Ill Wind

by Kevin J. Anderson

  In front of a row of dark coffee shops, Chinese street vendors had set up food kiosks with sidewalk barbecues, burning sticks of what appeared to be broken crates and pieces of furniture. They cooked on Weber kettle grills and cast-iron woks over open fires. Looking at the exotic food as he rode by, Todd had a sudden craving for a decent steak. He wondered how hard it was going to be to find food from now on.

  A lump caught in his throat, claustrophobia from the jammed, breaking-down buildings, the sounds of breaking glass, shouts from the sidewalks, he realized he had lost his way. “Calm down,” he said to himself, “calm down.” Breathing deeply, trying to quell his panic, he reined the horses to a stop and unfastened his saddle bags to take out a map. He unfolded it and tried to get his bearings, figuring out the best way to return to Highway 101. He felt absurd sitting on horseback in the middle of a deserted intersection, staring at a street map like some lost tourist.

  He had just decided which way to turn when a series of popcorn noises came from a rooftop a block away. It took him a moment to identify them as gunshots. Across the street, Todd saw a flash of stone dust and heard the spang as a bullet ricocheted from the wall of a building. “Jeez!” he cried and yanked out the pistol again, waving it in the air. Another gunshot struck nearby. Todd fired off a round in the direction of the sounds, but knew he had no chance of hitting anything.

  “Yah!” he shouted at the horses. Both Ren and Stimpy galloped away from the sniper, down Van Ness toward the highway leading out of the city.

  * * *

  With the horses hidden in a cluster of live oaks on the ridgecrest, Todd prepared to spend the night in the highlands of the Peninsula, west of the freeway. By nightfall, he had traveled south, through the hills rimming Daly City and San Bruno. He could see the San Francisco International Airport, deserted, like a vast parking lot.

  The gunshots and the turmoil made him want to avoid contact with people. He followed fire roads up into the rugged hills, heading in the right general direction.

  He kept thinking about Iris, knowing he needed to hurry, to get her out of a dark, dangerous apartment in Stanford. Heck, she probably wouldn’t wait for him anyway. But on the slim chance that she would, he had to get his backside there as soon as he possibly could.

  He decided to rest for a few hours, start out again before dawn, and make a good distance by daylight. He built a campfire in a clearing and heated a can of chili, eating it with a spoon he had taken from Alex’s kitchen. If he had been able to forget about the rest of the world, he might have enjoyed the evening.

  The countryside seemed too quiet, wrongly so. Out in Wyoming the silence had never bothered him because he did not expect to hear bustling noises. But the San Francisco peninsula was supposed to be a Christmas-tree network of lights, moving traffic, busy lives. From his high vantage point, he could see only a few glimmering signs of life below—bonfires, Coleman lanterns, battery lamps, flashlights.

  Todd fell asleep huddled in two blankets.

  * * *

  Before setting out in the early morning darkness, Todd munched dry frosted flakes from a single-serving box he had found in Alex’s pantry. The cereal tasted stale. Todd wondered how long it had been there.

  This time he mounted Stimpy. They followed the ridge line, then descended to the freeway again in the stillness of the rising sun. Birds began to sing to the morning, unaffected by the crumbling of the cities.

  The rest of the ride to Stanford seemed like a repeat of the previous afternoon, passing through suburbs and South Bay carbon-copy cities with different names. It seemed as if every person had decided to wander the streets, either defending their homes or looting somebody else’s. He found an isolated, tree-shaded park in Palo Alto and studied the map again, then headed toward the Stanford University campus.

  In one city block, a loud crashing sound startled the horses. As he rode closer, Todd saw that crude barricades had blocked off a 12-story office building. Every few minutes, one of the glass window panes would pop free of its dissolving plastic housing and tumble to the ground, reflecting the sun like a strobelight until it exploded on the pavement. Students gathered across the street, drinking beer from bottles and applauding each new fall of glass.

  Todd shook his head and rode on, close now.

