The Nuclear Winter

by Brian Thompson

  Mom hesitated before pressing her full hand against the screen. Again, it beeped with an error message.

  “Uh-oh,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Maybe it is you. One more error and it’ll flag you for fraud. You won’t be able to fly on anything, chartered or not, for six months.”

  My blood froze. This wasn’t happening. Six months? I had six weeks. “Mom?”

  Her voice quavered. “Can’t do it by my retina?”

  Frank wagged his finger and clicked his tongue. “No. Municipal has two-step [XW27]verification. Without the fingerprint, it won’t proceed to the retinal scan unless we do a full biometric.”

  There’s no way she’d have consented to that. A biometric pulse would give Frank access to her physical history from broken bones to the duration of her last recorded menstrual period, and it would compare it to her medical history records for identification. Totally invasive concept, but since the government passed the law, terrorism on US incoming and outgoing flights had disappeared.

  While he called into the plane, Mom whispered, “Mantén la calma” to me. I was calm enough. She wasn’t, though, and I didn’t know why.

  “People book private flights because they think the security will be lower and they can sneak things through inspection: drugs, weapons. Is this your first private flight, Ms. Sandoval?”

  Mom’s icy stare meant I shouldn’t say much. “First in a while.”

  “Excellent. Excuse me for a minute. I need another flight crew approval for a manual override. No need to be nervous since neither of you has anything to hide.”

  My mother swiped her bangs with her finger as Frank disappeared into the plane. That’s when I noticed tiny sweat beads framing her brow.

  “Are you okay?”

  She turned away from the plane. “Stop talking. Get your bag. We need to go.”

  Did she switch my cancer meds with illegal drugs? “Go? What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll explain at home. Move!”

  No. She’d explain right here. I crossed my arms. “We’re not doing anything wrong. Are we?”

  Following a strong sigh and a pause, she offered me no more of an explanation. “We need to go, Luciana.”

  “No.”

  “Now!” She said it like our lives depended on my obedience.

  “I’m going to Walsh, with or without you.”

  Mom lunged at me and grabbed my arms. Frank’s voice got closer. He’d be back soon. “Can’t you do what I ask once without question?”

  Not this time.

  She dug into her handbag and squirted more lotion into her palms. The hangar was an ice cube. Could she even feel her hands to know they were dry? Maybe the brand was the warming kind?

  Before I could ask for some for myself, Frank reappeared. After he finished conversing with a woman on the plane, he disembarked down the jet bridge and beckoned us to the edge of the staircase. Mom quickly tucked away the bottle back into her bag, as if moisturizing her hands was a criminal offense. This time, when Frank handed her the tablet, she did the handprint scan and it worked without issue.

  “Funny,” he said. “That’s technology for you. Lift your glasses for the retinal, please.”

  She did so,[XW28] and after a second, the scan confirmed her identity as Elayna Maria Sandoval. My scans went off fast with no problem.

  “This is your only daughter?” he asked Mom while he finished scanning my eyes. “No other children?”

  “Uh-huh. Why?”

  He winked at her. “No trying for a boy?”

  Mom said an angry Spanish phrase I couldn’t translate. “Stay out of my uterus, okay, [XW29]Frank? Thanks.”

  Hand up, he apologized. “Sorry. Especially to you, Luciana.” He said my name with wonder like it was magical. “Following protocols. And call me Moses.”

  I saluted him and headed to the jet bridge alongside my mother. “Whatever.”

  “You have your mother’s eyes,” he said from behind me. “Brown. Beautiful. Soft like cotton. History behind them. Flecks of pain.”

  Why was he saying all of this? Was he buttering me up to get to her? “You know your adjectives,” I said without breaking stride. “You got all that from a retinal scan?”

  “Look in anyone’s eyes long enough and you can see exactly who or what they are.”

  His words brought me enough discomfort to stop moving. There was a point he was trying to make. I was missing it. That was, until I heard the click of a cocked Ordnance.

  “Your mom ever say you look like your father? Around the cheeks and chin.”

  My heartbeat stuttered. The chill from the air and the echo in the hangar faded away. Too afraid to move, I said, “You know my father, Moses? What he looks like? What’s his name?”

