by D. L. Orton
“Yes, I know how to use a compass, Isabella. I’m the one who taught you how to use one, remember?”
She rolls her eyes. “We should be able to see the raised freeway after we pass the second fence. It’ll take us north and then northwest. Last I heard, the bridge over the James was still standing, but if it’s gone, there’s another one ten miles to the west. Either one will get us where we need to go.”
“Maybe this isn’t such a shit plan.”
“Thank you. It’s a straight shot on the old interstate to Warm Springs, Colorado, and the mountain is a half hour drive further. I have the GPS coordinates that James gave me.”
Gave me.
“Are you ready?” she asks and puts on her backpack.
“What about your vaccine?” I ask.
“I took an injection this morning, and they’re good for twelve hours. I won’t need another one until tonight at six.” She pats the side pocket of her backpack. “Everything’s in here.”
I stare at her for a moment and then nod. “Let’s blow this popsicle st—”
There’s a dog bark, and a moment later, the door slides open.
Bearhart comes racing through the crack, dragging his leash and heading straight for Bella.
And then Soleil steps in—holding a Glock.
“Morning, Dr. Nadales,” I say. “I heard your vaccine works for twelve hours now. Congratulations.”
She points the gun at me. “What are you doing here?”
“Going home,” Bella says, ruffling the dog’s ears and then standing up. “What are you doing with Bearhart?”
“I just gave him the latest vaccine. I was going to test it Outside,” Soleil says, glancing between me and her mother. “I brought the gun for self-defense.”
She glances at the wheelchair with the wig and flowery clothes, putting two and two together. “David said you might try something like this, but I didn’t believe him.”
Bella puts her hands on her hips. “If you want to stop me, you’ll have to shoot me.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Mom.” Soleil walks over to the control panel. “I’ll just override the airlock controls until security gets here.”
“No, you won’t.” Bella walks over to her daughter, stopping when the muzzle of the Glock touches her chest. “Because that would be the same as killing me, sweetie. Take the dog and get in the airlock, Diego. We’re taking Bearhart with us.”
“But—”
“Do it.”
I pick up his leash. “Come on, boy. We’re going for a ride.”
Soleil lowers the gun. “Mom, I need Diego to finish work on the vaccine.”
“No you don’t, Soleil—and we both know it.”
They stand there staring at each other, both of them strong-willed, whip-smart, and leaking tears.
To my surprise, Soleil nods. “I may still need him if there are unforeseen complications.”
“He’ll be in Colorado with me—at least for a little while. I suggest you pack up your lab and get out there as soon as possible.”
Soleil smiles at her mother. “It feels like going home, doesn’t it?”
Bella nods. “I did the best I could raising you, sweetheart.” She pushes a lock of hair back from her daughter’s face. “I’m sorry it wasn’t… what it could have been.”
“Oh, Mom,” Soleil says and puts her arms around her mother. “I don’t blame you for what happened.”
We hear shouting out in the park.
Soleil takes a syringe out of her coat pocket and offers it to her mother. “Here’s the rest of the dose for Bearhart. He only needs half a cc.”
Bella nods, too choked-up to reply.
“Go,” Soleil says and steps away from her mother. “Once the cycle starts they’ll have to wait until it finishes.”
Bella takes the syringe and follows me into the airlock—and then turns back to her daughter. “Thank you, Soleil. I love you more than you could ever know.”
“I love you, too, Mom.” She presses the Cycle Out button and turns to me. “Take good care of her, okay?”
I nod and put my arm around Bella. “She turned out pretty damn well, if you ask me.”
We watch the door slide shut and then lock. There’s a hissing sound as the positive pressure increases and the numbers on the status screen count down from thirty. I walk over to the door and gaze out into a beautiful, cloudless morning.
Only Dave’s Humvee isn’t parked where it should be.
I press my forehead against the thick glass and scan the area around the biodome. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Bella says, still looking through the small window at Soleil.
The supplies for repairing the biodome are stacked on the trailer of the old Vespa scooter, but Dave’s SUV is nowhere to be seen.
“Where the hell is it?” I say.
“What are you talking about?” Bella comes over to me, pulling something out of her pack.
“Kirk’s car is gone.” I glance at the Glock she’s holding. It’s the same model as Soleil’s. “Where’d you get that?”
“David keeps a drawer full of them in the bedroom, but I insisted they be unloaded. It took me a while to remember where I’d hidden the bullets.”
I give her the eyebrow.
“In a cereal box in the storage closet—Corn Pops.”
“Hah.”
She tries to hand the gun to me, but I refuse to take it.
“Do you know how to aim and fire it?” I ask. “As I recall, you refused to let me teach you.”
She shortens the puppy’s leash a bit. “David insisted I learn back when everything was falling apart.”
“Remind me to thank him.” I take Bella’s other hand as the outer door slides open. “How do you feel about motorbikes?”
“I’ve never ridden one,” she says. “Why?”
“Looks like I get to drive after all.”