  When he finally tracked down Iris’s street address, he waited outside her three-story apartment building, having no idea what to do with Ren and Stimpy. He couldn’t just padlock the horses to a bike rack, and he didn’t want to leave them tied out front. He considered his options outside the complex, baffled, until he finally decided to take the horses in with him. Why the heck not?

  Ren and Stimpy dug in their hooves, reluctant to go through the narrow glass door. Finally, he coaxed them into the sparsely furnished lobby, where he tied them to the wrought-iron stair railing; at least they were hidden from outside view. Standing beside a tattered sofa and an old end-table, the two horses looked at Todd as if he were crazy. He tipped his cowboy hat at them, then bounded up the stairs, his boots echoing on the hard surface.

  After turning down the wrong hall, he followed the numbers, to Iris’s door. He took off his hat, then rapped on the wood. He waited. His stomach knotted. She probably wasn’t home. Iris was a smart lady, and she should have had the good sense to pack up and leave already.

  Even if she was home, Todd had no idea what to say to her.

  The door finally opened on its flimsy security chain, and Iris peeped outside. When she saw him, her face lit up in surprise.

  “So you made it,” she said, regaining her composure. She removed the security chain and opened the door wider. “How was the ride? I’m all packed, so we can get out of here.”

  Wringing the cowboy hat in his big hands, Todd said his line. “I don’t usually have to go to such lengths for a date!”

  Iris raised her eyebrows, but he could see amusement behind her eyes. “Oh? Then how come you forgot to bring flowers?”

  Chapter 41

  A dozen saddled horses grazed on sparse vegetation outside the fence that separated the desert from the White Sands missile range. The baked ground was scabbed with alkali, but showed none of the glittering gypsum sand that made other areas look like a snowfield. To Spencer Lockwood the expedition looked more like a western cattle drive than a convoy setting out for the microwave antenna farm.

  Spencer tugged on the knots securing the bedrolls, canned food, water, tool boxes, rope, wire, and first-aid kit in the old wagon hitched behind two of the horses. He looked over the ragtag collection of five scientists and three young ranch hands hunched around the back of the wagon. Several of the Alamogordo ranchers worked on the axle.

  He wiped dirt from his hands and squatted next to the ranchers. He felt silly wearing a floppy cowboy hat, but even Lance Nedermyer, who had found himself stuck at White Sands with no possible transportation back to his family in Washington, D.C. had doffed his dark suit and now wore jeans and a straw hat. “Is it going to work?” Spencer asked.

  “The wheel is sticking, Doc, but it’ll get you out to your site,” said one of the ranchers, applying a handful of goop to the axle. Being called “Doc” made Spencer feel like he was in an old western movie. “Never thought I’d have to use lard for axle grease!” The rancher spun the wooden wheel.

  Spencer and his crew out at the antenna farm had always kept a stockpile of supplies, MREs surplused from closed-down Holloman Air Force Base, and pioneer-style accomodations. After his cross-country drive through Death Valley, he had been back home for less than three days before everything else started going apeshit around the missile base.

  Thinking ahead, Spencer had gone to some of the small ranches in the lush hills, the ranchers who had bought into his power experiment as a way to get cheap rural power. Their own power had gone off days before, the first expendable victims of a decaying electrical grid. Spencer gave them a talk with more fervor than he had been able to manage for any of the Sandia scientists, acknowledging the riskiness o
f his venture, but vowing that he could get power up and running again with his smallsats and his microwave receiving farm. Some of the ranchers had run him off their land. But a few offered to help, donating enough supplies to keep Spencer and his crew working out at the blockhouse.

  Lance Nedermyer looked exhausted. He had been even crabbier than usual from worrying about being out of touch with his wife and daughters. Back east, in the thick metropolitan areas, conditions were bound to be far worse than they were here in the rural, self-sufficient southwest.

  Nedermyer scowled at the wagon train. “I still think it’s better to forget about your whole microwave site, Spencer. We’ve completed the evacuation plan at Alamogordo, and we’ll need your horses for the trip up to Cloudcroft.”

