Ill Wind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Rita pulled up beside him, and they stared as more and more of the soldiers either ran or tossed down their weapons.

  “Now what do we do?” Todd asked.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Rita shrugged. “We didn’t plan on winning!”

  * * *

  Carrying their white flag like a shield, Spencer and Heather were escorted up to the main buildings of the railgun only moments before the first explosions and gunshots broke out in the camp below them.

  Heather gripped his hand hard enough that her nails bit into his skin. Spencer felt himself trembling, knowing he was crazy even to be making this attempt. He tried to keep a straight face, although his guts had tangled into knots.

  The first thing he noticed near the control building was the fistfight between Bobby Carron and the general. A small group of Bayclock’s soldiers had formed a ring around the combatants, like gamblers watching a cockfight. But they did not cheer, simply watched the pummelling in silence.

  Spencer’s attention was yanked like a metal filing to a magnet when he noticed the noose hanging from the utility pole—and the bloated body of a strangled Lance Nedermyer tied to the creosote-smeared wood.

  “Oh, Lance!” Spencer said, and his breath went out of him. Even his cocky plans evaporated in his mind. If Bayclock could do this to one of his own supporters, then he would have no qualms about slaughtering Spencer or Rita or anyone else who dared to defy him.

  Lance Nedermyer had been a real pain most of the time, but he had a good streak in him—a streak that Lance himself tried to extinguish. Maybe that good streak had been his downfall while trapped in Bayclock’s hell.

  Farther down the long rail launcher, he heard the first shouts of Todd’s charge as they struck the base camp. Gunshots. Explosions. Several of the spectators ran off to see the attack, while others seemed afraid of leaving Bayclock’s side.

  Bobby Carron and Bayclock rolled around on the ground, pounding each other with fists. The general clawed the back of Bobby’s head, attempting to grab his hair. Finally, he dug his fingers into Bobby’s ear until it bled. Bobby cried out and smashed his forehead down on the general’s skull, butting him viciously.

  Blood poured out of Bayclock’s nose and sprayed in red foam every time he took a heaving breath. Bobby hammered the general’s side with his sharp elbow; Bayclock bit and grabbed, sinking his teeth into Bobby’s shoulder.

  With a scream, Bobby tore himself free and scrambled away. Bayclock climbed to his feet and charged, but Bobby met the attack with a double blow to the general’s stomach, making him stumble back toward the railgun launcher. Bayclock’s eyes were bloodshot and his skin looked like a cube steak. Bobby didn’t look much better, but he remained on his feet as the general wobbled and fell to his knees in the dirt.

  Todd and Rita rode into the area, with a tall solemn-looking colonel striding between them. The colonel cradled his wounded arm as he absorbed the situation, then he took another step toward the beaten Bayclock.

  “General… “ he hesitated, but Bayclock did not acknowledge him. Colonel David didn’t seem to care.

  “It’s over, General.” The colonel flashed a glance behind him to Spencer standing with his white flag. “I believe these gentlemen are in a position to discuss terms.”

  Rita leaped from her horse and ran to help Bobby up. Bobby swayed on his feet and flicked blood out of his eyes. Sweat ran in rivers down his exposed skin, and he shuddered like a shack in a hurricane. “That’s it, Bayclock. Your troops have caused enough damage.”

  Bayclock collapsed, but Spencer saw that the man’s eyes were open and calculating. In the shadows by the railgun supports, he fished around on the ground. After a moment, he snatched up a hunting knife that lay beside severed strands of rope.

  “I don’t surrender!” He lurched to his feet, brandishing the wicked-looking combat knife. Bobby stiffened; Rita tightened her grip on his arm. One of Bayclock’s men grabbed a rifle, but didn’t know what to shoot at.

  The general turned, holding out the knife. Backing up, his arm brushed against the metal supports of the electromagnetic launcher rails. The live wire, disconnected from the battery banks and capacitors, dumped its electricity into the bottomless ground of the miles-long rail, waiting for a load.

