Interrupt

by Jeff Carlson

  Drew let go of her hand. “Listen,” he said.

  The noise level rose as the men by the entrance started shouting. Emily heard the locks clunk and then the familiar whine of the door hinges.

  “Attention on deck!” Drew yelled.

  He stood up and Emily matched him, rethreading her arm through the bars. Beside her, the lieutenant and the geologist moved to the front of their cell.

  Three soldiers strode into the corridor, not the prison guards but new soldiers. Accompanying them was a man in a blue business suit. Under one arm, incongruously, he held a wide-brimmed jungle hat. His face glistened with sunburn.

  Sunburn! Emily thought. That meant the clouds were gone unless he was a pilot. He looked like a bureaucrat.

  He held a clipboard in addition to his hat. He stopped in front of Drew’s cell with his three soldiers. “Haldane,” he said. “Front and center.”

  “What is it, sir?” Drew asked.

  Emily groped helplessly for his hand and couldn’t find it. “Drew!” she said.

  The man glanced at her. “You’re Flint,” he said. “Step back. Haldane, there’s no need for you to fight.”

  “No, sir.”

  She heard Drew speak to his cellmates. Then the soldiers let him into the corridor.

  “Wait,” she said, drinking in the sight of him. Drew was pale, but he’d regained the use of his dislocated elbow and he looked good with a dark scruff of beard.

  The sunburned man walked toward her. “You, too,” he said. “You’re both coming with me.”

  “What?”

  “The pulse stopped three days ago. Our best projections are that the flares are done until the next solar max, maybe longer. Maybe a lot longer.”

  “What about China, sir?” Drew said. “Are we at war?”

  “Not yet,” the man said, increasing his volume. The prisoners had started hollering again. He waved his clipboard with a mix of weariness and excitement. “Shut up! Shut up and I’ll tell you! Almost everyone here will be paroled as soon as we can process your records, but I promise you, this is your last chance. Martial law is in effect, and we are shooting criminals and looters!”

  “These are good people, sir,” Drew said. “I can vouch for most of them.”

  “We’ll see.” The man unlocked Emily’s door, gesturing for her cellmates to move back. She took an instant to hug the geologist and the lieutenant.

  We made it, she thought. It’s over.

  Then she was in Drew’s arms. She pretended to be deaf to the catcalls up and down the jail block, but in her heart, the noise felt like a celebration.

  LOS ANGELES

  Standing at a fence in the afternoon rain, Emily rolled up her jacket sleeve to display the DIA, C-004, and E-3 tattoos on her forearm. A Marine sergeant rubbed his thumb on each mark. Then he nodded. “Okay.”

  The Marines at the fence lifted the gate to the secure area inside Camp Ninety—a dense, hodgepodge collection of tents and aluminum sheds.

  Emily entered the maze of homes.

  Not many people were outside. Earlier today, the sun had broken through the clouds for an hour, but the drizzle must have sent them back under cover.

  A young man stood in the muddy path with his eyes closed. Despite the rain, he only wore a T-shirt and jeans. Emily wondered if she should ask him to get out of the cold. Then a voice piped behind her. “Hi!”

  Framed by the open flap of a red tent, a ten-year-old girl stared at Emily’s feet.

  “Hello,” Emily said.

  “Hi! Hi!”

  The noise brought an adult from the next shelter, a pup tent he’d enlarged with two canvas tarps. “Dr. Flint,” he said. “I told you we need more to eat. We need blankets. You can’t keep us here if you don’t—”

  “You can leave any time, Mr. Womack,” Emily said roughly.

  She’d changed. In another life, she might have haggled with him. Instead, she adjusted her sleeve with a conspicuous tug before she walked away, leaving her forearm exposed as a sign of rank.

  Southern California hadn’t recovered enough of its industry to bother with print shops. Rumor said the government was issuing photo IDs in Denver and Flagstaff. Here on the coast, they had a thousand more pressing needs. The military had instituted a system of tattoos, using U.S. Treasury ink to thwart the explosion of forgeries.

  Some people bitched about it, of course, comparing the marks to those forced on Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust, which was absurd. Mostly the complainers were people who resented the fact that they hadn’t been given top ratings.

