Houston, 2030

by Mike McKay

  At the end, Samantha nearly spoiled the bloodless victory by revealing her plans to walk around the gasoline plant in those new ‘barefoot sandals’ tomorrow. Fortunately Mark prepared for something like this and reacted quickly: “Samantha, the ‘barefoot sandals’ are not for working at the 'Fill. Remember, what Mister Stolz said? You must have the correct PPE for the task in hand, right?”

  Samantha realized her blooper and replied, “oh, sure! I meant: I just take the ‘barefoot sandals’ with me, to show to the girls. That's a real promise, Dad. From now on, I always tuck the shoes: the school sandals for the trike rides, and the rubber boots – at the 'Fill.”

  “Please speak English, Samantha,” Mark chuckled, “you ‘have the shoes on,’ not just ‘tuck,’ remember?”

  “Right, Dad. I mean: I will have them on! Or ‘put on,’ whatever you say. No-shoe is not appropriate.”

  Wonderful. For a good cause of keeping our Mommy happy, Samantha's anti-sissy toes had to suffer in those ugly school sandals for a very little while: about two hundred yards, all the way from home to the main road's corner. And the same two hundred yards – on the way back. Perhaps, we were nearing the end of our stupid ‘Civil War,’ and both sides were willing to give-in a little? Samantha would stop making stubborn shows and start pretending having her shoes on all day long. In exchange, Mary would happily find everything being ‘appropriate,’ and start pretending that she did not even suspect that her daughter kept roaming the 'Fill in no-shoe fashion. It would be marvelous if both of them had it their own ways, without all those bloody battles!

  Later on, already in bed, Mary admitted that although the presents were a nice touch, her decision to let Samantha leave the school was more rational than Mark thought.

  “I went to the school today,” she explained, “to meet this Mister Connely, the History-Schmistory teacher. I can tell you, I wasn't impressed. He is a total idiot! Well, first I learned that not only Pam got a ‘D,’ but about half of the class. By the way, we must be proud. Our daughter was the only one who got not just a simple stupid ‘D,’ but an advanced, glorious ‘D’ with the exclamation mark!”

  “The test was too difficult?”

  “Yes and no. It was all about the dates. On the sixteenth of June, Colonel such and such, with a half-battalion of infantry and one cannon, goes to such and such village, and stays there for two days. Then, on the eighteenth, he marches up the state, to the village such-and-such. And so on. All the little facts the idiot himself didn't know one year ago, but dug recently from a five hundred page monograph. A bunch of totally irrelevant mess! Nothing about the reasons, nothing about the strategy, nothing about the politics, or the economy, or the weapons. Nothing! He is not teaching History, he is teaching a bloody calendar! The Nineteenth Century calendar, to be exact.”

  “Knowing Pamela, she is not the type who can keep her mouth shut,” Mark said. A couple more visits like this, and Mary might even object her other kids going to school all together!

  “The kids must be so-o-o bored! Well, all the others who got a ‘D,’ they were diligently trying to get the dates right. According to Mister Connely, one girl even got an ‘A.’ I asked him if she got all the dates correctly. And he says: no, only forty-five percent score, but it's an excellent result. Excellent result, my ass!”

  “And what had Pamela done to deserve the exclamation mark? To her ‘D’?”

  “She didn't write any dates. Despite she remembered few. Instead, she wrote: ‘These dates are totally useless. Why bother?’ Then, Pam followed her assessment up. Verbally. In front of the whole class! Do you want to hear what she said?”

  “Samantha already reported to me. The moth balls. To be frank, I agree.”

  “Let's leave the History-Schmistory for now. It's not worth it,” Mary said kissing Mark lightly, “but please don't tell Pam it's OK to go around the school and humiliate the teachers.”

  “Honey, the official term is to ‘blah the teachers,’ or so I told.”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mike sent an e-mail today!”

  “Excellent! How is he doing?”

  “Fine. Arne is also fine. They both ended up in the same platoon. Mike said, they got uniforms with a desert pattern. Like for the North Africa, or the Middle East. William says it's a positive development, for a change. The survival rates in the desert are way better than in the jungles.”

  Mark thought the hope was thin, but wisely kept it for himself. Quite possibly the boot camp temporary ran out of the jungle camo and would eventually issue the GIs some proper outfits. Or send them to the jungles as is, in the desert uniforms, so they would stick out as a sore thumb, ready to be picked by a guerrilla sniper. Instead, Mark said: “I think William is right. That's wonderful news, honey!” and returned a kiss…

  Twenty minutes later, two pillows and the bed cover were on the floor, Mark's shorts and Mary's nightgown – crumpled at the bed head, while Mark and Mary were lying absolutely naked, listening for the rain outside. “You know what? With the ‘barefoot sandals’ presents – you are goddamn late! By about four years!” Mary said suddenly.

  “Why?”

