Ill Wind (42 page)

“I sure wish we had some music during all this. That’s what I miss the most. Who’d have thought the Grateful Dead would finally die?” Harris kicked a stone into the gully.

As she stepped down the last rungs from the windmill mast, Iris remembered all the CDs she’d loved to play. The hardest things to live without were coffee and rock
‘n
roll. She dropped to the gravel pad around the mast and turned to Harris and Doog.

“I miss the music too,” she said. “So what are we going to do about it?”

#

Todd Severyn rode his horse through the gates of the Livermore branch of Sandia National Laboratory. Spirals of razor wire crowned the tall fences, but the guard station sat empty. Nobody bothered to impose security anymore. Most of the lab facilities were broken down and unoccupied, but some of the researchers still came in to work, while others camped out in RV trailers in the parking lots.

For a month or so the teams had banded together, frantically trying to find some way to eradicate the petroplague; but as equipment broke down, computers malfunctioned, and the entire complex collapsed, most of them had given up hope. A few still continued plugging away to come up with innovative solutions.

Todd tied Stimpy up front to the bicycle rack and went inside the admin building. The lobby area for welcoming visitors had been turned into a command center. The bright and cheery PR posters for America’s national labs had been replaced by a large map of the United States studded with colored
push-pins
.

One of the administrators, Moira Tibbett, stared at the map with a sheet of paper in hand. She wore a dressy cotton outfit. Tibbett glanced at a list of locations on the paper, fingering a
push-pin
. She squinted at the map like an entomologist about to spear a specimen,
then
jabbed in the push-pin.

“More stuff for the Atlantis Network?” Todd asked. He poured himself a glass of warm sun tea; it tasted good.

“Yeah. Three more stations came on-line this week. For a political dumping ground, FEMA is doing a pretty good job tracking these enclaves and linking us together.” She thrust another
push-pin
into a different location.

Todd lifted his eyebrows; her former disdain for the Federal Emergency Management Agency had come around a hundred and eighty degrees. “So what’s new this morning? Give me some news I can take back to the colony.”

“Well, locally the usual stuff is happening,”
Tibbett
said. “The Livermore city engineers are trying to make sure people have access to enough water. We have a whole lot of problems with just our sewage system. The fire patrols are more organized, but we’ve been lucky so far. And it’s same-old same-old on the food story.”

Todd nodded. At 50,000 people and somewhat isolated, the city of Livermore was probably the right size to weather the petroplague: not so big that it had no way of getting its own supplies, yet large enough to have an infrastructure with some chance of functioning.

“What’s new on the big board?” Todd asked, gesturing with his chin toward the wall map. Tibbett withdrew a
push-pin
and stabbed another set of coordinates, this one in Missouri.

“Kind of ironic actually. Spencer Lockwood at the solar antenna farm in White
Sands,
knows that the remaining smallsats he was supposed to put into orbit are sealed in launch canisters at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. He’s rigged up a way to launch the satellites out in New Mexico, but he can’t get his hands on them.”

Todd scratched his head where the cowboy hat had pushed his brown hair into strange twists. He didn’t know whether to be skeptical or amazed. “We can’t even get our sewer systems running, and this guy wants to get a satellite into orbit?”

Tibbett’s face looked carved out of stone. “Twenty satellites, actually. But if Lockwood says he can do it, believe him. I gave him a tour here not long ago. He’s a real hot-shot.”

Todd looked at the
map,
saw push-pins in New Mexico at the White Sands missile range, another one near Los Angeles in Pasadena. He began to imagine grand schemes, a great expedition across the Southwest hauling the satellites from Pasadena across Arizona into New Mexico. A regular wagon train to the stars!

But it would never come to pass. He said goodbye to Moira Tibbett and headed home to Iris.

Chapter 55

Outside of Albuquerque, concrete buildings and bunkers were set into the side of the hills—”Bayclock’s Empire,” as Navy Lieutenant Bobby Carron had come to think of it. Encircled by four metal fences, the 1000-acre Manzano complex had once served as a storage facility for nuclear weapons; now, Bayclock used the fortress-like bunkers as his headquarters.

The guards outside the chain-link gate popped to attention and threw him a salute as they waved him into the facility. He felt strange wearing an Air Force uniform.

Accompanied by escorts, Bobby hobbled up a series of stairs and entered a fortified building. Bobby gritted his teeth. His still-healing wounds sent tremors of pain through his body.

Concrete walls two feet thick, barred windows, and piles of useless electronic gear made the place seem like a twisted version of a medieval castle. Finally, he passed two more guards standing like moat dragons outside Bayclock’s office.

“Stand at ease, Captain.”

At first Bobby didn’t realize that Bayclock was speaking to him. In the sprawling office the general had commandeered, once-plush carpet edged up to dark wood paneling that had blistered as the glossy coatings had dissolved; military awards, lithographs of fighter aircraft, and school diplomas covered the wall.

“Please come in, Captain. Are you fully recovered from your injuries?” Bayclock waved Bobby into the secure office,
then
slumped in an overstuffed leather chair behind his desk. Narrow window slits barely lit the room.

Bobby stepped forward, stiff and formal as he remembered from his training at the Naval Academy. The memory of the curfew-breaking teenager dangling on the gallows still burned clear in his mind. “It’s lieutenant, sir. Not captain. You didn’t have any Navy uniforms I could wear.”

Bayclock narrowed his eyes,
then
laughed. “That’s right, Lieutenant. Calling you a captain is like promoting you three ranks! Never figured out why the military couldn’t standardize the whole damn rank structure.” He motioned toward one of the chairs. “Go ahead, have a seat.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bobby had expected Bayclock to be some sort of ogre, hunched over his desk and ready to snap necks with his thumbs. Instead, the general had bright eyes, regulation-cropped dark hair, and an easy grace as he folded his hands in front of him. Bayclock held himself poised, continuously taking in his surroundings. It was obvious to Bobby that Bayclock had himself been a fighter pilot; but Bobby felt no rapport with the general. Bayclock inspected him closely. Bobby wondered how he would measure up.

