“What?” asked Maggie.
Danny eyed Maggie for a long moment, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. “I’ll show you. I’ll take you to Walter’s place.”
“I’ve been to Walter’s place.”
Danny walked over to Maggie’s side of the desk and leaned against it. “I don’t mean La Jolla. I mean Walter’s other place . . . the one in Wyoming.”
“Wyoming? You mean like Yellowstone and Brokeback Mountain?”
“No, like shotguns and canned goods.”
“Huh?”
Danny leaned down so that his face was just inches from hers. He said, lowering his voice as if someone might be listening, “Walter thinks society is about to collapse. And he doesn’t want to be around when the mobs come. So, he’s built himself an escape hatch, a luxury bunker so his family can ride out the apocalypse in style.”
“Are you serious?” asked Maggie.
Danny nodded. “Yup. It’s a multimillion-dollar structure. He put the finishing touches on it last month, and he wants to fly me out next week to show it off.”
“And what’s this got to do with the MathPal?”
Danny grinned. “Come along and find out.”
29
TRAVELS WITH WALTER
As Walter Tilmore’s private jet glided through the clouds, Maggie leaned back in her deep leather seat and nursed her mimosa. She needed vodka to fortify her so she could make it through a full day of listening to Walter. Like the few other superrich men Maggie had met while groveling for school funding, Walter took his immense wealth as a sign that he was anointed, that he’d been chosen by the Almighty Market to rule or—at the very least—to philosophize.
Sipping a Perrier, Walter wore khakis, a tailored white shirt, pristine hiking boots, and an impossibly-expensive-looking fur-lined suede field jacket. With his silver hair and gleaming white teeth, he looked like Ralph Lauren’s version of a “rugged” grandpa. Having already treated Danny to his views on the impending apocalypse, Walter had spent most of the flight lecturing Maggie. Though he’d told her to please use his first name, he insisted on calling her “Miss Mayfield.” The formality seemed to amuse him, like calling a cat “Mr. Whiskers.” “Listen, Miss Mayfield, the world’s going in the crapper. Every time I watch the news, it’s bursting with crazy.”
“Amen to that,” said Diane. She was perched on a couch toward the front of the plane, nibbling on a pastry taken from an enormous silver platter on the coffee table beside her. When Danny had invited Maggie on this field trip, she’d insisted on bringing Diane along. For a survivalist blogger, seeing Walter’s luxury bunker would be better than a trip to Disneyland. And when Walter heard about Diane’s Doomsday on a Budget blog, he’d assented, tickled to show off his digs to a bona fide expert. Walter had required Diane to sign a confidentiality agreement, of course. He didn’t want “the hordes” descending on his hidey-hole.
Walter repeated, “Every time I watch the news, it’s crazy. One week, it’s that Korean haircut lobbing missiles over Japan. The next week, it’s SARS or that monkey virus that makes you crap out your intestines. What’s it called?”
“Ebola,” said Diane.
“Right, Ebola. Plus, there’s global warming, race riots, opioids . . .”
“Terrorism!” said Diane. She’d become Tilmore’s backup singer.
Walter nodded. “Yeah, those ISIS people aren’t playing around. And let’s not forget cyberterrorists.”
“The grid could go down any minute,” said Diane.
Walter continued, “The world’s turning into a Choose Your Own Adventure book loaded with nothing but terrible endings. I can’t take any chances. If society’s going to throw itself off a cliff, I have to be ready. I have to protect my kids.” He leaned forward in his seat, his tone suddenly full of fierce determination. “I’d do anything to protect my kids. If anybody—I don’t care if it’s Mother Teresa—if anybody pulls a knife on them or something, I’d slap the shit out of ’em.”
“Mother Teresa’s dead,” said Maggie. She didn’t point out that Mother Teresa hadn’t exactly been famous for pulling knives on anyone.
Walter shrugged. “I mean, like, hypothetically speaking.”
“Ah,” said Maggie.
Walter eyed Maggie speculatively. “You don’t have any kids, do you, Miss Mayfield?”
“Uh, no,” said Maggie. She wanted to add, “But thanks for bringing up that painful subject.” But she held her tongue, for Danny’s sake. He’d invited her along as his “plus one.” So she had to behave. She squeezed Danny’s hand now, and he squeezed back. He’d convinced her that there was no point hiding their relationship from Walter. Billionaires don’t gossip in the teachers’ lounge.
