The woman waved her hands while she talked, as if pointing at an equation-strewn whiteboard. “We’d need less than a hundred people, each physically positioning ten mirrors apiece.”
Bayclock snorted. “A hundred people out in the sun everyday? While you’re polishing mirrors? That’s an awful lot of work to get a hundred kilowatts of power. Intelligence reports that’s ten times less than the White Sands group can deliver!”
The Sandia woman put her hands on her hips. “That’s a hundred kilowatts more than you have right now! And it’s a lot fewer people than you use to chase kids after curfew. What’s more important?”
Bayclock walked away, ignoring her. She grabbed him by the elbow. “Look, General, you wanted a way to generate electricity. We can do it. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”
Bayclock shook his arm free. One of the guards unshouldered his firearm, but the exec put out an arm to stop him. The exec called, “Messenger approaching, General.”
Bayclock spotted a lone horseman traveling across the desert. He had left orders not to be bothered—unless it was important. He turned back to the scientists. “There’s not enough dry lubricant to go around. We need it for refurbishing our weapons, so you’ll have to come up with another way. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a slight problem obtaining supplies right now.”
“But without the lubricant, the mirrors won’t turn,” the woman said.
“Figure out a way! Your minimal electricity should be enough to power the Manzano complex. I want it before the end of the week. The rest of the city will have to wait.”
Dismissing the Sandia woman, Bayclock turned as the approaching horseman reached the field of mirrors. Wearing desert camouflage, the rider dismounted and popped to attention, snapping off a salute. “The White Sands expedition has returned, General.”
Bayclock said, “Thank God for that Navy pilot.” He swung up on his horse, leaving the scientists in the middle of a thousand reflected suns. The exec motioned for the guards to follow.
The Sandia woman raised her voice. “General, you’re asking the impossible!”
Bayclock dug his heels in the black gelding’s flank, turning the mount around. “Do you think you’re playing in some R&D sandbox? Just do it! You also better be ready to interface with White Sands. I’ve had it with people questioning my authority.”
As the general rode off with his escort, he felt a grim satisfaction that at least Lieutenant Carron had come through. Two types of people—fighter pilots and weenies. He knew who he could trust.
* * *
Bayclock took the point at a fast trot as his party rode through the high chain-link gates of the Manzano complex. Armed guards stood at attention in the shade, giving their commander a salute as he rode past.
Four razor-wire fences surrounded the complex, twenty feet apart with bare dirt in between, making the area look like a giant racetrack draped over the rugged hills. Several two-story buildings, made of wood and covered with chipped white paint, formed the central part of the installation. Dozens of concrete bunkers dotted the four hills.
Bayclock rode directly up to the largest bunker behind the old wooden buildings. Only two horses stood outside tied to a NO PARKING sign, nuzzling the dusty ground for something to eat.
Bayclock turned to his exec. “Get Mayor Reinski out here ASAP. Tell him Lieutenant Carron is back from White Sands. His luck just changed.”
Reaching his office, Bayclock found Sergeant Catilyn Morris and a gaunt bearded man he did not recognize. They both stood when the general entered. Covered with trail dust, the stocky blond sergeant looked as if she hadn’t had a shower in weeks. He would have to reprimand her for not making herself more presentable for her commanding officer.
“Afternoon, General.”
“Sergeant.” He nodded at the stranger, looking around for the Navy pilot. “Welcome back. Where’s Lieutenant Carron? I expect him to give me a full debriefing.”
Sergeant Morris drew her mouth tight. “Well, sir—”
The bearded man stepped forward and held out a dirty hand. “I’m Dr. Lance Nedermyer, General. We met a few months ago at a ceremony to turn over the adaptive optics facility to the University of New Mexico. Jeffrey Mayeaux was with us.”
Bayclock returned the handshake and squinted at Nedermyer’s face. He remembered the stranger as a heavier man with mirrored sunglasses and a brusque manner. Nedermyer looked as if he had lost thirty pounds, the beard offset the thinness of his face. Bayclock did not approve of beards. The Washington bureaucrat looked more like an old prospector than a DOE inspector.
