The Des Moines skyline lit up as Cassidy approached the bridge- the apex of her evening constitutional. The typical routine was that she crossed the north bridge, walked alongside the riverbank until she got to the south birgde, crossed the south bridge, and returned to the Des Moines Botanical Garden having managed to mostly avoid walking over the same spots twice. Cassidy especially liked doing this during wintertime, as the city's skyline would light up on her approach- providing she timed it right.
On this fine winter night, the timing was perfect. Cassidy twirled ever so slightly as she basked in the light of the city, and even gave off a slight, almost uncharacteristic smile. Cassidy didn't get a view like this in summertime. Nobody bothered to turned on the electricity when it was hot outside. The energy was too valuable to waste.
It was under these lights, as Cassidy came closer to the bridge, bit by bit, that she made out a figure in the distance. She wasn't sure at first who it was. Normally the jumpers were all strangers. But Cassidy had an odd feeling of familiarity, and sure enough, at long last, it turned out the jumper was none other than her old school chum Joel Rotierre.
"Stay back!" cried Joel, when Cassidy was close enough he could inarguably sense her. "I'll do it!"
Cassidy stood still a moment. This kind of social interaction was a frequent recurrence in her late night walks, across the bridge and back to the Des Moines Botanical Garden, where she was the sole working botanist. It was always worse during the winter. Something about the freezing cold just made people more likely to try and kill themselves. Suicidal dramatics from a potential jumper were nothing new to Cassidy. Suicidal dramatics from her old friend Joel Rotierre were a bit more unnerving. Particularly since he had lived in Des Moines several years now, and had made no effort to visit Cassidy despite her reputation as a local celebrity. But then this was all pretty much to be expected from his eccentric temperament.
"No you won't," said Cassidy, simply, deliberately, and patiently. She had an eccentric temperament of her own. Even with people she thought might actually jump, Cassidy did not make much of an effort to take feelings into account.
Joel paused. He stopped shivering, slowly turning around at the sound of Cassidy's ineffably mellow voice. This was the voice that had haunted him throughout college, with a flat tone and an equally flat disinterest in the value of human life. Joel had never forgotten, nor could he forget, the last time he saw Cassidy some thirteen years ago. All five of them were faced with a cataclysmic event that meant the end of the world as they knew it. And they deliberately plotted to increase the death count.
Cassidy easily felt the existential dread from Joel's expression. Cassidy also knew Joel well enough to understand how that dread mingled with his sense of fake surprise. Obviously he knew to find her here. Cassidy found the whole situation unbearably preposterous. Joel never fooled anyone. At least not in the way he intended.
"Cassidy?" Joel asked, nervously, uncertain how his tone should sound.
"Yes, it's me," said Cassidy. "Do you want to save us all a little time, Joel, and just come down?"
"That's not funny," he said, turning back to the river and clenching his fists. "I'm really going to do it."
"Why?"
Joel hesitated. A normal person would have found Cassidy's tone infuriating. Usually jumpers would respond to her short, pithy replies by getting angry and simply saying whatever they were thinking. That critical moment of unambiguous outburst was often enough for Cassidy to make all sorts of prognostications right on the spot. But Joel, even in his weakest moments, was always carefully crafting a misleading narrative to best make his point.
"I wanted to be normal," he said.
Cassidy laughed. It sounded awfully condescending, and went on several seconds longer than Cassidy had intended. She was still caught a bit off guard emotionally by the sudden reappearance of Joel's obviously preposterous falsehoods into her life. In one sense this was comforting. A lot of people mistakenly believed Cassidy had no emotions at all. The real problem was just that she found nearly everything boring.
Fortunately Joel was not the kind of person to easily take offense. This was part of why they had always had such an easy time getting along. Cassidy herself was mousy, with poor complexion, hideous freckles, plain hair, and no features to speak of. Joel was a short man, with a mild hunch in his back. His facial symmetry was off just slightly enough that it unnerved nearly every person he spoke to, not that anyone Joel spoke to would ever call attention to it. Back in the Old World, a good day was one where most people would never notice either one of them.
