by Ginger Booth
“That was fast,” I said, stunned. “What will they do with him?”
Carlos shrugged minutely, stone-faced. Now that he was part of Hudson, he had to defer to Ash Margolis. HomeSec was Ash’s turf.
Ash replied, “Dee, I have people in peril and catastrophic damage in four boroughs. Your pal can sit in a cell at Homeland and cool his head a while.”
“I could deal with it for you,” Carlos offered.
“No, you can’t,” Ash said sharply, then backtracked. “Sorry, Carlos. You’ve been outstanding today, pitching in. But I’ve never briefed you on this bit. It’s complicated.” He scrubbed his face with a hand.
“Thank you for your hard work, Ash,” Sean praised. “And yours, Carlos. Outstanding broadcast. I doubt anyone will notice that slip. Well, that was a refreshing break, but I have a little war to supervise. Let’s get back to it.”
I missed the little war to supervise part of that, in my concern over Mangal. “But Sean!” I begged. “Mangal wasn’t wrong. Saying it that way, on a broadcast, was wrong –”
Before Sean could react with more than a narrowing of his eyes, Cam clutched my battered hand and squeezed. “Dee! Girlfriend!” he cried. “You saved my life today, and lots of others. I’m eternally grateful. But we were promised our computers and phones back after the broadcast, remember? I wanna talk to my husband. Now.” He grinned at me with bared clenched teeth.
“I didn’t save your life,” I objected. “You saved mine.”
“No,” he denied. “I didn’t see the tide rushing out. You did. Even if I had seen it, I wouldn’t have noticed that it looked wrong. I’m not from the beach like you are, girlfriend.”
“OK, we saved each other,” I conceded. “But Mangal–”
“Mangal knew exactly what he was doing,” Cam overrode me. He held my eye with a stern look, made all the sterner by the black eye, split lip, and other contusions. “Dee. Out of anyone in Hudson, you and Mangal knew the consequences. Mangal is a hero in his own eyes tonight. Let him enjoy his moment of glory. Drop it, so Sean can get back to his war in Jersey, and I can talk to my husband. Got it?”
Fortunately, Sean chuckled at this and headed back to my office. Ash spared me a dirty look before doing the same. Israeli-American, son of an Israeli spy, Asher Margolis was Hudson’s most hard-core Resco on issues of security and censorship. Emmett had warned me repeatedly to treasure and support Carlos as our media censor, because Ash would be a hell of a lot worse. Fortunately Ash had real problems to deal with tonight.
Connecticut was out of danger. Carlos was free to remain glowering down at me, arms crossed over his chest.
“May I have a phone now please, Carlos?” Cam begged him boyishly. “I wanna talk to Dwayne.”
Carlos snorted amusement, and followed the others into my office to fetch some computing devices for us.
With a moment to ourselves, Cam warned me quietly, “Cool off before addressing this again, Dee. You’re right. Mangal’s right. I know that. But now is not the time, and that was not the way. Be an extra-good little junior Resco tonight after that outburst. Got it, girlfriend?”
“Got it,” I whispered. “I wish I had a phone to Emmett,” I added.
“Don’t count him out,” Cam advised softly. “MIA doesn’t mean dead. I know it’s hard, Dee. You’re scared. But watch your temper. We’re all on the same side here. Doing our best. I’ve got to believe that.”
I swallowed. He was right. I could feel my mind skittering in panic every time I imagined Emmett not coming back. Any distraction was welcome. Worrying about Emmett and Mangal both, raised my anxiety level to nauseating new heights. Breathe, I admonished myself. Just breathe…
9
Interesting fact: Amenac was founded soon after the Calm Act borders closed in the Northeast, and Ebola broke out in New York City. Dee Baker and Mangal Jain, lead web programmers from the defunct UNC News, brought to the project clandestine access to accurate weather reports, satellite data, overseas news sources , and technical expertise at the content delivery level. The Amen1 white hat hacker team they partnered with, supplied Internet infrastructure to evade censorship. Amenac’s original mission was to facilitate uncensored information flow to empower agriculture, safe trade, and reliable weather reports. This violated the censorship rules. But it was carefully calculated to merit an exemption.