“Okay, what the hell is going on?” Bayclock asked, looking at Sergeant Morris. “And what are you doing here, Nedermyer?”
Sergeant Morris stiffened as Nedermyer spoke quickly. “I was stuck down at White Sands when the petroplague hit. I tried to help the people of Alamogordo move to safety in the mountains, but they elected to throw their hats in with Spencer Lockwood. He’s a loose cannon, General, does whatever he damned well feels like, without regard to the consequences.
“He’s got them convinced he can save the world with his solar satellites. Instead of trying to make themselves self-sufficient with the resources on hand, he’s got them working on a railgun launcher, running electrical wires out to substations in the middle of the desert.”
Bayclock sat behind his desk. “Does the solar farm work?”
“That depends.” Nedermyer fidgeted. “But—”
Bayclock raised his voice. He’d been doing that a lot lately. “I asked a simple question, Nedermyer. Does it work?”
“Well, yes sir, it does.”
“So, Lieutenant Carron and the Sandia scientists I sent down there are finalizing plans to bring the microwave technology up to Albuquerque? How soon can we get it working here?”
Nedermyer looked annoyed. “You don’t understand, General. Lockwood’s dangerous. He’s got his priorities all wrong. He’s having trouble even transmitting the power over twenty miles—”
Bayclock interrupted, tired of being nickel-and-dimed to death. “Do you damned scientists have to find a caveat in every argument? The microwave farm works, does it or doesn’t it?”
“Well, yes it does, but—”
“Then I don’t care if they transmit the power into the New Mexico utility grid or if they build us another microwave farm up here. It works—that’s all that matters. The orbiting satellites are immune to the petroplague, and it’s a resource we should use. I’ve got two laboratories full of people that can work out the details. Got it?”
Nedermyer opened his mouth to speak, but quickly closed it, frustrated. Sergeant Morris stepped forward. “General, I’m afraid you’re not going to get any support from White Sands.”
“What?” Bayclock looked up. “That’s ludicrous. The White Sands facility is under my command. Did Lieutenant Carron stay down there to iron out the details?”
Sergeant Morris looked hopelessly to Nedermyer, who shook his head. Nedermyer said, “Your boys have jumped ship, General. Not only is White Sands refusing to help you, but the scientists you sent and your Navy lieutenant have elected to work for Lockwood. They’re not coming back.”
“They deserted,” Sergeant Morris said, as if it was her fault.
A storm gathered inside Bayclock’s head. “Impossible! Carron wouldn’t even think of desertion. He’s a fighter pilot! He can’t.”
“I”m afraid it’s true, General,” said Sergeant Morris. Her voice sounded strained, as if each word might carry her over the edge of a cliff. “I… I warned him about what he was doing. He fully understands the consequences.”
Bayclock felt his face flush with anger and disbelief. He looked at his lithographs of fighter aircraft, his awards, his diplomas. Survival in the post-petroleum world was built on a foundation of eggshells, and cornerstones could not be allowed to crumble. He’d trusted the Navy lieutenant—fighter pilots were a special breed, too tightly taught, too highly focused and motivated to mak
e frivolous decisions. Dammit, there had to be a mistake, some other reason why Carron would appear to bug out.
Bayclock looked narrowly at Nedermyer. “Could this Lockwood character have coerced Lieutenant Carron into staying, forced him in some way?”
Nedermyer shook his head. “No, General. It was pretty clear the lieutenant chose to stay. Dr. Lockwood vowed never to help you and practically dared you to come take over his site….”
Bayclock’s breathing quickened. “Sergeant? Is that your assessment as well?”
Sergeant Morris held Bayclock’s gaze. This time her voice was firm. “That’s pretty much it, sir. Except that Dr. Lockwood said that the people of Albuquerque should revolt and oust you.”
