“A nuclear bomb?” Julianna asked, her voice hard and serious.
Blessing swallowed and nodded.
Julianna’s eyes showed steel rather than the fear that coursed through Coryn. “Only one?”
“All I know of. I came right here.”
The wristlet Eloise had given her jolted the inside of her forearm. Coryn twisted and held her arm up, shifting to keep the sunshine off of the screen. “Two bombs found in Chicago. Bring Julianna back.”
Coryn would have stumbled if Blessing hadn’t caught her and stabilized her. He looked down at her and smiled. “A good day.”
She knew. A good day to die.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Julianna, Blessing, and Coryn rushed down the stairs from the rooftop and into Julianna’s room. It had been transformed. Three new tables had been set up, and displays showed newscasters, an interview with Mayor Arroya, and a protest in the streets. Four more people now crowded into the room. Namina was there as well, working beside Evan, running a table with a sign-in sheet and vests, handing out water and snacks as people came in. Two young women Coryn had never seen sat in a corner, probably to run messages and errands.
As Coryn stared at it, one of the displays switched to Calgary. Drone footage from inside the city showed buildings with structural supports blown outward, debris shattering in the ground, nano-walls trying to self-heal. Companions walked the streets, carrying humans. Humans ran.
A nuke.
Were they all dead?
The display switched to a drone outside the city. Smoke rose from somewhere in the upper right part of the dome, curling inside of it. Namina jostled her.
“They’re not letting the smoke out,” Coryn whispered.
“Of course not. It’s toxic.”
Coryn stared.
Namina pushed a green vest labeled Liaison into Coryn’s arms. She hesitated, wanting to stay here, but then Blessing took a vest as well. He looked down at her. “I’m no data scientist, but we can do this together.”
She nodded. “All right.” She fumbled for her AR glasses and ran a brush through her hair quickly. “Ready.”
Namina had gone to stand by the open door, yielding her place at the table to Evan.
Coryn said, “We can find our way.”
Namina smiled one of her more enigmatic smiles. “I will be taking you someplace different.”
So not the main EOC? Ten minutes later, she and Blessing were following Namina through tunnels. Fifteen minutes after they started through the tunnels, they arrived at a nondescript doorway guarded by a single military robot. Beyond the door, a small vestibule was crowded by seven more military robots, two companion robots with fully humanoid features and dress—one eerily similar to Coryn’s old companion, Paula, and the other a small companion that looked like she was impersonating a teenaged girl. The young-looking robot opened the door to let Blessing and Coryn in.
Namina remained behind.
Two human male guards passed wands over them. Inside, they found Mayor Arroya, three or four city officials Coryn recognized vaguely from videos and news clips, and the woman she’d met at Julianna’s, Serena. She hadn’t even noticed her absence in the hubbub of the expanding operation in Julianna’s rooms. Serena nodded to her, and one of the human guards directed them to sit in chairs along the wall. A discussion was clearly just finishing.
A television screen showed continued images from Calgary, and on a separate screen she saw Mayor Broadbridge speaking. Without the sound up, she couldn’t tell what he said, but he looked calm and professional like always.
Serena said something quietly to the mayor and then came right over to Blessing and Coryn, holding out envelopes. “Take these. One goes to the main EOC and one to Julianna.”
Coryn and Blessing shared a glance. She wanted to see the city laid below her again, but Julianna had named her as her assistant. She should go to her. So she took the one for Julianna, and Blessing took the other.
Namina went with Coryn.
Back at Julianna’s, Adam paced, twisting his beautiful hair in his fingers. Julianna waited in the recliner and smiled at her as she brought the missive from Mayor Arroya over.
To Coryn’s surprise, it was a handwritten note. Julianna held it out to Coryn to read out loud.
Thank you for finding the information about the nukes. We will find them. Continue your own efforts. The core city systems are still standing, but it may be a matter of time. The main EOC did need help.
Coryn glanced at Julianna. “Does that mean it was hacked?”
“Yes. But he can’t say that directly. Even on paper. Neither can you. Ever.”
“I know that.” Coryn returned to the paper. I have ordered offensive actions. Open your code book to find a feed from the satellites we launched a few months ago. Thank you for your support.
That didn’t seem like much, but Julianna was happy with the message. “He’s clearing us,” she said. “Now if anything happens, we have this to say that we were on the city’s side, on the mayor’s side.”
Adam whooped, and all eyes turned to him. “I think I found one.” He looked ecstatic, maybe happier than he did when he won a race. She expected him to launch into telling them how he found the bomb, but he caught himself and asked, “Can I send someone after it?”
“Send the coordinates to the mayor.”
Adam smiled and wrote them down on paper while Julianna composed a handwritten note in response.
Coryn found herself running again, this time racing behind Namina. They used the same elevator they had used before, and traveled down to the tunnels quickly. It failed to stop anywhere on the way down. “Is this locked for just us?” Coryn asked.
“Yes.”
This time, there was no security except the wand swiping across the front of her body, but even that seemed to take a long time.
One of the officials took the note from her. “Shall I stay?” she asked.
“No.”
So she was back at Julianna’s in time to get another address, and she ran that to the mayor as well.
