Blackout

by Edward W. Robertson

  "None taken," Bryson said. "Hell, if things get that bad, I'll be begging to go with you."

  They chatted some more, but Tristan wasn't listening. She wanted the answer to be simple. One hot air balloon, or one bomb in the right place, and the nightmare would be over.

  But Sam was right. It wasn't going to be simple. It was going to be tough. Bloody. Exhausting. And even if, many years from now, they brought it to an end, she knew not everyone would still be with them.

  * * *

  The city resolved in the sub's viewfinder. A fat crescent of houses and hotels overlooked a blue-green bay. A large round building, vaguely Classical, commanded a jetty hugging the right side of the waters. The smoke of cook fires trickled from the houses. Hills surrounded the town on all sides. Avalon.

  The sub slowed, making for the end of the massive pier running down the middle of the bay. Tristan left the control room, got a rifle, and climbed the spiral ramp up the tower to the outside deck. Afternoon sunlight bounced from a thousand small waves. Tristan crouched beside the tower. People stood at the base of the pier, staring at the alien vessel. Many carried guns. Tristan shouldered hers and waved her hands above her head.

  Bryson popped out the hatch and took in the scene. He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Attention Catalina! We're here to bring you home."

  Allie followed him outside. Salty steam wafted from the sub's flanks as it came along the pier. Ness and Sam hauled up the collapsible gangplank and extended it to the dock.

  "We'll handle it from here," Bryson said. "There's gonna be some bitching and moaning about abandoning their homes. You know—crops, gardens, livestock, pets. Could take us a while."

  Tristan sat beside the tower. "We'll be here."

  He rattled across the gangplank. Allie loped after him. People drifted up the pier, gesturing at the sub and the distant hills of the Palos Verdes peninsula. Further north, the sky grew too hazy to make out the ship.

  Ness sat beside her, leaning against her shoulder. "Kind of weird to be back in America."

  "Is it still America?"

  "What else would it be?"

  "They speak English. There's a blend of people that approximates the former composition of major American cities. Everything else, though? It's nothing like the country we grew up in."

  At the shore, Bryson fielded questions from an anxious crowd. Someone jogged to the big round building and clanged a bell. People emerged from quaint seaside houses and stared down the slopes at the sub. Others walked swiftly uphill. A trickle of residents arrived at the dock bearing lumpy bags. A middle-aged woman had joined Bryson. She had a notepad and seemed to be taking down names.

  Half an hour after arriving, Bryson jogged back to the sub's deck. "They got more spring in their step than I gave them credit. We got twenty people ready to go right now."

  Tristan stood, stretching her legs. "How long will it take the others?"

  "We went over this with Raina," Ness said.

  "Well, I wasn't listening."

  "The island's about twenty miles across," Bryson said. "It'll take a full day to get word to the west end. We got a fort there where the farmers will assemble. When the time comes, we can park off the coast and let them row out to us."

  "And here in town?"

  He planted his hands on his hips, considering the houses. "I'm guessing a third of them will be ready by tonight. Another third will drag their heels and take a day or two before they come around. And the last third won't leave their homesteads even if the mothership hovers over here and starts venting its toilets on the island."

  "We're looking at a potential invasion. They can always come back after things have quieted down."

  "Man, you know how people are about their homes and stuff. These people been dealing with wars and relocation for three straight years. They're sick to death of it. You'd need a pair of pliers to pull them loose."

  She swore to herself. "Well, there's no sense standing around. Let's get the first batch out of here."

  Sprite had taken to the deck a few minutes after berthing. He walked forward, gesturing broadly. "Nonstop service to San Diego, scheduled to leave in ten minutes. All aboard!"

  The twenty passengers filed across the gangplank, eyeing the squat submarine's hull. Their eyes skipped between Tristan, Sprite, and Ness. As Ness disappeared inside the vessel, Tristan and Sprite helped the evacuees up the ladder to the hatch.

