Stormworld (4 page)

CHAPTER 8

Danger Lurks Out There

That evening, Belinda Amar and Jimmy Hansik lay close together after their lovemaking. She looked at him as he slept, the jet black hair, the Roman nose, the close-cropped dark brown beard. She’d seen pictures of him without the beard and he looked a lot better that way. Why did he have it now? She let her eyes admire his body, the tanned skin, the weight-lifter muscles. Belinda smiled to herself and wondered if he had also exercised the muscles involved with his sexual prowess.

She sniggered.

At the sound, Jimmy stirred. “Wha—huh—?”

Belinda shook her head. “Nothing.” She still smiled.

Drowsily, Jimmy propped himself up on one arm and looked at her. “C’mon, wha’s the joke?”

“Nothing.” She blushed. “Just a girl thought.”

Jimmy snorted, grinned. “About me?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Well, I’m having boy thoughts about you. I wonder if they’re similar.”

“Could be, but I’m not talking.”

“We didn’t come here to talk anyway, did we?” He reached for her, but she pushed him away gently.

“It’s not easy for me here,” she said.

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I’m not a good lover?”

“No, it’s just that I miss my loft bed overlooking the blue waters of the Hood Canal and the snow-capped Olympic Mountains.”

Jimmy flopped over on his back. “I know what you mean,” he said, as if understanding suddenly. “It’s difficult for me here, too. This isn’t my bed with the surround-sound music system and a Jacuzzi in the other room.” He closed his eyes, as if imagining.

Belinda stared glumly at the institutional beige walls of her tiny room, then up to the ceiling and the fluorescent lighting that had been dimmed by the removal of tubes to conserve electricity.

My God
, she thought,
this sterile box has become my bedroom, my office, my world
.

She bit her lip, and memories flooded back of her life BTWB, her private code which stood for “Before Things Went Bad.” She felt despair, grief, and anger, all rolled into one. She also knew why she and Jimmy were lovers now, when BTWB they acted as if neither of them really existed. It was all a matter of distraction, sensation, connection, and pleasure. Anything to deaden the pain, the loss of their former lives. Did her dream home even exist anymore or had it been smashed by a powerful tornado? Or buried in the huge blizzard that followed, crushed under the weight of snow?

If Belinda managed to get out of this, would there be anything for her to go back to? What about her Maine Coon cat Phylum, and her golden retriever Genus? A year ago, thinking she was going off to work on a typical day at the seed repository, she had left them at the house, and then had found herself trapped by the paranoia and unwavering commands of Benitar Jackson. Under an onslaught of weather, the Director, already precarious emotionally, had gone over the edge and taken the entire staff prisoner, threatening to shoot anyone who disobeyed him.

Like many forms of madness, Jackson’s was rooted in reality. There really were catastrophes occurring out there, killing tens of millions of people all over the world, and maybe even more. But she resented the loss of her God-given right to free choice, and knew her co-workers felt the same way she did. She wasn’t a religious fanatic like many survivors around the world, who had tilted like Jackson, sending them to the extreme end of ways they had already been leaning. She’d always had her own personal relationship with God, her own special prayers that had little to do with biblical texts or the sacred verses of any other organized religion.

She wondered if her beautiful little house on the canal was still standing, and if her beloved pets had long ago starved, or perhaps escaped … but to what? Maybe desperate, roving bands of people had shot Phylum and Genus for food. She felt a surge of nausea well up, and then slowly subside.

“What has happened?” she whispered to herself. “What has happened?”

For months now, she had studiously avoided looking into the mirror in her bathroom. She had even covered the glass with paper so that she wouldn’t have to see herself with all her joy and purpose gone, the sallow skin, the lifeless blonde hair … as if even the color and sheen had been sucked away by the seed repository. It was as if the seeds themselves were using her energy as soil, taking away her life forces moment by moment, leaving her only a husk, a spent seed whose purpose was not to grow, but to give until there was nothing left to give.

“How did this happen?” she said louder than before, as if unaware of anyone else in the room.

“Pointless to ask that,” Jimmy murmured, without opening his eyes. “We’re here, and it’s bad for now. Let’s just be glad we have each other.”

“But for how long?” she asked.

Jimmy sighed. He laid his right arm over his eyes, as if trying to block out the intruding light, and the awful reality it represented. “Try not to think about it,” he said.

“I can’t help wondering how much time we have left.”

A long pause, then Jimmy said, “We’re safe for awhile.”

“I don’t know,” said Belinda.

“So the storms are worse than usual,” he replied slowly, “but bad things have happened before, and the world always gets over it.”

“Maybe not this time. One of these days we’re going to run out of food,” she said, “with no way of replacing it. We’ve all seen the expiration dates on the cans and other containers, and we keep eating the contents anyway because we’re hungry. But we’re risking illness—or worse.”

“Finite resources, eh? You’re starting to sound like our fearless leader.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“It’s bound to get better,” Jimmy insisted. We’re just having some weird and wacky weather, probably nowhere near as bad as the climate folks are saying. We’re only hearing from the rabid environmentalists and obstructionists who can’t make it on their own and expect government handouts. Well I say, if people can’t take responsibility for themselves, they get what they deserve.”

“You’d better have eyes in the back of your head,” Belinda said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know how upset Benitar was over you not taking care of the seeds in section D. I don’t think he ever got over it.”

“That was months ago, so don’t start. Just don’t start. OK, I forgot to turn the humidity up but we had backup seeds to replace the ones that were lost.”

Belinda looked at him coolly. “Just watch out for him, all right? He’s more dangerous than ever.”

Jimmy turned to look at her. “Don’t go paranoid on me. We have a good time and you start going crazy with worry over me. I must be great in bed, eh?”

Belinda scooted up, pulling a blanket over her nakedness. “I’m not a nagging woman,” she said, “just a friend, and I want you to listen. Benitar is on the prowl, and probably suspects you of sabotaging his bulletin. You’re one of the three best computer operators we have, so you could have done it.”

“I already told you, I didn’t.”

“And I don’t know if I believe you.” Touching his chin, she turned his face toward her, and he opened his eyes. “I know you’re lying, Jimmy,” she said. “Don’t be surprised if Jackson has you on a hit list.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. What’s he going to do, kill me? He needs my skills and he knows it. Don’t worry, Beautiful, this whole weather thing is cyclical and will blow over …” He laughed at the unintentional pun, added. “Just look in the history books. We had a freaky weather thing happen, what, a century and a half ago when the volcanic island of Krakatoa blew itself to smithereens. They called it ‘The Year Without A Summer,’ and our Earth got over it. We’re a resilient planet, and the same could be said of humans. That’s why we’ve survived when other species have gone extinct.”

“We made many of them go extinct, Jimmy. So it’s only fitting that it might happen to us, too. The explosion of that volcano wasn’t the same as the uncontrolled dumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by industries and motor vehicles. Emissions have never been cut enough. Politicians with vested interests failed to act.”

“So what do you want me to do about it? Take a huge shop vacuum and suck all the C02 and methane out of the atmosphere?”

“Don’t be facetious,” she said. “You need to take things much more seriously.”

Jimmy turned on his side, away from her. “Yeah, yeah, Benitar’s gonna shoot all of us. Sure, sure.”

Belinda didn’t say anything for a moment, as the very real possibility of that sank in. Then she said, “He didn’t notice me today, when I saw him standing outside the door to Peggy’s room, spying on her and Abe. He had his ear by the door, was listening to them.”

For a moment, Belinda heard Jimmy’s breath catch and she watched as he opened his eyes to look at the door.

“He could be out there right now,” she said. A chill ran down her spine.