Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (27 page)

“Five months sounds like a long time,” the President said, shaking her head and looking at the list Secretary Worthington handed her. “But when you get down to it, it’s not enough is it?”

“We’ve been setting up infrastructure around the cities where the refugee populations are heading. It’s been a massive effort,” he said. “Just getting minimal services for the 100 million people that will be displaced was enough to almost destroy several of the metropolitan areas we selected. Phoenix is the one that we’re stretching hardest. They’re getting everybody from the LA basin, and all of Orange and LA counties. It’s already a huge city, but once we’ve got everybody there, the population is going to be somewhere near 45 million.”

“How the hell are they going to handle it?” she asked. “Isn’t there anywhere else we can send some of those people?”

“Fortunately, they had a good monsoon in Arizona and New Mexico this year so the reservoirs are full to capacity. Basically, the decision to settle them there is mostly a matter of traffic control,” he said. “East of Phoenix there’s only one interstate, and it heads to Tucson. That’s where San Diego is headed. From there clear to El Paso, there’s not another major city. We understand that Mexico is moving the population of Baja to Juarez.”

“What about sending them to Albuquerque?” she said.

“San Francisco’s heading there.” he said. “Our real problem is that we’ve got to get Oregon through the Salt Lake area and into eastern Colorado and Nebraska before winter gets here. Washington is heading across into North Dakota and eastern Nebraska around Omaha. The feeder highways of I-80, I-90, and I-94 all freeze up when the snow starts. Those same routes are going to be the major routes for the secondary evacuations we’re planning in about thirty days.”

“Secondary evacuations?” she asked, looking at the map she had on her screen.

“Seismically active places inland of the coastal regions,” he said. “Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming have major fault systems, or are sitting on large volcanic structures. We don’t know how strong the shockwaves will be that far from the impact, but those are already loaded guns, so it may take very little to set them off.”

“I see,” she said, leaning back and running her hands through her hair. “It’s damn sure a huge undertaking.”

“We’ve had to plan for portable charge-ports and hydrofuel tankers to be stationed along the evacuation corridors,” he said. “We’re also going to be setting up relief food and water supplies. If past evacuations are any indication, it’s going to be a three day drive from LA to Phoenix, even without having to deal with stalled cars in the highway because they ran out of juice.”

“Where’d you find the supplies and hardware?” she asked.

“Most of it’s stuff the military has available,” he said. “But we’ve planned to encamp the reserve units at regular intervals along the highways to reduce their personal consumption.”

“So how soon do we start?” she asked.

“As soon as you sign off on it,” he said.

She handed his epad back and nodded. “Do it,” she said, trying to imagine what all those people would be thinking as they marched slowly east, leaving everything behind, knowing they were never going home again.

***

New Hope Colony, Plato:

Carter Anthony walked out of the Stormhaven carrier
Andromeda
and through the tunnel into the New Hope docking facility. It was a new construction, and although not as huge as the Sentinel facility, was still larger than anything that had been in the Colony last time he’d been there. He wore Bermuda shorts to show off his new Prosynthetic legs. They were indistinguishable from his originals, except they were hairless. They even flexed with what looked like real muscles when he moved.

Susan Winslow met him inside the first pressure bulkhead, and blinked in surprise. She glanced down at his knees and tried not so stare. Finally she just said, “Wow, you look taller than I expected.” She threw her arms around him and hugged him until he blushed. “Welcome home.”

Carter smiled and shook his head. “Is this the new official greeting?” he asked, winking at her.

“For heroes,” she said.

“Hero? But we lost Prometheus,” he said, feeling a stabbing pain in his chest as he thought about what had happened. While in Sentinel he’d been focused on getting used to his new legs and coming to grips with his own sense of loss. But coming back to New Hope brought back a tangible, pressing despair that no amount of neuro-suppressant could vaporize into a numb fog. It was sharp to him. Razor sharp.

“If you hadn’t cut the power and one of those guns had swung downward before it died, this crater we’re calling home would have been a lot bigger than it is,” she said. “We played back the com records, and heard you cut the power just as the first gun went down.”

“It wasn’t that close,” he said quietly. “We had time to get the ...” He choked suddenly on the words. “We got them into their suits before it blew.”

“Actually no,” she said. “Tower six went down before they hit the Control Room. It was a lot closer than you think.”

“Well, whatever,” he said, shrugging. “I wasn’t thinking of heroics. I was thinking ... well, I wasn’t thinking I guess.”

She led him by the arm through the interconnecting tunnel and into the Commons, another new feature of the Colony. It was a huge inflated dome almost a hundred feet high in the center. Around the edges, small booths opened into the area with hallways that ran out in eight directions. A pair of potted palm trees stood on the edge of a slight depression. In its center, they’d set up a stage riser and podium. A banner hanging across its front proclaimed,
“Welcome Home Carter!”
There were dozens, maybe even a hundred, people cheering when he walked in. He looked around, recognizing most of the faces as the people he’d had under his command on the project.

He didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. Being a hero wasn’t easy.

***

Stormhaven:

Tom sat on the patio of the cafeteria, staring at the tops of the trees, watching the birds dance and thinking about Viki. She loved to watch those birds, somehow feeling their joy. He couldn’t make that intimate connection. Where she saw life and happiness, he saw birds.

“Tom, can I have a word with you?” Doug Shapiro angled through the tables, almost all empty now that they’d started relocating the labs to Sentinel. It seemed the only ones left were the administration types. Most of them worked with Tom in one capacity or another. Right now they were coordinating the exodus.