Bayclock pulled a paper from the stack on his desk. He scanned it in the dim light and spoke without looking up. “I’ve kept up with your recovery, glad to see you’re doing better. You’ve been briefed on the situation here—martial law and all that, by the President’s order?”

“Yes, sir.” How could he
not
notice?
After seeing how the general dealt with unrest in the city, Bobby felt extremely uneasy just to be in the same room with Bayclock.

“Some people are savages and want to steal everything in sight. My troops are stretched to the limit, Lieutenant. Every able-bodied person I have is trying to keep the peace in the city. I’m using military finance clerks as squad leaders, aircraft mechanics as forward observers. They serve according to their abilities, and they’re doing a super job, but I can’t ask them anything else.”

“Yes, sir.” Bobby sat straight in his chair, watching the general.
So what’s the point
? This isn’t a social call.

Bayclock continued. “In addition to upholding the law, I’ve got to care for these people, keep the place going in the long run. That means coordinating food expeditions, fixing waterlines, staying in contact with the President in case orders change.”

“So, are communication lines open?” Bobby must have sounded incredulous, because Bayclock snorted.

“The plague didn’t affect the electromagnetic spectrum, Lieutenant, just oil!” Bayclock rocked forward and pushed the paper to Bobby. Bobby caught it as the sheet spun off the edge of the metal surplus desk. “In fact, we’ve intercepted some messages from White Sands coming across the FEMA emergency network.”

Intercepted
?
thought
Bobby, keeping a stone straight face. That was the most important thing he had learned in all his military training—how to smother his reactions. This guy sounded as if he was at war!

“Somehow they’ve reestablished full electrical power down there, using it to run their water pumps. Water pumps! Do you have any idea how many of my people it takes to pump water up from this damned aquifer we’re sitting on top of? That’s a major part of that manpower drain I was talking about. People are getting away with murder because good military personnel are pumping water instead of patrolling the city.

“Now, White Sands is technically under my jurisdiction, and the President has reconfirmed it. We’re all in this mess together, and if those wizards have managed to get back on their feet by producing electricity, then I need it.”

Bobby Carron sat in his chair like a statue, ignoring the pain in his leg and ribs. Shadows in the room highlighted the intensity in Bayclock’s face. He had seen a few squirrelly commanders before, but Bayclock seemed to think he was Napoleon of the Apocalypse!

“I can’t trust any of the damned civilians to head up this expedition—the scientists at Sandia Albuquerque turned tail and deserted their labs at the first sign of a riot; my Phillips Lab troops aren’t much better. I haven’t been able to reach the enclave of researchers up at Los Alamos, and I’ve never trusted those bomb designers anyway. But down in White Sands they’ve made a little Atlantis for themselves.”

The general cracked his knuckles one at a time. It sounded like someone snapping twigs—or neckbones.

“I need someone I can trust, Lieutenant Carron—an
operator
who’s used to working alone and can function when things get tough. In short, I need a fighter pilot.” Bayclock drew himself up, setting his mouth. “When I took this command, I saw it as an opportunity to instill some of the esprit that pilots have . . . you know, the sense of duty that comes from being in an operational fighter unit. These scientists and nonrated pukes have a warped sense of duty, more allegiance to their profession than to the overall mission.”

Bayclock looked suddenly tired, as if the effects of his orders wore at him. “I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not, Lieutenant. I just met you, but I know you wouldn’t be flying fighters unless you had the right stuff, even if you did join the Navy instead of the Air Force.” He smiled wearily.

“A colleague of mine once said, ‘
There
’s two types of people in this world: fighter pilots and weenies.’ Well, I’m surrounded by weenies. What I need is a fighter pilot to head up an expedition to White Sands, then return here with a report.”

Bobby tried to keep the astonishment off his face. The events of the past few weeks swam through his mind—waking up in the ravaged hospital, the execution of looters, seeing the full effects of the petroplague . .
. .
The general probably thought Bobby would be apprehensive about leaving the “security” of a city under martial law.

Bobby saw it as an opportunity to get away from this insanity, but he knew it would be the worst thing in the world for him to show his eagerness. He stood and reached across Bayclock’s desk, extending his hand. “General, you’ve got your man. Where do I sign up?”

#

The horses kept to the side of Interstate 40 east out of Albuquerque, paralleling old Route 66 in the pass between the Sandia and Manzano mountains. The spongy asphalt highway was too soft to bear any weight, and the horses clopped along on the shoulder. Each rider carried several dozen liters of water along with their food rations.

Beside Bobby at the front of the five-person expedition, his assigned escort—a stout, gruff sergeant named Catilyn Morris—had not spoken in an hour. Three scientists trailed behind—two from Sandia’s Albuquerque Labs and one from the Air Force’s Phillips Lab—who would study the White Sands power generators and take back whatever components the general might need in Albuquerque.

The horses walked through the pass. Boulders littered the sides of the barren hill, sloping up on either side like a giant brown funnel that had been cut in half and laid on its side. Although he had lived at barren China Lake for the past two years, Bobby still missed to the thick trees in Virginia where he had grown up, the ocean, and humidity. This seemed like an alien landscape.

Bobby turned to the taciturn woman sergeant beside him. Catilyn Morris was a helicopter mechanic who had flown many times along the corridor to White Sands. Her blond hair was clipped short, accenting her stout frame and full hips. She stood no taller than five feet, but she rode high in the saddle, confident.

“Seems like we’re making good time,” Bobby said. “How long do you think it’ll take to get to White Sands?”