“It was inside the car.”
Luke woke up in my arms. We were still in the closet under the stairs. He and I had stayed there the whole night. My face was still painful, even though Chuck had done his best to fix me up the night before. No more blood, at least, but I had to breathe through my mouth.
“What’s it like out there?” I asked.
I disentangled from Luke and left him on the floor to play with the dog.
“Blue skies,” Irena said. “Beautiful day. A little hot.”
I stepped into the sunshine and walked over to join them. Clear skies at dawn, with not a cloud in sight. A little hot? She wasn’t kidding.
Chuck stood beside me. “It’s hotter than a glassblower’s arseh—“
“Okay, okay,” I said.
“Sorry. We should get some food. I think there’s a small town up the road. Magnolia?”
Irena said, “Let’s take the truck. See if we can find some of the stuff that blew off it.”
We spent an hour searching before we went into the town.
The wind’s fury must have taken the bags off the top, or maybe it’d flown off when we’d slammed through the bushes and trees on the side of the highway.
Damon remembered that he had left his wallet and ID in his bag, and they were gone. Completely missing. Chuck couldn’t understand how someone wouldn’t keep their wallet in their jeans, but the two of them were cut from different cloth.
We backtracked, but as Irena and Terek had said, we couldn’t find anything. The highway was almost empty. One or two cars passed us while we searched.
On the other side, we found unmistakable proof of the tornado. A swath of trees had been knocked down, with huge branches strewn across part of the Interstate and onto the grassy divider.
Everyone was hungry. That was one thing we all agreed on when Damon brought it up, so we decided to abandon the search for the moment and head into the small town.
We went back down the road next to the speedway, and then turned left. There was a church a few hundred yards up the road. Calvary Baptist, according to the small sign. A knot of people were outside talking. One of them—the pastor, I assumed, from the way he seemed to be directing everyone—was helping a man who limped toward the entrance.
Irena slowed the truck and rolled down her window. “You need some help?”
“All we can get. One of you a doctor?”
“I was a medic in the army,” she replied.
On hearing this, Chuck looked at me over the seat divider. He raised his eyebrows. We pulled over and parked. Irena went over to the limping man, and the pastor waved us inside.
Terek had fashioned a leash for the dog from some string, and Luke got out ahead of me holding it. The dog, predictably, started barking.
“Look familiar?” I asked the pastor. “We found him last night.”
The priest shook his head. “You guys want some coffee?”
Chuck said, “Does the pope—”
I elbowed him in the ribs. “That would be great.”
My backside was already soaked with sweat.
It felt great to get out of the sun and inside the wood-paneled interior of the church. There was a coffee urn on a foldout table, with some Styrofoam cups next to it. I walked over and filled two.
Terek came in behind us, but instead of going for the coffee, he went to the front row of the church and sat down at a pew. He bowed his head and began to pray.
“Did that tornado come through here?” Chuck took a coffee from me while he spoke with the pastor.
The pastor nodded. “Further up the highway, it caught some cars. Turned them over. A terrible mess. We’re trying to do what we can. We set up beds downstairs. There’ve been some bad injuries.”
“You haven’t been able to get in touch with any paramedics?”
“Magnolia’s sheriff looks after four other towns. We haven’t been able to get in touch with anyone.”
“No emergency services?”
“Nothing yet.”
“There are eighteen thousand police agencies in America, almost a million officers, and not one of them is here?”
The pastor shrugged. “It’s still early morning. I’m hopeful. I’m sure there’s a lot going on out there.”
Chuck added, “You know that we have more police in this country than the total standing army of Russia?”
“Have you heard anything else on the news?” I asked, ignoring Chuck.
The pastor frowned. “Mean all that satellite stuff?”
“You have a TV somewhere in the church?”
“Our cable service stopped working yesterday, even before the storm. Our telephones as well.”
“Landlines?”
“Everything. Completely cut off from the outside world. Our local radio comes from Stephentown, across the way, but they stopped broadcasting last night. Must’ve been the storm.”
“Where’s the closest hospital?”
“Well now, that is the problem. Beacham Memorial closed down last year. That was the only one we had in town. Gotta go to Southeast Regional, twenty miles south.”
It was definitely much cooler inside the church. I felt a breeze on my cheek and looked left. An air conditioner was running. The lights were on. “But you have power?”
“Afraid not. Not exactly.” He followed my eyes. “You hear that sound? That’s the generator running out back. All the power to the town went out last night in the storm.”
I heard it now, the low growl of a diesel engine, outside, over the sound of the AC unit blowing cool air.
“You got some water for my dog?” Luke asked.
“It’s not your dog,” I said.
“Sure, I’ll get you some water,” the pastor said.
Luke tugged my leg. “Can I play on the iPad?”
“Why don’t you play with your dog?”
“Dad, come on, please?”
I relented. “Stay inside, though, okay?”
“Can I use your generator to recharge some batteries?” Damon asked the pastor. “They’re big ones,” he added.
When the pastor said it wasn’t a problem, Damon said, “I’ll get the drones out of the truck. I think we need to get a bird’s eye view of what’s going on.”
