“What the fuck was that!?” Alex screamed, and Samantha said, “Mike—”
“Aah!” Mike had twisted down onto one knee, clutching his face. By chance, he must have been gazing directly at the target when those man-made stars †ared upon the earth.
Lord God, Ruth thought. How many more had exploded in other places? There could be strikes all across the planet, obliterating the last scattered fragments of humankind. What if India or the Chinese had ‚nally convinced themselves to take that step before anyone else did?
The enormity of it walked through her like a ghost and Ruth staggered, numb and senseless, and then Cam was there like always, shouldering through the group to catch her arm.
Hiroki moaned as Cam jostled by, a low noise like a dog. The others were also beginning to wake from their shock. Alex and Sam knelt to help Mike, but Newcombe was checking his watch and Ruth didn’t understand that at all.
“Mike! Oh my God, Mike!” Samantha cried.
Cam’s expression was ‚erce. “Are you okay?”
“What?”
“Look at me. Are you okay?” His brown eyes were intent and unguarded, and Ruth stared at him. The wind felt clean in her hair. She smelled pine trees and damp earth.
They had hiked down the eastern slope beneath the Scouts’ islands to give a send-off to Brandon and Mike, who planned to explore the nearest peaks across the thin valley, then return before showing themselves to anyone. D Mac was still undecided. The method for sharing the nanotech hadn’t helped. Mike thought it was cool, but even Brandon had hesitated at drinking from the splash of blood that Cam drew from his left hand.
Ruth had considered less gruesome ways. The nanotech was smaller than a virus and could be absorbed through the slightest imperfections in the skin. They should be able to pass the vaccine merely by rubbing their spit against the boys’ arms or with something as easy as a kiss, but they had to be certain. Smeared upon the boys’ skin, the vaccine might drift away or remain inert, and a kiss might only leave the thinnest trace to be exhaled and lost. Ingesting the blood was foolproof. The nanotech was also much hardier than a virus, so it was sure to survive their stomach acids and move into the bloodstream.
Still, drinking it was ugly. The boys were scared despite Cam’s encouragement, and Ruth had been bracing herself for his good-bye. He’d kept away from her all morning. He’d also brought his backpack. Cam and Newcombe agreed it was best to keep their weapons and gear with them at all times, no matter how much they liked the Scouts. Ruth had worn her own pack because of the data index, yet she could easily see how much Cam wanted to go east with Mike and Brandon. It would be very like him to attach himself to their task, offering his experience and his strength. He’d already given Mike his binoculars, two cigarette lighters, and a small amount of sterile gauze and disinfectant, equipping the boys as best he could.
But what if there are more bombs?
Ruth’s terror was a huge weight and she re†exively pushed against Cam, trying to get past. He stiffened at her hands on his chest, misunderstanding. Then she felt the same bright fear transfer to him. There was a slanting pile of granite behind Cam and he pulled her toward it, using the rock as a blast shield.
“Here!” he shouted.
The others came after them, slow and dazed. “That was a nuke!” Alex yelled. “That had to be a nuke, right? They’re nuking each other!” The boy set Mike against a boulder and tugged Mike’s hands away from his wet face, trying to examine the damage. Brandon joined them and then Newcombe and D Mac. Ed directed Kevin and Hiroki into the safe space and everyone knelt down.
Even packed tightly together, they were a miniscule knot of lives and Ruth looked at the sky again with that quiet reaching feeling. Nothing had changed up there. A wisp of clouds ran on the breeze, impossibly calm.
Newcombe squeezed in beside Alex in front of Mike. “Open your eyes,” he said. “You have to open your eyes so we can see, kid.”
“I can’t,” Mike groaned.
Ruth laid her ‚ngers over the etched stone in her pocket. “Was that Utah?” she asked. “Where was that!?” The need in her voice made her ashamed, because that scorching light was a horrible thing to wish on anyone…but if the †ash had been in Colorado…if the holocaust was that far away…
“We should try the radio,” Newcombe said. “Get the radio.”
“Yeah.” Cam shrugged off his pack and set it in Kevin’s lap. They were clumped too close together for anything else. He pulled out a canteen and a bundle of cloth, then removed the thin control box and its aluminum headset.
“There aren’t any burns,” Newcombe said to Mike. “Can you see anything?”
“A little. I see shapes.”
“Good, that’s good.” Newcombe bent around and extended one hand for the radio.
“No,” Cam said slowly.
Ruth glanced back and forth between them, surprised that Cam would distrust him now, until she realized at the same time as Newcombe that Cam was no longer interested in them. She turned. They all did.
“Oh, fuck,” Alex said.
Peering beyond the line of rocks, Ruth saw an immense arc of distortion in the atmosphere, a convulsing, tangled shock wave of force and heat. It spread like a circle on the surface of a pond, although it was so big that they could only see one part of the swelling hole in the sky.
Dully, she realized it must be hundreds of miles away — and hundreds of miles across. It was growing swiftly, rolling west against the normal †ow of weather. It churned the air apart, wiping away the spotty clouds.
“Where was that!?” Ruth asked again, and her voice was high and sharp like a boy’s.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Samantha said.
“What do we do?” Cam said, even as he looked down at the radio in his hand. He offered it to Newcombe, but the soldier was staring at the sky like all of them. He didn’t answer until Cam pressed the gear against his shoulder.
“Yeah. Uh.” Newcombe groped for the headset.
“The radiation,” Cam said.
Then the side of the mountain across the valley from them seemed to jump. Dirt rippled up from the slope in patches and streaks. There were sharp cracks from the rock like gun‚re. In the lower areas, trees swayed. Some toppled. To the southeast, a red cloud of bugs swirled out of the forest in confusion.
The quake shuddered down through ‚fteen miles of mountainside and valley in the blink of an eye. Then it raced over their peak. The ground lurched. One of the boulders above them scraped free and dropped — no more than inches, but it clapped against another granite slab with a bone-grating sound. Chips of rock pelted the group and opened two cuts on Brandon’s cheek. Most of them screamed. Cam dragged Ruth away, stepping on Samantha, falling onto Ed and Hiroki.
The earth was already stable again. It was only their own crowded scrambling that extended the chaos and D Mac and Newcombe shouted at everyone else. “Stop! Stop!”
“We’re okay, it’s done!”
Then the ground shook again. Ruth gasped and stayed down, although this movement was very different. It was lighter, an aftershock.
“It’s okay!” Newcombe shouted, but Hiroki had begun to moan again and Alex yelled and yelled without words.
“Yaaa! Yaaaa!”
Threads of dust and pollen came over the west side of the mountain behind them, lifted into the wind by the quake. It formed banners of brown and yellow, rushing east.
Ruth lay on her side in the open just beyond the pile of granite, watching the unimaginable dent in the sky. Cam moved to help her again. As his hands closed on her waist, she felt a glimmer of something other than mute animal fear. Gratitude. His attempt at escaping the rock hadn’t amounted to much, but it had shown his priorities. He’d left everyone behind for her.