Thirty-nine
Billy slept innocently in Evie’s arms during the few
hours of the day Corin was absent. They didn’t do anything. Billy’s legs
were still numb from the hips down. “Are you okay?” Evie asked of him
each time he slipped in quietly at her side.
“I’m fine.”
“But you’re gone so much.”
“It’s all Corin’s business now,” Billy said.
“Besides, I’m not entirely out of it, not as much as I was at first. I
can usually tell what’s going on around me.”
Evie wondered if her relationship with Corin had ever
given Billy reason to feel jealous. She found it hard it imagine that he
wouldn’t feel useless and left out of the day’s activities.
“There’s going to be trouble,” Billy said. “I
thought we were safe here, but we’re not.”
“There’s not much we can do about it.”
Billy was quiet for a time. “It’s been hard on you.”
“Not as hard as it has been on my family. You’re my
family now, you, and Corin.”
“He’s not as sure that we can stand up against the
adversary as he lets on.”
Evie let the silence gather rather than discuss
issues she did not understand. She could not imagine what form Corin’s
battle of resolve with the adversary would take. She was certain she and
Billy had little resolve to show to the world.
There was little to talk about. Alone together,
silent, they were a good match. Swept up in Corin’s crisis, they were
helpless. When Billy fell asleep in her arms, it would be Corin who would
get up and walk away a few short hours later. Often, he would seem to
wait until he felt that she was sleeping, and he would pause and look at
her for a moment or two before leaving the room. Just as often, she would
slip on her robe and follow him into the control room, as she did now.
A number of soft warbling alarms sounded when she
arrived. For an instant, she thought she had been the cause, and then
caught sight of men moving on several of the monitors.
“Does the adversary know about you, do you think?”
Corin ran a video recording of the last batch of
little robots crawling up into the underside of the trucks leaving the
die-casting plant. “If he found one of our little trackers, we’re
busted. One’s missing.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We’ll let them snoop, but I’ll get a drone in the
air while we have the opportunity. I’ve got something of a schedule to go
by now. There should be incoming trucks from the south. I need to know
their origin.”
Evie pulled up a stool and watched a monitor show an
airborne scene of the barren hill falling below. The drone released from
somewhere else in the fortress circled the peak once to gain altitude,
then banked south and left Silver Ridge quickly behind. Evie watched it
rise and fall over the tree laden hills in the early morning sun until it
circled a junction ten miles away. “I had an earlier remote deposit a
video camera yesterday,” Corin said. “I’m using the airborne drone to
relay the recorded tape. Let’s take a look at what’s been coming our
way. The camera was activated by movement, so all we get is ten second
fragments of passing traffic.”
Another monitor sprang to life. The playback showed
about twenty or thirty quick segments of cars and trucks. The cars were
moving south and had originated from a west bound junction a few miles
away. Evie knew the area. All of the trucks were heading north toward
Silver Ridge from somewhere further south.
Corin shook his head.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I think I know what we’re up against. It was pretty
apparent all along.”
The drone continued south along the highway until a
sprawling white spider with black legs rose into view on the horizon. The
plane gained altitude to clear one of the legs before she recognized high
voltage lines dipping between the same steel towers that passed through
Silver Ridge Valley. The wires came from a forest of massive insulators
near the white buildings and cooling towers of the Silver Ridge Nuclear
Power Facility forty miles south of the small town of Silver Ridge.
Evie drew closer to the console in fascination.
Corin rolled his stool down to another computer and typed furiously.
WELK?
The screen remained static for long minutes.
THANK GOD FOR LAPTOPS AND SATELLITES, finally
appeared on the screen. WHAT’S UP?
TRUCKS ARE ARRIVING FROM THE ELECTRICAL GENERATING
STATION SOUTH OF MY POSITION, Corin typed. WHAT IS IT?
Even Evie knew the answer to that question.
SERIOUS TROUBLE, MAYBE, was the reply a minute or two
later. I’VE JUST BEEN TOLD THAT YOU’VE GOT TO BE REFERRING TO THE SILVER
RIDGE NUCLEAR POWER FACILITY.
IS IT A BREEDER REACTOR? IT MUST BE.
The screen remained still for a time. I’VE BEEN TOLD
IT IS. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
IT MEANS THAT WEAPONS GRADE PLUTONIUM IS BEING
FUNNELED THROUGH SILVER RIDGE TO THE EAGLE VALLEY MANUFACTURING FACILITY,
Corin typed furiously. MAY I AGAIN ADVISE THAT YOU KEEP YOUR DISTANCE
FROM SILVER RIDGE?
YOU MAY ADVISE, BUT SEEING AS WE’RE ALREADY ON OUR
WAY, I DOUBT IF SARAH TREVOR WILL CONSIDER IT.
TELL SARAH TREVOR THAT BILLY IS SAFE.
TELL A MOTHER OF A CRIPPLED SON PINNED DOWN BY A DRUG
DEALER AND POSSIBLE NUCLEAR TERRORIST THAT YOU HAVE THINGS WELL IN HAND
ALL BY YOUR LONESOME?
LIVES WILL BE NEEDLESSLY EXPENDED, INCLUDING POSSIBLY
HER OWN. IF BILLY HEARS OF YOUR DEATH, I MAY BE UNABLE TO DEAL WITH THE
ADVERSARY.
CORIN, SHE’S PEERING OVER MY SHOULDER. SHE SAYS
QUOTE, FUCK YOU AND YOUR ADVERSARY, WHATEVER THE HELL YOU ARE, UNQUOTE.
PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY, Corin typed out with a flourish
of exasperation. YOU MAY BE ABLE TO MINIMIZE CASUALTIES. BLUNDER INTO
SILVER RIDGE AND YOU WILL ALL DIE.
ACKNOWLEDGED.
Corin tapped two keys. The screen went blank.
“Your adversary,” Evie said. “He’s going to make
atomic bombs?”
Corin glanced back at her grimly. “Your people
feared a nuclear war between responsible nations whose leaders dreaded the
possibility. Then the threat subsided and was forgotten for a time, but
your world will someday suffer more than just the fear of nuclear
terrorism . The technology will spread and such weapons will be built and
used by men who feel their cause just, but with no other way to make their
demands known. Our adversary knows who such men are in your world. He
will hasten the historical process by manufacturing low-yield tactical
nuclear devices and placing them indiscriminately in the hands of any
political or terrorist faction willing to use them. They will number in
the hundreds, perhaps the thousands. It may already be too late to stop
him.”
“He wants us all dead,” Evie said in bewilderment.
“He will harvest hardened survivors,” Corin said
mildly, “men of unquestionable resolve.”