But these unflattering images were at this point deliberate expression more than aspects of themselves forced upon them by society. In her stint as a bartender in college, Cassidy learned that proper application of makeup could even make her look pretty- and more importantly, unrecognizable. Joel's problems were more deeply rooted than that. But as an adult with a good job, even he could fix those issues via cybernetics, or plastic surgery, if only technology available in Des Moines was under consideration. His decision to maintain his unattractive appearance was as deliberate a choice as Cassidy's at this point.
"I'm sorry," said Cassidy, wiping a tear from her eye. "Obviously I'm not one to talk."
They both stood in silence for a moment, an elevated Joel still poised to jump into the freezing Des Moines River, and Cassidy just looking at him. Cassidy observed that Joel looked quite presentable in his suit. How preposterous to pretend like he would ruin a perfectly good suit by jumping into the river. Cassidy wondered how ridiculous she must look to Joel, with her outfit composed almost entirely of animal skins and furs. It wasn't just Cassidy being the Oracle that made her wear such exotic clothing, to better look the part for people from far off lands. The tribute from hunters was by far the best quality and warmest she had- indisputedly superior to the synthetic garbage of the Old World.
"So how did it go?" asked Cassidy. "What was your normal job like?"
"Nothing important," said Joel. "I was just moving papers around really. All very purposeless."
In fact Joel's job was extremely important. Nobody ever thought about all the human excrement that had to be managed in the wake of The Great Blackout. The muckraking had, after all, been completely digitized, for some reason. More recently, Joel had made a recent tour of Iowa at large to outsource some of his analog technique to the smaller municipalities that considered themselves to be in allegiance with the Free State of Iowa. Cassidy had read all about the trip in the newspaper. It was the main immediate reason she was expecting Joel, although their meeting again had been preordained quite some time ago.
Cassidy always had loved the newspapers. Most of the useful data in them was unintentional, but then that was why Cassidy was so good and what she did. Anyone could make major predictions based on the obvious.
"Is that why you're here?" Cassidy asked, briefly tearing herself away from her own convoluted thoughts. "Was your life just too meaningless?"
"Not exactly," said Joel, awkwardly trying to balance himself. "I've just been very concerned about...current events."
"Do you miss working with Jerry Shankar?" asked Cassidy.
"Absolutely not!" said Joel with such fury that he nearly lost his balance. He nervously regained it, and came in a little closer from the edge, before trying to talk again. "That man is pure evil. He'd kill you and me both to get what he wants."
"And yet?" Cassidy said patiently.
"And yet," Joel said, finally nervously sitting down on the railing, as he had become concerned about slipping. "I look at what's been happening the last few years, when I wasn't around to help. It seems like everything has just gotten worse. And I always end up asking myself, am I really making a difference here? Compared to what I was doing before?"
"You think you should come back." Cassidy said.
"No, I-"
"That wasn't a question," said Cassidy. They both well understood the significance of this. Questions can neither be truth nor lies. "Even if you won't allow yourself that privilege, I can see straight through you Joel Rotierre. You can try to be a productive member of society, and you may well succeed. But that's not what your heart wants. You've seen enough of the big picture to know better. We don't deserve Iowa."
Cassidy carefully took off her left glove, fashioned from a buffalo hide, and extended a surprisingly robust looking hand. Cassidy didn't like showing her hands to anyone. They were always expecting something dainty, but dainty hands did not make for good botanists. As cold as it was out there, and given their past relationship, Joel deserved the consideration. And besides, Joel already knew what Cassidy's hands looked like.
"I'm having breakfast with Jerry in a few days," she said. "But it's just a ruse so that he could meet you. He knows it too. I made sure to set it up at that diner he likes. You know I hate diner food."
"Really," Joel said, giving off a sad smirk. "Sometimes I feel like you've planned my whole life out for me."
"It's not my plan," said Cassidy. "You know that as well as I do. Come on."
Joel took a deep breath and came off the railing. He felt purified and clear of mind. Cassidy had a way of doing that to people. Some would say it was her great gift- although for others, most notably Cassidy herself, it was a terrible curse.