The general simmered. When he was in a fighter plane and lost control, Bayclock relied on his training: keep a cool head, run through the procedures. Losing control of himself as well as the machine he commanded would kill him for sure. The same thing was happening now on a larger scale. He focused his anger into a small, laser-bright pinpoint.
He knew his priorities. Returning electrical power to Albuquerque was the next crucial step in pulling the city out of this mess. He intended his operation to be a model for President Mayeaux’s monumental efforts to keep the country together. The U.S. needed reliable electricity to bring access to water, food, transportation, communication.
And they needed law and order. With half a million people relying on Bayclock’s effort, he knew what he had to do.
His exec stepped through the office door. He tucked his blue cap under his arm and wiped a sheen of perspiration from his sunburned forehead. “Sir, Mayor Reinski is on his way over and will be here within the hour. Do you still want to see him?”
“Later.” Bayclock dismissed his exec with a wave. His jaw tightened. “Nedermyer, what do you know about Lockwood’s operation at White Sands?”
Nedermyer looked puzzled. “Most everything, I suppose. I approved all his designs back at DOE headquarters.”
“Could you get it fully functional?”
“Why?”
“I didn’t ask you that, doctor. Are you as good as Lockwood?”
Nedermyer lifted his chin. “If I’m given the authority and the manpower, I can do it.”
“All right. I want you to shave off that beard and make yourself presentable.” He turned to Sergeant Morris. “It took you a week to get down there?”
“Yes, sir.”
On horseback, thought Bayclock. That meant about three weeks on a forced march. Could he afford it? With superior weaponry and training, an armed expedition to White Sands would require relatively few men, and the payoff would be enormous, both in the technology they would liberate and in reinforcing the general’s authority.
He spoke to his executive officer with a heavy voice. “Get Colonels David and Nachimya in here. White Sands doesn’t seem to appreciate the fact that they’re still under martial law.”
He cracked his knuckles again. “They’re about to have their assets confiscated.”
Chapter 60
The train journey gave purpose to Todd’s life again.
Once the locomotive got up its full head of steam, Todd helped the Gambotti brothers and Rex O’Keefe toss split wood into the furnace. Dax and Roberto Gambotti hoarsely sang old songs while Rex sat behind them, supervising the stoking. Waving smoke from his eyes and sipping on a coffee cup filled with chardonnay, Rex expounded on the virtues of the wine they carried with them: merlot, cabernet, reisling. Todd had never been much of a wine drinker himself.
The big coffee-colored man who called himself Casey Jones didn’t move from the engineer’s cab, as if he had sworn to keep vigil over their journey. Covered with soot and sweating from both the work and the heat, Todd exhilarated in the constant physical effort, helping the Steam Roller chug ahead.
The tracks unreeled in front of them across California’s brown Central Valley. To their left, a low line of hills grew larger hour after hour as the valley widened, and the tracks swung east to flank the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Every ten or twenty miles they had to stop to clear debris from the track; they pushed wood, cars, and once the carcass of a Piper Cub aircraft off the metal rails. Even out in the unpopulated areas, people came running after the train. Once they heard gunshots. Casey Jones wanted to make it the rest of the way to Los Angeles, though, and pushed on without further delays.
The locomotive’s top speed was only 30 miles per hour. The monotonous landscape crawled along, but they made progress. It felt good to be moving. Todd stripped off his shirt and tied it to a post by the locomotive’s open window. Gusts of summer air felt cool on his skin.
He preferred to work with Casey Jones, as the others were too quick to make light of their situation. It was though they used their wit to deny what had happened to the world around them.
On the first night, Todd and Casey labored in silence, trying to outdo each other in their prowess for manual labor. Todd had to chuckle as he thought of how Iris would react to their posturing: “Figures,” she would have said with scorn, “the fall of civilization, and you macho men are still competing against each other!” Sometimes he imagined her standing next to him; in his daydream they journeyed across the worled, trying to make up for the devastation they had helped to unleash upon the world.
He felt a pang from missing her, and he felt guilty as he tried to ignore it… because he was enjoying himself.
