Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘How’s she doing?’ Angela demanded.

  ‘Angela! You attacked Alkhed.’

  ‘He was being an asshole, and we don’t have the time. Now, how is she?’

  Saul took a breath and went over to their daughter. ‘Okay I guess. Her lungs are still getting enough oxygen into her blood.’

  ‘Good. We’re going straight to Yantwich and the gateway, it’s only sixty klicks. Now listen, if she starts getting critical, you’ll have to deal with it, okay?’

  ‘I’m a farmer! We needed the paramedics, we needed David and Alkhed.’

  ‘We’ve been looking after her for eight months. Us, just as much as them. You’ve learned the basics, they gave us those emergency courses, now fucking concentrate. This is the mother of all emergencies. You have to keep her alive until we reach Miami and a hospital.’

  ‘I . . . yes, yes, okay. Shit, Angela, you toxed Alkhed out of his head.’

  ‘I did what I had to. This world is ending, Saul. The Zanth is swarming, and there’s no happy ending. But the three of us, our family, we’re going to survive it.’

  ‘I get it. I do now. I really get it. Drive, get us onto the freeway. Go on, get us to Miami. I’ll look after her until then, I promise.’

  ‘Okay then.’

  With everyone driving on manual, the road was thick with slow-moving bad-tempered traffic. ‘Screw this,’ Angela announced, and swung the wheel. The ambulance bumped over the central barrier and started off the wrong way along the other side, lights and siren blazing. The few cars heading towards her dodged to the side. Several other cars on the outbound side pushed over the centre and started tail-gating her.

  Three times she grazed cars coming the other way. Then they were past the suburbs, and more and more people were using both sides of the road to get to the freeway. There wasn’t a cop car in sight. They slowed to a crawl.

  Angela looked round, seeing the slim thread of the raised freeway a couple of kilometres ahead. They were rolling forward at walking pace with the rain bouncing off the asphalt, smearing everyone’s lights. The siren and strobes made no difference, no one was budging, no one giving up their place in the giant crunched-up queue.

  Something dropped out of the base of the clouds, a lump of debris, Zanth or Thunderthorn – it was impossible to tell. Flame and black smoke followed it down. It hit the ground over where she knew the Conolley farm was.

  That decided it for her. She turned the wheel sharply again, and they went bouncing over the verge and down into the drainage ditch.

  ‘Angela!’ Saul moaned.

  ‘This is a rural area, ambulances are designed to get across virgin country here. A ditch isn’t any problem.’

  She began to accelerate, with the wheelbase straddling the stream trickling along the bottom of the grassy ditch. Memories from long ago bubbled up to help her; a thousand-kilometre rally she and Shasta had taken part in on Nagpur. Driving big luxury 4x4s through the Slapan plains and into the Donrital Mountains where the majestic Antrodyiils soared on the thermals. It had been tough but she had mastered the fundamentals of off-road driving.

  After five minutes they were at the freeway, and she aimed the ambulance at the slope where the dyke curved round, engaging torque management, sending the vehicle grinding up the spike-grass to lumber out onto the slip road’s verge. Cars scattered at the unexpected appearance of the bigger vehicle, and she jammed them into a gap, ignoring the honking horns and screamed insults. At least no one had shot at them yet.

  On the freeway, the pace picked up, though people were still driving too close. The lightstorm above the planet, up where the valiant Thunderthorns were flying, was increasing. They were still thirty klicks out from Yantwich when the first real shoal of debris punctured the base of the grim cloud. Whatever it was, the mass had started to split apart in the atmosphere as impact shocks pummelled away at its cohesion. Thirty or forty fireballs thundered down, drawing long filthy contrails behind them, their seething heads rippling out shockwaves. The concussions in the lower, denser atmosphere were fracturing the material at an increasing rate, splitting them into new flocks of lethal incandescence. They smashed onto the fields on the south of the freeway, kicking up huge plumes of soil and water. Angela saw a combine harvester flung thirty metres into the air, tumbling in a slow twirl. Then the shockwaves and sonic booms swept across the road.