Twice, she passed Blessing briefly, and once he brought a message to the mayor’s EOC at the same time that she did, and after that they were both sent back. She’d had no time to catch up on news, but in the main EOC Blessing would have been bashed about the head with status reports. “What’s happening?” she asked him on the shared elevator ride.
“They’ve found four of the five weapons that we know were in Seacouver. They bombed out the attack forces from three places.” He put a hand on her arm and looked into her eyes. “Including Chelan.”
Her heart raced. “They bombed Chelan?”
“No. The people from Chelan. They don’t think there are any survivors.” He lowered his voice. “That includes the -o boys.”
She stared at him for a second, relief that her sister was probably okay warring with the idea that the people Lou wanted protected had died. “You knew them, didn’t you?” she asked Blessing.
He nodded. “I built a barn with them. They were good men.” He sounded bitter for a man who regularly stated that he accepted death.
“I’m sorry.”
He touched her face. “I know.”
The elevator lurched to stop and they got out.
Coryn stood just outside the door long after it closed. Her feet felt so heavy she wondered if she could lift them enough times to get into Julianna’s apartment. Blessing didn’t move either. He faced her again. “There’s much more. Chicago found all of their nukes. One detonated, but by then they had it in a pretty contained place. Three people died, but no significant radiation escaped. They’re working on cleanup now.”
So Imke was probably all right. Coryn closed her eyes briefly and sighed in relief.
Blessing wasn’t finished. “Flagstaff is gone.”
“Gone?” Her eyes popped open, and she stared up at him in shock. “I thought they were on the same side as our enemies.”
“They were.”
<
br /> “Oh.” It took a second for the implications to sink in. “We fought them?”
“The Alliance of Cities.”
Oh, of course. It seemed like so much to take in. Each individual thing should be rocking her, but there were so many that she just kept absorbing, the only impact a deep sadness that the adrenaline in her body fought back. What did gone mean in terms of a city?
Without saying a word, they turned together and walked into Julianna’s.
Serena nearly bumped into them as they came through the door. She paced beside Adam, both of them talking nonstop in mathematical language that Coryn couldn’t follow.
Coryn waited until they passed and then sat beside Julianna. “Have you eaten?”
“Evan made me eat some nuts.”
“Would you like to walk?”
“No. I want to see them find the last nuke. I want to know that this is over.”
“What did they do with the ones they found?”
“The mayor had them taken to safe locations and defused. He promises to destroy them.”
“Promises? Will he?”
“You’re getting a better ear for the language of politics.”
Coryn’s smile felt bitter.
Adam and Serena returned to the table and leaned over it, arguing. Eloise stood behind them.
Coryn wondered if Lou would even be back yet. It had been a night and a day. She was probably back. Coryn pulled up a sat shot on her wrist, but it was too small for her to be sure that both ecobots were on the farm. She glanced at the table. She couldn’t take over any of the big screens. She and Lou were small in all of this. Everyone in the room was small in all of this. Coryn took Julianna’s hand in hers. “It’s always about a lot of people doing their jobs, isn’t it?”
“People and systems, working. The systems depend on the people who set them up.”
Some of the city systems had been set up a long time ago. “How are the systems kept up to date?”
Julianna laughed. “Carefully. It’s both more robust than it seems, and less, a network of systems like this. But the hacking seems to have been turned back, and I heard that the transportation system is about to be reported as clean.”
Coryn gestured to Evan. As he made his way toward them, he had to step around Adam, who had taken up pacing again.
“Can we have some more tea?” she asked him. “And maybe some bread?”
Once more he looked as approving as he ever did. As he walked away, Coryn said, “Sometimes I get the idea that Evan likes me.”
“He’ll need a new job,” Julianna said. She stood up and went to Eloise, conferring quietly with her. She came back just in time to be handed tea. After Evan left to return to his spot by the door, Julianna said, “They sent teams to four possible places. We’ll know in fifteen minutes or so if the damned thing is in any of those. In the meantime, Adam and Serena are looking for more places it could be. We’re off the data you brought and onto images of everyone we know who was associated with this.”
“What about Flagstaff? Isn’t that huge? A whole city?”
“Yes. Luckily, it had a dome, someone inside was smart enough to clamp it down. There’s leakage, but a fresh dome will be built over that, and it will be contained.”
“Everyone in Flagstaff will die?” Coryn asked.
“We don’t know yet. There are medical teams and antiradiation meds and the like on the way. But yes, many will die from radiation or have died from the blast. You can’t evacuate a whole city.”
And this was their side. Her side. Julianna sounded resigned to this. But it seemed so ruthless. Coryn could barely wrap her mind around the idea, the casual way she said it.
Something in her expression must have given away the sudden roiling of her nerves, as Julianna took her hand. “It’s about the future for all of us. We cannot think only about individuals. Not anymore. We haven’t been able to afford that since the climate wars began.”
Coryn felt tears gathering in her eyes and forced herself to think about something else. She was too tired to deal with this right now. Maybe after a long sleep. “A bomb here. If a bomb went off here, it would do more damage, wouldn’t it? It would kill more people.”
“A lot more people live here.”
