“That would make you Scotty, then?” she had said, nodding her agreement, but beneath the humor she knew better. She did not feel the same since her return; her nights had been plagued by odd dreams, strange voices echoing in her head and a sense that she was . . . fractured, splintered almost, and yet part of something larger, something unseen that was as elusive as trying to hold on to the past.
The dreams were not nightmares, exactly, but they were disconcerting enough to wake her on more than one occasion bathed in sweat. Instead of fear, she woke with a sense of longing, of missing something close to her that she simply could not figure out. And, of course, there was also the possibility that each of the twenty or so millimeter-sized red specks were a side effect of her being the only human to have survived direct contact with the red rain. Every other survivor had either been safely hidden away at the bottom of the ocean, protected by the extreme cold of the Arctic and the Antarctic, or hundreds of kilometers above her head in the International Space Station.
Before he died, Rhiannon’s father had told Emily that the rain had stopped short of their hilltop home; they had been protected by the peculiar weather system of the area. So that left Emily as the sole witness to the metamorphic effect of the rain, how it had changed human life along with every other life-form on the planet, molding it to a preprogrammed plan that transformed the skin of the planet into what lay beyond the border of Point Loma. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that the virus had had some kind of effect on her too, even if only as small as changing her eyes.
“You okay, love?” Mac’s question tugged her mind back to reality.
“What? Oh yeah! I just zoned for a second.”
Mac lifted the boy from his mother. “You wee rascal, you weigh a bloody ton already,” he said. Adam gurgled his contentment and clung tightly to his father.
Rhiannon tickled the boy under his chin, which brought about another fit of giggles.
Emily wasn’t really sure when it had happened, maybe that first day after they had buried Ben, but the truth was it did not matter: Rhiannon had become her surrogate daughter, and, eventually, once Mac came into their life, his too. And when Adam was born Emily had seen an almost instantaneous shift in Rhiannon; she had gone from being a child to a young woman, a big sister eager to take on whatever responsibilities Emily was willing to delegate to her. Emily was sure that the loss of Rhiannon’s little brother, Ben, had played a huge part in the girl’s almost obsessive dedication to Adam. And if Emily were being completely honest she had leaned on Rhiannon a little too much in these early months. But that was what families did, right? When things were tough, they stuck together and held each other up and helped when and wherever they were needed, each one shouldering whatever load was placed on them. It was sad to think that this little group of five entities was in all likelihood the only complete family left on the planet.
Emily sidled over to Rhiannon and placed an arm around her shoulder and squeezed.
“What’s that for?”
“Just because.”
“We’ve got a council meeting to go to. You okay looking after His Royal Highness for a little while longer?” Mac asked, nodding at his boy, who was now happily playing with his new toy car again.
“Sure thing,” said Rhiannon.
“We’ll only be a couple of hours,” Emily said. She leaned in and gave Rhiannon a kiss on the head and the same to Adam. “You’re a life saver.”
“I know,” said Rhiannon with an assured smile.
For some unknown reason Dr. Sylvia Valentine flat out did not like Emily.
From the second the woman stepped off the USS Michigan and stood on the dock squinting in the California afternoon sunshine, Emily had sensed a tension emanating from her—a disturbance in the Force, Mac would have described it—a sense of aloofness that Emily realized later, after everything that had happened, she had never expected to experience again. She had expected some humbleness. Every other survivor Emily had greeted in her capacity as Camp Loma’s official welcoming party had looked tired from weeks or even months of travelling, but inevitably they had a smile on their faces when they felt the welcoming California sun on their skin and saw the crowd of smiling faces waiting to greet them.
But when Sylvia—“That’s Doctor Valentine,” the woman would insist later when Emily made the mistake of using her given name—stepped off the deck of the Michigan, refusing the outstretched hand of a sailor placed there to assist the debarkation, her face was cloaked in a scowl.
And right then Emily knew she was going to have a problem with this one.
