“In this world, your first allegiance is to your family. Maybe that’s the way life has always been, but we forgot. Then friends, and at the end of the line those institutions you still believe in.”
Paige shook her head. “I’m a scientist. I don’t know how to live in a world without computers or jets or space programs.”
“I’m a writer. I doubt any publishing contracts are going to be coming my way anytime soon.” She thought of the journal in her backpack, and the ones she’d filled that were stored back at home. She thought of her tub of blank paper. What would she do when that was gone? How would she record their story then?
“Being a scientist or writer, that’s what we did. It isn’t who we were, and it’s sure not who we are.”
She walked back to the campfire and settled into her place between Max and Bianca. Carter and Lanh were walking toward the HAB with Otis. She’d heard the doctor say that the dome was twenty feet tall and thirty-six feet wide. It was difficult to imagine five people living in it for a year. The top secret project wasn’t top secret anymore. Carter glanced back once, and the look on his face was pure joy.
“Let him enjoy this moment, Mom.” Max reached over and entwined his fingers with hers, pulling her hand into his lap. “Both Carter and Lanh are such a mixture of the old world and the new.”
Which stirred a hidden ache in her heart. One of the many worries she tried not to dwell on was whether Carter’s generation fit in anywhere. Would they ever know happiness like she had known—living in their little house in Abney, writing romance stories, and living her life day by day? Then she looked around her, at Bianca sitting in the circle of Patrick’s arms, Gabe playing chess with Janet, the boys entering the HAB, and her hand clasped inside of Max’s. And she realized in that moment that she was probably happier than she had been before, more content, more in the moment than maybe she had ever been in her entire life.
The flare had taken so much from them, but it had also shown them a new way of living.
FIFTY-FIVE
With some creative packing, they managed to fit everyone into the three vehicles. Max couldn’t even open the tailgate of the Dodge, which had been crumpled by one of the falling trees during the tornado. The cargo area, fortunately, was undamaged. They were able to stack most of the supplies from his second seat and Patrick’s backseat there, which left room for extra passengers.
Patrick had spent a good hour the day before looking at the HAB team’s one Suburban. “Nah. This isn’t going to work. All the circuits are fried.”
They had siphoned the fuel out of the vehicle and put it into one of their cans. They’d only use it in an emergency because it had been sitting in the Suburban’s tank for a year.
One last look around the HAB, and Paige had declared them ready to go.
“I can’t believe we’re actually driving across a bridge,” Shelby said as they pulled away from the clearing.
“And no one’s shooting at us or demanding a toll.” Max meant it as a joke, but glancing into the backseat, he saw Carol, Otis, and Kwan exchanging concerned looks.
“Don’t worry, guys.”
“You’ve been shot at?”
“Several times,” Shelby admitted. “But mostly we try to avoid those situations.”
Max could tell they weren’t convinced, so he added, “We’ve been on the road a few times. Nothing’s foolproof, but we’ve developed procedures to scope out an area before we enter it.”
“What did you do…before?” Carol asked. “For a living, I mean.”
“Lawyer.”
No one answered that for a few minutes, and then Kwan said, “You are unemployed too, Max. Same as me. In this new world, no need for lawyers or aerospace engineers.”
He had a point. Carol would be valuable in any community. A mechanical engineer could be a real asset. Otis would have more work than he could handle, no matter where he ended up. Probably he didn’t realize that many people were seen by veterinarians rather than actual MDs. But Kwan would have to find a new way to contribute.
“You’re a bright guy. I’m sure that wherever you end up, they will be glad you’re there. That’s one thing about this new world. Good workers are hard to come by and highly valued.”
They reached a perimeter fence like the one on the Texas side, and once again Gabe busted it open with the Hummer. After that, the Oklahoma countryside looked exactly like what they’d left behind them in Texas. The primary difference was that once they’d made their way to the main road, it was clear.
No barricades.
No makeshift tollbooths.
No goons with guns—at least not that they could see.
“Looks pretty deserted,” Max said.
“Because no one can get across,” Shelby murmured.
They stayed on the interstate as long as they dared, skirting Lawton and only changing to secondary roads ten miles south of Interstate 40. There were plenty of abandoned cars and looted stores, but they saw very few people and then only from a distance.
“Shame we can’t go into Oklahoma City,” Otis said. “There’s bound to be people there—people we could help as well as people who can help us.”
“It’s best to avoid the downtown areas. In Austin, the gangs took over pretty quickly. Plus, it’s easy to get boxed in, and then you can land in real trouble.” Max glanced at Shelby, who was staring out the window. “We’ve done it before, and it didn’t end well.”
Ten minutes later they passed the scene of a gunfight—three vehicles riddled with bullets straddling across the median. No one suggested stopping after that.
By midmorning, they had found the fuel dump on Gabe’s map. They pulled up to a gate, and Gabe thumbed in a combination on an old-fashioned lock. After all three vehicles drove inside, Gabe relocked the gate. The fuel was stored a quarter mile back, hidden behind a stand of cedar trees.
