Solar Reboot

by Matthew D. Hunt

  She heard two sets of footsteps behind her and soon smelled a familiar cologne. “What’s the problem?” said Wade, locking eyes with Bill. Bettie stepped up beside her other shoulder.

  “We’re not hanging on to those vagabonds, is the problem.”

  “They’re in Cameron’s house.”

  “Funny, I was just telling him that,” said Cameron, giving Wade a dirty look.

  “You ain’t supposed to be here either,” said Bill, sticking a fat finger in Wade’s face. Cameron was half afraid Wade would break the man’s hand, but then she was half hoping for it, too.

  “I’m in Cameron’s house, too.”

  “What’s the problem letting them stay here?” said Bettie. “There’s plenty of empty cabins, seems to me.”

  “They’re not taking the cabins,” said Bill.

  “No one’s in the cabins,” said Cameron.

  “They still belong to people. I’m the caretaker. This is exactly what I get paid to stop, and I ain’t losing my job just because you’ve got a crisis of conscience.”

  Cameron pointed down the hall behind her. “There’s a little girl back there in my living room. Can’t be more than twelve. You try to kick her out of this cabin community, you and I are going to have problems. That’s not a crisis of conscience, that’s just a fact.”

  “You want to keep them in your house, that’s your business, but—”

  “They can stay in my RV,” said Scott.

  Bill stopped short and turned to look at him. Scott stepped forward, lips pursed beneath his thick bush of beard.

  “That ain’t…” Bill began. He turned back, squinting his ugliest squint at Cameron. “We’re not taking in every poor sap who comes on that mountain road.”

  Cameron didn’t bother shouting an answer as he turned and stumped away, but she gave Scott a grateful nod once Bill was gone. Taking the Williams into her cabin would have made it a bit cramped, and throwing Wade into the mix would have made it unbearable.

  They shut the door and went back to the living room. Chad and Carla were sitting up straight, worry plain in their eyes.

  “Was that about us?” said Chad. “We don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “No trouble,” said Bettie. “Only some hopped-up yokel getting too big for his boots. You’ve got a place to stay, as long as you want to.”

  “And you’ll stay,” said Cameron, putting her hands to her hips. “I’ll need to keep an eye on that arm.”

  They nodded in gratitude. Cameron beckoned Chad toward the door, so he could meet Scott and they could arrange to settle in. But as she left, she was aware of Wade watching her with an unreadable expression.

  CHAPTER 11

  Despite it being cramped, Cameron let the Williams family stay in her house that night, giving them her own bed while she slept on the couch. Scott gave Wade his RV for the night. They switched the next day, and Cameron busied herself helping the Williams move in. The RV had a bigger bed in the back where the parents could sleep, and a smaller pull-out sleeper for Naomi. They’d brought precious few possessions with them—just a few items for a camping trip. They had tents, as well, but Cameron quickly told them to keep that to themselves.

  “If Bill finds out, he’ll have you sleeping out in the rain,” she said.

  “Thanks,” said Chad, lowering his gaze. “Sorry we’re causing so much of a fuss.”

  “No fuss,” said Cameron. “And if anyone complains, tell them to come and talk to me.”

  A bunch of the others from the cabin community came to help them settle in. Some offered food, others brought extra blankets, because the nights were getting colder—way past unseasonably cold for the time of year. Cameron told them where to put some items, or told them to take other supplies back to their homes if there wasn’t room. They obeyed without question, most of them. She got the feeling they were just glad to have someone telling them what to do—and, too, they were probably happy it wasn’t Bill.

  Bill’s behavior aside, the rest of the community was nothing but pleasant to the Williams. Chad was soon hanging out and sharing beers with some of the other guys, while Kira and Naomi were invited by the women to do a little miniature tour of all the occupied cabins. Bettie, in particular, hovered over Naomi like a grandma hen, which neither Naomi nor Kira seemed to mind at all. Even Wade began to get used to the new situation in his own way, though quite differently from the Williams. Cameron saw him wandering around the cabins and the woods with a camera, taking pictures of the homes and the forest beyond.