  Emily’s tattoos were ugly as hell. They also permitted her inside the labs, the Marine barracks, and the cafeteria. The fenced area inside Camp Ninety had its own soup kitchen, but hot tea and soup were about the extent of their menu. Yesterday, they’d had powdered eggs. Otherwise, the inhabitants ate uncooked food from cans—and they were the lucky ones.

  Five weeks after the last sporadic pulse, twenty-six fenced camps existed in California. The majority were in the southern part of the state where a few Navy and Marine Corps bases had weathered the disaster with losses as small as 40 percent. As fighting units, the naval and Marine forces had been devastated—but as peacekeepers, they were the best available option until civilian police forces could be reassembled.

  Outside the camps, anarchy reigned. A few survivors had organized their own villages, claiming various city blocks or suburban streets. Others thrived as raiders or nomads in tribes much like they’d formed during the pulse. People also gathered by the thousands around every military post or fenced camp, looking for family, begging to be let in, subsisting on garbage and scraps.

  Inside this fence, two hundred hand-picked children, women, and men were as healthy and well-fed as anyone could expect. Navy doctors and specialists like Emily paid steady visits, delivering care and medicine in exchange for hair and blood samples.

  Camp Ninety was a VIP installation in Long Beach. Most of the city had avoided destruction because it sat directly against the ocean, storm winds driving the fires inland.

  Despite being surrounded by the ruins of the L.A. basin, even because of the wreckage, Long Beach had been deemed an unusually functional place to rebuild. First, the oil refineries on the peninsula had been spared. Second, the burned areas prevented too many refugees from overrunning the Marines before they’d cordoned off essential sites. The refugees who did come found abandoned homes, and a high school’s baseball diamond had provided most of the fence line for Camp Ninety. The school buildings housed the Marines and lab personnel. Across the street were the dead, open spaces of a golf course where helicopters could land, and five miles east was the Los Alamitos Army Airfield with two runways for fixed-wing aircraft. The Navy was also docking ships at Long Beach’s commercial harbor, not only to bring in cargo and men. A nuclear-powered destroyer provided electricity to the labs, the barracks, and the refineries.

  Emily felt as if she’d come full circle. She believed her apartment in Pasadena had burned, and she’d personally helped a platoon of Marines turn DNAllied into a ransacked shell, stripping it of equipment and computers—but Long Beach was close enough to call home.

  I should be happy, she thought. I am happy.

  She understood Mr. Womack’s selfishness. He had a son to protect. In other people, parental instincts compelled them to volunteer for the work crews, contributing to the greater good, but not everyone could see the larger perspective, so Womack fixated on expanding his tent and hoarding as many snacks and clothes as possible. Even if she personally disliked him, the human race was richer for its diversity.

  Individuality was the price of free will. Homo sapiens tended to work against themselves, yet it was because they clashed that they were successful.

  They pushed each other.

  Maybe I’m being selfish, too, Emily thought as she emerged from the tents into a clearing near one of the baseball field’s dugouts. The space was dominated by the camp kitchen, which consisted of two garden s
heds and a plastic awning.

  Protected from the rain, several people stood over short barrels of water, scrubbing pots and bowls. Among them was a honey-haired woman accompanied by a spindly boy.

  Shaking off her irritation, Emily smiled. “Laura!” she called to her sister.

  “P.J., it’s Em,” Laura said, tugging at her son.

  He didn’t respond. It might be years before P.J. recovered from the strain and deprivation of his days as Nim. He was scrawny, hurt, and drained, and yet Emily detected a spark of the bright-eyed child he’d always been. He slapped a plastic serving spoon on the water’s surface, whispering under his breath.

  Laura met Emily at the corner of the awning. Her face was haggard. Emily wanted to hug her, but settled for patting her shoulder. Laura had a horrible new aversion to being touched. When the pulse quit, she’d discovered herself with a man who was a stranger. He hadn’t hurt her. They had been mates. Now she was eight weeks pregnant.