They quickly filled up all three vehicles.
“Tell me again how the government happens to have fuel dumps.” Janet frowned at the large tanks.
Max had never spent much time around psychologists, other than the few that had testified in trials he’d been involved in. He kept expecting her to ask someone, “How do you feel?” but Janet seemed to realize that those questions were moot. Feelings came second to survival, and survival took every ounce of energy and all of their attention.
“If you can store fuel, surely you can store food and medicine and anything else people would need,” she said.
If Max had to guess, he’d say the tanks held three thousand gallons each, and there were twenty of them. It wouldn’t last until the refineries came back online, if they ever came back online, but given how few people were actually on the road and how few had access to the tanks, they would last a while.
“I’m sure the government has stored food and medicine someplace. Supplies didn’t disappear the day after the flare hit.”
“Then why store it? Why keep it…” She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. “Why keep it here when people out there need it?”
“There’s not enough for the entire population,” Gabe said, walking over to join the two of them. “But the goal, as far as I understand it, is to provide continuity of government.”
“Explain that to me.”
“They have to keep some corridors of transportation open, and the only way to do that was with strategic fuel dumps.”
Max watched her struggle with the difference between her ideas of what was right and the reality of the world around her. He knew from experience the new way of things was something that would take time to accept.
When the refueling was finished, Paige’s people bunched together, watching their group as they lined up in front of their vehicles. It was strange, but to Max it seemed he’d known them for years rather than twenty-four hours.
For an awkward moment, no one knew what to say.
“You’re just going to wait here?” Carter peered left then right, comically searching for the travel
bus that would pop out of a clump of trees, causing several in Paige’s group to laugh.
“Good to see the younger generation is worried about us.” Otis clasped him on the shoulder. “We’ll be fine. We have a week’s worth of food, and we can hunt nutria if we run out.”
Lanh groaned and held his stomach. “The stew was seriously gross. You don’t want to eat that.”
“You told my mom you liked it,” Max teased.
“Well, yeah. I said that, but it was terrible.”
Patrick walked up to Paige. “Keep a guard near the gate, and set up your camp back behind those trees.”
“Have you always been this cautious?”
“He has.” Bianca tucked her arm into his. “He was this way before the flare, and being married to me for a week hasn’t changed a thing.”
Patrick wasn’t having any of the bantering. “Better careful than dead.”
Which pretty much sucked any humor out of the situation.
“Someone will be by. Someone who is headed south,” Gabe assured her. “Once you’re sure they are military or government, come out with your hands up and no weapons. Show them your tags, and give their commander this.”
He handed her a sheet of paper.
“You wrote them a reference letter?” Max asked.
“Yeah, and I had to beg Shelby to tear a sheet of paper out of her journal.”
“Scarce commodity.” Shelby shrugged. “But given the situation, I was happy to do it.”
Max was once again the last in line as they pulled out. He glanced in his side-view mirror, as he had before, and saw the five standing in a line, waving goodbye.
“Good people,” he murmured.
“What makes you so sure?” Shelby held up her hand to stop his argument. “I agree with you, but I was wondering if your reasons are the same as mine.”
“They sacrificed a year of their lives to advance our scientific knowledge.”
“True, though they were probably compensated handsomely.”
“Probably they were supposed to be, but I doubt they’ll have a check waiting at home—if they make it home.”
“Maybe they received some up front, sort of like an advance on a novel. Hopefully, it was something their families used to buy supplies while there still were supplies.”
It still amazed Max that currency had lost all value so quickly. But when there was nothing to purchase, then money, especially paper money, was only worth…well, it was only worth paper.
“What else?” she asked, warming to her topic.
More details for her journal no doubt, or perhaps it was simply good to speak freely again. Max was suddenly aware that he’d monitored what he was saying so as not to panic the group, not give them more information than they could handle, not give them more information than they needed. No one had mentioned the Remnant. Should they have?
“No one panicked,” he said. “When Gabe first busted through the gate, no one tried to run or overpower us and take our vehicles…”
“No one in that group weighed more than one hundred and forty. Shows you the effect of a year of MREs.”
“Complaining about the food again, Sparks?”
“We seriously need to get back to your mother’s cooking.”
It was good to hear her talk about High Fields as though it were her home. It was her home, and Max couldn’t get back there fast enough.
They wound their way back to the highway. Their plan was to continue on the small highways west of I-35, detouring where necessary to skirt places like Hennessey and Enid. Even allowing for their ongoing caution and the occasional roadblock, it was conceivable that they could be in Kansas by nightfall.
“What about you?” he asked. “Why did you decide they were good people?”
She finger combed her hair back behind her ears and stared out the window. He didn’t think she would answer, and then she turned to him and said, “It was the way they treated one another. Did you see the way that Otis sat with Carol when she started crying? Obviously, she had a boyfriend or husband back home…”
“I noticed the tattoo.”
“He was more concerned about her than how they would travel back to NASA.”
“He put the health of his crew first.”
