The sunrise is blurry: a watery yellow circle obscured by a thick haze of gray-green smog. The air pollution is so thick Madeline can barely see the highway. She’s parked outside the Middle Cape Turnpike Authority. She hears cars zooming past, all going the same way. She can’t see their license plates but knows they’ve gotta be from all over the country. Everyone in America is coming to Cape Canaveral for the launch. 

Halima comes tearing out of the building, the sack bouncing wildly off her shoulders. She tosses it to Madeline. “Take it! Let’s go!” She clambers into the car, hurriedly adjusting her headscarf. “Why isn’t the car on?! You were supposed to be idling!”

“Calm down.” Madeline flicks her cigarette butt onto the pavement and grinds out the last spark with her heel. She climbs into the driver’s seat. “Besides, idling is bad for the environment.” 

Halima scowls. “Very funny. Aren’t you worried about the police?” 

Madeline starts the car. “Please. They’ve got their hands full with accidents and controlling that mob down at the Space Center. No one’s gonna be paying any attention to the Turnpike Authority.” Madeline whips the car around and peels out of the parking lot. “We’ve been doing this since your shift ended yesterday and we haven’t gotten caught, have we? Take it easy. Just one more to go.” 

Madeline gets back onto the highway. They started the job at 5 p.m. the day before, when the Florida Turnpike Authority buildings shuttered for close of business, beginning at the southernmost tip of State Road 91. 

“You’re speeding,” Halima says. 

“So?” Madeline crosses all four lanes of traffic as she follows the map on her dashboard. 

“So! We’ll get pulled over.”

“Halima. We’re robbing the State of Florida dry. I think a speeding ticket is the least of our worries. Don’t you want to make it on time?”

“I still think we could have done this the honest way.” 

“Are you kidding me? You’ve seen this traffic. There’s no way out of all these people, all these white people, we were ever making it onto that shuttle.” 

“You’re white, Maddy.” 

“Yeah, but I’m an ex-con. An ex-junkie, too. I’m still the bottom of the barrel in their eyes.” 

“I guess.” 

“This is our only chance. Don’t get cold feet now.” 

Halima sighs. Absentmindedly, she picks up the sack and sorts through the chips. They look like a cross between microprocessors and SD cards. They’re about half the size of a credit card and almost as thin.

“So? What’ve we got so far?” Madeline asks.  

“Well, each chip has a capacity of $10,000 of digital currency. And we have…” Halima cups handfuls of the chips, letting them drain through her fingers like doubloons, like mounds of glittering gold and gems. “It’s gotta be at least 70-something.”

“Seven hundred thousand dollars?!” Madeline smacks the wheel so hard it honks. “And this last Turnpike Authority, it’s the biggest one, right?”

“Yes. Three main state highways converge there. Almost everyone coming to the Space Center from the west would have gone through it.” 

“Then we’ll have a million dollars,” Madeline breathes.  

Halima sets the sack down at her feet. She gazes out the window. “Yes. Most likely.” 

“That’s gotta be enough, right?” 

“I hope so.” 

Exits and rest stops fly by. Madeline can’t read any of the signs; the haze is too thick and she’s going too fast. 

Halima sighs. She is staring out the window, her arms crossed, her feet up on the dash. 

“You seem moody,” Madeline says. “What’s wrong?” 

“Aside from the obvious?” Halima snorts. “I just don’t think this is gonna work. I think we’re wasting our time on a stupid, reckless idea. We could’ve gotten in line a week ago. We live right here.” 

“Come on, don’t be like that. It’s brilliant! Look, for a week, people from all over the country have been driving here to the Cape to get in line for a free ticket. Thousands of people. Probably millions. And all of them have been paying tolls. The credit banks in the Turnpike Authorities are full to bursting. And you, a faithful employee of Florida’s turnpike toll booth system, have the key to the castle. All that money, all those saps’ money, will be ours. It’ll be our ticket out. Standing in line wouldn’t have gotten us anywhere. And you know me. I’m not known for my patience.” 

Halima forces a weak smile, but she doesn’t reply. 

Madeline goes quiet too. She focuses on the road. It’s gotta work, she thinks. It’s just got to. 

Halima begins snoring softly. She’s asleep against the window, her neck at an uncomfortable angle.

Madeline’s tired too. It’s been a long night. 

It’s 9 a.m. From the North Coast Turnpike Authority building, where they are heading now, it’s a two-hour drive to the launch-off point. They should make it with an hour left to get their tickets and board. 

She turns on the radio for a distraction, to keep her alert. 

