After the Zap

by Michael Armstrong

  I looked at the map. That one was easy. There was only one river big enough to even fork: the Kenaitze. At the mouth of the Kenaitze, FORT something had been printed. And only two rivers forked off the Kenaitze further up. At the first fork a bridge crossed the smaller river. I couldn’t read the name of the town at the first fork, but it was an “N-” something. That had to be it. I pointed at the place.

  “There,” I said. “Maybe a hundred miles.”

  “Okay,” said Nike. “What course?”

  The Wonderblimp was cruising along the edge of the coast at a heading of about 310 degrees northwest. I took a ruler, compass, protractor, did a quick calculation. “Follow our present heading, then when we round this point”—I tapped the map—“take a heading of twenty-six degrees northeast. There’s a river at the first point. The Kenaitze is the third river north of that, and if Khim is right, we’ll see a fort. Once we hit the Kenaitze, we just follow the river.”

  Nike nodded. “A fort, huh? Active?” I shrugged. “Okay. Bron, take the helm. Just to be safe, we’ll man the battle stations when we hit the Kenaitze. Holmes, keep watch. Let Bron know when to change heading.” Nike went to the helm, put a red marker at the first heading, a blue on the second. “Stay on the red for a while,” he said quietly to Bron, “then go to blue when Holmes tells you.”

  “Quarter props,” Nike told Lucy. He turned to us. “Bron, watch the bridge. I’m going to go get some shuteye.”

  I sighed. That’s the breaks when you’re the only navigator, I thought. No shuteye. I watched the coast.

  * * *

  The Wonderblimp cruised slowly and low until first dawn. When it became lighter and I could see landmarks better, Bron gave the order for three-quarter props, cruising speed. We rounded the point just as dawn was breaking.

  In February the sun rises in the southeast, low and slow. Sunrise painted the mountains orange; the range west of us, across the inlet, looked like dragon teeth, teeth breathing fire. And well they did. Redoubt, the only mountain that still had a name on the map I used, was the canine of the dragon’s jaw. A thin plume of smoke rose from the volcano and was whipped by the wind into a curling feather.

  After we changed our heading—“went to blue,” as Nike told Bron—the east coast, the land we were hugging, became a continuous cliff, flanked by a broad beach. The forest hung over the edge of the cliffs like bunting, or ice cream melting down a cone. Small creeks cut canyons down the cliffs and to the sea. Long tongues of ice crept across the snow where the creeks met the beach. Time had arranged layers of sand, clay, and what looked like coal across the face of the cliffs. From the blimp’s position about a thousand yards out from the coast, and two thousand feet up, the stratigraphy made the coast look like a great slab of marble.

  At the mouth of each river we passed small settlements. My map had little dots but no names; again, the names were erased. At one village I pointed out to Bron a church on a hill that had an onion-shaped steeple. The cross on the steeple wasn’t like ones I’d seen in Bible picture books; this cross had a slanted piece below where the timbers crossed.

  “What’s that?” I asked him.

  “Ruskies,” he said. “Sov-yets.”

  “This near?”

  Bron shrugged. “Who knows?”

  I’d heard of Ruskies, of course; they were the ones who had started the Zap War, some said. But that church looked old, certainly older than five years. There was a cemetery around the church, and some smaller buildings down the hill from it. I squinted at the name of the village on the map, thought I could see something -CHIK written next to the dot. People came out of the buildings when they heard us go by, and waved. I longed to go down and find out what those people were. Was that my home? I felt no stirrings of memory, no longings except the longing all travelers feel for a new, strange place. And then Something-chik passed down the coast, golden domes glinting in the morning light.

  A little after one o’clock in the afternoon we came to the big river, the Kenaitze. Ice floes jammed the Kenaitze at its mouth, but it was partially clear maybe a mile up from the coast. We went to battle stations, which meant that Ruby went up to the forward nacelle, which had an ancient-looking .50 caliber machine gun. Nike had come on deck a while ago, and he took the helm and swung the Wonderblimp around into a slight wind from the east, up the river. The blimp cast a long shadow on the town below, really a big fort surrounded by tents.

  “That must be the fort,” I said.

