The Rift

by Walter Jon Williams

  Still, there were parts of St. Louis that were more or less intact, standing like hollow-eyed sentinels above the rubble that surrounded them. The earthquake had laid entire districts in ruin, but spared others. It was like a game of survival roulette: if you put your chips, your house and family, in the right area, you could come through with some broken windows and fallen shingles, while other people’s chips were swept off the board. The only problem was that no one knew which neighborhoods would be spared until after the game began, and by then it was too late for most of the players. The riverfront was a wreck. And the Chain of Rocks Canal in Illinois, through which river traffic bypassed the rapids that infested the river north of St. Louis, was now unusable. The canal’s banks had caved in, and so had the sides of the newly built Lock No. 27.

  The grounds of the National Expansion Memorial were covered either with tents or helicopters. MARS

  had moved in force: the Memorial held a battalion of paratroopers from Fort Bragg and a thousand rescue workers from all over the world, all in addition to the refugees who had poured out of the ruined city. Other city parks were also filling up with rescuers and refugees. Airlift Command was having a hard time just keeping them fed, particularly as there were few surviving runways big enough to carry heavy fixed-wing transports. Even the tough and reliable C130s were having a hard time finding places to land. Almost everything had to be flown in by helicopter, and choppers were fragile craft that required a lot of down time for maintenance.

  Jessica sympathized with Airlift Command. They were trained to supply a mere army. This was an entire population.

  During the Second World War, the United States had at its peak supported 15,000,000 soldiers, but that was after years of military buildup. Now there were millions of homeless refugees on American soil and the government was being asked to take care of them overnight, and with the heart ripped out of the country’s infrastructure.

  “Take me down over the river,” Jessica said.

  Her pilot gave a redneck grin. “You want to go under the bridges, or over?” For a moment she was tempted, and then she decided she would feel truly ridiculous if, during the greatest adventure of her life, she was killed by a falling railway tie. “Better go over,” she said. Jessica’s stomach sank into a single location as the Kiowa Warrior settled into a smooth dive. G’s tautened her grin.

  She was going to have to learn how to fly one of these, that was clear. This was just too much fun. The river was fast and carried tons of debris. Once they got south of the bluffs at Cape Girardeau, Swampeast Missouri spread out before them like a shimmering inland lake. There were a pair of waterfalls at Island No. 8, though the Mississippi was busy reducing them. Jessica asked the pilot to make a detour to Sikeston, west of the river, to look at the power plant. The Sikeston Power Plant had been built directly on an earthquake fissure that was clearly visible from the top of its smokestack. At the time when the plant was built, no one realized this was an earthquake feature. But even after the fissure had been properly identified, land atop it had been acquired for a housing subdivision. Neither the power plant, the smokestack, nor the subdivision had survived M1. Brown water washed through the wreckage.

  The next power plant south had been built at New Madrid, not exactly the best choice under the circumstances. It and the town were a flooded ruin. So was Cabells Mound. The river had cut the New Madrid bend and the bend at Uncle Chowder.

  Jessica took a professional interest in the area south of New Madrid designated the New Madrid Floodway. The levee east of the floodway had been built with plugs atop the levee that could be removed in the event of dangerously high water, allowing the floodway to fill with water until the water reached a backup levee built five or so miles behind the river. This was to enable deliberate inundation so as to take pressure off other critical areas of the river.

  Removing the plugs hadn’t been necessary, not with the earthquake tearing away chunks of the levee. To that extent the New Madrid Floodway functioned as intended.

  Unfortunately this hadn’t helped populated areas, not with every levee in the district broken, including the backup levee behind the floodway. Everyplace that could flood had flooded. But because the flood was every place, it wasn’t as bad as it could get in any one place. Once the water had a chance to spread out, it achieved a kind of uniform depth over the whole region. It was a lake, but the lake was fairly shallow.

  Jessica had hopes for the levees farther south. Before the Swampeast drained—and judging from the extent of the flooding, draining should take some time—it should be possible to reinforce and repair most of the levees south of the Arkansas River. She had hopes of keeping the major cities dry from Greenville south. This would entail pouring all these billions of gallons of water back into their proper channel south of the Arkansas. She thought this was possible.

