Ill Wind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  In the Oval Office, Mayeaux stared out the window at the motionless tanks and armored personnel carriers on the south White House lawn. Military showoffs! The reinforced vehicles served more as a Maginot Line than as a practical mechanism to stop the rioting around Washington, D.C. After the petroplague had swept across the capital city, the tanks stood frozen in place. They could not move, could not operate the turrets, nor swing their heavy gun barrels around. But Mayeaux still thought they looked damned impressive—if he happened to be afraid of the commies marching down Pennsylvania Avenue! As it was, it made the White House lawn look like an old junk yard.

  Mayeaux sipped a cup of weak chicory coffee, a completely inept attempt at cafe au lait. White House coffee had always been extravagant and rich, made with dark-roast gourmet beans. Now, the best the kitchen could manage was a muddy, boiled brew that tasted bitter no matter how much sugar he added. Mayeaux stirred it, staring down at the swirling dark liquid.

  He hated getting up so damned early in the morning, but there just wasn’t time for enough rest. He had heavier responsibilities now that he held the Chief Executive job. He hadn’t even gotten laid in three days! His own plans for a bright future had swirled right down the toilet, gurgling loudly as they went. A million people supposedly dreamed about becoming president of the United States—how did he get to be so damned lucky? It was like reaching into a new box of Cracker Jacks and pulling out a brand-new, shiny bear trap as his prize!

  Stuck inside the White House compound, Mayeaux had no opportunities to blow off steam. He knew about Kennedy sneaking in the babes… but JFK only had the Bay of Pigs, the Commies, and the Cuban Missile Crisis to worry about. Under the Mayeaux administration, the petroplague had messed up every little detail of daily life. He couldn’t even slip off to Camp David for a break from this damned place. He was being asked to cope with a turn-of-the-21st-century world, but given only the technology available to Thomas Jefferson!

  “Mr. President, everybody’s here.” Franklin Weathersee stood at the door to the Cabinet Room. He seemed to be rubbing it in every time he said the words ‘Mr. President’—he wouldn’t put up with that attitude from anyone else, but Weathersee… well, he owed Weathersee a few favors. More than he could remember.

  Mayeaux set down his cup. “So what’s on the agenda today, Frank? Visiting dignitaries? Trips to Acapulco? Business as usual?”

  Weathersee answered bluntly without looking at the handwritten agenda. He never seemed to have any sense of humor. “The Joint Chiefs have an update on martial law enforcement. They’re being pretty tight-lipped until you get in there.”

  Mayeaux turned from the view of the south lawn. “Let’s get this over with. These guys make my skin crawl, and if they aren’t going to support me, we’ll get someone in there who will.”

  The halls were dim, lit by sunlight trickling through office windows. Metal sculptures, given as presents from foreign governments, sat on tables lining the hallway. Most of the carpet had deteriorated down to the bare wood floors, leaving only stains of residue.

  Weathersee lowered his voice as they approached the Cabinet Room. “It’s not so easy to replace them, Mr. President—”

  Mayeaux stopped outside the door and snorted. “What the hell are you talking about, Frank? I didn’t ask for this job—I should be back in New Orleans fishing right now. If I’m going to be anything more than a placeholder, I’ve got to have a team that works with me.”

  Weathersee held Mayeaux back. Several people had already noticed them and stood. Two Secret Service agents waited at the end of the hall, studiously watching nothing.

  “These people are military types, Mr. President—they’re not political hacks. They aren’t ‘yes’ men. They don’t have an agenda. Their allegiance is to the U.S. Constitution.”

  Mayeaux scowled. “Don’t kid yourself, Frank. Everybody’s got an agenda, including these tin pots. They just have different buttons to push. They still serve at my pleasure, don’t they?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then they’ll support me—or find another job, petroplague or not. I have enough to worry about.”

  He stepped through the door, smiling his best media smile as the others stood to greet him. Mayeaux headed for his high-backed chair. He dispensed with shaking hands. “So, what do we have?” he asked. “Give me the slicked-down version.”

  The four military officers sat directly across the table, next to the Secretary of Defense. Brass plates on the backs of the chairs identified each cabinet member. The chairs were arranged around the table in the order the office had been elevated to cabinet level.

  General Wacon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a graying man who looked like an airline pilot in his Air Force uniform, pushed a briefing packet across the table. The papers were handwritten—the few rebuilt computers working in secured vaults were reserved for more important tasks than preparing briefing charts.

  “We have managed to establish communications with seventy percent of the military bases, Mr. President. We don’t know why we’ve lost contact with the remaining thirty percent, but we don’t believe it’s because of a technical breakdown.”

  “Tell me what that means.” Mayeaux shoved the papers back at the Chairman. “I don’t have time to read all this.”

  “There’s enough redundancy in our emergency communications that we should still be in direct contact with every installation commander. The petroplague did not disable backup wireless communications.”

  “So what the hell is the significance of that?” Mayeaux looked around the table. “I asked a simple question, now give me a simple answer. No doubletalk, no technojargon.”

