Outland (Revised Edition)

by Dennis E. Taylor

  Richard drove the van toward the university, watching for unexpected obstacles like fallen structures or cracks in the pavement. Dust and smoke hung in the air, but Erin assured them that it had all been kicked up by the earthquake. While the tremors hadn’t been severe enough to open a fissure capable of swallowing the van, something big enough to total the suspension would be sufficient to end their expedition.

  “Sure is dead,” Erin commented. “Uh, I mean deserted.”

  “First thing people will do is head for home,” Richard replied. “Either to hunker down or to get out of Dodge.”

  “And it’s Sunday,” Kevin added.

  Richard offered a bleak smile. “Well, you ain’t wrong.” He paused, then glanced significantly at Erin. “How serious are you about that 100 percent prediction?”

  “For animals out in the open, it’s certain. For people who have masks, they’ll be okay. Even drywalling masks are good enough. If individuals stay indoors for a couple of weeks, they’ll be okay, as long as they turn off forced-air systems. Of course then they’ll have the problem of no water and probably no food left. Water treatment plants will choke and die pretty fast. At that point, people will go out and try to look for supplies or help. If they inhale too much gunk, their lungs can’t clear it out. And that’s fatal.”

  Richard nodded but didn’t reply, his attention completely focused straight ahead. An increased frequency of cracked and buckled pavement was making the journey less of a city drive and more of an off-road activity. It took some inventive driving, and more than one parking meter had to be sacrificed, but eventually they did make it to the university. They pulled up into the grassy area near the Health Center. It was central to the campus and a likely place for students to gather after the quake. In any case, it was as good a place as any to start. They opened the van, pulled out the portal equipment, and set it up. They started up the generator but didn’t open the gate yet. By the time they had the portal ready to go, they had attracted a crowd of perhaps forty.

  Erin stepped to the fore and took a breath to talk with as much volume as she could manage. “Can I have your attention, please? As you’ve probably heard by now, Yellowstone has erupted.”

  If Erin had been arranging it for showmanship, she could not have done better. Right on cue, the sound from the eruption arrived in Lincoln. The Krakatoa explosion had been audible up to three thousand miles away. This was orders of magnitude more powerful. People fell to their knees holding their ears. Windows cracked or shattered in buildings. A few minutes lapsed after it died down before everyone’s ears recovered. Moans of fear turned into muttered comments, then shouted questions.

  Erin raised her voice to a shout. “So … Yellowstone has erupted. I guess you realize that.”

  The background conversations were replaced by derisive laughs from the audience and shouts of “Thank you, Captain Obvious!” and “What gave it away?”

  Erin ignored them and continued. “In a couple of hours, the ash will start to fall. Within two or three weeks, you’ll all be dead unless you have some way to get at least five hundred miles from here in the next twenty-four hours.” That produced a loud silence. “Breathing the ash causes pulmonary disease. It also destroys equipment. Chances are there will be no food deliveries into town for quite a while. Chances are the power will not be coming back on, at least not for long. Chances are the water system will fail within days. The National Guard and FEMA may be able to help, but they are going to have the whole state to deal with.

  “In the longer term, we may be able to get back on our feet. In the short term, it’s not going to be pleasant. But we have a way out—through here.” She gestured to the gate. “On the other side of that gate is a version of Nebraska with no humans. Also no eruption, which is the important thing right now. I know this all sounds crazy, but we don’t have time for a debate. Please just roll with it for the moment. Now, it’s not civilized on the other side, so we’re going to bring out some shotguns before opening the gate. Please don’t be alarmed.”

  Students looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Some laughed nervously until Richard and Kevin came around carrying the guns.

  Richard pumped his shotgun with a loud clickety click and looked over to Erin. She held up her tablet and pressed “OK.”

  The gate came to life, and showed trees, meadow, and a very large and very startled moose. The moose gave a bellow of alarm and left in a hurry. Several students showed signs of having the same idea.