“Sure,” he said, nudging one of the chairs back with a foot as the agent walked up. He carried a cup of coffee, and wore the expression that said he was here in an official capacity. “A problem?”

“Possibly,” Doug said, sitting down. “Are you building a private army?”

“Yes,” Tom said, without hesitation. “Not a big one, but you could probably call it an army, I guess.”

The bluntness of his answer surprised Shapiro, and he almost let his face show it. Tom caught it. His experience the match for the agent’s training.

“Why?” Doug asked, setting his cup on the table and steepling his fingers in front of his face. “Feeling insecure?”

Tom drew in a deep breath, considering his words carefully. “Just between us, ok?” he said. “Cole doesn’t know.”

“I thought he was the Omnipotent Seer of All,” Shapiro smiled.

“He used to be,” Tom said. “Lately he’s been working on his journal, and hasn’t had much time for the real world.”

“So why are you building an army?” he asked again.

“It’s not really an army. It’s more like mobile security forces. You were there when Cole announced the Archangel Mission.” The agent nodded. “We’re going to be landing ships in some pretty hostile places. They’ll be on the ground for up to a week at a time. I don’t think it’d be good to leave them unguarded considering the desperation of some people.”

“I can see that.” Doug nodded. “Why haven’t you told Cole about it? This mission is his idea.”

“It’s not worth the argument,” Tom said. “We did the same thing when we mounted gravity lasers on the carriers.”

“So how big is this force going to be?” he asked.

“Twenty per Archangel, plus a standing force here at Stormhaven and another one at Sentinel.

“Do you have a license for these forces?”

“Sure, you’ve heard of Stormwatch Security Services,” Tom said, pulling a dataport out of his pocket, and thumbing through the files. “Licensed in 2009. Here’s a copy of the license. We’ve also got the FFLs for everyone. We could field 5,000 under these permits.” He handed Doug the small computer, and waited while he read it.

“I figured as much,” he said, leaning back and letting the professional face slip away. “I could have dug through the net and found it myself, but I didn’t want to attract any attention, if you understand what I mean.”

“Thank you,” Tom said. “We’re trying to be as discrete about this as possible. The truth is, I’m getting a little nervous about that idiot that’s been preaching the gospel of killing anyone that isn’t ready to give up and accept the Rapture.”

“Nathaniel Sommerset,” he said. “He’s actually gotten more followers since he’s started preaching violence.”

“Yeah. I’d say he’s insane, but nowadays who isn’t?” Tom said. “I just don’t want to get caught by surprise like they did in Australia.”

“I can get behind that,” Doug said. “Is there anything I can do to help? I mean, it’d be just my luck if they invaded here they’d think I was one of you.”

“You mean you aren’t?” he asked, feigning shock.

“You guys don’t have as good a retirement plan,” he said, grabbing his cup and heading back inside.

***

Independence, Missouri:

The
Wilford Woodruff
dominated the landscape, its trusses rising more than two hundred feet above the grain containers it carried. This was the last flight of seeds to the Zion Repository. The cavernous storage vaults on the lunar surface were full, with over a hundred million pounds of seed. Almost every domesticated crop that grew on Earth was represented, except of course coffee and tea. In the Mormon version of the future, there was no choice except to live the Word of Wisdom.

This time the
Wilford Woodruff
was going on a one-way trip. It would unload its cargo at the Repository and settle in for the long sleep, not returning to Earth until it was time to restore the Saints and the Gospel to any who might survive. After the dust had settled and the long night ended.

The next ship to inherit the Zion Mission was the deep freezer carrier,
Brigham Young,
which would be launched in the next few days from Alberta. It was a substantially smaller ship, capable of making the translunar flight in two hours, passing through the radiation belts with its precious cargo in the quickest possible time. Protecting the frozen eggs and sperm meant the crew would spend most of its time under two-G, and would make the short sprints from the surface through the Van Allens at well over four. Its crew had been chosen from the youngest, healthiest of the church population. All of them ex-military fighter pilots.

A huge crowd of people stood around the
Wilford Woodruff,
listening as the Prophet gave his final blessing to the ship and its crew. It was a tearful ceremony, pride mixing with sorrow at parting. The crew of the
Woodruff
was leaving family behind, leaving everything to dedicate their entire future to carrying the gospel forward. It was a high price, yet it was paid willingly.

The Mormon Children’s Choir finished with the hymn,
God Moves in a Mysterious Way,
appropriate both to the moment and to the memory of the ship’s namesake. After the closing prayer, the crew boarded the ship, and sealed the hatch for the final time on the sweet air of Earth.

***

Lunagrad Base, Boscovich Crater, Luna:

To say that the situation was tense would have elevated the art of understatement to a new level. In truth, it had almost reached the point of armed siege. No Russian or Arab dared work or sleep alone. Everyone watched over their shoulder, expecting it to turn violent at any moment. When you lived in an environment where even a small cut to a spacesuit could be fatal, you learned to be paranoid, or you learned to breathe vacuum.

So far there had only been one death, but there were no witnesses, and it was written off as an accident by the officials. But anyone who knew how a spacesuit worked would have known that you can’t load an empty air tank into a life support pack without the warning lights coming on. Yet somehow the unfortunate crewman had done it, and had gone out to drag in a supply container, with only enough air in his suit to make it one way. They’d discovered his body at the end of the shift when someone noticed the rover had not returned.

When they took a closer look at the man’s suit they discovered the wire to the indicator light had broken. Or had been cut. But they didn’t have any way to prove it without resorting to a full-scale forensic investigation, and that would take time they didn’t have.