  The passengers congregated around the galley. The journey to San Diego would only take two hours, so the crew had made no special accommodations for the passengers, except to block off the more sensitive areas of the sub—especially the control room, where Sebastian captained the vessel. People shuffled about the quarters, sniffing at the brackish air. Several went wide-eyed, gazing across the alien architecture: the too-wide halls and too-high ceilings, the preternatural smoothness of the cabinet-filled bulkheads.

  "I'm going to tell you what I told Bryson and Allie," Tristan said. Every pair of eyes turned her way. "Don't touch anything. And if you're given an order, you execute it immediately."

  She was met by a number of nods. A Hispanic man in his twenties raised his hand. "Who are you people?"

  Ness shrugged. "We're just some people with a boat. We happened to be in the neighborhood, thought we could help out."

  "Come on, we deserve a cool name of some kind." Sprite stomped forward. "I hereby declare us the Pan-Pacific Pirates. Now who wants to help me design a flag?"

  The sub burbled away from the dock, hove about, and got underway. At top speed, it could hit fifty miles per hour. Over the two-hour journey, the passengers spoke little. Bryson and Allie fielded most of their questions. As they neared the coast, the sub slowed and surfaced, with Sebastian hunting for a dock. Tristan headed outside, scanning the coast through her binoculars.

  The Kingdom of Better San Diego was housed in the La Jolla Country Club, situated half a mile inland from the low cliffs of the coast. Looking on it, old memories clenched in Tristan's gut. She'd spent weeks trapped there. To get out, she'd had to murder her roommate, who'd been spying on her. If she hadn't been hunting for her brother, she might have taken the time to burn the place down before leaving.

  Raina had promised things were different now. Tristan hoped for their sake that was true.

  A long pier projected from the coast two miles north of the hills that hosted the country club. The sub neared. The pier's surface stood 25 feet above the waves, but a ladder reached down to the sea. The ship came to a stop beside it. Tristan and Sam secured ropes to the ladder. Bryson emerged onto the deck, watching them finish the makeshift bridge.

  "They don't know we're coming," he said. "The war with Anson wrapped up less than a month ago. Might not be a great idea to march everyone up to the gates at once."

  Tristan tugged at the rope, ensuring it would hold fast. "I'll run ahead and let them know we're here."

  "You know the way?"

  "Sure. Years ago, I spent every waking minute plotting how to escape this place."

  She grabbed her rifle from the deck, double-checked the safety, and slung it over her shoulder. She scooted down the hull, holding the ropes as a guide, and swung across to the ladder. Paint and rust flaked under her palms. A steady wind blew off the sea. She ascended to the pier. The surface was crusted with salt, dirt, and the white spatters of bird droppings. She jogged to the beach.

  Pretty white buildings fronted the shore. An aquarium or sea research lab. She headed past it and found a southbound road, loping along it. She hadn't had much time to go running lately and the exercise felt good. She sweated lightly, cooled by the steady ocean breeze.

  After a mile, the coast bent to the southwest, the road following its curve. She angled away, continuing south uphill toward the country club. Ahead, a chain link gate barred the road.

  "Stop right there," a woman called. Tristan scanned the trees, but saw nothing. The sentry said, "Do you know where you are?"

  "Better San Diego," Tristan said. "An
d if you're one of the knights, it sounds like this place is finally living up to its name."

  A woman strolled out from behind the trees. She carried a rifle, but Tristan was relieved to see the realm's soldiers had given up the peacock feathers they used to wear with their helmets.

  Tristan gestured northwest, toward L.A. "You heard about the ship?"

  "The ship?"

  "There's a second mothership. Showed up in L.A. this morning."

  The woman shaded her eyes, gawking toward the ocean. "You're joking."

  "We're evacuating Raina's civilians from Catalina here. She said it would be kosher."

  "We'll need to speak to Georgia. Come on."

  Tristan shook her head. "They could start attacking at any moment. We don't have time to spare. Let Georgia know the score. I'll have our people here in forty minutes."

  She turned and jogged back the way she'd come in. She ran hard the two miles back to the pier. There, Ness and Bryson had the refugees assembled on the road.

  Tristan drifted to a walk, perspiring. "They know we're here. Let's get moving."

