Desert Angels

by George P. Saunders

  Thirty minutes later, the Geiger needle abruptly dropped to near normal. Jack stopped the Humvee and quietly thanked the heavens he didn't believe in. His hypotheses of years earlier had held up to form with regard to the radioactive "hot spots" he had targeted on Blast Day. Should the rad levels remain low and steady, then the Angel's allegations regarding Laura's existence could be more fully substantiated – and believed.

  By late afternoon, Jack had traveled some forty miles south of Eden. He was not sure how much further he would have to go; he was hoping that the Angel would inform him when he had gone far enough.

  Night came quickly - and with it, a darkness, Jack thought, that was even more intense out here in the wilderness than back around the comforting fires of Eden. What made the atmosphere all the more eerie, was the silence. No birds chirped, no insects buzzed, no bush rustled. Then Jack scolded himself; there were no more birds left to tweet and bugs to buzz. Those life forms short of cockroaches had been obliterated on Blast Day. The silence was a roaring bomb of sound that made the night more ominous and unnatural.

  A fire burning twenty minutes later and some Mozart pounding out of the travel-worthy CD player made the evening tolerable. But only barely. The air was filled with voices and phantoms that only Jack could hear. To the north, and keeping a respectable distance, was one of the mysterious Light Storms that occasionally appeared out of nowhere.

  Jack was no longer plagued with needing to understand what those strange lights represented. They simply existed. End of story.

  A six pack of Budweiser was hastily downed and the heavy wash of intoxication made Jack sleepy. If he could get through this one night, he'd be okay. No boogey man tonight, please – just oblivion; just this night, this first night –

  The low, unnatural hum began just then.

  Jack had heard it only once before. He sat up slowly, his heart a violent hammer beating uncontrollably.

  It was the sound the Light Storm made as it now moved closer to Jack’s encampment. Walter flapped to his shoulder, and together they watched the lights grow larger and closer.

  But at the moment where it seemed the lights might envelope Jack and Walter in their brilliant vaporous grasp, the lights evaporated in a single twinkle. The low, rhythmic hum also droned into nothingness.

  And then, all at once, it hit Jack. He suddenly received the full import of what the Light Clouds were - and what the world had become that allowed them to exist.

  Jack looked to Walter. “They’re alive, buddy. The Lights – they have intelligence and purpose. I don’t know how I know this, but –“

  He stopped mid-speech.

  Those were the words the Guardian Angel used.

  I don’t know how or why, but I know.

  Jack nodded to himself, then glanced at Walter, who pecked at something on the ground, some gravel.

  “The Lights are entities. But why do they follow us? For what purpose?”

  Walter, of course, had no answer.

  Jack re-entered the Humvee, and straightened out his sleeping bag in the rear section. Walter flapped to her place in the passenger seat.

  “Why are they here?” Jack asked. “Why?”

  He fell asleep a moment later, and Angela stared at him for half an hour before exiting the Humvee to stretch her human legs.

  * * *

  Laura Talbot had made the decision to leave her father’s habitat a week earlier. She could bear its comfort and familiarity no longer. The ghost of her father was too strong to endure – his absence too keenly felt – so action to find a new venue for survival would have to be discovered.

  Early that morning, she planted several thermal charges at key locations within the habitat, which she would ignite once outside. Thereafter, the ad hoc home of her survival for two years, would go up in proverbial smoke.

  She had already loaded the Ball Job up with enough provisions to last several months. Thereafter, unless she found a patch of ground or a community where food and water was abundant, that is when the groceries would run out. The Ball Job with is nuclear fusion based propulsion system would last for a thousand years or more and take her anywhere across the planet; it had been designed to travel across vast tracts of water by her father, if need be. But Laura realized that conditions in either Europe, the Asian Pacific, Africa or Australia were probably the same as they were here in the United States. All these territories would still be nuclear death zones.

  This lurid scenario did not distract her from her immediate mission objective.

  She started out her morning by engaging in her favorite pre-breakfast activity: that of killing Stiffers that still hovered near the habitat’s perimeter.

  She took out her M-15 and picked off five of the mutants within a few minutes. She then wolfed down some powdered eggs with beer, and walked out to the Ball Job for a final pre-check of all the amazing vehicle’s systems. All appeared AOK and thus one duty remained.

  She maneuvered the Ball Job out about 100 yards, and then stepped out of the vehicle with a remote control in her hand. She stared at the habitat and whispered only four words.

  “Wish me luck, dad.”

  She hit the button on her remote.

  The habitat exploded into a small mushroom cloud of fire and smoke.

  * * *

  Jack snapped his head to the southern horizon and could see the plume of smoke rise several seconds after the audible boom of the habitat’s destruction. He had been awake for an hour, and like Laura, dispatched several Stiffers hanging out near the Humvee to oblivion. He had been chewing on a piece of freeze-dried jerky, stomping out the remains of his small campfire.

  Walter pecked his ear and he nodded.

  “That’s only a few miles away, Walter. What say we have a looksee?”

  Walter cooed softly, then went silent as Jack climbed back into the Humvee, started the engine, and drove off into the direction of the explosion.