  “I’m not going to argue with you about whether or not this is possible,” Erin said. “There isn’t time, and we have better things to do. Step through if you want to confirm it yourself. But be aware that the wildlife may want to eat you. And if you don’t want to join us, we understand. It’s a free country. You can go ahead and try whatever you think will save your life. But you’ll know by now that there’s no easy way out. If you’re here right now, you probably don’t have a ride out of town, and getting a long way out of town is your only alternative. We have a location on the other side with supplies. We have weapons in the van. We offer no guarantees, just a chance at getting out of this alive. If you’re interested, please hang around. Everyone else, better start on whatever it is you are planning to do.”

  There was a lot of shuffling of feet and uncertain looks. A few students went running off, but most stayed.

  “Now we want to save as many people as we can,” Erin continued. “I need as many of you as possible to make an attempt to find others on campus and send them here. Don’t get long-winded. Just tell them someone’s organizing a rescue.

  “Also, if you have anything or know of any equipment or supplies or weapons that are easily accessible and would be useful, now would be the time to go get it.”

  Many students broke into groups, discussed tactics, then took off in ones and twos.

  The students who continued to hang around the portal asked some questions, and several people peeked through the gate to convince themselves it was real. A couple of students were allowed to walk through the gate with Richard. They stepped through, looked around for a minute or two, and stepped back through the portal looking boggled. “Frigging cool!” one remarked.

  A couple of students came forward and stated that they had weapons experience. Richard questioned them briefly, then started handing out shotguns and assault rifles.

  “Holy crap,” one student said. “You’re not playing games!”

  “Wait until you meet your first Smilodon. You’ll be happy to be carrying that, believe me!” He then turned to face the crowd. “All right, everyone, we need to move some of the items in the van through the gate to the other side. These guys”—he pointed to the two armed recruits—“will guard. Could I get a couple of people to help haul things across?”

  The crowd was happy to have something to do, even manual labor. There was no shortage of volunteers, and in short order they had moved the weapons and other supplies.

  Soon more people were trickling into the area. Many of them were injured and were being supported by others. It was obvious that the searchers were finding a lot of students still on campus. One of the very few pluses of the earthquake was that it had kicked the attitude out of most people. Now they were willing to stand still and listen where there was an offer of aid, food, and shelter.

  By now the explanation for the gate had been repeated enough times that Erin and Richard no longer had to be involved. As new people came to the group, they received explanations, albeit not always completely correct, for the gate and the guns. Students would discuss the situation, then one or two would take off at a run. And searchers were coming back with supplies.

  “Medical supplies,” Richard noted with approval. “I think we might have skimped on those.”

  “That’s because Captain Reference can’t stand the sight of blood,” Erin replied.

  Kevin meanwhile finished setting up the second portal on the other side. At this point he stopped, looked stricken, and said, “Oh, fu
ck. Fuckitty fuck fuck.”

  Erin looked at Kevin in surprise, this being very un-Kevinish behavior. “What?”

  “We have two portals, and one generator.”

  Richard looked at the gate, at the generator, and at Kevin. “Oh, fuck is right.”

  “Wait. Inverter! I think the van has one!” Kevin rushed off to the van. “Yesssssss!” he called from the cab.

  It took some talking to convince some students that they weren’t about to be abandoned on the other side, but soon they had managed to turn off the first gate, plug it into the inverter, move the generator through the reactivated gate, and start up the second portal on the other side. Everyone was relieved when a second gate opened beside the first one on Earth.

  One of the students who had just returned to the group came up to Richard and said, “Hey, listen. There’s a bunch of livestock in the Animal Sciences Complex. Can we do anything about them?”

  Richard looked at Erin, who looked stricken and replied, “These gates aren’t big enough to push a cow through, even if the cow was cooperative, which I very much doubt would be the case. They’d likely as not break the gate while struggling. Horses, ditto. Chickens we could handle. Pigs, maybe, as long as they’re greased.” She tried to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  “Look, Erin. We need that livestock, so we’re not going to abandon them. People come first, but once we have everyone safe, we’ll come back for them. Is two days in a livestock building going to harm them?”

