Gone (11 page)

"You telling me there's a bunch of uranium under the ground and no one is supposed to think that's dangerous?" Edilio said skeptically.

"A bunch of uranium and one dude's bones" Quinn said. "Welcome to Perdido Beach, where our slogan is 'Radiation? What radiation?*"

Astrid led the way. She had visited the plant many times with her father. She found an unmarked, unremarkable door in the slab side of the turbine building. Sam swiped the pass-card in the slot, and the door clicked open.

Inside they found a cavernous space with a high ceiling of interlaced I beams and a painted concrete floor. There were four massive engines, each bigger than a locomotive. The noise was incredible.

"These are the turbines" Astrid shouted over the hurricane howl, "The uranium creates a reaction that heats up water which makes steam, which comes here, spins the turbines, and generates electricity."

"So, you're saying it doesn't involve giant hamsters on a wheel?"Quinn yelled/'! was misinformed"

"I guess we better look here first" Sam shouted. He looked at Quinn.

Quinn performed a languid, mocking salute.

They spread out through the turbine room. Astrid reminded them that Little Pete usually wouldn't come when called. The only way to find him was to look in every corner, every space where a little kid could possibly stand, sit, or hide.

Little Pete was not in the turbine room-

Astrid finally signaled them tc move on. After passing through two sets of doors, they could hear normal speech again.

"Let's go to the control room," Astrid suggested, and led the way down a gloomy corridor and into a dated-looking control room. It looked like a set from a NASA space launch, with old-school computers, flickering monitors, and way too many panels with way too many glowing lights, switches, and ancient data ports.

There, sitting on the control room floor, rocking slightly back and forth, playing a muted handheld video game, was Little Pete.

Astrid did not run to him. She stared with what looked to Sam like something close to disappointment She seemed almost to shrink down a little.

But then she forced a smile and went to him.

"Petey," Astrid said in a calm voice. Like he had never been missing, like they'd been together all along and there was nothing weird about seeing him all alone in the middle of a nuclear plant control room playing Pokemon on a Game Boy.

"Thank God he wasn't in with the reactors" Quinn said. "I was going to say a big N-O to searching that"

Edilio nodded agreement.

Little Pete was four years old* blond like his big sister, but freckled and almost girlish, he was so pretty. He didn't look at all slow or stupid; in tact if you didn't know better, you'd have thought he was a normal, probably smart, kid.

Bui when Astrid hugged him, he seemed barely to notice. Only after almost a minute did he lift one hand from the video game control and touch her hair in an abstracted way.

"Have you had anything to eat?" Astrid asked. Then she revised the question. "Hungry?"

She had a particular way of talking to Little Pete when she wanted his attention. She held his face in her hands, careftilly blocking his peripheral vision, hslf covering his ears. She put her face close to his and spoke calmly but with slow, careful enunciation.

"Hungry?" she repeated slowly but firmly.

Little Pete's eyes flickered. I Ic nodded yes.

"Okay," Astrid said.

Edilio was inspecting the dated-looking electronics that covered most of one wall. He frowned and wrinkled his brow. "Everything looks like it's normal," he reported.

Quinn scoffed. "Pm sorry, are you a nuclear engineer as well as a golf cart driver?"

"I'm just looking at the readouts, man. I figure green is good, right?" He moved to a low, curved table supporting three computer monitors before three battered swivel chairs.

"I can't even read this stuff" Edilio admitted, peering closely at one monitor. "It's all numbers and symbols"

"I'm going to the break room to find some food for Petey," Astrid announced. She started to move away, but Little Pete began to whimper. It was the sound a puppy makes when it wants something.

Astrid looked pleadingly at Sam. "Most of the time he doesn't realize I'm around. I halt to leave him when he's relating."

"I'll get the food" Sam said."What does he like?"

"Chocolate is never refused. He . . " She started to say more but stopped herself.

"I'll get him something" Sam said.

Edilio had moved on to what seemed to be the most up-to-date piece of equipment in the room, a plasma screen mounted on the wall.

Quinn was looking up at the screen as well, rotating slowly in one of the engineer's chairs. "See if you can get another channel, that one's boring."

