‘Not ideal.’
‘No one’s tried any concerted attempt to take Indian Point from us since before I was in Security. The deterrent works.’
‘Mm. Well, the trenches look like they’re maintained and there are positions for machine guns at reasonable intervals. Do you think the two companies here could handle another attack? Even without functioning tanks.’
‘We’d hold the position until reinforcements arrived.’ He smiled. ‘With people like you as backup, we’d be fine.’
Mercy smiled back and tried to suppress her blush along with her feeling of disquiet. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be enough to turn the tide if things are going badly. I suppose we won’t know until I’m needed, which will be never, hopefully.’
They were through the defences, and the compound within was visible. There were various structures which appeared to be original, part of the power plant, including the broken-tooth dome of the reactor building. There were also various low, rectangular concrete structures which looked newer and far too short to be useful, unless…
‘The housing is belowground?’ Mercy asked.
‘Yeah. They excavated barracks and some… apartment buildings for the staff. Then they sealed the whole lot in concrete. It’s safe from Wave Storms. Back then, you could get your hands on construction materials fairly easily. The local area has been stripped now. If we need to build, we need to import the materials from other enclaves or mount expeditions into some of the unoccupied cities. That’s not cheap or easy.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘The officers’ quarters here are pretty good. We do two-week stints instead of one, so we get our own rooms. Not exactly home, but comfortable. Double beds and working showers.’
Mercy got the feeling that was a sort of subtle invitation to test one or both facilities. He was an attractive man, but she had no interest in him that way. She decided to redirect the conversation a little. ‘I’d like to see what’s here. Is there any chance of a tour?’
‘I think someone said Parish has been informed you’re coming,’ Baxter replied, his face falling a little. ‘He’ll probably want to show you around personally.’
There was a man waiting for the buses when they arrived. He was good-looking in a slightly nerdy way. He wore spectacles which had been repaired a couple of times after one of the arms had broken. The lenses looked intact and unscuffed, which had to be quite miraculous under the circumstances. Mostly, he looked unremarkable and nervous.
‘Colonel Garner,’ he said as soon as Mercy followed Baxter off the bus, ‘my name is Ellis Parish. I’m the, uh, manager here. I’d be happy to show you around the, uh, facility.’ His larynx appeared to be trying to throttle him.
‘Thank you, Mister Parish,’ Mercy replied, smiling. ‘Don’t worry, I assure you that I haven’t bitten anyone since kindergarten.’
‘Oh. Yes. Ha. Aha ha.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Baxter said. ‘Parish usually calms down after he’s had to deal with a woman for longer than about a day. You’re a Titan, so make that a week.’ Parish glared at him.
‘I’m only here for a few hours,’ Mercy pointed out.
‘Yeah… That could be a problem. Relax, Ellis, she’s not like most of the high-powered Titans. She’s more like President Richard.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘It is. Some of the powerful ones can be… difficult. Luckily, we don’t have many in the NYA.’
‘Luckily?’
‘Well, I have to admit they’d be great in a pinch. Some of them. But pinches don’t happen that often and you have to live with them the rest of the time.’
Mercy nodded. ‘Point taken. Now, Mister Parish, perhaps you can show me around. I’ve never been to a fusion plant before.’
‘Of course,’ Parish said. ‘It would be my pleasure… as well as a direct order from the president. Please, come this way.’
~~~
When it came down to it, an industrial plant was an industrial plant. There was a big control room which largely consisted of computers doing the work while humans looked on and made sure nothing weird was happening. There were big screens showing technical data Mercy did not understand, flashing lights, and people watching them, all with bored expressions.
‘We’ve had no industrial accidents during the entire lifetime of our operation of the plant,’ Parish said proudly. ‘Of course, since we’ve trained Titans to maintain the reactor, we’ve had little worry of radiation incidents, but even there we’ve never had a major release. Even during times of conflict.’
‘That’s encouraging,’ Mercy said. ‘I understand there hasn’t been any conflict for quite some time.’
