Outland (World-Lines Book 1)

by Taylor, Dennis

  “Hey, sunshine! You made it back!” A short, curvy brunette made a bee-line for Bill Rustad.

  Lieutenant Collins noted with interest the way the crowds parted for her. She hit Bill at full stride—the lieutenant was sure he heard an oompf—and gave him a bear-hug, practically lifting him off the ground. The lieutenant couldn’t decide if he should be envious or sympathetic.

  “So, they gave you time off for good behavior?” She grinned up at Bill. He smiled back, his arms around her, and Lieutenant Collins couldn’t help noticing how little pleased Richard was with this.

  Lieutenant Collins stepped forward and said to Bill, “So I’m expecting this is Monica?”

  Monica turned, stuck out her hand, and said, “Monica Albertelli. Welcome to Rivendell.”

  “Lieutenant Tom Collins. And before you say it, I’ve heard them all.”

  Monica laughed. She had a good laugh. Lieutenant Collins understood Bill and Richard a little better.

  He continued, “I saw a little of your handiwork on the way in.”

  Monica’s expression clouded up. “They killed a couple of my friends. No one does that. Fuckers needed killing.”

  Lieutenant Collins noted out of the corner of his eye that Corporal Chavez was nodding with approval. Oh, boy. Two of them. This is going to be interesting.

  ***

  The trucks had come through, and the troops and refugees had been organized and bivouacked. Lieutenant Collins had a short meeting with the members of the Planning Committee. There were no real surprises, other than the amount of ordnance that they had in Rivendell. Lieutenant Collins privately admitted that he could have won a straight-out firefight, but it would have been close.

  He’d also seen the coffee supplies and the professional coffee maker. Yep. Bill Rustad for President.

  ***

  Some adjustments were necessary to make room for the refugees and military personnel. Tents had to be moved. In a couple of cases, people had set up small green spaces in front of their tents, which had to be given up. But the Guard personnel were quick and efficient. In no time, accommodations were up for the new residents.

  Along with many others, Erin was doing a bit of rubbernecking, when a familiar face caught her eye. “Oh my God! Professor Collins!” she yelled, and rushed over. Just in time, she noticed a woman and two adolescents standing near the professor, so she aborted the intended bear hug, instead grabbing his hand as she reached him.

  “Yellowstone erupted and it blew more than three thousand cubic kilometers of ash into the air and on this side it blew sometime in the last one hundred thousand years and that's what killed people off over here and I think it left Nebraska with more hills and a higher ground level and the climate is cooler and wetter here and I don’t know if that's global warming and without people the Pleistocene animals aren't extinct!”

  Erin stopped and took a large breath. Professor Collins smiled at her and said, “We’ll go over that in detail later, I think. I’m glad to see you alive and well.”

  Erin smiled back timidly and turned to the woman beside Professor Collins. “I’m Erin. I’m one of his students.”

  The woman returned a friendly smile. “So I gathered. I’m Mary.” The two shook hands.

  Erin turned back to Professor Collins. “So how did you end up in the National Guard refugee camp?”

  The Professor gave an embarrassed chuckle. “You’d think I’d know better than to stay in town, wouldn’t you?” He shrugged. “But it took too long to gather my family together, and by the time we were ready to head out, everything was gridlocked. We stayed home until the ash fall stopped, with the intention of trying to get out of town then. But guess who shows up on my doorstep, but my little brother in a big hummer?”

  Erin was blank for a two-count. Then, “Lieutenant. Collins? Duh!”

  “Yep,” the professor said. “Always good to have connections in the military.”

  He continued, “So how did you end up here?”

  Erin looked down for a moment and considered. Where to begin?

  Interludes

  Alex stood at the stack of fence-posts, contemplating his day, when Trish came up to him from behind.

  “Alex, can I talk to you for a second?”

  Alex turned to her. A jolt of anxiety ran through him. Oh crap, this is it. I’m getting dumped. Just watch.

  “Hi, Trish. What’s up?”

  “That’s what I want to ask you. We were doing really well together, then for no reason you shut down on me.”

  Alex stared at her in disbelief for a second, put his head down and said, “Aw, crap. So I made things worse. I should have told Frankie to fuck off.”

  Trish tilted her head and looked at him quizzically.

  Alex gave her a lopsided grin and tried to explain. “Frankie told me I was coming on too strong and I’d end up scaring you off. So I tried to back off, and it looks like I overdid it.”

  Trish gave him the hairy eyeball. “Well, Frankie wasn’t entirely wrong. You did seem to be kind of all over me for a while there, but this is worse.” She laughed. “Oh God, we’ve turned back into teenagers!”

  He took her hand. “I’m sorry, Trish. I didn’t want to blow it. I can’t explain it exactly, but this all seems a lot more important now. Like we’re all suddenly adults whether we like it or not.”

  Trish stepped a little closer and looked down. “That’s pretty much right. This could be our home for the rest of our lives.” She looked up at him with a shy smile. “And it might not just be us. I’m late.”