Walter smirked at the couple. “You two lovebirds may think you’ve found the real thing. But let me tell you, until you have kids, you have no idea what it means to love someone. I mean really love someone. I thought I knew what love was. I mean, Valerie and I lasted twenty-two years. Not too shabby, eh?” Walter looked to Danny for the expected compliment.
And it came. “You beat the odds on that one, Walter,” said Danny.
Maggie forced a smile. Danny had told her about Valerie. Maggie didn’t realize that men could claim bragging rights for how long they’d waited to abandon their starter wives. Nice.
Walter went on, “And later, when that marriage tanked, I moved on to Crystal, and I thought that was it, the end all and be all—me and Crystal against the world.” Crystal was Walter’s trophy wife—a curvaceous twentysomething with huge boobs and tiny brains. “I told Crystal I had no interest in having children. Zero. And we were careful, but I guess my swimmers were too strong.” Walter shook his head good-naturedly, genuflecting at the thought of his own virility.
“Then, when Wally Junior came into the world, I just . . . well, I’d never felt anything like it. I’d stare at him in his crib for hours. He’s a gorgeous kid, looks just like me.” Maggie had to fight back a giggle. Tilmore was the master of the ricocheting compliment—every bit of praise he uttered bounced back to him.
Walter continued, “And once I realized what a great thing parenthood was, I had to have another one. Right away. Crystal kicked up a fuss, said we should put it off a while, but she came round. Trust me, I can be very persuasive.” Walter winked suggestively at Maggie, and she had to suppress the urge to say “Ewww.”
He finished, “So a year after Wally was born, presto, we had Matilda.”
Maggie perked up at the name. “Matilda? Are you a Roald Dahl fan?”
Walter frowned. “Road who?”
Maggie said, “Nothing. He wrote a book called Matilda. He was British.”
“Yeah, well, my Tilly won’t be some pasty-faced Brit. She’s gonna be a knockout, just like her mother. Only Tilly’s smart. She takes after me in the brains department.” Walter tapped his finger against his temple, in case anyone had forgotten where he kept his brain.
Maggie asked, “So why didn’t they come along today?”
“Who?”
“Your kids,” said Maggie.
Walter batted at the air. “Oh Christ. They’re the last thing you’d want on a three-hour flight. Tilly’d be crying, and Wally’d be running all over the place. I mean, who needs the headache, am I right? I love my kids, but . . . small doses, you know?”
Maggie said, “Ah, right. So Crystal had to stay back to watch them?”
“Nah. We’ve got nannies for that. Crystal just didn’t want to come. She hates the bunker, says she’s claustrophobic.” Walter put air quotes around the word “claustrophobic,” plainly skeptical of anything that might inconvenience him. “She says the bunker makes her feel like she’s being buried alive. Whatever. I figure she’ll get over that phobia nonsense when the bombs start falling. Great chance for personal growth, am I right?”
Danny nodded. “Sure.”
A static noise came from the loudspeaker. Then the pilot announced, “Mr. Tilmore and guests, please buckle your sea
t belts. We’re going to begin our descent into Rabbaclaw.”
Maggie checked her already buckled seat belt while Diane grabbed another pastry and headed back to her own armchair next to Walter. Maggie looked down from her window. She saw nothing below but vast snow-covered fields, broken up by only a few clumps of trees. Diane tapped Maggie’s knee and leaned across to whisper, “Holy shit. It looks like White Witch Narnia out there.”
30
APOCALYPTIC CHIC
Rabbaclaw, Wyoming, did not look like a pleasant spot to wait out the apocalypse. Its vast snow-covered expanses were broken up by just a few trees and a single stretch of road. Maggie couldn’t help thinking that when God started to fill in his test paper for Rabbaclaw, he left most of it blank.
As soon as Walter’s jet came to a stop on the runway, the flight attendant handed out matching red parkas with “TILMORE TOWER” stitched on them. The pilot had warned that it was below zero outside—so everyone suited up and pulled on their fur-lined hoods while, somewhere, PETA wept. Even with the parka on, Maggie felt the wind cut through her as she climbed down the stairs to the runway. A hooded lone figure in a TILMORE TOWER parka hustled them over to an idling black minivan.
