John Birmingham - Without warning

Unfortunately, she would not be dissuaded. ‘Kip, you have a family to look after…’

‘And I am looking after them,’ he countered, with some irritation. ‘I am the guy who can turn on your taps again. I am the guy who makes sure the power is there when you flick the switch. Me – nobody else. It’s my job, Barb. I have to go.’

He wondered why she was so much worse this morning? The pollutant storms were clearing out. The toxic soup he’d had to brave on Tuesday to get into the city had been truly scary. The army had sent some sort of pressure-sealed armoured vehicle for him, something they were going to fight Saddam or the old Russians with, and all of the troops were suited up in NBC gear.

‘This is insane, James.’

Uh-oh. He knew he was in trouble when she called him that.

‘We should be thinking about getting out of here,’ Barb continued. ‘Not hanging around. Deb and Steve flew out for New Zealand yesterday. They’re not coming back. They’re too smart. But your martyr complex is going to see us die here. Isn’t it?’

He controlled the anger that threatened to flare up between them, reminding himself that Barb had nothing to do but sit in the house, like the rest of the city, staring out of the windows at toxic rain. She must’ve been going batshit by now. And, he remembered at that very moment, she was also premenstrual.

‘Okay,’ he said, as calmly as he could without shading over into anything that might be mistaken for a patronising tone. ‘Deb was born in New Zealand, so they could do that. They got out on a government charter. There aren’t any other flights leaving, because no airlines will fly in here anymore. So leaving isn’t an option. Yet.’

‘But it’s got to be, Kip. We can’t feed ourselves. We’ll starve soon.’

‘We won’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve got all those freeze-dried camping rations down in the basement. The ones you gave me all that grief over when I bought them cheap, remember? We’ve got at least two months’ worth.’

She shook her head and her eyes hardened. ‘That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. The city is starving. They’re going to have to evacuate people before long. You know that, James. You must have been talking about it at council.’

He tried to speak but she rode in over him.

‘And when it happens, we’re going, mister. All of us. To New Zealand or Tasmania or fucking Bora Bora. Anywhere but here.’

‘D-a-a-a-d-d-y!’

Suzie, who appeared at the kitchen door to complain that Bear in the Big Blue House wasn’t on, saved him any further escalation. None of her shows were on. Jo-Jo’s Circus, Little Einsteins, The Wiggles, they had all disappeared off the screen days ago. And every day she grew more upset with their absence. The only TV and radio now available carried Emergency Broadcast System updates, warnings about dangerous acid levels in the rain, information on food and gas rationing, handy hints for post-apocalypse homeowners about fortifying their neighbourhoods and establishing citizens’ watch committees, and pleas for information on ‘saboteurs and subversives’ in the so-called Resistance. None of which impressed the hell out of a little girl who was bored and terrified in about equal measure.

‘I want my shows back, Daddy,’ she said. ‘Can’t you make the army men put them on?’

‘Can’t you watch a video, sweetheart? How about one of the movies I brought back?’

‘I’ve watched them all a million times,’ she complained, in a rising whine. ‘It’s not fair.’

He looked to Barb for help, but she wasn’t giving him an inch. She simply folded her arms and raised one eyebrow. Very much aware that she’d be dealing with this all day, Kip didn’t dare find fault with that response.

‘Tell you what, princess,’ he said as he dropped down to her level on one knee. ‘I’ve got to get to work, but I promise I will bring home some new videos, ones you haven’t seen yet. Okay?’

‘Can you get Piglet’s Big Movie?’ she asked, suddenly brightening.

‘Sure,’ he replied, without thinking. ‘Piglet’s Big Movie. No problemo.’

He felt, rather than saw, Barb tense up beside him.

‘You run along and get dressed for Mommy, now. And no playing outside yet. Maybe tomorrow.’

‘But D-a-a-a-a-d-d-y…’

‘Maybe tomorrow. No promises.’

As she scampered away he rose to his feet again with a feeling of trepidation.

‘Kip, you already made a promise you can’t keep.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The Piglet movie. It’s not on DVD. It was supposed to be on at the Cineplex this week. She’s been looking forward to it all year. But you wouldn’t know that, would you?’ With that, his wife turned around and stalked off down the hall.

Damn!

Kipper stood in the kitchen, clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to breathe slowly. Blood was rushing through his head and he desperately wanted to say something stupid, but long, hard-won experience kept him quiet. He knew he should follow Barb and work things out, but he also knew that doing so would involve him in at least an hour’s worth of apologies he didn’t feel like making and maddening, circular discussions of his manifest failings on the home front. He was already late, and couldn’t afford to miss the convoy out to the dam on Chester Morse Lake. Plus, he had to check on the food-aid distribution centres that were kicking off their operations this morning. One of them had been raided by some anarchist fools late last night. Kip hadn’t gotten back to sleep after the cops had called him about it. There’d doubtless be interminable meetings about that today.

So he simply did not have time to get caught up in domestic trench warfare. It wasn’t just a job anymore – people’s lives rested on his decisions.

He knew he’d regret it before the day was done, but Kipper grabbed his car keys and travel pass and walked out through the kitchen door. The headache that had been building eased off a little as soon as he stepped outside and sucked in some fresh air. Well, not fresh, exactly. He could still taste the sharp, chemical tang in his mouth, in spite of the prevailing winds carrying away most of the pollutants from the south over the last twenty-four hours. A gigantic low over the Bering Strait had drawn up enormous volumes of ash and smoke from the conflagration in the Los Angeles Basin while a weird, contrary ridge of high pressure to the east had held the lowering toxic clouds over the Pacific Northwest for two days.

Seattle’s chief engineer squinted into the morning sun for the first time in days, and tried not to think about what his family had been breathing into their lungs. He’d sealed the house as best he could – better than most would have managed – by rigging up an airlock and filter chamber in the spare room at the back. Barb had initially been none too impressed at the sacrifice of their best cotton sheets and the new Panasonic air-con unit they’d bought last summer, but the appearance of the towering, septic fogbank on the southern horizon quickly brought her around. When the power supply allowed, he maintained a rough overpressure by running the reverse-cycle heating and keeping the fireplace in the lounge room stoked at all times. Hopefully it would be enough.

Kipper stepped off the porch and started down the wet concrete pathway to his vehicle, the same F-100 pick-up he’d driven in from the airport a week ago today. He felt both guilt and relief at leaving Barb and Suzie behind. The house was large and comfortable, like most on Mercer Island, but it had felt like a cell while they’d been confined inside during the worst of the fallout period, as thousands of tonnes of toxic waste from the burning of LA had hung over the entire city and its surrounds. Barb’s immaculately maintained garden had turned brown and died as though soaked in defoliant. Stopping at his front gate to survey the rest of the street, he could see they weren’t alone. Mercer Island was a high-tone enclave, and Deerford Drive, perched on the edge of the lake and snuggled up against Groveland Park, was one of its better addresses. Truth be known, it was all a bit precious for Kipper, but Barb’s family were Manhattan royalty – or had been, he reminded himself grimly – and she was used to moving among ‘a better class of person’. ‘People like us,’ she would tease, smirking, knowing that the rude inhabitants of the cheap seats at a Larry the Cable Guy show were more Kip’s sort of people than any of their opera-loving, sherry-sipping neighbours.