  At first Angela thought something had crashed into the side of the ambulance. It was shoved violently across the road, forcing her to swerve frantically to avoid the low crash barrier at the side. In front of her she saw two smaller cars flip over on their sides. Several did strike the barrier, one corkscrewing round, the others bouncing back with big dints in the side. A van smacked into the offside rear corner of the ambulance, sending it shuddering and skidding sideways until she fought it back level.

  Nobody stopped to help those that had stalled or crashed. A couple of kilometres further along, when the injured had staggered out of their crumpled-up cars to shelter on the side of the road, they waved urgently at the ambulance. Angela kept on going.

  The clouds were breaking up, taking the rains away from Yantwich. She could see downtown’s meagre cluster of skyscrapers on the horizon now. But the clearing sky was plagued with fluctuating light from the fusion bombs and a deeper more persistent scarlet radiance from rifts that were expanding despite the best efforts of the Thunderthorn pilots. New Florida’s own sun was slowly losing its dominance as the rifts grew to engulf space around the planet. Okeechobee had vanished altogether.

  More battle debris came hurtling down in flame. Angela’s e-i reported it couldn’t find any net to link to. And the traffic was relentless. Each on-ramp was jammed solid. Cars at the front were simply shunting their way into the traffic zooming along the freeway. More and more she was seeing cars in the other carriageway heading in the same direction as her.

  ‘Angela,’ Saul called. ‘Her oxygen rate is falling.’

  Angela swore as a big pick-up truck cut her up. A blazing comet arched over the freeway, spitting out a barrage of gravel-sized shards that hit the asphalt like glowing bullets. She heard two thud into the ambulance’s bodywork. The car on her left veered sharply. ‘Deal with it,’ she shouted back at him.

  Signs for the gateway were starting to appear along the side of the freeway. She let out a little gasp of relief when she saw they only had ten kilometres to go. The disintegrating comet landed on a timber merchant a kilometre off the freeway, sitting in its own everglade clearing. She saw it in the rear-view mirror. The whole site was obliterated in a second, vanishing beneath a wave of flame and soil.

  Eight kilometres from the gate a big convoy of armoured personnel carriers and giant Terrain Jeeps were racing down the carriageway taking them away from Yantwich. Red strobes and dazzling headlights heralded their passage; the cars using that carriageway had to get out of the way fast, pushing their way back onto the right side of the freeway.

  When she passed the lead Terrain Jeep she saw the HDA emblem on the side and felt like cheering. The convoy just kept coming, there were hundreds of vehicles, carrying thousands of troops. A little further on, HDA vehicles were parked up on the verge, marines with long automatic rifles were poised on both sides of the freeway, watching the traffic. All the drivers started to calm down, slowing and keeping a reasonable distance. The horns fell silent. Civilization and order had returned.

  It took another nine minutes to cover the last five kilometres to the gateway. The sky was darkening now, a malaised red shimmer from the rifts was obscuring the sun. Angela knew it would never recover. The only white light they saw now came from the nukes, whose blasts were increasing in frequency. Smoke and fine particle debris clotted the lower atmosphere. Material kept raining down from above, most of it bursting apart as it arrived sketching billowing black smoke trails, spreading smaller splinters wide, smoke lines multiplying.

  The HDA had taken complete control of the approach to the gateway, channelling vehicles fleeing from
the city into the stream that poured off the end of the freeway. Checkpoints and barriers had gone, there was a single dividing line of red steel bollards down the middle. The ambulance slowed to a crawl in the queue that stretched along the last kilometre. And still HDA troops and vehicles came through from Earth, rushing to help where they could.

  Five minutes of the ambulance crawling forward at walking pace, and they passed through the gateway to Florida where the stars sparkled in a sky that was still two hours before dawn. The gateway district in Weston, due west of Fort Lauderdale, occupied the whole Shenandoah district south of the 595, with big arterial roads feeding in from the 595’s interchange with the 75. Here, it was state troopers on traffic duty; they were a lot more excitable than the HDA marines on the other side, waving their guns around like high-school kids at a game as they ordered everyone onto the 595.

