by M M Buckner
“Leave that to Godchaux. I need you here,” Roman said.
“On my way.” Meir clicked off.
Lima and Roman synchronized watches. Then Roman noticed CJ Reilly edging toward him along the catwalk. He didn’t like her expression.
Converge
Sunday, March 20
9:48 AM
They gathered in Dréclare’s office to pool their collective wisdom—all the officials, agents, stake-holders, and naysayers who had swelled their ranks as they journeyed down the river. CJ, Roman, Peter, Dan Meir, Elaine Guidry, Ebbs, Jarmond, Dréclare, and Joshua Lima faced each other around the desk. Others aggregated on the conference call, the governor, the MRC president, municipal authorities, sheriffs, chiefs of police, the EPA. Li Qin Yue linked in from her hospital bed via the Internet. Rory Godchaux and nine other crew chiefs stood by on shortwave radio. And just outside converged a score of news reporters, a social historian, representatives from The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, and Friends of Wetlands in Louisiana.
“The EMP,” Yue said, “that’s our only chance.”
CJ bit her thumb. She’d already exhausted her shouting match with the Queen Bitch. She’d wailed and argued and cut her hand on a fountain pen when she pounded the littered desk. The pen left an inky blue gash in the side of her fist. As she listened to Yue’s shaky voice streaming over the Net, she sucked the cut and tried to clean it with her tongue.
“Send weak pulses in a coded sequence,” Yue explained, “like a cell phone. The plume will be attracted to the musical rhythm.”
CJ sensed intuitively that Yue was right. Their best chance to contact the colloid was by EMP. A sequence of electromagnetic pulses could travel through water more coherently than sound, and if they kept the force as weak as a cell phone signal, it probably wouldn’t disrupt the colloid’s field.
“We’ll have to be close,” Roman said.
“Correct.” Yue stifled a coughing fit. “Electromagnetic waves travel through water at 22.5 centimeters per nanosecond. You’ll see significant refraction, but at close range, that speed should be fast enough to keep the sequence lucid.”
Jarmond’s eyes goggled. “Are you saying this beast reads binary code?”
“Our resident genius thinks it can read music.” Peter winked at CJ.
“I’m sending you a MIDI to convert the music to code,” Yue said. “It should be coming through now.”
Musical Instrument Digital Interface—Yue had found it online. Since regaining consciousness, she’d been analyzing the distortion problem from her hospital bed. Despite a raging headache, she’d spent hours on the Net looking for answers. The MIDI wasn’t a perfect solution, but at short notice, it offered a decent compromise.
When the MIDI software popped up in Dréclare’s server, CJ swore under her breath. She had to give the QB credit. “Thank you, Li Qin. This is good.” There would be time later for apologies.
With a faint blush, CJ unbuttoned her shirt, pulled out her precious music disks and offered them to Peter. He grinned and showed her the copies he’d made. Then he slotted Max’s “lesson one” and began the MIDI transfer.
Jarmond was still ranting. “Why should music work better than, say, a mathematical formula? Okay, I get the computer-network-in-the-water idea. That’s awesomely cool. But please explain the music.”
“Yeah, Reilly, please explain the music.” Peter smirked.
She twisted her hair. “We tried numeric rhythms at first. I guess the colloid thought we were just another machine like the ones he found in the river. But music—” She frowned, trying to remember how Max had put it.
“Music proves we’re not machines?” Jarmond chewed his pencil.
“Just do what Reilly says,” Roman ordered.
Then Lima got everyone moving.
Ebbs and Dan Meir heaved Dréclare’s desk against the wall to clear more space. They’d already shoved most of the furniture into the supply closet to make room for Peter’s workstation, and now Lima piled the remaining chairs in the corner. A muted TV screen by the coffee urn showed a jiggly image of Hal Butler reporting live from a helicopter circling the spillway. Lima unplugged it.
Roman stalked to the window to watch the crane trolley. His voice came out like gravel. “Vaarveen, will it work?”
Peter tapped his keyboard and shrugged. “I can patch the MIDI through my laptop to control an EMP generator. Is that what you’re asking?”
Li Qin Yue’s disembodied voice spoke through the Net. “Roman, it’ll work.”