  I watched my mother with my peripheral vision. Over the years, I’d seen the range of her emotions. Every response was constant, almost rehearsed. When her nose flared, she was angry. Rolled her eyes? Annoyed. I’d never seen her this twitchy. This guy had a convincing bluff, or he knew my dad, and she’d gotten nervous about the information she’d thought he’d disclose.

  Pointing my finger at him, I asked the obvious. “How does he know my father?”

  “How do I know him, Elayna?”

  Her face was expressionless stone. “He doesn’t. Not personally, anyway.” She placed her handbag atop her rolling suitcase, held her hands up in surrender, and slowly turned. I mimicked her actions with my own bag. “How many units are you being paid to keep us here?” she asked him. “I’ll double it.”

  Moses aimed the silver Ordnance at her heart. I’d never seen a firearm up close before. Shiny. Boxy. Longer than I thought. Guys at school talked about wielding handheld Ordnance, but the way I figure, the ones who had one weren’t really talking about it.

  My mouth dried. Fear clotted in my chest. A relaxed finger on a shiny curved piece of metal was [XW30]all that kept us alive. Mom seemed fearful. Not for her well-being but for mine.

  “He knows you’re alive, you know, always did,” Moses laughed. “You want to stay that way? Turn around and go home.”

  Another gut punch. One more lie she’d told me. I didn’t have everything I needed here, like she’d said. There was more, and this psycho wasn’t going to keep me away from my father.

  Mom’s shoulders sagged. “My daughter is dying. Fly us to Walsh. Let me talk to him, face to face[XW31].”

  He pointed the firearm at me. “Bone cancer? Little young for that, isn’t she?”

  How did he know? And what, was I supposed to have gotten it later in life?

  “Walk away, Elayna. Let her die. I’ll pretend you never tried to leave in the first place.”

  “Can’t happen,” she replied. “She’ll meet her father. I’ll fly her myself if I have to.”

  “You? Fly?” Moses slid his thumb on the side of the Ordnance. According to all the holoshows I’d ever seen, he’d done so to switch the power to its kill setting. “Okay then.”

  Lip trembling, I interrupted them. “Are you going to…kill us?”

  Moses holstered his weapon. “You said twice what he’s paying me. Right, ‘Elayna’?”

  “Absolutely. Half now. Half when we get to Walsh.”

  The suggestion of flying to a cornfield town amused him more than it did me. Moses’s exchange with my mother was frustrating. They spoke in enough generalities to be confusing to anyone else but themselves. Each time he said my mother’s name, it was like he mocked her, and I started to think the “him” they talked about was the guy who could point us in the direction of my father. Why would he pay someone to keep us from traveling?

  Swallowing my questions wasn’t easy, so once we docked our bags on the plane, listened to the emergency instructions, and buckled up, I started a handwritten list. What is my father’s name? What is your name? Is he African-American or mixed? Where are you from? Where is our family from? Were you in love with my father? Is Luciana Sandoval my real name?” The list continued. “What did Moses m
ean by bone cancer already? Who is going to find my father? Who died and left us that kind of money?”

  And who is she?

  Sitting across from me, Mom must’ve noticed my dedication. “What are you doing?”

  “Writing.” I realized my answer was more sarcastic than I meant it to be. Keeping my hand steady as we taxied was even more difficult. “Coming up with questions to ask you so I don’t forget them.”

  “Hmm. Looks like a decent start. Can I see?”

  I continued with my list. “I’m not done. I don’t know if I ever will be.”

  While Moses and his assistant prepared for us to fly, Mom placed her hand on my knee and glanced at my list, which was numbered in the high teens. “Still going?”

  By question twenty, I ran out of gas. The list was comprehensive. I handed it over.

  “The name.” She spoke under her breath and removed her hand from my leg.

  I reminded her of her promise to give me answers once we were on the plane. Aside from the unintended wrinkling of her nose bridge, there was no way I could tell if she was telling the truth.

  Even though Moses and his accomplice were out of earshot, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Anibel.”

  “What?”

  “Oh God, Lucy, I’m not saying it again. Not even your father knew my real first name.”