  “Refugees to starboard, General,” the pilot said.

  There were about a dozen of them, at least two families. They were trapped, with their automobiles, on top of a flooded two-lane rural roadway. They had probably been there for two days. They were standing on top of their flooded vehicles, jumping up and down and waving their arms. Probably screaming their heads off, too.

  Jessica’s Bell Kiowa light helicopter was far too small to carry the refugees away, even if they dangled from the skids.

  “Circle them and let them know they’ve been seen,” Jessica said. “I’ll contact the jarheads and call for a dustoff.”

  The helicopter rescue units operating in this part of the Mississippi Valley had been deployed by the Navy and Marines into a naval air station north of Memphis. Big Sikorsky Sea Stallions, able to carry over three dozen refugees and capable of floating on their amphibious hulls, were picking up people in isolated locales and delivering them to refugee centers well away from the earthquake zones, where they could be fed and housed without straining the capabilities of Airlift Command. While Jessica’s pilot banked into a turn over the stranded people, Jessica contacted the Navy, who informed her that there was a Sea Stallion flying on a search pattern over the Swampeast just a few minutes away. Jessica kept the Kiowa circling to mark the refugees’ position. When the big Marine Sikorsky arrowed in from the northwest, Jessica resumed her tour of the Mississippi, crossing the river to look at what remained of Memphis.

  The Memphis Pyramid, she saw, was sitting in a lake. The old nineteenth-century Pinch District, surrounding the pyramid, was little but rubble, each building looking like a little crumbled brick pyramid paying homage to their huge silver neighbor. Mud Island was MIA. Beale Street, home of the blues, had been obliterated.

  The random pattern of destruction that marked St. Louis, some parts destroyed and others standing, was not present here in Memphis. Here, the earthquake had spared nothing.

  The Kiowa hovered at low altitude over the Harbor of Memphis while Jessica studied the wreckage, absorbing the company names on wrecked facilities, on ruptured storage tanks and half-submerged barges. Helm Fertilizer, she read. Ashland Chemical. Vulcan Chemicals. Chemtech Industries. Marathon Oil.

  Even from the Kiowa, floating a hundred feet over the burned harbor, she could smell the chemical soup below.

  She hovered for a sad moment over the wreckage of the Corps of Engineers’ Memphis District headquarters. Eight of her own people, she knew now, had died there when the harbor turned to a holocaust.

  Below Memphis was a burning towboat and barge tow that had just caught fire. A chemical slick oozed downriver from the burning barges.

  Everywhere there were wrecked barges, burned grain elevators, suspicious stains on the water. There were dozens of oil and gas pipelines, Jessica knew, that ran across the bottom of the river. Who knew how many had ruptured?

  At Helena, Jessica buzzed the wrecked chemical plant. South of Helena was the Union 76 Oil Company facility at Delta Revetment, the Port of Rosedale, the storage tanks of the Bunge Corporation and the waste discharge of the Potlatch Corporation at De Soto Landing in Arkansas, t
he port terminal and tank storage at Arkansas City. The Port of Greenville, snug in a slackwater horseshoe bend created by the Corps of Engineers, was choked with the spilled residue of its commerce: Farmkist Fertilizer, Cooper-Gilder Chemical, Warren Petroleum, and more than a dozen barge and shipping firms. It was a miracle that the port hadn’t gone up in flames like the Harbor of Memphis. The town was evacuated until its port either blew up or was declared safe. Madison Parish, in Louisiana, featured a large complex of oil and chemical storage facilities.

  And in Vicksburg, Jessica’s headquarters, the port was choked with marine commerce, from Phoenix Rice Oil at the northern end to Mississippi Power and Light at the south, by way of the Ergon Refinery, Citgo Petroleum, and Neill Butane.

  By the time the Kiowa spiraled to its landing in Vicksburg, Jessica knew what she had to do.

  “Heaven-o,” Frankland said, and Robitaille began to scream.