Walter sat up front in the passenger seat, and his hired hand maneuvered the van off the runway and up an empty road. Walter pushed down his hood and ran a hand through his thinning silver mane. Maggie could see his combed-over bald spot from the back seat, and she felt a twinge of unworthy glee. Walter patted the driver’s shoulder. “So, Hank, how’re the hydroponics coming?”
Hank grumbled, “Fine, Mr. Tilmore.” Hank’s voice was low and gruff, a manly man’s voice.
Walter nodded. “Good.” He turned and told his guests, “Hank here is the genius behind Tilmore Tower. That right, Hank?”
Hank said, “It was a team effort, sir.”
“Ah, he’s being modest. Hank’s the best survivalist engineer in the country. I wanted the best, and I got the best. Right, Hank?”
Hank grunted, the macho-man version of fluttering a fan.
After a few minutes, the minivan approached a tall fence lined with barbed wire. Two guards in TILMORE TOWER parkas and not-so-welcoming black ski masks stood sentry in the gloom. They had automatic weapons slung over their shoulders so they could stop anyone from crashing Walter’s postapocalyptic party. Maggie whispered to Danny, “A gated community? How California.”
Danny whispered back, “Behave, and I’ll give you a candy bar later.”
The guards waved them through, and Hank drove them on to more snowy nothingness. Maggie frowned, asking, “Shouldn’t Tilmore Tower have a tower somewhere?”
Walter laughed. “We do have a tower, my dear. But it’s underground. Tell her, Hank.”
Hank said, “Ma’am, the facility’s inside a missile silo the government built back in the ’60s. It goes fourteen stories down.”
Diane said, “Whoa. It’s like Journey to the Center of the Earth. I loved that show.” Diane was enjoying herself mightily.
Soon, Hank pulled the van up alongside a massive metal doorway carved into the side of a low hill. It looked like the entrance to a hobbit hole—if Bilbo Baggins had been a rich paranoid. Switching off the engine, Hank turned to say, “All right, folks. It’s just a short walk over to the elevator.”
As soon as Maggie got outside, the icy wind smacked her in the face again. She walk-ran as fast as she could, but Walter insisted on stopping the group so he could point out rows of solar panels mounted alongside the entrance. He shouted over the wind, “These beauties can store energy for eighteen months! They’ll power the facility year-round!” The group nodded and made impressed noises—anything to get out of the cold.
Once they got inside the facility’s large outer door, the wind died. As the group approached the elevator, Danny asked, “Will solar panels work out there?”
Walter smirked, “Yes, indeedy. I know today’s chilly, but Rabbaclaw gets two hundred days of sunshine per year. We’ll be just fine, Danny boy.”
Diane piped up, “I wouldn’t count on that.”
“What do you mean?” asked Walter.
“Nobody’s gonna be getting any sunshine when the bomb comes. Nuclear winter’s gonna turn the lights off.”
Walter waved this off. “Yes, but not for long.”
Diane continued cheerfully, “Depends how many nukes get shot off and what kind. Right now, India and Pakistan are the odds-on favorites to get the party started. Course they’ll use small nukes, like the ones we dropped on Japan. But that’ll pump five megatons of black carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon rain’ll clear up some of that, but the Colorado boys say we’ll still be looking at twenty years of winter, easy. And if we drop the bigger stuff, then—”
Walter interrupted, “The Colorado boys?”
Hank explained, “The researchers at the University of Colorado, Mr. Tilmore. We talked about them.” Hank looked at the floor as he said this, his square jaw clenched—the pose of a man straining mightily against the urge to say, “I told you so.”
Walter absorbed this tidbit and quickly repackaged it to his liking. “So we’ve already taken their research into account? Good, that’s good.” He turned back toward the approaching elevator.
Behind him, Maggie shot Diane a questioning look. Diane responded by shaking her head. Then she splayed her hands and mouthed the word “BOOM.” Maggie looked away, trying not to laugh. The elevator arrived, and everyone loaded onto it. As it descended, Tilmore bragged, “This isn’t just any elevator—it’s a Tindler.”
Diane whistled. “Whew, a Tindler. These are the gold standard in prepper elevators. They say the ayatollah’s got one, Richard Branson too.”
