by Ginger Booth
You didn’t kill Canber, Emmett, I wailed inside. We offered him a way out. And he found he wanted one. Just not the one we meant.
“Alright, maintain the capacity that falls in your turf,” A directed them. “Log your reasons. Honor any markers that fall your way.” Reluctantly he added, “Call me if you need to.”
They all sighed, nodded, and shook hands again in parting. The ones with cars dispersed. B left with one of them. Old friends, perhaps, wanting to visit a little longer.
“Come home with Dee, Emmett,” John urged. The letter names departed with the other SAMS Rescos, the old colleagues of Canton and Emmett and John’s, from vetting the Calm Act. “Bad night to spend alone in Jersey.”
Emmett shook his head. “No, I’ve spent too much time on this already. I need to get back to work.” He paused and added, “I need my work.” He looked to me apologetically, asking for understanding. I nodded and squeezed his ring hand.
John nodded thoughtfully. “Show us, then. I’ll bring Dee home, after. But show us Newark. I’d like to see.”
“Breathe this in, then hold your breath as long as you can,” Emmett explained, holding an asthma inhaler up. He sat on a building’s concrete step, a black boy seated on the step below him, between his knees. The kid looked about 10, painfully emaciated and wearing rags. From experience with apples, I suspected he was 13. “Ready?” The boy nodded and got his dose.
“Alright, Caleb, relax for a couple minutes, and we’ll do it again. It’s always two inhales, Sergeant,” Emmett explained, to a stout black sergeant who hovered nearby to learn how to deal with the asthma attack. “Two minutes apart. You time it for me, alright, Caleb?” Emmett showed the child the time on his phone, and received a breathless nod. “If the asthma doesn’t respond to two doses, you need a breathing treatment machine. Usually have them in ambulances, fire engines. Need to set the dose by weight, not age. If you’re not sure what you’re doing, there are experienced EMT’s and fire fighters around. Find them and get them into your contact list.” Caleb got his second dose.
“Got it, sir,” Sergeant Janika replied. “I shouldn’t have bothered you sir, sorry.” She’d waylaid us in a panic as Emmett and John Niedermeyer and I drove into this dismal neighborhood.
“Uh-huh,” Emmett said. “No worries, Janks.”
Funny, I’d forgotten how good Emmett was with kids. I liked Emmett from nearly the day I met him. But I think I fell for him when I had a lost little girl for a couple weeks. Emmett would come for dinner and stay afterwards to read to her in bed. She never spoke. He called her Angel. Emmett was great with our fosterling Alex, too, but teenagers are different. Man to man, not man to child. Kids spook easily around a grown man, he’d told me. Especially kids who’d been abused, or not raised with a man in the house. The trick was to talk soft, move slow, be predictable and relaxed.
“Breathing well enough to talk now, Caleb?” he asked the boy, in the same calm unhurried tone he’d used all along. Caleb nodded, still tense. “Asthma’s triggered by different things. Smoke, pollen, mold,” Caleb shook his head jerkily to deny each of these, “but sometimes just anxiety.” Caleb froze.
“Now, the first thing about being anxious, Caleb,” Emmett explained, “is to stop and get safe. Like right here. Nothing going on. Just sitting on a stoop, with safe people. Right?” Emmett continued to gently talk Caleb down, massaging his neck, until the boy’s rigid shoulders started to unwind and drop. Then just as gently, Emmett got the child to explain the emergency that set off his anxiety attack.
His mom was pregnant with another baby. The baby’s dad died, and the mom wasn’t doing anything anymore, just lying around depressed. And then this afternoon he saw his mom doing oxy with the losers, and –
“Shh, Caleb,” Emmett crooned, rubbing the boy’s neck. “Right here and now, remember? Where are your hands? Just focus on that, keeping track of where your hands are. You’re alright.”
“People dying of the oxy,” Caleb argued. But he let Emmett kneed his neck muscles, and bowed his head. “Can’t stop her.”
“Not a kid’s job, Caleb, taking care of the mom,” Emmett said. “Supposed to go the other way around, you know? Just take it easy for a bit. Let the world spin itself.”
He continued gentling Caleb, but turned back to John and me. “Sorry our tour got interrupted. What we’re doing around here is salvage and demolition. These buildings are…moldy.”
