Blackout

by Edward W. Robertson

  She grabbed tight to the rim of the basket. "Son of a bitch."

  "Something the matter?"

  "Is it always this rickety?"

  "These things were invented in the 18th century. They haven't changed much since."

  Carrie's gaze shifted to the packs of explosives set at either side of the rectangular basket. "And it's okay for the violently explosive paste to be this close to open flame?"

  "Don't ask me. It worked fine the last time I did this."

  "Then I suppose I'll trust in the process."

  Heat washed over his face and bare arms. Tree tops appeared beside them, then fell away. They were on the southern slopes of the hilly peninsula, with a good lump of land blocking them from sight of the ship. Good low cloud cover. With any luck, they'd punch through it, find a good wind to ride, meander their way above the mothership, and drop down on it. Relying on the winds for propulsion was clumsy business, but on the plus side, they had a huge damn target to shoot for.

  The balloon climbed steadily. The sea spread to their south. An offshore breeze pushed them slowly inland. Aside from the Goodyear Blimp, which was self-propelled and didn't really count, he hadn't been up in such a contraption in six years, but the basic operations were as simple as he remembered. The only tricky part would be finding the right current in the air.

  Cold winds dueled with the heat of the flame. He rose to three hundred feet, then five hundred. Wisps of cloud streamed around the envelope. With each blast of the burner, he glanced toward the ship, which was now visible as a black hole against the clouds. At fifteen miles away, he couldn't make out a single detail. He hoped the same was true from their vantage.

  The air was thick, damp, wreathy. Clouds enfolded them.

  "You got the compass?" he said.

  Carrie stared dumbly. "What compass?"

  "The one we need to tell what direction we're headed in this pea soup."

  "Can't we use our sense of direction?"

  "We're not carrier pigeons! Look around you and tell me which way is north. Do you want the future of the human species to depend on our brains not being dumb?"

  "This compass?" She dug into her pocket and produced a round hunk of metal. "You're funny when you're panicked."

  "That wasn't panic. That was the appropriate emotional response to a disaster in the making."

  "Sorry. Things are about to get very serious. I thought we might as well have a little fun first."

  "That wasn't much fun for me." He scratched his jaw. "Have you ever wanted to join the Mile High Club?"

  Carrie chuckled, shaking her head. "Let's wait to save the world before we get busy repopulating it."

  He'd been kidding, but as she leaned her elbows on the rim of the basket, hips cocked, he did some quick mental calculations. He might be about to die, wasn't he? Didn't that call for an I'm-about-to-commit-glorious-suicide quickie?

  "Tell me a story," he said.

  "Do you want me to tell you a story? Or what direction we're going?"

  "I think you're talented enough to handle both. In fact, let's make it two stories. One from after the Panhandler, and one from before."

  "Before?" She turned, amused. "You never ask about before."

  "That's because none of it matters anymore."

  "But you think we're about to die. So you're getting mawkish."

  "If it sounds more fun, we can spend the next three hours in perfect silence."

  She wiped fog from the compass. "We're still headed east-northeast."

  He lit up the burner, casting light across the surrounding clouds, sending the balloon higher still.

  "This is from before," Carrie said. "When I was a student teacher. Teaching is one of those jobs a lot of people want to do until they actually start to do it. Like being a veterinarian or a public defender. It's like we all yearn to do good, but then we learn how hard it is. How grimy and tiring and meager the results are. And then it starts to make sense why things are the way they are.

  "I was teaching English. Seventh-graders. The worst. Too old to be sweet, too young to have started to smarten up. We were reading one of those books nobody wants to read. The Old Man and the Sea. Great when you're older, but when you're thirteen, it's a hundred pages of an old man who isn't that good at catching fish.

  "Some kids, you know right away they're no good. You want to help them—you think you're the one who can finally reach them—but there is no reaching some of them. Not at that moment in their lives, at least. Chad was one of those kids. A bully. He'd spit on people when they weren't looking. Give kids the vilest nicknames that would stick for years."