  “Remember our first ‘Civil War’ battle? About Sammy's school sandals? Now I think if you just said: ‘shut up, honey!’ And then went with the girls and instead of the ugly old-tire sandals, bought those hippie ones, barefoot sandals, kama-something, calf-lets, or whatever they wanted. If you disobeyed the stupid me, our domestic ‘Civil War’ wouldn't happen first place.”

  “Better late than never,” Mark replied, “admittedly, I disobeyed. Those calflets – we bought them anyway. I can't believe the girls did not show them to you. Well, those two, they may be trusted with the national security level secrets! As for the ‘barefoot sandals…’ Frankly, I was too afraid. You would say, they are ‘not appropriate,’ useless, not practical, and a total waste of money. Did I get the sequence right?”

  “Absolutely right, darling. Exactly this order: not appropriate, useless, not practical, and a total waste of money. So what? It's recommended to splash in them through the rain puddles. They give you no blisters. They are cool and awesome… And sexy. And the boys like them. Talking of the last two things, how did you like it tonight, ‘boy’?”

  Instead of the answer, Mark delivered Mary another long kiss. “So the ‘Civil War’ is over?”

  “Over. I will not never tell you nothing about being ‘appropriate.’ How are my double negatives? Improving? Please stop reaming Pam for those. Nothing wrong with 'em.”

  “I am flabbergasted, honey. Next, you are going to tell Samantha she is allowed that tattoo of hers!”

  “The tattoo – maybe, not yet. But surely, I don't mind the rest of the teen's fashion. Even if instead of Paris la haute couture, it's invented at the McCarty Road Landfill.”

  “I am pretty sure, honey, all former couturiers in Paris are now working at the landfills. Their own, Parisian…”

  “Right! Exactly as everything else. Couturier-schmuturier! History-Schmistory! Appropriate-schmapropriate!” Mary playfully slapped Mark's tight, “if you look at our life without the usual mental blinds, what ‘appropriate’ is left?”

  “Well, the house is OK… All – appropriate.”

  “Appropriate? We make poo at the back yard latrine! Into a hole in the floor! We are taking showers – with cold water and for sixty seconds.”

  “We have clean water in the shower, and our latrine is quite all-right. In the slums, they don't even have these!”

  “In the slums? In the slums? We are living in a slum, darling, if you haven't mentioned,” she giggled, “I just thought: the USA! The United Slums of America! Cool?”

  “Cool. But some may find this joke a bit offensive. Not appropriate.”

  “Appropriate-schmapropriate! OK, here is the normal life in the slum, darling. Your dear wife, if you have not forgotten, used to be a computer programmer. With a degree. Now she is digging dirt and carrying water on a shoulder pole all day long, like some
Chinese peasant two thousand years ago. The school teaches Schmistory instead of History. Your older daughter has conceived a brilliant career plan: to quit the school and get herself a highly prestigious job – at the local landfill. One of your sons – oh, he actually has been working at the 'Fill for three bloody years! And your other son, – ended up fighting an idiotic, useless war, and now is an amputee beggar…”

  “William is not a beggar, honey. He is a Donation Collector! The Salvation Way has an official permit, and all that. And Samantha and Michael are not exactly working at the landfill. Their gasoline plant is good half a mile away.”

  “Collector-Schmolector! Half a mile – shmalf a mile!”

  “Just a minute ago, I thought the war is over. And you've started complaining – again.”

  “Who said, I am complaining? I am just saying the Meltdown is not going to end. Not in our lifetime, and not in the lifetime of our kids. Never. We must stop pretending.”

  “Pretending what?”

  “Pretending this is all temporary and will somehow fix itself. If we accept the Meltdown as a permanent thing, we can happily live our totally inappropriate lives as everybody else.”

  “I have to tell you this, honey. I… They may force me to retire from the FBI.”

  “Retire? You mean: now?” Mary sounded strangely peaceful, and Mark thought she did not quite understand the news.

  “Now. Next month, or even earlier.”

  “Because of the Butcher?”

  “Yeah. The brass in Washington is getting red-hot about it. They don't give a damn how many more will die, but need a good scapegoat.”

  “It's OK, darling. Retire. No problems.”

  “But how do we live?” Mark could not comprehend Mary's calmness.

  “Inappropriate. Simple. One day at the time. Like our Ris calls it: Just-Adjust. Happiness is the difference between what you have and what you want. We just need to adjust what we want.”

  “To live one day at the time? Like our Ris?”

  “Yeah! And suddenly, I am OK with it,” she rolled over and delivered Mark one more kiss, “I have you, and that's all I want, darling! Sleep!”

  They were woken up at half past three in the morning – by Mark's telephone playing the urgent Police call tune. An electronic voice on the other side told Mark there was an emergency, and he had to report to the Station at once. As he was hastily getting dressed, an SMS from Benito Ferelli informed him of the emergency nature. The hurricane Arthur had been promoted to the Category-4 and targeted to make the landfall at or near Houston.