“Exactly.” Shelby’s head bobbed in agreement. “And Kwan. He was great with the boys.”
“Carter and Lanh are going to be talking about the HAB for weeks.”
“Carol took the blame for not noticing the flare when clearly it wasn’t her fault.”
“You’re right. It was obvious that they had formed a supportive group.”
Shelby sighed. “They would have made a good Martian crew.”
“That’s on hold for a while.” He added as an afterthought, “Even Janet seemed to loosen up last night, which I didn’t think was possible for a psychologist.”
“But it was Paige that convinced me. The way she led her team. The way they followed her.” Shelby found the lever under the seat and pushed it back, then propped her feet up on the dash.
He started to warn her that it wasn’t a safe position, but she suddenly reminded him of the Shelby who had ridden in his truck when he was seventeen. She’d been every bit as beautiful then, every inch as smart and caring and dear to him, but he hadn’t known it. He’d been a kid trying to become a man, and he hadn’t realized what he walked away from when he moved to Austin and never called her.
“Teams are made up of good people who care about one another.”
He felt a lump in his throat, swallowed, and tried to focus on what she was saying. “Like us.”
“Exactly.”
FIFTY-SIX
They crossed into Kansas an hour before sunset and slowed a couple miles past the border at Caldwell. Their road went straight through a small downtown area. Max braked slightly as they passed under a large metal sign that arched over the street, proudly proclaiming the town’s name and population.
“What do they do if someone is born or dies?” Shelby asked.
“Maybe the metal sign supplier is the mayor’s brother.”
The place seemed deserted at first glance. A banner hung across the chamber office: “A great place to visit…an even better place to call home.”
“Seems friendly enough.”
“Most places were.”
Shelby saw another flyer posted to several of the buildings—a large group of people posing under the arched sign, dressed in western costume. “I guess they had some sort of western show.”
“Chances are it’s closed.” He smiled when she gave him a reproving look. “Sorry. Long day.”
“Seems deserted now, but it’s strange that none of the buildings look looted. No smashed windows. No graffiti. It’s more like everyone simply left.” As she said that, Shelby caught movement behind a curtain on the second floor of the bank.
“Someone’s home,” she said. She picked up her radio and alerted the others.
Patrick responded first. “It would be nice to ask someone the lay of the land.”
Carter relayed Gabe’s response. “Continue up to the next crossroad. If you notice anything suspicious, keep going. Otherwise, we’ll stop there and see if they come to us.”
The crossroad was a good idea. They’d have escape routes in four directions.
But their paranoia was unfounded. They parked in the middle of the intersection, their cars bumper to bumper. Each person of their group stepped out of their vehicle wearing their pack, but no one reached for a weapon. No need to scare the locals. It was plain enough that they were well supplied and could defend themselves if they needed to.
Shelby raised her face to the sun, which was dipping toward the western horizon. White clouds scudded across the sky, and the day was pleasantly warm—more so than she had expected it to be.
“Someone’s coming,” Gabe said.
He took the point position, and the rest of the group divided into pairs and covered the other three directions.
The w
elcome committee consisted of a woman and a man. Shelby tried to keep her attention on the road in front of them, the one heading west, but she had to stifle a laugh when she caught a closer look at the couple walking toward Gabe.
She nudged Max, jerked her head toward them, and was rewarded with a smile and a tip of his hat.
“Annie, get your gun,” he murmured.
The woman was a dead ringer for Annie Oakley. Her long, wavy hair spilled over her shoulders. She wore a fringed suede jacket, leather chaps, and brown boots with more fringe. The only thing missing, quite conspicuously, was a shotgun or rifle. The man was wearing a black suit and a black cowboy hat. Both looked to be in their early fifties—gray sprinkled throughout their brown hair, but they seemed physically fit.
“We are unarmed,” the woman said. “But our best shooter is watching you through a scope on the second floor of that building.”
She nodded toward the town library, which was small but two stories.
“We’re only passing through,” Gabe assured her.
“Don’t see many folks nowadays, and none driving a Hummer.” This from the man, who fiddled with a chain that appeared to be attached to a pocket watch.
“What are they usually driving?”
The woman took over the conversation. “Pickups, Volkswagens, four-wheelers, even horses. Never had a Hummer come through before. Where y’all from?”
“Texas.”
“Long way.” The man stepped to the right and closer to their vehicles.
Patrick immediately blocked his path.
“No offense, mister. Just checking out your rides.”
“Have you seen any military vehicles pass through here?”
“We have not. Most folks take the I-35 route, same as before the flare.”
“It’s open?”
The woman shrugged. “Haven’t seen it myself.”
The man reached into a small front pocket on his pants, snapping his hands up, palms out when Patrick pulled his firearm. “I was only reaching for my watch, young man. No need to get twitchy.”
Patrick nodded for him to go ahead. Shelby had walked a few feet away from Max now and was directly watching the man and woman. There was something odd about them. What they were wearing—their clothes looked like one of the costumes from the flyer taped to the shop windows.
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