  The general continued smoothly, not quite managing to cover a frown. “Widespread riots, sir. The out-of-contact bases are located next to cities with large populations—Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia. With so many people in the neighboring communities, we suspect the civilians are not cooperating with the military’s enforcement of martial law.”

  “So the people are disobeying emergency orders from the President of the United States? And the military commanders can’t back up our demands? Maybe we should all go hide in the closet and cry.”

  “We don’t know for sure, Mr. President. The military bases still in contact report increasing unrest among the civilian populace. Every commander has lost personnel to mobs, even in southern states where the military is traditionally viewed with more respect.”

  Mayeaux’s jaw clenched and relaxed as General Wacon spoke. He couldn’t get his military commanders to enforce a straightforward directive in a crisis situation. Against civilians, yet! Being the “most powerful man in the world” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  Even with the communications breakdowns, the people would listen to a strong leader, not some limp dick too frightened to back up his own threats. Mayeaux knew that much. It was just like raising kids—you set the rules, and whenever the kid stepped over the line: wham! Behavior modification.

  It worked in Louisiana, rewarding the parishes that toed the line, and it worked in Congress when he had been Speaker of the House. The congressmen who didn’t fall in line when Mayeaux made it clear he was calling in a personal favor, found themselves suddenly without any federal projects for their districts. As far as the American people were concerned, they didn’t know how far they could push Jeffrey Mayeaux him.

  Not very damn far.

  The chairmen of their respective services sat back in their seats and waited for the president to speak his words of wisdom. Mayeaux felt like a preacher under a revival tent. What the hell did they want from him?

  “What’s the status of the rest of the military? What other national defense matters aren’t we ready for, gentlemen?”

  The question seemed to throw the officers. They looked at each other. “Each stateside installation is utilizing its resources to enforce martial law, Mr. President. They are relying on the National Guard as well as local law-enforcement groups. None of our forces is
poised to prevent an attack from an external threat, but frankly I don’t see how such an attack could be feasible without any fuel—”

  Mayeaux dismissed the observation with a wave. “Not an attack from outside, from within. If civilian disobedience is affecting every installation, we’ve got to get those commanders firmly in control. We’ve got to let the people know we won’t take any crap. These are not normal times.”

  The five officers remained stone-faced, keeping their thoughts to themselves. What a bunch of nippleheads! Mayeaux pushed back from the conference table, feeling his control slipping away. Didn’t anybody take this seriously? Well, if they weren’t going to come up with a solution, then he sure as hell would. He had the entire country to look after, whether he wanted to or not.

  Mayeaux stood and started for the door of the Cabinet Room. “Gentlemen, get me a complete review of your forces—personnel, capabilities, whatever you’ve got. I want you all to be ready to answer questions whenever I need you. Camp out in the Old Executive Office Building. Get that information to me in one week. If things haven’t gotten better by then, I’ll make some decisions for you.” Franklin Weathersee followed Mayeaux out as he strode from the room.

  In silence, everyone stood in the President’s wake.

  Chapter 53

  White gypsum sand glittered like an ocean of bone-dry sparkle dust. With nothing more than a small spade, Spencer Lockwood dug only a few feet before he reached moisture.

  The water table around White Sands had always been near the surface, though it had steadily fallen for the past half century, drained by massive pumping stations along the Rio Grande corridor. But not any longer, not after the petroplague. The aquifer was exceptionally pure from natural filtration—and it was available, rapidly replenishing itself.

  Adjusting his floppy hat, Spencer applied a handful of soft lard on either side of the ceramic washer and tightened the cap to the water pump. A long strand of cloth-wrapped electrical wire ran from the pump to a telephone pole, then to the power substation. Transformer parts lay strewn around the substation, prominent against the bright sand: open coils of copper windings, ceramic insulators, iron cores. The new substation looked like a Rube Goldberg collection of giant tinkertoys. A hundred yards away, three ranch hands stood around a pile of scrub wood, waiting for the order to light the signal fire.

  Beside him, Rita Fellenstein tipped back her Australian hat and spat to the side, adding another blot to the scattered tobacco stains on the snowy gypsum. “You really think this is going to work, Spence?”

  He used the fine sand to scrub smelly animal fat from his hands, then wiped the grit on his frayed pants. “If we can’t carry power from the microwave farm to the pump station, it’ll be impossible to get it to the outlying ranches.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  Heat shimmered from the ground like blurred fingers reaching to the sky. Spencer could see for miles all around. “There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work. Basically, it’s a no-brainer. We hook it up and it starts pumping water.”

  Rita worked up a mouthful of saliva and spat again. She seemed to enjoy the disgusted frown on his face. “If you say so. You weren’t the one trying to figure out how to fix it.”

  Spencer grinned, keeping his doubts to himself. “That’s what engineers are for.”

  Rita strode back to the ranch hands. Her gangly legs put a rolling swing into each step. Good-natured catcalls greeted her, but Rita told the men to shut up and light the signal fire.

  Spencer took one last look at the pump—he always became obsessive before starting an experiment. Everything appeared ready, but he never believed it. The transmission line ran to the substation, all the pump parts had been inspected a dozen times.

  He remembered how paranoid he had been about his antenna farm on the day of the first test. Now he’d be even more excited if he could just get a simple water pump working out in the desert.