Adam and Serena crossed directly in front of them, still chattering.
“Don’t they need to eat?” Coryn mused.
“They’re hopped up on neural stimulators.” Julianna’s gaze followed the two with something like amusement. “They won’t feel hungry until they come off of those.”
“Oh.” There had been signs warning about the dangers of neural stimulants all over Coryn’s high school. “Will he be all right?”
Julianna sipped her tea, and for a moment Coryn thought she was going to answer, but when she spoke it was to say, “It takes many kinds of sacrifice for humanity to survive.”
Maybe that was why he drank, and why he always seemed to be alone. He was a beautiful man, but she had never wanted to be close to him, far preferring Blessing and Imke, who were warmer and safer, in spite of being a little exotic.
It seemed strange to be thinking of relatively mundane things in the middle of a crisis, but her job right now seemed to be to spend time with Julianna. “You don’t have an assistant like Evan. He was Jake’s.”
“I’ve never wanted one. I didn’t grow up with one, except an old model that enforced all of the school rules.” Julianna smiled. “I hated that robot. I learned to evade robots early on. I might just keep doing that. But you can keep Evan and Namina.”
“Two? What would I do with two companions?”
Before Julianna could answer, Blessing came in and signaled for attention. “They found all of them except our last one,” he announced. “All of them. The damage is only Flagstaff and Calgary, and Calgary will be fine. The damage is small. People are being treated now.”
Blessing came and sat with Coryn and Julianna, reading good news to them out loud while they waited for word on the last nuclear device.
When it came, it was on the open news. Mayor Arroya announced, “All credible threats to our city have been neutralized. We will turn our attention to going back to business as usual, to helping other cities rebuild, and to rooting out all of the people inside of our great city who helped our enemies.”
Adam and Serena hugged each other, Julianna smiled quietly, and Blessing smiled even more broadly.
Coryn stole some time on a bigger screen, counted two ecobots on the farm, and felt her own face relax into a smile. Lou was safe. Among all the huge issues, this tiny one mattered most to her. Next she messaged Imke, and got a hurried, “Busy. I’ll see you soon!” which made her smile.
Evan shooed everyone but Blessing and Coryn out. He tucked Julianna into her bed, and Coryn into the recliner. Blessing curled his lanky body into a ball on a cushion in the corner, with his head on his coat, and began snoring softly. She stared at him for a long time, watching him breathe. He was always there at the moments when life and death rode close together, talking of what to do next.
Her last waking sight was of Evan standing in the doorway at parade rest, the silent sentinel who would keep them free of interruptions for at least as long as Julianna slept.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Pablo stood on the tree stump again. This time, he was far more somber than he had been on Christmas Day. He wore black, with a thin navy-blue tie and deep blue boots that shone in the afternoon light. He held a black hat in his hand. Aspen sat on the ground near the bottom of the tree stump, staring up at him, a small dot of white in a sea of black and gray.
Valeria wore black lace and a black veil, both of which looked fabulous on her, and which somehow made her grief more ethereal. Lou stood near the back, Matchiko and Shuska on either side, and kept her head low while Pablo continued his tribute.
Paulette had brought a suitcase to the farm while they were in Spokane. She and baby Jude stood near the front, close to Alondra. Lou couldn’t quite tell, but i
t was possible the two young women were holding hands. The baby cried softly from time to time, but no one seemed to mind.
When he finished, Pablo hopped down and held his hand up to catch Valeria’s so that she could flow up onto the stump in a single, graceful move.
She stood there, catching each person’s eye. After total silence had fallen, she spoke into it. “Bless you for being family. Bless us all for being family.” Her gaze took in Lou and her staff, all of the adults, and ended on the children. She lingered the most over Alondra, who had lost a father. No one had told the girl that her father had brought the bombs into the cities, although some day she would figure it out.
Valeria began to sing softly in Spanish. The melody rose and fell, sweet and sad. Shuska leaned down and whispered in Lou’s ear. “Las Golondrinas—The Swallow.” As it ended, Shuska added, “It doesn’t work in English.”
Valeria took a deep breath, and said, “Please join me for this song.”
Silence fell. Feet shuffled. Aspen whined.
Valeria started “Amazing Grace.” At the beginning, it was just her voice, so deep and full of humanity and hope that dug into Lou’s heart. Then the others came in on the second verse, even the children. Everyone knew the words.
Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
When the song finished, Felipe pointed up at a bald eagle that circled high above.
After Felipe and Pablo helped Valeria down, people drifted into the kitchen and began to drink. Lou helped serve plates of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and Shuska and Matchiko poured both water and wine.
After the meal and the alcohol, tributes began. With four people to talk about, and nearly everyone wanting to talk, the stories and occasional songs went well into the night.
When it was Lou’s turn, she said, “Diego was lovely with the horses. He could even make Buster walk fast.” She smiled, remembering. “The others loved the horses, too. Diego and Ignacio and Santino used to sit together and watch them when they took breaks. The horses seemed to make them happy.” She didn’t say she had bought them their own horses and never had a chance to tell them. She swallowed. “In honor of the -o boys’ love of horses, I will give Alondra a horse.”
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