“I’m going to charge up my hand,” Chuck said, his prosthetic raised. He already had a USB cable out.
“And I’m going to show some of these people how to install the mesh-network app,” Terek said. “At least that way we will get some communications going.”
From five hundred feet up, it looked like a giant had scrubbed the forest floor. The slender trunks of the pines were flattened to the ground like strands of spaghetti, while the green trees to either side were seemingly untouched. About a half mile from the church, near the Interstate, Damon hovered the drone over three cars scattered there, and then followed the tornado’s path east.
Most tornadoes moved southwest to northeast, Chuck observed, and this one was no different.
Chuck and the pastor and his wife stood beside Damon, fascinated, and watched as he navigated the drone with the VR goggles on. The video feed from it played on his laptop.
I sat next to him and kept an eye on Luke, who petted the dog while it lapped water from a bowl. The poor thing must have been dying of thirst. Terek sat at a desk near the front of the church, installing the mesh-network app on the phones of several locals. Irena joined him and helped out.
The image on Damon’s screen swept over the pine forest bordering the Interstate and then over a road.
“That’s Carmont,” the pastor said. “We’re just down the street.”
Damon followed the path of ruined trees. A few hundred feet further along, the drone crossed a dirt road. The remains of an above-ground pool came into view, one side crushed. It was surrounded by scattered white debris. Then the crumpled remains of a trailer. And of another.
Someone walking on the ground looked up.
And waved.
“Do you know h
im?” Chuck asked.
“That’s Louis,” the pastor replied. “My goodness, the whole neighborhood was hit.”
From behind us Irena asked, “Has anyone been over there?”
“We should get going,” Chuck said.
I said, “You want to leave them?”
Chuck had pulled me to one side of the coffee stand. “I’m not saying that.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“You remember what happened last time we tried to help people?”
“You told me at that blues bar a few days ago about how proud you were of that.”
“I am, I’m…look, they have a few people with cars. They can go to the hospital.”
“I doubt they’ll be able to take all the injured people at once. The Range Rover has a lot of space.”
“Then they do a few trips.”
“And they don’t have drones. They don’t have someone like Damon.”
“The last time we did this, we ended up getting attacked ourselves.”
“This isn’t like last time.”
“It kinda is. What I’m saying…” Chuck glanced at the pastor and his wife. He kept his voice low. “We do our best to help, but we make it clear we need to get going as soon as we can. We have no idea what’s happening out there.”
He didn’t need to remind me.
One way or another, Lauren’s plane had come down by now. There wasn’t any use in worrying about the worst that could have happened, so I was trying to stay positive. I needed to get to Washington as soon as I could, but at the same time—
“We make one trip down,” I said. “Twenty miles back, and then we continue north. We leave Damon and Terek here to help them with the mesh app and use the drone to see if there are any other people in trouble. They don’t have anyone else.”
“One trip? We make that clear?”
From behind us, the pastor asked, “Louis? Are you okay?”
He spoke through Damon’s cell phone, the voice and video relayed over the drone. The man, Louis, cried on the other end, and said that they had to hurry.
Irena gave in and let Chuck drive the Range Rover. Damon kept one of the drones hovering high to use as a communications relay. He directed us to the first set of wrecked trailers. In five minutes we were at Louis’s place. What had been a home was now a pile of splintered timber and folded metal.
His wife, Sonia, sat in a picnic chair holding her head. Her blond hair was matted black with dried blood. Irena got her first aid kit from the truck, while Chuck and I went to the trailer next door. Only a hundred feet away, yet it was untouched.
Two cars followed us from the church. They fanned out down the street.
We emptied out the back of the Rover and improvised beds using blankets from the church, then helped Sonia to one of them after Irena had attended to her. A few cuts, she said, but the woman had a deep bruise on one side and might have internal injuries.
I left Luke back at the church with Damon, at least while we went out to try and find injured people, for fear of what we might find. He was happy playing games on the iPad and chasing the dog.
My worries were justified at the next trailer Damon guided us to. Inside what had looked like a crushed tin can from the air, we found a young woman. Lifeless. Pinned underneath a refrigerator.
It was past 6 p.m. by the time we approached the Southeast Regional Medical Center. The skies had been clear all day, though we checked fearfully for any rising thunderheads. We collected Luke at the church and made as much space in the Range Rover as we could for the three injured people we ferried to the hospital. Irena and Chuck remained behind, doing their best to help anyone else who arrived.
By the end of the day, almost the whole town had shown up at the church, and we organized a convoy out to take the more seriously hurt. We debated whether we should go, but it was already late in the day, and I wanted to get back to civilization to try and find a phone. Damon wanted the internet.
“It’s going to be the same in any rural area,” Damon said from the front seat.
Terek drove. I sat behind him with Luke on my lap.
A young man named Brandon sat in the seat beside me, his arm bound in a makeshift splint Irena had fashioned for his broken arm. We’d laid the two seats in the third row flat to make beds for two badly hurt people. One was Sonia, and the other was an elderly lady named Yolanda, who reminded Luke of Grandma Babet.