Dan Meir squinted at the computer through which Yue had spoken. “You said we have to be close. How close?”
“Ten meters maximum,” she answered.
Rick Jarmond did the conversion. “Thirty-three feet. Whoa. That means we’ll have to transmit from a moving boat and. . . and lead the colloid through the weir.”
Peter laughed. “Like a pied piper on speed.”
Simultaneously, everyone turned to look out the window. Nearly two thousand pins had been pulled from the weir, and water thundered through the open bays. Where the current plunged to the stream below, it galloped in great white boils against the concrete foundation, then tore downstream in a monstrous ragged chain of standing waves. Even the FOWL demonstrators had climbed to high ground.
“You cain’ get a boat through that. That’s a death trap.” Ranger Dréclare rested his hands on his gear belt. “Once all those bays are open, any boat within a hundred yards will be sucked down against the weir like a noodle in a strainer.”
Lima’s eyebrows rippled. “We might get a kayak through.”
Lash
Sunday, March 20
11:18 AM
As the spillway stream widened, video flooded the airwaves, and Internet traffic swelled. The blogosphere radiated heat. CJ zipped across the rising stream in her airboat, clutching her seat while Martin, the taciturn young pilot, manned the tiller. In sunglasses, baseball cap, muddy shorts, and flapping red windbreaker, she looked like a frantic schoolgirl.
Crowds lined the tops of both guide levees, cheering and snapping pictures, while Dréclare’s deputies circled back and forth like border collies. News trucks lifted cameras on scissor cranes, and the overloaded sightseeing helicopter swooped for close-ups. CJ scanned the catwalk for Roman’s signal as, inexorably, the waters rose.
A quarter mile upriver, a bizarre-looking vessel glided down the Mississippi, keeping pace with the slick that oozed along the river bottom. From a distance, the vessel resembled a bunch of tangerines lashed to a giant banana. It was, in fact, their last best hope.
Peter had commandeered the yellow sea kayak from an outfitter in Hahnville, and he’d re-engineered its rudder for radio guidance. Onboard he mounted a small EMP generator patched to a wireless laptop that was programmed with Max’s digital music. Dan Meir helped him waterproof the apparatus in shrinkwrap. With so much weight lashed to the stern, the kayak stuck straight up out of the water like a yellow rocket, so Peter weighted the bow with stones and improvised a float collar of orange life vests to keep it level. He dubbed it the Lemon Surprise.
CJ volunteered to paddle the kayak through the weir, but everyone agreed the Lemon Surprise had no chance of surviving. Meir was piloting the Quimicron speedboat at a distance, and Peter lay supine on its bow, using a gamer’s joystick to maneuver the radio-controlled kayak. Forty-five feet down, the dense silver colloid glowed with quivery light. And from the kayak, electromagnetic pulses hissed through the water in the simple rhythms of Max’s music lesson.
CJ chewed the nail of her little finger. She wanted to be out there, not waiting here for Roman’s signal. She squirmed in her boat seat. Roman wanted to keep her safe—she hated that. His crew had mounted sixteen more EMP generators to pulse the electromagnetic music through the spillway stream. He wanted to make very sure this time. One generator perched just inside the weir, and the other fifteen waited at the sandbag dam. All were hardwired to a single serve
r with the music file. When the colloid got near enough, CJ would switch them on.
Since the airboat fan and water noise drowned out cell phone conversations, she and Roman had worked out visual signals. He would flash a mirror from the weir when the kayak came in sight. But would the colloid hear the music, and understand, and come?
“Come to me,” Harry’s sarcasm roiled through her mind. “Your theory’s absurd. You’ll never succeed.”
“I will,” she muttered.
She reached into her shirtfront and fingered the remote control lodged between her breasts. “Three-two-one,” she recited aloud. That code would trigger the music. With her thoughts whirling off on tangents, she needed something easy to remember. Three-two-one, March 21, tomorrow’s date. Would she still be alive tomorrow? Death would simplify a lot of things. The thought almost consoled her. March 21 a year ago, she dumped her father’s ashes in the Charles River Basin. She remembered how they floated, grainy silver-gray, unwilling to sink.