Moldy was an understatement for the vile surroundings, though no doubt there was plenty of mold. We were in a block of 4-story brick slum tenements, probably a quarter boarded up even before the Calm Act. Now half the remaining windows were broken. The streets reeked of waste. I’d seen four rats just in the few minutes we stood here. A stream of people rotated through the buildings, bringing out salvage, mostly pipes, to load into trucks, then going back for more.
“Pipes?” John asked.
“Copper’s valuable,” Emmett said. “Trade it upstate for the power lines. There’s not much else here to salvage. Some decent electronics. Excuse me. Lady Tiff!” he called out to an older black woman, sort of limping and drifting across the street aimlessly. We were the only whites I’d seen here, even among the Army vets of the militia. Even before the Calm Act, Newark was only 10% white, and most of them were gone. Emmett claimed it was a relief not to have race issues, with everyone brown except him.
“Colonel Sanders!” Lady Tiff replied in a floaty tone. “What can I do for you?”
“Is there an Alateen around here?” Emmett asked.
“Just AA,” Tiff said. “But if this young man needs friends, I can take him to Peter Pan.”
“You know the Lost Boys, right, Caleb?” Emmett asked. “Tell Peter I sent you, OK? I’m Colonel MacLaren, actually, not Colonel Sanders,” he added with a wry grin. Caleb took a deep breath, blew it out, and nodded bravely. He walked away, perforce slowly, with Tiff.
“You live in this neighborhood, Emmett?” John inquired. He tried to sound open-minded, and failed.
“God, no,” Emmett said. “The troops and I took a dorm in University Heights. Workers there, too, or wherever for now. No, we’re just stripping these buildings, then blowing them up. The copper brings in a lot of food. This neighborhood’s too low. Flood plain. All needs to turn back to greenbelt.”
He got up from the stoop and brushed his pants off. “I don’t know what else there is to see, John,” he said apologetically. “Early stages right now. Working out methods, building teams.” He looked to me. “I got a message. We’ve got action incoming tonight. Think you should go, darlin’.”
I nodded understanding, as did John, and took another look around.
“Colonel Sanders,” John quipped. “Bet you get that a lot.”
“Uh-huh,” Emmett said wryly. “About a year now.” Ever since the man half from Kentucky got promoted to Colonel, of course. If oil and lard weren’t so expensive, no doubt Gladys would serve us fried chicken.
“You ever think of adopting one of them?” I asked, now that Caleb was far enough away.
Emmett shook his head slowly. “There’s one, Peter Pan. I really like that kid. But the Lost Boys need him. Taking care of them is his life. I’d rather sponsor him, you know? Like we do with Alex. Be there for them when they need us. Lots of people want to adopt little kids. Not so many can handle the half-grown ones, half-feral. And there are a thousand Peter Pans.”
There are a thousand Uriels, Canber had said. Maybe they canceled out, in some cosmic sense. But what Emmett said sounded right, for us. “Is his name really Peter?” I asked.
Emmett snorted. “Doubt it. Hindu kid. Who knows what his real name is. He takes good care of his flock.”
I smiled. “You’ve got that in common.”
“Thank you,” he breathed.
Sergeant Janika – I never learned her last name – hadn’t wandered far. Emmett waved her over, and asked her to drive us back to our boat and bring home the car.
He and John shared a hand
-shake and hug at the car door. “Sorry to drag you out here for nothing, John.”
“No,” John denied, sincerely. “Glad I came. Glad I saw. No way I’d miss the funeral. And took care of business. Care about you, man.”
“Same,” Emmett agreed. “Family. Always.” He switched to hugging me, and held me cheek to cheek for a moment, breathing in my ear. “Love you. Call you later.”
“You’d better,” I agreed. “You can tell me about Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. I love you, Emmett. Stay safe.”
Driving away, we caught sight of the orphan gang a couple blocks away, playing in the street. A grinning older boy held court in Never-Neverland, a small oasis of make-believe surrounded by the wreckage of Newark. I waved enthusiastically. Peter Pan led the kids to wave back.
I was glad to get home, when I eventually got there hours later. The ghosts of New York City lay quiet. Dane Beaufort’s death was avenged, for whatever that was worth. I was glad Canber was free of his task, and Emmett released of it as well.