  Anibel? Who names their kid Anibel in the twentieth century? “Tell me no one ever called you that.”

  “Only your grandmother Ruby and only when I was younger. I wish you could’ve met her.” Mom dabbed a cocktail napkin underneath her shades. “I went by Rhapsody.”

  Rhapsody. Okay, what? My mouth and the mouths of the butterflies of my stomach dropped open. “S-she’s dead?”

  “Don’t know.” She sniffed and blotted her nose with the napkin’s corner. “She’s not where I left her.”

  “Which was?”

  “Panama.”

  “Grandma liked to party?” I liked this game of “truth or truth” with my mother. Forcing her hand and making her uncomfortable entertained me. Like spinning a hamster wheel with the hamster running in it or throwing imaginary balls into a field for a dog to chase.

  “It’s where she’s from — where the Martinezes [XW32]are from. You’re a fourth Panamanian and a fourth Cape Verdean. Your dad is African-American. That’s the other half.”

  This was the longest conversation we had had in months. The most honest one, too. Not once had she told me a lie or the convenience of an omitted truth. I’d have to web search Cape Verdean. Neither of us noticed Moses approach us from the cabin with a tablet computer. “Wire me two million units.”

  Brushing her hair behind her ears, Mom said, “I said half now. Half later.”

  He steadied himself from our latest turn and pushed the computer toward her. “You also said twice what he was paying me. Two million.”

  I had to know. Would he tell me? “Who’s he? And whoever ‘he’ is, he’s cheap.”

  Moses showed his gapped teeth. “You’re not ready to know, sweetheart. Two million, or we turn this thing around.”

  Two million units was more money than I’d see in two lifetimes. After a few authorizations, the deed was done.

  “Thanks. Ruby.”

  Ruby? She’d faked my grandmother’s identity? God, every time I got one question answered, five more popped into my brain.

  Moses happily returned to his seat at the front of the jet. He was a millionaire. Four hours later, he would have doubled his take. What was his deal, anyway? Okay, but,[XW33] like, what do extortionists do for a day job? He didn’t strike me as a minimum-wage kind of dude. He had Ordnance stashed under his suit jacket. I wasn’t the swiftest person in the world. Tackling and disarming him was out of the question. What could Mom do? Was she hiding any secret fighting skills?

  Mom gasped at the brief turbulence. “Don’t like flying?” I asked her.

  “Haven’t done it in ages,” she groaned.

  The rising sensation thrilled me like a roller coaster climbing toward the sky. Nerves on a first flight were normal, but this? My skin was fever-hot, and my eyes burned no matter how much I blinked to produce tears. Even worse, the quarter-sized circular vent above us did nothing to blast away the warmth radiating throughout my body. Could human beings melt? I might be close to finding out over the next several hours.

  Once we were established in the air, I heard a thunderous roar and sniffed a troubling burnt smell. I continued to wonder and clutched [XW34]the armrests until my fingers numbed. My questions remained inside me with their answers barely an arm’s reach away. How did Mom maintain her cool in this luxurious deathtrap? What was she thinking? What would she say next? I didn’t know my father’s name. Should have started with that question. And where to find him — Walsh? Do I shout in a cornfield until an African-American guy with my chin and cheeks responds?

  I yelled until my face tingled and veins bulged in my neck. “Mom!”

  She rolled her head in my direction, nonchalantly, like I’d asked her for a piece of gum. The plane was in obvious distress, and she couldn’t be bothered? I tried reading her lips. “Lucy?” she asked me. “You all right?”

  The cords in my throat strained. “What’s his name?”

  “Huh?”

  “What is my father’s name? Need to know before I die!”

  Mom opened her mouth and bared her teeth and, in slow motion, said his name. The jet shook and yawned too much for me to understand what she said. She repeated his name. What was she saying? Did it start with a G or J?

  The jet moaned and crunched near the entrance door, like a giant hand had wrapped around it and squeezed. My pulse throbbed in my ears. The in-flight instructions covered a crash in the ocean. Grab the seat and float. That much was simple. Not whatever was happening. The seat cushion didn’t have wings, and the inflatable slide would be a useless air sock. At this height, I’d be sucked out and land somewhere over the mountains.

