All she saw there now were old roads, crumbling buildings, and fallen signs.
“We have plans to plant these forests again. Since trees breathe carbon dioxide, they would soak some of it up from the atmosphere. My parents planted a plot when they were kids, so we’re going back there to check on them soon. I’ve never seen live trees, so I’m pretty excited.”
Thunder rumbled above him, and he looked up at the clouds with darkened eyes. “Looks like I should get inside.” His gaze met the camera again. “That wasn’t a half bad entry, I hope.” He managed a smile. “Stay tuned for more. Others will include: More Disaster; Wolverines; How to Do a Cartwheel; Really Bad Historical Decisions; What Were Ornithopters?; and A Brief History of the Organisms That Roamed Earth before Humanity Evolved and Subsequently Killed Everything.” He reached up and switched off the recorder.
H124 stared at the dark screen, thinking about what she’d seen. Had things really been so different? She turned off the PRD and placed it on the bedside table. Her eyes were heavy. She closed them, imagining a world of green, a world of life, a world of possibility. . .
She spent the next few days sleeping, eating once or twice a day, and reading. She was starting to pick out more and more words, able to figure out what they meant in the long way of spelling them.
Bldg became building. Bthrm was bathroom. She read through a series of books called field guides. The tree she’d seen that first day once had thousands of varieties and grew in things called forests. The one she’d seen was a sweet gum, she thought, from what she could remember of it. The images in the book showed whole hillsides full of them. She’d only seen a handful when she was outside. Everything else was a wasteland of cement and abandoned buildings like the one she now hid under.
The little spiky plant that had blanketed the ground was called grass, and it too had many variations. In some place called the Great Plains, it had covered vast landscapes.
She read about weather, learning that the ice storm she’d encountered was called hail, and that storms could manifest via tornadoes and hurricanes.
The opossum puttered around the weather shelter, having taken to sleeping under one of the cots during the day. At night it roamed through the small space, eating, drinking, exploring. She changed the dressing on its wound a couple times, and as before, it played dead. But the third time she did it, it just sat there and let her touch it. It sniffed her arm, curious. She felt a shared camaraderie, two lone survivors who could very well be the only living things for miles.
Above them she could hear the rain pelting the outside of the building. Wind roared through the hollow halls. She checked her PRD a few times every day, hoping to hear from Willoughby.
On the third day, she sat down at the table, chewing thoughtfully on an MRE, and decided to watch another video on the old PRD she’d found.
She clicked on an entry, watching as Raven’s face appeared. He stood in a forest, but the trees were black and leafless, stark against a searing blue sky. He adjusted the camera, turning it away from himself to expose the view. Blackened trees stretched all the way to the horizon.
Then he turned the camera back on himself. “This was once a vast pine forest, a living place full of animals and plants, like ferns and berry bushes. Woodlands like these stretched all across the western half of the continent.
“But as the earth warmed up too rapidly, the forests died. There were these beetles that laid eggs under pine bark, and their larvae would feed inside the tree. Cold winter temperatures usually kept the population of these beetles in check. But as the earth got hotter, cold winters became rarer, and the beetle population exploded. Drought made trees even more susceptible to beetle attack. Beetles devoured whole forests. The dead trees were more prone to fires, and with all the crazy storms that erupted as global warming increased, lightning strikes constantly set everything aflame. Entire regions burned. Eventually, all that was left were these scarred remains of habitats that were once teeming with wildlife.”
He showed the camera around again, and she saw all the burned trunks, the fallen charred logs, the desolation of the barren landscape.
“I’ve seen images in books and videos of what they used to look like. One really stayed with me. I recorded it.” He pulled out his own PRD. Bringing up an image, he held it in front of the camera.
She saw a verdant forest whose enormous plants were clustered in the shade, its wildflowers winding about the tall grasses. In the distance, a massive mammal with sharp claws tore apart a fallen log.
He pointed to the animal. “That’s a bear. They’d pull apart logs looking for grubs and bugs to eat. Three species of them used to roam all over the continent, one even living way north where vast sea ice used to form, but now they’re just legend.” He looked thoughtfully at the bear. “I would have loved to see one.”
H124 set down the PRD, feeling a sinking in her gut, and moved to the bookshelf. She wanted to see more photos of these extinct animals. She opened a book on birds only to find it hollowed out in the middle. Hidden inside was a small piece of flat metal, wide on one end, slender and grooved with serrated teeth on the other. A piece of paper folded beneath it showed a hand-drawn map of the street above, with a red X on a street a few blocks away. The words Allow five hours’ charging time were scrawled underneath the map. She lifted the metal, bewildered. Then she took it along with the map and slid them inside her tool bag. Maybe it was time for a little exploring.
She waited until the thundering of rain became a dull roar, and donned her jacket. Seeing the opossum sleeping soundly under one of the cots, she slung her bag over her shoulder. She exited the weather shelter, sliding the door shut behind her.