“Carlos, what did Dwayne do great today?” Cam asked, once he was set up with computer and phone again. Gladys had pitched in by supplying a nice folding breakfast tray with legs, to support the laptop over Cam’s battered thighs. I expected Cam to just dive in and call Dwayne immediately.
Carlos looked impressed by the question. “Dwayne did great at everything. Decisive. In control. Split CLI down the middle. Delegated fully to Beth Spelt in Nassau, but touched base once an hour with her. Accepted help from me and Connecticut. Directed it to the right places, mobilized local support before volunteers arrived. Did the next right thing, and kept on doing it.”
Carlos paused and considered. “Dwayne and I are weak on combat ops. We checked in regularly with your guy, Captain Wofford. Active shooting today in northern CLI.”
Cam held up his hand to signal enough information. “Thanks. Truly, Carlos. Today must have been scary as hell for Dwayne. Thank you for being there for him, to back him up.”
Carlos nodded grateful acknowledgment, clearly moved in spite of himself. “We’ll leave you alone. Dee, let’s move you to the dining room.”
“I hadn’t even thought of that from Dwayne’s perspective,” I murmured to Carlos, once I’d hobbled to the dining table and settled in with my blanket. Resco National Guard Captain Dwayne Perard, Cam’s husband, was likely the youngest and lowest-ranked Resco in all Hudson. His husband and commander Cam had been temporarily MIA and presumed dead in a tsunami. Next level up, Cam and Dwayne’s boss Colonel Tony Nasser was unavailable. The only level above Tony was Sean, Hudson’s head of state and commander-in-chief. And suddenly poor Dwayne was leading all of Long Island through its greatest crisis since the Ebola outbreak. No wonder Cam was chomping at the bit to call his poor young hubby and second in command.
“I must be really whacked,” I concluded.
“You’re both whacked,” Carlos confirmed. He shrugged. “To be expected. That’s why I withheld your phones so long. You and Cam got hammered today. Cam’s worry and guilt level over Dwayne exceeded his strength to help. You two needed warmth and a good rest, and a chance to come up to speed.”
Gladys quietly set out a dinner buffet on the table while we talked. She placed mugs of hot cider by each of us.
Carlos continued, “So how about you, Dee? Can you get back in the saddle for an hour or two? Or just want to check your email and go to bed? Excuse me, but I already checked your email for any word from Emmett.”
“Anything?” I asked, clutching for the phone.
“Just a heart emoticon,” Carlos said. “Sent to you, and Cam. You emailed him from Cam’s phone on Jones Beach. But I got his last known location from that and his calendar. Perth Amboy.”
“Where is that?”
“Head of Raritan Bay, facing the south tip of Staten Island. It’s exposed, but pretty sheltered by Staten Island and the bulk of Jersey to the south. That said, we don’t really know how bad the tsunamis were there. Communications are broken. My honest guess, Dee, is that we’ll hear from Emmett when he’s not so busy and comms are back.”
I considered Sean’s little war in Jersey comment. “Did Sean take over Emmett’s turf?” I hazarded.
Carlos nodded once, face inscrutable. He nabbed a sandwich and applied himself to it, cornbread with some kind of seafood salad. “Any other questions?”
“Mangal,” I said. “What did you say to him? When he suddenly stopped.”
“Not me,” Carlos denied. “Mel, is my guess. Mel’s in charge now. Amenac and PR News.”
“No,” I objected. “That’s a real bad idea, Carlos. Mel looks mild-mannered, but he’s one of the a
narchists, with Popeye. Dave and I are the right choice to manage the circus with Mangal gone.”
Carlos finished chewing his bite of sandwich. “Mel was your HomeSec mole,” he explained, after swallowing. “Not so secret, as of this evening. He’ll run Amenac himself for a couple weeks. Then we’ll see.”
“Mel? Gah!” I said, kicking myself. “Emmett warned me there was probably a HomeSec mole. I didn’t want to believe him…”
But Mel? I’d assumed any mole would be one of the coders and graphics people recruited later, on my side of the operation, client-side interface software. Mel was one of the founders from the Amen1 hacker group side, who powered the back end network software and ability to thwart HomeSec. Mel was thick as thieves with Popeye, our most outspoken anarchist. If Mel was HomeSec, then HomeSec knew Amen1’s capabilities. They’d infiltrated Amen1 before Amenac was even born.
