Fallout (20 page)

I haven’t seen anyone else in the neighborhood since I got back. I know I’m a bit of a loner, but I do wave when I see my neighbors out working in their yards and stuff. I wonder where they all ended up. I wouldn’t call any of them friends in the sense of hanging out with them on the weekends and stuff, but I wouldn’t wish any of them ill. Well, other than the ones who abandoned Fido, but maybe there were extenuating circumstances, something that kept them from getting back home to take him with them. If they come back, I’ll let them know that Fido’s safe, but they can’t have him back. I rescued him so he’s mine now.

I need to start cleaning up in the yard, cutting up the fallen branches and raking the leaves, but I’m not going to do it now. It’s hot and humid on top of everything else. I’d give myself heatstroke in about ten minutes trying to work outside now. I’ll do a couple of hours after dinner and then do some more in the morning.

The good news, if you can call anything good at this point, is that I can’t find any damage to the house other than a few missing shingles. I kept the extras from the original roof so I can patch the holes even if I end up having the roof redone. That’ll probably depend on insurance, but I almost hate to apply for compensation when all I need is a new roof compared to some of the houses around me that’ll have to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. I haven’t seen any sign of FEMA or other officials yet other than the National Guard truck that rumbled by this morning. The soldier who dropped me off yesterday said he’d let them know I was here so they could check on me.

I don’t know what their role is besides providing some security, but maybe I should ask if there are ways I can help. I talked with Kenneth, my boss, and he said it would be at least another week before they expect people back at work so that gives me some time. I’m not involved in any active missions at the moment, and I was actually ahead of schedule on the next Mars explorer, so I’m not too worried about missing a few days of work. If I can get enough gas for my chainsaw, I can help clear downed trees. I can’t restring power lines, but I can help make it possible for the trucks to get through. I wonder who I’d need to contact about helping. Any ideas?

Fido is whining at the door again, although I think that’s because he sees a squirrel in the backyard rather than because he needs to go out. I guess it’s a good sign that some of the wildlife survived. The ones that could get above the floodwaters anyway and that weren’t knocked out of the trees by the wind.

Is it unmasculine of me to feel sad at the thought of the local fauna suffering through the storm without even the barrier of a building between them and the elements? I guess if it is, I’ll just have to live with it since I can’t seem to stop shuddering every time I think of it.

Do me a favor the next time a hurricane comes this way. If I give you that bullshit about it not coming our way or not being as bad as they say or whatever stupid crap I said before this storm, knock me over the head and drag me somewhere safe, okay? I look around me and realize it’s a miracle I survived. If I’d been in a different house, I could be dead right now.

Derek paused in his writing, his finger hovering over the delete key as he reread the two last paragraphs. Of everything he had written, they seemed the most revealing, and he felt the vulnerability of the admission keenly. He didn’t think Sambit would mock him for it, but his instincts to self-protection ran deep. He had to take a couple of deep breaths to override the need to retreat behind those walls again. Finally the need to connect with Sambit in a truly meaningful way rather than through flirtatious quips won out, and he left the paragraphs in place.

How are the robots doing?

It was a copout, a retreat away from his vulnerability, but leaving the paragraphs there was the best he could do at the moment. Adding to them was beyond him.

I meant it when I said you should call me if you have problems with either of them. I can walk you through repairs or modifications to their programming, and if that still doesn’t work, I can create a patch and e-mail the file to you so you can download it and install it that way. Things are bad enough where you are without malfunctioning technology making it worse.

Say hi to Lyrica for me, but please don’t let her read this. Some of the things I said are for your eyes only. Of course, my luck, she was reading over your shoulder the whole time. Maybe I should put personal in the subject line so you know it’s just for you rather than something about the robots that anyone could read.

He paused, trying to decide how to close the e-mail. “Sincerely” seemed too formal. “Yours” seemed too intimate. “Love” was out of the question at the moment. He settled finally for simply typing his name. Sambit could attribute whatever sentiment he wanted to the closing, and if he chose to attribute none at all, that was still better than an empty phrase.

