Slow Apocalypse

by John Varley

  “Susie, we’ve been instructed not to use the word ‘nuclear.’ ” That was Dale, and he sounded furious.

  “Sorry, I can’t hear you. Anyway, many of these burns are really nasty, very painful, caused by a hot, tarlike substance like you can see on my clothes. It sticks like napalm, and it can keep on burning right into your flesh.”

  Somebody was honking a horn out on the street. Dave broke away from the group and went to the gate. Outside was Jenna’s little red Smart Car. He opened the gate and she drove in and quickly hopped out.

  “This is it, isn’t it?” she said. “This is what you were talking about.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “The president is going to be talking to us, is what I heard. That’s going to be more bullshit, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  Jenna looked south, and put her hands to her mouth. As they watched, a large area to the east suddenly blacked out. Dave thought it was West Adams and University Park, around the USC campus.

  “Power failure,” Dave said. “A big one.”

  “Daddy, I think the wind is shifting.”

  He had thought the brightness of the flames had been dimming because the fires were burning themselves out, but now he could see that Addison was right. A lot of the black smoke seemed to be coming their way, obscuring their view. Little strings of black tar began drifting down, featherlight like some kind of evil spiderwebs. When he inhaled, he got his first whiff of smoke.

  “We’d better move inside,” he said.

  It didn’t take long to relocate, and shortly after they were all inside, the smoke wrapped around them like fog, and pulled a curtain over the awful show they had been watching.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “My fellow Americans…”

  The president sat behind a desk that could have been anywhere, but which they had been told was aboard Air Force One. Behind him were the usual American and presidential flags, but what was unusual were the four generals standing to each side of the flags. They were ramrod straight, eyes forward.

  The president looked shockingly bad. He seemed to have aged twenty years since his last press conference. There was a bandage around his head, and Dave was pretty sure he was wearing heavy theatrical makeup around his left eye, as if to cover up a shiner. His right hand was wrapped in a thick bandage.

  “Early this morning an attempt was made on my life.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “My wife and I were awakened by the sound of gunfire outside our bedroom. A Marine guard and at least one Secret Service agent betrayed their trust and mounted an armed attack within the White House.

  “Marines and Secret Service agents loyal to this country fought a pitched battle with the assassins and killed two of them. During the fight, I am sorry to tell you that two agents and one Marine lost their lives. At this time the head of my Secret Service detail cannot be sure if more conspirators are still alive, holed up in the West Wing. For that reason, I have left Washington and am on my way to a secure location.

  “The attempt on my life was only part of a conspiracy that stretched across this great country. It was nothing less than an attempted military coup, organized by the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Walter McCoy. Last night, in attacks coordinated with the assassination attempt, a handful of officers at military bases from California to South Carolina attempted to take over the command structure of the United States military. As of this moment, most of these insurrections have been put down and the conspirators arrested. But fighting is still going on at several sites. I am sad to say that there has been great loss of life among troops loyal to this country.

  “As you might imagine, there has been much confusion among the officer corps as regards just who is loyal and who is not. It has sometimes been hard to determine which orders are lawful and which come from the leaders of the coup. We are doing our best at this time to reestablish order and the legitimate chain of command.

  “No one should have any doubt: The officers responsible for this outrage will be arrested, or killed if they do not surrender immediately. If arrested, they will be charged with treason and given a court-martial and treated as if their offenses were committed under fire, in combat. If found guilty, they will be executed under a special executive order I have just signed. These executions will be televised to all United States Armed Forces personnel at home or abroad. General McCoy has already received his court-martial, before I boarded Air Force One.”

  The president paused, and took a drink from a glass of water.

  “These loyal Americans you see standing behind me are four of the other Joint Chiefs of Staff. Two of them, Admiral Zenger and General Gomez, were approached this morning by General McCoy and asked to join his rebellion. They refused, and immediately contacted the White House, to find that the attack was already under way. The other two, General Cruickshank and Admiral Baker, had no knowledge of the plot, and have reaffirmed their loyalty to the constitutional chain of command whereby I am the commander in chief of all United States military forces.”

  There was another pause, longer this time, and Dave began to wonder if the man would be able to go on.

  “General McCoy’s motives for fomenting this conspiracy may never be entirely known, but a precipitating factor was a disagreement that has been brewing in recent weeks concerning the ongoing petroleum crisis. A split has developed among my advisors, both civilian and military, as to how to proceed in dealing with the situation.

  “I must reveal to you now that you have not been told the truth about the origins of the disasters in the oil-producing countries of Asia. Every occupant of this office has told you less than the truth from time to time. A nation must have its secrets. Presidents usually do this only reluctantly. And it was with great reluctance that I allowed a story that I knew to be at least partially false to be communicated in regards to the oil-well explosions.

