The Mayflower Project

by K. A. Applegate

  If she was still alive, if his own life was still to be lived, if, if, if, he could have discovered, they could have discovered . . . Maybe there would have been love. Maybe that. Maybe she would have loved him. Maybe what was wispy and slight could have become deep and enduring, real.

  The whimpering came again, and for a moment Jobs wondered if the sounds came from him. But the words were not in English. More guttural. Like a very young childs inflection. Like a kid trying to sound like a baby or something.

  The room was dark but for the glowing red exit sign at either end of the room, the sliver of light from the bathroom, and the blue glow of the TV set at the far end of the room. A half dozen people sat hunched there, watching, watching, watching the only show on any channel: San Francisco.

  Cordelia.

  It was dark in the rest of the barracks, but not quiet. Fifty of the Eighty were up here on the upper floor. Fifty people snoring, wheezing, whispering, rolling over on creaky bedsprings.

  Jobs pulled off his blanket and rolled over the side. Now that he was awake he had to pee. He dropped to the floor, crouched, hoping he hadnt awakened anyone. The dilemma was whether he should root around under his dads bunk to find his shoes. If he did he might wake his parents. If he didnt he might step on one of the cockroaches.

  They had very big cockroaches here in Florida.

  There was more to worry about than roaches, he told himself. He crept away on bare feet, and now he passed the source of the whimpering. It was a kid hed met in passing, a kid named Bobby or maybe Billy. Billy Weir, that was it. The kid was his own age, more or less, but seemed younger somehow.

  Jobs padded by, trying to shut out the distress sounds of Billys nightmare. Across the cracked linoleum, tensed for foot-on-roach contact, he slid through the door into the bathroom a military-style latrine with something like a dozen ancient toilets facing a matching dozen sinks, all under the blinding, unnatural glow of fluorescent overheads. A blanket had been hung halfway down the room as a vague barrier between mens and womens rooms.

  Jobs did what he had to do and was washing his hands when Billy Weir came in. Jobs gave him a civil, neutral nod; after all, guys didnt chat in the rest room. But Billy made no acknowledgment. He just stood there in bare feet, boxer shorts, and Dallas Cowboys T-shirt.

  Jobs started to walk away, but it was just too strange. The boy was standing, staring, but seeing nothing.

  Must be sleepwalking, Jobs muttered out loud, comforting himself by the sound of his own voice. Billy Weir was creeping him out.

  What was the deal with sleepwalkers? You werent supposed to wake them up, or you were, or it didnt matter? Jobs couldnt remember.

  Suddenly Billy started talking again in a language Jobs had surely never heard: It wasnt English or Spanish or anything like either of them. It was the voice hed heard earlier.

  Ill get your parents, thats what Ill do, Jobs said. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up.

  Youll be there, Billy said in clear, unaccented English.

  You awake now?

  Youll be there. Youll be there, Billy repeated.

  Where?

  The world . . . the creation . . . the beautiful, terrible place . . .

  You know what? Im just going to get your father.

  He dies. She dies. Many die. Others . . . The boy shrugged.

  Are you awake or what? Jobs demanded, frustration getting the better of him. If youre awake lets cut the spook show, okay?

  Billy Weir stretched out his hand, feeling ahead of him like a blind person, and touched Jobss arm. He gripped the bicep, hard, almost painfully.

  Jobs nearly shook him loose but was stopped cold by the expression on the boys face. He was crying silent tears. And he looked at Jobs with sadness, but more, with deepest gratitude, like Jobs was his last friend, his savior. Youll be there, Billy said.

  DAYS TO IMPACT:0

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DONT PANIC, BUT KEEP MOVING.

  Your attention, please. Your attention, please. Okay, folks, this is it. We have a go.

  2Face stood between her mom and dad, the three of them holding hands. She felt sick. It was a sickness that went all through her. It was a feeling that permeated the room.

  Until the video from San Francisco, people could avoid thinking about the details, avoid picturing what was going to happen very soon now. The death of billions was an abstraction. The death of one pretty girl at a wedding reception had driven home the reality: People would die, not billions. Friends: friends youd had all your life, people youd have given your last dollar. Family: your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, the cousins you played with at family reunions. All of them were going to die like that girl, like all the people in the Bay Area.