‘That’s true. Nothing major anyway. We have had some minor raids, generally repulsed before they made any major impact. We get incursions from some of the mutated creatures out there several times a year.’
‘Creatures?’
‘The odd rat hound pack strays into our area. They’re, well, rats the size of large dogs. Dangerous to individuals but no match for trained men with firearms. There was a zombie incursion last year.’
‘Seriously? Zombies?’
Parish nodded, seriously. ‘Of course, they aren’t undead monsters intent on eating human brains. They’re a human mutation, little more than animals. They shamble and they will eat anything they can get their teeth into. Worse, their bite is contagious. Titans show some resistance to whatever form of contagion they spread, but most others end up becoming one of them after a single bite. However, they can be stopped by men with guns. We repelled them.’
‘This world is never going to stop surprising me.’ Mercy waved a hand at the displays around the control room. ‘Do you understand all this?’
‘Enough to know when to run for cover. I’m an administrator, Colonel, not a scientist or technician. I’ve spent enough time here and listened to enough jargon that I know roughly what’s going on. My job is to make sure the people who really know what’s going on can do their jobs in safety and as much comfort as we can manage. Perhaps you’d like to see the living quarters.’
What was it with these guys and wanting her to see their rooms? ‘Sure,’ Mercy said. ‘Why not?’
New York Authority.
‘So, I took maybe fifteen seconds to cement my destination in my head and the jump went off without a hitch. I appeared in the lounge, no problem.’
‘And scared the shit out of me,’ Sophia said.
Mercy grinned. ‘You did jump.’
‘Yes, well–’
‘And shriek.’
‘You would too if–’
‘Like a little girl.’
Sophia pouted and remained silent.
‘How was the facility?’ Nick asked. ‘Is it secure? Frankly, losing power to this city would be a disaster. Waveguide has some generators, but they would last no more than twelve hours if we lost Indian Point.’
‘It’s secure,’ Mercy replied. ‘Maybe not as secure as I’d like, but secure. They have artillery, but some of that doesn’t work. The defences are… rough. It’s good enough to hold off minor incursions, but I wouldn’t like to see what happens in a major assault. They’re complacent, which is never a good sign. Actually, Sophia, is there any chance you could repair–’
‘Not really my thing,’ Sophia said. ‘I’m really an electronics specialist. I was good enough to keep Theia and Pallas working if I had to. I could maybe get a tank engine working at a pinch. Artillery? No. I wouldn’t really know where to start. One thing I’ve figured out about what I can do is that I need to know what I’m doing. I need to be able to fix something without the power. All the power does is let me get parts out of thin air, and if I don’t know what parts I need…’
‘Understood. I thought that was the case, but I thought I’d ask. So, that leaves gaps in their defences they can’t fix. So long as an army doesn’t turn up, though, they should be fine.’
Nick nodded. ‘I understand. No army has turned up in r
ecent decades, so I suppose that will have to do.’
Mercy winced. ‘Don’t jinx it.’
13th May.
Mercy considered her point of entry carefully before making her final jump. She had been out in the buffer zone, looking around and generally getting a feel for the landscape – broken, scarred, and looking like an old war movie set – and that had got boring, so she was heading home. Last time she had jumped into the apartment, she had surprised Sophia and it had been funny, but repeating it was going to get old fast. Sophia was likely to be out repairing something since it was mid-afternoon. It was a Saturday, but there was always work to do. Still, Mercy decided to teleport into the bedroom. That would be safe enough.
‘Oh… God… needed… this.’
Having just appeared in the darkened room, Mercy took a second or so to reorient herself and look down at where the words had come from. They were accompanied by groaning.
‘You’ll kill me… if you keep…’
The sight Mercy saw when she looked down was something of a surprise, certainly a shock, and definitely embarrassing. She was aware that both Joe and Sophia had good bodies because you don’t spend months on a spaceship together without seeing things you technically should not. Still, seeing Sophia bouncing up and down over Joe’s hips with considerable enthusiasm was… new. They must have been at it for a while; both of them had skin which glistened slightly from sweat. Mercy had always thought watching amateur porn was a bit boring, but this actually managed to look really quite erotic.