  "Like what?" Walt said.

  Carrie laughed. "You would want to know. This one kid, Brody, had these big wet lips. So Chad called him 'Pussyface.' And so did all the other kids. Brody was Chad's favorite target. Every day, Brody would walk into class looking like he was on his way to the gallows. Verbal, mostly, but there was the spitting, and Chad would do things like trip Brody when he was finding a seat on the bus. I went to admin about it. They claimed they had a zero-tolerance policy toward bullying, but this was superseded by their zero-tolerance policy toward punishing kids with litigious parents.

  "At recess, I'd look out the window and see Brody alone under the trees. Chad would walk over to him. Say something. Brody would walk away. And Chad would just…follow him. Until Brody started crying. It was insidious. Nothing I could do but watch.

  "I tried to talk to Brody, and to Chad, but they both pretended like nothing was happening. Brody was too ashamed. Like most victims. So this goes on all semester. But one day, I'm walking home, and I see them at the corner of a park. Chad's got Brody down on his knees. He's spitting on him. Making him do something in the dirt. And I just…snap. I run out there and Brody's got dirt all over those big wet lips of his. Chad tries to tell me he gave Brody a cookie, and those are the crumbs, and nothing's wrong.

  "So I lean into him. I grab his shirt. And I tell him that if he doesn't kneel down and eat a heaping scoop of dirt, I'd cut off his balls."

  "You didn't!"

  "It was like every moment of unfairness in my own life was brought out by this one scene. And I couldn't handle it. Worse, Chad's sneering at me. But I'm staring back. He starts to plead. To cry. When that doesn't work, he kneels down. He picks up a pinch of dirt. I tell him to make it a handful. He palms it into his mouth. He chews. I can hear the grains crunching in his teeth. I make him swallow, then show me his empty mouth.

  "They fired me for it. I deserved it. The only reason I didn't face charges is because admin threatened to expel Chad, too. But to this day, the look on Brody's wet-lipped face when Chad was chowing down on mud pie—that's the proudest of myself I've ever been."

  "I can't believe you made him eat dirt."

  "Neither could he."

  "So what happened with them?"

  "I don't know," Carrie said. "I'd like to hope Chad learned that when you're cruel, one day, someone stronger than you is going to show you the true meaning of the word. And that Brody learned that sometimes, people will stand up for you. But this was the fall before the plague. They were probably both dead six months later."

  "Well, if Brody did make it through, at least everyone who called him Pussyface is gone."

  She lowered her eyes to the compass. "We're headed northeast now. And it's your turn."

  Walt gave the burner another blast. "I'll start with after. I ever tell you about the time I saved forty people from an alien slave camp in the desert?"

  "Three times. Four, if you count when you related the story to Ms. Peterson."

  "Then here's something a little less heroic. So it's right after the plague, right? Seeing no better use of my time, I decide to walk from New York to Los Angeles. Along the way, though, I keep running into people. And every single one of them tries to rob me. Hurt me. Kill me. So I start to fight back. I get just as mean as they are.

  "By the time I hit the Southwest, I've got a body count like Ice-T. The v
iolence doesn't even bother me anymore. It's just another part of the landscape. No different from the mountains or the tumbleweeds. But as I'm walking along, doing this thing, I see a squirrel in the road.

  "There's a lot of blood around it. At first, I think it's dead. But it's still breathing. One of its legs is torn open, though, and it was bent funny. Without even thinking about it, I scoop the thing up, clean up its leg, and build it a fucking splint out of twigs. Like I'm some kind of Dr. Doolittle.

  "By this time, it's coming to. I back off and give it some space. It gets up, looks at me, then waddles off on its squirrel business. And I go on my way, too."

  Carrie squinted at him. "That's it?"

  "How is it I can be shooting people without a second thought, but then I'm compelled to make time in my busy human-murdering schedule to patch up a squirrel that's probably doomed anyway? What kind of sense does that make?"

