Greg Krojac - The Schrödinger Enigma

“What is our destination then, Jason?”

“We’re going to the White House.”

“The White House? Why? What could be at the White House that would interest us? The Government no longer exists. And they’re all probably dead by now anyway.”

“A small percentage of the population are likely to have survived. Of the whole country maybe six and a half million people. Six and a half million people who are type B negative. Of the population of DC, that means about thirteen and a half thousand people could still be out there somewhere. People who may have banded into small groups, like us. We need to find them and unite them. We’re not going to be able to beat the Argon alone. We’re not the Magnificent Seven.”

Miriam still didn’t understand.

“But why the White House?”

“Because, it’s prepared for a situation like this. Admittedly, the Government was thinking more of being able to deal with a nuclear strike, but it’ll have its own communications network, its own power. Maybe we can communicate with people like us in other cities. The State capitals must have similar setups.”

The group had decided to stay with Jason, so they didn’t question the plan. They didn’t have any better suggestions anyway. At least now they had a destination – that had to be better than wandering around aimlessly.

Samuel went over to the vending machine and scooped the twenty cereal bars into a plastic bag, while Jason slung his rifle over his shoulder, leaving his hands free to carry two large bottles of water over to the car. Samuel didn’t particularly like cereal bars, but he figured that it made sense to take them rather than more chocolate bars. Those that they had eaten the previous night were more of a luxury, a reward for the group having survived the attack at the farmstead, but now they had to be practical. Plus, the cereal bars wouldn’t melt in the backpacks.

Jason looked at the SUV, which was now packed to the gunnels. Across the motel parking lot, were three parked cars, abandoned by their drivers. He walked over to them and checked under the wheel wells to see if the drivers had left a key anywhere. Two of the cars were secure, but the third had a key tucked in behind the front nearside tyre. Lady luck was smiling on them again. He checked inside the car before returning to the group and handing something to Sitara.

“Please tell me you know how to drive.”

Sitara looked at the key in her hand.

“Yes. I can drive.”

“Manual? I mean stick-shift?”

“Yes.”

“The SUV is cramped. You and Enak can follow behind in the car.”

“Which one?”

“The blue one on the end.”

“The Mustang?”

“Yep. It’s thirsty, but it’s got a full tank and we’re not going much further.”

Sitara was excited. She’d always wanted to drive a Ford Mustang. She knew it would only be for a few miles, but that didn’t matter to her.

Exactly forty-two minutes later the SUV and the Mustang pulled up outside the Southern Avenue Metro station. A strange air permeated the city, the wide avenues deserted, devoid of the normal daily commotion of commuters trying to get to their workplaces on time. They had half expected to see abandoned cars strewn all over the roads – dozens of doomsday movies and TV series had primed them for that spectacle – but the roads were almost empty. The virus wasn’t a sudden harbinger of death; people had known that they were going to die and had, for the most part, made arrangements to spend their final moments with their families and loved ones. Here and there was a decaying corpse, but those were the exception, not the rule. [35] is this the same as in Bethesda? Sitara was glad that there seemed to be fewer dead on the streets than in Bethesda, she never wanted to see so many dead people again.

Jason opened his driver’s door and got out of the car, scanning his surroundings for signs of life. He went round to the back of the SUV and opened the tailgate, reaching inside for his backpack. Sitara and Enak got out of the Mustang and joined him, as he addressed the rest of the group.

“This is the end of the line, folks. Time to stretch our legs. We’re going to walk the rest of the way.”

The rest of the group obediently took their backpacks out of the vehicles and followed Jason over to the entrance of the Metro station, feeling naked and vulnerable now that they were abandoning the cars. A supermarket flyer lay on the paving outside the station entrance, serving no purpose now but to create an aesthetic distraction to the stillness of the scene. Ruth glanced up at the post by the entrance, which identified the location by its white capital M subscribed by a horizontal green bar. The words Southern Avenue Station were written on the vertical axis of the post, each individual letter tipped 90 degrees on its side. Ruth had never seen words written in that style before. She had never ridden in a metro train before, nor any train in fact. But she wasn’t going to be able to do that now either, a functioning public transit system was something that they wouldn’t see again for a long time, if at all. She was the last one to cross from the drab grey paving slabs outside the station, through the open vertically barred gates, and onto the reddish-coloured brick-style flooring of the station’s entrance hall.

As they descended the dead escalator to the platform, a little light rain started to fall, so they headed straight for one of the shelters that stood in the centre of the platform. Once under cover, Jason explained what the plan was.

“We’re going to travel underground from here, through the tunnels. It’ll be pitch black, so we’ll walk in single file, myself at the front and Enak at the rear.”

Enak had a suggestion.

“Would it not be better if I were in front? If there are any Argon patrols in there, they will see me first and the few seconds that we may gain before they realise that we are hostiles may prove to be valuable.”

Jason nodded agreement to the Argon’s suggestion.

“Enak is right. He’ll go point and I’ll take the rear. Could somebody give Enak a flashlight?”

Miriam went to pass Enak a flashlight, but he waved a finger.

“It is ok. I don’t need one. My eyesight is very good in the dark. We evolved excellent night vision in our early days on Argonorian 3.”

Samuel liked the sound of that.

“Cool, dude.”

His mother looked at him, having never heard those words come out of his mouth before. She was going to say something but didn’t, accepting the fact that he must have picked up this strange term while on rumspringa, the period that Amish adolescents spend away from the community experiencing all the virtues and vices of the outside world.

Enak gestured to the other six to wait a few seconds. He walked over to where a metal pipe lay on the platform and picked it up. Approaching the edge of the platform he deftly tossed the tube so that it straddled the second and third rails. Nothing happened. Jason nodded his head gently.

“The tracks have no power, but we should still keep our distance from the third rail. For safety reasons. The power could come back on at any time.”

The rest of the group knew that this was unlikely, as the city’s power grid had been shut off – probably by the Argons – but it was better to be safe than sorry. They climbed down from the platform onto the tracks, Ruth with a little assistance from her husband. She wasn’t used to climbing around and over things, as there had been no call for it on the farm. Her husband had done that kind of stuff, and if he ever needed help, the rest of the community had been only too willing to give a helping hand. But she was quite enjoying this adventure. She was seeing things and doing things that she had never experienced before. It was like an adventure holiday that could result in their deaths at any time. It was dangerous, but with Jason and Enak to guide her and God by her side, she now felt quite relaxed about the enterprise.