Нэнси Кресс - The End Is Now

He kind of melts under my touch, like it’s the thing he’s been waiting for. “It’s over. That was a long time ago.”

I’m expecting the others to say something, or at least be paying attention, but they’re all down their own, personal rabbit holes. It occurs to me that we’ve all gone mad and are hiding it as best we can.

“I can’t crack this,” Marc calls, holding the stained AFB-Connect. “It’s a five-digit passcode.”

I’m shrugging. Sweating. The air-raid sirens aren’t sounding, but it feels like that inside of me. Maybe I’m going to die right now, from fear and shock and guilt and just plain stress.

“Try one-two-three-four-five,” says Kris. “Also, two-five-two-five-two. They’re the most common.”

“We’re in so much trouble,” says Jim. “I really don’t want to go to jail.”

“This is jail,” Lee says. “Even if we survive impact and the heat, we’re trapped underground forever.”

“I tried all the usual codes. What do I look like, a rube?” Marc asks.

Lee takes the AFB-Connect from Marc. Punches some numbers. The interface unlocks. “Impact date,” he says: 1-14-31. He hands it back to Marc and starts walking down the hall, into the dark.

Kris chases after him. They’ve been having an affair for a few weeks now. It’s faux-love. Fear-love. I feel sorry for Lee’s wife and kids, who deserve better.

“Where are you going?” I call.

“I meant it. I’m done!” Lee shouts over his shoulder. He and Kris keep going until they’re just shadows. After a while, they go dark.

I let myself watch them an extra second, as a kind of farewell.

Then I turn to Marc, who’s scrolling. “Okay, here’s the history. Macun ordered explosives detonated into Shelter Nine about twenty minutes ago.”

“Did they detonate?”

“I think so. Nine went dark after that.”

“Holy God,” I say. My knees buckle. Troy is back from the wall, holding me up by the shoulder. I’m surprised he’s got the wherewithal.

“Why blow up Nine?” Troy asks.

Marc types. “I can’t see. It looks like a couple of other shelters got hit, too. There’s a chance our people are still waiting at Crook Road.”

“Order the Bluebird to reconnoiter there. Tell it to take them here instead of Nine,” I say. “Maybe we can make this place work as our shelter.”

“Assuming this Connect’s intranet signal is strong enough for the Bluebird’s driver to get the message,” Jim says.

“Don’t be such a Dorothy Downer,” Marc tells him as he grabs another hot dog from his back pocket, then drops it when he sees he’s smeared it with blood. “This is going to be so much better. No generals to cramp our style. It’s like in Dawn of the Dead when they live in the shopping mall.”

“You’re making jokes because you can’t admit that we’re all going to die,” Jim says.

We all stand there. General Macun’s body keeps spurting foam and blood. He’s a fucking pod person or something.

“Let’s go deeper,” I say. “Maybe we’ll live.”

Strat Com was built seventy years ago and can withstand a hydrogen bomb. It fell out of use once uranium and terrorism outpaced The Cold War. But it’s a good bunker from which to face an asteroid hit. The ground floor is sealed with six feet of cement. I’ve never had enough clearance, but I’ve heard that the tunnels go a mile down. To disorient visitors, none of the elevators go down more than a few flights at a time, and the halls are shaped like interconnected conch shells. With enough supplies, we might be able to make it work.

We use Macun’s AFB to navigate. It’s got a map. Robotics is easy—the same room as cybernetics, two floors beneath the cement boundary. We take the equipment we think we’ll need. Then we press 6 on the elevator and hope we find surgical. My ears pop. For the first time in a long while, gravity feels right again. The air gets dense and wet.

“I could live with this,” Marc says. “If Jenny takes me back.”

“You gave your only Ticket to your ex-girlfriend. I don’t know if that’s love, but it’s definitely something,” I say.

The elevator pings. We stagger out. Troy licks his finger and lets it dry in the air to test humidity. I keep picturing him as a toddler, sitting on his dead mom’s lap.

The doors open to winding cinderblock halls and doors without windows. This is as far as the AFB map reads. It’s past Macun’s clearance. We go left because I’m a lefty. Marc takes notes like sprinkling bread crumbs, so we can find our way back.

“It’s cold. This is so stupid. We’re all going to die,” Jim says. “At least if we were above we could watch it happen.”

“When we’re actually dying, are you going to brag that you were right? I’m just curious,” Marc says.

“Shut up,” I tell them.

The ceiling lights hum on half-power. It’s darker than I’m used to, especially after the Aurora Borealis. I’m blinking and feeling my way with my hands.

We find another elevator. Beckon it. This one goes down to 14.

At the very bottom, a chatter along with the click-clack of hard shoes slows us down.

“People?” Marc asks.

We find around thirty settlers squatting in the cafeteria. They’ve made their own shelter, stocked with giant boxes from Wal-Mart, gallon-sized liters of gasoline stolen from the AFB gas stations, and scores of ivy and palm plants, which strikes me as brilliant—they’ll scrub the air. I walk into the room like I’m supposed to be there. Nobody raises a gun, which I take as a good sign. My guess is, they’re the families of cleaning staff and enlisted.

“Do you know where the executive hospital’s at?” I ask a young woman who’s texting on a phone that can’t possibly get reception. She shrugs. The phone’s screen is dark.

Two young soldiers approach. They’re privates, in their twenties, both fresh-faced. They’ve emptied several sleeves of beef jerky and neatly arranged the plastic into a rubber-banded circular wad. “We can show you, ma’am!”

I smile, like it’s the old world. “Great. I’m fixing to see if we can’t build a nice robot for when we need work done Above. That okay by you soldiers?”

They not only point out the hospital, but bust down Operating Room One’s door for us, and carry our robotics equipment inside.

“Like us to stand guard, ma’am?” they ask.

“Of course I would!” I say, and they do just that.

When we get to a good stopping point, I head out to my usual post. It’s dark now. Two hours until impact. Gravity’s light. I imagine Aporia’s twins across the world. Aporia Minor would be low on the horizon, just a half-moon invisible against the daylight sun. Aporia Major would seem huge by comparison, her rocky moons streaming around her like crumbs.

I place the call to Jay, but it doesn’t connect.

It occurs to me that even if we survive, we’ll evolve differently in the dark, without fresh air. I ought to give up this notion of a caretaker, who’ll turn the lights back on and usher us through our dark ages. We ought to meet our fate out in the open, with our children in our arms.

My tenth—or who knows, twentieth?—call goes through. It’s a small miracle, and I decide it’s a sign from God. I’m Midwestern, so I believe in all that. The Holy Trinity, transubstantiation, the virgin birth. Why not?

“Hey,” I say. “I love you. I hope you get this and come find me at Strat Com.” Then I’m looking at the phone, even though the connection’s still live. I ought to be saying all the right, last things, but I can’t bring myself to surrender.

“I’m going to do something desperate,” I say. “But it’s for you. And me. And the boys. No. that’s not true. It’s because I don’t know what else to do.”