  “What do you mean? Late for…” Alex’s eyes got wide as his brain finally caught up with the conversation. “Oh…”

  A goofy grin slowly formed on his face and got wider and wider. “Oh! Oh wow!”

  Trish looked up at him with her head cocked at a slight angle. “Maybe we should discuss this at my place…”

  Go big or go home, dude. “Sounds good to me!”

  Birth Rate

  The news spread through Rivendell like wildfire. If there had ever been any intention to keep it quiet, that plan was out the window. Trish Lopez, one of the scouts, had announced that she was pregnant. The perma-grin on Alex Shaw’s face left no doubt about who was to blame. Once the news hit, a couple of other women admitted that they were late as well.

  The Planning Committee was in session. Lieutenant Collins was attending as the new Lead for Security and Scouting. Fred and Anson had happily bowed out with the arrival of the National Guard, stating their intention to start a Bocce and Chess Club.

  Now everyone was looking at everyone else, waiting for someone to talk first.

  Finally, Bill spoke up. “Momma said there’d be days like this.”

  Lieutenant Collins looked at Richard. “He quotes Motown, too?”

  “He quotes everything!” Richard answered. “We haven’t found the off switch yet.”

  Bill smiled, way ahead on points.

  “Anyway, we have a problem. Uh, it is a problem, right?” Richard continued.

  “Well, medically, yes. In about eight months, it will be,” Krista replied. “Before modern medicine, up to fifty percent of newborns didn’t survive past three months of age. We’ll beat that statistic of course, because we know about sanitation. But we’ll be nowhere near the zero point six percent we’re used to in the modern world, not without some help.” She looked at Joseph, then at Richard. “The University Health Center is already on our list of targets, but we need to bump it up now.”

  “If I could get the plumbing supplies from the Home Depot,” Bill cut in, “we’d have clean water.”

  “If we could go find a couple more vehicles,” Joseph added, “we could do several of these important things at once!”

  “Actually, we can help you out there, since we have these army trucks sitting around now.” Lieutenant Collins pointed out. “But it would be handy to have fuel storage tanks on this side.”

  “Which also would be very handy,” Nick interjected, “for gett
ing us construction supplies for those buildings for the winter…”

  “And I remind you, gentlemen,” Samuel Wildman said, “that we still have to break ground before fall if you want spring wheat!”

  Richard put his head in his hands. It was going to be a long day.

  Electric Company

  Bill and Richard stood outside, surrounded by tables and stands covered with equipment, parts, and tools. Bill had two odd-looking wind turbines up on stands. The turbines were slowly turning in a breeze that, Richard admitted to himself, didn’t seem strong enough to move anything.

  Bill watched his handiwork with obvious pride for a moment, then turned to the measuring instruments on the table. They had gathered a lot of equipment from one of those sustainable energy supply stores, most notably a large number of storage batteries and a charging system to buffer the generator output. The store had also contained a stack of solar panels, which were now leaning against the south side of one of the sheds.

  “We’ll put the solar panels on top of the sheds and add their output to the grid when we have time,” he said, as much to himself as to Richard.

  Richard stood there and waited. Bill would get there when he got there, and meanwhile Richard was content to let the day wash over him. The sun was shining—amazing weather on this side—and felt good warming his face.

  He’d had an unexpectedly good time today when he ended up seated beside a girl named Suzie at breakfast. Suzie was bright, interesting, and didn’t kill people. Richard felt a little ashamed of himself, but he had to admit that Monica was turning out to be a full-time job. And that was without any real expectation of an exclusive arrangement. She seemed to be quite happy with both Bill and himself vying for her. Maybe it was time to let Bill have a clear field and look for someone who was looking for someone, so to speak.

  And for maybe the first time since he was ten years old, Richard felt at home. He had people who he considered friends, who he would trust with his life. As far as he was concerned, Earthside could go jump.

  Meanwhile, Bill’s monologue seemed to be running down. Richard started paying more attention.

  “There’s a pretty steady breeze from the west most days,” Bill said, “and on balance it seems to be enough for us when we’re not running too much equipment, with a little left over to keep the batteries charged. The solar cells will add to that. And of course we can always add more turbines.”

  “So we have full-time electricity then?” Richard asked.

  “Yeah, but we should try to avoid becoming dependent on it for everything. If everyone starts running air conditioners, it’s lights out. Literally!”

  “The new pioneers…” Richard mused. He grinned. “Next thing, we’ll be churning butter.”

  “Mmmmm… butter…” Bill replied.

  Richard laughed, gave a casual wave, and walked off, whistling the Andy Griffith theme.

  Planet 4

  Kevin and Bill were in the mad science lair. Bill put the panel back onto the portal generator that had been shot by the goons, while Kevin watched.

  “And, done,” Bill said. “I think we may have managed to salvage the device. Among their many failures, the morons shot it in the power supply. Those we can get anywhere.”

  Kevin considered. “We should probably test it.”