  “Fort Kenaitze,” Nike murmured. “But I didn’t know there was a real fort there. I thought Fort Kenaitze was a town. They’re supposed to be the biggest damn bunch of reactionary clods this side of Kachemak.”

  Well, I thought, they seemed to be the only clot of anything this side of Kachemak, not counting the Something-chik. Folks started spilling out of the tents surrounding Fort Kenaitze, waving flags, and shooting pistols in the air. We were well out of gunshot range, so not to worry. I think they were just making noise, anyhow. Lucy sat at her station fiddling with a big old single-sideband vacuum tube radio—that’s what it said on the radio; I didn’t know what that meant—and sort of cruising the dial, in case Fort Kenaitze had radio. That was a long shot, but it never hurt to try. But they did have radio.

  “Aw, hey, come on there, Gasbag. You copy?” some froglike voice croaked from the radio.

  “We copy, Fort Kenaitze,” Lucy said. “This is the Wonderblimp. What is your situation?”

  “Situation, Wonderblimp? Well, goddamn, first off, we ain’t no Fort Kenaitze. This heah is the Redoubt.”

  Nike looked up at that. “The Redoubt? Damn, hand me that.” He took the mike from Lucy. We were still cruising up the river, the fort slipping behind us. “Redoubt?” Nike asked. “What Redoubt?”

  “Why, Fort Redoubt,” the man said. “This heah is Captain Eddie Bauer, United States Army Air Corps.”

  “Army?” Nike said. “There hasn’t been any damn army or United States or anything since—well, since the Zap.”

  “Oh yeah?” Bauer said. “You gonna argue that? Why don’t you take a look out yo’ aft port?”

  So we did. And there, flying dead even with us, was a single-prop, fixed-wing, honest to god airplane.

  Army, Air Corps, it didn’t matter. It was a plane, all right. The thing was no more than thirty feet long, with a wingspan of twenty-five feet. I could see only one person inside, but there was something else, too, something nasty: kind of a cannon thing sticking out the front of the plane. The plane pulled up and buzzed in front of us, then banked around and came back behind.

  Of course, our machine gun was forward, and not very good for shooting behind us. Of course.

  “You all want to maybe stick around a while?” Bauer asked.

  “Maybe,” Nike said. “Any particular reason why?”

  “Yeah,” Bauer said. “Number one, we want a nuke. And number two, we’ll blow you out of the sky if you try to leave.”

  “Crap,” Nike said. “Engines one-eighth prop,” he said into the intercom. “Keep it into the wind. Ruby, let me know when you can get a bead on him.”

  When in my sights he

  Does appear then from the sky

  He will disappear,

  she said over the intercom.

  At an eighth prop the Wonderblimp flew just under windspeed, which meant we were slipping slowly back toward the fort, until we came right over it. Nike came over and looked at my map, shook his head.

  “Does it say anything about an army base here?” he asked, pointing at the map.

  “Nope,” I said. “Just Fort, right there”—I pointed—“and some erased word.”

  “Damn,” he said. “They must be one of those lost army units.”

  “Maybe they’re the secret group who gave out nukes,” I said.

  “Then what the hell would they need a nuke for?” Nike asked.

  “Good question,” Lucy said.

  “Crap.” Nike chewed his lip, thinking.

  We were ri
ght over the fort now. I could see four machinegun nests at each corner of the fort, but that was it. Nothing else. Their airfield was just beyond the fort, on a flat stretch of the riverbank. Two planes sat idle on the runway. Some air force. At one corner of the fort I caught the glint of a telescope poking up at us. Nike caught it, too. He pointed down at it.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Bron, see that telescope on the southeast corner of the fort? Hover in front of it, so they can see our port side.” He turned to me. “Holmes? Open a port. Lucy? Come here.” She stood before him. Nike reached up, yanked her jumpsuit open to her navel. He reached into a pocket of his own jumpsuit, pulled out a coil of cord, tossed it to me. “Holmes? Tie her up and hold Lucy out the port.” He slapped his hip. “Get your knife out, Holmes.”

  “Nike?”

  “Do it,” Lucy said. “I think I know what’s up.”

  “Good girl,” Nike said. “Doc! We still have one of those calf’s hearts in the freezer?” Doc nodded. “Good. Go get one, and a bag of blood. And load up a bomb in the hangar bay, ready to drop.”

