Pyotr nodded his head, and as he looked over to Kolya again, he noticed Kolya looking at the blank spots on the wall where the holy ikons had been.
“Suicide is exactly what it would have been. Uncle Lev told me that Mikail will never let anyone escape as long as he has influence over the Russians.”
“As long as he is one of the Russians,” Kolya corrected him, without glancing away from the wall. Pyotr looked at him, not certain whether he appreciated the correction, but understanding its point.
“Yes, well, anyway, I have go-bags in the basement—packs prepared for a long journey. We’ll go down shortly and prepare for departure. Would you like some coffee to warm you up?” He walked into the kitchen and took down a couple of additional cups. The cabinet doors thudded with a light finality, emphasizing not the warmth of the coffee, but the word departure.
Natasha followed and quickly gestured that she would appreciate some coffee, while Kolya reached up to cover a yawn and then to straighten his glasses. “Yes, I was afraid you would never ask. I don’t suppose you would have a Pravda on hand or, better yet, a New York Times?” He looked at Pyotr to see whether this request registered any notice. It didn’t.
As Pyotr poured the coffee, Kolya’s eyes seemed to still be on a distant thought, and Natasha watched her brother as the thought solidified and was formed into words that then came forth from his mouth.
“I noticed something odd during our walk here, and it only now has occurred to me what it was. I don’t know what it means, but it was odd, and I thought I’d tell you.” He took the coffee as it was offered, and lifted the cup to his nose, where he smelled it and took in the rich aroma. “The whole town of Warwick is up in arms. They’ve all come out into the streets—all kinds—and they can all be seen running to and fro; and there are battles and meetings and shouting and all of the things you’d expect in a societal meltdown—”
“Yes, we know, Kolya,” Pyotr replied, prompting him to further his thought. “Is this the thought that has finally occurred to you?”
“No. The thought is this… where are the oldlings? What I mean by that is, where are the oldest Warwickians, the people who have been here since the beginning? I saw them all in the gym during the trial. And I’ve seen several of them since then, but it is not what one would expect. Walking here with Natasha I saw people of every kind and age and economic class, and of every ideology, all out there marching or fighting or fleeing. But the old people are… well… they’re just gone.” He shrugged and took a sip of his coffee, before adding, “It’s strange.”
“That is strange,” Pyotr replied. “What do you make from it?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think on it. Where could they be?”
He took his coffee to his lips for another sip and let the liquid, like the warmth of his contemplation, flow through his tired body.
The four of them descended the stairs to the basement, and Pyotr pointed out the packs lined along the wall. He described the materials he’d placed in each, and they quickly discussed a game plan.
He was going to carry the ample medical supply kit that Lev Volkhov had gathered together over the years through some contact in the outside world, and he would also carry the gun—a Ruger 9mm pistol—that the old man had gotten somehow on the black market prior to the takeover. The rest of the supplies he’d divided among the bags by weight and what he thought the individual hikers could carry.
In just a moment they would climb into the tunnel and traverse it on their hands and knees until they reached a spot about fifty yards in, where he and Lev Volkhov had constructed a small dugout that they could use as a way station until the EMP hit.
“There is no sense coming out to the surface until that event takes place,” Pyotr informed the team. “All kinds of strange and wild things might happen once the electromagnetic pulse is unleashed. We’ve never seen planes fly over Warwick, but who knows what will happen when over three-thousand aircraft, a goodly percentage of them at any one time flying over the eastern seaboard of America, come plummeting to the ground when they lose power all of a sudden.” At that, the four of them each stopped and pondered the loss of human lives involved in that scenario, and though none of them had ever been on an airplane, they’d seen them on Russian television, and each could not help but imagine, even for a split-second, what it might be like to be on one of the doomed flights.
“When the EMP hits, if it does, there may be fires, and there will certainly be panic, and one never knows what the outcome will be, so we can’t stay here. But there’s no need, once we’re hidden away in the tunnel, to come out until the air has cleared a little.
“Lev said that there will be massive disruptions, and the power plants will go offline—probably forever—and maybe the nuclear plants, not able to shut down properly or use generators to cool their cores, may melt down as well. It’s hard to know.
“Most vehicles, any that still have fuel and are still running after the recent storms, will stop right where they are in that micro-second when the burst hits, and the highways and cities will become death traps. This is what we face when we head out there outside the wire. Form that thought clearly in your mind. Life becomes a challenge, once the end of the world as we know it comes about.”
“Fine, Pyotr. We will treat it with the reverence it deserves. But if I may be so bold, can we cross that bridge when we come to it? I have a more immediate concern. I have some reading to do. Will we have light there, in the tunnel, in case we need it? Or will the EMP knock those out, too?” It was Kolya with his questions, again. Pyotr was already coming to realize that the young man’s penchant for questioning was something he would have to learn to appreciate in the man.
“I’ve packed flashlights that we can use. I have no idea how well the flashlights will weather the EMP, or if the pulse will penetrate the tunnel. Just in case, I’ve packed a few extras with batteries into the ammo can with the radio we got from the man named Clay’s backpack. We have to be careful about starting any fires in the tunnel since that would both endanger us from the carbon monoxide and threaten to give our position away should any smoke escape the tunnel. I’ve brought thick woolen blankets to cover both ends of the tunnel and block out the air so we will stay warmer throughout the night.
“Since we only have four of us, we should be comfortable in the dugout. If Vasily had succeeded in convincing more to come along, I was beginning to worry how we would accommodate many additional people.”
Kolya looked at Vasily and winked. “Probably a good thing you weren’t a bit more persuasive then.”
Natasha chided her brother, quick to pick up on the hurt look on Vasily’s face, and eager, as always, to tone down her brother’s idea of humor. “Yes, Kolya, but lucky for us that he was persuasive, at least a little.”
“What can I say?” Vasily replied. “My life is a two-edged sword. I’ve spent most of it allowing people to think I am a fool and they’ve begun to believe it.”
“Ahhh, a fellow of infinite jest, caught in his own mousetrap,” Kolya replied.
“Perhaps, Kolya” said Pyotr, “but he did make the effort, which is more than any of us did. It’s bad form to jab at one’s hero. And besides, we are men now, not mice.” He smiled at his own rare joke.
“And women,” added Natasha. “Women, not mice. Don’t forget me.”
“Wow, sister,” Kolya rolled his eyes, “you always know how to kill a good punchline.”