  Spencer sighed. They had argued about it the night before. “You’re welcome to go with us and see for yourself, Lance. I’m betting we can switch out and replace most of those components with fiberglass or ceramic in the shops. It’s a simple system, and we can’t give up without trying our alternatives.”

  The bureaucrat shook his head, hiding his personal worries behind wire-rimmed sunglasses. “Just be forewarned that if the mayor decides to head everyone up to the mountains, we’re not going to wait around for you.”

  “They can go if they want.” An awkward silence fell as they both shuffled their boots in the dust.

  Now that the solar power project was isolated from the rest of the world, political games were a thing of the past, and Spencer knew of no quantitative unit small enough to measure how little he cared. But he tried to remember that Lance Nedermyer had once been a talented researcher. If only Lance could remember that himself, he might provide valuable help.

  A bearlike rancher in a red cotton shirt turned to the side and spat chewing tobacco. He nodded at Nedermyer. “If this plague keeps getting worse, Doc Lockwood is the only one offering electricity at all. What’ve we got to lose?”

  Spencer ducked his head to hide a grin in the shadow of his floppy hat. “Even if it works it’ll only give you power for a few hours a day.”

  “Better’n nothing.” The rancher still eyed Nedermyer.

  Gangly Rita Fellenstein tightened her Australian bush hat and swung up on a sturdy brown-and-white horse. The mount pulled back, but Rita snapped the reins to bring it under control. The stirrups had been adjusted for her long spindly legs. She looked quite at home in her western gear. “Hey, Spence, it’s not gonna get any cooler today. Get your butt in gear.”

  “That’s right!” The bearlike rancher stopped by a speckled gray horse and handed the reins to Spencer. He lowered his voice, speaking seriously. “We all know it’ll be a lot easier if we head up to Cloudcroft. They got plenty of water, firewood, and game. But we’ve lived here too long just to give up and leave. People still remember what it was like when the Air Force pulled out of Alamogordo—damned near shut down the whole town. We didn’t abandon it then, and we sure as hell won’t now.”

  Nedermyer scowled, and Spencer felt embarrassed. He swung up onto the horse, feeling off balance. “Ready, Rita?”

  Rita leaned over her horse’s neck and spoke with two of the cowboys accompanying them. They seemed to be flirting with her. She grinned at Spencer. “You gonna be able to handle that horse, or do you want to ride in the wagon with the supplies?”

  “Madam, I am a physicist,” he said with mock indignation. “I can handle anything!”

  * * *

  Out at the site without air conditioning, it was over a hundred degrees. Rita brushed sweat away from her high forehead as she tinkered by candlelight in the dim blockhouse, looking like a female scarecrow. Juan Romero, the radio man, tugged on his huge black mustache and watched, offering suggestions.

  Spencer stood behind them both. He scratched at the beard stubble on his face. He’d given up shaving. “You know, Rita, the real reason I keep you slaving away is so you can get the jukebox working again.”

  “Take another look, Spence. The 45s have already dissolved.” She sighed. “Now, will you leave me alone? I’m trying to concentrate.”

  He remembered the celebration with champagne and reporters as the smallsats beamed down power for the first time. About a million years ago.

  Rita held up a thin wire. “All right. Marconi would have been proud. One short-wave radio, ready to go, built with stone knives and bear skins. Got anymore of that dry lubricant?”

  “Yeah.” Romero scrounged behind him and held open a jar of graphite powder made from finely ground pencil leads. Short and swarthy, Romero had the largest smile and the biggest mustache Spencer had ever seen. Through his ability to band-aid together gadgetry from spare parts, the smallsat project had managed to move ahead even on a bare-bones budget.

  Rita poked the wire in the jar, stirred it around, then removed it to make a final connection. “Okay, bwana. All the plastic in this unit has been replaced by ceramic chunks from the maintenance shop with a little cannibalized fiberglass thrown in.”

  Spencer crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at Rita. “So let’s connect it to the battery and turn it on.”

  “Roger dodger.” She made a contact with one of the batteries originally charged by the orbiting solar satellites. Static erupted from the speaker.

