Fight for Power (22 page)

“Then how about somebody taking a shot at you?”

“That's not a big danger, or I wouldn't be bringing you out here.”

“I guess I believe you, sort of. Is that the truth or a reassuring lie?”

“I'd like to think of it as a reassuring truth.”

She laughed again. I loved her laughter. It was more than just music to my ears. It was a little escape from reality.

“I've been thinking a lot about our farm,” Lori said. “Have you flown over it lately?”

“I haven't been in that direction that far since you left. If danger is coming it's most likely to come from the city side, so I mainly patrol there.”

“But something
could
come from the country, right?”

I knew where this was going. “It wouldn't hurt for me to do a pass over your farm sometime.”

“Sometime, like today?”

“Of course today.” I banked the plane to start us off toward the west.

She laughed in delight. Making her happy was important to me. There was so much I couldn't do for her, but this I could.

There was less chance of seeing anything in that direction, but also less chance of any troubles and really lots of open space to put down in if I needed to. There was no harm in going over the country, and maybe some good might even come of it. I could then do an extended flight in the other direction toward the city. A longer patrol just meant sharing more time with Lori and more time in the air. That was a win-win situation for me.

I traveled in a straight line, using Burnham to guide me. There was movement along the road below: bicycles, people on foot, and the occasional car. All of them were moving among the abandoned vehicles that still littered the road.

The number of houses dwindled as we came up on the highway and then stopped completely—it marked the place where country began. The fields were uncultivated. Here was farmland that could be used to feed people, and it was being left unused. Everybody was desperate for food, but nobody out here was growing any, it seemed.

“I can see our property,” Lori said. “Those pine trees are the eastern boundary. Can we go lower?”

I started to descend and at the same time tapered off the gas—the gravity on the drop would more than compensate, and our speed would be constant. The first few fields, those farthest from the house, were empty and open. I wondered what Mr. Peterson would think about his fields not being used.

“By this time of the year you'd usually be able to see the crops growing even higher than they are in the neighborhood,” Lori said.

“Our crops are doing pretty well,” I said.

Those closest to harvest were the crops being grown under glass in the makeshift greenhouses. They'd be followed quickly by the first harvest of potatoes. Mr. Peterson was going to turn those fields around and was hopeful of a second potato crop being brought in before winter came.

Strange, all this talk about harvests and crops. Before all of this I'd never really thought much about food being grown, or worried about the rain coming, or worried if there was going to be enough to go around. Before, food simply involved going to the grocery store, or opening the fridge or cupboards, or ordering in, or going to one of the dozens and dozens of restaurants scattered about. Food was never a problem because it was always there.

“There's our farmhouse!” Lori exclaimed. “And there are vehicles in the driveway that aren't ours.”

There were four trucks and a few cars in the driveway. And the field right beside the house was brown soil—it was being worked. Then I noticed motion—it was a tractor in the nearest field tilling the land. Behind it the ground was fresh and brown, and there were small white dots—seagulls—landing or flitting around. There was something about the tractor. It just seemed so small. It
was
small. It was more like a big ride-'em lawn mower than a real tractor. There were also other figures out in the field and they were carrying tools—no, they were aiming them our way and they weren't tools!

I banked so sharply that Lori gasped. There was no time for me to be considerate. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of her gripping the seat. I leveled it out, but we were now headed away from the farmhouse.

“I saw weapons,” I explained.

“I saw them, too, and they were aiming them up at us.”

“Nothing to worry about. There's practically no chance of anybody hitting us,” I said.

“How many people do you think are living there?”

“I have no idea, but that was a lot of vehicles.”

“It's so wrong to have strangers living on our farm, in
our
house.”

“We knew it wasn't going to stay vacant,” I said. We also knew people would have killed Lori and her family to make it vacant so they could move in.

They would have kept defending it until more men with more weapons took it from them. I wondered how long before this group was overwhelmed by an even bigger force.

Then I had another thought. If they were able to grow food, they might be a group we could ultimately trade with. Maybe they had invaded and taken over the Petersons' farm, but we still might need to do business with them. Food was food, and we needed more. Possibly we had something they needed. I'd talk to Herb about it when we got back.

“I don't think it's smart for me to go back over the farmhouse,” I said. “Sorry.”

“That's okay. I'll see it again, someday, up close, once this is all over … right?”

“Guaranteed,” I said. She reached out and gave my leg a little squeeze.

But what wasn't guaranteed was when this was going to be over. In some ways it was a big assumption that it was ever going to be over. Even when the power came back on, it would only throw light on a world that had changed so much that we might not be able to even recognize it. How did you get back from burned-out buildings, looted stores, starvation, and shooting strangers, to make it what it used to be?

Well clear of the western boundaries of the farm, I started the bank to the south. The lake was miles away, but with the sky almost cloud-free my visibility was all the way to the horizon. There were three smoke stacks—the chimneys of the power plant—thrust into the air like three fingers, the middle one the tallest. Normally they would have been spewing out smoke. Now the sky above them was unstained. They were going to be my mark—dead reckoning—about five miles away.

“Keep your eyes open,” I said to Lori.

“What am I looking for?”

“Anything different, but anything that could be of value, you know, sections that have blocked themselves off the way ours has.”

“Do you think there are a lot of them?”

“I've seen some, but Herb thinks there will be hundreds and hundreds of them scattered throughout the city and suburbs. Did you know in medieval England there were close to six thousand castles?”

“Um, no, but I don't understand what that has to do with this.”