  "You heard her," Bryson said to the people. "Mush!"

  He started up the road. Feet shuffled behind him. Ness detached from the group and jogged up beside Tristan. "Bryson said you went up there on your own?"

  "Raina said they were friendlies," she said. "And they were."

  He scrunched up his mouth, taking a look at the sea. "Might have told me where you were going."

  "Were you worried something might happen to me?"

  "Of course."

  "This is my job," she said. "Yours, too. Along the way, we're going to run into Swimmers. Bad people. If we want to keep doing this, there's no way to keep ourselves out of danger."

  Was he flushing? "All right, but is it that crazy to let me know when you're about to put yourself in extra danger?"

  "No." Tristan's shoes scraped on the road. "It's not. I'm sorry."

  "All right then."

  She didn't know whether to sigh or laugh. She liked Ness a lot, but there was a certain absurdity in trying to start a relationship while you were embroiled in international, inter-species derring-do. There were times it felt like it would have been much simpler to back off.

  But simpler didn't mean better. Ness was smart. Thoughful. A bit on the hesitant side, but despite that, he'd spent years battling the Swimmers. He was far more than the quiet redneck dork he sometimes came off as. In this world, there was never going to be the perfect time to settle down and try to make it work with someone. Besides, if she couldn't handle a relationship, how was she supposed to think she could save the world?

  She reached out and squeezed Ness' hand. He looked surprised, then smiled.

  A troop of knights met them halfway to the country club. Tristan was ready to turn over the evacuees and get back to the sub, but the knights insisted they come speak to Georgia.

  Fortunately for Tristan's patience, Georgia was waiting right inside the gates. Tristan had been expecting someone in her thirties or forties—perhaps with a certain Carrie-Anne Moss flavor—but Georgia looked no more than 25. Tristan was 28. She knew she wasn't old by any standard, but all these young people running the new world were starting to make her feel antiquated. Obsolete.

  Whatever. She wouldn't want a kingdom if she was offered one anyway.

  Bryson ran down the basics. Georgia took the news with a stoicism which Tristan had to admit felt regal.

  "I still owe Raina for helping free us from Dashing," Georgia said. "Of course I'll take in your people. What does she expect the grand total to be?"

  Bryson scratched his neck. "Everyone who's not directly involved in the war effort. Could be four, five hundred people."

  "Five hundred? That's as many as we've got here. How much food is she sending with them?"

  "Lunch? The war all but ran us dry. We got some farms on Catalina—good fishing, too—but we gotta pull out of there. We're going to be scraping to feed our soldiers."

  "Five hundred." Georgia pressed her lips together. "I want to help. But I can't feed people with gratitude and good intentions."

  Bryson laughed. "You want to switch places with us, lady? I'm sure we'll be happy to come down and keep your farms nice and tidy if you want to go deal with the Swimmers instead."

  The knight who'd met Tristan jabbed her finger in Bryson's chest. "She's no lady. She's a queen. And you'll speak to her with respect."

  "For God's sake," Ness said. When he was upset, his generic-rural accent got twice as twangy. "It ain't that hard, is it? Put the Angelenos to work. Farming. Fishing. Foraging. I don't think anybody's going to complain about ensuring that nobody starves. And you know what? If they do complain, kick 'em to the curb. That's one less mouth to feed."

  Georgia laughed wryly. "You want my crown? Sounds like it'd be a good fit."

  "No way, man. I can hardly handle running a six-man ship. You can keep your kingdom to yourself."

  Georgia sent the evacuees up to the main house, accompanied by a pair of knights. She then spent a full twenty minutes grilling Bryson and Ness on the battle plan, the logistics of its execution, and their best understanding of the aliens' intentions. Tristan found herself glancing repeatedly at the sun. It was after four o'clock. The winter sun was nearing the horizon, painting the clouds pink. Another hour, and it would be down. She wasn't sure how late into the night the Catalinans were going to be willing to keep up the evacuation. They might only have time for one more trip that day.

