Matt shuddered. I don’t see how that’s fun.
They looked over to the pickup, which was half-full of cages stacked as high as could be managed, filled with unhappy chickens. The rest of the pickup bed contained the portal hardware, which Matt had refused to even consider leaving behind.
Dick pointed to a couple of students who were getting the horses ready for the cattle drive. “Sixteen head of cattle. Yeah, we’re real cowpokes, all right. This should be pretty funny.”
“Funnier than trying to get them through the gate last night?” asked Matt.
“Oh, much. So many more opportunities on a cattle drive. Haven’t you ever seen City Slickers?”
Eventually they got everybody organized. All the riders mounted up, and four students crowded into the pickup with Matt.
Dick turned around on his horse, waved his hand in the air, and yelled, “Head ’em up and move ’em out!”
“Another joker. Great,” Matt muttered. “Richard will have a shit.”
The hike was going slowly. Not everyone was a born hiker, and many of the students were wearing unsuitable shoes. A couple dozen people had been injured in the quake and had to be helped—or even carried. And some students had brought luggage, which didn’t roll well on prairie grass.
Over the course of the march, people tended to spread out more as the faster walkers outpaced the slower. Fred and Anson had to stop the front group every so often to let the slower walkers catch up, explaining that they didn’t have enough guards to cover such a long parade. Fred also made a point of getting the fastest walkers to help with the wounded and injured, since they seemed to have the most energy to spare.
By nature, the university students tended to be optimistic and upbeat, which already showed. Many of them seemed to be treating this as a nature outing. Some were taking selfies and pictures of the animals with their phones. A couple of people had actually tried to send texts, forgetting the complete lack of service on this side. Those incidents got good laughs, at the expense of the forgetful.
Erin talked with a couple of students as they walked.
“Can’t believe the climate over here,” one guy said. “Wetter, cooler, actual trees, and what are those things sticking up everywhere? Hills? Nebraska doesn’t have hills. Or trees, come to that.”
Erin smiled. While he might have been exaggerating, it wasn’t by much. “Different recent geological history. No humans, an extra volcano or two … I’m a little surprised too. I wish Professor Collins were here.”
“His assistant is,” another student noted.
Oh, shit. “Jenson?” Erin asked.
“That’s right.”
Erin sighed in disgust. Yep. Bill was right. God is a B-movie director.
A flock of birds took off in the distance. People were still not used to the sheer numbers of wildlife on this side, and birds darkening half the sky made many stop and watch in awe. Almost as impressive was the sheer variety of wildlife. Half the species they encountered had never been seen by human beings, while more had been obliterated soon after encountering humans on Earth.
Closer to the procession, herds of deer jockeyed for grazing position with moose, elk, and less-recognizable animals. They could see some mammoths and one large cat at a distance. A pair of giant sloths a bit closer fascinated the hikers, as they were unlike anything they had ever seen Earthside—certainly nothing like their small, lethargic South American cousin. The students did, however, heed Erin’s warning to stay away and to try not to appear aggressive.
At one point, Erin listened in on an argument that a couple of people were having about the portals:
“They should be handing this technology over to the government. At least they would be able to use it nationally to save a lot of lives.”
“How, exactly?”
“How what? Handing it over, or using it nationally?”
“Both! Do you have a phone number handy? 1–800-SAVE-USA? Maybe the Department of Useful Inventions for Saving the Day? Does the word ‘bureaucracy’ ring a bell? If you wanted to hand over something like this, I bet it would take months of argument just to get to talk to someone who would understand you. And then, before they can use it to save lots of people, they’d have to build a bunch of portals. How? Area 51? Maybe using the alien duplicating machine?”
“Well, there’s no need to get sarcastic.”
“Actually, there kind of is. Sometimes mockery is the only way to get people to think about what they’re saying. And by the way, what makes you think there’ll even be a government in a week? This isn’t Mount Saint Helens. This is the stuff that ends civilization.”