  Spencer placed a hand on the back of their communications expert. “Okay, Romero, get on this thing and see who’s out there listening. Try to get hold of JPL.”

  “Okay,” Romero said, shaking his long black hair behind him. Rita stood up, arching and rubbing her lower back to work out a cramp, then Romero slid into the chair and began working with the short-wave radio. “You sure anybody at JPL is listening?”

  “Won’t know unless we try. If there’s anybody in the U.S. still broadcasting, those people will be.”

  The wooden floor creaked as Spencer went to the open aluminum door of the blockhouse. He stood on the steel-grid of the porch, trying to enjoy the hot breeze. The air smelled baked and dry.

  Spencer narrowed his eyes against the bright sunlight searing off the white gypsum sands. He had to keep his group going, work with them to find a new way out of this mess. Everyone in the country was in the same boat, isolated, focused on survival and local concerns, rather than global decisions made by people a thousand miles away.

  Rita stepped outside the dull concrete blockhouse and lounged next to him against the shade wall. She fished a pouch from her pocket and placed a pinch of chaw in her mouth. “Why on Earth are you trying to contact JPL? That’s news to me. Why not DOE or some emergency headquarters?”

  He ignored her question. “When did you start chewing tobacco?”

  “When did you start being my mother?”

  Spencer lifted a brow and tried to keep an amused look from crossing his face. Ever since interacting with the local ranchers, Rita had become touchy. But she seemed to be enjoying all the new attention.

  “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “Tommy, the blond-haired guy, is trying to give it up, and he’s got a couple month’s supply. So he gave it to me. The ranchers think it’s hilarious to see a woman chew.” She spat. “It’s worth putting up with this awful taste just to see the expressions on their faces.” She took another mouthful. “But you do get used to it.”

  Spencer touched the hot door jamb and quickly pulled his fingers away. Three others besides Romero and Rita worked in the trailer inspecting the satellite equipment. The rest of the group, as well as their two ranch guides, stayed outside in the shade of useless vehicles or in the maintenance shed, resting through the heat of the day.

  Rita wiped her mouth. “We can swap out the less-sophisticated equipment with stuff that isn’t oil-based, but do you really think we can replace enough to tap the satellites?”

  He pondered before answering. “Seems kind of crazy, doesn’t it? Forget the delicate computer diagnostics, the mainframes, the precision switching—that’s a lost cause. We’ll just keep the beam on all the time. But we know the Seven Dwarfs are still up there, coming ove
rhead every day, unaffected by what’s going on down here. We can probably refit the receiving system. Not much of the other equipment relies on petroleum seals or lubricants anyway. That’s the beauty of having very few moving parts.”

  She grunted, unconvinced. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

  Spencer met her gaze. “Does it matter? I’d rather be trying to get this damn thing working again than high-tailing it up to the mountains like Nedermyer wants to.”

  He stood, feeling antsy. Rita’s questions brought out his own doubts about getting the microwave farm working. Maybe he should examine the antennas one more time. “I’ll be back. Call me if Romero finds anything.”

  “Going to check out the antenna farm?”

  He tried to look surprised. “Naw—just going for a walk.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  * * *

  He returned to the cluster of trailers and buildings two hours later. The sun lowered toward the mountains in the west, diminishing its intensity. Rita stepped out of the doorway, waving her arms for him to hurry.

  “Hey Spence! We’ve got something.”

  He jogged the rest of the way, feeling his throat dry and clogged from the dust. Inside the stuffy, dark blockhouse, Romero gestured from the gray-painted metal workbench next to the jury-rigged radio. Spencer leaned close to the hissing speaker. “What you got?” He wiped sweat from his face.

  Before Romero could open his mouth, a static-filled voice burst into the room. “—Institute of Technology, radio free Caltech, under operation by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We can barely hear you.”

  Spencer pulled a seat next to the cluttered workbench; Romero pushed the microphone to him. “This is Dr. Spencer Lockwood, calling from White Sands, New Mexico. We need to get in touch with the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Can you help us out?”