Interrupt

by Jeff Carlson

  If a few conspirators were using Jake’s meetings to cover their own activities, that could explain why his votes were increasing. If Emily was plotting something herself, she’d push Jake to raise as much hell as possible. He was a diversion.

  What did they want? Did they have guns?

  You can’t let anyone see you staring, she realized, whirling from the crucifix. She couldn’t get inside the complex to warn the soldiers until they unlocked the doors, but maybe she could use the prison guard’s phone.

  She ran to the trailer. “Sir?” she asked. “Sir?”

  If someone was plotting a takeover, she’d missed the signs. She was definitely not welcome among the innermost circles of the refugees. They’d seen her with Bugle and Drew—and no one was sure what to make of her friendship with Marcus Wolsinger.

  BUNKER SEVEN FOUR

  The guard waved for Emily to come into the trailer. He was alone, although the small front room held two chairs, two desks, and a coffee maker with several mugs. A space heater sat on the laminate floor. Old paperback books, DVDs, and a thirteen-inch TV filled a table in the corner. An ordinary telephone hung on the wall.

  “Can I use your phone?” she asked. “I need to talk to someone in charge.”

  “I thought you were here to see Dr. Wolsinger.”

  “I am. I… Please. It’s important.”

  The guard looked her up and down. She must have sounded as nervous as she felt. He went to the phone and lifted the handset without turning his back on her. It was a direct line. He didn’t need to punch in a number. “Holding cell,” he said. “Dr. Flint is asking for an officer now.” His eyes narrowed. “Copy that.”

  What were they telling him?

  He hung up and said, “Ma’am, we’re on alert. Everyone’s occupied.”

  “Some of the people in the tunnel are planning something,” she said. “I don’t have much proof, but you guys need to know. There might be trouble.”

  “You mean Jake?”

  “I don’t know. I hope it’s nothing.”

  “I’m going to ask you to go into Wolsinger’s room,” he said. “You’ll be safe there.”

  Right, she thought. Then you’ll have me in jail, too. Maybe it was her best move. If she went into Marcus’s cell, the guard would realize she wasn’t a threat.

  Emily walked down the hall as the guard reached for his phone again. Sign-in sheets hung on a nail. Many of the signatures were hers, although plenty of people consulted with Marcus. She recognized Drew’s tidy handwriting among the names. Apparently she’d almost run into him two days ago.

  Where was he now? Hunting more blood samples for her outside?

  As she entered her name on the list once more, she prayed it wouldn’t be the last time. She couldn’t believe the situation was that bad—but on the phone behind her, the guard said, “I may need backup.”

  Marcus’s door wasn’t locked. He had a bathroom and they brought him food, so he had no excuse for leaving. If he did, he’d meet the guard in the front room. His sole window was inches from the rock face of the cavern.

  Emily knocked, then knocked again. He didn’t answer. She opened the door an inch and leaned into the gap without looking. “Marcus? It’s Emily.”

  “Hey, girl.”

  Good, she thought. He sounds good today. “Can I come in?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said without humor.

  She stepped into the neat, narrow room. He sat on his cot. She stayed by the door. There had been a time when she was physically afraid of Marcus and required an escort. He wasn’t eating, so he’d lost most of his desk belly, but he would always outweigh her, and her first impressions of him had been as he recovered from his Neanderthal state.

  Even now, they never engaged in contact like a handshake. He had become a sounding board and a mentor to her—a father figure—yet she hadn’t let go of her suspicion. Today his expression was open and coherent. Sometimes it wasn’t.

  When he turned sullen, Emily could only guess what he was thinking based on the things he’d told her and the reports of science teams worldwide. Did he remember being Nim and yearn for it? Or was his anguish for his son too much to endure?

  Emily would have been interested in having a neurologist examine Marcus and run CT and MRI scans. Had he suffered permanent brain damage during his three days in the pulse? Or would a psychologist be more useful in treating him?

  “I’m sorry I haven’t come for a while,” she said.

  “I know you’re busy.”

  “Yes.”

  “How are things outside?” he asked, allowing her the charade of chitchat.

  For him, outside meant the larger space of the bunker.

  Shells within shells, Emily thought. His room was a minuscule box inside a cave beneath a mountain on the surface of a planet circling a violent sun lost in one measureless stretch of the galaxy. It made her feel insignificant.

  “I have new data,” she said, showing him the files under her arm.

  Marcus wasn’t looking. He glanced at the door, easily reading her tension. Emily realized she was standing on the balls of her feet.

  “Something’s wrong,” he suggested.

  “I—” Emily cleared her throat and took her usual chair in the corner. Marcus stayed on his cot, where he leaned against the wall with his blankets up to his waist. Maybe he’d been napping. He slept a lot. The television they’d provided didn’t interest him because it was slaved to the TV in the front room, where the soldiers watched action flicks. Emily had talked to them about playing funny movies, for which Marcus thanked her, but he had even less taste for gross-out comedy like Adam Sandler or South Park episodes. Too bad. Emily would have stayed for hours just to have a chance to smile.

