Outland (World-Lines Book 1) (24 page)

Aug 16              Suzie

The sun was out again today in Rivendell. Suzie and Joy had decided to take a break. It wasn’t against the rules— there weren’t actually any rules at all. You pitched in when you could, and you were free otherwise.

The colony had adopted a routine of two meals a day— breakfast and dinner. A lot of people were having trouble with that. Suzie chuckled at the thought. A lot of people were having trouble with a lack of snacks. And truthfully, a lot of people would be better off without them.
Meow. God, I’m a bitch.

The two girls had worked the breakfast shift, and wouldn’t be required to do anything until mid-afternoon when they’d start preparing for dinner.
Hmm, I wonder what we’ll make,
Suzie thought.
Venison Chili stew? Or maybe Buffalo Chili stew? Or maybe Buffalo burgers, without the buns? Or buffalo steaks? Or Venison steaks?

One of the first things that the scavenging parties had gone looking for was food. And unfortunately, that was the one thing that every other resident of Lincoln had also gone looking for, whether they were holing up in the city or heading for somewhere else. Short of breaking into individual homes, there was very little food left to be found Earthside. That left the supplies that Bill had originally purchased, plus anything that could be acquired on this side. They were in no danger of starving to death, but there would be adjustments.

They’d managed to coax the chickens into an egg-laying routine, but a dozen eggs a day for a couple hundred people wouldn’t go very far. So instead, they were going to hatch as many of the eggs as they could to try to build up the inventory. In addition to their obvious duties, the two roosters had become the colony’s alarm clocks— and the most hated denizens of Rivendell.

Meanwhile, breakfast very much resembled dinner except for the location of the sun in the sky.

The aggie students had managed to locate wild herbs and onions and a couple of other vegetable-ish plants, so there was at least some variety to the meals. Someone said that they had recovered some seeds from a couple of businesses Earthside and would be trying to grow some late-summer crops. That would help as well.

Suzie sighed.
Low carb diet. No problem, now.

She lay in the lawn chair, enjoying the feeling of warmth, refusing to let herself worry about the food situation. As on most days, the sky was not completely clear. Clouds were always scudding through, the fluffy kind of clouds that would block the sun for a few minutes at a time. She looked around. There were a couple of dozen people, sitting or lying down on the cheap folding Walmart beach chairs, including that Josh character who never seemed to be working.

Suzie laughed a bit. Joy opened her eyes and turned to her. “What’s funny?”

Suzie smiled. “Oh, I was just looking around. This place is such a weird mix of wild west pioneer and modern suburbia. We’re sitting in these chairs, sun-tanning, while people are riding around on horses, hunting, and other people race around on dirt-bikes. Meanwhile, there’s a crew digging latrines, another hauling water, while yet another crew uses an interdimensional portal to go raiding another universe for supplies. It’s bizarre.”

Joy chuckled. “I wonder if they’ll make a movie out of it. Or a TV series.” She sighed. “I guess that’s not very likely right now, is it?”

“Maybe not this month. But things might improve.”

Suzie looked up. A couple of other people were coming over, carrying folding chairs. She saw it was Pete and Phil.

“Hello, ladies,” Pete said, as they unfolded the chairs. Suzie smiled at them in greeting. Some guys were relentless and had to be fended off constantly, but Pete and Phil were harmless. They just wanted to find a way to slack off.

“So what are you guys working on these days?” Suzie asked.

“Scouting,” Phil said. “We kind of used up all our talents on the scavenging end of things when we found the fuel at the gas station. They’ll probably
call on us again, but meanwhile our job is to ride around on dirt bikes. It’s a hell…”

“So why aren’t you out there today?” Suzie asked.

“Al broke one of the dirt bikes,” Pete answered. “He’s fixing it right now, and Richard Nadeski told him he’s cut off for a week. Al is some pissed.”

“That dude is insane,” Phil added. “Dirt biking is his main thing in life. I think they’re planning on doing a scavenging expedition to his home at some point to pick up all his stuff, including all
his
bikes. Then he can break those instead of the colony’s bikes.”

“There’s so much stuff we need…” Pete mused. “It seems like every five minutes someone is asking Joseph Leung to arrange an expedition to get some other thing. He wants to go hit auto dealerships and scavenge some vehicles so they can grab more things at once. But he can’t get
people to leave him alone long enough.”

They let the silence stretch for a few minutes. There was no feeling of awkwardness, nor need to fill the quiet with chatter. The warmth and slight breeze melted away any feeling of urgency. Suzie felt herself start to drift…

“You guys think we’ll ever get back to civilization?” Joy’s voice brought Suzie back from the brink. It was a measure of her level of relaxation that she didn’t even mind.

“Honestly,” Pete answered, “I couldn’t care less if we never do.”

This made Suzie open one eye and look at him. “Really?”

“Yeah. Mind you, ask me again in a month when we’ve gone through our stash, but I’m not sure we aren’t better off now. Earth was getting way too complicated, crowded, and stressed. I know we’re going to miss stuff eventually, but right now I feel like if I had a button in front of me to bring the old world back, I wouldn’t press it.”

“Maybe you should talk to the agro folks,” Joy said. “I’m sure your stash has some seeds in it.”

Pete and Phil both sat up straight and looked at each other. “Son of a bitch!” Pete said.

They leapt off their chairs and went charging off, with a, “Watch our stuff,” yelled back to the girls.

Joy and Suzie laughed at this turn of events. “You sure know how to clear a room,” Suzie said.

Joy took a bow from her chair.

Aug 16

Russia has completed annexation of all former soviet-bloc countries on its borders. There are reports that Russia is now attempting to gain control of some Chinese border provinces.