  Angela’s e-i told her it was acquiring the transnet, and she pulled out available routes. The ambulance’s auto warned her there were strict traffic protocols in force, and all vehicles were being advised to switch to auto for correct management. The greater Miami traffic macromesh was clearing the freeways of all local traffic, which given the time of morning was relatively easy. Priority was for HDA convoys coming in from their local bases and heading to the three gateways; and to get the refugees clear. The primary objective already activated by the Governor was to keep the traffic flowing, preventing any kind of jam around the gateway. The other two New Florida gateways in greater Miami at Kendall and Boca Raton were undergoing identical traffic controls. Freeway off-ramps were being closed, forcing the refugees north where designated reception and onward transit centres on abandoned military bases were being opened ready to process however many of New Florida’s twenty million inhabitants managed to get out. Compassion aside, the one thing the district mayors and state Governor wanted to avoid at all costs was the refugees to swamp the existing greater Miami area.

  The e-i found the best local paediatric centre, the Dan Marino Centre attached to the Cleveland Clinic Hospital. It sat on the side of the 75 just four kilometres south of the gateway. The metamesh and state troopers and highway patrol cars had sealed off the access roads to the southbound 75.

  She requested clearance, declaring a medical emergency. The metamesh AI refused permission for the route. A file came back saying medical facilities were being made available at the reception and onward transit centres. All refugees were required to use them.

  ‘Hell!’ Angela exclaimed. The freeway restrictions already covered the whole of the 95 up to Palm Bay. By the time she got there the prohibition would likely be extended. Westbound, the 75 was open to refugees; she could get across the National Preserve to Naples where there was a reasonable hospital. But that would take hours. And the Dan Marino was minutes away. Minutes.

  ‘How is she?’ Angela asked.

  ‘The resuscitator is on,’ Saul said in a frightened voice. ‘I think I did it right, her blood is still showing as oxygenated.’

  ‘All right. We’re going to a hospital. Hang on.’ She was all for smashing past the squad cars parked across the road, except the troopers had guns and the way everyone was wired they’d shoot without much provocation. Instead she told the auto to take the 75 west.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Saul shouted. ‘We should go north. There’s a centre an hour away at speed.’

  ‘And that’s going to have a specialist unit which can treat Rebka for sure?’ she spat. ‘Shut up and let me deal with this. I have to make a call.’

  It wasn’t an access code she’d ever expected to use again. The mystery was why it was still even in her address cache. She really should have wiped it sometime in the last eight years. Really, she should. Her e-i made the call.

  ‘Angela?’ Housden asked. ‘My God, it’s been for ever. How are you? Where are you?’

  Angela hardened her face, fighting the lump in her throat. He’d taken the call. Actually taken it. She’d been bracing herself for his e-i to tell her to go to hell. Not all New Monaco residents were filth after all. ‘I’m in Miami. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t call unless I had to. Housden, I need help.’

  ‘Miami? Shit, Angela, be careful. A Zanthswarm has been declared on New Florida, I only found out about it a couple of hours ago. That whole planet is going to come knocking down your door.’

  ‘Housden,’ she said. ‘I’m one of the refugees.’ All she could think was: two hours ago? How did he know then? She hadn’t even started jogging two hours ago. So much of New Monaco life she had forgotten.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right. Of course, I should have guessed. A new world. That’s damn bad luck.’

  ‘Housden, I need to get to the Dan Marino Centre at the Cleveland Clinic Hospital, but the National Guard are blocking the off-ramps. Do you know anyone in the Governor’s office?’

  ‘No. But the family machine can swing it, you know that. What do you need?’

  Angela studied the map her e-i was throwing across her netlens glasses. ‘I need to get off the 75 at the Glades Parkway.’

  ‘It’s done. Or it will be by the time you get there. Send me your vehicle licence code.’

  ‘Thank you, Housden. I mean that. You were my last hope.’

  ‘Hey, it’s nothing. Ah, the file’s here. Angela, that’s an ambulance. Are you injured?’