  Bayclock completed the circuit.

  He froze as if caught in amber, then in an instant he seemed to go out of focus, with a million nerves in his skin suddenly misfiring, every strand of muscle fiber in his body scrambling. Sparks flew from the point of contact, and his skin blackened.

  His mouth cracked open in a long silent scream, and then his lips curled away from his teeth. When General Bayclock finally fell to the white sands, his entire form steamed from the moisture boiling inside his body.

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  Finally, Colonel David turned to them all. He looked strong, even with his wounded arm in a sling. The other troops kept staring.

  “The general is dead, as is Colonel Nachimya. This leaves me in command of the expeditionary force.”

  He met Spencer’s gaze, Todd, Bobby and Rita’s. “We have a lot of details to discuss, you and I.”

  Chapter 75

  The breeze picked up in the late afternoon on Labor Day, rippling the golden grass along the Altamont Range. The wind-turbines, like metal flowers lining the hilltops, whirled around and around, generating a silent river of power that flowed to the speedway stadium.

  At last, the great concert got underway.

  Next to Jackson and Daphne Harris, Iris sat alone on her blanket, elbows on her knees. She had worked too hard to make this event a reality, and she didn’t want to miss a note. The fluttery feeling of anticipation in her stomach during the morning had disappeared, replaced by a spreading warmth of amazed relief. She looked around to see the same excitement in the eyes of the other spectators.

  Jackson and Daphne Harris held each other close, as they stared at the band on the raised stage.

  Iris and many others had forsaken the closer seats in the repaired bleachers to sit on the grass. She felt the lumpy ground beneath her, but it didn’t matter. Sitting on the grass for a rock n’ roll concert seemed perfectly appropriate.

  The first band got a laugh and a resounding cheer by opening with their rendition of Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty,” which they followed with other rock classics from the seventies, then a few folk songs that everyone knew. The murmur of the audience singing along as if in a trance sent shivers through Iris. The musicians used improvised musical instruments, and the songs didn’t sound much like what Iris remembered—but the sheer delight of music again was enough. The notes vibrated through the speedway’s metal loudspeakers, sounding tinny and muffled. Iris found it absolutely wonderful.

  The crowd cheered, nearly loud enough to drown out the sound blasting from the improvised amplifiers the engineers had cobbled together. Iris couldn’t wait to see if they had indeed managed to build a working electric guitar. She knew the energy drain was stupendous, and they’d be lucky to finish the concert. But the wind kept blowing, the windmills kept turning, and the music kept blasting through the air.

  The bands were a mishmash of musical talent that had arrived after hearing word of the proposed concert. Many of the musicians had played in bar bands around the Bay Area, working day jobs and performing on weekends. The only “professional” they counted among their number was the lead singer from Visual Purple, a late sixties alternative rock band, who had been stranded in San Jose during a rather unsuccessful attempt at a comeback tour. He had worked with the volunteer musicians, directing the others and getting upset when they spent more time tuning up than they did performing. But the singer’s rough voice wrapped itself around the lyrics of all the old classics, even two country & western hits, but he really began to shine when he managed to work in the few chart-scratching songs Visual Purple had released.

  The musicians kept playing for an hour. Iris expected any moment for some fuse to blow, some
component to fail, and the concert would be over. But the only pause occurred when the first band took a break to stand down while the second group came onstage.

  The next lead singer had a softer, warbly voice—due in part from nervousness, Iris was sure. But the crowd received the music with full enthusiasm, almost growing too introspective with Crosby, Stills and Nash’s post-apocalyptic “Wooden Ships.”

  Sitting on her blanket, Iris looked around at the crowd. Thousands and thousands had arrived, most from the local cities, but some had come all the way from the Monterey Peninsula to the south, others from Sacramento to the north. It seemed like a holy pilgrimage to them. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing.