Martin steered the airboat where she pointed, into an eddy behind a clump of trees just upstream of the dam. When he cut off the big fan, the ambient noise diminished by half. Martin got hold of a cypress sapling, and their boat rocked in the churning eddy. Rory Godchaux waved to them from the dam. CJ saw equipment trucks and SUVs parked where the dam met the east guide levee. She spotted Creque and Spicer with their flatbed truck. A lot of workers had gathered at the dam to operate the generators.
Out of nowhere, a massive wooden pin bashed against the aluminum airboat and knocked CJ off balance. The timber rolled off through the current and piled against the dam a hundred yards downstream, where two thousand other weir pins rocked and sawed in a massive twisted thatch. CJ got a firmer grip on her seat. She didn’t want to fall overboard and wash into that.
“It’s not safe here.” Martin was looking downstream at the weir pins. His statement made her jump. He spoke so rarely.
“We’ll be fine.” She wiped spray from her sunglasses and peered upstream, watching for the signal. The remote control felt sweaty lodged in her bra. She watched the catwalk and thought about the other code. Seven-two-two. Roman’s birth date. That code would send the EMP generators a different message. Five minutes after the colloid washed against the sandbag dam, that code, transmitted from a panel-truck on the levee, would transform the weak pulsing music into a death ray.
Again, she twisted to see the pumps and tanks mounted on Michael Creque’s flatbed. Spicer was leaping along the top of the sandbags securing his vacuum hose, while Creque stood ready at the switches. Before the death ray struck, they would have five minutes to scoop up a sample. Creque swore he could pump a thousand gallons in that amount of time. Five minutes. She hoped it would be enough.
Martin touched her arm, and she jumped again. He nudged her gas mask toward her without meeting her eye. His own mask hung loose around his neck. Earlier, he had offered her a life vest in the same sheepish way, but she despised life vests and refused to wear it. Now she took the clumsy gas mask and stuffed it under her seat.
“Put you gloves on, lamie. Zip up you suit. It’s regulations.” Max’s gentle baritone seemed to drift over the water. “Who you mad at? You mad at the whole world?”
Something inside her convulsed. Abruptly, she leaned over the water and vomited, and a yellow thread of drool spun away on the current. She sat up wiping her mouth. Then she shifted away from Martin and unzipped her shorts part way. The waistband felt tight. Her fingers slid down over her belly, and she tried to sense the tiny clump of cells budding inside her womb.
Lots of mothers dump their kids, Harry whispered.
CJ winced . I’m not like her. I’m not like either of you.
“The mirror.” Martin pointed toward the weir.
“What?” She saw the flash from the catwalk and fumbled with her clothes. The remote got stuck in her bra. She ripped it out and almost dropped it. Three-two-one, she punched the code.
Roll
Sunday, March 20
11:59 AM
Just outside the weir, the Mississippi hurtled downstream, and Dan Meir opened the speedboat’s throttle as wide as it would go. The engine shuddered, but the boat did not gain way. They’d been following too close behind the kayak. The ruthless current was driving them along the east bank toward the weir. Dan could see chocolate water seething through the bays, roaring like a hurricane. His speedboat was too wide to pass through those narrow openings. If they hit the weir, the water’s force would crush their hull.
He leaned against the throttle, knowing it wouldn’t move any farther, and he struggled to remember the words of a prayer. “ ‘May all the people of Israel be forgiven, and all the strangers who live in our midst, for we are all in fault.’ ”
Peter lay flat on the bow, unaware of the danger. He was hooked into a safety harness, guiding the Lemon Surprise with his joystick. His tropical swim trunks ballooned in the wind. Far below, he could see the faint fluctuating gleam of the colloid rising up from the riverbed, a colossal hybrid plume of metamorphosed trash. Its field radiated so strongly, it made the white hair on his arms stand up. He felt it penetrate his bones.
Thanks be to his lucky stars, his radio control was working. The sea kayak navigated well despite its gawky outrigging, and the EMP generator hummed like a beehive, pulsing musical rhythms into the river. Peter watched the yellow craft with pride. Whether the colloid sensed the weak pulses, he couldn’t guess, but the luminous emulsion was clearly oozing toward the weir.