---

Today, Iran released a statement that they have successfully
annexed Iraq and will be absorbing the former nation into their own borders. In an odd twist, Iraq later released a statement that they had successfully
repelled the Iranian invasion force and are poised to advance on the Iranian capital.

---

India, Brazil, and China have announced in separate releases that they will be ending food exports to in order to provide for their own populations. Economists speculate that other net food exporting countries will soon follow suit.

Aug 17              Bill

“Wow, what a friggin’ day.” Bill lowered himself to the ground carefully and arranged his plate on his lap. Monica glanced at him for a moment, then returned her attention to her plate of
something-
chili stew.

Mealtimes had become routine, but there was a large flavor of camping in the process. Kitchen volunteers cooked the meals in some impressively large pots that had been rescued from a restaurant on Earthside in the first couple of days. Other kitchen staff served the food cafeteria-style. People lined up, then found a spot on the lawn, as the fenced-off area was now called, and sat down to eat.

There was no shortage of food, and the food was healthier than the average pre-eruption diet had been, but a vegetarian would have had a hard time. Animal protein figured prominently, and most people didn’t even ask any more. It was
something
stew again.

The G.O. had a favorite spot where they sat for every meal. As Bill looked around, he realized that other groups had developed similar routines. It always seemed to be the same people sitting near them.

And here came Pete and Phil. The stoners could be depended on to never miss a meal, and they sometimes made for some hilarious conversation. Monica in particular seemed to like them, probably because of their non-conformist attitude.

The two sat down, plates heaped as high as physically possible, nodded a greeting to everyone, and started to dig in.

And lastly, Richard arrived and settled down. Bill noticed once again that the blonde in the next group over seemed to always be very aware of Richard’s arrival.
I wonder if I can encourage that, somehow.

“I miss bread,” Richard said out of nowhere.

“Eh?” Bill was surprised. Richard was usually all business, even at mealtimes.

“Bread,” Richard repeated. “Buns. Sandwiches. Amazing what trivial things you suddenly
get a twinge about.”

Erin smiled. “I know. I never thought I’d find myself wishing for more vegetables. My mom would have a laughing fit if she heard me.”

At the mention of her mom, Erin’s face fell. There were several moments of silence as the rest of the group went through similar emotions.

After a few seconds, Erin asked Richard, “How are things in committee?”

Richard was quick to help with the change of subject. “Same old. Too many things to do, not enough time or resources. At least we haven’t had any power struggles. In TV shows and movies—” Richard looked at Bill with one eyebrow raised, “—there’s always some twit who wants to be in charge at any cost. But that doesn’t seem to be happening here, at least so far.”

“Too goddam busy,” Monica commented. “Everyone has more than enough responsibility, without having to go looking for it. Give it a year, Richard.”

“Are we still going to be here?” Pete asked. His plate empty, he’d finally come up for air.

Monica shrugged, and motioned to Bill. Because he watched the satellite broadcasts more than anyone else, Bill had become the
de facto
expert on Earthside status.

Bill lay back, supporting himself on his elbows. “I think we’ll be here a little longer than that, Pete. Things are still spiraling downwards Earthside, and they aren’t going to stop doing so for a while.

“The ash from the eruption has halted most forms of transportation, which means no food deliveries, no fuel deliveries, and no travel. The only
resources available to people are what’s within walking distance. Most urban areas don’t have much in the way of food-producing industries close by, so once the stuff in the supermarkets is used up, people will start migrating to look for food. That’ll be generally
south, although south of Yellowstone is a bad bet.

“One of the things I picked up a while back was that Mexico has closed their border to the American exodus, and yes, they’re being deliberately
retaliatory. The announcement was just dripping with irony, slathered on with a trowel.” Bill rolled his eyes and shook his head in disapproval.

“Anyway, the point is that there’s now a much smaller percentage of land on the planet that’s suitable for producing food, at the same time that our technical ability to sustain intensive high-yield agriculture is disappearing. Add to that the fact that there’s not much left in the way of fish and wildlife to harvest in our modern world, you can see where it’s going to go…”

“Why can’t we bring people across to this side?” Phil asked.

Phil normally didn’t get involved in these types of serious discussions, so there was a moment of surprised silence before Richard replied.

“Well, we could, if we could get to them. The thing is, Phil, on Earthside probably everyone will have left Nebraska by now. In fact, within about fifteen hundred miles of Yellowstone, you could probably
go days without seeing another human being. As Bill said, they’ve all migrated, looking for food—other than the occasional individual or family that we’ve managed to find.

“In order to find people to bring across, we’d have to travel. East, west, north, whatever. And the highways are full of broken-down vehicles that people attempted to use in the middle of the worst ash-fall. So how do we get to California, for instance?”

Phil thought about this for a few seconds, then sighed and hung his head.

“And that isn’t the worst of it,” Bill added. People turned to him, apprehension on their faces.

“There’s more?” Phil looked like he regretted asking.

“Mm, yeah. See, the eruption will knock civilization back to a pre-industrial or early
industrial level. Eventually, the ash will clear and ecosystems will start to recover, but then what? Humanity has been intensively
extracting all the coal, metals, and oil from the Earth for a long time now. We’ve taken out the easily
accessible stuff, the moderately
accessible stuff, and in the last fifty years or so we’ve been attacking the deeply
buried stuff that can only
be gotten at with high technology.

“When things start to recover, you’ll have a pre-industrial society with no access to any of the raw resources that we had lying around the first time around. Humanity will never recover on Earth Prime. There’s nothing left to recover with
.
”

That was the final straw. Phil picked up his plate, got up, and headed to the cafeteria line-up for seconds.

“Damn, that’s bleak,” Matt said.

Bill sat up and rubbed his forehead. “Phil’s right, though. In the longer term, we have to go looking for people. We have to bring them across, and we have to start again on this side. There’s simply
no other option.”