  Once the Williams were more or less settled in, Cameron went back to the cabin and met up with Bettie. They got to work in the garden again. The soil had mostly been cleared of dead plants and was ready to be torn up for new ones. Bettie directed Cameron while she did the grunt work, then knelt down to get her own hands dirty by pulling up the few remaining weeds whose roots had refused to let go the soil.

  “Where’s that friend of yours?” she said after a while. “The one who came in with the Williams?”

  Cameron paused, then looked up. “I’m not sure. He’s been wandering around taking pictures. Could be anywhere.”

  “He works at the hospital, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” said Cameron. “Why?”

  Bettie quickly shook her head. “No reason. Just didn’t get to talk to him much. Seems like a capable young man. Strong.”

  “Strong enough,” said Cameron, shrugging. “We spar sometimes. We’re more work buddies than co-workers.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  Cameron got back to tearing up the ground with her hoe. Something about the set of Bettie’s shoulders rubbed her the wrong way, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  * * *

  The rest of the day passed with no sign of Wade, but he showed up early the next morning, just after Bettie and Cameron had had coffee and were getting to work on the garden again. He came up, leaning on the fence the way Bill had a few days ago—with the minor difference that Cameron didn’t want to snap her hoe in half and drive one of the pointy ends through his face.

  “Morning,” he said. “Want to take a walk?”

  Cameron blinked. “Sure, I guess. What’s up?”

  He frowned and shrugged. “Nothing serious. I just didn’t make it over yesterday. We didn’t really get to talk.”

  When Cameron looked over, Bettie waved her off. “I’m good here, for a little bit. Don’t take too long, though—in a couple of hours we’ll be ready to lay some seed.”

  So Cameron tossed off her gloves and hopped the fence. She and Wade set off along the hill, down a path that ran along the edge of the forest in a long, winding loop that eventually led to the front of the cabin community.

  Despite asking her to talk, Wade was silent for a long while. In the end it was Cameron who had to break the silence.

  “Saw you taking pictures yesterday. What was that all about?”

  He looked at her askance. “What do you mean? I like taking pictures.”

  She stopped in her tracks and turned to him, folding her arms. “You. A photographer.”

  Something about his grin irked her. “What? Not what you expected?”

  Cameron stared. Eventually his face faltered, and he shrugged.

  “I got into it after I came back. You know that behavioral crap they make you do, if you’re having trouble adjusting? Well, I tried a bunch of stuff, and photography was what eventually stuck. Saved up, got a decent camera—nothing crazy—and been taking pictures ever since.”

  Cameron considered that a moment. With that framing, it didn’t seem quite so far-fetched. She knew people came back with all sorts of problems, and the government was less interested in solving them after the uniform came off. People did art, learned how to play an instrument. Photography seemed like another logical choice.

  But even as her thoughts were growing to reconcile the idea with what she knew about Wade, his grin returned as he ruined it. “Plus, there’s no faster way to get a girl’s top off than to tell
her you’re a photographer.”

  “I knew it. I knew it.” Cameron shook her head and turned to resume her stroll, while Wade hurried to fall into step. “I’d tell you to never change, but then again, you never have.”

  Wade barked a laugh, but then fell silent again for a long time. When he did speak, it was to change the subject. “I never got to thank you for helping us out at the gate.”

  “Please,” said Cameron, shrugging. “Bill’s just an asshole. But I didn’t get to ask you—what happened to your car? That truck you came in wasn’t yours, was it?”

  “Nope, that was the Williams’. Mine is still down by the highway. Once I found them, I figured it was smarter to take one vehicle, and their truck was a lot steadier than my car would have been. Less cramped, too.” He stopped for a moment and pointed. There, a little way off through the trees, Cameron could see the picket-and-wire fence that marked the edge of the community. “See that? Just a little bit farther, the fence is broken down, and something chewed a hole through the wire. It’s old—nothing dangerous right now. But we should get out there and fix it when we can. I spent a lot of yesterday checking out the perimeter, seeing how secure everything was.”

