by Eric Flint
But her time in the jungles of South America had changed that. It taught her a lot about who and what she was. She was no follower. She preferred to rely on herself. She had more faith in her judgment and her skills than she did in anyone else's. And time and time again, she had proven herself right. She put the lid on the bottle she had just taken from a drawer and then locked the cabinet. She didn't know who Joe was or where he had been but she needed a notebook and pen.
Meetings meant new information. And new information usually meant new ways of doing things. Taking notes was her way of making sure she didn't forget anything, or remember something wrong. When she climbed the stairs to the upper level conference room she could feel the tension in the air. The guards rushing up and down were in full gear.
More than a few wore bulletproof vests and helmets with faceplates pulled into the up position. Watching them in their black leather gloves, leather pants and knee pads made her feel foolish and frivolous, in her pale blue nurse's uniform. Silently, she cursed the idiot who had picked out the balloon and heart pattern that decorated her top, and wished she had thought to grab a lab coat. The uniform, issued by the prison, was ridiculous in this setting. The purple stethoscope draped around her neck looked just as silly. She slipped it off, folded its tubing, and shoved it inside her pocket. The guards were wearing guns. Big, black guns. Not candy colored tools. She slipped into the conference room intending to grab a seat near the back, but was spotted by Rod Hulbert. He waved for her to join him at the front. He had saved her a seat. "I know things look pretty bad, and they are," Rod said, "but we have good people." Jenny nodded. "I hope so. What's going on? Really." He shrugged. "You're going to know soon enough. Andy's going to have Joe give a detailed description of what he saw when he went to town. And since I've been out there, at least a little ways, I have a feeling it's going to be an eyeball popper." "Why?" "Haven't you heard?" He didn't wait for her to answer.
"The Mississippi river is gone. And if that mother has dried up and left us with trees the size of two-hundred-year-old oaks, town has got to be even more messed up." Gone. Two-hundred-year-old oaks. She could feel her stomach turn over and fought the wave of nausea that came with it. She didn't feel the need to argue that those things couldn't happen. Some instinct told her that they could, and had. The same set of instincts was telling her to jump up, run out of the room, find a dark closet and hide. To stay there and never stick her head into the sunlight. Instead, she opened her notebook and checked to be sure the pen she had pulled from her pocket protector was a good one. Jeffrey Edelman flicked the lights off, then on. Instantly, the room became silent. Andy Blacklock was at the front of the room. Standing next to him was a man that made his 6'1" frame look small. "Quiet," he said to the people in the room, who almost instantly obeyed him. "Joe Schuler has just gotten back from town and is ready to give report. You will be hearing what he has to say at the same time I hear it. I'm willing to do things this way as long as the information given out in these meetings goes no further until I say it does." "We won't be telling the others?" Terry Collins asked. His face was flushed. "They'll be told. Everything. Nothing held back." Blacklock looked around the room. "There will be no secrets. None. But there's no sense terrifying them. That situation never helps. We will give ourselves enough time to decide the best approach to dealing with things. Then when we tell them the bad news, the newest problem, we will have some sort of corrective action in mind. That will make it easier for them to accept. And no one goes off half-cocked, crazy with fear." He sat down in a metal folding chair facing the audience. "Lieutenant Schuler, go ahead." Joe nodded, then began talking. His voice shook, but Jenny knew it wasn't from stage fright. "First things first. Don't nobody boo me, and don't nobody call me a liar. I didn't cause the things I'm going to be telling you and I'm not going to be saying anything that isn't the God's own truth. Even though I find it hard to believe it myself." He ran a hand through his hair. "First, the road to town is gone. It leaves the prison, goes for about a quarter mile, then stops.
It looks as though it's been cut at a hundred and twenty degree angle.
One side is blacktop; the other is ground cover. I say 'ground cover' instead of grass because whatever the stuff is-I didn't recognize any of the plants-it isn't grass. Some kind of ferns, is what most of it looked like. Waist-high ground cover and trees. The trees are big, too. I didn't recognize them either, except for a number of gingkos.