  “But it is now time to tell you the truth, to level with you, the American people. General McCoy was opposed to what I am about to do. I know that at least one of the men standing behind me, Admiral Cruickshank, is also opposed, but he did the right thing. He expressed his opinion, he made his case, and when he was overruled by my executive decision he followed lawful orders, as a good soldier should.”

  The president wasn’t reading from his prepared text when he said that. Dave got the feeling that he was still stunned that a general in the United States of America would not follow a presidential order. Well, so was Dave.

  “Not a good speech,” Dennis commented.

  “He hasn’t had time to polish it,” Jenna agreed. “Too many big words, too many long compound sentences.”

  “I don’t think his speechwriters had their hands on this.”

  The president looked down at the papers in his hand, back on script.

  “We told you that the explosions at the wellheads were the result of terrorist attacks. The fact is, that may be true, but it may not. We withheld what we knew because of the unique nature of these explosions, which were not caused by bombs or any other conventional form of sabotage. We have known since shortly after the wells began to explode that it was the result of the action of a biological agent.”

  He paused to let that sink in.

  “Someone, somewhere, using advanced bioengineering techniques, made an agent, a bacterium, that attacks crude oil and renders it useless as a source of the many things we extract from oil, including gasoline.”

  “Liar,” Dennis said.

  “They’re still not coming clean,” Jenna said.

  Dave kept quiet. The plain fact was he thought it unlikely the American people, or he, himself, would ever know if the story the colonel had told was true in all its details. And, at this point, did it really matter? Somebody had made the Prometheus Strain, in a secret high-tech facility.

  Maybe some future congressional committee or journalist or historian would find the true source, rooting through old
records, but Dave doubted it. If it had come from an American government site, he would expect that anyone who discovered that truth would have a very short life expectancy. This was the sort of secret that would stay buried, not least because it would bring down governments if exposed.

  So all he really cared about was what the president was about to say, or what he hoped the man would say, which was what are we going to do about it?

  And he was missing it, sitting there woolgathering while the city burned.

  “…have been unable to determine the source of this plague. There are those—and General McCoy was one of them—who are convinced that one or another of our enemies was responsible. But they have been unable to agree on just who that might be. The initial attacks were made in Saudi Arabia, not on our own soil.

  “It would be madness to release this thing on the world, knowing it would spread. That would seem to point to the involvement of one of the more fanatical terrorist groups operating around the world, some of which have a great hatred for the Saudis.

  “However, our scientists tell me now that the original bacterium, the one introduced into the great Ghawar oil field on the Arabian Peninsula, would have been able to spread only underground. But bacteria mutate very quickly, and it seems that a strain capable of spreading through airborne spores evolved. It was carried, by the wind, on aircraft, on the clothing of oil workers, and wherever it landed, it found its way to the pumping machinery of oil wells and down to the oil deposits themselves. You have seen the explosive results.

  “All our attempts to limit the spread of this plague have so far been to no avail. Oil fields in China, in Indonesia, and many other places have been infected, and have exploded.

  “The American government, in cooperation with most governments around the world, has limited press coverage of these events in the hope of avoiding panic, but events so large cannot be hidden forever. The story was beginning to emerge, and it was my judgement that more harm would be caused by continued efforts at information suppression than by a clean break, by finally telling the people just exactly what it is they are all up against.

  “As the disaster unfolding right now in the great city of Los Angeles demonstrates, the bacterium has now arrived on our shores. I regret to tell you that oil fields in Alaska have also been destroyed. There have been explosions in California’s Central Valley, from Bakersfield to Coalinga. We are certain that the great oilfields of Oklahoma and Texas are next. People in affected areas should follow the instructions of their local authorities.”

  There was more, but Dave TiVoed it and began channel-hopping again.

  Three hours passed without any further explosions, and it began to seem that the fire might be at least contained, though there was little hope of putting it all out anytime soon. They were all glued to the TV. They began to hear distant, smaller explosions with no bloom of flame preceding them.

  Jim Weston, KABC, channel 7:

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before, friends. The fire has been spreading relentlessly to the south and east, leaping over streets. Unlike people who live in the hills or on the edges of the metro area, these people on the flats never imagined that an out-of-control inferno could touch them. So shrubs and trees are right up against houses, and the houses and apartment buildings themselves are tinderboxes. All it takes is a burning ember landing on a roof, and soon the whole structure is in flames. There just aren’t enough firefighters to stay ahead of the new fires that start up as far as several blocks away.

  “But the fire department is now drawing a line, and what a line it is. The fire chiefs won’t discuss it with the press, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The entire neighborhood has been evacuated. Police are going door to door, ensuring that no one remains in the homes and apartments. They are breaking down doors or windows if necessary. They have cleared a street, and are now…they are blowing up the houses in an attempt to create a fire line.

  “The only way this fire is going to be stopped is to deprive it of fuel. This is done all the time in forest and brush fires, but to my knowledge, it has not been done in a city since the great earthquake and fire of 1906 in San Francisco. There, firemen dynamited whole blocks, turned them into rubble. It was the only way to stop the flames from consuming the whole city, and it worked.

