by Tom Abrahams
She led Rick along the hallway toward a media room, opened the door, and motioned for him to enter. She closed the door behind them and took a long breath.
“Look, Rick,” she said, her finger in his face, “I appreciate what you did to get my son home. I really do, and I can’t overstate that.”
He stepped back from her finger. “You’re welcome.”
“But,” she emphasized, “that doesn’t give you carte blanche in this house. It doesn’t give you the right to scare the hell out of my kids. It doesn’t give you the right to make decisions for my family.”
“Sheesh,” he said. “You’ve been taking communication lessons from my ex? I mean—”
“Wrong thing to say right now, Rick,” Jackie said. “Karen has nothing to do with this. And frankly, I can’t blame her for the way she talks to you.”
Rick hung his head. “I’m worried about you. Clayton isn’t here to help you and I saw what it’s like out there. It’s only been a few days and already people are going crazy. They’re already desperate. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like forty-eight hours from now, let alone in a week or a month?”
Jackie searched Rick’s eyes. He was genuinely concerned. She could see it. There was fear there, as if he’d seen things he didn’t want to see again. She couldn’t disagree with anything he’d said. She’d seen that burgeoning desperation in the boys who’d tried to steal her bike and in the train of people treading through her neighborhood.
“You’re right,” she said. “It’s only getting worse, right? All the more reason I’m not leaving my home until Clayton gets back.”
Rick frowned, and sadness replaced the fear in his eyes. “Jackie, I know you don’t want to hear this, but—”
She held up her palm in Rick’s face. “You’re right, I don’t want to hear it. My husband is coming back, and when he does, I’m going to be here waiting for him. Then, and only then, will we leave. We’ll go to the space center. We’ll be fine.”
Rick curled his lips inside his mouth and nodded. “Okay. You should know we’re leaving tonight. I hope to drive through the night. And the Bucks are coming with us.”
“They are?”
“Reggie convinced Lana it was best. She’s reluctantly agreed. They’re packing now.”
“You do what you have to do,” Jackie said, and moved past him to the door. She pulled it open and stepped out into the hall to walk back to Chris’s room. She balled her fists and set her jaw and dug her fingernails into the soft skin of her palms. A burning frustration that pushed her toward wanting to scream built from her gut.
Chris wasn’t the only one angry with the astronaut. He wasn’t the only one who felt abandoned at the worst possible time.
She flexed her hands and forced herself to smile as she appeared in Chris’s open doorway. Both children were sitting on the bed. She joined them and put one hand on each child’s leg.
“Okay,” she said, exhaling as she spoke. “Everybody but us and the Browns are leaving tonight. We need to come up with a plan until your dad gets home.”
Marie’s eyebrows arched, and her nose wrinkled as if she’d smelled something rotten. “The Browns? Nobody else?”
Jackie eased into another forced smile. Her muscle memory was getting good. “Just us. It means more food, more water, more everything. We can last here for a couple of weeks waiting for your dad.”
Chris rubbed his nose and sniffed. “If he comes home?”
“When,” Jackie corrected her son. “When he comes home.” She hoped if she said it aloud, she’d convince herself of it.
CHAPTER 13
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2020, 2:57 PM MST
BOULDER, COLORADO
The bus was full by the time Vihaan Chandra climbed aboard. The driver didn’t look at him as he navigated the narrow steps into the aisle. Nobody looked at him. If their eyes met his, they looked right through him. It seemed to Chandra it was a busload of zombies, humans not quite there, yet passively hungry to survive. He didn’t recognize many of the drawn, angst-ridden faces he passed on his way toward an empty seat, and he could attach a name to those that were familiar.
“Vihaan,” called a familiar voice from an aisle seat three-quarters of the way back. It was Treadgold. “I saved you a seat.”
Chandra waved an acknowledgment and struggled past the knees and duffel bags that crowded the vinyl-treaded aisle. He squeezed past Treadgold into the window seat.