‘Just… once… more,’ Sophia said, her words timed with her downward movements. ‘Just… one… m– Oh shit!’ She made the mistake of opening her eyes, which resulted in her seeing a shocked-looking Mercy standing over them.
‘Sorry!’ Mercy yelped, and then she relocated herself out of the building.
~~~
The evening had been a little awkward. Nick had noticed something was up but had not asked what it was since it seemed to be embarrassment rather than anything else. Mercy, Sophia, and Joe were avoiding each other’s eyes the whole time.
When it came to lights out, however, Mercy felt she had to say something. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to just appear over you while you were, um…’
‘Well, you couldn’t know we were having sex in the bedroom when you did,’ Sophia replied.
‘No. Still. I didn’t think you and Joe were, um…’
‘We weren’t. We both came back early. It’s hot. Neither of us have had sex in, well, fifty years, technically. One thing led to another. Uh, it’s not like we’re in a relationship or anything. If you want him to–’
‘No. Thanks, but no. I know we’re not aboard ship now, but I still feel like it would be breaking some ethical boundary. Besides… Well, it’s not him I’d have propositioned.’
‘Oh.’ Silence. ‘Oh. I didn’t know you were gay.’
‘It’s not something I bring up in conversation. Besides, you might as well describe me as asexual. I’ve never had any relationship longer than a weekend and not many of those. My father was very conservative. My mother wasn’t as bad, she’d have probably accepted it, but I couldn’t just come out to her. I kept it secret for years. Hell, Dad wasn’t even that pleased when I joined the Marines. He didn’t think women had any part in war. If I’d told him I had a girlfriend, he’d have freaked. So, I’ve never had a girlfriend.’
‘Hm.’ Sophia was silent for a few seconds again. ‘Well, it’s a new world. You should get out there and find someone. Zuri, for instance. She likes you.’
‘Does she? Really?’
‘Yes,’ Sophia stated flatly.
‘Huh. Thing is, when you spend so long avoiding that kind of complication, it gets hard to start thinking any other way.’
‘Denying your sexuality is bad for you.’
‘That sounds like your practical German personality coming out. Hey, I thought Joe would be the last person you’d go for. You always seem to be claiming that the French are irredeemable playboys or something.’
‘Well, they are. All of them without exception.’ Sophia giggled. ‘On the other hand, if you want to get your rocks off, who better than an irredeemable playboy to do it with?’ Her voice became serious. ‘Besides, the alternative is Nick and… Something about Nick makes me not trust him.’
‘Oh? Anything in particular?’
‘No. No, it’s just a feeling. Maybe it’s just that he was too persistent during the mission.’ Sophia shifted to a more humorous tone, slightly teasing. ‘Or because he’s American. Americans are worse than the French. Oversexed, the lot of them.’
‘I’m American.’
‘Exactly.’
15th May.
Joe was back from his longest flight so far, west to Chicago and back. He had stopped off in that area for an hour or so to catch his breath, but it had taken him eight and a half hours to do the entire roundtrip.
‘There’s a fairly substantial enclave out there,’ he said once they were all sitting down to eat. ‘A lot of farmland surrounded by defences. They seemed a bit primitive, however. Wooden palisades in a lot of places and several wooden towers. Oh, and they had a fishing fleet. They must be fishing Lake Michigan.’
‘That doesn’t sound very safe,’ Sophia commented. ‘What do they do if a Wave Storm hits them?’
‘Die in profusion, I’d imagine,’ Nick replied.
Mercy nodded. ‘I got thirty minutes’ warning of the one that hit north of here, and I’m told they’re easier to detect the bigger they are. A small storm could get past any sensitive they have out on the water and I doubt they’d have time to get away.’
‘Indeed. Waveguide have studied the storms. As best they can, obviously. The one which hit here was about as big as they get. They range from about a kilometre in diameter to around twenty kilometres. Forty-four percent of them, however, fall in the eight- to twelve-kilometre range. Only about three percent are as large as the last one. On average, they last from ninety to one hundred minutes. An absolutely average storm would see eighty kilometre per hour winds for over an hour spread over a wide area. However, I don’t suppose the chances of any particular boat being caught in that are high.’
