by Kage Baker
“Keep me safe, Ensley,” she mutters as she starts down the stairs. “Just one more day.”
Sanders, the Deputy Crew Commander, drives Kingston’s crew of four to the silo without speaking. He keeps the radio in his hummer tuned to the news station. Border skirmishes, food shortages, riots, and martial law—it’s their country newscasters speak of. Public figures scramble, civilians protest and pray for a second chance at peace, but Kingston and her crew know it’s too late. The only negotiations going on now are over the best hour to begin the war.
Beside Kingston, Ballistic Missile Analyst Cabrera slumps in light sleep. Up in the front next to Sanders, Major Hewitt talks into his phone—his wife calls every morning. All the men on the team are married, and they all have children. Kingston stares out the window at the flat farmlands. She thinks about the apartment, how the sun will soon shine into rooms that look like no one ever lived there. She wanted to be an astronaut when she was little. She wanted to fly to the moon, or maybe Mars. Instead, she’s headed to a Titan-class missile silo, where her crew will stand on alert for twenty-four hours, waiting for the order to push a button. She’s proud of what she’s doing to defend her country, proud of eighteen years served. Sometimes, though, at night, she cradles a phantom weight as she slips into uneasy dreams . . .
Hewitt whispers “I love you” into the phone. Kingston closes her eyes, concentrates on the news.
Their shift passes in half-hours of systems checks and double-checks. Wing Command Post calls every hour with the same message: launch in one hour. Each hour passes with no launch. In the short calm between false alarms, Kingston stares at Sander’s neck, his shoulders hunched over cold coffee and clipboards, jotting words down—a letter to his wife, his last farewell? “Useless,” Kingston mutters. Sanders looks up. Kingston reaches for a report, her face like stone.
At 03:29, Kingston glances at the clock’s second hand. The latest message was for 03:30 launch. Her hands press against her pants, fingering the pregnancy stick and plastic vial. They feel heavier than her sidearm. Is this continual, low-grade fear imprinting on the fetus? Maybe the lack of fear is worse, the low-grade irritation that they haven’t yet released Black Beauty from her shackles. 03:29:30. Kingston wishes she had some gum, or a Lifesaver, anything to get the aftertaste of the MRI out of her mouth. Maybe she should take the capsule now. Her fetus and the missile, shooting out of the gate on the very same day. Thoughts like that don’t shock her. They never did.
03:29:55. Kingston mouths the seconds down to 03:30.
Silence.
03:30:01.
“Goddamnit, here we go again,” Cabrera says. His lips form the words, but Kingston can’t hear his voice: the alarm is wailing. Kingston feels herself heart stop, and all emotions bleed away. Black Beauty is a go.
Kingston and Sanders scan their equipment panels while Hewitt and Cabrera verify the authenticity of the SAC message coming through. No more nerves or baby thoughts or boredom, only buttons and switches at her fingertips—she’s the missile now. She always has been. Above ground, rotating beacons will be flashing red warnings as sirens howl. Hewitt is asking if they’re ready to launch, and Kingston’s voice gives a distant affirmative. All throughout the complex, systems shut down as they rout electricity and power to Black Beauty. Kingston licks her lips. The taste in her mouth has mutated into an unnamed desire.
By 03:41, Hewitt has verified target selection. It’s one of two possibilities, neither of which has been revealed to the team. Kingston will never know where Black Beauty and her multiple warheads are headed, and she doesn’t care. Trans-Pacific fallout will ensure that the winds bring it all right back to America. Sanders and Hewitt have their keys out. They break the seals off the launch commit covers. It sounds like the snapping of spines.
“ . . . three, two, one, mark.”
Both keys turn. The LAUNCH ENABLE light glows. They have nothing left to do but sit, and wait.
Out in the dark earth, the Titan powers up, gathering every single bit of energy into herself, readying for birth. Kingston’s hands creep over her belly. The man was Nez Pierce, like her grandpa’s family on her mother’s side. He told her his name, but she doesn’t remember it. She didn’t care. His skin was dark, hot. Black beauty.