  “He cries in pain when you speak the name of heaven,” Dr. Calhoun said, and frowned at the man writhing on the bed.

  The stench in the room was appalling. Sweat, urine, vomit. Frankland steeled himself against it.

  “Donne-moi un verrel Au nom de Dieu, un verre!”

  The three pastors looked down at the priest, each holding a well-worn Bible. “He just keeps talking that Latin,” Frankland said. “I figure the Devil speaks Latin like the Pope.”

  “That’s French,” Calhoun said. “He’s from Cajun country, remember.” Frankland looked at Calhoun dubiously, then decided the precise language didn’t matter anyway. “Well,” he said to Caihoun, “you’re the college boy.”

  “Pour quo etes-vous la? Qu’est-ce que vousfaites? Des diables!”

  “Did you hear that?” Garb said. “He said devil, I think.” Calhoun stepped closer to the bed, passing a hand nervously over his bald head, and then straightened and spoke in a loud, commanding voice. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What is your name? I demand this in the name of the Lord!”

  “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”

  The English words sprayed between Robitaille’s broken teeth. He shrank from his three visitors, backing across the stained sheets to the far wall.

  “Why don’t you want us to touch you?” Garb said. “Why do you try to hide from the name of the Lord?”

  “Vows voulez que je meurs!”

  Calhoun adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles. “Why don’t you try touching him with the Bible?” Calhoun nodded. “Good idea, Brother Garb.” He stepped forward and tried to press his Bible to Robitaille’s head. Robitaille gave a cry and tried to bat the Bible away with his hands.

  “C’est le singe! Le grand singe!”

  Calhoun pulled Robitaille’s hands away and firmly pressed the Bible to Robitaille’s forehead. Robitaille shrieked, seized Calhoun’s wrists. For a moment there was a frantic struggle.

  “Get away! C’est le singe!”

  Calhoun pulled back. Robitaille gasped for breath, eyes rolling wildly in his face as he tried to back himself into the headboard. Calhoun turned to the others, his face grave.

  “Well,” he said, “I guess that settles it.” He looked at Frankland. “Brother Frankland, praise Jesus for letting you see this.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Calhoun,” Frankland said in relief. He had needed his colleagues to assure him that his diagnosis was correct, that this was not merely a case of the DTs. They had all worked with alcoholics, they had all worked with people going through withdrawal. But this one was, clearly, different. Now all could agree that Father Robitaille had been possessed by an evil spirit, presumably a demon flown up from Hell.

  The Devil could get you if you went into a Catholic church, Frankland thought. In Robitaille’s case, it wasn’t a what-d’you-call-it metaphor, it was a genuine devil. It had led Robitaille into false worship, into alcoholism and probably other sinful behaviors. It cursed and gibbered in foreign tongues and shrank from the Bible and the name of the Lord.

  Garb bit his lip. “The question is, how do we get rid of it?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Well,” Frankland said, “our Lord cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, and a legion’s worth of devils out of the two possessed men. And he gave this power to his disciples.” Calhoun passed a nervous hand over his bald head. “But how’s it done, exactly?” None of them had ever had direct experience with demons before. In preparation for this moment, each had looked into his Bible and discovered that there were no actual directions for casting out spirits.

  “Well,” Calhoun said, “in Mark, our Lord says, ‘Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.’” Frankland considered this. “Shall we try it?”

  They faced Robitaille and chanted the phrase in unison. They tried it several times. Robitaille only whimpered and muttered as he cast terrified looks around the room.

  “There’s got to be more to it than this,” Frankland said.

  “We don’t dare let a demon spy on us,” Garb said. “What we’re doing here is too crucial.” Frankland looked at Robitaille again. He had curled up around a pillow, and was crying. “What can we use to help us?” Frankland asked.

  “The Lord’s name,” Garb said.

  “The Lord’s Word,” said Calhoun, brandishing his Bible.

  “The Lord’s…” Frankland stumbled. “Prayer?” he finished.

  “All three,” Calhoun said firmly.