He skimmed the e-mail once more, checking for typos or anything else embarrassing, but other than his e-mail program insisting unmasculine wasn’t a word (he knew that, but it was the perfect word so he used it anyway), he didn’t find anything to correct. Taking a deep breath and hoping he wasn’t making a mistake, he hit Send.

“Okay, Fido, that’s done,” he said, looking across the room to the corner by the fireplace that Fido had claimed as his own. “What shall we do now?”

A knock on the door startled him. Fido raced toward the door, barking loudly. Derek hoped that would run off anyone with ill intent, but he clipped his pistol to his belt just in case. A check out through the window revealed a woman in a military uniform. He grabbed Fido’s collar in case the dog decided to charge and cracked the door. “Yes?”

“Mr. Marshall?”

“Yes, I’m Derek Marshall.” He didn’t bother correcting the title she used. In this context his PhD was pretty much worthless.

“Pvt. Walters from Charlie Company told me you were here,” she explained. “I’m Corporal Denise Murphy with the National Guard. I told him I’d come by and check on you.”

“I’m doing okay,” Derek said. “I stocked up with food and water before the storm hit, and I have plenty of fuel for the generator.”

“Good,” Cpl. Murphy said, handing him a card. “Here’s my number if you need to reach me should there be a problem.”

“Actually,” Derek said, “I have a question for you. I’m sitting around here with nothing to do. Could y’all use another pair of hands? I’ve got a chainsaw. If nothing else, I can cut up some fallen trees, help get a few roads open.”

“You’d have to agree to follow orders just like everyone else,” Cpl. Murphy said. “We have pretty strict rules for putting civilians in jeopardy. No rushing into damaged buildings or anything like that, but every pair of hands helps where clearing roads are concerned.”

“Let me just get my tools,” Derek said, “and I can come with you now. Would it be all right if I brought my dog? He’s friendly despite the barking.”

“That’s up to you,” she said, “but you’ll be responsible for him.”

Derek looked down at Fido. “Maybe you better stay here, big guy. I don’t know what kind of conditions we’ll be working in, and I wouldn’t want you to get lost or hurt. You can stay here and sleep, and I’ll be home in a few hours to feed you dinner.”

Fido whined and fretted as Derek gathered his belongings.

“I’m not going to abandon you,” Derek promised, kneeling down to scratch Fido’s muzzle and ears. “I’m going to work for a few hours, and then I’ll be back. What are we going to do when I have to go back to NASA if you can’t let me out of your sight, huh?”

“Did the storm traumatize him?” Cpl. Murphy asked sympathetically.

“His owners left him in a house that fell down around his ears,” Derek explained, his voice hard. “I found him after it was over. He’s bound to have abandonment issues after that.”

“Bring him with you,” Murphy said. “We can put him on a leash in the back of one of the trucks. That way he can see you but still be safe. No need to traumatize the poor thing even more.”

“Thanks,” Derek said, “although he’ll have to get used to being alone eventually. My boss won’t let me bring him to work.”

“Nobody’s going to be working anywhere around here anytime soon,” Murphy said. “I haven’t seen anything like this outside of pictures of bombing sites.”

“I work at NASA,” Derek said. “From what my boss said, they’ll be ready to let people back in to work within a week.”

“But that assumes people can get there,” Murphy said. “I haven’t been down that way specifically, but I don’t know that you could get there from here at the moment.”

“Well, let’s see what we can do about fixing that.”

B
Y
THE
time Sambit finished his shift that day, he was ready to throw things. Tucker had been absolutely intolerable all day, making unreasonable demands of both the people and the machines at the plant to the point that Sambit was tempted to tell him to shove it and leave. The only problem was transportation. He had no way of getting home.