The SILO SOFT lights wink on. Above, the great doors are sliding open, spreading apart like a woman’s willing legs.
FIRE IN THE ENGINE.
Lights in the control room fade. They hunch in the dark, waiting for release. The tick of the fans, the thump of her heart, the race horse rasp of her breath: she’s at the starting gate, straining against metal bars. Kingston snaps open the leather casing holding her side arm. This is how it must be. They have a new type of ICBM across the ocean, a hydra-headed destroyer of nations. This whole planet is fucked. And she deserves life least of all, because she had the audacity to conceive it. That taste in her mouth: she knows what it is. She aches for the taste of the gun.
Klaxons wail out one shrill warning after another. Kingston slides her weapon out, cocks the trigger. But it remains on her thigh, pointed away. Lift it. Lift it up, you spineless cunt. Her whole body shakes, but she can’t tell if it’s nerves or the colossal springs under the cement hollow of the control center, keeping them from cracking apart. “WE HAVE LIFTOFF,” Hewitt shouts over the last of the klaxons, and a low, long rush of air thunders through the complex as Black Beauty’s engines reach full speed: she lifts. Kingston clutches her stomach, bites her tongue. The heartbeat of some ancient god of war drills into them like jackhammers, wave after quaking wave setting their bones to ring like funeral bells . . .
. . . and now it fades: a reprieve back to silence, as Black Beauty arcs into cold skies. Panel lights wink on and off, but Kingston ignores them. Hewitt is on the phone, confirming what they already suspect: other launches, from every silo in the nation. And in two hours time, another missile will slam back into the complex, filling the void. A constellation is soaring across the ocean, right back into their arms.
“Officer. Hand over your weapon.” Hewitt’s voice is calm. He’s staring at the drawn weapon pressed at her thigh.
“No, sir, I cannot,” Kingston says. “I’m getting out.” She raises her arm, moving the barrel to her head.
“Well,” Cabrera says as he pulls his weapon, “good-fucking-bye to you, too.”
From all directions, bullets fly. Guess they’re all getting out of the silo, one way or another. Kingston turns the barrel and blindly fires out as she drops to the floor, tucking herself into the space between her console and the wall. Cabrera slams against his chair, leaving behind a black slick as he falls to the floor. Kingston sets her sights and shoots, nailing Hewitt in the chest. Blood pumps from his shirt, staining the floor around him in an uneven circle.
“Kingston, drop your weapon!” Sanders, somewhere in the dark.
Kingston checks her clip, touches her belly. Suddenly, surprisingly, she wants to stay alive. Down in the empty silo, smoke and flame is roiling—the afterbirth of the engines. They’d put it out, if it had been a test. Now they can let it burn.
Kingston stands up, weapon pointed.
“I was going to kill myself, you stupid motherfucker. You should have left me alone.” From across the room, Sanders mimics her stance, even with his shot-up arm. Overhead, clocks tick away the seconds they have left.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Sanders finally speaks. “I know a place—an underground shelter. I can take you there.”
Kingston keeps calm.
“A bomb shelter?”
“No, a real habitat—a place to live, not just survive.”
What does he care if she lives or dies? “You’re lying,” Kingston says. “You need me to let you go.”
“I swear on my fucking life I’m telling the truth.” Sanders lowers his weapon a touch. “We’ve been planning it for years.”
“We?”
“People—military, civilian. People who knew this was coming. My wife a
nd son are already there.” He’s babbling. “It’s got everything, we can live there for a year or more.”
“And they’ll let you bring some stranger in? An extra mouth eating your food, stealing your air?”
“Jesus Christ, Kingston, why are we arguing? We’re out of time!”
Kingston looks down. Hewitt stares at the ceiling as he bleeds out. He might still be alive in two hours, when the warhead hits. He was a good commander.
Kingston puts a bullet in his head.
“Let’s go,” she says. Her lips taste like blood, and she licks them clean. Yeah, she’s going to hell.
Damned if she’ll go there alone.