“Emmett knew what Mel was,” Carlos said flatly. “Emmett was relieved to turn babysitting Amenac over to me. He hated lying to you. Tonight, Mel pulled a gun and pointed it at Mangal’s wife and kids. Saved time talking. They were sitting behind the cameras for daddy’s big night in the anchor chair. Mangal got the message and backpedaled quick.”
“What an ass!” I cried. Poor Shanti! And the kids! And Mangal! And Mel – lying to us all this time!
I’d always wondered what would happen if Amenac or PR News violated probation, took advantage of our trusted position to broadcast contraband. A minor indiscretion from one of our social moderators resulted in a quiet disappearance. We never heard from her again. But yeah, in retrospect, when it came to the important live shows, Mel was always there. He was our best network engineer. When we expected viewership in the millions, of course Mel was on hand. He didn’t need to fake anything. He really was a top shelf white hat hacker.
We just thought he was ours.
“So you want me to stay out of that,” I suggested bitterly.
Carlos returned, “It’s Mel’s show, not mine, Dee. Just cooperate with him for a couple weeks, soothe feathers if people call you. The sky is not falling. And for what it’s worth, Mel is still Mel. Nobody ever thought Mel would make a better manager than you and Dave. My guess is, after a couple weeks, things will be pretty much back to normal. Minus Mangal. Mangal probably needs to find another line of work.”
“I wish he’d talked to me instead,” I grieved.
“I wish that, too,” Carlos said. “But he didn’t. So for now, Hudson’s in crisis mode, and Mel controls PR News and Amenac. Hudson could use Dee wearing her Resco hat. Think you can do that? Or are you too pissed off about Mangal and Mel?”
I toyed with my finger on the new phone, still not powered on. I briefly considered what might happen if I refused. But there was no way to save Mangal from the consequences of violating our parole, during a national emergency no less. Wow, I’d really allowed us to drift apart, if he could do something that dumb and I didn’t even know it was coming.
It takes two to drift apart. Mangal pushed me away after I got serious with Emmett. My pacifist best friend couldn’t handle me choosing an army Resco lover. Dammit, Mangal, I still miss you.
But I wasn’t sure my role in Amenac mattered much anymore. For the most part, Amenac and PR News ran without me these days. I’d thrown in my lot with Emmett and the Rescos of Hudson. And if Emmett is truly gone? He wasn’t gone yet. Even if he were, these days Cam and Dwayne, and Carlos and the Niedermeyers, even Ash Margolis and Sean Cullen, were my crew. And I answered to Colonel Pete Hoffman, though I hadn’t heard from him yet today. Not that I expected to – sounded like Jersey was a mess.
“I agree with Mangal,” I said quietly, still reeling. “It’s past time to be more forthcoming with what we know and expect from climate change. But I have better ways to address that than challenging the government during a natural disaster. Mangal was wrong. You can trust me.”
“Never doubted it,” Carlos said matter-of-factly.
I arched an eyebrow at him, but he seemed sincere. I’m not that sure you can trust me, Carlos, I didn’t say.
He continued, “But Dee, I know what it’s like to have a spouse MIA. Your temper’s better than mine. Still, it’s hell. When Lauren got caught in the Ebola epidemic, and the girls – I wish I’d just locked myself in the bedroom and cried. Or gone out in the woods and punched out a tree. Instead I tried to soldier on. Because I’m a soldier. But the worry leaked out and I snapped at people. I made mistakes. Still paying for them. I think the world of Cam Cameron. Impressed as hell. And I don’t know if he’ll ever really trust me again. What I’m saying is, take a day or two if you need it. Even if you want to work, make time to cry. Or pray, or whatever you do.”
Carlos did know what it was like. I’d never heard the details of what he’d done to Cam, but they were still guarded with each other. Carlos’ advice was hard-won, and I promised myself to take it to heart.
“Thanks, Carlos,” I said. “I’ll make time. And soldier on.”
He nodded. “Step out and scream at the moon any time you need to,” he reiterated, then dropped it. “So as assistant Resco extraordinaire, any ideas, what you can do for us today? Or tomorrow. You ought to go to bed soon.”
