Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

“It’s all right,” Dana said. “We face the hedge at the back of the parking lot. I checked, you can’t see the light unless you’re actually in the lot.”

“Someone did a real job on this place.”

“Yeah. They didn’t just clean the place out. I don’t know why, but they tore it to pieces, too.”

“You don’t remember the Turnabout riots in ’07?” Art sat down on one of the bar stools, as though taking the weight off his leg. Suddenly he felt weak and fragile. “You ought to remember, you’re certainly old enough.”

“That’s not very gracious, you know. I feel like an, old woman tonight, but I don’t need people telling me.”

In the dim light, with her fine jawline and high cheekbones, Art thought she looked about twenty-one. He said nothing, and she went on, “I saw coverage of the riots, of course I did, but I was out of the country and I had other things on my mind.”

“You were lucky. I was right here. Too much so. What were you doing?”

“The Great Rush.”

“Antarctica? I was thinking about it only today. What the devil were you doing down there? You don’t look like a prospector.”

“I wasn’t. I was twenty-four, divorced, trying for something exciting.” She saw Art’s doubtful expression. “No, I wasn’t a hooker. There were lots of them there, but I was just a supplier’s secretary. Two years, and it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. I made a fair amount of money, though — the prices were outrageous, and the merchants who supplied the goods and equipment did a lot better than the prospectors. But I missed the riots.”

“Something best missed. If you’d been here at the time, you’d understand this.” Art waved his arm around the ruined room. “You see, the first wave comes in and takes out anything worth taking — drinks mainly, in this case. I’m surprised they didn’t take the chairs, but they don’t look as though they’d burn. When the second wave comes in, and doesn’t find anything worth having, they get real mad. So they smash the hell out of everything. And any more waves do the same thing, over and over. Get in their way, they’ll kill you without even knowing who you are. This place got off easy. The Turnabouts would have set fire to it, sure as sure.”

“They didn’t just take the drinks.” Dana pointed to the door that led through to the kitchen and dining room. “I hope you’ve eaten. They cleaned out every last bit of food. Even salt and spices.”

“I’ve got food.” Art patted his waterproof bag. “Did you eat?”

“Enough. I brought my own, too. I don’t want any more.”

“Well, maybe you’ll join me in a drink.” Art opened his mouth, then stopped and shook his head. “Either I’m way overtired, or I’m going crazy. I was going to ask you if there was any ice.”

“No power, no refrigeration, no ice. But never mind ice. I told you, there’s no drink in this place.”

“There is if you brought your own.” Art opened his bag, reached inside, and with the air of a magician taking a rabbit from a hat pulled out a quart plastic bottle. “Anything to drink out of?”

“I thought you were kidding. Wait a minute.” She went off through the door to the dining room, taking the makeshift oil light with her. Art had brought half a dozen candles from his mountain house, but he wasn’t willing to waste one. Sitting in the darkness he unscrewed the plastic bottle top and took a small sip. He grimaced at Dana as she came back holding two measuring cups and a larger metal pan.

“I don’t look gift horses in the mouth, Dana, but this isn’t one of Ed O’Donnell’s better efforts. We’ll need water.”

“Are you telling me that stuff’s homemade?” She put the pan and cups down on the counter. “I don’t know if I’m that desperate. But water, we have. I brought a bottle with me. There’s a big tank down in the basement, too. I filled the pan earlier and it looks fresh, but I don’t know if it’s safe to drink.”

“Boil it, and you can drink any water that doesn’t actually taste poisonous. Let me have those.” Art took the metal pan, dipped a measuring cup in to fill it halfway, and topped the cup from the plastic bottle. He took a trial sip, nodded, and handed the cup to Dana.

She stared at it suspiciously. “I thought you said you had to boil the water.”

“To kill bugs and bacteria. But alcohol does the same thing just as well.”

“So long as it doesn’t kill me.” She sniffed the liquid in the measuring cup and wrinkled her nose. “How long ago was this made?”

“You don’t look for vintage labels on drink that comes in plastic screw-top bottles.” Art made his own mix, using the same proportions of moonshine and water. He raised his cup. “Come on, Dana, I’m not using you as a test animal. You may not need this, but I do. Here’s to ruin.”

“We already have that. Here’s to us.” She raised her own cup and took a medium gulp. “Maybe I do need this. It’s been quite a week. You never called me after that first time, you know.”

“I sure as hell tried to. All I got was dead lines. I did reach two others, just yesterday. Morgan Davis and Lynn Seagrave. They said there was no chance they could make it, they’re off across country and no transportation systems are working. But they told me they’d try to network some others.” The drink was burning its way down through his digestive system, leaving a trail of pleasant heat behind it. “How did you make out? Any luck?”

“If you want to call it that. I tried a hundred times, but I only reached one person.”

“Who?”

“Seth Parsigian.”

The warm glow inside Art faded. “That figures. Did he say he’d be able to come here?”

“More than that. He’s here already. He arrived before I did and left this.” Dana handed over a piece of gray paper. On it, in meticulous block script, were the words: I WILL RETURN BY MORNING. I AM TAKING A LOOK AROUND.

“How did he get here?”

“I have no idea. Until you arrived my bike was the only thing in the parking lot. But you know Seth, he finds ways.”

“Right. He was probably chauffeured here in a stretch limo.” More from uneasiness than hunger, Art rummaged in his bag and came up with a loaf of Helen O’Donnell’s home-baked bread and a slab of smoked ham. He hacked off pieces of both and handed them to Dana. Despite her claim to want no food, she took them and began to eat.

“We have to be logical about this,” Art went on. “You may not like him much—”

“I don’t like him at all.”

“And I certainly don’t care for him. But if anybody in the world can find a way to keep the telomod treatments going, it’s Seth.”

Maybe it was the feeling that the old world was ended. Maybe it was closeness and candlelight. But Art knew that he and Dana were breaking two unwritten rules of the treatment group. You said nothing to anyone of what you thought or knew about other members; and you kept your emotional distance from all of them. He and Dana were closer today than they had ever been in the three years he had known her. There was a protective logic at work. When Art joined, the group had forty-two members. Five of those had died, horribly, when the treatment failed and cancers ran riot all through their bodies. You knew what might happen to you, but you didn’t want to be too near when it happened to someone else.

He tore off a piece of bread, bit savagely into it, and said, “So what makes you so down on Seth?”

“Nothing specific, just impressions.” She avoided Art’s eyes as she went on. “Look, I want to live, and so do you. We’ve fought hard for the right; but there are limits to what we’d do. I wouldn’t sacrifice you to save myself, and I hope you feel the same about me. Seth probably regards that as weak and wimpy. I believe he wants to live so bad, if it would help his treatment he’d kill his own mother and serve her up for breakfast.”