His companion was reticent, preoccupied to the point of gloominess. He seemed to wear a shroud of his own guilt. Todd tried to draw him into conversation as they stood side by side in the crowded engineer cab.
“Who are you?” Todd said. He had to shout over the roar of the furnace and the clatter of the train.
“I already told you.”
“Right. What is your real name?”
“None of your damn business!”
Todd brought more wood.
The train chugged along, hour after hour. Todd and Casey changed to working in shifts with the Gambotti brothers and Rex O’Keefe. As he rested, Casey Jones refused to engage in conversation. Todd sat in the dining car munching tomatoes and peeling the outer leaves of cabbages. Damn rabbit food, he thought. He longed for a thick cut of juicy steak, or even a McDonald’s hamburger, but he didn’t have much choice.
The train tracks led to Fresno and then Bakersfield, cities surrounded by sufficient agriculture that the population could feed themselves, though they had no great amounts of food to spare. Casey stopped the train only briefly to exchange news with the gathered crowds. Todd stood back and watched as they flocked to see the Steam Roller puff into the city, a black-and-scarlet icon of lost technology.
On the second day, a spur of the Southern Pacific railroad hooked west from Bakersfield, taking them toward the Los Angeles metropolis. Casey slowed, allowing Todd and Roberto Gambotti to drop to the ground and run ahead to strain at the lever that switched the track. At first Todd was afraid the switch was frozen, but after laying into the mechanism, the two men slowly muscled the track section about.
Though the boxcars were piled high with fruits and vegetables, Todd didn’t know what that amount of food would do for LA. How many millions of people lived in the huge dying city? But Casey insisted they continue, fixated. Todd didn’t try to talk him out of it. He just wanted to get to JPL.
The men rotated duty during the night. The train moved through the darkness with a hypnotic, monotonous clacking. Twice they hit something on the track, but both times it was too small to even slow their pace.
In darkness, Todd stood by the closed door of the roaring boiler. He could feel waves of heat mixed with counterpoints of cool air gusting through the windows. The moon hung overhead, shining down like a milky spotlight illuminating the silvery tracks ahead.
Exhausted from the day’s labor, Todd wrapped his knuckles around the open window. He stared into the oncoming night, and thought of Iris.
* * *
Steam Roller chugged westward, bel
ching steam as it approached the hills around Los Angeles.
From a distance, the city looked frozen into a snapshot. The clusters of buildings grew thicker on the sharp hillsides. Squinting through the locomotive’s soot-smeared front windows, Todd could see crowds emerging from houses to stand in the streets. They squinted toward the railroad tracks as the steam engine puffed clouds into the sky. Some people ran up to the tracks and threw rocks at them, others tried to follow.
Casey Jones, standing at the engineer’s station, reveled in their reception. He hung his dark, meaty arm out the window and waved. Some waved back; many just stared. A few stones ricocheted off the metal casing. Rex O’Keefe raised his wine-filled mug in a toast at the crowd.
Uncertainty gnawed at Todd. They had barely reached the fringes of the sprawling city, yet already they saw vastly more people than had arrived to greet the train in Bakersfield. What if the mob surrounded them and rocked the train off its rails?
The dining car was stuffed with crates of food and produce, but even that much wouldn’t last a day here. It wouldn’t feed a fraction of these people, and every face held a ghost of hunger behind the eyes. Did Casey really think they could just stop the train, distribute the food in an orderly manner, and wait for the grateful men and women to bring them items for trade?
“Okay, Casey Jones,” Todd shouted into the din of the pumping locomotive, “what’s your plan?”
But the engineer just grinned at him and continued looking out at the people. Rex O’Keefe and the Gambotti brothers sat on top of the passenger car and watched as they drank their wine.
In the stillness of a city without traffic, the sound of Steam Roller carried for miles. People lined up on the embankment to watch the train roll by, but Casey continued, pushing ahead until the outlying residential areas dwindled again, and they approached a dirtier industrial section of the city. Going still slower, the train pushed aside debris and wrecks of old cars piled up on the tracks.
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