That freed our souls for the next new normal.
FREE EBOOKS
Sign up for my newsletter, and get free copies of Dust of Kansas and Civilly Disobedient.
If you enjoyed The Calm Act Books 1-3, please leave a review on Amazon. Reviews help other readers choose this book. But also, I’m energized by feedback, to write more, faster, better. Reviews tell me that people care. So please leave a review and help me create the next book.
BOOKS BY GINGER BOOTH
Calm Act series:
1 End Game – time ran out on climate change
2 Project Reunion – daring plan to save the dying New York City
3 Martial Lawless – martial law vs. religion run amok in Pittsburgh
The Calm Act Books 1-3 – box set of the volumes above
4 Tsunami Wake – sea level rises faster
5 Feral Recruit – gang rat joins the Army
Calm Act Genesis prequel stories:
1 Civilly Disobedient – Dee Baker attends a riot in Philadelphia
2 Dust of Kansas – Emmett MacLaren at the birth of the Calm Act
Nonfiction:
Indoor Salad: How to Grow Vegetables Indoors
CALM ACT TIMELINE
Years counted from the enactment of the Calm Act. Most books cross a New Year, so the year given is at the book start.
-1 : Civilly Disobedient – food prices skyrocket due to Dust Bowl and GMO blight, rioting begins
0 : Dust of Kansas – U.S. withdraws from foreign involvement, air travel banned, internal refugee crisis
1 : End Game – Calm Act begins; severe censorship, inter-state borders; NYC Ebola outbreak
2 : Project Reunion – northeastern states band together to relieve NYC survivors, Penn attacks New York
3 : U.S. officially disbanded in March
3 : Martial Lawless – nation of Hudson established, others follow
4 : Tsunami Wake – East Coast tsunami, sea level rise, Hudson and New England merge
3-4 : Feral Recruit – overlaps Tsunami Wake, Hudson Army trains recruits
TSUNAMI WAKE
Preview of Tsunami Wake.
“Wow, Cam, your tide goes out fast,” I commented idly, enjoying the view of the deserted ocean beach out the open passenger window of his car.
Living in the Apple these days, I was starved for open seashore and a far horizon. My friend Cam humored me today by taking a scenic detour along Jones Beach, one of the sandy barrier islands of Long Island’s south shore, on our way to a meeting. My soul yearned to be soothed by the smell of salt air, the harsh cries and soaring elegance of circling seagulls. That spoke home, to me. The feel of the stiff cold onshore breeze whipping my hair at my face. The arrhythmic crash and susurrus of slow waves lapping the sand.
There was a bug in the wave subroutine. The waves weren’t delivering. I frowned. Maybe not such an idle comment. I’d never seen a tide draw out so fast. Not even in the Bay of Fundy. I knew this coast. That tide was wrong.
A couple seconds later, in similar delayed reaction, Cam slammed on the brakes and we skidded to a stop. Stopping like this was safe enough. There was no traffic on Ocean Parkway. The barrier islands were officially evacuated for winter, Cam had told me, off limits, no food or utilities, no water. We appeared to be the only people on Jones Beach that February morning.
He stared a moment at the tide sucking away across mud flats. I gazed at him worriedly. Abruptly, he pulled a U-turn and hit the gas.
“Change of plans,” Cam said. He picked up his phone to dictate a meshnet text announcement. “To LI Rescos, LI Cocos. Execute plan ‘Higher Ground’ immediately. This is not a drill. Zero warning. No lead time. ASAP. By order, Lieutenant Colonel Cam Cameron.” He handed me the phone. “Dee, check the dictation on that?”
I stared dumbly at the phone, my heart starting to pound, my palms to sweat. “Um,” I swallowed, “want me to capitalize ‘higher ground’ and ‘asap’?”
“No, I want that sent,” he said conversationally, while he drove like a maniac. There was no one else on the road, no. But several years had passed since the last time street sweepers cleared the sand off this parkway. Between the wind and the waves, the dunes of Jones Beach inexorably crept to reclaim this alien asphalt roadway for their own. The car lurched a bit as one tire or another spun, temporarily starved for traction. Judging by his sure control of the speeding car, Cam was accustomed to compensating for that.
