Apocalypse Machine (12 page)

The small vehicle, just large enough for the boys and her, looked undamaged, but the roads... She looked down the street, which was crumbling and crisscrossed with fallen street lamps. And her dogs. Both of them. Sprinting away like they were on a track.

She called for them. “Ottis! Bruno!” But she couldn’t even hear the words, and given the dogs’ lack of reaction, neither could they.

Just as a new kind of despair settled over her, she felt a wind pressing down on her. Pressure squeezed her. Air rushed past and away. The darkness above and around her became absolute.

Solid.

Heavy.

Crushing.

Her last thought was of Bruno and Ottis.
Run, boys. Run!

The weight pressing her into the ground was so intense that blood, bone and sinews were compressed to liquid and then separated at the microscopic level. Margret Dieter existed one moment, and then, in the next, was obliterated.

12

Abraham

The White House feels like a beehive. People crawl over and past each other, buzzing information, shaking limbs as they talk, gesticulate, tap, swipe and shuffle. My sudden advancement from science writer to Assistant Science Advisor to the President of the United States came with an ID badge, Top Secret security clearance and a seat at the table for as long as the current crisis persists. I don’t think everyone here understands this yet, but that’s going to be a long time.

My stomach clenches.

A
very
long time. Ice ages don’t come and go like nations. They last hundreds of millions of years with intermittent periods of glaciation. Most people don’t know that we’re still in the midst of an ice age that began 2.6 million years ago. It’s end has been kick started by humanity, but nature is already reversing the damage done. By this time next year, an endless winter will start rebuilding the glaciers that retreated from North America 22,000 years ago.

But who knows if any of us will be around to see it.

I have no concrete reason to think this way, but the appearance of something unimaginably colossal, moving about beneath the ash cloud, has laced this catastrophic natural disaster with a sense of otherworldly apocalyptic doom. I really want to wave my hand and declare my footstep theory as hogwash, but I was there. I saw it. And the satellite images confirm it. Bardarbunga wasn’t just a volcano. It was a resting place.

For something that defies logic.

I try to find comfort in the books surrounding me. The smell of old paper is familiar and soothing, the writer’s essential oil. The uneven shapes dull the sound of nervous chattering filling and echoing around the building’s solid walls, floors and ceilings. The old book spines lining the shelves have titles like
Lincoln
,
Ulysses S. Grant
,
Truman
and
Nixon
. Actually, there are three books sporting Nixon’s name. Not a single Michael Crichton novel in the mix. I’m surrounded by historical texts covering the formation of the United States to the more recent past.

Will any of this matter?
I wonder.
Will any of it be here in ten years?

So much for comfort.

I look into the eyes of four American Indian chiefs, their paintings hung on either side of the men’s room. The men look regal, decked out in traditional garb—feathers, horns and beads. Three of the four look like good natured guys, the kind that wouldn’t make you feel uncomfortable if you bumped into them outside a bathroom. The fourth, Patalesharro—Generous Chief—looks like he knew what was coming, that the age of American Indian freedom was coming to an end.

“Pawnee,” I say, reading his tribe’s name. One of the few American Indian tribes deemed ‘friendly’ by the U.S. government. Hence the painting in the White House...beside the men’s room. I stand face-to-face with Patalesharro, feeling like I’m looking in a mirror, not because we look alike, but because the sadness and anger in his eyes is a reflection of my own.

Or maybe he just had gas.

“Mr. Wright,” a deep voice says, turning me around. It’s a Secret Service agent I don’t recognize. His bulk is blocking the door, but I can see familiar faces peeking around him. “Your family is here, sir.”

“Daddy!” both boys shout, shoving their way past the surprised agent, who’s looking at my sons like they’re a terror cell loose in the White House.

I let out an “oof!” when Ike and Ishah reach me, wrapping arms around my waist and pummeling my gut with their heads. I rub their backs, missing when they were small enough to pick up. Granted, I could lift one of them, but at times like this, I like to give them equal attention. It doesn’t matter that they have different mothers. They’re both my sons, and I love them equally. I rub their heads, and look down into their faces, seeing very different reflections of myself. Ishah, like me, has curly hair, but the brown color matches his mother’s. Unlike my tight cut, his is grown out into a loose afro that looks almost bohemian. But his brilliant blue eyes look like mine. Ike’s sharper features are topped by smooth black hair and brown eyes, also like his mother, but the shape of his face reminds me of my father. For a moment, I see them grown up again, tall, stubbled and strong, and I wonder about the vision’s accuracy. Could my mind conjure up my future sons and picture them accurately? If science writing still exists in the future, that might make an interesting story.

I kiss the boys’ foreheads and turn to greet their mothers. Bell is first. Arms reaching, smile broad, she seems to bounce across the room. Her hands clasp my cheeks, and she plants a kiss on my lips. “We’ve been scared.”

“You don’t need to be,” I lie. “Everything is good.”

She sees through it and gives me ‘the squint,’ but she must realize my falsehood was more for the boys’ benefit than for hers. “We’ll talk later,” she says, stepping to the side.

Mina glides across the room, her lithe body hardly moving vertically with each step. Her arms slide around my waist, and her head leans against my chest. From an outside perspective, the hug might look robotic and lacking the obvious affection of Bell, but I feel Mina’s body relax in my arms. She’s been carrying a lot of tension, and while she and Bell are great supports for each other, I still have a major role to play in both their lives—as strange as that might be. Mina tilts her head up, meeting my eyes. She looks near tears, but puckers her lips and invites me to kiss her, which I do.

