by Harley Vex
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
David was another Mr. Connors, only we couldn’t get away from him. He would not stop after telling us to go cheerlead instead of code. David would never admit it, though. Why had I ever felt any attraction to him?
Alana had encouraged me to get closer to him, at the beginning, but I couldn’t be angry at her. She was just trying to help. Without her, I might have given up already.
I needed something that David didn’t have. That he couldn’t control. And Alana had given me an idea. To execute it, I had to wait until he was sleeping.
I settled down on the floor of the Visitor Center, with nothing under my head. The underground part of the facility had plenty of supplies, at least for a few days, but pillows weren’t one of them. There was going to be no such thing as luxury in this unknown world.
“Night,” Alana said beside me. “We’ll get out of here, Laney. Then we’ll get back to town.”
I gulped, not wanting to remind her what we’d find. Alana was still in denial, and denial pulled back its fist until the worst moment, then hit you in the face. Around me, people slept on the floor in the pitch darkness, and even the fires far away couldn’t light the windows. That was good, I supposed.
I waited until everyone’s breathing leveled out before I dared to stand. Besides, I couldn’t sleep. It was probably only nine or ten at night, and I was a night owl.
David was asleep somewhere. Of course, I couldn’t tell anything with there being so much darkness in here. Alana didn’t move, so I stepped over to where I knew Bethany was lying and stepped towards the front door, where a faint, chilly breeze was coming through the crack.
The bus wasn’t far, only halfway to the guard shack. I let my eyes adjust to the very faint light—and there was a faint orange glow spreading across the smog above, cast there by the fires—and I was glad that the air was making me shiver. Coldness could subdue the smell of the bodies that were still lying some distance from the Visitor Center, waiting for a burial that wouldn’t come.
No crickets chirped. Most of the desert animals wouldn’t come out tonight.
But that didn’t matter. My phone was on the bus.
According to Alana, it was inside a Faraday cage. The bus itself just might have shielded it, and if any satellites were still working, I might–
She’d given me hope.
The bus looked like a black metal loaf against the faint orange of the sky. I ran with no flashlight, basing my movements on memory.
Then I found the bus and slid my hand along the metal until I found the door, still hanging open. I climbed on and blinked, feeling my way along the seats. The bus smelled of leather and cheap fabric once I got past the disaster at the steering wheel. My lunch pail was back here, and I still had my key in my pocket.
No. My pail wouldn’t protect my phone. It was just aluminum, and the EMP that had rained down had taken out the bus. Surely it couldn’t have–
I felt under seat after seat, feeling backpack after backpack.
And then my fingers brushed cold metal.
My pail. I slid into the seat, glad it was towards the back of the bus. Just earlier today, I had set it down, thinking I’d be back to retrieve my phone in two hours, max. Now I was in another world, and my heart pounded as I tried to work the key into the little lock.
Without my vision, it was almost impossible. But at last, the key slid inward, and the lock snapped free.
I caught it and the key before it fell to the floor, and when I opened the pail–
“It’s alive.”
A red light blinked, and the world seemed to shift under me. Though I’d never noticed my power light before, right now it was the brightest thing in the universe. It was even brighter than the hypernova’s beam that had destroyed the world in a matter of minutes.
I set my pail on my lap, and I understood.
My phone had survived inside a double Faraday cage. The bus and the lunch box. Placing my lunch box on the floor just might have grounded it enough to let the EMP flow around my phone and not into it.
It must have.
I swiped and squinted as the phone burst to life. My app icons glowed, and though there was a red bar over the Wi-Fi, it was alive.
“You have a phone.”
I jumped and let a scream escape my throat, and I rose and turned my phone towards whoever else was on the bus. The blonde girl squinted, and I realized Bethany had followed me outside.
“Bethany,” I breathed. “I didn’t hear you get on the bus.” I lowered the phone as panic hit me. How much charge did it have left? Dad always made me charge it every night, just in case something bad happened.
And lo-and-behold, something bad had happened.
“I’m sorry. I was still awake, and you stepped over me, and I thought it would be good to get out and get some fresh air before David the Terrible starts ordering us around.”
So I wasn’t the only person who didn’t like the way David was running things. But Bethany must have been taking the Alana approach to the matter. I should have known. She had tried to raise a stink when Mr. Connors wouldn’t let her join the Programming Club, and gotten blown off. But I sensed she wouldn’t try it again with our lives on the line.
“That’s fine,” I said, glad to have someone out here with me. “I was the only person who listened to Mrs. Taney and left my phone on the bus. I think it survived because it was on the bus and in a metal lunchbox.”
“People used to call you the construction worker,” Bethany said.
“Yeah. I know. It’s a construction worker lunch pail.” I didn’t want to explain to her why I kept it. Alana knew, but Bethany didn’t.
She sat down in the seat opposite me as I checked the charge. I still had a ninety-one percent, mainly because I had used no apps all day. I pulled down my notifications as Bethany watched in silence.