34
Call the Shots
Lani
The late fall air is nippy, but the sun is warm on my back as I sit on an outcropping of rocks and eat my lunch. I’m just below the summit of the mountain that encloses the Magic Kingdom, and I have a digital camera full of radio tower images in my pack.
I gaze out over the eastern plains and sip my water, so happy I could sing.
David should have Shannon back today.
Just thinking about hearing her voice makes me want to sit by the radio all day—and I wish I could have. James offered to climb up here in that old environment suit I found, but it didn’t make sense. It would have been nearly impossible for him to clamber over the huge boulders and up the steep scree in that bulky thing.
David needs information on what’s up here, and I’m the one to give it to him.
The rockslide that took out the radio looks to have happened years ago, but as far as I can tell, the tower is undamaged. Only the underground cable connecting it to the Magic Kingdom has been severed. I took lots of photos of the damage. I’m no electrician, but I think reconnecting it will be straightforward.
Once David gets here with the proper tools, we should have the power back on in no time.
As I’m packing up to head back down, I spy a wisp of orange smoke coming from below me on the mountain. I shift my position to get a better look and realize it’s a signal flare—one of the sort Madders keeps in his plane.
He was planning to fly in last night and drive up today, but he must have run into a problem. I tell myself it’s just a flat tire or a washed out road, but some part of me knows it’s worse than that. Madders would know how to handle either of those.
I stuff everything back into my pack and scramble down the rocky slope, dread spilling into my chest with every footstep.
It takes me ten minutes to get back to the concrete ledge and another ten to follow the road down to Madders.
He’s sitting in a military-issued jeep loaded to the gills with supplies—but it’s parked precariously on the edge of the road, one of the back wheels up
in the air.
He waves when he sees me but doesn’t get out of the vehicle.
Uh-oh.
“Are you okay?” I ask when I get there, out of breath from jogging. There’s blood on the inside of his faceplate, but his suit looks undamaged.
He forces a smile. “I’m fine, Lani. Just a little disoriented.”
“Disoriented?” I check the readout on his display. His pulse is fast, but everything else is within the high-normal range. “What happened, Madders?”
“I lost the vision in one eye, and my right arm quit working. But before I could pull over, I got dizzy, and the next thing I knew, I was in this ditch.”
I put my hands on the sides of his helmet and study his pupils. He looks exhausted and scared, but his eyes appear normal. “Any headache?” I ask.
“No.”
“It sounds like you had a stroke, Madders.”
Now that I think about it, it’s not surprising given his age and the amount of stress he’s under. He’s been hauling equipment, loading trucks, flying the plane, and worrying about the safety of all those people for months.
You should have seen it coming.
“Can you lift your hands above your head?” I ask “And hold them up there?”
“I think so.” He tries.
Neither arm drifts down.
“Good. You can relax now. Smile for me?” I say and take a closer look at his face. As far as I can tell, there’s no muscle atrophy, and his speech is fine. “I’m guessing it was a TIA, transient ischemic attack or mini-stroke. It’s serious—we should get you inside the Magic Kingdom so I can take a closer look—but they don’t usually cause permanent damage.”
He nods, looking relieved. “That’s good to hear.”
“How about the crash?” I ask. “I can see you hit your forehead. Is there anything else that hurts?”
“No. I was nearly stopped by the time I lost control. So it’s just a bump. But if I get out of the driver’s seat, I think the jeep might just tip over the edge.”
I walk around the back and take a look. He’s right. The jeep is high-center on some rocks, and his weight is preventing the vehicle from flipping over.
“There’s a winch in the boot,” he says. “If you hook it up to one of those trees, you could pull me back up on the road.”
It’s not quite as simple as he makes it sound, but thirty minutes later, we have the jeep back on all four wheels and all the supplies reloaded.
Ten minutes later, Madders backs it into the access tunnel in front of the blast door. I hop out, press my palm to the panel, and wait for James to get to the Control Room.
“How’d the photo shoot go?” James asks, and it takes me a moment to remember what he’s talking about.
“Fine,” I say. “I don’t think it’ll be difficult to reconnect the radio. The main cable was cut by the rockslide, but the tower looks fine.”
“Wish I had known that twenty years ago when Doomsday hit. Could have used the company.”
I motion for Madders to come stand next to me.
“By the way,” James says. “I figured out a way to lower the CO2. I spent the morning testing ideas, and I think I have something that works.”
“I knew you’d figure it out,” I say. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve got.”
“We can celebrate tonight. I’ve been saving some chocolate for a special occasion.”
“James,” I say. “There’s someone I want you to meet…”
I put my arm around Madders and introduce the two men—only to discover they already know each other.
James did some freelance work for Madders when he was a university professor, and the two of them lived on the same block back before things went south.
“Small world,” I say, and then wonder how unlikely that is.
What are the chances that two random men in the country have met before? Pretty damn near zero.