  "About as much sense as people always do. I would never make a kid eat dirt except in the exact wrong circumstances. But I still did it." She glanced at the compass. Her face lit up as bright as the burner. "We've got it. We're going northwest!"

  With clouds to all sides, he had no way to guide himself besides Carrie's compass readings and the feel of the wind on his face. Walt did his best to maintain elevation, alternating periods of coasting with puffs of the burner. The wind picked up, bearing the balloon through the damp, gray world.

  "Once we land on the ship," he said. "What do we do?"

  "Again?"

  "Last time we go over it. Promise."

  "Grab the gear. Get clear of the balloon. Tie it down, if we can, but if not, we walk away. We head straight to the engine nacelles. Plant the charges. Move to the edge of the ship, detonate the charges, and jump off the side. Once we're clear, we open our parachutes. Swim home, open a bottle of bourbon, and watch the fireworks."

  "You got it," Walt said. "With one mistake. When we land, you'll want to take your shoes off. It'll be cold as hell, but your bare skin will have a better grip on the metal than your shoes."

  "Roger. Now what about your other story? The one from before the plague?"

  "Uh-uh. I just went. Your turn."

  Carrie tugged up her collar against the frigid wind, thinking. "After the Panhandler, I figured out early on that the best thing I could do was walk away and keep my head down. I didn't have the kinds of adventures you did. But there was one trouble I couldn't avoid."

  She proceeded to relate a lengthy story about how, during her hermetic survival in the forests of Northern California, she'd found a woman lying wounded in the grass. Carrie had almost left her there—the wound was a gunshot, and gunshots meant humans—but in a gust of empathy, she'd built a quick sledge and dragged the woman back to shelter.

  Her name was Felicity. As Carrie had suspected, she was being hunted. The year before, Felicity had joined up with two men. Initially, they'd vied for her attention, but after their rivalry culminated in a fistfight and drawn knives, they'd decided, under the advisement of a bottle of tequila, that they could both marry her.

  To Felicity's own surprise, she'd gone in for that. Survival of the species and all. Besides, with the world bounced back into caveman days, it wouldn't hurt to have a backup husband in case something happened to the first one.

  A year later, Felicity had suffered two miscarriages. She asked for a break. They refused to grant it. When she attempted to leave, they'd shot her.

  Carrie helped her back to health. Went with her to track down her two ex-husbands. Hid in the brush with her rifle while Felicity called to the men. And when they came out to drag her home, Carrie shot them down.

  "After that, I intended to go back to the forest," Carrie said. "But Felicity convinced me to go meet a group she'd heard about outside Fresno. I ran with them until they splintered. A while after that, I was strolling down the beach not far from Carmel when I stumbled into a smelly hobo."

  Walt laughed. "So I have two reverse polygamists to thank for getting us together."

  "And Felicity, for not dying when she was supposed to. And me, for helping her even though I didn't want to. So many things had to happen to bring us together. Almost makes you want to believe in fate."

  "Either that, or we were two hot single people in the right place at the right time."

  Over the course of her story, the air had started to smell salty, marine-like. They were still cruising along to the northwest.

  "So," she said. "What about your before-story?"

  "Coming on the heels of your epic story, it's going to be pretty weak. Back when I was a kid, my parents took me to Alaska to stay with some distant relatives. This was during the summer. The sun didn't set until after midnight. I tried as hard as I could to stay up late enough to see it, but one of the adults actually stood over us kids to make sure we went to bed. As hard as I tried, I couldn't stay awake. By the time we flew back to New York, I still hadn't seen the sunset."

  She eyed him. "You're right. That was weak."

  "I thought it was kind of the perfect metaphor for childhood. Also, it made me think about how I've always wanted to go back and stay up until I saw the sun go down at midnight."

  "You're all grown up now, aren't you? It's only January. Summer's months away. I think we've got a road trip in our future."

  Ahead, the clouds thinned. "Are you nervous?"

  "Not half as much as I should be. But I assume it gets worse."

  "Not really. Once we're on the ship, you'll be too busy scrambling for your life to be nervous."

