Dust and Kisses

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  She smiled at him. His offer was very kind, and from what she had already seen from this man, not unexpected. Clearly Matt had a very big heart.

  “Thanks,” she said. “That’s very kind. Maybe at some point down the road, after we figure out what to do about those people out there, and Dan’s offer for us to join them.”

  Matt nodded. “What are you thinking about the offer?”

  “That I need more information,” she said. “I’d love to know what being part of what they are attempting would mean for me. And their expectations. And if I can even be of help.”

  “Exact same questions I was wondering about,” he said. “I’m having fewer and fewer doubts about them being what they say they are. Especially after this morning. This city is going to be a very different place when twenty thousand or so people show up.”

  She looked out at the sea of empty buildings. “It will come alive a little, that’s for sure,” she said. “If they have the ability to get that bulldozer working, I bet they have the type of people with them that could start up the hydro-plants up on the Columbia, and get the power flowing into the city again.”

  Matt laughed. “Yeah, and picking Portland was a good choice as far as the water goes. The system that brings in the water from the Bull Run drainage up in the hills is more than likely just fine. With power, it will be very easy to clean and get back up to standard. But it’s going to take a lot of people going around and turning off water faucets left on three years ago.”

  “Maybe that’s what they want us to do,” Carey said, and laughed. But she was half serious. With her background, she really didn’t have anything practical she could offer in building a new society from the rubble of another. Matt, on the other hand, would be a golden find for them considering all his skills.

  “Why don’t we just go ask them after breakfast?” Matt said. “Before it gets too hot out there.”

  “You know,” she said, taking the last bite of her omelet, “I think that’s a splendid idea.”

  “I’m glad you do,” he said. They held each other’s gaze for a moment before both began laughing.

  Twenty minutes later they had cleaned up the breakfast dishes and were headed down the elevator. Both of them still had rifles slung over their shoulders, but Carey doubted they needed them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CAREY WAS VERY GLAD that Matt had suggested they go out early, before it got hot. It was still only around nine in the morning, yet the air was starting to turn warm, and she could feel that the wind was from the Columbia Gorge, which meant it was going to get much, much warmer.

  It didn’t take them long to get back up to the Hilton. And for some reason, the knowledge that all the bodies in the cars, and on the sidewalks, would be taken care of at some point in the future, made it easier for her to move among them. It still brought back the memory of that first day, but the memory didn’t eat at her as bad, wasn’t as close to the surface, as it had been the night before.

  She would never forget that day, and the days that followed. She doubted anyone left alive ever would. But at least she might be able to deal with it better now.

  Amazing how focusing on the future instead of the past could change an attitude. She hadn’t felt this good, this positive in three long years.

  There were very few people around the Hilton, and even fewer inside. Amazing how sixty people could just seem to vanish into the buildings and empty city.

  They finally found someone who thought that Dan might be in the communications room. She and Matt were directed to a building across the street, an office building, and then upstairs to what must have been a large, second floor meeting room.

  One wall of the room had been filled with communications equipment of different types, filling a dozen different shelves. It was an impressive display that clearly hadn’t been there yesterday. Matt stopped and stared for a moment.

  The large sliding doors at the end of the room were open. Carey could see a couple of satellite dishes on the balcony outside. And other wires going out another open window and leading up to the roof.

  Dan was sitting at one conference table, talking to a man about something to do with an uplink, while two other men worked on equipment. Carey could tell by the way Matt moved slowly from one shelf to another that he was impressed at the set-up.

  “Wow, you folks really know what you’re doing,” Matt finally said.

  “Not really,” one man said. He was on his back, under a large piece of equipment, and he sounded disgusted. “More like we’re making it up as we go.”

  Matt laughed. “Boy do I know that feeling.”

  Dan looked up from his conversation and smiled at them, standing and moving toward them. Carey could tell the smile was real. He was actually very happy they were there.

  “I was hoping you two would come back,” Dan said. “More questions about what we’re doing, I assume.”

  Carey was shocked at how much she liked the older man, and felt comfortable around him. When she had worked with Dr. Canfield, she had had to deal with a few military types. They were always nice, but they had made her uncomfortable. But Dan put her at ease just with a smile.

  “More questions,” Carey said, agreeing.

  Dan motioned them over to a few chairs near a fairly empty table. Then, after they were all seated, he said, “Ask anything. We could use both of your help, so I’ll give you as much information as I know. Straightforward, no punches pulled. How’s that?”

  “Sounds good to us,” Matt said, glancing at Carey.

  She nodded and let Matt start the questions.

  “First off,” Matt said, “How do you know you could use our help?”

  Dan laughed. “Fair enough. We knew there were a few people living in this area. After you came by last night, I got in touch with our main base back in Nevada.” He pointed to one of the machines near the window. Carey had no idea what it was, but from the way Matt nodded, he must have had an idea.

  Dan went on. “I gave them your names, and they, in turn, contacted Colorado where there is a vast storage area of information about people around the country.”