“Your stuff in the luggage bay underneath?” Treadgold asked.
Chandra nodded. “Even my cooler,” he said. “I figured it was easier.”
Treadgold moved over to give Chandra more hip room. He waved a finger across the masses filling the bus. “These people,” he said in a hushed tone, “all have unique scientific skills. That’s why they’re here. That’s why you’re here.”
“There aren’t any children,” Chandra noted.
“They’re on one of the other buses, but they’re headed to the same place.”
Chandra faced his boss. “Where exactly is that?”
Treadgold smirked. “You’ll find out soon enough. Can’t talk about it.”
Chandra glanced out the window. There were four other buses filling up like arks before the flood. Without exception, the occupants looked dazed and detached as they heaved their worldly possessions into the belly of their buses and shuffled aboard.
He focused on a single woman struggling with a bag too heavy for her to lift. A younger man scurried to her side and helped her lug it into the hull.
“Are these the only buses?” he asked, his eyes still on the woman.
Treadgold chuckled under his breath. “Hardly. Scenes like this are repeating themselves across the country. Where we are going, however, is a primary location.”
Chandra sank back in his velour seat, trying to find the right amount of space for his feet under the seat in front of him. He shifted again, pushing his hips flat against the seat back.
“You’re fidgety,” said Treadgold. “What’s going on?”
Chandra found a comfortable groove on the outer edge of his seat. He crossed his arms at his chest and his feet at his ankles. “That’s an odd question,” he said softly. “Look around you, Chip. Everyone here is in slow motion, like they’re floating through the ether, fully understanding what they’re leaving behind while being clueless about what lies ahead. You, on the other hand, seem okay with it. It’s as if you’re unaffected.”
Treadgold rubbed his chin. “I wouldn’t say that. I left my life behind too. A nice house, a dog, a generous military pension, an ex-wife. Actually, I don’t mind leaving the ex behind. She’s perfectly fit for the apocalypse.”
Chandra narrowed his eyes in judgment. “There are so many things about what you said that validate my theory that you’re unfazed.”
“How so?”
Chandra tilted his head as if he were looking at a stranger. He’d worked with Chip Treadgold for more than four years, joining the space weather team directly from NASA. He’d never known that Treadgold was former military. He’d never known he was married and divorced. He didn’t even know the man had a dog.
“What did you do in the military?”
“A little bit of this and little bit of that.”
“And your wife?”
“Ex-wife.”
“Your ex-wife. Where is she?”
“She’s the coat-check girl in Hell.”
“Seriously.”
“She lives in Pueblo and runs a recreational pot retailer.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
The bus door folded shut with a hiss and a woman in camouflage fatigues stood at the front of the cabin. She held a pole with one hand and an intercom microphone with the other. She held the mic to her mouth and blew into it. The bus lurched and the driver accelerated forward, following a bus in front of it in the parking lot.
“Hello,” she said, her voice over-modulated, “my name is Van Cleaf. I’ll be your lia
ison once we arrive at our location. You’ll need to check with me when you disembark the bus and again once we enter the facility. I’ll be in charge of assigning you living quarters and will do my best to answer any questions you might have.”
A hand shot up from a man sitting two rows in front of Chandra. He half stood in his seat to get Van Cleaf’s attention.
Van Cleaf pointed at the man. “Yes, sir?”
“Where are we going?”
“An ‘undisclosed location’ is all I am authorized to say.”
Another hand from the other side of the bus. “What about our children?”
“They’re headed to the same location.”
A third hand. “Why are we going wherever it is you’re taking us? All I was told was that it was a matter of national security.”
Van Cleaf lowered the mic and hesitated. “That’s true.”
“Yeah,” said another. “But what is it? Why did we upend our lives?”
Van Cleaf took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the safety pole as the bus slowed and swung around a corner. She cleared her throat. “You were given a unique opportunity,” she said, “having been selected as one of the few who will ensure the continuity of American society and ideals from a secure and safe location.”