  “If the building collapses, yes.”

  “Aw, hell. All right.” Richard turned to the man they’d been talking to, whose name was also Richard.

  “Call me Dick,” he said.

  “Hey, better you than me,” Richard replied. “Okay, Dick, how many people would it take to herd all the animals through a couple of miles of wilderness?”

  “We’d lose the chickens and pigs right away. But the cattle, sheep, and horses would be okay, as long as the horses were being ridden. There are eight horses in residence right now, I think. So eight people minimum.”

  “Right.” Richard turned to Erin. “Erin, we’ll get everyone through, then come back with the truck gate and do what we can. Good enough?”

  “We don’t have a choice. None of this is ideal.”

  Richard assigned Dick the task of organizing the rescue party. Dick walked away, already calling to people and discussing details.

  “You know,” Richard said to Erin, “there’s a good chance that there are a lot of other things we should be looking for right now at the university. Seeds from Plant Sciences, tools and equipment from Engineering, God knows what-all else. You have to know we’re going to think of them too late.” He looked around at all the activity. “Not that there will be time to act on any of it anyway.”

  Erin nodded in silent agreement. She looked around, looked at her watch, and thought for a second. She called to some students who were standing nearby. “Hey, guys, this is taking a lot longer than I expected. We won’t be able to get to our warehouse camp before dark. So we’re going to have to camp tonight. We’ll need fuel for fires. Can you organize a scavenger party? Furniture, bookshelves, whatever. Enough to keep a dozen small fires going all night.”

  The students talked to others nearby, then about twenty of them scattered.

  Erin heaved a tired sigh. Unbelievable. I’ll have to get Bill to explain to me why this stuff is so simple in the movies.

  45. Setting Up and Moving Out

  Bill stopped to stretch his back. “Getting old.”

  “Naw. Just greedy. How the hell did you manage to buy all this stuff in like a couple of weeks?” Matt motioned to the pallets of supplies and equipment stacked in front of the second shed, awaiting its completion.

  Bill grinned and pointed toward Monica, who was scanning the middle distance with binoculars. “I had help.”

  Monica dropped the binoculars to hang from the strap around her neck. “I think you’re confused about who was helping who.”

  “Whom. And by the way, why are you spending so much time looking through those things? I doubt there are any predators within miles of us right now, with the noise from the Bobcat and forklift.”

  “Animals are running away. Human predators, if they hear the noise, will be coming in the opposite direction.”

  “The thugs? You think they’re still alive out there somewhere?”

  “Don’t know, Bill. But if they are, I want to shoot first, you know?”

  “Seriously?” Matt made a face. “They’d have to survive about a week in Outland, and make their way here from almost the other end of town.”

  “Yeah, I know. Still, better paranoid than sorry.”

  Bill nodded and looked sidelong at Matt. “Yeah, it’s fine. And we can spell you if you want.”

  “Naw. You boys are having way too much fun with the heavy equipment. I don’t want to spoil that.” Monica gave Bill a teasing smile, then raised the binoculars again to scan the horizon.

  “Back to work,” Matt said, as Bill continued to stare. “We’re almost done with the shed. I want to get this inventory under cover before dark.”

  There was a squawk from the walkie-talkie sitting by the gate, and Matt jogged over to pick it up. He had a brief conversation with someone, then put the walkie-talkie down and walked back.

  “I just had a talk with Kevin over at the university. There’s a situation.” Matt repeated the gist of the conversation to Bill and Monica.

  “Crap, we have to save the livestock if we can,” Bill said.

  “And not only because we’re wonderful, caring human beings,” Monica added. “If we have to stay in Outland for a long time, livestock will be good to have.”

  “Y’know,” Matt said, “I have an idea how we can make this work.”