There is a burst of static. Then, a young man’s frantic voice crackles through: “—have their hands full here, as hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens, and plenty of foreign nationals, clamor to get in line for a free ride before the shuttle launches at noon today. More than half of all who are gathered here will be turned away at the gate. It is a scene of total chaos, and it’s only just—” 

She switches the radio off again. 

Before the exit for the last Turnpike Authority, there’s a billboard. Madeline’s seen it so many times, she could reproduce it from memory. It’s been all over the country for a year: flashing on screens in dwindling downtowns, splashed on the sides of deserted buses and bus stops, pasted up on the walls of lonely subway stations, painted like graffiti over shuttered windows and boarded up businesses. A perfect nuclear family stands with their backs to the onlooker. They look out through the blackness of space to a far blue and green planet. It looks like Earth, but the continents are different shapes and the colors aren’t right. Enormous yellow block letters proclaim: “The future of the American family is on Planet F!” 

She shakes her head in disgust. Planet F. Two years ago, NASA discovered the new little world on the rim of the Milky Way. It had oxygen, a temperate climate, drinkable water, and no existing intelligent life. Soon, it was announced that Planet F was the solution to their impending climate apocalypse. Despite warnings from scientists nearly half a century ago that if the global temperature continued to rise unimpeded the planet would become utterly uninhabitable, nothing had changed. They still drove cars fueled by gasoline, still drilled and fracked for oil, still made everything out of plastic. It had become too late to change. 

A sixth extinction had ripped through the planet’s species. Wildfires ravaged the west coast every day. The heartland was plagued with tornadoes. It was a miracle the Space Center wasn’t underwater, with the rapidly swelling ocean and near-constant hurricanes. The only fresh water on the planet came from complex filtering machines. And still, they had more to look forward to. As the arctic ice thawed completely, ancient diseases that had been dormant in the permafrost would soon spread like a dozen new Black Plagues. 

So many had died. So many would die. Planet F was the answer. They would escape, leave the ravaged Earth behind and start anew. They would be farmers again. Pioneers. Immigrants, each and every one of them. 

But there was a problem. Planet F was much smaller than Earth. If every human being still alive on Earth was permanently resettled on Planet F, the resources of the new planet would be used up in less than a hundred years. Only half of all humanity would be able to go. The rest would be left to die. 

Madeline wheels into the Turnpike Authority and screeches to a stop. 

Halima starts awake. “We’re here?”

“Yep.” Madeline turns the car off. “I’m going with you this time. I wanna see us hit a million.” 

“Are you sure that’s wise?” 

“Halima, seriously. Who do you think is coming to stop us?” 

“Fine, fine.” Halima grabs the sack and climbs out of the car. 

Madeline follows close behind. 

Halima swipes her ID at the front entrance. The enormous double doors swish open. They walk inside. As they tiptoe through the empty building, sensor lights flick on automatically. 

“So how does this work, exactly?”

“We access it here,” Halima whispers. She walks up to a wall of computers with a booth in the center, like a giant ATM. Madeline hovers over her shoulder. Halima swipes her ID again and enters her code. The screen blinks green. 

“This is where it gets trickier,” she says quietly. “I have to make it think I’m making a drop first.” She takes a chip out of her pocket. It’s much bigger than the others in the sack. “This is my till chip, see? It’s what all the money from the booth is stored on after my shift is over.” She pushes it into a slot. The machine starts beeping. “Then, while it’s still trying to process that, I enter the code I wrote to confuse it and force it to output rather than input.” 

Halima enters the code. It’s gibberish to Madeline, but she can tell it’s incredibly complicated. Halima pulls out the big chip, then pushes it in again. The screen processes, processes, processes. Then it blinks green. Halima throws her arms up. 

“We did it?” Madeline asks. 

“Yes!” Halima exclaims. She opens the sack to catch the chips pouring out like a slot machine jackpot. 

Madeline whoops and slaps her back. “You’re a genius! Man, it looks like at least a hundred more already.” 

The flow of credits slows to a trickle. Then it stops. Halima closes up the sack. “I’ll count it in the car. But I think you’re right.” 

They walk out of the building, automatic lights turning off in their wake. 

They pile back in the car with their loot. Madeline types new coordinates into the GPS. 

It’s 10:25 a.m. when they get back on the highway. 

“So where is your contact supposed to be again?” Halima asks as she absentmindedly counts the credits. 

“On an off-road a couple miles from the Space Center.”

“And he’ll have the tickets?”

“Papers saying that we’ve been approved by the state to board the shuttle, but yes, essentially.” 