  As he moved over one large dune, he could make out the Ball Job in the distance. And he could see the lone human being standing nearby, watching the residue of the habitat’s destruction.

  He accelerated and raced down into the small valley where Laura stood.

  * * *

  Laura pivoted on one foot and saw Jack’s Humvee speeding down a nearby sand dune. She raised her M-15 instinctively, but stood her ground as Jack approached and parked near her.

  Walter flapped out of the Humvee, and headed straight for Laura. The bird landed on Laura’s shoulder, and though startled, Laura’s first reaction was a chuckle.

  When Jack emerged from his Humvee, Laura leveled her weapon at him.

  “Hello,” Jack said, getting out of the driver’s seat.

  “Hello back,” Laura said neutrally.

  “I …. I was looking for a Victor Talbot,” Jack said slowly.

  “What do you want with him?” Laura fenced.

  “He … he and I are colleagues, in a way. Although I never won a Nobel Price for advanced mathematics and chemical engineering,” Jack said.

  “No, you don’t look like you would,” Laura said. “But you said you were a colleague.”

  “I admired Dr. Talbot from a distance. When I was at MIT –”

  “You went to MIT?” Laura exclaimed in clear disbelief.

  “Yes. I was a scholarship recipient for my work in particle physics research,” Jack said, realizing how inane this must sound in the middle of a radioactively-hot desert with most of humanity dead. He was giving his curricula vita to a girl he had just met, surrounded by the remnants of a dead planet.

  “What’s your name?” Laura said.

  “Jack Calisto,” he replied.

  “Jack Calisto of the God particle project?” she said, her tone changing ever so slightly.

  “I was the American team-leader, but, yes, I was part of that worthy endeavor, until …” his voice broke off and he looked off. “Before my wife died a few years back.”

  “I read your papers, Dr. Calisto,” Laura said, low
ering her rifle. “But I expected someone … older. Your theories on string differential and the unified field theories were fairly advanced, and not everyone in the community bought them.”

  “Yes, well, I had my share of detractors. And you?” Jack said.

  “I’m Laura Talbot. My father is dead” Laura said quietly, then raised her weapon seemingly in Jack’s direction. “He was killed by one of those.”

  She fired, and Jack ducked and turned on himself.

  The Stiffer screamed in agony and shock, as the bullet tore off its unholy head, leaving the trunk still free to run in circles for a few seconds before falling in to the sand.

  “Nice shot,” Jack said with sincere respect.

  “They’re corpses, you know that, right?” Laura said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Jack said, extending his hand to her. “Well, good to meet you at last, and condolences on your father. He was a great man.”

  “He ensured that we survived,” Laura nodded, looking toward the still smoldering habitat. “But I can’t stay here any longer. Too many memories.”

  “I understand,” Jack said. “Come back to my place. I know it’s only our first date, but Eden has all the comforts of home.”

  Laura smiled at that. “Eden? As in the Biblical sense?”

  “Eden, as I promised my wife before she died that I would call my multi-billion dollar air raid shelter Eden.”

  Laura considered Jack for a long moment, and then nodded. “It’s the best offer I’ve had in two years.”

  Jack nodded and looked to Walter. “Walter, don’t be a pest. Come back here,” he said, and Walter complied, winging his way back to Jack’s shoulder.

  “You’ve got your bird trained well,” Laura said.

  “He came that way,” Jack said, considering the Ball Job just ahead, as they began walking. “What is this thing? Looks like a huge golden egg on tractor tracks.”

  “Another one of my father’s brainchilds,” Laura said. “It’s power base is fusion. The nuclear core is the size of a billiard ball. It’s impervious to radiation and can sustain outside temperatures of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.”

  “Wow,” Jack said, then looked back at the habitat. “Looks like your father did his research. I gather you aren’t sick, nor was he.”

  “That’s right. Dad contracted the Army Corps of Engineers with his political connections and they spent six months building the habitat according to his strict specifications. Roentgen levels went up at one point to over 500, but not one gamma particle pierced our shielding.”

  Jack nodded. Victor Talbot had done exactly what he had done; constructed a nuclear war proof artificial world of steel, titanium and lead shielding.

  “Dad chose this location as the most likely spot where survival might be possible after a nuclear disaster.”

  “As did I,” Jack said. “Which explains the lovely coincidence of you and I living a mere fifty miles from one another since Blast Day.”

  “No coincidence when great minds think alike,” Laura said, though Jack suspected the compliment was directed more toward her father than him. No matter, he felt a warm glow of appreciation flow through him … something he’d not experienced for a very long time.

  “Well, follow me, Laura Talbot. Follow me to Eden!”

  Laura smiled and then climbed aboard the Ball Job.

  * * *

  The journey back was much faster than the journey to Laura’s location. Both the Humvee and the Ball Job raced over the land at sixty miles per hour. Jack was appropriately impressed by Laura’s maneuvering skill with her father’s wonder-truck. He would enjoy a thorough examination of its working mechanism later.

  Walter seemed remarkably unanimated, and Jack was at first concerned the bird was becoming ill. Walter remained listless next to him on the passenger seat, not even clucking or occasionally cooing as was its nature.