Rain cascaded down the stairs as she walked up the slick steps. Its scent greeted her, a smell she was becoming both familiar with and fond of. As lightning flashed, she waited for its boom to follow. It shook the walls of the building. She hoped it wouldn’t hail again. Upstairs, she avoided places where the ceiling leaked and stayed to the drier parts. She pulled out the map, studied it once more, then tucked it back inside her bag.
At the doorway to the building, she stared out over the monochromatic landscape. Water flooded the gray streets, gushing down the gutters, carrying trash and jagged pieces of glass and metal.
She jogged out of the building, making sure she was alone. She turned right at the corner, sprinted down two blocks, and headed left. The X lay just a couple blocks up. She closed the distance, then double-checked the map, trying to shield it under her hood. She counted the number of intersections. The map showed the right number of buildings for the corner with the X, though in the drawing they were still standing. Now they lay in ruins around her, but at least the foundations were the same. This was it.
But she couldn’t figure out what the X represented. She looked back at the map, and saw that it was just off to the left of the building in front of her.
As the rain pattered down on her hood, she sprinted to the spot. The ground squished under her boots. She mucked around in the dirt, then tripped on a piece of metal sticking up from the sludge.
She knelt down, finding a handle in the dirt. She grabbed it and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. She came around the other side, planted her feet on the ground, and yanked up with all her strength. Following a sucking sound, a door wrenched open in the muddy soup. She strained to open it all the way, pushing it back on rusted hinges.
She didn’t relish the idea of jumping down into the blackness.
She fished around her tool bag, pulled out her headlamp, and cinched it on. Flicking on the beam, she knelt over the darkness and peered inside. An old iron ladder led down to a cement conduit of some sort. It was dry down there, though the rain started to splatter through the open door.
Tucking the map back in her bag, she turned and descended the ladder, closing the door above her.
As she stepped off at the bottom, the
reek of mildew greeted her. She was at the end of a tunnel. She walked in the only direction she could, the beam playing over smooth, curved concrete on both sides. The ceiling was low, so she had to duck to walk through it. She came to a T-intersection and decided to turn right. Moving cautiously, she remained alert for any sound of the things that liked the dark. She came to another intersection and bore right again, turning right at every crossing so she wouldn’t get lost. Two more rights led her to a dead end, so she turned back and chose a different path.
Finally the tunnels opened into a spacious room. In its center, an old canvas tarp covered something large. A great iron double door stood at the other end.
She approached the tarp. Lifting one corner, she aimed her headlamp beneath it. Then she flung off the tarp altogether.
It was a vehicle like the ones out on the street. But some things were different. It still had four wheels, with a circular object protruding in front of the seat. But the clearance beneath was a lot higher, and the wheels were larger. Thick rubber rings encircled the metal ones, but they were flat where they touched the floor. Mounted on top of the vehicle were shiny black panels. They looked a little like the UV charger on her PRD and headlamp, but these were huge and bulky, more primitive, less sleek. They took up the entire top of the car.
She tried the door handle, lifting it to no avail. A small round metal piece with a slot was mounted just below it. She bent down, studying it. She’d seen this same thing on the vehicles outside.
She stuck her fingernail in the slot. Then she thought of the flat metal piece. She dug in her tool bag, closing her fingers around it. She slid it inside, and it fit perfectly. She tried the handle. No change. So she put it in again. Nothing. Then she tried twisting the serrated object, and heard a click. This time she pulled up on the handle and the door swung open. She sat down on the seat, placing her hands on the skeletal wheel before her. She gave it a turn and heard the flattened wheels squeaking on the cement.
Another slot lay just beneath the wheel. She stuck the metal piece in again and twisted. Nothing happened. Then she remembered the note on the map: Allow five hours’ charging time.
She withdrew the metal piece. It was a key. A primitive metal key that worked mechanically rather than electronically. It was brilliant in its own way, so simplistic. You didn’t have to worry about this kind of key losing its charge or going on the fritz like the TWRs always did. It would work every time. Genius.
She had to know how this vehicle worked. How would she get sunlight down here to charge it? If she could get this vehicle to start, even if the Rovers were across the country, she could make it to them so much faster.
She looked at the double door across the room. She climbed out of the vehicle and walked to it. It was held shut on her side by a series of bolts, so she threw them open and tugged on one of the doors. It came open with a deafening squeal and whine of rusted hinges. The car would fit through the egress. Beyond stood a corridor wider than the vehicle, angling up toward the surface at a gentle grade.
She ascended the slope until it ended at another set of great metal doors. A series of bolts locked it from the inside. She disengaged them and braced her back against the cold metal. Then she pushed, but they wouldn’t budge at all. She strained and strained, looking for a bolt she must have missed. But she didn’t see any. It hadn’t been opened in a long time, and here the rain had seeped through, probably rusting the hinges tight. She’d have to retrace her footsteps, figure out where this door opened on the surface above, and use some kind of lever to pry it open. Then she could push the vehicle out and let it charge.
She reengaged the bolts and returned to the vehicle. She locked the double door too, then covered the machine with the tarp.
