‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Just passing the time.’
‘Hah. I bet.’
I thought for sure that she was going to turn around and head back to whatever room awaited her. But instead she folded her arms and said, ‘Nice sunny April morning. I was staying with my sister for a while. Out on the rear deck, wrapped in a comforter, trying to get some fresh ocean air into my lungs. That kind of spring morning that only southern California can put out, you know? Just sitting there, not thinking much about anything, except I was hoping that my breakfast of tea and toast would stay down. Looking out over the ocean, looking at the jets. We were north of LA, so there were always a few jets in the air…just part of the scenery… and I don’t know what caught my attention… but I saw the jets…well, they weren’t flying right.’
Karen turned and looked at me. ‘Sounds so simple. They weren’t flying right. There were three of them. They were losing altitude, their wings were wobbling, back and forth… I remember standing up. Screaming at my sister to come out and see what was going on. The jets wobbled some more, and then one after another, they rolled over and dove right into the ocean—just a big fucking splash of water and spray… By then I was crying, crying real hard, and my sister came out and told me that all the power was out… and the phones weren’t working. We couldn’t even get our cellphones to work. And then… some godawful noises from the street… cars sliding into each other… nasty crashes… we didn’t know what the hell was going on. It took days before we heard about the balloon strikes. Days. What I saw was what happened when those six nukes were set off at altitude. All the electronics on those aircraft and scores more across the country were fried. Those lovely aircraft suddenly become nothing more than pieces of heavy metal, falling to the ocean. The crews… I know the passengers must have had it bad, dropping into the ocean. But I think it was the flight crews that had it worst. An aircraft that they knew, that they had trained on, had suddenly gone dark, had gone mad. I imagine those last few minutes, in those dead cockpits, must have been the very worst.’
‘We were luckier,’ I said. ‘The EMP effect didn’t reach that far north, and we were able to get the local power grids up and running. Most of the border towns and cities got the brunt of the blackout first because of the way the power grid was set up. Still, it took a month or so before all the news made its way north, what with the border problems…’
And then I let that last sentence just dribble out. Still a sensitive subject back home. Did the PM do the right thing by shutting down the borders? Months later it was still a subject of controversy in Ottawa. Those who say yes said he had no other option; the hundreds of thousands of Americans streaming out of the big cities once the power went out and the water was off and the food deliveries stopped, they would have overwhelmed whatever assistance we could have provided. Those who say no, that the PM did the wrong thing, said a safe and secure Canada, with lights and power and food, could have served as a safety valve for the panicky Americans, could have softened the blow, maybe prevented the later troubles after the strike.
Something for the history books to decide, I guess, and I was thankful that Karen didn’t rise to the challenge. Instead she rubbed her arms and said, ‘Lucky. Yeah, you were lucky all right. Everybody thinks California is a nice warm paradise, palm trees and Santa Anna winds and cocktails by the pool. Man, it can get fucking cold at night in California, especially after one night without power. Or a week. Or a month. People were breaking up patio furniture, decks, trying to burn wood for heat. Houses that had a working back-up generator that wasn’t fried by the EMP, they rented basements and attics for gold jewelry…and some houses, the rent was even higher.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, safe Canadian boy,’ Karen said, her voice brittle. ‘Oh. Before the balloon strike, me and about a hundred and fifty million or so of my sisters were safe and secure in our little cocoon of feminism and twenty-first-century progress. And when some assholes set off suitcase nukes, tens of thousands of feet up in the air, we went from the twenty-first century to the eighteenth century. A rough ride. And you tell me, what does a starving feminist do when she’s offered a can of Chef-Boy-Ardi beef ravioli, after she hasn’t eaten for a week? Hmm?’
I didn’t know what to say.
She dropped her cigarette, stubbed it out with a vicious twist of her foot. ‘I’ll tell you what she does. She survives. That’s all. She survives. Hey, gotta go.’
‘All right.’
Karen turned and looked back for a moment. ‘Thanks for the company. But Samuel?’
‘Yes?’
‘No offense… but don’t ask me about California again, all right? Deal?’
‘Deal,’ I said, having gotten my quota of fresh air—and a whole hell of a lot more.
I stood outside for a few minutes longer, taking some deep breaths, bothered by what Karen had told me, cursing that reporter’s curiosity that made me poke and pry. I was about to head back into my room when I saw movement, off at the other end of the parking lot. I stepped back into the doorway, my heart thumping a bit harder, wondering who was out there, hoping that it was our Marine escort, and then seeing Peter, our resident Brit—and, in my humble opinion, resident jerk—come into the vehicle area. He stopped for a moment, his head swiveling around, and I had the oddest feeling that he was looking straight through me. I wondered where he had been. He had come down the main street that led into town, though there was nothing up there, nothing at all. But if he was nervous at being out there alone at night by himself he wasn’t showing it.
I stood still.
He went to one of the end units of the motel, unlocked the door and went in.
I continued to stand still.
And then he popped out, to take one more glance around. I put my hands behind my back, to stop them from shaking, and when Peter went back into his room I went back into mine, resecuring all three locks, knowing that my little quest for fresh air would keep me awake for most of the long night.
CHAPTER THREE
In the morning rain had come through for a bit, and I joined the others for a stand-up breakfast in the parking lot, shivering. But at least it wasn’t dark. I was tired, not having slept much after my little excursion outside my room. Karen gave me a cool glance that said it alclass="underline" our conversation last night did not happen, and please don’t bring it up. And Peter was Peter—when he said that he had slept like a brick, not moving once during the night, I wondered why he was lying. I also wondered why I should care.
Another hot shower sure would have been fine but Jean-Paul decided against restarting the generator because he wanted to make an early start. Not that he had put it up to a vote in the group; he had just done it, like some EU bureaucrat in Brussels, deciding on his own the proper fat content for a particular English cheese. A low mist hung over everything, the water droplets beading up on the various surfaces. While last night the parking lot of the motel had seemed almost cheerful, with our vehicles parked in a semicircle and a fire warming us up, now the place looked trashed. The ashes and logs were black and slick-wet, and the bright orange furniture that we had dragged from the motel looked out of place. This little piece of the countryside now looked worse than it had the day before, and it was our fault. And I knew that any suggestion on my part to move the furniture back and clean out the fire pit would be met with puzzled smiles. What would be the point, compared with what was already out there? And my answer would have been the only one I could come up with: to show respect. But I guess being the youngest in the group meant I still had a bit of optimism.