"It's a map," Edilio said."There's Perdido Beach. Therms some little towns back in the hills. It goes all the way to San Luis."

The map glowed pale blue, white, and pink> with a red bull's-eye in the center.

"The pink is the fallout pattern in case there is ever a release," Astrid said."The red is the immediate area where the radiation would be intense. It gets data on wind patterns, the contours of the land, the jet stream, all that, and adjusts it"

"The red and the pink, that's the danger?" Edilio asked,

"Yes. That's the plume where the fallout would be above acceptable levels"

"That's a lot of land" Edilio said.

"But it's weird " Astrid said. She guided Little Pete to his feet and went closer to the map. "I've never seen it look like that. Usually the plume goes inland, you know, from the prevailing winds coming off the ocean. Sometimes the plume stretches all the way down to Sania Barbara. Or else up across the national park, depending on weather"

The pink pattern was a perfect circle. The red zone was like a bull's-eye inside that outer circle.

"The computer's not getting satellite weather data," Astrid said. "So it must have reverted tc its default setting, which is this red circle with a ten-mile radius, and a pink circle with a hundred-mile radius"

Sam peered at the map, unable at first to make sense of it. Then he began to locate the town, beaches he knew, other features.

"The whole town's inside the red zone" Sam said. Astrid nodded.

"The red zone goes right to the far south end of town"

"Yes."

Sam glanced at her to discover whether she saw what he saw,"It runs right through Clifftop"

"Yes," she said slowly. "It does." "Are you thinking .. "

"Yes," Astrid said. "Tin thinking it's a pretty amazing coincidence thai the barrier seems to line up with the edge of the danger zone." Then she added, "At least what we know of the barrier. We don't know that it includes the entire red spot"

"Ooes this mean there's been some kind of radiation leak?"

Astrid shook her head."I don't think so. There'd be radiation alarms going off all over the place. But what's weird is, it's like cause and effect,only backward. The FAYZ is what cut off the weather data, which caused the computer to default. PAYZ Ilrst, then the map goes to default. So why would the FAYZ barrier be following a map whose lines it caused?"

Sam shook his head and smiled i liitle ruefully-"! must be tired. You lost me. I'll go find some food" He headed down the hall in the direction Astrid had indicated.

When he looked back she was standing, staring up at the map, a tight, grim expression on her face.

She noticed Sam watching her. Their eyes locked. She flinched, like he had caught her at something. She put one protective arm around Little Pete, who had buried his face back in his game. Astrid blinked, looked down* took a deep shaky breath, and deliberately turned away.

272 HOURS, 47 MINUTES

'COFFEE.' MARY SAID the word like it might be magic. "Coffee. That's what I need"

She was in the cramped, narrow teachers' room at Barbara's Day Care, searching tht refrigerator for something, anything, to feed a little girl who refused to eat. She had almost fallen into the refrigerator, she was so tired, and then she spotted the coffeemaker.

It's what her mother did when she was tired. It's what everyone did when they were tircd.

In response to Mary's desperate, late-night plea for help, Howard had supplied the day care with a single box of diapers. They were Huggies for newborns. Useless. He had sent over two gallons of milk and half a dozen bags of chips and Goldfish. And he had sent Panda, who proved to be worse than useless. Mary had overheard him threatening to smack a crying three-year-old and had shooed him out of the building.

Bui the twins, Anna and Emma, had come on their own to help out. It wasn't enough people, not by a long shot, but Mary had been able to get two lull hours of sleep-Hut then, when she woke that morning—no, it was afternoon, wasn't it, she had lost track. She was so groggy, she not only had no idea what time it was, for the first few seconds she had no idea where she was.

Mary had never made coffee before, but she had seen it done. With bleary eyes she tried to figure it out. There was a scoop. There were filters.

Her first effort was a long wait for nothing. Only after sitting and staring in a comalike state for ten minutes did she realize she had forgotten to put water in the machine. When she did put the water in, it erupted in a spout of steam. But after five minutes more she had a fragrant pot of coffee.