But whatever kind of trees they are, they've obviously been there for decades. At least. And out in the distance, I could see trees that were even bigger. Huge things. Trees that have to be hundreds of years old. Could be thousands of years old, for all I know. I thought they were redwoods at first, but Jeff Edelman says my description doesn't quite match. The one thing for sure is they're conifers. In the distance, that's it. Only conifers. "It took me over an hour to get to what should have been the city limits. The truck couldn't go but about a mile or so and I had to walk the rest the way. I found this where I guessed the police station should have been." He held up what looked to be an unadorned, well-worn pocket watch. Instead of a chain, a strip of leather hung from the ring above its winding stem. "The man who used this was leaned against a stump, dead. He was dressed in old-fashioned garb, like for a parade, but different. And from the insect infestation and deterioration of the body, I would say he had been gone for several days." He set the watch back on the table. "That man was all I found. There is no town. No railroad tracks, no cars, buildings, factories, or streetlights. Nothing. No people." He shrugged. "No living people, anyway." "What happened to them?" Joe shrugged again. "It wasn't a bomb or anything like that. This is something else. Nothing is destroyed. It's just… vanished." He waved toward the outer wall, to the area beyond. "And I don't think this is just a local situation. If the sun is wrong here, it's wrong all over the world. And, according to Rod Hulbert, the river is gone.
It hasn't dried up. It's gone. I talked to Jeff Edelman about it. He said moving that much water would have affected other things in other places. It would change things over a wide area. According to him, since the Mississippi is over two thousand miles long, if it's bed is gone, things have to be messed up all over the world." "That's right,"
Edelman said. "It's as though the planet quivered and everything is now different. The tower guards have been spotting strange animals prowling around the perimeter of the prison, and even stranger looking birds. Woeltje says he saw a creature with a hell of a wingspan flying over the prison just a little after sunup, that wasn't anything like any bird he'd ever seen. And there has been an increase in temperature as crazy as what we're seeing in the plant and animal life. This is November and it's eighty degrees out there. And the sun rose six hours ahead of schedule, in thenorthwest. And last night, the stars were wrong. They were in the wrong place, and there were too many of them."
Jenny swallowed, working at staying calm. She could tell by the reactions of those around her, most of what Edelman was saying was old news. But for her, it was all new. She could feel the sweat on her palms and on her upper lip. She looked at Hulbert and knew even though he had already heard most of it, he was taking the situation no better than she was. He looked calm enough, but his respirations were up to sixteen. That was high for him. He was in such unusually good shape, his resting respirations were usually around twelve to thirteen.
Kathleen, the C.O. in charge of the communications and control room, stood up. "I have a husband and three children in town." Her voice changed to almost a wail. "Where are they? What does all this mean?"
The man sitting in the chair next to hers put his arm around her and drew her back down into her seat. Her quiet sobbing filled the room, driving home what had been said. Andy stood and Joe returned to his seat. "It means we have to get ready for a long stay." Hulbert nodded his head and sighed. "Well, I guess now we know." "Know what?" Jenny whispered. Hulbert looked at her and gave a thin grin that held no humor. "We know we're fucked."
Chapter 8
Geoffrey Watkins sat next to what was left of the small fire used to heat their afternoon meal. He didn't do so for the warmth. That was hardly needed now. It just gave him something to do.
The women and children lay in the shade. The old men sat next to the women, watching the woods. The soldiers had their camp by some trees not far away. A horse whinnied. A bird called. He listened to the whispering of the trees in the breeze and forced himself to sit straight. He was weary, bone weary. At the age of fifty-four, he felt too old for this trip. Many of those with him were too old. That, or too sick. The Treaty of New Echota had forced the evacuation of all Cherokees. He, and those with him, had been among the last to leave for the new land across the big river assigned to them by the United States. They had left Ross' Landing in November of 1838 by wagon-a party of three hundred and seventy Cherokees, escorted by a unit of U.S. soldiers. They had crossed the Tennessee River, the Cumberland River, and then the Ohio River. The trip had been long and hard. It was still months from completion. And now he did not know if it would ever end, or where they would be if it did. It had been winter and the snow was inches deep. They had been in southern Illinois, near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers when their world disappeared and this new world showed up. Everything familiar was lost. The snow and cold had been two of the things that vanished when their world shook and screamed. Watkins was grateful for that. He was not grateful for the other things that were missing: the food, tools, equipment, and people. Their wagons and most of the horses were gone.