  I tied Lucy’s hands, then tied her feet together, looping one end of the rope around the leg of one of the consoles. I pushed her through the open port, her braid dangling and squirming in the breeze.

  Nike took the radio microphone again.

  “Captain Bauer, this is the most reverend Major Nike, captain of the Wonderblimp.” Reverend Major? I thought. When did he become a major? “May I speak with your commanding officer, sir?” he asked.

  “Ah don’t think so,” Bauer said. “He done died. I’m CO now.”

  “I see,” said Nike, the smile getting larger. “Well, I guess you’ll have to do. You said you wanted a nuke?”

  “Yessir,” Bauer said. “If you please, sir.”

  “I think that can be arranged,” Nike said.

  “Well, dang, that would be swell. Uh, sir. If you’ll just land in the parade ground of the fort.”

  “I don’t think so, Captain Bauer,” Nike said. “I think we’ll just drop the nuke.”

  “Drop it, sir?”

  “Armed and ready to blow.”

  “Sheet!” Bauer switched off, and a few seconds later the prop plane banked off, swung around, then flew low over our topside. The blimp wobbled some in the wash of the plane, but not much. Bauer came back on.

  “Major Nike, I do not want to shoot you out of the sky. Please land. Sir.”

  Nike smiled. I knew what he was thinking: those guys wanted the blimp whole. They were trying to bluff us down. They could have already shot us out of the sky if they had to. Nike nodded to me.

  “Captain Bauer, do you see the woman hanging out the window on the port side? Good. That woman is our quarterback. Do you know about our quarterback?”

  “Uh, no sir,” Bauer replied.

  “Our quarterback has the code we’ll use to fire one of our nukes. It’s in her heart. We’re going to cut it out and arm our nuke. And we’ll drop the nuke on you. If you don’t call off your plane, we’ll blow the nuke.”

  I held the knife up to Lucy’s chest, leaned out the window, flashing the knife. Lucy screamed loudly—heck, they could probably hear her in Kachemak. I slapped her—lightly, for effect—then grabbed the braid and pulled her head down.

  “Go ahead,” Captain Bauer said. “I don’t believe you’d kill one of your own crew.”

  “Oh yeah? Holmes?”

  I smiled. Oh, this would be fun. I pulled the knife back, brought it down as I shoved Lucy back inside, out of sight. Doc came into the room, rolled a warm calf’s heart and a bag of blood at me. I plunged the knife into the bag, pulled it up dripping red, held it up by the window, plunged it down again. Lucy screamed, a long, piercing screech, then gasped, fell silent. She smiled up at me, winked. I plunged the knife down into the burst bag again, then grabbed the heart.

  “Show ’em,” Nike whispered.

  I leaned out the window, held the heart up, waved the bloody knife at the guy watching through the telescope.

  “Die, mothers!” I screamed. This was kind of fun. I ducked back inside, walked over to Doc, handed him back the calf’s heart. Doc grinned, headed aft.

  “Ruby,” Nike said. “Fire when you can see that plane. Holmes, go aft with Doc.”

  I scrambled back, helped Doc crank the hangar bay open. A red rocket-shaped bomb, maybe four feet long, hung suspended in the opening. Nike patched the radio into the intercom.

  “Okay, Bauer,” Nike said. “We’re going to blow you to bits.”

  The Wonderblimp banked, swung around over the fort. The props whined louder, and Doc and I were thrown back against the port bulkhead as we roared down low. I heard the prop plane pull up, then dive in front of us, but the pilot still didn’t fire. They must have wanted the blimp bad.

  “You’re bluffing,” Captain Bauer said.

  “Yeah? Then why would we kill one of our crew?” Nike asked. “Nuke ’em!” he screamed at us.

  Doc laughed, hit a switch on the wall, and the bomb fell away and down to the fort. We kept banking to port, swung away from the fort, and began climbing. Through a starboard port I saw the plane dive before us, saw red tracers fly from our nose, tracking the plane. Just as the plane swung out of sight, smoke started billowing from its engine. Then the fort exploded.

  The ground trembled, and the log walls of the fort rattled. There was a bright flash after the bomb exploded, followed by a rumble, and a shock wave that sent the blimp rocking. I hit the deck, threw my hands over my neck, and waited for the great blast of heat to melt me away, waited for the radiation to come searing into me.