Walter glowed. “This baby can get us all the way down to the bottom in fifty seconds flat. That’s got to be some kind of record.”
Diane said, “Nah. They got a Tindler over in Kansas that gets you down fifteen stories in thirty seconds flat.” Walter scowled at her. Diane said apologetically, “I saw it on Nightline.”
Danny offered, “Well, this is the fastest elevator I’ve ever been on. I’m not going to get the bends on this thing, am I, Walter?” Danny infused this question with all the “golly-gee” enthusiasm he could.
Walter simpered, “You get the bends by going up to the surface, not down, Danny boy. And don’t worry: the pressure in this facility is kept consistent at all times. We have pressure systems, filtration systems, the works. Like I said, Hank’s the brains behind the whole operation.”
Hank mumbled something about it being a “team effort” again, and Walter repeated the bit about false modesty. But Maggie sensed Hank’s reaction didn’t stem from faux-humility—it was a disclaimer. Walter was too domineering to allow anyone full reign over his pet project. From the bit about the solar panels, Maggie guessed that Walter had overridden Hank’s advice on key points. Walter was like a toddler throwing eggshells into batter, screaming that they’d make the cake “yummy crunchy.” Only this toddler had paid for the batter, so he could wreck whatever he pleased.
When they got down to the bottom floor, the tour began, and Maggie was impressed. The lower seven floors were cut into luxury apartments—each equipped with sumptuously decorated bedrooms, a living room, a fully stocked kitchen, and an ultramodern bathroom (complete with bidets!). Every room had at least one false window: a flat-screen TV showing a continuous feed of a sun-drenched landscape to foster the illusion that you were up on the surface.
Looking at one such “window,” Danny asked, “Is that a YALOS Diamond?”
“A what?” asked Maggie.
“A YALOS Diamond TV,” said Danny. “It’s got diamonds embedded in the screen. They go for $150 grand!”
Walter nodded. “More, Danny boy. And we’ve got ten different landscapes to choose from, each timed to show sunlight during the day and darkness at night. They keep your circadian rhythms from going haywire.” Walter grabbed a remote and flicked to a feed showing the Eiffel Tower on a sunny day.
“My favorite is Morning in Paris.”
Diane said, “Ooh, can we see the other ones?”
Walter channel surfed while Danny and Diane excitedly chose their favorites. Danny loved “Caribbean Isles” while Diane preferred “Winter Wonderland.” They sounded like teenage girls shopping for lotions at Bath & Body Works. Maggie smiled but said nothing.
After visiting the lower seven floors of luxury apartments, the tour moved up to two floors of jarringly ascetic “staff quarters.” Diane quipped, “It’s like that Upstairs Downstairs show, but in reverse.”
Walter explained, “Obviously, the potential for exposure to radiation lessens the further down you go. So the prime real estate is below in the owners’ quarters. But still . . . these floors should be pretty safe. And they’ll be like Shangri-la compared to what’s up on the surface.”
Maggie asked, “So who’s on staff?”
“Well, there’s Hank of course.” Walter gestured to Hank in case Maggie needed a visual aid. “Plus, there’ll be the chef, medical staff, maintenance, security guards, and a masseuse.”
Maggie nodded, careful to sound neutral. “A masseuse? I guess that makes sense. I imagine people will carry a lot of stress in their shoulders after doomsday.”
“Oh yes,” said Walter.
Maggie asked, “There’s not much room for their families, is there?”
Walter beamed. “I specifically chose men without families.”
“Really?”
Walter laughed. “I’m not running a day-care center.”
Maggie nodded. “Of course not.” Her brain flashed to the pharaohs. They’d had their pyramids stocked with everything they’d need for the afterlife, including their favorite slaves. Labor relations hadn’t advanced much.
Given the bleakness of the staff quarters, the group did not linger there. Instead, they headed to the upper “common areas.” The five floors of “common areas” included a fully equipped gym, auxiliary generator rooms, supply rooms, an elaborate greenhouse (complete with hydroponics!), weapons lockers (to keep out the riffraff!), a dog park with fake grass, and a swimming pool surrounded by murals of beach scenes. Walter pointed out the brand names of various features, and Daniel made impressed noises.
The Very Principled Maggie Mayfield Page 18