When I raise my head, the Secret Service agent’s air of unflappable authority has been replaced by a flabbergasted expression. I’ve seen it before. We all have.

“It’s complicated,” Bell tells the man. “You’ll live.”

When the man’s expression deepens, I sense the boys becoming uncomfortable, and that is something Mina, Bell and I do not want to happen. I step closer to the man, and say, “There are stranger things going on tonight, don’t you think?”

His eyes flick to mine. “Uh, yeah. Yes, sir.”

“You can go,” I tell him.

“I, I can’t, sir. I’ve been assigned to your, uh, family.”

Great. “Then can you wait outside, Agent...”

“Huber,” he says.

“Agent Huber, can you give me a minute to catch up with my family? In private?”

He looks around the room, at the books, at the paintings and at the sabers mounted on the wall.

“They won’t touch anything,” I tell him, my second lie in the last few minutes. He gives a reluctant nod and exits, closing the door behind him. I turn to my family. “Everyone okay?”

“We flew in a helicopter,” Ike says.

“And a limo with bulletproof glass,” Ishah adds.

“Wow,” I say. When I all but demanded McKnight bring my family to me, I didn’t think they would get the red carpet treatment. Most of the people here, aside from the President himself, don’t have family in the White House. But they weren’t yanked away from their lives, either. As far as I know, I’m still not getting a paycheck for being here. Not that it matters. Banks might not be able to hold much more than snow in the near future. “Hey,” I say, looking around the room. “I’ve heard that some of these books have dollar bills hidden in the pages. Why don’t you two see if you can find them.”

The boy’s eyes widen, and they hustle to the shelves filled with old books.

“Just be gentle,” I whisper, eying the door where Agent Huber exited. “The other rule is if you ruin the book, you have to buy it with any money you find.”

While the boys flip through the pages gently, as requested, I head for the far side of the room and sit on a couch that looks antique, but also brand new. Bell sits beside me and Mina pulls and turns one of the chairs around in front of the couch, so it faces me. At home, we’d call this kind of meeting a ‘pow wow.’ Seated across from the Native American chiefs, that feels inappropriate.

“You’re afraid,” Bell says, glancing at the boys. They show no reaction, replacing books carefully and inspecting the next.

I give a subtle nod.

“Is it this volcano business?” she asks. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Another nod. “As bad as volcanoes get. World changing.”

“Are we going to be all right?”

“For now,” I say. “But I’m not sure what the future holds. For us, or anyone else. The good news is that we’re pretty much in the best place we could be to stay ahead of it.”

“What else?” Mina asks, her laser-focus eyes burning through my layers of defense. “You are...shaken.”

“Did I tell you that I have top-secret security clearance now?” I ask.

They stare at me.

“That means there are things I can’t tell you.” We’re alone, and the door is shut, but only a fool would believe that any conversation inside the White House is truly private. “As much as I might like to.”

They get it. I can see it in their eyes.

“But what I said before still applies. This is the best place for our family to be right now. And I intend to keep us here, but to do that, I need to stay useful.”

“You do what you need to do,” Bell says. “We’ll be here, and I’ll be praying for you.”

Mina takes my hand. “You won’t leave us.”

“Not a chance.”

She looks at the boys, who are looking discouraged and have started stacking the books they’ve already checked. “They need you as much as we do.”

“I am with you, and...” My words trigger a flashback. The figure standing over me. The rod in my hand. Was he a father figure?

A knock at the door startles me. I flinch back to the here and now, seeing concern on both women’s faces, and then the door opening behind them. Agent Huber enters first. He quickly spots the boys’ activity, points his finger and growls, “Hey—”

A wrinkled hand adorned in expensive rings reaches up and pushes Huber’s accusatory finger down. “Calm yourself, Bruce.” Susan McKnight, the First Lady, enters the room, smiling at the boys. She’s the grandmother everyone wishes they had, pruned, casual, friendly and all about the kids. “Are you boys interested in history or has someone set you on a wild goose chase?”

“Both,” Ike says, and glowers at me. “I think.”

The First Lady chuckles, and turns to Bell and Mina. “Ladies. I’ve had a room prepared for you all. If you’d like to come with me, I think your...husband’s attention is required elsewhere at the moment.”

Bell would normally correct people when they call her my wife. She’s sensitive to the fact that the title belongs to Mina, but she keeps her mouth closed, probably because she doesn’t want to offend the First Lady in her own home.

When Sonja Clark steps into the room, behind the First Lady, and simply motions with her head for me to follow her, I stand. “Duty calls.” I kiss both Bell and Mina on their foreheads, telling them both I love them, and then doing the same to the boys. “I’ll see you all later.”

I smile at the First Lady as I pass, and she squeezes my arm. “You have a lovely family.”

“Thank you, Mrs.—”

“Call me Susan.”

I smile. “Thank you, Susan.”

I re-enter the beehive hallway, mixing in with the scurrying aids, politicians and agents. Clark is waiting for me, holding a tablet. She holds it up as she leads me toward the West Wing, where the Oval Office and Situation Room are both located. She holds up the screen for me to see. It’s a satellite view of Europe, the ash-free countries of the Mediterranean still recognizable. But it’s cast in hues of blue and green, with several splotches of yellow, orange and red.