  One of the ranch hands squatted by the pile of wood, striking a flint and a piece of metal together. They still had some matches among their supplies, but the cowboys liked to show off their wilderness skills in front of Rita. Fine steel wool brought in from the microwave farm caught the spark and started smoking. Pieces of shaving, then larger pieces of mesquite began to burn, crackling and sending rich-smelling smoke into the air.

  Rita stood back, shielding her face as one of the ranch hands tossed a handful of green pinon needles onto the growing fire. The smoke thickened and billowed. Rita said, “All we need now is a blanket to send smoke signals!”

  “We don’t want to have a conversation with them,” Spencer said. “We just want them to turn on the juice.” He knew the radio man Juan Romero would be back at the microwave farm, waiting to see the smoke.

  Spencer watched the water pump, not sure what to expect. Once Romero switched on the electricity from the farm, a motor would move a series of gears—what could be so tough about that? The substation would transform the oscillating voltage collected from the microwave antennas to power the pump. If this worked, it would be the first step to reestablishing a power-grid for the area, electricity that did not rely on petroleum or plastic components for distribution.

  By erecting similar antenna farms, simple metal wires spread out on flat ground under the orbital path of the smallsats, and launching the remaining satellites in storage at JPL, Spencer could return electrical power to a broad band of the country—even the world. He liked crazy, optimistic plans, but, hey, it gave them something to work toward.

  A high-pitched popping, sizzling noise jarred him out of his daydream. Acrid smoke spewed from the nearby utility pole. Spencer caught the sudden smell of creosote burning. “The substation’s going up!” he yelled.

  The ranchers grabbed shovels and started throwing gypsum sand on the equipment to smother the fire. White sparks danced around the transformer units, accompanied by loud snaps and cracks. The signal fire continued to blaze, sending streamers of smoke into the windless air.

  “Great!” Spencer ran to the bonfire. “Help me get this thing out!” He knew Romero would keep the juice flowing until the smoke signal stopped.

  The dry mesquite burned hot and bright. He picked up a bucket of sand and threw it onto the blaze; the sand simmered on the coals. Smoke continued to boil into the air. Finally, a blanket thrown over the fire extinguished the flames.

  Spencer stood back and waited as the smoke leaking from the blanket turned from black to gray-white. The substation continued to crackle like an electric heater dropped into a bathtub. As the smoke trailed away, the inferno at the substation subsided. Romero had shut down. The electrical equipment looked scorched.

  A real no-brainer, Spencer had called the exercise. Right!

  Rita wiped a hand over her sooty face. “So, we fix it up and try again?”

  “Must be an engineering problem,” he said, scowling at the substation components.

  Before the petroplague, the station had been a crossroads for power generated by the Public Service Company of New Mexico and the Rural Electric Network. Now, nothing remained but a smoldering pile of resistors, coiled windings, and insulators. At least the electric company wouldn’t come after him for damages.

  “Let’s find out what went wrong,” he said. “That’s the only way we’ll learn anything. I want to get back to the microwave farm by sundown for the JPL contact.”

  “You don’t seem too upset after just blowing the hell out of that substation,” Rita said.

  “Job security,” Spencer said and faked a shocked expression to mask his disappointment. “You’ve been hanging around Nedermyer too much.”

  * * *

  Romero tugged on his drooping black mustache. “Caltech’s on the wireless, Spence. They’re ready for you.”

  “Thanks.” Spencer took a seat. Now that the sun was down, their shortwave radio could eavesdrop on the world.

  The blockhouse was illuminated by beeswax candles. They had a few battery-powered lights, b
ut they tried not to use them much. Shadows cast by the flickering light danced on the trailer walls.

  Static came from the radio speaker like ocean surf, distorting the voice that relayed news across the country for local dissemination. Romero repeated the news back to the emergency broadcast channel, verifying that he had correctly copied the contents.

  Rita whispered, “You’re not going to tell them the test failed, are you? JPL might not send the satellites if they find out you can’t even get the power lines to work.”

  “The experiment didn’t fail,” Spencer said. “It just pointed out some deficiencies in our assumptions.”

  “Now who’s been talking to Nedermyer too much?” she snorted.

  Romero handed him the makeshift microphone. “All set. You’ve got five minutes.”

  Spencer fingered the button, clicking it twice. “Hello? This is Spencer Lockwood from White Sands.”

  A moment passed. Nothing but static came over the speaker. He frowned and started to repeat himself when a voice broke through. “Dr. Lockwood?”

  Spencer leaned forward. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Stand by, one. We’ve got someone here for you.”

  The microphone rustled as it was handed over. “Spencer? Is this the same Doctor Lockwood I taught at Caltech?”

  Spencer stopped. The voice sounded familiar, but it had been so many years… “Seth— Seth Mansfield? Is that you?”

  Coughing. “Spencer, are you still playing with those smallsats? Dr. Soo at JPL tells me you’ve been pestering her to ship the remaining satellites cross-country to you. What’s this nonsense? Last time I checked, you were a physicist, not a rocket scientist. At least that’s what I wrote on your diploma.”