  She wished Todd could have been there to share it. Maybe seeing how the music affected all these people would get through his thick head and make him see what he was missing. Iris felt very isolated as she sat by herself, trying not to notice Jackson and Daphne Harris snuggling next to her….

  As darkness fell, everyone grew silent, stunned, as the stadium lights came on, flooding the stage and the abandoned racetrack.

  Powered by the windmills, the incandescent lights blazed with a warm white light that dazzled the viewers; the lights flickered, but they kept up. After a breathless pause, a spontaneous wave of people stood up and applauded, cheering. The lights and the music made them feel as if they had come home again.

  Up in the tower, the kid Harley ran the lights, standing by the controls like the captain of a spaceship. He had begged Jackson Harris for the job, and Harris had given it to him. Iris had never seen Harley look so proud or so determined to do something right.

  When the audience finally fell silent after seeing the electric lights, the lead singer from Visual Purple took the stage again, accompanied by two Livermore engineers who had each crafted an electric guitar. Hooked up to the amplifiers and the speedway loudspeakers, they began to play.

  The first chords came out, gentle but with a biting memory that sent a liquid tingle down Iris’s spine. People struggled to their feet again as the strains of “The Star Spangled Banner” echoed over the speakers; the crowd sang along but Iris felt a lump in her throat.

  Many of the audience members sat back, sucking in a collective audible breath. As the darkness deepened, battered back and defeated by the brilliant stadium lights, the guitarists on stage played “Stairway to Heaven.”

  In the bleachers, the crowd swayed and sang along with the lyrics they all knew by heart. On the grass, people got up and held hands, adding their voices in a swell of song that rang across the hills. Behind her, on one of the blankets, Iris heard two men arguing about what the lyrics really meant, but she ignored it—she had been hearing that discussion since her high school days.

  To her left and down the slope, she noticed the teenaged couple from Oakland standing next to each other; the young father cradled the new baby in his arms, rocking it back and forth to the chorus. The young mother rubbed fingers across her boyfriend’s shoulder blades.

  As the music and a flood of other memories poured into her, Iris felt tears brimming in her dark eyes. She had seen other people in the audience crying during the concert, but never as many as now. Many of their voices broke as they tried to sing along.

  With barely a pause, the singer slid into “The Long and Winding Road” by the Beatles, which kept people standing and stunned, wrapped up in their own thoughts. Finally, continuing with the Beatles, he lightened the mood with the now-absurd song “Drive My Car.”

  When the band finished, cheers pummelled them, and the singer turned to his two electric guitarists. “Are you ready to do what you came here for?”

  Cranking up the volume, the trio, joined by the drummer and keyboardist, launched into the strangest mixture of music Iris could have imagined, Top 40, new rock, more folk songs, even a pair of Broadway showtunes. Everyone began moving, dancing, swaying, stomping. They seemed to care only that they were hearing music again, an icon of their lost civilization. Iris felt that the entire silent post-petroplague world must have been able to hear them.

  The music continued late into the night. Iris was exhausted, but she never wanted it to stop. The people had shouted and chanted and sung until their voices were hoarse; they had clapped until their hands were sore. The magic in the air was intoxicating, and she felt in her heart that the dark ghosts from the previous violent concert at the Altamont must have been exorcised that day.

  She saw Doog standing near the stage, his face tilted toward the stars in rapture, his round John Lennon glasses like shining coins in the stadium lights.

  Iris looked around to see the hills glittering with a thousand yellow gems, tiny flames raised high. In another concert, the fans would be flicking their lighters, but this time they had brought candles, saving them until the very end in a gesture of their heartfelt appreciation.

  “Nice touch, don’t you think?” Daphne Harris said, giving Iris a look that made it apparent she had been behind it.

  A thousand points of light, Iris thought.

  Civilization might come to an end, but rock and roll would never die.

  Chapter 76

  In the aftermath of the desert battle, Bayclock’s expedition force broke into a confusion of smaller groups with different agendas.

