Luna watched him, wondering how to help, but here’s the thing that Nomads know—every storm they survive is just one more storm gone by. Every storm. You have to survive. And how you survive, well that’s up to you. Totally up to you. Survival. Luna dug through one of her boxes for a light nylon jacket, pulled it over her tank top, zipped it to her chin, and hugged herself against the chill.

Beckett touched her lightly on her back. “Let’s get under the tarp.”

The first sprinkling rain hit their roof with splats and plonks then came in at an angle under the tarp. It was hard and cold and shocking to the skin, so they rushed into the safari tent dragging their chairs.

The canvas tent was tall. Standing up inside was easy for Luna, but Beckett’s head brushed the top. They set the chairs up beside each other, and Beckett lit a lantern giving the whole space a warm glow. Rain pitter-pattered on the tent’s roof.

Luna shivered. “Do you have a blanket?”

Beckett rummaged through a small trunk, happy to have something to do. He had rushed with this young woman into the harbor of his tent without considering what they might talk about once there. When entertaining mainland girls he had common interests, a place to begin with in conversation. Music, sports, school. He couldn’t imagine having anything in common with this exotic creature. But he wanted to. And the thing was, he had spent the day with her, and she was comfortable. She worked. She talked. She laughed and joked. He was nervous because of his idea of her, yet her company relaxed him. It made no sense. But nothing much made sense anymore, anyway. He handed Luna an antique-looking quilt.

“This is beautiful,” Luna said. “Yours?” She stood to wrap it around, then sat back in the chair.

“My grandmother gave it to me. She’d be pissed if she knew it was this close to a drowning.”

“She wasn’t a big fan of a drowning?”

Beckett chuckled. “Her great-great-grandmother was a sea captain’s wife. The quilt has been passed down to her descendants as long as they promise not to go to sea.”

“Oh.” The pattering rain grew louder, making speech impossible.

When it waned, she said, “So you’re the kind of guy who doesn’t do what you’re told.”

Beckett tilted his head back and took in Luna, going by the name of Anna, wrapped in his family’s heirloom blanket. She looked mussed-hair, wet-bedraggled, lantern-glow beautiful. “No, I’m the kind of guy who knows better, thinks it through, can’t think any good will come of it, but then does it anyway.”

“Sounds a lot like the same.” Luna grinned.

“Well, your version has me rushing headlong in reaction. Believe me,” He leaned back in his chair, both hands on his head, rubbing around on the top of his too-short hair, “A lot of thought and preparation went into this voyage to a sinking ship.”

“You think it’s sinking?”

“The ocean is rising, it’s very much the same thing.”

Luna’s voice took on the soft sultry tone that happens in caves with only one source of light and raging elements outside. “So what made you come here, Beckett?”

“Oh, that’s a long story and not a very interesting one.”

“From the sound of the rain we have a while and not much else to do. How about I try to guess?” She stood and headed to his bedside table.

He chuckled, “What are you doing?”

“Shhhh, I’m investigating.” She walked around the room looking on tables and shelves. Searching his personal effects, chewing her bottom lip, deep in thought. Her eyes were lidded by a fringe of dark lashes, not catching the light, absorbing it.

“Aha!” She held up a dog-eared copy of Walden by Henry David Thoreau. “Are you reading this?”

Beckett said, “I did, months ago.”

“So that’s why you’re here, this is your Walden.”

“Wait, you’ve read Thoreau?”

“Of course and don’t distract. I guessed, right—with the water and the tiny house and the little garden? You’re living Thoreau’s dream. I’m right, I know it.”

Beckett appraised her, chuckling. “You know, I never even thought about that, but nope, wrong. I read Walden because I’m planning to live in a small mountain house when I get back...”

“Oh, drat,” She returned the book to the shelf. “Okay, second guess.” She spun slowly, then in her most queenly accent said, “You’re here to earn the money to buy a small mountain house, that you’ll live in with a beautiful mountain girl and your ten frolicking mountain babies. Ta da!”

“Ta da, huh?” Beckett teased, “You know, you’re better at reading the sky than the room. I already have the house.”

“Double drat. So let’s see, you’re not in it because of a dream, or the for the job, you must...hmmmmm.” She crinkled her eyes and drew out another long, “hmmmmmmmm,” and then, “I don’t know, I keep coming back to, you want to piss off your great-grandmother by bringing her quilt out to the middle of the ocean—”

Thunder clapped and lightning flashed.

Beckett sat up straight in his chair.

Luna looked wide-eyed, “I didn’t see that coming.”

Beckett grabbed a bundle of blankets from his cot and a flashlight. “Well, you are in a tent, even you can’t read a storm from inside the tent.” He peered out the door flap. “Let’s get down below until the electrical part of the night is over. Are you bundled?”

Luna had the quilt tightly wrapped, but seeing the intense rainfall, bundled it into a ball and stuffed it under the front of her jacket.

Beckett yelled, “Run!” and they dashed across the expanse of the rooftop toward the stairwell in the far corner. The rain drenched, poured, splashed. By the time they shoved through the door together they were laughing and breathless.

It was dark in the stairwell and the flashlight was bundled in the blankets, impossible to find without dropping everything. Beckett said, “Hold onto my shoulder, right here, we’re going down, fast.”

The darkness was total. Terrifying. The dripping sound intense. Stairs usually make sense. They have an order, size, and angle, and ought to be easy to maneuver even without sight, but in Luna and Beckett’s fright and friendly rush they slid and stumbled and held on and giggled, as they descended the one flight.

Beckett shoved against the door and they fell through. They were on the 120th floor. It was fully enclosed in glass, not needing open port windows for Nomadic paddleboard landings. The view was epic, from two sides, the other sides were covered with more stacked and shoved office furniture. Outside was dark but the lights at every corner were spinning and shining all around. A clap of thunder and then lightning arced through the sky right in front of their view.

Beckett said, “That was close.”

Another boom and arcing light.

They stood in the middle of the room, holding their bundles, watching the light show outside. Their arms within a half-inch of touching, yet not, because touching would be insensible, yet the tiny sliver of space between them felt more electrified than the lightning outside, more dangerous.