As the kayak approached the sucking wooden teeth, Peter tried to steer it through one of the open bays, but the kayak swung broadside. “Shit.” Peter gyrated the joystick, but the river had taken control. He watched helplessly as the yellow boat smack sideways against the weir and crumple like a flower. No explosion of splinters. No violent splash. It was simply gone.
Finally, Peter heard Dan Meir shouting at the radio.
“Mayday! Mayday! We’re caught!”
Peter sat up, and when he noticed how close they’d drifted to the weir, his face blanched. Their speedboat labored a hundred yards upstream of the weir. Anyone would have thought they could pull away. But the current was accelerating as it poured down through the bays, and their overloaded engine could only slow their progress. Peter scrambled back to the cockpit. “Drive us against the bank! Run us aground!”
Meir shook his head. The river ran so swift and high against the steep riprap wall, he knew any attempt to land would simply capsize them. He wrestled the steering yoke to keep the bow pointed straight upstream, and his mind settled to an unnatural calm. He pictured Elaine sunning on her beach towel. Her sweet roly-poly buttocks glistened with coconut oil. Next, he thought of his grown children, his son getting married, his daughter’s daughter growing up far away, and he realized with regret that he couldn’t picture his wife’s face. Most clearly, he pictured the view from his office window, overlooking Devil’s Swamp. His home for seventeen years. Yes, truly, his home.
“By God, it’s Roman.” Peter waved at the sky, grinning like an idiot. “Man oh man.” He stood up in the cockpit and waved both arms.
A dull green helicopter marked NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT hovered lower, its propeller noise obscured by the blasting weir. Roman leaned out and made hand signals. The crew lowered a cargo hook.
“You go first. I’ll take the wheel,” Peter shouted. They could barely hear each other over the water’s savage roar.
Again, Meir shook his head. “Go on. I’m next.”
Peter unhooked his safety harness and climbed up into the seat. He spread his feet wide for balance while Meir fought to steady the boat. The heavy cargo hook dangled and swung. On the third pass, it broke Peter’s hand, but he caught it and held tight.
“Stand in the hook. Put your foot in the hook.” Meir gestured with his foot, using body language to make his point.
Peter got the message. He lodged his boot in the hook, wrapped both arms around the cable, and shot up through the air. Alone,
Meir glanced over his shoulder at the weir. He could see the grain of the concrete. All twenty bays stood open, and water piled three feet high against the concrete dividers. The structure whistled like a flute.
Currents folded and vortexed. The river was trying to turn his speedboat sideways, so he braced the yoke in his elbows to hold it steady. Noise brutalized his eardrums. For the corner of his eye, he saw Peter drop safely from the cargo hook onto the grassy levee. The levee looked close, only a few dozen yards away. He could pick out individual blades of grass. Spring green. Shining in the sun.
The steering yoke jerked and bruised his arms. The helicopter was coming back, dangling its hook. Roman was leaning out the door, waving and shouting. But Dan Meir knew he was out of time. Seconds later, the boat swung broadside, the gunwale dipped and waves swamped the cockpit. Meir glanced up at the cargo hook and met Roman Sacony’s eye. Then the speedboat rolled upside down.
Pour
Sunday, March 20
12:38 PM
Roman jumped from the helicopter to the weir, sprinted along the catwalk, and stopped where the speedboat lay crushed flat, twenty feet under. The colloid was piling over it, crackling like electric syrup.
Roman didn’t have time to loiter there. He didn’t have the leisure to contemplate Dan Meir’s death. Ebbs was shouting at him. Lima called his name. Yet Roman stood motionless, leaning over the weir, gazing straight down. A few feet away, Elaine Guidry sat where she’d fallen, legs akimbo, blubbering into her hands. Rick Jarmond was trying to help her up.
As the plume glissaded through the weir, its greenish glow underlit everyone’s chins, making them look like ghouls. Strangely, the noise around them muted. The colloid moved more quietly than water. Its hushed subliminal roar suggested an ocean, far away. Its cloying aroma turned Roman’s stomach, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He didn’t need a compass to sense the powerful EM field.