“Check the routing. Should be two groups on the to-list, ‘LI Resco’ and ‘LI Coco’,” Cam continued. “CC ‘Hudson Top Resco’ and ‘Hudson Lead Resco’ for me too.”
I confirmed and sent, orange-flagged for forest-fire level immediate attention.
“Thank you,” Cam said, preternaturally courteous and collected while fighting the sifting sands for speed. “Text Dwayne for me? With our GPS coords.”
“Done,” I said, this accomplished. I carbon-copied Emmett as well, with a hasty ‘love you!’ from both of us to both of them. No time to get mushy now. Besides, heart-drumming, thinly reined panic doesn’t really coexist with love. I wasn’t feeling sentimental. “Anything else? Or are you ready to tell me what’s going on?” My voice squeaked a bit on that last.
Cam considered this, as he slalomed us through a right-hand turn, sand flying from the tires. We passed through this turnoff a few minutes ago, and were now back on the island-hopping causeway we’d just crossed to reach Jones Beach. “Keep an eye on the tide for me,” he directed mildly, gunning the car up to 50 mph. Awfully fast considering our iffy state of traction.
I swallowed nervously. “Can’t see the ocean beach,” I reported. “The tide’s going out in here, too, though.” ‘In here’ being the bay and islands separating Jones Beach from central Long Island – CLI, or ‘Sea-lie’ in local parlance. A mere couple miles of island hopping on our current route. Just a few minutes at this speed, if we didn’t spin out on the sand.
“Negligible tide in the bay,” Cam informed me. “Three feet on the south side of the barrier islands, almost none inside. Few inches.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. No, the tides would not ordinarily race out faster than they do in the Bay of Fundy, then. And the ‘negligible’ tide in the bay looked to have dropped a couple feet, very recently. Wet rock glistened above the water, on a sunny, dry, breezy day that would dry rock quickly. Today was even warm for February, almost 60 degrees. That wasn’t a new climate change thing. All my life, there’d been a clutch of weird fake-spring days in February.
“So, Cam,” I continued, struggling to be analytical to control the terror, “why do we think the tide is racing out?”
“That happens before a tidal wave,” Cam said. “Tsunami.”
I considered the wet rocks. Still getting taller. “You don’t get tidal waves much.”
He laughed shortly. “No, Dee.”
OK, it was a dumb comment. I grew up less than 30 miles from here, as the seagull flies, mostly across salt water. That’s w
hy reading a tide was so automatic. No, Long Island didn’t get tidal waves much. I was getting shocky.
“Are we very, very screwed?” I inquired.
“Back on LI in a couple minutes,” Cam replied. “Then we head for higher ground.”
Check. There was no high ground on Jones Beach. The barrier island was a giant sand bar. “You seem surprisingly unsurprised,” I noted. “And unworried.”
“I am doing, not worrying,” Cam returned. “Surprise is for the unprepared.”
I grinned at him. He looked like he was having a blast. I’ve always admired Cam’s grace under pressure. He seemed more himself, more alive, amused, charismatic and absolutely self-assured, when things got hairy. His enjoyment of his battle with road traction took the edge off of my panic, too. Cam must have made an awesome combat officer in the Middle East. He still was. He’d been telling me minutes ago how they’d just finished clearing the entrenched insurgents off Jones Beach before Christmas.
“Navigator, look for higher ground,” Cam prompted. “Check the meshnet. There should be a map flashing at you, ‘Seek higher ground now.’ Suggested evac target.”
Indeed, there was a map already flashing on the phone. Cam’s people executed fast, after receiving his text. Apparently the ‘Higher Ground’ protocol was prepared in advance and ready to execute at push-button speed.
Of course, on the map, we weren’t off the barrier sand bars yet. Then the highest ground wasn’t terribly high. Nor was there any obvious way to drive there. The only route by car was to overshoot going inland, and then loop around back. But if we did that, we might as well keep going further inland.
We both blew out a deep breath of relief as we escaped the last causeway and headed inland. That relief was short-lived. I checked the rear-view window. A strange engine-like growl was mounting behind us, like a freight train. Isn’t that what they say a tornado sounds like? A freight train? The horizon seemed to be getting taller. And closer.