(Word count: 497)

Meredith lights her last cigarette and walks out of her tent. The stink of ash, kelp, and dead animals becomes a paste in the back of her throat. She presses her lips together and strides past the remnants of Canada's Pacific fleet.

"Morning, lieutenant. We've got a situation."

"So I heard."

She doesn't need to look to know it's Airman Kormos who falls into step with her. He's a short Hungarian American and the last scrap of the US Coast Guard she's seen in years. They bend underneath the rusting propeller of a Halifax-class frigate. It's the HMCS Saskatoon. Her ship. Now it's slowly decomposing in sand and ash with the rest of them. She glances out over the Salish Sea. It's as grey as the sky and extremely acidic. So little oxygen is left in their waters that anything bigger than a fishing boat will sink.

They finally step near the ruins of a lighthouse. Two men straighten up and step aside. The older man is a Nuu-chah-nulth elder named Joseph. He introduced the young man as some big Kwakwaka'wakw artist from the mainland, but Meredith never bothered to learn his name. She doesn't see the point anymore.

"Alright," she rasps, "what've you got?"

Joseph looks at her with red-rimmed eyes and says nothing. She crouches down and balances her cigarette between her thumb and index finger. The irony of smoking while the world suffocates in volcanic ash isn't lost upon her.

Kormos rubs his hands together to warm them up. "Shit. Are those human?"

"Too heavy for fish or bird," Joseph murmurs. "Definitely mammal."

"Could be a deer or something." Kormos hunches his shoulders and shivers.

"Could be."

A large pile of ash and bone is neatly hidden away by the lighthouse's concrete foundation. Meredith sifts through the ashes and picks up a cracked tooth. She stands up and turns it over in her fingers. It certainly looks human. Cremation? Murder? Cannibalism? This is the job of a cop, but she hasn't seen one of them since the ill-fated evacuation of Vancouver.

She coughs from deep in her chest and nearly falls over. The taste of rust adds to the unpleasant flavors in her mouth.

"You okay, lieutenant?"

"Peachy." She stands and takes a bracing drag on her cigarette. "Let's keep this to ourselves for now."

"Why?" The young man bristles. "People could be in trouble."

Meredith smiles, but not in a nice way. "Look around, kid. We're all in trouble."

Joseph pats the young man's shoulder. "We always care for each other. Crime, no crime. Right, David?"

His face eases a little. "Yeah."

They share a moment of unspoken understanding. That camaraderie is one of many things Meredith misses about serving on the Saskatoon. But now their cornucopia of civilization is reduced to a few hundred refugees. A democracy kept alive by a hunter, an artist, a pilot, and a naval officer.

She turns back to the sea and keeps smoking.