  Bill thought for a moment, then a slow smile spread on his face. “Yes we should, Kevin. You know, we could test it by just connecting up to Earthside…”

  Kevin looked at Bill quizzically.

  Bill continued, “But we’ve done that so many times…”

  Kevin looked alarmed.

  “And we do have the pressure vessel, so it would be safe…”

  Kevin’s head was shaking back and forth, faster and faster.

  “And you can’t tell me you aren’t curious…”

  Kevin started to back away, while continuing to shake his head emphatically.

  “Oh come on, Kevin. Don’t you wonder even a little bit?”

  “Wonder about what?” They both turned to see Monica walking up.

  “Bill wants to test the portal repairs by connecting to the next Earth,” Kevin said, in a tone that indicated his disapproval.

  Monica looked at Bill. “So what’s the hold-up?”

  Bill laughed, while Kevin looked at them both and said, “Oh God, I’m surrounded by lunatics.”

  “Oh come on, Kevin,” Bill said. “We’ve got the pressure vessel, like I said. Richard’s dead-man switch is a good piece of engineering, though you didn’t hear it from me. We’d just have it on for a second or two.”

  Kevin looked back and forth between Bill and Monica, then slumped, defeated. “Okay, but if anyone asks, I’m telling them you threatened me.”

  Bill and Monica both laughed, and they started setting up. Bill and Monica moved the pressure vessel into position, while Kevin disassembled the pole-cam. In a half-hour or so, they had everything set up and the video image on the tablet showed a deactivated gate.

  “Should we stand outside the shed?” Kevin asked.

  “Honestly, if we end up destroying the shed, I think I’d rather go up with it,” Bill answered.

  Kevin looked even more alarmed.

  “Enough jawing,” Monica said. “Push the button dammit.”

  Bill smiled at her, held up the tablet and pressed OK.

  There was the usual momentary blurring, then the video showed an image of dense forest.

  “Maybe more like jungle,” Monica said in response to the unspoken thought. “There are a lot of ferns and vines in there.”

  As they watched, an animal entered the field of view. It was bipedal, about four feet tall, with bright patterned plumage in a predominantly red pattern. It also had taloned forearms and sharp teeth.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Bill said.

  “Velociraptor?” Monica added, awe in her voice.

  “Oh boy.” Kevin finished.

  Epilogue

  The southern hemisphere will not be spared. The volume of ash and gas pumped into the northern hemisphere will be more than sufficient to force significant quantities across the equatorial convergence zone, where it will spread and create similar problems in the south.

  Over the longer term, the ash and dust in the stratosphere will cause up to a decade without summer. Every country on the planet will find its ability to produce food severely impacted. Unable to feed their own populations, formerly food-exporting countries will shut down their borders. Formerly food-importing countries will not accept this decision politely. Tensions will escalate.

  In the end, disease, accident, starvation, collapse of infrastructure, and internecine warfare will kill more than two billion people within the first year. Deaths will continue to outnumber births for at least a decade.

  Appendices

  Cast of Characters

  Richard Nadeski

  Experimental Physics student

  Bill Rustad

  Engineering student

  Matt Siemens

  Computer Science student

  Kevin Jahani

  Math/Theoretical Physics student

  Erin Savard

  Geology student

  Monica Albertelli

  Zoology student

  Andrew Petrelli

  Self-styled mob boss

  Charles Eaton

  Goon #1

  Bluto (Trevor Pavoni)

  Goon #2

  Dick Thompson

  Animal Sciences student

  Suzie, Frankie, Stephanie, Joy, Maddie

  History students

  Pete and Phil

  Stoners

  Professor Robert Collins

  Geology professor

  Jenson Hildebrandt

  Professor Collins’ assistant

  Joseph Leung

  Team Lead, Scavenging operations

  Alex Shaw, Trish Lopez

  Scouting

  Krista Tollefson

  Team Lead, Medical


  Nick McCormack

  Team Lead, Infrastructure

  Fred Mack, Anson Rutherford

  University security guards

  Samuel Wildman

  Team Lead, Agriculture

  Maggie, Ben, and Marcus

  Samuel’s family

  Charlie Watson

  Scavenging group member

  Lieutenant Tom Collins

  National Guard C/O

  Corporal Beatrice Chavez

  National Guard soldier

  Pvts Stevenson, Timminson, Andrews

  National Guard soldiers

  Goro Yoshida

  Pilot

  Author's Notes

  During critiquing and beta reading, I was asked a number of times about the quotes and about the facts mentioned in the story. All of the quotes at the top of chapters are real, and the attributions are correct. The facts, such as the definition of supervolcano, sizes of past eruptions, and information about Toba, are also accurate.

  Watch for the next book in the World-Lines series:

  Earthside

  References

  Super Volcano

  The ticking Time Bomb Beneath Yellowstone National Park

  By Greg Breining

  SUPERVOLCANO

  The Catastrophic Event That Changed the Course of Human History

  By Dr. John Savino, PhD and Marie D. Jones