Page 19 of One Adult, Please

I test-swing it. A nice wide arc. Powerful. Decisive. Naval, even. Unfortunately, the ceiling is low, my math is decorative, and the oar comes down on the back of my skull with a thock that reverberates through my body, my ancestry, and at least one disappointed pioneer woman.

I blink. I adjust my grip. I don't acknowledge what just happened because I'm choosing a different timeline, where I executed a flawless practice swing and looked cool doing it.

"Thoughts?" I say, holding up the oar like a soldier presenting arms at inspection.

Joel's mouth is doing the almost-thing that isn't quite a smile but lives in the neighborhood. "It's an oar," he says.

"It's the friendship paddle."

"The what?"

"The friendship paddle. Because I'm going to use it to make friends with anything that tries to eat us." I hold it across my body. The thock site on the back of my head is throbbing gently. I ignore it. "It's got reach. It's got weight. It's got maritime authority. The stabby fork was a starter weapon. This is the upgrade."

"You just hit yourself in the head with it."

"Preliminary calibration. I've mapped the swing radius."

"It's going to happen again."

"Statistically, yes. But when it connects with a wrong person, it'll connect with maritime authority. Look at this thing." I hold it up. The wood grain catches the emergency lighting. "This is a serious piece of friendship."

He's quiet for a beat too long. "You should keep the trident too," he says. "As a backup."

"The stabby fork gets to come?"

"It gets to come."

"Joel. That's the nicest thing you've said to me and you said I could sleep in the fish tube."

I strap the stabby fork to the outside of my tote bag using the drawstring from one of the rain poncho pouches. I carry the friendship paddle in my right hand because it feels right there, balanced, purposeful. A weapon for a woman with a plan.

We load the remaining tote bags. More water. More snacks. I grab a handful of protein bars, the bad kind, the sawdust kind, because Joel eats them and they're going to be currency when civilization remembers it needs calories. I also grab more gummy sharks, two bags of trail mix, a box of granola bars that are a slight step above the sawdust ones, and a sleeve of crackers shaped like starfish.

"Snack distribution," I announce, organizing the haul on the checkout counter. "Two bags for food. One bag for tools and first aid, which we'll fill at the band-aid house on the way. One bag stays empty for whatever we find in the adventure part."

"Mythic Frontier."

"The adventure part, Joel."

"It has a name."

"It has the wrong name. Mythic Frontier sounds like a board game my uncle would buy at a garage sale. The adventure part tells you exactly what it is."

He inhales through his nose.

I pull on my Wondie hoodie, resettle the strawberry purse across my body, hoist the tote bag onto my left shoulder, and grip the friendship paddle. This is my aesthetic now. Post-apocalyptic gift shop warrior. Not OSHA-compliant. But spiritually accurate.

"Okay," I say. "Route. How do we get from here to the adventure part?"

Joel pulls the where picture he said he didn't need from his back pocket. Unfolds it. I say nothing, which is the hardest thing I've ever done, because the smug joy of being right is burning a hole through my chest, and I let it burn in silence because I'm growing as a person. Briefly. Against my will.

"We go back through the main corridor, past the theater, out through the Celestial Bay west exit," he says. "That puts us on the connector path between zones. About two hundred meters of open pathway before we reach Mythic Frontier's east gate."

"Two hundred meters of outside."

"Outside-adjacent. The pathway is covered. Pergola structure with lattice walls. Partial concealment."

"Cool. Cool cool cool. Two hundred meters of partial concealment. Just a light jog through an open-air hallway with lattice walls, which, for the record, lattice is the wall equivalent of a suggestion. Lattice says 'I'm technically here but I'm not going to try very hard.'"