Some of their people and the soldiers, too. Only eight soldiers were caught up in the storm that blew the Cherokees to this land, wherever it was. Eight soldiers and three hundred and twenty-one of his own people. The soldiers relinquished any authority they might have over the Cherokees to Geoffrey, once they realized they were no longer in southern Illinois. That had been a wise move on their part, as outnumbered as they now were. The Cherokees had been stripped of their land and many of their possessions, true, but they still owned some things. Among them were guns and knives. Even then, had the soldiers been Georgia militiamen instead of U.S. regulars, they would have been killed. The Georgians had committed many personal atrocities against the Cherokees in the course of the relocation, including murder, rape, robbery and mutilation. But all you could honestly accuse the regulars of doing was following the orders of their government. Their own conduct had been well-disciplined. And many Cherokees knew from Chief John Ross that Major General Winfield Scott, the man in charge of the U.S. troops overseeing the relocation, had tried to get President Van Buren to stop the relocation once he saw the epidemics developing in the camps. But Van Buren had refused. So, there had been no violence toward the soldiers, even if relations were tense. His people were tired unto their soul, and they were hungry. And many of them were sick, including his wife of twenty-five years. She had pneumonia. She was burning up with fever. Her labored breathing had kept him awake most of the night. Now, in the light of day, she seemed even worse.
"Chief," Bradley Scott called. "We've got company." Watkins stood up.
Things had changed, but in some ways they were still the same. The Cherokees in his group were traditionalists. Not all of them were full-blood-he wasn't, for instance-but many of them were. So they were not encumbered by the need to watch over black slaves, and they retained many of the skills that most of their people had lost in their attempt to emulate the Americans. There'd been enough men in the group with the needed skills that he'd been able to send out scouting parties almost immediately. Now, another one was returning. But he had nothing more to report than the others. They'd all encountered strange creatures and strange plants, some of them quite fearsome, but none had found the missing farms or the missing towns. "Sorry, Geoffrey. I could find nothing. Not even a hunter's lean-to." Watkins nodded, letting no trace of apprehension show. "McQuade is still out. He was to follow the river three days, and then return. Perhaps he will be more successful." Stephen McQuade had been his close companion for many years. They had fought together in alliance with the American general Andrew Jackson at the Horseshoe Bend during the Creek war, almost twenty-five years earlier. He was a man Geoffrey had counted on many times. And he was starting to get desperate. McQuade had to succeed. They needed food and shelter, of course. But most of all, they needed the tools and instruments by which they could obtain those things. Blankets, pots, knives, and ammunition. Even traditionalists like his people had come to rely on the technology of the white man, to a large extent. Most of all, though, they needed information.
Ignorance was the greatest enemy of all. It had taken more lives than disease, war and weather combined. The sun was down and the fires were lit. Watkins looked at the flickering flames, hoping they would be enough to keep the new animals at bay. "Chief." Geoffrey didn't turn around to look at Susan Fisher, one of the Cherokee healers. She was good at what she did, but she didn't perform miracles. And without food, water and medicines, a miracle would have been needed. He knew what she had to tell him. He had been listening to the sound of his wife's ragged breathing for hours, holding his breath each time she grew silent. Breathing a sigh of relief when he heard the gurgling sound of air being dragged into lungs laden with water. The mother of his children-three sons and two daughters-was gone. He had known the second she passed. The death rattle was something no man could mistake for anything else, once he'd heard it. And he had heard it many times over the years. "I'm sorry," the small woman whispered. Chief Geoffrey Watkins nodded. Hard times, bad luck. They seemed to be his fate these days. And the fate of his people. Hernando de Soto, Pedro Moreno, and Hernando de Silvera spent the morning looking for the missing river. The huge watercourse had disappeared the night the demons broke free of hell and carried them from North America to this accursed land. The fertile soil that had stretched for seventy miles north to south, and ran twelve miles east to west, had also disappeared. In its place was a conifer forest, and soil so thin that it would do poorly for growing the corn and other food the conquistadors and their men needed. Worst of all, most of the natives who would have provided that food for their new masters had vanished also. Some remained, but not the great numbers they needed. As the sun rose to its zenith, de Soto's second in command, Luis de Moscoso, was sixlegua comuns south of the main camp. He was dealing with one of the devil-worshippers who had cursed the expedition, thus causing God to abandon them and giving the devil the power to torment the Spaniards in this evil land. He sat on his horse staring at the native. The heathen was one of six such men found over the last few days. The slaves-taken before the spawns of Satan were loosed upon the Spaniards-had not recognized the tribe these men were from. This newest one was dressed like the others. He wore nothing more than a loincloth. He carried no weapon and had no food on him. He was obviously a fool, or took the Spaniards for such.
Each of the interpreters had tried to talk to him. And each time the captive indicated he could not understand what was being said.