  Meanwhile, her husband Greg remained missing. Laura was far from alone in mourning lost family, but her pregnancy had unhinged her. She wanted Emily to tell local commanders to place Greg on their priority list. Laura herself had been plucked from the refugee hordes after repeating P.J.’s and Emily’s names to every soldier she could find.

  During the four weeks of the pulse, Laura had roamed seventy miles from West Hollywood, moving east into the San Bernadino Mountains.

  Six days ago, she’d been flown to Camp Ninety on an Army transport. Ever since, Laura and Emily had fought—about Greg—about their parents—about the reasons why U.S. Command had gathered certain people inside the baseball diamond.

  Camp Ninety held fourteen young men and boys like P.J., six girls, and fifty-seven adults with thick dashes on their forearms. Emily imagined a lot of quick worrying had gone into the decision not to tattoo them with N for Neanderthal. Too many refugees wanted targets for their rage and grief. If these people left the camp, an N might get them killed, although a dash amounted to the same thing. They were marked for life.

  The rest of Camp Ninety’s inhabitants were caregivers. Most of them weren’t family members. They were people with backgrounds in health care or education. Laura and Mr. Womack were two of the very few parents who’d been reunited with their children, which gave them a certain moral power. Laura was grateful for her son’s life, but she’d also yelled at Emily when Emily admitted their research had little to do with an autism cure.

  Standing at the awning, watching P.J. instead of her sister, Emily said, “I talked to the admiral.”

  Laura must have sensed her answer. “Did he say no?” Laura asked. “You should do it anyway.”

  “We’re under a lot of pressure from higher up.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Shush.” Emily faced her now. “Originally I was close to developing a cure,” she said. “A biomarker to identify Neanderthal traits is the first step toward stopping autism, but I can’t do whatever I want, Laura. This is a government facility, it’s their equipment, and things are moving fast. We’re talking with the whole country again. Most of Congress is back in place in Washington.”

  P.J. smacked the water with his spoon—splat, splat splash—splat, splat splash—introducing variations to his drumbeat with his whispers. “Blom. Blom.”

  “My job is to develop gene therapies that will make ordinary people invulnerable to the pulse,” Emily said. “That’s the priority. We don’t have the resources to set up another line of research. Not yet.”

  “There are twenty doctors in this place,” Laura said.

  “Most of them are combat medics, not biologists.”

  “What if there’s another interrupt? Em, I can’t lose him again.”

  What if you’re supposed to? Emily thought. Laura was a good mother. She’d overcome her own trauma to defend P.J., but Emily was tired of running from the truth.

  “There’s a reason for who P.J. is,” she said. “Even if we could change him, I’m not sure we should.”

  “What does that mean?” Laura said.

  “You never saw him. I did.”

  “He’s not one of your experiments!”

  “Laura, we can’t deny what happened during the pulse. Outside, in the open, P.J. was better than us.”

  “They say he was a monster.”

  “No. He was perfect.”

  Ultimately, Emily felt a profound respect for the tough, simple Neanderthals. She was willing to refuse Laura for something larger than all of them. In time, maybe her sister would forgive her. At the moment, she saw revulsion in Laura’s eyes.

  “Get away from us,” Laura said.

  “I won’t. You want special treatment and favors from me? You’ve got them. You have food and shelter and your son. You’re safe. That’s more than most people.”

  For the first time in her life, Emily had stood up to her sister.

  “I’m not sorry,” she said, walking past Laura to P.J.

  Laura tried to catch her arm.

  Emily shrugged her off and said, “Don’t. Let me talk to him.” Then she softened her tone. “Laura, I love you.”

  Her sister shook her head.

  Emily went to P.J. He hadn’t noticed her until then. Ducking his head, avoiding her eyes, he tried to explain what he perceived in the water. “The sound is one three, isn’t it?” he whispered. “One three, one three.”

  “I hear it,” Emily said. Her heart ached with the sad, sweet, majestic wonder of him.

  In so many ways, they were similar. Emily felt the same magnificent hope for herself. Life was difficult—messy, painful—and beautiful and rewarding.

  “I hear it, P.J.,” she said.