  An orange flame exploded from the cabin door and blew it off the hinges. The resulting vacuum sucked Moses and his cohort out into open air. I remembered in the Bible[XW35] Moses never led his people to the Promised Land, and now, he wouldn’t take me to mine.

  Yellow masks dropped from the jet’s roof. Mine smacked me in the head twice before I was able to pull it over my face. At my left, Mom hadn’t used her mask. In fact, she seemed fine. Almost unbothered. She unbuckled her seat belt and knelt in front of me. How had the current, which had ripped the flight crew out, not done the same to her?

  She embraced me. I wrapped my arms around her back and squeezed with everything I had. Our last embrace. I needed more time. But I didn’t have it. My questions would go unanswered, at least on this side. On the other side, who knew? Whatever or whoever was there might have mercy on me.

  I did the sign of the cross with my right hand and said as much of the Hail Mary prayer as I could remember, including the end: “Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of death. Amen.”

  My life’s moments didn’t flash before my eyes the way I expected them to. Instead, every thought in my mind had to do with regret. I’d spent the past three and a half years fighting a disease I couldn’t defeat. I’d clashed with my mother over many things and won by submission. Would I get an after-death trophy or championship belt? Deafening gusts of wind whipped at my face like a fleet of belts. I forced my eyes shut. Whatever came next, I didn’t want to watch. “Goodbye,” I whispered into Mom’s shoulder.

  She unlatched my lap belt, and the next thing I knew, my world turned cold and soundless.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I woke up with a gasp. Before I could spit out the nauseating blood taste, a pair of fingers swabbed the inside of my mouth dry. Straps at my wrists held me down against a flat, forgiving surface — a bed?

  The last thing I remembered was an explosion brighter than a thousand suns.

  How had I gotten here?

  I opened my eyes to a dizzying blender of blindi
ng lights, and I quickly shut them. By cracking my eyelids open and then slowly lifting them, I could focus. My head and ears burned and stung, and the second I tried to talk, the steel wool sensation in my throat made me wish I hadn’t tried. This wasn’t death. That much was for sure. Hell would’ve hurt more.

  A shadow resembling my mother’s shape hovered over my face and spoke. The voice’s harmony matched hers, but I couldn’t be certain. Being thrown out of an airplane didn’t improve my already horrible lip-reading skills. A minute later, a white sign with black print appeared with a little of Mom’s handwriting on it. I squinted to read it.

  “Hi,” it read. “We’re safe. Rest.”

  A stiff, sharp object pricked my arm. Darkness.

  Whatever had happened to me, I recalled staring into bright whiteness. My right cheek sank into the softest pillow, I think, I’d ever slept on. The pain in my skull had changed from agony to a heavy, grinding ache. I’d been out, asleep or drugged.

  In any case, I surveyed my surroundings. I mentally took note of a window with simple tan curtains muffling the sunlight. Three or four feet in front of me was a round, wooden table littered with used white Styrofoam plates and cups. Based on the number, we must have been here for a day or more. On either side of the table were matching chairs. I’d never been inside of a room so retro and simply decorated.

  “Mom?” My voice sounded worn and ragged, but at least my hearing had returned.

  She stuck a cup near my face and angled the red and white straw into my mouth. “Try not to talk much.”

  That was not a promise I could keep. “Your clothes.” I pointed to her shredded yellow blouse. “Where…”

  “The Alleghenies. Don’t worry about my clothes. Save your strength.”

  We’d barely gotten across the state line before the crash. Except we hadn’t crashed. The exit door exploded, Moses had led us to the mountain, gotten splattered over it, and we’d somehow survived.

  My body tingled with numbness beneath the weighty black comforter covering me. I lay on my back, which I was used to doing because I couldn’t sleep on my catheter. I maneuvered to a sitting position and assessed my condition. Weak and functional was how I would’ve described it. My mouth was blood free. The bend in my right arm was bandaged and sore. And right now, I wanted to know what kind of food had been on the plates and whether I could eat any of it. Mom must have noticed me eyeing them. “I saved these for you. Happy Thanksgiving.”