  “And our names were in that database?” Carey asked, clearly amazed.

  “They were,” Dan said, nodding. “Of course, this data was meant to be for people working on family trees on the Internet. It was a fantastic project that had gathered records from just about every public place around the country and put them all in the same database, then cross-referenced it all.”

  “Wow, that was some work.”

  “It was,” Dan said. “For example, I know what degrees both of you have from university records, what was on your last driver’s licenses from an Oregon database, and your last known addresses.”

  “And you’ve tapped into this data just to find out about people?” Carey asked.

  “Actually, no,” Dan said, smiling at her. “But it does come in handy for meeting new survivors like you two. The database was activated and backed up in three different places because it will help in the body recovery and location of graves for the future reference work. That data will be the starting point when we actually begin putting all these poor souls into final resting places. We’ll add into the data the information about how we found the person, and where exactly they are buried.”

  Matt glanced at Carey. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he was impressed. And she was amazed that after just two days how much they could talk to each other simply with a look.

  “If we did come to work for you,” Matt said, getting the conversation back on track, “what exactly would that entail?”

  “You mean hours and such?” Dan asked.

  Matt nodded.

  “Actually, as many or as few as you wanted to put in. At this point, everyone is sort of in this together. We’re going to be helping each other set up places to live, begin food distribution of salvaged items, and so on. To be honest, what we’re discovering is that people want to work on this too much, and w
e end up having to make people slow down, take time off.”

  “Are you trying to match skills to jobs needed?” Carey asked.

  “As much as the skills allow,” Dan said, nodding.

  One of the men working on connections under a table covered in electronic equipment laughed. “Yeah, I was a plumber in Vegas. I’ll be glad when I can get back to pipes. This wiring stuff is for the birds.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “We’ve got almost twenty thousand people headed here over the next six months,” Dan said, “and with luck, even more after that. We need everything in the way of skills, and all the help we can get to give everyone a place to live, clean water, electricity, and enough food.”

  Carey could feel herself getting excited. Society might not be completely dead after all, if this worked. And even if it didn’t, it was worth the fight. She certainly had nothing else to do.

  “You know my degrees,” she said to Dan.

  “I certainly do, Dr. Noack,” Dan said.

  Carey sat back. She had been a post-doc. Granted, she had a Ph.D., but no one had ever called her doctor before. It took her a few seconds to take that inside.

  Matt smiled fondly at her, clearly trying not to laugh at how Dan had surprised her.

  “I’m not so sure I like the doctor stuff,” she said, ignoring Matt for the moment, “but since you know I have that degree, what could I do to help? I doubt you’re going to be doing much work in electromagnetics at any time in the near future.”

  Dan actually laughed. “You’re young, you’re smart, and you know computers and how to do research. We’re going to be reinventing a lot of wheels over the next ten years, if you know what I mean. We’re going to need scientists, people who know how to keep thinking ahead, as well as take information from the past and apply it now.”

  Then, before she could say anything more, he turned to Matt. “And you, Mr. Landel, are also a real find for us. Not counting your education in electrical engineering, your ability with electronics would help us a great deal. I assume the cameras on the poles near the freeways are part of your security system?”

  Now it was Carey’s turn to try not to laugh at Matt’s shocked look.

  “They are,” Matt said.

  “And keeping a building the size of the Baxter building in water, electricity, and a working elevator, all by yourself, isn’t an easy task. Yet you managed that as well. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m almost begging you to come and help us.”

  “Dan,” the plumber guy said from under the panel, “I’ll join you on my knees if it helps get him on board, so I can go back to my pipes.”

  Everyone in the room laughed again.

  Carey could tell that Matt was shocked they knew so much about him, and how he had been living. It surprised her as well, until she remembered the power of those satellites orbiting overhead. As Matt had said, they probably knew what vegetables he picked for dinner out of his garden.

  Dan went on with his pitch. “I’m not saying this isn’t going to be a lot of work. It will be. Some of it will be just basic work, like helping deal with the bodies. And for nothing more than you could do for yourself over the first few years, since it will be some time before we have a money system again.”

  “There is planning for one?” Carey asked, shocked.

  Dan nodded. “There is. Everything we do is aiming at a longer term goal of getting back to farming, manufacturing, and all the other infrastructure it takes to supply the needs of all the survivors.”

  “Is this military?” Carey asked, realizing there were some pretty basic questions they hadn’t gotten to yet. “Did the United States Government survive?”

  “It did, sort of,” Dan said. “No one in congress or the executive branch survived that we know of.”

  Carey was not surprised at that news. No one on the planet thought the wave of energy coming toward Earth could be dangerous. It had been just another day, with another strange thing happening out in space.