  An hour later, walking with Drew inside the school building, Emily said, “Laura hates me.” She needed more than a hurried conversation, but they’d been called to the east wing, Emily from her lab, Drew from his office. She was glad he’d waited for her at the security checkpoint.

  On the ground level, the filthy windows showed the wire and sandbags protecting the outside. Drew’s boot heels clacked on the white tile floor. Emily’s footsteps were softer. P.J. could have read their moods by the sound alone, a thought that struck Emily with fresh pain.

  “Tell me what happened,” Drew said. He stopped her and cupped his hand on the back of her neck, tipping his forehead against hers.

  The intimate pose reminded her of murmuring in their jail cells. She almost liked the pose better than a kiss because it was unique. When they were in bed, after sex, she often leaned her face into his like he’d done now, re-creating their tiny, private space.

  “Laura said…” Emily swallowed. “She said she can’t lose P.J. again, and I’m afraid I’m going to lose her.”

  Drew nodded. “This is harder for Laura. It’s always harder to sit and wait.” His fingers curled in Emily’s hair. “Let me talk to her.”

  “Thank you.”

  The sound of her footsteps became a better match for Drew’s stride as they approached a second checkpoint.

  Four Marines stood in the corridor. Behind them lay the secret heart of the labs.

  Maybe if Laura knew what we were doing in here, she’d cut me some slack, Emily thought. But telling her sister was forbidden. It was bad enough she’d shared the real direction of her research. Too soon, rumors would spread through camp.

  At the checkpoint, Drew and Emily displayed their arms to a captain who inspected each tattoo. “Sir,” the captain said, waving them past.

  Drew’s clearance level was higher than Emily’s. His C was followed by 002 instead of 004, but he wore just two marks compared to her three. Emily had been assigned a low-ranking Army pay grade in order to account for her billet and meals. Drew was no longer a Navy officer. He’d received a dishonorable discharge after ROMEO’s attempt to take Bunker Seven Four. Now his sole allegiance was to the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was a federal agent and a civilian.

  The corridor ended abruptly in a raw concrete bulkhead, which did n
ot match the school’s cream-colored walls and burgundy trim. Emily thought it looked like a gray block had dropped from the sky into the two-story building. The concrete stretched from ceiling to floor, which were cracked and roughly patched.

  Set in the gray block were a steel door, keypad, and phone.

  Drew lifted the handset. “This is Agent Haldane. I’m with Dr. Flint.” He hung up and said, “They need a minute to open the baffles.”

  Emily nodded as the floor vibrated with a distant, grinding squeal. She took his hand.

  She knew his dishonorable discharge haunted him. He’d served in the Navy since he was eighteen, but he had good reason to hold on to his pride.

  Shaken by ROMEO’s attempt to commandeer the USS Nickels and launch its anti-satellite missiles, the president had revisited their intelligence briefs dealing with the existence of China’s EMP weapons. Some of that data had originated with Julie, Bugle, and Drew.

  Before the pulse tapered off, while Drew and Emily were in jail, the order had been given. The Nickels had fired eleven ASATs over the course of two days, destroying all three of China’s attack satellites.

  Without that edge, the Chinese agreed to negotiations with the U.S. and Vietnam. China continued to deny responsibility, claiming the satellites were Iranian or North Korean, but war had been averted in part because of Drew. Emily wanted to tell everyone she met, although it suited him fine that his heroism was never publicly acknowledged. He only cared that his superiors knew—and Emily—and men like Bugle and Macaulay.

  Bugle had vouched for Drew in his reports, pinning the blame for the mutiny on Captain Fuelling. The trail also led higher up. ROMEO’s director had been jailed for instigating the mutiny, but the agency itself was too valuable to shut down. Field operatives who’d dealt with the Neanderthals were especially in demand, so Drew had been put in charge of the four-man ROMEO team at Camp Ninety.

  It wasn’t a glamorous assignment. It was better than prison.

  It also left Emily and Drew in Bugle’s debt.

  The three of them might never be friends. Maybe someday they’d talk. For now, Bugle had been sent to D.C. to liaison with ROMEO’s new leadership as they reestablished their networks on the West Coast. The job was a prominent national position. He’d earned it.