“Oh, you’re exaggerating.”
… and so on. Erin had to bite her tongue to keep from chiming in. She agreed with the pessimist, but she felt the argument was moot at this point.
Kevin, meanwhile, kept the warehouse camp updated on the hikers’ progress via walkie-talkie. Matt gave updates on the status of the cattle drive, which was ahead of schedule and might even catch up with the hikers by the time they reached the warehouse camp.
Erin found Fred and Anson, who were on perimeter guard duty. “Hey, guys. Holding up okay?”
Fred grinned. He and Anson had stayed up almost all night, each taking only a single two-hour break.
“We did any number of double and triple shifts when we were still working. This was a piece of cake, right?” Fred looked over to Anson, who nodded in reply.
Erin put on her best casual tone. “I was wondering, while you were still on the force, did you ever run into a trio of thugs named Zeke, Carl, and Jimmy?”
“Zeke? Zeke Peters?” Fred and Anson both burst into laughter. “Yeah, he’s part of a gang that supplies drugs around the university area,” said Fred. “They all fancy themselves hot stuff, but they’d be ground up like sausage in any big city.” He shook his head. “Carl seemed to have more brains than most of them, though. I think he was looking for ways to move up, but it always ended with him sitting in Holding. Why, did you run into them?”
“You might say that.” Erin told Fred and Anson about the confrontation at the warehouse. She left out nothing, and didn’t try to excuse their actions, or their half-assed rescue attempt after the fact.
“Serves them right,” Anson said. “They should have stuck to pushing party drugs.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Fred added. “No one will miss them. Worst you’d ever get is some variation on failing to report criminal activity or something, and only if the cops were really bored.”
Erin smiled and thanked them. She felt better for the talk, and also reassured that the two ex-cops now knew about the possibility of human predators in Outland.
Eventually, Erin spotted the warehouse camp in the distance. It was hard to miss the large steel shed, with another half-assembled shed beside it. The pace of the group picked up as other people noticed the structures, and in a short time they had arrived.
The area in front of the sheds was fenced off, but a section had been opened up to allow access. Bill and Monica sat in folding lawn chairs inside the fence. Beside them, a generator purred and a large coffeemaker lightly steamed.
Bill got up and stepped through the open section of fence. Smiling to the crowd, he waved a mug in the air and called out, “Welcome to Rivendell. Who wants coffee?”
49. In the News
Excerpt from Emergency Congressional Briefing, volcanologist Dr. Olaf Stephenson testifying:
As the ash falls and accumulates, it will kill all vegetation beneath it. Pasture grasses and crops will begin to die immediately, as will the microorganisms in the soil.
Domestic livestock and wild fauna within 1,000 miles will die from starvation or respiratory illness.
Freshly fallen ash floats, and it absorbs water in the same way as sand, leaving little for animals, clogging up streams and rivers. Ash will block sewers and pipes, further destroying infrastructure. Water supply and sewer systems will be quickly overwhelmed and break dow
n.
The Mississippi River, the Columbia River, the Sacramento River, and all other major North American waterways will become semi-solid sludge as the ash washes downstream, making them useless for transportation. With water, air, rail, and road transportation all unusable or destroyed, the infrastructure of society will begin to break down.
Urban centers rarely contain more than three days’ food supply at any time. Hoarding, looting, and destruction of supplies from collapsing buildings can shrink that estimate considerably.
Nor will the damage be limited to the United States, or even to North America. A global ecosystem already weakened and decimated by human excess will not show the same resilience as in prior extinction-level events. This eruption very probably spells the end of modern society. It may be the end of humanity. It could conceivably mean the extinction of everything larger than an insect.
50. Surviving Outland
July 28
Zeke and Carl worked their way slowly through the berry patch. Carl was happy for the calories, and he liked blackberries anyway. But a diet heavy in berries was having unfortunate consequences on digestive systems that were used to a lot more protein and roughage.