The doctor was tall, easily five nine, maybe even five eleven. The woman’s brunette hair was tied in a tight, neat knot behind her head. She was smartly dressed in a light-yellow blouse and dark-gray business pantsuit that showed off her trim figure. She carried a large suitcase in one hand. With her free hand Valentine had pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her breast pocket and placed them on her face, then slowly turned her head to survey the dock, as if she were looking over a piece of property she was going to buy. She did not look particularly happy with what she saw.
Fine, Emily thought, you can catch the next boat back to McMurdo for all I care. But she had to admit, the stranger looked damned good for a woman she guessed must be in her midfifties and had spent months locked away in a submarine.
Emily had met plenty of women like this during her time at the New York Tribune, back in Manhattan: professional, smart, capable, used to getting her own way. This was a woman who was only ever at ease when she was in control. And that was just fine as far as Emily was concerned. Camp Loma was a big enough place for them both, and God knows women were in short enough supply around here. Emily was willing to overlook any potential character quirks if only for the sake of having an additional feminine mind in the same vicinity amid all the testosterone flooding the camp. They would warm to each other, given enough time, she was sure of it. The woman had been cooped up on a frozen island for the last year and a half or so. Emily could afford to cut her some slack.
But as Emily had stood on the quay watching the newcomers disembark, she remembered a warning from the McMurdo radio operator: “Don’t trust Valentine.”
The truth was, everything had been fine right up until the bitch had to go and confirm every Goddamn thing Emily had been worried about.
Thor, always riding shotgun with Emily and always happy to make a new friend, had immediately launched into his own welcome routine. Running from newcomer to newcomer as the Michigan disgorged them one by one, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, he happily accepted pats on the head and the inevitable “Oohs!” and “Ahhs!” that followed.
But Valentine . . . Valentine was different.
As Thor reached her, his head up, back end swinging like it was about to fly off from all the tail wagging, the woman barely even acknowledged his presence. The malamute continued to circle her for a few seconds, looking up expectantly, his tail gradually dropping as he lost some of his enthusiasm. Finally he sat at her feet and raised a single paw.
The kick was subtle; if Emily had not been looking directly at Valentine she would have missed it completely. It was aimed at the muscles of Thor’s haunches, and exercised as casually as anyone else might swat away an annoying fly. Emily heard Thor yelp in pain and saw her friend flinch, his tail dropping between his legs as he scooted sideways while the woman stepped past him and onto the concrete quay.
Valentine’s head tracked back and forth across the camp and the forest of red that lay off in the distance.
Emily felt her own smile falter. Her right hand instinctively dropped to the butt of the HK45T holstered on her hip as her anger boiled up . . . and for a second she forgot where she was. In that moment she was back on the road to the Stockton Islands, her instincts and sheer will to survive the only thing keeping her alive. And her instincts told her that this woman wasn’t just a social threat, this woman was dangerous. Emily almost drew the pistol . . . almost.
She needs to watch her step, Emily thought, because I would be more than happy to step on the bitch if she gets out of line.
The big malamute scampered to Emily’s side, his tail back in the air and his tongue lolling again, but he was still occasionally looking back at the stranger as if he suspected she might deliver another swift kick when he wasn’t looking.
“Sit, boy,” Emily told him. Thor obeyed, and his mistress rested the flat of her hand on the dog’s head.
For many of the new arrivals, this would be the first glimpse of the strange alien world they all now lived in. Most of them would have seen the original news reports when the red rain had first fallen, witnessed the sudden and final severance of all communication with the rest of the world. All of them would have experienced the great red storm that had changed the world so absolutely, and all of them had heard the stories of survival relayed to them via Point Loma’s radio. But this first step into the world, this was reality, and seeing the changes for themselves was often the psychological equivalent of being cracked on the head by a hammer.
And given those mitigating circumstances, Emily would give Valentine a chance to change her first impression, she decided. This time.
