Days of Anarchy
Page 10
Jeremy sipped at his go-to drink at the bar: soda water and lime.
Now that Jeremy got a good view of Dr. Miller, he noticed how much older he looked than the last time he had seen him. The expression on his face exuded tiredness. Robert went into his front shirt pocket and pulled out a necklace. It had a wooden cross on it.
“Wear this. It might make you trustworthy, and will keep you out of trouble on the streets of Houston. Maybe learn a Bible verse or two.”
“Do you know any?”
Robert considered for a minute, before replying: “Proverbs 4:13 ‘The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near.’ I figure it’s appropriate for now.”
Jeremy laughed. I think I’ll pick a more ‘I love Jesus’-style verse, he thought.
Robert pulled out a sleek black phone from his pocket and gave it to Jeremy.
“Here, this cell phone runs on the government channels. It’ll work, and behind it, in the credit card flap, is a ration card. With it, the United States will provide you with food and gasoline, and other essentials from the address on the card, on a weekly basis. Technically you’re working for the United States government, so welcome aboard the machine. Oh! Also, there are some documents and things from my old office that I would like you to send via email to my new address, since not everything is digitized yet, so you’ll have some non-spy things to do, too.”
“Dr. Miller?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think there is a chance for the world?”
Dr. Miller looked into his beer glass. “I don’t know,” he said. “We will know a lot more as the comet comes closer to Earth. I’m sorry I don’t have more time, Jeremy, but I have to go. Good luck with everything.”
The two said goodbye then, and Jeremy left feeling motivated in a way he hadn’t felt in his whole life. He was going to help save the world—or at least he would try!
Robert looked at Secretary Brighton and the Secret Service agents around them, navigating their group safely to their new home. They were to fly into Charlotte Amalie, the capital of the island of Saint Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, using two planes. The thick Houston air left Robert sweating in the sweltering heat. He called Suri to wish her a good trip.
She sounded hassled. “Eight days to our next IMP deployment, and they need to move us now? I don’t know if they could have chosen a worse time.”
“Yeah, it’s true, but the flight isn’t long and we’ll work on the way.”
Robert’s plane was the first to go. He got in and strapped himself to the seat, pulling out his computer and beginning to work. The nuclear weapons were ready for launch at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base. There were ones at airstrips in South Dakota and in Russia as well. They were ready.
Before long, Robert was in the sky and working away. He landed in the heart-attack humidity of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Robert seriously regretted leaving the cool tranquility of the New Mexico hills. There was a reason Oppenheimer chose that place to work, he thought. Robert started sweating within minutes of the plane landing.
Suri was slated to arrive in three days. Gerald was in constant contact with Robert as they discussed launch specifications as well as the integration with the nuclear weapons to the Vishnu spacecraft.
Once on the ground in Charlotte Amalie, Robert went to check into his hotel that the government had rented for them. Robert felt a little nervous about it becoming like a dorm. During his time in college his dorm life had caused much anxiety.
Robert was actually impressed by how most of the people he saw on the island seemed not to mind that the world was possibly going to end. He asked one of the hotel workers what they thought about the world ending.
“Hey, if it happens, it happens. Not much I will be able to do about it. But save us if you can,” he said.
It made Robert laugh, and actually motivated him to work harder. He went into his hotel room and plopped down on the bed, taking a brief break. The next minute, he was fast asleep.
Three days later, Suri was working incessantly in her temporary office at the Johnson Space Center to get ready for her relocation to the island. She had not been able to reach her parents, but decided that she would see them again when, not if, she saved the world. In fact, she was working on a personal project—a sort of programming test—that might help with this. She didn’t want to talk to Robert about it yet, as it wasn’t finished. Suri knew that Robert would only call her a perfectionist for waiting, but she didn’t care because she knew that for her project to work, it had to be perfect.
And she had to be watchful. Robert had told her that their security might be in danger at the Johnson Space Center, so she couldn’t be sure eyes wouldn’t be watching her. Many of the engineers she and Robert had hired were already on St. Thomas, so she didn’t know if the new engineers at JSC were just new faces or were somehow untrustworthy. Finally, she packed her bags and headed to the airport, ready to be reunited with the teams fighting the comet.
Robert got a call on his cell phone, and since Suri was the only person who called him regularly, he immediately addressed her.
“Hey, Suri, you’ve landed then? Did you finish the compositions of—”
“Dr. Miller, this is Secret Service Agent Daniels,” said a man with a deep, masculine voice. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, sir, but there was an attack. The plane carrying the rest of your team was attacked . . . ”
“What do you mean the plane attacked?”
“I’m sorry, sir. It happened before takeoff. We have two suspects in the bombing of the plane . . . ”
But while Agent Daniels spoke to Robert, his mind would not take in more information.
“What?” he said again. “What happened to Suri? Suri Ladhka, the other scientists on board? Dr. Petrov? Where are they?”
“We do not have a body count yet, sir, but so far we have found no survivors. The detonation occurred near the fuel hull, sir . . . There . . . ”
Robert couldn’t hear the agent speaking on the phone. No survivors, he thought. No survivors. He held on to the yet.
“Robert?” Dr. Campero asked, from the other side of the hotel door. “Is everything all right?”