  The fate of the farm animals kept preying on Erin’s mind, and she couldn’t drop it. Finally, she had an idea. “What about going and getting the truck gate to get the animals across?”

  “In the van?” Richard shook his head. “It’ll take forever to go there and back in that thing. You remember the drive out here, right?”

  Kevin walked up to the two, waving the walkie-talkie. “I think we have a way to save the livestock. I talked it over with the guys at the warehouse. They’ve about finished moving everything across, so Matt has suggested driving the big gate over here in his pickup.”

  “Well, hell,” Richard replied, “that thing can scale a vertical cliff in four-low. And he’s got the clearance to get over most of the crap I had to dodge. It’ll take him maybe twenty minutes to get here.”

  “Matt said ten,” Kevin pointed out.

  “He may not know how rough it’ll be. Tell him to take it easy, and aim for twenty. What about Bill and Monica?”

  “They’ll stay in Outland to guard the supplies and keep working on the sheds. Monica says we’d better all get there with the gates, or she’ll be downright pissed.”

  Erin smiled. “I’d be pretty pissed to be marooned on the other side too. Kevin, please tell Matt it’s a go. I’ll get things organized at this end.”

  About twenty minutes later, Matt drove up to the group around the van. He turned off the engine and got out. “Hey, guys. What’s the sitch?”

  “Matt, this is Dick,” Richard said. “He’s the guy who brought up the whole livestock thing. Dick, you’re up.”

  Dick looked a little hesitant at first but got into it once he started talking.

  “Okay, I’ve sent a bunch of aggie students ahead to prep things. We’ll ride the horses, herd the cattle and sheep; we’ll put the birds in cages in the back of the pickup. We’ll have to release the pigs on the other side—they’re too much trouble to herd, and too much trouble to keep unless you already have a good, fenced-off area. We’re hoping they’ll go feral before they all get eaten. We might be able to trap some of them eventually and build up an inventory again. Otherwise they’ll revert to wild type in a couple of generations. Not that that’s terrible,
it’s just that they’re meaner.”

  Richard added, “We’ll give you an extra portal generator and six-foot gate so you can bring both gates through when you’re done. We can’t give you the generator, or we’ll have nothing, so you’ll have to hope the power is still on or there’s a generator at the complex.”

  “They have some portables there, including a big trailer-mounted generator,” Dick said.

  “Good. Let’s bring them over. Even if you don’t have room for them on this trip, leave them on the Outland side and tie a tarp around them or something. Erin’s pretty sure that the roof will come down before we can get back, so anything we want to save has to go over today.

  “One other thing.” Richard handed Dick a stack of boxes. “Bill will be insufferable if anyone tells him, but these should be handy.”

  Dick looked at the boxes labeled “Night Vision Goggles.” “Who’s Bill?”

  Richard shook his head. “Just go.”

  Dick gave Richard a thumbs-up and looked to Matt. Matt gestured to the passenger side, then got into his pickup. A few seconds later, they were on their way.

  As they watched the pickup drive off, Richard turned to Erin. “What’s that saying about the best-laid plans?”

  “‘The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley,’ ” Erin quoted.

  Richard raised his eyebrows in appreciation of the performance and sighed. “I think I’m going to have that tattooed on my forehead. I suck at this.”

  There had been much discussion of strategies and plans while preparing and waiting for the final move. Erin was impressed at how quickly people had accepted and adjusted to the reality of an alternate universe. But she admitted to herself that having it right in front of them helped a lot.

  Everyone agreed that they should continue to re-open the gate and try to find more survivors, but the words were said with haunted eyes. People were beginning to realize that once the ash started to fall, a death sentence had been pronounced. No one was willing to volunteer to trudge through ash-covered streets looking for survivors, and they had no other way to locate refugees. They had to hope that most people had done the smart thing and hit the road as soon as possible. And that the roads had been passable, because they wouldn’t be by morning.