Every developed nation from both the east and west had had a base on Antarctica before the red rain had fallen. Around fifty of the seventy bases were permanent, while others operated only during the summer months. On the day the rain came there were 1,722 souls on the continent. An American submarine, the USS Michigan, was in port for a routine visit, along with two large container ships, docked at McMurdo base to supply the islanders with both food and fuel. Counting the crew of these three vessels, the total number of humans present was just shy of two thousand.
As the alien rain swept across the world it left the deep-frozen Antarctica untouched. The rest of the world quickly disappeared, and the Antarctica survivors believed themselves to be all that was left. They were well stocked with both food and fuel thanks to the two resupply ships sitting in the port and waiting to be offloaded. They believed they had time to wait out the effects of the red rain.
They continued to believe that until the day of the great storm.
The world-spanning storm swept inland from every direction, erasing half of the continent with an ever-tightening noose around the survivors’ necks . . . then it stopped, less than a couple of kilometers off McMurdo. The research station was not unscathed. By the time the storm died away and the survivors emerged out onto the ice, one of the two supply ships had been swept out to sea along with its crew and all its remaining supplies, presumed sunk. The other, the Maria Consuela, was taking on water and threatening to capsize along with all its precious cargo.
The human toll was even greater. Everyone who had not made it to McMurdo or hunkered down in their own base had perished. At least, the remaining survivors presumed they were dead, as not a trace could be found when rescue teams had been sent out. Of the original 2,000 or so to have survived the red rain, just 628 people were left alive on the island after the storm.
The USS Michigan had dived deep before the full force of the storm hit. By the time it surfaced again and headed back to McMurdo, it had suffered only the equivalent of a few minor bumps and bruises.
If there was an upside—and Emily had made a veritable habit of turning sows’ ears into silk purses these days—roughly one third of the survivors were women, which greatly helped to reduce some of the tension the Point had been swimming in.
The days after the storm were bleak for the McMurdo survivors, but they pulled together enough to salvage the majority of the supplies still left on the Maria Consuela, before patching her up and making her seaworthy again.
It had taken months before the base’s radio tower was repaired and the weather had settled enough that Point Loma’s nightly radio signal, Emily at the microphone, found its way to McMurdo.
It was difficult for Emily to describe the swell of relief that swept through the Point Loma survivors at the announcement that they had found more people alive out there. It was as though the entire base had been holding its collective breath and, at the news, had released it. The air felt lighter afterward.
Still, not everyone at McMurdo had wanted to come to Point Loma. Some had decided to stay and eke out whatever existence they could in the freezing wastes of the South Pole. While Emily could understand the choice to stay behind, she did not think their chances of survival were going to be high once the food ran out. But the majority of McMurdo survivors, thank God, had decided that California sounded like a good idea after months of freezing their asses off.
It was just a shame that one of them had to be Sylvia Valentine.
Valentine, according to others from McMurdo, had been a vocal advocate for staying put. But her tune had changed once it became clear that the majority would be leaving, and that, with or without her consent, the supplies would be going with them.
There was no way the USS Michigan could accommodate all of the McMurdo residents, so straws had been drawn for the remaining spaces after essential personnel and supplies had been loaded aboard the submarine. The remaining survivors, those who had literally drawn the short straw, were to wait for the USS Michigan to reach Point Loma and sound the all clear and then set sail on the Maria Consuela. The cargo ship would make its way to the United States over the course of three months, but a problem with the engine had delayed the ship’s departure.
The McMurdo survivors had arrived two months ago. And somehow, in that time, Valentine had gone from a newcomer on the fringe of the community to insinuating herself into every major aspect of the running of Point Loma. Emily had been convinced that the other survivors would eventually see her for what she was, but now Emily realized that view had been rather naïve, and it had been well and truly laid to rest when the two-faced bitch was elected as the chairperson of the Camp Council.
