Lillie helped him out. “I know it was against the rules, Uncle Keith, but we were careful and anyway we won’t do it again.”
“Well, uh, I believe you.”
“Then can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.” Now what?
The girls exchanged a glance. Then Lillie said in a rush, “Tess’s family has a vacation place in New Mexico!”
“It’s not really fancy or anything,” Theresa said. “It’s just a lot of empty land in the desert. Bare, so my father got it real cheap. But there’s a cabin and my mother likes it ‘cause she’s from New Mexico, so we go there sometimes in October to hike and stuff. Over Columbus Day vacation from school.”
“And Tess asked me to go with her! Can I?”
Keith thought rapidly. October. New Mexico. Death threats on the Net. He said, “Well, we can talk about it, at least.”
“That’s just a delayed ‘no,’ ” Lillie said flatly.
“Not necessarily.”
Theresa said shrewdly, “It’s really safe out there in the desert, Mr. Anderson. Believe me, there’s nothing near my folks’ property. The cabin doesn’t even have a computer.”
He said, “You don’t even know if you’ll be done here at Andrews by October, or if the government will permit you off base by then.”
“I know all that,” Lillie said. “Of course I’m only hoping to go if we’re finished here at Andrews and if I’m back in time from the pribir ship.”
Keith felt his temper rise, pushed it back down. “You are not going on a pribir ship.”
Lillie stood. The tiny mirrors on her shirt flashed in shards of sunlight. She said calmly but distantly, “I guess you’re right, Uncle Keith—we should talk about this some other time.”
“I agree. Meanwhile, do you ladies want to go out for a Coke?”
“I’m sorry, I have to study,” Lillie said. “But thanks.”
“Kind of tough on you keeping school going the whole year around,” he said, wanting to keep the conversation going. She seemed so remote.
“I don’t mind. But Tess and I have a big French test tomorrow.”
French. For children who communicated in an exotic molecular language with aliens.
“Lillie… we used to be able to talk to each other.”
“We can still talk. What do you want to talk about?”
A polite wall. Did this happen with all teenagers, or was it a product of the situation? He had no way to tell. Theresa stared down at the picnic table, embarrassed.
“Nothing,” Keith said. “You better study now.”
He watched the two girls walk away.
Two days later a terrorist claiming to act in the name of the pribir struck again, blowing up a DuPont subsidiary in Texas. Four people died.
The pribir went on insisting, through Lillie and Theresa and Mike and Jon and Hannah and DeWayne and the others, that everything which damaged genes be “corrected.”
“It’s the right way,” the children said, and even though they never talked to anyone outside Andrews, many people who weren’t there nonetheless heard “The Right Way.”
The night of Saturday, August 24, Keith felt restless. He had stayed too long at Andrews. Only a handful of parents were left, mostly mothers with an earning husband and no other children at home. He knew they looked at him askance: Didn’t he have a job? The parents that had left visited often. Most of them seemed to have decided that their children were away at the equivalent of boarding school, a feat of self-protective mental gymnastics Keith could not begin to copy.
The night was sultry, but it felt almost cool after the scorching heat of the day. Keith walked past Malcolm Grow, along Perimeter Road. Groups of soldiers headed toward the enlisted men’s club, laughing and talking. At the Officer’s Club there was some sort of formal event; cars went by carrying women in evening gowns and men in dress uniform or black tie.
He had reached the West Gate when an explosion shattered the sky.
For a moment he couldn’t see or hear. Then his vision cleared and he saw the smoke rising from beyond the Headquarters building. Possibly from the Youth Center.
He bolted in that direction, trying frantically to remember where Lillie had said she was going that night with Theresa. A dance? Or to the movies, on the other side of the base? Did she — oh, God, please —stay at the dorm?
Two smaller explosions sent debris flying into the air.
Keith dropped to the ground and covered his head. Nothing hit him. He stumbled upward and ran again, yelling senselessly. “Lillie! Lillie!”
The Youth Center was in flames. Keith heard the fire engines along with the base alert signal. People were running, hollering…an ambulance shrieked to a halt and EMTs leapt out and ran toward the building.
Like so much in Maryland, it was built of red brick. A hole had been blasted in one side but the walls still stood. Flames shot out the window and off the roof. It didn’t look as if anyone could be alive inside, but firemen in full fire-fighting suits moved into the building. Keith raced around back. There was less damage here and he saw bodies on the ground, blackened, a few moving.
“Lillie! Lillie!”
“Don’t touch her, you moron!” an EMT cried. He shoved Keith out of the way. Keith looked more closely; the charred girl wasn’t Lillie.
Sense took over. He ran up to a group of civilians. “Do any of you have a phone? My niece… please…”
A man stared at him hard, stony: One of them. But a woman immediately dug into her purse and pulled out a handheld. Keith punched in the number of the dorm. His hand shook.
All the frequencies were busy. Others had thought more quickly than he.
He keyed in Theresa’s handheld, and someone answered. “Lillie? Lillie?”
“No, it’s Tess,” said Theresa’s scared young voice. “Lillie’s not here. She went out to buy Coke and—”
“Went where? When?”
“The superette. About five minutes ago. Mr. Anderson, what happened?”
“The Youth Center blew up. Listen, Tess, stay where you are. No, wait—are you in the dorm?” They might hit that, too.
“Yes! I am!”
“Then go quietly out the back and down the path to the inter-faith chapel, you know where it is. If you see Lillie, take her with you, okay? Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
He raced toward the superette, still carrying the handheld. The woman cried, “Hey!” and he tossed it on the ground. The superette was a mile away and he was out of shape. Panting, wheezing, he reached it and raced down its aisles. The base alert was still wailing and the store was pandemonium. He couldn’t find Lillie.
Why the hell hadn’t he kept the handheld?
He stopped to gasp for breath, and a young woman in a waitress uniform walked up to him. “Are you all right? Are you having a heart attack?”
“Handheld… please…”
She had one. He was barely able to key in Theresa’s number. It was answered immediately. “Hello?” Lillie. She was there. “Lillie…”
“Uncle Keith? Where are you? What should I do?” Scared, but calmer than Tess.
“Stay… in chapel…”
“We’re here. Reverend Duncan is here with us. Are you all right?”
“Yes…” He couldn’t say more. The waitress took the handheld from him. “Lillie? I’m with your father. He’s just out of breath, I think.”
“Who are you?”
“I just happened to be in the superette and loaned him my handheld. What happened?”
“He said the Youth Center blew up!”
“Oh, my God.”
Keith didn’t remember getting to the chapel. The waitress must have walked him there, through the mobilizing soldiers and running civilians. Then she vanished into the night.