She poured a cup and took a tentative sip. It was very hot and very bitter. She had no milk to spare, but she did still have some sugar She started off with two big spoonfuls. That was better. Not good, but better-She carried the cup back into the main room. At least six kids were crying. Diapers needed changing. The youngest kids needed feeding. Again.

A three-year-old girl with wispy blond hair spotted Mary and came running. Without thinking, Mary reached down. The coffee spilled onto the child's neck and shoulder. The girl screamed. Mary shouted in fear. "Oh, God"

John came running. "What happened?" The little girl howled. Mary froze.

"What should we do?" ]ohn cried.

Anna came running, a baby in her arms. "Oh, my God, what happened?"

The little girl screamed and screamed.

Mary carefully sat the coffee cup on the counter. Then she ran from the room and from the school.

She ran weeping to her home two blocks away. She fumbled the door open. She could barely see through her tears. Deep sobs racked her whole body.

It was cool and silent inside. Everything just like it always was. Only so quiet, so quiet that her sobs sounded like harsh, animal sounds.

Mary soothed herself. "It'll be all right, it'll be all right." The same lie she'd been telling the kids. She quieted the rack* ing sobs.

Mary sat at the kitchen table. She laid her head on her arms, intending to cry some more, quietly. Hut the time for tears was past.

For a while she just listened to the sound of her own breath-ing. She stared at the wood grain of the table. Exhaustion made it swirl.

It was impossible to believe that her mother and father were not home.

Where were they? Where were they all?

Her bedroom, her bed were just up the stairs.

She couldn't do it She couldn't go to sleep. If she did, she wouldn't wake up for hours and hours.

The kids needed her. Her brother, poor John, coping while she freaked out-Mary opened the freezer. Ben & Jerry's fridge brownie ice cream, Dove Bars. She could eat them and then she would feel better

She could eat them and then
she
would feel worse.

If she started, she wouldn't stop. If she started eating when she felt like this, she wouldn't stop until the shame became so great, she would force herself to vomit it all back up.

Mary had suffered from bulimia since she was ten. Binge eating followed by purging, again and again in a quickening cycle of diminishing returns that had left her forty pounds overweight at one point, and her teeth rough and discolored from the stomach acid.

She'd been clever enough to conceal it for a long time, but her parents had found out eventually. Then had come therapists and a special camp and when none of that really helped, medication. Speaking of which, Mary reminded herself, she needed to get the bottle from her medicine cabinet.

She was better now with the Prozac Her eating was under control. She didn't purge anymore She had lost some of the extra weight.

But why not eat now? Why not?

The cold air of the freezer wafted over her. The ice cream, the chocolate,there it was. It wouldn't hurt. Not just once. Not now when she was scared to death and alone and so tired.

Just one DoveBar.

She pulled ii out of the box and with tumbling, anxious fingers tore open the wrapper. It was in her mouth in a flash, so good, so cold, the chocolate slick and greasy as it melted on her tongue. The crunch of the shell as she bit into it, the soft luscious vanilla ice cream inside.

She ate it all. She ate like a wo f.

Mary grabbed the Ben & Jerry's* and now she was beginning to cry again as she put it into the microwave and softened it for twenty seconds. She wanted it runny, she wanted it to be like cold chocolate soup. She wanted to slurp it down.

The microwave dinged.

She grabbed a spoon, a big one, a soup spoon. She pried the lid from the ice cream and half spooned, half poured the pint of rich chocolate down her throat, barely tasting it in her eagerness.

She was weeping and eating, licking her hands, shaking the spoon.

She licked the lid. Enough, she told herself.

She pulled out two large plastic garbage bags, the big black ones. Systematically she filled one with anything she could feed to the children: saltines, peanut butter, honey. Rice Chex, Nutri-Crain bars, cashews.

The second bag she carried upstairs. She piled in pillowcases and sheets, toilet paper, towels—especially towels because they could be substituted for diapers.

She found the bottle of Proza:. She opened it and tipped it into her hand. The pills were green and orange, oblong. She popped one and swallowed il by cupping water from the faucet with her hand-There were only two pills left. She dragged the two bags to the front door-Then she went back upstairs to her bathroom. She carefully locked the door behind her.