  It didn’t come.

  Well, of course not. I looked up, peeled my hands from the back of my neck, and stared out the starboard port. Fort Kenaitze, or Redoubt, had a big crater in the center where the parade ground used to be. Some of the walls leaned a little bit out, and the windows of the watch towers had been blown out. But she still stood. No nuke. No blast, just a little mushroom cloud wisping away. Near the runway the wreck of the prop plane smoldered.

  Doc North leaned against a bulkhead, arms on his chest, a silly-ass grin on his face, his eyes twinkling behind those big glasses.

  “It wasn’t a nuke, huh?”

  He shook his head. “Of course it wasn’t. If it had really been a nuke, I would’ve had to cut your heart out. It was just a bomb. Not much of one at that. Just enough to—heh, heh —shake ’em up.”

  Shake ’em up . . . Well, it had shaken me up. I still didn’t understand why that prop plane hadn’t blown us out of the sky. I guess they really did want us in one piece. Anyway, we had been lucky: the bluff had worked, and Ruby had gotten her shots in. We left Fort Kenaitze smoking and headed up the river.

  * * *

  Later, I asked Lucy about when Nike had been a major. We were eating fish sandwiches in the lounge, just the two of us. She took a bite out of this hard brown bread, swallowed, then smiled at my question.

  “That was back before the Zap,” she said. “Back when we both had real names. It was odd; I remembered him from before the Zap, though his name eluded me. Didn’t I tell you?”

  I shook my head. “People on this damn blimp aren’t exactly loose lipped, Luce.”

  “Well, I should have told you. Nike was the one who rescued me from—well, you don’t need to know where from. He rescued Doc North and me. Nike had been like this major in some sort of secret military program. I mean, we were making the knapsack nukes for him, don’t you see?”

  I didn’t see, but I nodded my head.

  “I remembered him from a time before the Zap when he came and visited our lab. He wanted to see how the knapsack nukes were coming along. He had this thing about the nukes. He called them ‘Akido bombs, powerful in their subtlety.’ But the next time I saw him, well . . . You should have seen Nike when he came down out of the blimp to rescue Doc North and me from that madness.”

  “What madness?” I asked.

  “The madness of the world after the Zap.
” She looked at me kind of funny. But I knew what she was talking about. I remembered the moments right after the Zap, the Zap itself. There had been a great light, like someone striking a match on the inside of my eyeballs, and then darkness, then awakening in a strange place with people dancing around fires, burning books. So I knew the madness she spoke of, even if it wasn’t the same madness.

  “What was Nike like then?” I asked her.

  “Oh, he was close to the brink of insanity then,” she said. “When the blimp came to rescue Doc and me, Nike came out of the blimp dressed in a blue jumpsuit and wearing a big wooden cross around his neck. On the cross was the symbol for the atom, little loops around little balls. His head was shaved into a tonsure, bald in the middle, fringe around the edges. Down the gangplank he came, and at the bottom he raised the cross, and blessed us. ‘Blessed are the peacekeepers,’ Nike said. ‘For they will inherit the Kingdom of God.’ ”

  “I’d say he was gonzo.”

  “Good guess. I recognized him, though. But Nike looked through us like we were strangers, and went on preaching. ‘I am home,’ he said. ‘I have come to deliver you from this madness and to take you to distribute the word of the Lord. The Lord sent me. The Lord has given me a mission. He has told me to go forth and give out the bomb. He has told me to spread the word of the atom. And I shall.’

  “Then he looked right at me, raised his hand, and pointed. ‘Sister,’ Nike said, ‘you have the word of the atom in your heart. Come to me, sister. Come spread the word.’ ”

  “And you went with him?” I asked.

  Lucy looked down at her gloved hand, rubbed the skin at the edge of the leather, then gulped down the rest of her sandwich.

  “Where else could we go? Doc North and I went with him,” she said quietly.

  * * *

  The Kenaitze River wound through glacial hills and kettle lakes like an intestine. As long as we kept the river in sight, there was no reason to fly right along it. I figured if we flew due east we would hit the first fork. Save us time. Shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? That’s what a little learning will get you.