Could be worse. Just ask Jimmy. Carl felt a shudder at the thought. Jimmy hadn’t survived their first day here.
A pair of enormous cats had stalked them when they left the shed to look around. They had retreated, but the small, tinny structure folded at the first assault. The animals picked off Jimmy, giving Zeke and Carl time to run to a nearby tree. They had to watch and listen as Jimmy was taken down, then slowly eaten before he was even dead.
Zeke had been enraged, and started shooting as soon as he was able to get a stable stance in the tree. He’d killed one cat with a lucky shot, and the other had run off, limping. But it was too late for Jimmy.
They’d frisked the body for anything useful. They’d found an extra magazine, but couldn’t find his gun. They didn’t have any tools to bury Jimmy; in the end they’d had to leave the body for the scavengers. Zeke still agonized over the whole episode. It had changed him, somehow. He didn’t talk as much anymore, and when he did, it was about revenge against those kids.
After that, life became a case of day-by-day survival. Twice they’d managed to shoot a young deer, and had eaten well. A folding knife wasn’t ideal for butchering, but it did the job. The rest of the time they survived on berries and the occasional fruit tree.
Fires seemed to keep the animals at bay at night, although the two men still camped close to a tree, just in case. Fortunately, a lighter formed part of Carl’s toolkit the way lockpicks had been part of Jimmy’s.
And what’s the point, in the end? Spend the rest of our lives running? We’ll run out of bullets eventually, then what? And the answer always came back: The damned kids won’t abandon this place just because we’re here. They’ll just move. If they can connect to a different year, then we’re screwed.
Otherwise, we just keep watching.
51. First Meetings
“Can I have your attention, please!” Richard bellowed at the top of his lungs. More than two hundred and seventy people sat on the ground in front of the sheds, and many of them were more intent on their own conversations. Slowly, the background buzz died down as his audience turned to him.
“Listen, we don’t have a P.A. system, one of the few things Bill forgot to buy! So you’re going to have to be very quiet and listen. I’m going to ask you, if your neighbors start a side conversation, to punch them in the arm until they shut up.” There were laughs and a few loud “ouch” noises.
“If you really, really feel the need to have a chat, please go into one of the sheds or to the other end of the lawn so the rest of us can get this done.”
Richard waited. When there was no immediate movement and no sign of the background buzz starting up again, he resumed. “There’s no point in having a meeting like this, with so many people. My voice has about two minutes of life left, so we’re going to organize committees. If you have an idea or a suggestion or want to head up a group, please meet in front of the East Shed in about ten minutes. Everyone else, please park it somewhere else. Thank you.”
Richard took a deep breath as he finished. There were whoops and ironic applause from the audience. So I’ll never be a politician. Sue me.
He made his way over to the East Shed, where Bill had set up some tables and chairs. Several groups were drifting in that direction. And it looked like an argument had already started.
Richard sidled up behind a couple of guys who were standing over Bill, not quite yelling in his face. He looked around and spotted Monica, who was approaching rapidly, AR-15 in hand. She really does like a good scrap, doesn’t she? Richard smiled to himself. This could be interesting.
“What’s the beef here?” he said to the loudmouths’ backs, forcing them to stop berating Bill and turn to face him. There was a brief silence as they had to adjust their point of view to look up.
“We want to know why the geek here is in charge,” said one. “It’s a completely reasonable question.”
“Okay. And here’s a completely reasonable answer,” Richard said. “This is our place, this is our property, and we invited you here to get you away from the Yellowstone eruption. You can always leave if you don’t like it here, or we can uninvite you if we decide you’re too much of an asshole. So maybe try a little common courtesy as an alternative tactic.”
“And what if we don’t want to?” the larger of the two men said. Then he jumped slightly, and looked down at the rifle barrel nudging his groin area.
“Then you’re trespassing, and I give you an orchidectomy,” Monica said, smiling. “Three guesses what that is.”