  Many of the soldiers and camp followers gathered to make preparations for the long trip back north to Albuquerque, this time without the general’s martial law. The consensus seemed to be that Mayor Reinski would be able to hold things together even without a reign of terror.

  In the following days, others teamed up with some of the Alamogordo ranchers and dispersed, deciding to stay near the solar-power farm in the hope of eventually turning it into a bona fide settlement, an Atlantis out in the sparkling gypsum sands. Given the extra manpower, Spencer Lockwood told them they could lay new power lines and dig wells to the aquifer.

  With Rita Fellenstein riding beside him, Bobby Carron fetched back the wagon and the ten precious solar-power satellites he had hidden in an arroyo. Spencer lightly touched the metal shells resting in the wagon bed, blinking back tears, as if he’d found the Holy Grail.

  Already, Gilbert Hertoya limped among the remnants of Bayclock’s army, talking to some of the enthusiastic Air Force troops about taking a military contingent back to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the rest of the satellites. Some of the soldiers, anxious to atone for their forced attack against the scientists, were willing to go without delay. Armed with functional rifles, the new military escort would provide a much safer expedition than Todd’s crazy quest.

  Ten more smallsats remained in Pasadena, and the parts for more were readily available. Someday, there might be enough to complete the orbital ring for uninterrupted electrical power from the antenna farm. Spencer was sure he could convince his old mentor, Dr. Seth Mansfield, to accompany the second mission back to White Sands.

  Meanwhile, Todd Severyn felt at a loss, wandering among the blockhouse trailers and reluctantly relaxing. He felt the inner depression of having successfully completed a major goal and discovering that he had no idea what to do next.

  Sitting in the noon shade, he watched Heather and Spencer chatting, walking to the aluminum water barrel. Spencer poured a cup for her; she drank most of it and, when he bent over to fill a cup for himself, she playfully trickled the rest down his back. Startled, Spencer dropped his cup and sputtered.

  Just watching them together, Todd could see Heather had fallen for Spencer, though he didn’t know if they realized it themselves yet. He remembered when Heather had offered herself to him out by the stream in the hills. But Heather had made the offer out of desperation; and the memory of that one time was irrevocably stained with blood and violence. He and she could not look at each other without being haunted by the ghosts of Casey Jones and Henrietta Soo.

  “Hey, Todd!” Gilbert Hertoya came around the corner of the blockhouse. “I want to talk to you about something.”

  By the water barrel Heather looked up,
suddenly aware that Todd had been watching. She flushed, then turned away to follow Spencer, who knew nothing about what had happened between her and Todd.

  He cocked back his cowboy hat and looked up at the short, peppery-haired scientist who stood propped on a wooden crutch. “What do you want, Gilbert?”

  Hertoya put one hand on his hip, covering a big leather belt that one of the ranchers had given him. “We’re going to go back to California in a few months to pick up the rest of the satellites, and I wanted you to come along. This time we’ll be armed, with plenty of help. What do you say?”

  Todd looked west to the dim line of mountains. He had considered going along—it would be another major effort, an important quest, something to keep him busy. It would extinguish the restless indecision that had been bothering him.

  But he slowly shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got to get going.” He sighed, then tried to put his reasons into words that made sense to himself. “I’m going to try saving the world in little ways from now on, not by meeting it head on.”

  Hertoya scratched his head. His grizzled face plainly showed his disappointment. “What does that mean?”

  Todd tipped back his cowboy hat. “I think I’m going to go back to the Altamont, to stay this time. I made a promise. And it’s the closest thing I have to home.”

  * * *

  Grateful for his help, Spencer gave Todd his pick of the horses for his journey back. Todd pondered the choices from the Alamogordo ranchers and the Air Force troops; finally, somewhat uneasily, he selected Bayclock’s black gelding.

  He saddled up, took two of the working rifles and some ammunition, and as many supplies as he could cram into the saddle bags. The ride would be long and arduous, at least a month or so, but he didn’t care how long it took him—just the fact that he was returning made it worthwhile.