  At last, they were back on their way. At the pier, they boarded the sub and made way for Catalina. They'd only left Los Angeles a few hours ago, but it already felt terribly distant. She wondered if the aliens had made a move yet. Raina's army was in dire need of some radios. It was bizarre to her just how far civilization had degraded. Sure, the only thing she knew about radios was that they'd been invented by an Italian guy—and she suspected she only knew that because of The Simpsons—but there had been plenty of amateur radio enthusiasts back in the old world. Had they been too busy surviving to maintain the machines and build new ones? Or had they discovered no one else was out there and gave up on trying to communicate?

  Then again, if they were using radios, maybe the aliens could use the signals to hunt them down. And maybe human predators had used the same tactic.

  She caught a quick nap. When she awoke, they were docking. Avalon was completely dark. Blacked out like London during World War II. The pier was nearly deserted.

  "The hell's going on?" she called to Bryson, who was down at the base of the dock talking to a middle-aged woman. "Do they think we're here at their convenience?"

  He turned, little more than a silhouette. "Keep your voice down!"

  "Or what? I'll wake these people up? We have to get them out of here."

  Bryson swore and stalked down the pier, gazing up at her. "A few hours back, a jet flew over the island. Made a couple circles and headed inland. It wasn't blasting at bison or anything, but it's got the residents on edge. So let's be cool, okay?"

  Tristan took a long look at the dark sky. "Fair enough. But if the squids made a flyby, seems like all the more reason to hurry."

  The Catalinans assembled at the pier, boarding one by one. The previous batch had brought little besides the go-bags that the apocalypse had made de rigueur—a survivalist's starter kit of basic necessities, tools, and weapons—but this group had had the last five hours to pack. Several of them appeared determined to wear the complete contents of their house. There was a fair amount of storage on the ship, but getting everything on board and sorted away took much longer than she'd expected. Which was becoming a pattern.

  They crammed in nearly sixty passengers, though. At that rate, and assuming six hours per round trip to San Diego, they'd have the operation completed within another day and a half.

  It was an eventless trip. On arrival at the dock in La Jolla, she held up a lantern to help the passengers make their way up the ladder. A handful of knights waited up top
to see the people into the city. They said the first group of evacuees were doing fine, but otherwise didn't have anything worth gossiping about.

  On the trip back, Tristan grabbed another nap. They arrived in Avalon shortly after midnight, had the third group in San Diego around three that morning, and returned to the island by the first hint of dawn. They delivered the fourth round of passengers and turned back to Catalina. Clouds hung over the seas, threatening rain.

  Tristan and the others had managed to get adequate if sporadic sleep, but after their most recent deposit in San Diego, Sebastian had asked Ness to take over the helm. Tristan and Sprite were cleaning up the mess from the last slew of passengers when Ness ran into the galley, looking spooked.

  "We're a few minutes out from Avalon," he said. "But there's a jet circling around."

  The crew piled into the control room. On the screens, Avalon was less than three miles away. Magnified through the sub's periscope, people ran away from the dock as a wedge-shaped alien vessel banked above the eastern edge of the island.

  Tristan leaned over the screen. "Have they made any attacks?"

  "It just showed up. But it seems pretty dang interested in Avalon."

  "Stop the sub. We can't risk being spotted."

  Ness glanced up from the controls. "If they see us, they'll see an alien sub. They won't have any reason to think there's humans inside."

  "Until they start trying to communicate with us."

  He hesitated, then throttled down the engines. The ship went quiet. Tristan lurched forward, grabbing an overhead handle as the sub slowed, hissing and groaning. On the screen, the jet slowed too, swinging inland, then hooking around for another pass over Avalon. The dock and the streets had emptied out. The jet was coasting unnaturally slowly; a human plane would have crashed. As it came in for a third pass, it was hardly a hundred yards above the water.

  Light flashed from a coastal shop. A point of fire streaked toward the jet, tracing thick white smoke behind it.

  Tristan's whole body tensed. "Oh shit!"

  The jet turned hard, engine flaring. Before it could mount a defense, the rocket slammed into its hull. The plane went up in a ball of flame. Smoking scraps crashed into the ocean.