“Don’t know if you’ve heard,” Madders says, “but the Bub folks should be here in the morning. No need to worry about taking care of them right now. They have environment tents and plenty of food—and should be good to set up on that concrete ledge until Kirk gets here.”
“Oh, we can start bringing them in right away,” James says. “I opened up twenty more rooms, and as long as my air freshener works, the water supply holds out, and we don’t drive each other crazy, there’s room for everyone Inside.”
“They’re gonna be mighty happy to hear that,” Madders says, looking like he’s back to himself.
I give his arm a squeeze, glad that his stroke wasn’t any worse.
“Okay, boys,” I say. “Why don’t we haul all this stuff in, have something to eat, and then I can set up the shortwave for the evening chat? I’ll check up on the trucks first and then contact Kirk. I can relay the news on the radio tower, update him on the Bub folks, and finally say hello to my daughter.”
An hour later—after a full checkup for Madders that turns up absolutely nothing of concern—the three of us sit down to an early dinner, including fresh carrots for Benny, canned salmon for us, and warm apple crisp for all.
When Madders sees the spread, he laughs. “Have you been eating like Henry VIII all this time?”
James nods. “I got a greenhouse, a Deepfreeze, and a boxcar full of canned fish—but I would have traded them all for a crate of MREs and one radio that worked.”
At five on the dot, I sit at a card table in the mouth of the access tunnel, flip on the shortwave, and call up the Bub folks. I let them know we’re ready for them tomorrow, answer a couple doctor questions, and then sign off to set up the connection to David in Catersville. I’m so excited to hear Shannon’s voice that I can’t stop smiling, and I have to keep telling myself not to get my hopes up. It could be a week or more until I see her again.
David’s going to bring her back to me. He promised, and he never breaks his promises.
But the moment I lock on to his signal, I know something’s gone terribly wrong.
“Lani,” David says over the staccato sound of what can only be gunfire, “I can’t talk long. We’re up shit’s creek here, and we need to get the hell out before these fuckheads kill someone else.”
My heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest. “W-what’s happening, David? Where’s Shannon?”
“She’s been accused of some sort of crime. Some crazy woman who calls herself ‘the Giver of the Law’ claims Shannon’s an accessory to homicide—”
“They think my d-daughter is a murderer?”
“—which we all know is bullshit, but the old witch won’t listen to reason. Seems Shannon was present when the head honcho got his skull bashed in by his sex-starved teenage son. After the kid killed his father, he forced Shannon to go to the crippled side of the bio—”
“Oh my God, David!”
“There’s air and some battery power in there, Lani, but the whole biodome is teetering on environmental collapse. I couldn’t touch a thing without tipping it over the edge.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before, David? I thought you said the negotiations were going well, that you’d have Shannon back today!”
“They were going well. I’d made a deal with the guy who runs the place—even sealed it with a case of my best bourbon—and then he went and got himself killed. With the old man pushing up daisies and the crown prince on the lam, the political situation went into free fall. I thought once things settled down, they’d see reason—I’ve got a fucking planeload of luxury items sitting on their doorstep—but I was wrong. The batshit old witch took over and claims Shannon is a dangerous fugitive and has to stand tri—”
“My daughter is a dangerous fugitive?”
“Logic and reason are not a part of her vocabulary, babe. She’d happily see the whole biodome burn rather than give a single inch.”
I pound my fist so hard against the table that the radio almost bounces off it. “David, you have to go in there and get her out. Now.”
�
�Yeah,” he says, his voice droll. “I tried. That would be why they’re shooting at us. Some numb-nuts with a high-powered rifle put a hole in the dome a couple days ago, and the autonomic system sealed all the bulkheads. Even if I did get past those idiots with the M16—and believe me, I brought enough firepower to do it—there’s no way to open the bulkheads without killing everyone.”
“But there has to be some way! You can’t just leave her. You built that biod—”
There are more gunshots, and then the sound of metal scraping on metal.
“David?” I shout at the microphone. “David, please!”
“I gotta go, babe. As soon as I get back to C-Bay, I’ll look into other options. Kirk out.”
I sit there in the dark night and stare at the red light on the radio until my hands and face are numb from the cold.
If Madders won’t fly me out to Catersville, I’m going to take the jeep and start driving at first light. I’m going to get my daughter back, if it kills me.
I pack up the radio and head back inside to say goodbye.
35
Duck and Cover
Diego
As the airlock portal closes, I grab a hammer and toss it in between the door and the wall. The mechanism makes a couple of failed attempts to shut and then gives up, causing an alarm to sound.
“That should keep them busy for a while,” I say.
I shove all the stuff off the trailer and toss my pack and the extra bag onto it.
Bella sets her pack next to mine and secures them with a bungee cord from the pile of tools. She picks up an ax and wedges it under her pack.
She leads Bearhart over and pats the trailer. “Hup!”
The dog jumps on between our backpacks, his tail wagging a mile a minute.
“Sit.”
He does.
“Settle.” He looks a bit iffy about it, but he lies down. “Good boy.”
“You think he’ll stay in there?” I ask.