  Marcus had one interest. The pulse. He read reports from everyone who provided them, not only the astrophysicists and engineers but also biologists like Emily, climatologists, geologists, NASA techs, and M.D.s.

  They said he was weird. Emily agreed, although she also saw the sad, wounded man behind his calculated front. A lot of people didn’t. They envied the way he lived like a king with his private room, private cot, and private TV. They didn’t care that he was a prisoner. Everyone felt trapped, so they belittled him even as they kept coming back for advice.

  Marcus was as smart as any three of them put together. He pointed out discrepancies in the astrophysicists’ data and argued with the climatologists. From the doctors and biologists, he asked for more. Their reports fascinated him. Meanwhile, he advised the team of astronomers at the Hoffman Square Kilometer Field and offered his own forecasts on the solar max. In every way, he seemed to be participating in their survival—but he was inconsolable.

  The bunker was more than a hundred miles from the array. Three weeks ago, Bugle had been unable to capture Roell or Rebecca while leading a second rescue mission, which made Marcus bitter.

  Marcus was correct in believing the soldiers hadn’t given many resources to this attempt. Drew had kept most of his team at the array, guarding their precious Osprey, unloading steel and cinder block to reinforce the station, while Bugle led four men into the surrounding landscape. Roell hadn’t even topped their list. Bugle’s main objective had been the other ES2 astronomers like Steve, Kym, and Chuck. Bugle hadn’t been able to find them, either, but Emily didn’t think things would be different if Roell had been imprisoned with Marcus.

  He would despise being trapped in here no matter what we did for him, she thought.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” Marcus asked. He was mild, biding his time. “Is it something we’re not supposed to know?”

  Emily shook her head.

  “If it was, who would find out?” he asked, indicating the walls.

  Emily glanced at the door again, wondering how long she had before the soldiers came to question her. “There’s more graffiti than usual,” she said.

  Marcus wrinkled his brow. He’d expected to hear the new development in her researc
h.

  “You know how I feel about cave art,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Nobody’s going to stop because Strickland said so.”

  “This is different,” she said, uncertain how much to share with him as his mood changed like a lightbulb switching on. He became agitated.

  “Homo sapiens developed their own strengths like the Neanderthals,” he said.

  “Marcus—”

  “They’re responding how they’re made to respond. Strickland can give as many orders as he wants.”

  “Marcus, this is different,” Emily said in a firm voice.

  He visibly struggled with himself. Then his smooth face returned. How much of his self-control was real? She worried it was a facade. Every glimpse of the commotion beneath his bland face made her wary.

  Marcus thought the prehistoric totems and cave paintings found in Europe had been early Homo sapiens’ attempts to withstand the interrupts. They had surely left drawings aboveground, too, during the long intervals between geomagnetic storms, but those had worn away in time, whereas some of their totems carved in horn still existed today.

  Some anthropologists cited mystical purposes for Homo sapiens’ cave murals of reindeer and other large game. Chips in the walls were proof that men had practiced hurling spears into the drawings. Marcus agreed those people hoped their magic would bring them food, but he’d also taken this idea a step further. Had they carried their totems with them as reminders during the interrupts? Natural selection would have favored the hunters who increased their ability to train themselves, mimicking the Neanderthals’ focus.

  Thousands of years later, prodigies like Emily and Marcus were the culmination of Homo sapiens’ talent for abstract visual representation—and yet both of them also had Neanderthal genes in their families.

  What if early Homo sapiens had purposefully bred with their cousins in order to become more like them?

  So-called “normal” people exhibited any number of traits that were borderline autistic—fussy with clothes—fussy with belongings—digestive allergies to grains and dairy—and a preternatural ability to concentrate on certain stimuli. Like Marcus, Emily was neat and quick with numbers. In their individual cases, the combination had made for powerful intellects.

  We belong together, she thought. Marcus could help me solve the discrepancies in my data. But I can’t trust him.

  Most of what he said was useful and right. She’d also learned to listen for his lies. He slanted everything in his own interest. Each time she visited, it felt like a mental tug-of-war. She needed him. He was an incredible asset, yet Emily questioned his motives even as she sympathized with his pain.

  What if Marcus had been coaching some of the other scientists through the first stages of a rebellion? He didn’t want the bunker to last. He wanted to find Roell. If he could cause the collapse of this stronghold, or merely introduce enough mayhem to escape his jail cell, Emily didn’t suppose he cared what happened to the rest of them.

  “I think someone’s planning an attack inside the bunker,” she said. If he reacted, she might be able to give the soldiers better information.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Some of the civilians. It looks like they’re counting the soldiers going in and out of the complex.”

  His face showed nothing.

  “Why would anyone do that?” she asked. “We have so many problems already.”

  “People need trouble, Emily.” He waved at the blank TV. “Look at our entertainment. We like to be scared because we have a huge capacity for fear. The most basic element of storytelling is conflict because we respond to it. If nothing’s wrong, we’ll create new conflicts.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Her world had been full of greed and infidelity, but the game she was playing with his ego depended on her appearing naive. It helped that she was younger and female.