“An undisclosed location,” someone quipped, drawing grumbles from others on the bus.
“Are we under attack?” asked a woman in the row behind Chandra. “Is that what happened? The Russians or the Chinese hit our grid and they’re coming for more?”
Chandra glanced at Treadgold. The boss frowned and raised a finger to his lips.
“We are not under attack,” said Van Cleaf. “I cannot say more than that. Any other questions?”
There was more grumbling, but nobody else posited a question. Van Cleaf hung up the microphone, turned off the intercom, and sat down.
“So,” whispered Chandra, “how is it that people who work in our building don’t know this was a coronal mass ejection?”
“Not everybody on this bus works in our building,” Treadgold said. “I told you everyone was selected for a specific purpose.”
Chandra shook his head and looked back out the window. “None of this makes sense. Secret protocols, undisclosed locations, buses that somehow survived the CME. All of it seems like it’s straight out of one of those ridiculous dystopian novels everybody raves about.”
Treadgold put his hand on Chandra’s slim bicep and squeezed. “It will make sense once we get to where we’re going, Vihaan. I promise you. The whole point of this is to minimize the panic.”
Chandra laughed incredulously. “Yeah,” he said, waving his hand at the others on the bus, “there’s no panic here.”
“The buses were in a garage set up like a giant Faraday cage.”
“What?”
“You mentioned the buses when you were listing the ridiculousness of this. They were stationed in an EMP-proof garage along with other things.”
“What things?”
Treadgold shrugged.
Chandra shook his head, sank lower in his seat, and rested his forehead against the window. He looked out at the open grassy plain as they rolled away from the Denver Boulder Turnpike. It was littered with abandoned trucks and cars in the northwest-bound lanes opposite him.
Chandra took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He took inventory of what he knew and what he didn’t. The second list was longer than the first. The two things of which he could be certain, however, were that Treadgold wasn’t the man he claimed to be and that initiating the Descent Protocol wasn’t a split-second decision. It was something for which the United States government had been planning for a long time, long before the sun hiccupped and sent a blast of civilization-pounding radiation hurtling toward Earth. Those truths alone explained the secrecy of what was happening.
CHAPTER 14
MISSION ELAPSED TIME
73 DAYS, 14 HOURS, 21 MINUTES, 30 SECONDS
10,000 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL
Clayton unhooked himself from his crewmates and left them in the snow on the edge of the highway. His back and hips ached, and his skin was raw at his waist. He adjusted his gloves on his fingers and instinctively looked both ways to cross the icy road. His feet felt light not having deep snow impede every step. It was like microgravity. He stepped off the opposite side of the highway with reluctance. More snow slowed his advance up a steep embankment to the front of the green-roofed chalet and a large sign he couldn’t read until he’d gotten close to it.
“Columbia Icefield Discovery Centre,” he read aloud, his numb lips rounding out the consonants. “Jasper National Park of Canada.”
Clayton stood there dumfounded in his blue Russian winter survival suit. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his gloves and read the sign again.
“Canada?” he asked. “I’m in freaking Canada?”
There was at once relief and frustration. It was a good thing, he reasoned, that he’d landed on the North American continent. It was a better alternative to the Kazakh Steppe. It was also a long way from Houston, Texas. As far as he knew, the western hemisphere had taken the brunt of the CME. The chances of finding reasonable, working transportation home were likely nonexistent.
The chalet wasn’t a chalet after all. It was a visitors’ center for tourists. Clayton looked over his shoulder at the glacier he’d traversed. It sloped upward toward the ice field, the jagged gray peaks framing it on either side. He traced the path he’d taken, zigzagging the initial descent until he found a straight path toward the building. His eyes found his friends frozen on their backs on the opposite side of the highway.