That was true. I felt pretty wiped out physically. I got up before dawn today for my trip to visit Cam and Dwayne and the meshnet programming team, before the tsunami battering and hypothermia. But Carlos’ gruff understanding had cleared my head a little, given me some mental space outside Emmett and Mangal.
“Maps,” I said abruptly. “Everybody on the coast needs maps with elevation. Preferably on their phones. Preferably with tsunami high water contours.”
“Sounds good,” Carlos allowed.
“Communications. Connecticut has gobs of telecomm experts. You got that one already?”
“Yup,” Carlos agreed. “Found and deployed, along with electrical road crews. They haven’t gotten very far yet. Lot of damage.”
I nodded. “Dry phones,” I suggested wryly. “Washed and salvaged.”
So far Hudson was doing pretty well with phone salvage. People used to replace the dratted things so often, and so many people had died in the Apple Zone, that we had mountains of phone carcasses to cannibalize. Hudson even made a profit on phone salvage trade with neighboring super-states. Unfortunately, phone mortality was high, especially from ball lightning and other freaky weather. Manufacturing capability for the things never existed in the Northeast, maybe not anywhere in the ex-US.
Carlos shook his head. “Private sector. Don’t want to encourage it now, anyway. Salvage sends people below the high water line. Hard to distinguish from looting at a glance.”
Good point. “That’s all I can think of at the moment,” I decided. “Other than that, I’m a resource available to help where needed.”
“Good. I’ve got two. Help me keep an eye on Cam. Make sure he’s not overdoing, find tech stuff you can do to help him. The map thing sounds like a back-burner project. You can ask coastal Cocos for GPS coords of tsunami high water, maybe ten positions across their territory. Send that yellow-flagged – not an emergency, but do it today if possible.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t do the programming on the maps myself, anyway. But I can architect the solution and the data collection, and find the right people to implement and deliver. Just monitor that the project is on track after that.”
“Great. The other request from me is to ‘do the voodoo that you do.’ You started PR News to mobilize the Northeast to save New York City. I’d like you to use Amenac to track morale and bring out that all-hands-on-deck volunteer gusto for the current crisis. And don’t work too much tonight.” Carlos smiled and rose.
I reached out and took his hand. I seemed to be doing a lot of hand-holding today, in lieu of the hug from Emmett I really craved. “Thank you, Carlos. You’ve done great today.”
“You, too,” he said. “And you’re very welcome. Don’t forget to eat something.” He pushed the sandwich platter closer
to my reach, and left me to it.
I dragged myself upstairs after working only a couple hours. Cam had passed out already, sprawled on the couch. We debated shifting him to an air mattress, still on the main floor, since he was in no shape to navigate stairs. But then he couldn’t get up by himself. From the couch, he could probably manage. If not, Gladys considerately left him a pink plastic hospital spit bowl just in case, to use as a chamber pot.
Nobody put me to bed, I whined internally. Stop that, I countered. I could have stayed downstairs as Cam’s nurse, after all. I could have asked Gladys to help me climb the stairs. Instead I escaped silently to cry in private. Even if it took hauling myself up by the banister, stopping every third step to pant and rest. I hadn’t broken foot bones like Cam had, and my knees weren’t swollen to the size of grapefruit like his, unbendable. But I may have broken a couple toes on the left foot, and my bruised knees and ankles were swollen enough to resist bending.
And no doubt about it, I was mentally whacked. Whining because nobody noticed me escape, to tuck me in at night? When I purposefully set out not to be noticed? Definitely whacked.
“Bedroom, low light,” I whispered to the yawning darkness of our giant master bedroom, my voice cracking. The voice interface didn’t hear me. I swatted the light switch rather than trust my voice again. The lights came on full strength, not low, when I did it that way. And I swallowed, frozen by the closed door. All mine.
It isn’t as though I expected Emmett to be hiding in the bedroom. It isn’t as though the house was, in fact, all mine. The town of Brooklyn Prospect was overwhelmingly eager to please, desperate to claim the hero of Project Reunion for their own. Maybe me, too, but to Emmett’s worshipful fans in the Apple Zone, I was mostly an arm accessory. The hero’s girlfriend, not a hero in my own right. No, without Emmett, the Resco Mansion belonged to the apples, or to the Hudson Resco Service. Probably to Ash Margolis and his family, in practice. Not me. I had a little house in Connecticut.