Fire
War
Red
. . . footprints trail behind them as Kingston and Sanders drag several large duffel bags back through the blast doors, up smoky stairs to the surface. Together they’d stripped Hewitt and Cabrera of their weapons, then proceeded to take anything else that might be of use. Sanders insisted on taking their dog tags, with the launch keys threaded onto the chains. “We owe it to them,” he said as he lowered Hewitt’s tags over her head. It’s a sentimental gesture, one that repels Kingston. She’ll take them off later, when there’s time.
The sky is black, blazing with stars. The guards have disappeared—no one stops them as they cram the bags into the already packed hummer.
“You’re driving,” Sanders says, holding out the keys.
“I don’t know where the shelter is. Wouldn’t it be easier for you to drive?”
Sanders nods at his wounds. “I can’t shift, and I’ll barely be able to grip the wheel. I need you to drive.”
“This is why you’re taking me, isn’t it?”
Sanders says nothing, but she sees the affirmation in his eyes. She’s dead to him. Once she drives him to safety, it won’t be hard for him to finish the job.
She takes the keys.
Driving the huge machine gives her focus. She rolls down the window, letting the night air rush in as 904 slips past in a ribbon of slick blacktop. Several campers and trucks loaded with boxes and luggage barrel past her in both directions. This is military country—they know. An ancient Volkswagen camper draws up, and for a moment they race side by side down the empty stretch, each bathed in the other’s lights. In the passenger seat, a woman with a tear-streaked face shoots her a baleful glare. Kingston realizes that the woman sees her uniform. The woman leans toward the glass, and lips spit out two angry words.
FUCK YOU.
Kingston presses down on the gas. She shoots ahead, away from the woman’s accusing face. “We did it for you, you fucking bitch,” Kingston mutters. “You paid us to.”
“What?” Sanders’ head lolls up. “Problem?”
“No.”
“What time is it?”
“04:47. Sunrise should start around 05:15. We’ll be past the town by then.”
Sanders falls silent again. Kingston takes the exit, navigates the quiet streets. Small ramblers and faded Victorians sit under trees, crowned by telephone wires and stars. Everyone asleep, unaware that everything in their lives has changed, and they’re alone. The town dribbles down into isolated trailers, abandoned shacks. Overhead, the sky grows light blue, with bands of pink and purple pushing up from the horizon. Cloudless, so far. Kingston keeps her eyes fixed on the low brown hills ahead.
“Time to get off the road,” Sanders says. “You’re going to get off to the left—there’s no road, but it’s drivable. Just past the bend.” As Kingston steers the hummer over the blacktop and into the brush, Sanders flips the radio on. Static fills the space. Kingston waits for a recognizable sound. Nothing. Sanders flicks the radio off.
Sunrise comes early in this flat part of the world, yet on the western side the sky is still speckled with stars. Kingston steers in sweeping curves between night and day, through the rough and gaping wounds of the scablands, reminders of the glaciers and floods that once scoured the land. Every hill and shallow looks the same, but Sanders never falters in his directions. At 05:40, he leads her up one of the larger mounds, and she cuts the engine. After close to two hours of driving, the silence is shocking.
“How’s the arm.”
“It’s fine. Get out.”
Is this it? Kingston’s mouth dries up as she walks to the front of the hummer.
“Where’s the shelter?” She might as well ask, though she knows there won’t be an answer.
“The large barrow over there.” Sanders gestures southwest. In the morning haze, Kingston makes out a stretch of barrow-like hills at the horizon, dark green with scrub and brush. A couple hundred miles away, but a straight shot through flat land. Easy to get to with just one arm at the wheel.
“Which larger one? They all look the same from here.”
No answer.
“We need to keep moving. Let’s go.” Kingston turns, but Sanders only points at the far horizon, in the direction they came from. To the north and east, dappled patterns of farmlands and towns all lay in peaceful quiet, and birds circle overhead in lazy loops. Another beautiful morning has begun.
Kingston’s heart slows. She knows what he’s looking for. She looks for it, too.
They wait.