  “Right now everything around the country is just being run as you see it here,” Dan said, “a sort of volunteer work project, half directed by a military structure because of the nature of the majority of who survived. After each of the five cities are populated again, we’ll have local elections, and those governments will take over, with the military side stepping back into a sort of police function. The first national election is slated for five years from two days ago, on the eighth anniversary of the disaster. We’ll elect a new President and Congress then, starting over with five states at first.”

  Matt glanced over at Carey. She knew, without a doubt, she wanted to help Dan and the others. Something like this was so much better than sitting alone on the beach, wondering how she was going to die alone.

  But she didn’t want to commit unless Matt did. She had decided on her way up the sidewalk that she wanted to be with him more than she wanted to help Dan and the rest.

  “Well?” she asked Matt, “what do you think?”

  Matt smiled at her, the excitement in his eyes. “I’m in if you are.”

  Carey turned to face Dan. “I think you just found two more volunteers.”

  “Wonderful,” Dan said, clapping his hands.

  From under the electrical equipment came the sound of applause.

  “We only have one delay in starting,” Matt said, smiling at Carey. “It’s going to take us a few days to get Carey and her cats moved over here from the coast.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Carey said, annoyed at herself for forgetting that she actually didn’t live here, and that her cats were expecting her to come back soon.

  “You’ve been living on the coast?” Dan asked. “What area?”

  “North of Depoe Bay,” she said.

  “Can you fish?” he asked.

  “Well,” Carey said, glancing at Matt, then back at Dan. “I’ve managed to catch my share of crab and dig my share of clams. And I used a Native American net system near the mouth of a small stream for other fish. But beyond that, I wouldn’t have a clue.”

  “Well, I was hoping,” Dan said, smiling. “One plan we have is to set up a supply line for fish from the coast sometime over the next six months.”

  “I don’t think I’d be much help in that area,” Carey said, remembering her cold mornings trying to get anything out of the ocean to eat that was fresh. More often than not she had come away empty handed.

  “Well, take as much time as you need,” Dan said. “Just hurry back, we need you.”

  “I’ll get moved as quickly as I can,” she said.

  “If you need help, just find me,” Dan said.

  “Actually,” Matt said, “if you could lend us two motorcycles, that would be a large help.”

  Carey managed to not shout No! She would have to climb over her fear of the things and learn how to ride. Until most roads were cleared, it was going to be the main way to travel any real distance.

  “Not a problem,” Dan said. “I’ll have two waiting for you on the sidewalk in front of the Hilton.”

  “Great, thanks,” Matt said. “And no problem with me continuing to live right where I’m at?”

  “None that I can think of,” Dan said, shrugging. “I don’t think we’re going to be dealing with a housing shortage anytime soon. Our plans are to spread out in this area, and into the Northwest section, where there is a lot of single-family housing.”

  “One more thing,” Matt said, glancing at Carey. “If I start working for you, I could use a little help with another project I have going.”

  Dan looked puzzled, but Carey smiled, knowing what Matt was about to say.

  “I’ve been raising some chickens,” Matt said.

  That stopped all activity in the room almost instantly.

  “Fried chicken,” one man said.

  “Eggs,” another said. “I can’t remember the last time I ate eggs.”

  “Well,” Matt said, “with a little help on feeding and harvesting the eggs, and some good management, I
don’t think that’s going to be a problem for the future. I have about five hundred or so birds trapped in the Rose Garden. I think that place can hold a lot more than that if I have help with feeding.”

  Carey could have cut the thick silence that filled the room.

  Finally, one man said, “Sorry, Dan, I’m going to work for him. He’s got fresh chickens.”

  Everyone laughed, and Dan smiled even larger. “I have no doubt we can find more than enough people to help with the chicken project. I’m very glad you two are joining us.”

  “I’m glad you’re here and doing all this,” Matt said.

  “So am I,” Carey said. “It’s amazing what having a hope for a future can do for the spirit.”

  “That, and a piece of fried chicken,” the man under the desk said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  DAN WALKED THEM to the doorway, shook both their hands, and told them to hurry back. Carey felt as if he actually meant it. Nice to be wanted again.

  Then she and Matt were back in the mid-morning heat, headed down the hill. They were a block into the walk before either one of them spoke, but Carey didn’t care. She was thinking about what Dan had said, about the promise of a new government, towns with social aspects, people gathering and having families and surviving. Even if only a part of it happened, it was fantastic.

  Now all she had to do to get to work helping this cause was to learn how to ride a motorcycle, get her cats, and then find a place to live.

  Or maybe in a different order, now that she thought about it. Having a place to go to when she got back here to the city might be a good idea first.

  Finally, as they crossed the second street headed down the hill toward the Baxter building, Matt broke the silence.

  “Looks like we have jobs again.”

  “Retirement just isn’t the life of luxury it’s made out to be,” Carey said. “I just have to figure out where to live.”

  “I’m assuming you don’t want to go back to your old apartment,” Matt said.

  “No,” she said, surprised at how firmly that came out. “Although I wouldn’t mind getting some things from there at some point. And from my parent’s home as well.”