Rubbing at his temples to fight the pounding headache, he collapsed on his cot and stared at the ceiling, wishing Derek were there. He hadn’t gotten any texts today, not that he’d really expected to. Hoped to, yes, but not expected. Not really. He lay there for a few minutes, fighting exhaustion and apathy, before forcing himself to sit up and open his e-mail. If nothing else, he should send his parents a note to let them know how he was doing. He’d sent them a short message after the hurricane passed letting them know he was safe, but that was over a week ago. They’d start worrying if he didn’t send something again soon.

At the top of his inbox was a message from Derek.

Sambit smiled, his headache receding slightly. He clicked on the message and began to read. The first few lines made him smile as he thought of the text messages he and Derek had exchanged the day before. He might deny he was flirting when Lyrica asked, but in the privacy of his own thoughts, he knew he’d been doing just that. Derek made it so easy.

He sobered somewhat as he read the next few paragraphs.

I’m kind of ashamed to say it, but I lost my breakfast when we found the first one.

The admission surprised Sambit. He wasn’t surprised Derek had gotten sick at the sight of the dead and decaying animal, but he was surprised Derek had admitted it. Not many men would. They’d act strong and stoic, saying it was a shame the animals died, perhaps, but not owning up to the kind of reaction that would lead to throwing up all over the sidewalk. Derek went up a couple of notches in Sambit’s esteem for his honesty.

Derek’s protectiveness toward Fido didn’t surprise Sambit at all. He’d seen enough of it when Derek and Fido had been at the power plant with him. If the dog’s original owners thought they were getting anywhere near him, they had another think coming, even if they did have an explanation for what had happened. Derek might have rescued the animal out of a sense of duty or a kind heart, but Fido was his now, there was no doubt about that.

The part about working outside but waiting until it was cooler made Sambit smile. He could imagine Derek outside working in his yard, his T-shirt tucked into the back of his shorts as he tried to catch every hint of breeze from the Gulf. The thought was not designed to help his composure, so Sambit forced his attention back to the e-mail in front of him.

His heart skipped a couple of beats as he read on and came to Derek’s comment about the local wildlife. It was that same protective nature but put on center stage, spotlighted, underlined, and with a red arrow pointing at it in case Sambit had missed it, and beneath that protective nature, a heart tender enough to be disturbed by the death of the creatures around him.
You could never be unmasculine.
He’d typed the words into the reply even before he finished reading the rest of the e-mail, but that much had to be said no matter what else he typed or didn’t type in reply.

If I give you that bullshit about it not coming our way or not being as bad as they say or whatever stupid crap I said before this storm, knock me over the head and drag me somewhere safe, okay? I look around me and realize it’s a miracle I survived. If I’d been in a different house, I could be dead right now.

And I’ll hold you to that bit about leaving the next time there’s a storm,
Sambit added as he read the next paragraph. He had rolled his eyes and shaken his head when Derek had told him he’d ridden out the storm at home, but now, seeing Derek’s descriptions of the destruction, it drove home to Sambit how close he’d come to losing Derek before he ever met him.
You don’t get to scare me like that again, understood?

The sudden change of subject after that was as telling as the content of the two previous paragraphs. Derek had gotten uncomfortable being that open and retreated to something safe. Sambit didn’t even mind. Derek had shared a side of himself Sambit suspected few people ever got to see. Sambit could live with seeing that side again. He’d have to find ways to encourage that.

Lyrica has gone to sleep, I think, but I’ll say hi to her from you in the morning. Even if she isn’t asleep, I’m ready for some downtime.

Tucker was even more impossible than usual today. He’s got it in his head that we can use the robots to drain the radioactive water from the turbines, get in the heat exchanger and fix the leaking pipes, and somehow get this reactor back online again. I suppose it’s possible in theory to fix the heat exchanger, but not without a lot more time and equipment than we have here. And not without a lot more danger to the people doing the work. No offense to your robots, but I don’t know if this is something that can be done remotely. The sheer magnitude of the work involved is mind-boggling to me. I keep hoping saner heads will prevail, but no one here at the moment has the authority to supersede Tucker so we’re stuck trying to protect ourselves and not get fired at the same time.