Disgusted, Moscoso gave his orders. If the savage continued to pretend not to understand what he heard, chop his ears off and feed them to the pigs. If that didn't make the man talk, cut his tongue out and force it down the fool's own throat. The Spanish soldiers holding the Indian by his arms shoved him to his knees. In the Year of the Lord 1541, if you were part of Hernando de Soto's expedition to North America, it was unwise to hesitate when a direct order was given. The Indian, a member of a nascent Mississippian chiefdom from the year 637 A.D., struggled to get away as the men dressed in elaborate body armor advanced with steel knives drawn.
Chapter 9 It wasn't until Wednesday that Richard and Margo were able to learn anything. Nicholas Brisebois, Richard's friend at the air force base had been quite friendly and willing to cooperate without pressing for any serious explanations. The problem was simply that he didn't know anything himself. Neither did anyone, it seemed.
"It's weird," he told them over dinner that night. "Even my buddy in the state police is in the dark. All h
e knows is that the area surrounding the prison is crawling with people from a branch of FEMA he never heard of." "Feema?" asked Morgan-Ash. "You have to make allowances, Nick," Margo explained. "Richard didn't move to the U.S. until six months after Katrina. So the acronym doesn't come tripping off his tongue the way it does for most people." "Ah. An acronym. God, you Yanks dote on the wretched things. And it stands for…?"
"Federal Emergency Management Agency," Brisebois supplied. "But according to my friend Tim, these aren't regular FEMA types. They're from something called the Special Investigations Bureau. Annoying bastards, from what he says. It didn't take the E.M.T.'s on the scene more than an hour to start calling them the 'siblings.'They were annoyed because the siblings wouldn't let them through to do their job. Said there were no injuries, as if anybody in their right mind is going to believe that." Brisebois took another bit of his steak, chewed, swallowed, and then shrugged. "But the truth is that Tim just doesn't know much. He got assigned to help coordinate the search for any missing inmates, and didn't spend much time near the site itself.
He says he never even got a glimpse of the prison, so he doesn't know what sort of accident might have happened." Margo had ordered the only fish course on the diner's menu, for health reasons. Now, she was regretting the decision. Whatever it might do to your arteries, the air transport specialist's steak looked good, damnation. Whereas her so-called perch looked as if it had been dredged from a canal somewhere. Tasted like it, too. She pushed what was left, which was most of it, off to the side with her fork. She wasn't really that hungry anyway. " 'Special Investigations Bureau'? I never heard of it, either. Of course, that's hardly surprising. There must be eight thousand federal agencies I never heard of"-she gave Brisebois a smile-"including yours. When Richard told me you worked at the air force base, I assumed you were in the military." Nick worked through another large bite of his steak. "Was," he half-mumbled, before finishing his swallow. He wasn't a sloppy eater, but he didn't waste any time, either. He wiped his mouth with his napkin. "I was in the Air Force for over twenty years. Trash-hauler. Flew a C-141 cargo plane. Then I wound up in the Pentagon coordinating air transport for the first Gulf war. I guess that got me labeled as an expert, so I wound up finishing my career in the Air Force here at Scott. When I retired four years ago, I pretty much just swapped my uniform for a suit and started doing the same job for the Defense Department working in an office across the hall from the one I used to have." He was a rather attractive man, she decided, in a stocky sort of way. Not all that much older than she was, either. But he was also quite obviously someone who came from a very different world than her own. Quite well-educated, but somehow very blue-collar. She wondered if that was a common combination among military officers. She'd ask Richard. He'd know, unless British customs were wildly different. She wasn't sure if she found that attractive or repellent. Both, probably, although she had a dark suspicion the attraction was winning out. How else explain the fact that she'd had to suppress-twice, in fact-the completely inappropriate urge to mention that the "Lewis" part of her last name was of purely historical significance. The only reason she'd kept the name was because, by the time of her divorce, that was the name she was known by professionally. Not to mention that she'd had to suppress-twice, again-the urge to ask Richard if his friend was single or married. It was all a bit ridiculous, really. She was a scientist here on serious business, not a middle-aged woman on a singles' cruise. She suddenly realized that Richard was looking a bit grim. "I have heard of the agency, as it happens," he half-muttered. "They're quite secretive, apparently." Brisebois frowned. "Secretive? What the hell is there to be secretive about, if you're with FEMA? It's not as if natural disasters are exactly covert." His easy grin came again, this time with a slightly sardonic twist. "I grant you, the current administration is obsessed with secrecy. Still, even for them, that seems over the top." Richard seemed on the verge of saying something, but only shook his head. The gesture was so minimal that Margo barely spotted it at all. But she saw that Brisebois hadn't missed it either.