So it was oars and sore backs. A long, long day that started long before dawn. It took an hour to get everything ready in the morning, the nets stowed after they’d been dried, the bait, hooks, lines, poles, the boats themselves, the day’s food supply, water, life jackets. Then it took another hour of working the oars to get out far enough.

Six boats, three armed with poles and lines, and three dragging nets. They took turns because everyone hated the nets. It was more rowing, dragging the nets back and forth slowly across the water. Then hauling the nets up into the boat and picking fish and crabs and assorted debris out of the cords. Hard work.

Later, in the afternoon, a second batch of boats would go out to fish mostly for the blue water bats. The water bats were a mutated species that lived in caves during the night and flew out into the water during daylight. The only use for the bats was to feed the zekes, the killer worms that lived in the vegetable fields. The bats were the tribute kids paid the zekes. The economy of Perdido Beach was doubly dependent on Quinn’s efforts.

Today Quinn was with a net boat. He’d let himself go for a long time, getting more and more out of shape in the first months after FAYZ fall. Now he was kind of enjoying the fact that his legs and arms, shoulders, and back were getting stronger. It helped, of course, that he had a better supply of protein than most people.

Quinn worked a long morning, him and Big Goof and Katrina, the three of them having a pretty good day of it. They hauled up a number of small fish and one huge one.

“I thought for sure that was the net being snagged,” Big Goof said. He stared happily at the almost-five-foot-long fish in the bottom of the boat. “I believe that’s the biggest fish we ever landed.”

“I think it’s a tuna,” Katrina opined.

None of them really knew what some of the fish were. They were either edible or not, either had a lot of bones or didn’t. This fish, slowly gasping his last, looked very edible.

“Maybe so,” Quinn said mildly. “Big, anyway.”

“Took all three of us to haul him aboard,” Katrina said, laughing happily at the memory of the three of them slipping, sliding, and cursing.

“Good morning’s work,” Quinn said. “So, guys. You think it’s about time for brunch?” It was an old joke by now. By mid-morning everyone was starving. They’d come to call it brunch.

Quinn dug out the silver coach’s whistle he used to communicate across his scattered fleet. He blew three long blasts.

The other boats all dug in their oars and began heading toward Quinn’s boat. Everyone found new energy when it was time to assemble for brunch.

There were no waves, no storms, even here, a mile offshore; it was like lolling in the middle of a placid mountain lake. From this far out it was possible to believe that Perdido Beach looked normal. From this far out it was a lovely little beach town sparkling in the sun.

They broke out the hibachi and the wood they’d kept dry, and Katrina, who had amazing skill with these things, started a fire going. One of the girls in another boat cut off the tail section of the tuna, scaled it, and sliced it into purple-pink steaks.

In addition to the fish they had three cabbages and some cold, boiled artichokes. The smell of the fish cooking was like a drug. No one could really think of anything else until it had been eaten.

Then they sat back, with the boats loosely roped together, and talked, taking a break before they spent another hour fishing and then faced the long row back into town.

“I bet that was tuna,” a boy said.

“I don’t know what it was, but it was good. I wouldn’t mind eating another few slices of that.”

“Hey, we have plenty of octopus,” someone joked. Octopi weren’t something you had to catch; they sort of caught themselves, a lot of the time. And no one liked them very much. But everyone had eaten them on more than one occasion.

“Octopus this,” someone said, accompanying it with a rude gesture.

Quinn found himself staring off to the north. Perdido Beach was at the extreme southern end of the FAYZ, snugged right up against the barrier. Quinn had been with Sam when in the first days of the FAYZ they’d fled Perdido Beach and headed up the coast looking for a way out.

Sam’s plan had originally been to follow the barrier all the way. Foot by foot, over water and land, looking for an escape hatch.

That had not quite happened. Other events had intervened.

“You know what we should have done?” Quinn said, barely realizing that he was speaking out loud. “We should have explored all that area up there. Back when we still had plenty of gas.”

Big Goof said, “Explore what? You mean, looking for fish?”

Quinn shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve exactly run out of fish down here. We almost always seem to catch some. But don’t you ever kind of wonder if there’s better fishing farther north?”

Big Goof considered it carefully. He was not the sharpest pencil in the box; strong and sweet, but not very curious. “That’s a long row.”

“Yeah, it would be,” Quinn acknowledged. “But I’m saying, if we still had gas.”

He pulled the visor of his floppy hat low and considered taking just a brief snooze. But no, that wouldn’t do. He was in charge. For the first time in his life, Quinn had responsibility. He wasn’t going to screw that up.

“There are islands up there,” Katrina said.

“Yep.” Quinn yawned. “I wish we’d checked all that out. But Goof is right: it’s a long, long row.”