“No one called you?” Crazy hope filled her voice. “Someone has to be out there.”
“People are out there. They just don’t think that we’re still here,” I said. “Unless someone involved in this Collider program comes looking for those who might have survived in the mine, then we have to get out on our own.”
“And when could they even do that?” Bethany asked. “I’m not one for waiting around.”
I forced a smile at her. “I know you’re not.” I was shocked she had said little since this all started. Mostly Bethany hung out with Christina. “You know, Mr. Connors rejected me from the Programming Club, too. But I didn’t go and complain, because I didn’t see how it would have done any good.”
“You should have,” Bethany said. “He’s been rejecting all the girls for years, and no one does anything.”
I didn’t want to tell her she had just made my point. “Did anything. I’m sure Mr. Connors is dead by now. He’s not a problem anymore.”
“True,” Bethany said after a pause. “See if you can get any calls out. And don’t show that to David.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” Could I trust Bethany? Well, I had no choice now. She knew my one secret. She, and possibly Alana. “He’d take my phone just to have more control. I’ve already gotten on David’s bad side.”
“I can tell. He was unfair to you earlier. We should lie low around him just until we get out of this facility. Then we can split.”
So, she was taking Alana’s approach. I wished I was calm enough to do that. The apocalyptic world wasn’t much different from the previous world, then. All the bad parts had carried over and amplified.
“No calls. I’m sure my dad has tried, but we have zero bars,” I said. “To get any calls out, we’ll have to get out of here.”
“That’s why I came out here after you. I was hoping you’d find something useful.”
I turned the phone off, because there was no point in using it right now. Not wanting to leave it in the lunch box, I stuffed it in my back pocket, where the shape could hide in tissues, old receipts, and anything else I could stuff in there. David would
n’t want to risk plunging his hand into used Kleenex, would he?
No. He was too much of a wimp.
He would, however, suspect my metal lunch pail. I’d keep nothing important in it for now.
“You have a plan for getting out?” I ask her.
“Not quite.” Bethany grabbed the seat as the phone finished powering down. We had to save the charge. It was precious, and when I announced to the others that I had a phone, mutiny would break out if the battery was dead. I didn’t know when, if ever, I would have the chance to charge it again.
“So, what’s your idea?” I was willing to hear from anyone but David, even Christine.
“We might find Dr. Shetlin. She couldn’t have gone far.”
“But she took a tractor.”
Bethany leaned forward in the dark. I could only tell because the seat squeaked. “Exactly. She would have had to stop and hide from the sun, though. She would have had to stop not too far from here. That means we could walk and find her before the sun comes up. And she might tell us if any help is coming.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bethany and I climbed out of the bus a few seconds later. I had to admit she had a good point. Bethany was a go-getter if there ever was one, and I was glad that I seemed to have another ally out here in this place.
We could find Dr. Shetlin, and maybe even Dr. Marson. Both of them had left us here and help hadn’t arrived yet. Of course, with the UV rays, neither of them would have made it far before having to find shelter. They’d have to reach the unaffected zone before even thinking of sending rescue back for us.
Both of them knew we were alive. I just wished Dr. Marson had let us know what his plans were before bailing.
And Dr. Shetlin had a working phone, too. Dr. Marson must have one as well. He was underground when the disaster struck.
“How are we going to see as we walk down the road?” I asked, because it was a good question.
We gave the guard shack a wide berth. The guard was still inside, and the dead sedan stood there beside him. No one had pulled him out of the small building. Who had David assigned that lovely job?
Then Bethany and I were out on the road. I felt the smooth concrete under my shoes. “She would have gone left,” Bethany said. “I saw the Arizona map David has. There’s nothing to the south of us.”
“Yeah, he has to be in control of that, too, plus the map of the facility,” I said. I wanted to ask Bethany what we’d do if David caught us sneaking out, but I kept those thoughts to myself.
With my precious phone off and safely tucked into my pocket, I walked alongside Bethany, leaving the Visitor Center behind. It felt good to just walk under the night sky, even if it had an unearthly orange glow.
The glow made it just barely possible to see, however. Without the flashlight, my eyes had adjusted.
I could barely make out the yellow dashes on the road, and the surrounding desert looked like a ballroom of pure darkness except for the fires that seemed as if they would never go out. Once in a while, I caught a whiff of smoke and burned wood. Some of the scraggly trees had met their end, and so had all the animals of the desert and the brush that they lived in.
However, after we had been walking for fifteen minutes through the dark, a lone cricket chirped.
Bethany stopped with the scraping of her shoes. “Hear that?”
“Yes.” I swallowed. Maybe a few of the bugs had made it through, and there were small things scattered around in burrows after all.
“That’s good to hear. Maybe the guy on the radio was wrong and some other people survived out here, including Dr. Shetlin. She left towards the end of the radiation, though. And we don’t know about Dr. Marson.”
The cricket stopped, and I wondered if it was slowly dying.