  Cameron snorted and resumed her walk, forcing him to come along. “I haven’t heard the words ‘perimeter’ or ‘secure’ in a long time, Wade. Don’t tell me you’re starting to have flashbacks.”

  He returned her grin, but there was something edgy in his—caution, or fear or something—Cameron couldn’t quite place it, and wasn’t sure she liked it. “I’m just thinking about keeping everything safe. Not even saying there’s any danger now, or that there’s going to be. But on the off chance there is, better safe than sorry, right?”

  She frowned. “What’s got you spooked, Wade? Is it what happened in Seattle?”

  Wade balked, then shrugged. “Maybe a little bit. We saw some of it. TV was down, but there was a little bit of spotty cell phone reception, so I saw some videos posted online before everything went dark. It was a nuthouse, Cam. The power was out for so long, and the storms got so high…riots broke out in Belltown first. And right in the middle of that crazy, an earthquake hit, and maybe because of that, or maybe all on its own, waves came in and took half the city away. Some biblical shit.”

  A shudder ran up her spine. Cameron had known Wade for years. He didn’t get spooked, not easily. He was the first one to make inappropriate jokes when some natural disaster happened out there across the world, like the Japan tsunami or the Kuala Lumpur earthquake. She tried to tell herself it was just because it was Seattle, because it was home, but she wasn’t so sure.

  “Anyway, the stores are empty and everyone’s acting like paranoid freaks. No point going back to the city, not for a long time, anyway.”

  “I didn’t have any plans to,” said Cameron, sighing. “At first I wanted to. The hospital, you know. But Alex and Piper are coming here. Plus, I swear to god, if I leave Bill here running everything, everybody’s going to be dead in a week.”

  Wade barked a laugh. “You don’t honestly think Bill’s running jack squat around here, do you?”

  They were near the front of the community now, where the path crossed the main road, and Cameron stopped in the middle of it. She turned to Wade, hands on her hips. “What do you mean?”

  He fixed her with that same sardonic smile, the one she’d always tried to discourage when they sparred back at the hospital. “Come on, Cameron. Don’t play dumb.”

  She was about to press it, but then they both stopped. Out there beyond the gate, far off down the road, they heard the sound of a rumbling engine. After half a minute, a big brown Range Rover trundled into view, with Park Ranger logos emblazoned on all sides.

  “Cam?”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s a ranger. Nothing to worry about.”

  Then her stomach did a flip-flop, fear drawing whimpering caresses across her skin. Why would a ranger come here?

  Alex.

  She forced herself to take several calm, deep breaths. Alex wasn’t in trouble. Or at least, she had no reason to think that, not yet. The ranger could be here for any number of reasons. Hell, she didn’t even know if Alex was the only ranger who owned a place in the cabin community. Maybe someone else here was a retired ranger, or a parent of a ranger. There were any number of possible explanations.

  The Range Rover stopped. Behind the wheel was a man of middle age, with a Magnum P.I. mustache. He opened the door and stepped from the vehicle.

  “Hey there,” he called out. “I’m looking for Cameron Robinson.”

  The sinking feeling redoubled. “That’s me.”

  “Got a message from your husband, Alex.”

  “Is he—”

  “He’s all right,” said the ranger, almost at the same instant she started to speak.

  She burst out in a laugh, knowing and not caring that it sounded hysterical. “Okay. All right. Hold on, I’ll get the gate.”

  * * *

  The Range Rover rolled through, and Cameron and Wade joined the ranger in the Rover. Cameron guided him up the road to her cabin with a strange sense of deja vu—this was the second time she’d taken the exact same trip in three days.

  The ranger’s name was Brent Williams, and he’d heard from Alex just a couple of days before. “Reached me on the HAM,” he said. “Asked me to come down and check in on you, plus check your unit was working.”

  Cameron felt a hot flush creep into her cheeks. Jesus. How could she be so stupid? “I forgot about our radio,” she said. She shook her head. “God damn it. I could have talked to them.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Wade. From the back seat he reached up, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “Anyway, he and your daughter—was it Piper?—they’re all right. Still driving west. Storms are bad, but not so bad as all that, and Alex has stocked all up on supplies.”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” said Cameron.

