“Got it, sergeant,” she said.

The sergeant left the chamber and walked down to the next patrol.

“That was too fucking close,” Margot said.

“You’re right,” Keegan whispered. “Thanks for your help. You saved my ass.”

“You’re welcome.” Margot looked smug but glad to have helped her partner. “You owe me one,” she said.