The horizon erupts in brilliant white light: this is what they wanted, needed to see. Too many to count, in too many places to see—voluptuous jets of lightning-shot ziggurats unfurling past the cloud line. A metropolis of death, created in an instant. Deep, low booms wash over them, like the thunder of incoming storms. Kingston presses her hand against her chest. They’re safe here. This place is too desolate to destroy.
The cloud columns keep pluming, faster and higher than any she’s ever seen. “Tsars, maybe—fifty megatons, at least,” Sanders speculates. “Multiple warheads. We did the right thing. They would have done it anyway.”
Sanders’ hand creeps down to his holster.
“We need to go,” Kingston says, turning away.
She turns again.
Two shots ring out. Hawks wheel and scatter away.
Sanders’ weapon hits his foot with a thud. Blood blossoms in the center of his chest. He looks at her, confused. Behind him, the distant clouds spread higher, drift apart. “Bitch.” Blood drivels out of his mouth. “I would have let you go—”
Another shot rips the air, echoing over the scabby hills.
“No,” she says. “You couldn’t.”
Grimacing, she holsters her weapon. He clipped her right thigh, a nice deep slice that’ll keep her limping for weeks. There’s no time for the pain, though. Not today. She puts his tags around her neck with the rest. They smell of hot metal and desperation. As she steers the hummer off the hill, Kingston doesn’t look back at his body. He’s dead, she tells herself. Things won’t get any worse.
An hour later, when the engine sputters to a halt, Kingston remembers her words. Her cracked lips form a parody of a smile, and bits of dried blood flake down her chin and neck. Did Sanders lie about the shelter, too? She pulls everything out of the back, looking for any clue of where it might be. Not one fucking map or drawing. There’s bottled water and MRIs, but the rest is weapons and medicine. And a small stuffed bear—for his kid? Kingston runs her fingers over the bear’s soft head. Maybe this is proof enough. He was a cautious man, a planner. He wouldn’t forget to store extra gas. Maybe she ran out when she did, because this is where she’s supposed to be. It’s just a hunch, and a shitty one at that, but it’s all she has left to go on.
Kinston loads two duffle bags, tucking the bear next to the boxes of ammo. She takes the keys, but leaves the windows open. The winds will come, then the rains. Radiation will eat the rest.
Two hours walking puts her in a small shallow leading to the hills Sanders had pointed to—massive mounds, sitting like beached leviathans, petrified and lost to time. It’s there that she sees a glint of metal halfway up the longer mound—an air intake valve, or exhaust vent. Thick clouds roll overhead, and the winds have picked up speed. Kingston stops, and f
ishes out a small plastic bottle of KI tablets. She swallows two with a gulp of water, then tosses the bottle back in the bag. As she zips it up, she remembers: and pats at the ripped fabric of her pants, where the bullet tore its path. Her fingers feel the pregnancy stick, wedged in what’s left of the pocket, but the abortion pill is gone. No matter. There are other, older methods. No fucking way is she bringing a child into this world. Not now. Not ever.
Kingston hoists the bags up again, and limps forward, her face contorted with the weight and pain, with the heat pressing down from above. Big fucking deal, she tells herself. She’s walked down this road of pain before, in other years, for lesser reasons. She can make this one. Never mind the bile burning a trail up your throat, the piss trickling down your legs, the blisters and battered bones. Never mind the dark presence riding up behind you, the whip of fear spurring you on. Take one more step, bitch. No one’s going to help you. You’re alone. Take another.
Take another.
Take . . .
Kingston stands, legs trembling, on the concrete lip of the bunker entrance. “What,” she says, realizing she’s repeating herself. Dark spots dance in her eyes, and she blinks. How much time did she lose?
“A man,” an older woman says. “We were expecting a man.” Her face is worn and leathery, but her eyes are bright blue—intelligent, wary. Farmer, or rancher, Kingston thinks. A survivor. Can she be like this woman? Her hand slides into her pocket, a cautious movement under the gaze of the woman and her rifle. Kingston pulls out the pregnancy stick and holds it up. Why not make that unborn bit of flesh work for her survival, just like everyone else.