  The people in the house next door, teachers, principals, coaches, the lady at the bank, the bus driver, the guys who mowed the lawn, the Starbucks girl, all the people who entertained, all those familiar faces from TV. All of them dead. Every one of them dead. Pets.

  Homo sapiens, flower of evolution, lord of planet Earth. Forever dead.

  The great forests, the swamps, the mountains and valleys, the deserts, obliterated. Every building, every work of art, every book, every church, obliterated.

  It was too big, too awful and awe-inspiring, to fit inside your head, 2Face thought. So much waste, so much sadness, you couldnt squeeze the tiniest fraction of it into your brain.

  But you could imagine being that girl, that one girl, watching the annihilation, feeling the fear, and then, the sudden knowledge that you, too, would be among the victims.

  At least they would be mourned. Who would be left to mourn for the billions? Only the Eighty. The weight of that pressed down on every heart in the room.

  The buses are outside. Its about a ten-minute ride to the launch pad. When we get there well unload and call the roll to make sure everyone is there.

  Its a sick joke, just a sick joke, a man muttered behind 2Face.

  2Face leaned close to her dad. They were supposed to do a practice run this morning. I dont know what to do.

  I know, honey. I know. I dont know what happened to the practice run.

  2Face knew: San Francisco. It had gutted the staff. Some of the Marines had run off, the cooks in the mess tent, drivers, NASA techs, even the two Secret Service agents assigned to that jerk Yago.

  The Eighty had been waiting for this moment for most of two days. Waiting and waiting with nothing else to do. And yet, it was too sudden. It was all too sudden. It couldnt really be happening, not right now, right now.

  They shuffled down the stairs and merged with the herd of people down there. People were carrying their possessions, their few small things.

  Folks, if it wont fit in a pocket, it aint going, a weirdly cheerful woman with a clipboard chirped. Put it in the trash barrel. Dont worry, the Lord will provide, the Lord will provide. Well have all we need in the Kingdom.

  2Face stuffed a few hard-copy photos in her pockets, and her mini-book: The tiny screen was hard to read but it contained the full text of sixteen books.

  Like Ill be reading them on the flight, she muttered, almost amused at the strangeness of it all. A flight? To where? To what airport? How far? What time zone? How many hours, how many days, weeks, months, years? Centuries?

  In two hours she would be in hibernation. Two hours. Would there be a time to say good-bye? Was now the time?

  Mom and Dad? I love you both, 2Face said, her throat closing up, choking off the words.

  We love you, honey, her mom said.

  Her dad said nothing, just wiped his tears with the back of his hand.

  The crowd was in a strange mood, or several strange moods. Many wept. Some joked, displays of bravado. Some prayed. Someone started to sing God Bless America, but no one joined in and the tune petered out. America was just another dinosaur now.

  Boarding the buses was a debacle. No one knew if buses were assigned or whether it was first come, first served. No one wanted to be separat
ed from loved ones. People clutched precious mementos that had to be pried from their hands by touchingly patient Marines.

  2Face noticed the young, black woman sergeant reasoning with a man who would not release a big stuffed lion. It had belonged to a daughter who died in infancy. His wife at last pulled the toy away from him, forceful but wailing all the while, and handed it to the sergeant. The man squeezed his arms together, squeezed emptiness and cried.

  At last everyone was loaded. The buses, all full, rolled away toward the launch pad. And now silence fell. The only sound was the symphony of squeaks from the seats, the wheezing of the engines, the metallic rattle.

  No one spoke. People held hands. Their lips moved, but silently. They stared around, out the windows. 2Face stared. Shadows of trees. Plants. Grass. Earth.

  The shuttle was visible from miles away. It was lit up, as garish as a gas station at night. It looked like a jumbo jet strapped onto a pair of spindly rockets and an odd, outsized, rust-red fuel tank bigger than the orbiter itself. This jury-rigged craft seemed then to have been leaned against what might have been a gravel factory.