“They were built for the same reason, to defend the local peasants from barbarian raiding parties,” I explained.

“Is that what we've become, peasants fearing for our lives from barbarians?”

“Hopefully, we're more than peasants and able to defend ourselves against the barbarians.”

“I just don't understand why I can't see more people,” Lori said.

“We're pretty high up.”

“I can see
some
people, but I can't see
many
people.”

“I guess they're in their houses.”

“Or gone away,” Lori said. “There used to be so many people everywhere. Where has everybody gone to?”

“I don't know.” Some had left. Others were dead. Lots of others.

“What's that over there?” Lori asked.

“I don't see where you're looking.”

She pointed and I tried to follow her outstretched arm. I banked ever so slightly to alter my view and aim in the direction she was pointing. I still didn't see anything.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“There, there!” she said. She was bouncing in her seat, pointing. “Far away and down by the lake.”

I altered course again to try to align with her aim. This was taking us farther away from the smokestacks, and farther away from our neighborhood. Still, what did Lori see—or think she saw? I'd flown enough to know that from the air, to the untrained eye, lots of things that looked like something were really nothing. She was probably seeing a park, or mall or a school stadium or the burned-out hulk of an apartment building or something I couldn't even imagine.

Up ahead was a big subdivision. As we got closer, I saw what she was talking about. It was like there was a big hole in the middle of it. It wasn't a park or a school yard, but what was it?

“I can see it,” I said. “I just don't know what I'm seeing.”

There were some blackened parts—signs of fire. Were we simply seeing the results of another fire? Had the entire center of a subdivision been burned out? We were still too far and too high to tell much of anything. We were coming closer already, but I needed to shed some height. I tapped Lori on the leg and when she looked at me I pointed down. She nodded.

I could feel the drop in my ears. We were cutting across roads, houses, shopping malls, and schools—your basic suburban neighborhood—and from this height it didn't look like anything was wrong, except for that gash right in the middle of the neighborhood. There had been a fire, I could see by the blackened edges of the opening, but it was a strange shape. It looked like a golf divot, like something had taken out a swath of houses, as if a gigantic arrow had struck the neighborhood.

I kept dropping down lower until we were no more than a hundred feet in elevation. And then I saw it. Sticking out of one of the destroyed houses was the gigantic tailfin of a commercial airplane—the logo of my father's airline, shining red on silver. A commercial jet had crashed, undoubtedly killing everybody on the plane and everybody on the ground nearby. There it was, right before my eyes. I could hardly believe it.

What were those people thinking as the airplane plowed into them? Did they even see it coming? And what about the passengers—they probably only knew something was wrong just minutes before it crashed. The pilot and crew would have known, though. I could picture the cockpit and imagine what it would have been like for the pilot and the crew desperately trying to bring the plane back online, not knowing what had happened, why all the instruments had failed, struggling to keep it in the air, and then those last few seconds of complete terror.

Thank goodness my father was on the ground when that virus hit. At least that's what we told ourselves, right?

I pulled up on the yoke and banked sharply to the side. I didn't need to get any closer. I didn't need to see more. Or think more. I just needed to get home.

 

20

“Okay, you two, it's time for bed,” my mother said.

“But it's Friday night! It's not like it's a school day tomorrow,” Rachel protested.

“And even if it was, it isn't like it's real school,” Danny added.

“It is as real as school can be these days,” my mother said.

“Sure, whatever,” Danny mumbled.

“Regardless, you still have weeding to do just like any other day,” she said.

Each day the younger children were supposed to spend two hours working in the fields. On weekends they were expected to double that to almost four hours. We had all sorts of early-summer crops ripening, lettuce and other greens, herbs. Most important, the first crop of potatoes was almost ready to harvest. Lots of kids complained about the dirty work—including Danny—but we all had to make a contribution. Some days I went out with them, when Herb didn't have me busy with other things.

“We could still stay up later, sleep in, and do our chores in the afternoon,” Danny protested.

“Afraid not. Especially not Rachel,” my mother said. “She has to be up extra early.”

“Why especially me?”

My mother smiled my way, and I said, “Because that's the best time for Lori and you to go horseback riding.”

“Really? That's incredible!” Rachel started dancing around.

Lori had taken Rachel for short rides around the neighborhood before, and she was always this thrilled. What Rachel didn't know was that this ride was going to be longer and farther.

“Yeah, great,” Danny said sarcastically. “Just please be quiet when you get up so you don't wake me.”

“No dice, lazybones,” my mother said. “You have to get up early to do your chores.”

“I've got all day.”

“Not if you want to go out on patrol with me,” I added.

“I'm going up … in the ultralight?” He looked at my mother. She had never allowed him to fly with me despite him practically begging her. She gave a slight nod, and he jumped up into the air whooping and doing his own little dance.

“So you two need to get to bed,” she said.

“I'll go to bed, but there's no way I'm going to sleep,” Danny replied.

“Either way, go upstairs and get ready, and I'll be up in a few minutes to tuck you in.”

They both said good night, jostling each other as they rushed up the stairs. Usually they complained about brushing their teeth, since the last of our toothpaste was long gone and we were making do the old-fashioned way, with baking soda, which tasted nasty.

“Lori won't go too far with Rachel on the ride, right?” my mother asked.

“She promised they won't go out of sight of the walls or the guards, and it's not like she's going out unarmed, so don't worry.”

“I think worrying is the right thing to do.”

“She'll be careful on the horse ride, and I'll be careful in the air. I'll just do some big, lazy circles around the neighborhood and then bring Danny back before I do the major patrol.”