Once they were alone, C.D. raised an eyebrow mischievously. “So… just what were you two up to?”
“Hey! It’s none of your damn business.”
“Uh-huh.” The grin returned. “That’s what I thought.”
“So what’s been happening in there?” Ed asked, changing the subject. “What have we missed?”
“Same old shit.” C.D. pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and started to remove one, but when he saw that he had only a few left he changed his mind and slipped them back into his shirt. “I swear, Eddie, these people just aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy about something. They were already arguing when I got here and it just never quit: ‘Who’s going to get the power restored? Is the President going to let the Chinese go unpunished? Why can’t we get temporary communications set up so I can get back on-line?’ Back and forth, back and forth. Brandon and Heather, the Kents, the Powells, all of them. And Jason’s the worst of the lot.”
“Jason thinks he’s in charge again? Great.” Ed got along well with most of his neighbors, but the fifty-three-year-old investment banking consultant somehow managed to get on the nerves of even the most tolerant among them. Even Carol, who had a way of seeing the best in just about anyone, didn’t care to spend too much time around the man.
“Yeah. So, here I am, your friendly neighborhood electronics expert, trying to get that damned antique of Brandon’s hooked into the DBS and he’s trying to tell me how to do it. Brandon reminds him that it’s his set. Jason starts yelling about how what he needs to know is more important. I remind them both that the spare parts for the DBS receiver are mine, and they can go right back into the shielded metal desk in my basement just as easily as they came out.”
“The usual.”
C.D. nodded. “Yeah. The usual. I’m sorry now I even got the old set up and running.”
Ed sighed heavily and looked around the neighborhood. Dutch Elm Acres was one of those cluster housing developments that started cropping up at the turn of the century, before the Crash. All the houses were packed together with tidy little front yards; the extra space in the subdivision was leased to a farmer who grew hay for a horse breeder over in Marlborough. For some reason, it had taken fifty years for real estate developers to figure out that no one really needed a front lawn fifty feet deep.
The only problem with this development, though, was that the homeowners association was split between the old-timers who were moving here on retirement, and the younger owners who still worked all day. The older generation, all Baby Boomers, resented the pushy attitude of the “youngsters,” who seemed to want to set rules for everything and everyone. The rule against parking cars in driveways or on the street had nearly brought C.D. and Jason to blows.
As he surveyed the neighborhood, Ed saw that a few kids, who undoubtedly thought more highly of the Chinese than did their parents, were playing on the common green that made up the central area of the subdivision. With school canceled, they were making the best of their unexpected gilt of free time. The ground was soft and damp following the previous night s spring showers, so typical for central Connecticut this time of year, and even from here he could see that each child sported knees and elbows that were thoroughly mud and grass stained.
He crossed the few steps to the end of the short walkway and scanned first one way up the deserted street, then the other. Cars were scattered here and there, most in driveways or parked at the curb like his own (C.D. had won the parking debate), but a few still remained in the middle of the street where their electrical systems had died when the EMP from the orbiting Chinese nuke had disabled most of the eastern seaboard from Maine to Baltimore. The association had discussed pushing the worthless vehicles to the side, but no one had yet gotten around to actually getting the effort organized. Meanwhile, nothing moved on the street; nothing, that is, except the steady breeze. And, but for the occasional squeal of joy from the direction of the children, it was utterly, delightfully quiet.
“They just don’t get it, do they C.D.?”
“What’s that?” his friend asked, joining him at the curb.
“All of this.” He swept his arm around, indicating what he’d been observing. “The peace and quiet, the lack of pressure, the… slowness of all of this. I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking all that forward to things getting back to normal.” A sudden banging came from behind them and they both turned to see Jason knocking on the window, waving for them to come in. The look on his face told them it was anything but a cordial invitation.
“Aw, shit,” C.D. spat. “I swear that guy’s coming unwrapped. Five days off-line and he’s like a stone dead junkie going cold turkey who’s decided he’d rather get a fix.” He sighed and cursed again under his breath, then abruptly smiled cheerfully again. “But then, if we didn’t have him around to make fun of, what real entertainment would you and I have, huh?”
“If you didn’t have Jason and the others to pick on,” Ed added, “I think you’d’ve cashed in years ago.”
C.D. chuckled in agreement. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Once more, the sound of Jason banging on the window reached their ears. Looking to the house again, they both saw Carol standing with him this time, a reproachful look on her face that said they’d kept him waiting long enough. “However… I suppose I’m just as curious as everyone else about what’s going on,” C.D. concluded as the two of them headed up the driveway past Brandon’s BEMW. He paused a moment by the dead vehicle, its hood still open from when he had cannibalized the flywheel battery to power Brandon’s antique TV, and touched his friend on the shoulder. “Hey—let you in on a secret?”
Ed looked at him and saw the beginnings of the mischievous grin he’d come to know “All right, shoot.”
“I’ve already got it linked to the DBS; it’s tuned and ready to go. All he needed to do was connect the antenna lead.” C.D. beamed, thoroughly pleased with himself. “Can you believe that? One screw, that’s it.”
Ed reached the door first. “Carol’s right, you know,” he said, laughing, and held the door open for his friend. “You really are incorrigible.”
They entered through the kitchen, which was, like the rest of the house, decorated in early Baby Boomer. Ed had always admired the kitchen, liked the way the enameled kitchen set and white metal Levittown cabinets reminded him of his own childhood. To Brandon and Heather Stavish, these were antiques; to Carol and him—and C.D. too, he supposed—it was like coming home. The pleasant thought was interrupted by the sound of a heated discussion coming from the living room where Jason Kent, as usual, was expounding on his theories of what really happened when the Chinese satellite accidentally detonated over the Atlantic. As they listened at the doorway, it was clear that everyone else in the room had his own thoughts as to what had happened and why, and were quick to contradict anything Jason said, point and counterpoint, in pretty much the same manner as they had when they had gathered the previous day. And the day before that. Ed and C.D. had heard it all enough times in the past few days to have memorized the routine. But Jason, driven by whatever personal demons made him tick, always had to be the one in charge, the one who was always somewhere center stage.
Jason liked to unwind on weekends by going up to Wolf Den State Park for a game of paintball. C.D. was always going on about how damned stupid it was to make a game of running around in the woods shooting at people. Too many good kids that he knew too many years ago had gotten killed doing it for real for it to be any kind of fun, he said, galled that Jason considered it a form of relaxation.
Finally noticing the two of them standing in the kitchen entrance, the man stopped mid-sentence.