  “But try telling that to a homeowner whose house has been selected as one of those to be destroyed so that his neighbors downwind can be saved. I’ve witnessed heartbreaking situations. I’ve witnessed dangerous situations, too. Some few owners have refused to leave, even though it’s obvious that if they stay, they will perish in their own homes. These homes are doomed, from either fire or explosion, but some are reluctant to admit that.”

  The scene switched to recorded video of a man standing on a lawn, cradling a shotgun in his arms. Police bullhorns told him to drop his weapon. He gave them the finger. He looked like just an ordinary guy, dressed in a golf shirt and khaki shorts, but he was making his stand. Dave’s heart went out to him, though he knew the man was impeding the firefighters, and he hoped it didn’t end badly. He looked over at Addison, who was transfixed by the sight. He went to her and hugged her, and tried to hug her face to him, but she was reluctant to look away; she kept peeking with one eye.

  “This is your last warning. Put down the weapon or we will be forced to remove you.” The guy looked a little uncertain for a moment, but then shook his head. Dave thought he was about to raise his weapon, which would have been certain suicide. There was a series of loud popping noises and the man jerked a few times and landed on his back. He could feel the dampness of Addison’s tears on his shirt.

  But the guy was sitting up. He didn’t reach for his shotgun, lying beside him.

  “Rubber bullets,” Dennis said.

  “Beanbags. I think the LAPD uses beanbags. He was too far away for a Taser.”

  “It’s okay, Addison,” Dave said. “He’s okay.”

  “That’s going to hurt like the devil for a few days,” Jenna said. The police hadn’t bothered to handcuff him, they were in too much of a hurry. Two cops simply grabbed him by each arm and pulled him to his feet and dragged him away.

  The view switched back to the live camera, and the reporter. He was moving furtively through a hedge. Reporters can sometimes have an inflated sense of their own drama, but Dave had to admit that it was possible the guy would not be welcome where he was going, that stealth might be necessary. Such stealth as could be achieved with bright camera lights shining in his face.

  The picture was very jerky as the reporter pushed his way through some dense shrubbery. He fell down once, but scrambled quickly to his feet.

  “I’ve been ordered out of this area,” he was whispering. Call it a stage whisper. “But I think you are entitled to see what’s going on, even if it’s not good for the city’s public relations. We’re going to kill the lights here…” The picture got a lot darker.

  “We’re switching to night vision now. I don’t know if you can see it, the row of houses across the street from me. From where I’m standing, the fire is behind me, no more than ten or fifteen minutes away at the rate it’s been traveling.”

  The picture was now various shades of green, the sort of picture you sometimes saw from reporters embedded in combat units. The houses looked very different, as they were now seeing by infrared light. Dave could see no movement.

  There was a distant shout. The entire row of houses exploded in brilliant flashes. Dave could see debris arc into the air and land in the small front yards and the streets.

  The wind blowing toward the firestorm quickly swept the dust away, and figures in protective gear ran into the picture. There was the noise of a loud engine, then another. Moving into the picture from the right were two huge bulldozers. They began to push the rubble away from the street. Streams of water arced into the picture.

  “I don’t know if this will do any good,” the reporter was saying. “But the ’dozers seem to be pretty efficient, they’re alr
eady moving the stuff into piles of—”

  There was a shout, and two police officers hurried up to the camera, which suddenly became very jerky.

  “Hey, get your hands off my camera! You can’t do that!”

  But they were doing it. Dave didn’t hear anything about them being under arrest, but it was clear the cops meant business. The cameraman stabilized his picture and turned around just in time to capture a nightstick swinging at the lens. The picture went black.

  Back in the studio, the anchors were momentarily speechless.

  “Well, you saw it yourselves, ladies and gentlemen,” said the female part of the team, Amber Goldman. “Tempers are running high in the danger area ahead of the fire. We’ll try to reestablish contact with our on-the-scene reporter, Arnold Tyler.”

  “Guy’s asking for another one of those ‘technical problems,’ ” Dennis said.

  “Do you think it will stop the fire, Daddy?”

  “Let’s hope they know what they’re doing, honey.”

  “All those homes. People’s houses. Where are all those people going to go? I’ll bet there’s hundreds of families that are homeless now.”

  More like thousands, Dave figured, but why bring that up?

  “I know the city has shelters,” he said.

  “If they don’t have enough shelters, maybe we could take in a homeless family. For a while. You know?”

  “We’ll see, Addie. Some of those folks will have friends or relatives they would prefer to stay with. I’m sure the Red Cross and the Salvation Army will be there soon.”

  “I just want to help.”

  “We’ll do what we can.”

  Around midnight they all admitted that they were hungry. They had emptied a bowl of trail mix and several cans of soda pop and beer, but they needed something more substantial. Addison and Dave went into the kitchen to put something together.