  Most, if not all Americans had seen shuttle launches on TV, and at some level this massive machine seemed almost commonplace to 2Face. The tower, that maze of I-beams and platforms, was familiar as well.

  In fact, the image was so commonplace that the changes stood out glaringly: big, lumpish pods placed atop the wings, an array of what might have almost been propane tanks welded down the sides, obscuring the big red, white, and blue flag and the black letters that spelled out United States.

  At the best of times the space shuttle looked like something put together out of spare parts. Now it seemed positively trashy. A vast piece of junk, all lit up by spotlights, blotting out the stars. They had chiseled away most of the heat tiles: no need. There would be no reentry.

  The sight extinguished what small shred of optimism 2Face had clung to. This was a joke. It really was a joke. No sane person would have climbed into a car that looked half this junked.

  Making matters worse still, the payload door was open a crack. A ten-foot crack. From the tower a rickety catwalk extended around and through the crack, into the payload bay.

  Within the payload bay it was just possible to see the steel tube grandiosely named the Mayflower. The tube, the Mayflower, was the color of lead. For a very good reason: It was sheathed in lead, some protection at least against insidious radiation.

  The Mayflower was thirty-nine-and-a-half feet long, which took up most of the sixty-foot-long payload bay. The rest of the space was crammed with experimental oxygen generators, nutrient pumps, and the machinery of the hibernation equipment.

  All together, and with the pods attached to the exterior of the orbiter, it weighed more than forty-six tons. Sixteen tons beyond the nominal lift capacity of the shuttle rockets.

  The Eighty were marshaled into lines by Marines and nervous or sullen or sardonic NASA people. The weeping was mostly over now. People were awed by the towering beast above them, or depressed, or simply wondering how long it would take to load everyone aboard.

  At first 2Face didnt notice the popping sounds. There was all kinds of noise around; in fact there was a steady background roar. But the Marines noticed.

  They stiffened at the sound and all looked away to the south. 2Face followed the direction of their gaze and saw flashes of light.

  Gunfire, MoSteel said, just behind 2Face in line. People shooting down there.

  Why? 2Face wondered. A stupid question. She knew why. Or thought she did.

  MoSteel looked surprised. They want to climb on board the big ride, miga. This is the big woolly. Nothing woollier. Three gs on top of a monster firecracker.

  You think theyre looking for thrills? she asked, a bit incredulous.

  MoSteel frowned thoughtfully. Or maybe theyre just thinking it would save their lives, or whatever.

  Suddenly, there was new shooting, and much closer. Out of the darkness a pair of vehicles raced, engines roaring. Trucks? Humvees? Three hundred yards away, no more.

  BamBamBamBam!

  Everybody down! a voice cried.

  2Face dropped, hurt her knees on the tarmac, crouched, trying to see what was happening.

  Automatic-weapon fire blazed from the approaching vehicles. Someone cried out in surprise. 2Face saw a large man stand up and pull his shirt open to see the red stains, the hole in his belly. He took a stagger step and fell.

  Oh, oh, nooo! a womans voice cried. Someone help! My husbands been shot.

  2Face saw the strange kid named Billy Weir. He was standing there, standing as if he was unaware of the bullets, or indifferent.

  2Face stared, her attention riveted. The man near the boy had been shot. And the boy was standing, arms at his side, doing nothing, saying nothing.

  Get down, you idiot! someone yelled and dragged Billy down. That broke the spell and 2Face tore her gaze away.

  The Marines were returning fire. They were on one knee, aiming carefully, blazing away. Controlled bursts of shattering noise.

  Sergeant Tamara Hoyle was yelling orders and firing her own weapon. Suddenly a muffled explosion and an eruption of yellow flames in the night. The humvee spun, teetered as if it would turn over, righted itself and stopped. It burned furiously.

  2Face saw a man running from the vehicle. He was on fire. 2Face screamed, screamed, the sound coming from deep within, a sound torn from memories of pain. Her mother grabbed her, held her tight.

  A Marine shot the burning man and he fell.

  The Eighty were all down now, crawling or just hugging the tarmac as the firefight went on over their heads. Bullets were everywhere.