“Lack of communications?”
“Most rural areas don’t use wire line anymore. Upkeep is too expensive. Even if the cable to a home looks like a landline, the connection to the network is by mobile or satellite further down. TV as well. That’s why their cable went out.”
I checked my phone. Still no GPS, although it had been fully charged through the USB cable attached to the Range Rover. Having a charged phone still felt comforting, even if the thing was now a glorified camera. It was a constant battle for everyone to keep their devices charged from the limited options in the truck.
“You think the internet is still working?” I asked Damon.
“No reason it shouldn’t be, if we can get somewhere connected to fiber optic. Pretty much any city bigger than a few thousand people should be connected.”
The hospital would have analog phone lines, Chuck had promised me. He’d asked me to call Susie and tell her everything was okay, but that we’d had to stop for a day to help some people.
“It’s here,” Brandon said. “Take this exit.”
The young man knew the way, and the rest of our convoy followed. Just in case, Chuck had asked the pastor to pinpoint it on another hand-drawn map.
We pulled off the highway. The sun was low in the sky.
Two blocks later, the six-story structure of the medical center appeared over a row of trees. The street outside jammed with cars. Terek parked as close as he could, while Damon and I went inside to find someone to come out with stretchers. Inside was chaotic, but we found a police officer and explained the situation. He found people to send out to help us.
Chaotic, but not out of control.
The first chance I got, I excused myself and asked the information counter where the telephones were. Chuck was right. They had pay phones, but I had to wait twenty minutes in line. I pulled out the scrap of paper with the senator’s phone number on it, and dialed.
It picked up on the other end.
I said, “Hello? Senator Seymour?”
“Please leave a message after the tone…” The line beeped.
Damn it. “Ah, this is Michael. I’m wondering if you’ve heard from Lauren.” I left Chuck’s number in Nashville, then explained that I was driving to DC and would be there in the next day or so.
I hung up and let the next person in line take the phone.
“Dad.” Luke pulled on my hand.
In my mind, I saw that plane off Zanzibar, pirouetting as it hit the waves, the aircraft coming away into fragments in a flash of white.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Luke said. “Mom’s going to be fine. Did you check the internet?”
“Did I…”
“On your phone. There’s Wi-Fi here. Uncle Damon is online. Why didn’t you just use Zoom or FaceTime to call them over the WiFi?” He took my hand and led me down the hall. “Let’s go to the cafeteria,” my son said. “You should eat. And Uncle Damon is there.”
I’d been so focused on getting to a phone I hadn’t thought about it. While we walked, I connected to the hospital’s network and brought up the flight tracker.
It felt like the floor opened up beneath me.
I stopped.
“What?” Luke pulled my hand and tried to move me forward.
“Nothing,” I lied.
The app said that Lauren’s flight had been canceled. No arrival time. Nothing at all. It gave no other information.
“Luke, I need to call the airline.”
My phone pinged. Messages arrived on my phone now it was connected. I scanned them and opened one from
Lauren’s mother. My scalp tingled as I opened the message.
My stomach dropped.
No sign of Lauren, her mother wrote. No calls from her. No messages. Nothing from the airline. They were trying to find out what had happened to the flight. The senator had his people on it and would contact me later in the day.
Contact me? How, exactly? When we were on the road, there was no mobile service. I would have to wait until I got to somewhere with internet and Wi-Fi.
I wrote back and asked her to send me an email when they heard anything new. I said I would be driving to Nashville and then to Washington. I said my phone didn’t work, that there were no communications in the countryside.
It was already dark out.
Almost twenty-four hours since Lauren’s plane would have run out of fuel.
Luke said, “Dad, what do you want?”
We’d reached the entrance to the cafeteria. The smell of cooked meat and vegetable soup wafted by. Damon waved from a table under an enclosed glass veranda. He and Terek had their laptops connected on a table.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll get you a granola bar and a coffee,” Luke said.
When I didn’t respond, he let go of my hand and said he’d meet me at the table. In a daze, I let my feet walk me over to Damon.
“Look at this,” he said.
He indicated his laptop screen. An image of the Earth hovered in the middle of the screen, crisscrossed by angry red lines and a glowing orange haze. It didn’t look good. “I logged into the NASA space debris tracking center.”
“Is this the Ares model?” That was what he’d shown me last time.
“This is real data from the DOD,” Damon said. “I have security clearance. They’re asking me and some colleagues from MIT to do an analysis. Hundreds of satellites went offline in the past day. Destroyed. They’re getting actual radar bounces from multiple expanding wreckage fields.”
“Isn’t this what they expected?”
“The Russians are now blaming the Americans and Indians for the loss of their GLONASS constellation. Things are getting ugly.”
A TV was on by the entrance, tuned to CNN. I heard the news anchor say, “NASA is now saying we may not be able to have any satellites in Earth orbit for perhaps a hundred years—”
CyberSpace: A CyberStorm Novel (Cyber Series Book 1) Page 10