  They worked on Robitaille for an hour, with vigor and persistence and pure-hearted dedication, but it didn’t seem to help.

  It took some time to get a hold of the President. Jessica kept getting the brushoff from various aides and assistants. She didn’t want to think about how many leaps in the chain of command she was making by placing this call.

  “It is a decision that only the President can make,” she kept repeating. “I must speak to him personally.” Jessica was told that the President was speaking to the press about the tragedy while taking a boat ride past the flooded Memphis Pyramid. Let it not be said, she thought, that he was ever at a loss for photo opportunities. Jessica wished she’d stayed in Memphis and dropped in on the President while he was making his tour.

  “Listen,” Jessica said, “the President appointed me to this job, in person, just a few weeks ago. The last thing the press wants to hear is that I resigned because the President would not speak to me on a matter of vital national interest.”

  She wagged her eyebrows at her husband, Pat, who sat across her desk with a highly impressed look on his face. He didn’t very often have the opportunity to see her turn into Major General Frazetta, the Fire-Eating Army Engineer. She covered the mouthpiece of her phone.

  “What’s for lunch?” she asked.

  “Mystery meat on a bun,” Pat said. “Macaroni and cheese. Mixed veg. I haven’t had these kinds of meals since high school.”

  “That’s because you never experienced the joy of national service. A few years in the Army would have taught you to appreciate chicken a la king and chipped beef on toast.”

  “If today’s army were sensible—like that of Jeb Stuart—I would have served.” Jessica grinned. “Could you get me some lunch?”

  “You bet.”

  “Make mine with extra mystery meat, will you?”

  Pat nodded and was off. Jessica returned to her phone and her war with the Executive Department. In due time she heard the velvet tones of her boss. “Jessica,” he said, “where are you?” Ninety minutes, she noted. Damn. She had clout. This was a good thing to know.

  “I’m in Vicksburg, Mr. President,” Jessica said. “At my headquarters.”

  “I’m told you needed to speak to me. What can I do for you?”

  “A couple things, Mr. President. First, you’d make my job a little easier if you asked Congress to move along my appointment as President of the Mississippi Valley Commission.”

  “Okay,” the President said. “I can do that.”

  An undertone of impatience had crept into the President’s soothing tenor. Jessica had only
asked about the MVC appointment by way of delaying her real request, which took a certain amount of nerve.

  “But what I really need you to do, sir, is this,” she said. She took a deep breath. “I need you to order the evacuation of the entire Mississippi Valley from St. Louis south to the Gulf of Mexico.” Pat returned with Jessica’s second cup of coffee, and she sipped it gratefully. “I didn’t hear all of that,” he said, “but it sounded as if you wanted to evacuate every city on the Mississippi. New Orleans and everyplace.”

  Jessica nodded. “I do.”

  “But New Orleans isn’t flooded. And there’s no danger from quake down there—” Pat looked at her. “Is there?”

  Jessica shook her head. “Don’t think so, no.”

  “So the levees are safe? They’ll hold?”

  “Probably they’ll hold. I’ll do my damndest to make sure they do. But that’s not my problem—the problem is that all those cities, and every little town in between, get their water from the river. And the river isn’t just a river, it’s the biggest sewer in North America. With this many refugees, you’re going to see every disease you can think of going into the river. Cholera, typhus, typhoid. Any industry you can name sits on the river bank. Petroleum, fertilizers, flammable chemicals, raw sewage. Nuclear power, even.”

  Pat looked at her. “You’re going to have to evacuate those cities… because of pollution?” She looked up at him. “I presume the big cities can chlorinate their water enough to keep out the diseases, but I doubt the small towns have even that capacity. And even the cities can’t handle the other stuff. Heavy metals. Nitrate fertilizer. Chlorinated chemicals. Pesticides, petroleum products. Phosphates, ammoniated compounds. Plastics. Toluene, benzene, fuel oils. Polychlorinated biphenyls, from places that haven’t phased them out. Corrosives. Hexavalent chromium—” she shook her head “—now that’s a nightmare. And on top of all that, we’ve maybe got nuclear isotopes from that plant downriver.”