‘It’s just that, if it happens, it would be disastrous,’ Sophia said. She grinned. ‘You’re getting some useful information out of Waveguide. Enjoying yourself?’
‘My time is being spent in a fruitful manner,’ Nick replied. ‘When I have time, I’ll summarise what I’ve learned so far. You three have more interest than most in Titans, after all.’
‘That’s true. It would be nice to have an explanation for all this.’
Nick shook his head. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned from spending time with the Waveguide scientists, it’s that no one is going to be explaining any of this soon.’
19th May.
‘The initial results of our climate survey suggest an average temperature of one point eight degrees above pre-industrial averages,’ Mercy said.
Faith looked at her a little forlornly across the big presidential desk. ‘I think I was expecting that, but I was hoping it had fallen further. There’s not a lot of fossil fuels being burned these days.’
‘Nick’s no climatologist, but he suggests that we reached a tipping point last century and getting back to “normal” levels may be almost impossible. Something’s fundamentally changed in the way carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ecosystem. Or we could just need more time.’
‘I suppose fifty years isn’t long in the grand scheme of things.’
‘No. Geologically, it’s an instant. We’re continuing to collect data. Frankly, Theia is up there with nothing much else to do. Meanwhile, Joe has been conducting his own survey while he practises his flying. He’s covered quite an area, so we thought you might be interested in what he’s found.’
Faith smiled. ‘That goes without saying. We have contacts with other enclaves of survivors, but most of our news comes through traders and amateur radio enthusiasts.’ She tur
ned, tapping at her laptop, and a map appeared on-screen. It looked to Mercy like a military map from before the Wave.
‘Okay,’ Mercy went on, ‘he’s located fairly major enclaves in Boston and Chicago.’
‘Boston? We know about Chicago. We trade with them when they have a surplus. I hadn’t heard anything from Boston.’
‘Joe says they didn’t seem organised. He wasn’t sure of the numbers but there seemed to be quite a few. They hid from him.’
‘Ah.’
‘He saw rooftop gardens in Philadelphia but no appearance of organisation again. Cleveland seemed to have a fishing fleet, smaller than Chicago’s, and some defences. Uh, Baltimore seemed to be overrun with–’
‘Zombies. Yes, we know about Baltimore. They had a moderately thriving group of survivors. Now, they’re the cautionary tale about not keeping on top of communicable diseases. We’ve thought about setting up our own fishing fleet. We don’t really have the expertise. Shipping fish here from Cleveland isn’t really viable without refrigerated trucks. They don’t usually have a surplus anyway.’
‘Okay. Montreal and Ottawa seemed busy. For a given value of busy. Several hundred, maybe up to a couple of thousand, people in both cities. Active, if weak, defences. The Toronto area seemed to have more like fishing villages. Uh, it seems like the Damned Ones have cleared out the entire region around their base in Hartford.’
‘They left there years ago. I’m surprised no one’s moved back in.’
Mercy looked at the president for a second. ‘Didn’t General Hart tell you? Joe spotted activity in Hartford. From the description, I assumed it was Damned Ones. I reported it.’
Faith frowned. ‘No. No one mentioned it to me.’
‘Probably didn’t consider it worth mentioning. Uh, Joe’s also spotted some activity up at West Point. It looks like some group has taken over the academy and fortified it to some extent. Probably recently. The fortifications at the White House are a lot older, apparently.’
‘Oh, that’s President Royce.’
‘Another president.’
‘Hereditary president. Melville Quinten Royce and his son Joseph. Royce the elder took over the White House after we left DC and declared himself president of the United States, like there’s a United States to be president of. He’s in his eighties now and Joseph is running most of the day-to-day operations down there. Royce is basically a warlord. They tithe food and other resources from the neighbouring areas in return for their protection. They’ve never bothered us, so we don’t worry about them. They’re… not very nice people. West Point concerns me.’
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