  “You okay, pal?” Jack asked Walter.

  The bird gave him a lazy eye that seemed to say “I’m okay, just feeling … distant.”

  Eden was on the horizon, but Jack was instantly alarmed, as he saw a crowd of Edenites surrounding a rather huge Stiffer, trapped in Gleeson’s barbed wire.

  The Edenites turned to regard Jack and the Ball Job as it approached the wire perimeter.

  Jack was out of the Humvee at a run, heading for Gleeson, who was in the process of taking aim at the entangled Stiffer.

  “Wait!” Jack called out to Gleeson.

  Gleeson lowered his rifle, and looked to Jack. “Why?”

  “Well, look at it,” Jack said, considering the Stiffer’s eyes. “This one is different than the others.”

  “How can you tell?” Laura asked from behind him.

  “Look at its eyes,” Jack whispered. “They seem … intelligent. As if it’s listening to us and understanding what we say. Disseminating information.”

  Gleeson and Laura looked to one another.

  “I’m Gleeson,” he said.

  “I’m the girl next door,” Laura said, extending her hand. Gleeson smiled at this, then looked back to the Stiffer. “What do you want to do with it, Jack? Invite it to dinner?”

  “Get some chains, shackle the fucker, and take him back to Lab C,” Jack said evenly. “I want to study it. Maybe its physiology is different than the others.”

  “I’d just as soon kill it, but you’re the damned scientist, not me,” Gleeson said unhappily. He motioned to a few men, as Jack walked with Laura to the Dome.

  “Welcome to Chez Eden,” Jack said. “No outdoor swimming pool as yet, but we’re working on that.”

  “As long as there’s a spa and HBO,” Laura said good-naturedly. “And I need to get laid.”

  Jack looked to her neutrally, though he could feel his eyebrows raise in spite of himself. “Just as a general principle,” Laura added, enjoying Jack’s clear discomfiture.

  “I’ll show you your quarters, then go back and help the men bring back Frankenstein,” he said to Laura.

  He looked around and noticed that Walter had not followed them.

  Walter remained perched on the top of the Humvee, staring into the rabid eyes of the giant Stiffer, realizing that the thing was staring back.

  And realizing, too, that the gaze was one of pure, unadulterated evil.

  * * *

  It took three hours to secure the gigantic Stiffer, disentangle it from the barbed wire and get it back to Jack’s specified lab location. The Stiffer was remarkably quiescent, as if wanting to be captured with a minimum of fanfare. Gleeson merely attributed this to typical Stiffer dullness, but Walter knew differently.

  The Stiffer was not a true stiffer.

  What inhabited this Stiffer was alien and unholy.

  TEN – REVELATIONS

  The night descended quickly, as it always did these days.

  Jack stared out the one and only window of his quarters, then turned to Laura, who was sitting on his bunk, staring at him intently. He poured another glass of wine for himself, and then for Laura.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, still amazed at what Jack had just relayed to her.

  “So this thing – this Angel – it has never revealed itself to you?”

  “No, never,” Jack said. “Just through the written word.”

  Laura reached for the many notes that the angel had left for Jack in the past few years.

  “It’s female,” Laura said at last.

  “How would you know that? I’ve always assumed it’s a creature that is genderless.”

  “That’s because you’re a man – and dumb,” Laura said. “No, this angel is female. And it loves you.”

  Jack considered this for a moment, about to protest, but then he paused mid-thought. He nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  “But how it’s able to get in here every night, undetected, that’s the wild part,” Laura said.

  “I now believe it – she – simply moves through walls as easily as we move through air,” Jack said.

  “If it’s
pure energy, it could do that, theoretically, anyway,” Laura agreed. “An intelligent, female force able to materialize and dematerialize at will,” Laura said, realizing she probably sounded like her father. “It’s incredible.”

  “Not so incredible considering as how the world has changed, in case you haven’t noticed. Zombies and such.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “There’s also the lights,” she added.

  Walter flapped over to Jack’s shoulder from her perched position near his computer, and he stroked the bird softly.

  “I call them the Light Storms,” Jack said. “Another energy entity, in my opinion. Intelligent. An intelligent collective.”

  Walter flapped over to Laura’s knee, and landed, looking up at the young woman. Laura smiled down at Walter. “Yes, my father thought that’s what the lights represented as well. But there’s no proof –“

  “No, no empirical proof to back up these theories, but in my heart, I know they are sound,” Jack said, sipping his wine.

  Laura considered this for a moment, then stood, and approached Jack. Walter flapped to the desk nearby.

  “There’s also the strange shadows,” Laura said, looking at Jack evenly.

  “I have a theory about that, too,” Jack said.

  “May I hear it?”

  “I believe the Light Clouds are a kind of positive energy force, possibly intelligent. I have never felt apprehension or fear in their presence, only the typical anxiety of witnessing something inexplicable. With the shadows –“

  “—with the shadows, I always felt fear,” Laura completed his thought. “I always thought that they were malevolent. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s what I felt. I felt anything they could touch would turn that thing – or person – into something monstrous,” Laura said, then offered a grim smile. “Of course, as with you, it’s just a theory.”