  ‘No Housden. It’s my daughter. I’ve got to get her to the doctors.’

  ‘You had kids? Aww, Angela, that’s great. I have two myself now. We should get them together some time.’

  He didn’t understand, she raged in silent mortification, he knows my name, but he doesn’t know how life is lived in the real world. ‘She’s sick, Housden, really sick.’

  ‘If she’s your daughter she’ll pull through. There was never anyone tougher, Angela. That’s what I always adored about you.’

  ‘Goodbye, Housden. You were the greatest.’

  ‘Goodbye, Angela. Good luck.’

  Angela drove steadily in the pre-dawn light. This section of the 75 was called Alligator Alley, a broad six-lane freeway with a big drainage waterway running along the northern side, forming a border to the vast Everglades Wildlife Park.

  ‘Who was that?’ Saul asked quietly.

  Angela supposed she’d been talking out loud rather than the usual throat whisper; he’d have heard her half of the conversation, picked up the emotional tone. ‘Old friend,’ she said with a dry mouth. ‘I used up my last favour.’

  ‘Seriously? You know people who can order state governors around?’

  ‘It’s not like that, not at their level. Everything is reciprocal.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Just leave it. Rebka needed him, okay. Nothing else matters.’

  There were five highway patrol cars parked to block the Glades Parkway off-ramp, and two big personnel carriers from the National Guard backing them up. Angela slowed the ambulance to a halt by the first patrol car. An officer in armoured uniform was on the side of the road waiting for them. She lowered the window.

  ‘Ms DeVoyal?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s me.’ And she could imagine Saul’s face behind her, his hurt and confusion.

  ‘I’ve got orders to escort you to the Dan Marino Centre,’ the officer said in a voice which told anyone listening that he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You must have a very important patient in there, the order came direct from the Governor’s office.’

  ‘My daughter.’

  That seemed to satisfy him, though it was clear he wanted to know why she was in the driver’s seat. ‘Okay, follow me.’

  *

  Four days later, on the day HDA command shut down their New Florida operation and pulled their last people back through the gateways, Angela and Saul were sitting in the office of Dr Elyard, Dan Marino’s head of genetics. The doctor came in wearing a white clinic coat, looking vaguely harried, the sign of all department heads. He was a short man who was putting on a lo
t of weight, a receding hairline exposed a wide brow that was pricked with sweat despite the air-con.

  He sat behind his blue retro-Coulsmith desk and gave them a tight smile. ‘We had Rebka’s genetic assay back yesterday from the Beijing Genomics Institute. Sorry it’s taken a while for us to review it. Half of my junior staff are away volunteering at the refugee centres. However, I’ve been over the results myself. I must say I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘In what way?’ Saul asked.

  The doctor took off his frameless netlens glasses and started polishing them. ‘The team treating Rebka at Palmville County General were correct, there is an underlying systemic problem. We determined it when we sequenced both of your genomes as well.’

  Angela felt the blood leave her cheeks. After they’d sorted out Rebka’s respiratory issue with a temporary oxygenator shunt, taking the strain off her little lungs, the Dan Marino team had gone after the problem of her multiple disorders with considerable vigour. Even Angela’s gold star insurance didn’t cover all of the tests, she had to pay the excess out of a secondary portfolio in which she’d invested the money from her New Monaco jewellery. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked coldly.

  ‘Mrs Howard,’ the doctor said. ‘Excuse my bluntness, but we’ve never seen a genome like yours before. You’re a one-in-ten, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’ Saul grunted.

  ‘A one-in-ten refers to a specific artificial sequence,’ the doctor said. ‘It reduces normal ageing factors in a human body after puberty.’

  ‘How did that happen?’ Saul asked dumbly.

  ‘It’s a germline process,’ the doctor explained. ‘We also noticed some considerable improvements made to your organ functions and the immune system. You have quite a genetic profile, Mrs Howard.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Rebka?’ Angela asked. ‘Hasn’t she inherited all of them?’

  ‘That’s the problem, I’m afraid. You must have been a very early generation.’