“How long is it gonna take to get there?” 

“Half hour, give or take.”

Halima nods. “Good.” 

The traffic is gone. They soar through empty lanes. The sun bakes the blacktop. Vapors rise all around them in shimmering waves. If they were outside, they’d be choking on the poisoned air. It’s not safe to be outside anymore when the sun is high. 

“There’s definitely a million here,” Halima says. “Over a million. I can’t believe I’m holding this in my hands right now. This is insane.”

“That’s fantastic.” Madeline can’t stop smiling. “That’ll definitely be enough for him.” 

“What’s your guy gonna do with this money, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s got plans to be the king of the wasteland. He’s gonna raise a post-apocalyptic army of the damned and take over the world. Or so he says.” 

Halima snorts. “Where do you find these people?”

“He’s married to someone I met in prison.” 

“What was she in for?”

“Murder one.”

“Jeez.” 

Madeline laughs. “Yeah, she was a piece of work. She ran that place, actually. Get this. She wouldn’t let anyone shorter than her look her in the eye. She once took this little blonde by the hair and—” 

“Maddy!” Halima shouts like they’re about to crash. 

Madeline slams on the brakes. “What?! What?” She whips her head around, looking for the imminent danger, but she sees nothing.
Halima points up through the windshield. Her finger trembles. “Look.” 

There is an enormous fiery body streaking through the sky above them. With the car stopped, Madeline can feel the vibration and hear the roar. It shakes her very being. 

“What? But—but it’s only 11! It can’t be!” Madeline smacks the clock numbers with her palm, as if she can make them change. She turns on the radio, but it’s just static. No one’s broadcasting anymore. 

Halima climbs out of the car. 

“Halima, what are you doing?!”

Halima shuts the door. Madeline scrambles to follow her out onto the shoulder. 

Halima walks to the edge of the highway and leans on the rail. 

“Halima, we can’t be out here.” She’s already wheezing. She had asthma growing up, so it always hits her harder. 

“I just want to watch,” Halima whispers. 

“I can’t believe this bullshit!” Madeline shouts. She lets out a frustrated snarl and kicks the rusty, dented railing. “How can they do this? They said noon!”

Halima shushes her. Her eyes are trained on the shuttle. It’s so bright that even with the air pollution to dim it, Madeline still has to squint her eyes to look straight at it. “It’s beautiful,” she can’t help but say. 

Halima hums in response. 

They stand there until it vanishes from view. Then they get back in the car. 

Halima cries for a while, silently. Then she falls asleep again. 

Madeline drives. 

When Halima wakes up again, she is disoriented. She contorts her body to look out all the windows. Ocean surrounds them on all sides. 

“Where are we?” she asks, groggy. 

“Somewhere in the Keys.”

“The Keys?!”

“Yep.” 

They are driving along the Overseas Highway, skipping across the archipelago like a pebble on the surface of a pond. Madeline remembers peering out the window onto this highway as a kid in the backseat, on the way to Key West—the only vacation her parents took her on before they split up. The whole time, she felt like she was underwater. 

“That’s like seven hours from home.” 

“What, you’ve got somewhere to be tomorrow? An important riot to attend? Some can’t-miss looting?”

“Don’t be a bitch, Maddy. Why are we in the Keys?”

Madeline shrugs. “I felt like driving.” 

Halima sits back. She breathes out slowly. “Okay,” she says eventually.  

As the sun begins to set, they end up on a deserted beach neither of them know the name of. The signs are all gone, either due to storm damage, lack of maintenance, or both. Madeline can’t imagine towels, umbrellas, or frisbees here anymore. This beach has gone wild. It looks primordial in the light of dusk. They drive up as close as they can get to the sand and sit on the hood of the car. 

“It still smells the same,” Madeline says, breathing in deep through her nose. “Even though it’s dead.” 

“The ocean?” Halima asks. 

“Yeah.”  

“I guess it’s always smelled like death. In a pretty way, though.” 

The waves crash. Madeline watches each one as it builds, and breaks, and dissolves into seafoam on the wet sand before the ocean draws it back in. 

She hugs her knees to her chest. “What are we gonna do now?”

Her question is met with a long silence. She listens to the ocean and sinks down deep into her thoughts. She’s hungry. She wonders how they’ll get their next meal. She wonders what the world will be like when the sun rises tomorrow. 

Halima kicks off her shoes and steps into the sand. “Let’s go swimming.” 

“The water’s toxic, Halima.” 

Halima shrugs and holds out her hand. “So’s the whole world.”  

Madeline takes it and lets Halima pull her along. 

---