  They floated along, the silence punctuated by the rush of the burner, the rustle of their jackets, and the sniffle of their running noses. The clouds parted for a moment. Enough for a glimpse of the ship. They were no more than five miles away.

  As the clouds engulfed them again, the keen of an engine speared the night.

  Walt pulled his hand away from the burner. The sound pitched up, increasing in volume by the moment. Slowly, the balloon began to sink. The noise of the jet leveled off, fading. Just as Walt's hopes began to rise, it grew louder again.

  He reached for his parachute. "Get your chute on."

  "Do they know we're here?"

  "I don't know."

  She grabbed her parachute, buckling it around her waist. "If they launch a missile at us in this fog, we won't even see it before it hits us."

  "Raina's had more than enough time to attack the airport. The Swimmers are probably responding to that."

  "What happens if they're coming for us instead?"

  "Then we jump."

  "Both of us?"

  "Of course."

  The engines faded again, but it wasn't long before they were ramping back up. The noise zipped above and behind them.

  "It's circling around," he said. "It just passed through where we were a minute before."

  "It's searching for us. What are the chances it doesn't find us?"

  "The clouds might throw it off. It might be better to stick with this no matter how small the odds."

  Carrie pocketed the compass. The whine blared deafeningly loud, as if the jet were right on top of them. Light flashed from the clouds.

  "That's it," Carrie said. "We're jumping."

  Walt swore. He moved to the door in the side of the wicker basket, unlatching it and swinging it open. "When we hit the water, don't try to find each other. Swim straight to shore and meet up at the house."

  Carrie moved toward the edge, gripping either side of the exit. "See you there."

  "I love you!" He shoved her out the doorway. As she disappeared into the clouds, he stepped back and slammed the wicker door shut.

  His heart thundered. He laughed mirthlessly. If he made it out of this alive, she was never going to forgive him. But he still had a shot to take down the ship. If he didn't follow it through to the end, it would mean the end of everything.

  The scream of the engines dopplered away. He held perfectly still, as if that would help him hide. The clouds thinned again. Before he
could so much as decide to reach for the burner, they vanished into wisps.

  The mothership hung three miles away, less than two thousand feet beneath him. He let himself drift, gauging his rate of descent. The winds bore him closer. If anything, he'd come in too low, but if so, he could give himself a boost before the end.

  The engine returned. First a mewl, then a roar. Walt spun in a circle, picking out the dark wedge skimming the bottom of the charcoal clouds. Heading directly his way. A point of light detached from its belly and leaped forward.

  "Aw fuck," he said.

  He grabbed the basket's lip and vaulted over the side. Wind tore past his face, stealing the breath from his lungs. The missile lanced toward the balloon and plowed straight into the envelope. Walt curled his body into a ball. A wave of force hammered against him.

  Then came the flames.

  II:

  COLLAPSE

  10

  Raina jammed the headphones over her ears, grabbing tight to the radio handset. "Walt. This is your commander. Walt!"

  Across the darkness, the uniformed aliens herded their captives into the tall orange boxes. The radio stayed as silent as the clouds.

  "Walt, there has been a revelation. You will speak to me!" Handset clenched in her fist, she turned on the radio's operator. "Is this thing working?"

  The girl's expression flickered. She bent over the device, touching its lights and dials. "Everything is functional on our end. But his may not be working. Or he might have turned it off."

  "What kind of fool would turn off his radio at a time like this?"

  "I'll keep trying for you. If I reach him, and you're busy, what should I tell him?"

  Raina tore the headphones from her ears. "That we were wrong. We're not at war. But if he doesn't stop the mission, we will be."

  The girl nodded and withdrew.

  Mauser pinched the bridge of his nose. "We have a decision to make. Bryson's set to hit the terminal in less than half an hour."

  "But do we still wish to attack?"

  "That's the question, isn't it? If the new arrivals are arresting the original invaders, they might actually be on our side. Neutral, at any rate. But I imagine an all-out assault could degrade our relations significantly."