  It took Mark about an hour and a half to get to the Station. The continuous drizzle changed now to patches of moderately heavy rain, but there was no wind. Perhaps, the hurricane remains in the Category-4 or skips the heavily populated areas, Mark thought. The latter was not very likely, he corrected himself. The entire Coast area, from Florida on the east and all the way around and down to the Mexican border on the west, was a ‘heavily populated area’ – with all those escapees from the northern states, now settled in the South.

  By the end of the Twentieth Century, the emergency response was for-real. If the United States were not immune to the natural disasters, they at least had ample resources to deal with them. For a Category-5 hurricane, such as the Andrew of 1992, the State Government would announce a mandatory evacuation and mobilize the National Guards to help the people out of the danger zone. Schools, hospitals, sporting facilities – all would be converted into emergency support centers and evacuation shelters. There would be dozens of search-and-rescue helicopters in the air and hundreds of rescue crews on the ground. The all-mighty military would chip in with all those motor-boats, motor-trucks, motor-buses, emergency power generators, water purification installations, and mobile kitchens. After the disaster, the Federal Government would pour billion after billion (of the year-1990 full-weight dollars!) for the damage repairs and infrastructure maintenance. And add to that few thousand able men from the US Army Corps of Engineers.

  At the beginning of the XXIst Century, before the Meltdown, the emergency response still existed, but on somewhat smaller scale. If the Category-5 Andrew took only 65 lives, the Category-4 Ike was responsible for 135. And the Category-5 Katrina came with the devastating score of dead and missing: 1971! These deaths were not without reasons. A voluntary evacuation instead of a mandatory one. ‘Get into your car and drive off.’ If you could. ‘Volunteers, please report to the local school. Bring food, water, and blankets.’ If you could. The Police would be patrolling the streets, to give assistance, but mainly to prevent looting and fires. If they could. Six hundred National Guards would eventually show up, with one-and-a-half amphibious trucks, which would fall apart upon touching the water. The over-stretched and over-deployed US military would fly few rescue helicopters. Maximum two or three flights a day each, mainly to assess the damage and carry around the paying customers, – like the major networks' news crews. And not to forget, the Air Force One would be circling above the disaster area once in a while. So the President could see from thirty thousand feet what happened to the helpless city and parachute few million dollars of politically-loaded emergency assistance here and there. If the United States dealt with the Katrina, it was not for the federal government, but for all these volunteer workers and NGOs.

  Now, after the Meltdown, the situation was even more dramatic. For starters, there would be no evacuation, mandatory or voluntary. If there were no cars, no motor-buses, and no trucks, how one could evacuate? By foot, you could make, maximum, fifteen miles per day, and in the adverse weather probably much less than that. A bicycle or an omnibus might extend your evacuation range by ten miles or so. By far, not enough to get off the hurricane path. And even if one could evacuate, what could he expect at the end of the journey? There was no spare food, or spare clothes, or spare housing. The US military and the National Guard had no spare Engineers and no spare equipment – they were all deployed in far-away lands, fighting all these endless little wars. The President surely would come after the disaster was over. The Air Force One still had enough fuel to perform a proper flight once in a little while. And the politics was as important as ever.

  Mark remembered the CNN coverage of the Category-4 Sean in New Orleans, back in 2027. It was a pre-election year, late September, a media opportunity impossible to miss. The First Lady was distributing new school uniforms. Because the number of schoolchildren in the affected area far exceeded the number of the uniform kits they carried on-board the Air Force One, each child got to choose between having a T-shirt, or a pair of shorts, or a school-bag (the latter was fittingly equipped with the Republicans' logo.) Those who were at the middle of the endless queue were offered a choice between somewhat less useful items: a baseball cap (also with the Republican red and blue elephant logo,) or a pair of rubber flip-flops. And those towards the end of the line – got themselves a pen, a pencil, or a 48-page notebook, or just a hearty hand-shake of the First Lady, a wish of good luck, and a gentle push from the Secret Service bodyguards: sorry kids, nothing left for you here, move on, move on. Back then, Mark's family was watching the news, and William commented: “Some poor PR kid in the White House staff was surely fired over this disgrace… Even more likely, the CNN crew was fired, along with their news editor. Once in a while, they decided to show the truth, and continued shooting the footage till the very end…”

  All the Houston population could do at this point, was sit tight, cling on their belongings and hope for the best. On the positive side, the post-Meltdown years taught people how to be self-sufficient through the worst possible times. For instance, today nobody in the Sheldon-Res area would complain they had no running water and no electricity. Hey, they had been living off-the-grid for nearly ten years. Who needed these electric lines and these water pipes, anyway?

  Chapter 23

  When Mark arrived to the Station, most of the personnel had already reported on-duty, summoned by the same automatic emergency notification system. The large L
CD screen in the hallway was on, switched to the SRTV news. Instead of the usual night test table, the local station was transmitting the electronic map, with the estimated path of the approaching hurricane, along with the wind speed, Doppler radar rainfall, and other parameters. Most of the people at the Station were on the phones, trying to improvise some kind of emergency response.