  He smiled. “Emily, our most innate phobias can be traced to early survival traits. Fear of heights. Fear of open space. Fear of blood. Fear of strangers. You’re a biologist. You know nobody is ever afraid of paper or shoelaces. They obsess over things we’re evolved to guard against. They want to have these things to worry about,” he said, shifting and bending his left hand as he spoke.

  She didn’t think he was aware of his fidgeting. His brown eyes were distant and insane.

  He felt an echo in his mind. On the surface, he remained Marcus Wolsinger, but he rolled his arm again and again compulsively. The muscle memory went beneath his waking thoughts. He almost remembered.

  No one who hadn’t felt that superconsciousness would understand. He wished he could show Emily, but she wasn’t one of the chosen.

  Most of the people in his old life would be strangers to him now. Marcus thought of his ex-wife. All of the excuses Janet gave for divorcing him had been why she’d loved him at the start—because he paid the bills on time, because he remembered birthdays and anniversaries. He’d provided the stability she’d lacked in her childhood, but it hadn’t been enough. He was too awkward at participating in the excitement she craved, crowds, dancing, gossip, drinks. Eventually she’d left their perfect lives for a new adventure.

  Roell had felt directionless for the same reason. Life had been too easy. They’d complained about gas prices and food prices and their wireless bill, which were fantastic luxuries. Even on Marcus’s middle-class salary, before Janet went to work, they had been richer than 99.99 percent of human beings who’d ever lived. The grocery stores were loaded, their nation had the industrial might to roll off three cars per household, and every other family had the money to feed two pets in addition to their kids.

  We were so lucky, he thought. Too lucky.

  Every day had been a fleeting treasure. They should have cherished their time together. Instead, they’d quarreled and looked away from each other in discontent.

  “Marcus?” Emily asked.

  He tore himself from his memories, blinking at the bare walls of his cell. “We’re programmed for hardship,” he said. “People are happiest when they’re working themselves to the bone.”

  “No. Everyone in this bunker is stressed past the breaking point.”

  “We’re evolved for less food, more exercise, less sleep, less security, more paranoia. The irony is that as a species, Homo sapiens was stupendously successful. It became normal to have more food, less exercise, more sleep, more security, less paranoia. Why do you think so many people were prone to obesity and depression? Insomnia? Drug addiction? We were stagnating.”

  “I, uh…”

  Emily hesitated, and Marcus knew why. She’d told him about her work before the pulse. As part of her autism research, she’d brought forth new data that indicated a weakening gene pool. The discovery ate at her as if unearthing the trend made it her responsibility. Now he used her guilt against her.

  “Widespread illness and cognitive disorders, our disaffected youth—these were symptoms of overpopulation,” he said. “Our lives were too soft, too cerebral, too different from everything we were meant to be.”

  He believed it. Otherwise the decay in his relationships would have been his fault.

  Putting the firmness back in her voice, Emily said, “A lot of people think the pulse may be intermittent. Bill Elledge swears it will stop.”

  “He’s wrong.”

  Emily wanted to slap him. She controlled herself. She fought down her helpless rage and said, “Even if the flares last, that doesn’t mean we should give up. We can do something about it. We’re safe in here.”

  “For how long? Barely half of you are breeding age. That’s not enough to sustain a viable population.”

  “There are other shelters,” Emily said. “If the flares last, we’ll figure something out. The men could rotate. We’ll make these caves bigger.”

  She’d just proposed an insemination program as casually as she might have discussed tonight’s dinner, but Marcus ignored her.

  “For the past month, the oceans have been steaming,�
�� he said. “The rain at sea level fell as snow in the mountains and at the poles. It’s counterintuitive, but intensifying solar heat will cause a cooling effect. There’s too much moisture in our atmosphere. The ice caps are growing, the higher elevations have turned white, and Earth’s albedo is increasing at an exponential rate. More and more of the sun’s heat will reflect back into space. Soon the balance will tip. The cold will create new weather patterns, drawing more water from the oceans. There will be more and more snow.”

  “But that’s exactly what I mean,” she said. “I don’t understand how you could want to leave this bunker. I know you want to find Roell.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Marcus, people are dying out there.”

  “Some of them. They’ll either adapt or they’ll disappear. You and I both know who’s best suited for another Ice Age.”

  Emily lowered her gaze in disgust. It was one thing for him to say they should walk outside. He belonged to the dominant species, whereas she would be vulnerable, especially with her looks.

  Biologists attributed the appearance of blond hair and blue eyes in Caucasians to sexual displays like parrots’ feathers. Their diet and their environment had allowed for those small mutations, which persisted, then spread.

  Colorful differences to attract mates would be even more important among people in a primitive state. If she was forced outside, she would never be alone—never have a choice—and she would probably give birth to children with the same physical allure.

  Emily couldn’t keep the resentment from her voice. “People like you aren’t real Neanderthals,” she said.

  Marcus was implacable. “Their children will have children who will be,” he said. “The rise in background radiation will accelerate the change. Then the best of them will breed with each other.”

  Emily winced. Eons of heightened radiation, ash, temperature changes, and the necessity to survive at times on weeds or bark might explain why humankind had so many digestive and blood-screening organs that no one fully understood.