“How far do you think we could get on foot?” I asked, already running the calculations in my head. “How long does it take to walk a mile? I forgot what figure that was.”
“Are you thinking we could reach that gas station we passed on the way here?” Bethany got walking again. “None of that food will be safe.”
“It’s still a shelter,” I said. “Dr. Shetlin could be there.”
“Anyway, I think we can cover a mile in fifteen minutes. I think I heard that in gym class once. I never thought that place would be useful.”
“Thanks.” Weight settled on my shoulders. Colton was fifty miles away.
That was way too many minutes, not counting rest breaks.
And far too many calories.
We’d never make it on foot before our bodies shut down.
Or before we killed each other.
And then Bethany held her hand up to her forehead. “I can’t tell for sure since there’s barely any light out here, but is that a vehicle up ahead?”
I stopped in the middle of the road, because it wasn’t as if anyone would drive here soon. And I squinted. Far ahead, another fire was still going, just embers by now, and this orange glow appeared to have gone across the road, between us and the gas station. I gulped, dread pooling in that space underneath my heart. Sure, the concrete itself would never burn, but the last thing we needed was smoke and other fumes invading our lungs. And to get out of here, we’d have to cross that region of embers.
“That’s maybe a mile away,” Bethany said, answering my next question. “I see something dark against that creepy orange light.”
So did I. A large, boxy shape stood inside the stretched pool of heat, as if a giant robot had fallen there and crumbled. I couldn’t tell what it was for sure, but its angles and general shape didn’t look natural.
“Is that whatever Dr. Shetlin took to ram open the gate?” I blurted it out before I could stop myself. Of course I had to leap to the worst conclusion.
Bethany walked ahead of me, feet clicking on the dark road. “Whatever it is, we have to check it out. Maybe she had to stop and take shelter because the sun got too bad during the day.”
A ball of nerves gathered in my gut and I knew full well what we’d find when we got to the mysterious shape. And that wouldn’t be Dr. Shetlin announcing that her phone got through to someone in the alive zone. But I didn’t tell Bethany that. Her pace told me she needed to see some good news, and I didn’t have the heart to smash it.
Dr. Shetlin wouldn’t have stopped in the middle of a burn zone because of the UV rays.
As we approached the orange glow and the flashing embers, I realized we were nearing the smoldering remains of a wildfire that had raged through here earlier in the day, probably on the stiff breeze that had kicked up after the burst hit. I couldn’t see the other side of the burned wasteland. This fire had been big. It had chewed through scrub and small trees, probably starting somewhere deep in the desert until it reached the road and crossed it. I shuddered, and not just because it was cold. With the wind like this, the flames would have raced over this place quickly.
And they would have overtaken the vehicle on the road, which I now realized was another work tractor, much like the one Jerome had started back in the hangar.
“Bethany, this will not be good,” I said as we entered the hell zone.
Heat belched up from the ground, where the remains of grass, shrubs, and sticks still glowed orange. Small flames still danced here and there. Bethany and I moved to the middle of the road, where it was cooler.
Then she stopped.
“I think that you’re right. Dr. Shetlin must have taken this thing and had to stop here.”
The work tractor was just a black silhouette against the hell scape, a few hundred feet in, and standing dead center in the road as if the driver had tried to escape from the flames. The smell of smoke and burned wood hit me, and I coughed as Bethany and I pressed forward. Though the flames themselves had died, the world here had turned into a massive, spent campfire, with glowing embers everywhere, and I knew if we stepped off the road, we’d kick up flames around our feet, as if we were walking through the infernal underworld.
“Stay on the concrete,�
�� I said.
“Got it.” Bethany nodded. “At least it’s warmer here. And we know that another wildfire will not come through here tomorrow, right?”
She was right. There was nothing left to burn. So soon this route would be safe. Heat rose from the embers. And so long as we stayed in the middle of the road, it was a relief to have it wash over my skin. But my relief didn’t last long. We had little distance to cross to reach the tractor. And it was a tractor, just like the one we had back at our base of operations. The orange glow reflected off yellow. The glass dome that should have held a driver, but was now empty.
Dr. Shetlin was nowhere in sight.
She had turned the tractor partway, as if she had been trying to turn around before she–
“She jumped out.” Bethany finished my thoughts.
I breathed in as relief coursed through my chest and I lowered my shoulders. She wasn’t in the vehicle. That was both good and bad news. But where–
The wind shifted, and then another smell hit me.
Burned meat.
I stopped. Bethany did, too, and my stomach lurched.
And I blurted, “Don’t go any farther. Dr. Shetlin tried to escape. And she didn’t make it.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bethany did just what I said not to do and stepped forward.
I grabbed her shoulder. “Do not go any further, unless it’s for taking the tractor. That one probably still runs if it’s not out of gas.” My mind hardened into obsidian. Every thought turned simple and numb. That was the way to go.
I would never eat anything grilled ever again, even if we get out of this place. I couldn’t see where Dr. Shetlin fell to the firestorm that raged over her