  “Right enough. I mean, we all take precautions at the station of course, but Alex was always next-level.” Brent chuckled as he pulled the Rover to a stop right in front of Cameron’s place.

  She showed him inside and took him downstairs to the basement, where the HAM unit waited. Brent checked it out. Everything was in working order, so he fired it up and watched her send out her callsign. But no answer came.

  “Probably driving,” said Brent. “I’m afraid that while he’s on the road, you’re going to be on the receiving end most of the time. Just leave it on, and turned up loud enough that you can hear it upstairs if someone starts talking.”

  “I will,” said Cameron. She put the handset back on its hook, trying not to let her disappointment show. Of course it was stupid to expect that Alex would still be there on the line when she showed up days later, but still. She’d have given a whole lot just to hear his voice. “Hey, you want something to eat? Drink? We’ve got food, coffee, wine.”

  “I should be driving back pronto, so no wine—but I’d kill for lunch and some coffee,” said Brent.

  “Sure. Come on up.”

  When they climbed the stairs, they found Bettie in the kitchen, washing her hands in the sink. After introductions, Bettie waved them all away. “I’ll fix us all something. You sit and relax.”

  “You’ve been working in the garden,” said Cameron. “Let me take care of it.”

  “Sit your butt down, Cameron, and relax,” said Bettie, fixing her with a steely glare. “You’re putting me up. It’s the least I can do. Is he eating with us?”

  Bettie pointed at Wade. Cameron blinked. “Of course. I mean, if you want to, Wade. No obligation.”

  Wade gave Bettie an odd look. “I’d love to. Thanks.”

  “Mm-hm.” Bettie turned and began digging through cabinets for food and things to cook it with. Cameron took Brent and Wade into the living room, where they sank into the plush couches with a sigh.

  “Things have gotten crazy in all the cities,” said Brent. “But so far, our job’s been e
asy enough out at the station. Definitely haven’t had to worry about wildfires with all the rain, and we already got rid of the worst flood risks earlier in the year. Now we’re mostly just worried about scared city folks running up into the mountains for safety.”

  Cameron frowned. That was a common theme these days, or so it seemed. She was glad to hear Alex and Piper were fine the last Brent had heard, but what about since then? How far did Alex realistically think he could get, if all the cities were madhouses the way she kept hearing?

  Wade had been watching Cameron, but now he turned back to Brent. “Has that been happening?”

  Brent frowned. “Not yet. But we’re on the lookout. Seems like something that could happen easily, and all at once.”

  She opened her mouth to ask a follow up question. But at the edge of hearing, she heard something that stopped her cold.

  *sksssh* “Hello? This is KK4SWV looking for N7QJM. Looking for N7QJM.” *sksssh*

  She was out of her couch in a flash and running down the stairs to the basement. The voice was unfamiliar, and she didn’t recognize their callsign—but she knew hers. Cameron snatched up the handset.

  “Hello? Hello, this is N7QJM. Who’s this?”

  “Howdy, N7QJM. This is Pete. Am I talking to Cameron?”

  “Yes!” she said, louder than she meant to. “Yes. Hi, Pete. How did you get my callsign?” Though of course, she already knew the answer.

  “Alex gave it to me.”

  “Did he have a message?”

  “No.” Her heart sank. “He just asked me to keep an eye out, keep trying to reach you if I could. He’s on his way here now, though. Should be arriving any day. You’ll get to talk to him yourself.”

  She frowned at the receiver. “He’s headed to you? Where are you?”

  “Ames,” said Pete. “Iowa. A little off the route he was gonna take, but I offered a place to stay for the night. Some supplies, too, if they’re still here when he arrives.”

  That sounded odd. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t they be?”

  There was a moment’s silence. “Sorry, didn’t mean to give the wrong idea. Things are getting a little hairy here. But it’s Ames, not a big city. Folks acting a little crazy doesn’t mean much. I’m on the outskirts of town, not in the middle of the crazy. It’ll blow over.”