By the time Emily and Mac filed into the packed gymnasium designated as the town hall, the council meeting was already underway.
“’Scuse us . . . Sorry . . .” Mac said as he forged the way past several seated people Emily recognized only in passing. The place was packed, with the majority of the camp present. Point Loma now had so many survivors she could not recall everyone’s name. She was going to have to work on that.
Within a couple of months of the Argentine sub San Juan and the French submarine Le Terrible arriving at Point Loma it had become obvious that some kind of government was needed. Between the growing number of newcomers and the varying nationalities, a common ground of law had to be established if the survivors were to coexist.
A three-person council had been appointed, comprised of each of the sub captains—no elections needed, apparently. When the military is in the majority, it tends to do things the way it knows works; at least, that is what they told Emily when she raised her objections. Not long after the USS Michigan arrived, the council had been expanded to seven, the four new places assigned to the captain of the Michigan and three civilians appointed by the council. Emily had not been considered.
She took her seat in the audience next to Mac. The plastic chairs were arranged in a horseshoe facing a raised stage with a table at the center of the gym.
Emily knew all of the councilors sitting behind the table: the French captain, Victor Séverin; Ignacio Vela, the captain of the Argentinian sub San Juan; Simon Patterson, the captain of the Michigan; Lynda Hanson, a botanist, and Deryck Maslanka, a structural engineer, both of whom arrived in the Michigan; Raoul Béringer, a French journalist who had somehow found himself aboard the Le Terrible when it set sail just as the red rain hit Europe, and, of course, Valentine. She had replaced Captain Constantine when he stepped down. Emily knew that Maslanka and Hanson were both in Valen
tine’s pocket; they were going to vote any way Valentine told them to, and she suspected Vela might be enamored enough with the woman to be persuaded to vote with her—Emily had seen the way Valentine smiled and touched the man’s elbow whenever they were within stroking distance of each other. She was on the fence about Béringer; in all Emily’s dealings with him, he had struck her as a decent sort.
“. . . so let’s put that to a vote, shall we?” Valentine said from the podium in that annoying sickly sweet Southern drawl she used whenever she expected to completely get her way. And sure enough, whatever agenda item was being discussed before Emily and Mac’s arrival got a five to two approval. Valentine, Hanson, Maslanka, and Vela. And, surprise, surprise, Béringer’s hand was raised with the others, which got a disapproving stare from his fellow countryman, Captain Séverin.
“And on to item four on the agenda: the creation of an expeditionary force to investigate the potential for expansion outside the Point Loma peninsula.”
Emily stiffened, unsure if she had heard correctly.
Maslanka took up the item, his deep sonorous voice filling the room: “As you are all aware, we are facing a looming crisis. Food, ladies and gentlemen. It is not going to last forever. And, yes, I know that Captain Constantine and his crew are about to set sail for Svalbard, but let’s be real here, folks: there’s no guarantee that they are going to get there in one piece, and, if they do, and they are able to find a viable seed crop, there’s no guarantee that they are going to make it back alive either.”
Emily felt her blood go from a low simmer to its boiling point in a few seconds flat. Did this asshole not know that the majority of the crew he was talking about were sitting right here? She started to stand up and say something.
Mac placed his hand lightly on her knee before she could even lift her butt two inches off the seat. She turned to look at him . . . and stopped. Jesus Christ! How the fuck does he stay so damn calm? she wondered as she saw him smiling back at her. She could feel the pink flush of anger on her own skin, but he was his usual Limey pale, his face betraying nothing but calm . . . except for his eyes. His eyebrows had furrowed just slightly, barely noticeable to anyone who did not know him, and his eyelids were half closed, not enough to be called a squint but sufficient for Emily to know that Mac was pissed, with a capital fucking P. Relax, Mac’s expression said, don’t give them the pleasure; we’ll deal with this when we have to. Emily allowed herself to grudgingly drop back into her seat.
Extinction Point (Book 4): Genesis Page 2