  The second vehicle was still coming on. It, too, was on fire now, but still coming. The violence of the noise was stunning. Hundreds of rounds, all so near. A ricochet. A soft thunpf! as a bullet buried itself in the soft tarmac by 2Faces arm.

  An explosion, louder than the first. This time 2Face felt the concussion, the wave of superheated air.

  Cease firing, cease firing! Tamara Hoyle yelled. Weller, that means you!

  2Face raised her head a few inches. The second vehicle was stopped, no more than a few feet from the cowering civilians. Flashlights played over its bullet-pocked sheet metal. A body hung grotesquely out of the drivers side window.

  2Face saw Tamara Hoyle motion two of her men forward. They ran to the vehicle. One of them fired twice.

  Pop! Pop!

  Then, All secure here.

  My husband! the woman cried, still. Oh, my God, oh no, oh no.

  Everyone up! the sergeant commanded. There could be more coming. No running! Dont panic, but keep moving. Keep moving.

  2Face got up, helped her mom to stand.

  She stepped past the body of the dead man, tried not to look, tried not to hear his wifes heartbroken keening.

  Tried not to imagine seven billion more just as dead.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THEYRE ON THEIR WAY HERE, WELL-ARMED, CRAZY, NOTHING TO LOSE.

  It was never going to be smooth, Yago knew that going in. It was too rushed. Too hurried. The whole crazy enterprise had always had a strong smell of desperation about it.

  But after the shooting, the blazing guns in the darkness, with more out in the distance, now it was borderline panic.

  At least the weeping had stopped. Funny how no one was moaning about what a waste of time the whole thing was. No. Once someone tries to take life away from you, thats when you really start to care about it.

  But, that cynical insight aside, Yago was deeply unhappy. Unhappiness expressed itself as anger.

  What kind of idiot is responsible for security here? he demanded loudly of no one in particular. He focused his rage on the sergeant. You. How hard is it to stop some ignorant idiots in a pickup truck? I could have been hurt.

  You still could be, she snarled. Now move along.

  Are you threatening me?

  No. Just stating facts. Theres a full-fledged riot go
ing on in half the cities in the country right now. The mother of all riots is at the gates. Theyre on their way here, well-armed, crazy, nothing to lose.

  Well, stop them! Yago shrilled.

  Some others had stopped to listen to this news. There was scared murmuring, and, to Yagos distinct pleasure, a vague support for him.

  There are Marines and airmen out there dying to do just that, Tamara answered, jerking her head toward the not-so-distant sounds of gunfire. And just so you know: There are others that have changed sides. You got soldiers shooting soldiers out there, and I dont know who is going to win. So maybe youd better move it.

  Yago knew better than to prolong the argument. All right, everyone, lets go, he proclaimed, assuming a mantle of authority.

  There was a crush of bodies around the single open-cage elevator ascending the tower. It was definitely intimidating, standing down here almost directly beneath the huge inverted funnels of the rocket engines. Once they lit the fuse anyone still down here would be a pork rind.

  Yago shouldered ahead and managed to squeeze aboard the next elevator.

  Up and up. Up past the disconcerting sight of workmen still using arc welders. They were still working on the shuttle. Using welders despite the fact that the fuel was loaded. Taking terrible risks that spoke of terrible necessity.

  Up and up. The elevator jerked to a stop and the gate rattled open. White-coated NASA techs were waiting to usher them out onto a windy platform. Yago looked over the edge. Twelve, fifteen stories or so to the ground.

  From up here he could clearly see the muzzle flashes of the battle. Closer. Still maybe a mile away, but a mile was a minute to a person in a humvee.

  Okay, listen up, a white-coated NASA man said in a slurred voice. Was he drunk? Yago wondered. He was! The man was drunk.

  You just walk out, one at a time, along the catwalk. Someones waiting inside to stow you in your berth. One at a time. Nothing to it.

  Yago watched as the first person stepped out. The catwalk swayed in the warm, moist wind, and swayed some more with each step. The catwalk went out, turned a dog-leg, and disappeared inside the partly open payload bay.