The man frowned, opened his mouth to say something, then looked at Richard.
Richard shook his head. “Do not assume she’s bluffing. There’s a reason we let her carry the weapons. Actually, several reasons, only one of which is that she really, really wants to shoot someone.”
The two men looked at each other, gave Monica the once-over—she grinned back, as if daring them to comment—then turned back to face Bill, looking much less belligerent.
Richard and Monica stepped away from the group but kept careful watch for a few minutes. No other altercations seemed imminent, so they walked a short distance away.
“Huh. That was suboptimal,” Richard said. “I didn’t expect that, at least not so soon.”
“Come on, buttercup. There are always going to be jerks who figure they should be in charge, just because. I betcha if we’re here more than a week, those two will be pushing for elections and nationalization of our assets.”
“I’m not going to argue that. But we’d better be prepared. Do we have good security on the weapons?”
“Keyed weapon locks and cabinets. Top of the line, too. Bill and I, we don’t cheap out.”
“Uh huh. Do we have any money left?”
Monica lost her grin. “Richard, money may be obsolete. I’ve been talking to Erin, and I don’t like what she’s saying. We need to have a meeting. Just the six of us.”
“Okay, let’s maybe set something up for around suppertime. Speaking of, how are we going to feed this mob?”
“Erin and I did an inventory,” Monica said. “We have enough food for the population for about three days, if you consider things like MREs ‘food.’ ”
“Yeah, we’ll need to supplement that, if we’re going to make it for even a week—”
“Forget about a few weeks’ stay. Let’s have that meeting. I’m just sayin’.”
Richard examined her morose expression silently. Monica was perhaps the most irrepressible person he knew, and this was uncharacteristic. “All right, Monica. I’ll hold off on too much planning until we’ve met. Meanwhile, I think I’ll mention to Bill that we should be doing some hunting. Uh, that’ll require handing out some guns. Other than the two cops, I don’t think anyone brought any over.”
“There’s no help for that, Richard. B
ut we can control the ammo, at least. And require all weapons to be checked in when not in use. After all, they are still our property. At least for now.”
“You’re really making me nervous, Mon. I hope that’s just your prepper paranoia talking.”
“Me too, big guy. But meanwhile, I’m going to look around and see if I can find some individuals who can be trusted. We need to build a security force.”
Richard nodded. “Got it. Suppertime. See you.”
He walked back to the tables, where Bill was bouncing around like a puppy, talking to first one group then another. “You really need to cut back on the coffee, Bill.”
“Not hardly. It’s the real breakfast of champions. And project planners, as it happens. What’s up, Richard? You have that just-sucked-on-a-lemon look.”
“Uh huh. Now I remember why I don’t like you.” Richard waved a hand to dismiss the subject. “Monica and I were talking, and we have an issue with food supplies. Have you considered hunting parties?”
Bill looked around. “Well, we were leaning more toward scavenging supplies from Lincoln, but there’s no reason not to have parallel activities.” He raised his voice to speak to the group. “Any experienced hunters here?”
A dozen or so people raised their hands and stepped forward. Bill gave Richard a thumbs-up. “We got this.”
Richard settled into the lawn chair with a groan. “This is even more work than gold panning. Whatever happened to desk jobs?”
There were a few smiles, but no replies. The group seemed to be on a uniform downer.
“Apropos of nothing,” Erin said into the silence, “the refugees are starting to call us the G.O.—the Gate Owners. It’s not a bad label.”
“I like the word owners,” Monica replied. “Reminds everyone what’s what.”
Matt frowned. “Listen, I like a good plot twist as much as the next guy, but aren’t you maybe a little overboard with the paranoia?”
Before Monica could reply, Bill said, “Uh-uh. I got some of that very narrative tossed in my face today. Dude wanted to know why I thought I should be giving orders. Luckily, Richard and Annie Oakley here showed up.”
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