He wondered what to do with the bodies. He couldn’t leave them where they were; the wolves would find them. He couldn’t bring them inside; they’d thaw and decomposition would accelerate. He swiveled back to the visitors’ center and climbed the hill toward the building. As he ascended the incline, he noticed a meandering set of wooden steps to his left. He shifted his weight, trying not to place so much pressure on his injured leg, and maneuvered toward the steps. He was even with the second wide landing and managed to navigate his way onto it and up another icy flight of steps. Using the bannister, he pulled himself to the center’s main entrance. He pulled on the door with his gloved hand and then pushed it. The door rattled but wouldn’t open. It was locked.
Clayton wiped away a thin layer of frost on the glass, breathed on the glass to melt the residual, and stuck his face as close as he could, cupping his hands at his temples. He peered inside and squinted to see through the dim pinkish-gray light that filtered into the large space through the opaque glass panels that lined the front of the building and overlooked the glacier.
It was empty, as he expected, but inviting. The floor was carpeted. Carpet. He hadn’t felt carpet between his toes in months. It and green vegetation were absent in space.
Clayton closed his eyes and mentally rifled through the storage bags he’d brought with him on the makeshift sled. He needed to get the doors open, get his body out of the cold, and find a good place to hide his friends.
His mind’s-eye inventory tallied all the items that might delicately open the door. Then he catalogued the things that relied on more blunt force. He had some ideas.
Clayton shook the door again. It rattled and the sound of the clanging metal echoed off the rising peaks around him. When the echo died, he listened to the silence.
No jet engines above, no cars whooshing along the freeway below. No birds chirping. Even the wind had air was cold and crisp and silent. It was nearly deafening. Even in space, there was noise. In the ISS there was the constant hum and buzz of machinery and computer systems. On his spacewalk, his own breathing and the thump of his heart cut through the otherwise soundless void.
Clayton sucked in another deep breath of cold air just to hear the sound of it and stepped away from the building. He stepped one foot at a time down the wooden steps and back toward his friends and his supplies. He’d have to get both to the ed
ge of the building.
He stepped off the bottom step and into ankle-high snow. It crunched under his heavy steps. A thin layer of ice crusted the top of the snow like a sugary glaze and it cracked under the pressure of his boot.
He reached the bodies and reattached himself to the harness. The familiar rub of the cord irritated the raw bruise at his waist and hips. Clayton winced and bit his numb lower lip. Warm snot drained from his nose. Even sniffing couldn’t stop it.
“All right,” he said, “what Canadian jokes can I think of, eh? There have got to be some I remember.” He tugged, aggravating the pain that ran from his neck to his lower back. He grunted and took another step.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s a good one. How do you get a Canadian to apologize?”
Another step forward. His thighs burned.
“Step on his foot,” he said and laughed. “That’s a good one.”
Clayton adjusted the cord and pushed forward. His shoulders resisted but acquiesced as he leaned into another step through the snow.
“How do you get fifty Canadians out of a swimming pool?” he asked himself through his teeth. “You tell them to get out.” He chuckled.
“Yeah,” he said. “That one wasn’t funny. The whole ‘Canadians are way too polite’ is only humorous to a point. And if they were that damn courteous, they’d have left open the door to the visitors’ center.”
Clayton looked up ahead at the distance he still had to cover. He ran his teeth across his lower lip and felt the dry cracks running its length with his tongue. He tasted blood. He was getting dehydrated.
He stopped and let the cords fall slack onto the icy snow. He reached He knelt and removed one of his gloves, dug into his jacket and pulled out a small bladder he’d filled with melted snow. His body warmth had kept it from refreezing. He squeezed it and drew water into his mouth.
He flexed his hand against the building stiffness in his knuckles and fisted another icy handful to stuff into his mouth. His fingers were red and cold. His knees creaked as he pushed himself back to his feet and pulled on his glove. He was about thirty feet or so from the bottom of the wide wooden steps. He noticed a gap on the side of the vertical planking that decorated the side of the staircase, beneath the steps themselves, and ran the length of the staircase’s rise to the center’s entrance. Two of the planks, which resembled fence boards, were split. It left an opening to a relatively protected space underneath the stairwell.