Eagerly she hurried back through the tunnels and climbed the ladder to the surface. She threw the trapdoor shut and hastened through the misty gray streets back toward the weather shelter, hoping she would find books on these vehicles so that she could figure out how they worked. Once again she stared up and down the street, but didn’t see anything on the move.
Inside the shelter, the opossum had emerged from under the bed, munching happily on some grass she’d managed to scavenge the day before.
She went to the shelf and scanned the book bindings, looking for something that might describe how the vehicle worked. At first glance she didn’t see anything.
Then she came across a thick tome with the word Atlas on its binding, and pulled it out, wondering what it was. It was full of maps. She’d been wondering how far she’d come from the city, but without any markings on her PRD’s maps, she couldn’t be sure. She read the coordinates off her PRD and looked up that location in the atlas. As she flipped to the pages, she was blown away by the beauty they contained. Color filled every page, offering so much useful information. Not just roads and landmarks, but rivers, city boundaries, locations of rest areas, historic sites, even old mines. She couldn’t imagine why something like this would ever go out of use.
She picked up her PRD and swiped its map feature back to retrace the way she’d come since leaving the city. The location of the shelter went beyond the scope of her PRD. It showed only the glowing arrow with the location Rowan had entered for this place. She stared at the vector, marking a spot in a vast gray area, with no marked roads or structures. It was like the outside world didn’t exist at all to this device. It made sense; people in her city had no reason to leave. Well, most people, she thought, with a pang of isolation. Anger welled in her at the memory of that midnight chase through the city, burying any notions of loneliness.
But at least where the city was concerned, Willoughby’s PRD was loaded with detailed information, far more than what her own had held. Hers had included streets and buildings, so she could locate where she needed to remove a body. But Willoughby’s showed how many people lived in each building, what each edifice’s function was, even places where workers labored and which buildings had the most up-to-date media installations. She set her starting point as the place where she’d learned of the asteroid.
She clicked on the show coordinates button and looked them up in the atlas. She flipped to the correct page, but it didn’t show her city at all. Instead there stood a building called The University of New York. An inset map showed the campus. She’d been walking around in the Earth and Planetary Sciences building. She stared down at the map, marveling at all the things that simply weren’t there anymore. New Atlantic had been built on top of it.
She looked at another page that showed the area directly east of where her city now stood. Those buildings she’d seen out in the ocean had been etched in her mind. According to the old map, it was once called Manhattan, and the sea had been much farther east when this map was made.
She flipped through pages, measuring how far she’d walked using the scale bar. It had taken her three days, and she’d walked thirty-six miles.
She left the atlas open and returned to the bookshelf, resuming her search for a book about the vehicle she’d found. So many volumes had titles she didn’t recognize, so she had to pull down nearly every book and examine its cover. At last she found one with a photo of a similar vehicle on the cover. It was called the Automotive Repair Guide. Inside were wiring diagrams, photos of machinery and tools. Helpful diagrams labeled what each part of the vehicle did—steering, brakes, electrical systems. The book described a car that ran on something called gasoline, with frequent warnings not to have an open flame around this fuel source.
Tucked inside the book were hand-drawn diagrams and instructions for the solar modifications that had been made to the car. It showed where extra batteries were stored, how to fill them with water, how to repair tires. It also diagrammed a wench system designed to pull the car up out of the storeroom and into the sunlight. She studied the pages until her eyes started to hurt. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair.
Now that she’d been dry a few days in a
row, her hair was coated in grease. She had to get clean. But the shelter didn’t have a disinfectant chamber. Instead it had a small space next to the toilet with a dial on the wall and a nozzle overhead. She wasn’t sure what it did.
Taking a chance, she turned the dial in the small space, and water sprayed out of the nozzle. It smelled like rain, but as it jetted out it felt warm. She’d always wondered why some older workers called the disinfectant chamber a shower—then it hit her: At one point in time, it actually was a shower of water. Rather than treated air removing the oil from your hair and skin, a bin of slimy liquid mounted to the shower wall lathered up into bubbles. She stripped and got in. The slime took the oil right off her skin and hair. Ingenious. She basked in the warmth, never wanting to leave. But she didn’t know the extent of the hot water supply, so at last she turned off the nozzle’s stream. She got out and dried off.
It was nice to be able to take a shower without having to wait in a long line every sixth day. She had never known privacy like this, and she loved it.
And even though she hadn’t seen another human in days, she was starting to feel a little less lonely. Being an anonymous cog in the machine, seeing other workers but not talking much to one another, felt far lonelier than being out here on her own, living this free day-to-day lifestyle. Though she was on a mission, her heart was swelling with possibility. Anything could happen. Every day had a new surprise in store. She had no idea what the next morning might bring, and it thrilled her. The message she waited for on her PRD was very different from the corpse cleanup messages she waited for in the city. The only thing that changed back then was who died and where, but the bleak task always played itself out in the same way.
Shattered Roads Page 11
